The Last Jeskey - Chapter 29

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 29

 

(Day 6 – Tuesday)

 

Freaky

 

“How the hell can you not know what a toothbrush is for?”

I was getting so frustrated.  “How should I?”

“Everybody knows what a toothbrush is,” Carol yelled back.  “And they know how to use it.”

“Well I don’t.  It doesn’t make sense.  I don’t have anything on my teeth to brush.”

“You brush…your teeth!  You get them clean!  Geez!  How stupid can you be?”

“I’m not stupid!  I think you all are.  Nobody here knows anything about being a good girl…or woman.  Nobody!”

“We what?”

“You all need to take lessons in what’s right and wrong.  Bo and the guys would bury you alive and then hang all of you from trees for a week for the way you all behave.”

“How we behave?  When you don’t even know how to use a toothbrush?”

“I never had one!” I argued back.

She walked away a few steps then walked back.  “What the hell kind of place were you raised in?”

“A farm,” I told her.

“And what kind of crops did you grow on that farm?”

“Grow?  What are you talking about?  They didn’t grow anything.  Why would they?”

“Did you raise animals then?” Carol asked.

“Sometimes,” I told her.  “I used to feed the chickens and the pigs when the guys got some.”

“What else?” she asked.

“What else is there?”

She shook her head.  Doesn’t sound like much of a farm to me.  No toothbrush, and…did you even attempt to brush your hair this morning?”

I stared at her.  “Brush…  What are you talking about?  Why would I brush my hair?”

“To make it look neater.  To get the tangles out.”

“I’ve never done that.”

“You’ve never brushed your own hair, as long as it is?”

“Natalie had some woman come over to her house that day when Bo and the boys were shot, and she did a bunch of stuff to my hair to straighten it out.  Then at the shelter, Shantel put the braids on my hair.  Does that count?”

She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe anything.  “You’ve never brushed your own hair?”

“The only brush I have is for when I do the laundry.  I use it in the tub with the laundry suds to get the clothes clean.”

Her mouth hung open for a moment, just before she walked away.  What was wrong with her anyway?  She really needed some lessons in how things were supposed to be.

“Freaky.”  That same guy who had taken me to see Doctor Knox the day before was back again.

“It’s time to see the doctor again.”

Again?  What now?  But I followed him back to Knox’s little room.

“Hi Freaky,” the doctor said as I went inside.  “How are you today?”

“Fine,” I told him.  “But I’m tired of the way everyone yells at me all the time.”

“Yells at you?  Who’s yelling at you?”

“Mostly Carol,” I told him.  “How am I supposed to know what a toothbrush is?  I never had one back at the farm.  The only brush I had there was for brushing the clothes to clean them when I did the laundry.  There were no other brushes.  And so what if I never brushed my hair.  It’s my hair.  And like I said, I never had a brush for it, or even wanted a brush for it.”  Why did he look so shocked?

“With all that hair,” he said hesitantly, “I would imagine that it might have looked a bit…messy.”

“That’s what Natalie said that day that Bo got shot.  She called some woman who came out and worked on it after I got out of her rain room.  It didn’t used to drag on the ground behind me, but now it does.  Everyone at the shelter I was in seemed to really like that though.”

“And how do you feel about it?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.  It’s nice I guess.  It’s easier to play with, and Shantel was able to make these real nice braids in it for me, and she showed me how to do it myself.  I’m still working on that though.”

“You never braided it before?”

“No.  Of course not.  Nobody ever showed me that.  At the farm, I rarely ever saw any other women, and I certainly never talked to them.  I wasn’t supposed to be seen.  In fact, I rarely saw anyone else at all.  I’m a good girl.  I stayed out of the way and quiet.”

He nodded.  “I’m sure you did,” he replied.  “Freaky, tell me please.  When we spoke yesterday, you mentioned a little bit about being punished whenever you did something wrong.  The notes I got from Jessica Kriss mentioned a few rather horrendous things that you said were done to you.  What exactly happened when you were punished?”

“Which time?” I asked.

“Um…let’s start with the last time.  What did you do that they had to punish you for?”

