by Mesha Maren
TWO
July 2007
“Miss Jodi.” Ricky’s voice licked up out of the darkness of the backseat. “I gotta take a leak.”
Jodi glanced in the rearview mirror. The boys were piled on top of Ricky, Kaleb’s head resting on his shoulder while Donnie and Ross lay stretched across his lap. It was impossible to tell where one brother ended and the other began. The world’s strangest family.
“Okay,” Jodi said. “I’ll stop here in just a minute.”
The sky was beginning to lighten, a slate-gray fade across the mountain peaks, and the headlights sketched a weak trail through the greenery. Vines and tree branches crowded thick on both banks of the road and half-hidden among the bushes a sign flashed by.
MALONGA COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
Render
12 mi
Painter Creek
16 mi
Salt Sulphur Springs
23 mi
The words repeated themselves in a flash of reflective paint, over and over behind Jodi’s eyelids as she blinked. Render 12 mi. This was it. This here, and there and there. The turnaround where the school bus always stopped and looped back toward Painter Creek, the junkyard there where the Weinshotzer kids lived, all of them wearing knit hats, even in the summer heat, hiding the shame of lice-shaved heads. The little brick house that belonged to that princess, Mallory Estep, the doctor’s daughter, her ankle socks adorned with white lace all through elementary school and, in high school, her hair attended to in the back of the bus by no fewer than three handmaids, a cloud of Aqua Net hairspray perpetually frosting the air around them.
Render was still sleeping, just a few bare bulbs glowing above front-porch swings and strings of Christmas lights in the windows. Jodi sped through town, ignoring the Exxon station and Ricky’s need, heading instead for Bethlehem Mountain Road, a one-lane track that jutted up between limestone boulders as pale and exposed as sun-bleached bones and then wound on into the green immensity of oak and hickory. But just before the turnoff for Bethlehem a neon sign caught her eye, the yellow letters arched above an arrow pointing downriver. slattery’s girl, it read, open 24 hours. beer. music. booze.
Jodi slowed the car and stared at the sign. Through most of her childhood Malonga County had been dry. It was only in ’86 that they began to sell gas station beer and even then there were no bars. If you wanted to drink, you did it at home or on back roads in half-wrecked cars.
The mountain showed other changes too: a new gravel road, cut hastily through the old Jessup apple orchard, spread out across a shale cliff, giving way to a perfect bird’s-eye view of the town below. A tower rose there now, a tall metal grid looming over the trees, and as she slowed for the steep turn Jodi caught sight of a huge mud-splattered truck moving like some giant dinosauric creature down the ruts of the new-made road and, on a tree, there beside the entrance, a hand-painted sign: fracking = permanent threat and danger = our water is our life!
“Miss Jodi,” Ricky called from the backseat. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
“Shit, sorry.” Jodi stopped the car. “You can just piss in the ditch here.”
The boys whined as Ricky unearthed himself from under them, and Miranda stirred too, blinking awake. Jodi reached over and brushed away the blonde hair matted against her sweaty cheek. “We’re almost there,” she said, and then, as Ricky climbed back in, she turned and she smiled at him too and said, “Just call me Jodi, okay? I don’t need the ‘Miss.’”
Effie’s land was ripe with disuse. The Chevette could barely fit into the mouth of the lane, clogged as it was with multiflora rose and goldenrod.
“We’ll walk from here,” Jodi said, opening the car door to the smell of honeysuckle and a darker fungus scent.
Up ahead the contours of the road were visible in a ghostly way under the swells of jimsonweed—it was a little like looking back and forth between a much younger photograph of a woman and her now aging face; the bone structure was still there but the surface had all but completely changed.
“Watch out for snakes.” Ricky’s voice boomed at Jodi’s back.
“I wanna see a snake,” Donnie said.
Jodi quickened her pace, her head buzzing with worry as she came around the bend. And then there it was: the little off-kilter cabin with the metal roof curling up from the frame. Jodi didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she let it out and took off running, greenbrier vines snatching at her jeans as she rushed forward, expecting every moment for it to all ghost off into a dream.
