Wild Awake

by Hilary T. Smith

  “Goddammit.”

  My lap is soaked in wine and spangled with a million isosceles triangles of shattered glass. I can hear Lukas bumping around the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers. Lukas wouldn’t survive a single night at home by himself: Who looks for paper towels in a drawer? I get up from my bed. “They’re on the counter.”

  “What?”

  “Bloody hell, Lukas.”

  I tromp down the stairs and lumber into the kitchen, a glittering, wine-soaked King Kong. I rip a bunch of paper towels off the roll on the counter and pat myself down. In the glare of the kitchen light, all my hours of preparation are completely unnoticeable. The house is just a house. I am just a Kiri. Lukas and I are just friends. And that’s assuming our friendship survives this freaking circus.

  Lukas leans against the counter and watches skeptically while I try to pick the shards off my dress.

  “Be careful with that broken glass.”

  “Thanks, Lukas.”

  “Do you want me to get a broom?”

  I’ve been shedding glass on the floor every time I move, but Lukas won’t be able to find the broom closet until Google makes an app.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I think something’s burning.”

  The French bread. I lunge for the oven and pull open the door. The loaf of bread I stuck in an hour ago looks like a giant charred dog turd. As the smoke detector starts screaming, I grab the ruined bread with an oven mitt and throw it into the sink, where it lies hissing reproachfully. Lukas is flapping around uselessly under the smoke detector. I manhandle him out of the way and stab the red button with a barbecue tong. I take a big breath, dredge up a smile, turn around, and face Lukas.

  “Well. Shall we watch the movie?”

  Lukas looks at me like I’ve just suggested we sterilize a ballpoint pen and give each other tattoos.

  “Oh. Um, isn’t it kind of late to start the movie? I was thinking I would head home.”

  “But it’s only nine thirty.”

  “I’ve been going to bed early.”

  “We could make coffee.”

  “I think I’ll just go home.” He walks to the front door and hops around self-consciously, putting on his shoes. I watch him from the kitchen. “I guess I’ll see you on Saturday then,” he says, dropping a shoe, picking it up again, and sticking it on his foot.

  “What’s on Saturday?”

  “Battle of the Bands.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  I try to keep my voice light, as if for me this is just another perfectly normal evening of making unwanted sexual advances, being a sloppy drunk, and standing there pathetically while the object of my affection falls all over himself trying to escape from my lovearium before it’s even dark outside.

  Lukas finally gets his shoe on his foot. He grabs the door handle.

  “Okay. Good night, Kiri.”

  “Bye.”

  He struggles with the door, discovers the lock, lets himself out, and pulls the door half-closed behind him without realizing you have to really yank it to get it shut. It floats open again behind him, as if to add the final insult to the huge festering injury that is my life. I sigh, walk over, and shut it myself.

  Then I walk back to the piano. Because now that Lukas is gone, what else is left?

  chapter twenty-one

  The next morning, I take the bus to Kerrisdale, sit down at the piano, and play one hundred pages of dazzlingly complicated piano music from memory while Dr. Scaliteri sits on her ball, inspecting a suspicious mole on her cleavage. When I’m finished, she looks up and says one word: “Good.”

  I stand up, bow, collect my books, and breeze out of the room.

  International Young Pianists’ Showcase? I’ve got that shit in the bag.

  The thrill of victory is a pleasant antidote to the sludge of humiliation left over from last night, and I float past the bus stop and on down the street, my fingers tingling with bliss. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. My lips keep drawing upward in a loose, dopey smile, and I can barely feel the pavement beneath my feet. I did it. I did it. So what do I want to do now?

  I want to ride my bicycle.

  Where is my bicycle?

  In Bicycle Boy’s shed.

  I swivel around like an ice skater and glide in the direction of downtown.

  It turns out downtown is a two-and-a-half-hour walk away, plus another twenty minutes of backtracking when I mysteriously end up near the stadium.

