Retrieving Johanna by Evelyn Wall

Gayle drove for two days expecting sirens before changing cars. She missed riding high in the brute rev of David’s truck, but the Corolla was less noticeable. The interior was damp and cloyingly chemical like its former owner with a spine like a question mark. But the keys had plucked easy from his pocket, not pulling a thread.

Gayle parked one street over from the house she used to share with Tonya who found her in a Pensacola bar after being kicked out of the Navy. Tonya had a caduceus tattoo on her right arm and a ladder of silver loops climbing the edge of her right ear like trapeze rings. Tonya was gone now. The last Gayle saw of her was the day she came looking for her at David’s, got told.

A young mom and little girl had moved into their old house, put in a crooked swing set and ratty garden, but Gayle would not have to disrupt anything. Johanna was in the shade of the flowering plum tree right where Gayle had left her. The twisted black trunk was splitting, weeping clear yellow sap like it had been wrung hard, bees jonesing hard around the blossoms.

Johanna was resting on the blanket she was born on, slick and black as the loaded Uzi Renaldo kept under their bed. Her mother, Renaldo’s Doberman watchdog, had mated with a much bigger mutt and he had drowned all the pups but Johanna when Gayle caught him. Cops ruled his cut throat drug-related.

Johanna had been so tiny, Gayle had to force condensed milk into her muzzle with a syringe. Then, she’d fall asleep curled up on her chest. They stayed a time with Frankie, a Desert Storm vet blinded by a sniper’s bullet clipping off the back of his skull. Gayle read him paperback thrillers and described porn videos, spied on his neighbors for him. Then, Derrick, ex-pilot, ex-minister, exterminator. He was the one who taught Gayle to shoot scorpion venom, dried and ground to a fine powder—more powerful than H.

But Gayle was always careful when Johanna was with her, never giving in to the urge to jerk the wheel going over a bridge, break through the guardrails. She even flushed her escape hatch, her nest egg of pills, the seeds to a final snowstorm.

Gayle could hear her barking. Jo knew she was near. There wouldn’t be a moon tonight and the little girl told Gayle they’d be going out. Gayle had been just as stupid with strangers at her age, thinking it was great when they rescued her from her mean mama.

Gayle would dig her up and take her home. Maybe David wouldn’t be too pissed about the truck. She hoped he wasn’t out too long after she shot the scorpion venom into his neck. If he didn’t want her to live with him anymore, she and Jo, she’d try to understand.

Evelyn Wall

Image: A dirty spade lying on the ground from Pixabay.com