Tubthumping
I meet Roman, the former Marine infantryman, in early 2006, a year into civilian life, when I’m so goddamn functional that I think I must be normal now. I’m at a local karaoke bar, where the DJ welcomes me home from the Army, and one of Roman’s friends grabs my arm, pushing us together, because here is a former Marine, and don’t we have so much in common? And we do. He’s studying US history and wants to teach. I want to be an ancient history professor, in love with the world beneath the streets of Baghdad, with the idea of Babylon, infatuated with the soil still embedded beneath my nails.
We sing Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” a throwback for both of us, and I laugh into the mike, dancing in knee-high suede boots, ignoring the hem of my jean skirt that lifts and flashes upper thigh. The Marine sings loudly, off-key but with enthusiasm, and I like it. I stare him straight in the eyes, those beautiful, sea-green hazel eyes, and expect him to look away first. He doesn’t. I don’t intimidate him, which I find bewitching.
Roman is tall and broad across the chest. He’s a man’s man. He wears work boots, drinks beer, and has long, dark chops that make him look like a young Elvis. When he smiles, his cheeks round slightly and he’s both boyish and mischievous. He’s a fun kind of trouble. The kind that makes you laugh, not the kind that burns.
When I leave the bar that night, he shakes my hand, a firm grip, and slips a napkin into my palm. I look down at it, his number written in dark pen, and when I glance up, he’s gone. I smile. Very James Bond.
I hold off a little on calling him, because I like men who are a little mean to me and who ignore my calls. I don’t know what to do with a man who seems to enjoy my company, who sits for hours in a restaurant booth while we talk, as if he’s actually listening to what I’m saying. I’ve always found being pursued so boring. I prefer to hunt rather than be hunted.
Yet there is something different about Roman—there is no desperation here. He’s interested, but not enough to make a fool of himself. His self-assurance makes me think of an iron ship in the middle of a storm. He takes no shit. He rises to meet me, not intimidated by my crassness, not embarrassed by the masculinity that peeks from behind my spiked heels and short skirts. I can’t rattle him. I find this fascinating.
I fall in love with Roman the Marine over baklava and a Turkish coffee in the heart of New Haven, in a Middle Eastern restaurant he specifically picks out because he knows what I like. Somewhere along the way, he falls in love with me, too, and that makes sense to me then. How easy I must have been to love then, when I had such dreams, such independence. I am top of my class, straight A’s, on track to get into some grand graduate school, to be a history professor, financially stable, already owning my own place, my own space sliced out of the world. I have everyone by the balls, and, oh, what promises I make to myself and to the man who loves me.
Who would I have been, had that girl been allowed to grow? She had a little rage, didn’t like crowds or loud, sudden noises, but she was fierce and optimistic. Where would she be now? I wonder. Perhaps the rage would have destroyed her, too. Maybe her recklessness would have taken apart her world, brick by brick. Maybe she would have destroyed everyone around her, burned too hot, turned her world to ash. I wonder if either way I was destined for desecration.
* * *
But I don’t know this yet. I’m still twirling around in delight, feeling, truly feeling, realizing I can love, I do love, that Iraq and the incident did not cost me my humanity. I’m grinning like a mad hatter, running full tilt into love, because that’s pretty much how I do everything anyway. I wait the three dates, the arbitrarily specified amount of time a good woman waits before sex, because damn, he’s the type of boy you take home to your mother. I say things like, “I don’t normally move this quickly,” with a little internal chuckle, although I don’t think he would have cared either way. He certainly doesn’t offer any excuses for moving too quickly, but then again, men never do.
