Hat Trick

by Morris Fenris

  Kit hated every one of them.

  They teased her unmercifully, they invaded the privacy of the tiny bedroom she shared with Amaryllis, they rummaged through her cherished collection of books and her few possessions. For years they had embarked upon a campaign of sly, deliberate torment: tripping her as she walked past, or pulling her hair, or pinning her arm behind her back. What one didn’t think of, another did.

  She had learned to ignore the ratty little monsters, and their nasty tricks, as much as possible. Complaining to the foster parents had no effect whatsoever, and her cries of pain or vows of revenge only merited further punishment from the boys.

  Lately, however, she had noticed Terry giving her sidelong glances, sometimes surreptitious, sometimes blatant. His gaze would slide creepily down over her narrow chest, then down still lower to the vee of her ragged shorts. Then he would grin. The mere stretching of his wide wet lips was not pleasant.

  Of the six children installed in those substandard quarters, only one could claim to be the natural progeny of Mona and Brian Mulray. Baby Amaryllis had been born long after the lucrative trade of fostering had begun. Terry had arrived first, three years ago, then Kit had been accepted; after that, in short order, came John, then the twins.

  The more, the merrier, was Mona’s occasional comment. What she meant was, each kid is worth a bundle of cash from the child services department. And with Kit to run the household, she could lounge around most of the day indulging in her favorite pastime: watching television, smoking, and swilling down whatever cheap hooch was available.

  “Hey, girl, get me a beer.”

  The master of the household had just arrived home, bringing with him another smell to add to the potpourri brewing in these crowded rooms: oil. Brian had worked as the manager of a local lube shop for the past few months, and he hated his job almost as much as Kit hated the boys. The shabby trailer held a rancid stew of discontent and ill feelings and crushed dreams.

  With Amaryllis happily playing with her toys on the floor, Kit had just barely dived back into her science book. Fascinating stuff, too, mixing this chemical with that chemical to see how the resultant combination would turn out. But she didn’t tarry in fishing two cold bottles from the dilapidated fridge.

  Taking too long to obey orders usually earned a casual backhanded slap.

  “Hey, baby.” Mona preened, pushing back her thin dishwater-blonde hair and straightening the 2XX tee shirt that reined in her bulges. She patted the worn-out cushion beside her in invitation. “You’re runnin’ a little late tonight. Want somethin’ to eat?”

  “Naw. Stopped with the boys and got a coupla burgers at the Dew Drop Inn. Food there is a damn sight better’n anything you could shovel my way here.”

  “Well, we do our best…” Mona pouted. For her, not an attractive look at all. “You had a rough day, didja?”

  Brian took a long pull before answering. His Adam’s apple bounced up and down with each swallow, and his scanty mustache wobbled. “Oh, these damn customers. Run their motors almost dry, then can’t figure out why there’s a problem. For two cents I’d chuck the whole thing and find me another job.”

  “Well, hey, then, whyncha do just that? We can get along for a while on what we make from the guv’ment. You got somethin’ else you’d rather work at?”

  Rolling the glass bottle up and down the pants leg of his jeans, to absorb the condensation, he pondered an answer.

  As if, thought Kit, listening with invisible scorn, this uneducated redneck had so many opportunities in the business world that he must fend off the proposals.

  “Kit!” Mona suddenly yelped. “Thought I toldja to call them boys back inside! It’s getting’ on t’ord dark.”

  “Yeah, that’s all we’d need,” agreed Brian sullenly, “is another visit from them do-gooders at the welfare office, wantin’ to know how these kids are bein’ treated. Hell. No wonder you been bounced from foster to foster, you miserable brat. Nobody wants to adopt your skinny ass.”

  To prove the depth of his unmitigated care and concern for this disparate group, he aimed a swat at Kit as she scurried past the couch on her way to the open front door.

  “Next time your ma tells you to do somethin’, girl, you damn well do it straight away. Got it?”

  She’s not my ma! Kit wanted to scream at him. But she didn’t dare. The one and only time she had tried that retort, during the first few days of her stay here, Brian had paddled her with the full force of one big flat hand and a ream of pent-up adult frustration. For a long time she had burned with both the discomfort and the indignity of that beating.

