A Place Called Wiregrass (27 page)

By the third day we had logged more miles and driven through more seedy motel parking lots than I care to count. The scenes of Shreveport were beginning to look the same. Although Gerald never said anything, I could tell by the way
he would sigh and rub the corners of his mustache that he thought we were wasting our time. We saw every white van in Shreveport but, of course, each one was newer and had a proper tag. The one I searched for was driven by a loser and someone who most likely was halfway to Las Vegas by now.

“You know, Erma Lee, she is fourteen,” Gerald said after we drove away from McDonald’s.

At first I ignored his comment and continued to unpack our lunch. But by the time I scattered his French fries on the opposite end of his Big Mac, I was about to pop. “What does that mean?”

He took a sip of Coke, and I could tell if he could come up with another topic he would have. “It’s going to be hard for the police to pin him with kidnapping when she left on her own free will.”

I tore open the packet of ketchup and poured it on my hamburger, tossing the empty packet to the truck floor out of spite. “She most certainly did not leave on her own. He told her a pile of lies to get her.” I slammed the lid of the Big Mac shut and tossed the box back into the bag.

“All I’m saying…”

“I know exactly what you’re saying. Look, if you don’t want to be here, then just drop me off at the motel.”

He sighed again and rubbed the corner of his mustache. “You know I ain’t doing that. I just don’t want you to get all disappointed if they don’t lock him up.”

“You’re as bad as that old police sergeant. Didn’t you hear that girl’s sister say how strung out she is on dope? If the police pulled him over right now, I guarantee you they could get him on a drug charge alone.” I looked out the window. The trash that littered the sidewalk was easier to look at than Gerald. “And nobody asked you to come here. You decided and might as well say told me…”

The sudden swerve of the truck slung me against the win
dow. I heard a hard thump when my head hit the glass. Gerald’s truck suddenly was on the other side of the highway.

“I saw him.” Gerald leaned over the steering wheel.

“What? You sure?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head.

“He passed right by us. He’s got that ladder on top, right?” Gerald floored the gas pedal.

After constant disappointment, I was surprised when the nervous energy returned. When I saw the faded brown cardboard with the words
Lost Tag
on the back of the white van ahead of us, I liked to have jumped right out of the truck.

“Don’t get too close,” I said, remembering a TV movie where the mother blows up a car to keep from having her children taken away.

Evening was settling in when the white van pulled into a small motel connected to a flea market. An old rusty farm tractor surrounded by three black oil barrels marked the boundary between the motel and the flea market. A cloud of dust rolled over the van, and like a ghost LaRue appeared from the driver’s door. He was dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and the same tight black jeans he had on the night I saw him with Cher. A girl with stringy red hair dressed in cut-offs and a yellow bikini top got out of the passenger side.

We sat in the truck surrounded by silence, waiting and watching near the motel office.
Lord, please give me Cher,
I silently prayed. Without a care in the world or a sign of things to come, LaRue strutted inside the opened motel door.

“That him?” Gerald asked.

I nodded my head and looked down at my long nails. The vision of the same nails slicing LaRue’s face took over where reasoning left off.

Gerald picked up the mobile phone and dialed 911. A man naked from the waist up walked out of the room next to
LaRue’s. A silver belt buckle dangled below his big stomach. He walked around in circles, scratching his head and yelling. The man was a minor distraction to the pain and rage that was building inside me. Rage not only at LaRue, but also at myself for not confronting him when I had the chance in Wiregrass. Rage that I let my lack of self-worth stop me from doing what was right for Cher.

“Let me see, this place is off Highway 71 just outside of town. Yes, ma’am.” Gerald was looking towards the motel office when I opened the truck door.

“She’s run off,” I heard the fat man yell and scratch tuffs of hair on his head. The rolls of stomach fat shook when he stopped and looked inside LaRue’s open motel door. When the man turned to face me, I saw a scratch mark with fresh blood on the side of his face. His gray eyes looked wider and more glassy with each step.