And things go well. We plan for movie dates but miss the times, sitting instead for hours in some Thai or Indian or Ethiopian restaurant, lost in ourselves, in our conversations, fingers interlaced under the table. I like his hands, large palms, long fingers, which so easily wrap around mine. I feel delicate against him, yet I don’t have to be—I’m a hybrid of feminine and masculine, as if I’m wearing two skins that fit equally as well, and he’s okay with that. We hang out with fellow veterans, and this feels a little like home. We spend summer nights on the West Haven beach, my feet buried in cold sand, body warmed by the bonfire flames. Roman wraps one arm around my shoulders, holding me close against the line of his body, his cheeks a little flushed from alcohol, and I glance up, staring at that face, with its strong Eastern European lines, at the way his mouth tilts when he grins, and in that moment of warmth and contentment, I realize I have something to lose.
The realization is earth moving. A sudden anxiety sets in, breathing life into the dead thing in my chest, into the space that once had no feeling at all. I quickly try to bury the fear, the sudden nausea, the way my heart hammers hard for no reason. I brush aside the panic with a few gulps of cold air, not realizing this is the small spot of rot taking root, that it will one day spread, devour parts of my brain, eat holes into my sanity. I instead think it’s nothing. Maybe there are too many people here, I think, scanning the dark beach, noting each body at the party, where they stand, what’s in their hands, where they’re looking. I down the rest of my wine, wait for the alcohol to run a light hand over the anxiety, to lull it back to sleep, and I slowly unlock my muscles.
It’s nothing, I think. But as I look up again, there is a new, dark voice in the back of my skull, one that sneers with such clarity: You know you’re going to fuck this up, right? You dirty little whore.
Belletristic
What is perhaps my last lucid moment comes in the summer of 2010, when I’m spending eight weeks in Ireland, studying ancient Greek at University College Cork. Over the past four years, Roman and I have moved in together, gotten a dog—a rambunctious Alaskan malamute puppy who adores Dorian Gray—sold my apartment, and bought a house in a quaint town outside New Haven. In December 2009 Roman proposed in Rockefeller Center, just beneath the Christmas tree. This is the dream of domesticity, though I haven’t exactly been able to tame my restlessness. And the rot hasn’t begun to spread yet.
I’m here in Ireland for an eight-week language intensive course that’s supposed to prep me for my ancient history studies in the years to come. Two summers ago I studied French at Université de Bourgogne in Dijon, France, and I’ve taken both opportunities to backpack through Europe with Josephine, my fellow wayfarer sister, who understands that wanderlust burns in the gut. We’ve stretched our fingers up toward the Nordic sun, bathed topless in the Aegean Sea, followed the slopes and dips of Paris cobblestone streets, sleeping in old, haunted castles in the Highlands of Scotland, cramming all our limbs into tiny hotel rooms in London, Rome, and Brussels, because neither of us knows how to stay still.
But Ireland is mine.
* * *
Foilhommerum Bay is to my left and Bray Head directly in front. I’ve been traveling the entirety of the island by circling the coasts and, much as I miss Roman and Dorian Gray, there’s something brilliant in this solitude. There’s an old, wind-battered tower near the summit of this cliff and I lean in, hands reaching out to grasp fat clumps of long grass as I climb, calves aching.
The path is empty, there’s no one here but wandering cows and sheep. I reach the tower, a little winded, and step forward, craning my neck, to stare down the sheer cliffs below me.
Thundering waves smash against the rocks; the emerald-green grass juts out over the black stones. There’s the distant, consistent roar of the ocean meeting the land, mist gathering up, mixing with low-hanging clouds, twisting and twirling overhead, before plummeting back down the side of the bluff. I stand transfixed. I sigh, breathe in the wet air, straighten up. Behind me is the highest cliff, the very tip of the is
land. To climb it in this wind could be reckless. So I do.
Heart pounding, I tackle the steep incline, body stooped forward, fingers touching the ground for balance. The wind tears at my hair, my eyes, whipping my light jacket violently around my body. I have to bow my head, cradling it against the inside of my arm as the wind tries to remove me from the hillside. If I’m ripped away from the earth, how long until someone finds my body? I taste the fear, swirl it around in my mouth. “You’re a dumb-ass,” I mutter to myself and push upward.
