UNIT-26

Betty was woken from her sleep by the cries of the boy, startling her. She threw off her covers and went to him, and tried to assure him everything was fine.

“I want my Poppa. Where is my Poppa?” pleaded the little boy.

“Shhh; there now, there now. Hush, you go back to sleep like a good boy.” Betty tucked the blanket under him and sat for a few moments. She wondered how she would do this. She needed a really good plan, but didn’t yet know what it would be.

She had just finished her tour of the theatre, selling cigarettes along with her big basket of single roses, and was headed out the back stage door. Lightning lit up the sky, and the cracks of thunder were fierce and close as she fought with her umbrella. She heard muffled screams coming from the alley. Propelled by instinct, she left her basket and broken umbrella on the ground and moved toward the sound — she saw, with horror, the scene. The figure of a tall man in a long coat was looming over a woman, placing blow after blow on her as she struggled against him, losing.

Betty searched wildly up and down the alley and back at the locked stage door for someone, anyone, but there was not another soul in sight. The woman abruptly stopped fighting. Betty was paralyzed by fear as she watched the silhouette of the man as he violently forced himself on his victim in the shadows. She caught a glimpse of movement near the man; a slight child came into the tiny sliver of light from the lamppost.

She covered her mouth to muffle the scream she felt about to escape from her lips, which would betray her presence, but her cry escaped anyway. The man turned his grotesquely contorted face toward her first and then to the boy. She thought instantly that she knew who it was, but then couldn’t be certain. Was he the man from the theatre who always sat in the upper box seat of the balcony? She had never gotten too close to him — he made the hairs on her neck stand — and she always asked Sam to take the cigar up to him when he waved to her; she would wait for Sam to return with the coins. But why was there a boy with him, a child who had been forced to witness such violent brutality? And the woman — the poor woman! — who was she? Still not being able to move, she clung to the stone wall in the shadows, tears streaming down her face. She watched as the boy moved in closer; the man, enraged with insanity, swung at him, striking him with force. The boy let out a small yelp and flew several feet to land on the hard ground, lying there motionless. The man growled out hate-filled words: “I hope you die here just like the broken little rodent you are.” He looked around wildly as he heard a group of people running past the alley; he kicked the boy, spit on the crumpled body of the woman, and leapt over the fence with one movement, legs first, and vanished after the last remnants of his long coat disappeared.

Betty stood there in tremendous fear; her body began to shake, her legs wobbled, and she held the cold stone wall with one hand, trying to steady herself. Finally she was able to take her hand from her mouth to let the imprisoned sounds out, but no sound came. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the scene and stood frozen, until she heard the sounds of the boy’s whimpering.

She started toward the end of the alley, not sure why or how, but propelled by some force to look and see if maybe she could help. She quickly moved to the boy and when she reached him, she bent down and touched his face, shiny with tears, dirt, and blood. She then went to the woman, who hadn’t moved at all. She was lying with her skirt lifted over her head, her undergarments torn and pulled down, and blood — the blood was seeping through her dress where her face would be. As quickly as she could, Betty bent over her and removed the dress from her face; she gasped at what she saw. The eyes of the battered woman were wide and one had popped out; her face, covered in blood, was unrecognizable, and her scarf was twisted so tightly around her neck that it appeared as though her head would fall off. Betty vomited without warning. She looked back over at the boy, and just as quickly grabbed for a carton to cover the woman. She turned her attention to the little boy and finally found her voice. “Help! Help! Help us!” she cried out, her voice lost among the sounds of the storm. She gathered him up in her arms, and ran out of the alley in the pouring rain while the skies revolted in furious anger.

Betty hurriedly carried the boy the few blocks to her new apartment, walking quickly, and checking behind her every few steps. He settled in her arms as though he had done so many times before, and let his body be carried until she could no longer bear the weight; she set him down, holding his hand in hers, and they both walked the rest of the way. Once up the stairs and inside her apartment, she covered him with the throw from the back of her sofa. He let out a cry and kicked his legs. She set him on the sofa and put a cushion under his head, and went to the kitchen to boil some water. She reached for a whisky and drank it down. She didn’t know what she was doing, but knew she couldn’t have left him in the alley like that.

She thought about her former husband, the man she had been forced to marry at seventeen when she became pregnant; and then she thought about the failed pregnancies and the day he left her five years after they had been married. She had no shortage of loss in her life. At the age of nineteen, she had been waiting at a bus stop later than usual one evening when it started to rain heavily. A seemingly nice man had pulled over and offered her a ride. She accepted. When he made a wrong turn, she had a nervous feeling, and told him he was going the wrong way. As she looked at him, his face suddenly changed and he told her only whores took rides from strangers. He pulled into the back of the dark dairy parking lot, stopped the car, grabbed her from the front seat, and pulled her from the car and threw her in the back seat. He kept her there until he was done. And when he finally was, he left her terrified on the cold, wet ground.

