The Executioner's Song (15 page)

                Nicole was 17 when she found out she was pregnant again. The moment Kip heard he was so happy for himself, and so happy for both of them. They were going to have a baby he kept saying. She felt disgusted. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life with this guy.

                She had never known how to keep from getting pregnant. In fact, she only found out this time in the Planned Parenthood Association building near Devon where she'd gone to get an IUD. Nicole never took pills, or watched the calendar. She read how at certain times of the month you could get pregnant more than other times, but didn't know when. She'd read about it but they seemed to mention different days in different places. Besides she somehow knew she wasn't going to get pregnant.

                This time, though, there was a student nurse who lived next door and she kept after Nicole to make an appointment at Planned Parenthood. When she finally did put in an appearance, they said she was sure carrying something.

                Telling Kip made it worse. He sat there with his beautiful black beard and curly hair and loved her enough for both of them. He'd start to say something and get so emotional it would take hours for him to get two words out. She'd have to sit with a smile on her face, wanting to say, I'm not a mind reader, you know. But when she knew what he was going to say, he would still drag it out. That made her want to escape as much as anything.

                Plus the paranoia. Every so often he would say somebody was following him, or weird messes were waiting, Trouble ahead. He'd say, See, you know? She couldn't see.

She said good-bye and took the Greyhound to Utah. Twenty-four hours later, she was in bed with a nice guy she met on the bus. No big deal, but she relaxed, and laughed and talked. After all, she wasn't in no big hurry to get back to anything.

                She thought about having an abortion. But she couldn't bring herself to kill a baby, She couldn't stand Barrett anymore, but she loved Sunny. So she couldn't see killing a new baby she might also love.

                The day after Jeremy was born, Barrett was at the hospital. She couldn't believe the games he played with her. Said that when he saw Jeremy, he felt like it was his son.

                Then after she got out, Barrett kept coming around. Jeremy had been so premature, she had to leave him in an incubator and thumb a ride over to the hospital every other day.

                Barrett would hitch along. Carried on over the baby. Told her how he really wanted her, new baby and all. It was very emotional for Barrett but just everyday for her. She said, Well, I'll live with you for a while. She had to admit that Barrett really seemed to like going to the hospital, putting on the white shirt and mask, looking at the baby. He had never had that with Sunny.

                Up to the time Jeremy was born, Nicole had been working full hours in a motel, changing linen and scrubbing bathrooms. That was about all she'd command, considering she had only finished the seventh grade. Anyway, she finally called Kip. Wanted someone besides Barrett to relate to the fact she had a son. Kip couldn't believe the news. Thought it was still weeks away. Anyway, he didn't stammer a bit, and was so nice on the phone she decided to try again.

                For those first few days, it was her best honeymoon with Kip. Lasted until he was back at work in the leathercraft shop. That afternoon she was rushing back and forth, picking things up, sticking them under the couch. He really liked the house clean. If it didn't look right, he always thought she'd been goofing off with some guy—that's how he'd been before. So she was trying to pick up when he came in the door.

                She was standing there waiting to kiss him, but he didn't look at her. Instead he began to squint. She had seen that look before.

                He kept prowling around the house. Went into the bathroom. When she strolled by, Kip was in the hamper looking her underwear over for gunk. Really gross. She kept trying to find out what made him so suspicious. Finally he told her that just as he drove up, he saw two people walk in front of the window. Since there are two windows to look through, the storm window and the inside window, he probably saw two shadows, she said, but he wouldn't believe it. Swore to God it was two people. Enough to get her screaming.

                Back in Utah, the family carried on how lucky she was to have a girl and a boy. Nicole didn't see where it was so great taking care of two when she'd never been sure she wanted one. On bad days, her main feeling was that she had missed out on a lot.

                Once again, Barrett had been sure to meet her at the airport. They talked about old times and went to his pad and listened to favorite records. He told her he had been getting this house ready for her and wouldn't bother her, so she moved in.

