Coffee Grounds

“What can I do for you, sir? Cup of coffee? Coke? Or you one of them nervy ones that just drinks water?” I whip my head up from the ad-covered placemat and slowly take in the woman with the fiery twangy voice. Her deep brown hair is loosely tied back in a ponytail, inviting stray curly strands to cascade around her pensive face, caught somewhere between agitation and exhaustion. She leans her back against the metal counter, that rattles like a loose fan belt as she shifts around in the canary-yellow uniform that clings to her womanly shape. A beauty like her must garner a hundred catcalls a day from the hodge-podge of rough-faced men scattered around this blip of a restaurant. “Sir...? I don’t have all day here. Ten of them are waiten behind you, so you’d better hop to it or else I’m gonna leave you to think about whatever you’ve been thinkin bout behind them sad blue eyes and that scruff of a beard. You gotta trim that sucker cuz you look like you rolled outta the woods.” Stroking my face, I feel the patchy tufts that have sprouted all over after three days without shaving.

I spotted The Sunrise Diner on the corner of the main four-way stop in Hurtstown, Missouri, right across from Harley Brothers Laundromat and Dr. George Bacon’s Family Practice—boasting services for both humans and their pets. Flower boxes overflowing with petunias and marigolds hung under every window of the diner and a red and white striped overhang hung above the screen doorway, which continuously swung open and closed as men dressed in various jump-suits and plaid shirts walked in and out. As I pulled my 1986 red Camaro into the driveway, the gravel crunching with each turn of the wheels, a faint scent of bacon grease and burned coffee trickled in my car windows.

“Oh, sorry, ma’am. I guess I’ll have...” The flimsy cardboard menu dances in my nervous fingers and I scrutinize each line, while she taps her ballpoint pen on the counter. Tap. Tap. Tap. Like a clock. Reminding me of every moment passing by. Time spent doing what? Two months driving across the country to find a new world. Driving across the country to get away from an old world. Tap. Tap. Dammit, where are you going, Daniel? That’s what Katelyn asked me before she got on the train. And I didn’t know what to say.


“What do you wanna be when you grow up? A trickle of smoke mixed with the words as they left Katelyn’s red-rimmed mouth, and she delicately handed me the joint. Inhaling deeply, I looked down at the grassy ground below us and wondered if I would land on two-feet if I jumped from this two-story dorm window?

“Huh, did you ask me something?” I tapped the joint on the clay ashtray that Katelyn’s younger sister, Jocelyn, made in her fifth grade art class. Of course, it was supposed to be a “bowl,” but the edges, misshapen by hyperactive adolescent hands, made the perfect resting spots for a stray clove cigarette or a joint saved for later.

“What? Pot make you deaf, too?” A hearty laugh escaped Katelyn’s slightly-chapped lips.

“Sorry, that was kinda harsh. Damn. I love this stuff.” I held the joint for Katelyn, as I filled the air with smoky rings. She waved it off, her neon-orange fingernails catching the little bit of sunlight left at dusk.

“Do you ever just wonder about what your purpose is in life? Not like what you want to do, but what you are supposed to do. You know, like your calling. Your purpose in life. Like you are some...” Closing my eyes, I absorbed all that’s left of the smoldering nub. The smoke leaked from the corners of my thin lips, transforming Katelyn into an abstract painting. “...like you are an integral part of the world and if you don’t fulfill that role you will somehow upset the balance.”

“Okay, now you’re starting to sound like some George Lucas movie.” Katelyn reached out and fluffed up my shaggy dark brown hair with her piano-trained fingers, their strength their pressing against my skull. “Don’t worry so much, Danny Boy. I know you’ve got it in there.” A slightly chilled hand rested against my chest.

“But why can’t I figure out what it is? Katie, I have no idea what I want to do. What if I graduate and go onto to law school and become that great politician that Mother wants me to be?” Wrapping my hands around her narrow waist, I pulled her toward me, her plaid flannel shirt and her short blonde hair flapping in the slight breeze. I pressed her head against my white t-shirt, feeling her breath like a furnace on my chest. “I just don’t know if I could be that person? I don’t feel him anywhere inside of me. I just don’t know what I feel like being and I’m scared that I never will.”

“Okay, I’m gonna to deal with you like I deal with my five year old niece. You got five seconds...five...four...” She stops as I glance up. Her lips are pressed in a tight bright red line of mounting annoyance. My sister Megan got the same look on her freckled face when she dragged poor Frankie Powers into my bedroom and pointed to the crushed goldfish crackers plastered on his hooded sweatshirt like tiny orange scales. At the tender age of five, I didn’t understand why my seventeen year old sister didn’t appreciate my goldfish cracker gifts. I mean, I liked goldfish crackers, why didn’t she? My siblings never really connected with me, nor did they really try. I guess, that being twelve and fourteen years older meant that they weren’t required to put forth the effort.

“I’ll just take a coffee.” The menu hangs limply in the air as Marguerite’s large, round eyes analyze me. Starting with my holey black Converse, they travel up my now loose-fitting faded jeans, past my plain white t-shirt and braided leather necklace I got in Des Moines—oh, that woman had the most luscious lips– and fix upon my face, as if she is trying to connect the freckles peppering my nose. Her pensive face slackens for a minute, revealing just a sliver of emotion in the slight droop of her mouth. Suddenly, her eyes snap closed and she shakes her head, as if she is trying to forget something. Just as I open my mouth, her face tightens back up and her eyes fly open.

“Coffee? After all that, you just wanna damn...”

“Watch your tongue, Marguerite ” yells a husky voice. I look up and see a white-bearded man through the pass-through in the wall, with years of managing a meager restaurant reflected in the sweat and wrinkles on his face. Marguerite rolls her eyes and the sun trickling in through the front windows accentuates the deep jade hidden within their depths.

“Sorry, ma’am, I’m not much of one for the whole breakfast thing.” I smack the menu down on the counter, causing the salt and pepper shakers to clink in reply.

“You’re one of them Northerners, aren’t you? They never want any food to eat. Just get me a coffee, they say. And, of course, it’s gotta be black. Don’t be wantin to be puttin any of that sugar in there. And heaven forbid I splash a bit of cream in there. Might be fifty calories in that. Then they gonna complain that they gotta get back on that treadmill. ‘Gotta keep the figure,’ they say. All you the same.” Marguerite pauses for a moment, her face, burning red with passionate anger. For some reason, I want to kiss her. To feel the fire burn my lips and ignite the part within in me that’s been dead since that day two months ago, when I pulled out of my parents’ driveway for the last time. She taps me on the shoulder with her notepad, disrupting the fantasy.

“Oh jeez, sorry.” I clear my throat. “Well, you’ve convinced me. So Ms. Marguerite, what’s good here?” Marguerite composes herself and her face relaxes into an excited smile.

“Well, nothin here’s great...”

“Marguerite, you’re supposed to be sellin, not scarin ” yells the voice from the kitchen.

“Oh, shut your trap, Terrence. You keep to the food, and I’ll keep to the schmoozin.” She flips her ponytail back over her shoulder and starts tapping the pen again. “He’s such a grouch sometimes. Though I guess he’s got reasons.” She leans in towards my right ear and my nose twitches as the acid smell of cheap perfume wafts my direction. “His wife left him last year. Up and took their baby and their truck to who knows where. Rumor is she ran off with his cousin, but who really knows with the way gossip gets round. He hasn’t had any action since.” She pulls away and winks, her heart-shaped face filled with the glow of mischievous pleasure.

“Poor guy.” My stomach growls. Guess Marguerite was right. God, I can’t even remember the last time I ate. Maybe somewhere around Oklahoma City. Yeah, it was some little pizza parlor with the biggest damn slices of gooey cheese pizza and the sweetest old couple. The woman was German and told me all about how she immigrated when she was twelve years old and how her father had put her in an English speaking high school and told her to suck it up and learn English. God, that had to have been two days ago.

“Then again, he’d been hittin her for sometime. We saw all them bruises when she’d come into work. It’s really no surprise that she flew the coop. I woulda done the same myself. Plus, there ain’t no love there. You can’t make a marriage outta frying bacon while you’re bangin on the kitchen counter,” she whispers. “Anyways, nuff of me chattin. We gotta get you some food.” She snags the menu from my hands. “I’m puttin you down for The Leo. Best thing on the menu. Fried eggs, bacon, toast, and some of our good ol’ down South cheese grits. I know it ain’t no fruit platter, but it’ll fill you up and keep you goin all day long.”

When I was five, I ran away from home for the first time. I’m not exactly sure what finally drove me to do it. Probably some run in with my witch of a nanny, Ms. Durge. That woman lived up to her name. Dull and full of bitterness, Ms. Durge found delight in destroying my imagination with stories of her childhood in the slums of New York, like how she earned money delivering newspapers to drug dealers and how her father was a drunk who used to hit her with a sock full of bird seed. If I fell asleep or showed any signs of boredom, she smacked me with a magazine. Every morning, before Mother retreated to her sun porch, where she spent the afternoons by herself, I begged her to get a new nanny. But Mother just waved me off with her bejeweled hand and told me to suck it up with those thin pink lips. That’s always how my parents treated me, as if I should be more appreciative of my life. Sometimes, I feel they blamed me for being an accident child.

Using a green crayon and my Power Rangers coloring book, I constructed a map consisting of a long squiggly line that ran over the pink ranger’s face and traveled from a circle to a star. The circle was my house, which lingered on the outskirts of the town of Adonis, Pennsylvania. (I like to tell people that Adonis has a small amount of people, but a large amount of money.) The star was Jordan River, which was a half mile down the road from my house and the only redeemable quality of Adonis. I caught my first fish, wrote my first story, and lost virginity next to that river. Sometimes, I feel like the Jordan knows me better than anyone else in the Compson family. Before I met Katelyn, the river was the only one who ever took the time to listen.

The next morning, I woke up right before sunrise and grabbed my stuffed guinea pig Franklin that my Aunt Victoria bought me in France, three Hostess cupcakes, a pocket-sized flashlight, and my lavender baby blanket. Balling everything into one giant glob, I shoved it into my Mighty Max backpack and walked out the front door.

By the time the warm summer sun was up, I was already settled by the river. The mud squished between my toes as I crouched at the water’s edge, merrily fishing for translucent crayfish as they pranced across the slimy river floor. I was completely happy. Little did I know, only an hour later, I’d be sitting in the police station, sadly sucking on a cherry-flavored lollipop as a chubby officer with a lisp phoned my parents. Though my escape turned out to be a bust, I always held onto that feeling of freedom in my heart.


“Reetey, whatcha doin’ with that boy? We want some eggs over ‘ere ” hollers a burly man. He looks like a trucker with his rough face framed in a scraggly orange beard and blazing blue eyes peeping out from under his dingy green John Deere hat. He’s the type of person that Father loved to pick out in a grocery store and then proceed to loudly explain why I shouldn’t converse with him. You don’t want them to bring you down to their level, he’d say. Life was all about levels to Father. If you weren’t on his level or above, you weren’t worthy of his acknowledgment. The day I stood in the driveway and told him I was tired of being stuffed with political theory bull shit and that I wanted to drop out of Princeton and travel the country, he interrogated me with his beady blue eyes and told me that I had left his level and, therefore, his life.

“I just want some time to figure things out. You know as well as I do that I’m not cut out to be a lawyer or a politician or whatever it is that Mother envisions me to be.”

“I’ll have no son of mine becoming a bum. You’ll suck it up and drive right back to that university and get yourself a real education. It’s time for you to grow up and face reality.” My father ran his fingers through the brown wig that Mother had bought him on his sixtieth birthday. No one ever had the heart to tell him that it was perpetually a little off-center.
“I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep faking who I am. I just want to be happy.”

“So what makes you happy then, Daniel? Perpetually pissing your supportive parents off?”

“Supportive? Do you call dictating my life being supportive? Never once have I made a decision for myself. It’s always, ‘well, Daniel, you should do this’ or more like ‘Daniel, this is what you are doing.’ I have no idea who I am and I just need to figure that out before I can go any further. Can’t you understand that?”

“Leave...”

“What?”

“Get the fuck off my driveway. I don’t need riffraff cluttering the yard. It’s embarrassing.”

“Fine. I’ll get off your fucking driveway and out of your fucking life. Does that make you happy? It’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? No more fucking Daniel to deal with anymore.” Father grunted and turned around and silently walked up the driveway. As I watched him walk away, I waited for him to turn around and say that he still cared about me or even to just wave goodbye. Yet, his eyes fixed forward, as he typed in the code for the security system: Seven, two, eight, six. My birthday.

“FUCK YOU ” I screamed as I watched him walk inside, slamming the large oak door behind him.


“Shut your yap, John. He was here first so, he’s gonna get fed first. Didn’t your momma teach you anythin bout patience?” snaps Marguerite. John opens his mouth to defend himself, the words hanging on the tip of his tongue, but closes it quickly, submitting to Marguerite’s rebuke.

“Sorry, I’m such a pain. You should go along and help them.” I hold the menu out to her and she snatches it up.

“Don’t worry bout it, honey. It’s good for John to learn how to wait. Plus, it’s not too often I get someone new to talk to round here. We don’t get too many visitors in Hurtstown. Then again, I don’t blame ‘em. We ain’t exactly Atlanta.” She winks again, allowing some of her hidden youthfulness to shine through.

“Believe me, Atlanta is overrated. I find these little joints so much more exciting and I feel like I actually get to talk to real people rather than people who’ve been programmed to be something else.”

“I’m with you there. Bout five years ago, when I was twenty-five and still fresh-faced...”

“Oh come on. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Don’t you be butterin me all up. You’re gonna have to try harder if you wanna get me in bed.”

“Oh really...”

“Oh yeah, honey. We’ll have this conversation when we close at two.”

“God, you’re a feisty one.”

“I gotta be to handle these sorts.” Her gaze travels across packed room, taking in the menagerie of work-worn faces. The jade eyes settle on me and we hang there for a second as if time has ceased to exist. Suddenly, the awkwardness of the moment overcomes me, and I shift my gaze down to the placemat again. Marguerite shakes her head and scribbles on her notepad. “So you’re gonna have some coffee and The Leo then?”

“Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Marguerite.” Marguerite scurries off to John’s table. My eyes study this elusive woman. The dusty Keds, their rubber soles squeaking against the tile floor with each heavy step. Thick, alabaster calves shaped by hours, days, and years of making a living on the movement of her feet. The succulently round hips leading to a slight waist like a maternal goddess from a Greek myth. And the ample breasts…Marguerite, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women…


“I’ve got something to tell you,” squealed Katelyn as she burst through the kitchen door, her round face aglow.

“Please don’t tell me you’re pregnant. I really don’t think my seed should be spread,” I called from the purple loveseat, bleeding stuffing from its threadbare armrests. I snap Sarte’s Being and Nothingness closed and set it on the rickety coffee table.

“Honestly, I don’t think either one of us should reproduce, and together? God, that would be one fucked up kid.” Katelyn flopped on the couch next to me, her now cotton-candy pink hair smacking me in the face.

“Mmm, I just love the taste of hair in the afternoon.” Reaching my arm around her bare shoulders, I pulled her closer. “So what is this ‘something?’ You didn’t make another woman pass out, did you?”

“Jesus, let me tell the story jabber jaws. I got into law school ” Katelyn wriggled out of my grasp and jumped up off the couch. “At University of Michigan God, Ann Arbor, just the city I’ve been needing. You know what? They only have a fine for smoking pot? It’s wild. I love it.”

My mouth froze, as the words piled up in the back of my throat. Katelyn stared at me, as if her confused gaze would summon a reply from within me.

“Well, thank you for the congratulations, asshole ” yelled Katelyn, her pale face red with anger. She whipped around and stormed toward the kitchen.

“Wait.” I jumped off the couch and stubbed my toe on the coffee table. “Goddammit ”

Katelyn stopped and turned around, watching me hop around on one foot, while rubbing my swelling toe.

“I get it, Daniel.”

“Get what?”

“You’re jealous.”

“What, come on. I was just shocked.”

“Bullshit. I can see it. You’re jealous because I actually know what I want to do with my life and you’re still sitting around reading books and skipping class.” My head drooped, as the weight of Katelyn’s words pressed down upon me. “Daniel, just for once, could you get out of your head and be happy for me?”

I reached my arms out to Katelyn and she walked toward me, settling into their grasp. “I’m really sorry, Katie. I am excited for you, really. You’re gonna make one damn good lawyer. D.C. had better look out.” Laying my chin on her head, I feel the tears welling in the corners of my eyes.

“Here you go ” A ceramic mug slams down on the counter in front of me, splattering my hand with a few drops of black sludge.

“Thank you.” I whip around, hoping to catch a glance of Marguerite, but she’s already across the room, serving a group of men in stark white shirts and skinny black ties. It seems funny to see business men like that out in these parts. I wonder what they do? Pig consulting? Then again, I’ve come to realize, you can do about anything. When I was at a pharmacy purchasing toothpaste in Los Angeles—what a superficial place—I waited in line with a short, balding man with an undecipherable accent who was a ‘shoe de-wrinkler.’ Motioning with his leathery hands, he showed me how he smoothed out the wrinkles with a special little iron. He pointed to the bubbled, white scars that dotted his hands. I better now. No burns, he told me right before he bought a little bottle of witch hazel. Good for cuts, he chirped as he stroked his face. As I looked down at my Converse, I realized how interconnected we all are. Yet, I still couldn’t seem to figure out where I fit into the scheme.

“How did you become a shoe-dewrinkler?” I inquired as we walked out of the pharmacy.

“I need money and cousin told me there was job.” He smiled a big toothy grin. “And it good job. Good people. You work?”

“Not now. Kinda trying to figure that out.”

“Ahh.” He placed his hand on my bare arm. “You great man. Just lost. You find it. It right here” He motioned to his heart. “Move it here.” Then he pointed to his head. That’s probably the best advice anyone has ever given me. I just haven’t figured out how to follow it.


I take a sip of the coffee, gagging as the vile taste of burned beans hits my tongue. Tastes just like the coffee Katelyn used to make. She could never get the balance right, and the coffee was either dirty dishwater or motor oil. Every day, I’d pour it into my Frosty the Snowman thermal mug, dump it out halfway to class, and buy a grande dark roast at Starbucks. I never had the heart to tell her. Waking up every morning to the smell of ruined coffee reminded me that there was someone in the world who truly cared about me.

“So what brings a boy like you to these parts?” I nearly jump out of my seat, barely managing to keep all of my coffee in the cup. Marguerite perches herself on the stool next to me.

“How in the...you blow me away, Marguerite. You must be some kind of super hero.”

“Honey, I ain’t nothin of the sorts. I’m just one busy woman. Fallin behind is the death of a waitress, and there ain’t no use speedin up the end of my life.” She grabs a fresh coffee mug, flips it over, and pours herself a cup of the sludge. Wrapping her hands around the body of the cup, she closes her eyes as the warmth seeps through her nearly transparent skin. My mother has that same skin. Whenever we’d go to the beach, she always complained about how sensitive her skin was and how she had to use SPF 75 sun screen specially purchased from some place in Canada for an unbelievable amount of money . No matter what, there was always something for her to complain about, whether it was the mole on her forehead, the doors my father left open, the retail ads that flooded our mailbox, or the younger son who never managed to become the lawyer/politician she’d always imagined he’d be. No, nothing in the world was ever good enough for Emma Compson.

“Always a comeback, huh?” I say as I swirl the coffee around in my cup.

“Hey, I ain’t never let any comment go. Believe me, I got somethin to say bout pretty much everythin. Ol’ Terrence tells me I got too much to say.” Marguerite pulls her hair out of her ponytail and runs her fingers through it. I’ve got to use all the force in my body to keep myself from reaching out and grabbing it. Hair’s always been my weakness with women. Hair and boobs. But hair first. I love to get my fingers all wrapped up in it and rub my face in all that silkiness. Oh, and making love, there’s nothing sexier than feeling her long locks fall all over your face or whipping in the air with each thrust. Katelyn’s hair was so thick and it wrapped
up in my fingers just right.

“Not at all. You’re kind of refreshing. Where I come from, honesty is pretty much discouraged.”

“Well, thank you, sir. That is a kind comment. Not the best I’d ever heard, but nice.”

“You and your honesty. You’re something else, Marguerite.” I take a slug of coffee and hold it in my mouth, letting the bitterness hit each taste bud.

“That’s right. I ain’t gonna beat round the bush. I’m gonna tell you straight what I think. My daddy said, ‘There ain’t no use in tellin lies. No matter what, they always comin back to bite you square in the ass.’”

“Smart man.”

“Sometimes. God rest his soul.”

“Oh, sorry. He passed away?”

“You sure are a quick one, sir.” Marguerite takes a sip of coffee and looks up at the Coke bottle clock on the wall behind the pie carousel. “Lord, you’re makin me talk bout myself and skirtin round the question I give you. What’re you doin here, sir? You got somethin to hide, ain’t you? Don’t you worry bout that. Half the men I see in a day gotta rap sheet. The way I see it, it’s your life to live. I have no need to be judgin it, and I got no right to be. I don’t want someone judgin me, so I ain’t gonna judge them.”

“Marguerite, what in the world you doin? Chatterin to that good for nothin and not workin. This ain’t no desk job. Get off you duff and get to work Food’s up ” Yells Terrence.

“Fine. Don’t have a cow, Terrence. I was just takin me a break for a hot second and havin me a cup of coffee. Don’t be gettin your panties all in a bind.” Marguerite winds her hair up into a loose bun. She takes one last sip of coffee and bangs the cup down on the counter. “Aight, I’ll be back with your eats in justa sec.”

Marguerite saunters toward the pass-through, shaking her ass, as if she knows I’m staring. I shake my head and smile, then I fish around in my pants pocket, producing a stub of a yellow pencil. I pull a wad of paper napkins out of the dispenser and start scribbling away.


May 17th, 2009
Location: Hurtstown, Missouri
Miles Traveled: 5,478
States Visited: 20
Marguerite. Marguerite. Who's this woman? There's something about her that I just can’t shake. I know she's beautiful. That’s obvious. But there is something else. There is something real about her. There is something that...



“You’d better clear out them scribbles, Shakespeare, if you be wantin your eats.” Marguerite smacks a steaming plate of breakfast eats in front of me, each of them glistening with a fine coating of grease and filling my nose with a down home smell that reminds me of my days down South with Great Grandma McHenry. Whenever I went to visit her in Savannah, she’d serve me elaborate homemade breakfasts in bed, and then we’d spend every afternoon watching cheesy soap operas and playing solitaire. Sometimes, I feel like she was the only family member who ever loved me or, at least, pretended to love me.

“Thank you. It looks lovely.”

“Lovely? I wouldn’t be so poetic. Eggs ‘n such aren’t deservin of such words…wait, I don’t think I even got your name?”

“Daniel.”

“Okay, Daniel, enjoy your meal.” Marguerite smiles, her bright red lips glistening with a fresh coat of lip-gloss.


The second time I tried to run away from home, I was fifteen. Again, there was no one catalyst, but an accumulation of ridiculously shitty things that happened in the course of a few weeks. First, my girlfriend, Jennifer, broke up with me on a sheet of lined paper duct-taped to my locker. She’d been sleeping with the senior class president, who was already dating the captain of the girls’ basketball team, and Jennifer needed more time to be his “girl on the side.” Then, my dog, Starsky, the only member of the family that I actually got along with was run over and killed by my bratty eight-year-old nephew, J.C., while he was tearing around on his brand-new lightening-yellow Schwinn. As I held the trembling ball of fur in my arms, J.C. walked up to me and laughed, as if he was proud of his kill. Demon child. Just like my tight-ass brother Ned. It’s not surprising that J.C. is going to study criminal law, too. The Compsons are a freaking law dynasty, which is really to say that we’re cold-hearted schmucks deep down. I’d like to say that I have more of my mother’s McHenry in me, but I’m starting to see that I just as much of an asshole as any of them.

If those two incidences weren’t enough, Megan, who just happened to be the favorite Compson child, well, okay, not exactly the favorite, but the most accomplished in the family. Megan has won awards in music, writing, mathematics, etc., which means that she’s the perfect trump card for the ‘who has the best children discussions’ at Mother and Father’s—really Mother’s—highly calibrated bi-weekly neighborhood dinner parties. Anyway, Saint Megan came home from Madagascar, where she’d been doing research for her dissertation on something to do with lemur evolution, with a man six years her senior and a gold band on her finger. Oh, and the kicker, she’d forgotten to mention the above to Mother. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Really, really bad idea. If I had a choice of having an atomic bomb dropped on me or dealing with Mother upset, I’d take the bomb in a heartbeat. At least it’d be quick and painless.

Thus, Mother was sent into absolute “pity mode” and resorted to lying in her bedroom in her faux-fur lined neon-pink house coat mourning the loss of her precious daughter, as if Megan had died instead of eloped. Since I was the only child still at home and Father spent most nights screwing his law clerks on his desk, I was stuck dealing with the whining pile of woe.

After two days of listening to Mother’s tearful recountings of the “good days” of Megan’s life, I’d enough and booked a seat on a train to Chicago. I’d delusions of camping out in a park and writing a groundbreaking work on philosophy in the modern world. That night, I filled my backpack with a few pairs of boxers and socks, On the Genealogy of Morality and Notes From the Underground, a compass, three-hundred dollars from my independently run essay-writing business, two journals, and a box of chocolate-chip granola bars. My friend Kev was all prepared to drive me to the train station instead of school the next morning and concocted a story about a project at his house to buy me a night. I was going to be free again. Or so I thought.

Then the next day, Kevin called me completely distraught. His dad had been killed in a head-on collision on the way to work that morning. Obviously, I couldn’t complain about that, nor could I leave my only friend alone. Thus, I watched my grand plans spin down the toilet bowl.


As a couple hours pass by, I continue to sip coffee and fill napkins with the stories I’ve encountered along the wide open road. I wrote about the little girl with blonde pigtails that stuck straight out from her head and eyes as blue as ocean water. We met at a rest area near Jackson, Missouri and I taught her how to make a whistle with a blade of grass. Then I wrote about Sandy, “the lone street worker” in Springfield, Illinois, she told me. Her long black hair glimmered, while she stood on a street corner in a tiny pink mini skirt, a shimmery silver tank top, and a pair of black boots that came up to her knees. Sandy looked so vulnerable as her big brown eyes wore a look fear, while her mouth wore a fake smile. I pulled up and using my parents’ cash, I bought her for the evening. We went to Burger King, and ate Whoppers and chocolate shakes, while laying on the hood of my car in an abandoned parking lot. She told me how she’d been thrown out by her parents because they found her stash of coke in her pink piggy bank. So she went to live with an aunt in Albuquerque, who turned out to be crazy and whipped her with a giant flyswatter. After only a couple weeks, Sandy ran off with a dread-locked drug dealer, but he left her in Springfield. She’d run into a convenience store to buy a couple Milky Way bars and when she came out, he was gone. Thus, she used what little money she had left to buy a wardrobe at the Salvation Army and then went to the streets. She was only seventeen. When I’d met her, she’d only been at it for a few days and the only client she’d gotten was a bald man with a fuzzy gray mustache, who wanted a hand job. After a few hours, she begged me to take her back or at least let her “do something” for me. But I just didn’t have the heart to put her back on that corner. So I gave her two-
hundred dollars and dropped her at a halfway house. I’ll never know if she went in or not, but I can only hope.


Soon cramps take over my fingers and I set my pencil down and take a gander at the restaurant. A dozen booths line the perimeter, half them occupied by burly men in blue jeans, flannel button-ups, and ballcaps promoting various heavy machinery companies. The other half were empty, minus a petite old lady in a neat tan skirt and white blouse. Her hair is hidden under a floral bonnet and a cream-colored shawl is pinned around her shoulders. Danielle Steel’s The Kiss trembles between her spindly fingers. Marguerite zips out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and pours the woman another cup. Setting the pot down on the table, Marguerite dives into an animated conversation with the woman. I strain to listen, but only manage to pick up something about begonias and robins. My eyes fall upon Marguerite’s face and she glances up, catching me in the act. I quickly look away and pretend to be scribbling again.

