UNFINISHED
A Project
Presented to the faculty of the Department of English
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
English
(Creative Writing)
by
James Carson Tarpley
SPRING
2012
UNFINISHED
A Project
by
James Carson Tarpley
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Doug Rice, Ph.D.
__________________________________, Second Reader
Josh McKinney, P.h.D.
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: James Carson Tarpley
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the project.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________
David Toise, P.h.D
Date
Department of English
iii
Abstract
of
UNFINISHED
by
James Carson Tarpley
My project is a collection (if two stories can really be considered a collection) of fictional
material, and in no way is the violent psychotic man in the first story based on my brother— the
similarities are purely coincidental. In my stories, none of the characters investigate, question, or
discover anything about the human condition— they are not consciously capable of such acts.
The first story is simply about a man who struggles with the consequences of imposing (in a
passive aggressive manner) one of his choices on the world, and the second story is about a young
man, who tries to survive one of the most dangerous challenges a person can face— dealing with
family. In both stories, the protagonists are in more danger at the end of the stories than at the
beginning— their stories and any personal growth remain far from finished.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Doug Rice, P.h.D.
_______________________
Date
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to acknowledge and thank my family for their understanding and support— without
them, this project would not exist. I also want to thank Dr. Rice for his guidance, hard work, and
patience.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements......................................................................................................... ...............v
REGULAR PEOPLE........................................................................................................................1
VISITING.......................................................................................................................................31
vi
1
Regular People
He continued to follow me, so I passed up my street and headed through the old part of town,
past the old boarded up Foster’s Freeze and towards the new housing development. He continued
after me. Right before I got to the new houses, I pulled over onto the hard dirt of the shoulder,
and when Cindy’s husband passed he didn’t look at me. He just kept looking straight ahead,
pretending he wasn’t following me, but I recognized him. After he passed, I pulled back onto the
road and followed him into River Estates. He led me through a maze of turns, always going
deeper into the suburbs. Finally, he pulled into someone’s driveway, and the garage door opened.
The owner, a plump grey haired woman, emerged. I realized I had no idea why I was following
him, so I used that moment to slip away. It took a while to find my way out of the labyrinth, but
finally I did, turning left onto the main highway and heading home.
~~~~~
“Hey Baby.” Her lips were pressed together into a small frown.
“Did you get it?” Cindy asked.
“Of course.”
“Gimme, gimme.” She held her hands out, her fingers wiggling, and I handed her the bag
containing one big white rock and a few smaller ones orbiting it.
“What’s wrong?”
“What took you so long?” Cindy didn’t move as she sat on the kitchen counter and stared at
me.
“I don’t know.” The last time Cindy had seen her husband was the night he threw her out of
their place naked, except for some old bruises, after accusing her of trying to poison him. Before
that night, he had accused her of belonging to an ancient pagan lesbian society and of making
porno films with her aunt in her grandmother’s attic. I couldn’t tell her about her husband
2
following me. She’d only worry.
“Yeah, right, you went by your little slut-bitch whore’s house.”
“This is my s…..Yeah, she loves me to come by, fuck her and then run home to you— I’m her
drive by fucker.” Slut-bitch whore, that’s what Karin, my ex-fiancée, had called Cindy several
weeks earlier.
~~~~~
The first couple of days that Cindy and I were together, Karin kept calling all weekend.
“Hello, please leave a message at the tone.”
“Johnny, pick-up; I’m worried,” Karen said. Lying on the couch, her back supported by a pile
of pillows, Cindy wore my favorite button down silk- shirt and nothing else, except a pair of
black panties and pink nail polish. A few minutes after Karen left her last message, keys rattled
outside the front door, one slid into the lock, and it clicked open. The door swung in, and Karen
appeared. I stood to her right by the edge of the kitchen, and she saw me first.
“Hey,” I said, before closing the door behind her. Karen smelled like old spice— she always
smelled like Old Spice. She turned and looked at Cindy. Karen’s face remained blank, and she
sniffed the stale air. Cindy looked at Karen and then at me before she jumped up and ran to the
bathroom where she locked herself in. Karen’s gorgon gaze had followed Cindy across the living
room floor, and when the bathroom door swung closed, she shook her head.
“Uh-huh.” Karen looked over at me and tilted her head to the side. She looked like a
disapproving parent. “Who’s the slut-bitch whore?”
“Does it matter?”
“The way she ran off, I thought she might be named Bambi.” She studied my face. “You’re
tweaking.” Her voice sounded harsher about me being high than it did about the half-naked girl.
“Where did you find her?”
3
“Doug’s.”
“Nice, one stop drugs and whores.” Her lips were closed tight as she slightly shook her head,
probably in disgust.
“She’s not a whore. She’s nice.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s nice. Whores always are.” Karen removed my key from her ring and flung
it at me. The key missed me and skidded across the kitchen’s tile floor. She twisted the four
thousand dollar engagement ring back and forth on her finger before she opened the front door to
leave, but she stopped in the door way. “Don’t forget you have an appointment Wednesday at ten
to sign for the insurance money.” She looked like she was about to cry, but I knew better. She
turned, walked out, and slammed the door behind her.
Cindy peeked out from the bathroom, looking around like the front door slamming hadn’t been
enough to tell her the place was clear. She looked at me, teeth clenched and a frown spoiling her
face.
“What the heck?”
“What?”
“It didn’t sound like you two were already broken up.”
“We are now.” I grinned, almost imperceptibly. “She’s a visual learner.” I had tried to tell
Karen I couldn’t marry her, but she never listened, treating me like a little kid who didn’t know
better. She knew better now.
Cindy crossed the room and parked herself back on the couch. “You were using me.”
“All weekend...” I almost finished with— as a fuck doll, but that sounded too crude, even for
me, besides the fact it wasn’t true.
She frowned and looked down at the floor, her eyes and brows squinting like she was thinking.
“Why didn’t you just tell her?”
4
“I don’t know. It wasn’t that simple.”
“Yeah, it was.” She looked at me with her teeth clenched. “All you had to do was open your
mouth and tell her. Hell, even a text message would have been better than this.”
“Yeah, why didn’t you leave your husband sooner than you did?”
“You shouldn’t have done her like that. I don’t care what she did.”
~~~~~
“Drive by fucker?” Cindy jumped off the kitchen counter. “Asshole.” She closed her hand into
a fist, making a little anvil with which she pounded on my arm just above the elbow, where it was
still a little brown and yellow from her previous assaults. Hitting me was something new, and a
little surprising considering how timid she’d been at first. The more times she hit me the more
comfortable with me she seemed to grow, so I figured it was a good thing. She moved closer, and
I could smell the peaches from the shampoo she loved, the stuff I had to go halfway across town
for. I hugged her, and she squeezed me like I’d been gone for twenty years. She broke off our
embrace. Broken glass covered the kitchen floor in front of the sink, and Cindy stood on naked
feet, only inches away from the shards of glass. Water dripped from the facet and splashed
against an upside down pan.
Cindy looked down at the glass. “I’ll get it later.” I’ll get it later had always my philosophy. I
looked down at Cindy’s feet, all naked and vulnerable.
“I’ll get it.” I didn’t give her a chance to argue. I placed my hands on her waist and lifted her
onto the counter, struggling some with the weight. I grabbed the broom from next to the
refrigerator. In the fire place, a fire crackled and burned, and smoke seeped into the house. The
kitchen smelt like smoky peaches. I swept the glass into a pile while Cindy watched me and
bounced her heels against the cabinet under her. We didn’t have a dust pan, so I used a paper
plate to sweep the glass onto before I dumped it in the trash and returned the broom to its cradle
5
next to the refrigerator. I slid my hands up her thighs and under her shirt to her waist. I eased her
off the counter, letting her body slide down against mine and through my hands until her feet
rested on the cold tile floor.
We went into the bedroom where she jumped onto the bed, still clutching the little bag of
rocks. She reached over and grabbed her glass pipe. She sat up and crossed her legs and then set
everything down on the purple comforter. This week, she had shiny black hair cropped short like
a flapper’s, and the black brought out the milkiness of her skin. She wore a black choker necklace
and one of my black dress shirts, which hung halfway down her thick thighs. She removed one of
the small rocks from the bag and placed it in her glass pipe. She held a lighter under the pipe not
letting the flame touch the glass. The white rock melted into a clear liquid, and then white smoke
filled the pipe. She put the pipe to her lips and inhaled, deeply sucking the smoke into her lungs.
She exhaled, letting it pass out over her lips before handing me the pipe. When we were done, I
placed the pipe on the night stand next to my mom and step dad’s wedding picture. A year after
their deaths and, I still hadn’t removed it from their night stand, only placed it face down. I
moved closer to Cindy and placed a hand on her inner-thigh, kneading flesh like dough. She
leaned into me, and I kissed her, savoring the sweet chemical taste on her lips.
“I love you,” I said. After saying it for the last week, it still surprised me how unconsciously it
came out.
“Babe, I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry you were such a bitch.” She hadn’t really been a bitch— compared to Karen
she’d been a pussy cat.
“You’re supposed to lie, and say something like— Baby, you could never be a bitch.”
“You never could be a bitch”
“I know.” She smiled. She unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it off, letting it fall behind her onto
6
the bed.
I kissed her shoulder while my finger traced Andromeda in the freckles above one of her
breasts. “Baby, you are more beautiful than a goddess.” She was only kind of cute, but at that
moment, it didn’t feel like a stretch.
“Now, that’s a good lie Babe.” She laughed, smiled, and uncrossed her legs, spreading them
out in front of her on the purple comforter. “Worship me then.”
