The Speed Queen (12 page)

The receiving stolen goods thing wasn't our fault. The stereo was actually ours; we bought it off these college kids in a van. The guy who gave us the wheels said he had a receipt for them. The same for the crossbow and the portable generator and the chain saws — we just thought he was cleaning out his garage.

They searched the entire place with a German shepherd. One guy even opened the ice cream before putting it back. We just sat there entertaining Gainey with the car keys. We both knew enough not to say anything. They took us down and booked us and finally they let us go. When we got home we discovered Lamont's best Meat Puppets bootleg had been in the tape player.

Our lawyer Ms. Tolliver said all they could give us was probation, and that's what we got. It was Lamont's fault, being nice. From then on we only dealt in cash.

I wouldn't call what happened a bust, it was more like an accident.

It was air my mom's fault. We'd gone to the mall to look at summer clothes for Gainey and we were coming home on Santa Fe. She was driving her Riviera. Gainey was in the back in his car seat. I was always careful about that. He'd just thrown up, so I took my belt off and turned around to clean him up.

"Don't get in an accident.'" I said.

"I won't," my mom said.

Five seconds later I'm laying backwards into the dashboard. A piece of the windshield is stuck in my hair, and there's this yellow Granada two inches away from my lace.

Gainey's screaming in the backseat, and my mom's glasses are snapped in halt.

"I told you not to do that!" I said.

The driver of the Granada was an old man wearing a hat and a brown suit like it was the fifties. The ignition was buzzing cause his door had flown open. He didn't get out, he just sat there staring at the steam coming up from the antifreeze. It looked like he might be knocked out. Someone looked in my mom's window and asked if we were all right.

"No," I said, "we had an accident."

My back hurt, but I needed to see Gainey. I tried to pull myself up but my right hand wouldn't do what I wanted it to.

"I think my wrist is broken," I said.

"Don't move," my mom said. "You're not supposed to move."

My left hand was okay. Gainey's face was red but he seemed fine. I leaned over the seat and brushed the spit-up and glass off his tray. I tried to unbuckle him but I needed both hands.

"It's okay," I said.

My mom was crying. "Your father bought me this car."

"Will you please help me?" I said.

"Don't yell at me. I know you hate me but you don't have to yell at me." On her forehead was a red imprint of the steering wheel. A siren was coming.

I blame this on my mom, but right here I could of done something if I'd of been thinking, but I wasn't. I didn't know that my purse wasn't next to me on the seat where I'd left it. I had no idea that right then the eighth I'd been dreaming about all morning was lying on the street right outside my door.

A cop car pulled up and killed its siren. Gainey was done crying; he was just hiccupping. There were people all over the street, even one guy with a fire extinguisher. Traffic was jumping the curb to get around us.

There was only one cop in the car. He came up to my mom's window. His head was shaved like someone going out for football and he had a microphone Velcroed to his shoulder.

"Everyone okay here?" he said.

"He hit us," my mom said. "My light was green."

I told him about my wrist.

"All right," he said, and went around to check on the old man. "Sir," he said, "sir."

The old man was staring straight ahead like he didn't hear him.

"Sir!" the cop said, and waved a hand in front of his face. He didn't blink.

The cop knelt down and laid two fingers on the old man's throat, then walked back to his car and got a blanket from the trunk. We sat there listening to Gainey hiccup while the cop spread it over the old guy.

"It was green!" my mom said. "I saw it."

"I know," I said, though I could tell she wasn't sure anymore.

More sirens were coming —more cops, a fire truck, two ambulances. They parked right behind us in the middle of the street.

The cop got Gainey out, and this woman paramedic finally convinced my mom she could move. She stood up and all this glass fell out of her lap; the little cubes bounced on the ground like hail. I had to scoot across the seat to get out her door. Another cop I recognized from somewhere took me to an ambulance, where they looked at my wrist. My mom stood there with Gainey; they were both fine.

"Does this hurt?" the paramedic said, and twisted my hand.

"Yes!" I begged her.

There were forms to fill out. I couldn't write, so my mom had to do it. I lied about what medications I was taking. Just when we were getting ready to leave, the first cop came over with my purse and asked me if it was mine. I didn't think, I just took it and thanked him.

"How about this?" he said, and held up the eighth by one corner. "Do you recognize this?"

All I had to do was say no.

"Not again," my mom said. "Marjorie, why do you keep doing this?"

"So you do recognize it?"

"It's her husband — "

"Shut up," I said. "Just shut up, Mother. You've already killed one person today, isn't that enough?"

