Thursday, September 15, 2011

Doozy



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She was the least promising in her town, but after taut rolls of eyes and plenty of sit-ups – plus the length of a year or two – she boggled out of her body and crystalized the corpse of her previous incarnation and left it in the closet where even the moths left it alone.

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It was the kind of town where three old bones could tell the weather and wishless things would sit and stare at one another. There would be soap box socials where the boys’ momentary devotions proved to be unmixable; unanswered phone calls from older women to the younger set of women; an unzipping standing in the polite part of the room.

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She stood there drunk on herself. The doozy she was with was drunk on skoal filaments of weary swallows.

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Behind briefly closed doors, pig-piles of purses and jackets lay strewn on beds and pillows. They threw themselves down on top of them, garnishing their plain ugliness like two black grooms atop a too-white-for-words wedding cake. His saliva came in spells, and she enjoyed its flavor, even if it reminded her of Uncle Jack. It was the taste of a desire that felt beautifully wrong, eating cookies behind closed pantry doors, washing them down with a sigh of loneliness and warm apple juice.

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She stared absently at the door, only half-alert to the crowd of trickling sixteens that was forming, mouths dry with disbelief.

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He slid his hand up her long side and dove for a spot that smelled aroused. She turned her head, brushing his nose with her hair, tickling the too-big thing a bit. There was a giggle from one of the girls, already pinching her own nipple as if it were a spider bite. He dug in deep, spreading his fingers as if to flash a signal to another, dumber, boy – the one that had been there just moments before. This was all a big doing, and he wished one of the gaggle would think to take a picture.

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The feel of her hair was brittle, a little too dry for being so wet. Wiry wet things that were beyond electricity.

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He felt he was dividing her up, a slender mandoline. He could feel her breathing begging for more money, enough to get out of this dumbshit town. Enough to fly to Iceland and feel all those frozen cock-things that were cold, but erect, and ready for her to warm them up to nothing.

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The gasps came loud and full frontal.

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The red fist hit the pillow first and then began disappearing into her face entirely. One girl shrieked to stop it, but was shushed by another and another. The mash of her all was enough to make older boys rush in. They threw the party out like killjoys. One of the older ones held both her hands, shaking them, gripping them alive. Her hands grew circular and then flat.

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They would speak later, drying their hair behind show-room locker drawls, about how she didn’t know what hit her.

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She had an open casket, one that no one could bear to walk up to, to look inside.

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