All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  *

  They walked back toward town, Purv with a ten-dollar bill from the old guy and Noah with the roll they’d made from the lemonade.

  “How’d we make out in the end?” Purv said, as Noah counted the bills.

  “Nicely,” Noah said, handing half to Purv, who gave it straight back.

  “For tonight, take Raine someplace better than Mae’s.”

  He smiled. “I ain’t even sure she’ll show.”

  They stuck to the streets ’cause it was too dark not to. They didn’t use flashlights ’cause they were saving the batteries for Bird hunting in Hell’s Gate.

  They came back to chaos in the square. More reporters had arrived; they sat in news vans with dishes on the roofs and bright lettering splashed across the panels. ACTION and EYEWITNESS and NBC, like there was something going on more than a cloud in the sky.

  The pickups were gone from outside the station ’cause Black moved them on, but they just double-parked at the corner of Jackson Ranch Road and came back on foot. There were more of them now, maybe fifteen, and they looked mean. An even match for the fifty Pastor Lumen had on his side. They mostly ignored each other, though when a camera trained on them Pastor Lumen would get to his feet and start raising holy hell, the effort taking a little out of him each time. Deely White hovered by the old man’s lawn chair, sometimes cooling him with an oriental hand fan.

  The church people lit lanterns and placed them around, a vigil for a man most hadn’t ever spoke to.

  Trix told Noah the lines was jammed with calls about the cloud now, most from old folk in town who were worried about checking out in the venomous dark, like God wouldn’t be able to find their souls.

  The Kinleys had found some hick with an old school bus over in Haskell. They’d paid him handsomely to stop by the church every morning and cart some of the older folks into the sunshine for the day.

  Noah and Purv cut up Whatley and onto Sayer, walking slow toward Merle’s Auto-Shop. It was small, maybe three cars wide, and made of sheet steel that’d once been red, white, and blue but had faded and browned with the seasons. There were trucks out front and tires piled ten high. Light burned inside.

  “You reckon Merle will go help that guy?” Noah said.

  “Yeah. Rip his eyes out though. Probably charge him a hundred before he opens the hood.”

  They walked across the concrete and heard angry voices, so ducked low behind a jacked-up Dodge.

  They watched through the window.

  “Who is it?” Purv said.

  “Tommy Ryan.”

  Tommy was yelling something and Merle was looking down, eyes on his shoes. He said something back and Tommy got mad, reached for a .48 and held it high and level. Merle started pleading.

  They watched on wide-eyed.

  “Gambling debts,” Purv said. “I bet it’s over gambling debts.”

  “You reckon he’ll shoot him?”

  “Nah. He won’t get paid if Merle’s dead.”

  *

  Raine stood in front of her closet and leafed through the clothes. She reached for a skirt and held it against herself, saw it was short and cast it to the floor. She pulled out another, then did the same.

  She didn’t date, that weren’t what she did when she rode with the boys.

  They didn’t call on her, they didn’t take her someplace beyond the dark lanes, where they’d park and the windows would steam as she panted.

  When she was home her mind never strayed far from her sister. She listened out, hoped to get that feeling that she was close by again. It weren’t easy to explain or understand. They both felt it—each other. One time Raine cut school and spent the day getting lit with Danny Tremane and one of his friends, then they’d driven to Hell’s Gate and they’d done shit to her she couldn’t or wouldn’t recall. And after she’d got home, and she’d got in the tub and the room was spinning, she slipped beneath the water till Summer kicked the door, breathless and crying ’cause she’d cut out during sixth period and run the mile home to get her.

  Raine walked down the hallway and into her sister’s bedroom. She flipped the light on and opened the closet and found the dress, the same dress Summer had worn when she played cello in the church and made people cry then talked about like it weren’t something special.

  *

  “It’s beautiful,” Noah said, as Purv slipped the peach linen jacket over his shoulders. “Where’d you get it?”

  Purv smiled. “Ask me no questions –”

  “They got that same jacket in the window of Dee’s,” Trix said.