“Erma Lee,” Gerald yelled behind me. But I keep walking over rocks and sand, hearing more clearly the guitar jam that played inside LaRue’s room. “Erma Lee,” Gerald’s voice grew closer. I could hear his boots pounding towards me. The old tractor surrounded by tall weeds and barrels was ahead on my right. “Erma Lee,” Gerald yelled once more and I walked faster towards the ground-shaking music and the man with the drooping belly.

“Grandma.” I stopped, thinking at first I had imagined the soft voice. I turned and saw Gerald running towards me and then looked in the direction of the rusty tractor. In between the high weeds and the tractor, Cher was crouched down behind one of the black barrels. Her lip was swollen, and the faster I ran, the redder the cake of blood looked on the corner of her mouth.

When I reached the tractor, I saw the fat man running wild-eyed towards Cher. The man yelled with his arms outstretched. Cher screamed and used one hand to push back
wards into the dense weeds. Her other hand was holding together the torn strap of her sundress.

I tried to run faster, but it seemed like slow motion, watching the fat man’s outstretched arms move closer towards Cher. “No, no, no,” Cher kept screaming and crawling backwards. When the fat man reached down for Cher’s neck, I gritted my teeth and jumped forward, landing next to the barrel. I looked up to find Gerald’s hand pulling the man upright by his wiry hair. I was struggling to catch my breath when I heard Gerald hitting the man in the face, the crush of fist meeting bone.

Cher was shaking uncontrollably. I could barely keep my arms around her. All I could think to do was rub my hands over her bare arms and tell her everything would be all right. Each syllable got caught in my throat. I knew if she could understand my words, she would know I was lying. The rattle of her teeth only stopped when I pulled her head into my chest and held her jaw shut. The twitching jawbone jarred the palm of my hand.

Thinking the shakes must be a need for warmth, I lifted her. Her head twitched against my shoulder. Running towards the truck, I passed the fat man pinned down on the hood of the rusty tractor. Gerald’s bloody fist mechanically pounded the man’s face. “Gerald,” I screamed and continued carrying Cher towards the truck.

I placed her in the passenger seat and saw the ripped bra straps. Her hand was glued to the torn strap of her sundress. She rolled towards the passenger door and whimpered a sound I’d expect from a wounded dog. “I’m here now, baby,” I repeated over and over.

When I cranked the truck and turned the heater on, I saw LaRue standing outside his room, holding the inner portion of his arm. My eyes locked on his, and if he hadn’t moved so fast, I would’ve run him down. He jumped into the white van
and spun dust around the tractor where Gerald was still pounding the fat man’s face.

Anger took over where my common sense left off. I jerked the steering wheel and the truck spun around. Soon we were on the highway gaining on LaRue. The paint-spotted ladder on top of his van bounced with every dip in the road. The truck speedometer read ninety-five. Sweat formed from the heat and rage and ran down my neck.

When he turned onto a county road, his right back tire came off the road and the ladder on his roof turned sideways. We flew past a road sign ordering forty-five miles per hour. I was so close to him, I could see the wavy hair on the back of his head and the evil in his eyes each time he glanced at me in his rearview mirror. All the words I had planned to say in court would be said here, on judgment day. I slammed my foot on the gas pedal even harder.

I heard the sirens before I saw them. Two patrol cars were coming towards us in the opposite direction. Suddenly I saw the red in LaRue’s only working brake light. My feet pounded the brake pedal. And the scream of Gerald’s tires locking onto asphalt made me clinch my teeth and extend my arm to protect Cher from flying through the windshield. All I saw was a flash of the green pasture across the road when the truck spun to the left and crossed into the opposite lane. When we finally came to a stop, I was looking in the direction from which we had come.

The sirens grew louder, and when I looked into the rearview mirror, LaRue’s white van was airborne, flying towards the side of a convenience store. Gerald’s truck vibrated when the red fireball erupted behind us. Cher screamed, and I pulled her head down towards the seat. The weight of my body landed on top of her. “I love you. I love you,” I screamed into her ear.

