Mary Gaitskill - Don't Cry

She brushed the dust and particles from the windowsill off her elbows. “I was a rebellious girl,” she said, “and I went in a stupid direction.”

She thought of the Narcotics Anonymous meetings she had attended some years ago. People talked about the things that had happened to them, the things they had done on drugs. Nothing was too degrading or too pathetic or too dull. Laura had talked about trying to lose her virginity. Her friend Danielle had told a story about how she'd let a disgusting fat guy whom she hated try to shove a can of root beer up her vagina because, he'd suggested, they might be able to fill cans with heroin and smuggle them.

Laura smiled a little. After the meeting, she'd asked Danielle, “Who tried to stick it in, you or him?”

“Oh,” said Danielle, “we both tried.” They laughed.

Such grotesque humility; such strange comfort. She remembered the paper plates of cookies, the pot of coffee at the low table in the back of the room at NA. She loved standing back there with Danielle, eating windmill cookies and smoking. Laura looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. “A stupid girl,” she said to her reflection.

Well, but who could blame her? When she was still a teenager, out of nowhere her mother asked Laura what it had been like to lose her virginity. She wanted to know if the experience had been “special.” It was late and the living room was dark. They had been watching TV together. Laura was startled by the question. “Was it someone you loved?” asked her mother.

“Yes,” replied Laura, lying. “Yes, it was.”

“I'm glad,” said her mother. She still looked straight ahead. “I wanted you to have that.”

What a revolting conversation, thought Laura. She couldn't quite put her finger on why; her mother had only been expressing concern. But her concern seemed somehow connected with the nun in the water, and the dirtbag trying to set the little girl on fire.

She went back to the waiting room and got the grouchy middle-aged man. He didn't bother to take off his shoes when he weighed himself. He was there, he said, only because his wife had made him come. He had taken off from work and shot the whole day. “My wife loves going to the doctor,” he said. “She had all those mammo-grams and she lost her breast anyway. Most of it.”

“Well, but it's good to come in,” said Laura. “Even if it doesn't always work. You know that. Your wife's just caring about you.”

He gave a conciliatory snort. With his shirt off, he was big and flabby, but he carried it as if he liked it. His blood pressure was much too high. Laura let her touch linger on him as she worked because she wanted to soothe him.

When the man was gone, she asked Dr. Phillips if she could go outside on her break. He usually didn't like her to do that because she was always a little late getting back when she went out, but he was trying to be extra nice since her father died. “Okay,” he said, “but watch the time.” He turned and strode down the hall, habitually bristling, like a small dog with a dominant nature.

Outside, the heat was horrible. She started sweating right away probably ruining her uniform for the next day. Still, she was glad to be out of the building. The clinic was located between a busy main street and a run-down little street occupied by an old wig shop, a children's karate gym, and a large ill-kept park where aging homeless men sat around. She decided to walk a few blocks down the park street. She liked the trees and she was friendly with a few of the men, who sometimes wished her good afternoon.

She walked and an old song played in her head. It was the kind of old song that sounded innocent and dirty at the same time. The music was simple and shallow except for one deep spot where it was like somebody's pants were being pulled down. “You got nothin’ to hide and everybody knows it's true. Too bad, little girl, it's all over for you.” The singer laughed and the music laughed, too, and the laughter was spangled all over with sexiness.

Laura had loved the song; she had loved the thought of it being all over and everybody knowing. A lot of other people must've loved it, too; it had been a very popular song. She remembered walking down the hall in high school wearing tight clothes; boys laughed and grabbed their crotches. They all said she'd sucked their dicks, but really she'd only screwed one of them. It didn't matter. When her father found out, he yelled and hit her.

“Was it someone special?” her mother had asked. “Was it someone you loved?”

She stopped at a curb for traffic. Her body was alive with feelings that were strong but that seemed broken or incomplete, and she felt too weak to hold them.

A car pulled up beside her, throwing off motor heat. The car was full of loud teenage boys. The driver, a Hispanic boy of about eighteen, wanted to make a right turn, but he was blocked by a stalled car in front of him and cars on his side. He was banging his horn and yelling out the window; his urgency was hot and all over the place. Laura stared at him. His delicate beauty was almost too bright; he had so much light that it burned him up inside and made him dark. He yelled and pounded the horn, trying to spew it out, but still it surged through him. It was like he was ready to kill someone, anyone, without any understanding in his mind or heart. That thought folded over unexpectedly; Laura pictured him as a baby with his mouth on his mother's breast. She pictured his fierce nature deep inside him, like dark, beautiful seeds feeding off his mother's milk, off the feel of her hand on his skull. She thought of him as a teenager with a girl; he would kiss her too hard and be rough, wanting her to feel what he had inside him, wanting her to see it. And, in spite of his roughness, she would.

He turned in his seat to shout something to the other boys in the car, then turned forward again to put his head out the window to curse the other cars. He turned again and saw Laura staring at him. Their eyes met. She thought of her father showing his aunts the stars and all the planets. You are good, she thought. What you have is good. The boy dropped his eyes in confusion. There was a yell from the backseat. The stalled car leaped forward. The boy snapped around, hit the gas, and was off.

Laura crossed the street. How to explain that? she thought. How to know what it even was? She thought, I told him he was good. I told him with my eyes and he heard me.

Well, tonight she'd call Danielle and tell her about it; Danielle had a lot of strange emotional moments with, say, a lady standing in the prescription line next to her at the drugstore, or a guy in the car behind her whod yelled at her because she couldn't figure out the parking gate right away. Except it probably wouldn't seem like a story by the time the day was over.

She walked up the block sweating, feeling so replete and grateful that she wondered if she was crazy She pictured the middle-aged virgin, this time at home at night, doing her meticulous toilet, rubbing her feet with softening cream. She pictured herself at home, curled on the couch, watching TV and eating ice cream out of the carton. She pictured the men in her dream, fighting. She pictured herself kneeling to hold the handsome man's cut-open head. She would pass her hand over his broken skull and make an impenetrable membrane grow over his exposed brain. The membrane would be transparent, and you would be able to see his brain glowing inside it like magic stones. But you could never cut it or harm it.

She pictured her father, young and strong, smiling at her, the planets all around him. She thought, I love you, Daddy.

She saw the homeless men moving about deep in the park, their figures nearly obscured by overgrown grasses and trees. For a moment, she strained to see them more clearly, then gave up. It was time to go back. She was late, but it would be okay, probably.