by Tricia Dower
“Beat it!” she said, throwing the words over her shoulder. She was nearly at the foot of her porch steps.
“What were you doing at Tony’s?”
She stopped then and turned around. I thought the skin around her eyes was bruised until I realized she was wearing mascara that had run. “You seen me?”
“Yeah, getting into a car.”
“You rat on me, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Rat on you about what?”
Just then Jimmy burst onto the porch, a leather strap wound around his hand. “Get up here, you little whore,” he said. “I know what you been doing.”
As Jimmy came down the stairs, Tereza started to back up. She shoved me out of the way just as Jimmy let loose with the belt, flicking it like a whip. “Go ahead, you piece of shit,” Tereza said, dancing around to miss the whip. “The worst you can do is kill me, and then I won’t care, will I?”
I ran to my house, screaming for my father over and over. He was at the door by the time I got there, hand on chest.
“What, what?” he said, out of breath.
I pointed to Jimmy chasing Tereza around in circles in the street in front of our house, lashing the pavement with the belt. She was zigzagging and dodging, taunting him all the while.
“You have to stop him,” I said. Dad stiffened and frowned but didn’t move.
“Hurry!” I said, tugging at his arm.
He pulled me to him and said, “Not our business.”
I broke away and ran out into the street, waving my arms at Jimmy, yelling at him to stop. He looked at me long enough for Tereza to scurry away quicker than a mouse. Jimmy pulled back the belt as though to whip me but Dad was right there. He stepped between us and put a hand on Jimmy’s chest. “That’ll be enough of that,” he said.
Jimmy’s cheeks were splotchy with anger and he straightened to his full height. Getting ready to sock Dad, I was sure. But then he seemed to lose air. He slapped Dad’s hand down and walked away.
“That was a foolish thing you did,” Dad said as he opened our front door. “You could have gotten hurt.”
“I hate you,” I said and ran up to my bedroom and locked the door.
The next morning when I got downstairs Mom was in the kitchen, making pancakes. She was pale and shaky and gave me a smile I didn’t know how to take. “We’re having tuna casserole and rice pudding tonight,” she said. “What do you think about that?”
Before and after school every day for weeks, I looked for Tereza on The Island and down by the river, not caring if I got in trouble for going there. I felt desperate to find her, frantic to know if she’d gotten in my dad’s car. The police and the whole neighborhood looked for her, too, but she was gone.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Miranda, either, wondering if she and Tereza were hiding out together somewhere. One Saturday when I was supposed to be at the library, I walked to the police station and told the officer at the front desk I was doing a school report on unsolved crimes and I wanted to know what had happened to Miranda. He smiled and told me to wait. A man in a sports jacket came out, eventually, and told me she’d gone to a foster home. The boy, too.
“There was no crime,” he said. “Nothing to solve.”
The Dobras moved away after Christmas. Mom didn’t get better for good until spring. My grandmother came out from Nebraska and took care of us for a while.
The next summer I got my own penknife and matches and smoked punks down by the river. Sometimes the boys Tereza used to hang around with were there. They told me she’d been getting into cars at Tony’s for weeks before Jimmy got wise to it. She’d hide in the back seat of a car Tony had finished working on and wait for the owner to pick it up. When he’d driven a few blocks she’d sit up and scare the bejesus out of him. She’d tell him her mom was sick and needed money for medicine. She’d offer to sell them the tobacco in the Wonder Bread bag but it was something else they bought.
They told me what they knew about Crazy Haggerty, too. That he worshipped the devil and hid Miranda so the authorities wouldn’t take her away from him. The boy was half beast, they said, and Crazy Haggerty had snake fangs, rat tails, and porcupine quills in his pockets when he died. I didn’t believe half of what they said, but I liked to hear them talk. They showed me that if you light a punk when the stalk is still a little young and smoke it down to the end, the heat sends sap fizzing up into your mouth. It tastes like there’s nothing in the world you’re not meant to know.
Silent Girl
This world to me is like a lasting storm.
—Marina in Pericles
A DAGGER OF LIGHT PIERCED THE ROOM AS THE DOOR FELL OPEN and Maw-Maw entered, pushing a wobbly cart. Her flip-flops spanked the wood floor. Her arm pulled a cord that ignited a bulb that swung from the ceiling. Searching for secrets, Matsi was sure.
