“You helped Dave?”
“Of course!”
A Frito-Lay truck is what had forced Charles off the road, into the guardrail and jackknifing through the air, his brain slamming against his skull even before he’d hit the ground. The doctor with the wine-colored birthmark on her neck had said all the broken bones and internal bleeding were nothing compared with what the soft meat of his brain had gone through, that even if he’d been wearing a helmet it was almost guaranteed he’d have the same brain injuries. Charles had tried to pass the truck. None of it was anyone’s fault, not the truck driver’s or the fuckers who built the guardrail. No one to blame, no one to ride up on.
“But you hurt people before,” she said now. Her throat felt small, like it did when she was sick, like it had room for breath or words but not both.
“I don’t remember,” Charles said. He scooted again, put his heavy warm hands on her knees. New Charles would do that, touch her or Dave out of nowhere. The affection of a child, only since he was a man it always made Baby Girl uncomfortable. His face was oily, she could see the blackheads between his eyebrows, could see a nose hair hanging loose from his nostril. His eyes looked like they did when he was drunk, watery and bloodshot and far away, and though they were looking right into hers, they were as soulful as marbles.
Baby Girl moved her knees but his hands stayed with them, she knew he could probably feel how she no longer shaved her legs, and she was embarrassed. She had always wanted to be a baby sister he worried about, someone pretty and dumb and lusted after, not the pale, lumpy thing she was. His hands were moist, so hot they were sweating, and his breath was sharp. After their parents had died he had become a man. After Charles had his accident she had become the man. It made her flush with rage, the unfairness of it all, the mourning that never fucking stopped.
“I killed a man. I pushed him into the quarry and he died.” Now her face was wet and hot, she tried to move her knees again and this time he let her, his mouth open, lower lip hanging, wet with drool. “I wanted to shoot him,” she said, though she had never fully realized that until just this moment. She would have. She would have pulled the trigger. She would have gone further than Charles ever had.
“I don’t like these stories,” Charles said. He didn’t bother wiping the drool and it hung from his chin before dropping into his lap.
“It’s not a story,” Baby Girl said. “I did it. I had your gun.” If she could say what she had done, if she could make it real for him, maybe she could catch him up to her. Maybe that was the gap that needed the bridge.
“My gun?” He stood again, his chair toppling softly into a pile of clothes. “You killed a man?” He pushed her, hard, but she held her ground, refusing to fall back. She grabbed the lamp, yanking the cord from the wall. Held it close to her body, stood to face him.
“Calm down, Charles,” she said. “Shh.”
“You have to tell,” Charles said. He was standing so close to her that she had to hold her head back so it wouldn’t be smashed into his chest. “You have to tell!”
He was getting loud again, and this time she heard Dave call, “Everything all right back there?” She knew he’d be making his way back any second now.
Charles covered his ears, something he did when he was about to blow. The doctors said his ears would ring when he was stressed for the rest of his life. “You can’t just leave him there,” Charles said. “He can hear the cars going by and no one is coming to help him.” She knew he was talking about himself now. It made her feel sick, knowing he remembered lying there on the road in pain, alone. He kicked her hard in the leg. Without thinking, she brought the lamp up and around, cracking him on the cheek. He looked at her, stunned, like his ears had finally stopped ringing.
A spot of blood appeared on his cheek, a glossy dark pill. “What in God’s name, Dayna!” Dave had appeared, was holding her by the arms and dragging her out of the room. Charles bent over, wailing, crying so hard that he could barely breathe. The top of his ass was out, his mouth open, crying like a toddler, he was a fucking retard, he was a retarded mess who would never be okay again. She ran from the sound of Charles screaming and Dave trying to soothe him, out the front door to her car. I’m sorry. Little bitch. Cunt. Suck my dick. Charles’s brain would never heal, Jamey would never climb out of that quarry. Perry would never have half the worries Baby Girl had. Little bitch. Charles hadn’t been who she thought he was. Neither had Jamey. Or Perry. She wouldn’t be like that. She would be who she was. She would say what she did.
