The Speed Queen

by Stewart O'Nan

  I’d see her on TV, trying to get through all the cameramen, trying to smile. Mr. Jefferies said she didn’t have to answer their questions but she did. She said some of the nicest things about me on TV.

  I remember once she said, “Even if she did all those things they say she did, she is still my daughter.”

  And I think she meant it, no matter what happened after that. I think she’ll be awake at midnight, listening to KOMA’s live broadcast from outside the main gate. She’ll be waiting for Mr. Jefferies to call.

  And then what will she do? Will she turn the light off and roll over and look at the moon? Will she sit there with the light on and open the Bible I sent her? She could do anything. She could go downstairs and make a sandwich at the kitchen table. She could walk out into the backyard and fall on her knees in the grass. But she won’t. I know my mom enough to expect something quiet and private that makes sense to her. Something dignified.

  There’s a phone here I’m allowed to use, and when it gets close I’ll call her. Three years ago when I was close, she answered and said she had nothing to say to me. I scared her, I think, after all those years. I don’t expect anything different now, but it would be cruel not to.

  I know what I’ll say—the same thing as last time. “It wasn’t your fault,” I’ll say. “You did everything you could. Mom,” I’ll say, “I love you.” And I won’t wait then. I won’t hurt both of us. I’ll just say goodbye and hang up.

  37

  See, I knew you’d have this one too. Mr. Jefferies tried to use this at the trial. I didn’t want him to, but he said it was our best chance. Even though we were both arrested that time, he said the jury would blame Lamont because he was a man. It was even better that I was pregnant then. He was afraid my pictures wouldn’t be admitted as evidence. He didn’t expect the prosecution to use Lamont’s.

  The report doesn’t say what started it, it just says “domestic disturbance.” That was a big question during the trial, but since Mr. Jefferies didn’t want me on the stand, no one could answer it. What started the disturbance is that Lamont found a pint of Popov’s in my bag. I knew it was wrong but I was so low, just sitting in the apartment all day, waddling downstairs to the hot laundry room. I needed something to keep me going.

  I was in the kitchen making dinner when he came up behind me.

  “What’s this?” he said, and held up the bottle.

  I looked at it and all I saw was the two inches I wasn’t going to get to drink.

  “Must be an old one,” I said.

  “It was in your purse.”

  “What were you doing in my purse?”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said. He leaned in to smell my breath, and I pushed him away. I had a big slotted spoon in my hand for the string beans, and when he grabbed my other arm, I hit him with it.

  He ripped it out of my hand and slapped me, knocking me back against the stove. I got ahold of the kettle and bonked him on the shoulder; the water went all over the place. I threw the kettle at his face and ran for the bedroom.

  “I don’t know where you think you’re going,” he called after me, because the door was gone; the landlord never fixed it.

  I grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and threw it just as he came in. He was ready for me; he had a folding chair like a lion tamer. The lamp shattered against it. He dropped it and covered his face, swearing. There was blood between his fingers.

  I groped in the drawer and came up with a flashlight.

  “Why do you want to fight?” I said. I was crying and holding the flashlight up like a club.

  He was still holding his face. I didn’t think he could see, so I tried to run by him.

  He caught hold of my blouse. I twisted and it ripped, and I had to hit him. The third time, the top of the flashlight came off and the batteries flew out. One of them cracked the mirror on the headboard. Lamont fell half onto the bed and rolled off, one arm caught underneath him. There was blood in his hair but I didn’t stick around to see if he was all right.

  I ran downstairs to our landlord Mrs. Wertz and banged on her door, but she wouldn’t answer. Finally some old guy down the hall stuck his head out and said she was with the police over in B building. They were there because someone was fighting.

  They were in the parking lot behind B. They had a guy in the back of the car and the gal with them, holding a towel to her mouth. When the first cop saw me, he said, “You with her?”

  They made me stand on the landing while they went in to get Lamont. They had their guns out and everything. A minute later, one of them came back.

  “Is he all right?” I said.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to turn around,” he said.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s unconscious, ma’am. Now if you’ll place your hands behind your head with your fingers knitted together.”

  They arrested Lamont too, but he got to go to Baptist. That’s why his picture is him on the stretcher. I was arraigned and made bail in time to be there when he woke up.

  He had a bandage around his head like a soldier. They said one cheekbone was broken and he had a concussion but otherwise he was fine. The skin around his eyes was the color of grape jelly, and sitting there looking at him, I swore that I would hurt the person that had done this to him, that somehow I would get rid of her.

  38

  How did our life change after the baby? We were busier. We didn’t sleep or make love as much, and I was stuck at home while Lamont got to go to work. It was quiet, and I got to read a lot, but the only people I talked to all day were clients who came by for an eighth and stayed five minutes.

  Gainey wouldn’t take my milk, and that was a hard thing. I was tired of being thrown up on. My stomach was mush; my breasts hurt. In a weird way, I wished I was still pregnant. I started smoking again, and I knew Lamont was going through my shoeboxes. He was good about changing Gainey and feeding him dinner, but the baths and the laundry and all the rest of it was up to me. When Gainey cried in the middle of the night, Lamont wasn’t good enough for him. My mom said I was lucky, that my dad never touched a diaper.

