Would Maxine laugh at him? No. She’d be turned off. Call down and ask, she’d hiss, the smell of sleep pouring out of her, her face creased, her hair in her eyes.

  Well, the phone was on the desk across the room. So eat shit, Maxine, and God, it felt good to think it.

  There it was again. Was it coming more quickly? Now it sounded like a child who’d been hiding too long, shut in a closet waiting for the game to be over. Olly olly oxen free? He felt threaded with exhaustion. He imagined putting up his hands, No thanks, the inner tube bobbing away.

  He’d returned to his hotel, had found a bar, watched some fratty types twitch and lunge at the cocktail waitresses from the rim of his double gin. Had made one of the waitresses giggle when he said, You feel yourself having a powerful craving for beef? Was talking about how they all looked made of meat. Felt good that she got it. Realized later human beings are animals and thus made of meat anyway. But realized that while getting an outside-the-pants squeeze job from a different waitress he’d asked to meet him in the elevator, so the shame was eclipsed and set aside. They were all so smart, these girls. Just had to give them an idea in the neighborhood of what you were thinking and they knew just what you were getting at, could give you directions to your own house.

  He’d come in his underwear. Better that way, less cleanup for her. He placed bills one by one into her tiny brown hand until she closed it. The elevator stopped at his floor. Had he pushed the button? They both made a move to get off, but she stopped herself, her face a small brown apple, and swept her hand out, like, Here you go! Gracias, he said, and she stared at him so blankly he realized she wasn’t Hispanic, just really tan. The mirrored doors came together silently. His two selves joined, and then halved.

  The noise again. Not like a child really, more like a man whimpering into a toilet, the bowl splattered with his dinner. And there it was again. Not like the man, more like the elevator. It came from the wall across from the bed. No, it came from the hallway. From the room next door. Someone was watching television, or making love, or both.

  He’d taken a bath, brought the Playboy in with him to finish reading. Splunk, it’d fallen almost immediately in. Seemed destined. There was a particular girl he’d liked, wearing a blazer and high heels and nothing else. Just all, Here’s my vagina, no bones about it. A hint of areola, no nipple. But he’d thrown the magazine in the trash, figured this final bath was the end of the road for it. Now he wondered if it was his girl whimpering in there, crying out from her crimped page. It was stupid! Still, he felt sad about it.

  And now it came from the side of his bed, the side with the clock. The floor. The swordfish in his belly quaked, the sword lurched up toward his heart. It reminded him of something. He’d had a dream, as a child, that he’d looked over the side of his bed to see a man with flat black eyes lying there, his mouth full of blood, reaching up clawed hands like Help me. Or like Say goodbye. As an adult he’d found out it wasn’t a dream, that an Indian from the nearby reservation had wandered into the house after a bar fight, that his father had come in and dragged the Indian out.

  He felt that man’s hands reaching up now, crabbing slowly over the side of the bed, hidden in the comforter. The man’s tongue probing, blinded by blood.

  He ran through his room toward the door. Worked the handle like a baby works a ring of keys. Light in the hallway. Someone was watching TV a few rooms down. The sighs of the elevators. Everything would be okay. He lay down on the carpet outside the room. Maybe everything leaves a ghost. Maybe his ghost was still inside the room. Maybe another ghost was at a slot machine. Maybe Maxine’s ghost was a whimper in the dark. It was Maxine who’d always loved Vegas. But he didn’t have to care about that anymore.

