by Beth Lewis
Wakefield appeared, carrying my sister in his arms, still awake, her hand pawing at his chest, her head unable to carry its own weight. He had a serene look on his face like he was carrying his daughter to her room after she fell asleep on the couch. His daughter. Gloria was his daughter. Jenny was a year younger. Jenny was fourteen. I felt sick. Felt my stomach swell.
Wakefield reached the bottom of the stairs and turned, toward the back wall of the basement. He paused and looked over his shoulder, out the window, right at me. Our eyes met and he smiled. The bastard smiled.
I see you, the voices screamed, I see what you’re doing and I won’t let you get away with it.
Then he, and my sister, disappeared behind the stairwell. Into the blindspot.
The bed.
No, no, no. Not Jenny. Don’t you dare. NO.
It’s all my fault. I spilled my guts like Darney warned me not to. I told.
Frank. My gut seized. I told Frank.
I strained my eyes to see into the kitchen and there he was, standing by the sink, washing up glasses as if he’d had guests. Why aren’t you stopping this? Why aren’t you doing anything?
Because he’s a part of it. He knew about Mary Ridley because Mary was in his house. He knew what Wakefield had done because it was in his basement. He knew he killed her. He always knew. And he fucking helped.
They were right. Rudy and Gloria. They were right about him and I’d defended him and said he was a good man. The thought stuck in my throat and I wanted to throw up all those good words I’d said. I thought I was screaming but no one came, no neighbour pulled Darney off me or raced into the house to save my sister. I was pinned and useless and my face was exploding and my head was on fire and I wasn’t me, I wasn’t John. I was nothing. Nobody.
Tears blinded me and burned my cheeks. I raged beneath Darney and I felt him give. His great heft no match for my anger. God or the devil or pure, unfiltered hate or all three at once filled me, from my heart, radiating out through my bones, my muscles, my tendons and veins. The rage wore me like a skin. I was on my knees and rising, up, up, up, my wings spreading, lifting me. My hand was free and it held the knife, pulled it from my pocket. Everything coalesced into one brilliant moment as my finger found the button.
Darney smashed his boot into my side and my ribs crunched.
Acid hit the back of my throat. The wings turned to glass on my back.
‘Time to sleep, freak,’ he said and kicked me again, harder, and in the face.
My neck snapped back, my brain bounced inside my skull. The glass wings shattered. A moment of searing pain. A flash of bright white. And a terrible fall. The only thought was that I couldn’t protect her. I said sorry over and over as darkness swept me up and my body hit the dirt.
26
I opened my eyes to the end of the world. Blood in my mouth and crusted on my cheek. The smell of dusty grass swam around me like gas, raised me from the unconscious blur. I lifted my head and a shockwave went through my brain, blinded me, pressed me back down into the dirt. A prickling sting grew on the back of my neck, the side of my head, backs of my arms and legs. My skin was sucked dry and taut, sunburnt and red, maybe blistered or would be soon.
When the pain eased, I slowly, agonisingly, pushed myself onto my knees. The vulnerable skin in the creases of my knees felt like it was ripping apart, itching from the dust, burning from the sun.
I brought shaking fingers to my face, felt for my features, found only swell and flaking blood. I was alien, not myself. One cheek was puffed up double, one was too painful and raw to touch. I rolled my jaw, heard a creaking, grinding sound, as the bones in my face reset themselves, then a sharp pop in my ears followed by ringing.
I heard myself sobbing, felt the quick breath in my chest, but couldn’t connect to the emotion. I was hovering above myself, the hawk above the mouse, feeling only pain, only confusion.
I remembered where I was, why I was. It hit me harder than Darney’s boot in the gut and the anger resurfaced. Frank’s garden. Not where I’d fallen, I realised, not where Darney had beaten me. I’d been dragged behind a bush, out of view of the kitchen windows, inches from the shade that would have saved my skin.
The stars emerged from the black and a sliver of moon shone pitifully, lighting nothing, helping nothing. The pastor’s house was dark, like every other I could see. I was in a ghost town. Except for the weak, distant orange of streetlamps, the only lights I saw twinkled on the Larson water tower. The small spots illuminated the town name, the white curves of the tank and nothing else. It was alone in the dark now after its brother, the Easton mill grain elevator, burned down a year ago. I couldn’t look at the tower, so stark against the black, a constant, looming reminder of the mill’s absence. They were a pair, like me and Jenny, and the sky, the town, the whole world, was not complete without them both.
