The Sisters of Glass Ferry

Patsy
June, 1952

Hollis fell to his knees and slumped over in the dirt. He was out cold, the last light of day taking him prisoner, wrapping his backside with thick ropes of golden-green.

Patsy dropped the rock and ran to Danny. He sat crutching himself against the tree, moaning, wisps of whiskey breath in each cry. “The sonofabitch ruined our p-prom,” Danny said.

“Danny, shh . . . Oh, Danny, look at you. Where does it hurt? Show me where.”

Danny rolled his head, struggling to speak. “Here. Up here.” He held his hand high on his left arm, trying to stand. “Damn bullet got my arm. I think it shattered something, some bone too. Patsy, it hurts. All over.”

“Dear God,” she barely breathed.

Danny touched his crooked nose. “Bastard b-broke this too,” he said drunkenly. “Get me to a doctor, Patsy.”

“The hospital? The one off the Palisades—?” she asked, trying to pull him upright.

Danny grunted, “Yeah, County Hospital.” Danny limped over to the automobile, using Patsy as a crutch, and folded himself into the backseat. Empty liquor bottles scattered onto the floorboard. Danny looked up at her. “What he s-said? What he said, is it true, Patsy?”

“Shh, Danny, I told you, you’d be the first,” she answered and shut the back door. “Just look at you. We need to hurry now.”

“I—I just want the truth.”

“Hush, I said. Just hush now.” Jumping into the driver’s seat, she was relieved to see Hollis had left the keys. She pushed Hollis’s flask out of the way, shoving it over to the passenger side, and examined the dash, knobs, and the gearshift column.

Patsy had been driving, some here, a little there, on two-lane road spurts when Mama thought she and Flannery needed another lesson, or had an errand to run in town. Lately in Mama’s small old ’40s Ford Coupe with the hard-to-work clutch. And only a handful of times driving in the Palisades when Honey Bee began sneaking her lessons. She’d just turned thirteen, though that was their secret they’d left snagged to the pine boughs up there.

And sometimes when she and Danny rode home with Hollis after school, he’d pull over and let them take turns practicing for a stretch of mile or so in the Henry family’s Mercury with its new and fancy automatic, the automobile Sheriff Henry had turned over to his sons.

Patsy looked past her knees and downward, making sure a clutch hadn’t suddenly appeared. She poked her shoe around for the pedals, kicking a bottle under the seat, pumping the foot feed and brake, testing. Then she pulled out the knob for the headlights, though a smudge of daylight remained.

Scooting up close to the big, skinny steering wheel, she draped her left arm over it and turned the key with her right hand. The engine gave a tiny growl and went quiet. She tried again and only got clicks with the engine cranking but not catching. “Damn.” She pressed her head to the wheel, tried once more, furiously pumping the gas.

“Flooded it,” Danny said hoarsely. “Oh, damn . . . This hurts like hell, Patsy. Like a—oh damn, hurts like a sonofabitch!” He hollered out in pain, then quieted a moment. “G-give it a sec. Try again,” he said, drowsily this time.

She peered over the dash out the window and saw Hollis spread out by the elm. His hand twitched a couple of times and stilled. For a second, the sun looked like it had lit him on fire, a wave of heat rippling up from his body.

Slowly, Patsy counted to five and then held her breath and tried to turn over the engine again. It didn’t catch.

Patsy’s neck itched, burned from the anxious rash eating at her skin. Her armpits were soaked, the lovely yellow prom dress sticking to her like filled-up flypaper. She scratched her neck, plucked at the fabric pasted under her arms, and again stroked the fires eating at her flesh. My pearls, she almost cried out again. She’d have to sweet-talk Flannery into helping her find them before Mama found them missing.

Danny thrashed in the backseat.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw his grim, pale face, a bloody hand pressed to his sleeve, his busted nose, swelling and bloodier still. Droplets of drying blood freckling his cheekbones.

“Hang on,” she said.

“Did you let him do it, Patsy?” Danny whispered. “Let Hollis have what you promised me?”

“Don’t be silly,” she gasped. “I want you. Only you. I saved myself just like I promised I would. You believe me, don’t you, Danny?”

Turning back to the wheel, Patsy leaned in even closer. Someone was there, someone in a long blue dress, not twenty feet from the hood. Patsy rubbed her eyes. A woman stood over Hollis, her back to the automobile.

“Help! Oh, Danny, look,” Patsy said, throwing an arm over the bench seat. “There’s someone here. Do you see her? Do you see the lady? . . . I can’t tell who it is. Maybe it’s Farmer Parsons’s wife from across the field?” She honked the horn and rolled down the window. “Over here. Help us. Please help.” Patsy squinted to get a better look.

Danny coughed. “J-Jo,” he wheezed out. “Joet—”

“What?” Alarmed, Patsy turned back to the windshield. “Joetta? No,” she said, dropping her head down to the big, round dials on the dash, pinning her eyes to the fuel gauge. Shaking, Patsy fumbled for the ignition, turned the key far enough to light up the dials, and watched the gas needle rise slowly. Half full.

Patsy turned the key, again got nothing, and then dared to glance back out to the elm. No one was there but a knocked-out Hollis.

She exhaled. “Joetta’s ghost is just a tale. You know that.” Fear chewed at Patsy, stealing her courage. She rubbed briskly at the panicky stink rising from her chest, fanned herself. Nerves. That’s all, she thought, and Danny was letting his fever talk.

“I’m cold,” he whined, more bothered than before.

Quickly she cranked the window shut.

Danny cried out again, startling Patsy into turning the key once more. This time the engine roared, and she shifted the gear into reverse and backed out, lurching the heavy Mercury away from Ebenezer.

“Hold on.” Patsy steered onto Palisades Road toward County Hospital on the other side of the cliffs. “It’s okay, Danny; we’ll be there in no time. They’ll fix you right up.”

“Ho—Hollis has been a-acting”—Danny’s throat seized, and he hacked once—“pretty cozy with you . . . and if you gave it up to him, Patsy, if you . . . with him, and if you’re lying to me ’bout all this, Patsy—”

“Hollis is the liar!” she yelled. “And you’re still skunk drunk.”

“Stop it. You hurting like this is making you mean. Mean. Just like Hollis. Just shut up now. Please, Danny. Shut up. We have to get you to a doctor.”

“I have to keep it on the road here or else.” Stretching her body upward, Patsy leaned in to the wheel. The Mercury’s big nose was hard to see past. She glanced into her rearview; the shaved trunk dipped heavy and low, awkwardly. It was like driving a big bathtub up and down and around a bumpy roller-coaster.

Gripping the steering wheel, she fought to keep the Mercury on the narrow road, careening too close to one drop-off shoulder and then veering across to the other. The tires sprayed small bites of limestone into the wheel wells, pruned patches of wild rye and mountain lover out from under the low, fishtailing frame.

Danny mumbled something that she couldn’t understand, then fell silent.

“You okay, Danny? Danny? Danny, wake up!” Patsy begged.