The Speculist

“Sybil?” the little black girl said again. “Sybil Lufts?”

The children walked over to her from where they were standing.

“Who wants to know?” she asked.

“I’m Judy,” said the girl. “And this is Grace. Grace is Jolene’s daughter.”

Sybil’s eyes widened.

She had heard that Jolene had been sent to the state home. She often thought that she should go see her there, but she hadn’t gotten around to doing it so far. Something told her that she probably never would. She was afraid to go, afraid of what she would see. Afraid of the part she had played in causing it.

Though she had thought about Jolene many times over the years, Sybil never once gave a thought to her kid. She knew somehow that Jolene had had a girl, and she seemed also to be aware that the child was being raised in the home. And now here she was. Grace, the girl had said. Sybil looked at the little girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes. She was beautiful, but she looked just like him.

Donny.

The father.

Son of a bitch.

She remembered the last time she saw him. They were in Albuquerque, the three of them living in a tiny apartment. Sybil had started her career a few weeks before — it was all Donny’s idea — and she was dancing four nights a week in a place so sleazy that it made the Cheri Lounge look like Radio City Music Hall. She came home early from work one night, it had been slow, and tried to kill Donny. And she was pretty sure that she would have killed him, too, if he hadn’t left when he did.

Sybil was seventeen at the time. It hadn’t taken long to shatter her delusions about being in love and running away to see the world.

So many sweet promises.

She met Donny at the ceramic factory, where she worked part time because her mother needed the money, and also to fulfill one of the requirements at the vocational school. He was a good-looking guy: tall, blond hair, well-muscled with just a little paunch . He had played football in high school, but apparently not well enough to get him out of Greenwood. His uncle owned the factory and gave him his on-again, off-again job there as security guard.

Sybil worked the night shift, four to midnight. There was no graveyard shift. Donny, or whoever else might be serving as night watchman, would hold down the fort from midnight to eight, when the day shift came on. Donny stopped by the factory early one evening, probably to ask his uncle for a salary advance or a loan, and saw Sybil applying glaze to some birdbaths. They immediately caught each other’s eye and began to talk. Within a few days, Donny had readjusted his work schedule so that it aligned with Sybil’s, and he came in early every night. Before long, she was also staying late most nights.

It was in those early mornings together, the place vast and dark and entirely abandoned except for the two of them, that they began to develop their plans. Sometimes they talked about them before the sex, but more often after — lying together on a blanket that Donny had spread out on the shop floor, work tables and machinery all around them.

The plans went something like this: they would take Donny’s car and what money Sybil could put together and get the hell out of Greenwood. They would just drive: maybe head into the mountains, maybe back east. They would find a place where they could make a fresh start. They would get a place; they would work; they would be together.

Looking back, Sybil realized that it was an astoundingly vague plan. And ridiculous as well. Why did they need to get out of Greenwood? Could she honestly have believed at the time that it was the town that was somehow holding Donny back? Had she been that naïve? Once out from under Greenwood’s shadow, the plan was, he would immediately receive the respect and recognition that he deserved. A high-paying job (doing what?) would inevitably follow. Not that the plan needed to be in any wise realistic. It was only later that Sybil realized that Donny never had any intention of acting on it. He already had everything he needed: a job in which he was paid to do nothing and a naïve teenage girl who would put out and who believed his bullshit. The plan was just there as a kind of window-dressing for their relationship, adding a much-needed element of romance — if no respectability — to their regular meetings.

Not that Sybil felt any shame or remorse over those nights on the shop floor. She was a kid, he was a manipulating creep and, besides, what was a girl with raging hormones supposed to do? Anyway, she saved all her shame and remorse for what came later. She needed all she had for that.

Although the plan was never meant to be acted upon, one night circumstances changed. In the wee hours of a rainy Thursday morning, Donny’s uncle Ned paid an unexpected visit to the factory. The rain covered over the sound of his car approaching and his entering the factory. Donny and Sybil had no idea he was there until he was there, right there, shining a flashlight on their intimacy.

They were both fired on the spot. Moreover, Uncle Ned made it clear to Sybil that the vocational school would receive a full report of the incident. If she had been in state of mind that allowed her to pay attention to things, rather than to file them away only to realize their significance much later, she might have picked up on Ned’s words to his errant nephew:

“Damn it, Donny, you’ve been warned about this. Plenty of times. That’s it. You’re fired.”

Plenty of times.

Later, she would understand that there was no excuse for what happened next. A naïve girl, even a stupid girl — even a stupid girl with hormones who’s just lost her job and who is about to be kicked out of school — ought to be able to pick up on the significance of the words plenty of times. But she had refused to see it at the time. She was actually thrilled at the way things turned out. As she saw it, it left them no choice. They would have to put their plan into action.

