Burnout

by Adrienne Maria Vrettos

  —

  It’s too small in the closet. Too dark. I stand awkwardly with one foot by Seemy’s knee, the other by her head. My right hand holds the door shut against the weight of Seemy’s body.

  I can hear the car still chugging on the street.

  There is a click and a creak as the barn-style doors are shoved apart. Footsteps on the stone floor. The creak of stall doors as they are pulled open one by one.

  Turner’s gravelly voice, a sick singsong calling out, “Oh, girls, I’m home!”

  I stay still, blinking away the sweat that is pooling in the corners of my eyes. I stay still except for my eyes. They move with each step he takes across the first floor, like I am watching him instead of staring into the dark.

  He calls out as he walks. “Are you in the first stall? Hooch has the car all warmed up for you.” There is the sound of the doors being kicked open. “No, not in that one.”

  “Are you in the second stall?” I hear the groan of the stall door. “No, not in that one either.”

  He does this for each stall. “Well,” he says loudly, “I guess nobody’s home.”

  I know he’s screwing with us. I know he knows I can hear him. I hear the front door squeak. “I guess I’ll just go, then.”

  He doesn’t even finish the sentence before he scrambles up the ladder. Every drop of blood in my body is screaming at me to run. But I don’t. I stay still. My hand on the doorknob is cramping. I squeeze the knob harder to keep from shaking.

  Mom says bodies like ours are made to cast large shadows. She says we’re meant to lift the world up on our shoulders and spin it round. She says we’re meant to roar through our lives and kick up dust.

  He is in the hayloft with us now. He is walking quickly across the floor.

  My fingers wrench as the doorknob is turned.

  I hold on to the door, and Turner pulls harder. I hold on for a moment and then just as he starts to rasp, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I slam myself against the door so that it crashes open, and then I am tumbling with Turner across the room. It strikes me then how horribly intimate fighting someone is. I can smell him, feel his breath on my face as he grunts, feel the texture of his palm as it grips the curve where my neck and shoulder meet, feel his other hand in a fist, gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt, pulling me close to him until we are chest to chest. He twists both hands; I realize he’s trying to push me off balance, and I struggle to stay upright. I’m surprised at his strength, scared of how solid he feels, terrified of feeling his weight on top of me. His laugh is dry and gleeful, and I fight to stay standing, until he kicks my feet out from under me. I land hard on the floor, my right hip and elbow taking most of the weight of my fall. It hurts.

  But my body is my battleship, and I will not be sunk. I kick up, hard, right between his legs and then roll away as he doubles over, his arms shooting out to grab me. I scramble up to my feet.

  Turner tries to stand up straight, but I’ve hurt him and he has to hunch. He’s ten feet away. We both sway a little, waiting for the other to move. There is quietness in fighting for your life. There are only the sounds of our feet on the dusty floor, of our breathing, of our clothing rubbing against itself. Turner breaks the silence. “Big girl’s got a big kick,” he says.

  I don’t answer. I just watch him, my body tense and ready to move. I vibrate with fear and adrenaline and the realization that comes again and again: This is really happening. I want to scream for help, but I’m afraid Hooch will hear. I can’t fight them both.

  “How’s little Samantha?” Turner asks, looking past me to where Seemy lies half in and half out of the closet. He moves a little closer. I step back, closer to the closet, my body shaking in expectation. “How’s she feeling right now?” He steps to his right, forcing me to step away. “Because I’d guess she has just a couple more hours until it’s lights-out.” He moves again, and I have to move too, and then our positions are reversed and he is by the closet door, between me and Seemy. He keeps talking. “We might have gave her too much. But that girl can drink! You know that, right? You, though, you and your little sips, it’ll take longer for you.”

  I need to keep him talking, I need to keep him from turning his attention to Seemy. I ask him, “What do you mean?”

  His laugh is almost soundless now, a wet rush of air. “You been walking around dead all day and you don’t even know it!”

  Behind him, Seemy stirs a little.

  I can’t help it, I look at her face, and while my eyes aren’t on him, Turner says, “I’m just going to have to speed it up for both y’all.” And then he lunges at me. I force myself not to move and let him grab my shoulders. I put my hands on top of his, grip hard, and spin hard to the right, yanking him off balance. I keep spinning and then let go, hoping he will fly across the floor. He doesn’t. He stumbles only a few steps, but when he looks at me he doesn’t look like he’s having fun anymore. He looks pissed. He recovers fast, raises a fist, and comes at me again, but this time I move so he runs right at the empty window frame. He stops short, turns and spits at me. “Clever girl, but I ain’t going out the window.”

