Little Chicago

by Adam Rapp

  Then she turns the music up and I start to paint again.

  My hand moves before I can think.

  Good, Moira, good, Miss Haze says.

  Well done, Charles.

  Excellent, Sonya.

  Then she comes over to me again. She tilts her head a little like she’s got water in her ear.

  She says, You’re on to faces, huh?

  I just stand there.

  That’s a nice step.

  Thanks, I say.

  Who is that, Blacky?

  I say, Huh?

  That man, she says. That’s a man, right?

  Uh-huh.

  Is it anyone you know?

  It’s Al, I say.

  Who is Al?

  Just a friend.

  He has a nice face.

  Yeah, I say. He’s my Big Brother. He takes me to Seiko State Park. We hunt for fossils and stuff.

  I don’t know why I tell her this. We did that only once and it was pretty boring. We didn’t find any fossils and we didn’t find anything when he pulled out his metal detector either.

  And what’s that he’s sitting in? she asks.

  That? I say.

  Yeah, that, she says, almost touching the paint.

  I say, It’s an electric chair.

  Oh. Miss Haze takes her hand back like it might get shocked.

  Those right there are the volt things, I explain. And that’s where you turn it on.

  She looks at it for a minute and tilts her head the other way.

  Why is he naked? she asks.

  Cause they made him be, I say.

  Who made him be, Blacky?

  The judge and all the jail people.

  I see, she says. I see.

  She studies it for a moment and then her head goes straight.

  That’s a great face, Blacky, she says. Very nice.

  After school I don’t board the bus again and I walk home.

  This time I skip the bulldozer and go into the house that’s getting built.

  There’s sawdust all over the place and you can see where the rain has left stains.

  I sit on the floor and play with some nails that are scattered.

  My feet are stinging again and it feels good to sit.

  The thing about wood is it always smells the way you think it will smell. Nails feel the way you think they will feel, too.

  You can see where they’re starting to build a staircase. I imagine the upstairs and the bedrooms. For some reason all the rooms are painted blue. Blue walls with gold curtains.

  Like the high school colors.

  Above the bedrooms there will be an attic for storage and hiding.

  I see Ma and Shay and Cheedle and me living in this house. There’d be blue carpeting and wallpaper with gold and black diamonds.

  A big white stove in the kitchen.

  A TV/VCR in the living room with every cable channel.

  A new couch with puffy cushions.

  A foosball table in the basement.

  I destroy Cheedle in the End of the World Foosball Tournament sponsored by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company and he has to make my bed for the rest of my life.

  Suddenly there is a man with an orange hardhat standing on the other side of the house. You can see him through all the wood.

  He’s got a mustache and he’s holding blueprints. His hands look huge and dirty.

  I freeze the way animals do.

  I stop breathing, too.

  I hope this combination will make me invisible.

  When he finally turns and sees me I urinate in my pants.

  Hey there, he says. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and there are stains where his armpits are.

  But I am still frozen.

  You okay, fella?

  Yes, I say.

  Talking makes me breathe.

  Are you lost or something?

  No, I say.

  Well, this is a construction site. If you’re not a laborer I can’t let you stay here. You’re not a laborer, are you?

  No, I say.

  It feels like my head might pop off at the neck again.

  I touch my hair to keep this from happening.

  You sure you’re okay? he asks.

  You can touch me, I say.

  He says, I can what?

  Touch me, I say.

  I don’t want to touch you, he says.

  I say, But you can’t marry my ma cause she’s not interested.

  It just comes out like water in your nose.

  He puts his blueprints on the floor and starts to move toward me. He moves with his hands out in front of him like there’s a fire.

  He walks so slow it’s like he’s got to tell every muscle to move.

  I try to stand but I can’t.

  I say, Stand. I say it out loud and this makes me do it.

  My butt is warm and wet and there’s a stain on the floor.

  He says, Are you lost or something, little fella?

  I won’t tell, I say.

  He stops.

  He looks at me like I’m disappearing.

  You won’t tell what? he says.

  I promise I won’t, I say.

  He says, Son, I don’t think I understand what’s going on here.

  Then I say, I’m not falling!

  I sort of shout it.

  I add, I’m not, okay?!

  He says, Okay, and takes another step toward me.

  His hands look too big for his body. Like they might fall off and start crawling around on the floor.

  Do you need some kind of help, son? he says.

  It almost sounds like he means it.

  No, I say, no.

  And then I am running.

  I don’t know how I get out of the house but I do. I just run through all the wood.

  It’s like my body forgot where it was and then remembered.

  I run all the way down Caton Farm Road.

  I never look back.

  His hardhat was orange and I will dream about this, I know it.

  9

  When I get home Cheedle is sitting at the kitchen table with his typewriter and staring at a bowl of salt. He looks so clean it makes me want to give him a titty twister, so I do.

  He hardly reacts.

  He just looks at me like I accidentally stepped on his foot.

  I am convinced that he is part rubber.

  Hey, I say.

  He says, Hey.

  I just twisted your titty, I say.

  Yes, he says.

  That’s all he says: Yes.

  What are you doing? I ask.

