Natural Bridges

by Debbie Lynn McCampbell

  Beside him was a girl, blond too, and she was wearing one of those Indian cotton, strapless sundresses that showed off her tan. They both smiled at me as I walked past, their eyes shaded by dark sunglasses. Another girl sat in the backseat.

  I felt my face flush. For the first time in the four years I’d been helping out at Clem’s, I was conscious and ashamed of my navy coverall uniform. Suddenly, my tire gauge seemed to extend out of my breast pocket like an antenna, my bright red name patch seemed to glow like a neon lamp, broadcasting to the world my worth, my identity, as an assistant service station attendant.

  “Hi, Fern,” said the driver, reading my patch. “A full tank of regular would be fine.”

  “Do you have a map?” asked the girl hovering over his lap, breasts tight against her dress.

  “We sell them inside,” I said. “Dollar for Kentucky, dollar-fifty for U.S. and Canada.”

  “We’re looking for Transylvania, it’s a college in Lexington,” said the girl.

  “I know what it is,” I said, pumping gas. “I’ve been to their library. You’re not too far from there, about another forty-five minutes heading northwest. Stay on 11 until you get to 402.”

  “Say,” said the girl, “is there anything around here to do?”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Well, like touristy stuff,” she said, grinning. “We’re from Orlando, Florida, and we have Disney and all; is there something like that here?”

  I put the gas nozzle back in place and came around to the front of the jeep. She looked younger than him, pretty and comfortable with herself, a perfect fit for the little bucket seat she slid around in while she spoke.

  “There’s a sky-lift ride at the Natural Bridge, then there’s the Daniel Boone National Forest up north of Stanton,” I offered.

  “What is there to see at Natural Bridge?” she asked.

  “A bridge,” I said.

  The guy looked at her, then back at me.

  “I know that. I guess what I meant is what does it look like? I mean, does it look like a real bridge?” she asked.

  I thought of going inside the station to see if maybe we had a postcard of it that I could give her. Instead I closed my eyes and said, “It’s a road that connects two mountains. Pretty up there at the top with the trees and all, and lots of blackberries growing. It looks like God punched a hole in the earth, then changed his mind and tried to fix it up and disguise the damage by using a lot of extra garnish.”

  I opened my eyes. The guy was still smiling; the girl stared at me. I turned around to see Clem walking out towards us.

  “How are they paying?” he called.

  “Cash,” said the guy. “I don’t think I carry a credit card for Clem’s,” he added.

  I thought for a second he was being smart-aleck, but the look on his face was kind, not condescending.

  “Cash,” I yelled back.

  Clem disappeared inside again.

  “Is that your dad?” asked the girl.

  “No,” I said. “Why?”

  “Oh, I just figured it was, you know how a lot of you country people help out with your fathers’ business. My best friend back at home sometimes helps her father, with typing. He’s a lawyer with a big firm.”

  “A big firm what?” I asked, wincing, regretting it seconds later, but she was annoying me.

  She frowned.

  “Is there a hotel nearby?” asked the girl from the backseat. She had a short haircut, cropped around her ears, the same color as the guy’s hair. She smiled at me as I bent down through the car window to talk to her.

  “There’s tons of them in Lexington,” I said. “You’re almost there. Then there’s a motel in Stanton which is closer, but it’s probably not your style.”

  “What about around here?” asked the guy. “It might be nice to stay somewhere in the country like this. Get some fresh air, away from the city.” He looked at the girl next to him. “I’ll be starting school there soon enough, might be nice to relax, do some fishing.”

  “I’m not interested in fishing,” said the girl next to him.

  “Oh, come on, it’d be fun,” said the girl in the back.

  The guy turned back to me. “Any lakes or rivers around here?” He seemed genuinely interested.

  “Sure, there’s the Red River Gorge, and there’s a lodge you can stay in up at the state park. But if you’re planning to do some serious fishing, you ought to just find a pond or creek around here off the road somewhere.”