My sight adjusted to the dark and a chill crept through me, sending shivers up and down my legs and back. It wasn’t cold, the undamaged parts of me knew that, but still I shivered, still I hugged myself, my skin stretching, threatening to split.
I limped to Frank’s window but saw nothing inside. Then I struggled down to my knees, checked the basement. Darkness and silence. No sign of Wakefield. Somehow I knew Jenny was not in that house. I spotted Rudy’s flick knife on the ground. I’d been so close until that fucker Darney Wills caught me. I would have smashed the window. Crawled through it. Let the glass slice me up. I wouldn’t have cared as long as I got to Wakefield before he got to her.
But I’d failed. A tremor went through my stomach. I’d failed. And he’d done whatever he wanted with my sister while my pastor, my father, let it happen right beneath his God-fearing feet.
I picked up the knife, put it back in my pocket and stood. A part of me wanted to sneak inside the house, find Frank’s bedroom, find him sleeping like a babe, dreaming all kinds of dreams, and cut those dreams out of his head, cut that lying tongue out of his mouth, watch him choke and try to scream, let him know that I, John Royal, his buddy, his son, his sport, knew exactly what he’d done. Then I’d go after Wakefield.
My chest seized. I couldn’t go after him. I couldn’t take him away from Gloria. I loved her. I knew I did from the first kiss at Barks. I couldn’t hurt her. Never hurt her like I’d never hurt Jenny.
Jenny. God, I wanted to see Jenny. To hold her and make sure she was unhurt and take her far, far away as soon as dawn broke. If I killed the pastor right here, right now, I’d never be able to keep her safe and she’d be left with Momma and Bung-Eye and Darney Wills. I’d never stand beside her by the ocean, shrieking in and out of the surf, kicking the sand into clouds.
I turned away from Frank’s house, from the man who I thought better than all of them, and made my slow, aching way home.
I don’t know how long it took to get back. I shuffled one foot in front of the other in a daze, clutching my side. My left ear rang and a cut on my cheek itched. I was numb to what he’d done. What they’d both done. To her. To me. To the whole town.
When I got home, the house was dark and quiet. I went in through the back door, it made less noise than the front, then straight up the stairs to the bathroom to set the water running. I would be clean when I saw my sister. I wanted to sink into a steaming bath and let all the grime and blood dissolve, float away from me from tip to toe so in the morning I could leave Larson, and all that had happened here, scrubbed and gleaming.
I climbed up the second set of steps to the attic room, to our bedroom. I eased open the door without making the hinges creak and half-stepped inside. On the bed, covered head to toe in that ugly blanket, was my sister. Sleeping. Safe. The unease inside me faded but didn’t disappear. I closed the door and made my way back to the bathroom.
Jenny and me would escape the dark seed grown up to vines strangling the town. That creeper with roots and tendrils reaching through Gloria’s father, Bung-Eye Buchanan, Charlie Meaney, Darney Wills and his corrupt mayor of a father, into the incompetent sh
eriffs and Samuels turning a blind eye to a girl’s murder, all the way to Frank, the godly heart of Larson. It was a snake eating itself. The town fed on its own misery and it was fattened up for slaughter. But I vowed, in that bathroom, that Jenny and me would be gone before the final stroke of the blade, before the guts and blood of Larson spilled into the hot dirt.
After I’d seen what I’d seen in Jacobs’ house, felt what I’d felt when Darney’s boot struck my face, heard what he’d said, after calling me a freak, after saying it was my fault, he’d warned me, he’d said, Someone’s got to make sure the stock gets to the buyer. It all came together in my head. Wakefield had bought Mary Ridley, then killed her. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe that’s what he paid for. And now he’d bought Jenny. I felt like laughing if only to stop me screaming. Their ‘arrangement’. You pays your money and you takes your choice, right? Had the mayor paid too? What about Frank? Of course they did, John, you don’t even need to ask. All those puzzle pieces clicked together, finally, two years after we found Mary Ridley’s body. All those pillars of the Larson community were covering it up and which bastard was pulling the strings and taking the cash? The bastard sharing my momma’s bed. I wasn’t even surprised. If anyone would look to make a buck out of a girl’s pain and misery, it was Bung-Eye Buchanan. The anger had become so absolute and a part of me that I barely felt its sharpness. I gripped the edge of the bath until it hurt. Then let go. I couldn’t hurt them. I couldn’t stop them. All I could do was take Jenny away, protect her, and I would, until the day I died.
