The
Chickasaw
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Below is an excerpt from
Chickasaw: The Good Life and Hard
times of Doctor Christopher Jacques
A novel by John R.
Guthrie
The Gethsemane of Chastity Lee
Howard
March swooped in,
warm and blustery. The willows and poplars in the yard were garbed in the pale
and tender yellow-green of early spring. Within the double-wide trailer,
Chastity lay on her bed. Her mother, in the next room, prepared to go to
church. Chastity, lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, was pensive. But
maybe, maybe, it could be that I’m not even a little bit pregnant. That it’s
just like a bad dream, like last night when I dreamed that I was supposed to be
home by myself but I new there was
something, something really bad in the front room, something worse than a witch, worse than a devil, worse than
Raw Head or Bloody Bones in the scary stories for kids. I wanted to scream but
couldn’t make a sound. I wanted to run but I couldn't move a muscle. Maybe I’m
dreaming now, and when I wake up, I’ll have to run to the bathroom for a Kotex.
‘cause my period will be started. Everything will be
just the same as before.
But her reverie
dissolved when she remembered how at school after she first found out she was
pregnant, she had to raise her hand in class to go pee so often that the girls
whispered, the boys snickered and her face blazed as she left her classroom,
unable to lift her yes from the floor before her and moving quickly to the
door. But why am I so tired? I’m
so worn out I can’t get outta bed to go to school lotsa days, and I can’t get my shoes on hardly. I don’t do
nothing but lay around on my bed until that candlewick counterpane leaves dents
in my skin. Still I don’t ever sleep good, and I get
sick to my stomach nearly every day and just lie there and listen to my music.
I don’t think I could live without my music. There has to be a better way. Things can’t be this bad forever. Maybe
Randy will come back. You never know. He’d pull in the driveway in that black Honda
with the spoiler on the back. I’d hear the car, look out the window and see him
getting out. I’d go running to meet him. He’d give me a big hug, and I’d hug
him back. Then he’d step back, his hands on my shoulders. “Chas,” he’ll say,
just look at you.
Prettier than ever.”
I’ll start tearing up. “But where you been, Randy?”
“Like I said, Honey, I just needed time to think things
over, to take it all to the Lord in prayer. And I’m back now, I’ve come for
you.
We’re gonna go away now, the three of us. Sometimes
she though she wasn’t really pregnant, that it was all a mistake, that her
period was just late.
Rubbing her tummy, transistor radio in
hand, she arose and stepped into the tiny living room of the trailer. TV church
was playing on the screen across from the couch. She turned the volume down
then sat again, then lay back to listen to her favorite station WCRS, 98 Rock,
on the transistor radio she had pressed to her ear. She picked up a left-over
Double Stuff Oreo from the side table and took a bite.
Her mother, purse in hand, peered in
through the living room door, scowling at the recumbent Chastity and speaking
to her as she entered. Chastity, absorbed in her music, made no reply.
Narrow-eyed, Mama stepped over and grabbed the radio from Chastity's hand,
flinging it to the floor. The battery tumbled out as Chastity shrank back, then rose to a sitting position. “Young’n,
you better pay attention when I speak to you."
Chastity hung her head, staring at the
floor.
Her mother
continued. "You better look at me, Miss Lady! All you do is lie around and
eat. I sure worked when I was pregnant with you (burden that you were,
implicit in her tone). Somebody’s got to pay for all this. You’re showing
already. Soon you’ll be big as the side of a barn. I sure don’t have the money
for new clothes for this.” She nodded at Chastity’s mid-section as she spoke, then concluded, “You need to get a job.”
“Mama, I will soon, I just can’t right now.
I just don’t have any energy. I’m throwing up every morning.” Chastity's eyes
blinked and her jaw twitched. “Mama,” She ventured, “please, Mama, I heard that
up in
Her Mama looked at her with that particular
loathing with which unfortunates confront the reflected image of themselves.
“Child,” she hissed, extending her neck toward Chastity, "I know that because the preacher
told us everything about that place when he preached against it. Even if
that murder farm, that abortuary
weren’t the devil’s work, you don’t have the $400. I don’t either. Not to
mention that that car of mine being near older than you. It ain’t
going to no
Her mother hesitated, still buttoning up
the white blouse the gold angel pin on the collar and looked back toward her
daughter. "Chastity?"
Her voice was the merest of whispers.
"Yes Ma'am"
“Maybe you better just make plans to get
the hell out.”
“But Mama…”
“Don’t but Mama me. It wasn’t me that told
you to go out and screw everything with pants on, to be Whore of Babylon for
Chastity stood and moved toward her
bedroom. “No…”
Mama stepped over, drew back, and delivered
a roundhouse slap to Chastity’s face, leaving a red blaze on her left cheek.
