She was big, but she wasn't as strong as she used to be. I remember when she could pick up two young goats under one arm to haul them back to the barn. They weren't the biggest goats, but they were big enough. I remember her fixing a fence by herself, slamming the posthole digger down and yanking it out, flannel and overalls flailing around, her sunburned face all beading with sweat.
Petey took me for a ride into the city. Mom thought it would be a good idea for me to get out of the house, as long as Petey promised to keep his hands to himself. That's not how she said it. "You know Dolores has a pistol as big as your arm, and a shotgun, too, and you know I know how to shoot like ringing a bell," is what she said. "I had to shoot her daddy, once, right before he got arrested. Damn near killed him, too. He still can't walk."
Petey said "Yes'm," and nodded, and offered me a stick of gum, right in front of my mom. "Here," he said. "It's so we can have good breath for the make-out session we're going to do all night."
She was going for the gun, and we ran, laughing. We ran into his truck and took off. Thinking about that, and how he was going to be dead in about a year, makes my mom's joke a little ominous, but she didn't kill him. He was in a car accident, and died in the hospital.
Anyway, we went out to walk around Main Street. He said he was broke, so it was up to me to get the ice cream from my allowance. We sat on the curb and watched people driving up and down Main Street. Petey and I were laughing about how stupid his real name was, and how crazy Big Dolores was, with her shaking hands, and how she couldn't even keep up with her own goats. I told him my earliest memory, and how it was Big Dolores that made me see such a thing when I was too young for it, right on my own bed. She had all those damn cats. She didn't know what to do with them, and she wouldn't fix any of them. Hell, half the cats in town probably wandered off our farm, got picked up and adopted somewhere. He let me talk and talk. He asked if I ever wanted to get off that farm, out of this town.
"Of course I do," I said. "I hate it here."
"We could go," he said. "I mean, just as friends. I got to get on a path to success before I can have a girlfriend. I heard that from a life coach my mom showed me on the Internet."
"What the hell kind of thing to say is that?" I said.
"Because I'm a dropout and I'm not going anywhere, and I don't want anyone getting stuck on me when I know exactly what I am, what I'm good for."
"Whoever said I liked you anyway?" I said. "I don't even like you. I just wanted out of the damn house." I think I was probably lying to him, and I think he could tell.
"That's a good thing, Jujube. Go find yourself a better man. I can't even buy your damn ice cream. We're pals. That's all."
"There's no one else around much, though," I said. "Not in this two-street little hole. I ain't a lesbian like Big Dolores. I need a man. We should both go and see if we can't find something better."
"See, you do need to get out more, girl. You need to get out and not be stuck in one place or with one person. You're, what... fourteen? Fifteen?"
"Sixteen," I said. I was lying, of course. I was fourteen.
"Well, I'm eighteen, and I'm a drop-out. Kids that didn't drop out like I did, they joined the army or went off to college or something. I'll be lucky to get a factory job in Rockaway when I get there."
"You're going to the city?"
"Where the hell else? I ain't staying here to be a prescription mule until I'm arrested. I'll be lucky to get on a factory line with sleeping quarters. One of the real sweat shops that work a man to death. I stay out of the company store, keep my head clean, don't drink anything but water... maybe I can save up enough to get out. I drink too much, though. I need to stop drinking the whiskey before I get there."
His dreams, for what they were, rolled off me like a cloud. I heard only that he wanted to go away, and that he wanted to take me with him and that he thought I was too young to go with him, that maybe he was thinking about Dolores' gun.
"You know my mom doesn't actually know how to shoot that damn hand cannon," I said. "She would have shot my dad dead bang if she could shoot for shit."
"Well, hell," he said. He had this sad look on his face. "I'm not much in this world, but I won't do that. I won't do that, Jujube. You're still a kid, and I'm not, and I know better than to think your mom ain't right to shoot a man for it. You're cute, though. I think you're cute as kittens. Come on, Jujube, and let's go see if we can't get you home before dark. Ain't you gotta earn your keep with Big Dolores?"
