The History of Jane Doe

by Michael Belanger

  Jane: 12:23 a.m.: Doesn’t this goat look just like a cow?

  Me: 12:25 a.m.: Sorta. Why are you looking at pictures of goats in the middle of the night?

  Jane: 12:26 a.m.: The better question is, why aren’t you?

  Jane: 1:32 a.m.: I think I want to go to clown college.

  Jane: 1:33 a.m.: Not to be a clown, just to say I went to clown college.

  Jane: 1:45 a.m.: I guess you don’t care about my dreams.

  Jane: 1:53 a.m.: I WON’T be performing at your birthday.

  * * *

  • • •

  One night, Jane texted me twenty-two times, ranging from the somewhat disconcerting You look so peaceful while you sleep, to articles about Bigfoot, the Yeti, and aliens disguised as our most celebrated politicians. I didn’t see the texts until the next morning. When I saw her in biology, she looked withdrawn, safe behind her hoodie, her eyes half-closed.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  “I know,” I said, scanning through the texts, the last one a link to an article claiming the Bermuda Triangle was a front for government regulated alien abductions. “Is everything okay?”

  Jane shrugged. “Sometimes my brain won’t shut up.” She looked down at her desk, tracing lines in her notebook.

  Mr. Parker stood at the board in front of a picture of Aquaman. “He’d be classified as what type of species?”

  “Hey,” I whispered to Jane, “Aquaman working as a disgruntled barista who secretly dreams of becoming a Shakespearian actor.”

  Jane smirked. “That’s a whole movie.”

  “But seriously, you know you can tell me stuff, right?”

  She stopped doodling in her notebook and looked at me. “I like being distracted,” she said. “Even if it’s by men making coffee in Speedos.”

  “You mean, especially by men making coffee in Speedos.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Next class, Jane gave me a CD with all of Grandma Irene’s greatest hits. “You have some homework,” she whispered. Strangely enough, Mr. Parker’s lesson that day had nothing to do with comic books, but instead consisted of reading from an old worn-out textbook. His schedule of comic book conventions was wearing on him.

  I opened the CD case. Inside, Jane had drawn a picture of her grandmother playing guitar. There was a rainbow in the background, shining over a town that looked a lot like Burgerville, recognizable mostly from the random green cows dotting the landscape. Jane had listed the tracks on the CD in black marker, titles like “Firsts” and “Tree Song” and “Freedom Strings.”

  “You’re now ready to experience the awesomeness that was my grandmother,” Jane said. “Her music always puts me in a good mood.”

  “I’m honored,” I said.

  As soon as I got home from school, I put the CD in my old stereo. Acoustic guitar filled the room as Grandma Irene sang about being happy, loving your neighbor, protesting injustice, and on one song, the miracle of peanut butter. I found myself tapping my foot and nodding my head to the music.

  I wondered how Jane’s grandmother could have been so happy. I mean, peanut butter’s good, but is it that good? I also didn’t understand how someone so happy could have become the sullen woman in the portrait hanging in the Does’ stairwell. It somehow added a tinge of sadness to her music. There’s a reason historians don’t write about an event until after it’s already over. The ending changes how you see the beginning and middle.

  * * *

  • • •

  By the time winter break came around, Simon and I were confronted with the most shocking development in the history of Burgerville to date. Our friendship with Jane had earned us an invitation to the biggest party of the year, a rager at none other than Tommy Beddington’s house.

  On the night of the party, the three of us met at my house to get ready. Simon had on a Santa hat and a T-shirt featuring Santa Claus with his reindeer. Because Simon had bought it from his favorite custom T-shirt website, he appeared to be riding shotgun with Kris Kringle. Jane had dressed pretty much the same way she always did, with the exception of a red-and-green folk T-shirt that featured a bearded man who looked a lot like Santa Claus beneath the caption: O Come, All Ye Folkful. I’d decided to wear a green elf’s hat and a hideous Christmas sweater, red and green wool knitted in uneven stripes, as if somebody was going blind when they made it.

