The Best American Mystery Stories 2004

Joyce Carol Оates Doll: A Romance of the Mississippi

From The Gettysburg Review

What happened between Ira Early and his (step)daughter Doll is a secret between them of long standing. What has happened to x number of men as a result of this secret is more public.

Is Doll your actual name? (Doll is frequently asked.)

Doll is trained to say, Yes.

Yes but you may call me anything you wish. If calling me by another girl’s name is what you wish. (Doll giggles. Doll nibbles at the end of one of her pigtails, winningly positioned over her slender shoulder.)

In fact: Doll is not her name but what she is called. Doll has difficulty remembering her baptismal name as she has difficulty remembering the years before she turned eleven. Now Doll has been eleven for so long, it’s like trying to remember an old TV movie you hadn’t paid much attention to when you saw it. You can remember but only in patches. And why?

Doll is not a worrier. Doll leaves worrying to her (step)father, Ira Early.

And Mr. Early is a worrier. Complaining how first there were individual gray hairs in his thick dark hair that proudly swooped from his brow like a rooster’s comb, then swaths of gray, a kind of ugly tarnished gray, now this kind of piss-tinged white, and a bald spot at the crown of his head big as a grapefruit, as a result of Doll’s unpredictable behavior. When Doll swerves from the script and gets down-dirty mean.

Mr. Early sighs, shudders. Runs a hand through his thinning hair, strokes his bristly beard. Plays the role of the addle-brained old coot, granddaddy or bachelor uncle, in a TV family sitcom of the 1950s. As if he, a reasonable man, a man another man can trust, can’t control his daughter in these down-dirty mean moods.

(Is Doll in such a mood tonight? Mr. Early worries. It has been how many weeks since Doll’s last mean mood; he’s counting on his fingers one, two, three... and a half? Not a good sign.)

In the cushioned interior of the stately old La Salle Luxury sedan, Mr. Early, awaiting Doll’s return, pours himself a much-needed drink from his chilled thermos. A martini prepared exactly to Mr. Early’s taste, very dry. Tiny cocktail onions bob in the liquid; he scoops them out deftly in the crook of his little linger. Doll sneers at her (step)daddy for exhibiting what Doll believes to be incipient alcoholism, some notion Doll has picked up from afternoon TV, but Mr. Early knows better.

Mr. Early drinks and nods. Ah yes. Much needed.

A fierce December wind rocks the stately old relic of an automobile. A battalion of storm clouds like clotted intestines blows high overhead, in and out of the moon’s ghastly light. Mr. Early shivers. What city is this? East or west of the Mississippi?

(Doll has some childish notion, doesn’t like to stray too far from the great American river. Ask why she’ll pucker her snippy little face and say, Who wants to know? You? Which is an answer Doll has begun to give often, when she doesn’t like Mr. Early questioning her.)

(Who are you to judge us? What right do you have to believe yourself superior to us? So Ira Early fantasizes defending himself in some public place. Blinding lights in his eyes, possibly he’s handcuffed, legs shackled.)

Doll appears! Doll has been with a Mr. X (prepaid) and has subsequently fetched late supper for her Daddy and herself. In knee-high white leather boots that grip her slender legs like pythons, in stiletto heels that add several inches to her diminutive height. Doll makes her way with childish carelessness across patches of icy pavement. Her plaited pigtailed milkweed hair bobs winningly about her small head. Mr. Early calls out the window: Doll, damn! Don’t slip and fall.

For Doll is a beautiful little girl, but breakable.

Yessir we have money saved from our travels. It has been years now. Two or three days in a city then move on. Sometimes, and just possibly this will be one of those times, I will behave badly, and we’ll have to move swiftly on, not even staying the night and getting a little rest. Mostly we straddle the Mississippi River. You’d have to ask Daddy what his investments are.

At first Doll can hardly see her (step)daddy in the back of the La Salle where he’s waiting in the shadows. That ample belly, a fat old spider. Oh Dad-dy! Surprise.

Doll is bringing Mr. Early his seafood sushi (ugh!) and her (yummy) taco burger with home fries, cole slaw, giant Pepsi in a waxed container. Oh Daddy, open the damn door. Expect me to do goddamn everything?

Of course, Mr. Early has the door open, quick.

This child just enjoys being bossy. (Like her late mother.)

Mr. Early sure doesn’t approve of Doll’s eating habits. Bad as a taco burger is, and deep-fried fries, Doll can devour even worse food. Her nervous metabolism burns calories away at the present time, she’s just a child, but what about later? Years to come? Mr. Early’s face crinkles in worry envisioning a fattish Doll. The nougat-creamy skin puffed and bloated and certain to attract a less discerning, less well-bred category of admirer.

