Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [35]
Reese was jumping rope with the MacCauley twins and didn’t want to go with me, but she cheered up when I told her we would walk to the highway and hitchhike instead of calling for a lift. Reese loved flagging down strangers on the highway and begging a ride the four miles over to where Aunt Alma lived. She had promised me she would never do it without me, but I worried that as soon as she was a little older she would be hitchhiking all over the county. So every time we hitched a ride, I made up a new horror story. The habit was so strong in me that nervous as I was, I automatically started another one, this time about the phantom driver who went around picking up girls and skinned them like young deer, eating the meat and tanning their hides to make coin purses and pocketbooks.
“He’ll never get us,” Reese laughed. “We just have to be careful never to take a ride with a man alone.” I thought about that for a moment.
“Well, it an’t so easy to know who the phantom is,” I told Reese. “Sometimes he catches a married couple first, hiding in the back of their car while they’re in the gas-station bathroom.
When they drive off, first he murders them and then he props them up so you’d think they were the only people in the car. That way he catches lots of people who would never get in a car with a man alone.”
Reese chewed her lower lip and stared up the highway. I could see she was thinking this new information over carefully. She examined the people in the truck that stopped for us, an elderly woman in a dark blue shirtwaist dress, and a younger man in khaki work clothes. Before climbing in back she slapped the side of the cab hard enough to see both of them jump in their seats. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing.
The old lady scolded us for catching a ride on the highway. “You could get killed or worse,” she told us through the back window. “Young girls on the roads are an invitation to the wicked. Anything could happen to you.” We both nodded solemnly and thanked her politely when we jumped off just down the road from Aunt Alma’s place.
It was past midnight when Mama came for us. Reese was asleep in Aunt Alma’s bed, but I was sitting up with Uncle Wade, nodding over the picture puzzle he worked at when he couldn’t sleep.
“Girl, your mama,” he said, giving me a little push. I jerked fully awake when Mama touched my shoulder. Her hands were heavy and smelled faintly of Jergens Lotion.
“Come on, Bone,” she whispered. “We’re going home.” She thanked Uncle Wade in a tired voice. Her hair was limp and her face scrubbed clean. She was still wearing that pullover sweater, but she’d added a loose white shirt and changed back to her waitress flats.
“Don’t talk,” she told me. “Just get Reese’s shoes and come on.” She lifted Reese without disturbing Aunt Alma and carried her out to the car. I followed her, holding on to her right side while Reese leaned into her left shoulder. At the car, she paused and looked up into the dark night sky. In the light from the house, her face was all hollows and angles, her eyes sunken and glittery.
“Damn!” she whispered softly, and leaned her forehead against the cool metal above the car door. “Damn, damn.”
“Mama,” Reese whimpered. I pressed my cheek against Mama’s side and kept still. There was a long cold moment while we waited, and then Mama pushed herself back up straight and opened the door.
“All right,” she said, as if she were wrapping up some long conversation with herself. “All right.”
I looked back to Aunt Alma’s house. Uncle Wade was standing in the kitchen looking out at us, his face stern and his mouth hard. Why was he angry? I wondered. What could have made him look so terribly angry?
“Cook you some eggs,” Mama said as she steered us into the kitchen and sat us at the table. There was flour in a can, a jar of jelly, butter