Cherry's Pickings

I cringed as I wiggled into the cherry-red leotard, fishnet leggings, green headband, and black pumps. As instructed, I pulled my auburn hair into a high ponytail that was so tight I could feel the blood vessels in my scalp start to pulsate. It was a sharp contrast from my faded cotton T-shirt that read “Cherry’s Pickings,” blue checkered apron, and loose jeans that I entered in. I looked at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and saw a ghost of myself. My eyes wandered over to the window, where the only lights were the dim ones that barely lit the town streets. 

I began to unscrew the mirror from its hinges, per routine, and grab the plastic bags, some chock-full of yellow, round pills and others filled to the brim with snowy powder. I had to put a smile on my face. The customers would be here soon, and I was expected to greet them with cheer. I couldn’t help but laugh at my situation; Nebraska was nothing like I had imagined it. I certainly hadn’t envisioned a sneaky underground drug scene in a town that boasted of its “family-centered, Christian” values. But there I was, emerging from a diner in Northern Nebraska, preparing myself to offer drugs to the town’s most esteemed individuals. 

***

I didn’t pick Valentine, Nebraska as my new home on purpose. When I hopped in the passenger seat of a Hostess Cake 18-wheeler in Joplin, Missouri fleeing my abusive boyfriend Daren, I thought I’d at least make it to Denver. But if you had to listen to Joe Rogan with an orange-bearded 400-lb man as miles of flat, dead land passed by outside your window for hours, you’d probably thank him politely and get out early, too. 

“This looks like my stop,” I said sheepishly, gazing out at the quaint town square. 

He dropped me off outside of Heart City Drugs, where I sat down on the concrete and took a deep breath. I could hear Rogan’s irritating voice in my head echoing even when he was long gone. 

The blue sky was so wide open that I thought I might have felt the rotation of Earth. The hot sun shone fiercely on the old buildings. I saw a boot store, a farm supply company, a bank, and a small convenience store. I was not confident that I could find a job at any one of these places. Lodging wasn’t looking particularly promising either; I saw one motel and one hotel. Judging by the crooked signs and windows with cracks in them, the prices were probably cheap, but I had only $1000 to my name. And I knew as much as anyone that money is spent much faster than it is saved. 

“You sure you want to get out here?” The man looked at me with skepticism. 

I nodded and thanked him for the ride, carefully climbing out of the ridiculously tall truck. Before I knew it, he had begun driving away. 

No! I wanted to cry. My suitcase is in there!

I walked for a few more minutes aimlessly, finally slumping down on the edge of a sidewalk. Voices of cheerful people began to fade in, and I turned my head slightly to see a crowd of well-dressed people walking toward the building to my left: “Cherry’s Pickings.” It was a homely-appearing - but clearly well-loved - diner. Women wore pastel-colored skirts and conservative white and grey blouses. Men donned colorful slacks and button-down shirts. Little kids matched their parents’ attire. A man who appeared to be wearing a Catholic priest’s attire followed in suit. 

“Aren’t you joining us for Sunday brunch?” I hadn’t been paying attention, but there he was, his silver cross necklace catching rays of the sun. 

“Oh, no,” I mumbled, getting up and brushing the red dust off of my dingy sweatpants. “I’m not from here. I’m sorry. I’m just passing through.”

I caught a reflection of my muffled hair and tired eyes in a small puddle in front of me. I looked horrendous. I looked like I was fleeing something, or someone. And I was. 

“My name is Father Drexel. I’m the priest at Saint Ann’s across the street. We welcome all newcomers to Valentine,” he said, smiling. “Please come into the diner and have a meal on us.”

I was hesitant, but my stomach growled. All I had eaten in the past 36 hours was a bag of Fritos and a Hershey’s chocolate bar, courtesy of my truck driver friend. I had no plans, that was for sure. I reluctantly accepted the offer.

