I’m swimming to some Greek tourist spot that I can’t remember the name of; it’s been that long since I left. In my waterproof sack are 8”x10” glossies of myself posed with a raised butcher knife, white toga curiously clean. Upon my arrival, I start signing autographs for a pre-arranged per capita sum, but my profits are considerably diminished when I throw the requisite celebrity fit and start killing off fans.

“Wake up, Mouse.”
     Dad walks in, shakes me from the self-pitying comfort of dreams, removes my soiled clothes, and cleans my face and hands with a moist towelette. I’m grateful for the attention.
     You’re an amateur,” he says.

In the morning, I wipe out the sinks and strain to push them into the closet. I lick out the last from the kerosene can—I can never punish myself enough—and go down to breakfast.
     “Well, Mouse,” says Dad. He has a plate of scrambled eggs set out for me, something blue and powdery sprinkled on top. “You’re not looking ship-shape.” He lays his hands on my forehead, thumbs probing, pulling, one eyelid, then the other, giving my pupils the once-over. “Not good,” he says, slapping my face, ruddying-up my cheeks. “You’re a dead-ringer for a doped, duped sailor on a lotus binge.”
     I back away, swallowing the aftertaste of fuel, determined to snuff out the words igniting in my throat: Selfish Bastard, Useless Human Being. Dad has a long reach, though. He tugs at the strands of hair clenched between my teeth, all the hair I have left, and pulls me toward his open mouth.
     “Has-been!” His words blow into my face like a gale force. Then gently, ponytail first, he guides me back to my chair. “Eat.”
     It’s true, I have to admit; ever since the Hormel slaughterhouse closed down I’ve been at loose ends, one sputtering dud. I take a bite of egg and run to the toilet.
     “Mouse,” calls Dad, “have I taught you nothing?”
     I slink back to the table where, instead of my coffee, I take his. It could be worse, I think; at least he’s given up matchmaking. And Dad is right—in terms of always hurting the one you love, I’ve got a lot to learn.
     “How’s the job hunting?” he asks.
     My tongue is frothing. I swish the hot, bitter liquid, whatever it is, from one side of my cheek to the other. “I’ll be out of the house as soon as I’m back on my feet, so quit bugging me.” I’ve already found the hidden microphone, pock-marked, small as a pea, in the dresser, and another under the mouthpiece of the phone. Then there are the insects, indoors, none of them native to L.A.: hemlock loopers, eastern bloodsucking conenoses, and root bearers the size of limp dicks, banging against the window panes.
     “Beggars can’t be choosers,” says Dad.
     The cat curls around my ankles, managing to trip me up as I rise to clear the dishes. “The devil finds work for idle hands,” I answer, and pause while down on the ground to scrape a chipped cup against the inside of my wrist.
     “Mouse!” Dad hands me the dust pan and broom. “Try!”

I walk to the corner liquor store, sip from a bottle of ouzo which I then replace on the shelf, and buy a paper. Outside, I sit on the curb and look through the want ads. “Auto Sales, Insurance Biller, Lens Consultant, Managing Partner, Ambitious, We Want Only the Best, Margin Clerks, Unique and Exciting Oppty, Psychiatrist Wanted, Sec’y For Really Nice Boss, Telemarketer, Flex Hrs, Maturity A Plus, Comp Exp Req, People Person, Most Exciting Retailer, Call Right Away, Don’t Wait.” There is nothing there that interests me.
     Going home, I take the long way and detour through the Melrose shopping blocks, once trendy, now just tawdry. It looks like rain, so I linger. In front of a store with interiors dressed in black, I gaze at shelves adorned with Mexican clay skeletons, lighted candles, silver dagger and skull trinkets, burning hearts. These I feel an affinity for, the bric-a-brac of a house in mourning. They’re more my style than the L.A. Times’ smeary fine print hawkers’ blurbs. I step inside the store called La Luz.
     A woman sits behind the counter, watches me, then turns slightly to stare elsewhere. She hunches to hide a full-figure. I hunch a little too, so as not to seem proud. Normally, I despise all strangers, but I realize my circumstances are much reduced, and humility is my penance. I try to fit in. I stare. At the back of the store, I take headphones from my purse, plug in, and hum along with a Peruvian funeral dirge. The hours pass. Near closing time, I stroll by displays, touching each “please do not touch” item once for luck—beads, atomizers, carved wooden snakes, plaster of Paris statuettes of Achilles, Athena, Artemis—telepathically updating them on my situation.
     It’s like this, I say. I spent centuries at work, killing one species to please another, a link in the cyclical food chain, and I was a powerful woman in my full-length wrap and rubber apron, day-in, day-out, doing my job, the best in the plant at immobilization—mechanical, chemical, electrical shock—equally skilled at the slaughter of hogs, lambs, cattle and vealers, men, too, able to work all seasons, and in no small way responsible for the invention of the portable, single-hand-operated compression stunner, well-compensated, only to show up one day to find with my time card a form letter, twentieth-century corporate management using phrases like, “economic realities,” “California tax laws,” and “neighbors complaining about the stench.” It was a shut-down, a massive lay-off. No relocation, even. So, you see, I need help. Divine intervention.
     I buy a candle embossed with “Turn your luck around,” and a bunch of Lucky 7 stickers. “How long do I have to wait for the magic to kick in?” I ask.
     She looks me up and down. “The little breaks are on their way.”

