Girl in the Arena

by Lise Haines

  —Look what I’ve done to you—this whole situation.

  I hand her a clean cotton ball. She wipes her eyes. Threads of cotton stick in her wet lashes. I tell her to be still as I gently pull the bits of white out.

  —I’ll take Mark with me to the match, and I’ve got the dress. Everything’s cool.

  Sometimes it’s a toss-up as to who takes more energy, Allison or Thad.

  —I’ve been trying to figure it out, how it happened, you know? I don’t mean the sequence of events but my complete lack of thinking. You know I always wanted to have a family. That was the important thing. That’s the one thing I can say I did right.

  —I know that.

  —And I didn’t go out and pick a Glad for a husband. You know that too, don’t you?

  —Tommy kind of explained that.

  —Tommy did?

  She looks away, considers this, and continues.

  —Things will work out, I say. —You’re just tired.

  Maybe I say this to get away from the counter, from the store, the hunt.

  I’ve started to have that feeling I get about Thad. I’ve called Julie three times already to check on him. But I just want to get home, make his favorite dinner, and watch something idiotic with him on TV.

  I’m aware of my mother’s voice again as if she’s calling me from the far end of a hallway.

  —You think you’ll ever be able to forgive me? she asks.

  I’ve thought about what it would be like if she told me one day that she had screwed this whole business up. But I assumed she’d be eighty or something. Allison looking back. Allison’s work of creative nonfiction. And when I anticipated her atonement I thought I’d be relieved, that I’d have a sense of clarity or peace. I imagined saying I understood because in many ways I do and I feel nothing but sad for her. But now that she wants me to say this, my throat feels dry and I start coughing.

  So we stand there with our eyes completely messed up in this stupid store on Newbury Street. I’m hacking away and she’s sealing and unsealing the bag that holds the last cotton ball. After a while I stop coughing and I can see she’s given up waiting for me to say something. Her arms kind of go slack and she hoists her purse up on her shoulder again.

  And if I were to ask Allison to forgive me for something? Maybe it would be about cracking my head open and letting the monster out of my skull—the one that doesn’t want to be her. I don’t even want to pretend I do anymore. And that’s shearing right through the cord that binds us.

  —We better pick up Thad, she says.

  CHAPTER 21

  We train in secret every night at five unless it’s just impossible to shake the media. Today I put on a pair of tight pink jeans, white wig, lime green blouse, and red sunglasses in order to leave work, hoping to pass for Avon, the girl who mans the register. I take off at a clip in five-inch tiger skin heels—the way she does—running down to the subway with my other clothes in a couple of value meal bags, just as the paparazzi careen into the drive-through looking for me.

  Most of the time I tell Allison I’m still salting fries when I’m already in gear—building strength, not burgers. She mentions the change in my physique, and I tell her I’m doing more weights and less cardio when I work out, because I read something about osteoporosis and don’t want to get it. She gives me a funny look and then goes off to find Thad.

  I had to tell Lloyd what I’m up to—that I’m trying to see if I could compete—so he’d agree to train me. Always one to promote the women’s leagues, Lloyd loves the whole concept. He dug up this beautiful silver and copper breastplate for me to train in and promised not to tell Julie. On the first evening, Lloyd tears up, saying he wants to see that moment when the daughter of seven gladiators steps into the arena. Later, Mark said it was like watching DeNiro’s La Motta in Raging Bull, to see his father carry on like that.

  I wanted to say, This is about survival, Lloyd, that’s it, nothing more. But after a while, standing there watching him choke up, I felt pretty awkward and said maybe we should start and he said, Yeah, okay sure. And I went straight for the dummy’s small intestines, not because I was angry at Lloyd, just at a lot of stuff that Lloyd wouldn’t understand.

  When I get down to the subway platform, I stop being Avon. I pull off the wig and sunglasses, get my Glad boots on, and throw my leather jacket around my shoulders. The minute I get on the Red Line, people begin to stare. Some people always stare, a lot of them at my boots because they have as many straps as the sandals, and are therefore undeniably Glad.

