I wonder how Schoolteacher got from his classroom to this broken-down place.
The old man glances back out at the front room. He seems puzzled for a minute; then he says Ah.
“No bed,” he tells me. “Took that away when Roger passed. Knock another ten off the monthly rent, then. Was just a mattress really, anyways.”
In the front room, there’s a lamp with a dubious-looking shade, a plain card table, and a green easy chair. He sees me looking and smiles. “Partially furnished,” he says.
“Three eighty-five a month includes utilities, but if you bring a television in and want the cable, you’ll have to set that up and pay yourself, though a couple of gentlemen on floor one seem to have figured something out on the sly. And I don’t have any of that wiffy.”
He says, “Most of us are just month-to-month, you know, one or two week by week, if that’s what they want. I do need a security deposit, though, that’s my rule, even if you’re short-term and you don’t seem like trouble. You never know when someone’s gonna do some damage, am I right? That’ll run you two hundred dollars, but you get it back if you leave your room in good shape.”
He pauses, looking down at me sternly. “Liquor store gets a little noisy if that’s a bother to you. I’m not particular, but like I said, just bring the troubles you already got and no more than that.”
A television across the hall sends off the sounds of tinny laughter. Someone down the hall sings softly in Spanish.
I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know if this is a good place, or a bad place, or what I should ask about. All I know is that this is the place I have money for right now, and that this man seems nice, and he’s not asking for an application fee or a credit check or anything like that. I’ve been in worse places, and I feel scared, but I look up at him anyway and nod. I can’t find my words, and my hands are trembling. I don’t want to think about what might happen if this turns out to be a horrible place.
He stoops to brush a fly off his pants leg. His toes are gnarled and dirty in his sandals. “I’m Leonard. Why don’t you tell me your name and we can start this beautiful friendship.” He reaches down to help me up from the tub.
I take his hand. It’s surprisingly soft, and I smile in spite of myself. I relax a little. He seems so nice, and honest. “Charlie,” I tell him. “Charlie Davis is my name.”
When I get back to Mikey’s apartment, there’s a CD leaning against the screen door, with an envelope taped to the front. Mike is written in flowing purple ink, with the e drifting off into a series of pert purple flowers. I don’t have time to really think about what it means, so I leave it by the door. I write a note to Mikey with my new address.
It doesn’t take long to repack my stuff. I wrap the dishes from the shelter in the plaid blanket I snagged from the fence and wedge them into Louisa’s suitcase, throw my clothes into my backpack. I find some rope and lug everything outside, strap Louisa’s suitcase to the back of the yellow bicycle, and hoist my backpack onto my shoulders.
Opera pours from the windows of the front house. I stop for a second, listening, and wonder if I should say goodbye to Ariel, or thank her, or something, but I don’t. I use the garden gate to leave and I don’t look back. It’s just another thing I’ve never learned how to do: say goodbye.
It’s a slow, hard ride to the white building. The suitcase keeps shifting behind me on the bicycle and I struggle to keep my balance and keep pedaling. I’m a little worried about leaving my bike outside, even locked up, but I do it, hoping for the best.
I drag everything I own up the rickety stairs and stop. Wiping sweat off my face, I stand at the doorway to the room for a solid five minutes, waiting for someone to let me in, when I realize I can let myself in. Because I have a key. I look down at it, cool and silver, in my hands.
When I flick the light switch in the room, nothing happens. I can see in the shadows that there’s no bulb in the light fixture, only an empty, dark hole. I drag my backpack and Louisa’s suitcase into the room and shut the door, sliding the chain lock into place.
I pull the cord on the standing lamp; nothing. When I unscrew the bulb, I see the stain of blowout. The kitchen area is only a few steps away from the door. The tiny bulb above the sink there works, though I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach the string, which turns out to be a dirty shoestring.
The sunlight is fading. From the street comes the dull and insistent whee-hoo, whee-hoo of cars hitting the driveway bell of the drive-through liquor store.