  “You fish?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He smiled, lifted his sunglasses. His eyes were crystal blue, almost silvery like spring water. “You know a spot?” He handed me the gas money, and our hands brushed. I felt dizzy all of a sudden.

  “We’re not staying in this little town,” the girl in the front said.

  The guy looked uncomfortable with his companion. “Maybe just one day,” he said to her, then looked back at me. “If we stay here, I’ll come back through for some pointers. You can tell me what to use for bait.”

  Then he winked.

  My chest burned; the back of my knees felt tight. I felt stupid, like I was back in a schoolyard, staring at the gym teacher. “Fine.” I looked away. “Still want a map?”

  “No, I’ll just follow your advice. Stay on 11. Thanks,” he said, “we’ll see you, Fern.”

  The girl in the backseat waved.

  I watched them drive off, went back inside the station, and sat down on one of the customer waiting chairs.

  “Where were they heading?” asked Clem, his head down.

  “Lexington,” I said, “to Transylvania.”

  “College kids,” said Clem, cracking open a roll of quarters on the cash tray.

  “Yeah,” I said, “just passing through.”

  9. Garden of Esther

  And Ester said, “A foe and an enemy! The wicked Haman!” Then Haman was in terror before the king and the queen. And the king rose from the feast and went into the palace garden; but Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Ester; for he saw that evil was determined against him …”

  Ester 7:6–7

  The sirens and the yelling had made Grandma nervous, and now she sat trembling on the edge of her bed. Birdie sat cross-legged on the desk by the window, unclogging a Dristan spray bottle with a bobbypin.

  I had been closing the cash drawer and adding up the totals when I had got Birdie’s call. Grandma Trapper Feezer’s house was just around the bend from Clem’s, so it had only taken me a few minutes to run up there.

  Daddy owned her little house, and she’d lived there ever since Elmer, her second husband, who none of us were ever allowed to call “Grandpa,” died.

  Daddy had been making a little extra income from the folks who were renting the house before Grandma’d moved in, but Momma had insisted on moving Grandma into it since it was closer by than where she had been living in Stanton, so we could keep an eye out for her. Grandma’d left the gas on on the stove in her old house more than once, practiced little to no caution with cutlery, and carelessly mixed cleaning products.

  After several moments of silence, Grandma spoke. “Birdie, now I don’t want you to be mad at your old grandma over this.” She took a breath and faced away. “You neither, Fern. I had no way of knowing that freak out there was your Daddy.”

  Evidently, Daddy had been standing in her garden, masked and solvent protected, spraying herbicide at the fence. A poison ivy vine had rooted at the gate, flourished, climbed, and extended to a height of greatness on the door of the toolshed he’d built in back of her house. He had been meaning for quite some time to come down and take care of it. Grandma’d spied him and reported a trespasser wearing a disguise, killing her pole beans.

  Birdie wouldn’t look up at Grandma.

  “Fern’s here,” said Grandma, “so when your Momma comes home from the grocery with the car, they can go down there and fix this mess up. Don’t you worry.”

  “Here you go.” Birdie han
ded the Dristan to Grandma, still not looking her in the eye. “Three squirts; tilt your head way back.”

  “I just couldn’t make out, through the kitchen curtains, who he was.” Grandma sniffed hard at the bottle. “He was shouting and carrying on something awful through the mask.”

  “He’s got a temper, and you set him off,” I said.

  “Well, he had no business being out there. And I told you I was sorry.”

  “He owns this house,” Birdie challenged.

  “That don’t give him the right to go killing my garden plants.”

  “Did he get your Burpees?” I asked.

  “No, they got him in time. Just my beans.”

  A car door slammed out front and Birdie stood up on the desk to see out.

  “Who’s out there now?” asked Grandma. “They bring him on back?”

  “No, it’s Momma,” said Birdie. “And she’s carrying in a Crock-Pot.”

  “Then stop sassing me and bring me my slippers.”

