“I like it,” Mags said, letting her hair drop. “You’re probably stuck up like every other girl here, ain’t you?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not. Really.”
“Here,” she said, extending her hand, the next cigarette already lit. “Have a smoke.”
“I uh no thanks.”
“Have a goddamn smoke,” she said. She reached out and grabbed my hand. She thrust the cigarette between my fingers. I stared down at it.
“My mother used to smoke,” I squeaked.
“It’s good for you.”
“No it isn’t, the Surgeon General said—”
“You believe that government tool? Smoke,” she said.
It was a command.
I delicately put the cigarette between my lips. I thought she was going to kill me if I disobeyed her.
“Inhale, come on, inhale,” she commanded.
I sucked back the smoke, and coughed, and sucked, and coughed, and pretty soon I was hooked on the damn things, and I still am. One of life’s little pleasures. Come to Marlboro Country. Get the Most Out of Life.
Sure, Mags corrupted me thoroughly. By junior year in high school, she’d taught me all about smoking and drinking and why it was important for a boy to have a big one. It took me awhile to figure out what big ones were, but I was happy Mags had warned me ahead of time. The vodka helped with that, too. I hid most of it from my mom and dad, who weren’t too cool. They were church going types, and basically so was I. Unfortunately, I was also heavily into sin as both a concept and an action. After church, I’d sneak off down to the alley behind the Meat Market in town, and me and Mags would smoke and have a few beers and then go out and raise hell. I’m sure God in His Heaven didn’t give a rat’s ass if we got into trouble now and then.
Sin was not new to my family. My mother once cheated on my father with Dr. Van Graaf, my orthodontist. How do I know? Dad was away on business, and Mom and Dr. Van Graaf were upstairs in bed, that’s how I know. She didn’t want me to know; in fact, I was supposed to be staying at Mags’ for the night. Truth was, I was really going to spend the night with Billy Alcott in his backyard tent, along with a bottle of Stoli and a carton of menthols. But Billy was acting like a creep, so I told him I was having my period and he ran like hell. All boys do, the wimps. His tent sucked, anyway, barely enough room to move your elbows let alone have some teenager on top of you trying to tell you how much he loved you when you knew he didn’t give a flyer and had been doing it with Missy Hanscomb three nights before.
But my mother and Billy and Dr. Van Graaf have very little to do with this, my confession.
Yeah, I know, if you saw us on TV or read People or maybe that little piece in the New York Times or in our local rag, you might know the rest of it. Six kids all lobotomized and hemorrhaging in the middle of Glasgow High School with their signed yearbooks at their feet. Bullets flying. It was something, I’ll tell you.
Gramma would’ve told me, maybe, how to stop it, but she wasn’t around by then.
There’s always more to this stuff than meets the eye. 60 Minutes is doing this thing on us in about a month, and I’m sure it will be more lies. I’m really holding out for Barbara Walters for the interview. Her people haven’t contacted me yet. I figure when school starts up in the fall, and things like November Sweeps are going on, she will.
Mags thinks Barbara Walters and her people don’t give a flyer about two girls from Minnesota who were suspected of mass murder at the end of their junior year.
But I think based on the coverage we’ve gotten so far, we’re worth the Sweeps Month and maybe even a retro thingy in the spring. I would even say we’ve put our little town in Minnesota on the map, except there was that movie star who did that back in the seventies before he got eaten up by heroin and a nasty car wreck.
I know that once we get Barbara Walters to interview us—and not just one of her 20/20 interviews, but one of those Specials she does that are so good—the record will be set straight. I’m having trouble convincing Mags to wait till then to tell everything, since we really didn’t get a chance on the talk show circuit. Too much yelling and screaming and myth-making. My mother didn’t even call them talk shows, she called them Freak Shows of the Very Vapid. I kind of like that. Mom has a way with words.
But Oprah and Jerry weren’t like that. They all have a lot of heart. They were sweet. Mags was hilarious on them. I was just doing my Pretty Little Nothing act, because I didn’t want to let the world know the truth yet. I was the Loyal Best Friend. Mom’d totally freak herself if she knew I was writing down what really happened, but Mags is in trouble over this now, and the truth is, she’s just protecting me.
