Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  As we reached the school, I stopped at the sidewalk. ‘I’ll wait for you after. Tell them I’m sick.’

  She nodded, walked away. Halfway to the steps, she stopped, turned, and ran to me. Threw her arms around my neck. My heart, chest, blood, expanded and erupted in a wide smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jenny whispered against my neck. ‘Thank you.’

  All doubt vanished. All regret blazed and turned to ash. That was it. I was done with school, I had a higher calling. A larger purpose. Only Jenny mattered.

  I watched her run up the steps and inside. I turned from school and my breath caught, eyes swam. A pale grey Ford crawled down the street, sun glaring across the windshield, heat haze shimmering against the tyres, bumpers, turning the metal to mercury.

  As it drew level with the school it stopped, the window rolled down, and I expected to see Jack Ridley smiling at me.

  But the door opened and a middle-aged man with a thick brown beard stepped out. My heart unclenched. The man lifted the seat and out jumped two kids, years younger than me, who ran into the school.

  It wasn’t the Ford. Wasn’t Ridley. Wasn’t Death on his pale horse.

  You’re seeing things, Johnny boy, keep it together.

  I shook it off, told myself that was over, finished, and went about my mission.

  I went directly to Westin’s grocery store and convinced him to hire me. It was simple, he and I were desperate, and he never once asked me why I dropped out, why I needed the money. In a town like Larson, someone always needs the money. Every minute I wasn’t in the grocery store or walking Jenny home from school, I was breaking my back in the fields. The school sent a few letters, made a phone call or two, then gave up, sent Momma a form to sign saying I’d gone and that was it. The day it arrived in the mail panic hit me. I’d made a huge mistake. I wanted to change my mind, go back to class, to chalkboards and spitballs and my friends, back to that sense of belonging and identity you get in school. But that was gone now and I’d be that kid, that drop-out nobody remembers.

  One morning, at Westin’s, I saw Mr Wakefield and Mayor Wills walking down Main toward the Backhoe. I froze, broom in hand, in the middle of the store.

  They were the danger.

  They were the killers.

  And they had Jenny in their crosshairs.

  All fragments of lingering doubt evaporated and I worked all the harder, all the longer. This was bigger than me and my dreams, bigger than Larson and its gossip, this was Jenny’s life.

  I didn’t think about the lessons or the teachers, even Miss Eaves receded in my mind to some figure from the past, someone not quite there any more. Jenny, her safety and happiness, were all-consuming, a fire through dry corn.

  It only took a few days of this change, and my first dollar earned, for the ice in Jenny to melt. She stopped wearing the scarf, showed off a short bob haircut, and started saying yes to Gloria and Rudy asking her to come out after school. Then I’d meet them at four when Scott Westin finished school and took over my job at his dad’s store. For a month, the world turned for us, not against us. For a month, there was light, and hope, and the coming heatwave was exciting, not an oppressive spectre shimmering on the horizon. Summer meant swimming in Barks and reclaiming Big Lake from the memories. It meant rekindling cold friendships and freedom from sticky classrooms. For Jenny and me it meant our way out of Larson, away from Bung-Eye and Wakefield.

  Everything changed one afternoon in June.

  I’d finished restocking the fruit trays outside Westin’s when I saw Jenny out of school. She was leaving the Backhoe, giggling in her white sundress, hand-in-hand with that fucker Darney Wills.

  24

  He said he wouldn’t touch her.

  He said he wouldn’t touch her.

  ‘He said he wouldn’t fucking touch her!’ I shouted. Burst into Frank’s office. Our weekly sessions had stopped after the mill explosion and the basement, but he said he’d always make time for me.

  He’d make time now.

  The pastor wasn’t alone. Some kid in my chair. I knew him, vaguely. Billy or Bobby something, a few grades below me. Kid was crying. Looked like he’d been crying for hours. There was a bruise on his eye but I didn’t care. He was in my chair, in front of my desk, with my pastor.

  Get out. Get out now.

  That fucker Darney Wills said he wouldn’t touch her. I stood in the doorway, chest heaving, fists clenched so hard the skin on my knuckles threatened to split and bleed all over the pastor’s carpet. Frank stared at me, wide-eyed, mouth open like a gasping fish.

