Amelia Gray: Gutshot: Stories

My child and I lived in Vegas for two years in a house I rented from a lady I found online. She left the keys for us in the mailbox. It was a little place with one bed and a busted wall unit but the price was right. I would sit with my back to the window open to the windless night and watch my child while she slept. She had my full attention in those days. We walked through the places on the strip, never stopping for anything, just to get out of the heat, holding hands like I was taking her to the bathroom. She was five or six then and has since been taken from me by the state. She liked the gardens at the Flamingo and I read the plaque they put up there for Bugsy Siegel while she ran around. The thing about Bugsy Siegel was that he was a gangster and a white man. I read up on him while I waited. When the bank took the house we had to leave and I never did meet the lady who owned it.

This all occurred to me as the room showed itself like it was rising from a sea. First it was me and the man and the bare walls, and then I saw we were on a mattress, and then the clutter of paper sacks from Ted’s and old clothes. There were five pairs of women’s shoes lined up under the window. All this washed over me. There in the man’s house on his mattress on the floor it got in my head that if I left his side — his arm draped over me, the cord wrapped round my wrists above my head — if I even breathed too deep, there would be a psychic energy disturbed and he would know. My gut had carried me this far, I mean through my life, and also through the day’s events, and I did notice there was an open window in case he blocked the door. My arms went numb and I slept soon after by some magic brought on by stillness. When we woke up later I asked as natural as anything if he could untie my hands because I had to go pee, and he did like from a dream and went back to sleep.

In the bathroom I noticed the mirror and sink were very clean, but there was stuff jammed up under the bowl like maybe rust stopped with wadded-up paper. It reminded me of a time a boy in school bust his lip in the lunch line and it bled through a cloth. I figured it was time to go.

I didn’t want to flush because then he’d rouse from bed and expect me back, but I didn’t even want my pee standing in that place and so I flushed to ensure it would flow out through the pipes and find a river. My shorts and shoes were gone but I knew it was important to leave right then and I could ask the woman downstairs for a towel to cover myself. I could already see the back of her head from where I stood on the stairs. I took one step and the next but the third creaked and his hand clamped over my mouth.

I tried to think of when my luck had changed. It was maybe when I got off the bus and saw him sitting there, watching it roll on, and my brain said That one right there. It pointed, my brain: That one. Right there. The thing about drugs is you can fight them all your life but you’re fighting a brain that wants you dead, and the thing about fighting is you can’t fight forever. The thing about Bugsy Siegel is that his room at the Flamingo had one way in and five ways out. Anyway, he dragged me back.

When he buys you a drink, plunge a knife into his nose and carve out a piece.

When he asks you what you do for a living, dig into his spine with a broken juice glass.

When he wonders aloud if you ever get that feeling about someone, bite his tongue out of his mouth.

When he says you have a beautiful body, seize his Achilles tendon.

When he slides his hand under your thigh, sliver off his earlobe.

When he persuades you to spend the night, sink your teeth into his collarbone.

When he asks if you’re on the Pill, squeeze your pelvic floor until his penis pops off.

When he wakes up in the morning, clip his eyelashes and snort them.

When he makes the bed, open up the vein inside his elbow.

When he stops by your place after work, crush his skull with a tire iron and lick his brain.

When he gives you a book he likes, dip him into a deep fryer.

When he asks you out again, stab him with a box cutter and suck the wound.

When he wants to know what movie you’d like to see, wrap a piano wire around his testes until they drop into your mouth.

When he takes a picture of you, grind his toes with a pestle.

When he asks where you’ve been all his life, clamp your mouth to his side-meat.

When he asks you if you’re going to write about him, push a corkscrew into his shin and chew what curls out.

When he takes you to meet his parents, smother him with a pillow and eat his middle finger.

When he moves his books into your apartment, take a grater to his knuckles.

When he brings home a puppy, shave the skin from his heels.

When he tells you he loves you, paper-cut his fingertips and suck their blood.

When he asks you to marry him, panfry his foreskin.

When he takes you to Paris, wrench his wrist and gobble the tendon.

When he builds you a desk, tap a piece of bone from his hip with an awl.

When he asks you to get off the floor, wedge an oyster knife behind his kneecap until there’s space in there for your tongue.

When he works late and won’t discuss it, peel off a layer of his facial dermis.

When he slams the door, spread citric acid across his nipples and latch on.

When he kisses someone else, flay his abdominal skin.

When he says he’s sorry, snatch his nose.

When he tells you that you don’t love him, rip a fistful of hair from his head and put it on your cereal.

When he wants to know if he’s made himself clear, press your thumb against his eye socket and slurp the goop.

When he says he’s sorry you feel that way, peel off his toenails and sprinkle them on a salad.

When he says he needs some time off, jam his hand into a toaster.

When he shows up with flowers, nibble the hair from his arms.

When he invites you on a walk, crush his elbow in a vise.

When he asks if you’ll take him back, tuck your fingers under his lowest rib and pull.

When he draws you a bath, sever his smallest toe.

When he offers you his arm, squash his neckflesh in your fist.

When he asks you to wear the dress he likes, slice off a slab of his buttock and serve it to yourself on a plate.

When he wants to know if you think he’d be a good father, broil his viscera.

When he marvels at how much time has passed, gnaw the skin between his fingers.

When he asks you to take it down a notch at the Christmas party, pour wine into his ear and drink what drains out.

When he teaches your kids to drive, masticate his chin.

When he takes you out for your anniversary, squeeze his forearm until it bursts.

When he says you’ve looked a little pale this year, open his throat with a rough wedge.

When he drives you to the doctor, cut a knot of muscle from his upper thigh with a handsaw.

When he sits with you for months, chew off the tip of his thumb.

When he tells the hospice nurse to leave you both alone, work a tube into his larynx.

When he says you’ve had a good life together, force your finger into his mouth and scrape out his soft palate.

When he says he’ll miss you, dig a spoon into his belly button.

When he says goodbye, eat his heart out.

We wanted a child so badly! Even then, when she suggested the procedure, I wasn’t sure about it at first. It didn’t seem natural.

She pointed out that the fact we hadn’t made a child, when we both wanted it so much that we each dreamed about it every night, was not very natural, either.

It was true. My nightly dream featured a wide, dark field lined with bowing branches, a line of dogs running ahead of me in a single-file line. Their feet would pound the earth and I would feel an earnest and magnetic connection to them, my body being pulled along behind.