Horse moved in right after junior high started. I was sitting on the bit of wall at the end of the Calle near the cesspond the day two men came near it with posts and wires, and when I came back the next day the wires went farther than I’m allowed to go, but there was nothing on the other side of the wires for days and days, nothing for the wires to do, and when there finally was a reason for them to be there, things to separate, the thing to be kept on one side was a horse and the thing to be kept on the other was me. I was pretty excited about him but he wasn’t that excited about me. I came every day and stood in front of him, but he would move away or, worse, turn around. I told him all I’d learned from the Girl Scout Handbook, how close I was to being eligible for the Horsewoman badge without being able to do the four starred activities that require the use of an actual horse, the mysteries I had memorized about implements for grooming, removing stones, and Western versus English saddles, but Horse had nothing to say. So then I’d sit down and look at him and he’d stare right past me. He wouldn’t even shiver or wiggle his ears, swish his tail. Until finally I was just done trying to catch his stupid brown eyes and hold their attention and I reached out and grabbed the bottom wire of the fence with both hands and shook it like I wanted to shake him, and that is the exact second when I found out that Horse lives inside an electric cage.
His owner must have learned enough about the Calle to protect his possession from the questionable types circling its streets, but not enough to know that fences won’t keep the criminals out, because the only real difference a fence makes is that jumping one is a crime and worry about that fades faster than the shock from the fence itself. The only thing worse than feeling pain around here is not feeling anything at all, so if we decide that we want to get at his horse, to tease it or feed it or ride it, if we decide this horse is the thing to do, a few volts aren’t going to stop us. But no one’s interested in the animal or the fence, except for me. Horse doesn’t cramp Marc and DeShawn’s make-out and smoking sessions, he’s not human enough to fight or fuck and not old enough to buy them beer. Still, he’s all I want, straight out of the storybooks. My very own pony.
psalms
Looking out the kitchen window, up the Calle, two cars are headed in this direction, two chances it might be Mama. Mama driving means she clocked out and walked out, but Mama walking means she took the long route home, through all the Calle’s bars, down all the Calle’s drinks. I watch the cars and hold the edge of the countertop tight, but when I look at my hands where the metal edge of the counter rubs the red electric lines running across my palms, memories of my visits to Horse, I forget to pay attention to where the rubber meets the road and my two cars rev by. The Calle grows quiet and I take the plastic butter dish into the dining room, sit down by the phone.
“Is Jo there?” I rub butter across one palm. “Okay. Thanks.” I dial again. “Is Jo there?” I butter the other palm. “Have you seen her today?” Phone down. Phone back up. Hang it up, pick it up, hang it up. Pound the cradle so the bell shakes. There’s breadcrumbs on the phone and the nine button is sticking I’m pushing it so hard, but I put on my best I’m-a-normal-kid voice when the ringing stops. “Hi, it’s Ror.” The bartenders don’t even wait for me to ask, sometimes they don’t even wait for my name but interrupt me to say, “Haven’t seen her,” or sometimes there’s a hopeful pause while they hold the phone up high and look around before they say, “You just missed her,” and ain’t that the truth.
starvation ridge
My mother is a hungry dog.
I will always be a hungry dog like my mama, unable to remember when my dish was full or if it might be full again. I keep one eye on the dish, the other on the hand that descends. My teeth ache to bite, hold hand to mouth and never wonder again.
crushed
I wash the butter off my hands and fill a pot with water. There’s no one on the street but I smile out the window anyway, say, “Hello! And welcome to Cooking with Rory! Thank you for tuning in. You’re lucky because today we’re making my specialty—Top Ramen! You will need a small pot for boiling water, and of course, one package of Top Ramen! You may notice that the directions suggest two cups of water, but in my years of perfecting this recipe I’ve found that half a pot works best.” I hold up the pot for my audience and then slam it on the bag of noodles, saying, “Remember to crush the fucking noodles before opening the package.” The package splits open, noodles fly everywhere, and I turn on a burner while scanning my audience for signs of approaching cars, but instead of cars, it’s Marc. He’s riding his bike down the middle of the street. His shirt is tucked into the back pocket of his jeans and I can see the hair on his chest that wasn’t there before, curling and wet. He turns into his driveway and rides through the gate without even a look at our kitchen window where I am now doing anything but pretending to have my own cooking show and waiting like a dog for my mama. I forget about the soup altogether.
