Night Town

by Cathi Bond

  Sitting by the edge of the water, we took off our jackets and then our shoes, wanting to feel the singing water with our feet. A million years passed while I undid the laces. The eyelets and the laces mystified me. In a millisecond, in a single eyelet, I could see the past and the future, and the lace became a rope that could take me to the centre of the earth. Then I got caught up in the look and feel of the rocks. They were so beautiful. Everything in nature was perfect and for once I completely understood my place in the order of things. I looked up to the sky, past the blue and into the universe. Mary, who was afraid of fire, lit match after match, mesmerized by the flame. I blew one out before she burned her hand. Her hair blew and flew. Mary was laughing and her teeth flashed white into the twilight. I wanted to rub them and feel the porcelain. She took my hand, pulling me to my feet, and we walked into the river together. Mary disappeared beneath the surface, her hair spreading out like a Siren’s. I fell on my knees as the water folded over me, baptizing me into chemical wonder. Then the twilight was gone, the sky was black and we weren’t in the river anymore. We were lying on the grass with our heads together, soaking wet and cold. That’s how I knew I was back on earth.

  When we reached Mary’s house I pulled the remaining eight hits out of my jacket and handed them to her, but she wouldn’t take them.

  “I want you to sell them for me,” she said.

  Then Mary kissed my cheek, a special Mary kiss that could promise unspeakable bliss or the possible detonation of my entire world.

  The house was dark as I snuck through the side door into the basement foyer. Everyone was asleep. Good. I was nearly in my room when the hall light flicked on and Isabel’s voice rolled down the stairwell.

  “Maddy?” She was down the stairs in a shot. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your father finally got to sleep,” she said, peering into my face, trying to get a look at me. Her hair was rumpled and her housecoat had been hastily tied. I kept moving. I had dried off a bit, but if she touched me or got a good look into my eyes she might figure out something was up. It was so hard not to laugh. Her face was starting to look like a donkey’s.

  “He can’t be worrying about you.”

  Now her body was turning donkey too. Hello, Eeyore. I wanted to yank her tail and see if she brayed. I couldn’t help it –I started to laugh, making Isabel mad.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  Yes it was. This whole scene was a joke. Me living in a sideshow in the middle of a city full of snotty kids, being blackmailed by the high school goddess and saddled with a fake mother. It was far too funny for words. While I tried to get the giggling under control Isabel wanted to know if a girl who broke the rules deserved a nice birthday party. Big deal. I didn’t want to celebrate with them anyway.

  “You said that you’d behave.”

  So she was going to throw that in my face. The thought made me hot.

  “You promised to behave for your father.”

  That wasn’t funny. I’d left my home, all my friends and given up Ginnie. I’d done everything I’d promised. Isabel wagged her donkey hoof in my face.

  “One more time, Madeline Anne. One more time and you’re grounded.”

  I stumbled into my room. Fully dressed I fell back on the bed, listening to the big blowhard stomp up the stairs. I was furious. How dare she bring that up? I let my little brothers call her Mom even though I wanted to beat them up every time they said it. I’d been good. I’d kept my end of the bargain and lost everything in return.

  It was the weekend of the Halloween dance. The Spitfire idled at a stoplight as two hobgoblins with pointy red hats and fake beards crossed the street. Tim, wearing his grass-stained football jersey revved the engine, trying to act like a man. His hand stroked Mary’s thigh, lucky boy fingers pressing into her soft skin. I hated his fingers. There hadn’t been even a hint of a possible Mary kiss in over a month, but there hadn’t been any threats either. I passed up a stack of bills that Mary quickly counted and tucked into her purse.

  “Did you sell them all?” she asked.

  “Fifty at lunch. The rest’ll go before the dance.”

  Mary was so proud of herself, convinced that she was getting rich from blackmailing me into dealing her acid, but little did she know I was secretly ripping her off. There was a risk since nobody knew that Mary was in the business, and if we got caught I’d get the blame, but that wouldn’t happen. I was smart and knew how to be careful. Tim shot his hand up Mary’s skirt. She playfully slapped his hand and told him to stop it.

