Like Black Ink
Joan walks in. Tattooed with dirty words only I can see. I don’t do what I normally do, which is ask politely if the customer has made a reservation—I know she’s not here for that. When she enters the light the tattoos tell a story I don’t want to remember. I watch as she surveys the room for me, when her eyes find me she smiles. It’s the same smile I’ve seen her wear my whole life—only now it’s glossy because she’s old enough to wear makeup. I smile back.
It’s times like these when I wonder if she remembers, like I do, what I did to her.
I turn to Mark, one of the only other high school seniors at the Macaroni Grill. He has dark hair that’s always in his face and vibrant green eyes that peak out from behind his curtain of bangs. “Hey, my shift’s over.” He looks at me, nods. I smile because I hate feeling like I’m being rude. I regret it. He stares at me. He doesn’t smile back.
***
Our moms had grown up together. When they were young, like Joan and I are now, my mom said the two of them would sit around listening to Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” and talk about their future kids. Mom always gets misty eyed whenever she recalls the tale. They had envisioned story book weddings, Prince Charmings, and well behaved children, much more behaved that they had been. But they were just high school girls who couldn’t envision what their lives would actually be like. I can imagine, for I learned this young: you rarely realize who you’ll become, and by the time you do, it’s too late to change.
Mom married an accountant she had met at her job after she graduated college, and divorced him a year after she had me. The man that claims the name “Dad” was never around, and so Joan’s Mom, Heather, who always was, became my second parent in my single parent home. By then Heather was pregnant with Joan, exactly one year younger than me. We were born on the same day, and we couldn’t be more different. Yet like the Ying Yang of Chinese Taoism, we fit so well together.
Joan had the long blond princess hair, my hair was brown, like my “father’s” and cut short like a boy’s. Mom had pierced my ears when I was born, so I always wore plain silver studs in my ears to differentiate me from the real flat chested males. Mom thought that if I was a more masculine girl as a child I would grow up to be an independent woman, tougher than any man. Heather had always been a bit of a girly girl when she was young, and so would dress Joan in frilly dresses, matching head to toe. Joan didn’t like the dresses, where as I yearned for them. But it didn’t matter when we were covered in mud. She was as dirty as I felt, and I liked that.
***
Joan and I exit the Macaroni Grill where I waitress. Joan works at the Avenue across the way—lip gloss wasn’t her only change. After her Dad’s death she gained quite a few pounds. But she’s pretty, as she always was. Sometimes I stare at her and don’t recognize the face in front of me; I imagine she feels the same. Joan has dyed her hair a dark auburn, and cut it to her shoulders, short for her. She wears mostly jeans now, and stylish tops from the Avenue. As she’s often said to me, “In retail you have to wear the product, in order to sell the product.” Now she’s wearing a pair of dark denim jeans tucked into brown boots, and a blue and white floral tunic that looks oddly lively along side dead winter trees.
Joan and I
walk across the parking lot. Its eight-o-clock when our shifts end and I’ve
never been one to parade around at all hours of the night. Lucky for us
“What guy?”
“The one who just stared at you when you smiled,” She unlocks her door, and slides in, muffling a, “What an ass.” She leans across the passenger seat and unlocks the door for me. I get in.
“Oh Mark.” The chills come back, I mention them to Joan.
“I don’t blame you,” She replies, “He’s so stoic you can’t figure him out. But…” Her mouth forms a grin, “he is kinda’ cute.”
I scoff at this, “He’s still an ass.”
Joan laughs as she puts the car into gear and pulls out of the parking space, “Hey, does Mark go to our school?”
“Yeah—I mean, he use to. Dropped out through, works full time at the Macaroni Grill.”
“I knew he looked familiar! Did you guys have any classes together?”
“We did, back in 9th grade. Freshman Seminar English, actually. That was around when this whole “creepy” thing started. He sat directly across the room from me, and I just caught him staring at me…a lot.”
“Oooh, sounds like someone had a crush on you.” Joan teases, grinning.
“Not ooh,” I coo back at her, “Whenever I looked up from my work he was just staring. It was like even if I caught him, he didn’t look away. I mean, at first I assumed it was because we sat across from each other and sometimes I had the habit of spacing out and just sorta’ staring at things without really looking at them. So, at first I just figured, okay, maybe he does the same thing. But then, I started feeling like he wasn’t just spacing out. Like some sort of challenge. Ya know, when you stare at a cat and it just keeps staring until you look away?”
