I pumped my fist and held the tube in my right hand, waited for the vein to rise on my left forearm. Then I set the sharp end of the needle there, on top of the vein. When I pushed it, it didn’t go in right away because I was scared and I didn’t push it hard enough. I was worried about how much the needle might hurt, but then I pushed harder and the skin came up into a small mound, and the needle slid into that mound. I felt the prick of it and I didn’t like the feeling, but I did it anyway, and I pushed the needle to the end.
Then I waited.
Having the tube there didn’t feel like anything and I didn’t breathe hard. I knew I’d skipped some steps in the ceremony, but that didn’t matter to me because it didn’t hurt too much to have it there in my arm, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to breathe like my mom did anyway. That breathing she did always made my stomach feel tight, like just before I threw up.
I was next to my mom on the floor, and that was good. The tube and the rubber band were just like she did them, and I leaned against her body and I felt her body rising and falling with her breathing as she slept there. My breathing became her breathing, the same rhythm, and I fell asleep leaning against her.
I woke up to her shaking me.
She screamed, “What the fuck did you do?” Then she slapped me. It was worse than when Zeus caught my wrist. Worse than when he flipped up his tutu.
My mom pulled the tube out of my arm, quick, and threw it against the wall, and I hoped for some reason that it wouldn’t break. I thought to myself, even in that moment, that I could find it later and put it with the others as long as she didn’t break it.
She dug her fingernails into my shoulders and shook me, shook me four or five times, and she was crying, and her mouth was twisted like she was one of those witches from the Disney movies, and I looked at her teeth where the brown and yellow lines outlined each individual tooth. I tried to pull away from her, but her hands were too strong and she yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not joking. Tell me.”
I said, “I just…” But I didn’t say anything else, and I wished I hadn’t fallen asleep. I wished she wasn’t screaming like that. I wasn’t sorry that I’d stuck the tube in my arm because it hadn’t really hurt, and I’d wanted to know how it felt for a long time. But I was sorry I’d gotten caught.
My mom stopped shaking me and hugged me instead. She started rocking and hugging me, and she was crying now, and she hugged me so tight that I had to turn my head to the side to get a breath in. Her body odor was like cooked onions at Taco Bell. She was sobbing and her voice sounded wet, garbled, and she said, “I’m quitting. Don’t you even think for one second that I’m not quitting because I am.” Her body shivered and she sobbed some more. “I’m done, you know? I’m done right now. Right here. I’m done.”
That’s what she said, but she was never done.
PABLO NERUDA
Middle of the day. We’re at my grandparents’ house. Creature says, “I found a new princess.”
“You what?”
“Super hot, baby. From the 14th century. Her name’s Saint Anna of Kashin.”
“You found a hot 14th-century princess?”
“Gorgeous.” Creature winks at me. “At least that’s how she looks in the oil painting. She has a halo of gold around her head. It’s like a smear of metal. Can you imagine making out with someone who has a halo of gold around her head?”
I say, “You know there’s a small chance that she might not’ve had that halo of gold in real life.”
Creature spins his basketball on his index finger, taps it with his left hand, and keeps the ball spinning. “I believe in halos. You believe what you want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want, all right?”
I try to spin my ball on my index finger, but I don’t have that trick down yet. The ball keeps falling off one way or the other.
Creature says, “And I’m putting this girl in the guidebook for sure. She’s a great addition. Did you read those pages I wrote the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“And what’d you think?”
“It’s weird, man.”
“So?” he says.
“So the book’s weird. And it’s written different from how you talk too.”
“I know, baby.” Creature raises an eyebrow. “That’s the magic of the guidebook. It brings out the literary man in me. The Pablo Neruda: Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender.”
“Creat, I think you might be messed up in the head.”
“You think?” Creature pivots around an invisible defender, then dribbles through his legs. He says, “I know what I like, and that’s all. Basketball and books. Nothing else.” He pulls up for a jump shot but doesn’t let the ball go. He says, “Hey, you want to play under the bridge?”
