Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who came out for the great reading last night in our last Gold Room reading of the spring. Have a great summer and we’ll see you in the fall.

April Reading.

Hey Bros and Brosephinas. It’s time to come hear your peers read their work. Be supportive. Show up. If you missed last month, you may be $110 richer, but you missed some awesome readings.

The date is set for Thursday, April 28th. 8pm. Here’s the line-up. Note the addition of a little drama–BAM!

Non-Fiction: Brad Guillory
Fiction: Nick Mainieri
Kimberly Clause
Poetry: Kristina Robinson
Drama: Adam Falik

The reading this month will be at…wait for it…Handsome Willy’s. See you there.

218 S. Robertson

The Man Without a Heart by Daniel Morales

The man without a heart wasn’t born that way. He lived his whole life with a functioning heart and never imagined living without one until a month before his thirty-second birthday when he awoke to bed sheets covered in blood, his sternum split, ribs splayed open, and his heart gone.

Don’t panic, he thought.

He picked up the phone and called his parents, both doctors.

“Mom, my heart’s gone!” he said when his mother picked up the phone.

“Mmm…did you go to the hospital?” she mumbled.

“No, I just woke up and…it was gone…”

“You should go to the hospital. Here, say hello to Dad…”

“Hello?” His father fumbled with the receiver.

“Dad, my heart’s gone.” The man’s heart-less pulse slowed as the adrenaline wore off. “I can kind of see my lungs,” he added, identifying the pink bulge he could see coming and going.

“Go to the emergency room. Doctors there…know what to do…” His father paused to yawn and what sounded like stretch. “You sound okay. Call us later.”

The man was speechless.

“Put it on the credit card,” his father added before saying goodbye and drifting back to sleep.

Gingerly, the man sat up in bed and placed his hands on his ribcage. He pushed on his ribs. They moved in and sprang back. He pressed harder until the pieces of his sternum snapped back together, sending a jolt of pain through his chest and temporarily rendering him breathless.

After regaining his breath, the man without a heart got out of bed and walked slowly across his creaky wooden floor to the bathroom to take a piss. Relieved of at least one source of discomfort, the man put on jeans and a shirt, stepped into his sandals, and drove himself to the hospital.

The receptionist at the emergency room laughed until he lifted his shirt to reveal the crimson split from the bottom of his throat to his belly button, and then she escorted him to a curtained area, saying the doctor would be there soon. And he was, clipboard in hand, his brow far too furrowed to furrow further when the man removed his shirt.

“Hmm,” the doctor said.

“It’s gone,” the man said.

“Are you sure?”

The man started to wedge his right hand into his chest, quickly drawing a sound of shock from the doctor.

“No, don’t touch.” The doctor put the stethoscope around his neck into his ears and approached the man.

“Breathe in. Hold it. Breath out. Breathe in. Hold it. Breath out.”

The doctor repeated his instructions, placing the cold stethoscope in various positions on the man’s chest and back.

“It’s gone,” the doctor confirmed. “Wait here.”

The doctor snapped the curtain back as he exited, leaving the man surrounded by the cream colored curtains and his own thoughts. He tried to remember what happened the night before. His girlfriend had come home from her yoga lesson and sat on the couch next to him while he was watching TV.

“Since when do you watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?” she asked. “That’s my show. You never want to watch that show.”

“Since when do you care what I watch on TV?” the man replied.

His girlfriend laughed. “Oh my god. I’m in the apartment for two seconds and we’re already having this fight.” She stood up and put her yoga bag on her shoulder.

“What fight?” the man asked.

“You really don’t see it, do you?”

The man could sense that something had gone terribly wrong in the thirty seconds she had been home, but he didn’t know what. He stood and looked at her, this woman he loved, but he didn’t say anything, and she that’s when she had started crying.

“Is this because I wouldn’t try your yoga?” the man asked in a vain attempt to do something, anything, to save the relationship.

He followed her as she backstepped through the door and walked out to her car. She threw her set of keys at the man, and they hit him in the chest before falling to the ground.

“You never see anything,” she said and swatted the man’s hand off her shoulder.

The man wanted to reply that he could see her putting her yoga bag into the back seat and that he could see her opening the driver’s seat and starting the car, but he knew it probably wasn’t appropriate.

“We just aren’t going to work, and you can’t see that,” she said through the window of her car. “We’re impossible”

His girlfriend drove off, and that impossibility, combined with the realization that there was a universe of possibility ahead for the woman, possibility possessed by other men, had created a suffocating sensation deep in the man’s chest, a black hole of emotion, and sent him teary-eyed back into the house. He drank it off the best he could. He put on ESPN and dipped into his stash of beer and bourbon. He went to sleep as always, heart beating in his chest, slowing as his consciousness thinned.

The doctor flung the curtain aside revealing a cart, a white-faced resident, and a nurse.

“Lie down,” the doctor commanded, and the man did. Their three heads hovered above him as they walked his cart business-like down a long corridor deep into the hospital.

“Where are you taking me?” the man asked.

“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine,” the doctor said.

A fourth face joined the three and placed a mask over the man’s mouth.

“Breath deeply,” the face said

“Nitrous oxide?” the man asked, but he needed no answer as the skin on his forehead retreated into sphinx-like relaxation and he lost consciousness.

***

The man without a heart awoke in the sweet afterglow of Valium. He was on a bed, his upper body upright. He rolled his head back and forth on the pillow to take in the room. It was empty except for him. His fingers, sore from disuse, creaked into action, and he clumsily rubbed his hands over his torso which was wrapped in mummy-like bandages.

“Good to see you awake.” The doctor and his clipboard entered the room with a big smile.

The man groaned as his body began to stretch itself.

“You’re a lucky man. We sealed you up just in time.”

“Did you fix my heart?”

“No, but you’ll be fine without it.”

“My heart?” the man asked.

The doctor sat on a stool next to the bed.

“We just had to make sure you didn’t lose too much pressure.”

“But where did it go?”

“Organ harvesters…”

“Organ harvesters?”

“Cannibals…wild animals…” The man had cut in on the doctor’s list. “internal tourists… anatomical kleptomaniacs… There are a lot of possibilities in play right now. The detectives will talk to you about that.”

“Can I get it back?”

“You better hope it was the organ harvesters,” the doctor said with a laugh. “Let’s get you out of those bandages.”

The doctor helped the man sit up and then started to peel the bandages off his chest.

“See, good as new.”

The doctor removed the last of the gauze, revealing the man’s now hairless chest sewn-up with stitches.

“What’s that?” the man asked, pointing to the outline of a square in the center of his chest uninterrupted by stitches.

“That’s your heart compartment.”

The man ran his fingers over the square. Looking closer, he realized it was slightly left of center. It was just larger than his palm and included his sternum and a good portion of his left pectoral muscle, which he determined was no worse for the wear after flexing a few times. The edges of the square curved abruptly down, and the surrounding flesh shot up from the same ridge. He traced the edge but couldn’t find any sign of a latch or even a deviation in the perfect seal.

“It’s completely sealed. You won’t be able to pry it open.”

The doctor put his thumbs and forefingers near the corners of the square and pressed gently. The square compressed with a click, and the top half folded out.

The man without a heart peered down at the compartment, straining his neck to see what was inside.

“Is there anything in there?”

“Nope, it’s just a compartment. Go ahead and feel for yourself.”

The doctor offered alcohol hand sanitizer which the man applied before carefully putting his hand into the darkness in his chest. A strange sensation ran through the man without a heart. Gradually the compartment took shape in the man’s mind as he spread his fingers apart testing the height. Inside, the compartment was warm. The fleshy walls were firm but not hard and lightly covered with mucous, reminding the man of his gums. There was nothing there.

“Will I ever get my heart back?” the man asked.

“As I mentioned, the detectives will be in to talk to you about that. I’d say there’s a chance, as long as it was the organ harvesters. Any of the others and it’s most likely gone already – eaten or pinned up in a collection somewhere.”

“What if they sold it and…put it in someone else already?”

“Then you’ll probably end up in court. Legally the police can seize the stolen goods – your heart – once they’ve determined that it’s yours through a DNA test. But it gets hairy. Did the guy know it was stolen or was he legitimately scammed? You can’t just rip the heart out. So if that’s the case, you may spend a year or two in the legal system before you can get it back.”

