“I’ve been a cop since I was twenty,” he said.
“So, hey, what’s it like busting the bad guys?” Heddy asked.
Daddy gave her a close look to see if she was baiting him. He said, “I just do my job.”
“You think Crow ought to have wound up in Leavenworth for self-defense?”
Daddy laughed a little.
“What’s so funny? She asked you a question.” Crow had his back up, scowling like a bald-headed monkey waiting for a researcher to come with the needle.
“They all call it self-defense. What’d you do again, stab a guy in the stomach with a pool cue?”
“He pulled a knife on me first, said I was cheating.”
“Were you?”
“What the hell difference it make, man? He had no call to pull the knife.”
“I’m no judge,” Daddy said, deliberately sidestepping the question.
“Well, you don’t know nothing. You ever been broke? No place to stay the night?”
“I’m just about always broke.”
“Right!” Crow barked out his disbelief. “You drive a Riviera and you’re always broke. Right.”
“After I make the payment, yeah, I am.”
“It ain’t the same, man. You don’t know what it’s like needing a meal. A crust of bread! You’d steal too if you were hungry.”
“I’m sure I would. That why you took the money from the lab house? You were hungry?”
Crow narrowed his eyes. “What makes you so smart? How come you don’t think I’ll just pistol whip you to death one of these times you smart off like that?”
“You practically rape my wife, you terrify my daughter, you steal my car, you use me, and I’m going to be afraid of you? What else do I have to look forward to in the catalogue of terror tactics you have up your sleeve? After a while a person gets used to the way things stand, he gets immune. Or didn’t you discover that yourself while in prison?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What’re you getting at, man?”
“Don’t talk to him, Crow.” Heddy had drifted away from the two men and sat down in the desk chair. She’d been drinking from her bottle of whiskey, staring at the wall as if she could see a funny movie there. Half her mouth, the half that worked, smiled like she was having a great dream.
Mama lay down after a while and I still sat near, holding her hand. I’d done that before. When Daddy was mad at her she often took to the bed and I sat with her, hoping she’d say something, anything, so I’d know she was going to be all right.
Just before dark Crow started acting weird, turning up some music on the TV real loud and dancing around like nobody I’ve ever seen dance. Then Heddy started dancing with him and, afterward, they got in the bed together. I had to sit in the bathroom and Crow let me sit on the toilet lid to wait. It was more comfortable than sitting on the floor. Not as cold, either.
I guess it’s fair to say I don’t like staying in bathrooms longer than I have to. Not since being around those two.
#
NO one stopped to take a room where we were staying. It wasn’t exactly an inviting kind of stopover place. Finally, too anxious to stay off the road any longer, Heddy said we’d try to get the car started again. After Crow fiddled with something under the hood, it started. He hee-hawed like a madman.
We were on our way again. It looked like Heddy would drive into the night so she could get farther south.
The worn out Ford Escort got us into the state of Texas before it died the next morning, shuddering and screaming like some kind of cat being skinned alive. Heddy pulled it over to the side of the road and we all just sat in the car, waiting.
It was the hottest time of day and we were all tired out, sleeping just a little through the night. The Escort rocked on its tires as cars whooshed past it. We were on Highway 83 South somewhere outside the town of Paducah, Texas in the upper panhandle where a big blue sky hung overhead, cloudless, and heat shimmered in violet waves off the pavement.
I looked at the back of Heddy’s head and then at the back of my daddy’s head. I looked over at Crow. He sat quietly with his hands in his lap, staring at the back of Heddy’s head too.
Were we just going to sit there with sweat crawling down our backs, alongside the road all day, I wondered?
The windows were down and the sounds of the passing cars filled our ears. Whoosh. Whoosh. I studied the drifts of wildflowers growing in the weeds that covered the ditch next to the road--Indian Paintbrush, bluebonnets, and wild sunflowers nodding on tall stems that swayed every time a car passed.
After a long while Heddy moved. She leaned forward in the seat and tried the ignition. The starter on the car whined. She kept trying. Finally the car caught life and suddenly Crow let out a whoop that made me jump.
“Goddamn, I thought we were done for this time!”
Heddy pumped the gas to keep the car going, but it coughed smoke and still shuddered like it was sick. She said, “It might get us to the next town. That’s all it’s got to do.”
She put on her turn signal and watched for a break in the traffic on the inside lane before pulling out slowly. Cars had to go around us. We couldn’t have been traveling faster than thirty miles an hour all the way to the next little place that was called Guthrie, Texas. The car lurched and growled and smoked. I caught myself wishing it would make it. I didn’t know what Heddy might do if it broke down there on the highway where a cop car might stop to check on us.
Heddy pulled the Escort into the parking lot of a PiggyWiggly store and let the old car finally die.
“Now what?” Crow asked.
“We need another set of wheels.”
“Well, I know that.”
“Then why’d you ask?” Heddy looked over her shoulder at him as if he were nuts.
“I’m going in the store for some food.” Crow climbed out of the car and stretched. “I ain’t sitting in this baking oven another second.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. “Heddy? Can I?”
“Not yet.” She was staring out the windshield, studying the parking lot.
