her know I’d made a stupid mistake.
“My cousin George, he and I got drunk, pissy drunk, two pints of Bacardi One-Fifty-One. I got him to take me over to Tina’s sister’s house. Nell said Tina wasn’t there, told me to go home and sober up. I don’t remember bringing the gas can with me, but I had it. Told Nell to tell Tina if she didn’t talk to me, I’d drink gas and kill myself.
“I put the nozzle in my mouth and Nell slammed the door. Sloppy drunk, I still had enough sense not to drink gasoline. I spit it out. I don’t know who started the bullshit I tried to kill myself drinking acid.
“Nell must’ve called the police because George and I heard sirens. He helped me back into the car and we took off. I was okay then. Heart still broke, but physically I was okay. Hell, George and I were laughing. He stopped in front of my apartment and asked was I going to be all right. Yeah, I told him and picked up his cigarettes and took one out. A damn cigarette!
“Drunk, I forgot I’d gargled with gasoline minutes before. I put a match to the cigarette and—swoosh!—a big, blue flame! I started running… screaming. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, just felt fire. When I revived I was in the hospital, head all bandaged up, tubes running everywhere.”
“I was there by your side,” Ruth Ann said. “Remember, Lester? I was there by your side, day and night.”
“Six weeks later,” Lester said, ignoring her comment, “after the painful surgeries, I realized I was marked for life. Each time I look into a mirror I’m reminded of the fact I betrayed my wife. I deserve this mark.”
“I’m sorry, Lester.”
“Sorry for what? My scar or the fact it turns you off so much?”
Ruth Ann didn’t reply.
“Which one is it?”
“For everything, I guess.”
“You guess! I don’t guess, I know for a fact I’ve ruined my life for a self-centered little girl I never should’ve looked twice at. You don’t give a damn about nobody but yourself. I always knew it, tried to pretend it wasn’t true.”
He leaned forward and picked up Teddy. Ruth Ann watched, horrified, as he squeezed Teddy’s neck, all the while staring at her. “Is Eric his father?”
“What? What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“Whose father? What are you talking about?”
“Shane. Is Eric his father?”
“No! How can you say such a thing? Shane is almost eighteen-years-old. You know whatshisface hasn’t been here that long.”
“Then who is his father?”
“What’s the matter with you? You know who his father is.”
“No, I don’t. Tell me.” He squeezed Teddy harder, its head expanding to the pressure.
“You are, Lester! You know you are!”
Teddy’s head popped and ejected a plume of cotton. Lester tossed it to the floor. “You think I would allow a man like your father to raise a child of mine? You think I’d let my child run wild, live out in the woods like a damn animal?”
Ruth Ann’s expression shifted from shock to anger. In all these years, Lester had never talked to her like this, had never mentioned Shane’s name, not once. If he’d doubted Shane’s paternity, why hadn’t he said so a long time ago?
“No need of looking at me like I’m crazy, Ruth Ann. You know damn well I’m not his father. More shit you threw in my face and expected me to overlook. I did. Now the charade is over.”
Lester got to his feet. “Part of this is my fault—I never should’ve allowed it to go on this long. This time, however, I’m not hurting myself. Not this time, Ruth Ann. Though I can’t guarantee I won’t hurt you. If I were you I’d be out of here before I come back, which should be in five minutes… or less.” He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Ruth Ann crawled out from under the bed before the sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway. She snatched a pillowcase off a pillow…
Chapter 26
Sheriff Bledsoe poked his solar plexus with four fingers, hoping to ease the rumbling in his gut. If the commotion held in one spot, he could deal with it. It didn’t. It erupted in his gut, spewed poisonous, burning gas into his chest, throat and sinuses.
Before Shirley smashed his polygraph machine, the eruptions were sporadic, three or four times a day at the most. Now his innards were churning out large quantities of toxic material by the hour. At this rate, an EPA inspector would soon knock on his door with a citation.
And the pain! Gut-wrenching pain! Eyes-watering pain! Tongue-biting pain! Doubling-over-in-public pain! Am-I-having-a-heart-attack pain?
But no more. Today he was taking matters in his own hands. Why suffer when relief was right around the corner? Or, in his case, in the adjacent county, Drew County, where he’d made an appointment with Doctor Cobb, the only gastroenterologist in a fifty-mile radius.
After Doctor Cobb’s secretary told him that she could squeeze him in as a walk-in at four o’clock, Sheriff Bledsoe ran to his cruiser. Emergency lights flashing, sirens wailing, he sped down Highway 82, eighty-…ninety-… one hundred-miles-per-hour… It was a quarter till four. At one hundred-miles-per-hour he would arrive at the doctor’s office with minutes to spare.
Yes indeed, relief was less than twenty miles away. Doctor Cobb, he hoped, would prescribe the purple pill he’d seen advertised on television. He couldn’t remember the name, but the commercial, where several people stood next to a bubbling lava pool agonizing they weren’t made aware of the pill earlier, replayed in his mind.
Apparently acid indigestion was serious business.
He flew past a hitchhiker walking east, back to town. He looked in the rearview mirror and slowed down… A female in her pajamas carrying a pillowcase.
Only a nutcase would hitchhike in this heat. Leave her be, the pain in his stomach told him. She’d be nearing town when he got back from his appointment.
“Fiddle faddle!” he cursed, bringing the cruiser to a stop. When he drove back, the hitchhiker was sitting in the shade of a sycamore tree, inspecting her feet. He exited the cruiser and approached her with a hand on his weapon. Closer, he saw blisters on her feet. Her hair and the Bugs Bunny pajamas she had on dripped sweat.
“Excuse me, Ma’am.”
Ruth Ann looked up. “Hello, Sheriff. Mighty hot out here, ain’t it?”
“Ruth Ann,” astonished. “What you doing out here?”
“Sitting in the shade for a spell. Asphalt hot enough to cook an egg.”
“Yes, it is.” He remembered his talk with Shirley. “Did you and Lester have a fight?”
“No, no, no. I decided to take a walk. To keep up circulation.”
“Barefoot? In your jammies?”
“Don’t knock it, they keep you cool.”
“What’s in the pillowcase?”
“Just a few things I’m donating to Goodwill.”
He extended a hand. “C’mon. We’ll sort this out in the car before one of us have a heatstroke.”
