Hick

by Andrea Portes

  He’s sitting at the head of the table like he owns the place. His back is towards me and his neck is just waiting there like a baked potato for me to take aim. His head shimmers, bald and stubbly, with a few moles here and there like towns spread out in Oklahoma. He’s got a briefcase on his lap, proper-like. There’s something in the way he’s holding his chin up or maybe it’s the slope of his nose that tells me he’s got money and that this place, my place, might as well be the outhouse outside a cathouse.

  I prop myself up in the doorway, leaning slight to the side, making sure to hold the .45 real casual. I turn myself mean inside out, freeze my skin and say, “That’s my dad’s chair.”

  His knee knocks up the table and he turns round, flustered and blustery. I could jump for joy, I really could, he looks like such an idiot, but instead I choose to concentrate on my intimidating tactics. Clint wouldn’t jump for joy.

  “Well, my oh my, you sure gave me a scare.”

  He pretends not to see my .45, reflecting around the room, whirling slowly in little bright circles that can only spell his doom. He nervous smiles but I don’t smile back. I just stare at him and raise my chin a little.

  “Is your mother home?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you always carry a gun like that?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s a very, um, nice gun.”

  “What gun?”

  “That gun. it’s . . . interesting.”

  “My gun is interesting?”

  “Well, I mean, it seems to be very well crafted.”

  “it’s not a gun. it’s a .45.”

  “Um.”

  “Smith and Wesson.”

  “Maybe I could give you my card and you could tell her I dropped by . . .”

  “Card?”

  “Yes. Um. Here.”

  He smiles and takes his card out. He reaches his arm towards me and dangles it out for me to grab. I don’t move.

  “Who are you, Mister?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me. My name’s Lux. Lux Feld. I’m in investments.”

  “Investments?”

  “You know, land, property, stuff like that.”

  He laughs light and shrugs, making nice. I nod and laugh light back, shuffling my feet against the linoleum floor and slapping my thigh like I’m the inbred retard he takes me for.

  He stops laughing and puts his card back in his jacket.

  “You always break into people’s houses at . . . what time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “At 8 o’clock in the morning?”

  “Well, actually, the door was open, er, there was no door, I mean a screen door but . . . you know, well, I’m sorry, I didn’t see a buzzer so I just thought I’d—”

  “Do you think I’m pretty?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think I’m pretty? Like if you saw me passing by would you want to kiss me or something?”

  “Um. I don’t really think that’s—”

  “Luli, what the hell are you doing?”

  Tammy comes barreling down the staircase, pushing me aside, and I can tell she’s about to do something worse but then she sees Mr. Feld and it’s like she turns from a moth to a butterfly in two seconds flat. She straightens up and tightens her robe around her, fluffing her hair up and smiling pretty.

  “Why, Mr. Feld. Whatever in the world are you doing here at this hour of the day, of the morning, I mean? It must be seven-thirty, seven even.”

  “it’s actually eight, Mrs. Cutter.”

  He looks at her kind of funny when he says her name, like there’s a little joke here they got between them. They’re both smiling now. Tammy starts looking a little red like she’s at the sock-hop. And I have seen this blushing before. It means my dad is on the outs again.

  I’m surprised this mister is even talking to her looking like that, sunk-eyed and shabby in her frayed blue robe and last night’s makeup. She keeps adjusting and readjusting herself, like somewhere in the position of her belt lies true happiness.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t even have woke up if it wasn’t for Luli and her loud laughing.”

  She looks at me for that one. I smile back at her like I’m just as happy as she is and we’re all just one big happy family. She sees my .45 and grabs it out of my hand.

  “Oh, Luli, you are just such a little card with that gun.”

  She laughs, bashful, swatting her hand at Mr. Feld, covering.

  “She don’t mean nothing. She just likes to play.”

  “it’s not a gun. it’s a .45.” I repeat it, get it straight.

  “Well, that’s nice, dear.”

  Tammy smiles and the peeled worm takes a gulp.

  “Okay, then, Mr. Feld, if you’ll just let me get dressed, I’ll be right back down.”

  She turns my way and smiles like a TV commercial.

  “Luli, you better start getting ready for school now.”

  All smiles. New and improved soap.

  “School don’t start for two weeks.”

  She grabs my arm and steers me firm towards my room. I look back at her and she stares right back like she’s daring me to make a move. Tammy’s got a mean backhand. I turn and start getting dressed, careful to stand next to the door so I can keep up. I hear her sigh and giggle, then a little laughing and talking. A guilty little whisper. A sentence, hushed.

  Then the screen door slams and just like that they’re gone.

  I walk back out to the kitchen and listen to the sound of a smooth kind of car driving off into the distance. Well, that’s that then. If my calculations are correct, he’s not new to her cause there’s already a secret between them. She must have found him at the Hy-Vee or the Kwik-Mart or the Piggly Wiggly. He must have driven his cart into her cart, blushed and feigned an apology, polite. She would have turned round, seen money and they’d be off to the races.

  Money.

  I open the fridge for something to eat, but there’s nothing but brown peaches and a half-finished jar of relish.

  I bet this morning my mama gets bacon and eggs with waffles on the side.

  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.

  FOUR

  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 th
e 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.