Machine

by Susan Steinberg

  Not that our father is even around. I mean now that he’s gone. But the cop doesn’t know our lives.

  • • •

  The girl once dared me to steal from the market. The thing I stole had to be longer than my arm.

  It was a dumb dare. There weren’t many things that long in the market.

  There was beef jerky nearly as long as my arm. And there were watermelons nearly that long.

  I walked the aisles and found a statue of something holy. It was a statue of a person. I can’t even tell you who it was. And I didn’t know if it was for sale. But I walked right out, carrying the statue like it was mine.

  I, too, have looked in our mother’s drawer. I’ve held the bottle of pills. I’ve shaken it. I’ve opened it and looked inside.

  I’ve thought about taking the pills. And I’ll take the pills in the near future. Just to see if they do the same things to me. Make my brain fire all wild. Make me some broken-down machine.

  Most nights, I walk my brother back to the house. He often wants to stop somewhere to eat. The only place open, besides the market, is on the boardwalk.

  Then it’s terrible having to sit with my brother. Terrible how fast he eats.

  How I have to say, Slow down.

  I have to say, It’s not going to run off your plate.

  In our father’s study, I sit in his leather chair. I put my feet up on the desk. I put my feet up on the other leather chair.

  In my head, I tell our father’s woman, Sit here.

  In my head, I tell her, Do this.

  I can’t tell you what this is about.

  It’s something to do with power. I mean my lack of power.

  There are ways I want to hurt her.

  There are many ways, I now can admit.

  I won’t hurt you, I tell her, in my head.

  Our mother was kicking our father’s legs. It was pathetic how weak our mother was. How persistent our father was.

  He said, Kids, go to your rooms.

  But we were too old to send to our rooms. So we stood right there and waited for our mother to win.

  My brother’s friends will think my brother is sleeping in the car. But my brother’s arms won’t be how sleeping people often hold their arms.

  They’ll then have a decision to make. To take this seriously or not.

  They’ll decide to take this seriously.

  They’ll try to open the doors. But the doors will be locked. The windows will be up. So they’ll bang on the windows. They’ll push on the body of the car.

  When our father brought me into his study, it meant I was in trouble.

  Like when I stole the statue from the market. The cashier dragged me back inside. He called our father and stared me down. Our father was enraged. Not enraged at me, but at the cashier for calling when our father was working.

  Then, later, at home, it was me he was enraged with. Then he yelled at me for stealing. He said stealing was for the poor. And did I want people thinking I was poor.

  I walked in on them, and the woman saw me walk in.

  I’ve told this story a thousand times. I’ve told it a million fucking times.

  That I saw them and she saw me. That she didn’t let go of our father. That she looked at me while touching him like what are you going to do.

  Like he’s not your father now.

  She said something into our father’s ear.

  There was a lot happening in a little time.

  And I knew one of us in that room was to blame. Not just for that moment, but for all the moments that happened before and all that would happen after.

  My brother punches the windshield, and the woman drops her bag.

  I can see what sad groceries she’s bought. I can see she’s a desperate woman, and she’s moving, now, toward her car.

  This isn’t a good idea. The cop and I know what my brother is capable of. Bad things have happened many times. So the cop tells the woman to stay where she is. He’ll take care of this, he says.

  But the woman says she’s done. She’s fed up, she says, with this dumb game. She wants to go home, she says.

  And I wonder for a second about her home, what’s even there.

  Our mother never pulled away from our father. It was my brother who disconnected them. He yanked them apart with a force that surprised us all.

  Then he left the house and didn’t come back for the night.

  Our mother went to a guest room and slammed the door, then opened the door, then slammed it.

  Our father just stood there, staring at a wall. I felt sorry for him in that moment, and then I didn’t. And I didn’t for a very long time.

  But I will in the future, when he loses it all. I mean the near future. And I mean it all.

  There are nights when my brother’s brain is firing correctly. On these nights, he’s more like he used to be.

  On these nights, my brother says the other nights, the rougher nights, will make for a good story. Like someday they’ll be funny to us.

  Like the night he thought he was stuck on a lawn.

  Like the night he let the dog fall from the window.

  But it wasn’t a good story, as it turned out, my brother just being a lazy fucker on a lawn.

  And it wasn’t a good story, the dog with three legs bandaged up.

  Then all the nights him acting up in strangers’ cars.

  Then the car he drove away in. The car stuck in the sand. My brother inside, his head to the wheel.

  Then one of his friends smashing a window. One of them running to the boathouse. One of them calling for help.

  The cop standing by the car that day won’t say, Good story.

