Of Crabs & Buckets

Harris Cratts was the first boy who caught Lacey's attention. At least he looked like Harris Cratts, right down to the sideburns sweating off his face like candle wax under stage-light. It could have been any boy, I suppose. Stepping more quickly towards us in the thick heat of the cabin, bass marking his advance, shirt wet-necked and face erased in the dimly lit bedlam of Bentley's October Bash. He didn't ask her to dance, but Lacey must have assumed, because she went away with him and didn't reappear until the end of the night.

A fermenting odor of perfume permeated the room. If you smelled hard enough, you could catch the faint aroma of apple cider, and if you sniffed even more vehemently, you recognized the distinct scent of alcohol and someone who hadn't bathed. Phyllis was addicted to beer pong, and, more obviously, beer--so I spent hours with my elbows rubbed raw on the table, watching her fall over herself with hysterical laughter and cringing at her clumsy execution of one-handed tugs at the hem of her blouse.

It was the first time any of us had ever been to a real party, and none of us knew very well how to act. I'd say my friends were doing just fine; I'd had a few drinks of booze myself and the night had long since grown fuzzy around the edges. I spent most of my minutes avoiding tipsy boys and sitting aloof with a cold bottle clasped between my hands, condensation slippery on my palms. I'd had to go to the bathroom for ten minutes now, but for the sake of keeping my seat, I was holding out.

We were Valley girls; Valley girls were free-spirited, barefooted legends known for frolicking in the fields by day and getting wasted by night; for having little respect for themselves and for doing absolutely nothing beyond high school unless--if you were "ambitious" enough--you attended the community college. I was a Valley girl. I didn't care that I'd maintained a 4.0 GPA since seventh grade. I didn't care that there was one road leading out of the valley and that it's name was Bertram, or that the first city outside of the village was Shawnee. It was no concern of mine that somewhere close, there were universities and opportunities and men who didn't grow up to be heroin addicts. It was all irrelevant. I was a Valley girl. Valley girls didn't even dream of leaving home; Valley girls barely hoped to dream.

Our friends convinced Lacey, Phyllis and I of these facts, persuading us that it was unnatural for us to be this late to the party ("no pun intended!"). And I suppose the party was alright. Not worth arriving early to, but definitely worth attending, at the very least for the sake of trying new things.

Time was inconsequential. The hour we'd been at the log house felt like days. The lights got brighter and the shadows shrunk, counter hard and rough beneath my forearms. My head was jerking with dull throbs.

A boy sat down next to me; he had a football jersey tucked into his dark-wash jeans, and one of those pretentious haircuts creeping up his forehead and snipped clean around his ears. "First party?" he asked me.

"What's my tell?"

"People don't come to parties to sit alone and get drunk," he told me.

"What are people supposed to do at parties, then?" I asked the expert.

"Valid point," he relented. He paused, then said, "Sit together and get drunk?"

"That the best you can do?"

"I'm oblivious," he said, shrugging a heavy shoulder, "I don't know what I'm trying to do."

I didn't believe him, but said, "Okay," not knowing what kind of response that required. He was a bit older than me, and I could tell he was a little drunk by the way his head bobbed to his words and the vacant flick of his eyes. There was something sweet about him, though, so I sat there for a moment to humor him. But there came a point where the burning sensation in my bladder became unbearable.

I upped and left, which inspired little protest. I ran into Phyllis in the hallway before I could make it to the toilet. She had one hand on her stomach and the other clamped firmly over her mouth to keep in the vomit. "Honey!" I cooed, bracing the small of her back and ushering her outside.

The breeze chilled our skin as I held her hair off her neck, the grass dampening our toes through our sandals. The sounds of her puking her guts out echoed in the backyard, the blasting techno music faint but still barely audible. We were in the middle of the woods--copses of ominous birch silhouettes gave way to fiendish black depths. It felt spookier now than it had when the sun was up, when all we could perceive were how the tousled leaves smelled of autumn.

"I don't know what I was thinking," came the expected statement, voice slurred with tears and Coors Light.