  “You’re stoned,” he said.

  “So what?” Mary replied.

  “You’re always stoned.”

  Mary swallowed all of her profits. She took even more acid than me. Tim’s hand went up her skirt even higher. Then he suddenly stopped, as his eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror.

  “What are you looking at?”

  He’d caught me. “Nothing.”

  Mary started rubbing his neck, but Tim wouldn’t back down.

  “Why are you always hanging around?” he asked. “Why don’t you get your own boyfriend?”

  I tried not to blush. The light changed to green, but the car didn’t move.

  “Or is it a girl that you want?”

  “Maddy’s my friend and if you don’t like it, you can find somebody else,” Mary snapped.

  The Spitfire shot into traffic and the conversation was over, but Tim was right. I was Mary’s puppet. Since I’d started dealing, everyone wanted to be my friend, and even if Mary said I was a lez, all I’d have to say is she was lying and the kids would believe me, because if they didn’t I’d cut off their drug supply. I had the kind of power at the school that Mom and Dad had in Sterling, and everyone needed to keep me happy. But Mary, beautiful, mean Mary Sharp held the ultimate power over me. The minute she said “Get in the car” I hopped in like there was an invisible noose around my neck. No matter how badly she treated me I always came back for more.

  I was on my way out the door when Isabel called me into the dining room.

  “Where’s your costume?” she asked.

  “Costumes are stupid.”

  “They most certainly aren’t stupid. You need a costume for Halloween. Isn’t that right Ted?”

  Dad shoveled in a forkful of meatloaf and nodded. He’d put some weight back on, but still acted like a sad zombie. I wanted to ask him if everything was okay, but I never had the chance because he was never alone. Isabel was always standing guard.

  “Why don’t you go as a hockey player?” Frank asked, taking a bite of potatoes.

  “Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes and turned to Dad. “What do you think?”

  “Why don’t you go as a doctor?”

  “Try this on,” he said, handing me a pair of green hospital scrubs.

  They were too big, but after Dad got on his hands and knees and safety pinned the pants and sleeves, the clothes fit okay. We looked in the mirror together, my Dad standing behind me, his hands on my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze. Zombie or not, Dad did look better. I put my hands on top of his and held them there.

  “Dad?”

  “Uh huh?

  “Do you still think about Mom?

  He pulled his hands out from under mine, walked over to the closet and started pulling boxes out of the top cupboard.

  “Dad –” I wanted him, needed him, to answer my question, but instead he handed me his old black leather bag.

  “A doctor isn’t a doctor without a medical bag.”

  Then he draped his stethoscope around my neck, stuffing the breast pocket with tongue depressors.

  “Now don’t you look just fine?”

  “I guess so,” I replied.

  I sat at the picnic table at the back of the football field. Ghosts, witches, firemen, cowboys and spacemen were hiding behind trees and tall shrubs, waiting for their acid. When I’d picked it up at Rochdale Steve told me to be careful, it was the strongest he’d
taken. I didn’t care and took two. The lights at the back of the school were black. That meant no spying teacher eyes. I opened the medical bag, gesturing for the customers to come forward. One by one the costumed kids approached as I pressed purple pills into their palms. Half an hour later we were all inside the gym and starting to get off.

  Steve was right. The acid was strong –maybe even bad trip kind of strong. The Leaside lion on the school crest signaled to me while a skuzzy band played “Windy” off-key. A girl galloped around the dance floor, gusting and blowing as hard as she could, while two witches sat on the floor staring at their hands. The math teacher was trying to make the witches stand up when a fairy began to laugh. The wind girl was swooping around, blowing on the fairy’s wings. I searched the gymnasium. Mary had to be here somewhere. We could ride out the stone together. Tim was by the stage talking to some of the other jocks. They’d come dressed as murdered football players, faces painted white, clothing soaked in fake blood, with gun shots through their jerseys.

