by Helen Ellis
Bitty Jack was the only one left watching TV. Several minutes of dead door time did not make good television. Bert Hicks had gone to weather. Judy Buckley was predicting summer showers, highs near sixty.
Bitty and her parents sat at the kitchen table. They passed the box of Crunch’n’ Munch. Mrs. Carlson hung up the phone. “We’re gonna talk with the owners before reveille tomorrow. This is bound to die down. Worse things could happen.”
Unfortunately, Mrs. Carlson was absolutely right.
In the dark hours of the morning, parents drove past the parking lot, onto Chickasaw grounds, and woke up their children. Bitty Jack lost three girls before the sun came up. When she asked the parents why, they warned the other counselors to get Jack Carlson’s daughter out of the cabin.
“It runs in the family,” one mother said. “I’m from Tuscaloosa. I’ve seen where she works.”
“She makes dicks outta dough,” her husband supported.
“Yes, dear, that’s right, help upset the children.”
The girls were upset. They wouldn’t let Bitty near them.
“You saw me change for dinner!”
“I’m in my nightgown, get away!”
A few other counselors tried to quiet the campers. Hungover from Trinka’s, two stayed on their beds, pillows over their eyes, pretending to sleep through the REM racket.
Bitty Jack felt like a monster in sweatpants. She fingered her drawstring. She knew she had to go. She left the girls crying, stewing, some chatting excitedly. Maybe they’d get to be interviewed on TV. Maybe their parents would now buy them anything they wanted. Bitty Jack wished this would all go away. She walked to her house to see how much damage Sarina had done.
On the campgrounds, cars were parked by the assembly bleachers. There was a Mercedes by the swings. A silver Saturn by the tire crawl. Campers were locked alone in each backseat. Some lucky enough to have a sibling to talk to. Others stole maps and markers from glove compartments to make signs to communicate with other kids in other cars. camp sux read one. Another answered bj wants bjs! Headlights were left on to light up the area. Parents compared stories and Bitty Jack overheard.
Mrs. Hicks had gathered so much support in advocacy of Sarina that the Alabama Greeks had boycotted Camp Chickasaw. Greek alumni had been alerted. There were parents upon parents who sent their kids there every year. It was shameful that the owners had covered up such a scandal. No one wanted their children to summer in a cesspool. No one wanted to pay for a camp cleaned by a criminal. They didn’t want theirs mixing with people like them. Them was the likes of Big Jack Carlson. A pedophile. A pervert. A man who should be hung and then shot in the face.
Bitty Jack found herself running fast on her bare feet. The grass was wet and she stumbled over roots and rough patches she had avoided all her life. Her glasses clouded in the Alabama fog, but shoulder-high bright lights lit up her yard. This wasn’t over. The news cameras had returned.
Reporters sat on the steps to the back door. They were probably playing pinochle on the front porch she never used. They waited as if the Carlsons might change their minds. Come out and talk. Give publicity a go.
Bitty Jack unlocked and snuck through the garage door. She pocketed the spare key from the Chock Full O’Nuts can to the right of the doormat. The Chock Full O’Nuts can was the same one she’d used at bonfires for the past fifteen years. Bitty Jack was still slim enough to fit inside her father’s teepee of logs, tie a string to the coffee can filled with sulfuric acid, then yank it to spill onto the powder chemical combo. Boom. There was fire. The coffee can, still alive. It was dented and smelled funny, but reliable nonetheless. It was almost as black as her heart felt right now.
Bitty Jack imagined a fire of her own. One set for better reasons than because tradition told her so. Her fire would mean something. It would burn more than logs. The flames would stretch high fueled by cameras, mikes, and Dictaphones; the smoke consume indifference, reporters’ callous remarks.
Bitty Jack thought of what else she could burn: the sounds of campers crying, of their parents giving them a false reason to do so; the day that Stewart’s parents died, the day she stopped trusting him, her anger and pain; her hatred for Sarina that now smothered every hope.
