I said, Yes.
And he said, Yes, what?
And I smirked, Yep.
He slapped my face. Yes, what?
Yes. He slapped me again. Yes, what?
Yes.
When he slapped me a third time, I told my daddy what he wanted to hear—yes sir—but I never forgot it and I never really forgave him. And I vowed I’d never hit my own kids. Now I look around the courtroom, searching for somebody to stand up with me, to help me make it through this morning. Mr. Ramírez nods slightly, and I wonder what his life here in Odessa has been like since this happened. I wonder about Gloria’s mother and how long it will be before she sees her daughter again. Nothing is more important than this, certainly not my pride. So I look at the judge and I ruck up my lips, and I smile. Yes, sir.
But he’s not done. He says, It is painful to see a young woman—a mother—use that language in a court of law.
Yes, sir.
Thank you. Did that young man threaten you?
Judge, he was like—nothing I have ever seen. It was like the devil himself drove into my front yard. I have never in my life seen such evil.
Clemens is back on his feet. Objection! It’s a yes or no question.
Did he threaten you, Mary Rose, or your family?
No. Sir.
Good girl, Clemens says, and Judge Rice leans back in his chair. He crosses his hands behind his head. Mr. Clemens, do you have any more questions for this young lady?
Just one more. Mrs. Whitehead, were you pointing a gun at Mr. Strickland?
I see Keith sigh in his chair, shuffle some papers around, and lean forward. But I do not look at Strickland. Yes, I was.
* * *
Victor Ramírez is already standing next to his car with his hand on the door when he sees me running across the parking lot. We’ve got ten minutes before we have to be back in court and even though I’ve hardly run more than a few feet, I am out of breath. I glance down, just to be sure there’s no milk on my blouse, and then step close to Mr. Ramírez, as if standing close to him might make me feel better.
I’m sorry, I say. I want to help Gloria.
Glory, he says and stands looking at the sky, as if I haven’t said a word.
Can I see her and talk with her, ask her if she’s okay?
A small chuckle rises in his throat. No, ma’am, he says. No, you may not. He opens the driver’s side door and sits down. When I try to grab the door, he gently pushes my hand away.
Are you leaving?
Yes, ma’am.
Please, Mr. Ramírez, make her testify.
You people won’t hear what Glory has to say. Do you understand that, Mrs. Whitehead? Then he pulls the door closed and starts the car and drives away.
* * *
Keith stands up and gives his collar a few good tugs. Mary Rose, can you describe for all of us one more time what Gloria Ramírez looked like when she showed up at your front door that morning?
Yes, I can.
Well, let’s make it quick, Judge Rice says. If I keep the missus waiting and they run out of that prime rib special, I’ll be sleeping outside with my horses tonight. The courtroom erupts with laughter. Dale Strickland laughs, a flat and hollow sound that sets my teeth on edge. Even Mrs. Henderson cracks a smile. Me and Keith Taylor are the only two people in that room who are not laughing.
On my way back to my seat, Strickland reaches out and presses his thumb lightly against my hand. The hair stands up on my arms. A door opens in the back of the courtroom, and a thin shaft of light illuminates the dust motes floating in the air between us.
Keith is moving fast in our direction, but the rest of the court is quiet, or not paying any attention. Or maybe there is plenty of noise and everyone sees, but this is how I will remember it: a silence that makes me want to scream for days.
Mary Rose, Strickland speaks so softly I can barely hear him. His thumbnail scratches gently against my palm. His hands are still cuffed, and I feel the metal against my wrist. Mary Rose, he says—how I hate that he knows my name—I want to tell you how sorry I am for the trouble I’ve brought to you and your family. He smiles, mouth closed, lips pressed tight. When this is all over, he says, I hope to see you again under better circumstances, maybe at your ranch or here in town.
He has spoken so quietly, I’m not even sure I’ve heard him correctly. But I am about to learn something else about Dale Strickland—he’s smarter than me. Because when I answer him, I make sure everybody in the courtroom hears it. Well come on over, I tell him. I will look forward to blowing your fucking head off.
