{"id":16565,"date":"2020-11-30T17:00:21","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T23:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=16565"},"modified":"2020-11-30T22:31:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T04:31:19","slug":"turkey-creek-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/16565","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Creek Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was no religious expedition, I\u2019ll tell you that. We\u2019d seen the cross lit up on the side of Mount Lindo every night since birth, so when Randy said after school one day, \u201cLet\u2019s go climb it,\u201d the rest of us agreed. This was after The Denver Post<\/em> discovered that the man who\u2019d commissioned the cross, some dead rich city council guy\u2014community leader and philanthropist\u2014had molested two of his long-haired daughters. But the giant white cross brought enough comfort that most in the city chose to overlook that.<\/p>\n

That included most, but not all, of us. Sally thought up close the cross might resemble a string of Christmas lights: unscrew one bulb, and the whole apparatus could go dark. That\u2019s what she hoped. \u201cServe him right,\u201d she said from the driver\u2019s seat, \u201cbastard.\u201d She sported a duckling yellow sweater and that purple metallic eye shadow we all wore then, even Randy when we got him drunk enough.<\/p>\n

Sally picked us up after practice\u2014Jolene and I were in the Fiddler<\/em> chorus, pretending we could sing\u2014and drove to the park outside Columbine to wait out rush hour. Jolene adjusted the square burger leaking through her Wendy\u2019s bag. We\u2019d taken off our sad shawls and bonnets, leaving drab ancient Russia for familiar suburbia again. Here, people had more money. And ketchup.<\/p>\n

\u201cShouldn\u2019t we do this late at night?\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re in a park,\u201d I told her, \u201cand not on the mountain yet.\u201d Besides, we had to wait for Randy\u2019s shift to end. He worked in a K-Mart knock-off selling tube socks and Sheila E. cassettes. We didn\u2019t ask if they gave him a discount, because everything was discounted.<\/p>\n

We sat in the grass by the pond, wind rippling its surface. Sally stared at the last slant of sun. \u201cWe\u2019ll get up there. We\u2019ll see clear across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the way to Kansas,\u201d Jolene said, slipping off her pink moccasins and exposing her toes to the cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept it will be dark,\u201d I said through a mouthful of fries.<\/p>\n

The philanthropist who put the cross on Mount Lindo had married into the Olinger Mortuary dynasty back in the \u201830s. His youngest daughter became Miss America and, decades later, a champion for incest survivors, directly implicating him.<\/p>\n

This was the early nineties. A chilly September and teachers hadn\u2019t piled on the homework yet. I felt carefree in the park. Those days I still planned to do everything right and grow up and move to Chicago to do improv theater because it sounded glamorous.<\/p>\n

\u201cHurry up already,\u201d Randy called across the lawn in his work vest. The park officially closed at sundown, but nobody patrolled yet, aside from geese eying us with suspicion. Randy patted Sally on the head and palmed a handful of fries from each of us. \u201cAnyone think to get me a Frosty?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the time rush hour has passed, and we\u2019re driving 285, headed into the foothills, that\u2019s when a cold sleet arrives. Our wipers don\u2019t want to keep up and the tires get weird and rigid. We start sliding on curves\u2014and anyone who knows this road, knows it\u2019s all curves. Sally gets nervous, so we pull to the roadside and then to a gas station parking lot with its warbling pale-orange light, and before we know it a youngish guy comes out in a jean jacket, fleece-lined. He leans against the car asking about our trouble, suggests Sally consult a map with him inside the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need a map,\u201d Randy says, but she leaves with him. We see their two figures inside through the wide glass window, like a movie on silent. He stands behind her, leaning against her shoulders as she thumbs through an atlas. She\u2019s lived in Colorado as long as I have, her entire life, so what she\u2019s doing is deliberate: humoring him. But she\u2019s also laughing and letting him lead. There\u2019s an air of her knowing she\u2019s being watched and enjoying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we go get her?\u201d Randy says\u2014which breaks the spell inside.<\/p>\n

