Drown by Junot Díaz

and say, No more. I’ve had enough. She smiles at me and jogs around the corner, the ends of her hair falling up and down on her neck. I make myself a shadow against the bushes and listen for the Dodges and the Chevys that stop in the next parking lot, for the walkers that come rolling up with their hands in their pockets. I hear everything. A bike chain rattling. TVs snapping on in nearby apartments, squeezing ten voices into a room. After an hour the traffic on Route 9 has slowed and you can hear the cars roaring on from as far up as the Ernston light. Everybody knows about this house; people come from all over.
    I’m sweating. I walk down to the utility road and come back. Come on, I say. An old fuck in a green sweat suit comes out of the Hacienda, his hair combed up into a salt-and-pepper torch. An abuelo type, the sort who yells at you for spitting on his sidewalk. He has this smile on his face—big, wide, shit-eating. I know all about the nonsense that goes on in these houses, the ass that gets sold, the beasting.
    Hey, I say and when he sees me, short, dark, unhappy, he breaks. He throws himself against his car door. Come here, I say. I walk over to him slow, my hand out in front of me like I’m armed. I just want to ask you something. He slides down to the ground, his arms out, fingers spread, hands like starfishes. I step on his ankle but he doesn’t yell. He has his eyes closed, his nostrils wide. I grind down hard but he doesn’t make a sound.
     
    WHILE YOU WERE GONE
     
    She sent me three letters from juvie and none of them said much, three pages of bullshit. She talked about the food and how rough the sheets were, how she woke up ashy in the morning, like it was winter. Three months and I still haven’t had my period. The doctor here tells me it’s my nerves. Yeah, right. I’d tell you about the other girls (there’s a lot to tell) but they rip those letters up. I hope you doing good. Don’t think bad about me. And don’t let anybody sell my dogs either.
    Her tía Fresa held on to the first letters for a couple of weeks before turning them over to me, unopened. Just tell me if she’s OK or not, Fresa said. That’s about as much as I want to know.
    She sounds OK to me.
    Good. Don’t tell me anything else.
    You should at least write her.
    She put her hands on my shoulders and leaned down to my ear. You write her.
    I wrote but I can’t remember what I said to her, except that the cops had come after her neighbor for stealing somebody’s car and that the gulls were shitting on everything. After the second letter I didn’t write anymore and it didn’t feel wrong or bad. I had a lot to keep me busy.
    She came home in September and by then we had the Pathfinder in the parking lot and a new Zenith in the living room. Stay away from her, Cut said. Luck like that don’t get better.
    No sweat, I said. You know I got the iron will.
    People like her got addictive personalities. You don’t want to be catching that.
    We stayed apart a whole weekend but on Monday I was coming home from Pathmark with a gallon of milk when I heard, Hey macho. I turned around and there she was, out with her dogs. She was wearing a black sweater, black stirrup pants and old black sneakers. I thought she’d come out messed up but she was just thinner and couldn’t keep still, her hands and face restless, like kids you have to watch.
    How are you? I kept asking and she said, Just put your hands on me. We started to walk and the more we talked the faster we went.
    Do this, she said. I want to feel your fingers.
    She had mouth-sized bruises on her neck. Don’t worry about them. They ain’t contagious.
    I can feel your bones.
    She laughed. I can feel them too.
    If I had half a brain I would have done what Cut told me to do. Dump her sorry ass. When I told him we were in love he laughed. I’m the King of Bullshit, he said, and you just hit me with some, my friend.
    We found an empty apartment out near the highway, left the dogs