Chapter 3
Uncle Ben met her at the bus station, scooping up her bag in one ham-like hand and starting out. He hesitated when the bus driver beckoned him and then came over to join them, telling him about the man who had been trying "stunts" with Myra.
Uncle Ben laughed heavily, his head back, his big, pendulous belly shaking. But his eyes were suddenly small, squinty, looking at Myra, looking at where her breasts were respectably covered in the navy blouse and white collar, and then down her legs and back again, to her skirt and then through her skirt, as if he could see her little pee-hole.
He licked his fat lips, gulping air. "Yeah, driver. See what you mean. She's got . . . Well, her aunt can fix things up so's . . . You know women. They got ways. And thanks for taking care o' that scoundrel. Don't think we'll sic the sheriff on him. It could get the kid all involved and shook up. An seem as nothing really happened well. You know." And Uncle Ben kind of herded Myra out to a dull old pick-up that had, some time in a hectic past, been blue.
"Just got this yere truck. Mighty fine little truck. Got it so's I could go in business for myself. Hauling. Good money in hauling." Uncle Ben was talking to cover something else. Myra could tell.
It wasn't that he was saying things kind of odd, it was just as he was saying them like his mind was on something else. Like his eyes were on her, sliding over her and then away, as if they didn't want to get caught looking;
They made her feel . . . squishy. And he helped her up into the truck, putting a hand way under her arm and pressing on one of her breasts. And then he boosted her into the cab with a hand under her little butt, one finger stuck sharply up, so that it very nearly went in her pee-hole.
That didn't make her feel hot just awkward and uncomfortable. But the way he looked at her in the truck, like he was trying to look down her blouse and see her breasts, or eye her legs when the wind whipped her skirt that started those funny feelings up again, down at her pee-hole and beneath her breasts, making breathing kind of heavy.
While he was driving and not paying too much attention to it, in Myra's estimation he suddenly reached out and hugged her, his arm going clear around and digging into one of her breasts. "Ain't, properly welcomed my little niece. That's just a hug for greeting."
Only he kept his hand there, grasping at her breast. "Gotta hang on to my girl. This yere truck's rough riding . . . " And he laughed, nervous and high. And licked his lips.
The house was like Mommie had described the houses of the mill town from which she had come. A dog-trot house. But uglier, dingier, dirtier than Mommie had ever made it sound. Myra shut her eyes, hoping maybe it would go away and by some miracle Mommie's clean little garage apartment would be there. And Mommie.
But it didn't happen. When she opened them again, staring over the door of the truck, a thin wavery-looking woman came out and leaned against the post of the porch as if too weary to come farther and take that long walk back.
Kids tumbled out, shouting and buffeting one another and swirling around the truck, shouting up at her. There seemed a dozen or two but when they simmered down there was actually only six. There was Lem, sixteen or so, big and awkward, grinning at her and showing a jaggedly broken tooth; and Connie, a very stout but oddly loose-looking girl, maybe fourteen but, because of her size, looking older; and Sissie, whose slack mouth and lack-luster eyes and general shambling, disoriented walk said "simple."
There was a boy of about ten or eleven who climbed on the fender of the truck, and yelled, "Watch this ! " then jumped off, flopping in pretended agony. "I fell ten thousand feet and my parachute didn't open!"
A girl, thin and in a dress washed so often you could see her nubbin breasts and little triangle of her pee-hole through it, came over and shyly patted the truck, looking up at Myra. "It's new. We ain't never had a car before." She was somewhere near the parachutist's age. They could even be twins.
Peering from behind the woman's thin, patched skirt was another child, only a shock of unruly hair and two enormous eyes showing.
The woman gave Myra a tired smile and beckoned, calling in a voice that barely reached her. "Come here, child. Myra? That's right, ain't it? Myra? Thought I was right. Sometimes I ain't. Sometimes I don't remember so good."
Myra climbed down from the truck, walking toward the woman, avoiding the kids, standing just below the stoop, looking up at the woman, a scrawny body with dirty arms and a grimy neck.
