THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS
by
JT LeRoy


 THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS

JT LEROY

BLOOMS BURY

For Dr.  Terrence Owens

To Sarah

To Dennis

To Gus

My heart to Patti Silhvan



All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission from the Publisher except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews

For information address Bloomsbury Publishing.
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Published by Bloomsbury, New York and London Distributed to the trade
by St.  Martin's Press

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

LeRoy, JT, 1980The heart is deceitful above all things / by JT LeRoy

ISBN: 1- Salk paper)

1 United States Social life and customs 20th centrury Fiction I Title

PS3S62 E773 H4 2001

813'6 dc21

First U S Edition 10 987654321

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Polmont, Stirlingshire Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Disappearances 7

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things 44

Toyboxed 50

Foolishness Is Bound in the Heart of a Child 56

Lizards 74

Baby Doll 115

Coal 157

Viva Las Vegas 207

Meteors 209

Natoma Street 229

DISAPPEARANCES

His LONG WHITE buck teeth hang out from a smile, like a wolf dog.  His
eyes have a vacant, excited, mad look.  The lady holding it, crouched
down to my height, is grinning too widely.  She looks like my
baby-sitter, without the braces, the same long blond braid that starts
somewhere inside the top of her head.  She shakes Bugs Bunny in my
face, making the carrot he's clutching plunge up and down like a knife.
I wait for one of the social workers to tell her I'm not allowed to
watch Bugs Bunny.

"Look what your momma got you," I hear.

Momma.

I say it softly like a magic word you use only when severely
outnumbered.

"Right here, honey," the woman with the bunny says.  She smiles even
wider, looking up at the three surrounding social workers, nodding at
them.  Their tilted heads grin back.  She shakes the rabbit again.

"I'm your momma."  I watch her red, glossy lips, and I can taste the
word, metallic and sour in my mouth.  And I ache so badly for Her, the
real one that rescues me.

I stare out at the blank faces, and from deep inside I scream and
scream for Her to come save me.

When we first get back to the tiny, one-bedroom bungalow, I throw
myself on the floor, kicking and screaming for my real momma.

She ignores me and makes dinner.

"Look, Spaghetti-Os," she says.  I won't move.  I fall asleep on the
floor.  I wake up in a narrow cot with Bugs Bunny next to me, and I
scream.

She shows me the few toys she's gotten me.  I have more and better at
my real home.  I throw hers out the window.

One of the social workers comes by, and I cry so hard I throw up on her
navy blue tassel shoes.

"He'll get used to it, Sarah," I hear her tell my new mom.  "Hang in
there, honey," she tells her, and pats her shoulder.

At lunch she gives me peanut butter and jelly with the crusts on.  My
real momma cuts the crust off.  I fling the plastic Mickey Mouse plate
off the table.

She spins around, hand raised into a fist.  I scream, she freezes, her
fist shaking, a foot away from my chest.

We both stare at each other, breathing hard.  And something passes
between us, and her face seals up.  I don't know what it is exactly.

As my sobs start she grabs her denim jacket and leaves.  I'd never been
alone before, not even for five minutes, but I know something has
changed, something is different, and I don't scream.

I run to my bed, curl up tight, and wait for everything to be
different.

The phone's shrill ringing wakes me up.  It's dark without the dinosaur
night-light I used to have.

"Thank you, Operator, it works," I hear her say quietly.  Then, almost
yelling, "Hello?  ... Hello?  ... Yes, Jeremiah is here ..."

My heart starts pounding.  "Jeremiah, honey, are you awake?"  she calls
out, her shadow haunting my partly opened door.

"Momma?"  I call out, pushing my sheets away.

"Yes, honey, it's your foster parents."  I run to her and the phone.

"Oh yes, he's here."  I reach up for the phone with every muscle.

"What ... oh ..."  She frowns.  I jump up and down, straining.

"Bad?  ... Well he hasn't been very bad ..."  She turns away from me,
the black phone cord wrapping around her.

"Momma!"  I shout, and pull on the phone cord.

"Yes ... I see," she says, nodding, turning away from me farther.  "Oh,
is that why?  OK, I'll tell him."

"Gimme ... Momma!"  I yell, and yank hard on the cord.

"So you don't want to speak to him?"

"Daddy!"  I yell, and grab hard.  The phone receiver flies out of her
hands, bounces on the blue, sparkled linoleum, and slides under the
table.  It spins like a bottle, the mouthpiece facing up.  I spring for
it, sliding like my daddy taught me when we played whiffle ball. Just as
my finger touches the dull, black plastic of the phone, it jerks and
flies out from under the table and away from me.

"Got it!"  I hear her gasp.  "Hello?  ... Yes!  Yes!  He did that...
Fuck yeah, I'll tell him."

I twist around and drag myself from under the table.

"OK, thanks."  She smiles into the phone.

"No!"  I reach up with my arms.

"Y'all take care."

"No!"  My feet skid under me, leaving me back on my stomach.

"Good-bye."  In slow motion she swirls like a ballerina, a grin wide on
her face.

"No!"

Her arm rises into the air, the spiral cord swinging in front of me.  I
grab for it, her hand sweeps backward, and I catch nothing.

"Momma!"  I scream, and I watch the receiver lowered into its cradle on
the couch's white plastic end table.

I scramble to the phone and snatch it up.  "Momma, Momma, Daddy!"  I
shout into it.

"They hung up," she says.  She sits on the opposite end of the couch
and lights a cigarette, her bare legs pulled to her chest, tucked under
her large white T-shirt.

Even though I hear the dial tone humming, I still call for them.  I
press the receiver to my ear as tightly as I
can, in case they're there, past the digital tone calling to me like
voices lost in a snowstorm.

"They're gone," she says, blowing smoke out.  "You wanna know what they
said?"

"Hello?  ... Hello?"  I say quieter.

"They didn't want to talk to you."

"Hello?"  I turn away from her and wrap myself in the cord.

"I said they did not want to talk to you."

"Uh-uh," I whisper.  I twist more, and the receiver slips out of my
hands, banging on the linoleum.

"Don't you throw my phone!"  She gets up quickly and grabs the receiver
at my feet.

"You ain't gonna be throwing things no more," she says, and unwraps the
wire snaked around me, jerking it violently around my Superman pajamas
like a whip.

She hangs up the phone and goes back to the couch, crossing her legs.
She twists backward to look at me.

"I went through a lot to get you back, and you're going to be grateful,
you, you little shit."

A loud gasp pops out of me, a silent sob.  I'm beyond regular crying.

When Momma and Daddy go out without me, leaving me with Cathy the
baby-sitter, I always cry a while.  Sometimes I even scream and lay on
the wood floor near the front door, smelling the leftover trail of
sweet perfume Momma left.  But I always stop crying, remembering my
special treats left in the top drawer for being a good, grown-up boy.
Cathy and me watch the Rainbow Brite video, and she reads three books
to me, and when I wake up they're back, Momma and Daddy are always back
in their place.  "We always come back," they tell me.

"Do you want to know what they said about you?"  I hear her puff hard
on the cigarette.  I stare at a huge water bug scurrying under the
couch past her foot.  I shake my head no, turn around, and go back to
my bed.

I grab Bugs Bunny from under the cot where I'd shoved him, wrap my arms
around him under my blankets, and between hiccups whisper in his
oversize fuzzy ear, "When you wake up, they'll be back, they'll be
back."

That was the first night I wet.  I woke up feeling a cold dampness
under my blankets as if an air conditioner had been turned on somewhere
beneath me.  I'd never wet before, unlike Alex, my best friend from
preschool when I lived with my real parents.  When he spent the night,
my momma had to put the special plastic cover under the galaxy sheets.
"He has accidents," I repeated to my momma as I helped her stretch the
opaque white plastic over the mattress.  "I don't," I told her.

"No, you use the toilet like a big boy."  She smiled at me, and I
laughed with joy.  I had a giraffe ladder I'd climb up on.  I'd stand
tall as a giant, raise the seat myself, and I'd rain down my powerful
stream.  I used to float my toy boats in the toilet and pour down on
them, sinking them, till my mom explained that's not good to do, so I
did it in my bath instead, making my speedboats and tankers suffer
under my forceful gale.

When Alex and I lay in bed discussing who had a bigger rocketship that
went fastest to the moon, I felt proud every time I heard the aluminum
foil-like crinkle of him moving on his sheets against the smooth
swishing of mine.  "It's okay," I'd tell him in the morning, patting
his shoulder.  "It's just an accident.  You'll use the giraffe one day,
too."

I peel the wet blanket and sheet off me carefully and look down at the
wet, my wet.  Bugs Bunny grins up at me, his fuzzy cheek fur matted and
damp.

I sit up slowly and stare at the bright yellow room around me.  I had
had dinosaurs painted all over my old walls.  Here, tacked up, is a
poster of a large clown, frowning, maybe crying, holding a droopy
flower.

"Look at the clown, look at the clown, isn't he funny?!"  my new momma
had said.  I nodded but didn't smile.  In my old room my momma would
complain, "There's no place to put all these toys."  Two blue milk
crates side by side hold all my clothes and toys now, and they're not
half-full.

I stand there leaning against the cot, staring at it all: the dark wet
patch on my red Superman pajamas, the orange swirly-patterned linoleum
lumpy and bubbled like little turtles are living beneath it, the
whitish brown cottage-cheese stuff in the ceiling corners, the ABC
books I'd outgrown six months ago buried in the crates.

And I know I won't cry.  I just know it isn't possible.  I undress
quickly and repeat to myself all I need to dress myself.  I dig in the
milk crate: one shirt, two arms, one underwear, two legs, one pants,
two legs, two socks, two feet.  My old sneakers.  I put on the ones I
can close and open with sticky stuff by myself, not hers that she got
me, ones you have to tie.  Two sneakers, two feet.

"You dressed yourself!"  she'd say.

"All by myself," I'd tell her, and I'd get a star on my chart.  Twenty
stars and I got a matchbox car.  I had near a hundred of them.

I go into the living room quietly.  She lies on the couch, curled under
a fuzzy blanket with a lion on it.  Open cans and cigarettes are strewn
on the floor and coffee table.  The TV is on with no sound, no
cartoons, just a man talking.

I tiptoe past her, silently pull a chair over to the front door, climb
up, and noiselessly turn the locks.  I know how, my daddy taught me in
case of a fire or an emergency and I needed to get out.

I climb down, turn the knob, and pull.  The light makes me squint, and
the coolness of the air makes me shiver, but I know I have to go, it's
an emergency.  I have to get out.

I walk for a long time, staring at my sneakers, the only familiar thing
around me.  I concentrate on them, walking quickly on the cracked,
weed-filled sidewalk, trying to escape the crooked bungalows, all with
sagging, rotting porches, with paint cracking like dried mud.  Dogs bark and
howl, a few birds chirp now and then, and the slam of car doors makes
me jump as people get home or leave for work.

A huge gray factory hovers up ahead, like a metallic castle floating in
its thick, yellowish bellows of smoke.  I watch my sneakers for
directions.  They're from home.  Like stories about carrier pigeons I
loved to hear, I know they'll return me to home.  I survive crossing
streets by myself for the first time.  Even though no cars are visible,
I run, my heart thudding, expecting to be crushed suddenly.  I walk
fast, shaking my hands like rattles to keep me going, like a train's
engine forcing me forward, keeping me from stopping, keeping me from
curling up in a tight ball and trying to wake up.

Past the heavy-gated factory, chugging and snorting so loud I can't
hear the soft padding of my sneakers on the gravel as I run.  Run from
the gaping, smoking, metal dragon's mouth, trying to swallow me whole.
And then I'm going uphill, through a field so thick with brown grass I
can't see my sneakers, but I know at the top I'll see my home, my real
home.  I'll run through the door and into their arms, and everything
will be right again.

My foot catches on a half-buried rubber tire, and I fall forward, my
chin and hands digging into the reddish brown earth.

I lie there quietly, too surprised to move.  I lift my chin and stare
at the tilted world around me.  The dark

II

clay earth's spread out and glitters from the multicolored shards, as
if a pane of stained glass is hiding beneath.

A slow stream of watery red fills the moats my sliding hands made, and
the pain, stinging and sharp, stops my breath.  I pull my hands back
and there are wet dark slits in them.  My white T-shirt catches the red
tear in my chin.

And I know they're really gonna be sorry now.  I get up and run toward
the top of the cliff.  The tears are coming now and little yelp-like
screams slowly getting louder as I get closer.

Right over the hill is the house with the big green lawn, and swings
and slides, and my castle in the back.  My house.

I'll burst through the door and scream till they come running like they
did when I fell off my swing and scraped my forehead.  But I won't shut
up, I won't let them kiss it better.  I'll scream till the roof flies
off, till all the windows shatter, till they themselves blow apart and
explode.  I'll make them sorry.

I'm almost at the top of the hill.  I can smell the eucalyptus scent of
the living room, hear the tick tick of the wood clock that chimes with
a colorful cuckoo every hour.

I scream and lunge for the top.

The grass is deep and thick on the flat hilltop.  I push my way through
the brush.  I see the edge ahead where it all drops down, down to the
yard fenced in white.  I slow down, my breath hitching, my hands balled
into soggy fists.  I reach out a shaking arm and move aside the last
weeds blocking my way home.

I'll let them cover me in kisses.  I'll let them hug me long and hard.
I'll let them give me hot cocoa and cookies because I'm such a brave
boy.

I'll let them, if only their house were down there instead of the tight
rows and rows of peeling, rotting bungalows.

At that ledge, overlooking the worn and ruined houses, I understand the
world has suddenly become as frightening, violent, and make-believe as
the cartoons I wasn't supposed to watch.

When Sarah walks into the brick police station I scream so loud,
everything goes silent except her high heels clicking toward me.

I cling to the officer who found me, showed me how to use his radio,
bought me a chocolate ice cream, and let me wear his cap after I let a
nurse clean my cuts.

"Your mommy's here."  He leans down and tries to push me toward her.
They speak above me, and I can smell the strong perfume on her, not
like my mom's clean laundry scent.

I hold tighter and bury my face in the soft dark blue weave of his
pants.

"I thought you wanted to go home to your mommy," he says, looking down
at me.  I shake my head no.

"He's just confused," she says.  She crouches and whispers into my ear,
"If you come with me now,
I'll take you back to your momma."  I turn to face her.  She smiles,
winks at me, and puts out her hand, tan and thin with long red nails.

I slowly let go of the policeman's leg and give her my hand, wrapped in
a bandage and stained with chocolate ice cream that looks like blood.

"Good boy."  The officer pats my head.  I let my mother lead me through
the brightly lit fluorescent station, but my head is turned back to the
policeman, watching him wave, and smile good-bye, as if I know I will
never see the police in that magic, protective light ever again.

She only nods her head while blowing smoke out of the window as we
drive from the police station.

"Take me home," I repeat again and again.  She stares straight ahead.
She slides her palm up to her forehead in a heavy, slow movement, like
ironing.

Soon the road looks familiar, the cracked two-lane tar and the big,
metal factory, its pipes connecting to itself like silver luggage
handles.  Panic lurches in my chest, and I turn toward her in my
seat.

"You said you'd take me home!"  Her lips suck in as she chews them.

I pound on the window.  "Lemme out, lemme out, lemme out!"  The car
veers suddenly off the road, opposite the gated factory.  The ripping
sound of the emergency brake reminds me of my daddy pulling up to our
house, and I sob.  She holds her cigarette
up and blows on its red, dusty tip till it glows like a night
lamp.

"It's bad to smoke," I tell her between gasps.  "My momma, my
momma says so."

She looks over at me.  "Is that what they say?"  she says, real
singsong-like.  I nod, spit I can't swallow dribbling from my
mouth.

"Well, I'll have to make myself a note to thank them very, very
much."  She sucks hard on the cigarette, then pulls out the ashtray,
crumbles it into it, and blows a stream of white smoke into my face.
"Does that meet your spec-i-fications?"  She smiles, closemouthed.

The tears are bubbling in my eyes, hazing everything

like a cotton film.  
"OK, OK.  Now before you start wailing, let's
you and
I have us a little chat."  She turns to me, a leg bent on the
bench-type seat between us.  I blink at my tears, and the picture
clears some, but more are coming too fast.

"Let's get this straight.  I'm your mother.  I had you.  You came right
from here."  She pulls up her denim skirt and pats the flat dark under
her pantyhose, between her legs.  I look away, out the window, toward
the blurry factory.

"No, you pay me mind."  She reaches out and turns my face toward her.
Before I can scream she says quickly, "Your momma and daddy want you to
hear me.  If you want to go home to them, you listen."  I swallow my
scream and nod.

"You gonna listen?"

"I go home!"

"You gonna listen?"  She reaches under my chin, raising my face to
hers.  I nod and then shake my head free of her hand.  I hiccup hard,
and chocolate ice cream runs down my mouth and shirt.

"Jesus ..."  She grabs an end of my shirt and wipes at my face, hard,
not the soft dabs my momma does, even as I wriggle my face away from
her.  I don't try to pull away, though.

As she rubs my face, pressing my lips into my teeth, she says, "I had
you when I was just fourteen years old, can't say I wanted you; can't
say I didn't do rabbits' tricks to try and get rid of you."  She spits
on my chin and wipes hard, ignoring my band-aid.

"If my father'd let me, you'd long been flushed down some toilet.  You
understand?"  I nod, even though I don't.  I sob quietly, my lips
sucking in.

"They took you from me ... goddamn social worker cunts."  She lets my
face go and looks past me to the factory.  "Now I'm eighteen now ..."
She looks at me, nods.  "I got you back."  She pats my head.  "See,
you're mine."

"Take me home," I whisper.

"Do you hear what I'm saying to you?"  she yells.  She reaches down
into her denim bag and pulls out another cigarette.  I turn toward my
window.

"Take me home," I say louder.

"They don't want you."  She flicks her lighter.

"Take me home!"  I yell, and hit the glass.

"You goddamn, spoilt brat ..."  She grabs my hand and twists me toward
her.  "Don't make me whoop you!"

I gasp hard, and a little more chocolate ice cream dribbles out.  She
jerks my arms above my head, puffs on her cigarette, and exhales, her
head shaking the smoke out like a released balloon.

"They said they got rid of you 'cause you're bad ... you
understand?"

I try to pull my arms down, my face red and swollen.  She leans closer,
into my ear.  "Your foster par ... your momma and daddy ..."  She
grabs my cheeks with her other hand and turns my face to her, the
cigarette hanging from her lips.

"They ... shit!"  The cigarette drops.  "Shit!"  She lets go of me.
"See what you made me do?"  She leans down to retrieve the lit
cigarette, and I jump over to the door, pushing and pulling at the
handle.

"Momma and Daddy never showed you how to unlock a goddamn car door?"
She laughs behind me.  "You wanna go home? ... Fine, I'll take you,
I'll take you back."

The keys jingle in the ignition, and the brake rips again.  The car
rumbles beneath us.  I let go of the door handle.

"Gogo home," I sputter.

"Yeah, go fucking home!"  She rolls down her window and flicks her
cigarette out.

She pulls back out onto the tarmac, drives past the factory and the
dirty, broken houses, one of which is hers.

I sit back in my seat, heaving, wiping chocolate drool off my mouth.

"I was just trying to help you," she says quietly.

I look out at the abandoned shacks overrun with grass and vines, like a
museum exhibit of another world.

"My guess is they'll just call the police when I bring you back."

We pass children with sooty faces playing in a turned-sideways
refrigerator.

"The reason you're with me, you know, is because they don't want you no
more."  I turn in my seat, a little toward her.  "They told me, 'member
when they called last night?"  She adjusts the rearview mirror.  "They
said you're a bad boy, and that's why they gave you away.  If they
loved you so goddamn much, well then, why'd they get rid of you? 
Answer me that."

I sniffle and swallow a snot glob.

"They found out how evil you are, those police ... they were ready to
do you in.  If I hadn't've begged them, those cops would've taken out
their guns and shot you through."  She adjusts her mirror again, then
runs her finger under her eyes, wiping off the black smears.

"I got ice cream," I whisper.

"Just because I convinced them not to kill you."  She looks over at me.
"If I hadn't taken you from your foster, your momma and daddy, where
you think you'd be?"

I choke on a hiccup.  She pats my back a little too hard.

"They didn't try to stop the social worker from taking you away, now,
did they?"  she asks me softly.  I look out at the mountains rising and
falling into each other, little gray wood shacks lodged between them
like food caught between teeth.  They hadn't tried to stop the social
worker from taking me.  They'd even turned away fast from the car once
I was in it.  As I screamed and banged on the back windshield for them,
I saw my daddy hug my momma with both arms, her head on his chest, and
they walked back toward the house, they didn't turn around.

"How many times did you go cryin' and throwing tantrums like a spoilt
baby if you didn't get your way, huh?"

I look up at the clouds, too gray and weighted to be floating over the
mountain peaks.  "Be a good boy and don't cry for Momma," she had said
lots of times.  I usually ended up crying, though.

"Why do you think the police got you when you ran away, not your
foster, not your momma and daddy, huh?"

I watch a yellow dog chasing what looks like a long-tail fox through
the burnt orange bushes near the road.

"I begged the cop not to take long sharp knives and stick them in your
eyes so they pop like grapes."  She reaches down to her bag, pulls out
and lights another cigarette.  "I had to pay them, too."  She pulls up
her bag.  "See my wallet in there ... go on."  She pats my shoulder, a
cigarette ash falling down my shirt.  I reach into her bag.  "The
wallet with the red heart on it, open it."  I pull the Velcro lips
apart; she reaches over and pulls the money out from inside.  "You know
what a hundred-dollar bill looks like?"  She glances at me.  I nod, my
Daddy had shown me, Ben Franklin and kites.  She blows a plume of smoke
straight up.

"See any one-oh-ohs in there, kid?"  she says, the cigarette dangling
in her mouth.

I shake my head and swallow a hiccup.

"Ain't in there, right? ... Huh? ... Answer me, darlin', I ain't
gettin' any younger."

"No," I mumble.  Her red-nailed hand scrunches them up back into the
wallet.  "Well, you said it, kid, no one-oh-ohs, you got your proof.
You know who got the one-oh-oh?  Huh?"  She turns from the road and
looks at me while sealing up the pink heart-covered wallet.  I breathe
in deeply to try to smell the musty, leathery smell of my daddy's
wallet.  I put my hand on her wallet, but it's not the smooth, worn
skin warmed from his back pocket.

"Get off a!"  Her hand knocks mine.  "Little thief, trying to get
everything.  You better not have taken none."

I blink at her, too disoriented to cry.  She drops the wallet into her
bag at her feet.

"So you saw for your own self?  No goddamn one-oh-oh.  So guess who got
it?"  She jabs me with her elbow.  I look out my window.

"The cops, the policeman, he has it, I had to give him all that,
one-oh-oh, to not ..."  She pushes me lightly.  "You listenin'?  I had
to pay them not to strap you down and put you in the electric chair."

I've seen the electric chair on one of those cartoons I'm not supposed
to watch.  A cat got tricked into one, strapped down, and the switch
pulled.  His skeleton glowed, his eyes bulged out, and after, he was
just a pile of ashes.

"I've done you a favor taking you ... so it's up to you ... we can go
to the police and turn you in.  If I take you to your fosters, they're
only going to call the police and get you arrested."

My stomach is cramped.  Everything looks strangely lit and too shiny
under the greenish, mold-colored sky.  The clouds aren't even trying to
clear the mountains anymore, they're too loaded down with dark,
smashing into the treeless peaks.

"If I didn't take you when I did, you'd be hung up on a cross.  They
teach you about Jesus?"

I nod a small yes.  When I'd stayed at my baby-sitter Cathy's house, I
saw a picture of Him.  He was almost naked, with nails in him, on a
cross, and if I moved my head back and forth, his blood flowed, his
head tilted more, and his eyes closed, then popped open, looking out in
an accusing stare.

"The police will nail you up on the cross, if they don't give you the
chair."  She spits on her cigarette, tucks it behind her ear, and
reaches out, takes my hand, and opens it in her lap.  I watch her press
a long red fingernail into my bandaged palm.

"They drive the nail in here."  She presses harder.  My hand curls up
around her finger, but I don't try to move it.

"Your momma and daddy will hammer another nail in right here ..."  She
drops my hand, lifts my T-shirt, and presses her long nail below my
ribs.  She twists her finger in.

"And they'll stick one here ..."  She slides her nail under my shirt to
my chest, under my throat, and digs it in.

My head is shaking, racing all His blood out, draining him, till it
crashes like waves and surrounds the big white house with my parents
inside and carries them all away forever.

"I want to stay with you," I whisper.

"Well, we're not that far from the police station ... they'll be real
glad to get their hands on you again."

I swallow loudly, feeling her hand resting on my throat, pressing.

"I want to stay with you," I whisper again.

"What did you say?"  Her nail flicks against my skin.

When I asked Cathy why He was like that, she told me it was because He
loved me and because I was a sinner.  Jesus died like that, suffering
for me.

"No policeman."

"You don't want me to take you to your foster parents?"

I shake my head a small no.

"You better learn some manners, kid ... if I'm not going to turn you
in."  Her nail slides up my throat to under my chin, lifting my head
toward her.

"Ma'am, you say.  Understand?  You say ma'am, you say sir, you say
thank you, you say please ... you were rude with your fosters and they
got rid of you.  You're rude to me and we go right to the police, you
hear?"

I avoid her eyes, looking past her to the dark clouds tumbling ahead.

"Ma'am," I repeat just like the coffee-colored maid would call my
momma.

"Yes, ma'am, please let me stay with you, thank you.  Is that what you
mean to be saying?"

A dry swallow squeezes down my stretched-up neck like a snake digesting
a rat.

"Ma'am ..."  My voice cracks.  "Thank you, please, no policeman ..."

She pulls her nail away, and my head drops some.

"So, if you ever cry about your fosters again, we go straight to the
police.  You hear?"

I nod, staring vaguely at trees starting to bend and shake in the wind.
Her hand flies up quickly and slaps the top of my head, bouncing it
back against the seat.  "If I take the time and energy to waste my
breath speaking to you, you damn well better afford me the courtesy of
replyin'."

I don't understand her, so I nod again, sucking on my lips to still
them from shaking, and I taste the salty ooze running from my nose.

Her fist bangs down on my shoulder, knocking me sideways to the seat.

"You answer when I talk to you," she says loudly but calmly above me.

I stay down on the seat, my stomach releasing a horrible trembling that
spreads throughout me.  A loud sob fills the car.

"Don't you dare cry!"  Her hand searches in my hair.  "I've had about
enough of you crying to last me a lifetime."  She yanks my head up by
my hair and then pulls my face back to look up into hers.  Her eyes
gleam like glazed blue enamel, her mouth turned into a red semi smile.

"If you cry any more, not only will I give you something to be really
cryin' for ..."  She shakes my head.  "I will drive you straight to
your foster parents and watch while they and the cops nail you up, set
you on fire, and chop you up, while everyone cheers and laughs and
spits at you.  Understand?"

A car horn blares at us; she lets go of my hair and swerves back to her
side of the road.  The other car is still honking as we pass.

"Jesus!"  She grabs the cigarette behind her ear.

The click of her lighter sounds bizarre in the sudden silence inside
the car.

There are many times I've cried when I didn't have to, when I'd only
bumped myself lightly or something,
but I'd wail anyway, nice and loud to let them know I'd been injured
and to punish them for letting me get hurt in the first place.

They're not here to come running, and if they were, they wouldn't just
walk in the opposite direction while they sent me away again.  This
time they'd laugh and spit and do to me what I did to Jesus.  They'd
tell me I was a bad boy, and I'd watch them rip down, off my chart, all
my stars.

I feel my tears cut off, stopped up somewhere below my throat.  I
swallow hard and flush them away.

"So should I turn around, kid?"  She puffs a few times.  I start to nod
but stop myself.

"Yes, please, ma'am.  Thank you," I say clearly.

"Very good!"  She pats my head hard.  "We'll turn you into a good boy
yet ... now all we gotta do is make sure the cops or nobody don't get
you before that time."

She rolls up her window as the first few heavy drops of rain splat
inside her door.  The car fills with her smoke, and she pats my leg
softly.

"You know, we only have each other from now on, you see.  I fought for
you.  You'll have to fight for me.  I'm all you got."  She smiles.

And I watch the big yard with the white house with the room with
dinosaur-covered walls and a racing car bed, and shelves of toys and
charts with stars and a smiling momma and daddy, I watch it fold up
neat like a gas station map, and I bury and hide it like a treasure
map.

The car slows some, the tires screeching as she turns around on the
black road top.

I watch the storm sky, a bruised blue black, following right behind
us.

We have to leave, have to pack up right away and go.  The digital clock
on the Formica counter says 3:47 A. M. I stand in front of her, rubbing
my eyes.  She hangs up the phone; it was them again, my fosters.
They've called almost every night for the last week since I first got
here.  I don't cry and reach for the phone anymore.  Last night I
didn't even jump out of bed when the phone rang, I only got out of bed
because she called me to the phone.  I stood and waited, my thumb
anchored in my mouth, Bugs Bunny pressed to my chest, while she nodded
and shook her head as she listened to and repeated all the bad things
I'd done and how they wanted me to go to jail.  I didn't ask to speak
to them.  I waited until she hung up, waited to see what she would
decide.

"They really want me to turn you in."  She pats the phone.  I press my
face into the stuffed rabbit's fake fur; he smells like saliva and
pee.

"But we're a team, right?"  She sips from the open beer next to the
phone.  I shift my weight from leg to leg.

"While I was at work you did all I asked you to, didn't you?"  She
pulls the black web net off her pulled-up hair and unpins the Sarah
nametag that has a smiley face off her short pink dress.

I nod.  I had made myself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and I
washed the dishes standing over the sink on a chair, the way she showed
me.  I hadn't let anybody in, and I put myself to bed at eight P.M. as
she said.

"All the lights was on," she said, lighting a cigarette.  "I have to
pay for the electricity around here.  You see any sugar daddy pickin'
up the tab?"  She gazes around the room, then sits on the couch,
crossing her feet on the coffee table.  "You think I like dealing with
coked-up truckers all night?  Letting them feel my ass for their
goddamned quarter tip?"  She kicks an empty can off the table toward
me, drags deeply, and blows smoke out through her nose.  "So you can be
burning my money up?"

I shake my head and stare at her sneakers, dirty white with silver
laces.  "No social workers dropped by, right?"

"No," I mumble.

"Mind!"  She leans forward.

"No, ma'am."

"You didn't answer the phone, right?"

I shake my head no, then quickly add, "No, ma'am."

"When they come again, what do you say?"  Her foot taps.

"When you're at work I got a baby-sitter."  I think of Cathy, and
falling asleep listening to her talking and laughing on our
telephone.

"Cause they're just testing you.  You answer wrong and you go straight
to the jailhouse.  You hear me?"  She knocks off another empty can with
her foot.

"Yes'm," I whisper.

"You are so spoilt, and you don't know it.  Well, it's all over with
now.  I'm all over your shit, kid."  She reaches in her dress pocket
and pulls out some crumpled dollars.  "Fifteen fuckin' dollars, okay?
Fifteen!  How the fuck am I gonna feed you with this shit?!"  She kicks
the money off the table.  "Goddamn spoilt brat."  She leans over her
lap, folding her arms around her head.  I stand there watching the
quivers traveling down her spine like a breeze rippling water,
listening to the little gasps escaping her.  She raises her head, her
eyes dripping black ink.  "Get the fuck into bed!"  she screams.

"We gotta go, we gotta get the fuck outta here."  There are garbage
bags partially filled on the kitchen floor.  She unplugs the clock and
drops it in.

"Get dressed ... go, hurry!"  She waves her arm at me.  I go into my
room, flick on the light, and dig out my clothes from the milk crates.
They're all clothes I've worn already.  I don't have my own hamper
here.  When I told her all my clothes were dirty and showed her the
pile, she said if she wears her clothes until they're ready to walk, so
can I. I feel comforted by the dusty smell of my clothes as I put them
on.

"Goddamned social workers telling me what to do," I hear her mutter.
"Stuck-up cunts, fuck them, fuck them ... let's move it in there,
kid!"

She comes into my room with a big black garbage bag.

"Pack."  She opens it and throws my clothes in, then hands it to me to
do.  She starts pulling my blankets off my bed.  "Goddamn it, you
pissed it again!"  She pulls them off and shoves them into the bag.  "I
told you, you'll lie in it till you learn it ain't the goddamn fucking
toilet!  Jesus!"  She finishes stuffing it in and leaves my room.  I
hear her swearing and tossing things into bags while I put the rest of
my clothes in on top of my blankets.

"We'll have fun!"  she shouts.  "I'll take you to Disney World.  I'll get
me a job as a character, I'd make a good princess or somebody.  You can
be there all the time, you like Mickey Mouse, don'tcha?! ... It'll be
better there, you'll see ... I'll get you so many fuckin' toys your
fosters'll seem like poor damned slobs."

I hear her tossing things across the room.  "I take care of my kid ...
fuck them!"  Something slams into the wall and breaks.  "Fuck them."

Everything is loaded into the car.  Plastic bags are in the trunk, in
the backseat, and under my feet.  "Isn't this fun?"  she asks me while
snapping open a beer.

"Yes'm," I whisper, and yawn, looking out at the sky, a thick, pasty
black.  She backs out of the cracked, concrete driveway and onto the
gritty tar road.  Insects and dust zoom by in the headlights like
crashing meteors.

"You're mine.  Fuck them, telling me what all to do."  Yellow porch
lights blink by.  "Pay a goddamn baby-sitter four dollars an hour, and
I don't near make that in tips when it's slow.  Fuck 'em."  She hits
the dashboard with a fist, and I jump.

"We got two hundred dollars waiting in a wire for us when it gets day."
She grins to the windshield, then turns to me with a sly look on her
face.  "Know who sent us that money?"  I don't answer.  "You won't
believe who sent us that two hundred."  She laughs.

"The only thing your grandfather hates more than an unrepentant sinner
like myself ..." she slaps her chest "is the god damned government telling
people all what to do with their own life, money, and childrens."  She
laughs louder.  "And Lord does he hate them social workers."  The sky
seems to be getting blacker, not lighter, or maybe it's just the
mountains rising up around us.

"One tried to come into his house, somebody made some complaint saying
they'd seen Noah, my brother, whipped ... well, after he got done
speaking with all those folks he's donated the church's money to ...
well ..."  She shakes her hand like it's too hot.  "Not only was she
fired, but no uninvited government folks ever set foot on his land
again."  She laughs so hard, she has to rest her head on the steering
wheel for a few seconds.

A thin, pale blue ooze of light streaks the sky ahead of us.  My
grandparents, my foster grandparents, live up north, and at Christmas
they bring me so much candy that my momma, my foster momma, takes it
away and hides it.

"How do you think I got you back, darlin'?"  She reaches her hand out
to ruffle my hair, and I jump.  "Social worker's callin' him up,
askin' him to sign the papers, like you're some pound dog, just sign
you away so some stuck-up sinners can adopt you, steal you forever." 
She fishes in her jeans jacket breast pocket for a cigarette.

"He'd be damned if he'd let the government steal his blood ..."  The
cigarette flaps in her mouth.  "Got me a lawyer, paid for my clothes,
laid out more for you now than when I squirted you out, he wouldn't pay
for a diaper then, cheap son of a bitch."  She combs her hair back with
her fingers.  "He said if he has to call out the god damned Mountaineer
Militia, he would.  'Course he didn't cuss, be a damned sight if he
did, tight-assed fucker."  She tucks the cigarette behind her ear.

"I feel good, damn."  She leans over and pats my head again, a little
too hard.  "We're a good team ... you an' me ... nobody takes what's
mine."  I yawn suddenly.  She reaches into another pocket.  "You tired?
Don't be tired, I need your company ... here."  She hands me a ball of
tinfoil.  "Open that all up ... be careful."  I pick the tight ball
open to reveal little blue pills.  "Take one ... no, no, okay, take
one and bite it in half."

"Is it medicine?"  I push the pills around the silver.  They're just
like the ones in the cabinets, locked above the refrigerator at my old
house, not the big chewable ones I get.

"Yeah, it's medicine ... so do what Momma tells you bite half."  I hold
one up to my mouth and bite it.  The whole pill crumbles into my mouth,
tasting bitter and chalky.  My tongue rolls out.

"No!  Swallow it!  ... Swallow!"  Her hand cups my mouth.  I taste her
palm, salty and dry.  Her voice rises.  "Swallow now, goddamn it!"  I
pull my tongue in, forcing the pill slivers to the back of my throat,
and swallow.  She presses her hand hard against my lips.  "You
swallow?"  I nod.  "Don't drop those pills!"  I hold them carefully in
the foil in my hand.  "I'll take another one myself, I reckon."  She
releases my mouth and takes the pills from me, popping one into her
mouth before she balls them up and shoves them into her pocket.

"See, now you'll feel good, too."  She grins and pats my head again.

"See, I take care of you, tellin' me I don't, when I was fourteen maybe
I didn't take care of you right, but then the voices you were throwin'
was enough to drive a bean field Mexican insane."  She shoves the
cigarette from behind her ear into her lips.

"You was possessed ..."  She rubs my shoulder and smiles strangely.
Pinks are leaking into the pale blues like eye shadow.

"What was I supposed to do, anyways?  You spoke in devils' tongues,
middle of the night, you'd start up, then Satan's voice ... Jesus,
went to healings for you, not his church, mind you; see, he ain't want
nothin' to do with you then.  You weren't his grandson then, huh?"

I yawn again and feel my eyes getting heavy.  I wish my Bugs Bunny
wasn't in the trunk.

"Naw, you ain't took the pill?"  I nod.

"You took it?"

"Yes'm."  I yawn again.

"Okay, all right.  We got a drive ahead of us, and I'm doin' this for
you, for you, so you ain't leavin' me ..."  She leans over toward me
and shakes me hard.  "Hold on, hold on, it'll be soon!"  she shouts in
my ear.

I can see the outline of trees along the mountain against the glazed
dark blue sky.  My eyes start to blink closed.

"Stop that!"  She pulls my thumb out of my mouth.  I had quit sucking
my thumb a year ago and gotten a big star on my chart.  But I'd seen
her when I woke in the morning; she'd been curled up on the couch, her
blankets tangled at her feet, her thumb deep in her mouth.  It had made
me laugh, although I said nothing.

"That was quick ..."  I jolt awake, the sky a deep violet, and the
blood pounding too loudly in my ears.

"Not tired anymore, huh?"  I gaze around, unsure of where I am.  I feel
panic surging, the same as when they left me, sent me away.