“You little
strumpet. Don’t you ever dispute my word,”
Chastity, sideways from the attempt to
dodge the blow, clutched the wall with both hands and slid downward until she
was sitting on the floor.
Her mother, hands on her hips, leaned over
her and commanded, “Get out!”
She looked up at her mother, face
glistening with tears, her retorted; a high pitched and anguished cry. “Mama, I
don’t have no place to go. No-o-o pla-a-a-ce.”
Mama, her eyes narrow, said nothing. She
turned, picked up her purse from the side table next to the couch. She kicked
the transistor radio on the floor beneath the couch then walked out, slamming
the door behind her. The dinner plates in the cabinet tinkled. Chastity heard the engine of the 1985 Pontiac
start with the bumper sticker that read, “I AM THE CHRISTIAN THE DEVIL AND THE
LIBERAL MEDIA WARNED YOU ABOUT,” its valves tapping nervously as her mother
drove out of the yard, the old car pitching and yawing like a boat in an
uncertain sea as it crossed the potholes. On TV church, the choir was singing:
‘Tis
the man of sorrows
weeps in blood.
He that hath in anguish knelt,
is not forsaken by his God.
Chastity, holding her cheek, snuffling,
breathing hard, sat leaning up against the wall. She finally rolled over to her
knees, balancing against the wall with one hand, the other pushing her up from
the floor so that she slowly rose to her feet, her swollen belly bulging
between her blouse and her unsnapped jeans. She couldn't think except to know
that she was even more tired than before. If I could just
sleep, just for a while. Rubbing her reddened jaw, she stepped into
her mother’s bedroom and fumbled through the drawer of Mama’s bedside table.
She found the amber vial marked Halcion and opened
it, and dumped one of the blue tablets there into hand, then, two more,
hesitated, then emptied the vial, quickly gulping all of them down and chasing
them with water from the glass on the bedside table. Hugging herself, she
stepped into her own bedroom and lay down, not bothering to remove her shoes.
Almost immediately she felt like she was going to heave. She couldn’t remember
what was good for feeling like you were going to throw up, but got up again,
went into the bathroom and found a vial with some of Mama’s diet pills left in
it. I don’t know. Maybe.
I don’t care. She opened it and gulped down the contents. Only then did she
spot the small partly filled bottle marked Milk
of Bismuth and Paregoric, Mama’s favorite remedy when her stomach got
upset. She opened it up and gulped the remaining contents. She went to her
room, lay down on her bed and pulled the blue raincoat that lay on the bed over
her shoulders. Her wish for a retreat from her fearful, small and uncertain world
was soon granted and she slept.
She was trying to go to school, but the
wind was blowing cold, whistling as it scooted the storm clouds twisting
through the sky. Then she was in church and she knew she wasn’t supposed to be
there; the deacons had told her so. Randy was in the pulpit again. “Are you
washed, Chastity,” he said, “washed in the blood of the lamb?” In that moment,
she knew in the middle of her being, deep within the filthy meat of her, the meaning of dread, because though she
thought she'd been saved, if she'd been truly saved, she wouldn't be in this
kind of trouble. She arose from her pew and ran right through the door as hard
as she could. But she couldn’t get away from whatever was after her. She was
gasping; help me, Lord, please help me. Something bad’s
after me and I don’t know what. But she knew no help would come. She glanced
over her shoulder and finally saw it. It was a man—or something— on a horse
chasing her. People were screaming somewhere. Fire and light came from him, but
didn't burn him, just outlined him, his cape (or was it wings?) spreading as
the horse reared, kicking with its front legs for balance. The flames that were
the rider’s hair stood out around his head, blowing in the wind, not quite
concealing the outlines of the four curving horns that grew from its forehead.
She screamed, and kept on screaming though
her throat ached. Shrinking back. She whimpered,
“Please, please, oh, please, dear Jesus, help me.” The creature on the horse
raised its hand. He had something, club? Sword? Gun? in his hand. Whatever it was,
she knew he was going to kill her with it, to send her to Hell like she
deserved; because she had sinned bad, offending God. Because she was a harlot, and that is the worst kind of whore. Because she deserved eternal torture. Save me, Jesus. But it
was too late. She bowed her head and prepared to die. Our
father, who art in heaven, give us the day our daily bread. Forgive us
our trespasses…”
She squeezed her eyes shut, on her knees
now, hugging herself, waiting for the blow that would
strike her down.
“Chastity?” It was a different
voice. Her eyes blinked open. She felt cold down there. Looking toward her
groin, she rubbed the wet spot, then lifted her fingers to her nose, looked and sniffed.
She had wet herself. The she saw Raggedy Ann, one eye missing, a favorite since
infancy, smiling down at her from her special perch on the dresser. She was at
home, and the voice came from the front room.
Though she was sleepy, her heart was tripping
as fast as the valves in Mama’s
“Chastity!”
