Chapter 18 - Bonnie

Chapter 18

Bonnie

Shitsville, Arizona, 1970

Bonnie didn't know how young and stupid she was until after she got married. It turned out that loving someone and living with them were two very different things. And in 1970, no one knew jackshit about mental illness or how to stop things from going from bad to the very worst.

Jimmy got a job pumping gas, the all-night shift down at the Texaco out on the interstate, and Bonnie had no idea that would be a bad move. She was just glad he got a job. Between his minimum wage and her job at Doc Slaughter's, they had just enough money to move out of Pa's trailer in Shitsville and into another trailer . . . also in Shitsville. But Bonnie didn't mind it so much, since this trailer had Jimmy Keays in it.

The two of them had a ball getting married. They'd bought sparkling wine and pretended it was champagne, and Bonnie had her new ice-blue dress and a bunch of pink roses that she threw in Dee's direction as she and Jimmy were leaving. But Dee, being Dee, had fumbled at the last minute and lost out to eleven-year-old Tina Buck. Bonnie had rolled her eyes and waved goodbye, giggling, and then she and Jimmy had spent the night in an honest-to-goodness motel room, with a radio built into the headboard of the bed and everything.

Jimmy stole the Gideon's Bible for her the next morning and told her to keep it as a souvenir of their wedding night. And Bonnie had thought that was the most romantic thing she'd ever seen.

And they had fun after the wedding too, picking out a trailer and acting the grown-up married couple. Bonnie had scrubbed the shabby old thing and decorated it herself, even sewing curtains for the windows out of fabric she found in a discount bin. They had big purple and white daisies on them, and she'd loved them to bits.

"One day," Bonnie had chirped as she'd walked around twitching the curtains, so they hung just right, "we're going to live in a trailer just like your grandparents, with a lounge that looks like something out of Bewitched."

"Forget that," Jimmy scoffed dismissively. "We're gonna have a house. Out in California where the rock stars live, where it never rains."

"It never rains here," Bonnie reminded him with a giggle.

God, she'd loved Jimmy Keays, with his silver eyes and his carefree ways. And she loved the way he loved her. Jimmy would do just about anything to make her happy. Including working at the Texaco.

Bonnie and Jimmy Keays had worked hard. She left in the morning for the dental clinic and got home after he left for his night shifts. And those nights he was gone really started to wear on both of them. But they had Saturday afternoons and Sundays together, and those were the best times of Bonnie's life up to that point, hands down, even though she was living in Shitsville in a trailer that was rusted to its blocks and smelled like chalky dust.

But Bonnie was all of nineteen and being married didn't mean she wasn't still na?ve. She'd lived around drinkers and all kinds of messed-up people, but for some reason she never thought of those messes as something that could grow in a person. Only years later would she be watching Oprah when a story came on about a man with a mental illness and she thought, That's my Jimmy.

Because Jimmy wasn't well even before the Texaco. It wasn't that he didn't love Bonnie, he did. He loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone, and she knew it in her deepest bones. But love isn't a cure, and Jimmy had a wildness in him, a moodiness that he had no control over, and working nights and not sleeping, and the stress of having to make rent, and keep Bonnie happy, was too much for him.

He got mouthy, with his boss and with the customers. And then with Bonnie too. One minute he'd be his sweet self, and the next he'd be furious about every little thing. He railed at his grandparents when they wouldn't loan him money; he railed at Pa for not letting them borrow the TV; he railed at Bonnie for waking him up by walking too loudly in the kitchen when he was trying to sleep.

"I can't sleep," he'd yell. And he'd punch the wall sometimes, scaring her.

Only years later did she learn about bipolar disorder and the waves that swamped Jimmy Keays, lifting him high, before almost smashing him to pieces. Jimmy's mother told her about the episodes back in Minnesota, the doctors he hated, all the times he'd run away. And Jimmy's mom saw Bonnie as just another symptom of his disease. But Bonnie knew none of that in 1970, when things were tough.

When Jimmy's sleeplessness went on too long, Bonnie got worried. He really wasn't sleeping. He didn't even seem to need it after a while. He talked a mile a minute and was full of plans. They'd get a house, he decided, scouring the listings, even though the two of them could barely afford to live in the worst trailer in Shitsville.

And then one night Jimmy lit out in the middle of a shift, taking fifty dollars from the till of the Texaco and a car from the garage. He drove off in the stolen Ford, leaving the Texaco unattended, and he'd blown the fifty on booze and sat out by the air force base drinking until the sun came up. He'd had an idea about joining the air force and was waiting until the base opened.

Bonnie got the call to come bail him out when she was getting ready for work. She listened, chilled, as the cop told her that her husband had boosted a car and trespassed on air force property. And when she went to pull the bail money from the bundle she kept in the sugar bowl, she found all their cash was gone . . .

