Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

Behind the garage, the door to a bathroom hung from thick steel hinges. A row of locks had been installed down the side, but some of the bolts had been pried from their stations. The remaining chambers were jammed with gum and clumps of once-wet toilet paper, now dried into a cementlike surface. Daphney easily pushed the door open and a bang resonated from where it hit the inside wall. Daphney took the backpack and staggered resolutely inside, disappearing into a blackness not quite the size of a prison cell, her steps audible on tile.

“Leave the door open, okay,” Daphney said. “Fuck, where's that switch? I can't see shit.”

The girl squinted but could not make out much, either, maybe part of a toilet; still, it was something — the night air beginning to spread, puncturing the vacuum with lesser shades of darkness.

Now the mongrel dog let out a curious whine. Concerned about its master's disappearence, it shifted its weight from one front leg to the other. It waited a few counts and then gave in, lowering its head and, with tentative, dutiful steps, following Daphney inside. The girl with the shaved head understood exactly how the dog felt. She wasn't eager to go in there, either. At the same time, the girl understood that she was a part of this, whatever this might be, and despite her better instincts, she edged forward, inside the darkness. She felt around on the wall for a few moments, the plaster warm to the touch. Then a box of sorts. A panel. Flicking the switch sent light from overhead in thick streams to reveal an empty bathroom, walls of industrial white, glowing layers of paint that, in places, still did not hide all of the graffiti beneath.

But while the girl's side of the room was well lit, the far side of the bathroom was another story — the long overhead bulb flickering for one count, then going dim for three. Amid the gloom, Daphney had reached the toilet, and was undertaking the lengthy procedure of lowering herself onto its rim. “Fuck me,” she called out, laughing. “There's no seat.” She gave another laugh, as if entertained by the predicament. “We'll just have to manage.”

She had been waiting for this a long time, Daphney said. You don't even know.

Daphney had her knapsack between her legs and started foraging through it. The girl took a tentative step toward her, and had the tart aroma of cleaning chemicals irritate her nostrils. Reflexively, she fingered the fringe of her summer vest.

“My stepmonster had been a total bitch to me since way back in the day,” Daphney continued, “even before I got thrown out.”

From inside the backpack, Daphney pulled a can opener, then what might have been a deformed Happy Meal box, which she spent a moment examining, then put aside, reaching back inside, emerging with some sort of half-rolled tube, possibly toothpaste, who the hell knew.

“It's why they tossed me, really — I mean, things were bad enough already with my step, from when I borrowed her Mercedes and went to a rave. Anyways, with the whole pregnancy and whatnot, there was big-time tension, you know? Dad was totally flipping and pissed and bitch-cakes, he didn't want no grandkid, especially no half spook — Wait, here we go, that's right…. Come to mama—”

A flicking sound, a small cocoon of illumination. Inside the dimness of the far end of the room, the lighter's flame cast light upon Daphney's curled torso, as well as the knapsack balanced between her legs. A pink nightgown dangled from the sack's opening, its neckline of embroidered roses lying in a thin puddle from the last time the floor had been mopped.

“My stepmonster had scheduled the abortion with her private doctor, and everyone was trying to pretend things were normal, one big happy family and all that. We had these sit-down dinners every night, completely lame, you know, where you're supposed to be all Beaver Cleaver?”

Yellow light spun off the cover of a paperback guide to single parenting, which Daphney examined for a moment, before jamming it back inside some compartment. A dog-grooming comb bounced politely onto the tile. With some effort, and then a relieved “Aaaah- haaaah, ” Daphney dislodged a smallish heart-shaped candy box.

“So I'd just gotten pierced, like a day before, right? And I wasn't really all that into wearing panties just then, right? Well, everyone's finished with the salad, but the pot roast isn't quite finished yet, you know how it goes, right? Blah blah, chit chat. And right when no one has no more to say, that's when I felt this little ball, you know? It sort of like clinked off my leg and like then, you know, rolled. ”

Daphney worked to undo the valentine bow. “You could hear it ping on the kitchen tile and like, bounce ?” She opened the box and, without pause, continued her search. “Don'cha know my stepmonster had to go and pick it up.

“I tried to tell her it was the ball clasp for my earring — but she saw I wasn't wearing none.”

The girl with the shaved head made a sound bordering on intelligible. She felt dizzy, needed a wall to lean against.

“That was the first one,” Daphney added, proudly waving a blackened diner spoon. “Base of my clit. Right where the nub splits.”

“No—”

“I gots more now.”

“you—”

“All labs. Majoras and minoris.”

“—don't.”

“They do it for you at the Tatt Rack. When nobody's around and there's nothing else goin’ on.”

How to respond? What can you possibly say: You must have a really strong vulva ?

“Did it hurt?” the girl came up with.

“Can you, like, ask more obvious questions?”

“Did it?”

For the first time since they'd entered the bathroom, Daphney's attention moved away from her search, up toward the girl. She thought for a moment, and when she spoke this time, her voice turned serious. “When I first hit here, I used to have to always defend myself about my background. Like, because my parents have dough, I don't have problems? Now I been out for like six months and all their money aint doin’ jack for me, and whether I want it or not, it looks like I'm a have my baby on the street. Even Lestat and the others are like, ‘ Oh, Daphney, that's so hardcore, how can you? ’ ”

She paused and sat forward, her forearms resting on her thighs. “Every day I sit on the street and feel my baby grow inside of me and I ask for change from people who pass by and pretend not to see me and, you know, sometimes, it makes me feel like I'm not there. Like, I kinda forget I'm alive?”

Daphney wiped her nose on her wrist. Spent a moment listening to the dog, its paws scratching against pipe fixtures.

“I mean, I know I'm alive, because feeling like that, feeling all shitty and numb and wanting to die, that's what life is, you know? Feeling. So I try to ask for change all nice, be polite and all to these shitkickers who totally don't want to look, they don't want to see some fucked-up pregnant chick in the middle of their vacation. They don't want to feel alive like that, right? And me, sometimes, I just want them to see me so bad, I could just fucking die; I mean, it's like I want them to see me dying. That way, they'll know I'm alive. ”

Brushing away tears that had not yet formed, she took a deep breath. “The pain's part of it. If you're not into pain, then don't do it.”

Daphney sniffled, pulling snot back into her nose. Somehow the cough syrup bottle had reappeared in her hand. She took a long swig, grimaced. “Okay. Time to jam.”

Drawing from the crumpled valentine in her lap, she placed some sort of metal into the girl's hand — some kind of tool; compact, heavy. “You're gonna have to get in close,” Daphney said, squirming in place, wiggling her bottom. She yanked her gym shorts down to her ankles, pushed aside the knapsack, spread her legs.