A wild windy river-smelling wind. A weekday night in Anonymous Metropolis, USA.

Yes we are on the Web. Daddy hooked on, it’s been a long time now. Like shrewd financial investments. Daddy looks like a dear old cuddly-cosy fat thing, but Daddy is wired.

There’s a pleasure in food when you’re hungry as there’s a pleasure in drink when you’re thirsty. Ira Early and his (step) daughter Doll devour their take-out suppers, sip and swallow their precious drinks, even as, less than two miles away in room twenty-two of the E-Z Economy Motel, the next friend (prepaid) stares at himself in a scummy mirror. He’s faded-red-haired with a maggoty pale skin even his doting (now deceased) mother dismayed over. He’s a man of conscience or wants to think so. Staring at his reflection murmuring, Sicko! Now we know.

The phone on the burn-scarred bedside table rings.

Ira Early watches Doll’s rapid fingers, pointy bloody-red manicured nails, as she punches numbers in the cell phone, an absurdly small gizmo (to Mr. Early’s bifocaled eye, most “new” electronic gadgets are gizmos you halfway expect to explode in your face) that never ceases to surprise him; it actually works. Like a regular phone.

Doll laughs at Daddy. Of course it works like a regular phone, silly. It is a regular phone.

(But isn’t a cell phone actually a radio? Some kind of miniature radio? Ira Early knows better than to argue with a moody daughter.)

Mr. Early takes the gizmo from Doll after she has dialed the number he’s told her. (His fingers are too big for the task.) Clears his throat, assumes his formal frown, elocution.

Hel-lo! Sir, this is—

Doll doesn’t pay much attention as her (step)daddy confirms with Mr. X. Place, time, duration. Doll has heard it all before, numberless times. (Hundreds?) Already in this old midwestern city on the river they’ve had good luck, and you have the feeling there’s more to come. Yesterday, today, now this evening. Mr. Early has planned a third day of appointments before moving on. Doll yawns into her hand that smells of taco burger.

No. Doll isn’t yawning, Doll is wiping her greasy mouth. That barracuda flash in Doll’s glassy dilated eyes. Mr. Early, fumbling to turn off the phone, happens to see. Or thinks he sees.

Doll? You’re going to be good tonight, yes?

Polity Doll shrugs. Wriggles that little Doll-shiver that can mean yes for sure or just the reverse.

Mr. Early fumbles now with the remains of his sushi. Doll jeers at him for using chopsticks. Chopsticks! Damn, Dad, we’re Americans. Raw tuna glop and crumbling rice that looks to Doll like dried-out brown ants drop into his crotch. Doll tosses him a soiled paper napkin with a snort of derision.

Ira Early is a worrier because he’s a perfectionist. He’s a perfectionist because he’s scared as hell of things going wrong. He’s scared as hell of things going wrong because he has long witnessed, and witnesses almost daily, things going wrong for other people. Sometimes seriously wrong. (Mr. Early can’t know how wrong things will go for Mr. Xin room twenty-two of the E-Z Economy Motel except, having caught a glimpse of Doll’s barracuda eyes, he has an uneasy premonition.)

Still, there’s the solace of the Do Not Touch policy. This, implemented by Ira Early from the start of his and Doll’s travels, is a shrewd piece of strategy. Do Not Touch (DNT on the Web) guarantees a discerning class of admirers. Also the age, eleven: young, pre-pubescent, but not too young. A higher class of (male) individuals of varied ages but tending to the educated middle/upper-middle income levels. Rarely less than college degrees, predominantly liberal arts. DNT among such individuals is an enticement, a novelty, and a relief.

Doll, you navigate. We’d best be on our way.

Doll whines, Oh Dad-dy! I’m not finished with my supper, you know I can’t eat fast as you.

Read off the directions, dear. We have only fifteen minutes.

He’ll wait. Geez!

It’s nearly 11 P.M. The moon has shifted conspicuously in the sky, like a protracted wink.

Driving south, or what seems to Mr. Early south, into the hive of the inner city. Maze of Exit Only lanes, exit ramps, cloverleafs, glaring lights. He hates expressways but has no choice. Beside him Doll balances her giant Pepsi between her knees and reads off directions from a sheet of paper. For a girl so clever and canny as Doll she has difficulty with words of more than a single syllable or containing unfamiliar consonants.

Kway top of the ramp. Exit right.

What’s that?

