The Last Jeskey - Chapter 27

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 27

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Freaky

 

If I thought that shelter place was weird, it was nothing like this place.  Something called a behavior center…or something like that.  Was this where they brought all the women who didn’t know how to behave?  Because if it was, I could tell them about a whole bunch of women out there who needed straightening out.

Wilcox led me out of his room and to a closed door.  I watched as he pushed some little buttons next to it and a small light changed.  Then he opened the door and led me though.  What did the buttons have to do with opening the door?  I was never going to figure out the world I had found myself in.

As he led me through, I noticed a number of people there, and they weren’t just women.  I was surprised to see men there too.  I was quick to notice that all the women seemed to be wearing the same kind of pink outfits, and the men were wearing blue.  What surprised me even more was that some of those people looked sick, like there was something wrong with them.

“Carol!” Wilcox called out.

He led me to a woman who was wearing a green top with matching green pants.  And this was some place that I had thought would teach women how to behave?  Maybe I was wrong about that.

“This is Freaky,” Wilcox told her.  “Please take good care of her.”

He turned to me.  “Good luck here Freaky,” he told me before turning and walking away.

“Freaky?” Carol said.  “Really?  Who the hell named you that?”

Why didn’t anyone seem to like my name?

“Come on,” she said like it was the greatest bother in the world.  “Let’s get started.”  As she led me further inside, she called out, “Angela, Wanda.  Give me a hand.  We’ve got another one.”  She turned and looked toward me.  “And how we’re going to deal with all that hair I’ll never know.”

I grabbed my hair and hugged it to me.

They had a warm rain room too!  I was so happy to see that.  I immediately wondered if every place had one.  That would be really nice.  I noticed that just like Natalie’s husband, the cop, and all the other cops in that place where they had first taken me, Carol, Wanda, and Angela all wore matching clothes.  I thought that was nice.  In fact, they looked a lot more comfortable than the ones the cops all wore.  They would have been great except for one thing – pants!  Why did all the women in the world wear pants when they weren’t supposed to?  Well not all women.  Pamela at least had worn a dress.  That had been so nice to see.  But I had noticed that Pamela also did a bunch of things that women weren’t supposed to be doing, like diving, and reading, and writing, and I was sure a lot of other things.

“I’m sorry,” Carol said to me.  “But like it or not, we need to see you naked so we can examine you and check for contraband, and then we need to get you into the shower and get you clean.”

“Examine me?  Like that doctor did a few days ago?” I asked.

“Doctor?” she asked.

“I never saw a doctor before,” I told her.  “I thought he wanted me naked so he could have sex with me like my uncles all do, but he didn’t.  He wanted to look at my body instead.  No sex at all.  That was weird.”

“Sex with your uncles?” Angela said.

“Sure.  That’s one of the main things girls are for.  You know that.”

“Maybe we better just check you over and get you clean,” Carol said.  “Turn around, I’ll unzip your dress for you.”

I dropped my dress, kicked my shoes off, and removed my panties and bra.  All three of those women looked me over and touched me all over and examined me to the point where I was very uncomfortable with it.

“What the hell happened to your back?” Carol asked.  “It’s covered in scars.”

“I don’t know,” I told her.  “I can’t see my back.  But that’s where the guys whip me when I’m bad.”

“They whip you?”

“When I’m bad,” I replied.  “It’s usually part of my punishments.”

They moved onto my front side.  Carol, for some reason, was fascinated with my vagina.  “What happened to you there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  It’s always been that way,” I told her.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.  Why should it?”

She fingered it some and discovered she couldn’t get her finger into it.  “What the hell?  It looks like there’s no opening at all!  How the hell do they have sex with you with it like that?  Don’t answer that!” she added quickly.  “I don’t need to know.  I don’t want to know.  All I need to know is that you’ve got nothing hidden inside there.”

“Inside?” I said.  “There is no inside.”

“Turn around and bend over,” she ordered.

I couldn’t figure out why, but I did.  And then I felt her fingers pushing into my asshole a little bit.  “Oh!” I said.  “Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted sex?”

“I don’t!” she said as she removed her fingers.

“She’s clean,” she told Wanda and Angela.  Clean her up.”

I thought she had just said I was clean.  I happily went into that rain room and started to play, but Carol came in quickly and grabbed all my hair, trying to hold it so it wouldn’t get wet.  “We don’t have blow dryers here,” she told me.  “And even with a blow dryer, we don’t have time to dry this much hair.  Now clean yourself up!”

I had no idea what a blow dryer was, except maybe that hot air thing that the hairdresser woman had used on it back at Natalie’s house.  Like it or not, Wanda and Angela made me use soap and a washcloth all over my body.  That wasn’t nearly as much fun as just playing in the nice warm water.”

“Damn it!” Carol yelled.  “I’m getting all wet!  Why can’t you just cut this mess off your head?”

What mess?

After the rain room, Wanda and Angela helped dry me off, which I thought was very nice of them.  Then Carol handed me my panties and bra back.  To save time, Wanda fastened my bra behind me.  Then Carol surprised me by handing me some new clothes.  When I looked at them, they were just like the ones they were wearing, except instead of being green, they were pink, like the other women I had seen were wearing.  But it wasn’t the color that upset me.

“No!” I shouted.  “I’m a girl!”

“But they’re pink…for girls!” Carol argued.

“Girls don’t wear pants!  Ever!  I don’t know why all the women I see are wearing them, but it isn’t right!  Good girls don’t wear pants.  Bo and the guys have told me that many times.  And I’m a good girl!”

“Freaky!” Carol yelled.  “You’re beginning to make me think they named you exactly right.  You’re starting to sound like a real freak!  You either put that outfit on, or we’re going to put it on you!”

“No!” I shouted back.  “I’m a good girl.  The guys would kill me if they found out.  And I mean kill me!”

“Hold her down!” Carol yelled.

Ten minutes later, I was in a room that they told me was all for me.  The room had a bed in it, an empty dresser, an empty shelf, and a chair.  I was still mad as I could be because I was wearing that pink top and those matching pink pants.  Scrubs they had called them.  I didn’t understand.  Scrubbing was what you did when you cleaned something.  Were these clothes made for cleaning?  Nobody seemed interested in explaining any of it to me.

I had never worn pants before, and trust me, they were taking some getting used to.  They were very uncomfortable.  How did men stand wearing them with all that material between their legs?  Trying to get used to them, and not wanting to just sit in that room, I wandered out for a better look around.  As I had noticed before, the women all wore pink and the men all wore blue, but otherwise, their clothes seemed to be exactly the same.

