Some Kind of Animal

by Maria Romasco-Moore

  “Okay,” says the older cop. “Names?” He pulls a notepad out of his pocket. The younger cop is squinting at Savannah.

  “You used to date my sister,” Savannah blurts out.

  “What?” says the older cop.

  “She means me,” says the younger cop.

  “That true, Jake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s a small world.”

  “There was a wolf,” I say quickly, “or maybe a dog. Maybe a German shepherd or something. Or one of those half-wolves that people have, you know? Maybe it was somebody’s guard dog or something and it got loose. It came out of nowhere and it knocked him down and there was nothing I could do.”

  “Now, just slow down there, darling,” says the older cop. “I haven’t even got your name yet.”

  “Jolene” I say. “Jolene Richards.”

  He makes a show of writing it on his pad.

  “Are we under arrest?” asks Savannah.

  “Jolene Richards,” says the cop. “That’s ringing a real bell. I book you before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for—” he stops, looking past me, into the woods. I feel a wave of dread.

  No. She wouldn’t.

  I whip around, follow the cop’s gaze into the dark, but there’s nothing there.

  “Oh,” says the cop. “Right.”

  “What?” asks Jake.

  “It’s nothing,” says the older cop. “I’ll tell you later.”

  I realize then. It wasn’t nothing.

  He recognized my name because it’s the same as my mother’s.

  Our family was never very creative when it came to naming kids, so my grandparents Margaret and Joe named one daughter Margaret (Aggie for short) and the other Jolene. When I showed up, everyone just called me “Jolene’s baby” until the second part was no longer true.

  When we were little, my sister had trouble saying my name. The closest she would come to Jolene was “Leelee,” which was close enough. And I’d call her Lee. Like an echo of me.

  As far as I know, that’s the only name my sister has.

  This cop is more than old enough to remember Mama’s case, to have worked on it. Her disappearance was a big deal. Her murder. People still talk about how the cops should have tried harder, how it was a crying shame that they were never able to pin it on the Cantrell boys in a way that would stick. In the beginning, some people thought Mama might have just run away. But as time wore on with no sign of her and, to hear them tell it, all kinds of strange things going on up at the Cantrells’ trailer, they made up their minds. A few people think Brandon might have been the one who killed Mama, rather than his brother. He’s the one who brought me into town, after all, and his story kept changing. Most people think that, at the very least, he helped.

  Logan Cantrell got put away anyway, four years later, for possession, trafficking, and “engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity,” as part of a big drug bust in the area. He’s been locked up nearly my whole life, so I’ve never met him. Never wanted to, either, knowing what he did to Mama. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a father, not really. Just Mama and Aggie. That’s enough.

  From what I’ve heard, Brandon skipped town not long after Logan’s arrest, abandoned their double-wide trailer at the top of the ridge. Ran off to who knows where.

  There’s a rustling in the underbrush nearby and the older cop flinches. He’s thinking of glowing eyes maybe, teeth red with blood.

  “I think it’s still out there,” I say, trying to sound scared, Savannah’s trick. The noise was probably just a possum or something, but the cop seems rattled.

  “Maybe you better get on the horn,” he says to Jake. “Call in animal services.” He turns back to us, looking embarrassed. “All right, why don’t we all just go sit in the car and you can tell us what happened and then we’ll get you gals home.”

  * * *

  —

  When Savannah tells her part of the story she leaves out the joint, of course, leaves out the Mountain Dew bottle. I’m sure the cops can tell we’ve been drinking, but if they tried to crack down on underage drinking around here my guess is they’d run out of room in the cells after half a day. Savannah claims that she and Jack were “looking for ghosts” on the other side of the creek. She says she heard me scream and came running. Says she doesn’t know what happened. The cop writes it all down.

  “You girls ought to be more careful,” he says finally. “You shouldn’t be wandering around at night. It isn’t safe.” He gives us a patronizing smile and then he turns around and starts the car while I fume, silently.

  People always think teenage girls are stupid, or naive. Like we are fawns wandering out onto the highway, like we don’t know about the things people out there want to do to us, like we aren’t steeped in that shit from the moment we hit adolescence. Before that, even. We know. I know. Aggie and Margaret made sure of it. Your body is a bomb, a trap, a constant danger to yourself and others.

  But what am I supposed to do? Walk around thinking about it every moment? Never leave the house? Wrap my whole body up in caution tape, in chains?

  People would say Mama was evidence enough that you should. But that’s bullshit. What happened to her wasn’t her fault. And if she was as wild as people say, then she wouldn’t want me to hide. She’d want me to enjoy myself, wouldn’t she? She probably had nights like this all the time. Well, the first part anyway.

  As futile as it is, as dumb and sentimental, the truth is that I want more than anything in this world to make Mama proud.

  Savannah and I don’t speak during the ride. She won’t even look at me, just stares out the window. I stare out my window, too, clutch my aching wrist to my side. When we reach Savannah’s house, the older cop gets out of the car to knock on her front door. Jake twists around to check on us.

  “Aren’t you going to go say hi to Dakota?” asks Savannah. “She’s single again, you know.”

