I walk towards a dilapidated warehouse that’s all brick with broken glass,
gripping the crumpled paper in my hand, my nail polish leaving red
marks between ads for SWMs and lemons. I had taken it from that
damned man who rents upstairs, the one who reminds me how thin
the walls are when he masturbates. My thumb has rubbed the ad until
I am sure it’s just blurred, black ink and not “Fashion models needed, ages
15-25, no experience needed.”
Inside I notice the cracked radio in the corner first, blasting
MJ through one speaker, then the girls sitting in folding chairs stiff and
pale as paper dolls. A man with a swarthy face and amateur camera
swinging around his neck turns his head and looks me over the way my mother
doesn’t like. “Charles, grab her suit.” “Me?” I say, the way Annie did the
first time she was given a broom. He thrusts a yellow one –piece in my hand. It’s the
color of a butter-stick, and I take in the sequins about to fall off, the tear on the
left shoulder. Like an idiot, I start crying right then and there. Still, no one is paying attention
to me as I sob and I am relieved, watching a bunch of thin-raked girls throwing
a beach ball for $20.
Gotdamn this is real