The muddy guy was a preacher. He’d been camping out at some lake in Kentucky, and had to get home and cleaned up before Sunday services. I’d say he was wise to schedule in the extra time for that. He said it was a small church in Carter’s Valley where he preached. I pictured those places you see on a Sunday drive, out on the bendy back roads, people coming out the door in their overalls and housedresses. Nothing high or mighty about their God business. This guy was like that. He said fishing was something he did to clear his head. Sitting with his dogs at the water’s edge listening to the birds and frogs all singing their praises, he felt right close to God.
He asked me who all lived in Murder Valley that I was going to see, and I said my grandmother. He asked how long since I’d seen her. Not wanting to blow smoke on a guy that’s just come from visiting God, I said I couldn’t remember. Because look, if Mom was telling the truth about this lady showing up the day I was born, would I remember that?
I knew her name though: Betsy Woodall. It felt like a power to say that aloud, similar to how I’d gone all Hulk that time and claimed back my money jar. Snake handler or child beater the lady might be, but still mine to claim. People owe their kin. Her dead son should have been paying me his social security all these years, to name one example. Worst case, she’d turn out to be somebody that never existed, due to my mom making her up. Or if real, I might not find her. Knowing where my dad was buried was no
guarantee of her living in the same town. Also, I might get picked up by the cops, if anybody was looking. So really there were quite a few worst cases, I wasn’t stupid. None of them looked worse than the fix I was already in.
He asked how old I was, and I said going on fifteen. Again, not a lie technically, you’re going on it till you get there. We shared his bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and he told me a lot of tips on fishing, which I didn’t mind hearing even though I’d learned from the best. Mr. Peg knew
the right lure for every hole, figuring in clouds or sun, what bugs are hatching out. His tackle box could keep a kid fascinated for life. Grown men, I’m saying all of them, wanted to know how he caught fish every damn time. His answer: You have to hold your mouth right. I never knew for sure if that was a joke. I’d sit holding my pole and watching him, working on my Mr. Peg face. Painful shit to remember now, due to being mad at the Peggots. But the preacher had a lot to offer as regards
nightcrawlers versus hula-poppers. Carter Valley is far deep in the sticks, and it got dark on us, so he went out of his way to drop me off at a truck stop, thinking I’d have better luck at a place where things stayed busy all night.
He was not wrong about the all-night action. Being a godly type person, maybe he wasn’t up on the particulars. I was trying to get my bearings under those weird pink lights, bugs flying all around, and this lady walks over wanting to know if I have any ice, and do I need a blow job.
She didn’t mean the ice you get in the five-pound bag. That much I knew.
But I was way outside my game. Gas fumes burning my brain like an aerosol-can high. This hag of a person, Jesus. Skeleton-skinny and older than you’d want her to be, given how she was dressed, like she’d got halfway through the job and quit. Black bra, little white undershirt thing, miniskirt, collarbones and stick-thin legs, putting it all out there. I told her no ma’am, but thanks anyway.
I should have run. I wish. But like any kid I’d just had it ground into me that you don’t disrespect your elders, and she wasn’t done with me. She said if I rubbed her the right way, she’d rub me back, and didn’t I have a
little something for her? Maybe an eighty, or even a forty?
Eighty or forty what, I asked her, and she said, “Honey, I’m wanting an oxy real bad.”
No need to ask this time. I walked away. She followed me, which was awkward because I wasn’t really going anywhere. I’d planned on taking a
whiz by the road and then trying for my next ride, but after her special offer, no way was I whipping anything out. I headed for the truck-stop mini-mart and she stayed right on me, talking more or less to herself. She walked like
she was having some trouble at it, with this giant bag of a purse banging her hip. My heart was jumping. It felt rude to blow her off but I did, hurrying through the glass doors, past all the shelves of snacks and souvenirs straight for the Rest Rooms sign at the back. The guy at the checkout was working his Willie Nelson angle, braids and bandanna, minus Willie’s baked chill.
He kept his eyes on me like I had “Runaway” on my T-shirt. My shadow disappeared in another aisle, but she was still over there. Never did I feel so saved to get in the door of a men’s.