“Le souper,” Maw-Maw said, dipping her legs in mock curtsy.
Six girls squinted at the stark light then slowly arched their kitten-boned backs. They crawled to the edge of their cots. Maw-Maw shuffled by each, placing scarred bowls in their cupped hands.
“De wind change, you face be stuck in dose pout,” she said, spooning rice and red beans from a pot. Flesh as spongy as dumpling dough spilled from the sleeveless arms of her dress, trembling with each plop of the spoon. “What it cost you to make a smile, to tank me?” she asked, though the girls had never said a word to her. “Back ohm, you be starvin, probly dead.”
Matsi’s voice nearly flew out from its hiding place. The brown girls might be poor but she was not. Their parents might have sold them but hers had not. Back home she’d sleep after supper, not before, wouldn’t stay up all night like a raccoon or an owl. She ate quickly. Maw-Maw would collect the first bowl as soon as she filled the last. Empty bowls on the cart, Maw-Maw clapped and held out her hands. The girls removed their underpants for inspection. One of the brown girls had stained hers. “Watch de slap,” Maw-Maw said before her hand connected with the girl’s face. Thwack! The stupid girl slumped to the floor bawling.
Matsi was too clever to stain her pants. She took them off each morning after Maw-Maw locked the girls into the sleeping room and put them on again when she heard the key click. She rarely let sleep swallow her whole, always made it to the bucket in the dark. Cots were inspected next; all were dry. Bedwetting earned worse than a slap.
Maw-Maw herded them into a high-ceilinged room, empty but for the echo and the dragon-clawed tub in which the girls stood in turns. The bigger girls always went first. By the time Matsi got in, the water would be cool and scummy. She watched Maw-Maw run a cloth roughly over one girl until the skin looked burned underneath.
“Anh! Look at dat.” Maw-Maw dropped the cloth, thrust a hand between the girl’s legs and pulled out a hair. The girl whimpered.
“Filthy twat. My boys doan wanna see dis. You be poodoo soon.” Anything Maw-Maw didn’t like was poodoo.
Matsi remembered other places where the girls were hustled together into vans on unsuspecting nights and driven each to a different place. At Maw-Maw’s, girls went missing one at a time after hard little lumps formed behind their nipples, or their hips got round, or they grew hair in dirty places. Like magic, new girls took their places. Matsi had been there longer than the others. Exactly how long she didn’t know.
“Now dis peeshwank,” Maw-Maw said when she lifted Matsi into the tub, “is special-special. My boys love de Asian, f’sure, f’true, and dis one delish.” Maw-Maw wasn’t always mean.
“Not everbody take chirren,” she said. “Afraid of police, say you trouble-trouble.” She slid her hand between her pillowy breasts. “Got big ole hawt, me. You lucky, dat.” She pinched Matsi’s thigh, making her jump. “Dumb as a turkey, ain’t you? Could tell lies until daylight, me, and you wouldn’t know.”
Matsi kept her face bare of thoughts
. She liked having secrets. When she was younger, she believed her parents knew everything about her. That her thoughts jumped out of her head and tattled on her. The men who delivered her to Maw-Maw claimed she didn’t understand English. Matsi hadn’t corrected them, had acted ever since as though what they said was true.
The brown girls squawked like noisy birds when Maw-Maw wasn’t around. Matsi ignored them and their unfamiliar language. She didn’t want them as friends. They were dangerous, forever getting in trouble.
The day the wave smashed its big angry fist into Phi Phi Don, the H-shaped island that Daddy said must have been named by someone who stuttered – he was so funny, he made her laugh – they were creeping like spies through the tickled pink lobby. Their mission: find Mummy on the beach.
A loud swishy swoosh was all they heard before water swallowed the floor. They found a post to wrap arms around so they wouldn’t be swept away with the lamps and sofas and see-through tables. Climb onto me, Empress, Daddy said, when the water reached his chest. Matsi did and a yellow car floated la-di-da by, pretending to be a duckanary. Pretending to be something special. That car had quite the imagination.
