Gunnysack Hell

Desert.

Chapter 1

Evil Man - Overture

I must follow the voices

in my head

telling me what to do

to be set free…

set me me me…free…

I watch

I wait

it is not complete

soon

I purify

I anoint

I finish

to be free

Chapter 2

Nonni - The Serpent

I read this morning that Donald Fricker was granted parole after serving twenty years in prison. I’d done my best to banish his name from my memory, but once I saw it in print, the decades disappeared in the flick of a newspaper page. My childhood flooded back to eight-year-old me, too scared to identify him and save my family.

I’ve written down everything that happened during that six-month period of time so I can finally understand that evil man’s plans to destroy our family.

It was May of 1962. My family had recently moved to our new home, our grandparents’ one-room homestead cabin in the California high desert with tarpaper and chicken-wire lining the walls. It never occurred to me to ask my father why we had moved from our three-bedroom suburban home by the beach to off the grid.

All I knew was that we used kerosene lanterns, the chemical outhouse under the tall water tank, a wood-burning stove, and an old-fashioned ice-box that our father replenished with a big block of ice from Jolly’s Corner on his way home each day.

We had no television, phone, or neighbors, but Daddy brought home the Sunday Times. I read the funnies every week. We had a short stack of books that I loved. Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little House on the Prairie topped the list.

Daddy often pulled A Dipper Full of Stars, which contained stories and charts of our favorite constellations, from the shelf so we could locate them in the brilliant heavens above us. His favorite was Orion, the Hunter; mine was Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. And, of course, I kept a diary in my childish scrawl of everything that happened. I was destined to be a writer.

Tessa, my six-year-old sister, and I walked home alone, every day, from the bus stop, a mile and a half down an isolated dirt road.

That’s when it happened, the thing that changed our family. I’ll never forget that day. I protected Tessa even though I broke all of my promises to Mama I’d made just the night before. To walk directly home from the bus stop, not to talk to strangers, and to stay away from open wells.

Each morning our father drove us at break-neck speed to our bus stop at the corner of the Lone Wolf Colony, a health retreat for retired telephone company employees, and the main highway. A deserted farmhouse sat directly across from it.

Crazy driving! He brushed his dark hair back from his shining green eyes.

Crazy driving! Our voices vibrated as our always dusty blue truck bounced along the twisty dirt road. Going for a ride in that truck, anywhere, was an adventure we kids looked forward to.

We followed Mama’s other rules, too, but sometimes they changed. After Tessa picked up a baby sidewinder and Daddy had to swing her in a circle to shoot it straight out into the brush, Mama struck snakes off her loving list.

When you hear the sound of rattles, stand statue still and don’t bat an eyelash! In our drills, we listened for the sound of her shaking the frying pan with popcorn kernels in it. Then, we’d freeze in place.

Mama seemed more concerned about rattle snakes than sidewinders, but to be safe, she taught us to fear all snakes. By the time I was in fifth-grade Snake Education, it was too late for me to reverse my responses. I simultaneously hated and feared snakes.

Even now, I firmly believe that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was the real culprit in the fall of man and that Eve got a bad rap. Those loathsome creatures, living in the sagebrush along our path home and occasionally slithering across the ruts in front of us were diabolical in their intentions to trip us up. Literally.

I’d learned about another danger after eavesdropping on Mama and Daddy when they thought we were asleep inside the cabin.

The Cold War… protect ourselves… The tip of Daddy’s cigarette glowed orange in the dark.

Mama’s words carried to my ready ears. Remember that cloud? A giant mushroom on the horizon early one morning? A bomb. The government was testing a nuclear bomb and not telling us! Good thing we have a shelter out back.

As I was drinking my sun tea the next day, I asked her, What’s a Cold War? It’s hot out here!

She took her thumb and massaged the wrinkle between my eyebrows. Don’t worry, honey. We have the fallout shelter your grandpa built out behind. Just in case.

But it’s down under the ground, and it’s locked!

