fiction: storytellers from around the globe
Underwear
by CJ Francis
There is a hole between the breasts for aesthetic purposes. One piece of
pink and green flowery material is sewn and tucked to look like two pieces
of pink and green flowery material wrapping around one another and parting
ways. This forms the top part of the dress (the covering for my breasts)
and leaves a small hole right between them through which a round inch of
skin is visible. Sometimes, if the light is right, shadows come into play.
Tantalizing shadows. I imagine.
I imagine it's not a big deal to walk to the store in whatever you feel
like throwing on; tennis shoes, flip flops, stained "Rode it for eight seconds"
t-shirts, pink and green flowery dresses that stop six inches above the
knee featuring a well placed hole, spaghetti straps, and that one seldom
wears underwear with...
So then there are the eyes...all down the sidewalk, eyes. Scanning, quick
glances. I wonder if the staring is all in my head since I'm trying so hard
to look like I'm not doing it on purpose. So I can write about it later.
Like a method actress working as a prostitute and calling it "research."
I fit in pretty well on the brown side of town. I get hissed and clucked
at by the little dens of men playing checkers in folding chairs on the street,
but the women are too busy getting noticed themselves. They've got full
makeup on at 10 am, tight orange shorts that match their nails and their
purses and their shoes...their
rhinestone bikini tops. Entire women entirely orange. I begin to feel small.
So over to the block where the women are smaller. Over to the block where
the wives reflect less light. I need bread. Aren't they good at that?
The women that run the Hasidic bakeries do not talk to me. And you must
understand, by the time I make it to one of the bakeries, I am not my proud
"Look at me I'm sixteen and just discovered my body" postured self. Walking
halfway down one street of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood on their Sabbath
is enough to make me believe in hell, decide I am going there, and lose
my sense of mission entirely. I am a meek played-out help me sign by the
time I reach the display window of the first shop. I stop outside for a
moment to gather myself together, and also because it's some kind of fun
to try and read the Hebrew prices and slogans painted on the frosted glass.
And also, I'm trying to decide if it's the time to make a break for
it.
I look up to heaven for inspiration, rationing that this is the side of
town where God lives. I see hat. I see beard. Both belong to a tall, visibly
angry Jewish man with a walking cane. He towers above me. He is blocking
out the sun. I shiver in my scraps of fabric. He speaks.
"Underwear."
I play dumb. "What?"
"You're wearing underwear."
"Um...noooo." I smile. "This is a dress." I tug at the fabric weakly to
support my case, likely accentuating the tightness and aggravating him further.
"That is underwear!"
Shit. Yes. I have aggravated him further. I say nothing. It is underwear.
Sometimes I wear it to bed. What was I thinking? I try to slide towards
the bakery door and escape inside, noticing everyone within is a woman.
I dimly remember something about the men not being allowed to be alone with
a roomful of women, or touch them, or marry them before they're nine...
or something. He senses my escape and blocks the way. I push passed him
and grab for the door handle. I've never seen a woman in tights move so
fast.
I'm sure three seconds earlier she was behind the counter, counting the
rolls and patiently waiting for my order. I don't know how this happened,
but suddenly we're playing a high stakes game of tug-of-war with the door.
Her door.
"But I'm a customer!" I scream through the glass as I try to wedge my foot
in.
She responds by yanking the handle even harder and propping her own foot
against the door frame for leverage. The three other women inside gather
around her for support, making what seems to be a formation. I think of
nuns. The space between her lips is a pen line on a page. Maybe they never
open. Sworn to shut silence...like her store. I will not get into her store.
I briefly visualize myself as some evil demon they'll fashion a neighborhood
folk tale out of...a dark European fable about a roll-stealing monster that
tugs on door handles in the mornings. I briefly visualize her tugging so
hard on the door that her wig falls off and her bald head is exposed. Instantly
shamed, she lets go. I win and run inside to gather up every last roll,
pastry, loaf and a baby into a huge cloth sack. (They've got really cute
babies).
Laden with plunder, I go marching down the sidewalk to my apartment, to
the tune of whatever I feel like humming, dress straps fallen off my shoulders,
head high and victorious. I feel my fingers slipping from the handle and
detect a sugared smile cracking her face, widening the fault of her mouth.
She will end me here. I turn around and gasp.
Either way, the sidewalk behind me is empty, without even a neighborhood crowd to watch the struggle. My fingers are pulsing and I consider letting go. I consider for only one second the idea of letting go, and in the very next second I slide off my feet as the door swings out at me. She considered letting go first. The door springs back, hovering in a cracked position for a moment before fully shutting. It's mocking my moment on the sidewalk and the time it takes me to quietly count the bruises forming under my skin. My hair is flying away from my head like a drunken professor's; my ass is scraped from the pavement. My ass. Pavement. I look up and back into the bakery window. Eyes. Scanning. Horrified at the innocent rebel in pink and green who is sprawled on her back with her dress up around her waist and who is not...wearing...underwear. My shame takes hold and I run.
I could have pulled my skirt down, marched inside that bakery and demanded a little dry chocolate pastry, a loaf of bread or at least a "Good Morning" and a baby to go. I could have dusted off my knees, grabbed the door handle and done the same thing with the dress still up and perhaps now I'd have a prouder story to tell. But I ran. I passed sidewalks covered in Sabbath, walking minarets of black and little boys in their curls and their shined shoes, long passed an impossible future cracking through their heads like telephone wires. I ran my scarcely covered body back to my apartment without so much as an egg, and definitely not wearing underwear.