Safe
WE WALK IN the woods at the bottom of the hill, just the two of us, Mina and me. Spruce and cedar and pine spread their limbs to the first sun we’ve seen in weeks. Elms and oaks, maples and chestnuts begin to bloom. Mud and ferns and blackberry brambles dictate our path. Even with our coats, the wind is cold.
We walk along and watch the squirrels in the trees. Our feet catch in the roots. Mina’s hair glows white in the sunlight. Finches and sparrow, crows and jays flit from branch to branch.
“Do you hunt?” she asks.
“No.”
“I hunt,” she says. “I like the feel of the rifle in my arms.”
Killing things seems to me to be unnecessary. You can buy your meat in the store. You can leave the killing to people better suited to it.
“Meat tastes better when you bring it home yourself,” she says.
I watch the curve of her lip, the arc of her brow. Her nose is perfect, her eyes blue and clear as water. Long, pianist fingers stretch from strong-looking hands. She seems too delicate to kill her own food. The thought of her sneaking through the woods, rifle in hand, tracking deer or elk or whatever doesn’t fit in my head. Mina belongs in a concert hall or a classroom, a laboratory or office.
“My father made this for me,” she says and hands me a pocket knife. The handle is bone of some sort, yellowish with dark streaks, smooth to the touch. A thin steel blade folds out of the grip. Blue waves in the metal catch the light. The edge is fine, silky even. I imagine it gutting something, cutting through the hide and muscle of an animal to drop its innards to the ground.
“Beautiful.”
“I carry it everywhere I go,” she says.
It makes her more dangerous than I thought. She holds the knife like it’s part of her. It rests comfortably in her hand. There’s no doubt she knows how to use it.
“It reminds me to be safe,” she says. “It reminds me that there’s always a way out of any situation.”
I never learned that trick. Mostly, I ricochet from one crisis to another like a drunken whore. Would a knife give me the grace and strength to control my own life? Would I feel safer with a blade in my pocket?
We walk back to the house. Mom’s in the kitchen making dinner.
“We’re having a roast,” she says, inviting Mina to say.
“I have to get home,” Mina says. “Homework, you know.”
I take her out to her car. She kisses me goodbye.
“See you tomorrow?” she asks.
“Tomorrow.”
And now she’s gone. Back in the house, Mom stares at me.
“You and Mina?” she asks.
“Just friends.”
“She kissed you.”
“She does that.”
“I like her,” Mom says.
“I like her too,” I say. “But she’s not interested.”
“Make her interested,” Mom says.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“You have to try.”
“Whatever.”
Soon it’ll be dark. I’ll eat supper with Mom and Grandma and they’ll sit in the living room watching Dallas. I’ll go to my room and read Simic. I’ll lie in bed and think of Mina and her knife. I’ll think of her hands covered with blood and fur and guts. She’s more dangerous now than she was yesterday. I’ll need to be more careful with her. I’ll need to make sure she never has a reason to show how she uses her knife. Maybe that’s why I can’t think of her body the way I think of Bekah or Ed or Harold. Maybe she scares me. Maybe I need to just pull it together and ask her out. Surely she’d protect me if something goes wrong. She’s strong that way. Stronger than me. Maybe that’s why I’m scared.
Abrupt Edge
I DREAM OF Ed and Richie turning on me. They toss their fists at my face and there is nothing I can do to stop them. I dream of them kicking me in the ribs and belly, stomping my head against the ground, laughing and shouting over the blood pouring from cuts and smashed bone. I don’t know where the dream comes from, but it leaves me sweaty and scared and trembling.
I wake and the sun’s not up yet. Four hours before school starts. I can sleep another two hours, but I cannot lie here anymore. I need to be moving.
The floor is cold and the heat is off. My feet ache and I shiver. Without the blankets, the room is unbearable. I dress as fast as I can and light a cigarette, the smoke burning into my lungs. Out in the living room, the furnace keeps the worst of the cold out. I sit on the floor and press my bare feet against the vents.
Mom comes home from work. She’s later than usual. Bobby must’ve been waiting for her. I shudder and my belly cramps. Soon Grandma will get up and scramble some eggs. She’ll fry bacon and make gravy for the biscuits from last night’s dinner.
“What’re you doing up?” Mom asks, coming through the door.
“Nightmares.”
“Again?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“What’s going on with you?” she asks.
“Nerves, I guess. I don’t know.”
She gets the afghan from the couch and wraps it around me. She turns up the heat and warm air finally escapes the vent. It’s soft on the hard skin covering my feet. Mom goes to the kitchen and starts the coffee. She comes back and sits with me.
“I worry about you,” she says. “You need to sleep.”
“I sleep,” I say.
“Sometimes.”
“I’m fine.”
But I’m not fine. Fear and sadness are the only constants in my life. Suicide is a constant companion. Bloody images, visions of lying naked in a tub, overdosed and dead, play through my mind. I cannot seem to help it. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live either. Secrets weigh on me like lead plates pressing against my bones.
“You could stay home from school,” Mom says. “Try to sleep some.”
“It won’t work,” I say. “The sun keeps me up.”