  The air rushes hard now where I sit and there’s a Ring Bearer at the far end of the car working away with his blowtorch—one of those people who practices complete nonviolence, except to subway cars, I guess, and has 108 piercings on their bodies that they fill with tiny rings.

  A couple of years ago when the city got sick of all the graffiti, they got really efficient at stopping taggers. But then it became a fiscally unsound policy as we entered our current epoch, to spend all that money on sandpaper and baking soda and labor to keep the graffiti off. So the cleanup slowed and they pulled back to study the problem, and the bogus report that came out—I believe it was as streamlined as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman—stated that Ring Bearers do most of the tagging. So the next guy who was hauled in for tagging around the city—who just happened to be a Ring Bearer—was actually ordered by a judge to remove all of his rings for one year. No one could quite match the punishment with the crime, and I remember Allison saying how crazy that was, paying a probation officer to check a guy’s empty piercings. —They should be checking for empty stomachs, she said.

  Allison has a legitimate thing about hunger. She was really poor when she was growing up—I mean barely-any-food poor—which explains a lot of things.

  Right after his probation ended, the rings that guy removed, all 108, were found in a glass display case in the judge’s house. The way a museum might exhibit amulets wrapped up with a mummy, he had this mannequin laid out in a case, complete with every piercing in just the right place. It was like showing off a collection of Third Reich glassware or Saddam Hussein’s pistol. And I think this made some people take a step back from any vague respect they might have held for the court system, while the rest of us had already backed up so far we had long since dropped off the edge.

  But you can’t put a good virus down. So the Ring Bearers who used to tag, ride the trains now with mini-torches, cutting extra windows in the subway cars—in the shape of peace signs, of course. And that’s how panel art got started—sculptors taking the metal panels the Ring Bearers cut out and using them in their work. There’s a famous artist in SoHo who’s made his whole career on the stuff. And why not, if you’re going to imprison someone for draining a can of spray paint or wearing too many rings, you might as well go crazy and cut the place up and make something of beauty out of it.

  The district attorney filed a lawsuit against the SoHo guy to get the panels returned—can’t you just see them running around matching panels to subway cars and welding them all back into place?—but then he had to bow out of the case because he found out his sister-in-law had purchased one of the sculptures and there was no way she was having her high-end art dismantled for the cause. And now the city is looking into training a team of homeless citizens as spot welders—which should get the city about five minutes of glorious PR until it’s discovered they don’t give their trainees safety suits, goggles, or ventilation (aka air).

  And they think my culture is mad.

  The Ring Bearer is staring at me now without break and thank God it’s my stop. It’s not that I take it personally. Allison told me they don’t do anything to Glads other than make intense eye contact with us—hoping we’ll change our violent ways. But it gets kind of freaky after a while.

  Allison says she just looks on it—on her need to remain aloof—as performance art. But I’m not in the mood to perform today.

  I step onto the platform and his face r
ushes away into the next tunnel. A woman in a worn raincoat and natty hat puts her hand on my arm and that makes me jump of course. And she says, —My nephew was in the GSA.

  That’s the thing a lot of people don’t like to admit, that they know someone, or are connected to someone, in the GSA—we practically all are.

  —You’re his daughter, aren’t you? she smiles timidly. —Tommy G.’s daughter?

  —I guess we kind of look alike? Some people tell me that anyway.

  She assures me we do. I thank her and move on.

  Tonight I’m the first to get to the empty storefront where we train. I’ve rigged some car-mechanic lights, since most of the lighting was gutted and the last tenants painted the walls black. There’s a sink with running water and that’s painted black too—thick with house paint. The only thing that isn’t black is the red bathroom door. Lloyd and Mark pull up in the van in the alleyway, carrying cold drinks and bags of sand.

  Once inside, Lloyd nails a ten-pound bag of sand to the wall by its edging, so none of the sand spills out.

  —Okay, your job, he says, —is to try and slash the bag open, while Mark does everything he can to keep you from getting to it.

