strides.
Someone was leaning into the truck's passenger side. Mary grasped the door, slammed it against the offending body, and heard a wail of pain.
'Ow! Jesus Christ!' He came out of the truck, his eyes hazed with hurt, and his hand pressed against his side. 'You tryin' to bust my fuckin' ribs?'
It was not Shecklett, though she was sure Shecklett was watching the drama from his window. It was Gordie Powers, who was twenty-five years old and had light brown hair that hung around his shoulders. He was as thin as a wish, his face long and gaunt, a stubble of beard on his cheeks and chin. He wore faded jeans and a flannel shirt under a battered black leather jacket decorated with metal studs. 'Man!' he said. 'You 'bout knocked the piss outta me!'
'I gave you a warning tap,' she said. 'What're you trying to steal?'
'Nothin'! I just drove up and saw you gettin' your groceries out! I thought I'd bring in the other sack for you!' He stepped away from the truck with a thin-lipped sneer. 'That's what I get for bein' a Good Samaritan, huh?'
Mary glanced to the left and saw Gordie's silver Mazda sports car parked a few spaces away. She said, 'Thanks anyway, but I'll get it.' She picked up the package from the floorboard, and he saw the imprint ART & LARRY'S TOYS across the sack.
'What'cha gonna do?' Gordie asked. 'Play games?'
Mary slammed the door and went into her apartment. Gordie followed, as she knew he would. He'd come to see her, after all. She'd placed an order last night, before Robby had been so bad. 'Smells funny in here,' Gordie commented as he closed the door and turned the latch. 'You burn somethin'?'
'Yes. My dinner.' Mary took the package into her bedroom and put it into the closet. Then, out of habit, she switched on the television set and turned it to the Cable News Network. Lynne Russell was on. Mary liked Lynne Russell because she looked like a big woman. The scene changed to a view of pig cars with their blue lights flashing, and a talking head saying something about somebody getting murdered. There was blood on a stretcher- sheet and the shape of a body. The images were hypnotic, a brutal pulse of life. Sometimes Mary watched CNN for hours on end, unable and unwilling to do anything but lie in bed like a parasite feeding off the torment of other human beings. When she was flying high on LSD, the scenes became three-dimensional and pushed into the room, and that could really be a heavy trip.
She heard the rustle of a sack. Then his voice: 'Hey, Ginger! How come you got all this baby food?'
An answer had come to her by the time she walked back into the kitchen. 'A cat comes around sometimes. I've been feeding it.'
'A cat? Likes baby food? Man, I hate cats. Gimme the creeps.' Gordie's beady brown eyes were always moving, invading private spaces. They found the crust of melted plastic on one of the oven's burners, registered the fact, and moved on. 'Got roaches,' he noticed. He walked around the kitchen as Mary put the groceries away. Gordie stopped before one of the framed magazine pictures of a smiling infant. 'You got a thing about babies, huh?'
'Yes,' Mary said.
'How come you don't have a kid, then?'
Keep the secret, Mary thought. Gordie was a mouse nibbling at a crumb between a tiger's fangs. 'Just never did.'
'You know, it's funny, huh? Been doin' business with you… what, five or six months? And I don't know nothin' about you.' He pulled a toothpick from the pocket of his shirt and probed at his small yellow teeth. 'Don't even know where you're from.'
'Hell,' she said.
'Whoaaaaaa.' He shook his hands in the air in mock fear. 'Don't scare me, sister. No, I ain't shittin'. Where're you from?'
'You mean where was I born?'
'Yeah. You ain't from around here, 'cause there ain't no Georgia peaches in your accent.'
She decided she'd tell him. Maybe it was because it had been a long time since she'd said it: 'Richmond, Virginia.'
'So how come you're here? How come you ain't in Virginia?'
Mary stacked the TV dinners and put them in the refrigerator's freezer. Her mind was interweaving fictions. 'Marriage went bad a few years ago. My husband caught me with a younger dude. He was a jealous bastard. Said he'd cut me open and leave me bleeding in the woods where nobody could find me. He said if he didn't do it, he had friends who would. So I split, and I never looked back. I kept on driving. I've been here and there, but I guess I haven't found home yet.'
'Cut you open?' Gordie grinned around his toothpick. 'I don't believe it!'
Mary stared at him.
'I mean… you're a mighty big lady. Take a hell of a man to get you down, huh?'
She put the jars of baby food into the cupboard. Gordie made a sucking sound on his toothpick, like the infant with the pacifier. 'Anything else you want to know?' She closed the cupboard and turned to face him.
'Yeah. Like… how old are you?'
'Too old for any more bull shit,' she said. 'Did you bring my order?'
'Right here next to my heart.' Gordie reached into his jacket's inside pocket and brought out a cellophane bag that held a small square of waxed paper. 'Thought you might like the design.' He handed the bag to Mary, and she could see what was on the paper.
Four small yellow Smiley Faces, identical to the button she wore, were spaced equidistantly on the square.
'My friend's a real artiste,' Gordie said. 'He can do just about any kind of design. Client wanted little airplanes the other day. Another dude asked for an American flag. Costs extra with all them colors. Anyhow, my friend enjoys his work.'
'Your friend does a good job.' She held the paper up against the light. The Smiley Faces were yellow with lemon-flavored food coloring, and the tiny black dots of the eyes were cheap but potent acid brewed in a lab near Atlanta. She got her wallet out of her purse, and removed the Magnum automatic, too. She laid the pistol on the countertop as she counted out fifty dollars for her connection.
'Nice little piece,' Gordie said. His fingers grazed the gun. 'I sure as hell got you a good deal on it, too.' His hand accepted the money, and the bills went into his jeans.
Mary had bought the Magnum from him back in September, two months after she'd been steered to Gordie by a bartender in a midtown lounge called the Purple People Eater. The.38 in her drawer and the sawed-off shotgun had been purchased from other connections in the last few years. Wherever she went, Mary made the effort to find somebody who could supply her with two of her passions: LSD and guns. She'd always had a love affair with guns: their smell and weight thrilled her, their beauty dark and brooding. 'Feminist cock envy' was how he'd put it, way back when. Lord Jack, speaking from the gray mist of memory.
The LSD and the guns were links to her past, and without them life would be as hollow as her womb.
'Okay. So that does it, right?' Gordie removed the toothpick and slid it back into his pocket. 'Until next timer
She nodded. Gordie started out of the kitchen, and Mary followed him with the acid-loaded Smiley Faces in her hand. When he left, she would give birth. The infant was in the closet in her bedroom, confined in a box. She would lick a Smiley Face and feed her new baby and watch the hateful world kill itself on CNN. Gordie was reaching toward the latch. Mary watched him move, as if in slow motion. She'd had so much LSD over the years that she could slow things down when she wanted to, could make them break into strobelike movements. Gordie's hand was on the latch, and he was about to open the door.
He was a skinny little bastard. A dope dealer and gun smuggler. But he was a human being, and Mary suddenly realized that she wanted to be touched by human hands.
'Wait,' she said.
Gordie stopped, the latch almost thrown.
'You got plans?' Mary asked. She was ready for rejection, ready to curl back into her armored shell.
Gordie paused. He frowned. 'Plans? Like plans for what?'
'Like plans to eat. Do you have anywhere to go?'