Sally holds the atlas over her head against the rain as they dash outside. She\u2019s quick inside the car but doesn\u2019t close the door yet, like she\u2019s betting on something: his reaction. He tells Sally at the steering wheel, \u201cScoot over.\u201d She smiles like she\u2019s won, sliding to the middle of the bench seat, crushing Jolene against the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure about this?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

Sally nods. \u201cHe knows how to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAhoy,\u201d says the gas station guy in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe<\/em> know how to get there,\u201d Jolene says.<\/p>\n

He pulls us back into traffic on that dark night.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t long on the highway when he started skidding, too, on curves, and the wipers didn\u2019t work any better for him than they did for us, but he didn\u2019t seem too concerned and hovered his face close to Sally\u2019s even as he drove.<\/p>\n

Jolene came right out with it. \u201cHave you guys met before?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sally said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. He\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randy wasn\u2019t having any of this, or he wouldn\u2019t have been if he weren\u2019t so carsick. He sat in the back next to me, head sunk into Jolene\u2019s Wendy\u2019s bag, trying not to throw up. But his eyes hung over the bag, alert, black, and skittering. Sally was his pet and it seemed she had forgotten him.<\/p>\n

We turned on Turkey Creek Road, near Tiny Town. Finally reached the dirt parking lot near the cross, not far from the mountaintop. Pine and blue spruce surrounded us with biting chill air, the city glowing faint beyond the mountains. We got out and our shoes sunk into the mud. A cemetery was down one path, the cross down another. \u201cI don\u2019t even see it,\u201d Jolene said, but I knew we were close. All the green and white road signs had pointed us here.<\/p>\n

The gas station dude, in jean jacket and high-tops, his honey-brown hair maybe gelled or unwashed, said, \u201cYou gotta hike to it, but somebody should stay with the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolene turned. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCops,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe.\u201d He leaned against the car with Sally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t get towed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this was your idea,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Sally pulled her sweater tight, accepted his fleece-lined arm at her waist. \u201cTechnically, it was Randy\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poor Randy in the parking lot, in his work vest with no sleeves or hood, wanted to stay with Sally\u2014if anyone needed to\u2014but instead marched across the lot to the rocky path, pretending not to stumble, but anyone could see how woozy the ride made him. Jolene went on ahead; she\u2019d had a pause to consider, to weigh possible dangers, and must have decided suit yourself<\/em>. Randy\u2019s Doc Martens were scuffed and smudged with mud. Sleet bounced off his legs. He shivered. Any minute he might grab his stomach and double over.<\/p>\n

Sally leaned into the gas station guy exuding weird contentment. He must have been five years older. Her brown eyes glittered until it seemed she\u2019d grown into another, nighttime version of herself, a bolder, glossier version with redder cheeks and blonder hair and so little need for her friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t leave us here?\u201d I joked. The guy laughed, but Sally looked hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But when Randy and Jolene and I got a hundred yards down the path, we heard the car engine rattle. I thought I saw two stripes of headlights. Randy turned to run back. \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t do that,\u201d I said and led him to the cross. The big stupid cross.<\/p>\n

The philanthropist originally hoisted the cross for his father, buried in the cemetery below, so the philanthropist\u2019s mother could see it from her kitchen window across town before bed. For me, as a kid, the cross had marked the direction home, as solid and immovable as the front range, a white pulse on the black mountain, riding back from downtown into our western suburbs. But I didn\u2019t know the story behind it then.<\/p>\n

It was larger than I\u2019d imagined, several hundred feet wide and several hundred feet tall, when it had seemed so tiny up on the mountain. The Jesus it could hold up would be mammoth, unheard of, with dull booming voice and hopeful proclamations; you\u2019d see him all the way from Colorado Springs or Santa Fe, wind billowing his stick-straight hair behind him.<\/p>\n

Jolene said, \u201cEach bulb\u2019s the size of a baby head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to shine on the whole dumb city,\u201d Randy said. His heart wasn\u2019t there with us, but I wanted it to be. He needed to feel the white light, too, the muted warmth it gave out. It felt like watching stars on the ground, as if they\u2019d fallen and arranged themselves along a clean geometry.<\/p>\n