  But my brother won’t be dead that day. He’ll just be passed out like a dumb bitch. Just passed out cold at the wheel.

  One night, we were eating dinner, and our mother left the room.

  Then she came back holding a shirt and said, What’s this.

  Our father, not looking up, said, What’s what.

  And our mother said, This, and held the shirt high, and our father looked up and said, What.

  Our mother said, This, and our father sighed and looked at me and said, It looks like a shirt, and ate.

  Our mother stretched out the shirt, which was a woman’s shirt, and said, Whose shirt is this, and our father said, Is it yours.

  Our mother said, No it’s not mine, and our father said to me, Is it yours, and I said, No.

  So our father said to my brother, Is it yours, and my brother looked at his plate, and our father laughed and said, I guess we have a mystery on our hands.

  And our mother said, I guess we have a mystery on your hands, and she threw the shirt at our father, and it made a painful-sounding smack, and it fell into his food, and our father looked at us, and the phone was ringing, and our mother, again, left the room.

  Now my brother punches the windshield harder. He punches with the force that’s needed to crack it. We know the force that’s needed.

  The cop is reaching for his radio. There’s static, then the cop talking numbers into his shirt.

  The woman is walking through the lot. She’s walking straight to her car. Her face looks fierce, and this will be something. This will be a whole big show.

  Our father had brought me into his study. He told me to sit. Neither of us talked at first.

  I could hear sounds from another room. Music or dishes. It doesn’t matter.

  What you saw, he said.

  What you think you saw, he said.

  And I remembered a dream I had the night before. In the dream, I was standing in a field. And I was able to see the back of my head, while seeing through the front of my head.

  And remembering the dream wasn’t unlike having the dream.

  I mean I was part there, part not.

  Our father looked at me too hard. The study smelled like tobacco. And it wasn’t even good for you. I’m not sure why he ever let me eat it.

  What you think you saw, he said.

&nb
sp; He said, You didn’t see.

  Then he held out his hand to shake mine.

  We were making some kind of deal.

  You can’t say a word, he said.

  You need to swear, he said.

  On your mother’s life, he said.

  As if he even believed in the power of swearing.

  I was at the point where I almost believed.

  I mean I wanted so much to believe.

  So I swore on our mother’s life.

  So I swore on our father’s life.

  Because fuck them both for putting me there.

  So I was going to hell.

  I told our mother after she found the shirt.

  How I pushed the woman into the sink.

  How I held her there like what are you going to do.

  I mean I thought our mother would want to know.

  I mean everyone wanted to know.

  But the way our mother was looking at me.

  Like I’d become some brutal guy.

  Like I was now that fucking guy.

  By the time I get to the car that night, my brother will be gone. One of his friends will have walked him home.

  It’ll just be the cop standing by the car. And it won’t be night but light already. The following day already.

  We’ll both look at the water.

  I’ll be tempted to talk about it.

  Say something about how still it is.

  Or something about how blue it is.

  But the cop will say, He’s going to kill himself.

  He’ll say, Is that what you want.

  I’ll say, Is that what you want.

  He’ll say, Is that what you want.

  The statue was big, and it was heavy, and it must have been important.

  I meant to take it all the way to the boathouse. I meant to hold it high above my head. I would hold it like the holy thing I knew it was standing in for.

  And the girl would just die laughing. Everyone would just die. Because what a fucked-up thing, of all the things, to steal.

  But they would never know the feeling I had standing outside the market. The feeling of power that came from stealing.

  Or it came from the thing I stole.

  Or it came from feeling like part of a club.

  It came from our father, and I mean Our father, who.

  For a second it felt holy.

  And in the next second, I was stopped.

  And had I not been caught, it might have been something that changed my life for good.

  Now my brother is punching the windshield with both fists.

  In another context, this could be funny, his arms just firing, wild.

  In that other context, this could be one of those stories we tell for years.

  But there’s nothing funny, in this moment, about my brother.

  And there’s nothing funny about the cop.

  There’s nothing funny at all about this night like any fucking night.

  No, there’s something funny about the woman.

  It’s the way she’s running to her car.

  The way her shoes land hard on the ground.

  And the insects crashing into her face.

  And her poor windshield about to crack.

  And the cop saying, Stop, like she’s going to stop.

  The cop saying, I said stop, and what.

  I mean what’s the cop even going to do.

  Do you think he’s going to chase her down.

  Do you think he’s going to shoot her.

