The Love of a Bad Man Read online

  ‘I think you’d look real pretty like this.’ Cam points at the hanging lady. ‘What do you think?’

  There are bits of snow by the road so small they look like lumps of trash. I see them flashing in the dark as Cam drives us deeper. I don’t know what he’s looking for or how he knows when he’s found it, but it gives me the creeps nonetheless.

  ‘We’ll walk from here,’ he says, after he’s parked and pulled his keys from the ignition. ‘You can get out, honey.’

  I open the door. The ground feels soft under my sneakers, somewhere between fall-leaf crunch and winter squelch. Cam stays in the truck for a minute. When he comes out, he’s got some kind of toolbox with him and a camera around his neck. He tells me to walk ahead.

  ‘But I don’t know where we’re going, Cam.’

  ‘You let me worry about that. You just stay in front now.’

  I never knew I could be so embarrassed about the way my hips move or how my rear-end looks in jeans. I tug down my sweater and duck my head, fighting the urge to look back at Cam every step I take. It hurts, not being allowed to do what’s most normal to me.

  ‘Stop here,’ Cam says after a while. There’s a tall tree in front of us, maybe a cedar. Then he says, ‘Take your clothes off.’

  Even though he’s seen me undressed before, it’s different out here. I shiver and look around, thinking maybe he’ll change his mind if he sees how cold and lonely it is. But he just puts down his toolbox and starts sorting through it. I squat on the wet ground and tug at my shoelaces, trying to remember the rhyme Lisa taught me when I was little. Bunny ears, bunny ears, playing by a tree. Crisscross the tree, trying to catch me ...

  ‘Cam? My socks are all wet.’

  ‘Shhh.’ He keeps going through the box. I hear metal, glimpse something shiny. ‘A little water never hurt anyone, did it?’

  I don’t tell him my jeans are wet too, or my sweater, or my bra and panties when I’m down to them. A soft rain fogs the air between us. Cam closes the box and comes toward me, his hands full of hooks and chains.

  ‘Your underwear, too,’ he tells me. ‘And your glasses.’

  The cold from the woods stays with me, even after Cam hauls me down and unchains me and makes love to me. Even after he lets me put my clothes back on and gives me his jacket for the hike back to the truck. Even in his pickup, when he gets me to put my hands in front of the heater because they look so blue. ‘We’ve just gotta get the blood running again,’ he tells me, blowing on them and rubbing them between his. Then, sorry-sounding, ‘Next time, I won’t leave you up so long.’

  The Devil comes to me the morning after, when I’m sick in bed with the flu. I can’t stop him getting inside or even call out, my breath flies out of me so fast. Then I’m on the floor with my bedclothes hanging over me, looking up at Cam’s heartwood box on my nightstand. It looks so huge in that moment I swear I could fit right inside it.

  It snows the week before Christmas, and Cam asks my parents’ permission to take me skiing. They say yes, since he’s big and strong and sensible, and since his brother Dex is coming, too. I sit between them on the drive up to Lassen Peak, and they spook me by talking about how it’s actually a volcano. I ask if it can explode with us up there.

  ‘Sure, honey.’ Cam smiles. ‘Blow us all to smithereens.’

  ‘Even with snow on it?’

  ‘Uh-huh. We’ll just be real cold before it burns us up.’

  But when we get there, both the boys are sweet to me. Cam fixes a knitted cap on my head and says I make a real cute snow bunny. Then they help me put my skis on and show me how to keep them straight, how to slow down by making a V-shape. Even though Cam and Dex have been skiing their whole lives, they’re happy to stay on the little slopes with me until I’ve had enough. After that, Dex walks me down to the lodge and says something that makes me blush. ‘My brother talks about you all the time, you know.’

  The sky is dark blue by the time we load everything back into Cam’s pickup. Dex takes the wheel so I can rest my head on Cam’s shoulder and listen without listening as they talk about the slopes and the guys at the mill. After a million winding mountain passes, the road gets straight and the woods beside it thicker. Then the woods turn into orchards and paddocks, trailer parks and motels, the lit-up Jolly Kone sign.