Then beyond us spread the wider view. \u201cLook at the city,\u201d I told Randy. From here, you saw the expanse of it, orange, white, and green dots patterned into lines. It seemed to have design and direction to it. I guessed at black rectangles and untangled paths of streets, scoping out our subdivision, our school blacktop. Randy hugged himself against the cold. We found Jolene staring at the great metal fence around the cross, ignoring the rain, flexing her feet to climb.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if it\u2019s electric?\u201d Randy stumbled and tackled her to the wet dirt.<\/p>\n

She sat up, brushing gravel and mud from her elbows. \u201cIt\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randy found a flat rock to sit on. \u201cWho picks up a bunch of teenagers at a gas station?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolene zipped her jacket and sat next to him. \u201cWhy did we let him in, is what I want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was driving,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The thing was Jolene and I had become used to this with Sally. The behavior had first cropped up that summer, a few months before. She\u2019d meet guys at King Soopers or the back of Safeway, delivery boys in brown trucks or produce men or sometimes clerks for the butcher who\u2019d just washed their hands. We\u2019d go to Denny\u2019s and she\u2019d stay out later\u2014there\u2019s this waiter, or this bus boy, see, this guy who pierced ears at the mall. She could drive and we couldn\u2019t. She\u2019d drop us off and talk about it later, the next day, when heading to a movie. \u201cI don\u2019t let them touch me everywhere,\u201d she said, \u201cbut sometimes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes what?\u201d we asked her, Jolene and me plain, round-faced, still hovering on the side of girlhood that felt neutral, almost asexual, although we were fifteen. I\u2019d never had somebody\u2019s lips on my ear. I hadn\u2019t yet found a good haircut and hacked at my bangs myself. Jolene still wore side ponytails. My long phone conversations were usually with boys from math club about homework and winter vacations, nothing seductive, nothing charged, not yet. Nobody looked at us that way<\/em> is what I tried to tell Sally.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just don\u2019t notice it yet,\u201d she said. \u201cBut they do. Look around you and they do.\u201d She smiled. \u201cAnd they\u2019ll keep looking if you let them.\u201d<\/p>\n

These conversations happened when Randy was at work; we made sure of that. We, who nursed small crushes on him ourselves\u2014black-haired, sweet-lipped, sketchbook-carrying Randy.<\/p>\n

\u201cShouldn\u2019t we keep an eye on her?\u201d he asked us on the mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to see them make out?\u201d Jolene said. I caught Jolene\u2019s eye, both smarting that Jolene had drawn pictures we didn\u2019t want him to see: Sally with the gas station guy, Sally with anyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could break light bulbs,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would we do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a protest\u2026 against the pervert who made this.\u201d I read the Rocky Mountain News<\/em> every day before Mom came home. The philanthropist news broke in May. His daughter appeared on Sally Jessy and Oprah, so poised and forthcoming: you can survive this, too.<\/p>\n

We hurled rocks at bulbs. I heard a ping as the rock hit metal, or a thud as it touched ground and rolled off the cliff-side. \u201cSally\u2019s okay <\/em>with him, isn\u2019t she?\u201d Randy said.<\/p>\n

Jolene launched a stone and missed. \u201cWe would\u2019ve felt it if he\u2019d been a killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how can you know?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something hollow in psychopaths,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething doesn\u2019t connect,\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a terrible reptile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack eyes like a shark,\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

Randy said, \u201cYou\u2019re making this up.\u201d His rock bounced off the fence, and he followed it. The cross seemed to teeter along the cliff, and if you went to the fence\u2019s far end, you were on a steep incline. With enough sleet in your eye or wooziness from the ride, you might just roll off the mountain\u2014which is what Randy started to do. We grabbed at his flailing arms, dragging him up the slope. \u201cIt\u2019s too cold for anything to make sense,\u201d Randy said, chomping his teeth too hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is<\/em> pretty cold,\u201d Jolene said, which sent us back to the parking lot, where we found that indeed Sally\u2019s car had left us.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t another dead girl story, is it?\u201d says a student in my undergrad writing workshop, some twenty years later.<\/p>\n

