The Love of a Bad Man Read online

  The next afternoon, in the back ranch, we’re all glued to the TV set like little kids watching Looney Tunes. They keep showing pictures of the people from the house, especially the blonde, who was an actress and about to drop a baby. ‘… She was all like “My baby, my baby!” and I said, “Look bitch, I don’t care about you or your baby. You’re gonna die, so you better be ready.”’ Sadie takes a toke and passes it along. The TV picture changes from the actress to the brunette, some kinda coffee heiress. ‘That’s the bitch that pulled my hair!’ says Katie. We all boo and hiss, since Katie’s hair is magical; Charlie says we’re all gonna use it as a blanket someday when we go into the desert.

  A little while later, Charlie wanders in and we all go quiet. Or maybe it’s a long while later and we’re already quiet, sprawling on the trailer floor. Either way, there’s Charlie’s voice and we all hear it, faraway like we’re underwater, but knife-clear. He says, ‘You done good.’ We see his beautiful feet, his legs in tight buckskin. ‘Same deal tonight, but one more chick. Who’s it gonna be?’

  That’s enough to get all of us sitting up, waving our hands and chiming, ‘Pick me, pick me, Charlie!’ But out of everyone, he decides on LuLu. She’s Bobby’s girl and has only fucked Charlie two or three times, so we’re not sure why he chooses her. ‘Are you crazy enough to believe in me?’ he asks LuLu, fixing her with his gun barrel stare. She stares back at him with her long-lashed beauty queen eyes. When she gets his signal, she yips like a coyote.

  It’s late and most of us are sitting around the bonfire when the group takes off. We don’t really notice them going, except in a far-off way, but we see them getting back at daybreak, waving at some dude in a Chevy they hitched with. They look fresh and happy in their change of clothes, telling stories about how easy it was. LuLu says they even hung around for a couple of hours after, taking showers and chugging chocolate milk from the fridge.

  ‘We played with their dogs, too,’ she says. ‘Little fluffy white balls!’

  A couple of days later, the ranch gets raided. Most of us are sleeping when the pigs storm in, kicking down doors and pointing M-15s. They drag us up by our hair and haul us out to the driveway, making us kneel in the dust with the guns aimed at our heads. Charlie always says the bigger the gun, the smaller the dick, and you can tell that’s how it is with these dudes. They’ve got bellies and buzz-cuts and dinky helmets, and the word ‘Sheriff’ sewn onto the backs of their uniforms. There’s even a couple of copters flying overhead, like it’s fucking Nam or something.

  ‘Where’s your guru now?’ the pigs smirk. ‘Looks like Jesus is savin’ his own skin.’ We cuss them out, telling them Charlie doesn’t have to show his face if he doesn’t want to, that he can take any form he wants — a bird in the sky, wind through the trees, even a bit of dust on their nasty black boots. But eventually, a couple of them come out from around the barn with Charlie in cuffs. ‘Found this chicken-shit hiding under the porch.’

  Charlie gives us a sign with his eyes and we all go off, howling and yipping and calling out, ‘Right on, Charlie!’ It’s a long time before they can shut us up and read out what we’re charged with: grand theft auto. We start yipping again as soon as we hear that.

  ‘Crazy bitches,’ is all those pigs can say.

  We’re out of the slam within two weeks on insufficient evidence. The ranch looks like it’s been hit by a tornado, windows smashed in and cars confiscated and tumbleweed blowing across the drive. Darling and a couple of the newer chicks have split, probably back to their folks to get fat and become good little secretaries. Charlie takes us into the old saloon to look at the mural we painted a few months back. It shows the end of time, all in Day-Glo colours; the desert and valleys and Helter Skelter coming from the sky. ‘It’s now,’ Charlie tells us. ‘It’s comin’ down fast.’

  Death Valley is full of life if you know where to look. We find the skulls of bighorn sheep buried in the sand, antlers turned to rust. Chuckwallas scrambling into sagebrush. All kinds of groovy, night-blooming plants — spiked white cereus, sacred datura, moonlight cactus. Black skies swirling with stars and big, dusty moons. All night, coyotes howl from the outcrops.

