Don't Kiss Me: Stories (12 page)

Sometimes it feels good to shake a fist and yell, That fuckin mummy! right along with Leta’s daddy. Only when I do it I am thinking of my momma.

At school ever since her hand got chewed up Leta is the shit. Girls be chewing they hands all through class to get em nice and mangled, and boys be offering up the high five and then saying, No, the other one, when Leta raises her good hand. In science class Mr. Howe puts pictures of dead people on the projector, some of em all wrapped up like Leta’s mummy, and explains how when a mummy is a mummy they ain’t rising up to stink up your living room. Leta got her head down, but I can tell her eyes are open, she is hearing every word. I guess I see his point, it seems like a horror that can’t be real, but I raise my hand and tell Mr. Howe he’s a dumbass anyway.

My momma comes to school to hear what a bitch I am. Her hair all ruined to one side and dried-up spit at the corner of her mouth, coat on over her nightdress. Might as well be wrapped up and tossed under the house. In front of the principal she puts her hand on my arm and says, You got to try harder. When he ain’t looking that hand goes hard, mummified, digs in. It burns and I can’t help it, I get tears. I put my hand over hers and dig in just as hard. When the principal looks up he says, Ain’t that nice, and we let go.

That mummy never bit at me, but when it do I am prepared to bite back.

In detention the retarded boy asks me could I give the mummy a letter he wrote. I feel too tired to tell the boy that the mummy ain’t got eyes, or a brain, has never bayed about a hankering to take up reading. I just take the letter and put my head back down. Later I see that the letter is a drawing of the retarded boy and the mummy holding hands out front of the library. When the mummy rises up to windmill at Leta’s brother that night, I flick the letter at it and it comes back all gummed to a pulp, a brown turdy glob me and Leta got to clean away soon as the mummy is done with its terror.

Leta’s family starts going to church to see if God can do something about the mummy. Leta says she’s fixing to pray for the mummy to be a people again, so she can put its hand in her momma’s old blender, see how it likes that. I ain’t going to church with them cause I seen how the women fall to tears and the men raise up they hands and the pastor just yelling at all of them till his face is black how the world is ending and it’s like yeah, well, the world ended for that mummy and it seems just fuckin dandy with it.

One Sunday my momma starts in with her cup, from the kitchen telling me I had a daddy but he was burnt to a crisp over to the war, and this would move me but for the fact that Momma told me a while back my daddy was in jail, and before that my daddy was the mayor and I shouldn’t tell no one. Oh, my momma says, oh oh oh. Crying over her cup for whatever daddy she pleases. Bye, I told her.

Leta’s house was empty cause they was at church, but I could hear the mummy inside, they’d left the TV on cause Leta’s daddy thinks it’d help tire the mummy out while they gone.

It ain’t like the mummy can see you, cause where its eyes was is just hollows with glints of slime, but that mummy lurched my way soon as I came into that living room. Ennh, it said at me. Yeah? I said at it. It windmilled, flinging its tatters my way, feet stuck planted dumb in the floorboards like always. Ennnnnnh!

That fuckin mummy. How it ate Leta’s brother’s girlfriend’s braid one time, and she ain’t never come back. How her daddy had to learn the Internet just to find out how to get rid of a mummy, and then there wasn’t even no useful information, and now every time we got to go on there for school we got to close a dozen of them pop-up things. Leta so shameful about her stump hand. How living here would be way better than living with Momma but for this fuckin mummy.

Ennh, the mummy said again. Mad as usual, mad at nothing and everything, take your pick. Like how Momma could choose when to be sad, when to get all brainless. Well, I can make choices too, I screamed at that mummy.

I went into the kitchen and set a pot to boil. When the water burbled up I brought it over, close as I cared to get, and tossed it over the mummy’s raggedy head. Threw Leta’s daddy’s coffee mug at its crotch. Flung Leta’s brother’s metal bat at it. Threw a lamp, threw the basket of dusty magazines Leta’s momma left behind. Tried to throw the TV, but there were too many cords to untangle. Threw all the VHSs in the drawer, then threw the drawer. Threw pillows a fruit bowl the remote the TV guide a cinnamon candle the curtain rod a dining chair another dining chair Leta’s daddy’s best knife a frozen chicken another dining chair Leta’s math book three old Big Gulps a hamster cage and a broom at it and when I got tired I squirted lighter fluid at it and lit that fuckin mummy on fire. He didn’t even yell.

