The Pain Eater

by Beth Goobie

  And so Maddy wasn’t ready for it, she just wasn’t ready when, coming home from school, they jumped her again. It wasn’t that she’d thought it was over, but there had been nothing since the sticker on her locker two weeks previous. So when she heard the sound of bike tires behind her in the alley, she didn’t immediately take off. Instead, she turned to look, shading her eyes against the sun, and that gave them enough time to get close. She recognized Pete Gwirtzman first and whirled to run, but he ditched his bike and was on her, slamming her into a backyard fence. The wooden boards reverberated, giving off odd, muffled cries; soundless, Maddy cringed against them, one arm up over her face.

  “Got her,” said Pete over his shoulder, as footsteps approached. Desperately, Maddy pushed at him to get away, but he shouldered her back against the fence.

  “Watch it, bitch,” said a second voice – Robbie Nabigon, she knew without looking. “Where d’you think you’re goin’?”

  “Nowhere,” sneered Pete. “Not until we say so. Got that, Mad-Mad-Maddikins?”

  Wincing at the use of her family’s nickname, Maddy remained silent. Head down, she kept her eyes squeezed shut.

  “So, Maddy,” said a third voice, and Maddy’s eyes flew open. Ken Soong – it was him, standing directly in front of her. Maddy closed her eyes again. “Peekaboo, I see you,” he said, his tone mocking, and Pete and Robbie snickered. “I’m still here, Maddy. You can’t see me, but I can see you.”

  A hand shot out, grabbed her left breast and twisted it. Pain flashed through Maddy and she cried out. The hand let go. Maddy crossed both arms over her chest.

  “What happened to the sticker we put on your locker?” asked Pete.

  Maddy slitted her eyes open. The three boys were crowded close, leaning in on her, breathing open-mouthed. “Maintenance made me take it off,” she mumbled.

  “Fuck Maintenance!” said Pete. “We put it on there, it stays there.”

  “We don’t want to get into trouble with Maintenance,” said Ken. “Think of something else.”

  “Her shoes,” said Pete. All three stared at Maddy’s scuffed runners.

  “Nah,” said Robbie. “She’ll get new ones soon. And you don’t wear the same shoes every day.”

  “School notes,” said Ken. “How d’you carry them?”

  “A binder,” croaked Maddy.

  “Okay,” said Ken. “Here’s the deal.” He grabbed her left hand and jabbed a smiling mask decal into it. “Stick this on your binder,” he ordered. “Right where you’ll see it all the time. Everywhere you go at school, I want to see you carrying it. A reminder to keep your mouth shut. And keep smiling. Give us a happy face, Maddy. A happy face. And remember – don’t tell anyone. Don’t talk to David Janklow. Got it?”

  “Yes,” whispered Maddy.

  “Yessie, yes, yes,” Pete leered. “With you it’s yes all the way.”

  And then all three were running for their bikes, pulling them up and taking off down the alley, whooping and hollering. Arms crossed over her chest, Maddy watched them go. Once they’d vanished around a corner, she picked up her knapsack, slipped the decal inside, and continued on home.

  . . .

  Maddy sat huddled in her desk, trying to keep her stomach down. In front of her lay her binder, the smiling mask decal stuck in a top corner. To her right, Kara’s seat was once again empty. At midmorning break, Maddy had heard the rumor dominating that day’s student information circuits – Kara’s older brother, away at university, had committed suicide. By early afternoon, this had become established fact: two days ago, Frank Adovasio had shot himself in the mouth, and Kara would be away from school for a week, until after the funeral.

  The class was in intense gossip mode, the air abuzz with chatter. At the front of the room, an unfamiliar woman sat at Ms. Mousumi’s desk, frowning down at a lesson plan binder. Maddy hadn’t yet glanced across the room to assess Ken’s mood. When she’d entered the classroom, she’d been hit by tunnel vision. As she’d scurried to her seat, all she’d been able to see was the small circle of floor around her feet. Collapsing into her desk, she had concentrated on surviving her heartbeat.

