Picking Up The Pieces

by Brenda Adcock

  Just as she settled down again, she saw a familiar female student enter the room. It was the girl with the locker problem. She was shorter than Athon, maybe five seven or eight, and slender. Her skin was a toffee mocha color and looked like a perfect cup of coffee with creamer. Her dark brown hair fell smoothly to her jaw bone and framed fine, delicate features. Lauren smiled when she saw someone she knew and her light cinnamon-colored eyes seemed to sparkle when they met Athon’s. Athon felt her heart flutter and dropped her eyes quickly to the top of her desk to avoid looking at her. She was suddenly fascinated with a groove someone had made in the surface and picked at it with her fingernail.

  “You gonna try to tap that, Rafe?” the boy behind Athon whispered loud enough for her to hear.

  “Oh, yeah. Sweet cocoa,” the second jock said with a laugh. Rafe Stoneman was the quarterback of the Carver football team and all-around big man on campus. That meant he believed every girl on campus should fall at his feet and spread ‘em.

  “Her daddy’s the new minister at my church.”

  “You’ll have to invite me to your church next Sunday, dude.”

  “You’ll never get past him.”

  “I got ten bucks that says otherwise. Preacher’s kids are always the wildest.”

  “Think she’d be wild in the sack?”

  “Is her daddy black?” Rafe asked, his voice husky.

  “Nope, but her mama sure is.”

  “You know how they are,” Rafe said with a laugh. “So, yeah, I bet she’s plenty wild in the sack.”

  It bothered Athon to hear the two boys talking about Lauren like that, but she ignored it as the teacher brought the students’ attention to what was written on the blackboard.

  All morning Athon’s mind refused to concentrate on her studies. She could be working, trying to save her money so she could leave Duvalle as soon as she graduated.

  “Excuse me,” a soft voice said as Athon was eating a can of Vienna sausages for lunch.

  “What?”

  “Is this seat taken?” Lauren asked.

  “No, I’m done,” Athon said, stuffing the last sausage in her mouth and standing up.

  “You don’t have to run away. I don’t bite.”

  “I gotta go. Besides, maybe I’d enjoy gettin’ bit by you.”

  Lauren Shelton’s face flushed, turning her tan skin a golden brown. “This is my first year at Carver,” Lauren said, steering the conversation to something less provocative.

  Athon stared at Lauren for a moment. “This is my last year in hell.”

  Lauren ate quietly and then saw the girl Athon had been clinching in the hallway. “Looks like your girlfriend is looking for you,” she said before she took a healthy bite of her sandwich.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Athon responded, her eyes turning steely.

  “You always kiss girls you don’t care about like that?” Lauren asked as she rummaged in her soft-side lunch container. She pulled out an apple. “You want this? I hate apples.”

  “They’re good for you. I don’t do charity,” Athon said as she pushed up from the bench.

  “It’s not charity. I bit a worm in half in an apple when I was little and have hated them ever since,” Lauren said with a shrug.

  Athon laughed out loud and accepted the apple. “Thanks.”

  They ate silently for a while before Lauren asked, “So are you going to answer my question or not?”

  “What question?”

  “About kissing girls you don’t like. You seemed to be enjoying yourself immensely.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Curious,” Lauren answered around the food in her mouth.

  “Liz just wanted to try out something before her big date this weekend.”

  “So what are you, the kissing dummy?”

  Athon shrugged. “More like a practice dummy. We started in middle school. Like kissing lessons, I guess.”

  Lauren laughed so hard she almost spit her food out. “Shut up! You’re lying!”

  Athon took another bite of the apple and shook her head. “You aren’t born knowing how to be a good kisser, ya know. You have to know when to part your lips, when to slip ‘em the tongue...”

  “That’s enough,” Lauren said, holding up a hand. “Definitely more than I needed to know.” She hesitated and looked at Athon out of the corner of her eye. “So who taught you?”