Murmurs swept through the beautifully polished crowd as I walked in with Father Drexel. Cherry’s Pickings was a stereotypical diner in every way, from its black and white checkered linoleum floors to its plastic red bar stools and booths. There was even an old-fashioned soda fountain behind the bar counter. Servers wore plain T-shirts and blue checkered aprons. Just as we sat down, a young girl came to take our order. She blew a bubble while she wrote down our requests and sauntered off, her blonde ponytail flopping between each shoulder like a pendulum.

I made small talk intermittently with the church crowd at the table, throwing polite “thank-yous” and “nice to meet yous” at them with a smile so fake my teeth hurt. The rest of the time, I people-watched. A man with the most unusual conglomeration of arm and leg tattoos I had ever seen was working the grill and pouring the coffee, greeting customers as they walked in. He was bald but had a black beard that made up for the lack of hair on his head. He wore thick red glasses with round frames and smiled when he saw me looking at him. I felt my body begin to heat up, and I looked down at the eggs on my plate. Another young guy with straight, shoulder-length brown hair washed dishes, cleared tables, and seemed to avoid eye contact. 

Oddly, Father Drexel left the table after about an hour and a half and returned wearing the diner uniform. At that point, the church crowd had all left, and only I remained. 

“A man’s gotta pay his rent and eat, too,” he said to me jokingly when he saw me staring. 

“Are you hiring?” I blurted out. 

“I’m not sure that we are,” he said, smiling, “but we would surely use some help on Thursday nights.”

“What are you doing?” Blurted out the long-haired guy who hadn’t said a word until now. The blonde-haired girl with the ponytail and the bearded guy with the tattoos both appeared surprised as well, turning around.

Father Drexel laughed. “I believe we are in need of help on Thursday nights, are we not?”

They were willing to hire me on that day when I told them I was recently laid off and in desperate need of work. Surprisingly, they asked minimal questions about how I found myself in Valentine. They were quite an unusual crowd, even beyond their external appearances. Everyone who worked at Cherry’s seemed to have another job and one that was extremely unrelated, at that. Mike, the man with the tattoos, took frequent trips to St. Louis for temp work for days at a time. Francesca sold medical equipment to doctors’ offices in town. Art worked at the local law firm as a secretary. And finally, Rome Drexel was also a priest.

They were nice, but they kept to themselves. It was probably for the best, considering that I still had bruises on my neck that sometimes peeked outside of my turtlenecks and often found myself staring blankly into space thinking about what Daren would do if he found me here. 

I assumed they’d have me start out as a hostess or a dishwasher, something that requires little skill. So, I was surprised when Rome - as he asked me to call him - took me aside and explained that I would be coming in at 8pm on Thursday nights, 1 hour past closing time. 

“Will I be stocking shelves or helping with inventory?” I inquired.

“Don’t stress so much about the details,” he said, smiling. “We will go over everything tonight!”

Knowing that my money would only last me a few nights at the local motel, I couldn’t be too picky. I thanked him and grabbed my embarrassingly large collection of two suitcases, one backpack, and one purse and headed out of the diner. Once outside, I began my trek to the local motel. On the map, I’d seen several ranches that seemed absolutely beautiful, but there was no way I would be able to afford such luxury. The Trade Winds Motel was calling my name. 

Before I knew it, it was 7:30. Along my journey to Cherry’s, I was taken aback by the glow of the stars. Even in town, the lighting was so dim that I could pick out planets and constellations. I envisioned parents reading bedtime stories to their kids and elderly couples sitting on porches with tea. It seemed like something out of a modern-day Little House on the Prairie or a camp where parents sent their troublemaker children to go ride horses and learn to appreciate the simple things. It seemed like a town where children grew up going to Sunday school and being protected from the cruelty of the world.  I felt oddly safe walking alone in the darkness for once. Maybe I needed this kind of innocence and naivety at this point in my life. I took a deep breath and stepped foot inside.

***

“Snowbird’s Potato Casserole, please,” said the man sitting at the bar under the brim of his hat. 

“And I’ll have Poppy’s Pumpernickel Bread,” said his companion discreetly. 