I’ve finished my bread and the jar of peanut butter and just have one bruised peach left from the Dumpster at the co-op. My stomach rumbles, but I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight. Yellow light streams through the window from the streetlamp outside. I cup my hands and drink musty water from the kitchen tap, thinking about what to do. I decide Leonard is my best bet.
I unlock the door and ease it open. The hallway is empty. I can smell cigarette smoke. There are three doors on my side and three across the hall, with the door to the bathroom at the end of the hall. That door is closed, though I can hear some grunting. I shut my door and head down the stairs quickly, grateful that the hall light works.
At Leonard’s, he hands me a hammer and nail. I offer a quarter for a spare lightbulb, and he accepts it, grinning. In the room, I screw in the lightbulb.
I pound the nail into the wall and hang the glittery skull cross from Ariel’s house above the tub.
I push the green chair in front of the door, make sure the door is latched, then lie on the floor, my head on my backpack. I count to myself: I had nine hundred and thirty-three dollars of the Ellis-and-me money. I paid Leonard a total of five hundred and ninety-five dollars for rent and security, so I have three hundred and thirty-eight dollars left. It was scary and sad to hand over so much money at once, to have to let go what she and I had dreamed about.
But I do have a room of my own, at last. I’m not in an alley, or an underpass, or a leaky, cold van, or a red room in a horrifying house. I’m here.
I don’t feel sad. For just now, I don’t feel scared. I feel, for right now, well, kind of triumphant.
I hug myself, listening to all the life outside this grimy room, the shouts from the street, muffled voices from the other rooms, televisions, crackling radios, the blare of a siren several blocks away, thinking, My room. My room.
In the early morning, the clatter of boots outside my door wakes me up. Over and over, the door down the hallway opens, shuts, then sounds of pissing or sighing, then flushing, then more boots. Groggily, I swipe at my eyes. My hand comes away gritty and salty.
The tub doesn’t have a shower spigot. I peel off my clothes as the water runs. I look everywhere but at my body: the hooks on my overalls, the stains on my blue jersey shirt. I don’t feel comfortable just standing while the tub fills, so I step in and sit down. I feel a rush of gratefulness for the warm water. I use the lemony hand soap from the library to soap my hair, then I close my eyes and splash water over my thighs, stomach, breasts, face. Finally, when I feel clean, I scrunch way down on my back and submerge my head, enjoying the silence.
When I’m about to step out of the tub, I realize I don’t have a towel. Just one more thing to add to the list of things I need.
I brush water off my body, using my hands as best I can. I don’t have to worry about my hair, it’s still so short. I choose a clean long-sleeved shirt from the pile of Tanya’s clothes and then slip on my overalls. I almost forget to lock the door on my way out to work. My door.
I’m dozing on the floor the next afternoon, after work, using my backpack as a pillow, when I hear the soft sounds of tapping coming from the hallway. At first, I think it’s from a television in one of the other rooms. When I realize it’s not, when I realize someone is knocking at my door, I stand up, grabbing the bent fork from the backpack, just in case. Warily, I push the green chair out of the way. I tug open my door just a tiny bit, but keep the latch on, and peek out.
A blond, dread
locked figure smiles widely at me, pressing his face through the crack. The fork clatters to the ground. My heart starts beating wildly.
“Charlie Davis,” Mikey sings softly. “It’s you. Look at you.”
I fling the door open, my face already wet. “Mikey,” I whisper, burying myself against him. “Oh, you’re here. You’re finally here.”
He hugs me so hard we fall to the floor, laughing and crying. It’s a great relief to be held, to feel arms around my whole body, arms that clasp my stomach, another pair of legs spooning, a face pressed into my neck, absorbing my heat, my tears. Mikey’s voice is a soft Hey now, come on now, it’s all right against my ear, lips dry on my temple. He rubs my back as he rocks against me. He nuzzles my head with his chin, his stubble catching in the bristly tines of my hair. I say, I missed you, and he answers, Me too. My fault, I say. No, he says. Never. I say, I didn’t answer her. Ellis’s texts had come slowly, one by one: Smthing hrts. U never sd hurt like this. 2 much. Seeing him brings it all back. I hadn’t seen her in almost three months. I stared at the bright yellow text and turned the phone facedown on the bed, using all the anger I had at her to steel myself, and when I woke up the next morning, my mother was in the doorway, saying my name in a funny voice, her mouth trembling.