By the time she was found and taken to the hospital, she had lost so much blood from the brutal rape that the doctor performed a hysterectomy. She would never give birth to a child. She was given a steady supply of sedatives and two-twenty-twos. Her husband never forgave her and three years later left. She blamed herself for too many years.

Her mother passed away shortly after her husband left, and although she hadn’t been close to her, Betty felt the loss and the grief deeply, to her surprise. For about a month after, she felt the presence of her mother enveloping her like a warm blanket. The presence at first evoked peace, but then each time after, a deep sadness for the loss of a mother she never really had. The finality of death meant there were no longer bridges that could be rebuilt; forgiveness asked; forgiveness given.

She moved to a new apartment in the south end to get a fresh start. She applied for a dress-making job at the Grand Theatre, but the only job she had managed to get was going from club to club and lounge to lounge selling flowers, cigars, and cigarettes. She always ended her evening tour by making small talk and selling flowers and cigars to the men who patronized the infamous Grand Theatre, once famous for its Vaudeville shows, now a Burlesque theatre. Another job would become available — maybe in the office, she was assured, but not right away. In the meantime, she had taken the work she could get, just to make ends meet. She discovered too quickly that if she wanted to earn extra tips on her last nightly stop, it was best to let the patrons’ hands rub up against her thighs and rest on her buttocks, without complaint. At twenty-two she tried not to let the feelings of defeat devour her.

She peered into the sitting room at the little boy and wondered if maybe he wasn’t a gift from God. Surely he must be, she thought, and for a moment she felt pleased with herself, which she immediately felt ashamed of as she recalled the horrifying scene from which she had just rescued him. She made her way in and sat beside his small frame, all curled up, and gently passed a cloth over his face and hands. “There, there; everything will be okay. Can you tell me your name? Where do you live? How old are you?” He wouldn’t speak, but he looked at her with his piercing, sad eyes. He was not a pretty boy by any stretch, she thought; his eyes were a colour of blue she had never seen. There was something unusual about him; she felt sorry for him, but she was ashamed that she felt slightly repelled by him at the same time. He must have been about ten, she gathered, as she considered him and what to do.

The following day after some rest, he told her he was ten years old, and that he lived with his poppa in their truck. They drove long distances delivering stuff for people — of what he wasn’t sure. He stopped asking for his poppa by the end of the first week, and for that Betty was thankful. She told him that his poppa had to go far away to work, and he seemed to accept that explanation easily.

“Poppa said Momma had to go away, too,” he said. She scoured the newspapers looking for notices of runaway or missing children. She never found any mention of a ten-year-old boy.

She quickly worked out a story by which she could explain him to her neighbours. Since no one really had known her for any length of time, it was all plausible. She said that a relative who was ill and unable to care for him any longer had asked her to take him in; she called herself his aunt. No one seemed to question the story, and soon she became almost convinced of it herself, for it was far easier an explanation than the truth.

Betty enrolled him in the small school that was run by the church just a block away. She used a variation of her mother’s maiden name for him, invented a birthday, and told them the lie. He seemed to be managing well. He was timid and respectful, if not shy. He seemed determined to avoid all affection that was shown him, which Betty thought peculiar, but what did she know about being a mother? After a while she stopped showing him outward affection.

She arranged with her next-door neighbour, Helen, an older woman who was a widow, to check in on him each night while she went to work. It was the best she could do. She was kind to him and provided him all she could: love and security, clothes, an education, his own little sunroom for a bedroom, satisfying food each day, and a few times a month she took him to Saturday movies at the Rialto Theatre. They were company for one another, and neither of them seemed to mind the quiet solitude and routine.

As the boy entered adolescence, he seemed to withdraw and became angry. He acted even more oddly than before. Betty tried to reach him, tried to connect, but it was impossible. She reluctantly gave up after a few years. He settled into his routine, which was the same each day after school. He said he was on the baseball team and had to stay for practice after school and into the evenings, usually not returning until after Betty was already at work. Betty always made him two lunches, one for lunch and one for practice. The only time she really saw him was in the mornings before school and sporadically on the weekends; he was always at practice, and she thought that it was a good a place as any for this strange, almost silent boy; she felt relief for that.