"You look like a bug-eyed rabbit.  Told ya to only take half.  You'll
learn to mind me ..."  Her words come too fast and quiet past the
hollow ringing in my ears.  "Soon we'll be gettin' big money ...
don't you worry, your grandfather won't ever let your fosters get you
back. Fuck them socials, tryin' to tell me ..."  Her voice turns high
in imitation, "Maybe he's better off with them.  Fuck 'em.  They try
and get you back, your grandfather will squash them again!"

"They want me back?"  I say loudly, my body shaking.

"What?  Hell no, hell no ..."  She hits the steering wheel.  "Member
the call, that phone call, just a few hours ago?"  I nod and can't
stop.  "Well, that was the call, they all died.  Your fosters, they're
dead as doornails."  She pats my head hard again.  "Cops killed 'em ...
'cause of you ... that's why we hadda go.  So you better not talk to
cops or social workers, nobody ... or we'll get killed, cut up ..."
She makes chopping motions with her hand.

I wrap my arms around me.  My skin is peeling off, and soon I'll step
out of it.  I claw at my body to help the sloughing skin come off.

"What're you doin'?"

I shout past the loud buzzing in my head, "I'm digging myself out!" and
watch clean, cold shafts of sun shadows rip into my flesh.

A small thread of lightning spools through the black sky.  I sit up on
piled-up blankets and keep my eyes on the bar's big screen door. Pickup
trucks and beat-up old long cars pull in and out next to ours. It's not
raining, but short distant claps of thunder break the crickets and
jukebox noise.

I / used to run to their bed and she'd hold up the blanket like a tent,
and I'd climb over her body, warm and soft like
dough, to the empty center between them, and the thunder
would attack around us.  My fosters, fucking fosters, like
Sarah calls them.

The screen door kicks open and a wobbly man in a cowboy hat leaning way
too heavily on a small, yellowish woman, walks onto the muddy dirt.
"Where's god damned car gone at?"  he yells, pushes her away, and
stumbles behind the club.

I watch the door again.  Sarah went in to use the bathroom some time
ago when it was still light; now it's been dark a while.

"Don't move," she told me, and I haven't.  I watch the door for her and
the road for cops.

"While I'm in there going to the bathroom, you see any of 'em you hide
down."

Cops almost got me once already.  We were pulled over on the side of
the road, I was asleep in the back, she was in the front with the seat
leaned down.

"Ma'am, ma'am, you okay, ma'am?"  I heard her jump up.  The flashlight
waving above the blanket pulled over my head made me feel like I was
hiding in a deep lake, breathing air from the sun's penetrating rays.
"Fine, I'm fine, just dandy, sir."

"Don't mean to startle you, but you can't camp here, ma'am.  You in
need of assistance, ma'am?"  His voice was soft like the boys that came
around to cut the lawn had been at my fosters, fucking fosters.

"No, no ... just on my way to Florida; see, some of the family got a
little tired ..."  Her keys rattle and turn in the ignition.

"Sorry, ma'am, there's a cheap motel up a ways ..."

"Oh, I will check it out."  The car rolls forward slightly.  "Well,
thank you, sir."

"Yes, ma'am, have a safe trip."

The car pulls onto the road.  "Righty-right, see ya ..."  Her hand
taps a good-bye.  "Mother fucker," she mutters.

"You up?"  Her hand gropes behind the seat.  "I'm up, you're up," she
says, and the blanket is pulled off me.

I raise my head cautiously.  "You were wise to stay down or they woulda
taken you.  And that woulda been that."

The car door opening and loud laughter wakes me.

"Can't you all but wait till we get on to your place?"

"Pretty flower like you, ah won't let you be wiltin' on me."

I stay quiet against the backseat.

When they settle into the seats, I raise my head slightly.  A big
cowboy hat with a man under it is where she should be, driving.  They
smell like smoke and the beers she drinks.

"I ran them boys away from you with but a fly swatter and shotgun,
sugar.  Claim you for my own some."

"They did all clear away like jackrabbits when you brought me that Jack
and ginger."

"Damn straight they would."  He snorts.  The dark of the road floods
the car.

"Lemme see in there, girlie."  "That's all you get for now."  Outside
their laughter I fall back asleep.

The door buzzer on the small gray house glows orange, like a lit
Halloween pumpkin's eye.  A tinny, high-pitched buzz comes out of it.

"Goddamned," a man says from behind the door.  Crickets silenced
briefly by my footsteps to the house from the car have dismissed me as
a danger and are singing even louder.  I step closer to the door and
buzz again.

"Who!"  the man's voice shouts from inside.

"Me," I whisper, not sure what to say.  She told me to never say my
name.

"Selma?"

"Me."  The crickets have quieted down some, to listen in or because
there's something else out there bigger than me.

"Who is it, goddamn it?!"

I reach my hand out and scratch at the wooden door, like my dog did
when he wanted back in.

The door opens with a jerk and I look up at the man, naked except for
his cowboy hat that's not on his head but held in front of his lower
self.  The light inside is dim and flickers.

"Come on, Luther ... carry yourself back home."

"There's a little kid here," he says over his shoulder.  "You a boy or
a girl?"  He taps my head.  I stare at a hole in the top of the cowboy
hat and say nothing.

"A kid?  Oh, shit!"  I hear her say, then the sound of blankets being
kicked off.

"What?"  he says, but steps aside.

She fills the doorway, wrapped in a sheet like a ghost.  My heart
contracts.

"Momma," I start to say, but stop.  "Sarah' she had told me to call
her: "I ain't old and haggard enough
to be Momma except in front of social workers then I'm Momma.  Got
it?"

But since we've been on the run from the law that are after me, I can't
be me and she can't be she, and I don't remember who we are.

"Jesus, I fuckin' forgot!"

"What the f..."  He stares at her.

"Don't go frownin', Luther, or your face'll stay like that."  She walks
past him, takes my arm, and pulls me inside.  A bed fills the room,
sheets tangled and rolled off the mattress so the blue prison-type
stripes of it show.

"This is my brother ... I'm sitting him."

"What?  He been in the car the whole time?"  The room smells sour, like
sweat and farts.

"No, no, somebody dropped him off ..."

"Who?"  He swings the door closed with a slam.  The candle flickers
from the draft of it.  He switches on the light.

"Goddamn, you are something, baby."  He moves his
hat from his front to his head and walks naked toward the bathroom.

I stare at my feet, lost under the lime green shag rug.  The bathroom
door slams.

"He won't be no bother," she shouts over her shoulder.

The sound of pissing and then a flushed toilet answer her.

She walks toward the bathroom and goes in, shutting the door behind
her.

"I coulda gone home with any cowboy there, and I picked you.  Now you
wantin' to drive me back.  I'll tell everyone a four-year-old scares
you from the best pussy you'll ever have a chance to be takin'!"

I stare at the poster on the bathroom door of a girl on her knees, her
mouth on a man's thing, no cowboy hat in front of it.

They're arguing.  There are other posters on the walls, all the girls
have yellow hair like Sarah, and they're all naked.

She comes out still wearing the sheet; he follows wrapped in a towel.
They say nothing.  He goes into the little kitchen, where I hear him
open the refrigerator.  She grabs some pillows and a blanket off the
bed and goes into the bathroom.

I watch him, through a small window cut in through the kitchen wall,
unwrap some chicken.

"You hungry?"  he calls out, opening the microwave.  My mouth's
suddenly wet.

"Naw.  The chili dog you got me is still settin' in me."

"OK."  He shuts the microwave door and punches buttons that beep.

I say nothing.

I learned about being greedy.  I wouldn't eat the sandwich she had
made, Spam on day-old white bread.  We pulled over on the side of the
road to eat.  I kept my lips compressed as she pushed the sandwich
against my mouth.

When it was dinnertime she got a drive-through burger and fries.

"You got your sandwich now, don'tcha."  I watched her eat, and I didn't
touch the sandwich sitting on plastic wrap on my lap.  When she was
asleep I opened the chocolate-chip cookies hidden under her jacket in
the backseat.  I ate them all.

She woke up and saw the crumbs and the empty package at my feet.  She
opened the car door and held her finger down my throat until the
cookies came back.

"Those were mine, greedy pig.  Steal from me again, pig, and see what
happens."

"Johnny, come in here!"  she yells from the bathroom.

She's not talking to me, so I don't move.

"Get in here!"

The smell of fried chicken fills the room.  She comes out of the
bathroom.

"Hey."  She motions me over.  "You deaf? ... Come in here."  I follow
her into the bathroom.  She closes the door.

"You're Johnny, remember?  I'm Monique.  Got it?"  I nod.  There are
more posters on the wall.  One girl has brown hair.

"You'll sleep in here."  She points in the tub.  A few pillows cover
the bottom, and a blanket's on top.

"Get on in ..."  I climb into the tub, its sides low enough for me to
get over easily.  I stand on the pillows, staring up at her.

The sheet is still wrapped around her like a dress.  I know she has all
the same stuff the girls on the posters do.  I've seen her changing in
the car.

"Take off your shoes.  You gotta go?"  I shake my head and sit on the
pillows and pull off my sneakers.  I do have to piss but can't with all
the girls on the wall watching, staring out with vague smiles in poses
like snakes.

"Johnny, OK, remember, Monique.  Johnny."  She points at herself, then
at me.

She flicks the light off.

"Good night."

She closes the door.  I look around.  I feel my eyes to make sure
they're open.  A thin line around the door glows yellow, and I hear
hushed laughing and talking.  Soon the light around the door disappears
and their voices melt into grunts and moans.

I pull the blanket up around me to block out the sound.  I know what
he's doing to her, I knew all along what he would do and I said
nothing.  I didn't warn her.

I lay in the tub, squeezing my eyes tight against all the blue eyes
blankly gazing out from the walls into the black.

I hear her cry out.  I should go and do something.  I hold the blanket
over my ears.

When I wake she'll be gone and there will be a new poster on his
wall.

She yells out again, and I know it will be her up on the wall like the
others, frozen and trapped forever staring out and hating me for
forgetting her.

"Only way your brother is gonna learn not to piss himself is a
whipping he remembers."

The pillows I slept on lie stained and wet on the floor next to the
bed.  She found I'd had another accident when she went to put the
pillows back.

He's pulled out a brown leather belt from the small closet near the
kitchen, and he's clutching it doubled.

"Luther, I didn't know you had it in you to be so fatherly."  She's in
a T-shirt; it's too big and stained yellow under the armpits, it looks
like his.

When she first came in the bathroom earlier this morning and sat on the
toilet, all I could do was sit up in the tub and stare at her.

"Who are you to be sittin' in judgment of me, huh?"

"You're not one of the posters!"  I said.

She wadded up some toilet paper and ran it under the sink tap.  "How
rude are you?  Well, that's how you jot here, got news for you!"

She threw the wet toilet paper, it splattered and stuck in the center
of my chest.

"Get over here."  He motions me to the bed.

"He's never been spanked before, Luther, my parents spoilt him bad."
She puts her arm around his bare waist

, and smiles at him.  He adjusts his boxers.  "Gonna be a lot more than
spanking goin' on here."  He hits the bed with the belt.  I jump.
"Let's go!"

"See, you would so make a real good daddy ..."  She
pats his chest.  The flattened morning light streams past the Venetian
blinds, making thick bars on the floor between me and the bed.

He reaches out, grabs my arm, and jerks me toward the mattress.  He
pushes me over it, my face bounces on the crumpled sheets.  My teeth
start chattering.  I try to push myself up, but he shoves me back
down.

"Get his things down," he orders.

Sarah leans over and yanks on my jeans and pulls them down.

"They're wet again!  I told him too many times already, next time he
wets that's it ..."  Her hands slide into my underwear waistband.

"Your parents oughtn't to be spoilin' him ... he wouldn't be messin' my
good goose feathers pillows."

The belt slaps at the mattress again.  "Damn, he smells like a alleyway
in the city."

She slides my underwear down to my ankles with my jeans.  "He pisses
it, he wears it.  Won't wash it till he learns."  She moves away from
me.

"Now, son, I'm gonna whip you a beatin' you can be proud of, and you
won't be wetting like a little baby no more.  Ya hear?"

I nod my head small.  I want my clothes to smell like Sarah's do.  When
she sent me into a gas station to buy us chips while she put in gas, a
girl behind me on line tapped me on the shoulder.  As I turned she
said, "You stink."  A man with her shushed her, but she stuck her
tongue out at me and held her nose when they walked back to their
car.

"Where your cigarettes at, honey?"

"Table ... you sure you wantin' to stay for this?"

I hear her sitting at the table, and the crackle of the cigarette
pack.

"Oh, I've got and seen my father give so many hellfire beatings I could
sleep through it."  She flicks the lighter.

"Thought they didn't give no whippings?"

"Huh?"  She coughs some.  "No, no, just him, spoilt just him."  She
waves away her smoke.

"Coz once I start, I ain't stoppin' till I'm done, you hear?"

"I'm so proud of you, I know I picked right last night."

He steps back.  I hear the belt whistle down and then a loud crack
against my body, but before I'm aware of the pain it happens again and
I feel it, a sudden deep slashing into my flesh.  I scream.

"Goddamn spoilt brat ..."  He leans over, pulls my head back, and
covers my mouth with his hand.  "I can't have him hollering,
Monique."

"Put the sheet in his mouth," she says, exhaling.

"You're only makin' it worse off for yourself, now be a man."  He moves
his fingers off my mouth.  I gasp and scream.  His hand smashes back
against my mouth, his other hand grabs some sheet and balls it.  He
frees my mouth, and as I open to scream the sheet is stuffed into my
mouth.  It's wet and sticky.  I try to pull it out.

"Goddamn it!"  He jerks my arms backward and holds my wrists behind me.
"You didn't wanna make me madder!"

The belt hurls down across my ass, and I scream against the sheet.  The
thick, salty wetness on it coats my mouth, and I retch, while the belt
keeps coming harder and harder and harder.

THE HEART IS DECEITFUL

ABOVE ALL THINGS

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who
can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

THE ONES THAT buy me candy don't last long.  The ones that slap her
last longer, but not as long as the ones that beat her with their fists
and me with their belt.

We live in the car, driving until she meets the next one.  Sometimes
she tells him about me, her brother.  Sometimes I'm her sister.  "Men
like girls, not boys," she says.  "You wanna come inside, don't ya?"

Sometimes I stay hidden in the car until he's gone to work.  I lie in
the cradle at the foot space of the backseat and disappear.

Sometimes she gives me the halves of the pills I ask for.  They're
white, but they make it all dark, not the dream where my limbs are
blown across the open brittle road until red-winged crows descend from
the white sun,
carrying my limbs farther and farther away until I wake up screaming,
struggling to reattach.

Sometimes we go into stores and I borrow what she tells me.  Under my
coat inside my pants, the bologna packages go.  The cold beer bottles
slide down my sleeves, the ends held closed with thick rubber bands so
by the time I'm back in the car my hands are numb and bright white.
When I borrow right we drive away fast, laughing while stuffing our
mouths with strings of bologna and drinking the sour dull fizz from the
bottles.  When I borrow wrong a bottle falls out when I loosen a rubber
band or I get stopped on my way out the sliding doors then the world
moves like in those old hand-cranked movies I'd looked at in arcades.
Everyone surrounds and moves away from me at the same time.  She yanks
my pants, and her hand comes down fast across my bare ass again and
again.  It's a trick, she had told me.  They usually stop her, tell her
it's OK.  They calm her down, give her coffee or something.  She tells
them I'm a behavior problem, and she cries.  They stare at me, shake
their heads, and suck their tongues.  Sometimes we have to really trick
them if they're really mad by spanking me again.  Sometimes not in the
back private room, but with everyone seeing.  It works 'cause they
never call the police on me.  But when we get back to the car she
doesn't drive away fast and laugh.  She stays mad, sometimes for a day
or two, not speaking to me at all, not giving me any of what she had to
buy, making me be in the back and out of her sight.  I know it's not
real, though, I remind myself she's just tricking them in case they
have 'eyes in the back of their heads' like her father, and maybe their
eyes went in our car.

Sometimes when she stops at a bar, she comes out and goes in his truck.
"Man don't drive a truck, can't drive home a fuck," I whisper her rhyme
while they drive away.  But I know how to go with the flashlight from
under the seat when everyone is gone and it's quiet, just like we do
together; going around back, digging into the bags and finding food
'hardly bit, not wet with spit'.  When I do it alone I pretend she's
next to me being lookout.  I even whisper to her about what I find.

"Bag of pretzels."

"That'll do us fine.  What else ya got there, kid?"  I make her say.

Then there's the one she married.  I stay in his apartment while they
drive up to Atlantic City for their honeymoon.  They're supposed to be
gone for two nights.  The door is locked with a key on the inside as
well as out, which makes me feel safer.  But as the nights keep going
by and my Kraft singles go down, even the end pieces of Wonder are
gone, I watch out the back window as the garbage men load up the bags I
can't get into.

I keep all the lights on at night and sleep in the day after my
favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon show.  After four nights I know they aren't
coming back, so I stand on a chair and draw pictures of her on the
white walls with a black marker.  I do it all night until the first
violet blur of morning creeping in lets me feel my hand is cramped and
see the walls are covered.

After six nights he comes home without her.  "She married me and run
off when I runned out of money," he says, his head in his hands.  He
says nothing about the walls, even though I have already prepared and
stand holding a belt, doubled over.  He only cries looking at the
potato figures of her stuck flat on his walls.  While he cries I pull
the cellophane film off the last cheese slice, eat it, and go to sleep
even though the moon is still a yellowish scar in all the black.

I wake up screaming; the crows' red wings flash over my eyes as he
pulls my legs apart, his hot breath against my neck, claws push my face
down into the pillow.  And for the first time they peck at me, and it's
worse than I ever imagined.  It's a drill blade twisting and hollowing
me out between my legs, and he cries her name again and again in my ear
until it bleeds.

I stop trying to crawl away.  I float up with my marker and draw her on
the ceiling whenever the crows attack again.

The towel under me is turning crimson and soggy like tomato bread
soap.

"Les' go," he says when it's night again, and dresses me, putting a new
towel on me instead of my underwear, inside my pants.  He carries me to
the car, where I fall against the wall waiting for him to unlock the
door.  He drives me in our car she'd left, not his truck.

We drive a long time and turn onto a dirt road.

Suddenly the car stops.  "Sorry," he says, takes the flashlight from
under the seat, and leaves.  I pull myself up and watch the torch he
carries swing over the crowd of skinny trees like a flame scanning a
matchbook.  I stare until the glow of light is gone, only the funneled
moon through too many trees.

A flash in my eyes blinds me, but I can hear them.  "Nurse, hold him
still now!"  Another flash.  I struggle, but I'm held firm.  "Turn him
round."  I am moved to my stomach, my legs held apart.  Another flash
behind me.  I squint past the floating spots and see two policemen
across from me, standing, frowning, and drinking from steaming paper
cups.  I scream and kick.  "Help us out here, Officer, if you don't
mind."  One moves forward, putting down his cup, and presses down on my
back.  Another flash.  "To the side, turn him."  My body is turned and
held sideways on the white paper spread beneath me.

"What's your name?"  the cop says, his stale breath coating my face, I
kick out hard as I can.  "Goddamn it!  He hit the camera!  Hold him
still!"  The hands clamp down on me, pushing my head and chest down
hard onto the mushy vinyl tabletop, the paper ripped and soaked from my
drool.  "What's your name?!"  the cop says again.  "They found ID in
the car?"  Another flash above me.  I see my clothes crumpled in a
corner, and the red-stained towel pokes out from a trash basket.  I'm
naked.

"He needs stitches, you about done?"  Another flash.

The cop blocking the door, still drinking, rests his other hand on his
gun.  I scream again.  "Nurse, restraints!"

"One more photograph!  Turn him sideways ... spread his legs ...
wider ... perfect, OK, great!  Thanks, guys.  Hope you get the bastard
that did this, see ya."

"Let's get these restraints goin'."

I'm pushed onto my stomach, my arms are pulled out, as are my legs, and
soft cuffs freeze them to the board.  Something is sliding under me,
lifting my hips, and straps are pulled across my legs, back, and head.
Voices rumble around me.  "Tell me your name!"  the cop standing above
me orders.  "You want us to catch this guy?!"

"OK, you're gonna feel a sharp stick," the doctor says.

And off in the distance I hear the beating, "OK, one more stick."
of their wings ...

"And one last stick."

and the room bleeds with their jagged red feathers "OK, here we go
..."  and razor beaks filled with
"Gonna fix you right up."
parts of me.

TOY BOXED

THE WOMAN HOLDS two dolls.  Her hair is in a tight yellow bun that
pulls the ends of her eyes back into slants.  She smiles quick little
flashes at me, then frowns down at the dolls.  The big man doll's pants
go down, she takes them down.  His thing sticks out, dark yarn
surrounding it like a dirty mop head.

"The little boy doll is blond like you," she says.

The room we're in is pink, with pictures of smiling children hanging on
the walls.  There's a dollhouse in the corner with a rubber family
inside.  I'm sitting on a rug that has games woven into it, like
hopscotch, and a marble circle.  I'm sitting on the alphabet Indian
style, the way she is.  The boy doll has a round hole for a mouth and
"freckles like you have," she says, and pats my nose.

The man doll fits his thing into the boy's mouth like a puzzle piece.
She makes him do it.  Her shoes end in sharp little points, and some of
her foot skin hangs over the edges.

"Pay attention," she says, and clears her throat.  "This is bad."  She
shakes her finger at the dolls.  "Bad, bad man."  Her fingernails are
red, like Sarah's.  She makes the man
pull the little boy's pants down with his mitten-like hands.  I dig my
fingers into the Day-Glo fuzz of the alphabet rug and make them
disappear.

"Are you watching?  Watch the dolls now, pay attention."

She shakes the dolls.  The man's thing bounces up and down.  The little
boy's thing wobbles.  There's no yarn around it.  "Owie owie," she says
while she puts the man doll's pink thing into a round hole in the boy
doll's bottom.  She shakes them in the air, their feet dangling like
they've just been hung.  "Owie owie," she says as she brings them
together and apart, together and apart.  They sound like two pillows
hitting each other.

"How does the little boy feel?"  she asks me, not stopping them.
There's a large box behind her.  It's painted like a toy drum, blue
with white Xs.  A large braid with a red bow hangs out over the edge.

"Watch now, come on, pay attention."  She shakes them harder.  "How
does he ..."  She taps the little boy.  "Feel?  Hmm?  You can tell me,
it's okay.  You are safe now."  She smiles vaguely and extends her arms
so the dolls are closer to me.  There's a little brown stain on her
peach blouse.  I'm careful not to stain my clothes so Sarah doesn't get
pissed, because people will think we're trash.

"Stained clothes is how you can tell trash," she says while reaching
into her bag for the small bottle of Clorox bleach.  "My father is rich
and educated, a preacher."  She pours the bleach onto some McDonald's
napkins, then rubs it on the ketchup stain on my T-shirt.  "Not
trash,"
she says, then wipes my face and hers with more bleach until it stings.
"You gotta look and smell clean."

Sometimes we go into the ladies' room.  I go into the stall with her.
We pull down our pants and our underwear.  I hold two clumps of toilet
paper.  She pours the bleach onto them, soaking them.  I hand one to
her.  "Folks can smell sin on ya," she whispers.  Our hands holding the
bleach-soaked tissue disappear between our legs.  She covers her mouth
with her free hand and cries into it.

"Are you paying attention?"  The woman holds the dolls on her lap.
"This isn't the little boy's fault ... see?"  She picks them up again,
the thing going in and out of the hole in the little boy's behind.  "Ow
ow ow," she says in a high-pitched voice.  "Bad man, bad man," she says
in a low, growly voice.  "Repeat after me," she says, and scoots
closer.  The dolls slam together faster.  "It's not... c'mon, say it,
you want cartoon privileges back?"

I said nothing last time I visited with her and the dolls, so I hadn't
been allowed to watch TV or go to the game room in two days.  I stayed
in my room and reread the same books.  I didn't mind not seeing the
other kids.  Some are bald and bloated, their lips peeling like
fingernail paint.  Some are in wheelchairs or on crutches, with tubes
that wheel around with them.  One boy has to be hit on the back all the
time.  He coughs all night when he isn't crying.  I especially don't
mind not seeing their parents.  They come with shopping bags filled
with goodies.  They don't like to unpack them in front of me in the day
room.  "Let's go to your room, honey," they say, glancing at me.  They
usually have to talk loud, because as soon as I see them coming I raise
the sound on the TV until a nurse comes running in and takes the remote
away from me.

"It's not ..."  I whisper.

"What?  Yes, good, you spoke.  See, it's easy ..."  She bounces the
dolls on the rug.  "It's not the little boy's fault," she repeats.  I
stare at them jumping up and down across the alphabet, held together by
the man doll's thing.  "The little boy's fault," I mumble.

"Great.  See, that was easy ... now you can watch cartoons after
dinner.  You're getting better."  She leans over and pats my head.
"Time to go."  She gets up, wiping rug fuzz from her beige pants.  She
carries the dolls to the drum bin and drops them in.  "Let's go."  She
holds open the door that has a cartoon poster of laughing children on
the outside.  I walk past the box of dolls; it looks like a massacre
grave pit, some naked, some dressed, and on top lie the boy and man.
The man stares up at me with his arms around the boy.  I can tell by
the blond boy's face that the man is still inside him.  I reach down to
pull them apart.  "No, no," she shouts, "leave the toys."  She walks
toward me.  "We've got to get you back upstairs for dinner.  You can
play more tomorrow."  She pushes the lid down, and it seals with a
slam.

Some children disappear.  They're kept in their rooms, wrapped in
tentacle-like tubes, and suddenly their rooms are empty, just the
fluorescent light beaming down on the military-made bed, all cards
stripped from the walls, all balloons that were tied to the bed gone.
Some kids leave with their parents.  They take their balloons and
stuffed animals in big shopping bags, and the nurses hug them good-bye.
But I tricked them all; they never discovered what I'd done to my
fuckin' fosters.  I kept my mouth shut the way Sarah taught me so
nothing could escape and I wouldn't get arrested and sent to hell.

I left without any hugs or waves or shopping bags of goodies, but I did
have a stuffed bear a nurse gave me when I first came and only stared
at the walls.  "He's yours," she told me.  He looked almost like the
one I'd had way before, the same yellowish fur.  I didn't say thank
you.  I left him on the floor of the day room.  She put him in my bed.
"He has no place else to go," she told me.  Later that night when I
woke up suddenly, my heart bursting inside me, my sheets wet with sweat
and pee, I grabbed the bear and buried my face in his neck fur.  That
spot was wet for days.

I leave with a woman the nurse says is my grandmother.  "They have
custody of you," she says.  I nod, not understanding but excited to be
leaving with someone.  The woman signs papers while I stand quietly
behind her, arms stiff at my sides.  "You haven't visited before," the
nurse says.

"It's a long trip," my grandmother says, her voice a soft, musical
lilt, her hair a tight crisscross of blond braids on top of her head.
Her face is a stern, drawn version of

Sarah's.  I follow her to the elevator and look around, and cough
loudly, hoping that everyone will see me leaving with somebody.

"In God is my salvation and my glory," she says, staring straight ahead
as the car winds through the cracked mountain roads laced with frost.
"The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God.  Trust in him at all
times; God is a refuge for us."  I hear her swallow.  "Psalm 62:78." She
says nothing else until we get to the house.

The trees open out onto a wide clearing.  Horses run inside fences as
our car drives past.  A steeple is visible over a distant ridge.  The
road smoothes out to soft black tar.  An older blond boy on horseback
gallops next to us.  He stares at me, then whips the horse twice and
races away over the low green slopes.

We drive past gray weathered wooden barns that look propped up by
haystacks.  Another five minutes and we turn into a wide pebbled
driveway.  Four white columns hold up a sloping overhang.  Two oak and
stained-glass doors sit in the center.  It looks like a museum.  "This
is a house of the Lord," she says, and stops the car in front of the
doors.  We get out and she opens the unlocked door and light streams
into the dark hall.  I squint hard to see.

"He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious
shall their blood be in their sight," She pats my shoulders.  "Psalm
72:14."  She walks away from me into the gloom of the hall.  I stand
still, waiting.

FOOLISHNESS IS BOUND IN

THE HEART OF A CHILD

I HEAR THE footsteps long before I see anyone.  The click click sounds
like an eggshell being torn apart rhythmically and with anger.  "The
way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord: but he loveth him
that followeth after righteousness."  The voice echoes down the
hallway, staccato and sharp.

"Jeremiah, do you know where that is from?"  My grandfather is suddenly
standing in front of me.  He says my name the way Sarah does; she's
only said it a few times, but when she does I feel reassured and
remembered. "Jere-my."  My, like you're mine.

"The only reason you're here is the bastard wouldn't let me give you a
wire hanger for a head," she said between swallows of the Wild Turkey
that she called 'chicken' when we went to the liquor shop.  I got used
to the bitter taste of 'chicken' in my Coke and how easily I fell
asleep after I drank it.  'Trip on the train' is for Midnight Express.
It's the same sour burning as 'chicken', but I liked hearing Sarah ask
for train more.

"Once you got here," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her
hand, 'he wouldn't give a dime to feed or keep ya."

But he had wanted me.  He had protected me.  He had saved me.  I had
made him look like my fucking fosters' grandpa, but better, with a
white Santa's beard and rosy cheeks and chocolate coins in his pocket.
I'd show him I wasn't bad.  It was her, Sarah.  I smile up at him,
we're on the same side, you saved me, I'm Jere-my, I'm yours.

"You know where that's from, Jeremiah?"  The damp air from his words
smells like peppermint.

My, mine, yes.

"For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteousness: But the way of the
ungodly shall perish."  His mouth is turned down.  I tilt my head to
the side, and now it looks like a smile.  He doesn't have a beard; his
face is thin and tightly stretched across his wide cheek and jaw, which
he's working back and forth as if he were chewing leather.  His eyes
are the same distant clear blue as Sarah's; they give his delicate
features an ominous look, like ragged ice glaciers overhanging a smooth
cave entrance.  Even though he's not really smiling, his eyes are
squinted as if he were.  I smile wider.  He nods once and steps back. I
nod in return and wink the way Sarah does.  He lifts up the thick black
book that he has been holding behind him.

"You will not mock the Lord, Jeremiah.  You will learn not to mock me.
Jeremiah, you will find these tracts."  Each time he speaks my name I
force a wave of warmth through me.  All he says after my name sounds
garbled, as if it were floating through water.  "Jeremiah, you will
know them.  If you cannot read, you will learn quickly."  He lowers the
book and hands it to me.  "Jeremiah, is that clear?"  I watch his other
hand to see when the hidden chocolate will appear.

"This is your pillow, Jeremiah.  You sleep on it.  You keep it with you
always.  Jeremiah, is that clear?"

I open the book, but the tissue paper page is only words.  I turn some
more pages but can't find the pictures yet.  "Thank you," I mumble.  I
was going to call him Grandpa, but something chokes off the word.

"We will begin tomorrow at seven A.M.,  Jeremiah."  He places his hand
on my shoulder.  I tilt my head toward it.  "Do not lean in my
presence, Jeremiah."  He pulls me forward with a short jerk.  "Or in
the presence of the Lord."  He releases his hand and turns and walks
back down the hall, still talking: "He maketh a way to his anger: He
spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the
pestilence."

I look down at the book, flip through some more pages.  I still can't
find the cartoons.

A boy a little taller than me comes down the hall.  He's whitish blond,
like me, hair combed back.  He's in white pants and a blue blazer, and
he has a tie on.  I've never seen a kid in a tie.  I feel jealous.

"How old are you?"  he asks me, and pushes himself up on his tiptoes.

"Seven ... in ten days."  I stand straighter and stretch my neck up.

"Tell him you want a big birthday party."  He smiles, his teeth biting
into his bottom lip, his opalescent eyes guarded yet prowling.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, huh?"

"How old are you?"  I ask.

He points at my book.  "I know the Psalms One through Fifty.  How many
do you know?"

"I know a lot of songs."

"What?!  Damn," he whispers, "you're an idiot."

"I'm not.  I can read."  I stare right back at him.  He smiles wider,
crinkling his small upturned nose, finely sprinkled with freckles like
nutmeg.

"Tell him you know songs ... from there," he says, pointing at the
book and laughing.  I laugh because he is.  "What songs do you know?
Sing some."

I roll my eyes up to think.  Sarah's next to last boyfriend had a
Mohawk.  He'd given me one, but I didn't like it; people pointed and
kids laughed.  "That's the idea of being a punk, you gotta shock 'em,"
he told me.  I wet it down, making it look like a raised yellow highway
divider line across my otherwise bald head.  In disgust he shaved it
off.  He dyed his pink until the sheriff threatened to arrest him for
disturbing the peace.  Then he shaved his off, too.  He taught me to
sing along with the Sex Pistols.  I didn't understand the words, but it
made Sarah laugh when we sang them, sneering and spitting.  Sometimes
she joined in.

"I am a annie-christ.  I am a annie-kiss, dunno what I want, know how
to get it, wanna this toy, the buzzer by."  He stares at me wide-eyed,
mouth hanging open.  "I wanna be annie-key."

"Jesus Christ," he gasps.

"Go piss this toy," I finish singing, and spit.  It lands in a little
bubbly pile on the wooden floor by his black, shined leather shoes.
"Sex Pistols," I say, smiling at him.

"You're possessed," he says, not smiling anymore.  "You gotta sing that
for him."  He nods and smiles slowly.  "You gotta."

"I know more, too."

"Uh-huh, he'll love it."  He laughs.

"I know Dead Kennedys."

"How's that go?"

"Too drunk to fuck," I sing, "I'm too drunk to fuck."

He slaps his leg.  "Yeah, yeah, sing," he says, covering his mouth, but
I can still hear him laughing.  "Sing that one, too.  Promise you
will?"  I nod.  "But don't say I told you to.  It'll be a secret.  I'm
just helping you out."

"What's your name?"  I ask.

"Aaron," he says, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Do you know Sarah?"

"Sarah, yeah, she's one of my older sisters, yeah, she's a sinner."  He
adjusts his tie.

"She's my momma."

"Yeah, I know, that's why you gotta sing for him ... got any more?"

He takes my hand and leads me to our room.

At five A.M. Aaron wakes me up.  I reach around for my Bugs Bunny and
then remember what Job, a different blond boy with rosebud lips and
sleepy eyes, told me before bed.

"It's worshiping idolatry, you'll burn in hell."

He took it from my bag, and I never saw it again.  I slept with my
thumb in my mouth, and I wake up to a girl that looks like a smaller
version of Sarah yanking it out.  "No, no, you can't do that."  She
says nothing else and leaves the room.

Aaron is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.  He's standing next to a
carved wood-framed bed, same as mine, with the same thin mattress,
except that he has a pillow.  His bed is tightly made, with no blankets
hanging over the edges.

"Make yours and get dressed.  We got chores to do before prayer."  He
points to a wooden dresser.  "Clothes in there, they should fit ya. 
Fit me when I was your age."

I get dressed, staring at the stark, blank walls.

"Let's go!"  Aaron half shouts.  "We got chores to do."

We sit on a worn grayish wood stool in a dirty brown brick room next to
the kitchen, peeling potatoes.  A huge sack of potatoes sits beside
us.

"So, you'll tell him about your songs."  He points at me with the
peeler.  I nod and yawn.  He smiles down at the potatoes.

At six-thirty A.M. Aaron and I stand upstairs in another long,
wood-floored hallway.  The walls are bare, reflective white.  Four
other blond boys stand behind us.  They're wearing the same long,
scratchy robes that Aaron and I are wearing.  They keep leaning over
and staring at me.  Someone hits the back of my head.  When I turn
around, Aaron smiles.  "It wasn't me!  And I'll swear on Christ's
nails!"  They muffle their laughs.  A wooden door opens next to me, and
the escaping steam makes my lungs hurt.  A tall, sinewy, but fleshy
blond boy motions me in.

"Get in."  He points at the huge porcelain tub, steam rolling off it
like fog.  I stare up at him.  His catlike face scrunches up.  He
sighs, rolls his eyes up, and says like he's bored, "If any man's seed
of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in
water and be unclean until the even."  He licks at the beads of sweat
above his lip.  "Leviticus."  He shakes his head.  "Come on."  He
reaches out his hand.  All he has on is white boxers.  His chest is
bare and covered with a light film of sweat.  I take his hand, and he
leads me to the tub.  Its edges are covered with small black cracks
that look like bloodshot eyes.  His hand is warm and moist.  "Let's
go," he says softly.  He leans over and slides off my robe and
underwear, his hand brushing against me as he does.  He smells like
salt and chlorine.  "Here, I'll help you in."

He clasps his arms around my waist.  I feel his breath against my neck,
and it tickles and I laugh.  "You're a light one."  He lifts me up and
holds me over the tub.  I lean my head back against his chest.  "OK,
here we go ..."  He lowers me down fast.  It takes me a few seconds to
feel the heat of the water.  I yell and grab for the edges.  "No, you
don't!"  He grabs my hands with one of his and covers my mouth with the
other.  "I ain't getting whipped 'cause of you.  Now, come on, shut
up," he says in a low voice into my ear.

My vision is blurred with tears.  I scream into the hand across my
mouth.  "You'll get used to it," he says.  He reaches past me to a
thick bristled scrub brush resting on an edge of the tub.  "But ye are
washed ..."  He reaches into the water and rests the brush against the
skin of my lower stomach.  "But ye are sanctified ..."  He presses the
brush into my flesh.  I smash my lips against his palm, trying to
escape it.  "But ye are justified in the name ..."  He begins to move
the scrub brush slowly across my stomach.  "Of the Lord Jesus ..." His
eyes close.  The brush moves down lower.  "And by the spirit ..." His
eyes open and roll around in their sockets.  He moves the brush in
deliberate strokes between my legs.  My teeth press against his palm.
"Of our God ..."  I bang my head in small stiff bounces against his
chest.  He leans his mouth against my neck.  "Amen," he whispers.

He lets go of the brush, wraps his arm around my hips, and, while still
covering my mouth, lifts me out of the tub.  He stands me next to him.
"If you scream or cry, you'll go back in."  I nod.  "So be quiet."  I
nod again.  He removes his hand, and I gasp.  He stands over me.  "That
wasn't so bad, was it?"  My body feels numb.  I look down at myself, a
bright pinkish red with blood pinpricks and scratches marking my skin
where he scrubbed.  I feel the burn between my legs.  A towel is
dropped around my shoulder.  He begins patting me dry.

