Lindsay Hunter - Ugly Girls

“I killed a man. I pushed him into the quarry and he died.” Now her face was wet and hot, she tried to move her knees again and this time he let her, his mouth open, lower lip hanging, wet with drool. “I wanted to shoot him,” she said, though she had never fully realized that until just this moment. She would have. She would have pulled the trigger. She would have gone further than Charles ever had.

“I don’t like these stories,” Charles said. He didn’t bother wiping the drool and it hung from his chin before dropping into his lap.

“It’s not a story,” Baby Girl said. “I did it. I had your gun.” If she could say what she had done, if she could make it real for him, maybe she could catch him up to her. Maybe that was the gap that needed the bridge.

“My gun?” He stood again, his chair toppling softly into a pile of clothes. “You killed a man?” He pushed her, hard, but she held her ground, refusing to fall back. She grabbed the lamp, yanking the cord from the wall. Held it close to her body, stood to face him.

“Calm down, Charles,” she said. “Shh.”

“You have to tell,” Charles said. He was standing so close to her that she had to hold her head back so it wouldn’t be smashed into his chest. “You have to tell!”

He was getting loud again, and this time she heard Dave call, “Everything all right back there?” She knew he’d be making his way back any second now.

Charles covered his ears, something he did when he was about to blow. The doctors said his ears would ring when he was stressed for the rest of his life. “You can’t just leave him there,” Charles said. “He can hear the cars going by and no one is coming to help him.” She knew he was talking about himself now. It made her feel sick, knowing he remembered lying there on the road in pain, alone. He kicked her hard in the leg. Without thinking, she brought the lamp up and around, cracking him on the cheek. He looked at her, stunned, like his ears had finally stopped ringing.

A spot of blood appeared on his cheek, a glossy dark pill. “What in God’s name, Dayna!” Dave had appeared, was holding her by the arms and dragging her out of the room. Charles bent over, wailing, crying so hard that he could barely breathe. The top of his ass was out, his mouth open, crying like a toddler, he was a fucking retard, he was a retarded mess who would never be okay again. She ran from the sound of Charles screaming and Dave trying to soothe him, out the front door to her car. I’m sorry. Little bitch. Cunt. Suck my dick. Charles’s brain would never heal, Jamey would never climb out of that quarry. Perry would never have half the worries Baby Girl had. Little bitch. Charles hadn’t been who she thought he was. Neither had Jamey. Or Perry. She wouldn’t be like that. She would be who she was. She would say what she did.

JIM HAD DRIVEN TO THE SCHOOL, circled its empty parking lot until a guard in a golf cart rambled over. No, he hadn’t seen Perry since school let out, and he’d have known it ’cause she was quite the looker, and Jim wondered about ramming the cart with the truck, wondered was every man just a penis he had to protect Perry from, wondered if Perry was used to it, just assumed every man on earth was looking for a way to shove himself in. “No,” the guard said, he hadn’t run into a man fitting Jamey’s description. “No, strange perverts aren’t allowed on school grounds,” he said, chuckling with pride. “Do me a favor,” Jim said, trying to keep his voice even. “Do me a favor and get ready for me to come back here and hit you directly in your face.” The guard looked insulted, but not like it was something he hadn’t heard before, and drove off with a jerk.

Jim had called Jamey’s parole officer after that, a woman who sounded like she had a lot bigger fish to fry. Another line rang on and on in the background as she told Jim she hadn’t heard from Jamey in a few days, maybe even a week or more, but that wasn’t unusual since he was only required to check in every two weeks. Did she know Jamey had been on Facebook? Did she know he’d been talking to teenaged girls? Of course she didn’t know that. That was strictly forbidden, Jamey’s momma was supposed to monitor his Internet usage, promised he’d only be on there to look at the news or look up a recipe.

Jim didn’t know exactly why he didn’t tell the P.O. he couldn’t find his stepdaughter, who just happened to be one of the teenaged girls Jamey had been talking to. Maybe ’cause then it’d be real, Perry’d be missing, raped, tortured, dead. The thought made him angrier at Perry than he’d ever been before.

“Tell you what,” the P.O. said. “You get me proof, concrete evidence that our man’s been stepping out, and I’ll be on him like a whore on a dollar.”

He’d gone to a few bars, bars he knew ex-cons liked to hang out at, but these were the types of ex-cons who would eat a man like Jamey for dinner, eat his hat for dessert. Now Jim was simply driving from bus stop to bus stop. Cell phone like a hot brick in his hand. Should call the guys he knew were off-duty, see if they could be out looking too, call the cops, report her missing, call Myra. Had decided to call the P.O. back and be honest when he saw her, waiting at the number 6 transfer, sitting on the bench with her ankles together like it was any old day and she was any old teenager.

She was crying, mascara wet on her cheeks, her blouse was rumpled, her mouth looked smeared. She looked more like her momma than ever. Now he really would kill Jamey, he didn’t even know he’d been considering it. He’d kill him, and he’d confess to avoid the death penalty. Neat as that.

He stopped in front of the bench. He’d been going fast and had to stomp the brake, the truck screaming. Cars behind him blew their horns, swerved around him.

“Hey,” Perry said.

SHE STEPPED INTO THE TRUCK, Jim yanking her by the arm until she nearly fell into his lap.

“Where is he?” Jim’s voice was low and mean.

“Who?” Perry asked. She thought of Travis, how he’d closed the door in her face, how his stuff was dried on her leg, how she smelled like sex and sweat, she smelled like the women in the jail.

“Tell me where Jamey is,” Jim said. “Tell me right goddamned now.”

It was like his name could stop time, could stop her heart beating, it felt like her heart and lungs were trying to work despite her quicksand blood. “Jamey?” she repeated.

“Tell me where he is so I can give his parole officer an address.”

“What did Baby Girl tell you?” Perry asked. Jim was driving toward home, speeding through stop signs and running yellows. Who was waiting there for her? Baby Girl? The police?

“She told me everything,” Jim said. “She told me every little last bit. So you better tell me your side.”

IT HAD WORKED. Lying to Perry had worked, only she didn’t tell him the story he was expecting to hear. He could smell the sickly sweet odor of sex on her, had been waiting for her to say she’d given in, or he’d forced her, or she wasn’t quite sure what had happened but she’d gotten away. But instead.

“Baby Girl pushed him,” Perry said. “I didn’t touch him. We were trying to get him to leave us alone. He tried to get the gun and Baby Girl wasn’t about to let him, and now he’s at the bottom of the quarry. Dead,” she added.

“The gun?” They were pulling into the trailer park now, the streetlamps dull yellow against the black sky.

“That’s at the bottom of the quarry, too.”

The trailers were lit up against the night, each window its own TV screen, here a show about a woman at the stove, here a show about a little boy in a cape. This was home, no place for a man like Jamey, no place for a drunk like Myra, no place for a murderer like Perry. No, not a murderer. An accessory to. They passed Jamey’s trailer, the lights on but the curtains drawn, a lumpy shadow moving slowly, the TV on, not doing shit to find her son outside the confines of the trailer park. An accessory to, just as bad if not worse. Perry let it happen, didn’t bother to stop it. He had planned on killing the man himself. No place for a man like Jim, either.