  Along the way I buy:

  -three kiwis, a plum, and a pluot, all of which I eat except for the third kiwi, because the roof of my mouth starts itching in that way that sometimes happens when you eat too many kiwis;

  -a cup of probiotic frozen yogurt with blackberries that inexplicably costs seven dollars, despite being very small and containing approximately twelve calories;

  -a yam roll and an avocado roll from Happy Sushi that come in a plastic clamshell with fake green grass, a wasabi turd, and a little pile of pickled ginger like fairy tongues;

  -a can of Diet Dr Pepper that makes me feel insane;

  -a coffee drink with Chinese characters on the can that makes my sweat smell like coffee and makes me have to pee;

  -a coffee at a coffee shop so they let me use the bathroom;

  -a tube of SPF 60 sunscreen so I don’t get mysterious moles on my cleavage when I’m old like Dr. Scaliteri;

  -a new pair of flip-flops after the toe-thong thingy on my left flip-flop comes out of its socket and I can’t get it back in;

  -a wide-brimmed straw hat;

  -a pair of tweezers and some questionable depilatory cream to deal with my eyebrow situation once and for all;

  -a cranberry oat square at a coffee shop so they let me use the bathroom;

  -a blue lightbulb;

  -a jumbo bag of Meow Mix;

  -an acorn squash;

  -henna powder, incense, and temporary tattoos of various Hindu deities.

  On my way to Skunk’s house, I stop off at the Imperial to give the Meow Mix to Doug. The same woman who gave me directions to the modern art gallery when I was looking for razzle!dazzle!space is sitting on the steps in pink spandex pants and a tank top. Her brown hair is piled up in a high ponytail on her head. She looks like Workout Barbie if Workout Barbie had aged a few years and was starting to lose some hair.

  “Is Doug around?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and answers in her sexy, raspy voice. “He’s not here, baby. He went to the clinic for his checkup. Did you bring him something?” She eyes my shopping bags. I show her the cat food.

  “Aww, that’s sweet, baby. Doug loves that kitty. You should go on up and leave it in his room. None of the rooms lock around here; you can go right in.”

  She tells me her name is Jasmine and she used to have a straw hat just like mine. I reach into one of my shopping bags. “Do you want a kiwi?”

  “No thanks, babe, I’m allergic,” she says, taking a drag on her cigarette.

  I climb the steps to the fourth floor two at a time, hardly noticing the garbage or the rotten air. When I get to Doug’s room, I march right in and set the bag of cat food on the floor. Snoogie materializes out of nowhere and rubs herself against my legs until I crouch and drag my fingers through her scruffy fur. I imagine Sukey picking her up in the alley behind the Imperial, stroking her ears and inspecting her stumpy leg, and thinking, This cat is exactly what Doug needs. I imagine Doug admiring her paintings, telling her how beautiful they are, and saying Don’t let that kid Billy hang around you, Sukey-girl, he’s nothing but trouble.

  Guilt and jealousy splinter through me. Those missing months before Sukey died—they’re something I’ll never be a part of, something I’ll never get to know. It fills me with a kind of howling indignation to know that Doug and Sukey shared something without me, that Doug stole something I’d desperately wanted all my life: to be Sukey’s confidant, her fierce protector, and the only one who truly loved her in the world.

 
It suddenly feels very urgent to get out of Doug’s room. I rip open the bag of cat food and make my escape while Snoogie is busily chomping away. My skin prickles when I walk past room 409 on my way back to the stairs, and I pause there.

  This is where Sukey died.

  This is where Sukey died.

  I imagine her behind this very door, painting and playing CDs on her crappy CD player. I knock softly, ready to bolt at the slightest indication that there is anyone inside. When nobody answers, I turn the knob and open the door an inch. There’s a reek of stale cigarette butts and a naked mattress strewn with porn magazines. I pull the door shut and hurry to the stairs.

  When I get to Skunk’s place, there’s a light on and music playing. I rap on the glass. There’s motion on the other side of the curtain, and Skunk pulls open the door. He has a cigarette and lighter in one hand, which he slips into his pocket when he sees me. I smile. “Hey! I came to pick up my bike.”

