10. Trina
TEN
TRINA
I pounce on Crash’s phone at the first ring.
“Hello? Crash, is that you?”
He must have got a phone somewhere to call me and let me know it’s alright.
But it’s a woman’s voice that answers in surprise, “You’re not Crash.”
“Um, this is Crash’s phone,” I say. In a very different voice. Could this be his wife? What will I say?
“You must be the wife,” the woman sighs.
“This is Trina. His friend. ”
“Wait. Hold on a minute,” the woman says, suddenly screaming in joy. “Hold on! You mean, Trina Whiteleaf?”
The phone is frozen to my ear. I don’t say anything.
“ AHAHA! I thought it was a rumor. Everybody said you ran off with some tall-walkin’ man from Virginia with a nice butt. There’s only one man I know that fits that description, and it’s the one who gave me this number.”
I’m speechless. The woman on the other end is definitely not. “Are you the same bitch that grew those pumpkins? Girl everyone is talking about you,” she chuckles.
“They were Turk’s Turban Squashes,” I say tightly. “And I don’t know who you’re calling a bitch but it can’t be me.”
“Oh my God! This is just too funny.”
“So…you’re from Tippalonga?”
“Of course. Trina Whiteleaf. Who would have thought you’d bounce from your own wedding and run off with a hunk like that.” She suddenly inhales. “Oh, I get it. He told me he was married…Ahhhh! Did you skip your own wedding to marry Crash ?”
“No! That’s not true at all!”
“I don’t believe this. So how did you meet him? Was it online?”
“I–”
“Which app was it? FuckFriend? SugarMeDaddy? Beesting?”
“Excuse me, I don’t understand a word you are saying. App? You mean like– on the phone?”
“Oh my God. Look, you have got good taste, babygirl. Crash is probably the best looking man to ever blow down our stretch, and you can take that from me.”
“Who in the world is this?” I demand, irritated.
“This is Jada. Crash’s friend,” the woman says, putting an emphasis on friend.
Something clicks in my mind. “ Jada Gambino ?”
“Yes, the one and only,” Jada confirms with another annoying laugh.
What does this tramp want with Crash?
“Miss Gambino, you might want to know that Crash—”
Crash is what? Taken? By who? Me?
“Jada, girl. Just call me Jada,” says Jada. Her voice unexpectedly gets down to business as she says, “Look, if Crash isn’t there can you give him a message? Tell him that yesterday they arrested the redheaded fella he was looking for.”
“Um,” I say. “Okay.”
“I heard the man got in a fight with some racist biker guys. Defending his girl or something. They have him down at the jailhouse, okay?”
Redhead fella? Jailhouse?
“What does Crash want with this man?” I ask her. “Who is he?”
“Don’t know, babygirl, you’ll have to ask him yourself. Hey, by the way, woman to woman? Can I tell you something?.”
I brace myself, annoyance already turning into wounded rage. I didn’t know Crash and Tippalonga’s biggest floozy had a history.
But Jada just says, “You better not show up around town for a while. Maybe never. The Reverend has everybody lookin’ out for you, Trina Whiteleaf. One of my customers who’s buddy with him told me that Reverend Wilson said if he ever got his hands on you he’d wring your neck like a wild turkey.”
Oh.
“Thanks for the warning,” I say awkwardly. “Um— I appreciate that.”
“De nada,” Jada says. “I used to run off all the time. My first pimp? Bastard. But take my advice again, and don’t come back to Tippalonga. It’s the greatest town in the world, but you can’t ever leave…Wasn’t there a song like that? Hmmm.”
I heard a lot about Jada Gambino but maybe she’s not so bad.
“Thank you for calling, Jada,” I say. “I’ll pass the message on to Crash.”
I feel a sudden stab of premonition. Wherever he is.
“One more thing,” Jada pipes up quickly. “I really need to know. What was the app ?”
“The app again?”
“Do they have more like him? Black ones? Koreans?”
“Crash just gave me a ride out of town. We didn’t know each other before and I was not having an affair with him.”
“Bullshit,” she accuses.
“I haven’t slept with him. It’s the truth.”
“Are you serious?!”
Well. Maybe I didn’t have sex with Crash last night, but all that feeling and touching and sucking was definitely a sin.
“Don’t say you’re still a virgin .”
“I am,” I say proudly. I should be proud, not disappointed, that I didn’t give my virtue to a perfect stranger last night. Where are my morals?
I bite my lip. Crash had more control than you. He was honorable. You were the temptress leading him to the forbidden fruit.
“Girl if you don’t suck that man’s dick at least, you’re wasting a perfectly good man. And a perfectly good dick,” Jada tells me.
A perfectly good dick. And I’m angry again. “You saw his— his member ?”
“His member! A-ha-ha-ha! I flashed him my titties and popped a stiff. You know what I mean? He didn’t take it out of his jeans though. So you have nothing to worry about. Although with that size, maybe you do.”
