Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in Purgatory) Read online

  Maggie tried to smile at him, a wobbly turn of her pink mouth, but he could see her unhappiness. “I miss you, Johnny. But I’ve lost a lot in my life, and I will survive losing you too if it comes in exchange for your happiness or your freedom. But I really hope...” she broke off then and stared at her Converse sneakers. “I really hope I don’t have to,” she finished in a rush, and her cheeks flushed, spreading the stain down her slim neck and into the V of her pink tee shirt.

  “Can we start over, Maggie?” Johnny took the mop from her hand and pushed her glasses up on her little nose. They suited her, somehow, and he liked her all the more for the way they camouflaged her sexiness, making any guy have to look twice to see the obvious.

  Maggie smiled at him like he’d hung the moon -- a slow spreading grin that lit her face like a sunrise. “I’d like that, Johnny.”

  He leaned in and touched his lips to hers ever so softly, feeling his stomach flip over and his knees go weak at the contact. Her mouth was silky and her breath sweet, and the relief that coursed through him made him want to cry like a baby and bury his face in her hair. Maybe everything would be all right. He had Maggie, and for the first time he believed he would survive life after Purgatory. He had Maggie, and maybe that was enough.

  ~19~

  A Time to Hate

  1958

  Roger Carlton parked his car across the street from The Malt and waited until he saw her come out. His lights were off, and the businesses around him were closed for the night. There weren't any cars in the lot in front of the diner, and he had seen very few automobiles pass on the quiet street that crossed in front of the popular hangout. Val rode a bike to and from work; Dolly and the other waitress, the little fat one, usually walked. It wasn't far for either of them. Roger knew Val would watch as Dolly made her way down the street. He didn't like the ladies walking home at that hour. Ten o'clock was still early on a summer night, but Val was protective. Roger eased his car out of the parking lot and circled around the block in the other direction. He would intercept her before she reached her house.

  Roger was alone; he’d gotten rid of his friends when he went home to change. They had all thought it was a little too funny when Dolly Kinross poured that glass of lemonade over his head. Val had told her to go home, but apparently she stayed in the kitchen for the remainder of the evening, washing dishes and keeping a low profile. Val should have fired her. Irene's daddy owned the place. Maybe he would have to put the idea in his head that Val was letting the place go downhill. The guy was a Commie anyway. Anybody could see it.

  Roger had watched her house for a while, but it hadn't taken him long to figure out no one was home. He had come back to the diner looking for her and had seen her through the front windows, sitting at the bar, having a cup of coffee while Val mopped the floor.

  But now she was walking home, and his was the only car in sight. There she was. His headlights picked her up, walking along the right side of the road, heading straight for home like the good little mommy she wasn’t. His passenger window was down. He had made sure of it. He pulled alongside her and slowed as he matched her swift pace.

  “Hey Doll. You like it when I call you Doll, don’t you? I heard my daddy on the phone with you a while back. Seems that’s what he calls you too. Like father like son, huh?”

  Dolly Kinross folded her arms and kept walking as quickly as her legs would carry her. She didn’t look at him, but sighed and shook her head.

  “Roger Carlton, it’s way past your bedtime, and I am not interested in babysitting. Obviously you didn’t get the message I was trying to send with that glass of lemonade. Go home before I tell your daddy that you’ve been bothering me. I heard you’ve been bothering Billy too, Roger. I won’t have it. You leave my boys alone, you hear?”

  Roger felt a hot, pulsing anger radiate from behind his eyeballs. He swerved wildly in front of Dolly Kinross, almost hitting her in the process, and came to a screeching halt in front of her, blocking her way. He threw himself across the seat and out the passenger door, grabbing the stunned woman by her upper arms, pushing her into the car. He leaned in and pressed her back onto the seat of his daddy’s Lincoln, pressing his forehead into hers, holding her arms at her sides. He screamed in her face, his spittle landing on her cheeks.

  “You will not talk to me that way, you whore! You think I want my daddy’s sloppy seconds! I’m not here because I want you! I’m here because I hate you!”

