Trashy (6 page)

Buck

Work is golden. I’m high as a fucking kite on life. Never needed drugs before, but if they’re anything like Vickie, I can see how people get hooked. Because I’m hooked on her.

What a fucking dream last night was.

It’s more than just Vickie, too. It’s Shep. We’ve been close our whole lives. My parents were deadbeat drug addicts and his disappeared. When your family isn’t there, you make a new one, and that’s Shep. A brother. When his grandma let me move in, it felt even more true.

We’ve been inseparable since day one. I taught him how to fight. Poor Shep was a scrawny kid. You’d never guess, now that he tops six feet and can bench like a motherfucker. He was tired of getting his ass kicked, so I taught him how to kick it right back.

We learned how to fish together, because there was no one to teach us. Our first hunting trips? Together. He was the first one to clap my back when I took out an eight-pointer. We taught ourselves everything. How to clean the carcass and tan the hide. How to survive on what we killed or foraged when money got too tight.

We learned how to survive together, and it came at a price: I need him. There’s nothing worth doing if he isn’t there. We share everything.

So is it crazy that I always envisioned us this way? Sharing a girl, too? Look, I know where we live. I know how people think about things. The way they think? It’s dumb as hell. Old fashioned and outdated.

Shep’s a good looking dude, and he’s my best friend, and I love him. I don’t mean I want it to be just me and him. I don’t mean I dream of him every night, because I don’t. But the way I care about him--

I don’t know.

It’s like-- like there aren’t rules for us. Labels. We’re rednecks. We’re dirt poor, gruff, rough around the edges. We’re trouble, and sometimes we’re dumb. We’re so much more, though. Like Shep makes me feel special. Smart. He makes me feel like I’m worth something, especially when I’m with him. All my cockiness, all my swagger I get from how I feel being with him. I just can’t tell him that, because Shep’s the kind of guy to get weird first, knee jerk, and then maybe repair things.

I can show him though. Last night proved it. He was game. Hell, he let me use his bed. That’s one step away from perfection. Perfection is the three of us, all skin and tangled limbs. Being able to act on all my desires, not just the ones I get high-fived for.

One step away. All my dreams under one trailer roof.

“Someone got laid last night.” My manager, Jay, comes over and hands me keys to my first engine of the day. An old Honda Odyssey. I fucking hate working on minivans and he knows it.

Good thing I’m in such a goddamned good mood. Snagging the keys, I shrug. “Ain’t nothing new. Some of us can get ass whenever we want.” Jay’s been married to his high school sweetheart coming on thirty years. He’s got one of those marriages you have to see to believe.

He loves his wife, she loves him. They’ve got fucking five kids together, and he smiles every day at work. I envy him. I want that for me, but I want it for me
and
Shep.

“Yeah, yeah. I should ditch my wife. Trade her in for a newer model.” This is a running joke between us. He’ll never do better than June, because she’s his world. How do you do better than your whole world?

You don’t. “Yeah, get on that. Some sweet, just-legal pussy, dude. Nothing like it.”

“Naw, I don’t go for the young ones. Bessie’s comin’ on seventeen years old. It’s just creepy. I like my women with a little more experience. Let them show me the ropes.”

My smile is ear to ear. Jay’s an easy guy to work for, even if he gives me the minivans. “That’s where you’ve got it all wrong, my friend. You want them young enough to train, and then you put them in ropes. All tied up like a hog.”

He turns pink and shakes his head and walks away. “You’re too much, Buck. Now get on, we got a line up today.”

“Fuck you, it’s my half day.”

Now he shrugs, his apology a cloak of protection. “It was your half day until we got a pile up. Now I need you.”

This sours my mood real quick. I’d been planning on getting home and balls-deep into Vickie as soon as I could. After all, I still need to sample her sweet pussy. Shep could take her backdoor.

This fucking sucks.
I pop the mini van's hood and start diving in, my cock frustrated and hard in my jeans and no relief in my near future.

