Armadillos Page 19

  ‘So?’ said Freak. ‘Just because they’re looking don’t mean they’re gonna find us, does it? Jesus, in a city this size we’re the least of anyone’s concerns. We just need to lay low a few days.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ Marjorie said. ‘Good luck getting your money together while you do that, by the way. This Mr Dee guy… understanding type, is he?’

  ‘I aint ever met him,’ I said, and looked at Freak. She fell silent and shook her head, face blazing.

  ‘Seems you got a bit of trouble on your hands, Freak,’ Marjorie said. She was enjoying this.

  ‘Why me?’ wailed Freak. ‘She’s the one who assaulted somebody!’

  ‘I was trying to help you out!’ I yelled, jumping down from the kitchen counter. ‘I wouldn’t be in this frikkin mess if you hadn’t been such a dumb bitch in the first place, would I?’

  Freak jumped down too and squared up to me. Marjorie got in between us and pushed Freak back.

  ‘What I mean is,’ said Marjorie, ‘it aint gonna be Aggie’s problem, because she’s coming out of town with me. Which means you’re gonna be here all on your lonesome, alright?’

  This was news to me. ‘You got your deposit?’ I said.

  Marjorie turned to me with a smile so full of satisfaction, a dozen kitties swimming in cream couldn’t have been much smugger.

  ‘I sure did,’ she said. ‘And you and me head off in the morning.’

  Freak looked at me with her jaw hanging open. ‘You’re dumping me for her?’

  I understood where she was coming from. The timing was pretty shit, from her point of view at least. Marjorie left us to it. ‘Let me just take this coke up for Ade,’ was her parting shot.

  ‘I aint dumping you, Freak,’ I said. ‘Me and Marj, we got some business down on the coast, that’s all. It’s been planned a while. I’ll be back in a few days.’

  Now we were alone, the last of her bravado disappeared. Her head fell forward and her shoulders slumped. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand at all.’

  She took a seat at the table and cried. ‘Me and Duke, we used to have a thing.’

  ‘A thing?’ I said, totally confused. ‘What thing?’

  ‘Jesus, Aggie. Do I have to spell it out? A thing thing, a sex thing, alright?’

  ‘You and Duke? But he’s, like, fifty.’ And wears ladies clothes and paints his nails, but I didn’t say that.

  ‘I’d just got here. I didn’t know anyone. He was kind. He used to bring me food when I was on the street. I didn’t know no one else. What can I say? I was grateful. I didn’t plan for it to happen but one night he invited me down to his work.’

  ‘The Sad Place?’

  ‘Yeah, except the letters still worked. I wanted to serve behind the bar but he said he’d get fired. He just wanted me to sit there while he worked. Keep him company. Girls were coming and going through the back door. I guessed what was going on. He saw me looking and asked if I was interested in that line of work.’

  ‘So what, you were too young for bar work but okay for being a hooker? Jeez.’

  ‘He said I’d make real good money. Said people would pay extra, you know?’

  ‘People make me sick.’

  ‘Me too. I said no, no way. He was real hurt. Said he didn’t mean to offend me. Thing is, Aggie, he got real upset. Like tears and everything. I just wanted to make him feel better, you know? Plus, he’d been real kind to me and everything so… I let him do it. I thought it would just be the one time but he kept coming back. Called me his little lady. I guess I didn’t mind too much either.’ She looked down, ashamed.

  ‘Reckon everyone’s got the right to feel special sometimes,’ I said.

  ‘But then he started saying about me working for him again. His boss, Mr Dee, was real keen to get a girl like me. I kept saying no. He’d get angry but he didn’t hit me, not really, even though I could tell he wanted to. Then one day finally I said I’d do it, but I wanted the money up front. Duke said Mr Dee wouldn’t go for it. I said okay, forget it. That’s when Duke said he’d give me the money himself. And he did. He gave me two hundred bucks, and told me to come back later that night. He trusted me.’

  ‘Sweet guy. What did you do next?’

