Rush Home Road (2 page)

Nedda looked up at Sharla and smalled her eyes. “What do
you
want?”

Sharla clutched the clothes in her hands and said, “Hi, Lionel.”

Lionel looked up and said nothing. Lionel Chase hardly ever said anything and Sharla liked him best of all the children in the trailer park. He had eyelashes nearly as long as Fawn's, and his lips smiled even when he wasn't happy or thinking something's funny.

Sharla pointed at the bouquet of yellow dandelions in Nedda's hand and said, “Know what?”

Nedda sneered. “What?”

“Know how you can tell if you like your butter?”

Nedda was curious. “How?”

“You put a dandelion here, under your chin, and if it shines yellow, you like your butter. If it don't shine nothing, you like your margereen.”

Nedda put the dandelion under her chin and turned to Lionel, asking in a furry purry way, “Do I like my butter?”

Lionel didn't say anything. Nedda shrugged and dropped the dandelion bouquet, dragging Lionel Chase away from Sharla Cody.

Her stomach was empty and her legs were achy, so Sharla thought she better sit on the big pink rock out front of the slick silver trailer no one lived in. Sharla liked to sit on the pink rock when she came down the mud lane. It was shaped like a catcher's mitt and her bum felt good nestled against the hot smooth stone. She could sit there all day if nobody chased her off.

She might have fallen asleep because of the sun and the smooth pink rock. Maybe she didn't sleep at all and she'd only blinked, but she thought the sun had moved in the sky and she felt shivery when she opened her eyes and saw Lionel Chase standing there with his long lashes and smiling lips. Lionel looked different though, a big welt on the side of his head like he'd recently got a smack. He turned to look up the road, and Sharla looked too.

There was a big old coloured lady moving toward them, huffing and wheezing and smoking and blowing.
Addy Shadd
, Sharla said in her head. Lionel stood in front of Sharla, both of them watching the lady get closer and closer, no one saying anything till the lady reached the pink rock.

Sharla looked up and smiled but the lady didn't smile back. Instead she reached down, yanked the clothes bundle away with one hand, and raised the other to give Sharla a slap. The little girl cowered. Lionel said just one thing: “Don't.”

The big smoking lady put her hand down. Then just like that she started back down the lane with the clothes, blowing her smoke and shaking her head.

Sharla looked at Lionel, but before she could ask, “That Addy Shadd?” he turned and walked away.

Sharla was afraid. What if Addy Shadd was going to tell Emilio and Collette that no little clothes thief was going to live with her now or ever? She ran, fast as her splayed legs would allow, all the way back to Collette's trailer. She didn't know what to do when she got there though.
Hide
, was all she could think.

Sharla crouched in the trash shed behind the trailer, waving fat black flies off the rusty pail beside her. There was a broken chair that came from the kitchen set, some old bushel baskets for apples in the fall, a busted-up suitcase, and a push lawnmower she never saw get used before. Sharla kept the shed door open a crack so she could see if
Addy Shadd was gonna come smoking down the road and go tell Collette what she'd done.

Careful and quiet, Sharla opened the metal door a little more, to see better and to let out the garbage smell. She could hear Emilio fart inside the trailer and a more distant sound of Collette banging pots and dishes. She jolted when she heard Emilio shout, “Fucking thing! You fucking cocksmoking thing!” He kicked something hard. Whatever it was he kicked, she hoped he broke his toe.

After a while Sharla knew it must be suppertime because she started to smell fried bologna and potatoes and orange cheese from Kraft Dinner. She thought of her last meal, the end of the groceries so they just had cream of mushroom soup from a can. She wished she had a little of that gluey soup now. The push lawnmower was digging into her back. Sharla moved the thing away, leaned up against the garbage can, and shut her eyes.

