BAD TRIP SOUTH

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  I saw him sit up. I saw his grim face with dirt on it. I saw Crow reach him first and shout something. Then Heddy got there and she leaped right onto Daddy, knocking him to the ground again. She was yelling and clawing at his face while he tried to keep her off him.

  The eerie thing was what happened next. Crow started laughing. It was this wild laugh that made the black and white spotted cattle move across the field away from us like we were way too alien for their company. He laughed so hard, he doubled over and held his stomach, he laughed so hard.

  Then I knew Daddy wasn’t shot and he wasn’t dead. He’d hit the ground to keep from being shot in the back. And Crow was laughing at how Heddy was trying to claw Daddy’s eyes out. He thought it so funny it almost killed him.

  I turned to Mama quick and said, “Mama, Crow wants to take you to bed.”

  Her eyes got really round and she said, “Emily, how do you know something like that?” It sounded like she very much disapproved of me saying it.

  “I...I can’t tell you, but that’s what he wants. He’s going to do it too and if he does, Daddy’s going to try to stop him and he’ll get hurt. He may get shot.”

  “How do you know these things, Emily? I have to know how you know.”

  “I...I hear stuff. I hear what people think.”

  Mama stared at me like I had grown horns in the top of my head. “I mean it, Mama. I’ve always been able to do it. It’s real weird, but I’m not lying. Like right now, I know you’re thinking ‘She can’t do that. No one can do that. That’s telepathy! There’s no such thing!’”

  Mama’s mouth dropped open. “You can read minds! Oh my god.”

  “You have to believe me. Crow’s going to do something to you and if he does, everything’s going to go bad, real bad.”

  “C’mon,” she said, “let’s run.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out the other side of the car.

  It was like Crow read my mind too because he stopped laughing all of a sudden and turned around. He saw us beginning our sprint across the field, Mama pulling me along with her by the hand. He shot at us and just like Daddy, we stopped and we squatted down. I thought I’d heard the whiz of the bullet as it passed us by in the air, but that was imagination, I’m sure. You don’t really hear bullets whiz through the air, that’s for cartoons.

  Crow yelled, “Get your asses back in the car!”

  Mama was crying, no noise, and just fat tears rolling down her face when we stood up and started for the car. I told her, “Mama, you can’t fight them. If you and Daddy fight them, they’re going to kill you.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “I’ll think of a way to help us,” I said.

  “Oh, baby, Oh Emily, you’re just a little girl,” she said, tears choking her.

  “I mean it, Mama. I’ll think of a way. Didn’t I help you sometimes when Daddy was bad? I found a way of letting you know he was coming home mad. Just don’t fight them.”

  I’d led Daddy off into other avenues of thought sometimes when he started getting mad. I’d ask for help with my schoolwork or say there was a phone call for Mama--anything to break his attention to doing harm to my mother. Most of the time it worked. I knew how to get a grown-up’s attention off the track and onto something else.

  Daddy was back at the car with Crow and Heddy. Now Crow was angry. He was so mad it looked like a black cloud had descended over his head. Laughing hadn’t helped him any. He pushed Daddy back into the car and slammed the car door so hard it sounded like a thunderclap.

  He got into the back seat with us and shook his head as if he were disappointed. He said, “Run off again, and your kid gets a bullet in the back, Carrie.”

  “Don’t hurt her,” Mama said. “It was my fault.”

  “Of course it was your fault!”

  “It was this motherfucker’s fault,” Heddy said, putting the car into gear and turning it around slowly in the low grass of the field.

  Daddy just sat there. Crow said to him, leaning over the seat, “You try that shit again and I don’t shoot over your head next time. You could have killed us all, a stunt like that. Who do you think you are, Sly Stallone?”

  “I’m bigger than him.”

  “The hell you are!” Crow took his fist and knocked Daddy in the back of the head. “You’re bigger’n me too, but I’ve got the gun, you fucking pig!”

