by Amy Greene
I turned around and looked at him, waiting for him to leave.
“Hope I didn’t bother you,” he said.
“No,” I said. “It was nice of you to stop.”
I thought he would go but he only sat there staring at me, smiling in a way that made my guts draw into a knot, eyes moving over my face, my hair, my breasts, so intent that I almost felt his touch. After a moment he said, “You don’t like me much, do you?”
I froze, caught off guard. Before I could think, I blurted out, “No.”
His smile died. My hand rose to my throat. For a second I wasn’t sure if I had spoken out loud. “You got a smart mouth, girl,” he murmured, the shock plain on his face. I thought to apologize, but nothing came out. Hollis’s neck and ears turned red. “My brother’s run through a lot of women in his day,” he said. “Don’t think you’re any different than the rest of them.” Then he got up from his chair and stalked to the front door, slamming it behind him. I went to the window to make sure he got into his truck and left. I stood for a long time gnawing my fingernails, knowing I had made a mistake.
I would like to pretend that year never happened and enjoy the life I have now with my twins. Sometimes when I sit on the back steps the girl climbs onto my knees, long legs hanging down and bare toes poking at my calves. I bounce her as we watch the boy playing in the yard, peeling bark from a stick in ash-colored strips. He doesn’t come to me the way she does. I can’t remember the last time I held him. In cold months he follows me to the woodpile and takes the heaviest log he can carry, brings it behind me into the kitchen to put in the wood box beside the back door. He lights a fire and stands back as he tosses in kindling, embers shooting out and disappearing like the ghosts of fireflies. Summer nights I put the oil lamp on the table and we eat as moths bat at the blackened glass chimney. In the mornings they come to the kitchen and stand at the stove waiting for a biscuit. I blow on them before setting them down on their small palms.
I wish this was the only life I ever had, light coming in and ceilings high enough to breathe and windows and doors thrown always open. If a lizard skitters in, blue-tailed and fast, I watch him dart up the wall or into a baseboard crack. If the rain blows in, I don’t mop it up. I stand in the door hoping the smell will soak into the boards of the house to keep for days when the sun is shining. Even when it’s cold I leave the house open, letting snow flurries collect on the rugs. The twins are like me, used to all kinds of weather. They’re not sensitive to heat or cold, so I’m not careful with them. I know how it feels to be kept inside and how it will winnow away at your mind until you feel like nothing. Even with the baby rabbit to care for, being pent up in that house by the tracks finally became too much to bear. One gray morning at the beginning of October, rain beating and wind blowing and leaves plastered everywhere, my restlessness came to a head.
It was cold enough to need a fire and I went out to the woodpile, careful to avoid looking at the door in the house’s foundation. I stamped my shoes bringing in the wood and left them on the kitchen mat. John was watching football in the front room. He didn’t look at me as I got a fire going in the stove. I went to sit beside him, drawing a quilt around my shoulders and pressing my chilled body against him where he leaned on the couch arm. I needed his nearness to keep me sane. I needed back the loving John I had married. He stiffened, fingers curled around the glass he drank from, not moving to touch me. I kissed his neck, his jaw, his cheek. My heart sank when he wrenched his face away.
“Let’s go for a ride,” I said.
“Weather’s too bad,” he muttered.
“No it’s not.” I bit down hard on my lip. “You just don’t want to.”
“What if I don’t?” He turned on me, eyes bloodshot.
I rose from the couch and began to pace the floor. “I have to get out of here,” I told him. It was more a plea than a statement. “At least for a while. Give me the keys.”
“Where you going? Back to Granny?”
“I don’t know,” I said, voice cracking. “But I hate it here.”
John put down his drink. He sat forward on the couch. I knew I should hush before it was too late. “What do you mean? There ain’t nothing wrong with this place.”
“It’s too dark in here,” I said, unable to help myself.
“We’ll fix it up, then. I’ll hang you some wallpaper.”
“No,” I said. “Nothing can fix it.”
His jaw tightened. “You better watch yourself, Myra.”
I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. “I want to see Granny,” I said, close to tears.
He slammed his glass on the coffee table. “Quit being a suck baby.”
