The History of Jane Doe

by Michael Belanger

  “You know Simon and I grew up here, right?” I asked her.

  “So you never had any dreams to begin with.” She made a sarcastic face, as if to say zing.

  In an attempt to flirt, I made the same face back at her, but judging from Jane’s reaction, went past sarcastic and contorted my face into something you might see in a horror movie.

  “But when she moved back,” Mrs. Doe continued, “she realized the town was stuck in the fifties. No one was protesting the war. The kids were still wearing collared shirts and khakis. Women were stuck at home doing the cooking and cleaning. That’s when my mother realized she needed to bring Burgerville into the new decade. She called some of her friends from the city and they put on a big concert right in the middle of Green Cow Acres. Burgerville was never the same. I can’t believe they don’t teach that in school.”

  I shrugged. “Roger Lutz doesn’t even talk about it.”

  “That surprises me,” Mrs. Doe said.

  “You know Roger Lutz?” Jane asked her mom.

  “Everyone knows Roger Lutz,” Mrs. Doe said. She glanced back to the kitchen. “I better go help in there.” She got up, placed her napkin on the table, and walked away.

  The three of us sat in silence. I struggled to create a new image of Jane out of everything I had seen in the past hour. Her family was so completely . . . normal. Jane’s annoyance at her mother’s stories, her father’s corny jokes. The only unanswered question was why. Why had the Does come back?

  Jane picked up my napkin and placed it on my lap. She brushed my arm. My heart started racing.

  “Where are your manners?” she said.

  “Your parents seem really cool,” Simon said to Jane.

  Apparently that wasn’t what Jane wanted to hear. She cringed. “Maybe they’ll consider adopting you.”

  “I’m too old,” he said, making it sound like a rebuttal.

  “What about you, Ray?” Jane asked.

  I began to fidget with my napkin. “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents, you never talk about them.”

  “We have a mutual agreement,” I said, taking a sip of water.

  The scooter hummed, growing louder as Mr. Doe rolled in carrying two plates with a hamburger and fries on each.

  “None of you are vegetarians, right?” he asked.

  “It’s against the law,” I said, seriously. An old statute no one had ever bothered to change.

  I looked down at my burger, my mouth watering. I took a bite and as I began chewing, noticed the entire table staring at me, their hands folded in front of their chins.

  “We say grace, Ray,” Mrs. Doe said.

  “Right,” I said through a mouth full of chewed burger. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that surprised me. Jane had her eyes closed and her hands folded.

  * * *

  • • •

  We finished our dinner, had dessert—my mom’s chocolate chip cookies and Simon’s milk—and then said our good-byes to Jane’s parents. Simon and I profusely thanked Mr. and Mrs. Doe for their hospitality.

  “No thanks necessary,” Mr. Doe said, his voice booming in the entryway.

  Mrs. Doe, her voice barely a whisper compared to Mr. Doe’s, said we were always welcome. Then Mr. Doe heaved himself off his scooter and onto an electrical escalator chair. He slowly ascended the stairwell, saluting Simon and me as he gained altitude.

  “We’ll be upstairs,” Mrs. Doe said, “but you’re welcome to stay until your curfew.” She began to climb the stairs, careful to stay a few paces behind her husband.

  The steely eyes of Grandma Irene watched us from the top of the stairwell. If she really was a hippie visionary, I wondered why she looked more like a mortician than a music festival pioneer.

  * * *

  • • •

  We stayed for a couple of hours, watching TV in the family room. The occasional footsteps could be heard above, as well as Mrs. Doe’s voice calling down the stairs, asking if we needed any refreshments.

  Jane began flipping through the channels, the sound coming in bursts of chaotic noise.

  Simon was the first to ask about Jane’s father’s disability.

  “He’s just lazy,” Jane said.

  It seemed almost like a nervous tic, the way she kept changing the channel, barely stopping to see what was on. She’d stop channel surfing only to talk.

  “He’s paralyzed,” Jane added soon after, stating the obvious. An infomercial of someone selling a vacuum cleaner played in the background.

  “Has he always been like that?” Simon asked.

  “No,” Jane said. She seemed to withdraw into herself, the remote clenched tightly in her hand as she kept her gaze focused on the TV.

  A barrage of light pierced the darkness before Jane momentarily stopped on a scene from a romantic comedy.

  “I don’t talk to my dad,” I said.

  Our conversation mirrored the flashing mosaic of images on the TV. No connection, no continuity, just random snippets of conversation followed by losing ourselves in a tangle of thoughts.

  “I caught my parents having sex once,” Simon said in a sad tone.

  Jane took her finger off the remote, landing on a cartoon of two animals speaking to each other, then resumed her channel surfing once again.

  The light vibrated and transformed the dark room: a disco ball that could change color on demand, giving the room a surreal quality, dreamlike in its intensity. It felt like anything could happen.

  I was sitting next to Jane on the couch. Simon lay on the loveseat, his feet propped over the edge. Eventually we heard a faint snore coming from him.

  Jane and I drifted closer to each other. By the time I realized what had happened, our legs were touching.