"Yeah, I guess," I said. "She can wait, you know. She's not my real grandma. I'm sick of it. It's so boring and there's that thing in my arm. Nobody ever asked me what I wanted."
"What do you want, Junebug?"
"I don't know."
"Well you let me know you figure it out. I'm the guy that brings things to people. I can find just about anything."
"What if I wanted something awful?"
He shrugged. "I do have limits," he said.
At home, my momma was sitting up with Big Dolores. They were both on the back porch, passing a joint between them. "Gotta watch it, girl," she said. "You've been here long enough to know the way goats get made, but you're too young, and that boy's no good. Like your daddy, and your granddaddy. He's no good."
Dolores snorted. "Hell, we ain't much good, either," she said. "Let her have her fun. We can take care of another baby around here and run him off, too, if he makes a stink about it. Why not?"
"She's my daughter, that's why not," said my mom. "You don't know what it's like to be with the wrong person, Dolores. You never had to learn that."
Dolores stood up slow. "Like she's going to listen to you anyhow..." She was heading inside. Cats were trying to follow her. She bent over slow to pet them and push them back from the door.
"There are boys who are going places, and boys who are stuck where they are," she said.
"We're just friends. He's a grown man, and I'm just a kid, and he knows it, too. He said as much. Ain't you supposed to be working tonight?" I asked.
"I called in sick."
"You ain't sick," I said.
She shrugged. "I won't tell my boss if you don't."
Petey liked me, though. He liked me enough that he wasn't going to take advantage of my age. That, I knew. Later that week, when I was lying down on the couch with Big Dolores, watching the box with my arm open and the blood flowing between us, I wondered if Petey would still like me if he saw this. Here I was, my arm really naked, bones and arteries showing, shunted open, blood pouring in and out between me and Big Dolores, and that cat stink all over her, and goat shit stink, and weed and farm stink. God, she stank. I stank just being here, around this place. God, we always stank. She had only seven or eight teeth left. She had dentures that didn't fit right. She pulled out her dentures and put them in a jar beside the couch while we watched the box. She closed her eyes and napped.
"You're probably already too old to do a damn thing for me," she said. "Still, it feels nice. Goddamn, but aging is an awful thing. It is terrible to be so old, Junebug. I hope you never have to know what it's like to feel like this. I hope you never need anyone like this."
She rubbed around the shunt in her own arm, around her own shunt, and around her elbows and all the way up to her shoulder.
I had show and tell once where I talked about it. I opened it up and showed the class. This is where the blood goes in. The blood always goes in at blue. Indigo blue. In is for Indigo. Blood always goes out at red. Red for bleeding. I pointed it out. I said that my step-grandma was sick, and her blood couldn't keep her healthy, so every night I ate a big meal, and I opened my arm, and let the blood flow out of me and into her, and she sent her blood into me and back, and my body was young and strong and I could fill it up with all the things she needed to keep her Parkinson's and Alzheimer's back. There are two plugs involved. One is in and one is out. We have the same blood type, so I can donate to her. It only works if you have the same blood type. Even universal donors don't work r
ight like this. Plus, we were Duffy type, which is an obscure kind from Africa that's even harder to match than the A's and B's and O's.
The kids in the class didn't laugh or joke or anything. They were too busy looking into my arm, right where they could see bone through the hard, clear plastic.
The one time I showed it to Petey, he threw up a little in his mouth, had to run to the bathroom and rinse his mouth out.
"Sorry," I said. "I thought you wanted to see."
"I was eating. You let her do that to you? You let her open you up like that?"
"I know, right? No one ever asked me about it," I said. I touched it. "I wish I could just rip it off and walk away. Will you take me with you to Rockaway? I can find something there. I'm sure I can."
"What would happen to Dolores if you stopped?"
I shrugged. "I'm getting too old for it, anyway. She needs a new kid around with Duffy blood. I think she wants me to get pregnant so maybe she can get a new donor."
"I wouldn't let anyone do that to me," said Petey.
"I hate it," I said. "I hate it so much. I wish she would just die. Then I could get my arm fixed. Then I wouldn't need the goddamn shunt anymore. I wish I had a normal arm."
