june
June’s coat catches fire, makes a stink like burning hair. June flaps her arms and hops in place until she just can’t stand it. June pulls off the coat and throws it down onto the sidewalk. A man steps out of the corner market, sees what June is up to: stomping on her coat, old army pea coat. The man stands and stares. He walks back inside the store. The fire’s out. The cigarette that made the fire fell and rolled into the gutter. June retrieves the cigarette, still lit, she presses it between her lips, inhales, removes the cigarette and points at the coat with the burning end. The coat is a dog playing dead. June laughs at the joke. Stay, she says, making her I-mean-it face, the one she used on her kids: Stay.
The coat does what June says. June picks up the coat and shakes it, pats the hole the fire made, right above her absent breast. June puts on the coat and walks quickly down the sidewalk, a wide and swaying walk with too much side-to-side. June coughs, takes a deep breath and scratches her scalp with her nails until it hurts. June has head-lice now. I know she got them from the coat she’s wearing. I don’t know for sure where that coat came from, but I believe she stole it from someone, someone who was sleeping or high or knocked-on-the-head unconscious. It wouldn’t matter to June, so long as the coat keeps her warm. It has deep pockets in the front, halfway down June’s thighs. I don’t know what she’s keeping in those pockets yet, but I’ll bet there are sharp things, a knife at least, probably some hard bread and apples. The coat’s too long for June, drags behind her when she moves, heading down the sidewalk again.
June looks up and down the street and glances over her shoulder, checking to see who’s after her, dodging whoever it is she took that coat from. June’s hungry and itchy and warm and needing to pee somewhere. June likes staying hungry, it keeps her awake for a while and the itchiness isn’t so bad, it gives her something to do with her hands. June will squat and pee in stairwells without notice, but she prefers squatting in rosebushes, it makes her laugh to think of people stopping by to sniff her blessings, all mixed in with thorns and petals. June knows it disgusts me, she knows I know she knows it disgusts me and still she pushes down her pants and squats on bushes and stone steps and laughs out loud, right out loud. June and me, we don’t speak anymore.
June turns onto Hartford, slows down to look for things, so much construction going on there’s always something to pick up, pocket, save for later. Halfway down the block a house is opened up at the bottom, making room for a garage. June hears men talking and stopping, talking again, figures they’re all in there sitting and eating lunch and talking, too much to do at once and notice her, too. Out front of the house and off to the side I see an empty wheelbarrow. No, not empty, just not filled with dirt. June gets up close to it, thinking how fun it would be to pee in there, how angry I’ll get when she does it, but there’s something in there, after all. A long flashlight, a jumble of nails and screws and grit and flakes of rust, a half-empty box of Krispy Krackers. June reaches into the wheelbarrow and there’s a shout behind her, across the street, big shouting that brings all the men out of the opening in the house, standing there with sandwiches or hands-on-hips.
June grabs the flashlight and crosses her arms, the flashlight is under her armpit when June runs back up Hartford, she only looks back once because she knows who did the screaming. I know it too, but June’s not saying. Anytime June runs away from anything, I can’t see outside anymore, can’t see a thing, suddenly I’m out on the shoulder of a long and empty stretch of highway. Here I am beside the highway, when she runs away from anything I’m out here on the shoulder, standing on red dirt, hearing wind and smelling dried-up earth and all I can see is the long flat desert with the hills so far off in the distance they might just be me thinking hills. Out here by the road there’s only heat, no wind, no sound. June pushes me out of the way when she runs or when she’s scared and sometimes when she drinks too much I’m stuck out here for hours, the sun low and close to the horizon and never setting.
I can’t see June but I can hear that shouting again, goes something like this: No-no-no-no-no!! My-coat my-coat mine-mine-mine!!
June’s running faster now, I can’t feel her but the shouting’s fainter so I know that June is running faster, getting away, making her exit with the flashlight rattling in her grip, bread and knife and apples in her pockets make a knocking sound against her legs and now there’s a new word stuck between her ears, it flutters back and forth between my ears, Krispy-Krispy, a syllable for each step June is taking, heavy on the right foot, Kris-py Kris-py Kris-py.
June was a marvelous cook, good with pork and roast but best when it came to pies, especially cherry, I mention this to prove to you there’s more to June than getting away and squatting and stealing, at least, there was more, but it started out with getting away. June was getting away, gaining distance from a place a someone and a sickness and then, right in the middle of her exit, June’s car broke down. This was when getting away led to squatting – which I’ve mentioned – and later on some stealing, two things June had never considered but found necessary out in the middle of nowhere and her exit, both unavoidable because June had to pee and finish her escape and so it was that the getting away led first to squatting out there beside the broken-down car, over a dusty patch of red-brown, hard-packed dirt in the god-awful nowhere that was the desert in Nevada.
