Wire Mesh Mothers (11 page)

Little girl!

She grabbed the beer back, letting one set of fingers scrape the woman’s forearm as she did. The woman squawked and reached for Tony, who skipped back several feet, still clutching the beer.

“Don’t you never grab nothing from me, little girl!” said Mrs. Martin.

Oh, just you wait, bitch, Tony thought.

Then Mam had come up with the Frosted Flakes and a carton of vanilla ice cream and the confrontation ended. Mrs. Martin hung up the phone and rung up
Mam’s
total.

This is for you, Mrs. Martin,
Tony thought as she put her hands on her hips and strode forward through the center of the store. Little Joe and Leroy were making their way up the left aisle, joking with each other and playing with packages of disposable diapers and cans of motor oil on the shelves, clearly unsure of what they were supposed to do but ready for the word. Whitey, who thought he had a fine-ass revolver at his beck and call was moving up the right aisle, humming something that sounded a little like “Turkey in the Straw.” Knowing Whitey, it could be the kids’ song or maybe it was some gospel thing. Whitey’s mom sang in a gospel ground, and Whitey, when he wasn’t spending evenings with the Hot Heads, sometimes went along as a backup tenor.

Mrs. Martin stood at the front counter, her elbows planted against the counter, her eyebrows pinched in a prissy, pencil-drawn line. She was wearing a festive Santa pin with a string to pull to light up the eyes.

“You kids got money?” Her voice was higher than usual, betraying genuine, growing concern. “Got no money you best get your behinds out of here ‘cause I ain’t
puttin
’ up with no nonsense!”

“
Mmm
, doughnut sticks,” said Whitey from the other side of the store. There was the sound of
crinkley
plastic wrap being collected and thrust into pockets.

“Answer me!” demanded Mrs. Martin. “I’ll call the police, don’t think I won’t! You’re nothing but trouble, you’ve shoplifted from here before and I won’t take it anymore!”

Tony reached the counter. The woman’s eyes widened and she stepped back, but not far enough. Tony smiled, shrugged, then grabbed the front of Mrs. Martin’s sweater and yanked her forward over the counter. She pressed the mouth of the pistol to the Exxon nametag. “Hey little girl,” she laughed loudly. “How’s it
hangin
’? Oh, it ain’t is it? You’re just a fucking pussy!”

The Hot Heads took the laughter as the sign. Leroy pulled out his bb gun and waved it in the air, then began slugging jars from the shelves with the butt end. The jars burst on the tile floor. “This is a stick-up! This is a stick-up!” crowed Little Joe, and he did a karate-like kick and sent a small display of videos-to-rent flying like geese out of a pond. Whitey ripped open a box of trash bags and yanked one out. He began shoveling goods into it - paper cups, bottles of aspirin, boxes of Hostess cupcakes, cans of Spam, some die-cast John Deere toy tractors.

Mrs. Martin stared,
gog
-eyed, her pointy eyebrows twitching. Tony licked her lips and tasted the fear steaming off the woman. “Open the cash register,” Tony said. “I want everything in there.”

“I can’t,” whispered Mrs. Martin. “It locks at four o’clock and….”

Tony leaned over and bit the woman’s cheek. The skin split and Tony could taste the hot blood. The woman wailed and tried to jerk free. “You’re lying,” Tony said through the flesh. “You are, aren’t you?”

Mrs. Martin sputtered, “Yes.” Tony opened her mouth straightened, the gun never wavering from Mary Jane’s little tag of identification. Keeping the rest of her body perfectly still, the woman reached over with one hand and punched keys; the register opened with a “ding.”

“Get it all out, and no pennies,” said Tony. “Put it in a bag. Don’t get a freakin’ bag with holes. Half the bags here got holes in ‘em.”

Mrs. Martin was trembling so badly she had to dip her hand in three times before she could come up with the bills. Her cheek was a welt of teeth-marks and blood. It seemed to be swelling nicely. Tony waited, smiling. Behind her, the racket was increasing. Whitey was indeed singing “Turkey in the Straw” at the top of his lungs. Little Joe had moved from cowboy yodels to Indian whoops. Glass shattered. There was a loud thumping, and Tony guessed it to be the ATM machine being whacked off the wall.

