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Georgetown Journeys: The Path Made Straight
Georgetown Journeys: The Path Made Straight
Georgetown Journeys: The Path Made Straight
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Georgetown Journeys: The Path Made Straight

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that elite part of washington,d.c., called georgetown has provided the public with glimses of beautifully coffed women and men with silk ties. the press spins intimate stories of famous writers who make clever remarks, of noted people whose words are considered as gospel - gospel, of course, in the modern sense of the word. then there are the vicarious ones who cling to their sightings of famous people, who hear stories of parties in the next block. their oxygen, their life blood, comes from lving near the power brokers.
but this story is not about pedigrees or even hangers-on. it is about a girl toughened up early in life, arriving in washington with a fighting spirit, wanting to grab some safety and love before her chances are gone. it is also about her counterpart. he's a believer in the good, in god, in love. jackie, the girl, finds a hostess job in a restaurant in georgetown, biding her time as she looks for the man who will save her. danny,a clergyman, presides over a church that is falling apart and marries the love of his life.
the lives of jackie and danny barely intersect in the coming decades as they struggle to fulfill their dreams, only to find that all has eluded them. as they age, their loneliness increases as well as their alienation from the world around them.
finally, they end up accidentally at the washington cathedral just above georgetown, in the vast, empty nave, pouring out their hearts to each other.
the next day their obitiuaries are joined in the newspaper, as the press tries to search out some relationship between the two. Their existence on this earth has ended.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 27, 2012
ISBN9781301410170
Georgetown Journeys: The Path Made Straight
Author

Cynthia Hearne Darling

Cynthia Hearne Darling has a BA in English from the College of William and Mary and masters' degrees in social work and public administration. She recieved a poetry award in Fairfax County, Virginia, for her poem Mississippi Mother.She spent years writing family histories of patients in the mental hospital where she worked as a social worker. Give her Shakespeare, the opera and some good crossword puzzles and she'll be content. She is the author of Forty-Nine Poems, Shunned, a novel, and is finishing a story about Georgetown, D.C., in the sixties. She has worked on Indian reservations and the U.S. Department of Justice. She prefers the reservations.

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    Georgetown Journeys - Cynthia Hearne Darling

    PART 1

    CHAPTER I

    Dottie Sue was too old to suck her thumb, but she felt comforted feeling the little pink digit that fit into her mouth so perfectly. At this moment she was lying on the floor under the table of the booth where Mom and Aunt Misty sat across from each other while they nursed their beer cans. When Mom and Misty drank, a magic power came over them, making Dottie Sue disappear. When they were sober, it was a different matter; they talked openly about her, looking straight at her as if she were one of the actresses inside the TV set, who could be seen but couldn't hear them. They talked about her shyness, her blonde hair that never curled, even her stupidity, which was ironic, because neither of them could really see anything past the beer cans in front of their noses.

    From an early age, Dottie sensed that she too had powers of her own. She didn’t know how she did it, but she could will herself away from Mom and Auntie without the magic of alcohol. That was how it came about that, when the two so-called adults went into their own world in the tavern, she would slide her own frail body off the seat and onto the floor peppered with cellophane bits and emanating a fetid odor of a malty-yeast kind, almost like vomit. Dottie didn’t notice. Down she went, accompanied by her terry cloth lamb, always by her side. She could make herself disappear back home in the trailer, too.

    Today she lay there curled up, thumb in mouth, four years old, the youngest creature to inhabit the tavern since old Mr. Boone used to bring his dog Spotty in to sit by his side. But Mr. Boone had died, so Spotty didn't get to come any more. Dottie cradled her very bedraggled terry-cloth lamb given to her by a kind hospital nurse at the clinic where it had been lying on top of a box of toys donated by a church. At the clinic that day, she had kept looking at it, not asking for it, just looking, until the nurse put it into her hands. She named it Buffalo Bill, for the nicest man on television she had ever seen in her life. She didn’t know any nice men in the real world.

    Later on in her life she wondered why this scene in the tavern was one of her first memories. Perhaps, in a rare moment of introspection, she thought that it had been better to be invisible and not have to communicate with anyone than to be exposed to pain. When no one could see her, she could do what she wanted and not risk the chance of getting hurt. In her later life, she found other ways, even cleverer ways, to protect herself from pain.

