Only the Truth (13 page)

"You not running from anything, are you?"

"No.

"You didn't just get released from jail?"

I wondered how he knew I was at the jailhouse.

"No, I wasn't in jail. I was just visiting someone."

"You got any drugs on you?"

I didn't know if he was getting scared of me or was hoping I would have
some.

I shook my head violently. "I don't do
no
drugs."

Mickey looked relieved.

"So what the hell are you doing on the road at night going to a town
you don't have nobody expecting you?"

I guessed I had to tell him the story of Charlene even if it did make me look
like an idiot.

Mickey actually enjoyed my telling about what happened to me and Charlene
and about my two Big Dogs. I guess I was entertaining and he could use
something to keep his mind working and awake while driving in the dark.

"Woo
hoo
!" Mickey's booming voice took
up the whole cab of the truck.

"That is one heck of a tale if you are telling the truth! Dang!
Crazy stuff!"
He was steering the truck off the road
into one of them all-night truck stop places with gas and a restaurant. I was
feeling pretty hungry not having eaten all day.

Jumping down from the truck was easier than getting up into it. I could see
trucks all lined up in a row, one color after the other. I wondered if I had
known about driving one that I couldn't have gotten myself a job like that.
But, I had never thought of going out of town. I looked up at the restaurant
sign. It glowed and one part of it blinked. I liked watching it flash on and
off, on and off.

"You don't get around much, do you?" Mickey said, grabbing me by
the arm and hauling me toward the diner door.

It smelled real good. And it was busy. Lots of big guys like Mickey.
Made me wonder if all truckers came in extra large.
There
were even some lady truckers sitting at the counter. All of them were talking
and laughing and eating big plates of food.

"Hey, guys!" Mickey was slapping this one and that one on the
back. "This here is Billy Ray. He's keeping me company tonight."

"Hey, Billy Ray!"
The blonde truck lady
gave me a smile and she moved over a seat so Mickey and I could have two seats
together.

"Nice to meet you, Billy Ray."
All the
truckers were being real friendly to me.

The waitress put a menu in front of me. I ignored it and ran my eyes over
the plates on the counter in front of the truckers. I picked out one that
looked like it had good food on it. "I'll have that," I told her. I
hoped it wasn't an expensive one because I didn't have much money to make it to
Jenkins and back.

I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes and cornbread. I must have seemed real
hungry because the waitress came back and gave me an extra couple of
cornbreads. I wished I could come here again. I hadn't had such good food since
Charlene…well, since Charlene.

"Hey, Billy Ray!"
I looked over at
Mickey, my mouth full of lima beans. He slapped the back of his hand on my
jacket. "You got a picture of your girl? Maybe these guys might have run
into her…." Mickey suddenly realized what he was saying. "Yeah,
well," he cocked his head toward me and rubbed his bearded chin, "Maybe
not."

I reached into my jacket and pulled out the newspaper picture of Charlene
and that man, Rubin Covey. I carefully folded down the big letters above the
pictures so that the truckers wouldn't see what Charlene had done. I held up
the paper so they could all see it. I needed to find out what I needed to find
out and it didn't matter so much to me what they thought of her or me.

There was a few seconds of silence while they were looking over at the
picture, then one of them cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, I run into her."

I looked at the man. He was an older trucker and he seemed a bit
embarrassed.

He looked quickly at me and said, "She's trouble. She ripped me
off."

"How did she do that?" I asked.

He looked defensive and annoyed at the same time.

"She just did," he said abruptly and got busy ripping open sugar
packets and dumped the granules into his coffee.

"I saw her, too," another trucker offered, this one a bit younger
and softer looking.

He looked a bit sheepish. "She, well, you know, she was 'visiting' at
one of the other truck stops and I spent a bit of time with her." His eyes
looked up and to the left. "I can't remember what she called herself, but
she was nice enough to me."

"Was she alone?" I asked.

"Alone?" The trucker was trying to bring back his memory of her.
"No, no, she was with some guy."

"Black guy?"

"Nah, white guy, older."
He nodded his
head up and down. "Yeah, I remember that guy. He lurked around and I
wasn't sure about him. He gave me the willies."

I asked again, showing him the two pictures and pointing to the one of Covey
on the right. "You sure it wasn't him?"

"Nope.
White guy.
"

The older trucker piped in. "Yeah, white guy, older than her, with a
bit of a beard. I would say he was
pimping
her."

I put the newspaper back into my jacket. The counter got real quiet.

Mickey leaned over my plate and handed the waitress a small stack of dollar
bills. He glanced over at me. "I got this one." Then he signaled for
me to get up.

We walked out the door and over to the truck.

"Hold up!"

The blonde lady trucker had followed us out.

She was a little thing. I wondered how she handled a big truck.

"Look here," she said and got in front of me. "I know this
ain't
none of my business and I'm not sure what you are
wanting with that girl, so maybe I should be keeping my nose out before I cause
someone trouble...," She looked like she was going to change her mind and
not tell me whatever she had to say. But, then she continued. "There was
something wrong with that girl," she said. "I have met a lot of girls
who work the truck stops. Sometimes they like to talk with another female just
to have some girl chatter, so I tried to be friendly with that one." She
paused. "She….she was different than the others."

I started to feel good and I must have looked like I was getting a bit happy
because then the trucker lady blurted out, "I don't mean different in a
good way. I mean different in something was not screwed on right in that girl's
head. When she looked at me, she seemed to have only two emotions that went
back and forth; she was either completely cold…no, not cold…just
nonexistent…blank… totally blank….or
.."
her voice
trailed off.

"Or what?" asked Mickey.