  ‘I had money so I decided to treat myself. I went into this diner and that’s where I saw Ade. I figured he’d be an easy rip-off. I got him talking while we ate and it was weird. Like, he wasn’t interested in me the way most guys are. Not at all. We just talked about stuff and after a while he just offered me a room here. No strings, nothing. I didn’t show for my appointment with Mr Dee. It was my new life. A new start.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I got stupid. One day I lifted a bunch of stuff from the Galleria. Like, I had a really, really good day. So much stuff I didn’t know what to do with it. I figured it would be okay to push it through Duke.’

  ‘Shit, Freak.’

  ‘I know, I know. Like I said, it was stupid. Well, he acted all pleased to see me and all. Took the stuff from me, gave me good money for it as well. Didn’t mention the two hundred I owed him. Begged me to take him back but I just didn’t want to, you know? I mean, who would, right? But he was happy just to see me. I even started hanging out there sometimes. The girls still came and went but he never once mentioned me going to work for him again. Plus, by that time I’d met you and you were pushing stuff through him as well. More money for him. I thought he was happy with that and everything was cool.’

  She shook her head and went to the sink to pour some water. I waited in silence as she gulped it back. This was the most I’d heard her speak in one go and I didn’t want to put her off.

  ‘Then,’ she continued. ‘Then he found out what happened, you know? About when you did my back, remember?’ I wasn’t likely to forget. ‘He said I was a slut and a fool for letting it happen. For letting it happen for free when he… he would have made them pay.’

  Her face was wet with tears. She didn’t look worth a shit.

  ‘I don’t understand where the money comes in,’ I said.

  ‘Well, after he said all that, I did it.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘For his friends. You know.’

  ‘Mr Dee?’

  She looked at me kind of odd, and then shook her head.

  ‘No, I never met him. I did it for six of his friends in a room through the back. It wasn’t as bad as you’d think. Not saying it’s something you’d want to do all the time, but just I got on with it. When I went to get my wages from him, he said all he’d had were complaints. Said my skin was too fucked up. It put people off. Nobody had paid, or so he said.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘Then he said there was only one person he knew who would pay for me. Mr Dee. He was into all kinds of kinky shit. Duke said if I was willing to let myself be tied up and shit like that, I’d make good money that way.’

  ‘You didn’t, did you?’

  ‘Fuck, no. I told him no way was I getting up close with a sick fuck like that, but then he went totally weird on me. Took hold of my arm, real tight. I told him he was hurting me and he got this look in his eye. Freaked me the fuck out. Started running his fingers across my scars and said I had to meet Mr Dee. Said I had to because I owed him. I told him if anyone owed anybody it was him owing me on account of my screwing six of his friends. I was feeling sparky because we were in the bar and it was pretty busy. I don’t know what would have happened otherwise. Anyway, he had customers to serve. I wasn’t thinking straight. All I knew was the till was lying open and I’m sitting there, red raw in my panties without a dime in my pocket, and this weird fuck is trying to make me do shit. So when his back was turned I cleaned him out and took his wallet, too. It only came to six hundred bucks but I hear he’s bumped it up to two thousand. Hell, it might even be three by now.’

  I didn’t know what to say to her. She twirled a piece of hair around her finger and began to chew on it. My stomach churned like sour butter.

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nbsp; ‘You shouldn’t have gone back after you met Ade,’ was all I could think of to say.

  ‘No shit, genius.’

  There was more I should have said but I couldn’t find it. I wanted to wrap it all up and make it go away for her, but whatever she was feeling inside, I was feeling too. I was still mad with her for sending me to this dickball knowing everything she knew about him. Was she really so dumb to think he saved the nasties just for her? A giant knot of ugly was tangled up in the middle of me and I couldn’t unwind it.

  ‘Thing is, Aggie. If he finds me, I don’t know what he’ll do. I heard he gets real nasty, you know? Like, people disappear around Mr Dee. Seriously, Duke told me that, and a couple of girls at the club, too. I guess what I’m saying is… I don’t want to be alone, that’s all. You can see why, can’t you?’

  ‘Sure, sure, I can. But – ’

  ‘And I know you gotta take this trip with Marj, and all – ’

  ‘Yeah, I do – ’

  ‘So you reckon I could just hitch a ride with you guys for a few days?’

