I'll read the second chapter, which is-- well,
it's actually the first chapter, but it was-- anyway, I'm sorry.
It's now the first chapter.
I think of it as the second because that's how I wrote it.
But it got changed.
The first, that was all a prologue, what I just read.
[LAUGHTER]
Send your complaints to--
I'm just kidding.
And this chapter is in Scotty's voice.
Brain Dancing.
Lazy?
That fool done zipped off in his black sedan and the tail lights
getting all mixed up with the traffic signs.
And Darlene thought hard about that word.
Out all the stuff a motherfucker could say, not realizing he
had spoke to somebody who gone to college.
You could use other words for her activity
at that moment, maybe some of them not so nice.
But lazy?
She had to laugh behind that, hard as she
out there working for a couple ducats.
The nerve of this man.
He ain't know her life.
She had a son to feed, 11 years old,
had to get out there, walking in some
bad shoes, humidity freezing the heck out of her perm.
This whole damn June, the sun been beating down so hot,
the roads be looking all blurry up ahead.
All kind of mirages happening up at the highway.
Look like a truckload of mercury done had an accident.
Seemed to Darlene that everything
she strove for turned out as a hot mirage.
Probably folks ought to blame that on the dude
in the sedan or that dumb ass self-help book she read.
Can't nobody pin what happened to Darlene on me.
Can't nobody make you love them, make you look for them
all the time.
Maybe I attract a certain kind of person.
Folks always saying that I do.
Doctors talking now about how people brain chemistry make
some of them fall in love harder with co-dependent types.
But I feel an obligation to Darlene.
Out all my friends, and baby, I got millions,
she made me wonder the most if I done right by her.
Sometimes I think to myself that maybe she
shouldn't have met me.
But then again, can't nobody else tell her side of things
but yours truly, Scotty.
I'm the only one who stuck by her the whole time.
Nine months out on the street, and she still
had a meek little attitude about doing the do, you know?
She ain't had the look down at all.
My girl had on flats and a skirt that went below the knee.
No lie.
Instead of going down to the edge of the road
to look in them cars, she'd be hanging back,
almost in the hedges or whatever,
hoping some car going to slow down and stop.
She reckoned she'd get in and get cool in the vehicle,
solve two problems at one time.
Across that double yellow line over at Hinman's Aquatic World,
it was some giant Plexiglas pools resting on they sides,
looking like god's bedpans.
The owners had just turned on them plastic palm trees
with the lights all in them.
Pickup trucks parked at steakhouses,
broken neon trim blinking on the wall of the porno store,
forlorn-ass Mexican folks be chilling at the bus stop.
Texas was stupid.
I'm sorry.
Fat, sunburned gluttons and tacky mansions
every place, glitzy cars that be the size of a pachyderm,
a thrift store and a pawn shop for every five motherfuckers,
fucking limestone.
Whole state, and everything up in that bitch
made of limestone.
Damn strip malls looked like they done
come right up out the ground.
Upon this rock I shall build my strip mall.
It's like they ain't heard of no other rock.
Granite salesmen getting jealous.
In the summer, Texas too hot for 99% of life forms.
In the two-month winter, ain't none of them houses insulated,
so you got to rub your legs together under your blanket
like you a grasshopper, rub so hard
you about to set your own ass on fire.
[LAUGHTER]
Then some crew cut ofay she thought going to be a trick,
so she could score and we could hang out.
He just slowed down and stuck his neck out the passenger side
and went, lazy.
Lazy.
Darlene took a few steps back.
The flats made me feel for her since the first time I met her.
She said from the get-go she couldn't wear a certain kind
of pumps but wouldn't say why.
And it wasn't till I penetrated the inner sanctum of her brain
later that I found out the truth.
She made a note to remember that little guy
and his little rabbit face because when they said lazy,
they meant also nigger.
Hardy fucking har-har.
And lazy working on who behalf?
Hustling this hard at the Peckerwood National Savings
Bank, she'd be the damn manager.