  ‘Pull over here,’ Cam says. He nudges my head from his shoulder. ‘Hungry, Jan?’

  I nod sleepily. Dex pulls into the parking lot and Cam starts giving him our orders, like it’s already decided that the two of us will stay in the truck. I watch Dex slam the door and slump across to the restaurant. I like Dex, who’s closer to my age than Cam and maybe even more handsome, but that doesn’t explain why I’m so sorry to see him go.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to show you something,’ Cam turns to me.

  A minute later, he’s reaching into the glove box, and I can’t help thinking of the dirty magazines he keeps there. Then I see it’s not a magazine but photographs. All out of focus, too dark in places and too bright in others.

  ‘They’re a bit blurry, but your poses turned out real nice. See?’

  He points to a white smudge in the middle of one shot and things start taking shape — branches and fuzzy rain and my dark hair hanging in my face.

  My face gets hotter as Cam keeps going through the pictures, using bad words to talk about parts of my body. I’ve never heard him use words like that, but he says them as calmly as he’d say anything else. He’s just as calm a few minutes later, hiding the photos in his jacket when Dex bangs on the truck’s roof. I jump, just like if we were caught necking.

  ‘Cheeseburger, double burger.’ Dex hands us our food and grins. ‘Hope I’m not, uh, interrupting.’

  The more pregnant Lisa gets, the more I wish I could ask her about how she got that way. But the one time I bring up her and Bobby, whether they did more than neck before they were married, her face goes mean. ‘That’s personal, Jan.’ A little while later, she says, ‘Nice guys don’t marry fast girls.’

  Cam hangs me up in the woods again. I tell him every time that I don’t like it, but he sounds so sure of his rightness, telling me all the effort he went to making some special cuffs and how pretty he finds me, and how it’s good for a woman to feel pain, that’s how God made us. And even though it’s scarier than the Devil, Cam is always real nice to me afterward, kissing me and cuddling me and wrapping me in a big wool blanket so I don’t catch cold again.

  Mostly Cam takes photographs when I’m up there. Sometimes he puts a blindfold on me and does other things. One time, he blindfolds my mouth and says he’s going to use a cat-o-nine-tails on me. I don’t know what he means, but when he gets it out of his toolbox, I start crying.

  For my sixteenth birthday, my parents let me have Cam over for dinner. He wears a blazer jacket that’s too short at the cuffs, and combs his shaggy hair to one side. I blow-dry my hair and wear an old dress of Lisa’s, let out at the bust to fit me. Mom cooks my favourite chicken with lemon and herbs. For dessert, there’s chocolate Bundt cake.

  My family are nicer to me with Cam there, and Cam is nice, too. It’s like they’re all trying to make a good impression, with me in the middle of it all, not being told I’ve got the Devil in me or to do my homework for once. After I blow out all my candles, Cam takes a small wrapped box from the pocket of his blazer, and for a second I think maybe he’s going to kneel. But he stays where he is and watches me pull the ribbon, and instead it’s a thin silver chain with a heart-shaped pendant.

  ‘Oh, Cam, it’s pretty,’ I whisper and touch the pendant.

  With my parents’ permission, he puts it on for me, his big hands fumbling over the tiny links. It fits right against my throat, almost like a collar, but so light I can barely feel it. All the rest of the night, I keep reaching up to touch it, just to make sure it’s still there.

  The baby comes in April, around the same time as
the blossoms on our apple trees. Lisa names him Bobby Jr and brings him over to see us, wrapped in a bright macramé blanket. I’m supposed to be studying, but I’m allowed to take some time out to meet Bobby Jr. I’m even allowed to hold him for a minute, his red face all closed up like a rosebud, before Lisa gets worried I’ll have a fit and drop him.

  Cam picks me up from school one afternoon, just after my last math test of the year. He doesn’t usually get off work until four o’clock, but there was an accident at the mill, so everyone got sent home early. ‘Gil lost a thumb in the chipper,’ he tells me with a big smile. ‘There was blood spurting everywhere, you should’ve seen it.’ Then he says he’ll buy me a root beer.