All right, Mom has known all along, but she is really good at denying reality. Even when it slaps her in the face. I wish I could do that.
She’s known ever since I was about four. She saw what I did to the cat.
Now, first off, I’ve never liked cats. Please don’t hold that against me. I’ve just never met one that liked me. They all act like little bitches around me, they don’t purr, they don’t preen, they just growl and slash at my ankles. So it’s no surprise to me that I did the Fries With That? thing. That’s what Mags calls it. When we were in fourth grade and I did it to this one kid, Mags said to me, “Fries with that?” She meant it as a double joke. First, because at Burger King and McDonalds and Wendy’s and all those hamburger fast food places the guy on the speaker says, “Fries with that?” no matter what the fuck you order. You could order shit on a stick, and he’d say, “Duh, fries with that?”
That’s part of it.
The other part is that Fries word. All its meanings.
But wait, back to the cat when I was little.
Mom said that the cat was hissing at me, as usual. I was sitting on the kitchen floor. I just stared at the cat long and hard and suddenly like my eyes rolled back into my head and I turned all pale and started speaking in tongues. Well, Mom is what Mags called a Super Christian, and even though she knows it probably was not her beloved Holy Ghost talking through me, she always likes to think the best. In fact, I think Mom turned to church-going because of the talent, and gramma had it, as it turns out. After that, Mom said that cat was not right, and would just walk in circles. Which cracks me up to think of a cat walking in circles all the time. And again, for you cat lovers, it’s not that I hate cats, it’s that they never like me. I suppose one day I may meet one who likes me, and then I may take cats on a case-by-case basis. Until then, we really have nothing to do with each other whenever possible.
I told Mags about the cat in eighth grade when I knew for sure she was my absolutely best friend of all friends.
We went from smoking a pack a day to three packs a day each by the time we entered high school. The liquor didn’t really kick into high gear till junior year.
We hung out in the girls’ room a lot, smoking of course and writing nasty things about girls like Alison Gall and some of the other girls of what we called the Canine Corps. All cheerleaders were a little too kissy face for our tastes, even though they had to go down on the filthy football players. I really shouldn’t have hated Alison so much—that’s half my problem. I would obsess on girls and boys I hated, and then I would have no control sometimes. I actually had excellent control, up until the beginning of June when we raised the hell to end all hells, but who knew?
Not me or Mags back when we were scratching our Bic pens into the toilet stall wall. “Alison Sucks Donkeys,” I read my exquisite poetry aloud while I scratched.
“No, more sophisticated,” Mags said in her smoke-scraped throaty voice.
Then, she lifted her Swiss Army knife and scratched, “ALISON’S DICK IS BIGGER THAN JOEY’S.”
“That’s so fourth grade,” I said, grabbing the cigarette from between Mags’ lips and stuffing it in my greedy mouth. I sucked back the smoke and whooshed it out through my nostrils. “Besides which, everybody’s dick is bigger than Joey’s.”
Mags laughed
. The stall was tiny, but since we’re both pretty skinny, it wasn’t too bad. The toilet bowl was almost full of our cigarettes butts.
“What is it she ever did to either of us that makes us hate her so much?” Mags asked. “I almost forget.”
“She’s just so Alison,” I said. Suddenly, Mags thrust her hand over my mouth.
She lipped, Someone just came in. The cigarette dropped from her mouth into the toilet, pronto.
The girl’s bathroom door swung shut, and we heard little mouse steps over to the sink.
I glanced at Mags, who released her hold on my mouth.
We both knew who it was. Janine Cunligger—and yeah, it was her real name. I could not make up a name that good even if I tried.
Janine was spooky, but not in the same way that Mags is scary. Janine was one of those girls you knew would one day turn psycho on everybody, or else she’d invent the cure for the Common Cold. Maybe she’ll end up revolutionizing software or something. She’s that kind of girl. Despite the last name Cunligger, she was called Gyro because of her scientific and mathematical bent. Mags nicknamed her this in sixth grade, after Mags got tired of all the boys calling Janine by a not-so-nice revision of her last name. Mags originally called her Gyroscopa, Goddess of Science Nerds, but eventually this became Gyro until Janine herself used it when she introduced herself to new kids.
