Editors' Choice Winner
Again puffing on the cigarette, Tammi Jean closed her mind on Charlene Cook and watched an eighteen-wheeler top the crest of a ridge almost two miles away, watched it slide into view and then disappear, only to reappear again, riding the undulating hills like a gigantic black whale rising and plunging over waves in the sea. She narrowed her eyes. This is it, she thought, my ride outta Alabama. She knew it for a fact, just like she’d known about the minivan driver’s willingness to stop, about Yancy’s making a mistake, and about Molly’s carrying Wade Dickinson’s child. Knew it without understanding how. The same way she knew about her daddy’s not being dead, the way her mama insisted, but alive and in California instead.
Tammi Jean inhaled again, wanting to finish the cigarette before her ride got there, and continued to watch the semi as it swam through the mirages on the hot asphalt and pushed its way through the August heat.
“And I know it for a fact,” she said as she stood and hoisted the backpack once more into position. Travis Leon Cook wasn’t dead. And she didn’t give a damn what Charlene Cook had to say on the subject, though she doubted she was going to forget the woman’s skepticism anytime soon.
“You’re outta your ever-loving mind!” Those had been her mama’s exact words when Tammi Jean had told her Travis was in California and not lying six feet under in some cemetery outside of Waco, Texas, the way folks seemed to think he was.
“No, I ain’t,” Tammi Jean said in response. “Like I keep telling you, I just know things.”
“You don’t know diddly squat,” Charlene said. “You just think you do. I done told you ten thousand times your daddy got hisself killed out in Texas.”
“Humph,” Tammi Jean said, “You ain’t got no proof.”
“The hell I don’t. I also done told you, his second cousin Morris Woodall called me. Said the family got word from somebody your daddy knew and—”
“That ain’t proof! You didn’t get no death certificate.”
Charlene rolled her made-up eyes. “Why would I? We weren’t married no more. I’d done divorced his ass `cause he deserted me.”
“So, did you ask his folks if you could see that death certificate?”
“Hell, no. The last thing I wanted was anything to do with the Cooks. Not a one of ‘em ever did like me, so when I divorced your daddy, I went and divorced them, too. And it was good riddance to the whole lot.”
“Well, if you didn’t see no—”
“I ain’t gonna talk about it no more,” Charlene snapped. “Your sorry daddy is dead as a damn doorknob and—”
“He ain’t dead either. He’s out in California.”
“Did you hear me say I ain’t gonna talk about it no more?” Saying this, Charlene left the kitchen where they had been sitting at the time the topic was broached. But Tammi Jean wasn’t one to give up easily and followed her mama down the hallway to the bathroom. Charlene slammed the door and locked it as she yelled “Leave me the hell alone.”
Tammi Jean leaned as close to the door as she could get and yelled back, “My daddy is in California, and I know it for a fact!”
“Like I done said, you don’t know diddly squat! But if you’re so dead set on him being in California, why don’t you go find ’im? Just don’t forget to tell ’im he owes me nine years back child support, the bastard.” After shouting this, Charlene had turned the radio on to WYNX AM, her favorite station, setting the volume as high as it would go and letting Hank Williams Jr. effectively put a stop to any further discussion of the matter at hand.
Tammi Jean narrowed her eyes as the semi topped the final hill and began its descent. A Kenworth, its chrome-plated exhaust stacks and running lights flashed in the sun and its powerful diesel engine growled as it bit off the distance to where she waited. Crap, she thought. It didn’t matter whether Charlene Cook believed her or not. She knew her daddy was alive and he was in California. The knowing was enough. And thinking this, Tammi Jean tossed the cigarette butt onto the median, picked up her guitar case, and stepped closer to the highway to wait for her ride out of the hellhole called Alabama.
Objects Are Closer Than They Appear
Thank you for posting this excerpt. The characterisation is deeply embedded not just in the speech, but everywhere. These characters, though fictional, exist right from the beginning. They breathe and so this reader, at least, has no difficulty in believing that they will go on doing their own thing without obvious author intrusion. Very, very well done. I’ll be looking out for your stuff in future.
I agree with Jerry – I do believe I must find the book to read more.
Tammi Jean’s anger, and her mother’s come through loud and clear. An angry, young, redneck psychic — wow! As with your other contribution, I am left wanting to know more about your characters. Is Tammi Jean’s father alive? What will happen next? Great suspense.
Now I think I have to buy the book