Chapter 3
Sherrie raked the hairbrush over her scalp in biting drags, dabbed clean the black circles under her eyes and made herself as respectable as a sodomized wife can. Unsteady flickers lighted the living room off the hallway; a comedy series droned on, peppered with dubbed laughter.
Sherrie's sickened heart felt as if she'd never laugh again as stealthily she crept along the wall opening onto the bedroom, slipped inside and flicked on the light switch. Her eyes fell to the bed where she and
Jack had shared many a loving night, and beneath her breath she cursed and vowed to kill memory.
Hastily she slipped into wool slacks, turtleneck sweater and knee-high boots. Outside the bedroom window the lonely wind howled threateningly. From the closet she yanked out an overnight case initialed with ST in gold letters and stuffed extra panties, a nightgown and toiletries inside.
Money. . . Rummaging through her pocketbook, she counted thirty-four dollars and eighty-two cents. Sherrie's shoulders drooped with added chagrin. That was hardly enough to start a new life. A light bulb flashed in her brain; she snapped her fingers and dashed for the bureau drawer where travelers checks from last summer's Hawaii vacation had been tucked away for an emergency. Emergency . . . she snickered bitterly to herself . . . more like life and death! It seemed a pathetic accumulation of necessities that filled her overnight bag. Just goes to show how little of life is material, she thought philosophically, clamping her pearly teeth over a trembling lower lip.
Feeling like a thief in her own house, she slunk down the hallway past the living room where Jack's rumbling snore chorused with dubbed laughter from a Saturday night comedy series. A shivering feeling rippled along her spine. Had she ever known that man lying naked on the sofa? Sherrie's eyes fixed on the flaccid tube of his penis and the wronged wife declared then and there that never again would she allow a man to defile her. Sensual pleasure would never be hers again. Never!
With a final whimper of submission to fate's cruel blow, she slunk into the garage off the kitchen and tossing her paltry possessions into the front seat, backed out and away from Jack Turner.
The situation was so ridiculously horrible, she couldn't cry. Hysteria choked in her throat. Where am I going to got Flickers of Little Orphan Annie comic strips rippled through her mind's eye. How uncanny that childhood entertainment should develop into adult tragedy.
Be practical, she reprimanded herself, and quit feeling sorry for yourself. Leave the car at the airport and fly to Milwaukee, maybe? No, flights were too expensive.
A cold November drizzle ten degrees from snowflakes misted the dusky night as the Datsun nosed toward the freeway entrance, the driver with no destination in mind. Through the haze, the headlights splashed upon a billboard which read: "Go Greyhound And Lea re the Driving To Us." Sherrie's shoulders heaved with relief. Yes, she could leave the car in the lot and using her maiden name on the ticket, Jack would never find her!
The bus depot's setting created a colorless montage of dreary, graffiti splattered walls and drearier faces queued up in the ticket lines. An air of depression shivered through Sherrie; she pulled up the collar of her coat and gripped the handle of her night case tighter.
God, I need a drink. I'm freezing! A strange physical sensation gripped her; an unexplainable kinetic energy, driving in force yet unsettled in nature. She needed to think and sort out her life.
Down the hallway, a neon sign splashed the pink message: "Dew Drop Inn." The fluorescent hallway lights faded into a dim parlor heavy with stale cigarette smoke. The leggy auburn paused at the door to survey the bar where two off-duty bus drivers sat shooting craps for drinks, while the television set rattled unheeded above the mirrored bar.
Beneath their gray uniform hats, two heads turned in her direction, grins leering her way. Her hands clasped at the throat of her collar. A small table with an unlit candle sat in the corner of the room and that's where Sherrie headed. She ordered a shot of brandy and was sipping it slowly when her eyes fell upon a newspaper on the adjacent table.
Hastily she folded back the Want Ad section and perused the possibilities for Sherrie Turner's new life. The choice was to stay in Chicago and get an apartment someplace on the east side, or leave the state. As soon an Daddy hears I've left Jack, he'll have the police looking for me!
An ad struck her eye. "Needed: Hostesses and waitresses for high-class Northern Wisconsin game hunting resort. Weekly pay plus board and tips," an address and phone number followed.
