cw: sexual assault
My mother leaned over and pinched the crunchy top off a lithe green plant and twisted. “It’s easy, see?”
I leaned over and peered at it, between her fingers now. It looked not only dead but sad, a shriveled purple corpse that had so recently been a lovely bloom. I pinched one, too, twisted and pulled off the head. “You want to get the whole thing, even the little green cone,” she instructed.
I tried again, but this time ended up pulling the whole plant up with the overly enthusiastic effort I’d applied. I liked pleasing my mom back then. Doing things right.
“Oh no,” she said. “Here.” She took the plant out of my hand and pushed it back in the damp soil. “Don’t worry, it’ll come back.”
“So it is sort of like decapitation,” I remarked. “Without full-on murder.”
“Exactly. Only after, more blossoms will pop out. You’ll see.”
Lesson over. We went inside where dinner was bubbling on the stove. Ratatouille. The scent rose in the air, reminding my stomach I was supposed to be hungry. But I wasn’t. She hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t properly eaten that day. Ever since I got back from my “summer internship”…with him. Her friend.
It was supposed to be educational. Two weeks on the road with a famous Native American photographer. I was to help carry equipment and learn how cameras work. The fun part would be meeting the Native American artists he was going to photograph.
My mom thought it would be a great use of my summer, much better than hanging out with my Lebanese boyfriend, buzzing around on his minibike, smoking weed and playing with our dogs. I was excited because I knew that the famous photographer’s daughter was a famous writer. I had recently read her famous novel. I read it every day for a week, and even under the covers at night with a flashlight. I fell inside it the way it feels when you are on certain rides at the state fair, like succumbing to gravity.
“You still reading that?” My mom asked me, several times before I left. Each time I’d nod. I read it slowly to ingest the sentences and even enjoyed certain words. That night I dreamed I was a character in the novel wearing a purple hat, floppy as a petunia.
The day we departed the sky seemed to be hanging lower than usual, a fringe of melba cloud sweeping over like a dropped flower crown. “Get me a drink out of the cooler,” the famous photographer said. I reached in and got him a pop top “Margarita in a can”. “Go ahead, take one for yourself,” he said. I took one. It was a “Daiquiri in a can.” “Oh, those are good,” he said, seeing my choice. A half hour later we were on the open road, drifting through the badlands, the orange cloud traded in for a forever of cloudless blue.
Even though it was hot, he left the truck window down, his elbow sticking out. I wanted to ask him to put on the A.C., but was afraid to. He was famous and a grown man and I could tell he liked his elbow out like that. By afternoon we were at Acoma, watching a woman paint razor thin stripes on a round piece of pottery. Her hands were so steady. As she leaned over, her blue skirted parted and I could see her underwear beneath. “Did you see that?” the photographer asked me after we left. “Wide open beaver!”
I wasn’t familiar with the expression and I was dizzy from the multiple canned daiquiris I’d drunk. Soon, we pulled into a hotel where famous movie stars used to stay. We got the Greta Garbo room, which only had one double bed. We left out things and headed to the restaurant which was also a bar. The famous photographer had more margaritas and a beer and ordered me a Mexican combo plate. He ordered me a margarita, too. “No salt,” he said.
“I’ll have to see some I.D.,” said the waitress whose black hair was bundled on top of her head like an important package.
“Your things are in the room, right hon?” The famous photographer asked me with a wink.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said.
“It’s ok,” I said. “I’ll have a Coke.” I was sure she could see I was basically a kid. I didn’t even have my period yet. Small pimples had colonized one side of my chin.
The famous photographer ordered several shots of rum and poured one into my Coke when the waitress wasn’t looking, with another one of those winks. “They’ll never know,” he said.
The rum made the Coke taste weird, not like a Coke. But I drank it anyway. To be polite. All I could think of was the one bed in the Greta Garbo room. When we got back there he pushed me down on it. “You have been waiting for this all day,” he said. Then I turned on my side and started puking. The puke was the color of the combination plate and smelled terrible. While the famous photographer was wiping up my puke, I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. “Come back out now,” he called to me after about half an hour. But I didn’t. Instead, I lay down in the tub and put a towel behind my head, which was pounding.
