We Are Pirates

there was the troubling entry in Errol’s Compleat Pirate Dictionary: “Rape: SEE WOMEN, TREATMENT OF.”

He knew of course that she had not been sorry while she was throwing makeup into her pockets. She was sorry later, at the moment she got caught. If people were sorry beforehand, they wouldn’t do things.

He never uncrumpled the ball, but he still wrote her letters in his head: Dear Renée, What are your goddamn needs?

but at the time this story takes place, most people bought places they couldn’t afford. Just eighteen months earlier, when the building was built, an advertisement was hung out for all the traffic to see: IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME NOW.