Breaking Out of Bedlam

by Leslie Larson

  Back in those days, if a girl got pregnant, it was the end of the world. All your life you’ve heard fire and brimstone, the preacher pounding the pulpit and going purple in the face yelling about how you’ll burn in hell, which is a hundred times worse than the very worst you can ever imagine. No matter if what’s happening to you is common as dirt, if it’s happening right that minute to thousands of other girls around the globe like it has since the beginning of time, you feel so alone, without a soul to help you. Living every minute of every day when that’s happening to you is a lot different than thinking about it in the abstract. It leaves you speechless and plenty more besides. It leaves you shitless and breathless and just plain dumbstruck that it was so easy to get yourself in this fix and so impossible to get out.

  My first thought was to get rid of it. On my own, of course, because back then it wasn’t like now where girls do away with babies without a second thought, easy as blinking an eye. I was scared out of my wits just thinking about it because I knew what a horrible sin it was, but I was desperate to fix everything with nobody being the wiser. Only trouble is, I didn’t have a clue how to do it. I had no money. I’d never been more than thirty miles from the place I was born. I’d heard a few stories, the barest scraps I’d caught from women or older girls whispering in corners, but the facts were sketchy, to say the least. Looking back now, I wonder why, desperate as I was, I never went to my mother, or at least one of my sisters. Ruby, who always took charge of everything. What I’m forgetting, I know I am, is how ashamed I was, and how scared. I couldn’t look at myself, not my face in the mirror, or down the front of me, at my own body. I was so full of disgust, I wanted to throw up my own insides, to vomit and vomit ‘til there was none of me left.

  I never stopped. That’s what made me the sickest. All that time I wanted to die from shame, when I hated myself so much I couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye or even raise my head from looking at the ground, I never let up with Edward. I couldn’t. If anything, it got worse, more shameless, me at him so frantic, you would have thought my life depended on it.

  I tried remedies: douched myself with vinegar, then poured the rest of the bottle down my gullet. Nothing happened, aside from a few burps. I walked out to what we called Indian Hill, a rise about a half mile from our house, climbed to the top, and threw myself down. I rolled over and over, bumping and bouncing. When I got to the bottom, I ran straight up and did it again. And again. Worst I got was a couple of bruises, some scrapes on my arms. I even drank iodine, but the nasty taste made me stop before I drank too much.

  Truth is, I was fit as a fiddle. Life coursed through me and through that baby. I never felt better. I pictured things I could do: throw myself down a well, drink gasoline, jump in front of the train, hang myself from the big hickory tree over the creek, or just take off, sell myself into white slavery and never show hide nor hair around there again. But I didn’t have the will, not at all. It occurred to me just to let things take their course, not to say a word and see what happened, and I tell you it was tempting, but I knew in the back of my head that I still had an ace in the hole, a last resort if everything else failed, and that was to tell Edward, and get married lickety-split.

  I’d always wanted an old-fashioned wedding with folks from near and far come, and a dinner afterwards, and me the center of attention. I’d spent years choosing everything in my mind: what I’d wear, who’d be there, what we’d eat, and what everyone would say. Only thing missing was a face to put on the man who stood next to me, but once I met Edward, everything was in place. Before I got into my predicament, I pictured him getting down on his knees, giving me a ring, asking my daddy’s permission, everything like a storybook. Well, all that went haywire. I had to make quite a few changes to my story—including facing the wrath of my ma and daddy and having everybody within shouting distance shake their heads whenever I walked by—but I wasn’t the first girl around there who had to get married in a hurry. Long as you were married by the time the baby came, people tended to forgive and forget. I had to settle for less, but at least I had an out.