In fact, Bitty thought, she wouldn’t mind if that girl fell in. She could see Sarina in front of her fire, laughing, oblivious that she had started it all. Bitty Jack could see her hands on Sarina’s soft shoulders, one last straw away from pushing her in. Maybe the fire would bring everyone to their senses. Burning, Sarina would come to know the hell she so carelessly sent everyone into.
In the kitchen, Bitty found her parents holding hands across the table. The Crunch ’n’ Munch was in the garbage. They made do with a block of store-brand mild cheddar. Stewart was slicing it, placing what he’d cut onto generic saltines.
“What’s he doing here?” Bitty asked.
“He wanted to help.”
“Daddy, how can he help?”
“He’s good with the cheese.”
Mrs. Carlson said, “Baby, things are gonna get worse. You’ve got to get out of here. Stewart said he’d take you. Let Stewart take you home.”
“This is my home.”
“Baby girl,” said her mama, “not for long.”
Bitty Jack listened to her mother predict their future. More parents would come. Campers leave. Money change hands. The only way the owners could salvage their business would be to get rid of the Carlsons. Plain and simple. Wash their hands.
“We want you to go. It’s best that you go.”
Stewart said, “Bitty, you can stay at my house. I’ve got plenty of room, till the dorms open up.”
“So you want me to live with you, but then get the hell out. So you can bring that bitch home again? So you can—”
“Bitty,” said her father, “that’s enough, you hear me?”
“But you don’t know the whole story!”
“I know what you told me.”
“I’m telling you I should stay here. We’ve got to fight this. This is happening for no reason!”
“We can’t fight this,” said her mother. “I’m sorry, baby, we just can’t.”
“Mama, what are you gonna to do?”
“We’re gonna be okay. We’ve got family. We work hard.”
Big Jack said, “There’s always a job.”
“But this job was so perfect. It’s been our whole life!”
“Life goes on,” said Big Jack.
Mrs. Carlson said, “Go.”
On the drive home, Stewart said, “I hope I got everything.”
Stewart had packed Bitty Jack’s duffel bag. He had gone to her cabin while the remaining campers ate breakfast. The owners had prohibited the Carlsons from campgrounds. They were to stay in their home until further instruction. Bitty Jack hated the thought of Stewart packing her panties. Folding her bras. Zipping her tampons into the secret side pouch.
She couldn’t remember when she’d last been this angry. At least she’d had time to take a few mementos from the house. Her spare keys, the plaque, other things she might need. She managed not to speak to Stewart for the five-hour ride.
It was established that Bitty Jack would stay in the guest room. It was furthest away from Stewart’s. It faced the backyard, while Stewart’s room faced front.
Bitty Jack did not like the guest room. The theme color was peach. Peach bedspread. Peach curtains. Peach carpet. Peach towels in the adjoining full bath. She wondered if the sheets had been changed since his parents died. There was a thin layer of dust covering the window sills and towel rack. But there was a TV. Never in her life had Bitty Jack had a TV she could watch from bed.
What she saw was the house from where Stewart had just taken her.
Reporters banged ruthlessly on the Carlsons’ back door. They claimed the public had rights. Didn’t the Carlsons want to tell their side of the story? Didn’t they want to set the record straight?
At last, Mrs. Carlson appeare
d behind the rain-warped screen door. “We know the truth.” She crossed her arms over her pastel flannel shirt. She looked into the cameras as if she knew her daughter was watching. “Trust when I tell you that we’ll be all right.”
In the days that followed, those were the only words the reporters got out of them. If Mrs. Carlson drove the Ford to Summons General Store, she kept her head high and spoke politely to the cashier. Although the camp had closed, Mr. Carlson kept up with his duties. He’d been given two weeks to pack his things and move out. On camera, Bitty Jack watched him mow straight lines across the soccer field. Twenty reporters, like mites at his heels.
Bitty Jack was trying to figure out a life for herself. Tom had hired her back for the summer. Stewart had given her use of his parents’ taupe Taurus, keys to his house, a shelf in the fridge.
“It’ll be like we’re roommates,” he told her one morning. “Until maybe you forgive me. I’m so sorry—”
“Stewart, stop. Just because you’re sorry doesn’t mean you get the girl.”
