Page 4 (1/2)
’The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forirls are’
– Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island
‘My mystery is that I have no mystery’
– Clarice Lispector
Teenage Girls
There are slaves on the earth right now, actual slaves There are classes of slaves and races of slaves There are slaves on the earth right now, birthing more slaves This is not a dream I have done a reality check and there are still slaves I met two slaves when I was sixteen years old I e my life; I had to make it worth worth I had to learn how to make my value instinctive because an instinct for value was all that slaves have
At the edge of the sea in Key West on our family vacation – the March break time when I was sixteen – I learned that two hundred Africans died on the beach there after they’d made it on slave ships across Then Cubans died one hundred years later, dried out to death on rotting wood rafts Blond college girls also drowned in this ocean, after drunk sex that didn’t feel right Key West: the last blot of American land before the slaves thrived or sank in the sea
LEE: You knohat this story is about? It’s the autobiography of your self-fucking-worth
GAYL: Nah She was just in a learning position And then she led us like asses into the ocean That’s funny She should start it like that
§
On the first night of our faers and fries near the beach, my dad and my brother took one bed with the TV re Stop when she saw scrubs It was so I toldfor a walk on the beach
‘It gets dark too quick in the tropics,’ she said
‘If I can walk around after dinner at home by myself, why can’t I do it here?’
My mother was sloith her coht?’
‘Yeah, but isn’t that the point of travelling?’ I countered
Myfor the key, trying not to get the attention ofto just lie there with them all and pretend to be involved in some hospital crisis I’ drinks and dancing There’s a beach outside our , a moon
I registered it was strange thatto my father for help like she usually did at hoht between us and she’d shoot this helpless, fed-up look atto her It was as if my mother knew that her words had no law