JIM HAD DRIVEN TO THE SCHOOL, circled its empty parking lot until a guard in a golf cart rambled over. No, he hadn’t seen Perry since school let out, and he’d have known it ’cause she was quite the looker, and Jim wondered about ramming the cart with the truck, wondered was every man just a penis he had to protect Perry from, wondered if Perry was used to it, just assumed every man on earth was looking for a way to shove himself in. “No,” the guard said, he hadn’t run into a man fitting Jamey’s description. “No, strange perverts aren’t allowed on school grounds,” he said, chuckling with pride. “Do me a favor,” Jim said, trying to keep his voice even. “Do me a favor and get ready for me to come back here and hit you directly in your face.” The guard looked insulted, but not like it was something he hadn’t heard before, and drove off with a jerk.
Jim had called Jamey’s parole officer after that, a woman who sounded like she had a lot bigger fish to fry. Another line rang on and on in the background as she told Jim she hadn’t heard from Jamey in a few days, maybe even a week or more, but that wasn’t unusual since he was only required to check in every two weeks. Did she know Jamey had been on Facebook? Did she know he’d been talking to teenaged girls? Of course she didn’t know that. That was strictly forbidden, Jamey’s momma was supposed to monitor his Internet usage, promised he’d only be on there to look at the news or look up a recipe.
Jim didn’t know exactly why he didn’t tell the P.O. he couldn’t find his stepdaughter, who just happened to be one of the teenaged girls Jamey had been talking to. Maybe ’cause then it’d be real, Perry’d be missing, raped, tortured, dead. The thought made him angrier at Perry than he’d ever been before.
“Tell you what,” the P.O. said. “You get me proof, concrete evidence that our man’s been stepping out, and I’ll be on him like a whore on a dollar.”
He’d gone to a few bars, bars he knew ex-cons liked to hang out at, but these were the types of ex-cons who would eat a man like Jamey for dinner, eat his hat for dessert. Now Jim was simply driving from bus stop to bus stop. Cell phone like a hot brick in his hand. Should call the guys he knew were off-duty, see if they could be out looking too, call the cops, report her missing, call Myra. Had decided to call the P.O. back and be honest when he saw her, waiting at the number 6 transfer, sitting on the bench with her ankles together like it was any old day and she was any old teenager.
She was crying, mascara wet on her cheeks, her blouse was rumpled, her mouth looked smeared. She looked more like her momma than ever. Now he really would kill Jamey, he didn’t even know he’d been considering it. He’d kill him, and he’d confess to avoid the death penalty. Neat as that.
He stopped in front of the bench. He’d been going fast and had to stomp the brake, the truck screaming. Cars behind him blew their horns, swerved around him.
“Hey,” Perry said.
SHE STEPPED INTO THE TRUCK, Jim yanking her by the arm until she nearly fell into his lap.
“Where is he?” Jim’s voice was low and mean.
“Who?” Perry asked. She thought of Travis, how he’d closed the door in her face, how his stuff was dried on her leg, how she smelled like sex and sweat, she smelled like the women in the jail.
“Tell me where Jamey is,” Jim said. “Tell me right goddamned now.”
It was like his name could stop time, could stop her heart beating, it felt like her heart and lungs were trying to work despite her quicksand blood. “Jamey?” she repeated.
“What did Baby Girl tell you?” Perry asked. Jim was driving toward home, speeding through stop signs and running yellows. Who was waiting there for her? Baby Girl? The police?
“She told me everything,” Jim said. “She told me every little last bit. So you better tell me your side.”
IT HAD WORKED. Lying to Perry had worked, only she didn’t tell him the story he was expecting to hear. He could smell the sickly sweet odor of sex on her, had been waiting for her to say she’d given in, or he’d forced her, or she wasn’t quite sure what had happened but she’d gotten away. But instead.
“Baby Girl pushed him,” Perry said. “I didn’t touch him. We were trying to get him to leave us alone. He tried to get the gun and Baby Girl wasn’t about to let him, and now he’s at the bottom of the quarry. Dead,” she added.
“The gun?” They were pulling into the trailer park now, the streetlamps dull yellow against the black sky.
“That’s at the bottom of the quarry, too.”
