Dark Places

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  With a smirk, he pushed away from the cooler and sauntered to the counter. Running fingers through greasy hair, he dropped the butt on the floor and ground it out with his boot. “Yeah, that’ll be enough. You ain’t been across the river in a while.”

  Uncle Neal cut his eyes toward me and gave his head a little shake. “I got a pound of cheese here.”

  Marty sure didn’t take the hint, or as I figured, he didn’t care. “Some of the boys were shootin’ dice the other night and said they missed your money.”

  I knew a lot of folks went across the river to drink, dance, and gamble, but it never occurred to me that Uncle Neal liked to play dice. Grandpa always had two sayings, “Some people just need killin’,” and “Small towns are like stock ponds and you never know what’s going on under the surface.”

  I had to think about Uncle Neal gambling, and I knew it was a sin, but I couldn’t figure out if it was as bad as drinking. I put my dime in the machine and found an RC cap. Using two fingers, I slid the bottle through the puzzle of metal tracks to where I could yank it out of the machine. I pulled the cap on the opener mounted on the front and it clattered into the box. I decided I’d stay right where I was, drinking my RC as long as Marty was in the store.

  “Marty, how’s your mama?” Uncle Neal changed the conversation again and wrapped the cheese in white paper. There were two other packages already finished, waiting to be rung up.

  His face softened. “She’s fine.”

  “We don’t see her much.”

  He glanced over at me. “How often do you see this kid’s grandma in here?”

  The sharp question caused Uncle Neal to raise his eyebrows. “Good point. That’ll be two dollars and thirty cents.”

  “Put it on Mama’s bill.”

  “All righty.” Uncle Neal flipped through his book and wrote in pencil.

  Marty picked up the packets and left. I saw Freddy Vines on the porch. Past him was John T. West, leaning against Marty’s Dodge truck. They must have been in the cab and I hadn’t noticed when I rode up. I’d been concentrating on missing the muddy red puddles in the lot. Freddy was a droopy little guy with a lisp, and he was complaining about something.

  Marty pitched the packets through the open window. Freddy got in and slid across the bench seat to the middle, and John T. slammed the door. Something about that guy scared me, and I stared like an idiot. They sat in the truck for a minute, and I got the idea they were watching me back. It was so cloudy I couldn’t see them, but standing in the lighted store, I must have been clear as could be.

  “That all, Top?”

  I shivered. “Yessir. Miss Becky said put it on our bill.”

  “Sure will.” He put them in a paper sack and rolled the top down so I could carry it easy. Thunder rumbled again. “You better pedal hard.”

  I took the bag.

  “Hey, any news on Pepper?”

  “Nossir.”

  He shook his white head. “All right. Get gone before it starts raining again.”

  Moving at a pretty good clip, I hurried off down the steps. Marty’s truck was still there, and the three inside were arguing. I swung a leg over my bike and pushed off. At the same time, I glanced into the cab to see that Marty was pretty mad and Freddy looked like he was about to cry.

  With his arm hanging out of the passenger window, John T. gave me a dead stare.

  “Hey kid. They find Pepper yet?”

  “No.”

  “No, sir.”

  I gulped. “Nossir.”

  “Whyn’t you go with her?”

  “She didn’t tell me she was leaving.”

  “She tell you why she was going?”

  “No…nossir.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “Yessir.”

  He gave me those dead fish eyes again, and when I was sure he wasn’t going to say anything else, I pedaled hard, trying to beat the rain.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The glitter was already worn off their road trip by the time Pepper and Cale arrived in Gallup, New Mexico. Her unwashed hair hung limp and she smelled of sweat. Her bell-bottom jeans were dirty from mid-calf down, heavy with road grime and dust. Cale fared no better, except he had to listen to Pepper.

  “I’m hot, tired, and hungry. I need a bath.”

