Page 27

It’s funny to think about having too much pride when you’re gnawing on a possum leg, but maybe that’s what my issue was, in the end. Because after a while I started to feel the weight of those clothes on my back, every friendship I made a debt that was owed. Also, I tried to put on a pair of pantyhose and it didn’t go too well.

Someone gave me a pair, along with a jean skirt that I figured I could wear without feeling too awkward, since it was denim after all. But the pantyhose were giving me problems that morning. I’d never had a pair on in my life and didn’t know a thing about all the pinching and pulling and shimmying; Meredith taught me those things later. At that time, I was twelve and thought everything worked like cotton undies or jeans, you just stepped in and pulled up.

That theory was failing me, and the nylons were winning the battle when I lost my balance and pitched over in the tiny bathroom of our trailer, smacking my face against the wall and getting the edge of the towel rod jammed into my hip. I said a word my ride wouldn’t have approved of and glanced out the window to see her pulling in. I couldn’t go without the hose because I didn’t have any clean underwear, Dad was snoring away in his room and wouldn’t have been any help anyway, not for pantyhose.

So I kept pulling and pulling and put my fingers right through the damn things, sending a runner from hip to toenail. My ride tapped the horn—once, politely—and I said another bad word, although I admit that one might have been directed at her and not my clothing. At that point I was crying with frustration and didn’t know what to do. I was too embarrassed to waddle to the door and wave her on, and I couldn’t get the damn things off either, so I just sat on the floor in the bathroom, defeated by a piece of women’s clothing no one had ever taught me to put on, and waited for my ride to give up and go away.

She did, eventually, but showed up again the next week. I’d been told often enough by both my dad and Jesus that lying was a bad thing, so I didn’t have the nerve to tell her I’d been sick and wasn’t about to admit to the truth. So I did the easy thing, covered my head with the blanket and waited for her to go away. She was persistent, even coming up to the door by the end of the month but going away in a hurry when Dad answered in his undies.

Eventually her honking on the horn made the neighbors in the next trailer take a potshot at her with a .22 one morning and that was the final straw. I never went to church again and burned those pantyhose in the barrel out back first chance I got. I can’t say I missed it, but there was something that stuck with me.

They were pretty big on Psalm 23, the one about the Lord being your shepherd and making you lie down in green pastures and not being afraid to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, which I admit would be a nice backup to have right about now.

But my eyes always wandered over to Psalm 22 instead. While everyone else was reciting the reassuring stuff, I read about real shit going down, the way my life actually was. I can recite it, even now.

“‘Be not far from me,’” I say. “‘For trouble is near and there is no one to help.’”

I don’t know if I’m saying it because I think there might actually be a God to listen or if I’m just distracting myself, but I lick the possum grease off my lips and keep going.

“‘Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me.’”

That hasn’t quite happened yet, but at this rate nothing would be surprising.

“‘I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me.’”

That last bit of oxy is still swimming in my veins, and while I don’t think that’s quite what the Bible was talking about when it comes to being poured out like water, it sure does feel similar. My voice quavers when I think about my heart melting within me and the sound Duke made when he took his pleasure with Natalie under the light of the moon.

“‘My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.’”

The first bit couldn’t be truer; I’m hoping the last is just symbolic.

“‘Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.’”

What’s left of my feet anyway. I don’t know how much more piercing I can take.

“‘All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me.’”

That’s truer than I care to admit, but if there were anyone to stare, my situation would be a lot better off and I’d let them go ahead and gloat.

“‘They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.’”

Between all the strips torn off my shirt I went ahead and did the dividing myself, and anybody is welcome to my jeans if they drive me to the hospital first.

“‘But you, LORD, be not far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me.’”

The sooner the better.

Day Nine

I put away what’s left of the possum in the morning, afraid it’ll go bad if I wait much longer. It goes down easy, my stomach understanding its purpose. I know this means I’ll be in that much more pain if I begin the process of starving again, but I can only hope that’s not in store for me.

I stick my empty Baggies in one pocket and the one with something left in it—one oxy—in the other. My bad foot is still swollen, but the wound looks as clean as I can expect it to. I put some plastic over it and pop it back in the sling, adjust my walking stick under my armpit and set out once more.

I keep thinking there’s got to be an end to this, that we’ve obliterated so much of our natural habitat that sooner or later I’m going to stumble across a road, an ATV trail, a natural-gas operation . . . something. People have never been decent about leaving nature alone, tearing into her with machines of metal teeth and money-hungry mouths. How many times did I have to pull to the side to let a gas truck pass me, the little road that led to my house too small for the both of us?

A lot, that’s how many. And I cussed them every time, getting to the point where I think the guys got a kick out of me giving them the finger and started using my road more often just to see me go off on them from behind the steering wheel. Dad always said if I didn’t give people such a reaction they’d stop giving me so much shit.

Still, I’d be all right with seeing a company truck right now. Like maybe I wouldn’t even cuss them. But I can’t find a walking trail, let alone a road, so I don’t see that anywhere in my immediate future.