Down our road

Every house was dark when she passed through town at 3:30 a.m.  This was the quietest time of the night, a little too late for partiers, a little too early for day shift workers and just right for Sarah Henderson.  Cruising unimpeded through the empty streets was usually a quiet pleasure for her, but today she was too focused on the job ahead of her to notice. She had to be inside the plant, started on her assignment no later than four o’clock.

As soon as she passed out of the city limits she could see the cooling tower with its huge mushroom shaped cloud of steam.   It was hard to believe she still had almost ten miles to drive before she reached the nuclear plant that glowed so brightly against the dark sky.

The state highway was narrow, hilly and full of unexpected twists and turns. She  drove carefully and kept her speed a bit below 55, both for safety and because of the highway patrol officer  she knew might be lurking somewhere along the way, waiting for speeders and ready for the inevitable daily accident.  State Route O was designed for a tiny farm town with one grocery store, not for the hundreds who streamed back and forth to the plant every day.

The cooling tower grew larger with each mile, filling her view.  When she pulled through the gate at the first chain link fence she could see the tremendous fall of water at bottom of the massive tower, but she ignored it because she  was focused on her goal, one of the blank concrete buildings gathered near the base.   Even though the guard knew her and her car, she had her badge out and ready for inspection.  She could feel the minutes ticking away, but she kept her voice cheerful and calm.

“Good morning, Randy. How have things been tonight?”

“Just fine, Mrs. Henderson. No problems at all.”

Randy looked at her badge carefully, then back at her face. He swept the beam of his big mag light through her back seat and checked under the Chevy with his long handled mirror before finally pushing a button to open the gate to give her access to acres of mostly empty parking lots.

Sarah parked in her usual place and locked up her car.  The walk across the wide expanse of concrete seemed to take forever, but fortunately guard at the inner gate waved her through with only a cursory glance at the badge hanging around her neck. She stepped through the turnstile, dropped her keys, shoulder purse and phone on the conveyor belt and walked slowly through the metal detector.  The explosives detector booth was next. She stood as still as possible until the device breathed a quiet puff of air over her body and clicked open the door on the opposite side of the booth.

After gathering her things from the conveyer belt , she  pushed her way through the final turnstile and turned to the final security check. The retinal scan was automatic and impersonal, but she still hated pressing tight against the bright lens and feeling it stare back and record the tiniest and most intimate details of her right eye.  She pushed her badge into the card reader, held her eye wide open while the machine compared the two, found a match and clicked open the massive door to the main plant.

Once through the door she was outside again and had another expanse of concrete to cross and a blank building with a plain metal door that opened with the simple turn of the key in her hand.  Low humming machinery greeted her and dim security lights reflected off polished steel. She flipped on a row of switches and bright lights flooded the sterile white room.

She pulled her white coat from a rack near the door, + buttoned it up carefully, drew a deep breath and plunged into the job she had set for herself.   All the ingredients she needed were there waiting for her.   She knew she could do it right if they only gave her enough time.

She measured and mixed precisely to instructions. She set the dial at exactly the right temperature and checked with a separate thermometer.  She moved around quickly getting all the parts to her plan started in the right order.  It would all come together perfectly just as the day crew began to flood the building at 5:30 a.m.  No one was expecting it. They didn’t even suspect.

But they had asked for it and now they were going to get it.  The process wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be and Sarah wondered why she had never dared before.

Homemade biscuits from scratch would make this morning special.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The words boomed out even over the hubbub of the crowded airport. Nancy instinctively ducked her head and pulled Bobby closer to her side. He won’t dare to hit us here, she told herself. Not with all these people watching. I just have to make sure we get on that plane. She didn’t answer or look up, but she was intensely aware of his fists clenched at his side as he stood in front of her spot on the crowded bench. She concentrated on those fists hovering at eye level in front of her face, the red gold hairs curled on the back of his hands, as Bobby’s little body trembled against her side.

She watched as Rob opened his big hands and rubbed them up and down on his pants legs. He dropped down, squatting in front of her. “Babe, look at me! Just come on back home and we’ll work it out. Okay?” The boom was gone. He was using the soft, gentle tone she no longer trusted. She didn’t answer.