  “You keep hitting me and we’re going to go around, bud.”

  “What’d you say? Pull over, Heddy!”

  “He’s jerking you around. Shut up, Jay. You’ve done enough today. Jay, you grab this wheel again and I’ll fucking kill you myself.” Heddy drove through the ditch and onto the highway again, the back bumper dragging the ground as it cleared the ditch. A car or two had passed, but no one had noticed the commotion in the field.

  “You want to go around with me,” Crow said, in a different voice, a low growl of a voice, “and I’ll take your balls for a necklace. Don’t mistake me for one of your small town candy-ass pussies you put your chokeholds on and beat senseless with a nightstick. You underestimate me and you’ll find yourself in a grave, friend.”

  “Listen to him,” Heddy said. “He’s not lying to you.”

  “I’d like to take my chances,” Jay said.

  “No. You wouldn’t.” Again Crow bopped him in the back of the head with a closed fist. “And if you don’t shut up, I’m going to make Heddy pull down some back woods road so I can put a bullet between your macho-man eyes.”

  “Daddy, don’t,” I said, getting really scared.

  “Jay, please,” Mama said, sighing so hard it filled the whole car.

  Jay nodded as if to say Okay. Okay, for now. Okay, but I’m going to take the little creep down when I get the chance, just you wait and see.

  #

  HEDDY knew if they headed south for the border from St. Louis, they would have been caught on the road right away. It’s where they would be expected to go from the Long Horn Caverns.

  Driving into the state of Kansas was to throw off the tails and to find a circuitous route down south. It was also a way to get to say goodbye to her mother. She didn’t love her. Well, she guess she did, in a way, but the woman was her entire family, the only one she had, and if she was going to leave the country, she had to say something to the only family she knew.

  It took longer, going west then south, but it was the only way to stay away from the cops. By now they must have plastered Crow’s image all over the papers and the television news.

  “Crow, tonight you have to change your looks.”

  She was driving south across the state now and bored with the flat land, the vistas of green summer fields. She had no idea what was growing there. The closest she’d ever been to a farm was the St. Louis zoo.

  “Why’s that, baby?” Crow asked. He had snorted another hit of crank. He sounded like a kid on a drunk. It made her want to reach into her purse and take a sip of Jim Beam. But she never did that in front of people. She’d do it when she could stop for gas and go alone into the bathroom. And she’d take more than a sip, by God. All her nerve ends screamed for the bitter fire of whiskey.

  “People know what you look like by now. Some store clerk or gas station jockey’s gonna make you.”

  “I don’t wanna cut my hair,” he said.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror at him. Eyes dancing, those heavily lashed black eyes. His skin so white it was almost blinding. Black beard stubble on his cheeks. And his hair, wavy and long and black as night. She liked it a lot, long hair was her thing, but on Crow it had to go.

  “Doesn’t matter what you want. We have to shave your head.”

  “What?” He came up in the back seat, eyes menacing now. “I said I ain’t cutting my hair.”

  “Yes, you are.” She would brook no argument on this. With his head shaved, he would look completely different. And she had to get those earrings out of his ears.

  “Heddy, I know you’re trying to help, but I’m telling you right now, t
he hair’s staying.”

  She grinned at the road ahead. He’d do what she said. He knew he wasn’t going to make it without her. He would still be in Leavenworth if it weren’t for her. She was the brain and much as he might protest, he listened in the end.

  She saw a Gulf station and slowed. “I’ve got to get gas and take a piss. You watch them,” she said to Crow.

  “I need to go to the bathroom too,” the little girl said.

  “After me,” Heddy told her. “You just sit there quietly and don’t aggravate Crow until I get back.”

  She parked by the pump and got out of the car. She walked directly to the side of the service station building to the ladies room. Inside, she locked the door. She found the pint bottle of Jim Beam and twisted off the cap. The first swallow was harsh and she winced. The second swallow was smooth as drinking warm buttered rum coffee. She held up the pint and eyed it. Needed a new one tonight. She’d go out to buy an electric razor to shave Crow and get herself a new bottle. Maybe two.

