Virginia: Part 2

The Property Line

This week’s essay picks up where we left off in Virginia: Part 1, "The Feral Child." If you haven't read that yet, go on back and give it a quick look—if you have, you may remember I was having a conversation with a little girl of unknown provenance who kept me company while I set up the Scamp in an overgrown campsite late one afternoon. Here’s where we stopped:

I scooted back out and plunked down on my butt in the dust. She plunked down next to me. She looked at me, put her knees akimbo, like mine; she looked at me again, put her elbows on her knees. We sat leaning like that, dirty, hair tangled, covered in weeds.

"Where's your mama?" I finally asked.

"She's crying," she said, unconcerned, picking a scab on her knee.

I nodded. "Maybe we go check on her in a little."

"Maybe," she said. She got the scab off and itched her leg. "I'm feral," she said.

"Good word," I said. I lifted my face to the slight breeze stirring the Queen Anne's lace. "Me too."

A screen door slammed. I turned toward the sound.

A young woman with drug store dyed red hair stormed out of the trailer and across the field, hollering, wearing nothing but a black lace slip, the kind you can only get at Goodwill.

From the other direction, a man's voice rang out like a shot. You know the sound. It had the little girl on her feet almost faster than me, but not quite. I swept her up and ran for the camper as she wriggled like an eel and screamed, He better leave my mom alone! Tell him he's gonna have to deal with me!

I stuffed her in the Scamp, shut the door, and turned to find myself between a barely dressed girl of maybe 25, face muddied with mascara streaks, and a red-faced man crouched and pounding the dust with his fist, screaming, This is mine, you hear? Mine!

I watched him trace a line in the dust with the forefinger of his left hand, a pistol in his right. 

He lifted his face, head shaking with rage, and saw me standing there, between him and the girl in the slip. 

He rose slowly, stiffly, to his feet. He looked me up and down. He turned his head and spat.

Then he asked me, Who the fuck are you?

The Property Line

The man was to my right, as was his wife—I hadn't noticed her at first. The couple was into their 50s, not yet in their 60s; both had the bodies and faces and carriage of people on whom life has been hard. It's a manner, a way people have that always makes me think of beat-up boots. They're ruined and rough and it hardly matters; it'll have to do. 

The property owner's wife hung back, a few steps behind him, one arm crossed across her waist, the elbow of her other resting on her wrist. Her free hand held a thin cigarette, a Virginia Slim or what have you, the kind I haven't seen anyone actually smoke in ages. Her shoulders were just slightly lifted and bent forward, the way you might hold yourself if you had an injured shoulder, or if you held yourself braced like that all the time. 

The girl in the cheap black slip—she looked to be about 25—was to my left. They stood some distance apart. I was roughly equidistant between the couple and the girl, standing with my back to the Scamp, watching the argument take shape. 

Before I could respond to the man's question, the girl yelled at him, That's my friend. She has every right to be here. She's a guest.

The man's eyes looked about ready to pop out of his head. He started in again, hollering, Like hell she does—

Right behind him, I watched his wife flinch. Her right shoulder crept up just a little more, and curved in. She ashed and ashed her Virginia Slim. It wasn't lit.

I watched his face and his hands. 

---

I should clarify something.

Traveling this way engenders a specific type of awareness—not greater or lesser, not better or worse, just a very specific kind, a habit of gathering all available information, all the time, not for any specific purpose but just in case. Everywhere I go, every sense I have is turned outward like an incessantly open eye, gathering without discrimination, consuming everything it can. It's not dissimilar from the type of awareness that women are trained to have almost from birth; it's different in degree rather than kind.

This awareness is perhaps slightly more acute; it’s more constant, in that I do not have to turn it off and on depending on circumstance. It stays on. It’s instinctual, preverbal, feels almost animal sometimes. I'm aware of the currents that run between people, their tone, their electrical charge, their force and their nature, their potential risk. I'm aware of everyone I see, and of exactly how close they are to me. I'm aware of a slightly turned head or the narrowing of an eye, a type of boot or hat, the closeness or lack of a shave; when I feel uneasy or easy, I know why. I'm aware of every vehicle that goes by; I clock the plates of every car that goes by twice. I record details without noticing I'm filing them away in some corner of my mind: addresses, makes and models, the man who wore dog tags and the one who wore a pendant of Saint Jude, every flag and every lawn sign that suggests that I or anyone else might be less than welcome in those parts, the way people look or do not look at me, the way people speak or don't speak, the expressions, the turns of phrase, the way people hold themselves, the way they stand, because when you are a stranger everywhere, you are always on someone else's turf, and when you are on someone else's turf, you are never unaware that you are the stranger here.

So when I say the man held a pistol, and I say that he was screaming, and I say the girl was young and poor and wearing nothing but a slip, and I say this man's wife held her shoulders in a way that suggested she had reason to stand ready at all times to guard her face, when I use the words rage and terror and fear, I am not being hyperbolic; I am stating the facts.

