Towelhead (4 page)

I
started stealing Mrs. Vuoso's tampons. She kept them in a clear glass jar on the back of the toilet, the same kind that held tongue depressors at the doctor's. I was careful to take only one or two a week, so she wouldn't notice. I slipped them in my jeans pocket, then hid them behind the Comet under my bathroom sink when I got home. The only time Daddy had ever looked there was when he'd had to clean my bathroom for me the night he locked me out. I'd come home to find the toilet smelling fresh, along with the damp carpet surrounding it. All the mushy toilet paper had been picked up, and the plunger was gone. Daddy was in his room with the door shut, but I could see that his light was still on. He didn't come out to yell at me, and he didn't come out to welcome me home. The next morning at breakfast, all he said was, “Please pass the sugar,” and I did.

By the time my second period came in October, I had enough tampons to last the whole cycle. They were bigger than the ones the lady janitor had given me, and at first it was kind of hard to get one in, but I just kept pushing and it worked. I bought more pads with my babysitting money, but since I wasn't really using them, I chose the cheaper kind. “See?” Daddy said, as we stood in the feminine hygiene aisle at the drugstore. “It's a different story when it's your own money.” I agreed with him about this, and it made me feel good. Anytime Daddy thought he knew something when he really didn't made me feel good.

I never flushed the tampons anymore. Not even at school, where the toilets were more powerful. Instead, I wrapped them in tissue paper and threw them in the trash, like they were maxi-pads. At school, there were little metal boxes stuck to the side of the stalls that you were supposed to use, and I loved looking inside them. Sometimes they were empty, but other times there was stuff I hadn't put in there. I began looking at all the other girls in school, trying to figure out who was getting her period besides me.

There was hardly any blood at the end of my period, but I used a tampon anyway. Then, when I went to pull the string out, it broke. It was the worst feeling in the world, standing there in the girls' lavatory and looking at both ends of it. I had no idea what to do. I couldn't reach more than one finger inside myself, I knew that. There just wasn't room. Instead, I sat on the toilet and pushed, like I was trying to poop. Nothing came out.

I felt scared for the rest of the day. I worried that without the string, the tampon would disappear inside me. Plus, I knew there was a disease you could get if you wore one too long. When I got home, I tried to take my own temperature, but I couldn't read the thermometer. At the Vuosos', I asked Zack to feel my forehead, but he said, “I'm not touching you.” I tried feeling my own forehead, but it was like trying to smell your own breath. Everything seemed fine.

I thought my only hope was looking at
Playboy,
since whenever I did that, my underwear got kind of wet. It seemed like if there was enough moisture in the tampon, it would eventually slide out. That afternoon, I pressed my legs together harder than ever. I looked at all my favorite centerfolds over and over again, especially the ones where the women were smiling. I liked to think that even though they were naked and a man was taking their picture, they weren't afraid.

There was one photo I especially liked, of a woman in a golf cart with her shirt open. She was laughing and happy and didn't seem to realize that she was on a golf course where anyone could see her breasts. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be her. To be out in public and have my shirt open and a man taking my picture. To be able to smile while all of that was going on. The more I imagined it, the more I pressed my legs together. I knew I was making a lot of noise in the wicker chair, but I couldn't stop. I felt like I was chasing after something. Like if I just kept pressing, there would be a feeling that was even better than the pressing. I didn't know how I knew this, I just did. And then it happened. An orgasm.

It reminded me of breathing gas at the dentist's office, because suddenly everything felt okay. I didn't hate Daddy or my mother, I didn't care about having to live in Houston, I didn't even care about the tampon stuck inside me. For a brief moment, I was happy again. But then it wasn't like gas, because it went away. Just like that. And when it was gone, I felt even worse than before it had come, because I wanted it back again, all day long, every day.

I didn't notice that Zack had been looking at me until it was over. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Why were you jumping around in the chair?”

“I wasn't,” I said. “I just couldn't get comfortable.”

He seemed like he didn't believe me.

“I'll be back in a minute,” I said, and I got up and went in the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and pushed again, but the tampon didn't move. I went back in the bedroom to see if I could have another orgasm, but Zack was already picking up the magazines. “Hey,” I said, as he took away the one with the golf cart. “I was looking at that.”

“It's five o'clock,” he said. This was the curfew I had placed on both of us, just to be safe.

“Really?” I said. I looked at my watch. He was right.

“What were you doing in the bathroom?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I heard you,” he said. “You were pooping.”

“I was not,” I said.

Then he made a grunting noise, which I guessed was supposed to sound like me, even though I knew I hadn't done that.

“Shut up,” I said, and I went to the closet and got my magazine.

“Hey,” he said. “No looking at magazines after five.”

“We can change it to five-thirty,” I told him, since Mr. Vuoso never really came home before six. I just didn't think I would be able to wait another day to have an orgasm, and I didn't think it would be possible to have one without the pictures.

Zack shrugged and got his magazine, too. We took our regular seats, and I started creaking in my chair again. I could feel Zack turn around to look at me, but I didn't care. All I wanted was to feel good. To have an orgasm, then, as I was having it, to think of all the terrible things in my life and see how they didn't look so bad anymore. I thought if I did this a bunch of times in a row—if I was always pressing toward that good feeling—I would never have to feel bad again.

