Learning to Cry

by Christopher C. Payne

  In the midst of a break, we sat in a circle on the grass. As luck had it, we were right across the street from this mean old lady’s house. She wasn’t really that mean, but she was a little cranky and chased kids off her lawn now and then. At her age there wasn’t much she could do anyway. Her bark was much worse than her walker would allow her bite to be.

  Sadly, that very day she had crossed one of the older girls in our group who formed an idea as she glanced across the street. What if we ceased our aimless wandering and focused on just one house? What if we pooled all of our energy and concentrated everything we could think of on this single home? We could have massive amounts of fun and not be forced to run all over the place. Plus, this old lady was mean, and if anyone deserved it she did. All it takes in a group is a couple of yeses, and there you have it. The sheep follow.

  So we gathered up all of our supplies, posted a lookout and began our work. This elderly lady had shingle siding on her house. It was rough and in pieces exactly like the shingles on roofs. What we found is, unlike most siding, it took to soap very well. The soap got in the grooves, and before we knew it, we’d gone through entire bars. It was the most receptive tool for our eloquent wordings that one might have imagined, and we did use eloquent words.

  We wrote every curse word imaginable on the side of that house. We got so into it that we had to actually retrieve more supplies since our soap ran out rather quickly. It imbedded in huge chunks into the crevices as we wrote and wrote and wrote. There was not a single inch of that house on any side that was not covered in one phrase or another. We wrote anything you can imagine from your high school days on the sides of that house. Still we were not done.

  At this point, it was no longer about the trickery. It had turned into a project. We attempted to create a form of art if you will and had lost track of what reality was. We threw eggs, every egg we could get our hands on. We discovered later that adding eggs to soap solidified the cleaning product and make it impossibly difficult to remove. Still we were not done. Not forgetting the toilet paper – the adorned trees resembled Christmas trees that were decorated with white streamers on every branch. When we stepped back and looked at the finished product, we were amazed.

  We all headed home for a good night’s sleep, proud of what we had accomplished. Then, the morning came.

  The entire neighborhood was out on the street, looking at the damage. It was interesting how in the light of the day, it looked more like vandalism than art. The grown-ups were in a frenzy, wanting to know who did it. Someone called the police, and they interviewed people, wanting to find the culprits. The lady who had seemed so mean just the day before was crying and now seemed only vulnerable and sad. At least the neighborhood pitched in, and everyone helped clean up the mess.

  Not a single one of us opened our mouths that day or any day after that. This might be the first time any of us have ever spoken of it. I think it stemmed more from the shame we felt than from our fear of being discovered. Sometimes you do something so wrong, the guilt you feel is far worse that any consequence you could ever imagine. Living with it is a punishment more severe than anything that could be imposed upon you. I guess this is why we are blessed with guilt. We have the ability to punish ourselves far worse than anyone else can punish us. Can anyone say Catholics?

  I sometimes think about that old lady. She is long gone now, I am sure. She was on her last leg at the time the dreaded event occurred. I am not sure what I would say. I would start out by saying I am sorry, but would the frail words carry any meaning? I, of course, didn’t mean to, but would that really matter after we completed the deed?

  Jesus, I am crying again. Is there a night in my life that I don’t cry now? I think about my life, the ups and downs, and it all ended that night as I drove my family home from dinner. I still might be breathing, I still might be living, but that night in the car – a night like so many other nights -- everything changed. How can you say you are sorry when the person or people you miss the most are no longer here? When you are gone, you are gone for good, there is no coming back. No matter what anyone tells you.

  Melissa

  For two weeks Melissa managed to stay out of trouble. Her primary instigators stayed at bay, but they now relentlessly harassed her. It seemed from the second she woke up, until the second she went to sleep they pushed her forward into something. Scott was brilliant in his devious plans. He seemed to have a knack for twisting even the most mundane episodes into something potentially horrific. If it weren’t for Mike and Dana controlling him somewhat, Melissa might have caved during the past several days.

  Even with her ability to balance the constant commotion she found herself more and more isolated. She had friends and kept up the façade of a social network, but she actually spent most of her time alone. It was so difficult to understand what occurred inside her head versus what happened in the world outside. Melissa sometimes laughed out loud at a joke or responded to something Scott said vocally. People started to stare at her. One teacher asked her, in the middle of class, who she thought she was talking to.

  This embarrassed Melissa, and she started to hear rumors that she was crazy and spoke to ghosts. With the popularity the last few years of shows like “Ghost Whisperer,” it seemed that people would be more accepting of oddities. That was on TV, though. In reality people were just freaked out by anything different.

  Melissa didn’t speak to ghosts either. She talked to people that didn’t really exist. They were just voices. They didn’t even have bodies. They just floated around inside her head, causing issues as she navigated real life. They were not real. She repeated this to herself more frequently as the days passed.

  “They are not real,” she mumbled over and over again, trying to concentrate in class. It was growing impossibly hard to keep the three silent.