~~~~~
Sometime later, the comforter and sheets lie bunched up on the floor, and we lay on a wet
mattress pad, our bodies baptized in sweat. We were on our backs, not moving while our lungs
struggled to keep up with our hearts. Neither of us spoke for a long time while our breathing
continued to slow. I turned on my side, and her body mimicked mine by turning on its side and
backing into me until we were snuggly spooned together. My arms slipped around her body like
fingers around an over ripe peach.
“Babe, what if we get pregnant?” Karen never would have asked that— she hated kids.
“Hoover time,” for the little crank baby. She stiffened, straightening out her body and
breaking the seal between her flesh and mine. She didn’t say anything for a while, and then she
flipped over onto her other side, facing me, her eyes watery clouds with tears threatening to fall.
“Really?” The question barely had enough volume to escape her mouth. She avoided my eyes.
I faced her, but I avoided her eyes, also. I don’t know for how long we lay like that, not speaking
or moving, but after a while, I fell asleep.
~~~~~
I had been sleeping, but I didn’t know for how long, other than it was more than I’d slept in
days. I heard the shower running and remembered Cindy’s question about getting pregnant. I sat
up and looked around for the pipe, but it was gone. The shower stopped, and a few minutes later
7
Cindy came out of the bathroom, wearing her black choker necklace. Her short hair was wrapped
in a towel, and a cloud of steam followed her otherwise naked body.
“Baby, do you have the pipe?” I asked.
“Yeah, but it’s empty.”
“Can you get it?”
She headed to the kitchen, and I heard the refrigerator door open. “We’re out of milk.”
“No, there’s some.”
She came into the bedroom carrying the empty milk cartoon with the last bit of milk dripping
down her chin. “Not anymore,” she smiled. “Will you please go get some?”
“Now?” I looked over at the clock. “It’s after 3 A.M.”
“Please,” she smiled, probably knowing that is all it would take.
“Will you get me the pipe first?” She put the empty milk cartoon down next to her stack of
books on the dresser, went into the bathroom, and came back with the empty pipe. She sat on the
edge of the bed.
“Did you really mean what you said?”
“About what?”
“About if I get pregnant.”
“What?” I tried to remember what it was, exactly, that I’d said. “You can’t get pregnant.”
“Probably can’t. I never did with Dale.”
I was sitting up in the bed and started drawing circles on the mattress pad with my finger. I
remembered exactly what I had said— “Hoover time for the little crank baby.” I continued
drawing circles and didn’t look at her.
“What if I do get pregnant?”
“This thing starts growing in your stomach. Didn’t your mom ever tell you?”
8
She pushed the pipe into my hand before she stood up and stared down at me. “Seriously, what
would we do?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” We’d be fucked. I knew she could make beautiful babies, but so could a
twelve year old. I stopped drawing circles and stared at my toes as they wiggled. I could feel her
watching me. “You could take precautions.”
“Like stop letting you put your dick into me all the time?” She looked away when I looked at
her.
“You have to do something. Tweekers can’t be parents.”
“Well... We could be regular people then.” She looked at me like she wanted to say something
more.
“Yeah… How do we do that?” I looked up. She was silent and looking at the pipe in my hand.
“Regular people sleep.”
“So, let’s go to bed, after you get my milk.” She smiled.
~~~~~
To get milk, I had to go across the river to West Evert to the 24 hour Safeway. I knew we
weren’t going to sleep when I got home. Since our first night together, she never slept willingly,
and the few times that she slept, she awoke frightened, only calming down when she realized she
was with me. She had claimed she had no time for useless things like sleeping, and at first, I
believed her and liked that. With Karen, I could never stay up for more than a night— mostly
because I had to hide I was getting high. She made me feel like I was cheating on her whenever
she caught me.
The Safe-way parking lot sat empty, except for a few cars, probably belonging to employees.
Inside, the lights were dimmed slightly, and I found the store empty as usual, which always made
me feel like they were open just for me. I headed for the milk and passed an employee re-stocking
9
the cereal aisle. I nodded and smiled at her as I passed, but she ignored me and kept placing boxes
on the shelf. I reached the back of the store where I felt the cold seeping off the cooler. I grabbed
the milk and wondered if we needed anything else. I couldn’t think of anything, so I headed to the
front of the store. About halfway there, I remembered Cindy’s question and turned around. I went
and found the condom display. There were blue, dark blue, green, orange, purple, yellow, and red
boxes, all hanging from their little hooks. There were so many types of condoms I didn’t know
what I wanted, so I grabbed one of the green save the planet grocery bags off the end of an aisle
and filled it with large boxes of every style Trojan. At the front of the store, I had to wait for
someone to stop stocking shelves and ring me up. Eventually, Larry showed up. He’d been the
guy who rang me up when I bought baby oil and hair ties the first night I spent with Cindy.
When I got to the car, I searched the parking lot, looking for anybody lurking around. I didn’t
see anyone, and I got into the car. I threw the bag of condoms on the floor, set the milk in the
passenger seat, and grabbed my phone to call Doug.
“Hello?” Doug said.
“Hey.”
“What up?”
“Nothing.” For a long moment, silence filled the line.
“Hey, I forgot to tell you before. Your sister called again yesterday.”
“I don’t take her calls anymore.”
“I know. That’s why she keeps fucking calling me. She ‘just’ wanted to know how you were
doing, again. Dude, you need to call Minerva.”
“Nobody calls her that anymore.” We passed silenced between us. “Did you tell her about me
and Karen?”
“Yeah, she was happy you finally grew some balls.”
10
“You didn’t tell her what happened, did you?”
“No just that you were done with Karen. She said someone should have severed that snakes
head years ago. Your sister still scares me.” After my mom died, my sister and Karen fought over
me, treating me like a wishbone, almost pulling me apart until Karen convinced me to just stop
talking to my sister.
“Yeah.”
“Speaking about scary bitches, Claire’s still pissed about...Owe, fuck.” Doug laughed.
“Claire’s still pissed about Karin. She keeps bitching that you should’ve just told Karen you
didn’t want to marry her.”
“She’s just pissed she can’t be a bridesmaid now.” Doug laughed.
“Maybe.”
I looked around the parking lot. Nothing had changed in the last few minutes. “Still, the bitch
shouldn’t have told Dale who I was. He followed me from your house yesterday.”
“The bitch?” He sounded a little pissed.
“Yeah, after I left your place, he followed me all the way out to the new houses.”
“Wait, what the fuck were you doing all the way out there?”
“Making sure he was following me.” I looked around.
“What? Did you lose him when he got to his house? Fucking dumb-ass.” I could hear Claire
asking lose who. “Dale lives with his mommy out there now. He couldn’t make rent without
Cindy’s tip money.” Doug cackled. Dale had managed a West Marine store, but got fired several
months before he threw Cindy out. “Dude, next the FBI will be putting cameras on the phone
pole outside your house. Dale’s too big a pussy to fuck with you after what happened last week.
He only fucked with you then because he knew you were scared.”
“I wasn’t scared..... I got to go.”
11
“Yeah, later, Chicken Little.”
~~~~~
I hadn’t been scared, and I didn’t know where Doug got that. Last week, I had been at Doug’s
when Dale showed up. Doug and I had been sitting on the couch while Doug shoveled rocks out
of a Tupperware container into a bag for me when Claire, Doug’s, wife let him Dale in. I had
never seen Dale before, and he didn’t know I existed.
When Doug saw him, he said, “Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing, I tell you later, just don’t mention Cindy.” Dale sat down in a chair across from me.
“Yeah, just come in and sit down.” Doug stared at the Dale for a few moments. “Dude, didn’t I
tell you don’t come over unless you call?”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“Bullshit.”
“I really need a twenty.”
“You should have fucking called.”
“Doug ease up,” Claire said. Doug frowned and looked at me.
“Have you seen Cindy lately?” Dale asked Claire.
“No, but you should ask John. He should know.”
“Who?”
“John.” She pointed at me. Dale looked over at me while his eyes narrowed and his thick black
brows converged on his noise.
Doug motioned towards Dale, “Dale is Cindy’s husband.”
“How do you know Cindy?” Dale asked. His voice sounded calm, almost pleasant, like we
were old friends.
12
“I take care of her.”
“Where’s she at?”
“She’s safe.”
“Where?”
“She’s safe.”
“Take me to see her?” His voice still remained calm, sounding like a friend simply asking for
a favor. I started to wonder what Cindy was so terrified of.
“Take you to her?” I looked at Doug, and then across the coffee table at Dale. His hair was
already starting to recede, and he looked older than I’d expected. He had to be over thirty. I said,
“So you can beat on her some more?”
“I never touched her,” he yelled. He stood up, and I winced. I thought he was going to come
over the coffee table at me.
“You’re fucking my wife?”
“No.” We each stared at each other, his wide glassy eyes unnerving me. “But she keeps
fucking me, and...”
Dale reached down and grabbed the end of the glass coffee table and threw it out of the way.
The table landed upside down, glass shattering and scattering across the hard wood floor. He
stepped forward and stood over me. “Take me to see my wife, asshole.” I didn’t move, other than
to sink a little more back into the couch.
Doug had retrieved his gun from under the couch cushion. He jumped up with his gun in his
left hand. He hooked a foot behind Dale’s leg, and in one motion swept his foot forward while
pushing Dale back with his right hand. Dale fell back onto his ass, his back landing against the
chair he’d been sitting in, and then Doug used his foot to push the chair back, allowing Dale to
fall flat on the floor, where his head made a thump. Doug put a knee on his chest and forced the
13
gun into Dale’s mouth. “If you ever touch Cindy again, I’ll fucking kill you. If you ever try and
contact her again, I’ll fucking pistol whip the stupid out of you. You understand me?” Dale tried
to shake his head affirmative, but the gun still filled his mouth. Doug eased it out. “Say it.”
“I understand.” Dale’s voice was low and scratchy. I could barely hear him.
