Cornsilk

by Anonymous

Her name was Rebecca Ann Simpson. She looked to be all of seven years old. She wore a worn blue gingham dress with tattered little Red Ball Jets tennis shoes. Her eyes were a sun washed blue, and her hair was that rare yellow/white. Like cornsilk. It was from her hair that she got her nick name. Cornsilk.

Not many of the people from the sleepy south Georgia town of Wellsville knew her nickname, nor much else about her. She lived on an ol' ramshackle farm on the outskirts of the county of Macon. It was a blazin' hot August in 1962 that this happened. I know because I was there.

Everyone was happy about the prosperous times and all. We had a handsome young president in the white house, and the coloreds were shoutin' about civil rights and all. Now Cornsilk, she lived on the old farm with what everyone assumed to be her grandmother and grandfather. Everyone was wrong. But then, they was wrong about a lot of things when it came to Miss Rebecca Ann Simpson. Now, I know the truth. Me and Bubba Lee Jones. But ain't either one of us ever gonna' tell anyone. No Sir, not me, and certainly not Bubba.

See that hot August day, it was the 6th of August, it was the hottest day on record. 105 degrees in the shade. They didn't do that fancy stuff with humidity back then. No that was an honest 105. Bubba and me, we was workin' on roadside reclamation for the Macon County Correctional Facility for Wayward Youth. A fancy name for a reformatory. Bubba was 18 and I was 17. He was big and meaner than a snake. When he turned 21 they was gonna transfer him to the State Correctional Facility for adult offenders. Me, well if I had kept my nose clean, I could of gone free when I was 21. But I was young, and stupid, and full of myself.

Bubba was in for robbing a liqueur store and killing an old colored man who he ran into as he was leaving. It was Bubba's fault that he ran into the old man. Knocked the old fella right on his keester too. But Bubba didn't care. He shot him dead anyway. A 12 gauge Mossberg, fired into a mans face, from point blank range, tends to do that. Least ways when it is loaded with .00 buckshot. In a way it was the old man that got Bubba caught though. See when Bubba ran into him, his wallet fell out of his hip pocket. In his rush to kill the old colored man and get away, Bubba never noticed that his wallet had been left at the scene of the crime. If it had been a white man he had killed then Bubba would have probably gotten the death penalty. Instead he got 25 years at hard labor.

I had been runnin' moonshine with my Uncle Jake. Uncle Jake was a great driver and no John Law could catch him. I wanted to be just like him. I thought I already was. I wasn't. I got caught and I got sentenced to 5 years in the State Correctional Facility. Provided I kept my nose clean and did my time sweet. That was where I met Bubba. Guess I always had a problem with hero worship.

Anyway we was out doin' roadside reclamation, which is really just pickin' up trash and cuttin' weeds and such, down on a dusty clay back street near the south Macon border when Bubba suddenly tells me to grab my stomach and fall over maonin'. Bubba wasn't one to argue with, and I wouldn't have crossed him anyway, so I did like he told me.

Bubba hollered for the guard and he came strollin' over like he had no where to go and all day to get there.

"Whatsa' mattah Bubba?" He says. "Yore little Girlfriend gone off sick on ya'? She got her period or sumthin'?" He seemed to think that was real funny. He liked to rile Bubba sayin' how I was his little faggot and all that. That made Bubba go all black eyed. Maybe if that big fat guard hadn't taunted Bubba like that then Bubba would have let him live. I guess we'll never know now though.

As the guard bent down to look at me Bubba brought the shovel he had been usin' down across the back of his neck. The edge of the blade bit into his big, sweaty, red neck and cut through his spine as clean as a knife. Bubba grabbed his keys and his shotgun. The other guard was facin' the other way. Watchin' the other boys. He never knew what hit him. One shot and his head was gone too. Bubba liked shotguns.

The other boys scattered like scared rabbits or somethin'. They was all scared of Bubba. Especially when he had the black eye on him. He yelled at me to get in the work truck and we was on our way. We figured we would have a few hours before anyone found out. We would have too, if the new Warden at the Correctional Facility hadn't decided to pull a surprise inspection of the street work crews. Guess it was a real surprise all right.

