Gatac
The season had turned to summer and that meant Anne got to ride in the car. It was a blue Ford truck as old as she was, and it had a good life at the Simmons homestead, as it only had to work every two weeks or so. Anne mostly knew it from the outside, from looking at it standing around, though she caught glimpses of the inside whenever she saw Mom get into it to drive into town. Of course Anne had ridden in it, the year before, but it was such a fleeting memory, and she struggled to recall all the details — could still remember running her fingers over the chrome switches on the radio before Mom told her off for it. Anne wasn't going to act out this time, oh no. No, in fact, she had been extra good and proper the week before, as she had promised Mom, and therefore today was the day where she would get to ride in the car and go into town and get new clothes.
“Anne!” cried Mom — Miriam, as Dad called her — and honked the car's horn, setting the goats to bleating in reply. “Get on out here, Anne!”That got a reaction: the stomping of little feet on a wooden floor before the house door opened to reveal Anne in her blue/white seersucker dress, brown hair tamed into a braid that trailed behind her head when she ran through the dirt. Mom scowled, and that was enough. Anne slowed down to a brisk walk and bowed her head when she stood next to the car, ready for inspection.“Don't you run in that dress, Anne,” Mom said, before spitting in her handkerchief and wiping a smudge from Anne's brow, where the bck grease had stood out against the basswood color of Anne's skin. “You will fall and you will get dirty. Now you go on roughhousing all day with your Daddy, you can bear to behave yourself for an hour or two, can't you?”“Yes, Mom,” Anne said. “I am sorry, Mom.”“If you don't respect your belongings and you don't respect yourself, people won't respect you,” Mom said. “I have told you more than once. But it goes in one ear and comes out the other with you, don't it, Anne.”“I am sorry, Mom,” Anne said. “I will be good, I promise.”“Look at yourself,” Mom said softly, bowing down beside Anne to tug at her dress until it sat right. She grabbed Anne by the shoulders and turned her around until she could see them both in the car's side mirror. “Such a pretty little girl. You put a smile on now, Anne,” Mom said, smiling herself, and soon Anne mimed it. “Just like that,” Mom said. “I raised you right and I won't have anyone thinking otherwise, you hear?”“Yes, Mom,” Anne said.“Now get in,” Mom said.
Anne pulled the passenger door open and climbed in. Once inside, she pulled the door closed, but it didn't tch properly, so she leaned out with it and pulled it closed again, this time with more force. “Hold on,” Mom said, so Anne slid back on the vinyl seat until she was pressed up against the backrest, then grabbed the interior handle of the door on her side. Mom turned over the ignition, and the truck slowly woke up. Mom put it into first gear, then took the brake off, and so they went down the hill.1Always use engine braking by going in a low gear when descending a mountain. You’ll overheat your brakes otherwise.
“Now remember this, Anne,” Mom said, eyes fixed on the dirt road before them. “Guard yourself on this trip. We will be among good-hearted, decent folk, but they don't live righteous like we do.”“Yes, Mom,” Anne said.“They procim the Lord on a Sunday but have let temptation into their lives,” Mom said, “and so they will tempt us as well. Can their temptation bring us what we truly desire, Anne? Remember your Psalms.”“Take delight in the Lord,” Anne began. Mom smiled and joined in, so they finished it together. “And He will give you the desires of your heart.”2Psalms 37:4. Apparently Oprah’s favorite verse, though I must stress I had this in the draft before I knew that.“What do you truly desire, Anne?” Mom asked.“ — to be safe, with Dad and you,” Anne said.“Then the Lord will surely shepherd us as long as we hold to our covenant with Him,” Mom said.
Anne was good for the whole half hour it took to get them into town, not raising her voice, not touching nothing, even avoiding the temptation to gawk at the houses and people at the side of the road when they came into town — but what a pce it was! There must have been dozens of houses, hundreds of people here, and Anne cherished every opportunity to see it. Mom never much liked it when Anne asked about other pces, but sometimes Dad…when they were alone out in the woods and had nothing else to pass the hours, Dad would talk about Brooklyn, which was a pce so much bigger still, and farther from home than every walk Anne had ever taken in the forest, all put together. He never told her much and asking made him raise his guard, but Anne had learned to just listen and not to press him about Brooklyn. Or that other pce, Korea.