“Should I call the doctor?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Not yet,” I say. “Maybe tomorrow.”
What would I say to a doctor? Would I tell him that I’m gay? But I’m not, not completely. I have sex with girls too. I’m twisted. I’m confused. No one has any answers, but then, I don’t which questions to ask.
Tonight there’s a gathering of folks in the field below the house. Mina’s going home and we’re sending her off with vodka and beer, pot and a fire. Shadows jump in the trees. Bright points of light in the undergrowth show the coyotes and ’possums watching us, waiting for us to leave so they can’t hunt in peace.
Music blasts from a radio. A bonfire burns large and hot in a hole well away from the trees. The sky is clear and the smoke rises straight up. The smell of people getting high floats the night air. I sit with Renee and Mina, Lloyd and Richie and Ed and Bekah on a log we’ve dragged out of the woods.
“Back home,” Mina says. “The pot sucks.”
I take the pipe and burn a lungful of smoke. The buzz comes on fast. People’s faces begin to stretch and I imagine them staring at me. Fear roils through me. I don’t know what I’m afraid of, but there’s a panicky feel to this high. I don’t like it. Even the beer tastes poisoned. I watch everyone around me and wait for them to fall over dead. No one topples. No one notices my wide-eyed stare.
Embers rise from the fire pit, challenging the stars in the dark sky. Dawn is still hours off, but I’m ready to lie down and close my eyes, only this is my field and I have to be the last one to pass out. I have to make sure the fire doesn’t spread. It’s my job to make sure no one dies.
“Back home,” Mina says. “We build fires on the beach and watch the waves.”
There are no waves here, no water. Even the creek is too far away to hear. Renee rests her head on Mina’s shoulder. Bekah kisses me. Richie lies down next to the fire, not moving, not talking. Ed closes her eyes. People are drifting to their cars and driving into the night.
“Back home,” Mina says. “It’s al
l work and snow and ice. I was hoping to enjoy the summer here.”
We’re all looking forward to the summer. We want to swim in the lake, work the hours we have to work, stay up late and not worry about having to finish our homework or getting up in the morning early enough to make it to school. Come summer, we’ll all be kids again. Our days’ll not be cut into chunks of classes. We’ll smoke and drink and play. We’ll be free, if only for a while.
“Back home,” Mina says. “We don’t know how to say goodbye.”
Family Time
SCOTTIE’S IS A little restaurant on the edge of town, small and greasy and old. It’s been there since Mom went to school here. She used to come here when she was younger. Now she and Bobby take me out for a burger. Bobby holds the door and we find a booth in the back of the room so Bobby can sit with his back to the wall. Bobby gets nervous if he can’t keep an eye on people coming and going.
“I really like your mom,” he says.
I don’t know what to say to that. It doesn’t matter to me that he likes Mom. I like her too, but she seems to like Bobby better. She’s always going out with him. This is him trying to be my friend. I don’t need his friendship. He’s old. I have friends my own age. I have people I like to spend time with. Bobby wants me to like him because he’s fucking Mom. Mom wants me to like him so she won’t feel so guilty about being gone all of the time.
“She’s a special lady,” he says.
I hate the way he talks about her like she’s not sitting right next to him. I hate the way he smiles at me when he talks. I wouldn’t have come tonight if it weren’t for Mom all but begging me. I’m tired and a little sick. I want to get high, but now the whole night’s eaten up with this trip to the diner. I have a little heroin in my room, and it’s all I can think about.
“Are you okay with her going out with me?” Bobby asks.
What’s it matter? Mom’s a grown woman. She’s going to fuck who she fucks. I just don’t want them getting into my life. I don’t want Bobby thinking he has a handle on me just because he’s dating my mom. Not even she has a handle on me anymore. I’ve become kind of independent in the past few months. I don’t care what she does as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my life.
“I want to respect your feelings,” Bobby says.
My feelings? I have no feelings. I have wants. I have desires, but no feelings. Right now, I want to go home. I’m not hungry and this whole going out for dinner is beginning to wear on me. I have better things to do than sitting in a restaurant with my mom and her boyfriend because they feel guilty about leaving me out.
“I have my own friends,” I say.
“Be nice,” Mom says.
“Just don’t knock her up,” I say.
“Jesus.”
“Can we go home now?”
“Probably not a bad idea.”
We get to the car and no one says anything. I light a cigarette and listen to the tobacco burn. I watch the fire burn red and black and wonder what Mom’s going to say after Bobby leaves. I wonder if there’s going to be a fight. There’s always a fight coming it seems. All that matters is the heroin in my room waiting for me to lie alone in my bed and drift into soft dreams. That’s all I want, soft dreams. I don’t want to worry about my mom’s boyfriend. I don’t want to worry about being in love. I don’t want to worry about sex or no sex. With just a touch of heroin, I can pass out and the whole world’ll leave me be for a few hours. That’s enough for me. Just a few hours. Please. It’s not a lot to ask for.
At the End of the Night
NIGHTMARES FOLD AND unfold. People without faces, only mouths and hands, grab and bite away pieces of me. They chase me over uneven ground. I fall and rise and fall again.