“Sure, if there’s a game.”
“Should be,” he says. “I’ll catch you later, then?”
“Yep, and good luck with that Russian halo girl.”
“Oh, don’t even worry about that. She’s mine already.”
WALK OUT SLOW
Little things mostly. That’s all. And I don’t even know why. I like the feeling of it, I guess, that moment when I have it in my hand and I slide it into my pocket. Like there are guitar strings inside of me and the lowest string is vibrating that one deep sound.
Doesn’t matter what it is, a candy bar, a key chain, a Christmas ornament. It doesn’t have to be expensive. I don’t care about that. Sometimes after I walk out and I don’t get caught, I throw whatever it is in the bushes. I usually feel bad about it later, feel like something’s wrong with me, but the next time I’m in a store, I get that urge again, and I start to ask myself, What if I just walked out? What if I just put this in my pocket? Or even better, what if I held it in my hand and walked out so smooth and so slow that no one even noticed?
THIS IS WHAT WE HOLD
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see your hands: puffy, wind-burned, pink-cracked, yellow seeping at the edges of the cracks. Too much outdoor living, outdoor cooking, outdoor sleeping in urban filth. Too little hand-washing.
Those same small hands I’ve always known, needle-scraped, nettle-scraped, black gunk under the fingernails, overgrown fingernails, broken fingernails with thick edges, nails jagging up and down like a hedge trimmed by a drunk.
I look at my hands. Think about what’s fair and unfair. Wonder if I deserve the hands that I have: 2-in-1-oil-marked hands and imperfect, but clean enough. No infections. No pain. Nothing to worry about when I pull them out of my pockets, make food, or grip a basketball.
I wonder if we’re given our hands, if the hands we’ll have in our adult lives are there from our births, waiting for us, waiting for our futures. Or if our hands are a choice? A series of choices? And if so, are your hands a choice?
This is what I ask: Would anyone choose your hands?
GREEN
My grandpa’s in the study, rooting around in a drawer. I can’t hear if my grandma’s up.
I say, “Hey,” but Grandpa doesn’t hear me. He probably doesn’t have his hearing aids in yet. I walk past him into the kitchen.
I crack an egg into a cup and slug it down. Then I think about how many grams of protein I need to get bigger, to be as strong as Creature, so I crack another egg and drink that too. Then I pour some Cap’n Crunch in the cup, add milk, and get out a spoon.
My grandpa comes in and sits down across from me. He’s putting his hearing aid in his right ear. He says, “How many nights in a row now?”
I swallow a bite of cereal. “Today’s June 28th, so 38 nights so far.”
He nods. “And what’s your goal?”
“100 straight.” I don’t know why I do these things, but I always have. I make little goals for myself, little challenges. And when I think of something, I have to do it.
“Camping out 100 nights, huh?” Grandpa puts his other hearing aid in. “I never did something like that.”
I take another b
ite. Talk with my mouth full. “Me either, until now.”
Grandpa smiles. The morning version of him. Opposite of the night version. He picks up the paper and reads the City/Region section while I eat the rest of my cereal. I say, “Is Grandma up yet?”
“No. She had a rough night.”
“Did she throw up a lot?” I go back to the cupboard for more Cap’n Crunch, add another egg, mix the yolk and cereal with the tip of my spoon, and picture the pounds spreading across my muscles.
Grandpa must not have heard me. I didn’t realize that he’d been reading my lips before. He sometimes puts his hearing aids in but forgets to turn them on. I lean under the cupboard so he can see my mouth. “Did she throw up a lot?”
“Throw up? Yes,” he says. “She threw up until, maybe…two a.m.?”
I push my cereal down into the milk with my spoon. Slurp a little. Go back to the table.
Grandpa says, “How many lawns are you mowing today?”
“Three.”
“On the far side?”
“Always,” I say. “No one over here can afford to pay.”
