Dark and Sweet and Dirty
DARK: She wore a red dress, black tights, and crazy gold ankle-strap heels on their first date. A perfect outfit for drinking almost-too-strong IPAs and playing Big Buck Hunter with Clint, the guy she worked with at the camping store. They’d both turned twenty-one that summer, both home from different colleges until the fall semesters started. Their bearded, soft-bellied fathers worked together, too—associate pastors at the Baptist church on the corner. Their lives Venn diagramed, and there they were in the shaded area as friends–question mark who tried not to touch each other too much.
She pulled her last big chug of beer from the bottle. Clint held up his fingers, ordering two more. She looked at him, at the video game screen, him, the video game screen. The bar door bell was tinkling as people walked in, as people walked out. Belle & Sebastian started playing, and she didn’t feel right shooting things when Belle & Sebastian was playing. Too calm, too soothing. It didn’t match up, so she put the gun back. She felt guilty about lusting over Clint. It was lazy, like cold French fries. It was because he was standing there in no socks with his skinny little ankles and skateboard sneakers and she just wanted a boyfriend.
He had the gun now and he was cocking and shooting and cocking and shooting at the screen. “I’ve never had coffee,” she blurted out and stepped over to him. He turned and lifted his eyebrow.
“You’ve never had coffee?” he asked when his turn was over.
“That’s not so weird, right? Lots of people haven’t had coffee, I guess. It’s one of those things that everyone assumes everyone has and loves all the time when really, lots of people haven’t had it,” she said.
“Wow. You’ve thought about this a lot. Like, you’re defensive about it,” he said. And it was so honest, it brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away and drank some more of her beer. She stood straighter because she wanted to look prettier. She wanted to look so pretty that he’d get stupid about it. She wanted to light herself up like pretty incense and let her pretty smoke float around and up and hover over them.
“I’ve just never had coffee,” she said softly. He picked up his beer.
“I hurt your feelings?” he asked, bent his head down and talked to her like she was a small, shaking puppy he’d brought home from the shelter. She kept expecting him to pet her. She wanted him to pet her.
“Kind of, but I know you didn’t mean to.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry I called you defensive,” he said. He kissed her cheek and she wasn’t expecting it; his scruff, the sharp-swish of his face was against hers. The wet night was steaming up from the summer ground, she could see it from the window. She could feel it getting dark. Darker.
AND
SWEET: His parents weren’t home and Clint said he’d make her coffee, but it might not be that good. And wouldn’t she rather have it from a real coffee shop instead of a coffeemaker in his kitchen?
“No. I’d rather have it here,” she said, slipping off her shoes and wandering around the kitchen and living room. His mom was the type to have those colorful drippy candles, scented volcanoes bleeding down thick glass bottles. She felt a headache coming on from sniffing them, so she stopped. And there were pictures of Clint all over the place because he was an only child. Two on the mantel taken right before and after his baptism. The long sleeves of his white gown stuck to his arms like petals.
“Here, Pioneer,” Clint said, handing her a hot mug. She held it to her nose and smelled cinnamon. “I put all kinds of stuff in it. My mom makes hers sweet. My dad drinks his black. I figured since you’re a girl…” He half shrugged and touched the point of her elbow. She said thank you. He finally told her she looked pretty. That her dress reminded him of the flowers in Texas. “Clematis texensis,” he said and she loved how his mouth moved when he said it. So much, even the tender skin underneath her eyelids twinkled. She tapped his black-jeaned hip with her free hand.
“I believe in this. I’m not some pissed-off preacher’s kid. Are you?” she asked, nodding to the pictures and the ornate cross on the wall, pressing her palms tight around the mug so it could burn a little.
“I believe in it most of the time,” he said, before drinking his coffee.
AND
DIRTY: She took a drink of hers and didn’t hate it. It tasted like something dark and sweet and dirty. She told him that. Opened up and told him she wished she had an infinity of immortal fireflies in mason jars and an Australian accent although she was scared to go to Australia because she heard about the spiders. She liked how he looked at her like she was fucking crazy. It made her feel dark and sweet and dirty. And she didn’t ask permission before walking down the glossy hallway in her black-tights-feet to his bedroom so she could check out his books. To see who he really was. She’d already made up her mind to go wild with him. The preachers’ kids sinning up a storm, together; two beery baptized believers. A night for new things! He was the one, it was okay. This was it. And he wasn’t Jesus or the devil or some monster. She had a vision of two empty white-as-snow hearts, refilling with red-black blood. She lay back on his pillow—soft as the lamb of God—and let go. Clean.
Home Safe
Felix Phoenix is a baseball player, a good one. I collect his dirty uniform after the games. Not only his—all the players’ uniforms—but Felix Phoenix is my favorite. I am missing something by not being more involved in his life. That’s why I go through his locker when the stadium lights are turned off and only the janitors and the cleaning ladies are here. The only thing I can tell from his uniform is how dirty he got during the game—whether he slid full on his belly or his butt. Sometimes, both—or his sides. I know he didn’t have a good game if his uniform isn’t dirty, if the home whites stay white, or even whitish. There are some players whose uniforms get super-dirty every time they play, no matter what. I smell Felix’s uniform before I load it up for the cleaners. I even like his stink—hot wild onions in burnt brown-sugar dirt. I hold it to my nose and breathe in deep and I make sure no one sees me doing this because I know how creepy it is. I know! I don’t need anyone to tell me. I don’t need anyone to know. I also know I shouldn’t go through his things, but I’m not hurting anyone and isn’t that how we rationalize and measure whether or not what we’re doing is truly wrong?
