“What is wrong with you? Did you get in trouble for taking me?” Maybe her parents—decent, hardworking, never been in trouble with the law—believe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“No. For all they know I was with Raelynn.”
If I had to hang out with Raelynn, I would cry. But Destiny likes Raelynn. Why does she look like she could cry? “So you just left me there at the bus station?”
“He just left me there.” Tears pour from her pretty brown eyes. “Like…yesterday’s garbage.”
“Who left you where?”
She can’t even look at me. She just moans and shakes her head repeatedly like a dog attempting to cast out ear mites.
“You have to tell someone,” I whisper, gently squeezing her bound up fist.
“If you’re my friend, forget I told you anything. Promise.” She squeezes my hand hard before pulling hers away. “The whole holler doesn’t need to know how fucking stupid I am.”
“You are not…”
“I am!” she cuts me off. “And I don’t need any of your grammar guides. Books can’t help my kind of stupid.” Her hands roughly wipe at the apples of her cheeks, obliterating tears in their path.
“I wasn’t going to mention books. I promise,” a dual vow on the books and in confidence. “I’ll keep them. I need them more than you do.” I half smile, returning her feeble humor.
It half works. She kind of laughs. “I’m sorry, Shelby. I planned on picking you up, I swear. I wish to hell I would’ve,” her words clench in her jaw.
My stomach clenches for her.
“You’re right not to touch them. Dudes or drugs.” Her eyes well up again. “Even when you think you’re using them, they use you.”
If I told her I threw myself at Ace twice and he rejected me both times, would it make her feel any better? “Can’t you just stop…letting them use you?” I say instead.
“How? You can’t escape it. It’s all around us…like the new coal,” she says as though we live in an alternate reality. A reality where pills are set out like after-dinner mints on the counter. “And they all do it.”
No they don’t. Ace doesn’t do it. Does he? Is that why he’s so moody? No.
“Even my dad.”
“Your dad?” So much for them apples.
“He harps on me so bad. But his medicine cabinet is full. Some on-the-job injury, he says. The shit he takes ain’t no different than what they got on the street. It’s ‘prescribed,’ my mom says. Like that makes it okay. He fucking doctor shops, Shelby. And they dole it out to him, pump it in here like dirty water. They don’t care if we all die.”
Appalachia got left behind. But not in bootlegging or drug trafficking.
Bells hanging from the leather strap on the front door jingle. Destiny and I look over our shoulders.
It’s them, Red and Tawny.
“So how are my sloppy seconds?” Raelynn barbs with a Jekyll and Hyde laugh.
For a moment, I wonder if she is talking to me. Is she talking about Ace, because he took me home after being out with her? Until she goes above and beyond to avoid eye contact with me.
“I’m cashing in that frigging gift receipt!” Destiny forces self-command with an equally deranged laugh.
Billy Don.
Raelynn’s manfriend.
Billy Don.
He just left me there.
Billy Don.
Did he leave my mother there too?
Destiny catches the recognition in my eyes, pressing into them with hers.
I nod, secret safe, before removing my unwanted presence from the counter. Like I would tell Raelynn anything. Especially when it seems that on the heels of last night, she is finally over me.
During my shift at the mine, I wear a dust mask over my nose and mouth and a sherpa fleece-lined aviator cap under my hard hat. For which I take a shit-ton of flak.
“Gotta be in the dust to git any on ya,” the pit boss starts it. “Ain’t even a snowflake in the sky, snowflake,” the rest of the pitmen chime in on the roasting, parading by from their lunch break and headed back to the pit.
A band of brothers—they’re an image straight out of Appalachia. Rugged and resilient, they were the dream of my childhood.
Six months on the job, ever since my eighteenth birthday the dream is falling short. I keep on turning wrenches. My assignment—far removed from the pit—is working on a broken-down bulk powder truck. It’ll get better, I speak to my own resilience.
The dust mask and the aviator cap were gifts from Mom. The cap optional, the respirator is not, she said. But I say the cap is just as essential; it conceals wireless earbuds.