When she woke up it was night and quiet. At first Sharla didn't know where she was. She knew she'd had a bad dream but she didn't know she'd missed a storm, thunder and lightning but hardly any rain, that took out the power at the trailer park. The moon shone full and silvery through the cracked-open door and fell on the garbage pail. That's when Sharla realized she was still in the shed.

It was just a little red boot, but when she saw it in the moonlight, stuck between the bushel baskets and the broken chair, Sharla felt like laughing. She hadn't seen the boot there before, and to see something in the dark that you didn't
see in the light was magic. She picked up the rubber boot and held it like a doll while she looked around for its mate. There was no second red boot to be found, but that didn't matter because Sharla's feet were too big now and she couldn't wear them anyway. She pulled out the busted-up suitcase, opened it, and put the boot inside. The little red boot gave her courage. She opened the shed door and stepped into the night. Emilio's big grey van was gone from the driveway but it was just as well if he and Collette were out. Sharla'd already decided she couldn't ask to come home.

She knew it had rained. She could smell the dampness in the air, and as she dragged her suitcase with the red boot down the mud lane, her feet sank a little and there was no dust left to kick up on her shins. There was no television sound and no radio sound and no lights in any of the trailers. It made Sharla feel like she was in a dream. She wondered if she'd wake up and still be smelling garbage in the shed.

She was counting the trailer numbers in her head, number seven, number six, number five, and right then a breeze snuck up behind her and she smelled that sweet piss smell. She didn't know it was the little white flowers. She thought it was a dog, or maybe a trailer tank was broken because that happened sometimes. She even put her fingers to her own parts to see if she'd pissed herself and just didn't know it.

The moon pushed aside a cloud and it was suddenly so bright it might have been day if it weren't night. The
moonglow pointed out Addy Shadd's long white trailer, number four, and the prim square of white flowers in front. Sharla looked at the trailer, hoping it was real.

There were three metal mesh steps up to the door, and Sharla could see them clearly in the bright night. She parked her suitcase on the ground and counted as she climbed,
one, two, three.
She put her ear up against the door. There was no sound at all. Sharla'd been told never to knock when a grown-up was sleeping, so she settled on the top mesh step, thinking how it'd mark a pattern on her thighs. She looked at the night sky and breathed in the piss smell she was already starting to feel fond of. She noticed the trailer beside, smaller than this one with torn sheets for curtains and a rusty old stove outside that kids kept plastic toys inside.

That old stove made her think of Emilio and the first time he came to the trailer. It was only a few months ago, Easter Sunday, but it seemed longer. The groundhog had lied because there was enough snow on the ground to make an angel and more flakes coming down. Collette was mad because her new shoes were white sandals and she'd taken the time to paint her toenails with the Reckless Red polish her friend Krystal scoffed for her at the drugstore.

Collette washed her hair with fruity shampoo, painted stripes of pink on her cheeks, and drew blue on her eyelids. Sharla thought her mother looked like a clown but didn't say so. She watched Collette pull on her soft purple sweater with the wide-open neck. Her mother said, “Fuck Fuck
Fuck,” when she squeezed into the blue jeans she used to wear before she had Sharla.

Krystal Trochaud came over from across the road to see how Collette looked. Krystal liked to be the boss and acted more like Collette's mother than her friend. She'd had a baby of her own last year but it died in the night. She called it “my crib death baby” and didn't seem as sad as you might expect.

Krystal looked Collette up and down as she puffed a Kool. “Them jeans give you camel toe.”

Collette looked between her legs at the way the seam split her pussy lips like a cloven hoof and knew what Krystal meant. She went to change into a different pair, but put on her new sandals because they were just going to stay in the house all day anyway. Her heels went
click-clickety-click
on the linoleum.

Sharla was watching TV and eating chocolate malt balls shaped like Easter eggs. Krystal sat down beside her on the couch. She said, “Emilio's got a good job. Got a van too. Wouldn't that make a difference for getting groceries and whatever?”

Sharla pressed a malt ball to the roof of her mouth.