Vickie

The trailer is quiet. I can’t remember the last time I was this alone. See, Mama’s work is in the trailer. So when she’s got a John, I usually just go walking around the park. Before I graduated high school I did homework or read in the chair swing next to our trailer, trying not to hear her busy at work.

I could close my door in the trailer, but the walls are thin and space is limited. You still hear everything. You can
feel
everyone’s presence, even if they aren’t in the same room as you. It’s little things, like the creak of steps, or the whine of doors. The way the whole trailer shutters when someone plops on a couch or bed.

It’s nice, actually. Comforting. Most people may not think much of our homes, but there’s always that-- you never feel alone.

Except now I do. The whole trailer is silent. Shep’s at work. Buck said Shep gets off from the mines around six. Today is Buck’s half day, though, so he said he’d be home around two.

The thought of being alone with him makes me ache in anticipation and dread.

Buck’s so different than Shep. He seems more at ease. Funnier. More inclined to smile.

Scarier.

I wonder if he’ll try some of those punishments on me. I wonder what Shep will say. Is he into the kinky stuff, too?

Buck didn’t tell me what to do while he was gone. He’s mentioned cleaning and cooking, so I guess I better get to it.

Snooping around the kitchen, I find some toilet cleaner and a few sponges. But there’s not much in the way of cleaning products. More peering in closets proves they have a broom, but no vacuum or anything for the rugs in the rooms. No washer or dryer or lines outside.

Each room is an exploration. My heart pounds, because while they’ve invited me into their home, Shep and Buck never said “Please go through all of our things.” It feels like an invasion of privacy.

Then again… did these boys know anything about privacy? Because it seems like their whole lives are strewn about on their floors. T-shirts and jeans lay around with flannels and empty cigarette boxes. Old magazines. Like, two or three years old. Beer cans and bottles hidden in corners. A film of dust on any surface they don’t regularly spend time on, like the bed or the couch in the living room.

The blinds on the window are dusty, too, and some of them are bent. No curtains anywhere. I know this used to be Shep’s grandma’s, because she lived here still when I was real young. Once or twice she’d sneak me a butterscotch.

The only reminders of her are the floral pattern on the couch and the robin’s egg blue of the vinyl chairs around the kitchen table. Everything else has been usurped by man. It’s gross, but maybe a little endearing, too. The camo and the hunting knives speak to something inside of me. Shep and Buck can hunt. They know how to
provide
.

It’s up to me to earn it.

The fridge is empty, too. Buck said to clean and make dinner, but they don’t have anything here for me to do those things!

My mind is wandering and my heart is thumping hard and true in my chest. If I had the right tools, this could be a home. A place for all three of us. I’ve never heard of a situation like that and I’m sure the preacher would have plenty to say about it, but just because something ain’t popular doesn’t mean it’s wrong. And I’ve heard the preacher and others say all they want and none of it nice about my mama already.

A home. I’m not even sure I had that a few trailers down. I had a roof, sure. And a bed. But now I know those things came at a price. Were Lloyd and Mama just waiting until I was legal to sell me out?

It makes me sick to think about. This time I won’t have blinders on. This time I’m going to be open with my heart, but I’m gonna make sure no one takes advantage of me again.

The best place to start is showing Buck and Shep that I’m worth keeping around. I think I need to prove it to myself, too. No more studying and dreaming of leaving. Not yet. I gotta pay my dues, first.

Thank goodness Shep and Buck got my suitcase out of my Mama’s trailer, and good for me for being ready. Inside, I find my hidden wad of money. Four hundred isn’t much, but when you live in the poorest county in the state, it can get you a lot of groceries.

Fingering the money, I waiver for a moment. It came from Mama. She’d just give me a twenty here and there. Sometimes when I went grocery shopping she’d tell me to keep the change. Surely a mother who never let her child starve can’t be that bad? Because I might have wanted for lots, but never food. The green bills taunted me, making me second guess. What if she’s in trouble and needs the money she thought she’d get from Clay?