  Cheedle says, My fiction mentor said that when he’s blocked he sits next to his typewriter and stares at a bowl of salt.

  Why?

  Employing this technique apparently forces you to find meaning in something that’s meaningless.

  I think about employment techniques.

  I wonder if this is the kind of thing that might help Shay find a job.

  I say, So you’re blocked?

  No, he says. I’m just trying it out. In case I get blocked. It’s never too early to start preparing for greatness.

  Then he tilts his head and sniffs.

  I say, What?

  You smell like urine, he says.

  I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

  So I turn and go lock myself in the bathroom.

  I check for testicle hair for several minutes. It’s a pointless job, I know this, but you never know when the stuff is going to start sprouting.

  Eric Duggan says you get a smell first.

  Like in your crotch and armpits.

  He says it’s something like horses and dandelions. There was a special about puberty on the Learning Channel.

  I keep checking for this aroma but I just smell like my clothes.

  After I pull my pants up I practice making muscles in the mirror three or four times.

  There’s not much to see so I go into my room and change my pants.

  Sha
y’s old Betty Crocker Easy-Bake Oven can occasionally get temperamental.

  I try to make a Stouffer’s chicken pot pie but it doesn’t cook all the way through. I stab it with a fork.

  I stab it so hard the fork bends.

  I come to the conclusion that this was a bad idea and make a Little Tonio bean and cheese burrito and a chocolate cake with icing instead.

  I ask Cheedle if he wants any but he is too busy staring at his bowl of salt, so I go into Shay’s room.

  Hey, I say.

  She says, Hey.

  Shay is playing with her lighter. She’s holding it real close to her eye and flicking. The flame is making her lids twitch.

  What are you doing? I ask.

  Burning my eyelashes off, she says.

  Don’t, I say.

  Too late, she replies.

  Why are you burning em off? I ask.

  Cause I’m trying to free my karma, she says.

  What’s karma?

  She says, It’s like your psychic load. A collection of all your fuck-ups.

  I think of my own collection of fuck-ups. I see myself standing in the middle of a junkyard with rats and car parts.

  Your karma hides in your follicles, Shay adds. When you remove your hair you free it. It’s like starting over.

  Will they grow back? I ask.

  Eyelashes don’t grow back, she says. It’s sort of a permanent thing.

  In one corner there’s a pile of laundry. I can see a pair of underwear with blood smeared in the crotch.

  I made some dinner, I say.

  You did? she asks, flicking. What did you make?

  A burrito and a chocolate cake. I used your Betty Crocker Easy-Bake Oven.

  She says, It’s a miracle that that fucking thing still works.

  I’ll serve you dinner in bed, I say.

  I’m not in bed.

  Then come out to the kitchen.

  I’m not hungry, she says, but thanks for thinking of me.

  You never eat anymore, I say.

  I eat, she says. I just ate something the other day.

  What? I say.

  I ate a banana.

  I saw her eat the banana. It was three days ago and it was diseased with bruises and she ate only half of it.

  I say, I love you, Shay, and then I start crying.

  I know this makes me seem girlish and stupid but I can’t help it.

  Shay says, Don’t be gay.

  Then she gives me a titty twister and hugs me. I squeeze her as tight as I can and then I put my mouth on hers.

  It tastes like cigarettes and gum.

  She pulls away and laughs.

  What? I say.

  She says, Don’t do that, Blacky, and pushes me.

  Why not? I say.

  Cause it’s weird, Creature Feature Face.

  Sometimes Shay calls me Creepo and sometimes she calls me Creature Feature Face. Shay says it’s having the combination of pale skin and black hair.

  She says, How come you’re wearing your Sunday slacks again?

  I say, My jeans got wet.

  She says, I thought you stopped pissing your pants.

  I did, I say. They didn’t get wet from piss.

  What did they get wet from?

  I tell her that I spilled a Coke on them.

  Shay looks at me like she knows I am lying.

  You can’t get anything past Shay.

  I used to urinate in my pants quite a lot. It started in the bed and then it happened in other places too.

  Once I was in a canoe on Lake Manteno. I was with Al Johnson and he was paddling and I was dragging my hand in the water. The urine just came out of me. It was a good thing I packed my swimming trunks.

  Ma took me to the University of Chicago for behavioral hypnosis. The psychologist who tried to cure me was named Dr. Goodwyn. He was short and bald and he had a deep, lazy voice.

  In his office there were flickering lights and little things that spun.

  I visited him three times. After our last session he smiled and patted me on the back and said, That should do it.

  I still urinated in my pants several times after that but I never told Ma. Eventually I grew out of it, though. I think the muscles in my penis grew strong enough to hold it in. I accidentally pooped my Bulls shorts once but that doesn’t count. It happened in the parking lot of Dominick’s. Ma wasn’t too thrilled but she forgave me after Dr. Lamp of St. Joseph’s Hospital discovered that I had a gastrointestinal virus.

  What did you do with your jeans? Shay asks.

  I threw them out, I say.

  Are these your only pants?

  The only clean ones.

  If you give me your dirty ones I’ll wash them at Betty’s house.

