Sugar Pie Honey Bunch, fiction by Steve Liskow
Frank bent Mandy over the counter, one hand clamped over her mouth and his other groping under her skirt.
I came in the back door, the key in one hand and the trash barrel in the other, and saw the fluorescent light reflecting off the tears on Mandy’s cheeks and casting jagged shadows on Frank’s face. Before they could see me, I pushed the door open again so it slammed behind me.
By the time I mounted the stairs to the store proper, Mandy was gone and Frank held the day’s receipts. He nodded at me, his eyes like cinders.
“All the registers are cashed out, Jerry, so you can take off.”
I dropped the keys on the counter and went back downstairs for my jacket. I waited until Mandy appeared from the restroom, her face a frozen mask except for her eyes.
“I saw,” I whispered. “Are you all right?”
“Compared to what?” She was a year older than me, and a few inches shorter. Even in the flats the store made all the women wear, she had beautiful brown legs. I smelled fear wafting off her like dirty coins. I held her jacket for her while she slid her arms into the sleeves.
“Walk me out to my car?”
In the parking lot, she dug into her purse for her car keys.
“Let me give you a lift home.”
“It’s only a few blocks,” I said. “I can walk.”
She sucked in air. “Don’t make me be alone yet.”
I climbed into the shotgun seat and listened to the Four Tops on WTAC. When she eased to the curb in front of my house, the blue glow on the window told me my parents were watching TV. She rested her forehead on her steering wheel.
“Boy, am I glad you were there.”
“You should tell Mr. Sexton.”
“I’m just one of the colored girls he hired so he can feel good about himself. And I don’t want to put ideas in his head, too.”
“Are you serious?” The radio played “Wonderful World.”
“Jerry, you’re eighteen, right?”
“Yeah. But Black, white, striped, it doesn’t matter, what Frank did was wrong.”
“Oh, God, listen to yourself. You graduated from Van Wagoner, right? How many colored kids were in your class?”
“Um…” I thought back to the faces in my yearbook.
“See? East Side is bigger than Van Wagoner, and about a third colored or Mexican. But Van Wagoner is white as paper. You’re white, so you wouldn’t notice, but this is still a segregated town.”
I struggled for an argument. “You and Cherry Lee work here. On the West Side.”
“Yeah, but we both graduated from East Side, and we still live over there. Mr. Sexton moved us over here when he opened the new store so we could show you new kids the ropes.”
She let out her breath like it hurt.
“Besides, Rank asked for both of us.”
“Rank” was Frank’s nickname. Now I began to understand why.
“He wants a shot at both of us, and if we help him close up some nights…”
“He’s married.” It sounded stupid coming out of my mouth.
“Yeah, so was Henry the Eighth.”
“Mandy, you can’t just let this go,” I said. “You’ve got to do something.”
“Oh, sure. The colored girl’s going to go to the white boss and complain about the white pharmacist trying to get in her drawers. Who’s going to believe me? Or Cherry Lee?”
She nodded. “Yeah, he’s tried it with her, too.”
Mandy was pretty, but Cherry Lee had curves like a Grand Prix racetrack.
I didn’t think stuff like this happened anymore. I read To Kill a Mockingbird, I even saw the movie. I cried at the end, too, but I’ve never told anyone that.
“Jerry, can you do me—us—a favor and hang around if Cherry Lee or I have to help Rank close up?”
“Uh, sure.”
Sexton’s new drug store on South Michigan advertised for help in May, and I got hired three weeks before graduation. I helped build the shelves and stock them with everything from cheap toys and magazines to cleaning supplies and cosmetics.
Mr. Sexton was an old guy, but he had the build and the energy of a terrier, short and stocky, and he was sharp as the Gilette blades in the shaving display. He hired five or six other kids, including Jennie, a blonde from Van Wagoner who looked like Disney’s Cinderella. She and Rose, an older woman from the East Side store, worked behind the soda fountain. Word got around, and we built a lunch-time crowd in about two weeks.
Mandy and Cherry Lee usually worked the cosmetic counter, near the rear entrance and to my left. Men came in to check out the help—and buy stuff for their wives.
Everything was great, except for Frank. Mr. Sexton brought him over from the East Side store, too. He was big enough to play football in college and had a crew cut like sandpaper. His voice was so deep I felt it in my stomach, and he liked to tease all the women, especially the young pretty ones.
