Little Lucy was a voracious reader. She gripped the stack of books in her lap as she stared at the men blocking the streets. They were all dressed in their white robes.
Most of them had their hoods pulled back because of the heat. She recognized some from church, a couple from school. She waved at Mr Sheffield, who owned the hardware store. He winked at her and waved back.
Lucy told Juice, ‘We were on a hill near the courthouse, and there was a black guy in front of us, stopped at the stop sign. He was in one of those little foreign cars. Mr Peterson walked right up to him, and Mr Laramie was on the other side.’
‘That right?’ Juice repeated.
‘Yes, that’s right. The guy was terrified. His car kept rolling back. He must’ve had a clutch. His foot was slipping because he was so panicked. And I remember my mama watching him like we were watching
Wild Kingdom
or something, and she just laughed and laughed, and said, “Lookit how scared that coon is.” ’
‘Jesus,’ Mary hissed.
Lucy smiled at Juice, repeated, ‘Lookit how scared that coon is.’
Juice took the toothpick out of his mouth. ‘You best watch yourself, gal.’
‘Lookit how scared that coon is,’ Lucy mumbled. ‘Lookit how scared …’ She let her voice trail off, but it was only like an engine idling before it was gunned. For no reason, the story struck her as hilariously funny. Her voice went up, the sound echoing off the buildings. ‘Lookit how scared that coon is! Lookit how scared that coon is!’
Juice slapped her, open palm, but hard enough to spin her around. Lucy felt blood slide down her throat.
Not the first time she’d been hit. Not the last. It wouldn’t stop her. Nothing could stop her. ‘Lookit how scared that coon is! Lookit how scared that coon is!’
‘Shut up!’ Juice punched his fist into her face.
Lucy felt the crack of a tooth breaking. Her jaw twisted like a Hula Hoop, but she still said, ‘Lookit how scared—’
He kicked her in the stomach, his tight pants keeping his foot low so that she felt the toe of his shoe scrape her pelvic bone. Lucy gasped from the pain, which was excruciating, but somehow liberating. How many years had it been since she’d felt something other than numb? How many years had it been since she’d raised her voice, told a man no?
Her throat felt tight. She could barely stand. ‘Lookit how scared that—’
Juice punched her in the face again. She felt the bridge of her nose splinter. Lucy staggered back, arms open. She saw stars. Literal stars. Her purse dropped. The heel of her shoe snapped off.
‘Get out my face!’ Juice waved his fist in the air. ‘Get outta here ’fore I kill you, bitch!’
Lucy stumbled into Jane, who pushed her away like a diseased dog.
‘Just go!’ Mary begged. ‘Please.’
Lucy swallowed a mouthful of blood and coughed it back out. Pieces of white speckled the ground. Teeth.
‘Get on, bitch!’ Juice warned her. ‘Get on outta my sight.’
Lucy managed to turn. She looked up the dark street. There were no lights showing the way. Either the pimps shot them out or the city didn’t bother to turn them on. Lucy stumbled again, but kept herself upright. The broken heel was a problem. She kicked off both shoes. The soles of her feet felt the intense heat of the asphalt, a burning sensation that shot straight up to her scalp. It was like
walking on hot coals. She’d seen that on TV once – the trick was to walk fast enough to deprive the heat of oxygen so your skin didn’t burn.
Lucy picked up her pace. She straightened herself as she walked. She kept her head held high despite the breathtaking pain in her ribs. It didn’t matter. The darkness didn’t matter. The heat in her soles didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
She turned, screaming, ‘Look at how scared that coon is!’
Juice made to run after her, and Lucy bolted down the street. Her bare feet slapped against the pavement. Her arms pumped. Her lungs shook as she rounded the corner. Adrenaline raced through her body. Lucy thought of all those PE classes in school, when her bad attitude had earned her five, ten, twenty laps around the track. She had been so fast then, so young and free. Not anymore. Her legs started to cramp. Her knees wanted to buckle. Lucy chanced a look behind her, but Juice was not there. No one was there. She stumbled to a stop.
He didn’t even care enough to chase her.
Lucy bent over, bracing her hand against a phone booth, blood dripping from her mouth. She used her tongue to find the source. Two teeth were broken, though thank God they were in the back.