But I was wrong. About so much. Found out too late how wrong. Wakefield had taken his revenge on me. My pastor had let him. But that was nothing, that was just dust kicked up on the road.
As the water ran and the bath began to fill, something felt strange. I couldn’t quite explain it, maybe it was my brain tired and full of pain, but deep in my chest, something gnawed at me. I left the bath running and stepped out onto the landing. A voice.
‘Baby, that you?’
Momma. In the family room.
I ducked into the bathroom; the bath was barely half full, so I went to the top of the stairs.
‘Momma?’ I whispered so not to stir Jenny. ‘I’m sorry for waking you. It’s late, you should go back to sleep.’
‘Baby … Johnny …’ her voice floated away on a sea of whiskey.
Had she been down there the whole time? Asleep on her armchair maybe? I hadn’t checked when I came in.
I went downstairs and found her standing, barefoot in the dark, between the kitchen and family room. She wore a robe tied tight at her waist. She had the lapels in her fist, drawn right up to her neck showing not an inch of skin from chin down or shin up.
I went to her, the sound of the slow-running water upstairs in my ears, and took her gently by the upper arm. ‘Momma, let’s get you to bed.’
‘Do you know what time it is?’ she said, her voice suddenly strong and hers again. She pulled away from me and switched on a lamp.
In the light, she saw me fully, and her heavy eyes widened, whitened, took in my injuries. ‘Jesus John, what happened to your face?’
Tell her.
Don’t tell her. Don’t tell her about Bung-Eye, she’ll hate you for it. Don’t you ruin this for me, John Royal, she’d said all those weeks ago. The truth would ruin everything.
But tell her something. She’s your mother, Johnny boy, she loves you.
‘I had a run-in with Darney Wills,’ I said.
Momma moved past me to the couch, switched on another lamp, and beckoned me to sit beside her. She didn’t acknowledge the name, or the bastard behind it. She shook her head, an expression on her face saying, to my throbbing mind, the fight was my fault. Darney Wills is a big guy, those drunk eyes said, why would you go and tussle with him? He sure put you in your place, John Royal, right under his boot.
‘Momma?’
‘Bring the medicine box and sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m always patching you up. Why do you get into so many fights?’
I went to the kitchen where we kept the box and something caught my eye. The knife drawer was open an inch and I knew Momma didn’t like that, she’d caught her side once on a drawer Jenny left open and had a bruise for weeks. I closed it before going back into the family room.
‘Is Bung-Eye here?’ I asked, pushed the name through a mouthful of bile.
No answer. Upstairs the bath filled, the sound of the water slowly changing as the level rose.
‘Momma? Is he here?’ I’d kill him if he was, I thought, felt the knife in my pocket.
I sat down beside her. I put the medicine box between us. She ran her finger over the red cross on the lid, her other hand still clutching the collar of her bathrobe.
‘Hmm? No, he’s not, he’s gone for a while, about a week, on a job … somewhere.’ She shuffled closer to me, started tugging on my t-shirt. Once white, now splattered with blood and dirt. ‘Let me see.’
I lifted my t-shirt. Momma gave a sharp hiss when she saw me. From my hipbone, halfway to my armpit, a bruise, ringed with black, seemed to grow before my eyes. In the hot red centre of it, a few distinct shapes spoke of Darney’s boot tread.
We were silent. I let my shirt drop. Momma didn’t open the medicine box, she didn’t tend my wounds, didn’t look in my eyes. I took her hand. Her skin felt different, cold and thin, like a grandmother’s. I thought if I pinched it the fold would stand tall.
‘Why are you with him?’ I asked. ‘Bung-Eye, I mean.’
‘Bung-Eye … he hates that name you know.’ Momma smiled. ‘Eddie isn’t so bad, not really.’
