One String Guitar

by Mona de Vessel

  “So I come home one day, and Lotus is sitting outside of my apartment on the doorsteps all crumpled. ‘I waited for you,’ she says to me, all girly-like. I’m thinking, shit, I’m in trouble. So I put the key in the door and she follows me inside and I can smell her. God, a woman’s smell gets me every time. She wears this perfume, the fragrance of summer flowers. Some shit like that. Makes me want to be inside her all over again. That’s the problem with me. I don’t think straight. Think with my dick most of the time. It’s like one moment I know this woman ain’t for me and the next I’m fucking her. I don’t care what they say, but a woman with nice legs in a short dress can turn the world upside down.”

  Elbe laughed. Joey’s obsession with his maleness was worse than any guy she had ever known.

  “So, we get upstairs and I look at her and for the first time I notice she’d been crying. ‘What’s wrong baby?’ I ask her. See, that was my dick talking again. I hate to admit it. But it’s true. And she looks at me with those puppy eyes, her mascara all over the place, with a fresh coat of lipstick. And she says, ‘I just don’t know where this is going.’ Red flag! Red flag! Nothing good can come out of a woman saying some vague shit like that. I’m trying to think on my feet. There is a fragile place in the presence of women when you can get sucked into their vortex. And before you know it, two hours have gone by and you’re tired as shit and you still have not gotten any. You know what I mean?” Joey doesn’t wait for Elbe to answer. “So I’m trying to think on my feet, I’m trying to be quick here. But she’s looking all fragile and small like she needs my help and I’m thinking, you’re done buddy. Game over. She’s got you now.

  So I’m like, ‘What do you mean baby?’ I ask her as I’m walking over the fridge This is a tactic that works sometimes. With some women. Gets ‘em confused. Diverts the attention away from the drama and then sometimes they get sucked into the action of me spilling something on the carpet or breaking a glass or something and that puts us back on track, you know? So, I pull out two cool beers from the fridge. I open them. Grab one glass from the cupboards. She ignores me. I can see her on the couch now. Her little sundress is pulled up to her thighs. I can almost see her panties. She’s pouting. Her lips are all droopy like and she’s crossing her arms, underneath her breasts, propping them up so they look even bigger. And I can feel the weakness in me pulling at me again. And I’m thinking: “Damn! I love that mole on the top of her titty. The way it curves real smooth like a fruit, like an orange, like a fucking melon. And that tiny dark brown dot on the mound of the curve is winking at me at now, you know? So she sees me approaching and she looks away, like a kid. Like a stereotype of someone being pissed. I put the beers down on the table. I take her glass, her favorite glass, the fancy one, with the nice slender body and I pour her the beer. No foam, just the way she likes it. She’s not looking at me. Her arms are still crossed. I try not to look at her tits anymore. What good can come of this in this moment, right? But I can’t help it. I hand her the glass, and I try to kiss her neck. She takes the beer. ‘Get out of my face,’ she says to me and pushes me away. She takes a sip of beer like she’s realizing what she’s doing, she puts the glass down firmly on the table and says, ‘Why you give me beer, when you know I’m hungry!’ You just can’t win, you know?”

  Elbe laughed.

  “That girl drives me crazy. She’s high maintenance. So high sometimes I can’t even see her up there. She’s so far gone.

  “Finally I say to my girl, ‘Why you need to pull at me like that? Why you gnawin’ on my leg all the damn time? You know I’m black, so what’s the problem?’ ‘Are you?’ she says. And I go, ‘you know I got the world in my veins baby.’ She’s all up in my shit, you know. She asks me about my father and my mother. She’s all like, ‘cut the shit Joey! Your father black?’ ‘Yeah. So? It’s not like I knew the man.’ ‘And what about your mother?’ She’s got her arms still folded on her chest. She’s mad as hell and I know I’m not going to get away with this without spilling a little blood. So there I go talking about my white mama and the foster homes. So now she starts asking me about my mother, my real mother, you and why I was taken away from her. And I’m thinking damn, I hate talking about this shit. What does it have to do with what we’re doing now? That was like 20 years ago. And guess who won that battle? Her titties, that’s what. It’s like I’m sitting there watching her unfold her arms, slowly. Her breasts bounce a little and then settle under the pull of gravity. I can still see the little mole. It’s not winking at me anymore. I don’t feel the perk of her tits pulling at me. Even that’s gone. Now I’m the one pouting. I catch myself for a second, sitting like a pacha, like I’m some kind of angry king. I feel her hand slip onto my thigh. Her hands are small, real feminine with long red nails. Shiny red nails that she digs into my back when I make her cry out.”

