WHITHER THOU GOEST 10 - BILLIE-JO'S STORY PART 2

It was a pretty new experience for me, and a bit scary, sitting in a lawyer’s swanky office, with me being treated all polite, offered coffee and being called Miss Garcia an’all; Boy, I wished I’d dressed up a bit more for the occasion.

Mr Hernandez explained that this package had been sent to him some time ago for safe keeping until a specified time after my father’s death, which was notified to him by another lawyer.  

‘Miss Garcia’ he said, 'I am sure you have many questions, but I have to tell you that I know little of Mr Kaufmanns’ affairs; my instructions were just to hand it over to you personally.  I would be grateful if you would sign a receipt before you leave, and if I can help in any way, I will try my best, but once you read the contents of the package you will probably know more than I do. Please accept my sincere condolences for your loss’.

Didn’t seem much point hanging around, so I signed the paper, took my package and left.  I headed straight for the Beach Bar to examine the contents. It was a bit of a shock to hear Daddy was dead, but, to tell the truth, I would miss his money more than himself; besides, he was getting real old.  I just hoped there would be something in there to tide me over.  Boy, I’ll say there was!  A little deposit book from a Swiss bank slid out of the envelope.  It had my name on it – my real name, Roberta Josefina Garcia.  But here’s the thing – the balance of the book showed over a million US dollars! A million freakin dollars! A MILLION!

There was another envelope in the package - a letter from Hank.  It didn’t say much, just ‘sorry for being a crap Daddy’ and ‘Hope this will make up for the life you have led’ or some such garbage.  I was about to put it all back in my bag when I found another sheet of paper – it was the Death Certificate of Charles Henry Kaufmann – but who was this Ruth-Anne Thomas named as next-of-kin?  A wife maybe, or his sister?  Or even his daughter?

I went home and did some thinking.  I was rich now; I could go anywhere and do anything I wanted to.  I made my decision and packed my bag.  Didn’t take much; I could buy what I needed when I got there and I wanted to travel light.  But the Beretta was tucked away all cosy at the bottom of my bag, just in case. And my doll Polly.  Now I know why Daddy wanted to call her Ruthie! I didn’t know what to do about Grandma, seemed cruel to leave her all alone.  When I told her I was going, she cried, and she howled; she’d had her fill of alcohol and no doubt a few fixes already that day; but she was still quite strong – it came from dealing with all those punters. She grabbed me and pushed me down onto a chair.

‘Bobbie-Jo, how can you do this to me?  I have looked after you all these years, since that whore of a mother of yours got herself killed!’

‘Grandma, you have no right to call her names:  if she was a whore you made her one!’

‘Maybe so, Billie-Jo, but I didn’t turn her into a murderer!  That was your doing – you and your bastard Daddy’.

‘What the hell do you mean?’  I got her by the throat and shook her til she told me.

‘When your Mama was busy with your Daddy one day, I looked through his diary and copied down the details of women in there. I never did like him, old enough to be your Mama’s Grandaddy!  But she wouldn’t listen, kept on seeing him – and I showed her the list I had made.   I reckon it turned her brain.  After that she kept going missing, then would come home all fired up.  She said she had ‘sorted out’ some of Hank’s women.

She told me about this girl called Martha. She had to sit outside the house for a while, but at last out she came, calling for her dog or cat or some such – and my Maria was right there behind her with a rock.

It was some days before the knock on our door.  She had dropped her rock with some real good prints on it in the blood, easy to trace with all her misdemeanours.  She was found guilty and sent to the local pen. And do you know the worse thing?  She hadn’t got Martha:  It was her sister!  Would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so tragic!

Hank came sniffing round her as soon as she got out, and she was soon knocked up. With you.  When she was about five months gone she went off for a couple of days.  I guessed she had gone after Marjorie. She returned days later, off her freakin’ head as usual, and told me what had happened.

It had all gone to plan, except just as she hit her some mad bitch appeared shouting and screaming, so she came back to Miami as quick as she could.  She had seen a kid there too, a teenage boy.  A few months later you were born.’

I left Grandma laying on the bed in her own filth; serves her right for neglecting me so. And for calling my Mama all those names when she’d slept with my Dad whenever he came looking and Mama wasn’t there, as well as after she’d died. Disgustin’! No kid should have to put up with what I endured and I felt no sorrow when I put the pillow over her head last night.  It might be weeks before someone finds her, and I’ll be long gone.  And who’s gonna look into the death of a drunken old hooker?

So now I’m on my way to see this Ruth-Anne. I quite like the idea of having some real kin.  I wonder if she knows about me? Maybe she will introduce me to this brother too.  And if she tells me to get the hell out – well, I’ve got my little Beretta and I may just decide it’s payback time for all the years she had my Dad and no doubt a comfortable little life, while I was living in a stinking pit. But I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how I feel.  It sure is a good feeling to know no-one’s ever going to be able to push me around again.

Anyways, here comes my bus.  Che sara sara, as Grandma used to say.