Enough to get me fired on the spot, it could be dangerous. If they would give me any real tasks.
Music is the only way I make it through the dullsville shifts.
Do I wanna get fired?
And then do what?
Grateful to music for making the passing of time tolerable, I pull into Hot Brown, get into the passenger seat and play some more music on the Bootleg guitar. Until I see Shelby walking out of the restaurant.
She still wears her apron. A single braid lays over the front of her shoulder. Her nose is in a book. She is so not the type I go for.
She reminds me of a character from a Disney movie my mother roped me into watching when stovetop popcorn had that kind of power. Belle, the “bibliophile.” A Marvel kid myself, Mystique, the “supervillain,” was more my speed.
Who reads while walking?
My hands tighten their hold on the Bootleg guitar. Much like the guitar, I can’t shake the feeling that she was made for me.
“Who plays guitar while driving?” she returns my perplexity, throwing her book in the back seat and firing up the Jeep.
“I’m not driving,” I point out.
“Speaking of…Miss Patterson put me in contact with the public defender who will be handling Grandpa’s case. She’s headed to Liketa. She said I could join her, if I’d like to?”
Upward inflection, but it’s not a question. She’d like to. “Might as well rack up some miles.” I downplay my own eagerness, fond of her chauffeur services. Fond of time with her, period.
“Thank you,” she says, drenched in gratitude.
I drop all eye contact and start fingerpicking the Eagles’ “Witchy Woman”—the first song that pops into my head. The last time she thanked me, she kissed me. I don’t know how many more kisses I can take before I kiss back.
A few miles down the road my solo ends. “You should so do that,” she says.
“What?”
“Start a band, like Bootleg.” The fact that her parents started one still awes. “Play guitar, music, for a living.”
“Says she who isn’t even into it.”
“I don’t have to be into it to know what sounds good. Do you sing, too?”
“For tips,” I joke.
Her non-driving hand sinks into the pocket of her apron. Pulling out a wad of ones, she rains them down over me and the guitar.
She is a waitress, dumbass. In the shower. You should’ve said you sing in the shower.
“Let’s hear it,” she challenges.
I can’t. Not in front of her.
“‘Ya gotta channel it. Make it work for you. Convert it into power,’” she mocks.
“Anger and stage fright are two totally different things.”
“Au contraire mon frère,” she says, enjoying the flawless segue too much.
Yep! Belle the French bibliophile.
“Anger and fear are both symptomatic of ‘amygdala hijack.’”
Hijack, what?
“I read it in a medical journal in the library at school. Fueled by the fight-or-flight response, anger and fear stem from a deep need for control.”
“‘Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips…’” I hear my own voice deliver in a nervous falsetto, trying its damnedest to prove that I am no pussy. I could’ve picked someone other than Don Henley—only one
of the greatest voices in rock—to cover. There are easier songs to sing. I stop after the first verse and chorus, cotton engulfing my mouth.
“Ohmygosh, Ace Cooper, OMFG!” She transforms once again into teen Shelby.
“There’s no French equivalent for that?” I croak, attempting to save face while clearing my throat.
“That was amazing. I don’t know about the song, the lyrics. But your voice, ohmygosh! It’s so unlike you. I mean, I’m sitting right here. I know it came out of your mouth, your person, your spirit, whatever. But it’s high and fluid yet raspy and weary. It’s mysterious. So, yeah, maybe it is like you. Whatever it is, it’s awesome! Completely unexpected.”
Thanks, I guess.
“You have to do this! Music. Do you wanna do it?”
The thought has crossed my mind. “It’s just kinda weak, right.” Miner or musician, there is no mistaking which carries more weight—more security—in Appalachia. “A pipe dream, maybe.” There is no formula to make a living at it. “Pop wouldn’t go for it.”
“What about your mom? She helped you track down that guitar. Have you talked to her about it?”
“She enjoys music, yeah.” Her love for it stoked mine. “But she values learning more.” I set my accusing eyes in the bibliophile’s direction.
