by Diane Munier
“I want to live in a city. New York!” she says. “I want to go to Macy’s!”
Cap levels his chair and keeps eating. He keeps smiling at Abigail too, but everything he does is what they call low-key.
Easy is playing with my thumb. He’s one-handing his meal, like me.
“They’re talking all over school about what went down Friday night,” Ricky is looking past me talking to Easy. “She’s gonna have a real time when she gets back to school,” he says.
Granma is paying attention. “She didn’t do anything. Bunch of busy-bodies.”
“I tell you this is my whole beef with Christianity. Most gossiping people on earth,” May says.
“May,” Granma says.
“It’s true Vi. They put all the big sins underground but gossip and gluttony they’ve turned into an art form so they can keep right on doing it.”
“For heaven sakes May,” Granma says.
“It is not for heaven’s sake at all. They worry about their do’s and don’ts and rip good people to shreds and don’t give it a thought. That’s not what my bible says. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Whited walls and empty wells.”
I try not to groan cause ever since Aunt May got the bible in her hands…well I already said it. But she’s got a point, maybe. Even though I know this is more about Father Anthony…just Anthony, I mean. Aunt May thinks he got a raw deal of some kind.
“Yes May. And I hope you’re doing all you can to shut down any gossip spoken in your presence, Ricky,” Granma says.
There have been times in my life, maybe more than I know, where Granma has tried to make Ricky protect me. When we were younger, at the swimming pool, or walking home. These days it’s riding us home from games and dances. To his credit he has been protective. Sort of. We’ve just never had anyone to protect us from him.
“Do you think I should try to talk to the principal or something?” Easy says. He is holding my hand very firmly atop his leg.
“No,” Granma says. “Georgia you can handle yourself, right? You would go to a teacher if anyone got out of line?”
“Yes,” I say. Granma can’t imagine how cruel the kids at school can be. Aunt May is more correct but what she’s saying can’t help me in the pit of Bloody Heart. It may be true about Christianity, I haven’t thought it out like she has, but it is still, what it is. And I have to go there on Thursday and face it.
“I’m sorry Georgia,” Easy says to me, not caring who else hears.
Ricky snorts but I don’t look at him.
“Don’t go,” Cap says. “If it’s a bad scene just go to public.”
I laugh and so does Abigail. Cap can’t know how it feels to have gone to the same place since kindergarten, that leaving it could not be casual, or even a choice as my Granma thinks me going to Bloody Heart secures my place in heaven and Aunt May, for all her disgust with Christians, thinks Bloody Heart is a better education than public. Least she used to think that.
“Maybe if I pick her up from school every day in my uniform,” Easy says like that uniform makes him superman or something.
“No Easy,” Granma says firmly. “I was going to talk to you about that. You are not to go on school grounds.”
“Did the school say that?”
“I said it. Georgia Christine is to come home on the bus just like always. You are not to show up at her school,” Granma says. “I have to think of her. And it protects you too.”
They are having a bit of a stare-off. His grip is almost too tight.
“Are you listening?” she says.
“Yes Ma’am,” he says.
Granma’s shoulders drop a little. “Good then.”
“But I can’t just let Georgia suffer. It’s my fault. This whole thing.”
“Shouldn’t have run away from me. Again.” Ricky says talking with his mouth full.
“Sometimes we put things in motion, and people get hurt. We have to learn to look at consequences not only for ourselves but for others before we act,” May says like she’s quoting another book.
“Like the war,” Cap adds and I’m really impressed he could make that leap. He just keeps surprising me. And apparently Aunt May cause she does a double take looking at him.
But Granma keeps going, “Georgia has a mind. She made her own decision and it got her here. Sacred Heart is her world just like the army is yours, Easy. She can’t fix yours and you can’t fix hers.”
“Right here, Granma,” I say weakly cause she’s talking like I’m not around.
“I’m talking to Easy,” she says without her usual care. Is she mad at me or something?
“Sacred Heart is my world too,” Ricky says. “So I got it, G. I. Joe.”
I put my fork down and pinch the back of Ricky’s arm.
“Ow,” he says too loudly. “What’d you do that for?”
“You’re in my world,” I say and Abigail May is laughing.
Ricky looks at me. He licks his lips and takes his napkin and rubs his hands and face. He pitches that in his plate. “I’m ready for cake,” he says, his face flushed red.
“Georgia is,” Easy clears his throat, “important to me.”
“And to me,” Granma says.
Easy looks at her. “Yes Ma’am. I…know that.”
“I ah…okay?” I say weakly and even Abigail isn’t laughing. What Easy just said…in front of everyone has quieted us down.
“You haven’t seen her for four years,” Granma says.
