Wire Mesh Mothers (28 page)

The girl had not died last night, curse it all. Another joke of the gods. She was alive and kicking and more determined than ever to make Texas. She’d left Kate and Mistie in the motel room in the very early morning and had returned with this vehicle. She didn’t say where she’d found it, but Kate guessed some used car lot, from the “inner circle of value” near the back where most shoppers wouldn’t bother to look. She’d hot-wired it and brought it back to Mobile South Motor Inn as the sun was coming up. She’d instructed Mistie and Kate to take whatever they could from the place, especially the pillows because they were soft, and all the towels from the bathroom. She ordered Mistie in the back seat, Kate in the driver’s seat, and they were good to go.

The girl hadn’t died. But Mistie was sick.

Kate had noticed it in the rearview. Mistie’s skin was pale, her lips were cracking. She no longer repeated her little poems to herself. She was no longer reaching down with bound hands to rub herself between her legs.

The radio in the Nova didn’t work. Neither did the speedometer. Kate drove at what she thought was 55, knowing that if she tried to speed to catch a police officer’s attention, the teenager would do her best to take them all down before they were caught.

If she’d only died. But there’s still time before she gets to her friends in Texas. I’ll keep my eyes open, you
betcha
. I’ll watch for every opportunity.

Kate licked her bottom lip, savoring the image of the girl dead on the side of the road.

Mississippi in December was worse than Alabama in December. Kate had the window rolled down to let some of the sticky air in. Kate thought air might help Mistie feel better; what had she eaten yesterday that might have not agreed with her? Kate couldn’t remember. When she called back to Mistie to see how she was doing, the girl in the passenger’s seat stopped cleaning her fingernails with her knife and said, “Want a third stripe on your stomach? Hey, enough and we’ll have, like, an American flag. That’s thirteen, right? We can salute you.”

Kate didn’t answer and the girl didn’t seem concerned that she didn’t. The wounds on her abdomen were already closing, and it was amazing how little she thought of the discomfort when she had other things to occupy her mind. They drove another twelve miles, cutting through swampy grasslands and small farms dotted with Brahma cattle and white egrets. Mistie slumped in the back, her head rolling to and fro as if watching a tennis match.

“Truth or dare?” Kate asked. She put her left hand out into the wind. She had gotten permission from the girl to tear off the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and her arms were grateful for the small favor. Her pits smelled, but no longer did Kate feel chagrin. It was almost a good thing, a feral thing.

“Drop it you know what’s good for you.”

“Something to pass the time.” She liked the sound of her voice; it was gritty, unfamiliar. “I’m bored, I don’t know about you.”

“You’re bored? You’re cut and beat, and you’re bored?” The girl eyed Kate with lowered lids, then, “Yeah. Why not. Truth.”

“Who are the people you’re going to see in Texas?”

“Why you want to know?”

Kate shrugged. She didn’t really want to know, but getting the girl to relax even a little would help when she had the chance to bash her in the brains with the loose steering wheel once she was able to work it free. “Small talk.”

The girl licked sweat from her top lip and frowned out the window. She said, “Not friends. I’m going to see my father. He’s a ranch owner, he owns almost half of Texas. He’s a bad ass. He sells cattle. He’s a drug baron, too, like those guys in Mexico and has more money than God. He kills anybody who gets in his way. He wrote for me to come visit him, so I figured after the gasoline guy got shot, it was as good a time as any.”

“How about that,” said Kate.

The girl’s head whipped about. “You don’t believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you? You seem like the daughter of a drug baron to me.”

“Yeah? You fucking with me?” The girl’s nostrils flared, then calmed. “Truth or dare,” she said.

“Truth,” said Kate.

“Why you have that kid in the back of your car? You don’t have a daughter so it wasn’t clothes. And trust me, I got a great dare if you lie this time.”

Kate glanced down at the speedometer, forgetting it was broken. The needle rode zero.
Why was Mistie in my car? Yes, Alice and Bill. Ontario. I was taking her to them. She sexually abused and I was doing a good thing.

