Hick - Andrea Portes [45]
And I think there’s something to my flushing or my shortness of breath, because this sweaty old drunk, pinning me down, takes a moment, stops for a moment and looks at me, real deep breathing, like he’s seeing the back of my head. And he catches me and he reads my mind and he, slow and mean, breaks into an ugly little satisfied grin. And in this moment, this moment that feels like a dare, the door slams open and there he is, fucking finally, Eddie.
He flattens the stranger, grabs me out the stall and pushes me through the back door of the Million-Dollar Cowboy Bar, hurling me into the cab of the truck.
He rushes around, gets in the driver’s seat and takes off, looking back like he’s worried our little degenerate is gonna round up a posse to collect on his bet. But I know he’s not. He’s not.
He got what he wanted.
TWENTY–THREE
Just cause you’re a loser don’t give you the right to sell me off like some two-bit hooker.”
I don’t tell him the shamey part. I don’t tell him about the part when I started to turn into all the bad things you’re not supposed to be.
Part of me is thinking that this fucker sitting next to me is some kind of knight in shining armor come to rescue me from a green bathroom but the other part is thinking, Well, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been pinned down there in the first place.
And I wonder if this is the way love goes. You put some fella on a pedestal and then little by little they chip away at that little personal fantasy, chink by chink, until one day you realize they’re just a regular old shitbag like the rest. But by then, you’ve been workin so hard to keep the dream alive that you’re not about to chuck the whole thing altogether, like you’re just sticking around cause you’re too stubborn to admit you made a mistake.
I’d bet twelve bucks that’s what happened to my mama. One day she just looked at my dad and thought, “What the fuck did I settle for you for?” Can’t say I blame her, trying to raise up one kid on nothin but Saltines and Halloween candy, after losing the other one. You might just start fucking the neighbor yourself.
“What? You think I sold you off?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Well, you’re wrong, Luli, you’re just plain wrong about that.”
“Yeah, right, listen, I wasn’t born yesterday so you can just—”
“Look, that was all part of my plan.”
“Oh, this is gonna be good.”
“It was, see, I was just buying time, is all.”
“Yeah, right, you must have me confused with some Okie if you think I’m trying to buy that song and dance.”
“There are a lot of nice people from Oklahoma, Luli.”
“What?”
“I said there’s a lot of nice people from Oklahoma that probably wouldn’t like it if they heard you say what you just said . . . about being an Okie.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You just threw me in a shitbar bathroom with some gap-toothed retard and you’re talking to me about manners?”
“Retard is also not a very nice thing to call someone.”
“Oh my Lord. You are bonkers. You really are.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Let me out.”
“Look, Luli, you ever stop to think that maybe you don’t know everything? You ever stop to think that maybe someone twice your age might maybe know a little more about getting out of a hundred? Huh? it’s called strategy.”
“Hmph. Wull, maybe next time you ought to run it by me first, how bout that?”
“Well, maybe next time you’ll stick in the truck like I said.”
We pull up to a creamy peach ice cream stand with a sign from the Fifties. There’s a charcoal little patch of a parking lot with a family of four standing in front of the window going back and forth about sundaes and maybe sprinkles and vanilla or chocolate or what about a banana split. All four