by Edward Lee
She needed her article to be more than just frilly trimmings; she wanted to relate the society beneath the environment, and what better place could that be found than here? From here, The Crossroads, Jerrica could make the most superlative observations as to the beating heart of this rural neverland.
“Oh, God,” Charity whispered in a fret, grabbing Jerrica’s bare arm. “They’re…looking at us!”
“Calm down,” Jerrica consoled. But it was true. The second they’d entered, every eye in the place turned to them. Big men in overalls, workboots. Beer mugs paused midsip, talk paused midsentence. Old men, bent and racked by age, young men, broad-shouldered and virile—they were all different yet all crafted from the same arduous mold. The jukebox twanged on in some insipid hybrid of hard rock and C&W. Charity urged them toward the back booths, but Jerrica insisted on pulling up two seats at the bar.
A lean barkeep in suspenders and shortsleeved shirt traipsed toward them.
“Really, Jerrica!” Charity whispered fiercely as ever. “We shouldn’t be—”
“What’s kin I get ya, ladies?” the keep interrupted with a high, tweaky voice.
“Two Heinekens, please,” Jerrica requested.
The keeps eyes shot up. “Heineken? Heineken!” he exclaimed, pronouncing the word as hahn-a-kern. “This here’s a American bar, ladies. We don’t carries none’a that foreigner beer.”
“Oh, well in that case, two…Buds?”
The keep grinned through cracked teeth. “Comin’ right up.”
Charity remained sitting nervously on her stool, her hands worrying in her lap. “I feel ridiculous.”
Jerrica lit a Salem. “Why?”
“I mean, look at how I’m dressed compared to everyone else. Everyone else is wearing jeans.”
“Honestly, Charity. You worry about the silliest things. What difference does it make what you wear to a bar?”
“I just feel uncomfortable.” Charity lowered her voice. “And what about all these leering men?”
Jerrica looked around. “What leering men? You’re being paranoid. Nobody’s looking at us. Nobody’s leering. Sure, right when we walked in, everyone gave us a glance because they’ve never seen us before. Now they’re back minding their own business. Look.”
Charity sheepishly peered down the bar, then behind her. All the other patrons had returned to their conversations. Two men played pool, oblivious to them. “Thank God,” she whispered to herself.
Christ, Jerrica thought. No wonder she has problems keeping a man. No wonder they never call her back. Did Charity act this anxious everywhere she went? Jerrica, on the other hand, couldn’t have felt more engrossed. Amid the music, she could pick up bits of slanged talk. “Blammed plow hit a rock big as a water barrel, it did…” “So’s Jory tells me I’se a idjit fer buyin’ a D3 with a cast eye-urn engine block in the first place, says I shoulda buyed loominum. Shee-it…” “And when we’se opened that there silo—gawd almighty! Found ourselves three full acres’a grain gone all ta rot on account’a Roy never knowed he hadda leak in the blammed roof!” Two young women, dressed similarly to Jerrica, sat at a back booth, puffing cigarettes. “I’se tell ya, Joycie,” one related. “I’se tried real hard ta git my G.E.D., but whens the project bus come ’round, I were so shook up over Druck Watter cheatin’ on me, I couldn’t even pass the ’quivalency appler-kay-shun.” “Well, don’ts feel bad, hon, ’cos those crackers at the state wouldn’t let me ’ply fer foodstamps. Says I makes too much money workin’ at the sewin’ shop! Kin ya believes it?”
Yes, another world it was here. Simple in its truth, and so real in its lack of veneers. Real people with real problems, however unadorned. The typical bar in the city would be full of phony pseudo post-yuppies listening to The Cure and bragging about that new Lexus with the Nakamichi CD player and 12-speaker sound system, or lamenting that the condo fees just went up on the loft on Capitol Hill.
Billiard balls clacked. Darts ticked into cork boards. Then the juke changed songs: “Tar Water,” by Charlie Pickett.
Jerrica sat reflecting, sipping her beer. She couldn’t wait to get started on her article. There was so much to see, so much to write about…
“I haven’t had beer in ages,” Charity commented, breaking her anxious silence. “It’s pretty good.”