Something snapped in me then. I snatched his ashtray from the table in a plume of soot, white butts fluttering down like confetti, and threw it against the wall. It bounced off and skidded across the linoleum. We stared at it together, a silence descending over the room. Then John blinked up at me in disbelief, mouth hanging open. I thought it was going to happen at last. He was going to hit me. But just as he got up from the couch, the baby rabbit’s high squeal shattered the stillness. John’s face went pale. He jumped up, knocking over his glass. “What in the hell?” he said, looking toward the sound with big eyes. For a long moment I stood rooted in place. Then I took off running for the end of the hall. John caught up to me at the closet, the rabbit’s pitiful cries trapped inside. I plastered myself against the door but he shoved me out of the way so hard I stumbled and fell. He tore open the closet and followed the sound to the water heater. He knelt and pulled the shoebox out of the shadows. I begged him to give it to me but he didn’t answer. I watched his back as he stared into the box. After what felt like a lifetime, he stood slowly and turned to me. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked softly.
I thought of lying but there was no reason to. “I found it under the house.”
He studied me, face blank and unreadable. “No telling what all diseases you’ve brought in here,” he said at last. “That thing might have rabies.”
“It’s just a rabbit.”
“Looks like a rat to me.”
“It’s not a rat,” I whispered. I tried to get past him but he blocked my way.
“I don’t care what it is,” he said, dangerously calm. “It ain’t living in my house.”
Then he turned, raised his foot, and stomped the box with his boot. The squealing stopped. I stood gaping at it. John passed me, knocking into my shoulder, and walked out of the house. After a few minutes I heard the car start up and spin out of the gravel lot. I went to kneel over the box. Inside the rabbit’s back feet were kicking. I took its broken body into my palm one more time. A childhood memory came to me, of standing in a tobacco field plucking worms from sticky green leaves. At the end of the row I found a quivering mouse, sides laboring with rapid breath. It was sick, maybe poisoned, and small like me. I shut my eyes and twisted the baby rabbit’s neck until its legs were still.
In the days afterward, I thought more about my mother. I went outside one night when John was gone drinking and saw the dark hump of my mountain in the distance, beyond the scattered twinkle of lights. I stood on the tracks she died on, stretching out of sight before and behind me. I looked down at my feet and saw that the rocks were stained. I knelt to pick one up and imagined it was her blood. I closed my eyes and a cold wind came rushing down the tracks. It was a fresh smell, a breath of woodsy air different than cinders and pollution. I opened my mouth and breathed it deep. My kin-folks were so close. I couldn’t go up the mountain, because it would be hard to get back before John came home from work. He might drive up there after me and hurt me in front of Granny. I couldn’t stand that. But I could go to the pool hall and try to find some of my people. I was willing to risk that much. I made up my mind to go when Monday came.
There was no money in my purse but I’d been stealing a few dollars here and there from John’s wallet when he was passed out drunk. I had folded the bills and put them in a coffee can under the sink. I bathed and dre
ssed and walked to the neighbor’s house to call a cab. Pit bulls lunged barking and whining at the ends of their chains when I stepped into the yard. A grizzled man wearing an unbuttoned western shirt opened the door. I asked if he had a phone I could use. For a long, anxious moment I thought he might say no, but then he opened the door wider to let me in. He stood watching suspiciously as I talked on the greasy phone hanging on his kitchen wall. I told the driver I wanted to go to the pool hall on Miller Avenue and went outside to wait in the yard.
The car that came was a dented Oldsmobile with a cracked windshield. The man who opened the back door for me had two missing front teeth. He tried to make small talk on the ride across town, but I ignored him until he gave up. He pulled into a gravel parking lot in front of a low gray building. There was no sign but I knew by the neon inside that this was the pool hall where my parents had met. As I walked across the dusty lot, gravel crunching under my shoes, I tried not to think what John would do if he came home to an empty house. I hesitated for only a moment before pushing open the door.
It was so dim inside after the bright sunlight that I was almost blind. I moved between the shabby pool tables to a snack bar where hot dogs turned in a glass case and fountain drinks gurgled. The man wiping his hands behind the counter had a round belly and great hairy forearms, but little hair on his head. “Help you?” he asked.