They talked about it over a breakfast at the all-night diner. Donny seemed hesitant at first, but the more they talked about it, the more the idea grew on him. They formulated a plan: he would take her home, she would gather a few belongings, and they would meet back at the Diner at six the following evening.

He dropped her off at her house and drove away. She was quietly working the key in the deadbolt — it would squeak sometimes if you didn’t work it just right, not that her mother was likely to hear anything — when she realized that she wasn’t alone on the dark porch. She hadn’t noticed at first, because the porch light was burned out and she wasn’t looking for anybody anyway, but there was somebody lying on the decrepit metal glider.

Sybil was startled, but not frightened. She knew who it was. Even in this light, Jolene’s horrible pink coat was unmistakable. What in the world was she doing there? As quietly as she could, Sybil nudged her friend awake. It turned out that she wasn’t asleep, anyway. She was awake and sobbing.

Sybil and Jolene had been friends from the day Jolene first came to the vocational school. Their friendship had begun with a contrarian impulse on Sybil’s part. Sybil wasn’t exactly a popular girl at the school, but she wasn’t unpopular, either. She had a few friends, all of whom fell in line with the notion that a retarded girl from the retarded home was a good target for ridicule and teasing. This idea offended Sybil. They wanted to make Jolene an outcast, but that was absurd. Weren’t they all just outcasts from the real high school? So she befriended Jolene: sitting with her in every class they had together and always making a point of talking to her when she met her in the hall.

It didn’t take long for Sybil’s act of defiance to grow into true friendship. There was something so innocent about Jolene. She didn’t know anything about anything: music, TV shows, meeting guys. She never cussed, had never had a cigarette, certainly had never had a drink, had never made out. She was a blank slate. She had a little bit of a religious side to her — was always talking about the Bible and stuff — but Sybil was tolerant enough to overlook that.

Before long, the girls began to open up to each other; pretty soon they could tell each other anything. Sybil learned all about the home and the other kids there and the people who ran it. Jolene got an earful on Sybil’s fat, drunken mother and long-absent father. And she was the only person who knew about her and Donny.

Sybil slowly managed Jolene’s entry into her wider circle of friends. After the initial novelty of having a “retarded” kid around — which label didn’t last long, even behind her back, once they got to know her — Jolene had become part of the gang. In a moment of trouble, Jolene might have turned to any of four or five different girls for help. But Sybil was her first friend, her best friend, so it was no real surprise that — whatever the hell it was that was going on — Jolene had shown up on her front porch.

Sybil helped her friend up and asked her what was wrong. The girl began to cry in earnest, making far too much noise (not that anything was likely to arouse Sybil’s mom) and sputtering something about being in trouble at the home and not being able to go back there. Sybil got her into the house and up the stairs to her room where they could talk more easily. She fetched Jolene a Coke from the kitchen, which the poor kid still looked at as some kind of special treat, and told her to give her the whole story, from the beginning.

It took a long while to get it out of her, and even then it made no sense.

Such a fuss over a stupid flag? Who could give a shit?

But as she eased her friend into bed and reflected on everything that had transpired that night, Sybil had an inspiration. Her friend needed help, and she was in a position to provide it. It may have been stupid to think that the town of Greenwood was somehow holding Donny back, but Jolene was a different matter. In the time that they had known each other, Sybil had become convinced that a terrible mistake was made that day Jolene got dropped off at that home for retarded kids. She didn’t belong there. She was smarter than Sybil; she was smarter than any of the other kids in the vocational school. And now Jolene was convinced that they were about to send her off to the state home. But even if she was wrong and this whole thing was a big misunderstanding — which Sybil thought must be the case; surely they wouldn’t kick her out for dropping a flag; what were they, Nazis? — sooner or later, she was going to end up in the state home. That much was certain. That’s where all the kids from the Mackey home ended up.

Sybil had checked this fact herself.

So it wasn’t that hard a decision to make. Jolene would come with them. She needed a fresh start more than either Sybil or Donny did. And besides, it would be fun to have a friend along. She was still excited at the prospect of running off with Donny, but maybe a little scared now that she had a minute to think about it.

She called Donny the next morning and asked him if it would be okay if she brought her friend with them. There was something strange about Donny’s voice. At first he seemed not to remember that they had even planned to leave. Then he remembered, but he didn’t want Sybil to bring her friend. Then he seemed to reconsider, and he had all kinds of questions about Jolene, asking for details on what she looked like more than once. This ought to have struck Sybil as being odd, but she just didn’t think about it.

He told her that they wouldn’t be able to leave until the following day because he needed to get some work done on his car. Could she lend him some money? He would drop by that afternoon — while Sybil’s mother was at work — to get it. He did come by that day and asked for the money. And he insisted on meeting Jolene. Sybil went upstairs and got her, although she was shy about meeting new people. As soon as Donny saw her, the matter was settled.

