by Joe Hill
Fuck you, Neighbor! It felt so great. If I could go anywhere I’d want to go there.
The counselors came for us after a while. A circle of them with big flashlights, talking in handsets. Jodi told us they’d been looking everywhere for us. “We were pretty worried about you girls!”
For the first time I didn’t feel sorry for her; I felt like I wanted to kick her in the shins. Shit, I forgot about that until right now. I forget so much. I’m like a sieve. Sometimes I tell Pete I think I’m going senile. Like premature senile dementia. Last month I suggested we go to Clearview for our next vacation and he said, “Tish, you hate Clearview, don’t you remember?”
It’s true, I hated Clearview: the beach was okay, but at night there was nothing to do but drink. So we’re going to go to the Palace Suites instead. At least you can gamble there.
Cee, I wonder about you still, so much—I wonder what happened to you and where you are. I wonder if you’ve ever tried to find me. It wouldn’t be hard. If you linked to the register you’d know our graduating class ended up in food services. I’m in charge of inventory for a chain of grocery stores, Pete drives delivery, Katie stocks the shelves. The year before us, the graduates of our camp went into the army; the year after us they also went into the army; the year after that they went into communications technologies; the year after that I stopped paying attention. I stopped wondering what life would have been like if I’d graduated in a different year. We’re okay. Me and Pete—we make it work, you know? He’s sad because I don’t want to have kids, but he hasn’t brought it up for a couple of years. We do the usual stuff, hobbies and vacations. Work. Pete’s into gardening. Once a week we have dinner with some of the gang. We keep our Parent Figures on the hall table, like everyone else. Sometimes I think about how if you’d graduated with us, you’d be doing some kind of job in food services, too. That’s weird, right?
But you didn’t graduate with us. I guess you never graduated at all.
I’ve looked for you on the buses and in the streets. Wondering if I’d suddenly see you. God, I’d jump off the bus so quick, I wouldn’t even wait for it to stop moving. I wouldn’t care if I fell in the gutter. I remember your tense face, your nervous look, when you found out that we were going to have a checkup.
“I can’t have a checkup,” you said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because,” you said, “because they’ll see my bug is gone.”
And I just—I don’t know. I felt sort of embarrassed for you. I’d convinced myself the whole bug thing was a mistake, a hallucination. I looked down at my book, and when I looked up you were standing in the same place, with an alert look on your face, as if you were listening.
You looked at me and said, “I have to run.”
It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. The whole camp was monitored practically up to the moon. There was no way to get outside.
But you tried. You left my room, and you went straight out your window and broke your ankle.
A week later, you were back. You were on crutches and you looked . . . wrecked. Destroyed. Somebody’d cut your hair, shaved it close to the scalp. Your eyes stood out, huge and shining.
“They put a bug in me,” you whispered.
And I just knew. I knew what you were going to do.
Max came to see me a few days ago. I’ve felt sick ever since. Max is the same, hunched and timid; you’d know her if you saw her. She sat in my living room and I gave her coffee and lemon cookies and she took one bite of a cookie and started crying.
Cee, we miss you, we really do.
Max told me she’s pregnant. I said congratulations. I knew she and Evan have been wanting one for a while. She covered her eyes with her hands—she still bites her nails, one of them was bleeding—and she just cried.
“Hey, Max,” I said, “it’s okay.”
I figured she was extra-emotional from hormones or whatever, or maybe she was thinking what a short time she’d have with her kid, now that kids start camp at eight years old.
“It’s okay,” I told her, even though I’d never have kids—I couldn’t stand it.
They say it’s easier on the kids, going to camp earlier. We—me and you and Max—we were the tail end of Generation Teen. Max’s kid will belong to Generation Eight. It’s supposed to be a happier generation, but I’m guessing it will be sort of like us. Like us, the kids of Generation Eight will be told they’re sad, that they need their parents and that’s why they have Parent Figures, so that they can always be reminded of what they’ve lost, so that they can remember they need what they have now.
I sat across the coffee table from Max, and she was crying and I wasn’t hugging her because I don’t really hug people anymore, not even Pete really, I’m sort of mean that way, it’s just how I turned out, and Max said “Do you remember that night in the bathroom with Cee?”
Do I remember?
Her eyes were all swollen. She hiccuped. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m scared.” She said she had to send a report to her doctor every day on her phone. How was she feeling, had she vomited? Her morning sickness wasn’t too bad, but she’d thrown up twice, and both times she had to go in for a checkup.
“So?” I said.
“So—they always put you to sleep, you know . . .”
“Yeah.”