    But back to the tavern. If she had been older, she might have noticed the rank smell rising up from the carpet that covered the whole floor of the drinking establishment. It had once been a bright brown and green, this carpet, but after years of French fries, spilt beer and the detritus of hundreds of shoes, it was now a mud color that defied definition in the color charts. Each bruised and bent fiber of the rug held its own particular pocket of smells; especially strong was a sauerkraut kind of odor clinging onto the faint reeks of tobacco that had fallen to the floor years ago. But, to Dottie it was just what it was, a place to hide and not be seen.

    Today, lying on the floor with her head on Mr. Buffalo Bill, she listened to the two women, took it all in and kept quiet. Misty was talking. She had drunk three beers, and her innate personality was creeping out of its cocoon, exposing itself to her sister, her mentor. But this emerging personality did not come out as a thing of beauty. It was more of a bedraggled rose called out from its bed in the dead of winter.

    Sistah, it just seems like I can't get anywhere. You know I'm nice lookin’ —she looked coyly toward the bar where a big man with a crew cut was slugging down a cold beer after a hard day at work. He was more interested in the drink than in looking at her. She smoothed her blonde pompadour anyway.

    Turning back to her sister, she continued. Lord knows I don't want much: a nice man, an ‘88 Olds, some good times - but nothin' ever comes my way that lasts: Sistah, or Carol Jean, aka Dottie Sue's mom, had also pounded down three beers, revealing her own personality, full of inner aggressions. Put in an avian way, she became more of a red-necked vulture when drunk, her wattle and beak hitting out at its target as long as it looked like food.

    Her voice now carried stridently into the room.

    Misty, I've told you a thousand times, you just don't carry yourself right. No man's gonna baby you all your life. Get some ramrod in your spine! Carol Jean liked to use words like ‘ramrod' when she was drinking. Misty didn't have a clue what a ramrod was, but she would go around telling people, That Carol Jean is so smart. There isn't nobody in this corner of Tennessee who knows so many words as she does. It never occurred to Misty that Carol Jean didn’t have a man around anymore than she did, in spite of her fondness for her ramrod philosophy.

    Honky-tonk music suddenly filled the smoky air. The bartender had reached down to turn on the transistor radio under the bar that was set to the local country music station. It was getting on toward supper time, and he performed this duty every evening, except Sunday when they were closed up tight. Somehow, Dottie had sensed that it was time to eat. She kicked her long legs out toward Mom's under the table.

    Mom frowned but kept on haranguing Misty as she picked up her packet of pork rinds, flicking it down to Dottie with her finger. It was an idle gesture, involving little energy or attention on her part. Dottie grabbed the packet silently, opened it with her teeth, giving the first piece of rind to Mr. Buffalo Bill who lay smiling, looking up toward the gum under Mom’s seat.

    In about twenty minutes, as the place was filling up with tired workers climbing out of pick-ups, the three left the bar. Some of the men smiled at Dottie Sue as Misty and Mom dragged her through the tavern, her straight, straggly hair flying behind her and her long legs gangling like a new-born foal. Misty frowned.

    I declare. That girl gets more compliments than you can shake a stick at. Some men, really!

    Mom grabbed Dottie by the hand while the little girl clung onto Mr. Buffalo Bill with the other hand.

    C’mon. Don’t play those cute tricks in here, Dottie Sue. It ain’t gonna get you nowhere in the long run.

    Misty, hurrying along behind them, laughed. "You sure as little green apples are right about

    that!"

    The three left for home in Carol Jean’s car, the exhaust sputtering behind them.

    CHAPTER II

    Dottie managed to grow up in the tough soil into which she was planted. Her outer shell hardened as she learned the survival skills she needed, so it wasn’t surprising that during the next fast-flying years she picked up the talent of being an eavesdropper. It gave her some access to the community of Claypool, whose inhabitants had definite ideas about the world around them. They didn’t often reveal them to the outside world, but spoke of them only to the people they knew. The outside world was too interested in itself to care anyway. Dottie, unlike Mom and Misty who were sliding downhill on the precarious road of life with every aging year, was quick to learn. She soaked up what she heard people say like a very dry sponge, herself saying nothing. By the age of ten, she was spending a lot of time in fast food restaurants after school, sitting on the hard seats, while she listened to those in the booth behind her.