  That evening at dinner, her mother asked if she would be interested in feeding the cat for her neighbor and checking on their house for an hour or so each day. They were going on some big trip to Hawaii, and it would be a good way for Melissa to earn a few extra dollars. Melissa said yes, and then grabbed her head, screaming in pain. The pain erupted out of nowhere, and it exploded down her spine. Her mother grabbed one of the giant prescription pills Melissa took and helped her quickly swallow it.

  This was a regular routine. This was the first time the pain had taken over her body so quickly, though. She knew it was Scott. The second he heard Melissa would have access to a house on her own for an entire week he burst into action. His excitement was overwhelming. There was going to be a house available for an entire week, and the only thing between him and a fun-filled melee was Melissa. She, as always, was quick to give in. Melissa went to her room to lie down and let Scott begin the preparations.

  When you are a girl in high school, it is easy to prepare a party. You tell a couple of your good friends, then the three of you tell several boys. You let the boys do the rest. Despite Scott’s relentless brow-beating, Melissa was intent on keeping the party to a minimum. There would be a few girls and a few boys. They would all sneak out at night and meet up around 11 p.m. at the back door. Her neighbors would leave Friday afternoon. They would keep most of the lights off, maybe watch some movies, and the boys would bring over drinks and the pot. It would be a fun week; they could possibly do this every night.

  Most of the kids told their parents they were staying at each other’s houses so several of her friends planned on spending the weekend. Melissa was sad she would have to leave during the day, but her mother demanded she attend the outing on Saturday at her grandparents’ house. Her Grandma had recently fallen and broken her hip, so the family agreed to spend Saturday afternoon hanging out at her house. This was her first weekend back from the hospital. Melissa also had her volunteer appointment at church on Sunday morning and her psychologist appointment on Sunday afternoon.

  She was down to the one appointment a week with her psychologist, and while she never revealed anything too deep, it was nice having
somebody to talk to. She couldn’t talk to her mother now and never had throughout her life. She hated her tyrannical father, as well. He was the biggest asshole ever. What kind of idiot throws his own daughter out of his house? He needed to grow up and at some point in his life begin to act like an adult. Melissa honestly felt she was more mature and responsible than he was, and he was so damn old.

  By the time Friday evening rolled around there were 11 girls set to arrive and somewhere between eight to 15 boys. Everyone knew the drill, and nobody showed up before 11 p.m. Melissa helped out with dishes. She played with her little sisters and kept up the show of being a loving daughter and happy child. Her mother as always ate this stuff up. She always painted such a perfect picture of the ideal home, so it was easy to help her with the delusion. Their lives were far from perfect, but it wasn’t about reality, it was about the presentation they pushed out to the rest of the family and to the public.

  Scott was downright giddy with excitement. He left her alone most of the week as she planned the weekend’s events. He seemed to be most peaceful when the four of them were working on something he found exciting and fun. Since this was the biggest thing to date, he was ecstatic.

  At 10:45 p.m., the house was quiet, and Scott screamed at her to get moving. He had waited long enough and was ready for the festivities to begin. Melissa crawled out of her bedroom window, left it open slightly for her return, and headed down the block to the unsuspecting peaceful neighborhood home. She didn’t see anyone as she approached the door, so when Sarah said “Hey!” she almost jumped out of her skin. They both laughed and a few other girls emerged from the bushes. None of the boys were there yet, but Sarah had her stash of pot to get them started.

  The house was two stories, but unlike most homes in the area, it had the living room and kitchen downstairs. It was average size, three bedrooms, but the master bath had a huge tub with jets and everything. The living room had a flat screen TV that was decent and would be great for watching movies. The boys would be sad since there were no video games. The owners had only a 7-year-old daughter, so they were not inundated with action-packed first-person gun shows, shooting out of their TV screen on a daily basis. There were a lot of Barbies lying around, though.

  The girls immediately lit up their first joint and, within minutes, the boys arrived. They had several bottles of Bacardi rum. It seemed like they had all shopped at the same store. Melissa later found out they pooled their money and found one guy to buy rum for all of them. Within an hour the gathering was at full swing, and there were approximately 45 people in the house. Melissa thought around 20 of them would spend the night, but the smoke-filled room distorted her thoughts. She couldn’t maintain much focus on what was going on.

  They had a movie playing on the TV, there was some music upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and all of the beds were occupied. At least two girls lost their virginities that night, and it appeared that more than a few boys did, as well. Tina, who was by far the most experienced of the girls, parked herself in the daughter’s bedroom and allowed almost any boy that desired her to have his own little adventure with Alice in Wonderland. There should be something wrong with so much sex happening in a little girl’s room, but Melissa laughed to herself at the irony versus worrying about Tina’s actions.

  Even with all of the commotion, everyone did a great job keeping the noise level pretty well under control. The odds they would get caught were pretty small. Melissa thought the night was turning out to be great. Her head spun in circles, but she couldn’t hear anyone, not even the three little beings trapped inside. It was as if she and all her friends had suddenly grown up, and they were living adult lives a few years before their time.