Kway—

Key you mean. Q-u-a-y pronounced Key.

Doll turns sullen. How the hell would I know that, home-schooled like I am?

Unknown to old-fart Daddy I have my neat little razor hidden in my boot. Wrapped in aluminum foil for safety. Maybe yes maybe no is what I’m thinking.

Since St. Louis it’s been a long time on the road.

Saying to Daddy, Know what? I want ostrich boots for Christmas. I want some sun in New Orleans.

At the E-Z Economy Motel he washes face, forearms, underarms, and hands. Though he isn’t (swears he isn’t!) going to touch the girl. His maggoty skin aflame as if peppered with acne. Thirty-seven years old, not seventeen, still has pimples, something must be wrong with his basal metabolism.

Now he’s out, on parole, should check this out.

When Mr. Early and his (step)daughter Doll, known then as Margaret Ann, were living at what authorities called a Fixed Address, up to two years ago, in fact in Mr. Early’s late wife’s family home in a dignified old historic district in Minneapolis, there were problems in their domestic life that going on the road has largely solved.

Hated to take this bright questing child out of school. My solace is, she’s scrupulously homeschooled. Hardly a day passes we don’t visit natural history museums, butterfly houses, pioneer villages. Planetariums.

Ira Early, long ago a student of Latin, mathematics, and world history at the Cincinnati Academy for Boys, is one to prowl secondhand bookstores and flea markets. The trunk of the La Salle is crammed with random volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Doll has, or used to have, a photographic memory and can still entertain enraptured Mr. Xs by reciting in a breathless schoolgirl voice the American presidents and their little-known rice presidents, summaries of economic theories (Kondratieff long wave cycle, econometrics, monetarism, neo-Keynesianism), major wars of Europe from the One Hundred Years to World War II. Also, major cranial nerves and arteries.

What’s my favorite? The carotid.

We tried! We did. But domestic life on Mount Curve Avenue was not for us.

Doll’s Mummy departed this world when Doll was, let’s see, two or three years old. At least it’s believed that Mrs. Early departed this world, in fact her remains have never been found. Doll has said indignantly that she does not believe “allegations” that her Daddy murdered his wife/her mother, dismembered her corpse, and scattered the pieces along forty miles of the Mississippi south of Minneapolis, weighed down with rocks and never to surface, no Doll does not.

Doll says, It was a long-ago time before cable TV and cell phones. I know my Daddy’s heart and he would never harm a hair on anyone’s head who did not deserve it.

When one of Them asked me. Does your father mistreat you, showing me silly naked rubber dolls, I said, No no not I and hummed loudly to myself and rocked from side to side.

I love my Daddy. (It’s true; Ira Early is Doll’s biological father. Not her [step]father as they tell associates and Mr. Xs. Even among Mr. Early’s widespread contacts there exists the principle of drawing the line at certain forms of behavior, and this principle, if you’re in business for yourself, it’s wise to respect.)

(The long-ago time? Some say it was in the early 1970s, and some say it was 1953, but still others argue that Ira Early and his (step)daughter Doll began their travels in 1930, after the crash. Doll is perplexed by this notion — she’s been eleven years old for more than seventy years?)

How old are you, Doll, Mr. X will surely inquire. If Mr. X in room twenty-two of the E-Z Economy Motel is any kin to Mr. X of the other motels scattered along the Mississippi. That question I’ve been hearing all my life, getting so it seriously pisses me off.

Daddy says, Humor ’em. They are a priceless (because inexhaustible) commodity.

Daddy says, Play the script. See, they’d recoil from ten.

They don’t want to hear twelve, either. Still less thirteen. There’s a kind of consensus.

DNT has worked out really well. Or almost.

On Mount Curve we tried. There was even a Grandma with a withered cherry face and Jell-O eyes, Mummy’s mother, Doll tried hard to love but failed. Sniffing in the old woman’s arms holding her breath as long as she could then gagging and pushing free. And Daddy who was a youngish widower bearing his grief stoically one day tugged at his then-dark goatee and said, Margaret Ann you’re my daughter, aren’t you! And nothing of hers. My genes are your destiny, darling. Gravely shaken Daddy was, he’d not realized father-love until that instant.

Still we tried for (how many?) years to lead “normal” — “average” — “approved-оf” — lives. Even went to Mummy’s old church, sometimes.

For all the good it did us.

