The Speed Queen (4 page)

What do you mean by evaluated? I was tested in New Mexico when they caught me, but I was never committed or anything. Mr. Jefferies said everybody gets those tests. He said we wouldn't use it as a defense because of the judge.

There are some people here who think I'm crazy and there are some people here who think I did all of it. A lot of them are the same people. I can see why they'd think that, the way they were all cut up. I heard that Sonic took all their ads off the air right after that.

I'm not saying that wasn't me, just that I wasn't the only one.

I wasn't the one who started it and I wasn't the one who planned it in the first place; I was just there. When you're there and it's happening, you don't say, "Wait, this is crazy." It's different just sitting somewhere and thinking about it; you think you'd never do it. Then you're there and you do and there's nothing at all crazy about it.

Those tests are like lie detectors, you can't trust them. They're easy to trick; you just pretend you're someone else.

When I was a kid I used to think I was crazy. I thought I was the only one who could talk inside my head. I'd sit inside Jody-Jo's house and talk to myself.

"Dad put him in a bag," my inside voice said.

"Mom said he buried him," I said. It was like two people talking.

"Dig him up and see."

"With what?" I said.

Sometimes my inside voice would surprise me and say things I didn't know —like the guy in The Waste Lands. It would say things I know
I
didn't think.

"With the pitchfork," it said. "With Mom's garden shears."

"It was just a story," I said.

"With your hands."

"Dad wouldn't do that."

"You're just afraid to find out."

But everybody does that. It's not like voices, it's just the way people think. I used to think it made me crazy. No one told me different, and I wasn't going to ask.

In eighth grade they gave me a test to see what I was best at, one of those ones where you're supposed to describe yourself. You'd say what you'd do if this or that happened to you, like You find out your friend Mary had been spreading lies about you. What do you do? (A) Confront her. (B) Say nothing, and other stuff like that.

They wanted to see if you'd he a good waitress or something. I was stoned, so I just filled in all the As.

The next week I got called down to Mrs, Drake, the school counselor. She had posters on her walls of seagulls with poetry on them and ivy plants spilling over her desk. She took her glasses off to talk to me.

Marjorie," she said, "I was looking over the scores and yours jumped right out at me."

"I just wrote down all the A's," I said.

"Now why did you do that?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Have you ever had a problem with anger or aggression?"

"No," I said, hoping she didn't know about my fight on the bus with Shona Potts.

The week before I'd made fun of Shona's new glasses. Getting off at her stop, Shona pointed at me and said, "See ya tomorrow, Marge the Barge," and everyone laughed. The next morning when she got on, I snuck up the aisle till I was sitting right behind her. Everyone knew what I was going to do. Her hair was held in stiff pigtails by red rubber bands. I rolled my sleeve up and made a fist like my dad taught me, making sure my thumb was outside of my fingers. I reached my elbow back as far as the seat would let me and punched her in the side of the head. Her new glasses flew over the rows. Later they said that Shona would have double vision from it, but at the time I thought I'd let her off easy. I didn't hit her that hard; it didn't even hurt my hand.

I got suspended but didn't tell my mom. I'd ride the bus in and hang out around the auditorium. For a while no one talked to me. At lunch, people winged their salt packets at me, and once an empty chocolate-milk carton that spotted my blouse. I'd come home and go to my room and sit on my bed with the sun going down. My mom didn't understand what was happening. What kind of school was I going to?

Mrs. Drake wanted me to retake the test and a bunch of other ones, and I did. I did fine. They were easy. The big one said I would enjoy a career helping other people.

I have no idea what my IQ is. In grade school I got B's and C's, and then C's and D's in high school. I didn't like high school, the teachers made me feel stupid. I didn't see the point. I learned more from watching TV and reading books. My dad had really wanted me to go to college, so I did. Lamont used to call me his college girl. I liked that at first.

I've gotten smarter since I've been here. That's one good thing, it gives you time to think. In the morning one of the trusties rolls the book cart around and you get to pick one. They've got all of yours, but they're always out. The last one I read was an old one — Cujo. I think I liked it, how the rabies made this regular dog into a monster. At first I thought it would be stupid —I mean, who's really afraid of a dog? —but it was good. You could almost believe something like that could happen.

