The Dictionary of Failed Relationships

by Meredith Broussard

By Shelley Jackson

  vit·ri·ol ’vi-tr-l noun [Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin vitriolum, alteration of Late Latin vitreolum, neuter of vitreolus glassy, from Latin vitreus vitreous] (14th century) 1: a sulfate of any of various metals (as copper, iron, or zinc); especially: a glassy hydrate of such a sulfate. 2: something felt to resemble vitriol, usually in caustic quality; especially: virulence of feeling or of speech as exhibited by a lover.

  One morning, I found a puddle under my bed. It was small and the dull yellow-green color of the foliage in old paintings and had a halo of tiny, shiny blisters that burst incessantly and were replaced by others that showed not the puddle’s own volatility but the devastation of the varnish on the floor. I dipped my finger in it and brought my finger to my nose. It smelled bitter and familiar.

  “My mother has cut me out of her will,” you said, “and will not allow my name to be mentioned in her house.” You showed me a punitive gift from her. It was a family portrait in which you did not appear. In your place was a hole in the shape of you. Only your fingers were left, clenched in your sister’s hand. The edges of the hole were not scissored but rough, brittle, and discolored.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Vitriol,” you said. “Bile.”

  It smelled familiar and remorseful, and it seethed slightly upon my fingertip and stung under my nail, and when I wiped my finger on my jeans I noticed that my fingertip had gone white and powdery and that my cuticles still burned. I washed my finger and found that some of the white wiped off, but not all, and my finger felt unpleasantly smooth. Later, my same finger wandering found a hole seared through my jeans where I had wiped the finger.

  Your mother’s difficult love had made all love difficult for you. When you began to love me, you asked me to let you read my journal. “Now that I love you, you have power over me. I need you to give me something personal so I have power over you, too,” you said. “How can you expect me to trust you if you won’t trust me?“

  “Let her,” Nolan said. “Love invents its own rules.”

  “Let her,” Madeline said. “But then leave her.”

  You took my journal into the bathroom and locked the door. When you came out, I saw your face, severe.

  You wouldn’t give my journal back. So much for trust.

  Where I had wiped the finger, my leg hurt. I could see through the hole that my skin had gone intricately bumpy, as if nettle-stung. The pain gave me a peculiar satisfaction. It was my pain, only mine. I went to the puddle and I dipped my finger in it and I painted my mouth with it. It hurt, fizzing softly.

  I might have left you, but I couldn’t let you keep my journal. I went to get it back. In your anger, you had thrown my shoes out the window into the neighbors’ yard. You pointed them out from your window. One was caught in the top of a bush, the other lay next to the rotting sofa, where the stray cats fought or fucked— you could never tell the difference. My shoes looked worried and foolish there. We laughed at them. Then we had sex.

  Fizzing softly in the darkness, my obnoxious secret grew. I checked it every morning. I cultivated it like a grievance.

  When you gave my journal back, you said, “Someday I will ask to see this again.” Although you had already read it (but surely not every word), I went through the whole thing and scribbled out everything I thought might offend you. I tore out whole pages, adding lines to the tops of the following pages to close the gaps. These offending pages I destroyed. I mailed my other notebooks to my parents for safekeeping. I congratulated myself for my cunning.

  I cultivated it like a grievance I would one day charge to you, and every day I took a little from the growing puddle with a turkey baster and made ablutions with it. I washed my hands with it. I douched with it. I squirted a little stream from the baster into my eyes. When I could see again, it was with eyes that had learned not to trust too easily.

  I showed you photographs, but when you saw a naked picture of me, you railed against me, not believing I had taken it myself with a tripod and self-timer. I went through my photographs and got rid of all the other ones I thought might bother you, like an old picture of my ex with no clothes on; I even destroyed the negatives, knowing you were subtle.

  I made ablutions with it, and I learned to love its rigors. It stripped my fingers of their prints. My hands grew as anonymous and smooth as marble. My period stopped. My eyelashes fell out. I gargled, and grew mute.