  They were waiting for her as she hastened down the steps and outdoors. One tossed a handful of loose sand in her face, another fired off several rubber bands at her thin bare legs. Jail-bait, every last one of them, Kit reflected bitterly, as she threw the most recent set of orders their way and escaped back inside.

  “I gotta get outa here, Ryllis,” she whispered to the sleeping baby when, much later, she was finally able to secret herself away in the only space allotted to her: a bedroom no bigger than a closet.

  “I can’t stand to be in this place any longer, and Terry—well, he just plain scares me to death.”

  She had cleaned up the kitchen as much as could be done when the six other human beings sharing quarters here took no pride in themselves or their surroundings. Despite her best efforts, dirty dishes sat everywhere, and dirty laundry lay piled on the furniture and the floor. The three younger boys had bedded down in the small third alcove, while Terry had taken his usual place on the lumpy and bumpy living room couch.

  After a quick bath for herself and Amaryllis, Kit had gotten her homework together, ready for school tomorrow, shoved a chair underneath the doorknob to block entrance into her room, and calmed her restless, stuttering heart enough to curl up beside the child.

  “I’ll miss you like crazy,” she admitted in the barest murmur. “But at least you rightfully belong to them. They won’t hurt you, or throw you aside, ’cause you’re their own blood. You’ll be safe. It’s the rest of us have to worry ’bout what’ll happen.”

  While it was true that this family with whom she had been forced to take up existence embodied the worst of human traits, their type of tenancy here at the Rocky Flats Mobile Home Community could be considered a rarity, rather than the norm. Most of the residents, Kit had discovered, were decent, law-abiding people who kept their property in mint condition and reached out to others as a friendly society should.

  Their next-door neighbor, for instance, a Mrs. Wilcox, had taken particular interest in Kit’s welfare from almost her first day of arrival. The neat, clean doublewide, secluded by its quiet atmosphere and shaded by rustling palms, drew the girl as a dream to which one could aspire. Mrs. Wilcox occasionally provided a healthy meal, a refuge from the squabbling Mulrays, and a support for school work and personal problems.

  Kit had recently pulled together her courage with both hands to approach with a reluctant plea: might she borrow some money?

  Mrs. Wilcox, a stout elderly woman with softly waved gray hair, had looked troubled. Gently she had tried to extract the reason for this request, with no success. Kit could be absolutely secretive when necessary, and keeping the reason for a loan confidential was definitely necessary.

  Finally Mrs. Wilcox had recognized a superior force in the art of obstinate negotiation. Very quietly, without another question, she had handed over an envelope of cash and coins, which Kit insisted, with overflowing heart that she would repay.

  It was now midnight. The witching hour.

  Snores reverberated throughout the trailer, testifying to the occupants’ sound slumber.

  During the past week, Kit had packed what pitifully few possessions she owned into her school backpack, along with a couple of favorite books and her borrowed horde of funds. She had checked bus schedules out of town, then purchased a ticket. She had written a note to Mrs. Wilcox, asking her to check in on Amaryllis.

>   Then, with a light kiss onto the baby’s flushed cheek, she gathered her things, slipped silently outside, and forever shook the dust of Phoenix from her feet.

  L.A. was the type of place almost anyone could get lost in, for almost any length of time. If, of course, their money didn’t run out.

  Which she was doing her damnedest to make sure didn’t happen to hers.

  It was a rough, tough, sprawling city, swarming with humanity of a hundred cultures and a hundred tongues, from one extreme to another. In some parts, around graffiti-riddled buildings, gang wars raged and bullets flew; in others, atop skyscrapers enclosed by glass and steel, businesses flourished, businesses folded, all for the cause of capitalism. And, in between, lay scattered the pockets of middle class suburbia: tile-roofed ranch homes, towering palms that rustled and swished, restaurants still styled as in the heyday of Hollywood, surfboarders and beachcombers and sunlovers.

  “Kitty, I’m all outa that flame red lipstick I like. You got any I can borrow?”

