Hick - Andrea Portes [11]
He ain’t coming back.
Now I’m not trying to cry wolf, since I’ve been accused of some such shenanigans before, but I just know this as a fact in the back of my neck and the bottom of my belly. He won’t be back. No way. Not after paperwork. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad sign a check, let alone take a stab at paperwork.
There are some things you just know, like when the sun goes down and you know something different is gonna happen that night. You may not know what it is and it may not turn out to be much, but something in the air changing around you or the night creeping up tells you this time you’re in for it.
I feel like that right now.
I’ve felt like that all day long and into the night, this night, that’s holding something behind its back.
The second idea muddling its way up the back of my head and into focus stems from the way my frazzled, blue-robed mama was looking at that bald-headed man. It cannot be denied. She has it between the legs for him.
I don’t know what he’s got for her, if it’s in his head or his heart or his wallet, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Because he’s got her. that’s his problem. Good luck. Once Tammy gets her hooks into something or somebody it’s hard to get her out or off or out of the picture. Like some kind of blond tick, she’ll just suck and suck until she’s swelled up with blood, sweat and tears, like a needy grape. Then she’ll either burst, leaving your inside carnage strewn out about the kitchen floor, or she’ll just hop off, casual-like, as if nothing ever happened.
You gotta watch her like that. See whether she’ll bite or just hop off. The problem is, she has that blond flip, lipstick, I-can-make-your-dreams-come-true disguise that makes a fella forget his own name. I’d feel sorry for that old gray-suit peeled worm, if he hadn’t come in, usurped my daddy and drove off with Tammy to money-land, without a glance backwards, through the dust. As it is, though, I’ve got my own problems to worry about.
My two conclusions lead me to a third and final one, which goes something like this:
My time for the next few weeks, months, maybe years is gonna be spent either alone, like right now, swinging my feet out the barn with a gurgling stomach, or, possibly, with Tammy and that peeled worm in wealthypeopleworld with a fake smile and a quickie in the closet and a coming out the pantry out of breath, belt-buckling.
And though you might think I ought to clap my hands together, shout hallelujah and thank God the money train has somehow seen fit to stop outside my door, you yourself would be on the wrong track. This is cause you yourself would not be thinking about watching blushing and backrooms and groping of your for-sale mama while your dad is somewhere two sheets to drunksville. Look, the rich get richer and the poor get the picture. that’s what my daddy says and that is why I am not about to align myself on the mean side of Tammy’s meandering.
So, as neither of these two possibilities strikes me as a satisfactory way to spend my first official year as an American girl teenager, I choose to opt for a third and final possibility that I’ll call none of the above.
Now, let’s get something straight here, this will not be easy and could easily end in disaster, jail and death. But all three of these sad conclusions, to my mind, sure beat staying here with a grumbling stomach, staring at myself in the mirror, looking at my mouth, lips, tits, knees, feet and between my legs, trying to figure out what the difference is between me and all those girls in the magazines, on the TV and in the movies. Because, even with my quacky bill, I am just as easy on the eyes as they are, and they all seem to be happy and glowing and rich, so why aren’t I?
Lookit, there’s got to be a way to turn that thing, that thing with swirling eyes, into three meals a day and not have to steal them. I saw what I saw and I’m gonna make it go.
See you could take it, you could take that thing, that thing that makes their eyes go round and