Grandpa nods his head. He folds the newspaper and flips it. “Did you see that someone moved into that Sullivan house last week?”
“Yep.” I take another bite of cereal.
“Are you going to offer to do their lawn too?”
I take a bite and think about the girl on the dock. Say, “I probably should.”
EDGING
From my tent, it’s only 300 yards to the back lawns of the nice homes across the lake, but since there’s no direct access from our trailer park to the Gilham neighborhood, I have to bike half a mile on Green Acres, then half a mile up Gilham to get to the big houses on the far side.
My Schwinn is a steel frame, strong enough to pull the mini-trailer loaded with the lawn mower, weed whacker, trimmer, gas can, oil can, hand clippers, and debris buckets strapped down with bungee cords.
I don’t knock on the door at my first house. I just start weed-whacking. The owners and I already have an agreement set up, so I do my work whether or not they’re home. I know they’ll pay me later, and they’ll pay me well too. Good tippers. So I weed-whack, edge, then mow over the top.
Before I go to my second job, though, I stop at the house that the Sullivans used to own. I knock once and wait. No one comes. I consider leaving, but there’s a car in the driveway, so I knock again.
I’m about to leave when the door swings open. It’s the girl. She’s my age, give or take a year, tall, near my height, 5'9". Real pretty but with a scar on her face, under her eye, a big scar, maybe two inches across then down another inch, like an L turned on its side.
She’s staring at her phone, and she doesn’t look up when she opens the door, just says, “Yeah?”
I hesitate.
She has tan skin with straight black hair pulled up the way soccer players do with the double Nike headbands, and she’s one of those girls that cuts the collars out of her T-shirts. One side of her wide-open collar is off her shoulder, her pink bra strap crossing her collarbone into her shirt, and I follow that line down and look at her breasts. I try not to linger on them too long, but I check them out, and they’re nice too. Then I look back up at her face, high cheekbones and that scar.
I can’t see her eyes since she’s still looking at her phone screen.
She says, “Do you need something?”
I feel scroungy in my stained work shirt, and I wish I’d showered that morning after playing basketball. The carpet on the stairs behind the girl is white. The entryway floor is polished hardwood. Even the porch I’m standing on is clean and swept. I wonder if I’m dropping grass cuttings on the porch right now, wonder if I should sweep the porch if I earn the job.
I say, “Is your mom or dad home?”
“No,” she says. She’s scrolling the touch screen with her finger, running through Facebook or something. She has a brace on her right knee. Strong legs. Thin ankles.
I say, “Will you give them this flyer for me?” I hold out the paper that my grandma and I typed up together.
The girl takes the flyer and I see her look at my hands, then stop and take another look. She glances up at my face before going back to her phone. She says, “I’ll give it to them.” She turns and catches the door with her heel. Pivots to shut it.
I take a step back so the door doesn’t hit me in the face, and it’s good I do, because when that door closes, it slams so hard it sounds like something breaks inside the house.
I smile.
I don’t know why, but I’ve never minded when a pretty girl is a little rude at first. I like that edge. It reminds me of basketball, how you have to scrap a bit if you want to win.
I think about the girl as I work the next two yards, go through what I know about her: that scar, that pink bra strap, the way she swam in her clothes, her breasts, her legs, her knee brace, that quick cut of her green eyes.
LOSING
Saturday. I go down to the middle school to see if anyone’s playing on the outdoor courts, but the courts are empty. I dribble and shoot, do three sets of jump lunges and calf plyometrics to help build my vertical, and picture dunking while I do the sets.
Lots of guys who are 5'9" can dunk—and some guys, Nate Robinson for example, can throw down at that height—so it’s annoying that I still can’t. I’m close, and that’s good. I can grab the rim now, and if I go up hard, I can slide the ball across the top of the rim. But mostly I get rim-checked on the front edge. Part of my problem is that I can’t quite palm the ball, so I promise myself I’ll do grip strength on my Gripmaster before I go to sleep.