The cart's got everything: Danielle Steel, Mary Higgins Clark —all the good ones. Sometimes the good parts are missing, like when you cut coupons out of the newspaper, but I like filling things in on my own.

You're allowed two books of your own here, and one has to be religious. Besides the Bible, I have my road atlas. Discover America! the cover says. I lie on my bunk and drive all across the country. I just pick a road and go.

I read the Bible every day. Not much, just a page or so. When Sister Perpetua comes, we talk about it. She's a good teacher, she knows what it's like to lose yourself. She's an orphan. Darcy said her family was on vacation in New Mexico when they were in an accident, and only Sister Perpetua lived. Sometimes I picture it on Route 14, the Turquoise Trail. Maybe they're driving a station wagon, and her dad tries to pass this gravel truck on a blind rite. When she tucks her hair back, her one ear looks like melted wax. Sometimes I come up with things she hasn't thought about, and she nods like she's thinking and says we'll talk about it next time.

She treats me nice, her and Mr. Jefferies. Over the years they've never left me, when everyone else did. Only my mom, really. Gainey's still with me. So that's three. If it weren't for them, I don't think I'd be okay now.

So no, I don't know what my IQ is. A hundred something, I guess. I'm not a moron, if that's what you mean. I know what's happening to me.

When they electrocute you, they put this leather helmet on your head. On the top is this bronze knob. It connects to this copper screen inside with a sponge on it. That's the top electrode. They shave your head so it sits right on your skin. The other one's part of the chair; in most states, it's attached to the left leg, sometimes your spine. It's bronze too. They cut the back of your pant leg so it's right against your calf. The straps on the back and the arms they make such a big deal of on TV don't do anything except hold you down.

It's simple. The electricity needs to go from the electrode in the cap to the electrode in the ankle. You're like the piece of wire in a light.

The usual dose is 2000 volts. They do that twice, in some states four times. What's supposed to happen is the current goes through you and stops your heart. What you do is go still. All your muscles tense up at once. It doesn't always work like it's supposed to. Back around the turn of the century, one guy went so stiff he ripped the legs off the chair and they had to hold his feet down with concrete blocks. The second jolt made him kick those over. They were going to try a third time, but he'd already died from third-degree burns.

In Florida seven years ago they did this guy named Jesse Tafero; when they threw the switch, flames a foot high shot out of his head. Sparks were flying everywhere. The whole place was filled with smoke. When the guards unstrapped him, his skin fell off his bones like fried chicken. This other guy in Virginia, they got the voltage wrong on him, and the steam built up inside his head until his eyeballs popped and ran down his cheeks. The book I read had all these horror stories. If you made it the chair, you’d be able to use them.

I consider myself sane. So does the State of Oklahoma. It's the only thing we agree on.

There's a joke in here, "I'm as sane as the next person." Which over on the Row would be Darcy. She's in for running over her stepdaughter with her car. She didn't just run her over once; she got her caught between the bumper and the garage door and kept ramming her till the door broke. She lived a week. Darcy told me the whole story. Her boyfriend was sleeping with both of them and decided to go with the younger one. You might use that for Natalie and me, I don't know.

When I was first in, I might have been insane. Lamont was gone, Natalie was still in the hospital, and I was coming down after a month of just going. I couldn’t think of anything. I'd look at the bolt holding the flange of the bunk on the wall and it would be fascinating, but it didn't mean anything. Nothing did. Everything was made of cardboard. The first time Mr. Jellenes Came to see me I could see the wires in his head, the gears that made Ins mouth go. He wanted to steal my secret number! so I put my hands over my eves. I held my breath to I wouldn't hear him. He talked like a recording on the phone; none of the words went together.

"Well," he said, "that's all I've got," and stood up to go.

The guard started to take me away, but he was still looking at me.

"I know what you are," I said. "I saw you in the movie of angels. My dad is watching us on TV. He'll get you."

A few years ago he played that tape for me. I recognized my voice but it wasn't me. Not that that's any excuse.

People say it was all Lamont's fault, that he was the crazy one and we just did what he told us. I don't think that's true. It's easy to think that now. Like I said, it's different when you're there.