  There it was – the sucker punch. She’d wrapped her hair around half her face by this point. Her eyes blue and hopeful shone from between puffy lids. Her lips chomped rhythmically on a blanket of pink hair. ‘Please?’

  ‘No way Marj would go for it.’ I rubbed my forehead hard like I could rub out the stress I was feeling.

  ‘You could at least say you’ll ask, fuck sake.’ Eyes trained on me like a sniper’s gun. I wished she’d look somewhere else.

  ‘It’s only a few days, Freak.’ I didn’t know if I was telling the truth. Part of me was beginning to think I might just stay down there.

  ‘Lot can happen in a few days, Aggie. What if he finds me?’

  ‘He aint gonna find you. How long you owed him this money anyway? Why the panic now?’

  ‘Because of how he was with you. That was a message for me. He’s mad, Aggie. Plus, he’s been calling and texting me all the time. He wasn’t looking for me before but he is now. I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds me, Aggie. You gotta help me. Please. Tell Marjorie I’ll do whatever she wants. I can sell shit too, you know. I can make her money.’

  ‘We don’t need another seller. We got me. I’m doing it good.’

  ‘Okay then, I’ll just lay low in the back of the car. You won’t hear a word out of me. I just need some place to be.’

  ‘What about Ade?’ I said. She looked like she didn’t know who I meant. ‘Ade,’ I said again. ‘Your boyfriend? Currently flipping out upstairs? Who’s gonna take care of him?’

  ‘He’s okay. All he needs to do is stay straight. Come on, sis.’ I raised my eyebrows at that but she carried on regardless. ‘It’s not like I’d just leave him to rot, is it?’

  That’s exactly what you’d do, I thought. ‘I don’t know, Freak. Marj just won’t buy it, you know? Plus, I plan on hooking up with some family while I’m there, so it would just be you and her. You’d hate it.’

  Good to learn my talent for swift lies was intact. She was stumped for a second and I thought I’d won, but then she dropped her head to the side, smiled a strange little smile and frowned.

  ‘Is it your momma, Aggie? You meet your momma there?’

  Her gift for instant recall was a curse to me. We hadn’t talked about my family in weeks. She was calling me out and we both knew it.

  ‘Yeah…’ I struggled for the words. ‘I haven’t seen her for years and…’

  She gave me the sweet smile of a smug-fuck champion. ‘Oh my, that’s so exciting! Do you think she’ll have the same candle Jojo used to give you? I bet she does. Oh, girl, you’re gonna need all the moral support you can get! Okay then, that settles it. Beast Woman can’t object to your best friend being there when you’re going through such a tough time now, can she?’

  Nothing came to me. No words, no feelings, just nothing.

  She patted the inside of her denim jacket pockets where the ATM cash had found its way. ‘Great work today, by the way. I owe you.’ And she skipped out the room and up the stairs.

  I don’t know how long I stared at the wall, but I thought about it until I was the surest I’d ever been in my life. She’d taken something private and used it against me. I didn’t want any harm to come to her, but as long as she laid low, Duke would never find her. If she laid low, she’d be safe. Somehow we’d get the money together and pay him off. I’d have extra cash once Marjorie sold enough to pay me. She could have that. I was going to the ocean and I didn’t want to listen to Freak and Marj bitching at each other the whole way. No way was she crashing this road trip.

  I went up to my room to gather the few bits and pieces I’d need for the trip. Jeans, underwear, toothbrush. Marj had said there wouldn’t be much room in the car so to keep it to bare essentials. That was pretty much all I had anyway. I thought of what the ocean would be like, all blue and silver in the sun, sand between my toes, warmth seeping up through my feet. I imagined it to be wild, but for me the wildness would be calming. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses.

  I stood on tiptoe and looked out my window to the street below. There were kids squirting each other with water guns. I turned away and sank to the floor. I was running away again.

  Jojo’s voice was singsonging its way closer. I’d run up the track, fast through shoulder-high grass, ducking and weaving my way to the shelter of Momma’s upturned boat. Its base was rotten now, bleached brittle by the sting of summer sun, but that was no deterrent. The broken trunk of an old cedar tree propped it up a little, and I climbed into its cool darkness and waited.

