My Trailer Park Queen Sister

I pushed open Mee-Maw's front door, and the first thing that I saw was a circle of old ladies slapping down playing cards.Whack! Right on the bright oak card table in the sunroom. Mama Poppins and the Blue Silvers, that was the name that grandad gave their Canasta group back when he was still kicking. Sounded like a band, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Bloody ruthless was what those old ladies were.

"Oh dear, Ruth. I'm afraid I just drew a ten, and I just happened to have six others, which completes my last natural book. So I'm out. How many points did I catch you with? Oh, oh my! Poor Ruthy. That's a lot. You'll catch up, I'm sure. Would you be a dear and slide me my winnings?"

Twenty a hand, fifty for the night, which wasn't too bad considering that a hand of Canasta could stretch half an hour or more.

I caught "Poor Ruthy's" eye as soon as I stepped into the foyer.

"Jimmy's here, girls. There's Jimmy."

"Well, hello!"

"James! This is a treat."

"Hi Jimmy."

The last one waggled her eyebrows, and all the ladies hooted and hollered. To this day, I couldn't tell if Edna Jones was fucking with me or not.

I hung up my coat. "Hi Mee-Maw. Ladies. Is, um--" I really hated saying this, but it might well have been grandpa's catchphrase. He'd saunter through, watch for a minute, rub his hands together, and say, "Is Mamma Poppin' tonight?"

So I said the thing. The other girls squealed with laughter. "Not yet!" The table shook as they slapped it. Ice cubes rattled and sloshed clear up to tease the rim of their sweet tea pitcher. Always a joke somewhere to be told with this group.

Mee-Maw's laughter died first. She got a faraway squint about her eyes, underlined with an almost-smile. Yeah, grandpa was a lot of fun. She pursed her lips and settled her gaze on me. Happy-sad.

I pointed to the staircase. "Trissy?"

Mee-Maw nodded, trying to keep it on the down low, but Mary Tucker caught on and said, "I don't think your sister's come down from her room all day."

"Must have a boy up there," Edna said.

"Again."

"Again, again."

Mee-Maw threw up her hands and chuckled. She could hardly refute it, at least, from what I'd been told.

I supposed I had a mission. I rapped my knuckles twice on the bannister. "Good seeing you ladies again." I nodded to Mee-Maw, a bit of private communication, and walked up the stairs.

Curse these old houses and their narrow corridors; I had to hug the handrail to keep from brushing into all the family photos that Mee-Maw had hung--quite precariously--along the wall leading up.

Lots and lots of pics of me and Triss together, at least, when we were young. About halfway up the stairs, there was a stark transition. The photos were either a picture of me with Dad doing something like skiing out at Whistler, or the photos were of Triss with Mom--and always with those two in the same place: The living room of our old single-wide. It made sense when I considered that all of Triss's pics were taken by Mee-Maw when she'd visited.

In the early ones, Triss had her scrunchy-faced, gap-toothed smile, and her silly horn-rimmed glasses that distorted her eyes to be huge. She'd be blowing out the candles for her seventh birthday or, Ha!, the one where she hung in midair after Dad chucked her onto the trampoline. That one even captured her glasses flying off her face.

The thing of it was, it wasn't that Triss smiled less in the post-divorce pics. It was that she smiled more, a bigger cheesier smile as if she had to lie for the camera.

Then she got contacts and highlights and acrylic nails and neither her knees nor her midriff ever saw a shred of fabric again. She still had that gap between her front teeth, but it looked dirty, not cute. The very last picture was of a full fledged trailer park queen, eyes as red as the devil, gripping a kitchen chair to hold herself upright at Mee-Maw's seventieth.

That one, nah, I didn't know who that girl was, but she wasn't my sister.

At the top of the stairs, I found Mee-Maw's guest bedroom just off to the left. I knocked, but I didn't speak.

"Just a second!" The voice inside was shrill and cheerful.

I let my mind wander to the girl on the trampoline. But when the door opened, I met the trailer park queen.

Whatever smile Triss had slid right off her face. "Oh, hi, Jimmy," she said very politely, "I thought you were Mee-Maw." I saw her clench her jaw, but not from drugs. "What's up?" That line was icy.

Blonde, shapely--Triss could have been such a beautiful girl, my once lovely little sister. But now, even at just a shade over twenty-three, her cheeks had already begun to sink into her face. She covered up those burgeoning flaws by, ironically, showing even more skin: A crop top so tight, her breasts rolled over the edges and jeans with far too many holes cut into the inside of her thighs. My sister appeared as a patchwork of bare skin strung together with a few ribbons of cloth.