By the time he was sixteen, she began to feel almost certain he would peer in at her while she was sleeping, or getting dressed or bathing. She put up with perverts at work because she had no choice, but here, in her own home from a boy she rescued and took in, it was unforgivable. It became very difficult for her to be in the same room as him, and she struggled to speak to him without her resentment showing. Well, she thought, school would be done soon. He was a young man now and would be able to go to work and eventually find a different life. She reminded herself of that daily and tried to be kind and forgiving.

Late one evening, as she lay in her bath washing away the day’s events, something made her lift her head and look toward the door; it had been cracked open a little, and there he was staring in at her. Startled and reacting without thinking, she grabbed the porcelain soap dish and flung it with all her might at the door, not meaning to hit him, but hoping to scare him from ever doing it again.

He let out a cry. “You whore; you cut me!” The words stung Betty.

Betty quickly got out of the bath, threw on her robe, and tied the belt before rushing to the door. She saw him standing there with a look of violent rage on his face — the look she remembered from his father’s face in the dim alley light. There was blood running down his face; so much blood. When she was able to finally calm him and place a towel on the wound, she could see that it needed stitches. She was beside herself. How would she explain this? she thought. She quickly pushed the thought from her mind.

“Okay, just hold this tight against your head and I’ll get dressed; we have to go to the hospital right away.” The gash had taken fifteen stitches to close, and was jagged and mean looking.

Things were never the same after that. The following day she had a small latched lock installed on her bedroom door as well as the bathroom. There was only a month left before the school year came to an end. Betty arranged a job for him in a photo processing store about a hundred miles away. She had done all she could for him, she thought, but she couldn’t change the fact that he seemed to have a perverseness about him. Maybe he was more like his father than she cared to think; the father that had left him for dead that dreadful night six years before. The boy moved away and did not return. She received the odd postcard from time to time, but he did not come back to visit.

Over the years, Betty graduated from flower girl to office manager at the Grand; times had changed and she was changing with them. She started doing speed to keep up, at first just out of curiosity, and then just to get through each day. It wasn’t until she could not afford both her rent and habit that she took a regular at the theatre up on his offer to sleep with him for what seemed to be a large amount of her drug. She wasn’t sure if it was the amount of booze she had gotten used to drinking each night, or a final resignation that made her agree, but by the time the deed was done and she woke the next morning — sometime between her first taste of dope and her coffee — she knew she had crossed a line she could not get back from, and she didn’t have the strength to care anymore. She was fired from her job on a Friday night when the owner unexpectedly showed up with another man and found her in the office with several other people getting stoned.

She finally succumbed completely to a life she hadn’t wanted, but which found her. It started to come easier to her as long as she had dope. One night, standing across the street from the Grand Theatre — the place she had once found an abandoned little boy — she felt an intuition and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She looked up and down the stroll but didn’t notice anyone paying too close of attention to her and tried to shake the feeling off. She went into the little lounge and was welcomed by the bartender.

“Hey, Betty, what’ll it be? The usual?”

“Yes, please. Thanks, Tommy.”

She took the drink from his hands before he had a chance to set it down, and threw her head back easily, swallowing the liquid that always promised anesthetization. She placed a bill and some change on the bar, gave a wave, and went back out to work. She tried not to think how much her life had changed in just a few short years; but it was always there, reminding her, haunting her.

As soon as she stepped out of the bar, a car pulled up and she got in — sadly, she mused — with practised ease. Twenty minutes later she was back on the stroll. She waved across the street to one of the other girls with whom she had become good friends.

“Hey, sweetheart. How about a drink? What do you say?”

Brenda, never one to turn down a free drink, sauntered across the street and put her arm loosely around Betty and said, “If you’re buying, I’m drinking.”

As they sat at the bar sharing a bottle of Baby Duck, Brenda suddenly grew quiet and grabbed Betty’s hand. “You know what I heard from our handsome beat cop? He said Tammy was taken to the hospital last night; someone beat her real bad, barely alive, he said, Betty. And then … then Debbie’s murder a few months ago, huh? Damn, she was a good woman: solid as they come, and tougher than nails, you know. I once saw her stand up to that scumbag George who is always trying to get some of our action. She looked right at him and said,” she laughed out loud, took another drink, set the glass down with a purposeful bang and grabbed Betty’s arm, “… she said, if he ever bothered us again she’d wait ’til he was in his house, nail his fuckin’ door shut, and burn his house down.” She laughed again, harder this time, and Betty laughed, too. They took another swig and Brenda, still laughing, repeated, “she’d nail his fucking door shut and burn the bastard’s house down; she didn’t take crap from anyone.” And then without warning, her laughter turned to tears.

