The Short Life of Bessie Taylor - Amy Barnes
I said goodbye to Bessie the summer I turned twelve. It was a slow death made worse by Alabama heat that lingered at night, bed sheets semi-damp despite giant fans circling overhead. I’d always been close to her. It was too hot to play outside, and she was always comforting.
I was stick-skinny and the heat stuck to me in a way that Bessie didn’t seem to mind. She was a hefty girl with “a little meat on her bones” as my Aunt Toots used to say. Mama was sick that summer, which meant I was getting another brother or sister around Christmas. It also meant I was often sent to Tucker’s Store for groceries to make meals for my brothers.
Bessie waited at home, ready to help me put them away. Holding the cold milk made the mile-long run to the grocery less stifling. Sometimes, I’d talk to Bessie about who I saw in the store and what they were buying and the gossip I had heard.
“Ethel Smith is getting married again.”
“They’ve selling something called artichokes. Doesn’t that sound murderous?”
“I saw Frank Thompson with his mom buying ointment. He hid behind her like I couldn’t see, him but I did. I bet the ointment was his.”
Bessie responded in a sing-song hum to let me know she was listening but needed to keep working. She took her job very seriously, working into the wee hours. I listened on rainy nights for her when I couldn’t sleep in the summer heat. In the morning, Bessie waited in the kitchen with cold orange juice.
Some days, we chatted about school approaching or mean Maddie Alcott who lived on the other side of town and had stupid big bows in her hair. I didn’t wear bows. I couldn’t even if I wanted to; my hair was fire-engine red and coarse like the steel wool my Mama kept by the sink. Most days, I wetted it down and tried to cram it into a ponytail, except on Saturday night when it was rag curler time. I always told Mama that putting in curlers wouldn’t help a bit, but she persisted. Bessie watched with a sympathetic look but didn’t try to stop Mama. She told me it wasn’t her place.
By the time we got to church on Sundays, my hair was all fire-engine kink while Maddie Alcott’s hair was perfectly smooth with a pink bow matching her lips that I knew had gloss on them, although she denied it.
One Sunday afternoon, we went home for family dinner. Even Aunt Toots planned to eat with us. She never did that. She preferred the company of a handsome man at a local restaurant, according to my mama. I had never seen many handsome men in town, and the only restaurant was really a Howard Johnson’s, so I didn’t see the appeal. I knew something was wrong the minute we walked in the door. Bessie saw no use in going to church, instead staying home with the lemon chess pies and lemonade, coleslaw and lemon bars and popsicles.
“What’s wrong with Bessie?” I screamed.
She wasn’t humming her usual happy song. She looked as green as I felt the summer I ate a corn dog before riding the fair’s Ferris wheel six times in a row.
“I don’t know, Elizabeth Anne.” My mother never called me by my full given name. I knew something was going on.
“What’s wrong with Bessie?” I repeated. By then, I was clutching Bessie, praying to the God that I heard could save anyone.
“Your prayers won’t work, honey. She’s gone.” Aunt Toots pulled me away from Bessie and took me in the other room. The last thing I remember was my dad trying to resuscitate Bessie. I knew he was the only one that could save her.
He failed. Bessie died two days before I turned twelve. Three weeks before I went to Nathan Bedford Forrest Middle School for the first time. It was the first time anyone I knew died. My dad felt how close we were. When it came time to take Bessie away, he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Before we left the house, I grabbed Tupperware containers filled with leftovers and birthday cake, stuck them in my bookbag, and hopped in the back of the pickup to sit by Bessie for her final trip.
When we arrived at the service, I appreciated Bob’s Salvage and You-Pull-It took such care in preparing for her arrival. There was a row of refrigerators waiting to join her on the crushing station. Her Avocado Green exterior fit well next to her Harvest Gold cousins.
My dad and Bob moved Bessie to her final resting place. I opened her doors one last time hoping to feel any small bit of coolness and found only the burning heat of summer on the metal. I put the Tupperware on her produce shelf and shut the door. I turned away while the large platform came down and crushed her into a Frigidaire cube.
By the time we got home, my mother had already installed and filled Bessie’s replacement. I took popsicles from her only because it was hot outside, but I never sat by her and told her stories. She didn’t hum me songs until I went to sleep, didn’t gossip.
The next Sunday, the pastor told us we all went to a better place after we died and I had nightmares the rest of the summer. My twelve-year-old self-thought I would be laid to rest at Bob’s Salvage and You-Pull-It after being crushed to death.
For years, I visited the cube that was Bessie until she disappeared into the archaeological metal pile at Bob’s, leaving behind my first two cars and dorm fridge too.
Originally published by The New Southern Fugitives Journal
Amy Barnes is the author of three collections: AMBROTYPES,, “Mother Figures” and CHILD CRAFT, forthcoming from Belle Point Press. A collaborative NIF, MOTHER ROAD will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction in spring, 2023. She has words at The Citron Review, Spartan Lit, JMWW Journal, Janus Lit, Flash Frog, No Contact Mag, Leon Review, Complete Sentence, Gown Lawn, The Bureau Dispatch, Nurture Lit, X-R-A-Y Lit, SmokeLong Quarterly, McSweeney’s and many others. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, included in Best Small Fictions 2022 and long-listed for Wigleaf50 in 2021 and 2022. She’s a Fractured Lit Associate Editor, Gone Lawn co-editor, Ruby Lit assistant editor and reads for NFFD, CRAFT, Taco Bell Quarterly, Retreat West, The MacGuffin, and Narratively.