“You can’t make it by yourself. You know that, don’t you? I pay the rent. I buy the groceries. Do you want Bobby to go hungry, like he did last time?”

Nancy quaked in the face of his low voiced threat, but the airport speakers saved her:  “Boarding For Flight 216 To Los Angeles.”

All around people stood up and began gathering their bags. A young soldier who had been sitting across from Nancy thumped his duffle bag down beside Rob.

“Scuse me, Buddy, but you’re blocking the aisle.”

Rob reluctantly got to his feet and backed away. As soon as he did, Nancy jumped up and started toward the security gate, pulling Bobby along as fast as his short legs could run.  The soldier stayed close and an older couple who had been sitting nearby stepped in behind them protectively. Nancy still heard Rob’s final shout.

“Nancy, I have friends in Los Angeles. I’ll find you.”

The flight was blessedly quiet and peaceful. The airline didn’t pass out snacks like they used to, but Nancy was prepared. She fed Bobby saltine crackers saved from their airport lunch and less than an hour into the flight he fell asleep with his head on her lap.

Bobby was still asleep when they landed. Nancy hung her little bag over her shoulder and hoisted him into her arms. The three year old was heavy, but she made her way through the crowds without any trouble to the connecting flight booked in her new name.

She knew she wouldn’t like Los Angeles any better than New York, but there was a live-in hotel job waiting for her in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  She and Bobby would like it there just fine.

I don’t know how old I was when I started thinking about myself in the third person. I don’t even know for sure how old I was when I noticed I was doing it and started actively trying to correct myself. I was young, maybe 6 or 7. I know it was sometime after I started to school because I remember Mrs. Tennyson, my first grade teacher wouldn’t call on me when I held up my hand. I remember thinking why won’t she call on her? She has her hand up. She never calls on her.

There are other times, sitting in the bathroom, or walking to school, when I remember telling myself don’t think she it’s me, it’s I. . . It took me a long time and a force of will to break the habit. Even in Junior High, sometimes I would realize I was doing it again. It was years later that I saw my first paper on psychology that mentioned the habit as one of the first symptoms of mental illness. So, I guess I got pretty close to losing it back then, when I was 4 or 5 or maybe younger.

But nobody knew it at the time. Nobody was paying attention.

It may have started back in St. Louis with Mama. Or maybe I was okay then, and it started down by the river with the man I came to know as Carl.

That first day I was only afraid because I thought he might tell on me. My father had told me to stay in the house and I had disobeyed. I didn’t want to get in trouble. When Carl told me “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your Dad. It’ll be our secret.” I believed him. I was relieved. He winked, smiled with those crinkly light blue eyes and patted the step beside him. I sat down and watched the river with him.

He talked a little. He told me about the river and the barge he and my Father were expecting that night. He laughed, and said “Shh. . .I’m not supposed to talk about that.”

I laughed, too, it made me feel warm inside to know we shared another secret. He was talking to me like I was a real person. He looked into my eyes, listened to what I had to say. He made me feel important, cared for.

When a turtle came wandering by, he picked it up and we played with getting it to poke it’s head out . He said we should find a safe place to turn it loose. We walked down to the side of the river and found a little creek that flowed into the big water. He said there was a good place for the turtle a little ways up the creek.

I went with him eagerly. I remember how magical it seemed when the muddy water and dull rumble of the river was behind us and we were walking along the sandy edge of a clear little stream that rippled and bubbled and sang. I loved everything about that little creek.

It was hot. I knelt and splashed cool water on my face. Carl told me “Take your clothes off and take a little swim. You’ll be cool all over.” At first I left my panties on. But they got wet and saggy so I had to keep hitching at them. Carl pulled them down, laughing about how I didn’t need them, nobody could see.

He said it looked so good he was going take a little swim, too. He turned his back and took off his clothes. He stepped into the water and sat down. The water was chest high on me. When he sat down in front of me we were on the same level. Face to face.

