Damaged Goods

Chapter 9--Part 1

2005-02-07T09:51:00.000-06:00

Chapter 9
You know, it’s not bad enough that it’s so ungodly hot this spring. It’s not bad enough that I gotta come home and clean this shit hole of a trailer that wouldn’t look clean no matter what I did to it—that probably hasn’t looked clean since the friggin’ Clinton administration—when that’s what I do all day at work. It’s not bad enough that now besides all the regular cleaning, I’ve got cat shit and cat hair and cat litter to clean up, too. What is bad enough is that that baby-fine kitten hair clings to my sweaty skin and makes me feel like I’ve got hundreds of friggin’ bugs squirming around on my neck and shoulders.

“Well, it’s your own fault,” Sandee told me, after I’d been scratching the back of my neck so hard I almost drew blood. “You’re the one who insists on carrying that kitten around and rubbing your face in her belly. You’re the one who wears her around your neck like a shawl. No wonder you’ve got cat hair on you.”

There was only one answer to that: “Shut up, Sandee.”

But I had to smile when I said it. She was right. I couldn’t deny it. But that little white furry belly was just so inviting. “Anyways, you’re the one who practically blackmailed me into taking the damn cat. Showing her to me in front of Tris. What chance did I have against you two schemers?”

Sandee smiled a self-satisfied smile and took a long sip of iced tea. When she tilted the glass back to get the last few drops, I could see little pasty lines of talcum powder gathered in the creases of her armpit. I looked away, took a long drag on my cigarette, and tried not to think about all the other folds and rolls filled with their own little lines of talcum paste. Sometimes my imagination is even too much for me.

I looked away and spotted Angel all curled up in a little patch on sunlight on Tris’ nightgown that she’d left on the floor. That kitten looked so stinking cute I could hardly stand it. “There’s my little sweetheart now. There’s my little princess. Isn’t she just the sweetest little girl?” I said.

Sandee smiled hugely and turned in her chair. She looked puzzled for a moment, then disappointed. “Oh. The cat. . . . I thought you were talking about Tris.”

“Yeah, right,” I laughed.

Just then the screen door to the trailer burst open so hard I thought it would rip right off its hinges. Speak of the devil. Tris blew in like a dust storm, filthy from head to foot. Her face was dirty, only rings around her eyes anywheres near clean; she looked like a raccoon in reverse.

“Ma, . . .can I . . . ? Hi, Sandee!” She threw herself at Sandee and wrapped her skinny little arms around her. I could just imagine her stepping away and leaving an exact dirt print of herself on Sandee’s big body.

“Get off her, Filthy! Don’t you have any brains?”

“She’s okay, Nadine,” Sandee said. “I don’t worry about a little dirt. Gimme some more of that sugar, Honey.”

Tris, who had started to back away, plastered herself back on Sandee. Whatever. You know what I mean? If Sandee wants to get all dirty, then . . .whatever. I flicked my cigarette ash in the general direction of the ashtray, but it fell short. Good. That always drove Sandee crazy. She’d look at the ash and then look at me and look at the ash and then at me, waiting for me to clean it up, wanting to do it herself, but not wanting to insult me by doing it.

I waited for the two long lost lovers to finish their scene, then I asked, “Whaddya want, Short Stuff?”

“Huh? Oh! Can I go over to Becca and Joey’s? We’re gonna dig for treasure in their yard.”

“Hell, no. You might get yourself dirty,” I said, dryly.

Tris’ face dropped. “But I weared my old clothes.”

“Aww, don’t tease her like that,” Sandee put in. “She can’t tell you’re only kidding her.”

“Can I?” Tris asked hopefully, encouraged by Sandee’s comment.

“Yeah, go ahead. You’re gonna have to take a bath later anyways. . . .And a little peace and quiet now is worth a load of wash later, I always say.”

“Thanks, Ma!”

She started to give me a dirt hug, but I held her at arms’ length. “Just be back in a half an hour,” I said.

“Call me when you want me,” she said, racing out the door and letting it slam behind her.

“When I want her? I hope she doesn’t hold her breath while she’s waiting.”

Sandee shot me a dirty look and then noticed the cigarette ash sitting on the table. I could see her fingers itching to clean it up.
I fanned myself with one of those cardboard ad pages they always stick between the pages of the TV Guide—who was the genius who thought up that piece of crap advertising?! That is the most annoying thing I’ve ever seen. You can’t leave ‘em in or you can’t turn the damn pages! But when you try to tear them out, you wind up tearing one of the pages next to it. Does anybody really read them or does everyone just tear them out the way I do and then let them sit around, so I don’t have to dig in the matchbox they call a broom closet in this dump to find my dustpan after I sweep up a pile of dirt?

As I fanned myself, I made sure to move the air around the table, so that the cigarette ash rolled around, leaving tiny trails of gray behind it. Sandee looked at it in disgust, as though it was a hunk of diseased lung rolling around down there. Well, screw her. I could see she wanted to say something about it but was trying to think of a way of criticizing me without it sounding like criticism. She thought she was so slick, but I could read her like a book.

Well, I thought I could read her, but when she finally opened her yap, it wasn’t about the ashes at all. She sighed, folded her hands, unfolded them, pursed her mouth, then finally got it out, “Why don’t you ever talk nice to her?”

That one caught me off guard. “What?” I asked. “Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about—Tris. Why can’t you ever say anything nice to or about that child?”

“Whaddya mean? I say nice stuff to her.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t talk nice to her and you don’t talk nice about her.”

“What am I supposed to say to her? I talk to her nice when she deserves it. Do you see the way she acts?”

“Yeah, I see the way she acts, and she acts just fine. She’s a normal kid, and you talk to her like she’s . . .like she’s some sort of criminal or something.”

“What? Just because I didn’t want her getting me all dirty just now? Just because you don’t mind dirt all over your muumuu, don’t . . . .”
“No, I’m not just talking about just now. That’s one example, but it’s all the time. You never talk nice to her. You talk nicer to that stupid cat. You just used a sweet, ‘baby’ voice talking to Angel that you never use when you’re talking to Tris.”

“Yeah? Well, the ‘stupid cat’ as you call her, doesn’t annoy the shit out of me on a regular basis.” I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray as though I was really stabbing it in someone’s big mouth.

“See? That’s what I mean. Talking about your child ‘annoying’ you. I know sometimes you’re just trying to be funny, but you’re always saying stuff like that, and you call her names all the time.”

“Names? You mean like ‘Half-pint’ or ‘Short-stuff’? She knows I’m just. . . .”
“No, not like that. Those are cute names. I’m talking about calling her ‘Filthy’ and ‘Stinky’, ‘Whiny-voice’ and ‘Pouty-face.’ And how about ‘Greedy’ and ‘Lazy’. I’ve heard you use all of those. Even “Crazy!’ What’s the child supposed to think of herself if her mother calls her that stuff. I thought you were changing a couple of weeks ago—you know, when you brought her into the store and you were so nice with her—letting her clean the conveyor belt and all—but now you’re right back to your old ways.”

“Ah, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I talk nice to her whenever she deserves it. I talk nice to her plenty. You know, you’re not around here 24-7, so how would you know. . . ?” I was getting plenty steamed. I jumped up from the table and shoved my chair in so hard it bounced back and hit me right on the point of my hip. “Ouch! Gawdamn it!!”

“Look, I’m sorry, Nadine. I’m not trying to interfere. I don’t know what goes on here when you two are by yourselves. But I’m just saying, I never hear you talk nice to her.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” I rubbed my hip with the heel of my hand; it hurt like a bastard.

“I mean, I know you love her, but I can’t help wondering if . . . if Tris knows. I mean, I never hear you say it to her.”

“I tell her plenty! Plenty! Maybe you don’t hear it, but I do!”

“But, you know, saying, ‘Yeah, me too,’ when she says, ‘I love you, Ma,’ isn’t the same, Nadine. You’ve got to actually say the words I love you.”

I was boiling. I jammed my fists in my pockets just to make sure I didn’t plant one right in the middle of her fat stomach. I could picture it sinking in like that finger in the Pillsbury Doughboy’s belly. “Look, just drop it, Sandee! Since when are you the Luv Police?! Tris knows I love her because I’m her mother. I cook her meals and wash her clothes and . . . .”

Sandee looked down at the table and said so soft I wasn’t sure I actually heard her at first: “Did you think your mother loved you, just because she was your mother?”

“What?! What did you say? Are you comparing me to my mother? Are you comparing me to the Dragon Lady?! My mother was a nut case! I didn’t think she loved me despite her being my mother because she was a fucking loony bird! When she wasn’t locking me the closet, she was slapping the shit out of me—making me stand there ‘like a statue’ while she slapped my face—forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand—until I thought my fucking cheeks would fucking EXPLODE!!”

“Nadine, calm down! I just . . . .”

“And when she wasn’t slapping me, she was making me kneel on fucking gravel with my fucking hands on top of my fucking head or holding that fucking big Bible up over my head!!! And you’re comparing me to her?! I have never laid a hand on Tris in anger—and don’t think I’m not tempted sometimes—but I HAVE NEVER EVEN LAID A FINGER ON HER IN ANGER! EVER!!”

I was breathing so hard my blood was pounding in my ears. I swear I actually saw red. That pounding was all I heard for a few seconds until Sandee said real soft-like, “Yeah, maybe, but when was the last time you laid a hand on her in love?”

I was so furious, I didn’t even realize at first that I had come around the table and had the front of Sandee’s muumuu balled up in my fist. My nose was about an inch from hers. I could see fear in those watery blue eyes of hers, yeah, but I could see defiance, too. She wasn’t backing down from me on this one. I could also see something that made me want to headbutt her right then and there and keep doing it until one of us was bloody and unconscious. I swear I saw that she felt sorry for me—for that she felt sorry for me—for me! I saw all that in the split second before I forced myself to step back away from her. I crammed my balled-up fists into my armpits, afraid I’d use them.

When I finally thought I could speak without screaming, I said, “Get out, Sandee.”

“Nadine, . . . .”

“I mean it. GET. OUT. I’ve got to be by myself for a while.”

“Nadine, you’re supposed to work today. I’m here to watch Tris.”

I grabbed my hair in both hands and pulled until it hurt to keep them from doing something else. “Then you stay. I’m leaving.”

“No, don’t go. You’re too upset. I don’t want you driving . . . .”

“God dammit, Sandee. I told you before you’re not my mother. Don’t tell me what to do! I said I’m leaving.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

I paused long enough to grab my cigarettes and lighter from the table. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m fucking Yankee Doodle dandy.”

“When . . .?”

But I didn’t even answer. The way I was feeling at that moment, I didn’t care if I never stepped foot in that trailer again. Maybe I’d get in my car and just keep going. Who the hell would care? Not Sandee, apparently. Not Tris, obviously. If I was that rotten a mother, why the hell would she miss me? Maybe I’d just take off and let the two of them live happily ever after.

I peeled out of the trailer park, almost taking out an old fart pushing a dog in a rusty shopping cart. Where the hell do these freakazoids come from anyways?! I pulled out onto Route 6 and headed toward the school.

I was fuming. If somebody’d drawn a cartoon of me right then, it woulda had smoked pouring out of the ears. “Are you going to be okay?” she asks. Why the hell wouldn’t I be okay? I was fine. I was more than fine. I was just dandy. Why the hell should Sandee worry about me? She sure as hell didn’t worry about it when she was saying all that shit about what a rotten mother I was. What the hell did she know about it anyway? I didn’t see her saddled with some little snot nose that didn’t care about anybody but herself. Imagine! Making it sound like I was as bad as that crazy woman who gave birth to me.

I glanced at the clock on the bank sign on the side of the road and realized it was too stinking early for me to go to the school. I wasn’t gonna hang around there and listen to some stupid bun-head for an extra hour before my shift began.

Two loud “blatts” of an air horn brought me to attention. A honking big semi was turning right in front of me. He had the turn light; I was still on red. I was almost on top of it, and, I swear, I hadn’t even seen it. I slammed on my brakes and somehow managed to stop just a foot or so short of that truck. Thank God there hadn’t been a car in front of me. My heart was pounding in my chest like a damn jackhammer.

The driver’s voice pelted down from above me. I couldn’t see him up in his cab, but I could sure hear him. “Don’t you know what a red light means, you stupid bitch?!”

I was partway into the intersection. I was hoping to hell that no cop had spotted my cool move. My hands were shaking so bad I could hardly work the gear shift, but I put it in reverse, then back into forward, looked to make sure the oncoming was still stopped and gunned it into a sharp left turn. The turn light was still yellow—well, maybe just a little orange—when I got through.

Suddenly, I realized that I was gonna throw up—it was amazing I hadn’t already—so I pulled over into the parking lot in front of Sam’s Valueland. I pulled into the first empty spot I saw and sat there, shaking, my teeth chattering. It was 90 degrees, and I felt like I was freezing. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms and, I swear, I had goosebumps the size of blueberries. I sat there rubbing my arms until I felt like I wasn’t gonna throw up.

I was shaking so bad I couldn’t even light my cigarette. I wound up dropping the burned out match on my thigh and almost leaped through the roof. I took the cigarette and flung it out the window in frustration.

I was panting like a dog and didn’t know if I was hyperventilating or what, so I grabbed an old McDonald’s bag from the floor and uncrumpled it. I breathed into it for a while until my breath started coming more normal and the smell of old French fry grease started to make me gag. I
wadded the bag back up and tossed it back over my shoulder to join the other wads and empty cups on the floor.

I said a little silent thanks to Val’s brother who had fixed my brakes for free not a couple of weeks ago. I’d have been cream of wheat—Cream of Nadine?—if it hadn’t been for him. It was the only thing on that car that worked but at that moment it was the only thing that needed to work.

During the “excitement” I’d forgotten why I’d been driving like a bat outta hell. Now it all came flooding back. For a couple of seconds I wondered if we’d all have been better off if Jeff hadn’t fixed my brakes. I couldn’t be a bad mother if I wasn’t around anymore. Then I thought, “Nah. Screw them. I don’t want to be dead yet.” It felt good to be alive, even if my life sucked pond water.

I glanced at the time, amazed to realize that the last time I’d looked at it was only five minutes earlier. A near crash, that whole reaction thing, and it was only five minutes later. Weird.

It was still way too early to go to the school. I couldn’t decide what I should do with myself until then. What I wanted to do was just put the pedal to the metal and keep going—wherever. But I had about six bucks in my jean shorts’ pocket and half a tank of gas. That sure wouldn’t take me very far. Whoohoo, I’m running away from home, and I can get all the way to the next town before I run outta gas.

The good feeling that had came with knowing I was still alive and that no cop saw me almost run the red light was fading fast, and my anger was coming back. I wouldn’t have been in this state if it hadn’t been for Sandee and her big mouth. How dare she criticize the way I raised my kid? What the hell did she know about it?

I wanted to smash somebody or something. I needed to work off this pent-up energy. If I went to work now, I knew I’d probably run Raylene over with that Zamboni thing they used to clean the floors. I could just picture her lying on the floor, slowly disappearing under those whirling buffers until all that was left showing was that stupid bun, waggling like the tail of a run over squirrel.

Chapter 8--Part 5

2005-01-18T13:46:00.000-06:00

I learned to do without hugs and kisses since he was the only one who ever gave them to me, although sometimes it seemed as if my body was turning into stone, too, without someone to hug it. I learned how to smuggle normal clothes to school, so I didn’t look like such a freak. And the longer the skirts were that my mother made me wear to school, the shorter the ones I smuggled out. Most of them I got from my friends who wanted me to look normal so none of my freakishness would rub off on them. But I wasn’t above wearing an extra mini-skirt or two out of the changing rooms under my long skirts. Those long skirts were good for something. Nobody suspected the little Bible girl could be a shoplifter.