At seven A.M. I stand in a hall downstairs, outside my grandfather's
thick oak door.  Aaron lines up behind me, other boys behind him.  They
all look unnervingly familiar, like seeing a mirror cut up of parts of
my face stuck on different people.  They're all dressed like I'm
dressed, like Aaron, in a blazer, tie, and soft black pants.  Aaron
whispers in my ear, reminding me, again, to sing my songs and to
complain about the tub being too hot.  My skin still aches, and I've
left off my underwear because of it.  "Tell him you're not wearing
them, tell him!"  Aaron said when he saw me getting dressed.  His skin
was red, too.  He didn't seem to care.

The door opens and an older blond boy dressed like I am walks out
slowly, wobbly.  His face is turned down.  He doesn't look at me.  I
watch him walking carefully down the hall like he's on a tightrope.  He
puts his fingers out against the wall to balance himself now and again.
"Jeremiah," my grandfather calls from inside his study.  I jump and
then press myself against the wall and quiet my breath.  "I will not
call you again, Jeremiah."  His voice is flat, commanding.  My body
involuntarily moves to the doorway.

The morning light streams from the window onto his desk.  "Step in.
Close the door, Jeremiah."  I walk in,
closing the heavy door behind me.  I watch my hands move the brass knob
that sticks out like a dog's tail until it clicks in its lock.
"Jeremiah ..."  I turn around slowly.  Long rows of books, not library
books, but leather bound, in blacks, burgundies, and browns, line the
wooden shelves up to the ceiling.  They're the kind of shelves where if
you remove the right book, a secret passage opens and a slide takes you
to a secret dungeon.  "Jeremiah ..."  He taps his foot in rapid
succession.  I turn back to face him.  As my eyes adjust to the light,
I can see him better.  He's frowning.  His hands are pressed flat on
the black inlay on top of the wide desk.  I want him to smile, to be
better than my fucking fosters' grandpa, and to know I'm me: who he
saved.  "I know songs, sir," I whisper, and immediately I feel as if
I've tossed a water balloon off a roof and I'm watching it, powerless
to stop it, as it hurtles toward a crowded street.

"You've learned Psalms, Jeremiah," he says, half like a question.

"Aaron told me to sing them to you," I take a breath, "sir."

"Aaron told you to sing them to me, Jeremiah," he repeats.  He folds
his hands one on top of the other.  His hands are bright white with
delicate blue veins, raised like worm tunnels.  His little pinkie taps
slowly.

"I am a Annie-christ," I sing without melody, "I am a annie-kiss--"

"Jeremiah," he interrupts, "what psalm is that?"  He cocks his head to
the side like a dog listening to a silent whistle.

"Sex Pistols," I say, excited he's interested.

"And where did you learn the Sex Pistols psalm, Jeremiah?"  Now his
ring finger is tapping along with his pinkie.

"Um ... from Stinky."  I examine the bookcase again.  There's only one
white book on the fifth shelf; that must be the one you pull.

"Jeremiah ..."  I turn back.  He tilts his head to the other side.
"And who is Stinky?"

I laugh and cover my mouth.  He smiles back without humor.  "Stinky has
a pink Mohawk, but he cut it."

"Yes ..."  His whole hand is tapping now.  It's making me jumpy.

"He lived with us, he's a punk rocker, and I get to be one, too, he
said.  He's learned me guitar so I can be one, too, but we ran away
because he was boring, Sarah said ... we didn't even say bye-bye.  We
sole his guitar at the pone shop.  We didn't say bye."

My grandfather just nods.

"Oh, Aaron 'minded me to tell you the Dead Kennedys, I know them, 'Too
Drunk to Fuck'.  I know that one, too.  I know more.  Wanna hear?"

"No, Jeremiah, I--"

"Oh!"  I interrupt him.  He looks down at me with surprise, his
eyebrows raised.  "Aaron 'minded me to tell you my bath was too hot, it
hurted.  And Job scrubbed me hard.  And I taked the bath at the
hospital before, anyways.  They don't scrub ya."

"What other things did Aaron remind you to tell me, Jeremiah?"  His
teeth lightly bite into his bottom lip.

"That I ain't got no pillow, and the blankets ain't warm enough, and we
haded too many potatoes to peel.  But you know what?  He can make 'em
look like naked peoples."

"What else did he say or show you, Jeremiah?"

"Well ... he said he gets candy from your drawer, and if I do his bed
for a week, I can get me some."  He says nothing, only nods like he
wants me to tell him more.  I rub my head.  "Oh ... he says my mom is a
sinner and a slut."  His hand starts tapping again, louder.  "Um ..."
I can't think of anything else.  I think about making stuff up because
I'm enjoying the attention, but I decide not to.  "That's about it."  I
sigh.  "Sir," I remember and add on.  I half smile up at him.

"That's all, Jeremiah," he says with his white lips thin as a woman's
eyebrows pulled together.

"Oh yeah, I'm not wearin' any underwears--"

"OK, Jeremiah."  I smile wider, but he frowns back.  He stands up and
moves rigidly to the door.  He opens it, steps into the hall, and says
Aaron's name.  As they enter, Aaron stares at me from the corner of his
eye.  My grandfather sits behind his expansive desk and folds his hands
one on top of the other.  He's only looking at Aaron.  Aaron's head is
turned down.  I watch the dust swirl from my grandfather's breath as he
repeats to Aaron all that I told him.  Aaron never raises his head.
Never moves.  My grandfather stands and leans forward on his
knuckles.

"Is this what you said, Aaron?"  Aaron's body twitches, but he says
nothing.  His gaze stays fixated on the floor.  My grandfather walks
around his desk in front of Aaron and repeats the question.  I didn't
realize that I'd been staring at the floor also, until the loud slap
makes me look up.  Aaron's face is askew and bright red.  Fingerprints
are across his cheeks.  I look up at my grandfather standing tall and
dignified above us, his hands calmly at his sides.

"I didn't say it, sir," Aaron mumbles to the floor.

"What didn't you say, Aaron?"

"None of it, sir," he whispers.

"So Jeremiah is a liar?"

"Yes, sir."

"Am not!"  I spit out.

My grandfather looks at me in so direct a way that my outrage is
quickly evaporated.  I gaze down at the almost black wood slat floor.

"Aaron, I'll ask you one last time."  I can hear Aaron's breath almost
a pant.  "Is Jeremiah a liar?"

I grind my teeth together and tighten my hands into fists.

"Yes, sir."

"Liar!"  I glare at Aaron, who's still staring down.  My grandfather
taps his foot, once, almost softly, but it's enough to quiet me.  I
don't feel afraid, and I don't even feel all that mad at Aaron.  I like
the feeling that my grandfather and I are a team.  I think he believes
me, because he saved me, he's protecting me now, like he did from
Sarah, and I love it.

"Aaron.  How did Jeremiah know I keep hard candy in my desk?"

Aaron says nothing.  A loud crack of another slap across Aaron's face
breaks the silence.  I don't look up.  I bite my teeth into my lip so I
don't smile.

"Who is the liar, Aaron?"  My grandfather's foot taps like a metronome.
Another slap echoes in the room, and the words start out of Aaron.

"I am ... sir," he says, snifflling, "I am the liar."

I bite harder into my lip.

"Aaron, show me how you steal from my drawer."

Aaron slowly raises his head.  His cheek is red, with blues and purples
spreading like watercolors on a paper towel.  Tears line his eyes.
"Please, sir ..."

"Go ahead, Aaron, pretend I'm not here.  That's when you thieve, isn't
it, Aaron?"  My grandfather steps away from the desk.  "Show me,
Aaron."

Aaron closes his eyes longer than a blink, then walks slowly to behind
the desk.  He stops in front of the drawer and looks up at my
grandfather.

"Yes, Aaron.  Show me."  Aaron closes his eyes and slides open the
drawer.  He reaches inside quickly, pulls his hand out, and then closes
it like he'd been burned.  He stands waiting, eyes closed, his long
blond eyelashes fluttering.

"Aaron, show me," my grandfather says almost sweetly.

Aaron opens his eyes but stares down at some floating invisible spot.
He walks from around the desk, his leather shoes clicking against the
wood.  He holds out his right arm, turns over his fist, and opens his
fingers like in a game of guess which hand.  Two candy cane peppermints
stand in the center of his shaking hand.  I let myself smile.

"So, Aaron, you told Jeremiah to sing those songs to me?"  Aaron nods,
his hand still extended.  "And you told Jeremiah to complain about the
bath?"  Aaron nods.  He nods a quick head jerk for each of the things
my grandfather repeats to him.  Then my grandfather asks Aaron to
repeat it all, saying each thing he did, including lying about it all
and his intention to get me in trouble.  By the time Aaron's done, his
outstretched hand is shaking so much, the candy's jumping in his palm
like popping corn.  I quietly step to the side to stand a little behind
my grandfather, in his shadow.

"So, Aaron, what should be done?  I've taught you otherwise, have I
not?"

Aaron nods to the floor, his whole arm trembling in the air and his
body jerking in little spasms.

"Yes, sir."

"What should be done, Aaron?"

Aaron lets a little moan escape, and my grandfather slaps him again,
his whole arm swinging back.  A little pool of blood forms at the
corner of Aaron's mouth.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child." As Aaron speaks, the
blood trickles down his chin.  "But the rod of correction shall drive
it far from him."

Sarah doesn't like to hit my face.  She hardly ever does, only if she
really has to.  I plan to tell Aaron how she's never slapped my face.

"Where, Aaron?"

"Proverbs, Chapter 22:15," he whispers, the blood moving and painting
his lips like gooey lipstick.

My grandfather walks to behind the bookshelf and returns carrying a
thick leather belt.  He reaches into Aaron's hand and removes the
candies.  "What else does Proverbs say, Aaron?"

Aaron swallows loudly.  "Withhold not correction from the child--" his
voice is soft but clear "for if, thou beatest him with the rod, he
shall not die.  23:13."

My grandfather reaches out for Aaron's stretched-out hand like he's
going to shake it, but he flattens it instead.  Aaron's hand stays
extended.  The strap folded over crashes down across it.  Aaron closes
his eyes and pushes his hand farther away from his body.  I blink
involuntarily with each hit.  Sarah's never done this to me.  I hope it
hurts.

After I hear my grandfather count "ten" he stops.  Aaron's outstretched
hand is shaking and lined in swollen dark colors.  Bright red seeps
along tiny cracks in his palm like bloody canals.  My grandfather's
face is as composed and as calm as before, if not more so.  Aaron
slowly lowers his hand.  Tears roll down his face, and he blinks at
them as if he were only cutting onions.  It makes me mad.

"Thank you, sir," Aaron says loudly.  I squeeze my hands into fists.

"You've been punished for stealing.  What should be done about your
other sins, Aaron?"  my grandfather asks him, the belt still at his
side.

"I need to be punished, sir," he whispers.  I nod my head yes.  "23:14
Thou shall beat him with the rod and--" Aaron's voice breaks--"--shalt deliver
his soul from hell."

"Remove your clothing, Aaron."  His foot taps quietly.

Aaron unbuttons his shirt with his left hand.  He avoids moving his
right hand.  He takes off his pants and underwear.  He covers himself
with his left hand, not touching, just in front.  My grandfather nods
at Aaron, and Aaron walks to his desk and leans against it on his
elbows.  I feel jealous that Aaron knows what to do and my grandfather
doesn't have to tell him.  My grandfather steps around and behind
Aaron.  He takes his left hand and rests it on Aaron's head.  My
grandfather's never touched me like that.  He hasn't touched me at
all.

The belt swings up and snaps down across Aaron's back, then across his
ass.  I know what that feels like.  I hear Aaron whimper after each
stroke.  My grandfather has let go of Aaron's head, and I'm glad.  The
belt cracks hard against his ass.  She holds me sometimes, her hand on
my thing, and it's so nice.  It slaps again on his ass.  Sarah holds me
while her boyfriend, any boyfriend, brings the belt down.  Little
flecks of saliva spray from Aaron's mouth.  But her hand is beneath me,
stroking me.  The strap hits against Aaron's back again.  Her hand is
so soft and comforting that I don't mind the belt, I don't care.
Aaron's body raises up in response to each stroke.  His skin is looking
like his palm.  What always ruins it, though, is my thing, growing, and
then evil sinfulness takes over, then her nails ... Aaron is crying
now, he's crying hard.  Her nails dig in and rip at me, at my
sinfulness.  That's when I start to feel the belt.  "You sinful, dirty
fucker," she had said, and it hurt so bad, but she still holds me.  The
belt blurs down in front of my eyes.  And it's hard, my thing, it's
hard.  She holds me.  He'll hold Aaron after.  She holds me and it's
hurting, but she holds me.  And it feels like heaven.  The beating has
ended, and now I hope it's my turn, before he holds Aaron and forgets
about me and my turn.

LIZARDS

WE PASS OTHER boys and a few girls.  They look briefly at us and turn
away quickly.  I walk slowly with Aaron, staring at the floor in front
of us, like he does, like the other kids do.  We walk down red-carpeted
stairs.  He sucks in breaths with each step down.  His grip is so tight
that my fingertips are red by the time we reach the landing.  We go
behind the stairs to a white-painted wood slat door.  Aaron releases my
hand, turns the lock, and opens it, and we stare down into blackness.
He reaches in and flicks on a light.  The cool smell of must and mildew
wafts over us as if a fan were blowing it up.  He takes my arm again
and we descend gray concrete stairs.  At the bottom a small
wood-paneled hall faces four different doors.  Aaron lifts his hand,
holding mine to his face, and wipes his eyes and nose with our hands.
We walk over to the door on the far right.  He releases my hand and
unbolts and opens the door.  He flicks on the light; it flickers above
us like a strobe for a few seconds.  We stand staring at a raw wood box
maybe four feet high and not very wide.  There's a wooden stool in
front of it and a black book
on top of the stool.  It looks like a dog cage without the wire.  The
prayer box.

A small door is latched on the front; he reaches out carefully and
opens it.  Inside it smells like bleach.  He pulls me over to the
stool.  "Take the Bible," he whispers.  "Deuteronomy," he says.
'32:22."

"What?"  Our voices sound spooky in the dead silence around us.

"Here."  He takes the book, thumbs some pages.  The book shakes in his
hand.  He points at some words and hands it back to me.  "You can read,
right?"  I nod.  He points at a paragraph.  "We start here," he
whispers.  He wipes his face against his shoulder and turns his back on
me.  A wet spot marks where he pointed.  He lowers his pants and then
steps out of them; the skin of his upper thighs is red and swollen like
a blister.  "I'll say it till time, OK, you make sure it's right, OK?"
He sucks up snot.  "You can tell him how many times I mess up.  I don't
care, OK?"

"OK," I say to the cracks in the cement floor.

He takes my hand and pulls me close to the box opening.  He climbs
inside, still clasping my hand.  He lets out a few gasps, and I feel
sick.  His hand is wet, and I'm afraid he'll take me into the dark,
chlorine-smelling box.  He's kneeling in the box.  That's all there's
room for.  "Close the door and lock it," he says.  I start to close it,
and it hits against his hand stretched out behind his back, still
clutching my hand.  He turns and looks at me, his face like a
surprised, big-eyed animal in the shadows.

He had looked so old to me, but now he looks like a kid younger than
me.  He presses his lips together, eyes wide and blinking at me.  He
starts to slide his hand out of mine, but I hold on to it tightly.
Suddenly I don't want to let go.  He looks at me with sad, determined
eyes, and his hand slips from my grasp.  "Close the door, lock it," he
whispers.  I do.

"For a fire is kindled in mine anger," Aaron says from inside the box,
his voice muffled but clear "... and shall burn unto the lowest
hell."  I wipe my hand dry on my pants and sit on the stool.  "...
shall consume the earth with her increase ..."  I notice little air
holes on the side of the box at the bottom.  "... and set on fire the
foundations of the mountains ..."  There's a framed picture of Christ
on the wood-paneled wall.  "... I will heap mischiefs upon them ..."
Jesus is not on the cross.  He looks like he's in a good mood,
friendly, almost smiling.  "... they shall be burnt with hunger, and
devoured with burning heat ..."  There's a black bug crawling slowly
toward my foot.  "... and with bitter destruction ..."  I wait till
it's close enough, and I raise the Bible over it.  "...I will also
send the teeth of beasts upon them ..."  It suddenly curls up tight
into a little ball.  "... with the poison ..."  I stand up and slam
the balled-up bug as hard as I can with the book.  Aaron pauses
slightly, then continues.  "...  of serpents of the dust.  For a fire is
kindled ..."  I sit on the stool and try to find the place Aaron
showed me.  "...in mine anger ..."  I kick the squished bug under
the box.


Some time before my grandmother opens the door of the room we're in,
Aaron stops reciting.  I only hear him whispering to himself and
moaning.  He doesn't answer me when I try to talk to him.  I think
about opening the door, but I'm afraid he's been taken down to a fiery
furnace, and a wild hell dog is in his place, waiting for me.  I start
reciting because I know the chapter by heart now.  He says nothing,
only whines like a dog.

When I hear footsteps coming down the stairs, I grab the Bible I had
put up against the box door to try to seal the evil inside of it, like
in vampire movies.

"Someone's coming," I whisper to warn whatever's in there.  My
grandmother steps into the room, and I feel relieved but still
frightened.  I clutch my book up to my face like I'm reading it.

"It's been one hour," she says, her lips set in a disappointed line.
She knocks on the wood roof of the box.  "Up to a bath," she
announces.

"How many mistakes did he make, Jeremiah?"  She doesn't look at me. She
leans over and unlocks the door to the box.  I hear Aaron moving
inside.  The door pushes open with a long creak.  I hold my breath.
"Jeremiah!"  she snaps.

"None, he made none," I whisper, and stare at the black hole in the
box.

"Your mother never taught you your Bible, did she."  She shakes her
head as a foot, then a leg sheened with sweat, appears.  "Come on,
Aaron." She knocks on the box.  Aaron's other leg pushes out and then
the rest of him.  He sits hunched over in front of the box.  "Aaron, I
have chores to get done," she says impatiently.  He reaches up to my
stool, I give him my hand, he grabs it tight and pulls himself up.  He
stands shaking.  His knees and the fronts of his calves are pocked with
little deep round red craters.  "Upstairs."  She turns and walks out of
the room.  Aaron takes wobbly baby steps behind her, wincing at the
light. Little brownish green round things fall away from him.  She
switches off the light, and they walk into the next room.  I stare at
the open mouthlike hole in the box.  I drop down and reach into the
floor of the box and grab.  "Jeremiah," my grandmother calls.  I run
out and catch up with them on the steps.  Aaron's walking like a
cripple.  My grandmother rushes him with clicks from her tongue.  I
lean behind Aaron's shadow and open my hand in the fluorescent light of
the staircase.  I roll around in my palm little round peas, hard little
round peas.

Aaron taught me Bible and the rules, and I learned.  I learned well
enough to go on a long drive to the city and have my own street corner.
I carry my pamphlets in one hand and pass them out with the other. All
day I preach hellfire and damnation.  Plain and simple.  Kids ride by
on bikes and skateboards and spit at me.  Grown-ups either bless me or
squeeze my cheeks and pat my crew-cut hair.  But I know I'm going to
heaven.  I know the evil's left me.  When police pass by, I don't hold
my breath anymore.  I can feel him working through me, working his
miracles, healing and curing.  And when I fall, when I displease him,

I pay, like Aaron, leaning over the desk, breathing in the rich lemony
wood polish, and waiting for him to rest his hand on my head for a
minute.  I cry, and I'm cleansed.  I'm with him, my grandfather, just
me and him and the rod of correction, restoring me.

And the truth is sometimes I mess up my lessons on purpose and make
myself not say ma'am or thank you, I let myself get caught reading a
book from his study, I start to crave the strap that hangs on the
silver hook behind the bookcase in his office.  I need to be put into
myself, to feel his hot, minty breath against my back and hear him pant
quietly as he brings the strap down, to watch him dab his brow with the
white embroidered cloth napkin that he carefully unfolds from his
pocket.  I always thank him after, like the others do, but I mean it. I
don't cuss him later, telling everyone that it didn't really hurt. My
heart feels full after, until it slowly seeps away.  Sometimes I need
more than the nod I get when I've memorized more Bible than anyone,
when I've helped Job scrub me so hard that my skin is raw and cracked,
when I've turned in Aaron again for not using toilet paper as he holds
his thing to pee.  I feel his love vaporizing out of me.  I let Aaron
turn me in.  I let him feel closer to Jesus, I give him the gift of
letting him feel powerful with my grandfather as he reports me. But all
he gets is a nod from my grandfather like I get when I turn Aaron in. 
He gets the same closed-face nod and dismissal, but I get to stay
inside and I get to feel his love.

Then one day she comes.  I hear her voice from downstairs, loud and
slurring.  She's preaching.  I race out of my bed to the banister and
look down.  "... but he is powerful," she shouts, "... and never
lets the guilty go unpunished ..."  She says unpunished slowly like
it's many words and a swear word, too.  "... Nahum 1:3 fucker!"  I
hear a face slapped.  I run down the stairs.  "Guilty, guilty, guilty,"
she says.

"Get out of this house immediately," I hear him say, but without his
commanding sermon voice.

"Jere-my-yah!"  she yells out singsong.  "My kid, right?"  she says.
"Or is he yours?  I'm the whore, I can't remember, maybe you can." Slap
again.  She laughs, then screams my name.  "What will you do, calls the
cops?"

"Leave immediately," he says, but there is something strange in his
voice.  I stand at the bottom of the stairs, panting.  Neither of them
turns to me.

"We're going," my mother says to him.  My grandmother stands off to the
side, wrapped in a robe she pulls tight.  Her face looks defeated, but
her eyes watch with a fierce gaze.  "Jeremiah ..."  Sarah reaches out
her hand.  Her skin glows like warm honey, and her fingers wiggle like
little twigs off branches.  She doesn't look at me, but I walk slowly
toward her like I'm in a trance.  I extend my hand out and up, but when
I'm near her I don't have to reach up like I used to.  I slip my hand
in hers, and it's warm and it closes tight.  My grandfather says
nothing.  My grandmother says nothing.  "See ya," she says, and starts
walking to the door, taking me with her.  I turn my head toward my
grandfather.  His jaw's working back and forth, but he says nothing.
"God bless you, and thanks for turning my kid into a Jesus freak," she
says, and opens the door.  "Fucking hypocrites, fucker!"  she shouts,
slamming the door behind us.

The concrete is freezing against my bare feet, but I love the silky
freedom of standing on it.  "Jesus ..."  She sighs and turns and spits
on the door.  I can't help but laugh.  "Like that, kid?"  She looks at
me for the first time.  "Damn, you're huge.  He must be feeding you
more than he ever fed me."  Her hair's cut short and spiked with a
green streak in it.  She's got a ring through her nostril.  "He won't
fuck with me," she slurs.  She pulls me down the stairs with her, "I
got it over him."  There's a semi idling in the shadows.  She motions
wildly, and it backs up.  "Told you, we're partners," she says, patting
my hand. When we step on the grass, I wiggle my toes in the damp fuzz
and laugh again.  She lets go of my hand and reaches for the truck
door.  "This is your new daddy," she says.

My smile folds as the man in the turned-backward baseball cap nods at
me.  I look back to the sealed front door.  "Let's go," she says, and
clicks her tongue like my grandmother.  I climb up and stand behind her
seat mechanically.  She hops in the front.  "So fuckin' easy ... told
ya he wouldn't fuck with me."  She drums on the wide dash.  "Not with
what I got over him."  I keep wanting to ask what, but I can only turn
and watch the front door get smaller and smaller.

"This is Kenny's.  Owns his own rig," she says, and passes the bottle
in a brown paper bag back to him.

"So, little man.  Ain't seen your momma in a while, huh?"  He's got a
blunt, stubby, but friendly, handsome face.

"Two years," she says, and reaches back for the bottle, "two years."

"If we hadn't been driving by, it mighta been another two."  He laughs.
"This ain't like a stop for cigarettes."

"What's mine is mine," she says.

"Gotta mighty fine momma," he says, and grabs a handful of her short
hair in his thick, hairy hands and pulls her in for a kiss.  "Now, I
know you learned some religious instruction, but we-all can't be havin'
none of that here."  He points to a silver crucifix hanging on his
rearview mirror.  "I got my own thing with the Lord, but if you start
up any preaching, I'll tell ya ... there's the door, don't let it hit
ya in the eye, understand?"  He winks at me.  "Now there's a little bed
on back there."  He points to a satin silver curtain behind him.  "Go
on back to bed"--he motions with his head--"go on."  I walk through the
curtains to a little room in the back of the truck cab.  I climb under
sweaty-smelling blankets on the mattress, and I fall asleep listening
to the low rumble of the truck competing against their laughter.

"You be listenin' out for me, Kenny."  Through the gap of the curtain I
can see Sarah flip her head down into a platinum wig and come up
tossing long curls, her shoulders bare in a tube top.

"Always do."  He thumps the wheel.

"Always don't, and I won't be gettin' my arm broke while you're doin'
some goddamn lizard."

"Gonna be right here listenin' out for you and fixin' up my comic book."
He flips pages in his logbook.  "Last weigh station set us back some.
Gotta toy with it some."  He shakes his head over the pages.  "Plus
pickin' your kid up ..."

"Fuck that, I'll bring in more than your whole run."  She bends her leg
and places it between his.  He runs his hand along her thigh.

"Why you think we're stoppin', sugar?"  He puts his hand behind her
head and starts to pull her head down.

"No, don't even be messin' my lips up, 'less you wanna pay for it."

He laughs and lets her go.  "Do good tonight.  I'll be listenin' for
ya."  He pats her ass, and as she slides her leg off the seat, she
whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh.

"Later," she says, and I hear her open the door.

"You know it," he says, and stares down at his book turned spine out on
his thigh.  The door slams, he sighs and tosses the book off his leg.
He switches on a country tape and jumps around, making the cabin shake
like on a Ferris wheel ride.  I cover my mouth not to laugh out loud as
he shakes his ass wildly and sprays deodorant under his arms, inside
his jeans, and on his hair, which he brushes and pushes till it rises
like an overpass across his head.  He squeezes a big blue glob of Crest
into his mouth.  I wait for him to spit, but he doesn't.  He licks his
lips and slips on cowboy boots that look like they have cheetah skin on
them.  He opens the door and I hear the metal tap of his boots on the
truck steps, but he comes back, grabs the crucifix off the mirror, and
slides it around his neck.  Then he leaves, switching off the light and
slamming the door behind him.  I hear his heels clicking away, and I
pull myself out of bed to the door window.  I watch him disappear down
a long line of trucks like his, lined up like sleeping dragons.

It's dark in the cab, and I don't know how to turn the light on.
There's a little toilet in the back behind the curtain, and I need to
go, but it's too dark back there.  I stare at the silver curtain and
wait to see the red eyes of Satan staring back out at me.  My heart
throbs in my chest, and I put my hand on the door handle next to my
mother's empty seat.  My bladder is almost bursting.  A harsh light
glares through the windshield, and I tell myself it's another truck,
but then I see the red eyes floating inside the light, disembodied,
glowing like fireflies, and I pull on the handle and push out as hard
as I can.  The door swings out, and I do, too.  My feet dangle over the
tar black of the lot like I'm bait on a fishline.  I let go and fall to
the ground, stumbling slightly as an eighteen-wheeler barrels past.  I
quickly regain my balance and reach for the truck door and slam it with
all my might before Satan can escape.  I stand there panting, staring
at the sealed door, expecting Satan to start barking and clawing at the
window.  I wait until my feet start freezing, which isn't very long
because I realize, looking down, I'm barefoot in my pajamas.  "Shoot!"
I say out loud, and my voice sounds small and flat in the cold,
windless air.  The pressure on my bladder stabs into me.  I look
around.  There's nobody, so I lean against the tire and piss, my eye on
the cab door.  I hear the click of a door opening.  Satan's coming out.
I step back, my piss forming a lazy arch shooting up and out of me.
"You have a good night, baby," I hear from behind me.  I jump and turn
suddenly, the pee still flowing out of me, refusing to shut off.  The
cab door of the truck next to ours slams and a girl climbs down the
truck steps, her eyes on me.

"You gonna hose me down now, or what?"  The pee tapers off to a
drizzle.  She smiles.  "I think you're about done," she says, standing
across from me.  "Why don't you put that little baby bean away before
you frighten everyone."  I blink at her and then down at my thing in my
hand.  She laughs, and dimples form in her rouged cheeks.  I shove my
thing back in my pajama bottoms and turn back to our truck, forgetting
Satan and wanting only to get away from her.  I climb the steps and
yank on the door, but it's locked. I try again.

"Here ..."  She steps up next to me.  "Let me help."  She pulls the
handle, but it doesn't budge.  "Wake 'em up."  She knocks loud on the
door and smiles at me.  She's got a lot of makeup on, and it sparkles
like glitter.  She doesn't look old, though there's something worn
about her.  Her black outlined eyes roll up.  "They in there?"  She
bangs again.  I shake my head.  "Where are they?"  she says, and steps
down.  Her skirt is so short that when she steps down I see her red
panties.  I shrug my shoulders and try the handle once more.  "You're locked out," she says, sucking on her thin lips.  "You'll have more
luck banging your head against a wall."  A plum-colored outline extends
past the boundaries of her mouth, giving her a tough appearance.  "Come
on."  She motions to me and starts to walk away.  "Come on, you can't
stay out here, you'll freeze ... come on ..."  She motions hard.  The
cold metal of the steps is starting to burn.  "Come on!"  I jump down
and follow her.

"Milkshake," she says without stopping or turning.  She reaches back
her hand.  Her nails are painted gold.

"No thanks, ma'am," I mumble.  She stops and turns to face me.

"I ain't offerin' you one.  I'm Milkshake."  She rolls her eyes and
puts her hand out again for me to shake.  I give her my hand, and she
pumps it once hard.  "And you?"  She lets go without waiting for an
answer and starts walking.  She walks in her high heels like they're
sandals, her feet lost inside them, making flip-flop noises.  I catch
up with her.

"I'm Jeremiah," I tell her.

"Cool," she says.  "Glad to meet ya, wouldn't want to be ya."  She
laughs.  "Just kidding."  She flips her hair back again.  "See, there
..."  She points to an old station wagon sandwiched between two
trucks.  She starts to run a little, her shoes dragging like scuffs.
She wraps her arms around herself.  She's only wearing a tank top, red
like her underthings.  "Come on," she shouts, and I run to catch up.
She digs in a little leather purse hanging across her shoulders.  I can
see money crumpled up inside it.  She takes out keys and opens the
back.  "Get in."  She gets in the front and turns the keys in the
ignition.  I panic.  I've heard stories about kids being kidnapped,
sacrificed, and eaten.  I grab for the door handle.  She turns back at
me.  "Relax!"  She grabs my arm.  "We ain't goin' nowheres.  Just
turning it on to get the heater goin'."  She points to a dirty beige
metal thing near my feet.  "The heater ... see?"  She climbs over the
seat next to me.  "What the fuck would I do with you, anyways?"  She
pulls off her heels and rubs her feet.  "Damn," she says.  There are
runs up and down her stockings.  They're black.  "So, that your daddy's
truck?" She says, pulling on her toes.

"He ain't my real daddy," I say.  I rarely say ain't at my
grandparents.  I almost taste the soap in my mouth.  Sarah says ain't.
She says it a lot.

"But that his truck?"  She spits on her feet and rubs harder.

"He owns it, Sarah, my momma, said."

"He thinks he's a bad-ass.  That's a chicken car," she says.  "Spends
most of his money on the chrome."  I shrug.  "It got a toilet?"

"Uh-huh, TV and fridge, too, and a bed."

"It's a condo, damn.  What's he haulin'?"  I shrug.  "He an asshole?" I
shrug again.  "You know those lights all along the outside?  Chicken
lights.  Any trucker with them's an asshole ... I know truckers."  She
sucks her lips.  "I like Kenworths men myself."  She sniffs her
feet.

"Damn, they stink."  She puts one up to me.  "Wanna whiff?"  I jerk my
head back, laughing.  She shoves her foot in my face.  "Won't charge ya
none.  C'mon, take a whiff," she says, laughing.  I try to push away
her foot.  I slide down the seat, laughing so hard my eyes tear.  She
climbs on top of the seat and puts her foot above my face.  I'm pushing
up as hard as I can, but laughing makes me weaker.  "Beg for mercy,"
she says.

"No."  I push harder, but her foot lowers.

"Mercy," she laughs, "beg ..."

"No!"  I shout.

"Then suffer," she yells, and forces her foot down on my face.

I thrash and yell between laughs, "Mercy, mercy!"  She rubs her foot
around my squished cheek and then pulls it off and collapses back in
her seat, wiping black mascara tears off her face.  We sit in silence,
catching our breath.  After a few minutes she asks me if I'm hungry.

"I got Dunkin' Donuts somewhere," she says, and reaches into the
back.

"This your car?"  I ask.

"What?!"  she says, bringing out the pink-and-white box.  "How old do
you think I am?"  I shrug.  "This is my momma's."  She flips open the
box.  "Help yourself."  I grab a chocolate sprinkle one.  She takes a
cream coated one.  "How old do you think I am?  Guess."  She's taller
than me, not much, even in the heels, but she's wearing makeup and
dressed old.  I shake my head and wipe crumbs off my mouth.  "I'm
twelve, almost thirteen.  I can't drive yet, stupid."  She talks with
her mouth full.

"I'm ten," I lie.

"You look younger."  She takes a big bite, and cream gets on her nose.
I don't tell her.

"Where's your momma?"  I ask.

She snorts.  "My momma's a toss-up, you know, hubba."

"What?"

"Crack.  Crackwhore.  She goes on runs.  She won't be back for days." I
nod, though I'm not sure I understand.  But I'm glad her momma won't be
back.  She licks her fingers.  "I take care of myself, plus all the
lizards look out for me."

"Lizards?  My momma was worried about Kenny doin' lizards."

"Well, she should be at this truck stop."  She swallows.  "They don't
stop for nobody, most ignore the signs, not me.  They don't want me, I
ain't a-knockin'."  She takes another bite.  "Your daddy didn't have no
signs on his truck."  She laughs, showing me her doughy mush.

"What signs?"

"Lizard signs, stupid."

"What are lizard signs."

"You don't know what a lizard is?"  she asks, her mouth open and pieces
of doughnut falling down her tank top.  I shake my head.  "OK"--she
swallows--"a lizard is a prostitute.  Sex for money."  I nod.  "If you're
workin' a truck stop, then you"--she points to herself--"are a lot
lizard. Got it?"

"Uh-huh."  I reach into the box between us and take a cream doughnut
like the one she has.

"Now a sign is ... OK ... hole up."  She gets up and digs in the back.
She turns around with a flashlight.  "C'mere."  She shines the light
out of the window and onto the door of the darkened truck next to us. I
lean in close to her.  She smells like perfume, but it's too heavy and
I feel a little sick.  The light dances over stickers on the truck
door.  "Lookit."  She shines it on one of a cartoon lizard garishly
dressed, with a red slash through it.  "See?"  She turns to me.  "That
means he don't want any."  She switches it off.  I slide back to my
seat.

"Kenny doesn't got one of those stickers."  I say got, not have, like
Milkshake does, like Sarah says sometimes, like Aaron and the others
would never say in front of my grandfather.

"I tole ya," she says, and nods.

"Your mom's a lizard?"

She nods.  "So am I," she says, and turns away to look out the window.
"Frosting up," she says, tapping on the window.  "You're lucky I found
you."

We fall asleep in the backseat.  I wake up before her.  Her head is
cradled between my feet, and her bent legs are on the seat.  I don't
move, even though I feel stiff.

When she wakes up, she pulls herself quickly off my legs and sits up. I
pretend to wake up slowly.  "Gotta piss," she says as I sit up.  "No
condo in here."  She digs in the back and turns around with toilet
paper, boots, and a jacket.  She puts the boots and coat on.  "Be right
back."  She goes behind the car.  The sky is lightening with blue
slashes, and the mountains in the distance look like purple humps.
"Your turn."  She jumps back in and hands me the toilet paper.  "Wanna
get breakfast?"  she says, opening a small mirror.  "Yuck, what a
mess."  She spits on a finger and rubs at the black under her eyes.

"I haven't got ... I ain't got no money," I tell her.

"No kidding.  Didn't think you hid it up your butthole, now, did I?"  I
feel my face redden, and I look away.  "My treat, but we gotta put you
in some clothes."  She climbs in the back and unzips bags.  "Here ..."
She tosses a pair of jeans over, and a sweatshirt.  "Put 'em over your
PJs and they'll fit, OK?"  She tosses more stuff around.  "Here ..."
She hands me a pair of sneakers and two pairs of socks.  "Put 'em both
on and try 'em."  They're a little big but will stay on.  I hold up my
foot and show her.  "Now you're set cowboy."

We leave and head to the restaurant, the only one open twenty-four
hours.  A sign at the entrance says "Truckers," and an arrow beneath it
points one way, then "Everyone Else" points the other way.  We head
opposite "Truckers".

We eat eggs, and steak, and French fries, and coffee and hot chocolate,
and she points out men walking by.  She tells me who have no teeth and
who cry like a baby when they come.  She explains it all to me, coming,
white goo, and how much it's all worth.  "I make a lot," she says.  "A
lot of 'em like little girls.  And if I tell 'em I'm a cherry bomb ...
a virgin ..."

"Like Mary," I say.

"Yeah"--she laughs--" like that.  They'll pay big bucks."

"Then why don't you get a house or a truck?"

"More coffee, baby?"  The fat waitress smiles over us and fills
Milkshake's cup.

"Thanks, Cilia."  She opens and pours in ten half-and-half containers.
"My momma smokes it all," she says, looking into her white coffee.
"It's my fault.  I always believe her, then the money's gone."  She
blows on the coffee.  We watch it ripple.  "But if I leave her, she'll
die ..."

"I know," I tell her.

We both look out the window and watch truckers pull out and
disappear.

We stop at Kenny's truck after breakfast, but nobody answers my knock.
So we go back to Milkshake's car.

She pulls out a tiny battery-run TV, and we watch her stories and game
shows.  I want to watch cartoons, but I'm embarrassed to ask.  I really
haven't seen any since before being at my grandparents'.  We didn't
watch TV there.  Once when I was preaching near a TV shop, I gave in to
temptation.  I went in and watched Rainbow Bnte and The Smurfs.  I sat
on the floor in the corner until it was done.  I was afraid I was going
to hell, and two days later I confessed to my grandfather.  I didn't
sit for a week, but I was relieved of my sin.