  Mark gives me this playful look, and Lloyd hands me a long sword. At first, Mark works me into a sweat, pushing me away with his shield each time I make an approach. But when he sees how frustrated I’m getting, he steps aside at the last second and I just rip the hell out of the bag and the sand flies everywhere. The sand simulates the beginning of an arena floor, which is fine. Lloyd wants me training in sand, but he yells at Mark to get serious.

  Going over to his athletic bag, Lloyd rubs his stubbled chin and says, —Let’s switch it up.

  Now he throws both of us short swords that he’s edged in white adhesive tape at the tips and down the length of the blades. I have one of Tommy’s shields from when he started out and Lloyd tells me to pick it up. Then he puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me away from Mark for a moment, across the length of the room. Lloyd has this funny way of strutting—maybe the pride of a man who wishes he was still heading into the arena. In the bank of mirrors, I wonder at the image I’ve produced. I look fully Glad now, the black leather skirt and cropped top, the armbands and knee-high sandals, the armor and shield.

  —Think of someone you really hate, Lloyd says, stopping in front of the mirrors to consider his muscles perhaps, the way they’re articulated in comic book fashion by the lights.

  —What do you mean?

  —You don’t have to tell me, just get someone in mind.

  —The head of Caesar’s?

  —If that’s what does it for you. When you fight, see his face superimposed over Mark’s face.

  —That’s kind of creepy, Lloyd.

  Mark is standing there with his arms folded across his chest, his hair hanging down over his eyes, his breastplate still on from an afternoon at the Ludus, waiting, smiling at me in the reflection, no doubt trying to lip read.

  —Maybe now that you’re getting to know him, you might be thinking Uber’s not so bad, Lloyd says. —He might be coming around to the house. He could bring you flowers, maybe take you out to dinner or the movies. These things happen. You end up fighting a friend or a colleague. I’ve been through it, it happens to lots of Glads. So you have to know how to function in that kind of fight.

  Now I’m looking away. I sure don’t want to talk about Uber. I’ve been feeling pretty bad knowing if I do arrange to fight him, it’s going to turn the guy inside out. But then there’s Tommy of course.

  —Can we just spar for a while? I ask. —I can work on the hate thing later.

  —Just spar? Like just fighting and just losing a body part?

  —You’re right, but…

  —There won’t be tape on the blades in the arena. So if you don’t plan on beating Uber, I’m the wrong person to train you.

  —Well, I…

  —You know, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think you stood a chance, he says.

  Then Lloyd begins to rub my sword arm to limber me up.

  —I want you to go at Mark with everything you’ve got. Remember he’s a little weak on balance ever since that diving incident in the Bahamas. The more you have him shifting about, the quicker he’s going to fall. And use your helmet today so you get used to it.

  —You’re telling me about your own son’s weaknesses, I laugh.

  —That’s what I’m saying. Right now, he’s your competitor. Not your best friend, not my son. Your job is to take him out of the game.

  It’s never a straight line if you want to be Glad. You have to be able to make a lot of twists and turns in logic.

  —Are we doing this or what? Mark calls impatiently. I’m not sure if he overheard us.

  My helmet is one of Mouse’s lightweight prototypes that polishes up well, covers my forehead and cheeks, and leaves my eyes uncovered. There’s some narrowing of peripheral vision but I have no trouble watching Mark as he holds his helmet in his hands and decides to let it drop back into his bag. He’s looking at me now, like he’s not sure. Like maybe this storefront is too full of wrong ideas. I know he’ll fight me because he’s Lloyd’s son, because I’ve asked for his help. But I also know, looking at his expression, that he feels squeezed on all sides.

  —You sparring without your helmet? Lloyd calls over to him.

  —It’s too hot, he says.

  I’ve seen people spar both ways—with and without. Lloyd doesn’t press him.

  We walk to the center of the room. Mark smiles at me and I try to see the face of the Caesar’s man. But it doesn’t work. All I can see is Mark’s wistful look. We get our swords ready, our shields up. Lloyd blows the whistle for us to begin.

