Betty Irene

They promised to bring our boys home alive by ‘45. But my pa didn’t return home from the war until the summer of 1946.

The summer of 1946 was also the summer I lost my mama.

It was the summer of Betty Irene.

And it was the summer I did something bad.

When I was nine, Pa returned home from the war. Just as he was arriving, Mama grabbed me by the shoulders and told me not to tell him. I said, “Not tell him what?” and Mama said “Good girl.”

Mama vanished a week later – the same day Betty Irene appeared in our cotton fields. Pa told me the whole thing, but I hated his stories. He’d get overly animated, spittle flying from the gaps in his teeth, staring at me with eyes that never blinked, simply because they couldn’t. His eyelids had been burnt so badly that a light breeze could’ve cracked them like chips. They had no eyelashes either, and the lids were unable to shut even halfway. I imagined what it must be like to watch him sleep, eyes rolled back, white and wide open.

The story of his eyelids was the first of many.

For six months he was interned in Osaka, where there had been two rising suns. One red, one yellow. The enemy tied him to a stake, water just out of reach. The other American soldier, tied to the stake on his left, was killed after the first month. A Japanese soldier swung his baton at the man’s side, then chest, then back and forth from cheek to cheek until the man’s head hung limp. Cash and packs of smokes were then shifted between the hands of the many soldiers who watched. The recipients lit their cigarettes, had a few puffs, put them out on the prisoners’ eyelids, and turned away.

It was cruel to think such a thing, but I couldn’t stand to look at Pa. He was skeletal, a heap of sagging flesh and brittle bones that rattled when he walked. I had recurring nightmares in which we were both tied together to a stake. With water just out of reach, and no food in sight, Pa would rip into my flesh, gnawing on my muscles, and sucking my bones clean, blood dripping down his face like a wild beast. I would open my mouth to scream, but no sound would escape. I would try to kick and crawl away, but it was always to no avail. The last thing I would see before I awoke were his lidless white eyes.

I would awaken in a fright, screaming for Mama, only for Pa to come running, bones rattling, sagging flesh swinging back and forth like a ticking clock. He’d slap me across the face and call me a “crazy bitch,” which at the time, I didn’t understand. I only knew it was his nickname for Mama when he would slap her too.

Turned up loud every morning on the kitchen radio was always Fibber McGee and Molly. I locked myself in my room when Pa listened. He never listened without a bottle of Schlitz, and I despised what it did to him.

The laughter of the audience members on the show would echo down the hall and slip between the cracks of my bedroom door. I once heard a man asking a little boy about a lost pocketbook. Why?...Why?...Why?... was the little boy’s continuous response to each question. The audience laughed, then it cut to a promotion of Johnson’s self-polishing blow coat.

Why, why, why? Why was it so funny that the boy didn’t understand? I didn’t understand… I reckon somebody thought that was funny too.

What Pa found funny was how afraid I was of Betty Irene – the little scarecrow that hung across the street, about four acres deep in our cotton fields. She wore a straw hat and overalls, and her head hung limp.

I knew that cotton was the wrong crop for a scarecrow. Mama’s old farmhand, Ernst, who helped me work the fields when Pa was gone, had once told me that the only threat to a cotton plant is the boll weevil – that they’ll destroy the plant from the inside out. The female weevils will lay their eggs within the cotton bolls, and once they hatch, the hungry larvae scatter like lice in an old woman’s hair, and will begin eating away at the fruiting structure of the plant. The host eventually has no choice other than to succumb to the damages. I’ve seen it happen every summer. No scarecrow would stop that. I didn’t reckon Betty Irene was meant to.

But that’s not what frightened me.

What really frightened me – what forced me to light a kerosene lamp every night and say my prayers twice as often – was the song Pa sang for me every night before I went to bed. It was unlike any lullaby Mama had ever sung. I suppose that’s because it was no lullaby at all, but rather a song Pa would sing in the trenches with his army buddies when they were missing their wives. He told me he carried Mama’s picture around. She was his Betty.

‘Bitty blonde bombshell, Betty Irene

‘Merica’s sweetheart, Daddy’s machine

Purty little birdie, my Betty Irene

There she set lonesome, waiting on me

Billy’s been hit by Jerry and Fritz

But onward I persist – for I’d be remiss

To not get one more kiss from Miss Betty Irene

To the Devil I sent Mr. Jerry and Fritz

Penny by penny, to pay for their every misdeed

And for taking me away from my Betty Irene.

