my morning cunt. We didn’t speak those mornings, and sometimes we hardly looked at the other’s face. I’d glimpse a brown eye when he lowered his body to mine, and because I saw it through the tangle of his hair, I sometimes felt like I was with a brown-eyed animal. I liked the feeling, because it meant I could be like an animal, too. Grunting when it felt good between my legs, running my hands over skin, pulling on the black hair that fell over the brown eye to bring the mouth down to mine.
More than just Mennonites lived in the area of Mahanaqua called Mennonite Town, but certainly Del and I were the last people you’d expect to fit in. We were as foreign as tropical birds out there, what with our drinking and drugs, Del’s long hair, and the waitress uniforms I wore that just barely covered my ass. Still, that farmhouse gave us a kind of freedom we couldn’t have had in an apartment in town, and I liked the place. I liked the old blue asphalt tile that covered the outside, and I liked the two old metal chairs with backs like seashells that sat on our porch. I was content.
While I liked all the sex and partying Del and I got to do once we moved in together, I also appreciated the everydayness of living with Del: being able to walk around the house in my nightgown—a comfortable cotton one, not the sexy one my mom gave me—and having someone to talk toevery night before I fell asleep. Sometimes I remembered old things that happened with my mom and dad, and it often made me fretful and sick, and I was glad Del was there. Some things about my mom and dad were half funny to remember, like how we mostly ate off paper plates after they’d broken a couple sets of dishes in their fights, but most of the memories just made me sad. I wondered how the two of them got to the point where they screamed and threw things at each other. How did that much anger happen in a person? I blamed some of it on my dad’s drinking, but my mom did not drink often, and she sometimes met my dad blow for blow in those fights. She was the one who split his scalp open when she threw a candy dish at him. My dad mostly used words to hurt.
“Can’t you just forget about it?” Del asked me the first time I made myself sick with remembering. “You know, just push it to the back of your mind?”
“I don’t set out to think about the two of them,” I said. “Sometimes it just happens. You don’t have to be around me if you don’t want to.” ‘
“I want to be around you,” he said. “I just think you should put it out of your mind. That’s what I do.”
But he didn’t bug me about it, and sometimes when he could tell I was feeling sad, he sat with me and brushed my hair, or played cards with me until the feelings passed. Other times, if it was what I wanted, he let me be—because of course it wasn’t just old memories of my mom and dad that made me fret. Sometimes I thought of what I’d done with Frank Pardee, and it goes without saying that I did not tellDel what was on my mind then. It was my secret and I had to carry it alone.
Still, no matter how hard Del and I tried to understand each other in those first weeks of living together, it was a strange time, because everything real about life—stupid, little, everyday details of life—seemed to disappear or get complicated. We ate hamburgers, spaghetti, or bacon and eggs almost every night, because that was all I really knew how to cook. I had trouble shitting if I knew Del was in the house. And night after night, after all our screwing, I could not relax enough to let myself sleep and dream beside Del. I’d lie wakeful until three or four in the morning, when I finally would let myself drift off. Some days, depending on the shifts we were working, I stayed in bed long after Del left for work so I could catch up on the sleep I missed beside him. I told myself it was natural. I knew you could not learn everything about living with someone in a month, or get comfortable
More than just Mennonites lived in the area of Mahanaqua called Mennonite Town, but certainly Del and I were the last people you’d expect to fit in. We were as foreign as tropical birds out there, what with our drinking and drugs, Del’s long hair, and the waitress uniforms I wore that just barely covered my ass. Still, that farmhouse gave us a kind of freedom we couldn’t have had in an apartment in town, and I liked the place. I liked the old blue asphalt tile that covered the outside, and I liked the two old metal chairs with backs like seashells that sat on our porch. I was content.
While I liked all the sex and partying Del and I got to do once we moved in together, I also appreciated the everydayness of living with Del: being able to walk around the house in my nightgown—a comfortable cotton one, not the sexy one my mom gave me—and having someone to talk toevery night before I fell asleep. Sometimes I remembered old things that happened with my mom and dad, and it often made me fretful and sick, and I was glad Del was there. Some things about my mom and dad were half funny to remember, like how we mostly ate off paper plates after they’d broken a couple sets of dishes in their fights, but most of the memories just made me sad. I wondered how the two of them got to the point where they screamed and threw things at each other. How did that much anger happen in a person? I blamed some of it on my dad’s drinking, but my mom did not drink often, and she sometimes met my dad blow for blow in those fights. She was the one who split his scalp open when she threw a candy dish at him. My dad mostly used words to hurt.
“Can’t you just forget about it?” Del asked me the first time I made myself sick with remembering. “You know, just push it to the back of your mind?”
“I don’t set out to think about the two of them,” I said. “Sometimes it just happens. You don’t have to be around me if you don’t want to.” ‘
“I want to be around you,” he said. “I just think you should put it out of your mind. That’s what I do.”
But he didn’t bug me about it, and sometimes when he could tell I was feeling sad, he sat with me and brushed my hair, or played cards with me until the feelings passed. Other times, if it was what I wanted, he let me be—because of course it wasn’t just old memories of my mom and dad that made me fret. Sometimes I thought of what I’d done with Frank Pardee, and it goes without saying that I did not tellDel what was on my mind then. It was my secret and I had to carry it alone.
Still, no matter how hard Del and I tried to understand each other in those first weeks of living together, it was a strange time, because everything real about life—stupid, little, everyday details of life—seemed to disappear or get complicated. We ate hamburgers, spaghetti, or bacon and eggs almost every night, because that was all I really knew how to cook. I had trouble shitting if I knew Del was in the house. And night after night, after all our screwing, I could not relax enough to let myself sleep and dream beside Del. I’d lie wakeful until three or four in the morning, when I finally would let myself drift off. Some days, depending on the shifts we were working, I stayed in bed long after Del left for work so I could catch up on the sleep I missed beside him. I told myself it was natural. I knew you could not learn everything about living with someone in a month, or get comfortable
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