The Guilt We Carry

by Samuel W. Gailey

  A bell chimed as she crossed the threshold into a world of bright, obnoxious fluorescent lighting. One of the overhead bulbs flickered and popped, and probably wouldn’t get replaced any time soon. The store reeked of pork rinds and stale cigarette smoke, and Alice saw a good reason why. Perched behind a half-inch panel of plexiglass that ran the entire length of the right side of the store sat a massively obese man wearing wire-rim glasses with a cracked lens. He had no chin, just a tire of flesh that ran around his neck. Fat pink sausages for fingers, one hand holding a burning cigarette, the other dipping into a bag of barbecued pork rinds. He wore a stained, threadbare Carolina Panthers T-shirt, more gray than white. Despite all he had going against him, the man’s hair was neatly trimmed and carefully combed. Even Alice had to admit that he had a nice head of hair.

  She grabbed a bag of potato chips and a few candy bars—the kinds with nuts—and set her items up on the counter. The obese man licked his fingers but didn’t bother to look up at her.

  “You have any Crown?” Alice asked.

  The obese man nodded that he did.

  “Can I get a fifth of that?”

  The obese man didn’t answer. He was focused on ringing up her other items.

  “Can I get a fifth of Crown?” Alice asked again.

  “I heard you.” The obese man sighed, then grunted as he stepped off the wooden stool that somehow managed to support his immense weight and searched the shelves for the Crown whiskey. He waddled down to the last shelf, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal Black, and by the time he returned to his stool, he was slightly out of breath. He slammed the bottle onto the counter.

  “Actually, I’d like a bottle of the Reserve. Treating myself tonight.”

  The obese man stared at the bottle of Crown Royal Black in his hand. “All we got is the Black.”

  Alice peered down the whiskey section and spotted a few bottles of Reserve up on the top shelf. “You got a few bottles up there. I’ll take one of those.”

  The obese man followed her gaze and saw the bottles as well. “That’s more expensive, that stuff is.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s okay.”

  The obese man still had not looked Alice in the eye. “That’s up on the top shelf.”

  Alice just wanted to get her bottle, crack the seal, and have a long drink. A few of them. “Guess that’s why they call it top shelf.”

  The obese man shook his head. “Yeah. I can’t reach up there. So.”

  Alice waited for him to finish his sentence. He didn’t. “So?”

  “So, I can’t reach it.”

  Alice knew that she should just get the bottle of Black, but after the day she had, the things she witnessed, she wanted the Reserve. No, she deserved it. “How about I come back there and grab it myself then?”

  The obese man finally looked at Alice dead-on, all serious. “You can’t come back here.” He readjusted his glasses and repeated himself again. “You can’t come back here.”

  “Can’t? Or you won’t let me?”

  “Employees only back here. Store policy.”

  Alice wondered why she was forced to deal with so many assholes today. “Gotcha. And is it also store policy for you to sit around and smoke cigarettes? Is that store policy, too?”

  The obese man’s bored expression didn’t change. “You got some attitude, lady.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

  They both stood there a moment. No love lost between them.

  “Well? Do you want the bottle of Black or what?”

  “No. The bottle of Reserve is what I want.”

  To demonstrate that the subject was closed to further debate, the obese man took his seat back on the stool and dipped his pudgy fingers back into the bag of pork rinds.

  Alice sighed. Ran her fingers through her hair. “Look, man. I’m having a shit day.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  “Right.” Alice tried again. Different tactic. “After a bad day, a really bad day where absolutely everything goes wrong, have you ever had your heart set on something? Something that you really want? And it’s right there in front of you.”

  “Every single day.”

  “Come on. Whatever happened to Southern hospitality?”

  The obese man crunched on a handful of pork rinds, then lit up another cigarette. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the Black. A pack of Marlboro Reds, too. If you think you can manage that.”

  The obese man grabbed a pack of Reds.

  “Got any matches?”

  “Nope. Just ran out.”

  “I bet you did.”

  The man smirked—he was the king of the castle. “Got some lighters.”