She went inside the booth. The light was too bright when she closed the door. She let it hang open and leaned against the glass. Her breath was still labored. Her body felt as if she’d run ten miles, not a handful of blocks.
She looked at the phone, the black receiver on the hook, the slot for the dime. Lucy traced her fingers along the bell symbol engraved in the metal plate, then let her hand move down to find the four, the seven, the eight. Her
parents’ phone number. She still knew it by heart, just like she knew the street number where they lived, her grandmother’s birthday, her brother’s upcoming graduation date. That earlier Lucy was not completely lost. There still existed her life in numbers.
She could call, but even if they answered, no one would have anything to say.
Lucy pushed herself out of the phone booth. She walked slowly up the street, in no particular direction but away. Her stomach clenched as the first wave of withdrawal made itself known. She should go to the hospital to get patched up and beg the nurse for some methadone before it got really bad. Grady was twelve blocks down and three over. Her legs weren’t cramping yet. She could make the walk. Those laps around the high school track hadn’t always felt like a punishment. Lucy used to love to run. She loved jogging on weekends with her brother Henry. He always gave up before she did. Lucy had a letter from him in her purse. She’d gotten it last month from the man at the Union Mission, where the girls took their downtime when Juice was mad at them.
Lucy had kept the letter for three whole days before opening it, afraid it would be bad news. Her father dead. Her mother run off with the Charles Chips man. Everyone was getting divorced now, weren’t they? Broken homes. Broken children. Though Lucy had been broken for a long time, so it was nothing to open and read a simple letter, right?
Henry’s cramped script was so familiar that it felt like a soft hand on her cheek. Tears had filled her eyes. She read the letter through once, then again, then again. One page. No gossip or family news, because Henry was not that way.
He was precise, logical, never dramatic. Henry was in his last year of law school. He was looking for a job now because he’d heard the market was tough. He would miss being a student. He would miss being around his friends. And he really missed Lucy.
He missed Lucy.
This was the part she had read four times, then five, then so many more that she had lost count. Henry missed Lucy. Her brother missed his sister.
Lucy missed herself, too.
But Lucy had dropped her purse back on the street corner. Juice probably had it now. He’d probably shaken it out onto the sidewalk and combed through everything like it belonged to him. Which meant he had Henry’s letter and Lucy’s kitchen knife that was sharp enough to cut the skin on her leg, which she knew because she had done it last week just to make sure she could still bleed.
Lucy took a left at the next corner. She turned around to look at the moon. It punctured the black sky with the curved edge of its fingernail. The skeleton of the unfinished Peachtree Plaza hotel loomed in the distance – the tallest hotel in the world. The whole city was under construction. In a year or two, there would be thousands of new hotel rooms opening downtown. Business would be booming, especially in the streets.
She doubted she’d live to see it.
Lucy tripped again. Pain shot up her spine. The damage to her body was making itself known. Her rib must be fractured. She knew that her nose was broken. The clenching in her stomach was getting worse. She would need a fix soon or she’d go into the DTs.
She made herself put one foot in front of the other.
‘Please,’ she prayed to the God of Grady Hospital. ‘Let them give me methadone. Let them give me a bed. Let them be kind. Let them be—’
Lucy stopped. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she leaving her fate to some bitch nurse who would take one look at her and know exactly what she was? Lucy should go back to her strip. She should make up with Juice. She should get down on her hands and knees and beg him for forgiveness. For mercy. For a hit. For salvation.
‘Good evening, sister.’
Lucy spun around, half expecting to see Henry, though he had never greeted her that way. There was a man standing a few feet behind her. White. Tall. Covered in shadow. Lucy’s hand flew to her chest. Her heart pounded underneath her palm. She knew better than to let some john sneak up on her like that. She reached for her purse, the knife she kept inside, but too late remembered that she’d lost everything.
‘Are you all right?’ the man asked. He was clean-cut, something Lucy hadn’t seen in a long while, except on a pig. His light brown hair was shaved into a buzz cut. Sideburns short. No shadow of a beard even this late at night. Military, she guessed. Lots of guys were coming home from Nam. In six months, this asshole would be just like all the other vets Lucy knew, wearing his dirty hair in a braid, beating down some woman and talking shit about the Man.
