The Clay Girl

by Heather Tucker

“A stallion.”

  “Your sisters?”

  “Um . . . a swan and . . . a heron.” He tilts his head. “And, I see a bear in your sister Jacquie.”

  “A mythical yellow bear. My warrior. My protector.”

  “I’m sorry she’s so far away.”

  “My sister-house sure is on shaky ground.”

  “Well, your true home is waiting for you. Just four months and you’ll be sixteen.”

  “One hundred and eighteen days, but who’s counting?” The hot chocolate curdles in my gut knowing my freedom means leaving Mikey behind.

  “And how is life in crapdom?”

  There is a story in the paper about a prison escape. The guy had two months left on an eight-year sentence and he broke out. He went squirrelly, Jasper.

  I can see it happening. We should send him a card.

  Jasper and I have always been able to escape inside ourselves wherever we landed but the craphouse is so infested with vermin of every shape and kind, we can’t find a crack where we can rest and regroup.

  In class today, Mr. Ellis said, “It’s the tiny details that make a story interesting. They connect the reader, make time and place real. Think about detail when writing your assignment.”

  The Tool is sitting on the red chenille chair when I return from the library. “Hi, Ari. Needin’ sweet treats?”

  He’s exposing himself—again. You think Mr. Ellis wants this detail, Jasper?

  I look him in the eye. “Hey, O’Toole, there’s a piece of spaghetti on your lap.” He doesn’t flinch. His thing isn’t small, it’s gross and menacing and I feel like taking the hedge cutters to it. I boot up the stairs two at a time.

  In my room Ronnie is snoring—on my cot, under my blankets. A storm of wadded-up TP is on the floor. I sit in the dip at the end of the hall where Mikey’s tent used to be and try to study for math. Mum coughing in the bathroom sounds like she’s about to deliver a lung.

  Todd exits his room, sees the bathroom is occupied, opens the hall window and pisses out of it, and the mystery of the yellow canal on the roof is solved. He heads down while the Dick’s voice booms up, “Hariet, you lazy cow! You think we got all night to wait for you to get supper up?” I close my book and hoist myself downstairs. He flicks my forehead. “Move it.”

  I feed the pigs. While cleaning up their mess, O’Toole sneaks up behind and says, “Thanks, sweet thing.” His hand slips under my shirt.

  I whip around and take a swing at him with the frying pan. “Keep your fucking hands off me!”

  The Dick storms in from the hall. “You show my guest some respect, you hear?” He pins me to the wall by his forearm pressed to my windpipe—more, more, a little more ’til I’m sliding down the wall into blackness.

  These are the details as I surface: a heavy black boot on my hair, pinning my cheek to the dirty floor. The stink of pickle juice and singed rubber. A line of ants disappearing under the stove. An empty cigarette pack propping up the table leg. A splat of old bird shit on the yellowed baseboard and the ‘ta’ sound of a tear hitting the cracked linoleum.

  They pick up their bowling bags and leave. I pick up myself, clean up, and go upstairs. When exactly Ronnie resurrected off my bed is a mystery, but my pack has been pilfered and my cot is empty except for a greasy head-print on my Skyfish pillow and on Babcia’s feather comforter is menstrual blood, I assume, since I know it’s not virginal.

  I go into the boys’ room and tap on the bigger tent that Chase and I pitched when Ricky moved out. “Mikey? Can I camp out with you?”

  He unzips the door. I crawl in and curl up in a tight ball.

  “Do you want me to read you a story?”

  “No, I just need some quiet to make up a story for school.”

  “Make it about a dragonfly and a seahorse that go camping in the great indoors, okay?”

  “I’ll give it a go.”

  He pulls his blanket over my shoulder and pats my back with his small hand.

  I crave sleep but details chase me: the wretched skin-crawl of O’Toole’s hands on me, how the Dick’s new torture leaves fewer bruises but is scarring my soul, how my mother’s complete abandonment of herself has turned her into the left-behind skin of a molted animal.

