kiss between his shoulder blades.
At six, he woke up, drew her against him. Oh, baby, he groaned, his mouth hot against her breast where, until that morning, the bandage had been, and she felt her throat close. I should tell you, she started to say. Tell me what? he asked, and she shook her head, swallowing the words I’m sick, I’m having an operation, I won’t have breasts at all next week. Instead, she pressed her lips against his and straddled him, slipping him inside of her and riding him, with her breasts dangling over his lips like ripe fruit, like the grapes Tantalus could never quite reach.
Later, with her body twined around his, she said, I love you, and he said, Love you too, kid, tears slipping from his eyes because, of the two of them, he’d always been quicker to cry . . . and quicker to sleep.
For a few rapturous moments, Lizzie rested her cheek on her hand and watched him breathe. Then, when pearly grayish light was filtering through the blinds and the city was starting to wake beneath her, she slipped out of bed, gathered her clothes from the floor, and bundled them into her suitcase.
She left the maid twenty dollars. She left Marcus a note. This was perfect. I love you. xx, E. Then she pulled on her mommy uniform, tugged her suitcase behind her, and eased the door open, then shut.
Love Rollercoaster 1975
Susie Bright
I cut last period, high school driver’s ed with Mr. Gorshbach. He wouldn’t understand that the revolution was not going to wait for me to take his stop-signal exam. Instead, I grabbed the bus and showed up at Gateway Freight yard right before the start of swing shift like I promised I would.
I changed my clothes too—so I looked like a Teamster girl in tight jeans and a T-shirt, standing in mile-high platforms instead of hippie sandals.
Stan pulled into the parking lot right after me in his Valiant. I wondered how many decades he’d had his driver’s license. Temma told me he’d dodged the draft in Canada, married and divorced, and lived underground for five years before he popped up and started running the Seattle branch of our little insurgence. That was a lot of driving.
He handed me a pile of flyers and told me to go to one end of the employees’ parking lot while he took the other. The leaflets were an invitation to a meeting of rank and filers that we called “Teamsters for a Decent Contract”—just people getting together to talk about the upcoming contract and what they thought was going to go down. Not socialism, just this miserable corrupt union and shitty job. You had to start somewhere. The expiration of the Master Freight Agreement was a good place to begin—it covered every over-the-road driver in North America.
“Temma said you know how to talk to people,” Stan said—apparently my only vote of confidence.
I thought, Did she tell you that in bed? He’d fucked half the women in the L.A. branch already. That must be where he got the advice from Temma. His latest wife was rumored to be teaching women’s studies in Fresno.
What a prick he was—I’d been doing labor work in Los Angeles since ninth grade, and I bet I knew more than he did about living on the road.
Instead I was chipper. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” I smiled at him like a Girl Scout. “I’m a regular ‘Teamster girlfriend,’ according to Sister Temma.”
“ Are you?” he said, looking at me in the face for the first time.
“Yeah, I’m sorry; what’s your excuse for being here?” I said, not wanting to go where he was leading.
“Maybe I’ll be a Teamster boyfriend.” He flipped his wrists.
That cracked me up. It was going to be okay. Maybe he wasn’t such a snob after all.
We separated. The parking lot was enormous; there must’ve been more than a hundred cars. No one had come out of work yet. I talked to some taco truck guys who were packing up. They liked my leaflet. I had typed, laid out, and printed this thing on the mimeo machine—it didn’t look half-bad.
At six, he woke up, drew her against him. Oh, baby, he groaned, his mouth hot against her breast where, until that morning, the bandage had been, and she felt her throat close. I should tell you, she started to say. Tell me what? he asked, and she shook her head, swallowing the words I’m sick, I’m having an operation, I won’t have breasts at all next week. Instead, she pressed her lips against his and straddled him, slipping him inside of her and riding him, with her breasts dangling over his lips like ripe fruit, like the grapes Tantalus could never quite reach.
Later, with her body twined around his, she said, I love you, and he said, Love you too, kid, tears slipping from his eyes because, of the two of them, he’d always been quicker to cry . . . and quicker to sleep.
For a few rapturous moments, Lizzie rested her cheek on her hand and watched him breathe. Then, when pearly grayish light was filtering through the blinds and the city was starting to wake beneath her, she slipped out of bed, gathered her clothes from the floor, and bundled them into her suitcase.
She left the maid twenty dollars. She left Marcus a note. This was perfect. I love you. xx, E. Then she pulled on her mommy uniform, tugged her suitcase behind her, and eased the door open, then shut.
Love Rollercoaster 1975
Susie Bright
I cut last period, high school driver’s ed with Mr. Gorshbach. He wouldn’t understand that the revolution was not going to wait for me to take his stop-signal exam. Instead, I grabbed the bus and showed up at Gateway Freight yard right before the start of swing shift like I promised I would.
I changed my clothes too—so I looked like a Teamster girl in tight jeans and a T-shirt, standing in mile-high platforms instead of hippie sandals.
Stan pulled into the parking lot right after me in his Valiant. I wondered how many decades he’d had his driver’s license. Temma told me he’d dodged the draft in Canada, married and divorced, and lived underground for five years before he popped up and started running the Seattle branch of our little insurgence. That was a lot of driving.
He handed me a pile of flyers and told me to go to one end of the employees’ parking lot while he took the other. The leaflets were an invitation to a meeting of rank and filers that we called “Teamsters for a Decent Contract”—just people getting together to talk about the upcoming contract and what they thought was going to go down. Not socialism, just this miserable corrupt union and shitty job. You had to start somewhere. The expiration of the Master Freight Agreement was a good place to begin—it covered every over-the-road driver in North America.
“Temma said you know how to talk to people,” Stan said—apparently my only vote of confidence.
I thought, Did she tell you that in bed? He’d fucked half the women in the L.A. branch already. That must be where he got the advice from Temma. His latest wife was rumored to be teaching women’s studies in Fresno.
What a prick he was—I’d been doing labor work in Los Angeles since ninth grade, and I bet I knew more than he did about living on the road.
Instead I was chipper. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” I smiled at him like a Girl Scout. “I’m a regular ‘Teamster girlfriend,’ according to Sister Temma.”
“ Are you?” he said, looking at me in the face for the first time.
“Yeah, I’m sorry; what’s your excuse for being here?” I said, not wanting to go where he was leading.
“Maybe I’ll be a Teamster boyfriend.” He flipped his wrists.
That cracked me up. It was going to be okay. Maybe he wasn’t such a snob after all.
We separated. The parking lot was enormous; there must’ve been more than a hundred cars. No one had come out of work yet. I talked to some taco truck guys who were packing up. They liked my leaflet. I had typed, laid out, and printed this thing on the mimeo machine—it didn’t look half-bad.
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