  She slipped the pint into her purse, relieved herself, and stood in front of the mirror on the wall over the sink, staring at her image. The whiskey did wonders and only in minutes. She felt more herself, more real. When she got the jitters between drinks, she thought she might be about to fly apart, break up into jigsaw puzzle pieces no one could put together again. All her insides went into spasm. She got stomach cramps and a burning in her esophagus. Her mind started tripping, going in several directions at once. Nattering at her about this and about that until she thought she might go insane.

  She didn’t know why Crow favored speed. That stuff warped you right up into a frenzy. He was always picking at stuff, fiddling with his purse, combing his hands through his hair, tapping out drumbeats with his fingertips, jiggling around on the balls of his feet. Some days he went without food, no appetite at all, and when he crashed he was so depressed he was suicidal.

  Right now, though, she wasn’t about to worry about Crow. With the liquor racing through her system, she felt wonderfully whole. She never smiled at herself in mirrors. The dead half of her mouth could make her so angry she’d been known to shatter mirrors with her fist. But she stared into her own eyes and communicated with the smart, strong, silently watching person there.

  We’ll make it. We’ll make it out alive. We’ll be so rich; we’ll party every day and every night. Forever. I’ll have a maid and a cook and a fine car, one even better than that Riviera...

  Someone tapped on the bathroom door. She turned to it and clicked over the lock. If it was that kid, she’d slap her little face until her eyes rolled.

  She pulled open the door, ready to go into action. It wasn’t the girl standing outside waiting. It was a man. A man who knew her.

  “We just want the money back,” he said. “You know you shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Rory,” she whispered, surprised to see the tattooed loverboy who told her about the money in the lab house. He wore a suit, a plaid shirt open at the collar, no tie. He looked like a businessman. Who had dressed him, his mom? Who had sent him? Heddy blinked, trying to get a handle on what he’d just said.

  “They sent you? You’ve followed us?” She asked.

  “Heddy, you don’t rob St. Louis. I’ve been following you for two days. I don’t know what you and the con are up to with the people in that car, but if you’ll just give me the money, you can go on your way, I’ll forget all about it. They said they’d even write off the murders and that’s pretty unusual.”

  While he was talking, Heddy had slipped her hand into the purse and wrapped her fingers around the little .25 caliber automatic she carried there. No matter what Rory promised, she knew he lied.

  She lifted the gun into position inside the purse slowly, aiming it at his gut. “Look,” she said. “I want you to back off. I want you to go back to your car and haul ass. You need to forget you ever caught up with us. It’s that simple.”

  He gave her a fake sad smile. “Can’t do it, babe. I’ve been sent to collect.”

  She pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession without giving herself time to think. The sounds were like little pithy backfires from a car. She hoped no one came running around the side of the building and turned this into real trouble.

  Rory’s eyes registered shock first and then they held nothing. Before he ever fell to the ground, he was dead. She’s gotten him right in the chest where his heart should have been. She didn’t think she’d ever made such a lucky shot as that before.

  Heddy stepped over him and hurried around the building. Her purse was torn and she had to carry it in her arms to keep the contents from falling out. She got into the Riviera, switched on the ignition, and pulled from the pump, the back tires giving a little squeal.

  Crow said, “I thought you were getting gas.”

  The little girl said, “I had to go to the bathroom!”

  Heddy shook now. She had to grip the steering wheel hard. She drove the speed limit, watching in her mirrors for anyone following. She hoped Rory had come alone.

  “Crow, there was someone back there.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone from St. Louis. That guy I told you about. The one with the tattoo? Been following us, he said.”

  “Was that the sounds we heard? Was it gunshots?”

  Heddy nodded. She hit the town limit and picked up speed.

  “You just killed someone?” Jay asked.

  “Jesus God,” Carrie said and put her arm around Emily.

