Reenie had always wanted to see Paris. In her dreams at night, she walked the old streets of the city, dressed up in floaty clothes, the smell of French perfume on the air. She told us that French perfume was just how Heaven smelt.
But instead of Paris she had High Lonesome and the cactus and the horses and the bluebonnets. She had the dry yellow grass stretching out forever and Big Daddy's longhorns grazing on the horizon. And she had us.
Sometimes Reenie took me and Lil' Ruby fishing down at the creek ‘cos Big Daddy was too busy out on the ranch to take us himself. She said, “It's good for girls to know how to do things,”
We'd head down there just when it was beginning to get dark and all the frogs had begun to sing. We'd sit down on a rock and cast our lines. The fireflies would be darting all over. If we were still enough, we could hear the rattlers moving around and shaking their tails at each other in the bushes.
I remember how one time, Lil' Ruby starting hollering and struggling with her line and Reenie had to take over and together they pulled out a real big old catfish about thirty inches long. He was flopping and struggling for dear life there on the stony bank, his mouth opening and closing, closing and opening.
Reenie said, “Kill him quick as you can, don't let him suffer!” And she tried to hand Lil' Ruby a rock but Lil' Ruby wouldn't take it, so I took it instead and I hit him right on the head, where Reenie showed me. After a moment, he stopped flopping and she said, “Now his soul's up in Heaven,”
Me and Lil' Ruby looked up to where she was pointing and I could imagine right there and then a bright column of light reaching up out of her finger, going up forever into the starry sky.
Reenie had dresses made for her and sent from Paris. She'd say, “These are the latest haute-couture fashions,” and she'd put on an exaggerated French accent just to be silly and wiggle her butt and look over her shoulder like a movie-star as she carried the parcels upstairs. Then she'd put the parcels away in the closet without even looking at them.
Me and Lil' Ruby used to play for hours inside that enormous closet. We'd sit close to each other in the dark, amongst the shoes, the handbags, the beads, the scarves, the belts, the coats, the gowns. We loved the rustle of taffeta, the coolness of silk, the soft feel of velvet and fur, the way everything smelt of perfume. We traveled the world in that closet; we were pioneer girls and we were ballerinas, we were princesses and we were movie actresses.
But now, looking back, it's the boxes I remember most of all, so many boxes, hat boxes and shoe boxes and dress boxes; suitcases and trunks and baskets stacked one on top of the other; so many things hidden and stuffed away.
2
When Lupe Maria lived with us, Reenie was happy all the time. She didn't fight with Big Daddy any more. She stopped sitting for hours on the porch bench, rocking back and forth, staring into space.
She told everyone, “Lupe Maria is more like my friend than my maid. She's so good for me. She keeps me company when Big Daddy's away, on his city trips,” She always had a certain tightness in her voice when she said, his city trips.
We used to hear Lupe Maria and Reenie giggling together a lot; Lil' Ruby and I were just happy because Reenie was happy. We'd never really known her be happy before.
Reenie has started screaming again, with no relent. There is no sense in what she screams. She screams horrible things. “I've felt so tight and confined all these years! I'm just a center of pain in a small space! There's no way out!”
There is the loud explosion of a bullet, going through the ceiling, in the next room.
Lil' Ruby whispers next to me in the closet, “Angry Reenie's back again.”
I'm standing in Reenie's room, very still and quiet, watching the white lace curtains blowing in the sunny breeze. Lil' Ruby is outside, swinging on the rope swing. I hear stifled giggles coming from inside the closet.
I run outside to join Lil' Ruby. She says, “Where's Reenie-Mama?”
And I say, “She's with Lupe Maria. I think they're playing princesses or something. Let's leave them be.”
Things got real bad after Big Daddy sent Lupe Maria away. We never understood why he did; none of the grown-ups would talk to us about it. But Angry Reenie was round a whole lot more after that.
When Angry Reenie surfaced she'd kick and scream like a demon. It was a terrible thing, like a two-headed rattler fighting and biting itself. She'd run around the house with her six-shooter in her hand and we'd all do our best to keep out of her way. If she saw us, she'd say mean and horrible things, “You ugly stupid little girls! I know you both hate me! And I hate you both!” There'd be no trace of Nice Reenie left at all. Her eyes would be darting and flashing; there was no way to calm her down.
We never really understood why she got into those states; Big Daddy just said things that made her real mad, I guess. But, also I think she just felt safer with the hell-raising spirit inside of her rather than out.
After a while, when she'd stopped lashing out at everyone else, she'd hide in her closet, alone. She'd cry and cry and cry and say, “I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry,” over and over again.
One time, Lil' Ruby said to me, “I think Angry Reenie lives in that closet, that's why she's always trying to get Nice Reenie to sit in there.”
We've never really known why she picked that one particular day to do it, except that perhaps she knew Big Daddy was coming home from his trip that night. We got home from school a little late that day. Lil' Ruby went in the house ahead of me. I was still taking off my shoes on the porch when I heard Lil' Ruby start hollering.
I found her standing in Reenie's bedroom just hollering and hollering. It was almost as though there wasn't any real emotion in her hollering; she was just raising an alarm. She looked kinda pretty standing there, her fists clenched, her mouth wide open; the curtains blowing a little in the breeze; the dappled light shining her hair golden. I could see her reflection in the dresser mirror; I remember real well even now how Lupe Maria's paper flowers looked in their vase, so bright and pretty.
Lil' Ruby stopped hollering and said, “Angry Reenie's gone and killed Nice Reenie.”
