A Dark Dream,
The Tao.
She turns to him with a wad of cash and smiles drunkenly. She needs him to kill her lesbian concubine. Another body for the burn pile. She was standing in a speakeasy with a band at the right at break. The bar behind her outlines her back and her lithe form twists into a laugh as she collapses in weakness on the table. No words are exchanged; he simply takes the wad and knows in embarrassment what is expected. Her husband, the lead singer of the band doesn’t take notice. He knows she keeps her lovers in the basement like love puppies on a chain. He knew the man before her would take care of it. She had high hopes.
She remembers her husband, the time they wove webs on a campsite ground. The time he spun music for that rustic scene, his hair dyed blond. That night he took her in the camper, raped her hard. They were lying on the dinette sofa turned bed, the fake cushions against the thin wood were stiff beneath the weight. She remembers turning her cheek to him, her dark skin unfolding under his hands. She had wanted to leave him then, divorce the bastard. But they had had a chemistry, a bond that held them like a master and his slave. He is white after all.
So instead, she would take lesbian lovers under him, women who would do anything for her, her pets. She would keep them in the basement and use them at her will. And when she grew tired of them, or when they grew too demanding of her, they were disposed of like arrogant cats that had overstrayed their welcome.
At home now, she maintains the housewife menagerie of cleaning and gratitude. She bakes cakes for the neighbors to share with coffee and smokes cigarettes at the kitchen table while I listen tracing the wood grain underneath with my finger from the floor. I am their child. It is summer now and the sunlight fills the house with memories of the moments we notice it.
My mother built a garden behind our house to the left. I play in the garden. The pumpkins I realize are larger than my head. “But mother,” I asked, “I thought they were watermelons?” when I first laid eyes upon them.
Today my father is away but he and I are in the kitchen like a dream. I lie on top of the counter and feel my father lie on top of me. I lay on that counter to the left of the kitchen sink, the window above the sink overlooking the garden to the left. I see him above me. His eyes are darkened. He touches my shoulder blades and I see that his hair is black. My eyes dilute in pleasure. I see the intent in his hands. I love him. I love him. I love him. We lay like this in love for a while. My mother knows and does not disturb us.
When my father leaves me, I moisten my hands in the dishwater. The dishes are finished and drying in the second sink. My mother will not notice that I have finished them; she will notice that they are not yet put away; they must be dried with a towel. She always notices what I have not yet done. I do not despair for her torture but instead grab a towel and begin to wipe the first dish, placing it in the cupboard. I wish the radio was on but it has been broken for some time so instead I listen to the silence outside and a dog barks in the distance. Next, I dry a cup. It is my father’s coffee mug; it has a mountain and a slogan, “Climb the next peak”. My father has never climbed a peak but neither have I. We have use for the mug though, it is black and the mountain is purple, mountains majesty echoes through my mind and I realize I am American. It is a strange feeling being American. In school, they teach us that we stole this land from the Indians, this is not our home. I feel like a thief. It is synchronous, this feeling of home as an American. Through small moments of notice, I study the Aryan race, my race, half of my bloodline from my father, and realize that Aryans were found in parts of China. I imagine that my ancestors left North America across the land bridge and moved into Asia all those centuries ago. I imagine that America is my homeland and that this, English, is my native tongue. The Indians are our next of kin and we are not thieves.
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