                In fact, he had a couple of friends staying there, and they were blowing dope, and he put off leaving. After a few days, he even got mad and said it was his fucking house. Right on. Back with Barrett, and nothing to do about it. No car, no money, no house. Two kids. Kathryne and Charley were home from Midway and offered to let her stay, but she didn't like to come home whipped. Besides they were having their own slew of problems. Charley had to resign from the Navy because April was starting to flip out. It looked like they were all going to be graduates of the nuthouse. In any case, her life was in no shape to listen to her folks fighting.

                Right about now, Barrett's business fell in on him. There was a cop in Springville who flagged Jim down every time. Any excuse to search. The cop'd say Barrett's license plate wasn't screwed down properly. One night late, he got stopped for having a taillight out. Just earlier Barrett had shot up too wads of speed, done a hit of coke, and made the mistake of thinking he was clean. Before he left the house, however, he picked up a pair of pants lying on the floor and put them on and never felt the core of speed buried way down in the bottom of the pocket. Didn't know till after the cops pulled him over. There he was outside the van, his hands up on the roof of the car for the search, and he was just fine. Clean and high. As he told it to her later, he was looking around, you know, when the cop pulled out his pockets. Barrett now looked down to see this Baggie of 25 whites that the cop held in his hand. Quick as a cat, Barrett let her know, he grabbed it. Should have popped it in his mouth, but threw the stuff away instead, as far as he could. Oliver Nelson, the cop, handcuffed him at that point, and started searching the area, dragging him around by the handcuffs. There was snow on the ground and it was hard to find whites, but he could see Nelson wasn't going to give up. Finally, Barrett got a peek at them near a telephone pole, and as soon as Oliver moved him close enough, he tried to squinch the Baggie into the snow. But when he went to stretch his leg, the cop felt it and saw the whites. They took him down to the station.

                Rikki came over and paid the $110 bail and brought him home. It was like two in the morning. Took him back to Nicole, and she wasn't mad at that point. Really understanding. But Barrett was in real trouble. They packed up their stuff in the next couple of days and moved to Verno, Utah. It was the end of business for a while.

                Once in a while, she'd think about going back to school and even wrote letters to a couple of places, but Barrett would say, yeah, yeah, and tell her she didn't need to go to school. He could support her. She decided he saw her as a stupid chick who was nice to call his own.

                Then Barrett told her they were moving again. He borrowed a truck and said he would transport their furniture. Before she knew it, he had sold the stuff instead, the stereo, her blow-dryer and the lamps. With the money, he bought some hash to deal with, and took off. Furniture or no, she got registered in school, and picked up $130 a month from welfare and lived in a little trailer court away from everything. Loved her privacy there. With Barrett gone, it was kind of a happy time in her life. Only the rent, $90 a month, bugged her. She didn't have enough left for food and began to get uptight again.

                Along came a guy named Steve Hudson, a lot older than herself. Maybe he was only 30, but he seemed ages beyond. She felt more sensible about him than anybody till then. He was straight, and going to church. She only went with him for a few months before they got married. Two weeks later, she left him. They just couldn't get along. It was depressing. She felt so bad she soon picked up with another fellow she met in church, a big slow-talking fellow, Joe Bob Sears. He took good care of himself, worked hard, made love hard, and really liked her kids. In fact, Joe Bob was better with Jeremy than she was. She hadn't been able to love Jeremy so far. When he'd start to cry, she'd pick him up. If he didn't stop, she'd throw him back in his crib. She never hurt him, but still she was thudding him against the mattress. Joe Bob actually treated Jeremy better than she did. Maybe it was because he had a child of his own he'd hardly ever seen.

