Red Light Wives (20 page)

I
didn't like it when Miss Rocky tripped out on me. She'd been doing that a lot lately. It made me nervous when she gave me strange looks and asked me a lot of nosy questions. It looked like I was going to have to keep both of my eyes on her—with her great big, fat self!

That woman was too nosy for her own good. Now I see why her husband left her for another woman. I couldn't believe that she'd had the nerve to get in my face over a little cigar smoke and a few beers the other night. If I hadn't been so groggy and buzzed from drinking that beer, I would have reminded her that she told me to my face that when I was in her house, I was welcome to make myself at home. And that's just what I'd done. Shoot.

Now I'd have to tell that man Arthur he couldn't smoke his cigars in Miss Rocky's house no more on account of Miss Rocky didn't like surprises.

I felt so much better after I had some time to think about stuff. In a way, I could understand why Miss Rocky didn't like coming home and being surprised. Surprises could cause all kinds of problems.

My mama hated surprises, too. I overheard her talking to somebody on the telephone one day about what a shock I'd been to her, when she found out she was pregnant with me. “I can't believe that God was mean enough to give me another child at this time in my life; I wanted to die,” Mama had said.
My mama wanted to die because of me…

After I heard what Mama said, I guess I wanted to die, too. That was one time I wished I'd never snooped around to listen in on somebody else's conversation. I felt like that blind kitten my uncle Billy held down in a bucket of water and drowned. Because of what my mama said, I knew I should never have been born in the first place. Or, I should have been born a whole lot sooner, so I wouldn't have been such a big, bad surprise. I knew one thing for sure, life would have been a whole lot better for everybody if stuff had happened that way.

Mama was in her late forties when I was born. Other than my brother, David, who was even older than Miss Rocky, my mama didn't have any other kids. I don't know why, but being born retarded meant that there were a lot of things I didn't know or understand, no matter how hard I tried. For me, the hardest part of being retarded was being smart enough to know I was slow. People didn't think I had feelings, but I did. Like normal people, all I wanted in life was to be happy.

Mama and Daddy were too old to spend much time fussing with me when I was a little girl. And with me being a “retard” like the kids in my neighborhood said I was, I was always getting myself into something that would upset the normal people in my life. Like getting pregnant when I was just twelve.

It wasn't my fault, though. It was that boy from that big green house across the street from us. Donnie Reese was fourteen and always taking me to his bedroom so we could get naked and lay on his bed. That creep joined the army and got his butt shot up. Because of his injuries, according to Mama, Donnie's brain was as “raggedy as a bowl of sauerkraut.” Maybe now he feels some of the same pain he caused me. As mean as he was to me, I still thought about him and me from time to time. Just the good times we'd had, though. He was my first boyfriend, and to every girl—even girls like me—the first boyfriend is the one you never forgot.

“Helen, don't you want a real boyfriend?” Donnie asked me one of the days we were naked. We only did that when his mama and daddy and his sister and brother were out of the house. Donnie's bedroom was nowhere near as cute as mine. I had dolls and white furniture and posters of movie stars. I even had a daybed by the window that I slept on some nights. Donnie's room was a mess. He had baseballs, dirty clothes, apple cores, magazines, and other junk all over the place. And his bed was never made up.

“I thought you were already my boyfriend,” I told him, lying next to him on his bed. His long leg was rubbing on mine, and he was patting my titties.

“Well, boyfriends and girlfriends have to do a lot more than just get naked,” he explained. His long orange tongue slid across his lip as he climbed on top of me, spreading my legs with his. I just couldn't get over how hard Donnie's body was compared to mine. “Now this is goin' to hurt a little bit…”

It did hurt and I tried to holler, but Donnie's hand was covering my mouth. It was still hurting when he rolled off me a few minutes later.

“Is that it?” I asked, my face screwed up, and the insides of my thighs on fire.

