Two other children, a black boy and a white girl, both near her daughter’s age, sat semi-transfixed in front of a flickering console television that had seen its best days when disco was new. The children were quiet now, a far cry from their original clamor at Jenny Mae’s appearance, but Grandma Fletcher had warned them away, giving her daughter a bit of space to adjust. In the corner, the object of Rosie’s earlier concern, sat Sweet Little Piggy, adult sized, but child-like in her sing-song patter as she played with the large basket of broken crayons and stared longingly at the blank wall. Her legs moved frenetically beneath the smock to a private rhythm.
“And you’re real sure everything is gonna be alright?” Rosie could barely control the trembling in her voice.
Tears had already moistened her eyes and threatened to burst upon darkly bruised cheeks.
“There, there. Listen to Grandma Fletcher,” said the old woman resting a heavy arm around the young lady’s shoulders. “I deal with many women from the Center. You ladies have had enough trouble and my job is to make the getting’ back to livin’ a little easier. You go find yourself a job and before no time, you’ll be back on your feet and in charge of yourself. All this stuff that’s been happenin’... well, it’ll soon be just a bad memory.”
“I don’t know as to when I’m gonna be able to pay you.” The entreating look from the woman’s eyes begged not to be hit.
Grandma Fletcher’s face softened. “You let me worry about that. Pay me what you can, when you can. The Lord will provide.”
Within a minute, young Jenny Mae had been introduced to the two by the TV and joined them watching the adventures of a puppet and a train. Before the Rosie retreated, she left a knapsack containing a red blanket, a small battered box of crayons, some coloring books and a soiled white, stuffed kitten with a lonely glass blue eye.
Sweet Little Piggy glanced over to the couch where her grandma snored softly. The other children were likewise asleep, each curled around their own stuffed creature. All the lamps were off except the one in the far corner, making the room a comfortable gloom for her tiny, pinched eyes. On the coffee table were three plates, each had pieces of crust and smears of dark brown peanut butter left over from lunch. Sweet Little Piggy stared longingly for a moment, but remembrances of Grandma’s complaints about eating too much directed her attention away.
Carrying her basket, she waddled over to the new girl who was sleeping fitfully with small jerks and tight hugs of her one-eyed cat. Sweet Little Piggy squatted and sat the basket down at her side. Her hand reached out, long slender fingers of an artist, and touched the forehead of the sleeping girl. She hummed to herself as images of violence and pain and sex strobed through her mind, each image vivid and real.
Grandma told her it was like TV, but Piggy couldn’t watch real TV anymore. Grandma said it was the flickering that made Piggy fall down and do the trembles. But that was okay, because Sweet Little Piggy liked the new kids. They gave her a private TV that only she could watch—even if it was mostly the bad stuff.
She continued humming, greedily accepted the evil flashes from the sleeping child, cataloging them in her mind. Finally, Sweet Little Piggy stood and carried the basket of broken crayons back to the wall. She looked critically at the wallpaper-free surface, studying it like an artist would a canvas. She sunk her hand deep into the basket, came out with a broken red crayon and began to draw. As her hands moved hurriedly across the broad surface, exchanging colors at a frenzied pace, she began to sing, “Stick men, stick men, my little stick men.”
A muffled sound brought Grandma Fletcher from her nap. She glared irritably at her Sweet Little Piggy, thinking it was she who had made the noise, but found her granddaughter sleeping in her corner, an arm curled lovingly around the basket. She sighed and felt her eyes drawn to the wall, and by the multicolored markings and broad swatches of pastel hues, she could tell her granddaughter had been drawing on the walls again.
She couldn’t make out the blurry details and silently cursed her eyes, knowing blindness would come too soon. She reminded herself to get some more pine-oil at the store, tomorrow, and lay back hoping to return to her dreams of young men and better times.
The sound came again, this time more insistent. It was knocking from the front door. Grandma Fletcher levered herself up to a sitting position and took inventory of her flock. Her three wards were deep in sleepy land, but Jenny Mae was beginning to stir. The old woman’s eyes embraced the figure lovingly. With new ones, she found herself both sad and happy. It was a shame that they had to travel through Hell to get to Grandma Fletcher, but once here, it was God and her that would make everything right again.
