Wire Mesh Mothers

18

The woman at the wheel stared at Tony until Tony cocked the trigger, then she eased the car to the edge of the lot and turned on her left blinker.

“Go right,” said Tony.

“Right?” The woman said the word as if she’d never heard it before. But then she steered right without another word. Tony rolled her upper lip in between her teeth and bit until it hurt. Right. They’d turned right, driving on Route 58. So where was she going to go now? She went right only because the woman wanted to go left.

Where the hell do I go?

“Where am I going?” the woman asked without looking away from the road. It sounded as if there was a roach in her throat and she was trying to talk around it. “I saw your buddies leaving without you. They sure were in a hurry, weren’t they? Where should I drop you off?”

“You ain’t dropping me off anywhere.”

The woman’s jaw tightened, though her eyes twitched at the corners. She was going to try to be brave, in control. What a foolish, ridiculous female! “Then what…?” the woman began.

Tony slammed the gun into the woman’s ear; her head snapped to the side and she grabbed her face, groaning in surprise. The car swerved madly on the ice.

“Drive!” yelled Tony.

The woman took the steering wheel with her left hand, holding her ear with her right.

“Now you know what ‘right’ is, don’t you?” said Tony.

The woman gasped, heaved, and looked like she was going to pass out.

“Don’t you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was tiny.

On the radio, some oldies shit that Tony’s mother sometimes listened to. Something about everybody smiling on their brother. Tony pounded the power switch with her fist. The song died in the air.

“Turn right on Route 35 before you get to Courtland.”

The woman licked her lips. She flinched as if the jaw on the right side of her head had cracked. She swallowed noisily. “Where are we going?” she managed.

“Don’t ask,” said Tony.

I have no idea, maybe to the ocean, let’s go to the ocean and catch a boat to China, my little nitty sister is probably there already, she was digging in the sinkhole, we all can go to China and make fireworks!

The woman’s jaw was working slightly; she was trying to think of what to say next. Tony rubbed her nose with her free hand and a smear of lipstick came away with it. She thought of the blood on the gasoline man’s shirt, of the blood on his crucified hand.

They came up behind an empty flatbed truck bearing the obligatory orange triangle in the rear.

“Pass it,” said Tony.

“All right,” said the woman.

The car pulled around the truck. As they came even with the driver of the truck, Tony said, “Don’t even move funny when he looks over here or I’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”

The woman’s gaze flickered in Tony’s direction, then back to the road. Tony lowered the gun to the woman’s waist and noticed her own hand shaking. She took the gun in both hands to steady it. Her head itched, her neck itched, her stomach reeled against the waistband of Granddad’s trousers. In the back of her throat, a stinging like needles.

They eased over in front of the truck. The woman looked up at the rearview as if she could blink the truck driver a warning, a plea.

The stinging in Tony’s throat, flaming hot. Her stomach pitching madly. Sweat breaking out on her lip, her arms, the bridge of her nose. She took long breaths through her teeth.

“Drive faster,” Tony said. She rolled down the window. The freezing air caught her hat and blew it into the back seat. She gulped icy breaths.

There were no bullets in that gun, and now we’ve got some asshole murdered.

“It’s slick on the road,” said the woman. “If I drive any faster we might slide off the road.”

Tony counted her breaths. There were stars swimming just behind her eyeballs. Shut up, bitch.

“Could you please close the window? The windshield is fogging up.”

Shut up, bitch!

It rushed forward, the smell of smoke, the taste of blood, the sight of the fat crabby hand blown apart, and Tony leaned over and heaved it out on a loaf of crush Sunbeam bread on the passenger’s side floor.