by Edward Lee
“Whuh-what it is, Balls?” Dicky inquired.
“It’s a colosteramy bag! I know ’cos my Uncle Nat had one. See, the docs give ya one’a these when ya cain’t shit out yer a-hole no more. They’se repipe yer guts to yer side an’ make a hole there an’ then they’se hook this plastic bag ta the hole so’s whenever ya et, yer shit comes out’n the bag.”
“Aw, shee-it, Balls,” Dicky moaned, closing his eyes. “Ya mean that’s what that there bag is fulla?”
“Shore is, Dicky, but we’se ain’t got no use fer the bag.” An’ with that, Balls ripped that disgustin’ brown-filt bag right offa that poor ol’ lady’s side, an’ then ya know what he did?
Balls dropped his pants again.
“What’cha—” Dicky gulped. “What’cha droppin’ trow fer, Balls?”
“Shee-it, Dicky. A nut’s a nut, ain’t it? Hail. I’se hard agin, so’s I’se gonna fuck me this ol’ lady’s colosteramy hole!”
Dicky, see, though he liked ta watch a good rompin’, he didn’t have no desire ta watch this. An’ when Balls were finished humpin’ that hole, he cracked the poor ol’ lady’s head open with his homemade jack till her brains were layin’ alls over the dirt, an’ then he grabbed that brown plastic bag an’ squirted its stinky contents right onta the brains. Just fer kicks.
So’s anyway, that’s the kinda fella Tritt “Balls” Conner were, an’ this is the type’a shennan-er-gans they did fer fun ’tween their hooch runs fer Clyde Nale. And—
“Well bless my soul!” Balls about shouted out just then in the passenger seat.
Aw, no, Dicky thought, ’cos he saw it too.
Standin’ there in the fine bright light’a day, there she was, a sweet-lookin’ li’l brunette with long slim legs an’ cutoff shorts an’ what looked ta be a fine set’a milkers strainin’ against her halter top. An’ she were standin’ there on the shoulder’a Tick Neck Road, smilin’ just pretty as you please, an’ stickin’ her thumb out.
“Hail,” Balls remarked. “Pull this jalopy over, Dicky. We’se gona give this gal a ride.”
(IV)
Jerrica didn’t quite know what to make of her passenger. Charity was very nice, a very pretty woman, and she seemed very introspective and intelligent. But—
Hmm, Jerrica thought at the Miata’s wheel.
There was something almost mysterious about her, resting anxiously behind the shy and introverted veneer. She’s thirty but she’s not married, doesn’t even have a boyfriend. This, of course, Jerrica Perry could scarcely conceive. Was she gay? Was she catholic or something?
“So, what exactly is it that you do?” Jerrica asked next. Interstate 199 had nearly run its course for them, the 23 exit should be coming along in just another twenty miles or so. “You work at University of Maryland?”
“I’m just an administration clerk,” Charity revealed, her sable curls roving in the breeze. “But I’m taking classes too.”
“Where did you go to high school? I went to Seaton.”
“I didn’t go to high school, I had to get a job once I got out of the orphanage.”
Orphanage. Shit, Jerrica, you sure know how to ask the wrong question! But at least she’d broken the proverbial ice. “I guess that was pretty hard, huh?”
“I made out better than most,” Charity admitted. “But the way the system works—well, it’s almost impossible to graduate from high school under those circumstances. It’s a different world. And once you turn eighteen, they kick you out, give you a hundred dollars, and say good luck. I worked three crummy jobs to make ends meet, took my G.E.D. through the state. But what happens to a lot of these kids, they put them out on the street, nowhere to go, next thing they know they’re being stabled by a pimp and they’re hooked on drugs. I was really fortunate.”
Jerrica tried to think of something appropriate to say, but all her mind came up with were sociology stats she’d read in her own newspaper. “Yeah, I was reading, right now this country’s got 800,000 orphans but only one-third of them even get a G.E.D. and get jobs. The rest either disappear or work the streets.”
“Right, and that’s the sad part. My aunt raised me, but the state took custody because she didn’t make enough money. I would’ve been better off staying with her, though, I’m certain of it.”
“I guess you miss your aunt, not seeing her for so long.”
“Yeah, well, kind of. It’s been twenty years, and after that much time, a person becomes only a vague memory. I mean, I still remember her—believe it or not, I still remember so much about home—but it’s so distant it doesn’t seem real. That’s why I’m a little bit nervous. I’m not sure what it’s going to be like seeing her again, and seeing Luntville.”
“Well, you’re certainly entitled to be nervous,” Jerrica offered, but she could imagine how phony that sounded. What did she know about the real world? Raised in Potomac by millionaire parents, private schools her whole life, a brand-new Z28 for her sixteenth birthday. I don’t know shit, she admitted.
“So what were you saying?” Charity asked next. “About this guy Micah?”
Wow. Not it was Jerrica’s turn. All at once, though, and considering Charity’s own confession, she felt remarkably open. “A real fox, thirty, good job—he works for a bio-engineering firm in Bethesda. A prime catch, for sure. And, well, he was dynamite in bed.”