  Birdie ran to open the door for Momma. As she lumbered up the front steps, heading towards the kitchen, the floor shook on its cinder blocks. The doctor had put her on a strict low-salt diet the first of the year, but she ignored it. As she passed by me, I smelled ham hocks.

  “Grab the cord,” Momma said, “I’m liable to trip. Hope the peas didn’t stick. Aunt Hazel called in the middle of everything and I had to run out and help push-start that car again so she could get on to work. Your Daddy’s told her time after time she should just fix up that old Dodge they keep parked down at Peaceful.”

  “Smells like cigarettes,” said Birdie.

  “What, the ham?”

  “No, that Dodge.”

  “Well, it runs fine, and the staff told her she could drive it.” Momma sat down, huffed. “Why is your Daddy’s truck parked out front here?”

  “He was spraying that poison ivy,” said Birdie.

  I plugged the cord to the pot in the wall over the sink and sat down with Momma at the table.

  “He’s been saying he’s had to get to that. Dern thing is growing over the shed. Where’s he now?”

  “At the jail.” Grandma, in spite of her vexing arthritis, had managed to shuffle to the kitchen, robed and slippered, in time to confess. “And,” she added boldly, “you and Fern’ve got to get back in the car and get down there.”

  Momma, not even looking up from thumbnailing out a Maxwell House coupon for decaf from an old newspaper, said, “Mother, stop talking your nonsense and go wash your hands to eat.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” said Birdie. “She didn’t know it was Daddy in his mask and expressed charges for trespassing and some other misty meaner.”

  “Assault,” I said.

  “What in the Sam Hill are you two talking about?” asked Momma.

  “Police locked his hands together and took him,” said Birdie, glaring at Grandma. “I was on the swing set.”

  It was another two and a half hours before we got Daddy home for supper. We left Birdie to eat with Grandma and called Hazel at work to tell her not to walk over to Arby’s on her break but to stay near a phone. It had taken us twenty minutes to find the key to Daddy’s file cabinet where he kept the house papers, almost an hour to get through the Lexington rush hour traffic, and then another ten minutes just to find parking at the jailhouse. The officer on duty spent five minutes looking over the deed, made two phone calls, ordered his secretary to bring us some coffee, decaf if there was any, and to type up a dismissal for Daddy.

  “I’ll give her a week,” said Daddy, lifting his knife to cut some fat away from his slice of ham. “We can put her in that home where Hazel works. It’s close enough Birdie could go by and visit after school.”

  Momma huffed. “Raymond, you can’t go and evict a seventy-seven-year-old woman. She didn’t realize what she was doing, you just had her scared you were some maniac. Pass me some more peas; I was worried they’d burnt and stuck.”

  I passed Momma the peas.

  “I mean what I say.” Daddy chewed, swallowed. “We’ll call her down here in the morning to discuss it. Have Hazel come over after church. We’ll all sit down and make the arrangements.”

  “Oh, now, Raymond, don’t be so hardheaded. You’re just mad, and you have a right to be, but she’s sorry. Now forget about it,” said Momma.

  “No, she’s going in that old-age home,” said Daddy.

  I felt my stomach tense up and didn’t feel like eating. I looked at the empty seat next to me. If Florabelle’d been there, she would’ve spoke up and said something. She would have taken a stand for Grandma, not just for Grandma’s sake, but to argue with Daddy and stir up some more trouble. She’d only been gone for two days, and already things seemed different. There was no one there to balance the good and the bad.

  Momma sucked gristle from a tooth.

  I looked at Birdie, who had also stopped eating and looked about ready to cry.

  Daddy looked at all of us. He put his fork down too, cast his napkin down in a tight fold on the table, scuffed back his chair. “One week,” he said. Then he looked at Birdie. “Why don’t you go on upstairs and practice your math tables?”

  Birdie took a breath, chasing off the sobs. “School don’t start for three more weeks.”

  “Well, now you don’t want to get behind the eight ball, do you?” asked Daddy.

