Restless Dreams
Karen Pullen
© 2017 Karen Pullen
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
978-1-945805-50-9 paperback
978-1-945805-51-6 epub
978-1-945805-52-3 mobi
Cover Design
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GusGus Press
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Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
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For Jacob, Jamie, Amelia, and Chloe, with much love
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the editors of the following publications in which these stories first appeared:
Spinetingler Magazine, “The Years of the Wicked” (Fall, 2007) and “Scritch” (October, 2010)
Fish Tales, The Guppy Anthology (Wildside Press, 2011), “SASE”
Outreach NC, October 2011, “The Fitting Room”
The Mystical Cat (Sky Warrior Press, 2012), “Gone Gone Gone”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January 2012, “Brea’s Tale”
Everyday Fiction, February 2012, “Snow Day”; April 2012, “Lady Tremaine’s Rebuttal”; January 2015, “Brown Jersey Cow”
Sixfold (Fall Fiction 2013), “Something to Tell Henry”
bosque, the magazine (December 2013), “Make Me Beautiful”
Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales of Lust, Love, and Longing, Karen Pullen, editor (Wildside Press, 2014), “The Fourth Girl”
Phantasmacore (November 2014), “Have You Seen Her?”
Reed Magazine (May, 2015), “Side Effects”
Murder Under the Oaks, Art Taylor, editor (Down & Out, October, 2015), “#grenadegranny”
Stuck in the Middle, Writing that Holds You in Suspense, David Bell and Molly McCaffrey, eds(Main Street Rag, November 2016), “No Falling Ribbons”
Brea’s Tale
Make Me Beautiful
The Fourth Girl
No Falling Ribbons
The Years of the Wicked
Gone Gone Gone
Lady Tremaine’s Rebuttal
Scritch
Brown Jersey Cow
Something to Tell Henry
The Fitting Room
Bullet Proof
SASE
Hidden
Have You Seen Her?
Snow Day
Side Effects
#greenadegranny
Blessings
Brea’s Tale
WHAT I MISS most is a long soak in a tub. My last bath was in Fran and Cy’s double tub, big enough for all six-one of me to submerge up to my chin. With a few drops of freesia bath oil and the hot water on a trickle, all my worries floated away.
Here in prison we girls take group showers under a pitiful stream of lukewarm water. The guard watches us wash. She has a mustache. She’s got no excuse for that mustache—hello? Depilatory? Washing myself is unpleasant here. Nothing here is pleasant.
There are ways to escape. Not literally—don’t worry, America, you’re safe!!! I turn on my side to face the concrete wall and sink into my memories. This morning, before the wake-up bell, I fled back to my final bath in Fran and Cy’s huge marble tub. I had twisted the gold taps full around to release a gushing stream and eased in for a good soak. Afterwards, I dried off with a thick white towel and slid into a soft robe but not for long, as Cy peeled it off, of course, as I knew he would, unable to resist my rosy warm skin. We made love to the gentle sound of rain drumming on the tin roof. My memory of that hour drowned out the cell block’s yells and buzzing lights until the outer doors clanged cruelly and the mustached guard yelled to hurry it up, get in line for breakfast. She’s a four-letter word and it’s not n-i-c-e.
The pillow’s a challenge. Two inches of stiff foam encased in a plastic bag, smells like sweat. Next time I see the lawyer, I’ll ask her to bring me some freesia cologne. We’re allowed to have toiletries. A dab of that on each cheek would mask the pillow stink, ease my glide into the past.
THE LAWYER DOESN’T want me telling my tale—she says it could be used against me. I tell her it’s not like I’m confessing to a crime I didn’t commit. And “used against me?” What worse could they do?
THE LAWYER HAS a weird mouth with hardly any lips, and her hair is a beige scraggly mess that hasn’t seen scissors since her senior prom. It drapes over a gray suit that does her no favors—mousy types like her should wear color. She’s wound tighter than a Slinky and always in a hurry, just like Mama was. I try not to aggravate her but I can’t help it I talk slow, that’s the Carolina in me. I wish she’d be more patient.
