Cruddy - Lynda Barry [80]
I followed the culvert back to the main canal, stopping once to wash his blood off my face. I was looking for the train tracks. I was praying for the train tracks. And I cannot describe the relief I felt when I heard the distant roaring and saw the beam from the twisting yellow eye of the night train.
Chapter 40
ICKY’S BACK,” said the Stick. Through the oval window frame I saw her cross over a pale pool of a streetlight, throwing a shadow first one way and then the other. She was walking like a successful person and I knew she’d gotten the stash. The Stick said, “You still want to drop, right? You still want to trip with me, right?”
I did.
We climbed out onto the ledge and made our way back through the Stick’s bedroom window. Vicky was in the hallway calling my name. When she saw me she held up a Diggy’s paper bag bloomed over with grease stains and shook it. “I called Dane. He said we should come over at eleven. He says for me to bring you for sure. I’m going to do the most incredible transformation on you, Roberta. You will not have one inch of skag left after I’m done.”
She noticed the Stick in the shadowed doorway behind me. She said, “No one is talking to you. No one is interested in you.” Vicky pulled me into her bedroom and locked the door.
“You need a cig, Roberta. You need a cig and I especially need a cig because I did something. And now you need to do it.” And what she’d done was dropped two caps of Creeper as soon as she got the stash back.
She pointed at Trina. “What’s the deal with that thing? Are you giving it to me? Because if you are I don’t want it. Sock monkeys freak me out. You need to know that about me. Sock monkeys can make me very violent. You need to make sure there are no sock monkeys ever around me when I’m high. You going to drop? Because I think you need to drop. Two this time.”
I could smell the rank grease of the Dumpster. Vicky fished out two caps. I told her I needed water to swallow them. She said, “In the bathroom,” and got busy setting up the vanity, called a vanity, with three mirrors and a low curved top and little drawers crammed with shoplifted makeup. She said, “Wait, wait a sec. You need to take a shower, OK? And you need different clothes.” She started digging through her closet and pulled out a sleeveless yellow minidress covered with chocolate-colored flowers.
I said, “I can’t wear sleeveless.”
“Yes you can.”
“It has to be long sleeves.”
And we argued for a while. She never asked me why I wanted long sleeves and I didn’t know what I would say if she did. Maybe she wouldn’t even notice my scars. She hadn’t noticed my finger situation or my nose and teeth. Vicky wasn’t the kind of person who looked hard at anything. Her eyes flitted and kept flitting except when they came to a mirror.
Finally she found a dress for me. It was crimson crushed velvet, with half-ratty white trim of some kind of fur, looking very lady Santa Claus. There were accessories. A bra was one of them. And two pairs of socks was the other. And the socks were for the bra. Because I was too flat for the dress otherwise. And she did not know why I was taking the sock monkey with me to the bathroom. What was I going to need it for?
“I’m going to get rid of her for you,” was my answer.
“Don’t try to flush her, OK? Because our toilet clogs very easy.”
I tapped lightly on the Stick’s door and whispered his name. I reached my hand out and showed him the caps. “You’re cool,” he said. “Very cool.” We took them.
I showered fast and kept the water running while I took Trina apart, loosening the stitching at her neck. Taking apart the seams that ran up the insides of both her legs, and peeling her inside out over the raw cotton. My heart was pounding. In my head, pictures very vivid were displaying themselves, the day I made Trina, trying to make her as ugly as possible so no one would want her but me. The Christian Homes lady picking her up and looking disappointed. Trina was too stiff. Who could hug such a stiff sock