"I have to go to the bathroom."
"Wait a while. You can wait."
"For godssake, she's a kid. She has to go to the bathroom,” Daddy said.
"She's a big kid, is what she is. She can hold it until we get down the road a ways."
Crow rolled his head and lifted it. He opened his eyes. "Listen to Heddy. Don't give us trouble."
He laid his head back and drifted off, coming down from the nervous strain of the drug high. I didn't ask again. An hour later, Heddy slowed down a couple of miles outside of a town and turned into a dirt road that didn’t look like it led anywhere. It wound and curved between thick trees that made a dark forest on each side. She stopped and told me to get out. And Mama too.
Crow woke up and watched, curious. “What’s happening?”
“I’m letting them take a piss.”
"Do I have to, Mama?" I asked. Because we were outside the car in a ditch now and Heddy told us to squat and pee.
"This is terrible,” Mama said to Heddy.
"It's going to be worse if you have to hold it and wet your pants. Now squat!"
Mama took me behind the car bumper and we both went to the bathroom in the road, in the dirt, leaving puddles between our knees. Mama had brought tissues from her purse. She told me not to worry, not to be scared. I couldn’t help it. I could hardly go to the bathroom. Heddy started screaming at us and finally I was able to.
I was hoping a car would come down the road and see us squatting there, going to the bathroom like animals in the road. They'd know something was wrong.
But no one came. We got back in the car; Heddy turned around and drove back to the highway.
"No more stopping,” Heddy said, once she was on the highway.
"I'm getting hungry,” Crow said. He rubbed his skinny stomach and grinned at me like he could get me to smile at him. I didn’t.
"Oh, Crow, we can't get anything right now. Let's just try to get out of this fucking state, okay?"
"Sure, okay, baby. But we get into Kansas and I want food."
“My mom lives in Kansas,” Heddy said.
“So?” Crow leaned forward until he was just inches from the back of her head. “She a good cook or what?”
Heddy grunted. “Hell no she’s no cook. I lived on oatmeal when I stayed with her.”
“Then what’s the point? She lives in Kansas, so freaking what?”
“I might go by. Just for a few minutes. I don’t think anyone knows where she lives now but me. I need to tell her where I’m going.”
“Like she won’t tell. That’s not too smart, Heddy.” Crow leaned back, exasperated.
“You let me worry about what she’d tell.”
Heddy turned up the radio and drove. She was like a machine, driving the car. She didn't talk or look at us. From where I sat I could see one side of her face, the side that worked okay. It was as paralyzed and dead as the other side. She might as well have been a wooden Indian.
I wondered what her mother was like, if she was nice like my mom, and decided she probably wasn’t. I hoped we didn’t have to go there, to her mom’s. Suddenly a feeling came over me that Crow was right—it was a dumb idea to go see Heddy’s mom. But not because she might tell anything to the police. It was something else about the idea that bothered me and I didn’t know what it was. I never figured it out until we got there either.
Crow asked questions of Daddy and Mama, but when they didn't say much, he gave up, put his head back and fell asleep again, his drug high winding down.
That's how our first day went. We were hostages heading into Kansas and we might get to meet Heddy’s mother. The vacation was over.
#
WHEN Heddy had put the Missouri-Kansas state line fifty miles behind her she said to Jay, “How much money do you have?”
“A couple of hundred.”
“Give Crow your wallet.”
She watched him carefully as he withdrew his wallet from his back pocket and handed it over the back seat.
“How much he got?” She asked.
“Two-forty.”
“Credit cards?”
“A couple. Visa and MasterCard. Oh, and there’s a Sears card too.” He laughed. “We got us a real bunch of middleclass citizens here.”
“Keep the cash and cards. He can’t do much if he’s got no money on him. I’m going to find a motel,” Heddy said, slowing for a town speed limit sign. “Then I can get something for us to eat while you watch them in the room.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Crow said.
