When Everything Feels like the Movies (Governor General's Literary Award winner, Children's Literature)

by Raziel Reid

  I never skipped Mr Dawson’s class after that. I’d skip other classes to walk around town and listen to music. I liked walking on the sidewalk, slipping on frozen dog shit, blasting Grace Jones’ Bulletproof Heart. The only problem with skipping class too much was that, when you flunked, you had to go to summer school with all the burnouts and teen moms desperate to get on MTV.

  I sat behind Luke and Madison in Mr Dawson’s class. Their desks were closer together than anyone else’s. I think Madison moved closer to him every class to get him stoned off her knock-off perfume and give him hand jobs under the desk when she thought no one was looking. Didn’t she know there was always a paparazzi up her skirt? Of course she did. That’s why she never wore underwear. I’d watch as her left arm crept under his desk, onto his lap. His ears would slowly turn red. Even if the classroom was full of voices, all I would hear was the sound of his zipper. Madison’s arm moved in slow motion. She was a great Movie Star. She could really act. Sometimes she’d have an entire conversation with Alexis, who sat in the desk on the other side of her, while surreptitiously jerking Luke off. I’d chew the end of my pencil, waiting for Luke’s ears to turn so red blood spilled out of them. When they did, the pencil would drop out of my hand, and my mouth would gape, saliva strung between my top and bottom lips, like his semen.

  When the bell rang for lunch, I stood up and almost brought my desk with me. Angela was waiting for me at my locker.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, barely glancing up from her phone. “And you’re late.”

  “You’re not hungry, you just need a cigarette. And speaking of late,” I smiled, touching her stomach. “Are you pregnant again?”

  “Fuck you,” she laughed. “I just forgot to barf my breakfast.”

  “I see an anonymous source has sold another story about me,” I said, pointing to the “Jude Rothegay is a fudge packer” that someone had written on my locker with a Sharpie. It was fresh and shimmering, like the letters of a marquee. “They’re so obsessed with me.”

  We bumped into Mr Callagher as we walked down the hall. He had a sadistic smirk and was slapping detention slips against his palm.

  “Ah, Jude,” he said when he saw me and, I swear, it was like he wanted to say Judy. “Mrs Whiltman has notified me that Glinda the Good Witch’s gown for The Wizard of Oz is missing. Do you know anything about this?”

  “No idea, Mr Callagher,” I shrugged.

  “Didn’t you storm into my office just before winter break, complaining about casting?”

  “I told you, I have to have one outburst an hour for my reality show. You know, contractual obligations. But I’d never sabotage the school production. I’m way too apathetic to care about a failed-actress-turned-junior-high-school-drama-teacher’s casting decisions.”

  “Mrs Whiltman did cast you as the scarecrow,” Mr Callagher said.

  “Too bad I was auditioning for Glinda.”

  “We’ve been over this,” Mr Callagher sighed. “The school wants to avoid last year’s Chicago backlash. I’m still getting phone calls.”

  “Well, it was pretty stupid to cast Jude as Roxie Hart,” Angela piped in. “Everyone knows he’s heartless.”

  “And on that note,” Mr Callagher said, “Mrs Whiltman has informed me you still haven’t returned your costume or wig!”

  “My mother mistook them for her work uniform,” I said. “But I’ll get them back, I promise. As soon as they’re dry-cleaned … ”

  “And Glinda’s dress?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, maybe an hour in detention will help you remember.” He licked his lips like he enjoyed saying that a little too much. “See you at the end of the day.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I gave him a thumbs-up, which became my middle finger when he turned his back.

  The truth is, I kind of liked detention. I would pretend the detention room was my trailer and I was taking a break from the pressure of the set. It was a place where I went to learn, not just recite, my lines.

  “You did take that dress, didn’t you?” Angela asked as soon as Mr Callagher was out of earshot.

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “And those ruby hooker heels, too.”