Slowly, I raise my head, like a robber trying to avoid being caught, and continue to scan the premises. In the center of the restaurant, there are four large rectangular tables. One is occupied by the “pig consultants” I’d mentioned earlier, which are now in a deep discussion over sheets of paper that are spread out in front of them. The next table is full of ladies with perfectly fluffed hair and plastic name-tags, presumably hairstylists. One of them, with red-orange hair and a large gap in her teeth, is recounting a story about a man who had a spider living in his hair, The last two tables are devoid of people, minus a young, pink-clad waitress with sandy brown hair woven into a long braid that runs down to the middle of her back, who is clearing dirty dishes off of one of them. The girl’s uniform hangs limply on her ruler-shaped frame and her legs look like they could break in two. She turns around and I catch a glimpse of her long face and dull green eyes. God, she can’t be more than sixteen. Marguerite shuffles over to the waitress and leans in toward her ear. She looks up again and catches me once more. I give up pretending and shrug, and Marguerite smiles and shakes her head in reply. I turn back to my napkins and continue to write.


“Whatcha writing?” asked Katelyn as hopped off the top rung of wooden ladder up to my top bunk and plopped down on the bed next to me, her hair, the color of spring grass, flying into the air. “Read me something.”

“I...I really don’t like people reading my stuff.” I snapped my leather-bound journal closed. “I wanna know how your Debate Team meeting went.”

“Oh come on. I’m not gonna judge you. Unless...you don’t write that gushy stuff, do you? God, all these girls in my intro into philosophy class were gushing over some sugar-coated Nicholas Sparks book and I just wanted to throw-up on them.” Katelyn pulled off her neon-orange Converse, each one clunking against the wooden dorm room floor.

“I’m kinda surprised you didn’t.” Katelyn playfully smacked my shoulder. “Hey. I was just being honest.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. If I had control over my gag reflex, I totally would’ve. Anyway, let’s get to this bestseller of yours.” Katelyn nudged my shoulder.

“Are you serious?”

“No, I’m lying to you. Come on.” Katelyan pleaded. I cracked open my journal and flipped through some pages. As much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t want to read from it, I truly did. It was just no one had ever asked me before. Event though we’d only been dating for a few months, at that moment, I knew I was in love.

Katelyn and I met by pure coincidence, as the story always goes. My computer had been on the fritz again, and I was back at the campus repair shop for the third time that week. While waiting in line, a shrill voice rose up from one of the help stations. Turning my head, I was surprised to see a petite blonde girl in cutoff jean shorts and a neon green tank top yelling at the top of her lungs, leaving the skinny Indian clerk practically in fetal position on his seat. At this point, everyone in line was amused with the show and had lost interest in getting any technical assistance. Finally, the girl smashed her sticker-coated computer against the counter, sending the cup of pens and pencils across the floor, and spun around to walk away. For a second, she turned my direction and my empty blue eyes, connected with her playful almond-colored ones. A smile crept across her round pale face as she blew past me, gently brushing my windbreaker. Suddenly, I felt compelled to follow her. Halfway down the block, she stopped and turned around, freezing me in mid-step. She just stood there a moment, scrutinizing my every feature. Then, after I’d passed her test, she asked if I would like to walk with her.

Katelyn represented everything my shy and withdrawn self never had the balls to be. She was fiercely witty and outgoing and had friends in all corners of the campus. In an attempt to channel her exploding anger, Katelyn had joined the Debate Team and Students for Animal Rights, though she ended up being thrown out of the latter after a run-in with an old woman who ran a puppy mill. Let’s just say the argument ended in one of them having a heart attack, and it wasn’t Katelyn. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she always seemed to end up speaking to the administration at least twice a semester. Thank goodness, her father, who owns half the oil fields in the U.S., was able to throw the university enough money to keep her in. Once, when we were drunk on hot Jameson and cider and making snow angels, she told me she’d decided to go to Princeton because Ralph Nader had gone there and her father had a deep-seated hatred for the Green Party. That was Katelyn’s nature. Completely obscene and unpredictable.

“So what have you been writin there, Hemingway? You should staple them napkins all together, and there you got yourself a nice little book.” Marguerite giggles to herself as she unties the white apron over her dress. Looking around the restaurant, realize I’m the last patron there.

“Yup, you made it to 2pm. God, do you wanna to sleep with me that bad?” Marguerite pours herself a cup of decaf coffee. “Damn, this stuff is shit at the end of the day. Talk bout some cowboy coffee. I think I’m drinkin more grounds than coffee.”

“Marguerite ”

“Can it, Terrence. There ain’t no one round besides the boy.”

“God, what am I gonna do with your sailor mouth?”

“Deal with it. I am the best damn waitress you got.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” I bunch the napkins up in a nice, neat pile. “I didn’t say anything about that. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t think about it...” My fingers nervously tap the rim of my coffee mug.

“I was just pullin your leg. Don’t worry bout it. I’m done sleepin with your type anyways.” Marguerite holds up the coffee and pours me another cup.

“What do you mean by my type?” I snap back as I shove the pile of napkins into my pants pocket.

“Oh, don’t be gettin all worked up. It ain’t nothin against you. I’ve had my time with the travelin types and I’m done with ‘em.”

“Is that what you were alluding to before?” Marguerite hops off the stool and walks behind the counter.

“Do you like chocolate chip pancakes?”

“Yeah, but, wait. You didn’t answer my question.” Marguerite scribbles something on her pad of paper and hands the sheet to Terrence. She walks back over to the counter and stands face to face with me, her jade eyes glittering in the afternoon sunlight.

“That’s cuz I’m not sure I wanna. I’ll tell you my story, if you tell me what in the devil someone like you is doin in Hurtstown, Missouri.” I look down at my coffee, focusing on the tiny grounds floating on the surface. “Come on. It’ll earn you a free pancake breakfast and a vanilla milkshake.”

“Is this a six-year-old’s dream?”

“Nah, just a thirty-year-old woman who never lost her sweet tooth.” Marguerite pulls two tall glasses out from under the counter. “So if you be wantin some of Terrence’s best, you’d better get jabberin.”

“Why’re you being so nice?”

“Do you've to have a reason to be nice?” Marguerite pours some malt powder into the glasses.

“Yeah.”

“Well, fine Mr. Smarty Pants. I’ve been watchin you watch me all day and you seem like the nice type of folk and, honestly, we don’t get too many fresh faces in here. So it’s kinds nice to talk to someone who don’t know all your relatives and old boyfriends. Plus, you kinda remind me...” Marguerite closes the malt powder container and gazes off into space, as if she is remembering something. “God, here you go distractin me again. What’re you tryin to hide?”
I pick at the split in my thumbnail, that Ned gave me when he closed my hand in the door when I was eight. He broke three of my fingers and left me with this ugly fingernail. Megan used to call it my “toilet claw,” which is supposedly some claw that certain primates use for grooming. After I told Katelyn about it, she always begged me to run my “toilet claw” through her hair.

“I’m not trying to hide anything. Honestly, what makes this all kinda sad is that fact that I don’t really have a reason for being out here. It’s just...I dunno. I didn’t know what else to do.” Marguerite plops a scoop of vanilla ice cream into one of the glasses.

“I got it.” Another scoop plops into the glass.

“Got what?”

“You. You’re just like the rest of ‘em. You’re travelin round in the middle of nowhere tryin to find somethin, as if all these wide-open spaces and back-country folks have some answers for you. I never get what all you been lookin for.” Marguerite drops the last scoop into the glass. “You’re okay with vanilla, right? We got chocolate and strawberry and butterscotch, if you want.”

“Vanilla’s fine. God, I feel like I was just personally attacked. What’s your deal?

“I dunno. I just don’t get why all you just drive around with no goals while the rest of us work to make a livin. It just don’t make sense.” Marguerite pours a splash of whole milk in the glasses, peppering the counter with little beads of milk.

“Have you ever thought of gettin out there, Marguerite? You’re smart. I can see that. Why do you confine yourself to this.” I look around the barren restaurant and realize how confining it really is. “I mean, you should see the world. We really do live in a beautiful country.”
A loud whirring noise rises up from behind the counter as Marguerite mixes up the shakes. She motions to her ears, as if “she didn’t hear any of it” and I roll my eyes. The whirring stops and she sets the glass down in front of me. I reach for it and she pulls it away.

“Wait, justa hot second. I’m not done with it.” Marguerite holds up a whipping cream canister.

“I think I’ll pass.” Marguerite’s face drops, while the can still lingers over the glass.

“No whipping cream Black coffee and no whipping cream Where in the world did you come from, outer space?”

“I’ve never liked whipped cream. Well, I guess I used to. When I was six, I ate a whole can of Redi-Whip and I haven’t been able to eat whipped cream since. I threw up for a whole afternoon. My mother wasn’t too concerned though. I mean, she probably would’ve been happy to off me.” Marguerite swirls a pile of whipping cream on her own shake.

“Now don’t you be sayin that bout your...”

“Reety ” hollers Terrence from the kitchen. “Them hotcakes are in the oven for you two. Don’t you be leavin a mess in here. I gotta rep to be upholdin.” Terrence shuffles out of the kitchen in a pair of blue jeans and a grease-splattered white tank top. A navy blue apron is slung over his bony shoulder and a nub of a cigarette teeters on his chapped lips. He looks me up and down with his deep brown eyes and shakes his head, his graying black hair remains plastered to his head with a mix of sweat and gel. “Humph.”

“Don’t you be rude, Terrence. Say hello to the man.”

“I ain’t gonna say hello to another one of your men. Why don’t you just take ‘em home and be proper bout it.” Terrence waves and then heads for the door, his big brown boots clomping against the red and white tiled floor.

“Well, goodbye to you, too I hope you stick your head in the oven,” calls Marguerite. She settles back down on the stool next to me.

“I wish,” grumbles Terrence as he opens the screen door and walks out.

“Don’t you worry bout him. He just likes given me crap. Been doin it since I was a kid. He’s gotta a mean streak, but he does have a good heart in there. Just doesn’t know how to use it right.” Marguerite takes a slurp of her milkshake.

“Well, that makes two of us.” I take a sip of my milkshake, letting the sweet coolness slither down my throat like an icy snake. Milkshakes were the only thing that my mother ever made for me. She’d pull out all the cartons of ice cream in our freezer and together we would add various scoops to the blender. Sometimes, we’d throw in chocolate chips or some of the peanut butter cookies that Ms. Durge made us. In the end, our milkshakes always looked like mud and tasted about the same, but neither one of us ever cared.

“There was a girl, wasn’t there?” Marguerite swirls her shake around with her straw and lock of her hair falls in her face. Delicately, I tuck it behind her ear. Marguerite freezes and fixes her eyes upon me. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Yeah, there’s a girl. When isn’t there? Yeah. She was beautiful and smart. God, was she smart. Always challenging me. And she would get this giddy little smirk when she knew she was right.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” I take another gulp of milkshake.

“You cheated on her, didn’t you?” Marguerite licks the whipped cream with her tongue and I grip the edge of my stool to keep me from trying to kiss her.

“Yeah, something like that. How’d you know?”

“You just know sometimes. Especially when someone talks like that.”

“Talks like what?”

“So fondly about someone. That’s how you know that they screwed it up and not the other person. They ain’t gonna smack talk the other when they were the one that messed it all up.”

“God, you’re something else.” Looking over at Marguerite, I try to coax a smile out of her contemplative face.

“Stop it, Romeo. I see what you’re doin with them eyes and I don’t approve. At least, not yet.” Marguerite hops back off her stool. “So what happened?”

“With Katelyn? Well, a bunch of things. I reached my junior year of college and kinda freaked out because I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and my parents were breathing down my neck and then Katelyn got into law school. Then I just kinda flipped out and lost control of my head. I got into drugs and just got fucked up every night and, god, Katelyn was so good to me. She would just sit and listen to all my fears and desires and basically all the crap that was going on inside of me.” Marguerite holds up her pointer finger.

“Hold that thought. I’m gonna grab them hotcakes.” She scurries off toward the kitchen and I continue to swirl my straw around, creating a creamy cyclone in the center of my glass.

“I don’t know who you are anymore, Daniel ” screamed Katelyn as she chucked a brown leather sandal at my head, clocking me right above my left temple.

“Jesus, Katelyn. What the fuck?” I rubbed my temple and found my fingers coated with a thin layer of blood. Katelyn picked up another sandal and held it over her shoulder in preparation for another attack. “Wait, no. Let me explain.”

“Explain what? Explain why the fuck you stuck your dick in another girl? Jesus, Daniel. I stuck by you through all this shit. The depression and the drugs and the questioning. God, I felt sorry for you. I wanted to help you figure out your life, but you wouldn’t let me in.” Katelyn dropped the shoe on the floor.

“Help me out? You didn’t help me out. You just scurried off to your little pre-law and Debate Team meetings and enjoyed yourself, while I spend every day being tormented by my own thoughts. Do you know how fucking scary it is to watch your girlfriend be successful and establish a future for herself, while you’re struggling to figure yourself out...”

“And all of this justifies cheating how?” Katelyn swung a giant purple duffel bad over her shoulder and then stormed to the front door of our apartment.

“I was drunk and I don’t even remember...” There front door swung open and banged into the wall, sending the photo of my family crashing to the ground.

“Fuck you , Daniel. Fuck you. I fucking loved you, too.” Katelyn’s long blue hair glimmered in the sunlight as the door crashed closed. I slipped on my barely-used running shoes and ran after her.


“Here you go. Pipin hot so you’d better be careful.” The plate crashed against the kitchen counter. Tiny trickles of steam rose from the stack of pancakes.

“Thanks, Marguerite. These look wonderful.”

“Believe me, they are. I’ll never get sick of ‘em.” Marguerite crouches behind the counter and with a quiet click, the restaurant is alive with the sound of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” by Frank Sinatra. “There we go.”

Perching herself back on the stool, Marguerite dives right into her pancakes and I watch her shove forkful after forkful into her mouth.

“Is it that exciting to watch me eat?” Marguerite’s fork clangs on her plate. “If you’re gonna be lookin at me like that, then you better be talkin. I get that you been hurt by love and I’m startin to get a feelin that you gotta a bad lot in the family way, but I till don’t get why’re you’re out here?”

