WHEN POPPY WAS YOUNG, she lived in a stinking, squalid apartment in Mile End with her parents and grandparents. Everybody in her family treated her with contempt. They criticized her every move. They were always disgusted with her because she was a growing girl.
When Poppy was ten, she and her mother were on their way home, carrying groceries from the market. As they were crossing through the park, a group of traveling puppeteers arrived. They didn’t have a theater to host them, but they didn’t need one. They had a small caravan attached to a white horse with black spots. The words Puppet Master Puppetry Spectacular was painted on the side of the caravan in glittery golden letters the same color as shooting stars. The back of the caravan folded down and transformed into a stage.
Poppy was surprised she was allowed to witness such a thing. Her mother never let her do anything pleasurable. She always had to do chores and chores and chores. But her mother used the opportunity to sit down on a bench and weep. The bag of potatoes next to her also bent forward in grief. Poppy left her mother and the potatoes’ side and moved to the front of the crowd. The whole neighborhood hurried out to see it. Even the dogs gathered. They couldn’t help it. It might as well have been the arrival of the Messiah. And who in the world could resist getting tickets to that?
When the puppets crept onto the stage, Poppy put her hands up to her mouth to stop herself from crying out. These odd dolls had come to life and were looking at her. Magic was possible. It was the first time that Poppy had been exposed to art. It changed everything she knew about physics.
It was a Punch and Judy show. The lady puppet was talking, talking, talking. She was nagging the male puppet. She was angry at him for drinking too much. She was very annoyed that he had gone out and had fun without her. There were so many words in her mouth. Words were free—that was why women used them all the time.
Poppy clapped her wee hands together in excitement. She knew what was coming next. So did everyone in the audience. She was going to get beaten! She wasn’t allowed to say these things to a man. No woman was. And yet women did! They went ahead and complained to men, even though they didn’t have a right to. Why did they do it? And it always ended up the same way. Everyone in the audience knew it. She was going to get beaten. She was going to get beaten!
When his bat came down on her head finally, they burst out laughing.
Poppy wanted to live in that strange box. She wanted to climb into the back of the truck and escape her life. Once she got that in her head, there was no way to get it out. She had run away from home because of that performance. And now she found herself longing for some of the perversion she’d witnessed in the puppet show. She wanted the ugly rage and depravity that came with love.
? ? ?
THERE WAS A MAN who often passed Poppy in the street and he was always aggressive with her. She knew that he was trouble, that he was vicious. His nose was long and tapered. His face was an acquired taste. A person might be prone to thinking of him as either incredibly handsome or downright ugly.
He had offered to be her pimp. He had told her he could take much better care of her than her faggot boyfriend could. They could make real money together, and she wouldn’t have to live in a hellhole and dress like a piece of Swiss cheese. She had holes in all her clothes because she and Pierrot would fall asleep while smoking their cigarettes.
The pigeons were on the windowsill, making the noise of shuffling cards, as though they were playing poker. Poppy began to make a plan.
? ? ?
SHE SENT PIERROT OUT to deliver her jars of homemade maple butter. She looked out the window to watch him turn the corner. He walked down the street with three of the jars balanced on his head. All the children pointed and laughed. On the corner, a child let the air out of a balloon and it sounded like a Paganini tune.
Poppy was usually sparse with her makeup. Not because she was modest in the least but because she had so little of it. Sitting cross-legged on the toilet lid, she opened up a little compact of caked blush. She took out the cotton pad and dabbed her nose with powder, even though there was no powder left. She had just a small stub of lipstick, but she applied several layers of it so that her lips were of the brightest red.
She put on a white shirt that had a ruffle around the neck, and a black skirt. Poppy ran downstairs and down the street, heading to the building where she knew the pimp would be sitting on the stoop. She stood in front of him, took one of his hands in hers and invited the pimp over to the apartment.
“Where’s your fellow?”
“He abandoned me.”
“Why would he do that? I thought you were keeping the two of you high.”