Sugar Run: A Novel

by Mesha Maren

  Her legs were wobbly by the time she reached town. The Chevette was not at the Gas ’N Go and the man at the register said he hadn’t seen anyone who looked like Ricky. Jodi splashed cold water on her sweat-red face and headed out the back door toward her parents’ house.

  The little blue bungalow had the blinds tightly drawn. Approaching it, Jodi felt the same unease she had as a child. Ever since her parents moved there she had felt that it was such a separate sphere, the whole thing as private as a closed-up bedroom.

  It took Andy a long time to come to the door and when he did he looked like he might have just woken up. No, he said, they had not seen Ricky. Jodi nodded and pushed inside toward the phone on the kitchen wall. Andy stood in the doorway, scratching his crotch as Jodi dialed Dennis’s number. His lethargy angered Jodi. All of it, Farren’s absence, the Gas ’N Go cashier’s flippancy, and Andy’s sleepiness, seemed to mock Jodi’s urgency. She wiped sweat from her upper lip and gripped the phone.

  “’ello?”

  “Veeda, hey, is Dennis there?”

  “No, huh-uh, who is this?”

  “Jodi. Is he at work?”

  “Everything’s okay?”

  “Is he at work, Veeda, you think he’s at work?”

  “Well, should be. You got his cell number?”

  She dialed the cell but got no answer and placing the phone back in its cradle she felt the slurring of the moment, the way that house trapped time: Andy slowly opening his Marlboro pack and lighting a cigarette, shuffling over to turn on the TV and crack the first beer of the day. If she stayed a moment longer, she would get stuck in all that slowed-down time and so she sprang for the door.

  After the closed-down hopelessness of the house, the heat felt good and she struck out across town, over the railroad tracks and on down toward the river where the katydids chitted in the trees. Ricky had spoken of seeing Rosalba in a pickup going up Snake Run Road, and though she could barely remember where it was, that, Jodi decided, was where she was headed.

  The particulars of the roads and directions eluded her but the buildings she passed were riddled with memory-scars: the diner where she’d washed dishes the summer that she met Paula, the football-field concession stand that she was not cool enough to get a job at, the high-school gymnasium where, at age fourteen, she’d decided to enter the talent show by reciting her beloved Tennyson. Even now she was not sure exactly what reaction she’d hoped for, awe or respect perhaps. She’d traipsed up on the stage in Effie’s old wedding gown and closed her eyes to better articulate and project her carefully memorized “Lady of Shalott” lines and in her reverie—the warmth of the stage lights on her silky dress, those beautiful lines flowing from her lips—she had failed to notice the gym teacher–cum–master of ceremony until he was grabbing the microphone from her hands, pointing to his watch and shouting time’s up! The spattering of applause for her was nothing compared to the thunderous ovation for the following act, a spunky lip-synced version of George Strait’s “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy about You.”

  It was evening by the time Dennis caught up with Jodi, still walking, in the waning heat, out along Route 3. The sound of his engine flared at her back. He honked and pulled over into the weeds, head hanging out the window.

  “Dad said you been calling me. Said you come by looking for Ricky.”

  “He took the car this time,” Jodi said.

  The cab of Dennis’s pickup smelled of chewing tobacco and stale beer. Jodi pushed aside a pile of chip bags and plastic soda bottles and climbed in. Dennis looked dirty and tired; his work uniform was still on and his blue shirt with the Sunrise Poultry logo was splattered with bits of dried chicken blood.

  “Where you headed?” he said, pushing the gearshift out of neutral. “I been driving around for the past hour, looking for you.”

  “Snake Run Road. Yesterday Ricky said—”

  “Snake Run ain’t out this way. You’re headed smack-damn in the wrong direction.”

  Jodi stared out the window. She felt exhausted. She kept on forgetting just how much she had forgotten about this place, how much of a stranger she was here.

  “Is she really staying up Snake Run?” she asked as Dennis turned the truck around.

  “Up in the back of Saw Mill Holler but you get there by going on Snake Run.”

  She knew she should mention the suitcase but she feared Dennis’s reaction.