That night I meet Dad for dinner, our weekly ritual of restaurant agitation. He takes me out to make up for past neglect, wrongs wrought throughout my adolescence. This means having to forgive him week after week, but a free meal is a free meal. We begin by ordering guava cream pie.
     The waitress glared down. Doe, her name is. “Guavas are out of season,” she says.
     We know. It’s a private joke between us: we’ve been places, we’ve had guavas, we’re better than you.
     “Doe, a deer,” says Dad. “Dear, sacred Doe.” He’s salivating, getting ahead of the game.
     “Allow me to recite the specials,” says Doe, getting her hackles up.
     “Not necessary,” says Dad.
     We open our menus. Dad takes the waitress’ arm. “I admire you for working. Look at my daughter: a slob.”
     I watch passersby out the window, drum my fingers, a military roll to irk Navy man Dad.
     In response, he doffs his cap to reveal the sparse inlets where hair once grew. “Her fault,” he says. “Premature baldness.”
     Doe waits.
     Outside, I see a fountain where kids are removing their sneakers to skim them like speedboats, big kids making tidal waves, boots used for destroyers, fists punching bombs away, KE-SHOOO. “I’ll have the vegetable plate,” I say. “With sides of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, yellow squash casserole, and rice pudding.” Comfort food. I want to go outside, becalm the kids, hold their faces in the water, find out what their parents will do.
     “God!” says Dad, and he bops me with his menu. “She’ll have the all-you-can-eat quail special.”
     “Quail is the state bird, Dad. Illegal.”
     He smiles. “Has that ever stopped me?” When I don’t answer, he gives Doe a wink and orders venison steak rare for himself. I empty the sugar bowl into my water glass.
     “Got it,” says Doe, stumbling in her rush to get away. That kind of thing happens all the time around Dad.
     I unfold my napkin, draw a pen-and-ink portrait of myself: Dad’s Little Princess. I give it a lipstick kiss and slide it over.
     Dad holds it close. The picture is so tiny he can barely make it out. “Always,” he says, handing it back.
     I flick sugar water on the edges. “You can keep it.”
     “I have a present for you, too.” Dad pats his breast pocket.
     “Money?” I ask.
     “Open it! Go on!”
     I sit on my hands. “You liked my drawing, didn’t you?”
     He pushes the present toward me; it’s too big and lumpy for cash. “The sentiment was unimpeachable.”
     I shift a hand loose, and beat the package back with tiny fingernail taps. “But you didn’t think it was good?”
     “Mouse….”
     “You wouldn’t call me an artist?”
     “I call you my own daughter, whose birth lit up my world and caused me to smile like I haven’t shown joy on earth since.”
     “I see.” I snatch the gift, ripping to shreds the wrapping, and there: bunny socks, real rabbit fur inside and out, stretch cotton cuffs embroidered with satin carrots, silken limp rabbit ears draped down the sides, and on the ankles, genuine cottontails to tickle my skin. I’m that baby once more, too young to disappoint. “Dad, Dad, Dad!” I shriek.
     “Watch the claws,” says Dad, and he slips them onto my feet.
     “Did you really buy?” I ask, “or did you shoot them yourself?” I let him struggle with my pumps, fitting them over the fluff. What a dad.
     “Dance, birthday girl?”
     It’s not my birthday, I think, unless he lied about that, too. “My bunny valentine,” I croon.
     We rise in unison and clasp hands. I step onto his soft leather loafers, as for the children’s dance. We begin, and he jolts me stiltingly, puppetish around the room, into annoyed customers, down through aisles of grimy checkerboard tiles. I toss my locks and bare my teeth, a signature flourish. He kicks up his heels and twists at the waist. We sing our off-beat melodies:
     “Thou knowest not, my dim-witted friend,
     The picture thou hast made.”
     Then, on a too-quick turn, my stiletto spikes go flying, I spin away blindly, falter, can’t balance on my own furred feet, not fleet, a failure at complex maneuvers. “Where am I?” I ask, and Dad rushes to my side, pounding the offending hares into submission.
     “Can’t tarantella worth shit, can you?” he asks.
     I sit on the floor, on a piece of gum that I see too late. “No spit-and-polish, Sir.” Not looking up, I feel my feet and ankles for breaks and tears. Just as the store clerk at La Luz predicted, my little toes are out of whack. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
     Doe sees what has happened, and bucks, landing a back-kick in my kidneys. She tries to scoot me out of the way, under a table, not for my own good, or even for spite; she just doesn’t want to lose her job, and it’s always the innocent ones who pay for commotion. I find a stash of spoons, lost rattles, rancid pork. The meat makes me nostalgic.
     Peeking out, I watch Dad as he springs out of reach. Pitching from side to side, he sails for the exit.
     I take off my socks and signal, trying to flag Dad down. “Cornstarch and cold water will take the stains right out,” I yell, but Dad ignores me. He disappears through a smoked-glass door.
     Forlorn and left with the dirty dishes, I can’t help but wonder if some cycles, too, are meant to be broken.
     