This week I\u2019m trying to talk about point-of-view and narrative momentum. I realize I\u2019d left my fiction handouts on the copier, so I improvise by telling them my own story in pieces, except it isn\u2019t my own, not really. I also find in my bag copies of a Sharon Olds poem about a car crash, which will have to do. As a group we see\u2014in lines streaming all over the page\u2014a progression of body parts from a dead woman, a passenger mangled in the accident. In the poem, the speaker\u2019s mother cups the speaker\u2019s face, holds the cheek hard against her breast, shielding her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow clich\u00e9,\u201d the student says. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen that gesture a hundred million times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t see anything poignant in it?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so overdone,\u201d he says, and mentions an animated movie that might have been The Lion King<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I stare down at the poem. Despite the mother trying to shield the speaker from the crash, she still watches and details the red aftermath, that day when the driving woman\u2019s time just stopped. It seems the speaker can\u2019t stop seeing it. The poem takes on an obsessive quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s haunted by the loss,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other things to write about,\u201d the student says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you don\u2019t want to hear what happened to Sally then?\u201d I ask him.<\/p>\n

He says, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t know.\u201d He looks at his notebook, peeks around at the class. \u201cWell, you might as well,\u201d he says. \u201cYes, please go ahead. Okay, yes, go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

That week in September my mom was out of town at a conference. She did physical therapy until she retired last year. Maybe it sounds too convenient, but it\u2019s true. She was away then. Our elderly neighbor Martha checked in on me in our condo, but apparently not that often, or I wouldn\u2019t have chanced being out so late that night. Jolene\u2019s parents worked graveyard at St. Anthony\u2019s, alternating so one would be home with her constantly, which really meant one exhausted person at home half-asleep at all times. So she didn\u2019t want to call them either. This was before cell phones anyway.<\/p>\n

The truth is I don\u2019t remember how we got to a phone on the mountain that night. Maybe my memory warps as I age. Maybe that wasn\u2019t the important part. We might have hitchhiked, but it seems unlikely, that late in the dark. Somehow Randy got ahold of his brother Ted, who picked us up in his maroon Jeep. Randy made him drive back to the gas station where the gas station guy originated, then up through the valleys and canyon roads, anywhere near the cross\u2019s radiance. We expected Sally\u2019s car parked by an Evergreen lake, and we looked at reservoirs and creeks. Randy\u2019s brother drove us on this methodical yet haphazard search, covering so much territory beyond the foothills, but also giving in to whims\u2014\u201cShe liked that hotdog place in Conifer,\u201d andon to the hotdog parking lot, or \u201cWhat about the dollar movies in Bear Valley?\u201d It didn\u2019t take long to realize we\u2019d lost her. We kept looking anyway. She remained lost. And somewhere in the stream of it all, we called the police, and KBCO ran a bulletin between songs, and Channel Nine News broadcasted her blonde picture with her brown questioning eyes for several weeks on end. My mom came home from her conference, and I wasn\u2019t allowed to go out on school nights after practice again. My mom didn\u2019t want me alone.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Jolene and I still sang in Fiddler <\/em>practice, wrapped in kerchiefs and peasant skirts, brown makeup smudged on our chins for dirt. This time when I twirled counterclockwise during \u201cTradition\u201d and everyone else went clockwise, the student director didn\u2019t shout but asked afterwards how I was. \u201cYou were with Sally that night, right?\u201d she said. Did Jolene and I need a ride home?<\/p>\n

For several weeks, all sorts of musical theater people wanted to drive us home after practice, to lay out their theories like picnic blankets in the ride down Kipling and Quincy. I appreciated the effort sometimes, the attention. I\u2019d never seen the interiors of so many cars.<\/p>\n