  By the time they had reached the narrowing chasm of Saw Mill Holler, night had set in with lightning bugs luminescing along the edges of the steep curves. Jodi had no memory of this road and no idea where it led. They wove on, deep into the split of the mountains, the blacktop looping around itself, and from far below, down the hillside, came the sound of a fast-churning creek.

  Dennis was uncharacteristically silent. Just tired, Jodi told herself, hoping he was not frightened, pushing back her own fears. They wound around a hairpin curve and the truck’s headlights splashed onto the maroon bumper of the Chevette, slanting up out of the ditch.

  “Shit,” Jodi said, all the air going out of her as Dennis slammed on the brakes and jerked the truck over onto the gravel.

  They were out of the truck and moving fast through the double beams of the headlights.

  “Ricky?”

  “Hey, Ricky?”

  Their voices bounced off each other and for a moment, before she remembered that it was mostly his fault they were even in this situation, Jodi felt a surge of gratitude toward Dennis for being there.

  The back tires were up in the air and the nose of the car wedged neatly down in the ditch. The pickup’s lights illuminated only the back half of the vehicle so Jodi had to feel her way, blind and groping, digging her heels into the soft dirt bank as she worked to open the front passenger’s door.

  “He ain’t in here,” Dennis called from the far side of the car, and Jodi could see, as her eyes adjusted, that it was true.

  She cursed him as she climbed back up the mud bank. Now that she knew he wasn’t dead inside the car or badly wounded, anger spiraled up inside her.

  “You got your cell phone?” she asked Dennis. “We should call and see if the cops picked him up.”

  Dennis shook his head. “If he kept walking from here, he could be up at Cruz’s place by now.”

  They drove on, curving deeper back in the holler until Dennis pointed off to the right and Jodi looked to see the lights of half a dozen trailers up ahead, their front porches glowing through the knotty pine trees. Dennis turned onto a rutted dirt road and drove until they reached a chain-link fence with a tall metal gate. A floodlight blinked and Dennis shut the truck off and stepped out. Jodi moved to open her door but Dennis shook his head.

  “Just give me a minute,” he said.

  A dog barked, its voice bobbing down the hill ahead of its body, and a bearded man appeared out of the field beyond the gate, an AR-15 held tight in his right hand.

  “McCarty,” he called, and Jodi, sitting there in the empty truck, felt herself lurch. Of course McCarty was Dennis’s name too but to her that singular word was the language of Jaxton, of penalty and authority and roll calls.

  “Yeah, Cruz will wanna talk to you,” the bearded man said, shaking his head at Dennis as he pushed the gate wide and held back the panting dog.

  Dennis climbed back into the truck and drove on up the dark road.

  “Ricky’s here?” Jodi said, her words sounding too loud and breathless.

  Dennis nodded. He said nothing but the veins in the side of his neck were jumping and Jodi suddenly felt nauseated. She balled her hands into fists and stared up the hill toward the porches where two women sat smoking, their bare legs crossed, pale skin bright against the night.

  Dennis pulled up beside the first trailer and the front door opened. A man shuffled down the porch steps. Dennis opened his door and Jodi reached for hers but again Dennis told her to stay put.

  “But—”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Ricky doesn’t reall
y know you. I should come.”

  “Stay right here.”

  Jodi watched him disappear behind the second trailer. The night was cooler back here in the crook of the holler and she could see, high above, in the sliver of sky between mountain peaks, a scattering of stars spread like tossed salt. She thought of herself and Ricky on the cabin porch watching falling stars.

  Music started up in the nearest trailer, a man’s voice crooning, and for a moment Jodi was sure it was Ricky singing and she gripped the door handle, but just as quickly the voice faded. Someone changed the radio station and it fizzled to static and then a pink bubbly voice sang out something about first kisses. The women on the porch put out their cigarettes and went back inside.

  Jodi pushed the truck door open as quietly as she could and stepped out. The grass was wet with dew and the night air buzzed full of mosquitoes. She crossed into the darkness between the first and second trailers. Around back she could hear men’s voices and through the trees the lights of a tall, pillared house shone faintly.

