Kid’s father said, Walk to the 7-Eleven and get us some dinner, like burritos or cereal or what have you. Hot dogs. Pretzels? Or like Spaghetti-O’s or something. Peanut butter and jelly. Frozen pizza. You have choices. I’ll pay you back. Oatmeal. Or Creama Wheat. Whatever. You have choices.
Many are the plans. Kid thought, Many are the plans, yo. Many are the pussies fuckbed lipslits pleasure parade cookie kissnuts. He had seventy-three dollars in the toe of his house slipper. He was thinking Krispy Kremes strawberry milk and pretzel Combos for dinner. Purpose that prevails.
The neighbor had his sprinklers going and the lawn looked like it had been sprinkled with bits of glass. Kid had a stiffy (fuckbed lipslits) and it donged up and down in his pants like a punching clown. He presented it to the late afternoon like Welcome, here is my crotch area, here is what you are seeing, golldang right it’s a chub, I am fifteen years old after all. His neighbor was watching a game show, the word Prizes! flashed onscreen. Kid had once watched the neighbor’s wife undress, had seen the rolls that bunched at her abdomen when she bent to work off her socks, had lost interest when she started picking at her teeth.
At the 7-Eleven Kid went to the magazine rack and looked at the brides. Some brides had shorter hairstyles and Kid averted his eyes, thinking Nope, that ain’t it. Thinking carpets match the drapes? Thinking slut bouquets.
Kid noticed Jenny Bickson in the candy aisle. Just standing around, fingers on the Bubble Tape. Kid thought how Bubble Tape looked like intestines all wound up. Said Hey Jenny, said Grape? Huh-uh, Jenny said, sour cherry. Kid thought Sour cherry, that is right, thought Fingers fingering prevails.
A man came in with red slick hands and yelled for the cashier to call 911, his wife was giving birth in the parking lot. The cashier said, That you at pump two because if so you’ll need to move it and the man grabbed fistfuls of his own hair and screamed with his teeth clenched. Kid thought Vagina vagina vagina like it was hanging in red neon in front of his face. Jenny said Someone should boil some water and get some towels. She was standing like she could pee any minute and then she did pee, Kid heard it puddling around her sandals. Kid said Just because they do that on the TV don’t mean that’s how it’s done. The man was still screaming, still holding his hair. The cashier was saying Sir, sir, sir, the phone cradled at her shoulder, Kid thinking If it’s a girl a vagina will come out of a vagina, thinking VAGINA. Thinking everything in the world was so sexy, so full of fluid and wet and come coming comer, thinking I could bottle up Jenny’s pee and then stick my dick into the bottle and slosh it around, thinking about that sloshing, his junk still donging as he walked past the cashier, past the man, into the parking lot and up to pump number two, where a woman in the backseat of a station wagon was screaming into the face of the baby coming out of her. A crowd was gathering, one boy in an oversized basketball jersey agape, his finger in his ear, digging, the sky was getting that ugly pink it got right before the sun set. Kid thinking Vagina VAGINA menstrual pussy fucky times.
The lady screamed and Kid leaned in and put his hand on the baby’s head, pushed, tried to work it back into the hole, thinking Go time, thinking baby blood pudding cup, the lady screaming louder, the lady scratching his cheeks. One of her press-ons came loose and stuck in a cheek gash, Kid thinking Kinky hillbilly porn DNA blend. Thinking Prevails. Kid stuck his fingers inside the lady and grabbed the baby under its arms and pulled, the lady bearing down till her insides turned solid, and the baby coming out so slippery Kid lost his grip and dropped it in the seat. The crowd clapped, someone shouted Yeehoo!, the lady looked up at Kid like she’d puke if she wasn’t so empty inside.
Kid went back into the 7-Eleven and bought dinner, plus some Bubble Tape for Jenny. The man was on the phone shrieking Hurry, hurry. There was a glob of the lady’s blood on the Bubble Tape container so Jenny wouldn’t take it, Kid thinking pee sandals sloe-eyed cobweb crotch.
The sky was a denim color when Kid got home. He heated up the Krispy Kremes in the microwave, his father watching the same game show the neighbor had been, the host mocking a contestant’s deep Southern accent, plucking an air banjo. His father laughed, Combos bits flying out his mouth, Kid thinking I put my hands inside a pregnant lady’s giner, I’m a golldang hero.
