Chapter 6 #2
And lookathere. A Life magazine flies off the shelf like a bird in my hand.
I slip it up my long dress and down in my underpants.
At the top of the mailbag, I also see a letter, addressed to Resident: Dorella Pratt.
I could trade this for cornbread for a damn week!
I snatch it and smooth my dress down quick and slip on out of there.
But all a sudden Little Ella Jane and another toddler run out into the hall screaming, and Miss Frances chases after them. She stops when she sees me.
Young lady, you know you’re not supposed to be in there! she says.
And then here comes the Fatass next, hands on her hips. You get out of there, missy! What do you think you’re doing—
What? What did she do? Miss Garnett says, walking up and oh she looks excited. Now it is the Big Phony, the Fatass, and the Asskisser out here with two toddlers running around loose in the hall.
My heart tries to whack its way out my chest. I will get damn twenty belt licks for this.
I got the urge to touch my middle where the things are tucked, but I think about my mama’s lying lesson.
So I say, I was just trying to collect those toddlers you got running around loose!
and I give Miss Frances a stern look. Running around like a bunch of wild Indians.
Miss Frances runs to catch the little girls heading for the kitchen, but Miss Garnett stands there and gives me a hard, long look. I walk myself to the office, praying the goods don’t fall out my underpants.
After I ease down in my chair, I hold my breath and wait, my heart beating hard in my ears. I stare ahead, but nobody comes in after me. When everyone is gone from the hall, I stick the letter and magazine in the desk drawer and cover them up.
Soon as I am very sure the coast is clear, I ease out the Life.
Finally, finally, I got something to damn read, Lord, I am starving for it.
On the front is a drawing of a woman in a short tawdry white getup examining a doll wearing a long dress and bonnet.
On the side is wrote A Century of Progress.
Which I do not find very interesting but when I open it, it is like a gold mine inside: There is Tarzan the ape man, the World’s Fair in Chicago, Sinbad the cartoon boy, something long and boring about the Democratic Party, though they do not seem to be having much fun at that party.
And advertisements: Electrolux! Dial radio!
A personal deodorant called Shun. Whoever named that ought to get fired.
A man in a hospital bed smoking a Camel cigarette.
His dark-headed nurse looks a little like my mama.
I turn pages, gulping up the big words, bending to see the little ones.
If there is so much as a rat scratch in the wall, I stare straight ahead at the boarded-up window like one of those retard children. Just ole Nutmeg staring again, nothing to see in here.
You should see how the day flies. The world is right here in my lap.
I lose myself a good two hours reading about a fat baseball player named Babe Ruth, the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, something awful a lady has to watch out for called halitosis.
I wish I could show that to Miss Garnett.
By lunch, I have not even had time to talk to a pretend person or fall asleep drooling.
I feel like I am living a actual life like a actual person again.
They even got a thing you plug in the wall and it cools off the house.
Someone must have invented that damn machine while I was in here sweating.
Six dollars gets you a airplane ticket to Memphis, twelve dollars gets you a mink stole.
Toward the end I turn to a picture piece on CAL-I-FOR-NIA.
How did they know about that? Cal-i-for-nia is where my mama wanted to go!
Get out of this wrecked state, start fresh, we can do better than cotton and horseshit.
I study the woman in a bathing costume standing next to a swimming pool. There is a little girl holding her hand. I wonder if my mama went to Cal-i-for-nia without me. It has been a while since I have thought about that—
Meg. I go still in my skin. Look over and Miss Garnett is staring me down from the doorway. My throat gets a lump. She puts her hand out and I get up and give her the Life.
Come with me to the belt closet, she says.
The room has not changed since I was in here last. Chair, belt, holes to make it fly faster.
I have dreams of this room along with another, though that one was colder and quieter.
Behind the door I can hear Dorella and some other girls snickering.
My palms on the wall, I stand there and take it like a man.
But after seven or eight licks I got to cry, not just because it stings and cuts the back of my legs but like she is trying to get to something deeper.
It is like she is trying to whip the hope out of me.
I think about the pictures in the Life. Cal-i-for-nia.
The blue of the pool, the lady holding the little girl’s hand. All the while she is whispering,
Dirty, filthy girl
After fifteen licks Miss Garnett sits down in the chair, panting. She only quits because her arm gets tired.
That night, I lay on my stomach to stay off the backs of my stinging knees. I will not be sleeping much tonight. When I hear the lock click, I get up off my cot and limp to Dorella’s bed down on the end.
You got a letter, Dorella, I say. The other girls sit up in their beds fast. There is just enough moon to see.
Dorella eyes it like it is water and she is dying of thirst. I know this letter is good as cash and cornbread, but I believe I have lost my appetite today.
You can have it for free if you’ll read it out loud, I tell her.
She could wrestle me for it easy anyway, but she nods and takes it.
I go lay back in my bed while she opens it slow and reads it out loud for the room to hear.
It is from her mama, saying how sorry she is.
Her other brothers and sisters are doing just fine.
She promises to make it up to Dorella one day.