Mack Jr.

It was the hottest night of the year or at least it felt like it.  I had been out a few hours and decided to stop by the dance.  Maybe I could pick up a girl at the dance and do what I do best.  I considered myself a smooth operator.  My brother Billy and I kept track of our takings.  I was one ahead.  He promised to be ahead by weekends end.  I started out good at the dance.  There were plenty of opportunities.  Most of the girls I knew, some were in from the other country sides visiting relatives in the hollers.  I could have my pick and up the ante before Billy even got warmed up.

I never paid no attention in the past to Betty Jo.  She was plain, simple and not that good looking.  Tonight though, something in her jumped out at me.  Her smile maybe?  Or the fact that KarlaJo was acting like a fool made anyone look good; I’m not sure which.  I tried me best line on Betty Jo, “do you want to have a little fun tonight”.  She didn’t fall for it and walked away.  KarlaJo stood there with her mouth open.  I could have settled for KarlaJo but now I was determined more than ever to be with Betty Jo.  I finally convinced Betty Jo that I just wanted to dance.  That was only half the truth. 

            I had to see Betty Jo after the dance.  She left out of there so quick that I didn’t see which direction she went.  I know her folks own that broken down market up the hill and into the next holler so that’s what I set out to do, make the trek to that silly market just hoping I could catch a glimpse of Betty Jo.  So as the Summer dragged on I walked the extra mile or so past Coy’s Market and to the next holler just to buy cigs.  Damn was it hot that Summer.  I felt every last sunray as it beat down on me.  Sometimes I hitched a ride, most of the time I cut through the creek bed making the trip a little more bearable.  Either way I knew I had to see her.  I had to have her.  Betty Jo wasn’t like the others.  Some of the others aren’t like anything now but that’s beside the point.  Betty Jo was different.  I would never do anything to hurt her.

            Betty Jo finished school the next Summer.  It was slow going, her and I.  I caught up with her at a few dances but I also had to keep up my numbers so Billy didn’t get too far ahead.  Being a man I can’t let no body compete better than me.  So I still went out with random girls in town as well as some from other hollers and country sides.  None stayed in my mind as much as Betty Jo.  After she graduated her Ma allowed her to officially date.  Wasn’t much we could do without a car and money and all.  We’d walk down Betty Jo’s holler and talk.  She wasn’t allowed to my side of town, but that didn’t matter. 

One day Betty Jo brought a basket along.  She had a sandwich for herself and another that she had to pay off her younger sister Carmen to take.  Guess she had to clear dishes and do the laundry that week for the extra sandwich.  With money being tight her Pa would never allow food to fly off his table for “no redneck living on the other side”.  It was good all the same and we talked about everything along the creek bed as we sat.  I tried to kiss her but she wasn’t having any of it.  I knew that would have to change sooner than later.

            “Betty Jo, we’ve been seeing each other for a while now.  Why won’t you give me some of that,” I begged her.  Yes, me begging hard to believe huh?

            “Mack, you know I’m not that kind of girl.  I’m only 15 and I have too much ahead of me.  What on earth would I do with a baby?”

            “Kissin don’t give you no baby Betty Jo.  Lovin gives you babies.”

            “And babies put you on the Welfare Mack Jr.,” Betty Jo insisted.

            “Now just because people have babies don’t mean they’re poor my love.  There are plenty of folk in this town with kids that aren’t on Welfare.  Look at the Coy’s.  They’ve been running that corner market for years survivin.”  I pleaded.

            “The Coy’s own half the county including the next holler too you know.  They’d better not be on welfare taking my Ma’s only way to feed us.”

            So it was settled, at least for now.  No lovin, no kissin from my one and only true love.  At least not that Summer.  I would wait though for her if that’s what it took.

Hobo Jack

Long ago I had a house, a wife and a young child.  I had a job, not necessarily a career, but what I made supported us along with some local assistance from the Welfare Office.  Then I got into some trouble being young and immature.  It was too much for Ellie.  Being a mother responsible for another human life she kicked me out.  I can’t blame her or least at the time I couldn’t blame her.  I wish she would have had faith in me and our relationship but that’s not the way it worked out.

I was given very limited supervised visitation with our daughter KarlaJo but I never exercised my rights.  I was too self absorbed in myself at the time, my demons and those that contributed to my struggles.  Ellie didn’t want KarlaJo to be part of my life then and as I wised up she didn’t want her to be part of my life later either.  But our paths would cross again at a time that my daughter needed me the most; the day KarlaJo was brutally attacked by someone she trusted, someone that no one should have ever trusted.

He was KarlaJo’s age.  I had seen him around.  Living off the creek road in my own piece of the holler away from civilization had its benefits but I would see him in the night doing unmentionables.  I kept an eye on him.  He was slick, but not as slick as I was.  I always tried to keep one step ahead of him, eyeing him, making him fearful enough to stay his distance from me.

