Lady of the Night
An excerpt from a story in Between Places, p. 8
Petaluma, 2007
ISBN 978-1-931002-58-5
$9.50
Chacksville was a small town where everybody knew each other. If you looked on a map it was just a pinpoint at the lower left hand corner of Pennsylvania. Southwest was as good a place to live as any other; the steel mills were working and everyone had a job.
If you walked along the railroad tracks which ran through the east end of the town, you could see people fishing off the riverbank. The short walk north would bring you to a bridge where a woman had jumped to rid herself of life’s troubles. When she landed safely in the water she became the butt of cruel jokes, which only added to her misery. Her name was Melody Castille.
Her niece was in my class at school and I remember how the other’s would ask, “Is your Aunt crazy?” Sometimes the classmate would run off to be alone and cry. I saw her one day behind the football field where the trees were full and the sunlight was absent. I watched her for what seemed like too long for any girl to cry.
Even now, after these years, I hear stories of Melody Castille and how she had cut her wrists when her jump failed to impress the intellect of death. Again, she was ‘saved,’ this time by her niece, who found her in the bath with bloody water surrounding her naked form.
At the donut shop you can hear many different versions of the story.
When I visit the place to make a purchase, I wonder if any of the Castille
family is sitting there, unknown to others, listening to the gossip
and damning the orator.