I didn’t ask to hear the story behind it, nor did I want to, but Pa told me about her anyway. He said fear builds character. But I could see fear in his dried out eyes. Perhaps he didn’t want to be the only one afraid. But I was only nine after all, and with no mama, I wasn’t quite prepared to hear the story of a child murderer.

But Betty Irene didn’t start out that way–quite the opposite, actually. Years ago, she and her husband had been expecting a child when our country got involved in the first world war. They lived on a farm quite similar to our own, but instead of cotton, they grew corn. Before the child came, her husband had been drafted to fight. He wrote the song as a reminder of who he was fighting for. Not long after he left, Betty miscarried, and years later when the lucky ones returned from the war, her husband was not among them. She was left despondent, with nothing but the old farmhouse and the open fields.

The farm Betty lived on was located on Locust Street along the local schoolchildren’s morning and afternoon route to and from school. I asked Pa if that was the same Locust Street we lived on, to which he replied that I “ better pray it ain’t.” His hands were lazily clasped together across his stomach, his eyes glowing as he lay slumped in the rocker beside my bed. It squeaked like a mouse as he rocked back and forth.

To pass the time, and perhaps distract herself, Betty, too, would sit in a rocker on her porch and watch the schoolchildren intensely, smiling and waving as if awaiting the return of her own child. She did this so often, she’d forgotten that none of the children belonged to her.

The Fibber McGee and Molly theme song played from the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed that Pa left the radio on. I felt his hot breath hit my face. It reeked of something sour, not candy-like, but stale and bitter. When I looked away, he squeezed my cheeks, directing my head towards his.

“The children stopped returning home from school,” he said, all at once coming to life. Betty would choose one, force them to stay with her, to love her, to fill the growing hole that poisoned her heart. When the realization came that one would not do, she moved onto the next, repeating this until she’d tried them all. But none of them satisfied her.

“None filled the hole,” Pa said. He dropped my face, and I, now much too afraid to look away, kept my eyes on his.

There had been an ongoing search party ever since the first child disappeared that was led by the children’s parents. They searched for days until finally they found them all – dead – in Betty’s corn field, piled one on top of the other. With rakes and sickles, they went after her and found her too in the field, wearing a straw hat and overalls, standing stiff and upright like a scarecrow. Before they could get to her, she had disappeared into the corn. The townspeople never saw her again.

“But ever since,” Pa continued, his rocking slowed, creaking to a stop, “children who walk that road don’t always make it home. They say Betty Irene is still out there in the fields, searching for the perfect child.”

Laughter erupted from the radio. Then it came from Pa.

In that moment, I realized I was living amidst a monster. But whether that monster was out in the fields or standing right before me, I hadn’t a clue.

I had started young at just five years old, picking an acre of cotton a day. Ernst, the old farmhand, picked around two or three, but ever since Pa returned, I hadn’t seen him around.

Now that Pa was home, it was supposed to be me and him in the fields. Instead, he would go to the Fantasy Ranch gentleman’s club, leaving me and Betty Irene alone under the sun. And she never once picked a single damn fiber.

The cotton sack I hauled over my shoulder this particular afternoon was rubbing my skin raw. It was long, nearly twice my body length, and only half full. I trudged along, doubled over, afraid my spine would snap if I decided to straighten out. Afraid Betty Irene would be there – standing over me – if I dared to look up. But she still hung limp from the cross.

It was hours later when Pa pulled into the grass in our rusted dodge pickup. For one hopeful moment I believed he came back to help me, but as he walked inside to chat with Fibber McGee and Molly, he didn’t even offer a passing glance.

So I returned to picking, keeping my eyes down. My hand trembled as I reached for the next cotton boll. My lips, a salted rim of a glass of chattering teeth. I brushed my forearm across my brows to clean up the sweat, then down across my eyes to get the tears. I prayed to God that He would wake me up from this neverending nightmare. That He would bring Mama back and damn Pa to Hell. Perhaps He already had. Perhaps Hell was a boiling summer’s day in the bootheel of Missouri. And perhaps the Devil was what hung on the cross above the cotton.

As if reading my mind, Betty Irene lifted her head and looked right at me, arms outstretched, as if ready to be drawn and quartered. Her head turned, chin in line with shoulder. I screamed for the Lord, but when he didn’t answer, I screamed for Mama. I fell to the ground, as if I could somehow hide within the cotton; arranged myself into the fetal position as if that could somehow make me seem smaller; closed my eyes as if that would somehow make it impossible for her to spot me. I longed for darkness, but waves of red soaked through my lids, as did Betty Irene, manifesting in ways I could only imagine. I stayed in this position until the sun went down, my neck burning, then ran as fast as I could back inside. Why, why, why? I could hear some invisible audience laughing at me. I reckon Pa was laughing too.

