Travis was right in not wanting her. And Baby Girl was right in not turning back.
“Myra told me to leave you there,” Jim said. His voice sounded etched through, scratchy and raw. “But I made the choice to leave you there all on my own. That ain’t no place for teenaged girls, hopefully you saw for yourself.”
Perry nodded. She knew that’s how Myra would react, it had been why she’d texted Jim instead of her own mother in the first place. Still, it burned hearing it, that Myra had decided to go home and drink herself into a stupor instead of … what? Standing outside the jail, calling Perry’s name? Offering to sleep with whoever if they’d release her baby? Getting arrested herself, to keep Perry company?
This was Myra’s voice she was hearing now, not her own, Myra’s voice running down the list of nothings she could have done. Perry was an expert at channeling that voice, at making excuses.
“I’m sorry,” Perry said, another thing her momma often said, but Perry wanted to mean it, wanted it so bad that she clenched down, molars grinding against each other until her ears rang.
“I ain’t taking you home,” Jim said. “Your momma’s not right, and since you already missed a day of school I figure you should go in today.”
“I haven’t showered or nothing,” Perry said. She tried to keep the whine out of her voice, but it was there.
“You can wash up at school,” he said. “I know they got sinks there.”
“My schoolbag is still in Baby—in Dayna’s car.”
“I don’t care if you sit in class and do nothing,” he said. “You ain’t coming home right now.”
Perry heard how he was trying to keep control of his voice, too, saw it in his grip on the steering wheel. She wondered did he ever think about putting his hands on her or Myra, shaking them, pushing them, hitting them until he felt better. Knuckles throbbing and bloody instead of throbbing and white, there in front of him on the steering wheel, him having to breathe through all that rage unspent. It made her feel better, thinking of him losing control like that. Like it was possible that everyone had something dark inside them, everyone had something they were barely controlling, even that nasty old lady at the drugstore, even Jim. Even anyone.
JAMEY’S MOMMA was perched on the edge of the couch, struggling to get her pants on without using her hands, since they were busy planting her firmly where she sat. Kicking her legs, her whole face wet with tears. A warbling sound burbled forth from her, surfacing like a fart in a bathtub, when she saw him come through the door. “I was fixing to go out and find you,” she said, “just as soon as I could get dressed properly.” It was a bright morning, the sun giving off the kind of light that made him feel like everything was going to be okay as he walked the short distance from where he’d hidden in Perry’s room to his momma’s trailer. He noticed things he’d never noticed before, like how the neighbor catty-corner to his momma had marigolds in a pot that were so yellow they were surely fake. Or how the neighbor next to that had a stained-glass butterfly hanging in the window. Such beautiful green wings that caught the light and gave it back in a way that he almost felt flirted with. Or how pretty the name of the road that snaked between the trailers was. Cinnamon Way. He’d never paid any attention to it before, but it had a ring to it. It was fun to say, and he did say it, letting his teeth linger over the starting s sound. The counselor at the jail had said Jamey’s urges were wrong, were sins if you were the type to believe in God. But he had her panties, he’d smelled the sour spot on her pillow. Jim had his hands full with Myra. Everyone distracted that needed to be. Except him. He was as focused as a soldier. His pecker so hard and sure it could have divined water in the desert. All the signs were saying his urges were just right.
But then he saw his momma. Her face slick with snot and crying, her hair mashed on one side, riding the couch like a lazy hooker, trying to scoot on her pants. His pecker had shrunk so fast he felt like it had dissolved. “Let me help,” he said, and that stilled her legs.
“Leave it. I don’t need them on now.” With effort she swung one leg and then the other so she could lie flat on her back. Jamey stood by like a spotter, though he’d long suspected if she did fall he’d edge out of the way as quick as a bobcat and let her splat splat splat.
“Okay?” he asked, still holding his hands up like he’d catch her.
“You can’t do that to me, Jameson. You can’t disappear on me. I got to know where you are at all times. I got to know you ain’t out there prowling.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“If you can’t find a proper girl—a woman—then I’m going to have to be enough for you, son. Enough woman in your life. You hear?” She had reached up, was holding on to his forearm so tight he was worried her nails would draw blood. “They said if you don’t do right they’ll take you right back in and there ain’t nothing I can do for you then.”
“You don’t have to worry, Momma. I was just out carousing with the guys.” The lie came easy, the phrase carousing with the guys something he’d surely heard on TV.
“I’m going to have to be enough,” she said again. Her eyes so brown they looked red at the edges, the flimsy lashes clumped and wet. She looked like something beached, something wet through and struggling for oxygen.
“You are enough,” he said, and removed her hand finger by finger from his arm, placed it on the fleshy rounded dune of her belly. She had always been a needy mother, had always fed upon his attention like a shark to the chum. “You want me to get the Jergens?” Had always demanded to be touched. The counselor had told him mothers weren’t supposed to behave that way, weren’t supposed to desire their son’s touch the way they might a husband’s, but it was all he knew. It had always been this way. He had been rubbing her feet, had been going higher at her demand, since he could remember.
