Fidelity, Kansas, Jessie’s Flashback to 1975
As Jessie leisurely pedaled from the marina parking lot to the opposite end of the beach the music from the Greek toga party faded. The park road was tucked under a canopy of large trees that blotted out the full sun day. She glided down a soft slope to a grove of pines where she could see the beach and the waters edge. Veering off the rough, asphalt road, she felt the cushion of pines beneath her tires and glided to a stop. Setting her bike down, she took off her shoes and socks and pressed her bare feet into the base of pine needles. Looking up, she gazed through the spirals of branches, their symmetry an offering of order to her disarrayed life. She counted the levels of branches until they blended together—twenty-two. Life, a series of branches, the oldest just a knob in the trunk or a broken off stub.
My life, my earliest memories, just a knothole. What am I climbing towards? What am I reaching for? Light. The treetops reach for sunlight. The branches die in the dark, broken stubs of memories gone by.
She walked towards the beach and as she left the pine canopy, the sun warmed her face. She walked in the fluffy sand mixed with pine needles, pressing her toes deeply to find the coolness underneath. Noticing a clearing ahead, she continued and found an old, deserted playground—a slide with rusty spots, jungle gym bars and a swing set with only one swing remaining, the really old kind with a wooden seat. No one was around this family area of weathered picnic tables and dilapidated grills in April, that month that fights off winter and beckons the warm breezes of spring.
The solitary swing beckoned her. She hadn’t swung in a swing since . . . She saw herself when? Maybe four, maybe five, running to the swing. “Momma, Momma,” she heard herself calling out as she ran to the swing. “Come swing me. Come, Momma.” She sat on the rough plank and grabbed the rusty links. The ground was hard beneath her feet, years of wear, years long past since this swing was used. As she leaned back, holding the chain, she looked at the cloudless sky and then closed her eyes as she pushed back and then let the swing glide.
Momma, where were you when I needed you . . .
Her mind traced back. The door of her heart cracked open, its idle and stiff hinges creaking, groaning from being shut for so long. How long? How long had she closed her heart to love? …
My daddy was a cross-country hauler spendin’ weeks at a time on the road and sleepin’ in seedy hotels. His truck had sleepin’ quarters, but he explained to Momma that he needed more room, likely for the strumpet who joined him at whatever port of call he stopped at. I remember them yellin’ at each other when she found a book of matches from the Come Quietly Motel.
Those days of my childhood were long and lazy during the times of him bein’ gone. I understand the temptation better now, the long days and nights of driving alone, to have no one to talk to, eat with, and sleep next to. It also affected Momma, but women respond to loneliness differently than men. A man looks for a harlot to relieve his tension, but a lonely woman seeks someone she can express her heart to, and to that end, I became the one she leaned on. Even as a little girl of five, earlier than kindergarten, I would coax Momma out of bed from her dark bedroom, the window covered with a blanket to block out the morning light. Our two-bedroom bungalow was hot as an oven by noon during the summer, and I still remember the feelin’ of pettin’ Momma’s limp hair, damp from the dead heat of her bedroom.
“Let’s go to the beach, Momma, too hot here. Get up, Momma.”
Momma would open her eyes and smile at me. Now, I don’t believe she was sleepin’. I think she was hidin’ from what she had to face each day, or what was missin’ from her life, but when she saw me, her face lit up. She would put her finger on my chest and say, “Jessie, I don’t know what I’d do without my love button.”
Goin’ to the beach and playin’ at the lake was all we could afford to do. Momma would pack us a lunch for mid-afternoon, me havin’ to wait for breakfast until after she got up, made her coffee, and smoked her first cigarette. At the time, the playground was rather simple compared to nowadays with tunnel shoots, rope nets to climb, and passages to play tag or hide-and-seek in. Simply swings and teeter-totters, a steel slide, monkey bars, and my favorite, a miniature one-room house to play in and make-believe that it was my home.
As I said, my daddy was a trucker, haulin’ a load here to there to anywhere as he covered Canada to Mexico, and California to the East Coast, and with Kansas, smack in the middle, he would stop in to get his fill of Momma every time he passed through. He provided just enough for us to get by. Momma said there would’ve been a lot more without the booze, women, and gamblin’ that he longed for to overcome the boredom of the road and the lonely nights in a motel. But, he did have the decency to pay the rent, utilities, and groceries in advance of his long hauls. He always wanted a place to dock as he crisscrossed the States, a place to bed down with Momma for days at a time. Those were the lonely times for me as they both wanted to get their fill of each other before he left again. And when he did, that’s when the Monster came out. After bingin’ on Jack Daniels for several days and gettin’ all that he wanted, he got bored of Momma and loosed his tongue with curt remarks and slanderous comments as if he was talkin’ to one of the whores he took on a cross-country haul. Anywhere he could find an all-night poker game with hopes of rakin’ the high stakes as he balanced a girl on his knee, arm round her waist, most likely up her shirt, cards in the other hand, and a cigar caught between his teeth. I can picture it, cause he did it with Momma.
It was the backhanded slap across her face that knocked Momma off her feet that changed it all. I saw it from my bedroom at the end of the hall that led from the living room. Momma screamed in pain as she fell to the floor, her forehead and nose hittin’ the hardwood floor. When she sat up and turned to look at the Monster, her face was splattered red, her nose gushin’ blood all over the big, white T-shirt of his that she slept in. The bloody cloth clung to her breasts as she glared, teeth clenched at the Monster whose hairy back was to me. In a voice of anger and rage that I have never heard from Momma, she screamed at ’im to get out and never come back. The Monster’s shoulders sank. He knew he screwed up big time, ventin’ his anger on the one person who loved him despite his womanizin’. Momma stood up and pointed her finger in his chest—he was six-six, so this was eye-level for her—and backed him all the way to the front door. I’d crept down the hall a bit and could see the wooden screen door, the outer door being open on this hot and humid night. I could see Daddy’s face now, the Monster gone, his eyes in shock as he stared at Momma, her face and chest a mop o’ blood. In an instant, Momma took both her hands and shoved him back, surprisin’ Daddy who fell through the screen door that never latched.
The sound of the thud of him crashin’ on the wooden porch I’ve never forgotten. It changed my life, as I knew it as a little girl. Daddy never came back. When Momma filed for divorce, the judge immediately granted it. The problem was findin’ him to get child support. This was before the law brought in deadbeat dads that wouldn’t pay. All that year after my daddy left, we thought that he was purposely neglecting us. It didn’t make sense ’cause Daddy promised he’d always take care of me. Momma found a lawyer that would help her find Daddy in hopes of garnishin’ his wages and takin’ a piece of the action. The lawyer found him in a California prison servin’ time for drunk drivin’ and manslaughter. He’d passed out in his truck and mowed down a van, killin’ a family of six. Accordin’ to the lawyer, it was a horrific accident that made headlines, but since our small Kansas town wasn’t wired for cable and satellite was too expensive for all of us, we never heard of it. There were only ten houses in our town—a desolate area called Fidelity. Daddy’s in prison for the rest of his life bein’ that it happened in California.
Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
Excerpt from PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff Cambridge.
Author of transformational fiction—
Real characters in real life drama that tell the story of their transformation to become more like Jesus.
This is a pre-published scene.
To read the scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A Novel – Prologue”
You will find the previous episodes in the monthly archives. Click on them and enjoy.
Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Simply check one of the reaction boxes below, write a comment, or email me at lightbycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
a
No comments:
Post a Comment