The voice in my head raged. He sells young girls to old men. He sold Jenny. My sister. Your daughter. He did that and if I see him I’ll kill him, Momma, I’ll kill him.
Don’t ruin it. A war raged in my head and I knew I wouldn’t survive it. Not in one piece. I couldn’t say what I wanted, so I said a smaller truth, one just as terrible.
‘He broke Rudy’s arm, snapped it right in front of me.’
‘Rudy broke his arm,’ Momma said, a sharp edge in her voice. ‘Eddie didn’t break it for him. Don’t be so stupid, John.’
Her words clipped my ear and shamed me. My eyes counted the scratches in the floorboards, the knots in the wood, anything but look up at Momma. Then I saw dirt on the floor, a smear of dust and mud. The smear led to Momma’s bare feet. In the dim lamplight, I hadn’t noticed the dark mud between her toes, caking the edges of her feet, black spots splashed up her ankles.
‘Momma, did you go outside? It must be past three in the morning.’
She leant over to look down to her feet, kept her robe tight to her neck. ‘Took out some trash.’
But that was mud, not dry dust. Wet mud. And the sun had dried up our land as far out as the irrigation channels around Three Points Island. Maybe she knocked the water tank in the dark, sent a river running through our back yard and trod it into the house.
The water tank is nowhere near the trashcans. You know that, Johnny.
Put it out of your head. It’s nothing.
It’s something. It is. You know it deep down. You felt it in the bathroom, something is wrong.
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is Jenny. Maybe if Momma knew what was going on with Bung-Eye and Jenny and Pastor Jacobs she’d reach her arms around us both and draw us in. We’d stay beneath her wide, all-encompassing embrace, safe from Pigeon Pas and Darney Wills. But that was little more than wishful thinking. Jenny and me would leave Momma tomorrow, get on a bus, and give her enough time to tie up all her business before sending for her. She’d finish Bung-Eye, quit that dive bar, stop drinking, and come be our momma somewhere new.
You just have to tell her, Johnny, and you know Jenny doesn’t like you talking to Momma about her.
Jenny’s upstairs. Asleep. It can’t go on. She won’t spend another minute with Jacobs or Darney or Wakefield or the mayor.
‘Momma, I think something has happened to Jenny.’ She flinched as I sp
oke the name but I carried on. ‘Tonight … earlier, I saw …’
Momma put her free hand on my leg. It felt cold through my shorts and I saw crescents of brownish-red grime beneath her fingernails.
‘Did I ever tell you about when I was queen of this town?’
‘Momma, please, listen to me.’
‘Hush!’ she snapped. ‘Did I tell you the story?’
She had, a hundred times, but I knew she loved the telling. Knew it made her happy. I was tired and aching, my eyes stung and my cheek throbbed and my side burned but I’d hear the story again. I’d hear it as many times as Momma wanted to tell it. A few more minutes of her happiness, before I told her all about Jenny and the pastor and Wakefield and us leaving, wouldn’t hurt.
‘They crowned me Cornflower Queen when I was sixteen,’ Momma said, a whiskey smile on her lips. ‘All the boys went wild for me, they ran alongside that float all the way down Main Street, howling and baying at me like dogs. I could’ve had any of them. I could’ve picked them up one by one and then thrown them away and they still would’ve loved me.
‘There was your daddy of course. He was a blocker for the Lions, nice enough, handsome enough. He was a good boy, everyone said so. He did his homework and he said his pleases and thank yous and he went to church every Sunday with his ma and pa.’
This wasn’t the story she usually told. My real pa, she’d said, was a quarterback and his mother died while Pa was still a baby. Some dark feeling squirmed in my gut.
Momma kept her eyes down, kept her hand tight on her collar. ‘He figured he’d get out of high school and get a job doing drywall or filling sacks at that god-awful flour mill until he could afford to buy us a farm. He’d marry me and I’d pop out two brats and get fat and make him his dinner every night like a good farmer’s wife. That was all he wanted and back then, that was exactly what was expected of a woman,’ She lost her smile and her face contracted into a sneer. A voice needled in my head, that’s the life you wanted, John, a farm, a wife, a family. The life your mother hated.