The woman tried a smile, but it flickered out. "Looking at me, ain't yuh, kid? Wouldn't think I was just two years older'n your maw, would you? Oh, don't deny it. I'm an old hag." She waved away the denial Myra couldn't have made.
The woman nodded toward the parachutist.
"That there's your cousin Jim and the kid next to him is his twin, Jessica. Had a hard time with them two. Damn near died. Jess got hung up, cross-wise. Took an awful lot out'n me, them two did. Didn't never really get back on my feet."
Myra glanced down at the feet. They were bare, splayed, and black to the ankles. They sported a curious variety of lumps and bunions.
Mommie's feet had been trim and neat and very pink.
The woman flapped a hand at the tousled head and big eyes. "This here's Elsa. She's the youngest, seeing as I ain't have no more. Doctors had to take part of me out." The woman pressed a hand to her stomach, wincing, as if the operation was fresh and not some eight or so years back.
The woman sagged against the porch, looking out over the dusty yard littered with a broken bicycle, a toy wagon with no wheels, the intimate parts of what had probably once been a car, innumerable tin cans, and a chipped and broken toilet bowl.
"Ain't never really got my stren'th back. Wish now I had took off with your maw when she went to the city. On'y I already had Lem." The woman nodded toward the grinning sixteen-year-old. "Him. And Connie . . . That's Connie." She indicated the fat girl with a sideways nod. "The rest come later."
Lem was staring at her and grinning, his eyes roving from the neck of her dress across her breasts and down to linger on her skirt and scowl at where her pee-hole was, making Myra wriggle with embarrassment.
The woman continued to look out past the yard, to distant blue-green hills. "Yup, shore do wisht I'd a had the courage to take off with your maw."
"Now, Weezy." Uncle Ben had come up behind Myra and was resting one arm on her shoulder, his hand drooping carelessly to touch her breast, his fingers beating a ragged tattoo. "Don't you go saying things like that. You know Cass went off whoring. You wouldn't a wanted that. And look what it got her. Dead, ain't she?"
For an instant the woman showed fire, glaring at Uncle Ben. "Maybe being dead ain't so bad. Release, kind of . . . And take your frigging fingers off'n the kid's tittie." The woman glared down at Myra and then her face softened. "Welcome, kid. To what there is. And God knows it ain't much." She laughed, a short, harsh bark. "Wait'll you see." She turned abruptly and went into the house.
Uncle Ben gave Myra's breast a final, caressing pat and then almost goosed her up the two shallow, rickety steps.
Lem laughed, following her, getting between her and Uncle Ben and putting an arm around her waist. "Hi, Myra. I'm Lem. You'n me, we're gonna be friends. Real good friends, huh?" And he flung an arm around her, reaching for one of Myra's breast.
She managed to stumble at the door and pulled away. It wasn't really a door, just the opening into the dog-trot, open at both ends, a rough clapboarded room on either side.
Even new it must have been ugly. Now, crusty with curling paint, flabby-looking with loose boards, it made Myra shudder. Maybe inside . . . But inside was worse. And the smells welled up around her, nauseating her. The long dead odors of old, uninteresting meals-odorous ghosts that wouldn't lie down and be buried-mingled with fetid odors of people and the smell of dog, though she didn't see one.
The furniture was packing cases around a big table almost completely covered with dirty dishes. Something was bubbling on the back of a black iron stove in a large, battered pot.
Jessica sidled up, her hand reaching to finger the lace of Myra's collar. "It's pot roast. On account of you're company." She ran the tips of her fingers over the lace. "Paw don't hold with pretties, so I ain't never had lace."
Myra nodded, almost gagging on the odors from the pot; tired odors of meat cooked far too long and vegetables done long before their time.
Supper was a nightmare, a horror that Myra had to endure. Uncle Ben slurped up his meat and mush of overdone vegetables, catching the drippings with his tongue absently, while his piggy eyes fastened on Myra's breasts just above the table.
Lem kept glancing at them, too, and then grinning at his father, as if he knew a secret that nobody could guess. Jim and Jessica discussed her, eyeing her late collar, in whispers that became giggles.