Anyway it was less than a half hour before we heard the alert go out over the radio. We needed to find us a bolt hole and quick. Them State boys wouldn't care that we was just a couple of kids. All they would care about was that we was cop killers. That's when we saw them rollin' fields of corn and the old farm house. I wish to God we had taken our chance with the State Boys. I surely do.

Bubba wheeled the truck into the dirt path that led to the old outbuildings of the farm. He pulled up behind an old barn and we used pitchforks to shovel hay all over the truck. Then he had me go sweep out the tracks while he took the shotgun up to the house. As I was sweepin' I remember seeing the most God awful scary lookin' scarecrow I had ever seen. It was hangin' out in the middle of all that corn. Just hangin' there. Nothin' to scare a big strappin 17 year old kid like me. But it gave me the sweats I tell you. It surely did that.

When I got done I went up to the house. I peeked through the screen door and saw Bubba standin' there with the shotgun in his hand and an old, and man I do mean O-L-D, couple sittin' on the couch in front of them. A little golden, haired girl stood nearby. She was lookin' at Bubba like she wasn't scared at all. It made me feel all protective toward her. This tiny little thing just standin' there and lookin' at big old Bubba. Her eyes all wide and innocent. Not a trace of fear in them. I suddenly felt like I wanted to grab her and take her away from all this ugliness that was gonna' be comin'. But I couldn't. Nobody crossed Bubba.

Well Bubba he was layin' down the law to them old folks about how we was gonna' be their guests for a few days and they was gonna' be quiet and do what they was told and all. He told them that if any law dogs came around we would hide in the corn fields with a shotgun to the little girls head. One wrong word. One wrong move, and no more little yellow haired grand-daughter. Somehow though, this really didn't seem to
them up so much as I thought it should. I figured they was just too old to be as shook up as someone more in possession of all their natural faculties might be. But I was wrong. They wasn't scared of what we would do to the little girl, and she wasn't their grand-daughter. Of course I didn't find this out 'till later on.

Oh, would you like a bit more chamomile tea. It is so soothing on the hot August days to have a cooling glass of chamomile tea I always say.

NO? Ok then. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, now I remember. Well Bubba and I settled into a kind of routine. We got no trouble from the old couple and no trouble from the kid. She never spoke, and they spoke damned little too. Bubba made the old folks sleep in the root cellar at night, and the kid he kept between us. A kind of insurance against them causin' any trouble I guess.

We had been there about a week I guess and Bubba was gettin' itchy about movin' on. He figured the heat may have died down enough for us to make it into Florida. See he had this idea about goin' down to the Keys and then gettin' on a sponge boat and killin' the crew after we got out a ways, and then takin' the boat to Mexico. He said we would be home free then.

Every day I sat watch up in the barn. Watchin' the road for John Law. And watchin' that damned scarecrow. It seemed like the eyes followed me wherever I went. They was almost like human eyes. A deep brown. It gave me the willies, I tell you. maybe that's why I never wondered why John Law never came around.

Anyways Bubba he gets itchy feet and wants to move on. He has the old lady pack us up some food and such and then he takes them and the little girl out into the cornfield. Now I was gettin' scared along about now, but I seemed to be the only one. The old folks seemed to be happy, like they didn't have a care in the world. Almost like they wanted to die. The little girl just skipped ahead and hummed to herself.

"Bubba?" I said to him, in a low whisper so they couldn't hear me. "We got their old truck. We done tore out their old telephone. It's a good five miles to the nearest town and old as they are it would take them at least a day to make it, even assuming they could. Couldn't we just leave them here and take the car and supplies and go?"

"Don't you be talkin' so gall darned stupid Billie Joe." Bubba hisses at me. "We need more than a dang day. Besides I don't believe in leavin' loose ends around. They may not talk much to us, but you can bet they will sing real sweet to John Law. No, they got to die."

What? I'm sorry I didn't hear your question clearly. My name? It is Abigail Simpson. But back then it was Billy Joe Taylor. Don't worry, I'll get it all explained to you.