When the detectives cleared out our apartment, I asked them to send me any pictures of Lamont they could find. There were a few envelopes from the Motophoto. I sat down on my bunk to look through them, and there we were sitting on the balcony at Mia Casa, kissing Gainey on each cheek. We were so young. There I was in my bikini, posing like a centerfold on the hood of the Roadrunner. There was even a bunch taken at a barbecue m the courtyard with Mrs. Wertz and all our neighbors. It looked like everyone was having a fine time. Even though I knew Natalie had to have taken some of them, Lamont looked happy with me, his arm over my shoulder, his cap pushed back. There was chicken and coleslaw and everyone had a can of beer, but I couldn't remember when they were taken, what day, what the weather was like. The girl in the pictures was skinny, with long hair, and smiled all the time. It was like looking at a good friend. someone who meant a lot to you once but that you hadn't seen in a long time.

How do you tell if you're insane? I still talk to myself. I remember things that never happened and forget ones that did. Some days I pretend I'm cruising Meridian with Lamont and Gainey in his car seat. This is before Natalie, before any of that. We slide into Coney Island and park under the awning and take turns feeding him fries. We both have the chili-cheese foot-long with double onions, and Lamont has to finish mine. Later we roll over to Arcadia Lake and watch the sun set over the water and then go home, and when I'm almost asleep, when I'm lying here with Janille there going through the newspaper, I feel him reach for me. Is that insane?

I dream every night. Normal dreams, I think. No more nightmares than anyone else. I don't see the Closes or Victor Nunez or anyone else from the Sonic coming to get me, if that's what you mean. I don't see Lamont or the knives or the fire. I'm not afraid to sleep.

I dream of driving across the desert with a cold grape soda. I dream of sleeping beside Gainey on top of the covers. I dream of being out of here.

It's funny how sometimes your dreams don't change even when your life does. I still dream that the Conoco's going to blow up. I'm working swing, waiting for Mister Fred Fred to relieve me, and this car wobbles in. It's muddy like it just came from the bottom of a lake, and its wheels are falling off. It's just like the beginning of
The Stand
— I'm sure that's where I got it from. The guy behind the wheel is drunk or falling asleep or something, and the car just rolls into the pumps. One of the hoses splits open and the gas pours down on the roof. It's a blue Malibu, the gas washes some of the mud off. In my booth I can see the muffler chugging out exhaust, and the gas streaking down the fender for it. There's no way I can get out from behind the counter. The zodiac scroll dispenser is in the way, and the Slush Puppy machine, all the lighters and Chap Sticks and beef jerky; it's like I'm buried. I look up on the monitor and the Malibu's on fire. The guy's forehead is on the wheel; the horn's going nonstop. There's a sticker by the pump controls that says In Cast of Emergency, Follow Contingency Plan, but I can't remember what the plan is.

I never get to the end of the dream, to the explosions I know are coming. I started having the dream the week I started working there. It hasn't stopped since. There really was a sticker that said that. It was a joke; the manager never told us what the plan was. It didn't matter. Back then I was too drunk to be any help anyway. I would have stood there and burned.

I dreamed about my dad for a long time after he died. Saturday mornings he'd bring me to the track and let me watch the stable-boys run their workouts. There was hardly anyone else there; you could sit wherever you wanted. In my dream, he was sitting high up in the grandstand and I was climbing the stairs. The stairs had numbers stenciled on them but they weren't in any order. I kept climbing and climbing, and the sun was hot over the grandstand. He was still sitting there with his hat on, far across the rows. And then the PA would come on —not a voice, just this humming — and I knew I was going to fall against the concrete and I'd feel it against my skin forever.

I still have this dream once in a while, but right after he died I had it every night. And others too. There was one where he was driving his Continental around and around the block, and another where he came home from work and gave me all the change in his pockets. He used to do that in real life, but in the dream all the money was from another country; the coins were square and had holes in them and pictures of birds. Once we were talking, and my mom woke me up. I was mad at her all day.

It wasn't just dreams then. Sometimes I'd see him walking down the street. I'd think it was him from the hair, or his hat. Any short, fat man who walked by. It got so I couldn't go to the mall. The gal who helped Natalie write her book made a big deal of this, like it proved I was crazy. Sister Perpetua said it's absolutely normal, so whatever you want to do with it is fine. I loved my dad and I still miss him. He was a regular guy and doesn't have anything to do with what happened.