Rusty Knob

by Erica Chilson

  Jeb doesn’t say anything, but his head flicks up. I can almost see the tears evaporating in his eyes. Molly and Hannah walk right up to me, while Deanna and Sarah inch a bit closer. Penny is the oldest, and they’re terrified whatever happens to her will happen to them when the time comes.

  “See, Penny’s already a sister to me. I’m just taking her with me, is all. She’s still gonna go to school. She’s still gonna walk down to the shop and visit with you and your daddy. You’re still gonna see her at school, and you can visit our home whenever ya want.” I chuck the kid underneath the chin. “Bring your sisters with ya, but leave your momma to home until she starts thinking for herself.”

  I walk away to a chorus of byes and a bunch of hand waving. I ignore Penny’s hiccupped sobs as I pull away. I’m thankful she keeps her head buried in her hoodie, because the twins are smushed up against the rear window, seeing exactly what I’m seeing in the rearview mirror.

  Molly, Hannah, Deanna, and Sarah run after the truck, yelling goodbye and waving like crazy mad, with their new leader paving the way. I can tell Jeb is going to do a better job at keeping those girls safe than Penny ever could.

  We are Rusty Knob

  “Is that Bren?” Penny’s eyes widen when she takes in the boy she sicced Warren on leaning against the porch railing of a huge two story house on the outskirts of Rusty Knob. “What’s going on, Wynn? I thought we were meeting up with your boss.”

  At the sound of their cousin’s name, the kids start squealing something fierce. Hayley’s in love with the big idiot, latching onto him in a way she’s only with me, which makes Warren jealous. “Bren! Are we playing with Bren today?”

  “Penn, ya better open that door right quick, or the kids are gonna maul ya.” The door pops open before Penny can even move, with the brats tearing across the yard. They tackle Bren and fell him to the ground. His peal of laughter is sweet to my ears but disturbing to Penny.

  “Appearances ain’t always what they seem, Penny,” I say as I swing out of the truck. “Sometimes ya gotta look a little deeper. Bren’s a good guy at home and on the basketball court, but he’s a bit of a dick at school.”

  “Why?” Penny asks, catching up with me. “I don’t get it,” she mumbles, confused as she stares down at Bren tickling his tiny cousins. “Look how he treats Franny.”

  I don’t go into it. I was angrier than a feral cat when Bren started hanging around Francis, until I realized he was protecting the gay kid in the only way he knew how. It was someone making fun of Rusty Knob’s Franny that led me to finding the LGBTQ group on Facebook in the first place.

  I liked how it was a community for our school district to deal with the ignorance. When I got on there, I thought I was open-minded, but I only realized how narrow I truly was. The moderator is a man in his twenties who educates us by posting videos and articles, saying West Virginia is stuck in the 1990s. Everyone is welcome. It’s not just gay, bi, and questioning kids in the group. A few of their straight friends hang out in there to show their support.

  I was smart enough to make a new Facebook profile: Rusty West. Because Rusty Knob is not exactly friendly to those who are different. I didn’t want to end up getting beat because I don’t know what I am. No one would guess Jack is known as Virginia Duncan, or Jessica is Kentwood’s Cutie. Bren and Francis only turned their profiles to private, thinking no one else in the group was from Rusty Knob. Francis is always voicing his opinion, and so is Bren.

  “Just treat Bren like an asshole at school, and be friendly with him the rest of the time. That’s what I do.”

  We stand at Bren’s feet, watching him look carefree. Penny asks, “Why not just be buddies, then?” and that draws Bren’s attention to us.

  Penny doesn’t get it, so I educate her. “It’s safer this way. Trust me. Don’t ask any more questions.” I reach down to yank Bren to his feet. “They turn into happy puppies when your name is said. Gonna have to buy ‘em a kennel.”

  Smiling brightly, “I think we better call the groomers, then.” Bren ruffles Hayley’s hair, letting the shorn off curls slip through his fingertips. “That is a righteous haircut, my little badass. But I think you’re due for a trim. I’m gonna go run in the house and call around to see if we can get you into the hairdresser.”