Maw-Maw held contests as many times a night as business demanded. “I’m famous f’dat, me,” she said. “Down de road, up de road, from anywheres dey come.” She dressed the girls in costumes, gave them make-believe names. They were the prizes, paraded one at a time in front of contestants on metal folding chairs in the back room of a barber shop.
The girls lined up behind a door to the contest room, Matsi first. “I give all my boys de same chance at de most exotic girl,” Maw-Maw said. “I’m fair, me.”
Peeking around the door, Matsi counted seven men. Maw-Maw wouldn’t be cross tonight. When there were fewer men than girls, some of the girls weren’t chosen, making it harder for them to earn back what Maw-Maw had paid for them. She kept a cigar box of poker chips for each girl. Scores of chips. Every time a girl went with a man, one of her chips disappeared. Once a girl’s box was empty she’d be paid up and could go home for good. On a busy night, Matsi could make as many as ten chips disappear. But Maw-Maw added more each day for food and fines. Not being chosen got you fined so Matsi put on a show.
When Maw-Maw’s smoky voice called out, “Pree-zen-tin,” Matsi loosened the belt of her slippery pink kimono. When Maw-Maw clapped her hands and said, “Li’l Lotus Lady,” Matsi pushed the door open wide. Maw-Maw held out her arms and smiled as if Matsi were her own. Matsi wanted to believe in that smile, wanted to run into those arms and lay her head on that great soft chest.
“Dis little boo from Thailand,” Maw-Maw said, turning to the men. “Dey do great yum-yum dere, dey all do, and dis sea bob de expert.” Yum-yum. The sound of the word made the back of Matsi’s throat ache. Eyes down and hands pressed as if in prayer, she took baby steps into the room “quick-quick” as Maw-Maw had trained her. Reaching the center, she bowed.
“She doan say a word, woan hurt your ear,” Maw-Maw said. “Just gonna show you and you gonna love it.” Matsi dropped her kimono to the floor and pirouetted. “Who gonna win dis one?”
Voices called out while Matsi did ballerina leaps across the room. The tall, jumpy man with the shaved head and goldfish eyes called out the highest number. He’d won her once before and all he’d wanted was to play jacks with his clothes off. He didn’t have stinky armpits, hadn’t bitten her or made her gag and choke. Getting him a second time was good luck. A seed of hope sprouted in her chest.
As Maw-Maw brought out the next girl, a big show-off with castanets, Matsi scooped up her kimono and accompanied goldfish eyes to the winners’ door. For the next thirty minutes, she would do as Maw-Maw instructed: “Don’t be fussy-fussy. Don’t ack like you tink you too good f’dem. Do anytin dey wants cept go-go. When you ready f’go-go, gonna cost more.”
At the door, Maw-Maw’s red-bearded son, T-Henry, put goldfish eye’s payment into the money belt resting on his belly shelf. T-Henry was the timekeeper, too, and the one who made sure men didn’t try to get more than they paid for. Behind the door three rooms led into each other like cars on a train, each sectioned off with sheets into smaller rooms trapping hot, sticky air that made the walls weep. Terrible feng shui, Matsi’s mother would have said. And the smell. Like someone had thrown up fish sticks.
“Name’s Lionel,” goldfish eyes said when they got to their room. “Didn’t tell you first time. Wasn’t sure I could trust you.” He spoke fast, using up nearly all his breath. “Then, I figured, who would you tell? You a working gal and not from these parts.”
Matsi clutched the kimono to her chest and watched Lionel’s jeans and briefs slide down to his sandals. “I love kids,” he said, stepping out of his shoes and pants. Damp, dark hair streaked his chicken bone legs. “How could it be wrong to love you?”
She looked up at the red and blue letters on his white T-shirt: Land of the Free. Apparently. She liked to read, to learn new words.
Lionel pulled the shirt over his head, folded his clothes into tight squares and placed them on top of his sandals. He sat on the narrow bed and signaled Matsi to join him. Gripped the base of his penis with a trembling hand. “You can touch it if you want.”
Matsi cocked her head and frowned as though she didn’t understand. Lionel pointed. She nodded, complied. She always did just enough to keep a man from complaining.
