After he died, my mother was like a crab: she tucked everything inside and left only her shell.
Casper finishes reading and folds the paper neatly, sliding it into a binder on her desk. “Cool moss.” She smiles. “That isn’t a bad way to feel. If only we could get you there without hurting yourself. How can we do that?”
Casper always has blank sheets of paper on her desk for me. I write, then push it to her. She frowns. She pulls a folder from her drawer and runs her fingers down a page.
“No, I don’t see a sketchbook on the list of items from your backpack.” She looks at me.
I make a little sound. My sketchbook had everything, my own little world. Drawings of Ellis, of Mikey, the little comics I would make about the street, about me and Evan and Dump.
I can feel my fingers tingling. I just need to draw. I need to bury myself. I make another little sound.
Casper closes the folder. “Let me talk to Miss Joni. Let’s see what she can do.”
My father was cigarettes and red-and-white cans of beer. He was dirty white T-shirts and a brown rocking chair and blue eyes and scratchy cheek stubble and “Oh, Misty,” when my mother would frown at him. He was days of not getting out of that chair, of me on the floor by his feet, filling paper with suns, houses, cats’ faces, in crayon and pencil and pen. He was days of not changing those T-shirts, of sometimes silence and sometimes too much laughter, a strange laughter that seemed to crack him from the inside until there wasn’t laughter, but crying, and tears that bled along my face as I climbed up and rocked with him, back and forth, back and forth, heartbeat heartbeat heartbeat as the light changed outside, as the world grew darker around us.
Louisa says, “You’re so quiet. I’m so glad they put somebody quiet with me. You’ve no idea how tedious it is, listening to somebody talk out loud all the time.”
She’d been silent for so long, I thought she was sleeping.
Louisa says, “I mean, I’m talking to you, do you know that? In my head, I mean. I’m telling you all sorts of things in my head, because you seem like you’re a good listener. But I don’t want to take up your thinking space. If that makes sense.”
She makes a sleepy sound. Mmmmm. Then, “I’m going to tell you my whole story. You’re a good egg, a keeper.”
A good egg, a keeper, a good egg, a keeper—a cutter’s nursery song.
In Group, Casper doesn’t like us to say cut or cutting or burn or stab. She says it doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it: it’s all the same. You could drink, slice, do meth, snort coke, burn, cut, stab, slash, rip out your eyelashes, or fuck till you bleed and it’s all the same thing: self-harm. She says: whether someone has hurt you or made you feel bad or unworthy or unclean, rather than taking the rational step of realizing that person is an asshole or a psycho and should be shot or strung up and you should stay the fuck away from them, instead we internalize our abuse and begin to blame and punish ourselves and weirdly, once you start cutting or burning or fucking because you feel so shitty and unworthy, your body starts to release this neat-feeling shit called endorphins and you feel so fucking high the world is like cotton candy at the best and most colorful state fair in the world, only bloody and stuffed with infection. But the fucked-up part is once you start self-harming, you can never not be a creepy freak, because your whole body is now a scarred and charred battlefield and nobody likes that on a girl, nobody will love that, and so all of us, every one, is screwed, inside and out. Wash, rinse, fucking repeat.
I’m trying to follow the rules. I’m trying to go where I’m supposed to go when I’m supposed to go there and sit like a good girl even though I don’t say anything because my throat is filled with nails. I’m trying to follow the rules because to not follow the rules means to risk OUTSIDE.
When Doc Dooley told me two boys dropped off my backpack? Those boys, once, twice, I guess, saved me. And when he said they said to tell me they were sorry? I’ve been thinking about that.
Evan and Dump. Were they sorry they saved me from the man in the underpass who was trying to mess with me? Were they sorry when the winter turned so fucking cold here in Minnie-Soh-Tah that they couldn’t NOT take all three of us to live with Fucking Frank? I was sick. We couldn’t live outside in the van any longer. Evan needed his drugs. Dump went where Evan went. Were they sorry I wouldn’t do what Fucking Frank asked? (What he wanted all the girls in Seed House to do, if they wanted to stay.) Were they sorry they didn’t let me die in the attic of Seed House?
Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.
I cut that word out, too, but it keeps growing back, tougher and meaner.
Louisa doesn’t come to Group. Louisa meets with Casper in the evenings. Louisa has phone calls at night; she presses herself against the wall in Rec, twirls the cord between her fingers, the toe of her glittery ballet flat petting the carpet delicately. Louisa can come and go as she pleases, she doesn’t need a Day Pass. Louisa whispers in the dark, “I need to tell you, you aren’t the same as us, you know? Look around. These sheets, this bed, our meds, the doctors. Everything here speaks money. Are you listening?”
Her bed creaks as she shifts, leans on her elbow to face me. In the half-light, her eyes are egg-shaped, shadowed underneath.
“You need to prepare yourself, is all I’m saying.”
But I let her words glide over me, smooth and warm. She turns away. Money, money. I don’t want to think about where it’s coming from or where it isn’t.
I just want her to go back to sleep, so I can eat the turkey sandwich I’ve hidden beneath my bed.
The door to Group whooshes open. Casper sidles in, takes the seat next to Sasha, who wriggles and smiles at her like a puppy. Casper’s wearing brown pants and her elf clogs. There’s a red bandanna like a headband in her yellowy hair. Moon earrings, pink cheeks, she’s a goddamn rainbow.
I wonder what she was like in high school. She must have been a good girl, the kind that holds her books over her tits, always has nice combed hair, bites her lips when she takes a test. Probably on yearbook, or math team, maybe debate.
But there must be something else, something under Casper’s scrubbed surface that we can’t see, like a hidden hurt, a tender secret or something, because why the fuck would she make being with us her goddamn life?
She passes out paper and markers and we tense up. When we have to write, we know Group will be rough. She makes us put the pens and paper on the floor, do our accordion breathing. I can’t concentrate. I’m watching the clock on the wall; I get to leave early. Today I get my bandages off. The thought of it makes my stomach flutter.
Casper says, “I’d like you to write down what you say to yourself before you harm.”
Blue groans out loud, runs her tongue across her mouth, flexes her naked feet. She never wears shoes. Silver rings glisten on three of her toes. From across the circle, she looks as young as any of us, but up close, in dining hall, or Rec, you can see the hard grooves at the corners of her eyes. I haven’t drawn in such a long time, I hardly ever go to Crafts, and looking at Blue is hard because she makes me ache for my pencils and charcoals. There’s a something in her that I want to put on paper.
I don’t write anything at first, I just make little lines with my red marker and then I sneak looks at Blue, to sketch her, lightly, faintly. It feels good, my fingers holding the marker, feeling my way around her cattish eyes, the fullness of her mouth. It’s a little awkward, pressing the paper against my thighs, but it’s like my fingers never forgot what to do. Like they’ve been waiting for me to come back.
Blue’s mouth is so full. My own lips are kind of thin. Ellis would say, You have to accentuate. Take my chin in her fingers, press the cool lipstick to my mouth. But it never worked. It never looked right on me. I didn’t see someone with a beautiful mouth. I saw someone who had lipstick on the skin of her face.
My brain starts to circle, circle, even as I keep drawing Blue. There are things happening that I don’t want to think about, not right now.
Words happening, like sorry and attic and underpass and hurting me.
Sasha sniffles. Francie clears her throat.
My pen writes OUT. GET IT OUT. CUT IT ALL OUT. I put a big red X over the drawing of Blue’s face, crumple up the paper, shove it under my thigh.
“Isis.” Casper folds her hands, waits for Isis to read from her paper.
Isis picks at her nostrils, her face reddening. “Okay,” she says finally. She says, so softly it’s almost a whisper, “Why can’t you ever just fucking learn? This will teach you.” She squeezes her eyes shut.
Francie says, “Nobody. Blank. Who cares.” Rips her paper in half.
Sasha’s body is so warm from crying a weird heat shimmers off her and I shift my chair a little away. I can feel Blue’s eyes on me.