Q: AM I HURTING SOMEONE BY DOING WHAT I’M DOING?
A: NO
Q: SO IS IT OKAY FOR ME TO GO ON AND KEEP DOING THE THING AS LONG AS THE OTHER PERSON DOESN’T FIND OUT AND AS LONG AS THE OTHER PERSON DOESN’T GET HURT?
A: OF COURSE IT IS. IT’S FINE! YOU’RE FINE! AND EVEN IF IT IS CRAZY, IT’S ONLY SLIGHTLY CRAZY, SO YOU’RE STILL FINE!
I have a pen stuck in my hair and I slip it out and write YOU’RE STILL FINE on the back of my hand. Someone had dropped a crumpled piece of paper in front of Felix’s locker and I bend down and grab it, determined to save it for later. I’ll go home, make a too-hot bath and pour a glass of wine. Take my time getting in and once I am in, I’ll look at the paper. Maybe it’s a love note to me. Yeah right. But! He always says hi to me when he sees me. He always smiles too. I love his smile. It’s Cheshire-cat-electric and looks like he’s about to get into trouble. Or use it to get out of trouble. I see that smile when I close my eyes at night and think about him. Thinking about Felix is my favorite thing to do. Felix isn’t married and neither am I and I’d marry Felix in a heartbeat, but he does have a girlfriend. I have already steeled my heart for the day he proposes because I worry he’ll do it at the stadium and I’ll have to work that night and see her name up on the scoreboard, hear her gasp when Felix and his out-of-this-world baseball thighs get down on one knee. I spend too much time thinking about whether or not Felix thinks I’m pretty. I look nothing like his girlfriend, so maybe he doesn’t; maybe he’s one of those guys who only thinks girls who look like his girlfriend are pretty. His girlfriend has straight hair and mine is curly. So curly I can put pens in it and forget they’re even there until I wonder to myself where did I put tha
t dang pen and start feeling around my head for it.
I keep double-checking my pocket to make sure the little piece of paper is in there and it is. It’s probably nothing, but I want it, so I keep it. I’ve taken small things before. Once I took a tube of his Chapstick. Another time, a bottle cap. Things he would think he’d accidentally thrown away or would have eventually thrown away on purpose. I have the tube of Chapstick and I put it on every night before bed. And he’s fine. He must’ve gotten a new one because his lips have never looked chapped, not even once. Something else Felix gave me that I keep is the one time he told me get home safe and I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a baseball pun, but I think about it every time I leave work. I’m extra-careful because Felix told me get home safe once. And I think about it whenever I’m watching him play baseball and he’s up at bat or stealing second or running from third to home on a wild pitch or an outfielder’s error. Get home safe, Felix Phoenix!
I cry every time he gets a home run; he’s hit forty-seven home runs so far this season. I’ve cried forty-seven times. The season is almost over. I keep checking my pocket for the piece of paper and wow I’m hoping it’s something good because my back and arms are so sore from cleaning, and I can feel that hot-hot bathwater already. He didn’t get a home run tonight so I won’t get off. During the regular season I only get off on the days he hits home runs. On the days he hits a home run during playoffs, I do it twice. No getting off tonight, just the piece of paper with my wine and my bath and one cigarette too. On the regular season nights Felix doesn’t hit a home run, I allow myself to have one pink Nat Sherman cigarette. I like to smoke that cigarette in the bathtub with my wine and I’m usually listening to some beautiful woman who has already gone to the great beyond gut-sing about how much she loved someone or how lonely she is. Like Bessie Smith or Big Mama Thornton or Koko Taylor or Billie Holiday. I’ve already decided on Billie Holiday for tonight, for the piece of paper. I’ll light my candles. I love the tiny jump of a tealight! Obsessing over Felix Phoenix is my engine, my fireplace. And baseball is leaving us in October. It’ll be getting cold soon and I’ll curl up in front of that obsession fireplace and feel it warm on my face, the glow.
There was nothing else new in Felix’s locker. He’d gone home already. A little girl had given him a fluffy brown teddy bear a year ago and some months later, that little girl died of cancer. Felix kept the brown teddy bear in his locker, and every night I’d take it out and smell its head and put it back exactly how I’d found it. The bear smelled like the expensive wood of the locker. I hang Felix’s clean white uniform on the front of his locker with the back of it facing out. PHOENIX in shimmery gold. And I can’t wait to get home, but I remember get home safe, so I drive the speed limit and don’t go through any yellows. I stop completely at the stop signs in my neighborhood.