“He’s an honorable man.” I don’t know what her game is but I won’t let her talk disrespectfully about Crash. And I don’t like her insinuation that me and Crash are having an affair, because that’s not what’s happening.
Guilt tightens in my chest. That’s not what’s happening at all.
“Aren’t you worried about his wife?” Jada asks slyly. It’s like she read my mind. I burst out, “That woman? They’re separated. It’s not my business anyway, or yours.”
“Ha! Ha ha! Okay church girl. If you say so.”
“Goodbye, Miss Jada.”
“Take care, Miss Whiteleaf. I got to go give Mister Ripley a titjob. Tell Crash I wish it was him. Ha ha ha ! Just kidding. Just playing.”
“Wait— what’s a tit job?”
“When he rubs his dick on your titties. Men love that.”
“Really?” Why did you ask that?
“Yup. And it’s technically not fucking so you won’t go to hell,” she adds.
I appreciate the suggestion but I don’t think that’s true at all.
“Jada?”
“Yeah, Miss Trina Whiteleaf?”
“It’s not true what people say about you. I’m sorry I ever believed them. Thanks for your advice.”
“You’re welcome. Aren’t you sweet?”
“Consider turning to the Lord,” I add, but she’s already hung up.
I pace around the room. Crash left without a word. He took his keys, his boots, but left both his cellphones here. He even left some money in his jacket on the nightstand. Maybe he didn’t think he’d be gone long. It’s already ten o’ clock in the morning. Surely he would be back by now if it was just a quick trip to the store. What’s holding him up?
What Jada just told me only raises more questions. Crash said he came out to Oklahoma for a job. Apparently he was looking for somebody— a redheaded man. Why? I don’t know.
I try to break into Crash’s phone, the one that just rang, but it’s locked tight with his Face ID and everything. The most I can do is answer it when it rings.
And it does ring again, a half hour later.
And it’s Jada, again.
“Hello?”
“Babygirl,” she says in a very different tone from before. There’s no humor in her voice at all. “I just heard something on the grapevine and I thought I had better call you.”
“What is it?”
It’s Crash. Something’s happened to Crash.
“My pimp, Crocodile? He just got caught up on some unpaid parking tickets and they locked him up in the jailhouse. It’s a setup— my man did nothing wrong.”
“Okay, but what happened?”
“Right. Well Crocodile just told me they brought a man in from Virginia. His head’s all fucked up.”
I clutch my chest. “Are you sure? Are you sure that’s him? It’s not the— the redheaded man?”
“No, it’s your man, baby. Black curly hair? Pretty eyes? That’s him. I’m sorry,” Jada says. “I don’t know what happened but I heard he’s in bad shape. That’s all I can tell you. I’m going over there to get Crocodile the bail money, you want me to slip a message for your man?”
A message to tell him what? That I’m on my way? That I’m sorry?
“Tell him— tell him to hold on.”
I hang up the phone and start throwing everything in Crash’s duffel bag. I already know he took his car, which means I have no way to get to Tippalonga. I also don’t have a plan. What I do have is my jewelry, three Walmart sweatsuits, and a whole lot of Budgie’s Favorite birdseed. Plus Crash’s two cell phones: the burner with nothing on it, and the one that’s locked up tighter than a flea’s wallet as our driver Charles would say.
I remove the celibacy book from the duffel.
And kick it under the bed.
Hauling the much lighter bag, I quit the motel and hike myself to the main road. The sun is blazing. I don’t care what Crash says, this place is very different from Tippalonga. They don’t even have a Dairy Queen which is unbelievable.
I wait by the overpass for a long time, twisting my hands together. I hope Crash is okay. I’m so worried.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
And then a rumble in the distance grows, and the black dot takes the shape of a tall man on a motorcycle. Something Jada told me earlier comes to mind. The Redhead Man got arrested for fighting racist bikers.
Bikers like the man who held me up in the store and said those crazy things.
I tense.
The bike zooms past and the road stays empty after him.
For a long, looooong time.
Just a few hours ago I was laying in Crash’s arms, listening to his strong heartbeat through his shirt. His arms held me and the whole time he stroked and stroked my hair, his fingers separating the curls.
“My darlin’,” he murmured, clearly thinking I was still asleep. I was– almost. His rumbling accent was like medicine. “All pretty and sweet. If I just had the chance…There’s no use wishing, is there?”
I had never laid with anybody like that in all my life. To do it with a man was nicer than anything I ever felt. Not any man, but the one I guess I had a crush on. Just to feel him solid and strong and warm beneath me. The feeling of being protected. Like he cared for me. He couldn’t be holding me like this and not care for me.
“I’m too broken for you, sugar,” he said real quiet into my hair.
