Beauty of the Broken

by Tawni Waters

  “Hey, bird,” I call over my shoulder, wiggling my toes deeper into the river mud.

  “Hey, Mara.”

  I almost jump out of my skin. I whirl around just in time to see Elijah slide down the riverbank, flailing his arms and legs, obviously not used to being near the water. He lands at my feet like one of those dead lizards our barn cat sometimes leaves on the porch.

  “What are you doing here?” I say. Elijah is probably number three on my list of people I’d rather not see, right under Hitler and Satan. I push the letters to the bottom of my backpack and zip it shut.

  “Brought you something,” he says, pointing back toward the reeds that line the riverbank. Stuck between two mossy rocks, a six-pack of the cheapest kind of beer is lodged. Well, it was a six-pack. Two of the little plastic holes are empty. Elijah smells like beer, so I guess he drank a couple of them. “A peace offering,” he adds.

  “What makes you think I’d want that cheap old beer?” I know it’s not worth much because Daddy cussed and hollered when Momma bought it once.

  Elijah pulls himself from the mud now, trying to wipe the mess from his knees and hands. When he’s done, he shrugs, and his face gets so red, you can’t tell where the pimples begin and the regular skin ends. “I thought a girl like you . . .”

  I wait for him to finish. When he doesn’t, I draw my own conclusions, conclusions that make a seed of rage sprout in my belly. “You thought a girl like me what? You thought I’d be a drunk?” The seed in my belly takes off like Jack’s beanstalk, growing faster than lightning. I hate Elijah more now than I ever have. Calling me a whore or a Jezebel is one thing. Calling me a drunk like my daddy is quite another. “Get out of here,” I say.

  “Look, Mara . . .”

  “Look what? Look, you think I’m some abomination? Look, you think I’m some old drunk? Look, you think I commit murders during summer vacation for kicks?” I glance at Elijah, trying not to cry. “You don’t know a thing about me, Elijah Winchell.”

  Before I can close my mouth, Elijah starts talking nonstop, using big preacher words like “unpardonable sin” and “hermeneutics,” which I think is some fat guy’s name. He’s trying to sound smart, yelling like he’s a bad Shakespearean actor doing a monologue. This guy’s train of thought must have gotten robbed. He sounds like no preacher I’ve ever heard, because usually by the end of most sermons, you have a good feeling about what the preacher was trying to say. You know, for instance, that you are bound for hell. But Elijah just goes on and on about nothing, using words the way they never were meant to be used, saying things like, “Don’t you comprehend this, Mara Stonebrook. It’s about the REVELATION!” I’m thinking, what REVELATION? You never mentioned any REVELATION before. Two seconds ago you were talking about hermeneutics. Elijah Winchell flunked first grade, and now I understand why.

  Giving up on trying to understand what he’s saying, I blurt out, “You’re a nut job.” I stand and grab my shoes, hating him so much, I want to spit. I yank my sandals on and turn to walk away.

  “You sure you don’t want a beer?” he calls. His voice sounds crazy, like the homeless guy who used to stand on the street corner talking to people who weren’t there.

  “Yep,” I say, bending to pick up my backpack. He grabs my arm. Before I can think to stop it, my fist balls up and punches him. “Don’t ever touch me again.” Furiously, Elijah rubs the place on his arm where I punched him. I don’t feel sorry for him. I lift my backpack and start to leave.

  That’s when something hits me in the back of the head. Stumbling, I drop my backpack. A beer clatters to the ground beside me. It gets my backpack wet. I think about Xylia’s letters, getting ruined.

  The world is rocking, but I’m still ready to punch Elijah’s lights out.

  “We’re not even finished talking,” he says. “Where are your manners, bitch?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” My hands are balling up again. If he gets any closer, I’ll clobber him.

  “Yeah? Well, I got something to say to you.” Elijah’s eyes burn, the way they did that day he caught me kissing Xylia. “You’re an abomination.”

  His eyes look so scary, instead of clobbering him, I back away.

  Elijah comes at me.

