Flavor of the Month (6 page)

“Oh, shoot.” Her father’s aged pickup truck stuck out from behind the end of the lot. The angle at which it was parked and the door left open told her that he was not only home but also drunk. She sighed. Nothing ever changed in Lamson, Texas. She paused for a moment, right there in the dusty road, and took out the Bible her momma had left her. She opened it blindly, then let her eye fall on the page. It was in Psalms, the prettiest part of the Old Testament. It was Psalm 21, and she read it through. All right, she told herself, then went to the door of the trailer and opened it quietly, not wanting to wake him if he was passed out. “Please, oh, Lord, let him sleep,” she prayed. She didn’t want tonight to be ruined.

His smell hit her as she stepped inside, a rank mixture of body odor and beer. She could make sure he had fresh-washed clothes, but she couldn’t make him change them often or take a shower. Luckily, though, there wasn’t a sound in the trailer. She realized he must be in a stupor, because she also smelled the overlay of cheap bourbon he drank only when he was into a real bad bender.

She turned on the light in the cramped living room where she slept. She sighed with relief to see that her father had made it to his own room in the back and bypassed the convertible sofa bed.

Sharleen welcomed this time alone. Dean worked over at the feed-and-grain store after school let out. Tugging off her sneakers without untying them, she stepped out of the worn jeans and pulled the bright sweatshirt over her head in a single motion. Taking a towel from one of the hooks she used as a closet, she tiptoed toward the bathroom for her few luxurious moments of privacy. But before going in, she pressed her ear against the thin door of the room her father slept in, to confirm what she knew. Yep. His snores rattled like a snake in a bucket.

She closed the equally flimsy door to the tiny bathroom, and once again bemoaned the broken lock. Sharleen had no privacy. Though Dean was supposed to share the bedroom with their father, he most often wound up sleeping on the sofa with Sharleen. Not that she minded. She would feel safer now if Dean were home, knowing that
he
would keep an eye on her father while she showered. Still, Dean in his own quiet way demanded a lot of attention. Perhaps it was better like this. She reached into the cramped bathroom and turned on the water, hoping that there was some. Lamson Trailer Park’s well occasionally went dry, or the pump broke. When she felt the first sting of the stream, she adjusted the temperature, pulled the cheap plastic curtain on the shower stall aside, and stepped in.

She let the water fall on her head and down her sleek hair to her shoulders. Her hair turned darker as the water ran down it to her breasts. Her nipples hardened as the water touched them. She turned slowly with her eyes closed. The water played at the small of her back, her buttocks, down her long, tapered legs to her feet. She felt good. Well, I might not be smart or rich or anyone important, but thank the Lord I’m pretty. Bein’ pretty made Boyd like her. She was just like Momma, who had been pretty. Men liked Momma. All men except her daddy.

Sharleen could still picture Momma. She didn’t have a photo of her or nothin’, but she remembered her real well. Thinkin’ of those times made her sad. She could still remember hiding with Dean in the red dust under the trailer, listening to her daddy and her momma above, hearing Momma being beaten. It had been a familiar sound, an awful sight, terrifying, but in a way even more terrible to think about. Sharleen still remembered the last time. Momma had come back from the laundry where she worked, still in her pink uniform, her hair batted up under the hairnet, tiny tendrils twisted at her temples, limp from the heat. Old tennis sneakers were on her feet, small holes at each pinky toe, worn by the three-mile walk each way between the laundry and the trailer. Down by her side she carried a plastic bag, holding the white shoes she polished each morning. She looked real tired, but when Dean showed her the tiny pup he’d found that day, she’d smiled.

Until Daddy had come home.

Sharleen and Dean had so often hidden from their dad, breathing into each other’s ears, blocking out the sounds of the screams. The gentle hum of their breaths had always calmed her. She hummed now. She closed her eyes, letting the water run over her. It was almost as comforting as Dean’s hand, the comforting rhythm he used as he stroked the back of her head, their bodies pushed tightly against each other. That day, the day of the puppy, had been real bad. She thought of how they rocked in rhythm with their breaths. The memory of the warmth of his body against hers, the fear that was a knot in her throat, now made her moan softly. His hand always went to her secret place and held it as she moved against him. The rocking caused them both to utter long slow moans. The sounds from the rest of the trailer, the fighting and the screams, would seem far away.