Always motels or “cabins.” (Yes, there are still “motor cabins” in the rural American Midwest.) Never hotels with lobbies. (Though Mr. Early and Doll sometimes check into Marriots on the expressways, father and daughter traveling under a variety of names and guises.) If Mr. X, Mr. Y, Mr. Z journeys to meet them in Anonymous Metropolis, if he wishes to stay at a good hotel, he will have to take a room at a motel too, like the E-Z Economy. Best for Doll not to appear in any populous brightly lit lobby in her high-heeled white leather stiletto-heel boots, purple suede jacket, plaited pigtailed milkweed-hair bobbing about her exquisite Doll head.

Parentless eleven-year-old with painted eyes, luscious peachy lips, and blusher on her cheeks. Oh, no.

They fled Minneapolis for a good reason. Hounded out, you could say. Persecuted. That terrible day the “public health” inspector arrived uninvited, unexpected, at the house. An officer with the fascist power to “report” Ira Early to the authorities and to threaten him with arrest for Parental Negligence.

Well, possibly there’d been warnings. Registered letters from Margaret Ann’s school addressed to Ira Early, importunate telephone calls from the principal of Mount Curve Elementary he failed to take seriously. Margaret Ann Early, who is enrolled in sixth grade, where is she? Why is she so frequently absent from classes? Why, when she’s in school, docs she fall asleep at her desk? Why are her grades so poor, her deportment so rebellious?

Examined for Signs of Abuse. There were none.

In room twenty-two of the E-Z Economy Motel the man known variously as Mr. X and (as mischievous Doll is shortly to call him) Mr. Radish gazes at himself in a scummy bathroom mirror. Runs his hands through his thinning faded-red hair, observes liquidy despair and mad exulting desire in his otherwise ordinary, mildly bloodshot, eyes. Thinking it isn’t too late, he could call this off. Could just walk out.

He’s a decent guy, really. He’s made mistakes he will never make again. (He believes.)

His groin is throbbing, a pleasurable sensation that fills him with disgust. Do. Not. Touch.

He flushes the toilet to make sure it’s flushed and reenters the other room, smooths the soiled rust-colored corduroy bedspread with both his hands. It’s 11 P.M.; maybe the child won’t be delivered?

It’s 11 P.M., true. But Ira Early can’t be coerced into speeding even by his own wish. In f act, he has an exasperating habit of driving ten miles below the speed limit. In the restored 1953 relic he drives with the fussiness of an elder who disdains contemporary life. It’s part of Mr. Early’s gentlemanly style. It’s part of why you trust him. In his suits with vests, neckties from another era, rimless bifocals riding the bridge of his slightly pudgy nose. His white hair and whiskers give him an appealing Santa Claus look, or maybe it’s that kooky genius Albert Einstein you’re made to think of. Ira Early’s cold shrewd eyes sparkling behind the bifocals like a school teacher’s and that vague smile, lips tight over big chunky carnivore teeth. Bartenders, motel managers, the majority of Mr. Early’s colleagues and associates persist in the error, This old fart is no threat.

After Quay, what?

Looks like — City Center? Exit left.

This Anonymous Metropolis is a maze of ugly streets that should be familiar to Ira Early; he’s been here before, and Doll has been here before, who knows when. You will have noticed that the Inner City is the same city throughout the Midwest. Endlessly repeated Decaying Inner City of a Once-Thriving City. It’s like a suction tube, drawing them in. Like bloody water swirling gaily down a drain just slightly clogged with hairs.

(Why is Doll thinking such a wicked thought? Snaky little pink tongue wetting her crimson lips.)

Exit left, I said, Dad-dy! You’re headed right.

You said left. I mean, you said right.

I said fucking left, Dad-dy.

Just watch that mouth, miss.

And I’m hungry, too, Doll says loudly. Alter this I want some ice cream. Fucking fudge ripple.

I said, miss, watch that mouth.

Watch your own mouth, Dad-dy. You’re the wicked ol’ pre-vert.

(Doll is slipping into a mean mood. The taco burger was mostly cheese. She’s thinking possibly she won’t go for just the carotid; that’s too easy. That was St. Louis. It’s been eight months at least since she did the other; that’s more challenging. And brought back a certain rubbery goody for Dad-dy.)

(Who pretends to be horrified, sickened. But for sure Mr. Early keeps these Mementos of Adventure like any honest pre-vert.)

Front Street. See it, Daddy?

Of course. I’m not blind.

In the E-Z parking lot, Doll repairs her makeup. For an impatient spoiled girl she’s surprisingly deft at painting her face, the eyes especially. As Mr. X nervously strokes his flushed face, turns his head from side to side staring at himself in the mirror.

But is that me? Or some sicko who has dragged me here?