While dragging my fork across the top of my untouched pancake, I begin. “Here’s the story. I dropped out of school, left Katelyn, and told my parents to fuck off and hopped on the road to find something about myself. You see, Marguerite. I’d been living the life that everyone else had told me I had to live and I was okay with it for a while, until one day, when I was sleeping through a world politics class, I had this horrifying dream about being a lawyer.” Marguerite nods her head as she takes a long sip of her milkshake. “And I realized that the only reason it was horrifying was that I absolutely did not want to be one. And that’s when I flipped out. I had worked for three years toward a degree that I no longer wanted to pursue.”

“Leavin was a waste. Why didn’t you just finish it up?

“Because I knew that there was no reason for me to. God, I was so unhappy. You have no idea. The only reason I cheated on Katelyn was because I was so fucked up in the head I was trying to find something that would bring me back to reality. Then, after reading Sarte and Kafka and Kerouac, I decided that I needed to figure my shit out. So I threw everything in a car and started driving.” I twirl my fork between my finngers.

“But why drivin? Everyone is always drivin. I mean, Cal was out doin the same thing and it just seemed so weird to me cuz here we’re busting our butts and there you guys are just livin all freewheelin without a care in the word.” Marguerite shoves another wad of pancake in her mouth, smearing chocolate on her cheek.

“Here.” I grab my napkin and wipe the chocolate off. “Chocolate.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Well, it was the easiest way to see everything and I have. I mean, not everything, but so much. You’ve no idea. I’ve met people from all walks of life. Farmers and doctors and potato breeders and dog food makers and hookers and musicians and bums and even some waitresses and, god, it’s been amazing...”

“I get it, but when are you gonna get somewhere?” I look down at the pancakes and connect the chocolate chip dots with my eyes.

“I know, right? I’m starting to realize that. It’s been two months and I still feel confused. All I’ve figured out is that I like talking and being with people.”

“You should be a waitress.” Marguerite laughs and her face is aglow with joy.

“If I looked half as good as you do in that uniform, I would.” Marguerite playfully slaps me.

“Stop flatterin me. So what’re you gonna do now?” Marguerite shoves the last bit of pancake in her mouth. “Turn into a bum?”

“I wish. No, I’ve no idea, but I’m getting there. I know that. Anyway, I’ve flapped my jaw enough and I don’t want these luscious pancakes to get cold, so it’s your turn, Ms. Marguerite. Oh, and by the way, this may be the best shake I’ve ever had.”

“You’ve gotta stop the flatterin or else my face is gonna turn red for good. His name was Cal and he came struttin in here two weeks after my twenty-fifth birthday. He kinda looked like yourself, the shaggy beard—though I do have to say his was much fuller— and a look of wonderment on his face, oh, and the writin. The minute he walked in, he pulled out a journal and started stratchin away.” Marguerite’s eyes drift away on a thought.

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

“Aww, look at you being all knowin. Yeah, I loved him. He showed up to the diner three days in a row and we did just this every time and on the last day, I hopped on his motorcycle and we rode off into the night.”

“So what happened?” I start cutting my pancakes into bit-size chunks.

“He took me to Philadelphia, where he was from, and I got a job as a waitress and he went back to school to be a chemist and...” Marguerite looks away, as if she is going to cry.

“Are you okay?”

“Me? God, yes. Just a little somethin in my nose. Anyway, my momma got real sick and my cousins all came and found me and dragged me back down here and I begged Cal to come with me, but he refused to leave his life.” Marguerite takes a loud slurp of milkshake. “And I’ve been here ever since, but it’s okay. I got my family and my friends and people that care bout me and ol’ Terrence. I didn’t have no one up north, but Cal.”

“Hey, you don’t have to justify for me. God, I can’t believe he let you go. I would’ve held onto you so tight that no matter where you went, I’d be there.” I shove a chunk of pancake in my mouth and savor the sugary greasiness.

“Stop it. Cal had his reasons. I don’t blame him. It’s just tough sometimes. I wish he woulda just said he’s sorry or good bye or even I love you. Just something. He just waved and walked away.” Marguerite gets up off the stool and picks up her dishes.

“Do you ever think about going back?”

“To Cal? No. That part of my life is over, but sometimes I just miss the freedom. It’s nice to be somewhere where they don’t know every little detail bout your life and you can just be free, you know? Hold on a second.” Marguerite carries her dishes into the kitchen.


Sometimes I wonder if Katelyn still thinks about me. Every day I pull out my phone and dial her number, but I never have the guts to go through with it. I’m not sure she would even answer a call from me. Not after the way I left her, standing on that train platform. We were supposed to go to Boston together. Then I went and got drunk and fucked my anthropology study partner in the backseat of my car I in the bar parking lot. God, it didn’t even feel good. Sex has never felt the same, since Katelyn. When I was lying naked in bed smoking cigarettes with, Kali, a maid at a tiny hotel somewhere in northern Texas, she told me that having sex and making love are two different things. I miss making love, she told me. Her hair was thin and soft as silk and it made me shiver as it tickled my nose during sex. She was going to an accountant. I’m doing one of those online school things, she told me, her cherub face aglow.

Katelyn and I made love.

I wonder if she misses me.

I miss her everyday.

I wish I could just say I’m sorry.


“Okay, there’s one round of dishes done.” Marguerite sits down next to me and frees her hair from its hair tie prison.

“So why don’t you leave?” I inquire as I trace the rim of my glass.

“Okay, question master. Prolly the same reason why you don’t settle down. Scared, mostly. I mean, I’m pretty happy here. Bout as happy as I’ll ever be and I’m okay with that.” Marguerite looks out the window to her left.

“You have no want to get out again? You said it yourself. It’s pretty damn confining here.”

“Yeah, it is, but I got all I need here and a job and I ain’t got money like you do.” Marguerite continues to stare out the window. “Remember, Daniel, we all ain’t as lucky as you. Some of us gotta make a livin.”

“That’s true. I forget bout that sometimes.” I shove the last piece of pancake in my mouth and savor the last bit of goodness I’ll probably have for days. Marguerite snatches my plate, just as Nat King Cole’s “Looking Back” comes on the radio and I grab her wrist.

“What?” Marguerite snaps.

“Let’s dance.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Come on.” Marguerite sets the plate back down and I pull her close to me, her hot breath beating against my throat.

“You are a little romantic, ain’t you?”

“Shh. Let’s just enjoy the moment.” Marguerite lays her head on my shoulder and I pull her closer, her boobs pressing into my chest.

We silently dance through the next five songs, until Marguerite, suddenly pulls away halfway through Etta James’s “At Last.”

“Oh my god I’ve gotta go. My cousin’s got a baby shower and...I’m gonna be late. Jesus.” I grab Marguerite by the shoulders.

“Whoa. Can I drop you somewhere?” I nod toward my Camaro and Marguerite rolls her eyes.
“You would drive somethin like that.”

“Hey, I refurbished that myself. Picked up the shell at a junk yard and went from there. Took me two and a half years. So I ‘ain’t all city boy.’”

“Daniel, I gotta say, that’s amazin. I dunno too many people round here who even know how to do that.” Marguerite jogs behind the counter and grabs her jean jacket from underneath it.

“Yeah. I guess I’m pretty good with my hands. Never really thought about it before. Used to make model cars and boats. When I was I high school, I used to build my own radios and probably replaced more fan belts for people than I could count.” Flexing my fingers, I study my hands. Suddenly, I’m struck with a thought.

“We gotta go.” Marguerite grabs my hand and drags me out the door.

“What about those dishes?”

“Terrence’ll just have to deal.” Marguerite hops over the edge of my car, causing her skirt to ride up her thick hips, giving me a welcome glance of her leopard-print panties. I follow her lead and jump in next to her.

“So where we off to.” The engine roars to life as I turn the key and Marguerite points to the right.

“Take a left at the stop sign, then turn right on the fourth street on your left.” Marguerite strokes the leather seat.

“Whatcha think?” I ask as I pull out onto the road.

“Seriously, Daniel. This is real nice.” Marguerite’s hair flies wildly as we whiz down the road.

“Lot better than Cal’s damn bike. I was so afraid I was gonna lose a leg or somethin.”

“Yeah. They can be nasty. I’ve heard some pretty bad stories.” Marguerite settles back in her seat and closes her eyes and smiles.

“So whatcha gonna do now?” I watch the rows of ranch houses and oak trees fly by as we cruise down Fisher Avenue.

“Well, now that I’ve got you in here, I’m gonna drive you to Philadelphia and you can get a job as a waitress and I’ll...”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” Marguerite whips her arm in front of my eyes. “Turn here. Her house’s that yellow one. I wish her husband would paint it. It looks like a goddamn Easter egg.”

I pull up in front of the yellow two-story house bordered by beautiful azalea bushes abloom in purples, reds, and pinks.

“So whacha gonna do now, Daniel? Keep ridin the high road?” Marguerite opens the door and gets out.

“Probably for a little while. There’s a few apologies I gotta make. Then, who knows. Turns out I’m pretty good with my hands.” I turn off the car and get out, too. We stand inches apart.

“What’re you gonna do, Marguerite?”

“Same old. Same old. It ain’t no Philadelphia or New York City or Nashville, but I’m okay with that.” Marguerite rummages around in her jacket pocket and produces a pink envelope with “Kristi” penned on the front in neat cursive. Wrapping my arms around her small waist, I pull her toward me, the rubber soles of her shoes dragging against the cement.

“So I’m assuming coming with me is out of the question.”

“Sorry, Daniel.”

“Well, I guess that’s okay. I’ll just take a piece of your to-go.” I lean in and we passionately kiss. Marguerite pulls away and smiles.

“God, you actually are good at that. Maybe I’ll take back my answer,” murmurs Marguerite. A young woman with short brown hair and wearing fitted dress with purple flowers all over it taps Marguerite on the shoulder.

“Hey Marguerite ”

“Hey Cheryl I’ll see you inside.” Cheryl continues up the sidewalk carrying a white wicker basket full of various baby items.

“Sorry bout that.” Marguerite pulls away. “I should be goin.”

“Yeah, me too. Marguerite...” I pick up her hand and kiss it. “I just want to let you know that you’re a beautiful woman and to tell you thank you.”

“For a few pancakes?”

“Something like that.” I hug Marguerite one last time. Then she scampers up the sidewalk and disappears within a gaggle of woman clamoring to get in the front door.

I rev up my engine and shift into first, taking on the open road once more.

Death At My Fingertips (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1

Prospero: Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act4: Scene 1, 148-158

-----------------------------------------------------------------


The world seems so beautiful when you are only staring up; stars glittering, the moon full and bright and the darkness, blotting out every bit of what is painful in the world. It's just like when a movie fades to black, letting you know that you have reached the conclusion and now are given a chance to mull over the story that unfolded before your eyes while, the credits role on in meaninglessness. That is what is great about the night. We are offered a chance to stop and give in to the blissful unconscious of dreaming or just to lie awake and stare at the stars with no purpose at all. Sometimes, no, all the time, I wish that the darkness would just stay so that I would never have to encounter the tasks that the day hands to me and just contemplate the infinite sky above.

I take another drag on the nearly consumed joint, letting the smoke seep out of my mouth like great gray snakes slithering into the black oblivion. I wonder if they will find me out here and throw me into jail for violating their ridiculously conservative grasp on the country. Always trying to control us, those Jesus worshiping, hooker obsessed, Caucasian political fat cats. Bunch of hypocrites. They probably go get high behind the White House everyday. They must. How else do they survive the idiocy of this administration? Man, I would go get high with them. Yeah, I would tell them all my ideas about the world and how the government can get on them. Change them. Change. Yeah. What does that even mean? I don't think anyone knows anymore. We have been so overwhelmed by stagnancy. The same. Everyday the same. Even the stars. They are different, but as I am lying here, they are the same. The same glittering bits that fall away in the sun. Fuck. What if the sun comes and I can't move? Shit. They are going to find me. Maybe if I hide behind that tree? Wait, that is way too much work. You are in fucking middle of nowhere. No one is going to find you. Stop being a fucking pot head. Jesus, the paranoia. I should be over that shit. Whatever. It just feels so good not to feel at all. When can I stop this? Stop it all and fall into the night. Fall. Fall. Falling.

A face I know lingers in my head as my eyes slowly creep open in response to the blaring light burning through the thin blinds of my eyelids. The stars have faded away and have been replaced with the sickening bright blueness of a sunny, clear August day. It's one of those days where everyone walks out the door and stands on their front porch for a moment and relishes in the joy that the day has poured down on them in the glory of nice weather. I hate these kinds of days. The sun makes my eyes hurt and is another reminder of how depressing my meager life is.

I flex my fingers, feeling the chilling wetness of dew tickling against them. My leg starts vibrating and I wrestle my hand into my pocket to retrieve the phone that is causing all of the commotion. My alarm, reminding me that I had better get my ass in gear for work. I roll myself into an upright position and begin smoothing down my wild black hair with the dew coating my fingers. Now talk about an economical hair product. For a moment, I feel disoriented and then begin to recall bits of the evening spent away from reality. I snap out of it and begin running across the field like a soldier coming home from war, running to greet the love he left behind. Unfortunately, the romanticism stops there as the shape of my beat-up, maroon Ford Escort comes into view. Not exactly "the love of my life." Though, it does touch my heart, for it looks so forlorn hanging halfway between the road and the ditch. I pull my keys out of my pocket and wrangle the door open. After a few labored turns of the key, she comes back to life.

"There you go, honey."

I look to the seat next to my own, buried in notebooks, textbooks and pencils, maybe a granola bar wrapper here or there. Last time I had been out in this nowhere, the seat was filled with more of a human form. In fact, it had been filled with two human forms. I snicker a bit to myself, as I pat my own ego with the memories of the craftiness I tapped into to produce the entire ridiculously awesome scenario. All I know, is that my notebooks were never quite the same, so ripped and torn into paper confetti oblivion that I couldn't even explain to my professors what had happened to them without laughing.

