Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

Break apart, come together, break apart. The rooms and their furniture were there before me. But invisibly, it all seemed to break, re-form, and break again and again.

The phone rang; it was the social worker. She said she had spoken to Velvet’s mother, and she was not dying; she just had irritable bowel syndrome. When the social worker asked why her daughter thought she was dying, Mrs. Vargas laughed. She said she was teaching the girl a lesson.

“About what?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask,” said the woman. “I’ve been doing this upwards of five years and I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

Break apart, come together, break apart.

I put on the outfit Ginger gave me for my birthday and the butterfly ring and the red earrings shaped like flowers. I took the Ginger-doll out of the cotton-ball box and put it in my front pocket where you couldn’t see it. I put the picture of my grandfather in my back pocket. I put clothes under my blankets until it looked like maybe I was under them. I turned off the light and walked down the hall quiet. I walked quiet all the way out the house and down the block and then ran for the bus that Alicia told me to take.

I’d never walked on the street or rode the bus that late at night, and it was scary, but it got me interested. The people were mad rude but funny too. In the seat behind me these older girls were talking like: “An’ then I said to her, ‘Bitch, all that ring means is he paid too much to fuck ya waffcake ass,’ she just stand there and look stupit!” And the other one laughed and went, “That bitch best get her weight up if she want to step to you, girl, you are a bossalina next to her!” And men were talking to me, and looking, their eyes soft or hungry or both. I sat next to a older lady all the way and she talked to me like she knew me to keep them off, and she said, “You take care, sweetheart!”

And I remembered that restaurant me and Ginger were at and I thought, Everybody on this bus is a bossalina next to them, even the old lady. Because she has something in her face and her voice nobody in that place had, even if they do eat thirty-dollar olive oil.

When I got to the party, I thought it even more. There was a evil-looking dude guarding the door and people all around waiting to get in, and they were rocking the hell out of it — I never got what that meant until now: gold high heels, chain belts, brand-name skinny jeans, shining lips, dyed blond braids tight up on the head, shining ironed hair rolled up in a bun to the side, white eyeliner, nails out to here. My heart pounded. I wanted to turn around and go home, but I couldn’t stop looking: they were heaven-beautiful with a little hell added for flavor. The women like lightning hitting the ground, the men like thunder calling back. I knew somebody who called his mom “my ol’ bird.” Next to these people, Ginger in her white leather pants was a ol’ bird even if she did have a diamond ring. Next to these people I was…in middle school.

But so was Alicia, and she invited me.

I stepped up to the evil man and he checked me like What the hell? But when I checked him back, his eyes changed and he wasn’t so evil. He said, “What you doin’ here, Miss Pretty? You look like you need to be home in your twin bed.”

“Alicia invited me,” I said.

“Alicia? Alicia who?”

“And Dominic.”

“Dominic, huh.” He turned his head like he might go inside and talk to somebody — but then he saw more people coming and just scrunched his face like, Whateva. “Okay, shawty,” he said. “Slide through.”

I was late for work. The subway was speeding much too fast; it was boiling hot and barely lit and the people were all too close to me, so close their faces pressed against mine. Their bodies were crushed and wrong-shaped, their faces frowning with eyes crunched closed and lips pushed out like animal noses. They pulled at me and I saw I was at work, with Mrs. Somebody pulling at my clothes and whimpering because her saggy little tits were coming off, her hands were coming off. Her own hands were trying to put her hands back on. She said her children had died in a fire and there was the building burning while the children cried. Oh God, my daughter was in the building, I could hear her crying for me, she was only five! She had died when she was only five! I stood up and screamed for the subway to stop, I had to save my daughter, but no one could understand and it kept going.

I woke up sweating bullets. I loosened Dante’s grip and went to down the hall to Velvet. I found her and put my hand on her; I found her in soft pieces. I clawed through them, my breath clawing through me. Fear came like a hurricane and went out my mouth.

The music was so loud, it was like it was moving us, moving everybody. It was dark, but still I could see rooms like regular rooms in somebody’s house, people drinking, talking, dancing, except in one room I saw a girl with her back to a man, her hands on the wall, dress and leg up, him grabbing her butt and shoving at her. I looked away quick. I saw girls maybe my age in one corner, talking and smoking something. Alicia wasn’t here. No way she was here. This guy started talking to me, he said, ay, memba me? We were up against a wall, people pushing past. He said he knew Dominic. I knew his face but I didn’t know from where, so I said no to the smoke at first, but then I thought, At least I will be doing something and took it. The music got louder; I saw his mouth moving but couldn’t get what he said because the music was pulling me down a tunnel, and I was in the good feeling of Strawberry and the sea horse and that feeling did not belong here. I could see the boy was watching me very close, but I was thinking how once me and Pat were putting out these ponies, Nova and Sugar, and Nova got away from Pat and ran around the fence alongside Sugar, and Sugar ran with her inside the fence, her eyes bugged and her mouth foaming. The boy waved his hand in front of me. And then I knew him. He was the boy on the street who had told me I needed to play my position. I moved off the wall and said, “Where’s Dominic?” He said, “I don’t know where he is, Ma, but I’m here,” and put his dick against me. I said, “I’m not your ma,” and moved away, but he pushed against me, saying no bullshit he knows I’m feelin’ him. That’s when I saw Brianna and her girls mean muggin me right in the eye. He took my hand and put it on his dick. I yanked it back and said, “I’m feelin’ you, all right — you make me feel sick,” and he slapped me hard enough I hit the wall. Somebody shoved Brianna out the way. “Get off that girl,” said Dominic, and he was taking up the whole screen.

“Ay, I’m not hurtin’ lil’ chicken head.”

“Bitch, this girl is twelve and she ain’t no chicken nothin’. You touch her one more time Ima lay you out, that’s my word.”

“I ain’t gonna be no bitch,” he said like a bitch.

Dominic didn’t bother to answer the bitch, he just took my arm and pulled me out the door. “What in hell are you doing here?” he said.

“Alicia invited me.”

“Alicia? Who — oh, that lil’ skank? Since when you hangin’ with that?”

“Since when you know me so well? I know Alicia since third grade, and FYI, I am not twelve. I turned thirteen last week.”

He tried not to smile. “Oh, so you a big girl now.”

“Big ger. ”

He looked around; there was people there, but they weren’t looking. He crouched down with his hands on my shoulders and his legs open. His legs were long, and warmth came from them. He said, “Okay, big girl,” and I felt myself open to let the warmth come in me. “You know your girl played you by asking you here, right? So now don’t play yourself. Go home, a’ight?” We weren’t moving, but I felt something come from him to me, heavy and delicious. I looked at him from the bottom of me; something came up in me and met him strong. Inside his eyes, he fell back. “Ay,” he said. “You are a big girl ain’t you?” He touched my lips with the back of his thumb; my lips kissed it before my mind thought. He stood, moving his hands over me, over my breasts. I stretched up to him, my lips open. He bent to me, his mouth open too, his hands feeling my butt.