Doug put the safety on and threw the gun on the couch next to where I still sat. I don’t think I
moved a muscle during the whole confrontation. He helped Dale to his feet. “You need to go,”
Doug said.
“Why are you doing this?” Dale squinted and looked up at Doug, a squat little bull dog
starring up at a skinny Great Dane.
“You need to go.” Dale looked at me. His head sunk almost to his chest, and he left.
“Shit,” I said.
Doug looked at his wife. “Why the fuck did you do that?” He glanced over at the broken glass.
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No shit.” He leaned towards me. “I hated that fucking coffee table. Her mom gave it to us.”
~~~~~
I left the safe way parking lot, and only made it several blocks before a grey primered pick-up
pulled out from a side street. One of the trucks head lights was out, and I knew it had to be Dale.
The one eyed truck had already followed me several times before. He pulled in close behind me. I
clicked on my seat belt and slammed on the brakes; however, he swerved just in time to avoid
me. He stopped in the middle of the road ahead of my car and exited his truck, and then started
towards me. Street lights lined one side of the road and illuminated the night around my car. The
man and his truck rested in near darkness under several burned out lights. I wiped my hands on
my pant legs before I reached into the back seat and grabbed my baseball bat. The rubber grip on
the handle had worn off years ago, and the metal felt cold. I placed the weapon in my lap and
14
rolled the window down. The smell of burned rubber filled the car along with the sound of a few
cars passing on the highway nearby. The man was about half-way to me when I turned my bright
lights on him. He stopped and closed his eyes before placing a hand in front of his face. I
recognized him. He had coached me in little league, and I had used the bat that sat in my lap
when I played for him. The light nearest my car started to flicker. I backed up, turned around, and
headed away from Mr. Duncan. I circled around down by the river before finally launching the
bat out the window, where it bounced end over end, landing in the weeds that edged the road.
I drove south alongside the river, taking the same path I always took. For the first time, I
noticed how black the night was. The moon and most of its light had been swallowed by the
clouds. I followed my river away from the city. I had been sure that Dale was after me. All I had
wanted to do was protect Cindy. She’d become my precious bird-next-door with a broken wing.
She just needed someone to take care of her while she healed. Cindy didn’t have anybody, except
her Grandma who had raised her and who Cindy was afraid to go near because of Dale. I never
took care of myself very well, and I should have known I couldn’t take care of some else. The
only time I had taken care of someone was when I was fifteen. I took care of a neighbor’s dog, a
fluffy white poodle named Ms. Cynthia, and I fed her so much chocolate it almost killed her.
Driving along the river, I started to think I was Cindy’s biggest threat even though she bought a
lot of her own chocolate and fed herself. She had been forced to quit her job as a waitress because
Dale kept coming around her work, but she still had some money left for chocolate. The sunlight
that reflected off the moon started to cut its way through the clouds, and the night started to
lighten. I looked over and saw Cindy’s milk on the passenger seat and wanted to go home. The
road was too narrow to turn around, so I pulled off into an orchard. The trees were a dark forest of
naked tangled branches. It had rained earlier, but not enough to muddy the dirt. My tires spun a
little, but then they found hard ground, enabling me to escape the dark forest and start back home.
15
I drove alongside the river towards the city, and Cindy’s milk sat like a passenger in the seat next
to me. I reached over and tightened the seatbelt around it. When I finally arrived at my house,
nobody had followed me, and I was alone except for the milk.
Cindy wasn’t waiting for me in the kitchen like usual. I set the milk on the table. She wasn’t in
the living room, either. I checked the bathroom. I went into the bedroom hoping to find her
sleeping, but the bed was empty. It had been made, pillows in place and the comforter pulled
back, but no Cindy. “Cindy?”
“Johnny?” Cindy’s voice came from the closet and sounded like she was addressing herself. I
slid the closet door open, and the faint chemical smell of dope wafted out. Cindy sat in the
rectangular enclosure, holding the pipe to her chest. She wore fade blue jeans, a purple sweat
shirt, and purple running shoes. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around me. If the fact she
was in the closet hadn’t alerted me that something was wrong, her being dressed would have—
the last time I’d seen her dressed and wearing shoes was the night three weeks ago when I’d
brought her home from Doug’s.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dale keeps calling and hanging up.”
“What?” I knew there was no way possible for Dale to ever get my number. I almost started to
laugh, but I caught myself.
“Johnny, don’t look at me like that. I’m not crazy. It was Dale.”
“There is no way he has our number.” I figured nature abhorred a vacuum, so it was now her
turn to be paranoid for a while.
Cindy went into the kitchen and fast forwarded through the messages on the answering
machine. Karen had been leaving messages for several days, and Cindy played Karen’s latest
message. “Johnny pick up...Call me. There are things you need to know about your whore, little
16
Ms. College Girl.” The call had come in around midnight, which was kind of late for Karen to be
up.
“So?”
“Dale used to call me, ‘Little college girl.’ At first it was a term of endearment, but then it
became a slur.” Cindy held a Bachelor degree in English that she earned before she was twenty
one and before she met Dale.
“What about Claire?”
“She likes me; she’d never say anything bad about me.”
“Are there any bad things to say about you?” I grinned. She stared at me, her eyes squinting in
a way that made me think she was going to ask me— do you feel lucky, punk? “I know it can’t be
that bad. It’s not like you’re hiding a penis, and if you ever where, you’re not now, so it doesn’t
matter.” She stared at me with her head tilted to the side. “So, you were hiding in the closet from
Dale?” She didn’t answer, just wrapped her arms around me, placed her head on my chest, and
held on tight.
~~~~~
Twenty miles away in Landis, quiet filled the hallway as I slid the key card through the lock. I
opened the door for Cindy, but she didn’t enter, just tossed her bag, half full of books, inside the
room.
“Carry me,” she said.
“You carry me.”
“You’re the man.”
I let my suit case drop to the flat carpet of the empty hallway. Cindy wasn’t fat, but she was a
“healthy girl” with mother hips and thick thighs. I picked her up and cradled her in my arms like a
bride or a baby, and I carried her into the room, struggling some with the weight. I set her down,
17
relieved I hadn’t dropped her. The place was an extended stay hotel which catered to business
clients and had all the comforts of home, sans a washer and dryer. The place was so new the room
still had that new hotel smell. Cindy slipped off her running shoes and curled her toes in the
carpet. She jumped on the queen bed and bounced up and down like a kid. I sat on the plush white
love seat and watched her, a stupid smile on my face. She smiled back at me.
“Join me.” She held out her hands.
“No.” I got up and set my suit case against the end of the love seat. I dug out a box of
condoms and threw them on the night stand.
“What are those for?” Cindy smiled and continued to bounce.
“Balloon animals.”
“I love balloon animals.” Cindy stopped jumping up and down, landing on her butt. She then
lay flat on the bed and started making invisible bed angels. I flopped back on the love seat.
“Last week, I met Dale at Doug’s.” Cindy stopped moving her arms and legs and sat up.
“What happened?” Her voice sounded timid. She looked at me, and her grey green eyes held
my attention.
“Claire...”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” She snapped the question at me, not sounding timid
anymore.
“Claire told Dale I knew where you were, so then he wanted to know where.”
“She wouldn’t tell him, would she?”
“No, Doug would kill her, and she doesn’t even know where we are.” I smiled at Cindy.
“What a little bitch. She was always nice to me.”
“Doug ended up throwing him down and shoving a gun in his mouth.”
Her lips formed a small frown. “Doug didn’t hurt him?”
18
“No, his ego maybe.”
“Shit.” She sucked her breath in and sprung off the bed. She came to the love seat. “He’ll kill
you for that.”
“For his ego or Doug’s gun?”
“Both,” she said.
“He’s not killing anyone. Nobody knows we’re here, and we can stay forever.”
She looked around the room, which looked more like a studio apartment than any hotel room I
ever had, and she smiled. “Thank you.”
“You feel safe now?” She grinned, slightly, and shook her head up and down. I grabbed my
phone and called Karen, but her phone went to voice mail. I kept trying, and it kept going to voice
mail. The last time I just said, “Karen, call me.” For a second, I felt stupid for hiding in a hotel
just because my ex-fiancée had called claiming to have dirt on my girlfriend. I called Doug, but
his phone was busy. I wasn’t in any hurry to talk to Karen, so I gave up calling for a while so that
Cindy and I could do what we liked best— smoke crank and fuck around.
A couple of hours later, Doug called. Cindy was reading one of her books, and I was getting
ready to call Karen.
“Hey.”
“Where you at?” said Doug.
“A hotel. Not in Evert.”
“Is Cindy with you?”
“No, I’m with some high school girl. She says hi.” Cindy hit me on the shoulder.
“Who is it?” Cindy asked, her book now closed.
“Alright, stupid question, but Dale’s gone nuts. He attacked Karen at her place. He beat her
with a gun butt. She’s alright, but he’s still running around.”
19
“Yeah, he’s no threat. Where is Karen?” I got off the bed and stood facing away from Cindy.
“Fucking Claire, she gave Karen the number to Dale’s mom.”
“Where’s she at?” I raised my voice.
“She’s home. Claire tried to get her to stay with us.”
“Try again.” I started pacing next to the bed.
“She’s not moving. Dude, you know her.”
“Yeah, I’ll get her.” I looked at Cindy on the bed. “Call me if you hear anything.”
“Who was it?”
“Doug... Dale attacked Karen.” Cindy moved to the edge of the bed.
“Is she alright?” She sounded worried.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” Cindy stood up from the bed. She moved in front of me. She wrapped her arms
around my body and laid her head against my chest.
“I need to check on her.”
“No.” Cindy tightened her hold.
“She won’t leave her place.” I unhooked her arms and started to put on my pants. “We’re safe,
but where’s Dale going after he finds us gone from the house?”