I stole make-up from Walgreen’s and hid that in my book bag, too. If my mother thought I was the “whore of Babylon” at home, she shoulda seen me at school. By Seventh Grade I’d learned how to put on and take off my make-up in the few minutes of rocking and rolling on the school bus.
I learned to get the hugs I craved from the boys who thought I was pretty, and by my sophomore year, I was getting lots more than hugs. Dave knew how to make my body feel loved. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been standing in this hallway right now.

“Excuse me. Can I help you?”

The voice startled me so much I almost pissed myself. “What?!”

There was a short little woman standing next to me. She had short gray hair and a purple dress. I had no idea who she was or how long she’d been standing there. Hell, I had no idea how long I’d been standing there.

“I wondered if you were trying to find a certain classroom. Have you signed in at the office?”

“No, uh, yeah. I mean, my kid is having her Kindergarten interview right now.”
“Oh, well, isn’t that nice? There are some seats here by the Kindergarten rooms. Perhaps you’d like to come back there and sit down. The Second Graders are going to the gymnasium now. I don’t want to see you get run over.”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, that’s fine. I was just reading the stories the kids wrote.”

“How nice. Well, you have a good day. Oh, I like your Mickey Mouse shirt!”

She led me back to the chairs. She tried to hide it, but I’m sure at first she thought I was some kind of crazed psycho wandering the halls looking for my next victim. Ah, screw her. At least it turned out to be a good thing I wore this stupid shirt. I knew they were judging us, too.

I stood by the mini-chairs, waiting for my heart to stop pounding, surprised that Tris wasn’t out yet. I guess I hadn’t been standing there “reminiscing” for too long. I peeked in the window, and I could see Tris talking away to Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown didn’t look like she minded it. She was smiling and listening, nodding her head as if whatever Tris was saying was the most interesting thing in the world. I wished I could go in and hear what she was saying. She really did look cute in that dress.

As I watched, Mrs. Brown stood up and held out her hand. Tris stood, too, still talking away, and they walked to the door together. I don’t even know why, but my eyes started to burn like crazy. I rubbed my hand over them to squeeze the water out. Mrs. Brown pushed the door open, and, when Tris spotted me, she came running toward me with a big smile on her face. I held out my arms and she leaped into them. She wrapped her skinny little legs around my waist and hugged my neck so tight, I thought she’d strangle me. I hugged her back and stroked her hair. It had been a long time since she hugged me like this. Then, realizing the teacher was still standing there, I said, “Calm down, Short-stuff. Did you have a good time? Were you good?”

“Yeah, Ma! Kindergarten is gonna be awesome! I got to go in the Book Tower and look at all the toys and everything.”

Mrs. Brown was just standing there smiling. “She did just fine, Ms. Stewart. I’ll look forward to seeing Tristiana in the fall.”

“Can we see Sandee now? Can I get some gum?”

“Sure, let’s go, Baby,” I said, and I carried her all the way out to the car.
She chattered happily all the way to the store, telling me about all the stuff in the kindergarten.

When we got to the store, I waited until Sandee’s checkout line was empty and sent Tris behind the counter to see her. She gave Sandee a hug—her little arms only stretched halfway around Sandee’s big waist. Then Tris reached for the squirt bottle and asked if she could clean the conveyor belt. Sandee looked at me, and I shrugged. I had her come around back to the other side, and I tucked some of those plastic sacks in the neck of her dress so the front was covered. Then we let her go to town with that squirt bottle.
What the hell, the dress is washable.

Chapter 8--Part 4

2004-11-23T13:19:00.000-06:00

Geeze, does that make me sound old or what? Next I’m going to start calling kids “Whippersnapper” and telling them to get off my lawn. If I ever have a lawn.

On the side of the room by the windows was a raised wooden room that looked like a castle. The outside was painted to look like big, gray stones with vines growing on them. The sign over its door said, READING TOWER. Tris and I peeked inside, and it was filled with big, soft pillows and a bunch of books.

Mrs. Brown was talking, but I could tell Tris was barely listening. She was totally intent on looking around at all the stuff. I wanted to tell her to pay attention, but I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of the teacher. I was finding it pretty hard to concentrate myself. Between trying to listen to the teacher and look at all the stuff and watch Tris so she didn’t just bolt off and run over to the play kitchen, I was a nervous wreck.

Finally, all the blah-blah was over, and I was told I could wait out in the hall. I gave Tris a hug so I could whisper and remind her about seeing Sandee. I hoped that would be enough of a warning to keep her in line. I wasn’t sure if I was glad to leave or not. If your kid acts like an idiot, is it worse to be there and see it, or not be there and just worry about it happening?

So, there I sat in the hall on that squatty little chair, looking around and hoping that Tris didn’t say or do anything too stupid. When I couldn’t take the chair anymore, I stood up and walked down the hallway. I didn’t want to get too far away from the door, in case Mrs. Brown wanted me (I could imagine her running screaming from her classroom if Tris began telling one of her endless, pointless stories), but I figured I was safe walking partway down the hall.

I came to the First Grade classrooms. I could peek in that little vertical window in the door from the center of the hallway without the kids ever noticing me. It was kind of neat to watch them, like a TV show with the sound turned down. They were all busy at their little desks, writing or drawing something. Some kid was waving her hand around to get the teacher’s attention. A little Julie Hepburn in the making. Little Bitch.

It was kind of funny looking at the teachers, too. Some of them were real young, maybe not much older than me. Others looked old enough to be my grandmother. I wondered how those old farts could put up with all those squirmy, antsy, annoying little kids. Heck, how could anybody? If I had to be in there for more than ten minutes, I’d probably wind up duct-taping them to their seats with a big old strip of duct tape right over each and every mouth.

There was a big rectangle of corkboard screwed in the wall outside each room where work was displayed. Each one had some kind of heading: “Butterflies and Moths,” “My Family,” “Johnny Appleseed,” and so forth. I glanced at the drawings and writing as I walked by. Most of the drawings were pretty lame, and the writing went from nice and neat lettering to the “My-mother-obviously-did-drugs-and-alcohol-while-she-was-pregnant with-me” scrawls.

Next came the Second Grade Classrooms. You could tell these kids were older. The writing was smaller and mostly neater. Not so many crack-baby scribbles. All the drawings of people had recognizable body parts—well, for the most part. One had a couple of pretty realistic body parts drawn in pencil and barely disguised with crayon clothes. Somebody better watch this “Austin” kid. He knew way too much for a second grader.

One board had drawings and stories about dinosaurs; the next, “What Plants Need to Grow;” the next, “When I Grow Up.” I stood there, looking at the drawings of firemen and policemen, teachers and racecar drivers, and suddenly it was like I was seven again. I remembered doing a paper just like this one and saying I wanted to be a pilot on an “airoplane.” Don’t ask me why I remember that dopey spelling, but I do. My teacher, a nice lady who always smelled like Lily of the Valley perfume, told me there was no O, just the words “air” and “plane” stuck together—that’s what she said, “stuck together” and put her two fists together like they were stuck. I never spelled it wrong after that.

Even though I spelled the word wrong, I remember being really proud of that paper. I’d drawn a plane—it looked like a cigar with wings, now that I think about it—and a smiling face with yellow hair—me—flying it. I’d put a big round sunshine in the corner and fluffy white clouds around the plane. I colored it very neatly. The other kids thought it was really good, too, and the teacher hung it right in the middle of the corkboard in the classroom. I was so proud.

When the teacher took the papers down and we were allowed to take them home, I couldn’t wait to show my parents. I ran in the house waving it around like a flag or something. Daddy was so pleased with it. He said it was really good and hung it on the refrigerator. My Daddy was proud of me! My handsome Daddy with the sparkly hazel eyes. My sweet Daddy who brushed my hair a hundred strokes every night to make it shiny and told me that one day all the other girls would be jealous and all the boys would admire me because of my shiny hair.

But my mother marched right out into the kitchen and took it down from the refrigerator, saying, “Pride goeth before a fall.” I remember it so clearly: it’s as if I was standing back in that kitchen right now. Daddy grabbed it away from her and tried to put it back up with the magnets, but she grabbed it again and ripped it into little pieces. I stood there with my mouth hanging open, wanting to scream but not even being able to breathe. My beautiful picture! The picture everyone liked except my mother. Torn into scraps that fluttered to the gray and red linoleum like dead butterflies.

Daddy tried to make me feel better. “We can tape it up as good as new,” he said, bending to pick up the pieces. But I ran to my room, locked the door, and threw myself into bed. I just sobbed and sobbed. I don’t know what he did with the paper. I never saw it again.

Now that I think of it . . .that must have been right around the time, my mother started going weird ‘cause it was before Daddy left, but she’d already started quoting Bible verses every chance she got.

Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I know it was before she totally weirded out because I still was wearing normal, little girl clothes at the beginning of Second Grade. I remember having cute little outfits—skirts and tops made of sweatshirt material—with matching leg warmers and headbands. Oh, I was cool. It was only later on that she decided normal clothes were sinful, or some such crap, and started making me wear those long skirts that practically swept the floor every time I moved and long-sleeved blouses even when it was so hot I thought I’d pass out.

Yeah, that was the year everything changed.

They’d had a big fight over that pilot picture. I could hear them from my room, even though I put the pillow and the covers over my head. That was one of about a million fights they had before Daddy turned a silent statue who sat in front of the TV with the light from the screen reflecting on a face that coulda been carved out of stone, and my mother became stronger and wilder until it seemed like every bit of life he’d ever had had been sucked out into her.

And then one day, he was gone. Just gone. All his stuff was gone, too. I couldn’t believe it. He never said even goodbye to me. I didn’t know where he’d gone, or why. When I realized he wasn’t coming back, I was frantic. I couldn’t believe he’d just leave me like that. I’d run from room to room, trying to find something, anything. Some note explaining why he was gone. Or maybe a photo, even one of his handkerchiefs with the L stitched carefully into the corner. I’d always loved to hold his handkerchiefs because they smelled like him—tobacco and Old Spice aftershave.

I never found one thing of his. It was like he had never existed. She’d even taken the few photos we had of him out of the old photo album with the brown fake leather cover.

At first I’d asked my mother about him, but I learned pretty fast that that was one thing that could throw her into one of her crazy rants faster than anything else. And I think I was actually afraid for her to answer since I was worried deep down inside that maybe she’d killed him or something. I think I figured she’d burned his body on the stove like a friggin’ burnt offering or something.

I learned not to mention him and how to cry silently at night so that she wouldn’t hear it and drag me out of bed calling me “the whore of Babylon” or one of the other pet names she had for me. I learned to avoid things that sent her into one of her rants, even though that changed on a daily basis. Just when I’d figure out one trick, she’d find something else to punish me for.

I spent years looking for him. Hoping he’d come back. Every time I passed a man in a store or on the street I’d look to see if it was him, if he’d come back for me. But it never was.

So I forgot all about the bastard. It was like I’d never even had an old man. I made myself forget by sheer willpower.

Chapter 8--Part 3

2004-11-23T10:20:00.000-06:00

The parents whose kid was in the classroom now were sitting on those little bitty chairs trying to look calm, but not really making it. It’s hard to look cool when your knees are about level with your shoulders. Both of them were really tall and skinny, too. The guy had on a suit and the woman was wearing some kind of flowy, flowery two-piece outfit with high heels—a suit and a dress to take your kid to a kindergarten interview, for crying out loud! The guy was already losing his hair in front but was making up for it with a honking, big salt and pepper mustache. The woman had long, layered ash blonde hair and a skinny, pinched face with big teeth—what my mother used to call a horse face. They both looked about 40. These two were here with a kindergarten kid? Maybe it was their grandkid.

I could feel them looking at me, checking me out, mentally judging me for having a kid so young. I’d show them.

There was a basket of books next to the chairs, so I grabbed one and, in my best fake happy voice said, “Look, Tristiana! Your favorite—Hop on Pop!” Like we read that one every night.

Tris’s attention was plastered on the door leading into the kindergarten classroom. She said absently, “That’s not my favorite.”

“Sure it is! Let’s read it together.”

“No, Ma! That’s not my favorite.” She squirmed around on the chair, trying to look through the window on the classroom door. “Look, there’s a lot of toys in the room.”

“Yes, I see them. Look at this, though. This is good! ‘UP, PUP, Pup is up.’”

“Yeah. Look, Ma. They have a little kitchen in there with real pots and pans!”

“Um hum. That’s nice. You’ll get to see all that in a minute. Let’s look at this now. What’s that word?”

“I dunno. Do you think I can play wif all those toys?”

“Probably not today. You’re just here to meet your teacher. Now, look at that word. Can you tell me what it is?”

“I dunno. Ma, if you tell my teacher that I can stay and play wif those toys . . ..”

“We’re not staying to play!” I said more sharply than I meant to.

Old Horse-face looked up and smiled. It was one of those cold, “my-shit-
doesn’t-stink” smiles. I wanted to smack her. Instead, I kissed Tris on top of the head and said sweetly, “Don’t forget, we’re gonna see Sandee after we leave here.”

“If I’m good.”

“Of course you’ll be good. You’re always good,” I said loudly for Secretariat’s benefit.

Tris looked up at me curiously, like she was trying to figure out if I’d lost my mind or if some alien had taken over my body.

Just then the door opened and the teacher came out with a boy. He had curly blond hair that made him look like a girly-boy. He was about six inches taller than Tris and probably thirty pounds heavier. Was this kid gonna be in the class or teach it?

“Mr. and Mrs. Gentry, Houston and I had a lovely visit. He’s all set for kindergarten.”

Houston? I thought. What the hell kind of name is that for a kid?

The other kids would probably shorten it to “Huey.” Kids always try to come up with nicknames for other kids. With the size of him, someone was bound to start calling him “Baby Huey,” like that big, dumb duck in the old comic books my dad used to have. Or maybe kids didn’t know that character anymore. Ah, they’d probably just call him something simple, like “Fats.”

He walked over to his parents who had unfolded themselves from the dinky chairs and were standing there with big, goofy grins on their faces like they were welcoming President of the United States. The father put his hand on top of the kid’s head and the mother wrapped him in a big hug. You’da thought they hadn’t seen him for a month instead of 20 minutes. They both shook hands with the teacher and said a few more blah-blah-blahs. Tris watched the whole thing with interest.

As the three of them passed us on their way to the door, Tris smiled at the kid and said, “Bye.”

He turned and looked down at her as if she was some kind of gunk stuck to the bottom of his expensive little shoe. I wanted to smack him right on the side of his head with Hop on Pop. Tris’s smile slipped a little, but then the teacher said, “And this must be Tristiana!” sounding like she was really excited about it. Tris brightened right up again. I caught fat boy’s attention and gave him my worst stink eye. I was pleased to see he grabbed his father’s hand and started walking a little faster, looking back over his shoulder at me with a scared look.

Little shithead.

Now it was Tris’ turn to go into the kindergarten room.

The teacher got down on one knee, so she was eye to eye with Tris. “I’m Mrs. Brown, Tristiana. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“Can I play with those toys in there?”

“Tell Mrs. Brown ‘hello,’ Tris,” I prompted.

“Hello. Can I play with those toys in there?” I was gripping each of my elbows with the opposite hand, so I wouldn’t reach out and grab Tris and shake her until her teeth rattled. I tried to keep a smile on my face, while my brain was screaming at her, “STOP BEING AN IDIOT! STOP BEING AN IDIOT!!”

Mrs. Brown laughed like this question was something she was used to hearing. “We’ll see. First, I want to show you around the room a little bit and talk to you about Kindergarten. Then we’ll see if we have time left for you to play. Remember, if you don’t get to play with them today, there will be time in the fall when you start class here. We always have some play time after we finish our work stations for the day.” She stood up and held out her hand to me. “Hi, I’m Pat Brown.”

I shook her hand. “Nadine Stewart.” I hoped she wouldn’t notice how sweaty my hand was.