  “Sure … if you think you can reach them.”

  The obese man lost his grin, then took his own sweet time ringing up her items and bagging them in a black plastic bag with a hole in the bottom, the entire time smoking his cigarette and munching on pork rinds.

  * * *

  Delilah pressed against a closed electronics storefront window as she searched the sidewalk that teemed with street people. Mainly men dressed in dirty rags for clothes, hanging out in packs. Everybody seemed to be drunk or tweaking on something. She felt like all eyes were on her. Staring at her. Sensing that she was desperate and alone and in a foreign place, ripe for the picking.

  The young girl felt jumpy and was breathing hard, but didn’t want it to show. She avoided direct eye contact and kept searching the sidewalk. Delilah had seen the woman from the train go into the liquor store and come out a few minutes later. She kept following her, but when she turned the corner, the woman just disappeared into the night.

  Delilah chewed on a wad of gum that had lost all of its flavor and tried to fight back the tears that seemed inevitable. She’d never been this far from home. Never out of the state of Pennsylvania. Never walked alone on the streets this late. Never faced the distinct possibility of sleeping in an alley or park bench. All she had was the money the woman on the train gave her, but how long could a hundred dollars last? She wasn’t prepared for all this. Not even remotely. She never thought any of this through. It all happened so damn fast. She found the gun, did what she had to do, and ran out her front door, never looking back, or saying anything to her mama, or even getting the chance to tell Dwayne goodbye. She took off running down the streets, passing stores and fast-food restaurants and bars that she’d known all her life. She didn’t stop running until she got to the 30th Street station. All that she knew was that she had to get out of Philly and go somewhere. Anywhere.

  Maybe she should head back to the train station. Maybe she could sleep there—it had to be safer than out here on the streets. She glanced to her left, then the right, not sure where she was exactly. She hadn’t paid attention to where she was going when she scurried out of the Amtrak station.

  She heard a group of men laughing. She stole a quick glance and saw that they were staring right at her, their eyes burning with unkind intentions. When Delilah looked away, they laughed even harder.

  “You looking for me?”

  Delilah snapped toward the voice—Alice stood a few feet away, holding the duffel bag in one hand, a black plastic bag in the other.

  “What do you want exactly?” Alice asked.

  Delilah couldn’t hold Alice’s gaze—she stared down at her feet instead. “I followed you.”

  “I know. You were pretty obvious.”

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Delilah answered, voice cracking and breaking.

  “Kinda figured that, too.”

  A few tears started to leak down the girl’s cheeks.

  “Jesus. Don’t do that. These guys will eat you alive out here.”

  Delilah wiped at her face. Tried to catch her breath. “Sorry.”

  Alice didn’t budge. Just stared at the girl for a moment.

  “So?” Delilah said.

  “So?” Alice answered.

  “I’m scared. I don’t know what
to do.”

  “Look. God damn it. What do you want from me? I’m not your babysitter, so why don’t you just go back to the train station and just leave me alone?”

  Delilah nodded but didn’t move. “I know. But. You seem smart and I was thinking—”

  “I’m not and don’t. Just go away. Please. I don’t need this crap. I really don’t.”

  “That guy on the train called the cops.”

  “Good for him.”

  “They were looking for you.”

  “Yeah? Looks like you found me instead.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything. The cops,” Delilah offered.

  “Okay. Am I supposed to owe you something now?”

  “No. Just wanted you to know. That I didn’t say anything.”

  “Great. I’m all clear.”

  Alice set her duffel bag on the sidewalk, took out her pack of cigarettes, tapped one loose, and fired it up. She let out a cloud of smoke, shook her head for a moment. “This is bullshit.” She picked up the duffel bag, readjusted the strap on her shoulder, and started walking. After a few steps, she glanced back at Delilah.

  “You coming or what?”

  * * *

  Delilah walked three paces behind Alice, never uttering a peep. She didn’t ask what they were doing or where they were headed, and Alice offered no kind of explanation. Alice chain-smoked, never slowing her stride, while Delilah worked on a wad of gum and did her best to keep up.

