She'd been renting herself out for thirty-five years now, years of nights like slow fat bubbles rising from the head of an electric eel, and one night after she had fixed so that she wouldn't need to vomit in his sink for hours ("getting well" was what the whores called putting the needle in), she sat beside him on his bed, and as a consolation prize for once more disturbing his sleep took him to the bottom of the murk where her story lived spiny and spidery like a snowcrab whose whitish spines glow faintly. The story began with her father's return, long after his second disappearance. The neighbors said that he'd come through the window one night in summer and that was how Mother got pregnant again, but neither she nor her litde sister had seen him that time if in fact he'd come at all.
When the baby was born, he came back again and told the family that they were all to move to California. — Don't bring anything because you're starting a new life, he said. She was almost thirteen then.
Mother didn't quite buy all that. She still told each of them to bring her best clothes and one casual suit. What that meant was two of her flour-sack dresses.
When they got to California, Daddy was very nice. He was paying a lot of attention to her, which made her feel special. He brought them to his home in Daly City. He had a mistress who lived there, too, young, gorgeous, a college girl. He explained that Patsy was part of the family now. Her mother saw that she would have to resign herself to Patsy. She had the children. She'd do anything to make it work.
Daddy made them strip naked. He said that he was the benevolent dictator. They had to hold his Bible in their hands before they were allowed to speak.
When it was time to go to sleep, somehow she ended up in bed between Daddy and Patsy, with her little sister on the outside and Mother with the baby in the next room.
She was ashamed to sleep naked like they did, so Daddy permitted her to put on her nightshirt, but no underwear. Then darkness winked. She lay still. Daddy's hand was on her leg, and it began to go higher. He told her that he was only preparing her for life. Still she did not understand his meaning. At that time she hardly knew how babies were made. She hadn't started menstruating yet, had only kissed one or two boys. Daddy explained to her that in many African societies it was the role of the father to deflower his daughter, so that the birth canal would be prepared for her husband when the time came. He was pulling her thighs apart now and she was screaming and Mother came running in. Daddy turned on the light. Daddy said: She disobeyed me. Her mother went to her and for a moment she still hoped and believed, and Mother said to her: It's for your own good. The light died, and Daddy was between her legs again. She screamed despairingly and Patsy was holding her down and Mother was holding her down. Before his face blotted even the darkness out, she saw the cattish satisfaction on Patsy's face.
Confessing the blood that came out of her, Daddy said: I wasn't the first. I just finished what the other boys started. Their thirteen-year-old cocks were too small.
When the old lady was telling him this, he wondered under how many roofs if they could be flung up like gravestones he'd see children struggling feebly in the darkness, and then the scarlet darkness inside screaming out into the night.
When she turned fourteen Daddy sold her to an Ethiopian. He explained to her the advantages. She'd be an emancipated minor. She could do everything an adult could do except drink. The Ethiopian only wanted citizenship. She'd live with him in the same apartment building but she wouldn't have to sleep with him because she'd go on being Daddy's girl. He said to her so tenderly: I'd rather see you dead than fucking a nigger.
One day she came home and stole all the money out of Patsy's wallet. She went to Berkeley and asked the first person she met to please let her stay at his house. He took her home and fucked her all night, then kicked her out. That was what seemed to happen every night. After awhile she learned to ask for money.
Then I did that first shot of crank and that was it, the old lady said. That was it. I was totally sprung. I saw colors, and my shit didn't stink. Just one time. I was at a very low point in my esteem anyway.
