Under the Boardwalk
I like drowned things. I like pale and wet and limp. Bloated. Things that cut easily with a razor. Things found on the beach, gray-green and distorted so that you can’t tell what they once were.
I brought Marti down to show her. She’s this chick from work. I think she likes me. She’s got purple-pink hair and a tattoo on her neck that goes under her collar. She just smiles whenever I ask her what it is. I think she wants me to find out. I think it’s a spiderweb.
She’s wearing these killer boots with spike heels, and she laughs when she sinks in the sand. And then we go under the boardwalk, and I show her, and she stops laughing.
“Happy Halloween,” I say, and cut her off a piece. She bends over and pukes. I start to cry, and she wants to leave, but those boots are stupid for walking on the beach and I stop her, pull her back under the boardwalk. Put the candy in her mouth. She spits it out and screams and I’ve got to stuff more in there, more, and more, until she stops.
I don’t know what it was once, but there’s a lot of it. I think it’s maybe Christie. That’s my secret wish. It’s got red hair like Christie had. She worked with me at my old job. She didn't have any tattoos. Just red hair, bunches of it, all curly. It smelled nice. Like coconut. I kept a little bit of it, but it doesn't smell like anything anymore.
It’s hard to cut things that are still warm. Her skin won’t slide off. In the end, I drag her down to the water and shove her in, and I go back to sit with Christie in the sand. We’ll wait. Marti’ll be back. She’ll be back, and more beautiful than before. I put the piece with the spiderweb – it was a spiderweb, after all – on Christie’s neck, and I wait.
BIO:
R.S. lives and writes in a suburb outside of Detroit. You can find her at http://rsbohn.blogspot.com.