The car rolled to a stop at the side of the road, just behind another truck, this one dull brown like dried blood. Mom climbed out of the car. Anne wanted to do the same and take it all in for a moment, but she had to be good, so she waited until Mom came around to her side and opened the door to let her out.
“Come on now, Anne,” Mom said, grabbing her by the hand and leading her around the truck, toward the road.
Anne saw another car drive past them. In the front seats were a woman and a man, both younger than Mom and Dad, while a boy was in the backseat — or rather kneeling on the backseat, with his face pressed up against the gss of the side window, making some grotesque face at anyone who cared to look. For a second, Anne's eyes met his, and followed him just long enough to see him pull his face away from the gss and look at her, even scrambling toward the rear window of the car as it hurtled past and drove on.
“Quit your lollygagging, Anne,” Mom said, stepping across the road with Anne trailing behind.
The two walked up to a big house with big front windows, and a rge door, and more trinkets and signs stacked in the windows. The paint job on the wooden front made a promise of color it ultimately couldn't keep, all vividness weathered out of it — but what was still fresh was the smell inside, both sweet and a little sharp. A little bell rang as the door swung open, which Anne couldn't help but crane her head to see, watching it ring again as the door closed behind them.
“Ah!” called a man's voice, thin and worn. Anne threw her head around once more as she felt Mom's hand tighten around her own. Down a small selection of shelves was a wooden counter and an old man behind it. Anne vaguely remembered his gray beard and wrinkled face, and while his voice had fled her memory over the winter, it still struck her as familiar. “Hello, Mrs. Simmons, how are you today?”“Just fine on this day, Mr. Tiptree,” Mom said, smiling at him, and Anne knew Mom didn't like him. “You remember my daughter, Anne?”The mention of her name brought Anne back to the moment. Be good. By all that is holy, be good. “How do you do, Sir?” Anne said, bowing her head a little, which meant she couldn't see his smile.“How could I forget such a polite little dy?” Mr. Tiptree said. “It must be a very special occasion if your mother is bringing you along.”“Anne needs new clothes for this season,” Mom said. “Practical clothes.”“Of course, Mrs. Simmons,” Mr. Tiptree said, then reached under the counter. “Why don't we have a look at the new catalog — ”“What do you have here that we can see for ourselves?” Mom asked. This seemed to upset Mr. Tiptree and it took him a moment to find his smile again.“Oh, I special-order most of it now, Mrs. Simmons,” Mr. Tiptree said. “There's not much call anymore for working dresses in — what size are you, dear? You look like you might be a size seven.”
Anne looked up at him but could not conceive of a satisfactory answer to his question. What size was she? She was her size. Anne size. She was tall there and a little thin here and she could barely comprehend how all the possible measurements — like when Mom measured her to sew an apron — how all that might be folded in on itself often enough to yield a single number. A seven, she thought, to fit all size seven girls. Were they girls like her? If there even were any other girls like her…not here, she thought. Maybe in Brooklyn.
“What about in eight?” Mom said, looking down at Anne. “She is coming up tall anyway. I can take it in.”That caused Mr. Tiptree to be even more upset. “I'm so very sorry, Mrs. Simmons, but I don’t stock those anymore,” he said. “You can try…there's Roscoe's over in Mills, or you can try the Penney's down in Vienna. They'll have the catalog and more.”“I suppose there's nothing to do but take a look,” Mom said, accepting the catalog from Mr. Tiptree.“Oh, but how do you like the rifle so far?” Mr. Tiptree asked. “It's a nice little varminter, isn't it?”“We like it just fine,” Mom said, turning to look at Anne — which Anne took as permission to talk about her new rifle. Mom had told her it would be the single most precious thing she owned, while Dad had cautioned her to see it as what it was, a tool for feeding the family.“It is a straight shooter,” Anne agreed. “The action was gritty but my Dad took it apart and made it run better.”“Now ain’t that something,” Mr. Tiptree said. “Are you getting big enough to help your Daddy scare them rabbits away?”“Actually, Mr. Tiptree, Sir, he is going to teach me how to take whitetails,” Anne said. “He taught me do the spotting and the parting already, but he says I need to work on my accuracy and it is cheaper and easier on a twenty two than the Mauser.” Anne beamed. “Dad says he saw a six point buck st season and if I can find it this year it is mine to take.” Then her thoughts turned more somber. “I took a rabbit st month. I meant to shoot near it but I hit it, so I had to take another shot and I sent it to Heaven and we had a rabbit dinner. It didn’t taste very good but it is a sin to kill what you don’t eat and so next time I will do a better job so we don’t have to eat another rabbit.”