"It's okay," I told her. Just after she'd finished throwing up, a girl in a red jumper came stumbling out of the cabin, color of her cheeks matching the color of her outfit. I spotted the curly up-do, thinking the girl was very familiar but not quite able to place her name.

"Lacey?" Phyllis hiccuped, squinting in the girl's direction. I held my head. I must have been more drunk than I thought.

Lacey met our eyes and, to both of our bewilderment, began loping towards the parking lot. Somehow, silently, I urged Phyllis to follow me in a lumbering sprint up the hill. We ascended like drunken animals illuminated by eerie moonlight. We set off in pursuit of Lacey. We were blind in the pitch black sky, and yet we caught our friend weeping behind the parked cars, slapping at a tree trunk with her open palms.

"Are you drunk, Lacey?" I asked her, to which Phyllis echoed liltingly, "You drunk?"

Lacey shook her head, sinking pitifully to her knees in the muddy soil. "Bobby didn't like me like he said he did," she cried. "He called me 'disposable' and slapped me in the face." I must have been missing part of the story, because out of context, that just didn't sound like something someone would do to someone else.

"Huh," I mumbled, pondering the strangeness.

"He's no good anyway," Lacey huffed. "Abusive. Selfish. God knows," she exclaimed, "he's probably lying about himself. His name's probably not even Bobby!"

His name's Harris Cratts, I wanted to tell her. I said, "Don't worry, we can just leave. Party's not very good, anyhow." This was met with weary nods. Their faces were tinted with slight disappointment; I think we were all hoping for something else when we came here--maybe not what the other Valley girls had promised us, but rather the validation that came with being one of them.

The wind picked up just then, sweeping dust from beneath us. The cabin seemed further away, almost; we had run further than we thought we had. The outside lamps glowed dimly in the distance. I was about to mention something about the long walk when a noise sounded from behind us.

It stretched, almost. Like the footsteps of somebody who couldn't quite pick up their feet. It rustled through the underbrush. Shushshushshush.

We all took a glance behind us (except for Phyllis, who was nearly too sick to react to her senses). I couldn't see anything. "Hello?" I called out.

"Bobby, go away!" Lacey shouted.

Shushshushshush.

"It's not funny!" I yelled, lip curling. I turned completely around, searching for the source of the voice. I squinted. I saw nothing, but upon looking harder, I caught sight of a silhouette's soft outline. It moved from view. I stepped further into the woods. "Come out," I demanded. I felt my heart flutter as I heard another strange noise. It was like the one before, but a little softer. I took another step. "Bobby?" I asked weakly. "Johnny?" I called, speaking the name of the boy I'd met earlier.

A twig snapped behind me, and I whipped around, about to curse at Phyllis or Lacey for stepping on my heels.

But it was a man.

Huge, frigid hands were vises on my neck, yanking me backwards and damming my windpipe. I yelped, and then heard a wavering scream as my own heels dug furiously into the dirt. It was to no avail; I was wrenched to and fro, my hair a curtain over my face. "Regina?" came Phyllis's voice, quiet and undeterred in the center of the scuffle, trembling with fear.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe.

I kicked furiously, breath trapped in my lungs. I connected with a kneecap. Suddenly, the pressure was released from my throat, and for a moment I believed I was free. I felt something being held to my nose, smelt chemicals, and then felt them burning in my sinuses, dizziness disorienting me until up was down and my head was brushing the bed of the soil, and I was paralyzed and being dragged along the sopping earth.

*~*

"Wake up," someone whispered, and so I did--eyes fluttering open only to regret having done so. Sunlight entered my mind and lit it on fire.

Phyllis's visage came into view; her nose was speckled with dirt and her eyes with signs of a fierce hangover. We were tied together by our wrists--Lacey, Phyllis, and I--and then to a pole in the center of the room. We seemed to be jailed underneath a concrete stairwell. The air was musty and smelled like my father's garage. A mix of two-thirds smoke and one-third gasoline. I had to go to the bathroom worse than anything. Phyllis was feeling my face with her palm. She could barely reach me. Her fingers were trembling.

