Wire Mesh Mothers

37

The waterfront was not far from the Mobile South Motor Lodge, down a dark and narrow paved road and past a brightly-lit seafood restaurant and its parking lot crammed with patrons’ automobiles. From inside the restaurant came waves of sound — hoots and hollering and country music from a juke box. Outside in the lot a young couple leaned against each other and their car, giggling, snuggling.

The sign on top of the restaurant’s roof read, “Catfish Delite, Tasty Gulf Treats Since 1962.” It blinked as if there was a short in it somewhere.

Tony could smell the fried fish as she passed on the road, and her tongue watered. She slowed her walking to savor the smell. She’d had catfish once in her life, but that had been many years ago, when she was eight.

She remembered.

Burton had taken her fishing on the Nottoway River in Southampton County. He didn’t take Darlene because Darlene had whined that she didn’t like hooks and didn’t like worms and especially didn’t like sitting in the mud and getting her clothes all messed up. But Burton and Tony went that one time, dressed in jeans and boots and packing rods and two lunches in a brown paper grocery bag. What they did was illegal, Burton had told Tony in the truck on the way, because the best fishing spot was on the edge of the McDolen property where the river slowed and deep pools gathered.

“Screw the McDolens,” Burton had said as he’d lit his cigar and blew the smoke out the open truck window. It was June, and the day was overcast and hot. “They can kiss my lily white ass they find us here. They think they own a river? Hell no, they don’t.”

Burton had driven off the road to a grassy, hidden spot on McDolen property where clusters of weeping willow trees were punctuated with “No Trespassing” signs. Tony sat beside her father on the riverbank and dug with her fingers into the soil until she came up with a few grubs, some pill bugs, and one long, red-brown earthworm that crapped black dirt in her hand. Burton showed her how to drive the hook through the body of the grubs. The grubs twisted on the sharp probe, and when Tony asked Burton if it hurt them, he said, “Hell, yeah, it hurts ‘em. It’s supposed to hurt ‘em. But that’s why God made ‘em.”

He’d laughed. She’d laughed. She put the hook through the earthworm, then through it again, so it was impaled in a loop. They’d caught several catfish that afternoon, and took them home where Burton scraped them clean in an aluminum tub in the backyard while Lorilynn complained from the deck that she’d heard somebody up river was dumping shit in the Nottoway Rive and so she wasn’t going to eat any of that smelly, diseased catch.

Burton had rolled his eyes as the fish scales flew, and said to Tony, “Got a joke for you. What smells worse that a dead, slimy fish? A live, slimy pussy!” He laughed. Tony laughed, though she thought she knew what the joke meant and it didn’t seem funny at the time.

She remembered.

Tony ambled up the graveled lot behind the restaurant where she paused at the Dumpsters. Light from the rear windows of the restaurant pooled across the lot in a yellow wave and splashed up to the barrels, making it easy to see in the little square side doors. There were some fairly good scrapings there — whole pieces of breaded trout, shrimps glistening with smears of tartar sauce, frog legs deep fried in cornmeal, rolls barely nibbled on. Back at the motel there were some canned foods in the duffel bag, but none of them had the allure that these odorous bits did. Tony reached in, then pulled her hand back out. She’d reward herself after she found the Gulf. She’d pocket as much as she could on her return trip. She’d eat it all in front of the teacher.

The air was warmer and stickier in Alabama than in Virginia. Tony pushed up the sleeves of the WWJD sweatshirt and felt the heavy air stroking her skin. In the darkness on the other side of the street where a street light had burned out something fell over, rolled, then stopped. A dog, Tony guessed, sniffing around for cats. Let it come near her, and she’d take care of it like she did the animals on Rainbow Lane. That would be fun. She hadn’t taken a dog apart in weeks.

There was a phone booth on the corner of the “Catfish Delite” parking lot. Tony pushed through the folding glass door and stepped inside. There was no phone book hanging on the chain, and the light in the ceiling didn’t work. The phone itself, a clunky silver apparatus, was tacky with bits of chewed gum and other crusted substances. Tony gingerly lifted the receiver, tapped zero, and Leroy’s number. After speaking her name on request to the computer-operator, she waited, one foot shaking on the floor, one hand scratching the top of her head. Come one come on.

