Don't Kiss Me: Stories(16)

Close to dawn we drive off the road, into the desert. We park and arrange ourselves to sleep. Some of us are on the dining bench. Some of us lie on the floor, stomach to back, half to half, so there is enough room. Some of us take the bed in the back, touch each other in the agreed-upon way. Some of us cry out and are ashamed. We close our eyes. We open them hours later. Two have left, we see their footprints in the sand outside, heading farther into the desert. We follow the footprints for a time. We turn when we are in danger of losing sight of the RV. We think it was two men, we count ourselves, we think it was a man and his boy, they have left their bar of soap, they took a few cuts of meat, there are drippings down the narrow walkway and down the steps. Some of us get behind the RV and push it back to the road, digging our toes in, most of us are barefoot, some of us are prideful of the thick soles of our feet, but that pride is frowned upon.

We drive. Some of us are sick into the bucket. Some of us check for ingredients, flavorings, there are none. There is only the cooler. The waitress passes white packets of sugar from her pocket, some of us feed from the new woman’s breast, but it is work. We barter for clothing, for secrets, for touch. We wear what we find. We claim what we can. We say sss sss sss into our ears. We say hush, hush. Some of us lean into each other and touch. We are bored. We don’t say this but it is what we are. Some of us put mouths to mouths, use our teeth, some of us try not to mind.

In the evening there is a red sky. We notice how it bleeds into the horizon instead of out. A few of us pass the drippings cup, but soon there’s none left.

In the morning one of us kills another of us. We are not sure how, there is no blood. There is torn clothing, a broken cup. Some of us try to mourn, some of us sing over the body, we lay the rope in a thief’s knot over the heart. We think how sad that what made your life something woulda happened whether you existed or didn’t. We forget who of us did the killing, it don’t matter.

On another day we wake and we are fewer. On this day we remember who is missing: the waitress, the momma, her baby. We remember because they are new, and it is an abomination to shed the new. More footsteps leading out, into the desert, away. We feel skinned. They are new, and they have gone. We look among us, we all agree. We gather things: throwing things, catching things, stabbing things. Rope, always rope. We tie the rope to the RV, we press our feet into the footprints of the escaped, we keep hold of the rope. We have lost some of us, but we will not be lost.

It is not long before the footprints become draggings, we can see them ahead, how they struggle to go on. Some of us exalt, speak our language. Some of us use our weapons on ourselves, we are so eager. We are the type to look for things, we are saying. Up ahead they are slowing. We begin to run.





CLOCKS


Momma says Jean’s just a imaginary friend, but I tell Jean Momma’s just a imaginary bitch.

Jean’s a yarnhead.

Jean says that ain’t nice to repeat but it’s true, it’s what she is, and based on the pictures she draw it is clear her momma is a yarnhead also.

You gotta be careful around the scissors cause yarn don’t grow back. That’s how come Jean’s so sensitive.

Jean told me once she saw my daddy wipe his stuff with a kitchen towel.

I have to leave Jean at home when I go off to school cause otherwise the kids will be jealous about how I got a stuck clock where my brain’s supposed to be, that’s how my momma explained it and it makes sense.

The clock by my daddy’s side of the bed ain’t stuck, but it ain’t telling the time either. Noon. Midnight. Noon.

Jean tells me if I spend time fixing on details like that I’ll drive myself to drink. This our new best thing to say.

We like anything where a key is needed. Keep that secret locked up tight now, girlie.

That’s our second-best thing to say.

Me and Jean play like we spies sometimes, we used a old flashlight for a while, but in the daylight you don’t need no more light and in the nighttime we got too scared, you should only spy if you really want to find something.

And we didn’t really want to all that much.

Noon’s okay. Midnight, though.

If you take off Jean’s clothes there ain’t nothing really to see. White cloth, black thread. No bumps or creases. I pray for Jean’s body but I wasn’t born a yarnhead and that’s the cross I have to bear.

Jean and me been studying my face in the mirror, looking hard at it, and we pretty sure it’s still my face. And that is a relief.

Jean says it’s all right to grow up and get old and die without ever taking a man for your own. That’s another relief.

Jean says there’s no need to set your hair or wear red nails or spritz lilac stuff behind your ears, if somebody don’t want that kind of attention then that is A-OK.

I see my momma do all these things, but it don’t seem to matter. I don’t do none of them, but that don’t seem to matter either.

Jean says my daddy been throwing some of my stuff in the trash. She’s right, I know some of my stuff is gone, but I don’t fix on the details.

At school a boy named Bo asks me do I want to meet him behind the swings, there’s a brick wall we can duck down behind, I say sure cause that seems the easiest.

Recess at noon. Or midnight? One is 12, the other is 12, so ain’t they the same? All of it’s the same, what Bo got to show and what I seen at the other 12, I’d like to talk it over with Jean but like I said she ain’t allowed to school, I tell Bo about the two 12s but he ain’t listening, I saw Bo had one of them fungus nails on his pinky finger, thick and green, the button on his pants shiny as a new penny, the bell rang and I went into the little girls’ and upchucked the egg my momma fried me that morning.