“But it’s my heart.”

“Hey, I didn’t make the rules. The best you can do is hope the guy lays off the curly fries.”

“I’m still alive without a heart.”

“Yes, sir. We sealed you up good, so it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll have you come in once a week or so to make sure you’re doing okay.”

The man looked down from the doctor’s smile to the body before him. He held up his arms for inspection, too. Then he rested his hand on the square. The familiar thump thump was gone, replaced with a silent hollow.

***

The man without a heart was released from the hospital that evening. When he got home, he made a tuna sandwich and sat on his couch. The celery and pickles made a pleasant crunch, but the sandwich seemed tasteless. Twilight filled the man’s living room. He finished his sandwich and put the plate on the coffee table. He stood up and tried to empty his thoughts. He walked through his apartment in search of something, anything, that would give him an idea of what had happened.

The living room revealed nothing other than the man’s typical disorder. A couple of books and magazines were scattered here and there. The man returned them to the bookshelf on the back wall and briefly appraised his collection before moving to the kitchen. The man opened the fridge and the freezer, neither providing any help. The cabinet he used as a pantry contained only a few cans and boxes of cereal.

The man continued into his bedroom, the scene of the crime, and as if to punctuate that fact, the floor gave a long creak when he came to a stop. He had been under for two days during the operation and recovery, and in that time the crime scene investigation unit had done their job and returned his apartment to normal. In the hosptical, the detectives had told him they found no signs of forced entry, no weapons, and no suspicious fingerprints.

“The girl,” the tall, fat one had said.

“No, she went home,” the man replied.

“Must’ve been her. There’s no one else,” the short, fat one added.

“She had a key, though, right?” The tall one again.

“She threw it at me before she left… What about the organ harvesters?”

“Goddamn organ harvesters,” the short, fat one said and demonstrated his disgust by spitting on the hospital floor.

“Christ, Murph, we’re in a hospital.”

“Sorry, Sully.”

“Well, clean it up!”

Murph kneeled to clean the tiles.

“What my partner was trying to say is that lowlife organ harvesters have no concern for human life. What do they care about your front door, your back door, or your bedroom? Their only goal is to rip out your organs. They bust in quickly and violently. And, shit, they never leave a pancreas behind.”

“Goddamn organ harvesters,” Murph commented from the floor as he wiped the tiles.

“Your place was clean as an unused toilet bowl…other than the sheets, of course. They didn’t find blood anywhere else. Whoever it was knew what they were doing and exactly what they wanted.”

Sully paused to let this to sink in. The man just stared back.

“We realize this must be traumatic for you, but you should take some time over the next few days and try to think about anyone who might have something against you. There was nothing unusual in your apartment, so it must’ve been someone familiar with the place.”

Murph got up from his knees. “No one else but the girl.”

The man looked at the detectives, letting everything sink in.

In his apartment, the man lay down on the bed. What would his girlfriend – his ex-girlfriend – want with his heart? The man fell asleep as he watched his overhead fan spin around and around.

He awoke a half hour later to his phone ringing.

“Hello?”

“Hi.” his girlfriend said and then paused for a few seconds. “I didn’t take your heart.”

“I never said you did.”

“Yeah, well the detectives sure made it sound that way.”

“Sully and Murph?”

“One tall, one short, both fat. They came by and threatened me in front of my yoga class. I was teaching. It totally ruined the prana.”

“I told them you left.”

“Yeah, well, you could’ve done a better job.”

The man didn’t know how to respond.

“So are you okay?” his girlfriend asked with a note of genuine concern in her voice.

“I think so.”

“You sound…strange.”

“How so?”

“I dunno… like, really calm or something. Shouldn’t you be angry?”

“Shouldn’t I be dead?”

“They sewed you up, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re fine, then.”

***

The man without a heart went on with his life. Over the next few weeks he discovered that all trace of emotion had left his body. He never worried about anything, never cried or laughed, never wrinkled his forehead in frustration. Food was reduced to textures, and music seemed like different variations of Morse Code. He could only barely feel pain. But none of this affected his life greatly. He killed time at work on the Internet, studied Portuguese half-heartedly at night classes, called his parents once a week and listened to their complaints about the local politicians, and turned off the heat in his apartment before going to sleep at night to save on his electricity bill. Sometimes he went out with coworkers. He continued the routines he had developed before his heart was stolen because he knew that was what he did. Not having a heart shouldn’t change that, he thought.

***

The man without a heart could see the ceiling of the yoga studio with his back arched in up dog. Slowly he moved into down dog, and the room inverted as he looked through his legs to the back wall.

“Each movement should be the length of your breath,” the yogi said. “Move at your own pace. Soften your eyes and relax your forehead. Breathe deep into your stomach.”

The man found it difficult to follow the yogi’s instructions. After losing his heart he had had few distractions, but the calmness of the yogi’s voice put him in a trance. Half of the time he could focus on his body as the yogi requested, but the rest of the time his memories floated before him.

“Am I ever going to feel normal?”

The doctor was listening to his chest with a stethoscope. He had been unable to answer the man’s question or even offer alternative medical solutions during his first checkup.

“Breathe in deeply. Look, your heart is gone. Breathe out. That’s something you’re going to have to get used to. Breathe in. The mind is just like any other part of the body, really. It has its own self-defense system, so time is often the best prescription. Breath out. Some cardectomy patients find yoga to be therapeutic. They claim that it helps them connect to their new anatomy and clear their minds, but in the end it’s up to you.”

“Yoga,” the man had said, testing the weight of the word.

The man and the yogi stood facing each other in a small room with white walls and clean wooden floors.

“Step your right foot out and turn your left foot in 60 degrees. Arms out.”

The man mirrored the yogi’s actions and moved into triangle pose, side angle pose, and then a deep lunge.

“Rise into easy airplane pose.” The man’s body hovered in the air above his leg with his arms outstretched, and he let his vision relax into the grains of the wooden flooring.

After a few lessons with the yogi’s coaching, the man had grown more familiar with his own body. At first his breath was a fox-like animal that scampered into his lungs and retreated quickly. Now it felt like a dense liquid that his diaphragm drew into the crevices of his body. He could feel it pour through his trachea, skirting his compartment on the way down to his belly and out to his limbs.

He didn’t buy all of the yoga mumbo jumbo that came with the lessons, but it was impossible to deny the positive effects of meditating on his body. The man still had no emotions, but his sense of taste had returned briefly during the second month of lessons when he ate a small bite of sharp cheddar from a wedge he was grating to use in an omelette.

“Hold the pose. The longer we go, the more the sensation of discomfort increases. It starts to inhabit areas of our consciousness.”

The man sensed that discomfort, but it was slight and on the edge of his awareness. He breathed and pushed the pain away from his mind.

“Waiting for an uncomfortable situation to end is torture. Pure torture,” the yogi said, and the man could tell he was going into mumbo jumbo mode. “What do we do in an uncomfortable situation? When we’re in that waiting mode. How do we snap out of that waiting mode? A little psychic shift. To save that agony of waiting.”

The man drew breath into his body and continued to balance.

“And down with an in breath. Hands to your chest. Excellent.”

The yogi and the man went through the same series on the opposite leg.

The man rose into easy airplane pose again and negotiated a balance with his whole body. His arms ached from the airplane pose on his other leg, and the pain instantly encroached on his mental space.

The man appreciated how far he had come since the beginning of lessons, but the progress with each lesson was so miniscule now that he sometimes wondered if it was worth it. The pain in his upper arms brought on more negative thoughts as he hovered.

“Excuse me, yogi,” the man said.

“Yes?”

“How is this going to help anything? You’ve been just as indirect as my doctor. My heart’s gone. Someone took it, and I’ll never get it back.”

“I’m not sure I believe you. You have only walked the first few steps on the path of yoga, but I can tell your heart is still nearby. Stay in easy airplane pose.”

“No, it’s gone,” the man said.

“You may feel like it’s gone, but your heart is not something you lose that easily. Use your breath to push these intruding thoughts from your mind.”

“I haven’t had a single emotion for half a year.”

“True, emotions do originate from the heart. But they come into existence only from the expectations you draw. Perhaps you cut your heart out yourself by drawing unrealistic expectations.”

“What?”

