Wire Mesh Mothers

42

It took the whole of I Love Lucy and half of Gomer Pyle before the girl forced herself up from the toilet and pulled her jeans back on. She was hurt. She was bleeding.

Big deal. Kate was hurt and bleeding, too, though hers had nearly stopped.

And all Kate could think was Now, what, bitch?

The girl stumbled three times, trying to put her second leg into the jeans. She leaned against the wall, sucking air through her teeth, her short dark hair glistening with sweat.

Fall against the toilet lid. Crack your skull open. That’ll do it! Bash your own brains out, come on.

With the fourth attempt the leg went in. Unrolling the toilet paper, she tore off a huge wad and jammed it down into her pants crotch, then hobbled out to the bedroom at a tilt. There was the sound of the channel being changed to the evening news.

Bitch.

The girl came back into the bathroom, spit blood into the toilet.

Yeah, now what? Adrenaline or something else with sharp, biting edges was coursing her blood. Her eyes fluttered shut, then open. The bathroom reeled when they were closed, spun when they were open. Not a hell of a big choice there. It felt as if someone had sanded the enamel off the tips of her teeth. She wanted to bite something.

The girl cut the Kate’s towel restraints loose with her knife, then she brought the knife came close to Kate’s eyes. Kate kept her mouth shut though her teeth were on edge, ready to strike.

“Get dressed,” said the girl. “Then come out.”

Kate said nothing. She worked the soaked terry cloth off her wrists and massaged them. Her arm muscles jumped. Her shoulders were stiff and did not come down easily. They complained as she made them obey.

She waited until the girl left before stepping out of the tub. Her clothes, scattered near the trashcan, were soaked. Fuck it, she just couldn’t keep dry clothes on this trip. She grabbed a bath towel instead, and wrapped herself in it, folding it across her chest and tucking the edge securely. She draped the wet clothes over the shower rod. There was nothing in the bathroom she could put into her jeans pocket to use to kill the girl. Soap, a tiny bottle of shampoo and conditioner. A little shower cap, packaged in a little shiny box. A fresh shiver coursed her body.

That’s all right, I’ll find something soon. She was caught in a brief and vicious wave of shivers and thought, I’ll never be warm again. I’ll stay cold.

But that’s okay. It’s good to be cold.

The little bitch.

She went into the bedroom.

The girl was standing at a tilt near the door, her fingers clutching the edge of the blue drape. She was likely cramping. Kate wondered how damaged she was. She hoped it was a lot. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to go any farther. “Where are your fucking clothes?” the girl said.

“Wet.”

“Sit down.”

Kate sat beside Mistie. Mistie was tied with pillowcases at her wrists and ankles. The child stared at the blank television screen as if by sheer will she could bring the show back on. The bedspread was crumpled where the girl had flopped back and forth. One pillowcase-less pillow was on the floor.

The girl came up between the beds and slapped Kate across the mouth. Kate’s own hand came up to retaliate, but stopped short as the knife slashed the air inches from her nose. The girl turned it slowly in her hand. It winked in the low-watt bulb overhead. “Who said you could talk to me in the bathroom? Now, I’m gonna tell you what we’re doing next. Tomorrow morning, we’re outa this shit hold called Mobile. We’re finding us a car and we’re driving straight through to Texas. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do with you when I get there, but you can bet your asses I’ll kill you if you give me any trouble between now and then.” She stiffened, groaned, then shook her head as if to clear it. “Get those socks you left in the bathroom. Can’t leave you loose.”

“No.”

The girl was quick, up on the bed and grabbing at Mistie’s hair and jerking her neck back, exposing the soft throat. The blade trembled less than an inch from the skin. “Oh, I think you will. One wrong move, teacher, and we can all sing like Baby Doll, ‘Mama had a baby and its head popped off.’”

Kate retrieved the socks from the bathroom floor and sat back on the bed. The socks were still dripping. She wrung them out over the floor, not taking her eyes off the girl as she did. The socks weren’t long enough to be a garrote. Pity. If they were, she could have hidden them in her jeans in the morning to strangle the girl later.

“Tie your ankles, and Baby Doll’ll get your wrists like before.”

Within the minute, Kate was immobile in her towel drape and her sock restraints, propped up against the headboard. Mistie was curled up beside Kate, humming. The girl had used the phone cord, which she’d cut apart, to tied Kate’s arms to the headboard. Mistie was tied to Kate’s right arm. Her stare was vacant, like a child going to slaughter. Kate’s insides roiled.