Mr. Tiptree smiled.
Mom smiled.
“You can see why we need practical clothes,” Mom said.“Yes, yes,” Mr. Tiptree agreed.
Mr. Tiptree showed them a big glossy book with many pictures of smiling children wearing dresses, and because she had been so good that day, Anne got to choose between two of them. Anne's finger ended up on another seersucker dress, this one with minty green stripes that alternated with a creamy white, a fttering match to the skin of the girl wearing the dress in the picture. It cost five dolrs, according to the book, and that was the amount Mom counted out on the table when it came time to pay for the picture of the dress. A few times, Anne had seen Mom opening letters in their home that were full of money. It was a good thing somebody kept sending them money so Mom could give the money to Mr. Tiptree and buy what they needed. But Mom or Dad never talked about such things with Anne, and she had no good cause to worry about it, in any event.
In due time, they were out of the store and walking back to their truck. The blood-brown truck in front of them was gone, repced with a slick car painted in a bright red3This would have been cherry red, if young Anne knew what a cherry was. the likes of which Anne had never seen. For a moment, Anne forgot to be good, and her feet started moving as she took off to run toward the car and get a closer look. The same devil that had taken her feet also struck her deaf, so she didn't hear Mom cry behind her or the night-blue car speeding along the road. It was only when she was already halfway across the street that she turned her head to the right and saw the car barreling down at her. It would have gone right through her, standing still as she was, if the devil hadn’t shouted at her. Obeying his command, she threw herself forward, nding on and rolling in the gravel between the red car and Mom's truck. Only there, with flushed cheeks and tears welling in her eyes from fright and pain did she hear the echo of the blue car's brakes squealing to bring it to a stop.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” the driver shouted as he climbed out of the car. Anne had just picked herself to her bloodied knees when he had rounded the car and his shadow loomed over her with raised hand. “I'll learn you to —““Anne!” Mom shouted.“Mom!” Anne cried back, scrambling over the gravel away from the man while Mom rushed to her side. Her eyes were filled with tears and before she knew it, Mom scooped her off the ground and cradled her.“I almost crashed!” the driver protested. “Now you listen here, you let your calf4This seemed to be the least, well, slur-y slur I could find. I wish I could forget at least half of the words I learned in my research before getting to this one. run around as it please —““Don't listen,” Mom said.“I'm sorry, Mom!” Anne said, digging her dirtied, bloodied little hands into Mom's dress.“Goddammit, woman —“ the driver said.“Now, you listen, Sir,” Mom said, straightening up and turning to face the driver. Her right arm held up Anne's legs, while her left held the back of Anne's head. “I appreciate your aggravation, but there is no call for your nguage. I sincerely apologize for letting my daughter run carelessly, but nobody was hurt here, thank the Lord. I suggest you leave us be and get in your car now and you drive to where you are going, and I pray you also think on just how fast you speed that car of yours down this road where any child could be running.”“I didn't get up today to get preached at,” the driver fired back. “This used to be a good town. Now we’ve got you and yours to deal with and it’s all gone straight to hell.”
Mom kept staring at him when she whispered in Anne's ear.
“Can you stand?” she asked. Anne nodded. “Then get behind me,” Mom said. She set Anne down and squared up to the driver.“Goddammit, woman, you don't turn away from me,” the driver said. “You're damn lucky you're a —““If you cim to know me and mine, you must well know my name and I should thank you to use it, Sir!” Mom said. “If it has slipped your mind, that name is Mrs. Simmons and I shan't remind you again.” His face turned from confusion to anger and the hand that hung by his side hardened into a fist, but Mom stood her ground. “Go on, then,” Mom continued. “I see you fixing to hit me.”“Oh, I dearly should,” the driver said. “I've half a mind to!”“Bless your heart, Sir, but half a mind is a generous assessment,” Mom said, and it happened, the inevitable: he raised his hand, fist already unclenched, and after a moment of something going through his head that wasn't anger, he drew back and spped Mom across the face, the wedding band on his right hand opening a gash on her cheek.
“Mom!” Anne cried from behind her, but Mom didn't waver. She turned back to face the driver, blood trickling down from her face onto the colr of her dress, already bloodied where Anne had touched it. Mom seemed to not care, as her focus was on the driver. After meeting his eyes, she turned the other cheek. But in her was not the silent acceptance of Jesus Christ. Her body was coiled to strike instead.
