Chapter 1: All About Ruby

After she took off with that traveling preacher, Pa said, "She ain't worth the worry." What he meant was that Ruby told him the next time he reached up under her dress and felt her up she was going to geld his sorry ass. Besides, Pa figured Reba, the younger of his two daughters by one year, might be easier to get along with. She was a wild one already, from what he had heard.

Ruby's ma was thankful to see Ruby leave because Pa had started to look the girl over real close of late. That randy bastard would poke himself in the butt if he had a pecker long enough to do it. He was just like the rest of his lowbred, sand hill red neck, white trash no account family. Besides, she still had Ruby's younger sister Reba to worry about. What was a mother to do? Ruby's best friend Wilma was glad to see her leave because now there was one less to compete with for the few single guys who had jobs that paid halfway decent wages.

As for Ruby, she was just plain old glad to get out of the one horse chicken shit town of Perkins, Oklahoma. Ruby wanted the bright city lights she read about in magazines and saw in the movies. She wanted excitement. She wanted ... She wanted to spread her wings and fly.

At last, the day came when Ruby got her chance to escape from Perkins, Oklahoma. It was the day that traveling preacher Bob Haskell (Preacher Bob called for the unsaved to come forward and hear the gospel according to Bob. He stood in the center of the town square, preached and passed the plate. "Brothers, sisters, come to Jesus, Y'all know he wants you. It says here in this bible that y'all got to come and be saved..." He droned, whines and exhorted the disinterested passers by, but few stopped and fewer listened. He preached three sermons that Saturday afternoon and collected a measly four dollars total. At this rate Bob reckoned he had better find another gig. Pickings were slim out here in this godforsaken end of the state and getting slimmer.

The competition was too great for the little money available to be spent on Jesus. He figured every home grown peckerwood with a bible wanted to be called of {of and by are synonyms in this case.} God to become a preacher, especially up here in the West Oklahoma sand hills where the seventh grade of school was considered "higher education."

Then he saw this real pretty little redhead come swaying past. Her ripe and ready for sin lips gave him a knowing smile as she came near. He stared, gawked with his mouth wide open, as she walked past him and on down Main Street toward the late afternoon sun.

Jesus Christ, that flimsy dress she had on was worn so thin the sun illuminated the crack in her fine crotch as it shone through. The rest of her body was as fine as the inverted valentine of her heart shaped tail end. He imagined her using her mouth on him.

"Come back here, pretty thing," he called to her as her heart shaped tail end retreated from him...

In slow motion Ruby stopped and turned around, the knowing smile was still on her face. "What do you want?" she asked. The way her lips curled in a half smile and the direct stare she gave him let him know she knew what he wanted and also that he knew she knew. It was all a part of the mating game.

However there were certain moves had to be made for the love ritual to be played out in a proper manner. The rules were written down nowhere. However, most women were born with at least a working knowledge of how they must be followed.

It did not matter how many times a girl let some guy crawl between her legs, no matter how many times she gave a little bit of herself to some fellow, a girl had to play the game and follow the rules or she got branded a tramp and a hussy. In this part of Oklahoma, in the World War Two days of the 1940s, a nice girl never said yes in too big a hurry, especially with a stranger. After all, all nice girls were virgins when they got married...

"Let's go get a hamburger some place," he told her.

"Okay." She cocked an eyebrow, smiled and told him with the soft West Oklahoma twang in her voice, "Okay". She cocked an eyebrow and smiled. "Around the corner there, has the best hamburgers in town." Her pouty lips smiled at him as she added, in her soft West Oklahoma twang, "I guess that's because it's the onliest place in town any more."

She took his hand and led him toward the little greasy spoon place on the other side of Main Street. His peter jumped in his pants at the electric current he felt surge through to his groin from just the touch of her cool skin on his fingertips.

Bob ordered Hamburgers and malteds for them. Bob asked her about herself and learned she was seventeen. He also learned she hated living at home, hated this town even more and her life in general, the way things were right now.

