He says if you set your mind to it, then you can achieve wonders, all the wonders in the world. He says we are everyone one of us just atoms and spaces ‘tween the atoms, and it’s faith and belief holdin us together. He reads books and watches documentaries on tv, and he read that ’bout the atoms somewhere. He says miracles ain’t magic but is plain fact.
He ain’t a church nut. He don’t have that sorta belief and that sorta faith. He says God is just a word we use for the wonder in the world and he says Jesus was just a man like hisself, a man what understood and that’s how he did what he did in his life, all ‘em miracles. And Tony says he can do ‘em, too, and he says anybody can.
Tony points to somethin he has recorded on the tv. It’s one of ‘em programmes where a showman guy with a voice loud as thunder and at the same time smooth as silk, hypnotizes half the audience, and he gets a handful of ‘em up on stage and he tells ‘em stuff. He tells one of ‘em that he holds a juicy apple in his hand and it’s the juiciest apple in the whole world ever, and he says the man can take a bite out of the apple and he can let us know how good it is. The man takes a bite and he falls into rhapsody over that apple and the sweet and the juicy it is, like it’s better than sex. Only, it ain’t even an apple; it’s a big fat ol’ onion is what it is. And Tony says turnin water into wine is just like that man with the onion.
And Tony says there ain’t nothin in this life that can’t be done by you or me, nothin that faith or belief can’t do. He says he’ll show me, if I like. A real demonstration of the power of believin, he says. I shrug and I say I’m not bothered.
Tony says he’ll make hisself light as air. Lighter he says, so he’ll just float off the floor. I think he’s full of shit, but he’s cute, too, and I feel a bit funny in my tummy and I’m imaginin what it will be like in bed with Tony; it’s all the reason I’m there with him in his room.
He strips down to his underwear, which he says is so I can see there ain’t no trick in what he’s ’bout to do. Then he sits crosslegged on the floor and with his hands restin on his knees and his back straight. He closes his eyes and like that he looks so calm and so goddam pretty I almost lean into him and kiss him. He slows his breathin right down and with the sun on him he looks like a stained-glass saint or an angel.
Then there’s a small and sudden furrow on his brow, a knot, like I know he’s really concentratin. And his legs twitch and his arms twitch also. And he slowly opens his eyes and he smiles slowly, too. He says, see, and he says he’s floating off the ground and it ain’t a miracle, it’s a fact.
I look at him, lookin for the laughter in his face, lookin for the joke, but all I see is the pretty he is, and the earnest. And he says again, see, only there’s a question in his sayin it this time. And I shrug and I say sure, I see, even though I don’t, even though he’s just Tony sittin in his pants and cross legged on the floor.
I take off my dress and I sit cross legged before him and I kiss him and like that I think we are both floatin in the air, and I smile and I tell him he’s so fuckin pretty, and I wonder if that’s anythin like the man on the tv with the apple that’s really an onion – and then Tony kisses me back and I don’t care if it is.
I was with this guy once and he put something in my drink when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t taste a thing, threw the drink back in one. He took me back to my place, which I’d told him where it was, and my keys was in my coat pocket so getting in was no hardship. And he lifted up my dress and pulled down my pants and he fucked me twice, there on the floor of my living-room, like I was a lifeless doll. Then he went through my purse and he opened some of the drawers in my front room and he just helped himself to stuff – I didn’t even know his name. I’ve been careful in bars ever since.
But then there was this weird guy called Matty and he took me back to his place, a one-room apartment up on 6th street, and I thought maybe he’d put something in my drink, too. I swear it was the craziest thing. We’d made out in his single bed, which there wasn’t room to lie side-by-side in, and it made such a racket with him shifting about on top of me, all the springs and the screws creating a quickening music till I thought the bed might fall beneath us. And after he was done, and he hadn’t quite caught his breath, he pulled on his briefs – like something my dad wears – and he sat cross-legged on the carpet in his one room.
