by Cathy Lamb
He giggled again, then he hurdled his rhyme book across the room, tilted his head back, and screamed.
6
When I left Portland, all my prior packing and survival skills came flooding back, as if I’d never left that helter-skelter life. I brought blankets and a sleeping bag and threw my clothes—warm sweaters, jeans, boots, coats, tank tops—into duffle bags. I brought soap, shampoo, toothbrush, washcloths, towels, makeup, a small cooler, and two large boxes of food.
I have food issues. I always have to have a full fridge and pantry, or it makes me anxious. I am now extremely anxious.
I brought art supplies in boxes: My paints and brushes, pastels and colored pencils. My jars of buttons, beads, Scrabble letters, ribbons, patterned scrapbook paper, folded fabrics, old and sepia photographs, peacock feathers, vintage stationery, modern flowered stationery, Victorian gift cards, fortune-telling cards, art books, and books with maps, nature, and birds that I used for my collages. I brought my old but reliable sewing machine and threads. I figured I’d go back for the rest later.
I brought plastic bags for trash and laundry. I like to be neat, especially when I’m living in a place with an engine.
My front passenger seat was packed, and the entire back was packed, too. I barely had room to sleep.
That evening, after a gourmet dinner of cold, canned clam chowder and canned peaches, I peed in the only big-box store this town had, and scrubbed my face, pits, and teeth once again.
I do not want to attract attention, especially the attention of police officers who might tell me to move along, so I parked in the back lot of what appeared to me to be an out-of-business furniture store.
I changed into two pairs of sweats, two pairs of wool socks, and two sweatshirts, and curled up in my sleeping bag and blankets. I needed a shower so bad. So, so bad. I was grimy and gross. I do not like to be unclean. Ever. I vowed I would find a shower the next day. Maybe I could sneak into an athletic club. The thought of a hot shower almost gave me a hot shower orgasm.
My .38 Special was nearby, just in case. I learned a lot about guns years ago, from a few men and women who knew their way around them. I’m a heckuva shot. When you learn how to shoot squirrels, possums, and beer cans off downed tree trunks when you’re a kid, the skill never leaves you.
I was so relieved that I had a job starting tomorrow, I almost cried.
I had to pee again about three in the morning, so I scrambled out of the car and squatted in the dark night, the moon obscured by shifting clouds. I peed at the passenger side of the car purposefully, so I wouldn’t step on it tomorrow.
That’s important: Never step in your own pee.
The call from him came early in the morning.
“Come home now.”
“No.” I stared out the car window. There was fog on the mountains, amidst the trees. I peeked out the other window. Same thing. I took a deep, trembly breath; burrowed deeper into my sleeping bag; and shut the trees and fog out.
“I need you home, Dina. Where are you?”
“That’s none of your business. Call my attorney.”
“I’m calling you.” His voice was razory, demanding, and sharp. He likes to get his own way. “I can explain everything. We can work together on this. It’s all going to be fine, but I need you here.”
“No.” Fry me a pig, I wanted him on a spit. “You have lied from the beginning, and you’re lying now to save your skinny, flea-ridden, stenchy butt.”
“Don’t go back to your trailer trash talk, Dina, it’s unseemly. Sexy, too, but unseemly at the moment. I will save both of our butts, you have to trust me.”
“Don’t go back to my trailer trash talk? How dare you say something like that to me. And I would sooner trust a maniac with a .45 pointed at my face than you.”
“Dina”—his voice rose—“I’m warning you, come home. If you don’t—”
“If I don’t, what?” I heard his tone. I would not let him scare me.
“Things are going to get bad for you—”
“They’re already bad. If I had a dead possum, I would throw it at you.”
“More trailer trash talk. Things are going to get worse for you if you push me.”
“What do you mean by that?” Now I was scared.
“I’ll tell you when you get home.”
“Tell me now. What else are you hiding?”
“Home. Now.”
“Don’t order me around, asshole. I’m hanging up.”