  Jasper, I want to go home.

  My breath catches when I hear the door open, but I exhale when I recognize Todd’s wheeze and heft settling on the bed outside the tent. I drift off but snap back to attention when his bed creaks rhythmically, picking up steam like a locomotive. Todd’s moans escalate with his wanking and Jasper sings “Help” to drown out the horror.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Jackson Pollock slides click through the carousel. My heart refuses to slow down. The rush in my ears makes me nauseous. I slip out before the lights come on, grab my coat, and head across the field. Jasper slows me down. Go back. I want to paint angry messes like Jackson.

  We are an angry mess.

  I give Matt Talbot ten bucks and he hands over a bag of weed.

  We’ll miss English.

  Shut up.

  I like the weak sun and the February bite on my cheeks, mixed with the warmth from the fire in the rusty tin drum. I savour the slowing of my heart, the sway of the trees, and the melting of all the jagged edges. I make my eyes focus as my fellow delinquents scurry away like oil in the presence of dish soap. I turn to the shadow over my shoulder.

  “Don’t you have to pick up Mikey?”

  “Um . . .” Did we forget him, Jasper? “Ah . . . no, Sabina . . . a birthday party . . .”

  “Come on. Let’s go.” Mr. Ellis tugs my scarf.

  “No, thanks. I’m just not up to any lectures.”

  “Well, that’s a relief because I don’t have any. Come on.” His arm on my shoulder gentles me along. “Rough go, eh?”

  “I’m caught and I’m done.”

  “You’re in a bloody tangle but there’s no way a fat buzzard can outdo a Lioneagle.” He opens his car door. “How does lasagna sound?”

  “I have to work.”

  “We’ll give you a lift later and check out the music.”

  “What about writer’s group?”

  “Upstaged by a basketball game. Can you believe that?”

  By the end of a shower my high is completely gone and I want to follow the scummy water down the drain. Mina has left me fluffy towels and clean clothes.

  The coffee table is heaped with food. Ellis says, “Dig in.”

  “Are you going to bust me about the pot?”

  “I’ll make you a deal, just promise Mina and me no dope during school and no skipping.”

  “I’ll promise no shit, period. It’s making Jasper really cranky.”

  Mina impels me toward the food and forces me into a cross-legged sit on the carpet. “I’m shocked Jasper hasn’t slugged you about it already.”

  “The Dick keeps knocking both of us off our feet.”

  Ellis wags a baguette at me. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s not your mother, or O’Toole, or that bloody Dick.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “No, it’s about Mikey.”

  “Mikey and I are allies.”

  “Your head is in a battle that’s months down the road.”

  “What battle?”

  “You know you have to get away from that house and you know that you can’t leave Mikey behind and it’s giving that bastard the upper hand right now.”

  “You said no lectures.”

  “I said I didn’t have any. Rochester is pissed and ready for war.” He hands me a plate. “Eat.”

  “What am I going to do about Mikey?”

  “I don’t have the answer. But when the time comes we’ll all help you figure it out. Right now, something has to be done about those bruises on y
our neck.”

  “You got that right.” A pinch or a fist is one thing but stealing my breath is the worst torture yet.

  “Ari, you have to tell Mrs. Vandervolt.”

  “Hold your britches. Before you send us down that road, picture them all sober and polished up, saying these bruises are hickeys and that I’m rebellious. At least I can walk away soon. The one we risk destroying is Mikey.”

  Mina puts salad on my plate. “Think I’m with Ari on this one. I’ve heard too many horror stories from kids in the system. What does Mary think you should do?”

  “I keep this toxic spill off the East Coast. Mary worries so much and Jake thinks he needs to make life perfect for me. I can’t tell them that I’m imploding inside my skin.”

  “Nia called last night.”

  I try to read Ellis’ face.

  “She said your letters sound like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm trying to paint an up-side picture of Dante’s Inferno.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Well, I didn’t tell her that I see you crossing the field every day at lunch. And I didn’t tell her that you got thirty-two percent on your math test or that I miss your wit and wisdom in English.” He lifts my chin. “I told her that Mina and I were watching out for you and would help you through.”