  Through the curtainless windows Jodi could see into the front room; paint and plaster peeled off the walls and a tilted chandelier hung over a huddle of men: Ricky, arms folded across his chest, staring off toward the boarded-up fireplace; Dennis, his face red as he shouted at a short brown man with tattoos on his neck; and two other men, skinny, cracked-out white dudes, flanking each side of the tattooed man. In the middle of them all was a black-and-white pit bull whose scarred head looked too heavy for its bony body and, beside it, the leather suitcase.

  Jodi brushed the fuzz of mosquitoes off her arms and moved slowly up onto the porch, keeping her feet quiet as she headed for the open front door.

  “I had no fucking clue,” Dennis screamed. “No fucking clue, dude. I did not send him up here.”

  Jodi slipped into the hallway.

  “He threatened me, threatened my girls—”

  “I have a really fucking hard time believing that you felt threatened by—”

  “Okay, okay, annoyed. He took up all of my afternoon with his yelling about Rosalba and . . . and then he gives me the skag, so I see this is fair. For my time wasted I keep the skag and you can have your friend.” Cruz smiled. “And maybe it is that he is smarter than you? That is why he brings it to me? Because what in fuck are you doing trying to sell this shit around here?”

  They were close, just through that doorway, close enough that Jodi could smell them, the dog scent and beer and weed.

  “I won’t sell it around here.” Dennis glanced between Cruz and the suitcase. “I’ll move it out, down in Atlanta.”

  “You think anyone wants to buy this shit anyway?” He motioned toward the suitcase with his foot. “You thought this powder shit was pure, huh? Fancy? Because it’s not sticky and dark like my black tar?” Cruz was smiling wide now, flashing silver teeth and wet gums. “You know how many times this shit has been stepped on?”

  Dennis looked like he might cry.

  “Still, a nice gift, though.”

  “Come on, Cruz, you know that shit wasn’t his to give.”

  “Well, let’s say you should keep a little better track of your friends.”

  The man beside Cruz laughed. The laughter echoed in the huge high-ceilinged room. The dog looked up at the men and barked. Cruz kicked the dog and it bobbed its head and whimpered. Ricky bent suddenly. He held his hand out to stroke the dog’s head and then the room erupted: dog flying at Ricky’s face, Cruz stumbling backward, the suitcase tipping over, and the two men backing away.

  “No,” Jodi screamed. She was running toward Ricky who lay sprawled now, the dog on his chest, his screams mixing in with Jodi’s and bouncing all around the room.

  “Who the fuck?” Even as he asked the question Cruz was turning from Jodi toward Ricky and kicking the dog with a sick whump.

  He bent to catch his breath. “Who the fuck is this?”

  Jodi opened her mouth to explain herself but stopped. The suitcase was no longer on the floor.

  “Dan-ees,” Cruz said.

  Dennis paused in the doorway, both hands grasping the suitcase.

  Jodi looked beyond Cruz and over to Ricky whose neck was scratched and red but not bloody.

  “Dan-ees, put the suitcase on the floor,” Cruz said, pulling a small silver pistol from the back of his pants.

  Jodi crawled past Cruz toward Ricky, sitting now and looking stunned as he watched the dog lift its head slowly. She felt numb and bloodless and had to push herself to crawl, arm, leg, arm, until she reached him.

  “You know this ain’t yours,” Dennis said, and then the sound of the pistol ripped through the room.

  Dennis dropped the suitcase, stuttering backward, the sleeve of his blue shirt flushing dark as he fell against the wall.

  “Oh,” Jodi said, surprised at the sound of her own voice so loud there in the silence after the shot.

  Cruz picked up the suitcase and stepped over Dennis. He waved his men to him and spoke in a voice too low for Jodi to understand. The men nodded and flanked out, one on each side of the room. Cruz walked out the front door.

  Jodi stood and looked at the man closest to her. His eyes were glazed but his rifle barrel pointed straight at her brother, finger resting on the trigger. She looked at the other man, a twitchy twin of the first, rifle leveled at Dennis’s head.

