Christmas in Culm: Three Stories Page 3

  I rolled over, looked at my coat hanging on the room’s coat rack, and thought about the smooth stones sitting heavily in the right pocket.

  V. The Whitest Day

  The man behind the motel desk wanted to let us stay through Christmas, but he said the motel owner would fire him if he found out. He saw Mom’s face when we first checked in, he knew what had happened and offered to call the cops, but Mom told him she’d already done that, but didn’t tell him Dad had been released when we were leaving. She paid with cash, and we were back on the road the morning of Christmas Eve. The previous night’s snowstorm had cleared the valley, and pale sunlight reflected off the roadside and hillside snow, blinding me as our station wagon rumbled down the slushy road. Hulking yellow trucks with snowplows attached to their grills and spinning salt and cinder dispensers attached to their rear gates passed us in the left lane, clearing the road of the remaining slush and sprinkling ice-melting salt behind them. Mom wore sunglasses to keep the snowlight from blinding her eyes and to hide the purple welts around them.

  The station wagon twisted through the back streets of Scranton, and we pulled over once to a gas station to fill the tank. More cash out of Mom’s wallet, less time to decide what to do next. When she filled the tank, she got back in the car and pulled a small folded sheet of paper from her left pocket. She unfolded it, read the text that was scrawled in blue pen, then started the car. We were back on the road again, driving up one road, then down another until we pulled up to a small red brick house, its window frames creme white, its snow-covered yard enclosed by a waist-high white iron fence.

  "Come on, Honey," Mom said, and we walked to the front door, upon which she knocked three times and waited. There was shuffling behind the door, then several slow clicks as locks were disengaged, and the door cracked open. A tall woman with long black hair and a round, white face peeked out, examining us for a couple of seconds.

  "Can I help you?" she said in a low, soft voice.

  "I’m Bernice," Mom said, "and this is my daughter Jane. I was given this address last night by a friend—"

  The woman smiled sadly, "Come in, Dear," she said, opening the door wide to let us in. As I pressed by her, I saw an aluminum baseball bat clutched in her right hand. She placed the bat in the corner next to the door and locked the door behind us. Mom removed her sunglasses, and the woman stopped. "You been to the hospital yet?"

  Mom shook her head. "I called the police and got Jane out as soon as I could. I didn’t have time to get to a hospital."

  "Okay, but you should." She examined the knot on Mom’s jaw. "Need to make sure something serious isn’t damaged, and you need to have medical records documenting what he’s done." Mom nodded, and the woman looked down at me. "You want some hot chocolate?" she asked. I looked at Mom to see if I should answer, and she smiled through her swollen lips and face.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Okay, let me take you to the kitchen and get you some while your mother and I have a little talk." She took me by the hand and led me through a swinging door that opened up into a small living room that had a round table and three children sitting around it. One little blonde girl sat in the lap of a pudgy blonde woman who brushed the little girl’s hair with her fingers. The woman looked at me and smiled, her face dotted with purplish-green bruises. Another woman with straight brown hair had her back turned to the table and was staring out the curtained dining room window, her thin arms folded. We passed through another door and entered a large kitchen ringed with shiny steel appliances. In the center of the kitchen was a marble-topped island with two more women and a young sandy-haired boy sitting on stools, drinking from multicolored cups.

  "We don’t have any more marshmallows, Jane," the tall woman said, "but I think it tastes fine without it. She opened a cupboard, pulled out a large red cup, filled it with hot chocolate that had been sitting in a saucepan on the stove, then handed it to me. I gripped it with both hands and the woman smiled. "I’m going to talk to your mother, Jane, okay? Why don’t you just have a seat here, and she’ll come get you in a little bit, all right?" I nodded, and the woman left the kitchen. I looked at the unused stool, but stepped back against the wall and stood near the door, sipping hot chocolate from the red cup and watching the women and the boy sit hunched over at the island, not a single word escaping their mouths.

  ***

  "Come on, Honey, let’s go."