  BRENDA’S KID

  On her way to work Brenda stopped by her kid’s house to help clear the leaves out of the gutter. He shuffled out in gym shorts and a tank, worked his bare toes into the squelch of the lawn, it had been raining, Brenda wore a 7-Eleven bag over her hair to keep out the damp. Well, she said, and her kid’s head snapped to, it was clear he knew he was supposed to do something, get something, offer something, but he couldn’t figure what. Brenda said, Ladder, in a gentle but questioning voice, and he answered, I know, I was just, but he didn’t finish what he was just, and the mean part of Brenda, the oozing eggplant-colored meanness hissed, He wasn’t just anything, and get a load of those love handles, beer-drinking monkeytoed lumberdummy that he is, but Brenda swallowed that down and concentrated on how nicely the aloe she’d planted was coming up, it seemed to love its new pot, orange clay pot, ochre, the word ochre, ochre ochre ochre. Her kid dragged the ladder over, stared at Brenda with his eyebrows raised, like, What now, lady? Brenda let him hold her purse, he slung it up and over his shoulder and stood with his arms folded over his stomach. Don’t fall now, he said. The boy had enormous brown eyes, puddles of fudge, moist and glittered, Brenda could see why the girls loved him, penis fool that he was, Lord, delete that, delete it please and thank you but he does swing that penis around like it’s tossing candy coins over a parade of sluts, sorry forgive me delete delete delete. Brenda secured the ladder up against the house, debated, but in the end kept her heels on, she was good on her toes like that. Her kid stood with her purse and his feet in the earth, squinting, the bottom of his tank rolled up a little and the hair on his stomach exposed, Feel a breeze? Brenda asked him, but he didn’t get it. Brenda began her climb. Good thing you ain’t wearing a skirt, her kid called up to her, else I’d be seeing something I don’t want to see. He snorted, Yes ma’am, I’d be awash in barf if that was the case. Brenda prayed to sweet, delicious Jesus. Grace. Strength. Whatever else. During her pregnancy all those years ago she had anticipated a bond so strong that she would die for it. That had been true. But also true was how often she considered harming her child, just a little. Taser gun. Mace. Roundhouse kick. Judo chop. Good old windmill. Tires crunching over toes. She had never done any of it, she had once lobbed a small decorative pumpkin at his head, but that was the extent. Thank you Lord of Light, thank you chariot God. The gutter was caked, Brenda would need a tool of some sort. Trowel? she called down. Spade? Her kid emitted a low, indignant Uhhhhhhhhhh that Brenda interrupted with Spatula? Her kid trudged into the house, pausing to drop her purse into the dirt. The sky was pale blue now, all the gray diluted and drained, Brenda looked for the sun but didn’t find it. The boy came out of the house with a small metal spatula Brenda recognized as her cookie spatula. Jesus was a child, Christ in a canoe, nature, nature, nature. Sweetest, Brenda said, ain’t that the spatula I asked you about a few weeks ago? Oh yeah, the boy said, here it is, I guess, catch. Brenda watched the spatula blading through the air. Glinty arc. She caught it and her boy said, You need me out here the whole time? He bent to pick at a toe. I got shit on pause is the thing. But yell if you need anything. Brenda said, I got it, precious treasure, microwaved honeybun, go on inside. Brenda hacked at the gutter muck, Jésus Cristo preaching to the putas, but it would require more time than she had. She left the spatula staked in the muck. Maybe it’d attract lightning, she almost let herself complete the thought. She took off the 7-Eleven bag, went in to wash her hands, the front room of her kid’s house featured her old sofa and a plate of nachos furred with mold. She went through to the kitchen, her kid in the TV room playing a video game, eyes glazed, the embroidered pillow Brenda brought over earlier in the month on the floor, a shoeprint across the face of the sunflower, and why she had thought her boy would want a sunflower pillow in his home she couldn’t recall, her kid was right, it was faggoty, if faggoty meant nice, decorative, thoughtful. He had never forgiven her for the pumpkin incident. Lord God grant me a shovel! Brenda focused on her handwashing, the cucumber hand soap she’d brought over months before still full, the lather gray, then less gray, then a perfect bubbly white, this was the kind of satisfaction her kid would never know, never care to know. Perfect, bubbly, white. So simple! What are your plans for today? Brenda asked her kid. His foot rested on his knee, his foot as black with dirt as if it had been drawn there with charcoal. I don’t know, was the answer. Well, jobs don’t get themselves, Brenda said, forcing brightness into her voice. Good one, her boy said. On the television a black man with two swords cut the head off a woman in a metal bikini, the head screamed and the eyes rolled, the black man laughed and brandished his swords. Brenda’s kid said, See what you did? Now I have to start all over. Holy Ghost on a tricycle, floating like a fart, Brenda didn’t see what she did. Her kid was playing the woman in the bikini? Okay well, Brenda said. There was no reply, her kid was back in the game. The woman in the two-piece whipped her hair and did an elaborate scissoring flip. Brenda realized there was a good chance her kid had a boner. Okay well, Brenda said again. She’d always wanted to be a mother, she knew she’d be good at it, she wanted a close relationship with her son, when she pictured her own parents they were always staring just to the right of her, she didn’t want that for her son, she wanted him to feel seen, loved, free to be himself, but now standing in his kitchen, counters covered in dried chili and cereal bowls and pizza boxes, trying not to see the tent he was pitching in his gym shorts, Brenda wondered if her parents were right to distance themselves, and she felt an unfamiliar warmth spread through her thinking of them, Mom, she thought, and Dad, Mom, Dad, Mom Dad, they were right, Mom with her tight-set hair and Dad with his bad toe pushing out of his slipper, they were right to just live their lives and not get involved. Brenda would leave now. Her kid would have to just figure it out, figure out how to clean his gutter clean his kitchen get a job contain his desire live in the world. She could see her purse out the window lumped in the dirt, and beyond was her car, she’d just had it washed, how it shone, she had to get to work, there was still that stretch of highway she had to drive, this was her life! Her own. And then she saw into her kid’s bedroom. Saw the tangled hair tanned calf and single dollop breast staring dumbly out. The girl saying, Oh hey, in a pebbled voice, and there was the other breast now, two stunned eyes. The television shrieked, something was stabbed. Brenda’s kid said, Don’t look in there! but made no move to get up. Brenda continued on to the front door, closed the door behind her. The sky was a candy blue now. She bent for her purse, she bent into her car. The girl was beautiful. God in the grocery, this made her sad, she didn’t know why. Did her kid appreciate it? Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t. But anyway, the highway.

