by Pat Spears
If bruised faces were their worst pain, Jodie believed they would surely run. But most had stopped thinking about ways out. They stayed, wanting to believe that the beatings would stop when they learned to please their men. But Bitsy wasn’t like these women, and Jodie feared that her beating had a different story.
“Jodie, the super wants you,” a wide-hipped woman sewing belt loops onto waistbands called with a quick jerk of her head. Her hands were blood-red with the rash she kept, though it never slowed her frantic feed of denim under the pressure foot.
Jodie cupped a hand to her ear, bracing for a bitching, the supervisor’s words scattering in the swirl of blue dust like a flock of blackbirds in a hail of buckshot.
“Long distance,” the woman relayed, her eyes bearing the dread that such a message might hold. She nodded toward the narrow hallway where the telephone hung on the wall.
“Take it and it’ll mean your break,” the super called. “It’s company policy. You girls get one emergency a year put back here.”
Jodie turned and faced the super. “Yes ma’am. And I’m most grateful for a policy that holds my shitty luck down to one mishap a year.”
She left the super glaring while likely struggling with a proper punishment. Walking along the hallway, Jodie wondered who was about to become her emergency.
“Yes, ma’am, operator. I’m Jodie Taylor.” She wiped sweat from her face onto the sleeve of her shirt, and more ran along her spine, soaking into the waistband of her jeans.
“Hey, gal, how you doing?” There was no warning in his voice.
She loosened her grip on the telephone and exhaled. “Silas, you damn fool. You mean to put my ass in a sling worse than it is?”
“Hell, woman, if it’ll get you fired and back to God’s country, I’ll call every Tuesday.”
“Cut the romance. What the hell’s this about?”
“Jodie, Red’s had a bad stroke.”
His words ground their way into her brain while she watched Sammie the Snake approach the break room. A once-in-a-blue-moon roll of dollar bills tucked between the breasts of a co-worker was the honey that kept them buzzing whenever he showed. Bitsy was a regular numbers player, but she played on credit, and that was likely the sorry story behind her battered face.
“Jodie? You still there?”
“How bad?”
“Happened yesterday. In that overgrown field back of the house.” His tone was such that he could have been talking about a local fender bender. He paused, sucking air as though he was having trouble talking and breathing at the same time. “From the looks of the scuff marks on the ground, he was down for some time. Hadn’t been for old Buster, they might’ve missed him altogether.”
“None of that’s what I asked you.”
“Shit, Jodie, I’m no doctor and I’m sure as hell not God. But I believe he’s knocking on death’s door.” He paused, then added, “Jodie, there’s no one but me and Maggie to look after him. And we can’t be with him all the time.”
“What about Miss Mary?”
“Her? Hell, I was sure I told you. She’s staying here in town with Hazel and William. The old bitch flatly refuses to step foot back in that house.” It was as if he believed he’d made her going back easier, but there was still the harder part: facing Red.
“If you need a little extra, I’ll wire you what you need.”
She knew he’d drive forty miles to the next town to avoid the local Western Union operator, his wife’s gossipy cousin. He had the strange practice of straddling fences while nibbling around the edges where he claimed the honey was the sweetest.
“That’s all right. I got it.” She hung up, Silas still talking about duty.
Jodie walked back along the hallway to the production floor in search of the super. She was up in the face of a new hire, reaming her for having stiff fingers connected to a brain too easily scattered.
“Ma’am, about that call?” The super paused and the terrified girl wiped at her face, grateful for the distraction.
“Taylor, I told you. No break. You’re way off pace as it is.”
“Yeah, I know. But what I’ve got to say isn’t about that.” The super’s scowl signaled that whatever Jodie might say was already suspect.
“Red … the man who took me in after my mama died … what I mean is, he’s had a bad stroke. I need time off to go down home.”
“Time off? There’s no time off for family mishaps.” Her tone was absolute, as if she quoted scripture, chapter and verse.