  The substitute teacher got to her feet. Calling for attention, she said, “Good morning. Your regular teacher is ill today, and I’m taking her place. I’m Ms. Wert. I understand you’re working in study groups. How about you move into—”

  A hand went up. “Excuse me,” Sheng Yoo said politely, “but Sean has to read his chapter in our collective novel.”

  Seated in the back row beside Elliot du Pont, Sean grimaced and slouched farther under his desk. Ms. Wert gave Sheng a confused look. Several more hands went up. Theresa Pronk explained, and Sean ambled reluctantly to the front of the class.

  “The Pain Eater,” he said, grimacing again. “Geez, y’know – Kara started this whole thing. If I’d’a known last night…. Well, here goes. Everything that goes up must come down. And everything that goes in must come out. Farang swallowed her soul stone, and sooner or later it had to…” Sean grinned slightly, then added, “…return to the world.” Snickers erupted, and Sean bowed. “The high priestess knew this, and so she locked Farang up in a cage – it was the cage she went into to eat the poison on full moons.

  “Farang knew even better than the high priestess that the stone had to come out. She could feel it coming down the line – pain in her butt as it scraped along. The stone wasn’t big but it was hard, and it hurt. And there was no doubt about it – she was going to lose it again, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “It usually takes about three days for you to…uh, get rid of what you eat, unless you ate too many grapes. So, for three days the high priestess kept Farang in that cage and didn’t give her anything to eat. She made her poop in a bucket, and took that away and checked it for the stone. On the third day, the stone came out. Farang knew because it hurt like hell. The high priestess was waiting, and she grabbed the bucket. She took it to her office, cleaned off the stone, and put it in her best hiding place. After all the trouble she had getting it back, she wasn’t letting Farang get at it again.

  “After that, the high priestess let Farang out of the cage. She had her soul back, so she didn’t bother with any more punishment. She was the boss, she had all the power, and Farang had none. Like Emeka said, that’s the way a tribe works. Farang crawled out of the cage. She ate the food a priestess brought her – it was just gruel, but it didn’t have any poison. Then she wandered off to her secret altar. She laid down in front of it and cried. Her soul stone was captured again. She was back to square one. Life’s a bitch, and then you die. Or should I say, life’s a shit and then you die. Nothing ever changes. The end.”

  He turned to Ms. Wert. “I can email you an e-version after class, okay?”

  Again, Ms. Wert looked confused. She also looked as if she wanted to forget what she’d just heard and move on to something else as quickly as possible. “Okay,” she said.

  Sean ambled back to his desk, and exchanged smirks with Elliot. Still huddled in her seat, Maddy didn’t bother to check out Julie’s expression for its approval rating. The moment of doom was fast approaching, and she was bracing herself for it. As Ms. Wert got to her feet, a conversation buzz started up all over the class, but it didn’t appear to be a response to Sean’s chapter; rather, students seemed to be discussing Kara and her brother Frank. Ms. Wert called out over the buzz, asking the class to move into their work groups, and they complied, the noise level rising dramatically as desks scraped along the floor. Still, no one approached the substitute teacher to correct her on her omission regarding The Pain Eater’s next chapter. In a state somewhere between shock and cataclysmic relief, Maddy watched the gossiping class forget all about Farang of Faraway as they chattered their way into various work groups. August’s hesitation before settling into Kara’s vacant desk was marked. David slunk into his seat opposite August, zeroed in on t
he mask decal on Maddy’s binder, and blanched visibly. His gaze met Maddy’s and ricocheted away.

  As the class chatter settled to a low roar, Maddy saw Ken leave his work group and approach the teacher’s desk. He smiled and began speaking at length, as if explaining something. Ms. Wert’s face brightened, and she glanced in the direction he was pointing. Ken then returned to his work group, and the substitute teacher walked over to Nikki Nutter, the student Ken had pointed out.

  Maddy almost dissolved onto the floor. Nutter was the surname following hers on the class list. Ms. Wert had to be talking to Nikki about writing the next Pain Eater chapter, which meant Maddy was off the hook, at least temporarily. And, due to the distraction of the news about Kara, no one appeared to have noticed. Impossible as it might seem, doom had passed Maddy by. Sure, it had come about due to Ken’s intervention, but so what? Silence and obscurity were fine with Maddy; in fact, they were what she wanted most. Like Farang, all she wanted was to crawl alone into the forest and lick her wounds. Her soul had been stolen. Others ruled the world. Nothing ever changed. End of chapter, end of story.