  There was nothing I did not examine with your eye for the unforgivable, because I knew you noticed everything. You paid attention to syntax, to sentences interrupted in midstream, to wrong numbers and non sequiturs. I lied about these things even when the truth was blameless, because it was easier than explaining, and more and more I kept my mouth shut.

  I grew mute, but I could write. One day, I dipped a pen in the bile. At first my writing was invisible, but pretty soon the ink ate into the paper, leaving a hundred holes in the shape of letters. It was not impossible to read these missing words. The silhouette of a girl cut out of a photograph can still be recognized and may be a better likeness than her image was.

  When I wrote in my journal, I typed it up on the computer that I used at school, gave the files deceptive names like English 101 Syllabus, crumpled the handwritten originals and hid them inside take-out boxes and paper cups, which I discarded in other people’s wastebaskets. I learned that I was a deceiver after all, just as you had feared. I took a vengeful pleasure in this.

  A hundred holes were not enough to speak my mind. I injected the bile into the ink cartridge in the printer that I use at school. I am printing out my journal. I would like you to have a copy. Every page is blank, but the acid is at work in the paper fibers. By the time you get it, my life will be written down in absentia. You can read every single thing I thought about you. Read that I loved you, and that I’m gone.

  If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, your mother always said. I’ve taken that advice. But take a good look at what I haven’t said. I’ve learned to write that way. Now you’ll learn to read.

  WORSHIP

  By Michele Serros

  wor·ship ’wr-shp noun [Middle English worshipe worthiness, respect, reverence paid to a divine being, from Old English weorth-scipe worthiness, respect, from weorth worthy, worth + -scipe -ship] (before 12th century) 1: (chiefly British) a person of importance— used as a title for various officials (as magistrates, mayors, or members of the Rolling Stones). 2: reverence offered a divine being, supernatural power, or celebrity. 3: a form of religious or dating practice with its creed and ritual. 4: extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem .

  I didn’t dig drummers anymore. They sweat too much, never make the front of any band photos, and always whine ’cause nobody ever wants to hear the songs they write. Singers—well, singers are just pretty boys with ugly egos. And lead guitarists? Please.

  Leonard played bass. I’d never been with a bassist before. “A Fender Precision,” he bragged. “With an extra-long neck.” The minute he said that, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I moved out on No-Talent Gary, leaving that drum-banging loser to cry with that stinky ol’ cat of his.

  Angela introduced me to Leonard backstage at one of his shows. Unlike Gary, Leonard was already on his way up. He was from the East Coast. Not New York City, but a town pretty close, he said. Minutes into our first conversation, I was already playfully tugging at his arm, sharing his drink, and calling him Lenny. By our third date, he became Wenny, a name I pouted in a full-blown baby voice.

  Maybe it was the pouty voice that did it, ’cause in less than a month, Lenny had helped me to load all my stuff from the studio apartment that I shared with Angela and had moved me into the band’s house with him. The band’s house. Does it get any better than that?

  Our first weeks together as lovers, we were too selfish to share time with anyone else. Afraid we’d miss out on each other’s newness, we
’d stay awake for hours into the night, sometimes just looking into each other’s eyes, not saying anything. Sometimes we’d get more playful and fling rubber bands at some water beetle racing across the bedroom wall.

  I remember one morning when Lenny had his head on my belly, half-asleep and gazing at all his amps, basses, and equipment and stuff. He confided in me a dream he had just had.

  “Man, Lenny,” I responded, after hearing the whole thing, “that was something. You know, I read somewhere that crazy dreams like that are the sign of a creative person.”

  “Really? You think I’m creative?”

  “Absolutely, yeah.”

  “I wish the guys would think so.” It was then that he realized just how important I was in nurturing him as an artist, supporting him and his music. And it was the following month that Lenny demanded to his unsupportive band mates that I go on their European tour with him. He warned me that it was to be a short tour, only six weeks, he said. It would be winter and it would be hard, but please, would I go?

