“Why do you care?” she’d asked him over dinner. “You don’t see me often enough to know what the hell I do or don’t do.”
The following day, Stuart Gordonson called to tell her there was a fourth grade opening starting in September at Pippins Elementary School and she would be the perfect candidate for the position.
Ah, but Donald was quick and to the point.
She remembered.
With a new surge of conviction, Kate yanked opened the front hall closet, grabbed a handful of spare scarves, a knit hat, and two of the seven assorted umbrellas, then raced out through the sleet to the waiting car.
12
There was wet pattering on the back windshield, and Mistie pulled the blanket away from one eye and looked at the glass. Thick streaks of ice were striking the window and sliding down like Daddy’s tobacco juice on the side of the refrigerator when he missed the can. Only Daddy’s tobacco juice wasn’t clear like the ice, it was brown. But it slid the same, not in a straight line but zig-zaggy, all the way down to the floor. Mistie had tried chewing tobacco one time. Her Daddy said it’d be good for her since it was a vegetable and kids should like vegetables. She didn’t like it and gagged, so he’d made her swallow it all down.
“That’ll show you,” he’d said.
Mistie’s stomach growled and she pushed her knuckles into in until it stopped. She burped. She wondered where the teacher was taking her. Maybe to a carnival. Maybe to Wal-Mart. They had balloons at Wal-Mart, and ice cream. Princess Silverlace liked strawberry ice cream the best.
She put her finger into her nose and pulled out a dry crust. She stared at it, and then said, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.” She flicked the crust out from beneath the blanket and onto the floor. She wished the teacher would hurry up.
And then the front door popped open and she could smell the teacher’s hand lotion before she heard the teacher’s seat squeak beneath her.
13
“Show us what you got first before we show you what we got,” said Whitey. The Hot Heads were in their usual seating places, except for DeeWee, who got left home. DeeWee would forget what they’d said in the car earlier, but DeeWee might not forget what they did if he was there to see it happen. And DeeWee, even Leroy would admit, couldn’t keep his mouth shut if God Himself came down to earth with a staple gun.
Leroy was dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and a bulky black coat Tony had never seen. He had a pair of scratched plastic sunglasses that looked like they came from a Burger King kid’s meal. Buddy had on a hunter cap with the flaps pulled down and a fake fur coat that looked like a mauled grizzly. He’d sprayed his face with what looked and smelled like the gold glitter spray his sister used to make her normally dirty blonde hair look like something special. He hadn’t sprayed the eyes, though, and they popped white through the red. Whitey wore a wrinkled trench coat, a scarf around his neck, and a pair of fuzzy mittens. Little Joe had lost all traces of cowboy. He wore a windbreaker, some rubber boots, and a pair of eyeglasses that had the lenses punched out.
The Chevelle lurched forward as Buddy’s foot slipped on the gas, then off, then back on again. He cussed at the sleet. The Chevelle’s passenger windshield wiper was broken, and it spasmed like a dying insect against the glass. The icy downpour picked up in intensity. Tony ran her hand under her nose to catch a leak.
“Show us what you got,” repeated Whitey.
“Your show me first,” Tony said.
“Bull us first,” said Leroy from the front. “You had this idea. This is your goddamn circus. You show us what you got.”
“Got this knife,” said Tony, lifting her foot for all to see.
“Knife?”
“Swiss army,” said Tony. “For back up.” She pulled out the revolver and waved it around. Little Joe ducked when the mouth of the barrel came to rest at his forehead.
“Cut it out!” he wailed.
“Mrs. Martin gonna cry just like you,” mused Tony. She grinned and put the revolver back into her pocket. Her head was itching again, beneath Granddad’s flattened hat. Again, she let it itch. It felt, well, fucking glorious.
“That’s a big ass gun, Tony,” said Leroy.
“I’m the only one big enough to handle it,” she said. And then to Whitey, “Now show me.”
Whitey produced a pistol. Tony didn’t know one pistol brand from another but it was small. At least it wasn’t rusted or bent up.
