Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me

by Gae Polisner

  Aubrey yawns. “Ugh. All this chem is making me sleepy. Let’s go through our individual notes instead.” She gives a look to both girls and adds, “See if someone has something we forgot to write down.”

  We open our notebooks. Aubrey glances at mine and says, “Let’s start with JL’s notes. I told you hers would be better than ours.” Her face reddens because her motives are obvious. She knows, and I know. “It’s just, your notes are always awesome, JL. I told these guys you wouldn’t let a little romance interfere with your schoolwork. I bet your notes could beat ours in your sleep.” She smiles, but my skin is crawling. “… We do, don’t we, Niccole?”

  Niccole nods, but I’ve missed what she’s agreeing with. I can’t hear through the sound of blood banging, angry, in my ears.

  “Do what?” I ask, starting to feel sick.

  “Admire you, of course,” Aubrey says.

  “Definitely,” Niccole agrees, causing Meghan to roll her eyes.

  Niccole jumps up. “Oh, hey, I almost forgot!” She pulls a brown paper lunch bag out and dumps an array of candy bouncing onto Aubrey’s rug. Smarties, Sugar Babies, Dum Dums, Tootsie Pops, Jolly Ranchers.

  “Is that from Halloween?” Meghan flicks away a Tootsie Roll that’s landed on her foot.

  “So what? Candy doesn’t go bad.” She sticks a grape lollipop in her mouth. “Oh my god. So much better,” she says, slurping between words.

  “You and your oral fixation,” Meghan says.

  “Who doesn’t have one of those?”

  “You got that right. Right, JL?” Niccole winks at me, and tosses an orange Tootsie Pop in my direction.

  I toss it back and take a cherry instead. “Thanks, not a fan of orange,” I say.

  “Sorry. I should have guessed cherry since you already know how many licks it takes to get to the center of one.”

  “Niccole!” Aubrey kicks her hard, and Niccole winces.

  “Don’t bother, Aubrey,” I say. “Let’s just get it over with, since your friends clearly have something they want to say. Something way more urgent than molecular structures and chemical bonding.”

  “Who, me?” Niccole bats her eyelashes. “Anyway, aren’t they kind of the same? Both a form of chemical bonding?” She laughs at her dumb joke. “But since you brought it up—Oh, come on, Aubrey, you know you want to know just as bad as we do. We can’t help it. Stories are flying. You should set them straight. About you and Max and various states of undress last night?” She fans herself with her hand, and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “We want to hear all the gory details. I mean, we’re all friends here, right?”

  “Cut it out, Niccole,” Aubrey says. “JL, why don’t you name the characteristics of a covalent bond? Lower melting point and electrical conductivity, what else?” She’s frantically trying to save us from total derailment. But it’s too late and she knows it.

  “Or what about the difference between polar and non-polar bonds?” Aubrey shoves her notebook at me without noticing that there’s a big red circle drawn around the word “non-polar,” and the words “Ask J.L.” written next to it.

  “Don’t you mean bipolar?” Meghan says.

  Aubrey throws her notebook and jumps up. “Jesus, Meghan, seriously! You promised!” Her face reddens and her eyes fill with tears, and it all becomes crystal clear. They’ve not only talked about Max and me, but Aubrey has told them about my mother.

  My depressed, disassociating mother.

  My sight blurs with tears. I shove my books and laptop into my backpack, and get up, my brain fighting what to say. The fury is making me dizzy, making my throat burn.

  “Come on, JL, please stay. She didn’t mean anything.”

  I turn and glare at her, but no words come. I don’t care about them. It’s Aubrey who has betrayed me.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” I say.

  * * *

  I lock the door behind me, and sit on the toilet trying to breathe. When I’ve collected myself, I walk to the sink and stare hard at my face in the mirror.

  Did I do something to deserve this?

  I’ve fooled around with Max, but not everything, and I did it because I wanted to. Is it wrong to do stuff with a person you love? I am not the first tenth grader who has ever been with a guy. I’ve heard plenty of stories about girls who have done plenty of things, and I’ve never judged them.