Sherrie's rosy lips bubbled with relief and something close to a smile broke over her pale face. The warming brandy had lightened her spirits, and the hope of something decent happening to her quickened her step to the ticket line.
A pimply faced ticket salesman leered through the iron bars of the ticket booth onto the sophisticated features of the auburn-haired woman who, for some godforsaken reason, had requested a one-way ticket to a dot on the map. "That'll be sixty-two dollars and fifty nine cents. Miss." His eyes fell on the sparkle dotting her left hand.
I'll pawn my wedding ring as soon as I reach Wisconsin. Wonder if Daddy paid for that, too! I've got to get this job . . . I just have to! She tore the ring off her finger and stuffed it in her slacks' pocket.
Sherrie pressed her nose to the cold bus window and blinked into the misty night; the warm exhalations clouded the window and she wiped it clean with gloved fingertips for one last glance at Chicago.
Exhausted, she stretched her long legs under the bus seat ahead of her, rolled her head to the side and prepared for the long journey to Wisconsin. Six hours the ticket man had said. The hiss of air brakes and drone of acceleration as the Greyhound Bus pulled out into the freeway, lulled Sherrie into a more secure state of being. With Chicago and a rapist husband behind her, a new lifestyle ahead, the weary woman cradled herself in the warmth of her cashmere coat and slumbered.
Time and distance can play clever games with the human mind. The sensation of moving forward, of traveling into a time warp, shot Sherrie to instant alertness. Two green eyes snapped open into the dusty dawn light, thick and hazy with snowflakes clinging possessively to towering green pines so high she had to crane her neck to see the statuesque tops pointing to a depth less heaven.
A weary sigh broke from her chest. Her muscles had cramped in the immobility of sleep; her stomach, long deprived of nourishment, growled in complaint. Along with awakening, crept fear. She felt hurtled into the unknown, into a vast space called future for which she was ill prepared. Yet anything was better than suffering the disgrace of Jack's ignoble behavior!
Even these dull, small towns, she asked herself, clamping pearly teeth over a trembling lower lip, chapped from self-abuse and cheerless November skies. A handful of passengers rode north through the small towns which seemed to draw a direct correlation between distance due north and population.
As the bus driver pulled off to a small cafe at an unmarked intersection, Sherrie grasped the small bag containing her pittance of possessions, and hustled to the front of the bus.
The bus driver turned a cheerful face to her. He pushed back the bill of his cap and nodded. "How ya doin', lady? Get some rest?"
Sherrie was in no mood for talking. Nor did she care for the inquisitive eyes raking over her leggy lean body. "Where are we?" She squinted at the paint-chipped cafe whose sign depicted a cup of steaming coffee and a cheeseburger whose California touch had faded with inclimacy to a formless flap of green lettuce and an anemic pink tomato.
"Your stop lady. Say, you got relatives in Hurly?"
"Y-yes, I do. . . . " Sherrie's green eyes took in the three hundred and sixty degree circumference of nothing but trees, and asked in a small voice: "Where's the town?"
"Hope ya got somebody to pick ya up, miss. Hurly's oh. . . . " and here he scratched his five o'clock shadow,". . . 'bout five miles up the road. I suggest you call somebody from the cafe. Harvey's are nice folks and you look like you could use a cup of coffee."
The cafe smelled richly of freshly perked coffee and bakery donuts staring at Sherrie through a plastic eased cover. Counter service was the only choice.
A gray-haired man, with a grumpy set to his square chin and a tattooed arrow with "Sharon" printed across a broken heart, wiped his hands on an egg-stained apron and glowered down at his new customer. "Can I help ya, miss?"
"A cup of coffee . . . and that donut. . . the one with the cherries in the middle."
Out of the corner of his eye, shadowed by caterpillar eyebrows that knit and brushed together as he squinted at the stranger seated delicately at his counter, the cafe owner drew some tight conclusions.
No local, this one, dressed in a city coat instead of the usual down jacket that puffed women all up like they had no shape underneath. The hairstyle, too, echoed of city, and the perfume wafting over the sweet cherry filled donut he slapped onto the plate.
"You got relatives here?" he queried, splashing steaming coffee into the cup at Sherrie's elbow.
