“Bring me an iced tea, easy on the ice, heavy on the Bacardi.” She makes a snorting noise. “I
wish
,” she says, and goes away.
The clot of children ooze into the building and start laughing, shouting, eating, and dropping quarters into vidiot machines. The waitress brings your pale and powerless beverage. Her expression has been altered, you notice, obviously changed by the child-tide. It says, KILL ME NOW.
Two adults with expressions remarkably similar to that of the waitress round up the children, lead them back outside. The school bus eats its own vomit like a sick dog. Exit, stage right.
“Excuse me.” A voice, soft and tiny. You turn toward it.
The little girl’s hair is black. Her huge brown eyes peer at you over your elbow, which, you realize, is already cocked and ready to…so easy it would be to…
Jesus,
you wonder,
where the hell did THAT come from? Ease up, girl.
“Excuse me,” the girl repeats, “can I sit with you?”
You scan for parents, guardians, leaders of field trips. When your gaze returns to the girl, she has already parked herself across from you. She’s looking at you with questions in her eyes and you wonder if one of them might be, “Are you going to John’s party tonight?” but no, this girl is tiny and ignorant, the stage just previous to that of your set, Nancy’s set, the big-titted ignorant set.
“How old are you?” she asks.
“Too damn old for my own good. You?”
“Seven. I think.”
“You
think
?”
Her eyes move from your face to your tea. “Is that good?”
“Yeah. Want one?”
She nods her little head. “Yeah. Want one.”
T
he girl attaches herself to the straw and begins to suck, her already narrow face pulling in on itself. Her dark eyebrows angle down in apparent concentration while her delicate hands grip the sides of the sweating paper cup. You notice a small strip of shiny black material is peeking from under the right sleeve of her light blue dress.
You ask: “Were you with the other kids on the bus? The field trip, or whatever it was?”
Her head moves slowly, side to side, her mouth tugging at the straw. “Then who did you come here with?”
Again, the head-shake, slowly, the straw making funny push-in, pull-out plastic sounds against the cup’s lid. The corners of her small mouth move up in a grin.
“Are your parents here?”
She pulls her mouth away from the straw, breaking the seal. Her face seems to re-inflate. “I don’t know.”
You blink at her. “Okay. Let’s start from scratch, shall we? What’s your name?”
“Marisa.”
“Marisa what?”
The grin widens. “Marisa Meadows,” she says. “Marisa Meadows. Is that your real name?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, Marisa Meadows, where are you from? Around here?”
She sucks tea again until it gurgles. “Can I have some more of this?”
“Only if you answer my questions. Where are you from?”
“A faraway place.”
“Oh? How far away? Mars?” The girl nods.
“I see. And what are you doing here, Marisa Meadows the Martian?”
“I’m … on a field trip.”
“So you
were
with the bus. What school do you go to?”
“No school.”
“Must be nice. What’s the black band for? Someone die?”
Staring in silence for a long while, brown eyes never blinking, she reminds you of a mannequin. Finally, she opens her little mouth and asks: “Do you suck on guys’ thingies?”
Y
ou’re outa there. Up the street, hang a left, four-block scurry to your house.
Holy fucking Jesus, where do they pick this stuff up?
you wonder, shoes slapping pavement,
Do you suck on guys’ thingies?
One-two, one-two, left-right, left-right,
suck on
, pale echo of your steps from behind you,
guys’ thingies
, smaller, daintier.
You stop.
“Wait, please,” says the girl. You turn to her. Somehow her hair seems even darker in the sunlight; eyes, dark holes punched into the afternoon’s brightness.
“What is it with you, huh? What do you want from me?”
She holds her small hands out to you, tiny palms up, but does not speak. Again, you see the shiny blackness of a band or ribbon peeking out from her sleeve. The corners of her mouth are turned downward, readying for a cry.
“Oh, shit.”
You pick her up, not believing the lightness of her. It’s as if she were hollow. Her arms wrap around you, her face tucks under your chin. “There’s nobody here,” she says, “nobody but you.”
Q
uestion is: Will Mom buy the lie? “
Babysitting?
That’s bullshit, pure and smelly.”
Hm. Guess not. Her face looks more than doubtful, it looks downright painful.
“You’ve never babysat a day in your life, have you? Who the hell would be stupid enough to trust you with their child? Who?”
Time for more stink: “Marisa’s mother, that’s who.”
“Marisa’s mother? What the hell’s going on here?”
You urge the little girl out from behind your legs and into the baleful gaze of Mom. “It’s only for a couple hours, all right? I’ll walk her home later and …” and you didn’t even know the rest yourself. Mom wasn’t the only one you were bullshitting here.
“Marisa?” Mom glowers at the girl. “Tell me the truth. Did your mother really ask this tramp to babysit you?”
The little head nods.
“And this is all right with you, as well?”
“Uh-huh. I like her. I want to be like her.”
Mom’s eyes roll up in her head, “Oh, Christ forbid.”
“Mother …”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me, young lady. You are the most irresponsible, untrustworthy little tramp I know, and you expect me to believe that someone’s
mother
is willing to let you care for her
child? You?
