by Karen Rivers
This is a relief.
X.
Chapter 7
X, says Cat.
Come on. I want to talk.
Yeah, I say, rolling over on my side and opening one eye. The carpet on her bedroom floor – what you can see of it between piles of discarded clothing and garbage -- is this dog-sick yellow colour. No one looks good against vomit tones. No one. Cat looks all messed up. What, I say, reaching over and squishing down her hair which is sticking up a hundred different ways making her look like a skater boy and not like my girlfriend. Not like anyone’s girlfriend. I hate myself for thinking it, but she looks ugly. For a second I want to push her away, then I don’t. I’m too tired for one thing. I close my eyes.
Hey, she says. Don’t sleep.
I’m not, I say.
X, she says. I’ve been thinking. You know? And here’s the thing. The thing is that I want to see other people. You know.
No, I don’t know, I want to say. But I don’t. I close my eyes and open them again. Like that could change something.
What? I say.
You know what, she says. You heard me.
No, I don’t fucking know, I say into the floor. What comes out is not words, but a sound in my throat that feels like I’m choking. I can smell the carpet. It smells like plastic or rubber, or maybe that’s me. Condom-scented and sweaty.
Who are you going to see? I say, hating myself for sounding like I care. I sound like an old man or like a kid about to burst into sobs. I don’t care, I tell myself. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone. I don’t even like her. I sit up. The carpet is scratching my skin and I have to get out of here. I feel like I can’t find any air.
I’m not breaking up with you, asshole, she says, twiddling her barbell. I’m just saying I think we should both like, you know. Hook up with other people if we want.
No, I don’t know, I say. I don’t know. Who?
And this is bad, but I’m thinking, Ruby.
You don’t love me anyway, she says. So who gives a fuck?
We’re in high school, I say. No one loves anyone.
X, she says, staring at me hard with her blue eyes staring right through me, not blinking. X, she says, people love people you fucking moron. Just because you don’t love me don’t mean shit.
Doesn’t, I say automatically before I can stop myself.
Holy crap, she says. Sometimes you are such an extreme jerk.
Then she laughs. She sits up and laughs. Laughs so hard she starts to sweat, or maybe she’s crying. Her face is wet, anyway. She reaches across me for a handful of cold fries and starts eating them one by one. Staring at me.
I have to go, I say. I pull my pants on without bothering with underwear. Without bothering with anything. I have to go to work, I say.
We’re not broken up, she yells after me. She’s still laughing and eating. I start to laugh, too, not because it’s funny. It isn’t funny. But because I can see her there lying on her yellow carpet laughing and laughing and you can’t not laugh to see that. She has a laugh that cracks you wide open. Her laugh makes her beautiful. She laughs like she’s hurting you.
When we first hooked up, we were fifteen. I didn’t really ask her out. Not really. I just stumbled into her at a party – drinking more than I ever have since – and she kissed me. Well, sort of. She locked on and I fell into her. We’ve been together ever since. She is the first girl I ever did it with. We did it at Robbo’s house. His parents were away somewhere, they’re away all the time though who would leave a kid like Robbo alone I don’t know. He’s in trouble a lot, taking crazy risks, doing stuff I wouldn’t imagine doing. He’ll try anything. Drugs. Bungee jumping. Diving with sharks. Whatever, seriously. Anything.
He had parties all the time, every weekend it seemed like, so often they lost their edge. Anyway, Cat and I did it in their bed. Dumb thing is that it didn’t feel like I thought it would, like I’d pictured it. I mean, mechanically I guess it did, but not inside. It made me dizzy. I mean, obviously I liked it. It’s sex. It’s just likeable. I’d be an asshole if I said I didn’t like it, and I’d be lying. I can’t explain it, it just wasn't what I was expecting. Wasn’t as otherworldly. Wasn’t as emotional. Wasn’t as connected. In a way, I sort of blamed her for that. Like if it was with someone else, it would have been different. But there’s something about Cat. Even when you’re doing it with her, she’s still holding you at arm’s length. I can’t explain it.
