A rope had always hung from the beams of the gymnasium, and until that day, I never gave it much thought. When he unmoored it, I watched the boys go first. At thirteen, the boys in my class were still basically monkeys. Almost all of them made it to the top. I was the first girl, and again, I think he did it on purpose. My class expected me to conquer the rope and maybe even climb up a second time, just for show. Unfortunately, all I could do was hang there, feet on the bottom knot. Red-faced, I tried everything to get hold and pull myself up with pure determination. No luck. When he told me to quit, I refused.
All I could think of was getting to the beams above, scrawled with initials, in Magic Marker. After I had dangled for a full minute, Coach Bitzche physically removed me from the rope, and I collapsed in his arms. I tried to break free, tried to go back to that rope, full of fury. He restrained me. My classmates were silent, and all I could think about was coming back to the gym that night and setting the rope on fire, watching the smoke snake up the rough knots, a line of flames climbing and climbing and finally devouring, and the rope would come crashing to the ground.
“Fuck you,” I said.
I guess that’s what started it all.
A conference was called, a rare night meeting, the only way my mother would agree to attend. She would not close the gas station, certainly not for a carpetbagger and a dumb jock.
At six thirty, she arrived, pissed off, and she let them know it.
“This,” she hissed, waving her hand around the principal’s office. “This is not important. None of this bullshit has anything to do with real life. Don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise. My daughter does not need to know how to climb a rope. She should be learning algebra or whatever. Maybe you should offer a class on obscenity and how to be a decent person.”
“I think that’s the job of the church,” suggested Principal Beaudin.
“Or her parents,” offered Coach Bitzche, and caught himself. “I’m sorry.”
“I will burn down your house,” said my mother. “I have an unlimited supply of gasoline.”
And with that, she exited, and I followed closely behind, navigating her wake.
When we got home, she threw her purse across the kitchen, and it flew and collided with the wall. Before she started carrying a phone around, her purse was still capable of an impressive trajectory.
She sat down at the dining room table, lit a cigarette.
“That Bitzche is at the top of my list,” she said. “You watch him, Tiffany. You study every goddamn move he makes.” Sometimes, my mother could read my mind. Just like with Waterbed Fred’s mustache, I wanted everybody to know the truth.
That night, I pulled on black track pants in case I had to crouch, stuffed my pockets with gloves, gum, matches, a tiny flashlight that only worked if you stuck your finger inside and pushed on the battery. When I entered the kitchen, my mother was still awake, rare at ten o’clock. I was sure she would comment on my ensemble, but she remained silent as I walked past. She knew exactly where I was going, but I guess she didn’t want to be an accomplice.
The Bitzches lived in a single-wide and defined their yard with cinder blocks, set a foot apart, spray-painted bright yellow. We had a problem with drunk drivers who thought the trailer park was a good place to cruise, sloppy laps with cases of beer on the dashboard, driving through people’s yards and spinning out in mud season. In the winter, the plows ran over the Bitzches’ cinder blocks, pushed them out of whack, and after spring thaw, it was amazing to see where they landed.
I crouched between the dumpster and a random pile of gravel, abandoned so long that trees grew from it. I felt a thrill in that darkness. All my life, I had wanted to disappear, and at night, in that dark trailer court, none of the neighbors could see me.
Most importantly, the Bitzches couldn’t either. In the living room, Bitsy and his mom watched television, a dating show. My view was so clear that I could see the commercials.
When Coach Bitzche came home an hour later, I pushed myself against the dumpster, dodging the wake of his headlights. I watched him enter the house, and he passed his wife and son without a word.
The window at the far end of the trailer suddenly filled with light, and I could see it was the master bedroom. Dutifully, I watched as he stretched out on the perfectly made bed, still wearing his stupid whistle. For an hour, I crouched there, waiting for Coach Bitzche to expose some sort of weakness. Instead, he fell asleep. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to find his rope, but little did I know, it would end up entangling me forever.