“But I have to go to the...”
“Shut up!”
A blue van with silver stripes pulled into the entrance and moved past us slowly like a big ship gliding past, blocking the sky.
“That’s what we’re taking,” Heddy said, getting out of the car. “Come on, get out and walk in front of me.”
We all got out of the car. Daddy said, “You’re going to take that van? In broad daylight?”
“Watch me,” she said, pushing him across the lot toward the van. “You ought to have a little more confidence. I could teach you how to be a pretty good car thief if you’d pay attention.”
“I don’t think car theft is in my stars,” Daddy said.
It was tall and blue and square, like a bus, with silver stripes down the center of the sides. By the time it was parked, Heddy had us at the side door that faced away from the store. Her gun was out and in her hand. The door opened and out stepped a young man wearing suspenders over a pinstriped shirt with a pair of blue slacks. He looked startled to find so many people that near to his vehicle.
“Hello,” Heddy said. “Mind if we see what this baby looks like inside?”
She let the man see the gun and he moved out of the way, his hands going up a little. “Put your hands down, stupid.” Heddy leaned over the driver’s seat and looked around. “How’s the gas mileage on a thing like this?”
The man blinked. “Uh, it’s not bad,” he said. When Heddy waited, staring at him he added, “Maybe eighteen to a gallon, open road.”
“Good,” Heddy said. “Give me the keys and get in the back with the others.”
I could see Crow coming across the lot through the window of the van. He was headed for the Escort. Heddy saw him too. She said, “Open that window.” The man did as he was told and Heddy yelled out, “Crow! In here!”
Crow halted and stared incredulously at the new shiny van, the
n he grinned like a crazed overheated dog that’s found a patch of shade. He ambled over to the vehicle, circled it, opened the door and came inside. He had a bag of groceries in his arms. “Hey, now this is using your noggin. What a set-up. Plenty of room for everyone.” He twisted in the front seat and admired the double row of seats we sat on and the sofa in the very back.
Not far outside of Guthrie, Heddy took a right turn on a little used farm road and drove down it until she saw an opening on the site where a house used to stand. Wild orange and black speckled irises broke over the top of tall grass, like colorful birds rising into the air. She pulled into the overgrown yard and parked the van, but left it idling.
She nodded her head at Crow. He said, “Come on, man, this is your getting off place. We’ll take real good care of your rig for you.”
The man heaved a sigh of relief as he crawled from the seat next to us. He had tried to find out what his abductors were doing, why they’d brought him along, but couldn’t get any information. He got out of the van and was almost smiling at the thought of being away from us. Crow followed him out.
I put my hands over my ears and then over my eyes. I felt Mama put her arm around my shoulder. We all knew what was going to happen and there was nothing we could do about it.
There were two shots, one after the other. Daddy said, “He’s a damn man-eating shark. The man would kill anything.”
“Yeah, I know,” Heddy said. “Ain’t we lucky?”
“You’re closing the door on your own cellblock, Heddy.”
Heddy sneered at him with her half-working mouth and said, “That’s the by God truth and don’t forget it. As long as it’s my cell block and I’m the one closing the door, it’s not your goddamn business.” Suddenly she reached out and stroked Daddy’s cheek. He flinched, as if she were about to hit him, but when she just stroked, he seemed to loosen, and then he smiled at her in a soft way I’d seen him smile at Mama before.
I looked at Mama, but she wouldn’t look back. She had seen it, what passed between Heddy and Daddy, but she wasn’t going to let me know what she thought.
Crow was back inside, telling Daddy to get out and get in the front. They switched places. Heddy turned the van around in the tall green swaying grass, crushing the orange irises beneath the wheels. She headed to the highway again.
Texas lay before us like a big, flat, desert place shimmering beneath the red sun. It was the first time that I thought maybe we weren’t going to get out of this alive. Not any of us.
#
HEDDY was a good driver, better than Crow could ever be, he realized, watching how she maneuvered the extra-long van down the highway. While she drove, he inspected the place. It was luxurious, almost a home on wheels. There was a color TV inset at the roofline just behind the front bucket seats. There were headphones on each side of the wide seats that he assumed worked off the stereo system. There were even recessed cup holders for drinks on each side of the bench seat.
He switched on the TV with the remote control, but the station kept fading out so that he turned it off again.
“Try the radio,” he told Heddy and music spilled from invisible speakers in the doors and ceiling.
“This is one luxury vehicle,” he said, taking an apple from the bag of groceries he’d bought. “Won’t nobody suspect we’re in something like this.”
“We’ll ditch it when we get to the border,” Heddy said. “Maybe we’ll walk across and buy something to drive in Mexico.”
Crow crunched down on the apple and grinned over at the silent family. “This beats your Riviera all to shit,” he said around the mouth full of apple flesh.
“Yeah, but it won’t outrun a patrol car.” Jay gave him a knowing glance.
“It won’t have to. There’s not one after us. So why don’t you give it a rest?”
Jay shrugged.
Emily said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll stop somewhere in a little while,” Heddy said.
“Even you couldn’t afford something like this,” Crow said to Jay. “Come to think of it, the guy we left back in those weeds couldn’t afford it for very long.”