“You better be nice to him, Sharla. Your butt's gonna be at Foster Care if Collette loses this trailer.”

Sharla didn't want to be at Foster Care, so she sat up straight on the couch and stopped eating the malt balls, deciding she should give the rest to Collette's new boyfriend with the van.

The inside part of the oven was on and that was unusual because Collette mostly used the burners. It made the trailer hot, and when Sharla complained, Collette set her teeth and said, “Go put your fucking shorts on then.”

Emilio was late. The trailer got hotter and hotter. Whatever was inside the oven was still pink. Sharla'd never seen it before but it smelled good, like something cooked in one of the red brick houses in Chatham. Sharla hoped they wouldn't have to wait till dark to eat the meat because the only thing in her stomach were a few chocolate malt balls.

There was no knock at the door. It scared Sharla when Emilio just walked right in and stood on the mat looking at her like
she
shouldn't be there. Emilio wasn't short but neither did he have to duck to get in the door. His head was shiny black waves and his face was a good one with round dark eyes and a not-too-big nose and thick red lips you might see on a pretty girl. Sharla liked the look of him, but he didn't like the look of her and she knew it.

Sharla made room for him on the sofa, and when he sat down, she gave him what was left of her malt balls, only four or five melty ones because she'd gotten so hungry waiting. Emilio looked in the bag and scratched his head, and he didn't say
thank you
or
wasn't that thoughtful.
He called, “Collette?! Hey, Collette, you know your kid's out here dressed like an idiot? There's snow on the ground and she's in goddamned summer shorts!”

When Collette came down the hall, Emilio got up off the couch. There was a mean look on his face but Collette
didn't look scared. She kissed his mouth and said she was glad he was getting to know Sharla a little. Emilio and Collette kept on kissing, and when Emilio's tongue wormed out between his lips, Sharla turned away.

All the sudden, after waiting all day, that pink meat was coming out of the oven and set on the table with nothing else. Sharla was hungry. “We gonna eat?”

Collette's cheeks were red under the pink stripes. She hardly looked at her daughter. “Have a little ham to tide you over. We'll be back in a bit.”

Sharla watched Emilio go down the long hall to Collette's bedroom and waited till the door closed. She turned the channel on the television, wishing for cartoons but there was only sports and news. She sat down at the table and tore at the ham with her fingers, loving the sweet burnt taste of it.

 

 

SHARLA DIDN'T KNOW HOW
long she'd been sitting there on Addy Shadd's step when the metal door screeched open behind her. She held her breath. She couldn't see any person in the trailer, but a voice came through the screen, deep as a man's and like she'd just swallowed pudding.

“You Sharla Cody?” was all the voice said before it opened the screen door to let her in. Sharla rose, but her legs buckled because of sitting so still and quiet for so long. She felt queasy, but the feeling eased up when she stepped inside.

The trailer was dark, but warm and thick with some smell Sharla didn't know. Sharla heard the sound of a match being struck and then there was a flame on a candle and a big shadow on the wall. The candle was set on the table and a chair dragged across the floor. The lady who sat down in the chair was not the one whose clothes she'd stolen from the line, and Sharla felt relieved.

Addy Shadd leaned her face toward the light and lit a long slim cigarette on the candle, saying, “You don't look at all like your Mama.”

“I got a Dad. He just don't live with us,” was all Sharla could think to respond.

The old lady crooked her finger at a chair across from her and said, “Sit down, Honey,” in that thick pudding voice. Sharla took the chair and stared.

Addy Shadd's skin was the colour of root beer, so wrinkled and stretched it looked like there was enough of it to cover two people. Her hair was sparkly white and unpinned to make a halo around her long face. On each side of that halo was the well of her ears, which were not just enormous but stuck out from her head like wings. Her eyes were hooded and rheumy. Her nose was broad, with round nostrils that made flute sounds when she breathed out. The lines around her lips puckered like a bum when she smoked her cigarette.