Wire Mesh Mothers

24

The teacher drove south. Sometime soon they would have to stop and let the baby doll go to the bathroom. Tony, herself, was feeling the early pressures of a bladder that would soon be uncomfortably full. She leaned against the driver’s side, eating some of the squashed bread from the floor. Every so often she rolled down her window and tossed out the crusts.

“I like birds,” she said simply.

A while ago, maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty, Tony told the teacher to pull off at a roadside trash pile. It was brush laced with trash, a spot county folks had obviously decided made a decent and convenient dump. Tony ordered the teacher use the quilt and water from a small, muddy puddle to wash down the dash and the passenger-side floor. The teacher had then tossed the quilt and the floor mat onto the trash pile along with the empty bread bag and candy wrappers the baby doll had scattered in the back. Tony threw in the photos and credit card and receipts from the teacher’s wallet, and found pleasure in grinding them into the slimy rubbish with the toe of her Granddad’s shoe. Then Tony told the teacher she might as well add the panty hose and underwear to the pile and she did, slowly and ceremoniously covered them up with sticks and some slimy brown paper bags as if she were performing a burial.

Tony had used the same puddle and a scarf she’d spotted in the back of the teacher’s car to clean off as much of the lipstick as she could. There was still wax in her eyebrows and along her hairline but that would come out later. Later in Texas at Burton’s house. On Burton’s ranch. She wished she had something else to wear besides Granddad’s old moth-chewed clothes, but she’d deal with that later, too. She wanted to look good for Burton. He was a wealthy man, he was a powerful man, and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

The car, now smelling less strongly of vomit, paralleled the interstate on a small road whose route number Tony didn’t know and didn’t care. The remaining snacks were stuffed in the glove box and those that didn’t fit bounced along on the back seat beside the kid.

The teacher had changed her tune big time since her failed escape back at the bank. She’d gotten real quiet. This amused Tony. She imagined the teacher was Mam at the wheel, sitting with a crumpled skirt and crumpled coat, no panties, bruised face. Mam, her fat ass cheeks sticking to the inside of her skirt, saying nothing until Tony gave her permission. Then Tony imagined it was Mrs. Martin back at the Exxon, driving to Texas under Tony’s order. Scared shitless, afraid to move an inch to one side or the other.

Tony licked the corners of her mouth, drawing in some renegade bread crumbs. She rubbed the barrel of the gun with her thumb. Burton had rubbed his thumb here, she was sure. He had been a tall man with near-black hair and near-black eyes, handsome and muscular. He’d been able to hold Tony and Darlene up over his head, one in each hand, and spin them around until they laughed themselves sick.

She looked at the teacher. The woman stared straight ahead at the night-road. She looked out the window. A sign flashing by — Route 301 South. Another, 29 miles to Rocky Mount. She looked in the back where little Baby Doll had fallen asleep in her torn pink nightie and sweater and her coat. Her hair was plastered across her forehead, making it look as though she’d just blown in on a tornado. That was one screwed-up kid. Maybe seven years old, maybe eight. She didn’t say much, but hummed to herself and played with herself. What was the teacher doing with this kid in the back of her car, covered up in a quilt? She said she was taking the kid home for the afternoon. What a crock. A McDolen would never take a kid in a torn nightgown home for an afternoon. They owned most of the county.

Tony looked at the blood on her shoe. She looked at the teacher. She said, “Truth or dare.”

The teacher’s eyebrows flinched slightly, but she didn’t look over. That was no fun. Tony waggled the pistol. “Look at me. Truth or dare.”

The teacher glanced at Tony. “What is that?”

“You never played Truth or Dare? Where the hell you been?”

The teacher shook her head. Her nose seemed to be running, but she wasn’t wiping it away. That was gross, especially for a teacher.

“I ask you something and you have to tell me the truth or take a dare,” said Tony.

The teacher’s cheek hitched. She said nothing.

“Talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“We’re gonna play Truth or Dare.”

“Fine. Whatever you say.”

“You gotta tell me the truth or you gotta take a dare.” Tony reached under her hat and scratched her head. It was itching again. This time, it was good to scratch.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. You have the gun.”

“Shit, that ain’t the way it works. Besides, I’ll know if you’re telling the truth or making something up.” When the Hot Heads played Truth or Dare in the old barn, Tony could always tell when Whitey or Little Joe were lying. Dee Wee, of course, wasn’t allowed to play because he even believed the story about the aliens living over in Capron in an old tobacco barn and the story about the three-legged dog-ghost that haunted Route 58 on Halloween night.

“Hear me?”

The teacher nodded.

“Okay, you want to tell the truth or take the dare?”

“What’s the dare?”

“You don’t find out until you chose what you’re going to go. Answer or take the dare?”

“What do you want me to chose?”

Tony said, “Shit. Don’t start with me.”

“Truth.”

“Good,” said Tony. “Truth. And it better be the damned truth. Why is that kid in the back of your car? Why was she hiding under a blanket? Don’t try to tell me she was comin’ home with you for a visit or I’ll do the teeth on the other side of your face and you’ll be suckin’ tomato soup through a straw. I’ll do it.”

