The Heart is Deceitful above All Things

by J. T. LeRoy

  ‘C’mere to Daddy.’ He waves her over, not looking up. She stands a few feet in front of him, spinning in circles, making the white frilly baby doll he special-ordered from Victoria’s Secret glow a ghostly blue gray in the twilight TV light of the trailer. Her blond curls twirl out like cast fishing lines. She twists around and around, weaving her magic love spell that no man can resist.

  ‘What the hell you doin’, in Lord’s name and creation?’

  The spinning stops. She blinks at him, winks, blows a kiss.

  ‘Jesus Lord above, what happened to you?’ He’s not watching Sermon Mount anymore, he’s watching his baby doll: me.

  She moves closer, one foot in front of the other as if on a tightrope, in the shiny black leather opentoed, sling-back heels, being careful not to trip. She blows a kiss, fingers held out, displaying Red Lust nail paint.

  ‘What the hell . . . ?’ He motions with his beer and spills a dark patch on his Day-Glo orange forklift operator’s jumpsuit leg.

  ‘Your mother put you up to this?’ He wipes the spill with his hand, staring at her, his face narrow and pointy, a perfect triangle from his nose down. It’s hard to see both his eyes at once.

  ‘I’m your baby girl.’ Her voice is shy and sweet, the way he likes it. He laughs, muting out the sounds from the sermon.

  ‘She home early?’ He takes a long sip of the beer, smiles, and looks her up and down.

  ‘Sarah!’ he leans past her and shouts.

  She giggles. ‘It’s me, Daddy,’ she whispers.

  ‘Jesus.’ He finishes off his beer, and the empty clank of it dropping on the linoleum floor echoes through the trailer. He reaches around for a full one, never turning from her.

  ‘Jesus, you look like your mother . . .’ He pops open his beer. ‘Few years on back, I reckon.’ He grunts. She puffs out her lips, pouty and hungry, and slowly slides her thumb into her mouth and begins to suck, the way he likes her to do.

  ‘Take that thumb out, you know you ain’t to do that.’ She pulls it out, then slowly slides it back in and out, in and out.

  ‘There is something wrong with you, son.’ He slowly wipes the foam from his lips. ‘Or whatever the hell you are. Jesus.’ He smoothes out his pants lap.

  ‘Lord . . .’ He chuckles. ‘You do look . . .’ She turns around, raises up the back of the baby doll, and shakes her ass, making the panty ruffles flutter like wings, the way he likes to see. He gulps more beer.

  ‘Your momma’s gonna whip the daylights out of ya.’

  She wiggles her bottom a few more times, then turns to face him, thumb still buried in her mouth.

  He always tells her, ‘Baby doll, I love ya best when you’re sucking on that thumb, makes me think you’re an angel.’ When she asks him for money, or anything, she puts her thumb right into her mouth; she’ll sit on his lap and lean on his chest, and he’ll stroke her hair. ‘Tell Daddy what ya need, baby doll.’ If she takes out her thumb to speak, he pushes it back in. He doesn’t tell her she’s too big for acting like a baby, doesn’t rub hot peppers on her thumb so she’ll quit, doesn’t laugh and tease her for it. With her thumb in her mouth she gets what she wants. Always.

  She faces him silently, mouth sealed with her thumb, blue eyes wide and ringed in black, standing in lightning flashes of color splashing from the TV, waiting for recognition. And he stares, his eyes circling like a plane waiting to land. And then he burps, deep and resonate. His gaze turns downward like an ashamed child’s. ‘Pardon,’ he mumbles.’ And with his shame she knows she is recognized. She jumps on his lap, into his arms still laying on the armrests, his nails combing the velour to expose its shiny, silver brown underbelly.

  ‘Lord help me, what’s got into you?’ His eyes squint and his chin doubles as he thrusts his head back like a chicken. His mouth is frozen in a half grin.

  ‘Ain’t your baby doll pretty?’ she asks with her thumb half pulled out, against his chest. It vibrates, bouncing her delicate, sculpted head with his stiff laugh.

  ‘Ain’t your little girl pretty?’ she whispers past her thumb, deep into the padding of the wiry curled hair of his breast. Her other arm is wrapped around his waist tightly, the way he likes her to do.

