FICTION
Tasha in South Carolina
Tasha’s face looked as though someone had stuffed a plum in it, right where her left eye should’ve been. She examined it in the bathroom mirror beneath the flickering tube light, the cracked tile still morning-cool beneath her bare feet. The room was so cramped she could hardly turn around without falling over the toilet or into the shower, but still she leaned precariously against the sink to get a closer look. Her fingertips glowed white against the purpled skin as they delicately traced the obscenity. Like a ripened fruit, the skin felt taut and, due to the humidity, had the same sense of succulence. If she opened the eye, would tears run out or juice? She could open it — though not all the way. Makeup wasn’t going to cover it. She raked some of her brunette curls down over the side of her face. That could work if she didn’t mind having cycloptic vision for the day. And looking somewhat emo, which at twenty-three she was a little too old for. A plosive sigh parted her lips, making a soft pop in the silence. She pulled her hair high onto her head and fastened it with a black band. She could figure out what to do after she sent Dale on his way.
She stole into the darkened bedroom, where Dale sprawled face-down on his half of the bed. The light green sheet rode up over the calf of one bare leg, and one arm dangled over the side, as if Dale’s body were pouring into the shadows. Most visible in the dimness was the white expanse of his undershirt stretched tight across the broad back and shoulders, above which his head seemed merely a dark spot, a hole in the pillow.
Tasha closed the door to the kitchen, the third and only other room in their apartment, without disturbing Dale. He’d be up soon enough and needed all the rest he could get after last night and with the day he had ahead. He would need a good breakfast. She took milk, eggs, and bacon from the refrigerator.
She was wearing one of Dale’s T’s as a nightshirt, a faded navy blue washed to baby softness, the logo of some favorite band from his youth worn to a memory. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but his frame was so squarelike, broad enough that his shirts hung off her curves enough to cover her behind. Wearing them around the apartment made her feel sexy and gave her a sense of belonging. A reminder that he was bigger and could protect her. She pulled the neckline over her nose and breathed in the blend of musk, cologne, and outdoors that was Dale. She would miss the smell of fresh-cut grass he had brought home with him all summer. When he came in the door, it always preceded the sourness of the sweat that drenched him from mowing lawns.
He had resorted to lawn work to cover the rent. They’d uprooted from their families in Pennsylvania the winter before and come south so that Dale could apprentice as a brick mason with his mother’s cousin. The cousin had encouraged them, talking about a thriving local economy and a cheaper cost of living. He intimated that Dale could take over when he retired, never mentioning that he was already trying to sell the business. The apprenticeship lasted two months. The cousin scooted off to Florida, leaving Dale and Tasha stung and without connections or local references. In midwinter there was little seasonal employment, and the couple barely made do until spring. Even then Dale struggled, competing with illegals and teenagers for odd jobs, until the mowing picked up regularly. Tasha had finally gotten a job at a dollar store. But now Dale was done with catch-as-can jobs. Today he started on a construction crew, and there would be real money. Things would be different.
She placed the skillet on one of the stove eyes and laid down strips of bacon, which left her fingers slick. With her other hand, she turned the burner on medium. Tasha rubbed her fingers together, the grease like the South Carolina damp clinging to her skin. With more money, they could start running the air conditioner that perched awkwardly in the bedroom window, stealing their light without giving anything in return. She stopped the circular movement of her fingers. It would not rub away. She knew this, knew it required cleansing. She washed her hands in the sink and started the coffee. The bacon started to sizzle.
She was glad her parents could not see her now. And though she tried not to, she thought about what they would say, how disappointment would drag on their faces, how they would not understand, and how her daddy might just try to kill Dale. That was one dog fight she didn’t want to see, the two men she loved the most beating the tar out of each other. Though Dale wouldn’t hurt Daddy if he could help it.
She turned the bacon. The sizzle rising from the skillet became a steady white noise. She poured a glass of milk and set it and the aspirin bottle on the kitchen table, a ridiculous square of chrome-trimmed fake marble left by the previous tenant.
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is … Tasha couldn’t remember all the things the preacher at their wedding had said love was. She decided to look up that list later. Love does not seek its own; that was another one. You had to learn those things, practice them. You couldn’t be love all at once. She knew that much.