At least she was livening up finally. “See? I told you this place wouldn’t be so bad.” But Jerrica’s thoughts, then, began to stray a bit. Perhaps it was the alcohol. They’d be here for two weeks. Two weeks, she thought. That was plenty of time to write her article but—
Christ. Can I last?
It was a scary question, and one she’d asked herself before.
“Are you all right?” Charity asked.
Jerrica shook out of the sudden mental freeze. “Oh, yeah. I just…spaced out there for a minute.”
“Spaced out about what?”
Wow. What could she say? Oh, I was just wondering if I can go two weeks without getting laid? No, she couldn’t say that! Instead, she told a semi-lie. “I was just thinking about my article.”
“It must be exciting to write for such a big newspaper, and knowing that hundreds of thousands of people are reading your words.”
Indeed, it was exciting, but that part wore off quick. “You get used to it. Believe me, you’ll forget about that sort of thing real fast when you’ve got line editors and production editors and copy editors on your ass every day. Not to mention a boss who’s about as amiable as a mad dog. I can’t really complain, though. It’s a good career.”
Charity sipped more beer, loosening up now that she realized the big bad rednecks weren’t going to carry her off into the woods. “What are your goals, though, long range goals? What do you want to be doing in ten or twenty years?”
A tricky question. “Well, I don’t ever want to be an editor, and I sure don’t want to be in the management office.” She drew on the thought, lit another cigarette. “I want to be the best feature writer for the Washington Post. How’s that for modest ambition?” She laughed gently. “And I’ll be there one of these days, I know I will… What about you?”
“I don’t know,” Charity responded. “I’ve not very career-oriented, I guess. My job’s okay, and as long as I’m making enough money to pay my bills, I really don’t need anything more than that. I’d like to be an accountant, but— I guess I want more traditional things eventually.”
“Like what?”
“You know, marriage, children.”
Jerrica shrugged. That certainly wasn’t her own agenda, but she could easily respect it. “You’ll find the right guy eventually. I’m sure you will.”
Charity’s chin dropped to her palm. “That’s what worries me. I guess I probably will find the right guy, but when I do I’ll probably be too old to have children.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jerrica offered. “What’s the rush, anyway?”
“I’m thirty, Jerrica. Not exactly a spring chicken.”
Jerrica smiled, shook her head. “You’ve just got a case of the biological clock, Charity. Shit, women can safely have kids up to their early forties. That gives you over ten years to find Mr. Right.”
“That’s what worries me, too,” Charity gloomily continued. “I’ve got ten years, but in the last ten years, I’ve never even come close to having a relationship. Like what we were talking about on the drive up. Honest to God, I’ve never even been asked out by the same man twice.”
Jerrica’s brow raised unsuspectingly. That was a bit odd, and Charity didn’t seem the type to exaggerate. She seemed pleasant enough, and intelligent and thoughtful. A little timid, sure, and a little insecure, but traits such as those hardly made a woman anathema. And—
She’s certainly good-looking enough, Jerrica quickly considered now. Perhaps handsome was more fitting a description. Her face was pretty in a plain, unfrilled way, and though she might be described as large-framed, she certainly wasn’t overweight. A nice curvature, nice legs. And—Jerrica noted fully f
or the first time—a more than ample bosom riding tight in her dresstop. So ample, in fact, that Jerrica felt a bit envious. She couldn’t imagine a single reason why men wouldn’t take to her.
“It’s like anything,” she offered a simple aphorism. “Patience is a virtue. In order to get what you want out of life, you have to be patient.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Jerrica wished she had something more promising to say.
But the conversation had long since turned morose, so she got off it. “Excuse me?” she asked of the keep. “Could we have two more beers please?”
“Why shore!” the feisty keep replied.
“I’ll be right back,” Jerrica said. “Got to make use of the facilities, if you know what I mean.”
