gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  “No fucking way,” I say. “Half a rack,” and I must be a good bargainer because he nods, comes up behind me. I grab onto the doorframe, steady myself. He smells like tar. He smells empty. And then I know why they call him Fast Eddie. He lifts my shirt up with one hand and grabs at my tits with the other.

  “I just need one hand,” he says, and it’s like he’s trying to talk himself into something.

  I feel like every beer I have ever chugged in Eddie’s name is in me at once, spilling up my throat.

  And then he’s gone. Already across the room, leaning against his desk. He never even got hard.

  “The dog was a mistake anyway,” he says. His voice sounds almost sad.

  “I’ll come back for her after you close,” I say, and straighten my shirt.

  Rain is stretched out on the couch when I come out and she raises her eyebrows when I have no beer in my hand, but she says nothing. The dog will be waiting outside the fence just like the six-packs and half racks and cases of beer that have been left out there for Mo and Sissy before. I’ll take Pen to the Epsworthys’, and when I see Winthrop’s eyes light up like a thousand old sofas on fire, it will be worth it.

  SPECIAL DELIVERY

  The night I first slept over at Winthrop and Rainbolene’s, my sleeping bag on the floor between their beds, I wore gym shorts and a T-shirt, and Rain had the big idea we play post office, which she renamed Helen’s Dad Delivers. We wrote letters to each other, the three of us, from made-up personalities, lovers, lawyers, bosses, delivered the letters by wadding them in balls and throwing them at each other’s heads, or folding them precisely as many times as we could, and whispering, “Knock knock! Helen’s Dad Delivers!” We’d whisper it and then scream it, louder and louder, until the recipient noticed the tiny correspondence just near them.

  I had my feet up on Rain’s bed, a notebook on my chest, my shorts riding down my legs, gaping open around my underwear. I didn’t notice this until I felt Rain’s toes, painted a perfect dark red, soft on my inner thigh. “Knock knock…” she whispered, and I moved my notebook aside, went to reach for the next letter, and saw that she hadn’t sent one.

  She used her toes like little perfectly manicured fingers. Once past my shorts, they gripped my underwear and pulled the elastic to one side. She was focused on what she was seeing, what she was uncovering, whatever her toes could reveal, and I felt nervous and special both at once.

  “Knock knock…” she said again, and I opened my legs a little, so she could see, see past and into and up and through me, and when I did she looked at my face. Her toes moved my underwear back to their original position, she smiled at me, and I smiled at her. Then she winked, ripped a page from her notebook, balled it up, and bounced it off the back of Winthrop’s head, where he lay with his legs up the wall, his notepad against his knees, no idea what had just happened on the floor of his room. That two girls had just made friends forever using nothing more than what God gave them, or should have.

  I wrote my next letter to Rain.

  Dear Rainbolene,

  My vagina would write this letter herself, if she could hold the pen, but that would be distracting and also, she can’t spell. Anyways, she just wanted to say how excited she is for you to meet your vagina one day soon.

  Love,

  Hell

  I folded this into a pretty terrible airplane and flew it toward Rain. It went up a few feet, then plummeted. She caught it, unfolded the wings, read it, then she closed her eyes and held it to her heart before she slipped it behind the Mandela poster and said, “I’m off to dreamland, little ones.”

  * * *

  On this night, when I take the key from the pagoda and let myself into the Epsworthys’, it is harder than usual to be quiet because I have a giant, dumb dog on a leash and she is very excited to be here. Pen jumps. Is jumping. Will jump. She is like an exercise in verb conjugation, except fun.

  When I arrived at the tire yard, Eddie had already gone. Like a fucking asshole, he left her tied to the fence outside, in the dark, with no water or food. Except for headlights from the freeway, the street was dark and the ground was cold and she was pretty happy to see me or anyone. She didn’t bark, just whimpered, wagged her tail, and when I was close enough to untie her, when she was close enough to leap at me, she lay down at my feet.

