Dear Carolina (11 page)

THE LIGHT

Putting up herbs ain't like putting up other things. You gotta get to 'em quick—when they've just started buddin'. Once they blossom, it's too dang late.

The day I took the job at that dry cleaners, I was just like that herb that had blossomed: It was too dang late for me too. I was still so dag dern sore I couldn't half walk straight, and being up all night, every night, had near killed me.

But workin' in a dry cleaners, it ain't the worst thing I ever done. You don't get all dirty like in the garage. I was the person people complained to, but that weren't nothing new. Other than that, I just had to take people's clothes, write 'em up on a piece a' paper, type it in the computer, and staple a little tag to the back.

All in all, I liked it right good. The stapler made a nice click on the clothes and an easy tap back on the counter. It got to be right soothing, good for taking my mind off a' drinkin'. A whole lot of the time I would daydream, wishing I was holding and cuddling my girl. But us girls, we gotta eat, I'd remind myself.

Mr. Phillips, he was all right. I mean, something'd go wrong and he'd fly right off the handle, get to yelling and cussing. But he weren't nothing compared to my momma. So, while the other girls, they'd get all hot and bothered 'bout it, I'd just keep my head down and look busy.

Only, it weren't long until I couldn't hide no more. Mr. Phillips flew outta his office door at me and said, “Jodi, I need to speak with you.”

“Can I do something for you, Mr. Phillips?” I asked. I was hoping his anger'd cool on down if I acted real sweet.

“Yes, Jodi. Yes, you may do something for me,” he practically spat. “You can tell me if, when the manager of Burger King came in, you quoted her the price to clean her pants and shirts.”

“Well, I . . . Yes, sir I did tell her,” I stuttered.

“Did you tell her it would be eight ninety-five?”

I nodded, but I weren't real sure why I'd be in trouble for that.

“Are you an idiot?” he exploded, his face getting all red like them Hot Tamales Daddy used to bring me from the gas station.

I leaned back on the counter, feeling Connie's eyes looking right through the back a' my head. Connie was from my part of the county, tougher than nails and bigger than Mr. Phillips. If she thought I was in trouble, she'd pounce on him like a hungry cat on a baby bird, job in a bad economy be damned.

I didn't answer Mr. Phillips straight that day, but, let me tell you right now that, no, I ain't an idiot. Khaki and me, we were talking about smarts one day.

“Honey,” she said, “we all have our own kind of genius, and it's almost never the kind that's measured by a test score.” Khaki, she's one a' the smartest people I know so I figure, if she says it, it must be true.

“Those pants and shirts are a
uniform
. A
uniform
is only four ninety-five. Do you realize that you just lost me the cleaning for
twenty uniforms? Do you realize that that's almost a hundred dollars?”

I wanted to ask Mr. Phillips if he realized that he was gettin' this bent outta shape about a hundred dollars when he drove a BMW to work one day and a Mercedes the next. It took near all the strength I had in my sore, worn-out old body not to ask him if he thought he were acting rational in the least. But I just said, “I'd be real happy to call her and tell her 'bout the mistake.”

“I have,” he interrupted. “But she's already taken this week's load to another cleaners.” He pointed his finger into my face. “So this week's will be taken out of
your
check.”

Then he smoothed that shirt, all starched and pressed, and got to marchin' to the back of the plant, probably to take away part of the week's earnings from the presser who'd ironed it.

I felt near like I were a robber who'd got the gun turned around on her. Connie put her arm around me, all fleshy and momma like. “You okay, honey? My man's working two jobs now, so I can lend you that money if you need.”

I shook my head and looked down at my feet, trying to keep them tears from coming down my cheeks. I didn't want Connie to think I was a baby. I didn't want her to know how I was feelin' all panicked and yearning right at the same time.

The panic was how I would ever make them ends meet without that hundred dollars. The yearning—baby girl, I wish it was for you. But all I could think about was the dulling, numbing novocaine of a cheap bottle of vodka.

I remember one year when I was coming up, rain ruined them strawberries one month and then the drought killed off all that dern corn the next. And that's how I got to learnin' that when it rains it pours—or not.

You know, it does right often seem like all the worst things happen on the same days. And I guess it's good. That way, your good days ain't all cluttered up with patches of mess going bad. And your bad days—well—you know they cain't be more'n twenty-four hours.

That evening, I was shaking like a worm on a hook from being dern near attacked by the boss that everybody talked about being such a good man. I learned years later that he had a secret pain pill addiction, which, Lord knows, I knew all about. At the making amends part a' his recovery, he sent me a real nice note with a hundred-dollar bill in it. And I needed that hundred real bad right then too.