  “Who’s driving?” I asked.

  “Mom let me have the Red Rocket,” Simon said, proud of the new moniker he had for his mom’s minivan, and doubly proud that the inspiration came from a dog’s erection.

  “I call backseat,” Jane said.

  “But I wanted the backseat,” I said.

  The backseat gave you the best view of the sky; you could recline to an almost horizontal position and stare at the stars through the moon roof. It made you feel like you were in a rocket ship cruising through space.

  “We can both sit in the back,” Jane said.

  “I’m not gonna be your chauffeur,” Simon said.

  “You can wear the hat.” Jane pulled out an old World War II captain’s hat I had in my room.

  Simon paused and examined the hat, weighing his options.

  “And you guys will call me Captain?”

  “Sure,” Jane said.

  “Get us there safely, Captain,” I added.

  Simon seemed satisfied with the trade-off.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Beddington family was still riding the coattails of the late, great Earl Beddington. After Earl passed away, his widow did her best to revive her husband’s reputation. That’s when they built the statue and toned down all the business about the green mutant cows.

  Tommy Beddington’s father, Thomas Beddington, on the other hand, did his best to ruin the family name. Apparently, he had taken the family’s cow vendetta seriously and opened up a leather factory with the sole goal of killing as many cows as possible. Everyone knew he operated on the edge of the law, using his leather business as a front to embezzle money and other nefarious activities. People said he had connections with the mob and it was grudgingly accepted you couldn’t become mayor of Burgerville unless he gave you his blessing—and the money to buy the election.

  On the way to the party, Jane and I sat in the backseat of Simon’s van, staring up at the stars. As Simon drove slowly through the winding streets of backcountry Burgerville, it felt like he had turned off his engine and was letting the gravitational pull of the party bring us closer. Directly overhead, the stars shone brighter than I’d ever seen them before. For a minute, it felt like we were getting closer to them, the Red Rocket taking off and leaving the atmosphere.

  “Do you think Mr. Beddington really sold missile secrets to the Soviets?” Simon asked as we drove.

  “Highly doubtful,” I said.

  “Do you think he dumped all that toxic waste in the river on purpose?” he asked, referring to a recent scandal involving the leather factory.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “If you guys hate the Beddingtons so much, why are you going to their house?” Jane asked.

  “Because,” Simon said, thinking it unnecessary to finish his sentence.

  “It’s a rite of passage,” I said. “And this is the first year we made the guest list.”

  “We weren’t even invited to his laser tag party in the sixth grade,” Simon said. “And that means even his parents didn’t think we were cool.”

  “Their loss,” Jane said. “Because I think you guys are the best thing about this town.”

  “You do?” Simon said, as if Jane had just admitted to chewing gum found in the water fountain.

  “I do.”

  I waited for her to make a sarcastic comment, but she let the words hang in the air, a declarative statement.

  I remain
ed staring at the moon roof, afraid to speak; I was worried I’d get choked up. The fact that Jane had embraced Simon and me felt like a minor miracle.

  “Now’s our chance to show them just how fun we really are,” Simon said. But his tone made it sound like a threat.

  “Light speed, Captain,” I said.

  Simon pressed down on the gas pedal. The Red Rocket hummed loudly, rumbling and hissing as it accelerated.

  * * *

  • • •

  By the time we arrived at the Beddington Estate, the party was in full swing: cars parked on the lawn, people milling around the grass like zombies, a steady bass creating an ominous pulse in the cold winter air.

  Simon parked at the edge of the lawn. It felt like the Red Rocket had transported us to another planet. The three of us disembarked from the van, uncertainly stepping on the grass, as if we half expected the lack of gravity to bounce us back in the air.

  Mary Reyes, a girl from my history class the previous year, saw us arrive and hobbled over, stumbling over a light fixture as she moved toward us. Before Jane arrived, Mary was the mysterious new girl, partly because she had moved from China, but mostly because the Burgerville rumor mill couldn’t come to terms with all of her supposed contradictions. She looked Asian but her last name sounded Hispanic; she had lived in China but was spotted in Mr. Olsen’s Chinese I class, which according to legend, Mr. Olsen couldn’t pass himself.

