Jane Two

by Sean Patrick Flanery

  Kevin had left a message on the hood of his Firebird in white spray paint: I was based on a true story.

  * * *

  As the funeral procession passed with all their headlights on, I hid up in my giant bean tree in the front yard long after my mom had called me to come down and eat something. The branches were so wide I could even sleep up there without falling out. Mortality stymied me, and I just did not know how or why death existed at all. I valued life so strongly. What he did made no sense to me, and it still doesn’t. Kevin was contemplative, morose, on drugs, somewhat mad, maybe sad, more scary than sad. Maybe he’d had bad parents. I didn’t know. But the fact that you can just decide to take your own life, it didn’t compute. The realization that we are temporary horrified me, and fear engulfed me as my young mind tried to extrapolate the possibility of death to my own parents and Grandaddy and Mamau and Steve McQueen. And all the while I remained up in that bean tree watching the cortege pass, Steve McQueen sat below me, waiting. My sister later said they played “Free Bird” at the funeral and that it was a “happy” service “on account a’the fact that that’s the way Kevin was…HAPPY.” Though, I kept thinking, well, he killed himself for a reason, and I had to wonder if it was on account of some shitty thing Lilyth said to him. Maybe he found out about her going with different guys, or she told him he was a retard one time too many. I just sat up there pondering in that bean tree perfectly still watching the cars go by and watching Mr. Milan’s two aluminum lawn chairs nestle into the weeds, and I could not stop those fucking tears. Kevin was a cerebral dreamer who spoke in metaphors, high a lot, pot-speak, THC vernacular, too-long pauses, but he thought about what he was going to say before he opened his mouth, unlike most people. He loved the music I loved. He picked my sister—why, I could never comprehend—and called her The Mythical Creature.

  I stayed up in that tree for two full days. I finally came down when Mom said Steve McQueen could not sleep without me. Lilyth was in the shower taking forever, so I left Kevin’s “Free Bird” eight-track on her mattress. That’s when I saw Kevin’s obituary peeking out from under Lilyth’s pillow with a brochure about a birth clinic and another about an orphanage in a convent. I tried to read fast, but Lilyth turned off the water before I could get far.

  The obituary read, …the late Mr. and Mrs. R. K. G. were professional swimmers who trained the deceased… Since it said that his parents were late, I guessed Kevin’s parents were just delayed, not able to get there fast enough to help him not kill himself. I wondered if he had nice parents. The obit included a quote that had been the family motto: I know of no pain so great that I would exchange even existence for its removal. Training hurts but it prolongs life, so bring on the pain. I guessed Kevin did not agree with his family on that. Obviously something was hurting him and he wanted it to stop. The last thing I read before I heard the sink running and Lilyth gargling was that Kevin is survived… I thought maybe someone had made a mistake, maybe Kevin was not dead and it was someone else’s brains that spattered the pages of Hustler in The Hole. Until I got to the next line, and my heart twisted. It read, …by an elder stepbrother and swim coach, from a first marriage, Randall… The sink faucet squeaked off, and I stuffed the papers back under Lilyth’s pillow. As I shut her door behind me out in the hall, Lilyth exited the bathroom with a towel on her head.

  “Get away from my door, shit head.”

  I pointed at my bedroom door and followed my finger. In my room, I stared blankly at the dogfight on my ceiling as my fighter planes swayed gently in the warm morning breeze wafting in, without a Mustang to ensure victory. Now I understood why Coach Randall was so cool. Kevin was his little brother.

  * * *

  I woke up to my mom yelling that peanut butter pancakes were on the table. I sat up slowly, knowing that I would be excited about those pancakes on any other day. But then it didn’t matter anymore when I realized that Firefly had probably already eaten most of my breakfast anyway. I was pulling up my drawers when Lilyth knocked before she stuck her head around the corner of my door, first time ever without barging in when I was in my underwear. I didn’t know what to expect. She had been so weird since Kevin’s suicide. I almost missed her being mean to me, just so she wouldn’t be so sad anymore. Lilyth held up the eight-track of Lynyrd Skynyrd, with Kevin scratched on it.

  “Did you leave this on my bed?” I nodded. Lilyth looked like she might break down, then finally she thanked me and turned to leave. She was different somehow. Sort of radiant.