I wonder how she had liked it? She seemed pretty into it. She made some comment about feeling like a school girl getting done by a professor on his desk. I guess I never really asked her. There wasn't really a lot of talking to begin with. It's easier that way. I don't know. It was just a night. She was just a night. It's been a long time since it wasn't just a night. Sometimes I wonder if I am missing something by not taking girls to that relationship...or even the dating levels, but my mind is full of memories and knows the answer to that before I even pose the question. Of course, everyone knows there was that cliched "one that got away," but talking about her is pointless and thinking about her is even more so. Why get caught up something that is so dead in the past that it will never be revived in the future? My head has no time for that. It barely has time for my current existence, let alone, the contemplation of a past one.

As I tear down the dirt road, kicking up a rooster tail of dust behind me, I pull a button-up striped shirt from the back seat, precariously steering the car with the combined effort of my knees, causing it to swerve from one side of the road to the other. Thank god there are no others cars on the road, or else I would be fucked. I guess it is not too surprising that there is no one on the road at eight in the morning on a summer Saturday. Probably all sleeping in and soaking up the warmth creeping in through their open windows. Jerks. I don't even know what eight hours of sleep looks like.

Finally, I reach a stop sign and some remnants of civilization start to produce themselves on the horizon. Glancing behind me, I see a billowing cloud of coming towards my car. I quickly swap out my badly worn "Marten High School Scholar Athlete 2004" shirt for the slightly wrinkled button-up. Just as I snap the last button into place, a roar of obnoxious honking rises up behind me, sounding like a fleet of Road Runners chirping as they try to outrun the Coyote. Honestly, this truck and I have to be the only two people awake out here and we just happen to end up on the same dirt road in all of the roads in Rock Harbor. I slowly make a right turn, just to make him shake his fists a little longer, and jolt towards the skyline rising from the road ahead.



Rock Harbor isn't a big city by any means. Detroit or Chicago could easily chew it up and spit it out multiple times over. Yet, Rock Harbor has an air about it that separates it from most other Midwestern towns. Most Midwestern towns pride themselves on their "down-home" Conservative values, whereas Rock Harbor kicks that image in the face. Placed smack dab in the heart on the Midwest in the good ol' state of Indiana, Rock Harbor totes itself as "misplaced" East Coast city, and presents itself as such. When I look at Rock Harbor, I see San Francisco with a little Boston mixed in. Truly a West meets East hybrid, as some cheesy travel channel would say.

The people of Rock Harbor let their eclectic behavior fly wild in liberal undertones, emulating the West Coast flavor. For the most part, they are pretty laid back and enjoy indulging in all that an alternative lifestyle has to offer through their obsessions with Farmer's Markets, Co-Ops, hybrid vehicles, and a continuous need for coffee shops, where they plan for their never-ending stream of protests, which keep Rock Harbor at the forefront of cultural change.

The East Coast is reflected in the layout of the city. The ancient brick laid streets mixed with the twentieth century contribution of asphalt; all arranged in bizarre angles and surrounded by a smattering of buildings, each fashioned with those old-style facades, straight from the earlier part of the last hundred years, boasting classy lofts above an eccentric mix businesses, from trendy boutiques to posh coffee houses and trashy college bars.

Honestly, I love Rock Harbor in all of its pretentiousness and I know that part of me will forever be tied to its singular attitudes, but sometimes it is just a little too much for me to handle. That's when I applaud the Midwest. For beyond every city, there is lake, a forest, a field within my reach to escape the overwhelming urban environment from closing in on me.



I turn down one of the novel brick roads, cringing as my car clicks and clangs over every brick. Wow, what a rush, I think to myself as I focus on the seemingly infinite sidewalks of free meters laid before me. I pull up to a meter in front of Bowl o' Noodles. I climb out of my car, and check my hair in the reflection on my window. Then I attempt to smooth out the nagging wrinkles in my shirt, but it is a losing battle. I walk in front of the empty restaurant and peer into the dim room, barely lit by the bits of sunshine creeping through the front window, casting narrow shadows of the pristine silver stools against the sun-struck floor. I always find it strange to see a place, that is usually over run with chattering college kids munching on their pesto linguine and souped-up macaroni and cheese, completely shut down. For some reason, I love the feeling of the affect of the contrast between the two environments: socially driven chaos versus silently motivated chill. It gives me hope that maybe someday our world will realize that maybe we should stop a little more often than once a day. I may love the night, but at the same time, it does mask so much of what the day has to offer. If it was up to me right now, I would still be lying in that field, dreaming of another story for The New Yorker or at least for my creative writing class. Yes, I see it now. A tragedy, the best. A girl. A dream achieved. Yet, a death. Always a death. It is the most tragic turn there is. The Greeks had it right with all that catharsis. People like to purge emotions. It makes sense. We aren't really allowed to have a lot of emotions in the "professional" real world so we let ourselves go with the pure fantasies we are allowed in plays and movies and books. That's all I want. To write a novel, a story that gets to people. It's so personally gratifying to know that what you wrote penetrated their souls.

"Byron. what in the devil are you doing? Please don't tell me you are off finding poetry in a few stools. Sometimes, I worry about you," says Laney as she walks up next to me, her chunky white sandals smacking against the ground with each step. "I hope you do get famous someday because, I swear, it's only the famous ones that get away with being weird. Out here, people like you are going to get pointed at."

"Hey, I think I am doing just fine with managing my life. And, yes, I was exercising my intellectual curiosity through the romaticism of a dark room." I glance at my reflection in the window and realize that I have missed a button on my shirt.

"Oh Jesus, you always have to pull all that psycho babble out, don't you? Why don't you just talk like a normal person?" Laney begins fluffing her obnoxiously large mass of orange-red hair, as if it needs more than the five inches of lift that it already has, while I re-button my shirt ad attempt to smooth the wrinkles out again.

"Laney, does it really matter? If I piss people off, I piss people off. I don't have time to worry about how I speak. Anyways, you do understand that I go over-the-top just for you."

"You are so, ahh, frustrating! Whatever happened to respecting your elders?"

"I grew up."

"Excuse me, honey, but I am still twenty years your senior." I smile and Laney realizes that I got her again. "Byron, I don't what I am going to do with you...lord, that shirt is a mess. Don't tell me you were out corralling those little tramps again. You need to be getting yourself a real woman. Oh, and your hair." Laney licks her index finger, the end capped with a fake nail so long that she kind of resembles Edward Scissor-Hands. She leans towards me with the dripping weapon extended out.

"Whoa, Laney. You do remember that I am twenty-one, not five. I think I can handle my own hair." I begin patting down a chunk of hair that has decided to protrude out of the side of my head. "And besides that, what is wrong with those women? I am a young man and I am allowed to indulge myself, while it is still socially acceptable, with real women of a different context."

"Byron, you realize that you are a lot better of a kid than that. You should be hitting up some of those nice girls at the university."

"These are university girls."

"Why don't you pick up girls in your biology classes and not at those frat parties. I know those kind of girls. I used to be one of those girls back in the day." Laney begins to stare off into space. I wonder what past experience she is slipping into? I keep trying to place Laney at some party in the eighties, but all I can see is her as Molly Ringwald with that same awful hair.

"Wait, you went to college?"

"Don't act so surprised, Einstein," Laney snaps back as she starts strutting away, shaking her ass in defiance. I am completely stunned by her ability to make jeans cling to her body like cellophane. I wonder if she has to clip them off with scissors at night and then stitch them back up in the morning? I run up next to her, falling in step with her smacking feet.

"You're not the only bright one here."

"Sorry, I am just confused why you are still in this hell hole. I mean, this is not a hell hole, so to speak, but complete mediocrity for someone with a college degree." We stop in front of our storefront and Laney suddenly turns to me with piercing green eyes, rimmed in black clumps of mascara and wayward blue eye shadow.

"Byron, sometimes life just isn't that easy and some of us get thrown nasty curve balls. My poppa used to say that you gotta swing hard and pray to God that you don't strike out. The thing is, he never told me that some of us do strike out. Remember that Mr. High and Mighty. Life doesn't hand out too many home runs." Laney turns away and knocks on the front door of Mooch's Pooches. Our boss, Molly, AKA "Mooch," stumbles over some neon pink doggy dishes as she clamors for the front door. I look over at Laney and still feel really confused over something that has no purpose in my life, per usual.

I slip my hands in my pockets, realizing that I left my stash in my pants. Shit. Suddenly, I imagined the scenario. Three German Shepherds come in through the door and start sticking their noses up my crotch and then, of course, it just so happens that their owners are a pair of cops, who would love nothing more than to bust some pot-smoking delinquent. Yeah, Rock Harbor may be liberal enough to only have a fine for getting caught smoking, but there is no reason for me to be getting caught up in that crap. How ironic would it be if I had to use my weed money to pay the fine for being in possession of weed? That is a situation that the word "trippy" could accurately be applied to.

"I'll be right back, Laney. I gotta grab something from my car." I dig my keys out of my pocket and start walking back toward my car.

"While you're there, you had better grab yourself some more cologne or at least a new shirt. You smell like a seventies swinger party."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I yell as I turn back around and start walking backwards.

"You smell like pot...potting soil." Mooch swings the door open, causing Laney to stop mid-breath.

"Good morning. Potting soil, huh? I didn't know you were into horticulture, Byron," says Mooch as she waves towards me, her massive clump of bracelets jingling with each swing of her hand.

"Yeah, it's a new hobby for me. I heard it relieves stress." Laney rolls her eyes.

"What a great boy. He has really changed my view of college kids," says Mooch to Laney.

"That he is," said Laney with a hint of irony in her voice.



I stumbled upon Mooch's Pooches after my freshman year at Rock Harbor State University. My parents had been adamant about me coming home for the summer and I was equally adamant to stay in Rock Harbor. Once I went to college, the last place I wanted to be was home. So I whipped up a resume and a cover letter and began applying at every place with a "now hiring" sign in the window. After all of my hard work, Mooch's Pooches was the only place that called me back.

At first, I was a little hesitant to call back as thought about my male ego being crushed by the frilly doggie sweaters and gourmet puppy food. But the idea of suffering through another summer of splitting my time between coaching a little league baseball team and working at the local pharmacy was a far more torturous endeavor. So I bit the bullet and went in for an interview.

When I walked into the store, a sudden silence fell over the room and I found myself looking behind me for the apparent monster that must have walked in the door behind me. After a few seconds, I realized that everyone was staring at me and I began to look myself up and down for something that was out of place; an open fly, some spilled coffee, missing buttons, but I found nothing. That's when I realized that I must be the one out of place.

"Well hello there, are you Byron?" asked an waif of woman in a patchwork jumper with long silver hair tied back with a yellow scrunchie. She extended her tiny hand to me.

"Yes. Am I in the right place?" I shook her hand gently as I canvassed the room of middle-aged women.

"Of course! There is nowhere else like Mooch's in this town. Oh, by the way, I am Molly Masterson, otherwise known as Mooch. It is a pleasure to meet." Mooch smiled a genial smile and I started to feel a little less agitated.

"Pleasure is all mine."

"So welcome to Mooch's Pooches! There is no need for an interview. My sixth sense for people is always spot on and I can tell that you are a good kid. So let's get you trained." Mooch chuckles to herself. "Training you in a dog store. I just crack myself up sometimes." I awkwardly laugh a bit, too, and Mooch pats my shoulder. "Laney, come over here."

"What?" yells back a forty-something woman with wild red-orange hair styled in exactly the same way that my mother styles her hair; those horrible eighties bangs somehow blown dry to puff up and backwards laying over an Aqua Net mess of layered and fluffed hair.

"Come and meet our new employee."

"Him, really? We are hiring a college kid?" The woman struts over and I notice that you can see right through her light blue shirt. I try to divert my attention by focusing on a display of glow-in-the-dark dog leashes, but I can't get the picture of her black, lacy bra out of my head.

"We sure are. He applied here himself."

"Well, it is nice to meet you..."

"Byron."

"...Byron."

"Okay, now that we are all acquainted, let's move on to the training."



I quickly unlock my door, which, of course, has decided that it doesn't want to open without me wrestling it open like a defiant puppy refusing to let go of stick. Fricken' door. It finally flings open, sending me toppling backwards into the street. A loud roar rises up behind me, sending my heart halfway up my throat. I curl up in a ball, naturally all I can think of is the most infantile response as possible. A whoosh of air bowls over me and I imagine my flesh being mashed into the bricks beneath me, leaving limbs awkwardly bent up in unnatural positions. After a few minutes, I uncurl and realize that the car is long passed by. I look up and a man is stopped and blatantly staring at me, while his hyped up Jack Russell Terrier wraps its leash around his legs.

"Are you okay, son?" says the man as he strains to unwind the yippy dog from around his leg. He smiles, as if the smile makes the situation at hand nonexistent.

"Sorry, I am fine. Just a sticky door." Wow, I am an idiot. I just love my own fucking humility.

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure. You seemed pretty freaked out. You know, I used to do the same thing all the time when I got out of Nam. Every loud noise sent me into a ball like that. You one of those Iraqi war vets? Cause it's okay, man. I understand and support you." He offered me a hand and pulled me up. "Here, give me one." Then he pulled me close into a vice grip of a bear hug as if he was trying to squeeze something out of me. He released me and gave me a "buddy" pat on the shoulder and went on his way. I would have told him the truth, but judging by his glassy eyes, I knew that really the hug was more for him than me. Kind of breaks my heart, knowing that I am a complete jackass that doesn't deserve such affection. Yet, it did feel nice.

I brush the gravel off my pants and climb into my car. I fumble for the glove box and shove the bag in it, covering it up with a half dozen Wendy's napkins and a mismatched pair of cotton gloves. Discreetly, I take a whiff of my shirt and realize that Laney was right. I wonder if I still have Dan's clothes in my trunk? I close the door and wander back to the trunk. Thankfully, my brother, Dan's, duffle bag is still in there and I dig out a yellow polo shirt. I slide off the button-up and slip the polo on, feeling a bit like a frat boy. I close the trunk and begin to walk across the street.

"Byron!"



===End Chapter 1===

Cigarette Helicopters

The cigarette ash peppers my tongue with a bitter tinge of menthol and guilt. I cough as I watch the tiny black cylinder spin through the air like a mini helicopter, until it disappears within the mass of people below. I wait for an angry reply from the crowd; a man shaking a leather-gloved hand, a woman screeching in smoldering agony. Yet, the heads never shift from their forward motion. Kind of like those robots from Asimov’s books. A legion of robots, are we trapped in our mechanical world?