“It’s nice to meet you. If you would like to come in for the first part of the interview, you may. Then we like to talk to the children one-on-one.”

“Sure.”

I followed her and Tris in, hoping that Tris wouldn’t pick her nose—or any other body part—or embarrass me in any other way.

The classroom was really bright and colorful. On one side there were tables set all around with six of those tiny chairs placed around them. Each table had a sign hanging over it: LETTER STATION, NUMBER STATION, ART STATION, and so on. This was kindergarten. I bet if they had a BOOGER-PICKING STATION, it would be the most popular one in here.

I glanced around and realized everything had a name on it: FLOOR, CEILING, WINDOW, DOOR, and so on. In the middle was a bunch of computers—COMPUTER STATION—and each one showed a different program. That was sure different from when I was in school.

Chapter 8--Part 2

2004-11-22T20:15:00.000-06:00

I splashed cold water on my face with one hand and brushed my teeth with the other. I couldn’t do anything but brush my hair and pull it back into a ponytail, ripping two handfuls of hair out in the process. I’d wanted to do something nice with my hair and put on some makeup to make myself look older. People always look at me funny when they realize Tris was my kid. I could just hear them thinking: Pregnant teen drop-out loser.

I ran out of the bathroom and looked over my clothes. Oh, damndamndamndamndamndamndamn! I had absolutely nothing to wear that would make a good impression. I know this interview was mainly to check the kids out, but don’t try to tell me that they weren’t checking out the parents, too.

My two decent tops were dirty; I’d forgotten I wanted to wash them the night before. All I had were tank tops and T-shirts. I tried to find something that was clean and didn’t have a smart-ass saying on it. I’m sure the teacher woulda loved the one I’d worn yesterday: “Beer – the reason I get up each afternoon!” How about "What am I--Freak Flypaper?" or maybe the one that said, “The sex was so good, even the neighbors had a cigarette.” Yeah, I hadn’t had any reason to wear that one for a long time.

I finally settled on one with Mickey Mouse that B. J. had given me after taking a trek down to DisneyWorld—The Happiest Friggin’ Place in the Whole Friggin’ World. I hated the shirt—Mickey looked so happy, it always put me in a bad mood—so I hardly ever wore it. At least it was clean. Maybe the teacher would think I was a real kid-lover to wear that shirt. Ha.

We now had six minutes to get to the school. I grabbed my keys and told Tris to come to the car. She gave me an awful, hateful look like she would cheerfully burn me at the stake, but she knew better than to refuse. When she got off the couch, I noticed she hadn’t put on her shoes and socks the way I’d told her; she had just slipped her pink Barbie flip-flops on over her bare feet. The pink looked so horrible with the red dress that I wanted to slap the shit out of her.
There wasn’t time to make her change, though, so I just choked back my anger and we left.

As I drove, I glanced in the rearview mirror at Tris in the back seat. She was scowling so hard, her eyebrows almost met in the middle. Her mouth was pulled down in a frown with her bottom lip stuck way, way out. I didn’t want her walking into her interview looking like that. I was still crazed myself, but I forced myself to put on a happy face and jolly voice. Geeze, if anyone ever gave out Oscars for acting like a loving mother, I know who’d be the first in line to get one.
“Hey, Sour Puss. Come on. Cheer up! If your bottom lip was sticking out any further, I could use it for an ashtray.”

She turned her head and stared out the window, still scowling.

I could picture myself putting her head right through that window, but I took a deep breath, waited a beat, and tried a new approach. “Hey, Short-Stuff, you look really pretty in that dress. I’ll bet your teacher is gonna think it’s cool that you have the numbers and letters on your pockets.”

Her expression didn’t change. She grunted, “Hmph!” without looking away from the window.

“I heard you singing your ABC song this morning. That sure sounded nice.”

“Hmph!” She crossed her arms and pulled them onto her chest in a way that said, “I’m mad at you, and nothing you say is gonna change that.”

“Maybe your teacher will let you sing it for her, and you can show her how smart you are.”

“Hmmph!”

I tried desperately to think of something that would get her in a better mood. The teacher would think she was horrible if she walked in like this and probably think I was a horrible mother, too. I could see the school as I turned the corner. I needed a little more time for this, so I slowed down. I started grasping at straws.

“Say, you know what? Sandee is working today. Maybe we can go see her at the store if you behave like a nice girl at school.”

She didn’t turn her head, but I could see her expression changing a little. At least she was thinking about something other than how much she hated me at that moment. Finally she asked, “Really?”

“Sure. Right after you’re done, if you act like a nice girl the whole time and show the teacher how good you are, we’ll go over and see Sandee.”

Silence for a minute while she considered about that. “Can I buy some gum?”

She was pushing it, but at least another glance in the mirror told me she’d uncrossed her arms and was looking less sulky. I glanced at the floor on the passenger side and spotted some change among the fast food receipts and empty cigarette packs. That should be enough if Sandee didn’t offer to give her the gum. “Sure, but, remember: You’ve got to be really good. Okay?”

“Okay, Ma. . . . Ma, can I help Sandee clean the conveyor belt with the squirt bottle?”

“Maybe.” I’d be damned if I’d let her clean anything in that dress, but I wasn’t gonna say no and spoil her good mood now.

By some unexpected miracle, there was a parking place near the doors that led to the kindergarten rooms. We walked in, Tris clinging to my hand, suddenly nervous, and sat down in seats more suited to a doll than a normal-sized person. By some other miracle, the teacher was running late, so we weren’t late for our appointment. I could finally breathe again.

Chapter 8 Part 1

2004-11-22T11:45:00.000-06:00

Chapter 8

I woke up with a weird feeling, like I’d forgotten something. I laid there hearing the low sounds of the television and Tris singing along with some dopey songs and trying to sort through my mind to see which of the many parts of my life could bite me in the ass today. I couldn’t think of any special problems—just the normal “My life totally sucks” ones—so I rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. Tris’ off-key voice kept me from really conking out.

“. . .T, U, V, Dubbyah, X, and Y and Z.

Now I know my A-B-C’s;

Tell me what you think of me.”

“I think you can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” I thought to myself, but I was still kind of proud of her that she knew that song. She learned a lot from the TV. That’d help when she started kindergarten in the fall.

Kindergarten? Holy shit!! Today was the day I was supposed to take her in for her pre-kindergarten interview. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 9:34! Our appointment was for 10 a.m. I had about twenty-five minutes to get up, get dressed, get her and me looking presentable, and drive a mile to the school. What in hell had happened to my alarm clock?!
I hit the floor with both feet and yanked my sleep shirt off at the same time. “Tris! Did my alarm go off this morning?!”

“Huh?”

“DID MY ALARM GO OFF THIS MORNING?!”

“Uh huh. It was ringing and ringing, and you didn’t wake up, so I shutted it off.”

“Well, thank you very much, Miss Pain-in-the-Ass! Now, we’re gonna be late for your kindergarten appointment if we don’t get a move on!”

“I’m ready.”

I looked at her. She was sitting in the low spot in the couch with Angel in her lap. Her hair looked like a rat’s nest, her face and neck showed that she obviously hadn’t listened to me the night before when I’d told her to wash them good, and she was wearing a formerly half-way decent outfit that now had a jelly smear down the front of it.

“GET IN THE BATHROOM!!”

“Ma, I said I’m . . . .”

“GET IN THE FRIGGIN’ BATHROOM NOW!!” When I screamed, the kitty jumped up and raced over the back of the couch. The damn thing had more sense than Tris did.

“But I . . . .”

I grabbed her arm and dragged her into the bathroom. I soaped up a facecloth and ran it over her face, neck, ears, and hands while she screamed like a banshee. I rinsed it off, made sure all the skin I could see looked pink instead of gray, and started working on her hair. There wasn’t time to curl it or do anything cute, but at least I combed all the knots out of it. I combed a damn handful of hair out of her head at the same time. By the time I finished she was screeching so loud, I was surprised Child Protective Services wasn’t breaking down my front door.

At least I knew what she was gonna wear. I’d gone to the Twice Is Nice Resale Shop last week, and I’d found her a real cute little dress. Tris had fallen totally in love with it. It was red and white checked with big blue pockets on the front. One pocket had 1-2-3 on it, and the other had A-B-C. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was her size, and it still had the price tag on it. Who the hell has so many clothes for their kid that they outgrow it before they even wear it? I paid $5 for it, and that was a lot better than the $24.99 on the price tag.

I dragged her back into the living room and ran and got the dress and some clean underwear.

“I DON’ WANNA WEAR THAT DRESS!”

“YOU LOVE THIS DRESS!”

“I DON’ WANNA WEAR IT TODAY!!”

Tris’s arms were flailing around so bad, it was like trying to put pantyhose on an octopus.

“Godammit, Tristiana Louise, we’re already late, thanks to you. This was the dress you picked out with last week. Now let me get it on you before I friggin’ strangle you with it!”

By this time, I was hissing through my teeth, and she was smart enough to know that she’d better not push me anymore. She kept crying, but she went limp and let me shove her arms through the armholes and button up the back. I was sweating like a Clydesdale, and my heart was pounding like I’d pulled the Budweiser wagon cross town all by myself.

“Now you sit there and put on your shoes and socks while I get myself done. AND STOP GETTING SNOT ON YOUR NEW DRESS!! Don’t you want to make a good impression?!”

I shoved some napkins at her and ran back into the bathroom. My face was red and blotchy, my hair looked like a friggin’ rat’s nest, and all I was wearing was a pair of pink bikinis with the elastic pulling away from the nylon. I had exactly four minutes to get myself ready before we had to hop in the car.

Why do these things always happen to me?

Chapter 7--Part 2

2004-11-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

“Take a friggin’ breath, Half-pint,” I said. “Sandee just brought it over for us to see. Go in and wash your hands before you touch it. It would be nice if the white fur stayed white for five minutes.”

Tris could hardly bear to tear herself away long enough to wash up, but she knew I meant business.

“Just hold her for a minute while I catch my breath,” Sandee said, pushing the towel into my arms.

“Godammit, Sandee! I said I don’t want . . . .” Then the damn thing was in my arms, and, I swear, she just looked up at me so trusting and yawned again. And then she stuck one of those little paws out and patted me real gently on the my hand. It was like the lightest pat from a powder puff. I don’t know, maybe she was just chasing a shadow on me or something, but it just felt like she was—I don’t know—choosing me—like “Tag! You’re it!” How could I give her back to Sandee after she’d patted me like that?

“Lemmeholdit! Lemmeholdit! LEMMEHOLDIT!” Tris came flying out of the door of the trailer and almost fell down the cement block steps. She was drying her hands on the back of her shorts and leaving dirt streaks on the seat.

“Cool your jets!” I said. “Sit on that step there, and I’ll hand her to you. Now don’t get attached to her ‘cause I’m not sure we’re gonna keep her yet.”

Tris plopped her skinny butt onto the steps, bouncing a little in excitement, and sat there with her hands stretched out and her grin stretched from ear to ear.

“Now, be nice!” I instructed. “She’s not one of your friggin’ stuffed animals that you toss all over the place. She’s a live cat.”

“I know, Ma! Come here, Baby. Let me hold you,” she crooned.

“Hold her head up . . . . That’s it. . . Not so tight!”

I figured the cat would put up with that for about a nanosecond, being held like a baby by some unfamiliar kid, but she was fine. I swear somebody must have given that kitten Kitty-Prozac. It was the calmest damn cat I’d ever seen in my life. It just lay there, all content-like, while Tris rubbed her face against it and examined it like a mother chimp cleaning her young.

“It won’t cost you a cent,” Sandee murmured in my ear, as we both watched Tris. “My friend will pay for everything. I promise. Aww, look at how happy she is. You like the kitty, Tris?”

“I love her! I’m gonna name her ‘Angela!’” Tris announced.

“Oh, no, you’re not,” I said. “I haven’t said we’re keeping her yet. And if we do, you’re not naming her after your dopey friend from Y-Care.” I’d had to leave Tris at Y-Care at the YMCA once in a while when Sandee couldn’t watch her while I subbed. She’d latched on to the most obnoxious brat in the whole place, naturally. I didn’t think it was possible for anybody to be whinier or clingier than Tris, but I was wrong.

“But I love that name. That’s my favorite,” she whined, making me think I’d been right in the first place. “And ple-e-e-ase let me keep her, Ma. She loves me.”

“Look at the two of them,” Sandee said. “They look like two little angels sitting there like that.”

“Yeah, angels. One with a filthy face and one with a hairy one. Those are angels all right.”

“That’s what we could call her, Ma! Angel! It’s kind of like Angela, but it’s nicer. And you said she was like an angel. Ple-e-e-ease!!”

“Sandee, I swear, I’m gonna put a contract out on you and your friend both. I could just kill you for getting me into this.”

Sandee smiled knowingly. “Ah, she won’t be any trouble at all. You’ll get so attached to her, you’ll wonder why you never owned a cat before.

“Yeah. Ask me if I’m wondering that the next time I have to clean out a bunch of cat shit.”

“But you’ll keep her?” Sandee asked.

“Please, Ma?” Tris said. She held the kitten up to me and said in a little, baby voice as if the kitty were saying it, “Meow, meow, please, Mama?” She sounded like that friggin’ pussycat puppet on Mr. Rogers.

I took a deep breath and made a decision, even though I knew I’d probably regret it. I picked the kitten up with one hand and held her close to my face. “So what do you say, Angel: you think you want to come live in this nut house?”

The kitten leaned forward and rasped the tip of my nose with her sandpaper tongue.

“Oh, what the hell! I give up,” I said.

Tris and Sandee looked at each other and said, “Yayyyy!”

Chapter 7--Part 1

2004-11-16T11:30:00.000-06:00

Chapter 7
I was just sitting there trying to think of what to make for dinner—what could I make with a lousy pound of chop meat that I hadn’t made eight thousand times before?—when I heard Sandee wheezing outside the trailer door. I opened it and saw her holding a pink and white towel and standing in back of several grocery sacks. The first words out of her mouth were: “Is Tris here?”

“No, she’s over by the swing set they call a park here. Do you want me to call her?”

“No, I wanted to catch you alone. . . .Look, remember how Tris was saying she wanted a kitten . . . ?

“Yeah? Do you remember how I said, ‘No frigging way am I having a cat in this trailer?’”

“Yes, but, listen, this friend of mine has to get rid of her kitten. Uh, somebody in her family’s allergic to it or something. . . .”

“Tell her I said no!”

“Just listen! She’s so broken up about having to get rid of it, she said if I found it a good home, she’d be willing to send food and kitty litter for as long as you liked.”

“What . . . ? That’s nuts. Nobody would do that. What’s she gonna get out of this?”

“Nothing, that’s just the kind of person she is. She loves this kitten. Wait’ll you see it.”

“No! Sandee, I don’t want to see it. I’m not keeping it. Get it the hell out of here before Tris comes back.”

Just then the towel Sandee was holding started to move. The tiniest little mew I’d ever heard came out of the folds, followed by a white paw no bigger than my fingertip. Sandee pulled the towel back a bit, and a little orange face with a white streak between its eyes poked out. It stared at me with big, sleepy, golden eyes. I tried to harden my heart and not even look at the thing, but then it yawned. Its tiny face split in half, and I could see its little pink tongue curled all around. It made a little “arrrummmph” sound, then blinked sleepily at me a few times.

“What’s its name?” I asked, reluctantly stroking its little furry head with one finger.

“Uh, um, my friend called her, uh, ‘Punkin’ but she said you could give it a name you liked. It was too little to get used to its name yet.”

Just then Tris arrived, breathless and filthy. “Hi, Sandee! Whatcha got? Oh, it’s a kitty! Can I hold it? What’s its name? Is it yours? CAN WE KEEP IT?” Full screech mode. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention, and my fingers flexed as if I was getting ready to wring something.

