by Suzette Mayr
Uncle Suzie holds the phone and its flurry of sound away from his face and snorts.
— Been nice talking to you too, Dave, he says in the direction of the phone. — Love you too, brother.
He hangs up. Thinks hard about the pack of cigarettes in the drawer in the kitchen. Faraday would freak out if he lit up a cigarette and he can’t handle another relative turning praying mantis on him.
— Where were we, says Uncle Suzie.
— They told us in — , says Faraday.
— Who told you? asks Uncle Suzie, clasping his hands together in his lap.
— The crisis people.
— Oh. Good.
— They told us—
— When?
— Today. They told us he hung himself. Hanged. They said there was no note, but it was clear that it was suicide. They told us it wasn’t our fault.
— Why would it be your fault? asks Uncle Suzie.
— I could have been nicer to him.
Uncle Suzie brushes a strand of Faraday’s hair out of her face and tries to tuck it behind one of her barrettes. — Did you ever know him? You did the best you could, Uncle Suzie says. — How could you be better than you already are? Listen to me, I don’t fraternize with losers or homely people and I’m fraternizing with you, right? You are the earthshine to my moon.
Faraday pulls the neck of her sweater up over her mouth.
— Okay, Earthshine, says Suzie. I think you better get home before your faaaaather has a coronary. Honey, you have to call your parents when you come to see me.
Uncle Suzie grabs a handful of toilet paper from the bathroom and holds it out to Faraday. — Here, Faerie, he says.
— Can I live here with you? asks Faraday, knowing of course what the answer will be. — They’re making me into a crazy person.
Uncle Suzie strokes his bald head once, twice. He remembers what he was like at her age. He remembers drinking so much at his dragmother’s birthday party his bones clanked for three days and he had to pick his own vomit out of his own eyebrows. He remembers fucking his head off with one trick all morning, rushing home that afternoon to change into a fresh T-shirt to go fuck his brains out with another guy he met at a party the night before. When he was sixteen. His niece is better off googling unicorn sightings and hanging out with drag queen reformed uncles. He would put her into suspended animation until she was thirty-five if she ever came close to being sixteen like he was.
— By not letting you live here, he says, — I am in fact treating you more like an adult than if I were to let you stay here, right?
— That makes zero sense, says Faraday. She kicks the baseboard.
— Well, Dave and Shirley are bona fide freaks, but they are each other’s lovers, you know. They’re not just your parents. They’ve been lovers since they were fifteen, says Suzie. — So of course there’s going to be some bumpy spots in their marriage. They were, no offence because I know you hate this word, kids when they first fell in love.
— Awwk, says Faraday. She kicks the sproingy thing behind the door. She pulls the barrette out of her hair, smooths her hair back, then snaps the barrette back into place. She flicks her hair as she turns toward the door. — I still think we would make a good Will and Grace.
— I don’t think I have enough hair to be Grace. Bye bye, Earthshine. Hugs to the brothers.
Faraday tugs open the door.
— You gonna be okay? asks Suzie. — You got a bit of Cheez Whiz in your hair, honey. There. No, there. Yeah. All gone now. You know suicide’s the most selfish act a person can commit. You know that, right? And it’s not like you get to attend your own funeral. Better to just have a party while you’re alive. You know what? Wait. I’m walking you home, says Suzie. He shoves on his boots, grabs his puffy silver winter coat from the coat closet.
Faraday pulls the door shut behind them. Suzie’s bald shaved head gleams in the bright hallway light.
Ginger
Because the tumbling wind ate all the snow so he has no more snow scabs to peel. He plays Divinity XII in the dark in his room, trying to improve on Furey’s score, Furey always kicking his ass at this game. Tells his grampa it’s a Teachers’ Convention Day. — No school today.
— Or yesterday? says Grampa.
— Nope, Ginger says.
— Interesting, says Grampa.