We eat more doughnuts, then go see if my mom's back yet.  I'm afraid to
go, scared that there'll just be an empty space instead of a truck. "My
mom's probably very worried," I tell Milkshake.

I hear yelling inside the cab.  Milkshake stands off to the side.  I
hold my breath and knock.  The yelling inside continues.  I knock
louder.  Sarah opens the door, dressed the same as she was last night,
similar to Milkshake.

"What?!"  she says.

"I'm back," I say.

"Not now," she says, and turns back inside, slamming the door.  The
shouting continues.

I don't want to look at Milkshake.  I stand staring at the closed truck
door.  I feel her hand in mine.  "C'mon," she says, "All My Children's,
on."  I let her lead me back to the car.

I go back several times and check on the truck.  There's always
shouting inside, so I don't knock.  When I go back after the sun goes
down, the cab is dark and there is no answer when I knock.

"Watch this," Milkshake says, and climbs into the front seat.  She's
changed into a different short skirt, a metallic gold, and her face is
painted in glitter again.  "This is a CB," she says, pointing to the
radio box in the dash.

"I know, Kenny's got one ..."

"Bet Kenny don't do this ..."  She switches the CB on.  Static and men
talking fill the car.  She looks at me
and winks.  She holds the mike and presses down on it.  "Break 19," she
says.  "Go ahead, breaker," a man's voice responds.  "Milkshake here
for R V R, over."  "Calf Roper here, darlin', where ya wanna take it?"
he says.

"Twenty-eight for my 1020," she says.  "Is the pussy free tonight?"  a
different man says.  "Milkshake goin' to twenty-eight.  Visit and ya'll
find out."  She reaches out and changes her channel.  "Break 28,"
Milkshake says. "Hold a minute, Breaker," a woman's voice says.

"... suck the life outta ya, sugar," a throaty-voiced woman cracks over
the CB.

"I'm a-waitin' over the chicken coop," a man responds. "Be right
there, Smokestacks," she says.

"Go ahead, Breaker," the first woman says.  "Milkshake here, for R
'n'
R."

"Calf Roper pullin' you in, baby," the man from before says.

"Can't get enough of me, can ya?"  "No, ma'am, I can't."  "I'll be on
over."

"Milkshake, you need help with that cradle robber?"  a woman asks.

"Naw, Sweet Lips, I'm gonna rob him all myself.  That's a 107."  She
reaches over and switches off the CB.  "I just made us dinner and video
game money."  She leans back and laughs.

"But you gotta do stuff with him?"  I ask, staring at the CB.

"No big deal.  I sit on his face, jerk him off, and I got me
twenty-five dollars."  She puts her high heels on.

"He said he wanted all that just now?"

"No, I know him, he's a repeat, did him last night."  She looks at
herself in her little pink compact mirror.  I shake my head.  "Beats
knockin' on doors like your momma does."  She snaps her mirror shut.

"What?"

She opens the car door.  "You don't know ... your momma's a lot
lizard, too."  She shuts the door.  She waves and walks off.

I say nothing to Milkshake when she comes back and fires up the CB
again.  I pretend to be asleep.  She turns the CB louder.  I want to
cover my ears.  I'm afraid I might hear Sarah.  Milkshake leaves on
another date, but she leaves the CB on.  I raise the volume on the TV
as high as it goes, but I can still hear the moans from the CB.

In the morning we eat ice-cream sundaes at the restaurant.  "I wanna do
one," I tell, her.

"Do one what?"  she says, scooping out hot butterscotch fudge.

"One date, like you do."  I tap my spoon on the table.

"You can't, you're too young, and you're a boy."

"Am not!"

"Am not what?"  She stares at me, her makeup colored splotches on her
face.  "Not a boy?"

"Sometimes I'm not," I tell her, looking down.  She reaches under the
table and gropes between my legs.  I jump away, my spoon clattering to
the floor.  "Damn!"  I shout, and then bite my lip hard for having
sworn.

"You are a boy, though I've had my doubts."  She laughs.  I remind
myself that my grandfather isn't here, and I let myself breathe again.
"Damn!"  I say once more, and smile.

We take free showers at the truck stop, wearing her sneakers because
the showers are too slimy to do without them.

When Milkshake goes to her car to sleep, I walk back to the truck.  I
try the door, and it's open.  I enter quietly.  "Kenny?"  Sarah calls
out from behind the silver curtain.

"No-no, ma'am," I stutter.  "It's me."

"C'mon back here."

I walk cautiously to the silver drape and pull it aside slowly.

Sarah is in the bed and covers her eyes from the shafts of light.
"C'mere," she says, and motions to me.

I move to her heavily, like I'm walking through peanut butter.  She'll
want to know where I got the clothes and where I've been.  She pats the
bed for me to sit next to her.  I do carefully.  "Lie down," she says.
I blink at her.  Her makeup's smeared like Milkshake's.  "Lie down,"
she repeats.  I can't read her tone.  It's not angry, not even annoyed.
I lie down stiffly next to her, my head half on her pillow.  "You're
all I got," she says.  She throws an arm around my waist.  I stare
wide-eyed around the cab, at the white toilet glowing like a
fluorescent moon and the tiny humming fridge filled with iced coffees
and Cokes.  "No one can take you away from me," she says.  I stare at a
used syringe on the floor and the cotton ball next to it, laying there
like a fallen cloud.  "You better not leave me," she says, and her
hands move sloppily to my crotch and rest there lazily.  I notice a
thin trickle of blood running from her arm like a sink leak.  She
breathes in heavy, a partial snore.  I reach my hand to her arm and
wipe up the blood with my fingers.  She snorts, then moans.  I put my
fingers in my mouth and clean the blood off them like I've seen a cat
licking her newborns do.

"I'm yours," I whisper, and lean into her dead weight and try to
sleep.

I wake up feeling the truck rumbling beneath me.  Sarah doesn't stir as
I pull myself out from under her arm and go up front.  "Where ya been?"
Kenny says, sitting in the driver's seat and starting to pull out of
the truck stop.

"We going now, sir?"  I ask, looking back at the lot, searching for
Milkshake's station wagon.

"Goin' now?  Shoulda gone yesterday."  He reaches in his pocket for a
Marlboro.

"Please, can we not go yet, sir?"  I grab on to the back of his seat as
we pick up speed, following the interstate signs.

"Not go yet?!  Hell, no!  Boy, I just tole ya, we shoulda done been
gone!"  He lights up.  "What were ya doin' back there that ya don't
wanna go?  Where d'ya get them clothes at?"

"I met a family and they took care of me, lent me clothes and these
shoes.  And I really should give 'em back and say thank you or
something, sir."

"Well ..."--he laughs--"you just got yourself some new clothes, you needed
some anyways.  We ain't goin' back."  He waves at me.  "Lean over here
and I'll let you pull my new train horn."  My mouth feels dry as I move
to his side.  "This here is a brass lever."  He takes my hand and puts
it on a golden chain hanging from the cab roof.  "When I tell you pull
down on it ... you pull down on it."  The truck enters the interstate
ramp and heads into the stream of traffic.  "Now, pull it now."  My arm
jerks down, and Kenny smiles.  "Isn't that the most beautiful sound?"
he says as the wah-wah cry of the train horn echoes around us.
"Seventeen hundred dollars that cost me!"  We speed past the truck
stop, and I yank the horn's lever once more and put my good-bye into it
like a smoke signal floating in the air.

I hear Kenny's train whistle for the last time while eating alone in a
truck stop diner outside Orlando, Florida.  I look up and around me,
but it all continues, the haggard waitresses in dirty white sneakers,
glittering gold hair nets, and short pink skirts, tending to the big
men and their bigger wives packed into the orange plastic booths with
their dull-eyed children.

Nobody notices the train horn.  A train horn on a truck, and no one
looks up to wonder who was in the way and if they moved fast enough.

I bury my spoon under the milk in my Cheerios mix.  Sarah showed me how
to make Cheerios.  "Just Cheerios, no milk ... Milk's on the table,
don't need to pay for what they're givin' away."  She dumps the silver
container into her cereal and points to me to grab the container off
the empty table behind us and do the same.  "Jelly's free ..."  She
spoons half the jar of sugary strawberry jam in, then does the same on
my Cheerios.  "Butter's free, too."  She opens five little plastic
packages and pushes out the bright yellow blobs into the bowl and
motions for me to do the same.  "The classier places leave out the
maple syrup ..."  She pours half the slow amber liquid into her bowl,
then mine, pouring it on the table while traveling between her bowl and
mine.  "Now this rounds it out ..."  She reaches for the red plastic
ketchup bottle and squirts a big mound of red squiggly lines in our
bowls, and again she doesn't stop squeezing the bottle in the space
between our bowls.  "Now, if ya got a extra fifty cents, you order
yourself a cottage cheese ball."  She grabs a fork and begins to stir
the mixture.  "Then you're really stylin'.  More cream," she tells the
waitress when the waitress asks her too loudly if that'll be all.
"White trash, cunt," Sarah mutters as the waitress walks away.

"Here ..."  She reaches out, gripping the glass sugar container like a
machine gun, and dumps half of it into our bowls and on the table.

The truck's train horn sounds again, farther away, three quick
fuck-you-I'm-out-of-here blasts.  "Gotta let the hearts know when to
start a-breakin'," Kenny would say every time he would pull the horn
chain when we left a truck stop.  "More like their wallets to start
a-achin'," Sarah would say, laughing.

The train horn echoes through the diner, but nobody even looks toward
the big mirrored plate-glass window.  If you stare for a while, you can
make out the huge black box outline of trucks in the night, like some
hidden underworld nobody wants to remember exists.  I hear Kenny's horn
long after it must have stopped, long after he must be on the
interstate and finally getting to play his country tapes, the ones
Sarah didn't toss out the window.

A teenage girl with frizzy red hair she keeps combing and holding down
with her hand as if it were a hood in a windstorm has watched me
prepare my Cheerios from a table across from mine.  She picks at her
fries, then frowns at me when I pour something free into my bowl.  When
I pick up the ketchup her face goes sour.  I pretend to only be
examining the container, and I put it back down.  I wait till she turns
to her mother, and I squirt my ketchup in fast.  We do this dance for a
while, her even faking me out, not really going for her fries, making
me panic and squirt a red slash line across my chest.  I expect her to
laugh.  She only looks more lemonish.  I feel disappointed and ashamed.
I don't start to eat until she and her mother leave.

The horn sound is still ringing inside my head.  It's not a surprise; I
thought it would happen sooner, I thought I'd feel relieved, relieved
that I wouldn't keep waiting to hear the hollow bellow of it every time
I left the truck.

"I hate punk rock," Kenny had said, and pulled her tape out of the
cassette player.

"Only faggots call it punk rock, Kenny.  How many times I have to tell
you, you ignorant, country-listening, white trash, cocksucking,
hillbilly, motherfucking ..."

He grabs a handful of her tapes and tosses them out the window.  She
screams and attacks him, whaling at him with her fists so violently, he
almost hits another truck.  He pulls over and runs along the interstate
like a jackrabbit, returns an hour later, holding up three tapes, his
face cut from her fingernails.  He cradles one tape, its guts roped and
glittering around his fingers.  "Maybe we can rewind it, baby," he
says, looking down as he enters the cab.

She grabs the broken tape.  "The Subhumans, you fucker!"

They don't speak until they get to the truck stop.  She dresses in her
wig and shiny dress.  He says he'll listen out.  She leaves, telling
him he'd damn well better.  He doesn't get dressed up like usual.  He
asks me if I want another comic book.  He gives me $5 and tells me not
to spend it all in one place.  "Go on now, before the gift shop closes
up."

I don't go to the gift shop.  I go to the diner.  I don't buy a burger
like I could, I don't even get a cottage cheese scoop.

And I feel the bill in my jeans pocket, the jeans Milkshake gave me and
I keep up with Kenny's belt, doubled around me.  I run my palm along
the smooth leather of the belt and reach my hand in my pocket past the
five-dollar bill, like I do at night sleeping on the foam bed in the
front of the cab when I snake my belt out from my jeans loops and guide
it gently under the fuzzy polyester blanket.  It's Kenny, holding me
from behind, breathing out in my ear, pressing into me, draping the
belt over me, like I wish he would but never does, my grandfather
preaching, his minty breath stinging and his face set like a stone
carving so solid, so absolute, you know there's something between you
and the bottomless pit.  Every package of candy and comic book I've
stolen from truck stop gift shops is laid out, and I whisper, "Please
punish me, please," and I rub, so hard it'll hurt when I piss the next
day.  I rub with the belt, wrapping it and squeezing.  I dig my nails
deep into the tender skin of my thing until I cry, until I feel that
point of breaking, but there's no one to fall into.  I hold the belt
close until I finally sleep.

"Daydreaming at night's bad for your health," the blue-haired waitress
says above me.  My eyes jerk open,
and I pull my hand out of my pocket.  "Waitin' for your momma?"  I
shake my head.  Children are always eating alone at all times of night
at truck stop diners.  Some kids get dropped off before their parents
go honky-tonkin'.  There'd usually be a few kids sleeping in a booth in
the back.  Some truck drivers ride with their whole family.  I'd seen
seven or eight kids tumble out of one cab.  Some waitresses smile at
you for being alone and bring you free milkshakes and burgers.  Some
tell you they ain't no goddamn baby-sitter, and tell you kid or not,
she'd better get a goddamn tip.  Most just treat me like a
non-truck-driving customer, relaxed and with indifferent friendliness.
I eat another spoonful of Cheerios and imagine Kenny laughing and
pulling on the chain, the brass chain he polished every day.  I can't
be sure Sarah isn't with him; to think about that makes it impossible
to swallow.  Her hand on his, pulling the brass lever together.  I pay
for my Cheerios and run to where the truck was parked.

It's empty, like I knew it would be.  There's a black garbage bag
sitting on the black tar between oil spots.  Our stuff is inside,
mostly Sarah's.  I find my comic books next to her red spiked heels.  I
dig around and find the markers I'd stolen from a truck stop goods shop
in Georgia.

I tear out a piece of paper from a small notebook I stole.  I write on
it with a red marker and fold it up.  In my notebook I have written
five words on each page.  As we drove, I wrote stories but only put one
word of it down here and there, so when Sarah grabs it to see what's so
damned interesting she won't know the code, won't know the story, and
can't take it from me.  But I see the words fit snugly between the
printed ones and could read the story the same way fifty times.  I sit
on the plastic bag and wait for her return.

I hear her heels clicking, echoing down the rows of sleeping trucks.  I
peel my cheek, glued with drool, away from the garbage bag.  She says
nothing, only moves her eyes over the empty space like it must be a
reverse mirage, seeing nothing when something is really there.  Her
makeup is smeared, and her wig is crooked.  I reach up and hand her the
folded notebook paper.  She holds it close, reads it, laughs, and drops
it.  "That orange truck ... there ..."  She points down the line.
"I'll be in there."  Her voice slides around the edges of her words,
not quite pronouncing them, but I understand her.  "Come by tomorrow
and you're my sister."  I nod.  She steps on the note, the words
melting into the oil.  "Somebody stabbed you," she says, and points to
the ketchup stains across my chest.  She turns and wobbly walks toward
the orange truck.  "Bring the bag," she says over her shoulder.  As she
walks she reaches up and yanks down on an invisible chain three
times.

I stare at the note, almost drowned in oil.  "I love you" is covered,
the red "Goodbye" slowly slips into black.

In the morning I find the Schneider National truck, not shiny and
covered in lights like Kenny's, but ugly and bright orange, like
construction site cones, which
is why truckers call the cones Schneider eggs.  "What's your name,
darlin'?"  He makes a tight-lipped smile, but because of his droopy
eyes it looks more like a frown.

"Chrissy, that's Chrissy," Sarah says, taking the garbage bag from me
and pulling out her red heels.  I nod hello and watch him dance his
fingertips along his leather belt and then through his crew cut.

"Pretty sister you got, Stacy," he says to Sarah.

"Uh-huh," Sarah says, stuffing balled-up tissues into her bra.

"Sure is pretty."

I smile back and blink my eyes like the bleach blond waitresses do on
the trucker side.

I don't like the smell of Schneider Truck.  His moldy flannel mixed
with women's flowery deodorant nauseates me.  His hands are pale, and
his fingers are long and floppy like daisy stems, not cracked and heavy
like Kenny's, not the kind that can crush you quickly if they wanted
to, and for some reason that makes me feel cold and hot at the same
time they just don't.  Schneider Truck pinches my ass when I move past
him.  He rubs my cheek with fingers that feel slippery and wet like
spaghetti.  He tells me I'm a pretty girl like my sister.  I like that,
and I smile while looking away from his filmy gray eyes.  Sarah hates
him.  He doesn't understand her medicine.  He won't help her tie her
arm for it, so I do while he paces in front of the cab and whines for
her to hurry up.  She gives him the finger behind his back; sometimes
he turns, catching her, and she pretends to be picking her nose.  He
doesn't like punk, either.  He only listens to boring radio talk shows.
He shakes his head when they talk about the perverts teaching in our
schools.  "They should be castigated," he says.

He gets a room for us, paid for one month while he's away.  Sarah wants
it far from the truck stop but still in Orlando, on Orange Blossom
Trail.  He likes her away from the stop, but, "Orange Blossom Trail
ain't no place for my future wife ..."

"It's cheap, ain't it," she yells as we drive down the wide dark
street, passing gated deserted warehouse lots and neon "GIRLS, GIRLS,
GIRLS" signs every two blocks.  She heard from someone that it's the
place to stay.  Schneider Truck doesn't like it being situated right
behind the sleaziest strip house he ever saw.  "It's cheap, ain't it?"
Sarah says again, and they go to check in.

I sleep in the cab that night.  They sleep in the efficiency motel
room.  She insists they get the room with the gas stove so she can cook
for me.  The next day Sarah gets a job stripping at the club in front
of the motel.  "Fuckin' Mickey Mouse tips again."  She pulls the fake
Disney dollars mixed with real dollars out of her bra.  "They think
they're so original ..."

Schneider Truck calls every day for a month.  Since there's no phone in
the room, he rings on the pay phone at the end of the line of
chipped-wood motel doors.  Sarah either isn't around or won't answer
when someone bangs on our door for the phone.  I go instead.

"How's your sister, sweetie?"  His voice has a raspy, lung-cancerous
tone to it.

"Fine, sir."  I run my dirty nails over the silver metal armadillo back
phone cord.

"What's she up to ... no good, honey?"  He coughs and laughs
nervously.

I look at the flashing blue neon outline of a naked girl on the club
about a stone's throw away.  "It's all fine, sir," I say.

"You can tell, baby ... I'm gonna be almost like your daddy, buy you
lots of pretty little dresses ..."

I dig my nail in the black rubber under a chink in the phone cord's
armor.  The idea of going shopping for dresses makes me happy.  "I've
seen a real nice Sunday dress at T. J. Maxx," I tell him.

"What color is it, sweetie?"  he asks.

I wrap the cord around me and pull the phone in tighter.  I turn away
from the club.  "Kinda pink," I say quietly.

"You got"-- he coughs--"got panties to match, sweetie?  Little pretty pink
panties to match?"  His voice is high, like he's talking to a puppy.

"No"--I dig my nail in deeper to the sticky rubber--"sir."

"I'll get ya some, for you, sweet-pie."  "OK ..."  I push dirt with my
sneaker over a busy anthole.

"Tell your sister I love her ..."

"OK ..."

"I love you, too, sweetie ..."  I nod.  "Now say you love your
daddy."

The ants are scurrying, searching for the entrance to their home.  "Say
you love your daddy," he repeats louder, but he sounds like he's
cupping the phone.

Some of the ants have found another way in, a back door five inches
away from the main one.

"Don'tcha love your daddy?"  He coughs.

I'm mad at myself for not covering them both.

"Sweetie?  Chrissy baby?"

I lean over and kick dirt over their back hole.

"You still there?"

Now they're panicking again.  I smile.

"Chrissy!"  he shouts.

"Yes, sir ..."

"I got to go ... kiss your sister for me."

"I saw a pretty yellow dress, too," I say.

"Anything you want.  I love you, sweet-pie."

I nod and press my nail in so hard into the crack in the phone cord
that I can feel the wires.

"Bye"--he coughs--"love to your sister ... my two pretty girls."

I nod.  I wonder if I can get electrocuted if I go too deep in.

"You there?  ... I'm hangin' up now ... Hello?  Good-bye ... bye-bye
..."

The phone clicks.  I push my nail in as far as it can go.  Nothing
happens.  I hang up the phone and stomp on ants.

One morning from our room I hear Sarah screaming into the pay phone.
Schneider Truck must have caught her on the way home from the club.
"Fuck off, pervert fucker!"  she screams.  "No, you ain't comin' back,
unless you want your shriveled-up balls as a butt plug."

I turn the Bugs Bunny cartoon louder, but I can still hear the phone
slam down again and again.  The dresses weren't really that nice
anyway.

I don't leave our room much.  We go to a diner for Cheerios, and
there's a Hostess outlet nearby, where I walk every two days to buy us
Ding-Dongs.

The police are after me again because the evil is in me again.  Sarah
said a cop came to the strip club and flashed a picture of me.  I
didn't believe her at first, but a week later sirens and blue lights
surrounded the club.

I hide under the bed.  The police bang on the doors, straight down the
line of rooms.  I hear keys jingle outside the door, then in the lock.
I flatten myself to the dusty, moldy rug.  "See, prostitutes no here,
amigo," the Cuban manager says.  Flashlights sweep across the floor.  I
can see their thick black shoes walking toward me.  "No here!  No
here!"  he says.  The shoes walk to the bed, I hold my breath.  They
pause and then move past into the bathroom.  I see the flashlight shine
into it.  "No here, see?"

Sarah doesn't come back for three days.  "I was fuckin' arrested!"  she
yells.  She pulls off her heels and throws them at me.  I don't step
out of the way this time.  "Thank fucking God the club got us out ...
or I'd've turned you in!"  Her face is yellowish, and her hands
shake.

I had pretty much stayed under the bed while she was gone.  I came out
to grab the Ding-Dongs and to sneak into the bathroom, but sometimes I
was too scared to make it.  I prayed to Jesus to heal me, to save me,
to restore me.  I recited every psalm, every proverb, every chapter and
verse I knew, hundreds of times, till it filled my dreams when I
slept.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whisper to Sarah.  "I've ... I've tried to
cast Satan from my soul ..."

"Well ... you're gonna have to fuckin' try harder!"  Her eyes are
rimmed raw like chopped meat.  She sits on the bed, her head between
her legs.  Her body raises up with a sob.

"I prayed for Jesus to bring you back.  I prayed and prayed ..."

"Shut the fuck up."

"The ... the ... police might not want me anymore, though, He might
have cured me.  He brought you home ... 'In God is my salvation and my
glory: the rock of my strength'."

She reaches fast over to the night table and grabs a heavy motel glass.
It hits me on the collarbone with a thud.  I hear the crack.  "You're
lucky ... I was aimin' for your ugly-ass fuckin' face!"  Pain races
like an ice shear through me, but I don't move.  I blink the tears
away.  "Don't stare at me like that, you evil fuckin' piece of shit.
What?  You think you're better'n me?  If it weren't for me, you'd be
burnin' in hell right now!"  She reaches for the glass where it bounced
off me and rolled near her feet.

"I p-prayed very hard," I whisper.

"You forgot how to shut the fuck up!"  I watch in slow motion as she
winds her arm back and hurls the glass again.  My eyes close against
the coming impact across my face.  It hits me in my stomach.  I lean
over from the force of it and gasp.  "You've gotta learn when to shut
the fuck up!"  I lean down and try to catch my breath.

She didn't hit my face.  I smile up at her.  She didn't even aim for
it.  I wrap my arms around my stomach and rock myself gently, feeling
soothed and comforted.

"Get the fuck out," she says, her voice throaty and raw.  "You're a
fuckin' demon."  The smile stays frozen on my face, and I hold on to my
stomach and keep rocking.  She staggers over to me.  She grabs a
handful of my hair and pulls me backward.  Without thinking I put my
hand up and over her hand so I won't be carried only by my hair.  My
collarbone throbs as I lift my arm.  "You possessed piece of shit."  I
try to walk my legs backward, but I can't stand.  The room is blurry. I
hear her opening the door.  "I never should have come for you."  The
skin on her hand is soft like polished leather.

"Let go of me, let go, you evil fuck!"  She's shaking her hand in my
hair.  I feel a thud on my side, then another.  It's her foot.  I let
go of her hand and fall backward, half out of the door.  "Go to hell,"
she says in a low, hushed voice, and kicks again so I'm out the door. 
"If the police find ya, they're gonna burn you up.  First they'll chop
you up."  She spits down at me.  It hits my mouth.  "Then you burn ...
in hell.  So if I was you ... I'd stay away from cops!"  She looks
nervously both ways down the row of room doors.  "If I so much as see
you, I'll call them myself."  Then she closes the door softly, as if
she were shutting it on a friendly salesman.

I sit there staring at the footprints and dents on the bottom half of
the door.  Someone once kicked hard to try to get back in.  I lick the
spit off my lips with my tongue and listen to the flux of pain like
rotating arcade lights, the throb moving from my scalp to my collarbone
to wherever.  I get on my hands and knees and pull myself up.  I blink
away the blurriness.  The lights are off at the club.  There's only the
hum of moths batting against the caged-in light bulb in the middle of
the row, crickets, and the low rumble of an isolated truck driving down
Orange Blossom Trail.

I walk around the motel to the clump of bushes and trees.  I've often
seen men fast asleep back here, smelling of alcohol and urine, their
cars the only ones left in the lot at the club.  I crawl into a
flattened patch and curl up.  She didn't aim for my face, I repeat to
myself, and I taste her saliva in my mouth.

The next day I stay hidden behind the motel.  I drink from a leaky
spigot.  I cover myself with fallen palm leaves and sleep.  When I hear
a police siren race by, I wet myself.

At night I listen to the different women chatting, going off to the
club or coming back.  Finally I hear her.  "I better get my pay, that's
all," Sarah says.

"They might raid again," another woman says.

"That's what happens when cops get stiffed on their fuckin' bribes,"
she says.

"Just keep your shit away from the club, is all I heard, or your ass
gets fired on the spot ..."

"I better get my pay, that's all," she says again, and I hear the loud
click of her red heels along the concrete walk.  I walk around the back
to the manager's office.  He's a small, brawny Cuban with a single thin
eyebrow across his forehead.  He recently put new bedspreads in the
rooms, bright Day-Glo with hallucinogenic geometric shapes on them.
Whenever he sees any of the women with lit cigarettes, he screams.  If
he sees Sarah walking from the club back to the room, a cigarette
dangling from her red, shimmering lips, he runs out of his stale,
fart-smelling office where he sits all day blasting soccer games in
Spanish, ringing the service bell on his counter when his team
scores.

Usually she grins and tosses the cigarette, crushing it under her high
heels, her leg stepped forward and twisted from her fluid hips.  Her
eyes hold his gaze, causing the dark stain under his armpits to spread.
Other times when she's had too many Mickey Mouse money tips and not
enough medicine, she flicks the cigarette at his feet, making it spray
like an electric spark while he yells at her.

I knock on the screen door that he always keeps locked on the inside.
"Que?"  He doesn't look up from the soccer game.

"I'm locked out."  I mumble.

"Que?  Que?"

I look past the tiny mesh stitches of the screen door and glimpse
chubby little legs sticking out from behind a wall.  Their kid, that
Sarah told me about.  "He's retarded or something, and they treat him
like a dog, feed him from dog bowls," she said.  "Heard they tie him up
sometimes, too.  See, you don't even got it so bad."

The manager hits wildly at the bell.  "Goal, goal!"  he yells.  When I
look back the fat baby legs are gone.

I start to knock again, but he moves from around the counter.

"I hear you once, you think I don't hear you, I hear you."  He opens
the door and walks past me, jingling the keys.  The sound gives me a
chill. He stops at our door and opens it.

"Gracias," I whisper.

"You look not so good," he says, and turns and walks away.  I close the
door, turn on the light.  I pull the chair over to the cabinet above
the sink.  I climb up stiffly and take down the bottle of Wild Turkey.
"Chicken," I whisper.  I grab the glass still on the floor and fill it
halfway.  I run the tap, wait till the rust clears as much as it will,
and hold the bottle under it, then my glass.  I put the bottle back.

I swallow down the drink as fast as I can while walking into the
bathroom.  I slowly take off my clothes.  The ache in my shoulder is
starting to fade fast.  I climb into the tub and turn the water on as
hot as I can stand.  I wish I had a scrub brush.

BABY DOLL

WHEN JESUS DIED the angels cried and their tears turned to stones.  My
mom's new boyfriend is born again, so we scour the dirt like gold
panners for the fingernail size rocks with crosses naturally formed on
them.  Angel tears.  We try to escape from the busload of Baptists
giving praises and hallelujahs, which echo loudly all through  the
forest of Fairy Stone Park, Virginia.

I always find the best ones, with clearly defined crosses rising out of
the brown stones, not the broken crumbly ones my mom finds.

"You find 'em like an old horse finds glue, don't ya?"  Her eyes
squeeze up jealously, her nostrils widening.

"Lord smiling on you today, son."  I look up into his big face, long
and black bearded exactly like Paul Bunyon, smiling down at me, with
the emerald treetops shifting the light above his head in glints and
glimmers.

He reaches down and takes the cross stone from my outstretched palm.
"Have to show this one at services."  He nods.  "Let the Lord guide you
to more, son."  He pats my ass as I turn away.  I catch my mom's jagged
glare and my smile folds.  We continue to hunt, bent over the dark
peaty moist earth in silence.

"Look at this one, Jackson!"  My mom rushes over to him.  She holds out
her hand like I did, her other hand pushing her yellow hair back
against her skull repeatedly.  He leans over her palm, she shifts back
and forth, he turns it over and shakes his head.

"Not as good as his, baby doll."  He nods toward me.  I look away,
grinning.  I hear her throw it into the bushes.

"I found another one!"  I yell, and raise up my arm, holding another
perfectly formed tear of an angel.

"You're my baby."

I raise my head silently from my pillow; there's only a thin divider
that doesn't reach up to the trailer roof.

"My sweet little girl," he half whispers, and I hear blankets moving
and sticky skin noises.

"Yes, I am."  Her voice sounds too high and babyish.

"What are you, darlin'?"

"Daddy's little girl," she answers right away.

"Daddy needs his little girl."  I hear the patting of flesh, and I lay
my head back down.  She makes purring noises.

"Tell me you're Daddy's good girl," he growls.  She says it.  I reach
under my blanket.

"Ya want Daddy to fuck ya?"

She says yes, says "Daddy" twice.  I reach between my legs.

"C'mon, baby girl, c'mon, give it to your daddy."  His voice rises.
"C'mon.  Good girl, good girl."

I take my thing and push it backward between my legs, and I feel the
trailer swaying.  I rub the smooth skin where my thing was, in time to
the rocking.

"Good girl, good girl, Daddy loves you."  I close my eyes.

I watch her from the side in the morning, leaning into the tiny mirror
over the kitchen sink, smoothing tan foundation over her face with a
small triangular white sponge.  She dabs it on heavily over her nose
and cheeks, covering the spray of freckles that she hates.  The same
ones on my face that I hate.

"Make mine disappear?"  I ask her suddenly.  She turns to me in
surprise that I'm even there.  I step back.  She smiles.

"Pull over a chair."  I drag over one of the red metal folding
chairs.

"Climb up."  I stand on top and see our faces in the mirror.

"Let's get rid of those."  I nod my head and watch her dab the sponge
into some beige liquid foundation that's open with the rest of her
makeup above the sink ledge.

"Here."  She rubs it over my nose and cheeks, not gently like she did
to herself; but my freckles are darker.  I enjoy her touching me.

"There!  Look."  I stand on my tiptoes and lean into the mirror.
They're gone.  I smile up at her.

"We gotta do something about your nose," she says.  I look at hers,
delicate, upturned, and thin.

"Somebody fucked their nigger slave, and you got the nose to prove it."
I look at mine, short, turned up like hers, but with thick nostrils,
wider and almost flattened.

"Niggernigger nose!"  She laughs.

"Fix it?  Please?"  I don't want to cry.

"Sure, nigger nose!"  She laughs again, and I smile, my lip shaking.

"Camouflage it ... see, I learned that in beauty school."  I watch her
take a small brush and dip it in brownish eye shadow.

"One day I'll go back, I'll get a shop for the models in Hollywood ..."
She sucks the wooden end of the brush.  "Or I'll be a model."

"Take me?"

"Hold still."  She runs the brush along the sides of my nose like she's
dusting.

"Well, we'll see if we can fix this nigger nose."

I try to look in the mirror, but her hand's in the way.

"OK, now I lighten it with concealer."  She dabs some creamy stuff onto
my nose.

"Blend, OK, now ... look at me."  I look up at her, feeling excited
and nervous.

"Can I go with you?"

"Take a look."  She pushes my face toward the mirror.

My nose has brown beige strips on its sides like war paint.

"Definitely camouflaged!"  I nod hard.

"OK, now your eyes ... you have my eyes, so you're lucky.  OK, close
your eyes."  I do, and I feel brushes gliding across my lids, her
coffee breath warm and moist against my cheek.

"Look up, look left ... right, blink ... again."

It feels like she's writing on my eyes.  I don't want it to stop.

"Look at me!"  And when I do it is freeze-framed in my mind forever,
her licking her finger and running it gently under my eyes.  It reminds
me of those nature films of a mother bird regurgitating food into its
baby's mouth.  I feel so happy, I almost hug her.

"Can I look?"  My hands flap at my sides.

"No, you ain't half-done.  Let's see if we can give you lips ... you
ain't too lucky you got the nose, I got the lips.  Even a chicken's got
more lips than you."  I trace my finger across my thin lips with little
crowned points.  Hers are big, shiny, and red.

"Look here."  She holds a rust red pencil.  I pucker my lips.

"Nooo ... relax 'em," she says, a little irritated.

"You ever see me pucker when I do my lips?"  I shake my head.  "Close,
just natural like."

The pencil moves around my mouth.

"OK ... now ..."  I hear her opening lipsticks.  "Open."

I look up at the white cork boardlike ceiling.  She dabs lipstick on my
lips.

"Hmmm ..."  And then a brush with mushy wet goop sweeps across my lips.
I look up at her, so close to me, staring at my mouth; she catches me,
I look away fast.

"Here ..."  She holds a toilet paper sheet to my mouth.  I open and
close on it like I've done a million times copying her, but now I leave
red kiss marks.  I laugh and try to turn toward the mirror.

"Not yet!"  She grabs my head.  "Blush?"  she asks.

"Yeah, yeah," I practically yell.  "Please."  My eyes flutter as she
lightly sweeps a big fuzzy brush across my cheeks and over my face.

"I won't do your nose, don't wanna bring no attention to that, do we,
niggey nose?"

"Uh-uh."

"OK, now, to set.  Close your eyes."  She dusts me with translucent
powder, her hand over my eyes to protect them, and again I feel
overwhelmed with joy.

"Can I look?"

She regards me.  "Go ahead."

She turns my head toward the mirror.  I blink at myself and try to
recognize what I see.  They're her eyes, a mottled mix of pale blue
gray green, painted and outlined, only smaller.  My lips are full,
almost like hers, and satiny red.  I don't even notice my nose.

"Well?"  She sounds impatient.

"I, I look pretty," I say quietly.

"See, I told you you were meant to be a girl."

"I know," I mumble, and bite my lip.

"Stop that!"  She hits my head, not hard.  "Don't mess my lips!"

"Sorry."

"Now, ain't you glad I didn't cut your hair short?"  She reaches for
the curling iron.  I nod yes and I realize I've gotten used to it and I
like it when we go to the shops and the store owners say I'm a pretty
girl like my older sister.  Sometimes I get free candy.  Only once did
I correct someone.

"She's my mom and I ain't a girl!"

The tall, pimply man behind the meat counter leans forward. "Pardon?"

Her hand reaches out, grabs the back of my hair, and gives a quick,
sharp yank.  She laughs.

"Playin' games ... she always is ... now say thank you ..."

Later she unloads the groceries silently into the trunk.  I climb into
the back where I sit when she has a boyfriend, if he's with us or
not.

"Sit up front," she says.  I watch her start the car and push in the
lighter.

"I want a haircut!"  I feel strong in my anger.  She says nothing, just
starts to drive.

"Everyone says I'm a girl.  I'm not!  Even Kevin!"  The lighter pops
out and she pushes it back in and starts humming.

"I'm not a girl and I want a haircut, OK?"  I'm yelling, my body turned
toward her.  She pulls onto a dirt road.

"I want a haircut, I want a haircut!"  My fist pounds the vinyl seat.
"Grandfather would never let my hair be long!"  I say spitefully.  The
car jerks to a stop.

"Wait here," she says really friendly, smiling.

"Huh?"

"Wait here."  She puts on lipstick.

"Where you goin'?"  I feel my anger draining.  I try to hold on to it.
"We gettin' my haircut?"

She points wordlessly to the back of the sheriff's tiny brown wooden
building.  She turns to me with a wide smile, all her teeth showing.

"I'm turning you in.  You are too evil and bad."

I swallow hard.  She starts to pull open her door.

"No!  ... Wait!"  The world starts to tilt and melt.

 "I've hid you, changed your name, my name, how many times now?"

"Please ..."  My air is choking off.  
"Member when those workers came
'round last time?  I moved and changed everything so they wouldn't get
you."

I start to see colors swirling around the windshield, making it hard to
see clearly.

"They warned me Satan was entrenched in your soul, that you should be
put to the chair and sent to hell to burn forever."  She caps her
lipstick.

"I'll be back with the sheriff in a jiffy.  They'll cut your hair for
you, they'll shave your head for the chair, unless
they stone you, or ..."  Her eyes turn from corner to corner, then
stare straight back down at me.  "I won't be surprised if they don't
just lynch you when word gets out who you really are."  She adjusts the
car mirror to see herself and rubs lipstick off her teeth.

"Don't go ..."  I'm crying.

She doesn't turn.  "They usually take a knife and cut your evil tongue
out first and then your eyes scoop 'em right out, and they laugh and
celebrate.  They'll be extra pissed 'cause you've tricked 'em all."

"Please ... please."  Spit rolls down my chin.

The lighter pops out.  She shoves it back in and gets out of the car.

"I tried to make you good.  I see I've failed.  Wait here."  The door
slams and I squint to see past the fireball of reds, blues, and yellows
cycloning around me.  She crosses the street and enters the sheriff's
station.