“Just sit with me,” she said, another sign from above that everything would be okay. She fell asleep fast, her mouth open wide to scrape in any air it could. He hid Perry’s undies under his bed and signed on, waiting.
I WANTA MEET UP.
Finally Dayna had popped up online, and Jamey had jumped at the chance to talk to her, find out if they were out, where Perry was, if anything had changed. Find out if Perry had mentioned him, frightened in the cell, confiding in her friend, her one true wish coming finally clear: to meet this love-dumb stranger, this boy she’d been toying with for weeks.
Yeah? With me or with Perry too?
So she had mentioned him, Dayna knew he’d been talking to both of them. Probably knew he didn’t want nothing to do with her, in a romantic way anyway, knew he was just in it to learn more about Perry.
Both of u. That ok?
He wanted her to feel like he hadn’t only been talking to her to get to Perry. Wanted her to feel like he was in it for friendship, too. In a way, he was, he realized. She said shit that could shock you. She was interesting to talk to. And she had a car. Finally, she replied.
I shaved the rest of my hair off and I don’t got time for you to pretend like you want to be my friend still. That ok?
Im not pretending, he wrote.
I like u
Whyd you shave off your hair??
And plus, Perry was more likely to meet up with him if she knew she had a friend nearby. This was something he’d learned over the years: girls felt better if they traveled in twos. He’d learned to make it work in his favor. Flirt with the homely one in the pair and it stirs something up, a kind of pride—they always knew they were the better choice in the pair—that they’d feel ashamed of, try to tamp down by ramping up the loyalty. Show the other girl she wasn’t the jealous type, that she was the strong one, and fine, no problem, agreeing to take a walk, hoping with each step that he’d come after her, knowing the farther she walked that she’d had it wrong all along, feeling worse because of it, and more often than not this girl, this scorned dummy, walking home with a hot face and a throat full of tears. Leaving Jamey plenty of time with the friend, the girl he’d been aft
er all along.
So handling two was fine by him. But anything more than that and shit got chaotic. Flirt with three and you seem like a perv, someone who could buy beer but never someone to take a ride with. Ignore one and flirt with the others and the third will be the one to bring up your cleft lip, your gut, your outdated jeans.
I don’t know why, she replied.
I just did it
Im sure u look real tuff, he wrote.
Aint nobody mess with u now
Right?
Dayna was another type of girl, one he had to keep on his toes around. The type of girl to dare you to think exactly what anyone would think if they saw a bald girl in boys’ clothing charging toward them: What the fuck is that? She was downright begging for it, waiting for you to make a face or let out a Damn, girl! so she could stomp a mudhole in you, slice you up with her sharp tongue. Say how she had to get back before Perry could even get out of the car, drive them both away faster than you could pop open the beer you’d brought for them.
She might even hate you more if you said how pretty she looked, said how you always wanted to be with a bald woman, see what it was like.
He had to walk a fine line. Had to flirt with her only so far, had to make up the rest in pretend respect and pretend fear.
No one messed with me before
Why you want to meet up?
I wanta get to know u gals in person, he wrote.
He pounded the desk. Ain’t no one in high school using the word gals. He’d never even really used it, it was something his momma said. Why don’t you bring any gals around? He looked over at his momma now, cuddling the TV remote to her neck like it was a teddy bear, her eyes half-closed, which meant she was close to asleep. She looked like someone’s doll baby that grew up and never lost none of its puffy rings of flesh, its blue-white skin, its half-lidded eyes. She hadn’t been stirred by his pounding on the desk, a blessing. Quickly, he wrote:
I get lonly
Lonley
However u spel it
It was a risk. No telling if a girl like Dayna would feel disgusted at this kind of confession, or would soften, feel sorry for him, want to help him out. He knew Dayna was a good speller, hoped that acknowledging his own poor spelling would help to thaw her.
There are red squiggly lines that let you know if something you wrote is all fucked up and misspelled
You just right-click and choose the word you meant
Awsome, thanks
I see what u mean
Neat trick
He didn’t know what she meant by right-clicking. Didn’t care. She was like one of his teachers in school, acting like everything was so easy to understand, and he was just being stubborn. He wanted to tell her to forget it. It wasn’t worth all this ass-kissing he had to do to get her to do what he wanted, he’d just work Perry harder, maybe even climb in her window one night.
Sorry you get lonely
I’ll see if Perry wants to meet up
It had worked. She was the type of girl, he now knew, to feel flattered by confessions. To feel like she alone was worth confiding in. Probably because she felt like she had endured more pain than Perry, had more character. And it might be true, but Jamey didn’t give a shit. Perry was the one with the blond ponytail, the grass-green eyes, the criminal’s heart. He was pretty sure about that last one, anyway. It was a crucial part of the equation that made up the girl he was looking for: it meant she was up for anything.
Thank u
I mean thank you
We’ll have a good time, dont worry
I’m not worried, she wrote.
Dayna has signed off.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d confessed to getting lonely. He’d never been good at loneliness. Especially now that he was home, and home meant his momma watching him with her flat doll’s eyes, eyes filled half with indifference and half with desperate suckling need. In jail he would have called his loneliness boredom. But now, outside, he saw it for what it was. He needed to put his hands on something, again. He’d start with his hands, see where it went. Some girls just went with it. Some did and then didn’t. Some made him work for his reward.