I heard Ronnie’s stupid diesel engine a full minute before he arrived, so I had plenty of time to creep around the corner of the dumpster. His red truck stopped in front of the Bitzches’. It was nearly midnight on a Monday, and I knew it was church night, so I stayed to watch. Lorraine and the baby waited in the truck, even though they lived four trailers away. The Meatloaf was no gentleman.
I saw the shape of Lorraine’s giant hair when he opened his door, the interior light revealing a package he clutched to his chest, a flat cardboard box.
I watched as he knocked, and Bitsy and his mom never even got off the couch. It was late, but they just stared at the television. Now I knew why Bitsy looked so tired all the time. Ronnie walked right past them, all the way to the master bedroom. Coach Bitzche nodded when Ronnie handed him the package, and with his right hand, offered the Meatloaf a firm handshake. That was it. Ronnie left and drove Lorraine home. I waited another twenty minutes for Coach Bitzche to unwrap the package, but it remained untouched. When he finally left the room, another light flickered on. It must have been the bathroom, because he returned wearing pajamas.
I wanted to talk to Ronnie before I told my mother anything, so I went to his house the next day, an hour before my mother would arrive home from work.
He heard my footsteps on the porch and swung open the door before I could even knock.
“Be quiet,” he said. “Lorraine is taking a nap. She’s exhausted.”
“I saw you at the coach’s last night,” I said. “I didn’t know you two were close.”
“He’s going to teach me a sleeper hold,” he said. “He knows lots of things about hand-to-hand combat.”
“I thought you were at church,” I said. “You go to Idaho every Monday. You talk about it all the time.” Which was true. On Monday nights, his church said special prayers for drunk drivers.
“Why do you care? You chose to be a dirty heathen, so it’s none of your business.” He tried to push the door shut, but I stuck my boot out.
“You’re right,” I said. “I was just walking past the coach’s house, and I saw you give him a package. I thought it was weird, that’s all. I know you’ve got issues with Mom, but the coach is her new archnemesis. I know how much you like revenge.”
“I do,” he said. “But if I wanted revenge on Mom, it would be spectacular. You would know. The whole world would know.” This was true. “If you paid attention to anybody other than yourself, you would know I go to Brother Bitzche’s house every Monday night.”
“He’s in your church?”
“Don’t act so shocked,” he said. “Our followers are everywhere. We look just like everybody else.” I wasn’t sure about that. Lorraine had to wear an ankle-length dress every time they crossed the state line, and in Gabardine, everybody wore jeans, except for the cheerleaders, and their dresses barely covered their thighs.
“Is he doing some sort of correspondence course or something? Why doesn’t he go to Idaho?”
“He is a busy man,” said Ronnie. “He does God’s work every time a young man learns how to discipline his body.”
“Gross,” I said.
“I bring the church to him,” said Ronnie. “And I’m proud of it. My pastor prepares his homework every Monday, and I deliver the good word.”
I removed my boot. “Whatever,” I said. “I ju
st wanted to make sure you weren’t messing with Mom.”
“I could bring you homework,” offered the Meatloaf, as I scurried off the porch and into the frozen yard. “You are my blood, and I would help you through the Rapture. We would go slow, I promise.”
“The Rapture can’t come quick enough,” I said.
The next night, I waited until my mother got off work and made my report to her at the kitchen table. I made sure to mention Ronnie’s offer to save my soul.
“Bible study?” She was incredulous. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”
Chapter Fourteen
ON THE LAST DAY OF school, I overheard the bonfire plans. David partnered with me in home ec because he had issues with food safety and he knew I washed my hands. Of course, I was doing most of the work because he was lecturing his four cheerleaders. While he crushed the potato chips for our tuna noodle casserole with a giant hand, he warned them about the party in the woods. In David’s opinion, the forests did not contain trees, only alcohol and obscure venereal diseases.