The line was busy. Tony slammed the receiver down.

That’s okay, I know Buddy’s number. Nobody talks on the phone at Buddy’s house. Nobody likes Buddy or his family and nobody ever calls ‘em.

After three rings, a gruff male voice answered. “Low?” It wasn’t Buddy but some other man, one of the uncles, cousins, or in-laws who crashed at Buddy’s house on an ongoing, rotating schedule.

“Hey!” Tony tried to interject before anything else was spoken. “Say yes!”

But the man couldn’t hear Tony’s words or didn’t care that he did, he grumbled at the request to accept charges and the line went dead.

“Screw it,” Tony swore. She tried to remember Little Joe’s number, but couldn’t. It had a nine and five and two and something else. Whitey’s phone had been disconnected last month because Whitey’s mom was mad about a $300 900-number bill Whitey had racked up on a Tarot-reading line and refused to pay the bill.

Tony leaned against the phone booth wall and watched as a car pulled out of the restaurant lot, and another pulled in. She licked the flavor of salty air off her lips and let out a long breath. She dialed Leroy again. Again, busy. She slammed the receiver down and leaned against the booth wall, arms crossed. Where the hell did Leroy’s family have to go? Maybe Leroy was in jail and they were visiting him. They’d be sitting behind a clear plastic window talking into a single phone and Leroy would be on the other side, beat up from the other inmates who thought he was sweet-pants. Leroy’s mom would cry, of course. Maybe even Leroy would cry. Tony wondered what Leroy crying would sound like.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…. Tony counted to one hundred and then tried Leroy’s again. Someone answered on the fifth ring. Dee Wee.

Okay, Dee Wee, don’t be a shit, this is Tony calling, you’ll hear me say my name, you just say yes.

“Will you accept charges?” asked the computer-operator.

“Uh, huh, okay,” said Dee Wee. “What’s charges mean?”

“Dee Wee!” Tony fairly shouted, then lowered her voice. “Dee Wee, it’s Tony, hey, what’s up?”

“Nothin’,” said Dee Wee. “Tony, where you at? Leroy said you was gone.”

“I am gone, Dee Wee. Put Leroy on the phone.”

“I think he’s watching T.V.”

“Put him on the phone, Dee Wee. Do it.”

Pause. “Well, okay, but don’t get mad if he gets mad for me bothering him.”

A clatter, clunk, silence except for background shuffling and mumbled voices. Then clattering again, a click, and “Fuck it, Tony, where the hell are you?”

Tony felt her soul soar at the irritation and the intensity of Leroy’s voice. Things back home had to be pretty damn good for him to sound like that.

“I can’t say where I am, Leroy. But I’m not in Virginia, that’s for sure. I’m really far away.”

“Where’d you go after…after, you know? I thought you got caught or shot or something and taken into custody. You ain’t calling from Emporia jail?”

“No. Is that what you hoped would happen? You and Buddy and Whitey and Little Joe all takin’ off in the car and leavin’ me behind? You hoped I’d get caught and take the fall for your asses?”

“No.”

“Why’d you run off without me?”

“’Cause of what happened in the store, idiot. We didn’t have time to wait for you, Tony, you know that! We wait, and somebody would get us all. We knew you’d probably be okay on your own. You’re good at stuff on your own. You’d either shoot or hide, but you wouldn’t let nobody take you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Maybe they thought that about Tony. Maybe they’d talked about her like that after the Exxon robbery. She was the toughest of the Hot Heads, after all.

“Yeah,” said Leroy. “That’s why, since we didn’t hear nothin’ from you in three days, we thought you was in the jail, getting tortured or something so you’d confess on us.”

“I’m not caught.”

“Good. Where are you?”

“Told you, I can’t tell. But what’s the news? Did we make the TV.? Radio? We made the newspaper, didn’t we?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Leroy. “Mrs. Martin was on the TV. news two nights in a row now.”

Tony felt the chill of excitement run her veins. “Yeah? What did she say? What did she look like?”

“She looked like shit, what do you think? She was in shock or something, standin’ in the middle of the wrecked up store with the crap we knocked down all over the place. The reporters had a couple mics in her face and she said, ‘They killed him, right in front of me, shot him dead!’ They said, ‘Who shot him?’ and she said ‘some kid with lipstick on his face!’”

