Displacement

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 12/03/10

The little girl stumbled and slid as she struggled to run in the snow. Her auburn curls were wet and stringy and her petite blue-gray wool coat with the fuzzy knit collar was caked with icy mud. She frantically glanced behind her, and clutched her Jo Jo doll Maisy more tightly.

Her older brother, his eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted into a frown from anger, exertion and frustration, stomped after her. He wore an older boy’s brown pea-jacket that was too big, and striped hand-knit mittens and a matching toboggan cap. “I’m going to get that stupid doll and kill her too,” he hollered at his six-year-old sister.

“No, Ronnie, no,” she begged, her chest jumping and her eyes and nose flowing. Her galoshes didn’t fit right and she couldn’t feel her toes any longer. Her stockings were torn and bloody at both knees. They were just outside of town, and ahead was the Thurmond, West Virginia post office, closed this Sunday morning. Across from the ash-colored vertical siding of the post office building were two matching track beds of the C&O Railroad. And on the other side of the rails and ties lay the banks of the New River.

“Pearl, stop now and I’ll go easy on you,” Ronnie called, leaning over with his palms on his thighs as he coughed for a moment.

She halted, spun around, her legs shaking. She was a couple of yards from the tracks. “Don’t come any nearer, or I’ll scream,” she cried in a broken, high-pitched voice. She wrapped both her arms around Maisy, and hugged her, wiping her cheeks on the doll’s yellow molded head and golden mohair braids. As Pearl’s body trembled, Maisy’s blue eyes rolled up and down.

Ronnie straightened. “Aw, you know no one can hear you if you do. There’s hardly anyone left in this two-bit hick coal town. And Momma is working in the boarding house over yonder,” he swept his arm vaguely to the north. “She don’t care what we do, anymore. No one cares about you, Pearl.”

“Daddy cares about me, Daddy can hear me,” Pearl answered, gulping in air, her words slurred as her teeth were chattering.

“Daddy’s in the Philippines with General MacArthur, fighting the Japs.”

“Daddy sent me Maisy and made me promise to take care of her.”

“You and your stupid dolls,” Ronnie said and spat on the dirty snow. “I killed your Jeannie Walker first. Weren’t too far from here, either,” he said with a smile. “Once it was over, there weren’t nothing left of that baby but a pile of dust.” He took a step towards her and crouched as if getting ready to start a race.

The scream shot out of her mouth without her willing it to, a loud, shrill animal-like noise. She tried to back away from Ronnie’s sudden leap in her direction, but in her panic and despair and because of the coldness that stiffened her muscles, she fell to the rear, heavily.

She felt nothing. Ronnie was on top of her in an instant, yanking at Maisy, pulling off the small white shoes with the pink lacings, tearing the socks off the compact composite feet, ripping the diminutive lace and tulle smock. Pearl held on with all the strength she had left, and the brother and sister flailed in the slush and freezing muck with the doll between them.

Ronnie had his legs on top of Pearl’s shins and he pinned her left wrist to the ground with his right hand while he tugged Maisy’s legs with his left. He suddenly let go of the doll, and reared back, his knuckles closing tightly as he raised his arm high in the air. Pearl tried to avert her face, heaving, desperately attempting to escape, but Ronnie brought the fist down into the side of her head.

He leaped off of his sister, standing in triumph, waving the doll by one sculptured, jointed arm. “Got ‘er, got ‘er,” he cackled. He whooped and jumped up and down in place.

She felt a burning, stinging pain as she lolled her sight to the left and right, her arms akimbo, her legs refusing to move. She heard the distant sound of the train whistle — like the braying of a great beast trailing off to the edges of perception. She pushed herself, rolled onto her stomach. She tasted blood, and couldn’t see out of one eye. “Maisy, Maisy,” she cried. “Please, Ronnie, please don’t hurt her,” she pleaded.

Ronnie was dancing close to the tracks now. With exaggerated movements he knelt, and placed the doll so that her head lay on the rail closest to them, her rose-bud mouth facing the overcast sky, her sleep-eyes closed. One small arm was rotated upward, almost as if pointing at Ronnie. “The Allegheny is coming, it’s the biggest, heaviest steam engine in history,” he bellowed at his battered sister, laughing as he saw the look of horror on what was left of her face.