    One particular day, while she was eating a quarter-pounder before going home from school, she stayed very quiet while an older couple behind her talked. They were speaking about the city that lay over a hundred miles away from Claypool. At ten years old, this was the first time Dottie Sue had heard a conversation about a place out of her reach. She never paid much attention in school to classes like social studies; she had never thought of those places as in the real world. But this was different. These were real people.

    The old woman was harder to hear than the old man who sat across from his wife.

    Honey, I got to do it. The doctor said I had to.

    The old man didn’t answer for a few seconds.

    May, you know what they do over there in that city. We’ve known a lot of people over the years who just go over there and they don’t come back. It’s a death trap.

    Dottie could hear the woman crying now, sounding as if she were trying to muffle her voice.

    He says it’s all I can do, all that’s left to me if I want to get well. You can come with me, please, honey. We’ll work something out. We can.

    God forsaken cities. That’s what they is. God forsaken. He looked around, got up and took

    her arm.

    Let’s go to the car. No use to hash it out in here.

    He looked at Dottie who appeared to be reading her place mat.

    After they had gone, Dottie sat there a moment, thinking. How big was a city, she wondered.

    That family in the trailer next to them – they had to go there, and Mom said they had lost a baby. How do babies get lost in a city? But at ten years old, Dottie had thrust such things to the back of her mind quickly.

    She was having an imaginary conversation with Mom, who was saying to her,

    Dottie, you’re gonna get the devil when you get home. Eat those French fries now. It took good money to get those for you.

    The big city was gone from her mind like a puff of smoke, as she stuffed the cold French fries into her mouth.

    It would be fair to say that there were many life-giving gifts in Dottie’s home town, and very few of the inhabitants thought of leaving as long as they had jobs and the comfort of relatives and home town cooking. Besides, Claypool bloomed with flowers in spring and summer and boasted big pots of homemade soup in the winter. Barbecue was their specialty, and there was never a time when, somewhere in town, one couldn’t smell the pungent aroma of vinegar and hot sauce. And there were the hills. Almost every house was built on purpose to have some kind of window that looked out on the hills not so far away. The people were polite, too; they spoke to each other when they met on Main Street, asking about each other’s health. Many were related, and even if they weren’t, they called each other cousin out of respect.

    But even the most desirable of towns contain people who do not share in its blessings for one reason or another. Dottie’s family seemed born for that role. Nobody could remember when they took on the position of outcast; nobody knew if this were due to religion, stupidity or even sheer orneriness, and by now, nobody really cared. Theirs was a self-perpetuating existence that ran on like a snowball going downhill, getting bigger with each roll it made. Once in a blue moon someone in town would remark that it was funny that the Claypool Shelbys were poor white trash when there were so many good Shelbys throughout the state.

    The Claypool Shelbys had another distinction in terms of anthropology. Their family named was carried down from mother to mother, for the simple reason that the men never stayed around very long to claim their offspring. The Shelby women had made it a habit to be pollinated by whatever bees happened to be buzzing around at the moment.

    One might wonder if Dottie Sue ever asked about her father, even his name, but she didn’t.

    Mom was no help either, for she only talked about men in general terms, like whether they were rich or good looking or what cars they drove. It was almost as if they were another species that had only one function for them – hit or miss impregnation. In a way, Misty and Carol Jean thought of men as an exotic, almost foreign class of humanity.

    When Dottie came home from kindergarten on her first day, she told Mom that one girl’s daddy had picked her up after school. Sensing Mom’s reaction to the word ‘daddy,’ she never used the word again, thinking somehow it was bad.

    As Dottie Sue got older, Misty and Carol Jean Shelby kept sliding down the road of obscurity, while Dottie Sue, like the zombies in horror movies, trod through school, even making it into high school. She still felt separated from others, but she was so used to it by now that it didn’t seem to bother her. Students unknowingly helped with this separation, for they had a way of either not looking at her or seeing right through her. Some days she would pretend she was Caspar the friendly ghost whom nobody could see. But Caspar could only last so long in high school.

    It was at fourteen that she discovered movie magazines, voluptuous stars smiling, stretched out in chairs by their swimming pools with trays of drinks held by waiters and men watching their every move. They were always living in places with palm trees, where it was always warm.

    Warm and happy, she thought to herself. Whatever that warm thing was, she knew she had never felt it. For a brief moment, she wondered if these magazines made this stuff up. No use thinking about that.