As Joan switches gears, and stares into the night, her eyes catch a shadow. She says, “You always looked away.”
I try to down play her tone, the hidden meaning, the little secret in her words. “Well, yeah….I mean, it’s stupid to just glare back at him.”
Joan says nothing, but her silence is louder that any words she could possible say…but…
“Ya’ know, I do remember.” She interrupts my thoughts.
“What?” My heart speeds up; the shadow has not left her eyes.
“Mark…I remember him. You told me before, remember?”
“Oh, Oh yeah.”
She smiles, “Remember Spirited Away? Nothing that happens is every forgotten, even if you can’t remember.”
I smile back. But, my heart doesn’t slow.
***
It was the summer before third grade. Joan was seven, I was eight. It was hot. I remember the heat, among other sensory details, the most. One of the hottest summers I’d ever had. Joan and I spent everyday of that summer together, just the two of us. First grade hadn’t been the year of a million friends, Joan was too shy, and I was too tough. If I did make friends, I lost them fairly quickly. The boys I played tag with liked to pull on Joan’s hair. Joan cried while they did this, but never said a word to defend herself. So it was me, in my overalls, little league cap, and silver studs, that connected my fist with their mouths. They didn’t bother Joan much after that, but they didn’t want anything to do with me.
But I was use to this sort of societal isolation. In the end it was always Joan and I. Back then, a part of me had been convinced that we were a set. Like Salt and Pepper shakers, you couldn’t buy one without the other. And so, even though I knew sorta’ that, or at least all the sets I’d seen in my life seemed to be of the male female variety, I knew that Joan and I were one of those forever deals. At least, I couldn’t then imagine myself with anybody else. Because, well, nobody else was ever around. And Joan was my rock. She was always there.
We sat outside my house, selling lemonade, hoping to scrap up enough cash to go to the public swimming pool down the street. Mom had bought one of those big containers of powdered lemonade, and we had a full pitcher sitting alongside us with ice cubes and real lemon slices floating atop the yellow liquid. But, as far as business goes for two would be 3rd graders, things were pretty bad. Other than my neighbor, Ms. Gilligan, and her dog Sebastian (who I loved because he shared the same name as the crab on The Little Mermaid, though they looked nothing alike), we had no customers, and only a dollar to our names.
“Hey, Joan? Do you think this is worth it?” I had asked her, wiping sweat from my brow.
“Dunno. You want some lemonade?” she replied.
“I guess, I mean it’s not like anyone else does.” I watched her as she lifted the nearly full pitcher with both her hands, gripping the sides so as not to spill the contents. I reached over her and grabbed the handle, and helped her pour the liquid into two paper cups. When we were done, she handed me one and took a sip of her own.
“I wish there was another way to make money.” I said, while taking a sip. The lemonade was good, as expected. You couldn’t really go wrong with instant.
“I wish we had a million dollars!” Joan shouted to the sky. I stared at her. She sat there silent, waiting.
“Well,” she said after a while, “It was worth a shot.”
“What if we go door to door, do you think that would work?” But even as I said it, the idea sounded pretty lame.
“Or we could
be like Bonnie and
“Who?” I asked.
“Bonnie and
I pictured myself in green tights and a yellow feathered hat, like the Disney Robin Hood (the only renown thief I knew of), and Joan in a flowing purple dress (as Maid Marian). Then I reversed the roles in my mind.
“I guess…but what if I want to be Bonnie?”
“Well you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You just
aren’t very Bonnie like. You don’t wear dresses. You look more like
“Fine. So where do we start?”
“First we gotta’ look the part. Come on—let’s go poke around in your mom’s closet.”
I followed her inside. I couldn’t see that well, because of that effect the sun has on your eyes when you come inside after staying out in the sun for a while. So the darkness was even more magnified, looking as though it and everything in it—my mom’s reading chair, my baseball bat, the coffee table, the wallpaper, were all being pixilated. Joan was just a mess of blond hair and white sundress. I followed her down the hallway and into my mom’s room, the first door on the right.
