“When I grow up I’m going to kill you,” she screamed, without making a sound, to the man who told her she “should’ keep her mouth shut. He was prying open her girl-thighs like hard to open clamshells.
“You should be quiet so you won’t wake people up, so you won’t upset people. What, are you a selfish girl to want to wake up your poor sick mother, who just got home from a hospital hysterectomy? You should be more considerate of your mother’s feelings than to make her worry.”
“Should” and blood go together. Blood dripping down the back of a teen-ager’s calf. “Should” and fire go together. Smoldering, charcoal fire that lasts a thousand years, fueled by daily squirts of incendiary liquids.
“Should” and flounders, go together, flounders flattened on the sandy ocean bed, so squashed that both eyes float up on one side of their head. “Should” and crabs, go together, crabs pinching for no other reason than that’s what they do to feel living.
So, if you want to go together with her…don’t tell her what she “should” do.