  He stopped in front of a Texaco station with a sign out front that said, “Try Our Lousy Coffee.” Other signs also advertised diesel, a restaurant, and tires. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” She paused, exasperated. Their whole adventure wasn’t what they expected. Everything she’d seen on television featured happy teenagers dressed in beads, singing, dancing, and laughing. Everyone was so clean in the pictures and on television. She hadn’t cracked a smile in miles, she was grimy, and with her transistor radio in pieces on the highway back in Center Springs, there was no music. “I expected this to be fun.”

  Cale wiped sweat from his forehead. “It ain’t that bad.”

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  “What?”

  “Conversation. You don’t never say anything.”

  He shrugged, watching a couple of hippie kids walk around behind the gas station. “I bought you those Indian beads back there in the curio shop.” He’d paid a ridiculous amount for the fake beads, significantly shrinking the wad of cash in his pocket.

  With her back to the station, Pepper didn’t see a girl rise from the shade of the tall sign out front and follow the boys around back. “How about you get us a room somewhere…with two beds.”

  “You know no one’s gonna rent to a couple of underage kids. Look, those guys over there live on the road and seem to be doing all right.”

  She followed his point to see a youngster with long blond hair lean on the back corner of the station, appearing to keep watch. “What is he doing?”

  “Let’s see.”

  Around back, the pair found the three boys and a girl washing up in the one smelly bathroom. The key attached to a large chunk of wood dangled from the lock. Pepper and Cale joined the line, glad for the opportunity to use clean water because most of the other gas station attendants refused to give kids the bathroom keys.

  Pepper was the last to use the sink, washing her thick hair with cheap gas station soap. The light was out, so she couldn’t completely close the door for privacy. Unlike the girl before her who took her shirt off and washed nude from the waist up, Pepper kept her shirt in place and did the best should could with handfuls of soapy water. Finished, she pulled on the dispenser to reveal a fresh section of the cloth towel loop for her hair.

  Her shirt was still dirty, but at least her pits were clean. Finished, she felt bad about so many using the restroom. She wiped the lavatory down with a handful of soap and dried it with half a roll of cheap toilet paper.

  Cale and the kids were in the front when she took the key back around to the attendant. He hung it on a nail behind the counter. “You ain’t the one I gave it to.”

  “Right, but I’m the one brought it back.”

  “You didn’t buy anything.”

  Still feeling guilty, she used her Kennedy half to buy snacks. She and Cale finished them before joining the group of kids standing near a line of highway smudge pots that would be lit at dusk to warn drivers of road construction.

  “Hi. I’m Pepper.”

  “Cool.” The girl brushed her long blond hair. “I’m Amanda.”

  “This is Cale. Where you guys headed?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “We are too.”

  “You want to travel with us?”

  Pepper thought about how easy it was for Amanda to take her shirt off in front of the other boys. “We like to travel alone.”

  “At least go with us tonight.” One of the boys gave Pepper a good, long appraisa
l. “We’re gonna crash at this pad we heard about a mile from here. Hoof it with us for a while.”

  Cale took an immediate dislike to the young man in the crushed and lopsided straw cowboy hat. Greasy brown hair hung to his shoulders and the sparse beard did nothing but make his face look dirty.

  “We’ll thumb a ride and get down the road.” The boy took Pepper’s arm. “I’m Barry. These guys are Mike and Owen. Come with us for the night and you can take off in the morning. I hear they have some good weed where we’re going.”

  Even though he didn’t like the guy, Cale thought about free marijuana. It was the one thing he hadn’t yet tried, and the lure was irresistible. “All right.”

  “Shit,” Pepper said under her breath and allowed Barry to lead her off down the highway.

  The snacks hadn’t lasted long, and she was hungry by the time they arrived at a stucco house that was old during World War I. The bare yard did nothing to improve the appearance of the structure. A leafless cottonwood looked as listless as the neighborhood.

  Hoping they had food inside, she quickly changed her mind about staying the minute they stepped through the front door. The house reeked with the thick smell of incense. Music like the country kids had never heard blared from a console record player in the dimly lit living room. Young people slept on cast-off couches and broken-down chairs. A black light caused people and clothes to glow with an eerie incandescence.