What I do with those facts depends on where I am, how strange a stranger in how strange a land.

---

The man hollered, How you gone stand there say to my face some bitch I ain't know from Adam got the right to set down on my land—

It ain't your land! the girl screamed, leaning her body toward him, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She ain't ON your land! Barefoot, in her cheap black slip, she marched over to the side of the road and pointed with her toe to a spot in the dust. Your property line right HERE! 

New tears welled up in her eyes and she crossed her arms over herself, remembering she wasn't wearing a bra.

Close nuff to mine, he screamed. YOU ain't got no right to be here! Who tole you you could set down there? Who you payin rent to? You know you ain't paid nobody to put your broke down trash trailer in that field! County know you setting there? Child protection know you there? You got a mailing address? Huh? You payin taxes? You payin county fees?

The girl sobbed. The man's wife looked at her feet in rhinestone flipflops and ashed her unlit Virginia Slim.

Behind me, I heard the muffled sound of the feral child trying to figure out how to open the Scamp's door. 

---

This is the equation: every situation is an if/then proposition. If I stop at a rest stop late at night and the women's bathroom is locked or someone is cleaning the bathroom, then I get back in the car and wait. If I pull off the freeway in a remote area to catch a little sleep at the gas station just off the exit and I only see one truck in the lot, then I pull back on the freeway and drive on to a lot that's busier and better lit. If, while letting Zeke romp through the side-of-the-road weeds at any time of day or night, as I walk and slowly rotate my body to keep an eye on my surroundings, I see headlights turning off or on, or I hear a vehicle nearing or slowing, or I see a figure pause in their own forward motion for any reason, then I scoop Zeke up and head for the truck as I unclip my keys from my belt loop and calculate the distance between myself and the item of note—headlights, vehicle, figure that's paused—just in case.

I carry the knives for no real reason; I have them just in case.

I carry the one on my belt just in case the one in my purse can't be reached.

I carry the one in my boot just in case I can't get at the one on my belt.

I carry the one on a string around my neck just in case I don't have use of my hands and need to get at one with my teeth.

I pulled into a Texas rest stop on I-40 heading east late one night last week. On my way in to wash up, I passed a sign that said WATCH FOR SNAKES. THEY'RE WATCHING YOU.

---

The man turned on me, stabbed the air with his finger, and shouted, I've got this all on video. I've got your plates. 

I shoved off the Scamp, where I'd been leaning, and walked over to where he and his wife stood. I'm sorry, sir, I said. I don't think I understand the situation. I stopped when I was within normal speaking distance. You have what on video? 

He faltered for a split second, then said, This whole thing. I have your licence plates.

Yes sir, I heard you. I'm just not quite sure why you need my plates.

His wife had taken a few steps closer. She caught my eye, looking at me almost pleadingly, half-smiling, the sort of look women pass between each other when they're apologizing for drunk or raging men they can't shut the fuck up. The sort of look that says, Oh my lord, this man. I'll just get him home. Y'all have a nice day. 

You're parked illegally, he said.

I looked back at the Scamp. No sir, I said. I'm well onto the shoulder, I believe. 

To my right, the field extended half an acre past where we stood; beyond that was a dirt drive that led to a gleaming white mobile home set up on concrete blocks.

Is this your property, sir? I asked. Where I'm standing? 

He glanced up at the girl behind me. Well, it ain't her—

Yes sir, I said, is it yours? Is what I'm asking. 

He looked ready to kill me. 

I didn't think he would; he had no cause, and anyway I wasn't the target of his wrath. The girl was. I was just in the way.

---

If he raised his voice again, I could raise mine.

If he stepped toward me.

If he tried to get past me.

If the feral child figured out how to open the door, busted out of the Scamp, started screaming bloody murder and ran at the man, then.

Then.

What then?

If he had holstered his pistol, I wouldn't have kept a hand on mine.

---

I looked past the man at his wife. She gestured weakly with her cigarette, murmuring something inaudible the way you do, Everything's fine, let's just forget all about this, we'll just get on home. 

His mouth was sealed so tight I couldn't have pried his teeth open with a crowbar. I watched the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench, clench and unclench.

He waved behind himself as if throwing something away. All that, he said. That's mine.

Beautiful place, I said. And can you just tell me, where's the property line? 

Reflexively, he took a half-step back. Runs right about here, he said, gesturing to right in front of his feet, at least 20 feet away from the Scamp. 

I heard a tiny muffled pounding on the inside of the Scamp's door. 

I said, Then I guess we're all right.

I could feel the tangle of electrical currents that ran everywhichway between us, the softness of the girl's sorrow and the sharpness of her fear, the vortex of desperation that pulled at me from this man's wife, the muted fury of a child behind a door she couldn't figure out how to get open. And his rage: there was nothing to do with his rage but absorb it by stepping between him and the girl who'd found a little corner of the world in which to wedge herself, some small patch of earth on which to fit herself and her child that wasn't hers, but also wasn't quite his.

I turned toward the girl, put my hand on her shoulder, and walked her toward the Scamp.