Furey’s father, his frame shouldering the doorway, his hands grasping the jambs on both sides of the door frame, says, — What in heaven’s name would you want with my son’s suicide note?
— It is in heaven’s name, says Ginger, twisting the end of his scarf.
— I’ve never seen you before, says the father, his growl rising. — You ghoul. You jackal. Get the fuck off my property. Coming around here.
— I know for sure he had a locket, says Ginger, he stands legs apart, ready to wrestle, ready for the first pounce, the father circling when all Ginger wants is one thing, the note, the locket, the sweater, the body, just give him the body so he can know for sure.
Because the day after their very last cemetery date, that night Ginger was weak and told Furey love is red, Ginger tossed everything Furey had ever given him, erased everything from the computer, his texts from his phone, hurled the video games, the books, the CDs, the love letters into a garbage bin twelve blocks away from his house. The love fragments and detritus quarantined and then ejected from his sector, more anonymous garbage suspended in outer space.
— It was my grandmother’s locket.
— Why would my son have your grandmother’s locket? Are you saying my son stole from you? The father’s words cracking into the air.
— No, it was his locket. But it’s still mine. Where is he buried? Ginger’s words dissipate in puffs of white.
— In the ground, says Furey’s father, shutting the door.
— Can I at least have the Valentine’s card? calls Ginger. — I signed it G! It was supposed to be a joke!
Ginger runs his key along the side of every car on the way back home, that sweet whistle of metal etching metal, car alarms beeping, burring and chiming a canticle.
Thursday
Maureen
Maureen, Ms Mochinski, Mrs. Mochinski, Mrs. Alexey Mochinski, Mrs. Mockneeski, Mrs. M., Maureen Mochinski (née Rule), Miss Rule, Ms Ruler, Missy Rules and Regulations, Mistress Maureeny, Maur, Maury, Reeny, Reen. Mo.
Now that Maureen Mochinski’s husband is trading her in for an uglier, older model, Lorraine, her cousin, should she metamorphose back to her maiden name? Then everyone, including her students, will know how her life has crumbled to ruins, that she has an F in marriage. Men stopped whistling or honking at her decades ago. She whistles at them these days. Her wrinkly lips puckered and obscene. She had her last orgasm in the presence of a man nine months ago. If only she’d known. Rule such an obvious name for a spinster teacher. Nothing sexy or provocative about Rule.
Ms Rule. Ms R. Miss Arf arf.
She fans herself with her paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet while she tries to eat her lunch as quickly as possible, the heat rushing up in a lethal explosion; she fans so vigorously the pages flap the air, the quick buzz of a fly’s wings. She tears off her blazer, unbuttons the top buttons of her blouse. She fans her face, gapes open the neck of her shirt and aims the wind from the fanning book between her breasts, the smell of Secret Spring Breeze deodorant, wood pulp and book glue wafting in her face. The paperback cover so frayed and fingered it rubs soft like cloth.
The dead boy’s desk a hole directly in the middle of her class. His teacher, Mrs. Maureen Birdie Siobhan Rule Mochinski, burning up at her desk. A witch going up in flames, that’s what she is.
A student steps into the room and drops her bag on the floor. Mrs. Mochinski’s third eye bats open in the back of her head; she hooks one button on her blouse closed, but the flames prevent her buttoning further.
— Yes? she asks wearily. — Oh it’s you, she says.
She says Oh it’s you instead of the student’s na
me because she cannot remember the student’s name even though she’s in Maureen’s class. Maureen’s only had this group since mid-January and knows them only if they sit in their proper seats and she can look at the seating plan, and this student played with her cellphone just this morning in Maureen’s class, Maureen slamming down her chalk so it shattered.
— Mrs. Mockneeski? asks the student.
— Yes? answers Maureen Birdie Siobhan Rule.
The student has come to ask a favour, and because the student is an A student Maureen leans in and listens in spite of the fact that she’s going to supernova any moment and take the building and this kid with her.