But one afternoon Tevye\u2019s middle daughter agreed to drive us in her Subaru. She led us across the senior parking lot but stopped before letting us in. \u201cI\u2019ve gotta show you something.\u201d She opened her hatchback to reveal a large blue duffel. Inside: stacks of gray t-shirts she and others had printed with Sally\u2019s face on them. Gray shirt, thick white ink, sort of a caricature, though you could tell it was Sally from her last yearbook photo. She\u2019d been elevated to a personality, a mascot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken up the cause,\u201d Tevye\u2019s middle daughter said. \u201cWe\u2019re raising money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what?\u201d I said. \u201cHer parents? Her funeral arrangements?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be so dark. We don\u2019t know that she\u2019s dead.\u201d She closed the hatchback.<\/p>\n

On the drive, I sat in front, Jolene in back. Tevye\u2019s middle daughter unzipped her purple hoodie to show the same shirt: Sally\u2019s face staring at us.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a milk carton,\u201d she tried again. \u201cLike raising awareness. Have you seen me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know her,\u201d Jolene said from the back seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019d like to, when Sally comes back. When we bring her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were making a left-hand turn onto Cole Court. Traffic facing us stretched on forever, so we sat there with the blinker on, not saying anything, just this blinker\u2019s steady click. Tevye\u2019s middle daughter would let us both out at Jolene\u2019s. As the car pulled to the curb, Jolene said, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t even look like her,\u201d slamming the door for both of us.<\/p>\n

I had flashes of us at Skate City for a sixth grade skating party. Sally with a broken ankle sitting on the carpeted bench watching us. She wore red-framed mirrored sunglasses and a giant white bow that sat like a ship atop of her head. Jolene and I pulled on it each time we circled. Sally seemed a little mysterious even then, like she was okay existing just on our periphery, in her own orbit. I\u2019m surprised our friendship survived intact into high school. Sally could have catapulted herself into the sportier, less arty cliques, but for some reason she held onto us.<\/p>\n

Randy was offended when we mentioned the t-shirts. \u201cAs though a bake sale will bring her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr a lemonade stand,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just sell drugs.\u201d Jolene tried to summon a laugh.<\/p>\n

What else could we do?<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think she\u2019s alive?\u201d Randy said.<\/p>\n

We let the question hang, not daring to answer. I thought Sally\u2019s remains would be found before winter. We\u2019d have a burial with her family, dedicate a cement bench to her in an aspen-filled park near Bear Creek. I thought the Mount Lindo cross, towering up there across the city, would mark not an abusive leader\u2019s transgressions, but the night Sally left us\u2014until decades passed and it would be a flash of white lights again to stare at offhandedly while driving west on 285. In this way it would cease to be significant.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason our memories don\u2019t stay sharp.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

You may not believe me, but Sally appeared at school a few weeks later. Her cheek was still bruised, and a pink scar extended across her forehead. She wore a sleek short haircut that made her seem modern; the skin of her neck looked private and vulnerable.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t want to talk to us, didn\u2019t even want to say hi. Jolene and I cornered her outside the cafeteria, after Sally had sat with a gang from AP Psych rather than our usual table. We\u2019d watched her try to eat soggy mac and cheese, using a white plastic fork and dabbing lips primly. She pulled all the crust off a piece of bread. We saw her gather up her bag and shapeless jacket, eyes steady and avoidant, probably noting the surreptitious looks all around her. She was halfway to the parking lot when we caught up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSal,\u201d Jolene called. \u201cAren\u2019t you going to class?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sally shook her head, trying to shrug us off, keep walking. I saw her car parked in the corner, under a juniper dropping berries on the windshield.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you?\u201d I said. \u201cWe miss you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sally talked with forced politeness, holding tight to her Pepsi bottle. I don\u2019t think she\u2019d even opened it. The words that came out weren\u2019t her own. \u201cDr. Brown said not to talk about it,\u201d she said. \u201cDr. Brown said I need to heal.\u201d She started to back away from us. \u201cThanks, guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what happened?\u201d Jolene and I asked her. \u201cWhere did he take you?\u201d We\u2019d been questioned by police ourselves, were almost featured on 9 KUSA until our moms intervened. Did she forget we were part of the story?<\/p>\n