Tasha opened the silverware drawer and pulled out an arcane serving fork. It was a small awkward trident, its flat head an inch and a half across. The outer tines curved inward sporklike, but the long gaps between the tines formed rectangles that slanted internally toward the stem. An impractical wedding gift. The giver, with ill-conceived good intentions, had their names and wedding date engraved along the stem, making it unsellable. What the fork was meant for, Tasha had no clue. She only knew what she used it for.
She slipped the fork’s flat head between the skillet and the glowing eye.
She turned the bacon again. The grease sputtered and popped. She got down a plate, cup, and mug from the cabinet. Coffee dribbled into the pot, its sharp aroma mixing with the savory scent of the bacon. From the bedroom came the sound of shifting sheets and bedsprings. Dale emerged in his undershirt and briefs squinting against the light and groaning through his teeth. Tufts of his hair, bleached a golden brown from the sun, stuck out in odd directions. She turned away from him and poked at the bacon with the spatula before turning the strips a final time. She heard him fumble with the aspirin and gulp the milk. Then his bare feet made a fleshy sucking sound against the damp linoleum as he walked toward her.
As she moved the bacon to a paper towel laid over a plate, he wrapped his arms around her just below her breasts and, pulling her gently back against him, pressed a prickling kiss on her neck. The soft scratch of his stubble on her neck and the firm strength of his body and grasp made Tasha want to dissolve into him and cry and be carried back to bed.
Instead she said, “You’re going to make me burn myself.”
He loosened his grasp but still held her while she finished.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Despite the milk, his breath still smelled yeasty and stagnant.
“You’d better clean up while I finish your breakfast.”
“I know I got rough last night. I remember that much.”
“You could say that.”
“Are you okay? Let me see.”
Tasha let him turn her around, his rough hand cradling her chin. When he saw the purple eye, his mouth fell slack and the color flickered beneath his tan. His expression touched and angered her at the same time.
“Did you put anything on it?” he asked, moving to the refrigerator.
“No. You need to get ready. You can’t be late on the first day.” She cracked an egg into the skillet.
“You shoulda put something on it.” He took a bag of peas from the freezer. “Here, let me put this on it.” As he crossed back to her, he spotted the silver handle protruding from under the skillet. He gave a single involuntary shake of his head and held the bag to her eye.
She tried to brush him aside but he persisted, so she stood there, back to the stove, and took his care.
“You know that wasn’t really me.”
“He looked a lot like you.”
“You know what I mean.”
She said nothing.
“Did I come home riled up?”
“Pretty much.”
“Me and Charlie went out to celebrate the job. I was just feeling so good about it, you know? I thought I’d just have a couple.”
The cold began to burn her face, and he let her push the bag away.
“I know what you were doing.” She cracked another egg into the skillet and flipped over the one already bubbling in the bacon grease.
“We were celebrating, so I didn’t think to stop. Once you get a couple down, you don’t think about it anymore.”
“If stopping is such a problem, maybe you should think about not starting.”
It was Dale’s turn to say nothing. A bruising silence because Tasha knew what words she wanted to come out of his mouth. Dale had always loved a bender. Back in Pennsylvania, the weekend always brought another round of him trying to drink their friends under the table. And no one minded because he was the most amiable of drunks or had been.
“I don’t understand why it’s different now.”
Tasha bit her lip, uninterested in having this conversation again.
Finally, Dale asked, “Do we have to do this now?”
She turned her face toward him. “And why not?”
“C’mon, Tash. It’s gonna be a long hot day, and I’m starting hung over.”
Something the color of her eye bubbled up inside her. She pointed to her face. “Last night wasn’t that all-fire convenient for me either. I got to go in to the store today. And looking like this.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not asking for a pass. I’m just asking, can it wait?”
“Do you love me?”
His eyes couldn’t find their way from the floor. “You know I do.”
“Them’s just words.”
He took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. The soft of his lips and scratch of his chin called faintly to her.
“I never want to hurt you, you know that, right?”
She put her hands on his sides and felt the strength that slanted down to his waist. “And I never want to hurt you.”
He left the kitchen, and in a minute Tasha heard water running in the bathroom. She served out the eggs and bacon onto a plate, poured a mug of coffee, and set a place at the table. Dale came back in, his hair slicked dark and down. He wore his work boots and a belted pair of roughed-up, grass-stained jeans. A blue T-shirt hung over his bare shoulder, and he held a small white plastic case in one hand and work gloves stuffed in a ball cap in the other. He slid the case onto the table, dropped the gloves and hat on the floor, and sat in front of the plate. He looked at the empty side of the table.