                By now Nicole was letting things slide. Things didn't bother her as much. Barrett was driving off trucks in Verno which is to say, he would get a job, lose it, get another. He had a short fuse, and could tell his boss to go to hell without a lot of provocation. Once she got so desperate for a little security that she was walking down the street with both kids and a few belongings when Barrett drove up the road heading home. So they got into a big fight. He seriously tried to beat the shit out of her. Instead she got ahold of Sunny's toy chair and marked him up pretty good. He had black and blue marks everywhere. Therefore, she didn't leave. It felt too good to look at him.

                In Mississippi, Joe Bob's father was dying of cancer, and he wanted to visit, so Nicole left the kids with Charley and Kathryne, and took off. She had hopes for Joe Bob and herself. He gave her real security, yet he was also an exciting guy.

                One night in Mississippi Nicole got the shock of her life. Joe Bob's folks had the biggest butcher shop in town, and they kept a few cows for their own use. On this night, Nicole happened to be out in the barn and through the planks, on the other side of an enclosure, there was a calf sucking on her new man.

                Once in a while, Joe Bob had talked funny about photos he'd looked at of a chicken being fucked by a dog, and wanted to know if she'd ever seen such stuff, but Nicole just let it slide. Now, she said to herself, "You're going to be 'a loser forever.' Face it."

                To herself, she even had to pretend she didn't see Joe Bob with the calf. All the while, he was talking about taking over his father's butcher shop. They'd be surrounded by animals then. Dead ones. It turned out his father wasn't sick the way Joe Bob had let on in Utah, but ready to retire. They would go to Utah, pick up Sunny and Jeremy, then down to Mississippi again. Nicole felt trapped worse than ever.

                Back in Utah, fifteen minutes after they came through the front door of Joe Bob's house, there couldn't have been more trouble. Some of Joe Bob's animals were out of their cages and running wild. The house was late being repaired, paneling was still being nailed up, floors were torn, sinks being put in. Worse. His little trailer was gone from the yard. Joe Bob knew immediately who had stolen it because he ripped the thing off the guy in the first place when he wouldn't pay some money he owed. Now it was gone. Joe Bob was out talking to the cops. Nicole was standing at the door. She had a splitting headache. Sunny and Jeremy were crying.

                She heard the cop explaining that possession is nine-tenths the law. Since Joe Bob'd never taken legal possession of the trailer there wasn't much he could do.

                When he came back and started explaining it to her, she said, I know, I heard. I don't want to hear. She swore she was faint, didn't want to talk. He began to get rude. She got rude back. Must have said something to set it off. Fifteen minutes after they got home, he picked her up and threw her across the room.

                Then he came over, picked her up and threw her again. There were mattresses on the floor, but she bounced off a few walls.

                He sat on her, and choked her. He said he wasn't having any more of this. Wasn't having any more of that. Started telling her she was his slave now. He was over 200 pounds and most of it in the back and shoulders. He sat on her for hours, smacked her now and again when he felt like it. Kept her in a back room for a few days.

                Joe Bob would give the kids a meal or two a day. Allowed them in the room with her once in a while. He didn't lock the door, but she still couldn't leave that room. He wouldn't let her. She cried a lot. Sometimes she screamed. Sometimes she'd sit there for hours. When he came in, he'd cuff her for making noise. Then she wouldn't let any emotion come over her face, or make a sound. She would act like he wasn't there.

                He also fucked her a lot—no change in his habits that way—and called her Poopsie and Baby Doll and Honey. Sometimes she'd scream and holler, other times act like it wasn't going on. After a while she remembered his gun and she wondered how to get hold of it. It was a huge handgun, and it kept her going. When she found it, she would kill him. She kept telling Joe Bob that he could wipe her out but she wasn't going to stay with him. Never.

                It went on another week. He'd only punish her once a day now, and allowed her to go out in the yard. He even left for work. She suspected a trap and didn't move at first. But after a couple of days, she took off and went to the bus station. It was Jeremy's first birthday. She made a call, and Barrett was over to rescue her once again. He always showed up when there was nobody else in the whole fucking world. Knew it. Loved it. He was the only one who would help her out of the worst situations. Prince Charming.