Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 3

There were no towns along the highway, only blackness, as if they were hurtling through space. When lightning flashed, the rain was a curtain of silver needles. Bingo was half asleep, his face pressed against the rough upholstery that smelled of ancient dust.

Crystal pushed her feet against the boxes that crowded the floor and there was the sound of shattering. She turned away from Jenny’s accusing stare and lit a cigarette.

Lud stopped for a six-pack, running into the store through the rain and out again clumsily. It was a wonder he hadn’t sent Mama. He drank with one hand and guided the car absently with the other. When Mama had finished her third beer she started on the welfare worker again. “The nerve, anyway, barging in like that! And then to top it off, saying I should go to work! They want a little nine-year-old boy running the streets with no supervision?”

Bingo opened his mouth to say something, but Jenny poked him in the ribs.

Lud said, “Well, maybe they—”

“Maybe they what? They’ve got their gall. Real gall. They can take their job training and shove it. I know my rights.”

“What are they going to do when they find out you’ve left the county?”

“What can they do?”

“And you had to tell them I was your cousin from California on my way to Washington to pick apples. Apples this time of year?”

“Late apples.”

This struck them as very funny. Three or four beers were just about Mama’s limit on an empty stomach.

The blackness of the highway receded; a greasy orange light shone around the drenched yard of a forlorn motel.

U-Auto Rest Nice Cabins Cheap Cut-Rate Gas Groceries

From one cabin rock music beat heavily, and the light from its open door made a yellow square where a boy sat on the steps, his bare feet stuck out in the rain. The other cabins looked empty.

Beyond the cabins stood a larger shack; it had a store window and two ancient gas pumps in front. To Jenny the lighted store was like a stage, the theater around it darkened and the play about to begin. On the stage were shelves stacked with jumbled cans and boxes, a high old-fashioned counter, and a man sitting in a rocker reading the paper. When Lud entered, the play began. It did not need words. Lud signed a card, money was exchanged, the key taken from a rack. Then Lud moved off stage and the bulbous-nosed man settled, with an obvious sigh, to his newspaper.

The cabin cost eight dollars. Bedroom, living room, kitchen, bath. It smelled sour. The ceiling was stained and cracked. The walls were papered with huge roses faded to gray and splotched with brown stains—beer exploding from cans, rain coming in, or maybe worse. The floor in the bathroom was swollen in lumps from the dampness, the soap was half used up, and the shower curtain was moldy and torn.

The only picture, a calendar, showed an elk standing in a lake against snow-covered mountains. The purity of the scene did not seem to belong in that room.

Jenny opened all the windows and turned the heat up. The fresh air coming in smelled delicious. Crystal bawled about the cold, but Lud sidled up to her, patted her on the fanny, and gave her a sip of beer. Jenny found the dishpan and soap, ran steaming hot water, and plunged in enough dishes and silver for their dinner. While she got the stove going and opened cans, Bingo, under direction, scrubbed the tabletop and wiped it dry. Lud stood in the door, big and hunch-shouldered, watching them. He looked Jenny up and down once, a look that made her skin crawl. Crystal asked for a beer of her own, and Lud presented it with a bow and a lopsided grin.

Rock music beat out from the other occupied cabin. Rain pounded. They were walled in by pounding noise.

Mama dug in her suitcase and brought out a clock radio. Lud said, “Hey, Lilly, you swiped the radio, bless your soul.”

Mama roared at that, slapped her knee, but when she saw Jenny staring at the radio she straightened up. “The rent’s paid through next week, why shouldn’t I take it? It’s only right.” She turned the knob and a woman’s whispery voice sang a slow song against the beat of the rock and the rain. Mama sang along with it.

Then Jenny and Crystal and Bingo crowded around the little wooden table that was jammed up next to the sink, eating canned stew and bread. The stew tasted incredibly good. Crystal huddled, warming herself over the steaming bowl so like a cold, tired little girl that Jenny felt a sudden rush of tenderness for her. Mama and Lud sprawled on the couch drinking beer, listening to the whispery singing turned up loud against the rock. The two sounds together made a new kind of music, a suggestive kind. Perhaps it revived Crystal, or perhaps the hot stew did, for soon she began to sway to the beat and a half-smile came on her face. She pulled her sweater down so it clung, wolfed the last of the bread, and shoved her plate to the center of the table. “Gonna get a little fresh air.”

“It’ll be fresh, all right,” Lud said. “Maybe fresher than you bargained for.”

“Shut up.”

“Don’t talk to Lud like that,” Mama snapped.

“Screw Lud,” Crystal said, and went out. This made Lud laugh so hard he spilled his beer, and the laughing made Mama mad. The next thing, Mama and Lud were into it, shouting at each other.

“She’s only a baby,” Mama screamed. “She treats me terrible, and you make it worse.” She lurched into the bedroom, crying, and slammed the door.