Mr. Early escorts Doll to room twenty-two (which is lighted within, shades drawn). But Mr. Early discreetly steps back into the shadows of a dumpster when Doll knocks on the door and the door swings open.

Silently mouthing the words God be with you, dear.

And your Daddy close by, standing watch.

(Should he have forced his moody prepubescent daughter to show him the contents of her handbag? Her jacket pockets? Her sexy leather boots? Damn, he’d meant to but forgot.)

The door is opened warily. Doll is invited inside. Biting her lower lip to stifle a nervous giggle. Why, Doll isn’t fearful of this individual she has never glimpsed before — is she?

Not Ira Early’s (step)daughter. Not Doll.

This guy reminds Doll of an upright radish. Mr. Radish!

He’s nervous of her, too. He’s excited. He’s just standing there. Fingers twitching and a sickly oily glow to his face. Like he has never seen anything like Doll before. Like he’s trying to decide what to make of her. But he has enough presence of mind to shut, lock, double-lock the door.

Trying to smile. Licking his wormy lips.

D-Doll. That’s your... actual name?

Doll shrugs. Maybe yes maybe no.

And you’re — Mr. Radish has a stammer? — elev-elev-ven years old?

Doll shrugs and mumbles what might be Yessir. She’s a fascinating mix of mute, shy, sly, naughty-girl, fluttery eyelashes, and something sullen beneath, like the beat of hard rock. Mr. Radish is enraptured, gaping and smiling and flexing his long fingers.

Saying, stumbling with the words, You l-look older than eleven I guess... but you’re v-very beautiful, Doll. Whoever you are.

Doll mumbles, Um, thanks mister. Shrugs off her purple leather jacket, lets it fall onto the bed like this is the most natural gesture in the world. Shakes out her bristly plaited pigtails seeing in the corner of her eye how ol’ Mr. Radish stares.

Long as the policy is Do Not Touch, what’s it matter?

Oh he’s feeling morose, melancholy.

Maybe this isn’t the right life; sometimes you wonder. The moon so vivid, like the eye of God. Seeing all and forgiving? Maybe not.

Ira Early has emptied the thermos of its contents, decides to drop by the Kismet Lounge he’d noticed a block from the E-Z on Front Street. Doll won’t know; be gone just a few minutes, sweetheart.

This Mr. X, junior high school teacher, Mr. Early has been assured wouldn’t hurt, wouldn’t so much as touch, a flea.

Where’s the TV remote? Doll’s eyes scan the grungy room.

Mr. Radish just wants to talk. Well, fine. Except Doll can’t be expected to answer his meandering questions or even to listen. She’s done her part; she’s wound up like a mechanical doll, one-two-three-four, the usual. But it sure looks spontaneous! Facial movements, fluttering eyelashes, more of the smile, variants of the smile, sweet lowered gaze, snaky pink tongue moistening her lips, simulation of a blush, if Doll could blush. She’s a little pissed at this guy, saying she looks older than eleven. Fuck that. Obviously she looks older than eleven, but not that much older! Doll’s thinking she has been insulted; she’ll slash this asshole’s carotid artery, watch him bleed out like the last one. Except this time, for sure, Doll won’t get blood splatters. Bad enough on your clothes, but in your pigtailed hair it’s a bummer.

Bum night, sort of sad-making says the graying balding ponytailed bartender like he’s wanting to converse with Ira Early, the joint is so dead. Mr. Early runs his fingers through his white hair and beard like the rakings of conscience. Yes, says Mr. Early with biblical intonation, it is sad indeed. Mankind’s lot.

The ponytailed bartender, you can imagine was a flower child in the previous century, says eagerly, Tragic, d’you think?

Mr. Early gazes into his drink. Frank truth resides there.

Well, maybe just sad, my friend. Tragic is big league.

Mr. Radish manages a coughing sort of laugh. Bad as clearing his throat. Saying, like an upright corpse flirting, Doll you say you’re c-called Doll... meaning your name is something else?

Doll bounces on the bed, stinky old corduroy cover, softly squealing, giggling, in the manner of a six-year-old, since this is expected. Mr. Radish is an ideal audience, gaping and gazing with mouth slightly ajar as if he has fallen asleep on his feet.

Doll shrugs. Maybe yes maybe no.

You can tell me, Doll. Your name.

Doll has located the TV remote, half-hidden beneath USA Today on the bedside table. Graceful as a child ballerina she leaps from the bed to snatch it up.

My n-name is...