Hell, Darlene thought, I'd be the CEO.
It'd be an easier job too.
In that air conditioning?
I have put this paper in this folder.
Now I will return that pen to its holder.
Done.
I am leaving for the day.
Hey, Mrs. Secretary, where did you put my golf clubs?
A pothole by the White Line tripped her.
And my girl be wobbling.
She twisted a tendon and almost dropped her handbag.
My sweetheart thought bending over
would be vulgar, even though she had on that long ass skirt.
She still ain't know thing one about marketing herself.
She squatted.
And she saw that highway marker sparkling down there.
And that took her mind off the rabbit-faced man
and sent it rushing back to her usual thoughts, thoughts
about how to spend more time with me.
(SINGING) I want to rock with you,
she sang without thinking about it.
The day start going long--
excuse me.
The day start going dark orange, and some shadows
starts to cut through the trees like they broken bottles.
The past kept dogging her, like she could always
hear it's clunky old motor idling outside with whatever
else be in her thoughts.
The sound of her dead husband whistling
would get super-loud up in her head.
And if I couldn't stand that noise,
you know it made her stone crazy.
Darlene would double the fuck over.
This time, she bent down and put her hands over her ears
like the sound coming from outside her head.
Once that particular bad feeling passed,
she got up and turned to face traffic,
thinking about a happy person.
The book said that to get good experiences and money
in your life, you had to think positive thoughts
and visualize shit.
So she imagined some dude thumbing a fan of $20s
into her hand, held out her palm to take some imaginary cash.
I almost busted out laughing.
But instead of fat money Johns down this road,
it's only some soccer moms going by
and frowning behind the wheel of they minivans.
The kids heads be swiveling with their mouths open and closing,
pointing their little chocolatey fingers at her like, mommy,
what is she doing?
Next thing you know, the Isley Brothers singing,
who's that lady in her head, real fine lady.
At that time, Darlene truly was fine.
That girl could have stopped more traffic than just
some tawdry Johns if she wore some tight miniskirts
and high heels.
I kept telling her that shit all the time.
Now, where in hell has she walked to?
Halfway to Beaumont, seemed.
Nobody else out there hooking, else they had better luck.
Crickets getting louder.
Dog barks be coming from way the hell and gone.
Headlights whizzing by all silver
and black like low-flying spaceships.
Could be anybody in there, aliens, ET and shit,
Chewbacca smoking dope with Alf.
[LAUGHTER]
Darlene starts shuffling backward,
staring into them headlights till she
got near to the end of the commercial strip of whatever
the hell city she in.
Out there, it wasn't no more traffic lights,
edge of the world.
After that, just flat dark, brushy dirt, short trees,
and squinty little stars.
Wait, was that the fucked up carcass of a crow?
Nope, just a busted tire tread in the damn emergency lane.
The sun finally gave up and turned its back on the dusk.
Fuck you, winter sun.
Fuck all y'all.
You skanky freaks don't deserve no sunlight.
Find another star.
Outside the parking lot of a closed down BBQ restaurant,
somebody headlights drove up like glowing monster eyeballs
blasting in Darlene face.
And hallelujah, the car slowed down.
Old cheapo car, VW Rabbit-something.
Darlene couldn't see in, but somebody could see out.
So the car slowed to a halt in the gravel.
In there, it's some round-faced man about 50,
leaning across a lap, cranking down that window,
light brother with a short fro, wine-tinted Coke bottle
glasses, rough skin.
Had a cigarette stuck in his left hand.
His round-ass belly up against the steering wheel.
The lap in the passenger seat belonged
to a skinny teenage boy in a short sleeve shirt.
Kid had skin light as the man's pretty lips,
ears out to here, the picture of a scared-ass virgin.
Even a rookie could figure out that setup.
Tobacco smoke poofed out in Darlene face.
So she pulled back like somebody's
done threw a snake at her, even though she a hardcore
smoker herself.
I thought Darlene could have made a living as a singer.
