The Life of Lol (19 page)

Chapter 25.  Abandon chopper

Fuck they were high up.  Billy brought the chopper down, and she could see the roof of the panel van.  The small fucking roof.  Tiny in fact.  Not exactly a massive landing pad for a little girl jumping out of a chopper without a parachute for the first time.  Juming out of a perfectly good chopper.

Too late for that now, she was fucking doing this. 

“Part of the family business”

She smiled.  It wasn’t much of a family by some people’s standards, plus her mother was still an unknown quantity, but it was better than she’d had a couple months ago.  At least if she ended up back in jail, there would be a few visitors this time.  Tay looked back at Billy through the glass and giggled.  Perhaps even a breakout attempt.

She cursed the cheap sneakers she wore that just slid about on the choppers running board, and for a moment considered kicking them off, but she braced her legs and, holding onto the handle, edged her body out.  The wind immediately took a  hold of her dress and began to whip it up around her knickers.  Billy brought the chopper lower.  The guys driving the van appeared to notice and gunned the heavy van, not that it would do too much.  The rest of the highway was quiet, evening was fast approaching.  The chopper came down further, so as to almost rest on the van top.  But she couldn’t do it.  It was like ten fucking feet away.  And she’d probably miss and be killed anyway.

“Go”, Billie screamed, “I’ve never pilotted this well, ever!”

She let go the chopper, aiming her body for the top of the van and closed her eyes.  Shit shit shit shit shit!  She hit the van roof hard.  Man, that hurt like fuck!  Then realising there was nothing to grip, she flattened herself against the van sides and Billy eased the chopper up.  These fuckers were supposed to stop.  They hadn’t stopped.  Fuck.  The wind billowed again and brought the little sundress up and over her head showing her pretty white knickers off for all the coyotes in the bowl area to see.  Even the coyote that was probably wearing her old jeans and boots.  Grabbing the side of the van with her fingertips, she inched her way forwards, still with her body flattened and wrestling with the errant dress.  Finally, after what seemed like years, she jumped further down on to the running step and, feeling a surge of adrenalin, flung open the door, grabbed the lapel of the driver and tossed him out.  He hadn’t been ready for the sight of a blonde girl with her panties on full display heaving him out the van, and he didn’t fight her.  He shouted as he hit the underbrush at the side of the road hard.  The van, now driverless, screamed as it fell out of control, and the drivers buddy tried to wrestle control from her,

Tay remembered the pistol Billy had given her.

“I’m having a really bad day, baby”, she said breathlessly, pointing the gun, “you know how it is when us girls get stomach cramps, and the store was all out so…”

Taking control of the van, she slammed on the brake hard. 

“Nice night for a walk, baby” she said waving the gun at the door.

The man nodded, horrified, and got out.  Tay gunned the van.  What the fuck had that fool Billy said?  Bike trail, up the bike trail.  After a minute or two, there it was, up on the left, a tight twisting path clearly not designed for a van.  Without even slowing, she slewed the van across the intersection, smashing through the wooden gateposts that marked the start of the bike trail and forced the van over the rough terrain.  The bike trail, she was later to find out, led over the mountains and back into the city.  But, like Tay now found out, the other trail led down to the railroad tracks a few miles north of Western USA trailer park, and back around the other side of the mountain.  The trail, or track as it would have been better described, was hard going and bumpy.  The noise from the van was not good, and several times she thought it wasn’t going to make it.  Down the hill again was the worst, the brakes refusing to respond on the dirt.  Tay increasingly felt like a tiny fucking pebble in a rock fall.  Finally, with the van virtually breaking up underneath her, there was the Union Pacific railroad track that ran right next to Billy’s trailer park.  She found the access road that ran straight along the track and gunned the van.  Man, that was easy.  Aside from a slightly grazed knee and some bumps and bruises, Tay felt great.  What a rush!  That was real fucking easy.  And know what was better?  It was for the family business.  Her family.  Billy was waiting for her at the trailer when the van arrived, wheezing and groaning, and there was Winston, with his plaster cast, ready to take the van away and dispose of the contents of meds and pills.  He smiled at her,

“Guess my replacement’s prettier than me, huh?  Hi Taylor.”