  Alice finally stopped in front of the Clover Motel. It happened to be the first motel she walked past. She’d look for comfort tomorrow. Tonight, she just wanted to get drunk. Sooner rather than later.

  “Wait here,” Alice instructed the girl.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Just wait here.” And Alice stepped inside the tiny lobby.

  Like the liquor store, the guy in charge sat behind yet another thick panel of plexiglass. Must be the neighborhood, Alice thought. But unlike the man at the liquor store, the guy running the front desk looked completely emaciated and sick. HIV-sick maybe. Either that or a meth-head. Alice had seen enough of them to know what they looked like. The guy had dark rings around sunken eyes and a half dozen fresh lesions dotting his shaved head, mainly around his ears. They looked picked at. The worst one, about the size of a dime, oozed with infection. Alice tried not to stare at it. The guy twitched and blinked rapid-fire, and sucked on a menthol cigarette like it was a race to finish it.

  Yeah. Meth-head.

  “How many hours?” the meth-head asked, but kept his eyes focused on a television that sat on the counter.

  “Overnight.”

  Alice heard someone else cough in the office behind the meth-head. Someone else moving around in the dark. She spotted a waft of white smoke curling in the air behind the meth-head. Someone coughed again, then Alice could smell the distinct odor of something like burning plastic. She didn’t think much of it. Didn’t really care about anything other than getting a room and pouring a drink.

  The meth-head stabbed out his cigarette, then went about lighting up another. “Sixty for the night.”

  “The sign says forty-nine.”

  The meth-head shrugged. “Guess they didn’t change it yet.”

  Alice had to laugh. “Of course they didn’t.”

  Meth-head worked on his new cigarette. “Sixty. Cash up front.”

  “Got a room at the end of the building?”

  “Got room 212,” meth-head said.

  “That at the end of the building?”

  Ash dropped from the tip of his cigarette onto his concaved chest, but if the meth-head noticed, he didn’t care. “You want the room or not?”

  What Alice really wanted to do was to drift away into a dull haze—she was feeling that all-consuming desire to feed the beast. Besides, what was sixty bucks when she had over ninety thousand dollars hanging off her shoulder?

  The meth-head’s eyes tracked Alice as she reached into her duffel bag and grabbed some cash, and his face twitched.

  She slid three twenties through the plexiglass window, noticed that when the meth-head grabbed a key from a box, it was filled with other keys. The place was damn near vacant.

  “Checkout is eleven,” he stated.

  “It’s already after midnight. Can you at least give me ’til noon?”

  Meth-head shrugged. “Sure. You can pay for the extra hour if you want.”

  Alice grabbed the key and went outside to where Delilah stood waiting—the girl hadn’t budged an inch.

  “We staying here? In this place?” the girl asked.

  “If you have a better option lined up, please, by all means.”

  Delilah mumbled sorry and watched as Alice walked up the stairs to the second floor. She looked toward the street for a moment as if weighing her options, then ran after Alice to catch up.

  When Alice found her room, it was right in the middle of the building. God damned meth-head.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOVEMBER 2005

  THE MOON, NEAR full, hung behind a wall of dense, towering clouds that threatened to crack open and deliver more rain. A crisp wind picked up even harder, and Alice could feel the moisture on her face. The rain was coming. Pretty close now.

  She had trudged alongside Highway 17 for half the day, just off the road, but far enough away that a passing State Trooper wouldn’t spot her in the woods. Twelve hours walking nonstop. The blisters started forming after hour three—in between her big toe on both feet. After a few more hours of treading the uneven ground off of the highway, Alice felt the blisters pop and the warm liquid spread inside her socks. But she kept walking and walking, leaving Wilmington, her parents, her friends, everything but the memories of Jason behind her.

  A jag of lightning glowed white for a split second, and Alice counted silently.

  One, two, three, four—BOOM. Thunder rumbled up in the sky, and Alice could feel the vibrations in the air. She didn’t even get to five. Five seconds equaled one mile. That was what her dad told her. That meant that the storm wasn’t even a mile away. More rain, then the November night would get even colder.