“What?” Donnie was putting his pants back on and giving me a mean look. Then he ripped a page out of one of his magazines and wiped blood off the insides of my thighs. Cussing under his breath, he balled up that piece of paper and tossed it into a wastepaper basket on the floor next to his bed. But that wasn't enough for him. He ripped out some more pages and covered the bloody one with them. Now you tell me that wasn't crazy. “What did you say?” he asked, talking in a real gruff voice. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking at me like he didn't like me no more.

“Did you cut me?” I asked, sliding my fingers along my thigh, frowning because he'd left a few drops of blood.

“You wanna know somethin', Helen, you done gone from dumb to dumber,” he said, letting out a laugh.

“Are we boyfriend and girlfriend now? For real?”

Donnie nodded real hard, biting his bottom lip at the same time. “Uh-huh. Whatever!” He laughed, but I couldn't figure out why. The hardest part of being retarded was not being able to make any sense out of normal people. It made my head spin when I tried. Some days I went to bed so dizzy, I couldn't stand up straight. All from trying to be normal. After a while I just let myself be what I was: retarded. It was so much easier, and to tell you the truth it was a lot more fun than trying to be normal.

“You going to kiss me?” I asked with a smile on my face so wide my ears could feel it.

Donnie's face got even meaner. “Heeell no! Girl, you get your funky ass up off my bed and get the hell up out of here before my mama comes home!” he screamed, shaking his finger in my face. He put some spit on the palms of his hands and slicked back his hair, giving me hot looks all the while.

I was so confused I couldn't think straight. It seemed like the room was going round and round. I closed my eyes for a moment and sucked in some air. When I opened my eyes again, Donnie was standing there looking at me like he wanted to kill me.

“Didn't-I-tell-you-to-get-out-of-here?” he said. I don't know how he was able to talk with his teeth clenched, but he did.

“All right.” I stumbled off the bed and put my clothes back on. “What about that candy and pop you said you'd give me?”

Donnie stomped up to me and poked me in my chest with his finger. “Look at my bed! You left your pussy jizm on it!” He pushed me aside and started to smooth over the spot on the bed where we had just been. He let out a loud breath and looked at me, shaking his head. “It's a damn shame all the shit boys have to put up with just to get a piece of tail. I knew I should have just jacked off. Look at that bloody mess on my bed!” Donnie shook a mean finger at the wet spot on his bed. “Get on out of here before I fuck you again!”

“All right,” I mumbled, mad with myself for bleeding on Donnie's bedspread. Somewhere in my mind was some wild story Mama had told me about girls and women bleeding once a month. Something about a period. Well, I'd just finished one three days ago! Why I had bled with Donnie on the bed was a mystery to me. And it probably would stay that way because I wasn't about to ask Mama or anybody else what was up with that. I had enough mess to try and unravel.

As soon as I finished dressing, Donnie shooed me out of his room. He marched me through his mama's living room, then out of that big green house. Before he slammed the door in my face, he told me that if I ever told anybody what we'd just done, he'd beat me up.

As soon as I got back across the street to my front porch, I sat on the steps watching Donnie's house. I didn't leave my spot until he came out, whistling and bouncing a ball. He looked across the street at me and didn't even wave or say another word. But the mean look was still on his face, so I knew he meant business about beating me up if I told anybody what we had done in his bed.

I didn't tell anybody what Donnie and I had done because I wanted to do it again. And I did do it again. And again and again. I don't know how many more times I did it. Not just with Donnie, but with some of his friends. Every time Donnie's family left him alone, he called me to come over to his house.

On one of those days, I got back in Donnie's bed with him and four of his friends, all in the same day. Not all at the same time, though. Donnie was first, and then he went to be on the lookout for his mama and daddy or any other nosy person, while I was with one boy after another in Donnie's bed.

After a little while with all of these boyfriends, sex didn't hurt. It felt good. And, you know what, I liked it. Finally, somebody was treating me like I was a normal girl. I think…

By the end of the summer, I had more boyfriends than I knew what to do with. Some of them only came around once, but there were a few who came for me two, three times a week. When we couldn't go to Donnie's bedroom, we laid on the ground behind my daddy's garage. Sometimes we hid in the bushes.

