cooked it on the sidewalk as a child. He kept a gun in the glove box, and had lied so long about his age, he forgot how old he was. Cried when he found out he’d lost a year.
Once he drank forty ounces of beer and threatened to shoot my ex who’d worked with me at Dino’s Pizza. Once I couldn’t see him because I had laundry to do, so he washed my clothes. My brother found him at the kitchen sink, hand-washing my underwear in Ivory Liquid. He’d make dinner for me, vegetarian chili that tasted of can, set a place at the long table in his parents’ house; then, he’d sit at one end and watch me eat. When we drank, we pitched fits that stopped only with blood. The breaking of glass would sober him up. But sometimes I’d cut myself anyway, to show him how wrong he’d been, to make it worse. Even sober, it was a lot of riding around in the back of a truck at the beach, or lying flat on my back in his claustrophobic El Camino with poppers, like having sex in a double-wide coffin.
He waves me around to his front door. Lets me in, down the hall to his bedroom. “I’ve been raped,” I say. He sits on his bed.“You always did hang out with the wrong people,” he says. “And you never knew how to drink.” His tone suggests I’ve had a minor car accident. It doesn’t occur to me that he’s calm because he’s got me, he’s got me. He says, “I’m in community college. Taking music.” He holds a guitar in his hands now, strums it. Since I last saw him our son was born; our son died. “Can I use the bathroom?” “Use my mom’s,” he says. “It’s across the hall.” His parents’ bedroom is empty, dark even in the day. I’m afraid to take my clothes off in this house, shower. I run water. Splash my face. Brush my teeth with my finger, paste.
Back in his bedroom, he kisses me. “I need a ride home,” I say. He kisses me again. I can visualize a metal spoon, a utensil lying on a table, the way it’s used but stays contained. I pretend to be silverware. He tries to lift my shirt over my head, but the shirt’s fitted, and even torn, resists. He’s tugging at it when his dad knocks on the door, comes in, says, “You need to clean the pool.” His dad has a cockatoo on his shoulder.
Danny gives me a T-shirt and shorts. I change in the bathroom. We walk through the dark living room to the sliding glass, outside to the pool. His mother will invite me to stay for breakfast. Cheese omelets and bran muffins. I’ll know I just have to get through it, so I can be driven home. I’ll stare at the daisies on the kitchen curtain and remember a story Danny told me when we were dating. His friends had told him that they’d picked up a girl in a bar the night before. They’d taken her out in one of the boys’ four-wheel trucks and raped her. Then they drove her to the middle of Apopka and tossed her naked into the street. It was funny to these boys that, left vulnerable, she might come to more harm. As if she weren’t even human.
To clean the pool, Danny drags a vacuum slash broom along the walls, scraping them. The weight of the water makes him workin slow motion. His dogs run in circles around me. I’m trying not to tip over on the white concrete around the pool. It’s blinding me, and his dad is saying words I can’t understand. I’m nodding, but the bird on his shoulder is too bright, yellow flames coming out of his white head.
Regency
How to survive the violence itself as it’s happening, that isn’t what I mean. The drive to your skull, the way your bones use all their white hardness. Brain singing with neurons like a city at night. Not the siren of adrenaline shots, the frenzy of the body. It’s a gift if you live. You’re only so big. A man of a certain size, attacking, and it’s like being buried alive.
But I don’t mean that physical fight and mental scrabbling. Breathing again. The attacker(s) saying “I just want to be friends.” Walking home in someone else’s clothes. I don’t
Once he drank forty ounces of beer and threatened to shoot my ex who’d worked with me at Dino’s Pizza. Once I couldn’t see him because I had laundry to do, so he washed my clothes. My brother found him at the kitchen sink, hand-washing my underwear in Ivory Liquid. He’d make dinner for me, vegetarian chili that tasted of can, set a place at the long table in his parents’ house; then, he’d sit at one end and watch me eat. When we drank, we pitched fits that stopped only with blood. The breaking of glass would sober him up. But sometimes I’d cut myself anyway, to show him how wrong he’d been, to make it worse. Even sober, it was a lot of riding around in the back of a truck at the beach, or lying flat on my back in his claustrophobic El Camino with poppers, like having sex in a double-wide coffin.
He waves me around to his front door. Lets me in, down the hall to his bedroom. “I’ve been raped,” I say. He sits on his bed.“You always did hang out with the wrong people,” he says. “And you never knew how to drink.” His tone suggests I’ve had a minor car accident. It doesn’t occur to me that he’s calm because he’s got me, he’s got me. He says, “I’m in community college. Taking music.” He holds a guitar in his hands now, strums it. Since I last saw him our son was born; our son died. “Can I use the bathroom?” “Use my mom’s,” he says. “It’s across the hall.” His parents’ bedroom is empty, dark even in the day. I’m afraid to take my clothes off in this house, shower. I run water. Splash my face. Brush my teeth with my finger, paste.
Back in his bedroom, he kisses me. “I need a ride home,” I say. He kisses me again. I can visualize a metal spoon, a utensil lying on a table, the way it’s used but stays contained. I pretend to be silverware. He tries to lift my shirt over my head, but the shirt’s fitted, and even torn, resists. He’s tugging at it when his dad knocks on the door, comes in, says, “You need to clean the pool.” His dad has a cockatoo on his shoulder.
Danny gives me a T-shirt and shorts. I change in the bathroom. We walk through the dark living room to the sliding glass, outside to the pool. His mother will invite me to stay for breakfast. Cheese omelets and bran muffins. I’ll know I just have to get through it, so I can be driven home. I’ll stare at the daisies on the kitchen curtain and remember a story Danny told me when we were dating. His friends had told him that they’d picked up a girl in a bar the night before. They’d taken her out in one of the boys’ four-wheel trucks and raped her. Then they drove her to the middle of Apopka and tossed her naked into the street. It was funny to these boys that, left vulnerable, she might come to more harm. As if she weren’t even human.
To clean the pool, Danny drags a vacuum slash broom along the walls, scraping them. The weight of the water makes him workin slow motion. His dogs run in circles around me. I’m trying not to tip over on the white concrete around the pool. It’s blinding me, and his dad is saying words I can’t understand. I’m nodding, but the bird on his shoulder is too bright, yellow flames coming out of his white head.
Regency
How to survive the violence itself as it’s happening, that isn’t what I mean. The drive to your skull, the way your bones use all their white hardness. Brain singing with neurons like a city at night. Not the siren of adrenaline shots, the frenzy of the body. It’s a gift if you live. You’re only so big. A man of a certain size, attacking, and it’s like being buried alive.
But I don’t mean that physical fight and mental scrabbling. Breathing again. The attacker(s) saying “I just want to be friends.” Walking home in someone else’s clothes. I don’t
Similar Books
