Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 7

Jenny watched Crystal, white and shaken, as she was led out of the solitary confinement cell. She had been screaming for what seemed a long time, though it was really only minutes. Jenny had thought at first that she was bluffing, but when the group worker unlocked the door there was no doubt that Crystal, locked in the small concrete room with the tiny barred window, had succumbed to panic, then terror. Once when Jenny was little she got herself locked into a clothes hamper while playing hide-and-seek. The panic she felt, the lack of air to breathe, the utter physical terror came back to her now, sickeningly. She put her arms around Crystal, and Crystal clung to her. In their room Crystal lay on her bunk with her arms tight around Jenny and would not let her go. She would glance at the door to make sure it was open, then lay back exhausted. “It was concrete,” she said once, “all concrete, even the ceiling, and the bars bolted down. When they locked the door, it was like the air went away. Like I couldn’t breathe. The window was so small. I couldn’t get out.”

After a while she fell asleep with her head in Jenny’s lap.

The group worker found them so and asked Jenny to come into the hall.

Jenny imagined all kinds of things. Had something happened to Bingo? Was he sick? Did the group workers expect her to try to control Crystal and keep her from fighting again? Fat lot of good I could do, Jenny thought, picking up her notebook to keep from leaving it unguarded in the room. She stuffed it in the folds of her nightgown and followed the uniformed woman down the hall.

They sat at a table in the dining room and the group worker gave her coffee. She was a squarely built woman with bleached hair like Mama’s, but her eyes were green, and so direct they made Jenny uncomfortable. Her hands were square: short-fingered, wrinkled hands. She glanced at the notebook that Jenny kept secreted in her lap.

“You needn’t hide your journal, I won’t take it. I understand that your writing is private.”

How did she know what the notebook contained? Jenny stared at her. How could she know—unless she had read it?

But Jenny kept it with her.

She must have been into the trunk. The trunk was supposed to be locked away where no one could touch it. That was why they had brought it. She might as well have left it with Lud.

“I know you write, Jenny. Do you mind my knowing? Bingo told Officer Dermody, who brought you here. I didn’t mean to pry.

Jenny looked down at her steaming cup and felt her face go red; she must have shown her anger very plainly. Bingo told Officer Dermody? But why would he?

“I write too, that’s why Ben told me. Ben Dermody is my son.”

Jenny sat staring dumbly. It was a moment before she took in the words. Then all she could say was, “A real writer? With books published?” It sounded incredibly stupid and rude.

“My books are about police work, about girls in trouble, girls you might meet here. I’ve published seventeen books, and some magazine stories, taught classes in writing, been a policewoman, a matron, and now I substitute as a group worker occasionally.” She paused and studied Jenny. “Did I present the proper credentials?”

Jenny’s face colored. “I didn’t mean to—” Oh, why was she so stupid. Then she saw Mrs. Dermody’s glint of humor, the laugh behind her eyes. She grabbed at her courage, and grinned back. “Yes. Exactly the right ones.”

*

On Monday Jenny and Bingo were allowed to visit in the hall during lunch period. They met at a wooden bench near the admittance desk, a group worker observing them from the office. Jenny hugged Bingo tightly, then held him off and looked at him. “You look fine. Mama can’t get into court until Tuesday. How is your unit?” She was so glad to see him. “Did you know Crystal was in solitary? She—”

“Sure I know. I know everything that happens in Girls’ Two.”

“How do you know?”

“Grapevine,” he said casually.

“What else have you learned in there?” she asked with suspicion.

He smirked at her in a knowing way, and she giggled. Then she looked serious. “Bingo, Crystal had a terrible time in solitary. She was terrified. I didn’t know that about Crystal, I didn’t know she could be frightened like that. She stayed all night in my bunk, hanging onto me.”

“I bet she won’t get herself locked in solitary again,” Bingo said heartlessly.

“I don’t think they’d put her in there again. Mrs. Dermody said—”

“Mrs. who?”

“Mrs. Dermody. You remember Officer Dermody, who brought us here. You knew about his mother, you talked to him about her—didn’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t he tell you his mother was a writer, and that she worked out here? But she said—”

Bingo shook his head and looked confused.

“But she said you told him that I wrote, she even said that you said that to me writing is like breathing. Those are my very words, Bingo.”

“Well, I did tell him that, but he didn’t say anything about his mother. He was bringing us to J.D.H., not to a tea party. He said that someone out here would be interested in knowing you write. I forgot to tell you.”

“Listen, Bingo, she’s written seventeen books. She’s won awards, and she’s taught. She has books printed in other languages, and magazine stories. We talked and talked. I gave her the key to the trunk, and—”

“You what?”

“It’s all right. Honestly. She got my notebooks and she read some, and took some home with her. She said—” Jenny’s chin was trembling.

The group worker was staring at them as if she were going to make them go back. “What did she say?” Bingo prodded her.

“She said I had a very special talent. She told me what I must do now, she showed me how to go ahead, and it’s funny, it’s what I wanted to do. This sounds like bragging, but it’s what she said. Do you want to hear what she said?”

“Well sure I do.”

“She told me that I had strong powers of analysis about people, that I observed well and made sharp pictures of the life around me. Then she said that now I must begin to make stories. Think about the ‘what if’ of things.”

Bingo puzzled over this.

“She said that when I was small—you know, those first notebooks—I wrote stories and my imagination was strong. But then I put that aside, and was occupied with observing.”

“Describing things?”