* * *
When I get naked at home, I eyeball that crumpled piece of paper on the bathroom counter and light the candles, turn off the lights. I go to the kitchen to get the bottle of red, the glass, my pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. I take my time getting in the water because it’s so hot. I have the paper in one hand and use the other hand to pour myself a glass of wine. I take a big gulp because I want to feel it before I read the piece of paper. I take another big gulp and put the glass down. Billie Holiday is singing and singing and singing, her dusty paper-flower voice echoing off the tiled walls. I haven’t eaten dinner and the bathwater is so hot I feel the wine almost immediately and say thank you, Dionysus aloud. I try to sing it along with Billie, but it doesn’t fit. One of my cats comes in the bathroom to join me, the top of her tail happily hooked. I light my cigarette and wait for my eyes to fully adjust. I take a drag and inhale, finish my glass of wine, careful not to wet the paper.
“Okay, Felix,” I say before I uncrumple it.
I read it. I read it again. There’s a goosebump party on my arms and my guts feel gnawed. I read it again and again and again before I take my lighter to it and watch most of it burn before dropping it in the steaming water.
[Rewind. Before I let the paper catch fire. Camera zooms in so the audience can read the black ink, the printing, the words.]
Felix it’s your baby and you know it and you don’t have to make this so difficult. A son has the right to know who his father is. Get your fucking shit together before I have this child. Tell your girlfriend or I will! GROW UP!
[The paper burns.]
I decide to smoke two cigarettes tonight because the piece of paper warrants two cigarettes and I’ll allow myself to get off too, although it’s technically cheating and not my usual home run celebration. I’ll think about Felix and this faceless, nameless woman he got pregnant. It’s official. Felix is a certified womanizer, so it’s okay for me to think about Felix getting me pregnant too. I’d let him do whatever he wanted, I’d do whatever he wanted. I’d keep the baby or I’d have an abortion or shut up and go away and raise them alone, let him come visit them in secret, secretly bring them to his baseball games and whisper that’s your daddy into their ear and point whenever Felix stepped up to the plate. Put them in a tiny Phoenix jersey. I would. I’d do whatever he wanted. Anything. Everything. And I knew burning the paper could hurt Felix, so I’d crossed the line. He would wonder what happened to it or who found it. It would worry him. But it was so careless of him to accidentally leave something like that lying around. That recklessness blew my hair back, made me love him more. He must be a mess. Maybe I can give him a signal. Maybe I can tell him I found a piece of paper on the floor outside his locker and I tossed it. Maybe I’ll even give him a little wink so he can wonder what it means. What will he do then? I’ll have to put on some of his Chapstick before I go online tonight to try and find out who this woman is. Who writes things on paper anymore? Whatever. I’ll reassure him I didn’t even look at it. No, I would never look at it. I would never go through his things. That would be weird and I’m not like that. Nope, not me. Ew. And Felix will soften his face and ask me why I’m crying, but I won’t know what to say.
Teenage Dream Time Machine
Today 8:35 p.m.
Ok, so where’s Shelly?
In Cancun with her boyfriend.
Wow, really?
Oh girl, she bought the tiniest bikini the day their divorce was final.
This is the young guy she works with?
Yep. He’s practically a fetus.
He’s not!
He’s 25.
Ok wow, he IS a fetus. I had no idea.
Both Keri and Hannah have a crush on him. Probably Claire too. I get it. He’s really cute.
I always thought Shelly and Alex were happy together, but I know that’s what everyone always thinks.
Do you think Mike and I are happy together?
Sure! You two seem like it.
We are! We are. I was just wondering if we seemed like it. Sometimes you can’t tell.
Do Dave and I seem happy together?
Are you kidding me? Dave thinks you’re the only woman God created. I know you two are happy together. You, what, met in elementary school or something?
Middle school.
Same thing. It’s pretty much law that you two have to stay together. If y’all break up, I’ll kill myself.
Stop it.
You think I’m kidding.
I was worried you and Shelly were mad at me after the girls snuck out.
Mad at you? For what?
For not keeping a close enough eye on them…like it was our fault.
Oh, please. Those girls had that planned out. How would you know?
I just still feel guilty, that’s all.
Well, you’ve got to let that go. It could’ve been any one of us and I’m just thankful nothing really happened. They weren’t even out there that long. None of them got pregnant, none of them got hit by a train…
Dave said they were terrified when he showed up. He’d gotten up to get a glass of water and decided to peek in on the girls, to make sure the window was clo
sed since he’d turned the AC on. And the girls were gone. He didn’t even wake me up, he just put on a shirt and went out and found them. He couldn’t say how he knew where they were, he just…knew. I woke up to an empty house and went out on the front porch in a panic, saw Dave and the girls coming up the sidewalk. The girls were crying. Dave had his stern face on, but I could see the twinkle in the corners of his eyes. I could tell.
I did shit like that all the time when I was their age. Worse, even. I’m not worried about those girls a bit.
Not even a little?
Not even a little.
I told Claire she’s grounded for at least a week. Maybe longer. I haven’t decided yet.
Keri’s grounded for a week too. And Hannah’s at her dad’s anyway since Shelly’s in Cancun.
Would you go back…if you could…be that age again?
What, if I had some kind of teenage dream time machine?
Exactly.
So We Can Glow Page 10