like that and take up crying. Mama would bend over me whispering, willow, willow wand, willow weep, willow song. She hummed like the night hummed. Mama stroked my head and cheek. Sleep, sleep. Wander the river and the river’s long creep.
And the cool, she’d say, drawing it out long and low. And the cool, cool stream. The lily leaves floating.
I choose a blond wig. The hair falls shoulder length with a little bounce. The layered bangs tend to the side.
“That’s some lip you got there, girlfriend,” the store clerk says to me.
“He didn’t like my hair.”
I stick on my new hair and drive back to the address the gun guy gave me. It’s a little copy and print shop run by some people of unknown Asian origin who look a lot like the man in the gun store. In the back room they have a camera. Half the money down and the other half when the IDs are ready.
“Two weeks, honey,” she says to me.
“Two weeks? You’re killing me.”
“You want birth certificate? Two weeks.”
As I’m breaking the speed limit right and left on my way back to Connecticut, I feel myself overhyped and bristling with weapons. I slide in a CD by Arvo Pärt.
Miserere
.
Miserere mei, I sing. Dies irae dies illie.
I learned music at Ben’s. When we were working out with the weights and the machines, we’d turn up the volume and blast out everything from Metallica to Mozart. If any of us got out to do some shopping, the record store was always the first place on the agenda.
Kat was the one that turned me on to Arvo and Janice Joplin. A good mix, I think. About that time, Kat also handed me a copy of
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf. I learned revery. I learned sublime. From Virginia I learned of the brightness and the dark wedge. And after I read about the fin in the water, I was prepared for what followed.
Kat got so sick one day that Ben took her away. She never came back. Toni got AIDS. Then Violet came. Ben wouldn’t let Violet be, and his moods got bad. He kept the whips close at hand. His plays got more dangerous. The longer it went on, the more I clung to Violet, who, when all is said and done, was the stronger of us two.
I was willful and Ben whipped me regular for it, but Violet was smarter than me about these things. And she was determined to get out.
Oh, I loved her, I remember now (another chit) waking after a night of cuffs and whips to the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin along my side. We became lovers. I waited for the moment when her eyes moved to me slow, like the way the river flowed, lazy in the heat, but forceful beneath. She hated Ben for whipping me. She hated the way he used me for his darkest shows.
He’s in love with you, she’d say.
No, Violet. He rides me too hard.
She’d narrow her eyes.
You’re not paying attention. I see his eyes when you walk by.
That’s just Ben being Ben, I convinced myself.
We got to break out of here. Got to, Violet said.
I remember her voice. It had the ache of a sigh.
Just like I could learn the punches, she learned Ben’s mind, his moods. She’d egg him into putting her in the box, just to see if she could. Just as he handed her pieces of food, she’d let go a look, a touch. She used me, parading my love of her in front of him daily, pushing him, sinking in barbs.
Those two were poison.
And watching Ben as I always did, as we all did for self-protection, I wondered how much he just played along with her, letting her dig herself in deeper.
Ben darkened. He growled. The plays got rough. I’d have to sit out some nights because my bruises were too bad. Clients didn’t like the merchandise damaged before they got to it.
Another chit now. The night Ben went crazy like he had some form of the berserks.
We’d just finished a long play. I was still bound. Violet was starting to undo my straps, and Jason was cleaning the floor.
Matt was bent over a table, strapped down. Ben let loose his arms, but not his feet and neck. He held Matt’s wrists
And the cool, she’d say, drawing it out long and low. And the cool, cool stream. The lily leaves floating.
I choose a blond wig. The hair falls shoulder length with a little bounce. The layered bangs tend to the side.
“That’s some lip you got there, girlfriend,” the store clerk says to me.
“He didn’t like my hair.”
I stick on my new hair and drive back to the address the gun guy gave me. It’s a little copy and print shop run by some people of unknown Asian origin who look a lot like the man in the gun store. In the back room they have a camera. Half the money down and the other half when the IDs are ready.
“Two weeks, honey,” she says to me.
“Two weeks? You’re killing me.”
“You want birth certificate? Two weeks.”
As I’m breaking the speed limit right and left on my way back to Connecticut, I feel myself overhyped and bristling with weapons. I slide in a CD by Arvo Pärt.
Miserere
.
Miserere mei, I sing. Dies irae dies illie.
I learned music at Ben’s. When we were working out with the weights and the machines, we’d turn up the volume and blast out everything from Metallica to Mozart. If any of us got out to do some shopping, the record store was always the first place on the agenda.
Kat was the one that turned me on to Arvo and Janice Joplin. A good mix, I think. About that time, Kat also handed me a copy of
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf. I learned revery. I learned sublime. From Virginia I learned of the brightness and the dark wedge. And after I read about the fin in the water, I was prepared for what followed.
Kat got so sick one day that Ben took her away. She never came back. Toni got AIDS. Then Violet came. Ben wouldn’t let Violet be, and his moods got bad. He kept the whips close at hand. His plays got more dangerous. The longer it went on, the more I clung to Violet, who, when all is said and done, was the stronger of us two.
I was willful and Ben whipped me regular for it, but Violet was smarter than me about these things. And she was determined to get out.
Oh, I loved her, I remember now (another chit) waking after a night of cuffs and whips to the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin along my side. We became lovers. I waited for the moment when her eyes moved to me slow, like the way the river flowed, lazy in the heat, but forceful beneath. She hated Ben for whipping me. She hated the way he used me for his darkest shows.
He’s in love with you, she’d say.
No, Violet. He rides me too hard.
She’d narrow her eyes.
You’re not paying attention. I see his eyes when you walk by.
That’s just Ben being Ben, I convinced myself.
We got to break out of here. Got to, Violet said.
I remember her voice. It had the ache of a sigh.
Just like I could learn the punches, she learned Ben’s mind, his moods. She’d egg him into putting her in the box, just to see if she could. Just as he handed her pieces of food, she’d let go a look, a touch. She used me, parading my love of her in front of him daily, pushing him, sinking in barbs.
Those two were poison.
And watching Ben as I always did, as we all did for self-protection, I wondered how much he just played along with her, letting her dig herself in deeper.
Ben darkened. He growled. The plays got rough. I’d have to sit out some nights because my bruises were too bad. Clients didn’t like the merchandise damaged before they got to it.
Another chit now. The night Ben went crazy like he had some form of the berserks.
We’d just finished a long play. I was still bound. Violet was starting to undo my straps, and Jason was cleaning the floor.
Matt was bent over a table, strapped down. Ben let loose his arms, but not his feet and neck. He held Matt’s wrists
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