The Pain Eater

by Beth Goobie

  “Like Julie said, in The Beautiful Land, Farang was beautiful. She was loved and had family and friends. It was a far, far better place than here on earth for her. And now that she could get there on her own, she went there and stayed there. Day after day, she lay by her secret altar with her eyes closed, and wandered around The Beautiful Land inside her head. She got thinner and thinner. She felt as if she was breathing life out, instead of breathing it in. Farang was dying and she knew it, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything anymore.

  “Meanwhile, the high priestess was still sneaking around, looking exactly like Farang. She had the kulumulu stone in a leather pouch around her neck, waiting for it to change color so she could go back to being herself again. She also had to keep out of the village so she wouldn’t be attacked, and she had to live on roots and berries like Farang. So she got thin and weak, too. Then one day she walked deeper into the forest than usual, and saw Farang lying by her altar and dreaming about The Beautiful Land.

  “The high priestess’s first thought was to take a stone from the altar and bash in Farang’s head. But Farang was the pain eater. Lousy as that job was, it was protected by the gods. If the high priestess killed Farang, the gods would take vengeance on her. So she decided on a different plan.

  “She knelt over Farang and shook her so she opened her eyes. When Farang saw her exact twin, she screamed. The high priestess put a hand over Farang’s mouth until she calmed down. Then she said, ‘I am your soul. You wanted to get me back, and now I’ve come back to you. You’re in great danger, and I know how to save you. But you must do exactly as I say.’

  “Farang nodded. She believed the high priestess completely. After all, nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Sure, she’d seen the high priestess shapeshift into a tiger, but she never suspected anything like this. So she did what the high priestess ordered. She hunted for nuts and berries for them both, and gave the best to the high priestess to eat. She built a lean-to for them to sleep under, and stole a blanket from a hut to cover them at night. The high priestess didn’t help any – she just sat around, staring at the kulumulu stone and muttering. But Farang didn’t worry about that at first, because she was so happy to have her soul back. After a while, though, it started to bug her. Her soul just sat there, eating and complaining. A couple of times, she even slapped Farang. What kind of loser soul was that? Farang started to wish her soul had never come back to her.

  “But the high priestess was working on a plan. At the night of the full moon, she followed Farang to the village and hid nearby. One of the three priestesses who was left did the ceremony – everyone thought a tiger had gotten the high priestess. Then, when Farang started crawling out of the bushes, the high priestess came out too – but walking.

  “The villagers were amazed. In ancient times, twins were thought to be a miracle. The high priestess knew this, and it was part of her plan. The villagers fell on their faces before her, and the high priestess held up a hand and called, ‘Be silent! The gods are here to speak to you!’

  “Farang was pretty surprised. It was news to her that her soul was a god. But so far, so good. So she just stood up and watched her soul talk to the villagers.

  “‘The gods have decided to reward you,’ said the high priestess. ‘They’ve sent you a sign. I am that sign. The gods know you’ve been suffering. They know you’ve had to feel extra pain because your pain eater disobeyed. Your pain eater refused to accept her destiny. Instead, she’s stealing and wrecking things. Now you’re angry and want to kill her. That’s why I’ve come – to remind you of the good purpose of the pain eater. Remember, the pain eater’s destiny is from the gods. The pain eater dies when the gods decide it. Until then, the pain eater has to eat your pain. She eats your pain, and I rule over you for the gods and keep you all safe.’

  “No one dared challenge the high priestess – they were too much in awe of her as Farang’s twin. They just believed her. So she took over the ceremony, and commanded the people to dance as Farang crawled into the cage. She even had some allura leaf powder in a pouch, and she secretly sprinkled it onto Farang’s food before she put it into the cage. So everything went as it usually did, with Farang twisting and screaming, and floating off to The Beautiful Land in her head.

  “But when Farang came back, she was changed. She was angry. If this was the way souls behaved, then Farang decided she didn’t need one. As far as she was concerned, her soul was fired. But the other villagers were impressed with Farang’s soul – they truly believed she was a sign from the gods. But Farang knew something fishy was going on. Still, she knew there was one thing her soul said that was true – she was in great danger. There were now two of her running around: a good twin and an evil twin. Farang was the good twin and her soul was evil. But all the villagers thought it was the other way around. It was kind of like living in a mirror – a mirror you never wanted to look at. A mirror you wanted to smash, so it would all go away.”