  “Flame red isn’t my color,” Kitty explained patiently, once again, to the ultrathin girl draped against the doorframe like a mannequin cut free from its strings. “I wear peach and rose. But you’re welcome to use one of those, if you like.”

  “Naw.” With a shrug, Lizette hitched at one black net stocking in an effort to hide the gaping tear on the side. “I’ll make do with blush. Or—” she brightened, “maybe onea the other girls has somethin’. Thanks anyway. You headin’ out soon?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  The words were spoken quietly, unemotionally, giving no hint of the pain and despair lying underneath what appeared to be a calm surface. Like a heavy weight wrapped around her heart, there to darken her every waking moment in this land of sunshine and hibiscus, to wrench away any possible hope for happiness. It had been thus for too many years to count, ever since the sudden death of her mother had sent her bouncing willy-nilly from foster home to foster home.

  Kitty had learned infinite patience and enduring stoicism in a hard school.

  She had also learned to deal with a great bitterness of spirit.

  The mills of God grind slowly, so went the saying, but they grind exceeding small.

  Someday, all those who had done her so much evil would be repaid. Somehow, all those who had hurt her, humiliated her, caused her physical and emotional pain, would themselves be similarly afflicted. Like Scarlet O’Hara, raising her fist toward the leaden sky with a vow she would never be hungry again, a Kitty Waring almost that impassioned would at some point be able to seek retribution.

  Someday.

  Somehow.

  Meanwhile, there was the rest of this long night to get through.

  Four of them shared living quarters in a cheap, rundown section of town. Four lost souls, too lost even to seek direction other than a blind, unconscious drive just to get through each day without adding more injury. Four ladies of the evening together, claiming safety in numbers. With their sisterhood, none felt the desire or the need for a pimp.

  At sixteen, Kitty was the youngest. Youngest, freshest, prettiest, with her flyaway blonde hair pulled back into a childish tail that kept slipping loose and bright blue eyes not yet jaded by life’s unfailing injustices. No squint lines or premature wrinkles induced by smoking; no dissipation due to overindulgence in Demon Rum; no track signs or needle marks caused from the drug of the day.

  Her profession, as given to any official demanding enough to ask, was exotic dancer. That meant slithering half-naked around a metal pole, under flickering colored lights, in tempo to ear-shattering so-called music, for a drunken male audience to leer at—and paw over, if given the chance.

  She had chosen the name Rosabelle for her fantasy character, and her costume began as the epitome of a sweet, frilly Southern girl, complete with hoop skirt and pantalettes. It ended with a barely-there tiny beaded corset and fringed thong. Even those were sometimes stripped away further, down to deliciously bobbling bare breasts and a G-string.

  The salary for such self-flagellation was substantial, as were the tips. But expenses added up in a hurry. There was not only the price tag of a wardrobe to consider, but also makeup, manicure and pedicure, waxing, and hair styling. Not to mention the shoes. Five or six inch stiletto heels, however enticing for spectators to view, cost the earth.

  Slim and athletic, she was able to endure a four or six hour shift more easily than some of the older women on stage. Even so, occasionally she wanted to do nothing more than crawl home and soak in a tub of hot water to relieve cramped, weary muscles.

  And then, of course, there was hooking on the side.

  Not that she could be actually considered a prostitute. The now-and-then date with a suitable affluent john caused her no heartache and took no skin off her nose. Men were good for one thing alone, and it wasn’t sex. It was the extra cash put into her pocket. And Kitty was all about the cash. In this uncertain, dangerous world, a girl could depend only on a hefty bank account; the heftier, the better.

  Too many men had paid, paid well, for the privilege of viewing her semi-nude body in all its contortions around the pole, and for the privilege of using her completely nude body in all its contortions upon smooth silk sheets.

  No matter. It was all the same: a means to an end. Someday she would be able to leave all this behind and pursue her true calling—that of an entrepreneur.

  Of course, on more than one level she had to be careful. The Teddy Bear Club threatened instant firing should any of the dancers be caught supplementing their income on the streets. Too many laws to be broken, too many undercover cops to evade.