  “I don’t know if he was alone.” Heddy put on the blinker and passed a car. She hadn’t seen anyone following, but then she hadn’t noticed anyone before either, yet he’d been there, tailing them for days.

  “Shit.” Crow leaned forward and touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

  “A little shook. Not bad. I’ll be okay.”

  “Someone must have heard those gunshots back at the station. They’ll remember this car was there. They’ll probably remember you.” Jay turned toward Heddy in his seat, scrutinizing her as she drove.

  “You turn the fuck around and watch the road! I won’t have you watching me,” Heddy shouted. She pointed through the windshield and waited until he faced front again.

  “This means they’re really onto us, Heddy.” Crow sounded nervous.

  “Yeah, so the whole goddamn world’s onto us, I don’t care. We’re getting out of here, we’re going to Mexico, and any fucker tries to stop us is getting the same thing Rory got. No one’s going to hurt us. No one’s going to stop us.”

  She began to slow down and took the emergency lane, finally bringing the car to a stop. She took her hands from the wheel and rubbed down her face. Then she pulled open her damaged purse and found the bottle. She opened it and drank down what was left, gulping with her eyes closed.

  “You want me to drive?” Crow asked.

  “No. I’ll drive. Give me a minute.” She watched the mirrors and studied every car that passed by, wondering if any of the passengers might be from St. Louis. It occurred to her that the enemies she and Crow had made stealing the drug money were more of a problem than any law enforcement group. If they could walk right up to her at a bathroom in a service station...

  “Heddy?”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” She put the car into gear and pulled back onto the highway.

  “I can drive, you know,” Crow said.

  “I’m okay, I said!”

  And she was. Or she would be. Just as soon as she got the buzz on and everything stopped being so sharp-edged and confusing.

  Hell, why did everything have to be so goddamn complicated? Why didn’t anything in her life ever go right?

  She felt not so good. She felt pretty bad, really.

  She felt like she would vomit or have a heart attack. She needed another bottle.

  #

  Heddy’s mother was named Jolene and people called her Jo. When Heddy drove up to the door of the trailer where it sat on a little deserted patch of land outside of the
small Kansas town, Jo waddled to the door and flung it wide. She squinted at the nice car and then she leaned down and looked through the windows. She saw Heddy.

  Heddy waved a little, shut off the engine, and took the keys as she stepped out. “Mama,” she called.

  “Girl! I heard about Craig on the news. I wondered if that was you got him out.”

  “Crow, Mama. Call him Crow, okay?”

  Jo pushed two small mongrel dogs back into the trailer with her feet, then pulled shut the door. She came down the two ringing metal steps, but just before she got her bare foot to the ground she looked down and made a face. “Goddamn dog shit right where I got to walk. I swear to God I ought to eat them dogs for supper.” She waited on the step for Heddy to approach. She held open her arms and Heddy saw how the skin flapped beneath them. She was old, drunk, always drunk, and about as useless as any mother could be. Heddy still cared.

  “Can we come in, Mama? We can’t stay long.”

  “’Cause you’re on the run, huh, girl?”

  Heddy nodded. “I guess so.”

  “I told you Cr..uh...Crow would get you in trouble one day.”

  Crow herded the family forward. He bowed to the old woman and said, “I love you too, Mama.”

  “Shut up, you wimpy asshole. C’mon on in, Heddy. I’ll pour us a drink. Mind the dogs. One of ‘em bites.”

  Heddy watched her mother open the door, scoop the two dogs into her arms, and then disappear into the gloom of the trailer. She turned to Crow, shrugged, and went inside too.

  The rest followed, crowding into the tiny living room area littered with torn newspaper, dirty glasses, and dog excrement. Heddy stepped over a little pile that had dried to brown crust and dropped onto the sofa. She watched Crow push Jay, Carrie, and the kid her way. They took seats, with the girl sitting in her mother’s lap. Crow just stood there, scowling like an owl.