“What the hell are we doing here anyway, Betty? Why aren’t we tucked away safe with a husband in suburb-bi-a, bringing home the paycheques? Hell, we could … we could be baking and shit, and even going to Harper Valley PTA meetings. What do you think about that, Betty?” Not waiting for a reply, Brenda looked over at Thomas. “Hey, Tommy, what do you think: Betty and I could be housewives and cook and shit, too, couldn’t we? Well, couldn’t we?” she prodded him, expecting an answer.

Thomas looked over and said, “You’d make a fine wife for someone, Brenda; a fine wife.”

“Ah, bullshit.” Brenda leaned in close to Betty and whispered, “There’s someone out there trying to kill us off, huh? I’ve seen him, Betty, I’ve seen him. I’ve really seen him.” And then she laid her head down on the bar and was out cold. Betty felt the cold settle in her heart. She knew as soon as the words were released from her lips that Brenda was right, she had just never dared say it out loud herself before, but she couldn’t help but feel a huge sense of relief to know that someone else knew, too. The hairs on Betty’s arms still stood, and the goose bumps remained for seconds longer than they should have.

Betty settled up with Thomas and said good night. “Don’t you worry, Betty. I’ll put her upstairs in one of the rooms to let her sleep it off. Don’t worry about her, Betty; she’s just been spooked lately, is all. We’ll let her sleep it off, and she’ll have forgotten all about this in the morning.” The bar had a few rooms that some of the girls used for a few bucks; they came in handy for Brenda after a few too many drinks. Betty made her way outside and watched as the theatre was emptying out, along with couples from the new slick restaurant that had opened a few doors down. She felt the tingle of humiliation of being exposed to the nicely dressed women who stared across at her, with their arms looped through those of their boyfriends and husbands — and she envied them tremendously.

She made her way back to the boarding house where she had rented a room she could afford. She found Connie sitting on the porch.

“Hey, Betty, can I stay here with you tonight?”

As Betty got closer she saw the shiner and split lip. “Oh, Connie. Who did that to you? Are you all right?”

“Some damn asshole, said I ripped him off for some junk; he even took my fuckin’ works,” she said, pulling from the inside lining of her boot a little package, and shaking it, “but he didn’t find it on me so he had to let me go,” she laughed. “Ouch,” reaching her hand up to her mouth, “the bastards all know how to hit so you don’t forget your place, huh?”

“Come on; let’s get you cleaned up, honey,” said Betty.

Connie sat at the table and let Betty make her an ice pack while she opened her hard-won package of dope. “Here; ya want a little? It’s just the thing to make everything better — I mean everything, man — it’s so mellow. Way better than speed, man.” Betty didn’t hesitate. She watched as Connie snorted it. “Ah, shit. That shit burns; but it’s worth it, you’ll see.”

Betty leaned over and did a line, lifted her head and said, “Ow, shit! Why does it burn so much? That can’t be normal.”

Connie looked at her with a big grin and said, “Oh, yeah, it’s normal, man; it’s all normal now.”

It took a few minutes until Betty felt it, and she suddenly had to vomit. She only made it to the sink, but once that was done she laid down on the sofa bed and felt amazingly light and peaceful. She didn’t even mind being itchy; Connie said that was normal, too.

She had no idea what hit her one night behind Dottie’s Diner. It was pouring rain and she just wanted to get under the big tree. She was stoned and had stumbled into the little lot toward the few chairs as lightning lit up the sky. She let out a loud, piercing scream as she was violently grabbed from behind by the hair and spun around. The first hard and solid punch landed squarely right in her face. She was stunned, high, and could not react with any speed; she tried to raise her hands instinctually in defence, but she was weakened and disoriented. She took blows to her face in brutal and rapid succession before she was thrown to the ground and fiercely kicked in the stomach and ribs; and then was violently raped.

Betty caught a glimpse of his twisted, enraged face — barely human looking — and the scar that he bore just above his right eye. She tried to scream, but no sound saved her, no sound was audible. It was as if she was suddenly rendered mute, vocal cords paralyzed. She was in shock. There were flashes of light and clicking sounds, one after another, and more flashes, short bursts of bright light as she lay there beaten and bleeding. She thought they were from the lightning.

From somewhere in the distance she heard the familiar deep, gravelly voice of Gladys. Betty managed to move her head just enough to see her running out in her bathrobe with a baseball bat and a flashlight, yelling for the man to leave her alone. Betty saw, in the beam of the flashlight, the once familiar face of the boy she had taken in; he would have been about twenty years old. As he ran off, she tried to see through the blood that ran down her face before she fell unconscious.