"I just wanted to visit." Flat, monotone. I couldn't help it.

Her veneer snapped. She rolled her eyes, really made a big production of it. She even did that--Urgh!--little head bobble thing. "Why?"

"Because I wanted to see how you were doing." And hopefully not strangle her.

"Uh, yeah. That's what I just asked: Why?"

"Because I love--"

"You tool. Funny how all you people didn't give one shit about me until after I made a big production of getting clean and giving my life over to the lord and--are you staring at my tits?"

I actually wasn't. I pointed to the little golden cross dangling from her neck. "Does that mean anything?"

"Yeah, it does." She turned her back to me, walked away, and sat on the edge of the bed, right on our late-great Aunt Ruth's handmade duvet cover that was folded up on the end. She picked at the holes in her jeans. "It means I can stay here."

"Jesus Christ, Triss." I peeked down the hall, then walked in and shut the door behind me. Was this that thing where they self-sabotaged? What if Mee-Maw had heard her?

"Jeesh, Jimmy. Don't take my Lord's name in vain," she said. So catty.

It was never her words; it was always her tone. She found an angle that irked me, pricked those fake nails under my skin a little prod at a time, and twisted them into the muscle--and she did it entirely for the laughs.

"You don't always have to be a--a cunt." I snapped my fingers. "And they were talking about false believers, not curses, which would be you."

She winced. "Geesh Jimmy. I mean, tell me how you really feel."

She'd always done this, said innocent things in a catty way, then when I reacted, she could go and act all innocent and cry to mom, "I didn't say anything! He just got mean all of a sudden"

"Why do you have to be like this, Triss? I just stopped by to say hi."

"Bullshit. Dad was probably all worried about Mee-Maw. 'Oh, can't let my cunt of a daughter steal all Mee-Maw's shit.'"

"Examine yourself for once. Is he wrong to think that about you given--"

She was up in a flash. Had me backed against the wall, poking her finger into my chest, spittle flying. "I've never stolen a goddamn thing in my life, which, um, let me check. You wouldn't know."

"Triss," I said in a very even tone, "lower your voice. Mee-Maw is just downstairs." When I said that, Triss seemed to get it. It wasn't that she didn't understand these things; she just didn't care enough to respect conventions, which made it all the more infuriating. Just be reasonable like this! It's fucking easy.

I put my arms on her shoulders. I felt her muscles relax, something about that physical touch really settled her. "I'm here for you, nobody else. I'm worried about you. And I wanted to see you."

"Yeah, well..." I think she wanted to say something catty, but she trailed off. She couldn't look me in the eye, either.

It seemed right in the moment. I rested my forehead against hers, looked her right in the eye, and said, "I love you." I supposed I did.

Her eyes locked onto mine for a moment. Something flashed there. Something--I don't know--vulnerable. Felt like she'd finally latched onto something I said. It was a nice moment. I rubbed her shoulders and smiled.

But then she mashed her lips into mine.

I shoved her away, rejected her immediately. I didn't--what the fuck? She stared at the floor, all hunched over and shaken. Her eyes went shock-wide, she covered her mouth, and when she finally looked up at me she stuttered out, "It was the methadone. Sometimes it--it--"

"It's fine," I said. Triss still couldn't take a shred of accountability, always someone or something else making her do it.

I stood over her in silence. The jitters crawled up her skin, plain as day. She began scratching her forearm. She'd stop for a moment, and her purple acrylics would pick, pick, pick at her skin. Red dots of irritation began to appear.

"Are you using?" I had to ask. I'd read what those behaviors meant.

Triss shook her head and seemingly reluctantly, stopped digging her nails into her skin. She picked at the frays on her jeans instead. "Just the, you know." She nodded back to a prescription bottle on the nightstand.

"That's it?" I folded my arms.

That girl, if she hung her head any lower, she'd kiss the floor. She shook her head just a fraction. One of her arms hugged her chest; a purple nail pointed to her gym bag. "I got a joint in there."

"Jesus Christ, Triss." I had to dig my thumbnail into my forefinger to keep an even keel. "You got one chance here. That's it. You fuck this up, and I don't know, the family's 'pry just gonna wash their hands of you. You get that?"

She peeked up at me with a wry gleam.

"You think this is funny?"

That got me a real grin from her. Infuriating. "No," Trish said, "you just, ya know, sound like Dad."