“I don’t want you to leave. Can’t someone else help her? Doug?” Her face lit up with the idea.
“She won’t listen to him.”
“What about Claire?” I shook my head from side to side. “Why would she listen to you? If it
was me, I would never talk to you again after what you pulled.” Cindy sat on the love seat, naked
except for her black panties.
“It’s my fault this happened to her. I’ll throw her over my shoulder and carry her out if have
to.”
20
“How the hell did he find her?” I shrugged my shoulders before pulling my shirt on over them.
I slipped my shoes on, not bothering with socks. “He wasn’t always like this. The first year we
were married he treated me nice most of the time. He would have never hurt anybody then.”
“Baby, leave your phone on. I’ll call you when I’m done.” Cindy sat on the love seat and
looked like she was pouting. “Are you mad?”
She shook her head side to side, “Worried.”
“You’ll be safe here.”
“I know. What about you?” she said.
~~~~~
I still had the key to Karen’s place, but I didn’t use it. I knocked instead, and she took several
minutes before she opened the door.
“What do you want?” Karen said. She wore a baggy black sweat shirt with her usual short
black skirt over black leggings.
“I’m sorry.” She moved aside as I walked in. She had a large square bandage on her left cheek,
and her left eye was beyond blood shot— it was blood exploded. Dark red and darker red colored
her eye, and purple under and above.
“What do you want? Karen held the door handle. The sound of a passing car followed me
through the door.
“What happened?”
“I woke up like this.” She let go of the handle and walked over to the couch where she
dumped her body. I pushed the door and it swung closed, almost.
“What happened?”
“Ask your little whore?” Any other time, I would have laughed at the image of Karen calling
Cindy little. Karen was a size one while Cindy was at least a size eight. I looked at Karen. We
21
stared at each other like we were waiting for the other to blink. She blinked first. “I think he
followed me home from his mother’s.” She looked at the front door, and then back up at me. “He
knows where you live.” She folded her arms in her lap and grinned.
“I moved.”
“Where’s Cindy?”
“She’s hiding, like you should be.” I heard a car pull up outside. I went to the window and
looked through the blinds. It was her neighbor, the idiot who wore Hawaiian shirts, even in the
winter.
“Is she still with you?” She studied my face, probably looking for a clue.
“It’s not safe here.”
“Do you love her?” I didn’t answer, and I didn’t look at her. “You need to go,” she said.
“Don’t be stupid. You need to get out of here. Come on, pack a bag, and I’ll take you to your
sister’s.” I reached down and grabbed her hand to pull her up, but she jerked it away.
“He won’t be back. You both got what you wanted; now, give me what I want— get the hell
out of here.” She screamed the last six words.
“I should, so he can come back and fix your other eye.” I pulled out my phone and called her
sister, which is what I should have done first.
“Johnny?” her sister said.
“Shelly, hold on.” I held my phone out to Karen, but she slapped my hand and the phone
away. “Talk to her,” I said, firmly. I handed her my phone again. She took it this time, but she
threw it behind her, where it landed on the carpet a few feet behind the couch. I heard someone
pull up outside, and I went to the curtain. Sometimes paranoia does pay off. Karen’s apartment
faced the street, and only about fifteen feet separated the street and her front door. Dale was just
getting out of his truck, and he looked calm as he shut the door.
22
“Fuck.” I wished I hadn’t gotten rid of my bat. The front door sat cracked open. I closed and
locked it as softly as I could. “He’s coming.” Karen didn’t move from the couch, just looked at
me and grinded her teeth. “Let’s go.” I pulled her up from the couch. I dragged her through the
living room and kitchen, past the blinds, and out the sliding glass door to the fenced in patio. As I
eased the sliding door shut, I heard the front door handle wiggle. I lifted Cindy up onto the fence
and heard Dale knock. “Run,” I whispered as she climbed over the fence. She hung down the
other side before letting go and falling to her feet. I pulled myself up onto the fence to the sound
of the front door being kicked in and bouncing off the wall. I dropped down to the other side,
thinking the blinds were still moving. Karen hadn’t moved from where she landed. “Come on.” I
pulled her after me again until she was running beside me. We ran through the complex to the
other side, where her best friend lived. We rushed into her friend’s apartment without knocking.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the small apartment, and Karen’s best friend, Janie,
sat at the kitchen table drinking from a mug. “What the hell are you two doing together?” Her
face looked like she had just smelled a skunk. “Ouch, what happened to you?”
“You didn’t tell her?” I asked. Karen just looked at me like I had done it.
“I didn’t tell him where you lived.” Karen looked me in the eyes. “He found some of your old
mail.” Janie got up and headed towards Karen, not taking her eyes off Karen’s face.
“You shouldn’t have...” I intended to say she shouldn’t have been fucking around in my
business anymore, but we both had done stuff we shouldn’t have. The deep red of her eye made it
look like something some satanic beast would stare out of. I figured she had paid enough for her
mistake.
“Do you love her?” Janie used a couple fingers to tilt Karen’s head up a bit. She inspected her
eye while Karen’s attention remained on me.
23
I picked up Janie’s phone and dialed 911. I told the operator what had happened and gave her
Karen’s address.
As soon as I hung up with the 911 operator, Karen asked, “Do you love her?”
“Wasn’t my plan. I was just...”
“Do you love her?”
“Yeah, I think.”
“After three weeks, three God damn weeks. You’re an idiot.”
“I know, but I’m doing the best I can.” Karen pressed her lips together and spit on my chest. I
used my sleeve to wipe it off. I was glad she didn’t hate me enough to spit in my face like she did
my sister when they fought about the engagement ring Karen had bought with the money I made
from selling Matilda, my mom’s old pink caddie.
~~~~~
I had called Cindy several times, but she hadn’t answered. Karen, Janie, and I were at Karen’s
place, and one of the officers had just finished taking our statements. Dale had already fled by the
time the police arrived. The neighbor, whose apartment faced Karen’s, had heard the door being
kicked in. Through her peep hole, she had seen Dale leave, only minutes before the police
arrived. The only things missing from the apartment were Karen’s keys, which she kept in a bowl
on the mantle, and my phone. I called Cindy several more times, but still no answer.
Janie pointed at me, “Do you need him anymore?”
“No, we’re done,” the officer taking the reports said. Karen had been flirting with the man the
whole time.
Janie looked at me, “Good, now get the fuck out asshole.” Karen grinned. “Bye, Bye,” Janie
said.
24
“Here, I’ll walk you out,” said the officer who’d taken our report. He wore a thick black
mustache, the style favored by cops and gay men with a fetish for black leather. Outside he told
me, “You did the right thing by running away, and don’t worry— I’ll see her safely to her
sister’s. Call me if your girlfriend has any ideas about where we can find Dale.” He handed me
his card, which said— Sgt. Richard Head, and then he shook my hand, trying to crush it. He was
too old for Karen, but nobody could blame him for being interested— she was a very beautiful
woman. She’d always had that going for her, and even her freaky red eye and bandage couldn’t
hide it.
~~~~~
I staggered down the hallway of the hotel to our room, needing to get high or collapse onto the
bed. The thought of curling up with Cindy and sleeping sounded good, but I was afraid something
had happened to her because she had always answered my calls on the first ring. I probably
looked like a zombie shuffling down the hall to our room; I felt like one. I opened the door, still
praying to find Cindy asleep in the bed, but she wasn’t. I didn’t see Cindy at all, but sound came
from the bathroom. Cindy sat in the waterless bathtub, quietly sobbing. She wore one of my white
t-shirt and the pair of pink flannel boxers I’d bought her. Her eyes were red but dry of tears, and
her face was blotchy like a baby’s when it cries.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes and face smiled. She coughed out a small laugh and tried to get up
fast, but one of her feet slipped in the tub, making a rubbing sound as it slid out from her. She fell
back on her ample ass, almost hitting her head against the wall. She laughed.
“Oh shit.”
“Are you alright?” I helped her out of the tub. She wrapped her arms around my neck, holding
herself up and kissing me like a starving animal devouring a fresh kill. She moved her arms,
25
putting them around my body and tightening them like a vise for a few seconds. “I love you.” She
had said she loved me several times before but never when I wasn’t inside her.
“What’s wrong?”
“He said you were dead.” She sat on the toilet seat lid, and wiped at her dry eyes like they still
had tears.
“Who?”
“He killed you, he said.” I squatted down in front her, allowing her to look down into my eyes.
“Dale?”
“He called me from your phone. He said he killed you.”
“I’m fine, baby.” I straightened up, extending my hands for hers. I helped her up and led her to
the couch. “Where’s your phone?” She pointed at the wastebasket by the desk.
“I hung up on him, but he kept calling... What happened?”
“I need to wake up.”
“Johnny what happened at Karen’s?” I didn’t answer her. I retrieved Cindy’s phone from the
wastebasket and felt like an idiot for not considering he’d use the damn phone. Cindy jumped up
and grabbed the pipe off the little kitchen table. She loaded it and brought it to me, and we both
sat on the couch. I still wanted us to sleep, but that would have to wait. I filled her in on what had
happened while we passed the pipe back and forth and smoked past the point of waking up. I
pulled the officer’s card out of my pocket, and I called the number, hoping he had enough of a
hard-on for Karen that he’d jump right on it. The Sgt. said they would locate Dale as long as he
kept the phone on. A few minutes after I finished talking to Sgt. Head, Dale called.
“Hello.”
“Put Cindy on,” said Dale, still using my phone.
26
“Call back in a minute.” I hung up. He called back several times, one call right after the other
before I finally answered again.
“Hey.”
“Put Cindy on.” I could hear his engine running. It sounded like it was idling.
“Hey, I want to thank you for what you did to Karen. I always wanted to fuck that bitch up,
but the whole going to jail and having a record for assault thing got in the way. I wish...”
“Put Cindy on.”
