Дэниел Полански - meat+drink

bill asked for my take and when i gave it to him he said that it was not enough. he said that edmund and i were useless, two extra mouths to feed, that he was tired of having to put up with us. i told him that edmund and i were doing more good scavenging as he was hunting, and that he ought not complain.

bill said that he was thinking about leaving, or expelling me. i could tell then that he did not really want to leave, but only for me to not want him to leave, and to let him know that.

but in fact i did not care. i told him that he was welcome to leave but that he could not take edmund. when i said that he realized i wasn’t lying and he looked for a long time at juana but she did not say anything. juana has no point, and bill could tell that easily if he was not so stupid.

bill said that we would not survive without him. he said that i did not know how to find drink. i told him that i did not think there was any trick to luring prostitutes but if there was i would be able to figure it out. he raised his hand to hit me but i bared my new teeth and told him that if he touched me again i would do my best to end his meat.

sometimes you do not know a thing is true until you have said it aloud.

bill did not hit me. instead he gnashed his new teeth and said that we would not survive a week without him but he said it the way people say things that they are not sure that they believe. by then it was almost morning and we went down into the basement. when night came bill and juana left without saying anything. edmund asked if they were going to come back and i said no and he nodded but i am not sure he understood.

the thirst has gotten very bad. it is hard to think about anything besides. i try. During the day i tell edmund about what i remember from when i was flesh, which is not very much. little snippets mostly, and they do not add up to anything. i tell him about the time i went to the church basement in a pink dress and, and that there was a boy that i wanted to dance with but he did not ask me to dance. i tell him about a holiday we used to celebrate about a dead man who came back to life. i tell him about the time i saw the ocean, that it was blue but looked yellow when the sun hit it and that it seemed to go on forever. i tell him about my mother, and all sorts of stories about here, but these are all lies because actually i cannot remember much about her. i should remember but i cannot. perhaps i made a point of forgetting.

i tell edmund everything that i can think of. i think perhaps it will do something to keep him sane, or stop him from going any madder. or perhaps i think that it will stop me from doing the same.

either way i do not think it is working.

last night i went out dressed in a skirt and a blouse that i bought with some of the money i hid from bill. they were short and tight and if my meat was flesh i would have been cold. i put on lipstick but could not manage the eye-liner, not even with edmund helping me, lining up my hand against my face, so he rubbed it off. but still he told me that i looked good, or that he thought i did. it is the most that he has spoken in a long time and i was happy to hear him though i was not sure that he was right.

but i knew that i looked fine when i got to the bar and the bouncer let me in even though i didn’t have any id and even though i am only seventeen. i mean my flesh was only seventeen. i do not know what my meat is anymore.

it was very loud inside, the meat can hear things that the flesh cannot and for a moment it was so loud and there was so much flesh seething around me, flesh covering drink, that i wanted to run out screaming.

i did not do that. instead i went to the counter and i ordered a beer. of course i did not drink any of it.

the first man who came to talk to me was young and when i looked at him the drink ran bright into his face and he could not look back at me and he stumbled over his words. i was rude to him and soon he left.

the second man was older and pockmarked and drunk and he he put his hand on my meat almost as soon as he saw me. meat cannot become angry as flesh can but after that at least i did not so much mind doing what i was going to do. he bought me two whiskeys and did not notice that i didn’t drink either. i thought his smile was ugly and mean and not really a smile at all. i asked if he would like to come home with me.

his car was dented and he did not open my door. when i told him where i lived he sucked his teeth and said something about the ghetto and told him he would take me back to his house, but i insisted. he did not like that but i put my meat onto his flesh and he groaned and panted and after a while he turned the car on and began to drive. on the way over he said stupid things that i did not pay any attention to.

he did not like the look of my house but i touched him again and after a while he let me drag him outside. when the door opened and he saw some of what was inside he became frightened, and he tried to run but i did not let him.

edmund drank first. for once there was enough for everyone.

almost.

Author of the critically-acclaimed Low Town series, Daniel Polanskywas born in Baltimore in 1984. He was living in Brooklyn when he wrote this, but by the time you read it he might be somewhere else. You can sign up for email updates here.

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