by Nikki Roman
The Vicodin I don’t need for physical pain, but will die without for mental anguish. Alcohol, I hate the taste of but it feels so good inside me as it works its way into my brain and kills bad thoughts. The bloody knife under my stove. But, before I can release all these secrets, Sarah walks in and B.B. lets go of me as fast as if she were having an affair and her husband had walked in on it.
“What are you doing, Mom?” Sarah says. She’s sucking on a water bottle and dripping sweat from her one-man game of soccer outside.
“Oh, Bailey had a scratch. I was just bandaging it for her.”
“That’s a lot of gauze for just ‘a scratch.’”
“Mind your own,” B.B. warns her.
“She’s in my house,” Sarah interjects. “Why shouldn’t I know what happened?”
“Thank you, B.B.,” I say, exiting the bathroom before her and Sarah can notice that my face has changed from a ghostly white to a scarlet red.
I run into Spencer as I come out of B.B.’s room. “I put your hoodie in the washer,” he says. “Mom made us Macaroni and Cheese, do you feel up to eating?”
There are two bowls of Macaroni with two Cokes, already opened, beside them on the kitchen table. “Mhm,” I say. “I think my appetite has returned.”
•••
Spencer and I are eating quietly- happily - when Sarah comes up behind us and says in a singsong voice, “Why is Bailey always wearing your cl-o-othes?”
“Mine were bloody,” I snap at her. “What do you care?”
“What happened to your wrist?” She pokes at it and I wince.
“Sarah, leave her alone.” Spencer growls at her.
“No, it’s okay, Spencer,” I say. “I’ll tell her. She won’t stop bugging me if I don’t.”
“True.” She shrugs unapologetically.
“I took a knife,” I say, holding an imaginary knife to my wrist and making a slicing motion, “and cut myself with it. Happy? There, now you know.” I follow up with a maniacal cackle, adding to the look of horror that is manifesting on Sarah’s face.
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” She blinks at me in shock.
Good question, Sarah. Why the fuck am I laughing?
Sarah has an expression on her face that makes everything seem very serious, all of a sudden. My Coke is serious, my bowl of Macaroni and Cheese is serious; I gulp like I’m in trouble and she is about to deliver my punishment.
“Is it because of me? Because I was mean to you when you spent the night?” she asks, her serious expression softening and giving way to a sadness that looks childish but wrong on her pulled back face.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Spencer says.
“It has nothing to do with you,” I assure her.
“Good, pretty girls shouldn’t self-harm,” she says, taking a bite of my Macaroni and Cheese.
I push the bowl toward her; I want to see her smile come back and food has always made her happy. Especially if it’s food she’s taking from me.
“Are you going to eat this?” she asks. “You never eat.”
“You can have it,” I say.
She grabs my bowl and Coke, taking it with her; she kicks her soccer ball to the front door and follows it out.
Spencer pushes his bowl to me. I push it back and start a pushing war with him, back and forth, back and forth, until one of us speaks up.
“Can I spend the night, tonight?”
“Why?” he asks. “Is your mom beating you again?”
“No…not lately,” I say. “I feel like someone is watching me. I know it sounds stupid but it bothers me. And I don’t get much sleep at home. Your arms are the only place I feel safe.”
“You’re sweet,” he says, mussing up my hair. “Real sweet. Okay, I can share my bed again.” He kisses my forehead. “Sarah, will be happy.”
“Thrilled.” I roll my eyes.
Spencer nods in agreement. “We should get back to work, now.”
We thank B.B. for lunch, and then we’re back in his truck, driving to Goodwill.
“You never read the letter,” I say, holding Clad’s letter out to him. “I think you should.”
“Okay,” he gives in, snatching it from me.
The words dig in a second time round, as Spencer reads them aloud. Clad may say his words are nothing to me, but they’re whole lot of something right now - not even the sharpest knife could cut as deep.