I can tell you that the people at the shelter were a lot more friendly than everyone I saw here.  Nobody said anything to me.  They all looked at me strangely as if they didn’t trust me, then went back to what they were doing, mostly just wandering around by themselves…like I was doing.  And I was right.  More than a few of them looked sick.

“They had one of those TV things there too, and a lot of the people were watching it.  I didn’t like TV, and I couldn’t understand how anyone else could like it either.  Maybe they understood it better than I did.

“Freaky!”

I turned and saw a man wearing the same green outfit that Carol and her friends had worn.  And this was a man!

“Come on,” he said.  “One of the doctors wants to see you now.”

“A doctor?” I asked.  “Does he want to examine me too?”

“I think that’s the general idea he said as I followed him through the room.”

“Will he want sex with me?” I asked.

“I seriously doubt it,” the man said.

He led me to a door and another tiny room.  I saw a man inside.

“Are you Freaky?” the man asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come in, please,” he told me.

I went in and that man in the green outfit left and closed the door.

“I’m Doctor Knox,” the doctor said.  He came over to me and shook my hand.  What a strange experience.  “Sit.  Please,” he said as he waved his arm toward a chair.  I sat and waited.

“I’ve been reading over some of the notes on you that a Jessica Kriss sent us.”

“Miss Kriss,” I told him.

“Yes,” he replied.  “I get the impression that you’ve had some interesting experiences in your life?”

Interesting?  “I don’t know what you mean.  I’m a good girl.  I do what I’m supposed to.  Or at least I try to.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said.  “But let me start with something else.  Your name is very unusual,” he said.

“It is?  Why?”

“Did your mother ever tell you why she named you Freaky?”

“I never had a mother,” I told him.  “And I guess my name is really Freak.  I just told Natalie that I like Freaky better and everyone has been calling me Freaky instead.”

“Your name is actually Freak,” he said as if he didn’t believe it.

“That’s what I’ve always been called.  The guys say, have the freak do this, or have the freak do that.  They all just call me Freak.”

“What guys?”

“My uncles.”

“Uncles,” he said as if he wasn’t happy.  He seemed to sigh, then said.  “Freaky, and I’m going to keep calling you that since you like it better.”

I shrugged.  That was up to him.

“You said you didn’t have a mother.  Do you remember your father?”

“A father?  No,” I said.  “I never had a father.  I only remember my uncles.”

“So you don’t remember your real parents at all.”

I sat there and tried to think about that.  “I don’t know,” I told him.  “Way back.  Way, way back before I can really remember much.  I think there was someone.  A man and a woman maybe.  But I was so young then and I really don’t remember them at all.  It’s always just been me and my uncles.”

“So you have no idea what happened to your mother and father, and you were raised by your uncles instead.”

I shrugged.  “You’d have to ask them.  But Bo is dead now.  So is Steve and Ben.  Oh, and they told me that Dave just died too.  But there’s still Gary.”

“All those people have died,” he said.  “How long have they been gone?”

“You mean dead?  Just a few days.  Dave may have died yesterday.  That’s when they told me about him.”

“You don’t seem particularly upset about it.”

“Upset?  Am I supposed to be?”

“Didn’t you love them?”

“What do you mean, love?”

“Feel any affection for them.”

“Oh, they had sex with me all the time.  Like that?”

“Not quite what I was thinking,” he said.

“I’ve never met a doctor before,” I told him.  “Not until that day when Bo and the guys were shot.”

“Someone shot them?  Do you know who did it?”

“Roxie did it,” I told him.

“Roxie,” he said.  “Freaky, were you there when they were shot?  Did you see it happen?”

“Of course.  I’m a good girl.  I know I’m not supposed to be seen by other people, but Roxie wouldn’t let me leave.  She even pointed the gun at me to make sure I didn’t go anywhere.”

“So you saw it all happen.”

“Yes.  Of course.  That cop asked me all about it already.  That was the first day I ever saw a doctor.  Now you’re the second one who wants to examine me.  Are you going to want to see me naked too?”

“No Freaky.  I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“I don’t understand.  How many kinds of doctors are there?”

“A lot, I’m afraid.”

I sighed.  “Maybe doctors are another thing I don’t understand.  Just like everything else.”

“Freaky, I’m a doctor who specializes in your mind.  When people have mental problems, I try to help them.”

“Good!” I said.  ‘Cause ever since I’ve left the farm I’ve seen lots of people who need help.  Most of them women.  And none of them seem to know the difference between men’s business and women’s business.  And why is it that none of them seem to understand that good girls don’t wear pants.  Look at me,” I said.  “I’m wearing pants.  But it’s only because they made me.  They forced me to wear them.”

“Who told you that women don’t wear pants?” the doctor asked.

“Bo.  All the guys.”

“And you said something a minute ago about girls not being seen?”

I shook my head.  “You know this!  All the girls and women should know it.”

“Know what?” he said.  “Pretend I’m stupid and I don’t understand.”

“Oh,” I said as I realized what he was doing.  “You’re trying to see how well I understand it.  I understand it just fine.  Bo and the guys make sure of it.  They punish me if I get something wrong.”

“Freaky,” he said.  “There’s so many questions I have right now, but let’s go back to what I just asked.  Can you explain what you meant by girls shouldn’t be seen?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to be patient.  “Basically, it’s just that girls shouldn’t get in the way of men’s business.  They should just do whatever the men want them to, then get out of the way where they’re not seen or heard.  Bo and the guys were always real strict about that one.”

“I see,” Doctor Knox replied.  He looked at me for a moment then said.  “Freaky, in this first meeting, I really wanted to just meet you and get a sense of who you are.  Maybe start getting into your earliest background a little bit.  But you said you don’t remember your mother and father.”

“I didn’t have one,” I told him again.

“But you remembered a man and a woman.”

“Sort of.  But not really.  And I don’t know who they were.”

He looked at me as if he was trying to consider something, then said.  “Okay, we’ll get into that another time.  It’s getting late now, and I really just wanted to meet you.  Especially after Doctor Wilcox told me a little bit about you.  So you don’t remember your parents.  Just living with your uncles.”

