Desperation Road(4)
Maben counted and there were nine more trucks in the lot.
Nine times thirty. Two hundred and seventy dollars.
Nine times fifty would be four hundred and fifty.
She looked across the room at the thirty dollars wadded up on the table next to the television.
She had done it before and she hadn’t thought about it in a long time, forcing herself to remove it from her memory. And as she thought about it now she felt as if it had been someone else. She had done so well forgetting it that she couldn’t remember when it had been done and where it had been done or how many times it had been done but only that it had been done in a time when she had been backed into some dark and desperate corner by the rabid dogs of life.
She watched the trucks and wondered if those girls were old enough to drive. Wondered where they came from. Wondered if those men had ever once considered that those girls hadn’t long ago been children. Or still were. Or maybe they never had been because they’d never had the chance. She looked at Annalee and realized what might await her if things didn’t turn around and then she took a deep breath and looked back across the lot and then there was the vision of that night so many years ago. And that boy. That beautiful boy. Them sitting together on the tailgate parked on Walker’s Bridge. Underneath ran the water of Shimmer Creek and alongside the creek and surrounding the bridge stood thick forest, the trees holding the bridge close, almost protecting it. The truck filling up the width of the bridge, its wooden rails leaning and rotting. Declarations of love long gone carved into the wood with pocketknives and bottle openers. The moon full and its light giving shadows through the trees and creating the illusion of an army of still ghosts lying in wait. The stars were many and beneath the music coming from the radio the crickets and frogs formed an abstract chorus over the trickle of the running water and she knew it was right. Knew he was right. So she told him to crawl up into the truck bed and lay down. Don’t ask just lay down and don’t look up and he obeyed and then she stood and she moved away from the truck bed and walked to the edge of the bridge. Don’t peek, she said. She looked up into the sky for reassurance then she took off her T-shirt and removed her bra and stepped out of her shorts and her panties. She knelt and piled her clothes in a loose stack on the edge of the bridge. She stood and a chill ran over her body but she opened her arms and felt the moonlight and it held her like a pair of warm hands. She looked into the truck bed at the boy who had been telling her that he loved her. And she started toward him but then the dark was interrupted by the hum of an approaching car and the glow of headlights appeared over the hill, headlights that came fast, exposing themselves in two bright bursts before she could call out to him, before she had time to pick up her clothes and the car never slowed down. And she heard herself scream out to him as she hurried off the narrow bridge and onto the side of the road and she turned around in time to see the car meet the front of the truck. She ducked with the roar of the crash and Jason’s tall and lean body was shot out of the truck bed and into the night as if he were meant to fly. The sparks and the screech and sound of twisting metal and running down that rough road toward the nearest house light. Breathing hard and running harder but feeling as if she were going nowhere, as if the house light were moving away from her as she ran toward it with her clothes tucked under her arm and forgetting she was naked until she finally ran into the yard and she stopped to put on her shorts and shirt. She left her bra and panties next to the front steps and she beat on the door and beat on the door, certain they would think they were being attacked or robbed and she began screaming out words like bridge and cars and help and please God until a light came on inside and the door opened and a man with gray hair peeked at her and believed that something was horribly wrong. And then getting in the car with him and driving down the road while his wife called somebody. Maben unable to answer his questions, only focusing ahead into the dark with anxious eyes and wanting Jason to be standing there as the headlights shined onto the bridge. She wanted to see him standing there wiping the dirt from his face and arms and saying damn that was close. But then seeing nothing and calling out and hearing nothing and then watching while the blue lights and the red lights topped the hill and then watching while the flashlights shined into the woods at the twisted and smoking heap of car and truck and then hearing them say we got a live one and telling herself it’s him it’s him it’s got to be him and then it was the other one. The one that interrupted.
Through the haze of the years the night came back to her with clarity and punch as she stared with empty eyes across the parking lot. A car horn sounded and shook her loose and she turned and walked over and sat down at the edge of the bed and put her hand on the child’s leg and watched her small chest rise and fall in a heavy sleep.
It wouldn’t take long, she thought. It never had before. At least the way she remembered it. They never took long. Fifty dollars. No less. Maybe forty. The child was sleeping like the dead and would never know she was gone. She stood and put the room key in her pocket and she walked over to the sink and brushed her hair that hung limp against her head. She pushed it around with her fingers but nothing changed and then she wiped her eyes with a washrag and she kept telling herself that they didn’t take long. They never take long.
4
SON OF A BITCH,” NED SAID AS HE LOOKED OVER THE TOP OF THE GLASSES on the end of his nose. He sat at the end of the counter with a cup of coffee and the newspaper he had been waiting all day to read. The floor had been swept like he had asked and the dishes had all been washed like he had asked and there was only one table of customers. Three old women smoking and working crossword puzzles. He had only glanced at the front page headlines when he noticed the two girls walking across the parking lot. One white. One black. The same two he’d had to call in before.