“You had better not—”
I hung up, even though I knew him and knew he’d make good on his threat.
He called back. I ignored the call.
There was something else coming down the pike with him, I knew it in my gut. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. It was colder than a cow’s tit in December inside my body. Outside it wasn’t much warmer.
I could not go back to sleep.
I paid five dollars to be a guest at the local YMCA. I took a long, hot shower. I’m sure if someone was watching, they would have thought I was asleep in there. I washed my hair twice, then let the cream rinse sit. I scrubbed up twice. I shaved. I let the hot water stream this way and that, working the kinks out of my back.
It was worth the five dollars.
“Ma’am, I’ll take another beer.”
I nodded at the man at the end of the bar.
“Me too, honey,” his friend said. The friend was middle aged, balding, with a stomach that mirrored a nine-month pregnancy.
I leaned over the bar and glared at the pregnant man. “I’ve told you three times over the last two weeks. My name isn’t honey or sexy lady or sweetheart or tight cheeks. It’s Grenady.”
He smirked. “Okay, dumplings.”
Some men like the power. You tell them not to do something and they do it to show you that you can’t tell them what to do. They want to get in your head and control your brain.
Tonight I smiled, displaying all my shiny teeth, then I tipped his beer right onto his crotch. He jumped up, ticked off, flustered. His buddy laughed.
I stood my ground, smile gone, beer dripping off his pants. “My name is Grenady. If you have a problem, you can wear your beer on your crotch.” My voice arched over the conversation at the bar, and it became quiet. I didn’t care. My temper was out and rolling. “Every night. Until you learn. You’re a slow learner, aren’t you?”
He glared at me, then he suddenly started to laugh along with his friend, who about fell off his stool he laughed so hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Say you’re sorry.” I slammed the glass down.
“I’m sorry, Grenady.”
“Women do not like your smirks or your snarky comments.” I pointed my finger right at his fleshy face, his bulbous red nose. “Each time you open your mouth and say something derogatory, they think you’re vomit. Want to be known as vomit? Treat me with respect or don’t come in.” Sometimes the middle-aged, balding fat men are the worst. It has not caught up with them that they are not attractive and women do not want their sexual attention and are, in fact, repulsed by it.
“Yes, ma’am.” He shook off his pants, red faced.
Several men at the bar applauded. I ignored them.
Tildy said, “Do I have to get the bat out, Val?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Sit down and shut up.”
He sat. He shut up.
I went back to work. Why are men such cocks?
“Took care of that one, didn’t you?” Tildy said. “Smooth, quick as a lick.”
“Thank you.” I adjusted my red Spirited Owl apron and pulled my black T-shirt down beneath it. I never missed the irony of working in a bar with a name like mine, no, I did not.
I made martinis, strawberry daiquiris for a bridal party, cosmopolitans for three women who told me they “all hated men,” and what seemed like hundreds of beers. At the same time I kept the bar clean, took the money, made sure we had ice, took the trash out, and pulled orders from the kitchen and deliv
ered them to the customers at the bar. There were ten waiters and waitresses, two hostesses, a gang of cooks, and Tildy and me at The Spirited Owl.
The bar and restaurant were packed. A band played in the corner. The noise was constant, blasting. I was having a surprisingly good night in tips. Being new to town, I hadn’t realized how popular The Spirited Owl was. Now I knew.
I was making minimum wage, which was unlivable, but the tips made it something. When I could afford first and last month’s rent, and a security deposit, and had enough to continue paying my divorce attorney, Cherie Poitras, the monthly amount we’d agreed on, I could find an apartment. I could have my own roof, toilet, and shower.
With an apartment, I could get back to my collages and paintings, too. I was withering without my art. I was lost. That feeling of being nothing was skating on in. I did a Personal Financial Calculation as to how long it would take to get an apartment and tried not to swear out loud like a raccoon caught in a trap when I had my answer.