“I’ve lived with them all my life.  Bo, Steve, Ben, Dave, and Gary.  Bo is in charge though.  Steve, Ben, Dave, and Gary all call him Dad.  They all have me call them uncle.  Uncle Bo, Uncle Steve, Uncle Ben…”

“I get it,” the doctor told me.  “And you said that some of them were murdered.”

“Roxie shot Bo, Steve, and Ben.  Miss Kriss told me that Uncle Dave died in a car accident afterwards.”

He looked at me for another moment, then said.  “So who’s left out of all your uncles?”

“Just Gary.  He’s going to have to take care of me now.”

“At least you have him,” the doctor said.

“Yeah but….”

“But what?”

“Gary’s mean.  He likes hurting me more than the others.”

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 26

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 26

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Pamela

 

It might not have been entirely kosher, but when you’re in a backwoods area like ours, the entire legal community gets to know each other pretty well.  Over the years, we’ve all become pretty close friends.  Dale Murphy, the D.A., had one person who worked for him to prosecute the cases, Les and I were the other side of the legal equation for the area, providing the defense.  But that didn’t mean that we couldn’t be friends.  In the middle, between us, sat Judge Reinhart.  As I said, it might not be entirely kosher, but Les and I often had not just Murphy and his wife over for dinner, but Reinhart and his wife as well.  Of course, since Reinhart was the only big judge in the area, who was going to complain about it?

After a long day of driving to get Freaky resituated, Reinhart and his wife Greta came over to our place for a barbeque.  Dale Murphy and his wife were there as well.  Except for Dale’s assistant, it was the entire legal community for the area.  We did that once in a while.  Les and I had enjoyed other get-togethers at Murphy’s house and Reinhart’s house too.  This time it was simply our turn.  While Les cooked ribs on the grill, the rest of us sat outside on the patio enjoying beer, or wine, or whatever.  We were simply comfortable.  All of us.

“What’s the paperwork I saw this morning about you being someone’s advocate?” the judge asked me.  “And did my eyes deceive me when I saw the name Jeskey?  That kind of threw me more than her first name.  Not to mention, who in their right mind would name their daughter, Freaky?”

“What?” Greta asked, clearly not believing it.

“Believe it or not,” Dale interjected, “there’s a girl out there named Freaky.  I heard about it as part of the Roxie Simmons case.  I didn’t know she was related to the Jeskeys though.  What’s that about?”

“And why would she need an advocate?” the judge asked.

I did my best to begin filling them in on Freaky’s tragic story.  All of it, including the mutilation part.  As I talked, they all seemed to close in around me as the seriousness of my story reached them.  Even Les left his barbecue as much as he could to listen to it one more time.

“And that’s it…so far,” I finally finished as I sat back in my seat.  I saw everyone else sitting back too, as if they were relieved it was finally over.

“The poor girl has gone from one nut house, to another,” the judge noted.  “And now she’s in a real nut house.”

“And all she wants is to go home,” I told him.

“Where there’s not only a danger from Gary Jeskey, but she’s got no way to support or take care of herself,” the judge realized.  “And she can’t seem to understand modern life away from that farm.”

“That’s about the size of it,” I agreed.  “We can’t let her go home, and there’s literally nowhere else to put her.”

“Not to mention,” Les added, “She literally needs the psychiatric help.”

“Such a shame,” Greta said.

“Yeah,” her husband, the judge, agreed.

“While Pam was away today,” Les told everyone, “I started making inquiries into the farm that Clive Jeskey owned, along with the one he inherited from his father.  I was just trying to get a feel for any money that might be there since Pam and I figured that Brian, or Freaky now, should someday inherit those properties.”

“And?” the judge asked.

“And I found out pretty quickly that things happened there that, as a lawyer, I’m not really happy about.”

“Such as?” the judge asked.

“Such as, I was surprised to see how fast both Clive’s farm and the one he inherited from his father, were sold.”

“Both of them?” the judge asked.

“Within a few weeks of Clive’s death,” Les confirmed.

“Wait a minute,” the judge said.  “As I see it, Brian should have inherited both those properties.  Or he would have.”

“But Brian was declared dead,” Les reminded him.

“Of course,” the judge agreed.  “That would explain it.”

“Except that,” I threw out, “even Detective Benson said they were surprised at how fast Brian Jeskey was declared dead, and his kidnapping case was dropped.”

“Why was he declared dead?” the judge asked.  “They didn’t have a body, did they?”

“No, they didn’t.  According to Benson, Brian just disappeared, and they had no idea what happened to him.  They originally assumed he was kidnapped.  It’s my guess that since Clive and his wife were murdered, and the big safe they were transporting went missing, someone assumed that Brian had to be dead too, and had the case dropped.”

“And how long after that were the farms sold?” the judge asked.

“Just a couple of weeks,” Les supplied again.

The judge shook his head.  “I don’t have all the facts, but it sounds…odd.”

“Too odd,” I agreed.

“Who bought the farms?” the judge asked.  “Did you find out?”

“A land development company,” Les told him.  “Both those farms are now big housing developments.”

“Houses!  From good farmland.”  The judge shook his head.  “It happens too often.”  He looked back up at Les.  “How much land are we talking about?”

“Clive’s father’s farm was almost two thousand acres.  The farm Clive bought was just short of three thousand.  So all totaled, it was close to five thousand acres.”

“Five thousand acres, all turned into housing sites,” the judge said.  “And how much money did that developer pay for it all?”

“Four million,” Les told him.

“Four million, for five thousand acres?” the judge said.  “Somebody got an awfully good deal.”

“And they got it fast,” Les reminded him.  “Too fast.  When I looked at that, the first thing I thought was that maybe the land developer had murdered Clive, just so he could get all that land.  I guess that’s still possible.”

“Who the hell okayed that deal?” the judge asked.

“I don’t know,” Les admitted.  “I just looked into it a bit today.”

“And you found out all that?”

“It’s public record.”

“Yeah.  It would be.  Okay,” the judge said.  “There’s a few things that bother me, and the top of the list is that Brian Jeskey, or Freaky now, may have been cheated out of an enormous amount of money.  I have no idea how much money that developer made on all that property, but I can imagine at least ten or twenty times what he paid for it.  Possibly much more.  I can’t help but wonder if someone, somewhere, hasn’t investigated this already.  But then, as you said, why would they if Brain was dead, despite nobody finding his body.  And now that we know Brian didn’t die, and we know where he is, what now?  Can Freaky legitimately claim any of it?”

“That’s why I went looking in the first place,” Les reminded him.