He looked to my eyes while his hands touched me. Moved all over my body. He told me I was beautiful and special. He pulled me on to his lap.

I let him. I didn’t run. I didn’t hide.

My father was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. The beer cans and dirty plates had all been cleared away. It was almost dark outside, but the morning smell of fresh coffee filled the cabin and he had a cup sitting on the scarred table in front of him. I tried to march right past him, but he reached out a long arm as I went by and grabbed my arm.

I couldn’t help flinching away. I couldn’t help making a whimpering noise.

“What? Why are you acting like that? I’m not going to hurt you!” He sounded angry. I couldn’t look at him. I kept my eyes on the floor. He softened his voice. “Have I ever hurt you? Have I?”

He pulled me over closer and put his hand under my chin, forcing my face up to look at him. “I don’t mean to be hard on you girl, but you need to learn to mind me. I told you to stay here, to be good. Didn’t I?” I waited. If only he would just let me be.

“Rosie, You have to mind me. Those men I had here today. They’re rough men. Not used to being around little girls.” I twisted my face away from his hand. “I don’t think they would hurt you. I hope they wouldn’t. But with the beer and the weed. . . You just don’t know how it could be.”

“I know.” The defiance and anger I heard in my own voice surprised me. “I know about beer and weed and men.”

He looked startled for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted in an ugly frown. “Oh. You know about men from when you lived with your mama, huh.?”

I didn’t say anything. He could think what he wanted. Mama did have men around. But not like today.

He turned away. Went back to the sink and pitched out the rest of his coffee.

As soon as his back was turned I escaped to the bathroom and locked the door. The old claw footed tub was deep enough and long enough to let me sink down all the way into the hot water. My father’s Lava soap scrubbed my body red and raw.

I still didn’t feel clean.

I watched the front of the cave for a long time, nervous as a cat, waiting for one of the men to suddenly decide to come back into the cave and catch me spying. The shadows and distnt voices kept up off and on for most of the afternoon. It would get quiet with no movement for a while, then they would be back.

When I thought they were gone for sure, since there hadn’t been any sound at all for a while, I started cautiously moving toward the beacon of daylight at the front of the cave.  There were boxes and bundles stacked near the front and I realized that’s what the movement had been. The men were either bringing stuff into the cave or taking it out.   I fingered one of the bundles stacked along a wall. It was scratchy and pungent smelling.  There were a lot of the bundles, the stacks were taller than my head, maybe taller than my father’s head.

Carefully, I moved close the entrance. It was narrow and bright, sunlight streaming in and lighting up the smooth dirt packed floor. I could see trees moving in the breeze out there and somewhere there was a sound I couldn’t identify at first. It was sort of like wind, but not exactly.

I stuck my head out and could see no one around. There was a small open area right in front of the cave but all around the trees surrounded the entrance. I couldn’t see more than about 12 feet. But the sound was clearer, and now I could add a heavy, muddy scent to go with it. Water!  River water. That’s what I was hearing. Mama had taken me down to the waterfront a few times. She had a friend who lived on a boat. I loved to go there, it was such a busy, bustling place. Once you got on the boat you could look down on the swirling brown water of the river and watch barges moving ponderously by, piled high with coal or bricks.

On the other side of the clearing there was a path leading down the hill through the trees. After a few minutes the path joined a set of wide stone steps set into the hillside. One way on the steps led up and I guessed they would end up somewhere near the house. The other way curved down toward that rushing river sound and the muddy scent of water.

The water drew me, and I hurried down the steps, forgetting to be quiet or careful.  I was excited at the prospect of seeing something familiar, something I remembered from my life in St. Louis.

I didn’t see the grey haired man until I was almost on top of him. He was sitting on the steps, leaning back against a tree, looking up the steps. He was smiling, his blue eyes crinkled in amusement. He was waiting for me. He knew I was coming.

“Hello, little darlin’. Did you get lonesome all by yourself back there in that dark old cave?”

Rose knew it wasn’t a good idea to go into the river with her hands tied behind her back.

