Denise Dooley

9/30/2003

Fort

GIRL: I used to like to fit in the smallest of places. I had The Cave, which was a rain overflow pipe with big thick concrete sides that was slimy on the bottom with algae and was probably about three feet tall on the inside. The only thing was that you had to be careful to sit with your back against one side of the pipe and your feet against the other side, so that you didn’t fall in the algae slime. But other then that it was an OK cave. Once when Jan was over babysitting me I disappered into the cave and she came and found me andshe just poked her head in one side and said "Lady Jane, lets get going so we could clean your shoes off please?" She didn’t even tell on me. And also I had The Strong Hold, which was my desk turned around against the wall and me in the spot where your legs are supposed to go. Jane moved it for me. I kept my weapons in there, I had a nerf football with a turbo fin and i’d stuck all of these nails in it, so it could really mess up your face if i threw it at you. And I had a stick I’d sharpened in case, you know, I needed it. And I had a bandaid with real blood on it from a real AIDS person that I traded Mica Brahim for, so if I had to I could kill people undercover. It was cozy. But I am not liking this right now and if Jan could let me out of here already I’d appreciate it.

She is supposed to stand in for the responsonsible adult when the responsible adult cannot be home and I understand that, if she wants to go and bat her stupid eyelashes at some hot sexy thing while he plays foosball for hours, fine, she can do it. she’s the babysitter. i’m the kid.

Every day for twelve days now, I get home from school and Jan makes me a sandwhich and I eat it at the kitchen table and she says "Ok, time to go wash your hands" and she locks me in the bathroom. The first time it surprised me a little. But i’m used to it now. When he goes home she comes upstairs and I hear her dragging the dresser around and she opens the door and her chin is all red from rubbing it around in his saliva and all, and she says "Oops, sorry about that sweetie". And I’ve been thinking about maybe breaking a window or I wouldn’t even have to break it, I could just slit the outsides with a razor blade and lift it out with a suction cup and put it back behind me when I left and no one would have to know at all. I could get some ventalation that way. Or I could leave. But that would mean leaving Jan alone in the house with Captain Creepoid, and i’ve gotta be around to defend her. She’d defend me.

she’s the babysitter. i’m the kid. she tells me what to do and i do it because she lets me do things like stay up till one in the morning and walk to the drugstore by myself. also i do it because she’s the only one who’s on my team in this house anyway, and because she plays spies and murders with me. But I’m starting to hate tiny spaces, especially tiny air freshener scented spaces, especially when after all the breaths that fit into two hundred and forty minutes of breathing it still does not smell like Fresia but instead like bathroom ass smell with a soft undercurrent of air freshener. so instead i’m just going to sit up here and think of ways to kick his ass. i could use towel holders like nunchucks, maybe.

Even though she sucks and is a total wuss Nancy Drew is capable of picking a lock with a hair pin. I have been trying this since about noon. It does not work worth a damn particularly when the door doesn’t even have a lock on it anyway and it is bungee corded shut from the outside and blocked with a dresser. I bet Mr. Foosball doesn’t even know there’s a bathroom behind the dresser. I bet Jan put a doily and a flowerpot on top so it would look natural, she’s pretty smart. I know he doesn’t know I’m even in the house. They’re downstairs, right now, making out on the foos-ball table and I’m like the Ann Frank of the make out holocaust. But she’s a wuss. So I’m going to be Joan Of Arc of the Make Out Holocaust, and I’m going to get a horse and set it on fire and ride it into his face and kick his ass out. We’re gonna barricade the front door and the back door. and we’re gonna fill trashcans with water balloons, only some of them will be full of jello for pranks and some of them will be full of bleach and hyrdochloric acid and they will blow up in giant fireballs when we throw them at you. and we’re going to turn the whole house into no boys allowed to the ultimate, turn it into the Imprenetrable Solitudionous Bad Ass Fortress of Me and Jan.

• September 26, 2003 - No Shame Iowa City
  

  Performed by Denise Dooley.

• December 12, 2003 - Best of No Shame (Iowa City)
  

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