Tricks by Ellen Hopkins Page B

to wash your sheets. You're
    not on your period, are you?
    *
    "No, not for..." Now I notice
    how the front of him is splashed
    red, and the crimson stain
    flowering on my bed. My face
    *
    burns. "It's not my period."
    How could he not know that the first time can make a girl bleed?
    Or did he maybe not believe...?
    213
    A Poem by Ginger Cordell Bleed
    Open a vein, feel the rush, exodus, delicious.
    Don't be afraid, there's no pain in the letting, delectable.
    Watch the red
    flow, let it go, drip, make it slow, drip.
    If you've done it right, you won't
    wake from the night's
    indescribably peaceful
    dream.
    214
    Ginger You Would Think
    The possibility of losing a child would be a wake-up call.
    Not for Iris. No way.
    *
    Sandy is still in a coma, wandering around somewhere
    deep inside his brain.
    *
    The doctors don't know
    if he's going to make it.
    They say we should pray.
    *
    Gram's done a whole lot of praying. She's the one who sits by his side, day
    *
    after day. Iris says it's too
    hard to see her little boy
    that way. She's only been
    *
    to the hospital two or three
    times. Makes Gram mad.
    Makes me mad too. Iris
    *
    doesn't give two squirts who she pisses off. All she cares about is herself.
    215
    It's Been a Month
    A month of worry, of guilt, of my having to play the role of "Mom" even more, because
    *
    Gram isn't there to help
    me do it. A month of
    Mary Ann, withdrawing
    *
    into a silent, blank-eyed
    world where accidents
    don't happen, especially
    *
    not on her watch. I try to help, but she isn't ready to quit blaming herself.
    *
    A month of mounting bills--
    doctor bills, ambulance bills, hospital bills--that Gram
    *
    is determined somehow to pay. Where there's a will, there has to be a way.
    *
    A month of Iris diving
    deeper and deeper into bottomless bottles of numb.
    216
    She Has a New Boyfriend
    A big-boned truck-driving
    son of a bitch, with eyes like a crow's--black, dead.
    *
    I've seen eyes like those
    before, on another of
    Iris's badass lays, one
    *
    I can't forget. I do my best
    never to think of him, what he did. Try never to remember
    *
    that place in my childhood, but sometimes it pops into view despite all my efforts
    *
    to keep it hidden. I was almost
    ten, and we lived in Pahrump, the butthole of Nevada. Iris
    *
    worked at a cathouse, making
    money her usual way, only without walking the streets.
    *
    Walt was a miner, and though he was a regular paying
    customer at Mimi's, he had
    217
    an appetite for younger
    meat. Iris was younger then
    too, but even at twenty-six,
    *
    she was way too old for Walt.
    Still, he paid for her, then he followed her home. She let
    *
    him move in for a while.
    I remember his sour sweat, coming in after working backhoe.
    *
    I remember how he touched
    Iris, and how she didn't care
    that her kids could see.
    *
    I remember his Marlboro breath
    falling all down around me when he said, Let me show you something.
    218
    On Another Day
    It wouldn't have happened, couldn't have happened.
    Too many witnesses around.
    *
    But for some odd reason, that particular afternoon,
    Iris had taken the other kids
    *
    to play in the park. You stay and start dinner, she said.
    We won't be gone very long.
    *
    I didn't mind. I was too old for swings, and I've always
    liked spending time by myself.
    *
    But it wasn't more than ten
    minutes before Walt came through the door. He didn't
    *
    ask where Iris was, or why the house was so quiet.
    He didn't say one word.
    *
    I opened a can of refried
    beans, spooned them into a pot. I had no real reason
    219
    to be afraid. So why did
    my hands shake? I kept my back to him but could feel his eyes,
    *
    carving into me. Finally, he started toward the living
    room. Bring me a beer, sweets.
    *
    I dug one from the fridge.
    But he wasn't on the couch, as expected. Back here, he called
    *
    from Iris's room. He was already
    out of his jeans. I didn't know
    much then, but I knew there was
    *
    something very wrong about that. Still, I took him the beer, holding my