Bethany's Decision

It was 1956, and Bethany was only sixteen growing up in the small town of Bakersfield, Iowa. It was an idyllic time to be a teenager, in an idyllic small Midwestern town. Bethany had always believed that she was blessed to have been born into such a time and place to what, after a time of trial, would become such a wonderful family. She was born a year before World War II, a year before her father made the hard decision to leave her and her mother to go fight against Germany. She was sixteen months old when he left.

In 1944 her father returned after fighting in Normandy, a war hero who had won the Silver Star and a Purple Heart. The town hailed him as a hero, and Bethany met her father for what felt like the first time. At first it was strange having a man in the house, he and her mother quarreled often. He used harsh language which she learned not to repeat after being spanked for mimicking her dad. What was also strange was that when her and her mother would go to church at their local Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, her dad would stay on the couch.

Finally, after waking up one Saturday morning hung over and behind of the wheel of his truck which was wrapped around a rather large Oak he decided he needed to change his direction in life. The following morning he was clean shaved, in a suit and attended all three hours of the church service. Then last year he was called into the service of the Church as Bishop of the Bakersfield Ward.

Today thoughts of her family history were far behind her, she had come to her private place. There was a small patch in her father's corn field that, try as he might; he could get nothing to grow. Bethany enjoyed sneaking off to this place and just lay there looking up into the wild, cloud filled blue sky of day or the eternal nothingness of the night sky. She would spend hours there on her back, alone. Alone, like when her father was at war and no one else competed with her for her mother's attention. Although she loved her younger siblings, she treasured the quiet of being alone.

Except today she wasn't alone; sure her parents and younger siblings were in town meeting with General Eisenhower as he made a whistle stop in the small farm town. But every time that she heard the wind play in the corn stalks she could swear she could hear him making his way towards her. He was a stranger, a snake in human clothing she had seen the night before at Hank's Burger Shack Drive-In.

There had been a youth social at the Ward; the young Bakersfield ward Saints played a group of young Saints from a neighboring ward in a game of basketball. The young ladies were there to cheer for the young men from their particular ward, and afterward make sure the tired and sweaty young men had lemonade and cookies. Following the festivities the local ward youth decided to go grab hamburgers and shakes at Hank's. It was there sitting on Jimmy O'Connell's (a prominent attorney's son destined for BYU, Bethany's parents approved of his calling on her) baby blue Chevy eating the Jr. hamburger and small fries he had bought her, that she noticed the greaser staring at her intently.

The relative warmth of the night had not prevented the Stranger from wearing his well used black leather jacket over his tight white t-shirt. She noticed that the jacket matched his belt, shoes and his thick, slicked back hair. He posed like someone who didn't give a damn about what others thought, leaning arrogantly against the dented and weather worn hood of his decade old car (also black; but not in a gleaming reflective black that advertised pride, instead it was painted in a flat tint that seemed to greedily devour all light within ten feet of the ancient looking vehicle and dared any onlooker to object). He had crossed his left foot over to the other side of his right foot, supported most of his weight with his right hand firmly planted on the hood. In his left hand he held a cigarette between his index and middle fingers.

She realized that she wasn't sure if the cigarette was lit, since along with any stray ambient light that may be lingering in the area; the car was also devouring the fragile tendrils of smoke rising from the smoldering tobacco. As he brought the cigarette to his lips to inhale, he slightly turned his head and made contact with Bethany and held her gaze in the dark pupils of his eyes. She was entranced, and the innocent world of Bakersfield and General Eisenhower and Jimmy O'Connell faded into a gray nothingness. For just a fleeting moment her world was lit by the orange cherry that was created on the end of the cigarette held in the Stranger's lips. She wondered how she knew to call the burning end of a cigarette a cherry; she did not hang out with anyone who smoked.

Then she noticed she felt all tingly and her heart was beating fast, and there was pleasant warmth she had never felt before in that special place that she had to guard against the adversary. She was released from his satanic trance when he removed the cigarette from his lips, extinguishing the light from the small cherry. He winked at her and gave her a knowing nod that told her he knew what he had just done to her. Ashamed and embarrassed she lowered her gaze to the ground, a mistake. Subconsciously she had avoided noticing his tight jeans, but now as she tried to avert her eyes downward she could not avoid the sight of his tight jeans. The curve of his rear end and a bulge where she had none captivated her for a moment. The warm feeling that had been between her legs returned and she felt flushed.

Through a distant tunnel she thought she heard someone calling her name and it took her a moment to realize it was Jimmy. She felt his arms wrap around her waist and lift her off his hood, when she could see again she was looking up at the car ceiling from the back seat of Jimmy's car. His face looked down at her then up to a crowd of anonymous faces that she knew from somewhere long ago. Jimmy was barking orders to those around him. As if emerging from a submersion in a rushing river the sounds of the real world suddenly rushed in on her; "Get her some water!" Jimmy shouted to a faceless face.

"I'm okay Jimmy." She finally managed to find her voice. "Must've been something I ate, can you just please take me home?"

"Sure thing honey." He said in a soothing tone of voice, and helped her out of the backseat and into the front passenger seat. As he made his way around the car he fielded a few questions from concerned friends before sliding into the driver's seat and taking her home.

She had thrown-up whenever she got home, Jimmy had helped her into the foyer of her family's farmhouse where her dad had Shang-hi'd him. After about a half hour her mom invaded the sanctity of the male den where dad had taken Jimmy, and informed the suitor that Bethany was fine, but had turned in. He made his good-byes and received a thank-you's and one compliment about him being a "fine young gentleman" as he left. He did ask if he would see Bethany at the rally the following day, but her mom told him that she was sorry but Bethany had decided to stay home.

