Monday, April 14th, 2014
I
wake up in a wheat field, shivering, with something crawling across my
face. My first instinct is to flick it
away, but I steady myself, as a spider steps over the bridge of my nose.
“You’re
awake,” Heather says. Heather. I picked her up at a cowboy bar back in Fargo
and it was her idea to come here because she said the stars from this site were
so big they looked like freight cars.
Before
the spider can scram, Heather crushes it between her fingers and says, “Your
nose is ice cold.”
Heather
is the first redhead I’ve ever kissed, ever touched for that matter. Her skin is so freckled it’s as if she’s been
splashed with cinnamon. But she’s a bit
husky and so some of those freckles look about as big as buttons.
“You
hungry?” she asks.
“Not
really.”
“I’m
starving,” Heather says, dipping under the sleeping bag and rooting around for
my penis.
Afterward,
we drive to her place, even though I have a bad feeling about it.
On
the way, Heather nuzzles my neck and rubs my thigh and keeps going for my
groin, which is more tender than when I was a kid and took a line drive to the
crotch. She’s leaning on me, making it
difficult to drive. “A little room
here,” I say, but Heather just gets even closer, licking my right nostril.
She
lives in a trailer park where the world’s skinniest cats slink around heaps of
trash, rusted oil drums, abandoned refrigerators and water coolers. Hers is a faded blue thing, shaped like a
loaf of bread, near the rear.
I
kiss her at the door, feeling sheepish, not knowing how to say goodbye in a way
that won’t make me seem sleazy.
Heather
grabs my wrist so sudden it startles me, and then she’s tugging me inside where
an enormous woman sits around a table smoking, wearing a corduroy robe that looks
to have been gnawed on by a legion of rats.
The
woman doesn’t bother getting up when I’m introduced, probably because the
effort would require a crane.
Heather
calls her “Momma.” She tells Momma that
I’m her boyfriend. “We watched stars all
night,” Heather says. “Well, not all
night,” Heather grins, winking.
“Good…for…you…girl”
Momma says, the words coming out slow, as if from a stroke victim.
When
I say, “We just met,” Momma says, “Yeah…shit,” and winks at me through a dragon
of smoke.
“Come
on,” Heather says, yanking on my arm again.
“My room’s in the back.”
Her
room is only fifteen feet away because this is a very small trailer. I can smell what Mamma had for dinner (liver
and onions) and when she last used the toilet (very recently). Everything mixes with the pungent odor of cat
piss, Budweiser and wet dog.
Heather
locks the door behind me, pushing me on her bed so that a cloud of dust fills
the air. Her sweater comes off in a jiff
before she goes for the zipper on my pants.
“Hey,”
I say, “what are you doing?”
“If
you thought you saw God last night, this morning the Holy Ghost is showing up.”
“I
can’t.”
“You
don’t have to do anything. Just lay back
and enjoy the rodeo.”
“Really,”
I say, “I can’t.”
Heather
keeps struggling for a grip.
“I
mean it.”
Then
she bites me on the arm.
“What
the hell?”
“Let’s
do it rough.”
When
I jump off the bed she lunges. I try to
shrug her off but she nips at my neck and claws my chin with jagged nails. I hear Momma let out a trombone fart.
“Heather
wait, I’m married.”
“So
am I,” she says.
She
won’t get off me.
“I
have herpes,” I lie.
“So
do I!” she says.
I’ve
never hit a girl in my life, but I don’t see how I’m going to get her off me.
“Okay,”
I say. “Okay, but can I use the bathroom
first? I have to pee so bad, I’ll never
get an erection.”
“You
can give me a golden shower if you want.”
“You’re
kidding.”
“Just
don’t get any in my eyes.”
“I
think I’ll take a pass on that.”
“Spoil
sport.”
She
shows me to the bathroom. It’s coat closet-small
and reeks of feces. There’s a window,
but it’s tiny and closed and I’d never be able to fit through it, even as
skinny as I am.
Heather’s
shadow is under the door. “Hurry up,”
she says. “Now I have to go, too.”
“I
might be a while. I’ve got to do the
other.”
“Take
a dump?”
I’ve
always hated when people say that, and now it makes me feel filthy. “Yes.”
“It
doesn’t bother me. When nature calls,
what’re you gonna do?”
“Well,
I’m sort of shy about that kind of thing.”
“You’re
shy,” Heather chuckles. “Yeah, right.”
“A
little privacy. Please? Constipated sex is no good.”
She
thinks this over. “Well, okay, but
squeeze that brick out fast as you can.
I’ll go pee outside.”
“Thanks. I’ll be done in less than five minutes.”
“Better
be,” she says.
I
wait thirty seconds, then fly out of the bathroom, but big Momma has somehow
managed to get out of the chair and she’s blocking my way, intentionally or
otherwise I can’t tell, so my only option is to tuck my head and ram her belly. It’s like diving into a vat of
hamburger. I do it again, using my
shoulders, but she only grunts. Finally
I grab one of her massive legs and when she falls backward the whole trailer
rocks.
Heather
comes in buttoning her pants. “What the
hell happened?”
“She
fell,” I say. “I think she might be
having a stroke.”
“Oh
god! Momma!”
When
Heather bends down to check on the huge woman, I jump over Momma and sprint out
the front door.
“Where
are you going?” Heather calls.
Two
black Rottweilers come ripping down the road toward me. I make it inside the car and start the motor
before they leap against my window. I
back out, tires spitting dirt and pebbles.
I switch gears and gun the accelerator.
One dog flies off the hood, the other squeals. In the rearview Heather is running after me,
shouting and waving her arm, holding what looks to be a butcher’s knife.
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