Doll isn’t listening. Doll sees this guy is no threat. Homely as a broken-down shoe, faded-red hair like an old brush, those blinking doggy eyes. Almost you’d feel sorry for this creep. (Almost.) He’s no age Doll could judge, but then Doll is no judge of adult ages: anyone not a kid is “old” — “old bag” — “old fart.” Mr. Radish she sees is wearing a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy forearms, but hairy in patches like he has the mange. Trousers that look like he’s been sleeping in them. Ugly old lace-up shoes. Mr. Radish is flabby, slope-shouldered, otherwise he’d be tall as Ira Early. But lacking what you’d call dignity, stature. And Mr. Radish smells.

Ugh. That boring odor of an excited male. Plus anxiety and shame. An odor Doll has been smelling in rooms like this for a long long time since leaving Mount Curve, Minneapolis.

It’s TV time. But Mr. Radish keeps pacing in nervous half circles around Doll, making asshole small talk in this hoarse crackling voice like something you’d want to mash beneath your stiletto heel.

Saying, D-Doll? Who are your people?

Ummm. Dunno.

Is that man who... that man who spoke with me on the phone... really your stepfather?

Doll drawls, Stepdaddy.

Why, that’s terrible!

Doll switches on the TV. Doll drawls some answer that sounds right.

Your own stepfather? Has done this to you?

(Fudge ripple is what Doll wants. Damn, she deserves it.)

(This guy. Not worth his throat cut; he’s just a sad jerk. Or the thing between his legs, assuming he has one, sawn off. Not tonight.)

But, dear... how has this... your life... happened?

Doll drawls, Dunno, sir. Just happened.

Do you go to school, Doll? I mean... are you being educated?

Mr. Radish has shoved his fidgety hands deep into his trouser pockets, stands staring at Doll on the bed and breathing like something wounded.

Doll says, a little sniff of pride, I’m homeschooled.

Homeschooled! Mr. Radish laughs like someone has grabbed him and squeezed between the legs.

In the mostly deserted dark of the Kismet Lounge, Mr. Early is nursing a second martini. Down-in-the-dumps, he’d better be careful he isn’t losing track of time; he’d meant to return to the E-Z after a ten-minute break, but more minutes have passed.

Frankly Ira Early has been hurt. His own (step)daughter he adores called him a wicked оl’ pre-vert. That’s unfair.

Wicked ol’ pre-vert, she’d said. And laughed.

Well, maybe there is something to this: Those mementos Doll has given Mr. Early — consequences of Doll’s mean mood in one or another E-Z motel — he has not discarded in haste like you’d expect. For some reason, he can’t. These goodies, as Doll calls them, are signs. Symbols. Hard to say what they mean. But they do mean something.

See, Dad-dy? What you made me do.

Better them them me, girl.

An old-fart nervous type would “dispose of” such evidence in case of police intervention, but Ira Early is a unique personality. More unique, you might say, than the legendary Doll.

Chronicles of Midwestern crime will never plumb the depths of Ira Early. Even those who’d met Ira Early and his (step)daughter Doll will not know how to speak of them.

These mementos Mr. Early stores in jug bottles, in formaldehyde. He has five, six... seven?... scattered in rental lockers as far north as Mille Lacs, Minnesota, and as far south as Greenville, Mississippi. Under various names, not a one of them “Early.” Some kind of sentimental record maybe he’ll look back on one day when Doll is finally too mature to be Doll. Now Mr. Early is feeling maudlin.

Refresh your drink, mister? inquires the ponytailed bartender.

Mr. Early shakes his Santa Claus head no, better not, hears himself say, Well. If you insist.

Doll, sprawled provocatively on the bed, hasn’t removed the sexy white knee-high boots; her black satin miniskirt rides up her lovely thighs. Her spaghetti-strap top is crushed-velvet gold, and there’s a teasing suggestion of little-girl breasts, or padding, at her bosom. Those bristly pigtails sprout from her small head with a look like, if you touched them, they’d give you a shock. (Mr. Radish’s wickedest dream come true. Maybe he should rape-murder, or murder-rape, this exquisite child, get it over with in a burst of passion, and then murder himself? But how, practically speaking, is a man like Mr. Radish going to murder himself? He’s not made for heroics.)

Doll is watching a TV game show. Looks like Millionaire. Squeals and applause and that sappy emcee who bears a resemblance to Ira Early, in fact. Bored, Doll switches to another channel. She’s gotten too restless, these months and years of traveling with her (step) Daddy, to watch any TV program more than three or four minutes, likes to surf the channels from one to ninety-nine and back again like a merry-go-round. If Mr. Early is present, he’ll take the remote from Doll’s fingers firmly no matter how she protests. TV is just plain bad for the brain, Mr. Early believes. But Mr. Early is not here, just Mr. Radish, who seems to adore her and will not touch her. Staring as Doll aims the remote at the TV like a wand.

