Christy: A Journey Tale (11 page)

“What about your mom? What did you think
about when you thought of her?” Jennifer asked and then Christy
acted like she was about to say something before she caught herself
and pulled it back.

“Well, at that particular moment I think I
had some pretty high hopes. I had already decided that I would let
Jack take me back home, but exactly what was going to happen from
there was still pretty much up in the air. I didn’t believe that
momma would leave my step dad. I figured I could take care of
myself and if necessary, the man would get a serious dose of his
own medicine. Self-defense has all manner of meanings. It don’t
matter what you do just as long as your life is in danger. Momma
had been playing the victim for so long she didn’t know how to be
anything else. It was about time that changed. Now don’t get me
wrong: I would call the cops and it would get reported, but I was
bound and determined that he wasn’t going to lay a hand on her
again. I had sat back and let it happen for far too long and those
days were done,” Christy said. Jennifer leaned forward listening
with anticipation.

“Oh my goodness, what happened when you went
back home?”

“That’s a good question,” Christy said,
sighing a little. She let the excitement deflate from her body. “I
wish something like that had happened, but the real world is hardly
ever how we wish it would be. No, the truth was much stranger, but
don’t let me get ahead of myself. Anyways, Jack was good as his
word. On that second morning he was exactly where he said he would
be, drinking coffee and reading a paper. He told me that day was
all mine, and he would take me wherever I needed to go. I told him
I appreciated it and that I thought I was finally ready to go home.
The only problem was that home wasn’t ready for me.” Christy rubbed
her eyes, doing a pretty good job of holding back the tears. “We
drove back South, talkin’ the whole time as we went. I don’t know
if I was just nervous or what, but I couldn’t shut up. I told him
all about momma and Johnny and what things might be like when I get
home. He told me some things to watch out for and even though I
don’t recall what he said exactly, I do remember it making me feel
a whole lot better.” Christy started to drift off into memory
again, but then reluctantly came back. “Good things never last
forever, and this was no exception. When we pulled up into the
driveway I could tell immediately that something was wrong. It was
early in the afternoon by this time and there weren’t any cars in
the driveway. It was the middle of the day, so his car at least
should have been there. The fact that it wasn’t made me real
nervous. I stayed in the car at first as Jack went to go knock on
the door, but when there wasn’t any answer, he motioned for me to
come on over. I did, and we started peeking through the windows and
walkin’ around the house. There was furniture in there, but not all
of it and most of the other stuff was gone. It didn’t look like
anyone had been around for a good while. In the space of about half
an hour I went from nervous to just plain scared. Something bad had
happened. I knew it just as surely as I’m sitin’ here.”

“Did you find out what happened?”

“Yeah, we found out all right. Jack figured
if anybody had news it would be the cops so I gave him directions
to the city jail. When we got there, I’m glad he decided it would
be best if he went in alone to do all the talking because I sure as
heck wasn’t going in there again. He was gone for a long time, and
when he came back he had a police report in his hand,” Christy
said, trying again to keep herself from crying. “He let me read the
pages and then gave me some time afterwards to think about it. I
was too late. The damage had already been done. Apparently, my
leaving was all the excuse momma needed to leave as well. I guess I
was wrong about her. I thought she would never be able to work up
the nerve to leave him, but the truth was that she was never going
to leave me. I know it may sound a little funny, but that’s the
only thing that makes sense to me. She could have taken me with her
at any time, but I don’t think she saw it that way.” Christy took a
deep breath. “Anyway, to make a long story short. Momma got up the
courage one day to step out on him. They got into a fight and he
smacked her of course, but this time things were different. Instead
of taking it like usual, momma marched herself right into the
bedroom and started packing a suitcase. That made him even madder
and things pretty much went down hill from there. Eventually, momma
ended up locking herself in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out.
Now, that just wasn’t going to do as far as he was concerned. He
decided that she was coming out of there one way or another.
Apparently, that proved to be a much harder job than he figured. By
the time he was through the door, he had built up so much steam he
couldn’t hold himself back. When momma didn’t show for work, they
started looking for her. The highway patrol ended up pickin’ him up
three counties over. The rest is history as they say and that was
that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said trying to be
sympathetic, but not sure exactly what to say.

“It’s ok, I made my peace with it a long time
ago. As far as I know, he’s still in the pen.” Christy didn’t sound
very convincing. Jennifer could tell she still blamed herself and
probably always would. “So there I was sitin’ in your daddy’s car
once again trying to figure out where home would be next.”

“Now, you talk about leapin’ out of the
frying pan and into the fire, that was me. As tough as it was
though and as low as I felt, I can’t say that was the worst off I
had ever been. I’m not afraid to admit it, though them times were
still a long ways down the road. At least back then I had your
daddy, and he was always my…well, he was like my silver lining, I
guess you could say. He was always in control; it always seemed
like he had a plan. I know I’ve said that before, but that’s just
how he was. I’ve never seen anything else like it. No matter what
went wrong or what surprise was waitin’ just around the corner, to
him it was all just part of the plan. I never saw him stumped about
anything. The whole world could fall apart, and he would just set
back as calm as he could be. Then when the right time presented
itself, he would just jump in and take care of business. Do you
know what I mean?”

“I think I do,” Jennifer said with a smile,
“He was never rash or impulsive. He knew what he wanted to
accomplish and he worked hard to get it. I remember that, but I
also remember that it was impossible to argue with him.” Jennifer
thought about her own experiences with her father. “He was patient,
but in a calculating kind of way. He was like a chess player,
always looking twenty moves ahead. When he knew he was right about
something, he would just let you disagree with him. He would let
you give him all the reasons in the world that supported your
position, but you never could change his mind with arguments alone.
On the other hand, if he couldn’t change your mind using the same
tack, then he would wait and let the truth play itself out. If he
was wrong, he would admit it; but you just couldn’t change his mind
unless he saw himself defending something that wasn’t true. He
could be so infuriating some times, but to be honest, he wasn’t
wrong very often.”