He knew it was disgusting, wrong, this kind of need. He knew because it was the same kind of need he watched pulsing out from his momma. But it was beyond him. It was biological. It was instinct. As natural as a lion feeding off some thrashing animal, fighting hard to stay alive even as its belly opened up. That lion probably didn’t feel all that great listening to the animal howl and die. But a lion’s got to eat.
PERRY COULD SMELL HERSELF. It was the same odor she’d smelled all night, lying in that cell, coming off those women in waves. Crotch, left too long without a washrag. Salt, sweat, and something nasty, something nastier than sex, something hot and close like blood. Now she was the one with her skirt hiked up over her hips, now she was the brown lump wearing three layers of clothing, dirt on her face and lining her nails. Now she was the one trying to braid her hair like nothing, like there wasn’t no smell, and if there was it was your problem, not hers.
She’d gone straight to class, hadn’t stopped to wash up first, and now she regretted it. A girl had let her have a piece of paper, but no one had a pen for her to borrow. Without something to concentrate on, the smell seemed to be getting worse. A boy in the next row shifted, turning away from her; the girl in front of her leaned forward, hunched over her work. Everyone probably trying to breathe with their mouths, so as not to whiff in any more of her.
The only saving grace was that Travis wasn’t in class. Perry looked over at his empty chair, glad that he wasn’t there to catch a whiff.
She raised her hand, asked if she could go to the bathroom. The teacher nodded, waved her off. As she stood, a fresh burst of the smell bloomed out.
In the bathroom, she smelled her hair, her hands, her clothing. Went into a stall and put a hand into her underwear, brought it up to her nose and inhaled. She smelled stale, unwashed, like her body would smell if she stopped caring. Her hair still held a whisper of the fruity shampoo she’d used the morning before. Her armpits smelled mostly like the baby powder in her deodorant, only a small oniony fang of B.O. peeking through. Nowhere could she find the source of the crotch smell, but she still smelled it anytime she moved. Like it was the sum of all her parts. Like as a whole she was no better than a hooker’s unwashed vagina.
She washed everything anyway. Soaped up her hands and worked the pink lather into her face, her neck, her armpits. Soaped up a wad of toilet tissue and pushed it into her underwear, wiping. When she was done she stood in a stall, letting the air cool her dry. Someone had written SLOPPY CUNT in red marker, the only words in this stall. If she’d had her book bag she’d have taken out a pen and written YEP.
In the hall she felt cleaner, more awake, her neck and hands cool. The soap she’d used smelled like bubble gum and toilet cleaner; she breathed in, hoping to smell it on herself, nearly happy enough to laugh when she did. There was even a pen on the floor by the drinking fountain. As she bent for it she heard footsteps coming around the corner, stood up just in time to see it was Travis.
“You weren’t in class,” she said.
He still had on his work uniform, and there was a deep line in his hair from where he’d worn his visor. Perry could smell the dishes on him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I was just hoping to see you.” In the mirror Perry had seen that her hair was limp, flattened, all the shine gone out of it. She was glad, it felt like a miracle, that she’d pulled it into a ponytail before running into Travis.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He picked at his shirt, drips of grease dotting it like raindrops. “I mean, I meant, did I miss anything?”
“I want to kiss you again,” Perry said. She took a step toward him, she couldn’t help it, she wanted to be near to him.
“I know,” he said, stepping back from her. “Me, too.”
It was a shock, a literal s
hock, like someone had fastened a clamp over her heart and pushed a pedal that sent a current right into her body, up through her throat and down to her toes. He’d said he wanted to kiss her, too. Perry felt filled up, like someone had poured a kettle of hot water over her head. But he’d also backed away. Here came the hideous smell again.
“Maybe I’ll stop by again,” she said, “if you’re working.”
“No,” he said, “don’t do that.”
He’d said it quickly, like the idea repulsed him. “Oh,” Perry started to say.
“Meet me somewhere else,” he said. “Tomorrow night I’m off. We can meet at my house or something. My mom works nights.”
“I can do that. I can take the bus. I’ll meet you there, if you tell me the address.”
“Thirteen forty-six Baton Rouge,” he said. “Take the bus to White Road and then walk into the neighborhood behind the 7-Eleven.” She repeated it back to him, twice, trying to stamp it deep in her memory. The smell was cascading off her, she half expected to see it pouring over him like candle wax, but he asked her to come over, he gave her an address, and it was like he couldn’t smell her at all. She wondered if she’d even tell him about her night in that cell, tell him about the other women.
“I’m going to skip this class,” he said. “So I’ll just see you later.”
This was a relief. Perry hadn’t wanted to walk back with him, hadn’t wanted to break the spell, do something to change his mind. Hadn’t wanted to walk into class with him, either, didn’t want anyone thinking she’d gone to the bathroom to meet up with him. Not that she hadn’t done something like that before. She just didn’t want anyone thinking it about him.
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