How the Hula Girl Sings by Joe Meno

head and opened the sliding door. She walked inside and then sat down in an old gray rowboat, rocking it a little as she moved. There were thousands of shiny silver cobwebs stretching out overhead, trembling with tiny beads of water in their threads. There was a wave of humidity that covered everything, pulling us close. I shut the sliding door.
    Charlene threw her arms around my head, pulling me on top, kissing me some more. Her hair was warm against my face. The old rowboat rocked as I ran my hand along her side, down her back. I touched her bare legs and slipped my hand along the back of thighs. Her lips moved all over my face and neck, her hand slipped over my shoulder, up my chest, then down. She slipped her fingers under my drawers, then slowly, slowly, she slid my boxers down a little. I wasn’t even breathing.
    My hand climbed up to her behind, then her breast. My other hand moved down and over her wet white panties, down, then over and up, between her thighs.
    “OK, wait,” she murmured.
    I felt my chest become hard.
    She sat up and slipped open her black purse and pulled out a condom wrapped in silver foil, and placed it in my hand.
    My god.
    We did it, right there, in that old boathouse, as if we had done it all the time together before. We laid on top of each other, together in this old rowboat, moving slowly, then fast, then not at all. This girl was as sweaty as me, and I liked that. Her face and forehead, her hands, her mouth was hot against mine and a little stale. I could make out a tiny red mark along her hairline and a tiny blemish beside her lip, but none of that … mattered to me. We laid there staring at each other, not saying a word, lit up by the low moonlight through the slots in the roof, holding each other tight against the old soft wood. The stars moved gently overhead, slipping past quietly, shining down in her eyes. It was the closest I had felt to anything in a long time. I felt like I wasn’t drifting downstream.

clout
    Charlene made me feel full of fire and life. But most other things made me feel like a man who was grave as hell. Like Monte Slates. He walked into the Gas-N-Go all beaten up one Saturday afternoon. The boy who bought the rubbers to use as water balloons to drop off the overpass on La Harpie Road. His eye was all swelled up and black-and-blue. He nodded at me as I handed him the bathroom key and stared hard at his sore little face.
    “What happened there, kid, drop a balloon on the sheriff’s squad car?”
    “Nope. My old man gave it to me.”
    “Your old man? What for?” I asked.
    “Stealing quarters from his coffee can.”
    “Well, how many did you take?”
    “Eight or nine, I guess.” He frowned.
    “Eight or nine?” Jesus. The thought of this kid’s old man beating on him like that made me sick.
    “Two bucks ain’t worth no black eye,” Junior whispered. He was keeping me company during my shift. “Daddy that beats on his kid like that ain’t right.”
    “Pal, where is it you live?” I asked. I was about to do something. Maybe something that wasn’t so much for the kid, but for me.
    “My daddy don’t have any feet.”
    “How’s that?” Junior frowned.
    “My daddy don’t have any feet. He don’t like to talk to anybody because of his feet.”
    Monte’s old man had lost both his feet to gangrene during the Vietnam War. They got amputated right off and buried in a shallow grave like old lovers. Now he had plastic feet: hard and pink and without any real shape. He had to have been in the same bad mood since they cut his poor toes and heels off.
    “Get off my porch!” I heard the old man shout through the dull white front door as soon as my feet touched the steps.
    I had walked a few blocks over to Monte’s house. He had told me where he lived as soon as I promised not to start any trouble. The house was a big and gray, with a wire fence and brown-black lawn. The gate had been left open. There was a carburetor and some other auto parts lying on