Ruby River

by Lynn Pruett

  Here no one could reach me. I felt as dried and battered as the broom straw, forlorn, as it hung, prey for rats, a home for parasites. In the past, I merely had to endure to survive. It had been a matter of getting out of bed every day and fixing breakfast and washing clothes. Any tragedy could be got over by doing housework. You saw dirt, you knew what to do with it. But now, the mundane did not give me strength or keep my mind off failure. My daughters finding danger at every whipstitch. The corroded faces of driven truckers, the shriek and echo of silverware in the ever-needy truck stop. The shrill refrain of the righteous letter writers—a woman’s place is in the home, the Bible tells us so. In the purple-gray gloom hung a scythe, a half-moon curve among limp feed sacks and spiderwebs. The air in the closed shed fit like a soft blanket. Soon TV cameras would arrive to humiliate me all across the Smokies. Imagine their shock when they could not find me. I turned the key.

  The engine groaned and clicked off. I tried again and pressed on the gas pedal. The chrome on the dashboard reflected, like a dancing flame, the red engine light. Patience. I had driven the car only once in the past year. This time the engine caught but died before I stepped on the pedal. There was a tick to listen for. I cranked the key and stomped the gas three more times before screaming. I beat the steering wheel and mashed the pedal to the floor, then turned the engine on. It sputtered. “You damn car! Come on! Come on and start!”

  As my shouts rebounded from the tin roof, I got weak and quiet. Even his car refused to help. Because I had betrayed him last night with Paul Dodd?

  Oakley had always cut through my fears with the right note. He would know what to do with a girl accused of prostitution. He had known what to do about a girl pregnant at fourteen. He was right then about Heather and Jessamine. But now I was alone with this same girl who could not corral her sex drive, this girl who expected me to fix her biggest mistakes for her.

  Oakley would say, Let her hang in the wind. She is twenty-one, and while you are her mother you must not be dragged down by it. If I were there, I would not allow it. I would send her out into the world and let her learn to be responsible.

  But Oakley, I cannot do that.

  Then you will suffer.

  I am her mother.

  But her suffering is not your suffering.

  She is a passionate girl and I do not want her to lose passion in the face of the mundane.

  Cut the cord, Hattie. Cut the cord.

  You are not here. You do not see her face every morning, full of promise and need.

  Then you decide.

  Just like that, I was alone again. There were dark shapes in the shed and layers of dust. He had come. And Paul Dodd had not mattered. I wondered who the man in my head was, whose voice that knew more than I did. It was a voice I’d relied on ever since Oakley had gone to the VA, but now I was startled by the thought that I had made him up. That I was him, and he me. I could barely command my arms to open the door. My knees wobbled as I staggered down the hill toward the large white sign proclaiming free ice cream.

  JESSAMINE BOHANNON

  I cooked all morning in Gert’s place. At first I enjoyed cracking the eggs and watching them sizzle while I stirred them into a soft yellow color. But after four hours of it, I was bored and sweating so much I felt slick as if I’d been dipped in raw egg white. When Mama came in to spell me at the grill, I was glad to go waitress. She said she wanted me front and center today. There was a march on the truck stop and I was to make sure I went out and faced the music, whatever that meant. She looked pretty bad, as if she’d been down on her knees with her head in an oven scrubbing a year’s worth of charred grease, and it was only lunchtime.

  A trucker whose behind was the biggest I’d ever seen on a two-legged animal sat on a stool at the counter. He wiped his head with a red bandanna and called out, “Hattie, Hattie!”

  Mama’s face was visible through the window behind the counter. Her hair stuck through her net like tufts of brown grass. She shouted back, “Tohee Hornsby! What a surprise. I thought you’d retired.”

  She didn’t say or died, which we had all heard.

  Tohee shrugged. “I retired from retirement. The TV couldn’t hold my attention like the changing landscape does. No time to think, watching TV.”

  I could not help staring. He’d make five of me, easy.

  Mama cleared her throat so I took Tohee’s order. It took two tickets.

