I'm delighted that our first Sudden Prose Reprint is Patricia Ann McNair's powerful short-short story, "The Joke." Comments encouraged!
THE JOKE
“So you don’t mind
a little dirty joke, huh?”
I
shook my head. What’d he think I was, some kid? Fifteen and out there way after
dark—on my own I could’ve been. So when the old guy with the tiny scrubbed
hands, small as a boy’s, only veiny and bluish, offered me a lift, I thought, sure,
a place to sit for a while. “Nice ride,” I said.
This big polished four-door with the seats wrapped in plastic that smelled like
adhesive tape, like a family car.
He
tapped his nails, white moon slivers, on the steering wheel, switched off the
engine and began to speak real low, his head tilted toward mine. I had to lean
in to hear him, had to strain to listen as he spoke just above a whisper about
a stream of things like women getting there clothes ripped off by accident, and
men accidentally putting their cocks where they didn’t belong and hookers and
blow jobs and butt fucks. I sort of laughed now and then, I wasn’t getting it,
but I acted like I did. You know. And by the time I got that it wasn’t a joke,
it was just dirty, it was too late because I was already there, already said I
didn’t mind, I would listen. And I didn’t know how to stop listening, how to
get him to shut up for chrissakes, shut up, shut the fuck up, and the smell of
that car, that plastic, that awful thick glue smell made my stomach churn and
my eyes smart, and I couldn’t turn away when he reached down and pulled his
zipper, pulled his dick out, the small wrinkled gray thing that he yanked on
until it bloated up too big and purple for his little boy hands, clublike and
purple, larger than it should have been he was such a little guy—I could take
him, he was so little—and when he whispered he wanted me to touch it, what else
could I do? I was already there, already said I didn’t mind, already laughed,
damnit—so he took one of my hands and put it around the thick pole which was
sticky and felt squirmy and loose, and he groaned and said Show me your tits,
and I figured what the hell. We’d come this far, not like I could say No, I
don’t want to do this, because I’d already started doing it and what could I do
to stop this from moving forward now, stop it and make it go back? And besides,
it was better to use my hands to lift my shirt than to touch him, thank God I’d
worn a bra, that was all he’d get to see. But when I pulled up the tank top it
was like I was peeling my own skin, it hurt damnit, it hurt for no reason I
could figure out. So I yanked it up fast like you strip off a Band-Aid, and
with the shirt in front of my face at least I didn’t have to see him, to see it for a while. And behind the shirt I felt my eyes burn and fill,
felt the tears roll down my face, but no sound, not from me. And then I asked
him not to touch me, whispered it quiet like a prayer, but it didn’t matter
what I said, he didn’t care, didn’t want to touch me because he was touching
himself and moaning and coming into his own dry hands and I pulled down my
shirt just in time to see the thing jerk and squirt and I reached behind myself
for the door handle and nearly fell out of the car but caught my footing in
time to back away, step away from the car which he started and took off in,
wheels spitting gravel, leaving me at the side of the road. Crying and—that son
of a bitch—alone all over again.