Doll hates commercials, but she’s staring at this one for PMS. That is, for the prevention of. Premenstrual stress. Doll whispers these mysterious words aloud. Her Daddy has assured her this will never happen to her. He gives her pills daily, and there are other ways of keeping Doll from that ugly phenomenon called pubescence.

Switches the channel to Funniest Animal Videos. There’s a mournful-looking basset hound and a bald oblong-headed baby sharing an orange Popsicle as family members look on howling, tears running down their cheeks. Doll laughs too, but in disgust. Yuck! Everyone knows dogs’ mouths are cesspools of germs.

Mr. Radish has tugged his shirt open, revealing a patchily red-haired pimply chest Doll doesn’t wish to see. Mr. Radish is still chattering excitedly; maybe he’s drunk or high on painkillers. Doll seems to recall Mr. Early mentioning this Mr. X at the E-Z is something like a junior high teacher, an educator, and an idealist.

Saying, swallowing hard, D-Doll, are you listening? I’m real ashamed of myself, for this. You’re a beautiful child. I just know you have a b-beautiful soul. It’s shitty what your own stepfather has done to you. You deserve a whole lot better than... this.

Doll shrugs. Uh-hmm?

Frozen-faced Doll ignores this bullshit. Staring fiercely at the TV screen as she clicks through the channels rapid as a lizard scaling a wall. Her Cleopatra eyes have the glassy-hungry TV look of a child rushing through the channels, certain that something special is waiting. In a cold fury she’s thinking maybe she’ll not only saw open Mr. Radish’s bulgy carotid artery, she’ll gouge out one of his bulgy eyes. That time she surprised Mr. Early with a coin-sized slab of flesh containing the belly button of some crude Ozark trucker, the old humbug had been truly amazed. Doll: this goes beyond my DNA, I swear.

Wish I could, Mr. Radish says, oh God wish I could save you. Beautiful little girl like you.

Mister thanks, but I’m saved.

(Doll checks the time: Oh God not even 11:30 P.M.)

I could p-pray for us. The power of prayer is awesome.

Mister thanks, it’s okay.

A man like that stepfather of yours, Mr. Radish is panting, should be cast down in fire and brimstone forever. Should be turned in to the police, at least.

Doll pretends she hasn’t heard this. Though she has heard it.

Well. Let Mr. Radish say what he wishes — that’s part of the fee — and he can do what he wishes, to himself exclusively; Doll won’t so much as glance around at him. If this creep strangles in his own spit, if his face turns the color of boils, she won’t glance at him.

But she might say, if the urge comes upon her, Oh mister is it time for Doll’s bath?

Or, smiling the naughty-little-girl smile, batting her eyelashes like butterfly wings, Doll wants her bath. It’s time!

In the Kismet Lounge, Mr. Early sees suddenly to his horror it’s 11:46 P.M. He’s been in this place far longer than he’d planned, and he’s had more to drink than he’d planned. Shame! What if, back at the E-Z, his little girl is crying piteously for him?

Nothing like that has happened yet, exactly. Not since an unfortunate night in El Dorado, Arkansas, when Ira Early and his (step)daughter Doll were new and naive in their adventures.

Are you nek-ked, mister? Don’t peek.

From inside the steamy bathroom, Mr. Radish croaks out, Yes.

Doll, naked too, biting her lower lip to keep from giggling, pushes open the door. Looks like Mr. Radish has done as she requested.

The last twenty minutes of Mr. Radish are going to be a game.

Mr. Radish has been told it is a bath. Doll has another game in mind.

(Seems that, that morning, I’d done the bad thing. Prepared a fresh razor blade on a ballpoint pen from one of the motels, fixed with that Crazy Glue that can’t ever be pried off, as my Daddy had forbidden after St. Louis. Oh, this blade is sharp.)

Doll is slender and small-boned as an actual doll might be, of some long-ago time. Doll has tiny breasts with warm brown flower-let nipples and no more hairs at the fork of her legs than the down on the back of her neck. Her legs are long, like they could spring into action and run her out of your reach, just make the wrong move. In the humid bathroom air, Doll’s creamy nougat skin is slightly flushed, and her big eyes shine with anticipation. Doll’s bristly pigtails are pinned up neatly onto her head and covered with a cheap plastic shower cap provided by the K-Z Motel. Must be in one of her mean moods, as Mr. Early would say, but in fact Doll is laughing.