Jolene would come with them.

After Donny left, Sybil sat down with Jolene and told her what they had in mind to do. Jolene began to cry. She asked whether she would be able to come back and see her friends again. Sybil told her that she didn’t think she would, not for a long while. But that she also wouldn’t be able to do that if they sent her off to the state home. Then she painted a picture for her of how it would be, the three of them off in a new place, free to do whatever they wanted. The more Jolene heard, the more she seemed to like the idea. By the time Sybil finished, Jolene was smiling and seemed eager to leave. She didn’t mentioned the home again. She seemed resigned to the fact that she was leaving it behind forever.

A while later, the police came to the door and asked Sybil if she had heard anything from her friend Jolene, who had disappeared the night before. She told them she hadn’t. And then she started asking them questions — How long had Jolene been gone? Who was the last person to see her? Had they talked to Janie Lewis? She was Jolene’s friend, too. Did they want to come in and use the phone to call her? (Jolene was safely upstairs in Sybil’s room, so she didn’t mind laying it on a little thick.) The cops bought Sybil’s act, and that was pretty much the end of it. Apparently, no one never put Sybil’s own subsequent disappearance together with Jolene’s. The police did ask her why she wasn’t in school. Sybil replied that she was dropping out to take care of her mother; this didn’t make a lot of sense seeing as her mother was apparently well enough to be at work. And she didn’t know whether they already knew about her expulsion from the vocational school, but she certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. Anyway, they didn’t seem to care one way or the other. As they left, she asked if they would please let her know when they found Jolene. She would be worried sick in the mean time, she said.

In all, it was three days before Donny got his car fixed. Sybil had no trouble hiding Jolene in her room during that time. At nearly 400 pounds, her mother hadn’t climbed the stairs in years. Sybil went to school only once during those three days, long enough to learn that she was, in fact, expelled. She cleaned out her locker and left.

That night, the three of them took a perfunctory cruise down Main Street on their way out of town. Sybil felt triumphant. She didn’t even bother to tell her mother she was leaving. Her plan was in play: they were on their way to freedom. But she also felt conspicuous, the engine of Donny’s battered red Charger roaring as they went. Drawing needless attention to them. She looked right and left to see whether anyone saw them, hoping that no one would see her and Jolene leaving town together. With Donny.

And unfortunately, no one did.

Sybil’s feeling of elation lasted for all of eight hours. They were at a rest stop outside of Santa Fe, Jolene asleep in the back seat, when Donny began to outline his plan for how they could best make some quick money. They would drive to Las Vegas, where Donny was sure he could get a couple of fake IDs for Sybil and Jolene. Or — he explained — depending on where they ended up working, they probably wouldn’t even need IDs. The girls could get jobs as cocktail waitresses or even dancers. They were both built for it, he said. In fact, they would even be able to make a lot more money if they would maybe consider…but he didn’t finish the thought. As for Donny, he would be a dealer. But he might have to take a class or something first, he wasn’t sure.

Her disappointment at this plan was bitter, all the more so because she had no alternative to present. This wasn’t the fresh start she had in mind. It wasn’t what she and Donny had talked about. But it was a plan, and Donny seemed to know what would work, how they would be able to survive. She told herself that this would be a temporary measure, a stop along the way to the true fresh start. But she didn’t say this aloud, and she wasn’t sure why. What she did say out loud was that while she would be happy to work as a waitress or a dancer, she didn’t think either of those jobs would be suitable for Jolene. Maybe Jolene could be a waitress in a restaurant, but not someplace where she would have to fight off drunks. It would be better to find her something like Sybil’s old job at the ceramic factory.

Donny just winked at her and said sure, no problem.

They never made it Las Vegas. The car broke down just outside of Albuquerque — in spite of whatever work had been done on it before they left — and so that was where they ended up. It was some time later that Sybil would take a look at a map and realize that they weren’t even heading towards Las Vegas. Either Donny had started them on some back way there or he had never even bothered to check a map.

They fixed the car, found a little place to live, and Sybil went to work. Donny found her the job. It wasn’t something that she had ever thought of doing, but she found that she didn’t mind it. The place was a dive and the customers were creeps. But the bouncers made sure they kept their paws off. It turned out that Sybil was pretty good at being a dancer (she had quickly learned that the girls never referred to themselves as “strippers”), much better than she had been at glazing pottery. And they needed the money. Donny never managed to find a job for himself, although he explained that he needed to find one for Jolene first. After he landed her a job as a motel maid, his job-hunting activity slowed down quite a bit. But he was always on the verge. He was always expecting to hear from somebody tomorrow.

It wasn’t the life Sybil had gone looking for, but it was a life.

