Claire Watkins: Battleborn: Stories

They drink. They walk. The boys say they go to UCSB, though our girl will misremember it as UCSC, so that in the coming years, these boys and what they do to them will combine with far-off Santa Cruz, California, and years later, lying beside the sensible man with the devastating laugh — the first man she will not see beyond — the boys will have the scent of damp redwood and the sharp angles of that region’s mountain lions, which she once read about.

In her bed, the candles dimming behind her, she will say nothing of these associations. She will be barely aware of them. She’ll tug the top sheet out from under her, absently touch her fingers to the dampness left between her legs, and say, They had a room.

But the sensible man — being who he is — will find the angles in her face. The redwood wet will be in his throat when he asks her, You went there? Alone? You were just a girl.

I had Lena, she’ll say. My friend.

Because he’ll know what’s coming, this will only make it worse.

• • •

The boys lead the girls to their hotel, where entering once meant passing through the jaws of a fearsome gold lion and now means nothing. Warm with sugar and liquor, our girl wants badly to tell Lena this — about the original lion and the superstitious Chinese tourists — because tonight’s lion is the only lion Lena has ever known. It seems, for an instant, that if Lena knew about the old lion then at last the miles between Minnesota and Nevada might fold like a sheet, the distance crumpling into closeness, and they would tell each other everything, always.

But the time for telling passes. In its place is the sudden chemical smell of chlorine and a flash of the too-blue water encircling the statue, and then the girls are met with a blast of air-conditioning and stale cigarette smoke and the noise of the machines inside the MGM Grand.

The six of them make their way across the floor, toward the hotel’s two towers. The boy called Tom lays his hand on the back of our girl’s neck. As they pass a security guard standing beside a golden trash can, she is possessed by the impulse to sink her fingers deep into the glittering black sand of the ashtray atop it, but she resists this. Behind her, Lena stumbles, rights herself, then stumbles again. The boy called Brad grips her upper arm. Bitch, be cool, he says through his slick teeth.

Lena walks steadily for several steps, then stops. She has felt his words, more than understood them. She says, I have to pee. Our girl tells Tom, We’ll be right back, and follows her friend to the ladies’ room.

Lena locks herself in the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom and sits on the toilet without taking down her pants. Our girl goes into the stall beside Lena’s and shuts the door. She sits on the toilet in the same way. A woman is washing her hands at the sink, and the automatic faucet blasts in spurts. Lena breathes heavily through her mouth. The woman at the sink dries her hands partially and leaves, the door opening and closing behind the blast of the dryer.

Our girl reaches her hand underneath the wall dividing them. Lena considers the fingers extended toward her, then laces her own between them. They say nothing for a long time, only hold hands under the stall. Lena begins to cry, softly. Aside from the dim noise of the casino making its way back to them, the wet efforts of Lena’s nose and throat are the only sounds heard.

I don’t feel good, says Lena. I miss Kyle.

Are you going to throw up?

No, says Lena. Then, Yes. Our girl releases Lena’s hand and leaves her stall, allowing the door to swing shut behind her. She gets on all fours, the tile cool against her palms, and crawls under the partition into Lena’s big handicapped cube. Lena is on her knees leaning over the bowl, her purse on the floor beside her.

Our girl says, Here, reaching over to lift the toilet seat. As Lena begins to vomit, our girl gathers her friend’s wavy hair in her hand and holds it. Get it out, she says. All out. Between purges Lena emits a mournful language intelligible only to herself, the main theme of which is certainly Kyle.

Our girl fingers the soft baby hairs at Lena’s nape and says, Shh.

Eventually, Lena lifts her head slightly. I think I’m ready to go home, she says.

As though the word has materialized the cloth on her, our girl becomes instantly sensitive to the persisting dampness of her underwear. She sees the Sheetrock bathroom in the back of the pizza parlor. Jeremy the delivery boy. Her stepfather. His long commute to job sites in Vegas. The empty and near-empty potato chip bags swirling around the backseat of his car like deflated Mylar balloons. Then, her memory lurching from shape to shape, there is her mother, hands shaking, unable to sit through a meal without popping up to get him seconds or refill his glass with milk.

Lena heaves again. Our girl tucks Lena’s hair into her shirt collar. She quickly removes her own shoes, her pants, and then her still-damp underpants. She folds the panties in half and half again and tucks them in the paper-lined metal bin meant for soiled feminine hygiene products and their wrappings.

Lena moans into the toilet bowl. I want to go home, she says.

Naked from the waist down, our girl stoops and fishes the car keys from Lena’s purse.

No, you don’t, she says, and begins re-dressing.

As the girls wash and reassemble themselves at the sinks, their eyes meet in the mirror. Our girl nods and says, You’re fine. Let’s have a good time.

Lena smiles weakly. I’m fine, she repeats. They return to the casino.

• • •

In her bed, she’ll go on. The room, she’ll begin, remembering two queen-size beds with thin synthetic quilted coverlets in mauve and gold. All the lights turned on. No, the light was from the TV. Beer from cans in a torn box sitting on its side at the bottom of a small black refrigerator. But the sensible man will interrupt her.

Was it all four of them?

No. And she’ll see in his face relief, the excess of which will force her to turn from him, to the window and the pinkening dawn. One of them left to get pancakes, she’ll say. Allen. I gave him directions to IHOP.

Three, then, he’ll say, his voice blank as a dead thing. And you two girls.

We started watching a movie. Something with Halle Berry. Lena said she’d almost done it once with her boyfriend in Minnesota. But.

Had she?

No. I told her she had to get it over with.

Had you?

Yes, she’ll say. But not like that.

What did they do to you?

She will shake her head, a movement nearly imperceptible. It wasn’t like that. Afterward, mine asked for my phone number. Tom, I think. He said, I really like you. Or something.

Did he ever call you?

This question will surprise her, and she will have to pause, trying to remember. No, she’ll say eventually. I gave him the wrong area code. They thought we lived in the city.

And your friend?

Lena. She passed out on the other bed. I thought maybe she was faking. I don’t know why. During the movie the big one got on top of her. Brad. He took off her clothes. Her eyes were shut but she was mumbling something. I don’t know what. The other one spread her out, kind of. The big one spit into his hand. I remember that. I was on the other bed, with mine.

Jesus.

The other one put his dick by her face. He hit her with it, softly. They called her names. Drunk cunt. Fuck rag.

Jesus Christ.

Here, she will stop. Are you sure you want to hear this? she’ll ask. Though she won’t be able to stop even if he asks her to. He’ll nod, slowly.

Lena woke up, she’ll say, during. She got out of the bed and stood by it. They didn’t try to stop her. She was naked, looking at the floor around her. For her clothes, maybe. Or the keys. But then she stopped and just stood there, looking at me. Tom — or whatever — was already inside me. She was just standing there.