Pearl raised herself on her arms, tried to drag herself forward. “My dolly, my Maisy,” she whispered.

Ronnie stamped one of his heavy shoes, the pants cuff above it unfolding. “Don’t you come any closer or I’ll kick your teeth in,” he yelled. He wiped one of his muddy coat sleeves across his forehead, smearing more dirt there. He removed his mittens and tossed them on a mound of snow as they were sodden and refreezing into filthy stiffness. The ground was beginning to vibrate. Another blast from the train whistle seized their attention. It was close now, and loud.

Pearl stopped moving. She lay flat, her chin in the snow, her dark eyes staring ahead, her red mittens outstretched in front of her, beseeching her brother, Maisy, the scene in front of her, to change, to dissolve. The sounds of the clicking and clacking and metal-on-metal squealing and the creaking and moaning of the cars and the pressured ties underneath huge wheels, overwhelmed her mind.

Ronnie raised his bare fingers, splayed them in triumph high over his head as he stood in the middle of the tracks and watched the massive Alleghany engine bear down towards him from around a bend. He gathered himself like a coil, ready to leap away in seconds….

Pearl gasped; Ronnie’s feet flew out from under him. His shocked eyes locked on hers as he landed across the rails, his jaw cracking and then jerking back as it collided with cold metal. His ear was right next to Maisy’s, he on his belly, the doll on its back. He dug at the snow-slick gravel with the toe of one shoe, trying to give himself traction.

The Allegheny’s whistle howled now, so close that it was deafening. The ground shook. Pearl heard a horrible squeaking — the locomotive was attempting to brake. “Ronnie, Maisy….” she wailed, and then threw her face into the snow in front of her and covered her head with both her arms. She felt a hot wind, stinging sparks, as the engine surged by, unable to stop the momentum. The piercing, metallic shriek was endless.

The engineer, the brakeman, and the fireman jumped to the frosty ground beside the enormous wheels, rods, axles, and pistons, amidst billows of steam; the coal train’s engine had come to a stop several hundred feet south, almost reaching the Thurmond depot. An acrid odor permeated the crisp air. “I soaked ‘er, I soaked ‘er as best I could,” the engineer said as the men began to run, one after the other, up the tracks, their heavy shoes making thudding, sloshing sounds.

They saw the little girl lying face down in the snow. They bounded to her, halted, surrounded her. The engineer, an older man with a gray mustache, knelt on one knee and gingerly touched the child’s shoulder, “Sweetheart, are you okay?” he asked. He glanced to the tracks, noticed that trickles of rust-red were meandering towards them from the embankment, and scattered near the rails directly ahead of them were pieces of something throbbing and jelly-like that oozed yellowish pink.

The brakeman and fireman saw where the older man was looking. The brakeman took a few steps closer, paused, and rubbed his grizzled chin. “I think we hit one of ‘em,” he said calmly, his breath a haze in front of his face. “Who’s the law in these parts?”

“This is Fayette County, West Virginia … we need to get the county sheriff,” the engineer answered, returning his attention to the figure lying so still in front of him. “Sweetie,” he said again, “little girl, what’s your name? Where’s your mommy? Can you tell us who was on the tracks?”

She stirred; they heard a groan. The brakeman squatted down on the other side of the prone child and both he and the engineer carefully supported her and partially lifted her so they could see her face. The fireman, still standing, who was a younger man with young children of his own, let out a whistle when he got a glimpse of the little girl’s features. “What a beautiful child,” he said. “I hope she’s okay

The three men watched her, staring at her perfect rose-bud mouth and round, rosy cheeks as her eyelids twitched and opened fully, revealing brilliant blue eyes framed by a thick fringe of blonde lashes. “Honey,” the engineer said, “are you all right? Can you tell us what happened?”

The engineer and brakeman helped the little girl to a sitting position, and she looked up at the three men, one at a time, in turn. She brushed aside her long, golden braids and breathed deeply.

“Honey, what’s your name?” the engineer asked again, cupping her head with one of his hands.

She made a motion with both hands as if straightening her skirt and brushing it off at once, her legs stretched out straight in front of her. “My name is Maisy,” she said. “What’s yours?”