He shouldn’t have done that.
Anne peeked out from behind Mom to look up at the driver again and saw anger returning to his face. But more than that, she saw a man standing near the entrance to Mr. Tiptree’s shop, with Mr. Tiptree at his side. The man wore gray pants, a bck shirt and a gleaming star on his chest — the Sheriff. He said nothing, did nothing, just stood there watching with Mr. Tiptree.
“Don’t you stare at me!” the driver growled down at her and Anne looked back at him. “You…you made me hit you!”
He well and truly shouldn’t have done that.
Mom’s head snapped forward and she spat at him, a fine mist of saliva mixed with blood. He flinched back, tried to swat it out of the air with filing arms and cried out in surprise all the while, but to no avail. The car behind him stopped his retreat and he almost stumbled when he hit the front wheel arch with the back of his legs. When he lowered his arms, his face and shirt were dotted with specks of red. His hand balled again into a fist, but he stayed where he was, seeing that Mom hadn’t left her position, either.
“That was the least of it,” Mom said all too calmly. “You are not the master of your passions, as I should hope you realize now. I suggest you pray on your anger, Sir. For if there should come a next time you raise voice or hand against my family, it will be your blood.”“You better get back to your mountain, Mrs. Simmons,” the man said. “You can’t stand against the good people here.”“Anne, what did the Lord promise Cain when he went to his punishment?” Mom said, loud enough for Mr. Tiptree and the Sheriff to hear, too. “Remember your Genesis.”“The Lord said,” Anne squeaked. “He said…”“If any one sys Cain, vengeance shall be taken upon him sevenfold,”5Genesis 4:15, of course. Mom said. She reached up to her neck, pulling out her crucifix pendant from under the colr of her dress. “And what did the Lord give Cain, Anne?”“The Lord put a mark upon Cain,” Anne said, “lest any who came upon him should kill him.”“My daughter knows this story well,” Mom said to the driver. “Do you not?”
Mom and the driver kept staring at each other.
“Whoa now, folks,” the Sheriff said. Anne looked up to see him approach, waving his arms around. “Easy. Easy. Standing ‘round here making a fuss in the middle of the street, that’s no good at all. Now how about y’all simmer down?” Neither Mom nor the driver said anything. The Sheriff took a knee and looked down at Anne. “You’re a fast one, ain’t you? Really burned the wind. But you gotta watch your way. There’s motor-cars ‘round here.”“Yessir,” Anne said.“That’s a good scrape you got, but it’s just a scrape,” the Sheriff said. “Best you don’t do that again, ain’t it?”“Yessir,” Anne repeated.“You keep your chin up now and you’ll be right as rain tomorrow, you hear,” the Sheriff said, then rose back to his feet. “Joel Bennett, what’d I tell you ‘bout that hot rod of yours? This ain’t no racetrack. You plum near hit a child and now you’re trying to cut a rusty, just ‘count of Mrs. Simmons having a grievance with your recklessness?”“She…spat on me, Sheriff!” the driver said.“After you took a swing at her,” the Sheriff said.“But she —“ the driver continued.“Ain’t no call to hit a dy,” the Sheriff cut him off. “Not ever. You got that much of a raisin’, didn’t you?”“…yes, Sheriff,” the driver said.“Now, Mrs. Simmons,” the Sheriff said. He looked away from her for a moment and took off his hat. “Are you gonna be quite alright?”“Just fine, Sheriff,” Mom said, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the corner of her mouth with it. “Just fine.”“We could take this to the station,” the Sheriff said, “or we could leave it here. What do y’all think?”
Mom and the driver kept staring at each other. Mom, still staring, put her hand forward to shake. The driver stood still.
“Joel?” the Sheriff said.“She made a ninny of me!” the driver said.“I reckon you’ll live,” the Sheriff said. “Which is more than I can say for your chances with this one if you don’t shake on it.”
The driver stretched out his hand and shook Mom’s hand. The Sheriff let out a breath.
“Off you go, Joel,” the Sheriff said, while the driver still looked at Mom, almost sck-jawed now. “Real careful now.”“Sheriff —” the driver tried again.“Git!” Mom barked.
