Alma smacks me. “Macy, why?”
“Why not? Why do you want to walk around with those things”—I point at her chest—“here?” I point outside the window. A police car is chasing a Subaru that’s chasing a Ford Pinto.
“Macy, females are supposed to have breasts. I like my breasts. I would never want to not have my breasts.”
“Really? I’m truly fucking flabbergasted.” I start saying flabbergasted over and over again. Flabbergasted flabbergasted flabbergasted.
“Macy! A, you are clearly spending too much time” (she drops her voice to a whisper) “with George. B, this is news to you? That I like my body? Macy—you’re sweating. How much tape did you use?”
“I don’t know. Teacher Man had a six-pack on his desk . . . And more in his closet . . .”
Alma stands up. “I’m going to cut you open!”
Miss Black: “Excuse me, Alma?”
The bell rings. Alma throws her axessories in her bag and I know to run.
Even in the tape my boobs are bouncing like basketballs. Damn! Alma is on the track team. She knows how to run with big boobs.
Halfway down the hall, I’m out of breaf and sweating. The tape is sliding off, I feel it! Noooo!
Alma tackles me to the bafroom floor and drags me kicking and laughing and screaming into a stall. She reaches under my hoodie but I wiggle out of her grip. We wrestle. At one point, both our heads are actually sticking out of the head hole. I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I also cannot breathe because my boobs are taped together.
“You’re actually pretty strong,” I say to Alma.
“Check out my baby-lifting arm,” Alma giggles, flexing a pretty impressive bicep. “Tanya, my mini-me, is eighteen pounds now . . .”
Unfortunately for her, her baby-lifting arm is no match for my machete-wielding arm. (See C for Clang.) That is part of the problem. I know how easy it is to hurt her. I try to eject Alma from my head hole—but—
“OW!!!”
Shit! I let go.
Alma squirms out of my grasp and somehow pulls both me and her out of the head hole into the hoodie. We wrestle. I’m crazy ticklish all sudden, and somehow we both end up tangled inside the sleeve of my T-shirt and my bra strap.
“Just stay still!” Alma says, making her first cut with the clippers.
Teacher voice: “Just what is going on in there?”
I’m overheated. Enough is enough.
I twist out of my shirt. Exhale. I jump up and down to get the circulation in my jugs going again. The door swings open.
Teacher Lady: “Oh my God! You’re topless!! And you? Alma? What on earth? I—”
Me: “Are you flabbergasted?!”
Teacher Lady: “Both of you out! I mean—I thought I had seen everything, but this? I would write this up, but I can’t even imagine finding the words!”
She don’t write us up. A fifty-year-old woman who’s written up kids we all know for bringing their mom’s cocaine to school, stabbing someone in the eye with a pencil, giving five-dollar hand jobs in the parking lot, could not write up two girls in the restroom because she thought we were lesbians. That was too much for her.
Teacher Lady couldn’t write it up—so I did.
Bring it
Verb.
I don’t even care. I’ll take you down like Chinatown.
Burner
Noun. Burn rhymes with turn, yearn, and never learn.
The substitute assigns the class to write a narrative essay on a childhood experience. I point out, “The last I heard, this was English and not counseling.”
The substitute picks up a clipboard and scans it. Her eyeballs bulge. She babbles something under her breaf about insurance and looks up at the ceiling. God is currently a large water stain. I guess the water stain answers because she says, “Maybe if this is too hard, you can go to the resource room to get some extra help?”
“What are you saying?” I say all loud. “Are you telling me that because I’m emotionally disturbed that I’m stupit? Maybe it’s your ass that needs to get some resources.”
Some chick says, “Should we hit the buzzer?”
A dude says, “No, no! Not yet.” Same chick says, “Freddy!!”
The buzzer is hit. Two milliseconds later the Assistant Principal is standing there with a big-ass bag of Doritos.
“I see you brought me resources.” I walk over and snatch at the bag the AP is now holding out of reach.
“Why don’t you come work with me in my office today, Macy? I reserved you a window seat. “
“Does the seat come with those Doritos?”