Once June went that far, puddle spreading under her, between her shoes, what was the sense in turning back? June would not turn back, except to look over her shoulder, being absolutely certain she was still alone. I know she was not.
I’m close again, I see June hiding in a patch of back-yard with a high wood-plank fence all around it, cotton laundry lines run overhead with towels and shirts and socks attached by plastic pink clothespins. June sits in the corner of the tiny rectangle of yard, back to the fence, not running or getting away but still breathing fast from running and climbing up the fence and dropping down onto the grass. June stares at the grass, runs her fingers through the length of it and does not remember another yard, she can’t think back the way I can, but the grass is calming her, cool and smooth on her fingertips and wrist, the palm of her hand. June sits quietly, unafraid, no longer breathing fast or hard.
While June is not afraid and quiet I should tell you all about the yard, so much bigger than this with a fine, sloping, green, grassy hill that led down to the creek, so full in the spring and chatty with moving water and birds and crickets and the sound of someone tossing one good pebble in. Not a fence in sight. I know a patch where June would rest, feet towards the water, studying clouds. The screech of swings gone higher up, a pair of squeals, giggling. June loved the air, cool and clean. It had the smell of waking up.
June smells frying fat, bacon or ham or sausage coming through a window on the back of the house that holds so tight onto the small yard. June peeks through a small knot in a plank of wood to her left, sees a house, a shrub she knows, an empty driveway. A mailman passes by, I see him pushing a small cart filled with mail, I hear one squeaky wheel. A scrap of human being rolls by in a wheelchair, feet paddling pavement under her. June knows her, says her name through the knot-hole, Ginger. Hey – Ginger! June puts her eye back to the hole and sees Ginger wheel her way across Hartford, up a short incline of driveway, down a short stretch of sidewalk. June pokes her finger through the hole and wiggles it and says, It’s June.
Ginger grabs the finger and shakes it, says, Junebug, what you doing there? I got me some cash. Let’s go see Tony.
June says, I got Manson’s coat.
Ginger coughs three times, I think she’s got TB. She spits. Oh, June, she says. Ginger rolls away, feet up, making the most of the decline. You better give it back. Her voice is smaller as she heads down the street. You got to find yourself a better place to hide.
Manson’s not his name, everybody used to call him by his real name, Bernard. I remember that night June and Ginger and Tony and Manson were drinking and huffing in the park behind the grocery store. Tony looked at Manson for a long time, Tony slapped his own knee and laughed and said, “Ugly!” Manson ignored him. Manson didn’t like to share, had to have his own bottle, sniffed his own marker, he was long-haired and snaggle-toothed and as he sat there the edge of one nostril was black with ink. June thought he reminded her of someone mean, someone awful and famous, she remembered who it was then and piped up and hollered, “Manson!” Manson went after June, but June was took quick for him. I heard Manson take it out on Tony: short punch across the nose, there must have been blood on Manson’s knuckles and fingers and nails, I figure in the dim light all that blood would’ve looked like cocoa, brown and dark and thick. “Manson never cuts his nails.” That’s what June says to people when they ask about him, and, “He’s got more stink on him than a flattened skunk.”
The day that June was not alone out on the highway, squatting, there was a flattened critter not far off, I can’t tell from June’s position if it was skunk or possum or cat, but she was up-wind, thank god, and right as June was thinking to herself thank god a pickup truck came speeding down the state highway. Red or blue or blue with rust, it pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, big cloud of dust piling over the truck, I can almost feel the grit in my nose. June patted herself dry with a tissue from a pack she kept in her glove-box for emergencies, an emergency being a moment when June might have used all the tissues that came in the box that she kept on the dash in a cozy she’d knitted herself. June stood up and straightened her slip, ran a thumb under the waist of her skirt, checking to make sure the safety pins were secure.