I thought that coming home to get you would be salve on the poison ivy. I could feed you and rock you and cuddle you, and that would make things all right. Only, 'fore I even got outta the car good, I could hear you screaming at the top of them little lungs. I ran to the front door, feeling all panicky that you were hurt or sick or somethin'.

“She has been doing this for three solid hours,” Khaki said. “I fed her, changed her, tried to get her down for a nap, put her in a new outfit, walked, rode, sang, and even called the doctor.” She paused to catch her breath. “I don't want to tell you this, but he says he thinks it's just colic.”

Colic. My heart was racing. Them horses down at the stable where I used to help out after school was always dying of that. “Oh my Lord!” I could feel my knees getting all weak and wobbly, them tears springing up hard. “She gonna be okay? Is there something we can give her?”

Khaki put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed to calm me down. “She's going to be fine. Colic in babies means that they cry for hours on end with no real reason. It's you I'm worried about.”

She didn't say it, but you could tell right clear from her face that she was worried I was gonna start drinking again. I thought about that forty still rolled in its paper bag underneath my seat and my hands got to shakin' right good.

“Why don't you stay here with us tonight?” Khaki smiled. “We'll let Graham take a shift too.”

I shoulda said,
Okay
. But you were mine and it weren't nobody else's job to take care of you.

So I said, “Gosh, Khaki, I'm real sorry you had to deal with this all day. We're gonna get home and outta your hair.”

“But it would be great if you would stay—”

I interrupted her. “There ain't nothing to worry about,” I lied.

I knew that my nerves, bloodshot eyes, and shaking hands from Mr. Phillips that morning weren't gonna do real good with a night of a screaming baby.

I took you from Khaki and whispered in your ear, “It's okay, baby girl. Momma's here.”

But it didn't do nothing. I strapped you in your car seat and got to riding down that dusty road to the trailer, feeling like I was marching to the executioner's block.

I give you a bath, walked you around outside, and tried singing and bouncing and rocking. After what seemed like damn near forever, I finally got you to eat. I was just holding my breath the whole time, praying you wouldn't start squalling again.

Them little eyelids got to flutterin' and closed, your breathing getting slow and steady and that tiny mouth falling open, milk dribblin' out the side like a stream of rain down the window pane. The forty in my car, it was calling me so loud I couldn't near think.
That one little drink wouldn't be no big deal. I could still take care of Carolina no problem. It would just make me feel better.

It was like having that angel and devil perched right there on
my shoulder. The devil was saying, “Go on, take a drink. You deserve it!”

The angel was saying, “No, no, no!” Once I stepped off that high dive I'd keep going down 'til I hit bottom. But you play tricks on yourself.

I held you to me a long time, breathing real slow and deep and rememberin' what it was like when I was all drunk and miserable. I convinced myself I could make it through without a drink, looked at you real hard, reminding myself that I's all you got in this whole wide, green earth. I put you in the crib, sighing with relief when you stayed sleeping hard and breathy like a puppy. I walked by the door real slow, not letting myself even look near the car, and heated up my beans and rice. When you're short another hundred bucks, beans and rice is as good as it's gonna get.

The microwave was humming and groaning, and it right near sounded like somebody coming in the door—but I knew I'd locked it. I pulled my bowl outta the microwave, turned around, and screamed so loud you got to cryin' all over again. Your no-good, soap-scum-ring-around-the-tub daddy was standing there. He didn't have to say nothing for me to know he was good and drunk. You could tell he hadn't slept in near forever and that broken bottle in his hand—well, it meant I was in real deep trouble.

“So, I hear you been going around town making up shit about me, you slut,” he slurred, leaning in right close, so I could see the bits of tobacco stuck between his teeth. As he came closer to me, spitting, he said, “You been telling everybody I abandoned you and my youngen? That the shit you been making up?”

It took more strength not to yell in his face,
That's the truth, you bastard!
than it had for me to keep away from that forty. But I heard them tiny cries and I got to remembering that I had
to keep him away from you. Weren't nobody close enough to hear me screaming if I got to it. And me shaking and scared would just give him what he wanted.

So I got all sweet and soothin' just like at the dry cleaners. “I would never say any such thing about you. You know, sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Raisin' babies is a woman's place anyhow.”

You and me, we both know real good that raisin' youngens is about a village, it's about a family and having somebody there to support you no matter what. What a
man
does when his girlfriend gets pregnant is loves her and provides for his family. But I woulda told him he were king of the world to keep that bottle away from my baby.

He was looking at me all cockeyed, and I could tell I was a little blurry to him. He stumbled toward me again and yelled, “You ruined my life, you bitch!”

I couldn't imagine how
I
had ruined
his
life.