“I can accommodate that.”
I go. I eat chili-cheese perfection. Yesterday I ate a envelope the CPS worker left for my mom so she could pay bills. You can lead a horse to water, but in my mom’s case you got to hold her head under the fucking water, you know? Now I want some water . . .
In my dictionary (because I ain’t giving it to no substitute), I write my essay on a childhood experience.
Narrative Essay
By Macy Cashmere MYOFB
The TV in the bedroom was broke. My mother and daddy were firing up in the living room. I was, I don’t know, maybe eleven. Zane and I smiled because we loved when they sat on the couch together. I made it real nice for them in there. I put out a bag of Hot Cheetos. I emptied the ashtrays because if not they used cups and ashed on the carpet.
We knew not to go in there. Problem was, there really wasn’t too many other places me and Zane could go. The couch was our bed and they were on it. What was we gonna do in the bafroom? You could only play pirate in the tub so many times. Couldn’t go outside. We was under house arrest. I got into too many fights, and Zane was a wanderer. Once when he was five he escaped and walked to my school all by hisself. You know what Zane said when he found me at the blacktop? He needed someone to open the wrapper on his Pop Tart. Damn!
“Uh!” I said to get my parents’ attention. “The CPS worker said we need privacy!”
My mother flipped the finger. It was meant for CPS, not for me. Daddy stood up. My mother kicked him in the ass.
“Damn, Yasmin! She’s stressed, that’s all. Hold up! I got a lightbulb.”
Daddy put up cardboard from the new TV between the living room and the kitchen. Problem is, Zane is not a fan of walls. I saw in his eyes what he was gonna do.
“How bout we play a game?” I begged him. I ran to the closet and grabbed some of the games the CPS worker left. I wanted to play Concentration with the cards, but we couldn’t make any matches. I ran back to the closet to check but two seconds later I smelled something burning. “Who put the toaster on?” I said. I knew we didn’t have no bread. I sniffed the air. “Damn it, Zane!”
Pop! Up came a queen and a jack all black and smoky.
I brought back a game called Hi Ho Cherry-O. Hi ho? Cherry-O? I thought it might be nasty, so I inspected the back and the front. Turned out it was a game about counting fruit. I wanted to play. But dang! All the cherries was gone.
“Where’s all the cherries, Zane?” I shook him, but he just laughed, and I had my answer. Ever seen a boy poop a iron? I have—from the Monopoly game the CPS worker left the last time.
Operation looked good. It had some pieces. But of course, it didn’t have no batteries. Zane tried to eat the ribs. I smacked his mouth and he cried.
“Ay in there,” Daddy said from the couch. “Take it easy!”
“Don’t make me come in there!” my mother yelled as if in here and out there was different. I thought about starting something with Yasmin, but I didn’t. I wanted Daddy to be happy.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the butter and syrup. In the cupboards was a shitload of Sudafed and I pulled out two bottles. I pulled the medicine cups off and made our favorite recipe. Inside the cups I squeezed a swirl of sugar, butter, and pancake syrup, the only things in the fridge. (What? You thought I was going to say I drank up all the Sudafed, didn’t you? You stereotyping motherfoe.)
>
I picked Zane up and set him on the counter by the stove and we ate up. I leaned against a burner and jerked forward like I got shot out of a gun.
Damn! I mouthed, shaking my hand. Yasmin must have left a burner on. But it wasn’t a burn I felt. I said to Zane, “I think I got shocked!” Zane started laughing. Even though it didn’t hurt as much anymore, I kept jumping up and down and cursing to make him laugh. But Zane didn’t do anything for more than thirty seconds. He yawned and started playing with the trash can pedal. Gong! Gong! Gong! I touched the burner with my pinky. Yup. I got shocked just like you do when you touch the sides of the patient in Operation. Only for real.
