The Heart is Deceitful above All Things (13 page)

‘Hold still.' She runs the brush along the sides of my nose like she's dusting.

‘Well, we'll see if we can fix this nigger nose.'

I try to look in the mirror, but her hand's in the way.

‘OK, now I lighten it with concealer.' She dabs some creamy stuff onto my nose.

‘Blend, OK, now . . . look at me.' I look up at her, feeling excited and nervous.

‘Can I go with you?'

‘Take a look.' She pushes my face toward the mirror. My nose has brown beige strips on its sides like war paint.

‘Definitely camouflaged!' I nod hard.

‘OK, now your eyes . . . you have my eyes, so you're lucky. OK, close your eyes.' I do, and I feel brushes gliding across my lids, her coffee breath warm and moist against my cheek.

‘Look up, look left . . . right, blink . . . again.'

It feels like she's writing on my eyes. I don't want it to stop.

‘Look at me!' And when I do it is freeze-framed in my mind forever, her licking her finger and running it gently under my eyes. It reminds me of those nature films of a mother bird regurgitating food into its baby's mouth. I feel so happy, I almost hug her.

‘Can I look?' My hands flap at my sides.

‘No, you ain't half-done. Let's see if we can give you lips . . . you ain't too lucky––you got the nose, I got the lips. Even a chicken's got more lips than you.' I trace my finger across my thin lips with little crowned points. Hers are big, shiny, and red.

‘Look here.' She holds a rust red pencil. I pucker my lips.

‘Nooo . . . relax 'em,' she says, a little irritated.

‘You ever see me pucker when I do my lips?' I shake my head. ‘Close, just natural like.'

The pencil moves around my mouth.

‘OK . . . now . . .' I hear her opening lipsticks. ‘Open.'

I look up at the white corkboardlike ceiling. She dabs lipstick on my lips.

‘Hmmm . . .' And then a brush with mushy wet goop sweeps across my lips. I look up at her, so close to me, staring at my mouth; she catches me, I look away fast.

‘Here . . .' She holds a toilet paper sheet to my mouth. I open and close on it like I've done a million times copying her, but now I leave red kiss marks. I laugh and try to turn toward the mirror.

‘Not yet!' She grabs my head. ‘Blush?' she asks.

‘Yeah, yeah,' I practically yell. ‘Please.' My eyes flutter as she lightly sweeps a big fuzzy brush across my cheeks and over my face.

‘I won't do your nose, don't wanna bring no attention to that, do we, niggey nose?'

‘Uh-uh.'

‘OK, now, to set. Close your eyes.' She dusts me with translucent powder, her hand over my eyes to protect them, and again I feel overwhelmed with joy.

‘Can I look?'

She regards me. ‘Go ahead.'

She turns my head toward the mirror. I blink at myself and try to recognize what I see. They're her eyes, a mottled mix of pale blue gray green, painted and outlined, only smaller. My lips are full, almost like hers, and satiny red. I don't even notice my nose.

‘Well?' She sounds impatient.

‘I, I look pretty,' I say quietly.

‘See, I told you you were meant to be a girl.'

‘I know,' I mumble, and bite my lip.

‘Stop that!' She hits my head, not hard. ‘Don't mess my lips!'

‘Sorry.'

‘Now, ain't you glad I didn't cut your hair short?' She reaches for the curling iron. I nod yes and I realize I've gotten used to it and I like it when we go to the shops and the store owners say I'm a pretty girl like my older sister. Sometimes I get free candy. Only once did I correct someone.

‘She's my mom and I ain't a girl!'

The tall, pimply man behind the meat counter leans forward. ‘Pardon?'

Her hand reaches out, grabs the back of my hair, and gives a quick, sharp yank. She laughs.

‘Playin' games . . . she always is . . . now say thank you . . .'

Later she unloads the groceries silently into the trunk. I climb into the back where I sit when she has a boyfriend, if he's with us or not.

‘Sit up front,' she says. I watch her start the car and push in the lighter.

‘I want a haircut!' I feel strong in my anger. She says nothing, just starts to drive.

‘Everyone says I'm a girl. I'm not! Even Kevin!' The lighter pops out and she pushes it back in and starts humming.

‘I'm not a girl and I want a haircut, OK?' I'm
yelling, my body turned toward her. She pulls onto a dirt road.