I didn’t make a sound or give any sign I heard him. A tear leaked from my eye as I laid real still on his broad chest, listening to his deep breaths and the powerful beat of his heart. He was so deliciously warm and real and amazing. I didn’t think he was too broken for me. At least he had something to break. I had nothing. I was a speck of sand.
“You deserve better,” he said.
I wish I had picked my head up and told him it wasn’t true. But it seemed in that moment, laying up against him, I saw Crash more clearly than ever. I saw that if I shared my own feelings he would pull back. While I was safe in dreamland, he could whisper these tender things. To acknowledge the words in reality would be impossible. And I understood that he was a good man, but he was bound by duty and words of honor that he’d made before he ever met me. He would never let himself chase me because it went against his code.
Which was the devil of it. I wanted to cling to him even harder, because he was a man of principle. But I could do nothing for that same reason— I couldn’t make him a sinner like me.
Why did he run off in the middle of the night like he was ashamed?
He left for the redheaded man.All the shame is yours.
Crash is on a mission. A mission that has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with getting money for his custody case. While I’m here crying about myself, Crash is focused on #1— and on doing right by his baby. It’s not all about me.
If you don’t have Crash, what do you have?
He’s not on your team.
Look out for yourself.
And then the last treacherous thought hits me like a runaway train.
I could just go to California now.
Right now.
Thanks to Crash I have everything I need: money ($300 cash), clothes, and finally a cellphone.
Once I get to LA it won’t be that hard to find Mamie. You can find people anywhere. In Unsolved Mysteries they mentioned private detectives. I could get one myself. I’d stay in a hotel until they find her — not a Holiday Inn, but a small place like this one.
The idea is crazy, insane, foolish, but it takes hold of me and starts growing rapidly into a plan.
First I need to get out of Oklahoma. Number one. If I can do that, I can make it to California. The only way to get there is the road. I’ll hitchhike. I’ll hitchhike to a bus route. Or if I’m bold, all the way .
Sleeping at motels. Eating at gas stations. And so I don’t end up on Unsolved Mysteries , I could only take rides from women.
I’m sure there have to be some women driving on this road.
It’s a plan. A bad one, but still a plan.
My heart fills with triumph and hope. California . A place I always heard was the Great Babylon.
“You can be anything you want to be here,” Mamie said when I went to visit her. “You don’t have to go back.”
Why did I ever go back?
I picture drinking sweet tea on Mamie’s porch. Planting in her garden— she told me I could plant anything except “the herb”. I’d plant begonias and sunflowers, orange trees, and succulents.
Except for one big problem.
I don’t know where she lives.
“Population size of Los Angeles” says thirteen million people live there. Where will I stay while I look for her? If only I could remember anything.
A bird flies overhead; the only other sign of life I see out here besides the flies. Crash would know what it is.
Loyolooooo . Loyolaaaa.
Loyola. Loyola Marymount.
I remember Mamie told me she bought a property close to that school. It’s a private university with a variety of programs. I could do anything from film to law over there.
I would love to go back to school.
I could apply there and live with her at that house on Lincoln Street.
Like a fish leaping out of dark water, the memory breaches into my head with glittering clarity.
1174 Lincoln.
That’s what Mamie said before Mama pulled the phone out of my hand. Everything `that happened after that — nearly getting run over by a train, nearly getting run over by Crash, Crash punching the Reverend, what I watched on the motel TV, kissing Crash, letting him take off my shirt and put my nipples in his mouth, letting him… focus, Trina!
1174 Lincoln. And I just remembered the other clue, which was that she was moving close to Loyola Marymount University, established 1865.
Oh my God.
Hands shaking, I take the unlocked cellphone Crash gave me and frantically find the “MAPS” app. Jada said they made apps for finding men? Noted.
I draw up Los Angeles and type in the street address 1174 Lincoln, fingers shaking so bad I can barely hit the buttons.
1174 Lincoln Street, about a mile from Loyola Marymount University.
STREET VIEW.
I’m looking at Mamie’s house.
“Oh my God,” I scream into the empty nothing of the road.
I know where Mamie lives. And if I know, then I can get there. I have FAITH that I can get there.
Having a life. Having freedom –- learning .
Never, ever coming back to Tippalonga.
For so long I was a good daughter who obeyed. But now I’m choosing me. I’m going to California and I’m going to squeeze every drop out of life that I can.
Freedom.
But as I face the road again, my happiness crashes into reality.
Crash.
He’s out there somewhere, hurt.
You can’t go back. You said you’d never go back.
I know what will happen if Crash stays in Tippalonga. The Reverend will kill him.
You can’t go back.
He’d do it for me.
NO!
Feeling my elation turn to horror is like leaping for joy to find the ground under you has disappeared. It’s a long fall I take all the way to the hard unyielding truth. In numb disappointment I turn West to California. The vast red distance where my freedom waits. Where Mamie waits. My whole life ahead of me.