We polished off the Syrup Surprise. Zane cried when he saw the empty syrup bottle. I could hear from the living room that my mother and father did not want to be disturbed. “Shhhh!” I said, but he wouldn’t. I covered his mouth, but he bit me. Damn! I eyeballed the burners and made sure they were off. Zane’s attention span was about the same as his short-term memory. I touched the front right burner. God damn it! I mouthed. I got shocked. FOR REAL. He laughed. I didn’t. That shit really hurt.
WTF? The burners were on when they said OFF?
Zane stopped laughing. He pulled up a chair to the stove. He wanted to touch them too. I tried to pick him up and put him on the floor, but Wolverine scratched me. He hopped back up to the chair and touched the burner.
Nothing.
I poked at it. I got shocked. WTF? I poked again. No shock. I poked another one and I got shocked. I poked it again, I didn’t. Which burners was broke and which wasn’t? I touched all four one by one. Sometimes I got shocked. Sometimes I didn’t. This game was better than Operation! Being a bit distracted, our dumb asses didn’t notice the shadow parting the clouds of cannabis smoke.
“What is you two doing?” My mother smacked me upside the face. “Is this how you act with your baby brother?” she yelled.
Daddy yanked my mother off me. He was wearing his underwear. I looked away from what was sticking up out of it. “What are you doing, Yasmin?”
Wiggle! my brain told my hands. Wiggle! But my hands didn’t listen any better than I do.
“Teaching her right from wrong, that’s what! You don’t even know what’s going on! Always siding with her!”
“Oh, c’mon, baby! Just put them in the bedroom and let them stay in there. I’m dying.”
“No! That’s the only place that’s mine! Forget the whole thing. I’m not in the mood anymore anyway. I’m going to bed.” My mother stomped off, slammed the door, and locked it.
“Oh, it’s like that,” I heard Daddy saying from outside the bedroom door while I dragged Zane into the bafroom.
It wasn’t the first time we had slept in the tub. Wasn’t gonna be the last. “Arg, me hearties!” I said to Zane, pulling him on my lap with my right hand. The left was twitching from the shock.
“Fine, Yasmin!” Daddy stomped off to the living room. The TV blasted on. Soon smoke drifted under the bafroom door. Zane fell asleep on my belly. I drifted, thinking about my hand. What if I woke up tomorrow and found out I could twist the lids off of anything? What if I could throw a slipper from clear across the room and smack a cockroach dead on the first try? Just when my superhero dream got good I heard my mother’s door open and my daddy say, “Sorry, baby.”
Next thing I knew I woke up to daddy screaming. I tripped climbing out the tub and scrambled to the living room. My mother was aiming the sink nozzle at the cardboard. Flames had burnt part of the living room wall. I locked Zane out the house and got pots of water from the bafroom. Twenty minutes later the fire was out and I went outside to get Zane. And who out of all the people on the planet Earth was waiting with him? Our neighbors from 3211, holding up their cells.
That night we got a knock on the door. CPS wanted to know what happened. My mother talked about me playing with burners. “You could have burned Zane to death,” my mother said. “You hear me? You hear what I said?”
I nodded. I knew I would always never stop hearing what she said.
After CPS left, I stood in the kitchen. I hated my own tears. I set my hand on the burner. The shock rippled through my arm to my heart. I wanted to dry it up. I wanted to dry my tears.
But I never have.
I’m sitting in the AP’s office and there are still tears left. I feel them. If I turn around she will see them.
“Give me your assignment and go to your next class,” the AP says.
I crumple up a piece of paper so she thinks it’s my narrative essay. I make a big to-do about throwing something out in the trash can. Just as the AP turns around to tell me about how she used to be a English teacher and blah blah blah about drafts, I drop a match in the can.
I do not get far, as my AP knows kung fu.
“Dang it, Macy,” she says, blocking me with one hand and aiming her fire extinguisher with the other. “That came out of left field. Sugar-honey-ice-tea, I’m pregnant. I can’t be doing this right now!”
I get sent home sick. You can’t suspend a emotionally disturbed girl for being emotionally disturbed even if she tries to light shit on fire. And you can’t send her to class smelling like smoke.
Call
Noun. (I don’t feel like writing anything.)