  Another thumbnail welt dug itself deep into the back of her left hand.

  . . .

  It was Saturday night. Alone in the tree house, Maddy sat observing the dark mural. Still in its earliest stage, barely defined shapes lurked and lunged at one another; above them hovered the faint cream-gold sphere she’d added earlier in the week. On the inside of her left thigh was a much smaller sphere that she’d burned into place Thursday after the assault in the alley. Since then, no further threats had been forthcoming – no more decals on her locker, no comments in the halls, no tweets. No nothing.

  Her parents were watching a movie. They’d asked Maddy to join them, but she’d refused. Leanne was out with friends. And here, thought Maddy, sit I – alone in Limbo Land. Depressed and unhappy. A fuck-up. A total, complete fuck-up.

  She wanted to be over this. She wanted to ditch this crap and get back to being part of the normal, functioning world again. Why wouldn’t the pain just get over itself, go away, and let her get on with things? Why? Why? Why?

  Maddy shifted the flashlight that she’d propped on several books so it lay tilted upward, its beam directed at the mural. Early October evenings were dark, and she was wearing a thick sweater – protection against the cold, keeping herself warm and safe…for what? she thought bitterly. What did it matter if she was healthy and alive? What was she continuing on for? She was just a smudge of nothingness these days – a blur of silence that everyone ignored. And why not? She was hardly worth paying attention to. She was a zombie. Her soul had been stolen, and it didn’t look like she’d ever get it back. Why didn’t she get a gun and shoot off her head like Kara’s brother?

  On the mural opposite, something moved. Confused, not sure what she’d seen, Maddy stared intently but saw nothing except the dark, tormented shapes she’d created. Nothing but her own nothingness. But then it came again – a kind of pulsing, there and gone. Breath in her throat, Maddy held absolutely still and watched. And yes, after a moment, she saw it more clearly – a shift in the darkness, something deeper down, darker still, reaching up toward the surface of what she’d drawn and making itself known to her.

  I’m here, it was saying. I’m here and I want you to know me.

  A tingling shot through Maddy; she felt herself coming slow-alive and on the edge of something. Picking up a stick of black chalk, she touched it to the place she’d seen the pulse surface. Then she began to sketch in quick, upward thrusts, pulling the deeper darkness up and out – a thick trunk of it that scattered itself outward into countless terrified branches. When it was done, she settled onto her heels and examined every inch of what she’d drawn – what she’d pulled up and out of herself and placed on a wall to be seen and identified like any other fact…the first tree.

  Tears pricked Maddy’s eyes. She blinked them back. Not now, she thought – she didn’t have time to cry now. Not with the pulsing she felt deep within herself, a pulsing that wanted her heart and hands, that wanted out onto that wall. Later, she would cry. Now, she had work to do.

  She started on the second tree.

  . . .

  Monday afternoon, Kara’s desk continued to yawn empty. Ms. Mousumi was also once again absent, Ms. Wert sitting a little more confidently in her place. At the substitute teacher’s cue, Nikki Nutter rose from her seat beside Sean Longstreet and walked to the front of the room. Openly curious, Maddy watched the other girl come to a halt and tap something into her phone. While no one would have guessed it from the current look of things, she and Nikki shared a history that went back to grade eight. They’d been friends then, smoked their first cigarette together, and played hooky a few times to visit video arcades. But Maddy had an older sister who kept an eagle eye on her life, someone who ran with the cool crowd but also talked sense. “Maddikins,” Leanne had said. “D’you want to spend your life stocking shelves in a drug store?” Maddy had gotten her drift. Nikki, on the other hand, had no guardian angels. When Maddy had refused to skip any more classes, Nikki had dumped her and found other kids to hang out with. Nowadays, these included guys like Sean and Elliot. Nowadays, Nikki bleached her hair, wore imitation black leather, and sported lip and cheek studs.