—
On the way home from the school, I see a sign tacked to three consecutive telephone poles. I stop and dribble in place while I read the sign. It says:
LOST DOG
MINIATURE TERRIER—NAMED MILO
LAST SEEN NEAR AYRES LAKE
CALL (541) 521-3574
I guess I should feel bad, because I’m pretty sure I know what happened to that dog, but I don’t. People lose dogs all the time, and usually to nothing as exciting as South American crocodiles. I lost a dog once, and it was messed up, and I was really sad for a while, but then I thought about it and realized that losing is all there is in life sometimes. Sometimes we just lose and lose and lose and there’s nothing we can do about it, so I guess I’d rather be eaten by a crocodile than get dog leukemia or have old-age dog hip problems or some shit like that. At least this dog got to go out fighting for his life.
FISHING
I walk down to the lake and look at the water. It’s greener lately. More algae. I haven’t seen or heard anything since I released the caimans, and I’m just guessing they ate that dog, but I’m pretty sure. I read online that they need warm water and warm weather year-round, that they don’t live this far north even in captivity, so I know that they might not survive for too long. But it’s hot now, hot every day, and they have a chance to do well, at least for the summer, and this summer’s all I need: a couple of evenings in the boat with Grandma, a few stories, something for Grandma to hear about, something interesting for her neighbors to tell her this last year.
We keep a canoe locked up near my tent. I undo the combination lock, take the chain off, flip the canoe over, pull fistfuls of clump grass to wipe out the spiderwebs. Then I go up to the porch to grab paddles, tackle, and my fishing pole from the trunk by the back door. Grandpa left half a bag of Doritos out on the picnic table next to his pipe, and I grab the chips too.
I strip off my shirt and throw it in the bottom of the canoe before dragging the boat to the water. I don’t want to sweat through my shirt right before dark, before the day cools off.
I slide the bow of the canoe into the water, then the rest of the hull, weighting the stern on the shore rocks. I put my left foot in and kick off, easing over the shelf into the deep. That’s my favorite moment of canoeing, the moment when the boat is floating for the first time and the whole thing rocks back and f
orth to find its center of balance. I like to wait and see how far the canoe will drift in a line, where the wind is blowing, and what’ll happen if I don’t paddle. It reminds me of that feeling I’d get when I was a kid and my mom was passed out and it was nighttime, and I knew she wasn’t waking up for a long time. I’d sneak out of the motel room, down the hall to the stairwell, and out the front lobby. Then I’d walk down 7th Street, past the women in short skirts and fishnet stockings, the men drinking 40s out of paper bags. I knew some of them, and sometimes they’d wave at me or give me a look like I wasn’t supposed to be out after dark.
I’d go in the 7-Eleven and wait until the clerk wasn’t watching me. I’d walk up and down those aisles until I could slide something in my pocket and walk to the door without anyone seeing me. Then I’d be back out on the street, cruising along in the dark, more traffic at night, with the smells of car exhaust, motor oil, Subway, and Taco Bell mixing together in the night’s air.
—
This evening, the lake is still, no wind, and the canoe cuts straight and slow across the deep. I paddle out to the center, looking across to the east side, to the long lawns behind the big houses, the wooden gazebos, and the plank-board docks that run 50 feet out into the water. Five of them have small sailboats tied to their moorings, but nobody else is out on the lake with me.
I eat handfuls of Doritos and wash them down with water.
I tie a rubber worm on and jig for smallmouth. Every once in a while, I paddle and watch the tip shiver with the weight of the canoe’s movement. I paddle north, where the algae fields aren’t as thick, where everything stays less boggy. It’s an hour before I catch a fish, and the bass I do catch isn’t big. It fights hard, but it’s medium-smallish when I bring it in. I pull the hook with needle-nose pliers, hit the fish on the gunnel, and throw it in the bottom of the canoe to fillet and eat when I get back home. Breaded, that fish might make half of a meal.
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