At first I thought it was a sort of lover’s lane type of thing, necking in the woods but then the screams came; some quick, muffled, distant then non-existent.  Others ran into the night.  Some may have gotten away, I can’t be for sure.  I minded my own business but kept one ear listening and an eye keen to what was going on in my woods.  I watched him slither into the darkness.  He could disappear back into the night as though he and his latest prize had never been there.

------------
The night fate brought me to KarlaJo was one I wouldn’t forget.  I heard her screams, chilling and coming closer.  I lied in wait, trying to disappear into the night living the quiet secret life I had chosen years ago.  This night it wasn’t going to be possible.  The screams got closer, faster.  I snuck into the night trying to deter attention to my home, a sleeper into the dusk to hush the noise.  No struggle, just calm as she felt secure in my grasp, my hushes and assurance, she was okay with me as I guided her through the woods.  Maybe it was a subconscious or a familiar feeling that calmed her.  After all I am her Dad.  We walked quietly, briskly through the night quietly by moonlight through the holler pathways to her Mother’s.  I knew the house well.  I’ve spent countless hours, days, even years visiting the area sitting and watching my family that I once had.  I delivered KarlaJo through the night to the backdoor I so often looked into from afar.

Her Mother, my wife, was sitting at the kitchen table drinking her favorite evening glass of hot tea and milk.  It always helped her sleep.  I startled her as I pushed open the door and handed our daughter over to her, battered, bloody and now hysterical.  I quickly turned away and left the house back into the night not giving any chances to answer questions or creating new ones.  Our eyes locked briefly, Ellie knowing who I was but not knowing what to say except to console our daughter.

I’m sure the two of them had lots to say.  I knew KarlaJo was okay but mentally the attack by Mack Jr. would take a toll on her.  I heard in town that after the attack Ellie shipped our daughter to her Sister’s in upstate Jersey.  It was for the good I know but I miss seeing her even if it was at a distance.  As the years went by I would find out more to why KarlaJo was sent upstate.  When Mack Jr. was picked up for multiple counts of murder many outsiders, attorneys, media, journalists, you name it they came from far and wide.  Of these outsiders one came for more than the story of the hillbilly murderer.  He came to find himself and the history from which he came from.  My interest peaked in him and vice versa as he came poking around.  Another sense of familiarity just as KarlaJo had felt with me those many years ago as she ran for her life from Mack Jr.  This stranger was familiar.

-------
The last thing I wanted was to talk to any of the “common” people.  I’ve made a quiet life for myself deep in the holler away from civilization, away from the demons and struggles.  The case of the hillbilly murderer was big news in a small West Virginia town.  There were too many people poking around, pulling public records, interviewing locals at every local hangout for any bit of information to boost their stories.  One young man, Michael, was eerily familiar and persistent in speaking to me.

I mind my own and stay away from even the locals.  I stop in the Pick N Save once a month if I have to in the middle of the month, early in the morning, and every now again into The Rebel for a drink by myself at the end of the bar.  I say a few words to Ed the cashier at Pick N Save, a man I use to know well years ago.  I say a few more words if I have to with Bernice the owner of The Rebel.  I’m sure they talk about me and how strange I am but I prefer that mystery in my life.  The less they know about me the better off we all are.  Unfortunately one of ‘em clued the sleuth to my shopping habits and there he was trudging through the woods in his fancy New York clothes.

Michael was his name, a reporter from the Underground something or another.  As I mentioned he seemed familiar but when I first met him I didn’t know why.  His features were eerily similar to mine and that of my daughter’s.  I had heard in town many years ago that KarlaJo passed away suddenly at a much too younger age.  Rumor in town was that the child Mack Jr. fathered during that brutal attack on KarlaJo was living with my ex sister-in-law Gigi.  If it were to be true it was for the best.  Gigi and her husband could offer a child a better life that I could or these parts of West Virginia ever could.

I always liked Gigi.  Never had a bad word to say about her.  We had met a few times, first when Ellie and I got married then again when KarlaJo was born.  Ellie was close with her sister Gigi.  Gigi could never have kids.  Some female problem of some sort.  Gigi would have been a great mother.  She was always patient with KarlaJo and a great sister to Ellie.  Gigi was really the only family Ellie had left besides me and KarlaJo.  After she kicked me out Ellie went to stay with Gigi for a time.  I was too busy drinking at the time and really didn’t care either when it was all happening.
So when I was rudely disturbed by that big city reporter I wasn’t interested in talking to him but I wanted to know more about him.  Michael answered a few questions about being an only child, his mother died many years ago and he was raised by relatives before stopping to say he was the reporter wanting to ask questions and did I have some time.  “Nope, too much to do.  Don’t care to talk to outsiders,” I replied.  I briskly walked away down the hill, round the corner, across the creek where I lost him in dense woods.  I knew more than he needed to hear.