Anyway Bubba gets them into the middle of the corn field, right beside that damn scary scarecrow and tells them to kneel down. The two old folks kneel down just as sweet as you please. Then they did somethin' real strange. At least strange for two old people, kneelin' in a cornfield and lookin' up the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun. They smiled at Bubba. And Bubba, well he shot them in the face. And then they was dead.
little girl just goes on skippin' around the scarecrow and hummin' to herself. She weren't scared or nothin'. Bubba then calls her over to him. She comes over and smiles up at him too. He starts to swing the shotgun over toward her head and I snapped. I screamed at him and jumped at him. Boy was that a stupid thing to do.

Bubba clumked me upside the head with the barrel of the shotgun and I saw stars. I hit the ground and I could feel the dust of that powdery clay grit in between my teeth. My head swam and then I saw the barrel of the shotgun pointin' in my face, and I knowed I was gonna' die. I tell you I was so scared I wet my pants. Not because of the shotgun pointin' at me, no...that didn't bother me near as much as the little girl did right then.

See she was laughin'. Cacklin' would be closer to it I guess. And her hair was standin' up all around her head like there was static electricity in the air or somthin'. You know, like right before a big ol' electric storm? Then she started sayin' some of the eeriest words I ever heard come out of anyone's mouth. Much less a little golden/white haired girl in a southern Georgia cornfield. Bubba must have been unnerved to, 'cause he just froze there. Not doin' nothin'. Just standin' there with his teeth clenched and the sweat runnin' off his forehead.

Then she started to dance around me and Bubba. Chantin' in a sing song voice some kind of eldretch words that no human tongue was ever meant to speak and no human ears was meant to hear. It felt like the words scorched my brain. I saw Bubba's eyes fair to bulgin' out of his head. See that was the thing about Bubba. He was a handsome rascal. With the prettiest blue eyes you ever saw in a mans face. Right then them blue eye's of his was lookin' like they was gonna' explode out of his face at any moment.

I thought I must have fallen on a red ant bed because I felt like I was covered with them critters. All crawlin' on my skin. But when I glanced down there wasn't no red ants on me at all. But my skin was crawlin. And so was my flesh. I could feel my insides churnin' and changin'. I felt liquid run out of me and I thought I saw it steam from the fever heat that had taken' me. It felt like my whole body was changin'. Then the pain hit. Just as I blacked out I noticed that my hair had gotten real long and gone all golden/white...just like the weird little girls.

I woke up back inside the farmhouse, on that very couch you are a sittin' on. I was wearin' a nice gingham dress, and some, I think the word is sensible, shoes. I had on no stockin's, but I could feel strange undergarments on me. At least strange before that moment. Not so strange now...not after 36 years of wearin' them. I know...I kinow I don't look a day over 25 even now. Just let me finish. I'm almost done now. You see I had woken' up a woman. A young woman. Just about old enough to be the little girl's Mother. She was standin' there smilin' at me. I was still too dazed and confused to be as shook up as I guess I ought to have

It felt funny to stand up and be so short, I'm only 5'5" inches you know. I had been 6' before. It felt funny to move around with things movin' around where there hadn't ought to be anything, and an emptiness where there had ought to be somethin'. My butt felt too big, and my chest swung around some even with a bra on. Course with a chest as big as mine I guess I had to expect that. See we didn't have no cow, and the girl she likes fresh milk. If you take my meanin', and I see you do. The girl took me by the hand and led me out into the cornfield. Out to where the scarecrow hung. Only now there were two of them. And one of them had blue eyes. The prettiest blue eyes you ever did see on a man like thing. As for the two dead old people, well they was just gone. Who they really were I never did find out.

Now I can see you don't believe a word I have said, Mr. Fuller Brush man. No you think I am just some looney young woman, with a cute little girl, livin' out on a run down old farm in south Macon county. But you see there was a reason you came here today. There was a reason I told you all this. See little Rebecca Ann, or Cornsilk as everyone who ever sees her is like to call her, wants a baby brother to play with. A nice little 5 year old boy, with washed out blue eyes, and golden/white hair. Here now. Don't you cry none sugar. Your gonna' be just fine here. Let me get you out of those big ol' man clothes and get you into a nice clean jumper. Cornsilk's waitin to play hide and seek with you in the cornfield. But mind the scarecrows when you play. I don't want you to have bad dreams and, sometimes, if you get too close and it's real quiet, you can just hear Bubba whisperin' with his straw filled throat, "Help me. Someone... anyone...help me please."

Cornsilk copyright 1999 by Anonymous.