22
Real life.
This is real life. It is happening.
Kate checked the rearview mirror, then glanced over at the teenager leaning on the passenger’s door. They had crossed into North Carolina several minutes ago. The girl had been silent all those many, few minutes. On both sides of the road, pines held sentinel, oblivious to the insanity passing them by. It was after five, and the gray sky was darkening with the nearing of dusk. Kate turned on the headlights, but the girl shook her head and Kate turned them back off. The sleet on the road was slush now.
If ever there was a time that things shouldn’t be real life, this would be it. If ever there was a time for a quick and amazing rescue out of the wild blue yonder, by Arnold or Bruce or even one of those motorcycle guys from CHiPS, it was now.
In the back seat, Mistie was playing with a wrapper from several Tootsie Rolls. The girl had tossed them to her, and had laughed when Mistie had unwrapped all three and put all three in her mouth at once. Mistie didn’t seem bothered by the laughter. She didn’t look startled anymore by the presence of the teenager. She only seemed intent on consuming the rolls of chocolate.
In the fields between the forests, little houses had prepared for evening. Porch lights dotted doorways; shades had been drawn. Many of the homes were outlined in Christmas lights. Some small bushes were likewise decorated, and there were the expected plastic Nativities, and shiny reindeer loping motionlessly across lawns. Smoke curled from chimneys and stacks, rising just above the roofs and holding there in swirls of tainted ribbon, awaiting the next sleet or snow. In side-yard pens and corrals, horses and cows, coats sugar-coated in sleet, nosed through the remnants of hay bales and melting salt blocks, snuffling up the last before morning. Inside the doorway of one well-lit garage, two young men in heavy coats tinkered on a truck while a toddler stared out at the cold and at the white Volvo hissing by.
It was all real life.
None less so than the rest.
None less so than the gun in the girl’s lap, the gun that was trained on Kate’s ribs, the gun that had made a torment of the side of her jaw. No less than the stinging cut between her legs or the dried blood or the panty hose that had been slit apart and now hung around her knees.
There was no rescue. There would be no rescue, though Kate deserved rescue. She had done the right thing. She had captured a butterfly and had meant to set it free. She had put herself on the line for the child in the back. Surely such things were meant to be rewarded. Kate was a good person. She wasn’t some stupid, dim-witted woman. She wasn’t some trashy trailer park bimbo.
Rescue in this case was well-deserved.
And yet any rescue would just be another pit.
Another few minutes, driven in silence, due south. Then the girl said, “How much money you got on you?”
How much do I have? Kate wondered. How much? Did I cash a check yesterday? I was going to, I don’t know. “I’m not sure,” she said.
“You said enough for a bus ticket. Get out your wallet. Pass it over.”
Kate glanced about for her purse. Where was it? There, on the floor under the girl’s legs. She snatched it from the floor and put it beside her. The car wobbled a bit with the lack of attention, then straightened. She knew her purse by heart. Without looking she unzipped the outer zipper then the zipper of the center compartment. Inside was her kid-skin wallet. She pulled it out and flung it at the girl.
“Don’t ever throw anything at me. You aren’t my fucking mother. You want me to throw something at you? You wanna know what I might throw at you?”
“No,” said Kate.
Silence as the girl pawed through the contents of the wallet. From the corner of her eye, Kate could see the photos of Donald and Donald, Jr. scattering. Receipts from her credit card that she’d not yet filed, coupons she’d clipped for her grocery trip to Emporia - Swiffers, Bic disposable razors, 409 spray cleanser - loose stamps, MasterCard, Emporia library card, Food Lion MVP card, some dried four leaf clovers she’d found in her yard last summer. “Got a lot of shit,” said the girl. “Fucking pack rat.”
Kate said nothing.
“And only twenty two dollars and a couple nickels. You’re a McDolen, you have lots of money. Where’s your bank?”
“Emporia.”
“We can’t go back to Emporia. You got a ATM card here, you can get money anywhere, right? You can get it in Saudi Arabia, even, I’ve seen it on T.V.”
“ATM,” said Mistie in the back. Her voice rose like the little Arab child in the commercial who lead the stranded tourists across the desert to salvation. “ATM, ATM!” Then she went quiet again.
“What’s the next town?”
“I don’t know,” said Kate. “Roanoke Rapids, maybe.”
“How far’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better know.”
“I’m not even sure it’s on this road. I’ve only driven there by way of Interstate 95. Maybe it’s not even on this road.”
“Teachers are supposed to know stuff,” said the girl. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Oh, yeah, I remember. You’re a cunt. A smelly old cunt. Turn on those headlights before we run into something.”
Kate turned on the lights.
They took a long curve, and then a slope downhill, and there was an outcropping of houses and a gas station and the spires of several churches poking up through the trees. Street lights sprinkled the air like fireflies. A green sign on the right side of the road read “Gumberry.”
