Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem

by Karen G. Berry

  “What?”

  “I’ve listened to your music for a week, but I can’t listen to this crap.”

  “You’re calling Dolly crap? This is a hillbilly angel singing, you intellectual bastard.” Her voice was hard. “I’m going to rewind. I want you listen to this song with a closed mouth and an open heart.”

  So, with his mouth closed as tightly as his mind, he listened to the hillbilly pathos of it. Her voice was angelic, he had to admit, and the guitar picking was fine. He liked Raven’s harmonies, higher even than the woman singing.

  To his chagrin, he found himself about to burst into tears.

  HE WOKE WHEN she stopped in a box canyon.

  His eyes popped open, and he began to shout. “My GOD! To think this is only FORTY MILES from that trailer park!” He had three cameras, tripods and light meters and lenses and so much stuff she really didn’t know how he made sense of it all. “This is GREAT!” He ran around fiddling and setting up. “This is PERFECT!”

  He took shots all afternoon. She snoozed in the sun, hat over her eyes, feeling the heat soak into everything that hurt. And plenty hurt. Mostly, she wished she still smoked.

  Finally, it was sunset. They watched it together. He stood with his arm around her shoulders until she shrugged him away. “Aren’t you gonna to take a picture of that?”

  “I can’t bear to,” he said. “It’s pollution, you know. Even out here, pollution makes the sunset beautiful.”

  She cut her eyes. “Can I give you a little advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “OK. Here goes. Slug somebody who pisses you off, instead of wondering about how his childhood affected him. Piss on dirt without considering damage to the environment. Let the sun hit your face without thinking about the hole in the ozone layer. And take some goddamn pictures of this goddamn sunset.”

  He did.

  After dark, he set his camera for long exposures. Raven retrieved two old sleeping bags from the truck, green cotton duck lined with flannel figuring hunters and hunting dogs and pheasants. “These stink, but they’re warm.” They wrapped up separately and sat, silent, looking at the wheeling heavenly array.

  “Holy Christ,” said Isaac.

  “There’s wood in the back of the truck. You can make a fire if you want.”

  He came back carrying the wood and looking worried. “Raven? These are Presto-Logs.”

  She could read that much. “So?”

  “So I think these emit chemicals when you burn them.”

  “Yup, and they emit heat, too. Just think of it as your personal contribution to the sunset.” She watched him kneel and stack and blow and wait. Warmed by the fire and a pint of whiskey she’d retrieved from the glove compartment, they sat on one bag with the other pulled over their shoulders. Eventually, like he hoped she would, she sang. He wondered who she could be singing to. He knew with a painful, grieving clarity that it wasn’t him. He wondered if she’d ever needed anyone in her life.

  He should have been looking at the stars, the hills, the flames. Nothing was as magnificent to him as her hard, fire lit face under the brim of her hat. “I could take your picture right now, you know. I have the right kind of film.”

  “Pictures of me?” She thought about it for a second. “Sure. I guess, if you want.” He ran to get his camera before she changed her mind. When he returned, she’d removed everything but her hat. He stood there, stunned. “Did you want me to put my clothes back on?”

  “No! I mean, uh. It’s really all right if I take this kind of picture of you?”

  “Of course it’s all right.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Have you ever heard me say anything I don’t mean?”

  Isaac had photographed naked women before. He’d cajoled girlfriends, or even had a few suggest it after a bottle of wine. But every girl had been most concerned with how he was making her look. Without exception, every single one was terrified that there would be a fold or a wrinkle that would make her look fat. Even the girls who were a little fat expected somehow that he would magically make them thin with his camera.

  Raven let him take the shots he wanted. She was calm, malleable, slightly bored. He posed her. Arms this way, chin lifted. Knees together, knees apart. Standing, silhouetted, the scoop of her nose and her tight mouth before the fire. “I want to get your hipbones.” He was less interested in photographing her curves than her angles. “Here, twist your back a little. I want the vertebrae to show. Perfect.” The mysterious bruises she wore suited her more than clothes, he thought. He shot her from the side, her scar silver in the firelight, like lightning. He lay her on her side, her hat over her face. “Perfect.” Her nipples were like pebbles. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “I don’t feel the cold.”

