The girl in the tight black dress smashes out of a tenth story window, plummets face flat and on impact with the concrete, dies. Her body lies on the sidewalk, an arm bent and legs broken. Her blood begins to run to the edge of the street. Silence and then the screams; crowds begin to gather and gasp. She’s beautiful, they notice amidst shattered bones and scarlet tattoos. Shouts echo for others. Come see. Come see the pretty, dead girl in the tight black dress.
Can we take a picture, someone asks.
We just absolutely must take a picture.
Please clear the area, a magnified and brisk voice orders of the crowd.
The uniforms arrive and flash their lights, slam their doors and shake their heads. A few lazily kick at the gravel and spit. Yep. She broke through the window, they say. Quite a looker. Yep. Shame. Quite a looker. They roll yellow tape along the sidewalk, providing her a personal square in which to rest. They prop her up, back against the wall, scribble out a ticket and place it in her limp palm.
You’re set.
Don’t worry, they assure the crowd, she’s still really quite pretty.
They walk back to their cruisers and shake their heads some more. Boy, what a sad mess, they think as they slam their doors shut. All that broken glass on the sidewalk.
The crowd oozes forward, dads holding little boys in the air so they can see and moms trying to push their daughters to the front for a peek. Go look, go see, what is to see. Is she really that pretty? Is she really that still? The men chuckle and nudge each other. The boys fondle themselves through their shorts. The girls want to wear makeup like she does, all red and pretty. The women look down at themselves, at each other, and pause. They allow their eyes to slide up and down her body. They hear the men chuckling and boys moaning. The women think, my what a beautiful girl, I wish I was as slender as she. I wish I was as still as she.
A mustached janitor sweeps up the glass. Henry, we’ll say. Henry swings the broom up and down the sidewalk, up and down the girl’s body, brushing blood and glass away, the bristles of the broom scratching along her bare legs. All clean, says Henry as he throws away the yellow police tape. He shuffles off-stage to a cluttered apartment, full of pictures of children that are not his own.
Then the photos start being snapped, flashes and pops that pierce the early morning dusk.
My god she’s beautiful, they say, my god.
They push an arm under the head, and straighten the legs. Snap snap. They spit on her brow and wipe away grime. Click click. They get in on knees for close-ups and up on cranes for those wider angles.
The pictures start to pop up in magazines that men slide off the shelves. Columns and features are dedicated to discussion and admiration. They ponder her name (Jane? Sally? Diana?), and the series of events that lead to her lying in that puddle of glass on a sidewalk. What was she really wearing under that black dress? Where did she buy those strapless shoes? How did she keep her cuts so clean and red?
The women begin wearing tight black dresses (they have money), tight white dresses (they’re trying to make a statement) and loose black dresses (their mommas told them they were fat). Soon the women are cutting on their legs with little pink razors, trying to get their cuts just clean as hers, just as wide as hers. The girls want to too but the women say, no no, not till you’re older. There’s an effusively enthusiastic column in a slick magazine praising the girl in the black dress’ composure. Soon the men tell the women to spend lots of time in bed. They want them lying down when they come home.
There are reporters around the girl all the time, questions being hollered, and even brighter lights and bigger cameras. The cameras pan up and down her body and zoom in on the hips where the dress hugs most tightly.
Look at them legs, they say, look at that ass.
Look. Look.
They put pictures of her on billboards and on buildings. They dedicate news segments to her latest decaying trend and produce television shows with laugh tracks about girls in tight black dresses. And the boys keep fondling themselves in front of the picture-boxes.
The men come home to their reclining wives and fuck them, eyes closed. The women moan and cry, then later launder their tight black/white/loose dresses.
The girls read the magazines, cover to cover, watch the television whenever they can and cut their legs in secret, where their mommas won’t see.
The reporters shove the microphones up to the girl’s lips, poking and prodding, trying to get a response. Hey, hey. Answer, answer. Say, say.
Her lips are turning blue.
What a shade, they say.
She is silent.
How modest, they say.
Men ask their wives to be silent during dinner and sex, and keep it to a whisper all the rest. Some women start sewing their lips shut. It catches on quick. Sales of thread and stainless steel needles skyrocket. The girls want to play too but the women shake their fingers and heads. No, no, not till you’re older, they (are assumed to) say. So the girls practice keeping their mouths shut, oh-so-very tight like a trap. Some get suspended at school for having sewing kits. A few boys try to keep their lips shut tight too. Their fathers slap them upside the head. Be a man.
I want to be like that girl momma, whisper the girls from pursed lips, just like that girl in the tight black dress.
And the women shake their heads silently as they bleed on the bed.