“My father and his music. Your mom and her learning. Are you sure we weren’t switched at birth.” She laughs.
God, I hope not. My parents may have their issues, but hers…
“Hmm…” She tilts her head to the side, overthinking it. “Do you suppose that’s why we’re drawn to…well, why we seem to end up spending time together?”
“You’re attracted to your dad, and I’m attracted to my mom?” I shudder, the Bootleg guitar clinking against the console, at the creepy theory.
“It’s a real thing. I’m not talking about Freud’s Oedipus complex—yuck!”
Complex, what?
“I’m talking about ‘attachment theory’ and ‘unconscious mental models.’ I read about it in a psychology magazine…”
“‘…in the library at school,’” I finish her sentence, my tone as dry as the used up strings on this guitar.
“Seriously. Our earliest relationships, specifically with our parents, affect how we connect with others. Even if unconsciously, we are drawn to the familiar. And for those of us who are insecurely attached, the familiar can be dangerous territory.” She sets her accusing eyes in my direction.
“You read too much.” I already know that she is too much like my mother. And I didn’t need a damn magazine to tell me.
“Kids are sharper than most adults, Shelby Lynn, honey. I ain’t gonna talk down to ya,” Grandpa has always been truthful with me. Even when it would be easier, more humane, to lie.
“Jail is a place for unconventional people. Your daddy’s just ahead of his time, baby,” my mother said, the time she took me with her to visit my father in Liketa.
Grandpa said, “That’s hogwash. These hills, an’ the people in ’em, been rum-runnin’ ’round the taxman long before yer daddy’s daddy was a twinkle in his daddy’s eye. Ain’t nothin’ uncommon ’bout jail, honey. Jail ain’t nothin’ but hard.”
With more cases than she can get to in a week, evidently the court-appointed attorney’s job is hard too. She said there is no sense awaiting a seventy-two hour hearing—where counsel is appointed for those who cannot afford private counsel—when she is the only public defender around for four counties. In other words, she is Grandpa’s only option.
The public defender is curt but kind. She has hope that the guards will allow me to tag along at her visitation.
Hope wins.
Sitting across from Grandpa in a stuffy room that resembles the teachers’ lounge at school—conference tables, vending machines, magazines, an intercom, a clock—I do not feel hopeful.
“How can anyone know anything in ten minutes?” I question the slapdash meeting consisting of a few regurgitated lines she read from a file and his regurgitated reply: “Yes, ma’am, I reckon.” She has already excused herself.
“You git what ya pay for, Shelby Lynn, honey,” he makes an attempt at humor. Although I cannot discern if it is self-deprecating or aimed at the powers that be who at least pay public defenders’ salaries, but do so poorly.
Maybe my father was right to run around it. Government, from what I’ve just witnessed, doesn’t seem all that functional.
“This isn’t funny,” I say. “She is obviously stretched as thin as the county’s budget. How are you going to get adequate representation? How much would a private lawyer cost?”
“Now, honey, yer ol’ grandpa’s never whooped ya. But you so much as think ’bout usin’ yer college stash to git me a lawyer an’ I’ll shore ’nuf tan yer hide.”
Shackled and wearing a two-piece uniform that if not for the signature orange hue looks more like medical scrubs than prison garb, I have not the heart to joke back: He would have to catch me first.
“There ain’t gonna be much representin’ anyhow. Plea bargain’s my best bet.”
“Plea bargain? How about no bargain. Not guilty.” I reach for his hands across the table. The shackles clang against the wood.
Prison is more than hard. It is unjust. Weathered face, receding hairline, and stooped posture, he is hardly miscreant material. I wonder how many others there are like him. How many others do not belong here.
“You loved him, Grandpa.”
“Yes, Shelby Lynn, honey, ain’t a day goes by he don’t cross my mind.” His pale blue eyes give in to tears.
“You did not shoot him,” I whisper, as the mere mention of a misdeed might get me thrown out or locked up in the place.
“What they say I did…I done.” He lets go of my hands. Why would I want to hold them after that.