She started telling me how I was the one hurting everyone, and I started giving it back.

"Hold up, hold up," the cop shouted, and gave me a lecture on being a mother and why my mom was worried about me. My mom just stood there nodding, agreeing with him. Then he got out his little test kit. He was surprised when it turned orange. He thought it was cocaine, the dummy. He was looking for blue.

He read me my rights. I didn't say a word after that, I just looked at my mom like how could she do this.

"I'm not sorry," she said. "If you want me to say I'm sorry, I'm not going to."

"It's fine for you," she said, hefting Gainey, "but you’ve got to think about him."

The cop put us in his car to go to the hospital, me behind the cage, my mom and Gainey up front. My mom and the cop talked about heart attacks and how the old man could of been driving around dead like that for a while. We were all very lucky.

The emergency room took us first because I was under arrest. My mom had to fill out more forms. The cop left us alone for a minute while we waited for the doctor. I took Gainey from my mom with my good arm and sat there holding him close.

"You're the one doing this," my mom said, "not me."

The cop came back with the doctor, who looked at my arm. He actually bent down and looked at it like his eyes were bad. He had liver spots on his forehead and I could smell his hair cream.

"Tell me if this hurts," he said, but I grabbed my arm back. He jumped like I had a knife, and the cop got up.

"Trust me," I said. "It's broken."

"Do you want me to help you or not," the doctor said.

When he twisted it, I screamed in his ear.

It took a while, laying all the hot strips of gauze across it. It still hurt just as much.

Outside, the cop made sure my mom had money for a cab. He locked me in the back of the car and took Gainey's seat out and set it on the curb for her. They talked for a minute. My mom was thanking him, touching him on the arm.

He came around the front and got in. The cast was still warm in my lap. I knew she was looking at me, maybe waving, but I wouldn't look.

"You're not going to say goodbye?" the cop said.

"Just drive," I said, and finally he did.

Ms. Tolliver said I'd see some time — not much. Her best guess was six months, and that's exactly what the judge gave me. I couldn't believe it. I'd been arrested before, and I'd done a lot of things, but this was over nothing. I was going to jail. I knew I was but I didn't really believe it. It hit me all at once when the judge read the sentence and the bailiff came and took me by the arm.

My mom and Lamont were there, sitting in different places. While the bailiff was taking me away I looked over my shoulder at them like they could save me. But they couldn't.

I did my six months at Clara Waters. It wasn't really a jail the way you think of one. It was an old motel off 1-35 they'd turned into a pre-release center. Clara Waters Community Corrections Center, they called it. It used to be the Planet Motel. They'd left all the furniture, the big mirrors in the bathrooms and the paintings screwed to the walls. You could still see the yellow fluorescents under the gutters and the big Saturn out front with all the neon gone. There were no bars on the windows or barbed wire on top of the fences. You could walk out anytime you liked.

The idea was that you wouldn't take off because you didn't have that much time left. Some of the gals had been in places like Mabel Bassett or Eddie Warrior for six or seven years and now they were getting out, so they were real careful. But most of us were in for prostitution or petty larceny, being an accessory to something. We were young and knew this was just temporary. There were a lot of mothers.

I remember the first night I was there. There were four of us in this motel room; Natalie hadn't come yet. We had our own bathroom and an air conditioner we could set any way we liked. The door wasn't locked. We were on the second floor, and you stepped out onto the balcony and there was a guard. Before lights-out they didn't even say anything to you, you could stand there and smoke. Down the highway was Frontier City, this big amusement park, and you could see the lights of the Ferris wheel through the trees. It was a big double one, the kind that flips over. You could almost hear the music. It made you think of fried dough stands and kids sticky with cotton candy. That first night I stood there and watched that Ferris wheel going around and thought of Gainey and I swore that this would never happen to me again.

After the first month, we were allowed out on work release. Your counselor gave you a day pass, and you went out and tried to find a job. If you got one, you could go out every day — seven days a week if you could prove you were working. But only during the day; at night you had to be back. And you had to tell your boss you were doing work release, you couldn't just not mention it.

My first day out I applied to three jobs and made love to Lamont five times. I applied to crummy places, thinking I could get something quick. I wanted a job I wouldn't want when I got out, something I could just dump. I'd worked enough crummy jobs to recognize one. I tried the chains first — Grandy's and Shoney's and the Waffle House — knowing they had high turnover.

I went out looking for a week, spending the afternoons at Mia Casa like everything was normal. Lamont was getting better at diapering Gainey. I liked having both of them in bed, the whole family close like that so I could smell them, touch their skin. It was hard to leave.

