We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  “Rhombus,” yelled Marge. “You’re forming a rhombus off the centerback.” She pointed to where Becca should have been in the formation. Finally the problem came into sharp relief.

  “What’s a rhombus?” Becca asked. Time-space and common sense weren’t Becca’s strong suit. Or maybe she was being strategic. Becca could do that. She knew when to feign ditziness and when to pull it together. Sometimes ignorance had positive benefits. Like today. Marge just shook her head at the question. She let us go early for lunch. Inwardly Becca smiled. She had cramps, plus her back was killing her because the two sports bras she had on still weren’t enough. Now she was free to go lie down in the bee-free indoors. Rhombus schombus.

  We all slogged back to the field house and our locker room. Most of the lowerclassmen didn’t have cars, so they’d spend the two-hour siesta spread out in the air-conditioning. The few who had older boyfriends with wheels headed for the parking lot to wait for rides.

  Being on the rag, Becca didn’t feel like going anywhere. She decided to stay behind, along with Boy Cory and Heather Houston, Boy Cory because he didn’t like the Rocco’s Pizza crowd, and Heather because she had summer reading to finish up and was working on getting through East of Eden—Aron and Cal still had yet to be born. On the way out of the locker room, Little Smitty drew a rhombus on Becca’s locker in black Sharpie. “Study up,” she said, smiling sweetly while rapping on the metal door with her knuckles.

  Julie Kaling’s mom pulled into the parking lot just as the rest of us were piling into three cars with the intention of heading downtown. Every day Mrs. Kaling picked Julie up for lunch and drove her back for the afternoon session at two. Considering the Kalings lived way over by Route 114, it was a chore, but one Mrs. Kaling happily performed. Letting Julie play field hockey—a sport involving other girls with sticks!—was already a compromise. Freshman year, Julie’s dad, who in a previous life had been known as Father Andrew Kaling, had prayed over it for a full month before letting his daughter sign up.

  Mrs. Kaling nodded curtly at us before driving Julie away. In a previous life, Mrs. Kaling had been known as Sister Mary Albert. Sometimes when Julie wasn’t around, we liked to make up stories about how her parents had met. Our tales usually involved a confessional and a bottle of Gordon’s gin. It was obvious we were going to hell. We wondered if Mrs. Kaling ever saw her daughter naked and, if so, how Julie would explain why she was wearing what appeared to be a blue rag around her arm, but hey, that was her problem. It was lunchtime and we were ravenous.

  Abby and AJ jumped into Sue’s Panic Mobile, Little Smitty and Jen in Little Smitty’s old blue Ford truck with the gear shift on the steering column. Girl Cory was driving her white Fiero with the license plate APPLE 16. Usually she drove alone or with Abby, but today she unlocked the passenger-side door for Mel Boucher. Since there was no backseat, nobody asked to ride with them.

  Downtown Danvers consisted of just a few streets. There was a fire station on one end of Maple, and the Danvers Savings Bank on the other end by Elm. To get on Maple from either Locust or Hobart, you had to enter a crazy intersection without a traffic light. The easiest way to get through was to close your eyes so that the other drivers could see you weren’t looking and just gun it. Sue Yoon was a pro at this. It wasn’t necessarily a deliberate strategy on her part so much as her natural way of driving. Once all three cars were through the intersection, we watched as Sue’s Panic Mobile sailed on down Maple, past Rocco’s, and kept going. Most likely the Panic Mobile was headed to the food court at the mall. True, there was more choice there, places like McDonald’s and Salad And…(yes, the ellipsis was part of the name!) and Orange Julius, but everyone knew the spot to see and be seen was Rocco’s, and Jen Fiorenza had places to go and people to put down.

  When the rest of us pulled up out front, we could see through the window that Log Winters was already there with his football crew. The only team less winning than us was them, and this year, Log and Brian Robinson were at the helm. Log was everything a football captain should be. Blond. Strapping. Handsome but mostly ignorant of this fact. Kind but maybe a little dumb. His real name was Logan, but by now we’d all forgotten that as we’d been calling him Log since his days at Highland Elementary. Only someone with such blue eyes and an essentially kind heart would answer to a teen-boy synonym for a turd.