  Glancing at Elliot, Nikki winked. Then, her voice in a smoky drawl, she began. “Once upon a time in a land called Faraway, there lived a girl named Farang. When she was born, she lucked out and got a bum deal on destiny. Nothing went her way. Life was a bowl of lemons. No one loved her. It looked like she was always going to be everyone’s kicking bag.

  “So one day she sat down beside her secret altar and thought. And she thought and she thought. And she decided to make a change on her own. Y’see, the allura leaf wasn’t the only poison the tribe knew about. There were good poisons too. Poisons you could drink. Poisons you could smoke. But make sure you inhale, to get all the fun! Farang knew where people in the tribe went to get these poisons. There was an old hag who gathered the plants, and dried and pounded them to powder, and sold them. Sometimes the people who bought them met by the river and partied. Farang started hanging around these parties. When the partiers got high, they forgot they weren’t allowed to talk to her. They gave her powder to snort, and Farang got high with them. And then,” – here, Nikki stopped and smiled knowingly – “things happened.

  “Farang was ugly and she was lonely, and she was willing. Very willing. Farang was pretty much willing to do it with anyone. The sad thing was no one bothered to tell Farang the facts of life. So she got knocked up. She didn’t know she was knocked up. She thought she was getting fat. She just kept partying and having a good time, and getting bigger and bigger.

  “But the high priestess wasn’t too pleased. Farang had disobeyed the rules of the tribe by going to the parties, and so had the partiers. She couldn’t punish everyone who’d been there, but she could go after Farang. One full moon, the high priestess added a new poison to Farang’s usual one. This was a poison that caused abortions. Farang didn’t know she was eating it, because she didn’t even know she was pregnant. The pain she went through that night was ten times worse than before. Everyone watched her scream and twist. They saw the dead baby come out. There was a lot of blood, and Farang almost died.

  “The partiers got the message. They liked Farang – she was easy and always ready for a good time. But there are good poisons and bad poisons. The partiers knew enough not to eat anything the high priestess dished out, but what if she snuck into their huts and mixed something into their Frosted Flakes – or whatever they ate when they got the munchies. They chilled out on Farang after that. No matter how she begged, no poison and no nookie. So Farang was on her own again.

  “What’s the moral of this story? Everyone wants the good poisons. They pretend they don’t, but they really do. Farang was like everyone else, except lonelier. So she wanted the good poisons more. When you’re that hungry
, you’ll eat whatever you’re fed. Farang lost her baby and her party friends, which made her very, very hungry. She was ready to eat anything. And so she began to look forward to the full moon when she ate the tribe’s pain. At least then she got attention. At least then she felt full. It was her favorite time of the month; it was the closest to love that she got. Twisted, I know. But that’s what life is – twisted. You better get used to it. Farang got used to it. In fact, she got to love it. She got to love pain, because it was better than hating it.”

  Nikki didn’t look up when she finished her chapter. She simply shut off her phone, walked to her seat, and sat down. Sean leaned over and whispered something, and she smirked in reply, but there was no hiding the flush that was taking over her face. As Maddy watched her former friend, confusion took over her own face. Twisted – just like with Julie’s chapter, this was the right word to describe Nikki’s, but it was also the word to describe the expression on Nikki’s face. She looked to be half laughing and, at the same time, half ready to cry. What had she been up to in the year and a half since she and Maddy had last spoken? What were Nikki’s good poisons?

  Maddy’s eyes dropped to the smiling mask decal on her binder, then dove past it to her hands in her lap. Whatever was twisting Nikki’s gut, she didn’t want to know. She had enough of her own pain to eat, and she wasn’t hungry for more.

  “I think we’ll move straight into your work groups now,” Ms. Wert said briskly, getting to her feet.

  Ms. Wert didn’t want to know what was twisting Nikki’s gut either. Neither did the rest of the class, now surging to their feet and shoving desks into new positions. For a moment, Nikki sat motionless, watching everyone move on to the next activity, purposely putting her chapter behind them as if they’d never heard it. The small smile playing on her lips said this was pretty much exactly what she’d expected.