“Got ammo for this?” said Tony.
“Asshole,” said Whitey.
“Didn’t do anything to your face,” said Tony with a nod of her head. “People know them burned-up cheeks anywhere.”
“Yeah? Watch.” Whitey tugged the scarf up to show how it fit over his nose and chin. Muffled through the knit he said, “Just shut your fat lips.”
“What else we got?” Tony asked. “Little Joe, you said your great-uncle had a gun at home.”
“He was home,” said Little Joe. “Couldn’t get it.”
Tony slapped his glasses off. Little Joe put them back on. “Then what about you, Buddy? Leroy?”
There was silence a moment, and Leroy said, “Still got the bb gun, okay? So what? Nobody else found guns. You want to make a big deal, fine, I’ll throw you out the car. With what you and Whitey got nobody at the Exxon’ll know what’s bullets and what’s bb.”
Tony shook her head, but she knew Leroy was probably right. Mrs. Martin was a squirrely, middle-aged woman who chain-smoked and flirted with the guy who drove the gasoline truck. She would just shit her pants and cower behind the counter where she belonged. She would remember enough details for the police and news reporters who would show up in the wake of the crime so the Hot Heads would find their way into the papers and maybe onto the evening news. “Oh,” Tony could hear her squeal. “It was a hideous gang! Five of them, teenagers, tough talking, armed! They didn’t take no for an answer, and they took every penny from the cash register.” No fucking pennies, Tony thought. In her mind Mrs. Martin backed up, started again. “They took every dollar from the cash register and shot up the place! Just look at this place! I’m lucky to have come out with my life. And they’re out there, they’ll do it again, you can bet on it! You have to warm everybody! What did they look like? Well, I can’t say exactly, they had disguises. Sorry. They just seemed too smart to let anyone know who they were!” Maybe she would get fired, that would be good. But remembering the dread on her face and the smell of pee in her panties was the best reward of all.
Bitch’d never call Tony a little girl again.
Buddy took a sharp left onto the main drag, Route 58, that led to the Exxon. Everyone in the car flopped to the left. Everybody cussed. Buddy muttered, “Oops.”
The car passed another cotton field, a cattle field, and then the huge house on the hill that belonged to the McDolen family. Then a couple farmhouses and pockets of trees. The trees were coated with sleet, and the small ones at roadside shimmered like glass in the passing wake of the Chevelle.
“What are we gonna do after we rob the Exxon?” asked Little Joe.
“Celebrate,” said Tony. “Take what we got and celebrate in the old barn. Listen to the car radio for when they start talking about it on the news. Plan our next robbery. We can’t just do one and let it go. We’ll have a reputation we gotta keep. We’re grown up now.”
“Fuck,” said Little Joe. His voice sounded higher now, like something was squeezing his diaphragm and pushing the air up through his windpipe before he was ready for it.
The Exxon was ahead on the left side of the road, sitting at the back of a graveled, grassy parking lot and a single aisle of pumps. The tall glass sign for the price of gas had been blown out in a wind last week, throwing shards everywhere, and was still not repaired. The metal plates with the numbers were propped up against the door to the station bathroom along with some stray two-by-fours. Didn’t matter; nobody ever used the Exxon bathroom because it had snakes in it. A lone car sat in the gravel, not near the pumps but near the
plate glass window of the building. Tony didn’t know the car; it was a white, new-looking four door. She didn’t care who it was, though. One more witness to enjoy the fun with Mrs. Martin.
Buddy made a deep sound in his throat, then coughed. Tony figured he was scared shitless. Her own heart had picked up a painful rhythm that she knew as pure joy. Any chill she’d felt for not having a coat was long gone. “Go around the Dumpsters,” she said, leaning forward to Buddy’s ear. “You’re the get-away. You stay in the car.”
Buddy let out a long breath. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He tried to look pissed. It didn’t work. “Well, okay, then, shit, just leave me behind.”
Leroy was already pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up around his head and drawing the strings in until very little of his face showed. He slammed an old knit hat down over top of the hood.