She was in the closet with her six-shooter pistol still smoking in her limp hand. Her head was resting on her shoulder, her features all dropped away, the expression gone. Her skin had turned kinda grey and waxy and there was blood and gooey stuff everywhere, all over the haute couture, the boxes, the shoes, everything.
Seeing all that blood, I knew just how Reenie's soul had been feeling; like it was bleeding, like it'd been slowly bleeding for years and years.
3
All that night, we could see her spirit swirling round the house like a tumbleweed out in a storm.
Big Daddy was real angry. He paced the house real fast, his big boots clipping and clapping on the wood floors. “That bitch, how could she do this? That bitch from hell! She knew this would really piss me off!” We'd never heard him curse before like that in front of us.
Lil' Ruby was crying more ‘cos Big Daddy was yelling and cursing than anything else. Suddenly, he stopped and looked at us, all curled up and crying together in bed, Miss Yella Dog in with us too, the only time she'd ever been allowed. His whole mood changed; he got sort of tender and he sat on the edge of the bed and he stroked Lil' Ruby's hair. He said, “Sssh, now Honey, Reenie-Mama's up in Heaven now,”
But Lil' Ruby said, “No she's not, she's right here swirling around the room,”
Reenie's spirit stopped swirling then, as though she'd just remembered about Lil' Ruby too. Maybe she could see the pain on Lil' Ruby's face. I don't know if her spirit was capable of caring about us. I think even before she pulled the trigger she was too far-gone and miserable to care about anyone anymore.
But anyways you could see Reenie's spirit, right there, hovering, above the bed, like a cloud of dark dust. Miss Yella Dog was staring into space and was thumping her tail slow.
Everybody knew that Lil' Ruby would be the saddest of all; we didn't know how she going to get to sleep at night without Reenie to tuck her in and kiss her. I don't think she really understood at all, because she asked me, “Will Reenie-Mama be back soon?”
And I said, “No Honey, but you can sleep with me from now on.” My voice came out sounding just like Reenie's; it seemed to make Lil' Ruby feel a bit better.
Lil' Ruby said, “Reenie's feeling worse than ever now that she's gone and killed herself and she can't talk to us no more. She really wishes she hadn't done it. She says it's all Angry Reenie's fault,”
Then she ran out the front door and jumped on the rope swing and she started swinging higher and higher. Her cheeks got very red and her face looked kinda crazy, not really happy at all like a little girl's face should be. I looked up to the big blue sky where she was throwing herself to over and over.
I thought, ‘Maybe we don't die, we just move up to the next level.' But then I thought of the way Reenie had blasted herself all to hell. The way she'd gone about dying, she must surely have moved down several levels to a place even deeper than death.
4
Everyone said it was just because Lil' Ruby was traumatized from what had happened, it was no wonder, poor little thing. Her eyes were all sunk up towards the top of her head like half-moons; you could see the whites underneath them. She didn't want to go out in the sun any more. She was afraid of closets now, and boxes, and drawers, anything which had a lid or a door and could be closed.
Late one night I found Lil' Ruby wandering by herself around the house. She seemed like someone who was lost. I could see her small face in the moonlight; she looked all confused and afraid. She was rubbing her eyes with her little fists; I'm not even sure if she was really awake. She said, “Angry Reenie wants me to drink bourbon, but I don't want to,”
I knew right away what was going on. I looked out side at the darkness. I knew the pioneers had faced much worse. “Come on,” I said, “We're going to send Reenie away.”
Lil' Ruby's teeth were chattering although it wasn't cold and she said, “Where we going? I don't want to go anywhere,”
But I said, “Quit your crying!” which was just how Reenie would have said it and I dragged her along by her hand until we got to the creek. I was glad that Miss Yella Dog was with us, because it was pretty dark and scary and I hadn't thought to bring a flashlight. There was a lot of racket down there, what with all the bullfrogs and the cicadas and the rattlers.
When we got to the edge of the creek, I bent down to the water and scooped some up with my hands. It had a lot of moon light in it and it smelt like fish and deep-down things. I threw the water onto Lil' Ruby's forehead and said, “Spiritus sanctus,” which was the only thing I could think of to say.
She said, “What you do that for?” I took my gold cross that I'd been given when I graduated second grade off from round my neck and I started waving it in front of her face and she was giggling and clutching her arms around herself and shivering, “What you doing?”
“This is serious, you gotta send Reenie up into the light, you tell her to git going up towards the light!”
“But isn't that mean to send Reenie away? Perhaps she doesn't want to go,”
I started getting kind of cross with her then and shaking her shoulders but really it was Reenie's spirit that I was trying to get through to. I was getting madder and madder and so was Lil' Ruby; she was trying to get away from me. She was twisting her body and jerking herself around and she looked kinda insane, I'd never really seen her act like that before. It was just how Reenie used to act sometimes when she was struggling to get away from Big Daddy and create havoc around the place.
“You gotta go! Git going up to the light!” I said and I slapped Lil' Ruby across the face, which is something I had never done before.
Lil' Ruby stopped struggling and she started sobbing instead. She said, “I miss Reenie-Mama so much,”
And I said, “I do too,” and I remembered the way she'd looked in the closet and I started sobbing too. “But you gotta send her up to the light, you gotta send her up to the light,” I kept saying that over and over through my tears.
Right there and then I think Reenie must have just decided on her own to go; that would be just like her to wait until she was the one deciding things. All of sudden Lil' Ruby let out a big exhale of air like she was a tire bursting and whoosh both me and her felt it, there was a gust of wind and we saw a burst of silver ripples on the surface of the creek. Miss Yella's nose was up in the air, twitching.
I thought, for just a moment, I could smell French perfume.