“You not eating anything?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat,” he said. She ignored his comment because she clearly was not wasting away.
Dale pushed the plate and mug to the center of the table. “Let’s do it now.” He pulled the T-shirt into his lap, scooted up to the table, and gripped both sides of it.
From a drawer, Tasha pulled an old square hot pad, the ideal kitchen scene once pictured on it long worn away. She withdrew the fork from between the skillet and the burner and turned the stove off. She held the serving fork up before her in an almost ceremonial fashion as she walked the short L path to stand behind Dale.
Across the middle of his back below the shoulder blades, in a row, three scars shined palely against the tan skin. Without hesitation, Tasha pressed the serving fork against the skin at the end of the line. Its kiss hissed and gave off a trace of steam as Dale grunted and his muscles involuntarily contracted, causing the far table legs to rock away from and back to the floor. Tasha, for her part, grimaced and resisted the urge to pull the serving fork back immediately. Those few seconds sizzled as she waited. When she removed it, the fresh brand flamed, angry and hellish next to its mute brethren, long since healed and glinting pink in the overhead light, the pain of their reminder forgotten until this moment.
Her movements unhurried but deliberate, Tasha placed the fork in the sink, where it snapped at the spots of standing water. She went to the freezer and retrieved the bag of frozen peas. Dale let go of the table with his right hand and held it up to stop her.
“Wait.” A single pinched word.
She did but only a second. “There’s no need to make it worse than it needs to be.” She held the bag against his back with the same insistent gentleness he had shown with her eye. The sudden cold made him suck in air between his teeth. Tasha laid her other hand on his shoulder and kissed his neck.
“You’d better start on that breakfast.”
Dale pulled the plate back to him and mechanically shoveled the eggs into his mouth. As he ate, Tasha took gauze and medical tape from the plastic case and bandaged the brand. The dressing would likely not stand up under the toil and heat Dale would face that day, but this was what they had.
A horn beeped outside.
“That’s Charlie,” Dale said. He stood up and pulled on his shirt. Tasha eased the back of it down so it would not snag the bandage. He turned around and held her face in his hands.
“You know I love you.”
“I know.”
He wrapped her in a hug and kissed her gently on the mouth. Her arms encircled his waist. He kissed her again, more strongly, and the hug became a clench.
“I wish I could stay home and take care of you.”
“I’m not even going to be here.” She jostled his waist. “So get out there and take care of me that way.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Charlie beeped the horn again. Dale grabbed his gloves and a last piece of bacon. A peck on the cheek and he was gone.
Tasha put the dishes in the sink. She opened the refrigerator and took out the only six-pack inside. She opened the first bottle and drank half, then poured the rest down the kitchen drain. Bottle after bottle followed it. She pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and poured herself a cup of coffee. She put the bottles back in the carton and took them out to the trash, carrying her mug in the other hand. Dale would not be mad, or if he was he wouldn’t show it.
Their apartment was on the back end of an old house, and when Tasha walked out onto the peeling porch, she saw mostly trees and weeds pressing up against a chainlink fence. A bit of breeze stirred the humidity, making it less stuffy than the house. Here she sipped her coffee, knowing it was unlikely a neighbor would bother her, unless the old man above them made his clattery descent on the outside stairs. She would get a question or two at the dollar store from at least one of the girls. One time she had told them, “You should see the other guy.” They thought she was deflecting, didn’t realize she meant it. She could tell what they thought of Dale, the ones that cared enough to think, and she hated it. They didn’t know a thing about either of them.
She drew from her pants pocket a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She’d given up smoking a while back when she thought she was pregnant, a false alarm. Now she smoked only on these mornings or a night like last night. She sent a stream of whitish gray smoke toward the bluing sky. The dog days were gone, but it was still so light, so early. Autumn would come nipping soon. Dale loved Tasha. Tasha loved Dale. And Dale loved a bender. Tasha watched the sky with its late low moon and wondered which love, like the gray above her yielding to blue, would give out first.
Paul Michael Garrison (MFA, Converse) is a writer, editor, educator, and actor living in Upstate South Carolina. He is the author of two mystery novels, Letters to the Editor and The Lies People Publish. His short fiction has appeared in The Windhover, Quantum Fairy Tales, and Heart of Flesh.
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Image: “Bacon cooking in a pan” by anokarina from United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Modified by Veronica McDonald.
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