”
“Thanks, Mom. You’re confidence in me is positively inspiring.” A shake of her head, a flip of her hand. “Doesn’t matter,” she says. She ties a scarf over her fiery pile of hair, picks up her purse. “Please don’t trash my house, stay out of things that don’t belong to you; best, really, not to move a muscle till I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Papers, young lady. Papers to sign, property to handle,
et cetera, et cetera
. That man is shrewd, but so are we.” And then she is gone with a slam of the door.
“We” would, of course, be Mom and her lawyer. No question, as well, who “that man” is.
“Your mother doesn’t like you very much, does she?” asks Marisa.
Dry swallow, it hurts your throat. “Ah, she’s a pussycat. It’s not what she does that’s so bad, it’s what…”
Quizzical stare from the girl. You answer it with a question: “What difference does it make?”
A wild man with no hair and a guitar the color of mud wags his glistening head from side to side and whines into a microphone. This makes Marisa giggle.
You ask: “Do you have MTV at your home?”
You watch the back of her head move side to side. “Do you have television at all?”
One thin shoulder lifts in a shrug.
“What does that mean? You don’t know, or you don’t remember?”
“It means…it doesn’t matter.” She turns around, her eyes now on yours. “It means…what difference does it make?”
“I…” It’s your turn to shrug. “I just want to know who you are. I want to help you, y’know?”
Now her head nods, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “I want to help you help me. Where’s your bathroom?”
This is too fucking weird,
you tell yourself.
Much too fucking weird.
This was not how your day was supposed to go—you’re not exactly sure how it
was
supposed to go, but it wasn’t supposed to go like
this
. How are you going to get this girl, this plastic child, back to where she belongs … wherever the fuck that is?
Videos and commercials (hard to tell the difference between the two) drone on, proving themselves to be no help to you at all.
What the hell is going on in there?
Another video. Another commercial.
What if—
Was that a moan? A groan? Was that a
gasp
? You’re up and in a flash you’re at the bathroom door. “Marisa? You all right?”
Another gasp, and something like a cough.
“Marisa?”
Another cough, but this one becomes a word, “I …” followed by another gasp, “… am growing … up.”
You turn the doorknob, relieved to find no resistance, and push. Your relief instantly evaporates.
Marisa’s clothes are piled on the rug at the center of the floor. Black shoes, while socks, frilly blue dress, light blue panties. The cabinet beneath the sink is open, allowing a clear view of a blow dryer, a curling iron, a bag of Mom’s old hair curlers, and an open box of Tampax tampons.
The girl sits on the toilet, wearing only the black band around her arm. Her small legs are spread. Tears run down her face. She is attempting to insert a tampon into herself.
“See?” she says, “Aren’t I growing up fast?”
A
modicum of normalcy has been reestablished. The girl is dressed and seated on the living room floor. You sit before her. “Tell me where you live, Marisa, because you are going home right now.”
“Well …”
“That’s deep. Now tell me where you live.”
“You are the only one.”
“Whatever. What’s your address?”
“There’s nobody else.”
“I don’t care. Tell me where you live or I’ll take you to the cops and let them deal with you.”
Marisa’s mouth hangs open, her dark eyes wide. Then, strangely, she grins her plastic grin. “I live here.”
“What do you mean by that? What do you mean ‘here’?” She rests a thin, pale finger on your chest. “Here.”
“Look.” You’re up and pacing. “I don’t need this shit, okay?”
“Okay.” Her finger follows you.
“I don’t need
any
of this weird shit, all right?”
“All right.”
“What I need is to be
alone
, understand?”
“Understand.”
“Stop that! Stop pointing that fucking finger at me! Stop talking like that! Just stop everything!”
She says, “I’m sorry,” and she is so sweet, and so terrible, and so cute, and so small, and so …
And so you hit her.
Y
our hand throbs. It feels as if you’ve just backhanded a wall.
Marisa glares at you, left cheek aglow, but does not cry. You’d hit her hard enough to knock her sprawling on her weird little ass, yet she stands. Not crying.
“Are you okay?” you ask in a whisper. No movement.
“Marisa, are you okay?”
“What difference does it make?”
Now
you
are ready to cry. “It makes a difference…I didn’t mean to do that, it just…just…”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It isn’t.”
As if in an extremely delayed reaction, the girl is suddenly on the floor, her body thrashing, her head and heels thumping the living room carpet. Her mouth is open, making
ca! ca!
sounds.
You drop to her side, not knowing what to do, where to do it. “Stop, Marisa, Jesus, stop! Please, calm down!” On and on she goes, where she’ll stop, nobody knows. Then you think:
911
. They’ll know what to do. In the kitchen, white plastic receiver in hand, you punch numbers, realizing even as you do it, you’re punching 8-1-1.
“Shit!”
Hit the cutoff, dial again. This time you get it right.
Click
in the phone ear, suddenly nothing in the other.
Ring
in the phone ear, still nothing in the other. Did she stop? Is she all right?
A tinnified voice says, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” No thumping from the living room, no noise at all. Was this a joke?
Payback?
“What is your emergency, please?”
“Umm…um, I’m sorry. This number was dialed on accident. Really, I’m sorry.”