Chapter 6

2004-11-16T09:26:00.000-06:00

Chapter 6

Thanks to Sandee and her bags of damaged crap, I was able to take a few days off until most of the swelling went down. I hated to look in the mirror. I looked like Frankenstein’s monster or something with my face all swollen, one eye turning all shades of purple, my knees and hands scraped raw, bruises all over my neck—like a boa constrictor had given me a full-circle hickey. I was really scared a couple of my teeth were gonna fall out. Every time I chewed on that side, they kind of wobbled around in my gums. But I left them alone, and eventually they tightened up again. I was damn lucky there wasn’t any permanent damage anywhere, considering what I’d been through.

Sandee kept on me to report it to the police, but the longer I waited, the stupider I felt calling them. I knew their first question would be “Why didn’t you contact us right away?” Since I didn’t have a good answer for that, I just didn’t call them. Sandee brought me a little thing of pepper spray that goes right on your key ring, and I put that on to shut her up. It wouldn’t have done me a damn bit of good that night—not the way he grabbed me from behind.

By the fifth or sixth day after the attack I was starting to look kind of normal, so when they called me to sub I said yes. I was afraid that if I said no twice in a row they’d stop calling, and I have to get on full time. Besides, staying in the house all the time with Tristiana had me so freaking crazy, if I didn’t get out, one of us would be dead for sure. I swear, that kid doesn’t know when to leave me alone. She was always trying to sit by me and touch me and shit. Why she liked to rub her hand up and down my arm and rub her thumb on my fingernails, I’ll never know. But it made me nuckin’ futs.

So I took the sub job, but—wouldn’t you know?—it was at the high school. At least they assigned me to the first floor, so I didn’t have to be around bun-head Raylene.

I had a story all worked out about falling off my kid’s bike when I was showing her how to ride—as if Tris even had a bike or the coordination to ride one—just in case anybody asked about the fading bruises, but nobody asked. It’s funny, but when you work as a custodian, it’s like you become the Invisible Person. If there are kids around, they don’t even look at you, any more than they look at a doorway or a chair, unless it’s in their way. Then most of them are likely to just kick it out of the way. Most of the teachers are the same. They don’t even look at a person if she’s got a dustpan and broom in her hand. It really pissed me off at first, but then I found out that if I give them the finger after they pass by me, it makes me feel a lot better. I’m surprised I haven’t worn that digit out by now or else built the muscles up so much that it would look like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of middle fingers.

Barry, the supervisor on first, didn’t care what you looked like as long as the rooms got cleaned. And he at least gives you some credit for having some brains. He showed me where the cleaning cart and stuff was, told me what rooms I had to do, and left me the hell alone. I liked that a lot better than getting a ten-minute lecture on something that’s not exactly brain surgery. Duh, now how do I scrape that gum again, Raylene? Is it from the left to the right or the back to the front? Please enlighten me, oh Bun-Headed Guru of the Cleaning Crew.

I did the bathrooms down by the auditorium first. I guess those don’t get used as much; they weren’t nearly as disgusting as the ones upstairs. Some comedian had pulled all the paper towels out of the holder and left them all over the floor, but at least he hadn’t stuffed them in a urinal or something.

I swear, if I was the principal of that stupid school, I’d make a rule: “If you don’t use the materials correctly, we’ll take them away for a week.” If somebody dumped the paper towels, no paper towels for a week. If somebody put wads of toilet paper in the toilet so it overflowed, no toilet paper for a week. See how the little assholes would like it if they had to carry their own toilet paper with them. Or let ‘em use notebook paper for a while. That’d stop that crap pretty fast, I bet.

I finished the bathrooms and headed for the classroom right across from that next. I went barging right in, dragging my cart in back of me, before I noticed that the teacher was still in there. The overhead lights were off, and he was sitting at the computer real quiet-like, not even moving. I swear I almost jumped a foot when he finally looked up. He was pretty startled, too.
I started to back out—we’re supposed to wait until the classrooms are empty before we clean them—but he said, “It’s okay. You can come in. I’m just finishing something up here. If I’m not in your way, you’re welcome to start cleaning.”

“Uh, thanks. You’re not in my way, but I can wait. I’ve got a couple of other rooms to do . . . .”

“Nah, that’s okay. You’re here now. I’ll be out of here in just a minute or so.”

I shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

I pulled the cart in the rest of the way and started in on the desks. We had to squirt some kind of cleaning stuff on the tops and wipe them off. We wouldn’t want our little darlings to spread their germs and catch a cold. I was glad I had the rubber gloves; I bet the vinegar in that woulda stung my scraped hands like crazy. At least it was easy to do these desks. Instead of being in rows, they were in a big circle.

I looked around the room as I was doing the desktops. This room was messy but in a kind of comfortable way. Books sat around in untidy stacks with torn paper sticking out for bookmarks. Laminated posters lined the walls—posters from plays the high school kids put on, it looked like. I saw one for Grease and The King and I, The Odd Couple, and a bunch of others.

“Like the posters?”

His voice spooked me so much the spray bottle slipped right out of my hand. It hit the wet desk, skidded across, and flew two feet across the room. I felt like a complete moron.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you! I just noticed you were looking at the posters . . . .” He leaped out of the computer chair and ran to pick up the bottle. He got to it before I did, since I was blocked in by the circle of desks.

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking it without really looking up. I thought I’d felt like a complete moron before, but now I really did. I could feel him staring at me, probably wondering what in hell happened to my face.

“Are you new? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you working here before.”

“I’m subbing. Just for today.” I sneaked a quick look at him. He wasn’t much to look at, kinda short with sandy blonde hair that curled a little at his collar. His beard and mustache had a lot more red in them. It looked weird, as if he dyed his hair or his beard. I didn’t take time to look at him that much, though. I was still feeling like an idiot. “I’ll come back in a little while. I think I’ve . . . got to clean the bathrooms,” I muttered.

“No. That’s okay. You can get done in here. I’ll get out of your way. I’m on my way out anyway. We’ve got a practice for the Variety Show, and I’ve got to be there to help supervise.”
“I don’t mind coming back later.”

“No. Truly. I’ve got to go.” He grabbed a backpack sitting by his computer desk. “Take it easy.”

“Yeah, you, too,” I said, sneaking another peek. He caught my glance and smiled—a real honest-to-goodness smile—before he headed out the door. When he smiled, he actually was kind of cute.
Then I realized, this is a speech and drama room. He’s a speech and drama teacher. Even if I had the slightest interest in somebody just because he had a nice smile—which I didn’t!—this guy was probably gay. They usually are, you know. Those speech and drama guys. And I hadn’t noticed him trying to look at my ass while I was leaning over the desks, so that means something. Anyway, I didn’t have the remotest interest in anybody at the moment!

I finished the desktops; did my wonderful gum check; washed the board, which was clean except for a cartoon some moron had drawn in one corner. It was a caricature of that teacher waving his hands in the air and saying, “Emote, people! Emote!” Whatever the hell that meant.
Oh, yeah, no question, this guy was as queer as a three-dollar bill—no straight guy uses the word “emote.”

It figures that the first person in that whole building who acted like I was a human being would probably only want to be my girl friend.

Chapter 5--Part 3

2004-11-15T11:31:00.000-06:00

“Aren’t you going to listen to her prayers?” Sandee asked, as I trudged over to the table.

“I already said them for her. I said, ‘Thank you, God, for giving my mommy the strength not to rip my arms and legs off and beat me over the head with them.’”

“You shouldn’t kid about things like that,” Sandee said, disapprovingly. “Children need a routine and they need something to believe in. . . .We all do.”

“Yeah, well, you see how she can drag out a ‘routine’. If I added one more thing to what we do everything night, I wouldn’t get her to sleep until midnight.”

“I’m just saying . . . “

“I know what you’re saying, Sandee. And what I’m saying is I’m not gonna fill her head with a lot of nonsense and get her hopes up about something that I don’t even think exists. What’s the point?”

“The point is . . . .”

“The point is,” I interrupted, “if there’s a God, why the hell am I stuck raising that poor kid in this hell hole? If there’s a God, why is Wayne walking around with new jeans on his ass and a slut on his arm while I can’t even buy my kid some decent clothes? If there’s a God, . . . .”

“I can’t explain that! I can’t explain none of it. No one can. But I know there’s a God, and He’s a kind and loving . . . .”

“Yeah, well, according to my mother, He wasn’t so kind and loving. He was watching every damn thing I did and whispering it all in her ear, so she could ‘beat the devil’ out of me. Now if that’s your idea of a kind and loving God, I think you’d better ….”

“That’s not my idea, and you know it, Nadine,” Sandee said, her jowls flapping around with emotion. “Just because your mother had some crazy ideas, that doesn’t mean that’s how God really is. He’s not like some big, cosmic tattletale, for crying out loud!”

“‘I, the Lord Thy God, am a jealous God. . . ’” I intoned, surprised I remembered it almost word for word. I guess I should remember it after all the times she shouted it at me. “‘. . .Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children for the something of the something upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.’ That’s your kind and loving God.”

“Yeah, and how does the rest of that go?” Nadine asked. “‘And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.’ ‘Mercy’ is love, you know.”

“Yeah, well, my mother seems to have forgotten to about that ‘mercy’ part,” I muttered. “Anyway, I’m screwed: I don’t love Him, and I sure as hell don’t keep His commandments. So how much ‘mercy’ do you think He’s gonna be showing me, anyway?”

“I could teach Tris ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep’, if you wanted,” Sandee said, choosing not to answer my question.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a real cheery one. ‘If I should die before I wake.’ Just what you want your kid thinking about while she’s trying to go to sleep: ‘Damn! I could croak in the middle of the night!’ Yeah, that’ll set her right up for a good night’s sleep.”

“No, I say it another way. ‘If I should live for other days/I pray thee, Lord, to guide my ways.’”

“That’s still saying she might die. That’s a damn big ‘if’, if you ask me. I like my version better: ‘Now I lay me down to sleep/ With a bag of peanuts at my feet/ If you eat them before I wake/ I hope you get a belly ache.’”

“Oh, Nadine,” Sandee sighed.

“Or how about: ‘Now I lay me down to sleep/With a bag of peanuts at my feet/If I should die before I wake/I leave them all to Uncle Jake?’ That one’s pretty nice.”

“You’re impossible.” Sandee shook her head, but she was smiling a little.

“I’ve been told that before,” I said.

Sandee sat quietly for a minute, pushing the salt and peppershakers around like chess pieces or something. Then she looked up at me, sighed, and shook her head.

“Oh, what your poor face looks like. You look like you got hit by a truck. I wish you woulda told somebody last night.”

I glanced over to see if Tris was asleep. Her mouth was hanging open and she was drooling all over her pillowcase. I still lowered my voice. “Sandee, I . . .I wasn’t gonna tell anybody, but. . . . I didn’t really fall at work last night. I just made that up.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I stopped at the Port after work, just for a quick beer or two. A bunch of us got dancing and the time got away from me, and pretty soon it was closing time.” I paused to light a cigarette, my hands shaking.

“And?!”

“And I didn’t leave with the others because I hadda go to the john. So I was all by myself in the parking lot and someone grabbed me from behind.”

“Omigosh! Was he trying to. . ., you know,. . . rape you?”

“No, I think he was trying to . . ., you know, . . . kill me!” I said, mimicking her.

“What happened? Did you run away? Do you know who it was? Did you go to the police?”

“Slow down and take a breath, for God’s sake,” I said. “I don’t know exactly what happened. One minute somebody had me from behind, choking the living daylights out of me. The next thing I know, he threw me against my car and ran away. I think somebody hit him with a beer bottle—or maybe he dropped it—because there was broken glass all over the ground.”

“Well, do you know who it was?”

“I don’t know. I think it might have been Wayne. He was in the bar with some little slut and got really pissed because I asked him about sending some child support.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“No.”

“Nadine! Why not?!”

“’Cause I wouldn’t have known what to tell them. I didn’t see anybody. I don’t know who or what chased them away. I had on a wet, sweaty T-shirt and short shorts, and they probably woulda said I was asking for it. I just wanted to get home and be safe.”
Sandee thought for a moment, then said slowly, “Surely, Wayne wouldn’t do that. Even as hateful as he can be.”

“Who else would?”

“Well, . . . maybe I shouldn’t tell you this.”

“What?”

“Was Sid working bar last night?”

“Yeah, same as he always is.”

“Well, . . . don’t tell this to anyone, but he’s the nephew of a gal I work with. And she says he’s not right in the head.”

“Sid? Whaddya mean?”

“He was EH in school. That’s like ‘Emotion Handicap’ or something. She says he has a really bad temper and can be set off by anything.”

I shook my head. “No, not Sid. You must be thinking of someone else. I’ve never even seen Sid yell or anything. And some of the people who go in there are real assholes, you know.”

“Well, all I know is, Verna said anything could set him off. That’s why it took them so long to find him a job he could do. He can mix drinks pretty good, I guess. But didn’t you ever notice he hardly ever talks to people and he hardly ever looks you in the eye?”

“Yeah. . . .”

“That’s all part of it, too. He just doesn’t know how to act around people.”

“No, not Sid. I can’t believe it.”

“He coulda been carrying a beer bottle out of the bar and dropped it when he grabbed you. He’s not supposed to drink.”

I tried to think back. “I’ve never seen Sid drink. But, then, he wouldn’t, if he’s working, I guess. Anyways, I think the glass broke after the person started choking me, and if it was Sid, why did he stop?”

“Who knows? He coulda seen a car coming down the street or just gotten spooked somehow.”

“Well, I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like something Sid would do. Wayne definitely is capable of something like this. Who else would want to strangle me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sandee said, sarcastically. “Maybe any one of a dozen guys you’ve insulted in that bar. Or Val. Or B.J. Or probably anybody else you’ve spoken to in the past week, Miss Mouth.”

I grinned, even though it made my face feel like it would break in two. “Yeah, and can you vouch for your whereabouts around 2:30 a.m. last night?”

Sandee just rolled her eyes at me and shook her head.

Chapter 5--Part 2

2004-11-15T09:25:00.000-06:00

Sandee came back that evening after work. She was lugging two big, brown paper sacks filled with cans. She set one on the floor of the trailer, slid it in, set the other one down, slid it, and then plopped on the cement block steps, huffing and puffing like an old time steam engine. And she thinks smoking is bad for my breathing….

“Whatcha got, Sandee?!” Tris screeched, dragging the bags further along the buckled linoleum.

“Give her a chance to get in before you attack her, Crazy!” I scolded.

“It’s. . .it’s .…okay. She’s fine. That’s a good girl, honey; you help Sandee get these big old bags in,” Sandee said, practically crawling into the trailer.

I let her get her breath and then asked, “What is all this?”

“It’s damaged goods,” Sandee explained, still straining to get a good breath. “That what the store calls it. Every coupla weeks, the store puts out all these cans and boxes that have been banged up or lost their labels, and we sell them real cheap. I got seniority, so I always get to go through stuff first. I don’t mess with the boxes that are torn or the cans that are bulging or dented—they might be spoiled—but all these were fine. They just had loose labels—people won’t pay full price for a can of corn just because the glue let go on one side—and a few had missing labels. I got all this for about a dollar a bag.”

“Is this cat food?!” Tris yelled, holding up a little flat round can with no label.

“No, honey, that’s tuna fish,” Sandee said.

“How do you know?” I asked, examining the cans. “I mean, these are okay with the loose labels, but how the hell do I guess what’s in the others?”

“I know those are tuna because all the cat food cans have rounded bottoms for better stacking now. These still have the sealed edged along the bottom. I mean, if you don’t want this stuff…” Sandee said, a little huffily.

“No, no, I didn’t mean that. Thanks for bringing it. Really. We can sure use it.” As I pulled the cans out of the bag, I saw most of them had their labels, just attached on one side and flapping in the breeze.