Janine was also plug ugly, at least as far as any of us knew. Unlike Mags who had the cool hip urban look of dark hair on dark clothes and dark heart, Janine a.k.a. Gyro had a frizz and thick glasses and Pippi Longstocking legs and was flat as a pancake even at sixteen when the rest of us had pretty much Jiffy Popped to our full bra sizes.
And as Mags and I stood silently in the toilet stall, we heard the saddest most mournful sound coming from the sink where Gyro stood letting water run over her hands.
“Jesus,” Mags gasped, closing her eyes.
Gyro was sobbing up a storm, and the running water didn’t hide it.
I was the first out of the stall. I stood back a ways from Gyro, because she still was a bit spooky in my opinion. I had never really warmed up to her after I’d been held back a year in Chemistry and she had moved on with Honors.
She saw me in the mirror over the sink. Her headband was askew. Her frizz of hair seemed frizzier.
“You okay?” I asked. I felt Mags’ hand on my shoulder, as if trying to pull me back.
Gyro leaned over the sink again, pulling her glasses off. “Yeah, fine. Just got some dirt in my eyes.”
“You were crying,” I said.
“We heard you,” Mags added. “What’s up?”
Gyro kept pretending until Mags just went up to her and threw her arms around her. “It’s okay,” Mags said, “We’re not gonna hurt you or anything.”
Gyro pulled away, shrugging her off. “Yes you are. You’re like all the rest of them.”
“The hell we are,” Mags said.
“That’s right,” I volunteered weakly. Truth was, I didn’t really care to delve into Gyro’s problems. She was one of those girls I didn’t want to get to know too well because a) we had nothing in common and b) there was nothing I was going to gain by being friends with her. Now my b) choice may seem cold and unfeeling, but I learned years ago that there’s no point in making friends if it doesn’t help you in some way. I don’t mean namby-pamby help, I mean, if a friendship doesn’t take you to a new level, or open up a different world, or feed you in some way, why have it?
All right, maybe I am a bit cold. I got burned by some of those other girls and boys enough to know that you are lucky if you can make one good friend in your lifetime.
Mags was that friend.
But Mags has a better soul than I do.
She managed to wrestle her arms around Gyro’s shoulders again. Gyro started crying again. I went and hopped up on the edge of the sink. I brought another cig out from the pack, lit it, puffed, and passed it to Gyro.
Gyro didn’t hesitate. She snapped it out of my hand and took a long drag on it. I reached into my fanny pack and brought out some Kleenex for her. Then, I drew the flask out. It was rum and Coke, and not a lot of rum so please don’t get the idea I was drunk twenty-four hours a day. Mags is the one with the bar in her locker at school, not me.
“So what’s the deal?” I asked.
Gyro sucked back another lungful of smoke. On exhaling, she said, “It’s Alison Gall.”
I looked at Mags.
“We were just talking about her,” I said, with glee.
“What’s she done to you?” Mags asked. Mags really has the milk of human kindness in her veins. She looks dark and nasty, and she talks like a whore sometimes, but she really is the kind of person who would save a gnat on the ass of a weasel.
And then, Gyro told us. All of it.
It’s not really important what she told us. In fact, I think it would hurt her feelings if she knew that I was writing this, and knew that it probably would get published someday since we’re so famous now. But let me put it this way: Alison did something to Gyro that was so terrible, something that is the worst thing one girl can do to another girl. I do not make this stuff up. If you’re female, you know what that is. If you’re male, you probably don’t have a clue. But when you’re sixteen, and a girl, and another girl does to you what Alison Gall did to Gyro, you would feel on the inside like all the joy in life had been extinguished—no, stolen from you by the worst kind of thief. Boys sometimes do this to girls, but they don’t have a clue. Girls sort of accept that boys do this because boys don’t understand what it means. But for a girl to do it to another girl is the lowest form of life.
So then and there, the three of us made a pact, Gyro, me and Mags.
We set our plan into motion before Friday, the day of the Prom.