“First there was the heart and purity of thought, feeling. The next instant there was expectation of the future. Man’s emotions were adulterated immediately after he achieved conscious thought. Allow these false premonitions to control you, and you exist in a world unreal, governed by compulsion. Allow your expectations to distance themselves from your true feeling, and they will take your heart with them.”

“No, I just woke up and it was gone, yogi. They installed a compartment where it used to be. Here.” The man demonstrated by removing his sleeveless T-shirt and opening the hatch on his chest. It swung out into the air. The man’s leg was shaking with effort. There was no sign that the yogi had noticed his compartment. “And, yogi, why do you call this easy airplane pose?”

“Hard airplane pose is with no legs.”

The response jarred the man, and he fell over onto his right side, rolling onto his back. He stretched his neck backward and could see the yogi floating unsupported over the floor.

The yogi peered into the compartment from his vantage point and said, “I can see where your heart belongs, and I know it is nearby.”

***

On the drive home, the man’s body was pleasantly sore. Each muscle felt like it had been outlined in a coloring book. He could feel the compartment, too. As the yogi’s mysterious comments lingered in the man’s thoughts, the compartment began to throb slightly with each breath. He tried to examine his expectations, but they felt just out of reach.

The man noticed the fat detectives two blocks before he arrived at his apartment. He pulled into the driveway. The two sauntered toward the building as he exited the car and gathered his yoga mat. The man eyed the two as he took out his keys.

“You’re fucked buddy,” Murph said. “Report came back from the lab. We know everything.” He poked a finger into the man’s chest.

“What my partner is trying to say,” Sully said. “Is that we need to talk with you. Just formalities to go over some new developments.”

Once inside, the detectives showed themselves around, examining furniture with light touches, picking up nicknacks and putting them back down.

“You got a walk-in hidden in one of these walls?” Sully asked, knocking on the living room wall.

“A walk-in?”

“A walk-in freezer, somewhere to keep the parts until they get picked up by the dealer.”

“Dealer?”

“We know you’re dealing.”

“Dealing?”

“Take a seat,” Murph said.

The detectives stood in front of the man.

“They know you were digging around in your chest.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They found traces of your DNA under your fingernails, and it wasn’t just any DNA – it was tissue from your chest. Your thoracic cavity. Just make this easy on everyone. Admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“Look, we’ve got open cases on three heartless bastards like you. Cases with no traces to harvesters or recent implants on the gray market. You’re the only asshole who cut his own heart out. Now, why do you think that is?”

The man was silent.

Sully walked to the bedroom. Murph followed, adding another “You’re fucked” as he passed the man.

“So this is where you did it.” Sully stopped at doorway, Murph behind him, the man behind Murph. “The scene of the fucking crime.”

Sully walked into the center of the room, and the floor whined as he brought his significant girth to a stop. He paused a moment then turned to face the man. “We’ll be back. They’re processing the warrant as we speak, so you better fucking believe we’ll be back. Say goodbye to your stuff for a while. You ripped your heart out to cover up the other jobs, maybe gain some sympathy from someone. Your ex? A new flame? Nice try, you passive aggressive asshole. You don’t fool us.”

***

When the detectives left, the man was as worked up as he had been since he first realized his heart was gone. He could feel a dark, suffocating pull from inside his compartment. He locked his front door and paced up and down the hallway that stretched across his apartment.

Eventually he slowed and walked into the bedroom. He felt a cold despair as he carefully walked circles in the open space in the room, searching desperately for his expectations and his emotions. Once every circuit the floor creaked, and the man could feel it resonate in the middle of his body where his heart should have been.

He came to a stop with his foot on the spot that creaked. He tested the creak, flexing the floor back and forth. When he looked down, he saw the outline of an unfamiliar square cut into the wooden floor. He kneeled to examine it. It looked like a compartment of some sort, but it was sealed tight.

The man surveyed the room from his knees. A couple of shirts on the floor, his laundry bag, a small shelf next to a dresser across the room, an acoustic guitar on a stand next to the shelf, the feet of his wooden bed frame – and he noticed another smaller square cut into the foot of the frame. The man ran his fingers over it and felt the wood surrounding the square curve smoothly away on the right and left sides allowing him to pinch the middle. He pulled, and the square moved easily. The man drew it from the frame of the bed, slowly revealing a wooden rectangular solid. The rectangle freed itself from the post, and a short flathead screwdriver was attached to the end.

The man held the strange tool before him. Instinctually, he wedged the end of the screwdriver into the edge of the square in the floor. He found the side that would lift on his second try, and the seal gave a pop when the man forced it open. Immediately a foul stink accompanied by a horde of flies escaped through the two inch gap. The man’s face retreated, and he held the hatch at arm’s length. He threw open the hatch, and it landed with a bang that was sucked coldly into the air of the room. A large gray cloud of insects rose from the hole in the floor and dissipated as they flew off in random directions.

The man without a heart crawled slowly toward the hole. Peering over the edge, he could see flies still buzzing around something. He waved his hand like he was trying to clear smoke, and after another smaller wave of insects exited the hole, he realized that at the bottom of the foot-deep compartment rotting black and withered was a single heart – his heart – and next to it lay a knife covered in dried blood.

 

Daniel Morales writes about Japanese language and culture at How to Japonese. He also edits Untapped New Orleans.

Yes, They’re Real by Laura McKnight

Breasts. Boobs. Funbags. Knockers. Tetons. The emblem of womanhood, the piece de resistance of the female figure, the glands that launch a thousand stares. Music celebrates them. Artwork mimics them. Poets laud them. Men throughout the globe worship them. Oh, Diana of Ephesus, you many-breasted wonder! Sing, Muses, of those lustrous Twin Peaks! Draw us to your melodic bosoms!

And inspire us of the not-so-fully ripened melons to look down at our meager offerings, yet not in mourning.

Weep not, ye sisters of the kiddie-sized milkshakes! Mourn not, you bearers of the B-cup, hope may yet be found in this narrow cleft, in the shallow valley of this land. Hail, you, the miracles of the WonderBra, the marvels of the Implant, the wonders of the push-up, the padded, the silicone and saline!

Or better yet, turn your peepers to a new horizon, where you may accept your miniature hooters as natural beauties, revel in your little lady lumps with joie de vivre and brandish your humble rack with pride. A new day is coming.

My lovely lady lumps?

“The female breasts have received more erotic attention from males than any other part of the body.” – The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body by Desmond Morris.

I am sitting in the tiny living room of my coworker’s shotgun house in Houma, watching an awards show on television. Not sure which one, because no one is really paying attention. Most of my fellow newspaper hacks are drinking beer, laughing, and gabbing about nothing. One of my fellow journalists, my latest crush, sits on a nearby sofa studying his iPhone, intent on winning another game of Connect Four. I am studying him, intent on gaining his attention. This crush is intelligent, sweet, liberal, progressive, fun, cool. His interests reach beyond fishing, he reads, and he voted for Barack Obama: winner!

“Whoa!” he shouts, jerking up from his game, his entire upper half rocking forward so that he nearly falls off the sofa. I look at the television screen to see what miracle has broken the spell of Connect Four: a big-breasted woman. Some of my other male friends, all intellectuals, smile and nod in brotherhood. They have seen them, too.

So have I. And they look nothing like the two inconspicuous lumps hiding beneath my T-shirt. My poor little boobs sit neglected on my chest. If even these well-evolved men still pound their chests for large breasts, I am fighting a losing battle. These are the kinds of guys who say they love smart women with dark hair and glasses and little boobs and curvy hips, but then gawk at the loud blonde with the huge breasts and high heels and stick figure. Personally, I consider my boobs kind of cute, but cute boobs don’t enjoy the instinctive acclaim of large ones, even from non-Neanderthals. I sink lower into the couch, defeated.

Average bra size of the American woman 15 years ago: 34B.

Average bra size of the American woman today: 36C.

Angelina Jolie’s bra size: 36C

Halle Berry’s bra size: 36C

My bra size: 36B

Most of my friends love their large boobs. They take pride in their coveted C-cups, their awe-inspiring D-cups, brandishing their giant bosoms with stylish, fitted clothing. My friend from Austin wears a T-shirt proclaiming, “Everything is Bigger in Texas!” stretched across her C-cups. Another friend shows her D-cups off with chic, swooping necklines. She and my friend, Lauren, agree: “There’s nothing not fun about big boobs.” They look at me with smiling pity.

