JASMINE
13th June, Slippery Rock
Little sister,
I fear that I waited too long to respond to your missive of early December. I hoped and prayed that I could find the time to write a short and sweet, perfectly reasonable explanation for the financial morass that seems to be dividing our true and deep sisterly love. (You understand.) So please forgive me if I rattle on in a dozen different directions before I discover the truth dancing in front of me, lost and fluttering like one of those monarch butterflies on his endless migrations.
The folks here in Slippery Rock seem to have recently arrived from some other time zone—the slow drip of molasses time zone, slow hands and deep pockets. But they have other advantages. They have no idea how the marble breaks down. Silver Slip had to twice physically restrain farmers who wanted to wager their bottom land against the illusive numbers. They went home, small slices of skin missing. They refused to believe a dwarf could be so quick. But, Lord, the women are so tight they won’t even spit on the ground or step into the honey-bucket flop. You know the kind of women I mean—like Momma—cat glasses, hair so tight in buns that their noses are pointed like the bills of the snapping turtles Daddy brought out of the Black River, hard, stingy eyes over skinny, pale mouths. They probably think a blow job is when you blow smoke in a guy’s ear. The things we could teach them, huh? (HA! Remember those two drummers at the Pow Wow Motel in Tucumcari? They should have been diamond miners.) But Jesus, they eat like lost hogs. Mounds of popcorn, miles of cotton candy, and enough Cokes to launch a ship, but they never shit. The whirlaround ride is shot, and this here’s a town that keeps little kids on the soft rides, these Slippery Rockers. Shit, the games are down 200 percent. Even the penny pits are losing money to the fucking rug rats. Which is why I’ve missed the last two payments. I’m sorry. We’re living on macaroni and welfare cheese. Maybe we need to put the shows back together. Maybe.
Speaking of rug rats—how’s little Harney doing? Same sort of straight dude his dad is? What is he now? Eighteen months? I hear little Pearl looks just like you. I know Harney would love to send you some money, but he’s still got those Kentucky peckerwoods on his back. It wasn’t Harn’s fault that the still caught fire. Hell, he nearly lost two fingers trying to put it out.
Well, baby sis, I gotta run. More soon.
Your loving sister,
Jasmine
GINGER
Flat River, August 31
Toad, it’s always a pleasure to get one of your wandering forays into the fucking miasma of your twisted, lying mind. You’re as ugly as Momma and twice as crooked. Stop whining and send the fucking money. Now. I’ve got a new sword swallower that will turn your bad news dwarf into mincemeat pie. And perhaps do a little cosmetic surgery so no one will ever mistake us again. Your excuse was late, mailed to the wrong place on purpose or by accident, no matter. The USPS is a fairly solid bet these days. Of course, there didn’t seem to be a check from you for $3,700, and no child support from Harney. Tell him I’ll put the sheriff on his ass and this time McAlaster will welcome him home. Or, hell, just forget it. I’ll come take the whole works, baby—in fact, forget everything. Like you always do. I didn’t fuck any drummers in Tucumcari, dear. I was in the governor’s suite with a fist full of cash and a mouth full of the governor’s press secretary’s cock. So we could get our permits restored, permits you’d lost with a rigged wheel. Then you told Harney it was me. That’s why I fucked him the first time. Or was that the first five hundred times? Who can keep it straight, bitch.
Wow. Time for a deep breath, a reassessment, then back to business. But before I forget, Pop didn’t leave because Mom wouldn’t go down on him. He left because she was boring, mean-spirited, and fairly stupid. And wall-eyed too. Just like you. Yeah, I can hear you sigh. She’s in denial again.
Maybe not, sis. Maybe not.
Look at it the real way, sister mine: you seduced him at thirteen for a pair Cherokee platform boots to impress Lauren Poltz. But you got Tommy Poltz in every orifice, didn’t you? Then it was off to Spokane to have the baby, then a flappy-ass job in the accounting wagon. While I shoveled Shetland pony shit and battled anklebiters as they covered me with baby shit, thin puke, and endless screams. I could have gone to college. You couldn’t finish grade school.
So when I was sixteen, I seduced the old bastard too, because he was the single most lonely man in the world, and I couldn’t stand it. He was a fine man. I don’t think he ever gave a shit about fucking you. You were so awful from the day you were born, you had to be forgiven for everything from the start. Or be throttled in the fucking crib.
And remember this too: Mom was too fastidious to nurse. She didn’t want too-big boobs to get in the way of her tumbles. So we were bottle babies. You were, at least until they discovered you had been stealing mine out of the crib in the dog cart.
You owe me the money. Or you’re ruined. That would be fine. On your own, sweetie, you’ll be in jail in six months. Where you’ve always belonged.
Pay or die, sister bitch.
Your sister in chains,
Ginger
HARNEY
I tried to stop it. I really did. I loved those women. Fire and ice, blood and guts, yin and Yankton, South Dakota.
The first time I saw them standing in a wheat stubble field outside Valentine, Nebraska, that long, stroking wind pushing their cheap dresses against their bodies so ripe … the sensation was this: lick your finger, then touch their skin, and try to get your finger back; touch them with your hand and pray that they don’t explode; hell, sometimes just looking at them made you think the whole fucking world was going to end in a single orgasm. Not with a bang, no, nor a whimper. But one long, glorious groan of infinite pleasure.
Romantic twaddle, I told myself as I bolted the aisle to the wheel. I’d been to several schools: Gunnison High, Colby, Soledad, and ten years drifting and grifting with the carnivals. I’ve learned some things. If you’ve never been locked up, you don’t know what the world is all about. Never trust anybody working the carnivals. Shit, never trust anybody. And never say romantic twaddle.
The first time with Jasmine, I thought I’d broken some ribs. The second time I was sure I’d broken my back. The third time I fainted.
I made a drunken mistake early on, in a citizen’s bar outside El Paso. I told the ring-a-ding guy about fainting. Drunk and in love until he said, “Shit, man, when she was a kid she used to jack off the Shetlands to keep them copacetic. Story is, man, she killed three of them one year.”
I ran. I came back. A dozen times. Jasmine was worse than Soledad. I knew that if I watched my back and walked their line, I’d get out. Eventually. Jasmine didn’t work that way. I stole her money; she had the roustabouts beat me until I cried. Something that never happened inside. I fucked her sister for a long time—great, but not the same—acknowledged our baby girl, and Jasmine laughed at me. She knew the worst.
Except for Ginger, the twin. How could two women be so different—bodies of long, sweeping curves frosted with glowing red-brown skin smoother than polished ivory and steaming with an internal fire—Jasmine seemed to laugh in flames when she came and her breath seemed hot enough to scorch my beard. Ginger was terrific, but ordinary. Jasmine was heaven and hell, cocaine and crank, star light and black hole.
I gave our little girl, Pearl, to a childless family outside Marengo, Iowa, and wished the people all the best luck. They seemed like nice people. If Pearl had been a cat, I would have had her fixed.
Jasmine had to be first, or I could have never finished it. After I cut her throat, I dumped her into a swamp outside Mud Lake, Wisconsin. In that shallow, muddy water, she floated like a queen. All I ever loved. Ginger was easier. She lifted her neck to the blade as if she’d been waiting for years. “Jasmine,” she whispered, as if she knew. Ginger’s yellow dress, blood like a flood, bobbed in the small Minnesota creek, drifted like a fading light. As always, I’d done what they wanted.
Now it was time for me. The raucous silence of Stillwater prison, the quiet needle smooth in the vein, the end of memories. Peace.