Joan had
turned the light on and began rummaging through the closet. As my eyes adjusted
to the light, I sat on the bed and watched her. It wasn’t like we would find any
clothes for
“Well,” She said, as she squinted her eyes at a brown leather belt and then threw it at the bed (where she was keeping all the maybes), “They lived during the 20’ and 30’s. That’s why it’s hard to get the clothes down. Your mom doesn’t have anything like that.”
“Oh. What else?”
“Well they were married—ah! Perfect.” She exclaimed as she pulled out a long flowing skirt, and white silk button up shirt.
And then she did something I hadn’t really expected. As she went to the door, where I had assumed she would go to the bathroom and change, she stopped and closed it instead. Then, she pulled off her dress. She wasn’t wearing anything else.
This was the first time I had seen another girl naked. This was the first time I had seen Joan naked. I would have turned away, I should have turned away. But, I couldn’t. Where her dress had been Joan’s skin was pale like the moon, like salt. Her shoulders were tanner, boney, and as she brushed her long blond hair behind them, I watched her nipples harden. I knew then, why Joan was my salt shaker.
Joan pulled up my mom’s silk shirt. “Wait!” I’d shouted. She stopped, and stared at me, a question in her eyes.
I said, “Can…can we play another game?”
She trusted me. She looked at me and nodded her head. I told her to lie down on the bed. She did. I told her not to move, not to speak, not to scream. I was her protector, and she trusted me.
I touched her. Circled my fingers around those hard nipples, watched her shiver under my caresses. Watched her face go from surprised to flustered to quizzical as I let my hand lead me farther and farther away from her face, lower and lower still until I had violated that sacred place. Watched her eyes light up, not with pleasure but with fright—but she didn’t scream. I remember sounds, though. Sounds of cars driving by, of my breathing: of her breathing, of the neighbor’s sprinklers hitting the pavement outside. Smells: like sweat and dust mingling with the air freshener—something like lavender. (Lavender always smelled like sex to me after that.) When I had had my fill, Joan stood up.
I couldn’t look at her, so I stared at my hands. I said: “Don’t tell.” But it didn’t matter, the words were already there. Imprinted into my hands, like black ink only we could see.
***
Joan never did tell anyone, or if she did, I didn’t know about it. Sometimes when we’d watch Oprah, there would be a segment where victims of molestation or rape, always teary eyed—always looking just the tiniest bit dirty, even if they were well-groomed, would tell their stories. After what had happened, Joan and I never again spoke of it. But when these women or men who got on TV said the words we could never say—I always got this urge deep inside of me, where words formulated on my tongue and wanted so desperately to come out and say what I needed to: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It always seemed so easy when those people I would never meet: the boy next door, the daughter of a preacher, the prostitute opened their mouths.
But it was always the victims who were show cased on Oprah. The daughter of the preacher had been molested by her father, the boy next door by his older brother, the prostitute by her mom’s best friend. These people, the ones who perpetrated the acts, these people were always scorned—her audience booed them. This made it harder. Because, no matter how horrible I felt, no matter how much I wanted to repent, I had to remember: I wasn’t the victim. I was the bad guy.
I remember once, during a viewing, my mom had walked in on the middle of the show. The boy next door had just finished his story and was sobbing on Oprah’s couch. Oprah said, “Now, we’re bringing in Bob, your best friend and the man who molested you all those years ago.” Bob, the bad guy. Bob was met with the much anticipated boos of the studio audience, and Oprah’s never ending criticism, “People like you disgust me.”
“That’s right, you tell him Oprah.” My mom had said, “Look at him. That freak.”
The words that had been rising up inside me were swallowed. I looked down at my hands and saw new words: People like you disgust me. Joan looked at them. I knew she saw what I saw. I pushed them into my pockets and said, “Yeah. What a freak.”
***
Joan drops me off at home and goes on her way. As I walk up my front steps, I feel my cell phone vibrate in my pocket.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Hey it’s me. Can you come back in?” It’s my manger, Jill. She sounds stressed.
“I guess, is it that bad?” I look down at my watch, it’s nine-o-clock.
“God yes!” Jill exclaims. I can feel her drumming her nails against the back wall where we keep the phone. “Marge’s been hospitalized and we’re short a waitress. Plus we’ve got this huge dinner reservation for nine-forty.”