  He stood up behind his desk, eyes on me, then he swallowed, finally he caught on, finally he saw my anger.

  He looked at the boy. ‘Bobby, let’s pick this up again tomorrow. Off you go now.’

  The kid frowned, head turned from me to Frank, about to speak up, about to say, hang on there, I need to talk. Just like I’d have done if some crazy person kicked their way into our session.

  ‘Go on,’ Frank urged, kind but impatient.

  Go on. Get the hell out. My blood raged in my ears, a river swollen by rain, rushing over its banks, ripping up the soil.

  The kid pushed past me out the trailer door, fresh tears welling, and I slammed it behind him. A sharp moment of silence fell between me and Frank.

  My hair stuck to my face, cheeks red and burning with sweat. Fingernails cut divots in my palms. ‘That fucker Darney Wills said he wouldn’t touch her.’

  The pastor sighed. Sat back down and gestured for me to take a seat. I did but I couldn’t relax. My bones were clamped tight, my muscles strained and jittering.

  ‘You’re pushing it, John, barging in here like that,’ he said and his tone was a bucket of ice water thrown over me. My fists unclenched. My palms throbbed.

  ‘He said … that fucker …’

  The pastor rubbed his forehead, sighed again. ‘Back up. Tell me what’s going on.’

  And I did. Every word. Every beat. Every detail of Mary Ridley. Of what I overheard outside this office that night after Gloria and I had kissed. I worried, for a moment, Frank would be mad at me for eavesdropping but I had bigger fish. My sister’s safety topped upsetting Frank, though that flicker of sadness, the disappointment in his expression when I told, made my heart flip. A nag in the back of my head kept chirping, don’t do it, Johnny, you can’t trust him, these secrets are made for the dark and he’ll tell Wakefield, he’ll tell Bung-Eye. But I pushed the nag away, clamped my hand over its mouth. The more I talked, the easier it was to say what I needed to. It felt so good to speak. To tell someone. And I couldn’t stop once I’d started, despite the voice in my head screaming, ‘He’s involved, what are you doing?’

  I told Frank all about Mr Wakefield, what he’d done to Mary Ridley, how he’d covered it all up, paid them off with the Dodge. All about Bung-Eye and Mayor Wills and Charlie Meaney and Darney’s threat, the don’t-tell-anyone sneering, spitting, kick-in-the-gut, he’ll-wreck-what-I-love-most threat.

  Despite my frantic head, I knew better than to talk about Frank’s involvement, whatever that was. It would upset him, make him worry, maybe even put him in danger. He was a victim in all this too, he had to be, and I had to protect him best I could.

  Darney Wills kept slamming back into the front of my head. He was out there in town, his fat, greasy hands on my sister. He was my rage taken bloated, glossy-lipped form, and I wanted to kill him.

  ‘He said he wouldn’t touch her,’ I said and there were no more words. I was empty.

  Frank stayed silent, never spoke up or butted in. Fingers steepled under his nose, deep frown between his eyes. All that confusion and fear and overwhelming weight I’d been carrying around with me melted. Eased off like shrugging away a rain-soaked coat. I’d handed it all to my pastor, my friend, my man of God, and said, help me, this is too much for me, you take it. Seeing Darney with my sister snapped something inside me. It was already happening, whatever darkness Wakefield had promised, Darney was making it happen, I could
feel it. All I had left in my head, after spilling its contents over Frank’s desk, was Jenny. Keep her safe. Get her out of town before the rope is cut, before the dagger falls.

  ‘Are you sure about all this?’ Frank dropped his hands, they hit the desk with a sharp thud that sent his pen rolling. He didn’t stop it. The pen rolled to the edge, teetered for a second, and fell.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘John, what you’re saying …’

  ‘It’s true. It’s all true. I swear it. Jenny is in danger.’

  Frank shook his head, wouldn’t look at me, and I turned cold inside.

  ‘This was a mistake,’ I said, stood up too quickly, swayed a step in the heat of the trailer. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. Darney said not to tell … oh God.’