  That was August. Ruby was getting ready to be married herself. Her and Calvin had set a date in September. Right before my eyes, she changed into a woman. She got a job in town as a clerk in the ladies’ department of Tweeds. Calvin had a job with the government, working on the roads. That was during the Depression, so they were damn lucky to have jobs at all, not to mention good ones. They rented a three-room house on the edge of town, and Ruby learned to drive Calvin’s Chrysler. She was in hog heaven making all the plans for her wedding. She bustled here and there like she was the most important woman in the world. All that time I watched, guarding my secret, living like a little girl with my folks. I couldn’t help but imagine Ruby’s face when I announced that I was getting married, too, and not only was I moving to town (which to us was the same as New York City), but I was going to live right in the middle of it, on Main Street, in the Dentons’ house, which was practically a mansion.

  All I had to do was work up the nerve to tell Edward. That took some doing, let me tell you. Long as I kept things a secret, I had a handle on what would happen—at least in my head. I could still believe that things might take a turn for the better, sort themselves out. But once I said those words out in the open, once I told him—well, that was a whole different thing. It would start a chain reaction that was out of my control.

  I practiced it in my mind—pictured the words I’d use, the look on Edward’s face, the way he’d take my hands in both of his and press them to his chest. Maybe his eyes would get a little teary, maybe it’d be hard for him to find his words. He’d surely take me in his arms, he’d tell me that—while maybe the timing wasn’t perfect—this was still the happiest day of his life.

  So why was I so afraid to tell him? He was an honorable boy, brought up right. He’d courted me out in the open, showed my ma and daddy plenty of respect. But every night I lay in bed with the sweat pouring off me, imagining all manner of things, scared out of my wits. Time was wasting. I had to tell him. I tossed and turned, half asleep, my worries falling into nightmare the minute I drifted off. I’d jolt awake terrified, cursing myself for not telling him that day, for letting another day pass while my grave was dug deeper. I’d swear to myself, swear, that the very next day I’d talk to Edward, I’d let him know. Then I’d fall asleep, and morning would come, and things wouldn’t look so bad. Another day would pass and there I’d be the next night, terrified to death.

  I finally reached the point where I couldn’t face one more night like that. It was the last Sunday in August. I know because it was my ma’s birthday. We’d all gone to church, then Jasper and my dad laid a big fire in the pit out in the yard. We had pork ribs, sweet potatoes, and corn. My pa bought salt and ice and we churned ice cream. My folks’ brothers and sisters came with my cousins. So did some of the neighbors. Calvin was there with Ruby. Edward drove out in the afternoon. My pa split a big watermelon open and we all sat around in the shade, eating big bowls of ice cream and slices of melon, spitting seeds right and left.

  I was in a lather. The night before had been worse than ever. I’d got to shaking so bad I was afraid my sisters in bed next to me would wake up. My muscles were sore from trying to keep still and, if that weren’t bad enough, the last few days I’d had faint spells, where I had to sit down fast and put my head between my legs to keep from falling dead on the ground. With the heat and people talking, the smoke rising from the pit and the flies buzzing around, I felt like I was looking at everything through a haze. My ma was laughing at the flannel nightgown she’d got for her birthday. She was so pretty with her hair tied back to keep it off her neck. My daddy was across the yard with the other men, who stood under the tree where we chained the dogs. Edward was there, sitting on a milk stool with his knees wide apart so the watermelon wouldn’t drip on his pants. I could tell from how easy my daddy and brother Jasper were with him, the way they talked and laughed, that
they liked him. Calvin was there, along with my uncles and boy cousins.

  We’d carried the dinner table outside and set it on the side of the house in the shade. That’s where the women were, my aunts and girl cousins. Ruby and Crystal bantered back and forth the way they always did, and Ma was trying to cover things to keep the flies off. I was down on one end with my ice cream, stirring it into soup the way I liked it, not talking, just listening to everybody else. This is all going to end, I told myself. It broke my heart, because Ma was so happy that day. When I think back on it now, I realize she couldn’t have been more than forty-two or forty-three years old, but back then I felt like I wanted to protect her, keep her safe because she was getting older. I had a high, tight feeling in my throat. I tried to concentrate on the ice cream, on all of us being together, for a little while more before all hell broke loose.

