8
Tiny Harlots
I wanted to get away from the junkyard and there was only one way to do
that, which was the way Audrey had done it: by getting a job so I wouldn’t be
at the house when Dad rounded up his crew. The trouble was, I was eleven.
I biked a mile into the dusty center of our little village. There wasn’t much
there, just a church, a post office and a gas station called Papa Jay’s. I went
into the post office. Behind the counter was an older lady whose name I knew
was Myrna Moyle, because Myrna and her husband Jay (Papa Jay) owned the
gas station. Dad said they’d been behind the city ordinance limiting dog
ownership to two dogs per family. They’d proposed other ordinances, too,
and now every Sunday Dad came home from church shouting about Myrna
and Jay Moyle, and how they were from Monterey or Seattle or wherever and
thought they could impose West Coast socialism on the good people of
Idaho.
I asked Myrna if I could put a card up on the board. She asked what the
card was for. I said I hoped I could find jobs babysitting.
“What times are you available?” she said.
“Anytime, all the time.”
“You mean after school?”
“I mean all the time.”
Myrna looked at me and tilted her head. “My daughter Mary needs
someone to tend her youngest. I’ll ask her.”
Mary taught nursing at the school, which Dad said was just about as
brainwashed as a person could get, to be working for the Medical
Establishment and the Government both. I thought maybe he wouldn’t let me
work for her, but he did, and pretty soon I was babysitting Mary’s daughter
every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Then Mary had a friend,
Eve, who needed a babysitter for her three children on Tuesdays and
Thursdays.