Wire Mesh Mothers

10

“What the hell you waiting for?” called Darlene from the sinkhole. Tony glanced back from the roadside and gave her sister the finger, though her hand was cold and she couldn’t really feel the finger wiggle.

“Where you goin’ dressed like that? You look like a clown! It ain’t Halloween, dumb ass!”

Tony turned away. She used to enjoy getting into it with her sister, loved to argue her and then punch her into the ground, but anymore it was a waste of time. Darlene was stupid as a slug. Let her get into it with the twins. Darlene was so brainless, an argument with Judy or Jody could keep her busy for hours.

Tony had much more important matters at hand.

Overhead, the sky had grown heavy and thick with impending sleet. The air smelled wet and metallic. Tony shook her head, and she could feel the blood ringing just behind her ears. Her arms and legs ached with the cold, but the revolver in her pocket was hot. The knife in her shoe was rubbing a blister, and it felt good.

Tony wasn’t exactly sure of the time because she didn’t wear a watch, though she had one. It was in her bedroom in the dresser with other stupid trash her family had given her for Christmases. It was a girly watch, a nasty, pink-banded watch with some sort of orange swirly pearly shit on the face. She’d been given it four years ago when she was eleven. Back when she still let them call her Angela. Back before she knew the truth of the matter, the reality of the world. Fuck it all, she’d been ignorant.

A low-riding station wagon drove by, slowed, and turned into the driveway of the peach house. Tony stared at it, imagining it bursting into flames and blowing bits of crack-heads all over the yard. The car door popped open after a few seconds. A thin, slow-moving man and a thin, slow-moving woman climbed out. They weren’t old — maybe early twenties — but walked like they’d been hit with a bat for the last forty years. They whacked on the splintery door; stood shifting foot to foot in the cold. The woman was wearing a thin sweater and no coat. The door at last opened and the heads went inside.

Tony bet there was a baby somewhere, left behind at the camper where these two walking trash bags lived. Maybe two babies. Little crack-addicted babies who cried all the time. Tony’s skin crawled at the thought.

A pick-up truck passed on the road, and a red El Camino. This car honked and Tony gave it the finger. She didn’t know them and didn’t want to.

“Who’s honkin’?” called Darlene.

Tony ignored her.

Just as it began to sleet, the sex-stinking Chevelle pulled up. Through the foggy glass, Tony could hear Whitey say, “Wait ‘til you see what we got, Tony!”

The rear car door popped open. Tony climbed in. Darlene, up in the sink-hole, watched with snide disinterest as her older sister, dressed like a clown, pulled away.