  Maybe they don’t know what it’s like to be in love. So in love that being with that person fully is the only thing you want, the only thing you think about.

  Maybe Aubrey doesn’t know, but I do.

  And Max does.

  And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

  I pull my phone from my pocket and text Max—Heading home, come hang out?—and wait for him to respond, but nothing comes through. He’s probably out riding with Dean and Bo, or in the garage working on Blue Morpho.

  I’ll go home and wait for him there.

  I splash cold water on my face to wash away the tears and, feeling a stronger resolve, walk back to Aubrey’s room. I don’t need those girls any more than they need me.

  A few feet from her door I stop. I can hear them talking about me.

  “Come on, Aubs,” Meghan is saying, “A slut is a slut is a whore. You said so yourself. You don’t want to be associated with that.”

  “She’s not a slut.”

  “Well, she’s not a virgin, either. You can tell from the way she walks. Seriously, I’m not making it up. That’s what happens when a guy like Max Gordon does you over and over again.”

  “You’re being gross,” Aubrey says. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “I do, too. Ask Ethan. You said you think she fooled around with him.”

  I feel dizzy again, like I’m going to pass out.

  I just need to get my stuff and go home.

  “JL…” Aubrey says, when I step in the room. “Forget what she said. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Hot tears sting my face. Aubrey turns to me, helpless. She knows she betrayed me. Whatever I do next is her fault.

  I walk to her closet, calmly, and open the door. I reach back into the dark recesses until I feel Mary Lennox. I grab that stupid doll out by her hair.

  I throw her on the bed and yank her dress up, and glare at Aubrey, my heart banging too loud in my ears.

  “There,” I say, tears spilling. “Why don’t you tell these girls what a saint you are? What you taught me to do with her. ‘Here, JL, it’s only a game. It feels good. Do it. Try it,’” I say, my voice rising. “‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’ Go on, Aubs. Why don’t you show them how you like to hump your stupid doll?”

  “JL—” Aubrey’s voice is so heartbroken, I can barely stand to hear it. But I can’t stop myself, either. The fury of the past few months is a runaway train, jumping the tracks, and hurtling over a cliff now.

  “Go on, Aubs,” I demand. “Show them. Since you’re so hard up, I’m sure you still do.” I hurl the doll at her, and she lands obscenely, with one leg straddled in the air. I grab my bags, stopping at her door.

  “Oh, and the two of you? You’re sad, and boring, and pathetic. Speaking of Ethan, ask him. He thinks so, too.”

  I slam her bedroom door behind me and fly down the stairs, and past the kitchen, not turning around, fumbling at the front door that has long since been locked for the night.

  “Hey, Markham, is everything okay?”

  I whirl around. “Fuck you, Ethan! No, really!” I need every single Andersson to leave me alone.

  I yank the door open, and stumble with my things out into the dark.

  “JL, wait! Stop. Please.” Ethan follows me. “Slow down. Tell me what happened. Let me help.”

  “You want to help?” I yell, turning back. “You want to help! Maybe don’t feel me up in the bushes, then leave for school and act like I never existed! How’s that for helping? How about you don’t act like I matter, when everything that’s ever happened shows I sure
as hell don’t!”

  “JL!” he calls, as I step off the curb. “Of course you matter. Of course you do! Come back! Talk to me. I’m worried about you.”

  “Well, it’s a little late for that, so don’t be!” I yell behind me, and disappear down the street, into darkness.

  * * *

  The cold shocks me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this is crazy. It’s June, so I shouldn’t be shaking like I am.

  But I am. My whole body is trembling.

  Fuck Aubrey. Fuck Ethan.

  I don’t need his help, or anyone’s.

  To hell with all of them.

  My mother and father, too.

  I don’t need anyone but Max.

  And then, this idea:

  We should go tonight!

  Why not?

  It’s completely perfect.