“Rebecca, what are you doing? Wait, do I smell smoke in here?”

“Yeah, Mr. Dithers is out smoking his cigars again.” I saunter off the balcony, slamming the glass door back into place. Stopping in front of the double bed where Abby lay sprawled out like a tiger stretching its limbs, I slip my drab gray slippers off and climb in next to her. The cool cotton sheets nip my bare legs, causing goose bumps to cascade up and down my body.

“Come here, let me warm you up.” Abby reaches her soft caramel arm out towards me and I sink between the thinly veiled cushions of her breasts. The hard protrusion of one of her nipples grazes my face and a vile feeling of disgust washes over me. I reach up and let my fingers dance across the dimples in her cheeks.

“I love you, I murmur as I swallow the guilt and ash left over from this statement. I press my face deeper into her chest, hoping to make it feel real. Hoping to make the disgust permeate through my skin and float away on the warm breeze of the heat beating down one us. Though I still feel cold, numb, head spin.

Spin.

Spinning.

“What was that?” mumbles Abby. I tear my face away from her body and sitting up, fixating on her face, watching her eyelids twitch as they watch the Halle Berry running through her half asleep dream. I try to look through her skin, her, skull, just watching the neurons buzzing with thoughts that I can never understand. That will never understand me, no matter how much they dig through Freud.

“Nothing.” I roll over and curl up tighter in the sheets, separating myself from the profanity of Abby’s body.

Don’t touch me...don’t....

“Come on, Becca, what did you ask me? Abby rolls over, cracking open her eyes open, revealing tiny slices of her deep brown irises. I try to pretend to be asleep. I can’t answer. She doesn’t get it. She will never get it.

She doesn’t hurt.

Ache, she’s tough as nails.

Nails...nails...

The Hendersons don’t cry, she said.

But he’s gone, Mother.

The Hendersons are strong.

Mother, cry. Why don’t you cry?

Tough. Tough. Tough as nails. That’s what we have to be.

But why can’t we cry?

You are an adult.

I am only nine.

You are plenty old enough.

No, I am not.

Grow up, Rebecca.

No.

No.

Grow up.

Spinning.

I’m not as tough as nails.

I wanted to tell her.

I’m soft like him.

I loved like him.

I loved him.

Didn’t you?

Didn’t you?

Did you ever love me?

Love me?

Love me.

Love me

She could never love me.

She just told me.

Told me everything about living.

Everything that I ever needed to know.

***

“You shouldn’t touch yourself there ” Screeched my mother as she helped me slip on my Cinderella underwear before my first day of preschool.

“What is it, Momma? Bailey’s got one, too. Do you and Daddy have ‘em, too?” I touch the glossy picture of Cinderella and I feel a tingle go up my stomach flowing through my body. I was convinced that I had just found some magical power.

“I told you to keep your hands away from there, Rebecca That is your special garden. Only girls get to have them. Boys have a different thing down there,” said my mother as she slipped on my blue jeans. “And the only way to keep your garden growing is for you and everyone else to leave it alone. Never let anyone else touch your garden. It is girls’ special secret. If you or anyone else touches it, it will get icky.”

“Ewww.” I scrunched my face up in a ‘Rebecca Sandwich,’ as my father liked to call it. That was before he decided that he no longer loved us and left us with the gift of his limp body, hanging from the second floor balcony, strung with the electrical cord that Baily and I had bought him for Father’s Day. He spun round and round like a spinning top, until Uncle Curtis and the paramedics cut him down and sent him away to be poked and prodded by a couple of medical examiners strung out on coke and Red Bulls. Mom never said anything about it. Did she even know? I think she did. I think she always knew, but could never tell us. All she told me was not to touch vaginas. They are dirty, dirty things.

***

“Rebecca, Becca, are you awake, hon?” My eyelids flutter as the memory fades away into my jumbled subconscious.

The bed rumbles as Abby slides out. A faint scent of baby powder trickles through the air and in my mind I watch her sprinkle the white dust all of the carpet and I watch her rub her Tootsie Roll toes through it, coating them in a shower of white. I always tell her that they look so tasty, like little pieces of milk chocolate sprinkled with white chocolate. Sometimes, when I nibble her ear...her shoulder...her feet....I imagine they taste like chocolate. Yet, no matter how hard I imagine, she always just tastes like dull human skin.

Skin, burning, ripping...round and round...

“Abby, what time is it?” I pull myself up and lean against the backboard of the bed.

“It’s seven. Wait, why didn’t you answer me?” Abby slowly links a bright pink bra across her chest, sliding the latch to her back and then eases the straps up over her dark, muscular shoulders. When we were in college, she never wore bras and let her breasts flap freely in the wind, like two bouncing advocates for female liberation. She had to change her ways once she was hired at Harvey, Harvey, and Wellington. Wrap them up them said. Put them away. Be respectful to the customers. The clients. We don’t want to look like a whore house, they said. Though, I think they would’ve enjoyed that more than the law they practice. They always seem to supply the adult industry with ample funds.

Yes, ample.

Ample is such a good word for her breasts.

Ashes in my mouth.

Why can’t I spit them out?

“I dunno.” I turn my head away from the curves of her body and look outside, just in time to watch a couple of pigeons fight over a piece of moldy bread.

“I feel like there is something between us lately, and frankly, I don’t know what it is.” She never knows what it is. Has she ever been in my head?

Abby never did understand. Those days I sat curled up in a ball.

Make it go away, I would say.

Make what go away? She would reply.

The dullness.

The dullness? I don’t get it, Becca.

Dullness. Numbness. Meaningless.

I don’t get it, Becca.

Make it stop.

What?

Abby, make it stop.

I don’t get it. Should I call someone?

No

No?

Ahhh.

What is it, Becca?

Leave me alone.

No.

Yes.

Fine I will be studying history in the library.

She never got it.

She never gets it.

Why did you cut yourself? Why didn’t you make me stay?

You never asked.

Yes, I did.

Not the right questions.

It hurt.

It hurt?

Abby...

My head.

Don’t float away.

Away.

Away.


The pigeons are still fighting, the bread diminishing with every peck, sending a fury of crumbs falling through the air. “Becca, are you listening to me? This is exactly what I am talking about Stop watching those goddamn birds and look at me ”

I tear my eyes away from the birds and focus in on Abby’s half-dressed figure. She looks absurd, black knee socks, pink thong, a white button-up only half-buttoned. I begin to giggle as Abby’s face contorts into a cross between anger and laughter. It kind of looks like the face my mother had when we found Dad. No sadness. Just anger. It was funny since she knew all along.

Why didn’t you tell us? I ask her.

Tell you what?

About his life?

There is nothing to tell.

I saw them.

Saw who?

Them.

I don’t know what you are talking about.

Yeah, whatever.

“You look ridiculous right now. I’m sorry...” I can’t stop laughing, the regret sloshing around within me with every bellow. Abby looks down at her own feet and chuckles a bit.

“This is a lot different than the college days of flowy skirts, huh?” she says as she sits down on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah.” I finally get control of my body and shove the laughter to the bottom of my throat. I feel like I am not here. Who is this woman? So many women.

Why women? Mother asks.

They know how to love me.

Not like men. Men are so much better. Protectors.

Did Dad protect us? Is that what his suicide was, a protective measure?

Silence.

Well?

I don’t need protection.

Yes, you do.

No, I need love.

***

The first one was Gabriella. For some reason, when she came to my school in seventh grade, chose me from among the other primped up J.Crew clad princesses, in my worn out Mary Janes and hand-me-down school uniform from my cousin, Mindy. We were always partners in our science class and shared all of our secrets. She had long curly red hair and twinkling blue eyes. Her family was loaded and she always dressed in the trendiest of clothes. I couldn’t get
her out of my head. While all the other girls lusted over Jimmy Handle or Rob Goldstein, I was fixed on Gabby. Gabby lived my princess dream and I wanted so bad to be her prince.

One day, when I was in the school bathroom trying to manage my out of control blond hair, I heard a voice from one of the stalls.

“Becca, is that you? It’s Gabby.” A warm feeling, just like that time with the Cinderella underwear, spread within my body. My organs began to feel like they were on fire. Burning, like someone had just dipped me in molten lava.

“Yeah,” I stammer.

“Come here, I want to show you something...” I shook from head to toe and froze in place as I watched the dull orange stall door open in front of me. “Come in here, Becca. You don’t want the whole school to know ‘bout this, do you?”

“Wait...what is it?” My mind spun round and round.

Don’t let anyone touch your secret garden, she told me.

Don’t touch me.

Spinning round.

“Just get in here and I will show you.” I inched my way toward the stall and Gabriella slammed the door behind us.

“What did you want to show me?”

“Well, I thought we could show each other something.” Gabriella stuck her hand up her short plaid skirt and my stomach leapt as I watch ed her bright purple underwear fall on top of her chunky black boots. I kept on swallowing, trying to get my emotions under control. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

“Come on.” I reached my shaky hand under my skirt and slowly eased my plain white underwear down my quivering thighs. They looked so dull against Gabriella’s vibrant ones.
“Gabby, I don’t understand this.”

“You’ll see. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.” Her skirt dropped to the ground, revealing a small puff of red hair atop two peach-colored poles. I wanted to throw-up and squeal with joy all at t he same time. Yet, I turned my head away in shock.

“My mom said that we aren’t supposed to do this. It’s wrong. Mrs. Knoll told us that God frowns upon this. No...no...” I tried to open the door, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t grasp the lock.

“They just don’t want you to know how good it feels. Come on. We are thirteen. We are practically adults. We don’t need anyone to tell us what to do. I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry.” I slowly unzipped my own skirt, tears running down my face as it falls to the ground. I felt like I had lost part of myself. Yet, instead of emptiness, I felt freer, like a tremendous weight had been lifted off my slight shoulders.

“Gabriella, I’m scared.” She leaned awkwardly toward me, jutting her tiny bare butt out toward the gaping toilet bowl, her lips puckered like a goldfish gulping for air. I puckered my own lips and we smashed them together.

I felt so good.

So bad.

Spin. Spinning.

Don’t touch me.

I pushed Gabby away for a moment.

“Don’t...I don’t...” She places her finger on my lips.

“Shush.”

***

“Fuck, Rebecca, what is up with you? I feel like I am talking to half of a person. Did something happen to your mom or to Baily?” Abby stands up and grabs her black pants off of her dresser. She slides them on and then slips a bright red sweater over her button-up.

“No, they are fine.”

Fine.

You are fine.

“Then what is it?” Abby continues to get ready for work. She pulls her black hair into a tight, neat bun and secures it with a stretchy black hair tie.

“Is there anything that I can do?” Do you need to see Dr. Wilcox again?” The bed sinks as Abby sits down next to me again. I find my head on her shoulder and she starts stroking my long blonde locks.

“No....” Tears begin to run down my face.

I can’t feel.

Where am I?

Fuck, I need another cigarette.

Cigarette helicopters.

Spin.

Spinning.

Why do they smell funny, I ask her.

To keep the snakes out.

Snakes?

Yes, someday you will understand.

What about two gardens?

Gardens can never meet.

“Just leave me alone.” I pull my head away from Abby.

“I can’t take this It’s been a month since I’ve felt like I could talk to you. You have been entirely emotionally unavailable. I feel like I am talking to a zombie and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t prance around here pretending like we are a picture perfect couple. I’m tired of putting on a show. I’m not cut out for a career in acting. I think we should start being honest with each other or this...this relationship is over. I can’t take all of this crying every time we argue. It’s like I am dealing with a child. We have grown up, Becca. Face me, dammit ”

What were you thinking, Rebecca?

It wasn’t my fault.

In the girls’ bathroom?

What were you little tramps doing?

She was showing me how to use a tampon...

Yeah, right...

Why do you never believe me?

Because you are two-faced.

Huh?

Yeah, just like your damn father.

Abbey stands up and begins pacing back and forth while she nervously rips the hair tie out of her hair, sending a cascade of black curls down her back like the angry black waters of the Styx, flowing through the red flames of hell.

Hell.

Go to hell.

Why won’t they go to hell and stop spinning.

Spinning.

Don’t touch me...just leave me be.

Alone.

“I dunno.”

“What? You don’t know? I don’t get it, Becca. Do you know how much I love you?” The words bury themselves in the back of my neck, creating a dull ache that no amount of rubbing could ever erase. I curl up into a tighter ball, wishing that I had a shell to crawl into, to hide all of my transgressions, instead of wearing them in the tears dripping down my face. I feel fingers stroke my hair, pulling each curly tendril out of the knotted mass and sliding down its length to the frayed ends.

“Honestly, I want to believe that something is wrong with you, but I think you are just suffering from chronic self-pity.” Abby stops stroking my hair and lifts my face up from between my knees.

Don’t touch me.

Don’t touch me.

He touched me .

She touches me.

Don’t touch me.

Snakes.

Gardens.

Cigarette helicopters spinning in my head.

Where will the wind take them?

“Abby, I....I can’t. I need a cigarette.” Abby removes her fingers from my chin and turns away disgusted. She gets up and begins pacing around the room again.

***

“Why don’t we just do it already?” he asked as he rested his trembling hands on my shoulders. His fingers dug into my flesh and my heart was beat faster and faster with every passing second. I could only see it shaking into of me...don’t do it.

“I told you, I’m not ready, okay?” I saw my mother’ face buzzing around in my head smiling with utter elation.

He’s such a nice boy, she would say.

Yes, a boy. Little “snake” and all.

“How long is it gonna be, Becca? We’ve been going out for five months now. I mean, I don’t want to pressure you, but guys are saying stuff and I really...”

“Don’t pull that crap on me, Kyle. Not putting me under pressure? Isn’t that what this whole situation is about?” I pried his hands off my shoulders, allowing them to fall down my wiry arms. I look up into his eyes, full of the pain that I inflicted with my denial deep within his baggy cargo shorts. Suddenly, a deep feeling of dread began to form deep within my stomach as a million little penises danced with my mother in my head.

Go away, I told him.

Get off of him.

Don’t do it, Papa. Don’t do it.

