Life of the Party

by Olivia Gatwood

  [by the time i was old enough to no longer be watched but young enough to be left out of conversations, the babysitter was doing heroin. i know because i heard. another thing i heard: there are two ways to be found on the side of the road. dead or almost dead. the babysitter was found the second way.]

  HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

  Liam drowned the summer before in the same lake, and it was the first time I was handed the responsibility of death like a heavy and wailing newborn. Most times, when we name tragedy like this, as a plot point, it is to center the dead in ourselves, illuminate their legacy and demise as an opportunity to teach the listener about who we have become.

  And yes, that is true. But the reason I tell you about Liam’s body, discovered by a fisherman, dear reader, is to help you understand the fabric of the air the first time I returned to the site of his grave. I want to note that it was not intended to be that, a revisiting, a memorial, but that the pollution of death is thick and unforgiving. I want you to understand why this story remains loud in the legend of my life, and somehow, the nature of his going makes it so.

  When Eric, whose first three fingers had been cut off in his father’s butcher shop, or lost in a knife fight, depending on who you ask, puts me on the black, rubber tube, pulls me by his Jet Ski in zigzags across the surface, I decide to let go before being thrown, and, like a lucky stone, or nameless pebble, depending on who you ask, I skip and tumble and come up stripped clean, clothed in bruises, treading in his wake.

  When I go into the water to pee the boys swim behind me and yank me under by my hair, hold me there until I pretend to go limp. Aaron shits and, when it comes up floating, throws it into the bushes.

  JoJo and I fuck in the tent and he doesn’t finish, throws an empty condom into the dirt and the next morning, as we shove newspaper into the firepit, Eric finds the rubber and puts it on his own dick, dances around the growing fire, and somehow, now, everyone has been inside me.

  Before leaving, the boys decide we need liquor for the road, but we have no money so Aaron suggests we pull a runner at the mini-mart and I agree to stay in the car while they go inside, and, in case you haven’t caught on, I am not wearing any clothes, just a striped string bikini, because that’s how they like it, and when JoJo comes sprinting back, he says Eric got locked inside the store and tosses a twelve-pack of High Life into my arms, tells me to run, and so, I do, down an alley, barefoot and damp, and it’s not long before the owner of the shop, a woman in a blue Mustang, comes peeling through the dust and traps me between her headlights and a cement wall and the boys are gone and she tells me to walk to the road, while she trails behind, the hot gravel bullying my feet, and I wait on the shoulder for the police and still the boys have disappeared, a story I am not unfamiliar with here. It seems, somehow, Elephant Butte Lake has made a hobby out of taking my boys and leaving me to carry the weight.

  Here is the best part.

  The woman takes my photo and tells me I am banned from the town, her store, the water, even the highway that slices through, and I say,

  You mean I don’t have to come back?

  And she says,

  Never. Never let me see your face here again.

  MANS/LAUGHTER

  I told a joke to the babysitter’s father & he laughed

  so hard he fell off the swing. He laughed so hard

  he asked me to come inside.

  The first time a boy kissed me, his friends laughed,

  their torsos throbbing to the same beat, while he lodged

  his tongue inside my throat until I choked.

  Laughter requires modification in our breathing patterns.

  EXAMPLE: WHILE I STRUGGLE TO BREATHE, SO DOES THE MAN.

  At the bakery where I work, my boss asks me to visit

  him in his office three times a day, where he details

  the things he would like to do to my teenage body.

  Today, a policeman sits next to him. When my boss says,

  I would fuck you against a wall, the cop laughs

  so hard he has to hold on to his duty belt.

  The boys make it a game to throw me off the Jet Ski

  as close to the rocks as they can get without killing me.

  The boys make it a game to leave me in the park at night

  until I think they’re not coming back.

  The boys make it a game to hold me underwater.

  Laughter does not replace a sentence, it punctuates it.

  Where someone might pause to cough or breathe,

  laughter takes its place.