The Chevelle was steered across the gravel lot and around the back of the Dumpsters. There were four of them, painted sky blue and stenciled in bold white, “Property of Brown’s Waste Management. No Trespassing.” There was a tight squeeze between the Dumpsters and the scrub pines behind them - there was a high-pitched scraping sound as several low branches took a bite out of the Chevelle’s coat - but Buddy eased into position so it would take a simple heel to the gas pedal to get the car across the edge of the gravel and back onto the road.
The engine died, but Buddy left the key in.
“Okay, now wait,” said Tony. She retrieved the tubes of lipstick. Wrenching down the rearview so she could see, she covered her face in a sunburst pattern of stripes, starting at her nose and moving outward. “Now you,” she said to Whitey. She kneeled over Little Joe and covered Whitey’s scarred face with big polka dots. Whitey held still and silent, as if he were being blessed. It made Tony feel strange, the way they suddenly trusted her so close to them. Little Joe was given zigzags with the second tube. He worked around to see himself in the rearview.
“Cool,” he said. “I like that!”
Tony almost smiled.
Leroy turned without being asked. Tony gave him random swirls. Tony, Leroy, Little Joe, Buddy, and Whitey looked at each other. For the most fleeting moment Tony thought she should say something to them, like they were the best, or they were cool, but it was too fucking personal. She pulled the revolver out of her trousers and handed it to Whitey.
“Trade you,” she said.
“What? Why?” Whitey looked excited to have the chance to hold the larger gun, but there was an edge of suspicion to his voice.
Tony shrugged. “So I’m trying to be nice for once. Want it or not, Scarface?”
Whitey gave Tony his pistol in exchange for the revolver. He slid it into the pocket of his trench coat. “Cool,” he said. Then, “But I don’t wanna shoot nobody.”
“Don’t have to,” said Tony. “We’ll scare ‘em to death, just looking at us. Scare the living shit out of ‘em.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Tony let her finger slide along the trigger for a moment then she turned away and cracked it open. This baby was loaded. The itching beneath her hat flared hot and insistent. She grinned. “Take whatever you want, but don’t shoot less you have to,” she said. “Save the ammo for next time. But fuck the place up good.”
Leroy snatched up the bb gun from the floor and slid it inside the sweatshirt. The tip of the barrel poked out at the bottom.
Three doors popped open. The gang stepped out into the cold December sleet.
14
Mistie Henderson groaned suddenly, a throaty sound that was more canine than human.
Kate’s foot lifted instinctively from the accelerator. “Oh, God,” Kate whispered. Then, “Mistie, you okay?”
The groan again, followed by a soft whimper.
Kate had just steered from her driveway back onto Route 58, heading west. Fifteen miles ahead was the intersection for Interstate 95 at Emporia. The sleet was harder now and the tarmac was already covered with a slushy sheen. She would have to drive more slowly than she’d imagined to get to Interstate 95 heading north. With some luck the sleet would not follow her very far. It was her turn for luck. It was way past her turn for luck.
“Mistie?” repeated Kate. The car slowed.
God, don’t let anything be wrong with this child. Not now, not when I’m getting ready to help her, please just this once help me, just this once, okay? Hear me?
“Mistie, do I need to pull over? Are you sick? You aren’t sick, are you?”
Mistie was silent. Kate licked her top lip. “Are you sick?”
Silence.
“Are you hurt?”
Nothing.
“Scared?”
Silence. The car stopped in the middle of the sleet-covered road. Kate could see no one coming in either direction. The windshield wipers plopped back and forth.
“Hungry? Are you hungry, Mistie?”
This brought on a small whimper and a whine.
A painful rush of air escaped Kate’s lips. Hungry was okay. Hungry wasn’t too bad at all. Thank God for hunger! “So are you hungry, Mistie? Is that it?”
The little whine.