I’ll unlock it if we need it, but don’t worry. We’re safe out here. I promise.

Mama rubbed her rounded belly and waited for my response.

Okay. I nodded. Even though I still didn’t understand, I silently vowed to keep my eyes open for this new danger.

Every morning, before I made it out to the outhouse, I searched the sky. And on the way home from the bus, I scanned again for mushroom clouds along the horizon and up high in the wild blue yonder. Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle I was trying to solve. Danger was in the air.

We ate dinner at the picnic table with the sun setting behind Mt. Baldy. Sometimes Mama cooked my favorite meal of my childhood, a macaroni-and-cheese boxed product made with canned milk, which she then packed into our Bundt cake pan.

Afterwards, she gently tapped it onto a plate and poured a can of drained, canned peas into the middle of the noodle ring. When our garden was producing, we’d put sliced zucchini or green beans in it.

When I smelled the delicious cheesy flavor wafting across the picnic table, my mouth watered, and I could hardly wait for her to finish saying grace.

Thank you, Jesus, for your many blessings. Mama lifted her head and smiled at us. Time to pass the Kraft Dinner Ring!

Even to this day, I associate that comfort food with family memories, snapshots etched into my memory.

Daddy dragged our mattresses out of the cabin, onto the dirt. Lay down here, quiet. You can sleep outside tonight. Maybe other nights if it’s not too cold. He brought out his pickaxe and shovel from the outhouse where they were stored.

We were close enough to the ground for snakes to curl up like coasters on our tummies if they found us. Tessa and I lay there, tingling with fear and anticipation, watching Daddy work on the trenches for the foundation of the new house he was building for us. When it was too dark for him to dig any longer, he put away his tools and returned to the cabin.

We snuggled up, hypnotized by the sparkling majesty above until Tessa broke the silence with a giggle.

Mama poked her head out of the cabin. You girls go to sleep now. Morning’ll be here before you know it. Love you a bushel and a peck!

And a hug around the neck! Our words spiraled into the universe.

Tessie! Look at the Milky Way, high up there! I flung my arms around in a big arc and bopped her on the face.

Ouch! She rubbed her nose.

Shhhhh. I turned my attention back to the sky. We’re as small as ants. If anyone in the sky looks down at us, we’re just like ants!

The longer I stared upward, the more invisible I felt. Like I was dissolving into the earth.

My moon! Tessa giggled and pointed to the glowing orange orb rising above the silhouette of the mountains to the north of us.

Tessa, I double-dare you not to blink! Stars shot down, fizzling before they reached us. The nighttime whirring of the katydids mesmerized us.

We both stared without blinking until our eyes were as dry as the dirt we lay on, and we had to give in. The temperature dropped, sending goose bumps marching along my arms, and the stars danced above us.

We woke to the stillness of a new day, punctuated by the faint yip of coyotes. The desert floor was still carpeted with colorful and exotic wildflowers sprouting next to creosote bushes, Joshua trees, and white-tasseled Yuccas. We lived in an enchanted land.

A budding author, I created a one-page story about sand fairies that lived in the wildflowers. Tessa was a terrific audience of one, and soon she could recite it from memory. Her enthusiasm kept me writing, something I’ve continued to do daily.

The days passed with me walking home from the bus stop with Tessa, ever on guard for snakes and occasionally glancing at the sky. Sometimes, I heard the faraway rumble of the train.

That afternoon, when the bus’s hissing air brakes signaled our stop, we leapt from the bottom step onto the dirt shoulder of the road.

I picked the perfect stone from the side of the road. It had to be small and round, with no sharp edges, and light enough to kick all the way home.

Tessa followed on my heels, talking my ear off, and stepping on the heel of one of my tennies. Gave you a flat!

Back off! I glared at her. Mama said those shoes were like gold, and we were to protect them. I gave the rock a punt and forged ahead.

Oblivious to things going on out there in the desert, we were lulled into a sense of safety and routine. Like Eve, we didn’t feel the danger around us until it was too late to escape. Instead, I should have been paying attention to the truck following us slowly.