  Summer was almost over. The social aspect of Danvers High would kick into high gear once the school year started back up. Like a telenovela, our interpersonal dramas had gone on hiatus. There were cliff-hangers that had yet to be fully worked out. Was Log still dating Karen Burroughs, head cheerleader? Had Karen Burroughs moved on to a college boy, specifically that 6'7" starting pitcher over at Salem State who was being scouted for MLB farm teams? Would this be the year Jen Fiorenza finally bagged and tagged Log herself? And would Log and the rest of the male student body ever stop dreaming about Girl Cory and give those of us who were mere mortals a flying chance? These were the days of our lives as the world turned like sands through the hourglass.

  After parking, Girl Cory told Mel Boucher she’d meet us inside. Mel watched as cars eagerly floated to a stop in the middle of the street to let Girl Cory cross to the Danvers Savings Bank. We figured she was probably headed there to start buttering up her stepfather. Maybe there’d already be a gift waiting for her by the time she got home. Her mom and Larry had been married for less than a year. Secretly we didn’t know whether we should want a stepfather like Larry. On one side of the ledger, we envied the Daddy Warbucks part of him, the endless cornucopia of stuff Girl Cory was always sporting—a portable CD player, a Nikon that somehow didn’t use film, fingerless leather driving gloves. On the other side of the ledger, sometimes too much of a good thing is too much. Consequently, the verdict was still out on Mr. Gillis.

  Once inside Rocco’s, Little Smitty claimed a booth. Jen placed her order and then ignored the booth Little Smitty had already staked out. Instead, she squeezed in next to Log. “What’s up, losers?” she said. Her Claw sat haughtily atop her head as if wearing a monocle. “I didn’t see any of you losers running stairs.”

  “Stairs are for girls to keep their butts perky,” said Brian Robinson, Log’s number two.

  “Not even,” Mel called out from the counter. Brian blushed. Mel’s star status at Camp Wildcat was still in effect. Ever since returning from camp, we’d noticed that fewer and fewer boys could look her in the eye. It was as if she were walking the earth with an upturned chair in one hand and a ten-foot whip in the other. Back, Simba, back!

  “Our butts are going to States this year,” said Jen. “Where are your butts going?” Just then Girl Cory walked in. For a moment the air in Rocco’s filled with the scent of aquamarine waters and palm trees, the harmonies of steel drums, then just as quickly it was back to cheese pizza and the crackling of the deep fryer.

  “ ’Sup?” Log called out. Most guys at Danvers High didn’t talk to Girl Cory. From what we could glean of teen-boy-dom it seemed most teen boys only have a finite amount of confidence, and they couldn’t afford to go blowing it willy-nilly on a hopeless case like Girl Cory. It was plain to see she was out of everyone’s league. Most people accepted this. It was pure science, like the apple falling from the tree. Girls like Girl Cory didn’t date regular human boys. Historically, since the invention of written records in the girls’ third-floor bathroom concerning who was banging whom, Girl Cory had never dated anyone at Danvers High. Mostly she left in her wake a trail of names from the local private-school universe, places like the Prep, Pingree, even some faraway boy at Deerfield.

  Log’s “ ’Sup?” was still hanging in the air. Only he among his brethren had confidence to burn. Little did he know but “ ’Sup?” was an excellent question, one we’d been secretly wondering all our lives. Yeah, Girl Cory, what’s up? As she stood at the counter, Girl Cory nodded at Log but didn’t say a word or even take off her Ray-Bans.

 
“And what does your soon-to-be captain have to say about you hosers going to States?” whispered Brian Robinson in a small voice, only looking at Girl Cory indirectly via a shiny plaque mounted on the wall, as if she were a Medusa with the power to transform flesh to stone. “Which is it?” he said. “You guys going to States, or 2-8 again?”

  “For your information, we haven’t voted for captain yet,” said Jen. Her Claw gave him the stink eye. Rocco’s adult son Vinny slammed her order down on the counter. Ceremoniously, she rose to retrieve her Diet Coke and two slices of Hawaiian. She noticed Log Winters was still staring at Girl Cory. “Take a picture, my friend,” she said, bending over and whispering in Log’s ear. “It’ll last longer.” Then she raised her voice so that all of Rocco’s could partake in the annunciation. “Besides, Cory already has a boyfriend.”