Two trucker guys were talking to each other at the urinals, so I went in a stall and peed. Then sat down on the throne, pants up, just to be someplace quiet and try to think.
“I knew the damn thing wasn’t his, whenever I seen him with it,” one of the truckers said. “I should of called the law on him right there.”
“Son of a bitch is in Texas by now. You know he is.”
They weren’t discussing me, but I still felt jumpy as hell. The place smelled like Clorox and piss and was lit up like a nightmare. All that bright light on all those white tiles was making my ears ring. I had to stay put till my lady friend out there found other waters to fish in. Meanwhile it seemed like I should know how much money I had. I dug in my backpack and got out the peanut butter jar. Even before I stormed the fortress and got it back, I’d spent time that summer thinking about my hourly, times weeks I’d worked, which came out to a number that wasn’t real. A lot of dollars.
Obviously the McCobbs took a chunk for their rent, but I still hoped for something decent, in the hundreds. If I showed up at my grandmother’s with cash on hand, she would see I was a person that could do a day’s work and was worth something. Not trash.
I waited until the trucker guys left before I opened the jar and started pulling out the mess of cash. I was paid mostly in small bills and coins, so the jar was half full of quarters and probably weighed five pounds. My
hands were shaking. I dropped some bills trying to flatten them out on my lap and sort them into kinds. The change I wasn’t even messing with yet.
I heard the door open and somebody come in, but he didn’t say anything so I kept going, trying to keep it all on my lap. The coins were noisy, so I set the jar on the floor. I got the ones into piles of ten and counted, a hundred and nine dollars total. Next I got through the fives, and was up over two hundred dollars before starting on the tenners. A lot of them.
Damn. I was rich.
“Hey redhead. Come on out and play nice.”
Christ Jesus, it was a lady in the men’s room. Her. I held my breath as long as I could before letting it out. I heard her moving around.
“I see you got a jar of money in there. You fixing to buy me a diamond ring, honey?”
My eyes went fuzzy for a second. I held still. Then picked up the jar off the floor.
“I’m just kidding around with you, sweet thing. I’ll suck your pretty cock for free. How’s that sound? And then me and you can take that money and go have us a party.”
I started stuffing the bills back in the jar but dropped a shitload of ones all over everywhere. Scooped it all up, jammed the jar in my backpack and zipped it, trying to be quiet. I leaned over and tried looking under the stall but couldn’t see any feet.
“Whatsamatter, you mad at me honey? I didn’t mean nothing. Just wanting to have fun with you is all. You look like you need to have you a little fun.”
Not wrong. This was not it. I could hear her shoes clacking around.
Nothing to do but sit tight. Enough of God’s truckers in this world were needing to piss, surely one of them would get in here and run her off. But he was taking his damn time.
And then holy fucking shit she was looking down on me. Over the top of the stall.
I bolted. The shape she was in, it would take her a minute to get down from her perch or with any luck, fall in. I was out of the restroom and almost to the entrance before the screaming started: Damn you little asshole give me back my money help police help me I been robbed!
I got outside but my shirt was grabbed and I was pulled back in. The stink-eye cashier. A lot younger than Willie, stronger than he looked. He shoved me against a rack of magazines and asked where I thought I was going. I said outside. The lady was whooping and hollering about how I
stole her money. He asked if we knew each other, and she said she’d never seen me before.
He eyed me up and down. She was doing the same, getting her first good look, probably surprised to learn she’d been chasing something in the line of grade-school cock.
“Do we need to call somebody, son? Or are you going to give this lady her money?”
“For Christ’s sakes,” I said. “It’s my goddamn money.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “And your foul mouth isn’t helping you any.” “Sorry. But it’s my money.”
The guy rolled his eyes. I was hugging my backpack in both arms like every friend I didn’t have. He would have to kill me for it.
He looked around at the gang of late-night shoppers watching the show. “Did any of y’all see this boy mugging my customer?”
