Looking for Hope

by: Dawn DeWinter

 

Chapter 9 – The Chevy to the Levee

"We’re too close to Memphis," Dawn whined. "All I can get on the radio is blues music. I know one thing, Jim, and that is we don’t have to waste any time looking for Hope in Memphis. That town has the terminal blues. Why, the last time I was on Beale Street in that city, "I asked a girl who sang the blues for some happy news. But she just smiled and turned away."

"Dawn, if you don’t like the blues, then why not try the AM band?" Jim didn’t like whining. She explained, "There must be a golden oldies station somewhere in the vicinity."

Dawn scanned the ether for a familiar sound. Yes, there it was. A station was playing her favorite song, "American Pie" by Don McLean. Memories flooded back as she heard Don sing,

A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while.

Dawn shivered with emotion. "That’s why I write," she said, "so that people will be happy for a while. I want their hearts and souls to dance."

Jim was impressed. "Dawn, that’s a wonderful reason for writing. Do you have any other reasons for writing?"

"Yes, it’s the only minimum-wage work that doesn’t break my nails. Of course, using a pencil to press the keys does slow me down. Oh listen –"

Well, I know that you're in love with him
'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.

"Jim, I’d sure love to kick off my shoes and make love with you while we were dancing in the gym. As we ground our bodies together, I’d surely believe that Don is right: Music ‘can save your immortal soul.’ I’ll always think of you, Jim, from now on whenever I hear this song. ‘American Pie’ will be our song. It’s soulful and uplifting, just like the movie."

And then came the refrain, which Dawn belted out in her inimitable basso falsetto:

So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die.

"Let’s hope not, Dawn. I’m not fixin’ on dying today or any other day. I’ve got a lot of livin’ to do."

"Have you ever seen a levee, Jim?"

"Nope. No idea of what it is. Do you know?"

"I don’t know, but I aim to find out. We’re at the ring road for Memphis. Hold on tight we’re going to head south towards the state of Mississippi. I bet we’ll find a levee there. And it had better be dry."

Soon the entire party was lost on a back road south of Memphis near the Mississippi River. At the crossroads, they found a run-down gas station with a weather-beaten sign erected by the Cheshire Oil Company. The company had disappeared as fast as a salesman’s smile when oil prices collapsed in the mid-1980s. The new owners, Black Cat Petroleum, hadn’t bothered to replace the sign, so locals called the company the … Chesha Black.

Once again, everyone waited while Dawn sought directions. At first, she couldn’t find the gas jockey. But suddenly she was startled to see him sitting on a bough of a tree hanging over a pick-up truck with a load of pink carnations parked just behind the station. He was bare-shirted, his pecs and abs rippling, tiger taut, and he had a great many teeth – all gleaming white. He was a teenage buck who clearly was, Dawn thought, "in his prime, just like me. He looks so tall, dark and handsome; he could play the role of ‘hunk’ on the Survivor game show."

Anyone this gorgeous had to be treated with respect. "Cheshire honey," she began, timidly, waiting to see if he liked the name. He grinned a little wider. "He’s pleased so far," Dawn thought. "Maybe he’s a virgin. He looks to be about nineteen. It’s high time he was taught the art of loving. And why not start with an old mistress of the art?"

Dawn flashed her most attractive smile. That is, she pressed her lips together to hide her coffee-stained teeth and tongue. She then mumbled seductively, "Would you tell me, please, where I can go from here."

"That depends," the Cheshire hunk replied, "on how far you want to go."

"All the way," she replied with a lascivious wink, and then with lots of emphasis, "with the right young man."

"Does it matter where you do it? Would you be willing to do in the back of a pick-up truck right here in the open?"

"I don’t much care, so long as I get laid SOMEWHERE."

"Oh, you’re sure to be doing that soon, if your cock is long enough."

Dawn was shocked by his directness. "Are you gay?" she timorously asked.

"I’m whatever you want me to be. I’ve got more teeth than good sense, so I’m always on the prowl, curious to see what’s beyond the rainbow. I do whatever it takes to get water and food, and a place to sleep in the sun. So I’ll suck up to you or suck you off, it doesn’t matter which, so long as you let me move into your home and treat it as my own. I’m a hedonist and I’ll convince you that I love only you. You’ll swear that no one else can make my body tingle the way you do. Sometimes I’ll lie on my back with my legs up in the air begging for attention. And other times, I’ll snarl and say, ‘We’ll do it my way. You’re going to have to beg for it today.’ Either way, you’ll have my undying love and physical affection until I decide, on a whim, to wander off."

"What are you saying, my Cheshire stud?"