“No. Well, nothing to eat. I’m looking for somebody that used to come in here.”
He grinned and took a smoldering cigarette from an ashtray on the counter. “A lot of people come in here, sweetheart. What’s the name?”
“Mayes. Kenny Mayes, or Clio Mayes. Do you remember them?”
“Let me think.” He placed the cigarette between his thick lips and drew deeply. “There’s a lot of Mayeses around here. Now, there’s an old woman by the name of Mayes lives down the street, takes care of her uncle. He’s the one I bought this place from. But I don’t remember no Kenny. Is he a young man or a old man?”
“He died about eighteen years ago. He was … my daddy. I was hoping to find some of my family, maybe, to tell me more about him and my mother.”
“How about that,” the man said. He mashed out his cigarette. “I’ll tell you what. I believe that Mayes woman had a boy, got killed down here on the railroad tracks.”
“That’s him,” I said, suddenly hot and dizzy. “Where did you say she lives?”
“It’s a little old house down here at the stop sign. You can walk right to it. Watch out, though. Some of these boys around here might holler at you.” He laughed at himself so hard that he had a coughing fit. I left him there red-faced, hacking into his fist.
I stepped back out into the autumn sun, the sky overhead a hard, dark blue, and scanned the parking lot. I stopped when I saw Hollis leaning against the hood of his truck picking his teeth. When he saw me he pitched the toothpick into the gravel.
“Looking for ye ride?” he asked with a snide grin.
I glanced back at the door. I could have gone into the pool hall again but thought I might be more easily cornered in there. I couldn’t count on the owner to help, either. I had learned since marrying John and leaving home that men liked to stick together.
“I sent him on,” Hollis said, smile disappearing. He uncrossed his arms and began moving toward me. “My brother told me to keep an eye on you and it’s a good thing I did. I know he don’t want his wife sniffing around no pool hall.”
“I was looking for somebody,” I said, eyes darting left and right. “My family.”
“Why, your family’s right here. Ain’t I your family now?”
“I’ve got some errands,” I said, taking a step to the side. There was a wooded lot behind the building. If I could make it there, he’d never catch me. “Nothing I can’t walk to. You better get on back to the store. John says it gets busy around this time.”
“I’ll get on back to the store,” he said. “But you’re coming with me. I’d say John would like to know what you’ve been up to this morning.” He moved forward again.
I took another step sideways. “I’ll see John when he gets home.”
“You’re coming with me, girl,” Hollis said.
He lunged and before he could close the distance between us I bolted to the left, meaning to buttonhook around the corner of the pool hall and run for the woods. But Hollis was too close. He caught me and wrestled me to the ground. I struggled, kicking and bucking with him on my back. I slung my head and felt it connect with his teeth. He cursed but didn’t loosen his grip. He hoisted me to my feet, one arm clamped around my ribs. I looked desperately toward the pool hall door and saw the fat owner watching, eyes narrowed against the light. I squirmed around in Hollis’s arms, turning until our noses were inches apart. I hawked and spat into his eyes, wetting both of our faces. Then he drove his fist into my diaphragm, knocking the wind out of me. My eyes flew open and my body went limp. I knew then how it felt to drown. I opened my mouth wide, fighting for breath as Hollis dragged me to the truck and pushed me in. I lay against the seat sucking in whoops of air. “If you try to run off again,” Hollis panted, “I swear to God I’ll break your neck.” I couldn’t have run if I wanted to. I sagged against the door, still trying to breathe, as he came around the truck and climbed behind the wheel. He sat still for a few minutes, pulling himself together. He rubbed a finger across his teeth and pulled it out bloody. I rested my heavy head on the window as he started the truck and fishtailed across the parking lot into the street. After a while I tried my voice. “It’s none of your business,” I wheezed. He spat blood into his hand and wiped it on his pants. “My brother is my business,” he said. I didn’t say anything else because he was right. I thought of opening the truck door and jumping out. I didn’t know what my husband would do to me.
