Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me

by Gae Polisner

  About the whole “Jailbait” thing, Aubrey, let’s get that out of the way.

  I know you thought it was crude, but he was only being funny, teasing because I was younger than him. A simple play on words.

  It started because he was singing this song called “Jolene” that apparently Miley Cyrus sings. Except it’s not her song, but someone else’s, and really old. Anyway, at first he was singing it the right way, and then, instead of singing her name—Jolene—he started to sing mine, JL. “JL, JL, Jay-ay El, jay-ell”—like that, with a country twang, and he realized it sounded like “jail.”

  “Hey, that’s what you are,” he had said, winking. “Jailbait. Since you keep reminding me how young and innocent you are.”

  “I’m not reminding you,” I’d said. But, of course, I constantly did.

  And you know the funny thing, Aubrey? Regardless of what you and those girls thought of me, Max was right. For as much as you and I fantasized about things in the safety of our bedrooms—your bedroom—in the end, I was way too innocent for my own good.

  SUMMER

  BEFORE SIXTH GRADE

  “Wait, what are you doing, Aubs?” I ask. You’ve gotten up from your bed where we were just kissing pillows and playing pretend, to shut your bedroom door.

  We’re alone. Your parents are at work, having decided we are finally old enough to be left here on our own during the day. But Ethan will be home from tennis camp any minute. “I don’t want him spying on us,” you say, rolling your eyes.

  We’re playing Boyfriends, which used to be called House or Dress Up, but it’s taken more of a grown-up turn, so we don’t call it those other things anymore. It’s been months since we’ve bothered with the old trunk of clothes in your basement, where we used to fish out your mother’s dresses and pretend to go off to fake jobs, or fake restaurants and Broadway shows.

  “Shhh, hold on. I have to show you something,” you say, turning the lock. “I got the idea from a video on YouTube.”

  I watch you with the same suspicious look you watched me with last week, when I first suggested we practice kissing our invisible boyfriends for real. “Trust me, it works,” I had told you. “It makes you tingle in all sorts of places.” We’d spent countless hours since placing our open lips to the backs of our hands, moving our tongues in circles over the surface of our own soft skin. Then last week, we had advanced to using pillows as their bodies.

  You cross to your desk where you moved Mary Lennox, so we had room to spread out on the top of your lacy bedspread.

  “What are you doing with her?” I ask.

  “You’ll see. Promise me you won’t get all weird.”

  I had bought Mary Lennox for you last year at a garage sale, a present for your eleventh birthday, even though you were already too old for her. She was a vintage doll, still in her box, sealed up like new with a flowered dress, shiny black shoes, and dark curly hair.

  You had gone nuts for her, like I knew you would. You still collected dolls back then. Naming her Mary Lennox after the character in The Secret Garden, you gave her the most prime real estate at the head of your bed.

  Now, you carry her over and place her on top of your bed, lying down. Your face is serious, concentrating, as you lift up her dress to reveal bland white panties and a bare flat chest underneath.

  “Promise you won’t tell,” you whisper, but it’s not a question; you know I am safe, that I am the person you can trust. “I call her Martin Leonard,” you say. “Only for this. And I take her dress up, so she feels like more of a boy.”

  You crawl on top of her, position your body down over hers, your mouth on hers, and start kissing. After a minute, it’s like you forget I’m there and you let out these soft little moaning noises. Right there in front of me, you’re humping a life-sized doll.

  I’ve never been more desperate to try anything.

  When you finally stop, your cheeks are pink and warm. You get up.

  “You want to try now?” you ask me.

  “Okay,” I say.

  I crawl onto her, my heart pounding, and press my lips to hers, disappointed at their hard plastic that has no give. Still, within minutes, I’m flushed and lost in it all, moving shamelessly against her like you were.

  When I’m done, you put Mary Lennox back on your desk and lie down next to me, and we breathe side by side.

  “Promise me you won’t ever tell. Not a word about Martin Leonard.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” I say, relieved you didn’t hear me call her Ethan out loud.