  Bren untangles from the kids, laughing when they try to reattach themselves. He nudges me with his shoulder, gaining my attention, and then whispers in my ear. “Don’t think I missed that bruise on Hayley’s cheek. If you hadn’t left your daddy and momma, I would have shot every last one of you Gillettes until the state was forced to give me my kin.”

  “Bren!” Penny coils up for attack. I reach over to stop her with a Warren-patent-pending-maneuver, wrapping my hand over the lower part of her face to silence her. She struggles and tries to bite me.

  “Not today,” I caution Penny not to bite the hands that feeds. “Bren has every right to feel as he does. I don’t blame him. It’s just him and his daddy left, and these kids are part of ‘em.”

  “Any women and children in my yard better git their asses in this house for breakfast!” Royce shouts as he steps onto the porch. “Sorry, Wynn. You’re a grown man today,” my boss says with a huge grin as he tosses me a lunch sack.

  Before I catch my breakfast, the kids are shrieking, “Uncle Royce! Uncle Royce!” and crawling up the steps to the front porch to attack the short, burly man.

  “What the hell is wrong with Willa?” Penny whispers in my ear while Royce herds the children into the house. “Why didn’t she drop these kids off here years ago?”

  “Ignorance,” I grunt bluntly. “Willa was a year older than you when she was beaten and raped. She went back to the only life she knew how to live. Loyalty, most certainly. Fear, most definitely. Thought she didn’t deserve the best house in all of Rusty Knob, probably.”

  Penny twists up her freckled face, confused as all get out. “How do you figure that?”

  I just narrow my eyes and shake my head as I walk back to my truck, feeling Penny’s eyes burning into my backside. I whisper to myself when I settle into my seat. “Because that’s how I would feel. That’s how I’ve always felt when Royce offered me a different sort of life. It’s how I felt when I was awarded a scholarship. Like I was being disloyal for leaving them all behind. That’s how I know.”

  Large hands pound the hood of my truck at the same time, “Dumbass,” hits my ears. I jump, and then a blush creeps over my skin like I was caught in the act of doing something bad. Bren climbs into the passenger side, wearing a shit-eating grin.

  Bren’s a younger, skinnier version of his dad, with thick brown hair and warm eyes lacking happy, laugh lines. Not too tall, but not too short. Someday Bren will fill out to be rugged like Royce. Just like I know Hayden will, especially with how stocky Warren ended up being. I’m just tall and athletic, whereas they’re built to be workhorses.

  Right now, though, Bren is intimidated by me, and I find it funny, knowing how he’ll be able to knock my ass to the ground when he finally fills out. He always gets antsy when trapped in a truck cab with me. But, today, Bren’s balls seem to have dropped.

  “You need to rethink the definition of loyalty, Wynn. They ain’t worth it. Not because they don’t have any money, or because they are undereducated. It’s because they are nasty human beings who would rather hurt than help.”

  I drop my breakfast into my lap, and then close my eyes. “That’s my momma and daddy you’re talking about,” I snarl my warning. My hands grip the steering wheel to contain my violence, until my knuckles turn white.

  I don’t know where Bren’s courage is coming from. “My papaw was illiterate, but he was a kind, hardworking man who put his family first. The house was small, but it was warm and clean, and all bellies were filled.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” I mutter while tears sting my eyes. “Going to bed starve-gutted until you feel hollow inside. Not being able to get warm, no matter how close to the fire you stand…”
<
br />   “Yeah, we got more money now than we can spend. We didn’t earn it at first, and we’d return it if it meant we could get Papaw and Momma back. We’d gladly take to living in Kennedy Holler to this house, just to have the dead resurrected. But that wasn’t my point.” Bren reaches over to grip my shoulder, and then he gives me a good shake with his large paw. “We still work because we need a reason to live. We ain’t got no family, and Daddy ain’t got no woman. But we’re good people.”

  “The best,” I breathe the God’s honest truth.

  “Your momma and daddy ain’t,” Bren twists out. “They’re the type who would lay down and die instead of moving two feet to the left to safety. Can you believe that truck hit me in the center to the road? How dare they? Gimme money! My leg’s broke, better tap the beer!” Bren taunts in a comical voice, but he’s being serious. “They ain’t even loyal to themselves, so why should you be to them?”