The front of the store faced west, with a picture window from floor to ceiling, behind two cinder block pillars that supported the overhanging roof. They resembled huge gray middle fingers but didn’t block the sun. In the afternoon, the whole store was bright as a flash cube and I wished I could take off the clip-on bowtie and unbutton my collar.
When we’d been open a week, Jennie came over to my station. Cigarettes and film lined the wall behind me, and candy, magazines, and a few record albums sat in racks across from my cash register.
“Jerry, we can hear the radio you’ve got on over here, but do you think we could have it over by the soda fountain? That way, people could listen to music while they eat their lunch.”
Like I said, Jennie was a knockout. I gave her one of the battery-powered radios from the display case, and she gave me a smile I could spread on toast before I watched her walk back across the store.
I passed the pharmacy station later, and Frank winked at me.
“That’s the way to do it, Jerry.”
“Sir?”
“With Jennie. Give her little things like that, it’ll help you get to the sugar pie.”
His eyes drifted over to the cosmetics counter, where Cherry Lee rang up a customer.
“The coloreds, you don’t have to give them anything first.”
I went downstairs to the basement and brought up more cigarettes to restock the tobacco display. When I returned, the radio was playing a Pepsi commercial.
A few days after I saw Frank with his hands under Mandy’s skirt, I came up from the basement as we were closing and found Cherry Lee backing away from him behind the soda fountain counter. He stepped back and frowned at me.
“Jerry, you finished sweeping yet?”
“Yes, sir.” Cherry Lee scuttled past me down the stairs. I waited until I couldn’t hear her on the concrete steps before I spoke.
“You shouldn’t do that, Mr. Hawkins.”
“You shouldn’t butt in on what’s none of your business, kid. Now scram so I can lock up.”
I waited until Cherry Lee reappeared before I dropped the keys on the pharmacy desk. Then I followed her through the door to the parking lot. Outside, she leaned against the wall with her fists clenched.
“That…bastard.”
I wanted to put my arms around her but knew better.
“I told Mandy I’d stick around the nights one of you is closing up.”
“When nobody’s around, he asks me if I lost my cherry. Then he offers to help me look for it.”
I felt hot all over.
“I’m sorry.”
An old Buick growled into the parking lot, a colored man behind the wheel. Cherry Lee waved at him
“That’s my ride,” she said. “Thanks again, Jerry.”
The next day, Mr. Sexton came over to me behind the tobacco counter. He spent most of his time at the store on the East Side, so I knew something was up.
“Jerry, Mr. Hawkins tells me you got kind of mouthy with him last night. We can’t have that.”
My lips felt dry and I looked at the cash register.
“Mr. Hawkins was giving Cherry Lee a hard time while I was cleaning up. I said something about it, and he got mad.”
“Really.” Mr. Sexton’s eyes slid to his left, where Frank stood behind the pharmacy counter giving a woman a paper bag with her prescription. “I can’t believe he would do something like that. And certainly not with a young woman like Cherry Lee.”
I couldn’t decide whether he meant because Cherry Lee was young or because she was colored.
His eyes slid back to me. “You must have misunderstood.”
“He had her backed up against the ice cream freezer. She looked scared.”
He cleared his throat. “Mr. Hawkins is a hard worker, and he’s your supervisor. You’re a good worker, Jerry. I know you’re only going to be here a few more weeks before you go off to college, but I’d hate to have to let you go before that. You made a mistake, and I’m sure it won’t happen again. Will it?”
It wasn’t a question.
“No, sir. Sorry.”
He sidled over to the soda fountain for a cup of coffee. Then he and Frank talked for a few minutes. I stood by the cash register and watched the candy bars melt in the sun while sweat trickled down my back.
That night, Rose and Jennie scraped the grill and wiped the soda fountain counter, and Mandy and Cherry Lee cashed out the cosmetics register. I sprinkled sweeping compound on the floor and swept all four aisles. I dumped the contents of the dust pan into a box, then Frank gave me the key to the back door. Light streamed through the heavy glass rear entrance behind me. In the humid air, the garbage smelled so thick I could almost see the fumes.
I stashed the cleaning supplies in the cellar, then made sure I had locked the back door behind me again before I mounted the remaining steps and saw something that made me stop dead.
Mandy and Cherry Lee swayed their hips and clapped their hands as they sang with the radio,
Sugar Pie Honey Bunch, you know that I love you.