“Cindy’s not here. I wouldn’t have used the gun though. That makes it assault...”
“Put the bitch on,” Dale yelled.
“Calm down dude. I wouldn’t have used the gun because that made it assault with a deadly
weapon. You should have used a rolled up phone book, especially since she was always on the
phone. Now, that would have been funny.”
“I’m not talking to you asshole. Give me my wife.”
“You just missed her.” I stretched out the word just.
“You’re dead mother fucker.”
“Dead? What the fuck? Oh shit, I forgot about Doug’s. Dude, I’m not fucking you wife.” I
looked at Cindy. Her face was all scrunched up. She looked confused. “Not that I wouldn’t love
to. She has one nasty ass body, but my sister would kill me for fucking her girlfriend.”
“When I find her, you’re both dead.”
“Fuck you. You already said that. You like to repeat yourself, don’t you? Dude, you can’t
blame me. If you saw my sister, you’d want to fuck her too. I know I do, and so does everybody
in her lesbian cult.” Dale didn’t say anything. I could hear him breathing heavy and kids yelling
in the background, and I could still hear his engine running.
27
“Shit,” Dale yelled. There was a weird sound on the phone, and then it went dead. I called
Dale back, but my phone went straight to voice mail.
“What happened?” Cindy asked. She’d been sitting quietly next to me the whole time that I
was on the phone with Dale. I had figured she’d say something to me, and he would hear her.
“You’re kind of a sicko. Where’d you get all that stuff?” I stood up and called Sgt. Head, but he
didn’t answer either. I tried several more times before giving up and sitting back down next to
Cindy on the couch. She laid her head against my shoulder, and we waited.
About twenty minutes later, Doug called.
“Hey.”
“Turn on channel 3 quick,” Doug said.
I turned on the TV and channel 3. On the screen was Dale’s truck on the side of the highway.
The newscaster was saying, “Shots at police before leading them on a high speed chase through
town, and then onto the highway before jumping out and trying to get away on foot. The suspect
made it over a chain link fence near the highway and into an industrial park before police finally
apprehended him.” I hung up on Doug without saying anything.
“I wish they would have shot him,” Cindy said. Her voice sounded harsh, which surprised me.
“I thought you didn’t want him hurt.” I couldn’t help smiling.
“That was before he killed you.” Cindy sat against the love seat’s arm and crossed her legs,
Indian style. I turned to my side so that I could look at her.
“This morning what did you want to happen if you got pregnant?”
“You mean last night?”
“What did you want me to say?”
She looked down. When she looked up, she avoided my eyes, looking to her left. “I don’t
know.”
28
“If you want to get pregnant, we have to stop getting high all the time. That’s non-negotiable.”
The words came out of my mouth, but I didn’t say them. She didn’t look at me, nor did she say
anything.
~~~~~
We had been gone from the house for less than eight hours. We left our bags in the car and
entered the house through the garage, expecting the worse. The milk I’d bought early that
morning sat on the kitchen table while most of the drawers were open. In the bedroom, the
pillows, sheets, and comforter were strewn on the floor, and my mom’s prized ceramic cooking
knife was sticking out of the mattress at the head of the bed on the side that Cindy preferred to
sleep, the rare times she slept.
“Think they can charge him with mattresside?” Cindy said.
“Attempted maybe.” I pulled the knife out and tossed it onto the pile of bedding. “Help me flip
the mattress.” We each grabbed an end and flipped it over on to its good side. “It’s fine. It was
time to flip it anyway.” Cindy went into the kitchen, and I followed her. “Baby, you said we’d go
to sleep after I got your milk.” I held my hand open with the palm facing up, and I motioned at
the milk like a model on a game show showing a prize.”
“I can’t drink that.”
“It’s fine.”
“If you leave it out, and I’ll make pancakes when we get up.”
“When we get up?”
“Yeah, after you get some fresh milk, we’ll go to sleep.” She didn’t look at me when she
said— we’ll go to sleep. “I’ll make the bed, while you get the milk.”
~~~~~
To get milk, I only had to go several blocks to Cali food and liquor. Cali was always more
29
expensive than the grocery stores, but I was in a hurry. I bought two milks and some of the weird
mints Cindy loved, and while I was paying, a cop came in and looked at me like he knew me.
When I left, I could feel him watching me. All the way home, I kept checking my mirror for him,
but he never showed up. I figured the paranoia was still strong with me, and I wondered if I could
ever imagine that Cindy was poisoning me.
Cindy stood in front of the kitchen table; her hands were on her hips. “You just left,” she said.
She tilted her head to the side, her grey-green eyes narrowed to slits, and she stared at the milks
for a long moment. A little smile crept onto her face. She grabbed the milks, and turned toward
the refrigerator. “My grandma is going to love you.”
Cindy’s glass pipe sat on the small counter by the stove. She had cleaned the black residue that
had coated its inside. “We’re still going to sleep?” I asked. She didn’t answer.
She moved in close, and the smell of peaches enveloped me. “Why?”
I shrugged my shoulders. I’d been through this before. “I’m tired.”
“Johnny, don’t leave me. Don’t go to sleep.” She grabbed my arm to keep me from leaving,
and then she grabbed the pipe from the counter and held it up toward the chandelier. “See, I
cleaned it; it’s all ready.”
“What happened to sleeping after I got your milk?”
“We can do that tomorrow. That’s still after.”
“Tomorrow? Yeah, there’s always another on its way. Isn’t there?” She smiled.
“Here.” Cindy presented the pipe to me, cupped in her hands like a sacred religious object,
which is what it had been to both of us.
“Let’s go to sleep.”
“Babe, no.” She un-did a button on her shirt while looking at me. She held out the pipe again.
“I love you, but we...I need to sleep.” I turned away, leaving her standing alone in the kitchen,
30
my pale priestess offering communion. If I’d learned anything from Karen and my sister it was
that you had to let people make their own choices, but I figured that if Cindy followed me to bed
we had a chance.
31
Visiting
My grandma died the summer before I was supposed to start college. I’d only met her a few
times, and my strongest memory was of her waving a cigarette around while screaming at me to
go to bed. My mother always talked about her like she was something special. I didn’t see it, and
when she died, her funeral was the last place I wanted to go. My mother would have been pissed
if I hadn’t gone, but since we never saw each other much, I didn’t care. None of that mattered
though because my dad made me go. “It’s not about you or even your grandmother for that
matter. Your mother needs you. You need to go and pay your respects,” my dad said.
“I don’t have any respect to pay.”
“That’s because you’re still a little punk ass.” Punk-ass was the term he usually reserved for
my friends, never me.
“Really? You just can’t tell my mother no.” He never could. I’d have called him pussy
whipped, but he never got anything from her and acted whipped to just about everybody but me. I
figured when I did grow up I’d be a man to more than just my son.”
“You are going. End of discussion.”
“What about you?”
“I have to work, and besides that, she was not my fucking grandmother.”
“That’s messed up.” He smiled at me.
“You don’t need me to hold your hand do you? No?”
“No.”
“You can take my truck. The air works better.”
“My car’s fine.”
“I know, but take mine to be safe.”
To be safe. Those three words were the closest thing my dad had to a mantra. “I’ll take it,
32
thanks.” Even though my car was a piece of shit, I couldn’t help thinking that he figured to be
safe he’d give me his truck so I would have to return.
_______
So on a cool Phoenix morning with the temperature only around a hundred, he sent me off
across the desert to Las Vegas, where my mother lived and my grandmother died. The trip started
well. After the third cup of coffee from the metal thermos filled from the corporate eclectic coffee
house, I started to get into the trip. The air conditioning kept the desert outside, and the radio
provided all the company I needed. I was over half way to Vegas when the vibrating started. My
first thought was something is wrong with the tires, but then there was a loud sound, as if half the
engine had dropped onto the highway. The truck lost momentum, and I dragged something,
spewing sparks visible in the passenger side mirror. I pulled off the highway onto the slender
shoulder and turned off the radio, silencing the millionaire anarchist singing about absolutely
nothing as if he was preaching the gospel. I got out. The drive-shaft rested on the ground,
unattached to rear of the vehicle. Next to the truck was a long flat expanse of god abandoned
desert dotted with scraggly cacti and some kind of ugly bush I had never learned the name of.
“Fuck,” I yelled. That god damned bitch had to die.
I tried to call my dad. No luck. He couldn’t help any way because he would just be starting
work and would be hard to reach. Yeah, take my truck, I could hear him say. “Mine doesn’t drop
shit on the highway,” I yelled at no one, unless you count the grey-green lizard that darted across
the highway. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I was in the middle of nowhere, alone, and still
hours short of my mother’s. If only I could have stood up to my dad, I’d have been home, still
sleeping in my air-conditioned bedroom. I figured I could climb into the car, blast the air, and
wait for my dad to get off work— in about another eight hours. I wanted to go home, and now I
had my excuse. I’d miss the funeral and have to listen to my mother bitch and cry, but I didn’t
33
care. My grandma wasn’t worth the trouble.
I called my mother. I had to tell her I wouldn’t make it. She answered, “Hey, baby, where you
at?”
“At least a couple hours away.”
“Why are you calling then?”
“My car broke down, and I can’t make it.” I knew better than to ask her for help.
“Bullshit. You’re in Phoenix. This is bullshit. I knew you wouldn’t come.”
“Ben, what’s wrong?” My mom’s latest husband had taken the phone.
I struggled, reaching for the correct name of the thing lying half attached under the car. “The
drive shaft came unattached from the rear end.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, you’re lucky…. It could have shot up through the floor and killed you.”
“That wouldn’t have gotten me off the hook.”
Jerry laughed, “Yeah. You‘re probably right.” I could hear my mother asking what I’d said.
“Climb under the truck and describe everything to me.”
I did as he told me.