  “Hey, Lilyth?”

  She stuck her head back around the door. “What?”

  “If you told Kevin you were gonna have a baby, he woulda smiled, ’cause I know he loved you. You can borrow my records if you want.”

  For once Lilyth was silent, walking inside my bedroom and closing the door quietly. I was afraid she might come back to her old self and smack me. Instead, she sat on my bed.

  “Thanks, ya little butt-hole, how’d you know?” And there it was. She was pregnant with Kevin’s baby. I smiled, but I was scared for her. I was scared for the baby. She could not even manage her own life, much less an infant’s. I told her that she could name him after Grandaddy. Charlie. But that she’d have to find a girl name if it was a girl.

  “Charlotte,” Lilyth said plainly, accepting her situation. “And, shit head. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.” She stood up, then sat right back down. “You’ll always be right here, you promise?” I nodded, yet unaware that promises are like babies, easy to make and harder to deliver. “Thanks, Mickey.” And that was our truce. Though it was only the beginning of the school year, Lilyth and I were, for the first time in our lives, well prepared for the holiday season of thanks and peace and nice and fine. “Peace,” she said, and flashed me a Kevin peace sign as she closed my door behind her.

  My sister was a heartless mystery to me, who now had two beating inside of her. She was more or less nice to me through the holidays, and I started to trust that she would stay nice. Our truce was monumental. But the day after Christmas, its tinsel magic ebbing away, Lilyth deliberately cut the tassels off my Sting-Ray. Our truce ended. Life as I had known it continued, on guard, looking over my shoulder, except when Lilyth went away.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Firefly was holding up his bowl to my mom for another serving of Cream of Wheat. He devoured it before the gob of Nutley margarine melted and he did not even mix in the brown sugar heaped on top.

  “Mywan nolettuce foot moogar abuttarina reena weep,” he said.

  “Lawrence, you need to breathe between bites, darlin’. I have no idea what you just said!”

  “His mom don’t let him put sugar or butter on his Cream o’ Wheat.”

  “Oh, okay, well, ya’ll better git for school before the rain starts!”

  * * *

  Firefly and I biked past the Milans’ two empty aluminum lawn chairs that remained in tall grass. There was still no sign of either Mr. or Mrs. Milan. I raced Firefly to school past Jane’s old house. The new people didn’t keep it so nice, and I couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Bradford in homeroom. Before we got to the first intersection, Firefly stopped and threw up just as the sky started to open, then parked his butt on the sidewalk for a spell with his chin propped up in his hands right there in the rain.

  “We’re gonna be late, man. C’mon, it’s first day.”

  Finally he looked up at me. “Summer should go till Christmas,” said Firefly, spitting out a piece of something disgusting.

  “The heat, or the no-school?”

  “Probly just the no-school.” Firefly wiped his mouth with his clean pressed shirt. “You wanna stop at the Utotem, and get a Coke?”

  “You just threw up.”

  “Belly’s empty now. Please, I’ll never make it till lunch.” At the Utotem, Samir gave us two Cokes even though we offered our leftover golf ball money.

  “Don’t tell the man my boss I give you free. Now, I play you very, very, very new song, Mic-mic!” While we drained our Cokes,
Samir played us Melanie’s song, about what I’m sure were someone else’s roller skates, but I could only see Jane’s. Jane had a pair that she had painted psychedelic patterns in purple, green, and yellow. “What is means, Mic-mic? You have new key? I have new skate?”

  I promised Samir I would come back by real soon ’cause we were nearly late for school. The Coke’s sugar high prevented me from slowing my pedals, and I left Firefly in the dust that was turning to mud in the fresh rain. But I waited for him out in front of the school as I stared at The Pole. Up that flagpole was my conflagration, and her hung 95s. As we locked our bikes to the rack by our new homeroom window I peeked in, planning to wave to Mrs. Bradford, but instead, a dour woman was talking to Emmalyne. I asked Firefly if he knew who the lady was, and he peeked in to see.

  “Dunno. Substitute teacher, I guess.” Firefly scratched his fresh blood-orange buzz cut.