It’s a fine day. June hasn’t noticed yet, but it’s clear and bright with just enough wind to make you think something might happen, something unexpected, sudden, I’ve noticed things like that happen quite often, even on days filled with sunshine or birthday presents. The sky was bright and clear, the wind rushed around her ankles on the morning June forgot her lunch, she’d sent the girls to school on the bus and kissed Joey good-bye and walked the nine blocks to the train like any other day except for her lunch being left on the counter by the sink in front of the four-slice toaster, beside the microwave. She realized this as she approached the train station, because of the sky and the wind and a feeling that something extraordinary might happen, she suddenly decided not to waste that lunch, to turn around and go back the way she came – past the water tower, the coffee factory with its enormous clock, the Lutheran church at the corner – she was home in no time, through the unlocked front door and into the kitchen before she could quite make out the sound she’d heard from the front door, a sound she kept hearing all the way down the hallway, try as I might I can only describe it as a kind of shuffling grunt. June stood in the doorway to the kitchen, she saw the thing that made the noise. Two big dogs were fighting, they were growling and tearing away at each other until June blinked and understood it wasn’t dogs at all, it was a burglar – strangling her husband – he hadn’t yet left for work and the burglar snuck into the house a moment too soon and here was Joey, fighting him off in the kitchen right in front of June’s brown paper bag of a lunch with chicken salad sandwich and apple and something I never did notice before, a bag of corn chips. June looked at her lunch and opened her mouth to cry out, she’d shout out anything that came to mind as long as it was loud enough to scare the burglar off. Then, the sound changed. June heard Joey say uhmn, when she looked again she didn’t see a burglar trying to strangle her husband, she saw Joey’s hairy ass in a big hurry, digging away at another hairy ass. June dropped her keys, a terrible clatter on the tiled floor. Although June looked hard in that moment – during which Joey pulled out and tried to cover himself and in which the other man, whose ass she didn’t recognize, fumbled for the pants tangled around his patent leather shoes – it wasn’t until days later that she realized who it was that bent over her pale yellow counter, taking it up the ass from her Joey and facing her lunch and her toaster, just whose face she’d seen reflected in its streakless, gleaming surface. Joey was fucking their pastor. June left the keys and the lunch where they were. If the men made other sounds that morning, June didn’t hear them. She was out the door and running down the block, bound for the train that would take her downtown to work. I watch June sitting in her office, staring through the window at buildings, down at pedestrians, at pigeons out on ledges, preening and scurrying.
The workmen have finished lunch, they’ve gone back to work on the garage. June hears a hammer drive a nail into wood, keet-keet-keet! A pause, now I hear him drive the nail in all the way to the head and pound the hammer on the wood: keet-keet-kamm! June figures Manson’s left the block, lost track of her, the men would stop what they were doing if Manson was nearby. June climbs over the fence, drops down onto the sidewalk. She walks down 17th, takes a right onto Noe. In the doorway of a three-flat someone’s wrapped up in a blanket, from under the blanket seeps a stain, running all the way to the curb. I feel June poke the shape with the toe of her shoe, she pokes it again, harder. From a bend in the blanket she hears a loud fart. June crosses the street and turns onto Ford.
June had a doctor named Ford, he put her to sleep and cut away her left breast and smaller pieces out from under her arms. After the surgery, June had a vision – a technicolor image of herself standing in line at a supermarket wearing nothing but a pale orange slip. The cashier looked up at June and said, “Will that be it for you?” June stared down at her chest, smooth skin taught over her left side, no nipple. Beside it – abundance, the fullness of her remaining breast, June felt the weight of it, its heft, in this memory I can hear her thinking to herself, “Too much.” In the palm of her hand, June cupped her right breast and said, “I’d like to return this.” With a dry, popping sound she detached it and laid it down on the conveyor belt. It tilted slightly, turning in place: counterclockwise. June realized she had no receipt, there were several people in line behind her, rolling their eyes and clucking their tongues. The man immediately behind her sighed heavily and muttered, “Let’s go, Lefty.” June said, “I’m sorry, I’ve lost my receipt.” June felt a pain in her foot, she looked down and saw that the man beside her was stepping on her littlest toe, glaring at her. June woke. At the foot of her hospital bed her ex-husband held a bouquet of roses. He was tugging at June’s toe, trying to get her attention and keep a clear distance, too. “How you feeling?” he asked. June felt like hell, she hurt so bad she started crying, she didn’t know what to do with her hands so she covered her face and wept, I’ve never heard such an awful racket, but she couldn’t seem to keep it in. June looked down at her uneven chest and took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes with the edge of the sheet. June knew him well enough to know he was an awful coward, it occurred to her he never would be strong enough to stay, tend to her needs, wait until she healed. “Joey, I’m fine,” June said, closing her eyes and pulling her foot away from his grip.
June’s halfway down the single block of Ford. She hears a crash, a shattering behind her foot. She sees the long, green neck of a bottle skittering past her feet on the sidewalk. She doesn’t turn her head; she runs. She hears Manson behind her, shouting with each step he takes: God! Dammit! My! Coat! Mine! June runs faster, doesn’t see the rise I’ve spotted in the concrete. June’s left boot catches on the lip of cement, sends her five feet forward. When she was only nine years old, June fell through a loose plank in a treehouse – crashing through branches – on her way down she turned to one side. Not as she was breaking through the plank or tumbling to the earth, but several minutes after she hit the ground and heard her shoulder let loose a sharp, splintering crack, only then did June suck in air and fill her lungs and – finally – scream. June lands on her elbows and knees. The flashlight shoots out of its pocket, rolls across the sidewalk and into the gutter. Manson’s not far off, his shoes are slapping on the ground. A car speeds past June, screeches, backs up again. June looks up. The driver looks down, away. Manson grabs June’s ankle. June screams a word I can’t make out. The car drives off.