  LATE APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  “Can we let them out?” Max asks. Mom has an appointment with Dr. Marsdan today, so I invited him over after school. We haven’t been together much since last week.

  “Yeah.” I close my bedroom door, and wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss the back of his head, my lips lingering in his tousled hair.

  In the habitat, the Jezebel with the wing I fixed crawls up the mesh side closest to us.

  “There she is,” I say, pointing. “The one I fixed.” I move my finger along where she walks, my heart swelling. “She’s still hanging in. I can’t believe it.”

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Max asks.

  “I can’t swear it,” I say, “but I think so. The black veins on the females’ wings are thicker.”

  “Uh-huh,” Max says, and I punch his arm playfully.

  “You were hoping for something more anatomical?” He turns to me, sincerity registering on his scruffy face.

  “Don’t worry about the sex stuff, Jailbait. Really. I mean it. I told you, I’m not like that. I swear. And anyway, I’m on hiatus, if you must know. What did that weird actor do, remember?” I shrug, clueless. “Oh yeah, his chi. Something to do with his chi. I’m doing that. Recharging my chi, or regaining it, I forget which. But by the time you’re ready, it’ll be like I’m a virgin all over again.”

  I roll my eyes, but he takes my hand and pulls me down next to him. “I’m serious, Jailbait. I like you. I’m not just in it to fuck your brains out, no matter what you’ve heard about me. I like the other stuff, too. All the kissing and shit. Talking to you. How you like all this butterfly crap.” He nods at the habitat.

  “Well, when you put it that way,” I say, and he laughs.

  “No, but I mean it. You care about stuff other people wouldn’t. You make me feel like I can tell you stuff, like you care that I’m here.”

  It’s not what I’m expecting, and it makes me feel uncomfortable and I don’t even know why. I feel responsible for him, suddenly. Because I get what he’s saying.

  Even he wants to belong somewhere.

  SUMMER

  AFTER SIXTH GRADE

  It’s the weekend before middle school starts, and several of our friends have been set free for the night, off to the YMCA carnival without parents, roaming in cliques, their pockets stuffed with tickets, no one telling them how much fried dough not to eat, or what ride not to go on.

  I’m allowed to go parentless, but you’re not, so you say it should be my parents who supervise us because they are cooler, but I argue it should be yours. I want a fresh start in middle school. I don’t want to be known forever as the girl with the weirdo hippy parents, my mother coming to class parties in her floppy hats and long, flowing tie-dye skirts, and my dad in his goofy sandals, talking about herbal vitamins, his ponytail practically down to his butt. And unlike you, I have no Ethan, no drop-dead-gorgeous, star older brother, to buffer or pave the way.

  “How about Ethan?” I blurt, the idea popping into my head. “He’s starting high school, so he’s practically a grown- up, right? What if your parents let him take us instead?”

  “I’ll ask,” you say. “But I doubt it.”

  They do, though, making him promise not to take his eyes off us the entire time, and making us promise not to make him chase after us.

  It’s the other way around. Ethan spots a bunch of his friends walking in and takes off the minute your parents a
re gone, calling after us to meet him back at the ticket booth, “Right in this spot, exactly two hours from now.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” we chime back together, doing our best impression of the SpongeBob opening. You elbow me and give me a “well-we-pulled-this-off” look, and we’re off on our own at the YMCA carnival.

  It’s a perfect late summer evening, the melancholy of the too-soon chill in the August air immediately erased by the cheerful twang of piped-in calliope music and the dizzying blur of the Technicolor lights. We’re giddy as we run off to scope out food and rides.

  On the line for the Tilt-A-Whirl, you lean in and whisper, “Don’t be obvious, but, ew, gross, look over there.” I’ve pulled a chunk of rainbow cotton candy from the stick and hand it over to you.

  “Where?”

  “Don’t be obvious,” you repeat. “By the bathrooms, there.”

  I twist around slowly, trying to be nonchalant, but don’t see anything.

  “What, Aubrey?”