You may rightly wonder, who am I—a prison inmate—to judge someone’s color choices? Well, I know makeup. You should see my scrapbooks from my sash-and-crown days. In lipstick as soon as I could pee in a pot, on the pageant circuit every weekend from the age of teeny-tiny. For shows, I wore it all—fake lashes, gloss, hair extensions. I sniffed so much hair spray in those days I’m still dizzy. During the week Mama and I had our normal life—she cleaned houses and I went to school—but weekends we competed. We’d drive everywhere—Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky—wherever cash was offered.
My talent was banjo, which Mama taught me early on because I lacked a singing voice but my fingers were strong and nimble and I could pick up anything after hearing it a few times. She stuck Earl Scruggs in the boom box and I’d practice copying the chords and pauses and rhythms until people said you couldn’t tell the difference between me and Earl. My banjo was portable, a serendipitous plus when Mama’s medical bills piled up, a repo man slapped a padlock on our trailer door, and we moved into the car for eight months, washing in the bathroom at Hardee’s, stealing cheese and baloney from the grocery, saving every penny for my costumes and entry fees. One benefit of living in your car—hello? No TV! Plenty of one-on-one time with Earl. The day before my tenth birthday, I strummed the Orange Blossom Special to an orgasmic finish and won Little Miss Southeast with a cash prize of $20,000. We took a room at the Red Top Inn. Oh, never will I forget the bliss of that tub soak.
That year I was nine, honey, I could write a book. I missed most of fourth grade.
I blazed through the pageant circuit for two more years, winning enough bucks for a new trailer for me and Mama to live in. Then puberty hit me like a Greyhound bus, peppering my face with zits, larding up my ass, and adding ten vertical inches. For three years I hunched in my room, practiced the guitar, studied the blossoms on my face and brooded over the unfairness of it all.
Mama had a remission, but she worried about my future since I was no longer cute. She saved my life by kicking my fat ass into the gym. By the time I was eighteen, twice-a-day workouts had melted the lard and I won Miss Dill Pickle North Carolina. A very happy moment, when the reigning Miss Dill Pickle slid the crown onto my lacquered updo. I went on to become Miss High Point, the pinnacle of my pageant career, which ended when I was expelled from Miss North Carolina after I yanked out a chunk of Miss Carteret County’s highlights. Drew a bit of blood, even. The witch had stolen both pairs of my eyelashes.
MY FATAL FLAW, overreacting. “Eradicate that sucker out of your psyche,” the lawyer says, “rip it out like a weed. Or you’ll end up in the Hole.”
ENOUGH OF MY glorious childhood. The reason I languish in jail, never to bathe in a tub again, is probably a more important question to ponder. There’s the short version, and the long version. The long version explains the circumstances. The short version uses ugly words like murder and convicted and leaves out the fine details that promote understanding. The long version might even make sense if you have the patience to walk in my shoes. I’m hoping i
t makes sense to me. Some days I’m not so sure.
I WAS ALLOWED to keep my title of Miss High Point, which came with a grant for college. Off I went to Appalachian State to major in social work, all fired up to wipe out poverty and build families, until I encountered Statistics 201 and Dr. Wu, a grim gnome who rolled his cold eyes every time I raised my hand to ask, “Why does a social worker need to know that?” I got hung up on probabilities and failed the mid-term. Imagine yourself answering this question: what’s the average wait at the P.O., if there are two windows open but only one line, people come in one every three minutes and the service is four minutes on average? I knew the answer had to be it depends because that’s how they do it at my P.O., and it confuses the heck out of some people who walk in the door and see one line and two windows. They’ll go right up to the window with no line, and then you have a dilemma—do you tell them to go to the back of your line, which makes you look bossy? Or do you let them cut in and waste four more minutes of your life? That situation is a fact of life, and it makes probabilities most unrealistic, in my opinion, but Dr. Wu wouldn’t listen and he wouldn’t explain what waiting in line at the P.O. has to do with building families. Unfair, and I needed him to say so, but he tried to wriggle out of my grip and screamed very loudly for a tiny Chinese man until the campus police barged in and that was the end of my career as a college student.
