by Naomi West
“What is it?” she asks. She sits up, the blanket tucked under her armpits. “Just now, you were thinking about something. I know that look, Dusty, because I see it in the mirror. Something’s hurting you. Something’s haunting you.”
“You’re a mind-reader.” I mean for it to come out sarcastically, but it doesn’t sound sarcastic at all. It sounds completely sincere.
“You can talk to me if you want.”
“Don’t say that,” I whisper. “Don’t give me that . . .” Don’t give me that option, I was about to say.
“You can,” she insists. “I’m guessing you hang around with a bunch of tough guys, which means you can’t ever talk about this stuff. But you can talk about it with me. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“I’ve never talked about—” I cut myself off, jumping to my feet. “Are you hungry? I’m starving. I really worked up an appetite there.”
“Dusty . . .”
“Are you hungry?” I repeat. “I could eat. I think I saw a Chinese place on the ride in.”
“You’re just trying to change the subject . . .”
“I’ll get a selection.” I pull on my boots quickly, shoving my feet in at awkward angles. “I won’t be long.”
I leave the room before she can say anything else, walking into the cool night air and breathing deeply, hoping that the kissing wind will wake me up, will make me see just how crazy this is. I can’t start sharing things with Marilee, just opening myself up to her like I’m some kind of soppy prick. I can’t just unload on her . . . can I?
I climb onto my bike and rev it up, gliding toward the Chinese place. I try and convince myself to just glide past it, keep on riding until the motel is a forgotten half-memory of another life. Maybe I ought to just leave the state, go someplace else, be someone else. But it’s like there’s some other Dusty within me that won’t let me do that. I go to the Chinese place and I make an order. I don’t run. Even if part of me wants to, a bigger part wants to return to her.
The sex was incredible, the way she mewled for me like a kitten, but there’s more to it than that. Plenty of women have tried to probe me before, tried to scratch away my defenses and get inside of me, poke around and see what’s going on. That was never difficult because I never felt the urge to share with these women, but Marilee, man, Marilee . . .
I end up riding back to the motel with some Chinese takeout. I don’t even pretend I’m going to run anymore, at least not tonight. Maybe her spell has a duration. Perhaps I’ll be free in twelve to fourteen hours.
When I return to the room, she’s setting up the pullout table, laying out some napkins as tablemats. “I thought I’d make it look as nice as possible,” she says, “seeing as this is our first meal together.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, not sure how to respond to that.
We eat in near-silence, but the specter of what I nearly shared with her hangs between us. She keeps glancing at me under her eyelashes, her face full of expectation. I just do my best to shove the beef and the noodles into my mouth and not meet her eyes, ’cause I reckon she’s got some power in those eyes.
Once the dinner is done she clears everything away and I return to the chair in the corner. I’ll make that my sanctuary. Here, I am safe. Here, she can’t get to me.
That’s bullshit, obviously, because she gets to me right away. She sits on the edge of the bed, knees together, hands placed on her knees, looking horribly understanding and ready to listen. “You can talk to me. I know it might seem strange, because—well, I was going to say because we don’t know each other very well. But since we did what we just did . . . I don’t want to pressure you. But part of me thinks that you want to tell me. I know! You’ll say I’m trying to play the therapist again, but that’s really not what I mean to do.”
“I . . .” I seriously need to get a hold of myself. I’m close to telling her, closer than I’ve ever been in all my goddamn life. This eighteen-year-old woman, sexy and understanding with gray eyes full of knowing. She sees me. She really sees me. “Why do you care?”
“Because you saved me. Because we just had sex. Because I think I have feelings for you, which makes no sense, but who cares about making sense, anyway? Do you need more?”
“I guess not.” I click my neck from side to side. “All right, then, Marilee. If you really wanna do this . . .” I’m a fool. I’m a lost fool. But I can’t stop now. “I was around your little brother’s age when it happened. You see, I never knew my dad none. He was dead before I was born, in a car accident, nothing exciting. Just hit by a truck and, whack, there he went. So for the first seven or eight years of my life I was raised by my momma alone. It was just me and her in a two-bedroom apartment and even if it was pretty damn hard for her sometimes, she did a good job. She was a really good person. She tried hard and she never let me want for anything if she could give it to me. She was strict, too, and was well on her way to raising a fine young boy, an example of a single mother doing a good job. But then she decided that she didn’t like being alone anymore. I can’t blame her. I don’t blame her now, I mean. But back then it made me fuckin’ crazy.”
I take a deep breath. Something strange is happening. I feel doors opening inside of me that have been closed for decades. I grip the edge of the chair. I grit my teeth. Then Marilee places her hand atop my hand and everything seems less grim than it did a moment ago.
“You don’t have to go on,” she says.
“No.” I’m surprised by my forcefulness. “I’ve started now.” I give her hand a squeeze. “His name was Rick, which is about the douchiest name in the world, I reckon, but then I guess that don’t mean much comin’ from a Dusty who hangs around with fellas called Lex and Clint and Dagger. Anyway, Rick was a real piece of work. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with him, but it was something big. He had some real important wires loose in his head. He’d go off on these rants about my mom’s behavior. You know the type.