"I'm fine," I insisted, though I wasn't.

Lacey kept her peace, sleeping on her side, hair sweaty and caked to her forehead. Phyllis attempted to nurse the bruise that had formed along her cheekbone, but I bid her to leave it be. I was freezing, and my shoulders shivered as I crouched.

"How did this happen?" Phyllis asked me hoarsely.

I didn't respond. It was the question everyone had in situations like this one, and like everyone's friend, I did not know the answer.

Lacey was awakened by the door when it opened. A man entered; he was medium-height and had a sallow complexion. He wore a black fedora and a tilted scowl.

"Well, girls," he announced, stunning the rest of the room to silence, "looks like it's your lucky day."

"It looks like it's your lucky day, Gina," Porter told me, flashing a proud smile. Her heels clicked across the linoleum. "I just found you the perfect scholarship." She slipped a sheet of paper into my hand. "Just fill out the form and write up a quick paragraph about a volunteer experience you've had. Knowing you, it'll be an easy five-hundred dollars." She shuffled through her binder and plucked out a pen, handing it to me. I took what she offered, and again caught sight of her white-toothed smile. "One step closer towards that dream of yours."

"You can call me Derek," he permitted, tipping his hat as if it were a formal greeting. "Seeing that you agree to my kind proposition, I'll be your new employer."

Phyllis's lips quivered and parted. "What--" she began, but the man called Derek interrupted with the clicking of his tongue.

"Not so fast, Lemon." Phyllis's words dissolved on her tongue. "You ladies are going to do a little business for me. Business only you would be able to do. A job that I cannot do alone. You're going to help me out. Seeing that you cooperate, I will guarantee you a roof over your head and three meals a day for the next ten years.

"I'm not a cruel man," he said. I did not believe any of what I was hearing. "I'll pay you ten dollars an hour. I'll be kind to you if you are kind to me." His brows turned downwards, and he almost looked sad for a moment. "I am not ignorant to the inconvenience that being kidnapped and tied up has caused the both of us, but I couldn't risk coming to you fairly in broad daylight. You might've tried to run, and I needed every assurance that you'd hear me out entirely."

I wanted to say something brave; to do something courageous, but I didn't have the voice to do so.

"Don't be brave," he told us. "Just help me, and I'll help you."

"I'm not doing anything for you," Lacey managed meekly.

Derek's expression became stony. I realized how pale and colorless his face was, and noticed the unshaven stubble coating his jowls. "Maybe you don't think so, Kitten, but you will. Even if you disagree and I let you go in a week's time, there will come a time when you'll beg me to take you back."

"There'll come a time when you'll beg me to take you back." My uncle's trench coat swept with every confident step, disregarding my pleas to leave. He kept insisting that this was the right school for me. It was the first visit that I'd ever been on, and my stomach was roiling with the mere thought of leaving what I knew. I was of the valley; girls weren't meant to go to college and certainly not to Yale.

I shivered in the sunlight, shrinking at the sight of the other incoming freshmen. I couldn't see myself among them. The tour guide digressed about God knows what; his voice drowned in the steady beat of my anxiety. "…and here's the science lab," he intoned and led us into a room. In the room, a white light from heaven came through an open window, blessing an array of marble tables. My fingers itched for the scalpel and the forceps and my eyes for a pair of goggles; excitement opened in the valves of my heart and I felt an undeniable sense of belonging.

The anxiety fizzled out. There was no place I'd rather be.

Derek came to us every day in the morning, repeating his offer. He untied us, but gave us nothing but a bagel, coaxing us to accept his proposition. There were mornings when the floor stank of urine. There were drafty nights where the cold was unbearable, and our tears froze to our faces. Pride was becoming irrelevant. It was longer a reason to deny Derek's offer. It had been six days, and we were laying sprawled on our backs, flanks exposed to the ceiling.

"I think we should say yes," Phyllis whispered, surprising both Lacey and me.

"What?" I hissed.

