Authors: Lindsay Hunter
Daddy's (11 page)
Kid noticed Jenny Bickson in the candy aisle. Just standing around, fingers on the Bubble Tape. Kid thought how Bubble Tape looked like intestines all wound up. Said Hey Jenny, said Grape? Huh-uh, Jenny said, sour cherry. Kid thought Sour cherry, that is right, thought Fingers fingering prevails.
A man came in with red slick hands and yelled for the cashier to call 911, his wife was giving birth in the parking lot. The cashier said, That you at pump two because if so you’ll need to move it and the man grabbed fistfuls of his own hair and screamed with his teeth clenched. Kid thought Vagina vagina vagina like it was hanging in red neon in front of his face. Jenny said Someone should boil some water and get some towels. She was standing like she could pee any minute and then she did pee, Kid heard it puddling around her sandals. Kid said Just because they do that on the TV don’t mean that’s how it’s done. The man was still screaming, still holding his hair. The cashier was saying Sir, sir, sir, the phone cradled at her shoulder, Kid thinking If it’s a girl a vagina will come out of a vagina, thinking VAGINA. Thinking everything in the world was so sexy, so full of fluid and wet and come coming comer, thinking I could bottle up Jenny’s pee and then stick my dick into the bottle and slosh it around, thinking about that sloshing, his junk still donging as he walked past the cashier, past the man, into the parking lot and up to pump number two, where a woman in the backseat of a station wagon was screaming into the face of the baby coming out of her. A crowd was gathering, one boy in an oversized basketball jersey agape, his finger in his ear, digging, the sky was getting that ugly pink it got right before the sun set. Kid thinking Vagina VAGINA menstrual pussy fucky times.
The lady screamed and Kid leaned in and put his hand on the baby’s head, pushed, tried to work it back into the hole, thinking Go time, thinking baby blood pudding cup, the lady screaming louder, the lady scratching his cheeks. One of her press-ons came loose and stuck in a cheek gash, Kid thinking Kinky hillbilly porn DNA blend. Thinking Prevails. Kid stuck his fingers inside the lady and grabbed the baby under its arms and pulled, the lady bearing down till her insides turned solid, and the baby coming out so slippery Kid lost his grip and dropped it in the seat. The crowd clapped, someone shouted Yeehoo!, the lady looked up at Kid like she’d puke if she wasn’t so empty inside.
Kid went back into the 7-Eleven and bought dinner, plus some Bubble Tape for Jenny. The man was on the phone shrieking Hurry, hurry. There was a glob of the lady’s blood on the Bubble Tape container so Jenny wouldn’t take it, Kid thinking pee sandals sloe-eyed cobweb crotch.
The sky was a denim color when Kid got home. He heated up the Krispy Kremes in the microwave, his father watching the same game show the neighbor had been, the host mocking a contestant’s deep Southern accent, plucking an air banjo. His father laughed, Combos bits flying out his mouth, Kid thinking I put my hands inside a pregnant lady’s giner, I’m a golldang hero.
LET
Let’s take a ride. I’m your family. Meet me in the basement. Meet me by the Corvette. See that moon? It’s a disc of aspirin. See that moon? It’s a dollop of jizz. I’m your family. I wear the pants. I find you adorable. Get on the back. Ride the handlebars. Run alongside. Wear this bridle. Kiss a man goodnight. Kiss a man on the lips. You taste like blood. I’ve tasted blood. You had your blood yet? Touch yourself. I don’t have any ideas. Touch your shoulder. Touch my shoulder. Touch yourself. Put my hands on you. Meet me by the tree stump. Take the trail. Leave a trail. Cook me something. Make me a pie. Butter a cracker. Put it in a mouth. Put something in something. You ever been fed? See that moon? It’s a pail of milk. See that moon? It’s an eye rolled back. You smell like the ocean down there. Let me crouch real close. Let me breathe. Meet me in the pantry. Make us a bowl of something. I’ll knock. You’ll welcome. Meet me at the movies. I want to see you in the dark. I want to watch your face. Are those elastic? Prove it. I’m your family. Hide. I’ll find you. I got the keys. See that moon? It’s a white throat. It’s a fresh egg. I want to kiss you. I want to put my mouth on you. Make a man feel like a man. Don’t talk. Hush up. Cry quiet. Wish on a star. That moon’s a lightbulb. Flip the switch. Come to my bedroom. Hang on my wall. I’m your family. Look at the moon. It’s a toilet bowl. Hold out your hand. Shake. Put your hands on me. Put your hands inside my coat. I’ll hold on. Set. Rise. Lick something. Write down what I’ll do. Mail it to me. Lick a stamp. I find you very alluring. Put on a skirt. Act a lady. Point your toe. Fall to your knees. Make your lips the shape of lips. Touch it all up. Press. Leave me something. Wear the mirror. Lean in. Keep quiet. Run the tap. Wash your dirty. Wash that dirty dirty hand. Is that your dress on the line? Show me a stain. Put in that tape. Push play. Let it go. Meet me at the lake. Swim under. Hook a fish, silver for your mirror. I’m your family. I want to wring you out. Drink you from a glass. See that moon? It’s a drop of paint. See that moon? It falls up. Take me to the woods. Dig us a spot. Make it round. Climb down. Fall in. Use your fingers. Write my name. Give me a name. Call for me. Say it. Look at that moon, it’s a baby’s tooth. See that moon? Ladle something in. Fill it up. Cover your eyes. Don’t go to sleep. Pull me in. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.
U S
We dream about throwing baby in the well. We remember our daddy talking stuff about baby holding breath under water, as natural as suckling a breast, something baby just know from birth we’d throw baby underhanded like a softball and it’d land in a dark hole and if there was water baby would hold its breath and if there wasn’t.
We go to school with the rest of them. Follow the road, every time it leads us there. Nothing beyond worth mentioning. It’s a new school with a black parking lot and a football field and a cafeteria full of windows. On Fridays the lights from the football games and the beat of the drums remind us where we aren’t. We dream of the baby in a deep hole, we look under the bed for the baby, the baby is crying and our breasts are wet and the roar of the crowd pulls us into those lights, we wish the lights burn our eyes even though they glow, they only glow, they don’t even reach past the middle of the yard, we play the game where we write letters in our hands and spell words, practice talking to each other so we don’t make a sound, our favorite letter is B, we spell word after word with it, sometimes the word is blood, sometimes it is baby.
One Monday we are found in the bathroom at school, we are taken to the nurse who asks if we have been familiar with blood, who fingers the tough spots on our clothes and says Has your mother spoken to you about your curse. We hold her hand and write into her palm, blood under our fingernails, we smear red letters, her hand a collection of baby, she calls Daddy. We watch baby gathered into a tissue, we watch baby thrown into the wastebasket, we sit on a bench our thighs sticky the air metallic our hands palm to palm telling a story reaching the end starting over the air warm, alive, how life smells so much like death.
Our daddy picks us up and we are taken for a blessing. We watch the wind in the trees above us, we are on our back, we watch the leaves coming together to form shapes in the sky, we watch the leaves forming other shapes, we are being put together and ripped apart and put together in different shapes like the wind does to the leaves, a man says dominoes, a man says Jezebel, a man says Amen, a man says God almighty, we go home and make dinner, knifing out the eyes in the potatoes, shaping the meatloaf with our hands, Don’t wash them, Daddy said, plenty of iron in womanblood, he falls asleep and we make shapes over his face in the blue light of the television: a bird, an alligator, a fist knocking over and over on the pocket of his shirt. Baby, we whisper, baby, are you in there?
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