  “What do you want?” Tim asked. His voice slurred. Tim wasn’t stoned, he was dead drunk and really loud.

  “I’m looking for Mary.”

  “You’re always looking for Mary.”

  Couples stopped dancing and heads turned; the floor rolled under my feet and a crack appeared. The linoleum yawned open as the lion on the school crest snarled at me with yellow fangs. I needed Mary.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s in the washroom all messed up,” he said, in a really pissed off mood. “And it’s because of you…”

  He poked me in the chest with his finger and I poked him back, right in the centre of the gunshot wound.

  “Stay away,” he said, pushing my shoulder this time, hard enough to make me stagger.

  I just pushed him back and called him a jerk.

  “Stay away from my girlfriend!” he yelled, punching me in the face as hard as he could.

  This time I didn’t punch him back. Instead, I ran off the dance floor, past the female guidance counselor, who tried to stop me, asking what on earth was wrong.

  “Mary?” I called, walking into the girls’ washroom. My voice bounced around while a million me’s stared back from the mirror. Somebody was cooking hamburgers. What was wrong with my face? My eye was turning blue. I wanted to poke at the eyeball with my fingers and try to pull it out. Instead, I pushed open stall doors. “Are you in here?”

  A giggle.

  “Mary?” I called again, looking under the panels. I found her in the last stall, sitting on a toilet seat, dressed like a princess. Everything was pink, her crinoline, tiara, even her shoes. A cigarette smoldered between Mary’s fingers, past the filter, stuck into the flesh, cooking her pink skin…her pink hamburger meat…

  I ripped the cigarette out and threw it on the floor. “What are you doing?”

  Another giggle and then that Mary smile. “I’m not afraid of fire anymore.”

  I pulled her to her feet, dragging her out of the cubicle towards a row of sinks.

  “The water might sting a bit at first, but it’ll help.”

  As I turned on the water Mary reached out and touched my eye. “You love me,” she said, pushing on the bruise.

  “How is your hand?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you kiss me?”

  The water was gushing. Mary’s fingers were burning. My eye was swelling.

  “I know you want to,” she said.

  “I know I shouldn’t.”

  “But what if I’m asking you to.”

  I took Mary’s face in my hands, my lips touching hers, when the female guidance counselor walked in.

  The guidance counselor had me pinned down on the front steps of the school.

  “Do you know what you did is unnatural?” her pink gums asked. They were the same colour as Mary’s dress. I didn’t answer, just sat there in my doctor’s scrubs, staring at my feet, trying to tune out the words “pervert” and “mentally ill.” The Oldsmobile pulled up and Dad and Isabel got out of the car.

  “Your daughter,” the counselor said, in a disgusted tone. “Your daughter is seriously disturbed.”

  I looked down the road, wondering if I should run. Dad told me to get in the car. I followed him while Isabel spoke to the counselor, who wouldn’t stop talking. Dad opened the back door for me to get in, and head down, slowly returned to Isabel and the counselor. They were talking so loudly it was impossible to ignore.

  “Timothy told me that Maddy’s always trying to touch Mary.”

  I shrunk down.

  “Girls are frequently physical with one another,” Isabel said.

  “Not the way a boy kisses a girl.”

  Dad looked as if he’d been punched. I touched my eye.

  “Keep Maddy away from Mary, or the next time –”

  “It won’t happen again,” Isabel said. She took Dad by the arm and they walked back to the car. Isabel was driving.

  The car was silent. I tried to ignore the counselor’s words but they wouldn’t leave. Banshees and sirens swirled around the car howling, “Pervert!” “Freak!” and “Deviant!”

  Dad leaned over quietly and said something to Isabel. I pretended not to listen.

  “Maybe it’s just a phase,” he whispered, looking to her for hope.

  I heard, “Boys never come by.”