Cat cried. I remember that. Actually, I think she threw up. She was drunk. We both were. Romantic, huh?
Sometimes my life is too hard for me to take.
As I’m leaving her house, I bump into her sister Mira in the hall. She smells like outside, like snow flaking in wet air. Mira is nothing like Cat. She’s got great posture, for one thing. She carries herself separately from everyone else, like a model or someone who is already famous. She’s carrying a knapsack that looks like it has about forty-six books crammed in it. She smiles at me, but a smile that says “I don’t care about you” or maybe even “I don’t like you”. She has a crust of mucous or something dried under her nose but even that doesn’t make her look bad, if that makes sense. Just makes her seem more human.
Hey, she says. She has the same voice as Cat. Sometimes it freaks me out. Same voice, same eyes, same nose, same mouth, same everything more or less, completely different person.
Huh, I say. I never know what to say to her. I don’t want to talk to her.
Okay, I say, I gotta go.
Are you okay? she says. But I pretend I don’t hear her.
I run away, slow at first and then faster and faster. I’m kind of laughing, but I’m not really. Maybe I’m crying. I don’t even care, I think. I’m not even sad. I think of you and if you broke up with me, I think I would cry, and somehow the thought of it does make me cry, but nobody can tell because I’m running and sweating. I’m running so fast my tears can’t catch up.
I’m a bad runner. I run looking crazy. I do. I don’t look good like some people do when they run. Those African guys who run barefoot in the Olympics, running like fucking antelope across the savanna. I wish I ran like that, but I don’t. I run toes out, knees grinding. I run like an ostrich with its feet stuck in the mud. I look like an idiot. But I don’t care. It feels like flying. It does.
I should know.
I run faster and faster, jumping over ditches, dodging parked cars. In my head, I’m running like a movie star. I pat my pocket for my imaginary gun. I imagine shouting, Cover me, I’m going in. Bang, bang, bang.
I could be a cop. Why not? Yeah. That would be okay. I wonder what it’s like to shoot a gun, to carry that holster and the badge. I keep running. Thwap, thwap, thwap. My feet on the road. I wonder what time it is. It’s about two miles from Cat’s house to mine over lawns, through a gravel path in the woods. I run the whole way, winter-taut wind screaming in and out of my lungs and I think that there was a guy who did a three minute mile, right? Where is that guy now? Takes me so much longer than that, I feel embarrassed. I’m the shame of my fucking race, I’m sure. The only black guy in North America who can’t shoot hoops to save his life and who runs like a girl.
The pavement turning to gravel turning back to pavement under my feet and the houses passing by crookedly behind me, and my heavy knapsack banging me in the ass with every step. I don’t mind it. I don’t know what I’m feeling. There are crows on the line, staring at me. Black beady eyes. I caw at them as I thunder past, arms flapping. Crows creep me out, all that staring, all that blackness.
How was your day, honey? Deer says as I collapse over the doorstep and onto the floor. My chest is heaving.
Same old, I tell her between breaths. Nothing new.
You working tonight? she says, standing over me, her long blonde braid swinging back and forth like a rope. Smiling. Nudges me with her foot.
Is it Tuesday? I say.
Yup, she says.
Then I am, I tell her. Every Tuesday, the same. Every Tuesday, ev
ery Wednesday, every Saturday.
She should know that by now, but she doesn’t remember. Deer just floats along from day to day. I don’t know how she does it. I’m scared I’m going to be like her, vague. Somehow emptied out. I don’t want to be like that. It pisses me off in a way that makes me want to put my fist through the flimsy wallboard, makes me want to react.
Fuck, I say, and hoist myself up and push by her into the bathroom. Ignoring her. Ignoring Mutt who pulls at my pants and says, Eggs, you stink. Woof.
I know I stink. I don’t need Mutt to tell me that.
Woof yourself, I say, growling ferociously.
He steps back. Falls, really, bumpf onto the floor. He’s so small though, doesn’t have far to fall. He’s not hurt or anything.