Kate turned on the defroster. Her own anxiety and the cold were steaming up the windshield. She pressed on the gas; the car began to move. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about that before I left the house. Why didn’t I think about that? I could have packed a little lunch for the road.” Of course the child would be hungry. Children get hungry. Donnie always was hungry, as soon as they’d get into the car to go somewhere he was either hungry or had to go to the bathroom. Why hadn’t she grabbed something from the kitchen before leaving?
Kate fumbled in her purse; came up with an unopened bag of peanuts she’d thrown in there a couple weeks ago. She reached back and said, “Here, Mistie, can you stay down and catch this? Mmm, peanuts!” She tossed it over the back of the seat.
There was a slow scrabbling noise in the back. Kate turned the wipers on full blast and they battled the sleet and each other. Small clear spots were forming where the defrost was cutting the fog.
Then a groan, clearly unhappy.
“You don’t like peanuts?”
There was a swishing sound as if the girl was shaking her head beneath the blanket.
Please, just eat the peanuts. It’s not like you’re used to expensive treats, come on. “They’re good, fresh. I just got them a couple days ago in a multi-pack.”
Silence. Then a soft, gurgling whine.
“Can you wait just a bit, then, for something else? We’ve not even gotten through Pippins, and we have a long way to go, Mistie.”
The swishing sound again. Kate’s throat clicking with frustration. Her forehead was speared with a painful lance. She steered the car over next to a sagging wire fence by a dead cotton field.
“Mistie,” she said. She looked back over the seat and tossed the blanket aside. The child was sitting low and staring at the floor. Her pale hair was a fragile, tangled spider web. Kate was struck with a memory of Donnie on a family vacation when he was seven. He’d been a pale-haired child as well, and handsome, taking after Donald’s side of the family. Donnie had had so much potential. He had blown it. She had blown it. All God’s children had blown that one.
But that was another story entirely.
“Mistie,” said Kate. “Tell you what. There’s an Exxon up the road. We can stop for just a minute and I’ll get some snacks for the road. I’m okay on gas, but I think we need to fill up our own stomach tanks! Ha! We can get a real supper later, once we’ve been on the road awhile. What do you think?”
Mistie didn’t think much, or wasn’t sharing. Kate dropped the blanket back over the child and gingerly petted the head beneath the fabric. The girl’s mute obeisance made Kate’s stomach clench.
The sleet hesitated as if catching its breath, then came down again, harder, colder. Kate flicked on the heater and was greeted with a blast of hot air on her legs between her shoes and the hem of her coat.
; The Exxon was only a few miles up the road. Pippin’s only gas station, hangout to Pippin’s odds and ends. She never felt totally comfortable in the place and had only stopped by for a few dollars of gas when she’d found herself low. She preferred to drive to Emporia to the Wilco. But the Exxon was the closet place that sold anything to even slightly resemble food. If Mistie had something to eat…what the hell did she like to eat? Kate would either have to get her to talk or just buy a shitload of whatever and hope there would be stuff she liked in the load…then they’d be good for a least a good long stretch on the road. They had to get out of Virginia ASAP. Once in Maryland, or hopefully Pennsylvania, they could find a couple small roads to take and then they could do a potty break.
If I get enough food at the Exxon, Kate thought, we can just eat in the car the whole way to Canada. Yeah, that’s it. A little bit of everything then we’re gone.
A shiver cut through her body - excitement, terror, pure joy. She took a long breath and let it out.
There were no cars at the Exxon. Well, not counting the banged up woodie wagon that the woman who worked there drove, on the right side of the building near a thicket of weeds. Perfect. Some song Kate didn’t know faded on the station, and then the oldie “For What It’s Worth” began. Kate began to sing along, not exactly sure of all of the words but sure of the emotion and the demands behind them.
Freedom!
She steered into the graveled lot of the gas station, and stopped by the door. The closer the better. Quick in, quick out. Her stomach fluttered, then twisted. A child saved. A soul saved. A spirit saved. She felt young again, she felt brimming with hope and possibilities. She wrapped one of the scarves around her neck - a red plaid one Amy had given her back in college - and said, “Mistie, just stay under than blanket a little longer, and then you can come out. I’m getting a few yummy things. Right back.”
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