  Dread grew as I hovered by my homeroom door. There was no sign of Mrs. Bradford, and the new woman was not leaving my homeroom. Everyone sat in their rows, quietly inhaling nothing but dread. Firefly and I sat closest to the bike racks, and Trent and Clatterbuck sat next to us. A sheet of paper on every desk except mine added to the gloom. The bell rang. I glanced under my desk for a matching paper, but nothing.

  “Good morning, children. My name is Maude Totter. Yes, I am your principal’s wife.” Her tone was like we were doomed heathens. Heads turned as we asked each other if she could possibly be the same person we knew a year ago before Mrs. Bradford became our new homeroom teacher. There was no way, I thought, no way in hell this was Miss Flinch.

  “She’s eyeballin’ you, Mic.”

  I shushed Firefly and studied the plump, grumpy woman’s face. Her voice was like a violin played with untrained hands, just wrong, ripped and ragged.

  “Some of you may remember me as Miss Flinch. Well, children, now you may address me as Mrs. Totter.” What had happened to her? She was so nice before, and pretty. Now she was just angry and washed out. “You will find a written code of conduct on your desk from your principal, which y’all should have read by now, unless you’ve already neglected to follow the rules.”

  The new Mrs. Totter pointed to the blackboard behind her, which read: There is a sheet of paper on your desk. READ IT!

  “Please take this time to read and reread the rules. These rules are given to every student, and posted on every hallway bulletin board, lest you forget.”

  God, I hated that term. Again, I looked around on the floor for my sheet of paper. The new Mrs. Totter busied herself while everyone but me was pretending to read, bowed in silent prayer against The New Dread. I raised my hand, but the new Mrs. Totter was not looking, so I put my hand back down.

  “Miss Flinch, er—Mrs. Totter, sorry, I didn’t get…”

  “Young man, what was your name?” I could not believe she had forgotten my name. I was her best student.

  “Um…Mickey, ma’am.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Totter intoned as if she had been brainwashed by Mr. Totter’s account of the men in my family. “Well, Mickey, we raise our hands to speak in this class. What is it?”

  “Could I be excused to go to the restroom, please?”

  “Is it an emergency?” Her pedantic probing made me sad. What had marriage to Mr. Totter done to her soul?

  “Um, yes, ma’am…”

  “Hurry up, then.” She looked at me hard. I picked up my paper lunch bag, and headed toward the door. “I know about you and brown bags, Mickey. Leave that behind, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I stalled returning to my desk trying to figure out how to smuggle the bag out of class with me. I sat back down in my seat pretending to place my lunch inside my desk and stuffed it in under my shirt instead. I wanted to devise a sentence that would tell her how I hated everything that she had become, but it came out as, “I’ll be right back, ma’am.”

  And then I walked out. When I got out into the hall, I passed a bulletin board and noticed the rules paper, and read it. Then I walked down the hall the same way I came, ducking below the window of my homeroom door. I continued combing the halls, peeking in every homeroom window. Finally I found her. I knocked. Mrs. Bradford opened the door.

  “Mickey! Hello, what a wonderful surprise. Did you have a good summer?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am.” Jane’s mother seemed really happy to see me.

  “Class, this is Mickey, he was my student last year.” Some class members waved and said hi to me and I waved back. Andy raised his hand alongside his chest, and I did the same, as was our unspoken custom. I spotted Jane’s old box record player sitting on the stool, open. “Okay, don’t go anywhere, class, I’ll be right back.” Jane’s mother closed the classroom door behind us and we stood in the hall facing each other.

  “Um, Mrs. Bradford, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t have you this year, and I brought these.” I reached under my shirt and removed three 45s from my lunch bag. “I think she…I think Jane…” I looked up at Mrs. Bradford. “…and your class will like the ‘Drift Away’ one. We can’t play ’em in our class anyway. Miss Flinch is Mrs. Totter this year and she’s…different.” Jane’s mother nodded knowingly.

  “Mickey, that’s very sweet of you.”

  “Well, I better get back to class.”

  “Lest you get in trouble.” Jane’s mother grinned like Jane and winked conspiratorially at me. I was determined to see Jane again, and those dangling 95s were keeping that determination alive.

  “Bye, Mrs. Bradford.” I took a step back, and hesitated, then forward, and hugged her. Jane’s mother looked at me, then smiled actually more to herself than to me, and returned to her class. I watched through the window for a short time, wondering if she knew about her daughter’s shoes way up in the sky, just a hundred or so feet away. She did not. I could tell. It was just me.

