by Glenn Trust
Pulling the door open at the top of the stairs, she walked into the bedroom, opened the closet and sat on the floor in front of a box. She rummaged through it for half an hour sitting cross-legged in her nightshirt.
Examining the contents one by one, she laid some aside or put them back in the box. She searched for something…the right thing. When she had been through the entire box, she looked at the pile she had removed and set aside. Finally, satisfied, she nodded and stood up.
She closed the apartment door quietly behind her and made her way back across the lawn to the house. A rooster crowed in the distance. On the eastern horizon, a thin ribbon of pink began to glow softly under the black sky.
Listening, standing barefoot in the grass, watching the horizon, feeling the fresh wetness on her feet she wanted to feel at ease about things like the rooster. It crowed again, happily content with its life. Its purpose was fulfilled. She wished it were that simple.
13. A Father Knows His Sons
He could see her through the, plate-glass window, leaning over tables, smiling and talking while the men looked down her blouse at her tits. His jaw clenched as she turned to another table, the tight-fitting uniform skirt clinging to her ass while the early morning truckers and tradesmen gazed on admiringly. The fucking bitch.
Carl Stinson sat in the parking lot of the I-95 Diner watching his ex-wife, Ruby Stinson, take orders, clean tables and ring up tickets at the register. It wasn’t so much jealousy as being told he couldn’t have her anymore. Who the hell was the judge to issue a restraining order saying he couldn’t see his wife? Ex or not didn’t matter. She was his. No piece of paper could change that.
So he knocked her around some...so what? They should have seen what old Clyde had done to their Mama…want to see someone knock a woman around. Shit, one time, Mama had spent two months laid up in the bedroom in their little shack after one of Daddy’s beatings. She’d stayed there until the bruises and lumps healed up enough to go outside and not have people talking. Daddy had warned her about that.
That’s what he did wrong, Carl thought, feeling the blood rise in his head. He hadn’t been strong enough…had given her too much freedom…didn’t finish what he started like Daddy. He should have been more like Daddy.
He leaned over the wheel, squinting to see more clearly through the glass, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. A big trucker handed Ruby cash to pay for his meal and said something, patting her arm. She leaned closer to him smiling while he spoke again, near her ear so that she could hear in the noisy restaurant. When she stood up straight, she laughed, smoothed her skirt and walked to the cash register, the trucker watching appreciatively at her swaying hips.
Goddamn, whore. Carl reached without looking to the case of beer on the passenger seat of the little piece of shit car his brothers had left him to get back and forth to Perkins if any work came in. He flipped the top on the can and turned his head up draining the beer while his eyes remained focused on the diner window. Goddamn, fucking whore!
Ruby brought the trucker’s change back to his table, placing it in front of him. The trucker counted out some bills and held them up for her to take. She laughed, took them from him and pushed them into the top of her blouse. Goddamnit! She is flirting with him. Goddamnit! Look at her push his money down by her tits. Goddamnit!
As limited as Carl Stinson’s vocabulary was in expressing himself, his rage was boundless. Of the three brothers, he had always been the least controlled. Clyde always said, assessing his sons’ qualities, Albert was plain mean. Bain was a pussy. Carl was a maniac, like his daddy. A father always knows his sons best.
14. A Bittersweet Proposition
“You know you don’t have to pick me up, and drop me off like this. I can get there myself, or ride in with Mama.”
“Don’t do it because I have to.” Clay turned smiling at Lyn seated beside him in the pickup. “Do it because I want to. Besides, I’m headed to Valdosta with Cy on a quick job. Won’t see you for a couple days.”
She looked out of the passenger window as they drove into the city limits of Everett. On the outskirts of town, sprinklers were watering lawns, people were walking out to get the morning paper, some were leaving for work. The stores and shops lining the square that surrounded the Pickham County Courthouse were deserted except for business-owners opening up for the day, setting displays of goods out on the sidewalk.
Clay steered the truck around the square, turned onto a street that left the center of town to the north and drove to the outskirts of Everett. Generett Transfer and Hauling was a fair sized operation for a rural county like Pickham. Donnie Generett had built it up from a local delivery service into a regional trucking company.
Lyn had worked there for a year and a half. She had started with answering phones while Donnie’s partner and wife, Carol, trained her in other duties. Now, she tracked driver logs, did general office work and light typing, helped with payroll and stayed in touch with drivers on the road, forwarding their issues to Donnie or Carol for resolution.
The Generett’s had come to appreciate her soft-spoken ways, and willingness to learn. Like most people around Everett and Pickham County, they were familiar with the ordeal she had survived although they did not know all of the details. They never mentioned it or questioned her about it.
The entry-level job had come with one primary requirement. She had to be ready to work. Lyn was ready, in fact, she relished the work that took her further and further away from the memories that haunted her. One day they would fade completely, she hoped. Maybe then, she could find a way to return to Clay the feelings he felt for her.
“Here ya go.” Clay pulled the truck up to the small brick building that served as office, dispatch center and headquarters for the Generett operation. He reached out and took her hand. “See you when I get back.”