  Jake twists back around quick. Savannah sneers at the back of his head. The older cop is walking across the lawn. He’s almost at the car, when Savannah suddenly leans across the seat and whispers in my ear.

  “You’re lying,” she says. “I know you are.”

  And then the older cop is opening the door and grabbing Savannah’s arm. He’s leading her away and there’s nothing I can do.

  * * *

  —

  Aggie comes running out of Joe’s Bar the moment we pull up, tipped off by Savannah’s mother no doubt. Savannah’s mom has probably told half the town by now, honestly, knowing her. Aggie must have been waiting by the window, peering out through the neon signs. Blue Moon. Bud Light. On Tap. All Night.

  A small crowd of drinkers pours out of the bar after her, craning their necks to see what the fuss is about. The pastor is one of them. He’s standing behind Aggie, his arm outstretched, touching her shoulder in a way that could pass, I guess, as simply comforting.

  The older cop gets out and talks to Aggie, but her eyes remain fixed on the car where I’m sitting. I try to sink down into the seat, below her line of sight. Eventually the cop comes over and opens the door and I have no choice but to get out. I only make it a few steps before Aggie’s got her arms around me, squeezing too hard.

  “Don’t you ever lie to me like that again,” she says into my hair.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  She lets go of me then, hauls back, and slaps me across the face. The pain is sharp, shocking. Almost as bad as the bite. I put my hand to my cheek, tears springing to my eyes, too surprised to do more than stare at her.

  A funny look crosses her face. She’s never hit me like that before, like her mother does, and she’s sorry. I can tell. The look is only there for a second and then she’s grabbing my hand, the right one luckily, leading me into the bar like I’
m a baby. Jessi the bartender looks up as we pass, starts to say something, but Aggie marches right past her and into the narrow kitchen. She pushes me into the folding chair next to the sink.

  “I’ve got to square things out there,” she says, voice tight. “Don’t you move.”

  She goes back into the bar. I stare at the speckled black floor tiles and test out different answers to the questions she hasn’t asked yet. When she comes back, I don’t give her a chance. I just launch right into it.

  “Savannah was feeling sick,” I say, “so we walked over to the gas station to get her some ginger ale and Jack Bickle was there and he said he’d give us a ride home but he took us to his house instead and he said beer was better than ginger ale for an upset stomach and I wanted to come home but I couldn’t just leave Savannah, you know? I had to watch out for her.”

  Aggie frowns, but she wants to believe me, I can tell. She grabs my wrist, the left one this time—the bite marks are hidden by my sleeve—and I yelp in pain, but she doesn’t let go. She jerks me off the chair and up the back stairs.

  In the old days, when Grandpa Joe was alive, the first floor of the bar was for sitting or playing pool, and the second was for dancing. The town had more people back then, but the population has been declining steadily for years, according to Aggie, so while we do enough business to get by, there’s no need for so much space. When we moved out of Margaret’s house, the year I turned nine, Aggie converted the second floor of the bar into an apartment. We keep our sofa and TV on the little wooden stage where bands once played. Our bathroom still has a urinal on the wall. Aggie keeps a plastic plant in it so guests won’t be tempted.

  She steers me toward the bathroom now.

  “Can I call—” I start, thinking maybe I can check in with Savannah, find out how her mother reacted, see if she’s heard anything about Henry yet.

  Ask what the hell she meant by You’re lying, I know you are.

  “No.” Aggie cuts me off, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Shower. Don’t dawdle.”

  When I take my shirt off in the bathroom, the left sleeve sticks to the drying blood on my wrist. I yank it free and the bite starts bleeding again. I rinse the sleeve and the wound in the shower, swallow my pain. It hurts worse now than it did in the woods. I try to think about track, about running, those moments when all your muscles are screaming at you to stop, to rest, but you push through it. This is just a different kind of pain. I can push through it.

  When I come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hiding my wrist under my bundled clothes, Aggie shoves my pajamas at me and pushes me to my bedroom. It’s a room that didn’t use to exist. The walls are thin, put up quick by the guys Aggie hired to renovate. We moved in earlier than Aggie had planned, before construction on the rooms was done. We had to camp downstairs in sleeping bags for weeks.

  Aggie and Grandma Margaret had always argued, but in the months leading up to the move, it got worse and worse, until one morning Aggie woke me up at dawn and said, We’re leaving, Jo. Come on, pack quick. The night before, they’d had one of their big screaming, throwing-things fights. The fight was about God. I could hear it all from my bedroom, even with a pillow over my head, Aggie shouting, How can you stand there and tell me to just have faith after what happened? No, go on, you tell me where the hell your goddamn guardian angels were for my baby sister? You go on and tell me where the hell was your God? And then Grandma Margaret saying, She turned her back on him. She turned her back. And then a glass breaking and a door slamming so hard it shook the whole house.

  “Go to sleep,” says Aggie, before she closes my door. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  —

  I lie awake listening to the murmur of the drinkers downstairs, feeling sick. I’m used to sneaking dregs of beer in the bar, but whatever was in that Mountain Dew bottle was strong. I can feel it sloshing around in my stomach even now. All the pleasant, numbing effects are wearing off, leaving only the poison.