Later, when I could hear him snoring, I tip-toed out and headed for the room phone to call home. This was not a good internship, I thought, even though the woman painted nice stripes on the pot and I appreciated that. But the famous photographer tackled me on the way to the phone and hung it up. “What do you think you are doing, little girl?” He asked. He pulled me back on the bed, and that is when I saw it…a black revolver next to the pillow. It looked like a dark and crooked cloud, lying there on the blue blanket. It was clear to me then that he planned to kill me, so I decided to do whatever he said. It all went fast after that. I couldn’t feel much except that his elbow was pulling my hair a lot and his knee had me pinned in a way that was making one leg go to sleep. Later, when he was snoring again, I crept to the bathroom and ran a bath. I lay in the hot water the rest of the night, adding more every time it got cool. The famous photographer was snoring again. I thought of him lying there, next to his gun. He’ll kill me in the morning, I thought. He was too drunk to do it then.
In the morning, I could hear him whistling and the sound of him packing up his stuff. “Let’s go, let’s go, lets go,” he yelled. I came out timidly and he was out the door. The gun was gone. He was in a good mood and handed me a daiquiri in a can. “Let’s go!” He said again. He could not wait to show me something. Outside, the sky was too blue all over again. What was it doing looking so pretty and happy, I wondered. We drove on a twisty dirt road up a slot canyon and onto a ridge. Finally, we got to this tiny cabin. This is where he will kill me, I thought. I was still sick from all the drinking and the way he drove on the windy road. I leaned on the car door thinking soon, soon I will be dead.
He got out of the truck and told me to come out too. He was so excited to show me something. I could see his big mustache twitch. How could it be that fun to kill a girl, I wondered.
“I’ll just stay in the truck,” I said, then noticed he had the gun again, holstered by his side.
“Oh no you won’t,” he said, “You are not missing this.” He pulled me from the truck and pushed me into the little cabin. This is where I will die, I thought. He will tell my parents I fell off a cliff or something.
Right then, I decided to think beautiful thoughts since they were the last thoughts I would ever have. I thought about the purple floppy hats of the new petunia blossoms. I thought about the feeling of riding on my boyfriend’s minibike, the way it would make its own wind when he went faster. I thought about my dog, Yuri, who followed me everywhere and would even wait for me when I woke up in the morning. I thought about that little orange cloud when we left, like an upside down smile and the last time I got to see the planets through our neighbor’s telescope. I saw Venus and the bright rings of Saturn. Or so he said. They looked pretty blurry. But it was still cool to see them, just to know they were real. Any minute I would be dead, but at least I had seen the rings of Saturn. Not every kid gets to see those.
Inside the cabin I heard a strange rhythm, a rising ticking. The famous photographer said “Jump, jump up!” I could see he was standing on a chair so I leapt up on one too. The floor was covered with rattlesnakes, that ticking had become a whole percussive orchestra. He had unholstered out that gun now and was shooting them. The bullets made a crashing sound and the snakes started seething, then slowed down, one by one, their rhumba stopping. “What do you think? What do you think?” he yelled.
This is probably the part where he lets one snake bite me and that is how I will die, I thought. It was a pretty clever idea. I had to hand it to him.
But he didn’t. The air was tight and hot and there was smoke from the gun after he shoot all the snakes. He jumped off the chair and pulled out a knife from a pocket, then cut the head and the rattle off one of the snakes. Even after he cut the rattle off, it was still slightly rattling. “Here,” he said, handing me the bloodied rattle. “This is for you.” Tiptoeing through the snake mess, I immediately dropped it. “What!” He yelled. “Don’t you want it?” He laughed then, a laugh then that made me think of the scary parts of scary movies. He is mad at me and will kill me now, I thought.
But once again, he didn’t. Instead, he walked out and got back in his truck. “Hurry up, girl,” he ordered. Right then I thought I should run. I should run for my life. But one of my sneakers had fallen off in the cabin and there were goat heads piercing my foot. Plus, there were probably tons more rattlesnakes lurking in the scrub, so I ended up following him to the truck where he popped another canned daiquiri. “You love these,” he said. “I’ve noticed.”
I was so sick in the truck on the way down that windy wash canyon road I thought I would puke again in his truck. Then, somehow, I fell asleep. I was tired from lying in the bathtub all night waiting to die. When I woke up, we were parked outside a little trailer in a place with nothing else around as far as I could see. “This is where my daughter lives,” he said. “Come on in.” The famous writer daughter, I thought. I broke into a sweat. I could find a phone. Surely after winning that big book prize, she had a phone. I could call my parents. I followed him into the trailer where I immediately saw a kid running around, crying. The woman at the sink must have been the famous photographer’s famous writer daughter. She turned to a man standing by the door and then said to the famous photographer, “You smell like you’ve been drinking, dad. And please tell me that is not another little slut you’ve brought to my house.”