Down the deserted road.

Yes, this is our story.

My story.

Chapter 3

Claire - Long Trek Home

Although it’s early enough my daughters haven’t left yet, the moisture in the morning air already clings to my skin predicting a storm that’s building to a grand finale.

I gather the remnants of breakfast from the picnic table and glance up at gray clouds skirting the sky. My eyes drift to the windy road out front that leads to the bus stop, a mile and a half away, where Tessa and Nonni pick up the bus.

Girls, I call as I stack the cereal bowls. Time to get into gear! Something jabs me in the rib, and when I grab my side, I feel a sharp edge, maybe an elbow, rippling against my abdomen from the inside out.

You, little lassie, will have plenty of time to kick up your heels soon. I rub my hand along the underside of my swollen belly with its new batch of stretch marks. Just don’t do too much of it now.

Rand steps out of the cabin. What’ja say, hon?

Nothing. Just hollering to the girls to get ready to leave. And talking to our soon-to-be acrobat. She’s doing some serious jumping today.

They’re putting on their shoes. And how’re you so sure it’s a girl? As he strolls by, he pats my shoulder with his free hand. He continues to his truck where he places his lunch box and thermos on the seat.

It’s mother’s intuition. I’m filled with conviction.

He returns and wraps both his arms around me as far as they can reach, which isn’t enough. I don’t remember being this large with either of the girls. The nurse told me that each child stretches the muscles a little more, and I’ve evidently outgrown my body. This will be my third, and last, pregnancy.

I nestle into his chest and smell Old Spice. Sprucing up for the boss? Or just covering up the lack of long, hot showers? My little joke brings another squeeze from him and a protest from within.

We both jump, and I yelp. Another kick!

He smiles down at me. Wow! She’ll grow up to be a Rockette! His fingers find their way to my ear lobe and give it an affectionate little rub. I lean into him, and there’s a long pause. Don’t forget Ma’s coming tomorrow.

His comment jolts me back into reality. I couldn’t forget that if I tried. He’d overridden my arguments and called his mother from the pay phone at Jolly’s Corner to invite her to help with the girls and baby.

Mother Grace, as she insists I call her, is so critical of my mothering and housekeeping skills that I wish she weren’t coming. Even though I’m so exhausted I barely stagger through each blistering day.

The weather has turned from seasonably warm to hot, real hot. This one-room log cabin, which served the O’Brien family as a getaway for more than twenty years, features only a single window and door. I’m suffocating. With one more adult and a new baby in that room, I don’t know how we’ll survive.

Tessa scrambles out of the cabin onto the dirt. Can’t catch me! Her taunt carries through the warm morning air.

Nonni is on her tail. Told you not to touch my stuff!

Come on over here. I motion them to me

Nonni protests. She took my socks!

Tessa looks down at the ruffled cuffs, and a small smile steals across her face.

No time to change now. You, little missy, can wash them when you get home. Both of you, come here. They draw near, and I kiss them on their foreheads, one at a time. I breathe in their fresh morning scent and am surprised when a sense of foreboding settles on me. I give them an extra nuzzle for good measure.

Get your lunch boxes from the picnic table and head toward the truck. Your daddy’s waiting.

There are five weeks of school left. At seven-thirty each morning, Rand drops them where they’ll be picked up by the Lone Wolf Colony. A windbreak of Italian Cypress trees protects the cabins and main house. Sometimes there’s activity going on there, but mostly it’s deserted.

An empty farmhouse is situated on the other side of the road with a scrawny oak tree providing shade for inhabitants who no longer live there. There must be some kind of underground water table sustaining that tree, and those at the Colony, for them to survive in this mostly-parched terrain.

Our acreage is bone dry, without a well, and I’m jealous of all those trees and what they symbolize. After all, this area is called Apple Valley although I’ve yet to see an apple tree here. One day, I’ll plant my own trees in our yard. And with no well, I’ll be just fine watering them from our tank on the tower.