Time did not separate here. The past ran parallel and you could catch a glimpse if you turned quickly enough. Nineteen years ago she left the cabin, in the paling light of gray-green storm clouds, receding through the dirt-smudged glass of a rear windshield. For all those years the hologram danced. But now it was real: the porch creaking under her feet, the front door open, and a slice of light pointing across the pine floorboards straight to the cast-iron woodstove. The window above the sink was shattered, triangles of glass still clinging to the frame, and on the back wall a rack of copper pots hung untouched.
Jodi stepped inside, dry leaves and acorns crunching underfoot. She moved slowly toward the kitchen table, that unforgettable oak slab with the heart of the tree running down the center in a single stripe. Three chairs were set on each side, pushed back at an angle, as if a card party had just ended.
She opened the china cabinet and pale moths lifted up from among the cups and flapped blindly against her face. A calendar hung on the wall. December 2002—Jodi’s thirteenth year in Jaxton. It featured a blonde girl with boobs bursting out of a camo hunting shirt. This was the only sign that anyone had been inside since Effie died back in ’88.
Jodi moved over to the sealed-off fireplace where on the mantel sat a mason jar of tiny bones and fingernails.
These, Effie had explained to ten-year-old Jodi, are the three important things. The first was her Smith & Wesson .38 with a smooth wooden handle and lady smith engraved in cursive on the side; the second, a Remington 721; and the third, the mason jar with the remains of Granddaddy McCarty’s right hand.
The Ladysmith .38 had been a wedding gift from Granddaddy to his bride and the best thing, Effie said, she ever got out of that marriage. The Remington was an inheritance from the uncle who took Effie in, and the bits of bone and fingernail were the result of Granddaddy’s affair with a lady, or two, from town. When Effie had heard about it she’d turned her wedding gift on him and he lost the hand before he got out of their cabin. Their older son, Phillip, went with his father, following the blood trail down the rutted lane, leaving Effie and Andy, Jodi’s daddy, with the land to themselves.
“He’s telling you to be careful.” Kaleb’s voice carried up the porch steps.
Jodi turned to see Donnie burst into the cabin, carrying a tall stick and jabbing it out in front of himself. The others crowded in the doorway, Ricky eyeing the log walls, Miranda on tiptoe, peering over his shoulder, and Kaleb pressed in behind her.
“It really is like Little House on the Prairie,” Miranda said.
Jodi laughed and shook her head but she was relieved to see Miranda smiling.
The trip to Beckley took an hour and Jodi drove it alone, leaving Miranda, Ricky, and the boys at the cabin. Half a block from the South Central Regional Parole Office she realized she didn’t quite have a license yet and probably shouldn’t be seen driving so she stashed the Chevette in the shade of a white pine and approached the redbrick building on foot, preparing on her face a look of earnest compliance.
Officer Ballard hardly glanced at her, though. He was sleeping at his desk when the young receptionist cleared her throat and called out Benny twice before he finally stirred and looked up at Jodi.
“You’ve got a new supervised release here,” the receptionist said, then left quickly.
Benny Ballard’s head was too big for his neck and his face was stamped with an expression of deep annoyance. He ran his hand through his graying hair and the
n turned in his swivel chair and reached for the coffeepot that sat, burning, on a hot plate behind him, filling the office with a dry, bittersweet smell.
“Now I suppose you expect me to shake your little hand and do the whole how-gee-do-gee bit,” he said, pouring the dregs of the coffee into a mug that read sarcasm: my generous gift to the universe. “But let’s cut that crap and see if we can’t get this over with and get me out of here a little early today.”
Jodi sat down quietly in the folding chair. This wouldn’t be hard, she thought. She knew the type. There were the ones who took their jobs too seriously, believing they were personally responsible for helping reform criminals and then there were the ones like this who only counted the hours until they were back home in front of the TV. As long as you gave them the proper respect they ignored you ninety-nine percent of the time.