  Mom stood in the kitchen doorway, buttoning up her coat and slipping her red woolen cap on her head. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her nose a deep pink. I placed the cup on the counter and followed Mom as she walked out the kitchen, through the living room, and back to the front door. The tall woman stood next to the door with her hands clasped in front of her.

  "They should be able to help you at the address I gave you," the woman said.

  "You said they didn’t have a room, either," snapped Mom.

  "It’s a bigger house. They might be able to fit you somewhere."

  "Somewhere? What does that mean?" Mom asked.

  "In a back room, something like that. We have fifteen families here right now, Bernice. We can’t fit any more families right now."

  Mom opened the door and stepped out into the blinding light. "Come on, Jane."

  "Bernice, I’m really sorry. I really am. Holidays are always the worst time for us."

  "They’re not exactly the best time for me, either," Mom said, grabbing my right hand and pulling me along with her.

  "Where we going?" I asked.

  "We got to get to Wilkes-Barre. We have to hurry."

  Mom and I dashed to the station wagon. She was panting as she slid the key into the ignition and turned over the engine. The car sputtered, rattled, then settled into an even idle. She placed a yellow piece of paper on the dashboard. "Honey," she said, "get the maps from the backseat.'

  I reached behind her seat, pulled out the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton city maps, and handed them to her. She handed me the Scranton map then unfurled the Wilkes-Barre map and traced the brown and green lines with her gloved fingertips. She checked the yellow paper again, then pointed at a specific point on the map. "Okay," she said, "okay." She handed me the map. "Don’t fold it up. Leave it like that." Mom gripped the gear shift knob on the steering column, pushed it down, and we were off again, speeding through the gray-slush streets of Scranton, Mom whispering prayers to the gods of open roads and empty rooms.

  ***

  The afternoon sky was already turning pink, the eastern horizon turning violet. We sat in the parking lot of an A&P grocery store in Pittston that was closing early for Christmas Eve. Mom had purchased some bread and bologna and a six-pack of 50/50 soda, and we sat at the far end of the lot under a buzzing white light eating cold bologna sandwiches and drinking cold grapefruit-flavored soda. The air in the station wagon was icy, and Mom pulled a couple of blankets over us as we sat in silence.

  The house in Wilkes-Barre had no room for us that afternoon. When we’d left it behind, Mom stopped at an intersection and made a quiet joke. "No room at the inn, Jane. On Christmas Eve. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that—"

  And she stopped talking, just turned her head and looked out the side window. We drove through small towns that melted into one another, homes and buildings and streets all the same, the only difference the size of their cemeteries. We drove north, then south. We pulled up to motels that still had vacancy signs but wanted credit cards or large cash deposits that Mom didn’t have. We parked at a bus station that Mom thought would be open but saw it had shut down early for the holiday as well. We drove east, then west. In straight lines. In circles. Soon, were passing the same buildings over and over again until we arrived at the A&P where at least the lot was clear of snow and the lighting was bright. Mom spotted a shadowy corner next to a dumpster and muttered, "We could stop there," before she shook her head and sighed.

  After we ate, she started the car, and we headed wes
t again, the sky now milky purple. Around us, cars hurried down the road, headlights bright like cats’ eyes. We passed homes glittering with Christmas lights in the windows and Christmas displays in the yards. We passed pedestrians holding bags and pedestrians holding each other. Stores were closing, and streets were emptying for the night.

  Ahead of us: the dim pools of station wagon lights, a dark road, and stars vaulting above the horizon.

  ***

  "We can’t, Mom," I said.

  Mom stared at our house from across the street. The porch light was on, and the living room light glowed through the navy blue curtains. Dad’s white pickup truck sat in the driveway like a slumbering dog.

  "Mom?" I said.

  She sighed.

  "Mom, we can’t go back. We can’t."

  "I didn’t think they’d release him," she whispered.

  "We can go somewhere else," I said.

  "Honey, we don’t have any money to stay anywhere. We don’t have a credit card."

  "We’ll stay in the car."

  "And freeze?" Mom turned to me, swollen, bruised face glowing green from the dashboard lights, eyes wide, mouth trembling. "I thought we could stay at a shelter for a few days, you know? Just a few days."