THE LAWYER FEELS sorry for me and tries to get me privileges. They won’t allow me to have a banjo in my cell, but she’s going to ask if I can play at services on Sunday.
MAMA PUSHED ME to answer the nanny agency ad. She was on her final round of chemo and doing poorly. I filled out the application and passed the CPR course but the first few interviews nearly scared me right into fast food. Twin baby girls? I’m too clumsy, I’d drop them. A trio of boys that needed medication and/or a good whipping. A hovering dad who wouldn’t let me give his boy a cookie because “We only eat plants.”
The next situation sounded perfect by comparison. The father, Cy, was a salesman, always on the road, and Fran, his wife, worked late hours in real estate, so they needed someone to stay with his ten-year-old daughter. They interviewed me at the agency. Fran did all the talking, in a syrupy steel drawl. “To be honest,” she said, “I almost didn’t want to talk with you, since you’d won pageants. Who needs a beauty queen living in the house? But now that I’ve met you, I think you’ll be fine, as long as you can teach my stepdaughter some manners.” Her horsy face had no expression, leaving it up to me to decide whether I’d been insulted. I didn’t care, I wanted the job. I’d have my own room, and I could save money for beauty school. Mama could stop worrying and die in peace.
After one glance, Cy didn’t look at me but stared out the window. “Fran reads my mind,” he told me later. “She would’ve known what I was thinking.”
“What we were both thinking, you mean,” I said. Miss Innocence was not one of my titles.
THE NOISE GETS to me. The girls never shut up—talking, fighting, screaming—and the intercom goes all day long. My cell mate changes every couple of months. Right now it’s Susie, a toothless heroin addict who’s been jailed so many times it’s home. At least she’s cheerful, not like those always looking for a fight over love or drugs. Or the passive ones, sad until they knot up with rage and cut themselves. I’ve learned to be glad I don’t have kids to worry about.
FROM THE OUTSIDE, Fran and Cy’s life looked good, real good compared to mine and Mama’s. Their house was an old place with three stories, much nicer than Mama’s tin trailer up on cinder blocks. But once I moved in—my room was on the third floor, with ceilings so low I had to duck in the shower—I realized not all was rosy.
Every little thing irritated Fran—an empty glass in the living room, Celeste’s jacket on the floor, a cupboard door hanging open. When Cy was at home, she questioned his every minute: who were you talking to? Where did you eat lunch and who with? I called you twice this afternoon, where were you? She managed their money real tight. She even argued over grocery receipts with Angela, the housekeeper, accusing her of buying extra for her relatives who worked at the chicken processing plant.
Angela fixed meals, cleaned house, and sang Mexican pop the livelong day. She’d been Cy’s baby nurse, and the sun shone out of his ass. For someone who’d lived in North Carolina for forty years, she didn’t speak much English. Celeste had learned Spanish from her, and the two of them chattered away like chipmunks. Talking about me, maybe, but there was nothing I could do about it so I would smile, pretending they were dissing Fran six ways to Sunday.
Celeste never smiled. She kept her lips pressed together to cover up her protruding eyeteeth. She wouldn’t have won any pageants.
One thing I’m happy about—I made Cy get her braces. They should be coming off this month, it’s been two years.
THIS MORNING THE mustached guard said, “You’re really tall,” and I answered her, “Really?” smart-ass that I am. In bare feet, I’m six-one, and I stand straight, thanks to Mama’s reminders. Ears over shoulders, Brea. Hunching’s a sorry look. Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard I was really tall.
“SOME DAYS I just don’t care. Let him fuck around,” Fran said to me. “He’s been snipped, so it’s not like he’s going to make babies.” I didn’t like her confiding in me; she thought I was taking sides, only I never would’ve taken her side. “Thing is, sometimes these women follow him around, get him in trouble.”
I almost didn’t dare ask. “Why do you . . . ?”
“Cy’s real money is in trust and the trustees have all these rules. No alimony till we’ve been married ten years. Four more years with that surly brat.” Her eyes were pretty, clear and gray, but cold like Dr. Wu’s.