Jay glanced at Crow. “Why don’t you let us go? You’re over the state line now. You’ve got the car. Take my money, the credit cards. Just let us out somewhere.”
“Heddy, he’s talking to me. Tell him not to talk to me.”
“Shut up,” she said, craning her head forward over the wheel to check out motel signs.
“What’s the point of keeping us?”
“He’s talking again. You hear him?”
Heddy frowned at the passenger sitting next to her. “We’ll let you go when we get good and ready to let you go. If you keep yapping, Crow’s gonna lose his cool and hit you again. I think you should shut up when I tell you to shut up. That’s just my friendly advice, though, you do what you got to do.”
Jay straightened in his seat, face forward.
Heddy spied a vacancy sign in front of a small rundown motel where the rooms were separate cabins arranged around a large semi-circle grassy drive. She turned in, parked out of sight of the office, and told Crow to watch them. He handed the cash from Jay’s wallet over the seat to her before she exited the Riviera.
It was easy getting the room farthest from the office. Most of the cabins were empty.
“The freeway took away all our business,” the old man at the counter said in a pitiful voice. “The whole town’s been dying.”
Heddy didn’t comment and she didn’t smile. She never smiled at strangers who would look at her funny because half her mouth wouldn’t move. Better they thought her sullen. She just took the key and left the office. Back in the car, she drove them to the cabin and helped Crow herd the family inside and out of sight.
“Now you keep an eye on the Brady Bunch while I go find something for us to eat.”
Crow grabbed her from behind and nuzzled her neck. He had his gun out and the kid right at his side. Heddy laughed and pulled away. “Don’t take your eyes off them. I’ll bring back rope so we can tie them up later.”
“Awright! Sounds kinky!”
Heddy almost smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her mouth.
With Heddy gone, the room began to impress itself on the people remaining in the shabby room. The family cowered and shivered as if from the frigid air that blew from the noisy window unit. Crow cursed at what a dump the place was before ripping off a threadbare chenille cover from one of the two double beds. The whooping sound of the cover coming loose from the mattress and the wheezing air conditioner were the only sounds. “I hate shitty places like this. They probably got bedbugs.”
Jay stood quietly watching from in front of a built-in desk connected to one wall. It was obvious to look at his face that he was desperately working out some kind of escape plan to put into force.
Emily backed up to the room’s window that looked out over the gravel courtyard fronting the cabin. She looked more scared than she had at any time since the abduction.
Carrie sat down wearily on the mattress and stared at the floor, her hands limp on the bed at her sides.
Jay said, “You don’t have to tie us up later. We’re not going to do anything.”
“Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do. Heddy’s right, she’s always right. I’m not about to sit here all night with a gun on all three of you.”
“We won’t give you any trouble. Haven’t we cooperated so far?”
“I’m ignoring you, Jerk-off.”
Jay hesitated. “I don’t understand why you want to keep us around.”
Crow,
as he had done before, lashed out without warning, striking Jay, who stood a few inches taller, across the cheek with the gun’s barrel. It caused the larger man to stagger and bump into the desk. He reached out for the phone in order to lift it as a weapon, but Crow moved in quickly, burying the gun in Jay’s stomach.
“You really want to crawl outta here holding your guts?”
Jay’s fingers loosened on the phone, his hand moved away and finally dropped to his side. The blow to his face this time didn’t break the skin so there was no blood, but a red mark three inches long rose from his chin to his eye. Now his entire face had been battered. His left eye was hardly a slit from the first time he’d been hit in the car.
“Please, can I talk to you?” Carrie asked in a tremulous voice.
“Pretty woman like you? Want to beg me? Want to barter, lady? With your own kid watching?”
Color rose in Carrie’s face. “We haven’t done anything to warrant your behavior,” she said in a school mistress tone of voice. “My husband’s right. There’s no point in keeping us hostage. We’re not going to be able to help you.”
“Hey, come over here, kid. Mom and Pop don’t seem to get it.”
Emily slowly crossed the room.
