The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

‘There’s six hundred left over after I paid off the credit card balance,’ Brenda says. ‘Well, four hundred if you count the rental, only I don’t, because I can put that on MasterCard. We could stay at the Red Roof, watch Home Box. It’s free. We can get takeout from downstreet and the kids can swim in the pool. What do you say?’

From behind her comes yelling. Brenda raises her voice and screams, ‘Freddy, you stop teasing your sister and give that back!’ Then, oh goody, their squabbling wakes up the baby. Either that or Freedom has messed in her diapers and awakened herself. Freedom always messes in her diapers. To Brenda it seems like manufacturing poop is Free’s life’s work. Takes after her father that way.

‘I suppose …’ Jasmine says, drawing suppose out to four syllables. Maybe five.

‘Come on, girl! Road trip! Get with the program! We take the bus to the Jetport and rent the van. Three hundred miles, we can be there in four hours. The girl says the rugrats can watch DVDs. The Little Mermaid and all that good stuff.’

‘Maybe I could get some of that government money from my ma before it’s all gone,’ Jasmine says thoughtfully.

Her brother Tommy died the year before, in Afghanistan. It was an IED that took him. Her ma and dad got eighty thousand out of it. Her ma has promised her some, although not when the old man was in hearing distance of the phone. Of course it may be gone already. Probably is. She knows Mr Fuck-A-Fifteen-Year-Old bought a Yamaha rice-rocket with some of it, although what he wants with a thing like that at his age Jasmine has no idea. And she knows things like government money are mostly a mirage. This is something they both know. Every time you see bright stuff, somebody turns on the rain machine. The bright stuff is never colorfast.

‘Come on,’ Brenda says. She has fallen in love with the idea of loading up the van with kids and her best (her only) friend from high school, who ended up living just one town over. Both of them on their own, seven kids between them, too many lousy men in the rearview, but sometimes they still have a little fun.

She hears a thunk sound. Freddy starts to scream. Glory has whopped him in the eye with an action figure.

‘Glory you stop that or I’ll tear you a new one!’ Brenda screams.

‘He won’t give back my Powerpuff!’ Glory shrieks, and she starts to cry. Now they’re all crying – Freddy, Glory, and Freedom – and for a moment grayness creeps over Brenda’s vision. She’s seen a lot of that grayness lately. Here they are in a three-room third-floor apartment, no guy in the picture (Tim, the latest in her life, took off six months ago), living pretty much on noodles and Pepsi and that cheap ice cream they sell at Walmart, no air-conditioning, no cable TV, she had a job at the Quik-Flash store but the company went bust and now the store’s an On the Run and the manager hired some Taco Paco to do her job because Taco Paco can work twelve or fourteen hours a day. Taco Paco wears a doorag on his head and a nasty little mustache on his upper lip and he’s never been pregnant. Taco Paco’s job is to get girls pregnant. They fall for that little mustache and then boom, the line in the little drugstore testing gadget turns blue and here comes another one, just like the other one.

Brenda has personal here-comes-another-one experience. She tells people she knows who Freddy’s father is, but she really doesn’t, she had a few drunk nights there when they all looked good, and besides, come on, how is she supposed to look for a job anyway? She’s got these kids. What’s she supposed to do, leave Freddy to mind Glory and take Freedom to the goddam job interviews? Sure, that’ll work. And what is there, besides drive-up window girl at Mickey D’s or the Booger King? Portland has a couple of strip clubs, but wide loads like her don’t get that kind of work.

She reminds herself she hit the lottery. She reminds herself they could be in a couple of air-conditioned rooms tonight at the Red Roof – three, even! Why not? Things are turning around!

‘Brennie?’ Jaz sounds more doubtful than ever. ‘Are you like serious about this?’

‘Yeah,’ Brenda says. ‘Come on, girl, I’m approved. The Hertz chick says the van is red.’ She lowers her voice and adds: ‘Your lucky color.’

‘Did you pay off the credit card online? How’d you do that?’ Freddy and Glory got fighting last month and knocked Brenda’s laptop off the bed. It fell on the floor and broke.

‘I used the one at the library.’ She says it the way she grew up in Mars Hill saying it: liberry. ‘I had to wait awhile to get on, but it’s worth it. It’s free. So what do you say?’

‘Maybe we could get a bottle of Allen’s,’ Jaz says. She loves that Allen’s Coffee Brandy, when she can get it. In truth, Jasmine loves anything when she can get it.