“Hello! And welcome to Dialing with Rory! Thank you for tuning in!” I say, as I look through the phone book for a new number to memorize. Marc’s last name is Simmons, and I punch his number through butter and breadcrumbs. I swear I can hear his phone ringing from over the fence, and when he answers I hold my breath through all of his hellos and only breathe again when the dial tone starts.
the first and the fifteenth
The movement from hand to mouth is at once isolated and distinct but also automatic, unvarying.
right use of your body
I’m climbing back over the chain link from my last trip to visit Horse, my last time to shake hands with his electric fence, when I get it. It. First I go for the Girl Scout Handbook. I don’t remember seeing anything about the protocol for this event but I’m sure it’s there. I check everywhere, under M and P, under “Abdomen, first aid for pain in,” and “Cuts (see also Wounds),” and finally I run my finger down column after column of the index, past “Color Guard” and “Dues, annual national membership,” “Hitching tie,” “Mammal badge,” and “Snakes.” Nothing. The Girl Scouts offer no advice for my condition, no ceremony, no supplemental material available for purchase by sending one dollar through the mail. There should at least be a patch, teardrop-shaped, to be sewn discreetly to the inside of the uniform, a waning moon embroidered over a field of cotton, a danger sign on the side of a thready mountain road.
When I tell Mama, she smiles, but it’s slow in coming and gone by the time she stops hugging me, a long one like we were saying good-bye and her question is like that too: “Do you have everything you need?” I half expect her to hand me a quarter and ask me to call when I get there, wherever it is she’s sending me off to, but I obey the first of the unwritten rules of puberty and act as if I know what’s needed and certainly have it. Satisfied, she sits down to toast my womanhood with one Coors after another until she’s celebrated so long she’s passed out under the haze of a Soap rerun. I go back to the Handbook and exhaust “Stains, removal of” before settling for “Uniforms, disposing of outgrown.” My blood-stained blue jeans go in the bag hidden at the bottom of my closet, the bag with the torn ruffled skirt and my favorite rainbow T-shirt, and I let the door close on it all.
make your request
I am lighting a candle. The candle is for Saint Jude. Not the famous-famous Jude who sold his friend for silver, not Iscariot, but Thaddeus. Saint Jude Thaddeus is the guy in charge of hopeless causes, of which I am one, despite what my scores on the standardized tests say. Unlike the kindly teachers at Roscoe, Jude is savvy to the real tests that lie ahead, and to that end, he has quite a line of candles. You’ve probably seen his name in the Penny Saver on Wednesdays. Jude’s famous in the quiet way of saints kept near the back, two lines for $14.99, but he’s in the papers all the time because Saint Jude works his ass off answering prayers. Telling others about the help he’s granted is all he wants by way of payback. It doesn’t take placing an ad to do this, either, so long as the news gets shared. Payback could be anything. It could be this.
