Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem by Jonathan Woods

Author:Jonathan Woods [Woods, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Crime
ISBN: 9780981557977
Amazon: 098155797X
Publisher: New Pulp Press
Published: 2010-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

An Orphan’s Tale

I murdered my mother. Hemorrhaged to death giving birth to yours truly. Three months later my father in a fit of the Devil’s ennui drove to N.O. and got himself stabbed six times in a girly bar in the Vieux Carre. R.I.P.

Hence, I became an orphan. Name of Easter.

Up until age fifteen—my second year of high school—I resided at the Rankin County Home for Displaced Girls. That’s in Rankin County, Mississippi. My best friend was named Geneva. This is what happened.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we left school early to attend choir practice with Mr. Nesbitt at the Circle of Fire Baptist Church. It didn’t matter whether you could hold a note or not. Choir was a mandatory activity. In case you died and went to Heaven.

I could tell right away Mr. Nesbitt was a pervert. He had this way of twisting the hairs of his mustache when he got nervous. Which was whenever he looked at me.

My breasts had recently started to expand exponentially. My legs were smooth and muscular from running cross-country in middle school. I had adopted this sunburned waif look, with lots of freckles, dirty blond ragtag hair and flower print cotton dresses that left my legs mostly bare.

In fact, I was quite the little number.

On the break during our third rehearsal, Mr. Nesbitt called me into his office. He was drinking a bottle of grape Nehi. The room smelled of cigarettes and old dry rotted prayer books.

Mr. Nesbitt came around the desk to where I stood looking back though the door at my friend Geneva. He put his sweaty hands on my shoulders and turned me around, his eyes ogling my chest. I thought for a moment that he was going to touch my breasts, even though the door was wide open and Geneva was standing there, the perfect witness.

But he just stripped me down to my skin with those cottonmouth eyes of his. His creepy hands were still on my shoulders, so I turned my head and bit him as hard as I could, right where the thumb connects to the palm.

“Aaaahhhh!”

His wounded hand flew back to slap me, but I ducked and ran out of the room.

“Jeepers,” Geneva said. “You really ticked Mr. Nesbitt off.”

I didn’t say anything, but I knew there’d be more trouble.

That evening at dinner—we all ate in a big high-ceilinged hall, kind of like nuns in the Middle Ages—I got into a fight with Loretta Lee, a girl two years older than me and a psychopath. She got a black eye. I got a tanning delivered by Miss Beech herself and sent to bed without dessert. Miss Beech, an old lesbo with a buzz cut, had been head mistress at Rankin House for eons. It was whispered she wore leather undergarments on the weekends.

I cried, but only after lights out. Miss Beech would get hers.

The next day, Saturday, right after breakfast cleaning day arrived in the dormitory rooms and vast hallways of Rankin. Orphans running up and down, helter-skelter with brooms, mops, and feather dusters.

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