Charity blushed slightly and obviously quickened to recover. “But didn’t you say that you were the one who broke off the engagement?”
Jerrica’s mind raced to figure it out. “I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I—I threw him out.”
“Why?”
More faltering. Be honest! she demanded of herself. And what did it matter? Charity was someone she’d just met and would probably never see again after this trip. Jerrica lit another Salem, set her teeth and blinked. “He caught me.”
“Caught you?”
“He caught me with two other guys. I was cheating on him.”
Charity’s face seemed to tint in confusion. “But I thought you just said he was—”
“Yeah, I know, I said he was dynamite in bed. It’s true. But…I guess I have a problem. I mean, I loved the guy, I still do. But I cheated on him right and left, and I’ve cheated on every boyfriend I’ve ever had. It was never about love, it was never about Micah not giving me what I needed. It was…something else. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a sex addict or something.”
“Maybe you should see a counselor,” Charity suggested.
Ordinarily, Jerrica would’ve fumed. But, for some reason, Charity saying it was different. “Micah suggested the same thing, he wanted me to go to Sex Addicts Anonymous or some shit, and I just couldn’t see myself sitting in the middle of that. And I’d been to some counselors for a while in the past, but I never got anything out of it.” Her thoughts backtracked then. Wait a minute… Is that what I am? A sex addict? It sounded so cliched, just another excuse of the modern age to pursue indulgence and recklessness. Nothing was weakness anymore; it was all a “disease”; alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, for Christ’s sake, eating too much. And sex too. Shit, in this day and age, even shoplifting was a disease! Jerrica couldn’t believe that, not even considering her own indiscretions.
And there’d been many.
She’d kept a tally, hadn’t she? Over five hundred since she’d lost her virginity at sixteen. Five hundred. And she was only twenty-eight. Obliquely, then, she tried to explain. “I don’t know what comes over me. When I’m with a man, it’s like I become a different person. I need… I need the sensation, the stimulation. At least I guess that’s what it is.” She’d read something once, in Cosmo, about how some people were “sensualists.” They craved the feelings administered by others. More excuses to exploit the human self. Jerrica didn’t believe it for a minute. But then…
She didn’t know what she believed.
And only then did she realize what she was saying in the first place. My God, her thoughts croaked. Charity was, essentially, a stranger,
and here Jerrica was telling her things of her utmost personal life. Well, maybe that was okay. A person needed to talk about things, to people who were safe. And that’s what Charity was: Safe.
But enough was enough; Jerrica’s mind raced like a rat in a maze, scurried for exit. She lit another Salem and changed the subject. “So how about some more about you?. You’ve already told me you’re not married and don’t have a boyfriend.”
Charity at once looked down at her lap. Not embarrassment, but puzzlement. Like Jerrica, Charity Walsh felt puzzled, not by the world and the people in it, but by her own self. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I’ve dated a lot of men—I like men—but…but, never in my life have I had more than one date with the same guy. I just don’t get it. I just can’t figure out what it is I’m doing wrong.”
“Hey, don’t blame yourself because things don’t turn out,” Jerrica assured. “Christ, I like men too, but I’ll be the first to tell you that they’re all assholes. But, I mean—I mean, did you…”
“Did I have sex with them on those first dates?” Charity blushed again. “Yes. Every time. But it just didn’t…work.”
Didn’t work. Even Jerrica, in her wild complexity, couldn’t quite get a handle on that. Maybe she’s a lousy lay, she considered. Maybe she doesn’t know how to give head… But these things, of course, she could never give voice to.
“Something just doesn’t work, just doesn’t happen, you know?” Charity went sheepishly on. “I don’t know what it is.”
This statement could be deciphered in innumerable ways. Did Charity mean orgasm? Did she mean chemistry? “Look,” she offered without speculating further. “I think what it all boils down to is finding the right guy. Maybe that’s our problem. We just haven’t found the right guy.”
Charity’s thin shoulders rose and fell.
Yeah, maybe that was it.
They veered off onto Route 23, the little red car whisking along the open country road, long fields passing them by. Right now they were dividing the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains; the world had changed over indeed, prolapsing from a domain of skyscrapers and smog to one of forestlines and scarecrows. For Jerrica it was strange but refreshing nonetheless. She couldn’t wait to write her article on Appalachian rural culture. This trip enthused her, but there was one thing ticking at the back of her mind…
How long can I go without—
She didn’t dare even finish the query.
“It’s so good to be back,” Charity said.
“What?”
“I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, but now that we’re getting back into the old hill country, I can see I made the right choice to come back. The people here are simple, and so is the life. But it’s so much more honest and real than where we come from.”
Jerrica thought about this, flicking yet another butt out the side. The engine purred, the car’s frame sucking down onto the blacktop through each winding turn. To either side came a blurred spread of beautiful sweeping green—the forests. And the air smelled so clean Jerrica thought she was getting high.
And Charity was the perfect riding mate. She knew the area, plus her aunt had the boarding house—they’d be all set up. She followed Charity’s coming directions, and within an hour, they passed a corroded green roadsign which read LUNTVILLE.