Lyn smiled, letting him hold her hand, feeling the rough strength surrounding it. Looking into his eyes, she knew what he wanted her to say. She always knew, and she could never say it. She wished he would not look at her that way…wanting to hear the words…the words she didn’t trust.
Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it and smiled. “Okay then. You take care.” He worked at hiding the disappointment when the words never came. “You know how I feel about you.”
She nodded.
“Good. Then get out of my truck. I got to meet Cy and get to Valdosta.” He laughed.
She opened the door smiling and stepped out into Generett’s gravel as a semi rig pulled out and onto the highway. They both lifted a hand, returning the driver’s wave. She turned back to Clay.
“You take care of yourself.” She closed the door and added through the open window. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
It was as close to an ‘I love you’ as she dared approach. Better just to accept that Clay said he would be back in a couple of days, and she would be happy enough when she saw him again.
Clay nodded and pulled the truck out of the lot. As always, loving Lyn was a bittersweet proposition.
15. The Fury
Headed through Everett from the I-95 Diner out on the Interstate, Carl Stinson saw the pickup pass around the square. Goddamn son of a bitch, he thought as usual at the sight of Clay Purcell. Fucking whore, was his next thought when he realized that his daughter was also in the truck. He followed.
Watching their goodbyes from a lumberyard across the highway, he pounded the steering wheel of the small car with his fist, shaking the whole vehicle. His rage mounted.
So that’s where the little bitch works. He figured she had a job, just didn’t know where. How’d she get work there? What the hell’s she know about trucks? Probably fucking the boss, that’s what.
After Clay left, Carl sat for a long while watching the little building in the truck lot, an irrational fury burning inside. The little bitch had a job. Her whore mother had a job. He had nothing, not even that old piece of shit house they had gotten into not long after they married.
/> Obsessed with the injustices he had suffered at the hands of his wife and daughter, his hand reached down between the seat and the console. The checkered wood of the revolver’s butt felt solid in his hand. He lifted it, feeling the weight of the pistol, wrapping his finger tightly around it, fingering the trigger.
She was over there, right across the road. He could go over there, easy as you please, and shove that gun in her face. He grinned. How would that be…push this old gun in her pretty little whore face? Wonder what the little bitch would do then? Cry for her whore mother, probably.
He put the car in gear and crossed to Generett’s lot. Kicking the door open, he put the pistol down in the seat to grab the door posts and pull himself out of the car.
“Goddamn, piece of shit Jap car,” he said stumbling and then holding onto the car to steady himself.
A semi rig pulled into the lot slowly from the highway, the driver looking down curiously at Carl as he drove by towards the rear loading area.
Head swiveling unsteadily on his neck, Carl returned his look and muttered, “Fuck you. What you starin’ at boy?”
Reaching for the pistol in the seat, he turned at the sound of gravel crunching under the tires of a big F-350 Super Duty pickup. It came to a stop twenty feet away.
“Can I help you?” The pickup’s driver got out and walked towards Carl.
Carl’s eyes darted to the gun in the car. He could just reach down there, pick it up and shove it right in this asshole’s face. That’d shut him up. Probably make him piss his pants.
The man took another step towards Carl. He closed the door, standing unsteadily in front of the man for a moment, trying to maintain his balance before leaning back against the car for support.
“Can I help you?” the man repeated. He was big, dressed in jeans and a button up shirt, wearing work boots. There was a faint scent of after-shave in the air as he approached.
“Can I help you. Can I help you,” Carl mimicked with a sneer. “Yeah, you can fuckin’ help me.”
The look of cautious curiosity disappeared from the man’s face. Eyes narrowed, he said firmly, “You need to leave.”
“Leave! Who the fuck are you to tell me I gotta leave?”
“Donnie Generett. I own the place.”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are. I wanna see my girl.”
Generett stepped closer. “Your girl? Who’s your girl?”
“My fucking girl…that you got workin’ in there.”
“Lyn?” Generett’s eyes turned to the small office building. “You mean Lyn Stinson?”
“Yeah…Lyn fucking Stinson…my girl.”
“Like I said. You need to leave.”
“I ain’t gotta do a fucking thing…except see my girl!”
The door to building opened and Lyn stepped out.
“You need to leave. There’s a restraining order,” she said, her eyes moving nervously from Carl to Donnie Generett.
“I don’t give a fuck about no restraining order.”
Generett’s head turned. “You know this man, Lyn?”
“Yes.”
“Hell yeah, she fucking knows me.” Carl’s hand waved in the air as he pushed himself away from the side of the car trying to stand straight in front of Generett. “I’m her dear old daddy.”
“Father?” Generett looked from the sloppy drunk to Lyn. “He’s your father?”
Lowering her eyes, Lyn nodded. “Yes.”
“You want to talk to him?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He turned back to Carl. “Leave. Now.”
“Who you think you are, talkin’ to me like that?”
Generett took a step towards Carl. “Get your ass out of here now or you won’t like what happens next.”
