Hick - Andrea Portes [69]
Through the glass water prisms come two giant hands and now I’m up, out of the water, onto the bank. The hands lay me down next to the creekbed while I stare, sputtering, shaking out the picture of myself by the side of the road, with my legs spread open and Eddie above me, on top of me, inside me.
And now I get to see myself from the other side of the creek. I get to stand on the other side of the creek and see myself like a rag doll on the bank. I get to watch myself through the junipers on screen.
I get to see the movie on the other side of the bank, no sound, just the wet rag-doll sopping, some kind of shaky toy getting jiggled this way and that, one arm, then the other, by the giant with the dog, arranging, rearranging, trying to fix. He dries her off and puts her in an old-style dress, delicate, delicate, trying to look away, trying to be discreet. He picks her up, careful, and brings her to his chest. He cradles the rag doll in front of him and walks, in silence, through the forest and into the woods, towards a kerosene lamp in a distant window.
And as I see myself go, as I watch myself go from the other side of the bank, I want to grab myself back and throw myself back in the water, underneath the current, with the water rushing overhead and Glenda tucking my hair behind my ear and pulling me down underneath the slippery rocks, taking me with her, taking me with her, lulling me to sleep deep beneath the deep blue sea.
THIRTY–SEVEN
Beau makes it so the cops don’t bother me. He makes it so they think I’m his stunned precious niece and don’t know nothing and why bother with me anyways. He makes it so, when their lights come up, red and blue, red and blue, in circles, and I sit in the corner with my hair drying, Karl sitting by my side, keeping watch, that I don’t get scared or start crying or make a scene. He makes it so Karl sits next to me and puts him on protector duty while he goes out and tells a story about how Eddie and Glenda were always fighting and how he knew it’d come to this and he just heard shots and there they were.
There’s a big circus outside with cops and sirens, blue and red, blue and red, in circles, and questions and more questions. There’s yellow tape and Beau outside telling the same story, word for word, over and over again.
There’s a red-headed cop that comes up the stairs asking eight hundred questions about what I saw and where was I and how many planks in the floorboards and what’s the price of tea in China and I keep my answers short and sweet till Beau comes in and calls the whole thing off, saying, “Look, Officer, she’s just a kid, she doesn’t know what’s going on and I can’t say I want her to, you know? I don’t want her to be traumatized or anything.”
And when I hear this, I remember that there are people in the world who would actually try to make it so you were protected. You’d be sitting there in the corner and they would shield your eyes or not let you see them drunk or try not to fight. They’d say, “Not in front of the kid,” or they’d say, “Let’s talk about this later.” They would, if you were just a little kid, put you in a category of something to fend for, something to protect, something to keep away from dirt-bags that want to give you a Hot Stuff necklace.
And when I remember that there are people like that, people who would try to keep you safe and read you bedtime stories and tuck you in, people who would make you hot chocolate and put in a nightlight and kiss your forehead last thing . . . when I think that there are people like that, people that