Because in this world ruled by “tits on sticks,” where boobs reign and size matters, my humble bust line places me in serf status. A hefty rack signals femininity, sex appeal, instinctive attraction. It announces: I am woman.

It wasn’t always this way. American definitions of what makes a woman beautiful – and therefore, valuable – change rapidly and usually involve the kind of conflicting demands more appropriate for a sci-fi horror creature than an actual human being: For example, current trends favor looking like a Praying Mantis with Dolly Parton boobs and a Jennifer Lopez rear-end. There’s no way evolution can keep up with that. Comedian Maria Bamford describes our beauty standards succinctly: “Pretty soon I bet it’s going to be almost impossible. You’re gonna have to be morbidly obese while maintaining tiny little tweety bird ankles; and a wandering eye.”

Boobs attract such close scrutiny that men have developed detailed systems of classification and printed them onto T-shirts as guides. Beestings, cupcakes, buttons, pumpkins, Montezumas. Not women, but men have analyzed, categorized, deconstructed our lactation devices into types, kinds, strata, genres and sub-genres. I know of no similar classifications for male parts, no organized set of nicknames for penises or scrota. These devices stay more hidden from the public eye, their stature usually rendered mysterious by pants.

At the top of the boob hierarchy reside the mammoth breasts. In our culture, large breasts are celebrated, small ones ignored, making me a little self-conscious when a guy unsnaps my bra, a little apologetic: Sorry, I know they’re not the knockers of your dreams. They’re cute, maybe even underrated. But still, they’re not the boobs you fantasize about.

Even worse, I’m getting shown up from all directions. There are 9-year-olds with bigger busts, men dressed as women with bigger busts, men dressed as men with bigger busts. Can people even tell I’m female? Maybe more mascara would help. A skirt could also be a good clue.

Get a load of those knockers

“If you know a straight man that claims he is not fascinated with breasts, you know a man who is lying. Very few guys will pass a large-bosomed woman without taking at least a short look,” – from the What Men Are Really Thinking Project website.

I understand guys’ fascination with big breasts. I am fascinated, too. I sometimes catch myself gaping at some woman’s chest, wondering what it’s like to walk around bearing two huge emblems of femininity directly below your face. A male friend tells me he loves boobs because they are something he doesn’t have. I joke that I can relate. Well, half-joke. Boobs are so uniquely woman, so defining of femininity, I can see why guys adore them. I try to imagine what it’s like to feel that womanly, to prominently display your sexuality, to properly fill out a trendy shirt or tailored jacket or bikini top. I wonder if they’re as heavy as they look.

Lauren’s boobs look heavy. She gets upset one night when G-Ratt mentions them. G-Ratt is wild, alcoholic, and married. He is the only person I’ve ever seen asked to leave Rene’s Bar in Thibodaux. He’s a skinny little man with big blue eyes set in a childlike face, which makes his expandable beer belly and full facial hair a little unsettling. He’s now missing the first joint of an index finger, the result of “playing around” with a crane. He address his female friends as “Sugar Tits.”

One night, we are sitting around a table at Rene’s playing board games when he makes a glancing reference to Lauren’s giant chest. “Fuck you, G-Ratt!” she yells,

I also tend to grab them, to make sure they’re real slamming her drink onto the table. She rushes out of the bar, leaving behind a coat, an alarmed husband, and a stupefied crowd of board-game players.

But Lauren insists behemoth boobs are great.

Once a month, I get a small taste of grand gland magic. During a certain point in the feminine cycle, a surge of hormones makes me lustful, homicidal, prone to tears and strange leaps of logic – and miraculously swollen-breasted. Sometimes, I catch myself ogling my own chest in wonder. Look at them! They fill out this bra like nobody’s business. The ladies are back! And boy do they make this T-shirt look hotter. Once, while washing my hands in the work bathroom, I caught sight of my enlarged boobs in the mirror and grabbed one in each hand, as if unsure they were really there. I turned to the side to see how they looked in profile. Hmmm…hot. I made sassy faces in the mirror, my hands still fondling my own breasts. Then someone walked in, and I flung my arms down and walked out. Proudly.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Laura, the flat-chested girl in Thibodaux. You know where. Oh, you don’t? Too far into the swamp, you say?

As a young girl, I was no girly girl. I clawed my way up trees, built creations from mud, and reveled in swampy ditches. Yet I wasn’t a gold-star tomboy either. I didn’t know the rules of football, and I was terrified of snakes and neighborhood bullies. I was a strange, in-between creature, a Late Bloomer who would never blossom into the kind of woman who obsesses with home décor, experiences shoe-gasms, or plans her wedding day to the detail.

As I entered junior-high school, I resisted most womanization processes. I fought shaving my legs, I fought carrying a purse, and I avoided makeup. By the time I started seventh grade, my mom had won the leg-shaving and purse-carrying battles. She had also mandated deodorant and training bras, little cloth contraptions featuring a pair of pink triangles in the front. The tiny, flat triangles even had lace around their edges. They seemed about as necessary as putting a bikini top on a dog.

Still, I wore them, strapping the delicate things on each morning to cover the miniscule bumps on my chest. And I still remember in detail the day I forgot to wear a training bra to seventh grade. I was already awkward enough: pale, skinny, nerdy, shy, unkempt. I realized my oversight on the school bus and wanted to cry. Would people be able to tell I wore no bra? What kind of attention would this bring? I hunched my shoulders on the bus, making my Arkansas Razorbacks T-shirt billow out in the front, and vowed to maintain this posture until the ride home. I dreaded gym class, when I would need to beat everyone to the locker room to change shirts before anyone could discover my secret. Even more so, I dreaded percussion class, filled with boys. Loud, cruel boys. I bent so far over, I must have looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame playing the marimba. It worked. I remained under the radar all day.

In high school, there came formal dances, always preceded by tricky missions to find the few dresses that fit both my upper and lower halves. Prom, homecoming – always the scene of my mother and I studying dresses that fit perfectly on my torso, my waist, my derriere, my thighs but with the tops sinking in like deflated balloons. So much for the magic.

“Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret. I just told my mother I want a bra. Please help me grow God. You know where. I want to be like everyone else.” – Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

Like Margaret, I prayed to God for larger boobs. It didn’t work.

I have never had Joggers Nipple

“I like being small – I’ve known so many women with big boobs who feel overweight or end up with back problems.” – Eva Longoria, actress.

Our flag-football team is in the midst of an intense game in a large grassy space on campus. The energy is high when my friend, Trisha, shuttles down the field to make an important catch. Our quarterback beams the ball, which slams into Trisha’s chest as she wraps her arms around it. The group along the sidelines cheers, and Trisha yells, “That’s why it’s good to have a flat chest!”

At no time do I feel more comfortable with my chest size than when in action: walking, running, kicking, jumping, catching a football, digging a volleyball, diving onto a martial-arts mat unencumbered by jiggling, swinging glands. I am free to move in space unfettered. I am so unburdened I can almost fly. My bra straps leave no welts on my shoulders. My back contends with no extra weight from the front. In movement, suddenly the scales shift, and my breast deficits become an asset. My small breasts can still suffer injury, such as a terrible-sounding condition known as Joggers Nipple. I have never experienced Joggers Nipple. The fact that I almost never jog could have something to do with this, but I credit my little boobs.

Boobs tend to attract boobs

“Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid.” – Rita Rudner, comedian.

The benefits of small boobs reach beyond my enhanced ability to jog if I ever chose to do so; little breasts also serve as safety nets, little jerk filters. They weed out certain types of guys, saving me the trouble. In this case, stereotypes work in my favor, because large boobs equal ditzy, easy, shallow, at least to ditzy, easy, shallow men. Small boobs equal nerdy, prudish, high-minded. My breasts are like natural camouflage from sleaze balls on the prowl. Predatory stares slide right past me to bigger-bosomed prey.

My inconspicuous boobs rarely draw unwanted attention: not in foreign countries, not in male-dominated places, not in the French Quarter. I can walk along Bourbon Street at the height of Mardi Gras, safe from grasping hands.

No one dates me for my big boobs. Or pays attention to me for my big boobs. Or likes my writing for my big boobs.

Another plus: I do not need the T-shirt that says “Look Up Here!” with an arrow pointing to my face.

