by Chris Baron
drawn in blue pen and scratched eraser marks.
I watch him smear ChapStick on his lips every ten minutes,
even digging out the last bits of lip balm with a toothpick.
One day, John drops the toothpick
on the floor and mumbles, My pick …
And that’s where it really starts.
For a while, I try to call him ChapStick,
or Chap, Bot, or anything else he might like better,
but it always becomes the nickname
Pick.
Finding the nickname
finally made me feel like I lived here,
like we shared something just between us.
Pretty soon it’s me and Pick all the time,
watching cartoons together on long Saturday mornings,
Spider-Man, The Transformers, Avatar,
and Pick’s favorite,
an old anime called G-Force.
I love 7-Zark-7, he says,
a round, trash-can-looking robot
who is always afraid
but who helps protect Earth
from nine hundred fathoms below the sea.
Dolan Avenue House
Halfway through the year,
my father starts to spend
his days and nights
in the garment district,
selling the hand-painted
clothes my mother designs.
He tells me once,
on his way to work,
This is how we survive.
I hardly see him.
They let me
take the bus now,
over the Golden Gate
on Sunday nights
to stay with Pick’s
family on Dolan Avenue
off Shoreline Highway
a few days a week.
They even bought
me a bike to keep
at Pick’s house.
Every day, from the house,
we ride our bikes
to school along
the bike path,
through the marsh.
At first,
it feels like
long sleepovers,
whispering stories
in the dark,
learning not
to be alone.
This family, so kind to me,
even though they pack
mostly gross vegetables for lunch,
eat salads every day,
eat nearly invisible
portions at dinner,
even though I am
always starving.
The First Time I Meet Lisa
I spin the combo
on my bike lock,
but it won’t open.
I breathe heavy
and groan in frustration.
The first bell is about to ring.
Frank laughs as he walks by.
What’s the matter—
are your fingers too fat
for the lock?
I don’t look.
Why don’t you just shut up.
I hear her voice
like a bolt of lightning.
The lock pops open.
Her long blond hair
shines against her green
military jacket,
her arms filled with books.
She puts out her hand
with a thousand silver bracelets.
I’m Lisa.
But I know this.
I saw her my very first day,
the rebel girl
who misses school sometimes,
who looks like she’s in high school.
I’m Ari, and we shake,
walk toward the bike racks.
How is it being the new kid?
Oh, it’s great, I lie.
She looks at me
like she’s waiting for the joke to end.
Where did you move from?
New York, I say.
Wow, she says. I wanna go there one day.
You know, I say, it’s a grid.
What? She looks at me.
A grid.
You know, the way the city is built,
like on a big sheet of graph paper.
Like this? Lisa opens a journal
filled with blue-and-white graph paper
with drawings of dragons, and daggers,
and castles against dark skies.
Wow, those are amazing.
Thanks. She smiles,
turns to walk toward class.
I blurt out,
Hey, we are making a game
about giant robots!
Cool, she says.
Maybe you can show me some time?
She waves with her notebook,
so comfortable
in her own body,
curves and all.
I can tell because
I’m an expert
in uncomfortable.
Bye, Ari!
and she runs
toward her homeroom.
Pencil Space
I am box-shaped.
I waddle when I walk.
When I sit down,
my sides
squirt out from my pants
and create a ridge.
The skin on the surface of that ridge
must aggravate the nerve endings,
because it can feel the metal
part of the school chair.
In class, I take my pencil,
lay it between the edge of the desk
and my stomach and measure
in a T-shape
the distance in between,
how many pencils of space
between my stomach and the desk.
For Mark, two at least,
For Diana, at least two and a half.
For me, less than one,
even when I suck it in,
even when I push my jacket into my body,
less than one pencil space.
Carlos, no pencil space at all,
gets stuck when he tries to stand up too fast.
Other kids say he’s been like that since first grade.
They leave him alone now,
like they don’t even see him anymore,
like he doesn’t exist,
but that seems worse.
In the mornings,
kids sit sideways in their desks.
Pick is talking to Abra,
and Noah is laughing at something
that Grace just told him,
moving his body freely up and down,
his legs crossed, comfortable;
I see the angles of his body
with space all around.
When Skye talks to me,
I wish so badly I could
sit sideways in my chair.
I want to turn around
and see her eyes.
She always smells like candy.
I turn as much as I can,
my stomach pressed against
the wood lip of the desk,
my neck aching.
I want this one simple thing
to open up more space
between my desk and my body,
to stop seeing
life in pencil lengths.
Shadow Father
By the end of seventh grade,
my father becomes a shadow,
tired, distant,
weighted down,
the business swollen,
sculptures,
paintings,
and prints,
and hand-painted dresses,
my mom’s designs
arcing across
silk and cotton,
a life fleeced
with fabric,
the world puffed up
in San Francisco showrooms
and design expos,
important meetings
way past my bedtime.
One weekend day before summer,
I go
with my mom to the giant warehouse
where they make everything.
I have something to tell everyone,
she says, and I want you with me, Ari.
I love the warehouse,
acrylic paints and oil slicks,
messy palettes, blue jeans,
bundled fabric, stacked canvases
like bright packages
waiting to be ripped open,
and jars of brushes
in water pots planted on
gesso-stained coffee tables
and wooden supermarket crates.
The sinks in the back,
swirled into muddy rainbows.
She floats inside
like she has wings for real.
Her paintbrush poised as always
for correction and for instruction,
forever the mentor
where artists work
to repeat her designs now on shower curtains,
pillowcases, sweatshirts, and blankets,
each one original, each one
poured out from the well
of a single imagination.
I run ahead of her
into my father’s office,
a goliath door
in the center of the work space,
I unhitch the latch, push.