“You’re lucky. You can fix that easily.”
“Yeah…...You’re crazy.” I knew where to put the gas and several times I’d put water in the
radiator, but that was as far as my mechanical knowledge went.
“Do you have any tools?”
“I’m sure there’s some behind the seat. I have my dad’s truck.”
“Good. You can fix it and be here before dinner, making your mom happy.”
I could hear my mother saying that I was scamming. She was claiming that I was “still at
34
home.” I didn’t care about making the funeral for her. If that had been my motivation, I would
have crawled into the car and slept until I could reach my dad, but I was stuck; Jerry had acted
like it was nothing. “Ok, what do I do?”
“First, you have to get some U-bolts. Do you know where you are?
I looked around and saw no signs of civilization other than the black road on which a gnarled
up ball of a weed tumbled across.
“I think in the first circle.” And I’m sure there are no fucking parts stores here. I started to
think I was wrong about Jerry.
“What?”
I leaned through the window, looked at the odometer. Shit, I never looked at it when I left. I
tried to remember the name of the last town. “Kingman, about half an hour ago.”
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back, alright?”
“Yeah ok,” I said, like I had a choice. Jerry took about half an hour to call me back, and I
waited the whole time, leaning up against the truck, absorbing the sun’s showers.
“Ben?” Jerry said.
“No. It’s the little drummer boy.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah, just hot.”
“Ben, I can’t come get you myself. Your mom is too shaken up about your grandma. I’m
afraid to leave her alone.” I knew that meant she wouldn’t let him leave. “But don’t worry; a
friend of mine will bring you the parts you need. He can help you if you have any problems, but
you shouldn’t have any.” My mom had married Jerry about a year ago, and I’d met him once.
They had came to Phoenix specifically for me to meet him. He seemed smart and decent, and she
seemed happy.
35
I waited for four hours for his friend to bring the bolt, and I escaped the damn desert heat by
climbing into the cab of the truck and blasting the air conditioning. His friend arrived in a white
beetle bug crawling on chrome wheels. He had long scraggly blond hair and an untamed beard
dotted with grey. He wore long green shorts, a purple shirt, and brown leather sandals.
“What up, dude?” he said, looking at me. His eyes were blood shot slits. He could have passed
for Chinese if not for his blond hair.
“You’re Jerry’s friend?”
“Yep.” He handed me two U shaped bolts and pulled out a half smoked joint. He leaned back
against the truck. “Do you know how to fix this?”
“No.”
“It’s easy. Lift the long thing up to the thing in the back, shove the bolts in, and tighten the
round things.” He lit his joint. “You want to hit this?”
Yeah, I was going to get stoned and try to do something I didn’t know how to do. I started to
get a little pissed that Jerry sent such a fucking tool, but I followed his directions— I lifted the
drive-shaft into place, shoved the U-bolts in, and tightened the nuts. The fact that there was
nothing to it and that it only took a few minutes didn’t detract from the feeling I’d accomplished
something monumental. I could fix shit— I was a man. To me a man was someone who fixed
stuff, especially cars, who stood up for himself, taking no shit from anybody, and always said
what he meant without regrets, basically everything my dad wasn’t, except for the fixing things.
After I fixed the truck, Jerry’s friend said he’d show me to my mother’s place. He drove about
fifty five, so after a few minutes, I passed and watched him shrink in the mirror. I found my
mother’s place all-right and probably while the dude was still only half way home. I say the dude
because that is what he called himself. He said I’m the dude, like the movie. At the time, I didn’t
know what the fuck he meant.
36
_______
Jerry met me on the porch, shook my hand. We both squeezed hard, and though he won,
almost crushing my hand, I still felt like a man. My mom rushed across her front room, high heels
clicking on her hardwood floor, arms out to hug me, but she stopped short when she saw my
mostly black shirt, which had started out the day a plain white t-shirt. She placed her hands on my
shoulders and leaned in, kissing me on the cheek.
“You can’t go like that.” My mom had on a nice looking red dress, the silky material clinging
to her body and ending just above her tanned knees, making it the longest dress I ever saw her
wear. Jerry wore a pink dress shirt and black slacks. His black shoes shined so much I could see
my reflection in them.
“I’m not good enough to be seen with?” My arms and legs were tattooed with black, and my
khaki shorts were full of black hand prints and smudges. “I’m starving,” my mother said.
“I can go get some Chinese,” Larry offered.
She looked at Larry, who shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to shrink. “Go take a shower and
change.”
“All I have is my suit.”
My mom looked from Larry to me. He was half a head shorter.
“Go shower, we’ll get them cleaned tonight if we need to.”
We ate atop a casino. I wore my funeral clothes without the jacket or tie; actually, I wore my
funeral/wedding/ job interview clothes, not that I’d ever been to a job interview. I only had one
suit, and it served all purposes. I sat next to the window and could see most of the strip. It looked
like a giant carnival midway.
37
“Benny, you have to get the Scampi. Their sauce is amazing,” my mom said.
Shrimp wasn’t my first choice, but I could tell she had decided I would love Scampi the best.
“This is your pond. You order for me.” She smiled, and her eyes lit up, especially around the
edges. The shrimp and Sauce did turn out to be amazing, and she ordered me a glass of wine. She
could see I was man, now. We all had a glass of wine while we waited for our food, and when my
mother ordered mine, the waiter never gave me a second look. For dinner, she ordered us a bottle
which we finished before we were done eating, and then she ordered a second bottle that I
thought she called a desert wine. I imagined some sort of fermented cactus juice. It turned out to
be a wine to drink with dessert. We were all pretty quiet during the meal. My mother skipped
dessert which left her mouth free. She made Jerry and I eat which gave her the advantage.
“How come your father didn’t come?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Mom always loved him
like a son, and she always treated him well.”
“He had to….”
“I know work is important. I’m just glad you came, baby. I never see enough of you.” She
reached across the table and squeezed my hand and smiled. “I wish you would move here. You
know you could stay at mom’s house and go to UNLV. We’ll pay for it.” She looked at Jerry
when she said that she’d pay for my college. He looked at me, looking for a clue, I think.
“He’s enrolled at State.”
“So, he could take the semester off and then start in the spring.”
“You have a scholarship, right?” Jerry looked at me.
“Partial.”
“We could give him a full.” They looked at each other. Jerry shrugged.
I had no part in the conversation.
“He needs to take a semester off anyways. He can’t roll straight into high school from college.
38
He needs a break.” She looked at me. “Benny, we could spend time together. You can stay at
Grandma’s house, and bring your friends with you.”
“Most are going to ASU.” I knew better than to make fun of or point out her dyslexic mistake.
“Dad would be lost.” I also knew better than to bring up my dad. I didn’t know why I did.
“Your dad.” She cocked her head, a snake ready to strike. She looked at Jerry while he shook
his head so slightly I almost missed it. “He’ll be fine. I’m the one who needs you. You can live at
Grandma’s house. ” I didn’t know what to say. I looked at Jerry. He looked away and then down
and then stared at his wine. I picked mine up, slurped a bit, and looked around the room. The
waiter was watching me. I put my glass down and started to slouch a little. My dad would have
told me to sit up straight. That’s what he always did when we went out to eat. My mother went
silent. She looked at me and Jerry like we were both guilty of something. I just didn’t get what.
She didn’t say a word until we got back to their place, and then her first words were, “Who wants
a drink?”
We all did. Jerry brought us all beers, but my mother went for the whiskey and made a
whiskey sour. “Does anyone want one?”
“We’re fine with the beers,” Jerry said.
I held up my beer. “I’m good.”
“OK, baby. Just holler if you want one.” She put a straw in her drink and sucked all the liquid
up, leaving nothing but the ice to clank around when she headed over to their bar to make
another, and only about two minutes after telling me to holler if I wanted one, she asked, “Baby,
you want one?”
I held my beer up again. “I’m good.”
She stumbled back with her drink. “Benny, you remember your grandma’s place, don’t you?”
“Not really.”
39
“We lived there before your dad got the job in Phoenix.”
“I don’t remember.” My dad had told me some, but he didn’t like to talk about the past.
“You were pretty small. We lived with my mom for about a year. You learned to walk there.
Mom led you around in your pink walker, dangling cookies for you. You’d chase her all over the
house. You were such a fat little baby.”
I’d seen the pictures. Not pretty. Luckily, I grew out of it. Supposedly, my mother knew I’d be
a girl, so I had lots of pink things like the walker.
“You followed Grandma around everywhere she went. I used to cry that you loved her more,
but then Ben showed me how she always carried cookies in her pocket, which you stalked her for.
Your grandma loved you. She totally spoiled you.”
Her description of my grandmother didn’t fit with the woman I remembered. I remembered a
bitch that always yelled at me and my mother, and then never made an effort to see me. I hadn’t
seen the woman since I was probably six or seven. How much could she have loved me?
“When you left us, I think she took it harder than me.”
“Yeah, I remember.” She looked like she didn’t hear me.
“Your grandma loved you so much. Her house is covered with pictures of you.”
I scanned the room to see how many pictures of me my mother had. She didn’t have any.
She took a drink, spilling some on her dress. She took the wet fabric in her mouth and sucked
on it for a minute before downing the last of her drink and rubbing the wet spot on her dress.
Mom used to talk about you all the time. She really loved you.”
“Yeah, I always felt that, especially around my birthday and Christmas.” I’d gotten a birthday
card with five dollars once, but that was it. “She totally smothered me with her love. I got so tired
of her calling and visiting so often.”
“That’s Ben’s fault. You lived too far.” A big smile lit up her face. “Mom would have loved
40
you to move back while she was alive.” She stood up. “I’m gonna get a drink.” She looked at my
near empty bottle. “Get you one or another beer, Benny? Beer Benny.” She laughed like that was
hilarious.