    Once, sometime later, when she saw on TV the old movie with Spencer Tracey called Father of the Bride she simply couldn’t understand how a man could be so intimately involved in his daughter’s life. It seemed to her, well, almost against the law, she thought. In her movie magazine fantasy land, though, she briefly experimented with the dream that a rich man from Hollywood would call her one day at home in the trailer and tell her he was her father. He would say that this was only meant for her ears, because her mother was only a slut. He would start to send money to Dottie Sue every month inside of long letters to her. This fantasy was short-lived; it was too unbelievable even for Hollywood, she said to herself.

    A bigger realization had come to her attention at this age: She had recently noticed the allure that the right clothes had on the right body, on girls no more attractive than she was. She watched it in high school hallways as well as in the movie magazines. These girls were getting all the things they wanted. But this power couldn’t come only from the right clothes and the right looks, could it? There had to be more than that, she said to herself. Maybe their mothers taught them secrets for success; maybe they passed these secrets down to their daughters. Well, she couldn’t have that, but she could make her own power, couldn’t she?

    She looked at her image in the bathroom mirror and suddenly was transfixed by this new concept of hers, just as much as any scientist who discovers something he has not known before. Only, in her case, it was more like Dolly Parton arriving in Claypool and teaching Dottie the secret of being beautiful.

    Those people by the pools in Hollywood, she said to herself, they have perfect noses and their hair just shines. I never see a single ugly person in any of those pictures. What I wouldn’t give for all that they’ve got, even if they’re a lot older than me.

    It was then that she was hit by the astonishing discovery that she herself had the looks, and that there wasn’t anything Mom or Misty could do to take it away from her, no matter how much they wanted it for themselves. She didn’t have the capacity to analyze her beauty further at this age. Others cleverer and older might have told her that her beauty was the kind that matched the ideals of the time. She had the small nose of Sandra Dee, the long legs of a Miss America, and the popular blond hair that was her own. But almost no one could have told her that what she lacked was an inner spark that was missing, perhaps due to some sort of faulty connection in the way she was wired or to something her mom had never bothered to give her. By the standards of the little town, she was never going to be chosen to be the vivacious cheerleader or the smiling prom queen, nothing but a genetic anomaly of an inferior family. Looking at her image in the mirror, she actually spoke aloud.

    I could be somebody else, I could if those movie stars could. I could be famous, have cute men buy me drinks.

    She allowed herself to smile one of those big smiles like those women had. She looked away from the mirror; it was almost much too much to comprehend.

    Men like those big-time ones in the magazines, they can help. Mom says men are no good, but when did I ever believe her, anyway? I’d better get my own act together, figure some things out for myself. Nobody else is ever going to do it for me.

    From that time on, Dottie poured more attention than ever onto the magazines, checking the kind of clothes the women wore. She saw that the outfits always seemed sexy and must have cost a lot of money. How could she ever get those kinds of things, the jewelry, the high heels?

    Shut up, stupid, she said to herself, just like Mom had said to her before. I’ve got the looks; now I need to get the rest.

    After staring at herself in the mirror from all angles, she went to bed that night, her thoughts whirling. Then a spark hit her just before dawn, as she was awaking from a dream. The other night on the TV she had been watching a star who had made it to the big time. She spoke sexily to the talk show host, who leaned toward her as if he couldn’t help himself.

    In a low, sultry voice, she confessed to the host, I have to tell you a little secret.

    She moved closer to him. Sometimes I write down what I really want, you know? He nodded eagerly.

    And then – oh, you’re going to laugh at me—He denied it quickly—she went on. I make a list of all the things I have to do to get what I want. She was almost whispering now. It was as if Dottie were listening in on a party line, listening to something not meant for her. As she recalled this interview early that morning, it lit a light within her. She bounded up from the bed as if it were on fire.

    I can do it. She isn’t any better than me. She isn’t.

    Dawn was just coming up. Little rectangular rays of sun were coming in through the tiny bedroom window of the trailer. A raspy up and down snore could be heard from Mom’s room. Dottie bent down by her bed, snatching a lone piece of paper and stubby pencil from inside her school notebook.

    She sat back on the bed and, for the first time in her life, she determined to write down what she wanted out of life, crossing out, adding, until she had something that was all hers. Nobody, nobody, she thought, was going to see this. Nobody was going to get the chance to make fun of her; they were not going to find it and hoot at her for this. This paper had to be hidden right away. For the first time in her life she felt in charge. It was a powerful kind of sensation for her, but it lasted only a minute.

