Skin tight. Not exactly eating pants and all I was thinking about was food.
I took a baby sip of the vodka, unzipped and took a grown up sip. I peed, trying for a little bit of extra room. I hate peeing when I’m drinking. I paid for the booze, I want to hang on to it, to keep it inside doing its dirtywork as long as possible. It’s mine, mine, mine, mine–even when someone else is paying. But, sometimes, like it or not, I have to pee.
Doug was on the pay phone when I came out. I pirouetted once or twice through the crowd for audience reaction–pimps are notorious appreciators of a good pirouette–landing in front of him just as he hung up.
“Now? Dinner…?”
“We gonna get Donna Rose first, she’s coming with us, you don’t mind, right little girl?”
I stomped an imaginary foot. “Ack! Stop that.“ Smiling, he threw his arm around my waist, lifted me off the ground and spun me around planting a soft kiss on my cheek. “I don’t give a shit who comes, I’m starved. I’m ready to pass out.”
I did mind, though. Donna Rose was a dancer and from the first day we hadn’t spoken outside of what was absolutely necessary. She acted like she was better than me, that’s why I didn’t like her. I had no idea why she didn’t like me. When the Caddy pulled away from Guys for the second time that day, I was in the back seat, alone. Donna Rose rode shotgun next to Lightfoot. I’d been replaced by the pretty girl. I was not liking her just a little bit more than before.
When I was little the pretty one was my mom. I was never pretty enough. I was never going to be. That shit makes me go just a teensy bit blind, like a blackout without the fun of the booze or a long slow motion blink. It feels like a split second, but I close my eyes in one place and when I open them again, everything’s changed and I have no idea what happened between then and now.
I blinked while we were still in the Porkpie. Then again when I found myself in the back seat. When I finished, we were somewhere in Jersey, some highway, some anonymous roadside motel. Lightfoot had the car door open and was helping me out of the backseat. I hadn’t been paying attention. I was busy being hungry, angry, tired. Busy feeling sorry for myself. In other words, I blinked. I’d lost entire days that way.
“Look, it’s getting late. I’ma get you a room, little one. You sleep here, safe and sound. We’ll have all day tomorrow. Then I take you home’n make sure your old man ain’t hanging around. Make sure no one can bother you.”
“So, wait. What? What happened to dinner? I gotta eat.” It was dark for the second time since I ate last. Thirty-six hours since I’d put something other than vodka and Newports in my stomach. I hate menthols. “Take me home, Doug. Take me back to the city, anyplace. I’ll find my own way. I’m so fucking tired.”
Radio Rover 2007
“You’ll go upstairs. Donna lives a few minutes from here.”
She sat in the front seat, still wearing her sunglasses even though it’d gotten dark. Smoking. Not looking at me, like I’d never even existed.
Doug kept talking and moving me along. “I’ll drop her off and be right back for you. We’ll get a big dinner. Steak, lobster, anything at all my girl wants. We can bring it back to the room if you want.”
We were halfway up the stairs before I even noticed. Blink. I was so tired. He unlocked the door. Double bed, color TV, fake oil painting, stiff white towels and a single glass wrapped in wax paper, coarse carpet and that whiff of mildew. Not the Bates Motel, but not the Waldorf either. The picture window overlooked the parking lot, the highway and a diner across the street. All I saw was Donna looking up as she flicked her cigarette out the window of the Caddy.
“If you need anything, Lockey – you remember Lockey? He’s right next door, just knock on the wall.” Lightfoot tossed my dance bag down on the bed–I’d forgotten I had that with me–and flipped the TV on.
Come and knock on our door / We’ve been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his / Three’s company too.
Irony is usually lost on me.
“Twenty minutes. Thirty tops. Relax, freshen up and I’ll be back before you know it.” Doug bent down and kissed me on the lips.
I stood in the middle of room watching as he closed the door behind him. Watched through the window as he got back in the Caddy. Watched as they pulled out of the parking lot.
I had no idea who Lockey was. I had no idea where I was.
| << 1979 : the porkpie | 3nl : cash money >> |
Posted September 14, 2009 at 9:18 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, Guys & Dolls, lonliness, New Jersey, pimps. Bookmark this post. Follow any comments @ RSS feed for this post.