At some point, my boobs become funny to me – even trendy, in an ironic T-shirt sort of way. I could wear the shirt that says “Actual Size” or “Yes, they’re real.” I get very tempted to buy and wear these shirts, but even now, I’m not sure I can take people looking at my chest and then laughing.

Number of times I have caught men staring at my chest: Approximately 2-3

Number of times I have been asked to show my breasts during Mardi Gras: 0

Number of times I have been asked to show my breasts during the Grand Isle International Tarpon Rodeo: 1

It’s Halloween night, and I am strolling New Orleans’ French Quarter streets dressed as a transvestite. That’s right: I am trying to look like a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman. But I probably look more like a hooker hired by American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman or an extra for a John Waters film. I wear a short, tight, pink leopard-print dress; high-heeled black sneakers with hot-pink accents; and a messy dull-blonde wig. I’ve coated my lids with dark blue eye-shadow, ringed my mouth with a thick pink outline, and spread gray makeup onto my upper lip and chin to resemble five-oh-clock shadow. I’ve stuffed the bosom of my dress with white gym socks.

Men stare as I pass them, and I know I could not handle this kind of attention on a regular basis. A drunken guy in camouflage points and calls out costumes as people walk past. “Robot! Vampire!Strawberry Shortcake!” And so on. As I walk by, he yells “Gorgeous Girl!”

Really? So this is the look that earns me the adjective “gorgeous.” Is it the big blonde hair? The short skirt? Or perhaps the gym socks. This “gorgeous” look attracts that guy.

I think I’ll leave my faux bosom in my sock drawer.

But Mother Nature never had to wear an A Cup!

“Everybody’s got a dream inside, you know? And it’s good when you can make your dream come true.” – 28-year-old Sheyla Hershey of Brazil, owner of the world’s largest breasts, a size 38KKK, according to The Huffington Post.

 

“It has been calculated that, by the year 2002, more than 1 million American women had had their breasts enhanced by surgery. This is a staggering figure for any kind of cosmetic surgery and reveals the deep-seated need many women have to display this primeval female signal.” –The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body by Desmond Morris.

Number of women receiving breast implants in 2010 in the U.S.: Nearly 300,000¹

Number of times I’ve fleetingly considered breast implants: dozens

Number of times I’ve seriously considered breast implants: 0

It’s 2005 when I sit in a wooden chair in the office of Dr. Mark Peters, the hottest cosmetic surgeon in Houma, a small oilfield city in southeast Louisiana. Dr. Peters has billboards throughout town that feature a sultry woman with parted lips and a low-cut top revealing two large, perfectly shaped breasts. “Putting the hot back in Mama,” the billboards read. I am about to interview Dr. Peters for a business news story on local cosmetic surgery. I expect to meet a flashy, superficial man, but instead I am treated to a warm, fatherly presence. Peters’s chipmunk cheeks are just pudgy enough to completely disarm my preconceptions. I feel comfortable instantly. I even forget to wonder whether he is secretly surveying my potential as a prospective patient.

My ease soon turns to astonishment: Peters says he performs cosmetic procedures on 20 to 25 patients each month. He and another local surgeon, Dr. O’Neil Engeron, say breast augmentation, which includes enlarging or re-structuring the breasts, tops their lists of most common surgical procedures. “They’re going larger,” Peters tells me. I am fascinated by the idea that women I see at Rouses Supermarket, the Thibodeauxville Fall Festival, Bilello’s Café, may have had their breasts enhanced. It seems so Hollywood, so out of character for small-town Cajun country.

I am getting better at recognizing implants – their unnatural bouncy-ball shape, their gigantic spheres often mismatched with waiflike figures – but it sometimes takes me a while. Yet I noticed my cousin’s immediately. I spent much of my childhood and young teen years envying and admiring this cousin. I coveted her naturally tan complexion, giant green-blue eyes, and Texas twang. But I never envied her chest. Her boobs rivaled mine in smallness. Then my uncle died, splitting our family apart with a quibble over his estate. Within a year of his death, I found my cousin online and saw where she invested her inheritance: her chest.

It’s not OK to be OK with your small boobs

“We are supplying sexy, chic lingerie for grown-up women, not teenagers, who are proud of what they have and not worried about trying to look bigger,” Fiona Goad, managing director of LittleWomen.com, an English lingerie business, in an article in The New York Times.

I’m making a social statement by keeping my boobs little. But the bra designers aren’t hearing me. Even though I just say “no” to silicone and saline, I still get the pressure – from undergarment stores. Each shopping trip requires a hunt for B-cup bras minus the padding that designers assume I need or want. Rows of A and B cups strive to reinforce my insecurity with their thick embellishments. I grow annoyed as I am forced to glean the few un-enhanced B-cup bras from hordes of padding and pushing.

In places like Victoria’s Secret, I can feel my chest shrinking as I pass the giant posters flanking the entrance, the ones displaying blown-up photos of skinny women with large breasts, mammary-gland goddesses inviting me into their temple. I eventually learn to skip Victoria’s Secret altogether for $10 Wal-Mart bras. They’re beige and homely. But at least they’re honest.

Number of padded bras I own: 1

Number of padded bras I wear: 0

Botticelli saves the day

“Curve: The loveliest distance between two points.” – Mae West, actress.

“Women were often nude on top and robed on the bottom or completely nude. They had soft round abdomens, full hips and legs and small breasts.” – From “Classical Greek Art Characteristics,” eHow.com.

I minored in fine arts in college, so I spent a lot of time roaming the art building. While scuttling around, I noticed a trend in the student art posted along the hallways and started playing a game: guess whether a male or female artist depicted a particular female nude. The breasts were usually a dead giveaway. Male students could never get them right. The drawings and paintings would be perfect – except for the artificially rounded, porn-star breasts.

Yet artwork, mostly male-produced classical artwork, proved the turning point in my ongoing salvation from glandular insecurities. I’m not sure when, but one day I was breezing through a lavishly-illustrated art-history book, when I noticed something odd about the female figures in Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and classic Greek and Roman statues: these icons of beauty have small boobs.

Despite Botticelli’s uplifting brilliance, I continue to question my chest. I discuss this with an older friend, self-proclaimed expert on everything. This friend is a 40-plus weathered New Orleanian who dresses in black and gray, his head topped with a rowdy frizz of dry gray-brown hair. He looks like a walking corpse and calls me “darlin.” “Breasts have nothing to do with looking like a woman,” he tells me.

I think of his wife, who sits in the next room. A former stripper, she is petite with wavy black hair, dark eyes, golden skin, a small waist, full behind, and small breasts. Much later, I notice a photograph of her taken in her stripping days. She is posed next to a pole, her back arched to display her nude torso to the crowd. Her upper body and part of her face are sheathed in gauzy material. The photo shows nothing of her breasts. Yet there is no question, from the mere sight of her torso’s curves, that she is female.

Cupcakes are sweet

“Cupcake Breasts: Breasts that well may not be incredibly large…are perky, suckable and delicious, like a cupcake.” – UrbanDictionary.com.

My crush’s fascination with large breasts apparently does not render me unappealing. Just before he moves across the country, I discover that the crush I have on him has been secretly reciprocated, and we enjoy this mutual affection while we can. My modest size does not stop him from paying attention to my breasts, but I’m not sure if he really likes them. I don’t feel totally insecure, but I wish I could see my breasts the way my New Orleanian friend does, the way Boticelli might, the way G-Ratt?…would…?

Lauren and G-Ratt have made up over barbecue. Maybe he will be more careful with his words, I think.

But G-Ratt remains unreformed.

“What’s up, Sugar Tits?” he asks the next time he sees me.

Maybe I should be offended, but it’s G-Ratt.

Maybe I should slam down a drink, but “Sugar Tits” is kind of cute.

Maybe I should stomp out of the bar. Instead, I just grin.

Laura McKnight is a graduate student in the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. For details, including bra size, see above.

Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who showed up last night for Gold Room at Handsome Willy’s. While it sucked something awful that everyone who parked in the adjacent parking lot got booted to the tune of $110, everyone who came back from the parking lot knows the readings were kind of awesome. We may have a change of venue for April’s reading. If you have any suggestions, be sure to let us know.

March Reading.

Mardi What? It’s Geauxld Room time. Come out this Thursday for the fiction of Maurice Ruffin and Neil Ranu, the nonfiction of Cate Root, and the poetry of Jonathon Brown. Also, dollar tacos and cheap beer.