“Leave her alone. I told you that already. We’re doing what you want.” Carrie sounded stronger and her eyes flashed angrily.
Crow reached out and hugged the girl to his leg. He kept the gun at his waist level, pointed to the child’s head. “Remember this kid’s mine. She goes first if either one of you try to get smart with me.”
Before Heddy returned with food, the Anderson family members were subdued. Jay and Carrie lay on one bed on their sides facing the door. Emily sat upright in the chair in the corner by the window. Her hands lay in her lap and her ankles dangled off the chair seat edge.
Heddy came in with two boxes of pizza and a bag containing two cold liters of Pepsi. “Good job!” She said, seeing the family so motionless and silent.
Crow turned down the volume on the television. “God, I could eat one of those pizzas whole, all by myself.”
To the family’s horror, after the pizza had been shared and eaten, Heddy and Crow started discussing leaving the two adults tied to trees in a wooded area outside of town and taking the kid with them the next day.
Carrie, too frightened of the plan to be afraid for her own welfare, protested vehemently. “Let us all go,” she pleaded. “What you’re talking about is crazy.”
“She’s kind of cute, huh?” Crow asked Heddy. “Listen, lady, we might just keep you all too. Don’t butt in.”
“You could get a boner for her? I think she’s kind of fat.”
Crow shrugged.
“On the other hand, her husband’s not bad looking...”
“You want him? Take him. It might be fun seeing a guy get it from a woman.”
“Oh god,” Carrie said, turning her face into the pillow. “You are sick people.”
“You’re a couple of real animals, you know that?” Jay said. “You’ve got the morals of weasels.”
“Take the girl into the bathroom and let her sit on the floor a while,” Heddy said to Crow. “Her daddy needs a lesson in humility from a weasel.”
#
THAT night when Heddy found a room things got really awful. They took me into the bathroom and set me against the tub on the floor. I heard everything. The sounds of someone slapping someone. The bed noise, creaking and shaking. There was a lot of laughing and my Mama was crying for a while, but I think they must have put a gag in her mouth because I didn’t hear her later. Daddy said stuff to them, really mean stuff, but they hit him again--I heard him grunt in pain--and he didn’t say another word the whole time.
I could have tried to listen in to one of their thoughts, but I was afraid to. I didn’t want to really know what was happening. I could tell it was pretty awful.
I don’t know if Heddy...did things...with my Daddy, but whatever they did that night it changed everything.
I was brought out late, maybe after midnight, and they made me a place on the floor with a pillow and a sheet over me. My hands and feet were tied, but I slept a little. I tried to lift my head to see Mama and Daddy, but I couldn’t see over the mattress. After a while I heard Crow snoring, but I never knew if Heddy slept or not. The TV was on all night, turned down low. Maybe she was watching it. I couldn’t see it from the floor, but I listened for a long time, thinking maybe the news would come on and say they were about to find Crow and Heddy. I fell asleep during a commercial show about an exercise machine. I never did hear any news.
The next morning after Heddy brought us donuts and coffee, we were untied and told to go to the bathroom, we were leaving and we weren’t stopping again for a long time. Heddy said she didn’t want to stop until she got to her mom’s house.
Daddy and Mama looked so different. It was like Daddy’s mind had slipped over the edge to peek at something gross he’d never seen before and couldn’t figure out once he did see it. He wasn’t all there. I looked at him, trying to see into his mind, but he was closed off, sealed in. His eyes darted like little lizards as he stared at the floor. He hardly ever looked up except to see where he was going. He wouldn’t look at me. Or Mama. No one.
Mama just looked sad, the way she used to after her and Daddy had had a fight and he’d hit her. She wouldn’t look at me either.
Crow and Heddy acted like they were having a party. It was like Halloween, but the monsters weren’t masked; they were real.
I guess they’d given up the idea of leaving my parents behind and taking just me. We all got into the car and Heddy drove again across the state of Kansas on small two-lane highways that went through lots of little towns out in the middle of nowhere.