“Guys at the end of the bar have had too much,” Tildy yelled over the noise. “I told ’em they’re cut off. They must have been slammin’ ’em down before they got here, because I’ve served them only two drinks each.” Two minutes later, when she disappeared to talk to the cooks about the sautéed mushrooms, they called me over.
“Grenadeeeee, we need another round and round beers here for us good mens.”
“Nope. Tildy cut you off.”
“Ah, come on,” another drunk pleaded, then sang part of a song by the Beatles—“I wanna hold your hand”—and held out his hand. I stared back at him.
“One more for the road to paradise,” he begged. “Paradise and round beers for the mens.”
“No,” I said, “the road doesn’t need you driving drunk and killing someone.”
“Hey!” Third drunk friend. “We have ourselves here a designated driver! Designated! We picked him. A nomination. Like for president how we do that. He brought us here on his motorcycle !” One of the men pointed to a man who had his head on the counter.
I walked around the bar and pretended to check on the “designated driver.” I picked his pocket and came out with his keys, which I slipped into my apron. I have many skills, some of them the criminal variety.
“Your designated driver is passed out,” I told them. “No more drinks.”
They groaned and moaned but were too drunk to care.
One of the men, for some odd reason, took a pair of lady’s purple panties out of his jean pocket and pulled the panties over his head. He then began a serious discussion about the engine in his truck. His friends laughed and laughed. About fifteen minutes later he pulled out a second pair of purple panties and pulled them up over his jeans. He went to the bathroom wearing those panties.
“Now, that is drunk,” I said to Tildy.
“You got the keys?”
“Yes.” I had dumped them in the trash. He had about twenty keys, but anyone who drinks that much intending to drive should have a consequence. I do not have tolerance for drunk drivers.
“Good. Then panty man and his gang won’t hurt anyone. They can stumble on home on their drunk feet, crash into lampposts, and bang up their tiny jewels.”
I went back to the bar and served drink after drink. I never thought I would be bartending again. I thought I’d left that part of my life behind. Goes to show you, you can’t count on not falling back to where you were before.
The fall can be long and hard. I remembered what a woman who could wring a chicken’s neck without thinking about it once told me: “Don’t ya ever get too big for your britches or someone’s gonna bust your britches wide open and then they’ll find out you got a butt like everybody else. Nothing special about it.”
That night I left with a hamburger; a salad full of mini tomatoes, because I love tomatoes; and a piece of chocolate cake. I was also able to take a medium-sized take-out carton of fruit and four strips of leftover bacon for breakfast. For me, it was a haul.
Tildy says that during each shift we can have one free meal worth less than ten dollars. We can have all the lemonade we can guzzle. In addition, the staff can take whatever food she won’t be serving the next day. She sets it on the counter.
It’s a deal for me, as it’s essentially two meals for free. Eating peaches and pears straight out of the can for breakfast has lost its appeal. Plus, Tildy’s food was outstanding. She knew how to cook, and so did her chef, Andy, who had trained at two fancy-schmancy schools.
I drove through the night and the deserted streets of Pineridge to the same parking lot by the out-of-business furniture company that I’d slept in for the last two weeks. I parked at the end of it, as usual. I did not want the police here to know that I was temporarily homeless.
I ate my dinner, the only thing I’d eaten since my cans of fruit, used a water bottle to brush my teeth, squatted to pee outside the passenger door, and went to “bed,” so to speak.
It was so dark, so deserted, it made me nervous, but I’d been safe on the other nights and I would be safe tonight.
Sure I would. No problem. In five hours it would be getting light anyhow. “Don’t let your fear eat you, Grenady,” I said out loud.
I suffer from anxiety. It’s always lurking inside of me, has been for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it spikes, seemingly for a long time, and other times I’m able to push it down and live somewhat normally. I hide it at all times, as best I can, but I have named my anxiety Alice, My Anxiety, to bring humor to a situation that has none.
Alice, My Anxiety, was not happy now. She was not calm, and I was pushing her down as hard as I could.