Thursday, March 24th at 8 pm.
Handsome Willy’s
218 S. Robertson St.

Prose Poem For The Day I Quit Smoking by Kat Stromquist

In her mouth she holds nine hundred pieces of gum, mashed and bubbled, fused into a thick tongue-wad. The ball carries perfect impressions of her molars, policework quality, the kind you could identify a body with. Those are decisive incisors, reducing the rubber to bits like a Clydesdale obliterating an apple. Gum-full, she is gagged and muted, a mouth full of silence. In the morning, when she reaches for the pack beside the bed, trembling hands shake the wrappers down to the floor like defeated leaves. Light streams in through the windows in vertical slats. Golden bars prepare geometry on the cherrywood floors. The first piece tastes like the branch of a pine tree – sweet with an acrid echo, Christmas cookies burned in the oven.

Kat Stromquist is an MFA student at the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. Previously, her writing has appeared in Crescent City Review, Gambit Weekly, the websites NOLADefender.com and NOLAlicious.com, and elsewhere.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who showed up at Handsome Willy’s Thursday night to hear the readings. If you weren’t able to join us, we look forward to seeing you in March. In the meantime, check back here soon for previously read Gold Room pieces.

February Reading

Justin Burnell & Daniel Morales making it up, Laura McKnight telling it how it is, and Kat Stromquist styling poetic. Come on out to Handsome Willy’s and enjoy some good words and delicious $1 tacos.

February 17th
8pm
Handsome Willy’s
218 S. Robertson St.

Will All of You Stop Being A-holes, Please? by April Blevins

On the day after the Berlin wall came down, Baby Girl Hardin became a murderer, and the fourth grade class at Holy Name of Jesus Academy got a serious lesson in the democratic process in honor of the Soviet’s blessed defeat.

Of course that buttkisser Jeremiah Davis got to be President, but that was only because he offered to lead the class in the Pledge and the Lord’s Prayer and even improvised—that was one of their spelling words, it meant to make something up as you go along—a prayer ending that had Mrs. Estes falling all over herself, Oh wasn’t that a lovely blessing class, and Thank you so very much Jeremiah, and My dear Jeremiah, I love you so and I want to marry you. She didn’t really say that last part, but Baby Girl thought Mrs. Estes would probably marry Jeremiah if she could. What a gyp.

Baby Girl was stuck being the stupid Speaker of the House, whatever that was. She decided the whole thing was totally stupid, even though she had loved social studies as much as recess up until then. But if you can’t be the President, really what is the dang point?
Mrs. Estes was busy helping dumb Rebecca Casper, so Baby Girl took the opportunity to yank hard on the hair that hung down over Jeremiah’s collar.

“Stop it you little freak!” he said. Baby Girl studied her pencil like it was the eighth wonder of the world so she wouldn’t look suspicious, but she could feel Mrs. Estes’ glare anyway. She tried to count the dents in the wood from where she chewed on it but gave up after 28.

“Hey Jeremiah, you want to trade jobs?”

“Shut up, retard.” He hunched farther over the encyclopedia that was taking up most of the room on his desk, and she decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Baby Girl looked around to see if the new senators were done with the “S” book yet so she could do her research, but it wasn’t on the shelf, and she couldn’t tell who had it.

Outside, it was one of those tricky weather days, where you would swear it was warm since the sun was so bright, but Baby Girl could tell it was fall and cool because the sky was a deeper blue that it could ever get in the heat of summer. She knew to pay attention to the details like that, which sometimes drove Mom nuts. Like when Dad quit coming home between hauls and her mother said he was just on a really long trip, but Baby Girl had used her spying skills and knew that all his clothes and toothbrush were gone, and he probably was too. She wondered if he was sleeping in his rig or if he had another house somewhere because either way it would be way fun to stay with him. But she didn’t want to ask because every time she brought him up the veins in Mom’s neck poked out which was a detail pointing to she was really angry.

Baby Girl did really want to find him and stay with him because the Sasquatch Bert had moved in, and he left lots of little hairs in the shower which was really gross and his two Amazon daughters spent every other weekend at their house and they were even grosser than their Sasquatch dad.

“Miss Hardin, why aren’t you working on your presentation?” Mrs. Estes asked. Baby Girl hated the way Mrs. Estes always called her that, Miss Hardin, like she couldn’t even stand to utter her first name. Not that Baby Girl liked her name, it was kind of dumb. She would love to change it to something sophisticated like Alexis or Cindy and would as soon as she was older, but still. Mrs. Estes called all the other kids by their first names so why should she be any different? It was all a dang gyp.

“Someone is using the encyclopedia I need.”

“Well, why don’t you just share?” Mrs. Estes said. Like that had never occurred to Baby Girl. The last time she saw it though, there were two senators and five Supreme Court justices crowded around the same dang book. Why don’t you just share, you witch.

“What did you just say, young lady?” But she hadn’t said anything, had she?

“Mrs. Estes, I’m done with the book if she wants it,” Katie said. Woohoo, Katie to the rescue! Ka-tie, Ka-tie, Baby Girl sang to herself, Katie is the coolest girl in the class! She scuttled over to Katie’s desk and retrieved the heavy volume.

“Thankyouverymuch,” she whispered before skipping back to her desk.

Saskatchewan, sciatica, shrimp, sloop, Sudan—oops, too far—speckled trout, back a little further, speaker, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Yes. Gives oath to newly elected representatives, establishes agenda, blah blah blah, appoints committees, blah. Holy smokes! And there it was, right in the dang encyclopedia, “The individual in this office is second in the line of presidential succession, following the vice president.” She could still be the President! She only had to get rid of Jeremiah the buttkisser and Stephen Sikes, who was actually pretty cool because he always picked her first of the girls for kickball teams, but he still had to go if she was going to be the President this afternoon when they would actually get to write a law for their class. A loophole! Oh, God bless America.

***

Instead of playing four square like she usually did, Baby Girl hung around the swings waiting for Julian Stiles. Julian was the only black kid in her class, and actually he was the only black kid in the whole school. He was really more brown than black, so she couldn’t quite figure out why people called him black, and she decided to ask him about that sometime, but right then, she had more important business with him for the following reasons:

1. Julian didn’t really have any friends so he would probably talk to her.
2. He had gotten in a fight (with a fifth grader!) on the second day of school, so he wasn’t scared of anyone.
3. He had the incredibly crappy job of “citizen” for the day, which meant he only got to tell the representatives and senators what he thought the law should be this afternoon, but he didn’t really get to have any say.

Every day when they came outside, he would just swing by himself, but they had been at recess for like an hour already and still no sign of him. Dang! What a gyp. She needed to talk to him soon or her whole plan would fall apart and she would have to improvise. She looked to see if he was over by the dodge ball wall or on the monkey bars, but he was nowhere to be found. Super dang! She was about to give up and go play four square when she saw Julian sitting on the railroad ties that ran along the edge of the asphalt. She ran over to him as quickly as possible. She didn’t know how much time they had left.

“Why don’t you want to swing today?” she asked. He just looked at her like she was an alien or something and went back to pulling apart a leaf. “Look, I was waiting to talk to you about something very important. Do you want to be the vice president this afternoon?” He quit fidgeting with the leaf and looked up at her.

“How?”

“Without going into too many details,” she said, “if both the president and vice president are killed, then I get to take over.”

“I’m not killing anybody. You’re crazy.” He picked up a clod of weeds growing in a crack and tossed them onto the ground.

“You don’t have to kill anybody, stupid. But if Jeremiah and Stephen, say, get sent to the principal’s office then they won’t very well be able to fulfill their duties now will they?”

“What’s that got to do with me? I’m just a dumb old citizen.” He reached down to scratch his ankle.

“Once I’m in charge I’ll make you second in command,” she said. She was starting to lose her patience. She thought it would be easier to convince him since he never spoke to anyone all day long. She thought he would jump at the chance to have a friend and get to be the second in charge. What was up with all these questions? She might just have to improvise.

“Why don’t you just do it yourself?” he asked.

“Because no one is afraid of me, dumb-dumb. If you go over there and tell those two to fight each other or they’ll have to fight you, what do you think they’re gonna do, huh?” She could see this idea marinating in his brain, and she thought she might just have him.