  When we got back to school after lunch, I stood in the hall next to a poster for the Valentine’s dance, watching Luke and Madison at their lockers. I had to stop myself from tearing down the poster. The pink, boxy font made me nauseous. Underneath the words was a picture of a big red heart. I took a marker from my backpack and drew a crack down the middle.

  I tried to read Luke’s lips, which were smeared with a lipstick that I wished was mine. I wanted to know what he was saying to Madison so that, when I was alone, I could imagine him saying it to me.

  I was always pretending to be Madison Sinclair. I would suck in my breath to make my waist thinner and roll up my shirt, because Madison’s stomach was always bare. I’d put a layer of mascara on my eyes and some ChapStick on my lips. I always felt so naked being her; she needed much less makeup than me. I’d pretend my hair was as long and blonde as hers, and so shiny that it could be in a shampoo commercial. I’d look in the mirror and move my hips the way she moved hers, like she rolled instead of walked. I wanted to be Madison because she seemed so perfect—and like such a lie. And I loved lies because, when you’re a lie, you’re anything, you’re everything. I wanted to be Madison because I thought it would be glamorous to have a million Twitter followers. I didn’t know that having it all is boring. When you have nothing, you have dreams.

  Matt was standing near Luke and Madison at their lockers and caught me staring. I couldn’t look away; they were French kissing. Alexis took a picture of them with her phone. They looked so flawless, the school should’ve blown up a picture of them kissing and put it on the Valentine’s poster. A girl as deceitful as her blonde hair and a boy-next-door with charm and a hockey butt. Her eyes were wide, and his jaw was square. Her pussy was baby pink, and his ball sweat should be bottled.

  Sometimes, I fantasized that my stalker had gotten to them too, tore them open from head to toe, and offered their filthy gorgeous insides to my shrine.

  “Hey, Luke,” Matt said, as Alexis’s camera phone flashed. “Looks like your other girlfriend is getting jealous.” I was so absorbed in watching them that I forgot that I could be watched, too. “Why don’t you give him a kiss?” Matt laughed, and my cheeks turned red, but not as red as Luke’s. “Come on, man,” Matt said. “Judy’s already puckering up!”

  Luke looked at me, and the spotlight became so hot that I was on fire. Madison barely glanced over. She was used to me gawking at her boyfriend, and she was over it. She just looked down at Alexis’s phone, telling her which photos to delete and which to tag her in.

  “What’s the matter?” Matt asked Luke. “He’s practically a girl.”

  “Oh, Matt,” I sighed. “Just because you want to fuck my ass like it’s a pussy, doesn’t make me a girl.”

  9

  Flashback

  “T rey Morris,” Angela said, coming up from underneath our booth with a smug look on her face.

  “As if,” I gasped.

  “Nope, we did it last night.”

  “Trey Morris as in Luke Morris’s brother?”

  “Older and wiser, he can buy my Budweiser.”

  “He’s your high school jock?”

  “I thought you knew,” she shrugged, but she knew I didn’t.

  “No fucking way!” I squealed. I couldn’t contain myself. “Have you been over to their house?”

  “Yeah. It was awkward. Luke wouldn’t even look at me.”

  “What’s he like?” I asked. “I mean, what’s he like?”

  “He’s not bad.”

  “Big?”

  “Horse.”

  “Balls?”

  “ ’Roid raisins.”

  “Bacne?”

  “I didn’t want to look.”

  “Premature ejaculation?”

  �
�No, but pre-come. It flowed like the Mississippi.”

  “Moan?”

  “Grunt.”

  “Elvis?”

  “Britney.”

  “Jesus!”

  “But it was kind of cute. Besides, I think he’s going to be quarterback next year, so I’ll already have slept with the quarterback by the time I start high school.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, better than a wife.”

  “Yeah,” she took a sip from her milkshake and burped. “Or a baby.”

  I stabbed my hash browns with my fork, but I wasn’t even hungry anymore. I had lost my appetite with jealousy. Sometimes when I looked at Angela, I got so jealous that I almost fell over. I couldn’t help but think that, if I were her, I’d have everything. Or at least, everyone.