They were teaching Rose and Jennie to dance to Motown. Jennie was pretty good, but watching Rose, twice their age and weight, try to keep up with two colored girls who could shake it like loaded dice almost made me laugh. Then I looked at Mandy’s hips again and I understood why Frank bent her over the counter.
I waited until they stopped dancing like the girls on Shindig or Hullabaloo. Then we all said good night to Frank and walked out into the parking lot. Traffic was light on a week night on South Michigan, and the humidity pressed down on my shoulders.
“Hot and sticky,” Mandy said.
“Like my boyfriend’s kisses,” Cherry Lee added.
They both looked at me and I felt awkward.
“Got a hot date this weekend, Jerry?” Mandy asked.
“Uh, not really. I might see a movie or something.”
“Alone? Why don’t you have a girlfriend? A good-looking guy like you.”
It was a standing joke that I didn’t have a girlfriend. I was still shy, but getting teased every day by three pretty girls was loosening me up. If the summer lasted two or three years, I might have worked up the nerve to ask Jennie out.
Another decade, and maybe I could ask Mandy.
“You oughtta give him a ride home,” Cherry Lee said. “You or Jennie.”
“Oh, not me.” Jennie opened the door of her Tempest. “My boyfriend is afraid of competition.”
Cherry Lee slid into the shotgun seat of Mandy’s car.
“We can give you a ride, Jerry, but you have to promise not to pull any James Bond stuff.”
We all laughed and I was glad it was dark so they couldn’t see me blushing.
“It’s okay, I can hoof it.”
It was only a few blocks back to my house, but by the time I stepped on my front porch, my shirt stuck to my back and my hair was plastered on my forehead, and not from the weather.
When I got to work the following afternoon, Frank stopped me when I signed in.
“Jerry, next week, I’m switching you and Dave. You’ll help open, and you’ll be through at four.”
I hadn’t worked with Dave except when we were building the shelves and sorting the stock before we first opened. He was bigger than me, and never seemed to get out of first gear.
When I took my break that afternoon, Mandy took one look at my face and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Well, sort of. Ed’s switching my hours with Dave, starting next week.”
Mandy’s mouth turned down. Behind her, Sam the Sham counted off “One, two, tres, quatro.”
“Shoot. Cherry Lee’s off today, so I’ll have to call her and tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Jennie popped open the napkin dispenser and refilled it.
“Mr. Rankin is switching me to the early shift.”
“Oh, so you can go home early and call your girlfriend. Get some action this weekend.”
Mandy’s smile would have cleared up my acne if I still had it. “And you told me you didn’t have anything coming up.”
I drank my Pepsi and went back to the cigarette counter. Business was slow and I heard the radio from over by the soda fountain. The Four Tops were playing again and I wished I could dance, even if it wasn’t good enough to keep up with Mandy and Cherry Lee.
The rest of the week felt like every day was the same. Frank gave both Mandy and Cherry Lee the night off on Saturday, my last day on the late shift. Jennie had Friday off and told me about the Beatles’ new movie, which she saw that night.
“It’s a scream,” she said. “And the songs are really boss.”
“I’ve heard a couple of them,” I said. “Wee-tack’s been playing them. ‘Help’ and ‘I’m Down.’”
“Yeah. ‘I’m Down’ isn’t in the movie. ‘Help’ is, of course. And ‘Ticket to Ride.’”
We had the record album for sale. The records were up near the candy and I wondered if people got them home and found melted licorice they couldn’t play on their turntable.
“You should see it,” Jennie said.
“I probably will. Maybe next week.”
“You should take someone,” Jennie said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know anyone. Not that I could ask out.”
“Oh, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. The radio segued out of a Clear-A-Sil commercial and into “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
Monday, it felt strange signing into work at nine instead of two, but I got used to it. Wednesday, I found Dave on his knees, putting cigarette packs into the shelf behind the cash register.
“Hey,” he said. “You know the black chicks, Mandy and Cherry Lee?”
I forced my face to stay neutral. “What about them?”
“They’re really sexy, you know. But nice.”
“Yeah, they are. So…?”
He slid three packs of Pall Malls into the last slot.
“Well, Rank was…well, I think he was trying something with one of them last night. I came in from sweeping, and they were both behind the fountain counter, and I think one of them was trying not to cry.”
