What Janie Knew

Content warning: physical violence, suggestion of sexual violence

The only thing that was thriving the summer Janie killed that boy was the kudzu. It grew thick and fast, making the trees on the side of the highway look like furniture covered with blankets and forgotten in the attic of a giant. Every other living creature suffered, it seemed. We were all damp under the arms for weeks at a time. The dogs panted all day. Even the cicadas gave up their buzzing.

We spent most of our time in the shade of the porch, hoping to feel a breeze while we practiced curse words and made friendship bracelets. It was mostly just Janie and me, but sometimes Emma and her little brother Danny or the twin girls down the road whose noses were always crusty would come, too, even though they were just kids. To cool off, we’d go stand in the river and watch it part around our shins until we got bored.

McClure, Kentucky was poor, and poor towns are boring. We didn’t have a pool or an arcade or a mall or even a summer camp. The drugstore in town had air conditioning, but we saved it for the hottest days because the owner, Mr. Withers, would shoo out any teenagers who lingered inside too long. That’s where Janie and I were, huddled over a Seventeen magazine, trying to memorize exercises to tone our waists but mostly just looking at pictures of David Cassidy, when we heard folks yelling outside.

There was a tangled knot of limbs and elbows on the sidewalk as Mr. Withers and another man pulled two boys apart. We saw little Danny scrambling to put his feet underneath himself, and I saw Janie touch her hand to her mouth. Neither of us thought we’d see a day where sweet, gentle Danny was suddenly the fighting kind. That’s when I noticed he didn’t look tough, but wild and blanched with fear instead. You could see the whites of his eyes all the way around the colored part. His nose was bleeding bad, and he clung on to Mr. Withers’ pant leg like a kitten.

“What the hell is wrong with you, boy?” Mr. Withers was yelling. “He’s just a child!”

I recognized the bigger boy as a cousin of one of my classmates who’d come to live with his aunt and uncle earlier that year. Janie said later that she’d seen him in her class only a few times, so she figured he never could get the schooling habit to stick.

“I told him to quit following me around, or I was gonna beat his ass! It ain’t my fault no one taught him how to listen,” the boy said, walking hard down the street.

Mr. Withers ushered us all back inside and asked me and Janie to sit with Danny while he called the police. He was going on the whole time about how that boy is trouble and how the folks from his hometown ought to have sorted him out, whatever that meant. He had us wait in the tiny breakroom, which only had a small table and chairs, a dirty microwave, a coffee maker, and a poster with the number for poison control. I still thought it was interesting because I’d never seen it before, and there weren’t many places left in McClure I hadn’t seen before.

We got Danny a popsicle and held a handkerchief to his nose as he sniffled blood and tears. Danny had been tagging along with his sister and us girls since he could walk. Sure, sometimes he could be annoying and persistent as a fly, but I couldn’t believe someone would hit him just for being friendly. He was 11 now but looked 9, his cheeks still plump and taut as a ripe tomato.

We fussed over him like a doll until the police and his mam showed up, and everyone forgot we were there. We went back to Janie’s and laid on our backs in her bed, listening to the radio and watching the ceiling fan creak around in circles.

The next couple weeks or so passed slowly and without much to distinguish the days. We saw that boy around a couple times, once even driving a car. We’d spread a couple of bath towels out in the yard and were laying out and painting our nails. I had my eyes closed when Janie elbowed me at the sound of the car approaching. He drove by slow, whistling and leering at us, which made me a little scared but also gave me a thrill since I’d just gotten a new lip gloss and wasn’t yet accustomed to being in a bikini top.

“I heard he raped a girl in Clifton,” Janie said after he drove away, her mouth set in a hard line.

“Who said that?” I tried not to act shocked.

“That’s why he came to live here,” she said, ignoring my question. “That girl’s family drove him out of town, threatening to kill him, so he came to live here.”

We closed our eyes and laid back down again, each of us swimming around in our own heads, until she added: “I don’t like him being here is all.”

“Me neither,” I said. I had already sort of forgotten about him hitting Danny, but she hadn’t. I had been agreeing with her since we were little kids, and I saw no reason to stop now.

A heatwave hit in the middle of an already too hot August, and everyone quickly grew short on patience and rationality. Folks honked their horns more often in traffic or argued in line at the bank. None of our parents had anyone over for cards or supper. It seemed like everyone was holding their breath to see if it would rain before anyone truly snapped. My parents had an AC in the window of their bedroom, but they gave in and bought one for the living room, too, which made me feel like we were rich.

Janie and I had it turned down as low as it would go while we were watching General Hospital when a gunshot cracked the whole afternoon in half. We looked at each other, not sure if we’d heard what we thought we heard, when another one had us ducking down in front of the couch. My dad came tearing through the back door and out the front, hollering at us to stay inside. We crept to the front door anyway, opening it just wide enough to listen.

We heard Mrs. Carter down the road let out a long wail that sounded like a wounded animal which I guess, in an emotional way, she was. A few minutes later we saw Mr. Wither’s car come slow up the road and heard him turn onto their gravel drive. He was going slow, so we figured nobody was dying, and after some long minutes went by without much else to hear, we went back to the television. Janie was bouncing her leg though, and kept looking toward the door. Eventually daddy came back looking wrung out, and Janie stood up off the couch.

“Mr. Hensley, what happened?”

Daddy worked his jaw a minute, maybe thinking what or how much to tell us.

“That Caudill boy shot the Carters’ cat. Mrs. Carter said she saw the whole thing as she was ironing at the upstairs window,” he looked up at the ceiling for a second. “I want you girls to stay away from him. You hear me, Carol? Something’s not right about that boy.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” I asked, feeling the hot flush of sick rise up my throat.

“Won’t be of much help,” he said. “We’ll take care of it.”

