“You know,” says Micky in that slow Oxy voice.
“I don’t give a shit. Get away from me,” says Kathy.
Micky walks away.
A few songs pass.
Kathy gets up and goes over to a man.
His name is Bob.
He wears glasses and has bipolar disorder.
Kathy knows what must be done to get twenty bucks for two songs from him.
She starts dancing.
She strokes his dick behind her back.
Kathy turns around and lifts her leg up, pulls her panties over gracefully.
Bob touches her pussy with his finger.
Bob looks up at Kathy.
Kathy smiles.
Kathy is wet.
So Bob’s finger goes in easy.
On the second song Bob decides not to finger her so much and rubs his hands all over her pregnant belly.
Which makes Kathy giggle.
She loves when people notice that she is pregnant.
Kathy puts up her leg.
Bob sticks a twenty in there.
*
Kathy, age four.
Coloring on the floor.
Her mother sits in a chair drinking, sporadically sniffing a line.
Kathy colors everything red.
She has only one crayon.
Kathy’s mother looks down at her.
Stares at her.
Sweat is on her mother’s face.
Her eyes boggle about in her skull.
Her mother licks her lips.
She pets Kathy’s hair.
Kathy looks up at her.
“Yes, Mommy,” Kathy says, scared, knowing that if Mommy pays attention to her it is only to punish her.
“Come sit on Mommy’s lap, Kathy.”
Kathy gets up and sits on her mother’s lap.
Kathy is covered in dirt, wearing a dress.
Her mother begins to kiss her on the lips, and sticks her tongue in Kathy’s mouth.
Kathy kisses back because she thinks Mommy finally loves her.
After kissing for a while Kathy asks, “Mommy, why did you kiss me? You’ve never done that before.”
“Well, no man will because your stupid ass is here.”
*
Kathy gets home from work.
Sits on the couch.
No lights are on.
Silence.
She thinks, I would like a strawberry.
Happiness is important at 3am.
Lights off.
Drowning in silence.
Darkness.
Broken and shivering.
Goosebumps.
Fear and trembling.
The hours pass.
Kathy is afraid to move.
Movement leads to failure.
Choices build castles.
Castles have ghosts.
The ghosts now come to Kathy.
Man with a mullet and rebel flag tattoo.
And a big boot.
On Kathy’s small head.
Pushing and pushing and pushing.
Down.
Onto concrete.
Pain.
She feels the pain.
Kathy trembles.
Grabs her hair.
Pulls at it.
There is ugliness.
Strong punch to the face.
Kathy misses Joe’s punches.
They hurt so much.
Black eyes.
She has scars.
Knocked out twice.
Ambulance.
Police.
The guns.
Her mother.
And television.
And school teachers.
And the behavior of a thousand generations of women.
She is a woman.
A woman cannot be intelligent
A woman must be weak.
A woman must breed.
Beget the next hopeless generation.
She hears sounds.
Sentences that contradict.
Women must get beat.
Big dumb tears on her cheeks.
Choices build castles.
Castles have ghosts.
Kathy goes to the kitchen.
Pours some Crown into a coffee mug.
Goes into her bedroom.
It is small.
Without pictures.
Without any decorations at all.
She lies down in the small bed.
Rubs her belly.
The baby kicks hard when she’s tweaking.
Kathy drinks the Crown and falls asleep.
*
Lisa walks through the door.
“Bitch, where’s my motherfucking money?” screams Kathy.
“For what?” screams Lisa.
“For the fucking phone bill, what the fuck do you think? I’m fucking putting you up when you ain’t got no place to fucking live. I need my fucking money!”
“I only made fifty-five dollars last night.”
“What the fuck? You go home with that guy for free last night? What the fuck you do that for? He would have fucking paid you.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, is fucking right bitch, just give me what you have.”
Lisa gives her thirty-five dollars.
“Thirty-five dollars, I thought you made fifty-five you lying bitch, where’s the rest of my money?”
“I need twenty for tip-out.”
“Fine fucking whatever! But whatever you make tonight, I get that too.”
“All right, Kathy.”
Lisa takes Kathy’s orders.
Lisa’s dude is in the pen also.
For shooting a crackhead who wouldn’t pay up.
The man didn’t die.
He just can’t walk anymore.
Lisa is small, like four ten, and eighty-eight pounds.
Lisa is almost dead.
She has to be stoned or tweaking or drunk to even deal with the act of tying her shoes.
She is from somewhere down south.
Lisa says her dad is a millionaire.
When Lisa is drunk or tweaking or stoned she says that she has never seen her dad.
Lisa only dates black guys.
Nobody knows why.
There are many white girls like that.
And there are black girls who won’t date black guys, but date any white guy who exists.
Here in Youngstown.
*
Kathy is sitting inside a restaurant.
Eating a burger with french fries.
She notices that there are pickles on her burger.
She’d asked for no pickles.
Kathy waves the waitress down.
The waitress comes over.
“Yes, miss, do you need anything?”
“Yeah, motherfucker, I need another burger, because this fucking burger has pickle juice all fucking over it!”
The waitress lies and says, “But miss, you didn’t ask for no pickles.”
“Listen motherfucker, I know what the fuck I said. I said no motherfucking pickles, so take this fucking burger off this goddamn table and get it the fuck away from me, and I don’t wanna see your fucking face till I got a brand new burger without any goddamn pickles on it. And you better make a new one, and not just wipe off the pickle juice, because I will fucking check to see if there is any goddamn pickle juice on it. And if there is, there is gonna be some shit going down up in here. You know what I’m fucking saying, bitch?”
“Yes, miss. I’ll fix it immediately.”
*
It’s the middle of the day.
Lisa is asleep on the couch.
Dismal light comes through the windows.
NBC is playing on the television; it is the only channel Kathy gets.
Kathy has all of her money out on the coffee table.
There are sixteen twenties on the table.
That is a lot of twenties, Kathy thinks, but not enough. I need more twenties.
Kathy reaches for the phone.
She calls Joe’s dad.
Joe’s dad works at Packard. He has money.
“Hello.”
“It’s me, Kathy.”
“Oh, hi Kathy.”
“Yeah, well, are you gonna help with this baby?”
“We aren’t even sure it’s Joe’s.”
“It’s fucking Joe’s, who the fuck else’s would it be. You calling me a slut?”
“No, I ain’t calling you a slut. We just aren’t sure.”