  Then there are the spiders, the scorpions, the rattlers. We lie down on the burning rocks and commune with them, watch their beautiful spines in motion and stare into their shiny black eyes. There’s no fear there, just wisdom; the kind that comes from millions of years of killing. They stare back without blinking. Slowly, they run their coils over our skin.

  ‘See the snake?’ Charlie’s face flickers in the campfire. ‘See him on his belly? That’s the Devil, man. That’s J.C. He’s tuned in. He lives a hundred years a second, dig?’

  Here in the desert, with our knives strapped to our ankles, it doesn’t take much to turn animal. If Charlie says snake, we become the snake. If he says coyote, we become the coyote. If he says stab, it’s moonlight and bleeding silver, baby. We dance in circles around the fire, slashing at whatever gets in our way. One time, Charlie gives us a sign to slash him, so we do, tearing at his body till all that’s left is a warm, loving ooze. Then we turn around and see him standing naked under the moon, fully resurrected, wearing a crown of creosote. Man, it’s a trip.

  Jesus is always fucking with people’s heads. They never taught us that in Sunday school, but it’s the truth. Water into wine. Death into life. Nothing into everything. That’s Love. That’s Christ. That’s Charlie.

  The dudes drive into camp with stolen cars, strip them down, and use the parts to build dune buggies. Someday, we’re gonna have hundreds of dune buggies, hidden all over the desert. We’re gonna mount machine guns on top of them so the guys can shoot while we drive, then we’re gonna swoop down on all the little towns and kill anyone who isn’t beautiful.

  But the pigs have eyes on us, even out here. One night, coming back from the hot springs, we almost drive right into this trap they set for us — a big fat hole in the middle of the trail. Next to it is a big fat pile of dirt and a bigger, fatter yellow digging truck. ‘Who-zam!’ Charlie points and hollers when he sees it. Then we all hop out of the dune buggy.

  As Charlie deals with the truck, we start filling the hole. ‘You come into my desert with your beast machines, you set your rabbit traps, you light your fires …’ He lets out the fuel, pours some gas. Before he’s even done it, we see the flames jumping out of his fingertips.

  The pigs don’t quit there. They fly their planes low over the desert, trying to flush us out, but we’re snaky. We keep low with our knives, staying under rocks and tarpaulins. One meal a day is enough for us. One little cup of water. One word in our heads: Love.

  After dark, we go to work fortifying our camp, digging hideouts and rigging up barbed-wire traps. Charlie has this far-out idea of building a wall of human skulls and tells us how to boil the flesh from the bones. When we ask whose skulls we should use, he says, ‘Pigs, Judases, bitches. Heck, use Kitty here. She got a pretty head.’

  Kitty is Charlie’s favourite punching bag lately, since she’s always playing the weak link, trying to get special treatment for being knocked up. We end up wishing we did take her head a few nights later, when we find she’s skedaddled with this other pregnant chick, Steph. We run out with our knives drawn, ready to christen the dark, but the trail goes cold. Turns out those sneaky pigs got to them first.

  Everyone wants us to be afraid of death. If we’re not afraid, that means we don’t feel guilty, and if we’re not guilty, that means death isn’t the ugly thing they think it is. They want to keep death in the dark so bad, they can’t see that it’s everywhere beauty is — laughing in the street, throwing flowers, making love in long grass, dancing to beautiful music that comes in waves of red and green and purple.

  Charlie says Jesus died with a hard-on and a sweet, sexy smile on his face. He knows because he lived it 2,000 years ago. He’ll live it again, if he has to. Already, he’s X-ed himself out of this world.
We all have. That’s what the X we burned onto our foreheads stands for: we’re done, we’re giving up the system.

  That bitch Darling turned state’s evidence. We all send black vibes her way while she’s sitting on the witness stand, talking about how horrible it was to hear those people screaming. It’s wacked how she can sit there, looking prissy and crying her eyes out, when she’s been touched by Charlie. It’s all gonna come back to get her, just you wait. Karma has special punishments in store for Judases like that.

  Sitting around in court every day is a drag, especially when they’re always sending Charlie out for speaking truth. Our attorneys bring us drawing pads and coloured pencils, so we can pass some of the time doodling skulls and kittens and whatever. It kinda feels like being back in kindergarten, but it sure beats listening to those old dudes running their mouths all day.