  His expression relaxes. “Hey, Kiri. How’ve you been?”

  He steps outside and slides the door all the way shut behind him, like there’s something in there he doesn’t want to get out.

  “Do you have a cat?” I say.

  Skunk looks at me blankly. I worry the edge of my flip-flop against the concrete.

  “You always shut the door so quickly. I thought maybe you had an indoor cat.”

  He shakes his head. “No cat.”

  “Or an extremely vicious cat who attacks strangers. That old man who had my sister’s things has a cat like that. It’s called Snoogie, and it’s mean as a snake.”

  I think Skunk’s starting to warm up to my surprise visit. His brown eyes mellow and his shoulders relax.

  “You’d need a cat like that if you lived at the Imperial Hotel,” he says.

  “A guard cat.”

  “Maybe I should look into getting one.”

  I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think the unspoken end of that sentence is to keep crazy girls from knocking on my door. Yes, I’m being too chatty.

  “Have things been okay?” he asks.

  I try to remember how long it’s been since he last saw me. Two weeks? He probably thinks of me as that crying girl who’s always in trouble.

  I nod, embarrassed.

  “Yeah, everything’s cool. I’ll just grab my bike and get out of here.”

  Skunk presses his lips together.

  “Actually—”

  “Let me guess. Pawn shop. I should have called you a week ago, I know. How much did you get for it?”

  I can’t help it—I can’t stop jabbering. When someone else is being serious, I start telling jokes. It’s like only one person is allowed to be serious at a time, and that person is never, ever me.

  Skunk kicks at a pile of cigarette butts on the patio. “You might be mad.”

  I stare at him. “Wait, you really did sell it?”

  “No. I started doing some work on it.”

  “Oh. But there was nothing wrong with it.”

  A guilty look ripples across Skunk’s face. “I knew you’d be mad.”

  He walks over to the shed, undoes the combination lock, and pulls open the metal doors.

  There’s my bike. Well, sort of. It’s upside down and resting on a wooden workbench with its wheels in the air. The seat is off, the back tire is completely flat again, and the frame is held in place by two metal clamps. I hurry to its side like I’m a panicked relative who has just arrived at its hospital room.

  “What did you do to it? Why’s the tire flat again?”

  Skunk steps into the shed and pulls a dirty string to turn the light on.

  “The wheels were so far out of true the spokes were about to snap. Your brakes are pretty shot too.”

  He squeezes the brake lever to demonstrate. The brake pads kiss the tires feebly.

  I cross my arms.

  “It rides okay.”

  I don’t know why I’m being so defensive about the state of my obviously defective bicycle, but it irks me when people fix things that don’t need fixing. Skunk gives the brakes another squeeze.

  “If you think this thing rides okay, it’s been a while since you rode a decent bike.”

  “My bike is decent.”

  “But it doesn’t ride straight anymore, does it? Watch this.” He gives the back wheel a spin. I watch with my arms still folded. Skunk points. “See that?”

  I glance at the wheel to be polite. As it spins, the wheel veers out to the right, then back in again. Skunk spins it a little harder. It wobbles in and out, in and out, in and out. “If you keep riding on this, those spokes are going to snap,” he says.

  He looks at me sheepishly. “You are mad.”

  I shake my head and try to suppress my irritation. Stop being such a bitch-nacho. I paste on a smile. “I’m not mad. I appreciate your help.”

  Skunk snorts. “Translation: Hands off my bike, asshole.”

  “Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting Project Extreme Bike Makeover.”

  For the first time since he opened the shed, Skunk looks apologetic. He leans against the workbench. “If you want, I can just reinflate the tire and you can take it how it is. Or if you’ve got a minute, I can finish truing the spokes right now.”

  I pause. When I look at my bike again, my self-righteousness ebbs a little. Fine. It’s maybe a little bit wonky. And I’m being extremely rude. After all, he’s already helped me out twice. The least I can do is let him true my stupid spokes. I put my hands on my hips.

  “All right, Bicycle Boy. Extreme Bike Makeover. You’re on.”