T
he only time I cried was when I looked down at Cher in the hospital room. Deep asleep, thanks to the liquid dripping into her arm, she looked angelic against the white sheets and white hospital gown. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and her swollen red lip glistened from the antibiotic cream.

I sniffed and wiped away the tears with my palms. In the silence of the room, it was my chance to mourn her loss of innocence. The doctor said she had not been raped, but the fat man’s attempts and the blows she took from the struggle could not match the blows I imagined her heart had received. I had failed to protect her from the wickedness of this world. Wickedness that ran through her very blood.

The tears fell on my T-shirt and temporarily released frustration and bitterness. The battle with the one thing stronger than whiskey in tearing my family apart was over. With Gerald at the police station giving his statement, it was my only chance to cry in private. I refused to let Gerald and Cher see me shed one tear.

At first, the sheriff’s deputies wanted to charge Gerald with aggravated assault. The fat man’s cheekbones were shattered into a bloody pulp. They even took Gerald in for questioning. My heart fell to my feet when I got back to the seedy motel that day and saw Gerald sitting in the back of the patrol car. But Cher’s statement helped get him off.

The fat man had a full grocery store for LaRue: a stash of heroin and three grams of cocaine. A dealer who regularly bartered for his trades, the fat man offered LaRue his next hit for the small price of Cher’s innocence. I curled my fist and hit the blue plastic cushion of the hospital chair.

As it turned out, vengeance really was the Lord’s. When LaRue’s van went airborne, it crashed into a propane gas tank at the convenience store. The fireball created from cans of paint in the van and the gas proved to be LaRue’s final sentence. The officer said the woman normally posted at the cash register was lucky enough to have been stocking milk on the opposite side of the building. The poor old thing escaped with third-degree burns. Another victim to add to LaRue’s resume.

His charred body hid the needle tracks, but heroin secured its mark on LaRue’s insides. The autopsy showed he was tore up on all kinda dope when he crashed. I often wondered if he meant to plow into that white propane tank. To somehow escape the responsibility he would finally face or to do away with the turmoil that I imagined brewed in his soul.

Forgive others as Christ has also forgiven you
. The words played in my mind like a tape recorder on maximum volume. And try as I might to release LaRue for final judgment, I knew he would be a hindrance until I could forgive him.
But that day would have to come tomorrow,
I decided as I tried to shake the image of his blonde hair afire.

I positioned my back against the hallway pay phone so I could watch Cher sleep. “No matter what, the Lord still loves you and Cher. There’s a whole lot of meanness in this world. But God still remains.” Miss Claudia’s words sounded weak on the phone.

A pity party is what I wanted, not comfort. I wanted to scream and ask why I was being punished with all this turmoil. Why did everything bad happen to us? I rolled my eyes
and yanked the phone receiver away from my ear. Her words of spiritual strength were not welcomed. I would’ve hung up if it’d come from anybody else. I wanted to lick my wounds. Question God. Shake my fist. But deep inside my spirit, I was fearful as much as determined not to go backwards. It could always get worse.

The motel Bible rested on my lap so long before I finally opened it that the book had become a heater on my skin. I read the first chapter of 2 Corinthians every ten minutes until I had the passage just about memorized.
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
The fancy-typed words were a shot, protecting me against the pity virus that hovered over me. And sitting in the vinyl chair in Cher’s hospital room, I closed my eyes, put my hands on the sheet, and forced thanks to the Lord for bringing Cher back to me, wounded yet alive.

Gerald said little after the incident. When he came into the hospital room, he only looked at Cher for a minute or two and would disappear to the lobby. Checking out of the hospital, I had to let Gerald put the bill on his credit card. “Now I promise you seventy dollars the first of the month until I get you paid back.” I was humiliated to ask for help, but after the admissions clerk informed me my HMO did not insure us out of state, I had no choice.

“I liked to killed that man with my bare hands,” Gerald said. He touched the elevator button and massaged his index finger.

“He deserved every bit what you gave him.”

“But I done it for all the wrong reasons.” Gerald moved to let an orderly pushing a wheelchair past us.

