Darcey Steinke - Suicide Blonde

“That's too bad,” I said, though I knew it wasn't what she wanted me to say.

“I wish I were a lizard hatched in the desert sun.”

I sat down on the bed by her feet. “I'll only be here until I get a job.”

“You're going to work for me. Come over to the bar around one o'clock tonight.” Standing abruptly, she moved toward the door. “Did they wake you?” she asked, pointing upstairs.

“It sounded like he was hurting her.”

Madison shook her head. “She just pretends because he likes to think he's hurting her.”

After she left I listened for her footsteps on the stairs, then on the sidewalk until they mixed with others and became untraceable. I looked at the clock. There was an intolerable pain connected with time now. I thought of drinking. I thought of masturbating, of watching a man fuck me in the ass, screwing me like a dog. These fantasies scared me now. I couldn't always control the men. They did horrible things, their faces contorting in evil pleasure.

The phone rang and when I answered I could tell by the heavy breathing it was Pig. “Madison,” she said, “Madison, is that you? Don't torture me, it took a lot to call you,” she said loudly. “I want to see you. I sent a girl, but I couldn't tell her what I really wanted to say. . I know you're there. . could you come out here, honey? Could you?” The helpless sound of her voice made me feel cruel and I whispered, “You're a fat old fool.” When I said it I heard a sharp intake of breath and a sound like she had fallen against a table and the phone rattled onto the floor.

I felt bad, but no way could I call back to apologize. So I called my own mother. She answered on the first ring and told me excitedly that my father's cousin had died. “I always liked him so much,” she said, “so what if he left his wife for a year or two and ran off with his secretary, when that was over he came right back to her. They got married again and everything. There is something primal about first love.”

She allowed men their wanderings if they were rich or if they eventually smartened up. She wasn't exactly a situational moralist, more a financial one. I told her we had moved. She took the number and I said I had to go. She pretended I hadn't spoken, said, “The crazy thing is since I found out he died, I've been buying things. Just yesterday I bought a stereo and today these little Persian rugs for my car — I feel free.” She giggled girlishly. I told her again I had to go.

“Why do you always call me when you have so little time to talk?”

“Sometimes it makes me sad to talk to you.”

“Because you're afraid you'll turn out like me?”

That wasn't it exactly, more that her equation seemed tragic in such a trivial way. . drunken father, no-good husband, that once she was beautiful and now she was fat, that she probably hadn't had sex in ten years, that her life had shrunk to a dollar sign. It was the only currency she felt comfortable dealing in, it was the only thing she trusted. “No,” I said. “You just remind me I'm going to die.”

“And get petty in the meantime?”

“Good-bye, Mom,” I said. As I hung up I heard her say, “You're no different than anyone else, Jesse.”

I lay on the bed, watching the light fall. I could see a sign across the street that said GirlsGirlsGirls. Above it a window with green drapes. The moon was rising over the brick skyline, outlining the highway ramps by the water.

I remembered Madison's note, heaved up out of bed and got it from the pocket of the mini-dress. I could still read in the half-light.

I was pregnant, on X, couldn't really focus on anything. Boys kissing in the corner. I couldn't get into the bathroom to take a piss and stood waiting in line, watching a tall thin boy spin around so that his skirt flew up showing his net panties. When the door finally did open two girls and a boy in a red sequined sweater walked out laughing. There was a strobe that made me happy, until I saw in its pulse my boyfriend with a girl on his lap. I turned my head — that is his way — I said eight times fast and then faster until it went with the music and did not seem so bad.

I put the paper into my little wooden chest, latched it, set the alarm for midnight and turned out the light.

THE BARTENDER TOLD ME TO GO UPSTAIRS. IT WAS A RELIEF TO get away from the leering men at the bar. The stairs were steep, covered in bruise-blue linoleum. At the top was a white door with a black sign that said PRIVATE. I put my hand on the doorknob and there was a sudden buzz. I pushed it open. The hallway was dark and because I didn't know the geography of the place I stood still for a moment letting my eyes adjust. The air was warm and damp and I could hear the sound of bubbling water. I walked ahead. There were giant fish tanks set into the wall on either side, dreamy angel fish, transparent guppies and pencil-thin silver ones. The tanks alternated with doors and windows. Moving toward the spiral staircase, I thought the woman in the first window was a mannequin, but then she looked up. A well-practiced look, a touch of naïveté, a question, and the perfect amount of distance, the kind of distance that elicits desire. She wore a white corset, the same shade as the shag carpet. There were other women, one wore a blond floor-length wig. She spread her legs, showed me her rouged cunt.

The blue lights made it seem like the whole place was underwater. I climbed the metal stairs. Madison's room was huge with the same thick white carpet, round white couches and a bed with a fuzzy white bedspread. Madison was near a white table, sitting in a white leather bucket seat. She wore a baby doll nightgown and patent leather go-go boots and said without turning, “Could you help me?” She was carefully heating the bottom of a silver spoon with a lighter. She slapped her forearm, made a fist, told me she hadn't medicated herself yet this morning, asked if I would hold her bicep until she found a vein.

“Couldn't you use something else?” I asked.

“I want you to do it,” she said fiercely, “NOW.” She slapped her other hand against the table and I quickly clamped my fingers thumb to thumb around her upper arm.

“Tighter,” she said, “these veins aren't for shit anymore.” Her arm marbled, then turned pink, the veins puffed up and she finally found one she liked, in the delicate underside of her forearm. She loaded the syringe. I hated how the needle slipped in, as if her flesh were butter. There was a bloody backwash that tinted the heroin rose.

“Let go,” she said, pulling the syringe out. She pressed a tissue over the vein, folded her arm up, then slid back into the chair. When Madison saw how startled I looked she laughed.

“You're not one of those people who consider seeing your parents argue intense?”

“I think seeing a seagull with a broken wing on the side of the road can be just as horrible as—”

“As what?” Madison asked. “Getting raped?”

“No,” I said, “of course not. I just don't think there is a real hierarchy of pain.”

Madison nodded. “Fair enough. So what's your opinion of blow jobs?” Her smile was not a smile at all.

“Do you have some kind of philosophy about them?”

Madison rolled her head dreamily toward me. I could tell the drug was taking effect. “Well, many powerful things seem based on them: rockets, skyscrapers, guns. But, in a way, they're all pitiful. When I have one in my mouth I think of it like a dumb worm. It doesn't know the difference between a cunt, a hand or a mouth. And while the men think I'm either servile or kind, depending on their feelings for me, I know that it's a service. When I give head, I'm like a mechanic. The cock is a car. The car's owner, just like the owner of the cock, knows nothing about me or how I really feel about him.”