  Oh God. I’ve told. I’ve told. I leaned over the desk, palms on the wood. ‘Please, don’t say anything. They’ll hurt her. I shouldn’t have come here. It’s my fault. All my fault.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Frank said. ‘Remember what I taught you? Count, John. Count with me. One-one-thousand …’

  Deep breath.

  ‘Two-one-thousand,’ I said along with him. ‘Three-one-thousand. Four-one-thousand …’

  By eight I was back in the chair. By ten I was close to calm. Frank stood and came around his desk, perched on its corner in front of me.

  ‘These accusations are very serious, do you understand that? You’re saying Leland Wakefield killed a woman, you found out, and now he’s threatened Jenny if you say anything.’ I nodded. ‘It sounds crazy, John. Real crazy.’

  ‘It’s true. Darney Wills said—’

  ‘Darney Wills is a thug,’ he said. ‘He’s also a liar on his way to becoming a roaring drunk. He was no doubt just trying to scare you.’

  ‘No! Gloria’s dad killed Mary Ridley and now Darney Wills is going round with Jenny. He’s going to hurt her.’

  ‘John,’ his voice turned soft, like a shag pile carpet you sink your feet into. ‘You quit school.’

  I flinched. ‘So?’

  ‘So, you’re a good student, you get good grades now. Those tutoring sessions really turned things around. You seemed to truly enjoy learning. Why didn’t you come to me to talk about your decision? What changed?’

  ‘This! All I’ve been telling you. I have to get Jenny out of town, away from Mr Wakefield and Darney and …’ Don’t talk about Momma, I heard her voice in my head, that’s family business. ‘And I need money. Since the mill burned down there’s no Saturday jobs any more so I didn’t have a choice.’

  He nodded, shifted on the edge of his desk. He went to speak but I cut him off.

  ‘I’m not crazy, Frank. This is happening.’

  The pastor shook his head. ‘I just … I’m finding it all very hard to believe. Anyone could have killed that poor girl, a drifter, one of the transients that come in off the railroads. Your play den isn’t all that far from the trainyard, you know. And why would a killer stick around? He’s probably holed up in a cave in Canada by now.’

  I stood up. I was almost as tall as him now but gangly where he was broad. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t believe me. ‘You know this town is sick. A girl was murdered two years ago, I didn’t make that up. Nobody cared. Nobody went looking for her killer except me and my friends and I found him. I found him right under our noses. It wasn’t some hobo drifter. It was Mr Wakefield.’

  I couldn’t talk to anyone else about this, not Rudy, Jenny and especially not Gloria. I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. I hated keeping anything from them. My chest tightened, tears ached in my eyes. But Gloria. This couldn’t get back to her from me, she’d hate me, more than she probably already did. In the movies, they always shoot the messenger, send him back headless on his horse. The ache moved south to my throat. Thoughts of last summer, of kisses and stolen glances and private laughter, swarmed in my brain like fire ants, nipping and stinging, a bite for each moment with her I’d lost.

  ‘All right, John, all right. Let me … let me make some enquiries.’ He raised his hand to stop my interruption. ‘Careful ones, I won’t let Jenny get hurt. Just …’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Just keep your head down and stay quiet, okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You did the right thing coming to me with this,’ he said, pushed off from the desk. ‘We can’t have this getting back to the wrong people, you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Leave it with me, John. I promise, I won’t let anything happen to Jenny. But you have to keep your cool. Count, like I taught you, and don’t do anything when you’re hopped up like this.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I just … I’m sorry. I should go to Samuels, shouldn’t I? That’s the right thing to do. I should just tell him everything. Maybe the cops can protect Jenny better than me.’

  But Gloria …

  ‘No,’ Frank snapped, then softened. ‘If what you’re saying is true, and this … whatever it is … involves so many prominent members of the town, then you have to be careful who you speak to. You can’t go shooting your mouth off to anyone. Let me handle this. Everything will be okay.’

  Then it hit me. A car smashing into the side of my head. A pale car.

  ‘Jack!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jack Ridley.’ I waited for a sign of recognition but nothing showed in Frank’s face. ‘The pale car. The Ford. Remember? He’s Mary Ridley’s brother. I could tell him about Mr Wakefield. Jack could tell Samuels and I wouldn’t be to blame. Jenny would be safe!’