  “Well, well, it looks like we have some new music!” As I walked slowly down the hall I heard the needle drop and crackle and Dobie Gray sang “Drift Away.” And I heard him sing about doing exactly what I wanted to do every single day of my life with Jane.

  * * *

  It was mid-September, soon after The Pole and my ankle was still hurting, when Andy accidentally knocked over my chocolate milk at lunch. I am ashamed of what I did next. But it is because of that that I believe now. In everything. I want you to know that I have never had a problem with Andy. He knocked over my chocolate milk, and I honestly could not have cared less. But everyone else cared. And I did not care enough about my not caring to contest their caring. Or maybe I was just a pussy. The latter, I think.

  “Mic’s Quik was gonna be mine, you fuck wad!” Firefly roasted Andy, and set the whole fight in motion.

  I should have stopped it all right there, and even now, I kick myself for not having done so. Firefly and I were sitting with some “cooler kids” who were all a year or so older than us, and Andy was sitting with the nerds at the other end of the rectangular lunch table. The nerds consisted of the one who chose never to return to football, way back in grade school, and five who never even tried out. The upshot was, though I felt not a trace of enmity toward any one of them, Andy and I just never really bonded. I knew who had my back, and that was the guys I had pushed myself to my limits with on the sports field.

  Trash talk and immature negotiations flew around in between Andy and me with neither one of our mouths moving. We just sort of blankly stared at each other, and before either of us knew it, we were to meet. And fight. At school everyone knew Mr. Totter forbade fighters to wash the blood off their hands so parents would see and know they had been in another fight, so the fight location was declared: the Utotem. After school that day we would settle everything. Neither one of us even uttered a word, but our respective sides said things like, “You better apologize to Mickey!” and “Andy ain’t gonna apologize for shit!” Our silence not only spoke volumes, but had confirmed our agreement to meet after school at the designated location, right behind the store’s yellow Dumpster, and se
ttle this huge problem once and for all.

  Everyone knew I would win. That is because typically in junior high and elementary school I’d secretly get scared and react behind my tears before my opponent would. I’d strike harder before the other guy had a chance to do worse damage to me. In that way, I’d be the one to control the situation. And maybe Lilyth did this, too, but in her case I guess it was not a rush to finish a fight but rush into bed with guys, to be the first one to wrap things up, get it over with before they could do worse damage and control her. I guess in that way she controlled the situation.

  But fighting Andy, I wasn’t scared. It wasn’t a match. I knew I’d win. And it nauseated me. I had always found Andy to be pleasant. Quiet, but pleasant. But because I was too much of a big girl’s blouse to stand up for what I believed in, I was now going to fight someone whom I had absolutely nothing against. To this day, I am nauseated by this admission. Tommy Gasconade was the oldest kid in our group, and he somehow puppeteered me that whole day. So, after school, we all marched to the Utotem with definitive purpose. There were four of us. Walking there I tried to rationalize this fight in my head and came up with a whopping nothing, but strode on like a pugnacious, warring creature that charges into battle without reason. A rabid badger, perhaps. I know I was a vicious little guy when there was a reason for viciousness, but in this case there was not a reason at all, outside of looking cool to the cooler kids. For this, I am also sorry, but the fact is that the lessons I learned while at some of the lowest points in my life have always paid dividends in achieving my highest.

  Firefly, Eddy, Tommy, and I arrived at the Utotem and waited impatiently around back until about four o’clock when we all realized that Andy was not going to show up. On the inside, all my molecules relaxed at once and I almost passed out from the sheer pleasantness of the moment. On the outside, I was incandescent with rage. I hid that my ankle ached from The Pole. I took the opportunity to rest my limp and pop into the Utotem and say hello to Samir, hoping Tommy would get off his high horse and forget about his justice league. Inside the Utotem, Melanie’s “Candles in the Rain” was playing on Samir’s turntable set up behind the counter. Two of our band of four boys had followed me inside and listened in purposefully while I struck up a pointed conversation with the Hindu guy—as they knew Samir—behind the counter. As usual, Samir played the latest music, as he said, “for the Utotem customers to live and let live,” so I had enjoyed dropping by to share my collection with him as it had grown.