Ballard set his coffee mug on a stack of papers and pulled out a manila folder. “You must be Jodi McCarty, 611 Murdock Street, Render?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then, here we go.” He let his eyes slide halfway closed and stared over Jodi’s shoulder, rattling off a litany of regulations, fast and breathless, his rote voice reminding Jodi of Ricky’s tour guide shtick. “You shall not leave the geographic limits fixed by the certificate of release without written permission from your supervision officer. You shall make a complete and truthful written report to your supervision officer between the first and third day of each month and on the final day of parole. You shall also report to your supervision officer at other times as your supervision officer directs, providing complete and truthful information. You shall not violate any law. You shall not associate with persons engaged in criminal activity. You shall work regularly, unless excused by your supervision officer, and support your legal dependents, if any, to the best of your ability.” Ballard looked up at Jodi. “In other words, get a job and keep it.”
Jodi nodded and looked away toward the pea-green bookshelf with a dead plant on top. In prison you were never really allowed to be an individual human being, responsible for your own life decisions, but once they’d released you it was like you were suddenly supposed to know how to do it all effortlessly.
“There ain’t much in the way of jobs in Render,” Jodi said.
Ballard cracked the knuckles of his left hand.
Jodi took a deep breath and glanced back at him. He raised his eyebrows.
“I was thinking,” she said, looking not at Ballard but at a fly that had landed and was now cleaning its wings on the rim of his coffee cup. “I’d like to raise some yearlings, build up to a little cow-calf operation eventually.”
Ballard lifted his cup and the fly moved to his hand. He did not seem to notice. “Gotta be legitimately employed.” He put the cup down and the fly returned to it. “Where you planning on raising ’em anyhow? In the backyard in Render?”
“Oh, no.” Jodi squeezed her eyes shut. Shit, fuck. How could she have come so close to admitting to this man that she didn’t plan to live at her official given address, that she would instead be squatting on land she owed who knows how much taxes on. Shit, fuck. “No, I guess I didn’t think that one through.”
Ballard barked out a laugh. “You gotta be employed and paid by somebody.”
Jodi looked up at him. “Who’s gonna hire me when they see the Class B felony?”
Ballard shrugged.
“Some of the girls inside said even McDonald’s won’t take felons.”
“Mmm-hmm, well, yeah.” Ballard cracked the knuckles of his right hand. “What do your parents do for work?”
“Disability.” Jodi looked down at her lap. “Before that, Daddy was a guard over at the prison. Federal prison camp’s about the only place in Render that’s got steady jobs.”
Ballard laughed again. “Well, shit,” he said. “All right, well, you prove to me that you’re looking. You don’t find nothing after a while and you might consider getting a CDL. Long-haul trucking companies’ll sometimes hire on felons.”
Jodi stared at him. He raised his eyebrows and then the corners of his mouth turned up into a small mocking smile. “You submit to me a written report between the first and third of each month. If I’m not here, you leave it with the secretary. You report punctual and factual and we should have no problems but you cause troubles for me and I will make your life hell.”
He blinked at Jodi.
“Is that clear?”
Jodi met his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“All right, that’s it, that’s my side of the responsibility.” He tossed her folder onto the desk among the other papers, all those other typed reports of crumpled, bruised-up lives. “You are officially a supervised release parolee. Now get the fuck outta my sight.”
Jodi’s parents lived at the back end of Render, in a small blue house on a dead-end street, tucked behind the county jail and a baseball field. When they reached the block Jodi slowed the car to a crawl and the boys climbed one on top of the other to see out the window.
“You’re not gonna say Lee’s name, right?” Jodi glanced at Miranda.
Miranda was distracted, picking bits of red polish off her nails.
They’d gone over all this back at the cabin, sending the boys out to play in the yard while they incubated a story to tell Jodi’s family that did not include Lee Golden’s name. They’d settled on the idea that Miranda’s husband had died in a car wreck last week and so she’d moved to West Virginia with Jodi.