  “I gotta go,” Athon answered brusquely, tossing the apple core into a nearby trash can. “Thanks for the apple.”

  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring a banana,” Lauren said with a smile.

  Athon looked at Lauren and let her eyes drift over her body. The corner of her mouth lifted in a grin. “Never cared much for bananas,” she said.

  Chapter Seven

  Duvalle, Texas September 1987

  ATHON JUMPED OUT of the bed of an old pick-up that had given her a lift to the entrance of the Buena Ventana Trailer Court. She had shared the back of the truck with a couple of defeated-looking migrant pickers. Probably headed south to the Valley, she thought as she tossed a wave at the departing vehicle.

  The abandoned trailer she shared with her mother was located near the rear of the park in the midst of several other derelict mobile homes that had seen better days. It had been a hot, but tolerable September day. She wiped her face with her hand as she kicked a rock she found near the entrance and turned the last corner that would lead to their trailer. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a black, official-looking vehicle and two patrol cars with their lights on parked across the cracked cement pad that once served as a parking space. She ducked behind a tree when she heard loud voices from inside the trailer and then the crash of something. The window into what served as a small living room shattered and Athon saw an old baseball bounce twice on the road and roll part way down the asphalt before it left the weed-choked road and stopped in an overgrown grassy area.

  After more shouting, a state trooper stepped out of the trailer, straightened his uniform, and readjusted his Smoky the Bear hat before walking to his patrol car and jerking the back door open. Athon looked back at the trailer door in time to see Michelle Dailey, her brassy bottle blonde hair a tangled mess, being escorted from the trailer. She was barefoot, but still struggled against the hands leading her into the sunlight. She was wearing her familiar, barely legal Daisy Dukes that showed off a shapely ass. When she tried to jerk away from the officers her breasts quivered like Jell-O and threatened to escape her tight, low cut tank top. With her hands restrained behind her body she had little chance of getting away as a female trooper held her by the upper arm to prevent her from falling or attempting to run. A hand on Michelle’s head protected it from striking the door frame of the waiting patrol car. Athon had no idea what Michelle had been arrested for this time. Could have been for any number of offenses. She was certain there were drugs hidden somewhere in the trailer. Or perhaps they were being evicted for trespassing again.

  Athon turned away from the scene and hid behind another trailer about a block away. She sat down in a shady spot, pulled a half packet of stale Ritz crackers from her backpack, and waited for the vehicles to leave. When she saw the last patrol car go, she stood and made her way back to her home. The police had padlocked the front door to prevent anyone from entering. She almost laughed, certain there was nothing worth stealing inside. Athon walked to the back side and dropped her backpack. She pulled away a flimsy piece of plastic skirting, crawled under the trailer on her belly, and rolled onto her back. She pushed up a sagging piece of plywood that covered a jagged hole in the floor until it lifted and slid it to the side, making a space she could stand up in. She looked around in the hallway near her room and lifted her body inside. She rooted around in her room and found an old Army duffle bag she had scavenged from a pile of discarded items in front of someone’s house. She liked the bag. It had a peculiar, oily odor, but was waterproof and sturdy. The olive green material was rough. The name Simpson, C. was stenciled on one side. When she fi
rst found it, she made up stories about who the unknown C. Simpson was. She stuffed several shirts and pants, along with underwear and socks into the duffle before gathering a well-used tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, shampoo, and a few other personal hygiene things, at least enough to last a few days.

  The room where Athon slept was next to her mother’s and she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Michelle and her ‘guest’ arrived home after one in the morning and the rhythmic squeaking of the springs on Michelle’s bed, as well as the grunting sounds from the guest, seemed to go on forever. Athon hated the sounds that kept her awake. It sounded like a hog rutting. It didn’t help when the man Michelle claimed was Athon’s father apparently couldn’t find any place else to sleep.