     I know the routine: six o’clock and Dad arrives home from the usual bad day at the Long Beach Naval Base—no real challenges, a day of betrayals, boredom, stasis, apathy, lazy-drunken-pothead mariners, insubordination. A day with too much time for him to think, I can tell.
     “Okay, okay,” I say, running down the hall, knowing I have to outsmart him, never giving up, thinking that luck will somehow intervene. It does, sometimes.
     Dad swings, mad punches flying my way, but whatever I’ve done wrong now, whatever he thinks I’ve done, it will have to wait. I can’t be bothered; I’ve got big plans. I dash ahead, making for the storage room. Once inside, I slam the door, bolt the lock. I put it in myself that afternoon.
     The cat has beat me there. Dad’s cat. “Have some Clorox,” he says.
     “Get out, if you know what’s good,” I say. “Things are about to change.” I am luminously optimistic. All doubts and foresight must be quashed in order for the hunter to have a successful kill. Minimum planning, maximum instinct.
     I pull matches from my pocket and look around the closet space. Most of the cleansers are marked “Drink me.” The rat poison says “For Good Girls Only.” Dad thinks this is funny. I can hear him now, tinkling out the “Danse Macabre” on the piano. Thanks, Dad. I open bottles, one after another, dumping them out toward the door, swishing the contents underneath, out to the hallway, recreating the killing floor, slick with blood. Lubricious now with extra-strength liquid Wisk and All, the trusted clean for your whole family. New non-stick surface. Eliminates odors. Great value. I gloat to the cat, “The tables have turned, he’ll see; the light will shine the moment before he slips and bashes his head to a pulp, and I did it. It was all my doing.”
    The cat shakes his head. “Big trial, small jail cell.”
    “What choice do I have?” I ask. “Call him. Do the dirty work.”
    The cat yowls, then jumps to higher ground, his claws getting in one last dig to my shoulders on the way.
    The music stops. I wait. Through a crack in the door, I see and my heart sinks. On rubber-tipped stilts, Dad stands in the puddle. His balding head grazes the skylight.
    “You hurt my feelings,” he says.

I’m out of the house now, and have been for a while. The Glendale Motel is a bare-bones, rent-by-the-week joint, and I’m shacking up with my new boyfriend, Jason. Jason’s a pizza fan, and that’s where he is now, going for a slice. I check through the curtains, making sure he’s nowhere in sight, then steal his Daytimer from under the mattress. I check the figures, computing my share. I don’t know why, but he’s given me extra. Again.
     It’s my job to run over the animals. Everyday I take Jason’s Pathfinder and go for a drive, usually through the canyons, and catch them: skunk, possum, stray dog, raccoon. Most freeze up and wait, sometimes I chase them down. The tires stink, caked with entrails. I never hose them down, because it’s the smell that keeps me going, gets me high. Jason waits. When I get home, I give him directions, and he goes to scoop them up, his work for L.A. County. Split the take.
     At least once a night, on the darkest roads, I stop the car short, cut the headlights, and fix my eyes wide on the rear view mirror. Cars screech from behind. I don’t flinch. Smashed glass, crushed bumpers, metal cut and twisted, bruises, scrapes, crazy, skidding rides. I look and look for a safe place in the world.
     “I’m sorry,” I always say to Jason, later. “It won’t happen again.”
     On channel five, the movie “Psycho” is on. I put away Jason’s notebook, and turn the volume up. It’s the exciting part now, in the shower. I flex my joints in time with the score, knees spastic, fingers clenched. The discord of orchestrated shrieks brings the memories flooding. The slaughterhouse was heaven for vermin when the lights went out. “Yes, yes!” I shout, banging the telephone on the desk, punching the air, fighting back for Janet Leigh who is leaking down the drain.
     Jason walks in, sets the food on a table. “Try not to be late tonight, my baby.” He takes a can of Slice from a cardboard tray, puts in on the carpet by my side of the bed, not too close, so I’ll have to reach for it. “I’m lonely when you’re not around,” he says.
     I look at him squatting there, and gauge the professional trophy quality of his head. Unhealthy diet has resulted in poor presentation: skin mottled, slack, marbled with ruined capillaries. Old. Utility grade, at best. Maggot-bait, a home for bacteria. I flash a few Polaroids. Red animal eyes. I mount the photos on the headboard.
     “More art?” he asks.
     “Gamesmanship,” I say.
     “You’re a funny gal.” He cracks his knuckles, checks in the mirror for nose hairs. “Cute, though.”
     I close my eyes and hear the spring-trigger of steel traps in darkness, firecracker pops like the Fourth of July.
     I take the keys to the car, turn off the TV.
     “Goodnight now,” I say. Start small, I think. Work up.