Charity smiled vaguely, nodding, as Jerrica hopped off her stool to search for the ladies’ room. At once, though, her earlier preoccupations reappeared. I’m a clinical sex addict, she reminded herself, and she knew she had been since her first orgasm at age fifteen. The teenage boy helping the pool man change the filter at her parent’s posh Potomac estate. She’d flirted with him all day in her bikini until he eventually goaded her behind the cedar pump shed. She could’ve sworn she’d come the instant his roughened fingers touched her sex. Then he’d promptly ruptured her hymen. The pain had been intense but momentary, soon overplayed by waves of pleasure even more intense. The pool boy had been the hook which would change her life. Since that day, sex and orgasm had grown to a pining, even hell-bent need. It wasn’t normal, she knew, to be so obsessed, but as hard as she’d tried, she could never help herself. The pining only grew worse over the years, to the extent that it destroyed genuine relationships, like Micah, for example. One man was never enough, not nearly enough. Like an alcoholic shaking for a drink, Jerrica Perry shook for sex. Masturbation proved a poor substitute; three times a day for the last decade, and it barely took the edge off her need. Many times she’d rush home after a sexual interlude—often after repeated coital orgasms—only to desperately retrieve her vibrator for what she thought of as her “nightcap.” Allaying herself, trying to sluff it off as merely being oversexed, had long since stopped working. After hundreds of men and thousands of acts of intercourse, Jerrica was no closer to controlling her desires than she was over a decade ago, while the sweaty pool boy humped into her aching virginity behind the pump shed…
And now, as she wended her way cross the bar, she caught herself discreetly eying the male patronage, as a man himself might eye centerfolds in Penthouse. The younger ones all brandished hard, exciting bodies, somehow made more exciting by unkempt hair, work-calloused hands, and the scent of a day’s work of perspiration. “Hi, boys,” she said, stepping between the billiard tables. All eyes immediately left the table and rose to Jerrica, her tanned legs and belly, her jutting breasts in the halter top. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”
A pause of speechlessness, then one overalled player finally spoke up, “Rat in there, hon,” pointing to a dark hall by the payphones.
“Thanks.” She could feel the eyes on her back as she proceeded, eyes like needy hands. She liked the simile. The two local girls in the booth glanced dourly at her as she passed, venom in their eyes, and then she arrived at the little hallway, transomed by a neon-red Miller High Life plaque. By the juke, more young, work-hardened men snuck glances at her body; several smiled. She smiled back, noticing the onlookers not as whole men but as parts: tapered backs, broadened chests and shoulders, toned biceps on sunburned arms. The hot visions nearly dizzied her. Would I really go to bed with any of these guys? she asked herself. The reply faltered, and perhaps so did her soul.
Of course I would…
“Christ, Jerrica, what is wrong with you?” she muttered subaudibly. FELLAS read a carved board on one door in the dim hallway. Then, GALS.
The bathroom was empty, cleaner than she would expect in a place like this. Cinderblock walls shined pale green from many counts of enamel. No, no! she thought, once in the stalls and sitting on the commode. Just seeing that crush of men left her tingling; she wanted to touch herself. I am not going to masturbate sitting on a toilet in a redneck bar! Get a hold of yourself!
Without thought, she scratched at her ring finger, then noticed the tan line. Micah’s engagement ring—she’d removed it earlier, putting it away in her little travel bag as effectively as she’d put him away. It reminded her of what Charity said, about wanting “traditional” things. Shit. The things Charity wanted the most were the same things Jerrica threw away on a regular basis. When she’d stashed the ring, though, she’d noticed the small bag of years-old cocaine stashed there too: a haunting reminder. She’d had a bad habit just out of college, but she’d kicked it, so at least that proved she could kick something. But she kept the cocaine around to prove her resolve, the way an alcoholic keeps an unopened bottle of scotch stowed, knowing he’ll never open it.
She sought more diversions as she urinated: the stall’s walls. Trace graffiti could be seen, scratched into the paint. CHAD AMBURGY CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL! one woman had scrawled. Another: LS & JS 4 EVR with a heart around it, and then a more recent X etched through it. And another, typical: MEN ARE PIGS!
But the diversions didn’t work. Jerrica felt flushed, winded by her own hot thoughts. She should’ve considered this before making the long trip. What am I going to do! The fever of her lust throbbed. Sweat began to trickle down her face. How am I going to last two weeks without getting laid!
Frustrated to madness, she grit her teeth and finished her business. But as she was pulling up her panties and cutoffs, she noticed a final graffito, scratched right in the middle of the stall door facing her. How could she not have noticed it?