He didn’t wait around for us to respond, just headed upstairs to the shower. I had never heard anything so horrific in my life. My eyes burned with angry tears, and I sat down in a daze, trying to figure out why and how a person could do such a thing. Janie’s eyes were wet too, but she blinked back the tears while she paced around the house.

“I need to go for a walk or something,” Janie said.

“What if he’s out there?” I said.

“He’s probably driven to Lexington or something by now,” she said. “He would be

stupid to stick around after doing something like that.”

We walked slow, parting the hot air like ships cutting through the fog. I’d forgotten to look at the clock before we left, but I gathered it was around 4 p.m. Everything was still, everyone had their curtains drawn, the day suspended at the top of a Ferris wheel until we all dropped with the sun into the relief of night. There were storms building out over the mountains to the west, and I hoped they’d make it this far and finally baptize us all.

We cut through the empty lot at the end of the road and through the short path to the river. We waded into the water, careful on the big river stones. It barely came up over our ankles seeing as how we’d had such a drought, and there were all sorts of bugs landing on the surface. I started to wonder how long I’d have to wait until I could suggest we leave and go back to the dark, air conditioned house. I was just about to tell Janie I had the creeps and was getting ate up by mosquitos when we heard a whistle from around where the river curved.

“Hey ladies, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” the Caudill boy said, walking straight up the middle of the river. “I’m Jesse.”

Janie took a small step just in front of me, and neither of us said anything back to him.

“Don’t tell me you believe everything these fucking people say about me,” he said, smiling. “You’re too pretty to be believing rumors like that.”

He was looking right at me, and I felt like a field mouse in the shadow of a hawk. There was a twitch in my legs like God himself was telling me to run, but I was frozen there.

“We were just leaving,” Janie said, and grabbed my wrist. He’d reached us by now, and I could finally see his face up close. Something my grandmother once said about a man bubbled up from my memory like crude oil: “I don’t trust anyone whose smile don’t never reach his eyes.”

“What are you in such a hurry for? Let’s just get to know each other,” he said, still with his dead fish smile.

“I have to be home for supper,” I said, secretly cursing myself for how my voice was so watery and weak.

“You can be a little late,” he said.

Janie tugged me back toward the shore, not willing to keep going on back and forth with him. He didn’t like that though.

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said to her, closing the distance between them easily. “I’m talking to your friend here, and you seem to either be jealous or just as stuck up and judgey as everyone else in this fucking place.”

He was right in her face, almost nose to nose, but Janie didn’t give even an inch. She squared her shoulders and, God as my witness, she spit right in his face. He shoved her back hard, she landed on butt right in the river. I yelped, or maybe I said her name. It’s hard to remember now.

“You’ve made me mad now,” he said.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me near the bank, but my foot got caught on a tree root and brought us both onto dirt. He scrambled on top of me, his hot breath right in my face. I started screaming and flailing like I was in need of an exorcism, but got me pinned easily and moved my knees apart.

Even over the sound of my own carrying on, I heard an unholy thud. That’s when I saw that boy’s gaze go right through me to some far off place before his eyelids drooped. I scrambled out from under him and saw Janie holding a big river rock, her mouth parted slightly.

Everything that happened next happened pretty fast. Mr. Withers appeared from the opposite direction in his waders, still holding a fishing net which he promptly dropped when he saw what was happening. He ran over and held each of us by the shoulders, searching our faces to see if we were okay. He didn’t even ask what happened, but I don’t think that meant he didn’t know.

“Listen here, Carol, you go run and get your daddy. Janie, go with her. Go right there and stay home, send him back here. Don’t tell nobody else where you been or anything like that, ok?”

Janie’s breathing was hitched and she was staring at Jesse. I knew she was likely in shock, and so it was up to me to be in charge for once.

“Ok, Mr. Withers,” I said, and hauled Janie up the bank and back to the road. She kept looking back at Jesse the whole time.

We ran, even though Janie was barefoot having left her tennis shoes on the bank and I was in sandals and that made loud slapping sounds on the road. Daddy was standing at the kitchen counter, a pop in his hand, talking to mother who was making kudzu jelly. Janie was still silent, so I said quickly that Mr. Withers was down at the river and needed his help with the Caudill boy. I left out the part where Janie killed him, since Mr. Withers had said not to tell nobody else and I wasn’t sure if mother counted or not. Daddy just nodded once and took off.

I made Janie take a bath, and I sat just outside the door until she came out in a spare set of my pajamas. She called her grandmother and said she was sleeping over my house tonight, and Mother fixed us grilled cheese sandwiches. Mother didn’t ask us anything, but I think she knew we both needed extra looking after that night. Daddy was gone for nearly two hours, and he came back with dirty knees and his face streaked with sweat. Mother stared a hole in him until he met her eyes, saying something in their unspoken way that made her shoulders relax.

That night, as we laid in my bed, fat raindrops thunked down onto the metal roof – just a few at first, and then a steady soaking rain that made the air smell earthy and sweet.

“He was still breathing,” Janie whispered in the dark, her voice nearly swallowed up by the rain. “When we left. He was breathing.”

For many years, I thought Janie killed that boy at the end of that heat wave in August of 74. I put that day in a room in the back of my mind and locked the door right after it happened. But one night, after we buried Daddy in 2004, I sat up at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of orange juice and letting myself think back for the first time about what may have really happened.

I’ve since had plenty of nights like that, thinking about redemption and rehabilitation and God and whether or not a person can be saved from themselves, but none of that mattered to the people of Clifton back then. I suppose it doesn’t even matter much now. Maybe a heat wave like that makes everyone a bit crazy, but there are people – Janie, Mr. Withers, my daddy – who think some folks just need killing. I guess I’m liable to agree.