"I’m saying that my body is for sale. I can’t sell you love because I’ve lost hope of ever falling in love. But if you take good enough care of me, I promise to feign affection. You’ll love the way I rub up against your body. And when I arch my back, you’ll be in seventh heaven. And before you ask again, I’ve already set my ultimate price: that you become my servant. You’ll give me food and drink whenever I demand it, and you’ll let me tomcat around at night, and let me bring home my prey of the day, whether it’s a female, a male, or something in-between."

The teen paused, then asked: "That’s what you are, right? A something in-between?"

"This boy is so clever," Dawn thought. "He’s seen through my artifice. Yet he doesn’t care that I’ve got a woman’s soul in a man’s body because he definitely believes in loving the one he’s with. I can see that he loves me more than he’s ever loved anyone else. For that kind of affection I’ll pay a steep price."

"Then let’s have sex in the truck." He jumped off the bough, landing lightly on his feet in the back of the truck. Then he hauled Dawn up over the tailgate like a bag of kitty litter. "Take off your clothes. I want to see you naked before I decide whether or not to let you stroke me," said the Cheshire stud.

Dawn hummed "The Stripper" as loudly as she dared (with her friends standing just fifty yards away) while she disrobed with artful sensuality. It would have been a masterful performance had she not stumbled twice, each time falling on her backside into a storm of pink carnations. Finally, she was naked – even her breast forms had come off. She blew her teenage admirer (she hoped!) a kiss, and then lay on top of the flowers, arranging them just so to create the illusion of modesty.

"I must look like an American Beauty," Dawn smiled to herself a second before the teen started showering her head with flowers. She couldn’t see a thing, her face completely buried by carnations, as the Cheshire stud made love to her.

Jim could see enough to be disgusted by Dawn’s wanton behavior. "We just asked her to get directions. She didn’t have to sell her body for them! I know I don’t own Dawn. I know she can’t be tamed. But, I do wish she wouldn’t act like an alley cat in broad daylight. Some things are best done after the children have gone to bed for the night."

It was true: Kermesse and Pigpen had an appalled look on their faces. They were genuinely shocked by Dawn’s wanton behavior. Unconsciously, they drew closer for mutual support.

Her eyebrows arched, Duchess looked down upon the two teens. She confided in Bill, "That girl, Kermesse, the one in the unattractive green uniform, has no business sidling up to my son Pigpen. After all, she cannot even pronounce English properly. I believe her to be feeble-minded. Otherwise, she would leave my boy alone. Surely, even the French understand why Hollow males like Pigpen have a sacred obligation to marry their first cousins. It keeps the gene pool unfiltered."

"Unfortunately for Sammy, all of his cousins were too old – the youngest was almost fourteen and a half – and he decided to break tradition by marrying outside his clan. The little fool expected me to honor and obey him. He said my arrogant and brazen ways shamed him in front of strangers, and when I wouldn’t change my ways to suit him, he started hiding in the cellar when folks came by."

Bill sympathized: "It sounds like Sammy was profoundly unhappy being a Hollow male. I’ve been so much happier since I changed sex. I bet that Sammy secretly wanted to be a woman, and that everyone would have been better off had he had the courage to become one."

"To have an orchidectomy?" (Now there was a big word! Thirty years of reading the "word power" page of Reader’s Digest had definitely paid off!) "Oh, Sammy treasured every part of his maleness, no matter how atrophied. He had no desire to be a Hollow woman. No one enjoys being that. Bill, that is the quintessential (another good word!) reason for my exodus from the Hollow. I am hoping to find a place where I shall receive all due respect and my baby boy, bless his soul, can grow up to be a man worthy of having such a remarkable mother."

Suddenly, a mournful moaning could be heard coming from the pick-up truck. "What’s that?" asked Mortimer fearfully. "Is it Dawn? I saw her being led to that truck by someone. I think it was a male because he seemed to have his shirt off. What’s he doing to Dawn? Is he hurting her?"

"Only her reputation," replied Duchess. The children giggled.

After ten more minutes of keening, Dawn emerged disheveled, pink carnations in her hair, to announce – to no one’s surprise – that Ches and his pick-up truck were joining their search for Hope. He’d even lead them to the nearest levee. Dawn threw her arms around Jim, who looked far from pleased. "Jim, you’re the one I love. Sure, I just had some cheap sex. (Well, it wasn’t that cheap – she was now committed to pampering Ches like a housecat.) "I’m not perfect. I’m bound to stray from time to time. But I’ll always come back to you. You’re my only one."

As Jim still looked doleful, Dawn decided to cheer her up with some whiskey and rye that she’d found buried in the flowers while she was thrashing about. "Come with me in the Chevy," Dawn urged, "and we’ll party all the way to the levee."