  Dolly Kinross lay frozen, shocked at the violence and vehemence of the young man who, despite his claims to not want her, was practically laying on her, his body pushing into hers, his arms pinning hers between them.

  “You need to get off of me, Roger. Someone will come along, and you will get in trouble. You don’t want that, do you?” Her voice was calm and serene, like she was talking to a naughty two-year-old, and Roger became even more incensed.

  “You need to shut your mouth, whore! If someone comes along, what are they gonna see? You seducing the mayor’s son, that’s what! You think it’s gonna hurt my reputation any? You’re the one who needs to be worried.

  Dolly didn’t respond but held herself very still as Roger seemed to momentarily get a grip on his anger. The truth of his words lay heavy on her chest, almost as heavy as Roger himself. People wouldn’t believe her. He was right about that. Car lights swung across the front window, and Roger stiffened. Apparently, he wasn’t completely ambivalent about getting caught.

  “Now I’m gonna get out and walk around the car, all easy like, and you are gonna lay here until that car passes. Then you’re gonna sit up, and you and I are gonna take a little drive. I’ve got a few things to say to you, and I’m not done saying them. If you run or try to get away, you’ll make a scene, and you and little Billy will pay. Now you don’t want that do, you?” He smiled as he mocked her with her own words. No, Dolly Kinross didn’t want that. Roger slid off of her and pushed at her legs so he could close the passenger door behind him. Then he walked around the car, waving at the car as it passed, and slid in behind the wheel like he hadn’t a care in the world.

  He started the car and pulled gently away from the curb. “That was my friend Darrell. He smiled and waved to me. Guess he won’t be coming to your rescue, now will he?” Roger giggled, and Dolly Kinross realized that she was in serious trouble.

  Roger picked up speed as he headed out of town, both hands on the wheel, a slight smile around his lips. He was a handsome boy, but there was something wrong with his eyes. They were a strange color -- a flat green -- and Dolly knew it was probably her terror that was playing tricks on her, but they seemed to glow a little in the dim light of the car’s interior.

  “Where are we goin’?” Dolly kept her voice relaxed and calm, her hands folded primly in her lap, but her mind was scrambling.

  “Far enough away that no one can hear you scream and beg,” he said jubilantly, as if he’d just revealed the A+ he got on his report card.

  “What is it you need to tell me? I think this is far enough. My boys will be wonderin’ where I am.” Dolly wondered if Roger would believe her. He probably knew she’d kept some late hours with his father.

  “They’ll just think you’re with my daddy,” he answered, immediately confirming her fears.

  “I’m not seeing your daddy anymore. Did he tell you that?” Dolly prayed he had. “I told him last week it wasn’t gonna work out. He’s got you and your mother to take care of, and I’ve got my boys. We decided to go our separate ways.”

  Dolly was telling Roger the truth. And they’d never slept together. Dolly had been holding out in hopes of making the bigger score. If the mayor would leave his wife and marry her, her life would be so much easier. But that had been before Roger had started sniffing around her, before she’d become afraid of him. Then last week, Johnny had told her Roger was bothering Billy. That had been the last straw, and Dolly gave up her dream of becoming a mayor’s wife, just like she’d given up on being a preacher’s wife, and then an actor’s wi
fe when Johnny’s father’s big dreams of movie-stardom hadn’t included a wife and a baby.

  “Ahhh, really?” Roger cooed sarcastically. “Boy, that is just swell! Well then, you and I are free to be together now, aren’t we?” He swung his right hand off the wheel and pawed at the opening of her dress, popping a button as he shoved his hand downward. Dolly gasped and pushed his hand away, lashing out with her feet and arms. She caught the wheel with her left foot, and the car swerved wildly.

  Roger cried out, cursing and yelling, but quickly regained control of the wobbling car. He turned on her, viciously backhanding her across the face. Dolly’s head spun, and she lashed out again, yanking on the steering wheel and pressing both of her feet into the gas. The car swung in a wide circle, and Roger instinctively bore down on the brakes as the car continued to spin, its back fender on the passenger side colliding with a fencepost that managed to slow them down just enough to abbreviate the spinning. The car came to a dramatic rest facing exactly the same direction they had been heading.