The day slides by while I meander through one task at a time. Hand washing a bucket of clothes. Hanging them on the makeshift line to dry before night arrives. Sweeping the dust from the cabin floor. Making a new bottle of sun tea, which we also call Mormon tea and brew from a plant that grows out here in the wild.

My feet ache, so I take a rest in the rocking chair on porch.

Around three o’clock, I stand out front and squint at the yellow bus stopped at the end of the long dirt road. Two tiny figures, so far away I can hardly see them, dismount.

In my mind, I envision them on a map, moving steadily down Chipmunk Trail toward me. Rand and I have only one truck, which he drives to work.

When Mother Grace arrives in her old Studebaker, we’ll probably use her car only for priorities or emergencies. Gas is expensive, and the girls are healthy.

They can walk home, and I’m here to watch. I’m thankful we live in one of the safest areas in Southern California, with only snakes and spiders as predators. Unless the Communists shoot missiles or drop bombs on us. But Rand says that’s not going to happen. And we’re ready if they do.

As peaceful as it is out here in the wilderness, there are things I miss. I miss walking the girls to school around the corner. I miss chatting with their teachers and neighborhood mothers. I miss our former middle-class luxury in our two-bedroom home near the beach with the cheerful flowered wallpaper in the dining room. I miss the amenities of modern living.

And I miss my husband bringing home a regular paycheck, especially with another payment due for the baby’s delivery. Rand’s gone every day and sometimes into evenings working hard to earn the money we need for this, but his well job is about to run out.

I keep that worry to myself. It wasn’t his fault he got fired, and we had to move out here in a hurry.

What I don’t miss is his drinking his way up the corporate ladder, and that’s a relief after his alcoholic father died from liver failure last year. And I don’t miss worrying about the climbing crime rate in the city in which we no longer live.

Our circumstances are primitive, and I’m doing things the old-fashioned, time-intensive way. But when Mother Grace is up to her elbows in soapsuds, things should be a bit easier, and that will be my consolation for her being here.

The sun slowly works its way across the sky. In a couple of hours, the sunset’s glow on the tin roofs between our cabin and Mt. Baldy will create the illusion of the desert floor in flames. This terrifies me after last year’s fire season, but I have to admit that the effect is stunning.

I move to the line where I touch the skirts and shirts the girls wear to school drying. There’s still some dampness in them. I hope they dry before the clouds let loose. I pinch a clothespin to loosen Tessa’s sheet and gather it into my arms.

Even though it has wind-dried, small smatterings of dirt from the frolicking breeze stick to it. Tessa’s bed wetting is a problem, so I hang the sheet out to dry in the morning and only wash it every couple of days or so. Our cabin has a slight odor of ammonia that we’ve learned to ignore.

Now that evenings have warmed up, we sometimes lie on mattresses under the stars and breathe in the starlight accompanied with the smell of creosote, the earthy aroma of rain.

Once in a while, when the girls have fallen asleep, Rand and I steal some alone-time. Cuddling is a lot harder, anyway, with a belly the size of a San Francisco cable car, something Rand promised me I’d ride one day.

This is our last night before his mother arrives and we lose all of our privacy.

I glance down the lane. The red of Tessa’s dress pulls my focus to her leapfrogging with both feet while Nonni kicks a rock as they traverse their way home.

My eyes water, more than justified by the wind or bright sun, as that fierce mother love raises her head. I feel a throbbing sensation in my womb and push my fist deep into the small of my back.

Not yet, I whisper to myself. A month to go.

The girls move faster now, running, and stirring up scuffs of dust. I wipe the back of my arm across my wet cheeks, push my hair back from my sweaty forehead, and shield my eyes to see them more clearly.

Even though my feet are swollen, and my body resists a slow plod in this hot, humid air, my heart leaks gladness as I walk toward them, arms wide open, and raindrops splatter on my face like tears.

Chapter 4

Randall - Corporation to Cabin

Ma will hafta sleep here. I push the mattress against the wall.