“Lee’s too chicken,” Miranda said, inspecting her cuticles. “He won’t really send the police after me, with some of the shit that he knows I could tell them.”
Jodi felt a pang of deep irritation. She tried and tried to keep the boys from knowing the full mixed-up reality of their situation but Miranda seemed to undermine her every chance she got, flinging out her words with disregard for the audience.
“Well,” Jodi whispered, turning the stereo higher to cover her voice, “somebody’s gonna be looking for them, right? What about their beloved Neenee?”
Miranda looked up, her eyes suddenly bright.
“We could dye our hair,” she said, and Jodi laughed out loud.
“What do you think, red or black?” Miranda pulled the sun visor down and snapped the mirror open.
Jodi watched her making faces at her reflection and thought of the billboard with the blinding white teeth and Miranda’s pride. That’s my daddy! This girl really had never done anything on her own; she’d gone from her Denture King daddy straight into the arms of her husband and all of it, even poverty and losing her children, was a game of sorts, a dramatic musical that always starred her.
“Are we there?” Ross asked.
Jodi let the car roll to a stop across the street from her parents’ house. A dog ran out from under the porch, eyed the car, and then paused to sniff an empty margarine tub in the middle of the yard. Jodi hadn’t called, hadn’t said a word to her parents since Jaxton, but Andy and Irene were there, she knew, day in and day out, their lives a flat road with repeating scenery. At the beginning of the month they would be flush from the government check, indulging in a week of excess followed by three weeks of wheedling frugality.
She cut the motor just as the front door opened with a clamor of bells and wind chimes. Irene appeared on the stoop, squinting.
“Hi!” Miranda called as she stepped from the car and opened the back door for the boys. Jodi watched her move and despite her frustration she found that she was, more than anything, overwhelmed by a relief that Miranda was there, a seeping gratitude for the fact that she didn’t know and couldn’t care that she was not expected here, a thankfulness for the way she filled up all the awkward spaces so effortlessly, snugly drew in all the attention with her children, her problems, and her shining hair.
“Hello?” Irene said, skinny arms crossed at her chest.
Jodi stepped out of the Chevette and stood there in the leafy shade of an oak tree.
“Goddamn,” Irene said, “if it ain�
��t Jodi Marie.”
The concrete between them was scattered with sticks, a broken matchbox car, and a deflated basketball.
“Hey.” Irene’s mouth split into a grin.
She was still so pretty, Jodi thought. Small features, big eyes, and long red-gold hair. Behind her in the doorway, Jodi’s father, Andy, stood, a few inches shorter, and lovely too, in an unexpected way, with a fierce but delicate beauty that emanated from his high cheeks, thin nose, and girlish mouth. There was something strangely sad about their beauty, there in that rundown house at the end of Murdock Street. Their loveliness, it seemed, had always taunted, promised them something, but nothing came, and oddly, no matter how drunk, how fucked and crooked they went, the beauty stayed.
“You brought babies!” Irene crowed, and they all tumbled into the house together, into those rooms stuffed with the noise of daytime TV and the smell of off-brand cigarette smoke. Irene directed Andy to the kitchen to get sandwich fixings, the boys into the back bedroom to nap, and Miranda into the master bedroom to rest and get clean.
“Take a shower or bath if you want, feel free, please,” she said, then grabbed Jodi’s elbow and pulled her close. “That your boyfriend?” She jerked her chin toward Ricky where he stood in the kitchen doorway, staring down at his feet.
“God, no,” Jodi said, pulling her elbow free. “No, no, no.”
Irene raised her eyebrows. “Oh, well, sorry, I just—”
“He’s the brother of an old friend.” Jodi tried to calm her voice. She’d reacted too violently and made the whole situation seem stranger even than it really was.
“He just needed to get out of a bad situation,” she said, glancing at Ricky.
“He ain’t her boyfriend?” Irene nodded toward the bedroom.