  “Look at Toad,” Crystal said. “She sure is enjoying that ice cream.”

  The minute she said that a big June bug flew out of nowhere and landed smack dab in the middle of my bowl. I’ll never forget that, the way it looked, black and shiny, floating in the ice cream I’d just finished working to perfection.

  Everybody laughed. Aunt Millie, my ma’s older sister, said, “Here, Toad. Take mine. I’m full up to the eyeballs.”

  You might think it’s funny, but I feel like those were the last few minutes of my girlhood, that when I finished that bowl of ice cream everything that had come before ended, and a new part began.

  I looked across the yard and saw Edward was fixing to leave. He tossed the rind of his watermelon into the scrap heap a few yards away, brushed off his pants, then put his arm across Jasper’s shoulders. My heart filled with love for him. He was practically part of the family already. Like my daddy and uncles, he was strong and trustworthy, someone you could rely on, someone who’d take care of you.

  He came over and said good-bye to the women, even kissed my ma. I was so proud of him, happy to have all my cousins see what a good man I’d got, despite everything—including how fat I was.

  I walked with him down to his car. Just before he got in, I said, “I need to talk to you. Let’s drive down the road a ways.”

  He must have thought it was for the usual reason, but I was grim as we bumped down to the road. We didn’t say a word and I didn’t look to the right or the left, just stared through the windshield. My hands were clenched in the pockets of my dress, and my heart was pounding. Now or never, Cora Spring, I told myself. You have got to do this.

  I had him pull off beside the road under the big willow that grew near the spring. The bugs were just starting to come out like they do before it gets dark. They were eating me up, but I didn’t care. I waited for the engine to sputter and die, then I just sat there in the car, feeling the stillness of it, listening to the silence. I looked at the knobs on the dash, then out over the side of the car, at the ground, at the ruts that had hardened into place from all the other cars that had pulled out there.

  I finally worked up the nerve to turn and look at him. I think he knew right then, just seeing my face. He always had the most blooming skin, blushed as a peach, all gold and pink, but when I met his eye the color drained from his face, from his hairline to his jaw, like someone had pulled the plug on him. He turned a putty color, like his face was made of clay.

  “Edward, I’m in trouble. Deep, deep trouble.”

  The color rose back up his face just as fast as it had disappeared. It turned deep red, the flush men get when they’re trading insults, the fever that burns their cheeks right before they fight.

  “What kind of trouble, Cora?” he said. His voice was calm, but his eyes sparked. Veins showed in his forehead.

  I couldn’t talk to save my life.

  “What kind of trouble?” he repeated, louder this time. “Cora, answer me!”

  The ice cream I’d eaten crawled back up my gorge. I had to swallow hard to keep it down. It had soured, curdled in my stomach. My throat burned more than it had before. I couldn’t get a word out. I just looked at him, begging with my eyes, praying that he’d understand without me having to say it.

  He slammed his hands down on the steering wheel. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’d never seen him mad before, not once. I remembered what I’d thought the first time I saw him, “This here’s a man, a man.” I thought the same thing now, but in a fearful way, like he was an animal whose ways I didn’t understand, a wildcat or a bear. I’d seen plenty of men fight, saw them explode in fury with no rhyme or reason, saw them charge each other with no regard for nothing but to maim or kill. Edward was one of those, I saw. Dangerous. Different, way down deep, than any woman.

  “Answer me, Cora! What kind of trouble you in?”

  I couldn’t find my tongue with him like that. All I could do was sit there and stare at him, terrified. All of a sudden, the four years between us felt like a lot—enough to make him seem like a grownup who caught me doing something wrong. Enough for him to talk to me like I was a naughty child.

  “You want to sit here and play guessing games with me?” he snapped.

  He was just as scared as I was.

  “The worst kind of trouble,” I finally managed to whisper. “I think I’m in the family way, Edward. I think I’m up a tree.”

