by Beth Lewis
Until four. The bell dinged on the door when I was in the back, sorting and restacking boxes of oranges.
‘Just a minute,’ I shouted and a voice I knew called back.
‘John, we need to talk,’ Gloria said, with a tone of seriousness I barely recognised.
I left the boxes in the middle of the floor, suddenly nervous, suddenly feeling all those feelings for her again. Seeing Rudy with someone had made me want my own fumbles, my own secret, hidden embraces. And there she was, Gloria, the girl I used to love. Still loved.
I came out of the storeroom expecting her to be alone but Rudy stood beside her. Stone-faced and cold, the both of them, and my nerves crackled, scratched against my bones. What have I done? What have you done? Did Rudy see me that night? Will you call me ‘freak’ too? I still wanted to talk to him but not with Gloria there.
‘Hello,’ I said. I didn’t know where to look.
‘Hey,’ Rudy said, smiled that movie-star smile. ‘How are things? Your mom okay?’
He gave me a look that said he knew about Bung-Eye and Momma, he knew and he was sorry about it.
‘She’s fine,’ I said, tried to smile back. ‘She knows where the knives are.’
Rudy laughed. ‘Thank God for that.’
But the levity quickly died and we fell silent for a while.
‘I don’t know how to say this,’ Gloria started, faltered, looked down to her red shoes.
‘Something is going on with Jenny,’ Rudy said. He had a calmness about him that he never used to. Rudy used to jitter and buzz but now he was still, like he’d finally settled into his skin. Seeing that made my insides settle too.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘She’s …’ Gloria looked at Rudy, then back to me. ‘She’s been drinking and smoking at school. She hasn’t been going to class for weeks. She’s failing, John.’
Failing. Drinking. Smoking. My body throbbed.
‘I didn’t realise it had gotten so bad,’ I murmured.
‘That’s not the part we’re worried about,’ Rudy said.
‘What are you talking about?’
Gloria met my eyes. ‘She’s been going with that ape Darney Wills and she wouldn’t talk to us. I tried everything but she kept blanking me. She’s been dressing differently too, wearing thick sweaters, t-shirts and baggy denims. She’s not looking after herself. I don’t know the last time she brushed her hair. Since you quit school it got worse.’
A sharp stab of guilt in my gut.
Gloria kept going. ‘The other day we got into an argument. She hadn’t been herself for so long. I missed my friend, you know? Well, we both said some things and it got heated and she hit me. Really goddamn hard.’
Gloria turned her head and pointed to a scratch below her left eye. Then I noticed the dark shadow of a bruise on her cheekbone.
‘That isn’t our Jenny,’ Rudy said. ‘Something is wrong.’
I couldn’t look at them. I was failing my sister. She had this other life I couldn’t be a part of. So many hours we spent apart now, so many days I went with barely speaking to her except over tense meals or a hasty goodnight. Suddenly all this working, saving money, all my promises seemed as much use as chasing dust.
The three of us stood, awkward and in silence, until Gloria finally spoke again.
‘We followed her.’
‘What?’
‘Today,’ she said. ‘It was just after Miss Eaves’ class. Darney Wills was waiting for her on the corner and we followed them.’
I looked to Rudy but his face held no trace of apology.
‘Where did they go?’
I expected Barks. Or Darney’s house. Or even the old warehouse on the way out of town, the place seniors went to shack up, full of mattresses and cardboard partitions. It made me shiver to think of Jenny there. Some disgusting place he could put his filthy hands all over her, ply her with beer or stronger. She’d never be able to fight him off. I felt my pocket, traced the shape of Rudy’s flick knife. I’d go there now, wherever they were, and I’d cut Darney’s throat. The oily black wings inside me woke, rushed, beat a hundred times a second.
‘Where?’
Gloria and Rudy didn’t answer, just looked at each other, unsure of the door they’d opened, the beast they’d unleashed.
The black birds grew and raged and they were all I could hear. ‘Where are they?’
‘We’ll show you,’ Rudy said. ‘Just, stay calm, yeah? It might even be a good thing.’