Randy saw us from the sidewalk near the band room\u2014his eyes jumped. We\u2019d heard she had beenfound. The police told us that much. We\u2019d heard she was found near Lake Dillon but the gas station guy wasn\u2019t, and because of that she\u2019d always feel haunted. \u201cBut what happened?\u201d Randy asked her, hand on her shoulder. \u201cIt\u2019s us. You can talk.\u201d He tried to pull her close, but she resisted. \u201cIt\u2019s us,\u201d he said again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou left me,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy did you leave me with him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wanted us to,\u201d we said, all three of us, separately and together, that day and later, again trying to reach her, from the front porch of Sally\u2019s house, where her mother and stepfather barred us from crossing the screen-door threshold; from the slick linoleum hallways bearing their mop-streaks and caution signs; from the parking lot behind the soccer fields, where we stood at Sally\u2019s driver\u2019s side window again and again while she let the seatbelt cradle her head, only wanting to drive far away from us.<\/p>\n

Randy took it harder than anyone. He wrote songs for her and bad poetry he carried in his backpack but didn\u2019t give her.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there you have it,\u201d says my undergrad student. \u201cYou let her live but she\u2019s miserable. And so is everyone around her. Oh, great.\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Jolene and I invited Sally to our Fiddler<\/em> dress rehearsal, played for a handful of familiars simulating an audience. They\u2019d give a rambunctious ovation just as sure as actors would embellish some lines. We wanted Sally to see us, to be a part of us, to wave from the scratchy brown chairs in the audience, like she had before. But she couldn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s left us behind,\u201d Randy said driving for ice cream after. He\u2019d borrowed his brother\u2019s jeep. \u201cWe have to admit that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to admit that,\u201d I said from the backseat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot we have to admit about her.\u201d He didn\u2019t elaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to get into this,\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

Randy turned right on a red light. It felt like the air had been swept out and an unknown awkwardness had replaced it. He said, \u201cDo you think I don\u2019t know? Do you think I wouldn\u2019t have noticed all the other guys?\u201d He was quiet until we reached the next intersection, when his voice came out low. \u201cThat\u2019s no excuse for what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolene said, \u201cI never said that it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shook his head, staring out the black windshield. \u201cIt isn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

We still wore production makeup, heavy pancake foundation, over-rouged cheeks, plum-stained lips, with mysterious under-eye hollows. Our village starved, we were desperate, poor, tired, and cold\u2014no love but arranged marriages. It was disconcerting, and every time I saw myself in the rearview, I wondered who it was that stared back.<\/p>\n

Even more disconcerting was Randy drove us right past Baskin Robbins. He drove past and took a left and a right and a series of curves, and soon we were on 285 heading back into the mountains. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to see that stupid cross again,\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to the cross,\u201d he said. He searched my eyes in the rearview, seemed not to recognize me at first either. \u201cI hope that cross falls off the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

I yeah\u2019ed in solidarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd doesn\u2019t hurt anybody,\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut ends up in the bottom of a ravine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmen,\u201d said Jolene.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where are we going?\u201d I said, but I already knew. It wasn\u2019t sleeting this time. Guardrail reflectors stared back like stunned deer. We were near the gas station that supplied us the gas station man. Maybe a whole storeroom of gas station men lived in the back, lined up and waiting to be activated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this legal?\u201d Jolene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegal?\u201d Randy said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a car. We need gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what I mean. Because of the case?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need gas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The parking lot looked grim and empty. The light this time had a lime green tint, and oil pooled near the pumps. A Lotto sign hung from the window. Cigarettes were on sale. I saw at least two people inside the store but couldn\u2019t get a good look at either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you going to do if he\u2019s here working?\u201d<\/p>\n