Luntville. Jerrica had known all along that that was where they were going. But the name sent a tick in her head just then. Something she’d read. “Hey, didn’t I read something in the papers a long time ago, about some convent or monastery near Luntville?”
“It was an abbey, I think,” Charity corrected. “But I really don’t know anything about it. You can ask my aunt, though.”
That’s right, it wasn’t the papers she read it in, it was her Nexus notes. There was some controversy, if Jerrica remembered correctly. Something about a hospice, dying priests. Hmmm. But before she could think any more on it, Charity declared, her finger pointing, “Turn here!”
Jerrica veered off. Yeah, yeah, Jerrica thought. Christ, they’d been on the road over ten hours. Were they ever going to get there?
“We’re here!” Charity said, her roundish face bright with exhilaration.
Jerrica slowed past the wood-post sign, then turned and idled up a long gravel road. At the end, an opening bloomed. And in the middle of the opening sat a beautiful stained-wood country inn, with a long wraparound porch, cedar shingles, and big bay windows, all nestled nicely in a plush, wooded dell. A high wood sign announced: ANNIE’S BOARDING HOUSE. $20 PER NIGHT. VACANCIES.
“This is it?” Jerrica asked. Her bright blond hair, finally, lowered against the breeze.
“This,” Charity said, “is it.”
— | — | —
THREE
(I)
“Aunt…Annie!” Charity exclaimed. She threw her arms up. The woman who’d come out onto the porch looked about sixty. Snow-white hair, attractive in spite of her age, a warm smile set into subtly weathered facial features. She was wearing a threadbare white summer dress and, quite proverbially, black workboots. Cool blue eyes seemed to fasten on them as they got out of the Miata.
The woman burst immediately into tears right there on the old porch.
Charity stood in time-jag. The world stopped. Everything she was looking at seemed to freeze, and suddenly she was looking at herself more than anything else. No, she hadn’t known at all how she felt about coming back, nor had she known how she’d feel about seeing Annie. Luntville, her aunt, this house—they were all the broken shards of her life, best left behind with everything else, the deeper things: her father’s death, her mother’s mental problems and eventual suicide, parents she’d never known, shadows. But now, as she stood amid this freeze frame of recollection, she knew at once that she’d done the right thing. The only thing, actually.
Coming back to Luntville would give Charity the chance to reconfront herself, refit the pieces of herself that had never quite found the right gap. There were a lot of pieces.
Charity, in sudden tears herself now, hugged her aunt on the front steps.
“My gracious, Charity,” Aunt Annie wept. “Seein’ you…is a gift from God.”
««—»»
“But you girls must be so tired,” Aunt Annie speculated, inviting them into the front parlor. “Such a long drive.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Jerrica said. “About ten hours.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Charity apologized, neglecting to introduce her travel-mate. “This is my friend, Jerrica Perry. She works for the big newspaper in Washington.”
“Very pleased ta meet you,” Annie said, offering her small, white hand. “A newsperson, is that it?”
“Not really,” Jerrica admitted. “I write for the Local section of the Post. I’m on the staff but I only get particular assignments. And that’s why this whole thing is so great, Charity and I driving up together.”
Aunt Annie paused, trying not to show her befuddlement. “I’m not quite sure what ya mean.”
Christ, Jerrica thought. I guess Charity didn’t even mention me. “Charity and I met in the classifieds. We both put in ads for a drive to the area. My newspaper contracted me to write a series of articles about rural areas in proximity to Washington, D.C. The first set will be about this area right here, between the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains.”
“I sounds like a wonderful opportunity fer a pretty young girl such as yerself, in your profession, I mean.”
Jerrica stalled minutely. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Ordinarily she would’ve been offended; she didn’t like her gender mentioned with regards to career. But then she took into consideration: She’s from a different world, a different society… “Yes, it is,” she responded, and actually it was. She’d been working for the paper since just after graduating Maryland, and this was the first quality field assignment she’d been given. She tried to liven up the conversation. “It’s an opportunity, all right, and the best part is—my boss is paying my whole way!�
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Aunt Annie’s head went slightly atilt. “Well, ya needn’t worry about room and board.” Then she patted Charity on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t dream of charging a friend of my little girl’s.”
“I appreciate your generosity,” Jerrica replied, but she couldn’t help but be stricken by the quick look on Charity’s face. This is a domestic Chinese fire drill, she thought. I better not even ask…
“It’s wonderful about all the signs,” Charity said then, finally relaxing back into the big cushions of the couch. “We saw them all along the interstates. ’Annie’s Boarding House,’ every twenty or thirty miles. They must’ve cost a fortune.”
“Well, they did,” Annie admitted, “and that’s just more of what we have to talk about.”But before Annie could continue, Charity cut in once more. “And the house itself—it looks terrific. It looks almost brand new.”
“Not ’xactly brand new,” Annie discretely chuckled. “But I did put a lot inta refurbishments. The McKully brothers—do you remember them? They did a wonderful job fixin’ up the place, and they did it for a song, considering the economy. And as for the roadsigns—they cost a lot, but they bring in the business, ’specially in the fall and spring.”