“We’re good,” Jerry said.
“Benny?”
“No, I’m good.” I glanced at Jerry. He was slouched on the couch.
He sat up straight and turned towards me. “We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. More than
dumping….” Whatever he was going to say he cut himself off.
“More than just dumping that old bitch in a hole and kicking dirt in,” I said. He laughed, and
then flicked his head towards me with a small smile. I couldn’t tell if it was an uncomfortable or a
we’re-in-this-together conspiratorial type smile. I never could read Jerry like I could my dad. I
looked over toward the kitchen. My mother was saying, “Beer Benny, Beer Benny” to herself.
He stood up. “I’ll get your clothes. They should be dry by now. You can get out of your dress
clothes.”
“Thanks.”
My mother tottered back from the kitchen with another Whiskey sour and a beer for me. She
placed the beer on the oak coffee table in front of me and with practiced precision she switched
the coaster from my empty beer to the new one.
“Just in case you get thirsty.”
I could hear my dad saying: just to be safe, in case you get thirsty, except to be safe he
wouldn’t have let me drink.
The stereo was playing some slow song I had never heard before. My mother turned it up and
started slowing slipping about the room. Her bare feet sliced the rhythm deep into the white shag
carpet with such grace and precision that it was hard to believe that five seconds earlier she could
41
barely walk. She held her arms out with her glass still in her hand. A small amount of her drink
slopped over the edge. “Come on, baby, this was your grandma’s favorite.”
I didn’t move. I just watched her. “I can’t dance,” I lied.
“This is fun. When you move here, we can do this all the time.” She looked at me and held my
eyes for a long moment before she plopped down on the couch next to me. “You can stay at
Grandma’s. She doesn’t need the place anymore.” She laughed, not sounding very broken up over
her mom. She looked at Larry, who was returning with my clean mechanics clothes. “Babe,
remember the time we had to pick mom up from her Sunday night poker game. She was so drunk
she fell into Clara’s Oleanders. It was Halloween, and she was dressed like Miss Piggy. She made
the cutest drunk.” She looked over at me. “Tomorrow after the funeral you can see mom’s place,
and then Tuesday Larry can drive home with you and rent a truck and bring your stuff back here.”
I was seventeen. What the hell could I do in Vegas? Still, I couldn’t tell her I wasn’t moving—
my being a man had only lasted until my mother’s front door.
“You can’t expect him to decide now,” Larry said.
My mother gave Larry a harsh look, and then stared at me. She emptied her glass, with a slurp.
“You’re not going to move here are you?” She held my eyes like an interrogator. I expected her
to turn a lamp on my face.
“I don’t know.” I looked down and at Larry on my left. I was not moving there. She had had
her chance to be around me. Since I was little, I only saw her a couple times a year. She did keep
in touch though, and I had to give her that. She had called twice a month, and she never forgot my
birthday or Christmas. It was usually feast or famine, but she always sent something, even if it
was only a card and twenty dollars.
“That’s fucking bullshit.” She didn’t yell it, but her voice rose. “Baby, you can have your own
place, and we’ll help you with money.”
42
I stared down at the carpet, hoping she’d give up.
“You can stay at Grandma’s. She would have liked that.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she would, especially since she showed so much interest in where I lived
when she was alive.”
“She loved you.”
“Yeah, she told me every time she visited.”
“You didn’t visit, but that’s Ben fault, that fucking asshole.”
“Dad’s the one who made me come.”
“It’s good to see he can make somebody,” she snorted. “Did he tell you why he couldn’t
come?”
“He wanted to, but he just started overseeing a new project.”
“Don’t lie for his ass. He’s not even.....” She stood and walked across the room and then back
with her bare feet re-tracing her tracks in the carpet. If only drunks could walk their straight lines
in deep shag, they’d be fine. Jerry sprang up like he expected something. He shook his head at
her, but she was looking at me.”
“Allison,” Jerry said.
She turned on him. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do.” Her voice had a venomous sound that
scared me. “He’s not his real father. He’s not.” She stood in front of me, “Baby you can have
grandma’s house, and we’ll help you with money.” She looked at Jerry. “Tell him. We’ll help
him with money.” He didn’t say anything. She yelled, “Tell him.”
“You already told him. He knows he can stay at your mom’s and we will help him with his
expenses. Leave him alone, for now. We need to go to bed.”
“Stay the fuck out of it. You’re not his father, either.”
I really wanted to go home. My mother always made me nervous, but this was too much. “I’m
43
tired.”
“Oh, baby of course. I’m sorry. Let me show you your room.” I picked my suit up off the back
of the chair, where Larry had draped it, and followed my mother to my room where we parted
with out words. I tried to go to bed, but I could still hear them. My room, which doubled as
Jerry’s office, shared a wall with their room, and I could hear them arguing, at least it sounded
like arguing. I could only make out a word here and there until I heard her yell, “He’s not his
fucking father.” Then I could hear her crying. She didn’t cry long, though, and then I didn’t hear
fighting after that, just loud silence. I covered my head with my pillow and tried to sleep through
the silence.
_______
The next morning my mouth tasted like a skunk had taken a piss in it. My head was
rhythmically expanding and contracting, mashing my memories together, making them
unintelligible. I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t. When I got up, I found my mother in the
kitchen.
“Hey, baby. Did you sleep well?” She gave me a hug. She smelled like honeysuckle. “Sit
down. I’ll get you something.” She went to the stove and made me a plate. “I drank way too much
last night. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself? I don’t usually drink.”
“Where’s Larry?” I didn’t want to be alone with her.
“He went for a run.”
“You don’t run with him?”
She looked hurt. “Do I look like I need to run?” She pouted, and then laughed. She was joking.
I thought. “No, he runs too fast for me. I used to ride my bike while he ran. I think he likes to get
away from me for a while. I dance.” She moved around the kitchen, a stripper-ballerina, her grace
showing with every supple dance step. She stopped and looked down at bare her feet,
44
straightened her shirt, and pulled her shorts down some, and then fixed herself a plate and sat
down across from me.
My plate had scrambled eggs, bacon, and a couple of pancakes. I motioned at our plates, “You
don’t seem slowed from last night.”
“Jerry made the breakfast.” She smiled. She looked too young to be my mother. “He’s the
wife. I wear the pants.” Her wearing pants was funny. I never saw her wear anything other than
short skirts or short spandexy shorts like she was wearing that morning. Never pants.
I wanted to ask about the night before, but I didn’t want to restart the whole you should move
here thing again, especially if she was going to make shit up about my dad not being my father
just to get her way.
I had no doubt who my dad was although one time he did joke that he’d have to see a DNA
test before he claimed me. He claimed my mother was a ho. He always made momma jokes. It
was the one thing he could always use as a comeback against me, but the time he called her a ho,
he apologized, which was odd. This was a man who, when I was in second grade, tried to
convince me my mother was a Bigfoot. He claimed he’d shaved her and taught her to speak.
When I asked him how come his feet were bigger? He told me she was a pigmy Bigfoot, and
that’s why they didn’t want her. He always had an answer. Because he apologized for calling my
mother a ho, I figured ho jokes about mothers were over the line or taboo while any other
momma joke, including your mom has bigger balls than me type jokes, were fine.
Jerry arrived home before we finished breakfast. I’d eaten all his bacon, though, but he sat and
had some toast and jam. The kitchen smelled of bacon and fresh strawberries, and nobody spoke
about the night before. My mom had to go meet her aunts before the service. She went to get
ready, leaving me and Jerry alone at the table.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
45
I didn’t answer him, only stared at him until he looked away. We didn’t say more than two
words to each other until after the funeral.
_______
The funeral hall was small but packed, at least sixty people crammed into the place, filling
every seat and leaving a few standing. I didn’t know a soul, except for my mother, Jerry, and one
of my mother’s friends, the one from Phoenix that I didn’t like. My grandma’s brother gave the
eulogy and spoke of her more glowingly than my mother ever did. I hadn’t known she had a
brother. I only Knew about younger sisters. I couldn’t reconcile my grandmother with the dead
lady everybody came to mourn. I stood in front of her closed wooden casket. An old picture of
her sat on top of the coffin. She looked like a model from the thirties or forties. She had perfect
alabaster skin set off by strong dark eyebrows and raven like hair piled wildly on her head. She
didn’t look like the wrinkled old lady I remembered. She looked like someone who could have
loved me the way my mother had said. I wanted to open her casket and see what she really looked
like, who she really was.
_______
After the funeral, they had a reception. They called it “a celebration of life.” I called it a
drunken wake. There seemed to be more people at the wake than at the service. The party was at
my grandmother’s house. There was an open bar, and people filled and spilled out of every room.
I’d only expected my grandma’s younger sisters, and a few other old cronies, but a whole family
that I didn’t know showed up— aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, nieces, and great nieces. Most of
them acted cold when they found out who I was. The family I didn’t know I had turned out to be
one that didn’t want to know me, but I didn’t care about that. I figured they could all go fuck
themselves. My mother didn’t fare much better— I heard a red blob and a few other people call
her a whore. I had visited the open bar, repeatedly, and was flying at a comfortable altitude, but I
46
think the blob was supposed to be my great aunt. She wore a red dress which was the only color
in the house except for all the black clothes and vanilla carpet and vanilla furniture and vanilla
drapes. At least the house looked like it belonged to the wrinkled old bitch I remembered.
The only family member who talked to me was my mother’s cousin, Janice. When she found
out who I was, she placed her hand on my arm and said, “I’m really sorry about your
grandmother. She was such a beautiful lady and much too young to die.” She pointed at my mom,
“God, your mother looks the same as she did the last time I saw her. It must have been fifteen…
sixteen years ago. You were still running around in diapers.” She stepped back and looked at me
from my head to my shoes and back to my head. “God, you’ve grown.”