  She walked down the sidewalk in the small town, every store and shop on Shallotte’s Main Street closed and locked up tight. A hardware store, grocery mart, a beauty salon, a secondhand clothing shop, the post office and bank, a few other shops that had gone out of business. She passed by Stan’s Pub, a neon Budweiser sign glowing red in the window. She heard some laughter coming from inside. Could smell the cigarette smoke and draft beer. Alice ducked past the front door and kept her feet moving.

  No cars or trucks rumbled down the main strip. Most of the homes on Main Street didn’t have their porch lights on. It was like everyone up and disappeared.

  Alice stopped in front of one of the few restaurants in town. Lucy’s Diner—also closed. She stared at the specials board next to the front door and read down the list—softshell crab sandwich, beer-battered fried shrimp, oyster Po’ Boy, pulled pork sandwich, lots of dishes covered in gravy. Everything sounded good. Her stomach grumbled and complained, demanding something other than the five or six Snickers bars she’d wolfed down over the last twelve hours.

  The clouds overhead got darker, thicker, blacker by the second, and started to spit rain.

  Alice shifted her backpack to her other shoulder, stared down both directions of the road, and checked for police cars. Main Street was a ghost town, and Alice doubted that a small town like Shallotte would even have cops.

  Thunder boomed again and then it was as if the sky had been sliced open by an invisible box cutter as the rain began to pound down on the sidewalk and road in dime-sized pellets. Alice ducked around the side of Lucy’s Diner and searched for a place to escape the downpour. In the back of the restaurant, she stumbled upon a parking lot with a few rusted-out cars, a stack of tires with the treads worn thin, and a bunch of cardboard boxes leaning against a big blue dumpster. Alice tried opening each car, but they were all locked or stuck shut. It kept
raining, harder and harder. There was a dark mass of woods at the far end of the parking lot where the trees grew thick and dense. Alice could hear the slow, churning water of the Shallotte River off somewhere in the distance.

  With rain pelting at her cheeks and stinging her eyes, Alice sprinted across puddles of water toward the dumpster pressed up against the back brick wall of the diner. She stepped in a patch of bacon grease leaking out from the bottom of the dumpster, and her feet went out from under her and she came down hard. She threw her hands out to stop her fall, but landed face-first, and skidded across the asphalt. As she rolled on the pavement, her backpack tore open, spewing her clothes all over the hard, wet ground.

  She tried to stand up, but fell again, this time landing on her back. As the rain pelted down on top of her, she looked at the palms of her hands, chewed up by the asphalt, skin pulled back, tiny pieces of gravel pressing into her flesh. The rain kept pounding harder, the wind howling and snapping at the trees that loomed all around.

  Alice scrambled to her hands and knees, stuffed her clothing into her backpack, all of it soaking wet and weighing five times its normal weight. Then she crawled through the puddles and bacon grease and squeezed herself between the dumpster and the back wall of Lucy’s Diner.

  Rainwater gushed out of a leaking gutter, rolled down the brick like a waterfall, and splattered all around Alice’s huddled frame. She pulled tight into a ball, but the water found every inch of her, soaking her clothes and hair, and stinging the torn skin on her palms.

  Alice listened to the rain and shrieking wind and thought about her room at home. Her bed and blankets, and how warm and dry and safe it must be. She thought about her parents. What they were doing right at that moment. What they must be feeling after finding the letter she left behind. She had written a half dozen different notes with a half dozen different explanations, but she’d tossed them all away. It didn’t matter that she felt guilty and sad, or that she wished she hadn’t yelled at Jason and said what she said, or that she knew she should have gone and checked on him sooner. None of that mattered anymore. And it didn’t matter where she was running off to, or how she would be able to take care of herself, or if she’d ever come back home again. She tried writing and explaining all those things, but after reading each note, she crumpled up the paper and threw them away. Then, finally, she wrote what had to be said, nothing more. I’m going away. It’s better for everyone.