198
SARAH PLIMPTON
Your face, a face
talks
to me,
it
is nice to have someone along
for a long drive.
"Ma'am, they've got a machine in me, my chest has these iron
slabs sewed in it that rub up and down under my skin. They put
iron in my head and I can feel those beams beaming in and making
me do things I don't want to do and all those people out there,"
he swings his arm with a wide gesture, "knows all about me. They
says things about me." His eyes narrow. He picks at his nails. "They
got me at work that's what I really care about though." He picks
more at his nails. "They says things at work and it makes me nervous
and I can't stand it and I got to watching and looking and there was
little things that got me, like they put glass in my sandwiches. You
know," he looks up from his nails, "ground glass that eats you up
inside. But I saw it," he smiles, "and I didn't eat the sandwich; I
took it home with me and flushed it down the toilet. On buses they
got me too, looking at me all the time. My baby she's got a ma–
chine too, she doesn't know that I know, but I do. Sometimes I
got to wear a wastebasket over my head, it keeps those beams out."
"You married?"
"Not yet, girlie, but I'm thinking about it. She's a cute kid,
that baby of mine. Maybe I can fake her out of that machine she's
got, the one with the beams." He's picking his nails again. "Even
when we go dancing she's got the thing with her. I tell you, lady,
you got to be careful with these people. Yeah, but I am going to
marry her next month. We've decided to have the wedding down
at my family's place."
"Congratulations, I'm so happy for you, and me, what hap–
pens to me? What did I do? Did I ever say I wasn't sure? You
never asked me but I never saw anyone else."
"It's convenient to have a girl around for awhile. But you
gotta watch those machines. They can destroy you. They got this
high frequency stuff now and when they build in these plates they
beam right in, so I keep a few others around just in case I get
feelin' a bit hemmed in. You know some girls got more to offer than
others. Now I gotta girl, not the one I'm going to marry but an–
other one, I haven't- know her very long, but I got a sort of a
sneaking suspicion about her that maybe she would be better for
me. She's got more class or something and I like the way she paints