Celeste was a surly brat. You’re not my mother, I hate you, Daddy hates you, clean it up yourself, bitch, you married him for his money, ha ha joke’s on you. That was when she was speaking to Fran. Usually she ignored Fran, pretending she didn’t exist. Cy could have helped make peace but he was on the road a lot. I was supposed to make Celeste treat Fran more respectfully though my heart wasn’t in it.
Celeste’s hair wasn’t particularly clean but there sure was a lot of it, straight and dark as bitter chocolate. She wore it pulled into a pony tail, which is the worst thing you can do to hair because it breaks. I gave her a bottle of my freesia-scented shampoo, and offered to help her in the morning before she went to school. After her shower, she’d get dressed, then call me to comb out the tangles and blow-dry, smooth the strands around my fat brush. I know that for those few months, she had the prettiest hair in fifth grade.
CELESTE WAS GROWING up and out; her pants were high-water and she could hardly zip her jacket. Fran said they couldn’t afford a shopping trip.
“What about your mother?” I asked Celeste. “Can you get money from her?”
“My mother is dead.” Celeste’s face was so sad I didn’t ask her about it, just gave her a hug.
I knew my way around thrift shops, so with my own money I took Celeste shopping. Fifty bucks got her a jacket, three pairs of pants, four shirts and two sweaters. “Next time Cy’s home, we’ll get you some new shoes,” I said.
“Don’t tell Fran,” she said, “hee hee.” Her brown eyes crinkled and she smiled, flashing a mouthful of metal. We became buddies. I starting teaching her to play the banjo and she wasn’t bad. Somewhere buried deep in YouTube files there’s even a video of Celeste and me singing a duet of “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” her serious, me stifling a laugh at our off-key warbling.
I’LL SHARE SOME details you might not know about prison life. You spend hours standing in line: for counts, lockup, meals, urine samples. You get a bar of soap and three huge starchy meals for free. That’s it. If you want anything else—shampoo, an apple, a TV—you buy it in the store. Prison jobs pay fifty cents a day, if you are fortunate enough to have one. You get used to the smell of sweat and dirt, disinfectant and despair.
CY AND I FELL into a routine, almost, when
he was home. In the afternoon, before I picked up Celeste from school, I’d drive to the woods north of town and park, walk down this dirt road that led to somebody’s fields, then follow a path a good ways into the long leaf pine forest. Their needles had made the ground into a soft thick cushion. Scarcely breathing, I’d listen to the trees sigh, waiting to hear his feet rustle in the leaves and his gentle gravelly voice call, “Baby, you there?”
I haven’t heard his voice since the trial.
IT ENDED SUDDENLY, all at once. I wasn’t there when Fran died, even though Angela said I was.
Here is the truth. Cy thought Fran was out for the afternoon, so we were in their bedroom. It was raining hard; gusts of wind banged against the windows and raindrops rattled the metal roof, so we didn’t hear Fran’s car, or her footsteps on the stairs. She barged in and started beating both of us with her umbrella. Angela came running and it was straight out of a French farce, me and Cy both naked, skipping around the room, trying to avoid the madwoman’s umbrella, Angela yelling anxious Spanish curses, flashes of lightning, Fran screaming, “You fucking slut, get out of my house.” Thank God Celeste was at school.
I got dressed and packed my things. I wanted to tell Celeste good-bye, but Fran said no, I had to leave so I wrote Celeste a note saying I was sorry I missed her and not to worry, she had a good future. Then I went outside and walked to the corner, to the bus stop shelter. I didn’t say good-bye to anyone.
THE GIRLS TELL me their tales when I’m doing their hair. Their tales are different from mine yet almost exactly like mine, boiling down to one of three versions: didn’t do it, did it for some knucklehead, was with some knucklehead when he did it. After they tell it they cry for their mamas, for their children, never for any man. Once it’s been told, they don’t say it again. Not one is proud of her tale. It saddens me to hear them. I fix their hair and we play around with makeup but you can only do so much.
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