“I wanted to give her a nice, warm meal,” said Kate. “I was taking her home so she could have dinner with my husband and myself.”

“Your son? Forget about him? Or you do keep him locked up?”

“He doesn’t live at home.”

“Why not?”

“He’s off at school. Philadelphia.”

“Rich ass school, huh? Southampton schools ain’t good enough for a McDolen?”

“Possibly.”

The girl shook her head slowly, accusingly. “Why’d you say that thing about the clothes last time I asked?”

“I was nervous. You had a gun, remember.”

“I don’t believe you anything you’ve told me ‘bout Baby Doll. They’re all lies.”

“Believe what you want. It’s true.”

“It’s not true. Nothing you told me’s true. So I got a dare for you.”

Yeah, dare me, bitch. Not for much longer. Give it to me, I don’t care. I’m biding my time.

“Next town, next phone booth, you’re calling your husband and tellin’ him what you did.”

This wasn’t what Kate expected. “What did I do?”

“Got Baby Doll, were
skippin
’ out with her, taking her somewhere to be in a
kiddie
porn ring. They got those in Richmond, you know. And Washington, DC. Teachers got lots of chances to get kids for
kiddie
porn rings. Lots of money in it. Teachers do it, and clowns. And priests.”

“I would never….”

“Yeah, you would and you will call,” said the girl. “I’m gonna be real close, too, right by the phone. I wanna hear what he’s got to say about all this. Just wish I could see his face.”

Kate clutched the wobbly steering wheel and tried to pray it off the column. It just kept shaking but didn’t come off. “I won’t.”

“You’ll do the dare I tell you to do.”

Okay, Kate, Hold on. She won’t pick a high-traffic spot. And a phone cord is as good a garrote as a long sock. Countdown to murder. Wasn’t there a movie named that somewhere on AMC?

“Sure,” said Kate. “I’ll take the dare. What the hell.”

“Your mouth gettin’ trashy, teacher.”

“How about that,” said Kate. “Wonders never cease.”

H
er tummy hurt. She only had her ankles tied together because the girl with the knife – she didn’t have a gun anymore – had said, “You’ll sit in the back and behave, won’t you? If you don’t make any trouble I’ll let you watch all the T.V. tonight that you want. Don’t know where we’re staying, but if there’s a T.V. you can pick, okay?” The girl had even given her two Burger King biscuits instead of just one this morning after they left the motel room. The girl had said, “Got a few bucks from Blessing. So I’ll be generous, just this one time. He’d like that.”

But now she didn’t feel very good. She felt hot and cold all at once, and her arms and legs hurt like she’d had to run the mile on the school track. She wanted to be home at the trailer. She wanted to lay on the sofa with her head on the football-shaped end pillow, the fuzzy brown one with the black yarn stitches. She wanted to see Princess
Silverlace
. She didn’t like this trip. The teacher was wrong. It wasn’t fun, it was terrible. And she was sick.

“T
hat’s the one!” Tony pointed to a small wall-mounted phone booth outside a Subway in some little town, it didn’t matter anymore because it was surprising how little Alabama towns and little Mississippi towns and little Louisiana towns all looked a hell of a lot alike. They had crossed the Mississippi River about ten minutes earlier and into Louisiana, just a state away from Texas. The teacher had told her this. At least the bitch was good for something besides driving.

Tony had pressed her nose through the open Nova window as they’d crossed the long bridge high above the broad and muddy water, staring down, thinking of things she’d heard in school about the Mississippi, other than it was spelled “crooked letter, crooked letter.” It was the biggest river in the United States. Explorers went up it hundreds of years ago looking for gold. Memphis was on the Mississippi River and that was where Elvis had built Graceland.

Tony had almost told the teacher what she remembered about the Mississippi River but then she stopped herself. That would have been really lame, to let her know she learned something in school where teachers worked.