When she woke she was in a bed in a strange room somewhere; she could smell home cooking, and her stomach turned and she vomited on the floor beside her. She was in remarkable pain and the familiar feeling of dope sickness washed over her. She tried to get up, but was too dizzy and weak, and lay back down. She tried to focus to see where she was, and just as she did, the door opened and Gladys walked in with a tray of juice and soup and soda crackers.

“Hi, Betty; how you feeling?” came Gladys’s hoarse voice. “How about a little soup today? You have to keep your strength up.” Betty doubled over and was sick again; her body was wracked with cramps she couldn’t explain or believe. Gladys moved quickly to set the tray down, and got the mop and bucket from behind the door. “It’s going to be okay,” she said as she quickly moved to clean the vomit; she set a bucket beside the bed. “You’re lucky really: you probably can’t distinguish between kicking the damn monkey and the beating, so might as well get it all over with at the same time. Here’s a real chance you’ve been given, Betty; believe it or not. You could have died if I didn’t wake up from that damn bell jingling like crazy. It’s always a sign, always a sign — that’s what Dottie always said. The damn thing has some kind of magic or something.”

Betty didn’t know what the hell Gladys was rambling on about, but she tried to get up. She needed to score; she’d feel better with a little bit, just a little. But as she got up, the room spun again and her legs gave out; she fell back onto the bed with a yelp. “Please Gladys, I need to find Connie. I just need to find her; can you find her for me? Or … or Sonny,” she said, and began to weep and couldn’t stop. “Please, I’m begging you, Gladys.”

“There, there now. You’re going to be fine, I promise. It will all be over in another day or so. The washroom is right through that door, and believe me, you’re going to need it before long. And once that’s over and done with, you’ll feel better soon enough.”

Betty survived the cold turkey as well as her wounds, and true to her word Gladys was right; she did start to feel better, but not for a few weeks. She still felt weak but was able to eat soup and sandwiches and finally keep it all down. It had been the longest few weeks of her life, but she was alive by some strange miracle. There remained a scar on her forehead from the beating that would remind her always that her past was healing as Gladys had told her. The memory of her beating and rape was rather vague except one remaining image: when Gladys’s flashlight shone on her attacker and the scar was illuminated over his eye. How could it be, she thought? How could he; why would he? And then she remembered how she found him, and the memory of his father standing over the lifeless body of a woman in the back alley of the theatre. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The decade had seen so many changes, and she was shocked at how the too-rapid changes had affected her and her life. Everything had changed in only four years, since she had sent the boy away.

Gladys gave Betty a job; the pay wasn’t much, but the tips were pretty good and it kept her from the street. She had a quiet room over the diner that was safe and warm. There were only a few rules: she was expected to work her shifts in the diner, and there were no visitors allowed upstairs and definitely no dope. Those would be the absolute deal breakers, and there would be no second chances under any circumstances. Occasionally they shared a little brandy, but that was all and only on Sunday evenings. And soon Betty came to appreciate that she had a home with this rather gruff, protective woman. Gladys kept the dealers out, and they knew better than to test her. There were always places for drug deals, but this wasn’t one of them. Gladys never talked much about her life, but Betty knew there was a tremendous story behind her — there had to be. But Gladys didn’t share it and so Betty never pushed too much.

There was a strange kind of magic that happened at the diner, and Betty didn’t want to miss any of it. It was a place trapped in a time warp — a time when things were different. People found one another there; the working girls huddled there; people were treated with the dignity they deserved and they were offered protection of a sort; and they would always be fed, with or without money. People were welcome, always, and respected; they would be called by their names and remembered, even after they were gone. Some were sent back home after they had tried the street for a time; and when the reality of the life none should need to live was too much, there was a quiet and safe room upstairs for them to escape to when they needed it. The women and girls that lined the counter or sat in the back booths were treated with kindness — at least in Dottie’s Diner.

Betty remained with a sense that she was always meant to be there. And when Gladys became too old for the work, she retired and left the diner in Betty’s capable hands. They had worked side by side for two decades, and Gladys knew that Betty would see to the ones who others didn’t see, for reasons she never understood. Gladys knew that it took someone who had lived in invisibility to see the invisible people, and Betty did. She recognized each and every one who walked through the diner’s door; especially when the bell jingled, she knew it was someone extraordinary coming in or going out. Just as she knew that someday, someone would end up needing a job from her; and when the time was right, she would offer to them the gift that Gladys had given her. She would see them, she would reach out to them, she would call them by their names, and she would care for them as she had been cared for so long ago.