Grace
BY ADAM MOORAD I OCTOBER 28, 2008
Randy has a girlfriend named Grace who has a squatty little strut and thick cactus kankles that could hold up a house. A pair of tits so hard you crush a can between. Tits she never paid attention to until she met Randy. Not a day goes by where he doesn't want to dive right into the gap and press his face against those tits or feel their strange firmness beneath his fingers. He loves how she carps when he squeezes, how she arches her stout spine and careens in a way that makes him think of all the milk-fed Dixies that went into making her down in Williamson County.
Grace is a junior, one of those reformed Baptist youths, hating the scripture-reciting penuriousness that kept her a virgin so long. She grew up in Spring Hill, part of the suburban pop that sprouted-up when the car corporations moved to town. Had two, three of everything growing-up, thought it would always be like that, but the tornados came and took the house—took everything—left Daddy in the hole with nothing for nothing, so Grace left the country for Nashville, got a scholarship she didn't want but took it and left home. She's in a pottery class, thinks she's a sculptor, and all the bowls she makes look the same, with the same wobbly shape and uneven base that teeters back and forth when you set one down. Her last bowl was for Randy, lined with black and yellow streaks coiling around. She says, Brung ya ah BEEhive! And Randy smirks his beatnik-punk-ass-fuck-it-all-attitude smirk, What—No honey? She did give this one a lid, To keep whatever you want innit fresh. The past few weeks have been cool, and now that autumn is moving in, Grace wears nothing but her sweats and grey-hoodie with cigarette burns in the sleeve, some eyeliner and her hair in a ponytail, real drab. She says she does this for Randy and tells him, You make me feel like me, even though she's just depressed again, he thinks. He doesn't want to hit it but has his needs. When he sees her on the street, shuffling and slouching, dragging her heels, he knows exactly what every guy and girl that walks past thinks, Look at HER—She must be poor or sick. Randy and Grace go to Gold Rush every Sunday for drinks (They don't ID). This is where they met. She never liked going to bars, was dragged in by her old roommate, Nancy, who likes getting blind on Kamikazes paid for by other gentlemen then jets before the bill arrives. Once she left (forgot) Grace, and this left Randy thinking, as they say in the South, Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then. You wanna daints? Wha didja say? Daints—yontto? Shor, one minnit soons I fin my drank. And she does with a burning gulp...
Grace is blonde as a cherub with hair that frizzes with corkscrew curls. Randy is ruddy and unshaven, working the faux-Cowboy thing. Grace's into reading, books and books, used to have a whole library at home back in Spring Hill before the tornado. Randy has his guns and guitars, shoots some skeet, plays the open mic, passes the hat around. Randy has a book Grace gave him for Christmas that he's never touched, still sits on the shelf next to a dead bonsai tree and the clay beehive. Grace likes to cook, casserole, biscuits—whatever—but Randy's apartment doesn't even have a kitchen, or a flushing toilet for that matter, so they make popcorn in his microwave when they stay in.
They'll walk home drunk past the church and Grace rolls her eyes, says she can't stand the looks of the steeple, Soo phallic. She won't even call herself a Christian anymore. She chats Randy up to her friends, He's his OWN man—A REAL rebel (even though he's never worn handcuffs)...and a musician TOO. Randy brags to his guy friends that he's the only one getting regular ass, that she's nice and tight like, Lika gal should be, and, MAN—She's got enough tongue for 10 rows of teeth! Grace is more adventurous than Randy in the sack, probably spurned on by years of corked-up sexual energy and a fear of missing out on something, he thinks. On their first "date" she said she wasn't scared but she lied, and just leaned back, unable to participate. It hurt, but she didn't show it, instead she muttered out O-O-O the whole time and squeezed her eyes shut. How are ya? he asked afterwards. Then she didn't respond, but now she tells him to come inside or on her face or in her hair and Randy does neither though this doesn't stop her from asking. He wonders where these ideas come from. She doesn't like to talk when she's being dirty, but moans and groans, almost painfully, and will whisper something about a hairbrush but it's unclear what and—to Randy—this is a relief. When she finishes, she lets out this charged wail of exhilaration and will only allow herself to be embraced after she swabs her gummy crotch with Randy's t-shirt. That was nice, she says.
It's not an opposites attract sorta thing, it's more of an opposite will attract to any(one)thing available sorta thing, a sex sorta thing, and fuck-whatever's-available sorta thing and, It's totally grand, she'll say smoking a cigarette. She's trying to start.
Days, maybe weeks, go by and everything's cool until she hears that Randy's leaving, shipping right on out. He told his boys first who told friends who told friends who told friends who told Grace. Poor girl never had any idea. She comes over to Randy's apartment and waits outside his door, stewing, thinking about how she'll say this and that, unaware of how NEW and FOREIGN these emotions are, feeling her "awfullest" and then she knocks and Randy answers, sees her with her face red and arms folded and his stomach turns over and plunges through his gut like and baseball bat. He takes his time deciding whether to deny-deny-deny or to ignore—What? You got it wrong, girl—still feeling an ocean of guilt, not entirely knowing why, but comes to the certain realization that he will not be forgiven. He stares down at her feet as her toes curl in then past them on the carpet, unable to face her and watching the past few weeks rewind in a rush in front of his eyes in a blur. She blurts out a snivel, but it makes no sense. He manages to refocus then steps towards her in the hall. Baby, Randy says, wasup? —paltering to the bitter end—Iz somethin' wrong? And she sobs out and shouts: Asshole mother fucker fuck-ass, idiot, stupid idiot prick, PIMP—Think you're SOO smart dontcha? Stupid idiot PIMP.
Instead of nodding and taking it like a man, riding out the storm and knowing it will end eventually (how ever long it lasts), Randy takes her hand which she pulls away at first but not hard or violent enough for him to lose grip, and he pulls her closer and she yanks back one more time weaker than the first time wanting to feel HATE but too weak or unwilling to expand the energy required and Randy reels her in like an exhausted fish surrendering to the hook. Then he looks at her with dissembling expression, eyebrows bowed gently above the sockets, smiling a soft and tender smile down at her blushed and puffy face, her bellicose veins pulsing at her temples. He puts his arms around her as she begins to cry muffled into his armpit. Grace, he says, Baby, Iraq ain't tha far away, with a pacifying tone that makes her mushy face quiver against the cotton which dabs away her hot peon tears.
And this is where she stays because she has no place else to go.
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