Jodie stared out across the floor at women harnessed to indifferent machines, her tangled tongue betraying her. If she’d been smart, she would’ve warmed things up, promising to catch up her production before the shift ended. It was too late for that, and now good sense dictated that she cut her losses and move on. But a small part of her still wanted to believe in the notion of fairness in circumstances that seemed to demand the setting aside of rules.
“A week’s all. And if he’s as bad as .…” The thought of Red dying hit her hard, and she took a step back, bumping into the hunched shoulder of a startled ticket-tacker.
“Taylor, the manager depends on me to hold you girls’ feet to the fire. I got production quotas. I know you understand.”
“No, I don’t. At my slowest, I’m still faster than any new hire could be in a week.” Before she started training, her claim would have been justified. Now she wasn’t sure.
“Taylor, I’m done here. Now get back to work.”
“Hell no. I’ll do you one better. Screw your precious job. I quit.”
The break whistle sounded, followed by the shuffling feet of those who would be first in line to use one of the two toilets. To reach the exit, Jodie would need to walk the gauntlet of questioning women.
“Hey, Jodie, wait the hell up.” Bitsy’s husky voice sounded over the low chatter, but Jodie kept moving toward the door.
The night air felt damp on Jodie’s face, and in the direction of the trailer, heavy clouds built toward her. Her anger now cooled, she dared to consider the enormity of her decision. A bout of anxiety fired through her nerves, and in spite of her effort at slowing her habit; she reached for the bottle beneath the truck seat.
“Damn, girl, I guess you got cause to piss off your job?” Bitsy huffed to a stop, and an up-close look at her battered face flipped Jodie’s stomach.
“Yeah, I do. Taking a little time off to go back down home.” Jodie tilted the bottle but didn’t offer it to Bitsy. They took a seat on the tailgate.
“Thought you were on the wagon.” Bitsy grinned.
“I am.”
“Uh-huh, I can see that.”
“You going to tell me what happened to your face?”
“Bad happened. That ain’t nothing special.”
“That’s all you got to say?”
“What the hell does it look like? I got the business end from a brute who don’t cotton to holding debt.”
“Snake?”
She nodded. “Crusades come and go, but bad habits stick around. Same as with that damn bitch, Lady Luck. Now I owe two hundred dollars I don’t have a snowball’s chance of whoring up.”
“You got anybody?” It would take most of what she had to get her back to Florida.
“By that you would mean my round-heeled mama, or one of my several lovin’ uncles? Damn, Jodie, take a hard look at my face and answer your own dumb-ass question.” Bitsy slid off the tailgate and stood next to the truck.
“I’ll get the money, but it’ll take a while.”
“Sweetie, I thank you. But it’s what I said. He took what I had and still beat the crap out me, right in front of my child. Guess I ain’t the two-hundred-dollar trick I’d figured would settle my debt.”
“Here, take my keys. Truck’s worth that, maybe more.” She knew it to be a wall-eyed stretch.
“And just how the hell do you mean to get down to Florida?”
“I’m taking the bus. I’ll come back with money. Buy back my truck.”<
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“How do you know he won’t take your money and keep your truck?”
“I don’t. But you got a better plan?”
Bitsy looked up into the night sky, as though answers hid there if only she knew which star to wish upon. “Jodie, I’m bad scared. This thing’s got holes we could both get buried in.”
“You want your little girl to become a ward of the state?” She didn’t have the heart to mention the worst that might happen. “Can you come to my place when you knock off in the morning? I’ll need a ride to the bus.”
“Me and my kids just might decide to leave town with you.” They hugged under the glow of the security light.
Jodie emptied the glove box and put the half-pint into her hip pocket. Parting with her truck felt a little like losing a faithful dog. She set out walking the mile to the main highway. There she hoped to flag a ride to the trailer. If not, she’d walk the remaining five miles.
Thirty-Nine
Beyond the car, darkness, like a tight fist, relaxed its grip, and slivers of light escaped from between its fingers, turning the sky from pewter gray to watermelon red. Jodie and Bitsy drank black coffee and ate the jelly-filled donuts Bitsy had brought from the all-night diner. The car smelled of decades of neglect, the strong scent of chicory, and the sweetness of sugar.