The man called out, She just been giving us all kind of troub—

I ain't give you no trouble at'all, the girl shot back.

I opened the Scamp's door and she climbed in. I looked over at the man and his wife.

Y'all have a good night, I said, and climbed in after her and shut the door. 

---

Everywhere I go, someone takes it upon themselves to let me know just how unsafe it is for a woman to travel alone.

Last week, as the boy from Mississippi sat on the ground behind my truck and tried to rewire the tow plug on the Scamp, a gentleman from the campsite next to mine ambled over, bent down to look at what the kid was doing, pointed at this or that, asked a couple questions, said something about how he used to build cars, then drifted over to stand next to me. We chatted awhile; he went to Nam, fought in the Tet Offensive, he and his wife had been married 43 years, couple of daughters, couple of grandkids, the slide-outs on his trailer were giving him trouble, his Silverado got beans for mileage, how did I like my 1500, great mileage for a truck that size, what did the Scamp weigh dry, and I must be traveling with a friend?

No, I said, I wasn't.

He looked confused. You traveling with your husband, then?

No sir, I said. I travel alone.

You gotta be careful about that, he said, genuinely alarmed. A woman traveling alone, that's risky. You gotta be very aware.

I nodded and assured him that I was aware.

The god's truth is this: I cannot think of the last time I feared for my own physical safety.

That's not to say I haven't felt fear—I feel fear here and there, though it's usually fear's echo, prompted by memory or memory's reminder, not immediate fact. I feel fear for other people, people who are experiencing violence or are under threat. I feel the ordinary human fears, the what-ifs, the worries, the heart-pounding violent jolt awake from a dream. I feel emotional fear more often than I'd like, and for that reason I steer well clear of situations that disturb my peace of mind, disrupt the quiet and privacy I prefer, threaten my sovereignty over my life. It's not even to say my safety hasn't been at risk; maybe it has. It's simply that a few things allow me to feel secure enough in my physical person—and the acute awareness I mentioned before is one of those things—that I rarely have reason to feel physically unsafe.  

Most times, safety isn’t really really contingent upon one's gender or the presence of a companion so much as it is contingent upon the perception of a person’s right to be where they are, to stand where they stand, to exist in a given place. Absent that right, or the perception of that right, there is no guarantee of safety; once someone believes or decides that you aren't supposed to be there, all bets are off.

The kids from Mississippi driving a broken-down cargo van with nowhere to go—they weren't safe. The girl in the collapsing trailer who was squatting just past the edge of a stranger's land—she wasn't safe. What keeps me safe isn't a man, and it isn't a weapon, and it isn't the ability to defend myself should need arise; it's the fact that I own the Scamp and the truck, that both of them work, that I have the means, most days, to pay for a campsite, and when I don't, I have support enough to scrounge up cash to pay for gas to get somewhere where I can legally park my property, climb in, and lock the door.

My safety is secured, sometimes, by my ability to get my hands on $25. Once I have that, I can get to a place where I am perceived to have the right to be where I am. I am afforded the right to sleep where I've stopped, and no one will knock.  

There are nights, I'll tell you, when that doesn't feel like quite enough.

But even those nights, when the floodlights that illuminate the truck stop or gas station or travel plaza or rest area are bright enough to read a book by at 3 a.m., bright enough that I shade my eyes while walking the gauntlet of a dozen or two dozen idling semis past past that many drivers, any one of whom might trouble me but none of whom ever has or ever will, not just because every other driver is watching but because that's not the code of the road and they’ve got more important things on their mind, on those nights, the right to be left alone and the certainty that I am safe enough to take off my shoes if not my belt and lie down in my bed with my dog and cross my arms and drift off into a shallow, floodlit sleep is a luxury of which I am always aware.

---

As I've sat here with my notes from that day in Virginia, trying to find a doorway into the story, a way to explain what happened and why it stayed with me, a way to tell you what time has done to shape my understanding of this young woman and her child, whether to clarify or blur, to smudge some details and draw others into sharp relief, and what 70,000 miles of American road and the countless paths I've crossed and the people who've walked them have shown me about where any of us stand, and according to whose laws, and by what right, I have no better explanation for why a young woman half my age had already lost her footing so completely that she'd tumbled out of the agreed-upon social structures, fallen through a safety net that's made of holes, and landed in a rotting trailer where she was hiding with her child and no running water just past the edge of a stranger's land.

I locked the Scamp door behind me. The girl was sitting at the dinette, still in tears. Her child was sitting on the floor, arranging my plastic dishware in a wobbly stack.

The young woman tried to smile. You want to come down to the river with us tomorrow?

Sure, I said. I tore a paper towel off and handed it to her. That'd be nice.

The girl nodded and wiped her face.

Not looking up from her work, the little girl said ferociously, Next time he decides to bother us, he's gonna have to deal with me.

The plastic cups toppled. Her tiny shoulders slumped.

She sighed, and started stacking them again.

Meet me back here next week for Part 3: The River.