She’s crazy, someone says, and then everyone starts talking all at once, a quick murmur that rolls like thunder across the courtroom. Dale Strickland grins at me, and then Judge Rice slams the butt of his pistol against his desk. His lips are a tight seam. I sure hope your husband can take care of that baby without you tonight, Mrs. Whitehead, he says, because you are in contempt.
Fine, I tell him, I’m not afraid of you, old man. And the bailiff leads me away.
I won’t spend the night in jail—just six hours in the holding cell. Long enough, Judge Rice says when he stops by the cell after the court closes at four o’clock. You ready to go home, young lady? You learned your lesson?
Yes, I tell him.
Yes, what?
Yes.
He looks at me for a long moment, and I wonder if we are about to have another standoff, but he shakes his head and walks out to the reception area.
By the time they find the keys and let me out, my blouse is soaked through, my breasts so heavy with milk, I can barely stand up straight. My purse is pressed tight against my shirt when I walk past the officer at the desk, and I can hear them laughing all the way down the hall. They are still laughing when I step out of the station and close the door behind me and walk across the parking lot to my car.
* * *
By the time I get to Corrine’s house, the baby is so frantic that I tear a button off my blouse, trying to get him settled. He screams and paws at me, his sharp little nails leaving long scratches on my breasts. When he latches on, we both sigh and close our eyes, our bodies loosening.
Back at the house, my daughter doesn’t say a word while I open some cans and get dinner on, not a word while I nurse the baby for the second time in as many hours. When I stay put in my chair while the phone rings and her daddy leaves a message on the new answering machine, she is quiet then, too. It is an easy bedtime.
At dusk Corrine walks across the street and we settle in. I make a pitcher of salty dogs and carry it, along with the vodka, out to the patio. Corrine grabs an ashtray. We turn out the porch light and leave the patio door cracked open, sit out in the backyard under the darkening sky. It is tinged purple, a sign that there might be a dust storm coming our way.
So, Corrine says, where the hell were you all afternoon? She strikes a match and her eyes glitter in the brief light. Tonight, there’s a small wind loose in the world, and it can’t make up its mind about which way it wants to blow or how big it wants to be. Every match that flickers and dies feels personal, like a closed fist.
Well, I think, here’s my chance to reach across the darkness and tell somebody the truth. But the story I tell Corrine is a comedy about a lady with leaky tits who sasses a judge and lands herself in the pokey. I set the scene for her, me telling Strickland that I’d happily shoot him and Keith Taylor saying, oh shit, and Judge Rice banging his pistol against his wooden desk so hard we thought the wood was going to crack, and I tell the story so well that Corrine laughs and laughs. That is one of the best courtroom stories I have ever heard, she says. I’ll remember it until the day I die.
So will everybody in this town, I say.
She hands me the bottle and I add some vodka to a glass half filled with grapefruit juice. Don’t worry about it, she says. They’ll move along.
Oh, sure. People will forget all about it in a week or two. We both laugh. We both know this is going to follow me around for years, and Aim
ee, too. She will be the girl with the crazy mama who spent an afternoon in jail. This day will change the two of us. Now when we play cards, I will make her fight for every win, and when she loses, I will make sure she knows why—and not always in the kindest of ways. We will spend hours in the backyard shooting cans off the fence, and when she starts whining that she’s tired, she wants to go play with Debra Ann or one of the other girls on the street, I will tell her to run into the alley and gather up the cans. Set them on the fence, and do it again. Do it again, I’ll say. Again. Again! You must be able to hit your target on the first shot.
I will make her daddy drive into town when he wants to see her, and it will be twenty years before I again walk across that spare, beautiful land out at the ranch, before I sit on my old front porch and watch the sun go down, nothing but a dirt road standing between me and the sky, the only noise coming from cows and birds, the occasional coyote. And in a few years, when I catch Aimee sneaking out of the house at night and driving out to the oil patch with her friends, I will slap her so hard the red mark will still be there when she wakes up the next morning. I will not apologize for years, and by the time I’m ready to say I’m sorry, every word between us will be a bullet in the chamber.
