Don't Kiss Me: Stories(9)

Me and Gin got to agree on things, cause she’s my first friend and I got to hold on tight.

Me and Gin like to play preacher and supplicant, Gin is always the preacher and I am always the supplicant. Gin saying, You a fearful sinner, young lady, and me heaving my shoulders, begging, Please. I never say what I’m pleasing for, just Please, please.

Sometimes Gin slaps me in the head and I fall and wriggle, watching the pink blades of her ceiling fan with my boggled eyes, I am consumed with the power of her touch, least I think that’s what I’m doing, other times Gin’ll say, All right, cause that means she’s done and I need to be done too.

Me and Gin hold hands in the movies, practicing, till a fat lady sits in our row.

Me and Gin had a fight once, when I came upon her sitting on my brother’s bed like she does on mine. And my brother just tiddling with his football, poke arms sticking out his muscle shirt like creamy bone. Gin and my brother, talking like they was afraid of the sound. And me wanting to say, Hold up, this is mine and this is mine, I almost said it, but I didn’t, cause no one likes to be claimed. Instead I said, Guess I’ll go to the bathroom now, and I did, and I looked at my face in the mirror so long I got so I couldn’t recognize it.

Me and Gin made up and she let me wear her hair clip for the afternoon.

Me and Gin like to ride our bikes out to the Circle K. I get Gin a Faygo and me a Yoo-hoo and this one time at the last second I add a six-pack of lightbulbs, a treat for Gin, she don’t know what joy she in for. We ride a few blocks and then I say, Okay, Gin, time to stop. Then I show her what I mean, I get me a lightbulb and place it on the ground and then I whomp on it with both feet, the sound, the sound, the God-loving crunch. Now you, I tell Gin, but she ain’t smiling like I am, and she don’t take the lightbulb from my hand. Have fun cleaning that up, Gin says, and goes after her kickstand with a fury that makes her miss it the first try. I didn’t mean to, I call after her, cause this is what you supposed to say in a apology situation, but Gin don’t look back. But see I did mean to, how could I not?

Me and Gin decide she is right, we are too old and feminine for stomping anything into dust. Gin’s momma makes us graham crackers and butter, Gin licking the butter off with the tip of her tongue, I say, No, thanks, I ate a healthy lunch, which is a lie.

Me and Gin talk about what we going to wear the first day of school, I pretend to think about it and say, I believe I will wear my jean shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t have no other options, cause Daddy says we got to make do with what we have, ’less clothes rain from the sky that is, and that is A-OK by me, I like my shorts. But Gin is disappointed, her face a curdled pie, so I add, And some cherry lip chap, and this does the trick.

Me and Gin. That is fun to say, it is right, it is a joyful clump of words. Me and Gin is forever, we planets, everything outside us all but a darkness.

Me and Gin say we best get the same classes or else, cause we is best friends and nothing can change that. I say, Yep, we blood brothers, cause it is nighttime and I’m in my sleeping bag on her floor and it is like the night sky burbling stars is inside me, but Gin says, We ain’t boys, and we don’t mess with blood, and this is a disappointment, but I let it pass, I pretend to sleep, I don’t tell Gin how our blood glitters, how we half light, I keep all that to myself.





OUR MAN


THE SISTER:

Don’t worry, I said. This will hurt, and then it won’t. Or go ahead and worry, I said, if that’s the kind of person you are.

THE DETECTIVE:

What am I here for, if the crime’s been solved?

First you hafta name the crime.

Easy: murder.

That’s only the beginning, Detective Tin Ears.

One of those.

One of those. Better you than me. I’ve got enough blood on my hands.

I’ll start with the scene.

When you find out where that is, you let me know.

Women.

Women.

THE SISTER:

How about this: a man bleeds in velvety ribbons. Our man is a teapot with two spouts. His heart is still intact, if that’s what you’re worried about. (His heart is the problem.) Our man bleeds blackly, redly, deadly. Our man was gone in a few great gushes. I’m a collector and I came to.

It’s me. You can be you. I’ve been honest and I’m being honest now. Blood is just as thick as we’ve heard. Blood doesn’t cool if you admit relief. That rustcolored pump will throb on and on.

Somebody tarred Daddy to the floor.

I can’t deny it’s gorgeous that a brain sees what its experience has trained it to see. If you’ve never known love it’s clear you’d mistake it for something else. Loneliness perhaps. Greed.

How about: blood congeals and forms a skin. Or: our man’s dying breath lasted fifteen seconds. This: we both love(d) you more than life itself.

THE DETECTIVE:

The detective set out. Squeezed the last bits of whiskey from the Ziploc he kept in his breast pocket. The road unfurled in the white wash from his headlights. He had her underwear in his fist, damp with blood, and when he held them to his mouth he smelled iron, or something that should be called iron. Perhaps it really was a man’s blood.

When they found her, two severed ears were gripped in her bloodslick hands. She declined the offer to hand them over. She was naked except for the underwear. A lady cop was called in to cuff her.