“It cost him his life, didn’t it?” Jay asked. “You’re just a stone killer, aren’t you? That makes you a big man, doesn’t it? With that gun, you’re the Pope and the President all rolled up in one little package, you rule the world.”
“You got that right, motherfucker.” Crow tossed the core of the apple on the floorboard and glared at Jay.
“Shut up, Jay,” Heddy called from the driver’s seat.
“And what if I don’t? Going to kill me? Why don’t you go ahead and get it the hell over with?”
Carrie said, “Please, Jay, don’t.”
“We’re not going down into Mexico with you, I know that. You’re either going to let us go or kill us all. Why not get it done now?”
“You got your pig face showing,” Crow said. “And I’ll smash it in for you if you keep it up.”
“I’ll pull this bastard over right here!” Heddy screamed, rooting everyone for a moment as she applied the brakes enough to cause Jay to grab hold of the dash.
“Daddy?”
Jay turned enough to see his daughter. It was as if she carried his sanity on her shoulders and when he saw her, it was returned to him. He slumped, settling into the bucket seat, his head hanging.
Suddenly Carrie squared her shoulders and began to talk in a firm voice. “Yes,” she said, “my husband beats me and I have put up with it.”
Jay swiveled his head to stare at her. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if his wife had just said he drank camel piss and ate babies for lunch. Emily scooted close to her side and held onto her hand for support. The van picked up speed again, Heddy ignoring them once more.
“Go on,” Crow said, “tell the truth, woman.”
Carrie took a deep breath, but she would not look at her husband. She stared at her hands. “I didn’t know he was that way when I married him. I’d known him in high school when he was the star quarterback and all the girls were crazy about him. It was all very romantic, the way he cared only for me. He bought me flowers, gave me his ring. It seemed right at the time when he got angry if any other boy asked me out. It’s how all the boys acted, jealous and protective.
“But that first year of marriage after I’d finished getting my teacher’s certificate and he hit me---I should have left him then. But I was...I was pregnant.” She raised her head and looked sadly at Emily. “I didn’t want to leave him. I thought it would get better.”
“You’ve said enough,” Jay said.
“She hasn’t even fucking started,” Crow said. “Go on, Carrie.”
“I know now that I let him maim my spirit. He broke me as surely as someone breaks a wild horse. I’m guilty of letting that happen, of staying when I didn’t have the strength to leave, of forcing my only child to watch the death of a marriage and the slow dying of the small love that was once between her parents.”
“Oh mama...”
Carrie patted her daughter’s hand before continuing. “When the two of you found us, I’d determined to leave him. When we returned from our vacation, Emily and I were going away.”
“It’s none of their business,” Jay said.
“Yes, it is. Yes, it’s their business now because we’re their business, Jay. They have the power to kill us or let us go. They need to know how much suffering we’ve already done when they make that kind of decision.”
“Confession’s good for the soul.” Crow grinned in a lopsided way at Jay. “Let her tell it.”
“I’ve heard it all before,” Heddy said from the front. “Get out the violins.”
Carrie burst into tears. She let the tears spill down her face without wiping them away. “I know it’s a stupid life. It’s the same life a million other women are living or have lived and I let myself become just another stupid statistic, a battered woman, a victim...a nobody. It’s my fault, too. I let it happen, I sta
yed too long, I took it.”
“It’s not true, Mama.” Emily squeezed her mother’s hand and pushed her head onto her shoulder. “You stayed for me.”
“But if you kill him, that doesn’t clean the slate.” Carrie turned her face to Crow. She looked past her husband to the violent and cruel man who had defended her once in the hotel room, the man who listened to her and was talked out of the idea of rape. “If you kill him, I don’t get to leave him, do I? I don’t get to fix all the wrong. I don’t get to prove to my daughter that her mother is strong and can make a difference in her life.”
Crow shrugged. “I don’t know about all that.” He seemed to think it over, watching her.
“Why don’t you let us go now?” Carrie asked in a soft, pleading voice. “Let us finish our lives, let me have the chance to do the right thing.”
“You ever leave me, I’ll kill you.”
Crow’s eyes flicked from Carrie to Jay, then darkened. “I think he means it.”
“Then he’ll just have to kill me.”
“That ain’t gonna happen,” Crow said. He pointed at Jay. “You just signed your death warrant, buddy. This woman needs you like she needs terminal cancer.”
Jay stared out the side window.
Carrie wiped her face clear. She said, “You still won’t let us go, will you?”
“No.”
“You’re going to kill us then?”
Crow didn’t answer. The voice that answered came from the driver’s seat when Heddy said, “He might not, but you can count on me.”
Emily started to cry, her shoulders heaving. “It’s all right,” Carrie said. “Don’t cry, baby, it’s going to be all right no matter what happens.”
#
YOU might think I shouldn’t love my father for what he’s done to my mother. The funny thing is I can love part of him and hate the other part. The part that is my father who rode me on his shoulders at the Thanksgiving Parade, the part that took me into Clarissa’s Toy Shop downtown and bought me the prettiest porcelain doll they had for sale, the part that beamed over my report card grades--that’s the part I love.
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