This is the first time I see her,
his assistant, on the leather couch,
her legs crossed,
my father pacing.
Ari? he says, surprised, and pulls me in,
sits me in his desk chair,
gives me the name of the woman on the couch,
who smiles as if she knows me.
Look at all these orders!
Bright-white paper scratched with squid ink,
some numbers and names unrecognizable,
stacked and folded in uncertain order.
The Artist ignores him,
moves from table to table
in an unbreakable orbit.
This will be her last day
of showing everyone
how to paint her designs,
of overseeing other artists,
of meetings and questions
and business that she doesn’t understand.
Spirits beg for her to release them
into terra-cotta and canvas.
I’m going to work on my collection,
she announces. The other artists gasp.
Somewhere near the beach.
Artists all over the showroom
clap and cheer for her.
My father stands at the edge of the room,
claps his enormous hands
in rhythmic exhalation,
relief.
I want this relief to find me too,
but all I can think about
is how much change is about to happen,
and I might not ever see the warehouse again.
Her Hands
On Thursday afternoons
after school,
my mom teaches drawing classes
at the Marin County Rec Center.
The best part is that Lisa
and her mom both go.
Lisa’s the youngest student,
but my mom says she has a real gift.
She paints the entire canvas
without any fear. She just lets
the colors explode wherever she wants,
unafraid to get her hands dirty.
Sometimes we all get dinner after class,
and soon our moms become friends,
drink wine and talk
while me and Lisa write stories
and build worlds together.
She loves vintage music,
and I tell her about
the old TV shows and movies
I like to watch.
Once after the drawing class,
Lisa, with her long, wild blond hair,
her hands full of charcoal and paint,
in her torn jeans, her Def Leppard T-shirt,
and her tall white boots,
took my hand and walked me outside.
What’s it like having a mom like yours? she asked.
My mom drinks all the time, Ari.
All. The. Time. Even more after the divorce.
But all I could feel was her hand,
like it had stretched itself
over my whole body.
I didn’t know how to answer
right away. I thought
about telling her what
I imagined she wanted to hear,
about art and studios
and books everywhere,
but being with her
made the truth just come out:
She smokes too much,
yells all the time,
and I never know
what will happen next.
I could see in her eyes
she was looking for something,
squeezing my hand tighter now,
like she might squeeze even more truth
out of me, a key to something.
I didn’t know what to do.
but
this hand
in my hand
would unravel me.
Marzipan Potato
Sometimes after school, I skip
the first bus,
take the two-mile walk
home with Lisa.
Just because.
At the bakery
Lisa shows me
marzipan potatoes,
a million calories
of sugar, honey,
and almond meal
rolled into a potato-
sized ball.
On the walk,
Lisa tells
me about how
her mom
is having a really
hard time,
with her new boyfriend.
They drink too much.
Plus, he is creepy,
always staring at me,
taking pictures of us.
We walk past
the Mill Valley
Lumberyard.
What about your dad?
I ask. She never talks about him.
We keep walking.
Lisa doesn’t answer,
picks up a stone
and hurls it into the creek
along the side of the road.
I don’t ask her again.
After the walk,
her mom isn’t home.
Lisa invites me in.
She teaches me about
Def Leppard, her favorite band.
We play D&D,
write stories about faraway lands
that never existed
and the warriors who protected them.
In her stories,
women are always more powerful
than men.
What Happened on the Bike Path
They are coming for me.
They hate me because
they just do.
Oddball, fat kid, liar, show-off, and sometimes Jew.
pedal. pedal.
handlebars. hold tight.
white egrets in the wind.
space steady steady steady
calm, certain,
still water
Pick, ahead of me.
He’s always faster.
It’s not his fault. He is
just trying to get away.
I am too slow.
My body
too big
to move
the bike
out of
the way
in time.
Skin. Bone. Asphalt.
I made them crash,
they said.
I talk too much.
Kick my ass, huh?
Frank says, Fatboy.
They come around me,
gather like reeds.
I stand. They back me off the bike path,
my feet in brackish water.
Marsh grass
brushes my fingertips.
Pick looks over his shoulder
as he pedals away.
What is he supposed to do?
There is a moment
where I feel like
maybe I can beg
or even cry,
but I don’t.
I let them do it to me.
I am fat. They always tell me this.
In the locker room. After school.
At the assembly just last week,
or birthday cupcakes in the classroom.
On the playground, picking teams at recess,
I guess
I’ll take
Fatboy.
I don’t belong. Too big to fit anywhere.
So I just stand there and let them do it to me.
I have always known the pain of being called names:
Fatboy,
Tubs,
Baby Huey—
and then Jewboy!
What’s the matter, Jewboy?
I thought I knew about pain,
but I didn’t know pain like this,
being punched so many times
that everything slows down,
the force of someone else’s weight
being pushed into mine
over and over again.
stomach
shoulder
neck
hands pulling and twisting
legs pinched
fingers bent back
I feel the air pressed out of me
folded in half
fluttering like some injured bird
dirt and flying weeds
and everything moving so fast
I can’t keep them off me.
They keep coming,
inserting themselves
like long sticks from all directions
no way to time it,
to be ready,
they poke
and push and punch
and still their words are coming
I can hear my own breath,
see blood on my jacket,
my bike, twisted
on the pavement.
Between breaths
I look in the distance for an adult,
someone who might
be able to stop all of this.
I think it’s over until that last kick
comes right into my stomach
the air squeezed out of me,
my head going back and back
down into the dirt,
until I can see him standing over me,
the great herons diving,
the muffled sound of bikes riding away
knowing that I’m not hurt bad enough to be dead
but knowing what death might feel like