Don't Kiss Me: Stories(19)

Momma and I at Wekiva Springs. Me eating a Dole Whip, licking it off my forearm, my elbow, mistaking salt for sugar. The man Momma was with slapping the cone from my hand, That’s enough, Fatty, he said, Momma laughing, Momma telling me to go off by myself for a while. The water lapping quietly, the light in the trees. Momma sprinkling Ajax over my ice cream. That’s so you won’t have a taste for it no more. Momma serving dirt from the yard over milk. You eat that, you can have dessert. I ate it.

I’d still eat it. But I don’t want no one watching me.

From the back of the room I can see out the windows, the sun finally gone, a jagged pink-orange stripe all that’s left of the day, like someone melted a taffy and made a nasty smear. My mouth is watering, I want to jam all that food in my mouth at once, even my napkin, even my straw and cup and utensils and packet of salt, I want to go over and eat the mashed potatoes off the girl’s plate, suck the bits off her fingers, try not to bite down.

I wonder does anyone else ever feel this way. Does anyone else ever feel like the wrapper to the taffy.

When I’m done I use the pads of my fingers to get the crumbs, I don’t want to leave nothing behind. Graso, one of the thugs says, sniggers into his hand.

Blood in my heart, blood in my head. It’s a comfort sometimes to think about all the waves of blood lapping just under the surface, all around me.

The thugs get up, still laughing. Down one hallway, I laugh along, down another, I





SPLITS


Momma says you can’t get pregnant if you do the splits and hold your breath for one whole minute after the boy makes his deposit, she watches TV like that, toes pointed, chest tight, sometimes her cheeks puff out like a blowfish I guess, I never seen a blowfish.

Momma’s got friends, David, Joey, Lar, the man with the ears, the man with the briefcase, Jed, the man with the teeth. Sometimes they stay for dinner.

Most nights I push my bike up the hill so I can ride it back down. All us kids used to do it in the neighborhood but I’m the only one still does. I’m not sure what the other kids do now.

I don’t like riding down the hill. Toward the end I go so fast that I’m sure I’ll crash. But it’s what I do in the evenings.

At school a boy pushes his finger into the flesh at my belly and says, You have a fat stomach. We are in science class, he has made a scientific discovery, another boy tries with his finger but I kick him in his checkbook.

I am suspended, I walk home. There is a car in front of our house so I keep walking. It’s hot, air like the inside of a mouth. I walk to the grocery store, read some greeting cards, there is one in the humorous row that I can’t understand. At the deli counter I order a bag of sliced turkey. I eat what I can in the bathroom, flush what I don’t finish.

On the walk back I suddenly get it. Sweat falling like tears. The sun white and singing. Dumb card, dumb everything.

The car is gone, Momma is in the kitchen holding a bag of peas to her arm. Battle scars, she says, winking. She lowers slowly, toes squeaking on the tile, she is in her underwear and I can see her pubic hair. She holds her breath, I take the peas from her to refreeze.

While we’re watching our Tuesday program the doorbell rings, Momma looks surprised, brushing at her sweatpants, it’s clear she isn’t expecting no friends tonight. I let the man in while she freshens up, Momma calls out, Sit tight, the bed ain’t made or nothing, the man asks me about school but he’s looking at the TV.

Pushing my bike up the hill I can’t help it, I look in other people’s windows, some are watching the same program me and Momma were, some are just sitting around a table. I imagine being a stranger walking by and looking in Momma’s window right now, seeing the empty kitchen, the TV on but no one watching, crumpled dress pants outside the door to the back bedroom.

At the top of the hill I see a group of them, sitting on a car under the streetlamp and smoking. Hey, fatgut, one of them calls. A girl in a pink skirt laughs, I recognize her as the girl who got her period all over her gym shorts, she had to go to the school nurse and get a pair of pants from the lost and found. In elementary school I’d spent the night at her house once, we messed with her momma’s makeup and jewelry and she got slapped. Yeah, fatgut, she says.

Through our window you can see a picture of me on the wall, the only picture we have up. It’s from when I was a kid. That’s what I’d want to look at, walking by our house and looking in, thinking, Who is that, where is she?

I still haven’t gotten my period, sixteen years old and no period, Momma says I’m lucky, no splits for me yet. I don’t tell Momma there’d be no need for splits anyway.

I don’t wait for them to say something else, I park my bike and lift my shirt so they can see it, pale under the streetlamp. This what I look like, I tell them. This who I am, you don’t got to tell me. The air is sharp on my skin. They look. They look and look.

If I had the guts I’d tell Momma she’s dumb for believing something like that. For thinking I don’t hear her in there with her friends, wailing like something run over. If I had a different kind of guts, I mean.





SUMMER MASSACRE


Picnic with the in-laws, Gavin’s grandparents. Jim watched Em’s mom bring over a tray. Fizzing glasses, grapes, butterscotches. When Jim had first met Em’s mom, she had an edge to her. That tray would have been all salt. Now it was all sweet and shine and fizz, butterscotches on every plate. Don’t you just love that noise? She meant the wrapper, that throatless whine, the yolk freed from its shell. Ah! Em’s mom placing it on her tongue, her cheek always pouched these days. Em’s hand on Jim’s knee. Gavin braiding dandelions to wreathe around the dog. Em’s dad behind his chair, swishing his ice. Why’s he doing that? Why’re you doing that, kid? Because Mitzi is a princess, said Gavin. Em’s dad cutting his eyes at Jim, the lenses in his bifocals yellowed to butterscotch. Goodbye, drink. You bring your glove? What glove? Jesus. Dad, Em warned. Em’s mom torturing another wrapper. Nin, it seemed to be saying, nin! The dog licked Jim’s ankle, its tongue rapturous, slow, really savoring it. Jim closed his eyes. A butterscotch behind each eyelid, flamed in red. A bloody yolk, the sun exploding. If the end of the world came … what? If the end of the world came … but he just felt tired. If the end of the world came, good night.