APPALACHIAN CONFESSIONS - Part 4
Short side-note regarding my childhood learnings:
To say that there weren't opportunities to receive a quality education for those of us who grew up in the bowels of Appalachia would be a massive understatement. Of course, public education was available, but most parents naturally used it as free daycare rather than viewing it as a chance for their kids to expand their knowledge and eventually escape from the only life that they knew. In Appalachia, the boys learned how to hunt, clean their rifles and build tree stands well before they were able to recite their ABC's. The girls learned how to be subservient to the men, and how to quietly take a whipping when they weren't. I was a bit tomboyish as a child, so I can say with pride that I knew how to scale a fish and skin a muskrat long before I took my first step into my kindergarten class.
Other than those "invaluable" life lessons, there were only a couple of things that my father taught us, with most of them involving hunting. "Don't kill for fun, kill outta need," or "Don't let 'em suffer. Kill 'em quick." Of course, that meant nothing to me at the time, and as much as my father and brothers hunted, I was sure that most of the time it was simply for sport rather than for some kind of sustenance, although there was rarely a time when we weren't well-stocked with deer jerkie. My brothers used to laugh at me because I was always the one who would rescue even the smallest insects, choosing to free them from our home rather than killing them needlessly. I remember finding a cricket in our living room, and trying desperately to catch it while they watched. When I was finally able to corner it, I gently picked it up, taking great care not to hurt its fragile legs. I turned backwards to push open the screen door with my little butt while cupping the cricket in my hands. I knelt down and slowly uncupped my hands to free it, and I watched it take two or three hops, happily heading toward the weeds - until my brother's bare foot came stomping down, flattening it right before my eyes. It shattered me to hear my brothers laughing hysterically. I remember crying myself to sleep that night and thinking about my father's words - "don't kill for fun." I assumed that only applied to deer and wildlife.
The only other lesson that I remember learning outside of my schooling came from the Baptist preacher at the church down the road from the trailer park. Although us kids attended only sporadically, one of the constant messages of his sermons was, "if nothing else, do enough to leave the world as a better place because of you." So those were the main lessons of my childhood in a nutshell - Don't kill for fun and leave the world as a better place. No wonder I'm so screwed up.
Anyway, back to my situation. Over the next week after our back-seat exploring, Beth and I were only able to sneak away a few times due to her work and my school schedule. There was always some making out, but mostly we just talked. We admitted that as deep as our feelings were becoming for each other, we would have to keep it to ourselves or risk being branded as dykes throughout the county. As for Jed and Billy, Beth considered filing PFAs against them, but we knew that would only add fuel to the fire and would piss them off even more, so we were constantly mapping out our routes in an effort to evade them.
She had a close call after work one night when Jed tried to run her down with his truck as she was walking to her dad's Crown Victoria. I assumed that he was just trying to scare her, but she thought otherwise. Billy threw a beer bottle at her as they passed, and it barely missed her. We knew that it was only a matter of time before something really bad was going to happen to her, and there just wasn't anywhere to hide in our small town. I considered reaching out to their foster parents for help, but I knew that even they had given up on the hoodlums long ago. Sometimes evil is just hard-wired into people, I thought.
Not only was I losing sleep over Jed and Billy, but my conscience kept reminding me that I had wronged Lucy. I knew that I needed to tell her but I couldn't get up the nerve, sure that it would ruin our friendship. It had been nearly a week since I found myself between her parted thighs. I was walking home from the bus drop-off when she pulled up next to me and rolled down the window. I dreaded the thought of "coming clean" with her, but I knew that it was time. I stopped walking and reluctantly looked through the passenger door's window with a lump in my throat.
As if we had rehearsed it, In total synchronization, we both said at the exact moment, "We have to talk!"
Nervous laughter followed. I nodded, and she motioned for me to hop in.
"Do you need to get home right away?"
"No, not really."
She turned the car around and pulled out of the trailer park. It was nearly the moment of truth. I looked over at her and tried to gauge her. I couldn't tell if she was mad, disappointed or nervous, but her hands were shaking slightly as she held on to the steering wheel.
We drove for a few miles and she turned down a dirt road which led to a parking lot. Weeds were protruding from the broken macadam, and the old lines designating parking spaces were faded, barely visible unless you were actually trying to find them. In front of the lot was the remnant of an old football field which probably hadn't been used in decades. One peeling goalpost remained, and was twisted to the point where the left side of it was actually resting on the ground like a fallen soldier struggling but failing to somehow survive its mortal wounds and spring back into action. Sitting in the car, I had flashbacks to my amazing experience with Beth, and I glanced into the small back seat of her old Toyota - unsure of what I expected to see. Lucy turned the ignition off and reached into the console, pulling out a newspaper.
"Let's get out. It's buggy outside but will be too hot in here," she said as she opened the car door and popped the trunk to grab a light blanket. I followed behind her as she walked across the lot, dodging pieces of broken concrete and weeds. I could feel my legs shaking under me, knowing that my confession was only minutes away. How would she react? We reached the old wooden bleachers and stepped up on them. They groaned under our combined weight and I wondered for a split-second if they would collapse, but surprisingly they held up. Lucy picked a spot roughly five rows up, laid out the blanket and straddled the bench, motioning for me to join her. I sat facing her, maybe three feet away, and tried to gather my thoughts. How could I possibly tell her?
She opened the paper and flipped it so that it faced me.
"Did you happen to see this?"
I Looked down at where she was pointing, and the headline sunk in:
TENURED PROFESSOR ARRAIGNED ON MULTIPLE CHARGES
Shit! My first thought was that my harmless little prank totally backfired, and I tried to backtrack to the phone call. Could they figure out that it was me, I wondered.
"Isn't that great," she said, grinning. "It's like they say - Karma is a bitch!"
"Um, I guess. Is it... is it your old professor?" Although I already knew it was.
"Yeah. Can you believe it? I mean, it sounds like they got him for corrupting the morals of a minor, indecent exposure and some drug charges too."
"Oh, so...not um, I mean, I wonder how that happened," I said, taking a deep breath when it dawned on me that it probably wasn't tied to the missing persons case.
"There is a comment that the police followed up on a series of tips and '
conducted a search warrant, finding fifty-four year old Timothy ________ in his apartment with an underaged female - age and name not provided...'
"
"So," I asked, "How do you feel about that?"
"Relieved, I guess. I mean, it brought that incident back and I've been reliving it, but I'm glad he was caught."
She hesitated before commenting further. "The timing was interesting, don't you think?"
She looked me in the eyes, and at that moment I knew she had a strong suspicion that I was involved in some way. I didn't comment.
She put the newspaper aside and after a minute of silence, she said, "but...that's not really what I wanted - no, NEEDED - to talk to you about."
Here it comes, I thought. How to explain?
"Destiny, this is really hard for me to say, but that night - I mean that morning, when I came back from my date..."
I interrupted her. "I know, Lucy. It's...it was wrong of me to..."
Now she looked confused. She scrunched up her nose. "Wait, wrong of you?"