  I step back again and stumble. I catch myself and refocus on Elijah’s face. I know that look. I saw it in Daddy’s eyes before he tried to kill Iggy. I move to run, but my feet get tangled in my backpack straps, and I fall flat on my face.

  Before I can say anything, Elijah has flipped me over like a pancake and is on top of me, grinding his lips so hard against mine, I taste blood. I scream. I can hear it even through the ringing in my ears.

  You would never know it by looking at him, but Elijah is stronger than Hercules. He has both of my hands pinned with one of his. I fight with all my might, but I can’t move an inch. He sits on top of my thighs, straddling me like a pony. Something hard in his pants grinds against me, and it scares me more than his eyes. I start to cry and beg and plead, which I have never once done in my life.

  “Please, Elijah,” I cry, tasting tears and snot and blood. “Stop!”

  His cold hand slides up under my shirt. I howl no when he squeezes my boob, but he doesn’t listen. I keep bucking, trying to get him off of me, but he stays on. I wonder if he’s going to kill me. Sobbing and begging, I barely feel the jagged rocks cutting bloody designs into the flesh of my back.

  “Please, Elijah!” It’s like staring into the devil’s eyes. Pure hatred. Undiluted insanity. Begging the devil isn’t working, so I beg God. “Please, God!” My voice sounds like someone else’s, and it is the scariest thing of all.

  Elijah pulls something purple out of his pants. I know words for it. I’ve heard them before at school, but in my head, I call it what Momma called it. But Momma was wrong about the manhood. She said it was nothing to be afraid of. She said it would hurt a bit at first, but feel good, too. She lied. It’s like a knife. It cuts me so bad, I leave my body, take the part of me that matters and get up and walk away. My mind sits down by the river and tries not to look as my body gets raped.

  I stare into the water while Elijah rocks on top of me, grunting and sweating and calling me ugly words I didn’t know had been invented yet. I look at the water gliding around the river stones, thinking about how they have been there since the beginning of time, thinking they will be here long after I die and go to heaven. I cry because I feel bad for hating Momma for not keeping her skirt down. Keeping your skirt down is harder than it looks.

  When Elijah’s done, he mutters that I’m the devil and struggles to his feet. As he zips up his pants, he says, “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll show that picture of you and your slutty dyke to your daddy and everyone in this town.” Then he stumbles away through the bushes. When I’m sure he’s gone, my mind slips back into my body. It hurts in here. I don’t like it anymore.

  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that life will get better. It won’t. You stand up, it will strike you down. You might as well tie a rope around your neck and get it over with now if you’re waiting for your luck to change. I imagine myself tying a noose, dying. I see me spread out on that table like John Doe, my belly cut open, my guts all twisted inside me. I remember that raven in the hospital parking lot, pulling strings from the dead thing. Do you know what I say when I think about that? This is funny. I say, “String’s the thing.”

  Did you laugh like all get-out when I said that? I did.

  It was all I could think to say.

  CHAPTER 21

  THERE ARE SONGS INSIDE OF you. Did you know that? I never knew either until now.

  The ground is cold on my back, and the mud stings the places where I’ve been cut. My toes are numb. And I’m shaking like ice in a blender. Strangest of all, songs are sliding out between my lips, songs I never learned before. Fancy songs, songs that sound like “The Highwayman.” Hear this:

  “I will fly me to the ocean away, on wings of mother of pearl, there I will swallow t
he cold tears of time and swim me in God’s roaring song.”

  I’ll try to remember the words so Xylia can sing them for me some time in her nightingale voice. She sure can sing, that girl.

  I can too, it turns out. When the time is right, songs bleed right out of me. I guess all those smart words from books have been stored in my brain and fit themselves together into songs if I don’t think too hard. I can’t think much right now. I wonder if my brain froze to death. Ha! Just froze like a grape Popsicle, bless its heart.

  The clouds are coming for me. They are stalking across the sky like lions that are going to eat me. I would run if I thought being eaten by a cloud would be so bad. But worse things can happen to a person.