  It’s sunny so we stand out in the Jolly Kone parking lot, leaning and squinting against the pickup. I tell Cam I think I failed my test, and he says that’s okay, girls don’t need to be good at math. Then I start telling him about Bobby Jr, how much bigger he’s getting, the lace he’ll be wearing for his christening. I guess Cam is sick of hearing about Bobby Jr, since he stops me there. He picks up my hand.

  ‘You know, Jan, we’ve been dating almost a year now.’

  ‘Uh-huh. One year on June thirty.’

  ‘That’s right, honey. And, you know, I’m really grateful for all the things you do for me, even though they may be a little, uh, uncomfortable.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say, more quietly this time.

  ‘Well, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you …’

  Cam starts describing it, slowly and calmly. It sounds so crazy I think I must be hearing him wrong. Not scary, like the hanging. Just plain crazy.

  ‘A creek, Cam …?’ I ask, and can’t help but scrunch up my nose.

  A wind blows across the parking lot, shaking the restaurant’s awning, bringing sweet smells from the orchards around town. Apple blossoms. Plum blossoms. Walnuts and almonds. Cam smiles, squeezes my hand.

  ‘Think how pretty you’ll look in the water, honey. Like a mermaid.’

  As soon as we get out of the truck, I hear the water trickling. Other sounds, too, rustling and ribbiting and the rumbling of night birds and insects. Everything in the woods has a sound for what I’m feeling. When I take off my clothes at the bank, mosquitoes fly to the back of my knees and ankles.

  Cam takes off some clothes, too: his boots and his trousers. It’s not much, but it leaves him more naked than usual, so he seems almost shy telling me, ‘Put your hands behind your back.’ I do what he says, ducking my head while he cuffs me. It reminds me of the time he did up my necklace. All of a sudden, I wish I could touch the pendant, but it’s too late. He’s holding me by the elbows.

  ‘Go on,’ Cam says.

  Water swishes around my ankles, then his ankles, then my knees. As soon as it gets above them, he tells me to kneel, like a baptism. The water bubbles up into my privates, cold and dirty. I yelp, and I guess that does something to Cam’s mood. He knees me in the back, so hard it’s a shock to me. Then he grabs hold of my hair.

  ‘Breathe,’ he says, like it’s a dirty word.

  But I can’t breathe when the water hits. There’s only tiny bubbles, a darkness around my head that gets thicker. He pulls me up just long enough for me to feel the wetness, before dragging me under again. This time, there’s a clunking in my ears, a sour taste in my mouth, things scraping and bursting inside me.

  It keeps happening, up and down, like a shaking I can’t stop. Then I’m on the bank and can’t hear or feel anything, though I can see Cam gritting his teeth above me. Kicking. His face so mean I know it’s not him trampling my ribs, but the Devil. I close my eyes. I open them. Sounds rush back into the world.

  ‘Shhh, honey. Shhh.’ Cam is crouching next to me, smiling. ‘I’m here.’

  I ask Cam to come and see me after Bobby Jr’s christening, in the apple orchard behind my house. The blossoms have fruited into tiny green apples, not ripe enough to eat yet. I play with one of the apples while I wait for him, rolling it between my hands. It keeps me from picking at the mosquito bites, all scabbed along my arms and legs.

  I hear Cam’s pickup door slamming out front. He comes around the side of the house, still wearing his shirt and tie, but no jacket. He’s got a big smile that gets smaller as he gets closer. His eyebrows go up.

  ‘You wanted to talk, honey?’

  I nod but don’t say anything. I give him the apple then take it back. My glasses start fogging. Cam hugs me. He loves me, I think.

  ‘We’re having a baby,’ I tell him, my voice just a whisper. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps hugging me.

  People are nicer to me now that they think I’m having a baby. For one thing, I don’t have to go to school anymore, which means no more homework and no exams. For another thing, Lisa is teaching me how to macramé — blankets for the baby, and holders for our kitchen herbs, and a kind of over-the-shoulder bag, which she says will come in real handy for carrying baby things.

  For another, the Devil hasn’t bothered me once since our wedding night in Reno.

  My parents wanted us married quick and cheap, so they sent us across the state line to do it, just me and Cam and $500 in cash. We went to one of those chapels with the neon lights and paper hearts over the altar, and afterward they gave us a free chicken dinner and a little cake in the shape of church bells.