My heart skips a beat “Marge’s been hospitalized, wait—how’d that happen?”
“I have no idea. No one knows. Mark found her crying in a heap out back, she wouldn’t let him touch her. He got me and then I called 911—nervous breakdown or something—and the rest, as they say, is history. How soon can you be here?”
The bit about Mark spooks me, but I don’t dwell on it. “I can get to BART and over there in about half an hour maybe.”
“Thank god! You are such a sweetie. No—no table five ordered the lasagna platter! Table six is the Fettuccine Alfredo.” She says to me: “See you soon okay? And really, thanks for doing this. Not a lot of people would you know.”
“No, it’s nothing.” I said, feeling bad about her feeling bad about putting me out, “I’ll see you in half an hour.”
“Bye hun.” She hangs up.
I do likewise and call my mom, letting her know I’m going to be coming home late. I get her voicemail and leave a message. Then make my way to BART, as fast as I can. I’m not really in a hurry to get back to work. I hate walking around this late at night. The sooner I get to BART the better.
***
As I round the corner at the Starbucks nearest the BART, I relax. Most of the stores are still open, as I make my way to the Longs farthest away I start to see the bright green and yellows of the Macaroni Grill and relax a little. I make my way across the street and into the building. Mark is standing at the reservation desk—it reminds me of what happened to Marge, who found her. How know one really knows what happened.
I push those thoughts to the back of my mind, though and greet Mark just as usual; maybe he’s freaked a bit too. Marge is the friendliest waitress here, and I remember her and Mark conversing here and there about things. She made him feel a bit more relax amongst the staff when he started. Maybe he’s worried about her too.
Mark looks up from the book where we log all are reservations. When he stares at me I feel shifty. He looks the same as he always does: stoic, but he looks at me like he sees me. But not really like he sees me, like he’s watching me. It creeps me out so I break eye contact and ask where Jill is.
“In the kitchen.” He says, and stares at me—I feel like he’s waiting for me to make the next move.
“Oh…well uh, th-thanks.” I stutter out as I walk away. I don’t turn back to see if he’s still watching me.
I check in with Jill and she puts me to work: table twelve. Far away from the reservation desk. I feel myself let out a sigh of relief.
***
It was the first time I caught him staring at me that night. I was serving drinks to table twelve, all thirty-eight of them. Turns out Jill had stuck me with that big reservation she had been talking about: a high school sports team, full of unruly boys and girls my age. I was coming back from my third trip to the kitchen with two root beers, an orange soda, and a sprite. I was handing the sprite, the last drink on the platter, to the boy—short blond hair, glasses—who had ordered it when he made this really funny face at me. I couldn’t help laughing. He took this as encouragement and took the plunge, “Hi, I’m Rob.”
I pointed to my name tag. He laughed, though I wasn’t trying to be funny. “Nice name,” He said, “I go to El Cerrito High. You?”
“No, I go to
“Rob! Stop flirting with the waitress.” One of his team mates shouted from across the room, followed by an indignant girl voice, “Where’s my diet coke?”
“Hey! She has a name.” Rob shouted back blushing.
“Let me go get that coke for you.” I said to the girl.
That’s when it happened, when I was turning around I saw him. Mark, watching me. I pretended like I hadn’t. His eyes roaming over me, seeming to linger on bits and pieces of my body—though ones I couldn’t pin point, he was too far away. I got the shivers. And went back to the kitchen. I was so flustered I couldn’t remember what the girl had wanted, so I went back out there. He was still watching me, apparently he hadn’t caught on to my knowing—that or he didn’t care.
***
It was
“Hey,” Jill calls to me, “How are you getting home?”
“Oh, I’m think I’m walking.” I say to her.
“No you aren’t. Not this late at night.” She says to me, “Where do you live?”
“
She nods her head as if this confirms something, “Yeah. You’re definitely
not walking home by yourself. Call your mom, see if she can pick you up. I’d
give you a ride, but I live way out in
“It’s cool. I’ll be okay. She’s probably asleep by now anyways.” I say to her, but even as I do I feel uneasy. I dart my eyes at Mark who had just been standing there, he catches me staring, and looks at me. I look away fast.