  Jane turned the TV off. The silence made all the other noises overpowering. The ticking of the grandfather clock. The pacing upstairs. Simon’s snoring. A symphony of the everyday sounds of the night brought to the level of magic simply because we now paid attention to them. Our breathing added to the mix, a driving rhythm beneath the makeshift orchestra.

  “Thanks for coming,” Jane said.

  I could feel her looking at me. I continued to stare straight ahead.

  “Thanks for having me,” I said, repeating the same dull line I’d learned to say since I was a kid.

  “My grandmother didn’t have such a happy ending,” Jane said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we used to listen to music together. She’d show me Pete Seeger, Hendrix, the Beatles. We’d play her old records. But after my grandpa died, she refused to come out of her room. Wouldn’t eat. She didn’t last much longer after that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Jane shrugged.

  The orchestra swelled. Like one of those cheesy commercials, the sounds seemed to be interconnected, the footsteps, the ticking, the snoring, our breathing, all forming a musical whole.

  “What’s your biggest secret?” Jane asked, whispering as if telling me a secret herself.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must be something. Something you’ve done that you wish you could take back.”

  So much of my life was telling Burgerville’s secrets, I hadn’t thought to collect any of my own.

  “Besides the time Simon and I made out?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Darn,” Jane said. “I was hoping to be your first.”

  The symphony momentarily disappeared. I turned to look at her, willing myself to lean forward. History always made everything seem so inevitable. But it really wasn’t. Lips didn’t come together on their own.

  I swallowed hard, trying to convince myself to just go for it. But before I could work up the courage, Jane moved closer, so close I couldn’t really see her.

  “You
really think all that stuff you say about history applies to life?” she said. “Like if you understand it better, it somehow changes things?”

  I nodded. “I think so. We choose which parts to focus on. We exaggerate some, and leave other parts out. But the more stuff we include, the truer it becomes.”

  Jane seemed to think about this for a while.

  “What got you so interested in history, anyway?” she asked.

  “When I was little,” I said, “my dad would take me to the Burgerville Library and we’d look at old pictures of people in the town archives and make up stories about their lives. It was kind of our thing. All of these long-dead shopkeepers, farmers, blacksmiths, you name it. We’d ignore all of the mayors and councilmen, and tell the history of Burgerville from their perspective. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked.”

  “Do you miss him?” Jane asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Maybe someday you can write my history,” Jane said quietly.

  “You should write your own.”

  We sat in silence for what felt like hours. I turned to look at her. Her eyes were closed and her breathing had calmed to a gentle rise and fall. I put a cushion under her head and took one of the blankets strewn across the couch and draped it over her.

  I went to shake Simon, but his eyes were already open, staring at the ceiling. I motioned toward the front door and we tiptoed out of the room.

  We stopped in front of the stairs, the piercing eyes of Grandma Irene peering down at us.

  I held her gaze, feeling the weight of her sadness.

  Simon and I walked out into the cool night. The fresh air filled my lungs and I gulped it in.

  “They loved us,” Simon said as we made our way to the minivan. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he added, as if making a speech at an award show.

  I patted him on the back. “You too.”

  A full moon hung high overhead, making it seem like there was a spotlight on us. Simon practically skipped to the van, jumping into the driver’s seat, the engine rumbling to life as I lingered outside.

  I turned to take one last look at the Does’ house and found myself thinking that maybe a lot more than green cows lay beyond the horizon.

  155 DAYS AFTER

  NOTABLE EVENTS FROM THIS WEEK IN SCHOOL

  1) Mr. Hillman gave a lecture on the merits of isolationism. It started off strong, then became a diatribe against his ex-wife for being distant in their marriage even though he was the “perfect husband.”

  2) Mr. Parker stopped me in the hallway to ask me how I was doing with “everything.” When I told him I was doing “fine”—I find it best to be as vague as possible—he gave me a long list of comic books to read that helped him through difficult times in his life, most notably the death of his parents, and by his parents, I mean Batman’s parents.

  3) Harold Ronkowski, who I haven’t talked to since middle school, cornered me at the urinal and wanted to talk about how I was doing. “I know we’re not friends,” he said, “but I’m around if you want to talk.” Unfortunately, Harold didn’t abide by the look-straight-ahead rule when peeing, so it was extremely awkward. “I’m fine,” I told him. “It’s not your fault,” he said. I flushed and walked away.

  4) I got a text message in the middle of chemistry, and for the whole class I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was from Jane. I know, it’s crazy, but I fully expected to look at the phone and see Jane’s name, some text about going to see another crazy Burgerville landmark or a line from one of her favorite folk songs. Instead it was my mom: Have a great day! At first I just said, No, but then I felt kind of guilty, so I added a winky-face emoji.

  5) Simon’s shoes ran out of batteries. “They haven’t heard the last of me,” he said when the lights finally went out during lunch. “I’m definitely considering writing a strongly worded letter.” But then he looked down at his plate, a collection of every dairy product imaginable, and said, “I probably won’t. But I’m sending very negative energy their way.”

