The Piñata

by Liz Maher

I was involved with this guy and I didn't know it at first but he wasn't technically a guy--he was actually a piñata that was molded and shaped to look like a regular guy. He was made out of papier mache from head to foot and while I did wonder why his single set of clothes was constructed out of tissue paper, I had been going through a dry spell so I wasn't in a position to ask questions. However, while I really liked him there was something dark about him that I couldn't quite figure out. And that didn't help all of my emotional issues and intimacy problems so I was resisting getting into a serious relationship, which he was pushing for.

Well, one day after we had been hanging out for about a month, I walked up to his house and I saw him hanging from a tree in his front yard, and I screamed like an IRA widow-- I walked up and fell to my knees sobbing and wailing. It was only then--tragically, in that moment of desperation--that I realized I was completely crazy about him. I believed he had killed himself, hung himself in his own front yard tree and the idea of being without him filled me with intense sorrow and loss. But then I heard his voice say, "Why don't you take a swing?" I looked up through tear-filled eyes to see him looking down on me. I noticed that he was hanging on a branch from a wire hook lodged in his middle back and also, he was wearing a funny party hat, one of the pointy ones like a dunce cap that always gives me the creeps. I looked to my left and saw a bat leaning against the tree and next to it a blindfold lying on the dried up grass. "What!" I yelled "What is all of this about! Are you crazy? Why are you hanging up there? Why would you fool a person like that! What are you trying to say to me? Why are you wearing that HAT!" It was much too early in the relationship for this kind of discussion and I resented the escalation of my feelings with what ultimately was not a tragic suicide. "Get down from there right now!! You asshole."

"Well if you're so mad at me--take a swing. You might get something good."

"Alright I will!" I said and I picked up the bat and swung it back behind me, winding up, and then he said, "Ahp! Blindfolded!"

"Blindfolded?"

"You have to put on the blindfold. It's the rules."

"But that's crazy! That's crazy. Forget it."

"I promise you. If you play along you won't be disappointed." The tone of his voice was very seductive and in spite of my better judgment, I found my hand reaching for the blindfold on the ground and tying it around my eyes tight tight tight. The world went black and I clutched the heavy wooden bat in my fists.

"Spin around" he said.

"But..."

"Do it!" he said and I did because I had thought he was dead and had hung himself and I fell for him and now I was totally screwed.

I spun around frantically like a three-year-old with rabies until he said "Stop!" I stumbled to the ground with dizziness and disorientation. I drunkenly found my legs and stood up armed with the bat. "Swing!" he said, and I staggered in the direction of his voice. "Swing!" He said again, and I wound up and swung the bat with everything I had in me. "Aaaaaaaahhhh!! THUD!", "Swing!" he said. Back again, "Aaaaah!! THUD!", "Swing!" Back again "Aaaaaaah!! THUD". I heard the sound of something spliting wide open and then the sound of many things spitting, flying out and bouncing in polka dots off of the front yard tree and hitting the ground in rattatats. Gasping for breath my leg muscles weak and covered in sweat I collapsed on the grass.

"Take off the blindfold," I heard him say in a calm voice.

"No." I said breathing heavily.

"You'll like what you see and you'll get what you like."

"No!" I said and groped and crawled my way out of his yard to the sidewalk, still wearing the blindfold. "This is weird! You're weird. I don't like what just happened. I feel uncomfortable." Meanwhile my knees were getting scraped up from crawling on the sidewalk. I crawled and crawled as far as I could and then when I was sure I was far enough away I took off the blindfold and stood up. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Piñata, a limping tattered shell gulumphing toward me on the sidewalk.

"Are you happy now?" I yelled. "You got me to beat the shit out of you. Is that what you wanted? Is that what you wanted all along you sick fuck? To trick me into falling for you and then tear both of us to shreds? Wow. You must be a fucking mastermind to pull that shit off. Really. That kind of manipulation takes smarts. The wizard must have given you some brains in with all that stuffing and candy and prizes or whatever you got in there."

He got a hurt look on his face and stopped half way before reaching my spot on the sidewalk. I stood my ground and maddeningly what was a heated lovers chase just a minute ago turned into a showdown. I was furious with myself for turning my clean getaway into a fuming standstill--now I was waiting! Waiting for the Piñata to come to me! I didn't want to be the one waiting for him when I was supposedly trying to get away!

My attention turned briefly to my knees which were bleeding like smooshed raspberries down my legs and when I looked up, I couldn't see him anywhere. In spite of my pride I ran up the block looking for him, wanting to hit him with the bat again if nothing else. I ran all over the neighborhood to no avail calling his name, missing him already, feeling I would die if I couldn't see him instantly, hating his stupid crumpled newspaper guts, worried about him. Finally I gave up, sweaty and out of breath next to some metal garbage cans out in front of his house. I glanced at the contents in the nearest bin and saw that he had crunched his whole sad deflated self in with the garbage. I stood there incredulous until his eyes rolled up to meet my piercing gaze and then... I saw him enjoying it. I saw him absorb and imbibe the humiliation and degradation he desired the whole damn day. He was feeding off of the embarrassment of being found in the garbage and for the second time that day I was unwittingly a partner to his plot. I didn't know what the premise was, but I knew that I had portrayed the role of his abuser perfectly. We were both silent while I fingered his papery hair and the wind picked up and he couldn't look at me. Tears ran down my cheeks and finally he said "you're getting me wet. I'll be soaked." I told him I was sorry and that I didn't understand and when he said nothing I asked him if he wanted me to leave. "You can stay if that's what you want." "Why don't you come out of the garbage?" I asked feeling really, really terrible about everything in the entire world. "Nope," he declined and that was that. It became clear to me that I had no choice other than to turn around and run away as fast as my bloody raspberry knees would carry me until I reached the reservoir. I went down into the trench and cried loud into the hurried river, my pitiful noises drowned out by the roar of cars passing angrily above on the overpass. I cried because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed because I felt stupid. I felt stupid because after getting swept blindly into his emotional whirling dervish and spun around inside his debilitating masochism--I felt so very stupid because, after all of that--I didn't take the time to collect any of the prizes before running away. And I should have. That would have made all the difference.

Artwork by David Sticher