Wrapped in Mikey’s body, on the floor on the stolen plaid blanket, I think of those photographs taken inside waves, the ones with surfers in slick suits on boards coasting through the tunnel of water, eyes wide. I think they must feel protected inside that curl of water, inside the sudden silencing of the world, even if only for a few minutes. I feel like that, right now, in my small, gloomy room: everything I’ve done and pretended to be in the past year, in the weeks past, is washed away and I am being cleaned, transported, polished for the new world.
—
“So, out with it. Tell me. What did they tell you in there? Is there, like, a name for what you…have? The cutting thing.” Mikey stares at me intently. When did he get so handsome? I look down at my plate. We’re at a place called Gentle Ben’s and sharing a Black & Blue Burger and peppery fries.
His question makes me nervous—how much should I tell him? What’s the squick factor on cutting and psychotic behavior, after all? I swallow a French fry and take a deep breath. “It’s called NSSI. Non-Suicidal Self-Injury.”
He wipes his mouth and takes a sip of his Coke, his eyes flashing. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly? Did…does Ellis have that, too?”
“It means I hurt myself, but I don’t want to die.” I take a bite of the burger. Cooked food tastes so good. I ordered a lemonade, too. I take a drink, savoring the sweetness that floods my mouth before I have to talk again, because Casper said to talk.
I force it out, slowly. “It’s hard to explain. I have other stuff, too. Impulse-control disorder. PTSD.”
He frowns. “Post-traumatic stress disorder? Isn’t that for vets and stuff ?”
I chew my burger carefully. I don’t mean to, but what I say comes out in a whisper. “It’s from a lot of stuff.” I never told Mikey about what happened to my dad. I guess he just assumed my parents were divorced because most everybody’s parents were divorced. He didn’t know about my mother hitting me until just before he went away.
He never knew about the cutting, or about Ellis’s eating problems. We held each other’s secrets tight.
“Jesus, Charlie. I’m so sorry.” He pushes his plate away. “You know when I came back for break once, I tried looking for you. With DannyBoy. But we couldn’t find you.”
His face is leaner, harder, in a way. Adult-like. He pulls his knees up against his body, resting his sneakers against the edge of the plastic chair.
Of course he would look for me. Of the four of us, Ellis, Charlie, Mikey, and DannyBoy, Mikey was the most responsible, the most well-spoken. He could talk us out of trouble with police officers in Lowertown. He could smooth over missed curfews and alcohol breath with parents. He could put his small, wiry body between DannyBoy’s loose, fleshier one and the hard body of a crusty punk with hands the size of fresh hams.
He clears his throat. “I don’t drink anymore, Charlie, or anything. I’m totally straight now. I thought you should know. I just want to set that out right now.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, kind of grateful. I’m not supposed to do any of that, either, and if Mikey’s clean, that will make things easier. “I can’t drink, either, or do anything, really. My doctor doesn’t want me to. And it was okay in the hospital. It wasn’t bad. I was safer, anyway.”
Mikey looks relieved. Happy. “That’s good,” he says, “that’s really good you aren’t drinking. For me, it was like, after I got here, I was so tired of all that shit. I just wanted to start fresh. I mean, we spent so much time wasted back home, do you realize that? We were fucked up all the time.”
“I know. Some of it was fun, though.” I smile.
“Yeah, but sometimes you have to let stuff go if you want to move forward, you know? Did you know DannyBoy got clean?”
“Are you kidding?” I remember how things got worse and worse for DannyBoy, and he would spend hours walking Rice Street, looking for the man in the black vinyl jacket with purple piping, and after he found him, he’d go soft, like a baby, and loll in the grass in Mears Park by the shallow pond, the sun illuminating his slack face.