All the voices inside scream at me, and I can't see outside anymore, I
can only hear the taunting.  I see the huge wooden electric chair,
wired, waiting, and empty, and the silver gray switch.  I see all the
faces laughing and jeering, and the Horned One clutching his
blood-soaked pitchfork.  And I'm alone, and I deserve it all, and there
is no one to take it away.

I lean forward and bang my head on the dashboard.  My mom told me that
when I was a baby I used to bang my head all day and all night long.
She kept me in the top dresser drawer.  It drove her nuts, she said. It
was

Satan fighting for my soul.  It would get so loud, she'd have to close
the drawer.

"Stop it, stop it!"  I feel a hand holding me down, pushing me back
into my seat, keeping me still.  The sheriff's large, hairy hand is
reaching through the open window, resting on my shoulder.  My mother is
standing next to him.

"See why I can't send her to school?"  I hear my mother's voice.  "She
should be in fourth grade.  Can't attend without causing problems."

"How long you been in town?"  he asks, gravelly voiced.

"Month."

"Well, we'll see about some special classes.  You livin' with Kevin
Rays?"

"Yes, sir," she says sweetly.

"So you wanna get home schoolin', huh?  Well, I'll see what I can
do."

"Much obliged, sir."

His hand releases me.  "Y'all take care."  He walks away.  She gets
back in the car and pushes in the popped-out lighter.

"I convinced him not to take you.  I'm gonna try to fight Satan for
your soul and make you good, do you understand me?"

I nod stiffly.  We're both staring straight ahead at the deserted,
tree-lined dirt road.

"You'll have to be punished."  I nod again, the colors settling, my
vision clearing.

"Or if you don't want that, you can go cross the street and turn
yourself right in."  I shake my head.

"Very well, then ... take your thing out."  Her voice is calm.  My
stomach is tight and I hiccup up a little vomit; it burns as I swallow
it back down.

"Take your thing out!"  The lighter pops out, and she knocks it back
in.  My hands tremble as I pull down my zipper and pull out my thing,
small and pink.

"Hands under."  I swallow too loudly.

"Do you want to go in there?"  She points at the sheriff's.  I shake my
head and slide my hands under my legs, like I've done other times.  Her
hand wraps around my thing; I stare straight ahead at a stray dog
sniffing for something to eat in the dirt.  Her long red nails flash.

She leans over me and whispers in my ear, "Do you think Kevin would let
you stay if he knew about this evil thing?"  Her hand starts to move
slowly, gently.  "Mmm, do ya?"  She smells like baby powder.  I shake
my head.

"Do you think tellin' people I'm your mother and you are a bastard is
gonna help any?"  I shake my head a small no.

It looks like the skeletal dog found some food.  My thing moves through
her fingers.  I try to imagine the electric chair and hellfire.  I
sob.

"Do you really think the butcher will give us free cuts if he knew you
weren't no sweet little girl, but had this evil thing?"

Fire burns me alive, stones pound into my flesh, everyone laughs.  Her
fingers give soft little yanks.

"Let's see how evil and bad you truly are."  Her fingers stop their
caressing.  "You failed the test," she says gravely.

I look down and see it sticking straight ahead, leading me into hell.

"Do you want to turn yourself in?"  I shake my head no.  Tears roll
down my cheeks.

"Feeling sorry for yourself is further proof of your unrepented
evil."

The lighter pops out.  Her fingers, red tipped, pluck it out.

"Well?"  She looks at me.

"I want to be good," I whisper.  I feel everything close up inside me.
I see the coils, red and glowing, disappear down to where her fingers
hold my thing.  I dig my hands, sweaty and cold, under my thighs.  I
watch the tip of my thing disappear into the lighter.  I don't move, I
don't scream, I don't cry.  I've learned the hard way that lessons are
repeated until learned properly, and silently, and Satan is, even
temporarily, exorcised.  I stare straight ahead and watch the dog
eating its own foot.

I listen to the sizzle of the hot iron wrapped tightly around a lock of
my shoulder-length hair.

"My hair used to be white like yours," she says.  The iron pulls on my
scalp.  "Yours'll get darker, too."

She releases it, and a tumble of white blond curls roll back.  She
slides her fingers through another section of hair.  I'm aware of every
touch as her hands move against my scalp.

"You better appreciate this."  I nod as she wraps my hair in the iron
jaws and rolls it up tight.

"You look so beautiful."  She beams, and leans down next to me while
holding the iron up, her face next to mine in the mirror.

"We're beautiful girls, ain't we?!"  The iron is too close to the back
of my ear and it's burning it, but I don't dare say a thing.  I smile
at us, two beautiful girls in the mirror, and ignore the scent of
burning flesh.

Usually when I'm alone and not allowed out, I walk around the narrow
trailer and turn on the TV and all the radios as loud as I can take.  I
sit somewhere between the sounds and let the voices and music compete
for my attention.  I enjoy deciding which appliance will win me over.
I'm proud of my ability to concentrate totally on whatever I choose to
hear and tune out what I don't.

If Jackson or my mom gets home early and catches me, they get pissed.

"How can you hear anything?"  Jackson asks, not really wanting an
answer.  "Only put one thing on at a time," he orders.  "Otherwise it's
too much, you'll go crazy."

Today, though, I don't need my noise.  I stand on the chair, staring at
the pretty face that isn't mine anymore, but my mom's.  At first all I
do is stare, and hardly blink, as if a wrong breath could shatter her
face.  But slowly I

get bolder and start winking like she does to guys that whistle at her.
I practice for at least an hour, that fast wink, quick like a
gunfighter that draws and shoots before the other's even touched his
gun.  Then I work on the kiss blowing head tilted slightly, lips barely
puckered, and the uplift to launch it properly.  Then the combo kiss
and wink: wink wink kiss, kiss wink.  It takes me all morning.

Later I go past the divider into their side of the bedroom and open her
drawer.  I carefully move aside the strawberry car air fresheners and
dress her in a lacy baby-doll nightie Jackson just ordered her from
Victoria's Secret.  It hangs down to my ankles, though, so I have to
pin it up to show her legs.  I even dig out a pair of the panties he
got her, white, lacy, with ruffles on the backside.  I accidentally put
both legs in one opening.  I fix it and pin it to the front and run to
the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

"You are so beautiful, baby doll!"  I giggle and swirl my nightie
around.

"Thank you, honey."  I shake my ass in the mirror, wink, and blow a
perfect Fire Red Temptation gloss kiss.  "Daddy's sexy little girl ...
uh, oh."  I lift the frilly front of my nightie.  "Shit!  Why do you
gotta ruin everything?"  I reach in her panties and push it back
between my legs.  "Go away!"  I scream down at it.  I keep my baby doll
raised and run my palm over the smooth, flat crotch.

"How's my baby doll's honey pot?"  I wink at the mirror.  "Needin' all
your lovin', Jackson."  I walk sexily toward the mirror, and my thing
pops out.

"Shit, goddamn it!"  I punch it hard with my fists.  "Owww!"  It starts
aching.  "Go away!"

I close my eyes tightly so the tears won't ruin her makeup.  And then
it comes to me.  I run over to the sink and dig beneath it, past the
Windex, Turtle Wax, and Comet, until I find it.

"Why didn't ya think of this before, baby girl?"  I hold up the Krazy
Glue and laugh until it hurts.

All the lights are off, leaving just the strobe-light glow of the TV.
Jackson sits in his brown velour easy chair, watching the satellite
services live from Sermon Mount and sipping steadily on his fourth
beer.

She walks toward him, slow and slinky, like a spider doing the creepy
crawl up to its catch.

"C'mere to Daddy."  He waves her over, not looking up.  She stands a
few feet in front of him, spinning in circles, making the white frilly
baby doll he special ordered from Victoria's Secret glow a ghostly blue
gray in the twilight TV light of the trailer.  Her blond curls twirl
out like cast fishing lines.  She twists around and around, weaving her
magic love spell that no man can resist.

"What the hell you doin', in Lord's name and creation?"

The spinning stops.  She blinks at him, winks, blows a kiss.

"Jesus Lord above, what happened to you?"  He's not watching Sermon
Mount anymore, he's watching his baby doll: me.

She moves closer, one foot in front of the other as if on a tightrope,
in the shiny black leather open toed sling-back heels, being careful
not to trip.  She blows a kiss, fingers held out, displaying Red Lust
nail paint.

"What the hell ...?"  He motions with his beer and spills a dark
patch on his Day-Glo orange forklift operator's jumpsuit leg.

"Your mother put you up to this?"  He wipes the spill with his hand,
staring at her, his face narrow and pointy, a perfect triangle from his
nose down.  It's hard to see both his eyes at once.

"I'm your baby girl."  Her voice is shy and sweet, the way he likes it.
He laughs, muting out the sounds from the sermon.

"She home early?"  He takes a long sip of the beer, smiles, and looks
her up and down.

"Sarah!"  he leans past her and shouts.

She giggles.  "It's me, Daddy," she whispers.

"Jesus."  He finishes off his beer, and the empty clank of it dropping
on the linoleum floor echoes through the trailer.  He reaches around
for a full one, never turning from her.

"Jesus, you look like your mother ..."  He pops open his beer.  "Few
years on back, I reckon."  He grunts.  She puffs out her lips, pouty
and hungry, and slowly slides
her thumb into her mouth and begins to suck, the way

H he likes her to do.

"Take that thumb out, you know you ain't to do that."

She pulls it out, then slowly slides it back in and out, in and out.

"There is something wrong with you, son."  He slowly wipes the foam
from his lips.  "Or whatever the hell you are.  Jesus."  He smoothes
out his pants lap.

"Lord ..."  He chuckles.  "You do look ..."  She turns around, raises
up the back of the baby doll, and shakes her ass, making the panty
ruffles flutter like wings, the way he likes to see.  He gulps more
beer.

"Your momma's gonna whip the daylights out of ya."

She wiggles her bottom a few more times, then turns to face him, thumb
still buried in her mouth.

He always tells her, "Baby doll, I love ya best when you're sucking on
that thumb, makes me think you're an angel."  When she asks him for
money, or anything, she puts her thumb right into her mouth; she'll sit
on his lap and lean on his chest, and he'll stroke her hair.  "Tell
Daddy what ya need, baby doll."  If she takes out her thumb to speak,
he pushes it back in.  He doesn't tell her she's too big for acting
like a baby, doesn't rub hot peppers on her thumb so she'll quit,
doesn't laugh and tease her for it.  With her thumb in her mouth she
gets what she wants.  Always.

She faces him silently, mouth sealed with her thumb, blue eyes wide and
ringed in black, standing in lightning flashes of color splashing from
the TV, waiting for recognition.  And he stares, his eyes circling like
a plane waiting to land.  And then he burps, deep and resonate.  His
gaze turns downward like an ashamed child's.  "Pardon," he mumbles."
And with his shame she knows she is recognized.  She jumps on his lap,
into his arms still laying on the armrests, his nails combing the
velour to expose its shiny, silver brown underbelly.

"Lord help me, what's got into you?"  His eyes squint and his chin
doubles as he thrusts his head back like a chicken.  His mouth is
frozen in a half grin.

"Ain't your baby doll pretty?"  she asks with her thumb half pulled
out, against his chest.  It vibrates, bouncing her delicate, sculpted
head with his stiff laugh.

"Ain't your little girl pretty?"  she whispers past her thumb, deep
into the padding of the wiry curled hair of his breast.  Her other arm
is wrapped around his waist tightly, the way he likes her to do.

He says nothing, stares past her to the TV sermon, turns his gaze back
to her, then to the TV, back and forth, his eyes shifting like dull
metal weights on a balance beam weighing.  A slight frown makes little
gullies on the ends of his mouth.  She pumps her legs, dangling from
the edge of his lap, like on a swing, forcing it higher.  One of her
oversize shoes flies off and lands with a crash somewhere in the dark
silence of the trailer.  It makes him jump.  She giggles, causing her
front teeth to bite down on her red-ringed thumb.  He looks down at her
legs, wiggling, thin, and shiny, white like sheets of pasta.  He clears
his throat and lifts his beer.

"Uh, want some?"  His voice quivers, while the other hand drums the
armrest.  She slides her thumb out slowly as if savoring the last bit
of a Popsicle, sucking it, the way he likes her to.  She takes the beer
and sips it while blinking up at him.

"She, uh, cock tailing till late ... uh, not home early, is she now?"
His eyes shift from one armrest to the other.  She hands the beer back
to him.

"I am your sweet little girl, Daddy."  She leans up against his chest
in the comfort of a heartbeat outside her own, both arms wrapped around
his Day-Glo orange torso.  He sits there in the quiet of the trailer's
electric hum, not moving, staring intently at the soundless sermon. The
beer is empty.  He crushes it in one hand and drops it.  His breath
gets louder.  She leans in closer and rubs her fluffy curls against the
end of his beard.  He shifts his legs.  She wiggles on his lap.  He
clears his throat again.  Her hands slide along his sides, thick and
solid.

He always tells her, "You're safe in these arm, baby doll.  Nobody's
ever gonna hurt you again."  She reaches her hand out and runs it down
his arm like a child sliding down a banister until she hits his fist
clutching the remote.

"Play with me," she whispers to him, the way he likes her to say.  His
fist slowly uncurls.

"Please ... Daddy?"  With a violent pop and flash the light of the TV
is sucked back and it's all dark except for the orange and blue dots of
appliances glowing like one-eyed cats.

Whenever she wakes up to the black of the trailer, screaming and
flailing, he holds her until it's passed.  "Just a nightmare, my sweet
little girl, just a bad dream."  He doesn't yell at her for waking
everyone up, doesn't spank her for wetting, doesn't laugh at her for
crying like a baby.  "Let Daddy make you safe," he tells her.

"Hold me ... Daddy," she whispers the way he likes her to.

He doesn't give her only quick little pats like a dog, doesn't avoid
touching her like she's contagious, doesn't not take her on his lap
even for a spanking.  The ache is severe, pounding, and relentless.

All that's left are the words only she is entitled to say.

Because she's beautiful.

Because she's his baby girl.

"I need your love, Daddy."

She lifts his hand to her waist.  The remote clatters at his feet.  He
stares at the dead TV.  His hand, like a paperweight, rests above her
jutting hipbone.

"Make me safe," she whispers into his heart.

"My sweet little baby girl," he answers, and his hand starts to move.

"Ungrateful little bitch!"

The water separates into pretty pink pools like Easter egg dye inside
the sink.

Something--clock radio?  flies across the trailer, its plug streaming
like a cornet's tail.  It crashes and escapes through the window next
to me.

The white silk folds in the middle of the pastel water look like egg
drop soup.

"Let fuckin' go of me, you faggot!  I'm gonna kill him, let go!"

Things are falling and smashing apart.

Sitting in the center of the white, no matter how hard I scrub it, is a
red, bleeding, unblinking eye.

"Let me go, you fucker!  Let me go!"

I swirl the white silk around and around, the water spreading pink from
its leaking, wounded heart.

"You motherfucker!"

A shoe bounces off the red metal chair I'm standing on.

"Let go of me, you fuckin' traitor!"

She screams with such a guttural force that the trailer vibrates like a
tin can and a few loose glass shards from the newly broken window
tumble down and shatter.

 I lay both my hands onto the cool water, stilling it.

She screams again, but this time it's muted, as if through a hand.

The bloody clump stares up at me, accusing me, claiming me.

And the silk is undulating like it's breathing, in the dying waves in
the sink.

"Offa my mouth!"  she yells, muffled.  They're panting heavy and fast
as if they're behind the divider, on their bed.  I twist my head toward
them.

What I can see of her face not covered by his hand is bright red; her
hair looks brown from sweat and is stuck all over her face and is
twisted up in his curly black beard.  Her eyebrows jump up and down as
if she's lost control of them.  She twists and turns in his grip.  His
other arm's stretched around her.  When she sees me looking she
struggles harder, her hands balled into fists.

He just looks sad and confused, like he's holding a vicious animal that
he doesn't know what to do with.

"You better get out of here," he tells me, but looking at her.

"I didn't get the stain out yet," I sort of whisper.

"You better get out of here," he says again wearily, still holding my
mother tightly, his fingers pressing white dents into her arms and
cheeks.

I jump down off my chair and reach under the sink for the sacred white
jug.

"It'll be OK," I tell them.

I climb back up and carefully pour half a gallon of the magic liquid
into the water.  Its bitter smell reassures me.  Bleach is the true
holy water, and I know salvation is near.

"This will help to save you."  She holds me by my right wrist.  In her
other hand there's a large mason jar filled with a fluid so clear it's
like liquid glass.

"You forgot how we taught you?"  She nods her head yes, I shake a no.
"Your mother should've taught you, at the very least," she scolds,
dropping my wrist and resting the jar on a wooden shelf next to the
huge porcelain tub with large lion paws for feet.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I whisper, and watch a glob of snot, and tears,
fall from my chin.  I don't move my right hand to wipe it, I can't
trust it, even now.

"I'm sure you are now, Jeremiah."  She leans over the tub, her
baby-corn-colored hair, the same as my mom's, pulled up tight into a
bun.  Her full-moon face collects little steam drops as she leans over
the tub, adjusting the chipped silver cross knob.

"I'm very sorry, ma'am."  I sniffle and concentrate hard on holding my
right arm still, next to my side.  I block out the stinging pain and
blink my tears away.

"I can see why she's left you.  Not that she's much better; devil's
claimed you both, said to tell," she says into the rising steam,
occasionally dipping her hand into the water.

"You mustn't give in to dirty temptation," she says, leaning over the
swirling tub water.

"Yes'm"--I sniffle up some snot.  Each time she turns to me my heart
contracts, I see my mother's face in hers, but heavily creased and
thicker.

"I hope you are not feelin' one bit sorry for yourself."  She shakes
her finger at me.  I shake my head no and stare down at my bare feet. 
I'd only been at my grandparents' an hour since the social worker had
left me there.  I'd been taken out of the last foster home when the
social workers found out I had grandparents.  I liked it there, though;
they had a pet pig that came right up to me as soon as I got there and
with his snout flipped my hand onto his head to scratch him.  But the
foster father found out I was evil; he yelled at me to pull up my pants
and to be behaving.  I tried to tell him it was OK, and to sit on his
lap, but he pushed me away so hard that I fell.  I knew that if he put
his thing in me, he'd let me stay, not throw me out.  I was just trying
to get it over with.  He yelled at his wife to call the social worker. 
And then I was standing naked next to my grandmother, my right hand
held away from my body and all possibility of evil doings.

"This will burn, Jeremiah."  Her lips, full like my mother's, turn down
in a frown.  "But not one-billionth of what hell's fire will be if you
are not saved."

I hold my right hand farther out from me as if it's a contaminated
fish.

She lifts the large mason jar and silently unscrews the lid.  The
strong chlorine scent fills the bathroom.  I breathe in deeply the
smell of summer and swimming pools and let the warmth envelop me.

"Jeremiah!"  I open my eyes.  She grabs my right hand away from my
thing and jerks me toward the tub.  "Does he need to whip you
again?!"

I stare wide-eyed at her, shaking.

"Do you feel the evil creep back into you?  Do you even try to fight
it?"  I just stare at her.

"I want my momma," I moan, and the tears come so fast I can barely
breathe.  She sighs and pours the contents of the mason jar into the
tub and swirls the water around with her hand.

"She left you; too much for her to take, I believe."  She wipes her
sweaty brow with her arm.  "If you stop giving in to the devil, well,
she'll want you again, I believe."

"Like last time?"  I ask, wiping my face on my bare shoulder.

"She came and got you, didn't she?"

I swallow some snot.  "But I messed up again."

"Well, you just have to be hard on yourself, Jeremiah, and not give in
to the devil so easy."  I nod eagerly.

"You can even be an example to her.  She needs help, too, I believe."

"I want to, ma'am."

She wipes her brow again.  "Good, that's good Jeremiah.  You have to
want Jesus' goodness and love to fill you, and he will, he will ...
now let's get you in here."

She places me closer to the tub and pats the wooden stepping stool next
to it, for me to climb on.  I do and look down into the tub, seeing the
water, like a mirror with steam rising off it.  I inhale the chlorine
too deeply, expecting comfort, but it only stings my nose, throat, and
eyes.

I turn and look up at her.  Her hand pats gently on my shoulder,
reassuring me.

"Hold my arm."  She reaches it out to me like a steel bar on the seat
of a roller coaster.

I lean over, smelling her kitchen grandmother scent of nutmeg, lemons,
and allspice under the heavy bleach fumes.

"I can't, ma'am, it's too far," I whisper, hoping she'll lift me in her
arms and put me into the tub like she did when I was last here a year
ago.

"Yes, you can, Jeremiah."  She steps away and holds her arm out to me.
"You're big now."

"Please?"

"Do I need to call him up here?"

I grab her arm and stretch my left leg up and over the porcelain lip of
the tub and pull myself up until I sit on the edge, my foot curled up
tightly above the water like I'm dangling over the edge of the world.

"Go ahead."  She nudges me.  I dip my foot in and pull it out
immediately.

"It's too hot."  Some snot falls from my nose and splashes into the
tub.

"Jeremiah, I'm going to call him up here if you're not in this tub by
the count of three ..."

"OK, OK!"

"One."  I put my foot in, steam crawling up my leg.  The water has a
heavy silky feel to it.

"Two."  It lands on the tub bottom.  I swing my other leg over and
stand in the water up to my thighs.

"It's too hot!"  My tears are back, and I jump up and down, trying to
escape the water.

"Not as hot as hellfire!  You want to go there?  You want to feel
hellfire for eternity?"

"Please!"  I reach my arms out to her.

"Reverend!"  she hollers out.

"Please ... ma'am ... please!"  I cry so hard I can hardly speak.

"Reverend!"  She puts her hands on my head and presses down, keeping me
from jumping out.  Still, I keep moving as much as I can.

We hear his heavy footsteps marching up the carpeted stairs.  As he
comes closer she releases my head, and I slow my bouncing.

He opens the door and a blast of cool air hits us.  I don't move.  She
says nothing to him or me, just turns and leaves, closing the door
behind her.

His eyes are as clear and burning as the bleach water I'm standing
in.

"Sit," he says loudly, the "t" spitting out, echoing off the white
porcelain tiles of the bathroom.

I quickly lower myself down until I'm submerged up to my neck in the
water.

He leans over me.

"Hands," he says sternly.

I reach my arms up to him and he ties a cord hanging over a brass towel
rack on the wall behind me to one of my wrists, then the other.

He pulls the cord tight so my arms are stretched up and can commit no
sin.

"I am right down the hall.  I so much as hear a sound from you,
Jeremiah, you will regret the day you were born."  He turns around and
walks out, closing the door halfway.

I've turned it all off.  The welts and sores on my back, ass, and
thighs burn like a fire someplace behind me.  The hot water turns my
skin bright red, but I've already left.

I'm with my momma in Vegas, winning lots of money.  She's so happy,
she's hugging me and she keeps telling me how good we are, how clean.

I press my hands into the bleached water and rub lightly on the
bloodstain.  And like invisible ink, it starts to fade.

"Kill you!"  my mother screams, still muffled.

"Son, I can't hold her much longer, you best git now."  I wish the sink
were big enough for me to climb inside of.

"You hear me?"  he shouts.

I lift the underwear, the white ones with a ruffled back that he bought
especially for her from Victoria's Secret, spin around, and display the
panties.

"Look, it's OK!  It's out!  It's OK!"

Water flows from the sopping wet underwear onto my feet and down to the
chair, ending in a big puddle.

We all just stand there staring, the water making ticking noises as it
splats onto the floor.

I hold the underwear out to them, up toward the fluorescent light, and
there, clearly, is the faded outline of rust-tinged blood.  My blood.

My mother screams again, kicks backward in her bare feet at Jackson's
shins, and struggles free.

I stand frozen, her panties spread out between my outstretched hands
like an old lady's knitting, as she barrels toward me.

"You're always trying to steal what's mine!"  she screams, and grabs a
small lamp off the table and hurls it at me.

I watch it flying toward my face in slow motion, and somehow I jump off
the chair so the lamp sails straight into the mirror above the sink.
Glass shatters and water sprays everywhere.

I crouch on the floor where I landed, like a frog.  I look up into my
mother's face, covered in red splotches.  Jackson's hands cover her
mouth again, and her blue eyes roll wildly like spinning marbles.

"Bleach don't always work," I say quietly.

"Go on," he says, holding my mother, who's rocking back and forth and
moaning.

I rise quickly and go past the divider to their bed.

I pull off the white baby doll that he'd bought for her.

I lay it as neatly as I can on the bed, the sleeves crossed in front
like a burial gown for a child that has disintegrated away.

I go to my side of the room and pull on jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers, but
no socks and grab my jacket from the hook that's my height that Jackson
had put up especially for me.

I walk past them.  She's turned toward him now; he's still holding her
arms, but her head is against his chest, bobbing up and down with her
sobs and moans.  They don't say a word.

Jackson motions to the door with his head.

I step over a chunk of mirror and I see a face, red and splotched, with
black raccoon eyes, lipstick smeared across it like a clown, just like
hers.

But it's me.  It is me.  And I have to go.

"Bye," I whisper, and leave.

It's not too cold out, but it feels it.  It's still dark.  The only
light is from our trailer; we're very far away from other trailers.  I
can see the black dinosaur shapes of the woods of the Blue Ridge
mountains rising around me and hear the night sounds of crickets and
rustling animals.  I turn back to our trailer and catch glimpses of
movement behind the closed shades.  I check to make sure the trailer's
still on cinder blocks, not wheels.  It is.

In my head I turn daylight on to drive away any wolves or vampires.
It's so sunny I have to squint to see, but I know where I'm going.  I
walk quickly, cautiously, keeping my sneakers from crunching too much
on the loosely packed dirt, so nothing knows I'm here.

Some empty lots down there's an old doghouse that someone had built and
left.  It's wooden, with a red, peeling roof and "DOG" glued on in
tarnished gold letters.

I go there a lot.  To keep the raccoons out I've put wood from a crate
in front of the entrance, like a boarded-up, abandoned building. Inside
I keep a pillow, blanket, an overdue library book, and a small
flashlight that I stole from a trip with Jackson to Malcom's Auto
Supply shop.  I slid the thin silver light up my jacket sleeve and
prayed to Jesus that no had seen me.  No one had.

Once inside the doghouse I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, with
the pillow on the wooden floor, under me.  I turn the piece of crate
sideways so it still blocks the door but I can see out some.  I turn my
flashlight on, but I'm careful not to shine it around too much, just
enough to see that all the walls are still there and didn't open to
another dimension like a wardrobe in a book I read did.

I'm relieved, and disappointed, that it didn't.  I don't inspect the
pointy roof because I know what's up there and I don't need to see
their shiny webs and dusty strings.  I like to think of them as taking
me in as one of their own, ready to swing down, like Tarzan, and attack
whatever tries to hurt me.  We, the flesh-eating predators of the house
of DOG, protect our own.

I breathe in the mustiness of my blankets, mixed with old dog smell and
the faint smell of urine I cleaned up as best as I could from the last
time I had an accident.  It's so comforting, I decide never to leave; I
will wait until a wall finally dissolves away and I escape into another
dimension.

I lie on my pillow and shine my flashlight on the faded picture on the
wood of the crate.  I stare at the smiling, freckled, red-haired boy in
a large sombrero climbing a ladder leaning against a tree dripping with
plump peaches.  He's waving with one hand and reaching for a peach with
the other.  If I jiggle the flashlight, his hand moves, waving to me to
join him.  I lie on my stomach as I always do, resting on the pillow,
with my flashlight under my chest pointing like a spotlight.

I start to rock up and down.

"Come have a peach with me," he always tells me.  "We'll go into my
treehouse and eat peaches, just you and me, and we'll never come
back."

My hands under me start to reach for my thing.

"You can wear my sombrero," he promises, and stretches his arm out to
me.

I open my fly and grope around because it's not there sticking up like
a mini screwdriver handle against my lower stomach.  I feel panicky and
excited all at once.  God finally cured me, the bleach worked!  I pat
my hands on the flat skin of my crotch, terrified to go any lower.

I feel something there, between my legs, but I'm not sure what it is. I
sit up fast, the blanket wrapped around me, and lean against a wall.
Holding my breath, I lift my hips and slide my jeans to my knees and
shine my flashlight down.  I think I know what I'll see, just more
hard, smooth, white skin, like on a Barbie doll.

I open my eyes and my flashlight shines on my thing, yellowish pink,
Krazy-Glued backward between my legs.  And suddenly I feel pressure on
my bladder and I need to piss.  I move my shaking hand and pull on my
thing; it stretches out slightly like gum stuck on a sidewalk but snaps
right back.

I yank again, hard, but it only makes my eyes tear.  And then I find a
string stuck on the side of my thing and I follow it back with my
fingers.  It disappears inside of me.  I tug hard and it feels like my
bowels are being pressed.  I moan from the ache of it.

"Oh, Lord's mercy," I say again and again, the words
sounding too big and empty inside the wooden box to
have any effect.
I lie on my back on the pillow and close my eyes.

I turn off the flashlight and reach under my legs to
the string.  It's definitely attached to something in my
asshole and I can't remember how it got there.  I pull
again, and it's like trying to rip off a thick scab.  I tug again, but
it barely moves, and the tears roll down the
sides of my face.  I reach again for my thing, but it's stuck
backward.

"It's stuck," I cry into the spider-filled roof.

My mouth jerks open in a convulsion of sadness and fear.  A
high-pitched squeal comes out, like a dump dog shot with a BB gun.  The
sound frightens me even more, and I roll over onto my stomach and
curl up around my  pillow.  My body shakes and quivers as if in
battle with
a high fever.  I have to pee badly, and I think I still can,
but I don't want to go outside.

It just drains out of me, spraying backward, between my legs.  I hear
it hitting the wood wall behind me and bouncing off it.  It soaks some
of my blanket, but the warm relief only makes me sob harder, my breath
moving too quickly, out of control.

Jackson's breath is like a mosquito buzzing violently
in my ear.

"You're my pretty baby doll, pretty baby girl," he says between gasps
and pants in my ear.

His hands run up and down under the white baby doll quickly, like a dog
digging in the dirt.  He covers my face in hard, hungry kisses, coating
me in the film of his beer-fogged mouth.  He lifts me off his lap, my
arms encircling his neck.  He carries me past the divider to their
side, to their bed.

"Sexy baby, Daddy's hot little girl."

"Am I pretty?"  I ask.

"Mmmm-hmmm," Jackson says, lying next to me, pulling the silver zipper
down the middle of his orange jumpsuit like he's ripping himself in
half.  My arms are still wrapped tightly around him.  I feel his hands
working in the dark, and I hear the snap of his underwear.

"Do you love me?"  I ask.

"Ready for Daddy?"  He takes hold of my arms and pulls them off his
neck.

"Nooo ..."  I reach back, but he pushes them down.

"You're chokin' me, baby doll ..."

I put my arms out again.  He slides on top of me, pinning me down.

"Ready for Daddy?"  He reaches over to the nightstand, and I hear the
fart noises of a squeezed container.

"I'm your pretty baby girl," I say.

"Uh-huh, OK, baby, jus' relax, I'm gonna lube you some."

I feel him searching, down there, his wet and sticky

finger inside the white ruffled panties he bought especially for her.

"What's this?"  He presses on my glued-backward thing, ignores it, and
moves past.

"Am I good?"

"Okay, baby."  His wet finger slides inside of me.

"Am I good?"

"Oh yeah, nice and wet."  Another one slides in.

I stare at the shadow his huge head makes on the ceiling.

"Okay, baby ... just relax it, okay, baby ...?  Relax."

"I am good, right?"

"There, baby ... open for Daddy ... I know you done this before, so
open for Daddy."

His thing starts to press in on me.  He exhales deeply and quickly so
it's hard for me to get a breath.

"I'm good, right?"

He bends down and kisses me, his beard scratching my face, covering my
nose.  His tongue gags me as I open my mouth for air.  He pulls up onto
his elbows, his head is tossed back.

I try to put my arms around him, but I can't move them.

He grunts and pushes himself into me.  I feel the tearing and remember
the feeling from the last time.  He was a cowboy, she was passed out,
and I had to get stitches from a local doctor he knew.

I swear I can hear the tearing, hear it filling my ears, covering his
moans and gasps, and I'm losing him.  It's blurry and I can't see him,
just a giant burning sun being smothered.

I try to tell him to not let me go, that I need to stay with him, to
know what he knows, what my mom knows, what that cowboy knows, so
after, I can lay in their arms, laugh, and curl up so peacefully I
could die.

But I'm split apart inside, and it's all I know and all I can find.

I stand in the bathroom looking at the stain in the middle of her white
ruffled panties, the ones he had special-ordered from Victoria's
Secret.

Afterwards he pulled them back up my legs.  He said nothing, I said
nothing.

I wad up some toilet paper and wipe at the sore, throbbing wetness.  I
bring it back damp with blood and mucousy stuff.

"I'm split apart, and she's gonna leave me," I say out loud to myself,
and try not to cry.

I hear him turning on the TV and snapping a beer open.  I stare at the
red stain on the panties again, just like the panties she hand-rinses
and hangs over the shower door when it's her time.  She bleeds because
men are thinking evil thoughts about her, including, and especially,
me.  So I have to walk to the canteen and buy her Tampax with the
plastic applicator to stop the bad thoughts.  They sit on the back of
the bamboo shelves above the toilet, pink and thin and ready to absorb
all evil.

She came home from cock tailing.

She saw me, looking like her, wearing the white baby doll Jackson
bought her from Victoria's Secret, standing on a red metal folding
chair, washing the bloodstained white matching panties.

She went looking for Jackson and found him asleep on their bed, laying
next to a wet, red splotch on the white nubbly bedspread we got from
the Holiday Inn.

She screamed so loud that Jackson himself woke up yelling.

She screamed at him for cheating on her.  She screamed at him for
fucking that little fucking cunt behind her back.  She screamed at him
for letting me wear the special things he bought her from Victoria's
Secret and which are now ruined.

She saw that I had ruined everything, and she's gonna fucking kill
me!

But there are worse things than getting killed.

I shine my flashlight onto the red-haired, freckled-faced boy waving at
me to come and eat peaches.  Even though my thing is glued backwards
and there's a Tampax stuck inside me, he's waving me into his
treehouse, where we can hold each other as tightly as possible and be
split apart together.

We practice like we usually do on the way to the clinic, driving in
Jackson's fire red pickup truck.  My mom's not taking me to the local
hospital; instead we're going on a long drive to the backwoods clinic
in the Virginia mountains with all the retired doctors that don't like
to do paperwork.

"Now how'd this happen to you?"  she asks, smoking a cigarette in one
hand, driving with the other, and staring straight down the highway,
occasionally turning her head to blow smoke out the window.

"Did it to myself," I mumble, my stomach feeling tight and sour.  I
swallow a gag.

"Louder, gotta be louder!  You look 'em right in the eye, too,
understand?"  She tucks a piece of loose hair into her French braid,
her cigarette almost burning her ear.

I nod my head.

"Now what happened?"  she asks again.

"Did it to myself," I say louder, and look up at the
squashed-bug-filled windshield like it's the evil face of the
Inquisitor.

"Anyone child abusin' you?"  Her eyes are still a little swollen, but
her fresh makeup covers it.

I watch her red, glossy lips clamp down hard on her cigarette.

She's wearing little Fairy Stone cross earrings.  The tears of angels
from when Jesus died.  Jackson bought them for her at the Fairy Stone
Park gift shop.

"Well, did they?"  She slaps my thigh.

"No, no, ma'am or ..."  I stare back at the windshield.

"Or sir ..." I glance up at her.  She nods halfway for me to
continue.

"Did it all myself, sir, or ma'am."

"Say it loud."

"All myself, ma'am ..."  I say louder.

"Why'd you do such a goddamn stupid fuckin' thing?"

I turn to her, she's staring straight ahead, blowing smoke, not even
out the window like she usually does so she doesn't smell like a
barroom slut.

"Well?"

"Umm ... I wanted to be a pretty girl," I mumble.

"No, no, no."  She hits the wheel after each no.  "You want them to
arrest you?  Lock you up in a mental hospital like they did before?"
She blows her smoke straight into the windshield.  "Or put you in
jail?"

"No," I whisper.

"What?"

"No, ma'am ..."

"You make sure you're not rude to them, you show them I raised you
correctly."

"Yes'm."

"Now why you'd do such a god damned stupid evil fucking thing?"

"Cause I wanted to know," I say too loudly.

"Know what?"  she says louder, and hits the wheel again.

I don't answer.

"Know what?!"  She slaps it again, lighter.

"What?!"

"What it feels like to be good."

"What?"

"Ma'am."

"What?  I think you need to be locked up in a loony bin for quite some
time."

"Stop!"  I yell.

"What?"  But she pulls over to the side of the two-lane highway.

I jump out and dry-heave into the dark green ivy growing along the
black tar road.

But there's nothing inside me to come out.

"You about done?"  she calls from the truck.

When everything was over and done, the white-haired nurse shook her
finger at me and said, loudly enough for everyone else in the waiting
room to hear, for me not to be doing fool things like I'd done.  She
gave us two orange bottles of pills.  One was to keep my stitches from
getting infected, the other for pain and discomfort.  The nurse gave me
one of the second ones, and when we got to the truck my mom swallowed
two of them.

We say nothing on the ride home.  I must have fallen asleep because I
wake up in my bed, under the blankets.  I wonder if my mom carried me
in or if Jackson did.  I wish I'd been awake but only faking sleep when
someone held me in their arms and put me to bed.  I rub my forehead and
check my fingers to see if there are any lipstick marks from when I was
tucked in.  There aren't.  They probably rubbed off already anyway.

My blankets are up around me, and a little pink stuffed bear that
Jackson won for me at a fair is next to me.  A bigger bear he won for
her sits on their bed, but it's too big to be held and is thrown on the
floor at night anyway.

They're fighting.

"Please, baby doll," he says again and again.

"I'm sick of you," she tells him.

"I'm so sorry, baby doll," he keeps saying.

"You make me sick."

I reach over to the window ledge and pick up the perfect brown angel's
tear stones I found in Fairy Stone Park.

"Lookit what I bought ya, sugar, please, honey, it's real pretty."  He
sounds like he's gonna cry.  I know it's hopeless.  I know she's going
to leave.  I hold my stone crosses and pray she takes me with her.

"Please, baby, I'm sorry, please, baby."

I didn't really find the stones in the forest.

"You can't just leave me, baby!"

I stole them from the gift shop, where they sell the perfect ones that
others had found.  I pretended I found them, pretended that only I
could find something so perfect, so blessed, and so special.

"Please."  He's crying now.

