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night,
Charlene would come into my dreams, getting nastier and nastier, cussing and
screwing and birthing ugly babies. Then, I became afraid to go to the jail, not
because I would hit her but because I was afraid she would act like the girl
that visited me at night and I wouldn't be able to love her any more.
     
    ********************
     
    I went back to cleaning my streets, looking at the ground, and keeping away
from jail cells, policemen, and lawyers. I swept and swept and this made up my
days for the next few weeks and I pretended that the two of us were all that
lived in the world...just me and Big Dog.
    Of course, I wasn't deaf and I heard what they were saying about Charlene.
Charlene or Jasmine or Sugar or whatever other name they say the men over in
Bald Eagle knew her as. The prosecution wasn't being quiet about what they were
going to say about Charlene in court. They were calling her a whore. A whore
who used men and when she robbed a few men too many, she slipped out of town to
hide from the police. She went up the mountain to Whitfield Glen and went home
with the first sucker who would have her and ask no questions. That would be
me.
    They said bad things about me, too. They called me a retard and a weirdo.
Said I never had much sense and it was only because I didn't cause no trouble and kept the town clean that they left me alone
to myself up on the hill. They said I didn't bother no one ,
so they didn't bother me.
    They said no woman had ever gotten near me on account I was ugly looking and
short and walked funny. They said if Charlene had been a prettier girl and not
a whore, she wouldn't have let me touch her. I didn't trust no
one no more.
    The prosecution just added Charlene's motive for killing the old man cross
the road. Seems that he was one of the men Charlene slept with for money, but
that Charlene had stolen all the rest of the money he had. He was pissed off
enough to want his money back and that's why he came out to the Glen. They said
that while I was working, she must have been crossing the road to sleep with
him, to pay him back for what money of his she didn't have any more and to keep
him quiet, so he wouldn't tell me what she was. Then they say she got tired of
dealing with him and killed him so she would be free of him. Didn't make no
sense to me that the old man would come all the way here and hang out across
the road unless Charlene took him for a whole bunch of money and she didn't
have none that I knew of when she came. But I hear
that all a lawyer has to do is make up some story about why a person killed
someone and if the jury was stupid enough to believe it, then it didn't matter
if it was true or not.
    And, in a way, it was a good story for me even if it seemed kind of dumb. I
liked the idea she killed the old man because she loved me and didn't want me
to know what kind of girl she had been before. She lied because she loved me
and she killed because she loved me. She was my beautiful Charlene again. I
started visiting her in the jail most days. She was happy to see me and she
called me by my name though she still didn't seem to know who I was. They let
me see her every evening for as long as I wanted and I started to pretend the
cell was our little home. The guard on duty in the evening went out for a long
smoke between eight and nine o'clock and let us make love on the little cot.
    The defense asked for another month's delay which the judge granted and
Charlene and I spent the autumn happy in our new home, eating our dinner
together, and making love as soon as the policeman winked, pulled out his
cigarette pack and stepped out the front door. Charlene didn't seem so much
different than when we were in our house. We were Charlene and Billy Ray again
and I started growing fearful of the trial that would proclaim her guilty of
her love crime and take her away again.
     
    ********************
     
    It was during our Thanksgiving TV dinner in the cell that I heard the
defense lawyer got