“All Right. All Right. I’m coming,” she mumbled towards the intrusive knocking.
Grandma Fletcher, with several grunts and a long groan, brought her large frame up and into a standing position. She smoothed the rumpled front of her pale blue housecoat and stepped into her furry slippers, her bulbous knees cracking with age. She shuffled over to the door, a hand on her lower back in an effort to entreat a lifetime of pain away.
“I’m here, just a minute.” She glanced through the peephole and then began to disengage the three shiny deadbolts and the heavy chain that secured the stout oaken door. “Back already, dear?” She asked when she saw Rosie.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the woman trying to hide an embarrassed grin.
“I thought... I thought somethin’ may have happened. No one answered, you know?”
“Happened? What could possibly happen with Grandma Fletcher around? I told you not to worry. We were just nappin’ is all. Now tell me, did you find anythin’?”
The woman’s face brightened into a beautiful smile that did much to camouflage the bruises. “Yes I did! The hotel the Center sent me too had an opening in their laundry room. They asked me if I had any experience. Ha. All I ever did was wash and iron Dicky’s clothes. What’s with doing a bunch of strangers’ clothes too?” A sparkle danced in her eyes as she finished.
Grandma Fletcher stood back, arms crossed atop huge pillow-sized bosoms, beaming a dentured smile. She enjoyed watching the transformations in her mothers when the women discovered self-esteem again. The simple knowledge that they had skills was, enough sometimes, to get them back on track. The poor woman was so happy, she didn’t even realize she had invoked her husband’s name.
“Why that’s absolutely wonderful, honey,” she was going to continue, but paradoxical tears had begun to well up in the woman’s eyes. Grandma Fletcher’s face softened and she reached out and drew the woman to her. Rosie struggled slightly, but was no match for the older woman’s maternal strength. “There, there, what else could possibly be the matter?”
Rosie greedily returned the hug. It had probably been years since she had received one with no expectations, but the small joy was short-lived. Rosie struggled for a moment, then succeeded in pushing herself away as Grandma Fletcher released her. Her face became serious.
“They wouldn’t give me any advance. I ain’t gonna be able to afford any child-care for two weeks, then maybe me and Jenny Mae can find someone.” Her eyes had moved to the floor and she chewed her lip, leaving the unasked plea between them.
“Ahhh, but that’s no problem. I’ll take care of her for a little while longer. I do it all the time.”
It was important for her to make the offer, otherwise all the good of a new job would be swept away. She had expected it, anyway. Nobody would ever give a woman like Rosie an advance. Backwoods. Bruised. They probably thought the woman had done something to deserve the abuse.
Rosie glanced up and began wiping away her tears with the backs of her hands. “God Bless You, Grandma Fletcher.”
“He already has, my dear. He already has.”
With bolstered confidence, Rosie swept into the room, her blue-flowered skirt catching air. She swung her handbag as if it was lighter somehow.
Grandma Fletcher leaned out into the hall and checked both ways. She thought she saw someon
e down at the far end, but it was just another dark blur with her old vision. She was on the fifth floor and the security system had stopped working twenty years ago making the place a refuge for junkies so she shut the door hurriedly and with stiff old hands slid the locks into place.
As she turned around to hear more about the woman’s new job, she heard the first of Rosie’s ear-shattering screams. Grandma Fletcher pressed her back against the door and brought a hand up to her mouth as Rosie let loose scream after scream. The young mother had fallen to her knees facing the wall, both hands to her head, fingers pushing and pulling at her tumble of thick black hair.
The children in front of the television awoke with a start. Two of them sat hugging each other, tears and sobs beginning to rack their bodies as they relived a Mommy in pain, again. Jenny Mae stood transfixed, her thumb firmly planted between tight lips. Her eyes stared blankly towards the wall as rivulets of urine darkened the front of her pink pants and made a path down the inside of her legs.