LET
Let’s take a ride. I’m your family. Meet me in the basement. Meet me by the Corvette. See that moon? It’s a disc of aspirin. See that moon? It’s a dollop of jizz. I’m your family. I wear the pants. I find you adorable. Get on the back. Ride the handlebars. Run alongside. Wear this bridle. Kiss a man goodnight. Kiss a man on the lips. You taste like blood. I’ve tasted blood. You had your blood yet? Touch yourself. I don’t have any ideas. Touch your shoulder. Touch my shoulder. Touch yourself. Put my hands on you. Meet me by the tree stump. Take the trail. Leave a trail. Cook me something. Make me a pie. Butter a cracker. Put it in a mouth. Put something in something. You ever been fed? See that moon? It’s a pail of milk. See that moon? It’s an eye rolled back. You smell like the ocean down there. Let me crouch real close. Let me breathe. Meet me in the pantry. Make us a bowl of something. I’ll knock. You’ll welcome. Meet me at the movies. I want to see you in the dark. I want to watch your face. Are those elastic? Prove it. I’m your family. Hide. I’ll find you. I got the keys. See that moon? It’s a white throat. It’s a fresh egg. I want to kiss you. I want to put my mouth on you. Make a man feel like a man. Don’t talk. Hush up. Cry quiet. Wish on a star. That moon’s a lightbulb. Flip the switch. Come to my bedroom. Hang on my wall. I’m your family. Look at the moon. It’s a toilet bowl. Hold out your hand. Shake. Put your hands on me. Put your hands inside my coat. I’ll hold on. Set. Rise. Lick something. Write down what I’ll do. Mail it to me. Lick a stamp. I find you very alluring. Put on a skirt. Act a lady. Point your toe. Fall to your knees. Make your lips the shape of lips. Touch it all up. Press. Leave me something. Wear the mirror. Lean in. Keep quiet. Run the tap. Wash your dirty. Wash that dirty dirty hand. Is that your dress on the line? Show me a stain. Put in that tape. Push play. Let it go. Meet me at the lake. Swim under. Hook a fish, silver for your mirror. I’m your family. I want to wring you out. Drink you from a glass. See that moon? It’s a drop of paint. See that moon? It falls up. Take me to the woods. Dig us a spot. Make it round. Climb down. Fall in. Use your fingers. Write my name. Give me a name. Call for me. Say it. Look at that moon, it’s a baby’s tooth. See that moon? Ladle something in. Fill it up. Cover your eyes. Don’t go to sleep. Pull me in. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.
U S
We dream about throwing baby in the well. We remember our daddy talking stuff about baby holding breath under water, as natural as suckling a breast, something baby just know from birth we’d throw baby underhanded like a softball and it’d land in a dark hole and if there was water baby would hold its breath and if there wasn’t.
We go to school with the rest of them. Follow the road, every time it leads us there. Nothing beyond worth mentioning. It’s a new school with a black parking lot and a football field and a cafeteria full of windows. On Fridays the lights from the football games and the beat of the drums remind us where we aren’t. We dream of the baby in a deep hole, we look under the bed for the baby, the baby is crying and our breasts are wet and the roar of the crowd pulls us into those lights, we wish the lights burn our eyes even though they glow, they only glow, they don’t even reach past the middle of the yard, we play the game where we write letters in our hands and spell words, practice talking to each other so we don’t make a sound, our favorite letter is B, we spell word after word with it, sometimes the word is blood, sometimes it is baby.
One Monday we are found in the bathroom at school, we are taken to the nurse who asks if we have been familiar with blood, who fingers the tough spots on our clothes and says Has your mother spoken to you about your curse. We hold her hand and write into her palm, blood under our fingernails, we smear red letters, her hand a collection of baby, she calls Daddy. We watch baby
gathered into a tissue, we watch baby thrown into the wastebasket, we sit on a bench our thighs sticky the air metallic our hands palm to palm telling a story reaching the end starting over the air warm, alive, how life smells so much like death.