He said fucking me was like something spiritual. Like he was laying with an angel. I thought right then he was full of shit and I checked my watch to see if a decent enough time had passed and I could hightail it out of there. He said my name over and over like it was a mantra, like he was praying, and his eyes was closed and his face was all lit up. Like that I suddenly thought he was like the prettiest guy I’d ever been with and it did something to me.
I got out of his bed, trying to do it without the creak and groan of metal. And I knelt before him, naked as the day, and I kissed his blank and pretty face.
I saw a tv programme once. In Russia or someplace. And there was these women wearing black skirts that touched the floor and with patterned shawls over their heads, they was kneeling before this gold framed picture of the Virgin and Child, and they leaned in and kissed the glass. And their faces was all holy and calm. It felt just like that when I was kissing Matty kneeling in front of him on the floor of his room.
Then the strangest thing, and I don’t mind telling you, I get a little wet thinking ‘bout it, and I wonder still if Matty didn’t slip me something in my drink when I wasn’t looking, like that nameless bastard that took my rings and my money and my dressmaking scissors – what the fuck, he took my best dress-making scissors for chrissakes, took them out of a drawer in my front room, as if fucking me wasn’t enough. And I thought Matty had slipped me something different but something the same, too. Cos I swear, as God is my only witness, Matty just started floating in the air. He just rose up off the carpet, like it was a trick or something in a movie.
It was weird and wonderful and I didn’t really believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. And I just laughed, like it was a joke, which it sort of was: Matty, nothing but dad-briefs on, a size too big for him and a little off-white, and his cock hard under the cloth and his legs all tied in a loose knot and his face blank and pretty, and he was actually floating off the ground.
We made out again straight after, there on the floor rather than in the bed. I got carpet burn on my shoulder, and when we was done he said again about what fucking me was like. And pretty can only take you so far, I thought, so I made some excuse and I said I had to go.
Floating off the floor! And I don’t know how he did that.
Patricia Ann McNair 
He says if you set your mind to it, then you can achieve wonders, all the wonders in the world. He says we are everyone one of us just atoms and spaces ‘tween the atoms, and it’s faith and belief holdin us together. He reads books and watches documentaries on tv, and he read that ’bout the atoms somewhere. He says miracles ain’t magic but is plain fact.
He ain’t a church nut. He don’t have that sorta belief and that sorta faith. He says God is just a word we use for the wonder in the world and he says Jesus was just a man like hisself, a man what understood and that’s how he did what he did in his life, all ‘em miracles. And Tony says he can do ‘em, too, and he says anybody can.
Tony points to somethin he has recorded on the tv. It’s one of ‘em programmes where a showman guy with a voice loud as thunder and at the same time smooth as silk, hypnotizes half the audience, and he gets a handful of ‘em up on stage and he tells ‘em stuff. He tells one of ‘em that he holds a juicy apple in his hand and it’s the juiciest apple in the whole world ever, and he says the man can take a bite out of the apple and he can let us know how good it is. The man takes a bite and he falls into rhapsody over that apple and the sweet and the juicy it is, like it’s better than sex. Only, it ain’t even an apple; it’s a big fat ol’ onion is what it is. And Tony says turnin water into wine is just like that man with the onion.
And Tony says there ain’t nothin in this life that can’t be done by you or me, nothin that faith or belief can’t do. He says he’ll show me, if I like. A real demonstration of the power of believin, he says. I shrug and I say I’m not bothered.
Tony says he’ll make hisself light as air. Lighter he says, so he’ll just float off the floor. I think he’s full of shit, but he’s cute, too, and I feel a bit funny in my tummy and I’m imaginin what it will be like in bed with Tony; it’s all the reason I’m there with him in his room.
He strips down to his underwear, which he says is so I can see there ain’t no trick in what he’s ’bout to do. Then he sits crosslegged on the floor and with his hands restin on his knees and his back straight. He closes his eyes and like that he looks so calm and so goddam pretty I almost lean into him and kiss him. He slows his breathin right down and with the sun on him he looks like a stained-glass saint or an angel.