  “Who’s that?” said Log.

  “Nobody you’d know,” Jen projected. “He sent her flowers today. Isn’t that right, Cory?”

  Girl Cory turned and flashed Jen a look that simultaneously said both shut up and keep talking. She was an enigma like that. Honestly, none of us really knew her. Even now that we were all part of the sisterhood of the blue sweat sock, it was like she had constructed a wall to keep us out, a sunroom off the kitchen where she could sit and drink her Earl Grey in peace while the rest of us crowded around a plate of stale bagels in the breakfast nook.

  Girl Cory pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and went over to where Little Smitty was sitting with Mel. What’s up, Girl Cory? All season long, the rest of us standing around wondering, Girl Cory. What. Is. Up? And then one day we’d take a big juicy bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and to our everlasting sorrow, we’d find out.

  * * *

  —

  “Philip” made his first appearance during the ’88 season shortly after Girl Cory passed her driver’s test. It was late October, one of those autumn days when the afternoon sky prematurely takes on a hazy shade of winter. We were just off the school bus after returning from a massacre in Gloucester, 4-0. Truthfully, the score didn’t accurately reflect the gutting we’d endured at the hands of the Gloucester Fishermen. The two senior co-captains, Gina Packer and Mary Ellen Sommers, had gotten into a fight during the coin toss over whether to pick heads or tails. At one point, Gina reached over and ran her finger through the blue face paint where Mary Ellen had spackled the letters DHS on her cheek. We winced. It was like watching someone ruin a beautifully frosted cake. When we finally arrived back at Danvers High, Julie Kaling stopped reciting that part of the Nicene Creed about God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, her crucifix glinting in the dark of the bus. To be honest, after the kind of outing it had been, some of us found her religious yammering weirdly comforting.

  We’d grabbed our stuff from the locker room and headed out to wait for our moms to come get us or to bum rides with the seniors who lived in our neighborhoods. Girl Cory had hit the two-fecta, having recently passed her driver’s test and been given her own wheels to boot. Her brand-new white Fiero was parked in the student lot. The Fiero had been purchased weeks before her driving test and was just sitting around in her multi-car garage collecting dust. Driving was still a novelty to her, the monogrammed fingerless gloves still fun to slip on. That day she was giving Abby Putnam a ride home. It was Abby who pointed out the mint-green envelope stuck under the windshield wipers. Without Abby’s potassium-ginned eyes, there’s a possibility we never would’ve been properly introduced to “Philip.”

  Girl Cory peeled the envelope off the wet glass and held it between her fingers like a dead roach. “This is a wicked bummer,” she said. “Can you get ticketed here?”

  Abby shook her head. She watched as her friend tore open the soggy envelope. Girl Cory’s face betrayed nothing. If anything, she looked a little more bloodless. “Lemme see,” said Abby. She took the slip of paper in her hands and stared for a long time at the blurred writing, the washed-out words as if painted in watercolor.

  Roses are Red—

  Your Fiero—it’s White—

  With seating for two.

  Don’t! Put up a fight—take me with you!

  The next day before practice we showed the letter around. Heather Houston performed a close reading on it worthy of a 5 on the AP English test. She commented on the juvenile use of the Dickinsonian em dash, the strange imperatives, the elisions, the contradictory tone of both fight and flight. “Whoever wrote this is not playing with a full deck,” she concluded, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t even make sense. Like this part. ‘Don’t!’ Don’t what? Use your words, people!” She was practically spitting she was so worked up about it. Poor Heather Houston took weak syntactical choices as a personal affront. Julie Kaling patted her comfortingly on the back.

  “I dunno, I think it’s sweet,” said Little Smitty softly. This was back in the days before Emilio and the blue tube sock, back when Little Smitty ate all the spinach on her plate happily with a big smile as though it were cotton candy.

  “What I will say,” said Heather, offering a second conclusion about the note, “is Philip Larkin he is not.”

  Becca Bjelica looked at AJ Johnson and silently mouthed, Philip who? We were all thinking the same thing. Nobody rolled their eyes at her. How were we supposed to know some curmudgeonly British poet, even one who’d written:

  They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

  They may not mean to, but they do.