“What’d she say about us, about the rest of us?”

“Nothin’ much. Just that we knocked stuff over, tore stuff up, stole some stuff. She mostly talked about Whitey and his gun.”

“I had a gun! I put it in her face, up close! That was me up there with her!”

“Yeah, I know….”

“I was the one threatened her, why didn’t she tell the news about me threatening her? She only told on Whitey?”

“She didn’t exactly tell on him, she told about him, she didn’t really know who it was, said it could have been any of a bunch of teenagers who come into the store. Police have been investigatin’, going house to house….”

“I was the one with bullets in my gun!”

“Whitey had a bullet. He shot that guy.”

“But he wasn’t supposed to have a bullet. I didn’t think there were any bullets in there, they all rolled behind the stove.”

A loud sound of exasperation, then, “What? You gave Whitey a gun with no bullets?”

“Just shut up, I didn’t think it would matter. I wanted the one with the bullets, I wanted to shoot up the place after scaring Mrs. Martin, but then Whitey shot first.”

“Stupid asshole little girl!”

“You wouldn’t say that to my face if I was there.”

“Yes I would. You bring a gun with no bullets?”

“Yeah, and it’s done, okay? They know anything yet? Who’d the police talk to so far? Are they showing sketches on T.V.? Drawings of what we looked like?”

“Just one of Whitey, but it don’t look like him. Some farmer in a tractor who drove by the Exxon when we were there said he saw a car go out of the lot like a bat out of hell, but didn’t know what kind it was, just that it was big. Said the sleet was in his eyes. Thought it was green or light blue.”

“They didn’t have a sketch of me?”

“No. Get over it. There’s a reward for information about us, though. $100,000 dollars if we get caught and convicted. Mrs. Martin quit the store. It’s closed until further notice, sign says.”

Tony took a deep breath, blew on it out on the glass of the phone booth, and drew a frowny face in the steam.

“When you comin’ back, Tony?”

“Probably never. I got places to be. People to be with. Wish I could be there to see everything happenin’, but I can’t. I’ll call you, though, check it out. Check on the progress.”

“If they catch Whitey, they’ll catch us. He’ll talk like a fucking parrot on a stick.”

“Maybe. Nobody was supposed to get killed, though. Tough shit, huh? And I ain’t telling where I am.”

“I’ll get the phone bill end of the month. I’ll know exactly where you’re callin’ from. Police get the phone record then they can follow where you’re at….”

Tony hadn’t thought of that. She slammed the receiver down into the cradle and left the booth.

Half a block past the “Catfish Delite” was another motel, “Gulf Towers Motel,” and several small houses on both sides of the road, an alley, a poorly-lit intersection. She crossed over and continued on the same street.

Maybe they’d see Alabama on the phone bill, but they would know Texas. It would be okay.

There was a trailer park on the right, then a small shop selling fishing tackle and boat equipment, a long grassy ball field surrounded by a chain link fence, and then the end of the road. A solid privacy fence of wooden slats blocking Tony’s view from whatever lay on the other side.

A sign, painted in red on the wood, said, “Martin’s Mobile Bay Marina. 3429 Perry Road, Mobile.” Tony followed the fence to the barred gate, and stared inside. There were boats bobbing on water, tied up in what seemed like little stalls. Rows of boats, painted with names that were hard to read in the faint beams of the tall pole lights. Some of the boats had fishing nets stretched to dry across their backs. Others had large seats with harnesses and large poles. These, Tony knew for sure, was for catching and holding on to big fish. No little catfish hooks here. She wondered what they’d use for bait. Eels? Snakes?

Another thumping off road behind her, and she turned about to see nothing but shadows, ragged, roadside trees and the dark.

“Get the fuck out of here, whatever you are,” she said.

Nothing answered. Nothing moved. It’s just Alabama, she thought.

Tony wondered if Lamesa was anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico, and if Burton ever got to go fishing. He would own a big boat, of course, bigger than any here at Martin’s Marina. Tony and Burton could take a day off from managing the farm hands and go out on the water and toss back some brews and smoke a few cigars.

