Hydroplane: Fictions Read online

  I'll be tempted to turn the radio up. To step out from the car and go, Hey boys.

  But they'll walk fast though the flora, and I'll lower the song and duck to the floor as they pass.

  Once I was seventeen. I had thoughts of being eighteen.

  Now I'm this. I have thoughts of seventeen.

  Once the girls went, You're really crazy.

  And I went, Better crazy than stupid.

  Once the girls went, How's it going.

  And I went, It's going, and left it at that.

  Once the girls went, Give me some skin.

  And we slid our palms like any kids.

  Static

  knowing the good of sunstreaked hair, of toothpick legs, a sweet ass hula-shaking on the boardwalk, a soft sweet ass shaking into the boys, hair teased into waves, toothpick legs and pointed tits and big hands on those perfect tits, bear paws squeezing like they're squeezing peaches, like they're squeezing overripe tomatoes, how overripe anything squashes when squeezed, how his bleach-blonde girlfriend's squash when your father squeezes in the kitchen of the beach house when you're standing in the doorway, when you shouldn't be, watching,

  knowing to push your tits into the boy you like, to press them into his chest where he stands by the House of Mirrors when you walk on the boardwalk with the local girls, your boy's hands in his pockets to shift his hard-on, all the girls going how hot he is, how hard his dick is, going you can tell by the way he's standing, slouched, that he's got a hard-on, going, I'd only throw him out of bed to fuck him on the floor, going, Look at his mouth when he looks at you, and, Mouth orange juice at him when he looks at you, because it looks sexy to mouth the words orange and juice, like you're going something else, like you're going, Aren't you sexy, the way your lips go around the words like that,

  knowing to eat your cotton candy slow as you can, to tongue it slow off the paper cone, and to wear shades of blue so later he'll see the ocean and sky and the blue lights blinking on the Flying Bobs and he'll remember you wore no shoes,

  feet deep in sand in the days, the air so hot you can't see the tip of your cigarette smolder, watching kites in the sky like birds through slit eyes, half dozing on a beach towel, half thinking how maybe tonight you'll let your boy press his mouth to yours and hard, you'll let him put his hands on your ass and squeeze if he wants, as you don't want to come off as some kind of cocktease like your father's trying-to-be-grown-up girlfriend who pushes your father when he tries to get her going in the beach house kitchen, her toothpick legs beginning to buckle, all that pawing and kissing when you shouldn't be watching, but there you are hoping to see something, fucking,

  your ass a peach, a ripe tomato, your boy could reach out and squeeze, and you can bet he loves peaches, though not tomatoes, how your father hates how they squash and the seeds and the mess of all that juice when the girlfriend cuts tomatoes on the kitchen counter and the tomatoes squirt like what, Like a pussy, your fat uncle poking a fork into an uncut tomato on the kitchen counter, Like a virgin's pussy, when the tomato squirts red, your father going to your fat uncle, Shut your fat face, your fat uncle laughing, his face turning purple and splotched, uglier than a face should be,

  knowing the good of sunstreaked hair teased into waves, eyes shadowed shimmery up to the brows, his hands all over your face, your tits, the two of you dug into a rut in the night-cold sand in the cave below the boardwalk well after the tourists leave for their hotels, well after the boardwalk shuts down for the night, and the seagulls picking at paper and bottle caps above your heads, and the waves far out and crashing in a way that makes you think of a million dishes crashing to a kitchen floor, and the trashpicker who pokes at trash with a stick and sings in the mornings when the beach is empty, and the sand on your boy, on his suntanned skin, and that coconut smell, that dirt sweat smell that makes you think, for a second, that your life is a life,

  a yellow silk nightgown hanging on a hook on the back of the washroom door, your father's girlfriend's nightgown you've never seen her wear but have looked at on the hook in the washroom on nights you're getting ready to meet the kids on the boardwalk, making your face shimmer silver above the eyes, blue below, red on the lips, the ruffles around the neck of the nightgown like daisy petals on overgrown daisies,

  knowing you're hot as any local girl, squeezing juice on your head to lighten your hair, untying your top to tan your back, always shoeless because who the fuck cares about splinters from the boardwalk, and who the fuck cares about cigarette butts pressed to your feet or the heat of the sand if you walk on the sand,

  dynamite making his dick hard like that, making it push beneath his pants pocket like you have some magic force that can turn things to stone just by hula-shaking nights with the local girls, just by smoking on the boardwalk, pushing your smoke out in the pucker you practice in the washroom mirror, a pucker learned from TV nurses and waitresses and girl cops dressed in tight tan pants, and those TV teachers, their walk to the chalkboard, their pants creeping up their cracks, your father going from his place on his chair back home, one hand tucked beneath his waistband, Will you look at that, and, Do you think she's a sexpot, so you'll go, No, so he'll laugh at you, going, Better than you, going, She's a peach, and, Your face could freeze time,

  mouthing the words orange and juice, the boys all going, Come here with that, the boys all going, Come here C. S. L., for cock sucking lips, going, Bring that pussy over here,

  your father, your fat uncle drinking beers on the sun porch, your uncle going, Where's the little girl, your father going, She's in the john, going, She's in a mood, how he does about the girlfriend when she swats him away with the back of her hand when you're caught watching touching when you shouldn't be watching, when she's a soft peach getting softer in his paws and she ducks out from his grip, your father going, What, the girlfriend going, Not now, your father going, You're in a mood,