“Yeah,” the judge agreed.  He turned to me.  “Pam, I may have a few provisions for that advocacy paperwork of yours.  I’ll think about it between now and tomorrow morning.  And more importantly, we may not be the most influential area in the state, but I’m not without some very influential friends.  Tomorrow, I think I’ll make a few phone calls and see if I can’t put a bug in someone’s ear to just take a quick look at this situation.  In fact, maybe I’ll start making a few calls tonight when I get home.”  He looked at the beer in his hand.  “If I’m not too drunk.”

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 25

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 25

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Freaky

 

Shantel and I watched Lisa walking out the door to go to work.  The minute Lisa left us, Shantel wrapped me up in a big hug and squeezed me as we watched her climb aboard what Shantel called a shuttle bus.  Another new thing for me to see, and another thing that looked weird.

“Oh Baby Doll,” Shantel said.  “I hope she’s going to be alright.  I know she’ll be fine, but I love that girl to death, and I’m already missing her.  But I know she needs this.  It’s just that, I also know that someday she’s gonna move on, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her.  She’s been my rock since I got here.  She’s the one who’s helped hold me together.  How am I gonna manage without her?”

I had no answers to any of that.  We stood there hugging each other until that shuttle bus drove out of sight, then she seemed to sigh.  “Come on,” she said.  “Let’s watch some TV.  I need to get my mind off of things.”

She led me into that big room with all the chairs.  There seemed to be a lot of women in there just then, but not the one with the baby.  Bess.  Shantel and I sat next to each other where she could see the TV.  I was beginning to hate that thing.  I didn’t understand what the people I could see on it were doing.  I couldn’t understand what they were talking about.  I didn’t understand the TV thing itself.  What good was it?

I looked over at Shantel.  She appeared to be watching it, but I could tell she wasn’t paying any attention to it.  I was betting her mind was on Lisa instead.  I barely knew Lisa, and I felt the loss of her not being there, if even only for a little while until she came back from work.  I couldn’t imagine how Shantel must feel.

“Shit!” Shantel muttered as she got up from her seat.  “I gotta go.  I can’t do this.”

She walked away.  Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to watch the TV, I followed behind her.  She turned into the bathroom that was supposed to be for the women who stayed in our bedroom.  I followed her in, and looked around but I didn’t see her.  Very softly, I walked past all the stalls and looked under them.  No feet.

And then I heard the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life.  Singing.  Shantel singing.  And the sound of it held me completely captive.  I’d never heard anything like it, not even coming from one of the cellphones that the guys had.  Shantel was in the rain room, not singing softly, but singing like she was full of the song that she was letting loose.  I briefly peeked into that rain room where I could see her.  She was turned away from me.  Singing at the wall in the far corner.

I backed away where she couldn’t see me, but I couldn’t go far.  I just wanted to listen to that amazing sound.  A sound that seemed to be filled with both joy and sorrow at the same time.  I didn’t understand at all what she was singing about, and I didn’t care.  I just wanted to listen.

“Hi Freaky,” a voice said softly.

I turned and saw Miss Kriss coming into the bathroom.  She didn’t say anything, but she stood next to me for a while, listening with me.  “That girl can sing!” she said at one point.  “She used to sing with her church choir.  She grew up singing in the choir.  Just listening to her, you can tell she misses it.”

“What’s a church choir?” I asked softly.

Miss Kriss sighed.  “Her life!” she whispered back.  “The life where she belongs.  Not that drug induced, dirty, painful, excuse for a life she wound up in.”

We stood there listening as Shantel kept singing, going from one song into something else.  Something similar.  “That girl loves her gospel,” Miss Kriss finally said.

She leaned over toward me.  “I just wanted to let you know that your friend Natalie is coming to see you today.”

Natalie!  I liked Natalie.  I wanted both Shantel and Lisa to meet her.  Then I remembered that Lisa wasn’t there.  “Will Lisa be back by then?” I asked.

“I doubt it.”

Still, at least Shantel would be there.  If she ever came out of that rain room again.

Shantel did come out eventually.  I didn’t mention it to her, but I was still awed by hearing her sing.  I could have stood there and listened to her all day.  I was glad when she didn’t want to go back to that room with the TV thing.  I followed her back to our bedroom instead, where she laid on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.  She didn’t say it, but I got the impression she didn’t want company just then, so I left her.  With nowhere else to go, I went back to the TV room by myself.  I was hoping that Bess would be there again with her baby.  If so, maybe she’d let me at least look at him again…or hold him.

Bess was there holding her baby, but the baby was sleeping in her arms just then.  For once, Bess looked content.  As much as I wanted to bother her, I didn’t.  I sat and tried to make sense of what was on TV, but how could I?  I didn’t know enough about what I was looking at or listening to.  Still, I sat there and watched.

It was some time before Miss Kriss called me.  “Freaky.”

I looked up and saw not just her, but Natalie and another woman there.  But Natalie had some kind of cloth hung over her shoulder that looked like it was holding up her arm.  I quickly got out of my seat.  “Natalie!” I called happily as I headed to see her.

“Where’s Shantel?” Miss Kriss asked.

“Laying down,” I told her.  “I think she misses Lisa.”

“Undoubtably.  I heard that in her singing earlier.”

“Hi Freaky,” Natalie said as she moved in and gave me a hug.  I hugged her back.

“What’s that thing on your arm?” I asked.

“A sling,” she told me.  “I…hurt it a bit yesterday.”

“How did you do that?”

“Um…I fell,” she replied.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, concerned.

“Some,” she admitted.  “It’ll get better though.  It just needs a few days.”

“That’s good,” I told her happily.

“Freaky,” she said.  “I wanted to introduce you to Pamela here.  She very much wanted to meet you today.”

I had noticed the woman before.  Now I took the time to study her further.  She was wearing a dress!  Finally, a woman who was dressed properly.  Except…her shoes.  The heels on the back looked like they were high and thin.  Weird.  Really weird.  How did she walk in them?  They looked awfully uncomfortable.

“Hi Freaky,” Pamela said.  “How are you doing in here?”

“Okay,” I told her.  “There’s just too much though that I don’t understand.  I still really want to go home.”

“I hear you’ve made some friends though.”

“Friends?  What’s…friends?”

“People you like, and who like you,” she explained.

“Oh.  Yeah.  And I want you and Natalie to meet them.  Lisa isn’t here right now though, she got a job and is working.”

“That sounds very good,” Pamela replied.