  “So, are you going to take Trey to the dance?” I asked.

  “As if. I don’t even think I’m going unless I feel like spending the weekend e-tarded.”

  “Could you imagine Madison’s face if you walked into the gym with Luke’s brother? She’d die.”

  “On second thought, maybe I should go. Are you going?”

  “Only if I can go with Luke.”

  “I can ask Trey to put a good word in for you.”

  “Right.”

  “I can! I have a double-jointed tongue. I’m very persuasive.”

  “I just can’t believe you’ve been inside Luke’s house.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” She smiled like she does whenever Mr Mead checks her out. “They’re throwing a party this weekend ’cuz their parents are out of town. You should come.”

  “A party? Or a bunch of hicks drinking beer in a garage?”

  “Shut up, as if you’d pass up the opportunity to get inside Luke’s house.”

  I knew she was right. “Will he be there?” I asked.

  “Probably. It’s his house.”

  “What would he do if he saw me? What would Madison do?”

  “Just don’t let them see you.”

  “I’ll never make it through the front door.”

  “You will if you’re with me. I’ll wear a low-cut shirt.”

  “Fine,” I sighed as if I were being forced into it, even though I couldn’t wait. I sensed a paparazzi ambush. “But if there’s a deer’s head mounted on the wall,” I said, “I’m getting the hell out of there before mine ends up beside it.”

  After Angela left, I stayed at the Day-n-Nite to read Pink by Gus Van Sant, which Mr Dawson had lent me. I was obsessed with River Phoenix. I’d go over to Angela’s house and we’d pop some of her mom’s Percocets as we popped our popcorn, watch My Own Private Idaho, and swoon.

  Mr Dawson always lent me the best books. Looking back, I should’ve known. But I honestly had no clue. It’s weird when I think about it. I see everything so differently now, it’s like watching a movie for a second time and seeing all the subliminal symbols brainwashing you.

  Mr Dawson’s wife dropped in one time when I was eating lunch in his classroom. She knocked on the door tentatively, and he quickly stood up, ushering her in. She had hazel eyes and brown frizzy curls.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” Mr Dawson told her. “You know, Jude?”

  “Of course! It’s so nice to finally meet you,” she said, shaking my hand.

  Finally? I had no idea she knew I existed.

  “I’m Lisa,” she beamed. “Christopher has told me so much about you.” I cringed when she pointed to Mr Dawson like I couldn’t figure out who she was talking about. “I think you’re just great,” she said, like I had asked.

  I spent the rest of lunch hour trying to guess what Mr Dawson had told her about me. I wondered what tabloid version of my life he subscribed to. I wanted to know what he thought, if he knew me at all, or if I was just some unusual object he had collected. Were the little smiles he gave me from his desk genuine? Or was that just how he looked basking in my spotlight?

  I didn’t get through much of Pink before Brooke kicked me out of the Day-n-Nite for holding up the booth. I called her a philistine and then walked home. I usually tried not to go home until after dark to avoid being around Ray, but sometimes there was no escaping him or his demons.

  My mom had already left for work, and Ray was on the couch watching TV. It smelled like fast food, but that might’ve just been his sweat. Keefer was in his PJs, playing with Lego on his bed.

  “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” I asked, turning off his bedroom light.

  “Hey, screw you!” he yelled. “Turn that back on.”

  “What did I tell you about that kind of language?”

  “That it’s for trashy degenerates!”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you talk like that.”

  “Exactly. Now get to bed. Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

  “I was waiting for you to read to me.”

  “What’d you get?”

  He jumped off his bed and looked for the book in his backpack, the diary of some wimpy kid. I liked reading to Keefer. His eyes zoned out like when he played Nintendo and fell into a homicidal trance. I tried to take him out of the war zone. I always hoped that if I could give Keefer another world he could escape to, he might survive this one.