  Even though the trial’s been going on a few months, the TV people keep hanging around outside the courtroom, waiting to get a shot of the three of us in our hand-sewn outfits, made special by the girls outside — velveteen pantsuits for Katie, see-through blouses for Sadie, flouncy dresses for LuLu. We’re Charlie’s girls. Our hands are linked and our hair flows long and lush. We smile big for the cameras and raise our voices in song.

  Always is always forever

  Is one is one is one

  Inside yourself for your father

  All is one all is one all is none

  We sing for all those girls outside, who we love. For our daddies hiding behind their newspapers, our mommies crying over burnt meatloaf. For all the square-eyed people watching us on television. Until the whole world knows we’re not afraid, we’ll keep singing.

  Jan

  Cam gives me the box on the night of our three-month anniversary, parked out in the woods in his red pickup. It’s a small box made of cedar, just the size to keep jewellery or photographs. Two brass hinges on the inside and a frilly brass lock on the outside. So polished the moon dances in its red wood.

  ‘See how dark it is, honey?’ Cam runs his huge hands along it and there’s no more moon, just shadows. ‘That’s the best stuff. Heartwood. I saw it at work and thought of you.’

  Cam works at the lumber mill. So do his dad and his brother Dex. All three of them tall men, shy of their height, with shaggy blond hair and small features bunched in the middle of their faces. I like to look at Cam’s dad sometimes and pretend I’m looking at Cam in twenty years.

  ‘Oh, Cam.’ I look down. Already my glasses are fogging. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

  His lips curl upward and then they’re pushing against mine, giving me a sick, fizzy feeling deep in my stomach. Three months and I still don’t know what Cam’s doing with me, how he can stand looking at my pudgy nose and frizzy hair and the rosy acne on my cheeks, let alone kissing me.

  After a while, Cam puts his hand under my blouse and leaves it there. I can hear a creek trickling in the dark and a nightjar churring somewhere in the bushes. My heart beating in the middle of these woods, louder than anything.

  Cam’s favourite movies are scary and his favourite holiday is Halloween. He says he likes the costumes, the hoods and masks especially, and the way everyone gets to spend the night being someone else. I can’t help wondering if he’d still like these things so much if he knew about the secrets I’m hiding.

  The first time it happened, I thought it was beautiful. There was this shimmering on the air and a ringing in my ears like church bells, only just for me. Mom and Lisa were peeling potatoes at the counter with me, but it was like I was looking down on them from heaven. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor with a taste of blood in my mouth and my whole family standing around me.

  Their eyes said it all: Jan’s got the Devil in her.

  I never know when the Devil is going to show up: if I’ll be at my school desk or watching cartoons in the den or picking apples out back in the orchard. But he never shows when I’m with Cam, not even on Halloween or the night we go to see The Exorcist. Watching that demon girl shaking on screen, I wait for the worst. Then Cam gives me his hand.

  One Wednesday after school, I go downtown with Mom and Lisa to get my eyes tested. Mrs Kimble said I probably need a new prescription, since I’m having trouble seeing the board. I guess she’s right, but my eyes still work well enough to see the look Mom gives Lisa when the doctor reads my results.

  I’ve been secretly wishing for a new pair of glasses, maybe some with pink frames or coloured lenses. But Mom just tells them to set the thick new lenses in my old wire frames, and I walk out looking uglier than ever.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re grateful, Jan,’ Mom gripes. ‘I paid through the nose for those lenses.’

  ‘She’ll have to bring home Bs from now on!’ Lisa says.

  Mom and Lisa think this is a riot, I guess because even in their wildest dreams, I’m only a B student. Not like Lisa, who’s so good at everything my parents wanted her to go the secretary school instead of marrying Bobby Norton. Now her and Bobby have a little house of their own on Pine Street, and Lisa is expecting.

  I walk behind them toward Lisa’s car, parked across from the post office. Her legs turn out in a funny way and the veins look pretty, bright-green against her white skin. I’m concentrating so hard on Lisa’s veins I don’t see anything else and almost bump into her when she halts in front of me.

  ‘Is that Cameron?’ She points across the street. ‘Coming out of the post office?’

