The Ticket Lady
I was whored to my father, not in the flesh, but in soul and pocketbook. Neither of us wanted it that way, but that’s the way it was: Whored to his money which was bigger than mine, to his ideas that were more rooted, to his country’s concepts meaning war in
“Where you want to go?” said the ticket lady at
“Would you like to keep me?” I asked.
She pouted and blew the hair from her eyes. She looked at me as if to say “What?” but didn’t say it, so I didn’t answer.
They grew alfalfa along their air strip and a truck had dropped a couple of bales outside the front. This dusted the asphalt green in one spot. I turned in that direction, but was really looking at my own reflection in the windows.
“I wouldn’t want to keep you,” she said behind my back. When I turned, I saw she had softened her stance to help me see the fullness of her bosom. Her secret softness belied the strictness of her uniform with its pillbox hat. Her mouth was unpainted and she talked with a satisfied voice, drumming the counter with nails that were trim but not lacquered.
My father told me to choose the satisfied ones. Frustrated ones would never be satisfied, he said. Why did I keep referring to him! Would my life be a footnote to his?
“I’d take it as a favor,” I said, “and I come cheap. I could help out around the house.”
She smiled. “What can you do around the house?”
“I can mow the lawn. I can vacuum but I don’t like it.”
“Do you like to mow the lawn?”
“Not really.”
“What else can you do?”
“I can water the flowers if you tell me how much.”
“How much would you want?”
“How much what? Oh just room and board and gas.”
“Do you have a car?”
“Figuring on selling it, for the ticket.”
She looked away. “Ever been with a woman?”
“I haven’t been inside much.”
“I see.” She straightened up and cleared her throat. “Well I don’t know, I have two cats.”
“I had a hand-me-down Indian paint, after my brother.”
“Did you feed it?”
“Yes ma´m.”
“Water it?”
“Yes.”
She stretched across the counter and pulled my hand to her. Her grip was stronger than you’d think. I let my hand go. She opened it out, inspected it, its cuticles, its knuckles. “When do you need my decision?”
“Well, it would be good to know pretty quick. Then I wouldn’t have to buy a plane ticket or even sell the car.”
“Are you circumcised?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Do your own laundry?”
“I’m a quick learner.”
“Wipe off the ring in the bathtub?”
“What ring?”
“Smoke?”
“No ma’am.”
She was a gypsy with my hand. She looked it all over, pushed on it. Then she closed it up and gave it back.
“You’ll make a good hand, wherever” she said, “but I can’t keep you. Where do you want your ticket to?”