A good thing? With Darney Wills? I wanted to punch Rudy then, smash the stupidity out of him.
‘Now. Let’s go,’ I said, forgot about the shop, about Al Westin and his trust and his ‘good boy, Johnny’. They were smoke in a storm.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I didn’t lock the front door. I didn’t hide the cash tray. My mind was consumed by Jenny and what she was doing, what Darney was doing to her. It was fire through paper, all-powerful and rampant. I’d only find out later that the store was robbed, trashed, and the week’s take stolen. Westin’s Groceries soon went under. But to me, then, nothing mattered but Jenny.
I was so distracted, I didn’t hear Rudy and Gloria making small talk and I didn’t realise where we were going until we turned onto a familiar street.
‘We followed her and Darney here,’ Gloria said. ‘He left her with him and hung around outside for a while then wandered off.’
Five doors down from where I stood was Frank’s house. The last time I’d been on this street, the sky was black with smoke from the Easton mill. Today the sun blazed and it looked like just a street. All my panic suddenly seemed absurd.
I stopped on the sidewalk, looked at them both. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ Rudy put his hand on my shoulder but I didn’t quite understand why.
‘It could be nothing,’ Gloria tried. ‘She’s been having problems, right? He could be being a good pastor, giving her advice and … you know, spiritual guidance.
‘John,’ she said, grabbed my arm. ‘It’s probably totally innocent. He’s a pastor.’
I laughed, all the fear and tension drained right out of me. ‘Are you kidding? She’s with Pastor Jacobs?’
Gloria frowned. ‘We’re not kidding.’
I wanted to shake them both. ‘So we’re back to this. How many times do I have to say it? You both still think he killed Mary Ridley but …’ your dad killed her, Gloria; the words caught and I couldn’t breathe ‘… he didn’t and now, you think Frank’s going to hurt Jenny? He never would. You’re both saying some big black evil is happening in this quiet street with its mown lawns and drawn curtains and perfect fucking flowerbeds. Give it up.’
But there was some evil. I felt it under the bright summer sky, the creeping uncertainty of Frank’s involvement in all this mess.
Rudy folded his arms, straightened his back. ‘If you’re so sure about all that then let’s go take a peek.’
‘Fine. And when there’s nothing going on, will you drop it? Finally? Will you leave Pastor Jacobs alone?’
Rudy and Gloria glanced at each other.
‘Yes,’ Rudy said and Gloria nodded.
‘Then let’s go.’
I ducked down the side of the nearest house, Rudy and Gloria behind me, and crossed the back yards until we reached Frank’s. We hid in a bush, crept as close as we could.
I saw them through the kitchen window. With the blazing sun, we could see right through his house, through the kitchen, hallway, and out through those wide front windows in the family room. Jenny sat at the kitchen table. She wore my old t-shirt, hair rough and ragged but tied up as best she could with a scarf, the one with blue stars, the birthday present from Gloria. I thought she’d stopped wearing it.
She sat opposite Frank. Two glasses of half-empty ice tea between them.
There you go, I wanted to shout. Enjoying a cool glass of ice tea, nothing more. Jenny wasn’t screaming or crying or scratching for escape. She just looked sad, her eyes down, all atte
ntion on her glass, like she needed someone to listen.
‘See?’ I said to them both.
‘They’re just talking,’ Gloria said, sighing out her relief.
I nodded.
Rudy shook his head. ‘But why would Darney Wills bring her here?’
‘Maybe he was doing something nice for her, taking her for counselling,’ Gloria said, but I could tell it pained her to say it. Pained me to hear it.
Frank reached out across the table and Jenny flinched away. Just like she’d flinched away from me. Through the house, on the street, a family of four passed the window. I heard them laughing in the quiet afternoon. Just a normal neighbourhood on a normal day.
‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘Sorry, John. You were right,’ Gloria said, put her hand on my hand, met my eyes. Felt a hot ache in my chest. All the things that could have been, right there in one look.
‘We should go,’ Gloria said and started to move off. Rudy did the same. The absence I felt when Gloria took her hand away cracked something inside me.