  Mina tucks in on the sofa behind me and has a go at my tangle of hair. It’s a kindness that makes me bite my cheek—hard. “We have to figure out what he won’t risk losing. What matters to him, Ari?”

  “Len’s money.”

  “Well, he can’t get his hands on that for another two years. And he flushes money like water anyway. What is he really afraid to lose?”

  “I’ve never been able to figure out his currency.” I sop up sauce with garlicky bread. “His loves are gambling, drinking, and the torture of women and children.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it.”

  Ellis scrapes and gathers plates. “As screwed up as he is, he always gets himself to work. His job must be important to him.”

  “Yeah, he loves being a cop.” I check my watch and unfold from the floor. “I really should go. Maybe getting Jasper into some salt-sweat at the Riverboat will bring some scheme up from the depths.”

  I review the file Ricky gave me when he left. There’s no doubt the Dick has sticky fingers but how do we pin any of these names and dates on him, Jasper?

  I call Todd at work and he agrees to give up information in exchange for me bringing him a turkey on rye. “I seen TVs, radios, booze, all kinds of shit in the trunk of the car. And you think he goes to Woolworth’s to get your mum those bangles?” Todd opens a cage and takes out a pup, gives it a pill and a dose of praise. “Good boy.”

  “You’re spectacular at this, Todd.”

  “Best gig ever.” He moves on to the next cage. “If I see anything I’ll give you a heads-up. You should get a camera and take pictures as evidence. Like on Perry Mason.”

  When I return home I catch Ronnie pillaging my stuff. “Hey, Ronnie. Looking to de-edge?”

  “Fuck you. Got any?”

  I have a couple joints left since making my promise to Ellis to lay off. It’s enough to make her as pliable as Gumby. I get tidbits: a place on Front Street where the Dick gambles, a ruby ring he snatched off a body, loot he brings home. When talk turns to a motherlode of tie-dye last year, my neck hairs startle up. “What did he do with it?”

  “Unloaded it in Buffalo.”

  “Did he give any of it to you?”

  “Gave me a hundred bucks to stop pestering him about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “One time he gave my mom a diamond watch. She never wore it, though. Said it was too good for wearing.”

  “What happened to your mom?”

  “They were upstairs having it out over something.” She picks at a spec on her tongue. “And she fell down the stairs.”

  “Did he push her?”

  “More like threw.” Controlled puffs dot the memory. “Ricky and me were watching TV. There was no thumpity-thump, just one thud and she was there in the archway, her head turned so she was looking out the window, backwards.”

  “Geez, Ronnie, I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t always the shits. We went to a cottage once. It was a blast. I landed a fish bigger than Ricky’s and Daddy said, ‘There’s my girl.’”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “She showed me how to pan fry it over the fire. I’d never smelled or tasted anything so good.” She takes a long, slow drag. “She wasn’t beautiful like your mom, but she had really pretty lips. I think. I can’t really remember her face.”

  “You have pretty lips.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  Chase loans me his dad’s Polaroid and already I have a wad of photos. I make sure the sedan’s license plate is in view when I take snaps of two cases of whiskey and cartons loaded with boxes of Laura Secord chocolates. It’s not the crown jewels but it’s a start. I take a shot of the TV in the living room, Mum’s ring, a shiny motorcycle in the garage, a bag of prescription drugs for a slew of people I’ve never heard of, and I get one of the Dick’s gold watch, inscribed, To Walter, for outstanding service, December 1957.

  On Sunday I bring back clean sheets for Ronnie’s bed, too, not that she’ll notice but maybe the smell of clean laundry will help her remember her mom’s face. If I want more info, weed is my best option.

  On Monday I nip across the field and fork over twenty bucks to Matt Talbot for a bag of truth serum. When I swing around, my eyes connect with Mr. Ellis standing over by the fence. He turns away and heads back to the school. I run to catch up, “Sir, wait. Let me explain.” He doesn’t stop, doesn’t look back.