I imagine it’s all a part of the show, an invisible audience looking in on my life and the letter creating a hushed silence that travels like a wave through them. I’m just an actor following a script. Somehow this disillusion makes hearing Clad’s letter sufferable.
“He doesn’t sound happy,” Spencer says.
“I think I’m going to see him. The first visiting day is tomorrow.”
“I guess you owe him at least that.”
“And more. Much, much more,” I say.
“Your mom is going to let you see him?”
“I don’t need her permission. I have this.” I hold up the fake ID Clad sent me in the letter. Spencer takes it from my hand.
“How did he get this past the guards?”
“Fuck if I know. Anyway, It looks as real as day, doesn’t it?”
The picture Clad used is one I gave to him without much thought after we had all received a packet of wallet sized pictures at school. Neglecting to pay for my pictures, I took them home and gave the rest to Mom…they’re probably in a dumpster somewhere. My face-cracking smile and snarly black hair buried beneath loads of dirty diapers and pizza boxes, molding slices of pizza still in them.
•••
Today, a woman looking to buy school clothes for her chubby little girl comes into the store. The girl is supposedly five years old, but she’s the size of an eight year old. I have a hard time finding clothes that fit her.
“Maybe this,” I say, wearily holding out a pink and green camouflaged dress.
“Mommy, I’m tired. Nothing fits!” the little girl says stomping her foot.
“No, that one’s ugly,” the mom says, scrunching up her nose at the dress.
I know, but nothing here fits your child.
“That all you have?”
“That will fit her, yeah,” I say.
“Guess you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be a fat kid.”
“Excuse me, did I hear you right? Did you just call your child fat?” I say, my temper getting the best of me. I hear Mom now, her words all around me, You’re too thin. I’m trying to fatten you up. “That won’t do her any good!”
“Come on, Wilma,” the mom says, motioning for her daughter to follow.
“Wait,” I say, blocking the door. I take my pearl necklace off and put it around Wilma’s neck. “I think you’re gorgeous.”
“Thank you!” Wilma’s face lights up as she rolls the pearls in her hand. The mom elbows me out of the way and shoves her daughter out the door.
“Have a nice day!” I holler sarcastically after them.
“She was pleasant,” Spencer says.
“We work at Goodwill, what do you expect?”
“Well, it’s not called Badwill; you’d think people would be a little more grateful we’re trying to help them.”
I remember how Mom was outraged about the cookies B.B. made for her, and then it dawns on me why our customers are usually less than cheery. “No one likes taking handouts,” I say.
“I can’t relate to you on that one,” Spencer says.
“That’s because you’ve never had to take handouts,” I say. “It’s degrading to have to shop here; it’s a last resort. When you can no longer afford K-mart clothes or Wal-Mart clothes, this is where you come.”
“I never thought of it like that, baby,” he says. “You could be right.”
“I am,” I say with confidence.
•••
We take turns going over the floor with a vacuum and organizing all the books, toys, and odds and ends. What has felt like the longest day of t
he summer is almost over.
“Tonight, I’ll get some sleep!” I twirl around the broom that I’ve been sweeping the floor with.
“And a shower, ‘cause you’re sweaty!”
“So are you.” I flip the broom upside down and aim it at Spencer, like a light saber. “Get back!”
“Gimme that, you goof!” He chuckles.
Spencer pulls the broom out of my hands and throws it on the ground. Lifting me off my feet he flips me upside down and swings me over his shoulder.
“Okay, we can lock up now it looks clean… enough.” He turns off the lights and locks the door with me hanging upside down on his shoulder. I punch his back and scream to be let down.
“Oh, I’ll put you down,” he says brusquely, flipping me and pinning me against his truck. He grabs my chin, tilts my head up, and kisses me hard on the lips. “Hold on.”
He climbs inside of his truck, turning on the radio he smiles at me as he turns through stations.
“What are you doing?”
