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 Ti Kikit Ti Kikit puts on some pink lipstick, stands on the Place Saint-Pierre in Pétionville. For this evening she has borrowed a friend’s plastic barrettes, eleven of them, each pinching a spongy braid at its base, dotting her head with pink. She likes that corner of the Choucoune Hotel—white bougainvilleas overflow from behind the walls, make her feel pretty while she waits. Her real name is Rose; her aunt Asefi named her Ti Kikit after the small brown bird. Aunt Asefi was not really family but raised her for eight years after the orphan appeared on the road in front of her house. Ti Kikit earned the small bird’s name when the thick rope she used to try hanging herself left a gray scar around her neck. It looks just like the bird’s markings. Hey Bitch? Yea, you! How much you charge for it?! Forty cents . . . Wait here. Yea, there. We are coming for you! OK forty cents! But for the four of us! Ti Kikit tries to argue. They grab her shoulders, push her down over the car trunk, pull her short skirt up, bare her tiny ass. The biggest boy shoves himself inside her. The blood makes him see he is her first. Hey Bitch? remember, my name is François! Ti Kikit’s face is crushed on the windshield, eyes dilated, white. She remembers Asefi’s well and Bourik, the mule, which tail-whipped all day long black flies from its genitals and from that raw spot on its back the wooden saddle kept enlarging. One day  her aunt held her face, told her, “Be good”— she could not take care of her anymore but be good. Ti Kikit’s mind goes to the one sheep her mother ever owned, the day she gave it to the Spirits as a last resort—its throat cut, blood flowing in a tin plate, foaming, hurried. Too many spirits to appease! Too much hunger! Now these Mulattos are feeding on her frail back. Gradually, her head feels clouded and light, like the curtains Asefi made for the house from old nylon slips. ...

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