Melanie Thon - First, Body - Stories

Last time they found a white woman dead on this hill police turned into a lynch mob, got the whole city screaming behind them. Roadblocks and strip searches. Stopped every dark-skinned man for miles if he was tall enough and not too old. Busted down doors, emptied closets, shredded mattresses, and never did find the gun that was already in the river. But they found the man they wanted: tall, raspy voice, like me. He’s got a record, long, shot a police officer once. He’s perfect. He can be sacrificed. No education, string of thefts. Even his own people are glad to turn him over, like there’s some evil here and all we got to do is cut it out. I’m thinking, Nobody kills the woman and leaves the man alive. Even an ignorant nigger. But the police, they don’t think that way. They need somebody. Turns out the husband did it. Shot his wife. Pregnant, too. Months later, white man jumps, bridge to river, January, he’s dead, then everybody knows. But that black guy, he’s still in jail. Violating parole. Some shit like that. Who knows? They got him, they’re gonna keep him.

I hear two voices, and they both sound like my mama. One tells me, She’s human, go . And one whispers, You got to keep yourself alive . One’s my real mama and one a devil with my mama’s voice.

Something howled. I thought it was the wind. I wanted to lean into it, wrap my arms around it. I wanted it to have a mouth, to swallow me. Or I wanted to swallow it, to cry as it cried, loud and blameless.

It was nearly dawn and I was ashamed, knowing now which voice belonged to my mama. I held the girl in my mind. She was light as a moth, bright as a flame. I knew she was dead. It was as if she’d called my name, my real one, the one I didn’t know until she spoke it. I felt her lungs filling under my hand. She said, There’s one warm place at the center of my body where I wait for you .

Stray finds her. Mangy wolf of a dog. Smells her. Even in this cold, he knows. And it’s like he loves her, the way he calls, just whining at first, these short yelps, high and sad, and when nobody comes he starts howling, loud enough to wake the dead, I think, but not her. And it’s day, the first one.

We’re out there in the cold, nine of us in the alley, hunched, hands in pockets, no hats, shivering, shaking our heads, and one guy is saying, Shit, shit , because he remembers, we all remember, the last time.

I see her close, thirty-five at least but small, so I thought she was a girl, and I think of her that way now. I kneel beside her. Her eyes are open, irises shattered like blue glass. Wind ruffles her nightgown, exposes her. Snow blows through her hair, across bare legs, between blue lips. I see bruises on her thighs, cuts on her hands, a face misaligned, and I think, I have bones like these, broken, healed, never the same. My hand aches in the cold.

I know now what happened, why she’s here. I see her keeper. She smokes his cigarettes, he whacks her. She drinks his beer, he drags her to the toilet, holds her head in the bowl. He’s sorry. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve seen the women. And I’ve been slammed against a cement wall for looking the man in the eye. I’ve been kicked awake at three A.M. because some motherfucker I offended told the guards I had a knife. The keepers make the rules, but they’re always shifting: we can’t be good enough.

Police stay quiet. Don’t want to look like fools again. And nobody’s asking for this girl. Stray, like the dog. They got time.

I know now what her body tells them: stomach empty, liver enlarged, three ribs broken, lacerations on both hands — superficial wounds, old bruises blooming like yellow flowers on her back and thighs. Death by exposure. No crime committed here. And they don’t care who cut her, and they don’t care who broke her ribs, because all her people are dead or don’t give a shit, and she was the one, after all, who ran out in the snow, so who’s to say she didn’t want to die.

I drink port because it’s sweet, gin because it’s bitter, back to back, one kills the taste of the other. I can’t get drunk. Three days now since we found her and I see her whole life, like she’s my sister and I grew up with her. She’s a child with a stick drawing pictures in the dirt. She’s drawn a face and I think it must be her own face but I say, What are you drawing ? And she says, Someone to love me . I say, What are you trying to do, break my heart ? And she says, If you have a heart, I’ll break it . I say, Where’s your mama ? And she says, She’s that pretty lady with red lips and high heels — you’ve probably seen her — but sometimes her lipstick’s smeared all down her chin and her stockings are ripped and she’s got one shoe in her hand and the spike is flying toward me — that’s my mother . I say, Where’s your daddy ? And she says, He’s a flannel shirt torn at the shoulder hanging in the closet ever since I’ve been alive and my mother says that’s the reason why .

Then I see she’s not a child; she’s a full-grown woman, and her hands are cut, her hands are bleeding, and I say, Who did this to you ? She won’t answer, but I know, I see him, he’s her lover, he’s metal flashing, he’s a silver blade in the dark, and she tries to grab him but he’s too sharp. Then she’s running, she’s crying, and I see her in the street, and I think she’s just some crazy white girl too high to feel the cold, and I don’t go.

Now she’s talking to me always. She’s the sound underneath all other sounds. She won’t go away. She says, I used to make angels in the snow, like this; I used to lie down, move my arms and legs, like this, wings and skirt, but that night I was too cold, so I just lay down, curled into myself, see, here, and I saw you at your window, and I knew you were afraid, and I wanted to tell you, I’m always afraid, but after I lay down I wasn’t so cold, and I was almost happy, and I was almost asleep, but I wanted to tell you, I’m your little white sister — I know you — we’re alone .

1 IN THESE WOODS

I waited for you in the rain. My tongue hurt. I’d been telling lies all day. Lies to the four Christian teenagers who thought they could save me. My first ride, Albany to Oneonta — they sang the whole way. More lies to the jittery pink-skinned man who took me north. He offered tiny blue pills and fat black ones. He said, It’s safe — don’t worry — I’m a nurse . He said, I’ll make you feel good .

I think I had a sister once. Everywhere I go she’s been before me. There’s no getting out of it.

When the pink nurse stopped to piss, my sister Clare whispered, Look at him — he’ll kill you if he can . I hid in the woods by the lake full of stumps. I didn’t move. I let the sky pour through me. He called the name I’d said was mine. Sometimes I heard branches breaking. Sometimes only rain. Finally he yelled at me, at who he thought I was. He said, No more games . He said, Fine, freeze your ass . His voice cracked. I could have chosen him instead of you, but Clare breathed on my hands. She said, He doesn’t have anything you want .

You were driving toward me, your blue truck still hours away. Cold rain, cars whipping water — only my faith made me wait. I swear I knew you, your soft beard, how it would be. But you never imagined us together. You never meant to stop for me.

This I won’t tell. This you’ll never know. Mick says I’m fourteen going on forty. I’ve got that dusty skin, dry, my eyes kind of yellowish where they’re supposed to be white. It’s the rum I drink, and maybe my kidneys never did work that well. Mick, who is my mother’s husband now, says I’ll be living on the street at sixteen, dead at twenty. He says this to me, when we’re alone. Once I paid two dollars, let Mama Rosa read my palm to see if he was right, and she told me I was going to outlive everyone I love.