  Okay, I say.

  She tells me to go get them.

  I go into my room and get my three pairs of pants. Two pairs of jeans and a pair of cords. The cords have been in the laundry for so long they look stiff with cement.

  I smell them and this is not a pleasant experience.

  My room isn’t a pleasant experience either. It always looks like someone robbed it.

  I take my three pairs of pants into Shay’s room and hand them to her.

  She puts them in a pile and says, Go eat your dinner.

  Okay, I say. But I can’t leave cause my legs won’t work.

  Shay’s starting to burn off her other lashes now.

  I say, If you move to Chicago can I come visit?

  She says, Of course.

  Should I take the train or the bus?

  Take whatever you want, she says.

  For a second I worry that Shay is going to set her whole face on fire. I can almost hear her skin sizzling.

  I say, I’ll sleep on the floor and do your dishes.

  You’ll be our little slave, she says, and turns to me. Her eyes look naked and beautiful.

  They’re bald now, I say.

  Shay says, Good.

  Then I tell Shay to push me.

  Push me, I say.

  She says, Why?

  I say, Cause I’m stuck.

  Then Shay pushes me in the stomach and my legs start working again.

  I go out into the kitchen and get dinner.

  Cheedle’s still staring at his bowl of salt.

  Hey, I say, but he’s not listening.

  He’s too busy being a genius.

  I wonder if he ever thinks of anything but himself.

  I pinch some salt between my fingers and sprinkle it on my burrito.

  10

  I wake to sleet in the window.

  In Language Arts this substitute teacher read us this story about a crow that kept pecking at this little poor boy’s window. The little boy was named Jasper and he lived on a farm in Mini-haha, Minnesota, and it snowed a lot. That’s about all I can remember from the story. The crow is supposed to be a symbol of darkness and starvation. The story was called “The Boy from Mini-haha.”

  Sometimes when I wake up I think I might see a crow pecking at my window. If I ever do I will throw Cheedle’s big Russian novel at it.

  The sleet sounds like a kid crying. I imagine a house burning. There’s a little girl inside and she’s holding a doll.

  Through the window I can see the sleet clinging to the trees. Everything looks perfect and silver.

  My room is so cold I can see my breath. It’s blue like cigarette smoke in a car at night.

  Cheedle’s already gone. His bed is perfectly made and everything’s tucked in nice. That big Russian book is on top of his pillow. It looks more like furniture than a book. Like something you’d put a plate on.

  Ma usually takes Cheedle to the Joliet Children’s School for the Gifted before I wake up. I don’t know how she has the energy. I think she wants Cheedle to become a doctor or a famous scientist.

  Once she said that Cheedle would start a legacy.

  He’s going to start a legacy, she told all of us at dinner one night. A legacy of Browns.

  She’s
been taking him to school extra early lately. I think it’s cause she doesn’t want to run into me, for some reason.

  She used to leave notes on the kitchen table for me. Notes that said:

  Hey, Blacky.

  Have a good day at school. See you later.

  Love, Ma

  Or:

  Blacky,

  Don’t forget to take your vitamins. Good luck on your Math Skills quiz.

  Love, Ma

  I put on my J.C. Penney’s jean jacket with twice the stitching and walk into the kitchen for a Pop-Tart. I don’t toast them anymore cause I have this problem where I always accidentally burn the corners.

  Ma used to make us take two B-complex vitamins every morning. Her dead sister Aunt Diana gave us this huge bottle of them before she died. Last month Ma bought this other kind. It’s called Geritol and it’s for iron-poor blood. I think they’re supposed to be for women only but Ma says it’s okay for me to take them too. They’re orange and shaped like UFOs. I worry that they’ll make me grow breasts and a vagina.

  But I have this secret:

  I haven’t been taking mine for roughly three weeks. Ever since I choked on a sour apple jawbreaker I have a hard time swallowing.

  I was at the Jewel with Ma when I started choking. I wandered like I was an astronaut in space for a minute. When I saw her in the laundry soap aisle I moved toward her.

  The weird thing is that it was like time stopped. All I could focus on were the lights above the detergent aisle. There were thousands of bugs trapped in them. You could almost hear them screaming to get out.

  The other weird thing is that even though I was choking I could whisper.

  Ma seemed so far away it was like a movie.

  Ma, I whispered, Ma!

  She saw my face and dropped some Tide.

  A second later the jawbreaker shot out of my mouth and bounced past her down the aisle and rolled into the meat section.

  Ma said my face was blue.

  Your face was so blue, Ma said. It was bluer than when you were born.

  I couldn’t talk right for the rest of the day.

  Since then I’ve mastered the Heimlich maneuver. In addition to that poster in the Health Office we were handed pamphlets during CPR training. It’s easy if you follow the illustrations.

  I practice the Heimlich maneuver nearly every time I go to the bathroom. It works best if you use an object with a point or a snout. Lately I’ve been using Ma’s Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo. You have to stick it in your abdomen and thrust upwards. Sometimes this action makes me fart but it works pretty good.

  I’ll concern myself with vitamins and minerals when I grow out of the choking phase.