"Or she seemed like she hated the whole world, not just the creep she
was with, but all the men, the other ladies, the waitresses, me…everyone. I
felt like if she got hold of a sharp knife, she would start slashing anyone
within arm's length."

The lady trucker looked directly at me.

"Don't play with fire. I would stay far away from that girl if I were
you."

She turned and walked back toward the diner. Mickey and I got in the truck
and pulled back onto the dark highway. Neither one of us spoke for the next
hour.

The trucker lady's words kept going through my head. Don't play with fire.
Don't play with fire. Yeah. Don't play with fire.

********************

Mickey took me all the way to Jenkins like he said he would. I was sorry to
see him go because he was a real nice fellow. I would have liked to have a
friend like him. But he had a job to do, so I was all by myself again. My foot
was feeling better so at least I could walk normal which I figured would be
good when I got to meeting people in town. The center of Jenkins wasn't but a
mile off the main road so I was right in the middle of it in no time. It was a
pretty place, nicer than Whitfield Glen. It had a long row of colorful painted
stores on Main Street and there was a sparkling white church with a welcome
sign with a picture of cupped hands and a bunch of smiling people in them. Of
course, it was also four in the morning, so I was the only one on the street.

Except for the police officer who was now standing in
front of me.

He didn't smile and give me a welcome to town like the church.

"What are you doing here?" His eyebrows came close together in a
clench of disapproval. He had a nice face, a light brown color, and his hair
was wavy even though it was cut short. I guessed Charlene's and my baby would
grow up to look like him. My stomach tumbled and I wondered if my baby would
grow up in somebody else's family and I would never see him.

I tried to think of a good answer.

"I'm looking for someone," I mumbled. It was the truth even if I
didn't know who that someone was yet.

"Who?"

He had to ask me that.

I searched my brain for an answer. I didn't find one.

"I don't know."

The officer's hand moved slightly toward the gun on his right side.

"Let me see some identification."

"I don't have
none
." I never had a reason
for any ID before. I guess I should have a license to drive the truck but no
one ever bothered me about it because I only went up and down the one road.

"Turn around!" His voice became sterner. "Put your hands on
that wall in front of you."

I did what he told me to do.

I felt his hands going in and out of my jacket pockets, and up my chest,
around my sides and across my back. Then he ran his palms up and down my pants
legs, right then left, which made me real nervous.

"Turn around."

He was holding my twenty-dollar bill, the newspaper article, and the photo.

He waved the bill at me.

"This all you got?"

"Yes."

"What did you say your name was?"

I didn't remember him asking before or me telling him.

"Billy Ray Hutchins."

His eyes narrowed. "Where are you from, Mr. Hutchins?"

I told him, "Whitfield Glen, over in Arkansas."

He gave me my twenty back.

We were under a streetlamp and he unfolded the newspaper and tilted it so
the light would hit it.

He was looking hard at the pictures, taking his time reading it. He looked
at the photo and held it next to the picture in the paper that was on the right
of Charlene's. Then he flipped the photo over. His eyebrows went up a little.
He looked back at me.

"Billy Ray Hutchins, huh?"

I wished now I'd left the photo on the table for Mr. Stanley to put back in
his briefcase.

"Yeah."

The police officer moved in a little closer to me and my hands felt sweaty.

"
You looking
for Rubin Covey?"

"No!" I blurted out. I knew Covey was bad and I didn't want him
thinking I had something to do with the things he had done.

"
You looking
for Kristen then?"

"No, no." I shook my head. I felt sweat come down from my hair
even though it wasn't a bit hot at that time of the morning.

He was staring at me again and I looked away from his eyes. He made me feel
like I had done something wrong when all I did was walk down the street.

He waved the newspaper and photo at me and then slapped them against his
left palm. Then, he said "Well, I have got to get some work done."

I thought that was it then and I reached for the paper and picture.

He pulled them out of my reach.

"I'm not finished with you yet. You can come on down to the station
with me and sit with me until you remember who you came here looking for."

He took my right arm with his left hand and started marching me down the
street. We walked that way, me a little ahead of him, his hand grabbing just
above my elbow, the whole two blocks until we reached the police station.

********************

"Sit!" he commanded and I slumped into the chair opposite his big
metal desk. He gave me that look again and I straightened myself up even though
I was tired now and I wanted to sleep.

He sat down and started looking at some police reports, at least I guessed
that's what they were since we were in a police station and the papers looked
important.

"Anytime you want to let me in on your little mission…," he
commented as he made some notes on a pad of paper.

I suddenly realized who the first person was I came to see.

"I'm here to see you."

The officer's looked up quickly and then sat back in his chair. A slight
smile played on his face.

"Me? You came to see me?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why would that be?" He thought I was trying to trick him.

"Because you can tell me about Charlene…I mean, Kristen." Her real
name felt like sawdust in my mouth.
"And about Mr.
Covey."

The officer leaned forward. I could see he had his name under his silver
badge and I wished I could read it so I could be polite and use his name.

Suddenly his face lit up. "Wait a minute! Are you that dumb shit
Kristen shacked up with over in Whitfield Glen and has wrapped around her evil
little finger?"

I felt my face get hot.

He started laughing. He shook a finger at me. "You're the baby
daddy!"

He rubbed his hands over his face and looked at me more seriously.

"What the hell are you doing here? What do you want me to tell you or
show you? Do you want to see the graves of those babies over at the Bethlehem
graveyard? You want to see the burnt ground where the house used to be? You
want me to tell you what I saw that night when I went into the house after they
got the fire put out?" His voice was becoming loud and angry. I looked
down at my lap.