‘I want a haircut, I want a haircut!' My fist pounds the vinyl seat. ‘Grandfather would never let my hair be long!' I say spitefully. The car jerks to a stop.

‘Wait here,' she says really friendly, smiling.

‘Huh?'

‘Wait here.' She puts on lipstick.

‘Where you goin'?' I feel my anger draining. I try to hold on to it. ‘We gettin' my haircut?'

She points wordlessly to the back of the sheriff's tiny brown wooden building. She turns to me with a wide smile, all her teeth showing.

‘I'm turning you in. You are too evil and bad.'

I swallow hard. She starts to pull open her door.

‘No! . . . Wait!' The world starts to tilt and melt.

‘I've hid you, changed your name, my name, how many times now?'

‘Please . . .' My air is choking off.

‘'Member when those workers came 'round last time? I moved and changed everything so they wouldn't get you.'

I start to see colors swirling around the windshield, making it hard to see clearly.

‘They warned me Satan was entrenched in your soul, that you should be put to the chair and sent to hell to burn forever.' She caps her lipstick.

‘I'll be back with the sheriff in a jiffy. They'll cut your hair for you, they'll shave your head for the chair, unless
they stone you, or . . .' Her eyes turn from corner to corner, then stare straight back down at me. ‘I won't be surprised if they don't just lynch you when word gets out who you really are.' She adjusts the car mirror to see herself and rubs lipstick off her teeth.

‘Don't go . . .' I'm crying.

She doesn't turn. ‘They usually take a knife and cut your evil tongue out first and then your eyes––scoop 'em right out, and they laugh and celebrate. They'll be extra pissed 'cause you've tricked 'em all.'

‘Please . . . please.' Spit rolls down my chin.

The lighter pops out. She shoves it back in and gets out of the car.

‘I tried to make you good. I see I've failed. Wait here.' The door slams and I squint to see past the fireball of reds, blues, and yellows cycloning around me. She crosses the street and enters the sheriff's station.

All the voices inside scream at me, and I can't see outside anymore, I can only hear the taunting. I see the huge wooden electric chair, wired, waiting, and empty, and the silver gray switch. I see all the faces laughing and jeering, and the Horned One clutching his blood-soaked pitchfork. And I'm alone, and I deserve it all, and there is no one to take it away.

I lean forward and bang my head on the dashboard. My mom told me that when I was a baby I used to bang my head all day and all night long. She kept me in the top dresser drawer. It drove her nuts, she said. It was
Satan fighting for my soul. It would get so loud, she'd have to close the drawer.

‘Stop it, stop it!' I feel a hand holding me down, pushing me back into my seat, keeping me still. The sheriff's large, hairy hand is reaching through the open window, resting on my shoulder. My mother is standing next to him.

‘See why I can't send her to school?' I hear my mother's voice. ‘She should be in fourth grade. Can't attend without causing problems.'

‘How long you been in town?' he asks, gravelly voiced.

‘Month.'

‘Well, we'll see about some special classes. You livin' with Kevin Rays?'

‘Yes, sir,' she says sweetly.

‘So you wanna get home schoolin', huh? Well, I'll see what I can do.'

‘Much obliged, sir.'

His hand releases me. ‘Y'all take care.' He walks away. She gets back in the car and pushes in the popped-out lighter.

‘I convinced him not to take you. I'm gonna try to fight Satan for your soul and make you good, do you understand me?'

I nod stiffly. We're both staring straight ahead at the deserted, tree-lined dirt road.

‘You'll have to be punished.' I nod again, the colors settling, my vision clearing.

‘Or if you don't want that, you can go cross the street and turn yourself right in.' I shake my head.

‘Very well, then . . . take your thing out.' Her voice is calm. My stomach is tight and I hiccup up a little vomit; it burns as I swallow it back down.

‘Take your thing out!' The lighter pops out, and she knocks it back in. My hands tremble as I pull down my zipper and pull out my thing, small and pink.

‘Hands under.' I swallow too loudly.

‘Do you want to go in there?' She points at the sheriff's. I shake my head and slide my hands under my legs, like I've done other times. Her hand wraps around my thing; I stare straight ahead at a stray dog sniffing for something to eat in the dirt. Her long red nails flash.

