The Last Tale of Norah Bow by J.P. White

Author:J.P. White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

15

Ruby and I walked through river marsh and scrub trees with the chatty complaint of ducks following us into a scrawny stand of poplar trees. The sound of dogs and sirens scratched a hole in my listening. No more than a few steps into Detroit and I walked like a marionette, stiff-jointed and bent over from being crouched in a cockpit. My vision was so blurry I wanted to grab Ruby’s arm, and didn’t. We spilled onto a dirt road with an up flickering of grackles. I didn’t see the wide-brimmed stone big as a cantaloupe. I caught it with my right foot, tripped forward, fell down, already feeling outflanked and Detroit-stupid.

“We’ll get you fixed up,” Ruby said, holding her duffel close to her body.

“I’m not broke,” I said.

Ruby chuckled. “That rock you tripped on was practically up to your knees.”

No stone in the road slowed Ruby down. She walked easily, the prospect of the city opening its arms and giving her swagger. The distance between the quiet backwater cove and the approaching city shrank. I heard a truck braking hard, the squeal of rubber, the blare of a horn, the scrape of metal against concrete.

“Have any idea where you’re going?”

“I remember a hospital down along the river somewhere.”

“Won’t it be closed?”

“Emergency rooms don’t close.”

We walked on and with each step I felt more uncertain about my strength to go on, one-eyed into the dice roll of Detroit. I felt more like half way to forty than fourteen. We passed fruit stands collapsed in on themselves and a row of storefronts, some boarded up, others burnt beyond repair. Little tornadoes swirled at our feet. The river hugged slabs of shadow and light. The dead-fish whiff followed us. In the distance, I saw a lit-up sign for Occident Flour stacked over one for Benedictine Cordial, a man in a tuxedo holding a long-stemmed sniffer to his nose. I stopped and turned to my right and saw a girl not much older than myself, her face carrying a wedge of lipstick and a hard splash of rouge, a cigarette notched in her teeth. When she waved to another girl propped in a doorway across the street, I saw sweat stains beneath her arms.

“Hey, ladies, you game for something not pictured in any book?”

Ruby reached into her pocket and flipped the girl two bits.

“Looking for an eye doctor,” Ruby said to the girl.

“And I’m looking for candy in heaven,” the girl fired back as she charged up to us like a dog pulling a chain. Seeing double came easy to me, so I leaned away. The girl said to me, “For a little more coin, I can take you to a different kind of doc.”

The girl’s eyes cindered the corner she stood on. Daddy called street people ruffians and she fit the bill, all rough and raw, the cigarette smoke spilling off her mouth. Something in the face still pretty and alive. She knew I saw that in her and she looked to hate me for looking too long.

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