The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things by JT LeRoy

Author:JT LeRoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062641281
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Coal

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for Canada Dry ginger ale. Many stores don’t carry it. Canada Dry doesn’t have poison in it. I’m not sure about other sodas. Pringles potato chips with ridges don’t have poison, either. You need a big chain, like Safeway or Piggly Wiggly, that sells fancier items. Whenever things feel out of control I know the black coal is doing it, and I know what to do, my mom taught me.

I watch all the walls in the supermarket and tell her as soon as I think they move. One time we leave the cart half-full of Pringles and Canada Dry at the checkout. I tug on her black raincoat, lightly; you don’t want to be obvious or they’ll see. She doesn’t notice my tug the first time. I look up at her face hidden in a shadow of tangled dyed black hair. The pale blue whites of her eyes dart round and round, watching the suspicious faces, mostly at the couple in pink sportswear laughing ahead of us.

They’re buying a lot of poisoned foods: Land O’Lakes butter, Mr. Paul Newman’s salad dressing, Sprite, Burgers ’n’ Buns, and way too orange carrots and Cheetos. I try not to stare, unlike my mom, who’s trying to figure out what they are. If they’re secret agents of the coal, trying to tempt and trick us. They might be innocent victims hypnotized by the forces of black coal about to be poisoned accidentally, but their pastel pink outfits match too exactly, so my guess is they are forces of evil.

I tug again at her sleeve, so long her hand is buried in its protective sheathing. It was $15 at the Salvation Army, just bought today soon after we discovered the black coal was active. We tried to find a black raincoat for me, but in my size they were all yellows and greens covered in bunnies and turtles. She said after the dye I’d be safe even without a raincoat.

The dye is in our cart, buried under six-packs of Canada Dry and the red Pringles cardboard canister with the vacuum seal, and I wish it weren’t. I could slip it in the waist of my jeans, even though stealing only fuels the judgment of the coal.

I hear the swoosh swoosh of my mother’s nails scratching up the inside of her vinyl raincoat sleeves. Her barefoot heels bounce inside her black rubber boots. I’m still in civilian clothes. My T-shirt is dirty white, as are my Keds, even my socks. My jeans are dark blue, not black. The Laundromat is next.

I’ll lie naked in the backseat, staring up at the stained cheeseclothlike interior of our Toyota while she dyes my clothes in the washer.

The pink sportswear spy couple is next in line. She keeps grinning down at me, catching me staring at their Cheetos. It’s poison, all poison, I chant silently to myself, louder than my rumbling stomach. Then, like a true demon, the woman reaches for a Hershey’s bar from the rack above the conveyer belt, opens and bites into it.

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