He says I look like a whore when I work and he doesn’t want whores in his house. Sometimes, when I get home, he’s on the stoop with that wet wash rag, waiting. He grabs me by the hair & scrubs until all of the makeup is gone. Or until I start to cry.
So I don’t complain when he’s so drunk he forgets to come home. Those are the nights I secretly eat real hamburgers and brush my teeth, brush my teeth, brush my teeth so he won’t smell the meat on me. “We” don’t eat meat.
If he’s not drunk & I’m not wearing makeup, he still sings & tells me I’m beautiful. I’m not, but he says I am.
I hate the wash cloths. I hate tofu.
I hate being alone more.
It’s been almost two months since we exchanged rings–in the rain, under the arch, tripping–I should’ve known better. If life was a horror movie, that would’ve been the scene when the audience starts screaming at the stupid white girl “No! Don’t go in there!” and then laughs when she does, cause they know. They know, cause they can hear the scary/monster/slasher music that she can’t hear.
I come home from work, relieved not to see him on the stoop, I open the door.
He’s asleep on the blue shag rug in the living room, drunk. Dead drunk — out cold, in a long red monk’s robe & a blue beret — no pants, no underwear, no shoes, and a black eye patch. My head hurts trying to make it make sense.
My head hurts,
things don’t make sense.
I want to runaway, trip out, destroy something.
I have to be careful
not to destroy
myself.
I drop my work bag. It’s stuffed full with leotards, high heels, makeup, hairspray, money, tampons.Tampons…I can’t remember the last time I had my period. I think I’m pregnant, but I haven’t said a word to anyone.
I just want to be a good wife, to get him off the floor, put him to bed. I bend down, roll him over. He’s holding a Bible, like you see in hotel rooms. I didn’t know we had one. I didn’t know he could read.
I’m still looking at the Bible when Red Wolf explodes.
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Posted August 24, 2009 at 7:02 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, dirty boys, East Village, lonliness, love, whores. Bookmark this post. Follow any comments @ RSS feed for this post.