She moved like a dainty princess, like one of them
bougie Marilyn McCoo, Lola Falana types.
On the AM radio in the car, she heard
DeBarge doing "Rhythm of the Night," so she's like, good,
they're middle class.
They have some money.
The man leant across the boy and went,
what are you doing out here all alone, honey?
Get cool.
Get paid.
Get some rocks.
Go home.
Darlene heard them phrases in her head.
And I thought they had a nice rhythm to them.
So I asked her to say them out loud, and she did.
The father went, say what, go home?
All right then.
He spun the window roller once.
But Darlene stuck her fingers in the top of the glass,
so he stopped.
The shit we do for love.
The love we do for drugs.
The boy went, she meant her, dad, I think.
We noticed a car keychain made of braided plastic
swinging off the steering column.
And the shadows of the braids was forming
a pattern like a swastika.
That got us both to thinking about what the book had said.
What about the Jews, Darlene thought, and also said.
What about the Jews?
They couldn't have brought the Holocaust on themselves, right?
The kid went, excuse me?
The Jews, you know.
She pointed at the keychain.
Chosen people.
Jews?
the kid says.
Yes, because if you're an antenna--
the kid went, ma'am, are you OK?
With your good thoughts, I mean.
The father shut the engine, took his glasses off,
rubbed his eyes, put the glasses back on.
He scratched his fro and went, how much it's going to be?
The grid on the kid's shirt made Darlene remember a tablecloth
from her childhood.
People who know me well always be making interesting leaps
and turns inside they head.
I call it brain dancing.
Me and Darlene was doing the hustle right about then.
You could hear the flutes from that Van McCoy
jam going doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo, do the Hustle!
She poked the boy chest.
And he bent his torso away like the curve on a banana.
Let's put the basket of fried chicken right here,
Darlene said, figuring a little joke might break the ice.
They ain't get it, so she poked him again,
closer to his belly button.
And the potato salad goes here, she said.
I busted out laughing, and so did Darlene.
But she scratched up her lungs, and that
made her cough and spit.
Dad.
The Afro father twisted his face, getting uptight,
squirming in his seat.
He tugged a chunky wallet out of his pants
and peeled off two $20s.
So Darlene says to me, see, the book is right.
I thought a good thought, and here go the $20s I dreamed of.
Nice trick, I said.
The man went, OK, here go my fried chicken.
That's my fried chicken right there.
What you do for $40?
Her eyebrows rose.
Dad, she is--
The father yelling and muttering at the same time.
You can just shut the fuck up.
You're going to prove to me you're not like that to-night.
Punk cousin done turned you.
The son closed his eyes and twisted away from the father.
No, dad, it wasn't what you--
The son gulped down a sigh and stroked
the car door handle like he probably do his dick in private
then punched it in a kind of half-assed way.
His Adam's apple shot down his neck and then right back up.
The father chucked them bills in the kid lap.
But the kid ain't budge.
So in the pause, my girl picked up the Jackson twins,
all gentle, like they was babies.
She folded them together, thinking,
my ticket to the morning light.
Now we both got excited.
$40 clams, not much.
But it did mean we was going to be
spending a whole bunch of time together
in the very near future.
We was like, love, soft as an easy chair, love,
fresh as the morning air.
Darlene wondered if we could just
book right then so she wouldn't have had to do nothing else.
She had too much pride in her heart for this line of work.
And I kept telling her, yeah, fine.
Do what you want.
I don't judge nobody.
The father broke the silence and went, get out the car.
Get in them bushes.
Get laid.
He stuck out his lower lip.
Bitch got my money now.
The kid put his hand on the door and went,
you mean your fried chicken.
Darlene smiled more than her usual amount
because she still thinking about the $40
and had forgot that they could see her.
The son kept staring, and his face gone all tight.
Dad, this isn't Christian, dad.
I want my first time to be special.
You said you wanted me to wait for marriage.
The father ashed in the tray, said,
don't give me that first time bullshit.