“Mark, where are you going?” Jill asks.
“
“Why don’t you go home together, keep her safe?”
“Sure.” Mark says, looks at me, I feel like he’s about to say, “That cool with you?” But then I remember it’s Mark I’m staring at.
“No, its fine,” I say anyway to the question he never delivers, “I’ll be fine by myself. I mean I don’t want you to have to go out of your way…it’s I mean…” I’m stuttering now, running out of good reason, at least of the ones I can say.
“No. He’ll go with you.” Jill says, making her way to her car, “See you two tomorrow.” And she leaves me.
Mark looks at me, and says, “Should we get going?”
I gulp, nod. “Okay.” I squeak out.
Mark is taller than me, and his height is enhanced even more when it’s just the two of us. His hair is in his face and his eyes piece me. Scare me. I hide my face from him, wishing to god I had taken Joan advice back when I was twelve and let it grow out.
But then, I’ve been regretting a lot of things lately.
We start walking and for every three steps I take Mark takes one. I start talking, “So, uh you still go to school?”
“No.” He replies.
“Oh. Um…well, I do…I’m—excuse me” I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, I pull it out. It’s Joan.
“Hello?”
“Turn on your TV.” She says to me.
“I’m not at home.” I reply, darting my eyes at Mark, Mark who’s staring at me. Mark who’s watching me.
“What—where are you?” Her voice sounds frantic.
“I’m at El Cerrito Plaza.” I reply, feeling Mark drop his pace. We’re at the fairly large alley way between the Avenue, where Joan works, and Longs.
“Oh my god. Are you alone?”
“No,” I say, “What is it?”
“Who’s with you? Is it Mark?”
“Yeah….wait, Joan what’s going on?”
“Some lady at your job…she—“ Joan cuts off.
“She what? Joan?” I pull the phone away from my ear, the batteries dead. But my imagination can feel in the blanks. Marge…that’s who she was talking about. And Mark…I turn around toward him—if I could just run—but, he’s not there.
Then I feel it, something pointy in my lower back. He presses it against me hard enough so that I know what it is—a knife and whispers “Don’t scream.” His voice is calm, but full of venom, “Walk.” I do what he says. My head is spinning. I couldn’t disobey if I wanted to. He leads me down the alleyway, and shoves me against a wall. I can’t see his face, but I don’t want to.
“Look at me.” He says, raising the knife up to my throat.
I do and I wish I hadn’t because I know I’ve worn this face, it feels so familiar. I know I must have. It’s sick, it’s twisted. I’d laugh at the irony, but there’s something different in Mark face that I know I didn’t feel back then. Mark is calm, his eyes are blazing—not with shame or guilt or fear of what he’d become, but with lust. He’s consumed by it. I’m not the first girl he’s touched.
He grabs my face, forces my cheeks up and inward and kisses me. Everything is hard: his lips, his hand, the knife. I don’t struggle. I don’t fight. Tears burn down my face, but I don’t scream. I wish I could choke on them and die.
I hear sounds: metal clanking, pants dropping, the silence of the night, grunting, a moan—maybe mine—breathing. Smell things: sweat and dirty socks—lavender (perhaps I imagine it). Feel things: hard things, hands running over my breasts, then a piercing not made easier to bear because there isn’t any sweet boyfriend to say: Are you okay, should I slow down? I want to scream then, just once, but Mark muffles it with his hand. Suffocates my scream, and I really do taste the tears, taste him: he tastes like dirt, but then so do I.
***
I think I blank because when the world starts to fall in place, Mark is gone and I’m laying in a heap of my own filth. I can’t move, I don’t know if I want to.
But then I hear my name, someone one calling it: the voice nears and I know it’s Joan. I try to say something and surprise myself with how loud my voice actually is: “Joan?” She hears me, and rounds the corner.
Joan looks like an angel: she’s wearing white silk pajamas and ballerina flats. She runs toward me tries to kneel beside me. I push her away; I can’t let her touch any of this. I can make her anymore dirty that I already have.
“You’re bleeding.” She says.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, but not because of what just happened. It’s funny. Now that I’m at my lowest point, it’s so easy. The words come so easy, “I’m so sorry.”
Joan, my angel, catches that shadow again: she looks at the floor and says, “I know.”