  Stars

  if I call this story the one true one;

  say there’s something I have to say;

  say the many ways of saying it;

  say the many ways of not;

  like starting somewhere in the faraway past;

  because everything starts at the same dumb point;

  the void, the big bang, the expansion into;

  the world we know or say we know;

  I’ll say summer, then, at the shore;

  say our house was the biggest house there;

  say my father was gone, and my mother was such a bitch;

  say we went to the jetty, now, to get fucked up;

  because the jetty was higher than the dock;

  the water was rougher below;

  and the local guys who followed us there;

  the guy I liked, and the game the girl and I played;

  it should never have been a game;

  it was all about scaring ourselves;

  we were addicted to being scared;

  we wanted so much that feeling of something coming to get us;

  we wanted that something to whisper into our mouths, You’re fucking done;

  this had to do with our privilege;

  with our private schools in the city;

  and being groomed to be something big;

  I was being groomed to take over;

  and I mean the world, and I mean it all;

  but my mother decided to punish me;

  because I’d fucked up is the reason she gave;

  so she pulled me out of private school;

  To build your character, she said;

  Your character, she said, is weak;

  because I’d gotten too good at our game;

  it had become such a competition;

  it had become a sort of fixation;

  it was something to do with the girl;

  I was done with her;

  so I wanted to be the best at it, and I was;

  I practiced in my bedroom, standing on the edge of my bed;

  I pretended the floor was the water;

  I pretended the things inside it;

  such murderous things, and you sometimes had to take that risk;

  even balanced on one leg;

  even on your weak leg;

  even when your mother walked into the room, said, What in the hell;

  and then, at night, on the actual jetty, the real water crazy below;

  we lured so many guys there on that one night;

  we said we had beer, we would play our game;

  the guys could watch us standing on the edge;

  like stuck in some kind of system;

  like binary stars, some tragic orbit;

  waiting for a force to reroute us;

  the very definition of game;

  not brutal, though, like the games the guys played;

  like the one they called buried in the sand;

  the one they called dart in your face;

  they watched us until they got bored;

  and you never got used to their boredom;

  you tried anything to lure them back;

  you did any dumb thing to make them watch;

  take another day that summer;

  a basketball hoop on the other side;

  the local guys splitting into teams;

  us girls on the grass like where are you going;

  so we decided we would play too;

  neither of us had basketball skills;

  we didn’t care about being good out there;

  we just cared about looking good;

  but the game just didn’t end well;

  I mean it didn’t end well for me;

  because I broke two fingers in the game;

  because the girl blocked me as I was shooting;

  and being stopped midshot: this is what I mean by force;

  and falling to the ground: this is what I mean by rerouting;

  and when the guy I liked ran over;

  the only one who was moving;

  not even the girl was moving;

  and the girl had ruined the whole fucking game;

  no, I ruined the game by competing;

  I’d been known to compete, to ruin it all;

  now this is my mother’s voice;

  this is me getting scolded;

  this is another day, the morning after the night on the jetty, everyone still crazy;

  but it wasn’t my fault, I said;
r />   it was the girl’s own fault, I said;

  I was already done with the game;

  and that’s true in a way;

  I mean the beer was gone, and the guys were bored;

  so I was done with the game, but I deep down also wanted to win;

  this is the definition of privilege;

  to think you can have it both ways;

  and to think you can;

  well, you fucking can’t;

  when I screamed, it was just to speed up the game;

  it was just to get attention;

  I screamed, I’m taking off my shirt;

  I wasn’t taking off my shirt;

  but now the guys were watching again;

  and the girl was laughing at what I said;

  I guess I knew she would laugh;

  but I didn’t think she would fall;

  because no one ever, before this night, did;

  you just reeled for a second, then lowered your leg, then lost;

  I still don’t feel right about this;

  it wasn’t the way to win a game;

  a girl falling through the dark;

  the sudden cold and wet;

  the pull of something stronger than you can fight;

  then the summer ending sadly;

  my mother dragging me back to the city;

  the public school like a prison;

  the walls painted the sickest colors;

  the lockers too, and those awful clocks;

  and the metal detectors at the doors;

  the security guards at the doors;

  the cameras pointed at every kid in every room;

  it was waking each morning to the darkest thoughts;

  thoughts like this place will wreck you;

  like the color of the walls will wreck you;

  like these kids will fucking kill you;

  my friends were at the private school;

  my real friends with their ironed shirts and tightly pulled back hair;

  they would wait for me, my mother said;

  they would not, I said;

  they would forget, I said and, Fuck you, I said;

  mornings, my mother walked me to school;

  I didn’t need her walking me;

  but I was not to be trusted, she said;

  at the front gate, she always tried to fix the way I looked;