  I had brought some bread and peanut butter and I held it out. “Good girl,” I said, “good girl,” and she swallowed the entire piece without chewing while I petted her big square head for the first time. I rubbed between her ears and she danced a little. “Is that your freedom dance?” I asked. “Your new daddy likes to dance too. Let’s take you home.”

  * * *

  Even though my arm feels like it will fall off, it is hard not to catch her excitement. Joy is contagious. And loud. Loud enough to wake Winthrop’s mom for once.

  “Hello, Mrs. Epsworthy,” I say, when she turns toward the front door, blinking awake. “It’s just me, Helen Dedleder.” She’s one of those people who make you want to remind them of who you are. “I’m bringing Winthrop’s dog home.”

  I kind of stumble through this, my prepared explanation.

  “Yes,” says Mrs. Epsworthy, taking in the dog. “It’s late. She’ll want to be in bed.”

  I walk Pen down the hall, and as I open Winthrop and Rain’s door, I let go of the leash. “Knock knock.”

  * * *

  For just a minute on our walk to Winthrop’s, with the smell of peanut butter on my fingers and Pen’s nails clicking along on the cement, I thought maybe it would be me she loved—me, her liberator. But that was a fantasy. Winthrop’s bedroom door isn’t even open all the way before she pushes through and leaps, no sniffing around, no investigating, just a leap, straight onto Winthrop’s bed. She knows it from Rain’s without hesitation and his laughter fills the room as she licks his face, as she snuffles every bit of him.

  Rain rolls her eyes at me, but it is irresistible, this nonstop wiggling.

  “Okay, girl, okay, enough now,” Winthrop says. He wraps his arms around her and she rolls over on her back and kind of growl-moans. He rubs her belly, and her upside-down face breaks into a smile and the room is hot with the smell of freedom and wagging dog.

  BOUQUET TOSS

  I’m just going to say it. I did something nice for Iris.

  I didn’t mean to. Just like I didn’t really plan to get Pen for Winthrop. I seem to be having these fits of niceness. Like allergies or something. Before I can even find a tissue, I’ve snotted niceness all over the place.

  That I can possibly feel anything for Iris but annoyance and nausea is insane, but there it is. She had come by with Dad’s brand-new uniform, fresh from the dry cleaner’s, and was hurrying past me where I was pretending to play solitaire on the computer. She was hurrying to get back home so she could hand-address the wedding invitations in her love-letter cursive. And I don’t know what happened.

  Maybe because she could have been talking about me becoming her daughter, or, worse, giving me a speech about how she hoped I would see her as a mom, and she never did this.

  Maybe because of the way she helped at the shoppe after the fire, like she actually meant to accept Aunt Bev as family. Maybe because on Mother’s Day she made herself scarce, didn’t even stop by after church, making it possible for me to spend that day according to tradition, in bed with the blankets over my head.

  There are a thousand ways Iris could have been making me gag. And she hasn’t.

  “Iris, I could make those flowers for you.” I didn’t take my eyes from the computer screen.

  I had refused before. Weeks ago. She’d come to me, knocked on my actual bedroom door with her actual hand. “Helen, I would just love it so much if you would make my bouquet with the love letters I’ve written your dad? I love your flowers.”

  Iris is the type of person who ends statements with question marks. She is the type of person who will use the word love in sentence after sentence until it is empty as a deflated ba
lloon on a dance floor. I could not imagine how many times she used it in her letters to Dad, how in reading those letters, which I would have to do to make the flowers come out right, I would see it over and over again, each word like the prick of a needle in my skin because none of those letters are from my mom.

  “It would be perfect to have my bouquet made out of letters when I marry my postman, don’t you think?” she said at my door.

  And I looked right in her hopeful, joyful, earnest, prom-ruining, life-ruining face and I said no. “I don’t want to read that stuff.” As I shut the door, I topped it with, “Gross.”

  And she never said anything about it. And never told my dad. I know because he would have been sure to give me a First Corinthians speech. The whole reason they are getting married so soon is because Dad’s Bible says they have to before they can do it. That same Bible also frowns on acting like a total shit to your future stepmom.