The girl had stood back to appreciate her handiwork, and then turned on the television to national news. She climbed onto her own bed, clutched a pillow to her chest, and watched the screen.

There was a riot reported in Los Angeles, with several teenagers captured for shooting an officer. A fire in Arizona, begun, it was believed, by the incredibly dry conditions over the past month. Thousands of acres already destroyed. A blizzard in North Dakota. A mall Santa in Chicago found guilty of child molestation.

“Yeah, okay,” the girl said to the set. “What about Pippins? What about the gasoline man? What about us, huh?” She put a pillow between her knees and let a breath out through her teeth. Oh, yes, she was hurting. Very, very good.

She went quiet then as a commercial played, then another, another, and the news came back. It was a story about Americans in upstate New York going to Canada for their prescription drugs.

“Virginia’s good as Canada! Go to Virginia!”

The national weather report, the dry weather in the southwest, the snow across the mid-west. Clear and cold in Virginia, cloudy in Alabama and Texas.

The news went off. Wheel of Fortune came on. The girl reached over for the theft-proof remote and clicked the T.V. off. She put one hand under her head and looked at the ceiling. “Tomorrow I’ll get a fucking car. Tomorrow, I’ll get to Texas. No more of this screwing around.”

Kate said, “Truth or dare?”

The girl’s head turned in Kate’s direction. “You got a death wish?”

“Truth or dare? You like the game, don’t you?”

The girl sat up quickly, her focus seeming to go out then in with the effort. She wiped sweat from her brow with her sweatshirt sleeve. WWJD? Kate thought. Well, he wouldn’t be gouging himself with a knife handle and cutting up teachers in the shower of the Mobile South Motor Inn. But then again, maybe He would. As a girl, Kate had attended a Presbyterian church with her family in Norfolk; she’d heard how the God of Moses could flip out and go pretty damn nuts when things didn’t turn out His way.

The girl nodded at the knife by her pillow. “You forget I got that?”

“No, but I notice your gun is gone. Tough deal, huh? Truth or dare?”

The girl stared.

“You into your own game? You can dish it out but can’t take it?”

“There’s nothing I can’t take.”

“Truth or dare, then.”

A laugh of disbelief, but an expression of curiosity. “Okay, bitch, I’ll go for it this once. Dare.”

Kate heard her teacher’s voice speaking, the voice of calm. She didn’t even have to count to ten on this one. Deidra if you could see me now. Donald, if you had any idea. “You’re clearly an independent girl, someone who knows her own mind. You don’t need us. I dare you to let us go.”

“Wrong!” The girl sat up.

“Okay, fine.” Kate felt one eyebrow go up into a benign point, a good addition to the act. “Then I get a truth.”

The girl said, “What truth?”

“Why do you hate yourself so much?”

“I don’t hate myself you stupid bitch. I’m the best thing in this motel room.”

“What you did to yourself in the bathroom, the way you talk. It’s obvious you hate what you are.”

The girl shook her head and chuckled darkly. She pulled up her sweatshirt to show an Ace bandage strapped across her breasts. “What I got ain’t what I am! See this? If I had the money I’d get ‘em cut off. Fat and skin, that’s all they are, but oh, don’t the men think they’re something? Looking, wanting to touch, screw what you want, right? You got ‘em, Baby Doll’s gonna have ‘em even if she doesn’t want ‘em. Think there would be a pill now, one you could take to pop these fuckers down to nothing.”

“You wish you were a boy, then?”

Dig harder, Kate. She has a knife. You have a brain. “There are biological explanations for that, you know. No need to be ashamed.”

The sweatshirt came down. “You’re so ignorant! I don’t want to be a boy, I just don’t want to be a girl. I want to be nothing, just a person. That make sense to your little mind?”

“Why don’t you want to be a girl?”

“You aren’t listening!” The girl leaned over and stared at Kate, one hand taking up the knife, the other set of fingers balled into a fist and shaking at Kate. Then the next moment she drew back slightly, and her tone evened out. Her wide eyes hitched in what looked like a wave of pain. “You’re playing with me. You can fuck off.”

She rolled from the bed and turned off all the lamps. There was the sound of her dropping to her bed, mumbling something into her pillow. Kate listened until the girl’s breathing had changed from consciousness to sleep.

But Kate remained wide awake, riding the turbulent and delicious rush of anger.

I’m going to kill her. Oh, you bet.