He finds a song he likes and turns it up, the truck rocks back and forth with music. “Madame,” he says, holding out his hand to me, “may I have this dance?”
“Do you even know how to dance?”
“I feel the music, just like you do.” He winks. “I think I can get it.”
Spencer spins me into him, spins me out, winds me up like a yo-yo. His dancing is mediocre; not at all the level of Clad’s or my own, but it’s the thing I’ve missed most about Clad being locked away.
“You always know just what I need,” I say, the song coming to an end.
“I thought with Clad being gone you probably hadn’t danced for six months straight.”
He lifts me into his arms; I lock my legs around his waist, and throw my arms around his neck. “I miss him, but you make me feel so much better,” I breathe into his neck.
“Don’t fret, little turkey, tomorrow you’ll see Lover Boy again.”
“Tomorrow.” I sigh.
“I just realized something,” Spencer says, “you came to the thrift store when you were at the end of your rope, like all our customers. If you hadn’t gotten that desperate, we wouldn’t have met, and then where would you be?”
“Not here. Not here in your arms and certainly not kissing your lips.”
“Heaven,” he says, tears welling in his russet eyes. He’s thinking about the time he almost lost me, about the time he hung himself from his fan. “You’d be in heaven.”
“I am,” I say, kissing tears as they fall from his eyes.
The sun sets, a glass sand-art bottle, layered in baby blues and pinks. The radio is playing and Spencer hums to the song as he steps in circles with me in his arms. I almost think it would be better not to see Clad. I never want to spoil what Spencer and I have now. Spoil the well and you spoil the water, spoil the water and the town’s people all die. I don’t want our love to perish.
Chapter 8
Miemah
When I was pretty, before Papa scarred my stomach, he used to call me Mia. It was a sort of favor, for being named after Mom. What if my name had been Jane? Karen? Leslie? Any other name than Miemah… would Papa still beat me?
•••
“Bird, I told you not to come ‘round here again!” I say, digging my brass knuckles into his body and squeezing his blood out like a cherry tomato. Missing the soft part of his belly, I slash where his wing meets his chest; he hops off my car and totters down the street, unable to fly.
I’m angry, bitter. I want to kill everything and everyone. I bet I could kill the whole world, and still I would sit in my car, the last person on Earth, completely miserable.
There’s a special place in hell reserved for people like me, people like Papa. We’ll burn together. I clap a hand to my mouth, trying to hold back the sick feeling.
Blowing chunks, I smear it with my shoe, grinding it into the floor mat.
“Damn you!” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “I can’t ever escape you!”
I’m starting to understand how Bailey feels, always running from a tormentor impossible to evade. I keep the chase going. It ends with me.
•••
My little bird Bailey is away today, so I take a break from bird watching and pay a visit to Trenton. We sit side by side on his couch, every part of me sweating to make love to him.
“Are we going to do it?”
“I don’t feel like it,” he says, looking away from me.
“You always feel like it.”
“When was the last time you showered? You smell like a blunt that’s been festering in the folds of a fat, sweaty guy’s pit.”
“I’ve been sleeping in my car,” I take a swig of Smirnoff Vodka to numb the feeling of rejection.
“So, this is fun…not.”
“Will you at least kiss me?”
“No.”
“Will you hold me?” I anticipate yet another no.
“You reek.” He gets up and goes into his kitchen, looking for something to eat.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say. Going into his bedroom and locking the door behind me, I flip his mattress over and push my hand under the box spring, until I feel the chain of Bailey’s locket. I bury it deep in my bra—the one place I’m sure Trenton won’t be going in today.
I walk out of his room, the mattress still turned over, I don’t give a shit if he finds out I took it. What could he do about it? It didn’t belong to him in the first place.
“Buh-bye,” I say, passing him as he stuffs his face with a hot pocket on his Ikea couch.
“Where you goin’?” he asks with his mouth full, pizza sauce dribbling down his chin.
“Away from here and away from you. Have fun being alone with your hand, tonight.”