  “You sound so much like Royce right now, it ain’t even funny. Do I need to check to see if your dad’s hand is playing ventriloquist with your behind?” I release a humorless laugh. “Can I have Bren, Kentwood’s douchebag bully back?”

  “Nah, I only perform that act Monday through Friday, eight a.m. to three p.m., and before and after basketball games. The rest of the time I gotta be me.” Bren picks up my lunch bag. “Eat your breakfast. We gotta lotta work to do today, and Dad’s gonna need our help later this evening.”

  I reach into the brown sack, knowing I’ll find an English muffin sandwich filled with scrambled eggs and a sausage patty, just like every Saturday morning. Sunday mornings are biscuits covered in sausage gravy, and we eat at the table as a family before church. Suppers are always takeout being eaten while we play board games on the living room floor.

  Royce doesn’t make me do much work. He basically gives me busy work so I don’t feel guilty he takes two days a week to make up for the other five shitty days the twins and I lived through.

  “Thanks,” I grumble around a large bite of sandwich, knowing Bren cooks on Saturdays and Royce on Sundays.

  “So… Dad’s crew just got done remodeling the old Sutton place over on Holland Road. He thought that would be perfect. It’s small, but it has three bedrooms. The school is just a street over if you cut through its backyard, and then the neighbor’s yard too. It won’t take much for Penny to take the kids to the park on weekends. You’ll have a few of the team as your neighbors with Jack at the end of the street. Nice and safe.”

  “Bren–”

  He stops my protests by pressing my sandwich closer to my lips. “Nope, I was told to make you listen. Dad’s been planning this for the past four years, knowing Willa would never give in, so he’d have to help the kids through you. He’s been waiting for you to be grown enough to see you had a real future. He had the same plan for Warren, but your brother couldn’t be swayed, no matter what. You ain’t the only kid Dad helps out, but you’re one of the only ones he considers family.”

  “Jesus.” I scrunch up the bag, hoping Bren will look at my hands instead of the tears on my cheeks. A man has to have some pride.

  “Dad doesn’t like spending the money he made because Papaw and Momma died. He calls it blood money. Everybody is so goddamned prideful, saying they won’t take a handout, but their actions are so worthless it disgusts him. We’ve been doing all we can. Dad started scholarships, having the teachers tell him which kids are deserving. He’s fostered a kid who lost his dad. He created a few businesses to employ the townsfolks so they don’t think it’s charity. Everybody has to have a reason to live besides drowning in misery and addiction, and he’s giving them one. We can’t take that money to the grave, and we ain’t gonna spend it on bullshit, neither.”

  I just stare out the windshield of the ancient truck Royce hooked me up with when I was fifteen so I could drive the twins to him for the weekends. Before me is Rusty Knob, a place everyone in the hollers hates out of pure jealousy. It’s another world than the one I grew up in. It’s quaint with its tree-lined, paved streets, nice houses, mommas and daddies who raise smart kids, and their happy dogs trotting at their sides as they walk down sidewalks.

  Most of us in the hollers, we live like trash because our parents keep telling us that’s all we’re worth because that’s how they see themselves. No, that’s not true. That’s just how my parents see us.

  At Rusty Knob Elementary and Junior/Senior High School, there is a clear divide between the townies and the hillbillies because of an ignorant sense of loyalty. The kids don’t play together, because those from the hollers won’t allow it. If you intermix, you get your ass beat for being a traitor. If you join the sports teams or try to get an education, then you’re being hoity thinking your shit don’t stink like the townies. If you work in town, you must think you’re better than your kin. The hillbillies would rather starve than swallow their pride and leave the hollers to work in town.

  I have two close friends: Penny and Jack. One is from the hollers and one is from town. My friends don’t speak to each other because they’ve watched me get beat since kindergarten.

  Folks in the hollers are all against the townies, but we don’t like each other either. We’re divided again by our kin, while the townies are lumped together into a big, powerful group of people who have money and influence, and the education to wield both. It’s our own ignorance that segregates us from the townsfolk who want us to join them.