  Aaggeee… Aaggeee…

  This game bored me now, but still she made me play it. I pushed myself deeper in, like I could steer the wood, drive the boat and escape all the way to the ocean.

  Aaggeee…

  She was so close now. It would all be over soon.

  Now where is she?

  She was right outside. She drummed her fingers against the wood, and I couldn’t help but squeal.

  I wonder where in the world could that Aggie be? she said, in a cartoon voice. And then: Found you!

  She peeked inside, blocking out what little daylight seeped through, and I laughed and tried to sound genuine.

  I climbed from my hiding place, all the time squirming and wriggling to avoid Jojo’s tickling fingers, until eventually, she let me past. We settled against the boat and fell into an expectant silence, ripping out blades of grass to keep our fingers busy. I breathed in deep and said my lines.

  I’m gonna fix up this old boat and take us to the ocean, Jojo. What you reckon to that?

  This is what the conversation had become. She seemed to need it. I’d discovered it was easier to go along with it than try anything else.

  But how will we get there? she asked, like it was the first time she’d thought about it. You gonna put wheels on her?

  Yeah, Jojo. Reckon I am.

  Gonna do it soon?

  I sure am, Jojo. I sure am.

  And then some new words. Please do it soon, Aggie.

  I was horrified to see tears spring in her eyes. Struck with fear I hadn’t played my part well enough, I placed my young hand over hers, trying to find some magic words of comfort.

  I’ll use the wheels on my bike, Jojo. I don’t care.

  She forced a laugh and smiled then, pushing the hair back from my face. Oh, Aggie, you’re sweet. I’m alright really. Sometimes I just miss Momma so damn much, you know?

  For reasons I didn’t know, I said, Sorry, Jojo.

  She just picked another blade of grass and pulled it to death.

  23

  I woke up next day to a commotion. Through the noise the only sound I recognized was Ade and he was yelling his head off. I pulled on jeans and a top and made my way downstairs where Marjorie was trying to calm him down. Behind them, Monty was waving his empty Cheerios box and raving about nothing being safe.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I asked Freak
, who was sitting on the bottom step pulling split ends out of her hair.

  ‘Look outside,’ she replied.

  I opened the door and stuck my head out. It took me a moment to recognize what I was looking at. Directly opposite the house was a camera crew and a news van. I slammed the door shut.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I said again.

  A hammering started up. Lloyd was pulling the plywood down in the understairs closet.

  ‘They aint taking my secrets,’ Tawanna said, a bundle of splintered wood in her arms. ‘This shit’s for burning.’ She walked to the garden and dumped the wood in a smoking metal bin.

  ‘It’s the house,’ Marjorie shouted over the hammering, her arms wrapped tight around Ade, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. ‘They’ve found out about Ade buying this place for thirty dollars. Weird, huh? The bank goes to court and all of a sudden we’re national news.’

  ‘They sent them,’ Ade said. ‘They’re closing in.’

  There was a bump, bump, bump down the stairs. I turned to see Virginia pulling a huge suitcase on wheels down behind her.

  ‘Sorry, guys, I’m out of here,’ she said. ‘Nothing good comes when they start pointing cameras at you. There’ll be more coming, mark my words.’

  Monty appeared at her side and they disappeared through the door without even saying goodbye. The reporter followed them down the street, firing questions until they turned the corner.

  None of us had a clue what to do. Ade was a wreck and Marjorie looked grim. Lloyd stacked the white boards in the hallway. I could still make out my handwriting beneath the paint. Tawanna came back from the garden and I helped her carry the boards out. I wanted them burned as much as she did. The flames licked around the bottom edges, sending furls of smoke to engulf us. Through the haze, Tawanna looked straight at me. In that moment, I realized her dreams had been the biggest of all of us. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tawanna.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘I got my baby now. And no matter where I end up, aint nobody taking it away from me. My baby gonna know who I am. My baby gonna know its momma’s love. Don’t you go being sorry for me now, y’hear?’