When Leta and her family came home and saw the pile of ashes, saw all I had done to kill the mummy, it was clear I wasn’t welcome there no more.

I went home and poured Momma’s bottles down the drain, one by one. She carried on about it, but only for a little while. She stayed quiet after that, out on her porch, holding her empty cup, night after night. Like she was mostly dead. And I guess I could see why Leta’s family got so ticked at me. Wishing something dead was a whole lot different from actually seeing it dead. I tried to regret it, I still try.

DARREN’S BABY GIRL

Darren says I’m his baby girl. He says that cause I tell him every day, I’m your baby girl. I’m your baby girl ain’t I?

You’re my baby girl. We’re in the bed, me under the covers and him on top of the covers cause it’s a hotel and he thinks the sheets are blessed with the skin cells and gushings of a million other people, people we don’t know, gross people. I don’t tell him in my experience the blanket’s where the real action is at, pushing through the door tequila mouth on tequila mouth slam buttons popping off clothes bunched to the floor and
ploom
you land on the bed and no one takes the time to pull back the coverlet. At least the sheets get bleached. But I don’t tell him that cause I’m his baby girl and so how would I know? I wouldn’t.

If Darren was into it I’d wear a diaper and suck on my ba-ba, but he seems to want a baby girl that can talk, do her numbers, say her pleases and thank yous. If Darren was into it I’d call him Daddy, what do I care, I never called anyone Daddy in my whole life, but Darren ain’t my daddy, he has made that clear. I tried Uncle Darren once, but that didn’t go over neither.

Now I just try not to say his name.

Darren’s got the TV on, going from channel to channel, enamel-haired newspeople staring at us, not blinking, back to weather, over to weather, Ken, how’s the weather? Nobody’s got anything to say, Darren says. Not one real thing.

That’s a relief, I answer, and I feel guilty cause would a baby girl use the word relief? To distract him I get out of bed, walk slowly in front of the TV on my way to the bathroom so he can see the pink ruffles of my nightie, the pink scoops of my bare ass.

Sometimes Darren likes to listen to me go, but tonight don’t seem like one of those nights, he barely glanced at my nakedness when I walked past, and that is another relief, cause I don’t actually have to pee.

The bathroom is the color of jaundice, soaps in paper, a single vinyl shower curtain, towels bleached so many times the white had curdled, chipped toilet seat. In the trash can, a magazine insert advertising a discounted subscription to
Bass Fishing International
if you subscribe to
Bass Fishing USA
, the petals of a tissue dotted with blood. The tissue is Darren’s, the insert must be from the guest before us. I wish he’d left the whole magazine. Darren don’t let me read much, so I got to take it wherever I can get it.

I flush to keep up the ruse, walk slowly in front of the TV again. Now it’s the blips and roar of a game show. My body’s all warm, I know without looking Darren is watching me.

You forget something? Darren asks.

Um, I say. I twirl a finger in my hair. I feel lit up, like a glittering flashing game show sign.

You forgot your bottoms, baby girl, he says, but he is pleased, it’s clear.

Oh no, I say. I pretend to try to cover up without really covering anything up. Want me to put them on?

Too late, Darren says. Now you got to be punished.

I know what he means. I got to get to his belt before he can, so I let out a giggle, run at him. I work his belt off, push it under my pillow when he’s got his shirt over his head. Darren’s a quick man, so I don’t have to roll around on that coverlet for long, and he’s fast with the spanking this time, just a few claps before he flattens to sleep.

I used to watch Darren sleep, watch his every rising breath, but after a while that can get old, even what with his twitching feet and his shriveled penis, looking for all the world like a sea creature ripped from its shell.

I put the TV back on the news. A woman in a blue suit, backlit by flames. Strands of her blond hair whipping in the hot wind. The pink jewel of her mouth moving slowly, taking its time with the words. Nothing can stop Darren from sleeping. Hold a gun to his head, set his bed on fire, it don’t matter, Darren will sleep right through it.

I get up carefully, put on my jeans. The hall outside our room smells like the carpet, cigarettes and feet and chlorine from the pool they got on the third floor, which is where I’m going since I know there’s a soda machine. Darren don’t let me have soda, I got to sneak it.

A lady in a scooter is parked at the edge of the pool, watching her boy tread water with one arm and eat a naked hot dog with the other. A streamer of smoke from her hand. Funny how cigarette smoke smells so different from the smoke from a real fire. I could say what this lady had for dinner if I cared to stand in her blow space. A real fire ain’t so personal. They should call that kind of smoke something different.

