The bat was on the floor under a pile of trash behind my seat. I twisted around and inched it out. The crunching from the back continued, but the wood felt solid in my hand so I was a little less frightened of what I’d find. A little.
I nudged my door open, slipped to the pavement, and crept around behind the jeep. The misty air cooled my hot, pulsating face. Crouching down beneath the window, I snuck my thin fingers up and grabbed the rusty back door handle. The street was silent; I’d frightened all the children away with my fit. It was just me, The Beast and the demon inside. On the count of three I’d swing the door open and face it. My mother had always encouraged me to tackle my fears. At least I think she had.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I took another for good measure. You can never have too much oxygen right before you die. I counted to three, raised the bat, and swung the door wide open.
Then my world got weird.
She sat scrunched up on the floor of The Beast munching an M&M and stared back at me with enormous green eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in her. I was stunned. It was like looking into a mirror as a child.
She glanced at the bat behind me, still raised and ready to swing. I brought it down and used it as a cane.
“I’m Sadie,” she said, like she wasn’t camped out in the back of a stranger’s jeep. She had a teeny voice to match her teeny body.
“What are you doing?”
“Eating emem’s.”
“Why are you in my jeep? Your dad’s really worried about you, you know.”
She searched the floor for more M&M’s, found an orange one and popped it in her mouth. I suppose I should have stopped her, the five-second rule no longer applied, but I wasn’t in the mood to play mommy.
She peered into me like she was studying my soul, then asked in her vile little voice, “Why awe you sad?”
“Listen, little girl--“
“Sadie.”
“Whatever. I’m taking you home now.”
“My mommy eats chockyit when she’s sad too. But she doesn’t thwow it.”
Right. I wasn’t about to be psychoanalyzed by a two-year-old tater tot with a speech impediment. Her little pink lips curled up into a grin. She must have been older than two. More like twenty or thirty-two.
“All right, let’s go.” The bells on her jacket tie strings jingled when I lifted her out of the back and put her on the ground. Her mother probably sewed them on thinking they’d help her keep track of the future little Jackie Joyner, like the jingle bells people attach to miniature dogs so they won’t squish them by accident. I got the impression her father would have preferred her to be bell-less.
“Sadie, where do you live?”
She stood in front of me, arching her head back to keep track of my eyes, and advertised a gaping hole on the left side of her mouth when she smiled. I didn’t see the top of another tooth sprouting so it must have been a fresh loss. Before I said anything else she stepped forward and hugged me. Why the hell would anyone do that? I gave her a couple polite pats on the back, then removed her from my legs.
She jingled around me to the passenger side, stood on the running board pipe, opened the door and climbed up onto the seat, as if to answer any question I might have had about how she got in earlier. She turned and took the seatbelt in her tiny paws and with a little effort coaxed it down across her body. The seat was her throne. It was so big, or she was so small, that only her feet dangled over the edge. She looked like a doll. A meddlesome little Raggedy Anne who was quickly becoming a liability.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Kate's first encounter with Sadie
The man in front of me cut my musings short. His voice was loose and irritating, like a dump truck had deposited down his throat. The screechy little thing attached to him wailed and squirmed from his grip. She dropped the blue bottle of bubbles on the floor and her gingery pigtails flew away from the line, bouncing toward the sliding glass doors. She was a quick one. The bells on her jacket strings were on crack; neurotically jingling with each step she took toward the exit.
“Sadie git back here.” He didn’t unclench his teeth and he didn’t move out of line. From the side he looked like the weathered love child of Harrison Ford and Robert Redford. Good bones. Hard skin.
Sadie kept tinkling toward the door. I watched her go and reminisced about how I used to wear my hair in pigtails when I was that age. Whatever age that was. Kids were all two or ten to me. Ah, wouldn’t it be nice to be young again, to do it all ove--
“Dang it, Sadie. You little ... “ Lovechild was adept at interrupting, but not at controlling his frustration. He glanced back at me and opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came. I’d had that kind of affect on a few strangers in my time. Though, normally, I’d be drunk on a dance floor working the hell out of a new bra.
“Save my spot,” he finally said.
What happened to asking nicely?
“Sure, I guess.” After all, he was my type. I’d noticed his ring finger, shiny with gold, when Sadie threw the bubbles.
He chased after the little monster and I felt a cold rivulet of cream oozing down my leg. I slid my hand into my pants to handle the situation without drawing anyone’s notice. Instead of that, I drew everyone’s notice.