He never said any more about the matter, but as I watched how he gently lifted Cher from the wheelchair into the truck,
I knew what he meant. I figured Gerald beat the fat drug dealer for what he represented just as much as for what he did to Cher. He beat the demons out of that man. The same demons that caused the drunk in Wiregrass to get behind the wheel of his truck and kill Gerald’s wife.

Gerald pushed up the brim of his cap and cut his eyes towards me from the driver’s seat. Right then, his eyes and lazy smile gave me a warmth that could only be matched by Miss Claudia. He had cared enough to drop the customers who were scheduled to have their automobiles worked on, to put the miles on his truck, and to risk being arrested. All that trouble to vindicate me and to save Cher.

Cher’s head rested on my shoulder, and she stared straight ahead, never saying a word. On the interstate, I could see through the corner of my eye the backdrop of Shreveport in the side mirror. But I never looked back. Looking back at the city that produced heartache for me and my baby would be like Lot’s wife looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah. And I had come too far to be turned into a pillar of salt.

The first week back in Wiregrass, church members took turns bringing supper to us—something I had no idea people did unless someone in your family died. But then again, I guess they figured that a part of Cher did die in Shreveport.

In the daytime hours, Cher went with me to Miss Claudia’s and would lie in front of the TV. At night she would go straight back to her room and turn her radio on. Even Laurel’s presence at the door would not get her to come out.

The evening Lee and Sonya brought a pot of chicken and dumplings to us, I was at a loss. All week Cher had not spoken a word. Even the most basic questions were answered with a shake or nod of her head. Her behavior reminded me of the
struggles I had gone through with Miss Claudia.
You have nothing to be scared of anymore,
I wanted to yell into Cher’s face and shake her shoulders. But the vision of her permanently handicapped like Richard prevented any tough measures.

“Erma Lee, have you thought about a counselor?” Lee asked. He watched Sonya set the cardboard box of casseroles on my dinette table.

Head shrinkers,
Mama called them. I knew all about them from Suzette’s stint in prison. “If she won’t talk to me, what makes you think she’ll talk to somebody she doesn’t even know?” I spoke in a stage whisper and pushed my hand towards the floor, trying to make Lee speak in a softer tone. Cher was only steps away, locked behind thin bedroom walls.

Lee put two fingers up to the thin lips. A few black strands of hair stood like electricity was running through him. “Sometimes we hold back with the ones we’re closest to,” he whispered.

“And to be real honest with you, that hospital bill and the trip up there set me back.” I had vowed to never again speak the word
Shreveport
. “Don’t you think you could just talk with her? You know, maybe pray with her or something?”

Lee propped his hand on the kitchen counter. “You got it. But you know, prayer is a two-way street. What good is it if all she does is block my words out of her mind? I think prayer with counseling is the best thing here.”

“What about Andra Kintowsky, down at the community center?” Sonya said. She looked at Lee and folded her arms.

“That’s a good place to start. Andra is the best I know of. Why don’t I call you with her number? They tell me there’s even a plan for hardship cases.” Lee nervously looked away when he said the word
hardship
.

Cher waited in the stark white lobby, staring at the loud television mounted on a corner wall. I met with Andra first. I knew I must have messed her name up by the way she responded.

“It’s just like Sandra, only drop off the S. Don’t worry about it, hon,” she said and squinted up her round nose.

Andra said the word
hon
a lot. She was petite and stylish with a layered blonde hairdo. She told me she grew up in northern Ohio and moved to Wiregrass after her husband graduated medical school. She informed me that he was the medical director at the local rehabilitation hospital and they had a five-year-old son. “So now, hon. What about you?”

What could I say to match her wonderful home life?
I’m sure twenty minutes later, after I offered highlights, she was ready to sign me up as the patient. Even so, I left nothing uncovered. Her blue eyes only widened when I told her how I found Cher in the crack house after LaRue and Suzette ran off to Las Vegas. “And I’ve never told Cher that. I always thought it’d be too painful for her, you know. And now with everything that happened, well, I reckon she saw enough for herself.”

