Joe (20 page)

“You just shut that pretty little lying
mouth of yours before you wake up Joe. You just shut up and take what you got
coming to you. You thought you could run around on me and I wouldn’t find out.
Is that what you thought? Well, we’ll see how much that wife-fucker Tom wants
you when your face isn’t so pretty anymore. We’ll see. We’ll see.”

Tom?
Joe thought.
What does Tom have to do with—

That was the night young Joe learned
that “friend” doesn’t always mean “friend”.

Her paralysis broke, and Joe rushed
across her bedroom to the door. She came to a skidding stop on the hard floor
and ran back to her bed. Dropping to her knees, she retrieved the frying pan
and blanket and the fire extinguisher. Cradling them in her arms, she pushed
her door open slowly and stepped out into the hallway.

Her mother was screaming now. “JOE! JOE!
WAKE UP! JOE! WAKE UP! CALL NINE—”

Joe never heard the next thing that her
father said, because he spoke too low for her to hear it. He bent over the bed
and kissed his wife gently on her head. Then he whispered, “I gave her some
heavy sleeping pills. She won’t hear you, darling. It’s just you and me. You
and me. That wife-fucker Tom ain’t gonna hear you, either.” He flipped the top
of the silver lighter back with his thumb.

“JOE! JOE! WAKE UP! JOE!” her mother
continued screaming, and outside in the hallway, young Joe felt as though she
may very well pass out or throw up.

Just breathe. Just breathe. Just
breathe.

She pushed herself forward, her sweaty
feet peeling reluctantly from the hard floor, and stopped outside of the closed
door to her parents’ bedroom. Joe set the blanket and the fire extinguisher
down by her bare feet, and gripped the handle of the heavy iron frying pan in
her left hand.

Her last thought before entering was:
Swing
hard and breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.

It was what her coach at school had told
her when they were practicing softball in gym. It was good advice. If she failed
to follow it now, her mother would die. If she missed, who knew what her father
would do? He had obviously fallen off his rocker, and really, he had never been
particularly fond of his strange little girl. He was a man of few words, and of
those few he hardly spared any for Joe. Did this mean he would kill her if she
got in his way? By the sound of that broken, angry demon’s voice that was
coming out of him, she was pretty sure that the answer was yes.
 

In her parent’s bedroom, her father
flicked the flame to life on the lighter in his hand. Red and orange flickered
across his face. Her mother screamed, shrill and high and horribly terrified.
Outside of the door, young Joe’s resolve strengthened. Inside the door, her
father dropped the silver lighter onto the gasoline-soaked bed.

Joe pushed the door open slowly,
restraining herself from throwing it open with all her force. A huge part of
her plan depended on her father facing the bed. If the door crashed open, he may
turn around—and then who knows what would happen?

Young Joe had been under the
misconception that seeing the sketch of the event had prepared her mentally for
what she was going to see here. She was wrong.

The room was brighter than Joe had
expected.
Too
bright in comparison to the dark hallway and bedroom from
which she had just come. Her parents’ bed was a red-and-orange blaze which lit
the room like a tiny and powerful sun. Heat poured from its flames in rolling
waves that washed across Joe’s horrified, frozen face. Her mother’s screams
were awful now, just
awful
, and they wrenched the heart of the girl who
was standing in the doorway with an iron skillet in her left hand and made her
stomach clench painfully. Joe spared her only a moment’s glance. Her mother was
too occupied to see her. Her silver-blue gaze went to her father.

His back was facing her.

This was the worst thing the poor girl
who had seen so many terrible things had ever seen. It was by far, the scariest
moment of her life. There’s just no other way to say it. Her reaction time was
actually only seconds. But as she stood there, that cold iron clutched in her
small hand, the heat from the hell-fire in front of her growing rapidly and
spreading just as quickly—her mother’s agonized screams filling her ears and
her father’s back turned toward her, with that angry, hateful and justified
face watching the woman burn—there was just no other way to say it. It was the
worst, scariest moment of the girl’s life.

Then her hand drew back fast and strong,
her left hand, and then it was swinging forward as true as a homerun hit,
connecting with something hard and solid. A sound sort of like a
GOOONG!
and
sort of a firm
PIIING!
hit her ears, and the man who had his back to her
slumped and fell to the floor. Next she was running to retrieve the heavy
blanket and the fire extinguisher that she had left outside of her parents’
door. She threw the blanket on the top of the bed, where she briefly was able
to think and later recall a conscious thought, which was:
Probably where her
head is.
Then she was following the instructions she had memorized,
spraying thick white foam from the nozzle of the fire extinguisher. She
wondered at how long it felt to take the flames out. Her face was dripping
sweat. Her heart had either stopped beating altogether or was beating too fast
to be registered. Her mother continued to scream through it all.