&nb
sp; So I’m lighting this candle. And I’m saying these words. I’m opening the windows and I’m turning off the lights. I’m lighting a candle to Saint Jude, in the dark, in the night, so the bugs will come, because tonight, I’m inviting insects. The wick is lit, it’s irresistible in the dark, and I’m letting in Mama’s fears and my own, let them duke it out for a space nearest the flame, settle this old score once and for all and see who’s left standing when morning comes. Saint Jude’s prayer is backlit on the candle’s label and its words dance in shadow through the windows, flicker into corners, and race across walls, Saint Jude and name of the traitor and desperate cases and pray for me who am so miserable and implore and consolation and then there’s a space for the supplicants, of which I am one, to state the exact nature of the trouble:
(make your request here)
free love
Having a one-time hippie for a mom means no church on Sundays, but there’s other stuff to worship. The bookshelf is full and I read through I’m OK—You’re OK and learn that no one promised me a rose garden. I read This Is Women’s Work and learn never to eat the yellow wallpaper. I read Kerouac and many books by the Prophet and learn that all work is empty except when there is love, but even Gibran’s compassion can’t fill the emptiness in Mama’s checkbook, so it’s off to work she goes, which used to mean I’d be off to Carol’s, where the bookshelves were empty of books but full of dusty snow globes and greasy parts catalogues, and used to mean I’d be off to Grandma’s, where the baskets were full of skeins of yarn, crochet hooks, and poker chips, and now it means I’m stuck here with all these books I’ve already read. Having a one-time hippie for a mom means that she treats me like a grown-up, I can cuss, and I can have birth control as soon as I ask. And it means I can ask for other things too, like to leave, like my brothers did. And it means that she’d probably let me go.
proficiency badge: puberty
Symbol: The Girl Scout salute, three fingers extended, the thumb holding down the little finger
To earn this badge do five of these activities, the three starred are required.
1. Act as if you know more about the following things than you do: sanitary pads, parked cars, birth control, love.
2. Forget to change your pad long enough to allow a silver-dollarsized spot of blood to leak through to the seat of your pants. Intermediate: Have a boy notice the spot before you do. Advanced: Have the boy who notices it be the one you secretly have a crush on (or his best friend).
3. Know at least five euphemisms for menstruation, including: the curse, falling off the roof, and having Aunt Flo pay a visit.
4. Gain a new respect for bleach. Intermediate: Gain a new respect for black underwear. Advanced: Consider the difference between kid underwear and sexy ones. Make sure that at least one of your sexy pairs features a heart-shaped patch. If a heart-shaped patch cannot be found, rhinestones or a cherry appliqué may be substituted.
5. Know which shelf holds the Judy Blume books at your school library. Be able to tell from across the room whether or not they are checked out. Intermediate: Know their Dewey Decimal numbers by heart. Advanced: Keep a list of the most enlightening scenes on the girls’ bathroom wall.
6. Sleep with a bra on every night in fear of your boobs dropping should you forget. Intermediate: Don’t wear a bra in the daytime. Advanced: Forget bras and wear the Here Comes Trouble T-shirt you got for your eighth birthday. Act offended if anyone stares at the new shape of the word Trouble. Wear the shirt until your mother asks what smells.
7. Discover that the merest mention of menstrual pain causes your P.E. teacher’s eyes to glaze over. Understand that she is inept at keeping track of dates and will not remember when your last period was. Use this understanding to sit on the bleachers until finals.
8. Sneak your mother’s makeup to cover your acne. Intermediate: Also sneak her mascara. Advanced: Don’t sneak any of it because, fuck them, if they want to stare at your tits they can stare at your zits, too.
make a wish
HENDRIX, Johanna #310,788
MEDICAL HISTORY AND PHYSICAL EXAMINATION
There is a family history of tuberculosis. The mother was found to have a small spot in her lung but apparently no active tuberculosis. She was counseled in May 1971 at the Mental Health Service but she doesn’t feel that it benefited her much. She feels, in general, she is treating the children much better but that maybe this is “too late.” She is currently four months pregnant and does not intend to marry this baby’s father.
V. White:wr
11-27-72
“This is the year you don’t get pregnant,” Mama says, and even though there are presents wrapped on the table, I know this wish is her real gift to me, a chance at control, a chance at my own life. I was going to make a wish of my own, but hers burns so hot and bright over my fifteen candles that all I can do is blow them out, this wish she didn’t make for herself over her own fifteenth birthday cake, or made but couldn’t keep. Maybe even made again the year she became pregnant with me, somehow deciding to hold on to me and leave behind the man who was my father.