The Boone’s came loose and I tried to hoist it back up with my elbow but it kept sneaking down, like the sweat on my forehead. The whole situation was impossible to manage with my arms full, so I deftly remedied that by slipping in the puddle of bubbles the little brat threw on the floor. Oreos and brownie cake went flying into Darth Vader’s basket behind me, and the Miniatures sailed behind him into Gandalf’s beard. Finished with my stunning tribute to Martha Graham, I gathered all my limbs only to have the three-dollar bottle of Boone’s slide down my leg and clunk on the floor. It sat there, peeking out, like an unexploded bomb.
I froze.
Everyone in line stared at me. I bowed my head and squatted to pull the bottle out of my pants leg. Harry Potter snickered. Asshole.
I’d had a plan. It was simple. But apparently, so was I.
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“Sadie git back here.” He didn’t unclench his teeth and he didn’t move out of line. From the side he looked like the weathered love child of Harrison Ford and Robert Redford. Good bones. Hard skin.
Sadie kept tinkling toward the door. I watched her go and reminisced about how I used to wear my hair in pigtails when I was that age. Whatever age that was. Kids were all two or ten to me. Ah, wouldn’t it be nice to be young again, to do it all ove--
“Dang it, Sadie. You little ... “ Lovechild was adept at interrupting, but not at controlling his frustration. He glanced back at me and opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came. I’d had that kind of affect on a few strangers in my time. Though, normally, I’d be drunk on a dance floor working the hell out of a new bra.
“Save my spot,” he finally said.
What happened to asking nicely?
“Sure, I guess.” After all, he was my type. I’d noticed his ring finger, shiny with gold, when Sadie threw the bubbles.
He chased after the little monster and I felt a cold rivulet of cream oozing down my leg. I slid my hand into my pants to handle the situation without drawing anyone’s notice. Instead of that, I drew everyone’s notice.
The Boone’s came loose and I tried to hoist it back up with my elbow but it kept sneaking down, like the sweat on my forehead. The whole situation was impossible to manage with my arms full, so I deftly remedied that by slipping in the puddle of bubbles the little brat threw on the floor. Oreos and brownie cake went flying into Darth Vader’s basket behind me, and the Miniatures sailed behind him into Gandalf’s beard. Finished with my stunning tribute to Martha Graham, I gathered all my limbs only to have the three-dollar bottle of Boone’s slide down my leg and clunk on the floor. It sat there, peeking out, like an unexploded bomb.
I froze.
Everyone in line stared at me. I bowed my head and squatted to pull the bottle out of my pants leg. Harry Potter snickered. Asshole.
I’d had a plan. It was simple. But apparently, so was I.
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Kate grocery shopping
The first time I kidnapped Sadie Beck was an accident. In my defense, the second time was too. Initially. Having a little perspective now I can see how there might have been a better way to handle the situation, but at the time my perspective was in the toilet.
It was Halloween night and I blazed down State Street, the main drag in Salt Lake City, with little regard for the laws of traffic or decency. The air was moist and thick with fog. Neon signs on the storefronts flew by like Jackson Pollack pieces wrapped in gauze. Everything dull and blurry.
I was at the helm of The Green Beast, a ’78 Jeep Cherokee three decades past its prime. I’d bought it in Big Bear a month before for the move to Salt Lake City. It got exactly 6.8 miles to the gallon, but it was cheap and had lots of space. Space still filled with paperwork, clothes, and miscellaneous irreplaceables packed away in boxes in the back. I’d sold all my electronics and furniture before I moved because Adam said we could use his when we found our own place. Turned out we didn’t find that place. Turned out Adam was a big fat liar.
I blew through two pinkish lights and almost impaled Batman on a BMX as I hurdled the curb into the grocery store parking lot. He swerved into a lamppost on the sidewalk to avoid me. I would have gone back to help him but a furious, prepubescent voice wound a “Fuck you!” out into the universe telling me that wouldn’t be necessary. I think he was just pissed at himself for not having better skills.
I parked and carried on with my mission: shove a bottle of vodka and whatever goodies I could fit down my pants and get the hell out of Dodge. It was a perfect plan and partially why I wore the oversized hoodie sweatshirt and baggy boy jeans. They also hid the pudgy spots and I needed to feel good about something.
But where the hell was the liquor? I stood in aisle nine surrounded by bottles of pink Boone’s Farm malt liquor on one side and forties of Old Milwaukee on the other wondering who the hell stole all the good stuff in between. Had there been a mad rush for Long Island Iced Teas on Halloween?
“Where the fuck is the vodka?” I asked the shelves, expecting a response.
“At the liquor store.”
For a second I thought I was living in a universe where smartass shelves did speak, but then I looked around and saw the pimpled stick figure at the end of the aisle, stocking the corner display with chips.
“What?” I said to him.
“Grocery stores in Utah don’t sell liquor.”
“What?”