The trailers were lit up against the night, each window its own TV screen, here a show about a woman at the stove, here a show about a little boy in a cape. This was home, no place for a man like Jamey, no place for a drunk like Myra, no place for a murderer like Perry. No, not a murderer. An accessory to. They passed Jamey’s trailer, the lights on but the curtains drawn, a lumpy shadow moving slowly, the TV on, not doing shit to find her son outside the confines of the trailer park. An accessory to, just as bad if not worse. Perry let it happen, didn’t bother to stop it. He had planned on killing the man himself. No place for a man like Jim, either.
JIM’S HEADLIGHTS swept through the trailer, caught in Myra’s eyes so two yellow dots bounced around the room everywhere she looked. She fetched Dayna a glass of water, Jim and Perry walking in just as Myra was bringing it to where the girl sat.
Myra saw that Perry had been crying. She felt how she often did in the face of her child’s tears. On one side of the coin, poor thing. On the other, tough shit.
“Her daddy dropped her by,” Myra said.
“Uncle,” Dayna said.
“Says she needed to see you.”
Perry walked over and slapped her friend, her hand landing hard on the girl’s naked ear, and Myra felt pride in it, felt pride in the sureness of the hit, even as she stood to pull the girls apart, though Dayna wasn’t making no move to hit back. Myra smiled, God help her, she smiled, the coin had flipped end over end and had landed right side up.
BABY GIRL HADN’T SEEN PERRY in days, but she looked different, like it had been years. Her face was gray and her hair was limp. Pretty Perry, Power Crotch Perry. Now here she was looking as old as Myra. Jamey stood behind her, soaking wet, his eyes burning into Baby Girl.
“Dayna didn’t do nothing,” Jim was saying. Baby Girl’s ear rung, a warmth was spreading from the back of her head to her face, but it was a girly hit, not nothing to bring anyone to her knees.
“She didn’t tell me about Jamey,” Jim said. “You did.”
Baby Girl was beginning to understand. Jim thought Perry was mad at her for snitching. But Perry had already told Jim about the quarry, it was clear, his face the color of dough. So that took care of phase one of her plan.
“We gotta make this right,” she began.
“Told you what?” Myra asked.
BABY GIRL WASN’T WEARING HER LIP LINER, her lips thick and white. Her whole head was turning red, like invisible hands were choking her. A ghost’s hands. Jamey.
“Make it right?” Perry’s voice was whiny, even that was out of her control now. “We? I didn’t do anything. You’re the obsessed freak who brought the gun, you’re the one who pushed him over the edge.”
“No,” Baby Girl said. “I didn’t push him. He fell. And you’re the one who didn’t want to try to help him.” Baby Girl was shaking her head like a wet dog. This had been her best friend. Nights on the highway in stolen cars, passing cigarettes back and forth. How? Perry wondered. This ugly thing?
“You pushed him,” Perry said. “It was too late for us to do anything to help him.” Perry felt wild with wanting Myra and Jim to know the truth: She hadn’t killed anyone. It hadn’t been her fault.
“We have to go in after him,” Baby Girl said.
“What?” They all said it at once. Like some family out of a sitcom. Like some family.
BABY GIRL KNEW it wouldn’t go over easy. Knew she’d have to be persuasive. Dangle a blood-soaked cutlet in front of old Baby Girl’s nose. So she pulled out the knife, Charles’s favorite knife because of the way it glinted, the one she had to hide from him under the box of crackers on a shelf way up high.
In the car on the way to Perry’s she’d rolled her window down. Let the air and the smells come in. A baptism of exhaust or some shit. Dave would be proud of her, and so would Charles. Eye for an eye.
“What?” Perry, Myra, and Jim, all at once. Like actors in the kind of shit program Charles would watch.
“We’re going in after him, Perry.” Baby Girl held the knife out like it was a sword. Aimed at all of them. “We’ll jump in and get him out and bring him to wherever you bring someone you murdered.” She walked toward Perry, holding the knife like a finger pointing her out. “We’ll say what we did.”
She could see the way Myra was looking at Jim, like, Pull your gun, dumbass, and Jim’s hand was curling, his arm bending, he was definitely reaching for it.