“I’m all for keeping your old lady in line, but there’s a line, dammit. And he crossed that line over and over. You don’t hit a woman, and you especially don’t hit a woman ’cause she wore a spring dress to work. A spring dress. It wasn’t even low-cut or anything like that. It was just a fucking dress, and he split her eyebrow for it. He was a real piece of work, Rick was.”
I grip the arms of the chair so hard that the padding tears away. I don’t remember the last time I was this angry. For a long time I didn’t believe I had it in me to get this emotional. This anger is the battleground of other men, weaker men, men with more fear bubbling around them all day, every day. That isn’t me. And yet here I am, as angry as any other man. It’s almost like I’m a human being, a real person, the type I see walking around the mall or eating in diners.
“Dusty.” Her voice is as soft as silk.
“Yeah.” My voice is choked, growling. I clear it, but the choked quality remains. “Anyway, I reckon you can guess what happened in that apartment day after day. She was covered in so many bruises, she looked like a fuckin’ patchwork blanket. I did nothing about it, either, just let that shit happen right in front of me.”
“You were a child,” she says. “You can’t beat yourself up about that.”
“Can’t I?” I laugh, though there’s no humor in it. “One day I came home and Rick had his fuckin’ pistol in his hand. He was a real tough guy; always saw himself as one, anyway. He had this big-ass Desert Eagle, way too big for a man like him. He was waving it around the place, screaming at my mom ’cause she’d had lunch with one of her girlfriends. She’d humiliated him, he said. She’d made him look like a fool.
“I came back and Mom saw me, but Rick didn’t. I found out later that he had half a bottle of whisky in him. Mom shooed me into the bedroom, told me to hide. I still hate myself for that, Marilee, and I don’t care what you say. I did like she asked and hid in the closet like a scurrying rat, crouching in there and just listening to them.
“He called her every name you can think of. Cunt,
bitch, whore, all that shit. Said all she lived for was to take dick. Said all she lived for was to go out on the town and attract other men. All of it was horseshit, but that didn’t matter none to tough-guy Rick. Then Mom made the biggest mistake of her life. She slapped him. I remember the feeling in my belly when I saw it through the cracks of the closet. It was like something was tearing through me. The sound was fucking terrifying. Nobody slapped Rick like that.”
I touch my face, worried that I might be crying, crying like a woman, crying like a man who can’t control himself. There are no tears, but there easily could be. I think about stopping. I’ve said enough. I’ve said way too much. But I have to finish it. I’ve started now. Marilee watches me calmly, with affection in her eyes. It’s almost too much affection to handle. It’s more than I deserve, after all the things I’ve done.
“Rick didn’t like being hit. He didn’t like it at all. He chased her into the bedroom and smacked her across the mouth with the barrel of the gun. Remember, Eagles are chunky. It was like he hit her with a crowbar right across the mouth. She fell down and I thought that was that, but then he decided that he needed to really teach her a lesson. He pulled her to her feet and—” A thousand pieces, a thousand bony pieces . . . “Pulled her to her feet and . . .” I choke back a sob. A fucking sob! I choke it back and force it down and bottle it up, making my voice cold. “He blew her head apart with that Eagle. That’s when I finally ran out from the closet. There was blood everywhere and Mom was just lying there, only it wasn’t Mom anymore because Mom was a pretty lady, even if she was tired a lot. The thing on the floor was all gooey and red and there were little white flakes everywhere like snow, except it wasn’t snow. It was her skull.”
Marilee comes to me and kneels down, resting her head against my knee. “Oh, God,” she whispers. “Oh, Dusty.”
“Rick saw me there, obviously, and seeing me made him realize what he’d just done. He knew he was screwed. He pointed the gun at me, but there was no heart in it. A neighbor was already knocking on the door. The cops’d be there soon. The fuck was he going to do, fight the whole state? So he did the first good thing he’d ever done in his worthless life. He turned the gun on himself.”
I jump to my feet when I’m done, pacing across the room, my back to Marilee. I can’t look at her now, not when I’ve just bared the most vulnerable parts of me. There’s no way she can respect me now. There’s no way she can still see me as Dusty Ripton.
She walks up behind me, wrapping her arms around me and interlocking her fingers on my belly. “Thank you for sharing that with me,” she says.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever talked to it about,” I tell her. “Counselors, orphanage folk, the man who first recruited me to the club. Lots of people wanted to know what had turned the kid psycho, but I never talked to anybody.”
“Except me.”
I turn to her, wrap my arms around her, rest my chin on her head. “Except you. Let’s lie down, Marilee. Let’s lie down and watch some shit TV and forget about how bad the world can be.”
Chapter Ten
Marilee
I wake to the sound of a purring engine, sometime in the night. I try and rub my eyes, rub away the heaviness and the sleep, but unconsciousness tugs on me from some massive pit below. Dimly, I’m aware that the room has become colder, not by much, but by enough to make me care. I reach across the bed, trying to find Dusty, but then unconsciousness tugs even harder and I fall through the bed and into its shadowy embrace.
