“Well, come on sweetie, I have got places to be and people to do!” The flirtatious remark was followed by a grotesque giggle.
Without hesitating any longer, Dupree swung open the heavy, Detroit steel door and jumped in. What could possibly happen in a moving car, he thought? The interior upholstery was smooth and cool. The window went up as soon as the door closed.
“I’m Christina.” A large scarred hand with three huge gaudy rings shot out at Dupree.
“Dupree,” he said, shaking the hand.
“Ooh, manly.” The voice seemed less strained and an octave lower, more Bette Davis and less Minnie Mouse.
Dupree adjusted his pack on his lap, creating a heavy impenetrable shield for his crotch.
“So, handsome, where’s your final destination?”
“Home,” Dupree lied.
“Where’s that?” Christina pressed.
“Vancouver.”
“Canadian!”
“American. Vancouver, Washington.”
“You’re a long way from home! What do you do there?”
“Bookkeeper. What do you do in Modesto?” Dupree wanted to get the conversation off him.
“I’m a hostess in one of the top restaurants, Milano’s. Have you heard of it? Oh, of course, you haven’t. How silly.” Christina giggled nervously.
The exaggerated feminine voice was beginning to grate on Dupree. He didn’t respond, just chose to look straight forward.
“Did you want to grow up to be a bookkeeper?”
“No. I wanted to be a lawyer.”
“I wanted to be a movie star. I almost was.” The voice dropped again and it was overcome by melancholy.
“Really?” Dupree asked sensing a story coming on.
For the first time, he turned and took a good look at the driver. Christina wore a blond wig that was once certainly better styled than today. The large curls in spots didn’t quite cover the netting of the wig. The hair was pulled down and forward, but still left the bottom of the thick, graying sideburns exposed. Below the sideburns, a two-day growth of beard protruded through the thick base of make-up. Dark pink lipstick covered a pair of thin, sunburned, peeling lips. Christina’s neck was covered in whiskers longer than her face, like a man with poor or failing eyesight might miss. Dupree could see the skin below the make-up was covered with wrinkles. Some, like the one running from below her eyes to her mouth, was deep. Others around her mouth and eyes were shallower and many.
The most striking feature of the Christina mask was her eyes. The lids were covered in a deep emerald green eye shadow. A thick line of black eyeliner shot out the edge of the lid in a Nefertiti, cat-like, point that was matched by a similar line on the bottom eyelid. Crow’s feet born of age and weather ran deep, and the eye Dupree could see was crossed by a deep scar.
When Christina turned to say something to Dupree he noticed a scar running across the bridge of her nose. The crowning feature of the make-up, though, was the buzzed eyebrows that were painted dark brown with an eyebrow pencil. Thick pencil lines went right through the short-trimmed brows.
“My daddy didn’t want a movie star in the family. My momma was all for me being a star. She said that I was as cute as Annette Funicello. Do you remember Annette Funicello?”
“Of course,” Dupree replied.
“I used to dance and sing with the Mickey Mouse Club. ‘Beauty is as beauty does,’ that’s what wise men say.” Christina’s cutesy singing was bordered on sad. “Oh, do you remember this?” Christina paused for dramatic effect, then sang slowly and mournful, “Through the years we’ll all be friends, wherever we may be. M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.” As she sang a series of tears ran down her cheek leaving a trail in the heavy make-up.
“A little before my time, I’m afraid,” Dupree said softly.
“Oh, of course it is! You’re just a baby.”
“So did you get on the show?”
“My mommy saved and saved. She took in sewing, worked at the Five & Dime, and saved any way she could. She finally had enough for two bus tickets to Hollywood and three nights at a motel. We had appointments with three different talent agencies. It was so exciting.”
“How old were you again?”
“Ten, I was kind of tall for my age. That seemed to work against me. I’m getting ahead of the story. Okay, when we arrived in Hollywood we went to Grauman’s Chinese Theater and saw all the feet and hands in cement on Hollywood Boulevard. We saw the Brown Derby and all the places my mommy talked about for so long.
“We went to our first appointment and the man said something that made mommy mad and she started screaming at him and they threw us out. She was really mad for hours. She used to talk to herself when she got like that. Sometimes I would get confused and answer her, and then she would yell at me. She could be scary sometimes.
“Anyways, we went to the second interview and the man, Mr. Epstein, said he wanted to talk to me alone. Mommy wanted to stay and he said, ‘Do you want a contract or not?’ So she went outside to smoke. He was an icky man. He had me sit on the couch next to him. Then he touched me.” Christina began to whisper, the ability to speak in falsetto disappeared. “He touched me you know where. He told me it was a secret and to call him Daddy. I didn’t like him. His breath was stinky. Then he unzipped his pants and took out his, you know. He made me touch it. I didn’t want to. He took my hand and made me.” Christina’s heavy black mascara was running down her cheeks. “Then he made me…”
“I think I understand.” Dupree offered. “When did your mother come back?”
