Authors: Lindsay Hunter
Daddy's (12 page)
Finally we find a boy. He is pale. We see the blue veins behind his ears, one threading from his right eye to his cheek, he shows us a dagger wrapped in a dustcloth at the bottom of his schoolbag, we take him home with us, we lay beside him on Daddy’s bed. He says I been watching you, I have named you. We pull up his shirt, we write letters over his heart, he says I know that one, that one’s easy but it ain’t your name. We say come with us, bring something to show, he brings the dagger. We pull our box out from under the bed, we open it and pull the newspaper away, we show him what we’ve collected, a few teeth, a purple rock, a used condom, a burned Bible, Daddy’s naked circus people cards. We save it for last, pulling it out and laying it in front of our boy, pulling the lace away until we see its gray form, its tiny penis, we see how its mouth has shriveled since we last saw our baby, we see more of its eyes now, we knock on its chest, we show the boy how baby has become a stone. See how black baby’s tongue is, we tell our boy. See how thirsty. We hold baby up and feed him, when we lift him we remember how like life death smells, we pick maggots from his legs and pump our breasts.
Our boy is sick down his shirt, another smell, he pushes the dagger in the air around us, he runs the blade down our arm, forcing it in at our elbow. He runs from us, we go to the window and watch him run through the yard, down the road toward school, toward nothing beyond, he disappears. Baby is finished eating, we follow our blood back to our bedroom, we pull out the dagger and give it to baby to hold, baby is covered in blood, is alive, we hear Daddy’s truck in the driveway, we cover baby’s mouth and nose with our hand. Hold your breath, baby, we say. We will gather maggots in a jar for Daddy. We will go fishing. We will catch baby, reel him in. We will kiss the gash in his cheek. We will throw him back.
FIFTEEN
Tina’s mama got us some Boone’s. Turtle was on his back in the bathtub upchucking in his sleep. Gin still thought he was cute even as he burbled like a gut fountain. We left her to tend to him. Later on Gin’d be porking Freeman and then Freeman’s little brother. We dared Katie to eat what was left in the ashtray and she did. In the corners of Tina’s mama’s apartment there were little piles of things. Tiny shrines to catshit and dryer lint and wrappers for condoms candy beer-bottles toilet paper lipstick-tubes and various electronics. Tina’s mama was a space clearer, is how you could put it. Joey pushed Katie down into the catshit corner and got emphatic in air-grinding over her. Katie had black smudges at the corners of her mouth from the ashtray and it was clear she was working hard to swallow something back. Joey’s eyes were closed. Later we realized he was humming that one Journey song. Freeman’s little brother was on his back bragging how he could see each individual fan blade in Tina’s mama’s ceiling fan. His eyes went round and round. Ingalls woke up laugh-crying from what had been an hours-long nap. After he caught his breath he screamed EAT AT THE Y, SUCK IT LIKE A STRAW and then tucked himself back into the couch. It was clear he was a sleep-farter but no one wanted to talk about that just yet. Gin killed the bottle of strawberry-flavored and wondered aloud could kissing Ingalls make the zits near his mouth pop. Freeman’s little brother’s hand crept up her ankle and she quieted down. Someone noticed the time. So many hours left to fill. With renewed dedication we paired off to make out, which is a real good time-killer. Katie was asleep with her mouth open but Joey got in there and slurped away. Later we’d call Joey Slurpee and he’d punch a wall over it, not least because it was Katie who he’d been kissing, Katie who ate a ashtray and had a uniboob and a mouth with twice the teeth everybody else had, all coated with a even sheen of butter. Tina’s mama came out in her undies and a tank top and stood in her flip-flops among us. She pushed at Ingalls’ shoulder till he woke up and walked him into her bedroom, holding his arm like a blind man. All the mamas loved Ingalls. He was nearly eighteen so it was alright. Tina’s little sister started crying from her crib and Gin stopped making out with Freeman to make a sympathetic sound before Freeman’s little brother rolled her over his way. Tina made up a bottle of juice and went in and the baby stopped crying. Suddenly we were tired, guppy-mouthing each other. The room smelled like breath. We heard murmurs from Tina’s mama’s bedroom and someone kicked up the fan a notch to drown out the sound. Above it all we could hear the highway just outside Tina’s apartment complex, which sounded like what we imagined the ocean to sound like. Joey put his head in Katie’s lap. Katie’s head lolled until it nestled in the catshit corner. Gin spooned Freeman’s brother. Freeman palmed his balls. Turtle hicced once from the bathroom. Tina settled on the carpeting under the baby’s crib. In the morning our mamas would pick us up while Tina’s mama flipped pancakes to mask the scent of barf and smoke. Our mamas’d drag us to the grocery store, ask what we wanted: Cream of? Instant? 2-minute? Chicken? Meatloaf. Are we out of? Do you need? Ketchup. Mayonnaise. Lightbulbs? Tampons? Kibble? Your father. Your brother. Go and get. Orange? Cherry? Lime. Are you listening? Do you hear me? Look at me. But all that was later. Ingalls came out of Tina’s mama’s room in a long T-shirt and rummaged till he found some Twinkies, and then he went back in. The fan whirred and chilled the room. Our mouths tasted like other mouths. We longed for water. The highway inhaled, exhaled. Later we’d tell about how bored we were and what a redneck Tina’s mama was. We wouldn’t mention how glamorous it felt to say we were bored, and how in the dark we got chill bumps up and down our arms at the idea that this was life, and life smelled like peach carpet spray and cinnamon chewing gum and cheap-flavored wine, all backwashed up.