Jim thought Dawn was talking about sex. Actually, it was mixing whiskey and rye that she had in mind. As Dawn was a good girl, she was definitely not going to drink while intoxicated. So she let Jim drive while she partied. After she’d hit both bottles three times, she was definitely getting on Jim’s nerves: "Dawn, will you settle down! Stop jumping about! You’re acting like a court jester."

"Don’t worra ‘bout me," Dawn smiled dopily. "I’m hap hap happy. It’s a wond’ful, wond’ful, a gr…great day to be alive. Just smell the air!" She inhaled deeply. "I can smell the sweet per…perfume of river mud. In Newark, all I could smell was mold."

Dawn whooped with joy when she caught sight of an earthen embankment. "Now I know what a levee is," Dawn exclaimed. "It’s sort of like a dike – like Ann Heche. I don’t understand. Won’t it always be dry?"

Yes, Dawn, it will always be dry unless it’s been raining up a torrent. Dawn hadn’t noticed how much it had been raining to the north and west. Indeed, she hadn’t noticed a weather report in weeks. But she did notice the embankment, and it got her singing, "Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry."

 

"Jim, the levee’s not dry!" Dawn suddenly screamed. "You got to look to the … right. Whash that? It looks like a flash flood comin’ our way. The river must’ve broken through the levee! We’re about to drive into the ‘Sissippi River!"

"Don’t worry! I can turn any car around on a dime!" Jim answered. But a 1972 Chevy is not just any car. It has the agility of a three-legged cat. Its right tire slipped on a moss-covered rolling stone, and the Chevy stumbled headfirst into the river. As the car hit the water, Dawn screamed, "This’ll be the day that I die! This’ll be the day that I die!"

"Quick, roll down your window, Dawn. Your life depends on it." Jim was taking charge. "Now, take a deep breath and relax. We’re going to have to wait until the water has filled the car completely. Then we’ll be able to swim through the car windows to safety. The water won’t be deep – you’ll just have to hold your breath for a few feet." She then sheltered Dawn in her arms while they waited in the twilight, the cold water numbing their bodies, but not their spirits.

Frodo and Bill had been in the white Rabbit immediately behind the Chevy. They screeched to a stop, and then jumped out of it just in time to see the Chevy slip below the muddy waters of the Mississippi. Something touched their soul as they heard the Chevy’s radio short out and the music die. "Bill, are they still in the Chevy? Are Dawn and Jim about to drown?"

Bill pulled Frodo close to his heart. "My sweet boy, don’t worry. Do you have faith in God above? Would He allow Dawn to die, and to deprive us all of Hope? It won’t happen, but I do fear for Jim’s life. She’ll take foolish risks for Dawn’s sake because their names are inscribed together in the book of love."

"That’s true," agreed Duchess, who had just arrived with Mortimer in train. "Mark my words. It is too early to sing dirges for the queen and king of our expedition of Hope."

She could see from their confused looks that neither Frodo nor Bill knew what a dirge was. Poor simple souls! But Mortimer, she noticed approvingly, even pronounced the word correctly as he repeated her words of encouragement.

"It’s more important to pronounce a word correctly," Duchess thought, "than to know its meaning." She knew that she pronounced words perfectly because of her many years of living in the Hollow. She had read somewhere, undoubtedly in a learned treatise, that the Hollow folk – like those who lived in remote mountain valleys of Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky – spoke Shakespearean English. The British themselves had forgotten how to speak like the Bard – another wonderful word! – and so it was a scientific fact that she, the Duchess, was one of the few people on Earth able to speak properly. It was a satisfying thing to know.

While she was patting herself on the back – metaphorically speaking (another impressive phrase) – the quartet of Bill, Frodo, Mortimer and Kermesse were yelling for help. Pigpen was pounding on a car horn. Everyone ran helter-skelter, but generally in the direction of where they’d seen the Chevy founder.

Meanwhile, the Chevy was eight feet deep and falling fast. Three feet later it landed foul on the grass-covered bottom of the levee. Jim went first through the right-side window. She signaled Dawn to follow. Dawn said to herself, "I must be nimble. I must be quick. I must think small. I’ve got to see myself as slender as a candlestick." She then took a big gulp of breath and then shot torpedo-like through the same window – that is, until she got stuck! Her over-sized breasts blocked her passage.

Jim motioned to her to retreat long enough to lose her breast forms. Dawn shook her head defiantly. There was no way she wanted to be rescued unless she still looked like a lady. Jim sighed and then grabbed Dawn’s arms and pulled her from the car with superhuman strength. Once out of the car, Dawn was completely disoriented, lost in space; but Jim locked her arms around Dawn’s s waist and together they swam to the surface.

