The Daily Write: Wet (August 18, 2013)

Writing Prompt: Wet

I had a new best friend every few months. Debbie was nice, nicer than some of them. She didn't try to intimidate me to get me to do what she wanted. I remember how white her hair was, white and dry like tinder. And her skin, pale almost to the point of translucency. She lived across town. Her parents, like so many of my friends' parents, disapproved of me. I never knew exactly why. Maybe it was our differences. That was probably it.

One time she convinced me to go out for a job picking strawberries in the fields. Poor teenagers - white, Indian, Mexican, and farm workers, only the names we had back then weren't so congenial. We took a school bus out to the strawberries, row after endless row of plants down close to the ground. You had to sit on your knees or crouch down or bend over to pick them, and you had to go fast if you were going to make any money. Hot sun, no shade. This, and the tiny little blisters the size of pin heads on Debbie's lobster red back later, blisters that wept like tears in a line as your ran your finger across them.

-------

Sticky. Head to toe, especially head. My hair, already so fucked up with tangles and frizz. How in the hell am I going to get it clean now? Fucking Debbie has to start laughing, make it worse, grab some from her bucket and get in on the act. Who the hell came up with this ritual hazing?

Shampooed. That's what I got. Debbie too. Only my mom won't notice cause she won't be home when I get there, probably didn't even know I was out in the fields today. Or maybe she was just relieved to have me gone. We haven't been getting along lately. Not since I turned 13. I think she hates me. No for real, you should see the way she looks at my stomach. I think she thinks some alien is gonna pop out and eat her face. She's a fucking bitch, always late to get me, doesn't give me any money, doesn't help me with school, expects me to watch the kids.

Fucking .40 cents a flat ain't gonna cut it either though so those stupid bitches did me a favor. My shit is all stained red and my hair is a tight ass clump of sweet mess, but Debbie, she's gonna suffer. Maybe that's why she's laughing rubbing dirt on top of the strawberries. She's got nothing to lose. Her ass is gonna get whupped, she won't get to see me for a while, and they'll send her back out to another shitty job.

She says she's gonna go work at the cannery as soon as she turns 16. Minimum age and your parents still gotta sign you off - make sure they told 'em it was okay to work in all that noise and misery.

I ain't ever been to juvie even though I'm afraid every day that's where I'll end up, but I'll tell you what. One time me and Debbie went with Judy to visit her sister on the swing at the cannery and those fucking bitches in the lunch room looked like they were going to kick our asses. They were hard cold mean. Miserable. Squinty eyes under all that smoke. Everyone got to smoke just to make it through on breaks. White hair nets. White jackets. Yellow teeth. Hard ass faces.

I don't want to work there. Debbie will be lucky if that's where she ends up though. Anything to get away from her house. I get bad feelings when I'm there. Bad feelings.