When we got to the store, John was leaning on the counter talking to a man whose bottom lip was fat with snuff. “What say, Grady?” Hollis said to the man, who touched the brim of his hat in greeting. Then Hollis looked at John. “Hey, brother,” he said. John glanced up and whatever he had meant to reply died on his tongue when he saw the shape I was in. “Let’s step in the back for a minute,” Hollis said. John hesitated and then called for Lonnie, who appeared from among the aisles to take John’s place behind the counter. I walked between them through the store to the back where there was a stagnant bathroom and one high window lighting shafts of dust like swarming bugs, cobwebs waving in dirty trails from the ceiling tiles. Hollis steered me around the empty boxes on the floor and backed me against a paint-splattered table under the window, knocking off another box spilling styrofoam peanuts. I looked at John but he made no move to stop him. “Why don’t you take a guess where I found your wife this morning?” Hollis said.
John stared at me. “Where have you been, Myra?”
“I found her down yonder at the pool hall. I hope nobody else seen her.”
John folded his arms. “I told you not to go down there,” he said with false patience. I recognized the calm look on his face. “I told you it would embarrass me.”
“I know,” I rasped, stomach still aching from Hollis’s blow.
“Is that all you’re going to say about it?”
“I can’t live the way I have been, John.”
He cocked his head, feigning interest. “How’s that?”
“Cooped up in the house.”
“You married me, Myra, not somebody else,” he said in his condescending way. “You know I expect a woman to keep her ass at home. I done told you that. And I ain’t the only one that believes that way. There’s a lot of men around here that would laugh at me if they seen my wife at the pool hall. Is that what you want?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be hanging around. I was just in and out.” Even as I spoke the words, I knew I was wasting what little breath I had.
“Now, Myra. You’re not understanding what I’m trying to say.” John and Hollis exchanged a glance that made me cold all over. Then John began undoing his
belt. I watched his long fingers working, light glinting off the buckle.
“Hold her still, there,” he said to Hollis. I couldn’t bear the thought of Hollis’s hands on me again. I lurched forward, a guttural sound wrenching out of my throat. John intercepted me before I reached the door. He turned me around and clapped his hand over my mouth. I tried to bite but his fingers were too tight. “Dammit, Myra,” he said against my ear, “there’s customers out yonder.” I screamed around his hand. They carried me together back to the table. “You better shut her up or somebody’s going to call the law,” Hollis panted. As soon as John’s hand was gone I screamed again but it came out more like a croak. “Hold her still,” John ordered. I heard his belt slithering free of its loops over their grunting and puffing. Hollis yanked my arms up so far behind my back I thought they would tear loose. My hoarse cries changed from anger to pain, bright flares shooting up behind my eyes. John forced me over the table and Hollis shoved my dress up over my hips. I began to cry hard, snot dangling from my nose. Knowing that Hollis was watching hurt more than the belt licks. When it was over, I fell silent and still, trying to stifle my sobs. Then Lonnie opened the door and poked his head in. “What in the world’s going on back here?” he said. “I thought Grady was fixing to call the sheriff.”
I summoned the last of my strength and tried to run again but John caught me easily. He held me against his chest and laughed. In that moment, I had no love for him left. “Good Lord, Myra,” he said.
“You’re wild as a buck. I hate I had to do you that way, but I can’t let you run around on me. You ought to have more respect for me than that.”
From that day forward, my marriage to John was like a fever dream from a time before I could talk. He didn’t allow me to leave the house for anything, not even to cook and clean for his father. Sometimes I see the twins building something out of sticks and mud and remember walls I was trapped between. I look down at my fingers once slammed in doors and can’t go back inside a house. I have to sit on rocks and climb into trees and stretch out under the arms of flowering bushes. I have to forget Thanksgiving Day of that other life, when I stood at the window wearing the same dress and shoes I got married in, trying to see Bloodroot Mountain through the fog. The sky was steel-colored, the ground frozen hard. John was sitting on the couch. “You’ll have to cook something,” he said. “We can’t go without a dish.” He had already been drinking for hours. Lately he didn’t go anywhere, even to work, without being drunk on whiskey. He thought I would eat Thanksgiving dinner in that awful house with his mean people, but I had other plans.