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Elbe yelled pounding her hand on the wheel.

  “Well, I mean, I can help it if she likes it hard. And you know what kills me? When she whispers in my ear, ‘I’m sorry baby. I didn’t mean to make you mad.’ When she says mad, I think sad and I know I’ve won the battle.

  “You’re a pig, you know that Joey?” Elbe laughed.

  “That smeared lipstick on my collar and the mole on her titty can make me forget about all the bullshit and all the drama. Worth it every fucking time.”

  Elbe felt like she’d been standing in Joey’s bedroom hovering above his bed, illicitly watching him do it with his girl. She said nothing about the voyeuristic shame she secretly enjoyed, like a pervert masturbating in a dark public room.

  “You know what, Joey? You’re a fucking psycho. You and all those girls. You need to give yourself a little space from the ladies otherwise you’re not going to make it.”

  “You’re telling me. You know I can’t walk away from the pussy though. You know?”

  “Oh God, here we go again, the pussy, the pussy, the pussy. That’s all you care about Joey. Can’t you ever think of something else?”

  “Not really. No.” They both laugh.

  “How’s that crazy place where you work going?”

  Elbe wanted to change the subject. The discomfort was beginning to outweigh the pleasure of his stories. Joey barely took a breath before launching on the next tale.

  “You should see the kids I deal with at work. Those girls have taught me more about myself than anyone else I know.”

  Elbe listened to Joey talk about his job as a counselor for abused girls.

  “The school smells like chlorine, you know? I like to call it a school but it ain’t no school. More like a residential facility for troubled girls. It’s really nothing more than a jail for wounded girls, sometimes a jail, sometimes a laboratory, depending on the staff and who’s trying to work out what shit with the girls.”

  Elbe tried to keep her eyes steady on the shadowy lines. The road was slick after a brief rainfall.

  “So on my first day in this joint. I get there, right? And the breakfast shift is still going on. The staff leaves me there with this pack of girls. I don’t have a fucking clue as to what I’m doing. I’m like, what can go wrong here? I’m strong, I’m intelligent. I know what I’m doing. The school looks like a series of small houses from the outside. And for the most part, they’re just that: houses containing girls with shattered hearts. Some have had exploded ribs, crushed skulls, broken jaws, cracked knee caps, splintered wrists, punched out faces, ripped toe nails…”

  “OK, OK, I catch your drift.” Elbe interrupted.

  Joey ignores Elbes comment and continues. “Pulled out hair, violated bodies. All this done by their loving parents, by the people who brought them into the world. So I’m walking in the main hallway that leads to the community room. It’s fucking pitch black in there and out of the corner of my eye, I see this eight or nine-year-old girl lying on a mat, rolling on her side like a beach ball blowing in the wind. She looks at me, right and laughs this inane cackle and keeps rolling as I pass her. I’m thinki
ng what the fuck?! Turns out, she’s been put in ‘mild’ time out. A place of containment where she can get a hold of herself, away from the group, without having to be isolated completely, into the chair.”

  “The chair? What the hell is that?” Elbe asked.

  “Yeah, We don’t call it solitary confinement but the chair. It’s a padded room with neon lights, small, narrow and rectangular, an empty room without a chair where the girls are forced to sit for hours. Fucked up, right?”

  Elbe nodded.