  I had seen enough VH1 specials to know what touring with a rock band was all about. Yes!

  But that conversation now seems so long ago. It was already March. We were leaving Holland and heading out to Spain to play La Musica Mania, the big outdoor music festival. The grand tour bus I had envisioned turned out to be a small, cruddy van, overcrowded with bodies and personalities I never bargained for. Only two weeks into the tour, and I was already sick of the road. Sick of the same CDs skipping at the same spot; sick of the same banter that bounced off the van’s interior; sick of the same scenic snowcapped mountaintop after scenic snowcapped mountaintop. But most of all, I was sick of Lenny.

  We were sitting in our usual seats in the middle of the bus. His head was on my belly, and he was passed out, again. Lenny was always passing out. Not from overindulgence in partying, recreational drugs, or even booze. Oh, how I wish! Lenny was just plain tired. He was always tired. After every show, he’d just wanna go back to the bus and crash. He was never writing songs or coming up with new bass lines. He was never rushing back to the hotel room to explore craziness with me. He never wanted to do anything. After he was done with a show, all he wanted to do was sleep.

  “So, I’m guessing you had fun last night.”

  I didn’t have to look up to know it was Z-Man. He was sitting at the front of the bus. I pretended not to hear him, but he kept at it.

  “Yeah, while your man and I were at the Weg, breaking down the stage, you just took off for the party. Man, must be nice to be a groupie who made good.”

  “What? Who are you calling groupie, roadie?”

  I adjusted Lenny’s head higher up on my lap and leaned my seat as far back as it could go. I closed my eyes. Groupie? Me? Z-Man was the one kissing ass! I mean, he’s the one who looks to the band for approval after every little joke or remark he makes! How could he even think that I was a groupie?

  I glanced down at Lenny. He was breathing with his mouth open, and I could see his dark tooth. When I first met him, I thought the tooth made him look tough, macho, like he had been in loads of barroom fights or something. Like he didn’t take shit from anyone. But when he told me he killed the nerve playing kick-the-can when he was a little kid in Clinton, New York, I tried to not let it bother me. But I gotta admit, it did. A lot.

  Three days later, when we finally pulled into Valencia, I was so happy. I couldn’t wait to check into the hotel, take a hot bath, and have some fun time with Lenny. But as if Gunter was reading my mind, he announced to the whole band that we were behind schedule and that we would have to go straight to the venue and do a sound check.

  “Sound check?” I called out. “Are you serious? We sounded fine in Amsterdam. Why do we always have to do a sound check? ”

  Z-man looked back at me. “We?” he smirked. Gunter ignored both of us and helped Jorge navigate through the narrow Spanish streets.

  I shook Lenny to wake him up. “Come on, Wenny, make Gunter take us to the hotel. Come on . . . let’s go rest before your show, let’s order some room service and kick it like real rock stars.”

  Lenny stretched and slowly took my arms off his shoulders. “Man,” he yawned and looked out the bus window. “Why do you always have to make it harder than it already is? Come on.”

  I sat back in my seat. I was beginning to learn that no matter how cool bass players seem, they really don’t have much clout in any band. They’re pretty much just second up from the drummers.

  I looked up and saw Z-Man was still looking right at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” He smirked again.

  At La Musica Mania, I saw the buses for Les Les and even Grand Plastic Rap. There were already loads of kids hanging around, trying to get into the sold-out show. I started to get excited.

  “Come on, Wenny.” I squeezed his arm as the bus pulled up. “Let’s go check out backstage. See if there’s something else other than a wheel of dry Brie.”

  “Can’t.” He stood up in his seat and rubbed his eyes. “I gotta set up for the sound check.”

  “Help? Are you serious? Isn’t that a roadie’s job? Come on, you gotta eat.”

  “I will, later. I’ll meet you there.”

  As soon as I got off the bus, I took off for the backstage area. Just as I thought, the catering table was stacked with mini bread slices and mounds of Brie. I found a bottle of orange juice inside a tub of ice and poured some into a paper cup.