Sweet Little Piggy struggled to her feet and waddled over to the terrified woman. She began patting Rosie on the shoulder, a kind smile, repeating, “It’s okay. It’s okay,” an eerie metronomic undertone to the high-pitched shrieks.
Grandma Fletcher followed Rosie’s eyes and saw the blurry markings on the wall she’d dismissed earlier. She stumbled forward grudgingly, the images coming into focus with each painful step until finally they were seen in all their demented clarity. A montage of apparently inter-linked vignettes assaulted her from the child-like drawings of her granddaughter, each scene framed by zigzag multicolored ovals. Two stick-like figures starred in each.
One scarlet, large and looming.
The other pink, small and fragile.
In one, the larger held the smaller by its hair, legs far above the ground. Even though it was only a stick figure, Grandma Fletcher could make out the struggling pain experienced by the smaller pink figure with the impossible angles of the stick arms and stick legs.
In another, the scarlet figure stood hands empirically on hips. A dark colored three-dimensional square contained the pink one with knees drawn up. The head was lowered pitifully as the body, even in its cramped position, was too big for the confines.
In another, the pink figure was prone, while the larger figure kneeled above holding what must have been a cigar, the orange tip hovering menacingly above the smaller stick figure. Thin tendrils of smoky gray color curled from the tip of the cigar and the dozen orange colored spots on the pink figure’s flattened back.
In yet another, the larger figure struck the smaller with a long supple-looking red strap, as the pink figure kneeled on all fours, head down, back pinstriped with thin red bands. To Grandma Fletcher, it was as if she could see the stick figure’s shoulders shake with the pain and desperation of the moment.
In the last, and the one that fixated Rosie’s entire attention, the small stick figure’s head was buried deep in the broad crotch of the large scarlet figure whose arms were outstretched, head lolling back on a thin neck.
With a final agonizing peel, Rosie collapsed to the carpet, the vestiges of her scream tapering into nothing. Sweet Little Piggy stopped her patting and looked at her Grandma.
“Amama, lady sleep,” came the lispy voice, confusion and concern both coloring her tone.
Grandma Fletcher shook herself out of her momentary shock and went into motion, a look of loving irritation towards her granddaughter. This had happened before. She didn’t know why she hadn’t been ready for it. She just prayed that the damage could still be repaired.
The other children had been picked up half-an-hour ago—explanations and promises exchanged with the concerned mothers. Jenny Mae sat in front of the television, her arms wrapped tightly around the stuffed kitten, the girl’s eyes as glassy as the cat’s. She seemed to be staring through the screen—seeing something else. Her clothes had been changed into some cast-offs that Grandma Fletcher had collected in case of accidents. Some of the children came to her with nothing but what they wore. They always left with more, thanks to the charity of a kind young woman at the St. Vincent De Paul store, who, once a month, dropped an overflowing box by the apartment.
Sweet Little Piggy knelt over a piece of paper on the long oak coffee table, carefully drawing an intricate flower, her tongue stuck firmly in the corner of her mouth. She was oblivious to her Grandma who sat on the side of the couch, dabbing a wet washcloth along Rosie’s forehead. The room smelled of pine oil, the wall scrubbed clean of the offending images.
Rosie moaned, her head moving slowly from side-to-side as she came to. Grandma Fletcher lifted her hand up quickly as Rosie rose up, startled, a scream poised on her lips. The washcloth fell across her face and onto her lap. Her eyes, momentarily unfocused, sharpened and went straight for the wall. She searched for several seconds then fell back, a sigh escaping her lips. She turned her head sideways and looked at Sweet Little Piggy who stared back at her with her triangular pink eyes.
“It’s okay,” said Sweet Little Piggy. “It’s okay.”
Piggy returned to her coloring. The creature’s ugliness ignored, she concentrated on the paper. Rosie watched as the girl’s steady hands finished drawing an orange-hued flower. With a pig-like snort, the girl finished and handed the paper to Rosie, who automatically held out a hand to receive it.