"This town just ain't sophisticated enough for me. I want what Ginger Rogers and Fred Astair have." She looked away from Bob and saw Fred Astair dancing while she played her old guitar. "I want it all, now."

"Honey, good lookin' as you are, if you get out of this town you all will surely get what you're looking' for and then some." Bob grinned and took a bite of his greasy burger. He chewed, swallowed and told her, "You got what it takes."

"These hicks in this town ain't got no sophistication." She gave her head a lady-like toss. "I read a lot of books, I know about these things."

Ruby frowned and watched Bob place the last of his burger in his mouth. "I want to get away to where the bright lights burn all night long." She waved one hand toward an unseen horizon. "And the living is one hell of a lot better than here in this one outhouse town."

Ruby voiced the feelings of most of the young people in Perkins felt the same way. After all, government handouts and moonshine were the only cottage industries that paid any real money. There was too much free female talent around for a girl to make any money charging for it. Besides, there was little money to be had for food, let alone pussy, no matter how fine the talent she possessed. At what Bob figured was the proper time to start his canned seduction speech, he asked her, "What do you know about Jesus?"

Her nose wrinkled as if she smelled a bad odor. "I know the Jesus thing is all a bunch of bull shit used to skin people out of their money. Somehow, the preacher always seems to live better than the people who go to his church.

Ruby pointed an accusing finger at him. Her voice became bitter. "The only difference between you and them is you ain't connected yet and found enough suckers to start a church of your own."

"Ugh." Bob's head jerked. "Uh well, you see..." Bob couldn't find the words to answer her.

Ruby made an impatient gesture. "Save the bullshit and let's go some place and do it. That's what you wanted wasn't it?"

Bob's heart went "thud" as it landed in the bottom of his gut. He was stone amazed at the way this little innocent looking sweet young thing laid it all out to him. He asked her in a shaky voice, "You do anything with that darlin' mouth of yours besides talk dirty?" A sweet, warm feeling ran through his crotch.

Ruby gave the amazed preacher a lazy, feline smile. She licked her lips and smiled, "It's according to what's in it for me. If I get what I want, I do all sorts of things with my mouth. If I don't get what I want I'll bite your pecker off if you try to force me."

"You sing?" Bob asked. He tried to gain back the upper hand in this new relationship he tried to forge. He wanted her. The problem was he needed to keep her in her place on the bottom. "Of course I do. You want to talk about music or what?" She paused and added, "I have a damned fine voice, too." Again, she gave him the knowing look that seemed to stare deep down inside him. "Let's go." They left the little café and walked back to his old truck. "Go two blocks straight ahead of the way your truck is pointed and turn right." Once outside, she pointed past his truck. "There's an alleyway where you can pull in and stop."

Bob stopped the truck in the alley and turned toward Ruby. She eased her hips off the seat a little and pulled her dress up to her waist. Ruby gave him quick sex in the cab of his Ford truck.

As soon as they finished, he put his pecker back in his pants, buttoned up and drove by her house. Ruby gave the directions and felt the excitement of her decision to make a leap into the unknown. Neither said a word about what came next. It was a given Bob had a new traveling companion. He grinned to himself in anticipation of the miles they would travel with each other.

"Who's that stranger in the truck?" her ma asked as she came in the house.

"He's my ticket out of here Ma," Ruby hurried on through the house to the covered back porch where she and her sister slept. She wrinkled her nose. There was damned little for her to take. Ruby stuffed all her clothes, her two dresses and some raggedy underwear, in a cloth bag that had seen better days; she slung her beat up old guitar with its worn leather

"You're really goin' to leave, ain't you?" Martha Skye looked at her eldest child. "I guess it's for the best. Honey, you be real careful." Martha touched Ruby's cheek, and then kissed her. "You write now."

Ruby nodded. She felt tears form in her own eyes. "I will, Ma." She added, "You tell Reba to get out as soon as she can. Maybe after I make it in the big city I can send for my Little Sis. I'll miss you."

"Let's go," she said to Bob, as she clambered into the front seat of the truck. She could not swallow the big lump in her throat.