Then I think about her leaning in the door frame. Her sneer as she said I couldn’t even come in to get my things. Maybe I’m just lookin’ for good because things feel so transient right now.

I take two hundred and put it in the back pocket of my jean shorts. It’s summer out now, and it’ll be hotter than hell biking to the store. Most of my tank tops are a little on the small side and worn thin from being washed and worn so long. But my long hair covers up where my bra peeks through the fabric and it helps me to feel a little more decent.

Outside the sun is blazing. It licks at my bare skin as soon as the screen door slams shut behind me. I tan naturally, and I can practically feel my skin begin to toast to brown.

My bike is still at my Mama’s place. I consider knocking and telling her I’m taking it. In my mind, I picture myself, hands on hips and defiant tone. Wouldn’t she be surprised? There’s a car in the driveway, and old Cutlass, and that means she’s busy. Maybe I’m a coward, but fantasies are fantasies for a reason. I stow away the one of confronting Mama and tiptoe to the back of her trailer.

The grunts coming from inside sound sweaty and crude. How can a grunt sound sweaty? Trust me; hear enough of them and you can hear the moist overtones to the sounds of basic pleasure.

My skin crawls as I grab the handlebars. The bike is old and a little too small for me. It came from the local thrift, like everything else I owned. I saved for over a year to buy it when I was eleven.

The plastic streamers spouting from the handlebars washed out long ago. Now they’re coated with a permanent layer of dirt I can’t wash off. The tires were white, once. Now they’re the same clay color as the grounds of the park. It was a knock off brand to begin with, probably came from China, and I bought it well-loved.

And loved it even more.

What’s a bike to a kid like me? To any of the kids in a park like this? Freedom, plain and simple.

It’s what I feel now, peddling out of the park and onto the main road. Three miles straight will bring me into town and I can grab some food for the boys, some cleaning supplies, and maybe some flowers to brighten up the trailer.

The wind is in my hair and my cheeks are stinging with the pleasant glaze from the sun. No one’s on the road because it’s working hours, so most men are at the coal factory and most women are home with babies or working in the local shops.

Bike rides are for dreaming. When I was younger and first got this bike, my dreams were big. I’d go to college. Make a million dollars. Back then, before I got breasts, I had a lot of friends at the park. Yes, friends. This is important. Life ain’t all shit and sadness just because you live in a trailer.

Take Shep’s grandmother. She raised Shep and Buck in that trailer and they were nothing but smiles. When I was four or five they’d be playing, laughing, kicking a soccer ball around, and always have a pat for my head.

My friends, too. Leigh Anne and Mikey, had homes filled with laughter and more often than not I tried to get invited over to dinner. So I dreamed of making a million dollars and taking us all to live at the beach. I’ve never seen the ocean, but I know I’ll love it when I do.

My old bike riding dreams were of escape.

Now, though, I’m surprised by my desire to stay. To be in that small trailer with Shep and Buck. Making food. Making love. Making babies. Just… making happiness, I guess. Because I’m a firm believer happiness isn’t something owed to you. You gotta make it happen.

A car drives by and the horn blares, making me skid a little and my heart race. I hear a voice scream, “Nice titties, Vickie!” followed by whoopin’ and hollerin’ from the rolled down windows. It’s Mikey. He used to be a best friend. We made mudpies together. He was almost my first kiss.

Like I said, things changed when I grew breasts.

Mikey’s riding with some other guys in an old Lincoln Town Car. He’s hanging out the window, wagging his tongue at me. It’s hard to reconcile the dropout who hangs with a rough crowd at the pool hall with the boy who used to play hide and seek for hours, long after the fireflies started to pepper the night sky.

When I reach the store I’m drenched in sweat. It’d be cooler if I pulled up my hair, but then I’d look like trash, thin t-shirt soaked through with perspiration, stuck to my skin like I’m in a wet t-shirt contest instead of trying to get groceries.