Sasha looks down at her paper and chokes out, “You. Fat. Ass. Fuck.”
Bird-quick, Blue is up and across the circle, yanking the paper from beneath my thigh. She glares at me from the middle of the circle.
Casper looks at her evenly. “Blue.” A warning.
Blue uncrumples the paper, smooths it flat. As she scrutinizes it, a smile spreads across her face, slowly. “Is this me? This is pretty good, Silent Sue. I like that you Xed me out.”
She shows the paper to the group. “She erased me.” She crumples the paper back up and tosses it in my lap. I let it fall to the floor. On her way back to her seat, she tells Casper, “She said it better than I could. That’s pretty much what goes through my head when I self-harm. Erase me.”
Casper turns to Sasha, but before she can start, Blue interrupts her. “You know, Doctor, it’s very unfair.”
“What’s unfair?” Casper regards Blue. My face starts to heat up. I look at the clock. Just a few minutes to go before I can get up and leave, get these clubs off.
“She never has to say anything. We all have to talk, spill our fucking guts out, and she doesn’t have to say shit. Maybe we’re like a little comedy show for her.”
“Group is voluntary, Blue. If a member doesn’t want to speak, she doesn’t have to. In Char—”
“Tell everybody what you wrote on your paper, there, Silent Sue,” Blue says. “No? Okay, I will. She wrote, Out. Out, cut it all out. Cut what out, Sue? Pony up. It’s time to pay the piper.”
Fucking Frank wore heavy silver rings, malevolent-looking skulls he was forever buffing across his shirt until they gleamed with perfection. His fingers were stained and singed from lighters and they dug into my neck, lifting me off the attic floor. Evan and Dump made kitten sounds behind him, but they were just boys who needed drugs. It was freezing outside. April had dropped a surprise snow that turned into freezing sleet. That was the worst kind of weather to be outside in: icy water that froze your bare face and turned your fingers to stiff husks of bone.
I should’ve known when Fucking Frank greeted us at the door that he wouldn’t let me stay for free. I should’ve looked closer at the faces of the girls on the ripped couch as Evan and Dump carried me in. In my stupor, my lungs like cement, my eyes blurry, I thought they were just stoned, their eyes gone hazy. I know, now, that their eyes were dead.
Just do it, Fucking Frank said that night, my breath disappearing in the tightness of his fingers. Do it, like the other girls. Or I’ll do you myself.
If you were a girl, and you were at Seed House, and you wanted to stay at Seed House, there was a room downstairs with only mattresses. Frank put girls in the room. Men came to the house and paid Frank, and then went into the room.
OUT. CUT IT ALL OUT. Cut out my father. Cut out my mother. Cut out missing Ellis. Cut out the man in the underpass, cut out Fucking Frank, the men downstairs, the people on the street with too many people inside them, cut out hungry, and sad and tired, and being nobody and unpretty and unloved, just cut it all out, get smaller and smaller until I was nothing.
That’s what was in my head in the attic when I took broken glass from my tender kit and began to cut myself into tiny pieces. I’d done it forever, for years, but now would be the last time. I’d go farther than Ellis had. Wouldn’t fuck it up like Ellis had: I would die, not end up in some half-life.
That time, I tried so hard to fucking die.
But here I am.
The music in my head makes my eyes cloud over. I can barely see Blue with her smarmy face and her fucked-up teeth but as I walk toward her, I can practically taste what it will feel like to grind that face into Group floor. My body is weirdly heavy and light at the same time and a little bit of me is leaving, floating away—Casper calls this dissociation—but I keep lurching in Blue’s direction, even as she kind of nervously laughs and says, “Fuck me,” and gets up, alert.
Jen S. stands up. She says, “Please, don’t.”
On the street, where I used to live, I called it my street feeling. It’s like electrical wire is strung tight through my whole body. It meant I could ball my fists and fight for the forgotten sleeping bag by the river against two older women. It meant I could do a lot of things just to make it through the night to another endless day of walking, walking, walking.