She struggled with the ropes, trying to loosen the knots. But when she saw the bald guy coming back, she couldn’t wait anymore. She drew in a big breathe and went off the boat backward, just like she’d learned to do scuba diving down in the gulf.

The Missisissippi wasn’t the clear warm water where she’s learned that move. The murky river closed over her head with complete darkness and an amazing pull of current that immediately swept her away from the barge. Thank goodness she had at least managed to work her feet free, She kicked with all her strength and went with the current. Right now the most important thing was to get as far as possible away from the boat before she had to come up for air.

She couldn’t see or hear anything but she wasn’t afraid of drowning. She was more afraid of being shot. The snub nosed revolver stuck in the back of Baldys waistband didn’t look like it was there for show. And she was pretty sure those long boxes in the bottom of the boat were rifles. She kicked furiously, imagining a long barreled 306 with a high powered scope trained on the water above her head, waiting for her face to show above the surface.

Her lungs were bursting when she finally let herself pop up. She flipped over, filling her lungs and allowing her body to float. All she could see was water, waves all around sloshing up in her face. The current seemed even stonger now that she was no longer actively trying to go with it. She was still moving down the center of the river at an amazing speed, trees along the banks swept by before she could get a look at any particular point. The water was rising and had carried her straight down the center stream. Both banks looked about a hundred miles away. She pushed high in the water as she could, stiffening her body to look around.

Which direction? Where would they be looking? It was a coin toss, both sides were overhung with trees with no sign of civilization in sight

I held on to the wall and went down one narrow step at a time, following  the feeble beam of the little flashlight. The circle of light was weak and wavering, but there were no extra batteries in the junk filled drawer where I found it, or anywhere else in the house.  On each step I stopped, and strained my eyes and ears trying detect any sign of life ahead.  A whole hour had ticked by  on the big clock in the kitchen, so my father and his friends were probably gone. But I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to be caught following them

There were twelve wooden steps. At the bottom I felt a stone floor and a smooth blank wall. Mama always said I was an adventurer, and I was used to going  off by myself to explore. I prided myself on not being afraid. But the silence was starting to get to me. It was quiet up in the cabin, but now I realized the birds and insects had kept up a steady accompaniment there, a buzzing, chirping, twittering that was background and mostly unnoticed. In St. Louis the background noises were different, but always present. Here,  heavy dark silence surrounded me.

I could still feel the draft of air on my face. Now it was coming from the  right. I edged that way, feeling my way along the wall.   The flashlight flickered out. My momentary panic was quickly gone because without the yellow circle I saw a faint greying of the darkness and found more steps running off at a right angle to the first set. There was light at the bottom and I was grateful to see it. I hesitated only a moment, then started down toward the faint light. The wall to this staircase was stones, not smooth and solid like concrete, but stones all set together like bricks. They were different sizes and shapes, I could feel the ridges between them with my fingertips. No railings, so I kept a grip on the wall and made my way carefully from one stone step to the next.

The steps ended in another stone wall, but again the flow of air led me.  I rounded a corner and found an open space I immediately recognized as a cave, even though I’d never been inside a real one. The wall curved up and disappeared far above my head. There was light coming from an opening way off at the far end.  Crouched down near the narrow slot that led back to the stairs and safety of the cabin, I waited and watched.   Shadows passed back and forth, bits of voices drifted back, but I couldn’t make out the words.

One was my father’s voice, though, and I recognized the loud laugh of the man with the beard.

If he hadn’t been drafted they would still be married. Oh, not that they always got along just perfect, or anything, but they loved each other. They belonged together.

It was true, even their names said so. She had always been called Sissy in our family. She was my big Sis. And in his family he was always called Sonny. The perfect couple it seemed: Sissy and Sonny. That’s how you mentioned them, like it was just one word. They were a unit, always together. You never saw one without the other.

They got married just a few days after her 16th birthday. He was eighteen. A lot of people thought she was pregnant, since they were so young. But it wasn’t true. She wasn’t expecting a baby when they married, but they did plan to have kids and never did anything to prevent it. But it wasn’t in the cards for them. They worked together at the shoe factory, rode back and forth together, did everything together. They bought a tiny little house and fixed it up real cute.

