Daddy always used to say the Deadman came to bring him a cup of sugar and when I was a tiny dumb thing I thought that meant he was gonna make me cookies or blue Kool-Aid or a cake with yellow frosting even though it wasn’t usually my birthday. I liked yellow frosting best because it looked like all the lights in our apartment turned on at one time and nothing can be scary when all the lights are turned on at one time. I liked blue Kool-Aid best because it turned my tongue the color of outside.
So I hid from the Deadman in my treehouse and thought real hard about blue Kool-Aid with ice knocking around in it and a cake all for me with so much frosting it looked like an ice cream cone. My treehouse wasn’t a treehouse, though. It was the big closet in the hallway between the two bedrooms, the special kind of closet that has four legs like a chair and doors that swing out and drawers under the swinging doors. I heard the Deadman call it something French-sounding but he said it like a pirate kiss. Arrrr. Mwah. Daddy called it my treehouse because it’s made of trees nailed together so what’s the difference when you think about it. Whenever the Deadman came with his cup of sugar, I pulled out the drawers like a staircase, climbed in, shut the swinging doors tight behind me, and closed the latch Daddy screwed onto the inside of the pirate kiss closet. It was nice in there. Nothing much in it but me and a purple sweater half-falling off a wire hanger that might’ve been my mom’s, but might not’ve just as easy. It smelled like a mostly chopped down forest and crusty pennies. I tucked up my knees under my chin and held my breath, and turned into a little black cat that didn’t make one single sound.
“You got what I need?” my Daddy said to the Deadman. And the Deadman said back:
“If you got what I need, Mudpuddle, I got the whole world right here in my pocket.”
And then there was a bunch of rustling and coughing and little words that don’t mean anything except filling up the quiet, and in the middle of those funny soft nothing-noises the Deadman would start telling a joke, but a dumb joke, like the kind you read on Laffy Taffy wrappers. Nobody likes those jokes but the Deadman.
“Hey, did you hear the one about the horse and the submarine?”
“Yeah, I heard that one, D,” my Daddy always said, even though I never heard him tell a joke ever in my whole life and I don’t think he really knew the one about the horse and the submarine at all. But after that the Deadman would laugh a laugh that sounded like a swear word even though it didn’t have any words in it and he’d leave and I could breathe again.
Everybody called my Daddy Mudpuddle just like everybody called the Deadman the Deadman and everybody called me Badgirl even though my name is Loula which is pretty nice and feels good to say, like raindrops in your mouth. Where I live, we don’t call anybody by the name they got at the hospital.
“It’s ’cause I’m a real honest-to-Jesus old-timey gentleman, Badgirl,” Daddy told me, and clinked our mugs together. His had a lot of whiskey and mine had a very little whiskey, only enough to make me feel grown up and stop asking for cocoa. “Almost a prince, like that cat who went around sniffing all those girls’ feet back when. So when I’m escorting a lady friend and I see a big nasty mudpuddle in our way, I always take off my coat and lay it down so my girl can walk across without getting her shoes dirty.”
“Daddy, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Who cares if her shoes get dirty when your coat gets ruined? Why can’t she just walk around the puddle? What’s wrong with her?”
Daddy Mudpuddle laughed and laughed even though what I said was way smarter than what he said. I thought people called him Mudpuddle because his clothes usually weren’t too clean, and the cuffs of all his pants were all ripped up and stained like he’d walked through the mud. But I didn’t say so. It’s not a nice thing to say. I liked the story where my Daddy’s almost a prince better, so I let that one stay, like a really good finger painting hung up on the refrigerator. Besides, I’ve never done anything very bad except get born and one time swallow a toy car and have to go to the hospital which Daddy couldn’t afford, but I still get called Badgirl. One time Daddy tucked me into bed and kissed my nose and whispered:
“It’s ’cause you were so good your Mama and I had to call you Badgirl so the angels wouldn’t come and take you away for their own.”
And that’s stupider than putting your coat down on a mudpuddle, so I figure names don’t really have any reasons or stories hiding inside them. I wasn’t good enough to still have a Mama now. I wasn’t good enough not to swallow a toy car and cost all that money. Names just happen to you and then you go on living with them on your shoulder like an ugly old parrot.
I remember the first time the Deadman came and Daddy didn’t have what he needed. But only barely. I wasn’t tiny anymore but I was still little. Daddy’d taken me to the thrift shop and bought me a new dress with blue and yellow butterflies on it and a green bow in the back for my first day of school which was in a week. It was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen. It had green buttons and every butterfly was a little different, just like real life. It was gonna make me pretty for school, and school was gonna make me smart. So I decided to wear it every day until school started so that I could soak up the smart in that dress and then I’d be way ahead of all the other kids on day one. You think funny things when you’re little. You can laugh at me if you want. I’m not ashamed.
Anyway, I was playing with the toy from Happy Meal, which was a princess whose head came off and you could stick it on three different plastic bodies wearing different ballgowns. I took her head off and on and off and on but I got bored with it pretty fast because what can you do with a toy like that? What kind of make-believe can you get going about a girl whose head comes off? All the ones I could think of were scary.
Daddy was all jittery and anxious and biting his fingernails. I don’t think he liked the princess, either. She didn’t even have any shoes to get dirty. She didn’t have any feet. The bottoms of her ballgown-bodies were all flat, smooth plastic like the bottom of a glass. He wasn’t himself. Usually he’d give me plenty of warning. He never wanted the Deadman to see me. He said nobody who loved their baby girl would let the Deadman near her. He’d say:
“Deadman’s here, Badgirl, go up in your treehouse.” And I’d go, even though I didn’t hear anything out on the stoop. I never heard the Deadman coming, never heard a car engine or a bike bell or boots on the sidewalk or anything till he knocked on the door.
But this time he didn’t even seem to remember I was there. The knock happened and I wasn’t safe in my treehouse with the purple sweater and the pirate kisses. I wasn’t turned into a little black cat that never made a sound.
“Daddy!” I whispered, and then he did remember me, and picked me up in his arms and carried me down the hall and put me in his bedroom and shut the door.
But Daddy’s door doesn’t shut all the way. It’s got a bend in the latch. Daddy’s room had a lot of cigarettes put out on things other than ash trays and a TV and a painting of frogs on the wall. I didn’t like the smell but I did like being in there because normally I wasn’t allowed. But even though that part was exciting, I started shaking all over. Deadman’s here. I wasn’t safe. Safe meant my treehouse. Safe meant the drawers turned into a staircase and the smell like a chopped up forest. I watched Daddy go back down the hall. I could make it. Little black cats are fast, too. I slipped out the bedroom door and scrambled up into the pirate kiss closet. I didn’t even pull out the drawers into a staircase, I got up in one jump. I locked the lock and held my breath and turned into a little black cat that doesn’t ever make a sound. I pulled my butterfly dress over my knees and felt the smart ooze out of the fabric and into me. The smart felt big and good, like having your own TV in your bedroom.