I poke at the burger, which could probably double as a hockey puck. Choking down half of it with the milk, I push my plate away. I’ll eat in Nashville.
Carl announces a fifteen-minute warning; I grab my bag and follow a long hallway toward the back of Ed’s Place. The restroom is a two-staller with a filthy sink, foggy mirror, and wallpaper of creative expletives. I deadbolt the door, hang my bag on a hook, and, careful not to touch anything, pee in record time. After washing my hands, I unzip my bag, and just as I’m about to add the vouchers to Kathy’s coffee can, I hear it—a cough.
Just one. Quiet. Timid, almost. But definitely a cough.
Cash in hand, I peek underneath the stall divider. There, in the second stall—one penny loafer, one too-big sneaker.
What the hell . . . ?
Slowly, the shoes shift, and the door swings open. Poncho Man smiles at me, briefly glancing at the cash in my hand. “Hello, Mim.”
Still kneeling, I remain frozen, reduced to the role of Busty Blonde in my own slasher. “What are you doing in here?” I ask. His leg brushes my knee as he steps to the faucet and runs his hands under the water. Thinking back, I don’t remember a flush.
“Oh, I find the ladies’ room to be much more serene. You should see the men’s room. Makes this dump look like the Ritz.” He wipes his hands on his poncho, then turns toward me and tilts his head. “I meant what I said, Mim. Your haircut is beautiful. And also, sort of—inevitable? Is that the right word?”
Go, Mary. Now.
I regain motion, stuff everything back in my bag, and start for the door. “I’m leaving.”
He steps in front of it, blocking me in. “Not yet.”
Breathe, Mary. I push my bangs out of my eyes, push the panic down, push, push, push . . . “I’ll scream,” I say.
“I’ll tell on you.”
I flinch. “You’ll what?”
“I overheard your little convo with Ed out there—you wouldn’t drink Hills Brothers Original Blend if your life depended on it. Which means that coffee can I just saw”—he points to my backpack—“isn’t yours. Ergo, what’s inside probably isn’t either.”
His words are ice. They hit my gut first, then spread in all directions, filling my ears, elbows, knees, toes—the extremities of Mim, once a balmy ninety-eight point six, now a glacial effigy. Until this moment, the uncomfortable nearness of Poncho Man had been held at bay by other passengers and locks on doors. Now, it’s just us. There are no devices, no buffers. He stands there, taller than I remember, bulkier, blocking my way to the safety of my pack. I feel his eyes on me now, trailing from my hair, down my body, lingering in places they don’t belong—and for the first time in a long time, I feel like a helpless girl.
He steps closer. “You are beautiful, you know.”
I’m shivering now, my bones and blood on full alarm—it’s a primordial instinct, Predator versus Prey, passed down from a thousand generations of women who, like me, feared the inevitable. We’d seen the footage of the hyena and the gazelle, and it always ended the same.
“So beautiful,” he whispers.
I close my good eye. In my mind, the bathroom dissolves into a reddish hue, the corners dimming like the vignette of an old art house film. The metamorphosis begins at Poncho Man’s feet, his mismatched shoes bursting open at the toe, revealing short, sharp claws. His pants bulge at the knees and thighs, every pulsing muscle defined beneath the cheap fabric. His poncho stiffens, hardens, ripples into a spotted fur coat; matted and dirty, the blacks and oranges and browns of his mangy hide reflect the red light of the room, and behold! The metamorphosis of Poncho Man is complete, with one last addition: Fangs. First one, then another, sprouting forth like two young oaks in fertile soil.
“Nothing will happen,” he says, his voice thick. “Nothing you don’t want.”
And in that tone, I understand—I know—I’m not his first. “Fuck you. Move.”
He reaches out, grips my arm just above the elbow. It’s firm and painful. “Why would you say that to me?”
Scream, Mary.
“You’re too good,” he whispers, leaning his head closer. I can smell his breath, every ounce as ashy and deceitful as I’d imagined. “I know you.”
A scream had been boiling in my stomach, and was about to take flight, until . . .
“I know your pain,” he said.
My pain.
“I’d like to be friends, Mim.”
I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am not okay.
“You want to be friends, don’t you?”
I am a collection of oddities . . .
His grip is aggressive. “We could be more than friends, too.”
A circus of neurons and electrons . . .
His breath is warm.
Ready . . .
His lips are cold against mine.
Set . . .
His tongue—
Go . . .
Reaching down deep, my misplaced epiglottis locates a certain milk-soaked hockey puck; it gathers every ounce of the semi-digested beef and dairy, then, with pure force and accuracy, launches a vomit for the ages directly into Poncho Man’s mouth.
He chokes, gags, growls . . .
Spinning, I unlock the door and exit the bathroom, breathing in the freedom of the rarely savvy gazelle.