“She didn’t. The lady outside Mr. Epstein’s office made her wait. He did nasty things to me, ishy things that hurt my bottom. Then he suddenly stopped and turned me around and put his hands on my cheeks. I was so scared I couldn’t cry. He said it was our secret, and if I told, he would come in my room in the night and poke my eyes out, and kill my mommy.
“He called mommy into his office and had her sign some papers. We stayed for a long time, like a month. I went to some auditions but I didn’t want to sing anymore. Every time we went to the office he would tell mommy he was going to coach me, then he would, you know. I never got a job, so he yelled at mommy and told her I was a freak and that something was wrong with me. She threw an ashtray through his window. He grabbed her and started to push her out the door. I kicked him as hard as I could, you know, down there. He fell down on the couch and we ran away.” Christina gave a giggle. “I liked kicking him.”
“I bet you did.” Dupree smiled. “So no more Hollywood?”
“No, we went home the next day. We still had some of the money Epstein gave us. Mommy took us to dinner at the Brown Derby. We saw Lana Turner, and William Holden, and a bunch of other movie stars.
“When we got home, daddy was gone. We never saw him again.”
“That’s rough,” Dupree said.
“It all worked out.” The feminine voice was nearly gone. “Mommy died when I was in high school. I moved across town to live with my grandma.”
The two rode along without talking for quite a distance. Dupree saw a sign on the side of the road that announced they were entering Merced, Gateway to Yosemite.
“Merced,” Dupree said, breaking the silence. “I met a couple of kids who were going to Merced. They were hitchhiking to Yosemite.”
“A beautiful place. Have you ever been there?” Christina asked.
“No, I never have.”
“Oh, you must go. The waterfalls are simply divine!” The falsetto was back.
“I’ll have to do that someday.”
“So, tell me about you, sweetie. All I’ve done is yack about myself. How rude. What is your life like? What do you do besides bookkeeping? Do you have kids?”
“Well,” Dupree said, then paused, trying to decide what he wanted to tell. “I have two kids. A boy and a girl. The boy is in the Marine Corp, he is a medic. My princess is going to the University of Montana and wants to be a teacher. She wants to work with special needs children.
”
The lies flowed from Dupree like a bubbling mountain stream, without hesitation, conscience, or regret. He hated his kids. They never did anything to make him proud or happy. Even as small children they were brats, encouraged by their mother to scream and pout when they didn’t get their way. Dupree tried to discipline them, punish them, and teach them to be responsible for their actions. His wife would come right behind him and pamper and undermine everything he tried to do.
The set of kids he was claiming was what he dreamed his children would be. This odd creature sitting next to him would never know the difference, and the thrill of bragging on this pair of idyllic offspring pleased Dupree.
“Oh, if I had children, I would want them to be just like yours. But, I can’t have children. You know, because of what happened to me when I was little. Messed up the plumbing. But the Good Lord knows best in these things. I probably would have spoiled them rotten and they would have turned out to hate me. You are so lucky.”
Suddenly Dupree felt ashamed. He wanted to cover his face, jump from the car. How could he have lied to this person who opened her soul and deepest hurts to him? The pain and shame that she lived with must be unbearable. He can’t even tell the truth about his own children, rotten as they are.
“You know, Christina, I can’t take any of the credit for the way my kids turned out. I worked so much that my wife made them what they are. She gets all the credit for the way they turned out.”
“She must really be something,” Christina chirped.
“She really is.” Dupree felt a little better having told the truth, as buried in language as it was. But that was his stock and trade; twisting language to suit his purpose.
A few minutes later Christina pointed at a rest stop sign. “This little missy has to use the little girl’s room. How ’bout you?”
“Might not hurt to stretch my legs a bit,” Dupree responded.
They parked in front of the brown, concrete block building that housed the restrooms. Christina got out and went around to the back of the car. Dupree heard the click of the trunk unlocking but didn’t turn to see what was happening.
As he watched Christina twist her hips and make her way up the sidewalk, Dupree realized how tall she was, well over six feet. Standing, her shape was totally masculine. Narrow hips and broad shoulders were a strange contrast to the elegant green dress she wore.
As she approached the restroom, her posture started to change. The head that was held so high and confident began to drop with every step. The broad shoulders that carried her forward with a sexy swagger were drooping and transformed into a defeated slump. Even her stride shortened and slowed to a hesitant shuffle.
Dupree took his pack from the car and went to the men’s room. The trees in the grassy area blew and swayed in the warm wind. An elderly woman patiently waited for her dog to do its business in the Doggy Potty Area. Dupree took a long, cool drink from the fountain and went back to the car.
The car was warm so Dupree left the door open. He slumped down and closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them again a tall man in jeans, boots, and a plaid, pearl button shirt was coming up the walk. He carried Christina’s black gym bag.
“Sorry I took so long,” the man said in his husky voice.
“No problem.”
The man started the car and said, “Next stop Modesto!”
“How far is that?”
“ ’Bout twelve miles give or take.”
The side of the man’s face still resembled Christina, but the absence of make-up, false eyelashes, and lipstick so drastically changed the countenance next to him it was hard for Dupree to picture it as a woman again.