  * * *

  So I said no. Before. Extremely clearly. And then, when Iris and I were alone in the small corner of hell known as Rosary Bridal, she saw my tattoo.

  And hasn’t ratted me out.

  This one last straw of generosity from Iris apparently broke my bad attitude’s back. It has been easy to hide my tattoo from Dad, he would fall over if I wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt. It is not so easy to get away with wearing a sweatshirt over the bridesmaid dress you’ve just tried on, no matter how ugly the dress is.

  And I was so busy being disgusted by the dress, the Thumper saleswomen, the entire adventure, that I forgot all about having a nearly illegal tattoo.

  When I came out of the dressing room Iris actually gasped.

  The saleswoman, thinking Iris was having an orgasm about the dress, gasped too. Hissed, “Gorgeous.” But when Iris grabbed my arm and turned it, so she could see the ink there, the saleswoman saw the tattoo and hurried away to pray for His mercy.

  Iris held my arm, read the words on it, and said, “Well.”

  And praying suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “Helen.” Her voice was kind. There, I said it. Kind. “You should talk with your father. He might surprise you.”

  When I didn’t answer, she stepped back, took me in as I was, bridesmaid dress, tattoo. Attitude. Then she kept hold of my arm and reached down for one of the bunches of fake silk flowers Rosary Bridal keeps in a basket in the dressing room, to give prospective brides the full picture, I guess. Iris kind of moved my arm up and laid one of the bouquets across it, curving my arm like a cradle.

  “Until you’re ready for that, let me see.” She reached into the basket again, tried a different bouquet, a longer one.

  “There!” My tattoo was completely hidden, and she was … I don’t actually know how to say this. Iris was genuinely happy. Like, pleased to be able to help me. “I’ll order one just like this to get you through the ceremony, anyway. After that, you’re on your own.”

  * * *

  The stories where teenagers are complete monsters incapable of a single good act are not bullshit. But in the best horror stories, the monster does that shiny little deed, that one good act. So here I am. Reading Iris’s letters and making a bridal bouquet, planning out the long tattoo-covering bouquet I have said I will make for myself. Trust me, though, the groaning I’m doing as I read these letters could have come right from Frankenstein’s monster himself.

  The letters are mostly thank-yous, because, I guess, regardless of whether the rest of him is seeing the light, there are romantic parts of Dad and they are working just fine. Here are some highlights:

  Hi, Elijah, how are you? Well, I hope! “Hangin’ in there,” over here. I’m writing because I received some beautiful flowers and I was totally baffled. So, I read the note and you know what it said? That it was a gift from a gentleman for Mother’s Day. They were the only ones I received. I take that back, Spencer picked daisies from the median for me, the darling. Thanks again, yours in Christ, Iris.

  Thank you so much for the pretty heart bracelet on the scented pillow. I love hearts, you know. How did you know? Thank you, it fits perfect and I’m wearing it right now.

  Dear Elijah, thunder and lightning as we speak and I’m going to leave this note under your windshield wiper since I know nothing can keep you from your “appointed rounds.” The postman’s creed! Have a wonderful day in the light of Christ and God Bless.

  I manage not to vomit, even at the Mother’s Day part, and instead, I clean up and boil some water. Then I steam off the stamps, let them dry, and I set to work, just like Mom taught me. I roll the stamps tight for the stamens and pistils, crease and fold the letters into petals, making sure all the Christs and thanks are on the outside, just like they are with Iris. Or like I thought they were. Then I wind the stems from the envelopes and all the while try to keep my mind blank, try to not add any power to their love, to make it mean nothing that I am making her bouquet, because that’s the only thing that makes one bit of sense. Because no matter what happened in the dressing room, I am certainly not a nice person.

  THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

  That I accidentally spill some love into Iris’s bouquet is unavoidable. The whole time I am making it, folding her notes and letters, I can’t avoid thinking about Rosary Bridal. And I can’t get a different letter out of my head. The one Dad has tucked away on his computer. The one from Dad to the Reconciliation Council. The one where he asks them to give the Rosary Psychic Encounter Shoppe their kindest consideration in extending its business license. That one.