  The truth is, Mary isn’t Chinese or Hispanic. She’s Filipina. And she only lived in China for a year because her dad had been transferred there for work, after living in New Jersey her entire life. Just like when Jane first moved to Burgerville, the myth could trump the reality.

  Mary’s hair was tangled over her eyes, and she had on a pair of reindeer antlers, with her nose painted black.

  “You three,” she mumbled, almost accusingly.

  “Hi, Mary,” I said.

  “Hi, Ray.” We glanced toward the house and I knew we were thinking the same thing. How’d we both earn invites to Beddington’s party? A light snow began to fall, the sky losing its clarity, becoming glazed over in a powdery fog.

  “It’s like being in a snow globe,” Simon said.

  Jane had already begun walking to the party. She turned back to face us. The light from the house highlighted the snowflakes, and I watched them dance around Jane’s head.

  “What are you guys waiting for?” she asked.

  “On, Comet,” Simon said to Mary. She looked at him strangely, then led us to the house, staggering over the walkway in the most un-reindeer-like way possible. As she walked in front of us, I saw she also had a tail protruding from the top of her pants.

  “She kind of reminds me of Rudolph’s mom,” Simon said, pointing at Mary. “How hot was she?”

  Inside the house, the pulsating bass became a steady pounding, a heart on the verge of exploding.

  The first thing I noticed about the house was the endless array of photographs of Tommy Beddington’s father with influential people. From a collection of celebrities at the top to Burgerville councilmen at the bottom, the elder Beddington clearly wanted visitors to know what type of man he was.

  “Holy shit,” Simon said, pointing to a picture of Mr. Beddington with a celebrity I vaguely knew. “We’re among royalty.”

  Jane walked along the wall and scanned the pictures. “After a revolution,” Jane said. “These guys have all been dethroned.”

  I took a step back from the wall. It clearly wasn’t a who’s who, but a who was, an homage to the B list: Mr. T giving a thumbs-up to the camera; the Karate Kid posed in a fighting stance; the entire cast of The Wonder Years. It had a sinister quality, as if a picture on the wall was the way Mr. Beddington stole a person’s energy and sapped their youth in order to stay young himself.

  “Thirsty?” Jane asked, turning to me.

  I nodded. “And a little hungry. Do you think they’ll serve appetizers?”

  Jane rolled her eyes.

  We pushed our way through a crowd of people at the stairwell and walked to the kitchen, a shiny aluminum room. We found the keg lying in a bucket next to the fridge. Jane grabbed cups and pumped us each a beer.

  Simon opened the fridge and took out a carton of milk. “I’m still growing,” he said as he poured his milk into a red Solo cup.

  It sounds weird, but it felt like the three of us existed in our own atmosphere. When we left the kitchen, the people realigned and we found ourselves in our own orbit, watching everyone float around us, untethered, lost in space as we held on to each other. The beer gave the scene a warm glow, as if I were watching from space as humanity tortured itself.

  Jane leaned into me, a mysterious form of gravity pulling her closer. People were dancing, yelling, moving from room to room—chaos and entropy, the laws of the universe on full display.

  “An authentic house party,” Jane said. “I am now an official resident of the suburbs.”

  “I miss the old days,” Simon said. “When parties meant an arts-and-crafts activity or rolling around in a ball pit.”

  “They still have those,” I said. “And your birthday is coming up.”

  Jane held up her hand for silence and pointed to a couple across the room. They were making out, their faces stuck together.

  When they unspooled, Simon looked disappointed. “She’s in my English class,” he said. “I thought she liked me.”

  “I don’t think she’s right for you,” Jane said.

  Simon took a sip of his milk. “That’s what Mom said.”

  “You should probably stop discussing your love life with your mom,” Jane said.

  “Mom said that too,” Simon said.

  “Ray and I will take charge of finding you a girlfriend.”

  “A real one?” Simon asked.

  “A real one,” Jane repeated.

