Vera Violet

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Vera Violet Page 13

by Melissa Anne Peterson


  I stood outside the gate of the junkyard and stared. It was Annie’s mangled heart that huddled among the wreckage.

  I took the Grays Harbor Transit to Aberdeen. I got out at the shingle mill and scanned the parking lot for Brady’s truck. I searched for the familiar trouble—the hot poker I just could not put down.

  I hung out by the lunch truck and smoked menthols. I waited. Inside, Brady was a bleary-eyed ghost who stood in a fog. The mill was dark and dreary. The machinery persistent and loud. He could hear only his own thoughts—and they tortured him. The clock announced 8 a.m.

  The men relaxed.

  Brady bought cigarettes and orange juice from the lunch truck. I looked at the faded orange lines of the parking lot. The paint was chipping and blistered. The men from the graveyard shift looked sleepy. They smiled. Brady stared at the floor and mumbled to the cashier. He smiled without showing his teeth. I stood in front of the soda machine at the entrance.

  Brady stuck his smokes in his shirt pocket and noticeably cringed when he saw me. He stood for a moment with his eyes closed. He gathered his thoughts. His right hand squeezed his orange juice as he walked toward me. He leaned against the soda machine. My reckless fists pounded the plastic buttons on the machine. The other men nodded at me politely. They said nothing as they slipped past us. None of them bought sodas.

  “Let’s go,” Brady finally said. As we walked through the parking lot I told him that Timothy was at Nadine’s. Would stay at Nadine’s. I told him how Colin’s red eyes no longer found mine. And that sometimes he still asked if I’d seen Monique. I rambled on about these things. My words found only the empty cave of Brady’s mind.

  In his brain, Annie was home. She washed and waxed her Cougar. The Galaxie 500 was not wrecked. There were no horrible, blank mornings. The ’57 was flat black and rumbled in the garage. And Jimmy James played his Les Paul loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

  Brady unlocked his Bronco, motioned for me to get in, and slammed the door behind me.

  He got in and let the engine warm up. He stared into the street for a moment. He blinked bloodshot eyes. The world suffocated him. Heavy black plastic smothered his face. It obscured his vision. He took a shallow breath. “I’m glad you came,” he said as he maneuvered through the moldy city. He drove home in silence.

  When we got there, the single-wide and porch were cluttered. Every space was filled with different projects in various stages of completion. They jumbled together and spilled out onto the bare earth.

  Patch panels hid in cardboard boxes. They leaned against the porch out of the rain. They waited to be welded onto the steel bodies. They waited for the careful, feminine hands to do them justice.

  Jimmy James’s Fairlane waited patiently under blue and green tarps. Its mean front fenders peeked out threateningly. They told cautionary tales about Jimmy James’s temper. The younger boys who hung around were duly warned. The fenders were smug. They jeered at everyone but him. They cast insults and bragged haughtily.

  But Jimmy James hadn’t come to see the ’57 lately. The car was bleak and morose. Its tarps were unkempt and forgotten. It sat in the rain and the upholstery rotted. Grass grew through the tires. It stewed and became acidic—flat black and rusty.

  I knew the car would change if Jimmy James came near. It groveled and begged for his attention. The metal came alive when he touched it. The ’57 waited. It waited for Jimmy James, Brady, Fitz, and Joey to turn up their music, get their tools out, and drink beer. It waited for Annie to put on her mask and weld her fine, perfect lines while casting shadows in the blue light from the flame. It waited for the grease under their fingernails that never quite went away—the black that stained the calloused hands—the blood that smeared unheeded. The metal echoed with the sounds of the laughter and curses that lasted all night. It had a memory of the young kids who showed up in hordes to watch. The pretty girls who spit and swore. The young boys who smoked cigarettes and watched. We all drank vodka straight from the bottle. Annie stood tall and shouted orders. She was thin—loud and direct—murderous if crossed. Kids flocked from machine shops and tattoo parlors in two counties to watch the boys with their shirts off and Queen Annie with her scowl. I sat on a bench out of the way and drew it all: The grease monkeys. The wrench tattoos. The shaved heads. Steel that waited for strong young bodies to crowd around it. To grow smudged and oily and black and bloody from the work. The Fairlane that waited for the Man from Angel Road to spew cuss words. That waited for his temper to flare and take on the world. Throw punches with incurable rage. I drew the wide shoulders that loomed in doorways and helped make possible among us a pure, formidable desire—to make happen all the careful plans that had been laid.