My fingernails dug into my palm. “Which one?”
“Mandy.” The sun blasted through the window. When Dave stood, his shirt stuck to his chest. “Just thought I’d tell you.”
“Why me?”
“Well, I mean, she likes you, so I thought you should know.”
It was the most we’d talked in six weeks. He stayed behind the cash register and I went to rearrange the candy and record albums.
Dave thought Mandy liked me. That made me so dizzy it almost blocked out the anger until I remembered that Frank must have changed my hours so I wouldn’t be around at closing time. What could I do? I’d already told Mr. Sexton, and the girls might have, too. But they were colored, so he wouldn’t do anything about it. What would he do if Frank tried to put his hands up Jennie’s skirt?
I went over to the cosmetics counter, where Mandy handed a woman a paper bag.
“Dave tells me Frank tried some funny business with you again last night.”
Her eyes glistened with tears and I knew I had to do something.
“Are you or Cherry Lee working this weekend?”
“Saturday, both of us. Jennie’s working Friday.”
I went back to Dave. The sun through the window felt like I was in the spotlight on stage.
“Do me a favor?”
“What you want?”
“Tomorrow, tell Frank you can’t work Saturday night. Some kind of emergency, maybe a funeral.”
“You want to take my place on a Saturday night?”
“Yeah. If it’s okay with you. But don’t tell him until tomorrow.”
He looked back to where Mandy was ringing up a customer, then nodded.
When I signed in Thursday, Frank waved me over to the pharmacy counter.
“Dave had something come up for Saturday night. Can you do the late shift again?”
I hesitated long enough so it looked like I might have something else planned.
“Um, yeah. Okay.”
“Great.”
Friday, I bought film for my instamatic and made sure I had flash cubes. Saturday, I signed in, then I put my camera behind the aspirin, the shelf closest to the stairs, with a flash cube already in place. Part of me hoped I wouldn’t need it, but no other idea had come to me.
The store was busy for a Saturday afternoon, several people at the soda fountain and two in line at the pharmacy counter. Frank nodded at me and went back to counting pills for a man who hunched over like he had back trouble. Cherry Lee and Rose refilled coffee, and burgers sizzled on the grill behind them, the smell making my mouth water.
Mandy stood behind the cosmetics counter with a bottle in her hand. A woman nodded and opened her purse. After Mandy rang her up and she left, I eased over to her.
“How are you today?”
“Oh, just ducky.” She looked toward Ed, then back at me and tried to smile.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I promise.”
She looked like she wanted to believe me. I eased down the narrow aisle behind the displays to the cigarettes and candy.
The day was cloudy and they were predicting rain for later, so the sun didn’t melt the candy bars. I sold a few packs of Marlboros and Tareytons. One of our regulars came in for a carton of Chesterfield Kings. I changed his five-dollar bill and tried not to watch the clock. A few kids came in and checked out the new comic books: Superman, Archie, Star Spangled War Stories. I kept an eye on them, even though I knew them well enough to know they wouldn’t steal anything.
The clock over Ed’s platform must have stopped. I felt like I’d been there about three days already, and it was still five hours until closing. The clouds rolled in, dragging thunder behind them.
Rose and Cherry Lee chatted with customers over the radio music. The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, Sam the Sham, The Byrds. A guy about my age went to the pharmacy counter without looking at anyone. He talked with Frank for a minute, then Frank slipped a small package into a paper bag and he left again, still without making eye contact. Saturday night, date night. I wondered if the guy had flowers for the girl, too.
I went to the soda fountain for my break, and Cherry Lee came over.
“Burger, Jerry?”
“Just a Pepsi, please.” My stomach rolled so much I wasn’t sure I could keep anything else down.
“You sure?”
I nodded and tried not to look over my shoulder at Ed. He knew I was wise to him, but I wanted him to try something anyway. Then I felt ashamed about wishing him on Mandy or Cherry Lee. She seemed to read my mind.
“He’s been watching you like a hawk all day. Mandy and me, too.”
My Pepsi burned all the way down to my stomach.
“He looks at me like that, I just want to go home and take a shower, scrub until my skin bleeds.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rose joined us. “You saving room for blueberry pie? I made it fresh today. People are raving about it.”
“Not now, thanks. Maybe if you’ve got anything left when we close.”