Bitty Jack spent most of her time away from that house. She worked double shifts. She catered parties. Made deliveries. She kept herself busy. She did anything for a dollar. The more that she saved, the sooner she could leave. She hated those moments when she passed Stewart in the living room. All she could think was Did it happen in here? On the sofa? Or that chair? How was she? Was she worth it? Do you want me to leave, so you can move her in here?
Bitty Jack Carlson was a woman divided.
She wanted to stay hard and make Stewart suffer the way that she had. The way that she was. But she worked such long hours and it took energy to stay mad. At night, her defenses were often let down.
And Stewart was being so goddamn nice.
He left precooked dinners on her refrigerator shelf with heating instructions written out on Post-It notes. He washed her towels. He changed her sheets. He put peach roses by her bedside. He tried to stay away from her because that’s what she had asked.
Sometimes when Bitty Jack saw him sitting on the sofa, she wanted to sit beside him. To wrap her arms around his neck. To cry for the first time over what had happened to her family.
But the reason her family was experiencing a crisis was the reason that she and Stewart had broken up to begin with. It was the same reason she was tortured and had nightmares as a kid. Why her father was persecuted and she watched as a kid. It was why she lost Johnny Iguana, a chance to travel, another life. Maybe she would have been happy without college, without Stewart, without a bakery job and rent to pay. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a Chickasaw boycott if Bitty Jack hadn’t been banned from the freak show. Because of Sarina, she’d never find out. Because of Sarina, so many choices were botched.
Bitty Jack lay in bed and tried to forget about Sarina by watching TV. She knew her life was better than Diane Sawyer’s report on birth defects. At least she wasn’t a crack baby. At least she wasn’t a Siamese twin. Now, those kids had problems. She flipped the channel and tried to laugh at Lucille Ball’s crazy antics. Where was Ethel? Had she been wallpapered to death? But Bitty had seen this episode before. She knew Ethel was in the closet. Ethel was always in a closet.
Bitty Jack usually fell asleep by midnight. Her bedroom door locked, so Stewart couldn’t surprise her. One window cracked open for the August night air.
Bitty Jack was not a light sleeper. But one time, she woke up to that window being raised.
Maybe it wasn’t the sound of one window frame slowly sliding over the other. Maybe it wasn’t the dream where she’s falling. More than likely what woke her was the sense that she’d been watched, that someone had studied her from the backyard for hours, that someone wanted a much closer look.
“It’s Johnny,” came his voice. “It’s me. Can I come in?”
Bitty Jack grabbed her glasses off the nightstand. She put them on quickly and brought her old boyfriend into view.
“Johnny?” Her whisper rushed up her throat. “Johnny, it’s really you?”
“It’s me,” Johnny said and put his right leg through the window. The rest of his body followed and Bitty Jack marveled at how he’d become, most definitely, a man. He was still in black Levi’s, same style button-down with a Hanes T-shirt underneath. His hair was longer and curled, not like in summer. She wanted to let her fingers get lost. He was slim and six feet tall. Still with that slight slump from ducking under doors.
Bitty raced to him, oblivious that she’d gone to bed in only a tank top and panties. She was so happy to see him, all she could do was open her arms.
Johnny took her like she’d hoped that he would; as she’d imagined since Stewart had slept with that bitch. Johnny could show him how you treated a girl who you loved. He held her cheek to cheek, picking her up in a powerful hug. Bitty’s feet were off the floor and she wished that they would never, never touch down.
“How’d you find me?” she said.
“It’s all over the news. I called your parents. They said you were here.”
“Oh, Johnny, I’ve missed you,” Bitty said in the air.
“So come with me,” Johnny said as he put her back on the floor. “Let me take you away.”
“Back to the freak show?”
“It’s a good life.”
“I know.”
“Come with me,” said Johnny. “It can be like it was.”
Bitty slid her hands into the sleeves of his shirt. She felt the old familiar. His skin was like a road map leading back to her young heart.