Then as the flames made their reluctant
retreat, another thought came to her.
If she’s screaming then she’s alive.
She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.

Finally the fire went out and her mother
stopped screaming and began to moan ugly, agonized moans. The bed was a mess of
black and white foam, her mother a shivering, duct-taped mess, her father
unconscious on the hardwood floor at her feet, with blood running from his ear.
Joe retrieved the phone from the nightstand, and called 911.

There had been a trial by jury, where
her father was convicted of attempted murder. Joe had been made to testify.
When they played the 911 call back to her during her testimony, she broke down
and cried, hard, sobbing and reliving that terrible night. Hearing it was
another one of the worst days of her life. Her voice sounded calmer than she
would have expected when played back on the recording. Her stutter hadn’t even
been as bad as she remembered it being, but it had a horrible subtle note to it
that had made even the judge cringe.

Nine-one-one what’s your emergency?

“My muh-mother has buh-been burned very
buh-badly. 795 East Maple Street. Puh-please hurry.

Okay ma’am, stay on the line. Help is on
the way. Did you say your mother has been burned?

“Yuh-yes. Buh-burned. My father threw
g-g-g-gasoline all over her and buh-buh-burned her! 795 East muh-Maple street!
Huh-huh-hurry!”

Units are on route, Ma’am. Stay on the
lin—

The phone had fallen from her hand and
hit the floor. On the other end, the 911 operator kept on talking into space.
Joe had gone to her mother then, moving slowly, shuffling her bare feet along
the floor. Joe glanced down once at her father’s unconscious body, and soothed
her fears with the confidence that he was not getting up any time soon. She
figured that he had a concussion at least, perhaps a fractured skull, both of
which he did.

Her mother was still moaning. She would
eventually pass out before the paramedics arrived, but the last thing she said
before going into a coma that would last for four weeks, was, “My face. Is my
face okay?” Young Joe did not answer this question, because no, her mother’s
face was
not
okay. In fact, the whole right side of her body was
not
okay
.
 

Her father got sentenced to twenty-three
years in prison for attempted murder. Joe’s mother was pretty much scarred for
life, both physically and emotionally. Her father both hated Joe and blamed
her. Her mother showed no gratitude for what Joe had done. One time, when Joe
was sixteen years old, some four years after the incident, her mother said,
“You shoulda just let me burn. Look at my face! Look at what happened to my
goddam face! Why would I want to live like this? Now I’m a freak. Just like—”

Her mother hadn’t finished that thought
aloud. Instead she just broke out into tears and retired to her bedroom, but
Joe finished it for her in her head.
Just like
me.
Gee, you’re
welcome, Mom. Don’t worry about how I feel. It was just a walk in the park for
me, too. No big.

But it had been big. It had been a
life-changing, rapid moment that had altered the little raven-haired girl
forever. For better or worse, it was one of the moments that had made her into
the person she was today, permanently changed her outlook on life and wiped
away the moisture behind her young ears. 

She had been only twelve years old. The
backs of her ears should have stayed wet for a while yet, like most twelve year
olds do. But her greenness had been swept away nonetheless, and there was
nothing she could do about it.

And it wasn’t fair.

But that’s life, baby, and that shit
ain’t always fair.

Chapter
Thirty-One

Claire

It
just wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Her head was filled with pitying thoughts
that basically consisted of
why me?
The issue was that she was just a
sheltered young lady, and the worst tragedy that God had ever dealt her was the
day her dog, Princess, died. Not a bad run for twenty-two years of life. The
bigger issue was that she thought she knew more about the world than she
actually did. The truth of the matter was, she had too little experience in
hard times to know anything. In fact, in comparison to most others who had
lived an equal length of time, some even less, Claire didn’t know shit.

That didn’t mean that things weren’t
complicated. They were now.

Her sister, Nikki, had been gone all day
and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Nikki was in St. Louis attending some
writer’s conference where she planned to pitch her book to agents. This left
Claire alone in their apartment. As much as she loved her sister, she was kind
of grateful for the peace.

Claire hadn’t been able to stop
herself—though now that she was lying in her bed and trying to find sleep she
wished she had been—so she had searched on the internet for stages of
development for a fetus after Nikki left the apartment this morning. It had
only been a five minute search, but the information she gained from it weighed
on her mind for the rest of the day, and now it apparently had plans to inhibit
her sleep tonight. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she had
conducted that stupid search. She’d had everything figured out, hadn’t she? Now
things were…complicated.