They spent that night in the dirt under the trailer, while the screaming continued, followed by silence. Somehow, the silence was worse, and they trembled until they finally slept.

Sharleen remembered their last morning together. Momma had come to find them. “Sharleen, Dean. Are you there, kids?” Her voice was a whisper. Sharleen knew without being told that they were not to wake their father.

“We’re here, Momma. Dean, come on, let’s get up.”

Dean had rolled over and crawled out from under the trailer. Sharleen followed, brushing the dust off her as she started up the steps. Momma stopped just inside the door, and Sharleen saw her in the light. One side of her face was swollen and red. Her right eye was black and blue and puffy. The other was swollen shut. Dean froze, and Sharleen tapped his shoulder gently. Nothing else she could do.

“Go wash up, Dean, but be quiet,” she said. “Don’t wake him.”

When Dean went into the bathroom, Sharleen went to Momma and put a hand up to her face. Her mother winced and drew back. Sharleen had never seen her hurt so bad.

“Momma, it’s bad,” she said gently, as if breaking news to her mother. “You’re hurt
real
bad this time, Momma.”

“I know, honey. It feels real bad this time.”

“We gotta go to the hospital. Momma.”

“No, honey. We’ll just ask Jesus to take care of me and the puppy.” Momma took out a shoe box, the puppy lying twisted inside it. Sharleen didn’t have to ask. Momma knelt, and so did Sharleen, who first got her mother the little Bible. Then Dean joined them. Sharleen even now remembered how he looked at the box and how his eyes got big, so very big.

“Is it sleepin’?” he asked.

“No, Dean. She’s in heaven now, with Jesus. She’s Jesus’ puppy now.” Dean knelt beside them, and their mother whispered some words.

After breakfast, only Frosted Flakes and water ’cause there was no milk, Momma walked Sharleen and Dean to the school bus. Sharleen saw that her mother had put on her one good dress. It was bright blue with a white collar.

And she was carrying a cardboard suitcase. Sharleen knew then that her life was about to change, but couldn’t imagine it getting worse. As Dean moped alone up ahead, their momma spoke real serious to Sharleen. It made Sharleen feel like a grown-up.

“Sharleen, honey, Momma’s got to go away for a while. I can’t take you two with me, but I’ll come back for both of you as soon as I get a job and a place for us to live. You know you wasn’t my natural-born daughter, but I love you like my own. Dean is my blood, but I got to leave him, too. He’s only your half-brother, but I want you to love him like a true sister. I’ve only been your stepmomma, but I love you like flesh.” She handed Sharleen the little Bible. “Keep this now, till I come back. No, honey, don’t cry. You got to be strong. Jesus is going to watch over you. I promise you that. You talk to the Lord, and he’ll take care of you while I’m gone.” She paused, wincing at the pain in her face. “I want you to promise to take care of Dean. He ain’t as smart as you.”

Sharleen listened in silence, knowing that there was nothing she could say. She’d known all along that her momma could not live through any more beatings. Her momma had no choice. Sharleen was glad she was getting away. And, being such a good girl, she didn’t stop to think that there would be no one for her now. No one except Jesus, who she couldn’t see, and Dean, who she had to take care of.

“Don’t say nothin’ to Dean until tonight. I don’t want no fuss,” Momma said.

Sharleen nodded, and she and Dean got on the school bus. She turned around in the rear seat to look back at her mother. The frail woman raised her hand and waved twice, then turned very quickly and walked along the main road in the opposite direction, toward the Trail ways bus stop near town. Sharleen had turned forward in her seat after she lost sight of her mother. She wouldn’t cry. She just wouldn’t. Because, once she started, she thought, maybe she’d never stop. She had bit her lip, then turned to her brother. “Dean, I’m going to take care of you now,” she told him. He said nothing for a while, then just leaned his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes.

“It was a real good puppy,” was all he said.

Sharleen remembered it all, standing there under the thin trickle of the shower. She hadn’t heard anything, lost in the memory of her momma and the sensation of the falling water. But suddenly Daddy was holding open the shower curtain with his shaking hand, his odor filling the steamy stall with his intrusion.

“What the hell are you doing?” her father growled. “Wakin’ me up. You crazy?”