Aunt Louise fed Sissie with a spoon and then turned her over to Connie, the two spelling each other. And the youngest, standing at the table Myra guessed she had usurped the child's packing case seat eating with absentminded gluttony, as if this horrible mishmash were a treat.
That was bad enough, horrible. Incredible after the careful, dainty meals Mommie bad served, always with a white table cloth and a candle, with flowers to one side. Mommie wouldn't put flowers in the middle because you couldn't see each other and have long fascinating conversations about The Escape Hatch. Maybe they only had weinies and beans which Myra privately considered a treat with store-bought rolls, but there was always a candle and flowers.
So supper at Uncle Ben's was a nightmare. But bedtime was worse. The bedroom was the other side of the dog-trot, one room where everybody slept. Uncle Ben and Aunt Louise shared an iron bedstead with brass knobs that rattled and a grossly sagging mattress humped in the middle with gray sheets and some blankets.
And the kids from Lem on down, shared a corner spread with two mattresses of such age and decrepitude they were more like tired mats. Over these was spread a confused mass of old quilts and tattered blankets.
Myra had held her breath against the fetid human odors, against the smell of dirt accumulated over the years and urine. Sissie's, Jessica explained. "She ain't got no control, on account she's simple."
Myra tried for a little privacy, undressing in the far corner with her back to the room and ducking into her shortie gown as quickly as possible to avoid the eyes that she could feel sliding over her. Once the shortie had seemed adequate a little private joke between Mommie and her. Now it didn't cover enough and the sheer blue showed her breasts and the little amber-pink nipples.
The one light, an unshaded bulb swinging from the center of the room, was out by the time she fumbled her way to the pile of covers and sat gingerly on the edge, letting the semidarkness there was a street light outside open up, so that she could move without stepping on one of the kids.
Then began that incredible night, with Lem cornering her and ramming his pecker into her. She huddled back ashamed and yet thrilled by the things that had happened to her body. So that was being fucked? She had to whisper the phrase to herself to make herself believe it. So that was being fucked?
Even though there was still pain down in her little pee-hole, she no, correct that her body felt good enriched, expanded, and anxious for more but not right now, she qualified.
Then Uncle Ben was calling her. "Come here, Myra. Come to your old uncle."
And for the first time she noticed the quiet from that corner of the room. Connie was no longer there screwing the old man.
Myra shivered deeper into the covers, finding their filth even more desirable than going to her Uncle Ben. Lem leaned over, whispering, "Better go when he calls. Be rougher if'n you don't."
There was impatience in his next call. Impatience and a hint of anger. "Myra, you ain't refusing to come talk to your Uncle Ben, are you?"'
Reluctantly Myra got to her feet, pulling down the shortie, and made her way across the darkened room to stand beside the big bed.
Uncle Ben reached out, wrapping an arm around her, his big hand cupping her buttocks and rubbing. "Reckon this yere little girl is right tuckered out after her long day. Traveling is kinda wearisome. Reckon old Uncle Ben better share this yere big bed with a poor tired little girl, stead o' lettin' her sleep on a mattress on the floor."
"Ben . . . " It was Aunt Louisa's tired, breathy voice. "Ain't you screwed that kid enough for one day, stealing her money to buy yourself a truck?"
Uncle Ben let go of Myra's buttocks and crashed over in the bed, making the brass knobs tinkle and the sagging springs groan.
"Ain't no such thing. Ain't stealin'. I'm fixing to go into business with that there truck and improve our economic position. Might someday git me a fleet and be rich . . . " Uncle Ben went off into heavy breathing and a rattling of the springs. "Real rich . . . and have me a shiny car with real vinyl top and four cigarette lighters. Seen me one oncet had four cigarette lighters."
Aunt Louisa's voice came wearily out of the dark. "Go on back to bed, kid. You done had two fuckings today one you ain't felt yet."
Uncle Ben thrashed back, grabbing at Myra. "No you don't. I heard you and Lem over there, screwin' up a storm. And you kin really make the batter fly."
Uncle Ben's arm closed around her buttocks again and drew her closer to the bed, while his other hand fumbled at the neck of her shortie, then ducked down and came up under it, to grab at one of her breasts. "You'n me gonna have fun, kid. Now."