  He says nothing, stares past her to the TV sermon, turns his gaze back to her, then to the TV, back and forth, his eyes shifting like dull metal weights on a balance beam weighing. A slight frown makes little gullies on the ends of his mouth. She pumps her legs, dangling from the edge of his lap, like on a swing, forcing it higher. One of her oversize shoes flies off and lands with a crash somewhere in the dark silence of the trailer. It makes him jump. She giggles, causing her front teeth to bite down on her red-ringed thumb. He looks down at her legs, wiggling, thin, and shiny, white like sheets of pasta. He clears his throat and lifts his beer.

  ‘Uh, want some?’ His voice quivers, while the other hand drums the armrest. She slides her thumb out slowly as if savoring the last bit of a Popsicle, sucking it, the way he likes her to. She takes the beer and sips it while blinking up at him.

  ‘She, uh, cocktailin’ till late . . . uh, not home early, is she now?’ His eyes shift from one armrest to the other. She hands the beer back to him.

  ‘I am your sweet little girl, Daddy.’ She leans up against his chest in the comfort of a heartbeat outside her own, both arms wrapped around his Day-Glo orange torso. He sits there in the quiet of the trailer’s electric hum, not moving, staring intently at the soundless sermon. The beer is empty. He crushes it in one hand and drops it. His breath gets louder. She leans in closer and rubs her fluffy curls against the end of his beard. He shifts his legs. She wiggles on his lap. He clears his throat again. Her hands slide along his sides, thick and solid.

  He always tells her, ‘You’re safe in these arm, baby doll. Nobody’s ever gonna hurt you again.’ She reaches her hand out and runs it down his arm like a child sliding down a banister until she hits his fist clutching the remote.

  ‘Play with me,’ she whispers to him, the way he likes her to say. His fist slowly uncurls.

  ‘Please . . . Daddy?’ With a violent pop and flash the light of the TV is sucked back and it’s all dark except for the orange and blue dots of appliances glowing like one-eyed cats.

  Whenever she wakes up to the black of the trailer, screaming and flailing, he holds her until it’s passed. ‘Just a nightmare, my sweet little girl, just a bad dream.’ He doesn’t yell at her for waking everyone up, doesn’t spank her for wetting, doesn’t laugh at her for crying like a baby. ‘Let Daddy make you safe,’ he tells her.

  ‘Hold me . . . Daddy,’ she whispers the way he likes her to.

  He doesn’t give her only quick little pats like a dog, doesn’t avoid touching her like she’s contagious, doesn’t not take her on his lap even for a spanking. The ache is severe, pounding, and relentless.

  All that’s left are the words only she is entitled to say.

  Because she’s beautiful.

  Because she’s his baby girl.

  ‘I need your love, Daddy.’

  She lifts his hand to her waist. The remote clatters at his feet. He stares at the dead TV. His hand, like a paperweight, rests above her jutting hipbone.

  ‘Make me safe,’ she whispers into his heart.

  ‘My sweet little baby girl,’ he answers, and his hand starts to move.

  ‘Ungrateful little bitch!’

  The water separates into pretty pink pools like Easter egg dye inside the sink.

  Something––clock radio?––flies across the trailer, its plug streaming like a comet’s tail. It crashes and escapes through the window next to me.

  The white silk folds in the middle of the pastel water look like egg drop soup.

  ‘Let fuckin’ go of me, you faggot! I’m gonna kill him, let go!’

  Things are falling and smashing apart.

  Sitting in the center of the white, no matter how hard I scrub it, is a red, bleeding, unblinking eye.

  ‘Let me go, you fucker! Let me go!’
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  I swirl the white silk around and around, the water spreading pink from its leaking, wounded heart.

  ‘You motherfucker!’

  A shoe bounces off the red metal chair I’m standing on.

  ‘Let go of me, you fuckin’ traitor!’

  She screams with such a guttural force that the trailer vibrates like a tin can and a few loose glass shards from the newly broken window tumble down and shatter.

  I lay both my hands onto the cool water, stilling it.

  She screams again, but this time it’s muted, as if through a hand.

  The bloody clump stares up at me, accusing me, claiming me.

  And the silk is undulating like it’s breathing, in the dying waves in the sink.

  ‘Offa my mouth!’ she yells, muffled. They’re panting heavy and fast as if they’re behind the divider, on their bed. I twist my head toward them.