Then there’s a small and sudden furrow on his brow, a knot, like I know he’s really concentratin. And his legs twitch and his arms twitch also. And he slowly opens his eyes and he smiles slowly, too. He says, see, and he says he’s floating off the ground and it ain’t a miracle, it’s a fact.
I look at him, lookin for the laughter in his face, lookin for the joke, but all I see is the pretty he is, and the earnest. And he says again, see, only there’s a question in his sayin it this time. And I shrug and I say sure, I see, even though I don’t, even though he’s just Tony sittin in his pants and cross legged on the floor.
I take off my dress and I sit cross legged before him and I kiss him and like that I think we are both floatin in the air, and I smile and I tell him he’s so fuckin pretty, and I wonder if that’s anythin like the man on the tv with the apple that’s really an onion – and then Tony kisses me back and I don’t care if it is.
I was with this guy once and he put something in my drink when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t taste a thing, threw the drink back in one. He took me back to my place, which I’d told him where it was, and my keys was in my coat pocket so getting in was no hardship. And he lifted up my dress and pulled down my pants and he fucked me twice, there on the floor of my living-room, like I was a lifeless doll. Then he went through my purse and he opened some of the drawers in my front room and he just helped himself to stuff – I didn’t even know his name. I’ve been careful in bars ever since.
But then there was this weird guy called Matty and he took me back to his place, a one-room apartment up on 6th street, and I thought maybe he’d put something in my drink, too. I swear it was the craziest thing. We’d made out in his single bed, which there wasn’t room to lie side-by-side in, and it made such a racket with him shifting about on top of me, all the springs and the screws creating a quickening music till I thought the bed might fall beneath us. And after he was done, and he hadn’t quite caught his breath, he pulled on his briefs – like something my dad wears – and he sat cross-legged on the carpet in his one room.
He said fucking me was like something spiritual. Like he was laying with an angel. I thought right then he was full of shit and I checked my watch to see if a decent enough time had passed and I could hightail it out of there. He said my name over and over like it was a mantra, like he was praying, and his eyes was closed and his face was all lit up. Like that I suddenly thought he was like the prettiest guy I’d ever been with and it did something to me.
I got out of his bed, trying to do it without the creak and groan of metal. And I knelt before him, naked as the day, and I kissed his blank and pretty face.
I saw a tv programme once. In Russia or someplace. And there was these women wearing black skirts that touched the floor and with patterned shawls over their heads, they was kneeling before this gold framed picture of the Virgin and Child, and they leaned in and kissed the glass. And their faces was all holy and calm. It felt just like that when I was kissing Matty kneeling in front of him on the floor of his room.
Then the strangest thing, and I don’t mind telling you, I get a little wet thinking ‘bout it, and I wonder still if Matty didn’t slip me something in my drink when I wasn’t looking, like that nameless bastard that took my rings and my money and my dressmaking scissors – what the fuck, he took my best dress-making scissors for chrissakes, took them out of a drawer in my front room, as if fucking me wasn’t enough. And I thought Matty had slipped me something different but something the same, too. Cos I swear, as God is my only witness, Matty just started floating in the air. He just rose up off the carpet, like it was a trick or something in a movie.
It was weird and wonderful and I didn’t really believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. And I just laughed, like it was a joke, which it sort of was: Matty, nothing but dad-briefs on, a size too big for him and a little off-white, and his cock hard under the cloth and his legs all tied in a loose knot and his face blank and pretty, and he was actually floating off the ground.
We made out again straight after, there on the floor rather than in the bed. I got carpet burn on my shoulder, and when we was done he said again about what fucking me was like. And pretty can only take you so far, I thought, so I made some excuse and I said I had to go.
Floating off the floor! And I don’t know how he did that.