SEX ARMAGEDDON
To keep warm we play sex armageddon. It used to be called analocalypse. Sex armageddon sounds more serious and less specific.
Anything goes in sex armageddon. Jordan once snorted a Frito and coughed it out onto my breasts, then clapped them together until the Frito was in bits.
We’ve been living in Jordan’s car for about six weeks now, parked on an overlook. In the mornings Jordan meanders down the mountain to wash dishes in the kitchen of a bowling alley. I straighten up the car, read, nap, wash myself with the moist towlettes Jordan brings home. My mother told me I’d amount to nothing if I kept following Jordan around, and she was right. But amounting to nothing is also a job, it takes work, if you let slack a little you can find yourself thinking fondly of the orange walls at the high school you dropped out of, or of the crispy onions your mother sprinkled over your pizza, or of the ceiling you’d look into while you dreamed of being an actress or something.
In the evening Jordan comes back with dinner. Sometimes it’s something hot from the kitchen, whatever he can get, a large fries, some jalapeno poppers. Sometimes it’s whatever he got from the vending machine. Oreos. Mixed nuts. Fritos.
Tonight it’s garlic mashed potatoes and peanut M&M’s. Jordan mixes his together, tells me to do the same. This really fat woman fell as she was pitching her ball, he says. Her dress flew up and she had a big old wedge. A triangle of blue M&M shell clings to his lip. It was hilarious, he says.
After dinner Jordan pushes the remnants of our meal to the floorboards, looks at me seriously, and says Okay. His sex armageddon cue.
As always, Jordan plays Satan and commands me, playing God, to bow down to him. I never do, and the battle commences. Jordan’s only weapon is his penis, or his demon staff, but I get to use whatever I can find. He pins me, my back against the door handle, and pulls my pants down. I could fight him off, but I never fight him off. In he goes, the Beast, the Fallen, pumping a few good ones and shouting Sur. Ren. Der.
Never, I say. As God, I don’t raise my voice. Instead I stick a Bic pen I find in the glove compartment up his ass and cup his balls with my hand, immobilizing him. For a moment he looks like he will swallow his tongue, or come too early. I take the opportunity to pull my legs from under him, push him back, and sit on his face. I command thee to submit, I tell him. I grind his face a little so he can’t answer just yet.
Usually Jordan will pull my hair until my face is inches from his demon staff, then command me to suck. I bend a little, so my hair is within his reach, but the second I realize he isn’t reaching for my hair, he comes, his body shuddering, his hands hovering near his penis as if to help an old man who might just fall.
I dismount, pulling my pants back on, and he uses the napkins from dinner to clean up. Hoo, he says. Hooee. Then he says, You want me to finish you off or something?
My pants are already back on, I tell him, and he relaxes. The bit of M&M is gone from his lip and I wonder if it’s somewhere in my pubic hair. Come here, he says, patting his chest. The napkin is still stuck to his skin and it flutters gently, like paper wings. I put my head on his shoulder and Jordan says We got to keep warm. He rubs my arm a little, then falls asleep, his nose whistling softly, a sweet garlicky smell blowing out of his open mouth.
My mother had given me the talk early. Seven years old. She said The man enters you and fills your emptiness. The man fills you up good and you should enjoy it when it happens.
I come out from under Jordan’s arm. Gooseflesh runs across his skin so I put his jacket over him. He doesn’t wake up when I open the car door or when I close it behind me.
It’s early enough in the fall that it’s still light enough out, and I begin walking down the mountain, my bare feet noiseless in the road. I smell sex on myself, salty, bleachlike, moist. I travel in a bubble of sex, sticky skin, used up. The few times Jordan and I have driven up or down the mountain I swear I’ve seen water, a lake or something, and I plan on using the last of the light to dip in, to make myself smell like anything else—mud, water, or nothing at all.
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