  The first minute is about clashing, and I hear Lloyd’s voice, telling me to move right, left, dodge, weave. Mark hits my shield with his sword, narrowly missing my diaphragm, but I’m able to turn at the last second. His eyes widen and he calls, —Time.

  —You okay? he asks me.

  —What’s going on? Lloyd says.

  —I think she needs more padding, Mark says.

  —We’ve only got another twenty minutes, Lloyd says, looking at his watch.

  —I’m fine, I tell Mark.

  —Then let’s do this thing, Lloyd says, and blows the whistle again.

  I’ve noticed that Mark tends to start by moving to the right today so this time I counter and move in quick with my sword. Maybe the tape is more for show than anything else, because I open up a line of blood along his sword arm. I realize I’m staring at his cut, and in a moment of combat, this is when Mark should take advantage. But he’s waiting for me.

  —What the hell? Lloyd says.

  —Sorry, I say. —The tape isn’t working.

  —I was talking to Mark.

  —Everything’s cool, man, Mark says.

  —It’s my fault, I say, but I give Mark a look, like he has to stop acting so lame.

  Lloyd goes over to his kit and adds more tape to both swords. When we’re back in position, he says, —This isn’t a social club, in case anyone’s confused here. Let’s see some fighting.

  This time he blasts his whistle.

  The minute I raise my sword, I feel like I can’t get any traction. It’s hard to explain, but watching Mark, the way he moves, it’s like he’s swimming in molasses. Each time I thrust, Mark meets me with a lethargic response, just enough to avoid injury. He makes almost no effort to use his sword and I know Lloyd is about to yell at him again. And as much as I try to throw a mental slide show of hated creatures up on my mind’s screen, I just keep seeing how ambivalent Mark looks and I finally shout, —OKAY!

  Everything stops.

  —LOOK, I say. —I’M GOING TO FIGHT UBER. So you have to get over yourself so I can do that. I need you to actually fight me.

  —But you get how crazy this is, don’t you? Mark asks.

  —So it’s fine if you want to fight, and not me?

  —I’m not sa
ying that.

  —You’re not?

  —I’m saying, his voice drops, —I’m saying I’d like you to stick around for a while.

  —Then show me how to fight, damn it, so I can do that.

  And in this moment I start to think about what Lloyd said. And I honestly don’t know if this should be about hatred. I don’t want to hurt Uber, and yet if I cave and marry him, and keep this Gladiator Wives thing going not just for my family, but for girls everywhere, as the ads say, that’s guaranteed sorrow at my door. I look at the black walls of the old dance studio, the black sink, and I wonder how the impulse came one day, to cover every last thing in black. Maybe they were listening to that early Stones song “Paint It, Black.”

  I raise my shield and shout, —NOW!

  The sounds of metal strikes begin in earnest. I can feel each vibration through my bones and into the floor. I hit his sword arm again, and this time there’s only a red mark, a welt, and I go for his stomach. Mark holds nothing back now. I feel the blows to my legs, my armored chest. And when he hits my throat for a quick second, barely grazing it, I feel it close up as I try to catch my breath. When he pauses momentarily to make sure I’m all right, I strike him across the brow. I see I’ve hit him pretty hard, the way he reels back. And I have this realization that all of us have too much power where life and death are concerned. But I don’t like to think about that much. And I’m about to go at Mark again before he gets his bearings when Lloyd shuts us down.

  Maybe it’s the look I have, I don’t know, but he blows his whistle and I stop, breathing hard. He goes over to the cooler now and hands Mark a chill pack for his forehead. Then he throws me an orange Fanta. He tells me we’ll work on shield technique tomorrow. Zipping up his bag, he looks at both of us and says, —You make me proud.

  CHAPTER 22

  Like an ancient Roman column, the gladiator’s daughter is an essential support, holding up the structure of the Glad family, Bylaw 82.

  I once asked Allison, when she recited this to me, if she thought I was more Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian. She didn’t think I was all that funny.