HIS Redneck Woman
It was laundry day in the sanctuary previously known as the Mert County Correctional Facility situation just outside of Newnan, Georgia. The original group of eight had swelled to over thirty with the arrival of baby Judith; affectionately known as 'Ass Kicker', the swordswoman Michonne and the survivors of the nearby town of Woodbury, which had fallen to Walkers once the Governor had attacked the prison earlier in the year and then abandoned his people to their own fate. As their numbers had swelled, so had the sheer amount of laundry and the ladies from Woodbury seemed only to happy to have the original group take care of everything around the prison; from gathering supplies and preparing the meals up to washing and hanging the laundry.
Maggie and Beth were talking quietly as they walked across the enclosed courtyard and looked up as they saw Carol struggling outside with the heavy laundry cart.
"Hey wait up, Carol! Why didn't you shout for help or get one of the Woodbury twits to give you a hand?" Maggie hurried over to scold Carol playfully and saw Carol drop the cart to the ground expelling out a huff of air and placing her hands on her slender hips.
"What and deny them the pleasure of soaking up the only rays of sun that they've seen all month?" Carol muttered sarcastically half under her breath and all three ladies laughed as they stared over at the scantily clad women sunning themselves on the benches dotted around the courtyard.
Georgia was experiencing one of the hottest and driest summers on record and the sun beat relentlessly down from a sky so blue that it hurt your eyes just to look at it. There hadn't been a break in the weather for weeks and Rick fretted over how the sun was crisping his vegetable plot. Even now he and Hershel were digging out yet another canal down through the exercise field and into the low running creek in an effort to bring the water up in an effort to save his crop. Rick's vegetables had been a godsend to the prison; ever since Maggie and Glenn had raided a Feed and Seed depot a few towns over, Rick and Hershel had been spending nearly every waking moment babying along the seedlings in an effort to provide a well balanced diet to everyone within their walls.
Maggie shaded her eyes as she looked back over to where Carol was once again bending down to take the weight of the cart, heavy with soaking wet laundry; she gently nudged Carol to one side and called over to her sister.
"Bethie honey, why don't you help Carol with that side and I'll take this one." Beth nodded and moved into place alongside Carol, as one the three women bent their knees slightly as they hefted the cart off the ground. "Ooomph! Jeez, Carol! Were you trying to give yourself a hernia or somethin'? This thing weighs a ton! Now, where are you set up?" Maggie let out a puff of air as she realised just how heavy the cart really was. Carol couldn't weigh more than 100 pounds soaking wet and the wet clothes weighed at least double that.
"Carl and Daryl strung me up some wire just over there, by the gates." Carol nodded over to where a makeshift washing line had been strung up across the corner of the exercise yard, attached to the chain link fences of the enclosed walkway.
"Okay, now this might sound like a stupid question but how do you exactly hang washing without any pegs?"
"Who said we didn't have any pegs?" Carol delved into the top of the cart, nearly toppling right into the wet laundry and emerged with a small cloth bag which contained her own wooden clothes pegs. Maggie and Beth looked on in amazement, wasn't there anything that this woman hadn't thought of bringing from home? "Didn't you ever wonder what that big white basket was sitting in the corner of my cell? I was doing the wash when Ed first told me to grab my things; so I just piled everything that I'd been taking off the line and then packed our clothes in on top."
"Carol, I'm amazed I truly am – you packed laundry baskets, clothes pegs, a sewing kit, and even the kid's school books! When Daddy told me and Maggie to get our things together just in case we had to run the first thing I packed was my makeup bag and hair curlers! I mean… hair curlers! We haven't had electricity for months and I pick the most useless stuff ever!" Beth tightened her grip on the handle of the cart and took more of the weight from Carol, trying to show that she wasn't completely useless. Carol nudged her shoulder gently to offer a little comfort.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it Bethie, just try to imagine what the Woodette's might have packed!" She nodded her head over where the 'ladies' from Woodbury were still sunning themselves; a sunny smile beamed from Beth's young face as she took comfort from Carol's attempt at lightening her mood.
"Hmm… Woodette's…I think I like it." Maggie pursed her lips together as she thought about the way Carol had referred to the newcomers. "Yup…I think Woodette's suit them just fine!" The three of them erupted into full belly laughter at the thought and had to set down the basket as their mirth took them over.
Wiping her eyes, Carol once again picked up her side of the cart and smiled at Maggie and Beth. "Come on ladies, the sooner we get this out on the line; the sooner we can start working on our tan." She shrugged her shoulders at Maggie's stunned expression, "Hey – I could use a little rest; not sure that I'd wear something as revealing as some of those…but I wouldn't say no to an afternoon in the sun, sipping on some cold, sweet tea." Carol was very conscious of the deep scar tissue left all over her back and upper legs from the numerous beatings that Ed had dished out over the years – she would never deliberately choose to expose her body in something as skimpy as a bikini; long beach shorts and a sleeveless shirt was about as revealing as it ever got with her.
"Make mine a Long Island, and I'm with you," Maggie hefted her side of the cart and they struggled through the courtyard gate and out into the exercise field to hang the wash.