The student’s lips move, the girls plastering on the lip gloss these days, the sweat dribbling down Miss Rule’s neck, between her breasts, bumping over her ribs, down the middle of her back.
— You know what, says Maureen, — let me get back to you on that. I’ll have to talk to the principal.
The student fusses a bit, gently butting her toe against the floor, her voice a snivelling note that erodes Maureen’s sympathy, Maureen’s voice smouldering at the edges, — No, you cannot go through the contents of Patrick Furey’s locker, says Maureen. — I will talk to Principal Applegate and make sure every item in his locker is returned to his parents.
The student mopes from the room, dragging her cello case behind her, and then Maureen remembers her name: Jessica! That was it. How could she have forgotten?
Or was it Jennifer? Erin! It was definitely Erin.
Maureen scoops up her purse. She’s going to the bathroom, and she’s going to fill a sink with cold water and dunk her head in. She doesn’t care what she looks like anymore. The classroom door locks behind her.
She’s lost her name and doesn’t know where to find it.
Faraday
Faraday’s mother and father side-by-side at the dinner table. They used to sit across from each other, opposing kings on a chessboard, but this is their new configuration now that they pay a therapist a lot of money to help them prevent a checkmate in their marriage. Mother sawing through a pork chop, Father crumbling his potatoes into a small heap. Jonas gulping his milk and cutting his pork into identical, symmetrical wedges. The air smoky with pork chop grease. The finches hop around on the newspapers and scattered seed lining the bottom of their cage, their wings fluttering against the bars.
Their mother squints at Faraday and her brothers across the table while she chews her charred meat, then she spears another piece and crams it into her still-full mouth. Her plate almost empty. Her hand clapped on the back of her husband’s neck. Faraday, George M. and their eldest brother Jonas all avoid looking at where their mother’s arm angles at the back of their father’s neck, their mother giving him a rough neck massage; they study the cartons of orange juice and milk, the food on their plates.
Their father shreds his pork into a hill opposite the potato heap. Mashes everything into a single heap on his fork and forklifts it into his mouth.
Jonas guzzles his milk down to the bottom of his glass. — George M., pass the milk, he says.
George M. picks up Jonas’s glass and slops milk into the glass up to the brim. Milk splashes the table as Jonas swipes the glass from George M.’s hand.
— Dung ball, says Jonas.
— Stop playing with your food, murmurs their mother.
— A guy in my English class killed himself on Monday, says Faraday.
Their father flicks up at her from under his bushed eyebrows. He turns his mouth back down to his plate. — So Uncle Suzie told me. You don’t plan on doing that, right?
— No, Dad, says Faraday.
— You’ll talk about it with Dr. Libby, right? says her father.
— Yes, Dad.
— I saw you touch the rim of my glass! shouts Jonas. — George M., you are such an ass!
— I will have civility at dinner! shouts their father. He slaps the table with his palm. — Bunch of bloody gorillas!
He rubs their mother’s shoulder.
Faraday’s family gnaws through the rest of their dinner. Faraday props her head in her hand as she chews through her hunk of mummified pork, her fork upright in her other fist propped on the dinner table. This evening relatively calm except for the dead boy in her head, giving her back her eraser over and over again. And her parents rubbing and massaging each other. She wishes her parents’ marriage could be normal again. That both her parents would stop with all the public displays of affection, stop having sex everywhere and all the time even though more effort at physical intimacy is what their marriage counsellor counselled. Her mother told her this one morning when Faraday tried to borrow her mother’s hairdryer and found her parents twined like earthworms in the bathroom. Her mother running after Faraday in her nightie and bare legs, her red frizzy hair all rucked up the one side of her head.
— You’re not wearing any underwear, are you? asked Faraday, pulling and snapping her hair into barrettes and elastics as fast as she could to stop her hair from wiring into electric curls. She needed the hairdryer. She needed her hair straightener. Her parents were in the way of a good hair day. They were guaranteeing her an awful, awful hair day.