I applied to Hometown Buffet and Luby's and Furr's Cafeteria. I applied to Church's Chicken and Cocina de Mino. Burger King had a sign on the door that said, Come in for your Whopper-tunity. I kept waiting for my counselor Mrs. Langer to call me into her office and tell me that someone had called, but no one did.

The problem was it was June, and all the high schools were letting out, Mrs. Langer said. She reminded me of my old guidance counselor Mrs. Drake; she had plants in her office and all kinds of advice. Possibly my cast was scaring away potential employers. I just had to be tenacious. I might try applying to more places. I would, I said. You just nod and say yes to someone like that even though what they say never works.

Friday Lamont drove me around all day and waited For me in the parking lot. We didn't even make love. Dropping me off, he said something would turn up, and we got in a big argument. Weekends were the worst because I didn't get to see him, and I'd had enough. We both said some unnecessary things, and we didn't make it up. I just walked away from the car. Gainey was screaming in the backseat, and I thought, fine, let him deal with him.

Monday, Mrs. Langer gave me a card that said Coit's Root Beer Drive-In called. It was tunny cause I even liked them. They were right across Northwest Expressway from Charcoal Oven. It was a real old-time drive-in with a fiberglass canopy and a speaker box on a pole at every stall. The main building was shaped like a keg and had things like TOASTED SANDWICHES and MALTS and SOFT DRINKS written around it in red and green neon. The carhops dressed like majorettes, in satin tops and two-toned skirts and white vinyl knee boots. The shakes came with whipped cream and a cherry. They even served Pepsi. It made me feel bad for yelling at Lamont.

My schedule worked out good. I had to be there at ten, so I'd get forty-five minutes with Lamont before work. He'd come in after lunch and park in one of the far stalls, and I'd take my break with him. The windows were so dark no one could see in. We'd put Gainey in the front seat and hop in back.

It was a fun job. I kind of missed working, all the talk. They called an order of fries a bag of rags. A yellow steak was a burger with mustard. "Walk a dog sideways," they'd say. "Float me a skinny Joe." The coffeemaker was a Bunn-O-Matic, so they called coffee Bunn mud. "Bunn me," they'd say, "Bunn me two."

Inside, you could hear the people in their cars. Once they buzzed for an order, the line stayed open. You'd hear them singing with the radio or fighting. That was the funniest, the mothers who buzzed. They'd be screaming at their kids, calling them all kinds of names, and you'd come on and all of a sudden their voices would get all nice. It was even better after I got Natalie a job there.

Sorry I'm going all over the place. I guess Darcy's stuff must be kicking in. You wanted me to describe Clara Waters.

Compared to here, Clara Waters was easy, but that was my first time in and I was a little frightened. There were some gals in there I thought were hard, though I don't think that now. They seemed that way to me because my Hie was easy then. I wouldn't put any of them up against Lucinda or even Darcy. They were headed in the right direction, the ones who'd been here or in Eddie Warrior. They were going home. I think that's why the state put us in with them; it was hoping they might teach us something that would keep us from ever getting here.

I remember going into the room for the first time. It was dumb but I was afraid I'd be the only white gal. It turned out I was, except the other three weren't black, they were Chinese. Two of them were cousins from this gang down around Mustang; the other was a hooker with only a month to go. One of cousins' names was Emily, which I thought was weird. They both had jean jackets and listened to their Walkmans constantly. Their English wasn't very good, and all the hooker did was read magazines. None of them paid any attention to me. I got the cot closest to the door, and when the hooker left we all moved down one.

There was everyone in there —black gals, Indians, Mexican gals, a lot of trailer trash. We all pretty much kept to ourselves in little groups; you could see it in the cafeteria. There weren't a lot of fights like you might think. I think with guys it's different.

It you have to have a fight, there was this tall gal named Barbara Something everyone was afraid of. She had something wrong with her; her head was too big, like a puppet. She knocked out a guard with a can of Cherry Crush and got sent here. But mostly it was quiet. People liked to sleep.

The food wasn't bad there, I remember that. It's not bad here either. They make two things here that are great —southern fried chicken and chicken-fried steak. I guess you can't go too far wrong with those anywhere in Oklahoma.

I don't know what else you want. They tore the place down in '92. Before that it went coed for a while, with the gals in one wing and the guys in the other two. I wish I'd been there for that. Maybe me and Natalie wouldn't have gotten together then. But I can't complain. I'd much rather be there than here.