I know he ain’t supposed to eat in the pool, the lady says. He knows it too, that’s how come he’s so careful.

He could eat a whole pizza in there for all I care, I tell her.

Whoever heard of a indoor pool? the boy asks. A wet nugget of hot dog tumbles down his chin and into the pool.

For all you care? his momma repeats. She drops her cigarette, backs over it with her scooter. She had a wayward eye, dull as an old button.

I just came for a soda, I say. I ain’t here to swim.

They don’t refill the machine until next week, the woman says. Drink the pool water, for all I care.

You hear about that Circle K burning down? I ask her. I just saw it on the news.

I used to work there, she says. Before my accident. So?

I didn’t say that I figured her accident was probably eating the shelves clean of all the Krispy Kremes. Her boy watching me with the eyes of an animal weighing its options but leaning toward napping, one eye nearly turned, give it another year and he’d have that dull button eye just like his momma.

Well, I say. That fire wasn’t no accident. Someone lit a match and put it on the shelf with the tampons. Just like if you was to be rolled into that pool to get yourself a drink of the pool water wouldn’t be no accident.

Her boy’s wet mouth opens wide, someone get the hook. What’d that lady just say? he asks.

For a second I almost say, What lady? Hard not to see myself as a true baby girl, someone close to this fish boy’s age, someone he might try his chances with.

I know you, the lady says.

No, I tell her, you don’t.

I do, she says, like she’s just won at cards. She tips her head, it’s the flat button eye’s turn to see, it rolls into place and this is a shock. I know you, girl, she says.

I know you, baby girl. Darren with that big hand around that shovel, the caramel-brown of his forearms, all muscle and vein. All throbbing tender life. And my manager saying, After this customer go on and take your break. Yeah, Darren said. Take your break. Come with me. I never saw him before in my life. Maybe he’d never seen me but he sure acted like he had. Me at the cashier station and my momma working in the jewelry section, we’d go home and eat leftovers and watch the
Late Show
. Or. Come with me. I did, and I found out why the shovel, and I been his baby girl ever since. Easy to let someone think they know you, long as you become who they think you are.

I got you, the lady says. I got you good. She reaches down between her legs, brings out a cell phone. You better run, she says.

I know she’s right. I should run. But I don’t. I walk slowly out. The hallway smell again, my smeared reflection in the elevator doors. The doors open, a woman in pink curlers gets off, I get on. I can’t decide what button to push. I think how I should have kicked the phone out the lady’s hands. I think how Darren only used that shovel the one time. I think how I left my smock in the break room, how that game show glittered from the TV, how it ain’t so easy to see the glitter sometimes. I think how my momma probably took that smock home to wash it. I think how I lit the match, how at first it was just a tiny flame, a dot of glitter. I think how I’ll wake Darren up, get him his pants, tell him we got to go. Put my hair in braids while he dresses. Wait for him to ask me who I am.

DON’T KISS ME

I WANT TO TELL THE WOMAN ACROSS FROM ME THAT IF YOU SPRITZ AIR FRESHENER INTO YOUR PURSE IT WILL NO LONGER SMELL SO PURSE-LIKE

BUT SEE THEN I WOULD HAVE TO EXPLAIN HOW I AM AFRAID OF THE SMELL OF NEW ITEMS, AND JUST THIS MORNING I CONFESSED HOW I AM AFRAID IT IS SALIVA COMING OUT OF THE SHOWER SPIGOT SO I DON’T WANT TO PUSH IT TOO FAR WITH HER

SHE IS BLOND

LIKE IF YOU BUY YOUR CHILD A NEW PAIR OF MARY JANES THE LEATHER STRAP SMELLS LIKE A LEATHER STRAP AND I CANNOT ABIDE IT

THIS WOMAN ACROSS FROM ME HAS A VOICE LIKE WHAT I IMAGINE BUTTERSCOTCH WOULD SOUND LIKE WERE IT NOT THE HARDENED DIARRHEAL TURD I AM CONVINCED IT TO BE

HER FACE IS LIKE WHAT A BABY’S FACE WOULD LOOK LIKE SHOULD IT SUDDENLY BECOME ATTACHED TO AN ADULT HEAD

MY HUSBAND DRANK FOUR TEQUILA SUNRISES AT THE HOLIDAY PARTY AND INFORMED ME SHE WAS ATTRACTIVE