“Yeah, I never had much luck with that
either.” Christy smiled back. “It never seemed to do any good, but
at that particular moment in time I certainly wasn’t in the mood to
argue about anything.” Christy’s smile faded as her thoughts
returned back to her mother. “It took me a little time to get
through that police report. I kept stopping to cry and the parts
about momma I just kept reading over and over again. It took me
even longer to calm down enough to talk about it. When I finally
got over the shock of it, I missed momma so bad. I missed her more
than I ever had and I wanted to be with her so bad it hurt. Most of
all I wanted to know what they did with her. That’s when Jack had
to break the news to me.

“Where is she?” Christy asked as she handed
the police report back to him and wiped away her tears.

“They cremated her body, Christy,” Jack said.
“That’s what they do when there’s no one to claim the body or folks
don’t have enough money for a proper funeral.” Christy thought
about her stash in the duffle.

“Cremated? What’s that mean?”

“Ashes, honey. Your momma is only ashes
now.”

Christy thought about that for a moment, “Can
I have ‘em?” and Jack could tell that she meant every word of
it.

“No, I’m sorry they only hold them for 30
days.”

“I can’t say good-bye then, can I?”

“From dust we were made and to dust we shall
return. It doesn’t matter, Christy, what they did with your momma’s
remains. The body is only an empty shell, honey. The truth is you
can say good-bye to your momma any time you want. In fact, you can
talk to her about anything you want and I know she will be able to
hear you.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think it
was the truth. Sometimes you just got to put a little trust in
things you may not completely believe in.”

“I’ll tell you right now those words had a
pretty powerful affect on me. Christy said, “I understood what he
was saying about momma; even though at the time I didn’t really get
everything else he was trying to say. To be honest, as soon as he
said ‘trust,’ my mind began to wander. I thought for a moment that
I didn’t know what I would do with myself or where I would go. I
had gotten so used to the idea of coming home, I wasn’t sure what
was going to happen to me now that home wasn’t there anymore. The
funny thing about it though was that as soon as I began to get a
little nervous about it, I knew it didn’t matter. I knew I would be
ok as long I was with Jack. In those few days I had been around
him, I’d learned to trust him more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. I
knew that as long as I was with him, he would make everything all
right. With everyone else there was always a catch, but not with
Jack. Oh no. When he told me to trust him, I was right there with
him even though I don’t think he ever knew how much I was beginning
to believe in him,” Christy said and then looked at Jennifer as her
thoughts switched tracks. “Now is when things really started to get
interesting.”

“So what do I do now?” Christy asked as she
turned to face him.

“Well, that’s a good question. I know of a
place where you can stay for a while, but to be honest it’s really
up to you what happens next.” Jack said, changing direction in mid
sentence. “What do you want to do, Christy? What kind of person do
you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” Christy said with a teenage
shrug.

“I can only help you so much, but you have to
be willing to do something for yourself. I know you may think that
sounds silly, but it’s the truth. You’ve been through all this
craziness. Don’t you want to settle down and have a life like a
real person? You’re missing some of what should be the best years
of your life. Don’t throw that away just because you’re in a hurry
to grow up. If who you are right now is who you want to be, then
the cops will want to take custody of you until child services
arrives. On the other hand, if you want to go to school, get an
education, work hard, have fun but follow the rules, then I’ve got
another place in mind. It’s good and I think that you would enjoy
it if you would only let yourself enjoy it. Let other people help
you for once Christy. You don’t have to do this alone. You’ll be a
whole lot happier if you do, I promise. So what’s it gonna be? It’s
your choice where we go from here.”

“You know, what your daddy said to me about
how I was living my life and what kind of person I was must have
come at just the right time. I had heard that same speech before,
but this was the first time it made any sense to me. I guess
hearing it from Jack was when I actually began to believe it. Then
again,” Christy said with a chuckle, “wild horses couldn’t have
drug me out of that Caddy. Whatever place he had in mind to hell
and back I would be along for the ride, and I would say anything it
took to make that happen.”

“The place he had in mind was in the north
part of the county. It was called the Community.”

“The Community?” Jennifer asked with arched
eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know it sounds a little weird, but
that’s what’s they called it. I had heard about it. I mean
everybody had heard about it, but not too many folks could say they
had actually been there. It was kind of mysterious that way. The
whole trip up I was excited and nervous all at the same time, but I
knew better and tried my best to relax. I knew everything would be
ok, so on and on we went. It felt like we drove forever. After we
turned off the main road, we headed back into the sticks. Them
narrow country roads where one curve right after another. It’s the
same way everywhere, I reckon, after you get out into the country.
Black top is black top no matter where you are,” Christy said,
thinking about other roads that had led her other places. She shook
off the pain and regret and tried to focus on the subject at hand.
“Now during this whole time things had been real quiet between us.
He might have said a word here or there, but all in all it was a
pretty silent trip. That is, of course, until we started getting
close and that’s when he decided he might better tell me some
things I just might need to know before we arrived. It was funny
because all of a sudden he looked over at me and apparently all at
once he realized all the ways I could make a fool out of him. He
must have had a whole lot of things on his mind for him not to
speak up any sooner.”

“Christy, you should know the folks where
we’re going are a little different than most other people. Now
don’t get me wrong, they’re good people, mind you; they’re just a
little different,” Jack said. He didn’t know how else to approach
the subject except to just throw it out there.