When I reach the tip, a small, jutted peak of thick green grass, I sit down in the center. The wind quiets. I dig my fingers down into the soil. There’s nothing here but the ocean, the earth, the sky. Off the coast, the heavy mists part, revealing the purple outlines of the Skellig Islands haunting the coast. They burn in precision for a moment before being swallowed whole, as if they had never been there at all.
Exhilarated, I weep. I weep and I laugh, head flung back, the sun warm on my cheeks. There’s such clarity here. I feel a tie with the earth beneath me, the wide expanse of the ocean before me. I’m home. I’ve never belonged anywhere but here, in the middle of nowhere, the road less traveled. My chest opens up, my arms ache to hold and cradle this intangible space. I want the indefinable. You find your gods in your churches and synagogues and mosques—but here is my god, my goddess, my gods, and my goddesses.
But this moment on the mountaintop is perhaps the final time I am fully me, the powerful me who climbs slippery slopes in foreign countries, who drives on the wrong side of the road, radio on full blast. This is the last time she will exist in all her brashness and fearlessness and violence. And I miss her. Oh, let me be her again. Let me have ambition and fire and daring. Let my only want be the unattainable space of skies rarely seen. I want her back, this better version of me.
* * *
Things go wrong in a way I never could have seen coming, one evening at an Irish bar. It’s been a hard week for me; I’ve been in language intensive courses before, but classical Greek beats me bloody. I’m in a perpetual haze of declensions, future and past infinitives, lost somewhere in the multiple forms of third-person imperative (indicative or middle). I’m supposed to be good at languages. This should be easy for me. This is my thing.
“Maybe you’re not naturally good at languages,” says one of my classmates. “Maybe you’ve just worked so hard in the past that you just think you are.” He’s a British kid from Oxford with a bowl cut and a young face that would be much improved by a fist in the middle of it, but only because his intelligence is so easy and unburdened. Here I’m surrounded by students from Brown, Oxford, Yale, casual intellectuals who chat in courtyards in beautiful, crisp accents, with cutting wit. I still have German to learn, and add to that Latin and perfecting my French if I want to be competitive for graduate schools. These are the peers I’m up against. I’m used to being one of the smarter people in the room, but here I’m reminded that I am most certainly not.
So instead, I party. I’m not like the clever little Oxford boy, who barely glances up from his books while we all plan a night out. Maybe there’s a reason he’s top of the class. It would be smart to stay in and study. But I guess I’m not very smart.
We head down to the local bar, where, surrounded by tart hard ciders and thick, bitter Guinness, a man sits down next to me, a Bostonian with a thick accent, and I smile, because that’s awfully close to home. When he places his hand on my knee, I press my knees together and swivel the barstool to the side, casually displacing his palm but continuing the small talk, the flirting. He raises his glass, asking for another beer, pushing his shoulder against mine. I’m lonely. I miss Roman, the smell of him, his warmth, his solid self. But I also miss the feeling of a man’s gaze on me and so I smile again, resting my chin on my hand, and gaze back at the Bostonian. He’s good-looking and I’m flattered.
Then he puts his hand on my leg. I’m wearing a short skirt and maybe I shouldn’t be. He slides it up, gripping the meatier part of my upper thigh, and my hand slams down on top of his to stop its crawl.
“Hey now,” I say, pushing his hand back. “I’m engaged.” I hold up my left hand, flashing the diamond at him.
“Yeah? I notice you didn’t lead with that.” I feel the accusation in my gut and I gulp down the rest of my drink. “Where’s he at?” He swivels in his barstool, scanning the bar.
That’s always the most annoying question—like I need to keep my man chained to my hip to prove his realness and relevancy. “He’s back at home,” I say shortly.
“Well, that’s okay then.” He brightens and leans in suddenly, adding, “It doesn’t count if you’re in different countries.”
I turn my head just in time and he catches the side of my mouth, his wet tongue swiping the edge of my lips and part of my cheek.
“Okay, I’m done.” I rub off the saliva with the back of my hand, hopping off the barstool. I totter uncertainly on my heels for just a moment, then move out of reach, making a beeline for some of my classmates at a table. “That dude just tried to kiss me,” I inform the table.