  He heaved a big sigh and shrunk down behind the wheel. His chest caved in, his head drooped forward like his neck had gone slack. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

  “You sure?” he said, staring down at the floor of the car.

  I waited for him to raise his head and look at me. When he did, I saw that he knew. Oh, he knew—just as sure as I did.

  “Pretty sure,” I mumbled. “I got all the signs.”

  “Goddamn it!” he yelled. He grabbed the steering wheel and shook it like it was the bars of a prison. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” He shook so hard I thought the wheel would snap off. “No! No! No!” he shouted, pounding the steering wheel with his fists each time he said it. He turned and gaped at me wild-eyed. “What was we doing, Cora?” he hollered. “What was I doing? What was I thinking?”

  His face was white now. No color at all. That’s how mad he was. It made me calm, somehow. Or maybe it scared me so much I didn’t make any quick motions or loud noises. “We’re in love,” I said in a tiny voice, barely moving my lips. “We weren’t thinking.”

  That made him madder than ever. His eyes flashed. I thought sure he was going to hit me. I knew he wanted to. I closed my eyes, waiting for it to come. But instead he jumped over the side of the car, ran around to the front, and cranked like fury. The car started up and he came back around, hopped over the side again, slammed it into gear, and spun around in the road so fast and tight I thought the car was going to roll over. I grabbed the side.

  He tore back up the road the way we’d come. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were on the road, grim. When we got to the lane that led up to my house he stomped on the brakes so hard I almost went through the windshield. He leaned across me and unlatched the door, pushed it open, then sat there with the car idling.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I got to go, Cora. I got to get out of here.”

  He ran his hands through his hair and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. The car jiggled underneath us. I smelled its exhaust. All those things I’d thought about—the poison, the well, the tree and the hanging—I thought of them now, but in a different way. The tree, I decided. Climb on up to the branch that hung over the creek. Tie the knot, slip it over my head, just slide off the branch. I even saw myself hanging there, bare feet dangling a few inches over the water.

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  He turned and looked at me, looked me up and down. His lips worked like he was trying to make a decision, pursing, then pressing together in a tight line. Finally, his face softened. It melted, the muscles loosening around his eyes and mo
uth. He came back to himself. He was my Edward again, my boy.

  “You go on back,” he said, his voice tired, but tender. “I got to think. I got to figure things out.”

  I was so grateful I could cry. So relieved to have him taking care of me, knowing what to do.

  “Go on back to your ma and pa,” he said in the same gentle voice. “Go on,” he repeated, since I didn’t get out of the car. “Give me a day or two. Once I get a plan, I’ll come out here and get you. Don’t say nothing to nobody.”

  He leaned over and kissed me. That kiss was the best I’d ever had. It was a whole new feeling, kissing a man who was going to be my husband, who I’d be living with for the rest of my life. I stepped down from the car, turned back and looked at him, and remarked to myself what a fine man he was, what a prize I’d hauled in.

  I shut the door and leaned over the side toward him. “You going to do right by me, Edward?”

  “Course I am, Cora. You know I will,” he promised before putting the car in gear and driving away.

  A DAY WENT by. Two days. Five. The feeling of dread started to weigh on my chest, making it so I couldn’t take more than little sips of air, barely enough to stay alive. It was so humid, breathing was like sucking warm water into your lungs. I was dizzy all the time, fading to black three or four times a day.

  I looked for Edward in church the next Sunday, but he wasn’t there. His family wasn’t too regular, though—his ma being from the East and all—so I didn’t place too much stock in it. The drugstore was closed on Sundays, so I couldn’t go looking for him. He’d told me not to say nothing and I didn’t. I went home with my family and waited some more. Each day the dread got worse. I started pulling at my hair, little clumps at the base of my neck where it wouldn’t show. Jerking out those plugs of flesh gave me some comfort. I was almost out of my mind by then, but I kept talking to myself, telling myself to wait, to trust him, that he’d come through.