I know it’s only a dream, but I cannot force myself to wake. So I run and stumble. Fear ratchets along my bones, through my muscles.
But then it happens. I wake. I wake, but I can’t move. Sleep has slipped away, but my body’s not my own. I’m frozen to the mattress. Right when I’m sure I’ve stroked out or something, I can move again, first my fingers and feet, then the muscles of my legs and arms. My eyes open and I lie there staring at the wall, waiting for the dreams to wash away. But the longer I wait, the more anxious I get. Pretty soon my heart’s fluttering in my chest and I can’t breathe, so I sit up. My legs cramp, so I get out of bed and dress and walk out to the living room.
There is no light in the living room. There is nothing but shadows, especially in the corners and the edges where the furniture meets the floor. I light a cigarette and sprawl on the couch and watch the fire burn red and black. Smoke rises into my eyes and tears run down my cheeks. Sitting like this is not good. I think of killing myself. Suicide seems not only possible, but likely.
I smoke a little heroin and rush to the porch and puke into the tulips growing there red and white. Euphoria washes over me. I nod on the couch, curled with my face buried in the cushions. My skin seems ready to fall from my bones. My bones bend and stretch. Nothing can hurt me now. Something like sleep, but not sleep, comes over me. I float and drift around the room. If I look over my shoulder, I can see myself lying on the couch, comfortable and warm. I’m up in the corner of the room, sharing space with cobwebs when Mom comes home.
“What’s the smell?” she asks.
“Smell?”
“Like something burning.”
“I dropped my cigarette.”
She looks at me like she knows I’m lying but she can’t prove it. I wouldn’t argue with her if she decided to call me on it, but she doesn’t.
“What’re you doing up?” she asks.
“Nightmares.”
“Again?”
“They come and go.”
“We have to do something about that,” she says.
She has no idea that I’ve found the perfect drug for it. She won’t ever know about the heroin, the Vicodin I take. Some things are just meant to be secret.
“Do you need anything?” she asks.
“I’m going back to bed.”
“Good idea.”
I rise and move with the grace of the thoroughly stoned, careful to put one foot down before lifting the other. In my bedroom, I collapse on the bed and let the heroin run its course. I melt into the blankets. I am water. I am wind.
Too High to Fall
IN THE BASEMENT at Richie’s place, we smoke pot and stare at the black light mounted on the table so that everything white glows purple. It’s a strange thing to watch people’s eyes moving in their sockets, reflecting the light back like a cat caught in a flashlight. Their teeth seem alien to me. Renee takes her shirt off and her white bra blazes.
Jefferson Airplane bounces out of the stereo. No one dances. No one wants to dance. We sprawl all over the couch on the floor. No one moves. The whole world burns around us and there’s nothing we can do.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Go where?” Ed asks.
“Home.”
“I thought you were staying the night,” Richie says.
“I was.”
“But you’re not now?”
“Not now.”
I have to get out of here. There are too many people here. Noises seep from the walls. Red and silver pollywogs swim over everything. I can’t breathe. I have to go.
Now that I’ve made up my mind, I move with a purpose. I stumble through the room and up the stairs. No one stops me. No one says anything. Outside, night has come. I walk through the neighborhood. Houses rise like stumps over me, windows bright and yellow. People go about their business. Part of me wonders why they have to stare. I can feel their eyes pressing against my skin. Their judgments are loud and condemning. I’ve done nothing wrong, but they still watch me.
Down by the park, there’s a tree that I have to climb. I mean, I can’t go home. It’s too far away and I’m too stoned to deal with Grandma or even Mom. I have to walk some of this shit off. I have to climb above and there’s a white oak down by the park waiting for me to com
e climb it.
The bark is rough on my hands. I hug the tree, inching up to grab the lowest branch. The rest is easy. Up and up I go. I climb until the limbs become too thin to hold me. I sit and watch the cars. I light a cigarette and wait. Someone will come for me soon. The tree sways and dances with me in its arms. I wait and wait and no one comes. Minutes feel like hours. I have to move again, but getting into the tree is easier than getting out. I could just jump, but then I’d ricochet from branch to branch, probably breaking something, definitely bruising myself. I don’t need any bruises. My hands are already scraped and raw.
A cop finds me hanging from a branch and stands under the tree waiting for me to drop, but the space from the ground to my feet seems deadly to me. Maybe I’ll just hang here a while. The cop shines his light up at me and my eyes start to water and my hands slip and down I go. I land in the grass and roll onto my back.
“How you doing?” the cop asks.
I shrug.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asks.
“Nope.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he says.
“Really?”
“The park closes at dusk,” he says.
“Oh.”
“What were you doing up there?”
“Hanging out.”
“No shit,” he says.
“I need to get home.”
“Not a bad idea,” he says.
“I need to call my mom to come pick me up,” I say.
“Where do you live?”
“Gales Creek,” I say. “Out in the country.”
“You need a ride?”
“I need a ride.”
“Come on,” he says and we walk to his car. “You have to sit in the front.”
I get in and stare at all the lights and screens, the switches and knobs.
“Are you going to talk to my mom?” I ask.
“Do I need to?”
“I hope not.”
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