  “Not no more they don’t,” Purv said.

  “It’s women’s, it has shoulder pads inside,” Trix said.

  Trix stopped by to check on Noah and stock the refrigerator. She tried to do it at least once a month.

  Purv scowled at her. “Ain’t you never seen Miami Vice? They wear this shit all the time down there.”

  Noah buttoned the jacket and then unbuttoned it. “That’s right. And I ain’t takin’ fashion advice from you, Trix.”

  “Yeah,” Purv said. “No offense, Trix, but you’re old as shit. And your hair . . . kinda makes you look like a man.”

  “I need to talk to you, Noah,” Trix said, turning serious. “Missy called me; she reckons you ain’t been to dialysis again. Third time recently, is that right?”

  “Missy is a liar,” Purv said.

  Trix shot him a look.

  “I been busy,” Noah said.

  “Shit, Noah, are you dumb or somethin’? What do you reckon your momma would say?”

  Noah shrugged.

  “You know what she’d say.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow,” Noah said.

  “I’ll see that he does,” Purv said.

  “I’ll check with Missy.”

  Noah took a breath and then turned and spun. “Ready?”

  Purv nodded. “Almost. I’ll go fetch a toothpick.”

  *

  They sat in the yard, side by side. Ava poured them vodka straight.

  “Bobby’s still out every night,” Savannah said. “He walks the streets and sometimes he drives up to Hell’s Gate. He spoke with Pastor Milburn and the folk at St. George’s.”

  Ava held cigarette smoke deep.

  “I mean . . . they said they’d pray for her. I know how that might sound but –”

  “Thank you,” Ava said. “And thank Bobby, not just for this, but for everything y’all have been doin’ with Summer.”

  The Red ran close to their yard but they couldn’t hear the rush ’cause the crickets still sang.

  “I think of her out there and I feel sick,” Ava said. She stared out like there was something to see. “It ain’t real, that’s what I say in the night when sleep don’t come.”

  Savannah reached for her hand and held it tight.

  “She used to talk about you, and Bobby, all the time. Bobby said this and Savannah said that. She’d come home full of it. Especially after that first time, said y’all had nice things and she asked Joe if maybe she could have the spare room for all her books, like a library she said.”

  “She’s a sweet girl.”

  “And we was so glad she had you two, folk she could look up to. It’s rare you know, young couple, Bobby being a pastor, it’s somethin’ special. She reckons you two are just about perfect.”

  “We’re a long way from perfect.”

  Light dropped as the neighbor closed their drapes.

  “I know about your little boy,” Ava said.

  “Michael.”

  “You don’t have to talk. I’m just sorry, I wanted you to know that.”

  “I like to talk about him. I don’t get to . . . Bobby.” Savannah reached for her glass and drank and felt the burn in her chest. “I don’t drink, not much. Bobby doesn’t either. He did when Michael died. Then he stopped. He’s strong, Bobby, he’s a strong man in so many ways. But he doesn’t talk.”

  “Maybe he talks to God.” Ava said it soft.

>   “I need him though, down here I need him. Is that selfish?”

  “It ain’t selfish, Savannah.”

  Savannah drained her glass. “God, I’m sorry. I came here for you and I’m talking about me and my problems like they have a place.”

  Ava smiled. “What was Michael like?”

  Savannah took a breath. “When he came, it wasn’t like I thought. He was so fragile and foreign, difficult and perfect. He didn’t sleep, not at night.”

  “I remember that with the girls.”

  “I didn’t take to motherhood easy. I was just treading water those first months. I didn’t feel the bond either, not right off, not like I was supposed to. Bobby did; he got up with Michael every night so I could sleep. I could tell it didn’t bother him, that he was just so happy to have his family.”

  “But it got easier for you.”

  “There was one night Michael was screaming for hours, maybe he was teething. I looked in and saw Bobby was struggling, first time I ever saw him worried, like he was failing. So I sat at my cello and played The Swan and Michael quietened. I looked at Bobby and Bobby smiled and I’ll never forget that moment.”

