Bloodless Relations.

Now here's the part where I start manipulating what I've got so far and making it into something submittable. This will probably be sent to several publishers when I feel it's the right time. Bear in mind, the details are slightly toyed with, to make it more digestable without being wordy. So if you find yourself saying, "Hey, that's not the way it happened!", read the previous sentence. And if it really pisses you off, comment and tell me and I'll see what I can do about changing it. Thanks!



I was out of money. The ATM spit out a tiny white receipt like a child sticking out its tongue, singing, “Nya-nya-nya-nya!” The scrap of paper read, “$5.84”.

I knew the moment was coming, but I wasn’t prepared for how naked I would feel, as though my clothes were whisked away and soon creditors would be feeding on pounds of flesh. I had been living on the road for five months at that point, a modern-day Jackie Kerouac looking for America. I had found it many times over, in the small-town parades and renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” warbled by shy children into shoddy microphones at town festivals, in the face of a 14-year-old rape victim who I fed some of my instant mashed potatoes, the Ethiopian parking garage manager who took pity on me and didn’t charge me for 26 hours worth of parking in downtown Boston. And now I had found the other modern-day America, the greedy, capitalist one that doesn’t look kindly on twenty-something women who shun work for five months of galvanting. But here I was, in the sweltering backwoods of Tennessee, dirty, hungry, broke and trying to convince the gas station cashier that I shouldn’t have to pay for the Slush Puppie if I only took the ice and not the flavor syrup.

Three months earlier, I had been perched on the edge of a tributary of Lake Erie, right outside Sandusky, Ohio, furiously typing away at my laptop. A father and son rolled up in a white truck for some afternoon fishing and we fell into conversation. Their names were Earl and Christopher. “Where are you sleeping tonight?” Earl asked. I pointed to my car and laughed. “No, that won’t do. If you’re hell-bent on sleeping in your car, at least do it in our driveway.” That night, I slept on their couch.

Earl is a single father who adopted Chris at the age of four. Both are black, which made for some interesting conversation. In a society ferociously struggling with the stereotype of the black deadbeat dad, here was a man who not only stepped up to the plate, but for a child that wasn’t his own. I soon realized that Earl’s generosity didn’t start and end with his son.

Days later, as I was hugging Christopher goodbye, Earl watched with a smile and said, “If you ever need anything – money, stamps, anything – just call.” I thanked him, of course, but never thought I would get to such a desperate place where I would have to make that call. Fast forward to Tennessee and down to my last $5.00. Tears in my eyes, I picked up the phone.

“Sure, you can have whatever you need,” Earl said. “But there’s a catch. I can’t keep wiring you money every two weeks. You have to move in with Chris and I until you get back on your feet. Come here, get a job, and then you can move on. Plus, you won’t be the only girl in the house because Lisa just moved in with us!” Lisa was Earl’s girlfriend, a beautiful blonde with blue eyes.
“I don’t know…” I trailed, wavering on the idea of living in Ohio.
“How about this?” Earl offered. “Remember that petting zoo we went to when you were here, and you loved those little pot-belly pigs for sale? Well, I’ll buy you one if you come up here, how about that?”
“Oh, sure, bribe me with swine!” With that, I was on my way to Sandusky.

I moved in with my new family on a rainy Tuesday in September. I had been looking for America, and I found it in a family where no one was related by blood. The black man, the white girlfriend, the adopted son, the random white hobo chick, and the little black pig. God bless us, every one.