She rolled slowly to the side of the bed
and sat up, paused to let the dizziness pass. She remembered her radio, looked
around for it before she remembered that it wasn’t working any more because she
had made Mama mad. Still holding her raincoat around her shoulders against the
chill, she stepped into the front room. The picture of Jesus on the wall above
the TV caught her eye. He was down on his knees in the
When he saw her open mouthed astonishment,
he smiled real sweet and said, “Yes, child, it’s definitely me.”
Chastity stood there, unable to respond as
He spoke again. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.”
Chastity swept her head back and forth, as
if denying what she was seeing and trying to wake up at the same time.
“Yes, I mean you, Chastity!” He looked
serious, but kind anyway.
Her voice was small indeed. “Yes, Jesus?”
Then he wasn’t smiling any more, and
looking her right into her eyes, said, “Verily I say unto thee, Chastity, if
thy right hand offends thee, cut it off.” She lifted her hand, looked at it.
He smiled as if amused at this. “No, not that, Chastity. You know what I mean.” He was
looking -- at her tummy? She followed his gaze to the bulge of her abdomen.
“Now you’re catching on, kid,” Jesus said softly. “Better get to work.” Then,
like a candle burning out, his light slowly dimmed and extinguished. He
returned to the picture frame and was on his knees peering up at the sky once
more, silent and unmoving.
His words echoed through her mind. “If thy
right hand offends thee, cut it off.” She repeated this command to herself
several times, trying to give form and substance and relevance to His very
special personalized message just for her. But she was still mystified. And
then, like the lightning’s flash that illumines the
night, she understood as clearly as she’d understood anything in her life, and
she was renewed by this instance of comprehension.
“Yes, blessed Savior.” She stood and though
she was so wobbly she had to hold on to the wall, stepped in to the kitchen and
rummaged through the drawers, leaving them hanging open as she went. Finally,
in the drawer that held a jumble of hand tools, she found the skinny ten-inch
screwdriver. Moving to the bathroom at the end of the hall, she first looked at
herself in the mirror. Her face stared back at her, a face with lips and cheeks
quite naturally carnation pink with the merest hints of lavender on a canvas of
eggshell. Sloe eyes, luminous brown with specks of green and bronze so that
they weren’t brown any more at all. Cinnamon hair that never
would do right, now short, the color all wrong. I never liked
it until Randy had called it my crowning glory, and said never to cut it.
But after everything happened, she couldn’t bear to see it in the mirror, and
couldn’t stand the memory of him stroking her hair, holding it to his nose to
inhale the scent of it, smiling a goofy smile at her as he held a strand of it
above his upper and made a mustache of it. She’d hacked it off with Mama’s
sewing scissors, then evened it up the next day when
Mama said it looked like somebody had been at it with a chain saw.
She lifted the screwdriver very slowly, and
stabbed it onto the center of her reflected face, the mirror cracking and
splintering the glass which tinkled into the lavatory.
In the front room, the TV choir was holding
forth again:
By the light of burning martyrs,
Jesus’ bleeding feet I track
Toiling up new
With the cross that turns not back
As Chastity listened, she knew that choir
was singing especially for her. Burning martyrs! She looked down at the shards of glass and
picked up one that was knife-shaped, wrapped a long length of toilet paper
around one end for a handle, held it up, and saw one hazel eye looking back.
Holding it in her fist and scribing it across the tender white skin of her left
wrist, she watched, fascinated, as the thinnest of red tracings appeared.
She felt a sense of triumph, of joy. It was
not that she especially wished or intended to kill herself, but that as the
blood welled on her left wrist, she had a sense of control, of being in charge
that she had never felt before. She smiled then, the smile of one who knows
that deliverance is at hand.
Unzipping the jeans
that were so tight she couldn’t button them, rolling them over the sensuous
flare of her hips, down the fine taper of her thighs and the fullness of her
calves, she kicked them off and brushed them aside with her foot. Her blouse
was soon dropped on top of the jeans. Pulling her bra around, she unhooked it
and let it drop to the floor. Her breasts, once erect cones with pink nipples,
were heavier than before, sagging, veins swollen. Looking down, she traced a
circle around the areola of her left nipple, surprised at how dark it had
become. Would Randy like me now? Standing erect again, inserting the
extended fingers of both hands into the waistband of her cotton panties, she
lowered them beyond the tuft of hair down there, dropped around her
ankles and stepped free. Grasping the lighted magnifying mirror off of the
lavatory, she sat it on the floor. With the long and thin-tipped screwdriver in
her right hand, she knelt so that the mirror was beneath her crotch, its light
illuminating the triangle of hair at the junction of her thighs. She parted her
labia and raised he screwdriver, peering for a moment in the mirror at the source
of her shame, then aiming the screwdriver for the moist rosiness
of the opening there.
The
Chickasaw
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