
LIPSTICK BOTTOMS (CHICAGO, IL – JULY 2008) by Taylor Byas
It’s past 2 am on the southside of Chicago when my aunt Danielle, my father’s older sister, brings me and her daughter Ginai along for a late-night alcohol run. With each step, every part of my aunt ripples. Her hair is half-pressed half-shrinking from the dry summer heat. On her right thigh, clear packing tape covers a hole where she says a spider bite ate away at the flesh. I am too young to know that “spider bite” is a euphemism for an infected track mark. “Damn girl, you wore those shorts just for me didn’t you?” a white man…