He held out his hand, a warm smile on his face,

“Your jobs safe baby”, she said rubbing her bruised body, “Hell I need danger money to work for this fool”

“Gratitude for ya, huh Winston”, shouted across Billy, “a good business opportunity, treated like an equal instead of leaving her at home barefoot in the kitchen like the convention says I should do, and what does she do?  Bitch and moan!” 

“You gonna stick around honey”, said Winston still smiling at her, “time was around here, your momma never stopped talking about you”

“Winston”, said Billy, stopping him, “that’s between the two of them.  Let’s leave em to it, huh?”

Winston nodded,

“Good to meet you, Taylor”, he said with one last smile on his old lined face, “see ya round.”

Chapter 26.  Homecoming

At first she panicked.  Wonder where the fuck I am, she thought as she woke.  Then she remembered.  The meds.  The van.  Billy.  Her mom.  That word.  Mom.  Easing her aching body from off the floor where she had slept, she stood.  This had at one time been the spare room of the trailer.  Now there was just cleaning products and boxes in it, plus the blanket Tay had covered herself with as she slept, still in her clothes.  She stood and tentatively opened the door.

What the fuck?

It was like Little House on the prairie.  The woman who was apparently Tay’s mom had gutted the van, and made everything tidy and clean.  Sure it was still shabby, but it was clean shabby and not fleapit shabby.  The carpets had been swept, the tables and worktops had been cleaned off and the rubbish bagged up and put in the trash outside.  Tay stumbled outside her little room,

“I don’t remember ordering Martha fucking Stewart” she muttered.

The older woman looked at Taylor for a long time, up and down, her eyes an inscrutable mask,

“Just like your brother”, she said shaking her head, “no manners or decency.  You know how old these carpets are in here?”

Tay didn’t, but remained quiet.  She’d expected questions, but not that one in particular.  She stood there.

“Twenty years”, said the woman, “Billy is just the same, trampling in here with those boots of his.  No wonder I need medication.  Here's the rule, guns, shoes and curse words get left outside.”

Tay kicked the sneakers off and threw them in the direction of the closet that had become her room.”

“Don’t you even have socks?” asked mom looking pointedly at Tay’s bare feet, “or a change of clothes?”

Tay shook her head.  Still her mom looked at her

“I got this”, said Tay helpfully, showing her the envelope that Solomon had given her.  Mom looked at it and nodded when she read the information inside.

“Then there’s no question”, she said, standing there watching her daughter, “Come sit.”

The two sat together.  Mom seemed a little shell shocked, and neither woman made a move to be close to each other. Tay didn’t know what to think.  In some ways, this woman had already begun being mom to her, but there was still a part of her that was closed off.

“I was barely twenty”, explained the older woman, “Somewhat against my father’s wishes, a friend and I had hitch hiked to a music festival in San Francisco. We ended up stranded on our way back.  I met this guy, and we….”

“My father”, asked Tay quietly.

She nodded,

“Harlan was a Navy Officer”, the older woman explained, ready for retirement.  In his forties.  I think he was on leave.  Anyway, I went home and found I was pregnant.”

The woman’s eyes glistened slightly, and for the first time, she put a shaky hand out and placed it on Taylor’s grazed knee.  She held it there, squeezing slightly as if to make sure Tay was real.

“My parents were old school.  Couldn’t stand the disgrace I’d brought on them.  I had my baby, and was a virtual prisoner in our family home.  Nevertheless, your father found us and said he had one more tour to do, then he was going to set up home with his new family.  Had a smart trailer for us to live in right here.”

She gestured around the trailer with her hand.

“I lived here?” asked Tay quietly, longing to fling her arms round this woman already, but she did not.

“No honey”, she said, you never lived here.  Last night was the first time you slept here.  That’s why I wanted you to wake and it would look like it used to look”

“What happened”, Tay asked.

The older woman sighed,=.  It was a deep sigh, one that had been building up for years. 