  ‘John! Stop it! Forget about that damn car.’ Frank banged his fist on the table. Felt like the whole trailer shook. ‘Someone is messing with you. Mary doesn’t have a brother. You think if she did, he’d be following a kid around? Why wouldn’t he be hounding Samuels every minute? He isn’t, I know that for sure. Nobody is. Not even her parents.’

  I shrank, curled my spine into the back of the chair. Don’t be stupid, John, that guy is long gone. You haven’t seen him for months. If you ever saw him at all. Mary doesn’t have a brother. Who the hell was driving that car then?

  Frank leaned forward, everything about him softened.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for shouting. Please, John,’ he sighed, paused, picked his words. ‘You and me, I like to think we’re friends. Real friends. We went beyond pastor and congregant a long time ago, we’re buddies, and you’ve got to trust me. I want you and Jenny to be safe, more than anything on God’s green, and you’re both square in the scope of some pretty nasty guys. You’ve got to keep your head down else it’s going to get shot off.’

  He put his hand on my arm, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘I will handle this, John. Trust me.’

  I let myself smile, nod. The weight, the fear, the constant pain in the back of my head, was easing, drifting away on hot air. Frank would take care of it. Frank would make sure Jenny didn’t get hurt. Just like a friend would. Just like a father would.

  ‘Promise me,’ he said, stared right into my eyes like he could tell if I lied. ‘Promise me you won’t go to Samuels or anyone else with this. Promise me you will keep your mouth shut.’

  His gaze jackhammered into me. It was his pulpit stare, his stern sermon voice. I swallowed sharp bile and felt a flutter of doubt in my chest, like the birds inside me ruffled their wings.

  You trust Frank, don’t you?

  But the paint and the photograph and the cardigan and the bed bolted to the floor and Charlie Meaney in his trailer and …

  He’s a victim too. He has to be.

  ‘I promise,’ I said, meant it.

  I left his office lighter, the nagging dread replaced with a renewed purpose. I put aside the ache in my chest at leaving the farm, Momma, Rudy and, my throat caught, Gloria. I had one job now. Earn enough money to get Jenny out. Maybe we’d head to Washington and stay with Eric. Jenny would like that, though Momma wouldn’t. Maybe west to San Francisco. Maybe northeast to Chicago, that wasn’t at all far, less than four hundred miles, less than ten hours on a bus,
but felt like another world. Maybe far, far southeast to Florida where I’d read in one of Momma’s magazines that the beaches were blazing white sand with ocean water so clear you could see fish swimming around your feet. And they had pelicans and herons and all kinds of exotic birds in a thousand colours. So much world. So much to see.

  When Jenny came home that evening I was waiting. It was one of Momma’s nights at Gum’s. She’d taken on more shifts in the last few months as the town realised life wasn’t getting any better after the Easton mill explosion the year before. Desperate men drink, John Royal, Momma told me, they drink away their memories and they drink away hope. That’s why Gum’s and the liquor store will dance all over this shitkicker town. They’ll dance until their feet ache and blister and I’ll be right there, baby, Momma said, right there shaking my ass along with them.

  Jenny came in around nine. I’d eaten dinner and left her a plate warming in the oven. More mac n’ cheese, Eric’s famous recipe, one of the only things he left behind, just like my real pa had left his belt. Since Momma had taken more nights, it was mac n’ cheese or nothing. Despite the free vegetables Mr Westin gave me, I didn’t know how to cook anything else. I heard Jenny in the hall kick off her shoes, stumble, then drop her book bag with a sharp bang that echoed through the house.

  A prickly heat crawled up the back of my neck, around the curve of my skull, deep into my hair. I wanted to be happy she was home, I wanted to ask about school and borrow her textbooks to keep up with her learning. But Darney Wills was in my head. That hurr hurr laugh. Those red lips like pieces of raw meat. Those words. I’ll break her in, gentle like.

  The prickle swarmed over my head and into my cheeks, my neck, my chest, down into my arms and hands. It pulsed and gained power and I felt like I was glowing, the Human Torch ready to explode, just call me Johnny Storm.

  Jenny stepped into the family room where I was sat, tense and burning, in Momma’s armchair.