  Dad sighed, so long and so sadly, as Isabel took one hand off the steering wheel and reached out to stroke the back of his neck. There was no blaming Isabel anymore. She wasn’t the one wrecking our family. It was me.

  Dad trudged up the stairs and disappeared into their bedroom as Isabel took my coat and opened the closet door.

  “You must be very confused,” she said, a soft look on her face.

  For a split second there was a human being standing there. A human being that understood what was going on. She didn’t yell and scream and call me a freak. She could have made Dad ship me off to the nut house, but she didn’t. Maybe I could talk to her about how I felt about Ginnie and Mary. Maybe she could help.

  “But I can’t have you upsetting your father any further,” she said, walking up the stairs. “We’ll talk about psychiatric treatment later.” And another door slammed shut.

  I didn’t leave my room the next day until dinner time.

  “Surprise!” Tedder yelled.

  I’d forgotten about my birthday. The whole family sat around the dining room table singing “Happy Birthday”. A pink cake blazed in the centre of the table and gifts were piled by my placemat.

  “What did you do to your eye?” Frank asked.

  It was black and blue from Tim’s fist. Luckily, I didn’t have to answer because the doorbell rang.

  “Blow out your candles and make a wish,” Isabel said, rising from her seat.

  There was nothing I wanted that I could have so I just blew out the flames. The boys clapped.

  “Does it feel any different being sixteen?” Frank asked.

  “Not really.”

  A man was talking in the living room and then Isabel’s voice shot up an octave. My neck bristled. She was always calm. Dad pushed back his chair. The boys followed him out into the living room with me behind.

  Isabel was talking to a man a little younger than Dad with dark hair and a stocky build. He was wearing a three-piece suit and held a yellow document. There was a uniformed policeman with him.

  “This is Detective Al Hanson,” Isabel said, her voice shaking with fury.

  “What?” Dad asked.

  “We received a call from your daughter’s high school. She was selling drugs there last night. We have a warrant to search the house.”

  The detective looked at me. “Are you Madeline Anne Barnes?” he asked, crossing the room towards me. I backed up into the piano.

  “She is,” Isabel replied.

  “Show me your room.”

  “It’s this way,” Isabel said.

  Isabel opened the door to the basement. The policeman was tearing my room apart while D
etective Hanson interrogated me.

  “Where did you buy the LSD?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Two teenagers got sick. Their parents say that they bought it from you.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  “You’re lying.”

  All the drugs I’d sold or taken flipped through my mind like the cards in a rapidly shuffling deck. I’d sold all the microdots and was positive everything else was gone too. But what if I’d forgotten something? Isabel’s face got redder and redder as the police flipped the mattress, dumping desk and dresser drawers all over the floor, tearing through the closet, searching my pockets, looking through books and even checking the vents. They found no acid –only bottle after empty bottle of Dad’s prescription drugs.

  “Where did you get these?” the detective asked.

  “From my father’s dispensary.”

  “Does he know you have them?”

  “No,” Dad replied.

  Dad was standing in the doorway. My brothers stood behind him. Tedder’s face said he didn’t understand but Frank did. He wouldn’t even look at me. The detective asked Dad if he knew some of the drugs were restricted substances. I thought Isabel was going to implode.

  “Yes, sir,” Dad replied.

  “You could lose your license.”

  “Please!” I cried. “He didn’t know. This is my fault. I was the one taking them. They were just for me.”

  “What about the LSD?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  The detective stared at me and I stared back, the two of us, in the middle of the car accident that used to be my room, playing a game of chicken. I wouldn’t let him hurt my Dad, but I wouldn’t confess to the acid either. I’d just turned sixteen and didn’t want to go to jail.

  “We’ll see,” the detective said. He paused. “That’s all for now.” There was nothing more he could do and he knew it.

  “I’ll show you out,” Dad said, shooing the boys out of the room and up the stairs. The uniformed officer followed. Isabel didn’t. She picked up an empty bottle.

  “That’s it.”