  They heard noise and they saw truck lights in the distance.

  “That’s the thing about Bobby, he was always searching for meaning, and I think he finally found it in Michael. His purpose, more than being a pastor, he thought he was there to raise Michael, to protect him.”

  Ava swallowed. “And he couldn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Joe’s feelin’ that now. He’s big and he’s tough and he can’t do nothin’. It kills him. He don’t say it but it kills him. And Raine, she’s strong but she’s hurtin’.”

  “It must have been tough, when Joe was in prison.”

  “It was. And we had all this . . . Pastor Lumen talkin’ about the devil at the door. Raine, she reckons I’m so hard on her but . . .” Her voice wavered. “I love them so much. They’re all I got, my girls and Joe.”

  “She’ll come back, Ava. You have to believe that.”

  Savannah stood and Ava saw her out the side gate. She watched as Savannah strolled the dark streets back toward her lonely life and she felt despair so heavy and total.

  And then she turned ’cause the light inside burned and she stared through the glass and saw her, standing golden like she’d never been gone.

  She ran up the porch steps and into the kitchen, stopped still and rubbed her eyes. Ava knew the dress, she’d bought it for her; it was white and so pretty.

  She stood there, shoulders back and neck straight, kissed by a grace that missed most. She was perfect. Her perfect girl.

  “Summer,” she said, though she weren’t sure if the voice belonged ’cause it was distant.

  And then Summer turned to face her but it weren’t Summer after all, so Ava screamed at her to take off the dress, and she lashed out and ripped the strap and then she fell. And she glanced up and saw Raine make for the door.

  And then she cried hard and long for her daughters, for both of them.

  *

  Raine walked quick. She glanced up at the street lamps as they blurred behind tears she wouldn’t let fall ’cause she was stronger than her momma.

  She didn’t turn when she heard the truck draw alongside. Not even when the window opened and the two boys inside called her name. She tried to keep moving, to keep running from herself. But then she remembered the look in her momma’s eyes, the look that told her not to run ’cause there weren’t nothing to run toward. And so she stopped and faced them. They were older, maybe they used to go to her school, maybe she’d been with one of them before. They said they had booze and they asked if she wanted to have some fun.

  She didn’t, not really, but she climbed in anyway.

  *

  When she didn’t show, Noah drove down every street in Grace searching, night stealing in through the open hole in the Buick. He summoned courage and knocked on her door, but the house was dark and no one came.

  He thought of Della Palmer and the other Briar girls. Their photos were in the newspapers again, alongside the cloud and the square and Pastor Lumen.

  The square was swelling when he reached it. There was a host of folk outside the Whiskey Barrel, standing with beer glasses in hand and looking out at the madness. Purv had it that people were drinking more now ’cause Hank Frailey opened the Whiskey Barrel early and folk turned blind to the hours that made day and the hours that made night.

  Dark was its own time.

  There were day-trippers from the counties and they made Grace a destination, the world of weird.

  Noah dodged past a couple of drunks then found himself right by the sandbags. The church people were sitting together, talking and eating, some on china plates, civil like they were at a fancy picnic. Noah walked over to Joe’s side, where he saw a couple of guys drinking beer and tending to a barbecue. They aimed stares at the tourists, and the Maidenville natives. One got a little near when he was backing up for a photo and Tommy Ryan shoved him hard. There was some hollering but Black was over quick, red eyed and a hand on his gun like he was about ready to shoot somebody.

  At the back, way at the back, Noah saw Joe Ryan sitting alone. And in that instant Joe saw him, and he raised a hand and beckoned Noah over. Noah’s first instinct was to turn and run. Joe scared him. But then he thought of Raine and took the long route round not wanting to walk through the cluster of bodies and beer and smoke.

  “Sit,” Joe said.

  Noah sat.

  Joe was smoking and he had a bottle of beer but he hadn’t touched it. His shirt was tight across his arms, his biceps bulging.