“How’d it go with Snake?” Maybe it was enough to know that Bitsy’s black eye had turned a second-day green and there were no new bruises or worse.
“Ain’t that he was happy. But he did send one of his lackeys to get your truck.” The resolve stenciled into the lines of her face said all there was to say about her uncertain future. “You do know you’re out your truck.”
Jodie nodded. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.” Its engine likely didn’t have enough left to take her where she needed to go.
“You don’t mean to come back, do you?”
“No, when I’m done in Catawba I’ve got business elsewhere.”
“I was afraid of that.” Bitsy stared out the window, then back at her. “You do know you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“You ain’t going sentimental on me now, are you?” Jodie forced a smile.
Bitsy laughed. “Shit, girl, it ain’t that it’s much of a contest. You’re my only friend.” Her throaty laugh had a sogginess neither wanted exposed. She rested a hand lightly on Jodie’s forearm. “And about that mean shit that got talked behind your back—I never cared about any of that.”
Her hand on the door handle, Jodie again considered that Bitsy’s gratitude had gone overboard. Yet under her level gaze, Bitsy didn’t as much as blink.
Jodie nodded, “Still, if I was you, I wouldn’t take on over my leaving. Big-mouth Sybil might try changing your mind on the meaning of friendship.”
“I ain’t afraid of that foul-mouthed bucket of lard.” Bitsy flexed her scrawny arm muscle and giggled, the size of their honesty fogging the windshield.
They turned to watch two barefoot boys who had suddenly appeared. One boy was the color of buttermilk and the other of burnt coal. They waded through rain puddles coated with heavy oil and scampered onto a pile of scrapped auto tires. A long-legged dog with ribs that showed through matted brown fur chased around the mound. A broken chain hung from the dog’s neck.
“Wish my boy could go back to being their age. Maybe we could start over.” Bitsy paused. “You believe in starting over?”
“Not sure.” She hoped something so unlikely was possible. If not with Red, then maybe she’d have a decent chance with Maggie and Silas.
“Figures you didn’t leave under the best of good-byes. And you’ve got to wonder, after all this time, about … you know, fitting in.”
“Never did. Fit in, I mean. But at least I knew what to expect.”
“I get that.” Bitsy nodded.
The bus pulled into the station and they reached across the space that no longer divided them. Friends hugging—their first—and one they each knew would be their last. Jodie retrieved her suitcase from the back seat, leaned through the open window, and handed Bitsy the scrap of paper where she had written the number to Silas’s station.
“Hang on to this. It’s for just in case. Speak only to Silas, and he’ll get me a message.” Jodie straightened, turned, and walked toward the bus. She’d left the same with Maxine, although doing so had the familiar uncertainty of scattered bread crumbs. Time and distance had a way of fostering disconnects, even among those she’d considered her family.
At the sound of squealing tires, Jodie spun about and watched as Bitsy leaned to say something to the boys. They both shook their heads and continued on toward the approaching bus, wet jeans riding low on their spare hips, lapping at their skinny ankles. They waved and shouted at the solemn passengers framed in the bus windows with dull expressions fixed, not one lifting a hand to return their waves.
Jodie watched as Bitsy lured the stray dog into the car with the donuts she’d meant for her kids. She looked in Jodie’s direction and waved before driving away. The last thing Bitsy needed was another mouth to feed, but she was a woman with an impulse for seizing the sorriest of moments.
The crowded bus was short on fresh air and long on sour bodies. The door wheezed shut, sealing Jodie inside, and the finality of her decision hit hard.
Behind her, in a place she hadn’t chosen, she’d left those Crystal Ann had called her “outlaw” family: women she’d trusted with her very life. It was a family she had not known to hope for when she left Catawba, and although she felt her life reeling in reverse, she’d hold tightly to the person she’d become.