  Dennis moaned and Jodi stepped toward him and then glanced again at Cruz’s men. They did not stir. Their faces wore the calm look of trained animals waiting to be called upon. Jodi bent over Dennis. The shot seemed to have hit only his upper arm but he was shaking, breathing all stuttery and losing blood quickly.

  “Oh, fuck,” Jodi said, propping him up against the wall. His head lolled. She pulled at his undershirt and ripped it with her teeth. Even here, inside, the mosquitoes were thick, buzzing and landing on Dennis’s neck and arms. “Shit,” Jodi said, keeping her voice quiet as if louder words might awaken Cruz’s men to action. “I’m gonna make a tourniquet, okay? You’re not gonna die.”

  Dennis’s eyes were all jittery. His arm was slick and warm with blood.

  “Just bandage the wound,” Ricky said.

  Jodi looked up to see him standing just behind her. Cruz’s men moved their rifles from Dennis to him. Unaware, he bent and took the ragged cloth in his hands, pressing it firmly against Dennis’s arm and wrapping it three times tight.

  “Let’s get him to the truck.” Ricky grabbed Dennis’s shoulders and lifted him.

  Jodi turned to the men. “We’re taking him to the hospital.”

  Neither man said anything but their rifles were still fixed on Ricky.

  “We won’t tell anyone who shot him,” Jodi said, and when no response came she bent and grabbed Dennis’s legs.

  They carried him slowly through the front door and Jodi held her breath, waiting for the crack of rifle fire.

  “Go on and get the truck,” Ricky said. “I’ll wait here with him.”

  Jodi lowered her brother into the grass, wiped her blood-gummed hands on her pants, and took off running. The night was loud with the static of crickets and tree frogs. She could hear laughter from inside one of the trailers and the sound of her own feet swishing through the tall grass. Clouds were blowing in, covering up the pinprick stars and everything was so still. She shook her head as if to wake herself. The beauty of the summer night, the fucked-upness of the situation—she could not see how to straighten it all out and understand everything.

  In the truck, they propped up Dennis with his head on Ricky’s lap and legs across Jodi’s thighs. In the dark of the cab Jodi could barely see his face but she could hear him moaning and smell his blood and she felt sick.

  “Where’s Rosalba?”

  Ricky jerked his head toward the trailers. “She said I shouldn’t have come looking for her.”

  Jodi jammed the gearshift into reverse, then up into first, the engine screaming. She took the dirt road too fast and they bucked over the ruts so hard she feared they’d bust a tire,
and then there, at the bottom of the hill, the headlights leapt up bright against the metal fence.

  “Fuck,” Jodi said, “fuck, fuck, the gate.”

  She pushed Dennis’s feet off her lap and jumped out. “Somebody open the fucking gate!”

  A car approached down on the blacktop road, its lights swinging like a tide across the trees. She ran toward the gate but the car drove on, deeper into the holler, and when the light and noise had passed all she could hear was the fast drum of her own blood.

  “Hey, anybody there?” she yelled, her throat dry and painful.

  There was a rustle of footsteps back beyond the truck, the clink of metal, and the man with the AR-15 appeared. He said nothing to Jodi, just pulled out a clutch of keys.

  She drove faster than she’d ever believed she could, whipping the curves in one long motion, her stomach up in her throat.

  “You fucking idiots,” Dennis said suddenly. “Shit. Fuck. I’m gonna kill you.”

  They rounded a curve and the headlights spun onto the maroon metal of the Chevette and she glanced at Ricky but he had his head down, staring at Dennis’s arm.

  Rain began to fall as they reached the edge of town, big drops that sounded out against the windshield and blurred the stoplights and streetlamps. Jodi ran a red light on Front Street and turned onto the river road. She pushed the truck up to ninety, the wet blacktop glistening on the dips and rises of the hills. She looked over at Dennis’s pale face and glassy eyes and remembered the way he had looked as a baby, when he first arrived home, tucked inside a wicker laundry basket with A.J., two little hairless beings. Defenseless, Effie had called them, explaining to five-year-old Jodi that they were too tiny to make it on their own. You’ve got to protect them, she said.