  Roger sat half-dazed from the turbulent and terrifying ride, and Dolly Kinross threw herself out the passenger door. Roger reacted a smidgeon too late, and Dolly Kinross was free and running, veering erratically as if the adrenaline coursing through her had messed with her equilibrium.

  “You whore! You filthy tease!” Roger staggered out of the car, shouting and cursing, giving chase immediately.

  A pair of lights turned off of the reservoir road and sliced through the field of the waist high weeds and prairie grass through which Dolly Kinross ran for her life. The lights continued toward Mayor Carlton’s abandoned car, and Roger halted abruptly, caught between his desire to hunt down his prey or return to the car. The driver’s side door hung wide open, and the lights were blazing. In fact, the car was still running. The dent on the rear passenger side was telling, though it wouldn’t be immediately visible to the oncoming car. Whoever was approaching would almost certainly stop to investigate. He had to go back.

  He sprinted to the car and then waited casually by the open driver’s side door as an ancient truck approached the damaged Lincoln. The driver of the truck slowed and stopped, and the rusty heap shuddered for a full ten seconds after the driver turned it off. Roger’s blood turned to ice. He recognized the old truck. Clark Bailey rarely drove it; it usually sat in front of his little bungalow and collected bird droppings, but a fishing pole was leaning over the tailgate and the police chief wore a floppy hat with various homemade flies and lures stuck in the brim. He had apparently spent the day out at the reservoir, though everyone knew there wasn’t much to catch worth eating.

  “What’s the problem, son? You havin’ car trouble?” Chief Bailey stepped out of the truck and had to slam the rickety door twice to get it to stay shut.

  “No, sir. Not exactly,” Roger smiled sheepishly. “I saw a deer and swerved to miss it, but ended up hitting the fencepost instead.” Roger inwardly preened at his own genius. “It still runs, but my daddy’s gonna be none to happy when he sees the dent.”

  “A deer, huh?” Clark Bailey’s eyes swept out over the fields, trying to catch the movement he had spotted when he’d stopped. “What you doin’ out here at this time a night?”

  “Just driving, sir. I thought maybe I’d take a late night dip in the rez. I have to be home at midnight, so it woulda been quick, but it sure woulda felt good. It’s been so hot I can’t stand to sit still; even now it’s probably 90 degrees!” Roger jabbered conversationally as he opened his car door and slid back behind the wheel. He put the car into gear, crossing his fingers that it would still drive. He wasn’t afraid of his father; the man would yell and threaten and then give Roger whatever he wanted just like he always did. But Roger was a little afraid of Clark Bailey. That man wasn’t a fool, and he didn’t miss much. Roger would be lucky to drive away without alerting his suspicions. Roger hoped Dolly Kinross was still running.

  “That’s true enough, but you shouldn’t be swimming at night, especially by yourself. You head on home now. I’ll be right behind you in case you did more damage than you think.” Chief Bailey climbed into his truck, turned on the tired beast, and waited for it to roar its discontent before backing up twenty feet to allow Roger space to swing a U-turn and head back toward town.

  Dolly watched as the old truck rumbled after the glossy blue Lincoln. She remained crouched in a shallow ravine, her blonde head peeking up over the edge, until the headlights disappeared into the dark. It was Clark Bailey. He had saved her without even knowing it. She had heard his voice carry over the distance she had run. Recognition had brought sudden relief, along with an onslaught of hot ears streaming from her eyes -- one of them black and swollen-- and down to her bleeding mouth. Her jaw felt funny, too. It caught a little when she opened her mouth. That was an old injury, rearing its head. She had been hit in the face before, though her momma usually hit with an open palm and was careful not to bruise her daughter’s pretty face. Her mother had made sure Dolly knew how important that face was to her survival.