Then one evening she came home early from work — it had been slow — and found them together. Donny and Jolene. But not really together. The apartment was just one room plus a filthy little bathroom; Donny and Sybil had shared the sofa bed; Jolene slept on a pile of blankets on the floor. But as Sybil walked through the door, there was Jolene: lying face down on the bed. Still wearing her cheap blue maid uniform, her skirt hiked up, her underwear gone. And there was Donny, splayed across her, unconscious. His jeans around his ankles. An empty bottle of cheap-shit whiskey lay beside him on the bed.

Sybil screamed, at both of them at first. It would take a minute before she put together what had actually happened. Donny’s eyes came half open as she approached the bed, all the way open as she picked up the empty bottle and held it like a club poised to strike. Then she swung it at him — directly at his face. He dodged the blow. He got up and began to say something to her. It didn’t matter what. Sybil managed to connect with the second blow, the bottle making a satisfying cracking noise as it slammed up against his head. Donny fell to the floor and started whimpering. She told him to shut up or she’d hit him again.

After a moment, he got up again. Sybil started towards him, but he held up his hand. Let me just get dressed, he said. Then I’ll go. He put on his pants and began fumbling under the bed for his shoes. Something about seeing him near the bed set Sybil off again. She told him to forget the shoes and go. Angry now, he turned to face her, reaching for the bottle. But he didn’t expect what would happen next. She lunged at him with all her strength. She knocked him off balance, sending him crashing into the wall. Before he could move, she swung the bottle around and hit him square in the stomach.

Donny doubled over. He stayed that way for a long time, panting and moaning. When he looked up again, Sybil was still standing there, the bottle poised to deliver another blow. He held out his hand, but this time didn’t speak. He made his way to the door and left. He took nothing with him; he wasn’t even wearing shoes. She was immediately sorry she let him leave. She wanted to hit again — to break the bottle over his head. To watch him bleed.

Sybil couldn’t rouse Jolene. Not that day; not the next. The third day, she finally got her out of bed and into a shower. Jolene wouldn’t talk, and her eyes wouldn’t meet Sybil’s. It would be a few days before she started talking again. And even then she would speak only haltingly. She did not return to work.

She would never again be the same girl Sybil had a few months earlier at the vocational school.

Sybil was never able to get the story of what exactly had happened that night — Jolene would get too upset every time she brought the subject up — but she decided she had seen enough to piece it all together anyway. Donny probably started drinking early and got himself drunk enough to forget about any possible consequences; so he decided just to help himself to a little something he had no doubt been planning on sampling all along. Whether it had started out as rape or started out as Jolene going along with some of his drunken attentions, it was clear — from the condition Sybil had found the two of them in, from the state of Jolene’s clothes, from the bruises on her face — how it had ended up.

They stayed there in Albuquerque for a long time, until the seventh month of Jolene’s pregnancy. Sybil continued with her new line of work, but found a more suitable place to ply her trade. They moved into a nicer apartment with two bedrooms. Sometimes Jolene would do a little of the cooking and cleaning. Sometimes she would talk more; sometimes less. As she got farther along, the days where it seemed that the bright, outgoing Jolene might reemerge grew rarer and rarer. Finally the day came when she didn’t speak and wouldn’t respond in any way.

Then one night, Sybil came from home from work and Jolene was gone.

A panicked three days followed. Sybil spent the time driving around the neighborhood looking for her, checking all the hospitals, pleading with the police. It was hard to get the idea across to them that there was any real cause for concern. At the end of third day, a strange idea occurred to her.

She called Greenwood, the home.

The old lady answered. Myra. The same sawed-off old bitch who had scared Jolene away. She said she was too busy to talk. Sybil said she just had one question for her.

And sure enough, Jolene had returned there.

Sybil was confused. She felt betrayed. At the same time, she felt guilty that it had never occurred to her to bring Jolene back to that place, when it was obviously where she wanted to be.

It would be a couple years before Sybil returned to Greenwood herself. By then, Jolene was long gone. Sybil’s mother took her in for a short while, and then threw her out for the last time. She moved into her own place, and started working again. Donny had also returned to Greenwood, which she learned one night when he made the mistake of stumbling into the Cheri. It was the only time in her career that Sybil ever invoked the privilege of having a patron summarily bounced. When she asked the bouncer to make sure that Donny’s exit be as quick and painful as possible, he just smiled and nodded.

A few weeks after she started at the Cheri Lounge, Sybil sat down and wrote a long letter to Myra, explaining everything that had happened. She hoped that this Myra might get in touch with her, that she might learn from her how Jolene was doing. There was never any response to the letter. And until the moment she met these four kids while on her way to work, Sybil had no idea that anyone at the home, or anywhere else, knew about her connection with Jolene.