  never knowing how to talk to boys, never knowing how to talk to grown-ups, not wanting to talk to your father's girlfriends at the beach, every summer a new bleach-blonde with toothpick legs and pointed tits and a boardwalk night shift, funnel cake maker, ride operator, souvenir seller, never able to order your own food in the boardwalk diners, the grown-ups going to the sunburned waiters, She'll have fried eggs, She'll have buttered toast, She'll have grape jelly, burnt bacon, because they know what you need, they know how you like it, and you never speak up when you should be speaking, thinking what if you fuck up and they laugh at you in front of a waiter and what if he's hot and you cry at the table and they laugh even harder and it never ends,

  dynamite getting yourself off face down in the sand by rolling slightly against the sand, by pressing slightly, thinking thoughts of your boy behind the House of Mirrors, thinking of him and you below the boardwalk making out hard in the night-cold sand, your boy's hands squeezing your ass, your tits, your boy's hands squeezing your father's girlfriend's tits, your father squeezing the girlfriend's tits, your father's paws going down her pants, the girlfriend undoing your father's buckle, your boy,

  your father and your fat uncle smoking on the sun porch, your father's girlfriend working night shift on the boardwalk, and you in the washroom putting on the girlfriend's makeup, more than your usual, made up like a sexpot like the TV sexpots, teasing your hair into something big, trying on the nightgown to see if it fits, finding it fits a bit large in places, long in others, but overall close, swiveling your hips in the girlfriend's nightgown in the washroom mirror in the figure eight you learned from TV when your father was sleeping in his chair in the room back home and the show switched to something, the news, then something, some late night show and instructions on how to hula dance, the host of the show in some awkward swivel, painful to watch, and the audience laughing and clapping as you tried out the swivel in front of the TV until your father waked in a snap with a sudden, Don't, and went back to sleep,

  your father and your fat ugly uncle looking as you slowly walk across the sun porch, the sun porch already a ha
ze of smoke, as you sit on a chair in the girlfriend's nightgown, as you spread your legs some then snap them shut before anyone sees, crossing your legs at the ankles and going, What,

  knowing the good of eyes like smoke, like smoldering ash, the brown eyes you line with blue, the brown hair you streak with lemon juice, your white bra padded enough to have something soft and big to press into your boy's chest, going, Look but don't touch, behind the House of Mirrors, going, Glad you thought about it though, Glad you noticed, Thanks for looking, Look again sometime, walking past with the girls and laughing by the Flying Bobs, laughing when the boys call you C. S. L., when they call you cocktease,

  appearing behind the House of Mirrors the first night at the beach after your father goes, Don't get back too late, and appearing, shoeless, in from the city, What's your name, Susan, Where you from, The city, What city, Baltimore, the local kids knowing you're hard as coconut, hard as stone, this tourist from the city who knows this beach is some stupid crazy land of spinning kites and every damn ride on the boardwalk spinning, the Himalayan, the Flying Bobs, songs playing up so loud on those rides every tourist in every hotel can hear them playing nights, the local boys going, Sweet Susie Q, the local girls going, Don't listen to them, the man at the Flying Bobs going, Do you want to go faster, the kids on the ride going, Yes, the songs so loud they get stuck in your head the way pictures get stuck in your head,

  someone on the sun porch seeing, your fat uncle seeing, a quick glimpse of something, you can tell, as he raises his eyebrows and looks at your father,

  wanting to be invisible from some magic force that can turn you to cloud when you have to turn to cloud so your father can't see you come in at sunrise, so the girlfriend can't see you with the kids on the boardwalk, so she can't see you picking at your salad at the table and go, Eat your salad, pretending she's a grown-up when she's closer to your age than to your father's, a local your father met on the beach, her top untied to tan her back,

  going, Give me a smoke, to some local girl who smells like sweat, who wears her hair the way you wear yours, long, streaked, who dresses how you dress, Give me a smoke, before walking past your boy, your boy going, Come here Susie Q, Where you going Susie Q, Where you going sexy girl, and you going, I don't know where I'm going, and, Why should I, making the local girls laugh,

  not eating your eggs and bacon in the diner, not looking up at the sunburned waiter, your head full of blue lights, blinking lights, thinking of your boy and what you'll do tonight, what you'll let him do,

  your father going he's been spending too much time with the girlfriend and he's got nothing to do before your fat uncle comes over tonight for beers and he'd like to take you to the boardwalk for a good dinner and a ride on the Ferris wheel, Father daughter, Won't that be fun, going you've been running around the boardwalk nights like some kind of crazy local, the girlfriend has seen you, has seen the crowd of kids clustered on the boardwalk, going, Wouldn't a night together be fun, just you two on the Ferris wheel, cotton candy, Father daughter, Dinner first,

  crazy when you don't let your boy grab your arm, the boys all going, Cocktease, going, Suck my dick, laughing, doubled over, the local girls laughing, a crazy spinning in your gut going faster faster, then faster when you let your boy touch your arm, when you let him grab hold of your arm, the girls all laughing, the girls all going, Look at you, your boy all looking at your face and you let him look, you let him lean in as if to kiss your lips, your father's girlfriend rushing past the House of Mirrors to get to work, your father's girlfriend pretending not to see you, but she sees you, you know, and she ignores you, the girlfriend walking faster, your boy going, Cocktease, when you wriggle away,

  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 g
o, 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,