You've done some damn unholy shit already.
You think I don't know?
You think I'm stupid, something?
The kid turned his shoulders and leaned into the father's face,
trying to keep his words private.
Urgh, he growled.
She's really out of it.
What was that crazy stuff she said about the Holocaust?
Darlene shoved the Jackson twins deep in her bag
to hide them shits from robbers under a change purse
she found on a bathroom floor, a scratched pair of sunglasses,
and a bunch of open lipsticks.
She ain't know, but one of them had got extended
and be smearing her possessions with all kind of red smudges.
I knew because my ass was in the damn purse,
a couple of tiny rocks in a glass vial
that she thought she had lost.
Two months ago on Easter Sunday, some guy
who called hisself a coon-ass car salesman
paid her to watch him fuck a watermelon.
No lie.
Set that melon on his card table, knifed his self
a round hole in it, and made her egg him
on while he's sliding his dick in and out that little globe.
He says to her, it turned me on to got somebody watching.
I like the shame.
She couldn't think what to say.
Screw that round thing.
Mm, juice it, boy.
[LAUGHTER]
The fruit start weeping pink water out the hole.
His hairy butt went, urgh!
And he came inside that melon.
[LAUGHTER]
When he pulled out, he grinned and said,
hope it don't get knocked up because I
don't want no green children.
Even remembering that shit, we couldn't stop laughing.
Don't want no green children.
Like there going to be a little watermelons with legs.
I tell you though, Mr. Melon-Fucker
had some green money.
Darlene spent most of it on me in a day.
Somebody as inside herself as Darlene right then,
without no natural talent for hooking,
could watch some melon-fuckers on the regular though, not bad,
not like some of them other Johns.
Melons had it all over cigarette butts,
getting stabbed, leather belts across the back,
and a curtain rod up the ass, all of which she had either had
or come close to having.
For a while, Darlene had this gentle, fresh attitude
that made motherfuckers want to kick her
in the tits like a girl in one of them Z movies.
Out on the street, she always thinking about somebody
might kill me.
She got so obsessed with dying that she ain't
take no precautions against it.
To Darlene, copping ain't never meant risking her life,
because not copping felt like dying anyhow.
And she ain't lost that game yet.
And if she did lose, well, hell, she wouldn't know.
Her idea of heaven was that the two of us
could kick it together 27/9 like we would say.
That's 27 hours a day, nine days a week,
without nobody judging our relationship,
without none of the issues you get from having a body.
Y'all think a body be who you is,
but it ain't nothing but a motherfucking sack of meat.
Darlene start inching away, thinking
about making a run for it.
To where, she ain't have no idea.
And the father shouted her to stay put,
but she ain't heard him right.
Another thought that we had sewed together in her mind
right then, like a thrift store quilt, spilled out her mouth
without her realizing.
Who does a watermelon laugh at when you kill it?
Dad, I can't do this.
I can't do this.
Then get my motherfucking money back.
What?
You're kidding.
Dad--
An ambulance screamed by, honking a high note
then a low note.
And that took they intention.
They waited like criminals for the sound
to die down, for normal cars to whiz over the asphalt again
so they could get calm enough to ignore the background noise.
And Darlene took a couple of tiny steps away from them too,
before some regular noises crept back in.
The kid moved his eyes to the father head
then to Darlene face and swiveled again.
First, he asked politely, he go, ma'am, and opened the car door.
The word ma'am itself made her back up faster,
like a curse reminding her who she should have been.
So she turned and started to book behind the dusty front
entrance to the barbecue, thinking
the Jackson twins was hers now, and she ain't
had to do nothing to the kid.
A plastic cowboy on a red bucking bronco
be dangling off the roof, broken furniture sitting
behind that greasy window pane, and a For Lease sign
be hanging by one corner inside the damn window.
The father shoved the son against the door
and went, what's the matter with you, nigga?
Get that money.
Ow, my elbow.
Darlene ran, but it was a fence back there,
and she couldn't jump that shit.