It was cold, and I put on two sweatshirts, two pairs of wool socks, two pairs of sweats, and my jacket. I brought one of the blankets into the sleeping bag with me and put the other over the top. The silence was so loud. What I wouldn’t give for a neighbor’s barking dog . . .
My fitful sleep was broken by someone breaking into my car.
Glass shattered on the passenger side window. I sat straight up, absolutely and instantly terrorized. I tried to move, but my legs were stuck in my blankets and the sleeping bag.
I heard two men outside the window laughing. Evil laughing.
“Come on out, sweetie!” one called out. “Play with me!”
“We’re gonna have some fun, lady. We seeeeee you! Don’t try to hiiide!”
“Aren’t you a pretty little bitch?”
Through a rush of searing panic, I could tell by their slurred voices that they were drunk or high, or both.
I saw a hand shoot through the broken window, running up and down the side of the door, searching for the automatic lock.
“Hey! You were fuckin’ right, Turley. She’s got red hair.”
“How are the tits? Titty tit tits.”
I kicked out of my sleeping bag. By shots and by fire, I was not going to get stuck here.
“Here she comes!” The passenger door opened, and a man wearing a black knit hat poked his head in. The driver’s side door, now unlocked, opened too, and a second man with the same horrifying black knit hat poked his head in also.
My breath caught when I saw them, those black masks freezing my blood.
“Come on out, baby. We’re gonna have some plain fuckin’ fun!”
“Fuckin’ fun!”
I swallowed hard, hysteria closing my throat. I was behind the two front seats, but they had all the advantage. I could try to escape out a side door, but they’d be there in a second. I’d left the keys in the ignition, and I’d left the gun in the glove compartment. Stupid. Why am I so stupid? I had had the gun next to me every night before this one.
One of them burped. The other giggled and burped back, then his expression changed. “Get out of there, bitch! Move your ass!”
“Don’t make us come get you!” he singsonged.
They reeked of pot and liquor, sweat and mortal danger.
The one on the right opened the side door, near to where I was. He had a rope—a
rope—linked around his neck. I hate ropes. Oh, my shouting spitting Lord, I hate ropes.
I instinctively moved back. I could scream, if my throat would move, but it wouldn’t help, no one would hear.
“Give me a second,” I said, my voice strangled.
“Give her a second,” the one near me said, his voice mimicking mine, his black head bobbing. “A second for what? You want to put on some lipstick or something? Grab a condom? We don’t use no condoms, lady. I wanna feel you.”
“Feel you, feel you,” the other one sang. “Feel you. Me first this time.”
“No. I’m first.”
They started to jokingly argue with each other, as if I wasn’t a person, a woman, but a bull cow they were bidding on.
“I . . .” I tried to think through a haze of tingling fear that was rapidly turning into rage. I was about to be attacked by two stoned, violent men wearing full black masks. My blood was curdling, my body stiff with fright, but who the hell did they think they were? I currently hate men. All of them. I do. I hated him most of all, but these two were right there with him.
Another wave of liquor and pot rolled through. I wanted to gag. I hate pot and its skunklike smell.
Get the gun.
It was them. I knew it.
Shoot it.
I heard their voices, louder than my fear, in my head.
“I have some pot, hang on,” I said, breathless.
“Pot!” One of the vermin laughed. “Hey, bring the pot. We’ll stick it to you, a threesome, ya know? And we can all light up together. We can put the joint in your vagina slit and smoke it. We can flip you like a sausage and smoke it from your butthole. Butt. Hole.”
I kicked my legs from my sleeping bag, then scrambled into the front seat. The man who had opened the side door, shut it, and went to the front. “Where ya goin’, Miss Titties? I want a titty in my mouth.”
“Titty!” the other said. “Bite it! Titty bites.”
Shoot them, Grenadine! I heard them again, as if they were sitting right by me.
The masked men were so scarily stoned. I put my fingers on the handle of the glove compartment. “It’s in here. We can get stoned together. You’re right. It’ll be fun. Right up my vagina.”