That night they camped beside the road in a little turnout beside the road. She pulled off her dress and Bob stared. Her body glowed in the light from the small campfire. He caught his breath. "Treat me right and this is what you get whenever you want some," she told him.

"Jesus Christ, but you are beautiful," he breathed as his eyes devoured her lithe young body. She laid back on the bedroll Bob spread in the back of the truck. She lay on her back in patient silence as he took her again. This was the first installment she paid to escape Perkins, Oklahoma. In the back of her mind, a little voice told her, "I sure hope it's worth it." Ruby did not particularly enjoy sex.

For the next year, Bob preached the gospel and she played her beat up old guitar and sang about a heaven she didn't believe in and God's love she disbelieved even more. Everyone told Bob she had a real fine voice. It carried out over the small crowds they attracted and communicated the hunger and longing she had in her own heart to those who stopped to listen.

Sometimes, every now and then, she remembered the times she and Little Sis could make people sit up and listen as they played duets at the school socials. Reba on her harsh sounding five string banjo and Ruby on her guitar sometimes sang and played together when they were alone. It kept the sadness and misery at bay, just a little. Ruby missed her Little Sis and her Ma. Whenever she remembered her pa, she spit.

Bob never connected. His great plans for a big church where he got rich on the Hallelujah Trail we never more than grandiose dreams. His biggest problem was times were changing around them. World War Two dragged on and Bob was not bright enough to change with the times. He lacked the showmanship of a Billy Sunday and lacked the oratorical skills of a Harvey Springer. Bob was a small man trying to fill a big man's shoes.

The crowds became smaller, the collections were barely enough to feed them and let them make it to the next town. Finally, a year and a half later, everything fell apart. One evening as they pulled into Tulsa, Bob gave her the bad news. "Honey," he told her with a sad face, "we're broke and you all are going to have to make a sacrifice or we don't eat. I just put our last three dollars in the gas tank." She was certain she knew what his next words would be. She was right "You are going to have to put out a little for some lonely man willing to pay for it. You up to it?"

Bob looked at Ruby and hoped she would agree. He contemplated his new line of endeavor as a pimp. He figured she had the makings of a fine whore if he did not push things too hard. The preaching trail had brought in less and less. The war in Europe was over and the Japs were on the ropes in Asia. Oklahoma people only had so much money to spend on Jesus. The rest of the country was prosperous by comparison, but not in this part of Oklahoma where too many people were broke and too few working. There was a whole lot of hunger in the land, as the war effort never brought much prosperity and only touched the people by way of the radio.

In addition, there were too many preachers doing the saving and not enough people who wanted to be saved. That was the problem in a nutshell. God knows (, Bob thought, ) he (had) tried his best to serve the Lord in his own insincere way, but the blessings weren't there. Oh well, if he could get her to give up a little of her ass things might turn around.

Ruby became a whore full time. Bob arranged a half dozen tricks a night. Ruby learned to turn off her mind and her feelings. Sometimes, late at night Ruby remembered. The times when the cheap whiskey did not quite put her to sleep were the worst. It was during those times she could hear Reba's banjo play the lead instrument while Ruby backed her up as they played "The Kentucky Waltz" or one of the other old time standards. She even tried prayer as she sought a way out.

Then six months later two notable events happened in the almost twenty year old Ruby's life. First, the Japanese surrendered, all those young soldiers came home, and jobs became even scarcer. The second event affected her on a more personal level. Bob got in a knife fight and killed a man in a roadhouse brawl. By the time Ruby found out what had happened, he had already been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter

It did not take long for the legal process to play itself out. In a state where the US Constitution was considered a stumbling block to true justice, Bob got a speedy trial. In less than a year, he was tried, convicted and then sentenced. The wheels of justice turned quicker when the accused was too broke to hire a lawyer. Ruby panicked when another whore brought her the news. She tried to figure out what to do. She was own her own, cut adrift from the small amount of stability Bob had given her. She was lost. Ruby hustled tricks and found it hard going without Bob there to handle the business end. He had been her protection when the johns got rough. Without protection Ruby was, at best a marginal success as a whore. For her it was a downward spiral.