the talk.
She shakes my wrists. “What is the rule?”
I want to cry from the stupid words I have to say and the pull of the stupid rubber bands on my hair and how stupid she is for not knowing how to make a stupid ponytail without stinking up Christmas with cusswords and cigarette smoke, but instead I say it, I make myself say it, “Never let anyone touch me where my bathing suit goes.”
One of my arms is released as Mama reaches for her cigarette. “I’ll kill anyone,” she says, through her fingers as she brings it to her mouth, “who tries,” and I believe her, because of the way her eyes squint as she takes a drag, take the measure of a thing I have never been able to see but that she can never seem to get away from. That dark thing that loves bare legs and bathing suits and makes us say these words to each other to fight it off. The words don’t work, they haven’t worked yet, but Mama seems to think they do, seems to think they will, so I keep saying them even though they make my skin prickle up, I say them, and I feel air coming at me as if I didn’t have a dress on at all, as if I was actually standing there in my bathing suit, skin cold from the water dripping off of it.
It’s all triangles, top and bottom. Two triangles meet on my chest and make me nervous. They slip easy and I don’t notice sometimes because I’m underwater and underwater I can move fast or slow and I can have the longest legs but no one can see me and say, “Look at those long legs,” or talk about when I get older and how far up my legs will go. Underwater they are just my legs and my bathing suit can go all around and in and out and it doesn’t matter. The Hardware Man doesn’t matter. When he comes to the lake I
run to the water and take cover and even as he’s backing his boat up onto the sand I float on the waves he makes and even when he’s parking his truck and taking Carol out for their first run I lie back, safe, in the warm trail left by his exhaust. Mama watches from the shore and I know that she is busy with sandy cans of Coors and trying not to worry about the water, trying to remember that she wants me to do things she never could. As the gas and oil mix with the water of the lake I feel her worries brush across me, leave a trail of chicken skin.
Mama never learned how to swim. She can’t hear out of one ear and gets turned around underwater. She’ll kick all the way to the bottom, thinking she’s on top. She won’t even sit in an inner tube, even if I tie it to a tree and the water only comes up to my tummy, even if I hold her cigarettes and beer so she can get in. And she won’t set foot on a boat, anyone’s boat. I’m allowed though because she says one difference between her and me will be, when my time comes, I won’t have any fucking idea how to drown.
Grandpa had a gun and it ruined Mama’s hearing. He was an angry man and he liked to celebrate it. He liked best to have Mama and her sisters dress up, line them all up, and make them stand close while he’d fire his shotgun off, the blast cracking through the air above their heads as sure and painful as if he’d emptied the barrel right into their bones. She still has dreams about it, gingham and butterfly-collar nightmares that scream through the house. She dreams about it sometimes when she’s awake too. She talks to the thing I can’t see, mistakes the Christmas tree for it, or the coat rack, and tears it down. I can’t get in there with her where she’s fighting, kicking out at whatever’s pulling her away. I wait for her to come up for air, I put her to bed, put the Christmas tree back up, pick up the coats, double-lock all the doors, and tuck myself in.
wings
“ W hat’s your house like?” I ask Viv, and push my arms and legs to make deeper marks in the field where we are lying together and making dirt angels.
Viv already said she’s not allowed any company and told me, “You wouldn’t like it, Rory Dawn,
She shakes my wrists. “What is the rule?”
I want to cry from the stupid words I have to say and the pull of the stupid rubber bands on my hair and how stupid she is for not knowing how to make a stupid ponytail without stinking up Christmas with cusswords and cigarette smoke, but instead I say it, I make myself say it, “Never let anyone touch me where my bathing suit goes.”
One of my arms is released as Mama reaches for her cigarette. “I’ll kill anyone,” she says, through her fingers as she brings it to her mouth, “who tries,” and I believe her, because of the way her eyes squint as she takes a drag, take the measure of a thing I have never been able to see but that she can never seem to get away from. That dark thing that loves bare legs and bathing suits and makes us say these words to each other to fight it off. The words don’t work, they haven’t worked yet, but Mama seems to think they do, seems to think they will, so I keep saying them even though they make my skin prickle up, I say them, and I feel air coming at me as if I didn’t have a dress on at all, as if I was actually standing there in my bathing suit, skin cold from the water dripping off of it.
It’s all triangles, top and bottom. Two triangles meet on my chest and make me nervous. They slip easy and I don’t notice sometimes because I’m underwater and underwater I can move fast or slow and I can have the longest legs but no one can see me and say, “Look at those long legs,” or talk about when I get older and how far up my legs will go. Underwater they are just my legs and my bathing suit can go all around and in and out and it doesn’t matter. The Hardware Man doesn’t matter. When he comes to the lake I
run to the water and take cover and even as he’s backing his boat up onto the sand I float on the waves he makes and even when he’s parking his truck and taking Carol out for their first run I lie back, safe, in the warm trail left by his exhaust. Mama watches from the shore and I know that she is busy with sandy cans of Coors and trying not to worry about the water, trying to remember that she wants me to do things she never could. As the gas and oil mix with the water of the lake I feel her worries brush across me, leave a trail of chicken skin.
Mama never learned how to swim. She can’t hear out of one ear and gets turned around underwater. She’ll kick all the way to the bottom, thinking she’s on top. She won’t even sit in an inner tube, even if I tie it to a tree and the water only comes up to my tummy, even if I hold her cigarettes and beer so she can get in. And she won’t set foot on a boat, anyone’s boat. I’m allowed though because she says one difference between her and me will be, when my time comes, I won’t have any fucking idea how to drown.
Grandpa had a gun and it ruined Mama’s hearing. He was an angry man and he liked to celebrate it. He liked best to have Mama and her sisters dress up, line them all up, and make them stand close while he’d fire his shotgun off, the blast cracking through the air above their heads as sure and painful as if he’d emptied the barrel right into their bones. She still has dreams about it, gingham and butterfly-collar nightmares that scream through the house. She dreams about it sometimes when she’s awake too. She talks to the thing I can’t see, mistakes the Christmas tree for it, or the coat rack, and tears it down. I can’t get in there with her where she’s fighting, kicking out at whatever’s pulling her away. I wait for her to come up for air, I put her to bed, put the Christmas tree back up, pick up the coats, double-lock all the doors, and tuck myself in.
wings
“ W hat’s your house like?” I ask Viv, and push my arms and legs to make deeper marks in the field where we are lying together and making dirt angels.
Viv already said she’s not allowed any company and told me, “You wouldn’t like it, Rory Dawn,
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