  “I’m sorry,” Lamont said, “I wish I didn’t have to go to work either.”

  “It’s when you are here,” I said. “That’s when I need your help.”

  He’d remember for a little bit, then he’d go back to ignoring me.

  One day he came home while Gainey was taking a nap and found me crying on the couch. I couldn’t stop.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Marjorie, what’s wrong?”

  He held me by the shoulders and looked at me like I’d gone crazy, and I felt sorry for him, stuck with a crazy woman.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  It was just my life, I wanted to say, but then he’d say he loved me and that we had a beautiful baby—things I couldn’t feel bad about. How could I explain that that was why I was crying?

  “Marjorie,” he said, “come on.”

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I don’t know. Nothing. I’m just tired.”

  It got better when Gainey started sleeping through the night, but still I felt tired all the time. When he went down for his afternoon nap, I’d take a carton of ice cream down from the freezer and skim a line off the top of an eighth and lay it out on the coffee table. You’d feel it pinch in the back of your nose and then drip down your throat all bitter. I’d put the stereo on low and run in place for half an hour, then do two hundred sit-ups. Before my shower I’d weigh myself and check my stomach in the mirror. The water there was great in the middle of the day. I’d turn it up as hot as I could stand.

  Right there’s two things I miss—privacy and water pressure.

  Gainey would be getting up just as I finished drying my hair. I’d see if he needed changed, and then we’d play on the couch until Lamont got home.

  “Anything happen here?” Lamont would ask, and I’d tell him who came by. At dinner I’d push my food around till you could see the middle of the
plate. I did the dishes, so he never caught on.

  I started doing two lines, then three. Instead of skimming, I just kept an eighth for myself and raised the price. It took him a few weeks to notice how flat my stomach was, and that was in bed; the next day he didn’t say anything.

  My mom did, though. I hadn’t seen her in a month or so when I took Gainey over to Kickingbird Circle. It was April and in the eighties, so I wore shorts. The Underwoods already had their sprinklers going. I rang the bell. When she opened the door, she looked at Gainey first, then turned to me and just stopped.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “What?” I said, cause she was staring. She touched my cheek like she couldn’t see me.

  “You’re not drinking again.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m all done with that.”

  “Then what is it—drugs?”

  I laughed like she was being silly, and kissed her. I lied right to her face, though we both knew the truth.

  39

  The receiving stolen goods thing wasn’t our fault. The stereo was actually ours; we bought it off these college kids in a van. The guy who gave us the wheels said he had a receipt for them. The same for the crossbow and the portable generator and the chain saws—we just thought he was cleaning out his garage.

  They searched the entire place with a German shepherd. One guy even opened the ice cream before putting it back. We just sat there entertaining Gainey with the car keys. We both knew enough not to say anything. They took us down and booked us and finally they let us go. When we got home we discovered Lamont’s best Meat Puppets bootleg had been in the tape player.

  Our lawyer Ms. Tolliver said all they could give us was probation, and that’s what we got. It was Lamont’s fault, being nice. From then on we only dealt in cash.

  40

  I wouldn’t call what happened a bust, it was more like an accident.

  It was all my mom’s fault. We’d gone to the mall to look at summer clothes for Gainey and we were coming home on Santa Fe. She was driving her Riviera. Gainey was in the back in his car seat. I was always careful about that. He’d just thrown up, so I took my belt off and turned around to clean him up.

  “Don’t get in an accident,” I said.

  “I won’t,” my mom said.

  Five seconds later I’m flying backwards into the dashboard. A piece of the windshield is stuck in my hair, and there’s this yellow Granada two inches away from my face.

  Gainey’s screaming in the backseat, and my mom’s glasses are snapped in half.

  “I told you not to do that!” I said.

  The driver of the Granada was an old man wearing a hat and a brown suit like it was the fifties. The ignition was buzzing cause his door had flown open. He didn’t get out, he just sat there staring at the steam coming up from the antifreeze. It looked like he might be knocked out. Someone looked in my mom’s window and asked if we were all right.

  “No,” I said, “we had an accident.”

  My back hurt, but I needed to see Gainey. I tried to pull myself up but my right hand wouldn’t do what I wanted it to.

  “I think my wrist is broken,” I said.

  “Don’t move,” my mom said. “You’re not supposed to move.”

  My left hand was okay. Gainey’s face was red but he seemed fine. I leaned over the seat and brushed the spit-up and glass off his tray. I tried to unbuckle him but I needed both hands.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  My mom was crying. “Your father bought me this car.”

  “Will you please help me?” I said.

  “Don’t yell at me. I know you hate me but you don’t have to yell at me.” On her forehead was a red imprint of the steering wheel. A siren was coming.

  I blame this on my mom, but right here I could of done something if I’d of been thinking, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know that my purse wasn’t next to me on the seat where I’d left it. I had no idea that right then the eighth I’d been dreaming about all morning was lying on the street right outside my door.

  A cop car pulled up and killed its siren. Gainey was done crying; he was just hiccupping. There were people all over the street, even one guy with a fire extinguisher. Traffic was jumping the curb to get around us.