  “Let me know if you get too cold.”

  “Hurry up and finish, because then it’s your turn.”

  He stopped shooting. “MY turn?”

  “Yup. I get to take some of you.”

  “Oh, sure.” He knelt down and spent a few minutes showing her how to manipulate the focus. “You got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “OK, now, what do you want me to do?”

  “Get naked.”

  “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

  And she looked at him hard, that silver gaze in the firelight.

  She was unlike any woman he had ever known.

  It wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be to take off his clothes. He stood in the light of the flames, proud and embarrassed all at once. She snapped away. Then she stopped. “Isaac? Just rub on it a little.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s pornographic.”

  “Come on. Just because it’s getting cold.” She stared and smiled and his body betrayed him. His blush wouldn’t show in black and white, anyway. She shot him from below, his long blonde hair shining in the flames. “Turn around. I want you from the back.” He complied. “Raise up those big arms.” He did. “Oh, I like that.” He was feeling powerful, elemental, being out under the stars in the desert, naked and unashamed. He was also starting to feel really, really cold. He turned around. She frowned down at the camera. “This roll is finished.”

  He put on his flannel shirt and hurried to pack his equipment. She zipped the sleeping bags together, set her hat on a rock out of reach of sparks, and climbed inside. He added a few more Presto logs to the fire. She opened the top of the bag. “Get in here.”

  He had never been so cold in his life.

  She used her hands to warm him, stroking his hard arms, his soft belly, the straight hair that carpeted his chest. Drafts of cold air washed their skin with her every movement. One part of him was nice and warm. She stroked him there and thought, is there any other skin like this in the word, the soft skin of a hard man? It has a nap to it, like velvet. He shivered and grabbed her hips, shoving himself in. She arched her back, her body rearing up, her skin shining white in the firelight, the cold air flowing around her. His reaction was beast-like, pumping and shuddering and groaning below her.

  The tenderest trap. She scrambled away to sit by the fire.

  “Hey. Did I hurt you?”

  “I don’t get hurt.”

  “I’m cold.” His low voice sounded sad. “I wish you’d come back over here, Raven.”

  Let him wish.

  She craved a smoke, but let that craving fly up to the stars, which at that moment she imagined as the lit ends of all the cigarettes she would never smoke in her life. She could hear him snoring. He was already asleep.

  Raven closed her eyes and let herself remember.

  SHE’D WORKED FOR Mayflower back then, before she had her own tractor-trailer. She’d only been driving a year. She hadn’t learned the pacing of it. She still wore herself out. Her fellow truckers were phantoms giving her the road conditions, the locations of cops, alerting her to construction slowdowns or accidents. She liked riding along, talking for two hundred miles with a voic
e she would never hear again. She even sang for them now and then.

  She’d been singing “King of the Road” on the CB. A trucker had broken in, Hey! Only a man’s allowed to sing that song! Don’t you be singing that, Raven! She’d laughed and laughed, and said, Well, write me a song called Queen of the Road, and I won’t have to steal your song.

  And then it came, the first time she really heard it. His voice.

  Babygirl, you can steal my song whenever you want. I been waiting for years to hear something as pretty your voice. She’d laughed. Now sing something else for me.

  And that was how it started.

  He was a voice, words, snatches of song. A ghost on the air. He only seemed to drive at night. It was like long haul cat and mouse, and she was a slippery prey. But he had never given up. He wanted to meet, but she never met anyone she talked to on the radio.

  I bet you’re afraid to meet me. Afraid I’ll be ugly as a troll.

  He was always asking her about her guitar. I hear you got one hell of a guitar. She told him she didn’t have one anymore, but he insisted otherwise, teased her about some old man’s guitar she had buried in the desert. Buried treasure, and I wanna be there when you dig it up. All those nights, all those nights. They walked it down and cleared nineteen for the truckers who needed it. Then they chased each other down the highway, talking and singing. Babygirl, I was waiting to talk to you. Sing to me.