But Bitty Jack had learned that things were never as they’d been. In her soul, especially. She was too old to go back to the girl who held the hose, who rode the Matterhorn like a school bus, who handled snakes and played with ducks. Now she knew blue Squishies were not the gods’ nectar. They were shaved ice with sugar, food coloring, and false flavor.
Bitty Jack was tempted to run away from Tuscaloosa, from Sarina Summers and the wake of her destruction. But Bitty Jack knew she’d be haunted for a lifetime. As long as Sarina was celebrated. As long as mean women were encouraged for what they did.
Johnny Iguana accepted her answer. He didn’t put up a fight or beg her to leave. He didn’t kiss her good-bye, because it would just be too hard. She said no and then Johnny was gone, his big body shrinking as he walked from the window.
Bitty Jack wished he would come back and get her, kiss her at least, let her know that she could find him, when she was ready, at the fair.
Back in bed, Bitty heard a shuffling outside. She sat up, ready to spring at his sight.
But it wasn’t his face that popped up behind the window. It was Nicole Hicks and she didn’t ask permission to climb into Bitty’s black room.
Bitty tried to scream for Stewart, but her voice wouldn’t work. She made tiny gasping sounds as she tried to remember how her arms and legs moved. She had seen Nicole before and, that time, she’d run.
Her mama had told her, “Believe what people say. If a person tells you she’s crazy, believe her, she is. She knows herself much better than you do.”
As Nicole moved closer and stood by the bed, Bitty Jack was motionless, rigid with fear. Her eyes were stuck open. She didn’t know what to do.
“Stay with him,” Nicole said like a benevolent ghost. “Stewart. Stay with him and we can go get that girl.”
“Who?” Bitty managed.
Nicole said, “You know who.”
Nicole
IT WAS NOT hard to get Bitty Jack to help her. Bitty Jack seemed interested in every word Nicole said. She sat in bed wide-eyed as Nicole fed her lies about revenge and how she was the only one who could feel Bitty’s pain. Almost two years ago, Nicole told her, she had escaped from this world, run by the likes of Sarina Summers and Cheshire mothers. Together, Nicole told her, they could teach Sarina a lesson. Bitty simply must cooperate. She could do that. Couldn’t she? She would do that. Wouldn’t she?
“Just tell me what you want, Nicole. Whatever you want, I’ll help you, you hear?”
<
br /> Nicole told her they would wait until October. Sarina had already launched her campaign to be Homecoming Queen. The campus had never seen a crusade to compare. Nicole was sure that she’d win. She was positive. She had to. At the Homecoming halftime, when the float was brought out, the stadium would be packed and everyone would see.
“See what?” Bitty asked. “What’ll we do?”
“You’re going to help me get Stewart’s Big Al costume. Once I’m inside, I can get on the field. Once I’m on the float, I can do what I want.”
“What’s that?”
Nicole started to make her way out the window. “Just be at the stadium where he dresses at noon.”
“Then what?”
“Just be there. When I find you, I’ll tell you.”
Nicole thought it best to get out of there quickly. Before Bitty Jack asked questions like: Where’ve you been? Are you crazy? Is your mom home? What’s her number?
But Bitty Jack said little. She just watched Nicole go. She did not call for Stewart, sleeping somewhere in the house. She did not phone the police. Nicole never heard a siren. Thus, Nicole knew Bitty Jack could be trusted to do more than help her; she’d help her legend live on.
When Nicole had finished with Sarina, Bitty Jack would feel compelled to confess. She would tell the police of this night through the window, how she’d helped Nicole plan revenge, but not to this extent. She would be so, so sorry, but Officer, really, she’d never known it’d go so far. If Nicole were around, she’d swear to it. She would.
Back in the attic, Nicole sharpened the ax. It was the same ax she’d used to chip Sarina’s name in that tree. The same ax she’d found months ago, heaven sent.
When she’d uncovered it in that camp trunk, Nicole wondered why it wasn’t kept in Mr. Summers’ tool closet. Laid next to a birthday candle, burned to sixteen, the ax was wrapped in two towels and bound with duct tape. The handle was just under two feet in length. The blade was rusted. Or were those the tiniest, old-brown drops of blood?