Vicki

The last night Vicki lived, she slept on a friend's sofa, eating a sleeve of Thin Mints, watching old episodes of the Lucille Ball show. Not I Love Lucy. The shitty one that came later, when there was color. The one with the queeny old boss. Vicki didn't pay much attention to the plot and she wasn't much of a TV critic. The Thin Mints were good, though.

They really hit the spot.

She was not one to think back on her life much, preferring pills or a little dope or booze to help filter out the thoughts that would otherwise crowd to the surface. She certainly had no idea she wasn't going to wake up in the morning. Still, that night on Bernetta's scratchy old sofa, a city of snow globes lined up on the mantel in front of her, she did remember something from the past. She remembered being fired from a job. Maybe it was the queeny old guy in the suit, balling Lucy out over something, that brought it back to mind.

She had always had trouble keeping jobs, even when she was young enough and the work simple enough that she could nab them by flashing a reckless grin. The problem was she always got restless and wanted something new. Or else a boss would ask her to do stuff no married woman should ever agree to. Back then she lived over in Front Royal, just on the other side of the river, a smaller town with less going on. The whole history of the valley was spelled out in the layout of the streets. You had the road that cut through town, once you crossed the twin bridges where the river forked. It was a mess of a road; little houses and fast food joints all crowded together with banks and gas stations. But off from that road, the other roads and who lived on them told you everything you needed to know about who was rich and who was poor, whose families owned slaves and whose families were slaves. If you lived in a brick Victorian on Royal Avenue, your grandparents had slaves or they got rich after the war. If you lived in one of the rickety apartment buildings on South Street, you were from slaves or just poor white trash.

Her husband used to go on about that kind of thing; both of them grew up in those crooked, dingy South Street apartments. He hated coming from nothing as much as he hated his Black neighbors. Not that he could do anything about it. Just spit over the side of his porch when a Black person walked by and bob his head and say yes when a white man with a shiny wrist watch drove his car up to the garage. He used to say fixing some rich guy's car was like being sat down to a plate of hot, steamy shit.

Front Royal was nothing special. It was where she married, had her kids, lost one, slept around until she got caught, divorced, and finally drove over the bridges to Winchester without a backward glance. She just let the man driving rub his hand up and down her thigh, almost not feeling it, telling herself she didn't care about what came next. After the way things had started to fall apart, the truth was she didn't care much about anything anymore.

The job she remembered losing wasn't one of those easy come, easy go ones from when she was younger. It was sorting donations and sweeping floors at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. She wasn't paid to do it, except in doughnuts. The manager, Wanda, always brought in a big, flat, flimsy box of doughnuts from Costco. That was Vicki's breakfast and lunch. The volunteer work also kept her off the streets for most of the day, which mattered when the weather was bad. On a warm spring day she was glad when she was finished and could tuck the push broom away in the corner, grab her purse, and head out.

She always asked at the sales counter if there was anything else they needed. Wanda was never there when she left, always over at the headquarters with the General. Sometimes it was the assistant manager, Alice, who let her go for the day. That woman had teeth out of some nightmare, a little nibbling monster that might crawl up under your sheets. Vicki was vane about her own teeth, which were good despite never having had braces or fluoride treatments. Her husband used to say she could pass for a country club kid with those teeth, if she didn't sound so ignorant when she spoke.

Alice was always nice like a catty old church lady, her voice a little syrupy, saying, "Thanks for your help today, Vicki. Stay out of trouble, okay?" Sometimes after she said it, she'd cough a dry laugh up from her little potbelly, a laugh as brown and flat as a dried coffee spill. Vicki didn't think much about Alice once she was out on the street, except that she might shake her head some days, if her mind was clear, trying to figure out why Alice seemed so familiar, like someone she might have known once in Front Royal.

It was better to leave when one of the young guys was working the counter. They looked alike in many ways, both skinny-armed and pale, with messy hair to their shoulders. One of them was prim and acted like he didn't want her to get too close. The other one wasn't too friendly, but he wasn't friendly with almost anyone, so it didn't feel like he was judging her in particular.

Vicki's boy would have been about their age. The one she lost. She always thought of him as lost, like something that slipped out of her hands, or got left behind and wasn't there when she went back to look for it. Except Travis was anything but lost. They found him, she first and then his daddy. His body was like it had been that morning, trim and muscular like his father, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, worn sneakers, a knock off of a better watch the rich kids were wearing on his wrist. He'd asked for it from K-Mart and she saved up tips to get it for his birthday. He had little moles on his arms, like freckles on a corn chip, he used to joke.

