Hick (4 page)

I look through the rest of the cupboards, clacking away, quicker and quicker, until some Saltines make their way into my hands and up to my mouth, stale.

Upstairs I hear the sound of my dad stirring.

I settle down into the chair, collected. He walks down the staircase and squints at me through the doorway.

“Where’s your mother?”

“She left.”

“With who?”

“Somebody.”

“Somebody who?”

“Some guy.”

Something changes in the whiskey sweat air around him. He freezes and gets a little taller altogether, shrinking and getting bigger in the same miracle breath. He looks at the wallpaper like he can see right through it, all the way to wherever and whatever that fancy car has driven off to.

“His name’s Lux. He’s kinda gay.”

“By gay do you mean that he’s a homosexual?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wull, some folks don’t like that word, so you should find a new one.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, something sweet. You’re a girl, girls supposed to be sweet.”

Then he looks at what I’m wearing. Not much.

“You wearing that outta the house?”

“Maybe, why, what’s wrong with it?”

“Seems a little light on the clothing part, don’t you think?”

“Wull, what do you think?”

“I think you look like trouble.”

“Wull, I can change, I guess—”

“No use lookin for trouble, Luli, it’ll find you soon enough.”

He looks at me there, staring up at him from the foot of the staircase, and something strange and wistful takes over his face.

“You know, it’s funny . . . in this light . . . you look just like your mother when I first met her . . . just blond and pretty . . . before she got mean.”

I look up at him, wanting to tell him I’m sorry, wanting to fix him and make him hate her back.

“Don’t get mean, Luli, just stay little and pretty and sweet, how bout that?”

I try to make my face smile but I think I’m turning out more of a grimace, some little girl squint into the sunlight.

“Just stay sweet.”

He stares at me like that for what seems like two weeks.

Then he snaps out of it like some broken spell, looking at me like I’m this demonic Muppet sent to hurl him into the abyss with trouble dressing and stray-cat luring.

“Tell your mama, when you see her, tell her I had some business myself, tell her I had some business out in Shelby and I may be gone for a while, you know . . . paperwork.”

Paperwork.

Now I know that’s a lie.

The last time I saw my dad pick up a pen, I was eight.

Then he barrels past me, quick, grabs his keys off the wall and rushes out the screen door, letting it slam hard behind. I go to the door and watch as he drives away, churning up dust all the way down the dirt road and into the horizon.

He doesn’t look back.

I wander off to the barn to consider my options. it’s the day dying down, the hay and the wood smelling sweet and dusty. The grass and the heat of the day coming off the ground, up up up into the giant pink sky.

It may have been that word paperwork. It may have been the way the dust was flying up underneath the tires or the back side of the Nova as it shrunk into a glossy speck on the beige horizon, but something in my gut, sure as sugar, tells me this:

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 you could turn it up and cash it in for a rebate and not have to eat cold beans for lunch and vow to never, never care about love or romance or soap-opera promises. You could just cash in on that eye swirl.

So that’s it. I make up my mind to find a sugar-daddy who will fawn over me and feed me whenever I’m hungry, not just with sugar sandwiches but with rich-people food. He’ll pour out differentflavored Riunites in different-shaped glasses and blather on about oak-barrels and rainfall and grapes. I’ll say, It does go well with the fish, and smile, and he’ll be proud and want to buy me more stuff. He’ll take me shopping, watch me try on dresses and tell me he insists I get every one, even the red one. I’ll say, Oh no I can’t take this, but he’ll say, Yes you can and throw in this necklace, too, while you’re at it.

I’ll try that out for a while, see how I like it. Although, now that I think about it, it’s not going to be easy sitting in the middle of nowhere Nebraska looking for a leg up. We may have an abundance of shiftless ranch hands, but sugar-daddies are in short supply, no doubt about it. Nebraska is a poor state with poor people with nowhere to go and no hurry to get there.

No sir.

This is gonna take drastic action.

I weigh my options and realize I will have to head west. that’s where they grow cowboys with ten-gallon hats and big skies with cactus and bright gold jewelry with turquoise and snakes.

West it is. I’ll have to get out while the getting is good, before that gray-suit larva comes in and takes over, telling me what to do with some legal mumbo jumbo he learned in Lincoln. I do not
want him doling out my chores while patting Tammy on the ass. That is for damn sure.