  She stopped, mesmerized by the guitar rifts. “Who is that?”

  A shirtless boy sitting on the floor glanced up. He was surrounded by other kids, curled up like kittens on the hardwood. Cale instantly disliked him, more for his filthy feet than anything else.

  “Dude’s name is Jimi Hendrix.”

  A girl giggled, stoned out of her head. “He’s so far out.”

  “I’ve never heard…”

  “That’s right, little girl,” Shirtless said. “You’ve never heard him before because that’s an album I got from my cousin who lives in England. Jimi’s hammering them Beatles into the ground over there.”

  Stomach growling, Pepper slid down the grimy wall and Barry sat beside her. Cale wedged himself between her and Shirtless, receiving a glare for his effort.

  The cherry on a joint flared red, and then floated through the smoke as it passed from one person to the next. Another made its way to the new arrivals.

  Pepper wished there was an adult somewhere close. “Who’s house is this?”

  Barry shrugged. “Who knows?”

  The joint was suddenly in Cale’s hand. He took a shallow hit and coughed most of the smoke back out. He passed it to Pepper. She cupped the joint and instead of inhaling, gave it a puff, keeping all the smoke in her mouth. She blew it into Barry’s face and handed it over. He grinned at the flirtation, drew deep, and passed it on.

  The joints made another revolution and Pepper was convinced she could feel the effects. Her head buzzed. She felt something and glanced down to see Barry’s hand on her leg. At the same time, someone untied her shoe.

  She squinted through the smoke to see Shirtless on his stomach. He gave her a grin, his teeth glowing in the black light. “Hey baby, I bet your feet are tired. Let’s get these off and I’ll give you a massage.”

  Stunned for a moment, Pepper didn’t know what to do. Then she threw her head back, laughed, and kicked his hands away. “Get your damned grubby paws off me.”

  Interested in one of the other girls in their circle and already buzzing from the grass, Cale missed the exchange. He was startled when Pepper shot to her feet. She stepped over Shirtless. “I’m gonna get something to eat.”

  “Get me something, too.”

  Her response to Cale was a snort. Jimi Hendrix ended and with a screech of the needle across the record, Grace Slick blared from the speakers, asking if “you want somebody to love.” Pepper was relieved to find gray light coming through the dingy kitchen window. Dirty dishes filled the tiny counter, and cold pans crusted with unidentifiable solids occupied all four burners of the filthy gas stove.

  The twenty-year-old Frigidaire was empty, except for a jar holding one pickle. She fished it out with two fingers and found a half-empty bag of Fritos on the table. The pickle disappeared in seconds. Munching the stale chips and sipping at the pickle juice, Pepper wandered into the hall. The bathroom door was closed when she passed, the shower running. She almost moaned at the thought of a hot shower. Instead of returning to the living room, she waited against the wall for a turn.

  Barry joined her in the narrow hallway. He gave her a crooked smile and stroked her arm. “Hey baby. How about you and me go in one of these rooms and get it on?”

  She backed away. “No. I’m not into that.”

  “Sure you are.” He closed the space and slipped his arm around her waist. He nosed her ear.

  Frightened, Pepper pushed against his chest. She realized it was only her against the larger boy. “Look…”

  “C’mon baby. You know you want to.”

  Pepper trembled. Her breath caught. “No.” She pushed again.

  He rubbed his cheek against hers, his hat brim bumping her head. “I am so into you right now.”

  She smelled old sweat, oily hair, cigarette smoke, and marijuana.

  “You really turn me on. Do what you feel, Pepper.”

  It was the absolutely wrong thing to say at the wrong time. Barry’s free hand slipped up her arm, under the strap of her bag, and across her shoulder. He stopped directly over the scar burned there by the Skinner and pulled her close.