No shit, if the last time she saw me I was in diapers.
“God, back in the day, your mom and I were close. We were the black sheep of the family.”
I heard someone say, “The sluts of the family.”
Janice pulled me into a corner. Everybody made a wide berth around us. I thought I saw my
mother look at us with surprise and maybe fear. She was across the room, and I couldn’t really
tell. That was also when the red blob started yelling at my mother. The cousin shook her head.
“That’s my mom yelling. She’s such a bitch.”
I couldn’t make out the problem between the bitch and my mother.
“Where’s your dad?” Janice asked. She looked around the room for him. She wobbled a bit
before I steadied her with my arm. “You know, I haven’t seen him here today. Do you know
where he is?”
When she had asked about my dad somebody laughed and whispered, “Who is his dad is the
question.”
Another voice chimed in with, “Allison doesn’t even know that.”
“Arizona,” I answered. Two fugly bitches stood about five feet away. I looked at them, and
47
they looked away so fast I knew they had to have been talking about me.
“Oh God, really? Oh God, I can’t believe he didn’t come.” Janice took my hand. Her eyes
were wide, and she moved closer. A crazy conspiratorial look slid over her face. She glanced
around the room, but she didn’t say anything other than, “You look just like your father.”
Yeah, I don’t look like my father. I excused myself and went looking to start a fight with my
mother, even though she was the victim of her crazy ass family. The red blob circled around at
the bottom of the stairs, and my mother climbed up and away from her. She used a hand on the
rail to pull as she climbed. I headed after her, but Jerry intercepted me, grabbing my arm and
pulling me with him.
“Come out side.” His grip felt strong, and he seemed bigger than before.
We stood outside on the porch. The yard was mostly dead although a few small yellow patches
still clung to life. Up and down the block, cars lined both sides of the street. Jerry bummed one of
my cigarettes. He lit it with his lighter. I usually didn’t smoke, and I couldn’t remember why I
had the pack. I pulled a cigarette out while he sucked on his. He let the smoke seep slowly out his
nose. I grabbed his lighter and lit mine, and then pocketed his lighter. I was becoming a smoker.
This trip was becoming one of changes.
“What did you and Janice talk about?”
“Janice?”
“Janice, your mom’s cousin. You were taking to her.”
“Nothing, she was just trying to get me to go upstairs so we could be alone.”
“Alone for what?” He looked at me funny. “She’s your second cousin. Not to mention, twice
your age.”
“Actually, she’d be my first cousin, but I’m not counting.” Larry laughed. He looked like he
didn’t want to though.
48
“Your mom would love that. They hate each other.”
“I’m just fucking with you, but she is the only person here who doesn’t act like she hates my
mother.”
“She does.”
“Everybody else here acts like they hate me and my mother. I mean fuck, Allison just buried
her mother, and everybody is being cold to her, calling her names or yelling at her.” Of course, I
didn’t consider myself part of the being-cold-crowd even though the night before I had called her
mother a bitch.”
“Allison?”
“Yeah, Allison, my mother.”
“Oh, she’ll really love that, you calling her Allison.”
She felt more like an Allison. “What’s all the crap about her being a whore and about my
dad?” I didn’t really care about them calling her a whore, but people saying my mother didn’t
know who my father was coupled with what she’d said the night before made me want to know
who to start shit with— my mother, her family, or my mother and her family?
“What crap?” Larry looked like he really didn’t know what I was talking about. My first
impressions of Larry had been dead on. He is sharper than he acts or looks.
“Quit fucking around, asshole.” It surprised me how strongly it came out.
Jerry stepped back and took one last long drag on his cigarette. He dropped it on the concrete
porch and crushed it with his foot. I flicked what was left of mine on the dead lawn where it
smoldered.
He shook his head. I was sure he was silently saying you’re a little shit. “You’re definitely
your mom’s son. I can tell you that.”
I thought that was a fucked up thing to say even though I did look just like her.
49
“Fuck it. I told your mom her family would cause problems today. She thought they could be
nice for at least one day, but they’re all a bunch of backstabbing judgmental hypocritical assholes.
The short of it is they all like to believe that Ben’s not your biological father. They like to believe
the worst about everybody. They’re all basically just assholes.”
I couldn’t tell if Larry believed what he said. I still couldn’t read him, but I had never
suspected anything about my dad although I should have. I looked nothing like my dad; my
mother always dressed like a whore; my dad always quoted some stupid fortune cookie every
chance he got— “Family is in the heart, not the blood.” I started hoping that the cookie shit was
true because I didn’t want anything to do with the family in my blood.
I left Larry on the porch and headed to find my mother. I’d felt like a man after I’d fixed the
truck, and I was going to try and get that feeling back. I was going to slay a beast or at least tear
the “whore” apart. Half way up the stairs, I could hear my dad’s voice whining. “Being a man is
easy; all you need is a penis. It’s being a grown ass man that’s hard.” Yeah, if he’d had more of a
penis, maybe I wouldn’t be headed up these fucking stairs was my answer to him. Fuck him and
his stupid sayings. I found my mother crying in her mom’s bedroom. She was lying in the bed,
clutching the picture from the coffin. Black streaks ran down her face, and when she saw me she
started crying louder. I don’t know who the fuck said that “a woman’s tear is mightier than the
sword,” but they may have been right. Even though I was still pissed, I sheathed my tongue and
intentions for the moment and climbed onto the bed next to her. She wrapped her arms around me
and clung tightly.
Her crying turned to sobs. She tried to speak in between them. “They….want….all
of….Momma’s stuff. My….Aunts….say that the….China…. belonged to their mother.” Her sobs
subsided enough to speak normal. “Momma left everything to me. It’s my momma’s China too.
But…. they already took it and Momma’s silver too. They even want your house.” She lifted her
50
head back and looked at me. “I don’t care about the house. Baby, I know you don’t want to move
here…. I just got carried away with the idea. You forgive me?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I wasn’t ready to think about forgiving her. I didn’t even know what
she did, but while listening to her cry about her family, I realized I intended to pile on her just like
they had. I wish I could say I had gotten some great revelation and knew why I should support my
mother, but I didn’t. I was a seventeen year old kid. I didn’t know shit. But what I did get was a
strong feeling that I didn’t want to be like her fucked up family. I was different. I believed I had a
reason to yell at my mother, but luckily, I realized that this was not the time or place. She had just
buried her mother, and being a man didn’t fit the situation or being a man meant something I
didn’t understand.
I looked around the room. Framed pictures of me stood on the night stand and dresser and
hung from every wall. The pictures on the night stand were of me as a baby and a baseball player,
and on the dresser sat a picture of me receiving my high school diploma, only a month earlier.
“Why don’t you have any pictures of me at your house?” I really meant why don’t you love me as
much as Grandma did?
My mom laughed. “Grandma was a little crazy the last few years. I couldn’t keep any pictures
of you up because she always took them. I keep the most recent picture I have in the top drawer
of my dresser, where I see it every day, and I also have some baby pictures hung up in my
closet.”
I picked up the picture of my grandma that my mother had been looking at. Her face looked
like my mother’s. “She was beautiful wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, Momma used to be a show girl.” That reminded me that my mother used to be a lapdance girl, which was probably the biggest reason I didn’t want to come to Vegas; I hadn’t
spoken to her since I’d found out about her past.
51
“I need a drink. You want me to bring you something?”
“No, I need to clean up,” she said.
I left her sitting on the bed, and I went down for a drink. I had several before I wandered out
and found Larry still standing out on the porch.
“Can I get a cigarette?” he asked. He held his hand out, “And my lighter?”
I didn’t even know I had his lighter. I put a cigarette behind my ear. I lit another one and gave
him the pack and his lighter.
“You have been out here all this time?”
“No. I went looking for your mom.”
“She was up stairs.”
“Yeah, I found her. I figured you two could use some time.” We finished our cigarettes in
silence. Larry crushed his butt with his foot, and I flicked mine onto the dead lawn, where it
smoldered like before. We both stood on the porch, not speaking. A car door shut, and a woman I
hadn’t seen before walked up and around the side of the house.
My mom came outside. She had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the first one I
had seen her with since I arrived. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her make-up was gone. She
downed her drink and threw the plastic glass onto the lawn. She started crying. It sounded like
she said, “They cleaned everything out, all of momma’s heirlooms.” Jerry took her in his arms
and pulled her tight to him. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed. Her cigarette fell from
her hand, landing next to where mine had finally smoldered out. The red blob opened the door
and looked at my mother. The blob up close still looked like a blob, nothing but fat red goo. She
looked at the un-lit cigarette behind my ear and grunted, “Humph.” She stared at my mother, who
was crying louder now.
52
“What the fuck you looking at bitch?” I asked my grandma’s sister. Her eyes got wide, and she
spun around and back into the house, leaving the door wide open.
I didn’t feel nervous around my mom anymore. “Mom, what did grandma like to do best?”
Her crying slowed and quieted. She looked over at me, and her lips were puckered up in a pout
like a little kid.
“Play bingo, and watch old movies, especially Sunset Boulevard.”
“Do you want to get out of here?” We could go play Bingo or home and watch Sunset
Boulevard?” I asked. She said something, but I didn’t understand her. “Home?” She shook her
head up and down, and Larry started leading her across the yard to the car. “Just a second, I have
to do something real quick,” I said. The front door was still open, and I could see some of the
people inside watching us. I stood near the door, and I unzipped my pants and pissed on the
porch, ignoring all the noise that that stirred up in the house. My dark urine splashed onto the top
step, some drops reaching the plush shag carpet in the house. I wish I’d done it to make a
statement or even to mark my territory, but mostly I just really needed to pee.
My mother and Jerry were on the sidewalk watching me. My mother was laughing, and I
thought I heard her tell Larry, “Momma always hated when he did that.”