I knew the drill. Thursday nights, Cherry’s turned into something of a speakeasy disguised as a Bible study group led by Rome Drexel. A card had to be shown to get in, and it wasn’t uncommon for people unaware of the operation to come by naively, Bibles in hand, hoping to discuss their favorite verses. In these cases, Rome simply informed them that the study group had unfortunately shut down. In the event that someone got through who aimed to tell the authorities, they were taken into a back room. What happened there, I don’t know. But I do know that they exited out the back and did not return. 

On Thursday nights, the menu items, staff, and customers were disguised as something they were not. Female staff members had to wear bright red leotards and green headbands meant to resemble cherries. Male staff members wore black cargo pants and muscle shirts. Male customers wore long coats and fake beards, and women wore wigs and shed the conservative clothing they wore during the day. They also seemed to shed their wedding rings, something I noticed as I became more familiar with faces, even under the dim lighting, heavy makeup, and costume changes. 

The Baptist preacher did lines off of the liquor store owner’s stomach. The wealthiest town members, mainly lawyers and doctors, experimented with hallucinogens and rented out the back rooms for other types of experimentation. By day, they were posting on Facebook about how children in public schools needed to recite The Ten Commandments and mass deportations needed to happen faster because of the illegal drugs that were supposedly being brought across the border. By night, they were having affairs and rolling on Molly. They hid their secret lives so well when they weren’t at Cherry’s. 

I wasn’t always this nonchalant about this operation. In fact, I remember the first time I stepped in after literally arriving in the town just several hours ago. Decoding the entree names was the hardest part initially; the menu was complex, and a “Snowbird’s Potato Casserole” was ordered by weight, weights that seemed much too small for a thick, heavy casserole. “Poppy’s Pumpernickel Bread” was code word for oxycodone. I provided the fentanyl strips to them since the source of these pills was not always trustworthy and carried naloxone in my back pocket. 

I stopped worrying about Daren finding me and began to worry that the cops would find me - and all of us - instead. Daren wouldn’t dwell on my absence. He’d find another woman to throw around before long. But Thursday nights at Cherry’s? This was illegal. 

The more pounds of cocaine I packaged up and the greater the number of oxycodones I shoved into discrete boxes, the more I feared for my life. How did I manage to get myself into this mess? 

I knew that I had to keep moving. I had overstayed my welcome in Valentine. But I was making $3000 a week, enough to pay off the debt I had to Daren, potentially getting him out of my life for good. When the flashbacks came at night of him strangling me and threatening me with hot oil, I disregarded the law and kept my nose to the ground. I was giving people in this boring, conservative town a taste of something provocative. They needed it.

I kept this mindset and continued to save money until I realized I was setting myself up for potential imprisonment. I had already gone too long without reporting this illegal activity, and I had a pretty sketchy living situation and past life. I had since moved to a housing complex on a nearby ranch, where I thought I’d unwind at night, watch the horses run through the flat plains, and marvel at the stars in the vast, pitch-black sky. Instead, I tossed and turned at night and felt nothing but emptiness inside. 

I couldn’t alert law enforcement; they’d investigate me too and see that I was an employee. I couldn’t continue what I was doing; I was miserable and tired. The only thing left to do was to run, yet again. I wracked my brain for family members I could call to lean on for a while as I figured out my life. But I was 31 and an only child, and my parents were deceased. I had a cousin who lived in Providence, Rhode Island who was a marine biologist, but I hadn’t spoken to her in years. I had two other cousins and an aunt and uncle who lived in Joplin - way too close to Daren. I had one other cousin who was in jail and an aunt who lived in St. Louis - once again, way too close to Daren. The secrets of small town America had made me lose my faith in humanity. I was tired of seeing the skeletons in the closet come out and dance at night only to grow flesh and hair during the daytime and preach about morality.

I packed my bags and left the same way I had entered: in the passenger seat of an 18-wheeler headed west, hoping that my next stop would lead me to a better life.