“But Shantel is just lying down.  Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Um…why don’t we just sit somewhere and talk instead,” Pamela suggested.  “Somewhere away from the other women here.”

“Use my office,” Miss Kriss suggested.

Natalie and Miss Kriss led the way to that little room where Miss Kriss usually was.  The new woman, Pamela, walked next to me.  “You’re a very pretty woman,” she told me.  “And you really do have hair long enough to touch the ground.”

As we walked, I pulled out one of my braids that Shantel had put in my hair.  “See,” I showed her.  “Braids.  Shantel did it for me.  I’m learning now how to do it for myself.  It’s hard though.”

“With that much hair, I don’t doubt it,” Pamela said.

We went into the room and sat down.  Pamela leaned toward me and said, “Freaky, I’ve decided that I’m going to be your advocate and look after you.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Someone who looks after your interests,” she explained.

I shook my head.  “What does that mean?  Why do I need someone to do that?”

“Because I’ve been told you can’t understand the intricacies of the legal system.”

“The what?”

I saw her look around.  “I’m a lawyer,” she said.  “Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“Something tells me that trying to explain it fully to you right now would take too long,” she said.  “But here’s the main reason I wanted to talk to you.  I believe there may be a few different avenues where we can get some money for you.  And I believe it could be a lot of money.”

“Money?  That’s men’s business.  I don’t need to know anything about that.  I’m a good girl.”

She looked surprised.  “Freaky, money is important to everyone.  Even you!”

I shook my head.  “Why would it be?  I never needed to know about it before.  Besides what would I do with it?  Leave it to the men, like you and all the other women should be doing.  Hasn’t anyone ever taught you what’s men’s business and what’s women’s business?  Don’t the men get mad at you for messing with things that only they should do?”

“Never!” she said, looking totally shocked.  “Freaky, what do you mean by men’s business and women’s business?”

I sighed.  Why didn’t these people know that?  “Women only need to know how to cook and clean and take care of the men and whatever needs they have.  That’s women’s business.  Everything else needs to be left to the men.”

“She can’t read, and she can’t even count past five,” Miss Kriss told them.  “And when she counts that high, it’s only on her fingers.”

“How do you survive?” Pamela asked me.

I shrugged.  “I didn’t like it when they hung me from the tree, but I survived.  Yeah, I saw some bears, but I was high enough that they couldn’t get to me.  Every time they buried me in the ground I saw more of them though.  I was never so scared in my life as when that happened.  I was so glad when they ran away every time I screamed real loud.  Whenever that happened, I was more scared than at any time in my life, but I survived just fine.  What does everything else have to do with that?  I don’t need to know anything else.  They always dug me out a few days later and I survived.”

For some reason, Pamela looked shocked.  So did Natalie and Miss Kriss.

Pamela looked up at Miss Kriss.  “I really don’t want to do this, but I don’t think I’ve got a choice.  After hearing things like that, there’s got to be some major mental issues that we haven’t even considered yet.  Where’s that mental hospital you told us about?”

I wasn’t given a choice.  Natalie and Pamela took me straight out of that room and out through the door.  The put me into the back of another car.  I didn’t even have the clothes that Natalie had given me, and I didn’t get a chance to introduce them to Shantel.  I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Shantel.  She and Lisa had been so nice to me from the moment I had gotten there.  I was going to miss them.  “Are we going back to the farm now?” I asked.

“No,” Pamela told me.  “Somewhere else.”

“Another shelter?” I asked.

“Kind of,” she told me.  “Hopefully, this place can take better care of you.”

I had no idea what was wrong with the shelter place I had been in.  Now they were taking me to another one.

Every time they took me somewhere, it was to another place that seemed even weirder than the other places they had taken me to.  And it almost seemed like every one of those places was bigger than the last place.  That was how this new place seemed too.  Big…and weird!

“There’s admissions,” I heard Natalie say as we went in through the door.  She and Pamela led me over to a little room with another of those weird tables inside.  There was a woman there.  I figured her name was Admissions.  Admissions looked Natalie, Pamela, and me over and said, “Let me guess, this is the one that Jessica Kriss called about, the one called Freaky.  Another one who can’t pay.”  She didn’t sound happy, and I could tell that Natalie and Pamela didn’t look happy after she had said it.

“Yes,” Pamela replied.  “This is Freaky.”

The woman sighed, then said.  “Okay.”  She pushed a paper across the table to Pamela and said, “Fill this out.”

She was forcing the woman to write something, when women shouldn’t be writing anything!  Admissions picked up something on her table and spoke into it, then she put it down again.  It took a few minutes for Pamela to finish writing and then she handed the paper back to Admissions again just as a man came into the room.

“Ah,” the man said as he immediately started looking me over.  He looked at Natalie and Pamela.  “Is this the woman that Jessica Kriss has been pestering me about for the last two days?”

“This is Freaky,” Pamela told him.

“Ah,” he said as he glanced briefly at me, then back to her.  “I’m Doctor Wilcox.  I’m in charge of this establishment.”

Pamela stuck out her hand.  “I’m Pamela McGregor,” Pamela told him as she shook his hand.  “Freaky’s legal representative and advocate.”  She turned to Natalie.  “And this is Natalie Cobb, the wife of Sheriff Cobb who discovered Freaky just a few days ago.”

Wilcox and Natalie shook hands.  I wondered if I was supposed to shake his hand too, but he never offered.  He didn’t even look at me again.

“Come to my office.  Let’s talk,” Wilcox suggested.

We followed him into another room where there were nice chairs and another of those weird looking tables with stuff all over the top.  Doctor Wilcox sat in one of the chairs and motioned toward the other seats in the room.  Since Natalie and Pamela were sitting down, I did too.

“Jessica Kriss sent me several reports about Freaky here,” Wilcox said, “and I agreed to allow her in despite her lack of funding because I believe her persecution fantasies may be severe enough that they could cause further problems in the future.  Possibly leading to violent outbursts that could hurt other people.  If we can quickly…”

“Stop!” Pamela said quickly.  “What are you talking about, persecution fantasies?”

“According to Jessica, she’s told some of the women at the shelter that she was hung upside down and also buried alive, for days at a time.  If any such thing really happened, I have no doubt that someone would have put a stop to it.  Fantasies…”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Natalie shouted as she stood up.  “Have you any idea who she’s been living with all her life?”

The doctor looked like he had no idea what was going on.  “What do you mean?”