“And what if I don’t want to?” He asked. What was wrong with him? Why wouldn’t he want to? Fine. Im-pro-vise.

“Hold up your middle finger, but keep the rest of them down.” She watched and waited while he struggled with the digit acrobatics. Once he had it, she dropped her trump card. “You just said a bad word to God with your finger, and if you don’t cooperate, I will tell on you.”

All through their oral presentations, Baby Girl kept giving Julian stern looks but he either didn’t notice or ignored it. When after lunch Julian still hadn’t done his job, she decided he must be punished.

“Now class,” Mrs. Estes said, “since we all know the functions and responsibilities of the positions of government, we will put it into practice. Hand down, Miss Hardin. You will all need to propose some laws for our classroom, debate their merits, and pass those that are deemed important for the health of our society. Everyone must be responsible for the role of his office. Who would like to start?” Baby Girl waved her hand frantically in the air, but Mrs. Estes called on Sarah who said their law should be that they get cupcakes every Friday. How lame. After a few more rounds of seriously bad ideas (Why wasn’t anyone saying that they should outlaw homework or make Mrs. Estes stop using the word “inappropriate” which she said like 80 times a day?), Mrs. Estes finally called on Baby Girl. She cleared her throat and shot a glance at Julian, but he was looking at the wall like that crusty yellow color was the most beautiful thing on the planet.

“Julian said a bad word to God at recess. He did this.” And Baby Girl stood up in the aisle between desks with her middle finger raised in the air and turned around so everyone in class could see.

“Miss Hardin. That is completely inappropriate.” Mrs. Estes’ eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her face. “Go straight to the principal’s office. I am done with your foolishness.” Mrs. Estes was all flushed and flustered.

“But I was only—”

“No buts. March young lady.”

What a gyp! She could see Julian along with the rest of the class smirking and laughing to themselves as she walked to the door. Once she was out in the hallway, she kicked the wall so hard it hurt her big toe, but she didn’t care. Why didn’t any of these a-holes ever listen to her? She hadn’t even done anything, and now she had to go see Sister Rosemary, who was one of her favorite people at this school, but still. “A-holes,” she said, and it felt good to say the word out loud. “You’re all a bunch of a-holes,” she said to the empty hallway, and smacked the metal water fountain as she walked by.

Once she was seated in the big leather chair and had again gotten over the creepy, bloody Jesus hanging behind Sister Rosemary’s desk, Baby Girl told her principal the whole story because she was really nice and understanding even though she was a nun and they were supposed to be mean. She told her all about wanting to be President and the loophole and Julian and that Bert’s Amazon kids were coming for the weekend again and that the whole day was a gyp. By the time she finished she was crying and Sister Rosemary gave her a hug and a green Safe-T-Pop and a note to take home to her mother. The note was sealed in an envelope but Baby Girl was sure that it probably said everyone should be super nice to her since she’d had such a horrible day and that the Amazons should not come back because it was so upsetting to her.

After the bus dropped her at her house, Baby Girl decided to watch some cartoons and relax before everyone got home. But every stinking channel showed video of people climbing over a wall covered in graffiti, or chipping at it with chisels and hammers, or mobs just knocking whole sections of it down while they screamed and cheered. She had to admit it did look pretty fun to tear stuff up like that, but Baby Girl still didn’t understand why President Bush was talking about it. It was just a dumb wall in Germany.

When her mother got home from the office, Baby Girl was super good and nice and brought her a Coke while she changed out of her suit. Mom was a secretary which meant she mostly talked on the phone and gave people messages, so Baby Girl really didn’t understand why she had to dress up since no one could tell what she was wearing through the dang receiver. She sat on her mother’s big bed and waited and tried to keep herself from clicking her feet against each other which she knew drove Mom nuts.

“Are the Am—, I mean, are Leslie and Jessica still coming this weekend?” Baby Girl asked. She took a sip of the coke she’d made for Mom. She had the note from Sister Rosemary in her pocket, and she wanted to make sure it went to good use.

“Yeah. Bert’s picking them up on his way home.”

“Well,” Baby Girl said, “You know, I don’t think that is such a good idea.” She set the coke on the bedside table and pulled the envelope from her pocket. “Take a look at this.” Her mother ripped the envelope carefully along the top edge and spent a really long time reading what it said. Baby Girl kept looking at her face to see when she got to the part about the Amazons and Bert needing to get their own dang house and get out of hers, but her mother folded it up when she finished reading it, and Baby Girl couldn’t ever tell when she got to the good part.

“You are grounded. No playing outside, no TV, no nothing. You will stay in your room and not come out until you learn how to behave.” Her mother left the room, and Baby Girl could here her slamming things around in the kitchen. She ran after her.

“Why? I didn’t even do anything.” Baby Girl slumped against the kitchen table while her mother tore at a head of lettuce like she was trying to murder it.

“Didn’t do anything? You flipped your entire class the bird!” Her mother put the lettuce down and steadied herself against the counter. “I don’t know why you can’t just be good. Why can’t you? I can’t deal with this. You act out at school, you’re mean to Leslie and Jessica who have never done anything to you. I’m tired of it. Just go to your room.”

What in the world was going on? This was not supposed to turn out like this at all. Baby Girl stomped through the house to her bedroom trying to make as much noise as humanly possible with each step. Dear God, she thought, why hast thou forsaken me? What a gyp.

Baby Girl never slept well when Bert’s girls were over because she always had to make a pallet on the floor in her own dang room while they slept in her bed. It was usually fun to make a pallet on the floor like when she slept over at Katie’s house or her cousins came over, but it wasn’t fun at all with the Amazons. And, to make it all worse, she was sure they were infested with rats and bugs and germs that would make her wake up ugly and fat and eight feet tall like they were. Even though Leslie was a year older than her and Jessica was a year younger, they both towered over Baby Girl and it really creeped her out. They also always brought their stupid ferret, who had the dumbest name ever which was Squeakers. She had to admit that Squeakers was kind of cute and all, but he stank like horse dooky, and those Amazons were so dumb that they actually kissed him full on the mouth! She was sure that anyone disgusting enough to do that surely had fleas and rats crawling in their clothes and overnight bags. She had also overheard Bert say one night while she was using her spy skills that their mother was a damn lying slut, and Baby Girl was pretty sure that meant she liked to live with rats and fleas and cockroaches like her Aunt Sherry, who Mom had also called a slut when she didn’t know Baby Girl could hear.

Lying awake that night while the Amazon sisters snoozed away on her bed like a couple of sluts, Baby Girl was certain that she heard rats crawling out of their bags and into the walls, and it even felt for a minute like they were crawling on her, and she itched in a million places all at once and drove herself crazy trying to scratch. But she knew she just had to wait a little longer because being grounded and sitting in her room while everyone else laughed and played and did wonderfully exciting things without her had given her time to hatch a plan. It was even better than the one she had copied from that guy in Africa or Ireland or somewhere who played his flute and led all the rats to the river where they all drowned and then everybody loved him and gave him a bazillion dollars or something. She had tried that last time the Amazons were there, playing her recorder and leading them and all their rats to the bathtub, but it didn’t work and she’d gotten yelled at for waking up the whole damn house for crying out loud.

She had tried to explain, but ever since Bert moved in, her mother didn’t like to listen or do anything besides French kissing Sasquatch in the bed, which she only knew because she was super good at spying. She was so excellent at silent walking and being invisible that most of the time no one noticed her at all. She’d already decided that when she grew up she would be the greatest spy in the world and even President Bush would call her for help with the Soviet problem.

Which was why she had decided to use her spy skills tonight to get rid of the rats. She had put a piece of cardboard down on the floor of her closet and a peanut butter cracker in the center of it. Then she tied a string to the handle of the mop bucket and propped it upside down on the handle over the peanut butter cracker. She had even practiced yanking on the string several times to get perfect at making the bucket fall down just right instead of knocking it all over. So now all she had to do was lie there and wait until she heard the rats eating the cracker and try not to itch to death in the meantime.