  "They said they might have a place for us in a few days, didn’t they?" I asked.

  "And do what before then, Jane? Do what? Sleep in the car? Sleep in a bus terminal?" She turned back to the house. "I didn’t think they let him out, not so fast. I didn’t think he’d be able to cancel the credit card that fast."

  "Mom, let’s go," I said, grabbing her sleeve. She was crying now, he face wet with tears. "Mom," I repeated, "let’s go."

  "We can’t go anywhere, Honey."

  Behind the curtain, something moved, a shadow shifting left, then right.

  "Mom!" I pulled and pushed at her arm. "We have to go."

  Slowly, the curtain parted, and a familiar shape appeared, its hands at the sides of its face as it peered out into the street, directly at the blue station wagon in which we sat. It stared at us as Mom froze in place and as I pushed and pulled at her arm.

  The curtain closed.

  "Goddammit, Mom!" She whirled around to look at me. "Go!" I screamed. "Go!"

  Mom pulled down on the gear shift, and the station wagon lurched backwards. She pressed on the accelerator, and the car rocketed back, throwing me forward. She turned the wheel, and the heavy car spun on the pavement with a roar. Mom pushed the gear shifter up, and pressed hard on the accelerator again. We bounced over a pothole, skidded to the side, then sped down the street.

  I looked over the pile of bags in the backseat and through the rearview window. A shadow ran into the driveway toward the pickup truck.

  "Hurry," Mom, I said. "Hurry!"

  The truck's headlights burned as it backed out of the driveway. As we approached the end of the street, the truck had pulled into the road, its high beams switched on. The lights grew larger as the truck sped towards us.

  "Turn left," I shouted.

  "Honey—"

  "Turn left!"

  Mom jerked the steering wheel left, kicking the rear wheels to the side as they squealed and grabbed for traction. We dashed through the stop sign and headed south, homes and Christmas lights a blur.

  "Keep going," I said. "Keep going." I looked behind us again. The truck had turned left as well. Its headlights swerved as its tires spun and bit at the pavement. "Keep going," I repeated. The car thundered over the train tracks along which I’d walked every day and bottomed out as the road dipped. "Keep going straight, then turn left at that road!" I pointed to a clump of birches, their dark eyes staring into the station wagon's headlights.

  "Do you know where we’re going?" Mom screamed. "Where are we going?"

  The truck crept closer.

  "I know where we’re going," I said.

  Mom turned the wheel left, and we swerved onto a dark dirt-packed road, rocks and snow flying into the air.

  "We’re going to get stuck, Jane."

  I ignored her, concentrating out the windshield until I knew exactly where we were. "See that path up there?" I asked. "The one that has the big trees? Turn there, and turn off the lights."

  "Jane, we’re heading to the culm dump!"

  "I know, Mom, I know where we’re going. Now turn and switch off the lights. Come on, Mom!"

  She pushed the station wagon into another turn that it wasn’t designed to make, and the suspension groaned and popped. She turned off the headlights, and we were bathed in blackness. "Jane, I can’t see anything. I can’t see."

  "It’s okay," I said, looking behind us again, "just keep going. The path goes straight."

  "And then what? Jane—"

  "It ends just up ahead. Slow down." There were no headlights behind us, but I knew Dad was out there. I knew he was slowing down, looking from left to right and right to left, looking down every road and path that branched off the main dirt road. Maybe he even stopped to figure out where he was, but that wouldn’t last for long. We needed to keep moving, guided by stray moonlight, guided by memories of where every road and tree lay.

  Mom slowed the car. "I think it ends here, Jane. Jane, where’re we going to go? Tell me where we’re going to go."

  I looked behind us again, satisfied the truck wasn’t rumbling down the snowy dirt road.

  "Come on," I said, opening the door.

  "Jane!"

  I turned to her. She seemed shrunken behind the steering wheel, so small in the dashboard and moon light. "It’s okay, Mom. I know where I’m going. Zip up your coat and lock up the car."