“My husband is the county sheriff up where we live, and I can tell you for a fact that for as long as I can remember, the biggest criminal in the area has been a psychopath named Bo Jeskey.  Bo, and his four sons.  We know now that Freaky here was kidnapped when she was barely four years old by those men, right after they murdered her father and mother, probably right in front of her.  She’s been hidden away by those men and forced to live the most ridiculous life possible, as a slave, ever since.  And because she’s been kept out of sight, nobody had any idea she was there.  She’s been kept so isolated that she has no idea of what the real world is actually like.  All she knows is the truly warped and sadistic ideas that Bo and his boys have implanted in her.  Her existence only came to light a few days ago when Bo was murdered, along with two of his sons.  Doctor, don’t make the mistake of thinking that anything she says is any kind of fantasy at all.  As I said, everyone considered Bo Jeskey to be a sadistic psychopath and his sons as well.  And Bo was a very smart psychopath.  My husband knows for a fact that he’s killed a lot of people, but nobody has ever been able to find even one of those dead bodies yet so my husband can convict him.  Bo Jeskey and his sons are so deranged that if Freaky here says she was buried alive, I suggest you believe her!  I do.  After what I’ve seen of her so far, I have no doubt about it at all.”

The doctor looked like he didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know what to think either.  She had said a lot of things there that I didn’t understand.  I was going to have to get her to explain them to me, if I could remember what those things were.

It was a moment before the doctor could speak.  “If what you’re saying is true, maybe she needs the help of our psychologists more than I thought.”

“I believe that’s the reason Jessica Kriss sent her here,” Pamela replied.

“Yes,” Wilcox said as he stared right at me.  For the first time, he really seemed to look at me, but he turned back to Pamela and Natalie.  He held up the papers in his hand.  “I have Jessica’s notes here concerning her.  There’s too much to sit and discuss all of it right now.  Let us study this and have a few little chats with Freaky before we talk again.  I’ll call you when I think we’ve got a better handle as to what’s going on.”

“Good!” Pamela said as she stood up.

Natalie stood up too, so I stood as well.  When they started to walk out, so did I, but Pamela suddenly stopped and turned back to Wilcox.  “Doctor,” she said.  “I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but one thing Natalie has noticed about her, and I agree, is that we believe Freaky’s hair has become something of a personal security blanket for her.  I think it also may be possible that it serves as something of her identity as well.  Possibly the only bit of real identity she actually has.  So if you see her hugging it quite a bit, we believe that’s what’s going on.”

“She’s so attached to it,” Natalie added, “that she wouldn’t let the hairdresser cut it at all when we were trying to straighten it out some.  Before that, all that hair she had was a total…mess!”

“I see,” Wilcox said.  “It’s possible that you’re right, and I have no doubt that she may find her hair to be something comforting to hang on to.  No doubt, it may also be something that she could be quite proud of.  I image it’s quite an achievement to grow your hair for that long.”

“Yes,” Pamela said.  “It was just something Natalie noticed about her.”

“Thank you,” Wilcox told them.

Natalie turned and hugged me.  “You stay here now Freaky,” she told me.  “We’ll check back in a few days.”

I stood there as the two of them left me behind in another weird place.  Why couldn’t they just let me go home…forever!

“Right!” Doctor Wilcox said.  “Come along Freaky.  Let’s get you processed.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 24

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 24

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Pamela McGregor

 

Some women are simply stronger and more determined than others.  That’s how I saw Natalie.  I especially thought that when I stopped at her house to pick her up.  After being shot the day before, I couldn’t believe she still wanted to go with me to meet Freaky.  But she not only wanted to go, she insisted on going.  Which was probably good.  Freaky knew her, she didn’t know me.  And I needed Freaky to trust me implicitly.

The deputy out in front of her house knew me and greeted me nicely as I walked up to the door and knocked.  Until yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed there was any need for a deputy to be there.  Not until Nat had gotten shot right in front of my own office.  That had been a real wakeup for me.  I was about to immerse myself into a situation that could be far more dangerous than anything I had ever done.  And just being near Natalie and the sheriff…and Freaky too…could possibly get me killed.

After Natalie had been shot, Les had begged me to drop this silly idea of wanting to be Freaky’s advocate.  Les would have been much happier if I dropped anything and everything to do with her, but after that meeting and hearing about all the possible sources of money, I was more determined than ever.  And since that meeting, my mind had been dredging up more and more possible sources of money for Freaky that I might be able to go after, which of course meant my share of all that money as part of my legal fees kept going up.

Les and I weren’t exactly swimming in money.  We defended most of the people that the sheriff’s department arrested, almost all of whom couldn’t pay our fees.  The county paid us a small stipend instead for being their provided lawyers, but the amount they paid us wasn’t very much at all!  Now I was seeing dollar signs that we could lay our hands on, and that income was starting to grow exponentially in my head.

Freaky needed my help, and I needed the income that I could generate from her.  In fact, I had every intention of remaining her lawyer for the rest of her life, billing for whatever I thought remotely appropriate.  As far as I was concerned, Freaky Jeskey was about to become mine and Les’s major source of income for the foreseeable future.  I just had to find all that money and get it assigned to Freaky first.  With that much incentive though, I’d do whatever it takes.

First step, meet the poor girl.  Poor?  She didn’t know how rich she might be, especially if I had any say in it.

In my mind, I pictured a huge safe, filled with money!  The lion’s share of that money would of course belong to Freaky, but if there was millions of dollars in there, then how much would my percentage amount to?  A lot!

Natalie answered the door with her arm in a sling.  The sling did nothing for her appearance, but it served as a big reminder to me that this woman had been shot just yesterday, and she was till determined to go with me today.  Strong!  Determined!  Like me.  Of course, she was also married to the sheriff.  That alone had to take an awful lot of strength.

“Ready?” I asked.

As prearranged, the deputy followed us out of town and for quite a distance more than he was supposed to before he turned and went home, leaving Nat and me on our own, without protection.  The sheriff had decided that once we reached a certain point we should be able to relax and feel free from Gary Jeskey hunting Nat…and I again realized, possibly me.  Nat would call the sheriff’s department on the way home and another deputy would pick us up somewhere along the way.