Jimmy Keays had spent their monthly rent money, along with all their pathetic savings, on a down payment for a barbecue. To go on the patio of a house they didn't have the money to buy.

"You're mad at me," Jimmy said fretfully when she eventually bailed him out. She'd had to borrow the money from Dee, and Dee hadn't been happy about it.

Jimmy's angry fire had burned itself out and he was limp and tired. His silvery eyes were dull.

"I'm not mad," Bonnie said, and she meant it. They were walking back to Shitsville, and Bonnie had a frightening sense that she was dealing with something far too big for her. Something she didn't understand. "I just don't get it, Jimmy."

Jimmy Keays shuffled along next to her, his hands in the pockets of his Texaco jacket. "I don't get it either, Bon. I don't know what gets into me." He kicked at the dust by the side of the road. "I'm just a fuckup, like my old man says."

"We can't make rent," Bonnie said carefully. "Do you think you can get that down payment back? We don't need a barbecue."

He nodded, looking ashamed. "I'll try."

But he couldn't get the money back. And he'd lost his job at the Texaco. And Bonnie was looking at trying to make rent and also paying Dee back. It was a lot.

Jimmy Keays went into a deep, dark hole over it. All the sleep he'd been denying crashed down on him and he didn't get out of bed for days.

Bonnie had her own hole of a moment too. She felt like Jimmy was on the dark side of the moon, like one of those astronauts, and she couldn't reach him. Sometimes she'd crawl into bed next to him and stroke his face. He'd nuzzle into her like a cat, and she'd hold him tight, feeling like she had to do something, but she didn't know what to do.

And then the storm passed, and Jimmy Keays came back to her. Bonnie felt herself exhale at a cellular level when Jimmy emerged from his black hole, his silver eyes shining, his smile bashful.

"I guess I made a mess," he said, shuffling up behind her as she cooked breakfast. He'd wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "I guess you didn't know you married such a loser."

"You're not a loser," Bonnie protested. She leaned back into him, blinking back tears. "Mostly because if you were, then I'd be Mrs. Loser, and I'm no loser."

"I'll fix it, Bon, I promise." He kissed her neck. "Trust me, I'll make it better."

She turned in his arms. "I missed you," she said.

"Hey." He saw she was crying and shifted uncomfortably. "Don't do that. It was only me off on a tear. It's okay." He kissed her. "It's okay, bonny Bonnie. I'm here."

"Don't do that again." She smacked him gently on the chest. "Promise me."

He was rueful. "I can try and promise." He kissed her again. "I love you," he said fiercely. "Whatever happens, you've got to know I love you."

Bonnie had never doubted it.

* * *

Jimmy hunted for jobs, but it was the era of stagflation, when America's economy was in the toilet. He couldn't find a job to save his life. And he treated it like it was a life-or-death battle. He and Bon couldn't make rent and had to move out of their trailer, and in with Bonnie's pa.

Jimmy grew moody again.

"Don't," Bonnie begged him. "Please, honey. Try."

And he kept himself on a leash, for her, because he'd promised, holding on to her at night like she were a life preserver. It cost him to keep control. It frayed him. Bonnie had no idea at the time that there was no trying your way out of mental illness. She had no way of knowing how to help him, and no money to help him even if she had known how.

"It won't always be like this," she promised him, na?ve beyond belief. "This is just a bad patch."

And they made love silently, filling the long, worrisome nights with each other. And as tough as times were, they were also wonderful, because there were never two people more in love than her and Jimmy Keays.

"You deserve more," he whispered to her, as they lay tangled in her old single bed in Pa's trailer.

"I sure do," she laughed. "But so do you." And then she kissed him hard. "But if someone said to me, you have to live in this trailer all your life, but you get to have Jimmy Keays, or you can have all the riches in the world, but you can't have him . . . honey, I'd pick this. Every time."

He sighed and held her. "I don't like that choice."

"Luckily I don't have to make it." She patted him. "I'm going to have you and all the riches in the world."

"You got me, so at least you're half there."

Yes, she was. And she was happy in those moments. And happiness is a rare jewel, best hoarded when found.

* * *

And then early one Sunday morning, Bonnie woke to find Jimmy gone. There wasn't even a note. But there was a knock at the trailer door.

Bonnie opened it.

And standing on the cinderblock step were a pair of cops, their caps in hand.

"Mrs. Keays?" they said. And she knew. It was the somber tones. The inability to look her in the eye. "Mrs. James Keays?"

Bonnie nodded jerkily, her stomach clenching up so small and tight it hurt.

She knew then, before anything was said. Jimmy Keays was gone.