  “So, I’m assigned to my first group of girls—Group Blue—a mild group, so I can get my feet wet without too many snags. Eight girls ranging in age from 7 to 18. They stare at me. Lucy, this fat chick in her forties wearing a Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt, introduces me. ‘This is Joey, everyone. Say hello.’ So, in unison, like a dragged out chorus of The Waking Dead, I hear ‘Hellllllo Joooeeeeyy.’ So, this chick Lucy hands me a sheet of paper with their names and ages on it. She points to each one, like dolls in a window and names them. This is Sandra, Jen, Kathy, Minnie, Shawn, April, Julie and Mary. I’m like, seriously? Then this girl Sandra—a tiny little blond thing, couldn’t be older than seven—stares at me blankly and returns to her coloring activity. I’m thinking, I got this. That’s when I see this girl Carly with her leg in a cast like a fucking tree trunk, from her hip all the way to her toes. She eyes me like I’m fucking prey. Minnie, Shawn, and the others ignore me. I’m thinking, alright, no biggie. Mary, a chubby little girl with curly red hair and a stained T-shirt that read, Girls rock, is all giggling and staring at me. I’m like, OK.

  Elbe jumps in. “Can I just say I have NO idea how you even do this job? OK. Go on.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know how I do it either. OK, So the girl, Carly, the one with the leg in a cast, says to me, ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’ She’s raising her hand like we’re in a classroom. So I’m thinking, it’s a simple question. I stop, I hesitate for like a second and then I ask, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

  ‘Right there.’ They all answer pointing to a door a few yards away, all excited, like they’re getting ready to start a house fire. ‘Sure.’ I tell Carly, feeling confident. She gets up, picks up her crutches and hobbles over, disappearing into the bathroom. Sandra, the youngest, giggles under her breath. I don’t think anything of it. They’re just little girls, right? Minnie and Kathy, who are teaching each other how to play Shoots and Ladders, look up from their game and join in the giggles with Sandra. OK, so now I’m kinda nervous. Something’s up: it’s like this secret language is moving through the group and I’m the outsider. But I ignore the signal. My inflated ego gets in the way and I choose to act like everything’s under control. Big fucking mistake!”

  “Oh God!” Elbe laughed nervously.

  “Yeah. So, the two oldest girls in the group, April and Shawn, are playing a game of cards on the floor and I decide to join them. ‘Can I play with you?’ I ask them.

  ‘Sure,’ April the 18-year-old, answers innocently. It’s fucking sad to think of this girl being 18 and being trapped in this place, all doped up on psychotropic drugs, playing stupid card games with these girls when she should be thinking about dating and smoking cigarettes and making out, you know?”

  “Yeah. That’s horrible.”

  “So then Shawn, this beautiful 16-year-old-girl—”

  “Joey!”

  “No, it’s not like that. I don’t mean, like, hot. She’s just beautiful. She almost seems normal you know? Her body doesn’t show any sign that something tragically wrong ever having happened to her. She’s wearing her chestnut hair in a neat ponytail. Her eyes give nothing. No sadness, no trauma, no sudden burst of life either. She’s wearing these tight jeans and a snug baby pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. You know what I mean?” Joey asked Elbe.

  “OK. Yeah, I thought you were going to tell me this girl was hot.”

  “Elbe! I’m not that fucked up!” They both laughed.

  “So, as soon as I sit down to play with them, Shawn gets all giddy which is weird because you have to remember these girls are real doped up. I mean we’re talking drugs that pound you into the ground you know? Many of them are drooling, dozing off, they slur their words, but this girl Shawn perks up and sits straight up like she’s in a yoga position. And she goes, ‘let’s start a fresh game.’ Then she yanks the cards from April. Well, they go at it. ‘Hey, bitch, watch it, you scratched me.’ So, I try to keep the peace.

  ‘OK. Let’s not call each other names.’ They calm down. Now we’re playing and then all of a sudden, I realize that Carly has been in the bathroom for a fucking long time. I try to figure out how long it’s been. I look at my watch. April notices me and she goes:

  ‘She’s not coming out of there alive.’

  ‘What do you mean, she’s not coming out of there alive?’ I’m thinking, what the holy fuck is going on here? And April goes,

  ‘She’s trying to kill herself again.’

  “Oh my God, you’re kidding!” Elbe jumped in.

  “Yeah. So I shoot out of my chair. The girls all look up, from their games and when they see the fear in my eyes and the terror in my body, they feed on it and start giggling. Minnie and Sandra are cracking up, hard. They both start singing in this fucked up singsong voice.