  Kids raided the pantries and refrigerator, and it smelled like somebody burned a pizza in the oven. She thought about how good it would have been to eat a huge slice of pizza at that moment. Melissa parked herself on the overstuffed cloth reclining chair and leaned back, attempting to stay awake. She had smoked so much pot and had long ago lost count of how much she drank after seven shots of rum. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Tommy with his pants down peeing in the large potted plant that used to be in the entryway.

  She laughed and he turned around, looking at her while lifting one of his thumbs up in the air. She wondered if he peed on himself because he suddenly started cursing as his face swiveled back quickly, stomping his left foot on the ground. Not really stomping as much as shaking his leg, it looked like. This just made her laugh even more as she saw two other boys pushing each other. One of them fell on the side table by the couch. She cringed a little when she saw the vase fall over and smash into a thousand pieces flying in all directions. That was going to suck. How would she ever explain that?

  Tommy came over, grabbed her hand and helped her up. He almost had to pull her out of the chair, but he was pretty forceful. The two of them walked up the stairs. She was in front of him and he was almost pushing her forward. She hadn’t even thought to ask where they were going. Melissa was so tired. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She almost fell over top of Sarah who was lying in her underwear at the top landing. It looked like she had puked, and Melissa almost gagged at the stench. She had definitely eaten pizza. There was sausage all over the carpet.

  Tommy pushed her forward to the spare bedroom which looked unoccupied at the moment and helped her take her clothes off. Tommy was 19, and Melissa didn’t really know him that well. He was out of high school and working at his father’s Christmas tree farm, she thought. She actually didn’t even know if he were the same Tommy, but it seemed like it should be him. Tommy stripped her naked, and she laid on the bed. He took his clothes off, and Melissa thought that was a little funny.

  She, then, drifted off to sleep and heard Scott talking to her as the last remnant of light slowly extinguished. He was proud of her, he said. She had done a great job, and he only hoped they could do it again. It didn’t have to be the next day or even the day after but soon, they had to do this again soon. It was too much fun. She knew that she was having now having sex and heard Tommy saying something to her. She concentrated hard to hear what he told her as he moved back and forth.

  “I am not Scott, you dumb bitch,” Tommy said. Melissa wasn’t actually sure, but she thought that was what he said. She laughed again. She knew he was not Scott. Scott was in her head, but still. What would Scott be like if he were in this world? Wouldn’t Scott take care of her? Wouldn’t Scott guide her through what might happen and what she should do? Scott was the one person Melissa felt she could count on. One thing was for sure, it was definitely not her father.

  Melissa woke up the next morning in a panic. It was already 9 a.m. She had to get home fast to have any hope of not getting caught. She wiped her mouth and realized she must have vomited over the side of the bed last night since it was all over the pillow. She was alone and naked, but she thought she had been in bed with somebody. Her head hurt so badly, it didn’t even matter. She threw on her clothes, washed her face, and ran out the door. She counted approximately 10 people lying in various places all over the house.

  She sprinted down the block and reached her bedroom window out of breath. She couldn’t even run a block without losing her breath now. At one point in her life she swam for two hours straight every evening. Now she couldn’t even run a block. She crawled into her window, shut it behind her, and eased in under her covers. She hadn’t even taken her shoes off when her mom opened the door and said, “Melissa, I said we have to get going soon. How long do you need to get ready?”

  Melissa mumbled back a few more minutes, and her mom left the door open as she went back upstairs.

  They spent the day at her grandmother’s house, and when they arrived home later that night Melissa took a shower and went to bed. She knew she had told Sarah she would meet her back at the house later that night, but she was so tired she just had to sleep. She slept for almost 11 hours until her mom finally woke her up and said they had to leave for church soo
n. She spent Sunday at church watching the kids in nursery school. Then, she went to her psychologist’s appointment.

  Melissa muddled through everything fine, talked to everyone on Monday at school about the great party, and didn’t make it back to the house until Tuesday evening. The neighbors were not coming home until Friday, so she wanted to clean the house before they came back. Luckily, Scott hadn’t talked to her in the past few days. Maybe she was just too tired to listen at this point. It didn’t really matter why. Melissa just needed the break.

  Finding your way back home again!

  Melissa

  Melissa had at most an hour before she had to be home, and when she looked around the house at the damage, she almost started to cry. Her mother would wonder what she was doing if she spent any longer than that just feeding the cat. But there was so much to clean. She got a broom and started sweeping up the glass and picking up trash. Stuff was everywhere. Several kids came back on Saturday night even though Melissa was absent. They left the door unlocked so they could get back in.

  Still, Melissa knew the bulk of the damage occurred last Friday evening. She gathered dishes, ran the dishwasher, fed the cat and picked up what she could, placing as much in the trashcan as she could fit. She couldn’t stomach cleaning up the vomit yet, but found at least three spots in the house that were a complete mess. She had no idea how to even run the washer to clean the linens, so she wiped as much down with a rag as she could. After a little over an hour, she headed back home and figured she would go over the next two evenings and clean the rest.