“Bet they have a bank,” said the girl. “Find their bank.”
“They might not –” began Kate but then clamped her mouth closed. Maybe they would have a bank. Maybe the bank would even have an ATM machine. Kate could withdraw all the cash she had on hand and bribe the girl to let her go with Mistie. Hell, she could drive the girl to Raleigh, buy her a plane ticket to Texas and give her a thousand dollars spending cash on top of that. Then she and Mistie would turn again to the north, wounded and tired but back on track.
Kate’s heart clenched in hope. Please, a bank in Gumberry.
They found no bank in Gumberry. They passed through the center of town in an eye’s blink, and then were back in the country with the pines and the gray sky and the darkness.
Just one little bank. I can get out of all this mess with one little bank. Kate pressed on the gas; the car picked up speed. The girl didn’t seem to mind. Mistie, her mouth full of Toosties, said something that sounded like “Mama had a lady and it head hopped off.”
A few minutes later, Garysburg, the size of Gumberry. Nearly identical houses, churches – What do these people do, barter? – street lights. A few antique shops. No bank. Kate thought. Her heart had picked up a rhythm with the humming of the tires. She was on the last leg of the race, and if she crossed the finish line, things would turn out just fine.
Dark countryside. Barns, trees. A sign for Weldon, three miles. Beneath that a sign for Interstate 95, four miles. Where there was a town and an on-ramp, there would be banks. Travelers needed banks. They never took enough money with them on vacation. Some smart bank would have set up operations in Weldon, for certain.
“Mistie,” Kate ventured. “You okay back there?”
A sneeze. Nothing more.
A straight stretch, the sky lighter up ahead promising civilization of some sort. Kate realized her hands were clenched so tightly around the wheel they were numb. The hose at her knees chafed, and she thought, Just a few more minutes and the tide will turn. I’m an adult. I’m a teacher. I have the power.
The car passed the town limits of Weldon. The houses, a small school, grocery store, Methodist Church, Baptist Church, blinker light, yellow-yellow-yellow, indicating the center of town. A bank.
Kate slammed on the brake. The girl growled, “Watch it! Damn!”
There was a green, glowing “Honor” sign over top of one that read, “Bank of North Carolina.”
Excellent, yes! Money will talk! Thank you God, thank you.
Kate’s fingers drained numb to cold to hot. She turned into the near-empty parking lot. A single car was in the drive-through, the driver punching numbers. She held a respectable distance to wait her turn. A sign on the brick bank wall read, “Have you opened next year’s Christmas Club? See inside for details!”
“Listen,” Kate began. Her words were slow on her tongue and muffled in her ear, like a mosquito embedded in the wax, humming in a low-pitched key. The heat crawled from her fingers to hands, hands to arms, arms to chest. Her teeth buzzed. Her loose molar popped and clicked. She felt she was outside herself, not herself, watching herself calmly work her way out of a hideous circumstance. “I’ve been thinking. You need to get to Texas, for some reason.”
“Friends,” said the girl, with a tone of pride. “I got lots of friends down there. I bet I got a lot more friends than you, teacher.”
“You need to get to Texas, I need to go home. I think I have enough money in my account to get you a plane ticket from Raleigh to wherever you want to go in Texas. Dallas? Austin? El Paso?”
The girl rubbed her nose. She didn’t respond. That was okay, she hadn’t told Kate to shut up yet. She wasn’t waving the gun.
“Wherever, I don’t need to know,” said Kate. “I’ll take out every penny I have in the account.”
“No fucking pennies.”
“No, well, it comes out in bills, not coins. I’ll withdraw everything I have and give it to you. We’ll drive to Rocky Mount, about another forty-five minutes.”
The car at the ATM machine roared away, spewing blue exhaust. Kate held her foot on the brake; the Volvo purred.
“Forty-five minutes, tops. There is an airport. You can get a plane ticket and be in Texas in a matter of hours. You’ll even have enough to catch a cab from the airport once you get there.”
The girl sniffed, looked back at Mistie, then at Kate. Her expression was impossible to read in the darkness of the car’s interior.
“That’s the most reasonable, don’t you think?”
“You’ll tell on me. You’re a teacher. Teachers tell.”
“I won’t.”
“You told already on me. You don’t remember.”
“I don’t remember but I’m sorry if I did.”
“You did.”
“Okay, I’m sorry I did.”
“Just get the money.”
Kate rolled the car to the ATM machine. She held out her hand to the girl. “I need my card. It’s the blue and gold one on the floor by the deviled ham.”
The girl gave her the card. Kate pressed the tab on the arm rest; the window eased down. “Do we have a deal, then? I don’t even know your name. That’s one in your favor, I guess, plus I don’t break promises.”