Casper’s voice is even and clear. “Charlie. Another altercation and I cannot help you.”
I stop short. Charlie. Charlie Davis. Charlotte, Evan said, his eyes shiny, drunk, smears of my blood on his cheek, that night in the attic. What a beautiful name. He kissed my head, over and over. Please don’t leave us, Charlotte.
My father taught me to tell time by telling me how much time was left. “The long hand is here, and the short hand is here. When the short hand is here, and the long hand here, then it is time for Mama to come home.” He lit a cigarette, pleased with himself, and rocked in his chair.
The hands on the wall clock in Group tell me it’s time to get my bandages off.
I lurch, the stupid bootie catching on the rug, until I reach the door. I let it slam shut behind me.
It’s one of the day nurses, Vinnie, who does it, his big hands chapped and methodical. It’s chilly in the Care room and very neat. Paper crinkles beneath me as I settle on the table. I look at the glass jars filled with tall Q-tips, the bottles of alcohol, the neatly labeled drawers. Vinnie has a silver tray all ready with scissors, tweezers, clips, and creams.
He pauses before he begins unpeeling the pads on my arms. “You want someone here? Doc Stinson’s done with Group in fifteen minutes.” He means Casper.
He gives me his special smile, the one where he opens his mouth and bares all his teeth. Each tooth is framed, like a painting or a photograph, in gold. I have a sudden urge to touch one of those shining teeth.
Vinnie laughs. “You like my sweet teeth? It cost a lot to get this smile, but it cost a lot to get this smile, if you know what I mean. You want the doctor or not?”
I shake my head, No.
“Yeah, that’s right. You a tough girl, Davis.”
Carefully, he unwinds the gauze from each arm. He strips the long pads from my left arm. He strips the long pads from my right arm. They make a wet, soft thwack as he tosses them in the metal trash bin. My heart beats a little faster. I don’t look down yet.
Vinnie leans close as he tweezes and clips the stitches. He smells silky and brittle all at once, like hair oil and coffee. I stare at the ceiling lights so hard dark clouds form over my eyes. There is a kidney-shaped stain on one of the panels, the color of butter heated too long in a pan.
“Am I hurting you?” he asks. “I’m doing the best I can, girlfriend.”
There’s the sound of trickling water. Vinnie is washing his hands. I lift my arms up.
They’re pale and puckered from being wrapped up for so long. Turning them over, I look at the red, ropy scars rivering from my wrists to my elbows. I touch them gingerly. Vinnie hums. It’s an upbeat tune, with a lilt.
I’m only another day to him, another hideous girl.
“Okay?” He rubs cream between his palms and holds them up.
Underneath these new scars, I can see the old ones. My scars are like a dam or something. Th
e beaver just keeps pushing new branches and sticks over the old ones.
I nod at Vinnie. The cream has warmed in his hands and feels good against my skin.
The first time I ever cut myself, the best part was after: swabbing the wound with a cotton ball, carefully drying it, inspecting it, this way and that, cradling my arm protectively against my stomach. There, there.
I cut because I can’t deal. It’s as simple as that. The world becomes an ocean, the ocean washes over me, the sound of water is deafening, the water drowns my heart, my panic becomes as large as planets. I need release, I need to hurt myself more than the world can hurt me, and then I can comfort myself.
There, there.
Casper told us, “It’s counterintuitive, yes? That hurting yourself makes you feel better. That somehow you can rid yourself of pain by causing yourself pain.”
The problem is: after.
Like now, what is happening now. More scars, more damage. A vicious circle: more scars = more shame = more pain.
The sound of Vinnie washing his hands in the sink brings me back.
Looking at my skin makes my stomach flip.
He turns. “Round two. You sure you don’t want someone else here?”
I shake my head and he throws me a sheet, tells me to scoot back on the examining table, motions for me to pull down my shorts. I do it quick under the sheet, without breathing, keeping the sheet tight over my plain underwear. My thighs prickle up, goose-pimply from the chilly room.
Girl in Pieces Page 3