GHOULS

Estrellita watched Perdita smoke. Perdita kept both hands on the steering wheel of the Cherokee and controlled the cigarette with her lips and teeth. She puffed on the Marlboro while it was between her lips and held it in her teeth when she exhaled. Perdita’s long, loose black hair rested on the shoulders of her magenta tee shirt. She was wearing black cotton trousers and huaraches. Hidden by her hair were large silver hoop earrings, to each of which was attached a thin strip of red ribbon. Romeo had told her that a piece of red or brown material worn on the body neutralized the power of one’s enemies, drained it from them like a grounding wire pulling electricity into the earth.

“How long you been smoking?” Estrellita asked.

Perdita did not respond. She did not really dislike Estrellita; she cared nothing about her.

“I only tried it twice,” said Estrellita. “The first was in the summer before high school. I was with Thelma Acker at her house when her parents were gone. Her mother had an opened pack of Pall Malls in a kitchen drawer, so we smoked one. Only about half of one, really. I took about three puffs and coughed like crazy every time. Then around a month ago at a Sig Chi party I tried a Sherman. You ever have one of those? They’re black. Kind of sweet tastin’, too. Didn’t care for it, either, though I didn’t cough so much as with the Pall Mall.”

Perdita took a final drag on her Marlboro and put it out in the ashtray.

“I know I’m just talkin’ about nothin’, and that you hate me,” said Estrellita, “but I’m so scared I don’t know what to do. I always talk a lot when I’m nervous. Do you talk a lot when you’re nervous? Are you ever nervous? Are you ever gonna talk to me?”

Perdita looked quickly at Estrellita, then back at the road.

“You’re gonna murder us, too, eventually,” Estrellita said. “Isn’t that right? Duane isn’t very smart, really. I hope you know that. I mean, he’s okay so far as pullin’ on his pants one leg at a time, but he can’t understand you people.”

Perdita grinned slightly. “Do you?” she asked.

“I think you and Romeo are incredibly deranged individuals with no morals. You’re the most evil creatures on the planet. I know you’ll kill me soon so I’m sayin’ it. My only hope is in the next life, which is what my Aunt Crystal Rae Satisfy always says. Now I know she’s been absolutely correct all this time, that it’s literal truth. There’s too much ugliness on this earth, seein’ how it’s crawlin’ with soulless ghouls.”

“What’s a ghoul?” said Perdita.

“What you and Romeo are. The worst kind of evil person. A person who’d violate a corpse.”

Estrellita bit her lower lip but didn’t cry.

“Whoever gave you the notion you was God’s perfect child?” Perdita said. “Does Romeo call you Santa Estrellita when you go down on him? He always likes the religious angle. Tell you straight, Miss Satisfy, honey, you’re right. It was up to just me, you’d be buried by now out in that desert along with them others. Your blond pussy’s what’s keepin’ you alive, so you’d best make use of it for all it’s worth. Girls like you got a kind of sickness, the only way to cure it is to kill it. Always talkin’ about love and what’s good, that shit, when you’re same as me, just no particular piece of trash.”

“You really think that? That we’re the same kind of person?”

“Ain’t seen no evidence to doubt it.”

“Well, you’re plenty wrong, I don’t mind tellin’ you. God may create people equal, but after that they’re on their own.”

Perdita laughed. She shook another Marlboro from the pack on the dash, stuck it between her lips and punched in the lighter. She kept her eyes on the jittery red tailights of the truck.

“A person don’t never know who they are till someone knows better tells ’em,” said Perdita. “A person won’t listen might never know, they never stop to hear. Romeo’s good at figurin’ out people.”

The lighter popped out and Perdita took it and lit her cigarette.

“He’s a kind of fake, ’course,” she said, “but he’s got a unlimited way of seein’ things. He’s got the power to make people believe him.”

“He’s horrible,” said Estrellita. “You’re both so horrible I bet God don’t even believe it.”

Perdita laughed as she spit out the smoke.

“God don’t take everything so serious, gringa. You see pretty soon how much He cares about you.”