Who was the little slut, I wondered, looking behind me, then realizing the little slut was me. I had been drinking. I was with her dad who had been drinking. Where was their phone? I beelined for it, asking along the way, “May I use your phone?”
“No, you cannot,” someone said. It was the other man. The husband man. “Do you think we have money for your long distance call?”
“I can call collect,” I said. But it was too late. The famous writer, daughter of the famous photographer, was kicking us out of the trailer. And now he was mad, her dad, cursing and stomping. In my pocket I could feel the dead snake tail rattle one last time, which sort of tickeled, before I realized what it was. I jumped away from my own self. But I didn’t dare throw away the blood wet snake tail in front of him. In the truck, I fell asleep once again. It was the sleep of a soon-to-be dead girl. The sleep of a one-lost-sneaker and been-called-a-slut girl. When I finally jolted awake, I had devised a plan: I would jump out of the truck on a bigger road and flag down help. My stomach was lurching from the twisty drive and my vagina was throbbing. I needed to risk my life to save my life. But when I looked up, I saw we were in the driveway of my parent’s house. The famous photographer told me to get out.
My mom rushed out in a bright mumu shouting “you are home!” She immediately invited him inside. Then I remembered, my mom basically loved this man because he was famous and an artistic guy and a Native American and she loved Native Americans. At that time in our lives, she sort of collected them.
“I have dinner ready, don’t say no, come on in and have a drink,” she said. “Beth, where is your shoe?” She asked
Before I could answer, my dad was outside, too. Shaking the famous photographer’s hand, up and down and up and down. They were so happy he was there. My dad had poured a drink for the famous photographer and was ushering him in the house.
“Beth, while I get dinner on the table, why don’t you play that Chopin piece you do so well?” I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Next thing I knew, my dad was knocking on the bathroom door. I had fallen asleep in my own puke on the floor. He pushed the door which I had not locked open and looked at me. “Aww,” he said, “you always do get so carsick. Come on out and have a ginger ale!” He helped me up. “You need a shower!” he exclaimed. “Where is your shoe?”
But before I could answer, my mom was seating me at the piano, and I was doing it. I was playing the Chopin sonata, and after that a Clementi sonatina. Then I played “Hey, Jude” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” which my dad loved and sang to. When I finally looked up from the piano, my mom was packing the famous photographer a to-go meal of leftovers. “Say good bye, Beth,” she said.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
“How about that?” My dad said. “You had an internship with a famous photographer. Did you get to meet his daughter?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“That must have been so good,” he said.
The next morning, my mom woke me early. “I made crepes,” she said, “Lemon crepes. I thought we could do some gardening. I want to show you how to deadhead marigolds and collect their seeds.”
I realized I was still wearing the same clothes I’d on the day before. “Go get changed, take a shower!” My mom suggested. As I headed for my room, I felt the slimy tail of the rattlesnake still in my pocket. It was a cold, dead thing now, no longer rattling. I pulled it out and looked at it. It was translucent and bumpy, like a strange beetle. But then the bloodied tail. A piece of wet rope.
“You keep it,” the famous photographer had said after shooting all the snakes in the little cabin, “It is a souvenir.”
I didn’t eat the crepes my mom made. I didn’t eat the crispy bacon, just the way I liked it, either. I drank some water and walked outside where my mother was leaning over the flower bed. “You know how to do it now,” she said. “Pull and twist”
“I’ll do it later,” I said.
“Just do this one plant,” she said. “I want to see if you remember.” I leaned over and pulled the heads off the petunia plant. I squished them in my hand until my fingers turned their faded color. Then I deadheaded the dry marigold buds, twisting them to seed. I even deadheaded my father’s famous rose bush, pricking myself on their long stems. Then I headed back to the petunia bed. I deadheaded every dry top in the whole bed. And then did all the petunias. went inside and emptied the marigold seeds from my pocket onto the kitchen table. “Thank you, dear,” my mother said, from the laundry room. On the wall above were framed, signed photographs by the famous photographer.
After that day, I stopped eating for a few days. It took me years to learn how to properly eat again. I never told anyone about what had happened that summer because I didn’t want to upset my parents who were so happy about things. And I never told anyone else either, because, you know, white girl cries rape on a brown man. A famous brown man, no less. An artist with a famous writer daughter. It seemed like a bad idea.
As for the petunias, once their heads were twisted off, they really did grow back fuller and bigger, covered in blossoms, just like my mother had said.
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