That was her excuse to stay home when in fact she just wanted to stay home. She was popular, really liked Jimmy (was not totally convinced she wanted to sign up for a temple wedding yet) and was on several social committees at both her High School and the ward. However, she needed these moments to recharge and change from a dress and heels to shorts, casual shirt and comfortable shoes. She had to retreat to a time in her life that she was alone, the only child. Laying on her back in her barren patch of Earth looking up at the infinite sky she did not feel small or insignificant, but rather snug and cuddled by the tall corn reaching into the limitless blue or black.

Unfortunately today she could not find peace so she got up to walk home, maybe take a nap. When she reached the porch she noticed that her shoes had gotten muddied so she left them at the base of the porch steps and went straight to bed.

At high noon she was rudely awaken by the sound of an ancient and worn-out automobile horn being honked ruthlessly. She bounded down to the front door, and without thinking flung it open. She was sleepy and irritated by the interruption, and thus was not thinking straight. "We don't want an..." She stopped dead in her tracks; the Stranger stopped honking his horn. She noticed another shadowy shape in the car's passenger seat. "Who are you guys?"

He leaned against the hood of his old egg beater of a car, striking the same pose he had last night. He smiled, "Ken and I," he spoke in a Georgian twang "...are here to liberate ya darlin'."

"I didn't realize I was a damsel in distress." She leaned against the door frame, trying to strike a nonchalant pose to counter his arrogance. She crossed her arms across her chest, closing herself in obvious defiance to his openness.

"Well, I dunno about no damsel, but you sure as hell don't look like your wearin' no dress."

"My daddy is going to be home real soon, I don't think you want to be here when he gets here. He was in the war!" She tried to sound tough and convincing.

"Well lil girl I knew your daddy was in the war, but he ain't comin' home any time soon. See he's speakin' to the man who was our boss durin' that war, and won't be home for 'bout another hour or two. What say you we go for a lil ride, you know you want to. I could see it in your eyes last night."

"I'm sorry Mister, but I'm not that kind of girl." She turned and went inside pulling the screen door closed behind her, when she turned to lock it behind her she was face to face with her tormentor. Strands of greasy black hair had fallen out of place and where leaving oily tracks across his weathered forehead. His eyes where wide with emotions; rage, passion, anger, desire, revenge and lust. She started to run backward, but tripped and fell and looked upon him expecting him to tear through the thin mesh of the screen door rather to simply open it since she hadn't the time to properly secure it.

"Listen here Missy!" He yelled, saliva thundering out of his mouth along with his words. "You let me in this here house you got it! I was goin to be your liberator, show you some real fun! Don't you go denyin' what I'm offerin'!" Then in a moment the animal inside was gone, replaced by a traveling salesman's insincere softness and smile. "I'm sorry darlin' it's jus I gots ta get Ken there to the bus station. I just don't have no time to play games." He winked at her and turned and walked back to his car.

She felt something, the warm sensation from the night before. She stood and walked to the door opened it, she was unaware of the world around her again. Her legs were propelling her forward as if they had another mind down there hidden between the two of them. She took one hesitant step onto the porch towards the Stranger, now composed and leaning leisurely against his jalopy. It was high noon on what would be a record setting hottest day of the summer (ironically this year the hottest day of the year would be in December), and the sun had heated the glossy wooden floor boards of the front porch to a scalding 98 degrees. When Bethany took her first barefoot step onto the porch, the burn was of a sufficient quality to wake her from her trance and she quickly slipped the foot back inside.

"What's wrong darlin'?" The Stranger asked, a hint of annoyance clearly evident in his voice.

"Oh nothing hun..." Something told her to pretend to be still entranced. "I just want to get a pair of shoes, don't want to burn my feet again."

"Alright then, jus leave the front door open so I can talk to ya."

"Okay." She answered and put on a robotic act answering his incessant questions with the shortest possible answers. She went into her parent's first floor bedroom instead of her own, luckily her mom wore a shoe size only one size larger than Bethany and she found a pair of her mom's gardening shoes and slipped them on her feet. Next she rummaged through her dad's nightstand looking for his pistol. "Almost done!" She fielded an anxious question as she unwrapped the automatic from the red felt cloth her daddy kept it in. She took a moment to feel its dense weight in her delicate hand. Having had no sons, her daddy had taken to teaching his daughters to shoot and tell them the story of the pistol in the nightstand.

He taught them that it was a 9mm Walther P38 pistol that he had taken from a very bad man in the war. He told them that he had scavenged it from a black clad officer running from a place called Auschwitz. At this point in the story he would get a thousand yard stare and his soul seemed to either leave his body or bury itself deep inside its mortal coil. When he snapped out of it, he invariably told his children that he would tell them of the SS when they were older. At sixteen years of age, Bethany still was not old enough. But he impressed upon them that this pistol was only to be used under his direct supervision, for it was evil.

Softly she checked the magazine and then the chamber. The magazine was full, but the chamber was empty so using a pillow to muffle the sound she quietly chambered a round. She stood up and started towards the door, and stopped when she spotted a pair of her mother's black leather pumps. She decided in a second to discard the comfortable garden shoes for the more seductive pumps.

Then, hands clasping the pistol behind her she walked towards the screen door.