  He comes at me again and there are sounds of footsteps coming up the front steps and into the house. My heart drops and Turner sneers at me in triumph. “Up here!” he yells, and I know in a minute Hooch is going to come scrambling up the ladder and I’m going to have to fight them both, and I’m probably going to lose. I look at Seemy, lying still on the floor, and I’m filled with such sadness. And more than that. Bubbling up through the sadness, snaking up and breaking the surface, is rage. Anger is a gift. My body bursts into flames. It doesn’t matter that Turner can’t see them. I am on fire.

  He’s surprised when I grab on to his wrists, and I can see him trying to figure out what I’m doing. I can see him for the first time feeling my weight, my strength, my power. I wrench him forward and he laughs, moving his feet fast to keep from falling over. I yank harder this time, swinging him a little, and he’s caught off guard, so this time he leans back, trying to pull me off balance. For a moment we are suspended like that, holding each other up. And then I let go. He falls against the windowsill and as I’m dropping to my knees he gives me this look like, Nice try. I grab both of his feet, pull them up off the floor, and flip that monster out the window.

  I turn just as the top rung of the ladder creaks.

  I am ready to fight again.

  But I don’t have to.

  Toad bursts into the room, fists raised in an almost comic stance. He screams, “Where is she?”

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” I shout, all of the breath and fire in my body escaping. I am so relieved to see his stupid face I could cry. “What are you doing here?” I ask again.

  “Saving Seemy!” he says, looking around wildly.

  I can’t even speak; I just point to the window.

  He walks over uncertainly, and we both look outside. Below, Turner’s pale face glints in the moonlight. He landed on his back, the soft mud sucking him in so his arms and legs stick up a little, like a roach stuck on its back. He moves one arm a little and then his howl of pain travels up to us. Toad leans out and spits on him. The front yard is lit up then. First by police car lights reflecting down the narrow alley, and then by flashlights sweeping across the front lawn. We watch one light settle on Turner and grow more intense as the police officer approaches and leans over him. She calls into the radio on her shoulder for an ambulance. Another beam of light travels up to where we stand in the window. We both raise a hand, shielding our eyes, and back away.

  I hurry over to Seemy and drop to my knees.

  “I came here and looked for her. Before, I mean. Before you came to see me.” Toad says, staying by the window. I glance at him. He looks terrified. His words rush out. “I swear it, Nan. I came here and I called out for her. I checked the stalls. But I didn’t come up here. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. I just . . . I should have come up here. And then after I saw you, I rem
embered. Like, like, flash. Boom! I remembered the hayloft . . .” He trails off, raises his chin and asks with a quivering voice, “Is she dead?”

  I shake my head, almost smile. “No, she’s not dead.”

  He walks over, drops to the floor next to me. We each take one of her hands. I can hear the carriage house doors being pushed all the way open.

  “Are you okay?” he asks me.

  I shake my head, the darkness creeping in. “Tell them to help Seemy. Tell them to help her.”

  Toad looks at me. “What’d they give you?”

  Darkness.

  EPILOGUE

  I dream about Seemy sometimes.

  We’re at her parents’ farm, and we’re walking through a cornfield in the sun, like we’re in a laundry detergent commercial or something. There are corn plants between us, towering higher than our heads, filtering the sunlight, and I can’t get a clear view of her. I catch glimpses of her hair. Her narrow wrist. Her pointed chin. I hear her laugh my name. I reach out to take her hand, I want to pull her toward me so I can see her face. But she’s too far away, even though she’s right next to me.

  I wake up and have to remind myself she’s not dead.

  She’s just in a room somewhere with locks on the windows but no lock on the bathroom door. I get this desperate need sometimes to know if she can see the sky from her room. I asked Mom about it once and she said, “She’s at a boarding school rehab for rich kids, dollface, not solitary confinement. I’m sure if it wasn’t there already, her parents had the sky imported.”

  It took them two days to suck the poison out of me. Two days I spent dreaming that I was digging my way out of a sleep that pressed itself against me from all sides—a thick, rich, black soil. I woke exhausted, my arms and legs spent from dreamed effort.

  I could only stay awake for a moment at first, but the sight of Mom and Dad and the Tick by my bedside made being sucked under not as scary. I knew they would be waiting for me when I dug my way out again.

  When I woke up for real Mom told me not to cry and wiped away my tears with her fingertips. I kept saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and she kept saying, I know, my love, I know. Dad was holding the Tick; I said to the Tick, Hey buddy, and he hid his face in Dad’s shoulder. Dad bent down to kiss me on the forehead, and the Tick practically coiled himself around Dad’s neck so we wouldn’t have to touch.

  It was Thanksgiving before he would let me hug him again. At first I thought he was just angry at me. But then in family therapy it came out that he was actually afraid to love me, because it would hurt too much when I died again. Not if, but when. Hearing that felt like a punch in the throat. It’s amazing how much love and anger and fear can fit in one little kid’s body.