"I'm starving," she said. "I feel like my stomach's clawing itself out from the inside." She threw her hand up at the ceiling and then let it fall back to the cement, as if dead. I caught sight of her magenta polish, chipping at the tips of her nails. They were the fingers I'd memorized over the past six days. Phyllis kept talking like she does. "He could be honest. Maybe whatever he needs us for isn't too awful. Ten dollars an hour would be better than whatever we'd make working in retail, y'know. Three meals a day doesn't sound too bad, either."

Lacey and I were silent.

"I'm scared to death," Phyllis admitted to us both. I think I heard a ceiling fan whirring. I wondered how big the building we were in was. I wondered if there were other rooms; other girls maybe, being coerced by men with fake names to accept ambiguous business offers. Phyllis continued, looking at me. "We live in the valley, Gina. We're going nowhere anyway. There's nothing better out there, so why do we keep letting him kill us?" She let her shoulder collapse resignedly beneath her body, rolling onto her side. Her eyes were glazed with exhaustion and with hunger.

Lacey started to cry.

"There's nothing better," Phyllis repeated, pretending not to hear Lacey's wracking sobs.

"There's nothing better," Papa told me. "Can't find the people nicer, can't find the vegetables greener."

From what I knew, there was only one road leading out of Port Lasting. I'd never driven down it, but I'd seen the green sign pointing slanted towards the turn. The road was called Bertram, and there was a gargoyle planted on each side of the avenue. Papa took the perpendicular street to Shaw's and Star Market every morning at seven forty-five and clocked in at eight. On Mondays and Fridays and the days in between, I had to be at school by that time. But on weekends, Papa rigged my alarm so it popped and shrieked at seven-oh-five, and packed me into the passenger's seat with c'mons and a plate of eggs thick with Swiss cheese. I greeted Bertram every morning with a mouthful of breakfast.

"If you took Bertram all the way outa town, which city'd be nearest?" I asked Papa one morning.

"There're lots of them. The nearest is probably Shawnee. But it don't matter, Genie, 'cause everything you could ever want's right here in Port Lasting. Can't find the people nicer. Can't find the vegetables greener." He knocked his shoulder into mine and winked his eyelid down over his cheek like he was tipping a hat. Papa could never really fathom why I'd want to leave home.

When the clock on the radio blinked seven fifty-five, we rolled into the lot and parked behind the Shaw's and Star, breeze sweeping my hair off my shoulders. There was a certain feeling valley weather gave you. Sunlight was always white and stark, fracking into the air pockets of the asphalt. Ma said it was like heaven. To me it just felt cold.

Papa and I went to work together, him quizzing me on the name of every melon and apple in store. He told me he'd reserved a spot for me on staff already. He said I'd have to start out stocking the shelves and doing inventory, but there would be a time when I could rise to hold a management position. He told me he thought I could do his job better than anybody. He went over his plans for me every Saturday and Sunday like it was a mantra as I shadowed in his footsteps, competing with my shoes as to who could make the least noise.

"Lemme ask you something," Papa asked me as we piled into the front seats after his shift had ended. He looked me straight in the eye. "You do wanna work at the Market, don't you, Genie?"

I had dreams bigger than his old jeep could fit in its trunk, but I hated to disappoint him more than anything. "Course, Papa," I told him, hoping to God that there'd come a day when I'd have to break his heart.

*~*

It was summer. The year was 2005, and from day to day that fact was the only one I could keep straight. The date was inconsequential. The minutes felt like months.

I yanked a new set of underwear from under my bed. "Ready to go?" came a voice from behind the door. I hurried to dress myself.

"Be right out," I called to Derek through my teeth, allowing myself another minute to breathe. In the room, crude yellow lights from the nearest building filtered dustily through the blinds. I could feel my passion being stifled in the sweltering heat. If I closed my eyes, I could picture the well of the valley, its heart like the one in my chest; carved out like an empty canyon.

One of these days, I'll be a Mountain Girl, I thought. I'll be brave enough to sculpt the hills.