I ate the hot dogs first. There were four, gone in eight bites. I grabbed the beans next, scooping spoonful after spoonful. When I’d emptied that, I grabbed the milk, and guzzled straight from the bottle, big gulps that threatened to spill over. I suffered one of those strange headaches and my insides churned. I sat back, noticing the kitchen, the mess around me. I turned my attention to my middle, which had become tight, and uncomfortable. I got up and paced the floor, breathing deep. I was repulsed by my tremendous weakness. I could fix it. I started for the bathroom and stopped. I swallowed over and over, attempting to fight the inevitable.
It was so uncomfortable, I relented and rushed down the hall. I waited, standing over the toilet before turning away, and instead, I turned on the faucet and splashed my face with cold water. I straightened up, and didn’t look in the mirror. I didn’t want to see me, to look at my betraying eyes, the ones filled with such revulsion. The food roiled, reminding me of sour mash fermenting. It was revolting when I thought of it like that. I turned from the sink, dropped to my knees, and rested my forehead against the coolness of the lid on the toilet. I wanted to cry knowing I couldn’t stop this any more than I could stop Daddy. I was already heaving as I lifted the lid up. I let my body do what it wanted, and finished by shoving my fingers into my throat.
I was out of control again.
* * *
From the living room window, I could see Aubrey through a slit in the curtains. Her head swiveled, taking it all in, judging how we lived. Like I was prone to do, I envisioned how she might see it, the long-standing rusty junk, weeds grown knee-high, paint peeling to expose old graying wood. I usually went to her house. When I’d been little, Daddy would drop me off to spend the day, but now I’d drive myself unless he was needing the truck. As the preacher’s wife, her mama was expected to keep everything neat as a pin for any unexpected soul needing spiritual attention. Their grass was perfection, mowed like a flattop crew cut, flowers bloomed in various beds around the yard, and it was the same inside the house.
Aubrey tapped again, and I moved away from the window, toward the back of the house. I didn’t want to see anyone, not even her.
She knocked harder, and Merritt yelled from his bedroom, “Jessie! Answer the damn door, will you? Geez!”
I froze midway down the hall.
She called my name through the screen. “Jessie?”
I plodded back to the living room and wrenched it open.
“What?”
Her eyebrows raised. I hadn’t been to school in a week, hadn’t washed my hair, hadn’t done much of nothing since that night.
She held up a little basket covered with a cloth and gave me a hesitant smile, “Can I come in?”
I held the door open, and she walked by smelling like Breck shampoo and whatever was in the basket, warm from the oven. I folded my arms over my middle, and wished I’d at least washed my hair. Or put on something other than the too-small, ratty-looking housecoat. I held it tight around my neck, the way someone much older might do, like I didn’t want any part of my flesh exposed. I was back to not eating again, struggling with shame while arguing with myself over the justifiable reasons for emptying the refrigerator. There was more to that overall picture as it was. What Daddy had cared most about was getting Sally Sue, and now that was done, every night when he came home, he’d worked on her, while he and Uncle Virgil took supplies out to Boomer, Blood Creek, and Big Warrior. Another night they went on an unexpected run together in the truck. Nothing was different, nothing had changed, despite what happened. It hit me hard.
I’d declared, “We could’ve been killed!”
Daddy denied it. “Nah. Sally Sue’s built to withstand a lot more than that.”
Making and hauling shine was the most important thing to him. More important than Mama, Merritt, and certainly me. I fought to maintain an outward calm that hid my inner turmoil as I came to a realization that his take on all this was as twisted and coiled as the back roads of Shine Mountain.
Aubrey said, “We heard about Merritt. Mama baked him molasses cookies.”
I said, “He’ll like that. Thankee, kindly.”
My hand shook as I reached for the basket she handed me, but she didn’t act like she noticed. The smell was intoxicating, and I carried it into the kitchen and left it on the table. I returned to the living room, where the lack of cleaning over the past few days was obvious. The stack of newspapers Daddy had left on his chair, his overflowing ashtray, the layer of dust everywhere, was enough to make me want to hide. Then there was Aubrey herself, like a bouquet of flowers in the middle of a trash pile. I belonged because I was as dumpy as a basket of unwashed laundry.
I was sure she must have spent the past hour alone brushing her hair to get it to that high shine. Her spotless dungarees, rolled at the hems, her penny loafers without a speck of dirt, her perfectly white blouse, offset my appearance, but that was nothing new. What was different was the glittering excitement in her eyes. She sat on the couch and then hopped up and walked to the door to look out. She came back, sat again, and tapped her fingers on her knee. Her restlessness made me uptight, and I began gathering my thoughts about what I’d say, embarrassed at the truth, trying to figure out what sounded best. Nothing, really.
Her tone polite, she asked, “How’d he get hurt?”
I fiddled with the collar of my robe. “It was just one of them things.”
She frowned, her perfectly tweezed eyebrows rose, and she leaned forward. “You ain’t gonna tell me?”
I intentionally misinterpreted her question. “He broke his arm in two places; one part of the bone was stuck out. It’s in a cast.”
Aubrey winced, and said, “Oh. That’s horrible. But how?”
“It wasn’t nothing really. You know how boys are.”
She leaned back, and said, “I reckon.”
I stared at my bare feet, trying to ignore how dirty and miserable I’d felt since she arrived. She raised her chin with this odd, knowing look.
She said, “I know what really happened.”
Defensive, I said, “I don’t see how.”
“Y’all were running liquor.”
“Says who?”
“Zeb.”
Aubrey’s brother. He was a big talker, always made stuff up. She knew that better than I did. Shame and a swift anger took hold.
“No we weren’t neither. Besides, how would Zeb know?”
“I can tell when you’re lying, you know.”
I picked at a loose thread on my housecoat.
She went on, “Gosh, Jessie. If y’all ain’t careful, your daddy could end up in the penitentiary, or worse. Daddy says there’s too much of this going on in the county, and he’s praying hard for those who do it to turn away from it, to come to Jesus, ask his forgiveness.”
My dander rose. “Running liquor ain’t got a darn thing to do with it, and Zeb wasn’t there, so what does he know?”
I wished I’d not answered the door.
She changed the subject and said, “When you gonna come back to school?”
Still annoyed, my answer was sharp. “I don’t know.”
She said, “Have you tried what I mentioned?”
I lied about that too. “Nope.”
“Daddy says clarity comes from suffering.”
If that were true,