After the second one came, I started trying for a third. I didn't really feel like it anymore, but I just kept telling myself that I'd be happier in the end. I definitely had to work harder this time, pressing my legs together, looking at the woman in the golf cart, pretending I was the woman in the golf cart, pressing my legs together some more. Maybe if the chair hadn't been so loud, we would've heard Mr. Vuoso coming in the front door. Or climbing the stairs, or walking down the hall. But we didn't. I didn't even notice him standing in the doorway until I heard Zack say, “Dad.”

“What's going on in here?” Mr. Vuoso asked. He looked different than usual. He still wore the same neat clothes and hair, but his face was tighter.

“Nothing,” Zack said. He closed his magazine and got off the bed.

I closed mine, too.

“Who said you could look at my magazines?” Mr. Vuoso asked.

“No one,” Zack said.

“Then why are you looking at them?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Jasira?” Mr. Vuoso said.

I stood up. “Yes?”

“Why are you looking at these magazines?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“You don't know?”

I shook my head.

“You're the babysitter,” he said. “You're supposed to know.”

I nodded.

“So why are you doing it?”

“I don't know,” I said again. It seemed like we were having the same conversation over and over, and I wished it would stop.

“Give me the magazine, Zack,” Mr. Vuoso said.

Zack stepped up and handed it to his father.

“Now go and wait for me downstairs.”

“Yes, sir,” Zack said, and he slipped out of the room. It scared me, how fast his footsteps sounded when no one was even chasing him.

“I really would've expected more from you than this, Jasira,” Mr. Vuoso said. He came over and took the magazine I was holding out, and our fingers touched for a second. I watched him put both issues back in the closet, then shut the door.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“You're sorry?” He laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh, and I wished I could go home. “‘Sorry' doesn't cut it,” he said.

“I guess I'm not a very good babysitter.”

“I guess not.” He sat down at the foot of the bed then, facing me. He looked at me for a long time. “C'mere,” he said.

I didn't move. Since he'd arrived, I'd managed to inch a little closer to the door, and this seemed like the best place to be.

“Come over here,” he said, a little softer this time. I looked at the door and thought about leaving. I wanted very much to leave. I took another step in that direction, then stopped when I heard his voice. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home,” I said.

“Come here for just a second,” he said.

“No.”

“No?” He smiled then, like he thought I had said something funny.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“Home,” I said again. It was like he was playing a game with me.

“All right,” he said. “Fine. You go home.”

I didn't move.

“Go on,” he said.

“Are you going to tell my father?” I asked.

“Tell him what?”

“That I was looking at magazines.”

“Your father's a fucking towelhead,” he said.

I didn't say anything.

“Go on home to the towelhead.”

“Please don't tell my father,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Just please don't.”

“What should I do, then?” he asked. “Should I just forget about it?”

“I won't do it again,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Look at magazines.”

“Did you like looking at them?”

I didn't answer.

“You must've liked looking at them. Why else would you look at them if you didn't like it?”

I still didn't answer.

“Tell me why you like looking at them, and I won't tell your father.”

I tried to think of why, but I didn't know how to say it.

“C'mere,” he said.

I took a step toward him.

“Just for a second,” he said.

I got as close as his knee, then stopped.

“Tell me why you like looking at the magazines,” he said.

“I can't,” I said.

“Why?”

“I don't know why I like looking at them.”

“But you like it?”

“Yes.”

He reached a hand out then and put it around my waist. It was the strongest hand I had ever felt, and I thought about how it also touched guns. “Come and stand here,” Mr. Vuoso said, and he pulled me between his knees.

I stood there for a minute, and he moved his hand down over my bottom. Then he reached up and touched my hair. He pushed it out of my face and tucked some of it behind my ear. I looked down at the floor. “Do you still want to go home?” he asked, and I nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Go home.”

I didn't move.

“I thought you wanted to go home,” he said.

I pulled away from him then, and he let me. I turned and walked out the door, and he didn't stop me. I walked down the stairs and past Zack in the living room and out of the house. Once I was on the front steps, I wished there was some way to go back inside, but there wasn't. Not until tomorrow.

When I got home, I sat on the toilet and pushed as hard as I could, and finally I could feel the tampon move. I could feel my muscles pushing it out. After it fell in the toilet, I reached in and got it, then wrapped it in tissue paper. I thought I had been saved. I thought Mr. Vuoso had made me feel so good that my insides had turned almost entirely to liquid. He was better than the magazines, and I couldn't wait for it to happen again.

 

When Daddy came home that night, he was in a good mood. A Greek woman in his office had invited him to dinner for the coming Saturday, and she was someone he actually liked. A hard worker. To celebrate, we went to Panjo's for pizza, and Daddy let me have some sips of his beer. I liked the way it made me feel dizzy for a second, right after I swallowed.

On the ride home, he told me about how he had first met my mother, even though I hadn't asked. “She had this little Fiat,” he said, “and it was parked illegally, and she was standing there on the street, fighting with the guy who was going to tow it. So while they were fighting, I got in the car and locked the doors. No one can tow a car with a person sitting inside it. Did you know that?”