Like an actual eleven-year-old might cry, breathless, Is that bath water nice and hot?

It’s hot, Doll. It... is.

Mr. Radish, obeying the rules of the game not to peek, splashes the water with his cupped hands. Doll sees a wedge of sickly pale chest and a swath of faded-red hair. It isn’t too hot, mister, is it?

No! It’s just right.

I don’t want to be burned, see. But I like a hot bath.

D-Doll, it’s just right. You can stick a t-toe in.

Is there some nice soap, mister? I want lots and lots of suds.

There’s a real nice soap here. Big as the palm of my hand, see?

Don’t peek! I can see.

It smells real nice, too. Ivory.

Doll says, chiding, as if Mr. Radish had naughtily begun to peek over his shoulder at her, Mister! Turn your head and shut your eyes too.

I am, Doll. I am.

Poor Mr. Radish quivering and shivering in the bathwater in that grimy tub and the tattered shower curtain like a stage curtain pulled back to reveal him to jeering eyes. Doll summons forth her Doll-rage. Doll is holding the razor-on-the-stick just behind her right buttock, along the smooth curve of her warm flesh. Seeing naked hairy knees drawn up to a collapsed-looking chest reminds her of Ira Early and that look of a man who, in his clothes, looks solid, but without his clothes is flaccid and lumpy and you just want to slash-slash-slash.

Doll’s eyes are revealed a sharp glassy-green, like reflectors.

Mister? Pro-mise? Don’t look till I’m in the tub?

Back in the bedroom the TV is turned up loud but not too loud. The E-Z is that kind of reliable motel; people mind their own damned business. The time, Doll has shrewdly noted, is 11:48 P.M. A practical time. If her weak-willed Daddy has drifted down the street for a drink or two, by this time he’s back. Mr. Radish croaks out a final reply, yes he p-promises not to l-look, and Doll tiptoes to the tub to where the naked man awaits her trembling in anticipation, and she strikes unerringly with the razor one! two! three! in the sawing technique she has perfected, and a four! and five! for good measure with such deadly force (city homicide detectives will marvel) that the victim’s head is nearly decapitated from his body.

Softly Doll murmurs, See?

Oh, God, it’s after midnight. Mr. Early pulls into the parking lot panting and repentant. Where is Doll? Hasn’t Doll left the motel room yet? He’d had a premonition something bad might happen; he’ll never forgive himself if it’s his own daughter it happened to.

Seeing how the moon has slid halfway down the sky behind the E-Z Economy Motel and when you glance up, shreds of cloud like broken cobweb are dragging across its surface.

Dad-dy. I’m not mad at you.

Departing this city south on I-55 thirty-six hours earlier than Ira Early planned. He’s speechless in indignation and worry, and Doll just laughs at him. Tossing a small wad of bills onto his lap when she’d climbed into the car, no credit cards. Ira Early never swipes credit cards; that’s how you get caught. Doll is humming to herself, unplaiting her pigtails. Oh, her scalp hurts, the roots of her hairs and every hair. And she’s hungry.

Across the state line in Missouri they stop at a twenty-four-hour diner. Sliding into a corner booth not wanting to be noticed. Mr. Early is wearing a coal miner’s cap meant to hide his hair, but there isn’t much he can do about the Santa Claus whiskers. Orders a beer; he’s damned thirsty. But too upset to eat. Doll shamelessly devours a fudge ripple sundae. Wiping her prim little mouth to say finally, knowing how Mr. Early has been frantic to hear. Well, Daddy. Could be I have something for you.

Oh, Doll. No.

A good-у. For Dad-dy.

Giggling, passing to him beneath the table the aluminum-wrapped thing out of her purple leather jacket from Gap. Mr. Early would shove it back onto her knees in disgust except his fingers grasp it instead, groping. He wonders what it might be, something soft and fleshy still warm inside its wrapper? You ol’ pre-vert, Doll giggles. All for you.

It’s our reputation I’m worried about, Doll. Our livelihood in the world.

Oh grump! Nothing’s gonna stop us.

Is this true? Ira Early, stroking his bristly beard, wants to think so.

Before they leave the diner, Mr. Early takes out the revered AAA map, much creased from their travels, and smooths it open on the tabletop. Doll gets to choose their next destination, though sometimes, in the interests of business pragmatism, Mr. Early intervenes. Doll’s pointy red-painted nail hovering over the map. Where next?