  “Where’s Raine?”

  Noah looked down and Joe smiled.

  “You reckon I don’t know who my daughter is hanging out with?”

  “I was lookin’ for her. I thought maybe she’d be here.”

  Joe shook his head. “Must be home with her momma. Why you gussied up? You taking her someplace?”

  Noah swallowed.

  “I said it’s all right. Better you than those older boys I seen lurkin’ by the house. At least you got a jacket on, though I reckon that might be a ladies’ jacket.”

  Noah sighed.

  “You lookin’ after her?”

  “Yes, sir. Though I reckon it might be workin’ out the other way round.”

  Joe laughed, then dropped his cigarette and stubbed it. “Where you takin’ her?”

  “I was thinkin’ Clyde’s.” Clyde’s was one greasy step up the ladder from Mae’s.

  Joe reached into his pocket and handed Noah a twenty. “You make sure you take care of her while all this is goin’ on. She needs her friends.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joe lit another cigarette, the flame glowing soft against his face. He had a thick beard and tired eyes.

  “I used to know your daddy.”

  Noah looked up.

  “He was tough.”

  Noah smiled.

  “We was on opposite sides but I always liked him. He gave people a fair shake, I could appreciate that. You remember him?”

  “Not enough.”

  Joe nodded slow. “Sad . . . what happened. I knew Jasper Stimson back when we was growin’ up. Nasty son of a bitch, somethin’ not right in his head.” Joe blew smoke toward the lights. “Black still carries it.”

  “Was it his fault?” Noah said. He’d read all there was to read, heard a dozen tales but his momma never spoke of what happened that day in 1985.

  Joe shrugged. “Best to lay fault at the door of the man who pulled the trigger, not the man who didn’t.”

  Noah glanced up at the station, and then he stood.

  “You know Summer?” Joe said.

  “Not really. I mean, I saw her at school, and I was in church that time she played cello. But I ain’t never spoke to her.”

  “All right.”

  “I reckon she’ll turn up soon. I mean, for what it’s worth, I think she’ll be okay.�
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  Joe nodded like he was getting tired of hearing it.

  *

  Noah decided to make a final stop by the Ryan house before he called it a night. He passed a couple of trucks on the way down Lott.

  He left the Buick in the weeds and started up All Saints. He heard her before he saw her. A rustle, not far off, then a sound like coughing. He moved fast through the bushes, then along the wood till he came to the clearing and the bank of the Red.

  He saw a shape by the water’s edge.

  “Raine?” he said, moving near.

  “Fuck off, Noah.”

  She sat up, her limbs heavy and her hair loose. He could smell booze.

  “You all right?”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  He sat beside her for a long time. The Red moved slow that night.

  “I miss the moon,” he said.

  “And the stars,” she said.

  “Yeah. And the stars.”

  She wore no shoes, he wondered where they were but didn’t ask. She wore a nice dress; there was a tear in the strap.

  There was a small mark on her cheek, red and fresh.

  “You need me to call your momma?”

  “No.”

  She leaned to the side, coming to rest with her head on his lap, her eyes facing the water. On another night they would’ve seen the mirrored stars.

  “How come Purv tells you shit sometimes? Like we’ll be walkin’ and he’ll tell you some fact, random, just random like that.”

  “If I’m strugglin’ maybe, or if he reckons I’m nervous he’ll tell me somethin’ to distract me. My momma told him it works ’cause she used to do it.”

  “Just like you to get nervous. Does it work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Tell me somethin’.”

  He cleared his throat. “Did you know the dragonfly breathes out of its anus?”

  She shook her head, suitably horrified.

  He looked down at her and noticed a shiny clip in her hair. It was cheap and pretty and brought a lump to his throat.

  “Got anything better?” she said.

  “Holdin’ hands with someone you love can help ease pain and stress and fear. That’s proved by science.”

  “I ain’t holdin’ your hand.”

  She rolled onto her back and stared up at him and her eyes were heavy with tears.