Page 1 of Truck Stop Tempest

15 years ago

“STOP, JOJO! I’M NOTsupposed to come here.” I dug my toes into the loose dirt, but my brother only jerked my arm harder, dragging me along the driveway toward the scary house. “Ow!” I cried, trying to pull away.

He stopped walking and squeezed my wrist. “Shut your fucking trap.”

My brother said the F-word a lot. I didn’t know what the F-word meant, but my mom said it was bad. “You’re not supposed to say that word.”

He stared at the cabin. Spit. Then started walking again, pulling me behind. “I’m a guy. I can say whatever the hell I want. You’re a girl. Girls keep their mouths shut.”

He sounded just like our dad when he said that.

Sometimes I didn’t like being a girl. I had a lot of things I wanted to say, but my dad always spanked me if I talked when I wasn’t supposed to, and he would spank me, for sure, if he saw me at his secret house. “I don’t like it here,” I yelled, squeezing my eyes closed, hoping he wouldn’t hit me.

JoJo stopped, took a deep breath, and made a fist.

Uh oh.

“Shut. Up.” He turned around and grabbed my arms, shaking me hard. “Anyone hears you, we’re fucked. Got it?”

I smashed my lips together and didn’t yell again, even when JoJo squeezed my hand too hard, and pulled me behind a tree, and pushed on my shoulders until I sat on the dirty ground.

“Now, stay here and don’t make a sound.”

I looked around and started to cry. There were big trees everywhere. I didn’t like the woods. Erik, the boy who lived next door to us, said there were monsters in the woods that liked to eat little girls. He always told me I had to obey him or he would drag me into the forest and leave me there for the monsters.

JoJo kicked the tree and said more bad words. Then he sat on his knees in front of me. “Stop crying. Do you want Dad or Erik to see you?”

I shook my head no. My brother was scary. But not as scary as Erik. Erik liked to make people scared. He liked to make me cry. He liked to make me do a lot of things.

My brother pulled a chocolate bar out of his pocket and dropped it in my lap. “Here. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

“Where are you going?” I whispered, but JoJo just walked away.

I looked at the candy. My stomach made a loud noise. My dad never let me have candy. He said candy made girls fat, and girls needed to stay small if they wanted to keep boys happy. On my birthday, Mom always gave me candy bars. She said girls couldn’t get fat or spanked on their birthdays. I wished it was my birthday, then Mom would be home, and my brother wouldn’t have to babysit me, and I wouldn’t have to hide behind a tree in the woods.

It wasn’t my birthday, and I didn’t want to get spanked, so I threw the chocolate as hard as I could. Maybe the monsters would eat it, and then they wouldn’t want to eat me.

I waited, just like JoJo said. I kept my eyes closed the whole time because I didn’t want to see any monsters in the trees. I kept them closed until I heard a girl singing. She had a pretty voice, and she was singing about rainbows. I liked rainbows. Sometimes, I colored them for my mom, and she would hang them on the refrigerator.

I wanted to see who was singing. I opened my eyes, peeked around the tree, then snuck behind the cabin and stood on my tippy-toes to look through the window. On the TV, there was a girl singing to her dog. She had a pretty dress, and piggy tails just like me, except her hair was dark and my hair was white.

Then I heard crying.

I ran to the other window.

Erik was on the couch, watching the girl sing on the TV. His face was red and wet, and he didn’t have any clothes on. He had big black marks on his arms and tummy.

I didn’t like Erik, but he looked like he was hurt and sad. I didn’t like when people were sad. Maybe if I was nice to Erik, he would be nice to me. I knocked on the window and his eyes got big and round. He wiped his face, and then he didn’t look sad anymore. He looked scary and mad.

A door slammed, and Erik pulled his knees up high, then hugged his legs. He didn’t look at me anymore.

My dad walked into the room. He was singing like the girl, but he didn’t sound pretty. I never heard my dad sing before. He didn’t have a shirt, and his tummy was big and jiggly. He probably ate a lot of candy bars.

Dad sat on the couch and watched the girl. Then he put his arm around Erik and pointed to the TV. He laughed about something, and then he laid down and made Erik lay down, too. Erik tried to move away, but my dad hugged him and made him stay still.

My dad never hugged me. He never hugged JoJo either. Why did he like Erik better? Erik was the meanest boy ever, and I wished he lived far away.

“What the fuck are you doing, brat?” JoJo grabbed my piggy tail and pulled hard until I moved away from the window.