‘I’m staying,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait for her, walk her home.’
‘All right,’ Rudy said and put his hand on my shoulder again. ‘We’ll keep an eye on Jenny at school, yeah? She’ll be fine.’
Gloria smiled at me. ‘Don’t be a stranger, Johnny.’
‘Thanks, guys,’ I said. ‘Let’s do something next week, after school, maybe go to Clarkesville and see a movie or something.’
They smiled, agreed, said goodbye, see you soon. But I knew they wouldn’t. Me and Jenny would be long gone by then. Off to San Francisco or the Florida beaches, safe and free.
The weight on my back dispersed but I was seized by something else, some sharp ache in my chest as I watched Rudy help Gloria over the fence.
‘Wait,’ I said to him as she dropped down the other side and we were alone. I grabbed his arm, and pulled him a few steps away, back into the shelter of the bushes.
‘What?’ Rudy said, yanked his arm from my grip.
‘Get out of this town,’ I said. ‘Get out and never look back.’
His eyes locked on mine. Wide and confused.
‘What are you talking about?’ he said.
‘You’re too good for this place. Take your savings, get on a bus and go,’ I faltered, should I? Shouldn’t I?
Yes. Say it.
‘Before Bung-Eye finds out, because he will. You know he will.’
His eyes, with the slightest shift, showed a glimmer of fear. He blinked it away, broke the connection. Despite the distance of the last year or so, he was and would ever be, my best friend. I remembered the snapping sound his arm made when Bung-Eye caught him, I remembered the black eye and the wincing and crying at Christmas. I wanted him to know I’d never be the cause of his hurt. I’d never tell a soul about him and Scott. His eyes shone, the beginnings of tears maybe, then he hugged me.
‘See you soon, yeah?’ he said and I smiled.
He climbed over the fence and he and Gloria ran out of my life. Still smiling, I turned back to Jenny. We’ll go, first thing in the morning. Ninety-four bucks was just enough for two tickets and I’d get odd jobs down in San Francisco or Chicago or wherever to pay for food and a nice place to stay for a while. Jenny could finish school by the ocean, breathing in the freshest air, far away from Darney Wills and Bung-Eye and, for now at least until the monster was tamed, from Momma. I’d write to Momma every week and make sure she knew we were okay and why we had to leave and that we’d be back when she promised to treat Jenny right and say sorry for cutting her hair and everything else. Then I’d take over the farm. We’d be a real family again, and I’d take care of everything. For the first time in a long time I felt hopeful. We’d be happy.
I kept my eyes on Jenny. The window glass and the glaring sun obscured her details but I knew her shape, her tiniest movements, what they meant, what they looked like in full glorious resolution. Her shoulders were relaxed, her breathing calm.
She’s fine, Johnny, she’s doing just fine. Frank is doing his thing, being a pastor, tending a lost sheep. That’s what he did, for me and now for her. Me and Jenny had a brand new future waiting at dawn, that’s all that mattered. My body filled with light, bright joy. I was a birthday balloon on a string, tugging at a child’s hand. Let me go, let me float away and see the wide world. Larson is just a speck, one drop of paint on a giant splatter canvas. I’d miss Frank but I promised myself I’d write to him, he could come visit, we would take trips. It’d be a new life for all of us.
I felt like rushing into the house and carrying Jenny away, starting that new life right now, but I stopped myself. Let her finish, let her get her troubles off her chest.
I saw us boarding a Greyhound and riding it until the endless, stifling cornfields transformed into forests, mountains, lakes, sweeping plains, and finally, beautifully, the great blue ocean.
I shifted in my hidden place and the golden reflection from the sun on the pastor’s windows moved with me, removing the glare, allowing me a clear view.
The instant my eyes locked on Jenny, I knew something was terribly wrong with my sister.
Frank had stopped talking. His lips weren’t moving any more and he was staring at Jenny.
Her eyelids drooped. Her head lolled then jerked up like she was falling asleep.
Frank slid the now empty glass out of Jenny’s hand.
The picture of the ocean, the beach, the sun, turned grey in my mind.
