III. Setting
1.) (1959) Sidewalk chalk. The broken, brown strands of grass plying out of the cracks. Heat lifting off of the roadway in looping, jiving distortions, disturbed like a face in dreamstate. Shuttle-chinned cars, schooners on the tar-seeped asphalt. The children playing barefoot, boys with stripped, pink chests and the girls in the thin, dirty dresses. Working with a tireless industry. The houses squat around, pale faced as invalids. People sit on their porches. They play records with their windows open and the neighborhood is full of sweat and skipping, jostled tunes. Flies trapped in the window screens, men and women sprawled on their sheetless beds like negatives. No one knows, no one knows.
2.) (1960) Raped whores. Lying in their yellow motel rooms, making such a stink. Lousy, hackled storefronts. Boys bending over their cigarettes, black boots, and their lips dipping, sagging. There are kids in the park. There are cigarette butts in the sandbox. Drowsy housewifes carting their screeching babies in strollers, their eyes big and purple, like open fly-traps. A freight train runs near the house, alongside a measly, narrow stream. The stream is largely stagnant. Mosquito larvae curl in it like commas. The cops wait across the street. They're eating packed lunches and listening to the radio and watching the quiet house with the shuttered windows. No one stirs, no one stirs.
3.) (1975) Fruit stands. Bruised bananas, dent-headed melons, stacked like plague victims with their hard, knotted sores. The cranky street. A traffic of cars, bees and drones and queens. Fat bodied, vein-winged. The flat-footed blue policemen and the crooks in the doorways. The alley ways spreading like legs. Immigrants with their nonsense and their strings of children. Lonesome faces from the windows. The sickly trees rounded up in neat little increments. Shy rapture of the sighing buildings, the hopeless puppy-love directed at the new sun, corpulant as a belly. In the exiting shafts of light, bodies fall from the skyscrapers. Fat, blundering. A shame, a shame. The city shrugs into itself, rolling, curling, the shells and segments contracting, like some frightened sowbug. No one sees, no one sees.
IV.Climax
1.) (1959) Another one of her moods. Face bunched up, rolled, the wrinkles caving in, hips set at angles. Muttering, swearing. The oaths and promises rising like zeppelins. Her fingers wrapped around Margaret's upper arm, leaving purple boats of flesh. The bruises ringing up and perfect; you can almost see the whorls and tents and arches of her fingerprints. Margaret struggles, pushes, screams. No momma no no no. Don't wanna go back. I'll be good. I'll be good. The hallways hunch in. The slim light sneaks in on its belly like a cockroach. The mother grabs Margaret by the wrists. Pulls her along. Evil girl, sinful wretch. But you'll learn your lesson. Like teaching a dog. Beat the hell out of them and show em whose boss. They'll come to, they'll come to. Air is thick, motionless. The mother opens the door to the basement. She marches confederately. Margaret can smell her. She smells like pills and bibles. Pills and bibles. Fingers soft and secret as fungus caps. Margaret can't feel her tears anymore. She can't feel her hands anymore, her mother's grabbing them so hard until all the blood collects at her fingertips and she can feel them thump with her heartbeat. The mother shoves her down the steps of the basement. Skins her palms, knees, cheeks flaring, blooming. Stands to run back but mother slams the door shut, draws the bolt and screams, why the hell you have to come here? huh? you ruin everything! just look at me now! JUST LOOK AT ME NOW!*
* [partial monologue excerpted from recording of hypnosis session between Dr. Phillip Hubert and and Margaret Harris (November 9th, 1965)]
2.) (1960) Daddy's on the front lawn. He's laying there breathing heavy, handcuffed, big men dragging him up. His eyes are nibbed, poison. Dribbles of blood leaking from his lips. Skinny and nervous. Fingers twitching, plucking like the last, nerveless seizures of smashed bugs. They're dragging momma out the door. She's laughing and squirming. She's got her favorite sunday dress on, the one with the flower print and the lacy sleeves. Her jukebox mouth. Her cluttered eyes. Venom from her fingertips. There are men coming down the basement stairs. Hard-voiced men. Slow and clucking. They talk to her. They say nice things. They say everything's gonna be just fine, just peachy. Her mouth cracks open like the spine of a new book, but all the comes out are moth-words. Sightless, transparent things. Her eyes wide and red. Old, dried up tears and snot. The whole place smelling of crap and rotten food and rats. They carry her out. Her legs are so skinny.
3.) (1975) Walk back from Dr. Hubert's office. It is going to rain. The air smells full of it. A hot, slender ozone rain. She touches the hem of her blouse, her purse, her hair. Nothing. Beggars on the street, reed-boned and duct-taped; they stand holding out mocking fingers. She thinks. She stops. She is in front of a display window for Macy's. She looks at her reflection. Features running together, splotched, hasty. Her eyes stuttering, mouth lipless as a widow's. Reaches out. Fingers touch the glass. But they don't touch the glass. Useless dead tips. She bites her lip. Big girls musn't cry. They musn't. Big girls sit in the dark and hold everything in, hoard all the tears and all the exhausted feelings. Fingers slide down the glass. Leave trails, like slugs. Margaret keeps walking. She walks and walks and walks, until she loses feeling in her toes, too.