When he took the belt to him - or his fists, which he did more often - his daddy said he was knocking some sense into his head, but maybe Travis got the last laugh. Vicki had stood above him, unable to touch him, unable to separate the sensations of anguish and disgust. It was nasty, all those meaty bits in the straw, drying already on the posts and walls. Yet there was the t-shirt she'd just folded yesterday, the corn chip moles on his arms, the wrist watch with the velcro already looking worn, though he'd only unwrapped it two weeks ago.

He'd be just the same age as those boys behind the counter at the thrift store. One time she let her eyes fall on the one that never smiled, and in him she saw a little bit of Travis. Even though Travis always smiled, was always nice to people, he could look so far away to her at times, if she glanced up from flipping a grilled cheese sandwich or paused on the front stoop, watching him watch TV through the little bit of glass on the door while she fumbled in her purse for her keys.

The thing about losing him at eleven was that he never turned nasty, never stopped loving her or letting her give him a kiss. Her other son got big enough to give her dirty looks, to pretend she wasn't talking to him.

"I feel like I keep hearing a fly buzzing or something," he'd say. "But I can't make it out."

He loved that joke, you could tell by the cruel little smile he got on his face. He had thin, curly lips just like his daddy. His eyes were small and dark and suspicious. Even when they were little, he wasn't sweet like Travis. After she got caught in bed with a Black guy and her husband kicked her out, her son never spoke to her again. If she'd ever let herself, she might remember him and his daddy spitting off the porch as she stumbled away from the house, her right eye throbbing, her top torn open.

The job at the Salvation Army only paid in shelter and doughnuts, but it was better than how she'd come to make ends meet. It would have humiliated Travis to know his mamma let men sleep with her for money, but Vicki never let herself think about that. The way she was taught - and she was a quick learner, given that she had to learn later in life - the trick was to liquor up a little before you started work. Not so much that you were sloppy. You had to be able to get your pay and these bastards were more than happy to walk out without putting down cash.

If you were just a little tipsy, it was easier, but if you planned on making your share of the rent with ten dollar hand jobs and twenty dollar sucks and fucks, you had to keep the train moving. Only when you were done for the night did you let yourself get really drunk. It became a pattern, arduous and tiring, but knowable, just like waiting tables used to be, or getting the boys' laundry done at the laundromat. That had been a real pain in the neck, lugging baskets up South Street, rain or snow.

At the thrift store, she liked most when they let her sort through the clothes. It was fun to see something with color and pattern appear in a pile of drab denim and khaki. Alice was always double checking her work. She used to say things like, "Our customers can be very picky." She'd glance up over her glasses with those bulging eyes as she went through Vicki's picks. Nothing seemed to make her happier than finding something wrong with a pair of old blue jeans. A little smile would crack her face and one of those sharp little brown teeth would flash like a dirty knife.

"Oh, you missed this little tear, Vicki. Our customers are very picky."

Then she'd do a thing with her eyes like she wanted to drag them over what Vicki was wearing but was too polite to do it. It pissed Vicki off a little - some younger, prouder part of herself that used to want respect - but the self she had become knew nothing good would come of punching Alice's lights out, no matter how briefly happy it might make her. She wanted to say her own clothes looked cleaner than Alice's because it was was true. She kept herself better than the women who got paid to be there. Her bangs were always shiny and precise, her pants laundered and pressed, her sneakers freshly whited with polish. She liked them to look brand new every day.

And the truth was that most of the Salvation Army customers were not picky. Most of them bought their clothes on vouchers, left with a trash bag of free stuff dragging on the sidewalk behind them. How many Jamaican apple pickers had she seen just come in and take a dozen pair of jeans in one go without trying them on or inspecting them for holes or stains. Alice said they resold them to other workers.

One time a thin little white girl and her man came in to buy things for the baby she was cradling in her arms. She smelled like sour milk, maybe her own, but Vicki doubted it. She looked like she probably wasn't making milk. The funny thing about them was that they were the gentlest and sweetest two people you'd ever meet, even if the smell of them made you want to run out on the street and puke.

The bony-armed cashier who was never friendly to anyone in particular turned to the other bony-armed cashier after they left and said, "You know, the funny thing is, they were both beautiful. If you cleaned them up, they'd look like super models."

The other one laughed, "I think that's just because they're so skinny."

Vicki had stood near them while they talked, waiting to ask her daily question, "Do you need anything else from me?"