  Birdie, frowning down at her plate, rose to leave. “She said she was sorry. Said she prayed for you while you was in jail.”

  “That’s enough,” said Daddy. He scuffled his chair, threatening.

  “Birdie,” said Momma, “bring your math problems back down here to Fern when you’re done with them.”

  As soon as Birdie left, I got up and started clearing the table. Momma went to the hall closet, got out the ironing board, and set it up in the living room. Whenever we were nervous, we’d start cleaning, it seemed. We worked in silence. Daddy went over to the couch, lay down, and spread open the newspaper, scanning the headlines.

  When I finished cleaning the kitchen, I brought up a load of clean shirts from the basement for Momma, and sat down in the rocking chair to read. I was reading a mystery novel and was halfway through it, wasn’t really liking it, but I wanted to distract myself from the tension in the house.

  Momma turned on the burst-of-steam button. We sat and listened to water bubbling in the iron. The hiss reminded me of the sound the demons make that Reverend Whitaker had on a cassette he once played for us in a revival. The sound annoyed me, but I kept on reading. Daddy snapped his paper.

  Momma looked up. “They’re your work shirts,” she said, folding two sleeves together.

  Daddy peered over his paper. “I didn’t say word one.”

  Moments later, Momma steamblasted a collar. “What do you plan on telling Hazel and the rest of my family?”

  “I said we’ll discuss it tomorrow,” said Daddy, this time not looking up.

  “She ain’t going to like the idea of living up there one bit,” said Momma.

  “We’ll drive her up there tomorrow, let her take a look at it, walk around the grounds, check it out herself. We’ll ask about contracts, health plans, insurance. I’ll see what kind of benefits there are down at the plant.”

  Whenever Daddy took this authoritative tone, Momma would lose her battle and sulk. I looked up at her. She looked tired, worn. Even though she didn’t have a job, she worked twelve hours a day just keeping up the place. She liked taking care of us, even though she complained a lot, but she considered it her assignment. The way she looked at it, she was put here to make sacrifices to see we were happy. She, out of a sense of duty, took care of Grandma too. I knew she was worried now.

  “I think I’ll go up and help Birdie,” I said, closing my own book.

  Momma looked up at me from her ironing; she seemed helpless. “Try to talk to her,” she said. “Let her call Grandma and check on her, but tell her not to say anything about all this.”

  I nodded.

&nb
sp; “Tomorrow,” said Daddy, looking at me. “Be down here.”

  I knew by his tone he was counting on me to convince everyone that his decision was the best, the only option. He always expected this of me, to back him in his authority, to lobby his position. His government, our family.

  When I opened Birdie’s bedroom door, I really did expect to see her going through her equation flashcards. But instead, she was sprawled out on the floor with Polaroids of Florabelle’s wedding spread before her. Because that photographer from Lexington had got so drunk at the reception, she’d dropped the camera, causing the film to roll out on the dance floor, and it got trampled. All we were able to get in the way of wedding pictures were some Polaroid shots Aunt Hazel had taken, which for the most part were too dark and blurred. Nevertheless, Birdie had collected the few decent photos there were and was sorting through them.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Making Florabelle a wedding album for a going-away present.”

  The fact that a “going-away” gift was already two days late did not matter to Birdie. She worked intently.

  “Do you want to call Grandma?” I asked. “Momma said we could. To check on her.”

  Birdie abandoned her project and followed me down the hall to the wall phone.

  It was several rings before Grandma picked up. Birdie, standing on a footstool to reach the phone, drummed the wall with her little fingers as she waited for her to answer. I pressed my ear next to Birdie’s to listen.

  “You okay now?” she asked

  “Uh-huh,” said Grandma.

  “Stopped that wheezing?” asked Birdie.

  “I took another Advil.”

  “Any trouble getting the bottle open?”

  “No, I managed.” Grandma hesitated. “Is he still mad?”

  I nudged Birdie, warning.