I pull myself up with difficulty, like trying to run fast inside a
dream.  I lean out the small window over my bed.

"Baby doll, it won't never happen again!"

I inhale the sweet decaying smell of autumn and look at the yellows and
reds spreading down the mountains, like wildfire infecting all the
other trees surrounding our trailer.

"I thought he was you, I really did, looked just like you, I swear ..."

I reach out my balled-up fist and toss my crosses out through the
window into the dirt.

"He was all over me, talking like you, lookin' like you, baby doll."

I will wait for them to grow, like Jack's magic beans, transformed into
a beanstalk growing up to heaven.  I'll climb it, even though the
raindrop-shaped salt water cuts me.

"You can't do this to me, baby girl!  You can't!"

The sky will open like slit skin, and the rope will shatter like
glass.

"Something ain't right with him, baby, just not right."

And millions and millions of angels' tears will shake and pound the
earth and solidify into stone crosses.

"I won't let him get me like that again, baby doll, I swear!"

And they will wait hundreds of years for me to return and reclaim
them.

"We'll go away, baby, just you and me, somewheres nice and fancy."

I will reclaim my tears petrified by the terror of loss.

COAL

I'VE SPENT A lot of time searching for Canada Dry ginger ale.  Many
stores don't carry it.  Canada Dry doesn't have poison in it.  I'm not
sure about other sodas.  Pringles potato chips with ridges don't have
poison, either.  You need a big chain, like Safeway or Piggly Wiggly,
that sells fancier items.  Whenever things feel out of control I know
the black coal is doing it, and I know what to do, my mom taught me.

I watch all the walls in the supermarket and tell her as soon as I
think they move.  One time we leave the cart half-full of Pringles and
Canada Dry at the checkout.  I tug on her black raincoat, lightly; you
don't want to be obvious or they'll see.  She doesn't notice my tug the
first time.  I look up at her face hidden in a shadow of tangled dyed
black hair.  The pale blue whites of her eyes dart round and round,
watching the suspicious faces, mostly at the couple in pink sportswear
laughing ahead of us.

They're buying a lot of poisoned foods: Land O' Lakes butter, Mr.  Paul
Newman's salad dressing, Sprite, Burgers "n" Buns, and way too orange
carrots and Chee-tos.  I try not to stare, unlike my mom, who's trying
to figure out what they are.  If they're secret agents of the coal,
trying to tempt and trick us.  They might be innocent victims
hypnotized by the forces of black coal about to be poisoned
accidentally, but their pastel pink outfits match too exactly, so my
guess is they are forces of evil.

I tug again at her sleeve, so long her hand is buried in its protective
sheathing.  It was $15 at the Salvation Army, just bought today soon
after we discovered the black coal was active.  We tried to find a
black raincoat for me, but in my size they were all yellows and greens
covered in bunnies and turtles.  She said after the dye I'd be safe
even without a raincoat.

The dye is in our cart, buried under six-packs of Canada Dry and the
red Pringles cardboard canister with the vacuum seal, and I wish it
weren't.  I could slip it in the waist of my jeans, even though
stealing only fuels the judgment of the coal.

I hear the swoosh swoosh of my mother's nails scratching up the inside
of her vinyl raincoat sleeves.  Her barefoot heels bounce inside her
black rubber boots.  I'm still in civilian clothes.  My T-shirt is
dirty white, as are my Keds, even my socks.  My jeans are dark blue,
not black.  The Laundromat is next.

I'll lie naked in the backseat, staring up at the stained cheesecloth-like
interior of our Toyota while she dyes my clothes in the washer.

The pink sportswear spy couple is next in line.  She keeps grinning
down at me, catching me staring at their Chee-tos.  It's poison, all
poison, I chant silently to myself,
louder than my rumbling stomach.  Then, like a true demon, the woman
reaches for a Hershey's bar from the rack above the conveyer belt,
opens and bites into it.  Hershey's can be safe sometimes, but now I
know it's a trick because the chocolate smell sinks into me.

I look up at my mom to see if she's noticed, but her eyes are switching
to the walls, judging their distances, measuring the inches of
movement; she doesn't trust me to that job completely.  I tug lightly
again at the frayed sleeve.

The woman catches my eye and smiles hugely, her lipstick lines
extending way beyond her actual lips, her eyes narrowing to Chinese
slits with wrinkles like cat whiskers racing from the outer edges.

I hold on to my mother's sleeve; the woman leans over so her face is
near mine.  I smell the sugary chocolate on her breath and look up into
the dark patch of nose hairs with snot strands caught inside.

"Would you like a piece of chocolate?"  she asks.

My mother shakes herself as if trying to pull her body from a trap. The
woman looks up toward my mother, her smile disappearing as she speaks. 
"He's standing so quiet and good ... I thought he might like ..."

My mother's head sways like a caged horse's, long swoops back and
forth: no.  Her eyes are focused on the checkered floor.

"Sorry ..."  the woman starts, her face contorting into a grimace. She
steps back.  "I just thought ..."

The hand clamping my wrist makes me jump.  My mother says nothing to me
or to the lady in pink still holding out a Hershey's bar; she jerks my
arm as we hurry down the aisle, trying to find the way out.  I can hear
her panting, and my heart's booming.

All lines are filled, there are no clear checkouts to escape through.
Her nails are digging into the skin inside my wrist.  I crash into her.
She's stopped dead still and is staring at the wall directly in front
of us, stacked with cigarettes, logs, and charcoal, framing the way
out.

It had moved.

"I tried to tell you," I whisper, but I know she can't hear.  I look
down the row to the entrance turnstile and an empty aisle with a closed
chain gate across it.  I jerk my arm a few times till she follows,
still gripping my wrist.  She walks sideways, staring at the wall, her
mouth hanging open in an O. When we get to the gate I lift it as high
as I can.

"Drop under," I mumble.  She stands frozen, staring at the wall.  I
shake my arm hard.  "Go under."  She only stares.  A man with a nametag
puts down the apples he's stacking and starts crossing the floor toward
us.  I drop the chain and push her as hard as I can.  She turns down to
me, anger flashing across her face, tightening my stomach.

"Duck under," I order, and lift the chain rope again.  I bite my lip so
she won't see it shake.  She bends her head, leans down, and crouches
under the chain, still gripping my arm, pulling me under with her, as
if we're in a sudden game of limbo.

"Excuse me, miss," I hear.  "Miss?"

My mom walks out, oblivious, almost running through the front door; I
gallop to keep up.  The heat from the parking lot blasts up at us,
making the air visible lines that waver into shapes.  "Miss ..."  I
hear from right behind us, before I see a thin white hand reach out for
her.  It barely touches her black padded shoulder when she spins
around, her teeth bared, her eyes too wide.

"What?!"

"I need you to open your coat ... or come back inside the store ..."
He clears his throat, looking around, but not at her.

"You think I fuckin' stole?  At a time like this?  You think I fuckin'
stole?!"  Her hand clenches tighter with each word, around my wrist,
like a tourniquet.

"Uh ... miss?"

"You will be very, very sorry ..."  she starts, and without releasing
my arm unbuttons her raincoat.

I turn away and watch some kids in the back of a station wagon stick
their tongues out at me.

"OK, OK, OK, ma'am.  Thank you, thank you ..."

"Wanna check my cunt?"

I turn to see my mother holding her coat open, her naked body sheened
with sweat and exposed.  She drops my wrist and turns her pockets
inside out.  A small lump of coal falls with a thud to the ground.  Her
neck stretches out like a turkey's over a chopping block toward his red
face.

"Ma'am?"  He looks into her protruding grin with a mixture of fear and
sadness that frightens me more than when he wanted to arrest her.

"Are you OK?"  he asks softly.

A man driving past in a pickup whistles, and I follow his stare to the
bristly blond clump of hair between my mother's legs.  She takes a deep
breath to respond, her face a dark scarlet.  I reach up to grab the
ends of her raincoat where she holds it clamped open with her fists.  I
tug gently but firmly, and her hands follow mine, pulling the coat
closed like a curtain.

"C'mon," I whisper, feeling a strength I treasure and dread.

"Is she all right?"  he asks, talking to me for the first time.

"Just tired," I say into my mother's raincoat, which I hold shut over
that dark yellow curly patch.  I hear him take a breath to say
something, but he only releases a sigh.  I look up into my mother's
face, afraid she's preparing to say or do something, but all I can see
is the tip of her chin.  She's looking straight up into the sky,
watching, waiting.

"She'll be OK," I say to the man behind me.

"You sure?"  he asks, and I hear him take another step back.  It's
always easy to convince people it's OK because if it isn't, they'd have
to get involved.

"Yeah."  I nod, looking up at her, and squeeze her coat closed
tighter.

"OK ... uh ... thank ya ..."  he says, walking away fast.

"Sarah?"  I tug on her coat.  "Sarah?"

"The sky has black fire coming," she says, her neck strained up.

A pretty woman in tan shorts pulls her cart up next to the car in front
of us.  A little boy is in the baby's seat.  She starts to unload brown
grocery bags into her truck.  She glances at us.

"Hot," she says, and smiles.

"Ice cream," the little boy says.

"Soon as we get home, Billy," she tells him.

"Fire's gonna come down from the sky," my mother says, staring up.

"Pardon?"  she says, lifting Billy out of the cart seat.  I can see the
colorful tops of food labels sticking out the top of the bags.  It's
poison, I tell myself.

"You're gonna burn, you traitor!"  my mother says, and I look up fast
to see if she's talking to me, but she's turned toward the woman.  The
woman blinks at my mother a few times, shakes her head, and turns away.
I watch her strapping Billy into a baby seat.  My mother stares back up
at the sky.

"Mom ... let's go ..."  My throat is dry and I can hardly swallow.  I
watch the woman give Billy a bottle.  He sucks on it with his eyes
half-closed.  Poison, I think.

"Mom ..."  I turn back to her.  The sun is blasting down on the black
tar, and I see the sweat running down her neck.  My scalp feels wet.
"Sarah?"  I let go of the raincoat she's now gripping closed, and I tap
her hand.  She doesn't move.

"Please?"

The woman in the car starts the engine.  She doesn't look at us.  I
watch them drive away.  I try not to picture the baby bottle filled
with milk, filled with poison.

"There's another store down the road."  I poke at her hand beaded with
sweat.  She doesn't answer for minutes.  I stand waiting, squinting at
her face in the sun.  Suddenly she looks down and around us.  "Where
are our supplies?"

I look around, too, like they're missing.  "I don't know," I tell
her.

"It's all black!"  she screams, pointing to the tar.

"It ate everything," I say, and nod at the ground.  And suddenly she
drops down, grabs up the coal piece that had fallen from her pocket,
and runs.  I start running to catch her, past our car, out of the lot,
onto the sidewalk.  She runs down the broken concrete sidewalk to a
little thatch of bushes behind a deserted nightclub.  I see her crawl
inside it.  I catch up, panting, and follow her into the bushes.  She's
curled up, the jacket over her head.  She's rocking.

I know I lied about the supplies and them getting eaten, but I was
hoping she would forget; times like these she forgets things easily. If
she remembered what happened in the store, she might say it was my
fault the walls moved, my fault we have nothing to eat or drink, my
fault we have no dye and I'm still in a white T-shirt and blue jeans.
She might start thinking I'm the traitor.  She might decide I'm the
evil.  I need to be very careful.

I hope my lying doesn't raise the punishing wrath of the coal, but I
had just witnessed its destructive abilities.  It had burned our house
to the ground, maybe killed my stepfather, and maybe burnt up my best
friend.

I climb into the bushes and reach under her coat that's draped over her
head.  "It's okay ... Sarah ..."  She shakes her head no.  I walk
cautiously next to her.

"I'll protect you," I whisper above her, and slowly slide the jacket
off her head and down to cover her naked shoulders and body.  I lower
my hand to her matted hair; she whimpers.  I stroke her hair soft and
wet with sweat.

"It's coming ... we're gonna get it ..."  I feel her trembling under
my hand.

"Shhh ..."  I whisper, "I'll protect you."  I pat her shoulder, and
she leans her head into my legs.  Standing, I'm a little taller than
she is sitting, so I crouch down some and wrap my arms halfway around
her.

"Gonna get it, gonna get it, gonna get it," she mutters.

"It's OK ... nobody can get us here."  I lean around her and gently
kiss her tearstained salty cheek again and again.

"It's OK ..."  I whisper.  "It's all OK."  I reach down to her hands,
black and sooty from the chunk of coal she dug out from her raincoat
pocket.  Under her nails it's grimy black as she scratches and scrapes
at the black coal while turning it round and round.  I pry the coal
from her fingers and bend down and place it in the pocket of her
bunched-up coat lying behind her.

I wrap my arms around her, squeezing her tighter and tighter, feeling
like Atlas with the weight of the entire world inside my heaving
arms.

When the sun goes down I get her back to the car.

"Should I go get some supplies?"  I ask, feeling my heart beat in my
empty stomach.  She shakes her head no, lowers her seat back, and goes
to sleep.

I wake up with a jump, not sure of where I am.  The parking lot is
empty, and a dim street lamp flickers above us.  I open the door
quietly and sneak out.

I walk over to a small green Dumpster next to a dark Burger King and
piss.  The thick greasy smell from the Dumpster makes my mouth wet.  I
turn back to the car and see my mother curled up in her raincoat.  I
lift myself in and start slashing with my nails into the white plastic
bags.  Fries, soft creamy buns, cups with soda still in them, I cram it
all into my mouth so fast, I can hardly breathe.  I find more and more
as I dig, even unopened ketchup packages I rip open and squirt right
into my mouth.

I don't know how long I am in there eating or how long she is standing
behind me watching.  All I can think about is eating more.  The starchy
smell of it is overwhelming, and I can't inhale it fast enough.  I have
no thought of being poisoned and dying.

When I see her, she has a half smile on her face.  It gets bigger as I
drop the doughy mush in my hands.

"Temptation has claimed you," she says quietly.

I swallow the crusty fried piece in my mouth and try to speak, but only
air comes out.

"You're lucky you have me," she says, walking away from the Dumpster. I
pull myself out and follow her to the car, my shaking hands wiping
crumbs off my face.  She gets in the front and opens the passenger side
for me to climb in.

"I'm sorry."

"You've just been poisoned," she says solemnly.  "You're weak and you
gave in to temptation ... Now you're gonna die."

The grease smell is all over my jeans and shirt, coating me like a
film, making it hard to breathe.  My eyes fill up, blurring everything.
I wipe at them fast, hoping she won't see; crying would make it all
worse.

"I don't want to die," I whisper.  "Please, please, do we have any
antidote?"  I wrap my arms around my stomach and feel it ache.

"You ate poison, you ate poison, you ate poison," she chants, her face
in a huge smile.  The tears start falling.  I look down to try to get
it under control.

"You ate poison, you ate poison," she says like a taunting child in a
schoolyard.  I push my panic aside and look up at her grinning face,
her teeth gleaming a diamond white in dim fluorescence.

"If I die, who will watch the walls?"  I say as calmly as I can.  Her
mouth slowly closes.

"If I die, who will warn you if the earth cracks and swallows the car?"
I hear her swallow.

"If I die, who will be there for the coal to destroy in flames first?"
She says nothing, only turns in her seat and stares out at the
Dumpster.

After a few minutes she reaches under her seat and brings out the small
plastic bottle.  I watch her unscrew the top as I swallow down a greasy
burp.  She hands me the bottle and I try to hold it steady, but my
hands are trembling, probably from the poison starting to kill me.  I
bring the bottle up to my nose; the cherry smell of it makes me calmer.
We just bought it yesterday at the pharmacy in Wal-Mart.  In case we
get poisoned, this is the antidote.

It took up a lot of money, so we only had enough left for a six-pack of
Canada Dry in cans--bottles are poisoned.  Even when I brought in the
empty cans I collected for the deposit, there still wasn't enough for
Pringles.

But being hungry is purifying and keeps evil from getting into you.

"Drink some," she says.

I hold the bottle to my lips and sip some of the sweet bark-colored
maple-cherry liquid down.

"Not all of it!"  she shouts, and snatches the bottle away.  "Just
bought it and now it's half-gone."  She holds the bottle up to the
light coming in through the windshield to see what's left.  I read the
white block letters on the label.

"Did I get enough?"  I ask.

"I should think so.  Damned thing's near gone!"

"It works, though?"

"It should," she says, putting it back under the seat.

"Thank you, ma'am," I say, leaning back in the seat, secretly feeling
warmed and filled by the food, comforted by the syrup, and how easy
antidote is.

She leans back her seat and rolls over in it.  "The poison's gonna
battle it out in you."

"OK," I mumble, drifting in to sleep, dreaming about other Dumpsters
and the cherry syrup antidote I can buy with my bottle deposit money on
the sly.  No more Pringles and Canada Dry, 'cause it's there in
Wal-Mart waiting for me, that brown bottle with the green label and big
white letters.  Sweet like candy, my antidote: Ipecac.

I haven't slept very long when a violent retch jerks me awake.  Vomit
spews out of my mouth with such force, it hits the car windshield. It's
followed by another retch, and more lumpy undigested food from the
Dumpster flies onto the dashboard in front of me.  My mother screams,
reaches past me to open the door, and shoves me out.  I fall onto the
parking lot ground, my arms wrapped around my stomach, the automatic
retching continuing.  I try to take a breath but only puke up more,
inhaling food pieces up into my nose until burning vomit comes out of
it.

She's standing behind me, screaming.  I hear her muffled shouts beneath
the blood pounding in my ears and the nonstop spasms.  She's screaming
about the car, about the coal punishing me, the mess, the horrible mess
in the car.

I feel myself suffocating, gasping.  I reach out for her rubber-booted
foot, but she steps away, still screaming.  I heave once more, and
everything goes black.

I had brought on the Black Coal Times.

A little coal-burning stove sits in the corner of the $75-a-month shack
on the outskirts of a small town in West Virginia.  The house has no
electricity and a pump out front for the rusty water.

But I have a battery-operated TV Chester let me have.  Chester married
my mom two days after they had met at the pool hall bar in town.  I
keep my TV on day and night.  Chester doesn't mind, though, he just
gets me a new battery every week.

They work in the basement: Chester, my mom, and his friends with
motorcycles.  They'll be down there all day and out all night.  I'm not
allowed down the creaky wood steps that lead to the cellar.  I'm not
allowed anywhere near it.  I'd gotten a whipping from Chester for
tugging on the padlock when I thought they were gone, but even after my
whipping I'd run down the stairs to the door and tug on the always
locked padlock, to try to see what all the secrecy and excitement were
about.

My mother doesn't talk to me much.  Her eyes, like Chester's, are
ringed red like someone drew marker circles around them.  I lie on my
stomach on the dirty yellow shag rug, looking at my TV but watching my
mom pace the living room.  She scratches at her face constantly and
chomps her jaw back and forth even though there's nothing in her
mouth.

When I speak to her, all she'll ever answer is, "Huh?"  even if I ask
her again.

Chester always brings me a TV dinner and Cap'n Crunch from the grocery
store in town which he gets on the way home.  He wakes me up four or
five A.M., lights up the coals, and puts my tin tray on the little rack
above them.  In thirty or so minutes it'll be done enough so I can wolf
it down while I watch morning cartoons.  The cereal I eat later.

My mom stays away from the stove; it's mine.  She stays away from the
coal.  When I need more I ask Chester and he brings it up from the
cellar, where there seems to be an endless supply.

"Here's some coal," he'd whisper, away from my mom, and toss it into
the squat black iron stove, his red-ringed eyes large and rotating too
quickly, like a squirrel's.

When Chester isn't in the basement he paces, like my mom, the shadow of
his long, lean body hunched down by the weight of his head and
shoulders, passing like a black cloud the grinning faces of magazine
models and race cars pasted up as wallpaper by some long-ago tenant.

I enjoy watching the shadows his always busy hands make.  Six-headed
dragons, ferocious bears, multi humped camels as they attack and
destroy entire happy, catalog families.  Back and forth his waving
empty hands slice and mutilate.

I wait as patiently as I can till he disappears again down into the
basement, and I take out my red pencil I keep in my back pocket.  I
spit between my fingers and squeeze them close together.  Then I slide
the red lead point between them.  I turn the pencil till it begins to
leak red in my bubbly spit.  I go to the wall, to the shiny blond lady
smiling down at her redheaded, freckled child that Chester's flying
dragon's tail has sliced across her mouth.  With the wet pencil tip I
gash blood through her lips and pour it down her chin.  I spit on my
fingers, bleed the pencil more, and continue the blood gushing down her
face and onto her child's head, splattering into his eyes.  I watch
Chester's dragon carefully.  I'm pretty sure that's all that happened
to her, though just to be sure I gash her arm, the one that's around
the boy, but I only bleed it some in case I'm wrong.  They're
surrounded by black-and-white racing cars, and though I know some
damage was caused, at the very least a smashed windshield flying into
the faces of the passengers, and I am within my rights to bleed them, I
savor my mercy and my self-control.

I step back and examine the bleeding woman and boy.  It's perfect
except for the finishing touch, what I always do.  I don't lick the
pencil for this; if it's too wet, it won't work.  Around her eyes I
draw faint red rings.

I wake up in the backseat, my stomach churning with broken glass.
Before I lift my head I smell the stench of vomit.  I peel my face off
the backseat, my cheek glued to the vinyl with drool.  The windshield
and dash are still coated in a clumpy liquid sheen.  My mother isn't in
the car, but I call her anyway.  I feel my stomach heave, and I pull
open the door that feels suddenly heavier than I'd ever felt it, and I
spit up sour water.  With my arms wrapped around my stomach, I look
around.  We are still in the empty lot, the sky starting to lighten and
painting the white concrete parking bumps a vein-like pink as they rise
like exposed arteries from the sealed black pavement.  A light from
inside the closed Burger King flickers, casting a grayness of winks and
flutters in its tinted windows.  My Dumpster stands open, its small
dark green metal lid flipped over like a hatch into the underworld.  I
cross the parking lot hunched over, walking like a drunk to the
Dumpster I'd been inside of, the greasy smell of it causing me to gag.
I cover my nose and push the lid closed, erasing my entry inside.

The fluorescent street lamp switches off with a loud hum that makes me
jump.  I make my way back to our car, avoiding the puddles of vomit
surrounding the passenger's side like a moat.  As I climb in the
backseat, leaving the door open, a large green car with it's headlights
on pulls into the lot.  I sit up and watch it come closer, my heart
beating hard.  It stops near the Dumpster.  I squint to catch the first
glimpse of my mother coming back with help, with someone, maybe my
grandfather; even though he'd be furious, he'd know what to do.  He
knows how to cut through and pull out the pure soul from the
temptations and conflicts of sin, especially when it's black coal
evil.

I strain to see a man, alone, get out of his car, slam his door, rattle
keys outside Burger King, and enter.  She isn't with him.  My stomach
lurches, and I puke some spittle up.  I'm thirsty, so thirsty, and I'm
freezing, and I need more antidote.  I didn't take enough to counteract
the poisonous food.  I need to be better so I can clean up the car
before she gets back, but I bet she's at a bar trying to find a
replacement for Chester, someone that's good at cleaning insides of
cars.

I climb over the front seat, my stomach sliding on wet piles stuck on
my T-shirt.  I lean down on her seat, retching and spitting nothing up.
A loud ringing is starting in my ears, and my eyes feel bathed under a
heat lamp.  I push my fingers around the metal bars under her seat,
searching for antidote.  My fingertips graze the smooth plastic, and I
lean my arm under farther, deep into the guts, until I grasp the
bottle.  I sit in her seat holding the bottle, watching the lights
flicker on in Burger King.  Another car pulls up to the back, and more
people enter.  None of them my mother.  I unscrew the lid.  Singing
birds are competing with the high-pitched squealing in my ears, and it
all sounds like guitar feedback.

The sticky smell of antidote makes me gag.  I'll clean the car, I'll
get wipe-ups and napkins from Burger King.  I'll tell them my little
sister got sick, I'll tell them I'm a girl, I'll be pretty, I'll
pretend I know nothing about the coming evil of the coal destroying the
world.

I close my eyes and drink the Ipecac.

It finally happens one morning, after months of trying the lock.  My
mother and Chester run out screaming at each other about the money,
about the delivery, about the ashtrays.  Well, that's not what they
call it, but I figured it out what they do down there.  They make
ashtrays.  Special ashtrays.  Like the one in my grandfather's study, a
small round crystal bowl, with smooth dents like rivulets cut by rain
in its walls.  Every now and then there'd be a faint gray dust of ash
clogging its bottom, but never the smoky scent.  Tobacco, he always
said, was a sin, a tool of Satan.

So my mother, Chester, and his friends hide their sinful creations, but
I hear their fights and the words thrown around: smoke and crystal.

Chester had given me a glass ashtray to use as a cereal bowl when mine
disappeared down into the cellar and came back blackened and cracked. I
know they tried to use it for the crystal, I heard Chester say the
crystal needs water and my mom carried my bowl outside, I heard her
pump the water and carry it down the squeaky wooden steps.  I guess the
ashtray I got was not one of their fancier, more enticing ones.
Probably it was the "Shit from the Competitor's".  When Chester would
pace and make flying sea monsters and machine-gun shadows, he'd also
mumble about the "Shit from the Competitor's".

"Nobody's crystal is better than mine!"  he'd shout.  Before I filled
my ashtray bowl with my Cap'n Crunch,

I'd spit in it loud so he could hear.  "Stupid, fucking crystal!"
Sometimes it'd make him laugh.

They're in such a rush, they don't even close the front door.  I listen
for the car pulling away down the dirt road, and I run for the cellar
door.  There it is, the padlock hanging open, the door closed but not
locked.

The black wood door squeaks as I push it.  Even though I know what is
down there, I want to see for myself the rows and rows of
rainbow-colored diamond-cut crystal ashtrays, the containers of sin
that my grandfather forbade but also possessed: the crystal ashtrays
created in secret revenge despite the horrendous danger.

The darkness glares up at me, and an acrid, curdling smell burns my
nose.  I run up and grab my flashlight and return to the blackness.  I
shine my flashlight into it.  Light bulbs hang from the wooden beam,
with wires crisscrossing them like a freeway, and a switch dangles down
past the door.  Before I can think, I reach up and click it.  The
cellar lights up.  My mouth drops at the electricity I was told we
didn't have upstairs, though I'd never tried 'cause there were no
lights to flick, no plugs to plug in, not even on my TV.  There is no
real stove or refrigerator; a flashlight Chester gave me is my only
protection to chase hungry ghosts away at night.  I keep my flashlight
on and walk down the wobbly stairs into the cement cellar.  I shine my
light on tables, slate on wood horses covered in burners.  Tubes,
vials, containers, scales, plastic bags, and razors cover the rest.
Even though it is incredibly bright, I inspect
it all with my flashlight; sometimes things can hide by being too
exposed.

There is a beat-up uncovered mattress in the corner
with blankets and pillows and, a little past it, a fridge as tall
as me.  I go over to it and run my hand over its
smooth, round door.  I press my ear up against it to listen
for breath or a heartbeat.  All I hear is its steady, electric
hum.  It has a silver handle lever across it, and I tug hard,
pulling the heavy door open.  It's dark inside, no fridge
light.  I shine my flashlight on the contents, lots of plastic
containers and beer.  I yank open the freezer, which is almost frozen
shut.  Inside, sitting in an ice-filled window,
are more plastic containers and a stack of the TV dinners
Chester always gets for me.  I slam the fridge and freezer doors
closed.  "We have no fridge," he's always reminding me, so I can't get
anything that'll go bad, 'cept he's been nice enough to stop off every
day and pick me up my frozen dinners.

"Liar."  I spit on the fridge, hook my flashlight onto my belt loop,
and continue my walk around.  But there are no ashtrays or crystal
anything, just stuff steaming and bubbling.  They probably took it all
to sell.

In a corner is a burlap-covered pile.  I know it's the coal.  The coals
in my stove are almost all sooty ash, and

I hate asking Chester for more 'cause it's a big secret,
and he has to sneak it out past my mom.  I reach over

| to the brown potato-sack-type cover and lift it off the pile.  I
jump as a huge spider scuttles under the coals and away from me.

Staring at the mound of coals makes my heart thud.  I've never actually
touched the coal myself; Chester puts it in the stove.  He usually
lights it, though he showed me how to use the newspapers all twisted
up.  But I'd just as soon wait for him to do it.  If I stare too long
at those red eyes glowing in the black heart of the coal, it starts
talking to me, hypnotizing me just like my mom said it would.

I once burned my hand badly because the coal wanted me to touch it.  I
had told my mom its evil thoughts.  She held my hand, pressing it to
the hot stove top until I screamed.  "The coal has to be fed," she
said. That was my lesson.  I never stared at it again.

But unlit it isn't really bad, I think.  Unlit it doesn't seem alive
and I don't feel too afraid.  I grab a couple of coals from the side,
but I decide I might as well take more and hide them under the house so
I don't have to ask for them.  Chester won't notice.  He always says,
"Goddamn, I just gave you coal yesterday.  You eatin' the stuff?"  I
reach over and start filling my pockets.  I'm taking them off the pile,
grabbing the loose ones off the side, stuffing them in my jeans.  I
pick up one big chunk and another spider jumps as if he's been thrown
at me.  I scream and hurl the coal at the pile.  It hits the side,
knocking loose coal, making it slide in a small avalanche.  The spider
scurries over my Keds and under the new pile on the floor.

"Jesus Christ," I whisper.  The stairway door creaks behind me and I
spin around, but it's empty, just the morning sun sliding in bars down
the stairs, dissolving into the overly lit brightness of the cellar.
Coal lies all over the concrete floor.  I want to run up the stairs and
hide in my bed with my blankets over my head.  I take a step back
toward the door and feel a lump of coal crumble under my foot.  I look
at the flame glowing blue from a burner on the tables and then down at
the coal.  "The flame can't jump out," I tell myself and the coal. "I'm
not gonna feed you," I tell it, and kick a piece.  "You're not gonna
get me."

I wipe the sweat from my hands on my T-shirt, painting black sooty
streaks on it.  "Goddamn it!"  I kick some chunks; they bounce off the
pile, causing more to roll to the floor.  "Fuck ... OK ... I'll get you
..." I swallow hard, bend down, and start to collect the spilled coal.
I imagine how I will torture the tarry, charcoal pieces.  I'll smash
them with rocks behind the house, bleed them with my red pencil, drown
them in water so they'll never have hope of burning.  I smile, biting
my bottom lip, as I decide which pieces get put back and which I will
put to death.  I pull off my T-shirt, lay it on the ground, and toss
the coals I condemn onto it.  I hold a baby coal up above my head in
the sour-smelling cellar air.  "You're gonna die," I tell it.  I get
ready to smash it but stop and pick up a grown-up coal that had been
next to the little one.

"Look, it's your momma."  I wave her in my left hand, taunting the baby
in my right.  "You want your momma, don't you?"  I spit on the baby
coal and smear its lumpy face with my finger.  "Oh, look at the crying
baby ... you think you're gonna get what you want by crying?"

I bend down to my hand, tilt my head side to side, and smile in the
baby's face.  "If you didn't cry, I would have put you and your momma
back home, but you was a baby, so now see what happens."

I hold the momma close to the baby.  She's trying to scream for help,
but I've got her mouth covered with my finger, plus, without fire or my
grandfather, none of her family can do anything.

I spit on her.  "See?"  I tell the baby.  "You even made your momma
cry, now she gets punished."  I raise her back above my head, like I'm
throwing a pitch, and slam her into the brick-exposed foundation wall
next to the coal pile.  She splinters apart.  I run over, gather up her
body parts, take out my red pencil from my back pocket, and hock up
phlegm and spit it on her.  I wet the lead and press it to the wet goo
on her body.  I bite my lip in an excited grin as I hold the baby over
her cracked body.

"See!"  I shout at it.  "And it's all your fucking fault."  I shake it
hard.

I put my pencil back in my pocket.  "What?"  I ask, raising him to my
ear.  "You wanna go home?"  I look at the baby and caress him gently.
"Hmmm ... OK, baby, you can go home, it's OK."  I pet his little
head.  I walk him over to the pile and hold him over it.  "Uh-oh."  I
turn to the baby coal shaking in my hand.  "Listen to that."  I hold
him close.  "They don't want you."  I put my hand to my ear, like they
do in cartoons, to listen.

"They say you kilt your momma so they don't want you."  I hold him over
the pile so he can plead and cry to them.  Finally I pull him back.
"Now all you have is me ... don't worry, I won't kill you ... only if
you're bad."  I scratch his head, caking his black soot under my
nails.

And suddenly the sobbing of my baby coal is drowned by the faint
revving of a motorcycle coming toward the house.  I'm frozen, my legs
like concrete pillars bolted to the foundation.  I hear the small
explosion of a backfire echoing through the holler; it's Buddy on his
Harley.  Chester convinced me Buddy is a giant; his head scrapes the
ceiling of our house, and he has to duck through the door.

"One day Buddy is going to grow right through the roof," Chester said,
and laughed, pointing at him.

"I'm not gonna grow through the roof," Buddy said in his slow,
lumbering way, his mole-covered face squeezing like a lemon as he
walked over to me in his thick leather boots, causing the floor to
vibrate with each step, and sat down with a boom.

Even though he is a giant and I know his foot will one day be large
enough to crush our entire house, I'm not afraid of him.  Unlike the
others, he doesn't run down to the basement to play with their crystal
first thing.  He always sits down next to me and watches cartoons.
Usually he brings a box of Fiddle Faddle hidden like a flat shoebox
under his too tight shirt that pulls up, showing a hairy round belly,
little white lint pieces nesting in the black fuzz.

"Whatcha got there, Buddy?"  I would ask, not turning from the
cartoon.

"Me?  Don't got nothin'."  He would shake his huge head back and
forth.

"Nothin', huh?"  Without looking at him, I would reach sideways and tap
the raised rectangle of his stomach.

"Knock-knock," I'd say, smiling, still watching the TV.

"Who's there?"

"Fiddle."

"Fiddle?  Fiddle who?"  he'd squeal like a little piggy.  And I'd jump
up quickly in front of him, grab his shirt, and pull it up, exposing
the colorful box of caramel corn stuck to his folded-over stomach.

"Fiddle Faddle all mine!"  I'd shout, and grab it off his belly and
start to run.  He'd always grab a belt loop on my jeans and hold me
still while I'd try to escape.

"You look like Road Runner running in the air, not going' nowheres,"
he'd say, laughing.

"I'm gonna eat it all," I'd taunt, and laugh, ripping the box and foil
inside and plowing handfuls of Fiddle Faddle into my mouth, as he'd
lightly pull me back and I'd push forward.  This would go on till
Chester or someone'd tell us to shut up and for Buddy to get his slow
ass downstairs, or we'd just get distracted by the cartoon, the Smurfs
getting in danger, and slowly he'd let go.  I'd sit down more or less
in his lap, and we'd silently watch the TV, stuffing the sugary, sticky
corn into our mouths.

I can tell by the backfires it's Buddy on his beat-up,

loud-as-hell cycle, and I wish I were an Indian so I could put my ear
to the ground and tell by the sound if he's got someone on the
backseat.  Another loud bang echoes down the stairwell.  My body moves
automatically, and I toss handfuls of coal on the pile, but it only
seems to cause more to roll down.  Now the coal is getting its revenge
on me.  I can hear their throaty, dusky chuckling.  I squat down to
throw as many off the floor and onto my T-shirt as I can.  The roar of
the bike surrounds the house, and I scramble under a table, gathering
up the coal, trying to escape.

"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you," I tell them as I chuck them onto my
shirt.  But suddenly I realize past my panting, the silence has closed
in again, no engine rev, no nothing.  On my hands and knees I quiet my
breath.  Maybe it wasn't Buddy, just a joyrider going to ride out the
ramps and bridges past the house.

I strain to listen.  I turn my head back to the stairwell, just dusted
lights and particles twisting and turning as if in a slow-moving
blender.  I look back at the coal scattered beneath me, and there,
staring up at me, is the mother, crushed and bloody.

The footstep on the porch is heavy and almost sounds like the foot
broke straight through to the ground.  Then there's more up to the
front door, and the rusted screen door screeching open makes me twist
my head back to the stairs like a rabbit, hypnotized and paralyzed by
the sound of its stalker creeping up.

I can feel the loud boot in my chest stomping into the house.  I can't
tell if there's a lighter step beneath it.  I look up to the cellar
ceiling and can see the indents on the wood boards as Buddy walks into
the living room toward my TV.

"Hey, where are you?"  Buddy calls.  I watch the depression move around
the living room above my head.

"You hiding?"  I see only his steps, no one else's.  I slowly stand
up.

"You by your lonesome, Buddy?"  I call up, my voice wobbly.

"Where you at?  Quit hidin'."  He stomps to the kitchen, closer to the
cellar door.

I gather up the coal in my T-shirt, make it into a bundle, and carry it
over to the stairs.

"I'm down here, Buddy."

"Where at?"  But his voice is louder, and his steps head toward me.  I
step into the light shaft and squint at the brightness of it.  At the
top of the stairs his huge outline appears, blocking the sun like a
gigantic redwood.

"Down here, Buddy," I say softly.  I hear his lumbering thud as he
climbs down the groaning steps.  He stops and ducks through the doorway
and stares at me, his large pink lips hanging open.

"You ain't supposed to be down here, I don't think."  He swallows loud,
and his mouth flaps open again.

"I needed coal, Buddy, I was out."  I squint up at him to see his
face.

"Chester's gonna be mad at you."

"He's not with you, right?"  I lean against the stairwell.

"Nope, coming, though.  You really ain't supposed to be down here. You
break in?"

"The door was left open, Buddy.  I don't got no superpowers."  His
stomach heaves a big sigh.  The rectangular box stuck under his shirt
rattles its contents with every breath.

"He's gonna whoop you bad."  He shakes his head, making the dust whirl
around him like a cyclone.

"We don't have to tell, Buddy, we can just watch our cartoons and not
say nothin'.  If you tell, he'll take my TV and we can't watch no
more."  Buddy stares at me a while, then rolls his giant eyes side to
side and grunts.

"Chester'll find out."

"Please, Buddy, he won't.  I swear, Buddy, I didn't do nothin', just
got coal.  I was gonna do us Jiffy Pop."

"You don't got that!"  His head shakes hard.

"Look in the refrigerator down here."  I point to it behind me.  "I
swear, Buddy, I was gonna, but I got no coal and I wanted to surprise
you, so it's your fault I'm down here!"

He rubs his face.  "For real?"  He shifts his weight.

"Check and see and nail me up as a liar if it ain't, Buddy."  I wave
him down, and he follows into the cellar to the fridge, his head
hitting the hanging light bulbs.