  ‘She’s gonna die! She’s gonna die!”‘ I run to the bathroom door and I begin to pound the shit out of that door. I’m yelling. ‘Carly, open the door! Open the fucking door!’ Then, wait it gets better. Lucy the staffer who had introduced me to the group, walks by and she’s like, ‘Joey? What’s going on here?’ So I tell her that Carly’s in the bathroom and that she’s been in there forever and she freaks. She’s like. ‘Oh Jesus! You let her in the bathroom? What were you thinking!?’ She alerts everyone. This guy Mark and this woman Rose run out with a look of terror in their eyes. They run past me and outside of the building. The girls in my group are now all laughing, watching from a distance. Each one of them has this strange look of excitement in their eyes like they’re watching their own house burning and they’re enjoying it. I run out there with the others. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking uh, you’re leaving the others alone? But what could I do, right? When I get there, everyone is gathered around the side of the building. I stop dead in my tracks and feel this huge rush when I realize what everyone is looking at.You’re not going to believe this, but Carly’s teetering on the edge of the roof–two floors above our heads.”

  “You’re shitting me?!” Elbe laughed.

  “No, I am totally serious. Mark is standing right below her. He’s like, ‘Carly, turn around and go back through the window. Step back from the edge.’

  “Holy crap!” Elbe added.

  “I know! So, Carly’s cast is resting in the gutter of the roof, dangling like some fucking prosthetic limb. And I realized that she’s looking down at the ground trying to find the courage to jump. So I tell myself, quick, think fast. So I’m like, ‘Carly, what the fuck? Get back in there now!’ Mark and Lucy and all the others look at me in shock. They’re pissed. They start yelling at me.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to make her jump, if you speak to her that way.’ But I’m not listening to them. My eyes are totally focused on Carly who’s now looking at me. So, I keep giving her shit. ‘I’m serious. This is bullshit. Step away from the roof and get back in there. This shit ain’t cool. This is my first day of work and look at what you’re doing.’ So, she starts to wobble along the edge, dragging her fucking pogo stick of a leg back towards the window. Everyone just starts to oooh and aahh and freak all around us. And I hear the guy Mark say, ‘Holy shit, she’s gonna jump.’ And he’s trying to talk to her, all wimpy and shit. ‘Carly, can you hear me?’ But I’m thinking this is no time to be a pussy. So I tell her, ‘Step the fuck away from the god damned roof Carly!’

  Elbe laughed.

  “I’m yelling now. She looks at me again and pulls away from the edge like she’s suddenly realized where she is. She fucking crawls back in th
rough the window and gets her sorry ass back in the bathroom. I run back inside and I get her to open the door. This fucking little bitch just opens that fucking door and hobbles out like nothing happened. ‘Don’t ever pull that shit again. You hear me?’ I yell at her. She barely nods. They wrote me up, my very first day and I was written up for letting a girl go to the bathroom unattended.”

  “Holy shit Joey! Your job is so stressful. I thought teaching history to regular kids was hard but you’ve got me beat!”

  “I know. I have no idea how long I’ll be able to pull this off but it works for now.”

  Elbe and Joey were approaching the last rest area before Sioux City.

  “Hey, I gotta pull in here and take a leak, OK?”

  Elbe felt a strange kind of bond with Joey, a familiarity that felt like a tug pulling her closer to him. This must be friendship, she thought.

  “Yeah, and let’s get some food too. I’m starving. You know how much I love good ol’ junk food.”

  “Umm, yes, the delicacies of Roy Rogers. Yum!”

  Elbe pulled into a nondescript rest area. She thought about how they could have been anywhere in America. The parking lot was barely one third full. It was two hours from dusk. They parked next to a monster Suburban SUV.

  “You wonder why anyone would need to drive one of those. I mean, short of the apocalypse, or having to live out of your car, why would anyone need such a thing?” Joey asked.

  “Americans need their protection from the world.” They both laughed. Elbe knew exactly the type of political comments Joey enjoyed. They walked into the neon-lit building. The muted browns meant to appease,made Elbe feel anxious. They ran to the bathroom and ordered their meals. Chicken nuggets and fries for Joey and a vanilla shake for Elbe.

  “I don’t know how you can eat that shit at this hour.” Elbe told Joey.

  “How can you not eat when you’re in this Saran wrapped world of plastic? It makes me wanna eat my way through life. I understand obesity.” Elbe laughed.