I’ll have to find someplace shiny-like and mean, with rich people throwing money away like they’re bragging by doing it. Someplace where I can sneak around the back sides of buildings, make my way with a smile and a few clever words, before striking. Someplace where there’s people to fool worth fooling . . .

And then it hits me clear as day.

Las Vegas.

That’s it, no question, no contest. Las Vegas, Nevada, where there’s desert and gambling and lights and drinking all through the night with no one to know me or tell me what to do or get in the way of all my ingenious money-making schemes. I’ll go there and make it mine, become one of the legends of the city, someone they talk about for years after, who came and went but no one really knew deep inside. They’ll whisper about me in dark rooms late at night, a character of mystery and intrigue who was feared and respected throughout the city, out into the desert and the netherworld beyond.

I better bring something to dazzle them.

I’ll need something that reeks of class and sophistication, like on Remington Steele. I burrow through Tammy’s closet and come up with some expert disguises. My new life will be dangerous but full of glamour. I picture myself with the lights coming up behind me in Vegas. I see myself framed by the cowboy made of neon looming up glittery with the promise of knocking my socks off.

Except there’s the issue of money. As fucking usual. But I’m way ahead on this one. Some mystery person, and I’m assuming it’s my mama, has got two hundred smackers saved up in a crumple behind
the trash can, under the kitchen sink. that’s her brilliant idea of a secret. I found it by almost throwing it out. I figure it must be from that gray-suit peeled worm she’s running around with. My dad ain’t got money enough to bring home a box of Corn Pops, let alone two-hundred smackers. I guess Mr. Gray-Suit thinks he’s providing for his future family, bought and paid for.

I wish I could see her face when she sees it’s gone.

And now, last but not least, one fancy black bag I stole from this girl I hate. She belongs to the Knolls Country Club and has a habit of talking about it to everyone around her and inviting everyone in the class. Except me. I guess I’m not country club material. I guess I’m the girl with the ripped-up knee-socks and leftover clothes and an artichoke for lunch.

I get it.

Well, I took her bag and the only thing I regret is that I can’t give it back and take it again. And ten years down the line she’ll be begging me to be her country club guest and I’ll remind her I’m just the Twinkie-raised girl with the ripped-up knee-socks, no thanks. You can get a nose job while I fuck your husband in the back.

So long, suckers.

Now I’m down the stairs and out the gate.

I always knew I would fly off someday. I just never knew when, sitting in the barn, swinging my legs out, waiting for the starter pistol behind my eardrums to go pop. But it never came. It sidled up and pondered and wishy-washed itself around my skull, playing some kinda chorus of not yet. But the pop pop never came. Until now, this moment, here, where all my fears and doubts and misgivings have come to the dance to ask my dreams for a whirl. And just as I know that my daddy is probably deep into the panhandle by
now, way past Alliance and not looking back, I know that now, this, this moment here, is the pop pop pop.

I wonder what they’ll say about me when I’m gone. I wonder how long it’ll take them to figure out I ain’t coming back. Just the thought of it makes me whistle and puts a zing in my shoe-step. I am not what they thought I was. No sir. I am bigger than this whole state put together and I have listened and I have waited and now I can hear it. Pop.

Here’s where I turn and start walking down the gravel road. I feel like there’s something coming up underneath my feet, something lifting me and moving me forward, something just waiting to throw me into the sun.

Somewhere between Palmyra and Alliance, a beat-up green-and-white pick-up truck, with a gun rack in the back, pulls up behind me while I’m singing to myself. I look inside and there, in the driver’s seat, sits a skinny bug-eyed cowboy who looks like a turtle. He looks like he must have spent the last ten days straight chasing squealers in the rodeo and hasn’t changed since. He’s got on one of them old fashioned Western shirts with a pattern of little rose flowers faded dingy into gray, mother-of-pearl snaps gleaming creamy in a line from his chest down to his jeans, untucked. He’s got a look about him that you wouldn’t be surprised if he just busted out of the nervous hospital.

He rolls down the window and shouts over the wind,

“Where you headed?”

“Las Vegas.”

He looks me up and down.

“Aren’t you a little bit young and maybe, say, innocent to be traveling to Las Vegas all by your little self?”

He’s got this tone in his voice like he’s got three friends snickering, hunkering down in the cab, and this is all a little joke between them.

“No.” I straighten up a bit. “What about you, Mister? Where you headed?”

“Well, I don’t see how that’s any of your business . . . and my name’s not Mister, it’s Eddie. Eddie Kreezer.”