“Yeah, oh, and, uh liquor stores aren’t open on Sunday. You must nur ben fwomin hare ... “
My brain couldn’t process what he’d said so I tuned him out. What kind of a grotesquely aberrant state doesn’t sell alcohol in its grocery stores?
Panicked by my dearth of choices, I grabbed a bottle of Strawberry Boone’s off the shelf in front of me and slipped around the corner. I waited till all was clear then stuffed it down my pants and moved on with my mission.
Already derailed, I was put out even more when I realized I’d have to pay for a few things. Trying to cram four pounds of Oreos and M&M’s, a family size bag of Hershey’s Miniatures, a fourteen-inch brownie cake and two pints of “Chocolate Therapy” in with the Boone’s was a silly expectation of the capacity of my pants.
I like my ice cream soupy, so I kept the cold stuff and the two bags of M&M's down there (‘cause they melt in your mouth, not in your pants) and stocked my arms with the Oreos, Miniatures, and brownie cake.
I glanced around to make sure no one had seen what I’d done. The aisle was empty. But what were those pricklies tickling the nape of my neck? I could feel it. Someone was watching me. Suddenly I was overcome by the urge to put everything back. Moving to Salt Lake had absorbed most of my finances and I couldn’t, with good conscience, afford myself any luxuries. And I definitely couldn’t afford to be caught.
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It was Halloween night and I blazed down State Street, the main drag in Salt Lake City, with little regard for the laws of traffic or decency. The air was moist and thick with fog. Neon signs on the storefronts flew by like Jackson Pollack pieces wrapped in gauze. Everything dull and blurry.
I was at the helm of The Green Beast, a ’78 Jeep Cherokee three decades past its prime. I’d bought it in Big Bear a month before for the move to Salt Lake City. It got exactly 6.8 miles to the gallon, but it was cheap and had lots of space. Space still filled with paperwork, clothes, and miscellaneous irreplaceables packed away in boxes in the back. I’d sold all my electronics and furniture before I moved because Adam said we could use his when we found our own place. Turned out we didn’t find that place. Turned out Adam was a big fat liar.
I blew through two pinkish lights and almost impaled Batman on a BMX as I hurdled the curb into the grocery store parking lot. He swerved into a lamppost on the sidewalk to avoid me. I would have gone back to help him but a furious, prepubescent voice wound a “Fuck you!” out into the universe telling me that wouldn’t be necessary. I think he was just pissed at himself for not having better skills.
I parked and carried on with my mission: shove a bottle of vodka and whatever goodies I could fit down my pants and get the hell out of Dodge. It was a perfect plan and partially why I wore the oversized hoodie sweatshirt and baggy boy jeans. They also hid the pudgy spots and I needed to feel good about something.
But where the hell was the liquor? I stood in aisle nine surrounded by bottles of pink Boone’s Farm malt liquor on one side and forties of Old Milwaukee on the other wondering who the hell stole all the good stuff in between. Had there been a mad rush for Long Island Iced Teas on Halloween?
“Where the fuck is the vodka?” I asked the shelves, expecting a response.
“At the liquor store.”
For a second I thought I was living in a universe where smartass shelves did speak, but then I looked around and saw the pimpled stick figure at the end of the aisle, stocking the corner display with chips.
“What?” I said to him.
“Grocery stores in Utah don’t sell liquor.”
“What?”
“Yeah, oh, and, uh liquor stores aren’t open on Sunday. You must nur ben fwomin hare ... “
My brain couldn’t process what he’d said so I tuned him out. What kind of a grotesquely aberrant state doesn’t sell alcohol in its grocery stores?
Panicked by my dearth of choices, I grabbed a bottle of Strawberry Boone’s off the shelf in front of me and slipped around the corner. I waited till all was clear then stuffed it down my pants and moved on with my mission.
Already derailed, I was put out even more when I realized I’d have to pay for a few things. Trying to cram four pounds of Oreos and M&M’s, a family size bag of Hershey’s Miniatures, a fourteen-inch brownie cake and two pints of “Chocolate Therapy” in with the Boone’s was a silly expectation of the capacity of my pants.
I like my ice cream soupy, so I kept the cold stuff and the two bags of M&M's down there (‘cause they melt in your mouth, not in your pants) and stocked my arms with the Oreos, Miniatures, and brownie cake.
I glanced around to make sure no one had seen what I’d done. The aisle was empty. But what were those pricklies tickling the nape of my neck? I could feel it. Someone was watching me. Suddenly I was overcome by the urge to put everything back. Moving to Salt Lake had absorbed most of my finances and I couldn’t, with good conscience, afford myself any luxuries. And I definitely couldn’t afford to be caught.
IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ, DO ME A FAVOR. 'FOLLOW' MY BLOG, COMMENT HERE AND SHARE IT WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS. THE MORE THE MERRIER.
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