The sky is black now and the backyard is dark, except for our two cigarettes and the diffuse light from the kitchen hovering at the edge of the concrete.
You going to answer that? Corrine asks when the phone rings.
Hell no, I say. I bought a machine that does it for me. It cost me nearly two hundred dollars and I had to order it from Dallas.
We listen as the machine switches on and my voice drifts across the yard.
My God, Corrine says. Will wonders never cease? I’d never have to answer the phone again. She grabs my fly swatter, snaps it against the table, got him, and reaches for the vodka.
The wind shifts direction and the refinery stops being something you can forget about. We sit up straight, pinch our noses, and wait to see what the wind will do next. Keith Taylor’s drawl pierces the darkness. This is Keith Taylor, he begins, and we both grin. Oh girl, Corrine says with her thumb and index fingers still holding her nose, if I were thirty years younger. Giddy-up. And we break out laughing. I laugh so hard I can feel my shoulders loosening, the sharp blades relaxing.
I’ve got some news. He pauses, and we hear him crack a beer open. He is quiet for so long that I start to wonder if he set the phone down on the table and wandered off, or if the machine isn’t working.
It was all over by four o’clock, he says. Simple assault. Probation and a fine to be paid to the Ramírez family. These cases are hard, he says. I’m sorry, Mary Rose. He was out by five o’clock this afternoon. The machine switches off.
Corrine and I sit there in the dark without saying anything, but I can guess what she’s thinking. Because did anybody believe for a minute that he would be convicted? Anybody but me?
I’m sorry, she says, but I’m already on my feet and heading inside to check the windows and doors, and my kids. On my way back, I fetch Old Lady out of the hall closet, check to make sure it’s loaded. When I step onto the patio and Corrine sees me holding the rifle, she stands up with a groan. She pulls two cigarettes out of her pack and sets them on the table.
If you’ve got something to say to me, I tell her, then go ahead and say it. But don’t you dare tell me not to be pissed off.
Hell no, Corrine says. Be pissed off. I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.
The wind is picking up, and for the first time, I wonder if there’s going to be some rain in the next couple of days. Corrine puts her hand on Old Lady and gently rubs her thumb across the walnut stock. That’s a beautiful rifle, Mary Rose. Potter had one like this. I sent it up to Alice when he died. Sometimes they’re so pretty, you forget what they can do. Anyway, it’s hard being alone with two kids all day, every day. Ask for help, if you need it.
I laugh. Did you?
Beg your pardon?
Did you ever ask for help?
No, Corrine says. The wind catches several loose strands of her thin hair and blows them across her face. She turns to go home, wobbling against the table and nearly tripping over one of my extension cords.
Grabbing the cord, I tell her to hang on. I walk over to the outlet and plug it in. Light floods every corner of the backyard. Good Lord! Corrine’s hands fly to her face and she blinks hard. It’s like a prison yard back here.
Six white extension cords are stretched across the back patio, each of them connected to an aluminum spotlight. Sterling lights, my granny used to call them. She set them out when coyotes were eating the chickens. My backyard is filled with great circles of light, the darkness barely clinging to the edges. I can see everything.
After Corrine has left, I stand out there with the light streaming through my skirt. I know I can’t fire Old Lady out here in the backyard, not this time of night, so I grab Aimee’s .22 rifle. I line up Dr Pepper cans on the back fence and smoke one of Corrine’s cigarettes. Then I shoot the cans off the fence one by one, listening as each can strikes the dirt in the alley. When Debra Ann’s cat comes along, I sight him through the aperture. He is stalking a locust along the cinder-block fence, batting it with his paw until it falls into the alley. I switch the safety off, and wonder what that might feel like, to destroy something just because you can. After the cat wanders off, I stand out there in the dark looking at the stars and listening to the wind pick up, and when the baby wakes up and starts crying, hungry again, I set down the gun and go to him.