The next day was the same thing all over again. Pa stayed inside on the davenette to listen to the radio and drink his Schlitz, while I went out in the midday sun to pick. But that day, I had to pick the acre closest to Betty Irene. Pa said if I don’t get too close, I should be fine. He’d strapped her to the cross so she couldn’t get to me.

But saying that I should be fine was not good enough for me.

What I had really been wondering was why he hadn’t just killed her. I’d never thought like this before. But then again, my life had never been in danger like this before.

Before I had any time to protest, Pa shoved me out the front door and the lock clicked shut. The sun immediately began beating down on my face, making me squint, but I could still see Betty Irene out in the distance.

As I got closer, I could see there were little black dots that peppered the air around the foot of the cross. The dots vibrated and buzzed, spinning in circles as if they didn’t know which way to go, or which way was up or down.

They were flies. Hundreds of them, at least.

I kept my eyes down, trying to focus on my work. I pulled the cotton from the burs, one after another, edging closer and closer to Betty Irene.

I was about half an acre away when I began to smell it. Whatever it was, it was worse than our outhouse in the midst of a drought. It was sickening – putrid and vile.

The buzzing gradually surged, infiltrating my brain until it was all I could hear. I could no longer make out the crunch of the dead cotton burs beneath my feet, the whip of the wind, or even my own exhales which I could feel were quickly growing more and more intense. As I traveled closer and closer to the cross, a heavy swarm of flies began crowding my face, as if in some sort of attempt to push me back, saying, No, this is ours.

And that’s when I heard Betty Irene.

“Darla,” she choked, hacking up blood.

She knew my name.

She ripped her right arm away from the cross, hanging now from only her feet and one wrist. Her overalls were melting to her flesh, her skin peeled and blistered.

I took off toward the house, yelling for my mama, who I knew wasn’t there. I swore I heard the rustle of Betty Irene running through the cotton, chasing after me. I pounded on the door until my knuckles bled, begging Pa to let me in before she had a chance to lunge at me, stealing me away only to then realize that I am not good enough and rip my body to shreds. I pushed up against the door, hoping that maybe if I pushed hard enough, I’d eventually just fall through it like a ghost.

On the cross, Betty Irene was writhing and shrieking, struggling to break free. I banged on the door again, but every time I looked away, I had a feeling she was right behind me, so I turned, leaning my back on the house.

I fell backwards when Pa finally opened the door. He immediately started throwing around an amalgam of words that I didn’t understand. Then he said a few words that I did: Get back out there, now. I attempted to protest with voice and hands, but neither were stronger than his. He offered no refuge.

I yelled and yelled that he was wrong. That Betty Irene was coming for me. It was then that he noticed the thrashing of the monster. Quickly, he took me inside, then went out back to find his ax.

But he was taking too long. Betty, still flailing about, now had one foot loose. There wasn’t enough time. I rushed to my room, lit my kerosene lamp, and returned to the field.

“Darla!” she yelled, screeching. Then I did the same as I slammed the lamp down at the edge of the field, the dry cotton plants immediately bursting into flames, spreading quickly to the cross that held Miss Betty Irene. The wood went up in a blaze, swallowed by the massive inferno. The shrieking was deafening as she thrashed, putting up a fight against the flames, until eventually she stopped, and all that was left was the sound of the crackling fire. Pa came out with the ax just seconds later, seeing what I had done. He embraced me, and for once, I let him.

The wildfire spread far, eventually taking out the neighboring farms as well. Luckily no homes were destroyed since the flames couldn’t cross the gravel roads. Smoke covered the sun for days as we breathed in soot and ash.

But that night Pa sang me to sleep, and for the first time, I welcomed it.

‘Bitty blonde bombshell, Betty Irene

‘Merica’s sweetheart, Daddy’s machine

Purty little birdie, my Betty Irene

There she set lonesome, waiting on me

He rose from the rocker to tuck me in, blowing out my backup kerosene lamp.

Billy’s been hit by Jerry and Fritz

But onward I persist – for I’d be remiss

To not get one more kiss from Miss Betty Irene

He kissed my cheek, laughing as if listening to Fibber and Molly.

But to the Devil I sent that Betty Irene

Hung her deep, with the cotton seed

For that ‘bitty bombshell hadn’t waited on me

But found another man with whom she was well pleased.

Years later I remembered what Pa had said. Mama was his Betty.

And right then I knew that during the summer of 1946, I’d done something bad.