    She could still hear it now in her head, the mocking. Hell’s Bells, Dottie, who do you think you are, little Miss Barbie Doll? You think for one minute you ain’t gonna end up like me and Misty? You got the nerve to think you’re better’n us? Well, you got another think comin’ – what I call a rude awakening is lyin’ around the corner for you! Then, who’s got the last laugh, then, Blondie?

    And Misty would chime in also, not as mean as Mom but just as hurtful.

    Listen to me, Dottie Sue. I know a thing or two about life. Men eat you up when you’re young, then they drop you like a hot potato. You got five years at most to make hay while the sun shines, and for some unknown reason, you ain’t started yet. She would laugh that silly laugh of hers.

    Dottie found herself shivering. Good thing it was early morning. Otherwise, they would have asked her what in the Lord's sake she was spending her time on in that bedroom.

    Again, she ran to the bathroom mirror for comfort. Her image could provide some protection from those voices inside her that were always trying to come out and hurt her. She looked at her face again.

    Her big, blue eyes had a glint in them, lighting up her whole expression. Somehow it blocked out the words in her head. Maybe she really was pretty, just maybe.

    Suddenly, the real Mom yelled out drowsily, What the hell you doin’ up so early?

    Bathroom, that’s all, Dottie answered. Mom mumbled and was quiet once more.

    Dottie frantically grabbed up the paper and pencil again. She listened. Mom was quiet again.

    The next words she wrote on the paper were: I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE. Then, she licked the pencil to make it darker and carefully indenting, she listed, "Need a job for travel money. What city?

    Pick when. Need clothes. She put the pencil down. She erased nothing. She had made up her mind at fourteen. She picked up the pencil again and added one more thought, underlined -I am not going to have a kid."

    She was sitting up in bed, legs crossed. Her mind was working like the very devil. She figured she had three years before graduation to make and save money. She was bright, and she could graduate if she wanted to. And right now was the first time she wanted to. Mr. Ellis was looking for help at the dollar store. He wouldn't be too particular about her age, as long as she was part-time.

    So, where? she said to herself. California is too far away, and there's a lot of competition out there. I wish I could just go to Florida like so many kids get to do around here, but maybe Florida would be too much like Tennessee.

    Suddenly, she heard Mom moving around. Quickly, she put the paper under the mattress.

    Mom had never seen the underside of a mattress in her life. She quickly stuck the pencil back in her notebook. Then she went into the kitchen of the trailer, still in her pajamas, and turned on the television sitting on the room divider. She saw Misty, sprawled out on the couch, hair mussed, half-awake, and grabbing for a pack of cigarettes on the floor.

    Mom came to the door of her bedroom, shuffling in her scuffies. She spoke to Dottie.

    Hey, hon. Well, we had a heck of a time last night, didn't we Misty? Misty grinned, putting down her pack of cigarettes and grabbing her plastic lighter in her plastic purse. After a couple of tries, she successfully lighted up and blew a long stream of blue smoke out of her nostrils. She answered Carole Jean’s question by talking to Dottie.

    That Jimmy Martin is a hoot. Drove me and your mom home, nice big cab in the truck. I'd trade the '88 for that! She laughed. Mom sat down in the Lazy Boy.

    Dottie Sue, you just sitting here watchin' the news? Kinda sad at your age.

    Here we go again, thought Dottie. But she merely nodded.

    Her mind was out of the trailer. She had decided on Washington, D.C. Maybe, she thought later, because it was always on the news, maybe because – well, she just didn’t know why.

    That night, Dottie Sue took out her piece of paper from under the mattress. It was safe to do so right now, because Mom and Misty were intent on the beer at the kitchen counter. She quickly added

    Washington, D.C. and put a big star next to it. Later tonight, Mom would begin to rampage, throwing things around, but right now was the calm before the storm. She needed to think, to plan. And nobody, nobody was going to know what she was up to.

    CHAPTER III

    The next three years progressed faster for Dottie Sue than she could have imagined. She was becoming beautiful, but not to the townspeople who did not think of her as attractive. One old woman having her morning coffee and gossip in the local café said laughingly that Dottie Sue Shelby had the personality of a prune. All the women who heard it carried the story home, telling it to their

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