Andra tapped a pencil eraser on the wide desk calendar. “But you’re still going to tell her, right?”

I looked down at her shiny black shoes with big square heels. Shoes like the ones Cher looked at in her fashion magazines.

“Hon, closure is going to be critical for Cher.” Andra leaned forward and chopped her hand in the air. “Absolutely critical.”

After Andra met with Cher for only ten minutes, she brought her back to the lobby. For that little bit of time, I was glad I only had to pay five dollars. “You qualify for our sliding fee scale,” the young receptionist said and smiled real big.
A giveaway program for the pitiful,
I thought.

A daytime story roared so loud on the television, I had to lean forward to hear Andra. “Cher and I agreed to meet weekly for a little while,” Andra said, smiling, with her hands on Cher’s shoulders. “See you next week, hon.” Andra winked and turned back down the sterile hallway.

Walking to the car in the searing June heat, I pulled a pair of sunglasses from my pocketbook. They were not identical, but as close as I could find at K-Mart to the ones that broke the day I slapped her. To keep her from getting nervous, I handed them to her and looked away at the Hispanic man cutting the row of shrubs in front of a sign that read Houston County Mental Health Center.

“Thanks,” Cher whispered.

“What’d you think of her?”

“I liked her shoes.”

I clapped my hands and threw my head backwards. “I knew you’d say that the minute I saw them things.” When we slid into the scorching car seats and rolled the windows down, a chill drifted down my spine. I thanked God for His mercy. That day marked the first time Cher had said two words to me since her return home.

Two days before July fourth, the divorce papers were signed with much less fanfare than I expected. No fireworks or celebration cookout. Just the young lawyer and the dining-room table at Miss Claudia’s house. Her lawyer brought them to me when he dropped off some other papers for Miss Claudia’s signature.

Bozo agreed to pay fifty dollars a week in child support. I had arranged for half of each month’s payment to go into the college account I opened for Cher down at the bank. The papers I signed said Bozo could visit Cher one weekend a month and two weeks during summers. But with his new
love interest, I doubted Cher would be hearing from him anytime soon. I never did call and tell Bozo about LaRue.
He would just blame it all on me anyway,
I told myself as I finished polishing Miss Claudia’s baby grand piano.

“Cher, you ’bout ready for our lesson,” Miss Claudia yelled to Cher. “Your grandmama’s got the piano all nice and shiny for us.”

Cher turned off Miss Claudia’s television and stumbled into the formal living room.

“And remember where middle C is now,” Miss Claudia said, placing Cher’s thumb on the correct key.

The piano lessons began after Cher started her marathon TV watching. “I just see that screen sucking her brain out,” Miss Claudia said to me. Soon piano lessons became a way for Cher to turn off the TV and for Miss Claudia to turn off worry over the rescue home.

While Gerald and me were away looking for Cher, the city council manager promised Miss Claudia a portion of the city budget would include funds for the home. She was still lobbying local churches. Every morning she would sit in her dining room, with papers scattered all over the table, talking to local pastors and community leaders.

Miss Claudia’s pastor, Dr. Winters, visited once after the church voted to turn down full sponsorship of the home.

“Miss Claudia, I wish there was more I could do.” Dr. Winters shook his head and picked a piece of lint from his olive slacks.

She pulled her glasses off and slowly twirled them around with her fingers. “Oh, but Dr. Winters, I think there is more.”

“What? Yes, indeed. Anything at all for you, Miss Claudia.”

“You can get down on your knees and pray for the church. Too many of them are playing church rather than worshiping the Lord.”

When Dr. Winters’s beeper went off, Miss Claudia never let up. “I want to quote you something from Timothy,” she said and picked up her ever handy red Bible. “For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of love, power, and self-discipline.” She raised her arm in a militant fashion. “Power.”

When she raised her voice and repeated the word, Dr. Winters dropped his pager and disappeared under the table trying to find it.

“Notice how I put the emphasis on
power
. Do you think we showed power when that poor man came to our church looking for somebody to be nice to him?”