"Y-yes," she forced a smile and measured out a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee which she stirred with nervous flicks of the wrist.
It was then he caught the gold watch studded with diamonds draped about her delicate wrist. "What's their name. . . . ? "
"Who. . . . ? "
"Your relatives. . . . "He cocked his head, turning his better ear to catch the silvery peal of Sherrie's tiny voice.
"Oh, ah, Jefferson . . . Jack Jefferson." A corner of her pretty rose bud lip curled with a confidence she didn't feel. Sherrie had never been good at lying.
"Hum . . . never heard of the guy. Been living here all my life, too. . . . " He turned his back to Sherrie then and broke a few eggs into a frying pan to make his own breakfast.
Over the divider stacked high with heavy platters and coffee cups minus matching saucers, he eyed the sophisticated citification that marked Sherrie Turner as one beautiful woman. The gleam to her auburn hair shimmering with henna highlights under the glaring naked light bulb, the high cheekbones and aristocratic set to the chin. Even the way she sipped her coffee. Most folks in that part of the country braced their elbows on the counter top and slurped away . . . not this one.
Timidly, Sherrie nibbled at her donut and finished her coffee while the cafe owner drenched hashed browns with ketchup and slurped eggs over very easy from a fork. Calculating the bill at one dollar, she left that plus fifty-cents and reached for the want ad clipping from her coin purse.
"Excuse me, please . . . could you tell me if you've heard of this place?" she asked with a gaiety she didn't feel.
The cafe owner grabbed the newspaper clipping and pouffed out his lips, eyes crawling back and forth from the clipping to Sherrie's. He wiped the egg from his mouth with the back of his hand. "You headed for the Cracker box, miss?"
Sherrie smiled and nodded her head enthusiastically. Her enthusiasm faded, and the coffee gurgled in the pit of her stomach, bad company to Sherrie filled donuts when he muttered:
"Hmmmmph . . . just what Hurly needs. Another whore to slut up the town!"
Sherrie gulped and stared incredulously into the man's unshaven face.
"Don't count on nobody givin' ya a ride up there, Miss. And don't count on comin' back to my cafe . . . cause I don't serve whores here." He braced his hands on the counter top and hissed the words down into her face. This stranger might have been his sister twenty years ago, he thought sadly, pushing aside sad memories.
As the door tinkled shut behind her, she heard him say: "It's up the road quarter of a mile."
The snow crunched under Sherrie's high heeled boots like strong jaws munching down peanuts as with a cold numbed hand clutching at the collar of her cashmere coat and the other clamped white-knuckled to the overnight case, she headed down the road, puzzling over the cafe owner's rancorous attitude.
The newspaper ad was legitimate, and any, what choice had she now but to investigate? Was all of northern Wisconsin like this, she wondered icily, trying to forget the ache of exhaustion that weakened her from the tension taut sinews in her swan-like neck cramped from the long bus ride-down to her tiny toes. Oh, for a warm meal and a soft bed and hot bath, thought the estranged wife, approaching a fork in the two land road.
Through the low hanging bows of a snow-laden pine tree, she squinted at a curl of chimney smoke bluing the crisp morning air. Sherrie's step quickened. At last-warmth! A little sigh of relief tore from her throat as a sign reading "The Crackerbox" came into view. Freshly painted, it sported a ripe-bodied female huntress dressed in silly red long-legged underwear and, with one elbow rested on the butt end of a gun, she crooked a finger at the viewer. "Come Hunt With Me," it read.
The impression reminded Sherrie of the corny New Year calendars Mom and Pop grocery stores give out at Christmas. Hardly salacious or serious, was it?
Down the road a few yards, Sherrie caught sight of the Crackerbox. A respectable establishment, she quickly assessed, raking her eyes delightedly over the Swiss Chalet building painted in deep red with white trim about the balcony and windows.
Facing her fate, Sherrie struggled over the ice-slickened sidewalk and clung tightly to the banister as she climbed the slippery steps to the porch and raised her knuckles to announce herself.
On the second knock a door cracked open, and the butterflies in Sherrie's stomach began to stampede.. . up to her swan-like throat.
The cafe owner's insults echoed in her ears.