  I remembered how I first searched for the name that I fell in love with. How I hunted the streets of a dead town for a live soul. Jimmy James—lit up by a streetlight in the parking lot of the All Night Diner. The night I realized he was the Fighter Boy from so long ago. His shaved head unreformed. A thin strip of hair on his chin. Suspenders with no shirt. Denim and boots. His wifebeater hanging from his back pocket. It was summertime. He was free. His tattoos told stories of worldwide organizations, decadence in peril, letters and numbers and codes and symbols. A 428 sat spewing on a hairless chest. Prone and spluttering. Motor oil like dark blood dripping. He stood on that curb while his Ford Ranger idled. He talked seriously. His body lithe and powerful. Cota kids, country boys, teenagers from the immigrant work camps, and boys from the rez all stood around him. They listened with reverence and wide eyes fixated. He was a livid god. His lips curled and cursed. They slid over crooked teeth. His feet stood shoulder-width apart. His worn jeans clung to him. His hands gestured easily with conviction. The boys spit on the pavement littered with trash. And they listened to him preach anarchy. And they listened with their heads raised. And he spoke of the revolution. And they stood there as every color became one color—the color of life and death.

  He talked of the world dissipating and forgetting. Flames from piles of burning books reaching the sky. History being rewritten by evil men. He kept talking with a crazed assurance. About the reason why Joey was in Alaska at the cannery—the reason for the lockbox bolted to the wall underneath Brady’s bed—the reason all of us had begun to hold our heads so high. The knowledge that would give us power—that would save us.

  Our apartment had a door that was opened to agitated sixteen-year-olds. The Man from Angel Road listened while the young men talked lowly and earnestly. He encouraged and supported. I hid under the covers from the hallway light while they talked, and the door slammed, and the engines rumbled outside in the parking lot. Sometimes, he did not return to me in our bed. Those times he leaned down with his jacket on, laced his boots, pulled on his black skullcap, soothed me with anxious whispers, “I gotta go take care of a few things. Promise I’ll be back.” He told me not to let anyone in, before he locked the door behind him. I gathered Timothy and carried him to the big bed. I held on to his little body and felt like I was in a war zone. I watched his cheeks huff in and out with his breath. My heart yearned to be standing beside Jimmy James, and I wondered if maybe I was a better fighter than Mother.

  That day at Brady’s, Fitz came home early from his gas station job. He told us he’d been fired. He stared straight ahead and looked bored and angry—explained to Brady and me about how the tourist customers were offended by him. He was not good at being nice. Fitz sat next to Brady on the front porch. They both looked beaten down. It took me to a place beyond misery. I didn’t like seeing them with no hope. They didn’t look strong anymore—something had punched the wind out of them. We sat in silence. It was Friday. We looked at the fog, and the old evergreen trees, and listened to the neighbor’s tractor. We had our backs against the wall, our boots up on the railing. We stared morbidly at the ground. The fence post and the black rocks—the stains from the dried blood. We opened our beer cans in unison. “I saw the Cougar at the junkyard.” I told them because it was hurting m
e.

  Brady leaned far back in his seat and let his long, hard night wear off. “Yeah.” Brady sighed after answering. “Some high school kid wrecked it.” Brady didn’t have to say anything else. He looked straight ahead. He was wearing cracked Danner boots made in Portland. His eyes were ringed with worry lines. A strained sadness hovered around them. He had a beard on his face. He wasn’t the healthy, good-looking Hot Rod Brady Robbins who was still in love with Annie Kiss. He didn’t chase after the beautiful girl who nobody really knew. He couldn’t watch her luscious brown hair sway back and forth as she worked on her Cougar, or walked to work, or drove down Railroad Avenue with both her windows rolled down. He talked with his elbow propped up on the arm of his chair—a faint look of tortured happiness in his mud-colored eyes. He talked so we could all feel alive. He gestured with his cigarette and told a story with his eyes dreaming—his grubby clothes forgotten. He told us about being young and clean-cut. When everything was not simple or easy but still possible. He told us about how no matter how fast your car is, you can’t drive away from some things. Because some troubles are harder and faster and uglier than you.