  One night when they were done with a duet, three truckers broke in, one after another. “The way you two sang, makes me cry.” “Damn but that were fine.” “Y’all need to take that on the road, I kid you not.” She always felt surprised when another voice walked on their channel. Only the two of them existed in the world when he talked to her. She forgot that their jokes, their songs were community property.

  She’d been so damn tired that night. It had been almost midnight when she pulled into the rest stop. She set the idle and climbed down. A midnight blue Kenworth cabover pulled in beside her. He opened the door, climbed down. She leaned against her cab, arms crossed, watching the other trucker approach. Face calm, mouth straight, eyes blank behind aviator wire-rim glasses. About six feet. Bull-necked and slope shouldered. Pale, thin hair. Nothing special about him, nothing pretty. Not her type.

  Hello, Babygirl.

  That voice had placed him in her universe.

  He looked her up. He looked her down. Licked his lips. You don’t look as good as you sound, Babygirl. You look better. This made her angry. She knew what she looked like. She was as skinny as a boy, with a nasty scar down the side of her face. She lit a cigarette. You a smoker? Filthy habit. Never picked it up, myself. I’m Mormon.

  You all have that choir, right?

  The best choir in the world.

  I don’t know if I’d go that far. Any choir without black people ain’t the best.

  He frowned. Whatever their easy banter was on the radio, in person there was nothing to say. They stood, the night around them, the sounds of the freeway, the bark of a dog being walked in the pet area. She heard the chat of the Masons and Rebeccas manning the “free coffee” concession. She liked having them near.

  Look, Babygirl, I just wanted you to see my guitar. Fender. It’s blue, like my rig. It’s a beauty. He smiled a strange, flat-line smile. I’d like to see yours.

  I told you, I don’t have a guitar.

  I think you do, Babygirl. I heard tell that you have not just a guitar, but the guitar. But you go check out mine. It’s in the cab. I’m gonna head over there and buy you a cup of free coffee, how’s that. He’d walked away, his boots clicking on the blacktop.

  Raven had to admit, she did miss her guitar. She always loved to pick one up, to see if she could still play. She swung up the ladder, opened the unlocked door to his sleeper. She’d just wanted a look at the guitar.

  And there by the fire, Raven sank her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to figure it out. She’d been over this so many times, over and over and over again, trying to figure out how it had happened, what was her fault.

  He’d walked away to get that free coffee. She’d heard his boots clicking on the blacktop, the sound of them moving away from her. She’d heard those boots. She’d swung up the ladder, opened the unlocked door to his sleeper, and peered inside. Pitch black. Wondered, didn’t he have a light in there?

  A shape, like darkness, caught her from behind.

  THE KNOCK HAD been soft, then loud. It was more like a hammering.

  He’d wiped something, his slobber, off her forehead. You be quiet, now, Babygirl. I don’t know who’s out there. But remember this. Everybody’s been listening to you flirt me up for months. So you keep your mouth shut. He’d put on his jeans, opened the door and climbed down, closing the door behind him.

  Obediently, she’d waited in the dark and the stink.

  She’d flinched when he slammed back into the cab and turned on a light so he could see what he was doing when he let her loose. He threw her jeans at her. Get dressed. It was hard to get them on. Her legs were sticky with piss. He threw her shirt and boots at her. Hurry up. Her hands were numb and her wrists burned. She got it all on, even her boots. He caught her up by the arms and stared in her eyes.

  Just remember, you’re all mine, now, Babygirl. I’ve had you every which way there is to have you. You’re mine.

  The door opened. Freedom was out there, it had been there all the time. She just had to get outside without falling. She landed on her feet, knees weak, mouth full of terror. And looked up into the grave, grey eyes of her uncle Memphis. Raven. Your father had a feeling, told me to find you. Are you all right? He looked at her face, her shaking hands, her soggy jeans.

  I need some coffee.