  That rainy night in the creek bottoms, the Skinner scarred Pepper’s shoulder, but he also damaged her deep inside where dark corners held secrets and recollections best not recalled.

  Pepper whimpered as the memory welled of Top handcuffed and nearly dead, and the helplessness she felt, half-naked and tied face-down on a fallen log. She thought she’d pushed that night away, but Barry brought it back when he ground his pelvis against her. She pushed again, barely stifling a scream. Then he kissed her.

  It was too much and Barry’s face became the mask of the Skinner.

  “No!” She threw a right uppercut that would have made her Uncle Cody proud.

  Barry’s head snapped back and he bit his tongue. He dropped to his knees and fell against the wall, holding his bloody mouth. “Are you crazy!”

  “Yes!” Furious, Pepper kicked at him and he rolled away. “I am crazy! I’m insane!” She stomped down the hall and through the smoky living room, kicking people out of the way. “Move!”

  While Scott McKenzie sang about going to San Francisco with flowers in your hair, stoned youngsters recoiled from Pepper’s assault by curling into balls or drawing their limbs as close as possible. They rippled away like rings on the surface of a pond.

  “Hey girl, uncool!”

  “Chill!

  “She doing acid?”

  “Yeah, bad trip, man.”

  Furious, Pepper stopped beside Cale and kicked the sole of his shoe. “I’m leaving. Are you going?”

  He squinted in the weak light, trying to focus. “Whatever you want. I’m feeling pretty good right now, though.”

  With a growl that scared everyone within hearing distance, she grabbed his shirt and yanked Cale to his feet.

  Moments later, they were breathing fresh air and back on the road.

  Chapter Thirty

  I hadn’t hardly been back at the house for twenty minutes before Norma Faye pulled up in the drive. I waited for her and Aunt Ida Belle to get out, but Miss Becky came out of the kitchen and clicked the TV off. “Come go with me.”

  In the silence, I heard rain running off the roof and drumming on the water cooler hanging in the window. It had been thundering long and loud and the next line of storms wasn’t too far away. “Where we going?”

  She untied her apron and hung it on a hook, tradi
ng it for a bonnet. “We’re going to see Melva Hale.”

  I saw the flour and baking soda still sitting on the table and knew she’d sent me off to get me out of the house. “Aw, let me stay here.”

  She thought about it for a minute, then changed her mind. “No, not with everybody gone. I don’t want to go, neither, ’cause I don’t feel like it, but they done buried Leland in the rain and I know she’s hurtin’ like we are. Now, come on.”

  There wasn’t much talk while we drove. I could tell none of them wanted to go, but they went anyway, because that’s the way they lived life.

  I’ve never felt as uncomfortable as I did when we walked into that old house. Melva didn’t act like she wanted us there, but she opened the screen door. Folks usually smiled and said something like “come on in this house” or “howdy, y’all, good to see you.” She didn’t do anything except back up to let us in.

  Marty was laying on the couch, not reading or nothing. The house was silent, with not even the tick tock of a clock to fill the emptiness. When Marty saw me, he swung his feet around and without saying boo to anyone, walked into a bedroom.

  Melva giggled. “That boy’s something, ain’t he?”

  Aunt Ida Belle and Norma Fay exchanged looks while Miss Becky put a foil-covered dish on the empty table. “How you doin’, hon?”

  “I’m fine. How’re you?”

  “Holdin’ up. Pepper’s gone, you know.”

  “Who?”

  Aunt Ida Belle sat on the couch. “My girl, Pepper. She’s run off with some boy.”

  “Well, I ’spect she’ll come back with a baby then.”

  All three women gasped. “It isn’t like that,” Norma Faye said.

  Melva’s smile reminded me of that painting the Mona Lisa. I couldn’t believe she’d say something so mean. I tried to find some way to change the conversation and saw a faded photograph. “Is this Marty when he was a baby?”

  Melva shook her head. “No, that was my other boy. It died not long after its daddy took that picture.

  “I’m sorry.” Miss Becky patted her hand.