Like a Woman (7 page)

Jackson took a long hit, holding it in as long as she could. She exhaled slowly, smiling. “It's about us,” she said. “The first time we met.”

“Serious?” Taylor said, sitting up. “You're writing a fucking story about us? Can I read it?”

Jackson laughed. “Oh, now all of a sudden girl's interested in my writing,” she teased.

“No, I'm serious,” Taylor said. “Let me read it.”

Jackson took another hit before passing the joint back to Taylor. “Tell you what,” she said. “I'll let you read my story on one condition.” She laughed as Taylor groaned. “First, you have to write your own damn story and then you can hear mine. Instead of giving me so much shit about my writing, I think you should write something. Then we'll swap. Come on, girl. Just try it.”

“I don't know how to write a story,” Taylor complained. “You know I never passed a damn English class in my life.” She was just starting to get a nice buzz and now things were getting complicated. All she wanted was to get high and hang out for a while, not to have to work for it.

“That shit doesn't matter,” Jackson argued. “You read all the fucking time and can't shut up when you start telling your damn stealing stories. Girl, I know you can write.”

“What do I write about?” Taylor asked, sullen, giving up.

Jackson pushed her and laughed. “Ah, baby. Don't go getting all attitudinal on me now. Just write about the same thing. Write about how we met. Just tell a story. Hell, I know you can do that.”

Taylor grabbed a pen and some paper and climbed up into the overhead sleeping bunk, ignoring the heat, taking the joint with her. She lay down on her back, stretched her legs out the full length of the bed, and sighed. She thought about the first time she had seen Jackson, how the girl had always caught her eye but they'd never talked. She thought about how she'd secretly wished it had been Jackson who'd cut up that trick who'd harassed her, but hadn't known for sure. She thought about the first time they'd actually met, how she'd seen Jackson cornered in an ally without her knife.
Okay
, she thought.
I can tell that story
. She relit the joint and began to write.

A half hour later, she heard Jackson get up and come over to the bunk.

“Okay,” Jackson said. “I've been hearing some scribbling going on up there. Plus, you've been seriously bogarting that joint. Come on. Let me see what you've got.” She climbed up on the bed and curled against Taylor, reaching for the paper. Snuggling in, her head on Taylor's shoulder, she read:

“Damn, girl,” Jackson laughed. “That's a trip. You write just the way you talk.”

“What's wrong with that?” Taylor asked. “How am I supposed to write?”

“It's cool, baby,” Jackson said. She reached over and put her hand on Taylor's belly. “It's your style. Ain't nothing wrong with that. You just jump right in and get right down to business, that's all. Sometimes writers just get, I don't know, maybe a little more
literary
about it, that's all.”

Taylor snatched the piece of paper back. “Literary,” she frowned. “What the fuck. Besides, this ain't how I talk.” She read through her story, then pointed to a line. “Look at this,” she said. “Your knife was ‘glistening like a tease under the sticky green dumpster.' Damn,” she laughed, putting the paper down and pulling Jackson on top of her. “If that's not fucking literary, I don't know what is.”

The girls lay together for a while, enjoying the buzz, enjoying the desire that flowed between them, the August air too hot for them to do anything about it until later that night. “I like that new smoke,” Jackson finally said. “Got a nice, sweet taste. How much did you get?”

“Enough,” Taylor grinned. She thought about the kilo she had stashed up under the wheel well of the '62 Pontiac outside, about how many dime bags it would bring, how many days of not having to work the streets. “I thought you'd like it,” she said, knowing how much Jackson loved the new Mexican weed coming into town. “There's still a good-size roach laying around here somewhere.”

Jackson reached over to pick up the remains of the joint, clipped it, and took a long hit while Taylor held the match. “
Glistening like a tease
,” she laughed, coughing on the exhale. “Girl, you are too fucking much.”