Debra Ann
The sky turns the color of an old bruise, and they can see the dust cloud coming from fifty miles away, blowing through the main streets of towns even smaller than Odessa, places like Pecos and Kermit and Mentone. The red haze seizes tumbleweeds and small stones and sparrows, anything that can be picked up and carried for a while before being flung back to the earth. When the wind comes barreling across those thirsty plains, the sun disappears and the cloud covers everything—water tanks and cattle pens, the cooling towers at the petrochemical plant, oil wells and pumpjacks, the sorghum fields split in half by unpaved farm roads. Outside town, cattle huddle together as wild-eyed cows bawl for calves whose scents have been secreted away by the wind. At the plant, men climb down from the towers and run like hell for the break shack. Roughnecks leave their drilling platforms and cower in their trucks, three men sitting thigh to thigh in the front seat. Or if they are new on the job or the youngest on the crew, or if they are Mexican, they lie beneath a heavy tarp tossed hastily over a truck bed, four or five men crushed together, ass to balls, trying hard not to rub up against each other.
On Larkspur Lane, D. A. stands in the front yard watching a thousand-foot cloud rise up from the earth. Tumbleweeds and newspapers roll hard down the street. Branches tear themselves from pecan trees and power lines jerk as if they are in the hands of a mad puppeteer. A screen flies off Mrs. Shepard’s bedroom window, lands on a bed of pansies next door, then picks itself up and disappears end over end down the street. Debra Ann walks over to Aimee’s house, and they stand in the yard with Lauralee and Casey, their eyes and hair filling with grit, their clothes pressed stiff against their bodies. Later, they will learn that five people died when a tornado tore through a mobile home park in West Odessa. At the plant where Mr. Ledbetter is on shift, a man fell from a cooling tower and broke his neck and died almost instantly.
Dirt blacks out the sun and the sky changes from an old bruise to a ripe plum. The storm bears down on the girls, and still they stand outside in the front yard. Mrs. Shepard opens her front door and shouts, What in the hell is wrong with you girls? Get inside! And still they stand. But when they feel a slight pause in the wind and everything grows still, when they look up and see the sky turning lavender—a sky hand-painted for twisters, Mrs. Ledbetter calls it—when the birds stop singing and the wind begins to sound like a train rushing toward them, they run for Aimee’s house.
&nbs
p; Yesterday, Jesse earned the last of the money he needs to get his truck back, and D. A. told him that all they needed was the right moment. Now she looks out Aimee’s kitchen window and wonders what he’s doing right this second, if he’s thinking what she’s thinking. Lauralee calls home and listens for a minute or two while her mother yells. There will be a whipping waiting for me when this is over, she tells the other girls. Casey calls the bowling alley to let her mother know where she is, and D. A. calls the guard at the front gate of the olefin plant where her dad has just taken a job. It’ll be a little less money, she knows, but he’ll be home earlier and he’ll get Saturdays off, mostly. Maybe that will make things better, she tells the girls, and they nod their heads. Maybe so.
They huddle in Aimee’s kitchen peering out the window, watching for funnel clouds, and eating everything they can find. When the phone rings, Aimee’s mother rushes into the kitchen and grabs the receiver. It is the middle of the day, but she is still in her nightgown. She grips the phone in her hand and listens, wrapping the cord around one finger and watching it turn dark red. It’s over, she says tonelessly. Why are you still calling me? She places the receiver gently on the hook.
At the other end of the house, the baby begins to fuss, but Mrs. Whitehead makes no move to go to him. Instead, she pulls a cigarette from the pocket of her nightgown and lights it. The girls, including her own daughter, might be strangers, Debra Ann thinks, for the way Mrs. Whitehead is looking at them. D. A. checks the clock on the stove. Just past one o’clock.
Mama, Aimee says, why didn’t you yell for me? It’s a bad storm. Maybe even a tornado.
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