As they rode along Dupree tried to process what just happened. Without a word of acknowledgment, or recognition, a transformation took place and left an odd space between two people who shared dark, disturbing memories. The bond of two strangers born of the baring of a troubled soul had a level of intimacy even close friends seldom share. What is it about total strangers that permits a person to open up their lives?
There were events, memories, joys, sorrows, that even after nearly twenty-five years of marriage, Dupree never shared with his wife. There was no doubt that she kept secret people, places, and things he was never privy to.
Yet here sat a man, as a woman, who told of unspeakable violations of his body, ambitions, and dreams, to a hitchhiker within minutes of getting in his car. Would the story have been different with another hitchhiker? Did Dupree convey a trustworthiness that Christina felt comfortable with? Or was the pain and containment of her story so oppressive that it had to be released? Or, was it a tall tale like the one Dupree told?
Dupree wondered as he stared straight ahead, what kind of world he entered. He was a little over three hundred miles from home, yet his thoughts and contemplations were light-years from anything he exposed himself to at home. His world of clients, briefs, depositions, and shallow office interaction gave no space for quiet reflection. The idea that the people, who sat across his desk or who were seated at a conference table, held stories he never heard, stories in which he frankly held no interest. They were a means to an end, and the end was hours billed.
He thought of what being at home meant. A reheated plate from a dinner he missed half the time. A wife so enraptured with her important role on a dozen committees and charities, it was a one-sided conversation when they took time to actually sit across from each other and talk, and then it was just to have him put some event or other on his calendar.
Then there was the interaction with his children. Dupree wondered when they stopped greeting him at the front door with squeals of ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ and became sullen occupants of his home that on occasion looked up from their iPhone or video game to acknowledge his presence.
What kind of father was he? How did things go so far off the rails? He realized, if he was as honest and open as Christina, he never wanted children. He married someone he really didn’t love, and his job was the most important thing in his life. Or was it?
The nameless man sitting next to him turned on the radio to the same kind of music the trucker played. It filled the space now vacant of conversation. To his total bafflement, Dupree thought about his father.
“Your mother never remarried?” Dupree blurted out.
“Wow, where’d that come from?”
“I was just thinking about my family.”
“Nope, never did.”
“Did you ever hear from your father again?”
“We got a call from the woman he took up with after he left my Mom. She said he was dying, cancer or some other god awful thing. I was about eighteen I guess. She said he wanted to see me.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Hell no, why would I want to see that sumbitch now?’ Then I hung up. She called right back but I told my grandma to just let it ring.”
“Do you regret it?” Dupree asked.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, do you ever wish you had gone to see him?”
“I never thought about it. So I guess not. How about you? What was your old man like?”
“My father was a very soft man. I don’t mean in a caring way, he was almost obscenely clammy, soft white underbelly of a fish, moist, pale, I can’t think of enough words to convey to you what he was like. His skin was moist, at least the part of it that was exposed. When he touched you it was like his hand was a thin bag of warm water.
“As a child, I remember seeing people shake hands at a wedding. I thought it was a cool thing to do, so I shook hands with several adults at the reception. The men, and even some of the women, shook my hand with a firm healthy grip. The men’s hands were coarse, dry, warm, and even the women, although soft, were firm and dry.
“Then being proud of what I learned, I shook hands with my father. His hand was like it had no bones, it was wet to the point I wiped my hand on my pants after. That day I realized my father was not like other people. I think I was ten.
“I only saw my father once not wearing a dress shirt and tie. I opened the bathroom door not thinking anyone was in it. There he stood in his dress slacks and a sleeveless undershirt. It was as if I saw him naked. His skin was the color of milk. There was no muscle tone at all. His arms were thin and I could see veins clearly through his skin.
“My father managed a shoe store. He went to work there when he was in high school as a stock boy and never left. It was his kingdom. He worked six days a week. He got two weeks’ vacation a year, and Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July off, if they didn’t fall on a Sunday. The store was closed on Sunday. We were never allowed to visit inside the store.
“On Saturday, the busiest day of the week, we would sometimes meet him for lunch. We would stand at the front door at straight-up noon and wait until he noticed us. It was an unpleasant affair and I dreaded it even from a young age. He was so nervous about being out of the store, even though we were only three doors down at a small diner. He would constantly look toward the front windows as if expecting one of the clerks to come needing his help. They never came. He repeatedly looked at his watch, and would almost always take his chicken salad sandwich with him.
“In the fourth grade, as we were preparing to go on our weekly lunchtime with Daddy, I asked my mother if we could stay home. She pretended to act surprised I didn’t want to go, but I knew she was relieved. He never mentioned our not coming. So we never did again.
“Years later I met one of his clerks. When he realized who I was, he began to tell me stories about my father. He was long dead by then, so the man supposed, I guess, there would be no harm. He was wrong.
“‘Your dad was the biggest hypochondriac I ever met,’ the clerk began. ‘There were three of us that worked there. College kids, full of piss and vinegar. We would do anything to get him out of that store. One of the guys realized one day that he could suggest your dad didn’t look good, and within the hour he would go homesick. So when he was particularly wound up about increasing sales or us not talking to a pretty customer, we would start in.
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