"Ain't you old enough to say you don't want to do it anymore?"
"And hear her moaning and my mother... God, my mother."
We were at the kitchen table. He had come to make his delivery. He said he had to drive over three towns to get it on account of the cops busting down the illegal dispensary behind the Taco Jimmy Stand. He asked me if I had ever been way up north to Drummondville. I had gone there, only once, to take a standardized test for college prep, with my mom. We left long before dawn. By the time I was done, it had been snowing so hard we got stuck in the building overnight. I told him that, and all I could remember was coming home the next morning, exhausted and starving, and there was Big Dolores, sitting on the porch with her cats, scratching at her arm with her hands shaking and cold all over, pale white cold, like an ice statue on the porch, melted a little then frozen melted, and missing me and the blood that kept her tremors at bay.
"Want to go?" he said. "Want to see where I get this stuff?"
I shook my head. "I'm staying in tonight. Chores."
Not chores. Never chores. I don't do the dishes. I don't take out the trash. Mom does that. Sometimes I make dinner, but it's just heating up the frozen stuff in the freezer, so it's not really cooking. What did I do around there? When I was very young, I helped with the goats in the morning until I got so sick of it and let them all loose in the winter and from then on Big Dolores told me just to go inside because I was going to spook the animals. Then, sometimes I'd help load up her car with the milk she was taking out to deliver. I met the vet at the gate when it came time for birthing, and I led the people who came for baby goats around back, to see the animals bounding around the fenced-off places. I cleaned bathrooms when I made a mess in them. I cleaned my room when I was told I had to clean my room. I didn't really do much.
Chores, I had said, because he had thrown up a little when I showed him my arm. He knew what I was telling him.
When the snow came, that year, I was almost fifteen and it came all at once, like a flood. One day it was nice and the leaves had fallen and we were walking around the schoolyard with windbreakers. The next day, it was three feet and slushy and the wind howling so hard it never let up.
Petey came up to drop off the weed. He asked me if I'd mind if he used the restroom. I didn't know why he was asking me anything. He got up and went back into the hallway. Big Dolores came in and asked if Petey was here and needed cash. I pointed at the hallway. "He had to pee," I said.
She sank into a chair and put her head down. "I'm feeling old today, girl. Feel so goddamn old. What the hell happened to me? Winter comes and kicks me in the ass as soon as I'm thinking maybe this summer means I ain't so bad off. You know what, Jujube, can you go get my purse. It's in the bedroom. Gotta pay that boy or his momma will yell at me something fierce."
I went back in the hall, and back to her bedroom. He was in there. I saw him reaching into Dolores' purse. He saw me seeing him. I shook my head. He pulled out cash, far more than he was owed, and held it out to me. I reached out and took it from him. I slipped it into my pocket. He did the same with his. He put the purse back, his hands shaking and his face pale. I gestured for him to go to a window and climb out. Instead, he leaned over and got close to me like he was going to kiss me or something. I could smell him. He didn't smell any better than Dolores, honestly. I curled my lip and pulled away. If he hadn't have been stealing, I'd have kissed him. I turned my head in disgust.
Rebuked, he dove out the window. I hid the money under a loose floorboard in my room, and I think it might still be there. I've never gone back for it, honestly. What sins we've done, and how foolishly? It was only a couple hundred, and it's no use to anyone, now, under a floorboard in an empty house.
Big Dolores had started cooking kidney beans and eggs for dinner. She said she was going to need a long sit down tonight, because of the weather, and I should eat up. I told her that Petey had to go, on account of delivering all the way from Drummondville, and he could get paid next time. He had to make another delivery. Dolores shrugged.
I ate. I ate and I ate and I ate. Then, we sat down and bought a movie to watch on the box. It was a treat for me. It was the only time I was allowed to watch the TV.
I didn't watch the movie. I watched her leaning back, absently stroking a pillow like it was some kind of cat, closing her eyes and resting. I saw the grey bones of her face sagging. I saw the way the tension in her hard muscles had pushed so hard against herself she had collapsed inward into a heap.
"Petey stole money from your purse," I said.
