I was whipping along SR 16, west, away from that godforsaken town & into more heated cities along my route. Another 8 hours or so and I'd be kicked up in some jazzy New Orleans bar with twin whiskeys adorning my fists.

My only barriers were these bastard traffic lights and the occasional parallel creepers. But, that hadn't posed as a problem yet, my chopper had the agility and I the talent to weave through sidewalks full of people and two fat ass truckloads would mean nothing but wind blockers momentarily.

Here I was at some dusty, Florida crossroads and beside me, to the back the dull throb of bass from some jaded green bomber was overwhelming. I knew that rhythm, and Mr. Bobby Zimmerman would be the voice behind those crush hard lyrics.

A rant about the innocent as sin black man with the bare-knuckle punch that could knock me from here to kingdom come. I had to respect the man, and hate those swine for pegging him. Maybe I'd be the next Rodney King, and the NAACP would avoid my case because I wasn't black as night. In this world, no one is to trust and everyone is to blame.

I heard a door slam.

"Shit," I was thinking. Another crowbar to the back of the head for adorning the gonzo inspired fist painted on the back of my leather. If it wasn't a grimacing Jolly Roger or naked scag it meant I was in for a beating.

And then I feel it on the back of my neck, and she's there. Empty car, music still throbbing and she's saying, "Let's go Daddy-O. You look like you need some company and I feel like breaking this town."

So, we take off, with the horns of blazing good old boys honk honking and her car, on the verge of impoundation still running in the turning lane.

We're three miles away and she's got her head dug deep in the back of my neck-and I'm realizing she's got some flimsy black thing on and the wind's slicing like so many knives through my leather.

"You cold?" I ask.

"I'm fine. Go faster."

So, I do and we're through fields of patchwork cows and rusted out pick-ups playing as nests for rats. And there is silence for hours, only her alabaster arms around my waist and those stubby little kid fingernails painted and chipped up black like she'd been digging in the dirt.
Outside of Mobile I stop to piss, and load Penny Lane to the hilt with what little money I could suffice for gas. And this girl asks, "What are you doing? Why are we stopping?"

I notice that her arms are red, wind chapped and her lips are white blue.

"You okay kid?"

She grimaces and shakes her head. "We gotta keep going."

"I'm headed to Louisiana, that's it. You're on your own from there. I need to piss and refuel."

Inside the station, there's this toothless old lady behind the counter and the bitch is taking me in like some kind of ritzy chewing tobacco, like I'm the best thing she's ever seen. And I think she's gonna bite my ear off when she leans forward and says, "What's that mean?"

Meaning, of course the nail studs in my left ear. And I'm thinking, "God, she think she's got a faggot on her hands."

Just then, the girl from outside meanders on in, and her arms are crossed tight over her chest and I realize she's so much younger than she should be. Why the fuck was she driving? I notice the half off rack of Camouflage jackets and bizarre army surplus gear. And I say to the scag behind the counter: "My lady friend here is a little chilly. How much for one of those jackets?"

And the girl sneers, then mutters, "No fucking way," and walks out.

No hassle. It doesn't pay to be a gentleman. Let the bitch freeze.

And when I walk out she's on the back of the bike, grinning like a horse and there's a faded fucking giant American flag around her shoulders, tied in a knot like a cape and she shouts, "Hurry! Let's go."

So there's me and Captain America peeling out as the toothless witch gapes obscenities at us from her grimy window and there's a naked flag pole adorning her parking lot.

It's all a part of the American dream. You spurn the locals, kick the dirt up in every two-inch town you find and rape them of their good old fashion USA pride.




So the girl's name is Mandy, she tells me over mind rot and Gumbo, she's 14 and her mama wanted her to be a policewoman so she took off. Apparently all of East Florida has been looking for this kid for the last month and now they're going to find her gutted car at a stoplight and no Mandy to be seen.
If I'm caught with her, I'm castrated. Despite the swag nature of New Orleans, Louisiana is going to draw and quarter me, no doubt.

I spill my story at her inquires.

Truitt, I say, 24, writer, reader, star spitter, creep dreamer and now, the way she's looking at me with those malted milk eyes, now, child molester.