She snuggled deep into her Cabbage Patch Kids sleeping bag, which had been really cool when she was little, but now it was kind of dumb and her mother wouldn’t get her a new one even though she could never take this thing on spy missions. How could anyone take a spy seriously when they slept with baby stuff? She pulled it up over her face so that only her hand grasping the string was sticking out in the dark. She put her face deep in the pillow she’d stolen from Mom and Bert’s room, and she liked the way it smelled like White Shoulders perfume and her mother’s neck, but she wished that it smelled like her father too. She decided that he was probably camping out in his big rig which wasn’t really like camping at all since it had bunk beds and a bathroom in it and was her favorite place to play when he still came home. He always used to bring her something whenever he got back from a haul. Sometimes it was just a bag of chips but sometimes he brought her toys. If he showed up now, she wouldn’t even care if he brought anything or not. He was probably somewhere really cool like Los Angeles or the Alamo, and Baby Girl ached with wishing she was there, riding the roads and eating McDonalds and sleeping on the top bunk. It would be so cool.

“Dear God,” she began, “Please help me rid this house of rats and the Sasquatch and his slut kids. Also, please send me another sleeping bag so I don’t get laughed at by the other spies.” She was starting to feel good about this prayer but then things started coming out that surprised her. “And God, please keep my mother safe even though she french kisses Bert and that is a sin—she knows not what she does—it is all Bert’s fault because he has hypnotized her with his Sasquatch power. Or at least if you can’t do anything about them, give me the superpower to fly so I can go find my dad and live with him and escape these a-holes. Amen.” She laid there for a few quiet minutes feeling oddly peaceful and decided that Mrs. Estes who always told them to pray about their worries may not be as completely full of it as she’d supposed. She felt calm, peaceful even, and she wasn’t even itchy anymore.

Baby Girl drifted off into sleep and dreamed that she was standing in front of the Berlin wall. She was supposed to count all the cracks for President Bush. As she walked along it counting, she heard Mom and Dad calling her name from the other side. She ran back and forth along the wall, yelling that she was right there, but they couldn’t hear her. She tried to climb over, but every time she slid right back down. She became frantic as the calls from Mom and Dad became more distant, and then she realized that the wall was really a box all around her.

She awoke from the nightmare sweaty and disoriented. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then she heard it. The tell-tale noise of rat on cracker. Little licking noises, like a kitten cleaning its paws. Her prayers had been answered! Oh, thanks be to God. She concentrated hard on becoming weightless and flying, but that didn’t really do anything so she knew she had to stay there and deal with the rat problem. She took a deep breath and counted to three, then yanked hard on the string. The bucket came down with a thwack, and she heard something bumping against its plastic sides. She’d done it! She scuddled out of her sleeping bag and over to the closet and carefully turned the bucket right side up with the cardboard over the hole. She could feel the thing bumping around inside the bucket as she ran to the bathroom, and she couldn’t stop herself from squealing. “Gross! Gross! Gross! Gross! Gross!” The thing was clawing and scratching at the sides and she could feel it pushing against the cardboard. She heard Jessica the Amazon behind her calling her name. It was working! They would follow their rats into the bathtub and drown themselves. Bless you, oh Lord, for these thy gifts.

But when Baby Girl flipped on the bathroom light she realized she had forgotten to fill up the tub. What a gyp! Improvise, improvise, improvise, she told herself. Ah, the toilet! Thankfully the Sasquatch had left the lid up again so all she had to do was turn the bucket over the top of it. And flush!

“What are you doing?” Jessica was standing in the bathroom doorway rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looked ridiculous with her stupid hair standing up everywhere like she’d been electrocuted or something.

“Killing your slutty rats!” Which really should have been done by now, but water just kept slushing around in the bowl which was getting fuller and fuller and fuller.

“Oh dang,” Baby Girl said as she realized the little furball was stuck in the hole.

Jessica ran down the hall screaming, “She’s killing Squeakers!” Baby Girl finally got a good look at the rat and realized it was indeed the Amazons ferret and his little back legs were moving against the porcelain like he was pedaling some demon bike. A rock as big as a boulder settled in Baby Girl’s insides from the back of her throat all the way down to the bottom of her stomach. It was true that a ferret is a dumb pet and it stunk up the whole house, but she had to admit that it was kind of cute when it was eating its little pellet food and cleaning its tail with its little ferret fingers.

Water was spilling over the edge of the toilet and onto the floor, and Baby Girl knew what she had to do to save it. She grabbed the plunger and tried really hard not to squish Squeakers as she positioned it over the hole and pushed as hard as she could over and over like she’d seen her Dad do. She was straining against the plastic tool—this was really harder than it looked—when Bert in his saggy boxers walked in looking for all the world like a big dumb ape. “What in hell?” he said. But before she could say anything, he’d shoved Baby Girl aside so that she slid on the wet tile and fell on her butt. Then both the Amazons were in the doorway screeching that she was a murderer. Bert kept looking from the toilet back to her, but instead of saying I’m sorry I knocked you over, here let me help you up so we can straighten this all out, his neck bulged out and his face turned red and he screamed, “GETTHEHELLOUTOFHEREYOULITTLESHIT,” and flung the plunger at her.

Baby Girl was so scared she stayed frozen to the floor while toilet water soaked into her pajamas. Bert stuck his big Sasquatch hands into the toilet and pulled out the limp, soaked Squeakers. Baby Girl’s eyes burned and the rock in her insides grew until she felt like her entire body was made of stone. Her mother was stroking Jessica’s hair and hugging Leslie to her side and the whole sight made Baby Girl just want to die.

She picked herself up from the floor and ran past Mom and her new favorites, the Amazons, down the hall and into her room and slammed the door as hard as she could. She locked it tight so they couldn’t get to her and yelled, “I hate all of you a-holes!” She tore the sheets and blankets off her bed since they were contaminated with slut and curled up with her sleeping bag and the pillow that smelled like her mother on the bare mattress and cried.

As she sobbed, she kept waiting for her mother to come into her room and hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay, but it never happened. And why would it? She was a murderer. She had killed Squeakers and that was like the worst sin in the world, and her mother loved the Amazons more and they would probably send her to jail.

She knew then what she had to do. As she packed, she realized she had been preparing for this day for as long as she could remember. She grabbed her stupid sleeping bag which would definitely get made fun of but would have to do, and her flashlight, and her favorite book, Free To Be You and Me. She slid her window open and jumped through it which was a cinch because she had taken the screen of ages ago.

She silent walked between the side of the house and the wooded fence, an alley which was sort of spooky even in daytime, but she wasn’t scared because she was a murderer and no one would mess with her now. She carefully opened the gate, pushing up on it so that it didn’t make the screeching noise and then she was home free. She hated her stupid house, which she had never noticed looked exactly like all the other houses in this stupid neighborhood. Same red brick, same front door with the frosted glass, same blue shutters, and even the same scraggly, lopsided bushes out front. It hadn’t looked that way to her when Dad was here and things were good, but they could have it all now.

She crossed the street and walked the three blocks to the field. She threw her things over the fence and carefully stepped through the wires so that she didn’t get hung up on a barb. The air was cool and thick with mist which her dad had always called fog soup. She used to laugh at that, but it didn’t even make her smile now. She crossed through the tall grass in her bare feet and kicked herself for not at least putting on some dry pajamas. It was kind of cold, and even murderers should get dry, warm clothes. She rolled her sleeping bag out and tucked her book and flashlight safely into the bottom of it before crawling in. She stared at the stars and tried to make a plan for the next day and the rest of her life, but she didn’t much feel like thinking and planning. She knew she either had to find her dad or get a spying job, but both of those things were really big and she just wanted to sleep. She hated to admit it, but she just wanted her mother and thinking about that made her want to start crying all over again.

The dew was soaking into the cotton of her sleeping bag. “Dear God, just please give me a break. Please. Just help me get away from all these a-holes. I’m sorry about Squeakers. Please let him into ferret heaven. I will repent tomorrow, promise. Just please help me now. Amen.” As soon as she finished, she could hear an airplane in the distance. Holy crap! God was awesome—he had answered her prayers twice in one night. She searched the sky for lights and when she saw them, she jumped up and waved her arms frantically, up and down, up and down. She called to the pilots as loud as she could. “Take me with you! Hey you. Please. Take me with you!” She got her flashlight out and shone the light up into the night sky trying to signal the plane. “I’m right here! Please. Just let down a rope and I’ll climb it. Hey! Please, please just take me with you.” Baby Girl kept shouting and pleading, jumping up and down waving the flashlight until the drone of engines and the plane’s flickering lights disappeared into the cold, dark sky. What a dang gyp.