  He said, “I won’t be needing the salad, honey. I’m not out for a gourmet experience. I want a meal.”

  I nodded, then lied. “But I grew the lettuce myself.” Mama and Darla and Heather worked the garden. Sometimes I weeded it, but only to get a tan.

  “Ah, jeez, okay.” Tohee sucked on a Coke.

  I clipped the salad ticket to the front of the order wheel and kept moving the second ticket back a clip every time I passed it. If he’d eat a salad first, it’d knock out his appetite. Anybody could see he needed to go on a diet right away. This, I decided, would be my first good deed for mankind. I’d been thinking about Ash Lee’s idea of going to church, which was impossible for me, living with Mama. My stomach never seemed to calm down, not since I saw Ann Reynolds and especially not since I danced with Sheriff Dodd.

  Deep in conversation, Gee and Haw rested their gnarled elbows on the counter. They clinked their cups until I stood in front of them.

  “The end of the world is coming,” Haw said.

  “Sooner for some of us than for others,” I said, and tapped my pen against the order pad. They could take all day before they got around to ordering anything.

  “I didn’t think I’d outlive the time before this civilization perished,” said Gee. “Unnatural things have come about.”

  “No kidding,” I said. Out the window I could see the picketers slog into the parking lot.

  “It’s the end of the world,” Haw said.

  “No, it’s not. That’s just some wacko fringe out there. Mama’s place is going to survive. We’ll be open all day and even tomorrow,” I said.

  “Miss, we got a clear sign.” Gee jabbed at the newspaper next to his elbow. It was from last March. The paper was upside down from my point of view but the lead story was the election, the national primary and county offices up for grabs, which simply meant there was no need to change the cushions in the courthouse. Paul Dodd was still sheriff.

  Gee pushed it to Haw. “I just can’t look.”

  Haw opened it to the page that listed the vote results in small print. “There.” His finger hovered over the result of one race.

  I squinted.

  “It says that colored man running for president got support in our county.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day when everything got tumped over in Maridoches.” Gee shoved at his teeth.

  “He only got one vote,” I said, watching the slow motion out the window. The women moved in a circle, their signs tilted to make shade for themselves. I could not read what the signs said.

  “Yep. And we’re fixing to find out who done it,” said Gee.

  “I remember the glory days of voting,” said Haw. “It was the biggest horse race day of the year. We’d ride to the polls in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama and vote in ever’ one.”

  “Are you going to order any food?” I said.

  They sat back as if slapped. “Young people are too selfish these days. You don’t know your history.”

  “I take that as a no,” I said. I hated the small-talk part of waitress­ing. It’s what Connie does better than the rest of us, thank God. I went into the kitchen and came back carrying an enormous blue bowl piled high with oak and red leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and carrot curls. I held the bowl out to Tohee, the wet leaves catching light, a vision of health and spring.

  “Pickup! Pickup!” Mama slapped the Formica.

  I put the bowl down and raced to the window. I ran from one end of the counter to the other putting down plates of fried ham, fries, barbecue, donuts, and greens and picking up dirty plates
so fast their clanging sounded like the Hobart dishwasher in mid-cycle. Tohee’s order came up. I carried it slowly to him, both my arms loaded with plates. I laid them out like a long train, starting with fried chicken and ending with chocolate pie, a foot of food winding behind the other customers’ drinks.

  When I’d put the last plate down, I heard Tohee call out. I could taste a ridge of sweat on my upper lip.

  “I’d like a large glass of Coke,” he said.

  I frowned at him.

  “Diet.”

  I filled the plastic cup and put it down in front of him.

  H reached for a straw, broke its seal, and dropped it in the cold drink. “Here, it’s for you. On me.”

  “Thanks,” I said. It tasted great. Mama would yell at me for making him an extra-big salad, but good deeds often inspired opposition.

  Tohee ate the whole salad, quietly resisting the bottle of French dressing within reach. When he finished, he cleared his throat, commanding the attention of all the truckers in the room. He held up his left hand. “See this ring?”