  Fellow Council Members for the Peaceful Reconciliation of Rosary and Sky,

  As your brother on our esteemed council for the past decade, I would like to officially state my position on a topic of record as relates to the Rosary Psychic Encounter Shoppe’s license to do business within the city limits of Rosary.

  Though I am a relation of the Psychic Encounter Shoppe’s proprietor, this fact is more of a boon for our purposes than it otherwise might be since by virtue of that relationship, I have been able to keep a close eye on the business performed there and as both a Christian and a father, remain ever vigilant. It is not only as a council member but as a devout Christian that I assure you now and on record that the transactions performed at this establishment are nothing more than what it is licensed for: entertainment. The Devil gains no foothold in this case. As we are working with a known element, it is my firm belief that renewing the current business license of the Rosary Psychic Encounter Shoppe, with its current proprietor, one who remains dedicated to Rosary despite violent actions aimed at her place of business, is in the best interest of the City of Rosary as a whole.

  In service,

  Elijah Dedleder

  Council Member

  There’s nothing true in Dad’s letter. He has no idea what goes on at the shoppe and he knows it. And it is precisely because he took the time to write out this big bunch of lies, to keep Aunt Bev here and her shoppe open, that even as his wedding day is approaching, my heart is full of love for him. All the hellfire that will come his way for lying just proves for once that we are actually family.

  FOREIGN WARS

  The Rosary VFW Hall is small and dark and carpeted with at least a world war’s worth of beer suds and syrup from poker nights and pancake breakfasts. The veterans don’t party like they used to do, at least not in Rosary, where the jobs that were so often filled by ex-military are now taken by trade-school dropouts. Still, the hall is available for weddings. On the morning of this particular wedding, Bird and I are decorating the hall, hanging up streamers and putting a cover and bow on each folding chair, like good Americans.

  We work away, and soon the chairs appear to be part bride, part mummy, and there’s not a speck of the gloom left undecorated, just like Iris asked. Like we could say no. As she left for her hair appointment, her voice was a commercial jingle when she said we were “the two best kids!” Of course, we rolled our eyes at her like this was a family sitcom. But when Bird goes to the storage closet now, to blow up
the pink and yellow balloons with the tank that’s been rusting in there since the Constitution was ratified, he comes out saying, “Because fuck you, that’s why,” in a helium-squeaking voice, and we laugh so hard together, it’s like we are good kids. We’re a version of them, anyway. Like we are almost brother and sister for the very first time.

  When the hall is as cheery as it will ever, ever be, we get back into Iris’s ancient blue Honda and Bird drives me home so I can get ready for the ceremony. And all that easy laughter from earlier disappears. We have run out of things to say. The car is too small for both of us, his knees are hitting the dash, and every time he shifts, his hand brushes against my leg. It’s accidental, which is new, but it feels like it’s on purpose. June is hot as hell in Rosary and the VFW hall was unbearable when we arrived, we had to open the windows and haul fans out from behind the bar before we could even think about decorating, and Bird’s smell is all over me now, in me. He cranks the radio station he loves, classic rock. Bon Jovi is going on about giving love a bad name, and I stare out the window and try to hold my breath.

  FIRST DANCE

  A really loving daughter would tell the story of her father’s wedding without making it all about her. I know that. And I love my dad and there is a part of me that is glad that after six years, he gets to stop being a widower and be a husband again. All day, Dad’s face is glowing, full of actual life. I am happy for him. But the rest of me is focused on something else. Me.

  Because I am a teenager.

  And I am a teenager who is currently a cross between a flower girl and a bridesmaid in the worst dress a wedding ever saw. I am grateful that the Life Fellowship Church is small and the aisle is short. I walk in as fast as I can in my pink polyester and stand at the front, tucking my Converse in under the frilled hem so the toes don’t stick out, like I promised I would. The choice was, I could let Iris Bedazzle my Converse or I could be discreet about them. This did not seem like a choice. Weddings, apparently, are not democracies.