The end of the privacy fence was a half-block down. Tony hurried to the corner. She wanted to put her feet in the Gulf and know what it felt like. At the end of the marina was another row of small houses. The first, surrounded by a weedy yard and scrub trees, had a seagull-decorated mailbox that read, “Martin, 3427 Perry Road.” This had to be the owner of Martin’s Marina. Crappy little house for someone who had such a big business.

Behind the house was the huge stretch of black water, small waves pulsing up and back and reflecting lights from the Marina and the back porches of the little houses down the lane. Other lights, farther out, dipped and swayed on boats and ships. Moonlight, dull and blue, streaked the water’s surface.

Tony sneaked around the Martins’ house, between a boxwood hedge, past a plastic child’s slide and swing set and down to the water in the rear. The Martins had their own dock, stretching out twenty-some feet over the water, but no boats were tied there. They must keep their boats in the marina. Afraid somebody from Virginia will come along and sink it just for fun. Ha! Tony walked onto the dock, glancing once over her shoulder to see that no one in the family was looking out through their back windows. No one was.

The dock was warped but solid. At the end was an Igloo cooler, upended, and some fishing nets hanging on the posts on either side. Lying on the planks were three oars, one cracked down the middle.

The air was cooler over the water, and Tony pulled her sleeves down. She stretched her arms out and took in the space and the salt water and the situation. She was the master, she was in control. She was going where she wanted to go, seeing what she wanted to see, making people sing her tune and dance her steps. Fuck them all. She’d set in motion some real trouble back home, and now she could sit back and enjoy it. She was Tony Petinske. Her father was Burton Petinske of Lamesa, Texas. Like the prodigal son in the Bible, which she’d heard about when she was in third grade and went to Bible Class as part of Weekday Religious Education during one school year, Burton would probably kill a fatted calf for her and they’d have a whoop-ass Texas barbecue.

She took the pistol from her jeans pocket and thought of firing one into the water to celebrate. Maybe with luck she’d hit a fish or a crab, if there were crabs in the Gulf. But that would awaken the natives. She didn’t want to push her luck, as lucky as she was.

She put the pistol on the deck, then lowered her jeans and held onto one of the posts. She swung back over the water and let go a stream of hot pee. She then lowered herself and splashed the pee off her privates by cupping water with one hand. It was bitingly cold and felt great. Her jeans were hoisted up, and she turned back toward the yard.

On the end of the deck were two boys. One was tall, the other Tony’s height. Both were smiling, though their eyes were not visible beneath the brims of their ball caps.

“Got a cigarette?” asked the shorter boy.

Tony’s eyes narrowed. Fuck this shit. She said nothing.

“I asked you a question. Ain’t polite, not answering.”

Tony put her hands on her hips.

“We seen that little pussy of yours, hanging out over the water,” said the tall boy. “Oooh, baby, shake that little beaver.”

Tony’s heart picked up, and kicked the inside of her chest. She looked at the pistol on the deck.

“Thought you was a boy, with that short hair on your head,” said the shorter boy. “But then we seen that pussy. Mmm hmmm. Nice golden shower, shoulda saved it for us.”

“Get out of her, mother-fuckers,” said Tony.

“Ooh, baby, I love it when you talk dirty,” said the tall boy. He chuckled darkly.

“Me, too,” echoed the other.

Then the tall one was striding forward, a near jog, with long, quick steps, and Tony dropped to her knees to grab the pistol but her fingers missed and it spun away, across the deck, where it stopped at the edge. She reached for it again with a war-whoop of fury, but a foot came down on the back of her hand and another foot kicked the pistol into the dark water. It struck the surface with a plop and vanished.

“Fuckers!” screamed Tony. She dove forward, her free arm plunging into the water and snatching but finding nothing but cold wet. “Goddamn mother-fucking fuckers!” She rolled over and away from the foot, jerking out from under, then sprang to her feet. Her knife was in her sock. Get it, she’d slice the grins and then the balls off these Alabama bastards.

The shorter boy was beside the taller one now, just feet from where Tony stood. Tony felt the sweat that had erupted on her forehead and her back, tickling, teasing. These’re assholes, she thought, these are Buddies and Leroys and Little Joes and Whiteys. These are goddmaned Dee Wees! “Get out of my way,” she snarled.

“Ooh, a little fightin’ girl,” said the shorter boy.