  ME AND HARDY

  0

  We took a wrong turn after Hardy dinged that kid on his bike. I was screaming and Hardy was probably working out in his head why he didn’t stop and get that kid up off the ground, maybe cause the kid was all MY DAD’S GONNA JOHN DEERE YOUR PRIVATES WHEN I TELL HIM WHAT YOU DONE, and what that meant I still don’t know, there was blood on the kid’s mouth that was fake-looking, like he’d stopped for a Mountain Dew Code Red on his way to getting fucked up by our ’96 Sentra, and Hardy twisting an eyebrow tween his thumb and forefinger like he do when he’s stressed, and then Hardy put on the blinker, signaling to who I don’t know, there was no one around, it was past 9:30 in the p.m. and dark as a denim quilt out, but it seemed to give Hardy purpose, that blinker, and we veered careful around the kid and made a right and Hardy kept to the speed limit and we drove calmly on like we was on our way to the market for apples and milk. The kid had pounded our car as we passed, and it made me feel better, I don’t know about Hardy, but what kind of kid but a thug would pound on a car like that, no matter what the circumstances?

  But anyway, that right turn took us off course, is the point. That’s how we come to find ourselves driving through Acres Landing.

  1

  At the entrance to Acres Landing we saw a baby in a wagon next to a sign that said WAGON $2, BABY $5, OR 2 FOR $6. We drove on past that. Sometimes in life you have to just tell yourself something is a prank being played on someone else, and you can’t worry about every baby in a wagon, I’m sure you get me.

  Then we came to a Gas-n-Go that was the only source of light in a long while, and we stopped there so Hardy could fill er up and I could squeegee the fingerprints and blood off the car from the thug kid, and then I went in to use the ladies’ and stared at my face cause I didn’t have to pee but I didn’t want to come out just yet, then when I did come out there was Hardy grappling with a fat woman in a tank top, over what I couldn’t tell, the fat woman had him with one arm and Hardy’s face was like a blood-colored, disappointed pumpkin, and when I crept up close I could see the woman’s eyebrows was glittering, pierced from end to end I guess, there was a diamondy crust lining her nostrils, her ears was all metal, she had a jeweled sunburst on each cheek, glinty rings hung from her lips, and all in all she was jangling like a street whore’s purse at sunup. Hardy was mouthing something at me, and finally I got it, and I reached into the glove compartment and come up with his blade and I jammed it in the woman’s bready shuddering armfat, and Hardy broke free and kicked her in the bosom and she lost her purchase, that finally toppled her, and we broke out from that Gas-n-Go like I don’t know what.