  It’s cold now, almost Christmas, and most mornings I wake up with the Tick curled up beside me, hugging my arm like a teddy bear, holding tight to make sure I don’t go anywhere. It was Dr. Friedman who found us the family therapist, and besides the family therapy and the just me therapy, Mom and I go to see her, just the two of us. I never saw Mom looking like she wanted to fold up into herself until I sat across from her in the therapist’s office. I’d never seen her not relish the structure of her bones or solidness of her body. She looked as though she wanted to slide between the cushions like a lost penny.

  Therapy is a lot of talking and “active listening.” Sometimes it’s kind of amazing and sometimes it’s kind of exhausting. It’s helping, though. I know that, because it doesn’t hurt to look at Mom anymore, and I don’t think it hurts her to look at me. We still fight. About my hair, mostly, since I shaved it into a Mohawk when I got out of the hospital. I’m hoping it will be long enough to have liberty spikes by the time summer comes. Truth is, we both kind of enjoy bickering about my hair. It feels so normal.

  I see Dad a lot more now. I go out to Greenpoint Sunday mornings and spend the day with him and the Tick, and then bring the Tick home Sunday night. Mom doesn’t come. I know it bothers the Tick, and it bothers me, but I told him you can’t make people love each other. It’s going to have to be enough that he and I love Mom and Dad, and that they love us.

  Toad and I hung out the other night. Weird, right? I asked Mom for permission first. Toad wasn’t worth getting in trouble over. She said he had to come up to our apartment first, and by the time she was done grilling him (and feeding him milk and cookies because he was too damn skinny) it was dark out. Hearing her ask him questions I learned all sorts of things. Like, Toad actually has a family. They live in New Jersey. He never stopped living with them and would go home every night after hanging out with Seemy and me. I always assumed he slept in some crappy, rat-infested flophouse. The ugly truth is that’s what I wanted to believe. He graduated in May and is in school now, at CUNY, for graphic design.

  We walked up to Union Square and looked at the Christmas lights. He bought me a hot apple cider. We talked about a lot of stuff. He said he was glad I didn’t drink anymore, because I was a spectacularly bad drunk. He could tell I never enjoyed it. We laughed at that for a while. He said he liked my hair, especially since I wasn’t pairing it with all that weird black clothing anymore. He said I used to look like the Grim Reaper. I tensed up a little, worried he would tell me I looked stupid wearing the sort of things Seemy used to wear, except not quite as twee. I like having a Mohawk and wearing a red party dress with my lace-up combat boots. But he didn’t say anything bad. We talked about Seemy. Of course. I hated you, he said, because she loved you. Maybe not the way you wanted. But she did. She loved you. I smiled at him. Yeah, well. Right back at you. I think we were both bummed to learn that she hadn’t contacted either of us.

  Without either of us acknowledging it, we walked up to the carriage house. On the way we compared what information we had about Turner and Hooch.

  They are in jail, awaiting trial. They thought they’d hit a gold mine when they met Seemy in the park on Halloween. They had all sorts of plans for her.

  When we got to the alley that leads to the carriage house we stopped and didn’t walk any further. We looked down the alley and saw they’ve built a plywood fence, blocking any view. Neither of us said anything for a long time. Finally I said, She loved this place. Toad smiled, snorted. I knew she would. Didn’t matter though. I shook my head, No, I guess it didn’t. He looked at me, a bemused expression on his face. What do you think it says about us? That we spent so much time trying to get her to love us the way we wanted her to? I shrugged. Self-esteem issues? I don’t know. That’s what my therapist thinks, anyway. For you, I said with a smile, it just means you’re a shmuck. He knocked me lightly in the shoulder. We looked down the alley for another moment, and then it just seemed obvious that it was time to say good-bye. Toad nodded at me. See you around. I nodded back. Maybe. I think we both knew it was a lie.

  I’m still going to my new school. Kids saw what happened to me, what almost happened to me, on the news, so my anonymity is gone. It’s okay, though. The stoic lone wolf thing kind of sucked.

  Mom says I’ll get through this. She says everyone has a tough time when they’re a teenager. Sometimes, I even believe her. I can go whole hours, days, and once even a whole weekend without my body going rigid with memory—and even worse, flashes of what might have been. I feel these flashes of false memory as if they were real, as if I were a ghost unable to shake the violence of my death. When I feel this way I trace the four thin white scars from my elbow to my wrist and rest my fingers on my pulse with its reassuring rhythm. Still Here. Still Here. Still Here.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest thanks to Tracey Adams for making my dreams come true, to Karen Wojtyla for her patience and insight as Nan’s story morphed from one thing to another and back again, and to Emily Fabre for her good humor and for asking difficult questions. Thank you to my mom and dad and big brother, to all of my aunties and uncles and cousins, and to all of my family north and south. Thank you to my family at 557 Broadway. And thank you to the Brooklyn coffee houses that gave me
a place to scribble away: Champion Coffee, the Greenpoint Coffee House, and Brooklyn Label.