“If it is cat food, can we get a kitty?” Tris said, hopping up and down like a gawdamn kangaroo.

“No. No cats,” I answered.

“But I want a kitty. We could feed it tuna fish even if that’s not cat food.”

“I don’t care if it’s fuh, uh, . . .stinkin’ holy mackerel! We’re not getting a cat!” I said.

“I know it’s tuna fish,” Sandee said

“Then can you make me some tuna fish?” Tris wheedled, trying to get something out of this deal.

“No, you already had dinner. It’s almost time for you to go to bed, thank God,” I said.

“But I like tuna fish!”

“Honey,” Sandee said quickly, probably noticing that I was about ready to give my daughter a tuna fish enema, can and all, “it’s not good to eat right before bedtime. You might have bad dreams. Mommy can make some tuna fish for your lunch tomorrow.”

“Breffest?”

“We’ll see!” I said aloud, mouthing to Sandee over Tris’ head, “If she’s still alive!”

After another quarter hour of torture, her teeth brushed, face washed, three drinks or water, five pees, my daughter was in bed. If Sandee hadn’t been there, I probably woulda screamed at her at least three times. As it was, I probably had permanent dents in my palms from digging my nails into them. I turned the fan on so it could blow on her and turned the TV to The Simpsons, so she’d have something to listen to while she fell asleep and so Sandee and I could talk.

Chapter 5--Part 1

2004-11-12T15:31:00.000-06:00

Chapter 5
I couldn’t figure out exactly where I was. It was dark, and I was hurting. Had I crawled into the closet again? My knees were screaming from kneeling on the pebbles. My face was throbbing from the repeated slaps, and one eye was swollen shut. But why did my throat hurt so? Had she strangled me this time? And why was it so dark?

She was shaking my shoulder, gently. I knew that gentleness was a ploy, a tactic to make me think she was back to normal. Maybe if I just played possum, she’d think I was really unconscious and leave me alone. I tried not to moan as the shaking got stronger. Then I felt the blankets being lifted off my head, and I saw light through my closed eyelids. I winced as she said, “Omigosh!”

Through my burning throat I pleaded, “Mother . . . . Mother, for . . . .”

“Don’t,” she whispered. Her hand went over my mouth.

The memory of last night flooded over me. Somebody had tried to strangle me and had almost succeeded. Was this him . . .or her . . . back for a second shot at me? I shoved the hand away with all my might and scrambled up into a crouch. “BACK OFF, YOU BASTARD!” I shouted.

With my one good eye, I saw Sandee stagger back, slip on a pile of dirty laundry, and land with a trailer-shaking crash on her butt on the floor. Thank God, she landed where she did—another two feet to the right and she woulda impaled herself on the wooden pole of Tris’ ring toss game. A helluva painful dildo.

“What in God’s good name is wrong with you, Nadine?!” she wheezed. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I’m taking you out of my will if you keep this up.”

“What’s wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?! Why were you trying to suffocate me, Sandee?”

“I wasn’t trying to suffocate you, you idiot,” she said, as she slowly hauled herself to her feet. “I was trying to wake you up because I’ve got to leave, and I thought you were going to use that horrible f- word again, and Tris was right over there, so I tried to cover your mouth, so you wouldn’t say what I thought you were going to say.”

Suddenly, I could see the three of us the way we woulda looked to someone looking in my window. Sandee, dragging her ass off the floor by hanging on to one of my wobbly chairs; Tris, standing in her nightgown on the couch, her little stick legs showing below the hem, her mouth hanging open; me, still in attack stance, fists raised in front of me, my legs bent at the knees: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Moron. I fell back on the bed and started to howl with laughter. The laugh sounded more like a croak because of my throat, and every muscle in my body was screaming, but I laughed and laughed.

Tris and Sandee must have thought I’d gone completely nuts because they just looked at me.

Tris jumped off the couch and bounded over to the bed. “Ma! What happened to your face?! Your face is all purple!”

“Nothin’ . . . It’s nothin’. I . . . I just . . . .”

“Tell me,” she demanded.

“I just slipped . . . in the bathroom . . . at the school . . . when I was cleaning it,” I made up as I went along, “and I hit my face on a sink.”

“Omigosh, Nadine,” Sandee said again. “How’d you slip? Are they going to pay for your medical bills? Since it happened on the job?”

“Uh, uh, no. I didn’t tell anyone. It was my own fault; I had the tile all wet with the cleaning solution and then . . . I realized I’d left something on the other side of the room. I thought I could walk carefully, but I slipped. It was my own stupid fault. Cut it out, Tristiana! Get away from me! Are you crazy?!” Tris was rubbing her grubby little fingers on my cheek, and it hurt like hell. She skittered away when I yelled as if she’d been slapped.

“She was just trying to make it feel better, like you do when she gets hurt,” Sandee explained. “That’s a sweet girl. But come over here, honey. Let’s let Mommy get up real gentle-like, since she hurt herself last night. . . . I really think you shoulda told somebody, Nadine. Didn’t they notice anything was wrong? Omigosh! Look at your knees!”

I tugged my nightgown over my raw knees and tried to get up without showing how much it hurt. “I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want them to think I’m a damn klutz—or some sue-happy nut—and not hire me,” I said.

“Well, I really think . . . but what happened to your voice? Did you hit your neck or something?”

“Just drop it for now, okay, Sandee?” I was hurting, and I didn’t want to have to make up any more lies that I’d have to remember later. “I fell. I got hurt. I’ll get better. End of story.” I staggered toward the bathroom, grabbing my cigarettes on the way. All I wanted was to be left alone to lick my wounds in peace and quiet.

“Yeah, a cigarette—that’ll make your throat feel a lot better,” Sandee sniffed.

I rubbed my middle finger along the side of my nose, like I was scratching it, but Sandee got the message and shut up. I stumbled to the bathroom and went to soak my aching body in a warm bath.

Chapter 4--Part 3

2004-11-12T11:33:00.001-06:00

When the door slammed shut, the girls surrounded me, petting me and fussing over me like a boxer’s trainers after a tough round. I was shaking from being so mad. Val, for once, showed she had some brains and ordered me a fresh Coors. People started talking and dancing again now that the show was over.

“Nadine, you shouldn’t get Wayne mad like that. You know what a temper he has,” B.J. advised. “Besides, do you think making him mad will get him to send you a child support check anytime soon?”

“Yeah? Well, he’s gonna see more of my temper if he tries coming around here anymore. And I’ll kick his tight ass all the way to court, if I have to.”

The rest of the night flew by. It took me about two more beers to calm myself down, but after I stopped shaking from being so mad, I was okay. We danced and talked and had a great old time. Around 2:45 a.m., old Silent Sid mumbled something that sounded like “last call” and unplugged the jukebox. He knew we’d keep dancing all night if he let us. Since it was a weeknight, most of the regulars had taken off long ago.

Val, B.J., and I started to leave together, but I realized I wasn’t gonna make it home without pissing myself if I didn’t take a leak. They went on ahead, and I tottered back to the ancient, grimy hellhole that passes for a john in that place. It’s pretty hard walking when you’re trying to keep your legs crossed, so you don’t dribble. I got in there and the stench crossed my eyes, too. If I hadn’t been really desperate, I’d definitely have waited until I got home.

After the pause that refreshes, I was ready to go. I waved and blew a kiss to Sid on my way out. He was mopping down the bar and acknowledged my goodnight with a slight nod of his head. He didn’t even look at me. Although, maybe he did. I never could tell where those wall eyes were looking.

The little parking lot was empty except for my heap. The whole street was empty. This town isn’t like Chicago or some city. They pretty much roll up the streets at 10, and here it was 3 a.m. I’d been up since whenever the hell it was that Tris woke me, and I was starting to feel it. Between the beers and the fatigue, I guess I just wasn’t as sharp as usual because I didn’t know anyone was behind me until his one arm was clamped under my chin, pressing into my neck and cutting off my wind, and his other hand was over my nose and mouth. I struggled against him, flailing my arms around, kicking backward, but not connecting with anything. My damn tennis shoes wouldn’t have hurt him even if I coulda found his instep. I tried to scream and bite at the hand, but it was too tight across my mouth.

I caught a whiff of whiskey, as he muttered something like, “ . . . shut your big, fuckin’ mouth . . .break your goddam neck . . . .” I tried to figure out the voice, but he was just hissing through his teeth.

I thought of Tris and Sandee waking up and not finding me there. Never seeing me again. Me never seeing them again! I struggled even harder. I jabbed my car keys over my shoulder at where his face should be.

The pressure on my throat was getting worse. It felt like my eyes and ears would burst right in my head. I could feel myself blacking out. Through the roaring in my ears I heard far away sounds like a squeaking door and breaking glass. I was shoved roughly into the side of my car; my face hit the driver’s side and I bounced off and fell on the gravel. Before I blacked out completely, I heard footsteps running away.

I came to, I don’t know how much later. My palms and knees were scraped raw where I’d landed on them after bouncing off the car. My face ached. My throat felt like it’d been run over by a tank. Every muscle in my body ached, and I was shaking like someone with a fatal fever.

I looked back at The Port O’ Call. No one was there. The windows were dark, the shades drawn, the neon lights off. Trying not to cry out, I grabbed the door handle of the car and painfully pulled myself up. I glanced around to see if I saw anyone, but all I spotted was a broken beer bottle, its pieces lying near where I’d been down. A great wave of nausea washed over me, and I spilled my guts all over the pieces of glass. Damn, did that hurt!

I got into the car and locked the doors after me. I whimpered a little when I touched the steering wheel with my raw hands. Somehow I managed to get home, get myself cleaned up and calmed down some. I avoid looking in the bathroom mirror, took a handful of aspirin, and made a makeshift icepack for myself out of a Zipperlock Baggie. I could hardly bear to hold it against my face or neck. I threw an afghan over Sandee, who, just as I predicted, was stretched out sound asleep on the couch, snoring and sounding for all the world like a freight train.
I crawled into my own bed, and, even though I’m not a praying woman, prayed to God—whoever He or She is—that Tris and Sandee would sleep in, in the morning.

2004-11-12T11:33:00.000-06:00

Chapter 4--part 2

2004-11-12T10:10:00.000-06:00

Val might not be too bright, but she can dance like crazy. B.J. came over and joined us, and the three of us just let loose and were having a blast. I don’t know what it is about dancing, but it makes me feel really free.

Have you ever seen a movie where there’s all this noise and stuff going on, but then there’s a little squeak or a tinkle or something and the main character hears it over all that noise? And you’re thinking, “Yeah, right, like anybody would’ve heard that”? Well, I swear that actually happened. One second all I could hear was the music and the talking and people laughing, and then, I swear, I heard the click of the doorknob turning. If it happened in a movie, everything else would be kind of quiet, while the character goes to investigate the noise. Well, I didn’t have to go investigate. The doorknob clicked and turned, the door swung open, and in walked the last person on earth I wanted to see. And hanging from his arm, just like snot from a nostril, was this cheap-looking twat, who I swear couldn’t have been any older than sixteen.

Val and B.J. realized I’d stopped dancing—I don’t think I’d realized it myself—and turned to look at the door.

“Oh, shit,” Val said, grabbing onto my arm.

“Just stay away from him, Nadine,” B.J. advised.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said, jerking my arm out of Val’s grasp. “I don’t want to get anywhere near that asshole. There isn’t enough toilet paper in the world to clean him up.”

I stomped back to the bar and took another long swallow from the mouth of the amber bottle. I was sweating like a pig from dancing, and my insides felt like they were on fire. I turned around, rested my elbows on the bar, and hooked the heel of my shoe over the low bar railing. It made me sick to see him walking around, talking to people, looking so damn proud of himself.

“Just don’t say anything,” B.J. said, coming up and stroking my arm as if I were her invalid aunt or something.

“Leave me alone. I’m fine. I’m cool,” I assured her. But I was anything BUT cool. I was so hot I coulda melted all the ice behind the bar. The smoke alarm would’ve gone off if the battery in it hadn’t died six months ago.

I just stood there looking at him, smiling and talking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His hair was still long and full—like a friggin’ lion’s mane—and he still flipped it when he talked. Somebody oughta tell him shoulder-length hair doesn’t look so good once a guy’s past thirty. He’ll probably be doing a Danny DeVito when he’s fifty, bald on top and pulling his long, stringy hair back into a ponytail. He had on a wife-beater tank and tight blue jeans. His tight little ass that used to make my mouth dry and my pants wet did nothing for me except make me want to kick him right there.

And little Miss Bitch was right there next to him, like they’d been surgically joined at the arms or something. She was holding onto him and rubbing her size D boobs against his arm. She had on sparkle mascara, and she kept flitting her eyelashes and squealing at everything he said as if he was the funniest guy in the world. Oh, he was funny all right. He really cracked me up.

I’d like to crack him up, good.

I turned my back on the dance floor, so I didn’t have to see him and his little tramp girlfriend. I ran my fingers lightly up and down the sweating sides of the Coors’ bottle, picturing what it would be like to just smash that bottle right down over the crown of his stupid head. I could hear the “crack” of his skull splitting and imagine the sides of his face folding in on each other like a popped balloon. Ahh, probably it wouldn’t do any real damage—nothing could hurt that thick skull of his—but it would wipe that stupid grin off his stupid face.

I could hear him joking and laughing with Carl at a table not too far from the bar. Sweet Cheeks was still giggling along with him. I was still cool; I thought, “I can get through this.” But when I heard him tell Carl he was gonna buy the next round of drinks for the table, I lost it. I whirled around on the barstool.

“Hey, Big Spender,” I called to him over the music. “You can buy a round of drinks for your buddies, but your kid’s drinking sour milk because I can’t afford to buy a fresh quart.”

His head snapped up like I’d slapped him. I saw his eyes go narrow, like a snake’s for just a minute. I’d managed to wipe the smile off little Sweet Cheeks’ face, too. She leaned into him, and I saw her mutter something. He answered, “Nobody,” loud enough for me to hear it, and I wanted to kill him on the spot.

“Yeah, honey, I’m ‘nobody’—just the mother of Mr. Big Spender’s daughter . . .
Oh, he didn’t tell you he had a kid, did he? Gee, that’s a surprise. He’ll usually so honest and up front about everything. When are you planning to send a check again, Wayne, when Tristiana starts high school? If she hasn’t starved to death before then?”

Wayne took the girl by the elbow and started to steer her away, but she kept looking back at me, her mouth open in a perfect, stupid O.

“Just a word of advice, honey, old Wayne is a regular Looney Toons cartoon. He’ll woo you like Pépé le Pew as long as he thinks he can get into your pants, but if you get pregnant, he’ll turn into the RoadRunner. All you’ll see is his dust.” I raised my voice to shout to her as Wayne pulled her toward the door, but I needn’t have—that room was silent except for the jukebox still twanging away.

Wayne’s face was almost purple, he was so mad, and the wench kept looking from him to me as if she was trying to figure out what to do. He practically dragged her out the door with his hand clamped just above her elbow. What a friggin’ gentleman he is.

Chapter 4--Part 1

2004-11-10T13:50:00.000-06:00

Chapter 4

I couldn’t wait to get out of there after my shift was over. I’d seen enough gum and chalk dust and little bits of paper on the floor to last me for a week. And I’d had enough of Raylene to last me a lifetime. If I do get hired on full time, they better not put me at the high school with her. I’d wind up tripping her down the stairs with my mop.

Sandee was babysitting Tris, and she always falls asleep in front of the TV once the kid is asleep, so I figured I could stop at The Port O’ Call to treat myself for what I’d had to put up with all night. I stripped my dripping tank top off in the car, balled it up, and scrubbed my pits with it. I thought about rubbing the pine-scented car freshener under my arms, but it had lost its smell months ago. Then I figured, ah, what the hell. If anyone at The Port could smell me, even as bad as I stunk, they hadn’t had enough to drink yet. Besides the smoke in there kills any smell weaker than three-day old road kill, and I wasn’t that ripe yet.