  Skunk reaches for a curved plastic tool that’s lying on the dusty workbench. He gives the wheel a spin and watches as it wobbles through the brake pads. After it’s gone around a couple times, he stops it, gives the little metal nub at the bottom of one of the spokes a quarter turn, and spins it again.

  He sticks his finger in the wheel to stop its spinning and adjusts another nub. When he spins the wheel again, that part doesn’t rub against the brake pads anymore. There’s not really room for both of us to stand inside the shed, but I clear a space on the workbench and sit next to my bike with my legs dangling down while Skunk works. Now that I’ve decided to stay, I’m getting excited about the tune-up. It’s been a long time since I did anything vaguely maintenance-y on my bike. I lean forward and rest my chin on my knuckles.

  “So were the wheels totally messed up?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “What happens if the spokes snap?”

  Skunk shrugs. “You’d probably go over your handlebars.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Or a spoke could shoot through the rim and burst the tube.”

  “That’s so metal.”

  “Here. Listen to this.”

  Skunk strums one of the spokes so it resonates like a guitar string. Then he does it to another one. I sit up straight. “Hey! They sound the same.”

  “You want to check the other ones?”

  “Sure.” I hop off the bench and squeeze in beside him. When I get close to him, this scent, this whiff of cigarettes and bicycle grease and orange rinds, catches me by surprise. It’s fleeting and intense and almost too personal, like walking past someone’s window and catching them changing. I wonder if that’s why he keeps his door closed: Otherwise the whole world would smell him and come sniffing around for more.

  I strum the spokes one by one.

  “That one’s a little off.”

  “Do it again?”

  I strum the spoke again, then try the spoke above it. They sound slightly different.

  “Good ear,” says Skunk. He hands me the tool. “Go for it.”

  We slowly work our way around the wheel, spinning and adjusting and spinning again. It’s oddly addictive once you get started, like working the knots out of your hair when it’s really tangly. Every time we push the wheel it spins straighter, until eventually it passes through the brake pads without scraping them at any point during its revolution. When we’re finished with the
back wheel, we flip the bike around and do the front. Every time Skunk moves, I catch that scent again, peeling paint and citrus. He smells like an old ladder left out in the sun.

  When both wheels are done, Skunk lifts the bike down from the workbench and checks it over. He reaches out a tattooed arm and squeezes the brake levers one more time. I feel a surge of my initial defensiveness rising up just in case, but Skunk doesn’t say anything. As he runs his fingers along the titanium posts, I suddenly feel acutely conscious of the coolness of the air against my skin. For some reason, I think about Lukas, who never wrote back to the texts I sent him trying to make light of the sex-dome incident last night. I gaze around the little shed, searching for something to distract myself. I straighten up with a jolt when I notice the shiny green electric bass that’s leaning in the corner with a greasy rag hanging off its neck.

  “What’s that doing in the shed?”

  Skunk’s face is tipped down and I can’t see his eyes, just his hands moving carefully around my bicycle. “I think your shifters need some WD-40.”

  He reaches for the blue can on the bench and gives the gears a one-second spray. I peer at the bass. It’s beautiful. Sleek. Curvy. Like an exotic fruit. I want to eat a slice of it.

  “Skunk?”

  “Hm?”

  He picks up a screwdriver and twiddles with a screw. He takes it out, wipes it off, and starts screwing it back in.

  “Please explain to me why am I seeing a vintage Fender Mustang bass on the floor of this shed.”

  He looks to where I’m looking and his brown eyes widen slightly, as if he never noticed the seven-hundred-dollar instrument that just happens to be lurking under his grease-rag collection.

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m trying to sell it. I was going to put it on craigslist.”

  “You’re putting a vintage Fender on craigslist?”

  Skunk spins the screwdriver around in his hand.

  “Is that illegal or something?”

  “It should be.”

  “Why are you selling it?”

  “I’m not in a band anymore.”

  “So start another one.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m more into bikes right now.”

  “They’re not exactly mutually exclusive.”