  Theresa lowered the pages she was reading from, and gave the class an uncertain smile. “Over to you, Amy,” she said to the girl sitting beside Jeremy. Amy’s shoulders slumped.

  “Okay, Theresa,” said Ms. Mousumi, getting to her feet. “Thank you. Any comments?”

  As Theresa headed for her seat, a number of hands went up. “I like that twins are a gift from the gods,” said Brent Doody with a broad grin. “I’ll have to tell Bobby.”

  The class burst into laughter. Brent and Bob Doody, fraternal twins, were both high profile in the cafeteria video games crowd.

  “I think it’s only identical twins,” said Theresa, bopping him on the head with her rolled-up pages as she sat down behind him. “No luck, Doody.”

  Brent collapsed in apparent desolation. “Yes, Jeremy?” said Ms. Mousumi.

  “What I don’t get,” said Jeremy, one desk in front of Maddy, “is why Farang never gets ahead. No matter what happens to her in this story, she always ends up exactly where she started.”

  “That’s an interesting point,” said the teacher.

  “Yeah,” Harvir threw in from across the room. “It’s almost like we believe in her destiny. We live now, in modern times, but we still think like they did. It’s weird,” he added, his voice trailing off.

  “What does everyone else think?” asked Ms. Mousumi. “This is an interesting point that’s been raised here. Has our thinking on destiny changed since ancient times? Do we all still believe in it?”

  The class sat musing. Julie raised her hand.

  “It depends on who you are,” she said. “If you’re born poor, and your family is starving in a third world country, you’re probably going to stay poor. But if you’re born middle class or rich over here….” She shrugged.

  “How about at this school?” asked Ms. Mousumi. “How does our thinking on destiny affect the way we treat each other here?”

  Eyebrows rose as students considered the question. Nikki’s hand went up.

  “Your rep’s everything,” she said. “Once you’ve got one, consider it your destiny until kingdom come.”

  “It can’t be changed?” asked Ms. Mousumi.

  “A good rep can change,” said Nikki, “but once you’re down, you can’t come back up.”

  A knowing smile appeared on the face of Sean Longstreet, who sat to Nikki’s left. Letting her gaze slide past him, Maddy saw the same smile appear on the faces of a sequence of guys, sitting side by side – Sean, Elliot, Harvir, Ken, and David. No, not David. In contrast to the others, he was looking downward, his expression uncomfortable. But to his right, Julie, Dana, and Christine wore similar smiles. Smirks.

  Ms. Mousumi obviously didn’t want to delve deeply into the topic of fallen reputations. “Okay, class, we’ll leave it there,” she said. “Today, we’re working on…”

  Maddy’s gaze left the teacher and settled on Rhonda Hinkle, who sat opposite her in the front row. Rhonda, she
realized suddenly – the only obviously disabled student – was also the only one who’d gone directly against the rest of the students’ penchant for destiny. Stalwart in her oddly leaning body, she’d faced down the class and proclaimed, “I can!” Rhonda wasn’t a popular student. Rarely did someone join her as she made her determined swaying way through the halls. In situations where a class had to divide into smaller groups of choice, she was usually left standing alone. To her shame, Maddy couldn’t recall ever having spoken to Rhonda.

  Her gaze drifted sideways, to Kara’s still-empty seat. No, she realized. Rhonda wasn’t the only one who’d refused to surrender Farang to a destiny determined by others. Kara had gotten the whole plot going by stating that Farang stopped believing in her destiny at age fifteen. How was Kara doing? Maddy wondered. Had her brother’s funeral taken place yet? What did she think now about destiny – after Frank’s suicide?

  More than anything, she wished suddenly, deeply, that Kara was back among them – with her sarcastic, savvy comments, the bitter bite of her knowing. Kara wouldn’t have let Nikki’s comment about fallen reputations stand. She wouldn’t have put up with the class’s repeated return to the status quo, in The Pain Eater or in real life. For the first time since the assault in March, Maddy felt the flicker of the desire to talk to someone in particular, to a friend.