Our daddy picks us up and we are taken for a blessing. We watch the wind in the trees above us, we are on our back, we watch the leaves coming together to form shapes in the sky, we watch the leaves forming other shapes, we are being put together and ripped apart and put together in different shapes like the wind does to the leaves, a man says dominoes, a man says Jezebel, a man says Amen, a man says God almighty, we go home and make dinner, knifing out the eyes in the potatoes, shaping the meatloaf with our hands, Don’t wash them, Daddy said, plenty of iron in womanblood, he falls asleep and we make shapes over his face in the blue light of the television: a bird, an alligator, a fist knocking over and over on the pocket of his shirt. Baby, we whisper, baby, are you in there?
Finally we find a boy. He is pale. We see the blue veins behind his ears, one threading from his right eye to his cheek, he shows us a dagger wrapped in a dustcloth at the bottom of his schoolbag, we take him home with us, we lay beside him on Daddy’s bed. He says I been watching you, I have named you. We pull up his shirt, we write letters over his heart, he says I know that one, that one’s easy but it ain’t your name. We say come with us, bring something to show, he brings the dagger. We pull our box out from under the bed, we open it and pull the newspaper away, we show him what we’ve collected, a few teeth, a purple rock, a used condom, a burned Bible, Daddy’s naked circus people cards. We save it for last, pulling it out and laying it in front of our boy, pulling the lace away until we see its gray form, its tiny penis, we see how its mouth has shriveled since we last saw our baby, we see more of its eyes now, we knock on its chest, we show the boy how baby has become a stone. See how black baby’s tongue is, we tell our boy. See how thirsty. We hold baby up and feed him, when we lift him we remember how like life death smells, we pick maggots from his legs and pump our breasts.
Our boy is sick down his shirt, another smell, he pushes the dagger in the air around us, he runs the blade down our arm, forcing it in at our elbow. He runs from us, we go to the window and watch him run through the yard, down the road toward school, toward nothing beyond, he disappears. Baby is finished eating, we follow our blood back to our bedroom, we pull out the dagger and give it to baby to hold, baby is covered in blood, is alive, we hear Daddy’s truck in the driveway, we cover baby’s mouth and nose with our hand. Hold your breath, baby, we say. We will gather maggots in a jar for Daddy. We will go fishing. We will catch baby, reel him in. We will kiss the gash in his cheek. We will throw him back.
FIFTEEN
Tina’s mama got us some Boone’s. Turtle was on his back in the bathtub upchucking in his sleep. Gin still thought he was cute even as he burbled like a gut fountain. We left her to tend to him. Later on Gin’d be porking Freeman and then Freeman’s little brother. We dared Katie to eat what was left in the ashtray and she did. In the corners of Tina’s mama’s apartment there were little piles of things. Tiny shrines to catshit and dryer lint and wrappers for condoms candy beer-bottles toilet paper lipstick-tubes and various electronics. Tina’s mama was a space clearer, is how you could put it. Joey pushed Katie down into the catshit corner and got emphatic in air-grinding over her. Katie had black smudges at the corners of her mouth from the ashtray and it was clear she was working hard to swallow something back. Joey’s eyes were closed. Later we realized he was humming that one Journey song. Freeman’s little brother was on his back bragging how he could see each individual fan blade in Tina’s mama’s ceiling fan. His eyes went round and round. Ingalls woke up laugh-crying from what had been an hours-long nap. After he caught his breath he screamed EAT AT THE Y, SUCK IT LIKE A STRAW and then tucked himself back into the couch. It was clear he was a sleep-farter but no one wanted to talk about that just yet. Gin killed the bottle of strawberry-flavored and wondered aloud could kissing Ingalls make the zits near his mouth pop. Freeman’s little brother’s hand crept up her ankle and she quieted down. Someone noticed the time. So many hours left to fill. With renewed dedication we paired off to make out, which is a real good time-killer. Katie was asleep with her mouth open but Joey got in there and slurped away. Later we’d call Joey Slurpee and he’d punch a wall over it, not least because it was Katie who he’d been kissing, Katie who ate a ashtray and had a uniboob and a mouth with twice the teeth everybody else had, all coated with a even sheen of butter. Tina’s mama came out in her undies and a tank top and stood in her flip-flops among us. She pushed at Ingalls’ shoulder till he woke up and