"Maybe because he's right. If you'd stop with all the backsass and take a--"

"Fucking Jimmy, I didn't mean it like that. Always right to the worst with me, huh?" She took a breath. "I just meant, it was kinda nice to hear him every now and then. Even if it's not nice."

"You just talked to him--"

"Four years since Mee-Maw's seventieth. But, you know--" She winked, apparently drawing on that endless supply of self-confidence that she has. "--I don't really remember that shit, though."

"Bullshit. When you were at the, um, the place getting fixed, I know Dad drove down to visit."

"He swung by the house and got a report from Mee-Maw. Prolly gave her some money or something." She arched back on the bed. I noticed her slide her thighs once together and idly kick her legs. "Prolly paying her to keep me here."

"He told me he..."

Triss shrugged, like it wasn't a thing.

She was lying. She had to be. Dad specifically told me he went down to the clinic to visit her. Fucking Triss, lying about stupid shit again.

She watched my face with glee. Fucking Triss. "Always thinking the worst about me." She sure made it hard not to.

Whatever. I did what I said I'd do. I checked up on her and Mee-Maw. "I gotta go," I said.

"Hmm? Already?" She turned out her lip in a melodramatic pout. Honest to God, I couldn't tell if she wanted me to go or stay.

I scratched my wrist. "Yeah, it was a long drive. I'm gonna go see Teddy while I'm in town." What was I even saying? I didn't owe her any excuses.

"'Kay." She dismissed me. But true to Triss, she simply could not leave it lie, either. In an offhanded voice she muttered, "Hmm. Welp, guess I'll call up Dusty to come over and fuck me."

This fucking girl! "Triss! We just--I just explained this to you. Your actions will have consequences." Wished I could just tie her down until she saw reason.

"Oh? You're still here." She scratched at her nails and blew on her middle finger. Such a rehearsed act.

I threw up my hands and laughed. "I just want to fucking strangle you."

She didn't look up from her nails. "Okay, Dad. Ta-ta. Toodeloo." She waved me out the door.

I could cry. Or stuff a sock in her mouth. Either one. I sat down on the bed next to her and peeled my hand down my face. "What do you want?"

She hooked her finger around and pointed to the old bubble box TV in the corner. The only thing attached to it was Uncle Renny's old Nintendo set.

"Really?" I couldn't believe it. "It's got one game."

"Yeah, the flappy horse-cock punchy game."

"They're ostriches. It says so right on the cover. And they're jousting. On the ostriches." I realized how stupid that sounded right at the end.

"I know." She flashed me her teeth, even got so cheeky as to poke her tongue through her front tooth gap.

Something about that. So ornery and kiddish, like she was in our old pictures. I felt the tug of a smile, too.

The lamp in the corner ignited all the frazzles in her hair. Almost looked like a minor halo had permeated between her naughty tufts. Captivating. And then I saw her nappy pink highlights, oof, probably clip in extensions, too. Shade crept into her cheeks, exposing just how hollow they'd become. It slipped beneath her full cake of makeup and filled in shallow crevices around her eyes, chicken scratches. Poor girl, could have been so beautiful. But I supposed in the right light, she wore trashy well.

"Alright," I said, "but I get the chair."

"Winner gets the chair."

"That's what I said."

"Prick." She hopped up, and with itty-bitty shuffle steps, she dragged Uncle Benny's old white wicker chair out of the corner and in front of the TV. "Your throne, your highness." Triss even bowed. That girl, ornery as a cat and just as predatory to boot.

"At least you finally learned how to talk to me."

Triss propped her hand on her hips and wagged her other finger. Absolute bitchiness, unrepentantly so. "Now you really sound like Dad."

"Yeah, well, you sound like Mom."

Triss waved her hand, yeah, whatever. "I know I'm a slut. But I got d' goods." She threw signs at her chest.

She wasn't wrong, at least, as long as Mee-Maw fed her well. Certainly, Mee-Maw would.

We fired up the game and strung out the controllers. I sat on my "throne."

Triss plopped her butt down right on the floor in front of me. She started out criss-cross applesauce, but ended up with her legs crassly spread out and her body slouched back against the wicker chair, right between my legs. It took her a few positions to find a comfortable one where, presumably, the wicker splines weren't poking the back of her head funny.

Uncle Renny's Joust game was the button masher to end all button mashers. Spam the "A" button to fly. Then you ran into each other and whichever jouster was the highest up in the air won the joust. At least, until the pterodactyls came out. Then it was fly to survive.

I won. Repeatedly. Then a pterodactyl ate me.

"Switch, bitch!" My sister hopped up and claimed my throne.