“Awright…awright…I’m leavin’.” He pulled the door open and fell into the seat, the pistol a cold hard lump under his ass cheek. He wanted to take it out and move it but didn’t dare with the big hard man staring him in the eyes, telling him to leave.
The old car sputtered to life and Carl pulled it onto the highway, disappearing in a cloud of oily smoke. When he was out of sight, Donnie turned to Lyn.
“Your daddy always that mean when he gets drunk?”
“He’s always mean. Drunk don’t have anything to do with it.”
Donnie Generett gave the Pickham County deputies Carl’s description and auto make as a suspected drunk driver. The three day-watch deputies were busy on calls and Carl managed to make it back to the trailer in Judges Creek without being stopped. Pulling the car into the middle of the weeds, he walked to the trailer’s front porch.
Head resting on his paws as usual, the old spotted dog with no name looked up at him through tired eyes. The gun in Carl’s hand roared twice. The dog never moved. Its bloody head rested on its paws in the dust, in death just as it had in life.
It was irrational and unreasonable. For Carl Stinson reason never much entered into things. Only the red-hot fury did. It was all the reason he ever had or needed.
16. “All right old man.”
“What’s all this?” George turned in the kitchen chair holding the pictures that Sharon had laid out across the old table’s formica top.
She walked towards the aroma of coffee, bleary-eyed from her expedition to the barn apartment while George slept. At the counter, she poured a cup and turned. “You’re up early,” she said, blowing then sipping from the hot cup.
“You’re up late.”
She nodded, blinking the hour of sleep from her eyes. “I know. Sorry,” she whispered as she sipped.
George waited until she sat across from him at the kitchen table before repeating his question. “So, what’s all this?”
She nodded at the table. “What’s it look like?”
“Looks like you’ve been snooping around.”
Early morning sunlight streamed horizontally through the kitchen window, forming a broad rectangle of light over the photographs. Outside a mockingbird began its morning song. Sharon looked out the open window, considering a response, or if any response was necessary. After all, she had been snooping. There was no disputing that.
She shook her head. The conversation they had begun the night before had to continue, painful as it was for George. She would not allow it to die along with their relationship.
“Not snooping,” she said. “Thinking.”
“About what?” He raised the handful of pictures. “These.”
“Those.” Her eyes steadied on him, a single nod of her head acknowledging his question. “And you…and us.”
“What’s this have to do with us?”
“Nothing maybe.” She shrugged. “Everything possibly.”
One by one, George placed the photographs of his daughters on the table, fanning them out across the surface. Stefanie at age one…little Callie as a newborn…birthdays, Christmases, family photos, George holding one or the other of the girls, putting them on his shoulders, smiling with them…Sharon had laid the remnants of his family before him.
“What do you think this has to do with anything…with us?” He shook his head. “It’s not related.”
“Not directly, no.” She waited for him to look up from the pictures. “But in another way, yes.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Mackey, sometimes you are the blindest person I know.” She set the cup down and leaned over the table towards him. Always passionate in her reasoning, she spoke with an intensity that was unusual, even for her. “Believe it or not I understand…at least a little…how you must feel. You had thrown your life into your work. You were good at it…one of the best. I know. I’ve been there with you.” She shook her head. “But that’s not all you are, George.” She pointed at the pictures. “You’re a father.”
“Was a father…pretty much like everything else…something I used to be.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” Her voice rose several decibels.
Startled, George waited without speakin
g. Sharon never raised her voice...not at him at least.
“Mackey,” Sharon began, more softly. “You have paid the price for whatever wrong you feel you have committed. The judge, the jury…hell, the whole state…agree that you have nothing else to pay. No one wanted you to go to prison for killing a murderer. But you did the honorable thing. You told the truth. You lost your life as a deputy. So, create another one…a different life…with me.”
“I want to…I’m trying.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how to do that, Sharon.”
“Start there.” She nodded at the pictures. “They’re your daughters. They should be part of your life. Until now, it has been you and me. We had our work and each other. It was enough, but not anymore. There should be more in your life…our life.”
He stared at the photos in silence.
“You are going to live and get through the hard times…with me here,” she continued firmly and looked into his eyes. “But if it is only me and nothing else…no one else…I’ll lose you. I can’t be all there is for you…not if I want to keep you.”
He placed his hands over the pictures. “I failed them too.”
“Your marriage failed. You are still a father.”
“They’re my daughters,” he said nodding. “Daughters I hardly see…barely know. They almost don’t know who I am when I call. One day I will be a total stranger to them.” He looked up. “I already am.”
“Do something about that. Go see them. Be part of their lives again.”
“I don’t think I can.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid.”
“What is there to be afraid of?”
“Looking into their faces and knowing they don’t want me there,” he said lowering his eyes from hers. “Being rejected by them…that would hurt more than missing them.”
She put her hand on his across the table. “I never ask you for anything, Mackey. I never had to. Now I am.” She lifted a photo of George sitting in a chair, his two toddler daughters on his lap. “You did the honorable thing when you went to prison. You always do the honorable thing. Now do this for me. Find the purpose you need for yourself…for us. Don’t let our life together end like this.”