  I crane my neck. Sure enough, there he is, walking out with a brown-paper package and a solemn look on his face. He glances around, but he doesn’t seem to see us. Then he slips the package under his jacket and puts his head down, like he’s going out in a storm without an umbrella.

  ‘Such a serious young man,’ my mom says.

  I don’t know why, but the air starts shimmering then.

  Cam doesn’t say anything about my glasses when we next meet, and I don’t say anything about seeing him downtown. He buys me a root beer and drives us to a part of the woods where the sun’s already set. I feel my stomach fizzing as we pull off the dirt track.

  ‘Cam?’ My voice is a stupid squeak. ‘Cam, I need to tell you something …’

  And just like that, it all spills out of me: about the fits, about the church bells in my ears, about the looks my family give me and all the money I’m costing them. I tell him that he shouldn’t be with me, that there’s too much wrong with me. He’s quiet through all of it, one big hand still on the wheel. I hiccup and my glasses fall off my face, right onto the floor of the pickup.

  ‘Oh, Cam! Oh, I’m sorry!’

  It’s so dark, and my eyes so blurry, I have to dig between my knees to find them. Still Cam doesn’t say anything. Scary pictures flash through my head: Cam booting me out of the truck, Cam driving off, Cam leaving me alone in the woods all night. Then I feel his big hands reaching through the dark, wiping my tears.

  ‘Shhh, honey. Shhh. Come here.’

  In his arms, my body judders like a chainsaw. He keeps shushing me as I breathe in salty gulps. After a while, all that’s left for him to shush are wet sounds. I swallow a lump of spit. I sniff against his shirtfront. His plaid smells like woodchips and something sweet, maybe resin or cologne.

  ‘I’ll make you better,’ Cam says. ‘I’ll make it all better.’

  Lisa’s baby has just started kicking. She shows me one evening when I’m over at her house, getting help with my homework while she does macramé. Doing macramé is just about Lisa’s favourite thing now that she’s pregnant. She’s made macramé clothes for the baby, and macramé blankets, and even a macramé cradle swing. I want her to teach me, but she says I have to do my math homework first. Knowing me, I’d probably mess it up anyway.

  I’m trying to figure out a problem, something about a farmer with ten Thanksgiving turkeys, when Lisa makes a funny sound behind me. ‘Ouf!’ She grabs her belly. ‘So
meone just woke up in a bad mood!’

  ‘Who?’

  She stares at me like I’m stupid and keeps rubbing her belly until I realise she means the baby. I put down my homework and scooch up to the sofa. It’s quiet for a while. Then Lisa laughs softly and puts my hands on the swelling under her paisley dress.

  ‘Feel him?’ she asks.

  There’s a rippling beneath my palms, like water in a creek.

  ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  Across the room, the clock chimes seven. Lisa smiles and picks up her macramé again, tells me Bobby will be home any minute. I think of Cam when she says that, how he’d look coming through the door of a house just like this one, and it’s a nice thought.

  Something funny happens to Cam about the third time we make love. Not ha-ha funny, but the other kind, where my face gets hot and the back of my eyes start stinging. He rubs himself, but nothing happens. He cusses. He draws his big, long body away from mine.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cam …’ I start.

  I don’t know why but that makes him cuss again. Then he looks down at my stupid fat chest and laughs, a mean sound like a bark. I cover myself and he sits up, picks my glasses up from the dashboard. For a minute, I think he’s going to do something cruel like snap them or toss them out the window. But he doesn’t.

  ‘Are you really sorry, Jan?’ Cam says, his voice like clouds scudding over the moon.

  ‘Yes, of course!’

  ‘Maybe you can do something for me then.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  I do what he says, even though it gives me goosebumps. He clicks open the glove compartment and takes something out of it, dumps it in my lap. Then he fixes my glasses over my eyes.

  ‘Open up, honey.’

  There’s a magazine open to a picture of a naked lady tied up with something around her mouth. Her eyes look big, and her private parts are all on show like a skinned rabbit. Cam turns the page and there’s another lady tied up, this time on her knees with her rear-end facing the camera. Next, a lady hanging with her arms over her head and her hair falling over her face. She looks different from the others, a bit like those pictures of Jesus being killed.