  Athon and Michelle rarely saw or heard from Hank Dailey. While Hank acknowledged he had fucked Michelle when he was high, he swore on a stack he wasn’t the father of her ‘bastard brat’. Athon didn’t know how late it was when Hank barged into the trashy trailer and threw the grunting cowboy out. Athon heard cursing from the dispossessed ‘guest’, followed by a loud beer belch, and not long afterward more squeaking and grunting through the thin wall.

  In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, not really expecting to find much and wasn’t disappointed. She took the remaining generic peanut butter and a couple of cans of Vienna sausages and another of tuna. Once she was satisfied she had everything she needed to survive for a few days, she dropped her bags through the opening in the floor. She was making one last sweep of the trailer when she heard the deep, throaty rumble of a motorcycle engine. It slowed and idled in front of the trailer before the engine stopped. She quickly squatted down when someone banged on the warped aluminum screen.

  “Open the goddamn door, Shelly,” a man’s raspy voice yelled. Athon recognized Hank Dailey’s voice immediately. She pulled the wooden cover back over the opening in the floor. From past experience, Hank was probably drunk and would never go away. By the time she opened the trailer door Hank had jerked the already damaged screen from its hinges and it was hanging from the padlock.

  “She’s not here. The police took her away a while ago.”

  Athon started to close the door, but Hank bulldozed his way inside. “Any food in this dump? Anything to drink?”

  Athon could smell his breath and backed away to escape the disgusting smell. “Nothin’ here,” she said.

  Hank’s hand dropped to his crotch and he scratched the area slowly. Athon closed her eyes and resisted the urge to throw up.

  “What about you, girl? Got any money?” he growled.

  “Do I look like I have any money?” Athon snapped.

  Hank’s hand flew out and slapped her. She tripped over something in the floor behind her and landed hard on her butt. “Don’t get smart with me, kid. Where’s your mama?”

  “I told you the cops took her away. There ain’t nothin’ here for you,” she repeated.

  He leered down at her. “Shelly always done her best work on her back,” he said. “How about you?”

  Athon ground her teeth together. “Touch me and I’ll kill you,” she threatened.

  He reached down and grabbed her by her t-shirt and jerked her to her feet, shoving her roughly into the trailer wall. As soon as she got her feet under her, Hank swung his arm and backhanded her hard enough to knock her down again. Instinctively she rebounded and lowered her shoulder. She charged at him, filled with uncontrollable fury, and buried her shoulder into his soft belly, knocking the air from his lungs. He grabbed the corner of the kitchen counter and managed to land a blow to her side with his steel-toed biker boots. Her hands went to her torso, leaving her open to his attack. His fist landed solidly on the side of her face and she dropped to her knees.

  “You ain’t got what it takes, kid,” he said.

  She winced as Hank grabbed her arm and yanked her onto wobbly feet. He twisted her arm behind her and shoved it hard up her back. She cried out when she felt her shoulder pop as he slammed her against the wall with enough force to crack the cheap, fake wood paneling. He spun her around and smacked her in the face again, opening the cut over her eye from the fight at school the previous week. He finally released her and delivered a crushing upper cut that lifted her off her feet. She didn’t remember landing on the trashy floor or hearing Hank as he tore up the trailer searching for anything of value before leaving her bleeding and unconscious on the trailer floor.

  DARKNESS GREETED ATHON as she groaned and half rolled onto her side. She brought her hand to her face and carefully felt the swelling over her eye that refused to allow her left eye to open completely. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt stabbing pain shoot across her ribcage. She took as deep a breath as her ribs allowed and panted as she struggled onto her knees. When she tried to use her arms to stand, pain ripped through her left shoulder and she gasped. Using the counter, she rose to her feet and staggered against the countertop. She felt her way along the wall into the small bathroom and brought handfuls of cold water to her face, patting it dry with a towel that hung from the shower rod. She straightened her clothing and slowly made her way to the now gaping entry door. She looked around to make sure Hank was gone before taking the duffle and duct-taped backpack in her right hand. She stepped carefully down the flimsy steps to begin her search for a place to spend the night.