  I could barely make out a tiny thread of gold wedged between two fatty pads of skin.

  Tohee continued, “When I can slip this ring off my finger, I’m going to marry that little gal right there because she cares about a man.”

  I dropped the empty salad plate, which vibrated like a mocking drum roll, and bolted through the kitchen out the back door. My face was hot. I cringed. He’d crush me flat. The sun blinded me, and I felt for the steamy concrete wall outside. I could not lean against it. Even in the shade it burned. I was doing Tohee a favor and what he thought of was getting me in the sack. Couldn’t I be nice to a man without him thinking I wanted to screw him? Am I a walking dick magnet? Mama would blame me, Gert would blame me, everybody would blame me. I breathed out and felt tears rush from my eyes. I missed Richard.

  He had not called me or come by. It was as if we had never shared love. It didn’t seem possible it could just end like that. I wiped my eyes and stood in the sun. This heat reached to my core. My arms shook as I thought of Richard’s betrayal, of his blue blue eyes, the way we moved together, his hands on the small of my back. I turned so my back was roasted too. This is what I was reduced to, asking the sun to touch my body, getting marriage proposals from freaks, living with a jagged hole in my stomach.

  When I was dry, no sweat or tears left, I opened my eyes and heard the faint sound of chanting. I walked along the edge of the building, my warm pants clinging to my thighs.

  Out front, a TV news camera was filming a tall beautiful woman. Her hair, black as a crow’s, glistened with deep purple highlights. From its center a white streak rose like a feather. Behind her, the sky was ice blue. Heat lifted off my skin. I held my breath. I could not hear her words but a strange feeling grew inside me. She was cool and hot at once. She was the kind of woman I wanted to be. I had to know her.

  THE LADIES OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY RESURRECTION

  The women were sweat-drenched. Frozen yogurt had fewer calories than ice cream. Free. They’d probably sweated off tons of weight. Where was Reverend Peterson? Who wanted to look like a wilted rutabaga on TV? Gert Geurin had so much to haul, what with her weight. Go ahead, Gert, eat some ice cream. You look like you’re about to keel over. She broke rank. Hordes of children descended on Troy Clyde.

  As the midnight-blue Cadillac drove soundlessly into the parking lot, the wave of picketers parted. Stelle Peterson stepped out of the car, her eyes perfectly dry, her lipstick in place, not a speck of red dust on her black heels. The local TV cameras placed her against the soft clouds, giving her height and focus. She spoke clearly on virtue and vice. The cameras swung to the marchers, who ducked away, ashamed of the stains under their arms and their dripping faces. The children had won. One mother had taken a lick off a child’s cone “so it wouldn’t drip and make his hand sticky,” and then the ladies cooled off with scoops of banana and lime and icicle blue. The cameras did not miss this detail.

  Only Pudge Polk avoided the free cold treats. The only sweet she ever ate was sliced lemon sprinkled with Sweet’ n Low. Her teeth were white as a porcelain sink. She spoke loudly, but in vain: The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words. Stelle Peterson did not offer her a ride down to her car.

  Hattie Bohannon was called out from the kitchen. Stelle slipped back inside the airconditioned Cadillac, its idle an irritating grate on the ears of the marchers. Hattie Bohannon looked like them, her hair falling out of place, her face moist and pink, a wet ring on her back and water beads clinging to her neck. She simply thanked them for making the trek on such a hot day.

  HATTIE BOHANNON

  Hattie took a seat behind the refrigeration cart and watched the largest crowd she’d had since opening day disappear into red dusty clouds. They hadn’t spent a cent.

  “I believe, sister,” said Troy Clyde, “that you have won this battle.”

  “What good are battles if you lose the war?”

  “My God! You better eat something sweet. Here, what’s this that’s left?” Troy Clyde opened an ice cream carton. “Mississippi Mud. Looks like horse shit in February.”

  The last straggler was Gert Geurin. They watched her amble off with a tub of ice cream under each arm. “A four-humped camel,” Troy Clyde said.