walked him into her bedroom, holding his arm like a blind man. All the mamas loved Ingalls. He was nearly eighteen so it was alright. Tina’s little sister started crying from her crib and Gin stopped making out with Freeman to make a sympathetic sound before Freeman’s little brother rolled her over his way. Tina made up a bottle of juice and went in and the baby stopped crying. Suddenly we were tired, guppy-mouthing each other. The room smelled like breath. We heard murmurs from Tina’s mama’s bedroom and someone kicked up the fan a notch to drown out the sound. Above it all we could hear the highway just outside Tina’s apartment complex, which sounded like what we imagined the ocean to sound like. Joey put his head in Katie’s lap. Katie’s head lolled until it nestled in the catshit corner. Gin spooned Freeman’s brother. Freeman palmed his balls. Turtle hicced once from the bathroom. Tina settled on the carpeting under the baby’s crib. In the morning our mamas would pick us up while Tina’s mama flipped pancakes to mask the scent of barf and smoke. Our mamas’d drag us to the grocery store, ask what we wanted: Cream of? Instant? 2-minute? Chicken? Meatloaf. Are we out of? Do you need? Ketchup. Mayonnaise. Lightbulbs? Tampons? Kibble? Your father. Your brother. Go and get. Orange? Cherry? Lime. Are you listening? Do you hear me? Look at me. But all that was later. Ingalls came out of Tina’s mama’s room in a long T-shirt and rummaged till he found some Twinkies, and then he went back in. The fan whirred and chilled the room. Our mouths tasted like other mouths. We longed for water. The highway inhaled, exhaled. Later we’d tell about how bored we were and what a redneck Tina’s mama was. We wouldn’t mention how glamorous it felt to say we were bored, and how in the dark we got chill bumps up and down our arms at the idea that this was life, and life smelled like peach carpet spray and cinnamon chewing gum and cheap-flavored wine, all backwashed up.
SEX ARMAGEDDON
To keep warm we play sex armageddon. It used to be called analocalypse. Sex armageddon sounds more serious and less specific.
Anything goes in sex armageddon. Jordan once snorted a Frito and coughed it out onto my breasts, then clapped them together until the Frito was in bits.
We’ve been living in Jordan’s car for about six weeks now, parked on an overlook. In the mornings Jordan meanders down the mountain to wash dishes in the kitchen of a bowling alley. I straighten up the car, read, nap, wash myself with the moist towlettes Jordan brings home. My mother told me I’d amount to nothing if I kept following Jordan around, and she was right. But amounting to nothing is also a job, it takes work, if you let slack a little you can find yourself thinking fondly of the orange walls at the high school you dropped out of, or of the crispy onions your mother sprinkled over your pizza, or of the ceiling you’d look into while you dreamed of being an actress or something.
In the evening Jordan comes back with dinner. Sometimes it’s something hot from the kitchen, whatever he can get, a large fries, some jalapeno poppers. Sometimes it’s whatever he got from the vending machine. Oreos. Mixed nuts. Fritos.
Tonight it’s garlic mashed potatoes and peanut M&M’s. Jordan mixes his together, tells me to do the same. This really fat woman fell as she was pitching her ball, he says. Her dress flew up and she had a big old wedge. A triangle of blue M&M shell clings to his lip. It was hilarious, he says.
After dinner Jordan pushes the remnants of our meal to the floorboards, looks at me serio
usly, and says Okay. His sex armageddon cue.
As always, Jordan plays Satan and commands me, playing God, to bow down to him. I never do, and the battle commences. Jordan’s only weapon is his penis, or his demon staff, but I get to use whatever I can find. He pins me, my back against the door handle, and pulls my pants down. I could fight him off, but I never fight him off. In he goes, the Beast, the Fallen, pumping a few good ones and shouting Sur. Ren. Der.
Never, I say. As God, I don’t raise my voice. Instead I stick a Bic pen I find in the glove compartment up his ass and cup his balls with my hand, immobilizing him. For a moment he looks like he will swallow his tongue, or come too early. I take the opportunity to pull my legs from under him, push him back, and sit on his face. I command thee to submit, I tell him. I grind his face a little so he can’t answer just yet.
Usually Jordan will pull my hair until my face is inches from his demon staff, then command me to suck. I bend a little, so my hair is within his reach, but the second I realize he isn’t reaching for my hair, he comes, his body shuddering, his hands hovering near his penis as if to help an old man who might just fall.
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