“No lie. I talked to his mom when I was back for Christmas. He spent six months at some rehab way up north, by Boundary Waters, way out in the forest, where they had to chop their own wood for heat and raise chickens for eggs and food. Crazy stuff, but he did it. He’s been clean for a year. He works with old people now, like taking care of them. Feeding them and stuff. In Duluth.”
I try to imagine lumbering DannyBoy spooning oatmeal into an old person’s mouth, or changing their diaper, but I can’t. I can only see him high, or sad, or pummeling someone in the alley after a show.
“It can be done, Charlie. You see? You can change stuff in your life, if you want to.”
I nod carefully, because I’m not sure that’s possible, or if it’s even something I can do, since I always seem to be fucking up. Mikey smiles, slipping money from his pocket and tucking it under his plate. I’m sorry to see him do it. It was getting easier and easier to talk to him here, our words drifting like water.
“Well,” he says slowly. “I don’t like where you’re living, but first things first, right? We need to get you something to sleep on. I’ve got no wheels, so this means some legwork. You up for legwork? Looks like you could use some legwork.”
“Hey!” I say, my face reddening a little, realizing that he’s been looking at my body, which makes me feel scared and kind of hopeful. I shift in my seat. Does he think I’m too chunky now, though?
“They wouldn’t let us exercise. And the food was really starchy.”
“Just teasing,” he says, smiling. “A little weight looks good on you. You were always kinda scrawny.”
We stand up. He stretches, his green hoodie inching up. His belly is brown and downy, pierced with a silver ring. I have a sudden urge to place my hand on the sharp bone of his exposed hip, to feel the warm skin there. I feel my face color again. I wish I knew for sure if he was thinking the same thing about me.
Suddenly I want to ask him about the CD on his doorstep, the purple-scripted envelope. I’d forgotten all about that, that Mikey might have a girlfriend. I’m about to ask him when he steps closer to me and says quietly, “Show me.”
I know exactly what he’s talking about. I flinch, worried about what he might say, but then, slowly, I push up one jersey sleeve, then the other. It’s almost dark now; the white lights dangling along the patio’s roof are as fuzzy as the snow I left behind in Minnesota. He takes a deep breath; the warm exhalation coats my face. His eyes water as they fix on my damage. I push my sleeves down. “Time’s up,” I say lightly. I’m very aware of how close we are and the fact that his lips are not far from mine.
What would he say if I told him there are even more scars o
n my legs?
Mikey rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes.
“Everything got very big,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything.
Casper said, You have to talk, Charlotte. You can’t be silent. “It’s like I was talking about,” I say, forcing the words out. “Like, everything got very heavy, you know? I couldn’t hold it anymore.”
I missed Ellis so much and I was so mad at her and it was all my fault. And Mikey, there was this house, this really bad house.
But that stuff stays inside.
He shakes his head. We stare at each other. He says, “Okay, then. Let’s try to keep it small, all right? One thing at a time.”
“Small.” I test the word carefully. “Small.” I like the sound of it. Nothing more than I can hold in two hands at once. Small.
—
We borrow a pickup truck from his chubby friend, Rollin, who lives on Euclid Avenue. All around the university, desks and tables and mattresses are lumped in alleys or stacked in teetering piles on sidewalks outside apartment buildings and dorms. Mikey says, “This is a good time. Everybody’s moving out since it’s summer break. Throwing out perfectly fine stuff.”
We find an aluminum Wildcats garbage can, a box fan, a toaster painted with black and white polka dots, a water pitcher, a small end table. Later, driving slowly down an alley, we spot a twin futon wedged between a glass-topped coffee table and a stack of framed Hooters posters. Mikey checks it for cigarette holes. I try to joke with him, saying that doesn’t much matter, seeing as how I used to sleep in an underpass, but that just makes him grimace.
He runs down the street to his apartment for rope to tie the futon in a roll. The futon smells like smoke and beer. I’m tired, rubbing my eyes, when I hear the sound of shuffling footsteps.
It’s Riley, holding a canvas tote bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It’s almost midnight, but he’s wearing sunglasses. He regards the futon and the other items in the pickup truck.
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