  What I can see of her face not covered by his hand is bright red; her hair looks brown from sweat and is stuck all over her face and is twisted up in his curly black beard. Her eyebrows jump up and down as if she’s lost control of them. She twists and turns in his grip. His other arm’s stretched around her. When she sees me looking she struggles harder, her hands balled into fists.

  He just looks sad and confused, like he’s holding a vicious animal that he doesn’t know what to do with.

  ‘You better get out of here,’ he tells me, but looking at her.

  ‘I didn’t get the stain out yet,’ I sort of whisper.

  ‘You better get out of here,’ he says again wearily, still holding my mother tightly, his fingers pressing white dents into her arms and cheeks.

  I jump down off my chair and reach under the sink for the sacred white jug.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ I tell them.

  I climb back up and carefully pour half a gallon of the magic liquid into the water. Its bitter smell reassures me. Bleach is the true holy water, and I know salvation is near.

  ‘This will help to save you.’ She holds me by my right wrist. In her other hand there’s a large mason jar filled with a fluid so clear it’s like liquid glass.

  ‘You forgot how we taught you?’ She nods her head yes, I shake a no. ‘Your mother should’ve taught you, at the very least,’ she scolds, dropping my wrist and resting the jar on a wooden shelf next to the huge porcelain tub with large lion paws for feet.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ I whisper, and watch a glob of snot, and tears, fall from my chin. I don’t move my right hand to wipe it, I can’t trust it, even now.

  ‘I’m sure you are now, Jeremiah.’ She leans over the tub, her baby-corn-colored hair, the same as my mom’s, pulled up tight into a bun. Her full-moon face collects little steam drops as she leans over the tub, adjusting the chipped silver cross knob.

  ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am.’ I sniffle and concentrate hard on holding my right arm still, next to my side. I block out the stinging pain and blink my tears away.

  ‘I can see why she’s left you. Not that she’s much better; devil’s claimed you both, said to tell,’ she says into the rising steam, occasionally dipping her hand into the water.

  ‘You mustn’t give in to dirty temptation,’ she says, leaning over the swirling tub water.

  ‘Yes’m.’ I sniffle up some snot. Each time she turns to me my heart contracts, I see my mother’s face in hers, but heavily creased and thicker.

  ‘I hope you are not feelin’ one bit sorry for yourself.’ She shakes her finger at me. I shake my head no and stare down at my bare feet. I’d only been at my grandparents’ an hour since the social worker had left me there. I’d been taken out of the last foster home when the social workers found out I had grandparents. I liked it there, though; they had a pet pig that came right up to me as soon as I got there and with his snout flipped my hand onto his head to scratch him. But the foster father found out I was evil; he yelled at me to pull up my pants and to be behaving. I tried to tell him it was OK, and to sit on his lap, but he pushed me away so hard that I fell. I knew that if he put his thing in me, he’d let me stay, not throw me out. I was just trying to get it over with. He yelled at his wife to call the social worker. And then I was standing naked next to my grandmother, my right hand held away from my body and all possibility of evil doings.

  ‘This will burn, Jeremiah.’ Her lips, full like my mother’s, turn down in a frown. ‘But not one-billionth of what hell’s fire will be if you are not saved.’

  I hold my right hand farther out from me as if it’s a contaminated fish.

  She lifts the large mason jar and silently unscrews the lid. The strong chlorine scent fills the bathroom. I breathe in deeply the smell of summer and swimming pools and let the warmth envelop me.

  ‘Jeremiah!’ I open my eyes. She grabs my right hand away from my thing and jerks me toward the tub. ‘Does he need to whip you again?!’

  I stare wide-eyed at her, shaking.

  ‘Do you feel the evil creep back into you? Do you even try to fight it?’ I just stare at her.

  ‘I want my momma,’ I moan, and the tears come so fast I can barely breathe. She sighs and pours the contents of the mason jar into the tub and swirls the water around with her hand.

  ‘She left you; too much for her to take, I believe.’ She wipes her sweaty brow with her arm. ‘If you stop giving in to the devil, well, she’ll want you again, I believe.’

  ‘Like last time?’ I ask, wiping my face on my bare shoulder.

  ‘She came and got you, didn’t she?’

  I swallow some snot. ‘But I messed up again.’