She jumped at the voice and backed up to the rear wall of the tiny tin shower stall. Her practiced eye measured her father’s condition. Drunker than ever. It had been eight years since her momma had left, and her daddy had been mean and drunk for all of them. But he’d never done
this
before. Please, Lord, she thought. Please.

“Daddy,” she managed to breathe, trying not to show her fear. “Wait a minute and I’ll be right out.” She squeezed past him while he watched her nakedness. She took the towel off the peg on the wall and, feeling less vulnerable with it wrapped around her, walked toward the living room to the safety of her clothes and the outside door.

She heard the motion before she felt it. His hand fell like a stone on her wet head. Then he grabbed a handful of hair and he pulled her back, back toward the smelly den of his bedroom. The towel fell, leaving her bare. She screamed at the suddenness and the pain, and tried to stop him by holding on to the slippery handle of the old refrigerator. He reached around her and, with his free hand, wordlessly pried her fingers loose.

She went limp out of instinct, hoping he would have to loosen his grasp, reposition himself to carry her, but instead he just pulled her along the floor by her hair. The first words escaped her lips since the struggle had begun. “Noooo!” she shrieked. “No, Daddy, no!”

He stunned her silent with a slap of his broad, callused hand, hitting flat across her face. “Don’t start with that, you little tease. I know what you are. Heard ’bout them T-shirts over to school. Struttin’ yourself around in those tight pants. Tossin’ your hair like some kinda Jezebel.”

As he dragged her down the hall, she went limp again. Then her father scraped her over the threshold of his door, and he let her fall at the foot of his bed. Holding a sheet around her, she started to scramble to her feet.

But he was too fast for her. He lashed out, quick as a striking snake, and threw her over his knee, viciously ripping away the sheet.

“I’ll teach you some respect for me if I have to beat it into you,” he told her. Face down in the rank bedclothes, she tried to struggle off his lap.

“Please, Daddy, no. I’m sorry,” she cried, but his hand slapped her across her bare buttocks, hard. “Please!” she cried again, but he hit her harder. When she tried to struggle up, he put his other hand on the back of her neck, pushing her head so hard into the mattress that she could barely breathe.

Her bare butt already stung, but once he had her pinioned helplessly he slapped it again and again and again. “Little slut,” he cried. “Tease. Just like your mother. How many of them boys you fucked? Boyd Jamison and who else? No-good little slut.” He grabbed one of her reddened buttocks and squeezed it viciously. Sharleen screamed at the pain and the shame of it.

“Don’t you make one sound,” he warned her, swinging away at her again, and, despite the unbearable hurt, she didn’t. After a time, he slowed down, then he stopped, but he still kept his one hand on her neck, pinning her. She felt smothered, and had to tell herself to keep breathing, small little breaths, despite the choking feeling in her throat and chest.

Then, with a chill of horror, she felt her father’s hand move up between her legs, touching her
there
, in her private place. He grabbed a handful of her hair, there, down below, and tugged it. “You let the boys up under your skirt?” he asked, his voice thick.

“No, Daddy,” she choked out.

His hand blessedly moved away, but then it was back to cup her right breast, hanging down over his left knee. “You let them touch your titties?” he asked.

“No,” she cried again. His hand closed over her nipple, and he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. The sharpness of the pain shot through her. “You sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” she sobbed.

“Good,” he told her. “Be sure you don’t. Else you’ll be a whore like all the rest of ’em.” He stood up, tumbling Sharleen, naked, onto the floor. He looked down on her with disgust.

“Get yerself decent. I’m going out,” he told her, and was gone.

Sharleen stumbled out of the close room and returned to the shower. The hot water had run out, but she hardly felt the difference. She stood in the cold flow, let it run over her back until the hurt cooled a little, then stepped out and carefully patted her raw skin with the thin towel. Thank God, Dean wasn’t home, she thought. At sixteen, he weighed 185 pounds and was six-foot-two. She knew that Dean could hurt the old man, and once again knew she could never tell Dean of this. But Daddy was getting worse and worse. She flushed with the shame of it, feeling again her father’s hand on her body. Worst of all was what she had felt against her belly while he hit her: her father had pressed his erection against her. She was afraid for herself, and also for what might happen to Dean if he knew. He’d fight their daddy, and then Daddy would kill Dean. He needed her to protect him, and she had promised her mother that she always would.