Baily. Mom.

BailyMomBailyMom.

“Becca, I...I don’t know if...” Kyle’s arms were shaking as he released his grip from my arms and I climbed off the couch. “I mean, you don’t want to do it? I always hear all of those girls talking about it. Gigglin’ in the halls every time the guys walk by. Come on, Becca, I have needs, too.”

Don’t you understand what I need, Mother?

What you need? You are just a kid

So what? Who is to say I can’t think for myself.

You aren’t allowed to. Do you make the money in this household?

The only one who did is ten feet under.

How could you say that?

You haven’t worked a day in your life

I keep this house up.

No, Bailey and I keep this house up. You just lay around and throw parties.

Well, someone has to keep our name honorable.

Honorable, ha, that is far from describing us.

God, why do you have to be such a pain?

It’s in my blood.

Why can’t you get a boyfriend?

It always comes down to that doesn’t it?

It would make things better.

Face it, Mother, Abby is my girlfriend.

Get the hell out of my house and go back to that demon school of yours.

Demon.

We are demons.

“Shit, there you did it. Pulled out the cliche crap on me. Fuck. I’m not touching you now. Don’t you think that girls have needs, too? I don’t take guys who can only think with their goddamn dicks.” I kicked him in the crotch, he tumbled to the ground like an avalanche of hurt and anger, his hands placed perfectly over his only prized possession. If only men prided their brains as much as their penises, this world would be legions ahead, I thought to myself. I turned around and chuckled at his crumpled body, he looked just like the fetus that he could have formed inside my freshly shaped uterus. Kyle slowly lifted a middle finger on the air. I blew a gentle kiss and then replied with a rebuttal middle finger.

“You know what they say about you, Becca...” I looked into Kyle’s half-dazed eyes that seemed to have melded into shade of demonic red.

“What do they say about me, Kyle? That I’m a dyke? That you are dating a pussy lover?” I clasped my hand over my mouth as soon as the words had left my tongue. Kyle’s face looked like he had just seen someone brutally die in front of him and I realized that I had committed the greatest fault in that a girl could in the bedroom community of Greenville, A.K.A. “Conservativeville.”

“No...nooo...no...” stammered Kyle. “They say...” I began to walk away and he reached out and grabbed my ankle. His body was just spinning around.

Her hair was everywhere.

All of me and him.

Spin.

You must love boys, she tells me.

Don’t touch that, it’s icky.

Icky.

He touched boys.

She touched boys.

Icky.

Burn me.

Hair everywhere.

***

“Becca, I...” sniffles Abby as she sits back down next to me.

I want to pull my face out from between my knees, again, but I feel a weight settle on my shoulders. The weight of his entire being, forcing me to stay. Stay right where I am. A head rests on mine. Oh so warm, the kiss planted on the mini bald spot , right behind my left ear where I burned myself when I lit my hair on fire when I was thirteen. I was trying to chase the demons out that I thought lives in my head.

Do you like my garden?

It’s so beautiful. Oh, so fresh.

I think I love you.

How could you love me? It’s only been a month.

Abby, I have never felt this way before.

Come on, everyone has felt love once in their life.

Not me.

Not me.

The helicopters spinning round and round as we mound the mud higher and higher.

He wasn’t supposed to go like this, they said.

We will be okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Don’t touch vaginas.

“What is this, Becca?” Pain shoots down my spine, radiating through every nerve to the ends of my fingers, making them twitch in response. “What happened last night, Becca?” I’ve been trying to avoid it, but now I know for sure something happened. This is massively huge and so purple. Are you okay? No matter what, I will hear you out. I will be here for you for that.” Are you really here, Abby? I can’t see you anymore.

Were you there when they did it?

When they put in?

When she took everything away?

When he spun?

When you spun round and round in my head, while the world shook.

Fingernails, digging deeper.

Do you know how it feels to have it shoved in you like a knife.

The soft flesh of its victim pouring forth the blood...

Blood...there was so much blood.

No one ever told me it would bleed.

She never told me, Trojans on the night stand.

Marching in my head....march...duty...it was his duty.

It was my duty.

I push Abby off me and slide out of the bed, pausing before I lower my feet to the floor. I reach back and finger my neck, feeling the protrusion, like another head trying to fight its way out. Twinges of pain radiate through me, triggering a thousand memories that I always wanted to forget.

It never happened.

They never happened, but why are they there? Said my psychologist

You can’t ignore them.

I’m not.

Yes, you are.

I’M NOT

Yes.

No.

You will get there.

I don’t want to get there. They don’t matter anyways.

Then why are you here?

I need a cigarette, save me...

“Save me ” I scream out loud and topple on the floor, finding my face level with the legs of our double bed.

***

I never knew what freedom was until I had set my foot in Kalamazoo College. No one, no where knew who I was. Finally, the burden I had been carrying around, been hiding beneath my prep school uniform could be unleashed all over the flyer-ridden sidewalks. There was no one telling me that girls were dirty. No one telling me to keep condoms in the plenty. No one telling me that I’m going to end up on the end of a spinning rope. I was looking for a savior and this was it.

“Where are you off to?” Asked a girl with bright pink hair, frizzed like tasty buds of cotton candy. Our eyes caught and I was taken aback by the depth of their black almond gaze. I felt as if I could look into the leagues of her mind, feeling every angst driven moment bombard the melancholy bliss of my own empty gaze.

“Umm...oh...sociology...with Professor Steinem,” I stuttered. My body felt strange, like it had become distant from my mind in some psychology text book’s description of an out of body experience.

“Oh, no way Me too. I’m Abigail, well, Abby really. Abigail is way too sing-songy for me. My mother should have known better than to name me that. She knew I was a firecracker the moment I popped out of the womb. Wouldn’t stop crying ‘til she fed me. Been fighting for whatever I want ever since. So what do you call yourself?” Abby was like a ball of energy exploding all over me. I had never met anyone so free with herself, from the crazy hair, the flowy brown skirt, and the bright green t-shirt proclaiming, “Club Sandwiches, Not Seals.” I was overwhelmed with some combination of fear and obsession.

“Ummm...Rebecca...actually I go by Becca.”

“Aight, nice, you deal in nicknames, too. I like it. Nice to meet you, Becca. God, you have gorgeous hair.” Abby grabbed a strand and let each separate strand slip through her fingers.
“Nice to meet you, too”I stammered as she continued to violate my personal space. My heart pounded against my chest like it wanted to burst out. I was certain that Abby could hear the obnoxious percussion, but she let go of my hair and fixed her eyes forward, humming some Nirvana song while dragging her worn out Vans against the ground. Abby stopped and turned toward me and I stopped and turned in reply. Our eyes locked once again and all I could see were a thousand penises dancing in my head, cutting away to a flowery field. The field across from my house where I lived before Dad died.

She is so beautiful.

I thought I loved her.

Did she love me, too.

Love, what, what...too.

***

“What do you mean, Rebecca? How can I save you? I don’t understand...will...I...ever... Shit, I never used to get into this stuff. We never were like this. Hell, we have more substance than this. We are not a bunch of whiney phonies.” I can hear Abby begin to sob as she collapses on the bed. I let my eyes travel along the curves of each item stored beneath our bed. The scale from the days when Abby thought maybe she should lose weight...that lasted about three days time and has been collecting dust ever since. Some board games left over from our college days, Clue, Monopoly, Life. We used to play drinking games with them, take a shot on every payday, rent is in sips of beer, kiss the person on your left every time you go in the library, etc. They seem so infantile now, like undergrad was a million years ago. Everything feels like a million years ago. Except for some things.

They seem like yesterday.

An hour ago.

Two seconds ago.

No amount of cigarettes will ever take that taste away.

Away.

All go away.

It won’t hurt, he told me.

But I don’t want it.

How do you know?

I have seen it before.

But have you felt it?

I don’t want to. It will hurt.

No, it won’t. I will just be like...

NO

` Shush.

That’s what he told me.

What she told me.

As the darkness fell over us.

Sinking.

Spinning.

Is this love?

Love? Non one ever experiences that, she said.

Did you love, Dad?

Haha.

Why?

Haha.

Haha.

Haha.

It burns.

It won’t hurt, she told me.

You won’t be dirty anymore.

I fumble for the lighter jammed between the mattress and the bed springs. My hand closes around the plastic cylinder and pull it. I pull a cigarette out from between my barely visible breasts. Fingers graze the slightly raised scar traveling from the natural crevice of cleavage to the edge of my tender left nipple and I wonder if the memory will ever come back to me. I roll over on my back and light the cigarette, blowing tiny rings just like Stan, my ninth grade boyfriend, taught me during those long nights of drinking his parents’ vodka in his kid brother’s tree house.

Stan and I hardly ever did anything together. Not like what he did to me. What he did. It was struggle enough to try to kiss a boy and one that doesn’t reciprocate is ten times worse. Turns out he is living in Philadelphia with his boyfriend working on a law degree at Villanova. He never talks to anyone back home either, which makes me feel good. At least, I’m not the only gay demon cast out from the village. Demons.

Demons.

That’s what she called it.

When I told her that I liked girls.

You are a dirty slut.

Slut.

She never even says poop.

Slut.

What about him, I said.

Silence.

I know about it, I say.

I know everything about him.

I guess that it runs in the family.

Shut up, you don’t know anything.

I saw them.

I saw them.

I saw them.

“Are you smoking?” mumbles a voice from above.

“Yes.” I puff an ominous gray cloud into the air, watching it spread and disperse like a puddle of spilled milk.

“I had a feeling you were lying to me. How often do you do this?”

“Lie? More than you should know.”

“Argh. You are so...so...obtuse. I can’t get myself to understand you, and frankly, the emotional toll has been too much. I can’t take it anymore. Tell me what it is Tell me now and save me the pain of hearing it from someone else. I have been there for you, Becca, through it all. Through the medications and the long nights in the hospitals. The stories. Oh, the stories of your life. Yeah, it sucks that your father was a douche bag for leaving your family behind and I’m sorry that your mother has never accepted the fact that her daughter is gay and that your sister doesn’t even acknowledge your presence.” Abby takes a long deep breath. “I’m sorry for all of it, Rebecca, but I can only be sorry for so long. I can only take so much. I’m not in this relationship to take care of you, to pull you along on a leash of security. I love you and I want to be loved back. Can you ever love, Becca, because this is absolutely fucking ridiculous. I never thought I would find myself in some cliched, fucked up relationship. Where is Becca? Where is she in you?”

I continue to watch the smoke drift up towards the ceiling, wondering if the smoke detector will go off.

It never did when he kissed me.

When he grabbed me.

When fingernails dug.

Deeper and deeper.

Into my flesh.

His flesh.

Becca, they say you are stuck up.

What?

That you are too good for everyone.

But...but...I...

Don’t say anything.

Let me hold you.

Okay.

Okay.

Will it be okay?

You can trust me.

You can trust boys, she said.

But can you trust dicks?

Rebecca, don’t you dare use that vulgar language.

Oh come on and get off your high horse, Mother.

What ever happened to Kyle?

What ever happened to?

What ever happened?

What ever?

What?

Helicopters spinning round and round.

***

He stroked my hair daintily, like he was handling fine china. I never knew that people, men, could be so delicate.

“What is this, Tyler?” I...I don’t think I understand,” I whispered as I tried to desperately focus on my textbook, ignoring the heart pounding within my chest. I always wished it could learn to be more discreet.

“I don’t want t use any cheesy lines on you because I know they will be lost in your feminist witticisms.”

“What are you getting at?” I felt a shiver resonate down my spine and I began to finger the hemp bracelet that Abby had braided me, it felt like a handcuff, holding my hand back from anything it might desire to do.

“Stop being dense, Becca. You know why I study with you all of the time.” I turned and looked at Tyler, his closely cropped black hair, striped Oxford, and half-crooked smile, some combination of lust and fear. My heart continued thumping like a time bomb within my chest, waiting to explode. Every part of my body felt like a criminal and a witness in case of child’s play gone horribly wrong.

Guilt.

Guilty.

The taste won’t leave my mouth.

Burning.

Slut, she told me.

Slut? Doesn’t that imply I am sleeping around?

What you are doing is close enough.

Honestly, Mother. I have never had sex.

Excuse me?

Never.

I do not want you to say that in the presence of your twelve year old sister.

Mother, she is old enough to hear it.

I will decide that, not you.

What do you think she thinks of the men?

What men?

Come on...our front door barely closes before another one comes strolling in.

They are just friends.

Yeah, friends with benefits.

You are grounded

Yeah, whatever. Guess I can’t sneak out and screw my boyfriend.

No wonder you father killed himself. With a daughter like you

Is that what he thought?

Did he think of me?

Tighter and tighter.

Cut me free.

Free.

Burning.

Tyler grabbed my wrist, wrapping his fingers gently around my bracelet, making it his own handcuff to me. My hand slid out of his grasp and I glued my eyes to my textbook, frantically trying to look calm. I glanced up at all of the other students in the library, hoping to catch eyes with someone, anyone that could come to my rescue. Yet, every head was averted to a book or computer, the telltale wires leading to hidden Ipods protruding from their music-infused ears. Fixed in place in their mechanical world. Robots. Why couldn’t they detect my precarious state?
“Becca, are you okay? Wait, sorry, shit what did I say? Fuck, I am such a prick. I just figured that since we studied together all of the time it meant that you like me.” Tyler looked down at his book forlorn.

“Tyler, it’s not what...”

“You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Sort of.”

“Why don’t you ever talk about him? The only person I ever hear about it that friend of yours, Abhy, right?”

“Yeah, but...”

“Is he amazing? I mean, better than me? Honestly, I seem to mess it up with girls. I’m twenty-five, in grad school, working on a BS in social psychology, have a nice apartment, a good car. Hell, I know where to eat. I’m a runner...”

“Jesus, Tyler, chill the fuck out. In the last few months I have studied with you, I have never seen such hostility...”

“Yeah, sorry, I think I’m a little stressed out with my thesis and I don’t know.” Tyler slammed his book closed, the sound reverberating ff every bookshelf. “I feel like a fifteen year old by saying this, but I like you.” Goosebumps ran up and down my arms, like an army of ants scurrying under my skin.

