The Big Ugly
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www.beattoapulp.com
CONTENTS
who is a lark and a plunge every day.
A Woman of No Importance
The day before my fortieth birthday, Eastgate Penitentiary for Women opened its gates and released me back into the world. The sally port officer that day was a heavyset bruiser named Mabel Jackson. I had trained her when she was just a rookie, but that was back when I was still a CO, back before I'd become an inmate—before I'd been locked up in Eastgate with all the other animals. In the thirteen months I'd been inside, Mabel had never once spoken to me. As she opened the last door for me, though, she smiled and extended a thick hand in my direction. "Good luck, Bennett."
I shook her hand. "Thanks."
Then I walked through the front gate and into the misty morning of my new life.
In the parking lot, my brother Nate was sitting in his car with the windows down. When he saw me, he smiled and climbed out. The kid's left leg was malformed at birth, so he walks with a forearm crutch, but he hurried toward me as quickly as he could, his right hand outstretched.
When he got to me, he swallowed me in a bear hug and shouted, "Ellie!"
As he squeezed me, I glanced up and saw Kitty Morley leaning against the rail on tower two. Looking crisp and clean in her guard's uniform, she smirked down at me.
I pulled away from Nate.
Kitty and I stared at each other for a while before Nate whispered, "Is that her? Is tha—"
"Got anything you want to say, Kitty?" I called up to her.
She kept smirking. Then she straightened up, took a deep breath, and looked off into the distance, smiling as if she could see the trouble on my horizon. Then she just turned and walked away.
Nate asked, "That was her, right?"
"Don't worry about it."
"Are you okay?"
I slapped him on the back. "I will be once I get the fuck out of here."
We walked to his car, a navy-blue ten-year-old Ford Escort.
"You still driving this beater?"
"It's still running."
We got in, and Nate wedged his crutch between his seat and the emergency brake. Then we whipped out of the parking lot. As I watched Eastgate grow smaller, my body felt pleasantly numb, like I'd taken a slug of whiskey.
Nate said, "I'd roll the windows up, but the AC ain't working."
"It's fine," I said. "I'd rather have them down."
Eastgate sat at the end of a long gravel road. On either side of us, grass whiskered the muddy fields in both directions. For a moment, I felt a little dizzy. I realized I hadn't moved this fast in over a year.
I flipped down the sun visor to look at myself in the little vanity mirror.
It didn't do much for my vanity. My short, sandy hair looked like shit from a year's worth of that hand soap they gave us in place of actual shampoo. My face was crinkling around my eyes—eyes that I hadn't really looked into in thirteen months. They were the same shade of walnut they'd always been, but they seemed harder.
Without looking at me, Nate said, "You're still beautiful."
I flipped up the visor. "I could use a drink."
"Hear what I said?"
"Thanks. Hear what I said about that drink?"
"Yeah. Listen, maybe we should just get home. Bethany and the kids are gonna be waiting for us."
"You got booze at home?"
"No. I quit drinking."
"No kidding."
"Yeah."
"Congratulations."
"Thanks."
"I, on the other hand, could use a drink. Can we stop for a bottle?"
We got to the road and when we hit pavement, Nate took us up to sixty. My heart sped up like I was on a roller coaster.
"So from your silence," I said, "I guess that's a no."
He shrugged. "We don't bring the stuff into the house. It's a rule we settled on. We just decided we don't want it around the kids. Okay?"
"Hey, your house, your rules."
"Thanks, sis."
I nodded. "That a new rule?"
"Yeah."
"Since I've been in Eastgate?"
He raised his eyebrows. "It's just something that Bethany and me decided on. Like I told you in my letters, we've been getting really involved with our church."
Even though Nate and Bethany only lived an hour away from Eastgate, I wouldn't let them come visit. I couldn't take her
This-is-the-day-that-the-Lord-has-made
cheeriness, and I couldn't take seeing him there at all. Some inmates need visits from the outside to feel human. I guess a visit would have been nice, but I knew I was only going to be in for a year or so. I told him to stay away and write me instead. He wrote me every single week. Nice guy, my brother.
"Bethany wanted to come with me today," he said, "but she had to take Felicia to softball practice."