They went to work every day and seemed to be real happy. Their fights were about little things, like which way the pillowcases should be when the bed was made: folded under of straightened out. It was an argument they had frequently as they made the bed together, him on one side and her on the other.

He took care of the money, her paycheck and his. She picked out the groceries and he paid for them. He carried cash to the landlord and the utility office.  They never charged anything or had a bank account to write checks on. They lived out of the wallet in the hip pocket of his jeans. She never had any money in her purse. But she didn’t know enough to mind. It was the way every couple operated as far as she knew. And if she really wanted anything he would try to see that she got it, if they had the money at all.

He did keep her close, or she stayed close. He did all the driving and it never seemed important for her to learn. She wore her hair long because he liked it that way and kept her dresses a little longer than the fashion for the same reason. They loved each other and had settled into a life that should have gone on for 50 happy years together.

Then, early in 1960, their world fell apart. The shoe factory, where they had both worked since they turned 14, suddenly closed its doors. They were both laid off. Out of work for the first time in their lives. She was 20 years old. He was 22. There were no jobs because half the people in town were looking for work at the same time. Some people had other skills to fall back on, but not Sissy and Sonny. All they knew was making shoes.

Sonny didn’t stay unemployed long. He was drafted less than a month after the factory closed. He went to Fort Leonard Wood for basic training, leaving Sissy at home alone in her little house. She found a part time job at Dairy Queen. It was just a few hours a week and didn’t pay the bills, but it helped to keep her from going crazy. Sonny came home for a few days at Christmas. He was sent to Texas for more training after that, and Sissy scraped up enough money to go see him while he was there.

His next assignment was Germany. She begged him to let her go with him, but he said it was no place for a woman and she should stay home near her parents and his. She did what he said, just like she always did.

For the first six months she wrote a letter to him nearly every day. She told him everything that was happening in her life, poured out her loneliness and love for him. Every day she had a letter ready for the mailman and every day she prayed there would be a letter for her. A letter from Sonny. But there never was. Not one. Not even a postcard.

As the months rolled by she didn’t know what to think, Some days she was sure he was dead. Other days she pictured him keeping house with a buxom blonde fraulein . She wrote desperate letters, begging him for some word to let her know he was alive, that he still loved her. Anything he sent would have been received with joy and thanksgiving. But there was nothing.

Dairy Queen shut down. There wasn’t enough business to keep it open. Sissy got a job babysitting. She fell in love with the baby girl and devoted every ounce of her being to taking care of her. When the mother decided to move away and took the baby with her, Sissy was devastated. It was like she had lost her own child. She slid into a depression and everyone in the family tried to think of ways to cheer her up.

A cousin had moved to Columbia to find work. She had a tiny apartment over there and she invited Sissy to come live with her and share expenses. There was work in Columbia. She found a job at a little neighborhood grocery store. She loved the work. She was meeting new people every day and making a pretty good check. She bought a few new clothes. She enjoyed fixing up pretty every morning to stand behind the counter and banter back and forth with the customers and delivery men. It was so different from the factory.

On one of her brief trips back home, she told Mom she felt young for the first time in her life. Mom told her to be careful, to remember she was still married. Sissy wrote a letter to Sonny that afternoon: If you love me, if we are still married, please write and tell me so. If you don’t answer I will know you don’t love me anymore. He didn’t answer.

An overseas tour was two years long. There was never any word from Sonny in all that time. But at the end of the two years, he came walking down our street in his uniform, duffle bag thrown over his shoulder. He asked where his wife was with a grin on his face. He fully expected she would be there to greet him with open arms.

Mom told him: “She’s somewhere in Kansas. She ran off with a bread truck driver. Said you didn’t love her anymore because you didn’t write.”

Sonny was stunned. He slumped down on the front step and twisted his cap in his hands. He looked smaller, like all the air went out of him when he heard Mom’s words. The tears soaked his face and made little wet spots on the cement between his legs. When he stopped crying and got up to go, I couldn’t resist asking him.

“Why didn’t you write to her?”

He said “I don’t know how.”