Why was it that our little slice of Northeastern Tennessee had to be one of the less wealthy sections of the state?  We had hills and trees…actually, lots of hills and trees.  We were a bit more remote than a lot of places too.  But where we lived had to be one of the more beautiful areas of the entire state.  Hillbilly country, my husband often joked.  But the truth was, he was right.  Unfortunately, hillbilly country also meant that the county didn’t have money for niceties like women’s shelters.  As far as I could see, we were lucky to have a few social workers to cover the area instead.  Workers like Natalie.  And in an area such as ours, it seemed those social workers had a more important job than anywhere else.iHill

The ride to the shelter was pleasant enough, and Nat and I got to know each other a bit better.  Bumping into each other professionally once in a while wasn’t exactly a good way for us to really get to know each other, but long car rides were different.  We talked a lot about our lives and our marriages.  Husbands are always a favorite subject for women when they get together.  But we also spent a lot of time talking about Freaky.  As I said, it was a pleasant trip, but after hearing what I had in that meeting yesterday about Freaky, and then listening to Natalie in the car, I had to wonder what I would find at the end of that car ride.

A boy, who had been mutilated and turned into a girl, and then put through the most barbaric things possible.  During the drive, Natalie once used the word brainwashed.  Yeah, I could see that completely.  Brainwashed.  Slave.  A mess!  What was I getting myself into?  But the dollar signs stayed on the top of my head, driving me forward.

One other thing that Natalie seemed to think was going to be an important distinction, was that Freaky might have been born a boy, but he wasn’t a boy anymore.  According to Nat, Freaky not only had a completely female body, but she completely identified as being female.  Despite my determination to represent her, I had my doubts.  I was going to have to meet her and see what I thought for myself…like any good lawyer should do.

When we arrived, Natalie and her sling walked me into the shelter.  I immediately started looking around for someone with hair hanging down to the floor, but all I saw was an empty hallway.  Nat led me to the first door near the entrance.  It was open so she just knocked a bit and walked in.  I saw an elderly woman sitting behind the desk.

“Hi Jess,” Natalie said to the woman.  “How are you?”

“Natalie!” the woman said, looking surprised.  “What happened to you?”

“The unexpected,” Natalie replied with a smile.

“Did you break it?” Jess asked.

“No.  It’s just…hurt.  It’ll heal.”  She turned to me.  “Jessica, this is Pamela McGregor.  Pam, this is Jessica Kriss.  She runs the shelter.”

I shook Jess’s hand.  “Nice to meet you,” I told her.  Nat and I took a couple of chairs in front of her desk, and we all sat down.

“How’s Freaky?” Nat asked immediately.  Did I imagine it, or had Jess momentarily looked awfully troubled?

“She’s…trying to adjust…I think,” she replied.  Two of our current residents have kind of taken her under their wing and are trying to help her as much as they can, but…”  She shook her head.  “Look,” she said as she leaned forward.  “I’m not going to beat around the bush with this.  Freaky has problems.  Big problems.  It’s like she’s in another world, stuck back in another time.  I have no doubt that her life has been horrendous, but most of the women who come here have led horrendous lives.  But with Freaky…”  She shook her head.  “I keep thinking that she’s been…brainwashed.”

I quicky glanced over at Natalie.  She had used that word too, along with slave.

“That’s what I think too,” Natalie told her.

“Jessica nodded.  “I’ve talked to her, and so has one of my staff members.  And more importantly, we’ve both had a few discussions about Freaky with those two women who have been trying to help her.  After everything I’ve seen in just this short bit of time, the closest I can figure is that Freaky has been firmly pushed into believing all kinds of ridiculous things.  And she doesn’t think any of them are ridiculous at all.  Instead, she thinks everyone else is ridiculous for not believing the things she does.  Her entire view of life is so warped that I don’t know where to begin to even try to counsel her.  I may be all wrong about this, but to me, it’s like she’s been brainwashed into believing everything those uncles of hers wanted her to believe, and they spared no expense in making sure it all stuck.  Geez!  When I heard about some of the punishments they dished out to her for not being a good girl, as she calls it, I couldn’t believe any of it.  But Freaky obviously believes it all actually happened.  If it did, those men need to be thrown into prison for the rest of their lives!  I mean…hanging her upside down for days at a time.  Burying her alive.  It’s all, unbelievable.  Too unbelievable!”

“As it turns out,” Natalie said, “we’re pretty sure it all happened, and worse.  Much worse.”

Jessica shook her grey-haired head.  “I can’t see how it possibly could have, but either way, if it actually happened, I think she needs a good psychiatrist.  And if those things didn’t actually happen and she made it up, then she still needs that psychiatrist.”

“I hate to say it, but it’s possible,” Natalie admitted.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jessica said.  “I feel for the girl.  I even like her.  She’s actually quite nice.  But I feel so strongly about this that I’ve already looked into it, and I’ve found her a place in a behavioral center not far from here.  She needs the psychologists and psychiatrists that a place like that would have.  Let the psychologists work with her for a bit, then if we’ve got room, maybe we can take her again.  But right now, she needs a different kind of help than we can give her.”

“You’re suggesting a mental hospital?” I realized.

“Yes!  Absolutely.  Let someone qualified get to the bottom of her problems.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all.  Still…  “Jessica,” I said.  “I’m a lawyer.  I’m in the process of formalizing things to become Freaky’s attorney and advocate.  Are you saying that you’re trying to throw her out of here?  Natalie already told me that her stay here would be temporary.”

“We get funding from the county,” Jessica said.  “She’s not even from anywhere around here.”

“So you’re just throwing her out since we’re here?”

“No.  Not at all.  I’m saying I think she needs a mental hospital somewhere.  She needs professional help that we can’t give her.  I just took the extra step of finding someplace that takes all kinds, including the ones that can’t pay…like her.  And believe me, those places are few and far between.”

“I’m sure they are,” I replied, realizing that fact.  I had momentarily forgotten that Freaky was penniless…for now.

“What do you think?” Natalie asked me.

“About what?” I replied.

“Should we take Freaky to that hospital  right now?  I know she was pretty mixed up.  Make that very mixed up.  And according to what she just told us, it’s worse than I knew.  Maybe she needs a place like that right now.”

I considered it.  “I haven’t even met her yet.  Let me see her, and then we’ll decide.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 23

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 23

 

(Day 4 – Sunday)

 

Freaky

 

I can’t begin to tell you how weird those sneakers felt on my feet.  Compared to my boots, they weighed almost nothing.  It was like I wasn’t wearing anything there at all.  That’s not how I felt about that bra though.  Uncomfortable!  Lisa and Shantel both said I’d get used to it and would barely notice with a bit of time.  Somehow, I didn’t think so.  And what the heck was ladylike anyway?