Jackson

I jumped before I thought. Came around the corner, seen one brother slug her, the other pull his blade. Seen her head snap back, hit hard against the wall. Seen her knife slide away, outta reach, glistening like a tease under the sticky green dumpster. I seen her knees buckle, high heel boots crumple, pink tube top doubling over a black vinyl miniskirt. I knew right away who it was. Yeah, I been watching that one real close. Tough skinny black girl. Small, wiry, nothin' extra, nothin' wasted. Baby dreads sneaking all wild outta her cap, eyes sparking flint, a mouth could sneer your ass clear outta town or jump you so hard with a smile you forgot you had business to attend to. And that knife. Fancy pearl black handle with a mean six-inch blade. She was the quickest thing I'd ever seen with a knife that size. Some said she cut her pimp's ear off in a fight. Some said she'd Bobbitted the guy. Some said she was the one that sliced up the behind of the trick what tried to rape me my first night working in this damn town.

So, I knew better, but when I seen those punks forcing her back down the alley, her without her knife and all, I couldn't just do nothin'. So I snuck around beside the dumpster, grabbed her knife, picked up a brick, hurled it at the head of the guy who slugged her, and said something stupid like, “Hey, motherfuckers, what y'all say we make this fight a little more fair?” Well, I never seen a fight yet come down like they do in the movies, but I did manage to split open the guy's head with the brick and get that girl back her knife before something slammed across my face and I hit the pavement. When I woke up, the guys were gone, my nostrils were caked with blood and that girl was leaning over me, holding her fancy-ass knife hard against my throat.

“Well, I'm glad you finally decided to wake your sorry self up, white girl, ‘cause I got some things to say to you 'bout messing round where you don't belong, messing in other people's business where you got no right to be.”

I squinted up at her. “Damn,” I muttered. “You're welcome.”

My head hurt so bad I thought, hell, she might as well just cut if off right now and put it in that dumpster. My tongue rolled thickly around each tooth, pushing, taking inventory.

“Where'd you learn to talk so fast?” I asked.

“Shut up.” She pushed the knife up under my chin. “What you think you're doing coming round here, anyway, bitch? Dragging your sorry white ass where it don't belong, riding in here like some goddamn honkey-ass cowgirl social worker, getting in the way of my personal affairs.”

“Personal affairs?” I had to laugh. “Those motherfuckers were gonna
do
you, girl.”

“Yeah, and what you think they gonna do to me now? Besides, I had it under control.” She looked away, picking at her thumbnail with her knife.

“Yeah. Well, darlin', I'd hate to be around when you
don't
got it under control,” I said. I tried not to grin and noticed her mouth fighting it, too, so I sat up real slow and easy and reached out my hand. “My name's Taylor,” I said. “I'm kinda new in town.”

“I know who you are,” she said, putting down her knife to shake my hand. “Who do you think it was saved your sorry white ass from that motherfuckin' trick last month?”

“Damn, I
knew
that was you what cut that fool up so bad. I'd say he's the one with the truly sorry white ass, though,” I laughed.

She smiled. “Yeah, well, let's just say I gave him a little something to think about. Like every time he tries to sit down, for example. Or take something he ain't paid for.”

We stayed for a few more moments, laughing at the image of the john explaining his sliced-up behind to his doctor, his wife. Then I moved to get up. “Well, I better be going,” I said.

My nose was starting to bleed again. I had no idea where I was gonna sleep that night. I figured by now all the good boxes would be taken out behind Montgomery Wards.

She looked away quick. “Hey, bitch. I'm serious about not wanting to see your white butt around this part of town again,” she said, her voice all tough and tight.

“Yeah, whatever.” I felt too tired to argue anymore and started walking away.

“But that don't mean I might not be wanting to see it in some
other
part of town,” she called out, pausing. “
If
you know what I mean.”

I turned around to see her standing there grinning at me under the streetlight, looking way too fine for someone who just got beat up. “I think I just might,” I smiled, feeling my stomach flip over, hit down by my boots, and bounce back up around my chest again.