God, please send another sign. Tell me what to do!
But there’s nothing but the flies and the dirt and the burning sun.
Nothing but me.
And the tumbleweed, too.
I turn myself towards Tippalonga.
The decision rises like bile in my throat. But I know what I’m choosing. It’s the right thing to do.
Crash is no dream, but flesh and blood. He saved me when I had nobody else, he fought for me and protected me. A life for a life.
“Nothing will be impossible with God ,” I mutter. “Nothing…”
As I wait, a cloud in the distance grows. I put my thumb out, then drop it in a hurry.
Oh, no.
The motorcycle doesn’t follow my silent plea to turn in the other direction. It comes to a dusty stop in front of me. For a fairytale moment I imagine it’s Crash. But it’s not.
It’s the very same biker man Crash knocked out when he didn’t pay for his coffee.
“Well,” the man says. I’m in danger more than ever right now but this time I look him straight on. I see two chips of green ice where his eyes should be, a scarred but not bad looking face. Easy to describe to the police.
“Thought I recognized you, honeypot,” he says. “Where’s your man?”
Fear and panic bind me to the spot. There’s no one on this road but me.
“I don’t wish to speak to you right now,” I tell him firmly.
He cracks up, like Jada did when I said member . I hate him. He’s disgusting and unwashed. He leans forward, his evil eyes enjoying my fear. “Where’d you say he was?”
“He’s — he’s around.”
“Oh? Maybe I’ll keep you company until he gets back.”
“No thank you,” I snap.
I don’t have a weapon. Crash took all his guns.
All humor drops from the man’s voice and he starts to get off the bike. “Maybe you ought to rephrase that.”
“It means, fuck off!” I scream.
Thankfully another car comes blazing up the road. We both turn to squint at it.
“Not again,” the biker curses.
The car stops alongside us. It’s black, a sports car. The plates say NEVADA. A black lady around my age is sitting in the drivers’ seat. “Is he bothering you?” the woman hollers to me. And she looks…familiar?
That’s good enough for me. I bolt towards her car, and the biker makes a motion like he’s going to stop me, but there’s a click and suddenly he stops dead.
The lady has a gun on him.
“Keep it moving,” she tells him, stone cold.
“You bitch– you better hope we don’t catch you or that redhead fuck in Cimarron County or it’s your life.”
“Tell it to your Mama,” the woman replies fearlessly, and watches Mister Biker ride off, her face feral as a mountain lion.
It’s only later I realize what redhead fuck meant. But for the moment…
The woman’s face is round like an apple and she has kind eyes now, not pits of fire and fury. I open the passenger’s door.
She’s already set down the gun. “Are you alright?” she asks with genuine concern. “They got some real fucked-up people around here! I swear to God!”
I ignore her blasphemy because she definitely just saved my butt.
“Thank you so much, sister. I’m fine, just rattled some. Are you going to Tippalonga?” I say in one breath.
“Unfortunately yes,” the woman says. “You’re not weird or nothing, right?”
Her accent isn’t local.
She sounds…like Crash.
And she looks familiar. Where do I know her?
“I just really need to get back there today.”
“Come on in. I have my baby in the backseat so no funny shit, okay? I wouldn’t have stopped but I recognized you and I know you ain’t the type to be entertaining that bastard. Those men freak me the hell out. They’ve been harassing my husband and I for days.”
“Thank you so much.”
The inside of the car smells like spiced bread. It’s a sports car like Crash’s, but newer.
I turn and see the cutest baby ever buckled into a brand new car seat in the back. Thank God that standoff didn’t turn for the worse, and Thank God this nice lady decided to stop and defend me even with her baby back there. Good people still live in this world.
The baby is cute as a button. She has reddish brown hair and tanned skin and a little apple face like her Mama. The daddy must be white. If Crash and I had a baby she might look like that.
A day ago I would let myself fantasize.
But it’s never happening.
So I don’t.
“Ah, ah!” The baby shakes a stuffed pig at me, kicking with her feet.
“She’s so cute,” I sigh.
“Her name is Skyla. Do I know you from somewhere, girl?”
“I don’t think so,” I frown. “But I swear I know you too.”
“Huh,” we say at the same time. We laugh, but not for long. Her heart is troubled just like mine.
“My name is Dee,” she says.
“I’m Trina.”
“Trina? Why is that familiar ?” Dee shakes her head, sending her locs swinging back and forth. I’ve never been up close to locs before. I have to ask her how she does them.
“I must be imagining things,” Dee said. “I’m not from these parts and I haven’t had a clear thought in days. Anyway, where are you going in Tippalonga? As long as it’s not too far… I’m kind of in a hurry.”
I take a deep breath. “You can just drop me off at the jailhouse.”
“Really?”
“Yes, that’s where I’m going.”
“What a coincidence,” says Dee. “I’m headed there too.”