I slipped a fresh tank top over my head. It was the perfect one to wear to the Port. It said, “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, Floor!” I fluffed my damp bangs a little, pulled my hair out of the rubber band, shook it out with my fingers, and caught it up in the band again. I was starting to feel like a human being again, but I had a ways to go. I knew what would help me along the way. I lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, held it, and then blew a stream of smoke out my nose. That’s another problem in working for the damn schools. You can’t smoke in the buildings. And I wasn’t about to run my legs off up and down the stairs just to sit out on the Loading Dock and make small talk with a bunch of old, boring custodians. Screw it.

I peeled out of the high school parking lot as fast as anybody could peel in a twelve-year-old piece of junk and headed north on Logan Road. I had the windows rolled all the way down and the air blowing against my damp skin felt wonderful. I always loved driving when I was hot—or hot to trot, as they say—or hot under the collar. When I first got my license, and my mom would get to be too much, I’d get out on some country road, put the pedal to the metal and leave all my cares behind.

Too bad I always had to come back, eventually.

I slowed down before I reached Hart Street. There’s a cop who always hangs out there at night waiting for speeders. You’d think he’d be smart enough to change his spot once in a while, but I’m glad I always know where to find him. I breezed by Hart at a sedate 30 m.p.h. and blew a kiss to the cop. He didn’t have to know I really meant, “Kiss my ass,” did he?

The parking lot at The Port was packed, but I managed to wedge myself between two newer cars. Let them worry about getting out without scratching their precious cars. They can’t do anything to hurt my sack of nuts and bolts.

The stink of stale beer and stale cigarette smoke slapped me in the face as I pushed open the door; the jukebox was blaring. “Ahh,” I said, breathing deeply, “Home Sweet Home.”
Val and B.J. were at the bar when I walked in.

“Hah! Look what the cat dragged in,” Val brayed. I swear, she’s got a voice that could cut glass.

“Where the hell have you been?” B.J. asked. “You look like you was rode hard and put away wet.”

“I was working, ladies,” I said. “Something some of you know nothing about.” Everybody knew B.J. couldn’t hold a job for shit. She was smart as a whip—even went to college for a couple of years, although I don’t think she graduated—always started out gangbusters at any job she did get, but then in a few weeks she’d get sick of getting up in the morning or something and screw it up, so they’d fire her.

“Go screw yourself,” B.J. answered with a smile. “Wanna beer?”

“No. First, I want to sit down, and then I want a beer.”

B.J. jumped off the barstool. “Here. Hoist your skinny ass up there.”

“Thanks, you’re a pal. Shit, I’m bushed,” I said, scrubbing my face with the heels of my hands.
Sid the Silent Bartender unscrewed the cap of a Coors Lite and shoved it in front of me.
I took a long drink. The cold beer slid down my throat, hit my stomach and blossomed into coolness all over my body. “Sid, I’ll love you forever, man. Just say the word, and I’ll make you the happiest man on the face of this earth,” I teased.

The left corner of Sid’s mouth twitched the tiniest bit and his wall eyes seemed to focus a little more. That was the most you’d ever get out of Sid. You know how some bartenders love to talk and tell stories and shit? Well, for Sid, that twitch was the longest story I’d ever get out of him. Hell, I didn’t even know if he didn’t like to talk or if he couldn’t.

“Leave him alone, Deenie,” Val said, punching me lightly in the bicep.

I spun slowly toward her on the stool. “How long have we known each other, Val?” I asked.

“Like . . . forever. Why?”

“Then when the hell are you gonna figure out that I hate being called ‘Deenie’? I hated it when we were kids, I hated it when we were teenagers, and I hate it now. And I don’t think I’ve ever made a secret of that. I hate it.” I punched her in the bicep each time I said “hate.” Not real hard. Just to, you know, punctuate it.

“Geez. Sorr-ee, NA-dine ” Val said, sarcastically, rubbing her arm. I could tell, she was really pissed, but she was too afraid to stand up to me. She’s always been a wimp when push comes to shove. I didn’t care if she was pissed. I was tired and hot and sick of her being so stinking stupid. I let her stew for a while, while B.J. and I talked about nothing, then I grabbed Val’s arm.

“Come on, Val,” I said, dragging her out onto the postage stamp that passes for a dance floor. “They’re playing our song.”

Just like that, she was fine. I’ve known her for at least fifteen years, and I’ve never figured out if she’s really forgiving or just really dumb, but I know how to get around her when she’s in a bad mood, and the Coors had gotten me out of mine. The jukebox was blasting out some old Garth Brooks’ song, and we started dancing around, shaking everything that we could shake. The beer and the music was making me feel better by the second.

Chapter 3--Part 4

2004-11-10T13:12:00.000-06:00

I flipped the book open and read a page. It was a description of Curley’s wife with her hair in curls like “little sausages” and her “red mules with ostrich feathers.” Mrs. Joseph had tried to make us feel sorry for her ‘cause she was so young and lonely and Curley treated her like his possession. She didn’t even have her own name. She was just “Curley’s wife” through the whole book.

But I didn’t buy it. I didn’t feel sorry for her. She was a slut from the get-go, showing off her body for the hired hands. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe George and Lennie woulda gotten their farm. I was glad when Lennie broke her slutty neck. Julia claimed Curley’s wife was just as lonely and trapped as everyone else in the book, but it just made me hate her more because Julia was sticking up for her.

“What are you doing?!” Raylene’s voice startled me so much I dropped the book and almost knocked the plastic file holder off the corner of the desk.

“Nothing. I was just …”

“You’re not supposed to be reading in here. You’re supposed to be cleaning. We’ve got to get this whole floor done before 11.”

“I know. I was just . . . straightening up the desk. It was a mess.”

“You’re not supposed to touch anything on the teachers’ desks! I told you that. If you move something and they can’t find it, they’ll come yelling at me. Now finish up in here and get moving!”

“I’m already done.”

Raylene stomped out of the room. I had a vision of slamming into her with my cleaning cart. That’d knock her hair out of that bun and that look off her fat face. I grabbed the note I’d written about the gum under the desk and threw it in the recycling bin. What did I care if some stupid kid got gum on his pants? I just hoped it was some rich snot that got it. I tossed Of Mice and Men with all its little notes scribbled in the margins in there, too, under a couple of papers. Let the teacher go nuts looking for her marked-up copy. What did I care?

I pushed the cart into the hallway and headed toward my next room. Then I thought of Mrs. Joseph and how she’d feel if she couldn’t find her book.

“Oh, damn it all to hell,” I said. I ran back into the room I’d just left, dug the stupid book out of the recycling bin, and put it back on the stupid teacher’s desk.

I hate this stinking job.

Chapter 3--Part 3

2004-11-09T22:13:00.000-06:00

I couldn’t help checking myself out for a minute in the mirror. I don’t get to look in a full-length one that often.

I didn’t look like I’d been in school that long ago. With the right clothes, I might be able to pass for a high school kid. I was still as skinny as I was in high school, still not much in the way of boobs, maybe, even after having a kid, but at least they didn’t sag down to my waist. My butt and legs didn’t jiggle or look like sacks of cottage cheese. Man, I hate to see women with that cellulite. Lumps and Bumps on Parade! That was probably the one thing in life I could thank my mother for—skinny genes.

I grinned at the mirror. I still had a great smile—people always said I had Julia Robert’s mouth with all those teeth. Lucky I didn’t have those big old honkin’ ears she has. No wonder she wears her hair down most of the time.

Yeah, I could pass for a high school kid, maybe, but my eyes were a dead give-away. You wouldn’t find too many high school girls with dark circles like those unless they’d been on one hell of a binge.

Oh well, that’s why God created cover-up. Too bad I couldn’t afford a new stick of it and my old one was just a nub.

By the time I’d finished the first board in the first room, I was sweating like a pig.
I’d worn a tank top and shorts—the night staff could get away with that—and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, but I was still drenched. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck and between that and the ponytail tip brushing against it, I felt like I had bugs all over my neck. Maybe if I got a permanent job here, I’d turn into a bun-head, too.

I finished the board—wiping side to side, not up and down—wiped out the chalk tray and banged the erasers inside the garbage can. What happened to letting the teacher’s pet clean the board and clap the erasers? I suppose they want something better than the “honor” of knocking a couple of erasers together. While the board was drying—I had to check it for streaks, you know—I checked out where the desks were before I moved any of them. Some of the teachers have a shit-fit if their stupid desks aren’t exactly where they were the day before.

Once I had the arrangement set in my mind, I shoved the first three rows to the side and got ready to vacuum. The carpet was pathetic. It was the same old shit brown that had been here when I was in high school, and it was about ten years old then. Some of the seams had separated, and they were held together with duct tape. What an attractive look. Maybe I’d try it in the trailer to dress it up. Ha.

I finished the vacuuming, and by this time the sweat was pouring off me like Niagara Falls. It was running in my eyes and stinging like be-Jesus.

I got the squirt bottle and a clean rag and started in on the desks. Even though the tops were made of Formica or some hard stuff, the little turds still managed to carve on them. You could tell who the most popular bands had been for the life of these desks. I found a couple of Metallicas, an AC/DC, P. Daddy, Korn, Phish, (no wonder these little morons couldn’t spell), Manson (Marilyn or Charles? Who knows and who cares?). Some stupid names I’d never heard of like Weezer and Radiohead and Spine Shank, and the stupidest of all: Alien Ant Farm. Was Pure Rubbish a band or just a comment? How about Shaken Baby Syndrome? That was a dandy name. Obviously anybody who listened to them had to have been shaken once too often when they were babies.

I didn’t find any for Country Western singers. Either nobody listened to them, or their fans were all good little girls who didn’t carve up school desks.

I finished the gum check and pushed my cart into the next room. I stopped long enough to splash water on my face and neck at the water fountain and stick the end of my ponytail into the rubber band.

The rest of the afternoon went the same. One room after another. Somebody had brought a CD player in and put on some Rock-a-billy music. They had it turned up high enough, so we could hear it all up and down the hallway. That made the cleaning go faster.

Raylene checked on me a couple of times, but she must have been satisfied with what she saw. She’d left me alone for the past three rooms. I figured I could finish the one I was in before the lunch break, so I set to it and did the board and vacuuming. I had to really think about where the desks went because this teacher had them in some weird-ass formation with different numbers of desks facing in all different directions. What the hell was she trying to prove?

Finally it was time for an under-the-desk gum check. My favorite! This teacher must not allow gum in class because there wasn’t much under the desks. Not like in some rooms. One little shit-wad, though, had rigged up a gum booby trap. He’d twisted a paper clip into a little trigger with about three pieces of chewed up Bubblelicious—that soft crap that takes like a year to harden—stuck to it. Whoever sat in that desk first hour woulda gotten soft, sticky gum all over his pants. I wanted to leave a note saying, “Ha, I found it, you little bastard” but a bunch of kids would be sitting in that seat before he sat there again.

I didn’t have any doubt that it was a boy who’d left it.

Rather than leave the kid a note he probably wouldn’t see, I decided to leave the teacher a note. Maybe she could catch him in the act.

I dug a piece of paper out of the recycling can and grabbed a pen out of a cup on the teacher’s desk. The cup had a comet with a big golden tail on it and the words: “I touch the future—I TEACH!” That was just too friggin’ precious. I thought about writing on it, “Touch dis,” but if they didn’t automatically blame a kid and figured out who did it, I’d never get hired on full time.

Anyway, I wrote her a note about the desk with the booby trap. I told her it had to have been last hour because if anyone had sat in the desk after that, he woulda tripped it. I didn’t sign my name, just wrote “Substitute janitor.” I was gonna put “custodian,” but I couldn’t remember if it was “-ian” or “-ion” or maybe “-ien,” and I wasn’t about to look like an idiot in front of an English teacher. “Ah might be a custodian, but Ah cain’t spell it,” I said aloud in my best hillbilly accent.

I tucked the note partway under one of the books on her desk—it was a pretty messy desk for a teacher, but I wasn’t getting paid to organize it. Then I looked at the cover of the book and saw it was Of Mice and Men. That had been my favorite book in high school. Well, it was actually the only one I every really read. I mean, some of those other books were just lame. Who wanted to read about some dork named Pip who loved some bitch that only wanted to use him? Or even worse, some poor Indian smuck who found a big pearl that caused him trouble? Those books were just stupid and didn’t have anything to do with real life.

But Of Mice and Men—that was a good book. Mrs. Joseph told us before we started that it had some bad language in it, and she “hoped we weren’t offended by it.” Ha. Was she kidding? Some of us used worse language than that on our good days. You don’t want to know what we sounded like on our bad ones.

I read that whole book and thought it was real good. Even though poor old Lennie got shot in the end. I was really mad at George until Mrs. Joseph told us to figure out what choices he had. After looking at all the angles, I figured out he was stuck. He really couldn’t have done anything else. He was as trapped as Lennie was. I almost got into a big fight with some big jerk in the class who tried to say that George just did it because he was sick of Lennie hanging around. What an idiot! I swear I was the only one in that class with any brains. Even though Miss I’m-Going-to-be-Valedictorian, Julia Hepburn was in there. Man, I hated her. It almost made me like the book even better because she didn’t. She said her mother said the language was too bad for us to read in high school. My ex had an expression that fit old Julia and her mother
perfectly: “She wouldn’t say ‘shit’ if she had a mouthful of it.”

Chapter 3--Part 2

2004-11-09T13:53:00.000-06:00

To make the day absolutely perfect, when I got there it was like a hundred and ten degrees in the building. We’d had hot weather for a while, and you expected the other schools to be roasting—they just have ceiling fans—but the high school has air conditioning. They’re just too cheap to keep it on at night. Sure, we don’t want our little darlings to sweat on their little notebooks, but it’s okay if the custodial staff has one big, massive, collective stroke while they’re cleaning up after the little assholes! What did they care about us? If we all quit or dropped dead of heat frustration, there’d be plenty of other unskilled suckers to take our places.

I hated doing this subbing, going from one building to the next, never knowing what hours I’d be working, but Sandee said it was the only way to get on full-time. And, God help me, that’s what I was trying to do. The job might suck, but at least I’d have health insurance for me and Tris. What the hell else was I gonna do with a 10th grade education—teach? Perform brain surgery? Maybe support us on my wonderful poetry? Ha. Sure, I’d gotten a GED at Adult Ed, but lots of places looked at that as worse than nothing.

The woman I was working with that night was named Raylene. I’d worked with her once before. She was old, like maybe 56, 57, but she looked even older. Her hair was mousy brown, streaked with white, and she wore it pulled back tight in a bun. Nothing makes a woman look older than being a bun-head. Some of those women from one of those religions where they have to wear dresses all the time and keep their hair long used to come in the Ben Franklin Dime Store to get canning supplies when I used to work there. Those dresses reminded me of my mother and always made me want to run out the back door. As soon as the girls in that religion—Bun-Head Freakazoids for the Lord, or whatever it was—turned seventeen, they started pulling their hair into a bun. They went from seventeen right to forty, with no stops in between.

Raylene was also annoying as hell. She knew I’d worked there before, but she still had to give me fifteen minutes of instructions like I was some kind of retard who didn’t know how to do anything. I mean, cleaning isn’t exactly rocket science.

Raylene acted as if we were cleaning Buckingham Palace or something—or maybe her own personal house. She’s such a grind, she takes it personally if all the rooms aren’t cleaned to her standards. I can’t believe she’d work that hard and get that excited about it for $7.50 an hour—and that’s what she was getting after working there half her life. Was I sure I wanted to do this? Ha, like I had much of a choice.