Woof, woof, woof, he says and scrambles to hide behind the couch.
In the tiny bathroom, I sit down on the toilet, which is purple. Who has a purple toilet? It’s like whoever designed this piece of junk trailer went really far out of their way to make it the ugliest thing in all of creation. I reach over from where I’m sitting and turn on the shower and let it blast for a while before I get in. Let the room steam up so that the steam fills my head and I can stop thinking about anything.
I get in and wash away Cat. Scrub myself hard. Did she break up with me? I don’t even know. I can’t even tell. I really am stupid, I think, swishing some soap around in my mouth and spitting. I’m stupid. No wonder you won’t look at me twice. No wonder you see right through me. And then I think, why am I thinking about you when I should be thinking about Cat?
I’m sick in the head, I am.
I’m an asshole.
Hey, I’m just saying what you would be thinking if I gave this to you, that’s all. I’m just being honest with myself. Or you. Both of us.
I get out of the shower and towel myself off, hang the towel around my waist, head back towards my bedroom. Mutt is playing on the floor building a castle out of blocks. Same blocks I played with when I was a baby. You can see tooth marks on them from where I used to bite them when I used to pretend to be a dog. He’s just like me, only a different colour.
Mutty, Mutt, I say.
I stack the blue on the red and make an arch out of the smaller yellow ones. He kicks it over and grins at me.
Hey, I say.
Yeah, he says, real cool for a three year old.
Never get a girlfriend, I tell him.
Okay, he says. Okay, Eggs.
Okay, Eggs, I repeat. Don’t forget it, kiddo.
Don’t say stuff like that, says Deer. He’ll remember that. Don’t mess with his beautiful little head.
Huh, I say, and I go in and get changed for work.
Peas out, says Mutt.
He thinks that’s hysterical. I tell him it’s supposed to be “peace” but he can’t say that. I worry about him. Worry that he’ll never learn to talk. Worry that him and Deer will live forever in this trailer, braiding each other’s hair. He’s three years old, for fuck’s sake. Almost four. Peas out. What a kid.
The range is busy Tuesday nights: two for one buckets, baby. Can’t beat a deal like that. Golf is a rich guy’s sport, but the rich guys like a deal even more than anyone else. Even in the winter, people come out, hitting bucket after bucket of balls to nowhere. I earn my ten dollars an hour driving that cart back and forth, scooping up the balls. People always try to hit the cart and the snap of the ball on the wire cage that protects me gives me a fucking heart attack every time. I wear headphones, listen to my music, but I can’t avoid the strikes. It’s like a video game, and I’m the target. Everyone does it: old ladies, young kids, everyone in between. Even the pros do it, to show off for their students.
As soon as I get going and thinking about something, BAM, someone hits me again. Jerks. They might as well make it like pinball and have this cart light up and flash when they hit it. 500 points! Ding! Ding! Ding! I can just imagine these business guys going home after hitting a bucket. Going home to their wives and saying, “I hit the cart today, 200 yards, yup.” The funny thing is at least half of them are probably lying. When they hit me, I was probably only seventy-five yards out. They’re just practicing their short game.
I drive back and forth real slow, trying not to think, because if I do, I’ll think about Cat and I don’t want to. I force myself to unfocus, let stupid stuff drift into my head. School stuff. Robbo and Tic cut out all afternoon today, leaving me alone, bored and sleepy.
You weren’t there either. Where were you?
I screwed up in Home Ec, which we have to take. I don’t know why. Last term, we sewed these stupid looking bags. I gave mine to Deer and she uses it as a purse. Still. That must be love, huh. It’s seriously the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Today, I had to cook a stupid chocolate pudding on my own, without them. Which meant I had to cook and clean up. I burned it and my hand. Stupid bastards. Sometimes I hate them, but they’re good buddies, you know? They’re my people.
Cat’s wrong, I think. I know about love.