  I’ll tell you what the end of the world is though: somebody’s manhood tearing you in half. That is the end of the world. I cry to think about it. Right now I wail like a baby, and don’t you judge me for it. You would cry about the manhood. I know you would, so don’t make jokes at my expense at a time like this. Crybaby. Crybaby. Just give it a rest.

  Don’t tell me clouds eating you are the end of the world either. That is what happens after the world is over. The rules aren’t the same anymore. And clouds can eat people now. They can do anything they want. We all can. I could walk on water now if I so chose. The game is over.

  I wait for God to pull open the clouds like curtains and say, “Gotcha! We’ve just been playing a prank on you. Come on back to heaven where you belong.” I will be a good sport. You know I will. I will say, “Good one, God. You sure got me. I thought all of that was real.”

  Milk and honey. That’s what they eat where I’m going. I heard that in Sunday school.

  Once I saw a baby mouse get eaten by a hawk. I wanted to save it, but of course I couldn’t. You know how it is down here. No one can save anybody. So I just watched, whispering, “Think good thoughts. Think about your momma.” And it did.

  I take my own advice now. Think about my momma. She has soft hands, that woman. I never gave her proper credit for her hands. She knows how to soothe a fever just right, and you should see how she cries when she thinks you’ll die in her arms. She cried like that when I was two and got bit in the face by the German shepherd. To this day I have a little scar above my lip from that bite, and I still remember Momma, carrying on like nobody’s business and kissing my face. Blood ran down my chest like a crimson waterfall.

  There’s blood on my chest now, too. Did Elijah pop one of my boobs? I guess I should thank him if he did. Bye-bye boobies. I hate boobs. I think that’s why he did this. He wanted to see my breasts.

  It is getting dark. The clouds are gone from the sky. I hear crunching in the leaves behind me. Elijah. I try to stand up and run, but my legs don’t work. It’s like they’re made of rubber.

  It’s not Elijah. It’s Henry. His teeth look yellow in the twilight. I have to laugh at that. I tell him right off what has happened.

  “I think he popped my boob,” I say, and lift my shirt to show him the blood.

  His eyes are so big, they take up most of his face.

  It must be popped. What a bloody mess it must be.

  Something is happening to Henry’s face. It fades in and out. I can feel his arms underneath me, lifting me away from the rocky ground. We’re moving. Xylia’s ring lies on the ground, half buried in mud. “The ring,” I say.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Henry replies.

  “He popped my boob,” I repeat, but Henry only says, “It’s going to be all right.” He’s crying, though. Can you imagine that? How can I believe that it’s going to be all right when Henry’s crying?

  Henry’s freckled T-shirt is soft and warm against my cheek. My blood is smeared across his face. Either that, or he’s bleeding. Maybe we’re all bleeding now that the game is over.

  I look down to see if my boob is popped. I can’t tell. Henry pulled my shirt back down to cover it. But there’s plenty of blood on my shirt. I remember the way my momma carried on after the German shepherd’s bite.

  “Don’t tell my momma,” I say. I don’t want her to cry again. It’s one sad sight to see your momma go on and on like a child.

  This is like a pony ride. Up and down. Bounce, bounce. I’m dizzy from the bouncing. I close my eyes. It feels good to do that. I’d forgotten about closing my eyes. I’d forgotten you don’t always have to look.

  Come to think of it, I’ll never look again.

  CHAPTER 22

  HENRY PUT ME ON OUR porch. After he knocked on the door, he ran away. Someone was screaming—me, I guess—and that’s when Daddy came. His arms picked me up, then carried me inside. “Cora!” he hollered. “Cora, get down here!”

  His head floats above me. His mouth is moving. He’s mad. I wonder if he’s going to hit me. He’s going to hit something. Noises are coming out of his face, but I can’t make out the words. His head disappears from view, and I hear a bang. A gun? A firecracker? No, a door slamming.

  I close my eyes. Colors come up behind my eyelids, red, white, swirling. I stay like that for a long time. When I open my eyes, the world is still swirling with red and white.