Grabbing a cart, I shiver when the doors slide open, the AC blasting through me. It feels good and awful at the same time, kind of like when Buck first put himself into my ass last night. Mom said men liked the back door. I’d been appalled when she said it. Now, though, I was forced to be more open minded. There’s no way I can keep up with men like Shep and Buck if I don’t use everything I’ve got.

He was gentle, too, at least at first. So it wasn’t so bad. Just real unfamiliar. Not like I expected.

I came all the same, and I don’t know what that says about me.

First stop is the cleaning aisle. I grab bleach and gloves. And, while it’ll be awkward to carry home on the bike, I grab a mop and bucket, too. Some spray and a vanilla-scented candle. There’s a small roll of thick twine that I grab as well. I want to get more, but I’m already pushing the limit of what I can haul back.

Next I grab three steaks, big ones. It’s a splurge and the price makes me feel a little sick. But it’s the first meal I’m fixing for the boys and I want to say thank you. Next I grab some baking potatoes, some sour cream, and another splurge: bacon bits. Eyeing the beer longfully, I wish I could get them some, but I’m not legal for that, yet.

It’s a little strange for me to think about. The way Shep and Buck took my body last night, all those things-- it became okay for men to do to me yesterday. But I can’t buy them alcohol. Where’s the sense it that?

Feeling good about my purchases, I take them to Miss Tammy at the front. Miss Tammy’s been working at the General for as long as I can remember. She looks the same, too. Old, grizzled. Like she’s seen more than she’ll let on.

“This all, Vickie?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The scanner beeps and she eyes the steaks. “Your Mama must be… workin’ hard.” Miss Tammy is also a bit of a busy body.

Shuffling, I look out the window at my bike, beginning to regret this trip. “It ain’t for her.”

“Oh,” is all Miss Tammy says, but I can feel her honing in on me. Her eyes putting pressure, like she’s able to reach out with her mind and poke me, saying
tell me, tell me, tell me
.

I keep my mouth shut, though, and the total is less than fifty. A relief. Saying ‘goodbye,’ I grab my haul and head out.

Balancing on the bike is precarious. I’ve got the food and stuff inside the mop bucket and the mop handle hooked over a shoulder. The other end rests on the handlebars. I hold them and the handle with one hand and the other holds the bucket.

Peddling is hard and my thighs are aching. If I keep shopping like this, maybe the hips Lloyd pokes fun at will melt away. It takes me twice as long to get back to the trailer park as it took to get to the store.

Wobbling through the park, the car in front of my Mama’s is gone. When I glance at her window, I see the blinds snap shut. It feels like a slap.

My brain knows that she used me. That my own mother set me up and was happy to whore me out. I get it, I do. But she’s still my mama, and while things weren’t great growing up, they weren’t terrible, either. Sometimes she’d make pancakes for dinner just because. Or pet my hair while we watched Saturday morning cartoons. Seeing her spy on me and hide from me is hard. It makes my chest ache in a way that doesn’t feel like it can get better.

Wheeling the bike next to Buck and Shep’s, I unload the groceries and haul them in. It’s just after noon and I’m starving. After more cereal and milk (there ain’t much else right now) I set to work.

The twine I take out back. There’s a small shed behind their trailer. A luxury, really, considering the lack of space in the park. I’m able to connect the twine, tying it in multiple passes between the door of the shed and the wooden post of the rail next to the back stoop.

It looks ugly as hell, but I’m pretty sure it’ll hold the wash. It’ll have to, because I don’t have many clothes.

Back inside, I create another line over the sink, tied off on the cabinets. I’m a lady, I don’t put my drawers outside for the whole park to see.

I find an old plastic tub filled with weights in their workout room. It’s tough hauling all the heavy weights from it. If I keep biking and having to move their heavy shit just to clean, I’m going to be fit in no time.

After enough effort, the plastic tub is cleaned out and filled with soapy water. The first load of laundry is soaking in it. While it sits, I start tidying up. Taking a garbage bag, I move through the house, tossing the empty bottles, cans, and wrappers from each room.