“I’ll go,” Bingo said finally. He could cajole Mama where Jenny could not—or would not. Lud never tried.

Mama was lying with her face in the pillow. Bingo put his arms around her. She turned over and cried against his shoulder, mumbling, “Oh, my poor baby. It’s hard. It’s hard, raising children. No one knows how hard I try.”

Bingo patted her hair. Pretty soon he said, “Mama, please eat something.” She let out a little shriek of rage, and he knew he had said the wrong thing. He might as well have said, Mama, you’re drunk. He waited a little, then he said, “I love you, Mama.” That made her cry harder, but it made her feel better too. After a while she stopped crying. Jenny came in and washed her face for her and brought her a plate of stew.

When Mama and Lud had gone to bed, Jenny and Bingo wrestled the heavy couch open and made it up, then made up the chair cushions on the floor for Bingo. “Leave the door unlocked for Crystal,” Jenny said.

“That music draws her like a magnet.”

“It’s the boys and the booze that draw her, but—”

“But what?”

“Crystal wants to be told no. Told she can’t. But I’m too young to do it. And Mama won’t. I wish—oh, I don’t know.”

“Why told no?”

“She wants—you need something to push against. Maybe that’s what being told no is, a kind of wall you push against. You keep pushing, but you really want it to stay steady. Otherwise there’s just emptiness. Nothing to hold you.”

“What’s our wall, then?”

“Mama doesn’t let us do what she lets Crystal do. Besides—” She stopped, lost in thought. “Papa’s our wall. We know what he would say. Papa never was as strict with Crystal. Mama wouldn’t let him be. Maybe now, maybe she doesn’t remember him the same way we do, like we can lean on him.”

Jenny turned the light out. An orange glow from the motel sign lit the room. She got into bed and sat, frail and goose-pimply in her white nightgown, with her notebook propped against her knees. Bingo was asleep almost at once.

She began to write a picture of the ugliness of the motel, then described the lighted store and how it was like a stage. Then she wrote of the loneliness of moving, the loneliness of running away.

Well it will be a city this time, not a podunk town. That will be different. But another ugly apartment. Somebody else’s dirt, somebody else’s stains on the furniture.

We don’t belong anywhere.

When Papa was alive, we belonged in one place. And we were a real family. Now it’s like nothing is holding us together, like we all might fly off in different directions any minute. Mama just running and running, and Bingo and me lost.

Jenny woke suddenly in the orange light. The banging that woke her came again, then the front door flew open. Crystal stumbled in. Her hair was tangled and wet. She giggled and lurched toward a chair, nearly falling over it. Then she began to laugh. She rocked unsteadily and hugged herself, laughing. Her eyes were glazed. Jenny took her by the shoulders, walked her to the bed, and sat her down on it.

Crystal doubled over laughing, coming close to hysterics. She began to gulp for air.

Jenny watched her a moment, eyes widening. Then she slapped Crystal as hard as she could. Crystal, silenced, stared dully at Jenny. Bingo had put on his glasses and was watching.

“Bingo, make some strong coffee.”

When Crystal had finished the coffee, Jenny got her into bed. But soon she was thrashing and moaning. Then she shouted, “No! No, don’t.” She shuddered and clutched at Jenny, almost choking her. Jenny tried to push her away, but Crystal had a terrible strength.

“Bingo, help me get her off!”

Together they propelled Crystal, screaming and clutching at them, into the shower and turned on the cold water. She fought them until they were all three drenched. “My God,” she screamed, “it’s cold!” Then she shouted, “No! They’re crawling. Oh, no!” She started to laugh again. She sounded terrified.

But finally she calmed and allowed herself to be tucked in bed, murmuring. Jenny stayed by her until she slept, then went to sit on Bingo’s bed. “It’s all right now, she’s asleep.”

“I’ve never seen her like that, not on beer.”

“It wasn’t beer this time. She was stoned, she was blowing pot. Couldn’t you smell it? It’s like musty.”

He sniffed. “It’s like a wild animal smell. She scared me.”

“She scared me too.” And suddenly Jenny was angry. Angry at Crystal. He’s only nine, she thought with fury. He’s too young to see this. She lay down beside Bingo and put her arms around him.

But she couldn’t take away the ugliness. He had to learn to live with it. If she expected Bingo to be strong, he would be. It never did to hide your head from the facts, it only made things worse.

She pulled a corner of his blanket over her bare feet.

Bingo relaxed a little and yawned. “Has Turnock followed us, do you think?”

“When you were asleep in the car I saw him flying in the night. He was following the car. His wings were all shiny with the rain and when he looked down at me his eyes were like fire. I knew he would never stay behind.”

Bingo went to sleep then, holding his sister’s hand.

She crept to her own bed finally, but the pot smell sickened her, and when she touched Crystal, Crystal’s skin felt clammy and unnatural. Was it only pot, then? Jenny drew away, disgusted, and buried herself beneath the strange blankets.