"Why's the coal all over?"

"Just fell out when I taked some."  I bend over and pick up a few.
"Buddy, Chester coming now?"  I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Said he'd meet up here with me."  He opens the fridge door and leans
inside.  He spins around.  "Jiffy Pop's in here!"  he half shouts.

"See, I told ya!"

"Yes, you did."

"Ain't no liar to ya, Buddy."

"No, no, you ain't that at all."  He smiles widely.

"But if I get whipped, we won't get to pop it, Buddy."

"Won't we?"  His smile fades.

"No, Buddy, no cartoons either."  I shake my head and listen in the
silence for Chester's car.

He stomps his foot on the concrete.  "I wanna watch TV with ya."

"Well, Buddy, you can fix it for me."

"The Jiffy Pop?"  He turns to open the fridge to get it.

"No, no, Buddy!"  I take hold of the fridge door and close it.  "If you
can clean up the coal, say you were down here ..."

"I don't got the key."  He shrugs, and his shadow looks like giant
mountains collapsing.

"Tell Chester it was open, he won't whip you, Buddy."

"That's lyin', though."  He shakes his head.

"Buddy, it's not lying 'cause you're down here now.  Right?"  He nods.
"And I came down here to pop our corn just for you, right?"  He nods
again.  "So all you have to do is leave out the part of me bein' down
here, too, and there ain't no part of any lie."

Buddy stands there thinking for a minute and laughs out loud.

"You're a smart one," he says, and pats my back with
his oversize hand.

"So are you, Buddy."  I smile up at him, and I knock at the box
still under his shirt.  "When you are all about done we'll eat this
right down, okay?"

"OK."  He nods fast.

"So I never was down here no matter what Chester or my mom says."

"OK, that's right."  He nods even faster.

"OK, I better get upstairs, just put the coal back."  I
point to the pile.  "I'll take this so we never run out."  I
point to my T-shirt bundle.  "Bye, Buddy."  I lift it against
my naked chest and start up the stairs.

"See you soon."

I look over my shoulder and watch him picking up coal
one at a time and placing it gently on the pile.  I sprint up
the stairs with my bundle and run out and hide it under
the house just as my mom and Chester drive up.

I turn on my TV but keep the sound off to hear

Chester yell, "Why was Buddy down there?"  and my mom screaming about
the coal spilled all over.  Finally
Chester shouts at my mom to shut up about the coal,
which only makes her yell louder.  Buddy comes creeping
out finally and sits next to me to watch TV with the sound turned
down.  Silently he pulls out the Fiddle Faddle,
opens it, and hands the box to me.  It's wet from his
stomach sweat.  I dig in quietly and eat and listen to my
mom let out a horrific scream.

"The coal's bleeding!  It's bleeding!"

I reach out for the sound knob and drown my mother out.

The retching returns with an unbelievable force, like a facial tick
that just won't stop.  My whole body gathers up and jousts forward as
if every limb and organ were trying to collapse itself and be born
again up through my stomach, throat, and mouth.  There is nothing
coming out but watery spit.  I picture myself a swimmer only allowed
brief turns to come up for air, and I try to take breaths between
heaves, but my racing panic and the cold make it impossible.

I sit in the driver's seat clutching the wheel, throwing up on my chest
and down between my legs.  I lift my head between gags, and I see her
entering Burger King.  My mother's dyed black hair is swept over her
face, reflecting almost a rainbow in the morning light.  The black
metallic raincoat is clutched too tightly around her, and her rubber
boots covering her bare feet instead of shoes almost fall off with each
step.

It's her.  I push the car door open and run, my stomach rising into my
throat.  I pull open the glass Burger King doors and run in half-speed,
past the children in cardboard crowns staring with their parents, as I
run toward the woman in black at the counter.  I hear her order two
French Toast Sticks.

"It's poison!  It's poison!"  I gasp between retches.  I grab her coat,
somehow no longer black in the fluorescent
light, and I fall down onto the tile floor as her coat comes off her
shoulders into my hand.

A face I don't recognize clouds what should be my mother's face leaning
above me, calling for help.  She kneels down and puts the jacket under
my head.  I raise my hand and hit her again and again, like hitting a
TV to make the picture stop jumping, to stop her face from changing
like it was doing.  Someone grabs my hand and holds it still.  Faces
spin above me, and I fall into the comfort of nothingness.

Chester never did find out I got into the cellar; Buddy told him he'd
gotten the coal for me and that's why it'd fallen all over the floor.

My mom never felt easy about having the big pile down there to begin
with.  It had come with the house.  As long as the pile was covered and
stayed in its place, well, she could ignore it; but it had moved and
even bled.  No one could explain that one.  Chester said she was seeing
things, trick of the light, but my mom knew.  She'd seen a piece come
apart and bleed from its evil red heart.

She knows and I know.  There will be revenge.  Even though Chester and
everyone, even Buddy, got rid of the coal from the basement, the black
stain memory of it is there on the gray concrete.  Even scrubbing it
with bleach, which my mom made Chester do, couldn't remove it.

My mom hardly goes down to the basement anymore.  She paces and smokes,
moving in jerky fast movements like a marionette, talking quickly to
herself.  Chester often gives her special vitamins to ease her mind and
calm her down.

She has Chester remove the stove.  I feel relieved and keep meaning to
get rid of my small pile under the house.  It hangs over my head, the
coal waiting for me, plotting how to burn me up alive.  I keep the baby
coal whose mother I had destroyed; I keep him with me at all times in
my back pocket as a hostage.

I jump when the big explosion comes downstairs, but I can't say I'm
surprised.  Me and my mother have been waiting and expecting something.
And it happens like we knew it would without knowing we did.  She is
standing in the kitchen on one side of the cellar stairs, I'm walking
toward the kitchen to help her open a beer can, her hands are too
shaky.

"It's the crystal," she says, and laughs too loudly.  I ask her why
would ashtrays do that, but she only says, "Huh?"

In a way I feel happy it has finally come.  Lately I'd catch her
watching me under a haze of sour smoke, staring at me while she paced;
I'd turn the sound on the TV lower, but she never said anything, just
watched me, hardly blinking.  She'd ask me to do things like to bring
her the wine bottle from the cabinet as she sat outside on the car tire
porch swing.  When I'd do something wrong like drop the wine bottle,
smashing it all over the floor, she said nothing, did nothing, didn't
even tell Chester.  I took a piece of the glass from the shattered
green bottle
and ran it lightly across my stomach till I bled, just to
keep everything in balance.

When she screamed and hit, it was Chester that got
it, not me.  She'd take off her shoes and throw them at
him and call him "stupid fucking cunt" because he didn't
get enough for their crystal.  He would cover his head
and slink down to the basement.  She didn't threaten to
leave, though.  She never said, "Fuck you, that's it."  And
she left to go to town less and less.  She stayed at home
upstairs with me, pacing or rocking in the tire, figuring
things out aloud I couldn't understand, and waited.

And I, like she, started eating only Pringles, drinking
only Canada Dry ginger ale.  When Buddy would bring
out the boxes from under his shirt, I'd shake my head
no, until he stopped bringing them.  My mom and I
watched Chester and the others take their cheeseburgers
downstairs, trying to hide the bags past my mother's
wide-eyed glare.  "Poison," she'd hiss.

We stand almost facing each other, ten feet on
either side of the cellar stairs as the basement explodes.
The floor below us jumps and bangs and roars like a
river-flooded waterfall.  It's followed by synchronized
popping like a fireworks display.  And it's Buddy that
comes out first, fire running up and down his clothes like
some fire-eater's trick.  Then some other guy I didn't even
know, on fire like Buddy, screaming, followed Buddy out the door, out
of the house.

I look at my mom slowly and deliberately smiling, and I understand. She
stares back at me as more glass and mini explosions break from down
below us.  A big tongue of flame leaps out of the basement toward us. I
follow my mother out the door.

The man I don't know is rolling in the yellow dirt, screaming for help.
I don't see Buddy.  My mom walks to the car that had been our car and
then became Chester's.  He'd fixed up the broken-down Toyota Tercel a
used-car salesman had given my mom, turned it into a "souped-up,
super-JAP bitch, ready to outrun any sheriffs cruiser".  He'd even
painted it demon red, his favorite color.

She gets in and opens the passenger's side for me.  As I climb in,
another man comes stumbling out.  I slam and lock my door.  He runs in
circles, patches of fire sprouting like grass on his arms, back, and
legs.  My mother starts the car.  Another small blast that makes the
car shake breaks the upstairs windows; little red orange flames dance
inside.

The man beats wildly at himself as if a swarm of bees is attacking him.
My mother backs up the car and the man suddenly turns and lunges toward
us, his skin a rusty, puckered brown, flaking off him like autumn
leaves.  His blue eyes stare out too wide from his blackened face; his
lids seem to have melted away.

He waves his pink-and-black arms, chasing us as she accelerates
backward.  The wheels spin in the dirt and the car lurches forward,
almost hitting him as we pull out of the driveway and ride past him.  I
turn and watch him try to run after the car.  I don't need to tell him
it isn't his and my mother's car anymore.  It is my mom's and mine
again, the way it is supposed to be.  I swivel
more in my seat and watch Chester give up chasing our
demon red Toyota and just stand still, howling.

At first I thought it was my mother's voice floating in
the air around me.

"He's finally coming to."  I force my eyes open to try
to find her, but the bright lights only make a blurry haloi of the
woman standing at the foot of my bed.  I open my mouth to speak, but
my throat is swollen and sore.

"Just you lay still," she says, sounding half like my
mom and half not.  "You go drinking down poison, now you want to go
jumping out of bed."  Her tongue makes
clucking noises.  A different woman with a soothing voice
leans over me.

"You're in the hospital," she tells me.  "There's an IV
in your arm and a little tube in your nose to help you
breathe, just relax and let them be."  Her hand rests on
my forehead.  "OK, sweetie?"  I nod, my head stiff and ill
fitting on my neck.

"Your grandma's here," she says, petting my head

"Momma?"  I whisper in a croak.

"In a hospital, same as you.  Fitting, isn't it?  Gone from us not six
months."  I strain my head to see my
grandmother turn to the nurse.  The nurse takes her hand from my head
and turns toward my grandmother.

"Not six months and he ends up half-dead here, and she half-crazed in
the mental ward."

I drop my head back down and run my tongue over my parched, cracked
lips.  I suddenly feel very thirsty.

"They hauled her off middle of the Memorial intersection, stark raving
naked, preaching the doomsday."  I hear the nurse make "mmm, mmm, mmm"
sounds.

"Well, she didn't learn that false preaching from her father, that's
for sure!"

"You never can tell," the nurse says, and I drift under the hum of
machines buzzing like prayers.

We drive on in silence, saying nothing, as if nothing happened--it felt
as if nothing ever had.  We had passed Buddy running halfway to town,
not on fire anymore and not black like Chester, but sooty and red, his
hair on his head seeming about gone.  We hadn't even slowed.

We drive, stopping once for gas, my mom paying from a small bill roll
tucked inside her bra under her T-shirt.

We drive till we get to some bigger town I don't recognize.  I'd fallen
asleep with no dreams.  I wake up as she stops the car outside a
Salvation Army used clothing store.

"Wait here," she says flatly.  And as she gets out, "Keep the windows
shut and your thoughts pure."  Then she disappears into the
paper-mirrored doors of the Salvation Army.

The mothball smell of the clothes fills the car when she returns.  I
look in the bag, all the clothes are black.

"Nothing for you, didn't have your size, we'll have to dye your clothes
so the coal can't recognize you," she
says in monotone, and drives on.

We stop at a pharmacy.  She buys black hair dye
and antidote.  She reads from the label.  "For accidental
poisonings ... antidote," she says, tapping the plastic brown bottle,
then pushing it under her seat.  We pull
into a Mobile and go into the ladies' and lock the door.

She pours solution and covers our heads with the cold
wet dye.  Someone knocks on the door.  "It's broken,"
she shouts.  "Go away!"

We sit on the bathroom floor while she counts the time
till we wash it off.  "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three
Mississippi, four ..."

We leave the Mobile bathroom with black-ringed sinks
and black dyed hair.  She leaves her pink T-shirt, jeans,
white sneakers, and white bra and panties in the Salvation
Army paper bag under a toilet stall.  She puts on the black
shiny raincoat and black rubber boots.

"Now we'll get supplies, dye your clothes, and the
coal won't recognize us."  She smiles and we walk toward the car.

"Maybe we can paint it black," she says, pointing at it.

After a few days I was released from the hospital.

One of the alternate preachers from my grandfather's church drives me
home, his peach-colored hair glued
tight to his skull like a swim cap.  He preaches psalms
to me during the long three-hour drive, taking a break
to tune in my grandfather's radio sermon.  "Why we
will burn in eternal hellfire unless we are truly saved" is the
topic.

I stare at the white plastic band stapled around my wrist, my name
printed in purple.  When I first woke up it said John Doe, but a
hospital worker knew my grandfather, recognized me from services, so
now I was another me again, my hair oiled, combed back, and parted,
wearing blue slacks, a button-down white starched shirt, and a
blazer.

Before we get out of the car to go into Piggly Wiggly to get our
supplies of clothing dye, Canada Dry, and Pringles, the only food not
poisoned by the coming black plague, I reach into my back pocket and
enclose the baby coal in my sweaty palm.

I pull it out and place it on the dash in front of my mother.  She says
nothing for a long time, just stares.  I want to confess about the coal
under the house, how it was my fault, but all I can say is, "It's the
baby," and she nods and closes it inside her hand.  Her eyelids closed
but flickering, she presses it to her heart and then buries it in her
pocket, still clutched in her hand.

"Thank you," she says in a whisper.

I stand still in my grandfather's antique-filled study as if in a
dream, remembering again the smells of lemony wax and baking bread, the
sounds of oxfords clicking on hard wood, clocks ticking off seconds,
and the rules of felt-covered Bibles and leather straps hanging on
hooks.

I listen to hear if he's coming, and in the absence of his footsteps I
walk slowly across the wood floor to the small black coal stove, its
opening like a barred jail cell or blackened teeth.  Its mouth would
glow behind, a demon Day-Glo red when lit.

I place my hand lightly on the smooth coal stove like I had on ours
when it was hot; my mother's hand had covered mine, pressing it down.

In the car she turns to me and speaks very solemnly, her hair slicked
back and hanging like a worn leather shoe tongue.

"You and I will be the only survivors.  Everyone and everything else
will be burned, crushed, or poisoned."

From the corner of my eye I see people chatting and laughing, pushing
their shopping carts, unaware of their coming fate.

When she tells me the story it's always around Christmas time, after she
comes home early in the morning smelling like beer, lipstick, and
smoke.  She flicks on the light, pushes me over to sit down, and tells
me what used to happen at Christmas.

It's a German custom, German like my grandfather's father, like the
throat-spitting words he shouts at my grandmother late at night.

The stockings are hung over the fireplace for all ten children, their
empty shoes under the tree.  On Christmas morning they line up fully
dressed, excited and silent in the hall, until my grandmother allows
them in.  They walk to the fireplace, and from the weight of how their
stockings hang their faces fall or lighten.

"I knew what was inside, I heard my brothers whispering what they found
in theirs," she slurs, and slaps her leg.  "They'd gotten theirs filled
bad before, but not me, I'd always ..."  She raises her hand up and
lets it fall sloppily onto me.  "Always was a good girl."  She shakes
her head too widely, her hair flapping and sticking in her eyes.  "I
was a good girl," she whispers.

"My sisters all had treats in their stockings, only me ..."  Her
fingers run through her smoke-filled hair.  "Everyone went to their
shoes next: treats or a switch, or more black ... Jason and Joseph got
switches, Noah and Job and me, just like in our stockings: coal lumps."
Her voice rises in a half shout.  "Fuckin' coal!

"Now ..."  She gets up and paces drunkenly beside my bed.  "I'd learnt
my verses, my psalms, my chapters, I'd done my sidewalk preaching,
Bible studies, done it all ..."  Her hands wave out like she's
smoothing a tablecloth.

"My sisters stuffed down their cakes and counted their Christmas money
from inside their stockings and shoes while Jason and Joseph went in to
the preacher to get their whippings ... I went, too, bold as
lightning!"  She wobbles into a wall.  "I carried my stocking in my
left, my shoe in my right."  She holds out each empty hand.

"'What's this for?'  I asked him before he'd even turned around, old
fuck!"  She snorts a laugh.  "He says nothing,
right?  Tells me to leave his study at once!"  Her voice imitates
his.

"'What's this for?'  I yelled again.  And know what, know what?!"  She
slaps a wall, laughing.  "He didn't answer me none, so I dumped it all
out, the stocking and the shoe.  That coal all over his fancy antique
Persian motherfuckin' ugly rug.  And I stomped on it, too, ground it
right in, crushed it all in the rug!"  she says between laughs.

She holds on to the wall and slowly slides down it, laughing.  "And you
know what he'd said I'd done?  You know?"  She slaps the floor, tears
rolling down her face from laughter.

"'You have evil and sin in your heart,' he told me!"  She snorts, then
starts to choke.

"You were born less than a year later, so he knew what he was talkin'
'bout!"  She lies there laughing until she falls asleep.

Sometimes, though, she'd have a needle still hanging in her arm and I'd
slide it out, wipe it dry with toilet paper, and she'd mumble the rest:
how he had her gather the coal up off the rug, place it in the stove,
and light it.  She stood, still seething, waiting for his apology.
Waiting while he whipped her brothers.  Stood and waited hours while
the family went to services, her hands rolled into fists, watching the
red coals burn and pop like her rage, while her father preached in his
church.  Waited till he returned, took off his jacket, hung and
smoothed it.  She would take her whipping and not cry.  She would still
ask what she had done.

She took off her blouse like he ordered, covering with her arms her
newly formed breasts.  He towered over her, grabbed her by her hair,
and dragged her to the squat, cast-iron stove.

No one came when she screamed as he pressed her back to the door of the
stove.

No one ever said a thing about the raised, welted lines like jail bars
or thick red teeth that still line her back.

"We can outsmart it," she says, staring out at the shoppers rushing
past.  "If we become as black and as devious as the coal, we won't ever
burn."  She points to the people entering in the automatic sliding
doors.  "They all will."

Her face pulls back in angry disgust.  "We'll survive because we know
the power and the evil of the coal."

She gets out and I follow behind her.

VIVA LAS VEGAS

ALONG THE DESERTED topaz-colored mountains, under the crowding of
trees, our car cruises in its separate world.  No lights from bars or
clubs penetrate or distract, there's just thick, unbroken wilderness.
So, life changes to adapt.  She survives, and I treasure it.

I sit next to her in the front seat.  My power surges as if I were a
liquid constellation.  I am the keeper of the maps.  I measure the veinlike
lines against my thumb.  I remember the names of upcoming towns,
villages, and stations, like a relative searching a crash survivors
list.

"You sure this is right?"  she gnaws on her fleshy lips.

"Trust me."  I clear my throat and sit taller in my seat.  I can't help
but feel she's a caterpillar squirming on my arm.  I like the way that
feels.

"Watch for Tawnawachee!"  I order.  She leans forward and squints.  Her
yellow hair is breathing back the three o'clock October sun.  She's so
pure looking, I ache.

"Help me here!"  She bounces on the seat, glancing at me.  I laugh.

"You ain't passed it."

"I'm sick of god damned trees and fuckin' mountains!"  She slaps the
wheel.  I'm not.  I like to pretend we're runaways together, like
Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the deep growth of ancient woods.

"Tawnawachee ... left, here!"

She turns sharply, tires squealing.

"You almost made me miss it!"  she whines.

"Did not."  I blink at her.

"Did too!  Damn, I need a drink, smoke, Valium, anything!"

My stomach tightens.  "OK, keep goin' straight for a whiles."  I look
out the window.  The trees are thinning out.

"Vegas is so great, gonna refill on cash ..."  She pats her jeans
pocket.

"Are kids allowed?"  I look at her.

"Oh, I have my ID."

"I mean ..."  My throat starts to clamp.  She interrupts.

"I can't hardly wait!  How far?"

"Far, go faster."

"Men just dying for hot young blondes ..."  A deer scampers out of the
way.  She doesn't notice.

"I have the luck of Satan on the dollars slots, I swear, too, the men
are so easy ..."  I roll down the window, and the cool air blowing
through my hair makes me squint and fills me with a strange excitement.
I imagine birds flying in to steal my maps, like bread crumbs, losing
us forever.

"Now what?"  She turns to me with such an open, trusting expression,
her eyes a wide translucent pale green, that I can almost see the world
through them. "OK, now you turn left ... yeah."  My confidence is
reflected in her full moving lips, silently and absentmindedly
repeating my directions.  "Here?  Here?!"

"Yeah, now after the creek you turn left."  The complexity of all
possible outcomes of each turn, each direction, are stored inside me,
filling me with strength.

"Faster," I grunt.  I imagine the Dart on a runway, sprouting wings and
taking off.

"You can win cars, too, I'll try to do that."  She flutters her hands
as she talks, almost forgetting the wheel.  "And get rid of this piece
of shit."  A stomachache is making me lean forward.

"Faster," I order, my heart racing.

"What?"  She looks at me.

"Olive juice," I mouth to her, and close my eyes.

"What did you say?"

"Faster, faster!"  I almost yell, the wind howling in my ears.

"Don't you order me."  She speeds up anyway.

"Let's never ever stop!"  I laugh hysterically.

"What?"  She laughs.  I rub my hands over my face and hair like I'm
scrubbing myself.

"Oh, you'll love Vegas ..."  She thumps the wheel.

"Faster," I whisper.

"I can't wait, I swear!"  She wets her lips.

"Don't stop."  I pump my knees up and down.

"Hey!"  She starts to slow down.  "Hey, we miss it?"

"No!"  I shout.  Her hand flies out quickly and, like a magic trick,
transforms into a fist and pounds once, hard, on my thigh.  I become
very still.  She slows down some more.  The trees are giving way to
rocks and shrubs.

"Now where are we?"  Her voice is controlled, not like Gretel anymore.
Despite myself I unfold the map.

"The turn is still a whiles up," I mumble.

"Don't you fucking try it!"  She shakes her fist at me.

I carefully fold my map into its neat rectangular shape.  "Try what?" 
I smooth it against my jeans leg.

"Don't you"--she glares at me--"ever try to lose me!  You fuckin' hear
me!"

I turn my face to her, smile slightly, and inhale.

I won't ever lose you ... I promise.

"The turn is still a whiles up," I mumble.  I roll up my window.

Now it's passing us by too fast; there is nothing solid to grab on to
or hide inside of, even if there were more than just sagebrush,
tumbleweeds, and flat sand blazing by.

I've slid down behind her seat where it's curved as a cradle.  But I
can't get small enough 'cause the sky's too smooth and open, without a
cloud's shadow to move into.  This is God's magnifying glass.

"See the lights?  Way off there ... oh, some high roller's gonna get
lucky, so lucky ..."  She drums on the dash.

I curl up smaller, clutching my neatly folded maps no
longer needed.

"Oh, not some drunk cowboy, like Duane, 'member
him?"  She laughs.  "No, I'm gettin' me a married professional!"
She smacks her lips.  I wrap a fist around the
metal bolting her seat down.

"Gonna get another daddy!  Time for some pampering,"
she mutters.  "Bout that time, I think."

I lean my skull into the fake leather seat back, and I can feel the
press of her spine.

"Bet you're hungry!"  I push my head into the nauseating
smell of Naugahyde.

"Did you gobble up your doughnuts?"  I smile to myself
and reach under her seat.  I hold up a greasy smooshed
jelly roll as if for target practice.  My stomach growls at
the sticky scent of it.

"Why didn't you eat it?  You must be hungry."  I
hear her adjusting her mirror to find me.  I keep the
doughnut raised.

"You hungry?"  I shake the doughnut, no.

"Bet ya gotta go."  I shake again, no, and feel my gut
cramped and aching.

"Well, I'm starvin'!  Big juicy burger is what I need,
fries, lotsa ketchup ... how's that sound?"

I close my eyes and savor the attention like a soldier standing on a
land mine before his battalion, and just as quickly, it's over.

"Sit up, c'mon, get up!"

She's not asking permission any longer.

I climb up onto the seat and stare out at the too bright sand sea like
an overexposed photo.  And there is nothing to anchor on to, to stop
what's happening.

"Mile up's a diner," she says, detached.  I stare at her eyes in the
mirror, looking straight ahead, filled with Vegas.  I part my legs. She
switches on the cassette play.

"Oh, I love this song," she says.  "Dead Kennedy's, yeah!"

She starts singing.  "Bright lights city ..."

I raise my hips up off the seat.

"Gonna set my soul ..."

I watch her in the mirror, rocking her head, looking like a child lost
in a dream.

"Gonna set my soul ..."

I loosen my bowels.

"On fire ..."

I wait, unblinking into the mirror.

"Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las ..."

She sniffs the air.  "You fart?  ..."

She glances at me through the mirror.  I smile.  "What the ...?"

She snorts loudly.  "You fuckin' didn't!"

I remember a scene from a movie where a man places his bare palm over a
flame to prove he will endure whatever necessary out of loyalty.

"You motherfuckin' evil fucker!"

I slide my hands under my thighs as she half turns toward me, still
driving, her free arm reaching over the seat.

"Try to ruin everything, everything!"  she sobs as her fist bounces off
my legs, chest, stomach.  "You always have, always!"

I keep grinning as I feel something solid dropping, capturing us both,
holding her to me.

"I've sacrificed so much for you."  Tears stream down her face.  I lean
forward so she can reach me better.  I bite my lip through my grin.

"You shitty bastard!"  She keeps driving, snot and tears flying as she
swirls her head back and forth, from me to the road, her hand flailing
at me.

"I've tried so hard, I've lost so much."  A giggle escapes me, and
suddenly the white neon of Dolly's Diner is flashing through the
windshield, filling the car and catching her fist, mid stroke like a
projector burning through a film frame.

Silently she turns back in her seat.  She wipes her nose on her sleeve
and pulls into the parking lot.  The crunch of the driveway sounds too
loud in the silence.  I'm still grinning.  She parks in the shadows.

"I bet you're hungry."  Her voice is sweet but cold, ironed of any
previous wrinkles.

She gets out, opens the trunk, digs around, comes over to my side, and
opens my door.

"Honey, you go clean up."  Her hand pats my head, each touch too swift,
too brief, to be caught.  She hands me my bag.

"Here's ten dollars, get us burgers, sweetie?"  She sniffles, wipes her
nose again, and reaches her hand out to me.  She looks away.  I put my
hand around hers, she leaves hers open.  I step onto the gray gravel
and look up quick to her eyes, staring toward the lights of Vegas.

"I'll just go get gas down at that Chevron."  She motions with her
head.  Her hand is gone from mine, and she pats my back with little
pushes forward.

"Go eat."

Robotically I walk away.  She's humming as she gets in the car.  I keep
moving forward, still grinning.  The ignition turns.  I see people
talking, laughing, eating through the yellow-lit windows.  The smoosh
in my pants travels down my leg as I walk forward.

Tires turning, gravel popping.  A kid stuffing in a big forkful of
cake.  The bump of wheels hitting tar.

I spin around, a frozen grin plastered to my face, and watch the car
pull out with a screech.

I wrap my hands around my ribs like I'm gripping a cliff ledge as the
orange tail lights pull away.  And suddenly I'm running to the road
edge and I don't breathe as the glowing lights approach the Chevron and
quickly float, like a disembodied spirit, past it.

I watch the red orange glow grow smaller and smaller until it's all
gone.

METEORS

"ARE YOU TRYING to get hit by a meteor?"

I nod yes and take a few steps to regain my balance, because my
face is turned up parallel to the planetarium-looking desert sky.

"I said, are you trying?  I don't think you're trying."

I hear her shift resentfully against the car.  I keep myself from
looking for her solid black silhouette against the shifting darkness
around us.

"Sarah, I'm trying.  I swear."

"He won't marry me if you can't just do this."  She adjusts her body
with a bounce.

"Will you wear a white dress, Sarah?"

"Hmm?"

"Last few weddings you wore regular clothes.  I think he'd fancy you in
a white gown, don't you think?"  I hear the familiar dull scrape of car
keys digging into her flesh.

"A gown?  What, like a wedding dress?"

"He strikes me as the type."  I kick at the dusty sand around me.

"He'll carry me over the threshold, too.  I know just the suite at the
Mirage."

As the keys scrape faster, I imagine I can see her arm skin curling up
like shaved chocolate.

"Oh, I saw something streak in the sky!"  I point up with my whole
arm.

"Try and get it to hit you.  You should lay down," she says.  "Then
there's more of you to hit."

I take big showy steps around, my body tilted upward to expose more of
me to the sky.

"See it?"  I can tell she's looking up.  "It's coming, I think.  Maybe
I should get in the car so it don't hit me by mistake.  It's gotta hit
you."

I hear her open the car door, slide into the back, and slam the door.
She leans out the window.  "If I'm unconscious, how'll he fall in
love?"

We'd pulled into the tourist station in the middle of Death Valley to
get water and use the facilities.  We were heading back to Vegas.  She
was going to be a showgirl with her own dressing room, and cherry
tomatoes and ranch dressing laid out after every show.

He was in beige shorts the longer, more dignified ones.  His back was
to us.  The golden fuzz on his legs shimmered when he moved, as if
someone had colored outside the lines.  His shoulders were broad and
worked as he talked warmly about meteors.  Sarah jerked nervously and
joined the tourists hearing his lecture.  Her eyes went round and dark
when she saw his face, and I knew she'd chosen another one.  I watched
his hands as they flew out while he spoke tan blunt fingers, no rings. 
Her lips parted in awe.

"Just like snowflakes, you won't find any two meteorites that'll be
completely alike, even if you're dealing
with the most common L6 class."

His head bobbed rapidly as he spoke.  "We gather
clues and more information from every new meteorite, about the
beginnings of our solar system."  He drew a broad rainbow in the air.
"I never tire of seeing new meteorites."

A few folks in the back of the crowd turned to watch
Sarah.  She flipped her hair back over her shoulders like a horse
whipping its mane.  He didn't seem to notice.  "If any of you'd like to
hold a real meteorite," he said as he started uncovering shoebox-size
crates lined with a cloth napkin sitting on a glass display
case next to him.  "They don't bite."  He gave a little chuckle. 
Sarah pushed her way to the front, and her hand was in the box before
he'd finished.  "Oh," he said, "here you go."

"This is the most beautiful rock I've ever seen."  Sarah's voice
echoed painfully.

"Not a rock--you have yourself a chondrite, one of the most common
subtypes of stony meteorites."  "Common?"  She raised her voice a
little.  "Well, yes, but there are chondrules contained within,
silicate inclusions."

"Please hand me an uncommon meteorite."  She thrust her open palm out,
the rejected meteorite in the center.  He paused, tilting his head like
a dog in confusion.

"Can I have one?"  A little girl's hand reached up.

"Yeah, sure."  He took the one from Sarah and plopped it in the girl's
hand.  Sarah left her hand extended, gave it a shake to remind him.

"Uh, okay, well, no meteorite is really uncommon."  She shook her hand
again.  "But, OK well ..."  He turned to a box.  "Pallasites."  He
carefully placed a shiny metallic rock with yellow green crystal cubes
in her hand.

"Rare."  He swallowed.  "Considered one of the most beautiful."  She
nodded approvingly.  "This one is polished," he said, then cleared his
throat and announced to the group, "Olivine mineral makes the green
yellow.  Here, everyone help yourself."

He carried on about meteorites, even as the children who had crowded up
front dropped their meteorites back in his boxes carelessly and started
running around, screaming about dead pioneers' bones.  He didn't stop,
though there were only a few people left in the group yawning loudly.
Sarah never left her spot, even as little kids pushed around her.  When
one kid got in front of her, she put her hand on his shoulder and
firmly pushed him aside.  During the lecture, Sarah turned her head
abruptly to find me standing off to the side.  She signaled for me to
come take a meteorite.  I crept slowly into the thinning crowd and
worked my way up to the boxes.  I cautiously reached in for a rock and
kept one eye on her.  She usually doesn't like me around when she's
casting.

"Cats don't like to be pet when they eat, now, do they?  I don't like
you rubbing around me when I'm casting.  Besides, he might not like
kids."

I glanced up at the ranger.  He had a composed look that would've
seemed solemn or aloof if it weren't for a nose that was too pointy and
upturned.  It offset his face in a friendly way.  I knew if it weren't
for his nose, Sarah never would've cast for him.

When he finished, only two white-haired retirees were left, besides
Sarah and me.  They thanked him, and before he could stop them, they
pitched their meteorites in the box.  Sarah glanced at me again and
deliberately wiped her finger across her mouth.  The shoplifting sign.
The nobody-is-looking-so-put-it-under-your-shirt-or-in-your-pocket-now
look.  I wasn't sure at first what she meant for me to steal.  I looked
around for a wallet someone had put down.  She wiped her mouth again,
but it looked more like the slit-your-throat sign.  All I saw near me
on the glass display table were a few small meteorites that some of the
bored tourists had replaced.  I put my hand over them.  Her face was
turned toward the ranger, but she gave a small nod.  I closed my hand
around them and stuffed them, plus one I already had, into my pocket.

Sarah ran to the facilities as soon as he finished.  Our ranger
lovingly wiped down each meteorite with a cheesecloth and placed them
back in assorted wood boxes.  I kept my hips turned so he wouldn't
notice the bulge of my pocket.

"Death Valley was given its name by the gold seekers, many of whom died
crossing the valley during the 1849 California Gold Rush," another
ranger's voice boasted from the next room.  When the meteorites were
almost all packed up, Sarah burst out of the bathroom, the pink lines
around her plump lips redrawn, and I could tell she had dampened and
remoussed her hair, blowing it dry under the hand dryers to maximize
its volume.  She'd rolled up the denim legs of her shorts as high as
they'd go, until they were cutting into her thigh, and her T-shirt was
slightly damp.

"It's the wet T-shirt trick," she once told me.  "No guy can resist a
girl that looks like she just won the contest.  Did I squeeze my
nipples enough?  Are they out?"

"Do you think we will get hit by a meteor?"  she called out before the
bathroom door had even swished shut behind her.

He turned and looked surprised, then pleased, that someone had anything
to ask him.  It took him a few seconds to realize who was asking, and
when he fixed the voice to the rapidly approaching body, he blinked
like someone was waving a hand too close to his face.

"I'm afraid I'll get hit by a meteor."  Sarah had chosen the Southern
ladies' society accent.  She fanned around her head with her hands,
making the gelled hair clumps flutter like tentacles.  He stopped
blinking and turned to a box and fished around inside it.  "I have a
Mbale chondrite in here somewhere."

"Oh, good," Sarah sighed, and ran her finger under her lacquered
lashes.

"Here, here."  He pulled out a small gray black rock.  "We've recovered
over one thousand specimens, it was a huge fall!"  He stared at the
rock.

She moved in close, pressing up against his shoulders to look at the
rock.  "Umm," she moaned, and licked her lips.  He took a small step
away from her.  She stepped forward.

"In Uganda, a boy got hit on the head," he said, looking into his box.
"I have more from that fall somewhere."

I pressed my hand over my pocket.

"Hit on the head?"  Sarah gasped.  "Lord have mercy!"

He stepped back, quick little steps, and put the rock out in his hand
to show her, or to stop her from moving in.  He nodded down onto the
rock.  "Well, the specimen was slowed down by a banana tree, so the boy
wasn't a casualty."

"Thank the Lord for the wilds of Africa," Sarah sighed.  "But out here
in the desert, without any banana trees, I fear for our safety."

He took another step back.  "Oh, I assure you getting hit by a
meteorite is extremely rare.  I would love to have met the boy."  He
stared from the rock in his palm to the box of rocks.  "I often dream
of visiting Uganda to examine him."

"I would like to go with you to Uganda."

He looked up at her quickly, his eyebrows raised, then he took a quick
breath to say something but blew it out like a deflating tire; he gave
a tight laugh.

She shook her hair and smiled and stuck out her hand.  "My name is
Caitlin.  Is there a place nearby we can go for a drink?"

He looked like he'd been punched.  After a second of hesitation, he
shook her hand.  She kept shaking it.

"Caitlin," I said to myself softly, so I would be sure to remember.  I
wished she said what my name was, so I'd know if I was going to be a
boy or a girl and how I would be expected to move.

He abandoned his hand to her and fixated on his rocks.

"I would love a cool beer, wouldn't you?"  She giggled.

For the first time he looked at me, as if for help.

"That's my brother, Richard."  She waved at me with her free hand.  He
nodded and smiled warmly at me.  I nodded back.

"Richard," I whispered.  Been Richard a few times.

She cleared her throat, and I knew she resented our exchange of nods.

"I--uh--I have a tour to give soon."  He tugged gently at her grip on his
hand.

"Great--I can't get enough of meteorites," she said, strengthening her
grasp.

"Oh, oh, it's out in the field."  He pulled his hand away with a little
effort.  "Got to pack these up."  He gave her a strained smile.

"Here, let me help you!"  she exclaimed as she picked up various rocks
and tossed them.

"No, no," he said, putting his hands out over the boxes.  "Thank you.
Thank you.  I can do it.  But thank you."

"OK."  She laughed as if he were being silly.

"We're camping tonight."  She started tapping her pink nails on the
glass.

"Good."  He fished out the meteorites she'd thrown in and started
polishing them.

"Well, what if we get hit?"

"Pardon?"  He glanced at her with such a bewildered expression, I knew
she would misread it.

"Oh, you!"  She giggled, threw her hair back, and did a fast twirl like
a ballerina.  "You know we might just get hit!"  she said sexily, and
slapped her hand on the glass next to his boxes so hard that he and the
meteorites jumped.  He grabbed his boxes to keep them from falling,
holding tight.  He kept his red face tucked in close like he was saying
prayers to them.

She leaned over him and did the cascade in his face.  She learned that
from stripping.

"You lean back, lift your long hair, and let it cascade down the back.
That'll get you a man's paycheck faster then his ex-wife!"

When she was gone I'd put the mop head on and practice my cascade.

He wiped hair from his face, piled up his boxes, and without looking at
her said tersely, "Ma'am, if you get hit by a meteorite, I will be very
impressed.  I have to run now.  I am very late.  Have a great stay with
us in Death Valley."  Before she could say a thing, he lifted his boxes
and hurried for the employee exit.  Sarah stood there for a minute,
looking puzzled.  She shifted from side to side and stared at the
employee door.  After about twenty minutes she said, "You think he
wants me to wait here?"