  I’ve been eating well and hope it’s only a matter of time before I’m pregnant for real. I feel bad about lying, and Cam has been so nice and loving lately. Every day, he goes to work at the mill and doesn’t complain, and most weeks he brings home free lumber for his projects. There’s a basement here, so he can work on them whenever he wants without disturbance.

  Cam doesn’t like being disturbed in the basement, which suits me just fine. I don’t much like going down there either, on account of it being where he keeps his toolbox and camera and all those other things. So long as I don’t see those things, it’s mostly easy to forget them, like they’re all hidden away in a box I don’t have any key for. But sometimes, even without looking, something ordinary will remind me — running water or hanging laundry or even just the shade of a tree — and I’ll feel my heart start beating like we’re in the middle of the woods again.

  Marceline

  Our crops fail, but our babies grow strong and sweet, like the sweetest pea-snaps. Every colour imaginable, every mix of every colour. God never intended to keep the races separate. Such prejudice could only come from the hearts of men, their infinite fear and folly. Sometimes, wandering through the nursery, I think of those stories of babies found in bulrushes, cabbage patches, and it’s a nice thought: that babies might truly crop up that way, from the pureness of the earth, free from the frailties of men.

  Thirty-three born right here in Jonestown. Did you ever see such healthy, happy babies? And not one of them who ever has to experience America’s racism.

  Our cribs are reinforced with mesh to keep out creepy-crawlies. Our wall hangings and hand-braided rugs are made of red, green, yellow, black: the colours of our adoptive nation. On the verandah, picture books bloom in the laps of our women, who nurture our babies’ minds with daily storytime. Many of our three-year-olds already know their ABCs. Of course this’s the first they ever heard of NBC.

  Some of you men laugh. A tight, showy kinda laugh, but at a time like this that’s to be expected.

  We didn’t want media. We didn’t want congressmen. We wanted to be left in peace. That you all couldn’t give us that much is proof of the enormity of what we’ve done: a thousand men, women, and children turning our backs on the United States for a simpler life down here in the jungle. But we’re making the best of this intrusion. Last night when the congressman came onstage to praise our community, the applause was so loud it almost brought down the roof of the pavilion.

  We are nothing if not a proud people, an optimistic people.

  Here we have the kitchen, where
Sister Liliana and her crew prepare three thousand nutritious meals each day. The woodshop, where Brother Ernie and his crew construct everything from bunk beds to pull-along toys. The piggery; see how good and fat our sows are, our beauteous Blissie who is mother to eighteen piglets. Each plank we walk along was measured, sawed, and laid by our construction crew. Each person treading these paths is brother or sister to the next. Such close-knit community you’d be lucky to find nowadays even in the smallest Midwestern town, where people no longer feel safe leaving their doors unlocked.

  There is no crime here in Jonestown, no dispute that can’t be resolved communally.

  That knot of people by the pavilion, drawing more in like a tornado; I wouldn’t pay it any mind. There are less of you than when this tour began. Stay behind me, please; don’t stray. I know the sun is hot, and these flies are a nuisance, but we have many more sights to see, people to meet, refreshments awaiting us at the end of the line.

  A pair of sisters whisk by. Another sister, our Esme who works so hard in the laundry, whispers in my ear, and what she says — well, that’s not for you to know. Maybe you few who haven’t yet snuck away notice my face tense; you newsmen are trained to notice every frown, tic, averted eye. But when I next speak, it’s with a smile.

  A good first lady, in the face of crisis, always finds some way to smile.

  In the pavilion’s shade, the afternoon looks hourless. I see my husband’s face from afar, the broad slack lines of it, and want nothing more than to lay him down and cover him with a cool sheet, tell him to sleep away this defeat. Sleep, Jim, just sleep. It’s true what Sister Esme said; there’s folks deserting, and the who and how many of it doesn’t matter because it’s plain he’s taking it personally. Always, in the more than thirty years I’ve known him, he’s been the kind to take things personal: the sufferings of others, their individual pains, but most of all their betrayals.