The WildWoman FiftyCents

In the Quarter, between a Dixie Beer 75¢ sign and Crawfish $1, for fifty cents, you can see a WildWoman, naked, a drugged coiled boa between her legs, motionless, until she moves it back and forth.

The belly of the man in the Saints hat blocks the entrance. He holds a slotted can to catch the change. You’d think he’d be yelling out “WildWoman,” but the sign WildWoman FiftyCents speaks for itself.

Inside, a blue light. Her cage has black iron bars. Covered in Mississippi River mud and spiders, the ground — dark and furry — moves. She stands still in the center, bends at the knees every now and then. Some of the guys bend with her.

 She twists around the snake. Her eyes, unlidded, as the snakes, blank and dark. The blue light reveals parts of her, bathes her, so one might think of her as very young and very lost. We could think, “The WildWoman was a little girl once, someone’s daughter, a name, ribbons in her hair. Stuff like that.”

But, I don’t know, the thought never seems to make it out. We're peeking through the bars, through the mud, darkness, blue, searching for those parts that would make the fifty cents a bargain.

I see her later in the Quarter, sitting on a bench, refusing to lift her shirt for some beads.

 “But you you're the WildWoman FiftyCents!” the man says to her. He holds out a five-dollar bill.

She gives him the finger.

 “That is my job,” she tells him. “This is my life.”

He stomps his foot, screams, makes a pile at her feet, glittering beads and quarters, ones and fives, even his watch now.

Her shirt stays down. He shakes his fist, picks up the pile, and stumbles down the Quarter, mumbling something about what difference does it make.

Randy Brown Twenty or so of his works have appeared or are forthcoming in several print and online journals, including Timber Creek Review, The Iconoclast, Word Riot, FRiGG, Hobart, and Ink Pot. Also, his writing has recently gained him admittance into Vermont College's Masters of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing program. Also he continues to work with seven-time Pushcart-nominated Terri Brown-Davidson.

Email: Randy Brown

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