Raylene went on and on about how to wash the boards—“Don’t leave any streaks. They don’t like streaks. Wash side to side, not up and down. And don’t forget to wash out the chalk tray and clean the erasers!”—move all the desks, vacuum, wash the desk tops, check underneath for gum. Did she think I was a moron?

Finally, she let me get started. I’d been ready to strangle her if she hadn’t shut up. While I was nodding and pretending to concentrate on what she was saying, I was picturing sucking that bun head of hers into my heavy-duty vacuum cleaner. But, hell, I’d probably get charged for it if I broke the thing.

I had a whole hallway of rooms to do before I could take a lunch break at 6:30 p.m. I got my cart with all the cleaning supplies and went to work. This cart was really something. It had a special place for everything we needed, so we hardly ever had to go back to the supply closet. It had one part that held the skirt bottles filled with vinegar and water—they don’t let us use any chemicals anymore, it’s some OSHA thing, I guess. There was one part for rags, sponges, the gum scraper, and the squeegee; a bucket; a hole for the mop; and a place for the vacuum cleaner. The whole front section held one of those big black plastic bags for garbage.
Man, all that sucker needed was a little refrigerator for a couple of beers and it would be complete.

I polished the water fountains, after digging a disgusting wad of chew out of the drain. I wonder how the little bastard who left it there would like it if a big wad of chew was crammed in his drain hole. Then I turned to the full-length mirror on the wall near the corner, carefully wiping off about a million fingerprints that I knew would be back the next day. Why do they have to touch the damn mirror, for crying out loud?! Are they trying to feel themselves up or something?

Chapter 3--Part 1

2004-11-08T10:08:00.000-06:00

Chapter 3

When I got to work that afternoon, I could tell right away it wasn’t gonna be a good day. They’d called me to sub at the high school, and I hate to work there. For one thing, especially after running into old lady Joseph at the store, I wasn’t in the mood to see any of my old teachers. For another, the high school kids could think of ways of being disgusting that hadn’t occurred yet to the elementary and middle school kids. Sure, at the elementary schools, you might have to chisel dried Elmer’s Glue off the tops of the desks, but you hardly ever had to fish a used sanitary pad out of the toilet or from behind the pipes, or snag a used tampon off the hook on the inside of the door. And I don’t care that they give you rubber gloves. There are just some things nobody else should ever have to even see—and somebody else’s bloody plug is right up at the top of that list.

The boys’ room was always disgusting no matter what level school. Do guys ever learn how to aim those things and not dribble on the floor? Walking in there was about as bad as walking into the monkey house at the zoo. What a stench. At least when the elementary boys pissed on the floor, you could pretty much guess it was an accident. Well, most of the time.

A lot of the messes in the boys’ rooms weren’t deliberate. They just proved again what we all knew already: Men, of any age, are pigs. Of course, some of the messes were deliberate. Like when some wannabee comedian decided to cram paper towels in the sinks and urinals and turn the water on full blast.

The messes in the girls’ rooms were almost always deliberate. They were rarely as crude as the paper-towel-in-the-sink trick. But they were mean in a sneaky, up-yours kind of way. The smeared lipstick on the mirrors, the used pads and plugs on display, sometimes even a fingerprint of shit dragged down the wall of the stall. All of them said, “I was here. I’m leaving a little disgusting token of myself for everyone to admire for the rest of the day. And then somebody’s gonna have to clean it up, but it won’t be me!”

I wished I could catch somebody in the act. I’d make them clean it up. I could imagine holding some little smart-ass by the hair and making her think I was gonna make her lick up her mess. I’d never work in the school system again—hell, I’d probably have to go into hiding to keep from getting sued by some big daddy—but that might cure one of them forever of leaving messes.

The other thing that pissed me off in the girls’ room was all the writing on the stalls. “Tiffany ¤’s Brandon 4-ever.” Aww, how sweet. It made me want to puke. Mrs. Joseph used to say, “If you really love somebody, wouldn’t you find a better place to write his name than in the rest room?” And, ok, I’ll admit maybe I did do that once—when I liked Bobby Rogers—but that was in middle school. I swear I never did it in high school. Honest. Well, not after Mrs. Joseph said that, anyway.

Now, writing stuff about girls who pissed me off, that I did in the johns in high school all the time. Once I scratched “Julie Hepburn is a bitch” in a stall wall with my house key after she made some stupid comment to make me look dumb in class. Even after they painted that over, you could still see it. You could run your finger over it and feel it. I always tried to use that stall after that because it made me feel real good to see my handiwork. I felt kind of disappointed when I started working here and found that they’d replaced the old metal walls with new ones.

Damaged Goods--Chapter 2

2004-11-03T09:38:00.000-06:00

Chapter 2

I couldn’t wait to get out of that store. I grabbed the handles of the plastic bags with one hand and Tris’ hand with the other and made a beeline for the door. It took me a minute to realize that someone was saying my name.

“Nadine . . . Nadine Stewart! Is that you?”

I turned and saw a woman, past middle age but not yet walker and hemorrhoid cream material yet. I didn’t recognize her. “Yeah? Do I know . . . ?”

“Oh, how silly of me. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Cecilia Joseph—Mrs. Joseph—I was your freshman English teacher.”

“Oh, Mrs. Joseph! Of course I remember you. I . . . I just didn’t recognize you at first.” Her hair was gray and short, kinda pretty, completely different from the way she used to wear it. She used to wear it with bangs in kind of a bowl cut, and the boys used to call her “Moe,” like from the Three Stooges.

“My, it’s nice to see you again! It’s been—what?—six years since you were in my class?”

“Nine, but who’s counting?” God, could I be any more lame?

“And this must be your daughter. She looks just like you, Nadine.” Mrs. Joseph bent down to talk to Tris, who was pulling her shy act. “Your mommy was one of my best students. So smart and creative! And such a pretty girl! And you’re just as pretty as she was.”

Tris clung to my hand and tried to hide behind my leg. I tugged at her hand, trying to look like I wasn’t tugging at her, to make her come out. “Say hello to Mrs. Joseph, Tris. She was one of the best teachers I ever had.”

Well, that was an exaggeration, but what could I say after she’d called me smart, creative, and pretty?

“What’s her name? Chris?” Mrs. Joseph asked.

“No, Tris. Tristiana Louise.”

“Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl!”

“My friend Sandee, who knows all about names, said I shouldn’t have named her Tristiana because it means ‘sad,’ but I think it’s pretty. I like different names.” Besides, I had a crush on Brad Pitt when I saw Legends of the Fall. I swore I’d name my first kid Tristan, like his character. Well, I had to go with Tristiana, but you know what I mean.

“What does Nadine mean, do you know?” Mrs. Joseph asked.

“According to Sandee, it means ‘hopeful.’”

I guess that proves that the meaning of names is a bunch of shit.

Tris pulled on my hand with her left hand, trying to get back behind my leg, and stuck her index finger up her nose with her right. I thought I’d drop dead right on the spot.

“Don’t do that! That’s disgusting! . . . Uh, do you need a tissue, honey?” I added, hastily.

Suddenly I saw us like Mrs. Joseph must: Tris with her stringy hair and mismatched clothes, her eyes and face blotchy from crying ‘cause I wouldn’t buy the damn makeup kit, her finger up her nose like a moron; me in tight denim cutoffs, no makeup, my hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, and a T-shirt that said in tiny letters across the boobs: “If you can read this, you’re too fucking close.”

If you looked in Webster’s under “white trash,” you’d find a picture of us just like this. I wished this was a bad dream and I’d wake up soon. I noticed Mrs. Joseph wasn’t wearing her glasses. I hoped at least her eyesight was too bad for her to read my shirt.

But she kept talking as if we were normal people. “Are you still writing poetry, Nadine? You always wrote such expressive, beautiful poetry.”

“Uh, no. No, I haven’t done that for a long time. Between work and my daughter . . . you know how it goes.”

“Oh, yes. I went back to teaching when my twins started first grade. It was no picnic, I can tell you. I know how hard it is.”

I prayed she wouldn’t ask me where I worked, but she came up with one better—or worse, I should say. “Did you and David get married then?” She was the only one who ever called him David.

“No. No, we, uh, were going to, but then I lost that baby and we decided . . . uh, you know . . . it was just a high school thing, I guess.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy. I just . . . well, you and David were together for such a long . . . I mean. . . . .”

“No, it’s okay. It’s probably better. Dave was just a big kid himself. I can’t exactly picture him as a husband or daddy.”

Tris decided to choose that moment to join the conversation. “My daddy is a no-good jerk who never sends our check on time.”

Now I really wished the floor would open up and swallow me. I could feel my face getting red. I tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, I guess I picked two bad ones in a row. You know, the old saying, ‘History repeats itself.’”

“Don’t worry, dear. That happens to a lot of people. You’ll meet Mr. Right someday.” She patted my arm.

“Yeah, but with my luck, Mr. Wrong will be monopolizing my time while Mr. Right decides he can’t hang around any long and leaves.”

Mrs. Joseph laughed. “You always did have a good way with an image. Now, just remember: you’re young, you’re bright, you have a beautiful daughter; you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to.”

“Yeah, I mean, Yes. Thanks. Well, it was good seeing you, Mrs. Joseph, but I’ve got to get Tris home and get her some lunch.” I turned to go, but the embarrassment wasn’t over yet.

“Yeah. I never did have any breffast!” Tris informed everyone within earshot.

That night after Tris was asleep, I got a cardboard box down from the top of the closet. I took it over to the dinette table and set it down. It had a thick coating of dust that I brushed away with a used paper napkin. I’d moved the box from one place to the next, never opening it, never dusting it. I hadn’t had to open it; I knew exactly what was in it.

On the very top were the yearbooks from my freshman and sophomore years. I picked up the freshman one and flipped to the S section of the class pictures. There I was at 15 years old, long blonde hair falling on each side of my skinny face, bright-eyed, and grinning like I was doing a toothpaste commercial or something. I looked like I coulda been one of those kids on Barney, for crying out loud.
Who the hell was I back then?

The yellow highlighter that I had used to draw a rectangle around my picture was faded. I felt faded, too. I flipped to the inside front cover and saw a bunch of messages that people had written there, but I didn’t read them. I was already depressed enough.

Under the yearbooks were little lumpy things I’d made in a ceramics class in elementary school. One was some kind of animal—a bear or a hippo or something. I don’t remember what. The other was a little heart-shaped bowl. I snorted scornfully but set them carefully on the table next to the yearbooks. It was amazing they hadn’t got broken over the years—like most of the stuff from when I was a kid.

Next were some certificates from middle school and grade school. Perfect Attendance Awards, a Science Fair Second Place certificate, a book I’d written for the Young Author’s Contest in 4th Grade: “Marvin, the Mouse Who Couldn’t Squeak.” Oh, God. Could I have been any lamer? I laid those aside.

Finally on the bottom I found what I’d been looking for—a black and white composition notebook with the words Poems by Nadine Olivia Stewart written with a flourish in the subject line. Two chains of little blue and pink flowers wove around the fancy lettering. The cutesy-ness of it gagged me, and I almost threw the whole mess back in the box. But I lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and plowed on.

I opened the cover of the book and a piece of paper fluttered out. It was a message written in Mrs. Joseph’s neat handwriting: “Nadine, thank you for sharing your poems with me. I enjoyed reading them very much. Your images are crisp and strong, and your wording is very lyrical. Good work with alliteration. You show great promise as a poet, and I hope you will stick with it. Again, thanks for letting me read them. Mrs. Joseph. (P.S. I made just a few comments and spelling corrections in pencil on your pages. Feel free to erase them if you wish.)”

I could still remember how my hands were shaking as I handed the book to her after school one day. I’m not exactly sure why I chose her. I’d never let anyone read my poetry before. Not even my best friend, Tammi. It wasn’t because Mrs. Joseph was such a great teacher. She really wasn’t. She was pretty disorganized. She let the kids walk all over her. But I liked her. Maybe because she wasn’t perfect, and she didn’t pretend to be like some of those crappy teachers.

The boys were mean to her. Like I said, they called her Moe behind her back because of that dumb haircut. And then they’d tell jokes like, “Question: What do you call your English teacher? Answer: Moe-notonous!” or “Moe-ron” or “Moe-tormouth.”

Mrs. Joseph either didn’t hear the so-called jokes or didn’t get them or just decided it was better to ignore them. Sometimes I’d tell the boys to shut up, when they got too annoying. I don’t know if she knew about it and that was why she liked me.

But she did like me. Maybe that’s why I liked her.

Most other teachers would get mad when I’d forget and doodle little pictures in the corners of my homework assignments. She’d just write something like “Pretty!” and draw a little smiley face or something by it. Sometimes she’d add something to the picture. Like if I drew a flower, she’d draw a butterfly landing on it. Or if I drew a bird, she drew a note in a little balloon coming out of its mouth.

Maybe that’s why I let her read my poetry—because she never got mad at my doodling. I don’t know.

I flipped through a few of the pages. I’d started writing these in seventh grade. Most of my so-called poetry was pretty bad. Lots of “If I was a little gray mouse/I’d live in a little gray house.” Or even worse, “It’s Joe (or Bob or Tom) I love/He was sent from heaven above.” Real original, huh? It was embarrassing. I skipped most of those early ones. I couldn’t stand reading them. They made me gag.

I flipped through and stopped at one page that had little stars drawn all across the top and the bottom. Mrs. Joseph’s pencilled comment was still there: “This is my favorite.” It had always been my favorite, too. I’d written it my sophomore year, about two months before I found out I was pregnant with Summer, the baby I lost. It was called “Catching the Stars.”

From the steps I can see fireflies in the yard.
Flashing and flirting their code of love poems.
“Flash-flash-flash” means “I’m here.
Come to me in the grass.”

As I child, I would catch them and put them in jars.
How I wished that I knew what that twinkling meant.

From the steps I can see all the stars in the sky.
They twinkle and flash secret messages, too.
But I can’t figure out what their twinkling means.
If I could reach out and capture a star
And study it inside an old jelly jar
Then maybe I’d know.

So I reach out my hand, and I stretch and I try.
If I miss them tonight, then I’ll catch one someday.

God, what sentimental bull. Fireflies and stars. What crap. In some ways it was worse than the “love/above; true/you” stuff from earlier. Why did I even keep it?

I started to toss the notebook toward the garbage can, but I stopped myself. I held the notebook in my hand like I was weighing it. I guess in a way I was. Garbage can or box? Garbage can or box? I finally snorted in disgust and set it back inside the box. I piled the other junk on top of it, closed the lid, and shoved it far back on the closet shelf again, quickly before I really did throw the whole mess away.

I went back to the table. I flipped out the light over the table and sat smoking in the dark. Not so long ago I’d thought I had a galaxy of stars laid out before me, just waiting for me to grab one. Now, as I sat there in the dark, the only things even resembling stars in my life were the nightlight by my kid’s bed and the glowing tip of my cigarette.

Damaged Goods--Chapter 1

2004-11-02T12:12:00.000-06:00

Chapter 1

The shaft of light piercing through the hole in the ragged shade stabbed through my eyelid, startling me awake. I threw my arm across my face, trying to block it out and get back to sleep, but I knew it was hopeless. I wondered if I should get up and stick my head in the oven or just lay here until I died and started to rot.

Then I remembered this dump has an electric stove. I’m telling you: this is my life. You’ve heard the expression, “A day late and a dollar short?” Well, whoever made that one up had checked out my calendar and my wallet first. The last dump we were in had gas, but Tristiana and I moved to this dump with an electric stove two weeks ago, so I’d missed my chance. No gas for me. What else is new?

I rolled over onto my stomach to get away from the sunlight, pulled the pillow over my head, and groaned. I hoped that I could just begin to decompose in peace.

“Ma? . . . Mama?”

I felt a tug at the pillow and opened one eye. I wasn’t surprised to see Tris’s blue eye peering back at me through the tunnel of pillow. So much for peace.