  You pull off a smaller piece of spun sugar and place it on your tongue, sticking it out so I can watch the pastel colors deepen as they melt away. “Not a what, a who,” you say, when it’s gone. “Those two, making out in the corner.”

  “Oh.” I can’t make out their faces, because they’re glued together at the mouth. “So what?” I ask because aren’t I desperate for the day when I can make out with a guy by a bathroom stall or anywhere? And I thought you felt the same. We’re always talking about it, imagining it. Choosing from boys in our class. Pretending on dolls.

  “Nothing. It’s just, that’s Janee Freese. With Rebecca Goldberg’s brother.”

  “So?” Janee Freese is our friend Tanya’s sister, although we’re way better friends with Tanya, and Rebecca Goldberg is one of our newer friends we met through Tanya, because they went to camp together.

  “Geez, JL, don’t you know the rules at all? Brothers are off-limits. Even across grades.”

  “They are? How come?” You give me a look like I’m dumb. “Okay, got it,” I say, looking back at Janee with envy. But I don’t. Not completely. “But what if Rebecca doesn’t care?”

  “Trust me, she’ll care.”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “Of course I’m going to tell her. That’s what friends do.”

  Is it? I wonder.

  I nod anyway, and try to work up a dislike for Janee the way you have. But I can’t seem to. So what if they’re kissing? It’s not like they’re stealing, or doing something wrong.

  All through the Tilt-A-Whirl and Pirate Ship, I’m distracted and mad and sad. I want someone to kiss me one day the way Rebecca’s brother is kissing Janee. I want to tell you to mind your own business, to not start trouble where there is none. To leave Janee and What’s His Name alone. Is this what middle school is going to be full of?

  * * *

  After the Pirate Ship, I feel sick. I think about calling Dad to pick me up and take me home, but you grab my hand—me practically wincing at your touch—and say, “Shoot, JL, it’s past nine! Ethan is going to kill us!” and we break into a run. When we reach the ticket booth, he’s not even there, and you yell dramatically at the top of your lungs in some weird, unidentifiable accent, “The lying bastard!” and I bust out laughing at that, because I can’t even help myself, and just like that, everything is good between us again.

  And, when we do find him, over by the goldfish game—the one where you have to toss quarters into the bowls—he’s holding court there, surrounded by a group of friends, mostly girls, clutching neon-colored stuffed animals, all fawning over him, his golden-haired self in the center, shining in the artificial lights. And all I can think about is what it must be like to be you, to be Ethan, to be either one of you super-perfect Anderssons.

  But I don’t have to wonder because you grab my hand and pull me into the center of that circle, and say, “This is my sister, guys. Jean Louise. But everyone calls her JL.”

  And everyone crowds around me, now, too, so in that moment, like so many moments with you, I can feel perfect, too.

  LATE APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  I let go of Max’s hand, and open the Velcro closure of the habitat, folding the mesh panel back and pressing it onto its hooks.

  “These, over here?” I say. “The Jezebels? Predators can’t eat them because of their toxins. Their bright colors tell you that. Even before they hatch, you can tell from the neon yellow of their chrysalis.”

  “Cool,” Max says. “And these?”

  “Glasswings are the opposite, which makes them more susceptible. But they can store temporary toxins from the plants they eat. Plus, their transparency protects them.”

  “Opposite of humans,” Max says.

  I’m about to point out more nerdy butterfly facts, or try to urge a few of the butterflies out of the habitat, but I notice two Glasswings coupled and going at it unceremoniously in the corner. They look like one butterfly with eight wings.

  Max notices, too.

  “Get a room, huh?” he says, laughing. He sits back, watching them for a minute; then, as if they’ve given him the idea, he wraps his arms around me, and pulls me down, lowering me onto my carpet. He breathes into my hair like he’s trying to inhale me. “We could do like them, if you want to.”

  “Max…” I whisper in warning, though to him or me lately I’m never really sure. “What happened to your chi thing?”

  “I changed my mind,” he says. “Just a little more?”

