by Adam Rapp
Shay shakes and Flahive looks over his shoulder.
That’s when I decide to go back into the bathroom.
Later Ma leaves.
Cheedle and I are in the living room watching this kung fu video called The Five Deadly Venoms.
Ma is dressed fancy and her face is so made up it looks huge.
She’s wearing high heels, too, and when she walks it looks like she has an athletic injury.
I’m going out, she says.
Okay, Cheedle says. Enjoy your evening.
I say nothing and just sit there.
On the video this guy is doing toad style on several hundred policemen. They’re all using machetes but it’s impossible to cut him cause his skin is like steel. His moves look more like dancing than fighting.
Ma says, You make sure you boys eat something. There’s bologna and cheese in the fridge.
When Ma leaves she doesn’t look at me.
Her perfume smells like flowers and urine.
12
That night the phone rings. We can’t call out cause Ma forgot to pay Illinois Bell, so when it rings it’s like something huge is about to happen.
Al Johnson helped us pay our bills for a while but now that’s impossible.
Even though we can’t dial out we can still receive calls, but we don’t get too many. Once in a while Ma’s brother Uncle Jack will call but that stopped after Shay started using drugs again. Ma’s dead sister Aunt Diana used to call, too, but she’s dead now.
Once Shay screamed at Ma cause the phone got completely disconnected. We didn’t even have a dial tone.
Fucking stupid bitch! Shay yelled.
Ma said, I’m sorry, Shay, I’m sorry.
Then Shay took the keys and hijacked the car. She drove all the way to Griffith, Indiana, before she ran out of gas and got caught by the Highway Patrol of America.
When they brought her back that night she went and hid in her room and wouldn’t come out for several hours. Now Shay’s not allowed to drive a car till she’s twenty-one.
Cheedle answers the phone.
Hello? he says. Brown residence … One moment, please.
He looks at me and says, It’s for you.
I take the phone from Cheedle and walk to the corner of the kitchen where Ma used to hang this picture of Jesus. Jesus was making a miracle gesture and there was a golden halo around his head. Ma took it down after Shay blackened out Jesus’ eyes with a Sharpie permanent marker.
Hello? I say into the phone.
Wear it tomorrow, a girl’s voice says.
What? I say.
Wear the sweatshirt, she says. And don’t wash the paint off.
Who is this?
Mary Jane.
Oh, I say. Hey.
She says, Hey.
On the phone her voice sounds different. Like she’s been holding her breath underwater.
In the background you can hear a TV. It sounds like a hundred thousand people are laughing.
She says, Tomorrow I’m wearing my white QUACK OFF, MOTHERQUACKER! long-sleeved T-shirt and I’m leaving the paint on. Wear the sweatshirt.
Okay, I say. I’ll wear it.
Then we are breathing for a moment.
I can still smell the deer on my hand.
In the background there’s some more laughter as well as a bone-chilling clap of TV thunder.
How’d you get my phone number? I ask.
She says, I just got it.
I imagine her looking through the phonebook and making mysterious calls.
She adds, I already bought some more red paint just in case our marks start to fade.
Good idea, I say.
So I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?
Sure.
At the bus stop.
At the bus stop, I say.
Don’t wash the shirt.
I won’t.
Then she hangs up.
I hold the phone for a minute and then I put it back on the wall.
In the living room Cheedle is watching the Weather Channel now. It’s about the most exciting thing our Basic cable package has to offer.
I want him to ask me who was on the phone but he just stares at the TV.
A woman with huge teeth and a tan is swirling her hands like a witch.
What’s going on? I ask.
They’re predicting snow, he says. Earliest snowfall in nine years.
On TV they cut to a blizzard in South Dakota.
Get the chains on your tires, it’s coming our way! the weather woman warns. High pressure system! Northeasterly winds!
She swirls and swirls.
It’s coming our way.
So much snow it looks like nowhere.
Something’s going on, Cheedle says. It’s not even November.
I am in bed when Ma finally comes home.
I can hear her keys on the kitchen table.
For a second I think I can hear her crying, too, but it might be the pipes. When the heat came back on they started making noises like people having emotional problems.
The toilet flushes and then Ma’s door opens and closes.
I count to thirty and then go into her room without knocking.
Hey, I say.
Ma says, Hey.
She’s sitting in front of her mirror and making a face like she’s listening to music. Her dress looks dumb and rumpled. It’s like she’s been forced to stay awake for several days.
I say, I touched a deer today.
She says, What’s that sposed to mean? and starts brushing her hair.
You can see where it got dyed. How they missed some spots and stuff.
I decide to try and start over, so I say Hey again.
Hey, I say.
She says, What, Blacky?
I say, Sorry I called you a prostitute.
She says, You break my heart when you say things like that.
In Life Science Dave the See-Through Fake Human’s heart looks like a bloody fist. Once Mr. Prisby took it out and passed it around the room.
I imagine breaking it in two with a hammer.
Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, Blacky, she says. You and your sister. Sometimes I just don’t know …
She’s touching her bangs now. She touches them so gently it’s like they’re someone else’s.
Where have you been? I say.
She says, What?
I say, Where were you?
She won’t answer. She starts to use the brush again. And she’s doing this thing she does when she’s guilty of something. She’s trying to keep her lower lip from quivering.
Her technician’s uniform is bunched on the floor and there’s a candy bar in the middle of the bed. It looks like a dog turd.
Her room is starting to get like Shay’s.
I say, You went to visit him, didn’t you?
She rises off her chair and turns to me.
Yes, Blacky, she says, I did go visit him.
We are standing there like wood.
Through her window I can see leaves blowing. They look like bats circling the house.
I say, Did he notice your hair?
Yes, she says, he did.
I don’t respond.
I feel like kicking her closet door but I don’t.
She adds, He said it makes me look five years younger.
I imagine her five years younger. She has whiter teeth and a smaller butt.
Are they beating him? I ask.
Of course not, Blacky.
Did they shave his head?
No, she says. But he got a haircut. It looks nice.
Did he ask you to marry him?
No, she says. I would say that that’s probably the last thing on his mind.
I say, So how is he?
Ma says, He’s sad.
I wish there was a way you could make yourself disappear and reappear in another room. I’ve seen this on TV. Cheedle would know more about it than me.
I say, Are they gonna give him
capital punishment?
No, she says. Of course not.
Maybe they should, I say.
There are flowers all over her dress. It’s the first time I’ve actually noticed them as flowers. I used to think they were popcorn.
I add, They say when they crank up the electric chair the current makes your eyes explode.
She says, That’s terrible, Blacky.
It’s all about the volts, I say, and go back to my room.
That night I dream that I am nine feet tall and the world officials don’t know where to put me.
There’s not enough space, they say.
It’s not going to work out, they say.
So someone arrives with a saw and starts to cut my legs off at the knees.
When he looks up I can see that it’s Dave the See-Through Fake Human. He’s got his tongue back and he’s wearing a three-piece suit.
It’s cold out there, he says. Gotta keep warm.
When I wake up I give myself the Heimlich maneuver.
I don’t go into the bathroom. I just do it in my bed.
I use my fist and bark.
13
Mary Jane Paddington meets me at the bus stop. It is colder than the man on the news said it would be. I am wearing my J.C. Penney’s jean jacket with twice the stitching, Shay’s sweatshirt, and Mary Jane Paddington’s Koren Motors windbreaker.
I am also wearing Shay’s electric green ski hat that I found under her dresser and a pair of nursing shoes that I took from Ma’s closet. They are soft on the bottoms so I will be able to use them for Gym. Even though they’re not Nikes, at least I won’t be slipping around. The shoes are so white they look painted.
Shay’s ski hat smells like cigarettes and beer.
Hey, I say.
Mary Jane Paddington says, Hey.
Her breath comes out silver.
Janice Caulkoven and Ben Jansen are wearing matching ski parkas with Thinsulate. His is blue and hers is bluer.
They stare at us like we’re illegal aliens.
In Social Studies Miss Cosgrove defined this term for us but I still can’t help seeing creatures from outer space.
Space aliens with hard-core laser weapons.
When we board the bus we sit in the back across from each other.
I touched a deer yesterday, I tell her. Walked right up to it and touched it.
Mary Jane Paddington says, Where?
Hamil Woods.
It just let you touch it?
Yes, I say. I felt its neck. Right by the Smudge Man’s hole. It was warm and it smelled like Hamburger Helper.
I reach across the aisle and let Mary Jane Paddington smell my hand. I have not washed it on purpose.
After I take my hand back she says, Deer know more than most people do.
I say, You think?
I’d put money on it, she says. My dad used to hunt em. He said if you follow one deep enough into the woods it’ll take you to paradise.
I say, Paradise?
Yeah, paradise.
Paradise is like heaven, right?
It is.
I say, Wow.
Mary Jane Paddington says, It’s an old Native American belief. Apparently deer hunters try it all the time. But it never works out.
Why not?
Cause it’s too tempting to shoot the deer. It happened to my dad, she explains. He was hunting whitetails in Little Chicago.
Where’s Little Chicago? I ask.
She says, It’s up north in Wisconsin or Minnesota or somewhere.
I say, So what happened?
He followed one for miles. It was a buck. He said it was huge. Maybe the biggest deer he ever saw. He followed it all afternoon and then wound up shooting it right before the sun went down.
Why did he shoot it?
He said he couldn’t stop himself. Things got too intense. He got so lost his friends had to call the forest ranger. When they found him he was with the deer. He was hugging it.
I say, Wow, again.
Yeah, she says, Little Chicago was his last hunting trip. He says killing that buck was the biggest mistake of his life.
Mary Jane Paddington turns and stares out the window.
I imagine all those deer in Little Chicago. I wonder where they really get to when they go deep into the woods like that. I see trees and rocks and bugs. Maybe it would be really quiet there? Maybe it never gets cold?