He had good reason to worry, especially about Kaitlynn, always the most sexually adventurous. David was constantly trying to pump the brakes on her hormones. He sent her home to change clothes at least once per week. We didn’t have a school dress code, but David enforced one of his own.
After his lecture, he returned his attention to the casserole dish, but continued to discuss his precious girls. “For the most part, I think we’ve got a successful team, which is rare for women. It’s just like Destiny’s Child,” he said, washing the potato chip crumbs from his hands. “Except I’ve got four LaTavias.”
“LaTavia got fired, David. You’ve got to have a Beyoncé.”
“I’m the Beyoncé,” he said. “Make no mistake about it.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said and covered the baking pan with aluminum foil.
“You owe me,” he said. “Don’t forget that. You just left without a word.”
“I was sent away by the court,” I said. “I figured you read about it in the paper.”
“You owe me,” he repeated and slid the pan into the oven, twisted the dial to a number that could have been four hundred. Our ovens were ancient things. “I made arrangements. Bitsy is picking you up at seven o’clock.”
“I’m not going to the bonfire,” I said. “I’m not going to babysit your cheerleaders.”
“I got you a date,” he said. “Shut up and think about what you’re going to wear.” He leaned down to peer into the warped window of the oven. “Christ,” he said. “I forgot who I’m dealing with. Just make sure you brush your hair.”
FROM THE DESK OF TIFFANY TEMPLETON
You might have read in my file that I sat for a while with my father’s body.
The counselors at Dogwood made a big deal out of this, but I know Mrs. Bitzche saw him first. I know she did nothing. Taxes are due on April 15. Everybody knows that. But Mrs. Bitzche was twenty-three days late, and I recognized the form right away: she had filed for an extension. I know for a fact she gently placed her tax forms on one knee of his dead body and our regular mail on his other knee, and just walked away, continued her route. I know he was already dead. The coroner told us he had a massive heart attack, and he would have twitched or flinched or something, and her tax forms and all that mail would have scattered on the porch.
I couldn’t let it go. You can ask anybody, and they will tell you that my dad was the nicest man in town. Maybe he’d been dead for hours. I don’t know. She could have called 911 and waited for the volunteer dispatch to contact the volunteer ambulance. Like a normal person in Gabardine.
I had spied on her husband, and it gave me no satisfaction. I still wanted someone to drown.
A week after I spied on her husband, I left a knife in our mailbox for Mrs. Bitzche, covered in ketchup.
Two days later, I untied the mean dogs on First Street.
Mrs. Bitzche went to the gas station, not just to tell on me, but also to ask if she could get her tax form back. That made me hate her even more, but my mother was more concerned about an interruption in our delivery.
“You need to cool it with the Mail Lady,” warned my mother.
The knife and the dogs didn’t scare her away as I hoped. I honestly thought she would ask for a different route or something, but I didn’t realize there was only one delivery person in Gabardine. I hated her even more for being so efficient.
I started writing notes. I didn’t think they were that bad, considering. I never threatened to blow up any federal buildings, so the terrorist thing was just something the Mail Lady dreamed up. My threats were specific but vicious, but the only law I broke was leaving them in other people’s mailboxes, written on the back of their junk mail. Never real letters, but apparently, you’re not allowed to open a mailbox that does not belong to you. And I wrote things that pushed her over the edge.
I hope you die in a fiery car crash.
Blue eye shadow is for whores.
I know you steal disability checks.
Someday, a dog is going to bite your tits off.
I’ve got an anger problem. Anybody will tell you that. I punch, I push, and before I became a B cup, I was known to throw boys down, known to wrestle. It’s always been this way. I don’t scream or say terrible things out loud; I write them down. But I guess you shouldn’t write them down on the back of other people’s mail, no matter how much you disguise your handwriting. I wish I’d been harder to catch. But in a town as small as Gabardine, you can only have one archnemesis.
