E. Doctorow - Sweet Land Stories

But since she was as sane as anyone, she was more and more desperate to get out of there. After a year or so she made the best deal she could, with one of the night attendants, a sharp-faced woman sallow in coloring but decent and roughly kind to people, name of Cindy. Jolene thought Cindy, with the leathery lines in her face, might be no less than fifty years old. She had an eye for Jolene right from the beginning. She gave her cigarettes to smoke outside behind the garbage bins, and she knew hair and makeup. She said, Red — Jolene had what they call strawberry hair, so that of course was her nickname there — Red, you don’t want to cover up those freckles. They are charming in a girl like you, they give your face a sunlight. And, see, if you keep pulling back your hair into ponytails your hairline will recede, so we’ll cut it just a bit shorter so that it curls up as it wants to and we let it frame your sweet face and, lo and behold, you are as pretty as a picture.

Cindy liked the freckles on Jolene’s breasts, too, and it wasn’t too bad being loved up by a woman. It was not her first choice, but Jolene thought, Once you get going it doesn’t matter who it is or what they’ve got — there is the same panic, after all, and we are blind at such moments. But anyway that was the deal, and though in order to get herself out of the loony bin she agreed to live with Cindy in her own home, where she would cuddle secretly like her love child, she did so only until she could escape from there as well. With just a couple of clicks of doorlocks, and some minutes of hiding in a supply closet, and then with more keys turning and a creak of gate swings, Jolene rode to freedom in the trunk of Cindy’s beat-up Corolla. It was even easier, after one night, walking out Cindy’s front door in broad daylight once the woman had gone back to work.

Jolene hit the road. She wanted out of that town and out of that county however she could. She had almost a hundred dollars from her watercolor business. She hitched some and rode some local buses. She had a small suitcase and a lot of attitude to get her safe across state lines. She worked in a five-and-ten in Lexington and an industrial laundry in Memphis. There was always a YWCA, to stay out of trouble. And while she did have to take a deep breath and sell it once or twice across the country, it had the virtue of hardening her up for her own protection. She was just seventeen by then but carrying herself with some new clothes like she was ten years older, so that nobody would know there was just this scared girl-child inside the hip slinger with the platform strap shoes.

Which brought her to Phoenix, Arizona, a hot flat city of the desert, but with a lot of fast-moving people who lived inside their air-conditioning.

SHE APPRECIATED that in the West human society was less tight-assed, nobody cared that much what you did or who your parents were and most everyone you met came from somewhere else. Before long she was working at a Dairy Queen and had a best friend, Kendra, who was one of her roommates, a Northern girl from Akron, Ohio.

The Dairy Queen was at the edge of city life with a view over warehouses to the flat desert with its straight roads and brownish mountains away in the distance. She had to revert back to her real age to get this job. It involved roller-skating, a skill which she fortunately had not forgotten. You skated out to the customers with their order on a tray that you hooked to the car window. It was only minimum, but some men would give you a good tip, though women never did. And anyway that wasn’t to last long, because this cute guy kept coming around every day. He had long hair, a scraggly lip beard, and a ring in his ear — he looked like a rock star. He wore an undershirt with his jeans and boots, so you could see the tattoos that went up and down his arms, across his shoulders, and onto his chest. He even had a guitar in the back of his 1965 plum Caddy convertible. Of course she ignored his entreaties, though he kept coming back, and if another girl waited on him he asked her where Jolene was. All the girls wore nametags, you see. One day he drove up, and when she came back with his order he was sitting on the top of the front seat with a big smile, though a front tooth was missing. He strummed his guitar and he said, Listen to this, Jolene, and he sang this song he had made up, and as he sang he laughed in appreciation, as if someone else was singing.

Jolene, Jolene

She is so mean

She won’t be seen with me

At the Dairy Queen.

Jolene, Jolene

Please don’t be mean

Your name it means to me

My love you’ll glean from me

I am so keen to see

How happy we will be

When you are one with me

Jolene, Jolene

My Dairy Queen

Well, she knew he was a sly one, but he’d gone to the trouble of thinking it up, didn’t he? The people in the next car laughed and applauded and she blushed right through her freckles, but she couldn’t help laughing along with them. And of course with his voice not very good and his guitar not quite in tune, she knew he was no rock star, but he was loud and didn’t mind making a fool of himself and she liked that.

In fact, the guy was by profession a tattoo artist. His name was Coco Leger, pronounced Lerjay. He was originally from New Orleans, and she did go out dancing with him the next Saturday, though her friend Kendra strongly advised against it. The guy is a sleaze, Kendra said. Jolene thought she might be right. On the other hand, Kendra had no boyfriend of her own at the moment. And she was critical about most everything — their jobs, what she ate, the movies they saw, the furniture that came with the rental apartment, and maybe even the city of Phoenix in its entirety.

But Jolene went on the date and Coco was almost a gentleman. He was a good disco dancer, though a bit of a showoff with all his pelvic moves, and what was the harm after all. Coco Leger made her laugh, and she hadn’t had a reason to laugh in a long time.

One thing led to another. There was first a small heart to be embossed for free on her behind, and before long she was working as an apprentice at Coco’s Institute of Body Art. He showed her how to go about things, and she caught on quick and eventually she got to doing customers who wanted the cheap stock tattoos. It was drawing with a needle, a slow process like using only the tip of your paintbrush one dab at a time. Coco was very impressed with how fast she learned. He said she was a real asset. He fired the woman who worked for him, and after a serious discussion Jolene agreed to move in with him in his two rooms above his store, or studio, as he called it.

Kendra, who was still at the Dairy Queen, sat and watched her pack her things. I can see what he sees in you, Jolene, she said. You’ve got a trim little figure and everything moves the way it should without your even trying. Thank you, Kendra. Your skin is so fair, Kendra said. And you’ve got that nose that turns up, and a killer smile. Thank you, Kendra, she said again, and gave her a hug because, though she was happy for herself, she was sad for Kendra, whose really pretty face would not be seen for what it was by most men in that she was a heavyset girl with fat on her shoulders who was not very graceful on skates. But, Kendra continued, I can’t see what you see in him. This is a man born to betray.

Still, she didn’t want to go back to skating for tips. Coco was teaching her a trade that suited her talents. But when after just a couple of weeks Coco decided they should get married, she admitted to herself she knew nothing about him, his past, his family. She knew nothing, and when she asked, he just laughed and said, Babe, I am an orphan in the storm, just like you. They didn’t much like me where I come from, but as I understan’, neither of us has a past to write home about, he said holding her and kissing her neck. What counts is this here moment, he whispered, and the future moments to come.