  ‘Well, you just have to be hard on yourself, Jeremiah, and not give in to the devil so easy.’ I nod eagerly.

  ‘You can even be an example to her. She needs help, too, I believe.’

  ‘I want to, ma’am.’

  She wipes her brow again. ‘Good, that’s good Jeremiah. You have to want Jesus’ goodness and love to fill you, and he will, he will . . . now let’s get you in here.’

  She places me closer to the tub and pats the wooden stepping stool next to it, for me to climb on. I do and look down into the tub, seeing the water, like a mirror with steam rising off it. I inhale the chlorine too deeply, expecting comfort, but it only stings my nose, throat, and eyes.

  I turn and look up at her. Her hand pats gently on my shoulder, reassuring me.

  ‘Hold my arm.’ She reaches it out to me like a steel bar on the seat of a roller coaster.

  I lean over, smelling her kitchen grandmother scent of nutmeg, lemons, and allspice under the heavy bleach fumes.

  ‘I can’t, ma’am, it’s too far,’ I whisper, hoping she’ll lift me in her arms and put me into the tub like she did when I was last here a year ago.

  ‘Yes, you can, Jeremiah.’ She steps away and holds her arm out to me. ‘You’re big now.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Do I need to call him up here?’

  I grab her arm and stretch my left leg up and over the porcelain lip of the tub and pull myself up until I sit on the edge, my foot curled up tightly above the water like I’m dangling over the edge of the world.

  ‘Go ahead.’ She nudges me. I dip my foot in and pull it out immediately.

  ‘It’s too hot.’ Some snot falls from my nose and splashes into the tub.

  ‘Jeremiah, I’m going to call him up here if you’re not in this tub by the count of three . . .’

  ‘OK, OK!’

  ‘One.’ I put my foot in, steam crawling up my leg. The water has a heavy silky feel to it.

  ‘Two.’ It lands on the tub bottom. I swing my other leg over and stand in the water up to my thighs.

  ‘It’s too hot!’ My tears are back, and I jump up and down, trying to escape the water.

  ‘Not as hot as hellfire! You want to go there? You want to feel hellfire for eternity?’

  ‘Please!’ I reach my arms out to her.

  ‘Reverend!’ she hollers out.

  ‘Please . . . ma’am . . . please!’ I cry so hard I can ha
rdly speak.

  ‘Reverend!’ She puts her hands on my head and presses down, keeping me from jumping out. Still, I keep moving as much as I can.

  We hear his heavy footsteps marching up the carpeted stairs. As he comes closer she releases my head, and I slow my bouncing.

  He opens the door and a blast of cool air hits us. I don’t move. She says nothing to him or me, just turns and leaves, closing the door behind her.

  His eyes are as clear and burning as the bleach water I’m standing in.

  ‘Sit,’ he says loudly, the ‘t’ spitting out, echoing off the white porcelain tiles of the bathroom.

  I quickly lower myself down until I’m submerged up to my neck in the water.

  He leans over me.

  ‘Hands,’ he says sternly.

  I reach my arms up to him and he ties a cord hanging over a brass towel rack on the wall behind me to one of my wrists, then the other.

  He pulls the cord tight so my arms are stretched up and can commit no sin.

  ‘I am right down the hall. I so much as hear a sound from you, Jeremiah, you will regret the day you were born.’ He turns around and walks out, closing the door halfway.

  I’ve turned it all off. The welts and sores on my back, ass, and thighs burn like a fire someplace behind me. The hot water turns my skin bright red, but I’ve already left.

  I’m with my momma in Vegas, winning lots of money. She’s so happy, she’s hugging me and she keeps telling me how good we are, how clean.

  I press my hands into the bleached water and rub lightly on the bloodstain. And like invisible ink, it starts to fade.

  ‘Kill you!’ my mother screams, still muffled.

  ‘Son, I can’t hold her much longer, you best git now.’ I wish the sink were big enough for me to climb inside of.

  ‘You hear me?’ he shouts.

  I lift the underwear, the white ones with a ruffled back that he bought especially for her from Victoria’s Secret, spin around, and display the panties.

  ‘Look, it’s OK! It’s out! It’s OK!’

  Water flows from the sopping wet underwear onto my feet and down to the chair, ending in a big puddle.