They stared at her blankly for a minute, dragged from their conversation, and the one she didn't like as much, the one who was friendlier to everyone else than he was to her, said, "Well, Vicki, did you finish all your tasks?"

She had to bite back a smile. He looked exactly like a younger version of a guy she'd sucked off just the night before. The geezer had the same hawk nose and hollow chest, but more hair on his balls than his head. It probably wasn't this kid's daddy, but she'd always see that gawky old bastard zipping up his pressed chinos whenever she saw the prim clerk.

"Yeah, I finished sweeping and Miss Alice took over the sorting for me this morning." She had actually finished sweeping a half hour ago, but had hid for a bit in the break room, eating doughnuts and swilling coffee, since that was would be all she ate until the middle of the night. Another thing she'd been taught - never start work on a full stomach. Thank God she got her eating done before that young mother and father came in and stunk up the place.

"Would you mind spraying some Lysol around before you go?" the prim one asked.

The other one waved a hand, said, "I'll do that, Vicki. You can go. Thank you."

They were talking about her when she came back from the break room a minute later, her purse under her arm. The prim one was saying, "But she's a volunteer..."

"Right, and not getting paid, so why keep her here for something you or I could easily do."

Vicki had heard the two young guys were not getting along as well anymore; the generally standoffish one she preferred was made a supervisor, but the other one had gotten him the job back in the summer. She tried not to pay much attention to gossip, but Alice was full of it. When she wasn't taking pleasure in making Vicki feel like she wasn't classy enough to sort through all the junk people dropped off, she was cornering her in glasswares, far enough from the sales desk to whisper gossip without being heard.

What was it about Alice that always made her feel like they'd met once before? Alice was too old to be someone Vicki went to school with and her accent wasn't like anything local. She just had one of those familiar faces you wanted to poke with a stick.

That day it was cold out on the street. She thought of the clothes the couple who smelled like rotten milk had picked out for their baby. None of it was suitable for winter. Love her or hate her, but Alice probably would have scolded them, pointed them toward the little baby blankets, the thick, tiny sweaters.

Laughing that dry coffee laugh, she'd have said, "You can't let a baby go out like that. Not in this brisk air. Here. You'll need this and this." She probably would have picked the ugliest warm clothes, but she'd have steered them in the right direction.

Certainly the two clerks couldn't offer them any advice, being young and stupid and knowing nothing about babies. She should have stepped up and helped them out, but Vicki had been given to understand that she was to be seen and not heard. Alice had made that plain early on.

She couldn't stop seeing the fear in the girl's eyes, knowing she was wondering how she'd ever keep that little baby alive. And she even permitted herself the fleeting thought, sharp like one of Alice's ugly little knife teeth, that even if you kept one alive until it could walk and talk, sometimes your luck still ran out.

He had always been too hard on Travis, her husband. He used to ball up his drawings and throw them away. "You're supposed to learn math and science and history in school. Not draw pictures."

When the school put Travis in a special class with kids who couldn't even read or write well - half of them slobbering Mongoloids, her husband said bitterly - it had really been the beginning of the end. He tried to goad Travis into doing better at school, to shame him by calling him a retard. Vicki knew the reason they put Travis in that class was that he acted up too much. He got wounded easily, was proud and defensive like his father, and he fought with other boys.

Before they put him in the special ed class, his dad would say to him, "You know if one of Bob Marlow's boys punched someone out, he'd just get a slap on the hand. The same rules don't apply to us, son. You've got to keep your head down and do the work and stay out of fucking trouble."

All Travis had to do was look at his daddy wrong at a moment like that to get the belt or worse. The problem with Travis was that when he was frightened and embarrassed, he did what Vicki always did, and started giggling. It broke slowly over his face, making first one dimple wink and then the other. For both of them, that nervous laughing had always brought nothing but misery. Travis' daddy wouldn't stop punching either of them until they were crying.

"Teach you to laugh at me."

After they put Travis in the special class, it was like his daddy all but hated him. "My son's not a fucking retard. At least Mike isn't anyway." That was on day one. Later, he said things like, "Maybe you are retarded, son. You do kind of have a slow look about you. Your mom's related to the Funks. Did you know that?"

If you grew up in Front Royal, you knew that nothing was worse than being called a Funk. Everyone made fun of them, rich or poor, Black or white. You could spot one from way down the street, they said, because of their funny-shaped foreheads and wide set eyes. It was true that Vicki had a cousin named Funk, but they were from Pennsylvania and were not Front Royal Funks. They had always been very clear on that point.

She said that day, the day before Travis killed himself. "Your daddy's full of shit. I'm not related to any Funk from around here."