The biggest question was one that has
been argued over by countless people and in multitude. Claire knew the
question, because while she may be green, she wasn’t a stupid girl. The
question was: would it be
murder
to take her own life while the fetus
was living inside her?
No,
she thought,
it would be murder AND
suicide.
She could just hear her Sunday school teacher, Ms. Nancy—an ugly
older woman with a small mind and long white hairs growing out of her neck and
chin—saying,
You’ll go straight to hell for that kind of sin, young lady.
Straight to hell, you betcha, and praise the Lord Almighty.

Claire had never much cared for Ms.
Nancy.

Or maybe it was something else that was
bothering her. This morning, when she had seen on the internet the depiction of
a fetus at six weeks, looking so incredibly human and real, despite it being
obviously underdeveloped—could it have been that a tiny bit of mother’s
instinct took hold of her? It had lasted only a breath of a moment, until she
clicked the
exit
button at the top of the screen, unable to look at the
thing that was residing inside of her at this very moment. It had been just a
tiny bit, but it had been there. For just that small time, it had been
real
.

Claire, of course, had no idea what it
was or what it meant.

So what, then? Was she really even
considering having a child and raising it as a single mother? Just going right
up to her mother and saying,
Hey, Ma, guess what? I’m having a baby! The
father? Well, here’s the thing…

Was that even a
possibility
? No,
she told herself, it was not. On the other hand, Claire honestly had no desire
to continue living. The pain inside of her, caused by things and circumstances
that would make more weathered people laugh, was so deep and sharp and constant
that she saw no other way out. And well, cry me a river, but everything is
relative. Everything.

Suddenly she wished very badly that her
sister were home. Suddenly Claire felt bursting at the seams to tell someone,
to spew out the poison of her secret, like turned and rejected food, and let
Nikki tell her what to do. Nikki wouldn’t disown Claire or make her feel like
shit about herself. She wouldn’t bring her to tears with harsh words (
What
the hell were you thinking? You’ve ruined your whole life, shamed our family. I
expected better out of you, Claire-Bear. I expected so much better. If you
think we’re going to support you while you raise some bastard child…
) and
long lectures about how bad she had fucked up. Nikki would be shocked, surely,
but she would think things through and find a solution. Most of all, she would
make Claire feel better, at least marginally. She would take care of her as
Nikki had always done. She would hug her and cry with her and tell her
everything was going to be all right. And maybe, just maybe, Claire would
believe her.

But Nikki wasn’t here right now.
 
 

No one was here right now. Except Claire
and the unwanted–
person?–
growing inside of her belly.

Well, nothing had to be decided just
yet. She had planned for Monday, had planned to end it all on Monday, and that
was still—if only—a hop, skip and a jump away. Nikki would be back on Sunday
night, and if Claire so decided, she might just unburden herself then. Maybe
find some less…permanent solution to the problem. Maybe not, but either way, it
could wait. At least until Monday, it could wait.

She grabbed her iPod off of her
nightstand and put it on shuffle to help her fall asleep. By the end of Bob
Marley telling her that
every little thing, was gonna be all right
she
had nearly found the quiet peace of the dream world. However, when the track switched,
and Jimmy Buffet told her basically the same thing, only when referring to the
coming Monday, she found herself wide awake once more, staring into the cold
darkness of her room and doubting very seriously the truth to what the two
singers were preaching.

She looked over at the clock. Eleven
fifty-two, it read. Well, it was still Saturday for another eight minutes, and
Sunday offered twenty-four hours of time to decide. That was plenty. Yes,
plenty.
So, baby, don’t worry, about a thing…

So she didn’t. At least, not after she
finally found sleep. Poor little Claire-Bear didn’t know that tomorrow she
would gain some information, some information that would make her decision
final and push both of her feet off the edge of the wobbling plank on which she
was currently standing. It was a good thing she didn’t know this, for such
knowledge would be a terrible curse. A raven-haired girl named Joe knew this,
and could testify to its truth.

It’s always easier to pick up the pieces
as a knee-jerk reaction, as something blindsides us, when we don’t see it
coming over the horizon. That is how life was supposed to work. No one wants to
watch the beast as it slowly approaches, its glistening jaws snapping and its
head lowered and stomach growling. Most of us know this. We know that when
things happen—and things
do
happen—they come from nowhere. At least from
nowhere our eyes can see. But we ignore this hard fact of life. Which is fine.
Which is good
.
Which is
right.

No one wants to think about the very
real fact that we could die at any time, that our lives are so fragile as to be
susceptible to such an ugly truth. That some regular old day, any day, say,
Sunday
(just for an example) could be our last day in this world. But every day is
someone’s last, isn’t it? Just as every day is someone’s first. And by the
grace of God, most of us don’t expect it.

The tough, salty taste that is life is
made just a touch sweeter in this way. Just a touch.