Her dream of playing with the Cowgirls would need to sustain her—and move her forward once again when her stay in Catawba ended. She wiped a quick hand across her unexpectedly damp cheeks and forced her attention elsewhere.
Catawba, Florida - 1963
Forty
The bus slowed, and ahead through the bug-spattered windshield, Catawba, Florida, appeared like a recurring bad dream—a time and place Jodie had desperately attempted to outrun. She made her slow way along the aisle, her ankles swollen over the tops of her work oxfords, and her right knee a pulsating war zone. Her body ached as though she had been tossed from the top of the town’s water tower.
Outside the bus, the air carried the familiar stench of the paper mill. The afternoon heat hung thick as tupelo honey, the kind of heat that set her to shallow breathing. She picked up her suitcase and started in the direction of Silas’s station, her nerves spitting dread along her spine.
Silas’s boyhood ambition of turning his dead uncle’s shade-tree auto repair into a source of pride was evidenced by the addition of two new work bays, bringing the cluster of squatty concrete buildings to a total of three, all sandwiched between the Sheriff’s Office and the Flamingo Café. A collection of discarded vehicles and motor parts were scattered about the sand and gravel lot like the junk yards he’d combed for treasures.
Silas knelt next to a mill car, its paint peeled, exposing a frame eaten thin by the chemical exhaust from the paper mill. He looked up, and a wide smile spread across his tanned face. The knot in her stomach, put there by years of uncertainty as to how this moment would go, loosened a bit. She raised a slow hand in response, and he dropped the tire iron, hurrying to meet her. His quickness was still that of the boy who’d forever chased the devil’s tail.
“Hey, gal. I was about to think I’d never see you again.” Color rushed like a slow-burning fire along the broad bridge of his nose to his yellow-blonde hairline. She credited their recent late night phone conversations for having doused the worst of the resentment he’d once harbored.
Standing as they were in full view of the curious, he approached and gave her a brief shoulder bump. His public restraint would carry little weight when news of her arrival heated the party lines between an idle store clerk and Silas’s jealous wife. Coolness was bound to greet him at his front door, stay through a silent supper, and follow him into bed.
He put her suitcase i
n his pickup parked in the shade of the huge live oak, and from inside the station he brought her an icy RC Cola and a package of Tom’s roasted peanuts. He’d run her out to Red’s place as soon as he put another patch on a recapped tire. She took a seat on the tailgate and poured the peanuts into the soda, shook it, and with a touch of childhood glee, watched it fizz.
Along Main Street, stray dogs sprawled against the building fronts, garnering as much shade as possible. Storekeepers stayed put, unwilling to come out into the heat to chase them away. She rubbed the cold pop bottle along the insides of her arms and worked at finding calm.
Miss Bell, her English teacher through four years of high school, drove an ancient Ford away from the gas pumps with the deliberate speed of a crippled turtle, craning her neck, with a blank stare on her face. Jodie lifted her hand in a hesitant wave, but the old woman drove on in her rapt confusion. Admittedly, she had been an unremarkable student. Still, she felt slighted.
A young woman, near her age, approached carrying a whimpering baby astride her boney hip, while an unsteady toddler wobbled along behind her. Nearing Jodie, the woman turned away in an attempt at shielding a busted lip. She stopped, her back to Jodie, and yelled back at the boy who had squatted to pick up a shiny object from the ground. She shuddered at the thought of what staying and marrying Silas, or any other man, would have meant for her.
Two towhead boys, about five or six, each mirroring the other, came onto the sidewalk from what had once been Gaskin’s Drugs. The boys bickered over the bike they yanked back and forth between them, and they seemed familiar to her in ways she couldn’t say.
A pulpwooder, hauling slash pines to feed the voracious appetite of the paper mill’s giant chippers, stared out at her from his overloaded log truck. He nodded and raised two fingers in greeting, revealing a faded American eagle tattooed on his muscled upper arm. Soldiers and sailors had returned after the war wearing this tattoo. When she looked back to where she’d seen the boys, a stooped woman with stringy gray hair was hurrying them along.