  6) My dad called me. He’ll do that from time to time. He didn’t leave a voicemail or anything. I guess after over two years of not speaking, we’re not really at voicemail-familiar. More like dental-postcard-reminder. After he moved to Florida and I saw how upset my mom was, I guess I didn’t have much to say to him. Well, I have things to say to him now, but they’re not the kind of things you’d write on a postcard.

  7) I made this list based on Rich’s recommendation to “catalogue meaningful events in your life.”

  193–192 DAYS BEFORE

  SIMON’S LAW

  Simon and I only realized how much our lives had changed when Jane went to Pennsylvania to celebrate Thanksgiving with her relatives. It was like being given fire, then having it taken away after only a couple of months. Jane seemed upset by her forced departure, as if she was spending the holiday on a small island in the middle of nowhere—surrounded by cannibals.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said during biology, “but I wish I was staying in Burgerville.”

  “Weird relatives? Extra limbs? War criminals?”

  “Not exactly. It just brings back bad memories.”

  I thought of my own family trips, the nonsensical fights about directions or where to eat, my dad occasionally threatening to walk home no matter the distance. All the signs of a healthy, functional family.

  “Whenever I get upset about something, I just think of the most random image possible. It kind of makes you lose track of whatever’s getting you down.” It was a strategy I’d been developing ever since my dad left.

  Jane narrowed her eyes.

  “Seriously, it works. So if you’re getting annoyed with your family, just think about”—I paused, trying to come up with a good one—“a polar bear riding a scooter . . . Oh, and the bear’s completely hairless.”

  Jane smiled. “Nice touch.”

  “Okay, now you try.”

  Jane thought for a little while. “I think I got it. Mr. Parker dressed as Batman casually eating a burrito.”

  I laughed. “That’s a little too realistic. We’ll work on it.”

  At the front of class, Mr. Parker continued to ramble on about the intersection of comic books and biology: “Who can tell me why Storm from the X-Men might have been born with mutated genes?”

  Everyone in class looked down at their notebooks. “Okay, I want you to pair, care, and share,” he said, basically a ten-minute talking break with a twist—everyone had to say one nice thing about their partner before trying to figure out what the hell Mr. Parker was talking about.

  I thought about all of the things I could say to Jane. You’ve made everything in Burgerville better. You’re the kind of beautiful that makes the word beautiful seem stupid. You remind me of spring and fall and chocolate chip cookies. But I was too nervous to actually say any of them. I finally settled on something more low stake. “I like your shirt,” I said. It was another one of her obscure folk tees, this one advertising some sort of Folktacular that had occurred in Brooklyn.

  “Three days of hardcore acoustic folk,” Jane said.

  “Your turn,” I said.

  She looked like she was going through her own list of compliments, but I guess she wasn’t ready to share her list either.

  “You still have all your hair,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  On Thanksgiving Day, Simon and I went with my mom to a homeless shelter to serve Thanksgiving dinner, a tradition started after my dad left. I guess my mom was trying to make sure I became a good person. And that I didn’t turn into a selfish, egotistical asshole like my dad. At least that’s what I heard her say on the phone once.

  The shelter was located in the city of Murphy. Unfortunately for Murphy, it had the highest poverty rate in the county, the highest crime rate, and Burgerville County Mag
azine had rated it “The worst place to drive through” nine out of the past ten years.

  Every year, when we crossed the border into Murphy, Simon and I would look for the sign that let us know we arrived. Years ago, some vandal had gone the extra mile and given the city a slogan that fully warned any visitors of the truth about their upcoming destination.

  “There it is,” Simon said excitedly.

  “They still haven’t changed it,” I said.

  The sign featured the name Murphy written in big white letters on a blue background, with the city emblem underneath, a coat of arms made up of two cows being balanced on the scales of justice. Scrawled across the bottom in black bold letters, someone had written: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

  Although they were spray-painted, it felt like the words had been written into the very character of the city.

  “Murphy’s Law,” I said.

  “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong,” Simon said gravely.

  * * *

  • • •

  We arrived at the homeless shelter a little bit past three o’clock and immediately started working. Simon and I put on our hairnets and finished up preparing the food, stirring massive cauldron-sized pots of stuffing, basting turkeys with kitchen utensils that could have doubled as squirt guns (and momentarily did), and putting slices of pumpkin pie on small plates.

  My mom stood across the kitchen talking to a man I had never seen before. They were both wearing aprons, putting the final touches on a gigantic mound of mashed potatoes.

  “That guy looks like Superman,” Simon said.

  “In an apron,” I said.

  “No, that’s his cape. It’s just turned around.”

  My mom caught me looking at her and motioned for me to come over.

  I approached hesitantly.

  “This is my friend Tim,” she said.

  He took off his plastic glove and we shook hands.

  I looked at my mom suspiciously. The idea of her having a friend was strange. For the past two years, she seemed to exist only as an extension of my life: picking me up from school, making dinner, bothering me to do my homework. I could only imagine her as a mom.