The driver flinched back from her, hands reaching out behind him to find purchase on the hood of his car. He turned and trudged around the car, shooting a gaze or two at Mom, and climbed back in. Mom took a step back with her hand on Anne's head, and they stood behind their truck as the car drove off. Anne looked to the Sheriff, still hanging by them. Mr. Tiptree shook his head and turned away, too, going back into his shop.
“I'm so sorry, Mom,” Anne whispered.“Get in the truck,” Mom said, reaching for a handkerchief to wipe her cheek with.“I didn't mean —““You get in the truck now, Anne!” Mom said.
Anne climbed inside the truck while Mom talked to the Sheriff for a spell. They didn’t look happy talking but the Sheriff nodded more than Mom did. Then Mom was done and the Sheriff tipped his hat and she climbed inside the truck. When she pulled the doors closed, they were supposed to be safe — but Anne noticed she was leaving bloody fingerprints on the door handle, and so she folded her hands in front of her chest, trying hard to be good and not make anything else dirty and to stop crying. But she couldn't control it, not the sobs and least of all the tears. She tried to hold her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. The tears kept pouring and her body shivered with every little yelp that escaped her throat. She felt Mom bend close to her, brushing some of Anne’s hair aside, checking on her. Then Mom started the engine, but she didn't move the truck. Instead, she turned on the radio.
Anne knew what music was, of course. Mom often sang to her and Dad had a harmonica he liked to py on those summer evenings out on the porch. But she hadn't had much occasion to listen to songs sung by people other than that, and the sounds coming out of the radio didn't calm her nerves like they seemed to calm Mom's. Still, enough music-accompanied silence passed between the two that the sobs eventually stopped on their own and Anne opened her eyes to find she was done crying.
“I am sorry, Mom,” she said, almost tearing up again at the sound of her cracking voice.“Don't you do that again, Anne,” Mom said. “When you ran in front of that car, I thought I heard the Lord call your name. T'was his mighty hand that saw you to safety.”“I tried to be good, Mom,” Anne said. “I tried.”“We all try, Anne,” Mom said. “And still we all do fall. That is how we come into this world, ignorant and given to sin. But who will deliver us? What do the Psalms say?”“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer,” Anne breathed, drawing her arms closer around her chest. “My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”6And this is Psalms 18:2.“And they remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer,”7Psalms 78:35. Mom answered. “I told you there would be temptation. It is no sin to be tempted, but the Lord asks of us to resist it. To be strong when our heart call us to weakness, that is our creed. We fight this battle all our lives knowing it cannot be won by us, that never nothing stops. But fight it and keep fighting it we must, so the Lord can save us from ourselves and make us whole in Heaven. Do you understand?”Anne nodded.“Keep this in your heart when you pray,” Mom said. “There is only one sin and that is to despair of the Lord’s salvation. There is no bitterness in life that can’t be turned to sweetness by Him. He will deliver the righteous and the penitent both.”
Mom put the car in gear and pulled away from the side of the road, using a nearby sandlot to reverse. Shortly, they were on their way home, back up the mountain, and soon Mom noticed the radio was still on and switched it off again.
“Mom,” Anne said, “why did you let that man hit you? You didn’t do anything bad. I did.”“Oh, Anne,” Mom said, “I couldn’t let anyone y a hand on you. The Lord put your father and me on this Earth to protect you. And if the legions rose from the pit to cim you they would still answer to us.”Anne thought about that. “Are the town people going to fight us now?” she asked.Mom smiled. “Don’t pay Mr. Bennett’s anger any mind, Anne,” she said. “The serpent got the better of his good sense when he struck me, but he well remembers who we are now. They all do. We are safe.”“…who are we?” Anne asked. She hadn’t ever thought about who they were, besides Mom, Dad and herself, but it seemed important now.Mom nodded. “We are the Simmons family,” she said, “and our covenant is true. Remember your Isaiah. No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.”8From Isaiah 54:17.“Then why do we still have to deal with all these bad people?” Anne asked.“They are just people,” Mom said.“They are bad people,” Anne said.“That is not for us to judge, Anne,” Mom said.“Dad says they are bad people,” Anne said. “They are all bad people.”
Mom said nothing at all anymore. It was a long ride back home. Dad met them at the gate, worried at the sight of them. Mom took Anne inside and cleaned her up and bandaged her hands and knees. Dad wanted to help, but Mom put on the smile that showed she was angry with Dad. Mom gave Anne the good book to read while Mom and Dad had a long talk outside.
She didn't get her new dress that day.