A timid smile crept across Rosie’s face. She was amazed by the picture’s intricate beauty. Each petal and stamen were exquisite in every detail. It could have been a photo, so complete was it in its perfection.
“For you,” said Sweet Little Piggy forming the words slowly.
She glanced at her Grandma quickly who responded with a smile.
Sweet Little Piggy immediately began drawing another, her hand moving the violet crayon in the swift, sure strokes of a master. As Rosie watched, Grandma Fletcher spoke.
“Sweet Little Piggy is very special. The doctors say she has a perfect memory. She can see somethin’ once and it’s in her head forever, they say. Her drawin’s are perfect and sometimes, we send them into contests. They always win. It helps with the rent, you know. Now, what you saw when you came in was another thing altogether. A gift of sorts.”
Rosie jerked her attention to Grandma Fletcher, the previous fear returning in a flushed rush.
“Now, Now. Shush with that. There’s nothin’ to be a afraid of,” she said, cupping Rosie’s cheek in her large black hand.
Rosie’s gaze returned to Sweet Little Piggy’s artwork, which was already halfway complete. The girl now drew the inner surface of the flower, creating tiny delicate veins, each a complex study in flawlessness. The small African flower almost seemed to move to the fictional wind of the image, petals quivering with their ambition.
“Now, I can’t explain what she does when she draws them other things. It’s like she’s someone else. The doctors say it’s on account of what she went through when she was a child…when her mother died. And her father,” she paused, “... died. But them doctors don’t know that these things Sweet Little Piggy does is true things. And they’ll never find out, either. They’d just as sure lock her up and study her.”
Grandma Fletcher stared a moment at Jenny Mae. “Poor, poor girl. You were right to leave, to get her away from him.”
Sweet Little Piggy handed Rosie the picture she’d been working on. This one was a violet, as perfect as the other. Beautiful.
“For you,” she said again, quicker this time, her mouth remembering the form.
Rosie accepted the picture, her eyes finally clear of fear. Her face had lost its tension. The trembling of her lower jaw had stilled. She looked into Grandma Fletcher’s eyes, pleading.
“I never knew. I really didn’t. I thought he just did them to me,” she wiped her nose with a sleeve causing Grandma Fletcher to hand her a tissue she plucked from the right front pocket of her housecoat. “I mean, I knew. Just not all of it. Not…”
“There, there,” said Grandma Fletcher. “I see no reason to
get into that again. It’s over. All over, now. You take Jenny Mae back to the Center and get yourself somethin’ to eat. I expect her here every day for awhile, right. And on Wednesdays we go to see the special doctor at the University. It’s free and we will take Jenny Mae with us. The sooner we get her some help, the better she will be. Right?” It wasn’t a question.
Rosie accepted another picture from Sweet Little Piggy, this one a Black-Eyed Susan. She stared into the hard, determined eyes of Grandma Fletcher and nodded.
A few moments later, they were at the door.
“Tomorrow then, Right? And you, Jenny Mae, we will see tomorrow,” said Grandma Fletcher holding a thick old hand out to the girl.
The child looked at the old woman, eyes still glassy, but a ghost of a smile hidden behind tight lips.
Grandma Fletcher unlocked the deadbolts and removed the chain. She turned, winked at Jenny Mae then turned the knob.
The door rebounded viciously, striking her on the side of the head. Blood erupted as she grunted in pain. The old woman sagged to the floor, unconscious, her glasses crushed under the black military boots of the attacker. A looming figure propelled the door inwards.
The man kicked her roughly out of the way and slammed the door shut. Then he spun and brought a hand across Rosie’s face, propelling her into her daughter, both sprawled to the ground.
“Bitch. Did you think you could get away? I told you I’d track you down.”
He was tall, a dark plaid wool coat over wide shoulders. His long hair was pulled tight into a ponytail that poked out from under the back of a cap that said Dicky’s Auto. His starched white T-shirt was tucked into well fitting blue jeans. Although clean shaven, his face was scarred with pits of old acne. He spit the words from thick ugly lips.
Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors Page 17