  In English, I might just as well have skipped because he acts like I’m not even here. I wait for the class to leave but he grabs his jacket and satchel and turns off the light.

  I figure Mina doesn’t know because her chatter is unchanged but Mr. Ellis’ silence bruises me on the inside. On Wednesday I drop my essay on his desk. “Just want you to know, sir, yours is one of the worst leavings I’ve ever had. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  FORTY-NINE

  Mr. Ellis returns my story, only mine. He starts to speak but Aubrey and Sean get into a tussle in the hall. When he goes to break it up I head home, reading the back of my paper as I walk.

  Ari:

  I’ve tried to write this in a hundred ways and the best I can come up with is, please forgive me for being such a pompous ass. How dare I judge you for turning to something that softens your harsh world?

  Your story is brilliant, as usual, achingly tender without a hint of sentimentality, but I can’t accept it like this. I’m asking that you rewrite the ending, this time with the truth, not this predictable easy out. A great tragedy has its place but it’s not the right end for this dragonfly and seahorse and you know it. Mina and I are here for you, no strings. —E

  “Ari! Miss Appleton!” I turn to see Mr. Ellis bolting across the field, pockets clattering, tweed jacket rippling. “Hold up, please.”

  I walk backwards, slowly.

  “Wait, Ari, please.” His breath is impressively unpuffed. “There’s a note on your paper, but I just have to say I’m sorry before Rochester keeps me awake another night.”

  “I read it. We’re cool.”

  “You sure you forgive me? I’ve just felt like shit.”

  “Well, this will likely put you knee-deep in it, but I need you to know that I never broke my promise to you. Not that I wasn’t being scum, but not promise-breaking scum.”

  He stops like I punched him. “What? Pardon?”

  “Getting Ronnie high helps me excavate intel from her. She steals my money and gets wasted anyway. I figured I might as well get something out of it.”

  “Ah, geez. I
really am so sorry.”

  “I’m an Appleton. What else could you think?”

  “I could have heard you out when you tried to talk to me. I could’ve given you the benefit of the doubt. I could have and should have been there for you no matter what.”

  “Thank you, sir. That’s nice. I mean that.”

  “You can screw up and I’m not going to bail. I mean that.”

  “Auntie Nia says I don’t screw up enough. That I’m too much a pleaser. That’s why I gave myself permission to dope up Ronnie.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “I may have some ammunition against the Dick, but it’s more likely just fodder for a crap novel.”

  “Let me get the car and drive you to get Mikey.”

  “Parent-teacher thing. The Dick’s bringing him home.”

  “Come over and have a tea then.”

  “Rain check. Walking stirs up my creative juices and I have a new ending to write.”

  His inner animal smiles. “Then come for dinner tomorrow and we’ll strategize.”

  “If Laura doesn’t bail on Mikey, it’s a date.”

  I feel like skipping, so I do, most of the way home, stopping midhop when I see Mikey’s pack on the sidewalk contents strewn everywhere. I bolt in and hear Dick’s fury thundering down the stairs. “You want the ocean, well here’s the ocean! He takes you fishin’? Well then go bloody fish.”

  I reach the bathroom just as the Dick plunges Mikey’s head into a bathtub full of water. “Stop. Stop! Let him up!” I claw and pull but his lock on Mikey won’t release. I grab Mum’s Aqua Net and spray it in his face. His hands spring to his eyes and Mikey flops like a weighted doll to the floor.

  Before I can get us out, the Dick’s rage turns to me; a backhand, a punch, a lift by the throat, and then I’m down into the water. My scream is swallowed into my lungs. My chest burns. My belly jerks. Air bubbles out of my mouth. Then I’m up, gulping at air, then under again. His face above me is cold fire. From behind an arm locks around his neck and forces him back. I take in great gulps of air. Mikey is on all fours, retching.