Doll Crimes
Crystal Lake Publishing
I said.
“Helped me? No babe. That Man and his friends, they thought it was funny. They all stood around and laughed at me. They gave me more. They gave me so much I threw up behind the television set. Then I got so scared of being punished for it that I peed, right there on the carpet. ‘This little thing hasn’t been house-trained yet’, one guy said. I remember, because I remember thinking ‘Thing’? And how awful that word felt, the way he was saying it. I was just a kid, drunk and confused and crying, with pee running down my legs and puke burning the back of my tongue, while they stood around and looked down at me, laughing.”
I see these strangers, looming over her. Big men with hands spaced wide on their hips, heads thrown back. I see her wide eyes and her soiled dress, the tip of her tongue between her teeth the way she does when she’s scared. I see her weaving on her feet.