  “Hey, wouldn’t this make it better?”

  I turned around. It was Marco from La Maquina. He was waving a bottle of vodka.

  “Oh, hey.” I knew who Marco was, but I didn’t really know him. I suddenly felt embarrassed, self-conscious after three days on the road. I patted my bangs down quickly.

  Marco flopped down on the torn couch behind the table and motioned me over.

  “You come here. Let me fix you up right.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your drink. I can’t let you drink naked. Come here.”

  I looked at my cup. Oh. I went over to the couch and flopped down next to him. “Um, shouldn’t you be helping with the sound check?”

  “Sound check? That’s for the peons. Or the roadies. There’s partying to be done, no?”

  Marco leaned into me and smiled. I smiled back. Man, he was something. Yeah, he was a lead singer, but, well, I dunno.

  “Take a drink.” He motioned at my orange juice. I took a small sip. He took a large swig of vodka, then leaned into me and pursed his lips against mine, shooting the vodka into my mouth. I swallowed and pulled back to laugh. Just as I was gonna take another drink, Z-man barged in.

  “Hey, am I interrupting something?” he asked from the doorway.

  I pulled away from Marco.

  “Nuh-uh. What’s up, Z-Man?”

  “I just came to get you. We’re getting out of here.”

  “What?” I sat up on the couch. “Whaddya mean?”

  “He means we got booted from the bill.” Gunter came up behind Z-Man. “Fucking bastards didn’t even wire us. We drove three days for nothing.”

  I got up from the couch. “Are you serious? Wait, why?”

  They didn’t even bother to answer. They were already heading toward the bus.

  “Shame you have to leave.” Marco clicked his tongue. “My band still has a show to do. Plus, we are going on to Greece next week.”

  I sat back down next to him. “You’re going to Greece?” “Yeah, the big . . .”

  “Yeah, I know. The big AMI festival, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Wow, that’s like the best show.”

  “Yeah, maybe you can come.”

  “Wow, really?”

  From the couch, I could see Lenny and Z-Man through the doorway. They were heaving equipment into the back of the van. I watched Lenny wiping his forehead and scratching the back of his head. If you didn’t know him, you would think that Lenny was a roadie, just like Z-Man. His black T-shirt was faded and
ripped, and the soles of his Converse were cracked. I looked back at Marco. There was no way I was gonna get back on that bus with Lenny. No way.

  “Oh, so this is how it is? Like this?” Lenny said when I told him. “How are you gonna get home? How are you gonna get around?”

  “I’m gonna hitch a ride with Marco, from La Maquina.”

  “Marco? From La Maquina? Are you . . . serious?”

  “Yeah.” My voice suddenly felt soft. “Yeah. I’m just gonna kick it with them for a while. Come on, Wenny. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”

  I returned backstage to be with Marco. From the couch, we both watched Lenny board the van and take a seat in the back.

  Marco laughed. “He’s got a long way to go.” He took another sip from his drink and walked over to me. I put my arms around him. He looked over my shoulder. “Well, I’m gonna check out who else is here. I’ll be right back, but if I’m not, I’ll catch you in Greece, yes?”

  “In Greece?”

  “Yes. Look for me.”

  Marco took my arms off his shoulders and went toward the crowd at the food table. I looked out after the van. Jorge was pulling out, and Gunter threw my backpack out the side door. I saw Lenny pull the drapes away from the back window. And then I saw Z-Man. He was watching me from my old seat. I couldn’t tell from his expression what he was thinking. Was he finally happy that I was off the bus, off the tour? Would he stretch out his legs on my old seat?

  I suddenly felt more than anything that I really, really needed a hot bath. I turned and saw the last bits of Marco as he faded away into the crowd.

  X

  by Suzanne Finnamore

  1X ’eks often capitalized, often attributive (before 12th century) 1a: the 24th letter of the English alphabet. b: a graphic representation of this letter. 2: an unknown quantity. 3: a former lover, also EX.