The Little Girl Who Knocked

I worked the late night shift,got off work at 5, hit the sack by 7,and sometime around 9 a.m.the little girl knocked.She was an ugly kid, half-black,half something else, with freckleson a big nose, a dime for a mouth,and two large rheumy eyes.I opened the door to find herrunning back to her trailer,giggling, playing her little game.I blew it off and went back to bed.But then she was back the next day,and next, then skipped a couple of days.I thought maybe now she was over it,the joke growing stale, but thenshe was back at it on a Monday,my day off. This time she interruptedmore than sleep, the womanI was wooing claiming the moodwas ruined and driving off.I marched to the girl’s trailer,woke her mother, a big womanmade larger by her small trailer,and told her she better keep her kidfrom banging on my door anymore.The woman called forth the girland she smacked her in the face,then took to slapping down on her,like some insane carpenter tryingto hammer a bent and moving nail.“You don’t have to,” I said, but by nowthe woman was not listening to meand the girl had given up moving.The beating went on minutes.It was still going on when I turned, the little girl now screaming.Though she never knocked again,those rheumy eyes and her shouts of“But Mama, I like, I like, I like him. . .”have kept me awake for years.