“Don’t count on it, sweetie.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
I went downstairs and gargled with Listerine, then went back to the cash register. Mandy sat at the soda fountain with a ginger ale in front of her, and Cherry Lee spelled her at cosmetics. There were only a few customers in the store now, and the rain began, slow and gentle at first, but getting heavier.
Thunder rolled overhead and the customers went away. A half hour before closing, we watched the rain and listened to the radio, nobody else around. Frank sat behind his counter reading a magazine and Rose and Cherry Lee began cleaning up. Mandy straightened out a few bottles and boxes on the display across from her.
A few minutes later, Rose called over to me.
“One slice of blueberry left, Jerry. On the house if you want it.”
“How can I pass up a deal like that?”
I sat at the counter and Rose brought over a slice of pie the size of my foot.
“Want it a la mode?”
“Sure.”
When I slid the first bite into my mouth, I almost moaned. Rose smiled.
“Told you so.”
She scraped the grill and Cherry Lee printed out the receipts from the cash register. She took it over to Ed, and he nodded.
“Looks like we can call it a night. Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
Thunder rolled again and the rain splashed on the parking lot. I finished my pie and Rose put my dish and utensils into the dishwasher.
I started sweeping. Headlights swept across the parking lot and Cherry Lee went to the door to look out. She waved and went downstairs to sign out. I finished sweeping and went to get my windbreaker before taking the trash outside while Mandy cashed out her register, too.
Cherry Lee stood by the sign-out sheet and held an umbrella. “Thanks for being here tonight, Jerry.”
“Sure. Take it easy.”
“You too.” She fiddled with her umbrella as she went up the stairs, and I slid into my windbreaker and pulled up the hood. I opened the door to the outside and walked into a solid wall of water. I hurried over to the trash cans, my shoes splashing in puddles and my pants soaked before I took two steps. I wrestled with the lids, then bent low against the rain and went back inside. I had to pull the door closed against the wind, then locked it and went back downstairs, water running off me and my shoes squishing on the floor.
Rose came out of the restroom and started wrapping a scarf over her hair.
“Lord, Jerry, you look like you’re half-drowned.”
“Better than all the way, I guess.”
“Yeah, you got a point there.”
She hummed something and I recognized the opening to that Four Tops song we heard about every hour on WTAC. Mandy’s coat still hung on the rack and I turned to Rose.
“Where’s Mandy?”
“Um, she was upstairs when I came down.”
“Oh, God.” I dashed to the shelves and grabbed my camera. When I pulled it out, Rose frowned.
“What are you—?”
I heard whimpering above me, and my guts twisted into a knot. I dashed up the stairs, my shoulder scraping the wall when I turned the corner by the back door. The fluorescent lights splashed across the pharmacy counter and showed me what I’d been afraid to see.
Frank mashed Mandy’s face into the counter with one hand while his other hand pulled her skirt up to her waist.
“Shut up, Sugar,” he snarled. “You know you really want this.”
He lifted her knee onto the counter to spread her legs. She sobbed helplessly and tried to push him off her, but he was too big.
I aimed my camera.
“Hey, Rank, smile.”
“What the—?”
He turned toward me and I pushed the button. My flashcube lit the scene like the lightning lit the parking lot outside. Frank blinked, frozen over the black girl.
“You little punk. I’m gonna....”
I slid the lever to advance the film and took another picture. Mandy’s face was hidden, but her identity didn’t matter. There was no question what Frank was trying to do to her. He lumbered toward me, his fists big as my head, and I wound the film again.
“You little bastard, give me that camera before I bust your head in.”
“Oh, my God.” That was Rose, behind me, but I didn’t dare look back.
Frank charged. I took one more picture, the flashcube exploding in his face before I leapt to the side and the railing slammed into my ribs.
Frank plunged down the concrete stairs, head first. His momentum skidded him across the landing and his head slammed through the bottom pane of the glass door. It shattered and Rose screamed.
Rain poured through the opening, slowly mixing with blood from Frank’s severed neck. Rose turned away and I heard her throw up.
Mandy stood up, her eyes huge and both hands covering her mouth. I wanted to hold her, but knew I shouldn’t touch her, not even to pull her skirt back down. I put my camera on the counter and reached for the phone.
“We’ve got to call the police.” My voice sounded faint, the storm outside drowning it out.
Mandy nodded. Then she looked down at Frank and began to cry harder.
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