  “Okay, but just a little.” And then his tongue is meeting mine, and his hands are under my shirt, then under my bra, his fingers finding my nipples, sending my thoughts spinning, and me and this room careening into outer space.

  LATE APRIL

  TENTH GRADE

  The front door closes, and my eyes snap open, confused.

  The light has grown dim, slipping in weakly through the translucent shades of my window. We’ve fallen asleep on the floor, limbs wrapped together, my head on Max’s chest. I untangle myself, and sit up, pulling my T-shirt back down. I’m still fully clothed, but Mom would kill me. Or Nana, if she happens to be here. Or Mom might call Dad, but if he wants to parent me, he’s just going to have to come home.

  “Max, get up.” I go to shake him, but his eyes are wide open.

  “I am up, goofball. That’s why you’re up. I was talking to you.”

  “You were? I think my mom came home. How long was I asleep?” Max rolls on his side, props up on an elbow, and looks at me. He seems like he’s been awake for a while.

  Was he watching me the whole time?

  “Not long.” He shrugs. “And, yeah, someone came in.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing. Resting. Thinking.”

  “About what?” I search for my cell phone—My bed? My desk?—I can’t seem to gauge what time it is.

  “California.”

  “Wait, what? How come?” I ask, retrieving it from my night table. It’s already 6:20. I have no texts or messages from Mom. I feel groggy, drugged. When I move back toward Max, I realize the cotton of my underwear is damp.

  “Because I’m going. And I needed to tell you.”

  “You are?” Panic rises in my chest.

  “Yes.”

  “When?” Tears form because I’m so tired and out of it, I don’t have the chance to brace myself.

  “Soon as I graduate. You should come.”

  I sit on the edge of my bed, and try to collect myself, and bring my room into crisp focus. Desk. Closet. Butterfly habitat. In the distance, the sound of water running. Another door opening and closing. The pad of my mother’s feet—only hers, no other footsteps, no conversation—moving through the house.

  Will she come down the hall and check on me?

  Does she even know I exist?

  “But why?”

  “Because I want to. Because I can. Because I hate it here and there’s nothing here for me, other than you.” My eyes dart to him. Did I know this?
Did I have any clue Max was unhappy? “Because it’s always warm there. No winter. No sleet. No snow.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Jailbait. I’m going. So, come with me. Please. I want you to. I bet they have all sorts of butterflies there.”

  LATE FALL

  NINTH GRADE

  “Come on over here, JL. You can sit next to me,” Ethan calls to me as soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs. He pats the seat of the big orange armchair where he’s already sitting, a grease-smeared paper plate in his lap. His sneakered feet are up on the ottoman, where I could, otherwise, sit.

  My heart skips a beat. The rest of the couch and chairs are taken, but he could move his feet and I wouldn’t have to be there, squished right next to him.

  I should tell him to move them. I should choose not to sit that close to him.

  It’s a Saturday, late afternoon, and I’ve walked here, as usual, despite the storm outside. The skies opened up right as I reached your front door. My hair is wet and the basement air is cold on my damp skin. Goose bumps rise up and I shiver.

  I could go upstairs and get a towel. You’re up there, still showering. You came home from the soccer fields covered in mud.

  Party at my house, you had texted. If you get there first, save me a slice. E won’t.

  Now the rich, sweet and sour smell of dough and sauce and garlic hit my nose, and remind me, so I veer toward the bar instead. This is willpower, since my window of opportunity is limited. Anyway, I’m not comfortable wading past all of Ethan’s friends to get to him.

  Behind the bar, I slide two slices out of the open box and onto plates, and set those off to the side.

  “Hurry up, Markham!” your brother calls, twisting to look where I’ve gone. “Oh!” he says, realizing. “While you’re there, bring me another one.” He holds up his empty plate, and I slide a third slice onto a fresh one, my eyes shifting to the stairs because, for a second, I think I hear you coming. But now I have a legitimate reason. I’m just delivering his food because he asked me to.