— Do you want me to make you some scrambled eggs? said her mother, her voice gummy. — It’s what we need to do to save the marriage. This family. I’ve been with your father since I was fifteen. Relationships sometimes need reinvigoration. I can add some grated cheese if you want.
Too much information: Faraday couldn’t care less that her father now regrets his vasectomy, she doesn’t want to know that her mother maybe should have slept with that boy Les Dolecki before she got married just to see what sex with another man was like.— Maybe a virgin marrying a virgin wasn’t the best idea, said her mother, flopping the scrambled eggs over onto a plate.
Faraday’s afraid to come home early from school — the last time she did, her parents’ clothes were strewn around the living room, from her parents’ bedroom the sounds of moaning and squishing filigreed the silence, the family dog Shinny panting on the couch, her front legs crossed daintily, ears pointed and alert. The finches beeping and hopping frantically in their cage.
As Faraday reaches for a second glob of mashed potatoes, her father says that he’s going to arrange for the whole family to go see the marriage counsellor too because the marriage counsellor also has very interesting theories regarding family dynamics. The family will all go together. All at once. All of them sitting in a circle in the same room. No meal as a distraction.
Faraday deposits a forkful of her mashed potatoes between her lips. She squirts the potatoes back and forth between her teeth behind her closed lips. She just wants to be away from this table, sit by herself in her room and cherish then dissect the spiny, perilous fact of Patrick Furey’s death. She just wants to talk to her friends on www.unicornswillsaveus.com or write in her journal or flump on her bedroom floor with her blessing of unicorns: her posters, figurines, stickers, temporary tattoos of anatomically correct unicorns. Uncle Suzie understands the importance of unicorns in her blessing being accurate — the small tapestry reproduction of a Hunt of the Unicorn panel on the wall above her bed comes from when he had that dopey, pretending-to-be-wealthy boyfriend who lived in New York and Uncle Suzie visited the Cloisters. Artist unknown, the tapestry the first unicorn in her collection. The Kirin beer bottle Uncle Suzie gave her with the kirin galloping across the label. Not like her mother Shirley who gave her a pink and white porcelain figurine of a horse with a horn and a Disney logo on the bottom. Because real unicorns do not wear fake eyelashes or have muscles that allow them to contort their muzzles into a smile. A real unicorn, like one of the ones she knows are coming, could nod its alicorn and heal the nonsense of her parents’ marriage, give her brother George M. a decent personality, give her brother Jonas a personality period, give Uncle Suzie a boyfriend who knows how to clean up after himself, perhaps even resurrect Patrick Furey from the dead. The alicorn all-powerful. All-perfect. If only her par
ents were less uptight about their credit cards, oh her unicorns and her unicorn art collection would fill the whole house and the garage.
She doesn’t need a child psychologist— not even a real psychologist— to understand the secret to eternal happiness.
Jonas collects self-help books for children of divorced and/or separated parents. He also chews every single mouthful exactly thirty-two times. He swallows the glob of food in his mouth, turns to their father, and says, — Great idea, Dad!
— Nope, says George M.
Faraday tastes the green mush of the pea she pops between her teeth. She knows seeing a psychologist doesn’t apply to her. She still goes to Dr. Linus Libby every second week to ‘help’ her with her uicorn ‘fixation.’
Her father explains to the table but points his fork right at George M. when he says that it would be really nice if some people would stop thinking only about themselves and pitch in to the collective effort once in a while.
— So what you’re saying is the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, says George M., tinging the edge of his glass with his knife.
— That’s right, says their father, patting Shinny’s head on the table beside him. They can hear the hollow sound of her skull with the pats, like their father is tapping a melon. Shinny rolls her eyes and exhales a sigh into their father’s plate.
— Well sometimes, George M. says, — the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. I am that one. He tings his glass again. He burps. — Excuse me, he says. Then he starts to laugh. He is the only one laughing, the only one tinging his glass, the air zinging with the tinging.