Amelia Gray: Gutshot: Stories

The crowd sprang to action. Children gouged limestone with their trowels. Someone went back to his truck for a baseball bat. A woman beat her husband’s stone with her fists until she was pulled away and given a pickax. They worked in this way until nothing remained.

I knew that man was trouble. He hefted a duffel above his shoulder without seeming to register its size, rubbing his body across each seat he passed. The people behind him had to stop and set down their things, waiting for him to finish fondling the headrests. He was dressed like a young guy but had the white pocked skin of a man nearing middle age. When he smiled at me, I held my gaze one inch into his eyes, not at but in, where he might register my personal wall. This trick took thirty years to master. From there, we had an understanding.

“Hey baby,” he said to the girl beside me.

She ignored him, fussing with an exposed bra strap.

A silver chain strained his neck and another one, linked flat, held steady on his big wrist. Shaved hair stubbled his arms. His nails were groomed and perfect save for the one on his left index, which was missing, the naked nailbed pink as a cat’s tongue.

He repositioned his bag. “You have a great smile,” he said. He smelled like a fresh meatball sub. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” the girl said.

“Who made you so beautiful, though? Did heaven make you that way?”

She turned to the window but her smile was visible in the reflection. Outside, a woman barred from the boarding area lay facedown on the sidewalk and screamed.

The man kept on down the aisle and the girl exhaled sharply through her nose.

I closed the book I was reading and held it on my lap. “That guy’s a loser,” I said.

She turned to see where he had found a seat. “I don’t know anybody in Long Beach.”

“He doesn’t want to be your friend.”

“He was nice to me.”

The bus swayed gently as if we had rolled into a shallow pond and become buoyant. We would be going for the rest of the day, with one meal and two smoke breaks. I picked my book up again.

The girl sat with her back to our shared armrest, frowning as the scenery greened. “Do you think he likes me?” she asked after a while.

“I’m sure he does.” I was reading a story about children with special powers. Their friend had become lost in the forest and when the other two went to find him, they learned of their own nuanced powers of sensation: the girl felt heat in the earth and knew that creatures were nearby, and the boy saw through dense trees and found a congregation of wild animals meeting on the horizon. The children walked bravely toward the beasts, holding hands.

“Do I look okay?” She looked in her compact mirror and handed it to me like it might still hold her reflection.

I caught the sour smell of her palms, which she had licked before smoothing her hair. “You look good.”

With every step the children took, their bravery waned until it was like a tightrope under them. They shivered on the line but kept moving forward, sensing the importance of the gathering of animals.

“Really, tell me.”

I held my page. She was skinny in cutoff shorts. Her polo shirt, likely designed for a child, was snug and ripe under her pits. Her hair was limp as if it had been taped on. Concealer caked around her lips, tinting her blemishes orange, while mascara gave her lashes the look of suspension-bridge cables.

“It doesn’t matter how you look,” I said. “His goal is to take advantage of you, with or without your consent, and he will not be your friend when it’s over. You have to protect yourself from these men.”

I went back to reading, satisfied that I had stopped an advancing storm. The girl sniffed her displeasure and traced patterns in the seatback. “I know what I’m doing,” she said.

* * *

She accepted the cigarette he offered on the shady side of the McDonald’s. They talked about the weather and how the back of the bus smelled like garbage wrapped in wet garbage. He told her she looked like a movie star, but he couldn’t figure out who exactly.

“You need to watch it,” I said.

“I’m watching everything,” he said, smiling, so close to my face that I could have pressed my cheek to his.

“Me too,” I said. “Everything.”

“Come on,” the girl said.

The driver called us to go but the man didn’t break his gaze.

“Old bitch,” he said in a convivial way.

“Not another word.”

He put his hands up in mocking assent. His half-stripped finger bulged.

She was at me before I sat down. “Jesus Christ,” she said, drawing it out.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’ve been where you are now.”

“I thought he was gonna kill you.” We were rolling out of Quartzsite. The man had found a new seat behind the driver and was clapping his big hand convivially on the back of a teenage boy.

“Attention is the most worthless currency on the planet,” I said. “When you treat it like it’s precious, you’re blinding yourself to the possibility that you might find it elsewhere. And it’s everywhere, attention is. You’re a beautiful girl. You have fine features and kind eyes and a good line to your body. See, and now you’re acting like nobody’s ever complimented you before.”

“Well,” she said.

“I’m saying you may as well assign a high value to yourself. You should consider all the angles. His attention is a penny placed on a monument. Give the monument your prayers, not the coin.”

She pressed her lips together. Her every movement came off like a minor miracle, as it was with young women. I tried to remember myself at her age, but when I tried, I only saw a girl lost in the woods.

“Do you know what I mean?” I asked. Watching her think about it gave me a thrill. It was nice to have an interested third party. I wanted to say more but stopped myself and allowed her to flatter me with her consideration. Outside, the landscape began to bear fruit. We trundled past long lines of orchards and roadside stands. I opened my book to return to the gathering of animals dancing in unison.

“What are you reading?”

“It’s a story about magical children.”

“Magical,” she said, confused. “It’s a kids’ book?”

“Since you ask, I do feel more calm when I’m reading stories written for young people.”

“Okay,” she said. “I guess I don’t get it.”

“You certainly don’t have to get it.”

We rolled on. “You know,” she said, “I just figured he’d want to hang out.”

“Don’t you have anyone to stay with?”

“My dad’s out there,” she said. “In Lakewood I think. I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her eye with the back of her hand.

“You should have somewhere to stay.”

“That’s exactly why I was talking to that guy if you didn’t get the hint.” A portion of her mascara had decamped to make a wet halo around her right eye. “He seemed fine and you ruined everything.”

I tried to imagine what a benevolent character would do in my book. “You should stay with me,” I said. “You need somewhere safe.”

“With you?” She lifted one delicate corner of her lip. I could see her watching television on her belly in my living room, picking marshmallows from a box of cereal.

“Sure,” I said. “For a few nights. Get on those feet.”

She laughed. “No, I don’t know. We’ll see,” she said. “You totally ruined everything else, so you owe me.”

“You’re right, I owe you.” Without thinking, I reached for her face. Holding her chin, I wiped away the smudged makeup with my thumb. The girl allowed the movement, keeping very still and looking away. I cleaned her off, thinking about the vast system of payments and debts.