Roll me over. I'm cooked. Done for. Too bad that shish kabob wasn't shoved up my ass, I'm too calm and collected now to create a diversion. I can't let her down.

So we check into some hotel, she's my little sister, I say. We're waiting for alternate members of our family to come in, weather's bad up north, they can't make it in until tomorrow.

And then we're rolling inside each others skin, she's screeching all these baby girl noises and I'm staring hard into the ceiling, trying to imagine some thick thigh hooker down the street, trying to make me not like it but, then I'm exploding milk white down those creamy thighs and she's got blood on her lip where my teeth gnashed in some animal embrace and I'm whispering, "Oh fuck, oh fuck... "





In the morning she presses her heart shaped mouth to my ear and whispers, "Truitt, Truitt something's wrong."

And when I open my eyes I think she's pissed the bed because my legs are wet and my fingers are sticky, so I hit the light and there's rust crust blood caking all around us and she bursts into full blown sobs and I say, "Baby, where's it coming from?"

She's too busy snuffing and shaking to answer so I grab her by the shoulders and push her back and forth like a ragdoll, "Where's it coming from Mandy!"

And she sobs, "My cunt, my cunt... "

And I realize, this girl never bled before. I popped her fucking cherry and started her rag all in one night. Fucking great, I am Mother Earth. Enlighten me. And I'm dragging her into the bathroom, putting her in the tub and the water smacks her skin. Luke warm and wiping away the rotten Matanzas from her thigh, the sheets are soaked, the towels and washcloths are soaked and she's bawling against the side of the porcelain tub.

I pull into my jeans and rush the door, it's still early. There's a maid staring groggily up at me from beside the elevator and I say, "I need some more towels, we spilled something."
And the sleepy eyed Mexican maid mutters something like "I clean it up." And I'm shaking her off with my palms up, "No, no! I'll get it, you just give me the towels."

She's still resisting, and I grab a stack from her cart and lock myself back inside our door, the "do not disturb" sign waving in the heated hallway wind.

Mandy's got herself together, and she's got her arms around her knees, her face is flushing back to white and she says, "Thank you. Thank you." When I give her the towels.

I've got her cotton panties soaking in the sink and she asks me for 50 cents so she can go to the machine in the lobby bathroom.

What, am I going to say no?

She comes back, smiling sweet like an altar boy, face still pinkened and my shock has worn. I'm pissed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would it have mattered?"

And she has me there, because it wouldn't, so we stuff the sheets into trash bags and I've got this sinking smack in my gut like I've just cut someone's throat as I steal new sheets off the now sleeping Mexican maid's cart.

"There," Mandy says, all cleaned up and wearing the American Flag like a toga.

"Get dressed," I say, half-naked she looked like carrion for me to shred and I didn't want to touch her ever again.

"Okay," she mutters and wiggles into her shredded jeans and that same lacey black top, the thin strapped type that leave her shoulders open to leering eyes.

We hit cobblestone streets and my fingers still look red in the rising sun.

This is me: kidnapper, rapist, murderer.

Mandy says, "I'm hungry."

And I ask her, "You got any money?"

So she shuts ups, and I immediately feel like a shit, so we score some coffee and these greasy muffins up at some fifties beat style coffee shop. I realize my cash flow has amounted into a trickle.

"Listen kid, I'm running on empty here, either you help out or find your own way around."
I knew inside her was the urge to lash out, to scream in that little girl voice, "Fuck you True-IT!" but she didn't.

She just nods and we scoured the city in search of positions that would accommodate a 14 year old and her ritual rapist. No, can't think like that.

In Louisiana, no matter how mutual, it's still statutory rape. Oh, fuck me.




Fast jobs, I wash dishes in a place called the "Giggling Gator." Get the blood off my hands and cake them now with slimy orange gloves of grease. "Don't waste water," fat Billy boss growls, "We drain every hour."

So nothing is ever really clean.

God only knows what Mandy does, but she comes home with a hundred bucks and a big shit-eating grin on that baby face and when I ask she just shakes her head. "I make money, you don't ask. We can stay here another three nights on this."

So I keep my mouth shut and she spends longer days in the city. I feel like a burnt out housewife whose husband left her ailing and alone at night.

On our 5th day, she never comes home.

