Page 2 of Road Refugees

Splat. I was nose-deep in Orson’s repugnant chest.

Twice in one day? Why me? Why not Tabitha? Should I have been cooking? Was that it? He didn’t want to take Tabitha away from cooking. Oh, good God in an evil world. He grabbed on and wrenched my bad shoulder.

“Need one of these?” He shoved a squat glass in my face. Without waiting for a reply, he pushed me back into the sunroom. Orson Ream was a high priest, the owner of two construction outfits, and had the requisite three wives to obtain the highest level of heaven. He had wanted his third to be a teenager—our Prophet decreed he’d had a revelation telling him so. But the mother refused, and fled with the girl to a nearby town, Avalanche, a place discussed in code language because it seemed to offer hope to the downtrodden.

Grabbing the bottle, Orson glugged a good three fingers’ worth of booze into the glass. With a sneer he reached inside his vest pocket. I knew what he was going for. Chloral hydrate. A “Mickey Finn” they used to call them. He glopped another blob of the tangerine syrup into the brandy.

“Heh.” Yes, he said that aloud! “Here’s your cocktail, my servant. Drink up.”

“The whole thing?” That was too much even for me.

“The whole thing. Your tolerance is up. It takes more and more to turn you into Nurse Judy.”

Orson liked Nurse Judy. I only discovered I played her when I came to one night and found a stethoscope and a speculum on the ground. He admitted it with a chuckle and told me Nurse Judy “sure likes her pelvic exams.” I was so sore I bled all night onto my sheets. When Doctor Higbee arrived two weeks later, I needed surgery to correct the problems.

Now? I no longer cared what happened to me.

For the umpteenth time, I gulped the fiery liquid. My eyes watered and the pit of my stomach resisted when it hit, but I got it all down. The sooner I turned into Judy the better.

To pass the time, I asked, “What is the announcement you’re to make at dinner?”

Chip was trying to get in between us. Orson might be a wife beater, nasty to the core and mean as a wolverine, but he did love his dogs. He patted Chip’s ears.

“Oh. That.” Orson migrated to the windows. The setting sun cast a golden glow over his silhouette, almost a religious sign I was glad he didn’t see. People said he looked like Steve Buscemi, the actor. I thought Buscemi was much too good a person to make that comparison. “I’m to take a fifth wife.”

My heart leaped with hope. A new wife! Maybe Orson would fixate on a new servant!

But just as swiftly as this thought flitted through my mind, it left. Orson often said I was the one true wife who “pleasured” him with God’s approval. My sister-wives even agreed that he singled me out, though I was no longer the youngest. When Tabitha arrived, my hope rose. Now I knew better. Tabitha just spit out child after child, while I remained barren. Perhaps that’s what Orson liked about me.

“Oh.” I proclaimed dully. “That will be nice to have more help around the house. Can I get help with the chickens?”

Orson turned to me with that fixated, determined look. “We shall see. Nurse Judy, would you like Doctor Ream to give you an exam?”

“Why, yes,” I said woodenly. I took deep breaths to hurry the medicine along its course. “Doctor Ream is the most thorough doctor around.”

He approached me, slapping a silvery thing into his palm with relish. The hypnotic effects of the chloral hydrate disabled me from clearly seeing what the implement was. Yes. My head swam as though ocean waves washed through it. That stuff worked fast. I wanted to sit on the chaise, but I knew he’d want me on the floor, which was covered with a painful wicker rug. My, we are resourceful people. I sure wish I was with the chickens right now.

“Yes,” hissed Orson, backing me up against the wall. His breath oozed the repulsive vodka I loathed so much. Forgoing all fanfare, he lifted my voluminous skirts with one hand. He crunched the thick fabric into his fist and slicked a few fingers across my gash, ensuring I wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Ooh. Nurse Judy must’ve been expecting me. You’re so wet.”

Was I? Was I wet? Why? He must’ve been lying, but it was becoming difficult to tell fact from fiction. “Yes. Just thinking about you made me that way.” Could he never tell how apathetic I was? Didn’t it matter to his fantasy? When I squeezed my eyes shut, a shimmering world of colors awaited me. Oh, yes. Maybe I should steal the Mickey Finn bottle and do this all the time.

I gasped when Orson shoved my bad shoulder, forcing me around to face the wall. He cried, “But I want it sunny side up today!” And unceremoniously shoved the dry metallic thing up my back door.

The searing pain wrenched me from my fantasy. I wanted nothing more than to black out, to become Nurse Judy again. Where was she when I needed her? Chip whined on the edges of my awareness. Did he object to my treatment, or did he think it normal by now? Orson groped my bosom through the cloth.

“Oh, yeah!” he trilled. And he tore at the apron covering my chest. “Big boobies! What a great rack. Doctor Ream wants to give Nurse Judy an enema!”

How many of those aprons had I repaired? Why didn’t I just sew a flap that could be buttoned? It wasn’t that difficult to replace a few buttons.

I had memories of the outside, of growing up in St. George. I hadn’t been sent to Cornucopia until I was eighteen. My brother Arkie and I would play with remote control dune buggies out in the sand. Later on, I would date boys. We were of a strict Mormon vein, and when I appeared, sobbing and pregnant? That was too much. So, after the cleansing of the baby, I was sent to Orson Ream.

You know, sometimes we try so hard to hear the voice in the tornado that we don’t see the sun in the east. We sit here waiting for a message, while all around us the world has been magically remade.

That is what I was doing while Orson Ream, well, reamed me with that metal object and made blasphemous cries. One thought sliced into my brain, like the rising sun.

I’m going to find Arkie.

I’m going to find Arkie.

I’m leaving here and finding Arkie.

I’ll sneak out of here and find Arkie.

Then the scorching pain in my anus reached its apex. That’s when I must’ve blacked out. Turned into Nurse Judy.

The last thing I felt was Chip licking my knee.