Suicide Blonde by Darcey Steinke Page A

Virginia that I was an interesting person, but here I was no different than other women. I couldn't help thinking that thirty years earlier we'd be married, cooking, knitting, arranging furniture—raising a family. Don't misunderstand me, there are obsessed and brilliant women artists in San Francisco. It was just that coming here made me realize I wasn't one of them.
    Where would I go now? My mother would buy me a ticket home. When I got there she'd load blankets on my bed and bring me juice. I could masturbate while listening to suburban husbands mowing their lawns. I could go back to Pig. I smiled at the thought of them as my only alternatives. I thought of things I could do in San Francisco; cafés, museums, the park. Then I thought about where I would go if I could drive. I thought about all the towns I had lived in and what I did in each of them. But nothing would satisfy me, there was nothing on this earth that could settle me now.
    Madison came down the side steps. There was a silver tear pasted near one black eyelined eye and she wore hiphuggers and a studded belt as wide as a fist. She didn't see me, which I found hard to believe as I was conspicuous as a cow in this robotic place. I yelled her name as the door sucked shut behind her, then jumped up and followed her out onto the wet street. She bent over, unlocking her car door.
    “Why didn't you come?” I said to her back. She turned, slacked back against the car sardonically. Her eyes frightened me a little. And I noticed, too, how her biceps were full and rounded. She had the twilling vibrancy of people in good shape.
    “Did Pig tell you she wasn't my mother?”
    I nodded, realized how stupid I must seem to her and felt embarrassed by my dirty jeans and black high-tops.
    “I came to ask you something.” I took a step closer. She was like a cobra and I felt if I could get close enough to stare into those horrible eyes I could charm her.
    “Why don't you just leave me alone?” Madison said. I was startled at the thin exhausted quality of her voice.
    “I need some advice,” I said.
    She squinted at me. “Why do you think I could help you?” She asked like it was an impossible and crazy thing.
    “I don't have any place to stay.” It wasn't what I expected to say, but I realized now it was the reason I had come down to Carmen's.
    She smiled. At first it reassured me, but then her lips spread in an expression I imagined a man might use on a young girl.
    “You just don't get it, do you?” she said. But she seemed pleased. “You want to stay awhile, with me!”
    I nodded. She got in and motioned for me to get in on the other side. It was a strange car with large rhinestones pasted all over the dashboard and a voodoo doll hanging from the rearview mirror. She turned the key in the ignition, her jewels caught light like broken glass and the radio played the same white noise as in Carmen's. Madison seemed to like it, she pushed the car lighter in, rifled through her purse, found her cigarettes, knocked two out, offering one to me. I bent toward her hand as she lit mine first, then hers off the fading coils of the car lighter. “You'll see,” she said, absently plugging the light back in, “there are a million ways to kill off the soft parts of yourself.”

C h a p t e r
    F i v e
    I WENT HOME LATE IN THE MORNING BECAUSE I KNEW BELL WAS at work. I had slept badly at Madison's. A dream of cockroaches crawling into my mouth haunted me and I was worried the stranger would be suddenly beside me, his thick cock nudging my ass. At dawn the couple upstairs started fucking. The woman made a sudden bark of discomfort, but the man coached her into pleasure saying, “Like this. Just like this.”
    The apartment wasn't much different than when I'd left yesterday. There were still dirty glasses in the sink and a warm smell of eggs mixed with the clove cigarettes Bell lately favored. The ashtray was filled with butts smoked super low the way poor men do. But