The Bighead Read Online Free PDF

Jerrica was telling her
things of her utmost personal life. Well, maybe that was okay. A
person needed to talk about things, to people who were safe. And
that’s what Charity was: Safe.
    But enough was enough; Jerrica’s mind
raced like a rat in a maze, scurried for exit. She lit another
Salem and changed the subject. “So how about some more about you?.
You’ve already told me you’re not married and don’t have a
boyfriend.”
    Charity at once looked down
at her lap. Not embarrassment, but puzzlement. Like Jerrica,
Charity Walsh felt puzzled, not by the world and the people in it,
but by her own self. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I’ve dated
a lot of men—I like men—but…but, never in my life have I had more than one date
with the same guy. I just don’t get it. I just can’t figure out
what it is I’m doing wrong.”
    “ Hey, don’t blame yourself
because things don’t turn out,” Jerrica assured. “Christ, I like
men too, but I’ll be the first to tell you that they’re all
assholes. But, I mean—I mean, did you…”
    “ Did I have sex with them
on those first dates?” Charity blushed again. “Yes. Every time. But
it just didn’t…work.”
    Didn’t work. Even Jerrica, in her wild complexity, couldn’t
quite get a handle on that. Maybe she’s a
lousy lay, she considered. Maybe she doesn’t know how to give head… But these things, of course, she could never give
voice to.
    “ Something just doesn’t
work, just doesn’t happen , you know?” Charity went
sheepishly on. “I don’t know what it is.”
    This statement could be deciphered in
innumerable ways. Did Charity mean orgasm? Did she mean chemistry?
“Look,” she offered without speculating further. “I think what it
all boils down to is finding the right guy. Maybe that’s our
problem. We just haven’t found the right guy.”
    Charity’s thin shoulders rose and
fell.
    Yeah, maybe that was it.
    They veered off onto Route 23, the
little red car whisking along the open country road, long fields
passing them by. Right now they were dividing the Allegheny and
Appalachian Mountains; the world had changed over indeed,
prolapsing from a domain of skyscrapers and smog to one of
forestlines and scarecrows. For Jerrica it was strange but
refreshing nonetheless. She couldn’t wait to write her article on
Appalachian rural culture. This trip enthused her, but there was
one thing ticking at the back of her mind…
    How long can I go
without—
    She didn’t dare even finish the
query.
    “ It’s so good to be back,”
Charity said.
    “ What?”
    “ I wasn’t sure how I’d
feel, but now that we’re getting back into the old hill country, I
can see I made the right choice to come back. The people here are
simple, and so is the life. But it’s so much more honest and real
than where we come from.”
    Jerrica thought about this, flicking
yet another butt out the side. The engine purred, the car’s frame
sucking down onto the blacktop through each winding turn. To either
side came a blurred spread of beautiful sweeping green—the forests.
And the air smelled so clean Jerrica thought she was getting
high.
    And Charity was the perfect riding
mate. She knew the area, plus her aunt had the boarding
house—they’d be all set up. She followed Charity’s coming
directions, and within an hour, they passed a corroded green
roadsign which read LUNTVILLE.
    Luntville. Jerrica had known all along that that was where
they were going. But the name sent a tick in her head just then.
Something she’d read. “Hey, didn’t I read something in the papers a
long time ago, about some convent or monastery near
Luntville?”
    “ It was an abbey, I think,”
Charity corrected. “But I really don’t know anything about it. You
can ask my aunt, though.”
    That’s right, it wasn’t the
papers she read it in, it was her Nexus notes. There was some
controversy, if Jerrica remembered correctly. Something about a
hospice, dying priests.