Like a herd, they all turn to look back at the bar. “Cute,” said one of the girls.
“Not when he’s licking your chin, he’s not.” I rub my mouth again.
Another wrinkles her nose. “Why’d you let him get that close then?”
I feel that gut punch, too, and fall into a seat, fingers scrubbing the side of my lips. They still feel wet. “I don’t know,” I say, a little cowed.
As the conversation shifts to lighter topics, I breathe, sip my cider, sit up straighter, and it all begins to seem funny and certainly not that big of a deal. I mean, what woman hasn’t had to deal with something like this?
The Thing in My Vagina
I wake early the next morning with a creature sitting on my chest. Its weight closes my throat, like a beast has a foot wedged against my windpipe. I sit up, taking half breaths, palm pressed over my heart, trying to dislodge this invisible thing. I can feel my chest caving, my rib cage twisting inward; there’s a sunken hole where my breastplate should be. I try placing my head between my knees but that cuts off what little air I have. I stand, hands interlaced on the top of my head, back arched, head thrown back. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck. I bow forward, burying one hand in my stomach, trying to rip out the panic.
And so begins my dance with two fatal little words: What If.
* * *
What if that guy had some disease? What if he passed it on to me, right there at my upper thigh? I imagine the disease at the tip of his fingers, an arthropod skittering up my thigh, wiggling under my panties, crawling up into the vaginal canal, rooting, rotting, festering on the inside of me, and I think I’m going to be sick. I stare at my open thighs, like I can see the trail there, or a burn mark where his hand had touched, and I can feel the thing inside me.
No one’s going to believe me.
The realization burns, claws its way up into my jaw, into my temples, and I blink against the pain. I’m going to have some sexually transmitted disease from that guy’s hand and no one is going to believe me because that’s not how it happens. That’s not how STDs happen. I turn my head to listen to that thought, to try to grasp on to it. That’s not how it happens but what if this time it did? I am the minute possibility, the one in a million. It’s never happened before until now.
And my mouth. My hands rush there, tugging at the lower lip as if to remove it. His mouth touched my mouth, I remember his saliva there, wet and smelling of old beer. Can you get HIV like that? The thought had never occurred to me before but now I can’t dislodge it, no matter how I try to dig up the roots.
No one’s going to believe me. Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t believe me.
I wait for the rage. I wait to be filled with that hot heat, the anger, the steely confidence to sneer, Fuck that guy. Fuck anyone who doesn’t believe me. Fuck them all. I want it, I need it, except it doesn’t come. I call it by name but there’s nothi
ng there but an empty echo. I didn’t use it when I should have, I didn’t punch him or slap him or sneer at him, and now my rage is punishing me. It’s abandoned me. I’m huddled naked and bare without it.
The anxiety sticks to my heels as I walk to class. I stare down at my notebook, at pages filled with Greek, and am blinded by the high-pitched scream inside my skull—a singular loop that never needs to take a breath of air, the same thoughts going round and round and round.
I told you, sneers a voice. You’re a whore. A dirty little attention-seeking whore. There’s a creature at my ear, its serpentine body wrapped around my torso, flexing its coils until my ribs crack. Now everyone’s going to know, it says, with its long snout brushed up against my ear. Everyone’s going to know what kind of whore you really are.
Roman is going to leave me. Of course he is. He’s never going to believe me. No one’s going to believe you. I see it all playing out, Roman staring at me with shocked, hurt eyes, slamming the door behind him, his friends who will glare at me sideways, at the lying bitch.
I can’t concentrate. I barely can read but let’s be honest, I was never going to pass this course anyway. I stare at blank pages for two weeks, for the final time of the course, barely able to collect nouns and verb endings. Not that it matters. Nothing matters. You’re dying and everyone is going to find out why. None of this matters.
I fly back home in a daze, my entire body electrified with terror. I think that when I get to Roman it’ll be okay, it’ll all melt away, and I can lose this demon.
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