Once there, as they gasped for breath, something big came between them. It was Bill’s wooden trunk. It had been lashed to the roof of the Chevy and had broken free when the car had hit the water. Now it was bobbing invitingly. Dawn called out to Jim, then swam over to the trunk. With one mighty effort, she hoisted herself onto it.

Her call alerted Mortimer who was standing on the nearest point of dry land. He peered at the trunk, and recognized Dawn from her jumper. He started shouting that help was coming. She waved.

By the time Frodo and Bill came running, Mortimer had crumpled to the ground sobbing. "I think … I think I saw Dawn drown. She was on top of Bill’s trunk, her hands clenched in fists of terror. She looked like Captain Ahab riding the back of the great white whale. Then the trunk seemed to buck. I heard Dawn sigh. She seemed to have lost all hope. She’d run out of luck. I saw her sink."

Bill refused to yield to pessimism: "Dawn and Jim have not drowned. Even now, I bet they’re swimming downstream to safety. You know they’ll survive. Jim can swim like Tarzan. She’ll find Dawn and pull her to shore." Bill then laughed. "With those breasts, Dawn can’t drown. She’s got extra buoyancy. Mortimer, no offense, but you must has missed Dawn’s bobbing back to the surface like a fisherman’s float. Your eyes miss a lot."

Bill organized a search party to look for Dawn and Jim downstream. When darkness came without a sighting, they lit a bonfire to guide their friends to their encampment. As they sat around the fire, nothing could break the spell of hopelessness. And as the flames climbed high into the night, to light their gloomy rite, Duchess suddenly cried out, "I can see Satan laughing with delight, for this is the day that hope died and the Evil One welcomed back Sammy, a veritable angel born in hell."

Kermesse and Pigpen screamed. Frodo and Bill cried, and Mortimer went into a dream-like trance. Then there was total silence. Not a word was spoken for half-an-hour. Finally, Mortimer spoke, "May the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost accompany Dawn and Jim on their last journey. They were two friends I admired most."

After a sleepless night, there was still no sign of Dawn and Jim. A call to the state police left no hope. At noon Duchess insisted on a decision. "What are we going to do," she asked. "Shall each of us go our own way, or shall we complete Dawn’s journey of Hope?"

"Why go on?" asked Ches. "What’s the point of looking for her? What do we say to her? How would we know her even if we found her?" He knew Dawn least, and he was ready to abandon her quest. But no one else was.

It was Mortimer who spoke first for the group – with surprising firmness. "I’m not losing a classic Chevy for nothing. We must complete Dawn’s journey at least as far as Hope, Arkansas. That dear sweet girl truly believed that we’d find her friend Hope living there – and alive. That child has to be told that dear, dear Dawn is dead. How else will she ever know? They knew each other only on the Internet."

"I agree," said Duchess. "We must complete Dawn’s quest, bless her soul. I believe that if we don’t do it that none of us will ever have hope again. Whether we find Dawn’s friend or not, I feel that we will all benefit from continuing this road trip. It’s the only hope my baby has to free himself from diapers."

It was settled: the caravan would drive to Hope, Arkansas. There they would wait until they’d found Hope or heard news of Jim and Dawn. However, they didn’t expect to see either of their friends again. Indeed, Bill said a prayer for them at bank side while Frodo, Ches and Kermesse blanketed the muddy waters with pink carnations. They all hugged each other tearfully before they each got into a truck or car and slowly drove off toward Arkansas. Even Ches came along; he expected to have Mortimer at his beck and call within a day.

There would have been fewer tears and more fears had the little band of travelers been watching the Mississippi roll by several miles to the south. A wooden trunk was floating, half-submerged, down the river. Clinging to it were Dawn and Jim. Dawn had indeed gone under briefly, but her gigantic breasts had floated her right back up like a cork. Jim had found her bobbing about, and together they had swum over to Bill’s trunk and temporary safety.

"I’m on board the world’s smallest raft," Jim thought, "a cross-dressing black woman with a cross-dressing white boy. And we’re heading down to the land of cotton. Dawn, do you have any idea of what we’re in for if we wash up in Ole Mississippi? Have you ever met a genuine cracker?"

To Jim’s surprise, Dawn had a big smile. What could Dawn be thinking?

"Wow, look at me, I’m Huckleberry Finn rafting down the Mississippi. This proves I’m the hero of my own story. And just like Huck, I look real cute in a dress. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Hope springs eternal in these big breasts."

 

Continued in Chapter 10 – We’re All Mad Here

 

 

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© 2001 by Dawn DeWinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.