  There was only one cop in the car. He came up to my mom’s window. His head was shaved like someone going out for football and he had a microphone Velcroed to his shoulder.

  “Everyone okay here?” he said.

  “He hit us,” my mom said. “My light was green.”

  I told him about my wrist.

  “All right,” he said, and went around to check on the old man. “Sir,” he said, “sir.”

  The old man was staring straight ahead like he didn’t hear him.

  “Sir!” the cop said, and waved a hand in front of his face. He didn’t blink.

  The cop knelt down and laid two fingers on the old man’s throat, then walked back to his car and got a blanket from the trunk. We sat there listening to Gainey hiccup while the cop spread it over the old guy.

  “It was green!” my mom said. “I saw it.”

  “I know,” I said, though I could tell she wasn’t sure anymore.

  More sirens were coming—more cops, a fire truck, two ambulances. They parked right behind us in the middle of the street.

  The cop got Gainey out, and this woman paramedic finally convinced my mom she could move. She stood up and all this glass fell out of her lap; the little cubes bounced on the ground like hail. I had to scoot across the seat to get out her door. Another cop I recognized from somewhere took me to an ambulance, where they looked at my wrist. My mom stood there with Gainey; they were both fine.

  “Does this hurt?” the paramedic said, and twisted my hand.

  “Yes!” I begged her.

  There were forms to fill out. I couldn’t write, so my mom had to do it. I lied about what medications I was taking. Just when we were getting ready to leave, the first cop came over with my purse and asked me if it was mine. I didn’t think, I just took it and thanked him.

  “How about this?” he said, and held up the eighth by one corner. “Do you recognize this?”

  All I had to do was say no.

  “Not again,” my mom said. “Marjorie, why do you keep doing this?”

  “So you do recognize it?”

  “It’s her husband—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Just shut up, Mother. You’ve already killed one person today, isn’t that enough?”

  She started telling me how I was the one hurting everyone, and I started giving it back.

  “Hold up, hold up,” the cop shouted, and gave me a lecture on being a mother and why my mom was worried about me. My mom just stood there nodding, agreeing with him. Then he got out his little test kit. He was surprised when it turned orange. He thought it was cocaine, the dummy. He was looking for blue.

  He read me my rights. I didn’t say a word after that, I just looked at my mom like how could she do this.

  “I’m not sorry,” she said. “If you want me to say I’m sorry, I’m not going to.”

  “It’s fine for you,” she said, hefting Gainey, “but you’ve got to think about him.”

  The cop put us in his car to go to the hospital, me behind the cage, my mom and Gainey up front. My mom and the cop talked about heart attacks and how the old man could of been driving around dead like that for a while. We were all very lucky.

  The emergency room took us first because I was under arrest. My mom had to fill out more forms. The cop left us alone for a minute while we waited for the doctor. I took Gainey from my mom with my good arm and sat there holding him close.

  “You’re the one doing this,” my mom said, “not me.”

  The cop came back with the doctor, who looked at my arm. He actually bent down and looked at it like his eyes were bad. He had liver spots on his forehead and I could smell his hair cream.

  “Tell me if this hurts,” he said, but I grabbed my arm back. He jumped like
I had a knife, and the cop got up.

  “Trust me,” I said. “It’s broken.”

  “Do you want me to help you or not,” the doctor said.

  When he twisted it, I screamed in his ear.

  It took a while, laying all the hot strips of gauze across it. It still hurt just as much.

  Outside, the cop made sure my mom had money for a cab. He locked me in the back of the car and took Gainey’s seat out and set it on the curb for her. They talked for a minute. My mom was thanking him, touching him on the arm.

  He came around the front and got in. The cast was still warm in my lap. I knew she was looking at me, maybe waving, but I wouldn’t look.

  “You’re not going to say goodbye?” the cop said.

  “Just drive,” I said, and finally he did.

  Ms. Tolliver said I’d see some time—not much. Her best guess was six months, and that’s exactly what the judge gave me. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been arrested before, and I’d done a lot of things, but this was over nothing. I was going to jail. I knew I was but I didn’t really believe it. It hit me all at once when the judge read the sentence and the bailiff came and took me by the arm.

  My mom and Lamont were there, sitting in different places. While the bailiff was taking me away I looked over my shoulder at them like they could save me. But they couldn’t.

  41

  I did my six months at Clara Waters. It wasn’t really a jail the way you think of one. It was an old motel off 1-35 they’d turned into a pre-release center. Clara Waters Community Corrections Center, they called it. It used to be the Planet Motel. They’d left all the furniture, the big mirrors in the bathrooms and the paintings screwed to the walls. You could still see the yellow fluorescents under the gutters and the big Saturn out front with all the neon gone. There were no bars on the windows or barbed wire on top of the fences. You could walk out anytime you liked.

  The idea was that you wouldn’t take off because you didn’t have that much time left. Some of the gals had been in places like Mabel Bassett or Eddie Warrior for six or seven years and now they were getting out, so they were real careful. But most of us were in for prostitution or petty larceny, being an accessory to something. We were young and knew this was just temporary. There were a lot of mothers.