Then I started getting sick and real fat. Mama and Daddy being so old, they didn't notice any of that. But my nosy brother, David, and his witch of a wife, Annabel, did. I didn't call my sister-in-law a witch just because she had long bushy hair and a crooked nose like a real witch, but because she was real mean to me most of the time.

It was Annabel who took me in the bathroom and pulled up my dress that day. Her high yellow face got all red and mean when she looked at my stomach. “Mother Daniels, get in here!” Annabel yelled, her mouth hanging open, her eyes stretched as wide as they could stretch.

“What's wrong now?” Mama asked in her tired voice as she barged into the bathroom, fanning her face with the tail of her apron.

“This girl is pregnant!” Annabel told Mama, closing the bathroom door with her foot, her hand still holding up my dress.

“Oh, my God. Helen, who did this to you?” Mama asked, her hands on the sides of her face.

“Did what?” I wanted to know.

“Who has been messing with you, girl?” Mama grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard, my stomach moved to one side.

“Nobody's been messing with me,” I hollered, sucking in my breath, trying to make my stomach flat again.

“Tell me the boy's name who did this to you! Was it Donnie?” I had never seen my mama so excited. Her hands were shaking; she was crying. “Tell me who did this to you, Helen!” Mama was talking so loud, my brother snatched open the bathroom door. As soon as he saw my stomach, he started in on me.

“I knew this was going to happen sooner or later,” David yelled, his brown face turning black. He gave me a hot look. His eyes looked tired and old at first. Then all of a sudden, his eyes looked like balls of fire. His lips trembled, and I could see spit oozing out from both corners of his mouth. “Who is the bastard who did this?” I didn't know why he was shaking his fist or who he was shaking it at.

Annabel pulled my dress down and looked me in the face. She started talking to me real soft, with her hands clamped on my shoulders to hold me in place. Like I was a baby or a puppy or something. “Helen, somebody has taken advantage of you, and you need to tell us who it was. This boy, whoever he is, has done a terrible thing to you, and he has to be held responsible. His parents need to know,” Annabel told me, her eyes full of water. I didn't know why she was all balled up ready to cry. It seemed like I was the only one in trouble. “Now you take your time and try to remember the boy's name.” Annabel turned her head a little and looked at me sideways. All of a sudden, she turned to my brother, her eyes looking wild and angry. “You don't suppose she's been raped?”

Mama let out a sharp gasp. Then she fell against the bathroom wall so hard, the medicine cabinet shook and the top button on her dress popped off. “Oh, God,” Mama said, one hand holding up her head. “Helen, who did this to you. When? Where? Did he force himself on you?” Mama started swaying like a willow tree, her head rocking from side to side.

I looked at David, standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, his eyes scrunched up so hard it looked like he had just one eyebrow. Annabel stood next to him with her arms folded, a mean look on her face, which was as red as a rose. She didn't like me, and I didn't like her. Mama started swaying from side to side, still holding her head.

I let out my breath and shrugged. “I…we…I…I had some boyfriends, but they don't come around me no more,” I admitted.

“Who?” David screamed, his hands on his hips. “I'll beat the dog shit out of the bastards.”

In a way, I still liked Donnie, and all the rest of the boys who had made me feel so good. I didn't want my big mean brother to beat them up. “Um, it was this boy named Dennis.” Being retarded didn't stop me from being a liar and making up a boy.

“Dennis who?” Annabel asked, her voice getting loud again.

A surprised look slid across Mama's face. I knew she didn't like that. Because, like I said, my mama hated surprises. Every time I remembered that I'd been Mama's biggest surprise, it made me feel sad. Then all I wanted to do was find somebody, anybody, who would like being with me. Donnie and his friends had done just that. “The Cooper boy?” Mama asked, her eyes blinking hard.

“Huh? No, not Reverend Cooper's son.” There was a real boy named Dennis Cooper, but he had never been one of my boyfriends. “No, a new boy. He was just here for his vacation. He was from L.A., I think he said. His name is Dennis Cooper, too, but his friends call him Denny.”

“Well, who is this Denny's people?” Mama asked, shaking a finger that she said was crooked from arthritis.