Randy didn\u2019t know. \u201cBut watch me. Be ready to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolene scooted into the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can go with you,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s dangerous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t want him to go in. I would\u2019ve been more comfortable circling the parking lot. But he swung the glass door open anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is stupid.\u201d Jolene turned to face me, looking like an over-rouged, desperate peasant too. \u201cI thought we were going to get ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes anybody think that they\u2019ll find him?\u201d I ask my undergrad workshop. \u201cWill gas station guy even be there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d says the vocal student from his side of the rectangle. \u201cBecause that would make it a plot-driven story, and only character-driven stories matter to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true.\u201d I adjust the notes in my red folder. \u201cThinking about narrative momentum, what could you do with this then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy would be in there,\u201d he says, \u201cwaiting for them. He\u2019d have whiskey and a gun. Maybe a bandana. There\u2019d be a car chase. Maybe a crossbow, something unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA magic spell,\u201d a short girl across the room volunteers. \u201cGas station guy gets trapped in an invisible net and then they feed him to lions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do they get a lion?\u201d I ask her.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t the Denver Zoo have lions?\u201d she says. \u201cCan\u2019t they airlift him?\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Sally didn\u2019t want to drop her friends. Loyalty meant more to her than that, didn\u2019t it? Closeness, intimacy, whatever else comes with friendship. Humor? She wasn\u2019t acting alone. There was her severe blonde mother with arched eyebrows and a beehive who\u2019d never liked Sally\u2019s friends. And Sally\u2019s stepfather, a patrolman who moonlighted as a guard at the 24-hour grocery off Simms. Sally said he encouraged her dolling up, called her his beauty queen, had expectations that felt old-fashioned to us. We ran into him occasionally, buying Shasta or towering sacks of corn chips.<\/p>\n

That night\u2014after the Fiddler<\/em> dress rehearsal, the non-ice cream, the fruitless trip to a dismal sad gas station where the men inside didn\u2019t even know who Randy was talking about when he asked\u2014that night Randy sidled up to Sally\u2019s stepdad at the grocery store service desk. The stepfather wore a cheap silver watch, heavy and distracting. He looked up at us over a small plastic radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe won\u2019t talk to us,\u201d Randy said. \u201cBut you know that already.\u201d Had this been the Old West, Randy would\u2019ve demanded a duel. But it was the Newer West, and we were aware of our overall powerlessness as teenagers\u2014though eventually Randy would learn the power to impregnate a girlfriend and Jolene the power of moving to Sacramento.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe needs time,\u201d her stepdad said, hand grazing the stubble on his cheek.<\/p>\n

He had a hard, military air, yet I wanted to feel sorry for him. \u201cYou must be so relieved she\u2019s home.\u201d Randy glared at me.<\/p>\n

The stepdad seemed disconnected from his chiseled features, like his mind was someplace else. \u201cI still miss her, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Randy said, \u201cWhat do you miss about her?\u201d His tone snide and accusing and something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d the stepfather said. But a shrill announcement called him to the dairy case. His keys clanged with his strides.<\/p>\n

Randy walked us through aisles. Then he decided he\u2019d had enough and started getting ridiculous, rolling cans of stewed tomatoes across the floor, then jam jars that went lopsided.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop it,\u201d Jolene said. \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t even be out now,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He let loose a jar of black olives that opened and leaked, until the tiles were flooded with olives. Sally\u2019s stepdad found us. We heard his keys before his voice. \u201cGo home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is your fault,\u201d Randy said. But I didn\u2019t ask what he meant, not then.<\/p>\n

Later Randy told us Sally\u2019s stepdad sometimes watched her dress. One morning he cracked open the bathroom door after her shower and looked at her toweling off. She\u2019d pretended not to notice and told Randy not to tell anyone, which was why he was telling us now. One summer she\u2019d asked for a lock on her bedroom door, but her mother had laughed her off. \u201cNobody needs that much privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I just wish I\u2019d been paying attention.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure this is satisfying to me as a reader,\u201d says my student. \u201cI don\u2019t see what this meant to the narrator.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wave my pen, beginning to stammer. \u201cHow does anybody<\/em> feel safe?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looks across the rectangle and back to me. \u201cBut you\u2019ve taken all the joy out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe joy? Of what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf storytelling,\u201d he says. \u201cTell us a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine,\u201d I tell him.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Once upon a time I journeyed with my three youthful friends to see a bright shining cross on the mountainside. Citizens traveled from all over the land to bask in this alpine beacon\u2019s light, ignoring that the cross had been posted by a terrible ogre who hurt his four daughters. Those days I had blonde shimmering locks and brown twinkling eyes and the conviction that the bonds of friendship held forever. It was night and white stars looked upon us. But the rain started, and we pulled into a gas station. It was there that a tall man joined us. A tall, rugged man with large jowls and wide eyes and the sharp, hidden tail of a fox. He drove us deep into the woods, near the top of the mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m cold,\u201d he said, \u201cAren\u2019t you cold?\u201d He and I huddled in the car while my three best friends walked the path to the bright shining cross. I knew they would tell me about their journey, and their reports would be vivid and detailed and fine. I looked forward to hearing them.<\/p>\n