“Ain’t from around here,” said the other. “Talks funny. Where you from, sugar britches?”

Tony backed to the dock’s end, one hand out in a fist, and lowered herself slowly to reach the knife.

“Wants to give us a blow job, Ricky,” said the tall boy. “Kneeling down, just look at that.”

“Yeah,” said Ricky.

Tony reached for the cuff of her jeans, slid her fingers underneath and up to the top of the hiking boot. The handles was there, snug, between the sock and the skin.

The tall boy leaped suddenly at Tony and caught a scruff of her short hair in his fingers. “Kiss me, little girl!” He tried to jerk her head back, but she twisted from beneath him and drew the blade out from her sock then drove it against the post to snap it open.

“Joe, she’s got a blade!” cried Ricky.

Joe grabbed at Tony’s hair again, but she leaned forward and slashed it across his knee. It cut through cloth, into flesh, back out again. Joe whelped, let go of Tony’s hair and snatched at her knife-bearing hand and came up short. “Ricky!”

Ricky, his teeth bared, snatched at Tony’s wrist and missed. Tony was on her feet then, leaning forward, carving the air and growling. “Get out of here! Get away from me!”

“She’s got the rabies way she’s actin’!” said Ricky. “Damn, she’s a mad dog!”

“Back away now!” said Tony. “I’ll cut you to bits, you know I will!”

Ricky picked up one of the oars. “Yeah?” he said. “Your’s may be sharper but mine’s longer.” He laughed at himself, pleased with his little joke. “Get it, Joe? Your’s may be sharper, but mine’s longer. Gotta remember that!”

Joe tossed up an oar with his foot as if he was flipping a skateboard, and caught it with both hands. He was breathing heavily. “Don’t no bitch hurt me. Don’t no bitch never do that to me. Never!”

“Don’t no stupid rednecks do nothing to me,” said Tony. “You get out of my way, you know what’s good for you.” She waved the knife, thinking, My gun’s gone, what am I supposed to do without my gun? “Back off!”

Ricky laughed; Joe didn’t. Then Ricky swung his oar at Tony and it caught her on the shoulder with a crack. Pain exploded, but Tony kept her balance and her knife. Joe swung his oar the other direction, and Tony jumped back from it, nearly tipping over the edge of the dock. She grasped a post and pushed herself upright. Then both Joe and Ricky swung their oars at the same time, and they collided with Tony on opposite sides, knocking the breath out of her and driving her forward onto her face. It felt as if her ribs were broken. She groaned and scrabbled at the splintery wood to push herself up enough to see. The knife was no longer in her hand.

“Fuck you!” she cried. She hunched herself onto her knees so she could stand. But a foot in her back knocked her down again.

Joe said, “Fuck us? How ‘bout fuck you?”

“Yeah! Good idea!” said Ricky.

Joe rolled Tony over onto her back. She kicked out with her feet and clawed at his face but Ricky kicked her in the head and her vision was shattered for a few moments. It flew away like pieces of a broken window blowing apart in a tornado. She blinked, squinted, tried to see, but all she could do was feel.

Feel one of the boys unzipping her jeans and tugging them down around her ankles. Feel the other snatching her hands and holding them up over her head, pressing them roughly to the pier and sitting on them with all his weight.

She bucked, but the boy on top of her jammed his knee into her gut and drove her breath out again. She tried to order him off but the words would not come.

“Show you who’s boss!” cried the boy over her, it sounded like Joe. “Cut my leg? I’ll show you. I got a big ole poker to stab you with! What’d you say, Ricky, yours may be sharper but mine’s longer! That was a good one.”

Tony bucked. Another blow to her stomach and vomit raced up into her mouth. She gagged and spit. Her legs were thrust apart then, and someone climbed between them. There was laughing and panting, and fingers strumming her cunt, her clitoris, and then jabbing up into her core.

She screamed and drew her legs together but another fist went into her gut yet again, and again remnants of her last meal rocketed into her mouth, vile and sour.

“Here you go!” Something hard, hard, and fleshy now, wider than fingers, poking at her opening, and then jabbing inside, tearing, hot and persistent. Again and again.

“Me, next!” came the voice from above.

“No!” she cried. “Fuckers!” A sob, a scream.

But it went on. And on.