•••
My car is running dangerously close to empty; I have just enough gas to make it back to Fort Myers. It’s time to put my weaponry to use and get some cash. Downtown Fort Myers is the ghetto compared to Cape Coral; here the cops are slack, as long as you don’t kill anybody, you’re golden.
I sniff out a boy of about sixteen, with a black afro and jeans that sag past his crotch. The kind of kid most would try to stay away from. I choose him because he knows the street, knows you don’t mess with someone who wants your money and has a gun. He’s probably jumped a few in his day; think of it as the food chain: he eats plankton, I eat him.
“Give me your money!” I say, the gun by my thigh, where only he can see it.
“I ain’t got nothin’ worth a shot to the head,” he says, pulling out a wad of dollar bills.
“You been workin’ the corner?” I laugh, fanning the bills.
“Just take it!”
As I turn to leave, his money securely stashed in my bra, the boy catches sight of a black eagle emblem on the inside of my right wrist.
“You an Apocy?”
“Yeah bro, what you care?” I ask, slipping into my ghetto accent. You talk like a kid in Cape Coral public high school; they’ll chew you up and spit you out.
“Just wonderin’.”
I stare at him a little longer. He’s cute in an odd way, his silver teeth and thick, slurred speech. Brown eyes… just brown—no gleam or sparkle to them like Trenton’s. And skin as black as the hilt of my gun.
“Thanks for the cash,” I say, taking off.
•••
Ten bucks, I held a gun at that boy for ten measly bucks. I end up spending it on some Molly and more chewing gum. I sit in my car alone with my hallucinations. Trees talk and birds melt from the burning sun.
I have the distinct feeling that I’m trapped in that painting of melting clocks and a vast plain. The persistence of memory. It’s how I feel most the time, especially when I’m tripping. My memories are stronger than any drug. More persistent, more potent. They can take me higher than opium, shrooms, or acid.
I stick a sketch of the Apocalypse emblem in-between one of the windshield wipers before deserting my car. That ought a kee
p the car-jackers away.
I set out for the Apocalypse headquarters. It’s within spitting distance of the Allie store buildings; there’s an ongoing battle for territory that has sparked many wars between us. The Allie may have store buildings but we’ve got an entire neighborhood full of crumbling houses.
I haven’t been in months, but our hangout looks just as dilapidated, if not more, than it did the last time I was here. Poc, our Ventanna—or lookout—is outside the door pushing a cigarette into the hair of a stray tabby. Pink polka dots of skin show through where Poc has burnt past the tabby’s orange hair.
“Mia,” Poc says, putting down his cigarette and releasing the cat. “Where you been?”
“Lying low.”
“Yeah.” He nods his head. “You’ve been low. Too low.”
“Papa’s been extra violent lately,” I say, careful not to give away weakness.
“Don’t tell that to Allegiance,” Poc warns me.
“I won’t,” I say going into the unlit house.
“Mia! You came home!” The guys greet me all at once.
They’re sitting in a cloud of smoke in the living room, each one a different still of drugs or alcohol. Allegiance, sitting at the center of the circle, is counting a stack of bills. “Mia, we’ve been wondering where you were,” he says, patting the stack.
I don’t reply; sometimes it’s better to not say anything at all, lest Allegiance should feel in the mood to beat you.
“No matter,” Poc says, coming in with the tabby cat under his arm, “you’re here now, let’s get low.”
Poc hands me a fat blunt. He rolls them best. “We got an elbow of the real good stuff from Tan.”
“A pound? You want the whole gang to smoke up, don’t you? Forget about all our problems.”
“What problems? The Allie? Shit, Mia, you know they ain’t a threat to us,” Poc says.
“They’re a threat to us if they consider themselves one. Don’t matter they’re outnumbered and weak. Just matters they think they can take us,” Allegiance sets Poc straight. “Can we get low, now?”
“How low?” Poc bellows.