I just said “Yeah.” Just sat there in front of her and said “Yeah.” Like I was a rock. After a while I could tell she was feeling uncertain, and then she felt stupid. She picked up her stuff and blew her nose and went home. She left the tissues on the table, one of them spotted with blood from her bitten nail. I haven’t really been sleeping since she left. I mean, I’ve always had trouble sleeping, but now it’s a lot worse, especially since I started writing in your book. I just feel sick, Cee, I feel really sick. All those checkups, so regular, everyone gets them, but you’re definitely supposed to go in if you’re feeling nauseous, if you’ve vomited, it might be a superflu! The world is full of viruses, good health is everybody’s business! And yeah, they put you to sleep every time. Yeah. “They put a bug in me,” you said. Camp was so fun. Jodi came to us, wringing her hands. “Cee has been having some problems, and it’s up to all of us to look after her, girls! Campers stick together!” But we didn’t stick together, did we? I woke up and you were shouting in the hall, and I ran out there and you were hopping on your good foot, your toothbrush in one hand, your Mother Figure notebook in the other, and I knew exactly what they’d caught you doing. How did they catch you? Were there really cameras in the bathroom? Jodi’d called Duncan, and that was how I knew how bad it was: Hunky Duncan in the girls’ hallway, just outside the bathroom, wearing white shorts and a seriously pissed-off expression. He and Jodi were grabbing you and you were fighting them off. “Tisha,” called Jodi, “it’s okay, Cee’s just sick, she’s going to the hospital.” You threw the notebook. “Take it!” you snarled. Those were your last words. Your last words to me. I never saw you again except in dreams. Yeah, I see you in dreams. I see you in your white lacy nightgown. Cee, I feel sick. At night I feel so sick, I walk around in circles. There’s waves of sickness and waves of something else, something that calms me, something that’s trying to make the sickness go away. Up and down it goes, and I’m just in it, just trying to stand it, and then I sleep again, and I dream you’re beside me, we’re leaning over the toilet, and down at the very bottom there’s something like a clump of trees and two tiny girls are standing there giving us the finger. It’s not where I came from, but it’s where I started. I think of how bright it was in the bathroom that night, how some kind of loss swept through all of us, electric, and you’d started it, you’d started it by yourself, and we were with you in that hilarious and total rage of loss. Let’s lose it. Let’s lose everything. Camp wasn’t fun. Camp was a fucking factory. I go out to the factory on Fridays to check my lists over coffee with Elle. The bus passes shattered buildings, stick people rooting around in the garbage. Three out of five graduating c
lasses join the army. Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change! How did I even get here? I’d ask my mom if she wasn’t a fucking lamp. Cee, I feel sick. I should just grab my keys, get some money, and run to Max’s house, we should both be sick, everybody should lose it together. I shouldn’t have told you not to tell the others. We all should have gone together. My fault. I dream I find you and Puss in a bathroom in the train station. There’s blood everywhere, and you laugh and tell me it’s hair dye. Cee, it’s so bright it makes me sick. I have to go now. It’s got to come out.
CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead
FROM Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects
Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead
by Ursula Ruiz
19
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$1,395
Pledged of $5,229
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days to go
Back This Project
$1 minimum pledge
The project will only be funded if at least $5,229 is pledged by July 24, 2015 3:41am EDT.
Aid & abet a heartwarming sibling reunion—albeit under grievous circumstances—in a terrifying place where no mortal has any business treading.
Home
This is the thing about my sister and I: we’ve never gotten along, even when we’ve gotten along. This is what happens when you have parents who fetishize family, and the viscosity of blood relative to water: you resent the force with which they push you together with this person who is, genetics aside, a stranger. And that’s what my sister is: a stranger.
Not to mention a strange girl. Even when we were children, she had a weird fixation on contradicting everything I said, just because. She would pick a phrase to scream at the top of her lungs and do so over and over, like a computer glitch, until I ran out of the room. Whatever. It’s not important now. But she’s always been trouble. Our moments of connection have always been purely artificial, forged by necessity, by parental birthdays and holiday travel plans.
When I tell you that my sister has absconded to the land of the dead, do not mistake me. She hasn’t died. She just did what she always does—i.e., go to a place where she isn’t welcome and crash the party just because she feels like it. She heard that there was some “cool stuff” happening on the other side of the veil, and went. I only know where she is because I managed to sober up her blitzed-out roommate vis-à-vis a cold bucket of water to the face just long enough to get access to their Wi-Fi. I found her search history, her bus ticket to Bethlehem (the nearest portal), her emails to her friends about how it’s going to be “so amazing,” etc.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I also searched her email for my name, but aside from an occasional ping regarding the aforementioned birthdays and travel, there was nothing.)
I am sorry and embarrassed that I have to even ask you for money for this endeavor. The truth is while I’m doing pretty well, all things considered, I don’t have the liquidity necessary for this journey. Olive will be embarrassed that I put all of this online, but maybe a dose of shame will do her some goddamned good.
If you sense a tone of resentment to this entire project, that’s because I have to go chasing after my wretchedly ungrateful wastrel of a sibling into another dimension to tell her that our parents are dead.