  They fill you with the faults they had

  And add some extra, just for you.

  And thus “Philip” was born.

  That first year “Philip” mostly left little things lying around in plain sight, like a cat who brings its owner dead robins. A tube of Chanel lipstick without the actual lipstick in it. A box of chocolates, but instead of sweets slotted in each compartment, there were rocks. Girl Cory took it all in stride. We didn’t tell anyone in the adult world because what was there to say? Some poor slob had the hots for a girl so beautiful she should have been in a music video, and he left her crazy presents? Back then the word “stalker” wasn’t really part of anyone’s vocabulary. Fatal Attraction had come out the year before, but that was just stuff that happened to sexy creeps like Michael Douglas, who banged complete strangers and mostly had it coming.

  And so Girl Cory learned to live with it. And so we learned to live vicariously through her. In time, we began to look forward to “Philip’s” offerings. They made us feel like maybe somewhere down the road, somebody, anybody, might possibly want us. Even the time he dropped a note in her schoolbag that said, “I hate you, you stupid peckerhead,” and signed it “Much l♥ve.” We were a bunch of mostly inexperienced teen girls. We thought that’s what true romance was supposed to look like. A boy telling a girl she was a stupid peckerhead, but she was his stupid peckerhead. Lord, make us worthy, we prayed. God from God, Light from Light, Boyfriend from Boy Who Considers Us a Peckerhead. It seemed like the thing to ask for. None of us ever thought to pray for a better caliber of boy.

  * * *

  —

  Wednesday afternoon and happily we were on the other side of the hump, Double Sessions half over. Becca Bjelica took a megadose of ibuprofen big enough for a horse and was back to her old self, a third sports bra holding up her double Fs, the Rotating Rhombus saved.

  At the end of the day Marge circled us up. “Okay, ladies,” she said. There was something in her teeth, maybe part of a carrot, but it didn’t matter. Marge wasn’t going to win any beauty contests anytime soon, and she was just fine with that. “Tomorrow’s our first test,” she said. “We ready for this?” Normally when asked this question, we’d look around, sussing out who was raring to go all in first. But today there was no pause. We let out a roar so big the guy in the Mr. Hotdog ice-cream truck down by the tennis courts jumped, startled, spilling too much hot fudge on s
ome lucky kid’s cone.

  “What are we gonna do tomorrow?” Marge said calmly.

  “Win!” we shouted.

  “Win how?” she asked.

  “Win big!”

  “Win big against who?”

  “Fenwick!”

  “Who?”

  Spittle was starting to form on our lips. “Fenwick!”

  “Who are we?” she asked.

  “The Danvers Falcons!”

  “Who?”

  “Danvers!”

  “Who?”

  “Falcons!”

  “Who’re we gonna be?”

  “State champs!” The Claw on Jen Fiorenza’s head jumped up and down as if stomping on some enemy’s spine.

  “Go get some sleep, ladies,” said Marge, and dismissed us with her fist raised in the air.

  We ran off the field like a bunch of frenzied maenads carrying aloft the head of some poor slob that we’d recently torn off his shoulders. When Little Smitty got home to Smith Farm, she was still so pumped, she reached over and punched her dad when he asked how her day had gone.

  That night Jen Fiorenza gave her Claw another shellacking of bleach. Maybe she did some other things too while waiting for the developer to work its magic, dark things with Emilio, things she wouldn’t have wanted the rest of us to know about. What we did know for sure is that the next day she showed up at Double Sessions with her Claw beyond blond and now in the part of the color wheel that read PLATINUM. It was disconcerting. Jen was three-quarters Italian, a quarter Scots Irish, her complexion sallow to olive, her eyes muddy brown. But now, just as with New Coke, we could barely remember the old Claw, the new and improved Claw like a silver tiara, like a disco ball shooting sparks every which way. Jen’s hair made Heather Houston think of the White Witch in the Narnia books who binds and kills Aslan with a stone knife. Heather imagined the Claw traveling around the world at night, spearing prophets and naysayers in the ribs, the Claw like a crown of bone perched atop Jen’s skull.