What she’ll leave. What will be mine. The list of things: furniture, papers, wedding ring. Mama can see her death coming early, the smoke rising over the ridge, the scar of TB on her lungs. Only poets, libertines, and poor people get TB, and the pure force of Mama’s birthday wish, the balls it takes to make a wish for someone else, right out loud in front of them, makes me think she might have some poetry in her soul after all. My brothers can have the other stuff she’s so anxious to leave behind. This is all I want to inherit.
like a diamond in the sky
A pair of headlights appears at the entrance to the Calle and there is a woman on the street, but she cannot be my mama, even though she is tall and long-legged, even though she follows the route that leads to our house, the one that leads to me. Tonight this stranger blinks and steadies herself against the neons that shimmy and blur, blend against a pair of headlights twinkle-twinkling so far she barely wonders what they are, headlights that glitter a promise just beyond the Hardware Store.
The headlights grow larger and still with their own story to tell, their own anger and appetite. The woman walking Mama’s route has one more lane to go. The white lines glow brighter before her. She blinks down at them. These lines do not jumble up or play games. Their message is clear. She turns her head sharply in the direction of the light, grown too close too fast, wailing and white. She glares at the brightness and intimacy, opens her mouth. And then she flies.
There is screeching and the smell of burning rubber.
And Mama, because it is my mama, if it was a stranger it wouldn’t feel like this, like my own bones breaking, like my own good-bye I’m saying, comes down twenty feet away from the skid marks left by Stu Holman’s pickup truck on the pavement of the busiest curve on the Calle. Inside the cab, Stu’s hand slides against metal and plastic. Inside the cab, Stu cannot find the door handle, doesn’t understand how to work the lock.
The customers who appear in the windows and screen door of the Truck Stop pour onto the Calle like sticky fluid and watch Stu as he collapses on the bug-splattered grill of his truck, trying to breathe in the muggy air. Mosquitoes, moth wings, stick on the back of his jacket. Sounds begin to lap against the thickness in the air like a tide coming in, the sounds of quarreling, sobbing, the sound of beer glass shattering on asphalt, the sound of sirens.
help with fractions
If a pickup truck with 1/2 tank of gas driven by a man 0.02 under the legal limit enters the Calle at ¼ to last call while Mama drinks at the Truck Stop at a constant rate of speed until she’s reached 1/2 cocked and her money 1/2 spent, how long will it take for the news to reach me, sleeping, the television on?
(Show all of your work.)
a. The dad has to sit 5 feet from the fulcrum.
b. Working together they can complete the job in 2.4 minutes.
c. The basket contains 7 yellow onions.
d. It will take
21/3candles to light her way home.
desolation angels
I’m sleeping when there is a knock on the door. It’s early, before five, and dark, but I turn off the TV and slide the door open because I can see by the pink rising over the hill beyond my window that it’s my brothers waiting outside. All of them. Hendrix. Hendrix. Hendrix. Hendrix.
I’m too young to know that this early, unexpected visit means Mama’s employee file has been opened and the entries under Who to Contact in Case of an Emergency have been read, to know there was a fight about who would ride in the ambulance and who would make the call. For once, I’m too young to see what’s coming and there’s no getting out of the way. My brothers are hours from where they live in the bright-lights-big-city that hardly casts a shadow on the Calle and so neither do they. One sentence later and it’s too late to not know why their rush, the breakneck speed to tell me the news themselves before I hear the eleven o’clock version on the Calle. One sentence later and it’s too late to be too young again.
It’s Ronnie who says it first, “Mama was in an accident, she was hit by a truck,” and my own scream surprises me. I don’t know that’s my voice filling the room until I feel Ronnie’s arms wrapping around me, holding me, and the noise doesn’t stop even after Bob and Gene and Winston move in close. We hold each other on Mama’s patchwork carpet, grip a hand or a shoulder, but I scream for all of us because there are no other sounds.
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