They gave us hotdogs from a Dairy Queen for lunch. Heddy said she loved hotdogs better than anything. After that we had them at least once a day.
I can’t stand hotdogs now.
#
AFTER Jay was moved from the bed where his wife lay and pushed down on the other bed, Heddy got Crow to help her take down his pants until they were tangled around his tied ankles.
She unbuttoned his shirt and spread it open to reveal a bare hairless chest. She crawled on top of him and whispered in his ear. “Crow really will kill your kid, you know. If you don’t play along with us, you’re all going to be dead. Do you believe me?”
Jay twisted his face from her. He refused to answer.
Heddy reached down and took his penis into her hand. She looked over at the other bed to see if Carrie was watching. She wasn’t. Her eyes were squeezed closed. She looked like she was constipated.
Crow kneeled next to the bed, his eyes glittering with lust. She’d take care of him in a few minutes. She smiled her half smile at him and he grinned back at her like a crazy, wild baboon with the hots.
She wriggled over Jay’s body, pressing her naked flesh against his chest. She lifted herself a little and dragged her right nipple over his left one. She felt him shudder uncontrollably. He turned his face to her and stared into her eyes. She stared back, rubbing against him harder. She teased his cock and cupped his balls in her hand. She tightened her grip slowly until he tensed.
“If this takes a while, that’s all right. I don’t mind waiting. I got all night.” She turned her head to Crow. “Isn’t that right, Crow? You mind waiting?”
He shook his head, mesmerized by Heddy’s sexual extravagance. They had done this before, shared others, but never someone who didn’t want to play.
“Your wife a good lay?” She asked Jay. “I bet she’s not. I bet she’s dull as dishwater. I bet she lies there like a fucking stone. Am I right? You’re sick of her, tell me how sick of her you are. Tell me how often you’ve gone out on her and fucked her friends.
“You think I’m pretty? Hmmm?”
Heddy ran her tongue into his ear and down his neck. She left a wet trail across one nipple, flicking her tongue over his abdomen, pausing at his navel. She finally moved d
own and took him into her mouth.
“What a good girl you are,” Crow piped excitedly. He reached over and took hold of the globes of her ass and squeezed.
Jay was not the most useful partner she’d ever encountered, but Heddy managed to get him hard and ride him toward one strong orgasm before he bucked her off, grunting around the gag in his mouth, his penis shriveling even before it slipped from her wetness.
Heddy rolled to the edge of the bed into Crow’s arms and let him spread her on the floor between the two beds. He was so excited he could hardly wait. He got inside her and was pumping like a locomotive before she could draw a good breath. If she had been the laughing sort, she would have burst into gay, unbridled laughter at how eager he was to spend himself where another man hadn’t been able.
It was a long time before they were satiated and remembered the girl in the bathroom, sitting on the floor waiting for someone to come get her.
While Crow pulled up and buckled Jay’s trousers, Heddy led the girl into the room and placed her on a pillow on the floor at the end of her bed. She covered her with a sheet and crawled into the bed between Jay and Crow to sleep.
As far as she knew the woman in the other bed never opened her eyes all night. Hell, if she couldn’t get laid, she might as well sleep so maybe she’d have a wet dream, poor old fat thing.
Heddy laughed to herself while the two men on each side of her fell into deep sleeps and Crow began to snore.
She’d changed her mind about leaving the parents and taking the kid. It was way too much fun having everyone along. She hadn’t had so much fun in ages, goddamn if she had. Also, what if they got caught? If they had hostages along, they might have a chance to bargain their way out.
And to tell the truth, Jay had a bigger cock than Crow. The guy was hung like King Kong, for crying out loud. If he’d only start using it, what a good time she could have.
Besides, he smelled good when he worked up a sweat. Not like Crow, who most often started stinking like a homeless tramp when he got a lather up. Even if she did like a man’s sweaty scent, there happened to be some she liked more than others.
BAD TRIP SOUTH Page 4