around another person in a couple weeks, even if you’d been screwing them a long time.
There were plenty of things I had to learn about Del. We kept our dope and our drugs in one drawer in the kitchen, and one of the first things I noticed about him after we started living together was that he went to work high. I used to go to school stoned or doing speed, but having to wait tables made me clean up my act. It was just too hard to weave together all the pieces of waitressing if I was stoned. If I did speed, I was great for the first part of my shift, but by the end of the eight hours, I was crashing and ready to snap. And if I went in with a hangover, I wanted to die, becausethe job took so much from me physically, what with standing and walking and serving food and bussing tables and washing dishes. So I became a weekend partyer, or I’d get my buzz on right after I got home so that I could enjoy the dope and still straighten up in time for work.
Not Del. Del parried hardy seven days a week, and he made a special point of leaving time to get stoned when he was getting ready for work. He was working a brake press at Traut’s, and I knew that job was hard: working with the heavy sheet metal, all of it covered with oil, punching out circuit breaker boxes all day long. I knew he hated the work, and I knew that a lot of people on his crew parried, but I worried about him working around heavy machinery. One morning when he was tooking up, I said, “Honey, don’t you worry you’re going to fuck up at work if you’re stoned?”
Del said, “No,” and kept smoking. When I didn’t even get a goodbye kiss, I knew he was pissed, so I wasn’t really surprised when he didn’t turn up at home that night. I knew I was getting payback. I tried to tell myself it would all work out and just to go to bed and get some sleep, but I slept fitfully, trying to listen for his car. And I thought to myself, Vangie, you are not going to make it if you can’t sleep when he’s beside you and you can’t sleep when he’s gone.
He came rolling in that night around three. When he sat on the edge of the bed, I could smell the high stink of the barroom on him: alcohol, smoke, the sweat of working eight hours at Traut’s. It shocked me that the smell was that strong, though I didn’t know why it should. He probably smelled like that other nights when he was drinking, but I never noticed before because I was drinking, too.
I didn’t care what he smelled like. When he bent over to unlace his boots, I wrapped myself around the back of him.
“Hey,” I said.
“Wake up, Vangie, I want to tell you something.”
“I’m up,” I said.
“I’m nineteen and faster than most things on this earth. If some kind of trouble is coming, I’ll get out of the way.”
“What if you don’t see it coming?”
“I got out of more scrapes already than the average person.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s your business. But I worry about you.”
“Vangie, they set up the press so you have to put both hands on the controls just to run the thing. Don’t worry.”
He stripped off his clothes and got into bed beside me, and even though his mouth was like a cesspool, I kissed him and kissed him and pulled him to me. He managed to get between my legs, then he passed out. I rolled him over on his back.
That combination of sweat and smoke and alcohol as it got pushed out of the pores—the rank odor brought back more than a few memories. From the smell of Del, you’d have thought I was in bed with my old man. That thought was so strange I refused to think it, and as soon as it came, I pushed it from my mind. I did wonder if I stank that bad when I was drinking. I didn’t think so. In the old days, evenwhen my mom sat up with my dad, matching him drink for drink, she didn’t get the same smell he did. Maybe because her sweat was different, maybe she was cleaner when she started out drinking—I didn’t know. It just wasn’t a smell a woman
There were plenty of things I had to learn about Del. We kept our dope and our drugs in one drawer in the kitchen, and one of the first things I noticed about him after we started living together was that he went to work high. I used to go to school stoned or doing speed, but having to wait tables made me clean up my act. It was just too hard to weave together all the pieces of waitressing if I was stoned. If I did speed, I was great for the first part of my shift, but by the end of the eight hours, I was crashing and ready to snap. And if I went in with a hangover, I wanted to die, becausethe job took so much from me physically, what with standing and walking and serving food and bussing tables and washing dishes. So I became a weekend partyer, or I’d get my buzz on right after I got home so that I could enjoy the dope and still straighten up in time for work.
Not Del. Del parried hardy seven days a week, and he made a special point of leaving time to get stoned when he was getting ready for work. He was working a brake press at Traut’s, and I knew that job was hard: working with the heavy sheet metal, all of it covered with oil, punching out circuit breaker boxes all day long. I knew he hated the work, and I knew that a lot of people on his crew parried, but I worried about him working around heavy machinery. One morning when he was tooking up, I said, “Honey, don’t you worry you’re going to fuck up at work if you’re stoned?”
Del said, “No,” and kept smoking. When I didn’t even get a goodbye kiss, I knew he was pissed, so I wasn’t really surprised when he didn’t turn up at home that night. I knew I was getting payback. I tried to tell myself it would all work out and just to go to bed and get some sleep, but I slept fitfully, trying to listen for his car. And I thought to myself, Vangie, you are not going to make it if you can’t sleep when he’s beside you and you can’t sleep when he’s gone.
He came rolling in that night around three. When he sat on the edge of the bed, I could smell the high stink of the barroom on him: alcohol, smoke, the sweat of working eight hours at Traut’s. It shocked me that the smell was that strong, though I didn’t know why it should. He probably smelled like that other nights when he was drinking, but I never noticed before because I was drinking, too.
I didn’t care what he smelled like. When he bent over to unlace his boots, I wrapped myself around the back of him.
“Hey,” I said.
“Wake up, Vangie, I want to tell you something.”
“I’m up,” I said.
“I’m nineteen and faster than most things on this earth. If some kind of trouble is coming, I’ll get out of the way.”
“What if you don’t see it coming?”
“I got out of more scrapes already than the average person.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s your business. But I worry about you.”
“Vangie, they set up the press so you have to put both hands on the controls just to run the thing. Don’t worry.”
He stripped off his clothes and got into bed beside me, and even though his mouth was like a cesspool, I kissed him and kissed him and pulled him to me. He managed to get between my legs, then he passed out. I rolled him over on his back.
That combination of sweat and smoke and alcohol as it got pushed out of the pores—the rank odor brought back more than a few memories. From the smell of Del, you’d have thought I was in bed with my old man. That thought was so strange I refused to think it, and as soon as it came, I pushed it from my mind. I did wonder if I stank that bad when I was drinking. I didn’t think so. In the old days, evenwhen my mom sat up with my dad, matching him drink for drink, she didn’t get the same smell he did. Maybe because her sweat was different, maybe she was cleaner when she started out drinking—I didn’t know. It just wasn’t a smell a woman
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