“I’m sorry”, she explained, “this is hard.  I’d pushed this memory away so long ago, save myself from going insane.  It didn’t work, the amount of meds I need Billy to get me is proof enough.  I explained to my father that I was going to shack up with my navy guy, and at first he went ballistic.  But then he came around to the idea.  After all, he said, a baby needs a mom and a dad, not just a mom locked in her room all the time.  So I left you with my dad and mom, while I went to look over the trailer and move some of my things in.  It was real smart in those days.  Harlan and I were branching out on our own.  It was exciting.  Then I went back to the house.”

She gripped Tay’s knee harder, her eyes beginning to moisten.

“I never thought I would get to do this”, she said stroking Tay’s knee.”

Tay turned to face her mom, holding both her hands in her own,

“I’m here momma”, she said, “whatever happened, it’s gone, it’s past.  I’m here now”

“I got home”, mom continued shakily, “and you were gone.  Some adoption agency, my father said.  Best for all concerned, so he’d said.  What life was I going to have, stuck in a trailer park with a kid at my age and no career and an unemployed ex-military guy in tow.  So you were gone.  He’d left your toys right there in my room, all your little shawls and clothes, your favourite teddy.  But you, my little precious thing, were gone.”

Moms voice was shaky now but she continued, as if she’d rehearsed this speech in her head for years,

“I never went home again”, she explained, “fuck them.  I never forgave that judgmental bastard for taking the thing away from me that gave my life a spark.  I looked around this shell of a home, the home that would never see the little green eyed one crawling around inside, learning about the world from off her mommas knee, and having cuddles when she fell off her trike outside”

“Had a trike when I was a kid”, muttered Tay, “They used to kick me into the dirt”

“I would sit here”, struggled mom, “and hug my pillow imagining that it was my little baby Olivia crying over a grazed knee.  She ran her finger gently over Tay’s knee.

“Anyway, Harland came home from the navy, but it wasn’t the same.  I got pregnant again, with Billy, sometimes I swear that boy was dropped on his head, but he’s cared for me so.  From before he could walk, we were combing the city, I knocked on every fucking door in every street, Billy did too, but my little green eyed bouncing one had gone.  Dad had seen to that.  The old bastard would never tell me.  Eventually, your dad’s mind just couldn’t take it, his little precious girl gone.  He blamed himself and that last tour of duty.  I think he blamed the sea itself.  His mind snapped and he just left one afternoon.  Never saw him again.  You might have noticed, but I don’t leave the trailer so much these days.  Billy gets the stuff I need, or I shop online, it’s hard.  Every blonde woman that walks by me in the street, I never knew.”

Tay was quiet, and held her mom’s shaking hands,

“And now here you are”, she said sadly, “My little green eyed cuddly.  You’re too big to need a mom any more, I guess. But just seeing you here has made my whole life feel like it was worth something again.”

Tay thought for a moment,

“I ain’t never had a momma”, she said quietly, “so I dunno if I’m too big or not.  But I can tell ya this.  That piece of shit father of yours that took me away from you, made me live in that home and have the life I’ve had, instead of the one here with my mom and dad, he’s not gonna spoil any more of my days.  I got my mom back.”

Mom smiled through the tears,

“I’m going nowhere”, Tay said, “I come home, momma”

The two hugged.  Tay had always wondered what a hug from a mother felt like.  Now she knew.  It was like nothing else in the world.  It was a hug from someone who would, and in her case had, given up everything in the world for her.  It didn’t matter at that moment that they’d spent thirty five years apart, now they were together.

Mom smiled,

“My Olivia has come home”, she said her face beaming, “I said that in my head so many times to an empty trailer, and now you’re here.  You’re really here.”

“I’m staying”, laughed Taylor, “somebody’s gotta keep Billy in order”

Mom smiled,

“Besides”, she laughed, hugging her daughter, “if you try to leave we’ll just do what we used to do to the babies that ran off across the highway”

“What you do to the babies?” asked Tay slightly worried, rubbing her sore knee.

“Aw it’s an old woman’s thing”, laughed mom, “smear their feet with jam, and let em go. If the sharp stones sticking to their feet don’t bring em back, the flies biting them will”

Tay laughed, mocking a horrified look,

“You wouldn’t do that to me?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

“I have the jam right her” laughed mom, getting up, “c’mon, let me take a look at that knee before Billy has you bruising something else”