Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [50]
“You made him mad,” Reese whispered. “You better be careful. ”
I tried to be careful, but something had come apart. Something had gotten loose like the wild strands of Aunt Marvella’s hair unraveling in the dust. There was no way I could be careful enough, no way to keep Daddy Glen from exploding into rage. Dr Pepper took him on as a route man, but at less pay than the uniform service. He had one of the short routes, not much money to be made on it, and not enough work to make it full-time. He came home at odd hours, early and late. Mama started working later and later, for whatever money she could get, and I stayed out of the house as much as I could. If I went home when he was there and Mama wasn’t, he was always finding something I’d done, something I had to be told, something he just had to do because he loved me. And he did love me. He told me so over and over again, holding my body tight to his, his hands shaking as they moved restlessly, endlessly, over my belly, ass, and thighs.
“You’re just like your mama,” he’d say, and press his stubbly cheek to mine.
I would stand rigid, ashamed but unable to pull away, afraid of making him angry, afraid of what he might tell Mama, and at the same time, afraid of hurting his feelings. “Daddy,” I would start to whisper, and he would whisper back, “Don’t you know how I love you?” And I would recoil. No, I did not know.
He never said “Don’t tell your mama.” He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me and still made me stand, unmoving and desperate, while he rubbed against me and ground his face into my neck. I could not tell Mama. I would not have known how to explain why I stood there and let him touch me. It wasn’t sex, not like a man and woman pushing their naked bodies into each other, but then, it was something like sex, something powerful and frightening that he wanted badly and I did not understand at all. Worse, when Daddy Glen held me that way, it was the only time his hands were gentle, and when he let me go, I would rock on uncertain feet.
Daddy Glen smelled of sweat and Coca-Cola, of after-shave and cigarettes, but mostly of something I could not name—something acid, bitter, and sharp. Fear. It might have been fear. But I could not have said if it was his fear or mine. I could not say anything. I only knew that there was something I was doing wrong, something terrible. He said, “You drive me crazy,” in a strange distracted voice, and I shuddered but believed him.
I became even more afraid of Daddy Glen, the palms that slapped, the fingers that dug in and bruised, the knuckles he would sometimes press directly under my eyes, the hands that shook and gripped and lifted me up until his eyes would stare into mine. My own hands were so small, my fingers thin and weak. I wished they were bigger, wider, stronger. I wished I was a boy so I could run faster, stay away more, or even hit him back.
Grey gave me a rubber ball, hard rubber, black and small enough to hide in my hand. I cupped it in my palms so no one would see. I worked that ball with passion, rolled it between my fingers with determination, squeezed it stubbornly, clenching each finger against my thumbs. One day my hands would be as strong as Daddy Glen’s were. No matter the size, I told myself, one day my hands would be a match for his. Some days I thought I was working that ball so that I could grow to be more like him; other days I knew that wasn’t why.
That spring, Earle and Daddy Glen argued over some tools Daddy Glen swore he had loaned Earle and never gotten back. Earle took offense and stopped coming over to visit. After that Daddy Glen started talking bad about the Boatwrights