The fence was too high, and she was too high.
And a razor wire be swizzling around the top of the fence.
She heard the car door slam and feet
slap the asphalt behind her.
And next thing she know, the son of a bitch
had her wrists behind her back.
He got some kind of sharp, athletic thing zapping
through his fingers like a depth charge, youth
buzzing in his veins, all gruff and rowdy and shit.
She bucked around and thrust her legs back,
trying to find his nuts with her heel.
But she kept kicking her bag on accident.
She ain't had his kind of strength.
Some vagrant brother be lying by the dumpster without no shoes
on, showing off his rough-ass swollen feet.
One of them had a open sore that's
all meaty and tracked in flies.
Darlene yelling murder and rape, but the bum just lift his head
and don't react no further.
The young man hand came down over her mouth,
and it tasted soapy, cleaner than some of Darlene's most
recent meals.
So she licking the webs between his fingers
to get him to let go her face.
But he just clamped onto her jaw more tighter.
[CLEARS THROAT]
The bum lift his head and put it down again.
A bottle of Old Crow be his pillow and pacifier.
The kid let go her mouth and figured
out how to cram his hand into the bag and rifle
through without letting her go.
Once he had got the money, the bag fell off her arm.
And he pushed her forward.
She twisted her ankle and fell on her face against the curb
by the dumpster.
And she could feel her nose and lip and face
had swole up already.
A police car slowed down 50 yards away on the main road.
One cop checked the scene from the passenger side,
but they ain't stop, probably because the father
had said everything cool.
Darlene spat out two teeth and felt a third so loose,
it come out when she touched it with her tongue.
She rolled that puppy around in her mouth.
I guess that made Darlene go more nuts.
She's not vain, but she had to keep her looks to get business.
I made sure she knew at least that.
She picked up them teeth, stuck them in her skirt pocket,
and tore after the kid, leapt on his back right
as his hand touched the door handle
and tried to throttle the motherfucker,
using his shirt collar to get control.
Man, she wanted that $40 something bad.
But some powerful surprise demon leapt up out the kid too.
And he threw her off and slammed her in the cheek.
Darlene head snapped back.
And then she stumbled and doubled over.
Dull heavy pain spread out from her nose into her skull.
She couldn't turn her neck without no more pain.
And she tasted iron and salt, touched her lip,
and held out her hand to see some cherry red fingertips.
And all her love lines and hot lines and fate lines
be wet with blood.
The car wheels were skipping around in the gravel.
Then the car turned onto the road
and got smaller in the distance till you
couldn't see it no more.
The dust be mixing with the gritty, metal taste
in her mouth.
And she spat the blood and the grit on the dirt.
Her gums was throbbing real bad.
$40, shit, Darlene, I said.
We could have been done for at least one motherfucking day.
As much as I love Darlene, I couldn't
hide my disappointment.
I could get sort of angry sometimes.
I ain't proud of it.
But she had a thing where she crumbled under pressure.
So I threw a fit.
I lost it.
I was hollering and cussing and accusing her
of being unfaithful to me.
Then I guess I made it clear that I wouldn't let her go home
until she gets some money and we could go brain dancing together
27/9.
She looked at me with her cheeks deflated.
Who's going to pick up my sorry behind now, she asked,
with my face broken, three missing teeth, and no shoes?
I can't do this anymore.
This is horrible.
I give up.
God damn it, I shouted.
Maybe crew cut's right.
Maybe you is lazy, you fucking--
I made myself hoarse yelling inside her head.
I called her a billion nasty insults
I can't even repeat here.
I went, you don't really want to be with me.
You don't love me.
I cried.
She made me weep.
Scotty, she screamed, please stop.
Just tell me how I can get the money now.
Scotty, I do love you.
And I will do anything for you.
I pointed her face at the road.
Get out there, I said.
Ain't nothing shameful about trying to survive, bitch.
Don't you know the street always got an answer?
And of course I was right.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]