I sat in the bitch seat in front of the chair. Damn TV was so small, had to sit three feet from it to see. You'll burn out your eyes, kids! Mee-Maw's voice rattled in my head, but I was far too focused on mashing buttons to care.

I leaned forward, really getting into the game.

I felt a weight hook over my shoulder. My sister slung one leg over me and then two. She hung her knees on my shoulders and rested her calves against my chest. Her bare toes wiggled on my lap. Fucking Triss. She even rested her hands on the top of my head.

"I'm not an end table."

"Shut up, bitch!" She laughed and wriggled forward. Her thighs cheekily pinched the sides of my head. They made for surprisingly soft cushions considering how waifish she'd become.

A pterodactyl flew in from the right. Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp. I mashed the hell outa that "A" button. The unbeatable pterodactyl? Ha! You just have to hit them right. Pchew, pchew, pchew. One spawned right in the middle. I swooped in from above and--

My vision went dark.

"You shit!" I peeled my sister's hands away from my eyes, but my bird had already exploded.

She giggled, just absolutely delighted. "Stay in the bitch seat, bitch boy!"

"...never stole nothing, my ass. Stole that win, cheating skank." I grumbled and leaned my head back. However, instead of thumping against the hard wicker threads like I'd expected, the back of my head nuzzled into something much softer. Her thighs clamped down against my ears. I wiggled my head left and right.

It dawned on me where I was. "Oh shit. Sorry." I leaned forward. My face burned. I'd lounged right against my sister's crotch.

"It's fine." I could hear the shrug in her voice. Triss' long nails grazed through my hair, back and forth, lull me to sleep. I think I finally understood their allure.

"Here," her voice had taken on an airy edge, "the wicker sucks." She wrapped her fingers around my forehead and pulled my head back to where it was before.

"Triss, you shouldn't--"

"Shush!" She'd already leaned over me, her arms rested on top of my head once again.

I--

I guess it was just jeans and a zipper. And she didn't care. She didn't even really notice, it seemed, just a casual monkey girl on my back.

A niggling thought tugged at the back of my mind: How many guys had been just on the other side of her zipper? I figured I'd need all my fingers and toes to count that, and I'd probably need to borrow all of hers, too.

Girl jeans were so soft. I laid my head off to one side. My cheek squished against her thigh as I spammed buttons on my controller. I breathed in. My sister smelled like Tide and sweat with a hint of something even sharper. Just past my nose, a frayed hole in her denim exposed her pasty white thighs, and from there, it'd be a straight shot up into her--

Pchew. The pterodactyl killed us both. It switched back to the main screen. The game's preview looped over and over. The ostrich's legs skittered and jumped. The sprite killed a goon, then two, but the third goon finally killed it. Loop back, start over.

The room was dark. We'd been playing for a while. 8-bit flickers splashed on our clothes, all in reds and whites. She held the controller out in one hand; the other grazed its nails through my hair.

"That feels nice," I said.

"I know. Dad--" Her voice hitched. She collected herself. "Dad used to do this when I'd be sitting there watching Dora. He'd scratch my ears, and say, 'Swiper, no swiping,' and it used to piss me off to no end because it didn't even make sense! 'You don't say it like that, Dad!' That's what you say when that little fox prick stole some shit. I mean, you get that, right?"

I think I was starting to.

She rubbed my earlobes, tenderly, motherly. I could sleep between her thighs. She had me so relaxed in that moment that my thought didn't even seem wrong.

"I always wished I had someone to do this to," she mused.

I mumbled something back, then realized I was half-asleep, and I'd spoken mostly with my dream voice.

"Hmm?" My sister's voice was coy. Her nails grazed down my cheeks. Her thumb brushed the rim of my ear. It triggered a swarm of butterflies to flitter into my spine.

"I said that's weird since you've been with a lot of guys," I repeated.

She stopped.

I heard her sigh, and she pushed me forward and stepped around me. Her bare feet padded over to the bed, and she plopped her butt down on the edge. "Tons of 'em." She crossed her arms. "Tons and tons and tons and tons."

"And none of them wanted scritches?"

I saw her frown as she parsed what I'd just said. Then her posture relaxed. She dropped her arms, huffed, and gave me a half smile. "I thought you meant..." She shook her head. "Nevermind."

"No, bitch boy, none of them wanted scritches," she said.

"Did you even try?"

"It wasn't like that. Well--" She picked at her bottom lip. "--there was this one guy. He kept trying to, like, kiss the back of my hand, like old chivalry or something. But his timing was all fucked up."