A Devil's Dictionary

1980-6

“WHO’S THAT? IS THAT your mother?” —Spelvin, I think, attempting to sound cocksure but really only sounding frightened and small.

I looked to where the girl-thing stood nude and alone, her hair entwined with seaweed, her one visible eye white as milk. None of us said anything as the Benson Gang approached her and slowly gathered around—triangulating her, isolating her.

“Well, well,” said Benson, “This makes sense.” He turned to face us, regarding us slyly. “So this is what brought you pervs all the way out here. And here I thought you were just queer.”

He looked at the girl again, who couldn’t have been more than 15, same as us, and said, mockingly, “Is that seaweed in your hair, or are you just more experienced than you look?” Everyone tittered; a few of them groaned.

“Careful,” said Mickelson, “Or she’ll sic her boyfriends on us.” He shouted over his shoulder: “Isn’t that right, douche-flutes?”

But none of us said anything, just continued to stare at the girl, whose milky eye regarded Benson plainly, flatly, as though here were a lifeform hardly worth shooing away; a tsetse fly, maybe, or a gnat.

“You know, it might just be me,” said Benson, and moved closer, “but I get the impression she doesn’t want to be friends.”

He started walking around her slowly, checking her out, looking her up and down. “That how it’s going to be, sis? You going to just give us the cold, blue shoulder?”

“Meh, ease off her, Todd,” someone said—Jud Hartman, a sometimes decent guy whom I hadn’t even realized was with them. “She’s obviously suffered some sort of trauma. Probably thought she was drowning, or something.”

“Drowning, or something,” said Benson, and stepped close to her ear. “What do you say, sis? Were you drowning—or something? Is that why you’re just as naked as a jaybird? Or are you just some coked-out w***e, turning tricks in the sticks?” He grabbed her by the shoulder suddenly. “Face me when I’m talking to ...”

And then his hand was burning—burning and crisping away—and he was stumbling back over the sand, screaming, hyperventilating, the blood and bones of his arm gleaming, before the sun dipped behind a cloud and all hell broke loose. Before it became clear to us, so very, very clear, that the time for talking was over.

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