Ocean felt as though the floor had dropped out from under her feet. Levi. Gauge. The baby… It all made sense—how could she have been so stupid? To think that someone like him would ever be interested in her?
Ocean saw her reflection in the silver platter—the oily tangles of hair, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes, the little cracks at the corners of her dry, flaky lips. Even compared to Corduroy with his disfigured scars, she looked like a monster. She was stupid and ugly and…
“Come on and eat, sweetheart. Don’t worry about that, I’ll get it later.”
From the other room, the baby continued to cry but she could hear Gauge’s voice, singing softly. There was the scrape of chair legs against the floor, Corduroy saying something in a nightmare voice about how good everything smelled….
At that moment, Ocean decided. She would be beautiful, too. She would eat and drink and wash. She would wear clean clothes… pretty ones like the ones Levi had on, and she would be helpful and she would grow strong.
And then, one day, Gauge would see her as the woman she truly was. He would hold her hand like he had in the tunnels and sing to her in the same soft voice that was slowly lulling the baby back to sleep.
She walked to the table, hoping the others couldn’t hear the gurgling she from her belly, and smiled.
She would be happy here. She’d make sure of it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Now that security guard was really starting to freak me out, man. He tried to play it off like he was just walkin’ the beat, ya know? Only he just kept circlin’ this particular cluster of stores like I was the nucleus at the center of his existence. It seemed like every time I stole a look at him, the dude was starin’ me down. Got to the point that there were some pretty crazy ideas runnin’ through my head. Like maybe how he can see right into me, how he knows exactly what I’ve been thinkin’ about over here and can see all the dark designs swirlin’ around in my mind.
I start getting all fidgety… chasin’ this itch that starts at my neck and then runs to my arm before tryin’ to hide on the side of my belly. And I know this probably just makes me look even more suspicious, right? But what can I say? I was scared, man. I was fuckin’ terrified. Shit, I didn’t even know if I had it in me to do these things I’d been thinkin’ about. I mean, I’m a pretty easy goin’ guy, ya know? Never bought into that whole violence scene. So yeah… maybe I was a little bit on edge. But who can blame me, right?
Anyways, I stroll down into that little sunken area on the other side of the falls… the one with all the benches and that coffee shop set up in the center? I plop my ass down so I can just see past the cascade of water, pick up a newspaper someone had left layin’ around, and try to play it cool. Just an average dude readin’ the sports section. Nothin’ to see here, cats. Move right along.
But the entire time I’m actually watchin’ the shop girl from the corner or my eye like I was Dian Fossey or some shit. I musta sat there about an hour, hour and a half. After a while, the rent-a-pig kinda wandered off so I was able to focus my full attention on Clarice fuckin’ Hudson, ya know?
So I’m listening to the roar of the falls and breathin’ in that scent of fresh ground coffee… man, is that a beautiful aroma or what? That place makes a kick ass cuppa joe, believe you me. Anyways, I’m sittin’ there watchin’ her and I notice how every time she has more than a few seconds between customers, she reaches down beneath the counter and comes back up with a handful of food. Ah hell, man… I don’t know what kind of food. I was a ways off, dig? Cheez Its, potato chips, could been manna for all I fuckin’ know. I swear, the things you guys choose to focus on… blows my mind, man. It really does.
See, the whole point of this little narrative isn’t what she was eating, man. It’s that she’s stuffin’ this shit in her cheeks like a chipmunk stockin’ up for winter. I mean, that musta been a bottomless fuckin’ bag of whatever ‘cause that girl just kept shovelin’ it in. She wasn’t no porker, either. Hell, you know. You’ve seen her… well yeah, most of her, I guess. But you get my drift, right?
So, like I said, she’s wolfin’ down her little snacks for close to two hours when this shirt and tie guy comes along and starts chatting her up. She’s nodding, shaking her head, wiping the sweat off her face with her hand. Then she takes a look at her watch and stuffs her red apron under the counter while Shirt And Tie takes her place at the register.
She walks outta the Dollar Bonanza and I give her about a minute or so and then just kinda stand up casually and start followin’ this broad, right? I tail her to the escalators on the other side of the mall and we ride all the way up to the third floor and I keep thinkin’ about all these people around her. People who have no fuckin’ clue. I mean, this chick could potentially be infested with thirty-one different flavors of crinkum. And you’ve got dudes giving her the once over, dykes undressing her with their eyes. Hell, they probably thought that sweat made her sex….
Crinkum? You know, man… disease. Like an STD and shit. Picked that up back around the turn of the century. No, not the fuckin’ disease, man… the term. I swear, sometimes I think you two get a kick outta pokin’ me with your little verbal sticks. Do you wanna hear this shit or not? ‘Cause I can just shut the fuck up right now and not say another word.
That’s what I thought.
So anyways, here I am following Ms. Clarice fuckin’ Hudson across the food court and, since it was lunch time, they’ve got this guy in a tux sittin’ over at the baby grand. He’s ticklin’ those ivories and the music kinda drifts through the lull of the crowd, weaves in and out of the static sound the falls makes as it flows over the edge of its trough. Real mellow, classical shit. Gives the whole scene this art film quality, ya know? Like I can’t believe I’m actually doin’ this and there’s probably a director hiding with his camera crew in the back of Steak on a Stick, just waitin’ to yell cut.
So the chick walks up to the counter at Burger World and I’m acting like I’m checkin’ out some of the menus from those other paragons of fine dining, but I’m actually still watchin’, ya know? Still trying to figure this shit out.
So this sweaty little shop girl orders two super-size value meals, man. And I’m not talkin’ about those flat, meat pancakes they try to pass off as burgers either. Fuck no. Triple stack with cheese, lettuce, tomato, the optional bacon. Bitch gets it all. Now keep in mind that she’s been eating for nearly half her shift already. Me, I’d be about ready to split wide open by then. But not this lady, no. She eats every last bite and even fuckin’ licks that gooey cheese off the wrappers, if you can believe that. Hell, I half expected her to shove those down her gullet too.
When she goes back to work, she rings herself up a purchase and guess what? More fuckin’ food, man. Ha! This time I know what it was—she got one of those little bags of cotton candy and three boxes of banana moon pies. And by the time she left for the day, there wasn’t anything left but wrappers, cardboard, and this little dab of marshmallow cream on the corner of her mouth.
But did that keep her from stoppin’ by the theater on her way out and gettin’ one of those huge tubs of popcorn? Damn right, it didn’t. I could see the butter glistening on that shit from twenty feet away.
Haven’t you been listening to a fuckin’ word I’ve been sayin’, man? Do I hafta spell it all out for you in big block letters and bright yellow crayon? Good Lord…