“I know you, don’t I,” said Mrs. Martin as she crammed money into the bag. Her voice was tremulous but determined. “I seen your face here before.”

“No,” said Tony. “You think you do, but you don’t have a clue. I’m just a mirage. Just your own ignorance come back to bite you in the behind. Now give me the bag.”

Mrs. Martin passed the bag over the counter. Tony called, “Somebody get up here and get this bag, I got a wrinkled old bag of my own that I can’t let go quite yet!”

Little Joe bounced up to the counter. His lipstick war paint was already smudging, bleeding down his face in a pool of sweat. He snatched up the bag, tied the plastic handles tightly, and stuck it into his windbreaker. He zipped the jacket up to his chin. “Yeah!” he wailed. “Oh, yeah! Can’t nobody touch us!
Whoooo
! Too hot to handle!”

Tony couldn’t see Leroy pounding on the ATM machine, it was down behind the left counters. But she could hear him whacking and cussing, “Fucking box won’t open!”

But what Tony
could
see was the most beautiful sight she’d ever witnessed. The store was in total destruction. Complete ruin, like a bomb had hit dead center and blew out in all directions. Little bitch Martin got to see it all, got to see how worthless she was, how impotent, how weak, before a handful of Hot Heads. Tony aimed her gun at the ceiling and squeezed off two shots. The pistol kicked slightly in her hand. The fluorescent light exploded and showered shards upon them all. The job, christened with sparkling glass. She could see the news at eleven tonight, photos of the busted lights, the box-strewn floor. The headline of the Emporia News-Record tomorrow morning, “Band of Teenaged Thugs Destroy Store. Who Were They?”

Mrs. Martin wailed; she looked at the phone on the counter by the lottery tickets and Tony said, “Oh, you wish.”

“
Yeee
!” squealed Little Joe. “
Whoooooo
! Ya
ya
ya
ya
!” He leaped like a warrior all around the glass, grinding his shoes into it and flapping his arms. “We gonna celebrate!
Yessir
! We gonna celebrate! Praise the Lord!”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh. A thick bubble forced its way up her throat and she let it out. It felt fantastic.

And then the back door to the rear storeroom could be heard thumping open, and there was a call, “Hey, Mary Jane! Damn, but it’s messy outside!” He was there then, standing in the storeroom doorway behind Mary Jane. The gasoline delivery man. He wore an oily brown jacket, a pair of brown gloves, and matching brown hat. He stared, his eyes as bright and wide as new wheel covers. He swore something unintelligible, and before Tony could even think of how to handle two instead of one he was leaping forward, knocking Mrs. Martin away from Tony and Tony back from the counter.

“No!” Tony yelled as her feet went out from under her and she crashed to the floor on her shoulder. She heard and felt the joint pop at the same time, and her vision swirled in sparks of silver and white. The pistol skittered from her hand and slid beneath the rack of sunglasses at the end of the aisle. She rolled over and drove herself forward on her knees, grabbing for the gun. Her fingers came up short.
NO fucker is going to stop me! No goddamn pussy-licking gas-man is going to….

The gasoline man roared and Tony glanced up. He was coming over the counter, arms wide, hat flying. Mrs. Martin screamed like a dog getting its tail cut off.
 

“Mother fucker, no!” Tony shouted, and as she crouched out of the way of the man’s looming bulk there was a piercing blast from the middle of the store and the man lurched in mid-air, hit the floor on his toes, staggered, and fell backward on his ass. He clutched his chest and gurgled. His teeth snapped together loudly. In the center of his gasoline-delivering brown uniform jacket, a flower of wet red blossomed.

“What the hell!” Leroy and Little Joe were there by Tony now, staring at the dying gasoline man, and then back down the center aisle where Whitey stood, still holding the gun out with both hands and pointing it straight ahead. A tendril of smoke haloed the weapon.

Whitey pulled the scarf down from his mouth. A string of drool came with it. “I shot him.”

“Damn!” said Leroy.

Mrs. Martin appeared over the counter, her painted fingernails scratching against the countertop. She looked at the gasoline man and then at Tony. “Oh God you little bitch he’s dying!”