“I know you will.”

The teacher glanced in the rearview and shifted a bit on her seat. Tony had no fear she would try anything insane like popping the door to hop out anymore. She knew Tony would hurt Baby Doll if she did. And Tony knew she would, too.

“I,” began the teacher. “I wanted to do something for her.”

“Not good enough. You have to tell everything.”

A fork appeared in the road ahead, a dark looming maw of trees and rock, and the teacher let up on the gas. The teacher looked at Tony. The face was full of stony, resigned hatred. It was a good thing to see.

“Take the left one,” said Tony. The teacher steered left. “Now, tell me.”

Slowly, as if choosing her words with great care, “I wanted to help her. She doesn’t have much, you can probably tell. She wore a nightgown to school and she was clearly freezing. Mr. Angelone found a sweater for her in the lost and found.”

In the back, Mistie groaned a bit in sleep, then went quiet.

“I thought I could do a little better than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought I could give her some of the clothes at my place, clothes my…daughter had grown out of. Some pants, maybe, some sweatshirts and maybe a jumper or two.”

Tony pondered this. This might be something a McDolen would do, give old clothes away. It made more sense than inviting the kid to visit for an afternoon tea.

Tony drew one leg up beneath her, and bit at a hangnail on the index finger of her free hand. “Why was she hiding in the back of your car? What were you hiding her for?”

The teacher said, “The bag of snacks tore outside the store. I had to get them from under the car. When I finally got in, Mistie was nervous. I’d left her alone. I admit that was a mistake. Then I pulled over to the Dumpsters to get her something to eat. She seemed so hungry. I don’t know if she gets sweets much at home, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Then we saw kids running out of the store, they were yelling quite loudly, and they drove away in a car that was behind the dumps. Your friends’ car. The commotion scared Mistie. She crawled under the quilt. She’s a very shy child.”

Tony watched the teacher’s face for signs she was lying. If she was, it was a really good lie. Were teachers trained to lie like that, without time to think about it?

“Huh,” said Tony. “Guess her mom’s gonna be wonderin’ what the hell happened to her baby, isn’t she?”

“I suppose so.”

“She know what kinda car you got?”

The teacher shrugged. “I could call her. I don’t have a cell phone but I’ve got quarters for a pay phone.”

“Right! And tell her what?”

The teacher shrugged.

“Guess you’re in trouble now, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s really funny.” Tony took her hat off and scratched harder. It wasn’t nits, no way, it was excitement. It was all the good stuff from today, crawling around underneath her skin ready to pop out. “Don’t you think that’s funny? Kids get in trouble all the time and teachers never do. Grown-ups never do. Well, hardly. I think kids should all get a gun and a knife like I got. We’d tell ‘em what’s right and what’s wrong. We wouldn’t let teachers or mothers do some of the shit they do.”

Tony rolled down the window a little. She stuck her fingertips through the crack and wiggled them. The air was misty and cold. “What time is it?”

“Clock’s right there.”

“You tell me, bitch.”

“Six-fourteen.”

“I want supper. That bread was shit.”

The teacher’s lips moved slightly, then went still.

“What did you say? You better say it out loud.”

“I said that bread was supper.”

“You lie like a log! McDolens don’t eat regular bread for supper. You eat steak and caviar and shit like that. Right?”

“Right. I’m sorry. I should have clarified my comment. The bread is for the maid’s supper.”

“You have a maid?”

“Of course.”

“Lazy ass, got to have a maid.”

“We have a very nice maid.”

“We just passed a sign says McDonalds up ahead in Wilson. Three miles. You got more’n twenty bucks. I want a Quarter Pounder and big fries. Hey, Baby Doll!” She reached over and shook the kid. The kid whined and opened her eyes. They were squinty and red-rimmed.

“Want some McDonalds?”

The kid nodded, then shut her eyes again.

“Do the drive-through. Act like we’re a family. We’re the kids. You’re the old hag.”

“Fine.”

Tony frowned. This was losing its fun. The teacher wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t begging or arguing or trying to explain anything.

“Truth or dare?” said Tony.

“I suppose you want truth.”

“No!” Tony pinched a bit of skin on the woman’s neck. Tears sprang into her eyes but she said nothing. “No, what do you want?”

“Truth.”

Tony let go. “What do you think happened back in the Exxon? Why do you think I was runnin’ out of there so fast?”

“I thought I heard a backfire. Maybe it was a gunshot or two. Am I right?”

Tony grinned. “You got it! Yep, we shot up stuff! Guess what we shot?”

“Windows?”

“What else?”

“Somebody?”

“Yep! Guess who?”

“Mary Ann?”

“Who’s Mary Ann? Oh, that cunt Martin? No, but it should have been. Pop, blow off her boobs just like that! Guess again.”

“One of your friends?”

“The gasoline man. We killed him. Shot him in the chest, blam! Blood all over. Look at my shoe. Got his blood on my shoe.”

The teacher’s eyes closed, then opened. She was really bothered. That was good. That was great! Tony scratched her head furiously, and counted to sixty three times until they made it into the town of Wilson.