"How much?" she said, without opening her eyes or acting surprised.
"All of it," I said.
"I'm going to call the police on him, if that's true."
"It's true. I saw him do it."
"Well, when we finish up, I'll call it in."
I sat there, watching her breathe heavy.
"Want me to call his mom?"
"Nope," she said. "Boy ain't your age, girl. He's old enough to stand for his sins."
"Maybe if we just called his mom, she'd talk to him. Maybe if we called him and told him we knew..."
"Girl, you know your momma wishes she had called the cops a lot sooner with your dad. Don't let these boys fool you. They do something like that, they know better, and you don't negotiate it with them, or they'll just think they can walk all over you next time and get off clean."
"Where will you get your fix if he don't bring it?" That got her eyes open. She looked at me. "Give me some credit for competence, Jujube. I can still drive. I can still drive myself. I'm not that useless, yet. Thank god for that."
When we got done, I unplugged us both. Dolores got up and took a long, slow breath. She walked back slowly to check her purse, and found more than just money missing. He had taken her old wedding ring, too, from the jewelry box. She called the cops. She told them that her granddaughter had seen the boy that did it, saw him red-handed when he did it, and that they probably knew the boy pretty good already. They did. Petey had been in juvenile before. Petey had been in trouble with police before. Petey was known to be on a path with walls at the end of it where all his pathways stopped.
Dolores answered the door when the cops came. They said Petey confessed to everything. They said they didn't need our statements, exactly, but we might as well give them. They were able to recover the ring, but the cash was gone already. I looked over at Big Dolores, standing at the door. I went back to my room. I slammed the door. Big Dolores apologized to the officer and walked back to the door. She called out through the door. "What is it, Jujube?"
"You didn't have to call the cops! Shit, Dolores, you could have just called his mom!"
She asked the cops, who had followed her down the hall, if that was enough of a statement from the witness, and
they said it was, so they left us.
Big Dolores rode out to get her own weed, then. She drove out to the place in Drummondville though it was almost two hours both ways.
She was probably pushing up against eighty years old, by then, and she drove regular, but she drove in the mid-morning once to get the milk to the two co-op stations that bought in. She didn't drive over three hours to a place where she could score some speakeasy weed and Ritalin for my mom.
Third time out, she got pulled over in the snow. It was so cold, the cop that had her was wrapped up head to toe in the heaviest stuff he had, and unwrapped the scarf around his face before he got out of the car. She was being pulled over because she was driving erratically.
"The road's just slick,"she said.
"You coming from Drummondville?"
"What's it to you where I'm coming from as long as I'm sober enough to drive?"
"I'm just asking because we're shutting down an illegal dispensary up there."
"What the hell do you care about an old woman driving in a snowstorm? I've got to go check the generator and heater in the barn. I've got cats to get in from the cold, goats to feed. What the hell do you care about me for? Write a ticket and let's go. I've got a goat farm, goddamit. I've got work."
"Got a tip on you," he said. "Got a tip you're carrying from a dispensary. Mind if I look around your vehicle? See if there's any illegal marijuana?"
"Goddammit, I mind. I'm old. I've got Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and I mind. I'm supposed to be using the stuff."
"Not if it's from an illegal dispensary. I've got a warrant," he said. He pulled it from his coat like a magic scroll. "We saw a vehicle matching yours at the dispensary this morning."
She was pulled out in the snow. She was handcuffed and left leaning against a tree. Another cop car showed up. Then another. They all had their lights flashing. She was sitting out in the freezing cold, nearly eighty and left sitting in the snowstorm with her hands bound. She was crying, her hands shaking. They found it right away, but they kept searching the car for anything. They piled everything she had— every bit of trash and detritus and maps and papers and a half-eaten bag of food and clothes and emergency kits—all in a heap next to the car while they were searching it. She watched everything get dumped into the snow. They wouldn't let her in from the cold until everything was poured out. The car was checked for explosives. She watched the men sticking the chemical strips against the cracks and crevices after explosives. What the hell would she be doing driving an explosive truck? A tow truck came. They said all her stuff was evidence and they were going to collect it.
Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2014 Page 29