I wake the second time to the sound of traffic, a couple having sex next door, a car growling, a vending machine cranking, and water splashing, all the sounds mixing together so that they become one tune. I sit up, rubbing my eyes, and look around the room for Dusty. His clothes are gone, his side of the bed is empty, and it doesn’t sound as though anyone is in the bathroom.
“Dusty?” I call stupidly, as though he might be lurking under the bed or behind the TV.
I go into the bathroom and clean myself up, splash water on my face, brush my teeth with one of the complimentary disposable toothbrushes, and then return to the bedroom. I sit on the end of the bed and stretch my legs out. I wonder if Dusty’s going to come back, or if he’s just abandoned me here. I know he has a club. He must have responsibilities with them. Maybe he’ll see to his business and then come back to me.
Even as I have that thought, I know it’s false. I go to the window and peer out; my car is there, and his bike is gone. He must’ve ridden to the bikini booth and picked up my car in the night. I throw on my clothes and go out there, and sure enough, my keys are under the driver’s seat.
I think about the sex, but I also think about the way he opened up for me afterward. I’ve never been that intimate with a man. I’ve never been that intimate with anybody. I never would’ve guessed that behind that hard exterior there was a river of pain flowing, endlessly. It felt good to be there, comforting him. I return to the room and get my purse and everything else.
As I walk across the parking lot, something in me hardens. I’m going home and I’m collecting my things and I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ll find somewhere. I might have this place until the end of the day, at least, so that will give me some room to maneuver. Maybe Mom will follow my lead once she sees that it’s possible. If she doesn’t, I’ll have to work out a way to get them out of there.
I drive down the highway, feeling like a different person. Anything is possible, which is a good and a bad thing. It means that everything could get better and it means that everything could get unspeakably worse, as it did for Dusty.
I walk up the path to the steps with my teeth gritted. This is it, now. I won’t put up with this anymore. I won’t let myself—
The backhand comes as though from thin air, darting out from behind the door as soon as I open it. I fall to the ground, my head landing—luckily—on a pile of coats. My vision wavers—Travis, at the top of the stairs, Mom, clutching a kitchen towel in her hands—Greg steps into view, fists at his sides, chest heaving.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he snaps. “What sort of place do you think this is? Is this a hotel? The last time I checked, this isn’t a hotel. What’ve you been doing, girl?” He bends down, his gut hanging low. “You’ve been throwing yourself around like a real whore, I bet. Form a line, gents, because this bitch’ll take anyone!”
“Greg,” Mom whispers. “Come on, dear. Let’s get you some breakfast. We can go to the movies later.”
“Quiet,” Greg mutters.
Mom closes her mouth. It’s like Greg’s commands are wired into her. She follows them without so much as a moment of questioning.
I climb to my feet. “Do you feel big now?” I ask, staring straight into his eyes. “Do you feel tough, Greg?”
“Do I feel . . .” The look on his face says it all. Suddenly I know him. He was a weak little boy once, a loser who girls always ignored, made fun of, so he made himself big and mean and tough so that people wouldn’t laugh at him anymore. He thinks I’m laughing at him now, and he doesn’t like it one bit. “You seriously need to watch that fucking mouth of yours, Marilee.” He takes a step forward, his presence making me claustrophobic. “You really think you’re something, don’t you? You really think you’ve got something special. A little whore who isn’t even going to college. A little whore who’s never done an impressive thing in her cunt life.”
I won’t allow myself to cry. My eyes water, but no tears fall. “I’m going to my room,” I announce. I dart around him before he can react. Then I fly up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
“Come back here, you little bitch!” Greg roars, barreling after me.
I leap into my room and lock the door behind me. Travis stands up from the bed. “He’s really mad,” he says.
“Travis!” I go to him, throwing my arms around him and kissing him over and over. “What are you doing in here?”
“I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Gre
g slams on the door so hard it shudders in the frame.
“Wow,” Travis says. “He sure is mad.”
I try and drag the dresser across, but it’s too heavy. I nod to Travis and he helps me. He’s far stronger than he looks. Together, we block the door. Greg keeps banging against it and shouting, but there isn’t much he can do with the dresser pressed against it.
“What are you going to do?” Travis asks.
I pull my old volleyball sports bag from under the bed and start stuffing clothes into it. “I’m leaving. And I want you to come with me, okay? I know what you said, Travis, about Mom and everything. But Mom won’t listen. She’s not the same person she was when she was married to Dad. She’s changed. She’ll never listen. What good is going to come from you staying here? And you know what, kid? I think you’re too young to make this decision.”
He folds his arms stubbornly. “Maybe you’re right,” he says. “But if you take me with you I’ll call the police and tell them you kidnapped me and they’ll bring me right back here. Mom is my guardian. Not you. I looked it up on the Internet. I know all about it.”