Stretch Goals
Anything over $5,229 is welcome and will be donated to a TBD mental health charity.
How Will I Spend the Money?
Here’s how the costs will break down:
$36.95: Bus ticket to Bethlehem.
$176.05: Cost of ingredients (salt, sage, cypress branch, matches, mandrake, yew, chalk) to summon the necessary portal.
$16: The cheapest bottle of whiskey that I can force myself to drink.
$5,000: A one-time fee, for crossing.
Risks and Challenges
The land of the dead is the land of the dead. Sometimes people don’t come back.
FAQ
Do you remember when Olive was born?
I remember the time my mother had Braxton-Hicks contractions—the fake kind—and I went to the hospital with her and my father, and the doctor informed her that she wasn’t really in labor. As we left the hospital, I went into hysterics, because I’d been promised a baby sister and one had not been delivered to me. We walked past a woman who was holding her own baby, and I lunged toward her howling “THAT one! I want THAT one!” My parents had to carry me out as I screamed. But of Olive’s actual birth, I remember nothing.
How did your parents die?
You know how there was that SUV recall recently, because the brakes in some of their cars were failing for no reason, causing a series of high-profile, deadly accidents? I wish that was how they died. No, my father shot my mother through her left eye and then turned the gun on himself. Nobody knows why.
Who found their bodies?
I came over for dinner. Olive had been invited, too, but she backed out at the last minute. She said she had “stuff to do.” Which honestly is better than her arriving two hours late with a weird dude in tow. Anyway, thank God she wasn’t there.
When was the last time you spoke to Olive?
I don’t remember.
When was the first time you spoke to Olive?
I don’t remember.
What is your biggest regret?
In order from greatest to least: being born, having a little sister, not being adopted, caring at all.
What is your biggest fear?
Genetics.
Pledge $5 or more
• 9 backers
A thank-you email from Olive, which I will make her deliver.
Pledge $20 or more
• 52 backers
A small gift from the land of the dead—a pebble or a twig or a finger or something—which I will deliver in a small, sealed jar. KEEP IT IN THE JAR.
Pledge $50 or more
• 1 backer
I will send you salt from my personal tears, in crystal form (hand-evaporated). Grinder optional.
Pledge $100 or more
• 1 backer
I will drive my sister to your house, where you can ask her any question. Limited to the contiguous United States.
Pledge $500 or more
• 0 backers
You will receive an exclusive copy of my and Olive’s life story, written with my own hands, and complete with a happy, narratively satisfying ending detailing the success of our journey.
Update #1 • Jun 26, 2015
Starting Out
I know I haven’t hit my funding goal yet, but I’m just going to put it on a credit card and pray. I’m on a bus to Bethlehem, which has a pretty decent Wi-Fi connection but, weirdly, no toilets. At least three drug deals have happened in the seat next to me, and in between deals the guy is singing this one part of a song out loud that I recognize from somewhere. I think it might be Paula Cole?
Update #2 • Jun 26, 2015
Still Here
Oh, yeah, it’s definitely Paula Cole. It’s that weird chanting part of “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” Just that part. Over and over. This is why I don’t do drugs.
I’m assuming Olive has no idea I’m coming because there’s no reception in the land of the dead, but I have been texting her every hour on the hour anyway, just to cover my bases. I haven’t told her why I’m coming, because I can’t tell her that our parents are dead via text message. I mean, I could, but despite what she thinks about me I’m not a monster. I just keep writing “Need to talk to you, v. important.” But Olive has no sense of what’s important and what isn’t. Even if she got the messages, she’s probably all “Oh man, Ursula’s just having one of those days,” which is something I overheard her telling our mother once, just because I was upset that she didn’t want to be my maid of honor. Not that it mattered in the end, with the wedding being called off, but it was upsetting nonetheless.
I’m so fucking
tired.
Update #3 • Jun 27, 2015
Past Midnight
I wake up and the bus is parked at the depot. I’ve probably been here for hours. I’d been dreaming about Olive. While I was sleeping my face had been pressed against the window, with my mouth hanging open.
I walk two miles to the elementary school playground. I get a blister and do the last half-mile limping and barefoot. Then I have to pee, and since I don’t know what the restroom situation is in the land of the dead, I squat in some bushes. As I do so, I wonder if my sister is also peeing in a semipublic place. (If the land of the dead can be considered public at all, I guess.)
There is another woman standing here, burning her sage and drawing sigils on the pavement. She doesn’t look like she’s chasing a wayward family member; she looks like she’s ready to party. She has a lot of eyeliner on. I feel angry at her, like she’s Olive. She says something and the portal slides open, like the door of a minivan but wreathed in smoke. I look away—it feels rude to stare.
Then she’s gone, and it’s dark once again. I draw the sigil and arrange the ingredients according to my notes. I say the spell, the unfamiliar syllables catching behind my teeth.