Which is just what I was doing when this guy starts in on me about fucking South African wine and how the shit I’m drinking will just get me drunk and hungover and do I want to taste his booze and then there’s this cup handed out the window. And suddenly I’m, like, what the fuck, why the hell not. So I step over to the car and take the cup. And it doesn’t taste all that good. I mean better than most of the shit I drink, but nothing spectacular. Then things get a little fuzzy.
He’s like do you want to go for a drive?
And I’m telling him he’s got it all wrong. I’m not working. It’s my night off. And yeah, I get a night off. No one can tell me I’m on the clock seven days. I’m not a free agent—that shit’s too dangerous. If there’s one thing I wasn’t born, it’s stupid.
Shit. But that’s the whole goddamn point of this story. Here I am talking about diligence and street smarts and what did I do? I made a mistake.
I get in the car. But I’ve downed that wine and he’s refilled the cup. And my head is swimming like the time I jumped in the river down in Louisiana and the water was too muddy for me to see and I couldn’t get back to the surface and all above me was this murky brown churning. That’s what it felt like. Which is why I didn’t get a good look at the guy.
White maybe? Latino? Not black. That’s for sure. White if I had to bet on it.
Here’s the secret. Here’s what we tell each other. Pay attention. Look for distinguishing marks. Like does this dude have a tattoo? A beard and what the fuck kind of beard? Does he have an accent? A wandering eye? Does he seem hopped up? Jumpy? All these things to look out for in case shit goes wrong. In case you need to run or identify the guy later for whatever fucked-up reason.
And I should be doing all these things. I mean to. But after a while the guys all run together into one angry, horny, sweaty cheap motherfucker who kicks you the hell out of his car the second he’s finished. So what’s the point. Anyway, like I keep telling you if you’re even listening—are you even awake?—is that I wasn’t working. I was taking shit in, drinking it down. I was thinking about the palm trees line dancing up there in the sky. Doing the Texas two-step.
I remember leaning back in my seat. I remember unrolling the window to get a better look. I remember the guy telling me to put the window back up. He doesn’t like it down. I remember laughing, because who doesn’t want the window down on a cool night? Then he slapped me. And for a moment I’m, like, you got no right because I’m not working. That’s the fucked-up thing I was thinking before everything goes black.
Remember how I told you about the river in Louisiana? Here’s the story. I was ten. At least I think that’s how old I was. I was down in New Iberia visiting my cousins. Real country kids doing their country shit. And stealing some kind of moonshine someone’s uncle was making. Never mind it was lunchtime. So we go down to the river, or the bayou, you want to call it that. I must have had a couple of swigs from the jar my cousins were passing because I believed them when they said there was a dog drowning. And they point out across that slow-moving brown sludge and there’s something rolling in the current. Rolling. Bobbing. Fucking spinning. Drowning. That’s what I thought. My cousins are just standing there on the bank talking about this drowning dog and not doing anything. And they’re saying: Feelia, you so concerned, you jump in. And that thing’s not too far in front of me spinning and spinning. Yeah you save it, they’re saying.
And next thing, I’m kicking off my sandals and pumping my arms at my sides and I’m jumping off the bank far as I can toward the dog. Then the water’s up over my head, thick like melted ice cream. I can see the sun, sort of, so I know which way is up, just not how to get there. Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are running but you can’t move a motherfucking inch? That’s what being in the water was like. Except worse because there was no air. And that sun overhead was getting farther and farther away like that pinpoint of light at the end of a Looney Tune.
The dog is in the water above me. Spinning. I can’t reach it. I can’t do anything. That thick-ass water is up my nose, in my mouth. It’s crawling down my throat like a warm milkshake. The dog is spinning away from me and I’m sinking way the fuck down. I’m not going to save it. So I close my eyes and I fall.
You know I didn’t drown. Of course you fucking know. Which makes this a stupid story. One of my cousins jumped in, grabbed my arm, dragged me to the bank. I lay there panting on my back, staring up at the sun as if it were a long-lost friend. A boat goes chugging past, one of those shrimpers belching diesel smoke, stirring up the water. Making waves. And my cousin has left me and scrambled back to the rest of them. But I’m too exhausted to move. So I lie there, the waves from the passing boat lapping at me and suddenly there’s this thing on top of me. Cold and bristly and bloated with river water. And motherfucking dead. The dog, I’m thinking. But it doesn’t feel like a dog. It feels like human skin—swollen, clammy skin. Pimply and prickly. My chest hurts too much to scream because this dead thing is all up over me, pressing on me, heavy as fuck, its scratchy hair ripping my skin. And somehow I get out from under that shit, roll to the side. And I’m lying face-to-face with a dead hog. Its glassy eyes and blue snout inches from my own. I kid you not.
Why am I telling you this shit about something that happened to me when I was ten, some prank my cousins pulled? Here’s why. Because when I come to in that car after being slapped, it’s like I’m back on the bank of the bayou, disoriented and exhausted, that fucking pig on top of me. But this time the pig isn’t dead. It’s biting and snorting and saying all these things that sound like it’s talking to someone who isn’t me, some other woman in some other place who’s done some other shit to get the pig mad.
I can feel its piggy skin on my own. I can smell its dead pig smell.
And then I go out again. I feel the car moving. And next time I’m awake it’s because there’s a pain like nothing I’ve felt before. It’s sharp and clean. Like glass. It’s almost beautiful. Like mercury sliding in one of those old-time thermometers. I didn’t know pain could be so beautiful. So fucking beautiful that it takes my breath away. Literally. Straight across my throat, so I can’t scream, because when I try I feel a bubble of blood running from my throat down to my neck.
And then there’s something over my face, something that makes it even harder to breathe. Something that makes the world even farther away. Foggy, like I’m looking through a cloud of weed smoke. And I’m rolling, rolling, like that dead hog in the water. Except below me the ground is hard. I can feel dirt, trash, and glass. And I’m lying on my back, staring straight up at the moon, which is blurry behind whatever’s over my face that’s making it impossible to get air. And even still, I’m looking for the palm trees, trying to remember them. Because if I can find them . . .
1.
THE GIRLS ARRIVE AFTER DISMISSAL. HOW OLD ARE THEY? Fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen? Dorian’s lost the ability to tell. They flood the small fish shack, spinning on the stools bolted to the floor, splaying their bodies over the counter. They’ve rolled the skirts of their uniforms high, revealing thigh, even a little cheek. A flash of underwear trimmed with lace. They’ve unbuttoned their blouses, yanked down their polos, showing bra and breast.