"Oh yeah, how's the softball going?"
"She's trying," he said with a shrug. "What she lacks in ability she makes up for in enthusiasm. Trying to live up to her aunt's high school track glory."
"That glory ran out a long time ago."
"Say what you want, you're her hero. Always have been."
We hit the highway, and Nate inched up to seventy-five miles an hour.
I thought about my niece. I'd hoped she might write me while I was inside, but she hadn't. I couldn't blame her for that, of course, but it had given me some bad nights.
"I doubt I'm still her hero."
"Stop it," he said—both hands on the wheel, face forward, jaw clamped tight. "You are still Ellie Bennett. You're still my big sister, and you're still the strongest person I've ever known. Me and Bethany and the kids, we love you. And Felicia still worships you."
Cars passed us.
He asked, "Well, what do you think of that?"
My nose itched. I scratched it. My hand smelled like prison.
"You're nice to say it. Now, let's drop it. I'm going to have to ride the wave of positive reinforcement from Bethany; let me ease into it."
Trees and fields and billboards zipped past and eventually gave way to buildings. The gas stations and the big discount outlet and the fast food places—they all looked the same, of course, but strange at the same time. Everything seemed to have aged since I'd been gone.
The one new thing I saw was a billboard screaming:
LOU DON COLFAX
TO THE US SENATE
A LEADER WE KNOW
A SENATOR WE CAN TRUST
"Governor Colfax is running for Senate?"
"Yeah," Nate said, "against that preacher, Brother Jerry Kingston."
"Huh. Must have missed that news while I was inside. Who's winning?"
"My money is on Brother Kingston."
"Really? Is he qualified to be a senator?"
Nate shrugged. "In Arkansas, being a preacher's qualification enough. I know Bethany will vote for him. You know mom and dad would have."
When Nate and I were teenagers, our parents got saved. I reacted by leaving home as soon as I could, but Nate Jesused up for a while. He drifted away from church after high school, but when he met Bethany she made it pretty clear she would only marry a true believer. Fourteen years later, the guy couldn't have booze in his house.
A diesel rumbled past us spraying a grimy film across the windshield. Nate hit the wipers.
"You know," he said, "Bethany's been praying for you."
"Course she has. It's what she does."
Nate nodded. "She's a prayer warrior, no doubt."
"Do you still pray?"
"Oh sure. You know. I pray for Bethany and the kids and you. Thank him for the good stuff, ask for help with the bad stuff. I'm probably not as consistent with it as I should be, but I do it pretty regular. I like it. It's like mediation, I guess. Always makes me feel better."
"But your wife actually hears from god, right?"
He pursed his lips. "Well, when Bethany talks to god, god talks back. Least she says he does."
"He talk to you?"
"Nah. When I pray, it's more like I'm leaving him messages."
"You leave him any messages about me?"
"Every day."
"Really?"
"Really."
I looked out the window.
"I'm not sure he's been getting them."
* * *
Nate lived in a split-level three bedroom house across the street from his shop. It was a hell of a nice spot because the street was the dividing line between Osotouy City's downtown commercial zone and the residential zone that climbed up into the neighborhoods in the hills above town.
When we pulled into his driveway, I got out and looked at his shop, a converted service station with a small office and a long bay door. He'd kept the original color scheme of navy blue with bright red trim, and matched the lettering on the office window that read BENNETT REUPHOLSTRY AND FURNITURE REPAIR. A nice looking place, but at the same time it felt empty somehow.
"How's business?"
He shrugged. "Not too bad. I was hoping you'd help out for a while, actually. Until you get back on your feet and decide what you … what you want to do from now on."
"Thanks."
We walked up to his house, and he unlocked the front door. "Hey, you'll be helping me out."
We went in through the kitchen. It connected with the dining room and led into a long, carpeted den. They kept the place clean and orderly, but the furniture was cheap. Except for the dining room table, which was an antique, most everything else came from Walmart or Target. Nate reminded me of a chef I used to date. The guy had worked in a fancy restaurant making delicious food all day, but when he came home he mostly ate takeout. That was Nate. Once he punched out from work, he didn't give a shit about furniture.