  . . .

  Two blocks from school, they were on her. Maddy was crossing a strip-mall parking lot on her way home, when a group of guys on bikes sped past. “Hey!” one of them hollered. “Get a load of this – it’s Maddy Malone!”

  Like a flock of birds, they turned en masse and came back toward her. Startled, not quite getting it yet, Maddy edged to one side to give them room, but they swooped in closer and began to circle her. All were familiar as hallway faces; she knew two first names. There were six in total.

  “Oooo, Maddy!” sang one. “We’ve heard about you, Maddy.”

  “Maddy Malone,” called another. “Maddy’s mad for it – she’s mad for it.”

  On all sides, bikes whirred and clanged. Maddy couldn’t take a step in any direction without smashing into spinning metal, a leering, sneering face. Beyond the hooting circle, cars dotted the parking lot; traffic continued to stream past on an adjoining commuter road; a few people went into a nearby bank. No one gave a second glance at what was going on, what was happening to Maddy right before their eyes.

  “Ooo Maddy, we know about you,” jeered a voice.

  A sick feeling oozed through Maddy’s gut. With it came the memory of other voices, of panting and grunting. Darkness swelled inside her mind; a streetlight came on, faint in the distance. Raising both arms, Maddy wrapped them over her head.

  “An egg,” crowed someone. “You’re an egg, Maddy – over easy, over easy.”

  Then, just as quickly as they’d appeared, they were gone, the whir of their bikes fading. Still, it was a while before Maddy lowered her arms. The voices and shapes in her mind were too intense; imaginary hands continued to grab at her and push her down, and she couldn’t break free of them, couldn’t get up, couldn’t get up.

  And then she could. Like the parting of a dense fog, the dark, grunting shapes in her mind dissolved. Maddy opened her eyes to see an elderly woman peering at her, a look of concern on her face.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she asked. “Would you like me to call someone?”

  Maddy stood blinking at her. After the mess inside her head, this ordinary woman’s face felt like an alternate reality, an image on an electronic billboard. Without speaking, she turned from the woman and headed across the parking lot. Home – all she could think of was home and the tree house, where she could be alone without anyone coming at her on bikes, riding their own loaded jeers. Mad Maddy. Over easy, over easy. Maddy’s face burned. She’d never heard a girl being taunted with the latter phrase, but there was only one possible meaning to attach to it. Which meant that someone had talked. After seven months, finally, one of the five had told. Not David – somehow Maddy was certain of this – but Ken or Pete, Robbie, or the fifth, as-yet-unidentified participant. Whoever it was, if these bike thugs knew, everyone at school soon would. The comments coming her way then would leave “Over easy” in the dust.

  Maddy’s gut exploded like a mushroom cloud. Bending over, she vomited onto the sidewalk.

  . . .

  Thanksgiving weekend passed in a blur. Leaving the city on Saturday morning, the Malones drove for several hours to Middle Lake, where Ian Malone’s parents still farmed. A two-day romp of cousins and tail-wagging collies – Maddy tried not to freak at all the noise, the continual pressure of love and friendliness she was expected to return. On her left inner thigh, a new burn blister festered. She’d tried to resist the urge, to hold off, but had surrendered late Friday evening. Now, even under a bandage, it stung and rubbed against her jeans. She’d held the cigarette ember too long against her leg – she’d known it at the time – but the numbness it brought had felt so good, just peace and quiet in her head….

  “Is she eating enough?” she overheard her grandmother ask her mother. “She’s so pale. Maybe she’s anemic.”