She'd never have said that to his face, but this was after he'd stormed off, leaving Travis in tears. Another drawing had been torn up and thrown away.

"Report cards come out tomorrow," Travis had said.

"How you think you did?"

He stared at her, but it was like he was staring through her. "Oh hell," she said.

They sat at the little kitchen table for a long while, their eyes locked until the tears dried up in his and his jaw set. She never forgot that - later, after they found him. He'd been making up his mind even then, even looking into her eyes, seeing that his troubles weren't anything she could fix. That part had killed her. She stopped listening to any noise in her head after she figured that one out. She just needed to not think and to not feel bad for a while.

She never got back around to feeling and thinking much again. Funny how easy it was to turn off that tap. Funny she should remember that thrift store tonight, perched up on Bernetta's sofa, three days out of the clink after a citywide bust of the ring she'd gotten hooked up with lately.

Fifteen years ago, she'd sucked off the judge that let her go home without bail. Not that she thought it had done her any favors. Maybe he thought she didn't recognize him or maybe he didn't recognize her. She knew her looks had changed a lot recently. She'd gotten fat and old and now her dyed black hair looked like a Halloween wig sitting above her doughy features. She never bothered checking the mirror anymore except to put on mascara and trim up her bangs.

Last year she'd gotten pneumonia and then hurt her back almost as soon as she got better. One of the girls had hooked her up with some pills and now she couldn't live without them. That was what led her to working for a john, the first time in all those years giving a cut to someone. It was not the way she'd been taught, but he reminded her all the time she was hardly going to get customers on her own anymore, the way she looked, and he kept her in pills. She'd have to stay off those for a while, anyhow, until this arrest thing blew over.

The day Alice accused her of stealing money from her purse, she'd finally figured out why the old snaggletooth looked so familiar. She looked like a teacher she'd had in fifth grade who pulled her aside one day and asked her why she was missing so much school.

"You have to learn to trust people, Victoria," she'd said. No one called her Victoria except that lady. No one ever said your full name unless they were putting themselves above you. She'd heard it from church ladies and the lawyer who helped her get her divorce. They used her full name three days ago when they spoke it out loud in court. She hadn't heard all those syllables strung together like that in years. It was like hearing someone else's name being called out.

Why Alice with her dry cough and dry lips and dry hair should remind her of nice old Mrs. Nichols, whose hair was as silver and shiny as the hair on a Christmas tree angel, she wasn't exactly sure. There was just something about the tone of her voice, like when she talked to Vicki, she was talking to a fifth grader and not a grown woman.

"If you needed money, Vicki, you should have just asked for it."

The prim cashier was standing near her, looking down over his hawk nose at her like she was three feet tall. Alice had folded her hands over her potbelly.

"I didn't steal your damn money," Vicki said. It was true, but even to herself, she didn't sound too convincing. Maybe because she was pretty sure they'd never believe her anyway. She almost said they could check her purse and her pockets, but she wasn't sure how she'd explain all the small bills. Everyone knew she wasn't a waitress.

In the end, Wanda, the manager, had come over from headquarters, asked Alice if she wanted to press charges, looked at Vicki with a pained, embarrassed expression. Nothing came of it except that Vicki was politely invited not to volunteer anymore. That meant spending her days holed up in her room and coming up with her own daytime food. She would miss those little Costco doughnuts, but if she never saw Alice or prim face again, it would be too soon.

As she polished off the sleeve of Thin Mints the night she died, she thought Lucy looked about as stupid with her mop of red curls as she did with her black bangs and long curling iron tresses. It was a hard world to be an old woman in, she thought.

Once in the night, she woke up in front of the TV set after the station had gone off the air. The screen looked like one of Bernetta's snow globes if you shook it up, but that wasn't what went through her mind. There was something about that vacant glow that made her think of when she and Travis locked eyes the day before he killed himself. The streetlamp slanting through from the kitchen windows had reflected a thousand glittery little points of light in his sweet brown eyes until they dried up and glanced away.

"Travis?" Her voice startled her, like she'd never heard it before. "Honey?"

She thought of him when he was little enough to hold in her arms and she balled up one of Bernetta's sofa pillows and tucked it close to her chest. When he was little and she had to drag the laundry back and forth from the laundromat, she'd nestle him down in with the clothes in the basket. He was like that baby in the Bible that got set afloat on the river. He smelled so good by the time they got home, like the dryer sheets she used, like a spring day, new and crisp, with a blue sky overhead that just went on and on.