  EXAMPLE: WHERE I GASP FOR AIR, THE MAN LAUGHS.

  WHERE I BARTER, THE MAN LAUGHS.

  WHERE I SCREAM, THE MAN LAUGHS.

  At the house party, I am asleep in the guest room.

  I am woken up by pain. On the floor, there is a boy

  I do not know, with his hand reaching up towards

  the bed, his fingers shoved inside me, pulsing.

  He is not looking at me.

  He might as well be fumbling for his keys in the dark.

  I leave the room wrapped in a sheet.

  The boys at the party

  love this—a panicked girl, naked under their linens.

  When I tell them, they storm the bedroom,

  pick the boy up by his arms and legs

  like a heavy net of dead mackerel,

  and toss him out onto the porch.

  They are laughing so hard

  they cannot ask me if I am okay. They cannot help me

  find my clothes.

  The boys make it a game.

  My boyfriend laughs

  while another man claims

  the name of the West Mesa Bone Collector.

  He tells us he can lead us to the bodies

  and my boyfriend laughs harder.

  I am screaming behind my boyfriend’s locked door

  When I get out, his roommate sits on the sofa, laughing

  at the television, turned all the way up.

  Years later, the roommate sees me at a bar.

  He does not say hello. Just laughs and says,

  If I had a girl who looked like you,

  I would’ve locked her in my room too.

  Laughter is not about humor,

  it is about acknowledging a shared joy.

  Laughter is about bonding.

  EXAMPLE: WHEN I HEAR MEN LAUGHING,

  I DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM.

  I CRAWL HOME IN THE DARK.

  THE LOVER AS A CULT

  And I am humming

  in an ankle-length cotton dress,

  hanging sheets to dry on a thin wire.

  A group of girls with swollen

  nipples braid each other’s hair

  while you watch, nod and direct

  their fingers over and through,

  over and through,

  even the memory of their muscles

  must be unlearned and retaught

  by your singular truth—how to hold

  a spoon or crack an egg.

  We are sitting on the cusp of Spring.

  We are always sitting on the cusp of Spring.

  I remember what it was like

  to be them—the girls—

  pungent and ripe and apologizing

  for every audible movement

  but also looking out at the infinite tongue

  of a middle-America highway and feeling joy.

  I don’t know what happened.

  Maybe, the only reason we fall in love

  is to see what we look like to someone else.

  I reme
mber when I first came here,

  you told me the laundry was my duty.

  You said you liked how precise I was

  with cloth, praised the way I hung and folded.

  I developed an affinity for bedding.

  And after the night of drying,

  we would unclip the sheets from the line,

  lay them out on the field,

  make love and fall asleep in the breeze,

  all before even going inside.

  We never had any clean sheets.

  It was our favorite joke.

  Soon, you stopped caring and I lost purpose.

  I waxed and waned into a cup of bitter tea.

  I have started to meditate

  on all of the other things

  I can do with a sheet.

  How I can twist it to be rope

  or drape it over my sitting body.

  When you told me that you admired

  the way I scrubbed a toilet, I heard,

  Everything you touch becomes new.

  When you told me to kill the chickens,

  though I had never so much

  as swatted an insect, I practiced

  wringing my own ankles.

  I am afraid that outside of here

  is just another here. I am afraid

  I will spend the rest of my life

  hoping to build myself

  in the vision of someone else.

  What am I, if not yours?

  What do I do with my hands

  when they are just hands?

  THE SUMMER OF 2008 AT ALTURA PARK

  after Hanif Abdurraqib

  The boys took me to the corner of the park

  that was most hidden by trees to tell me the news.

  Are you going to kill me? I joked and they

  each pulled a handful of grass from the ground

  and shoved it into their mouths.

  I waited in silence while they looked at me

  the same way my father did

  when I choked on a piece of bread at dinner.

  What happened was, Aaron said.

  While you were away, Eric continued.

  It wasn’t that big of a deal, JoJo choked out

  like a skipped rock across the river of his throat.