  All weekend, Maddy made an effort to eat extra and to compliment her grandmother on her cooking. It was hard, forcing herself to keep at it. She felt so tired, as if a great weight pushed down on her. Gears ground continually in her head, and a slow fog seemed to have settled in around her. All she wanted was to give in and float off into nothingness, but her grandmother watched so closely, and her grandfather kept asking her to go out for a stroll. For two days, Maddy strolled and stuffed herself. Finally, Monday arrived, and she was once again in the family car and homeward bound. Beside her, Leanne sat texting nonstop on her phone; in the front, Gordon Lightfoot warbled from the dash as her parents discussed her mother’s new work schedule. Staring out a side window, Maddy let her mind go into a deadman’s float. In a deadman’s float, nothing came into her head. And nothing was fine with her – nothing about the past, nothing about what was coming. Nothing, nothing, nothing – everything was nothing, she was nothing….

  The car pulled into the front drive. Doors opened, bodies piled out and began pulling at overnight bags. Knapsack over a shoulder, a sleeping bag under one arm, Maddy followed her father to the front door. There he paused, digging in his pocket for his keys. “What’s this?” he asked, reaching for something white that hung from the doorknob.

  It was a mask – a cheap plastic Greek comedy mask – an exact replica of the ones handed out at Our Town. Lifting it off the doorknob by its elastic head string, Ian Malone examined it. “Huh,” he said. “Some kind of advertising? There’s no logo on it.” With a shrug, he unlocked the door, walked into the front vestibule, and hung the mask on a coat tree. The next few minutes were filled with coming and going as the car was unpacked and family belongings trekked into the house. By the time the last car door slammed and the front vestibule had been cleared out, the Greek comedy mask had disappeared from the coat tree – with no one but Maddy to see as she crushed it repeatedly underfoot into the driveway asphalt then kicked the fragments into the brisk fall wind.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maddy sat, hunched in her desk. Around her, the English classroom buzzed with chatter, complemented by frequent bursts of laughter. Each fresh burst came at Maddy like an attack of sound, like a wave of electric shock. Already, multiple thumbnail welts rode the back of her left hand. From across the room, by the entrance, she could feel it – Ken’s dark stare glommed onto her. Assessing…she was sure of it. Ken was watching her and assessing the effects of The Masked Avengers’ master plan put into action.

  All day, she’d been getting comments. Not every minute and not from everyone, but there were guys grinning at her in the halls who’d never noticed her before, and girls with knowing smirks. She didn’t know half their names, but all of them now seemed to know hers. Nobody said anything exactly. It was all vague
references about wanting it, being mad for it. No one mentioned last March, Our Town, or a copse of aspen…four guys jumping her under the cover of evening darkness, while one stood by. Nothing about that.

  When she’d checked her Twitter at lunch, there had been mentions from unfamiliar accounts. The usernames didn’t identify the senders by their real names; Maddy had no idea if they were The Masked Avengers in a new disguise or someone to whom The Masked Avengers had passed her username. These tweets had been like the hallway comments she’d been getting, but more specific: Blow me, blow me, blow me, baby. And I hear Malone’s a busy place these days. Can I check in? And You lookin’ to learn the splitz? I can teach ya. Maddy had blocked all three accounts. Then she’d gone to the nearest girls’ washroom and thrown up in a toilet.

  About her now, the class went quiet. As if someone had flicked a switch, every mouth simultaneously stopped talking. Cued by the abrupt silence, Maddy glanced up to see Kara Adovasio hesitating by the classroom entrance. Half the kids in the room were staring at her, the rest gazing pointedly elsewhere. Kara herself looked stunned, as if she’d been caught in the glare of headlights. Ducking her head, she strode across the front of the room. Ms. Mousumi greeted her as she passed the teacher’s desk, and then Kara was slipping around behind Maddy and into her empty seat.

  Maddy didn’t know what to do. One row ahead, Jeremy sat, his back rigid as he stared directly ahead. No one turned to Kara and smiled, welcoming her back. Without a word, Kara took out her phone and began thumbing. She looked pale, her chestnut hair pulled into a careless ponytail. The expression on her face warned everyone off. The old Kara was back, multiplied ten times over.

  Inexplicably, Maddy found herself wondering what Kara’s stomach felt like. She wondered if the inside of the other girl’s thighs were clear, or festering, like her own, with cigarette burns. Were gears grinding in her head – was she looking constantly for a way to turn them off, to sink into the relief of clear, still nothingness?