On the way to school the houses get smaller and then turn into the Cresthill Lake Apartment Complex. It’s funny how there’s no real lake at this apartment complex. There’s a pond instead.
Shay spends a lot of time at these apartments. She says there’s not a single fish in the pond. She says it’s mostly broken bottles and motorcycle parts.
Last summer a high school guidance counselor was murdered there. Her name was Margo Mansfield. It was reported in the Joliet Herald News that Margo Mansfield was chopped up into thirty-seven different pieces. They found them scattered all over the pond at the Cresthill Lake Apartment Complex.
The bus driver is playing the radio and some girl is singing about screwing and losing her mind.
In the boys’ bathroom I tell the mirror about me and Mary Jane Paddington.
We’re a team, I say.
It looks like my heart got pulled through my chest.
My eyes are small and black.
My brown Sunday slacks are looking less and less suited for Sunday.
In the halls you can feel the whispers.
When you look at people they turn away. Even the teachers are doing it.
I saw Mr. Prisby say something to Miss Cosgrove and when I walked by them he stopped saying it.
They’re like monkeys in the trees, I think. Like those ones in The Wizard of Oz.
It starts with the thumbs-ups.
Hey, skank! Steve Degerald screams in front of the trophy case, and shoots me a thumbs-up.
His head looks bald and hard.
Where’s your skanky hoe? Evan Keefler shouts from the water fountain.
It should be illegal to have a voice that deep in the sixth grade.
I run into Mary Jane Paddington between first and second period and tell her about them calling her a skanky hoe.
Just ignore them, Mary Jane Paddington instructs. Let the paint speak for itself, okay?
Oh, I say. Okay.
I didn’t know paint could speak, I think.
Silence is our best defense, she says. See you at lunch.
See you, I say.
In Life Science we talk about the five senses.
Mr. Prisby calls the things in our noses old factory lobes.
I imagine earlobes in my sinuses.
Plastic earlobes made in a factory.
Taste is broken up into many centers on the tongue, he explains. Bitter, sweet, sour, spicy and others.
In the middle of class he looks at me and says, Any word on Dave’s tongue, Blacky?
I get up from my desk and hand it to him.
It’s black, he says.
That’s the way I found it, I tell him.
The truth is that I colored it with my black permanent marker after that dream I had about getting my legs sawed off. I blackened some other stuff, too. Like two of Cheedle’s typewriter keys and page one hundred and forty-seven of Anna Karenina. I blackened that entire page. It soaked through to pages one hundred and forty-eight and one hundred and forty-nine, too. For some reason it felt like the right thing to do.
Very well then, Mr. Prisby says, turning the tongue in his hand.
Do I get extra credit? I ask.
He says, We’ll talk about that some other time, Blacky. Thank you for returning Dave’s tongue.
One of the girls on the left side of the room says skank, but she says it in a private way.
It almost sounds like Thanks.
When I turn around and go back to my chair I can see that it’s Anne Meadows.
She has written it in red ink on the top of her box of pencils:
In Art I take my black permanent marker and draw dog testicles on Anne Meadows’ hair.
Miss Haze watches me at my easel.
Huh, she says, and walks away.
In Gym we do the standing broad jump for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.
I imagine meeting the President of the United States. His face is wooden and sad.
Hello, Blacky, he says. Did you vote like a good American?
I don’t vote, I say, and walk away with a secret smile.
You get three jumps, Coach Corcoran announces. You squat and jump with both feet. Jump as far as you can. You go over the red tape and you’re disqualified, you got that, Brown?
Yes, I say.
While we are lining up someone behind me says, Where’d you get the shoes, skank? An old folks’ home?
He disguises his voice to sound like an African American.
We don’t have any African Americans in the sixth grade, so I would say this is a racist act.
When I turn around many boys are smiling.
Two of them give me a thumbs-ups.
I feel powerless without Shay’s sweatshirt.
As I am about to take my first jump, Steve Degerald gooses me and it hurts.
Semper Fi! he calls out.
As a result I only jump two and a half feet.
Coach Corcoran doesn’t see the goosing and when he measures my jump he makes a face like I’m pathetic.
He says, Two and a half feet? That’s all you can do, Brown?
I got goosed, I say.
You got what?
Goosed, I say.
I’ll give you a goose, he says.
For my next two jumps I am disqualified cause my toes go over the red tape.
Behind me someone says, Nice job, skank.
When I turn around Evan Keefler looks proud of himself.
Pretty proud, huh? I say to him.
It just comes out like that.
Go get a shower, Brown, Coach Corcoran says. You might be the first kid in my twenty-five years of teaching who fails Gym.
In the cafeteria Mary Jane Paddington is eating an egg salad sandwich and barbecue potato chips.
We have the whole table to ourselves.
Hey, I say.
She says, Hey. How’s it going?
I tell her how I got goosed in Gym.
She says, Who did it?
Steve De-fucking-gerald.