  Your boyfriend left the party with a girl

  and this time, this time he came back

  covered in blood, his shirt was soaked,

  he threw it away, drank whiskey for the rest of the night

  half-naked. When we asked what happened

  he said she got a bloody nose,

  said she got her period, said she was a virgin,

  said she liked the pain, said sometimes you can fuck

  a girl so hard you break something

  no other man could reach.

  I waited for them to finish,

  like I often did then with men, to stop speaking

  of this girl who I imagined

  must have been a blonde.

  And when they sealed the confession,

  I wove my fingers together in my lap

  like a patient wife, knitting her own body,

  pushed the girl back down to the bottom of the river,

  said, What do you mean, “this time”?

  THE LOVER AS TAPEWORM

  everything

  i put inside

  of myself

  somehow

  ends up

  inside

  of you

  instead

  & so

  you

  grow

  & i

  shrink

  & don’t

  notice

  until

  my best

  friend

  draws

  me

  from

  the side

  just by

  running

  a fine-tipped

  pen down

  a sheet of

  white paper.

  you walk

  into a house

  & swallow

  all of the

  furniture.

  i fell

  in love

  with you

  at parties.

  when you

  laughed

  at my jokes,

  the sound

  lived

  inside

  of me

  for weeks.

  i can’t tell

  the

  difference

  between

  my

  thoughts

  & your voice.

  my intestines

  & you.

  how is it

  possible

  that you

  are both

  my joy

  & the taker

  of it?

  i told you

  that when

  i’m sad

  i do not

  eat. you

  said you

  did not

  love me

  & i let

  the forks

  turn to rust.

  you came

  to the door

  with

  sinking

  eyes &

  a dry

  tongue

  & begged

  me to

  put something

  inside

  of myself

  to make

  you fat

  again,

  you said,

  send me

  a picture

  of every

  meal

  & another

  of your

  clean plate.

  i said,

  okay

  okay

  okay

  i will.

  & so

  i boiled

  some

  spinach

  & snapped

  a photo,

  then

  slid it

  into

  the dog’s

  bowl,

  walked

  to your

  apartment

  & left

  the bare

  dish

  at

  your

  feet.

  [once, the babysitter smashed her father’s hand in the hinges of her bedroom door. when he emerged from inside their dark & air-conditioned home, his knuckles swathed in boxing tape, he used his good hand to point to his teenage daughter. i waited until bedtime to ask my parents why. i couldn’t imagine then, in my small body, what it meant to make a rage move. it was then i learned the word hormones, my father dealt the name & repeated it again, teenage hormones. i imagined it must be a spell, the flick of a witch’s wrist & suddenly you wish your own kin bloody, you wish his fingers gone limp.]

  give me a pill

  for old wounds

  for the company

  of parrots I lug

  in my sternum

  something to smother

  the brag of their beaks

  and then, something

  to make a song

  of silence, a pill

  to pluck what leeches

  onto my skin

  before sleep

  a pill to drain

  the weight
of water

  how heavy it is

  to have lived.

  SOUND BITES WHILE WE PONDER DEATH

  I tell my lover, as we walk through a parking garage,

  that if I ever leave

  to park the car alone and don’t return in five minutes,

  come looking for me.

  I read that [runningtrails­parkinggarages­southcarolina­bedroomsvacations] are the [sixthfourth­secondfirstninth] most common place for women to be murdered

  is something I tell her often to statistically justify my need

  for company in benign places.

  But there are cameras, she says, pointing to the white globes

  of God’s eyes

  perched in every crevice, always looking in my direction.

  That won’t stop someone from murdering me, I say, it’ll just tell you who did it.

  She pauses for a moment, as if to consider the footage,

  the aerial view of my unmaking.

  But maybe the fact that someone is watching will stop them.

  Maybe, I say. But I am aways stunned by the fearlessness

  of violent men.

  The garage door screams and swallows itself open.