Tony staggered to her feet. Her shoulder throbbed, hot and furious. “I didn’t shoot him, whore!”
There were no bullets in that gun, the bullets all fell behind the stove! Whitey could not have shot that man!
“I didn’t shoot him!”

In a flash, the rats deserted the sinking ship.

Leroy released the case of beer he had under his arm and darted for the door. Little Joe and Whitey followed. Tony spun to run, but the gasoline man’s hand shot out and grabbed her by the shoe. Tony bellowed and stomped the hand, kicked it, but the dying gasoline man held tight, some kind of rigor mortis, she thought.

Fucking shoe is on too tight too many goddamned socks!

“Let go, mother fucker!”

On the other side of the counter, Mrs. Martin was fumbling with the telephone, her breaths coming in great Indian whoops that would have made
DeeWee
laugh.

“Let go!” Tony stomped the hand, then raised the revolver and aimed it at the man’s wrist. “Now!”

He looked up at her with red-rimmed, maniacal eyes and tried to say something. Blood puddled out the corners of his mouth.

Tony pulled the trigger. The hand split and fell away, spraying her foot with hot crimson. It trembled, a fat and fleshy crab strumming the tile. Mrs. Martin screamed anew, dropped the receiver, then cried, “I’m
callin
’! I’m getting the police!”

Tony stomped the hand one last time and raced for the door, hurdling the wreckage and shoving the hot pistol into her Granddad’s trousers.
 

B
y the time she had captured all the runaway snacks, sans a Twix that had slid across the sleety lot into the Twilight Zone that was the weeds behind the gas price signs, Kate’s knees were soaking wet and her head was hurting. The Pepsis had rolled under the Volvo along with the deviled ham. The bread, which had flopped out in another direction, had become an unintentional kneeling pad under Kate’s weight. She’d clawed up everything and tossed them through the passenger’s front door. As she dropped into the driver’s seat, a gasoline delivery truck had pulled into the parking lot. It drove around the side of the station.

Just get out of here now, things are okay, nobody will remember I was in the store, at least not until I’m out of the country. I’m forgettable. That’s a good thing right now.
She smiled.
Forgettable is good this time, Donald. Wouldn’t you just be surprised?

“Mistie, I’m back,” she said. She swiped her wet forehead with her sleeve, plucked the deviled ham from under the accelerator where it was hiding, and put dropped it on the passenger side floor with the other stuff. “Bag ripped, the silly!”

The expected silence. Kate looked over the back of her seat. Mistie had moved, but was still under the blanket. The girl had made a pooch along the hem and her nose was poking out just a hair. “Got lots of things you might like. I just bet you like Pepsi!”

The girl said nothing. Kate kicked off her shoes, aiming them at the passenger’s side floor. Her toes would dry out, she didn’t mind driving with stocking feet.
In fact
, she thought,
this may be the last time I wear panty hose at all. What would I need them for? Once I take Mistie to Alice and Bill’s house, I just may drive west across Canada and get a job at a rock shop or craft shop. That would be fun, and I could wear comfortable clothes all the time.

Her breath eased out, making a funny squeaking noise.

She turned on the engine. On the radio, the announcer said, “…with chances of wintry mix ninety-percent through tonight and tomorrow. Clearing tomorrow afternoon with highs near thirty-five. And please, parents, do not call about school closings, as we haven’t yet received any word from the county and will let you know as soon as we do.” Kate turned the radio off. Too much sound right now.

A whine from the back.

Kate hands clenched the steering wheel; adrenaline stung her arms.
Enough whining! God! Okay, get this taken care of now, get her settled, then nothing else will stop us, nothing else save a bathroom somewhere off the main road in Northern Virginia or even Maryland, with luck.

“I’ll give you a Nestle Crunch and a Pepsi,” she said. Clearly that was satisfactory, for a small, snot-sticky hand came out from under the blanket. “Eat the candy bar but don’t drink yet, until I tell you it’s time to sit up. You might spill.”

The fingers wrapped around the candy and drew in beneath the blanket. Sigh of seeming contentment. Kate looked through the windshield. Nobody else was on the road. They were smart; the weather was pathetic.