The Tip
Fiction by Persaea Perras
A Monday Washing, New York City by an American 20th Century artist, Published by Detroit Photographic Company, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
I’m dependent on the tip to live.
I take the tip out of my apron pocket, and nickel by nickel, dime by dime, quarter by quarter, by fives, the tip takes me home.
-
They tell me I’ll get better tips if I smile more.
They tell me in lesser words and more-so unsubtle adjustments of the slacks that they want to tip my tiny chin and inch their tinier tip in.
“Thanks for the tip,” I smile.
“Bigger.” He tips and lifts sharply, hardly to his side.
“ ” I smile.
“Ah, what a roomy mouth.”
I tip-toe away with my tail between my legs.
-
I’m at my tipping point like boiling blood and caramelized skin sticky with sin, and I haven’t done laundry in over a month.
At the Laundromat, the tip starts the suds, and the suds make my blouses clean, and my nylons with the holes in the crotch to accommodate the tip faster, and faster until it spits into me—
—I’m crying and he’s tipping me.
Tipping me over, the counter and over, and over, again he’s
Tipping me.
He sticks out the tip of his tongue and licks my tears because he knows I’m dependent on the tip to live.
Persaea Perras is an undergraduate student in the English and Creative Writing program at the University of Windsor. Her areas of interest include experimental writing, constrained poetry, and surrealism.