  We’re Rusty Knob.

  Bren hands me a hanky when I didn’t realize I was still crying. “Mop up your eyes. We need to get a move on. I called the team. They’re helping us unload the truck and set your shit where it goes. Then we’re going over the storage unit to find what else you’re missing. Dad’s addicted to those estate auctions, then he donates it all to the Salvation Army.”

  “Um… yeah.” I scrub at my eyes and blow my nose. “Sorry. Don’t know what’s up with me this morning. If Penny saw me like this, she’d start in on her horseshit again.”

  I navigate the few blocks to the house Bren described, getting choked up all over again when I see ten guys scattered in the front yard– every single one of them a townie.

  Bren hits the dashboard with a flat palm. “Welcome home!”

  Urban Hillbilly

  “No more. We have what we need. Let’s get out of here.” I turn to walk out of the large storage unit housing all of Royce’s purchases. They’ve already pushed me into taking a big mattress for Penny, a pair of twin bedframes and mattresses for Hayley and Hayden, a table and chairs, three dressers, a sofa, a few lamps, and tried to force me to take a television.

  “C’mon, Wynn. Don’t be a jackass!” Bren pounds me on the shoulder. “Give me some backup, Jack. Tell your boy he needs a bed.”

  “NO!” I push the mattress away. “I’ve got the cot I bought at the Army and Navy store. Give it to someone who truly needs it. We only need the essentials. No spoiling me or Penny.”

  “I know better than to say anything,” Jack says to stop Bren from going off at the mouth. “The little ones have beds, and you hooked Penny up with a full-sized for when Warren wanders home. Let the man keep some pride when it comes to the shit he uses.”

  “Look!” Bren charges around me, and then comes back with the railing to a crib. “We should take this now. Penny will need it in about seven months.”

  “No,” I say forcefully. “Everything bought for Penny’s baby will be by Warren, Penny, or me. Nobody else. Just as Royce can give the twins what they need to survive, but nothing more. I took the dresser and the mattress for Penny, but that’s it. Nothing for me. Only shit the kids will be using will go into that house unless I buy it or build it myself.”

  “Fucking hillbilly pride,” Bren grunts out, angry that I won’t just accept all of his charity. He stomps from the storage unit, and the sound of my passenger door slamming follows thereafter.

  “You really should take that TV, though,” Jack starts in again, using a smooth man voice that is at odds with his little kid bod
y. He tries to wrap his arm around my shoulders, but he’s too short. He settles with just leaning against me in solidarity. “For the kids. Kids like TV. Cartoons and shit… Then you and Penny could watch the news. Ya know, keep abreast of the goings on in the world.”

  My best friend is manipulating me into giving in, but I can’t allow it. “They can play outside, do their chores, do their homework, read and color. We don’t need a TV.”

  “Lost cause,” Jack sighs out as he steps away from me. He says loudly for everyone’s benefit, “I tried!”

  “Computer?” Duane, our tall Small Forward, pops out from behind a large hutch like a demented, big-toothed Howdy Doody. He thrusts a laptop at me. “It doesn’t look very old. It’s like my mom’s.”

  “No,” grits out between my teeth even though my hands are itching to clutch it to my chest and never let it go. “We can use the computer lab at school and the library. Plus, Royce always lets me use his desktop in the office.”

  “You sure?” Duane comes closer, noticing the lust in my eyes. “I could hook ya up with my internet password. For a few bucks, I could put an extender in your house. I’m just two houses down, neighbor. You could borrow some internet for homework.”

  “I… I… I… shouldn’t.” I close my eyes to block out the sight of my greatest temptation. “I can’t. Thanks for the offer.”

  “I’d die without Wi-Fi,” Francis calls out from the depths of the storage unit, where he’s hunting for his own treasures. He’s created a pile out front, saying he’s going to barter a price with Royce, when we all know Royce will just give it to him. “Netflix. We all share our usernames and passwords. Binge-watching and binge-eating is a townie tradition. A life without Facebook. Tragic.”