  She could have run to Clark, crying for help, pointing the finger at the demonic Roger Carlton. She could have. She should have. But she didn’t. She had stayed huddled and fearful, not wanting him to see her with her face swollen and her hair a mess. She liked Clark Bailey. She had always liked him; he was the kind of man she never pursued because he deserved so much more. She didn’t want him to see her this way; what if he thought she wasn’t pretty anymore? And what if he thought she had been the one to pursue Roger Carlton? What if he didn’t believe her? No, she had done the right thing. She was okay. She had been in worse situations than this. Town was only about five or six miles away, definitely no more than seven. She had on her flat shoes, so she could walk home just fine. Straightening her hair and using her apron to dry her eyes and tidy her makeup, she set out for town, her face throbbing with every step.

  She watched fearfully for car lights, worried that Roger would return as soon as he was no longer under Chief Bailey’s watchful eye. But no one came. A little more than two-and-a-half hours later, she reached Julian Street. It had to be close to two a.m. Johnny’s car was parked in the pockmarked drive of her two bedroom home, and the lights were all off. Dolly sighed gratefully. She was good with makeup. If she could just get through the night and steer clear of her boys until tomorrow, with a little foundation and paint she could make this whole dreadful episode go away. She just needed to make it into her room.

  She had made it down the hallway and into her room before remembering that she had told Val she would cover the breakfast shift in the morning, only four hours from now. And then Johnny burst through her bedroom door.

  ***

  Chief Bailey was angrier than he had been in a long time. He’d dropped in for a coffee and a big man’s breakfast at The Malt that morning and discovered someone had marked up Dolly Kinross’s pretty face. Oh, she’d done a good job of applying the goop and arranging her hair just so, but Chief Bailey knew a black eye and a split lip when he saw it, and she definitely had both. And she was dead on her feet, and her smile looked like it hurt to show teeth.

  He normally didn’t stop in for breakfast, but Dorothy had told him that Dolly would be covering her morning shift today. He had decided he was going to take the kid’s advice and just go for it. He was gonna ask Dolly Kinross on a real date. What was the worst thing that could happen? But when he saw her face he decided romance would have to wait; she was in no condition to be hit on. He pretended he didn’t notice her injuries, because he knew that was what she wanted. But he’d finished his breakfast without tasting it and burnt his tongue when he’d gulped his coffee before it was sufficiently cool. When he paid for his meal, he pulled Val aside and asked the manager if he knew the story. Val shrugged and sighed.

  “She’s been havin’ trouble lately here at work. She’s been jumpy and jittery. She even spilled a glass of lemonade over the head of a kid last night. I know she and her oldest son had words a week ago. She told me he think
s that he’s the parent. The kid has a temper, I know that much. I’ve heard he knows how to fight and won’t take anything from anyone. Maybe it was him that roughed her up. Like father like son, you know?”

  Chief Bailey didn’t know, and he really didn’t want to know, either. Johnny Kinross hadn’t struck him as the kind of guy to hit his mother. He liked the kid. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a word with him. If there were some domestic problems at the Kinross house, it would help everyone involved, including the police, if he could head them off right now.

  ***

  Johnny lifted the hood of the jalopy and tried to hold back the anger that wanted to spill over like the oil that was leaking from the jalopy onto the shop floor. He had come to work that morning just as angry as he’d been when he went to bed. Momma had been up and out the door at the crack of dawn, supposedly to work at the diner, though Johnny had stopped in to make sure she was there before heading to the shop. She had covered up the damage pretty well. But she hadn’t made eye contact with him, even when she handed him two pieces of buttered toast with an egg and a few slices of bacon sandwiched between them.

  “You’re gonna be late for work if you don’t hustle,” was all she said. He’d left the diner with no appetite, but he was sure hungry for a fight.

  Then not ten minutes after getting to work, Mayor Carlton and that little creep Roger had shown up at Gene’s. Apparently, young Roger had swerved to miss a deer and wrapped the tail end of his daddy’s Lincoln around a fence post. Mayor Carlton was not a happy man. Roger seemed unconcerned by the damage he had caused but had the sense not to say much. He smirked over at Johnny a few times, leering a little at his soiled coveralls. Johnny wished the dipstick in his hand was a sword that he could use to wipe the self-satisfied smile off of Rogers face. He wondered how Mayor Carlton would react to having his son’s face marked up. He sure as hell didn’t like the mayor marking up his mother. Let him see how he liked it.