  “You’re not wearing nail polish,” he said as I held open the book. He looked up at me with such confusion, like he never imagined my nails could be not painted. My mind flashed back to a memory of my dad like it was a pop-up advertisement. I tried to close the tab, but it was playing so loud it stunned me. The first time I’d seen him since he’d left town. I was sitting on the porch eating a popsicle. It was mid-summer; his truck drove through the gravel and stopped at the curb in front of our house. I recognized the truck before I saw him inside it, through the leafy branches reflecting on the windshield. It took him a while to get out of the truck; he just sat there staring at me.

  “I thought it was you,” he said, slamming the door and kicking up dust with his work boots as he walked toward me. He leaned in for a hug, but stopped. “You’re wearing nail polish,” he said to me, but it sounded like he was saying it to himself.

  My mom was annoyed that he had just appeared out of nowhere without even calling, but when he asked to take me to the park, she said it was up to me. I said yes, even though I wanted to say no. There was something about him that made me uncomfortable.

  He dug out his old baseball glove from the back of his truck and gave it to me like it was significant. I suppose it might have been, if he’d been around to teach me how to catch and throw—not that I would have made it easy for him. I could only swing my arms when I was teaching myself the choreography to a Kylie Minogue music video.

  When we got back, my mom wasn’t home. There was a Post-it note on the fridge for me to call her at grandma’s. My dad came in the house, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to let him. He asked if he could take a shower. I didn’t call my mom; I just stood in the doorway of the bathroom, hoping to see a glimpse of him through the clear plastic shower curtain. I wanted to know all of him.

  After his shower, he said he was going to take a nap on the couch before hitting the road again. He didn’t say where he was coming from or where he was going. By the look of it, he was living in his truck. My mom called while he was sleeping; I told her dad was resting, and she let out a long sigh before asking if I was alright. I said I’d call her when he woke up. I just sat there, watching him sleep. He mumbled to himself and farted, and I was repulsed, but still inhaled it.

  I wanted to crawl next to him on the couch to see if I could still fit into the curve of his arm.

  10

  Sex Scene

  I thought no one would know it was me, except I was trailing Mademoiselle like a second spirit.

  I decided not to be myself for the party at Luke’s house. Sometimes I had to be boring to stay alive. My goal was to blend, so before I left to meet Angela at our old elementary school playground, I put
on a pair of jeans and one of Ray’s grey sweaters, which I took out of the dryer.

  Angela was sitting on a swing and smiled when I approached because she’d managed to get one of the drunks who sleep on the ramp outside the liquor store to go in and buy her a mickey of vodka. Usually, they run off with your money or drink the booze before they get out of the store.

  “I didn’t even have to flash him,” she said, her cheeks red from too much blush and the cold. She passed me the bottle, and I took a quick shot.

  “I’m nervous,” I said.

  “What’s to be nervous about?” she asked, but she didn’t really care. She pulled out her compact and put on more blush.

  “Because I never go to parties. I’m not suicidal.”

  “Relax,” she said, and I could tell she was irritated because all she cared about was getting laid by the teen dream and having everyone know it.

  “The guys in this town are bad enough with just blood in their veins,” I said, “never mind beer. I’m going to end up the next Matthew Shepard!”

  “You wish you were that famous.”

  “Do I look okay?”

  She looked at me for the first time.

  “You look like … ” She snapped her compact shut, searching for the word.

  “Like?”

  “A boy.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I feel like I should actually pee standing up.”

  “Kiss me,” Angela suddenly demanded, smacking her wet, puffy vodka lips.

  “What?”

  “Kiss me. With tongue.”

  “What did you take from your mom’s pharmacy, and why aren’t you sharing?”

  “I’m serious. Kiss me.”

  “No! I don’t want to catch lip herpes.”

  “I don’t have lip herpes.”

  “Jonathan Hampton?”

  “That was a zit.”

  “I need a mint.”

  “You’ll taste good,” she laughed. “You’ll taste like vodka.”

  “Do I really look like that much of a dude?”

  “It’s not because of how you look! I just need to know if I’m good at it.”