To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him (13 page)

The stupid banana chick was obviously high. Worse than that, though, she won’t stay still in his mind. First she’s herself, with the weasel-looking face. Then, her face turns to Rosario’s from down the street. Rosario in torn, short shorts. Then she’s someone else altogether: someone else in a pair of jeans. The back of those jeans, walking away from him. Just the other day. Tight jeans. No, it’s not Rudy’s cousin. She’s too young.

It must have been Rosario’s jeans. She walks by Happy Land about five times a day.

“Stupid!” she says when the guys whistle at her.
“Stoo
pid!”

Actually, they said she’s pregnant now. So he can’t think about her anymore.

There’s the girl who works at Happy Land. She’s nice, but sort of scary at the same time, with her black eyes, lips and nails. Not her either, then.

Sweating now, Tony thinks of the banana chick and does what he has to do. Her face flickers like a slide show and transforms from one girl’s to another’s. When he’s finally done, he feels the beer messing up his stomach. He makes himself go spit in the sink.

Tina helps with dinner, like always. Her grandmother shuffles through the kitchen, muttering.

“You shouldn’t spend the night at Melissa’s house so much. Her mother probably wishes you’d go home. You spent the whole weekend there. I need you here, helping me. I’m getting too old to do everything by myself.”

Tina chops pickles. The old lady shuffles to her room to answer the phone. At the same time, the front door bangs open and slams shut. Tina hopes it isn’t Rudy, but knows it is.

“Hey, I just saw Crazy Tony. He says he wants to meet you tonight by the store. I told him you would go.”

He moves closer to Tina. She turns so that the big bowl she’s holding is between them.

“Grandma, did you want me to put pepper in the tuna fish?” she calls.

Her grandmother’s still talking on the phone.

“I told him you’d go see him because you’re always going to see your boyfriends at night. Beto told me he saw you and your little friend at Studewood Park with two guys. He said y’all had on short little skirts and shirts with no bras. . . .”

He leans as close to her face as he can in order to say this last part softly. His hands move forward, floating on either side of her like hot, sweaty blimps. She leans back as far as she can against the stove.

Her grandmother comes through the sheet that hangs between her bedroom and the kitchen.

“Here . . . let me taste it and see.”

Rudy calmly stands up straight, takes a pickle off the cutting board and eats it. His grandmother slaps his hand.

“A little bit more pepper. That’s all. What are you doing home,
m’ijo?
I thought you were going to see Manuel.”

“I did, Grandma. I’m gonna start working with him again. He said he’s been waiting for me to come back, since I’m the only one he can trust to drive his delivery truck.”

“Well, that’s good,” their grandmother says. “That’s what I figured.”

“As soon as I get my first paycheck, I’m gonna go to the flea market and get you that ashtray I was telling you about . . . the marble one from Japan with the Virgin Mary on it.”

Tina turns back to her cooking. She’s glad Rudy will be out dealing again, no matter what he tells their grandmother.

It’s Monday morning, so everyone in the house is asleep, except for Tina. Her brothers have been gone since dark. Whether they went to school or not, she doesn’t know.

Her grandmother never wakes up when Tina sneaks into her bedroom, a room that could almost be considered pretty. In the bathroom, faded roses surround her. Tina reaches across all the dusty toiletries on the bureau to take the bottle of Emeraude. Muffling it with her t-shirt, she sprays a tiny bit down at her stomach, where she can be sure no one will smell it. This ritual complete, she gazes into the smoky mirror.

She examines her chin, forehead and the corners behind her nostrils. She runs her hands through her hair, then gathers it all on top of her head. She purses her lips and raises one brow and then the other.

The light coming through the room’s tiny, whitewashed window shows that there’s still a bit of time before the bus comes. Tina crouches down and slides open the bottom bureau drawer.

Under the embroidered handkerchiefs and buttoned gloves that no one will ever use again, there’s a very small amount of makeup. Tina ignores the crusted black pancake of mascara, the stale-smelling pancake of “pancake” and the siren song of the blue eye shadow that has gotten her in trouble before. Her fingers go directly to the tiny sample tube of Avon Pink Sails lipstick. This morning, she will be brave.

The lipstick is the exact color of her lips. But something about it makes her face different in the mirror. Her chin tilts and her eyes wink knowingly all on their own. Tina slips out of her grandmother’s room and then out the front door.

On the way to the bus stop, hugging her books to her chest, Tina imagines what Melissa will say. Her parents never let her wear makeup. Poor Melissa. She’ll be very, very jealous.

All of a sudden, Tina sees a cat.

