Susan Steinberg - Hydroplane - Fictions

your father ordering you fried clams, fried potatoes, your father drinking a beer and going, Let's ride the Ferris wheel, trying to look excited, like the Ferris wheel is any big thing,

the girlfriend looking at the black bottoms of your feet when your feet are on up the kitchen table when she's chopping tomatoes, like she has any right looking at your feet, like she has any right going, when your father leaves the kitchen, I saw you last night,

your father calling you old maid because you can't decide on pink or blue and it's just cotton candy for fuck's sake, and really you don't want cotton candy, but your father wants to buy you one, and who can't decide on cotton candy when it all tastes the same, your father going, Old maid, when you can't decide so it's pink you decide on, your father going, Girlie, when you decide on pink,

thinking, as the waves crash to bits, as the kites make their crazy loops, how tonight you'll let him kiss you if he wants,

the girlfriend going, I saw you last night, going, I saw you with those kids, going, Is that boy your boyfriend, I won't tell your father, you going, Shut your fat face,

Baltimore, that nothing place of outside smokestacks, gray sky, brick, and inside TV, hula dancers, sand and blue, TV static, your father asleep in his chair,

seen on TV, some who knows what show, some show for teens, some teenage girl going, Boys like girls in light blue,

always a cocktease, always wriggling,

in line, your father holding your ticket and your hand, going, The boys over there are looking at you, pointing to behind the House of Mirrors where the kids are already standing, smoking, even though it's still light, even though things don't happen until after dark, the songs already up loud on the rides, the songs that stick in your head, and the songs will stay stuck in your head for long, for how long, for as long as you live, and you'll hear them in cars and stores and streets when you're a grown-up dragging your ass through a space and you'll want to cry because everything has changed and nothing has changed,

your father going, Who are those boys, like some kind of boyfriend, like some kind of jealous fucking boyfriend, your father going, You're a funny girl, when your face gets hot, going, Funny looking, Ha ha, A face that could stop a clock,

the girlfriend turning soft in your father's paws, your father reaching inside her pants, your boy's hands inside her pants, your boy's hands inside your pants, the kites soaring faster than birds,

your father going, Are those your friends, those boys, and, Do you know them, and, What about those girls, and, They're looking at you, pointing to the local kids who point back from where they stand behind the House of Mirrors smoking cigarettes, laughing at you, some of them waving, some of them calling out things to you like, Daddy's girl, like, Hi Daddy, like, Hi C. S. L., your father shaking his head at them, your father looking at the local girls, looking at their asses like peaches, their dynamite asses, your father looking at the way they hula-shake them into the boys to the music coming from the Flying Bobs, your father going, Will you look at that, your father calling them the local sexpots, his bear paw sweating around your hand, What are you doing with the local sexpots,

pushing slightly into the hard hot sand thinking, Do you want to go faster, Yes, Do you want to go faster, God, yes, God, no,

the man at the Ferris wheel going, No shoes no ride, your father pulling you out of line, the two of you walking to a souvenir shop to buy too-big shoes, plastic shoes, Maryland written across the sides in red,

the girlfriend chopping tomatoes faster, you going, You saw nothing last night, standing up from the table and pushing the girlfriend's pile of chopped tomatoes to the floor,

a short trip on the Ferris wheel, your father screaming, your gut caught in your throat,

the boys going, Cocktease, like you don't know this, like you don't know what you are,

knowing you can't go back to the boardwalk, not tonight, not ever, knowing the local kids will have something to go, this hard as coconut city girl, you, this stupid little girl, you, this stupid little fuck letting your father hold your hand in line because you couldn't go no, because you couldn't make yourself invisible, you couldn't turn yourself to cloud, you couldn't freeze time by stopping all the clocks with your face as ugly and splotched as a face can be, because you have no magic force, letting your father go, Wheee, when the Ferris wheel brought you down and down, the kids all calling out, Daddy's girl,

walking a quick walk back to the beach house, a block ahead of your father, walking into the beach house alone, slamming and locking the washroom door, staring at yourself in the washroom mirror, putting on the girlfriend's makeup and heavy, like a fucking sexpot, teasing the hair into some big thing,

sitting on the sun porch thinking, I'm sitting on a chair, The men are looking, The men are looking at me, The men are looking at me sitting on a chair, My life is over, My life was nothing, But I could get up,

tiptoeing into the beach house at sunrise, your father asleep in a chair, your father waking and going, What, and falling back to sleep,

and it could have been good with your boy below the boardwalk, his hands caught up in your sunstreaked hair,

it could have been good had you meant it, had you not been such a cocktease, always wriggling, then wriggling away,

your fat ugly uncle looking at you how he looks at your father's girlfriend, his mouth forming a whistle you never hear because there's no whistle but your fat uncle going, Sexy, and the girlfriend turns red, Sexy, and you run back to the washroom, screaming, Shut the fuck up, your fat uncle still calling, Come out sexy, your father going, Shut your fat face, your fat uncle still laughing his head off, your head a shadow in the corner, your hair a mess after all that teasing,

knowing it's over, the boardwalk, the beach, knowing you'll go back home, Baltimore, back to school, brick, smoke, gray, that nothing life of TV, you on the couch, your father sleeping on his chair, TV static, clear gloss on your lips,

knowing you'll still hear your fat uncle going, Sexy, in your head, like seeing a picture in your head, like seeing TV in your head, when you're a grown-up dragging your sorry ass through your house,

sitting on the washroom floor in the girlfriend's nightgown, the girlfriend's makeup, and you didn't mean to be so sexy in the nightgown, sitting in the corner when you've gone too far, and you didn't mean to be so sexy,

your father knocking on the washroom door, going, Come out now, going, Wipe that shit off your face, going, Put on some clothes and act like a grown-up, going, Walking around in that crazy getup, Where'd you get such a crazy getup,

your father's girlfriend rushing past the House of Mirrors when the boardwalk shuts down for the night, the local kids walking home from the boardwalk, you walking down to the beach,

your head like TV, pictures shifting, a switch and switch and switch,

and it could have been good in the cave below the boardwalk with your boy, but you're what, you're a cocktease, and there's no deep rut you dug below the boardwalk with your boy,

your head like TV, late night static, something forbidden behind the snow,

your father kicking open the door,

your father going, Come out, from his place in the doorway, his shadow filling the corner,

you going, Come here, from your place in the corner, your father not coming closer,

and it could have been good with your boy below the boardwalk, his hands caught up in your sunstreaked hair,

instead of you alone in the night-cold sand watching the waves until sunrise,

the trashpicker poking at trash with a stick, singing, Susie Q, Oh Susie Q,