Nobody said a word. They got interested in the snacks or souvenir bottle openers at hand. His so-called customer was now in a righteous old-lady snit, giving a fair impression of sober. Somewhere between outside and
now, she’d pulled on this pink housedress or shirt type thing that made her look like somebody’s mammaw with a bad hand for makeup. She must have been living out of the giant purse. She buttoned her top button and sniveled. “It’s my pin money I been saving up that I keep in a peanut butter jar. This here little boy grabbed the jar out of my purse.”
This here little boy that one minute ago you wanted to party with, I thought. And not a person here was going to believe me. Because under the bright lights, this crap-jacked world is what it is and we were what we were: a grown-up and a kid.
“You were watching me like a damn hawk,” I told the cash register guy. “You saw me go in the men’s, and if you’ve got any eyes you saw her go in the men’s. She followed me in there trying to talk me into a . . .”
“That’s enough of that,” he said, holding up his big knuckly hand. I was terrified he would put it over my mouth. Because I knew what I would do.
“Just look in his backpack thing,” she said. “See if he’s got my jar in there.” Higher and mightier than you’d think possible for a truck-stop hooker. How could this guy not recognize her, if she was a regular? But what did I know. Maybe they shopped around.
“A Jiffy peanut butter jar,” she said. “Full of dimes and quarters.”
Holy shit. She didn’t even know about the bills. She must have seen it under the door while all the real cash was on my lap.
“Ask her how much money was in there,” I said. “If she gets it right, she can have it.”
That got her wailing. “I don’t know, I don’t know! It’s all my spare
change I been saving up forever, how am I supposed to know how much it
is?”
Customers were now shuffling over to the register.
“Nobody thinks you’re funny, kid. Give the lady her money and I’ll let you go.”
“It’s my money. Sir. She came in the bathroom and saw me with it, and now she’s scamming you, trying to get it away from me.”
I tried staring him down. He crossed his arms, shook his head, all the
signs of “We’re done here and you are screwed.” I considered bolting out the door, running away into the dark. I was faster than anybody here. And he’d get the cops out on me for sure.
“Do I need to call your parents?” he asked. I laughed. “Good luck with that.”
He didn’t get the joke. “Can I see some form of identification?”
“Form of identification like what?” I asked, and he named some things, driver’s license, school ID, nothing I had or ever did have. It dawned on me that I could get run over flat on the highway out there, and nobody would
know or care what to call the carcass. Roadkill.
By this time the whole place is on edge, crazy lady caterwauling, people shifting around in the checkout line, and Willie throws a sucker punch that doubles me over. Grabs my backpack. Professional-quality moves. I can’t even catch my breath before he’s pulled out the jar and is asking all high- handed, “What do you call this, you little fucker?” Shaking it in my face
like now he’s got me ha-ha, while the rage blows up in my gut, and the hooker bitch is all, I told you! Only she’s wide-eyed, seeing we are talking money plural, major bucks. Her shrieking goes sky-high. Singing her happy song of getting shitfaced for the foreseeable month of Sundays.
It doesn’t even seem real, seeing this guy put my money in her hands.
With all those people watching, not one soul on my side. Nothing to do but punch the magazine rack so hard it crashes over, spilling free brochures all over the fucking welcome mat. Where the screaming is coming from, who knows, it doesn’t feel like me telling this guy he’s a Nazi and I worked all year at my job for that cash so he could give it to a lying fucked-up whore. Telling her off too, getting up in her little wrecked face, telling her to go buy herself a fucking overdose.
I did that. With all the hate in my heart, I told her to go ahead and die like my mom did. Go have a party and get rid of her ugly self all alone behind a dumpster.
I walked out the door. It opened for me, and closed behind me.
My heart was pounding so hard I felt it in my eyes. I walked past the
pumps where travelers in a haze of fumes were gassing up their cars. Past the big lot where the tractor trailers idled in their sleep, waiting out this
godforsaken night. Shadows of people hung around the trucks, cutting their bargains. Part of me was waiting for somebody to come after me saying this hell is not real and you are not this person. It’s a mistake.
That’s how I left Virginia, walking down the shoulder of 26 with my thumb out, headed towards my grandmother with the exact same naked-ass nothing I’d had the first and last time she saw me.