  I’ll tell Max. He’ll agree. He won’t care.

  To hell with school. With graduation.

  We’ll go tonight.

  We’ll go tonight!

  Figure out how to fix everything later.

  * * *

  I’m practically running by the time I reach the street before ours. At least I’m not shaking anymore.

  In case he hasn’t gotten my other message yet, I fish my phone from my pocket and text Max again:

  Change in plans. Pack for CA. Bring Blue Morpho. I want to leave now!

  By the time I reach our street, the air is blanketed in pitch blackness. What time is it? I glance at my phone. It’s already 10:00 p.m.

  So what? We can get started. Go a few hours and stay the night in a hotel.

  I reach home and run up the damp lawn, my brain flying with delirious thoughts I can’t even begin to nail down.

  What to pack? What to leave?

  I don’t need much. Just some shorts and a few T-shirts, and the rest of the money. My phone and my laptop. Whatever I can fit in a backpack. I can’t exactly bring a suitcase on a motorcycle. I never even thought about that. I’ll call Nana from the road in the morning. I’ll give Dad some bogus flight times tomorrow.

  And Mom? I can lie: I forgot something I needed for Aubrey’s and came home for it. Max is here to give me a ride back.

  It’s all falling into place.

  It’s all falling into place.

  In less than an hour, we can be out of here.

  * * *

  I stumble in the darkness, wondering why the outside lights haven’t gone on. Or maybe Mom turned them off. Maybe she’s already gone to bed.

  The house is dark, too. Only the soft blue glow of the television through the living room window. She probably fell asleep on the couch again.

  I slip my key from my pocket and open the front door. The television murmurs softly in the background.

  “Scrub with one side, gently brush away dirt with the other…” Some infomercial, hawking a miracle sponge.

  I turn to close the door, quietly. Only then do I notice Blue Morpho.

  Max is here already! He got my message! That’s why he isn’t responding.

  He must have gotten my first text and beat me here.

  My thoughts reel a little, twist back on themselves in knotted circles. But I can’t pay attention to them. Not now. Max is here, and I want to go, and yet my limbs feel laden and exhausted.

  Of course they do. All of it, prom, Aubrey’s, finals, everything has sapped me of energy. When did I have a good night’s sleep last? I wonder briefly if I have time to nap before we leave.

  “Max?” I call softly, moving past the living room. I don’t want to wake Mom if she’s sleeping.

  In the kitchen, I stop. Two empty wineglasses. Two empty bottles. Max’s leather jacket slung over the back of a chair.

  He came early for me. Got bored.

  Mom kept him company, no big deal.

  He’s waiting in my room, and she’s gone to bed.

  These are the merciful thoughts that come to me.

  I know what you’re thinking, Aubrey, but face it.

  Sometimes we can’t see what we don’t want to.

  “Max?” I drop my bags on the kitchen floor, and move toward the darkened hall. “Max?”

  A bad thought forces its way in. What if he came here for the rest of the money?

  But he wouldn’t do that. Max isn’t like that. He would wait for me. He wouldn’t use me for money.

  “JL!” He walks out into the hallway, confused. Squints in the dark. Rakes his hands through disheveled hair. “What are you doing here? Home? I mean—”

  I cut him off. I need to help him see things fast. To clarify.

  “You got my text?” I smile, grateful. He’s already packed, and here. Even if he’s not, we can stop back at his place and get his things on the way out.

  “Yeah,” he says. “That.”

  Everything feels off. His words sound hollow in my ears. The air feels smoky and viscous, like I can’t quite focus or pull in a breath.

  He knew I was coming or he wouldn’t be here, right?

  “Right,” he says, answering words I haven’t spoken aloud.

  I move toward him, to hug him. To thank him. To tell him it’s right that we should go.

  His shoes are off. He’s barefoot. I can smell the sour odor of alcohol oozing from his pores.

  “I want to go. Now.” I lower my voice. “We’ll figure the rest out later. I want to leave tonight for California, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says. “You do?” His expression is weird. Scared. His posture is odd. He’s not standing like he normally does.