  We all scanned the party, the who’s who of Burgerville High packed closely together.

  “Did I ever tell you guys about how Burgerville became Williamsburg?”

  “Yes!” Simon and Jane both shouted together.

  “No?” I said, ignoring them. “Well, it all started back in the 1950s when Burgerville was becoming the next big suburban metropolis.”

  Jane pretended to snore. Simon slapped himself in the face in an attempt to stay awake.

  “Historians are always underappreciated in their time,” I said.

  “That’s why we have historians,” Jane said. “To tell us how important historians are.”

  As the music grew louder, the living room became even more densely packed. A sweaty jumble of people moving and swaying to the beat.

  Jane scowled at the scene in front of her. People making out. Red Solo cups, overfilled, spilling beer onto the carpet. A coffee table was on its side, set up as a barricade, as a group of kids launched snowballs at unsuspecting victims. One of the popular girls, Laura Russell, stood in a small clique, taking video clips of the party to upload to social media, fragments of memories that would now forever exist in cyberspace—much to the embarrassment of Burgerville’s future doctors, lawyers, and politicians.

  Sufficiently annoyed, Jane turned her back to the party.

  “Not what you had in mind when you moved to Burgerville?” I asked.

  “Exactly what I had in mind.”

  “You should invite your friends from the city. Didn’t you say Ellie was going to come out one of these days?”

  Jane looked away. “She wanted to come tonight, but there was a sighting of the Yeti in Upstate New York. Ellie’s there now, hoping to be the first woman to photograph it.”

  I could have called her on it, but I didn’t. I figured she was still not sure whether there was a way for her two lives to coexist. I played along.

  “You’re saying someone’s already caught the Yeti on film?”

  “Of c
ourse,” Jane said. “Don’t you pay attention to the news?”

  “I guess I missed it . . . Maybe when Ellie comes back, then.”

  “Maybe,” Jane said.

  She drank, practically tipped the cup upside down to get every last bit, then said, “I’m thirsty again.” She held the cup between her teeth, raised her eyebrows, and disappeared into the crowd, not bothering to ask me if I wanted a refill too.

  “I think she’s upset,” I said to Simon.

  “It’s probably something you said.” Simon crossed his legs the way kids do when they have to go to the bathroom. “I really have to pee.”

  “Good talk,” I said.

  “I wasn’t saying it’s your fault, just that you might have hit a sensitive spot by accident and I just drank a lot of milk, so if I don’t go to the bathroom right now I’ll be the only non-drunk person to ever pee their pants at a party.”

  With that, Simon went off to find a bathroom.

  I had gotten so used to traveling as a pack that being cast out on my own felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I was someone with Simon and Jane; out here in the wild, I was the same person I’d always been: Raymond Green, the quiet kid your parents made you invite to your birthday party.

  I made my way to the kitchen, hoping to get another cup of beer and find Jane. When I got close to the keg, I saw her standing with Tommy Beddington, deep in conversation. The party pressed in on them, forcing them closer. Jane threw her head back in laughter and tapped his arm. Good one, Beddington! In that moment, he became one of the worst people in the world to me, in the same company as Genghis Khan and the guy who invented the Snuggie.

  I marched toward the keg, doing everything in my power to convey dominance, short of beating my chest and throwing feces. The beer added a layer of drama to my movements. My shadow cast over the keg: foreboding. My glassy-eyed stare at Tommy: chilling. My slow and lumbered reach for the keg pump: orchestra crescendo! I took my cup and started pumping the keg, all the while watching Jane and Tommy engage in what I assumed to be some sort of mating ritual. I lost myself in the up-and-down motion of the pump, so much so that when I went to fill my cup, the beer sprayed all over the room. The people around me yelled out like monkeys chattering before a fight. My body went completely rigid. Part of me felt that if I stayed still maybe I could disappear. But of course, instead of disappearing, I just looked guilty. Tommy came over with a towel and began wiping up the beer. He took the spigot out of my hand as if he were my dad, punishing me by taking away my favorite toy.