So close to us? Sheesh! She’s only twelve inches away! Claire shoves it farther away.

There’s a small space next to us for the baby. The girls’ bunk beds line most of the opposite wall. The icebox, wood-burning stove, and a small table are positioned on the third wall beside the only window. The dresser, snugged in next to the door, is topped with shelves.

No doubt about it. This place is crowded. And with Ma and the baby coming, our quarters are growing closer. One thing’s for sure. If we’re going to stay here, with or without Ma, we need more space. I’ve already begun digging the new foundation.

We’re packed in like sardines. She flits around the cabin. I didn’t ask her to come.

I place a hand on her arm and give her a sympathetic look. Had to do it. You’re gonna need some help for a while, and I’m busy working my butt off.

Her eyes brim with tears. We’re just too far out here in the boondocks. I have to work. We still owe a final payment to the doctor and maternity home.

I’m willing to go it alone. We’ll be fine. She straightens her shoulders.

Can’t leave you, the girls, and the new baby out here alone. Without a vehicle. Or help. I’m sorry, hon. It’s temporary.

You owe me big time, mister. She goes when I say. Her eyes challenge me.

When you say. We okay, then?

She nods, and I know I’ve won on this issue.

The squeals of the girls playing out front filter to us. Claire tips her head, listening, and turns back to me. The wrinkle between her eyebrows deepens.

Something else the matter? I catch her expression. Unfinished business.

Just anxious about… things.

Like… I immediately kick myself for having opened up this door of discussion. I can guess what she’s about to bring up.

Like…your work. Or, soon, your lack of it.

I’m bringing home more cash tonight. For the money can.

Baby’s due soon. Doctor says, this being the third, she might even come early.

Hang in there. Everything will work out. All these years we’ve jumped over hurdles and come out on the other side of the prickly hedges, further ahead. Even when things like drinking my way up the corporate ladder got in the way. Claire’s accusations had made me think, and I didn’t like what I saw.

Watch out. You’re turning into a lush like your old man.

We still argue but usually circle back around to making up and healing the gaps. Which don’t last long.

After we married, she began her own laundry business so I could cut back on work hours and finish college. But I didn’t end up doing that because the company promoted me to quality control with required overtime. I loved that job, which was all about doing things right in the first place. And faster and cheaper.

I practiced on Claire, following her around the house, coaching her on how to be more time efficient in completing household routines and taking care of our children. That didn’t last long.

Back off, mister. She’d pointed the knife she was drying in my direction. I’m doing my best. Back off! They’re your kids, too. You can lend a hand here.

I’m trying to help you!

I don’t want your criticism. I want your help!

She could be like that sometimes. Over-reacting. Emotional. Dismissing my suggestions.

Or like when I got fired for writing, on my own time, for an organization the corporation thought would hurt the company image. I didn’t reckon on what would come down on me at work. Five whole years there, and boom! I’m out on the street.

I’d sold our home to a buddy from work. We couldn’t afford the payment without my job, and we hadn’t lived there long enough to make much of a profit. I’d traded our almost-new Plymouth station wagon for a 1950 Chevy pickup truck, which the four of us barely squeezed into. I stacked the back with our goods, punched the accelerator, and hurried us to my parents’ homestead cabin. Three hours away. In the middle of nowhere.

As we’d turned off the paved road by the Lone Wolf Colony, the final piece of our journey to our new home, Nonni’d burped. Tessa laughed so hard she snorted. We joined in until we hit a bump, all of us bouncing, airborne, in unison.

Claire wrapped her arms around her swollen belly. Her tears of laughter dissolved into a river of sadness. We left the cradle behind! It was for ALL our babies!

I flashed back to a mental picture of it sitting in the garage. I’d been planning to tie it last, upside down, on top of our Grapes-of-Wrath heap. We were more than two hours out by this time. No way I was going back.

I’ll build you a new one.

"That one has history. My family history! I slept in it when I