  Which room did he come from?

  He’s midpoint between Mom’s bedroom door and mine.

  “Yes. Right now,” I say. The rush comes back to me, the one from the street. The sense of exhilaration. Of running free. “You brought Blue Morpho,” I say.

  “Right,” he says. “I did.” He turns and looks behind him—for what?—and turns back to me. “Your mom—” he says, but I cut him off.

  “I don’t care. I don’t give a shit what she does. What she says.”

  “Okay, I have to get my shoes … they’re in—”

  “You do that,” I say. I smile, but my lips stretch funny, like a cartoon clown. “I’ll be right out, okay?”

  “JL?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Yes.” I squeeze his hand, and run to my room.

  See? He was waiting for me. The money is still here.

  “Jackie? Where’d you go, Jackie? Come back!”

  My mother’s voice trails from down the hall.

  I move faster. Not thinking. Not doubting. Not wanting to hear her crazy words. Simply knowing this is what we need to do. I need to do. To feel better. To get away from Aubrey. From her. From everything.

  Just me and Max, on Blue Morpho.

  It takes me less than five minutes to shove everything I need in a bag.

  Part V

  The Blue Morpho’s vivid wings result from

  microscopic scales that reflect light.

  But the undersides are a dull brown.

  When it takes flight, the contrasting colors flash, making it look

  as if it is appearing and disappearing.

  LATE JUNE

  TENTH GRADE

  As long as I live, I’ll never be able to adequately describe the freeness of riding on the back of Blue Morpho. The cold rush of air, hair trailing back, tangled in the wind. The rhythmic vibrato of motion and sound that blocks everything else from your head.

  Maybe that, alone, made everything worth it.

  Or maybe nothing ever will.

  But sooner or later the wind dies down, the night sky lightens from gray to mauve to coral pink and back to periwinkle again, before the sun is out, up, rising high in the sky, casting a glare so strong you have to shield your eyes against the onslaught. Gas stations call. Bathroom stops. And you realize you’re not dressed properly and gravel kicks up from the road so hard it leaves angry red welts on your shins.
That’s when the pieces threaten to come back to you, at first like a fever dream you can write off as confusion, exhaustion, delusion, as vague and unsure as the landscapes that fly past, but eventually—eventually—so fully, so crisp and unrelenting, you have to force yourself to ignore them, dismiss them, because otherwise they will take you down.

  But not yet they don’t.

  First the fever dream.

  And before all that:

  We stop at Max’s house, so he can get me a helmet and gather his things.

  “Don’t forget the money,” I remind him, though I’m not sure how much is left of what he’s taken. “And be fast, okay, Max?” because even in this flustered, altered state, I understand time and daylight are my enemy.

  “I won’t, and I’ll be as fast as I can. But I have to look out for you. You can’t ride from here to California without a helmet.”

  I have to look out for you.

  How many people say that without ever meaning it?

  But Max means it. He always has.

  I wait outside, on the idling, vibrating seat of Blue Morpho, the shivering threatening to return to my body, his sad, dilapidated house before me, looking even more sad and dilapidated in the darkness.

  Is that yelling—the slap of hand against something hard—coming from inside?

  When Max returns, it’s not lost on me how cautious he seems. How concerned. As if he’s reluctant, when he’s the one who wanted this all along.

  “Come on, Max. Please.”

  He nods, and squints at me, studying me for answers to questions I don’t know any better than him, as he secures his bag on the back with mine by a bungee cord he loops around over and over, for what seems a hundred minutes, then runs back into the garage and emerges with the silver helmet I wear in his hand.

  “You sure, Jailbait?” he asks one more time, strapping it as tightly as he can on my head. “We’ll stop somewhere tomorrow and get you a better one … But I mean it, JL. We don’t have to do this. Not yet. Not now. Maybe I’m not the best—”

  I shake my head hard, press a hand to his mouth, to stop him from saying one word more.