It was easy enough to lure Alison Gall to the old farm off Route 7.
Not that she was exactly a farm-lovin’ girl, but we knew that the guy she really wanted to ball was Quent Appenino, the Italian Stallion quarterback who had transferred from some California school when his folks got divorced. Quent was built, and had good buns and a great smile. If he weren’t such a moron when it came to school, I’d have lusted after him, too. But he was a big pretty guy and since he’d arrived he’d been going steady with Susie Malloy. Quent was a good boy, too, and didn’t cheat, and this drove Alison nuts. So what we did was we told Quent that it was Susie’s birthday, and we had this card for her.
We wanted him to be the first to personalize and sign it.
So he takes up like half the card, the doofus, and writes, You know how much I care for you, baby. You + Me=4-Ever. Then, pretending I’d forgotten the way out to the farm—which Quent’s grandfather owned—I asked him to write down directions on this really thin piece of paper. “I want to drive out with my dad this weekend just for fresh air.”
Quent really was a moron. He didn’t question this at all.
He just wrote out the directions.
Then, Mags who is a genius at this, carefully traced his note about the directions. Again, trying to imitate his handwriting, which she did remarkably well. She scrawled at the bottom: Before the Prom, 4 p.m. I want you. Quent.
“She’s going to melt,” I said.
Gyro nodded. “But what do we do when we get her out there?”
“Don’t even worry about it. We do what we do,” Mags said, passing another cigarette to Gyro.
Gyro had a bad jones for cigs, it turned out. I discovered that we had that in common.
Okay, now here’s where it gets hazy.
Not that the Prom coming up was any big deal to us since we weren’t seniors. We didn’t have steadies, and I’m not big on wearing a big poofy dress with my hair up like Cinderella. Maybe my third grade pre-Mags self would’ve been into that crap, but I was more of a let’s get drunk and break into the arcade kind of girl by junior year. If I wanted a boy sexually, I didn’t need all that filler: just give me the guy. The bad influence of my best friend again.
She always said I was the real bad influence, back when we were little.
It was that fourth grade thing, when Jonathan Rice was on the monkey bars and Mags and I were stepping on his hands as he swung around. Jonathan was, I think, a budding masochist, or else he liked to look up my skirt. Back in fourth grade I wore what Mags still calls the Betsy-Wetsy outfits where “You looked like one of those American Girl dolls.” But Jonathan grabbed my ankle. I slipped, landing on my tailbone on the cold metal of the monkey bars, which hurt bad enough, but then I lost my balance and fell down into the gravel.
It was the first time I realized you could actually see stars when you slammed into the earth hard enough. I thought my brain had been knocked to my shins. Now, maybe Jonathan jogged something in my head a little more than it should’ve been, or maybe what I did to that cat when I was four just got worse the closer I got to puberty.
Or maybe it was just fate.
That was the first day Mags had ever used the term Fries With That? About what I can do. I don’t do it often, and in fact, I never planned on doing it.
But I almost fried poor little Jonathan Rice right there on the playground during recess. He came over to me, kneeling down to see if I was okay.
And I just went blank. Like the white dot that’s left on the TV. when you turn it off sometimes. I went down this winding tunnel in my head. I figured I must be dying or something.
When I came to, Mags described the whole thing to me.
“Damn, it was scary as all hell,” she said. “Jonathan was crying about you, and you start showing the whites of your eyes and frothing at the mouth, and breaking out in rashes all over your face. Then your mouth opens wider than I figured it could go, like a largemouth bass screaming or something, and your tongue starts waggling, and then…”
Mags paused here for effect. Her eyes widened.
“Then…all these words I never heard of come out of your mouth, words that are almost like English but aren’t quite, and you’re shaking, and I break out in goose bumps all over, and Jonathan starts making choking sounds and then I smell what seems to me to be the smell of toast burning in a toaster, and then it doesn’t smell like toast but it smells like when the dentist drills in your mouth at a cavity and how it doesn’t hurt because of the Novocain but this weird burning smell comes up…And I look at Jonathan and his face is all red and then the color in his eyes just kind of melts into nothing.”
Lights Out Page 27