So I pull into my leather and go cruising every bar looking for her. No one gets it; they're all tourists, cheap drunks, and scags in expensive clothing.

I say it a thousand times, "14, short dark hair, about this tall... " And all I get are listless stares in return.

I go empty handed, hole the size of a worms jaw in my heart and sleep.

In the morning her clothing is scattered over the TV, the bath water is running. I knock on the door.

"Come on in True... " she says, she's taken to calling me that, says once that I'm the 'most honest man she'd ever met in her life'. Bullshit.

I crack the door a tiny bit; yell over the water, "When'd you get in?"

"C'mon Truitt, you can come in."

And I'm telling myself, "you stay away from her man, she's just a baby."
The water shifts and I can imagine her writhing inside the shiny white tub. I say, "No. Come out and we'll talk."

She says, "No way, now or never." So I go in.

And she's sitting there, on the edge of the tub, in some paisley print rag of a dress, with her feet soaking in the tub and I realize that she's been crying again.

I say, "Damn Mandy, always crying in the bathroom," and she explodes in tears.

She tells me that she saw a dog on the street that looked like her puppy back home, and it brought back everything all at once. She filched the dog right then and there and took off. But, she'd never worn heels before and some how she trips on the street. So she and the dog go flying down into asphalt and as the dog bolts he's smacked by a train car and she's got bloody scabs caking her knees and her ankles all gashed in and there's dog guts across her face and she's missing a pretty pink high heel shoe.

I'm at a loss of words. Again there is blood everywhere, and again I get that sick heavy feeling that I've done something wrong and I realize that all I want is out. Out of this room, this town, and this girl.

So I tell her, "Mandy, I'm gone. You go home honey. You got more money than me. Catch a bus and go home to your mama."

And she slaps me, hard stinging imprint on my face and I'm snarling, "You whore!"

I get her down on the floor, and her shoulder blades are grinding into the seashore print tile and she's screaming, "Truitt don't! Truitt I'm gonna have a baby if you don't stop!"

But, she's so open and inviting and her skin is swirling sweat and roses up at me and that cleft between her thighs is so thick and wet.

The entire nasty scene lasts minutes, growling and grinding, and she's got her head back, and there's blood on my pant legs from her trench knees and I'm shouting over and over, I hate you! Why'd you come here? Why can't you leave? I hate you... and then I'm coming, hard and heavy inside of her, and she's shivering around me and her legs are slipping from my waist and she's like a corpse on the floor, head to the side, spittle slipping between slack lips.




I wake up, the sun is filtering through the sky light above my head and there's a heavy throb behind my eyes. I'm suffering this mindfuck of a headache. The scent of blood and shit smacks me all at once and sends my head back down to sewage tile. I can't think. I can't breathe. The light is scattered and dim and I realize, sliding as limy hand along the tiny porcelain legs of the toilet that I'm in the bathroom.

It's so heavy in here, the air like drainage water and my nostrils are on fire, the scent of rot attacking my throat and I'm gagging over the rim of the toilet seat, retching whiskey and bile. Vomiting until my shoulders cave in, and my guts ache and my knees collapse and I smack the ground.

Something soft and filmy climbs against my face, I reach out and there's Mandy beside me, naked, except the lacey top, torn and tangled tight around her throat.

There is this sudden sensation of horror, when that feeling you've been attacked with all along, that knowing sense that you've done something wrong. That knowing that yes, you are the devil. That yes, all children should fear you, all mothers should shield their eyes. And what have I done?

When I find the light, I regret ever hitting it. Never has there been a blood so dirty and dank and black. Never has it smeared the mouth and thighs of a child so obscenely.

There was Mandy, her eyebrows knitting together, that aching look of satiation crooked in her open mouth, and her tongue swollen and slipping between those blue black lips.

How long had we been here?

In the bedroom, the sheets still mangled red and torn, tiny scrimmages of flesh parting between oceans of sheet.

The sun is rising through the sliding glass window, there is blood on my hands and I catch my reflection in the mirror above the dresser.

My mouth, which had once looked so soft and inviting was now red black, my teeth slimed with something greasy and dark, now so menacing. And I smiled, I had to, what had I done? Would I ever make it out? I am food for the Louisiana Swine.

Roll me over, I'm done for.