Jenny’s head dropped again and she looked up at Jacobs, her face slack, her eyes half-closed. Something in his expression changed. Through the distance, the angle, the warp of the glass, it was there on Frank’s face – a sneering, nervous impatience. A traitorous prince waiting for his poisoned king to die.
But Jenny wasn’t dead and she wasn’t asleep, not yet. Frank said something, called over his shoulder, and stood up. Everything happened in slow motion but I couldn’t react. I was coiled steel, tense and waiting for the release.
A man walked into the kitchen from another room. Grey slacks, a white shirt open at the collar and rolled-up sleeves. A thick moustache.
Mr Wakefield.
Every bone in my body felt like it broke at once. A sharp snap in my head, under my skin, all over me under me inside me.
Mr Wakefield. Gloria’s father. Right there.
Frank lowered his head, shook it, and rubbed his cheek. A look on him I’d never seen. Was that shame? Was it fear? What the hell was going on?
Wakefield took Jenny by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She was loose and slumped against him. He led her across the kitchen. I remembered the exact layout of his home. But I couldn’t put the pieces together. Nothing added up in my head. This can’t be happening. No, it mustn’t. That’s my sister. Where are you taking her?
The basement.
The bed, bolted to the floor.
Darney Wills had said, Your pretty piece-of-ass sister will be all his, and you saw what happened to the last girl he took a shine to.
I remembered the green paint on the basement floor and on Mary Ridley’s skin. The purple cardigan under the bed. The Polaroid of a girl who could be Mary, could be any number of girls, stuffed in a Bible. The last girl Wakefield took a shine to ended up dead. In that house. Where my sister was right now.
I surged forward, broke through the bushes, my hand in my pocket, on the flick knife. The world turned red and black and I saw only him and my sister. His daughter’s friend. What kind of man? What kind of father?
I reached for the back door. I’d rip the screen away. I’d kick the door to splinters. I’d paint his house with his own black blood.
I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me.
I didn’t see the fist until it cracked the side of my face.
And I was on the grass. I don’t remember falling. My ears and skull and teeth and jaw all throbbed, wanted to shatter in my head.
A great weight landed on my back. My ribs and spine joined the screeching choir. E
verything hurt, nothing was clear, my mind tangled and knotted itself and there was only pain and Jenny and Mr Wakefield and Frank and me, unable to move, unable to get to her.
‘Hush, hush, Johnny boy,’ Darney Wills breathed in my ear, ground his knee into my back. ‘Just in time for the show.’
But he’d gone, hadn’t he? Darney had left. Gloria and Rudy said so and they wouldn’t lie. Darney had brought Jenny here for a counselling session. He was misunderstood. He was good deep down. That’s what she’d said.
No. There’s not a hair, a cell, a nail, of good about him. He’s that fucker Darney Wills and he’s betrayed her. And me. And the whole town. He hadn’t left. He’d wandered off but he’d come back. He was watching, waiting. He knew what was going on and he was making sure nothing and no one interrupted it.
‘Get off me!’
I don’t know if I shouted it or just thought it. I couldn’t breathe or lift my head. I tasted blood and felt it trickling out of my mouth into the grass.
But I could see.
Right in front of me, the window to the basement.
‘Stop. Get off.’ I strained but I was a mouse against a bear.
‘Shut the fuck up, freak,’ Darney whispered in my ear. The stink of his sweat and breath was all over me.
‘I’ll kill you,’ I said. ‘I’ll kill both of you. You fuck … you fucking bastard.’
He pushed my head into the dry grass, needle spikes in my eyes. ‘Big words for such a baby. Calm down, freak. I haven’t touched your slut sister. I’m just the delivery boy. Someone’s got to make sure the stock gets to the buyer. He warned you, freak. I warned you and you didn’t listen. You went running your big mouth and look what happened. Nice going, pussy boy.’
Hurr hurr.
Sour bile rose up in my throat and I thrashed and bolted under him. He lifted off me long enough for my lungs to fill then drove his ham fist into my kidney.
‘Here comes the fun bit.’ He grabbed my hair and wrenched my head up, toward the basement window.