I swallowed.  "I think this would be an OK place to wait."

She didn't say anything.  We stood for another twenty minutes until a
short woman ranger with a face like a shovel asked us if we needed
help.

"Where is he?"  Sarah tossed her hair at the employee door.

"Who?"  the ranger asked.

"The meteorite man!"  she said, annoyed.

"Jim?  Jim left a while ago."  She smiled.

"What do you mean, left?"  Sarah's bottom lip sucked in and out between
her teeth.

"He has a tour at Scotty's Castle.  He left.  Can I help you with
something?"

"He just asked me to stay with him here in Death Valley," she stated,
as if the ranger had said the world were flat or something.

The ranger smiled too widely and nodded.  "OK well we're closing, so if
I can't help you with anything, I'm going to have to ask you to
leave."

I saw the rage flash over her face and I knew she was about to hit the
woman and I got ready to run and grab her fist, but she shook her head
violently like you do an Etch-a-Sketch and smiled at the ranger.

"OK."

She turned and left the station.  I followed.

There's a way that still warm air can make me feel incredibly lonely
and small.  Just the silence of it allows me to hear the world
completely and how exposed I am in it.

She squinted at the yellow orange beginnings of a sunset and just stood
there.

"Good thing it's fall," I said suddenly.  "In the summer it once was a
hundred and thirty."  She nodded and I felt myself get all excited.  I
continued, "See, pioneers were dying of thirst, after going so long
without anything, and then they saw all this water and they thought
they were saved."

She turned and watched them lock up the station.

"But when they got up to the water they found out it was all salt
water."

The shovel-faced ranger gave us a good-bye wave as she climbed in a
jeep.

"That's how it got the name."  I felt out of breath.

"You'll see," Sarah muttered toward the woman.  She turned to look at
me.

"Badwater," I blurted.

"You're going to get hit by a meteorite," she said.

I nodded.  "A lot of folks drank the water."  She turned and walked
toward our car.

"And they died."  I followed her.

The first meteorite grazes the side of my face and kind of tickles, but
I stay asleep sitting up against the car tire.  I dream I am getting
hit in the face with the burnt-up testicles that fall off a blackjack
oak.

"Those would be the petrified balls of the crank master," Sarah had
said as she pointed at the light brown hairy acorns scattered beneath
the tree.

"That's their innered organs," she said, pointing to the leaves under
our feet that resembled flattened livers.  "Look up."  The twisted
split branches spread out like a highway of veins in the see-through
human body dolls I've always admired.  I nodded at the gore of it.  She
nodded and made "tsk-tsk" sounds with her teeth.

"If you run across a blackjack, you know there was once a crank house
that exploded.  That's where they grow in these parts.  It's a warning,
and if you don't pay it," she said, narrowing her eyes like a
fortune-teller, "it'll curse you when it could be protecting you."  She
walked up to the black twisted tree and started petting it.  "See, if
you were a girl, you could now be assured you would never die in a
crank house fire."  She pulled down her pants and rubbed her bare
crotch against it as if she'd wiped with poison ivy leaves by mistake.
I ran up and started to pull down my pants to do it also.  She waved me
away.

"No--these fuckers ain't got their crank no more.  These fuckers got
burned alive and their eyeballs boiled and now they're stuck here in
this tree!  You think they
want you?  You'll piss 'em off!  I'm satisfying their need
for pussy, and in return the spirits will make sure I
never burn up alive in a crank house fire and have my eyeballs
boil!"

"I don't want to get burned up alive and have my
eyeballs boil," I said, trying to rub against the scorched-looking
skin of the blackjack.

"Forget it."  She pushed me away with a hard shove. "You missed out."

The second meteor hits me on the head with a loud
thud, jerking me out of my dream.  I wave my hands around my head to
protect it from the falling testicles.

"Are you bleeding?"  Sarah says.  I can make out her vague form
standing a body length away in the dark.  I put my hand in my hair
and search for wetness.

"I don't think so."  I rub my eyes.

"Shit, can you find one of those meteors?  It just bounced off your
head.  Don't think it went too far."

"I got hit with a meteor?  I thought it was balls!"  I
excitedly run my hands in the cool sand around my
splayed-out legs.  Suddenly a loud thwack cracks against
the car door next to my shoulder, making me jump.

"Fuck!"  she yells.

"You're throwing them again?"  I ask quietly.

"You fell asleep.  You don't really care to get hit with
a meteor or you would've tried harder!"
I listen to her huffing in between the spooky desert night noises of
clicking bugs, scurrying rodents, and crying coyotes.  It all sounds
too loud and contained and the star-pocked sky too rounded and low
above us to be anything else than some small weird bedroom we're stuck
in.

"Meteors don't work," I say too quietly into the room.  "They're too
small to hurt me."

"What?"  She stomps.

"Find a big rock.  I can get hit with that.  He'll never know what it
really was.  It'll be just like in Africa."  I listen to her thinking,
biting her nails, making little paper-tearing sounds.

"You think it'll work?"

"Better make those reservations for the bridal suite at the Mirage," I
tell her.

We decided it was better for me to get hit in the car so she wouldn't
have to carry me into it if I got knocked out.  She spread out a beach
towel to protect the vinyl interior.  I lay on my stomach with my head
almost hanging out of the door.  It was a pretty good-size rock we
found.  Little bigger than a baseball.  It took her a few tries,
cracking the windshield, hitting the seat and my back before she
nailed me.

"Oh," I said.  And everything went black.

The ceiling is white.  Like in a hospital.  There is something gooey in
my eyes clouding everything.  I try to move and can't.  I look around
for a nurse.

"You shouldn't wake up yet."

I try to lift my head, but I can only roll it to the side.  I want a
nurse.  A nice one with short, unpolished fingernails, because those
are the ones more likely to hold your hand and pat your forehead.

"Go back to sleep," Sarah whispers furiously.

I want the nurse to tell Sarah to wait outside, like how they do on the
soaps.  I twist my head to find a nurse.

"Close your eyes again!"  Sarah yells.

I rub at the goo in my eyes to see better.

"No, no.  You're wiping away the blood!  You look better with it.
Stop!"

Her hand grabs mine.

I look past Sarah's panicked face and see the mountains of Death
Valley.

I roll my head the other way and see my filmy metallic reflection in
the tinted door of the Death Valley Visitors Center.

"He'll be here any minute.  They open any minute!  Wait till he sees
you!  Lord, I can't wait.  He'll be so impressed."  She drops down next
to me and whispers even though no one is around as far as I can tell.

"Remember, we were camping and then, bam," she yells into my ear,
"this meteor hit you."

She unfurls her hand and waves one of the little meteors I stole in
front of my face like smelling salts.  "Got it?"

My head feels bloated inside, and I can see my heartbeat.  The goo is
still oozing into my eyes and burning.  I wipe at it again.

"Stop it!"  she screams.  "Are you gonna ruin this, too, after all my
hard work?"

I slowly shake my head no.  The concrete under me is freezing, but I'm
grateful it's not hot.  What if I was wounded by a runaway wagon or
scalped by the Indians in the mountains and I had to wait on burning
hot concrete outside the visitors center and had only bad water to
drink?

"Thirsty," I say.

"You'll be impressed, too."  She puts the meteor up in my face.  "See
it?"  I blink at the blurred rock.  "That's blood!  I stuck it in your
head to get it like it hit you.  You didn't even think of that."

She closes her fist fast around the rock as if I were going to try
snatching it from her.  I stare off at the hazy mountains and watch a
flock of dehydrated pioneers struggle to cross the range.

"We got hit!  We got hit!"  I hear Sarah yell out enthusiastically.

I don't try to open my eyes.  "C'mere!  C'mere!"

A car door slams with that metal clink that sounds so final.  "We got
hit!  See, I knew we would.  I tole ya, didn't I?  Didn't I?"  I hear
the soft pad of his boots, hesitant like a deer, coming toward us.

"Look here.  See?  I got a meteorite for you!"  she calls out
teasingly.  "And it hit him!  bam!  Just ask him."  Sarah's foot
pushes into my side.  "Tell him.  Go on, Richard, tell him what
happened."

"Jesus," I hear the ranger say.

Sarah nudges me again harder.  "Tell him."

"I got hit," I mumble, and open my eyes halfway.

"He got hit," Sarah boasts.

"Did you get the car license plate?"  I hear him tread closer to me.

"License plate?  What're you, kiddin'?  Ain't no license plate on a
meteorite!  I told you.  We got hit with a meteorite!"

"You got hit with a meteorite," the ranger repeats, and leans in over
me.  I try to smile at him, nod, wave, but my head just kind of wobbles
and my arm flops on the concrete.

"Here.  Look at what came streaming down from the heavens above and
knocked him on the head."  She reaches out and hands him the rock.

She hops around to get closer to him.  "That's his blood on it!"  I can
make him out standing over me, turning the rock around in his hand.
"Just like in Uganda," she says.  "It bounced off a cactus instead of a
banana tree."

"This is an L6 chondrite," he says.

"Exactly," she says.

He wipes it clean on his khaki pants, and a brownish streak is left on
him.  "This isn't fresh."  He shakes his head.

"Now you don't gotta go to Africa!"  Sarah says and nuzzles closer to
him.

"There isn't molten material."

"Sure there is."  She giggles.

"There would be a fusion crust."

"I can get us a suite at the Mirage," she whispers loudly in his ear.

"This has been polished," he says.

"I'm gonna be a showgirl with my own dressing room," she says.

"I'm going to radio for assistance," he says.

"I'm easy to carry," she says.

"I'm not going to move him," he says.

"Over the threshold, silly," she says, and gives his ass a little
slap.

He walks away quickly, and she follows after him.  I close my eyes and
dream of hemorrhaging banana trees falling at the speed of light.

"Can you open your eyes?  Richard, open your eyes."  The voice is very
stern, kind of like an angry teacher when you fall asleep in class.  I
blink my eyes open.

"Very good, Richard."  A man is leaning over me.  Not the ranger.  "Try
and stay awake with me, okay?"

"I'm Dr.  Peterson."  He's speaking as if I'm standing a mile away from
him instead of lying right in front of him, and he smiles too wide, his
mouth like a cartoon coyote.  His eyes are little yellow lemon drops
behind thick, fishbowl glasses.  "You have quite a little scrape there,
got a good number of stitches and what looks like a concussion."  The
doctor nods at me; I nod back so as not to appear rude.

"Want to tell me what happened?"  he says.

"I got hit by a meteorite," I say, surprised by my own voice.

"No, you weren't, Richard.  A meteorite didn't hit you.  You want to
tell me what happened?"

"It fell and hit a banana tree first," I tell him as he shines a bright
penlight in each of my eyes.  I try to remember who Richard is.  I
think it's the ranger.

"Do you know where your mother is?"  he asks, and keeps the light
shining on me, like in a spy interrogation movie, moving it from one
eye to the next.  Dull panic starts seeping over me.

"Where is my mother?"  The words run into my blood like an IV line and
make a rusty taste in my mouth.

"She was in the waiting room, but she left and hasn't returned.  We'd
like to talk with her.  Do you know where she could have gone?"  He
switches off the light, and little blue and red dots swim like aquarium
fish through his big glasses.

"She's with Richard," I mumble.  He nods.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"  He waves three fingers that look
like a gun.

"Bang," I say.

"Richard!"  He snaps his fingers and sounds like the angry teacher
again.

"How many fingers?  Hmm?  Can you see it?"  He holds up the peace
sign.

"OK," I say.

"OK what?"  he asks.

"OK, truce," I say.

"Do you know where your mother is?"  he says.

"Is she with the ranger?"  I ask.

"No," he says.

"She's all alone?"  I ask.

"*

"I don't know," he says.

"He's not marrying her?"

"Get me Social Services on the line," he says over his shoulder.  "You
don't know where she is, do you?"

I shake my head no and close my eyes against Dr.  Peterson, acting like
he's in some jazz concert, snapping his fingers frantically in my face.
I lay back into the bleach of the pillow under my throbbing head.  The
bright, garish lights of Vegas begin to flash around me like an
ambulance.  I feel cold as people stream past me, but then I see her.
Sarah, smiling.  She dips an L6 meteorite into ranch dressing, and
holds it out to me, and waits for me to bite.

NATOMA STREET

IT'S LIKE I'M pushed from behind, pulled down the slope of Natoma
Street like a ramp down into another world.  All the buildings are low
and tight huddled around me.  Heavy-gated sweatshops, sunken down
tenements, windows filled with dusty laughing Santas and graying fake
snow and ancient slaughterhouses with rusted metal beams jutting
suddenly out above me.  I watch my shadow slip underneath them, sharpen
under the piss-colored street lamp, and slide unsliced over the green
and white pebbles of glass worn smooth from streams of urine.  And
behind me somewhere is the rain-like sound of a car window being
smashed, and in front of me the crunch-crunch under my boots, pulling
me forward.  I tilt my head to listen to the blood in my own ear, and
all I hear, and all I feel, is my cold ache.  The sheet metal door
glistens in front of me like an ax on a fire blade, and the sound of my
pounding fist on the door echoes through me and down Natoma Street.
Each split second of contact with the frozen metal is like a jolt
trying to wake or stop me, but all that's racing in my blood is too old
and too known and too mechanical to be turned back.  I stand and wait
and watch delicate white puffs of air float out from me.  And it's
amazing anything can come out of me.  Soon nothing will.  I bang the
door as hard as I can, bruising my knuckles, and wait a few seconds.

"C'mon."

My teeth are clamped.  I kick at the door with my boot.  They're gonna
find me collapsed here as drained and as empty as if a vampire had fed
on me.  I kick the door again and again, and it shudders.  I feel the
panic and desperation in my stomach spread as my blood roars away,
feeding on itself.

"You're supposed to ..."

I kick and hit the metal door.

"Be fuckin' here!"  I yell.  From behind me a window slams open.

"People sleeping, people sleeping!"

I turn and look up to see a bald Chinese guy, his face so chubby and
squished, he looks like a smiling Buddha.  Christmas lights flash like
a strobe around him.

"You go 'way, go 'way!"

From behind me I hear heavy latches and bolts moving, and I twist
around, and it's like an opening in the world, with cars, lights, and
people passing the mouth of Natoma, and they have no idea I'm here, and
waiting to be.

"Goddamn, you're eager ..."  The door pulls open like a bank vault,
and blue light reflects onto the sidewalk.

"It's just eleven-thirty now, I don't start early," he says in a deep
radio announcer tone.  My ears pound and I look back up to the Buddha
man, but he's gone, just the empty flashing space of his gaping
window.

"Let's go," he orders, and I turn to face him, but he's gone, too.  I
climb into the blue lights and the door that's framed in steel, and it
slams behind me.

"Bolt it," I hear from ahead of me.  I stare at a puzzle of
red-and-black-painted locks and bolts.  "The bottom," he says.  It's a
lock that will need a key to unlock.  I feel it clink in my stomach as
I watch my hand seal me in.

I walk down an unpainted narrow Sheetrock hall with bare blue bulbs
poking out like lights in an arcade.  The ground is concrete and
cracked.

"C'mon!"  he says impatiently.  "Off to the right."

The hall opens into a huge warehouse with two giant Harleys parked in
the middle and a maze of other halls, lofts, ladders, and doors
surrounding it.  I follow the blue lights into a smaller room that
smells of rubbing alcohol and something else I recognize but can't
recall.

"Over here."

He's sitting in a director's chair in the middle of the room, holding
two Fosters.  He holds an open one out to me.  I watch my shadow like a
black fog moving toward him.  My shadow head hits his feet, black in
engineer boots, and I trace up faded Levi's to a leather vest half
revealing shining silver hoops through his nipples.  His arms are like
air-drawn traces of a woman's figure.  I avoid his face.  I reach out
for the beer.

"Uhh, thanks."

"How old are you?"

He crosses his legs.

"Eighteen," I say automatically, and sip some foam.  He laughs.

"Try again."

His boot wags.

"Fifteen," I mumble.

"Fifteen?"  he repeats.  I follow the floor to a brick wall to my
right.  There are things hanging, attached, from the wall.  A warm wave
rushes over me; I swallow loudly.

"Fifteen, I like that."

I nod my head.

"But I have ID in case."

"In case of what?  ... Huh?!!"

I look up at him.  His cheekbones are cut too sharply, his lips are
small, tight, and curled up like old newspaper.  His hair is black and
slicked straight back.  His eyes are the reddish brown of dried
blood.

"This is between you and me, got it?"

"Mmm-huh."  I feel awkward and stupid.  "I got your money!"  I say too
loudly, and start to reach back to my pocket with my beer hand but
spill some.  He laughs, shakes his head.

"Sorry ... shit!"

It takes me a few seconds to figure out how to maneuver my money out
with only one free hand.

"Blonds," he sneers.  "Fuckin' geniuses!"

He takes a big gulp of beer.  I hand him $100.

"So, how's it feel being on the other side?"  He smiles, crooked little
teeth.

"Huh?"

He holds the money up and shakes it, eyebrows raised.

"I had to borrow it."  I look away.

"Jesus you're quick," he snorts.  "And stop rocking."

I didn't know I was.  I feel like my eyes are telescopes I'm peering
through, somewhere far away.

"Uhh, sorry."

"You will be."  He smiles sarcastically.

"Huh?  Oh."  I nod.  "Yeah."  I feel my face getting hotter and
hotter.

He nods, grins, and says, as if I don't speak English, "You are paying
me ... how does that make you feel?"  He starts fanning the money.

"I dunno ..."  I sigh.  His foot taps.

"Umm ... weird."

"How?"  He leans in.

"Uh ..."  I rub my face, it feels red.

"Embarrassed, I guess," I mumble.

"Would you be, humiliated, if your friends knew?  ... Hey, hey!!"  He
snaps his finger.  I look up.

"Stop rocking!"  He puts his arm out and waves his hand like he's
trying to move something aside to see me.

"I dunno ... yeah ... I guess."

I can't explain it.  Paying for it does humiliate me, and I want that,
I need that part, it calms me in some way.  You can't trust people you
don't pay.

He sighs loudly.

"Just, just sit down."  He leans back.  I look around me.

"Right there."

"Yeah ... sorry."  My left eyelid starts twitching.  I sit on the
cold concrete and chew on the inside of my cheek.

"I've heard about you," he says with a little laugh, and
stuffs the money away.

"Uh-huh."  I nod.  My blood swirls around faster and faster.

"No limits for you, right?"  His beer clanks on the wooden chair arm.
My eyes shift from side to side, back and forth.

"No safe word, right?"

"Mmm."

"You can take it all, huh?"

My head twitches in a nod.

"Coz you"-- he points at me and laughs--"don give a fucking shit,
right?"

"Well ..."  My voice sounds too high.  "I'd like, umm,
I'd like it if, uh ... I'd like ...". I twist my mouth from side to
side.

"Sssay it," he says, singsong.

"Ummm ... I'd like it if you would ..."  My
head jerks.

"Would what?"  He leans forward again.

"Um ... give a shit, I mean, ya know ..."  I swallow hard.  "Sorta
like, care um, ya know."  My bottom lip starts to quiver.

"Yeah."  He sighs.  "You know I care ... shall we get going?"  He
gets up.  "I don't got all night."

I take a few huge gulps of the beer and rise up like
I'm pulling myself out of a pool and follow him to the
exposed brick wall.

"So what do you need?"  He waves his arm like a model
on a game show at the collection of belts, paddles, whips,
and crops displayed on the wall.  He smiles proudly.

"I dunno," I mumble.

There's a jungle gym looking metal thing, with wrist restraints
hanging down, in the middle of the wall.

"Whatta ya think of this?"  He reaches for a short whip
and starts fondling it.  I'm starting to feel nervous-sick.

"It's cool, but uhh ..."

"Not into whips, right?"  He replaces it gently.  I shake my head. My
eyelids twitch nonstop.  "No cats?"

I shake my head again and notice that under the metal
bars there's a drain.

"Look, I know talking is a drag," he says, like I won't
eat broccoli or drink my milk or something.  "But you'll
be happy for it later."  He pats my shoulder.

"I'm not a mind reader, you know.  I haven't heard everything about
you."  I want to ask him what he's heard,
but I'm afraid it'll hurt too much.

"C'mon."  His voice is soft.  He moves over to me and
places his hand on the back of my neck and massages
it lightly.

"Let me help you," he whispers into my ear, and I feel it all start
to melt.  "Let me help."

"That one," I say softly, and motion with my head.

"That?"  He points to it.  I nod and stare at the drain.

"Good boy!"  he says enthusiastically, and I should be embarrassed, but
I feel sort of proud.  He goes over to it, I hear him take it down, and
it's all starting.

"Take your clothes off, you can put 'em on that chair."  A chill jerks
my head, and I close my eyes.  "Yes, sir," I whisper, and start to
undress quickly.

"That's right, you call me sir," he responds.  I hear him moving
things, setting things up.  "Any other special words?"

"I dunno."  I lean down to unlace my boots.  He comes over to me and I
feel his hands sliding along my naked back, down my open jeans and
underwear.

"You do take a lot, huh?"  he says.

"Fuckin' knot!"  I pull and slap at the tight knot at the top of my
boot.

"Dad?  ... Stepfather, right?"  He's running his hands across the
little gullies and streams lining my back and ass.

"Can't get this fuckin' knot!"  I yell, and punch my boot top and
stomp.

"Hey!"  He grabs my face between his hands and leans over me from
behind.  I keep stomping.  "Hey, hey, hey, not yet, stay calm ... its
OK ..."  His voice is soothing.  I hear a moan escape me.  "It's OK,
it's OK, it's OK."  Like a lullaby.

"Please ..."  I half whisper, and reach one of my hands up to his
holding on to my face.

"Tell me," he says into my ear.  His breath smells like warm beer and
saliva.  I bring my other hand up around his other hand, cupping my
face.  I feel him leaning into me from behind, and I release into
containment.

"Tell me," he whispers.  We breathe together, him leaning over me,
in-out-in-out.

"Fix me," I murmur.  "Fix me."

"What's it say?"  He points to the words cut on my stomach, ass,
thighs.

"Bad boy," I pant, "evil..."  I feel like I've hooked onto a train
that's speeding away from me, or with me.

"You are a bad boy, aren't you," he says above me, squeezing my head.

I feel it loosening.

"Sinner, aren't you."

I close my eyes and my stomach cramps and a chill runs through me.  He
wraps his arms, crisscrossed, around me.  I moan.

"Tell me, now," he says quietly.

"Punish me," I pant.

"How hard?"  His chin digs into my shoulder.

"Till I learn ... please?  I need you to, please?"  My body is
shaking.

"Safe word?"  he whispers.

"No, no, not till you're done, okay?"  I pant.  "Just, OK, please not
my face, OK?"

"It's a very pretty face."  He pats my cheek, and I try to lean my head
into his touch.

"Yeah, yeah, tell me that," I gasp, and he rubs against me through his
jeans.  "Tell me I'm beautiful ... please ..."  I can't stop.

"You are, and that's why I need to help you," he whispers, like a
kiss.

"Save me," I groan, and he squeezes his arms tightly around me, and I
hope he'll never let go.

"I will, you beautiful, conceited, bad evil bitch."

"Yes ... please ... yeah ..."

He reaches down between my legs and grabs my thing.  "Call me sir!" 
His voice becomes throaty and harsh.  He twists me hard and fast.  It's
all coming back, like being lost in waves of wheat, just rolling by,
rushing me, soothing me, caressing me.

"Make me cry, I need to ... cry ..."  He twists his hand, harder.

"Sir!"  he shouts in my ear.

"Sir," I whisper, and I feel the tears swelling in my gut.  "Sir ...
hold me after, please, I'll pay extra, please, after hold me."  He says
nothing.  "I'll pay extra ..."  I sound pathetic, but I can't shut up.
"Please."

"Let's go," is all he says, and reaches behind to bring out a long
switchblade.  He flicks it open.  I suck in air.

"You like this?"  He leans down, slices open my laces, then helps me
kick off my boots and step out of my jeans.  He presses the switchblade
against my thing, and I'm spiraling away inside myself.

"It's a dirty, evil thing," I whisper.  "And I hate it!  I hate it!"
The blade presses harder, I feel my skin ready to slit gracefully, like
a paper cut.  "I hate it, I hate, I hate it!"  I'm hyperventilating.

"Well, we'll take care of it, don't you worry ... C'mere."

I feel suddenly embarrassed, exposed, stupid.  "Get over here now,
now!" He stands by the rack contraption.  I walk as if in a dream and
face the bricks.  I hand him my arms and watch him Velcro the restraint
cuffs around my wrists so they hang above me spread apart on the bar. 
I look down at my chest heaving up and down, too quickly from my
heart or my breath,
I don't know.  He stands beside me, the thick black
leather belt unfurled, swinging back and forth like a
pendulum.  He steps close to me and raises the belt to
my face.  I panic.
"Please not my face!"  I plead.  "Please!"

"Shut up."  He brings the belt closer.  "Kiss it."

I look at him.  He grabs a handful of my hair.  "Kiss
it!"  He shoves the belt up to my mouth.  It smells faintly
of bleach.  I begin to kiss it.  I feel relief and excitement
surge through me.

He knows.  He understands.

"You're a nasty cunt, aren't you?"  He pulls my head
back by my hair.  The belt disappears.

"Yes, sir."  My eyes roll up.  He drops my head with a shove, and I
hear him pacing an arc behind me.  My
body hangs limp like a swing wanting to be pushed.
"You're a very nasty, evil, bad, sinful boy, aren't
you?!

"Yes ... Yes, sir," I correct myself and moan, my butt muscles flexing
in anticipation.

"Say it!"  he orders loudly from behind me.

"I'm a bad, disgusting, evil boy."  I hear him pace.

"Again!"

"I'm an evil faggot, sir!"  I can hardly swallow.  "Please punish me ...
severely ... sir."  The heat spreads down my legs, into my toes.  No
sound, not even his breath.  "Oh, God ... please!"  I yell.

"You need it, don't you?"  His voice is heightened and tight.

"Yes, please."  I'm starving, ravenous.

"You're a pig."  The word someone once carved on my stomach.  I freeze
and taste sour spit up.  I nod my head.  "Say it!"  he screams in my
ear.

"I'm a greedy pig, sir!"  I shout breathlessly.  He laughs.

"So beautiful," he whispers, and caresses my face.  "Beautiful."

I gasp, it's perfect.  He moves back behind me, and I watch the
shadows.  The strap is hurled back, like he's throwing a football,
whole arm into it, and I hear the familiar sound of air being thrashed
through and the cymbal-like crash across my ass.  My body rocks.

"Thank you, sir."  My mouth hardly moves.

"I have to punish you, don't I?"  I nod.  It crashes down again.  My
body sways in disagreement, and my butt skin puckers.  How can you
crave something your whole body rejects, and even increase the cravings
the greater the protest from the body?

"I bet you're a fucking cock tease aren't you?"  The strap slices into
my ass.

"Yeah."  My head rocks backs.

"Sir!"  he corrects.  The strap lands on my upper thighs.  I lift my
head.

"Punish me, sir ... teach me."

"Beg."  He walks behind me.

"Please, sir ..."  He laughs, I hear the belt drop.

"You're not worth my fuckin' time."  I hear him walking away.

"No!  Please!  God, please!  Don't leave me, I can't take that, please,
God!"  I hear him open drawers.  "Sir, punish me!"  I howl, and shake
my arms rattling the jungle gym thing.

"You don't order me, spoiled cock tease brat!"  He's next to me.

"Yes, yes, yes."

"What?!"

"Sir!"

He's jingling something in his hand.  My stomach hardens.

"Close your eyes, cunt."  I stare down at his closed hand.  "Now, you
bitch!"  His open hand slaps hard at my thing.  Air spits out of me,
and I can't fold over.  My eyes clamp shut.  He laughs.  "You're not
too fuckin' bright, are you?"  I sort of swing, letting my arms hold
me.  I feel something cold against my left nipple.  I hold my breath.

"You want me to fix you?  Discipline you?"  I hear it snap down around
my right nipple, and it feels like a needle being driven in.  "You have
to learn obedience."

"Yes."  The heat rushes through me.  "Please, sir, I want to be, yours
..."  My left nipple erects next to the open clamp.  "Please.  I'll do
anything!"  He snaps it shut on my tit.  I grunt.

"I know you will, you fucking nasty, spoiled brat, cock tease bad, bad
boy."  Cold heavy chains hang from the clamps, and he gives them sharp
swift tugs as if in a bell tower.  I feel his hand caressing my cheek,
and I push my face into it like a dog searching for scraps.  I kiss his
palm, lick it.

"Say it, beautiful."  I feel the cold metal by my thing.  My mind
swirls away, and I feel his hand slap hard across my cheek.  My eyes
jerk open at him, surprised.  He's inches in front of me.

"I won't scar your pretty face," he says flatly.  "... If you're
lucky."  My face stings.  He caresses the other cheek.  "Close your
eyes," he whispers.  I hear the metal chink-chink, and his other hand
snaps a clamp on my thing.  I jump and whimper.

"Tell me what you are."  He snaps another one on but continues to
caress my cheek.

"Uhh ... a dirty whore ..."  I want to bury my face in his palm as his
other hand begins to twist the clamps and snap more on.  How can I
explain pain that burns like torture but soothes and excites more than
a caress or kiss?  His finger traces my lips and dips in and out of my
mouth.  The rest of his fingers tap on the outside.  I suck his finger
as it slides in and out of my mouth.

"You fucking cock tease."  His hand pulls away and slaps my other cheek
loudly, and it feels like a punch.  I blink away the tears rimming my
eyes.  He pulls at the chains.  "Tell me!  You faggot whore!"

"I'm a fucking dirty whore cock sucker ..."  My chest tries to curl up
against the pain like warped plywood.  He walks behind me.

"It's time for you to learn."

"Yes."  I ball my fists in the air and open my eyes wide to the brick
wall in front of me.  "I need to repent."  My blood throbs.

"Yes, you do, 'cause you've been a very naughty boy, haven't you?"

"Make me pay, sir," I whisper.  I hear him pick up the belt.

"It's time for you to cry."

"Oh, he'll cry!"  My mother squeezes and twists my wrist.

"Never done seen a thief, young or old so bold-face remorseless," the
white-haired security guard says, and wags his finger at me.  The steak
and beer six-pack from my knapsack sit on the table in front of me.
"See all the trouble you put your poor mother to?!"

The young frizzy blond checker that busted me shakes her head at me.

"Steals it for his no-good gang friends."

"Oh, we don't let gang members in this store, ma'am."  The manager
quickly shines his shoes on the back of his pants legs.

I feel my mother smiling at him.  She fans herself with her hand.
"Well, that's a good thing, sir ..."  She crosses her legs.

"We have special services for them at our church, the Virgin of
Perpetual Love and Mercy, but all in vain, I reckon."

She sniffles, and I can't help but laugh.  Her hand reaches out fast
and slaps my cheek.  I keep my grin despite myself; I know I'll pay
later.

"Yes, ma'am, the police won't do a thing to help you, ma'am, 'cause his
age ... he is amazin'."  The manager leans down over my face.  He
smells of tuna and pickles.  "Have you no shame, boy?"

My mother clears her throat.  "He's been a bad boy since his father
passed, few years back, that big blaze?  Was a firefighter, over
Tallahassee."  Murmurs of sympathy.  "Thank you, Lord rest his soul.
Boy hasn't had the father he badly needs to give guidance and
discipline."

I spurt out a laugh at the thought of her being married to a
firefighter.  Her hand smashes across my face again.

The manager clears his throat.  "Well, I think this is the best way to
handle this, ma'am."

"Mary."  My mother nods.

"Mary, Howard."  He reaches out and shakes my mother's hand a little
too long.

"Howard, sorry we meet in such a way, but I'm sure it will help save my
boy more than police or I
can."

I roll my eyes and groan.  My mother's nails dig into
my wrist.  "You're an evil boy, you thank Mr.  Marsh."

"Thanks," I say flatly, and grind my teeth.

The checker girl flashes her braces and flips her hair.

"We should whoop all the shoplifters like him."

"Way it used to be, and hardly anybody thieved,"
the guard grumbles.  I look up and see two bag boys,
a little older than me, peering in wide-eyed through a
broken, small, one-way mirror.  "Well, no time like the present."

My mom stands and pulls me over to the table.  My
heart pounds louder.  "Please," I whisper.

"Oh, now we see the remorse," Howard gloats.  He
opens his belt.  "Soon you'll see the tears."

My mother jerks me forward.  "Take down your
pants."  I look up at her, and her eyes flash a private
message of rage.  She didn't tell me to get caught.

"Excuse me," Howard says to my mother as he pulls
the belt from the loops.

I stare at the checkout girl biting her lip.  "Oh, I'll
leave ..."  She starts to get up.

"Oh no, darling!"  My mother waves her back.  "He
stole in front of you, so he'll pay in front of you."

I look over to the boys in the mirror and point.  My
mother shakes her head and smiles slightly at me.  I feel everyone's
stares, and it's like heat, my body shivers, and like Batman sliding
down his tunnel, I am suddenly
transformed to endure the impossible.  I am able to lean over the table
and pull my pants below my underwear.  But I pull as much as possible
of my jeans in front of me, and I pray and pray.  At some point I feel
Howard's belt beating me, as he will almost every other day as my new
loving father, till we move out of his trailer three and a half months
later, stealing all his cash, gold cuff links, and school ring.

I pray during my punishment.  I pray so hard, I drown out the horrible
whipping sound.  I pray that God, or Satan, or whoever, won't let them
see how sinful and repulsive and bad I truly am.  I pray something
won't let them see what my mother knows and has tried to punish me for
but which only worsens.  And the tears that eventually come burn
through me and only heighten it all.

For hidden in my bunched-up jeans is my erection, like a gleaming badge
of guilt, waiting to be discovered and ripped from me.

The belt is slamming into me all over, my back, ass, and thighs, and
the tears are streaming, and confessions of every sin and every evil
thought or action I ever did or almost did pour out from my mouth.  But
I cry harder and harder as the truth washes over me.  Even as he takes
the belt to between my legs and the pain is unbearable, I'm like an
opportunistic mosquito, sucking blood down from the punishing hand of
God, reaching down from heaven.  I am still excited even though my
thing has long been cured of its ability to have erections.  I beg for
it harder and harder so perhaps I can outrun it, but like my shadow, it
is always next to me.  It follows me.

As I hang from the gray bars, swaying, wet, and throbbing, I recognize
the scent from earlier as blood.  His switchblade at my crotch slices
like I begged him, to try and help save me.  One hand caressing, one
hand cutting.

I remember when I saw Peter Pan when I was little.  After all the other
kids wanted to reenact the battles of the lost boys, pirates, and
Indians, all I could think about was the part where Peter Pan sits
still while Wendy takes a sharp needle and, with concern and maybe
love, sews his shadow onto his feet.  And I wonder if the pain excited
him as much as it excited me to watch.

I hang here, the voices still bleeding in my ears.  I watch my shadow,
solid like a murdered body's outline, and I pray.  Maybe one more
slice, just one more, will sever it forever.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincerest gratitude to the following:

Dorothy Allison, Astor, Bruce Benderson, Jimmy Bolton, Roddy Bottom,
Cara Bruce, Sophie Canade, Novella Carpenter, Caviar, Michael Chabon,
torn Cheeks #1 web designer & Bradley, Godfrey Cheshire, Dennis Cooper,
Missy Cooper, Henry Dunow, Mark Ewert, Judy Farkas, Film Maker
Magazine, Alice (sweet tele tubby Fisher, Lee Fisher, Alona Fryman and
all the Bloomsbury crew, Mary Gaitskill, Steve Gallagher, Denys
Gawronski, Panagiotis Gianopoulos, Jane Gilday, Jill Harris, Jordan
Heller & Shout Magazine, Susan Hoffman, June Horton & Dell, Hyper PR &
Jessica Hooper, Travis Jeppesen, Daniel Johns, Mat Johnson, Kai, Mary
Karr, Maggie Kaso & Family, Martha Keith, Ken@ Giraffe-X, Bridget &
Rachel Kessler, Jeff Koyen, Lisa Keeling, Gretchen Koss, Bruce LeRoy,
Mary Lee LeRoy, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Colin Midson, Howie Miura,
Jay Mohr, Chris Monlux, Rose Marie Morse & co, No Hands Productions,
Lewis Nordan, Benjie Nycum, NY Press, Liz Ogilvie, Sharon Olds, Dr.
Terrence Owens & Family, Maragaret P.,  Genevieve Paiement, Mike Pitt,
Paige Powell, Dr.  Christine Rahimi, Tresa Redburn and Dept.  56, Karen
Rinaldi & Joel Rose & Co.,  Jeremy Rizzi, Matthew Rolston, Lorelei
Sharkey, Ira Silverberg, Tim Sommer, torn Spanbauer, Speedie, Jerry
Stahl, Matthew Stadler, Lauren Stauber, Laurie Stone, John Strausbaugh,
Patti Sullivan, Superdrag, Ann Sweeney, Michelle Tea, Thor, J. Tomon,
Peter Trachtenberg, Silke Tudor, Univ.  Dist.  Youth Center, Gus Van
Sant, Danielle Vauthy, Suzanne Vega, Traci Vogel, Ayelet Waldman, John
Waters, Joel Westendorf, David Wiegand, Eric Wilinski, Tobias Wolff, XY
Magazine, Army Ystenes, and all the folks in the Terminator 2 yahoo
group

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

JT LeRoy lives in California.  He writes for NY Press, Shout Magazine
and The Face.  He is the author of the novel Sarah.  His home page is
www.jtleroy.com.  His email is le_terminator@hotmail.com.  He still
enjoys playing whiffle ball.

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

The text of this book is set in Perpetua.  It was designed by Eric Gill
and was first used in a privately printed translation made by Walter
Shrewring of The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity.

The roman was named Perpetua and the italic, cut later, Felicity.  The
serifs are small, sharply cut and horizontal.  The stress and gradation
of colour are akin to old face.

fi&QDQBG pDM\feg FODOQ AB8A\flff

"[LeRoy Is] a hungry writer with the instincts of a person who fishes
to eat.  Once he hooks the reader he doesn't let go ... quick, lively,
and fascinating."  --Bookforum

"Jeremy LeRoy writes like Flannery O'Connor tied to the bed and plied
with angel dust.  Sarah is an exhilarating, hysterical and beautifully
written disturbing novel."

--Jerry Stahl, author of Pen: A Love Story and Permanent
Midnight

"It's disturbing to encounter a twenty-year-old who knows this much
about life's seamy side, but LeRoy depicts his damaged, deranged
characters with considerable tenderness."  --Kirkus Reviews