She jaywalks across the street to the bus stop near the old fire station, where the tabby cat is rubbing its chin against a bent corner of the garage door. It looks up as she arrives, pupils dilating against the morning sun. Tina gets all the way up to it and then bends down and extends her hand. The cat minces away, slipping through the space between the fire station and the chain-link fence surrounding the neighboring weed-filled lot.

“Aw . . . come on, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty,” Tina calls.

It watches with narrowed eyes. She reaches for its face through the fence.

A car honks behind her, but Tina doesn’t notice. She stretches her fingers through one of the fence’s pewter diamonds and touches a single whisker. The cat never takes a step back, but its somehow able to pull its head a remarkable distance away without seeming to move at all.

“Hey,” says a man’s voice. Tina spins around to see who’s there. It’s a bald business man in an old blue Buick, idling right there at the bus stop sign.

“Good morning. You’re looking real pretty today. Need a ride?”

Tina averts her eyes, looking toward the neon bail bonds signs in the distance. There’s a lot of traffic, so the man is forced to drive on. Relieved, she turns back to the cat. It’s gone. She sighs and turns back towards the street, leaning her back against the fire station wall. It looks like she missed the 7:55. She’ll have to wait for the 8:06 now.

After a while, the blue Buick comes back.

“Where are you going? To school? Get in and I’ll give you a ride.”

The man is leaning far across the bench seat to peer at her out of his passenger-side window, ready to open the door.

Again, Tina looks down the street as if she doesn’t hear him.

“Come on. Get in.”

She stares steadily down the street, waiting for the bus to come around the corner three blocks away.

The car behind the Buick honks and the man has to drive on again. Out of the corner of her eye, Tina sees him turn the corner to come around the block again. She squints down the avenue to her left, eyes watering. She can almost see . . . she sees it. Here’s the bus.

Also, here’s Crazy Tony.

He’s coming towards her. A block away.

Tina strains her eyes to read the lighted name on the top of the bus as it effortlessly catches up with Tony and then passes him by. H . . . A . . . Wrong one. It passes her, too.

Tony comes closer and closer. He’s walking quickly, with his hands in his pockets. He’s looking down at the cracked sidewalk, but Tina can see that his lips are moving continuously. He’s talking to himself. She steps back into the four inches of shelter provided by the recess of the fire station’s garage door, flattening her back against it.

Meanwhile, the blue Buick is cruising up to the bus stop once again. No one’s behind it this time, so the bald man comes to a complete stop. He leans towards the passengerside window again and opens his mouth to speak. But Tina speaks first.

“Look, I don’t want a damned ride, okay?”

The man shuts his mouth. He’s silent for a second, staring at her. Tina looks at a yellow stain on his blue-stripped tie.

When he finally speaks, it’s loud. “Hey, you little bitch. Who do you think you are? Someone needs to teach you some manners.”

Tina decides to go back to ignoring him.

He talks louder. “I’m over here trying to be a gentleman, offering a ride to a little slut like you. The least you could do is say thank you. Do you hear me? I ought to get out of this car and slap your little face.”

Tina looks away to the right, eyes stinging.

Crazy Tony’s reached the bus stop by now. He might have heard the whole thing. She puts her hand up to her mouth, fights the urge to completely cover her face.

But Tony doesn’t seem to have noticed anything. The man twists in his seat to look at him, and Tina considers taking the opportunity to run away. Her hands fall to her sides. Her legs tense.

“Look, why don’t you just get in the car and I won’t be mad.”

By then Tony has gotten close enough for Tina to hear that he isn’t talking to himself. He’s quietly singing “Born in the USA.” But now he stops singing, stops walking and looks at the man, who says to Tina, “You coming or not?”

Tony looks at Tina as if he’s just noticed her standing there.

“Tina, is this guy messing with you?”

She looks down at her feet.

“Hey, man, are you messing with her?”

“Nobody’s messing with anyone. This young lady just asked me for a ride.”

Tony stares at the man for about five seconds.

“Get out of here. She don’t play that shit, man. I don’t play that shit either. Get out of here.”

The guy opens his mouth as if to say something, but then instead moves back to the driver’s seat, puts the car in gear, and takes off, yelling “You’re crazy!”

Tina is left alone with Crazy Tony.

There’s a long silence. She doesn’t look to see if he’s still looking at her. Eventually, she remembers the manners her grandmother taught her.

“Thanks.”

“Tina, you need to be careful. There’s some messed-up guys around here.”

“Yeah, well . . . thanks.”

The bus pulls up with a loud squeal and a release of air. Tina hurries into it.