At Dogwood, they controlled my anger with medication, because my mind can get hooked like a fish. I’m pulled. Anger reels me in, no matter how much I fight it, and someday I will figure it out. Maybe you can help me learn how to snap the line.
Chapter Fifteen
BITSY PICKED ME UP, EVEN though he lived less than a thousand feet away. I waited for him on our front porch, and I had brushed my hair. I made an effort. Bitsy, however, arrived in his battered truck. He opened the door for me, but it wasn’t chivalry. He had to use a pair of pliers. His truck used to be red, but now it had a tan hood and blue doors. Salvaged from the junkyard, I guess. The day after his dad disappeared, Bitsy crashed his brand-new truck into the side of the Laundromat, but it wasn’t a suicide attempt. He could only get it going thirty miles an hour because of the speed bumps. The cinder-block building chipped a little but didn’t budge. I never understood teenage boys, but I assumed that when a ferocious tackle lost a football team and a father, he had to find something else to hit. Thankfully, he missed my juniper bush.
In May, it froze at night, and Bitsy navigated across unbreakable furrows of cemented mud, and in his headlights, the forest roads looked like the surface of the moon.
We rode in silence, save for the crash as he followed the tire tracks to veer off through a meadow, past a stand of tamarack trees, blonde since October. The trunks were the size of broomsticks, gray fingers of branches. I knew they would burst open in a few weeks. Bitsy dodged the trees, reflexes from the football, avoiding saplings that could lodge under his truck. My eyes caught the glow first, a lightening of the sky, and then glints of orange lights, the fire.
“You’ll be fine,” said Bitsy, as he parked his truck in an outer ring of vehicles, circled around the trampled clearing. Mostly high school kids, thirty or so, and I recognized a few dirtbags from the Bad Check List. I watched as one threw a car seat into the flames. I looked over at Bitsy for reassurance as the bonfire nearly disappeared in all the green smoke as the car seat caught flame. “Seriously,” said Bitsy. I remained in my seat as he got out of the truck. I had no choice. Bitsy freed me with the pliers, and it wasn’t how I had envisioned my grand entrance to my first high school party.
I didn’t want to get too close to the fire. Or the kids. The green chemical cloud continued to rise from the pyre, so Bitsy and I took refuge among the
trees.
Through the swirls and the fumes of melting plastic, Kaitlynn emerged from the acrid smoke, which was fitting. She laughed when she saw me, and I said nothing as she looked me up and down, a thorough inspection. I was used to it. Bitsy spit a plug of tobacco at her feet, but she didn’t take the hint. Instead, she swayed on her feet, regarding us with slits for eyes, clearly wasted.
“Psycho and spaz,” she said. “Sounds like a cop show.”
“You’re an asshole,” said Bitsy. “You’ve always been an asshole.”
“Whatever,” she said. She slurred her words, but I watched as she threw her Diet Coke can at a group of freshman girls. She wasn’t drunk. It became clear when she dug into her coat pocket, and removed a sandwich bag. The white bread had a glow of its own, not one speck of mold. We had learned about the danger of preservatives in home economics, and here was proof. She didn’t care who watched. I knew this trick, another window from another house.
When she threw the bread into the woods, and I saw the flash of white against her dark tongue, I was certain. She flinched as she dry-swallowed the pills. She gave me a wry smile, daring me to comment. When I said nothing, she threw the empty plastic at me, ripped off her coat, and then her T-shirt. Still, I didn’t react. Bitsy, however, looked away. Clad only in a bra and jeans with rhinestones on the back pockets, she glittered as she stomped past the fire, freshman girls leaping out of the way. She pushed Victoria against the trunk of a giant ponderosa pine and kissed her on the mouth. She must have been eating pills for hours, and I was sure there were more slices of white bread scattered throughout the forest. In fairy tales, there is a trail of bread crumbs, but Kaitlynn was a different kind of witch, and the green smoke swirled around her legs, as if she summoned it.
The Small Crimes of Tiffany Templeton Page 11