Suddenly, I saw my mother again, taunting me to like little boys, setting me up on dates with her church ladies’ sons, sneaking me condoms and even trying to ask if I wanted to go birth control. She would’ve rather had a promiscuous daughter than a lesbian. Yet, did she ever understand why boys scared me so much?

How did you know you were a lesbian?

I always knew. How ‘bout you, Becca?

I dunno.

Come on, you know.

Okay, it was when I saw it.

Saw what...oh...

Yeah...

Oh my God, who, what, where?

Spin.

Spinning.

I can’t tell you.

Why not?

Why not?

Why not?

It never happened.

“Tyler, there’s something I have got to tell you.”

“Okay...”

“Don’t sound so grave. You see, you and me would never work.”

“Why not? How could it not?

“I don’t like your type.”

“Wait, what?” Rich, a little preppy. What? I’m a good person.”

“I’m a lesbian.” The goosebumps began to subside.

“Oh...”

“Yeah, it makes it complicated.”

“Yeah, why didn’t you tell me before? I assume that this Abby character is your...partner?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“Sort of?”

“I meant, yes.”

“Then why didn’t you say that?” Heads all around us began to tear themselves away from their academic pages like a thousand sea anemones rising from their coral caves.

“I think I had better go.” I shoved my books haphazardly into my backpack and turned to run, when I felt his hand around my wrist. The bracelet dug deeper and deeper into my soft flesh. I felt Abby squished between the hemp and my jittering flesh.

***
“Have you ever loved a man, Abby?” My cigarette is just a stub, a smoldering stub of withered tobacco and cotton shit. I smash it against the metal headboard of our bed, watching the ashes scatter all over the carpet.

Ashes.

Ashes in my mouth.

On my skin.

Don’t burn me.

“What the fuck, Becca, what the fuck? Holy shit, I don’t even know what to say to this shit. Give it to me straight, did you cheat on me?” She leans over the edge of the bed and peers accusingly down on my body, spread out for a mental examination. “You did, didn’t you? I hope he was good in bed. I hope it felt good feeling it go up in you.”

“Stop it ” I scream as I look up at Abby. There are little streaks of black mascara trickling down her face like two little rivers of hate and pain. “I don’t know what is going on. I can’t feel, Abby. I can’t feel anything.”

“I don’t buy it, Becca. Not anymore. I am tired of it. All your little illnesses. There’s nothing wrong with you and I know it. I can see guilt written all over your face.”

Can she see the ashes in my mouth.

Can she see the burning in my head.

Why did you do it?

Do what?

Light your hair on fire?

There are demons in me?

Rebecca, there are no demons in you. You have a clinical illness.

What? Devil illness.

Post-Traumatic Stress.

No. I like girls.

That’s not an illness, Rebecca.

Yes, it is.

You need to stop listening to your mother.

How about you live under a roof with her?

Live under a roof with him.

I will give you something to take.

To take.

To take the pain.

To take the pain away.

But I feel numb.

Don’t worry. They will help.

They will help.

No one ever helps.

Burn.

Don’t touch me.

Abby’s eyes dig into me, looking through my nightgown, my skin, my organs, right down to the core of my dark, tarnished soul. I feel naked, like all of my transgressions have been laid out before her in one long scroll. My body is just waiting, waiting to be resurrected by some god-fearing doctor of spirits.

“Abby, it’s not like that.”

“What do you mean? You have said nothing over the span of a half hour besides empty sentences that only reaffirm your falsity, or you just totally ignore me for no reason at all, like you have journeyed to some faraway land. You are smoking in our apartment like some OCD druggie. What the hell, Becca? Wake up We’re not in your effing fairyland.” Abby stops for a moment. “When I look in your eyes I don’t see anything...just emptiness...where I used to see. I don’t know, light...no, not that...hope...hope. Now there’s nothing left.”

I begin to chew the hangnails on the side of my pointer finger, pleasuring myself with the taste of my own flesh. Abby rolls back over n the bed, the bedsprings creaking as the invite the redistributed weight. “Aren’t you going to say something in your defense?”

Why can’t I defend myself?

Defend what?

What I stand for? Why can’t you accept it?

Accept what?

That I don’t give a shit about you or your kind?

You will.

It’s not just an on off button.

Oh, I have seen it happen. Get over your college rebellion.

That hurts. Let go of me.

Not yet. You don’t want to miss it.

I don’t care about missing it. I don’t want to see it.

Come on, be like Kinsey.

What? Are you pulling effing psychology into this?

Why not experiment?

What is that?

Don’t worry.

Don’t worry.

Abby.

Abby.

Abby.

“I haven’t been honest with you, Abby.”

“Thank the motherfukcing Lord The sinner speaks.”

I pull out another cigarette and light it up. I take a long drag, allowing the putrid air to poison my lungs, strangling each one of my oxygen seeking cells. My heart is beating against my chest, the rhythm reverberating off of every rib, filling me with life.

“Can I tell you something?”

“I have been waiting six fucking years, so shoot.” I take another drag and blow it out slowly. Calm down, I tell myself.

She’s not like you.

She’s not like him.

Her.

Him.

Them.

The spinning will stop.

Don’t touch me.


“Momma, what’s going on tonight?” I asked as I snuck a cracker off of the silver platter she was carrying.

“Rebecca, get your fingers off of this I won’t have any left for the party.” My mother set the platter down and carefully rearranged it to mask the hole I had made.

“Ooooh, there is going to be a party tonight?” I began jumping up and down, my blonde pigtails bouncing in the air like two cornflower springs. “Can I wear my ballerina skirt?”

“No, honey, this is not a party for you. This is a party for grown-ups.”

“But Moooooommmm, why do I never get to go to your parties? I’m seven. I’m old enough.”
“I know, honey, but you will be in bed and I don’t want your teachers complaining about me sending a tired daughter to class.” My mother tied her short blond hair into a little ponytail and wrapped a pristine white apron around her waist. “Besides, it will be no fun for you.”

“Fine, but when will I be able to go?” I whined, puckering my lower lip.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe high school. Now scoot. I’ve got work to do and I don’t need anymore fingers on my platters.” I looked up at my mother, searching for something in her eyes....hope maybe...love more likely, but they were fixed on a nut-crusted cheese ball, delicately accented with a sprig of parsley.

I laid in bed concentrating on my Care Bears nightlight that my Aunt Tiffany had bought me when I was four. Laughter and conversation buzzed beneath me and all I wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be down there, like some society lady, munching on appetizers and sipping champagne. There would be glittery diamonds around my neck and a bright pink bow n my hair all done up like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. I always wanted to be just like her, with her funny accent and beautiful gowns. I closed my eyes and began to imagine myself down there. Just as I was about to kiss some dashing gentleman, something banged against my wall and my eyes shot open in shock. I heard two voices mumbling on the other side of the wall. I pressed my ear against it and zeroed in on each voice.

“Hey, be careful, someone is in that room.”

“Oh, sorry, wait, who is up here?”

“My daughter. You know that.”

“Oh my God, I am so sorry. Do you think she can hear us?”

“No, she’s never heard us before. She’s a good, hard sleeper, like her mother.”

“Oh Maryann, jeez, will she come up here?”

“Whoa, when did you get so paranoid? We have done this a hundred times. You know as well as I do that she is drunk as a skunk and stumbling around flirting with Gordon Levinson.”

“Okay, sorry, I don’t know. I’m just starting to feel dirty about all of this.”

“Alright, this will be the last time here. We will stick to hotels after this. Come on, I can’t stand this talk anymore.”

“Yeah...” The mumbling dropped off and changed to heavy breathing. My heart was thumping again and my palms had grown sweaty. I started shaking from head to toe. Something moved me to jump out of bed and walk down the hall to that bedroom.

Everything was dark as I stumbled. Suddenly, my hand fell on a door knob. The coolness seemed to burn my shaking hand as I slowly turned it, the creaking reverberating within my head like a warning sign for what laid ahead.

“What’s that?” Screeched one of the voices from the dark.

“Don’t stop, please...” replied my father. I clicked on the light and froze as I took in the scene before me. Everything seemed to just stand still for, I can’t even say how long, but it felt like centuries worth of a life time. My father was laid out on the bed, his clothes scattered all across the floor of the guest bedroom...and Stan...Stan Fisher, my father’s business partner was crouched over him and the I saw it, this ugly protrusion hanging between Stan’s legs, solid and driving toward the back of my father.

“Becca, it’s not what you think...”

“Holy mother of God ” screamed Stan as he grabbed the blanket and ran into the guest bathroom. My stomach was churning and I had no idea why, but for some reason I knew that this was not okay.

“Becca, sweetie.” My father pulled the sheets of the bed up around himself. “Let me talk to you.”

I just stood there, unable to comprehend anything before me. All I could see was Stan’s, “snake,” as my mother called it, waving in my head. I ran back to my bedroom, tears streaming down my face. Then I vomited all over the floor.

***

“Did I ever tell you about my father?” The smoke trickled from my cigarette as I waved it between my fingers like plastic toy airplane.

Helicopters spinning.

Round and round.

Can they take me away.

Away from here.

Away from me.

Me.

Spinning.

“That he was a dick who chickened out on your family and killed himself?” retorts Abby in a snide voice. “What, did you not tell me the whole story?”

“Never mind, you’re right. He was a dick. Couldn’t take not having money. What a dick.”
Why won’t you talk about him.

About who?

Your father?

He died.

Yeah, Becca, but he had some part in your life, right?

Yeah, all the shitty parts, Ab.

Come, he died when you were so young. What could he have done...wait...
No, he didn’t molest me.

Okay, good. Lord, that would be horrifying. I knew someone...never mind...

He just messed it all up.

By dying?

By killing himself.

Bastard.

Bastard.

But why?

Why what?

Why did he do it?

Mother says money.

You don’t seem convinced?

Mother says it WAS MONEY.

Whoa, okay, simmer down hot pot.

Sorry, I don’t know...

You don’t know what?

I don’t know...

Will I ever know?

Spinning.

Daddy, do you love him?

Do you love him?

Do you love, Mom?

Daddy, why aren’t you breathing.

Stop it.

Stop spinning.

Round and round.

Can’t a helicopter just take it away.

On the wind.

Blow, blowing.

Spinning the blades.

Round and round.

What did you say?

“Jeez, Becca. Don’t say you are going to tell me something and then just back out of it. I’m not here for more of your therapy sessions. I’m sick and tired of your problems. If you can’t be honest, I can’t be here. You know what? I don’t even want to hear about your dick of a father”
“Okay, fine...” I chew on my cigarette, the cotton filter squishing between my teeth, showering little bits of tobacco all over my mouth. The regret resurfaces, bitter and limey, trying to brand my mouth with its guilt ridden motives. The knot begins to ache more and more, the pain radiating down my spine, shaking every vertebrae. I pull myself up off the floor, slow and methodic, like an old man arising from a week’s worth of rest. My eyes center in on Abby, sprawled out on the bed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

Gabby, I’m scared.

Don’t worry so much.

What’s that noise?

Get your clothes back on

Gabriella, Rebecca, are you in here?

Climb up on the toilet.

What?

Get up here.

I know you girls are in here. Margaret told us.

Damn Margaret, what a kiss up.

My mother is going to kill me.

There you two are What were you doing?

I was showing her how to use a tampon.

Then why were you two standing on the toilet.

Better insertion.

Gabriella That is inappropriate language.

How else do you describe it?

You two, office.

Explain.

Explain what.

Explain yourself.

I can’t explain you.

Rebecca.

I am Rebecca.

I am a lesbian.

I am a half.

A half.

A half of person.

Spinning.

Spinning on the end.

End of rope.

A wire.

Connected to my thoughts.

To my wrist.

Digging.

Burning.

“I just don’t get it, Becca, am I missing something? Did I miss some note on the refrigerator, some symbol floating around in your guarded speech? Goddamn.”

“Abby, I’m hurt.”

“Let me help you.

“You can’t.” I begin to pace around the room, the smoke enclosing me in a toxic embrace. Abby sits up, wiping the inky trails navigating the pores of her face.

“I have been here all of this time. Becca, as much as I hate you right now, I love you, in some fucked up Shakespeareanesque way. Six years. Six years. What happened today? It was a normal day. What happened?” Abby begins to pull off her pants and socks. She lays back down on the bed, arms spread like the wings of an eagle ready to take flight.

Do you feel that you have ever been in love?

Love? Are psychologists allowed to use that word?

Of course, love is an emotion.

Are you sure it is not a delusion?

Well, it can be.

Is there such thing as sane love?

It depends on what your definition of sane is.

Shouldn’t you be telling me that?

Just answer the question.

Abby.

You loved Abby?

With all of my heart.

Love.

Did she love me?

Burning

Did he love me?

Spinning.

Did she love me?


Stop it.

Did he love me?

Push

Did she love me?

Away.

Did he love me?

Digging.

Will the helicopters stop?

They spin round.

Every thought.

Mother.

Bailey.

Love?

Love?

Love?

Abby.

Love?

Love, Dad.

Leave me.

Spinning.

Burning.

Digging.

Push.

Away.

Stop it.

Did you ever tell her?

Only twice.

Only twice?

Only twice.

How did it make you feel?

Amazing.

Why don’t you tell her every day?

Why do you use the present?

Oh, is it the past.

I’m not sure.

I’m not sure.

“Abby, I never loved you.” I extinguish the chewed mass of tobacco on the bedpost and toss it on the carpet. Abby sits back up, her hair spread out in every direction like some old witch from a fairy tale. She wipes the blackened tears from her aching eyes.

“Get out of here,” she screams from the deepest depths of every emotional outlet within her. I stop pacing and stare at her mourning figure. A laugh gets caught in my throat and I can’t hold it back any longer, as the bellowing pours forth from my ashy lips. Abby lays back down , her sobs echo off the walls, blending with the reverberation of my maniacal giggling. The two meld into a unification of raw emotion.

I walk out on t he porch and light another cigarette. I climb up on the wobbly mental railing, fighting against the pressure of gravity. My vision falls upon the robots still focused on their singular destinations. No one will look up at the girl. The woman. Teetering on the edge. The edge of everything. The cigarette slips from my mouth, one more helicopter in the wind. Never knowing just where it might land.