The truck backed down the highway’s shoulder, stopping in front of June’s car, hood up, steam rising. A man slammed the door shut, walked through the dust towards June: curves on his arms and thighs, thick-bodied, in his left hand he spun keys around a key-ring on his middle finger. “You got some trouble,” he said, nodding at the hissing engine. June said, “Yes, I’m very lucky you came along.” Because his body was healthy and arrogant, abundant, June did not trust him. “Why don’t I take a look for you – see if I can help?” “Oh,” said June, “Would you, please? I don’t know a damn about these things.” I’d call this a lie, June knew quite well the fan belt had snapped, she was trying to distract him long enough to remember where she’d seen a rock nearby. Fist-sized, not too heavy. He ducked his head under the hood. “I’m Darrold.” June said, “Darrold? I’m Katie.” June saw the valley of his back through a worn white tee-shirt; under thin, faded jeans she saw the rise of his ass. He had Joey’s shape. By the time June got better he’d taken her girls away, too, and out there in the desert by the hissing hood with Darrold’s butt in front of her, June was thinking about how she wasn’t anybody’s someone. June was a good mother – I’d swear on that – she only ever lost her girls one time, they disappeared into a throng of Christmas shoppers when she’d turned to toss some change into a Salvation Army donation bucket; Santa rang his bell, she heard the goddamned thing for hours as she searched the mall from end to end, her throat like an anvil sinking down the length of her until a security guard took her by the hand and led her to the North Pole display, pointing out a small space under the sleigh where her daughters were crouching down – hiding and giggling at her – when she got near them they squealed Mommy mommy you found us! You found us! From under the hood, Darrold said, “Uh-oh, I think I see your problem here, Katie.” June scanned the shoulder of the road for that rock, she’d seen it while she peed, it was just the right size. Darrold stood and stretched and leaned against the side of the car. “Katie, I think I can take care of this for you,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the side-view mirror. “Yes, I do believe I can.” He dropped a hand on his thigh, “Now, maybe you can do something for me, Katie. Maybe you can help me out first?” Darrold winked and ran a thumb along the length of his bulge, which was thickening and creeping down the inside of his thigh. “What do you say Katie – seem like a fair trade to you?” June took a deep breath, looking up and down the highway. She took a step back and felt her heel bump against something. “Sure,” said June, “Why not?” Darrold turned. “Come on then,” he said, swaggering toward his truck. June said, “Right behind you,” squatting down to the red dirt and grabbing the rock.
Manson drags June by the ankle. Seems to me it ought to hurt, but I can’t feel a thing. June kicks. June reaches behind her head, fumbling for the flashlight. Manson tries to pin June to the concrete, he spits on her forehead. June sees rotting teeth and yellow eyes and smells an awful stink. June’s poor old grandma got too hot the night before she died, she laid there in her bed and licked her lips and when momma told June to give Grandma a hug she tried to hold her breath and not get close – but she couldn’t hold it, not long enough – as she leaned over her grandma and wrapped her arms around her neck June smelled sickness, a foul, fetid breath came out the mouth and June jumped away, ran out of the bedroom with her nose in the left sleeve of her flannel pajamas. June feels for the heavy cylinder. She grips it. She swings. She sends me away.
It’s hot. Out here, it’s always hot. Not a cloud in the sky; the sun hangs low. It won’t set, it never does. I can see the hills from here, I watch them, waiting for a breeze, the slightest wind. It won’t happen. The slip underneath my skirt is chafing me. My lips burn. The sweat my body makes is gone before I feel it. I’m standing on the dusty shoulder of the road. The road is behind me and forever that way, forever this way. On my left heel – a blister. Nothing stirs. The sun is almost setting. A breeze should come down off those hills. I hear myself breathe, a thin wheeze. The desert makes a sound: a ringing heat against my skull, high and persistent. The road is behind me, I’m watching the hills. My eyes ache, filled with strong sunset light. If I looked closer, over there, to my right, I’d see the raised hood, the gray engine, the ugly metal grill, a spiral of red-earth footprints. They circle each other, leading here and towards the pickup truck, just to my left, not two yards away. I won’t look at the footprints, the car or the truck. I know they’re here. I won’t look down at the small, dark patch, already dried, turned to mud under his face, a dusty, stubbled profile with slightly parted lips. It’s split. Color seeps to the back of his ear, down his jaw, to his chin. Until June’s finished, I’ll have to wait right here, only looking at the hills. The sun won’t set. The breeze won’t start. I’m waiting here until June’s done. I won’t flinch or leave this spot. I will not drop the rock.