“I was a bad girl,” I told him.  “I peeked out to see a woman that Uncle Ben had brought home, and Steve and Gary caught me.  I just wanted to see her!  Just for a minute.  But I knew I wasn’t supposed to do that.  I was a bad girl.”

“And what happened?” the doctor asked.  “How did they punish you?”

“That time they did it different.  Most of the time they bury me so that just my head is above the ground.  Then they stomp all over it to pack the dirt down.  I can’t move anything!  It’s the bears that come around that always scare me the most though with that one.  I think it was because of all the bears that one of them decided to try something different with me.  They hung me upside down from a big tree limb, then they whipped me, then they pulled me up so I was way up in the air and left me there for a few days.”

“A few days,” the doctor said, sounding concerned.

“They always do that,” I told him.  “All my punishments last a few days.”

“What do you call a few days?”

I shrugged.  “I’m stuck somewhere for a long time, then the sun goes down.  Eventually the sun comes up again, and later it goes down.  When it comes up again, I know that sometime that day the guys will come get me.  Usually anyway, but sometimes it takes longer.”

“You said you got whipped.  Do they do that to you often?”

“Whenever I get punished.”

“Where do they hit you?”

“My back,” I told him.

“Freaky,” he said.  “Would you mind if I take a look at your back to see if there’s any marks?”

“I guess,” I told him.  “I don’t know what’s back there.  I can’t see my back.  It doesn't matter anyway.”

“Stand up a minute,” he told me.

He stood up with me, turned me around, and pulled up the back of my top.  After a moment he let it down again and we both sat down.

“Do you get punished often?”

“No!  Fortunately!  I really do try to be a good girl.”

“I believe it!  You said that most of the time they bury you in the ground.”

“Yeah.  They have this hole that they dug deep in the woods.  The tree they hung me upside down from was right near it.  But they stick me down in the hole and then fill it in with dirt and stomp all over it to make sure it’s really tight.  Trust me, before they stomp it down I can’t move anything at all.  It’s horrible!”

“I’ll bet!  You mentioned bears?”

“Yeah.  For some reason there’s always a lot of bears around that place.  At least it seems like it to me, especially when I’m stuck in that hole.  I try real hard not to ever fall asleep when they do that to me so I can watch for the bears.  When I see one, I found out that if I scream real loud and high they usually run away and don’t bother me.  The last time though, one of them didn’t.  It came right up to me and sniffed my head for a long time.  I screamed and screamed, and it finally went away.  Are you okay doctor?” I had to ask.  “You look sick all of a sudden.”

“I’ll be…fine,” he told me.  “Tell me Freaky, were there any other horrible punishments they used on you?”

“Once they hung me from that same tree limb by my hair.  And they tied my hands behind my back so I couldn’t grab it.  That hurt!  More than being hung by my ankles.”

“I have no doubt,” the doctor said.

“Anything else?”

“I guess just something they did once.  And I’m so glad they never did it again.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” the doctor said, “but what did they do to you?”

“Gary got this idea and everyone seemed to love it.  Of course, the guys were all drunk when they did it to me.”

“Were they always drunk when they punished you?”

“No.  Just that one time.”

“And what did they do to you?”

“They took all my clothes off and tied me all over to a big pole, then they put the pole over top of a fire just like when they cooked a pig.  They even stuck an apple in my mouth so I couldn’t yell too loud.  I can’t begin to tell you how much that hurt.  I was so glad when it didn’t last too long, but afterwards my skin hurt so bad, and I had some kind of blisters all over me.”

“They literally cooked you alive?”

“It was supposed to be like a pig.”

“Did they whip you that time too?”

“Um…no.  They didn’t,” I said.  “I guess that was a good thing.”

“Not by much.  Let’s change the subject,” he said suddenly as he seemed to sit up straighter.

“Tell me.  Have you ever wanted to learn to read, or wanted to go anywhere to see other things?”

I sat there and stared at him, trying to decide how to answer.  “Those are the things that get me punished,” I told him.  “That’s why I try so hard to be a good girl all the time.”

Once again, he seemed to stare at me for a while, then he asked, “Freaky, if you could.  If you didn’t have to worry at all about being punished for it, what would you like to do the most?”

That question sent my head spinning.  “How should I know?  I just want to be a good girl.  A very good girl.  A very, very good girl!”