Lucy tried to make her voice strong. ‘Sorry, handsome. I’m done for the night.’ Her words echoed in the cavern formed by the tall buildings. She was aware that she was slurring, and straightened her shoulders so he wouldn’t think she was an easy target. ‘Closed for business.’
‘I’m not looking for business.’ He took a step forward. He had a book in his hands. The Bible.
‘Shit,’ she mumbled. These guys were everywhere. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, even some of the freaks from the local Catholic church. ‘Lookit, I don’t need saving.’
‘I hate to argue, sister, but you look like you do.’
‘I’m not your sister. I have a brother, and you’re not him.’ Lucy turned around and started walking. She couldn’t go back to Juice right now. Lucy didn’t think she could stand another beating. She would go to the hospital and make such a stink that they’d have to sedate her. That, at least, would get her through the night.
‘I bet he’s worried about you.’
Lucy kept walking.
‘Your brother?’ the man asked. ‘I bet he’s worried about you. I know I’d be.’
She clutched her hands together, but didn’t turn around. Footsteps followed her. Lucy didn’t quicken her pace. Couldn’t quicken her pace. The pain in her stomach was strong, a knife cutting through her viscera. The hospital was fine for one night, but there was tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Lucy would have to find a way back into Juice’s good graces. Tonight had been slow. Even Kitty wasn’t bringing in much. Juice was all about cold, hard cash, and Lucy was betting this Jesus freak had at least ten bucks on him. Sure, Juice would still beat her, but the money would soften his blows.
‘I want to call him.’ Lucy kept a careful pace. She could hear the man following, keeping his distance. ‘My brother. He’ll come get me. He said he would.’ She was lying, but her voice was strong. ‘I don’t have any money. To call him, that is.’
‘If it’s money you want, I can give you that.’
Lucy stopped. Slowly, she turned around. The man was standing in a sliver of light that came from the lobby of a nearby office building. Lucy was too tall, five-ten with her shoes off. She was used to looking down at most people. This guy was well over six feet. The hands that held the Bible were huge. His shoulders were broad. Long legs, but not lean. Lucy was fast, especially when she was scared. The minute he took out his wallet, she would grab it and dash away.
She asked, ‘You a marine or what?’
‘4-F.’ He took a step toward her. ‘Medical disability.’
He looked capable enough to Lucy. He probably had a daddy who bought him out of the draft, same as Lucy’s dad had with Henry. ‘Give me some money so I can call my brother.’ She remembered, ‘Please.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Athens.’
‘Greece?’
She sputtered a laugh. ‘Georgia. He’s in college. Law school. He’s about to get married. I wanna call him. Congratulate him.’ She added, ‘Get him to pick me up and take me home. To my family. Where I belong.’
The man took another step forward. The light picked out the features of his face, which were normal, even average. Blue eyes. Nice mouth. Sharp nose. Square jaw. ‘Why aren’t you in college?’
Lucy felt a tingle at the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure how to describe it. Part of her was afraid of the man. Part of her was thinking she hadn’t talked to a guy like this in more years than she could remember. He wasn’t looking at her like she was a whore. He wasn’t proposing
a transaction. There was nothing in his eyes that told her he was a threat. And yet, it was two in the morning and he was standing in the empty street of a city that pretty much closed its doors at six o’clock after all the white people went back to the suburbs.
The truth was, neither one of them belonged here.
‘Sister.’ He took another step closer. Lucy was shocked to see the concern in his eyes. ‘I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I let the Lord guide my hand.’
Lucy had trouble answering. Years had passed since anyone had looked at her with anything close to compassion. ‘What makes you think I’m afraid?’
‘I think you’ve lived with fear for a long time, Lucy.’
‘You don’t know what I’ve—’ She stopped. ‘How do you know my name?’
He seemed confused. ‘You told me.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘You told me your name was Lucy. Just a few minutes ago.’ He held up the Bible for emphasis. ‘I swear.’
All the saliva in her mouth was gone. Her name was her secret. She never gave it away to strangers. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Lucy …’ He was less than five feet away from her now. There was that same concerned look in his eyes, though he could easily take one more step and wrap both hands around her neck before she knew what was happening.