She leans over me and whispers in my ear, ‘Do you think Kevin would let you stay if he knew about this evil thing?' Her hand starts to move slowly, gently. ‘Mmm, do ya?' She smells like baby powder. I shake my head.

‘Do you think tellin' people I'm your mother and you are a bastard is gonna help any?' I shake my head a small no.

It looks like the skeletal dog found some food. My thing moves through her fingers. I try to imagine the electric chair and hellfire. I sob.

‘Do you really think the butcher will give us free cuts if he knew you weren't no sweet little girl, but had this evil thing?'

Fire burns me alive, stones pound into my flesh, everyone laughs. Her fingers give soft little yanks.

‘Let's see how evil and bad you truly are.' Her fingers stop their caressing. ‘You failed the test,' she says gravely.

I look down and see it sticking straight ahead, leading me into hell.

‘Do you want to turn yourself in?' I shake my head no. Tears roll down my cheeks.

‘Feeling sorry for yourself is further proof of your unrepented evil.'

The lighter pops out. Her fingers, red tipped, pluck it out.

‘Well?' She looks at me.

‘I want to be good,' I whisper. I feel everything close up inside me. I see the coils, red and glowing, disappear down to where her fingers hold my thing. I dig my hands, sweaty and cold, under my thighs. I watch the tip of my thing disappear into the lighter. I don't move, I don't scream, I don't cry. I've learned the hard way that lessons are repeated until learned properly, and silently, and Satan is, even temporarily, exorcised. I stare straight ahead and watch the dog eating its own foot.

I listen to the sizzle of the hot iron wrapped tightly around a lock of my shoulder-length hair.

‘My hair used to be white like yours,' she says. The iron pulls on my scalp. ‘Yours'll get darker, too.'

She releases it, and a tumble of white blond curls roll
back. She slides her fingers through another section of hair. I'm aware of every touch as her hands move against my scalp.

‘You better appreciate this.' I nod as she wraps my hair in the iron jaws and rolls it up tight.

‘You look so beautiful.' She beams, and leans down next to me while holding the iron up, her face next to mine in the mirror.

‘We're beautiful girls, ain't we?!' The iron is too close to the back of my ear and it's burning it, but I don't dare say a thing. I smile at us, two beautiful girls in the mirror, and ignore the scent of burning flesh.

Usually when I'm alone and not allowed out, I walk around the narrow trailer and turn on the TV and all the radios as loud as I can take. I sit somewhere between the sounds and let the voices and music compete for my attention. I enjoy deciding which appliance will win me over. I'm proud of my ability to concentrate totally on whatever I choose to hear and tune out what I don't.

If Jackson or my mom gets home early and catches me, they get pissed.

‘How can you hear anything?' Jackson asks, not really wanting an answer. ‘Only put one thing on at a time,' he orders. ‘Otherwise it's too much, you'll go crazy.'

Today, though, I don't need my noise. I stand on the chair, staring at the pretty face that isn't mine anymore, but my mom's. At first all I do is stare, and hardly blink, as if a wrong breath could shatter her face. But slowly I
get bolder and start winking like she does to guys that whistle at her. I practice for at least an hour, that fast wink, quick like a gunfighter that draws and shoots before the other's even touched his gun. Then I work on the kiss blowing––head tilted slightly, lips barely puckered, and the uplift to launch it properly. Then the combo kiss and wink: wink––wink, kiss, kiss––wink. It takes me all morning.

Later I go past the divider into their side of the bedroom and open her drawer. I carefully move aside the strawberry car air fresheners and dress her in a lacy baby-doll nightie Jackson just ordered her from Victoria's Secret. It hangs down to my ankles, though, so I have to pin it up to show her legs. I even dig out a pair of the panties he got her, white, lacy, with ruffles on the backside. I accidentally put both legs in one opening. I fix it and pin it to the front and run to the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

‘You are so beautiful, baby doll!' I giggle and swirl my nightie around.

‘Thank you, honey.' I shake my ass in the mirror, wink, and blow a perfect Fire Red Temptation gloss kiss. ‘Daddy's sexy little girl . . . uh, oh.' I lift the frilly front of my nightie. ‘Shit! Why do you gotta ruin everything?' I reach in her panties and push it back between my legs. ‘Go away!' I scream down at it. I keep my baby doll raised and run my palm over the smooth, flat crotch.