  23

  THE 1967 MERCURY

  At first Brady’s voice was cracked and broken. But as he went on it smoothed into the grooves of his story. His words flowed into a river of rain and blood and memory. He took us with him. His rambling traveled like spilled oil across a shop floor—steam escaping in hisses—the cracks in a radiator that scream. His stories lifted him—tormented. They left him broken and dreamless. Like a man serving a life sentence—he could only reminisce. The best times were over. The rest of his life was a perpetually unfulfilling joke. All he had were dull words—bleak and meaningless when compared with the real thing. His life. His girl. Even the cursed baby.

  Brady said, “Annie worked at the ice-cream shop after school for two years straight to buy that car.” His sentence was short and shaky but it meant so much. We knew how she walked to work every evening. Dished up thousands of ice-cream cones, slid milk shakes down the counter, made sundaes with cherries and whipped cream. She smiled automatically. She wiped her hands on bleached rags. She served uncomplainingly. Even when the customers were rude and demanding. Because there was no talking back. There was no defending. She could not leave her post. She had to keep smiling. She had to dish up ice cream. Her hands grew dry and red from the bleached rags.

  The car was the only thing she ever owned. She rebuilt the 289 herself. Annie was damn proud. Damn proud of that car. She named the Cougar’s paint job creamy pinky. It had gold flecks and four layers of clear coat. She insisted on that extra clear coat. She said she wanted her paint to look wavy. Like ice cream.

  Annie could sit on her hair. It covered her back like a mantle. It crowned her thin body. She wore matching boots that went up to her knees, leather jackets that fit her curves, red lipstick, short skirts, blunt-cut bangs, and a teasing, all-knowing half smile. Her hair hung down her back and alongside her face. It matched her eyes. The color reflected in her pale pink skin. Her hair was a wall. It was untouchable and unnamable. It was hard to remember after it was gone. It put you under a crazy-drug spell. You couldn’t recall why it was so beautiful. You couldn’t put your finger on why you watched it so closely.

  Annie was fifteen when I met her. She was wild and unstable. Annie was a fast girl. A head scrambler. A flirtatious manipulator. She was a hard-ass when it came to money. Tough as nails when it came to getting what she wanted. We got along just fine.

  We hung out downtown at Kneeland Park. Kids dropped by to see us. We had chin-up contests on the monkey bars. We smoked cigarettes and drank Dr Pepper. I remember laughing.

  One day, I told her I was going to find her cousin.

  “Jimmy James?” she asked wisely.

  I nodded, and told her I didn’t believe in destiny. That night I left her at the park and walked uptown to the All Night Diner alone. Things happened quickly. All of a sudden Annie and I were sixteen and driving. I had a best friend, and we visited Jimmy James and Brady every weekend.

  I’ll never forget the day that trailer was stifling hot and smelled like sweaty feet and old food. We told the boys to make their own dinner. Drove to the river without them. Waved good-bye in cowboy boots and bikinis. Pretended not to hear them pleading with us to come along. Stifled giggles as they tried in vain to wave us down. We bought ourselves chocolate milk shakes at a roadside stand. We drove with all the windows down.

  Brady fiddled with an alternator on the table. “She lived in that car,” he said.

  Fitz and I both nodded softly.

  He went on, “Sometimes she sat in our driveway for hours listening to music and smoking her Camel Wides. I remember pulling up one day, and she didn’t hear my engine, she had Reverend Horton Heat up real loud. She had her feet stuck out the window and her shoes kicked off. I seen her toes point and swing to the music. I just sat and watched her. It was sunny. She had this pink polish on her toes and the sun was shining across her legs. I suddenly wanted to hold her feet in my lap but I never knew when it was okay to touch her.” Brady sighed and spit over the railing. It arced professionally. Not a drop fell on his front porch.

  I knew Annie lived in her car because she had a mean daddy. I thought he was like that because she was so beautiful. His wife, Annie and Stiv’s mama, died when she was seven. He never got over it. He drank too much. Knocked them both around and then cried about it. Annie Kiss hated him. She hurried to get away. The hard part was that she loved her daddy just as much, if not more, than she hated him. Loved him more than I could understand, loved him more than I wanted to know.

