Patty is at Motel 6 on Roscoe - w4m - 38

Reply to: pers-bcp5n-1220365113@craigslist.org



I’m leaving tomorrow for Canada. If you have any balls, McGough, you’ll come and say good bye because I don’t know if me and the little ones will ever be back. Grow some freakin’ balls dude. Stop calling the cops like a puss. Be a man. This is your last chance to see me and speak honestly and explain why you lied to the cops. Why you would do something so mean to me. I deserve an explanation. Pronouncing your impotency was mean, but doesn’t equate to trying to have me locked up.



Patty dipped a towel into the metal bucket of ice, half water by now but still cold. She wrung it out and brought it to her forehead. When she pulled it away, there was a brown stain of day-old sweat. Patty aired herself out by pacing around the room, feeling too keyed-up, but at the same time too lazy, to shower.



The room smelled old and dry and faintly of drug store perfume. Flat sunlight poked through moth eaten curtains, pink flowers against a blue sky. Patty could see Donald and little Julie roughhousing out by the pool. Donald had found a plastic squirt gun and was using it to douse his sister in chlorine. The girl retaliated by chucking golf ball-sized berries at his head.



Patty lit her second-to-last Virginia Slim and thumped down on the bed. The comforter was a flipped-around version of the curtains. Blue flowers on pink sky. Patty sighed once, and then again after she decided she deserved it. There was leftover Chinese in the fridge, and Patty mulled the idea of cold broccoli in greasy peanut sauce. She lifted her shirt and stuck a finger into the corner of her once-white bra. She pulled out a wet wad of crumpled hundred dollar bills.



“Canada,” Patty muttered. “They use dollars in Canada?”



There was a knock on the door and then two more. Patty leapt up, shoving the money back down inside her cleavage. She peeked through the curtains. Donald was holding Julie by her feet and dangling the little girl over the pool. Julie shrieked bloody murder while Donald cackled like late night TV.



Patty dropped the curtain and smoothed her hair. She checked the peephole, but it was too scratched up to see through. She pulled open the door with a tentative hand.



McGough.



Patty felt her anger rise like acid reflux. She slammed the door right back in McGough’s swollen pig face and fell onto the bed. She clenched her fists and ground her molars, practically tombstones. She opened the door.



“McGough.”



McGough grunted. Patty let him in. She put her hands on her hips and chewed gum that wasn’t there. They stood like that for a while, roughly unlit dynamite.



“You want Chinese?” Patty finally asked.



McGough shrugged. Patty got the broccoli and the orange chicken from the fridge and handed the cartons to McGough along with a pair of wooden chopsticks.



“The hell I’m supposed to do with these?”



Patty shook her head. She took the chopsticks back from McGough and demonstrated the over, under method for scooping food.



“You never used chopsticks before?”



McGough shrugged again. He tried to do as Patty showed. A sticky clump of chicken fell from the box and died on the carpet.



Patty laughed despite herself. McGough let out a quick snort. Seconds later, they were steamrolling the bed, crunching the blue flowers with their bulk. McGough sucked the sweat off Patty’s neck. Patty reached for McGough’s belt buckle, a pistol of polished brass. McGough breathed deeply. Patty clawed at his pants.



McGough jumped back suddenly. Patty reached out for him and he slapped her hand away.



“Patty. I can’t.”



She looked at him and shrugged. Pulled splinters from the chopsticks. Stuck one in her mouth and sucked it slowly. McGough tightened his shiny buckle.



“I mean… I can’t.”



Oh. Patty began to laugh. Quietly at first, then loud enough to ruin a nap.



“I swear to fucking god.” McGough grabbed the carton of broccoli and threw it at the wall, where it thwacked and slimed down the cheap paint. He tucked his shirt back into his pants and stomped towards the door.



“You better go get your kids before they drown each other to death. Cops can be here in under five.”



Patty looked through the window where Donald and Julie were chicken fighting in the water, using sticks to jab each other in the belly. She pulled ice from the metal bucket and sucked.



“McGough?”



McGough turned, a quiver below his snout.



“They use dollars in Canada?”