But this man\u2019s sharp foxtail came out, as did his clawed feet and fangs. By then my shorts were near my ankles, my legs bare and cold. The fox turned the ignition and drove us deeper into the woods, farther away, where the spruce loomed darker, more needles lined the ground, and an icky green moss crawled up on our feet and our shoulders. Neither deer nor young starlings dwelled here. The only sound was the car heater breathing.<\/p>\n

This fox found a way to tie my wrists to each other. He kissed me with his whiskery muzzle and sharp orange teeth. His breath, much too warm, dried out my tongue, blistering the insides of my mouth. I called out for my friends, but nobody heard. I looked for the cross on the mountainside, but he\u2019d blindfolded me. The rag he used smelled like gasoline. I tried not to inhale it too much.<\/p>\n

Then one morning several days later, while he slumbered, my moment dawned. I started clambering away, so quietly, stealing my body back for myself, walking barefoot in the forest. I hid in stumps and thickets and he followed. I heard him calling my name like a dog\u2019s, but he wasn\u2019t a very clever fox, for eventually he lost the scent.<\/p>\n

I found a small campground and a lady sorceress there with her jeans-wearing boyfriend. She had a striking ponytail and an arrogant, decisive manner. The round tops of her cleavage showed like the most natural thing, and her boyfriend seemed quite in awe of her. She helped me find my way home. \u201cBut on one condition,\u201d she said. I could never say a word to my friends about where my fortunes had taken me. This was a knowledge I couldn\u2019t pass on. I had to ignore their pleas although they would try to convince me with their warmth and good natures. I had to swear it. I had been changed. If I betrayed this oath, the penalty was imprisonment by a strong wizard or rueful faun.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I agreed finally. I smelled the fox in the forest behind me. Just to smell him was enough. \u201cOkay, take me home.\u201d<\/p>\n

My dearest friends, two sweet peasant girls and a poor jester with his poetry, were left to circle the tall, massive cross on the mountainside. Forevermore, they\u2019d live in the glow of the city and all that\u2019s left open to them, free and untouched, without me.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I can hear them there still.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cNice try,\u201d says my student. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But our class is ending for the day. He pulls on his silver backpack straps, wielding his phone like a sword. \u201cWait, I\u2019ve got it,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat if none of this ever happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you mean?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of it happened. They went to see the cross. The girl never came back. And they never found out what happened to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

I gather up my papers, pocketing stray pens and paper clips.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girl never came back,\u201d he says again.<\/p>\n

I say, \u201cYou mean another dead girl story?\u201d<\/p>\n

He ignores this. \u201cWhat if that was the whole story?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

He tugs on his backpack straps. \u201cThat would be enough to haunt somebody,\u201d he says, \u201cthinking of point-of-view and all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would,\u201d I say. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He steps halfway out the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr what if it happened and she lived?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

He stops and hovers in the doorway.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now she has no one to tell it to?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

And so she tells it to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Corey Elizabeth Campbell<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was no religious expedition, I\u2019ll tell you that. We\u2019d seen the cross lit up on the side of Mount Lindo every night since birth, so when Randy said after school one day, \u201cLet\u2019s go climb it,\u201d the rest of us agreed. This was after The Denver Post discovered that the man who\u2019d commissioned the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4jb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16590,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16565\/revisions\/16590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}