  “Gert saved us, you know,” said Hattie. “She took the first cone. If she hadn’t, I doubt anyone else would. She has pride in her work. I never knew that before.”

  “Hattie Annabelle, you sound wise in your own eyes,” said Troy Clyde.

  “Maybe I am,” she said. She walked around the back of the truck stop and found Darla emptying the trash can.

  “Where you been?” she asked.

  Darla’s face was flushed and she stunk of old sweat. “I went to Gadsden with Rudy last night. Nothing happened,” she said. “I should have called.”

  “Rudy,” said Hattie.

  “Don’t get on him. I made him take me,” said Darla. “We sure kicked butt today, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Hattie. She grabbed Darla in a quick hug, then pushed her away. “Go take a shower. You’ve been out in the sun too long.”

  Darla said, “I’m going to clean the bathrooms first.”

  “Fine,” said Hattie, as she opened the back door. The cool air of the office enveloped her like water from heaven. A smile grew on her face. She had won the battle. They don’t own me, she thought. They don’t own my soul. Or my body. Refreshed, she called the Maridoches Ledger and canceled her ad in the Bible Contest.

  She passed through the dining room where Jessamine was wiping down tables. Her daughter looked like an ordinary blond girl whose main physical attribute was her youth. She did not carry herself like a prostitute, adulterer, or mother. When did reputation’s invisible baggage transform a body? When would she shatter and conform to what others said she was?

  REVEREND MARTIN PETERSON

  In the car on their way to the march, Martin had decided it would be best if Stelle spoke to the television crew he had summoned. Having a woman speak about prostitution seemed right. Women would fall in behind her and husbands could go along with their wives because they had to. It was the southern way.

  Stelle had risen like a white column of smoke against the blue sky. Her linen dress flowed as she stood in a breeze no one else felt. The white stripe in her hair flicked like a flame against her black tresses. She was elegant. Martin wondered why God was tormenting him so with fantasies of lesser women. He was confounded by his dreams of Gert Geurin and of the bouncy breasts of the young truck-stop prostitute, and he’d even undressed Ann Reynolds in his mind.

  Stelle’s words were a simple modulation of Corinthian verses. The marchers were rapt and the cameraman’s lens never wavered from her. The reporter nudged him and the lens hastily scanned the crowd of sweaty women, his congregation.

  From the privacy of his darkened windows, Martin had watched the cart, hoping to glimpse a prostitute, either the
Bohannon girl or the woman from the fire. He looked away from Hattie’s irrepressible brother, who apparently had a very active sex life at home. Troy Clyde’s mother-in-law, Rhuhanna Polk Killian, was always seeking Martin’s counsel, worried for her daughter’s soul. Maybe he was given dreams to understand the mind of a depraved man, so he could minister to the needs of his congregation.

  Driving home, he felt elated. Nothing galvanized women more than the threat of another woman. It was survival instinct, perhaps. “The scripture signs were excellent,” Martin said to Stelle. “Our message will be broadcast loud and clear.”

  “I expect so,” said Stelle. “Did you see the young girls giving away the ice cream? They were Mrs. Bohannon’s daughters.”

  “Yes,” said Martin. “You can bet that free ice cream cost Mrs. Bohannon a pretty penny. To say nothing of keeping our folks fed. The Lord does provide for His own.”

  Stelle smoothed her hair back from her face. A tiny line of sweat glistened along her forehead. “Did you see the truck drivers? All grease and beards, muscle shirts and tattoos,” she said. “No wonder the poor girls are tempted.”

  Martin returned his eyes to the curves of Lily Springs Road. “Girls tempted by men?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  “Men who will pay them, Martin,” said Stelle. “Prostitution is a degrading business for women.”

  “Then we have done a service for the community and for Mrs. Bohannon’s girls today,” he said. “We will save those girls from a sordid life if we shut the place down.”

  “God willing,” said Stelle, and she reached over and laid her hand over his as he steered slowly and surely back to their home. Victory was God’s, theirs, his.