“Erie?”
“Ohio.”
“Wiyot—I knew a girl called that,” he said.
“Not Wiyot. Ohio. Like the state.”
“Some kind of Indian name?”
“That’s where my mom had me.”
“Oh,” he’d said. “Used to work the car plant over in Sandusky. Good union job. ‘Til I got jumped in with the boys.”
Full truth: she was named Ohio because that’s where her mom met the man and fell in love and that’s where her mom got knocked up and where she gave birth, on the side of the road, right where the man left her. Her mom says they’re never going back. Says she hid her baby girl up in her sweater and brought her across Lake Erie in a bartered boat. Swears a monster, the fabled queen of the lake, emerged from the depths, demanding a toll. No word of a lie. In exchange for safe passage, her mother sheared the matted ropes of her hair with a knife, dropped them overboard with her maidenhead, sacrificing her womanly powers. The waters quieted, and she paddled all the way back to her hometown. Been here ever since.
“Whatcha doin’?”
It’s Mary Louise, who lives in a run-down bungalow on the other side of the KFC. She pushes her glasses up her nose. A piece of tape holds the broken arm in place. Mary Louise’s mom cuts her hair using a mixing bowl as guide, which makes her look like a medieval clown. Mary Louise is twelve, two grades behind Ohio. Her parents regularly kick her out so they can party all night.
“Oh-hi-Oh,” she says, “Can I have some?”
Ohio gives her the last bit of powder. Mary Louise jams her finger in the corners of the packet and sucks back and forth until it’s gone. Her mouth and finger are purple. Ohio wipes her face hard on her sleeve.
Motorcycles.
The girls lean forward at the first faraway rumble. Reverberating bass fattens with grinding gears that choke and pop, that spit like gunfire. Sky begins to shake. Like a funnel cloud ripping from the west, gathering strength, flattening an unrepentant path in its wake, the hogs’ engines detonate a primal roar in Ohio’s cranium: her mouth waters, belly pools to nausea. A red sun hangs low in the sky; its light explodes off chrome, blinding. Motorcycles fill the road, two across. Ohio shields her eyes with sugar-stained fingers. Her molars vibrate, her braids dance. Ribs rattle, thighs too. The girlfriends sit tight behind the men, long hair slapping vests as they zoom past. There’s darkness in the leather. Boots clamp silver stirrups.
Ohio can’t breathe; her mouth is full of metal, her nose of gasoline.
Mary Louise claps like a headcase. “Two, four, six, nine—thirteen!”
Don, the last biker, rides alone. As he passes, Don winks and pops a wheelie.
Ohio sits taller on the stoop. A secret flush dapples her skin, heats the bill in her back pocket. Earlier that afternoon, Don had thrust forward with a gurgled shout, releasing himself in long arcs on the sand. One gush had landed wet on her leg and dried like snot. He’d zipped himself, smaller and softer, back into his jeans. That’s a good girl.
Mary Louise looks at Ohio, mouth open.
An engine backfires somewhere down the road.
“You know him?”
Ohio shrugs. Why didn’t he stop, put her on the back? Take her away from this place?
Later, Mary Louise says, “Why don’t they ride their own bikes?”
“Who?”
Ohio is shrinking. Pieces of her dull life fall back into place now that Don and the bikes have vanished.
“The girls.”
“Those things are really heavy, Dork.”
“I guess.”
If Ohio’s mom had had her own motorcycle, maybe she wouldn’t have been such a mess when the man dumped her ass. Might have fixed him good, stone-pillar punishment. Wouldn’t have severed her own Goddess head and dumped it in the lake, defeated. When she was a kid, Ohio had a green two-wheeler she pedalled everywhere—banana seat and tall, rusted handles with streamers like seaweed. That was joy, the kind of freedom she’d never have traded.
“Even my dad can’t fix his,” says Mary Louise, hopping from one foot to the other. “It’s been in pieces all over the garage since I was born.”
Ohio climbs on top of the KFC garbage can. Says, “Your dad’s a dick. No offense.”
“It’s getting dark,” says Mary Louise. “I’m going home.”
“Move it, Ohio.”
Saturday morning.
Ohio sprawls on the bed. Her mom pulls the faded seahorse-print sheets out from under her, spilling Ohio this way and that as she yanks them off the mattress. Her mom’s stubby ponytail shivers with every tug. Her hair is greasy and there are dandruff flecks near the roots. She stuffs the sheets into a basket of dirty clothes.
Ohio flattens face down, arms and legs a starfish. “I never get to do anything,” she says into the mattress.
“You get to do the laundry any minute.”
“No!” Ohio curls like a sea urchin and transports herself to Atlantis. She’s a mossy-haired beast with venom-tipped fangs.
Her mom sits on the edge of the bed, and her weight sags the mattress. Ohio rolls into her, unbidden. Her mom wears stretch pants, a too-tight Club Med T-shirt, and the pink-sparkle flip-flops Ohio gave her for Christmas. The waistband at the back of her pants is frayed. Ohio can see the large mole a couple inches above her crack through the thin, grey fabric.
“Ohio.”
Ohio grunts.
“I’m doing the groceries.”
“You’re changing, right?” says Ohio.
“What’s your problem?”
Ohio chokes on the memory of her mom wearing these same pants while bending into other people’s trash for empties, to get the deposit.
Waste not. Want not.
Ohio says, “I hate this town.”
Her mom sighs and her shoulders droop.
“It’s not the worst place in the world.”
She heaves off the bed and the mattress plumps back up. Sets the laundry basket on an old skateboard they found at the beach and rolls the towering pile to the door. Ohio is supposed to push it all the way through town like that.
“No wonder I don’t have a boyfriend,” says Ohio.
“Oh, you think you want a man,” says her mother. “Divide your money and multiply your sorrow. I was a bit older than you when I started working summers at the factory.”
“Right.”
“I was bored, so I quit.”
“I get it.”
“Had some adventure. Met your smooth-talking snake of a father. Haven’t been bored since.”
“You’re the one who liked him,” says Ohio.
“Loved.” She hands over some quarters and the box of detergent. “I’m on afternoons. Be home late.”
Ohio kicks open the door and lets it slam behind her. Mary Louise is curled in the stairwell. “Morning, Oh-hi-oh!” Her hair sprongs in all directions and she’s got the same shirt on as yesterday, only dirtier.
“You can’t go downtown like that,” says Ohio, and goes back inside to grab a clean shirt from her dresser. She tosses it to Mary Louise and slams the door again.
“Put yours in the basket.”
“Okay.”
Ohio hauls the basket down the steps. Mary Louise gets the skateboard. They push the laundry up to the stoplight. It’s hard work, even with both of them. South one block to the Coin-o-Matic. Penny Middleton’s sister is inside with two dirty kids. One of them doesn’t even have pants on, just a filthy T-shirt and bare bum, tiny bobbing penis. Penny Middleton’s sister’s big belly pushes out from her T-shirt and joggers. The hard knot of her bellybutton stares: kid number three! Ohio picks the farthest away washer and loads it, measures out soap. Mary Louise jams in the quarters. The machine shudders. Water spits onto the clothes and the girls can’t help it, they thrust their hands inside to cup the rush, let it soak their thirsty skin. When the machine is filled, Ohio slams the lid. It’s hot, so they sit outside on the plastic chairs.