“Why should I be looking over my shoulder all the time? It’s a terrible way to live.”
He covered her hand with his and slid it up and down. She kept her eyes on the silver cross hanging from his neck, watching it rise and fall until he was done.
They sat on the floor, then, and played with the pick-up-sticks he’d brought until T-Henry called time. Lionel looked older than Matsi’s father, but he was better at games, able to pick up the Master Stick every time.
That night, as Maw-Maw said, “Time to make do-do” – time for sleep – her voice was almost gentle. Lionel was the reason, Matsi was sure. Lionel was a good luck charm.
To the refugee camp, to the hospital, to the temple turned into a morgue, they took their meagre offerings: Mummy’s passport, matted hair from her brush, her DNA which means Do Not Ask, as in do not ask for the Empress of Heaven. She’ll have to find her fancy robe first, she’ll likely show up late. For rescues, the Empress much prefers Ma-tsu. If you call her that, she’ll come right away.
To the officer filling out forms, Daddy said: She’s light as a cork with onyx black hair and eyes as brown as earth. Sounds like scores of the missing, the form filler said, whole light-as-cork villages gone. How many are scores? Matsi asked as she picked at a scab. Too many, said Daddy, and he slid to the ground while chanting monks barefooted by in a colour you won’t find in a box of crayons. The Empress would’ve worn red.
Lionel showed up once a week, sometimes not able to win her until the second or third contest. “I’d be here all the time if I had the cash,” he said one night, dropping his jeans. “Waiting for you to come into the room, my heart revs like it’s pure caffeine. Soon as you dance, I calm right down. You smile so pretty, it’s obvious you like it. No one can say I’m taking advantage.”
He’d brought a checkerboard and after he was done, they sat on the floor with their legs open, the board between them. “First game won’t count because you’re learning, okay?” Matsi had been playing checkers since before she started school. It was spooky, her father said, how good she was at it. She saw moves before they happened as though they couldn’t do anything but happen that way.
“You and I, we’re free spirits,” Lionel said, pouring checkers out of a plastic bag. “You want the red or the black men?” She pointed to the red ones without thinking and her stomach went sour, but his expression didn’t change. Keeping her secret was easy with other men. They rarely spoke to her. What if Lionel was trying to trap her, was spying for Maw-Maw?
“The rest
of the world doesn’t understand free spirits. Seems only Jesus can forgive. My mama can’t. She kicked me out. I’ll go first.”
He moved a black. The blacks were men and kings.
She moved a red. Girls and empresses.
“People think kids can’t make decisions but here you are working already, on your own, so to speak. Kids are naturally sexual. Somebody famous said that first, can’t remember who.”
He moved a black.
She moved a red. Was moving a checker making a decision?
“Know what my problem is? I’m ahead of my time. Paying for this is baloney. We should be free to make each other feel good whenever we want.”
He moved a black and she captured it.
“Shoot! How about I teach you English? Then you could tell me how you did that. It’s terrible what happened to your people. I said a prayer for them.”
Maybe Lionel was a detective her father had hired. If so, he’d probably expect her to look like her last school photo. Her hair hadn’t been twisted on top of her head. She yanked out the rubber band and the plastic clips Maw-Maw put in each night, let her hair drop to her shoulders. Onyx black.
“Hey,” Lionel said, “I was just thinking about your hair, wondering how long it was. Pop would’ve said ‘quite the co-inky-dink.’ Thought he was a real comedian, the bastard.” His hand flew up and pressed his forehead as if he’d eaten ice cream too fast. “What a jerk! Cussing in front of a lady. I’m so sorry, so sorry. Can you forgive me?” He looked as if he might cry.
Matsi held out a clip that had retained a strand of her DNA. Lionel took it and kissed her hand over and over with his thin, dry lips.
She held her hand to her nose that night. No trace of his scrubbed clean smell.
A good-news-at-last story spread through the camp. While off on a beach, in search of his wife, a man found dolphins in a once dry lagoon that the dead had churned into poison. A pinky-gray humpback mum and her kid. They’d surfed over trees. Apparently. A miracle, a sign of hope like Ice Cream Next Exit. But as it turned out, just the mum got rescued. The kid must have called for the Empress of Heaven.
