By the time we were getting our hair done, I’d plum lost it. I was lost in a horrible memory from the rabbit hole,Serpentine dared me to cut my outrageously long hair. LuAnn had left a butter knife with me, and instead of killing myself, I tried to saw my hair clean off. I thought if I looked ugly enough, maybe the men would let me be.
But not even my hair had been my own.
“Cut it all off, shave it,” I told the beautician.
Emery stepped in, touching my long dark, wavy hair. “But your hair is so pretty.”
“I don’t want it. It’s been through too much. Let it go.”
She sucked in a breath. “Maybe just shorter?” She told the hairstylist.
“Yes, short, really short.” I made my fingers into scissors. “Cut. Cut. Cut.”
Soon, I touched my hair lightly with my fingertips. Looking in the mirror, I saw my hair was short but cute. Then in the same mirror, I saw Serpentine. He called me a dike, or was it Snakebite, their faces ran together.
“Snakebite said he’d kill me if I cut my hair… This will show ‘em.”
“No one’s going to hurt you, here,” Emery promised me.
After that, I totally zoned out.
The girls rushed me out of the salon. Soon, I laughed, coming out of it. A mist completely lifted. I forgot what I was laughing about.
When they said we’d get our makeup done, I had no idea they meant we’d have our faces painted like candy skulls. I wasn’t sure Cowboy wanted to claim a candy skeleton later.
“The whole club does it for the parade,” Riot explained, as I watched the artist line her big eyes and stencil swirls and flowers around her face.
The make-up artist explained further, “The paint crosses over much like the people we are celebrating. It penetrates the wall between people, between cultures, between all that separates us.”
Her fancy talk just meant ghosts. She meant fucking ghosts. I laughed like a loon. Here everyone acted like I was crazy but was listening to this lady talk about a flipping wall between this world and the next. When my makeup was finished, I went up behind Emery and yelled, “Boo.”
The streets were filling up, and I heard someone comment that last year there were 150,000 people who attended.
Hell—Crowds made me hella nervous.
While we waited for the men to find us, Emery held onto my hand as if I were a child. Conflicted, I didn’t exactly mind, but I wasn’t a kid anymore.
I heard the roar of motorcycles and one stopped in front of me. Cowboy’s face wasn’t completely painted like mine, but he’d darkened his eyes and nose and looked like a bearded skeleton cowboy. I didn’t know if I liked this look on him.
It sort of freaked me out.
His motorcycle and all the bikes were decorated with wreaths of colorful flowers like the ones in our hair. They were funeral flowers, and although there was an atmosphere of a party, I had a bad feeling.
Riot and Harlot mounted some other men’s bikes, since we’d drove here in Harlot’s SUV. Scar picked up Emery on the back of his bike.
She told Cowboy, “Keep a good eye on her.”
She’d been talking about crazy ol’ me.
He tipped his cowboy hat and winked, saying, “I know.”
“What do you know? I’m not crazy.”
“I know you’re not crazy, Little Lady.”
“I’m not a child either.”
“Oh, I know that, too.”