The girl took a long breath. One of her feet slipped down off the dash and onto the floor amid the scattered snacks. The foot on the dash began shaking. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe we can do it that way.”
Kate turned to the window. She didn’t want the girl to see the sheer relief and hope on her face. Mistie, I did it. Mrs. McDolen pulled us through. We’ll get to Canada, you just wait and see. It’s beautiful up there. Places to run and play. People who will love you and protect you.
She pushed her card into the slot. The shot pushed it back out again.
“Whoa,” she said.
Card in. Card out. She leaned out of the window to read the small print on the screen. “We’re Sorry. This machine is temporarily out of order.”
Kate shoved the card at the slot; it spit the card out into her hand.
“What’s the matter?” said the girl. “Where’s my money?”
My money, you little shit! It’s my money and I can’t get it!
The gun jabbed Kate in the arm. “Where’s my money?”
Stop it!
Card in, spit out. Mistie in the back, humming a tune of some sort. “Daaa-da da da-daaaaa, da-da da-daaa.” Kate vaguely recognized it as the theme song to “The Simpsons.”
The girl grabbed Kate by the ear and twisted. A roar of electricity blew through Kate’s brain.
“Where’s my money?”
“Leave me alone!” Kate’s arms flew up around her head and she ducked down into a protective ball. “Leave me alone! What is wrong with you? What the hell’s the matter with you?” Her foot slipped off the brake and the car lurched forward, crunching the driver’s rearview inward. The car struck a curb outside the drive-through and hopped up onto the concrete and stopped.
The girl slapped Kate on top of her head. “Sit up!” she said. “Where’s my money?”
“It’s broken,” said Kate into her forearms. I won’t cry, goddamn it, I will not let her see me cry. “Everything is broken.”
“You got that right,” said the girl. “No money? Well, flying’s for pussies anyway. I wanna drive.”
“You want to drive? Take my car. Let us out.”
The girl blew out an exasperated puff of air. “Hell no. I think you two make good company. You and your little doll baby in the back. We’ll have lots of time to talk. It’ll be fun.”
“Please let us go.”
I can’t do this, this is insane!
“We’ll play games, you, me, and Baby Doll.”
Kate reached for the door handle and yanked it open, then she was falling out of the car to the concrete and struggling to stand. She was pushing up, up with her hands, her Easy Spirit pumps trying to find purchase on the wet surface, and she was running then, flying, away from the car and the green “Most” sign and the humming floodlights.
She remembered.
In bed in the hospital sixteen years ago, second floor, white walls and sheets, shaved belly and privates, a white light overhead that never winks, never rests, a monitor beeping in her ear, kicking, kicking against the pain and the fear. The nurse saying “Don’t yell, you’re scaring the other patients. Don’t grab those side rails, breathe. Quit fighting, just breathe.” The pain huge like her belly, going nowhere but spinning circles through her flesh, pushing but nothing helps, nothing stops the pain and it won’t let her catch her breath, crying doing no good, then thinking, I will run away!
Falling from the bed to the startled grunt of the attending nurse and waddling down the hall trailing a broken IV, running away from the pain, going home, going anywhere but this place of sweat and torment. I’ll come back another day I just can’t do this now, leave me alone! I’m going home!
Being stopped at the stairs by a male nurse who takes her arm and coos, “Mrs. McDolen, you’re in labor, you can’t leave! Come back now, you’re scaring everyone. Stop acting like a child!”
The wheelchair under her ass, plop, back to the room as the pain builds and hammers her insides and she thinks Let me go home! I can’t do this!
And the doctor comes in stares between her legs and puts his fingers in there and checks the monitor and says, “It’s not coming, let’s get it out.”
Yes! Get it out!
They get it out with a shot to her spine and a cloth draped in front of her face and a scalpel.
She remembered.
A call came from behind, “I got her out, you want me to cut her?”
Kate stumbled. She was on the other side of the road, in between assorted cars in some disheveled automotive lot. The street light at the walk made the figures across the street appear blue. Blue like babies without enough oxygen. Blue like the deep blue sea where sailors and lovers go to drown.
“I’ll cut her! Look!”
Kate looked. The girl had taken Mistie out of the back seat of the car, and they stood arm and arm like a friendly couple of kids, only the girl was holding her knife, and it was opened and it was poised at the girl’s neck.
Two cars passed in rapid succession, spraying melted sleet, whiz whiz, headlights catching Mistie and the girl, the girl lifting her hand and waving casually. The red-eyed taillights grew smaller and disappeared up the road.
“Here teacher, teacher, teacher! Come on back!”
The knife was visible again, taunting and twirling. Mistie held still, staring at the knife and then at her shoes. No struggle there.
Kate walked back across the road. A stray cat followed her half-way, and she yelled it back beneath the car where it had been hiding.