  She had looked toward the cinder-block central structure where a Lion’s club was offering coffee and cookies and conversation. Fifty feet away, she’d thought to herself. They were all only fifty feet away.

  Gator smiled. Well, if it’s all the same to the two of you, I think I’ll be leaving. I’ve got a load to deliver.

  You think so? Memphis had eyes like concrete, and his hand was on his gun. Why don’t you just go on and try to leave.

  Let him go, Memphis.

  Her uncle might have argued with her if he hadn’t been a lawman. He might have even found a more personal justice for the man before him if he hadn’t been a lawman. But Memphis was a lawman through and through. And he knew who went on trial when a man was accused of rape.

  He walked her over to get some coffee. That midnight blue rig rolled out while she drank it. Standing there sipping like she wasn’t afraid of a thing in the world. He stayed with her as she got clean clothes from her rig, kept watch outside the door of the rest stop bathroom, waving away grumpy women who needed to go as she washed with cold water and granulated soap, scouring at her parts until she stung. He’d sat with her in her rig when she started to shake, suffered the blows she rained on him when he tried to touch her. He’d climbed out of her rig when she told him to and watched her pull away.

  Free Coffee. She’d never stopped there again.

  Raven looked up at the stars, thought about those dark eyes, that flat line smile. He was gone. Burnt. Ash. Gator Rollins was dead.

  But in some way she couldn’t name, so was she.

  HE WOKE BECAUSE his feet kept touching the icy zippers and he was too tall for those old bags. His shoulders stuck out and his teeth chattered. His lips were going numb.

  “Raven?” He could hear her singing, singing, her song as old and high and hard as the ceiling of a limestone cavern.

  It was a song that only women knew.

  His teeth knocked together. “Let’s get out of here. Please, Raven. Let’s get in the truck and get warm. I can’t take it out here.”

  She stood up and walked over to stare down at him. “You’re cold?”

  Once while out hiking, he’d encountered a wolf. A lean, dark, nearly silent thing, that wolf. He’d imagined, in his granola-fed, well-educated ignorance, tha
t an encounter with a wild wolf might be something sacred, something spiritual. A moment of awakening, of meaning, of oneness. But the wolf had only looked at him, head slightly cocked, eyes full of cold curiosity, before loping away.

  Raven looked at him in just the same way.

  She took off her hat and climbed in beside him. He lay his hands on her bare, icy skin. How could she stand it? She could have slept naked, the earth her pillow, the stars her blanket, and never felt it at all. She crawled on top of him, then, cold as stone and just as smooth.

  She was a cold, cold woman, but she made him warm.

  Friday

  ASA GREETED THE dawn seated on his cot with his head in his hands, giving off a distinct odor of salad dressing. The vinegar had done the trick. He’d bought five bottles and though it stung, he’d saturated himself from head to foot, opening the crevices of his body to air and acid, burning away the rot and pests, and going so far as to sprinkle the mattress, as well.

  “The vermin have left, Lord. Praise be onto you.”

  His was not to question the verses, just to post them.

  Give strong drink to the desperate

  And wine to the embittered;

  Such men will forget their poverty

  And remember their trouble no longer.

  —Proverbs 30:6

  “Lord, it is thy call, and not for me to question.” He wondered if the Lord were trying to tell him that for bugs, gin would do in a pinch, as well.

  As the sun rose, he gave thanks to God for his deliverance.

  IT WAS STILL dark when she woke beside him in the sleeping bag, feeling his fingers trace the muscles in her stomach. This part was easy. But all the rest of it was too complicated.

  She climbed out, found her clothes, shook the desert out of them, dressed. She sat behind the wheel of her father’s truck while he got ready.

  He dozed off on the way back.

  She braked at Levi’s, let him out, then drove up to her parents’ trailer to return the truck. She wished men were as easy to return as vehicles. Early on, she’d gone through a few years of sleeping with married men for just that reason. They were the only men you could borrow, drive as far as you needed to take them, and leave them in someone else’s carport. She was younger back then. Younger and more stupid.