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NORMAN DUBIE

Last Page of His First Novel, Called The Sisters Grim.

we were waiting on the landlord. isn’t
that always the way. the walls
of the apartment were a faded green-going-to-pink. i put my clothes back on
but marcy was still naked—
with a chewed up pencil
she made a huge empty stencil of a flamingo
on the south wall. she had this perfect
little mosquito bite on her ass.
i said, “put your dress on now. this guy’s
late but he still works for satan.” she laughed and mumbled some song—
yeah, yous two’s brothers
and a hog carrier’s onion.
two weeks ago a tentacle
of sun dropped down and erased half of phoenix. we began
our trek to los angeles.
the next day in marcy’s rv—she cried the whole fucking way, past yuma
anyhow. when i woke the next time
she said hello handsome—
i’m calling you hansel from here on . . . 

2
the landlord was a sixty year old blonde
in a print day-of-the-dead dress
with a wet red bikini underneath.
she liked marcy and accepted the rv
as first and last month, she waived
the deposit. marcy signed the title
over and the landlord’s son
helped me empty everything into the apartment.
the girls sat on the floor
and swallowed smoke
from an enormous loose joint
it was pretty skunky. the kid said
there was something sticky in my hair i said
blood. i said this first wall
of air that hit us was cold, rolled
the fucking bus until it fell into the salt.
marcy sort of shit herself like a goldfish.
she slipped off her panties, wiggled
her butt once
and just lifted us up out of the river.
she went back
into the water which i thought
had begun to boil.
that’s when the third wave
of heat reached me. no longer
protected by the river. i went unconscious.

3
silence. the kid said is that it?
i said you can bet your sweetness
on it.
we weren’t dead. and that was it.
“were you blind
when you woke up”—no, kid,
it was just black across that whole valley of the sun, you know,
with fat stars that god couldn’t have made.
i said to marcy’s mother,
where’s your daughter? she said,
“eating a sandwich and
no thanks to you.”
i passed out
trying to raise a middle finger to her.
i wake up to marcy’s crying, we are
thirty miles out of apache junction.
i cried with her until she just said
will you please fucking shut up. end of story kid.
why do you think those aztec
fuckers fed all those hearts to the hitching post.
history is progress. or else

not.  

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   Contributor’s notes

   The Carceral
   Last Page of His First Novel, Called The Sisters Grim.
   Snow Down in Hong Kong

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