  All I can think about is what I left out of the story I told Aggie. Who I left out.

  Henry.

  Henry Henry Henry.

  He’s fine, right? He opened his eyes. His heart was still going.

  He’s probably already sitting up in a hospital bed, smiling, brushing off jokes from Jack about what a baby he is, what an absolute girl. He’s probably laughing, probably saying—

  Saying what? That a girl in a dirty blue dress came out of the woods and attacked him? A girl who looks a lot like me? Almost exactly like me.

  It’s too much to expect that he told my lie. He was barely conscious. Will he even remember what I said? If he does, what will he think of me?

  Even if Henry does lie, a doctor can probably tell the difference between a wolf bite and a human bite. Our teeth are different shapes. What the hell was I thinking?

  I’m out of bed almost before I realize what I’m doing. I’m pulling on jeans and a hoodie, wincing as the fabric brushes my left wrist. I’m easing the window open. I left my sister out of the story, too, but I always leave her out.

  I don’t know where I’m going. The hospital is twenty miles away, in Delphi. Even if I knew how to get there, it would take me hours on foot. I don’t have a plan. It’s all too much, the weight of what happened pressing down on me, and I need to get out. Need to run. Run until I no longer feel anything.

  I’m swinging my leg over the sill, when the clouds part and sunlight strikes me.

  Except that makes no sense.

  It’s the middle of the night. The sky in the distance is pitch black.

  I look up, and there, bolted to the side of the building where before there was nothing, is one of those motion sensor lamps people put over their garages.

  I freeze, half in, half out, straddling the windowsill, and blink away the ghosts.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The summer after Aggie and I moved into the bar, my sister would sneak into town some nights. She was reluctant at first, but I convinced her slowly, meeting her in the deep woods by Margaret’s house and leading her a little farther each time, keeping to the dark streets around the edges of town. After a few weeks, she grew confident enough to come into town on her own. When I snuck out, I’d meet up with her in the abandoned building three doors over. We would play a game of staying in the shadows, skirting the edges of the streetlights.

  I had a plan, that summer. I’d given up on the idea that Lee could ever live with me and be a normal girl. But maybe there was a way to compromise. I’d started stashing supplies, bought with my allowance, on the second floor of the abandoned building. I thought I could make a secret home for her there. The upstairs windows were bricked up, so no one would see her. She could sleep during the day still, but with a roof over her head instead of leaves. We’d set trip wires around the perimeter to guard against junkies (there were some needles on the first floor, but they looked old, half-buried in the dirt and weeds). She’d be close to me. I could protect her.

  Maybe eventually, when she got comfortable, I could bring Savannah to see her. Maybe even Aggie, if I could get her to swear on the memory of Grandpa Joe that she’d keep my secret safe.

  The plan didn’t work out, of course, and the freedom of that summer didn’t last. Still, it was thrilling while it did. Sometimes, when my sister and I crept down an alleyway, a light on someone’s garage would snap on suddenly and then we’d run like hell and hide, as if the light were chasing us. Crouched under a bush, I would laugh and my sister’s eyes would shine.

  But in the window I’m caught. Usually I wait until the bar is closed before I sneak out. Our street is mostly empty storefronts, so it’s pretty dead after two a.m. Tonight, though, I didn’t wait. I can still hear, faintly, the music from downstairs.

  And there’s a spotlight shining right on me.

  I hold my breath, as if that will make me invi
sible. The motion sensor’s timer runs out and the light clicks off. I feel a rush of relief, but really I’m no better off than I was before.

  I take a deep breath, swing my leg over the sill and hop onto the slats of the fire escape. The light snaps back on.

  “Jolene,” says the pastor.

  He’s in my room, by the door, barely a shadow. I didn’t even hear him come in. I take a step back, away from the window.

  The pastor crosses the room in a few quick strides, holds out his hand. “Come back inside,” he says.

  I don’t move. His fingers are in the open window. I could slam the frame down and run.

  “If you don’t,” he says, “I will have to go get Aggie.”

  I stare at his hand. If I were my sister, I would pull out my folding knife and stab him right in the life line. Although who knows, maybe he’d love that. His own personal stigmata. He’d probably go around making people touch the wound. Stick their fingers down inside. Feel the Holy Spirit move.

  “And,” says the pastor, voice calm and even, “I will call the police. I doubt they’ll be pleased, having to come back here so soon.”

  Defeated, I climb through the window, ignoring his hand. He shuts the window behind me, latches it.

  “I need to find out if Henry is okay,” I say. I don’t know how much the pastor knows already. “He got hurt. They took him to the hospital.”

  “And what,” says the pastor, “you were going to run there?”

  I shrug.

  “Jolene,” he says, and I hate the sound of that name in his mouth. Jolene is Mama. I’m just Jo. “You are running headlong down the wrong path right now.”

  “Fuck you,” I say. It tumbles out before I can stop it, but the pastor just frowns. I stomp over to where I left my pajamas in a heap on the floor.

  “I want to help you,” says the pastor. He’s still standing by the window, leaning against the sill, blocking it, as if he thinks I’ll make another run for it. “Your mother didn’t have anyone to help her,” he says.