“Shhh!” I hope my hush drowns out his testimony. Surely everything that goes on in this room is visually and audibly available. “Why are you lying to me now when you never have?”
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
Sorry for lying to me? I keep the retort to myself, better able to draw from it the conclusion I want. If he wasn’t lying to me, he wouldn’t say “I’m sorry.” He would say “Now, have I ever lied to ya, honey.” Right?
“Guess I thought if he was gone, yer mama might git her act together.”
He guesses. He’s making it up. Isn’t he? “You guessed wrong.” I point out the fact that my mother has only gotten worse since my father’s death, and that I am onto him and his making it up as he goes.
“Mostly I’m sorry to be in here, leavin’ ya all ’lone.” His posture stoops even more, giving in to uncontrollable sobs.
All the proof I need. He isn’t sobbing for himself, out of guilt for murdering my father or because he finally got caught. He is sobbing for me, because of how this is affecting me. There is no way he did this. He would never put me in this position.
“The gun, your gun, Grandpa. Did he borrow it? Is it like they said, initially. Maybe he had your gun. When he met whomever he was meeting…” A dealer, a buyer, someone! “…there was a scuffle. They got the gun…and pow.” What else could explain the bullet from his chest matching the ones in Grandpa’s gun.
Grandpa hangs his head, shaking it, unwilling or incapable of making eye contact with me—one of the primary nonverbal cues of lying. “Never thought I’d utter these words, but maybe ya read too much, honey,” he says. Just like Ace. “This is real life. Not some crime fiction novel.”
Well, it smells like one. “Just tell the truth, Grandpa, and this will all be over. Come home.” What could be worse than his shooting my father? What or whom is he covering for?
The clock on the wall, ticking away precious visitation time, prods his composure. The orange two-piece isn’t all harsh. It is flexible enough to bear the tear stains from his face as he nuzzles into the crook of his shoulder.
“Sheriff let me call yer mama. At least she’ll be comin’ home.” He shrugs. For what it’s wort
h.
I’m surprised she stayed this long. Nearly a week in rehab when a few days is her usual limit.
“I’m hopin’ she’ll git the gravity o’ the situation. Be there for ya, like she oughta. More than hopin’, I’m prayin’, honey, this scares her clean.”
I shrug. For what it’s worth.
“I won’t be there to look after her. And dontcha dare take on that role. Let ’er look after herself. Maybe that’s what she needed all ’long.” Finally, genuine guilt manifests in his eyes, as though he made it too easy for her to keep using. “You keep movin’ that tip money ’round. Don’t leave it in one place too long, ya hear?”
My college stash. It moves more than a Brinks truck. In and out of books, dresser drawers, shoe boxes, curtain rods, between my mattress and box spring, anywhere that is not visible to the eye. Without Grandpa at home to look after it—to look after her—does he really think she would steal from me? Money that I worked for. Schlepped innumerable greasy Hot Browns for. Washed and wiped dishes and tables and floors—even toilets for.
“She wouldn’t, but the drugs would,” he answers my unspoken question.
As if the drugs are separate from my mother, responsible for how they use her. It occurs to me that maybe Grandpa is honest with me, or has been until now, because he cannot be honest with her or with himself about her. Yes, maybe taking accountability for herself is exactly what she needs. What we all need.
“Somethin’ good is gonna come o’ this, Shelby Lynn, honey. Ev’rything happens fer a reason. Even if we don’t understand it. It’s all kinnected.” His eyes crinkle, underscored by a gummy grin, as he exaggerates in poor taste how his hands are literally connected by shackles.
“That’s hogwash,” I want to say. Shit, that’s what happens! It happens all too often around here. And it is C-O-N-nected. Not K-I-N-nected.
Kin is what I have spent the majority of my young life trying to disconnect from.
Two VIP tickets to Contra Band’s sold-out concert ride, like my homework, in the Jeep’s visor.
A huge gift from Mom, on top of the costly Bootleg guitar, I feel sick to my stomach letting one of the tickets go to waste. Or is it what I might encounter there that has me feeling this way.
Just Shelby Page 10
