The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

She looks to her right, hoping Jasmine will say something funny and cheer her up, and is dismayed to see that Jaz is crying. Silent tears well up in her eyes and shine on her cheeks. In her lap, baby Delight sleeps on, sucking one of her fingers. It’s her comfort finger, and all blistered down the inside. Once Jaz slapped her good and hard when she saw Dee sticking it in her mouth, but what good is slapping a kid that’s only six months old? Might as well slap a door. But sometimes you do it. Sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes you don’t want to help it. Brenda has done it herself.

‘What’s wrong, girl?’ Brenda asks.

‘Nothing. Never mind me, just watch your driving.’

Behind them, Donkey says something funny to Shrek and some of the kids laugh. Not Glory, though; she’s nodding off.

‘Come on, Jaz. Tell me. I’m your friend.’

‘Nothing, I said.’

Jasmine leans over the sleeping infant. Delight’s baby seat is on the floor. Resting in it on a pile of diapers is the bottle of Allen’s they stopped for in South Portland, before hitting the turnpike. Jaz has only had a couple of sips, but this time she takes two good long swallows before putting the cap back on. The tears are still running down her cheeks.

‘Nothing. Everything. Comes to the same either way you say it, that’s what I think.’

‘Is it Tommy? Is it your bro?’

Jaz laughs angrily. ‘They’ll never give me a cent of that money, who’m I kidding? Ma’ll blame it on Dad because that’s easier for her, but she feels the same. It’ll mostly be gone, anyway. What about you? Will your folks really give you something?’

‘Sure, I think so.’

Well. Yeah. Probably. Like forty dollars. A bag and a half’s worth of groceries. Two bags if she uses the coupons in Uncle Henry’s Swap Guide. Just the thought of flipping through that raggy little free magazine – the poor people’s Bible – and getting the ink on her fingers causes the grayness around her to thicken. The afternoon is beautiful, more like summer than September, but a world where you have to depend on Uncle Henry’s is a gray world. Brenda thinks, How did we end up with all these kids? Wasn’t I letting Mike Higgins cop a feel on me out behind the metal shop just yesterday?

‘Bully for you,’ Jasmine says, and snorks back tears. ‘My folks, they’ll have three new gasoline toys in the dooryard and then plead poverty. And do you know what my dad’ll say about the kids? “Don’t let em touch anything,” that’s what he’ll say.’

‘Maybe he’ll be different,’ Brenda says. ‘Better.’

‘He’s never different and he’s never better,’ Jasmine says.

Rose Ellen is drifting off. She tries to put her head on her brother Eddie’s shoulder and he punches her in the arm. She rubs it and begins to snivel, but pretty soon she’s watching Shrek again. The drool is still on her chin. Brenda thinks it makes her look like an idiot, which she pretty close to is.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Brenda says. ‘We’ll have some fun, anyway. Red Roof, girl! Swimming pool!’

‘Yeah, and some guy knocking on the wall at one in the morning, telling me to shut my kid up. Like, you know, I want Dee awake in the middle of the night because all those stinkin teeth are coming in at once.’

She takes another slug from the coffee brandy bottle, then holds it out. Brenda knows better than to take it and risk her license, but no cops are in sight, and if she did lose her ticket, how much would she really be out? The car was Tim’s, he took it when he left, and it was half dead anyway, a Bondo-and-chickenwire special. No great loss there. Besides, there’s that grayness. She takes the bottle and tips it. Just a little sip, but the brandy’s warm and nice, a shaft of dark sunlight, so she takes another one.

‘They’re closing the Roll Around at the end of the month,’ Jasmine says, taking the bottle back.

‘Jazzy, no!’

‘Jazzy yes.’ She stares straight ahead at the unrolling road. ‘Jack finally went broke. The writing’s been on the wall since last year. So there goes that ninety a week.’ She drinks. In her lap, Delight stirs, then goes back to sleep with her comfort finger plugged in her gob. Where, Brenda thinks, some boy like Mike Higgins will want to put his dick not all that many years from now. And she’ll probably let him. I did. Jaz did too. It’s just how things go.

Behind them Princess Fiona is now saying something funny, but none of the kids laugh. They’re getting glassy, even Eddie and Freddy, names like a TV sitcom joke.

‘The world is gray,’ Brenda says. She didn’t know she was going to say those words until she hears them come out of her mouth.

Jasmine looks at her, surprised. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Now you’re getting with the program.’

Brenda says, ‘Pass me that bottle.’

Jasmine does. Brenda drinks some more, then hands it back. ‘Okay, enough of that.’