  She turned off the engine, opened the door, and stepped out. I walked around the car and grabbed her hand. "This way," I whispered, and closed the door. We walked through a thick patch of trees that bordered the edge of the culm field, and we scurried over the snow-covered culm that glowed blue-white under the silent moon, the only sound our feet crunching over culm and snow and the distant thrum of a pickup truck’s engine meandering through the maze of long-closed coal roads.

  ***

  Mom’s breaths came in gasps, and she reached up to her right side and groaned.

  "We need to stop, Jane," she said. "I need to stop."

  "We can’t stop," I said. "We’re almost there."

  "Jane, let’s go back."

  "We’re not going back, Mom."

  "Jane—"

  "We’re not going back. We’re never going back. That’s what you said. Never." I grabbed her hand even tighter and pulled her. Ahead, the dark shapes of trees, dark shapes that I’d known for years, only a couple hundred yards ahead. I knew we only had to run in a straight line, that once we reached the trees we only had to turn right, then left, then walk through a narrow space, that it would open to a circular clearing, and at the center of that clearing was a rusting red semi-trailer.

  Behind us, something growled and scraped. We stopped and turned. The truck had punched through some underbrush and was now on the culm field, its headlights aiming straight at us. I pulled Mom, yanking at her hand with as much force as I could.

  We ran to the trees, and the truck gathered speed. One hundred yards. Fifty. Twenty. Ten, the truck roaring over the culm, headlights cutting shafts through clouds of snow.

  I pulled Mom to the right, her legs wobbling, her breath heavy and raspy, her head flopping about like a rag doll’s. "Jane," she kept saying, "Jane." But I pulled her through the narrow space, birch branches slapping at our faces and arms until we stumbled into the clearing where the red trailer sat.

  "Fred," I shouted. "Fred!" I let go of Mom’s hand and ran up to the trailer and jumped up to its under-ride bar, banging on its door and pulling at its locks. "Fred!"

  Mom dropped to her knees, coughing, her breath now heavy with phlegm. She began to cry. "Jesus, Jane. This can't be where you wanted us to go. It can't be."

  I banged on the semi-trailer door
s. "Please, Fred," I shouted. "Open up! Please!" I kept banging and banging as the truck got closer and closer, its headlights glowing hot white through the trees. I hit at the doors with my gloved hands and then tried to kick at them when I lost my footing and fell back, landing hard on a pile of snowy stones.

  I cried out, and the truck engine stopped, its headlights now stopped and shining directly through the trees and into the clearing. I propped myself on my elbows and rolled over and onto my knees. I crawled over to Mom, who coughed and wheezed in the cold air. I put my arms around her. "Mom," I whispered.

  And behind us . . . there was a loud creak, a squeal like a long-locked gate swinging open, and a thump. Then another squeal and another thump.

  I looked back at Fred.

  The locks had fallen to the ground.

  "Come on," Mom, I hissed, pulling her to her feet.

  Through the trees, heavy footsteps thumped over culm and winter-dried grasses, and I jumped up to the trailer doors, pulled the door latch up, then slid it out as quietly as I could. But as the latch was almost completely open, it jammed. Mom looked up with wide, panicked eyes, and covered her mouth to muffle her breathing.

  The footsteps were closer now. Heavier.

  I pulled at the latch again. And again. And again. And the footsteps stopped. I froze and looked around, then took in a deep breath and yanked hard on the latch. With a loud screech, the latch slid, and the metal door creaked open.

  The footsteps began running now, stumbling over rocks and fallen branches. I reached down and grabbed Mom’s hand, swinging open the door and letting warm, salty air spill into the winter night. Mom winced in pain and crawled up to the under-ride bar and the rear of the trailer. I pulled at her coat, pulled her as hard as I could, hissing "Hurry, Mom, hurry!

  She pulled herself into the trailer, and I started yanking her up by the shoulders, but she got to her knees and stood on her own. I shut the door as best I could, then grabbed Mom’s hand. "This way," I said.

  "You have to lock the door, Jane!"

  "Can’t lock it from inside," I said, pulling her deeper into the trailer.

  "Jane, he’s going to get in here!'