  He wasn’t always like that. He wasn’t like that before their mama died and they were just kids running around on the creek bottoms. Jimmy James told me so. He remembered Annie’s mama hanging laundry in the backyard. He remembered when her daddy turned mean.

  But to Annie, her daddy was her daddy. The only daddy she knew. The only daddy she ever had. No matter what he did to her, she still tried to make him happy. She still tried to help him get better.

  Brady clenched his giant fists around the alternator without realizing it. He was clenching them so hard the blood drained out of them. His finger muscles strained and trembled. He shook from his anger and the feeling that it was too, too late. Fitz and I weren’t really there for a moment. Brady’s feelings took up all the energy on the porch. He struggled for a few seconds—to him it was a miserable eternity. He shook his head, shook it off. His coulda beens would follow him around his entire life. He went on doggedly, croaking at first, “Her daddy was pretty pissed when she stopped coming home. We saw him screaming and cussing at her when she walked out the door away from him. All of the sudden she was grown and he was an old man.

  “And he saw us waiting with the engine running. And it was like he realized all at once that we could kill him. So he couldn’t really do nothing but yell at her. And watch us outta the corner of his eye.

  “He’d gotten worse as she got older. When Stiv stopped being around as much. Stiv got out as soon as he could. Bummed around from couch to couch. Soon as he was sixteen he got a job at the shipyard. So then Annie got all his anger. He was always mad at her. Talked to her like she was a dog or somethin’. The trailer they lived in had this mold growing up the side of it that never really got washed off. Whenever I see mold like that I get reminded of how hotheaded I felt when she left, and he called her those names. It wasn’t true—none of the things he accused her of. It made me mad. I had to keep my mouth shut, though, if I wanted to be with her. Her daddy knew it, too. So I just stared at that mold and the yard around it. I have it memorized. Her daddy’s old International rotted in one corner, her pile o’ shit brother’s broken-down Tempo was in the middle. Two Chrysler minivans and a Charger that coulda been nice if he’da done something with it. I can see the entire piece of property when I shut my eyes. She was standing out there in her jacket getting rained on because they didn’t have such a thing as a porc
h—just a doorway outside and slippery wooden steps. She always seemed so thin and bowed-in when he did that, when he got real deep into her. She just took it. Shrunk down into herself, her legs shook, and her face got white so her lips stood out. The blood seemed to drain right out of her body. But her hair.” Brady shook his head in amazement. “It stayed so alive and brown.

  “She snapped out of it by the time she got to the car where we were all waiting for her—me and Jimmy James and this geeky kid named Carrot who lived around there. Stiv wasn’t there. He prolly woulda brawled with his old man. He was always doin’ that. I hope we were good for her. A whole car filled with real friends huddled against each other smoking cigarettes in the rain with the engine running and the radio on. A whole car filled with guys who would’ve done anything for her. We knew her daddy was mean and full of shit and told her so when she finally put her suitcase in the trunk and got in for the last time. She shook her head like she wanted us to bug off.” Brady picked up the alternator and slammed it back down on the table. “I never wanted nobody else my whole goddamn life.” He was shaking.

  He’d been thinking about it every day. He pieced all the words together perfectly. He tried to sort it out and still came back to the same thing: the feeling of standing at the edge of a huge crevice in the earth—a loaded gun in his hand.

  “We’d run away together before that. During the summer mostly. We camped out in the woods with sleeping bags and tarps. We built fires every night, and I stole beer from my ma. We’d move around so’s nobody could find us. That was when we were younger. She bought that car so she could sleep in it when she needed to. And she did. Quite a bit. Way more often than she let on to any of us. It had a big-enough trunk to keep a box of clothes and all that. She felt more at home there than anywhere. I can’t stop picturing her all alone sleeping on that bench seat in the middle of the woods. Pissing behind trees and brushing her teeth using a water bottle. She was tough, though. Wouldn’t ever ask any of us for a goddamn thing. I got a job and moved to town along with Jimmy James, and I guess I kinda left her. She wanted out of her daddy’s trailer for good, and she knew that to do it she needed cash. Fast. She wouldn’t move in with me. She had this idea that she wanted to do everything herself.

 

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