“Ma?”

“Whaddya want?” I muttered into the lumpy mattress.

“I’m hungry. When you gonna get up?”

“Eat a banana.”

“I awready did.”

“Eat a piece of bread.”

“We don’t have any. . . . When you gonna get up, Ma?” She moved her face so that she was speaking right into the pillow tunnel. I guess she thought I hadn’t been able to hear her good enough before. With my one eye, I could see just her lips and her little rat teeth. She’s only lost the two front bottom ones and the bumps of the second teeth were barely poking through her gums.

“Stand on the stool and get the Froot Loops off the refrigerator,” I sighed.

“You tole me not to stand on the stool no more.” Her voice was going into whine mode.

A vision flashed through my head of me swinging the stool around with all my force and smashing her in the mouth with it. That would take care of the whine and those little, tiny rat teeth. When the hell is she gonna lose those and get some real teeth, anyway? The vision disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Feeling guilty anyway, like she could read my mind, I forced myself to say in a calm voice, “Well, you can stand on the stool just for today. Okay?”

“I’m ascairt to. You said I’d fall off and break my neck. When are you gonna get up, Ma?” Full whine mode. Like ten thousand fingernails on a thousand blackboards.

The vision came back, but this time it continued with me dumping the whole box of cereal into her gaping, bleeding mouth until you couldn’t tell what were little broken teeth and what were bits of yellow Froot Loops. I grabbed the corners of my pillow with both hands to keep from flying off the bed and grabbing the stool.

“Later,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ll. Get. Up. Later. Now go watch some Sesame Street or something.”

“That’s a baby show,” she said, her voice thick with tears, but at least she left me alone.

When I got up later, she was sitting on the couch, right in that spot where it sags so bad, kinda like a baby bird in a nest, sucking her thumb and watching Barney. She pulled her thumb out guiltily as I shuffled past on my way to the john. I grabbed my cigarettes and lighter as I passed the end table.

“So, ‘Sesame Street is for babies,’ but Barney is okay for a big kid like you,” I muttered sarcastically, loud enough for her to hear me.

“I like Barney,” she said softly but loud enough for me to hear her.

She might like it, but I hate that stupid dinosaur. I hate the whole friggin’ show. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the usual collection of brats, mugging for the camera, looking like if they had any more fun, they might just explode. I wondered how much they have to pay them to grin in that insane way. This group had the usual mixed bag of white, black, brown, and yellow, and a kid in a wheelchair thrown in for good measure. They were all dancing—or rolling—around that big purple piece of shit singing “The Wheels on the Bus Go ‘Round and ‘Round.”

I had a vision of myself driving a honkin’ big school bus right onto the middle of that set and squashing Barney like a great big purple bug. Most of the kids could probably outrun me, but I’d be able to pick off the kid in the wheelchair, too. I’d sing, “I hate you. You hate me. Now you’re flat as you can be.” The thought of that made me smile. How would that be for my fifteen minutes of fame?

When I came out of the bathroom, Tris was still sitting like a zombie staring at the screen, as if there was actually something worth watching. Or maybe she just didn’t want to look at me. God knows, I’m no treat in the morning. But then, neither was she. Her eyelids were pink from crying. Her dishwater blonde hair hung limply around her thin face. She’d dressed herself in a pair of faded pink Power Puff Girls shorts at least two sizes too small for her and a lime green tank top that had a red heart in the middle of it. She just needed some orange to complete the lovely outfit.

“Whadda you all dressed up for? You tryin’ out for a part as a colorblind slut?”

Her eyes never left the screen. “Huh?”

“Those shorts are way too small for you. I can see every crack you’ve got.”

“They’re my favorites.”

“Well, go look in your drawer and find a new favorite. Those are going in the garbage.” I reached up and grabbed the box of Froot Loops while I was talking. They weren’t real Froot Loops, just the generic kind from the grocery. But Tris didn’t know how to read yet, so I was able to fool her into thinking they changed the picture on the box. I mean, it coulda happened. I bet lots of people hate that stupid toucan besides me and want his ugly face off the box.
The box I had gotten a couple days ago was already half gone. I poured some in a bowl and got the milk out of the refrigerator. That was more than half-gone, too. If that bastard didn’t send a check soon, we’d be eating the cardboard box.

“Can’t I just keep them? If I don’t wear them?” Tris wheedled. “They’re my FAV-orites.”

I poured some milk over the cereal and handed the bowl to her. “You and your damn ‘keeping.’ You want to keep everything. I just took a dump a little while ago. If I’d only thought of it, you coulda kept that, too. . . . What’s the matter now?”

“This tastes yucky.”

“You’ve eaten Froot Loops practically every day of your life, and now you decide ‘they taste yucky?!’ What the hell is wrong with you?”

“They do. You taste ‘em.”

I grabbed the bowl out of her hands, sloshing some of the milk over the edge of the bowl. Then I could smell it. The milk was sour. I hadn’t smelled it before because my sense of smell stinks. Ha. ‘My sense of smells stinks.’ But it does. From the smoking.

“Look. It’s just the milk. I’ll pour it off and you can eat the cereal.” I poured the milk into the sink, using my fingers as a strainer, and handed the bowl back to her.

“No, Ma. I want new ones. These are yucky.” Her eyes were starting to tear up again.

I grabbed my hair with both hands to keep from grabbing hers. I forced myself to talk calmly. “Look, Tristiana Louise, the box is almost empty. If you have new ones today, there won’t be any for . . . .”

“But they’re all mushy and yucky and some of the stinky milk is still on them!” She was crying hard now and twin strings of snot were inching down her upper lip.

I tried to light a cigarette, but my hands were shaking too hard. I cursed and hurled my Bic lighter into a corner. It bounced out and spun around on the linoleum like a berserk Spin-the-Bottle.

Tris screeched as if I had thrown it at her, which, if truth be known, I’d wanted to.

Just then there was a knock at the door and before I could even say anything the door opened. The trailer whole dipped to the side as Sandee hoisted herself up the outside steps. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s all the noise in here?” she wheezed, as she pulled herself through the narrow doorway. “Who wants some doughnuts?”

Tris leapt off the couch, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, her hand on the back of her shorts, leaving a snail trail of snot across one of the Power Puff Girls—probably Bubbles. Ha. She grabbed the bag and started pawing through it.

“Hey, Grabby. Where’s your manners?” I said.

“Thanks, Sandee! Did you bring any chawklit ones? . . . Oh, yay!” She found the one she was looking for and ran back to the couch.

“Don’t I always, doll?” Sandee puffed. She lowered herself onto one of the chrome dinette chairs. Her butt cheeks hung like sacks of dough over each side of the chair and struggled against the rungs in the back.

I poured coffee for both of us. “You’ll have to drink it black. Wayne hasn’t sent a check this month—or the last one.”

“That’s fine.”

I knew it wasn’t fine. Sandee drank her coffee almost white. I always kidded her about having a little coffee with her milk.

I retrieved my lighter from the corner, sat down across from Sandee, and lit a cigarette. Sandee took a few thoughtful sips of the black coffee and watched me, her mouth gone all sour. I waited for her comment. I didn’t have to wait long.

“I thought you gave that up. I thought you told me you were giving that up for Tris’ sake,” she finally said.

“No,” I said, flipping the ash into the ashtray. “I said I was starting again for her sake. I can either quit smoking or let my child live to adulthood. I figured out I can’t do both.”

“That’s nice. Real nice,” Sandee said sharply, motioning with her head in Tris’ direction.

“Don’t worry. She’s not listening to us. She’s got some stupid TV show and a ‘chawklit’ doughnut. She’s as happy as a pig in slop.” I stabbed my half-smoked cigarette out in an ashtray I’d lifted from some bar. I was feeling guilty because I had told Sandee I was quitting for Tris. Then I looked at the bent two-inch butt in the ashtray and felt guilty for not finishing it. The price of cigarettes was ridiculous, and I only had a couple left in this pack.

“She’s a good kid, Nadine. You oughta be thankful instead of getting on her case all the time.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. She’s a peach.” I reached for my robe pocket where my cigarette pack was snuggled but forced my hand to come back empty. I gnawed at a ragged cuticle instead.

“So who’d you see at The Port the other night?” Sandee asked. She was trying to change the subject because she knew I didn’t like her criticizing me and because she hated fighting herself. She’s 37—only like fourteen years older than I am. I told her once, “You’re not old enough to be my mother, and I don’t want you to be my mother. The one I had was bad enough. If you wanna be my friend, be my friend; but don’t try to be a mother to me!”

“Oh, the usual: Patty, Val, B. J. You know,” I answered.

“Is Val still seeing that Randy guy?”

“No, she told him to take a hike when her sister told her that he was hitting on her at that family picnic the other day.”

“Good for her. I thought he was a jerk the first time I laid eyes on him.”

“Speaking of jerks, there was this one guy there trying to hit on me all night. He kept telling me how he liked long blonde hair and what a cute figure I had. ‘I just luv a skinny girl with long legs,’ he kept saying. I tried ignoring him and moving away from him, but he just couldn’t take a hint. He kept trying to worm his way right in the middle of all of us. So finally I looked right at him real serious—like this, you know?—and said, ‘You do know we’re all lesbians, don’t you?’”

“You didn’t!” Sandee tried to look scandalized, but her eyes were dancing.

“I did! I thought Patty was gonna shit a brick! And, would you believe, he still wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept trying to put his hand on my leg and on my arm. Why is it that all the jerks hit on me? Why doesn’t a nice guy ever hit on me?”

“Who says there are any nice guys left?”

“Yeah, ain’t it?” I leaned forward and lowered my voice some more. “Anyway, the bunch of us started dirty dancing together in a circle—you know how we do—and he came over and said, ‘Can I dance, too?’ I was so mad I coulda killed him. I got right up in his face—like this…,” I leaned across the table about two inches from Sandee’s nose, “…and whispered all low like, ‘What part of I don’t do dick don’t you understand, asshole?’”

“Omigosh, you didn’t! You’re gonna get yourself in big trouble one of these days!”
But even as Sandee scolded me, I could see she was trying hard not to laugh. The skin around her cheeks jiggled as she tried to look severe. Then she gave in and broke up laughing.

“Ma?” came a little voice from the couch, over the sounds of Tom trying to beat up on Jerry.

“What?”

“What does I don’t do dick mean?”

When Sandee left, I reached into the pocket of my robe to finger the pack of cigarettes. I was trying to figure how long I could make these last few last. My fingers touched a piece of folded paper, and I pulled it out to see what it was. I figured it was just an old shopping list or one of the drawings Tris is always giving me. If I hung every picture she drew on the refrigerator the weight of the magnets would pull the whole damn thing over. But I didn’t remember anything being in my pocket earlier when I’d reached in for a smoke.

I pulled it out, and it was a twenty-dollar bill. Folded in fourths and flat and kind of stuck together, like it had gone through the wash. I didn’t remember ever putting a twenty in my robe pocket. I mean, that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would I have money when I was in my robe? But how else could it have gotten in there?

I looked at the bag of doughnuts on the table and wondered if Sandee . . . . But why would she slip a twenty in my pocket? And when could she have done it? I did walk by her once when I poured more coffee, but she wasn’t so quick that I wouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t think. . . .

I must have just shoved it in there one time and forgotten about it.

Anyway, I wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Twenty bucks! I’m happy when I find a buck I’d forgotten about in a purse or pocket. Now we could buy some milk and cheese and another pack of ciggie-butts.

“Get a different pair of shorts on, Short stuff,” I said, picking a pair of my own shorts and a T-shirt off the end of the couch. “We’re going to Shop-n-Save.”

“Can I get . . . .”

“NO! I’m not buying any crap, so don’t even ask. Just go change your shorts. And try to find something that has green or red in it.”

It was already noon, and it was Tuesday—Senior Citizen Day, otherwise known as Liver Spots on Parade—so the store was packed. When Tris was little enough to sleep in a car seat, I used to come to the store at 3 a.m. before I ever went to bed. There were one or two weirdoes, but I pretty much had the store to myself. I hate shopping in a crowd like this.

I only needed a couple of things—hell, I only had money for a couple of things—but it was gonna take for friggin’ ever to get them. The bus from the Center had dropped off all these old people, and they were dopping along through the aisles, checking every price and every ingredient on every jar and can as if they had until Christmas. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they were all going in the same direction and leaving a “fast lane” open for those of us who can walk without shuffling. But oh no, they were going in both directions, blocking the aisle on both sides, parking their carts next to each other, so nobody could move.

There was one old fart using a walker AND pushing a cart. Push the cart a foot, move the walker up to it, shuffle his feet. Push the cart a foot, move the walker, shuffle. I coulda moved faster walking on my hands and pushing the cart with my ass. Why don’t they buddy these people up, for God’s sake, or make carts big enough for the really slow ones to sit in like babies? Jeez, I hope I never get that old.

And, of course, Tris didn’t want to sit in the cart that day. She’s getting a little too big for that, but I usually make her anyway. But I decided to be nice and let her walk, and, boy, was I regretting that. That’s the story of my life with her. Every time I’m nice, I regret it. The slower we walked down the aisles in back of Grandma and Grandpa Moses, the more crap she spotted on the shelf to bug me about.

“Ma, can you buy . . . . Ma, can I get . . . . Ma, will you . . . ?” It was just like the Chinese Water Torture. You’d think she’d have figured out by now that when I’m answering her through gritted teeth, it’s time for her to shut up.

I was gripping the handle of the cart so tightly my knuckles were white. I could feel an ache starting in my shoulders and working its way up to the base of my skull. I imagined ramming my cart as hard as I could right into the ass of that old guy with the walker and watching all the old people in front of him topple over like a bunch of gray dominoes.

“All I need is a loaf of bread. All I need is a loaf of bread.” I repeated it to myself like a chant, praying I could get that last thing and get out of the store before I really resorted to cart violence on my kid or these old farts. “Supermarket Cart Rage: today on Jerry Springer!”

I somehow managed to grab a loaf of bread without killing anyone, put it in the cart with my other stuff, and made my way to the checkout. Of course that’s the worst place in the store. I put my pathetic couple of items on the conveyor belt and drummed my fingers while the old lady in front of me tried to pass off a couple of expired coupons and then argued with the clerk about the price of some stupid hemorrhoid salve. I gritted my teeth. I could picture myself grabbing the tube and squeezing the whole thing down the front of her faded floral blouse. Maybe that’d take care of her, the old pain in the ass.

The clerk, a bored sixteen-year-old, was staring at the ceiling and popping her gum. She didn’t give a shit about coupons, salve, or how long I had to stand in line. She was probably thinking about when her next break was coming. Or when her boyfriend would be able to slip his hand down her blouse again.

After all this, then Grandma decides to get out her checkbook. Like she didn’t know she was gonna have to write out a check before this?! She’s digging away in this big old straw purse about the size of a dumpster, looking for her checkbook, when I feel tugging at my T-shirt.

“Ma, can I get this?”

I whirled around, grabbed her by her skinny little arm, and said, “Godammit, Tristiana Louise, didn’t I already tell you . . . ?” About a dozen old, wrinkly, disapproving faces turned in my direction, so I knelt down face level with her and said in a quiet hiss, “Didn’t I already tell you I’m not buying any crap today!” I waved my hand and the stuff on the conveyor belt. “I’ve got twenty stinking dollars. I’m already buying milk and cereal and bread and cheese and peanut butter for you. What the hell else do you want from me?!”

“This.”

She held out a cardboard and plastic thing with a kid’s makeup set in it. It had lipstick and eye shadow and blush, all with sparkles in it. She looked at me hopefully, her eyes bright. It cost $1.99.

“No,” I said, standing up. “I told you: I’m not buying any crap today.”

“That all for you?” Miss Bored Teenage America asked.

“No,” I said, “gimme a pack of Marlboro Lights.”