The barely literate inscription read:
THE BIGHEAD’LL GET’CHA
IF YA DON’T
WATCH
OUT
— | — | —
SIX
(I)
Fer days now, The Bighead had been outa the Lower Woods, marchin’ ever onward through the thickets and forests, yes sir, ever onward an’ headin’ fer the Outside World. A’corse, he didn’t know where the Outside World was ’zactly, he just knowed it was somewhere. Grandpap had said so.
“I ain’t yer pappy,” the old man had told him so very long ago, just when The Bighead started to understant words. “Just calls me yer grandpap.”
The Bighead had no idee-er how old he hisself was; ’n’fact he didn’t really even have much of a understandin’ ’bout time. He knowed he’d been a l’il tike once, and then he growed big. It were Grandpap who’d raised him up there in the mud’n thatch shack deep in the Lower Woods, and it were Grandpap too who’d told him ’bout how he’d et his way out his mama’s cunt. Grandpap was a stinky, crinkly ol’ fella, who had but one normal arm. The other arm weren’t nothin’ but a li’l twig’a flesh with a finger hangin’ off it, an’ the finger moved! Grandpap said this were so on account of his own maw an’ paw was brother an’ sister, which Bighead didn’t quite understant. But Grandpap, over time, were the one who taught Bighead all he knowed, like words, an’ how ta git food, an’ how ta bust folks up, et their brains, fuck gals, an’ the likes. Grandpap were a fine ol’ man he was, and The Bighead had tears in his big lopsided eyes when Grandpap died last week. Bighead et Grandpap’s brains ’fore he buried him by the shack, ’cos he figured Grandpap woulda wanted him to, ta take all that knowler-edge inta hisself. And that’s when The Bighead started walkin’. Shore, Grandpaap had taught him lots, but Bighead knowed there were much more ta learn, and that learnin’ wouldn’t come ta him here in the Lower Woods where he’d been raised, no sir. That learnin’ could only come from the Outside World that Grandpap had talked about so often.
“People ain’t no good, Bighead,” Grandpap had told him shortly ’fore he died. “That’s why I’se chose to live out here in the Lower Woods, ta be aways from people. Don’t’cha trust no one, son, ’cos if ya do, they’ll’se screw ya over any way they’se can
shore’s shit. They’ll’se use ya, Bighead, an’ don’t’cha let ’em. If ya ever hear anythink I ever said, here this, son. Ya got ta fuck folks up ’fore they fuck you up.”
So’s it was with this in mind that The Bighead embarked, leavin’ Grandpap in the ground, leavin’ the shack, an’ leavin’ the Lower Woods ta embarks upon the Outside World. The Bighead hadda mission, ta fulfill all that Grandpap had told him…
««—»»
Two days passed and Bighead hadn’t come across no folks at all, not since that last gal he’d spunked up an’ brain-et. So’s he hadda et a groundhog and a coupla possums, oh, yeah, and a big fat hognose snake. He’d chopped off the snake’s head an’ tail with his handmade knife, an’ sucked the snake’s guts right outa the hole in the middle. It were good, snake guts. But sometimes he gots ta worryin’, likes maybe he should go back ta the Lower Woods, likes maybe he’d never find the Outside World. He didn’t even know the way, he didn’t! But he kept movin’ nonetheless, he did, almost likes he were bein’ guided by somethin’. The Bighead, a’corse, wouldn’t know what the word instinct meant, nor reminiscence. He just figgured it was Grandpap’s spirit smilin’ down on him from heaven, guidin’ him the proper way, ’fore Bighead just knowed in his heart that he’d find the Outside World ’ventually.
He wore what he’d always wore: the fine boots Grandpap had made fer him outa tanned deerhide, an’ his overalls that Grandpap had stitched up fer him outa canvas sacks, an’ the knife. It were a big knife, it were, which Grandpap had alsa made fer him outa shapin’ a long piece’a steel an’ stone-sharpenin’ it real sharp, and whittlin’ a real nice handle fer it outa cherrywood. The way Bighead seed it, he didn’t need nothin’ else.