My mother is talking to my dad, I know it. We go two rounds WWF-style before I wrestle the phone out of her claws. I’m outside. The snow’s melting. The street looks ugly, like a cake with the icing licked off. The warmth of my mother’s face on the phone warms my cheek.
I’ve had this convo with my dad a hundred times in my head, but this time it’s real. So why can’t I think of nothing to say?
“Hello? Macy? You there?”
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Hey, baby girl. I miss you.”
“Me too.”
“You staying away from them boys?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Everything okay over there?”
“Uh, I guess that depends on what okay means.”
“You gonna tell me if anything’s going on, right?”
“Yeah,” I answer real quick. Not because I feel right about it. But because I know what will happen if Daddy hears a second of silence.
“Good. Don’t worry. I got it all worked out. I’m going to come home and get Zane back and then everything will be just like it was.”
“JUST like it was.” I repeat it.
“Give me back to your moms.”
“Ain’t you gonna ask me nothing else?”
“Like what? Is there something going on?”
“No.”
My mom flings open the door and sticks her hand out for the phone. I throw it hard so she almost drops it. She slams the door and locks me out. It’s not like I’m even mad at her. I’m mad at my dad and I can’t even explain why. The only thing I understand is that I can’t let myself be mad at him. He and Alma are the only people in the world I’m not mad at and that includes myself.
Later that night I grab the phone. Do an instant replay on the convo like Daddy’s really on the other line. Say all the things we should have said. Call Alma and don’t say much of anything. Just to hear someone say good night.
Canada
Noun. A flashback that should be a flashforward.
Daddy promised to take me to Canada one day. Canada is a place where they have lots of trees. If you have a lot of trees then you have birds nesting in them. I like birds. Birds like blue jays and cardinals. NOT pigeons. I stoled many books out of Miss Black’s trash can (See D for Detention) about birds and nature and shit. I’ll never get why she’s always throwing that kind of shit out. Zane drew on all the pictures but always listened when I read to him. And never laughed at how bad I read.
If you have trees you also have squirrels. Our neighbors at 3211 used to keep squirrels in a wire cage. I’ll never forget when my mother and I went stealthy one night and set them all free. In Canada they have squirrels but no o
ne puts them in cages because what the hell do you want with a crazy-ass squirrel in a cage anyway? Seriously? What if everybody did that? Who the hell is going to bury all those nuts in the ground? You want to do it? She-it.
For real, it’s a shame squirrels don’t sting. Or butterflies. Anything that people want to get their hands on and keep. Finders keepers, that’s what we all fucking are.
In Canada, if the birds shit, you don’t even know it. Shit lands on the trees before it lands on you. If it ever does hit the ground, it just mixes with the soil. Birds shit out seeds. This is good for the soil, according to the science magazines Miss Black dumped in her recycle bin last week. Soil is different than dirt. If you have soil then you have worms. If you have worms you might have a flower. Here we have dirt. We also have a lot of shit but not the kind that grows anything.
You can’t walk ten feet without stepping in shit. Once I even stepped into a baby diaper with shit in it. I mean really, people? Serious-fucking-ly?
In Canada it snows every day so no matter how dirty it gets it’s always clean. Zane and I could eat the snow right off the ground and it wouldn’t matter. You remember you got a soul every time you take a breaf.
Daddy promised to take me to this place. I was probably eleven years old. He promised we will make footsteps in the snow. But my mother said, Canada? What the fuck is there to do in Canada? You can’t wear a bikini in Canada.
Goddamn it, I thought. When the word bikini was mentioned Daddy had trouble with his attention span. You would too if you saw my mother in a bikini. Anyway, here’s the flashback:
My mother says to Daddy while he’s distracted from Canada, “Remember my business?”
I say, “What business?” And think, Can you run it from the couch?
My mother says, “I’m calling it Arts from Crap.”
I like this but I don’t tell her this. I know she wants me to like her idea. But she does not want me to tell her I like her idea because I better not think that she needs my damn approval. That’s disrespectful.
The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary Page 7