“Yes. Mrs. Dermody said that’s very important for a writer, to see things clearly, see people clearly. But that now I must strengthen my imagination too and learn to structure a story. Then I will have put the two parts together to make a whole thing. Mrs. Dermody said then I would be a strong writer. I said, ‘How can you be sure?’ and she said, ‘You must do it. It would be a sin to waste that talent.’”

“Well, what are you crying about?”

“Because—” she put her head down against his shoulder and bawled all over him. He patted her and felt embarrassed. But he guessed he knew how Jenny felt, all right.

*

On Tuesday afternoon Mama came for them. The judge had let her out on her own recognizance, which meant he trusted her to stay in the city until her trial came up. She was waiting for them at the admittance desk, her hair straggly and her coat wrinkled. The red trunk was brought out, and the iron door unlocked for them. A little breeze touched them, the air fresh and cold. The day was incredibly bright.

Lud sat smoking at the wheel of the old Plymouth. He scowled at the trunk. “What’d you take that thing for?”

Jenny stared at him until he lowered his eyes. Mama said, “Shut up, Lud, you got no right to tell other people what to do when you couldn’t even bail me out of that hole.”

“How could I, Lilly, baby. Where d’you think I would’a got a hundred bucks for them no-good bail bondsmen?”

Mama got into the front seat and slammed the door hard.

Crystal leaned forward over the back of the front seat, her head stuck between Mama and Lud. “It was just like the Hilton in there, Mama. They even laid out clean clothes for us at our door every morning. There were red curtains on the windows. Did you have curtains in jail, Mama?”

But Mama wasn’t having any. She snapped at Crystal, then was silent. Crystal sulked for a minute, then began kidding with Lud. Mama’s shoulders took on a straight, stiff look. She didn’t say another word until they were two blocks from the apartment. Then she said, “Stop at that store, Lud. I need some stuff to cook supper.”

Jenny and Bingo exchanged a look of surprise. Maybe Mama had turned over a new leaf. Mama did that sometimes.

The blackened brick apartment house stood with the sun on it as if it were welcoming them. They carried the grocery bags and the trunk through the dark hall. Clayhill’s door was open, some frantic music played faintly, as if his mother had passed through the room and turned it down. The dead rooster poster bled opposite the door, and the shadow of a figure moved somewhere back in the apartment. Crystal paused and looked in, but Mama shoved her on up the stairs. Yes, Jenny thought, Mama’s turned over a new leaf. I wonder how long that will last.

Mama unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The apartment smelled of dirty ashtrays and stale beer. Empty beer cans and dirty clothes were scattered across the furniture, and in the kitchen the counter and table were piled with dirty dishes. Wavering lines of black ants crawled across them.

Mama stood looking at it all. Then she turned on Lud. “You dirty, sloppy bastard. You dirty, no-good, free-loading bastard. What kind of a way is this for me to come home after what I’ve been through. Get out of here. Get out!”

Jenny held her breath. Bingo stood staring with amazement.

Lud looked Mama up and down, sauntered into the kitchen and got himself a beer. He slouched in the kitchen doorway with the can in his hand and regarded Mama with amusement. “It won’t take you long to pick up, Lilly. You’ve been sitting on your can for a week.”

“Get out,” Mama yelled. “Get the hell out of here!”

Lud stayed where he was. Bingo glanced at Jenny. Crystal kicked some of Lud’s underwear off the couch and sat down.

All four of them stared at Lud as if he were something slimy. Jenny thought, It takes something like this to pull us all together. Lud’s the odd one out now.

Lud saw it; slowly his expression began to change. Where it had been belligerent, it worked itself into innocence. Finally he said, “I guess you’re right, Lilly, baby. I guess I didn’t think, did I?” He stepped over to Mama and put his arm around her. “Well, we’ll just clean this place up a little, then we’ll feel all better, now won’t we?”

He began picking up beer cans, emptying ash trays. He left his dirty clothes for Mama, like a challenge. If Mama picked them up, Lud still had the upper hand.

The children waited.

Mama stood for a long time watching Lud. Then she began picking up his dirty shorts and socks.

Crystal gave a snort of disgust and went out. Jenny and Bingo went onto the balcony and stood with the cold air washing over them. “Isn’t he a bastard,” Jenny said.

“My very words. A dirty lousy bastard.”

“And Mama lets him get away with it.”

After a while Jenny said, “People are what they are.” She twisted a lock of hair. “Spring is coming, Bingo.”

He looked down at the yard. The bare trees had swollen buds, the spaded garden showed a green mist over the brown earth. When did it start? Even the air was different, even the rooftops looked sharper, washed and bright.

From the kitchen came the sound of running water, and the low murmur of voices as if Mama and Lud had made up.

They stood shivering in the bright air and thinking of spring. “Even when things are bad,” Jenny said finally, “there’s more in the world than our problems.” She let her dark hair fall over her face so it made a curtain with sparks of sunlight coming through. Then she raised her head and looked at Bingo. “Sometimes I think that whatever we call God is watching to see how strong we are.” She stood perfectly still in the sunlight. “And to see if we are willing to think about happiness, even when things are lousy.”

There was a crash in the kitchen and Mama shouted, “Don’t give me that bilge, Lud Merton!”

From somewhere in the apartment house hard rock music beat out suddenly, then someone yelled and it was turned lower. Now they could hear Mama and Lud mumbling amiably once more.

Someone knocked sharply at the front door. Jenny sighed and went to answer it.