  “Hey, dear friend of mine, can I borrow your red plastic vest? I need to jazz up my outfit a notch.”

  “Plastic?” Kitty, peering into her mirror to apply a dusting of brown shadow, emitted the low throaty chuckle that came so rarely. “Sure, go ahead, Del; it’s in the closet. But I’ll have you know that vest isn’t just some cheap vinyl piece. It’s the best quality fake leather you’ll ever find.”

  Delphinium, who was teased and painted and sprayed within a peacock’s inch of her life, nodded as she thrust one arm through a jangle of coat hangers only to emerge with the garment in question. “Uh-huh. I’ll just bet it is. Thanks, hon. Found me a new spot for tonight that I’m anxious to try out, and I wanna look my best.”

  “We all do!” Gigi caroled from the kitchen, where she was heating up some leftover take-out in the microwave. “Speakin’ of which, Kitty girl, can you spot me a twenty? Just till I can rake in some dough on the street?”

  In all the back-and-forth busy-ness of four females, confined within one small apartment, getting ready to go out, Kitty’s sigh of resignation was barely heard. “Sure. Give me a couple minutes to finish up.”

  Shadows lay like a purple bruise beneath her eyes. Determined to look her best—not for the clientele, who would be focused on those parts of her body far removed from facial features, but for her own pride in appearance—she searched for cover-up tinted to match skin color and set to work.

  Chin up, Kath. Remember what I taught you.

  Startled, Kitty jerked her gaze back to the mirror. Another reflection, overlaying her own, seemed to be looking out. With a nod, a wink, and hands clasped together overhead in victory stance.

  “Mac,” she whispered.

  And returned briefly in time to that momentous day of her escape from the feudal foster care system.

  He had rescued her. Liberated her. Redeemed her.

  Yet, in the end, he, too, had exploited her, like every other male of her acquaintance.

  Mackenzie Cutter, long-distance hauler and king of the roadway. In his province of the Southwestern section of the United States, anyway.

  He had delivered his trailer full of freight to one of the local big-box hardware stores, early that morning in Vegas, and, in taking the usual route past a bus terminal, was stopped at a traffic light when he spotted her.

  “Even from a distance, I could see there was
somethin’ special about you,” Mac was fond of recounting to her, every so often. “Skinny as you were, loaded down by a backpack, and scared to death. But full of spunk.”

  “I was only twelve,” she would remind him.

  “Yessirree, twelve goin’ on twenty, at the very least.”

  By the time he was able to pull his bright blue Kenworth off to the side and find a parking place, she was gone. But he had tracked her down. Rightly guessing that anyone just off the bus would be looking for a rest room and some snacks, he’d positioned himself in a convenient corner and then hailed her when she emerged from the ladies’.

  Even at so young an age, Kitty, hardened by her random upbringing, knew the facts of life. She knew what to expect, and probably how. She just wasn’t sure when. Spying the middle-aged man in his plaid shirt and jeans, and guessing his purpose, she could only hope he would be kind.

  He was.

  Mackenzie Cutter was in the process of shedding his third wife, like a snake sloughs off its outgrown skin. He was alone, and lonely. Ready for companionship. While they sat in a café wolfing down burgers and fries, at his invitation, he explained all this to Kitty. How far did she plan on traveling, and would she like to continue on to her destination in the comfort of his cab?

  Her destination became his, and they became inseparable.

  As it turned out, Kitty was unwittingly able to accomplish something Mac’s wives had never been able to do: settle him, with his globetrotting ways and itchy feet, in one place. That was a modest ranch home in The City of Angels, where, once they put down roots, he allowed himself the joys of domesticity. Her new quasi-guardian bought furniture, contracted for trucking jobs only in the nearby area, and registered Kitty in middle school. As her surrogate father, he proved his interest in her future by attendance at band concerts and class plays, science fairs and basketball games.

  On her fourteenth birthday, he took her into his bed.

  To give him some degree of credit, that feat was not due entirely to lust, or even propinquity. It was, actually, despite the difference in their ages, an act of love on his part; Mac had fallen headfirst for his young charge.