  Chapter Eight

  Duvalle, Texas October 1987

  THE RUMBLING SOUND of thunder and distant flashes of lightning brought Athon’s attention back to the present. She stopped to look around and could smell the heavy scent of ozone in the air. She was within about a mile and a half of Carver High School and needed to find shelter before the rain came. She increased her pace as much as she could, dragging the duffle and backpack behind her until she rounded a curve on the Fairfield Highway and saw a promising place off to her right. A six-foot chain link fence enclosed what looked like a junk yard. She followed the perimeter of the property until she located an opening. Her luck ran out as she entered the property the same time large, heavy drops of rain struck her head. She didn’t see anyone around and ducked into the shadows. There were dozens of rusted out cars littering the property, but none of them provided much protection from the rain that had begun falling in sheets, causing her feet to slip in the mud. She tripped over something sticking out of the ground and went down hard, landing on her injured shoulder. White dots of varying sizes bounced around like pin balls behind her tightly closed eyelids as she tried to swallow back a scream of pain. She crawled to her knees and leaned her head back trying to take in a deeper breath, but the attempt only caused the pain across her ribs to increase. She pulled her arm up and worked it into the waist of her pants so it wouldn’t move and cause more pain.

  She was ready to give up and drown in a rain-soaked mud hole when she saw an old cab-over camper near the back property line. The top part rested on another old vehicle. She used what little strength she had left to stand and stumbled toward it. She ran her hand over her face as rivulets of water streamed over her eyes and pressed in the mechanism on the rusting screened door. She winced at the loud screeching sound of metal grinding against metal when she pulled the door open. She lifted her bags inside one at a time before crawling in behind them. She shivered uncontrollably from the cold wet clothes now glued to her body. Her shoulder throbbed with each shiver.

  Flashes of lightning lit up the inside of the camper. It seemed to be in decent shape for something left out in the elements for God knew how long. She didn’t know if the roof leaked from years of neglect, but saw an old mattress in the over-the-cab sleeping area. She forced her body up and pulled it to the floor. Layers of dust, nearly thick enough to choke her, flew up when she fell onto it. She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a coughing spasm. Despite the dust, the mattress wasn’t any worse than what she’d been sleeping on, she thought. At least it didn’t smell like piss. She was exhausted and within minutes the eyelid over her uninjured eye began drooping. She heard the heavy rain pelting the t
op of the aluminum camper and felt the gusts of wind that rocked it gently, lulling her to sleep.

  BRIGHT LIGHT STABBED through her eyelids and pain shot through the area around her eye. The memory of the beating she’d taken from Hank Dailey came back to her and she tried to curl her aching body into as small a ball as possible. She flinched and yelped when a large hand touched her injured shoulder. Drops of water struck her face and dribbled down her neck. She panted in shallow breaths when the hand shook her and tried to roll her onto her back.

  “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. Just let me see how bad you’re hurt" a deep, rumbling voice said. “Grit your teeth and you’ll be safe soon. Bridget! Call an ambulance!” the voice called out. ,

  “No,” Athon managed. She heard heavy breathing as another person joined them.

  “I told you I saw someone out here,” a woman's voice said.

  A hand stroked her head and Athon looked around wildly with her good eye. Although her vision was blurry she made out two faces. An older man with gray hair and at least a three day growth of stubble on his face leaned over her. What Athon saw in his eyes was concern and kindness. The second face was that of a woman in her early thirties holding a large umbrella and dressed in a nightgown that fell to her knees.

  “Get me a blanket or somethin’,” the old man said. “She’s freezin’.”

  “That eye’s not lookin’ real good,” the woman commented as she opened a compartment and dragged out a ragged old quilt.

  “This shoulder is at least partially dislocated,” the old man muttered as he carefully ran his big hand over it.

  The woman stepped around Athon’s body and knelt down behind her. She gently lifted Athon’s head into her lap and covered her with the quilt. They heard the sound of a siren in the distance.