THE GUN WAS IN THE TRUCK. In its holster under the front seat. Jim had put it there when he’d set out to find Perry. Had forgotten it in his rush to get her inside. Dayna’s hand was shaking but her grip was strong. He didn’t think she wanted to hurt no one but knew she would if he came near. He kept going for the gun, though, all muscle memory, maybe she’d think he had it on him, maybe she’d put down the knife, maybe she’d calm down when he told her he wasn’t about to have either of them confess to anyone.
The doorbell rang, and he flinched, hard enough to be embarrassed if he’d done it in front of the guys at the jail.
MYRA COULD SEE JAMEY’S MOTHER out the screen door, holding her cane at her side.
“My boy served his time,” the woman said. “And I want you to hand him over.”
“Jesus Christ,” Myra started to say, but the woman raised her stake, and Myra got a better look at it, not a cane at all, actually. It was a gun, though Myra couldn’t tell if it was the BB gun Jamey had with him that first night, the night she’d met Pete, or a real gun.
“Those are just BBs,” Myra said, flapping her hand to dismiss it all. She wanted everyone to believe it, even Lulu. “My daddy used to shoot the stray cats up with BBs back home. Not one of them seemed to give a damn aside from a limp or a busted tail. Go on and shoot.”
The woman did, one-armed, the other arm bracing her on the stair railing. The whole screen came away, Myra watching the pane fall in and land on the dingy old rag rug she’d had at the front door forever and a day. Those weren’t no BBs. This was a shotgun, Myra almost shouted it. A shotgun! Like she’d gotten the answer right on some game show. The woman shot again.
IT WAS A RELIEF, the sting that soon became a second kind of skin, skin that was all open nerves and pain and blood. Pain was a relief. It let her drop the knife, it let her go to her knees, it let her forgive them for looking at her like a dying dog instead of the human girl she was. That explosion was a bullet? Two bullets. Like they were trying to nail her shirt good and snug to her chest. Her head still intact, though. She’d be all right. She’d have done her eye for an eye without ever setting foot in that quarry. Jamey backed out the door, backed right through his momma. Ha-ha, there never was no Jamey, she always knew that. I’ve been shot! is what people said on TV. Funny thing to say when it’s so obvious. Her blood like burbling warm mud. She wondered could she pop out the bullets from her chest like you popped a zit. Charles would know. He’d pop it for her. Charles was her brother, Dave was her uncle, she ha
d people. “Shit, she’s all white,” she heard someone say, though it sounded like a like a like a robot, the voice all buzz. Myra’s lips were moving, must have been her. Perry had her mouth open, wide enough to be screaming, though Baby Girl couldn’t hear no screaming. What was wrong with her ears? She was wrong. Perry was still pretty. Perry would always be pretty. She wished she’d stabbed her a little with the knife. I’ma get mine. Why weren’t they calling someone? She was sinking, kind of. The floor was opening up, kind of. She was wrong, those bullets weren’t no joke. She lay down. Better. Hey, she tried to say. That fat thing was Jamey’s momma? Poor Jamey, she thought, the highway empty before her, the sky a navy quilt. She pushed down on the gas. She was on her way to Charles, had to get him before that balloon got too swole. She’d save him. She’d become him. His gun his knife his bald head, only she’d go further than he ever had, ’cause this was her car. It was her car this time.
Acknowledgments
I began as a poet, pretended to write a novel in grad school, then found my home in flash fiction. Being granted the opportunity to write this novel is a gift I can never adequately repay, and I am in debt to the following wonderful people:
Emily Bell, bravest editor, who believed in me before I ever wrote the first word in this book.
Jim Rutman, who read a tiny sliver and still wanted to be my agent.
Sarah Rose Etter, an amazing friend and writer whose feedback and support made me feel less afraid.
Zach Dodson, because it all started with you, bro.
Matt Trupia, who talked me off the ledge many times.
Brian and Traci Knudson and Chad Chmielowicz, who let me take the time I needed away from work in order to focus on my writing.
My parents, whose love of reading and writing made me who I am, and who love me despite the fact that I don’t write about baskets of puppies or happy birthday parties.
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