I love all kinds of people. I’ve known Robbo and Tic since we were five years old and all went to the same daycare after kindergarten. We’ve all been best friends ever since. People think it’s funny because I’m so tall and, let’s face it, dark. And they’re not. It’s like when a cat hangs out with dogs or something. People stare when we’re together. It’s not my fault that they grew up to be the smallest, whitest guys in school. They aren’t related, but they look like brothers. Cigarettes hanging off their lips all the time. Almost everyone I know smokes. I don’t get it. Do they know nothing? Haven’t they ever watched those ads on TV? That one where they squish the dead guy’s artery and all that crap comes out would be enough to make me quit if I'd ever started. All my fucking friends will be dead from lung cancer before we’re even thirty at the rate they’re going. Robbo and Tic, man. They’re something else. They look like they were born with cigarettes.
The girls would like them if they weren’t so short, Cat told me once. They’re badasses. They’re hot.
I think she even said she’d do them. Sick thing is that she probably would. If they were taller.
At the time, I was pissed. But now? I don’t care. Maybe I don’t love Cat, or maybe I do.
The thing is, I know her. She pretends to be a lot harder than she really is. It’s all a game. She isn’t knife-sharp and dangerous at all. It’s a stupid act. I think it’s because she’s jealous of Mira. Mira’s probably jealous of her. One thing that I’m noticing lately is that no one seems happy. Especially not you, but that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it? You aren’t Cat.
You’re you.
I can’t think about you all the time. It’s bad. I know it. It’s obsessive. If anyone knew how much space you took up in my head, they’d think I was a stalker. The truth is that I’m just scared that I’m just an idiot, probably like my own dad.
Why would you ever even want to talk to me? Why would you bother?
Bam, another ball ricochets off the cart. If not for the wire, it would have taken out my right eye, crushed right into the socket.
Just once, I’d like to stand out here at the 150-yard flag and start hitting the balls back with my Big Bertha driver that Deer gave me on my last birthday. It’s an ace club, man. It’s the best. I don’t know how she could afford it, but I love that club. I imagine getting out of the cart in slow motion and lining up the shot. And then I picture myself just pounding buckets of balls back into the row of players. Ping, ping, ping.
Bam.
I turn the cart around and hit the gas. Head back up towards the ball-room to empty my load into the machine that spits them all back into the old guy’s buckets so they can hit them out there all over again for me to pick up. It’s starting to get dark and the lights are on. I love the way the course smells after it’s rained, that wet green grassiness of it. I’m just slowing down to pull into the little bay where I park to off-load the balls, when I look up and I see you.
You.
&n
bsp; What are you doing here?
I almost say it out loud.
What are you doing here? Can’t see why you’d be at Mac’s Discount Golf and Range at 6:30 on a Tuesday, but you are. You’re laughing. I hardly ever see you laugh. I can see your teeth glinting in the lights that have come on over the stalls. You have really nice teeth. Small, white and even. This is going to sound stupid, but in some ways, you remind me of a rabbit. I’ll never show you this. You’ll never read that. Now I know for sure. As soon as you start describing the girl you like as a rabbit, you know that what you’re really writing isn’t for her. It’s for me.
I guess it always was.
You’re laughing up at some guy. Some guy I can’t see properly who is putting your ball on your tee for you. An older guy. I hope it’s your father. If it’s not, I’d be pretty surprised.
I’m looking so hard at you that I drive right into the concrete divider. I swear, I give myself whiplash. I’m such an asshole. I can’t believe that happened. Of course, there’s a huge crashing sound and the balls all spill out of the back. I look like a complete idiot and I think, well, that’s okay, you can always kill yourself because really it doesn’t get much worse than this.
But it does, get worse.
Of course.
Because there is Bob yelling at me, Tiger, Tiger, are you all right, kid? Are you okay?
And everyone’s crowding around and I’ve got the smallest cut in the world over my right eye and it trickles. A little rivulet of blood. People are panicking and Bob yells, He’s bleeding!
I’m about to say, No, I’m not, I’m fine, when I look up and there you are and I swear, I pass out. I’m not kidding.
Stars. Blackness. Nothing.