I first hear of the new Pablo’s Girl from someone who’s seen her firsthand. They don’t give as much detail as I would like – they don’t mention her dimples, her top, her perfume. They don’t mention her eyes either – but for that, there is no need. I know those eyes already.
I first heard Pablo on a night of a full moon when I didn’t have all my front teeth yet. The sounds he made, which I had never heard before, got trapped in my bedroom and gave me a sour little taste of the insomnia to come. My mother, woken up to share my pain, didn’t care there was a child crying in the building. “Just another family on the estate,” she said.
Our first meeting, me and the yet-another-boy-on-the-estate, occurred soon after at a dark staircase. My eyes were bloodshot and his were huge. In a few years, they would turn dashing. The little alien would be growing beautiful. The rest of us would be growing.
“I can show you how to get better shoes,” I said.
“Why would I want better shoes?”
“So you can exchange them for cigarettes.”
“Why would I want cigarettes?”
Older boys exchanged those for girls, but I didn’t know that yet. Pablo knew even less. He wasn’t quite what Dad called a cretin, but at times it made little difference. I still see him soiling his pants in front of a chalkboard, over a problem anyone else would solve in their sleep. I wish I could put that image in a box and gift him for Christmas.
I spot them at a bus stop, her tangly mess of a head on his shoulder, as he slaughters his crew on his mobile. Her eyes are even more jaunty than his. They’ll sure look great against some purple.
It was the local pedophile that had Pablo bitten by a rabid dog. He’d been attempting to meet with me alone for weeks and he didn’t appreciate Pablo’s constant closeness. I didn’t either and so I told the police. Regardless, I was escorted to Pablo’s door, at least to show sympathy, the adults said. Pablo’s was getting his first rabies shot and didn’t care to pull his pants back up. He told me he loved me. Then he laid hands on me, the only way he knew how. It’s a small miracle that I didn’t have my adult front teeth yet. I could never afford to fix them after all the things he did.
There at the bus stop, I can’t quite say if it’s go time yet. He’s got better at hiding the signs, or the girls did, rather. It was easy with the first one. She had those pale green eyes and no name, except for Pablo’s Girl. When I saw her at a party, wearing shades inside, claiming to be high though she was a true Church goer, I realised how big the world was. I saw all the possibilities out there – not for me, but for Pablo’s Girl. I found my purpose.
She wasn’t happy about it at first, and she remained unhappy about it until the end. She nearly cut off a couple of my fingers with the car window for trying to tell her she didn’t have to put up with the pain. The books about domestic abuse I left on the porch of her house didn’t work either. She left eventually because of a “crazy ex.” The breakup was public and I waited for Pablo to come to me and finished what he once started. He didn’t. He claimed he didn’t know whom she meant.
I follow them to his new place and get rained on as they’re having sex. She’s in and out in not time; still, it means nothing. When he put his fists on me, and he put them everywhere, it took mere minutes. I could have still called the police through the window.
I don’t follow her when she leaves. She’ll be alone in her house today, I know, because as time went by, he got smarter and stopped choosing only daughters of attentive parents. I don’t want to give in to the agitation, though. There’s no need for a repeat of what happened to the previous Pablo’s Girl.
The second one actually listened. She let me into the passenger seat, she let me see all of her bruises, she promised to photograph them. She didn’t. She left three times with me, never for longer than a week. She left twice on her own. In the end it took five broken fingers and her estranged guardian forcefully moving her away.
Before I know it, I’m in his house – with no recollection of how, but these things happen. I’m searching all around for any sign of a healthy attachment while he’s on the phone with his bud. “She’s so much like my first girl, it’s creepy, man. The crazy one. The one with a trust fund.”
That one. The cat-eye-shades-wearing bitch. Not me.
There’s a photo on his nightstand, him with a woman who’s not the current one. Disrespectful. Honestly.
“Yeah, let’s hope so. Not that kind of crazy anyway. But you know how it was with all the other ones. You’d think I’m cursed.”
I scratch the woman’s face off.
As I leave, there’s an old Labrador resting by the back door. It licks my hand. It’s unclear how come it doesn’t remember where it’s supposed to shit while it remembers me. It loves me. The knowledge of this love comes with a heavier and heavier sense of responsibility as its health deteriorates. Maybe just not yet. Maybe let it make it through one more Girl.
The third Pablo’s Girl left on her own. I was there when she did, with a big bag and no sunglasses. I hugged her in the rain. It got a bit complicated because she got scared of the knife.
It will be tonight, after all. I promised Mother I wouldn’t follow the flickering lights again, but they never failed me, and she has. The Labrador cries after me, so I go back for it, and then a man in a red car offers us a lift. He follows us. There just might be someone watching him, because eventually, he disappears. I don’t notice how but these things happen.
The dog gets worse as we walk, and I cry. I promise to do what’s necessary, though I wasn’t so sure before, if only the dog is given more time. The dog gets better. I stop at somebody’s kitchen to grab myself a knife.
The fourth Pablo’s Girl provided luxury cleaning during the day and attended ice skating classes in the evenings. She paid for them with the items she stole from her clients’ houses. She had her own name and she whispered to the dog in Arabic when Pablo wasn’t watching. The dog didn’t like it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
I went to the ice rink and I got so many cuts and bruises you’d have thought I was a Pablo’s Girl myself. I asked her why she did it. I needed to know if she enjoyed the pain. “Of course not,” she said. “But I’ve wanted to do this since I was a child. Where I was raised, only rich girls skate. So, I thought, let me take their money and try for myself.”
I asked her if she thought I could do it too. She said yes. She told me which houses had the dumbest owners and how not to attract attention. Cute.
The next time we skated together, she fell down a lot. Her ankle wasn’t quite right, and her eyes were very green against the purple. I told her to stop, but she didn’t listen. I told her to leave him and she told me to fuck off.
I brought the knife with me that night. He was drunk unconscious, as he always is after a good beating, but she screamed, she cried, she threw herself on him. She never skated again. She left the hospital nearly as good as they get though. She left him, too.
An angry woman cracks her door and peeks outside. I’m in a smelly staircase, singing silly songs, cheering the dog on as it takes one step at a time. Slowly. The woman sees the dog and isn’t angry anymore. The dog does that to people. That’s why I stick with it.
It’s only when the water reaches the Girl’s nose, after the dog and I join her in the bath, that she notices us. I took off my shoes, but the dog’s paws are filthy, and no amount of foam can cover up all that dirt. The knife is somewhere in here too. I’ll find it when the time comes.
Her eyes don’t seem so green anymore. It’s sad, but these things happen.
[Image Credit : Photo by Klara Kulikova on Unsplash ]
by 
A.C.
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- Pablo’s Girls - February 7, 2022
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