“Good,” she said. “My name's Jackson.”

we are the tiny chewed nails

we are the tiny chewed nails of a small child's hands. we always grow, give willingly to the hunger, though we are never enough to fill. and sometimes we bleed, but never enough to be bandaged. we never scratch, and have never hurt a woman or a child
.

if you want to know more, go ask the mouth why she is so damn hungry
.

Too damn easy

Taylor let go of the hammer and smiled at the way the rough leather holder caught it snug and easy. One day she'd have herself a real tool belt, but for now her old cut-up Lone Ranger cowboy holster was working just fine. She liked how the hammer felt bumping against her leg, perfectly within reach, leaving her hands free to do whatever they needed. Right now they rested squarely on bony adolescent hips as she surveyed her work, head cocked, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “Damn, you're getting good, girl!” she said out loud. Busy checking out the smooth lines of the sheetrock patch she had just fit into the side of the garage where her mom's old Chevy had landed the night before, she didn't notice Jackson walking into the garage, shaking her head.

“Girl, why are you always fixing shit up, anyway?” Jackson scooted up into the tractor tire they had stolen that afternoon. She retied the laces of her new black hi-top sneakers for the fourteenth time that day, lit a joint.

“‘Cause shit always be needing fixing up, that's why,” Taylor replied.

“You know your mama's just gonna be crashing right through it next time she comes home drunk,” Jackson said. She paused, then added, “Which is probably tonight. Then you two gonna get in another knockdown drag-out and you'll be back out looking for some shelter. Why do you keep coming back here, anyway?”

“My mama needs me,” Taylor said. “Besides, that's what that tire's for. So she hits it before she hits the wall and don't nothin' get hurt.”

“Girl, I don't know why I even bother with your fool self. Walking round with that Roy Rogers gun belt strapped onto your sorry white ass.”

“‘Cause you love me, that's why.”

Taylor knew Jackson was still sore about losing five dollars she didn't have betting that Taylor couldn't steal the sheetrock from the 24
^th
Street construction site.

“You said you'd cop a whole sheet of that rock,” Jackson had complained.

“I
did
cop a whole sheet,” Taylor insisted. “I just had to bust it up a little to get it outta there. But it still counts. I still stole the whole fucking thing, didn't I?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Taylor had taken the five dollars but had been thinking all day about something nice she could do for Jackson. She took off her belt, wiped her hands on her Levi's, and said, “Come on, baby, let's go downtown.”

“Do I see that look I love in your eyes?” Jackson asked.

“Yep. That's the one. Let me just go in and put on my pink shirt and we're outta here.”

At the bus stop, three white boys with fresh Army haircuts called them bitches and bulldaggers. Taylor started toward them. “Save it, baby,” Jackson warned, grabbing her arm. “They ain't worth your trouble. There's a hundred thousand more just like them, anyway.”

Taylor flipped them off as she followed Jackson up on the bus. She was pissed that she hadn't slugged someone but she was coming to learn that Jackson was usually right about these things. Being in the world had become a whole lot sweeter but infinitely more complicated since she and Jackson had taken up together. Used to slugging first and thinking later, Taylor's head hurt trying to figure out these new rules about when to fight and when not too. “My mama says it's all about choosing your battles,” Jackson had told her once. Then there was the time Jackson warned her, “My mama says it's dangerous to get too close to white people. My mama says she's afraid you're like to get me killed someday, acting the way you do.”

Taylor and Jackson made their way down the aisle to their seats on the bus, Taylor scowling at the guys standing outside, still leering at them.

“Hey, bitch!” one of the GI's called out, grabbing at his crotch. “Want some of this?”

“Fuckin' nigger-loving queer,” hollered another.

Taylor spit as far as she could from the window, hoping it landed on one of them. “You got that right, you motherfuckin' sorry excuse for a dildo,” she yelled as the bus pulled away. Jackson gave her one of her looks but then took her hand and they sat in silence the rest of the ride.