  2

  (Before the drive Hardy and I had mixed the last of his daddy’s dried mushroom pellets into our bottle of Lipton iced tea that was more Aftershock than tea usually. I’m just telling you not cause you need to know our business but cause I can tell you wondering why we didn’t start freaking our shit. The thug and the baby and the fatty and all. When you on psychedelics and liquor and no sleep you do your best not to freak your shit. Is what I’m saying.)

  We drove for a while, Hardy got his breath and color back and the night hurtled by us like a train. Then the gravel started hitting the windshield and curving around into the car and stinging our arms and we rolled up the windows. It got worse, it got to where Hardy made to turn on the wipers till he realized that was stupid. Then we seen this glinting in the distance, getting brighter, then brighter, then we was right upon it, a bonfire with a stretcher hoisted up above it, and something black and writhing on the stretcher, and a cur dog hunched next to it, shitting at the stretcher’s base, watching our car pass by with the slow turn of its mangy head, and then I threw up into my purse, that’ll happen with mushrooms, or maybe it was the smell, either way.

  3

  Hardy told me the story about Santa Claus coming down the chimney, to make me feel better, he did the voice even, the Ho ho ho and all that mess, I actually don’t care for that story cause I hate fat old men, all of them without question, but Hardy likes to tell it. Then we came to the dunes, the trees breaking off on both sides and the dunes revealed there in the night like monuments, like the fancy graves you sometimes see on TV, and I rolled down my window. Hardy got on me for not listening and we started in and he yanked my hair and I clawed his cheek, cause I ain’t no delicate sunflower juddering in your grandma’s vase, and I left jagged tracks dotted with blood, and he swerved trying to gouge my eye and screamed like a woman on a roller coaster so I rolled up my window and daubed at the blood with my shirt hem, and he shut up.

  4

  We had finally driven into the habitable portion of Acres Landing, a bunch of trailer homes and double wides at diagonals to the road, a trotting dog and the yellow glow of a cat’s eyes, a boy with a pail out front his house doing nothing, just holding his pail, and I could relate to that, believe me. Doing nothing is the cross we have to bear. I waved to the boy and under the sickly yellow of his porch light I watched him mouth Stupid bitch at me, real slow, and then he reached into his pail and pulled out a fistful of something goopy and flung it at the car. I said, Mud, Hardy, that shitty child just threw mud at us, and then they was everywhere, more shitty children, all with mud, all chanting, Stupid Bitch. Stupid Bitch. I cracked the window and screamed, The name’s Nancy, you shithead children, and then I could smell it, it wasn’t mud but the children’s own soupy excrement, some of it was green and nearly neon and I wondered was it Kool-Aid that done it or some kind of illness, and was that a whole intact kidney bean sliding down the windshield, this is the way my mind works due to all the detectiving, I can’t help it nor do I try to, and anyway Hardy pushed on the gas and we flew out of there.

  5

  By now our high had leveled to the point where the world was a disappointment. Hardy lit a cigarette and another after that was done and then another and we passed them back and forth until the car was filled with smoke. We weren’t taking no chances having the windows down. Hardy said, If we ever make it there I don’t want to hear it from you when I drop you off. I hate it when he tells me how to act, and I was miserable enough to put the cigarette out in the tender flesh of my inner arm, but instead I rolled down my window cause Fuck it, see?

  6

  Hardy had wipered the shit off the windshield before it could dry and in its wake was a crescent moon of smeared clarity. Even so it was that time of night when you understand that the light of day is just a trick, a illusion, dumb as you are believing in it as you go about your grocery getting and your errands and your cheerful petting of a strange dog. I knew if I hadn’t left that blade stuck in that lady’s arm I’d have held it to Hardy’s throat right then, all my high gone and the Lipton bottle dry as a bone, but see after the part in my imagining when I held the knife to Hardy’s throat I couldn’t figure out what came next, it just seemed like it’d be a lot of work, whatever it was.

 

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