  Daddy’s face is there again. Red-white light flashes over his skin. Water leaks from his eyes. Why water? Wait. Daddy’s crying. I laugh at this, the thought of my daddy crying.

  A man stands next to him. A slick man in blue with a serious face and a shiny star on his chest. He’s writing in a notebook. He keeps looking at me, saying things. He wants me to say something back, so I do.

  “I will fly me to the ocean away on wings of mother of pearl,” I say.

  He shakes his head and writes it down. He says something again. The same words over and over. I squint, trying to watch his lips to know what the words mean.

  “What happened? What happened?”

  I flip the words over inside my head until they make sense. What did happen? I remember the river, but I don’t want to talk about that. Something good. I will say something good.

  “Clouds,” I say, remembering how soft and cottony the clouds looked. That was such a good thing.

  The man doesn’t like that. “What happened?” he says again. “Who did this to you? Who raped you?” Those words come rushing at me like a train. Run me right over. I can’t think of any more words of my own. I just scream, remembering the way it felt to be ripped in half.

  “What happened?” the man asks again.

  Words come to me now. “The manhood,” I whisper. And then the screaming starts again. No. NO. I will not let my head go to that bad place.

  I try to remember something else good. And then it comes to me, the warm smell of Henry’s skin. I quiet down. Henry was good, good like the clouds.

  “Henry,” I say. “Henry. Good.”

  The man likes that. He writes it down.

  CHAPTER 23

  THAT DAY AT THE RIVER came and went, but it changed everything. My life dissolved like sugar in coffee. My brain went with it. I was only in the hospital for one night, Momma told me, but I argued with her. “It was a hundred years,” I said. She looked worried when I said that, but it was true.

  They did horrible things to me there, things like what Elijah did, only there were bright lights and silver instruments, and lots of people in the room. They put my feet in stirrups. I screamed and cried, but it didn’t do any good—just like it didn’t do any good with Elijah. The worst part was Momma stood there while it happened, letting them do it.

  “Shh,” she kept saying. Like I could shh. How could I shh at a time like that? “It’s a rape kit, honey,” she said. “These people are here to help. We’re going to prove Henry did this to you.”

  Henry. Henry. Henry. Everyone kept saying his name.

  “Why did Henry do this?” people in white asked me again and again and again.

  Why did Henry do what? I like Henry.

  After the hospital, I didn’t leave my bedroom. It was the only place that felt safe. I’d sit in my bed and stare and stare at the picture Xylia loved, the on
e of the mouse. I’d close my eyes and remember her saying, “It has beautiful lines.” I’d sit there for hours like that, forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep, forgetting to move.

  I left me by the river. After Elijah attacked me, the best part of me walked away from my body and went on with my life. I think the real Mara is still down there by the water, staring at the stones and singing songs. This nightmare never happened to her.

  My own voice screams at me from inside my brain. It’s louder than usual, more wild. All day long it screams, Run, run, run! One time, it’s so loud, I write run, run, run all over my arm, using my nail scissors. They’re just little scratches, but Momma still cries when she sees it.

  “My baby,” she says, holding me against her boobs. They are soft.

  “He popped my boob,” I say, and Momma just cries harder.

  I pull away from Momma, lift my shirt and look. My boob’s still there. It has a long, jagged line on it. Purple. I pull my shirt back down.

  “Henry’s getting arraigned today,” Momma says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “For what he did to you by the river.”

  The room starts spinning. I see Elijah’s face, pimply and cruel, rising above me like a vision. I won’t look. I close my eyes. I have never felt such terror. I’m falling off the edge of the world.

  I watch the sun rise and fall outside my window a zillion times, like a basketball that’s bouncing too slow. Sometimes Daddy comes into the room with Momma. They talk about me like I’m not there, which is okay, ’cause I’m mostly not.

  “How’s she going to catch up at school?” Daddy shakes his head. “She’s missed almost two months.”

  Two months? Has it only been two months? They are wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. “It’s been six million years,” I say. Momma starts to cry. Why does that woman always cry?