It was afternoon, mid-day, and the overcast sky was threatening a shower any moment. Nobody was eating at the Subway. Through the large front window, a bushy-headed sub-maker was twirling her hat around on her finger and staring blankly in the direction of outside.

Tony had opened a can of pork and beans from the duffel bag about a half-hour before the Mississippi River but it had given her major gas. She couldn’t wait to get out and air herself and the Nova. Farting in front of Baby Doll was humiliating. If it’d just been the teacher, she’d farted all day long and locked the woman in the car for an added treat. Tony had had cramps off and on in the Nova, but nothing like last night. She wondered what kind of damage she’d done to herself. If she’d been alone and had a mirror, she would have checked it out. Every so often she would see the reflection of Joe and Ricky on the inside of the windshield, but she would pinch her arm, hard, and the vision would fly away.

“There,” she told the teacher. “Get up close, now. Time to call Mr. McDolen with a little confession. What’s his name?”

The teacher said, “Donald.”

“Lying to me? Donald?”

“No.”

“I don’t think you are. I’ve heard that name before, Donald McDolen. It should be Donald McDonald. Or Ronald McDonald. That’s better, don’t you think?”

The teacher shrugged. “Donald is a fine name. It suits him.”

Tony looked over the seat at the kid. “Don’t you think her husband’s name should be Ronald McDonald?”

The kid looked sick. Before she realized what she was doing, she reached out her hand and touched the girl on the forehead. It was clammy. She patted the face gently, but then jerked her hand back immediately.

“Trying to catch a spider back there,” she told the teacher, blowing a loud puff of air through her teeth. “Missed. It hopped away. I think it was really poisonous. Had red spots on it. Was gonna put it down your shirt. You’d like that, I bet.”

“So would a spider in my shirt be a dare?”

“No, just a spider in your shirt. And don’t cut the motor. It was a bitch to start.”

The teacher pulled up to the corner of the Subway shop and put the car in park, the engine still heaving and wheezing. Tony thought the car had been a bad choice. It moved like an old man on a walker. Next time, something smooth and sporty.

“Baby Doll,” said Tony, “you get out with me and stand real close so we can be sure the teacher does what she promised to do. We don’t want a teacher breaking her promise, do we?” She reached over the back of her seat and popped the back door open, then pushed it with her hand so the kid could crawl out. She held the knife tightly; the way the teacher was acting now, the only thing to keep her in line was Baby Doll’s life.

The little kid opened her eyes, and they were puffy and pink around the edges with crusty stuff. “Get out,” said Tony. Baby Doll obeyed, but it was a struggle as she
flopped
over and tried to work her feet to the ground. Tony hopped out, cut the strip of pillowcase, and drew the kid close with the knife to her ribs. The girl’s body was hot through the pink nightie. She’d lost the outerwear way back before the mighty Miss. The gown stuck to her damp body like a wrapper.

The teacher climbed from the Nova and went to the phone. She was really different since the bathtub last night. She was harder, tougher, not much like a teacher anymore. That was weird considering she was wearing two slashes from Tony’s knife as well as some facial bruises that were just now fading to green. No matter, Tony was in charge. And this was going to be one kick-ass dare.

“Call collect,” said Tony, urging Baby Doll closer to the booth. “He’s at work, right? I don’t have enough change to plug in the phone.”

The teacher picked up the receiver, and stared for a long moment at the short, coiled phone cord as if it were a snake. Then she punched a slew of numbers, then said, “Collect, Kate McDolen.” Tony leaned her head it and listened as the phone rang and then a tinny voice said, “McDolen and Associates, Attorneys at Law.”

The computerized recording, “This is a collect call from…Kate McDolen…will you accept charges?”

“Well, oh, all right,” said the small voice back in Virginia. “Kate, is that you?”

The teacher glanced at Tony, at Baby Doll drooping on her feet with the knife visible at her side. She crushed the short cord between her fingers, and said, “It’s me, Lisa.”