All that was on top of them continuing to subject me to the ways that everything around me was different from living on the farm.  Late in the day, Shantel and Lisa decided it was time to wash some clothes.  I couldn’t believe it.  How dumb did they have to be?  You don’t wash clothes late in the day.  When you hang them on the line to dry, they’ll be there overnight.  Not only will the morning dew make them all wet again, but what if it rained.  When I mentioned this to Shantel and Lisa, they both looked at me real funny, but since it seemed like they were set on doing it right then, I followed along with them.

  I wasn’t happy that Lisa suggested I should wash my clothes too.  I had only been wearing them a few days.  How often did she think they needed washing?  She and Shantel made me change into that new dress they had found for me, then they led me to a room where we were supposed to be able to wash everything.  When I got in there, I looked around.  It was another really weird room, full of really weird things, in a weird building, that was full of weird rooms.  Only this one I understood less than any of them.

I looked all around.  “Where’s the tubs?” I asked, not seeing any.

“Tubs?” Shantel said as she opened a door in the top of a…I didn’t know what it was.  “In here,” she told me.

I looked.  “What’s that?” I asked.

“Freaky,” Shantel said.  “Please don’t tell me you’ve never seen a washer before.”

“I think Natalie had one in her kitchen,” I told her.  “She said it was a machine that washes dishes.”

“Well, this is a machine that washes clothes.”

I studied it.  “How?  You’re supposed to get the clothes all wet in a tub with some laundry suds, then you take a brush to them to get the dirt out, then you rinse them with the hose.”

Shantel and Lisa just looked at me.  “Freaky, really?” Lisa said.  “Who told you that?”

“Bo, and the other guys.  But…”

“But what?” Shantel asked.

“But…most of it I just kind of figured out by myself.  I mean, how else are you going to do it?  Bo gave me the big tub to use, and the guys bring me some laundry suds once in a while when they go shopping for food.  The rest…how else are you supposed to do it?”

“Freaky,” Lisa said.  “Just how poor were you?  You didn’t have a TV.  It sounds like you didn’t have a washer, or I’m sure a dryer either.  Those boots you were wearing were men’s boots and practically falling apart.  You must have been really dirt poor.”

“No, we had lots of dirt,” I told her.  It was a farm.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lisa replied.  “It just means you had to have been really, really poor.”

I shrugged.  “I wouldn’t know.  That’s all men’s business.  Girls don’t need to worry about things like that.”

“At least it sounds like they had running water,” Shantel noted as she began stuffing her clothes into the top of that machine.  “She mentioned using a hose to rinse the clothes.  I was beginning to picture her using a hand pump to get water every day.”

“We’ve got one,” I told her.  “Two actually, but one doesn’t work at all.  The guys said it’s just for show.  Like a decoration.”

“You have to pump the water out of the ground by hand?” Lisa asked like she couldn’t believe it.

“Only when the electric goes off,” I told her.  “Which happens sometimes, usually because of a storm.  But it comes back on eventually.  But if we need water when it’s off, then I have to pump it and bring it into the house in a bucket.”

“You had all those guys out there, and they made you pump and carry the water?”

“Of course I did it.  Doing things like that is women’s work.  Besides, most of the time, I’m the only one who needed it, like for cooking and stuff.”

Lisa began stuffing her clothes into the machine next to the one where Shantel had put hers.  “No TV at all.  No washer and dryer.  A water pump in the yard.  Freaky, your life had to be worse than mine.”

“Mine too!” Shantel said.  “And all this time I’ve been here feeling sorry for myself.  Of course, mostly I’m in here because I OD’d on some bad shit, and it turns out that my boyfriend and some of his friends might have been trying to kill me at the time.  But something tells me Freaky, that despite all the shit you’ve been telling us, there’s a ton more that you haven’t mentioned yet.”

I wasn’t sure about most of what she had said.  I took it to mean something bad must have happened to her before she came here to the shelter.  “Like what?” I said, once again confused.  “My life was good.  I knew what I was supposed to do, and I did it.  If not, I got punished, like I deserved.  That’s all.  That’s why I’ve always tried hard to be a good girl.”

“You said you’ve never been off that farm,” Lisa said as she pulled my clothes out of my hands.  She began stuffing them into the machine where her clothes were.

“Of course not.  I’m a good girl.  I didn’t need to go anywhere.”

“Oh hell, yes you did!” Shantel said as she picked up a bottle of something.  “There’s an entire world out there, and those uncles of yours kept you from it.  You should have learned a whole lot of things that you haven’t.”

“Like what?” I asked as I watched her pour some of what was in that bottle into a little place on that machine.  “I know everything I need to.”

“Like life!” Lisa said.  “Your uncles have literally kept you locked in the Middle Ages!  We have got to bring you out of there into the modern world.”

“Here Leese,” Shantel said as she passed that bottle to Lisa.

“Middle Ages?” I said, once again confused as Lisa began pouring some of it into the machine where her clothes and my clothes were.  “Am I middle aged now?  I really don’t know.  Bo always said he was getting old.  He said that a lot.  But the guys never mentioned how old they were.”

“Freak,” Shantel said.  “How old are you?”

“I don’t know.  What does it matter.  If Bo was old though, and I’m the youngest, then does that make my other uncles middle aged?”

“You don’t know how old you are?”

“Why would I?  I’m a girl.  Besides, what can it possibly matter?”

“What if you wanted to get married?” Lisa asked.

“Then I guess I’d get married.  That would be up to Bo, not me.”  I remembered something.  “Except, Bo’s dead now.  All the others too, except Gary, so I guess now it would be up to him.”

“Getting married should be up to you!” Shantel said as she poked her finger into my chest.  “And Leese is right.  Those uncles of yours have stuck you in a life right out of the Middle Ages, or more likely some kind of horror show.  We have got to find a way to start teaching you about how things really are.”

I shook my head.  “I just want to go back to the farm where I know what I’m supposed to do, and I understand everything around me.”

“And that farm is the very last place you ever need to go again,” Shantel said.  “Ever!”

I watched her and Lisa turn some kind of things on those machines and push some buttons, and both machines suddenly seemed to come to life.  I got scared and backed away, ready to run out of the room, but both Shatel and Lisa barely seemed to notice the way those machine things were making all that noise and shaking around.

Do you know they have machines to dry clothes too?  You don’t even have to hang them on the line.  And you can dry them even when it’s raining outside.