Luisa wore sweaters and long-sleeve shirts even as the weather turned warm; she\u2019d tell her grandmother it was because she had a cold. But her grandmother knew; in fact, it sometimes seemed as if her grandmother knew everything. Yet there were also moments when the old lady appeared oblivious. But maybe that was a ruse. Or Luisa. Whatever the case, they counterbalanced all the times Luisa suspected her grandmother of being omniscient\u2014and yet still made the old lady vastly superior to Luisa\u2019s mother, who, on top of knowing nothing, was a backstabbing whore.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t give your grandmother a hard time,\u201d her mother had said the last time they\u2019d spoken, a week ago. Luisa\u2019s grandmother was at the CVS; Luisa had only picked up the phone because she\u2019d just paged T.J.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d she muttered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear me?\u201d her mother said; Luisa imagined her in the apartment of her latest boyfriend or john. \u201cShe already has health problems, the last thing she needs\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Luisa hung up. \u00a0She should\u2019ve said, the last thing grandma needs is some hustler for a daughter. But then Luisa thought, dimly, I\u2019m not really one to talk. The phone then rang, it was T.J.; Luisa explained, cajolingly (even though this pretense felt unnecessary at this point), that she needed bags but only had eight dollars. Silence followed. Then T.J., no longer going through any pretense either, said, \u201cCome over at six.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was 4:16; Luisa would have to live with her sickness that much longer. But at least she knew that she\u2019d be getting better.<\/p>\n
Tonight, she was in a similar situation, only T.J. wasn\u2019t around: he\u2019d been picked up two days ago and no one had seen him since. Luisa had heard that he\u2019d jumped bail and took off for his cousin\u2019s in North Dakota\u2014wherever that was. Luisa didn\u2019t know, didn\u2019t care; but now, walking around Tompkins Square Park, she wasn\u2019t thinking of North Dakota, she was thinking about finding a means.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long.<\/p>\n
He was pudgy, with glasses; Subaru with Jersey plates. He looked slightly like a serial killer\u2014but not enough for Luisa to say no; and she sensed that, if it came down to it, she could do him more harm than he her.<\/p>\n
She was fine doing it in his car, but he insisted on a hotel; he was afraid of the cops. So, they went to a dive in the 40s that let out rooms by the hour: dank corridors with wet floors that reeked of urine and cheap perfume; a room with holes in the ceiling, a greasy bedspread, and belligerent voices coming through the stained walls; an oily guy behind the front desk, which itself was behind bulletproof glass, who licked his fingers as he counted the money and stared at Luisa\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n
The john\u2014Doug or something\u2014was easy. Just head. Although it did take him forever\u2014and Luisa was doing it sans condom, for an additional 20. But in the end, it was worth the extra money. And she\u2019d heard it was all but impossible to catch anything that way, rubber or not.<\/p>\n
Doug said he didn\u2019t have time to drive her back to the park; but Luisa was able to wheedle cab fare out of him. In the taxi, though, she half regretted not having walked and keeping the fare. But she was sick\u2014sicker than she\u2019d realized\u2014and was grateful for the ride.<\/p>\n
T.J., of course, wasn\u2019t around, but Daze was. Daze\u2014old, like 26\u2014never said much, which Luisa liked: sold you your bags, you were on your way.<\/p>\n
She shot up in a pizzeria\u2019s bathroom. Then, the rest of her stash secure in her sock, her clothes and sweater for the first time all night feeling not just warm but snug, she hailed a cab, as she was too exhausted to walk, even though she knew she should save her money. She lit a cigarette, asking the Jamaican cab driver first; and with the window rolled down, she took long drags and watched the lights, cars, stores, and buildings blaze by.<\/p>\n
Before entering her grandmother\u2019s building (in which many of the apartments, like her grandmother\u2019s, were rent stabilized; the landlord impatient for these old people to die), Luisa smoked another cigarette, taking deep, pensive drags, spitting to get the taste of Doug\u2019s cum out of her mouth. She gazed up and down 14th St., thinking of stories her mother once told her, in happier days, of guys with names like Jerry Garcia and Sid Vicious.<\/p>\n
Inside, still in her sweater, she crossed her arms, not because she was cold but to give the impression that she was, because of what her grandmother might say. But her grandmother, who watched a rerun of Perry Mason, simply turned to Luisa, the light from the ancient TV glinting in her glasses, and said, \u201cThis one just started if you want to watch it with me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He looked slightly like a serial killer\u2014but not enough for Luisa to say no; and she sensed that, if it came down to it, she could do him more harm than he her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":23612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[4296],"class_list":["post-22517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-sfwright2-sfwrightwriter-com","writer-s-f-wright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23611,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22517\/revisions\/23611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}