Dancing in the Movies

The Right Thing

The Right Thing 127 THE RIGHT THING His feet are the size of thumbs, the segments of his toes no larger than grains of rice. 1 slap him on the bottom the way I've heard to do. He squeaks and sucks in air, then begins to cry. His fingers bend, grasp for something. I put my little finger in his hand. He clings to it. It's enough for now. He cries for milk. But his mother's breasts are blue, streaked with grease, splattered with blood. When I lift my hand, I'm not there at all. There's no baby but a woman, a girl, seventeen. Her nipples, no larger than dimes, point to her chin. She licks her lips in her sleep. Blue veins divide the underside of her tongue. Her hair is crossparted by sleep, blonde as matchwood. The sparse light hair on her upper lip is damp from her tongue. I wrap my hand around her thin wrist, run my index finger over the thick vein at the base of her palm, feel the simple rhythm of blood. I cling to her slender wrist. I close my eyes and I'm in a village without a name outside of Huan Fo. I open my eyes. The girl is there. When I lift the curtain it's morning in Illinois. Her brother is in the yard with his back to the window, a can of gasoline in his hand. I close my eyes. In the village, the rhythm of strafing fades, falters, continues to fade. The knife that could cut hair off an arm without bending the follicles slits her abdomen into perfect halves. Out of her dead body, a child the color of sky. The petroleum smell of napalm coughs into the child's lungs, and the tiny body reddens against the wind of his own breath. The sound of strafing begins to increase in volume. The child is drenched in his mother's blood. His tiny hand closes around my finger. "Hagget." The voice should be Olson's, but it's not. "Hagget." I look at the child. "Hagget." The girl is over me, eyes green as black market jade. The tiny space between her front teeth glistens with a bubble of saliva. She licks her lips. "Hagget." I nod. I hear the lawn mower out the window, coming nearer, loud and rhythmic, then the sound recedes. The odor ofgasoline trails the sound. 128 DANCING IN THE MOVIES "Hagget, you're about to break my arm." I look down at my hand around her wrist. I let go. She kisses the base of my neck and an involuntary groan escapes my throat. Her body snakes around mine. The twist from ribs to hips exaggerates the curves, heightens the angles , giving her the illusion ofwomanliness while she still has the soft, taut skin that is peculiarly a girl's. She moves her knee between my legs, slowly raises it to nudge my penis and testicles. I kiss her, her tongue exploding into my mouth, and wait for the sensation of desire to crowd out drowsiness. I believe, but I know it's my imagination, that my tongue can detect the blue vein in her tongue, trace the raised canal, detect the difference in temperature of the deoxygenated blood within the vein. I picture it as a cold string running directly to her heart, and suddenly the weight settles in my penis and in my testicles, hundred-watt bulbs are switched on. "I love you, Hagget," she says. "I love you, Hagget." We come together comfortably, effortlessly. "I love you, Hagget. I love you." We come together at the perfect pitch and sex becomes its own animal, encompassing both of us, startling us again with the same surprise. "I love you, Hagget." Even the lawn mower's hum, rising as it nears the window again, the spit of the motor, becomes part of our sex, vibrating through us. I picture the whip of the blade. "I love you, Hagget," she says. The lawn is mowed. The sound of the shower is the same sound as Spam frying in a skillet. During the summer months, the girl sometimes showers three or four times a day. She takes long showers. I can taste burnt Spam, the charred taste finding the corners of my mouth, the static crunch of blackened meat. Are there gnats in this...