“Yes Ma’am. But it doesn’t change how I feel about her. I’m going away again but it won’t change it.” He is so certain, so clear. I want to believe him and I’d say the same thing, if I had the nerve but it would be hard to just…declare it in front of…everyone.
May’s chair scrapes back as she stands up. “Abigail May you help me serve the cake.”
Abigail gets up, and with May’s back turned and Granma’s attention on her plate now, Abigail pinches Cap’s cheek as she passes him and he grabs at her and she quietly dances out of his reach toward Aunt May.
“That’s my sister,” Ricky says to him.
Cap flashes Ricky the peace sign.
Granma is blinking like Satan just stuck a pitch fork in her eye.
“Young people,” Granma says like it’s a disease maybe.
“We can’t help it we’re young, Granma,” I say.
“I like being young,” Cap says and he turns and does this lazy grin at Abigail and she is looking at him like she was waiting for it.
“You need some sugar,” Aunt May says setting the first piece in front of Granma.
“It’s too big May.”
May picks up Granma and Easy’s plates and moves the dish of cake across the table to Easy.
“Thanks Ma’am,” he says picking up his fork again. “I just mean I care about Georgia.”
“Well you’re talking way ahead of yourself,” Granma says.
“He’s not,” I say. “Easy is my friend.”
“It’s…,” Easy starts but I squeeze his hand. He can’t say it again in front of all of them—how important I am.
“You’re a big talker,” Ricky says, “but you don’t know the future. People change. She can change her mind,” Ricky says.
“Shut-up Ricky,” I say.
Easy leans forward again. “I mean what I say.”
I stand and bring our hands into Granma’s view. I let go quick and Granma doesn’t say anything she just takes a quick bite of her cake.
I stack the dirty plates and move around Ricky and Abigail’s vacated seat and round the table and pass Cap on my way to the sink. Abigail is taking plates of cake and setting them where the dirty plates were. I put the dishes in the sink and I turn to look at Easy. He watches me but so does Ricky. I ignore him.
“Get mine,” I say meaning my cake.
Easy stands and has our two plates and I lead us into the living room. Once in there he says, “This is rude.”
I take the plates and set them on the coffee table, on
top of Granma’s magazines. Then I turn to him and over the music I say, “Let’s dance,” and I get close to him and his arms come around me like at the sock hop and mine go around him, too, and the Doors, well Jim Morrison sings Light My Fire, the best song ever created. And it’s just relief to feel myself pressed against Easy. I don’t need or want another thing. Just Easy.
Rude feels so wonderful. So wonderful. I am leaving them all behind. I am waving to them as they stand on the shore. My family…and my school. I am choosing Easy. I look in his eyes and what I see there are his feelings. “I heard you,” I say.
He swallows.
I may not say it in front of them all, like he has, but they can look in here anytime if they dare, and they’ll see how it is, how we are. I choose Easy.
Darnay Road 61
“Watch the lamp,” Aunt May says, moving protectively in front of the end table Ricky jars when he falls to his knees beside the coffee table. It is only a few minutes after Easy and I have begun dancing to our second song, “Cherish,” by The Association, that the great arm-wrestling championship is about to begin here in Granma’s living room.
This is Ricky’s idea. He’d entered the living room where I was dancing with Easy in a complete stupor as the song seemed just for us. He’d plopped on the sofa and Cap and Abigail were with him and mine and Easy’s happy bubble burst. Pop.
The record changed to Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her,” and those two immediately started to dance. Cap wasn’t shy about trying anything Abigail May suggested like the jerk or mashed potatoes. She even got him to do the funky chicken. He’s just not self-conscious.
Aunt May and Granma squeezed in as soon as the dishes were done. By that time Abigail May and Cap had pretty well taken over. Now Abigail is showing Cap how long she can stand on her head. Good thing she still has her gym suit under the kilt she’d borrowed from my closet.
And here’s how we got to the arm-wrestling. Ricky had started in with Easy about whether or not he knew Karate. Easy said they learned some in basic, so Ricky wanted to go out on the lawn and try some holds on Easy and Easy said no but he ended up agreeing to arm wrestle.
So now Ricky sits at one side of the coffee table and Easy across from him in the gap between the couch and table, but they widen it slightly because Easy has those long legs.
Ricky is bossing how they should do it, and Cap gets interested in laying out rules, like they have to stay seated and can’t get up and lean into it.
Granma sits in her rocker half shielding her face as she watches. Aunt May stands at the end table holding Little Bit, who has been hiding because we have so much company. Now she is trembling.
“Georgia come dance with me,” Abigail says hardly paying attention to the wrestling match at all. She is so used to Ricky and his friends and it is hard to ignore Aretha Franklin asking for respect.
But I can’t take my eyes off of Easy. He sits on the floor and I am almost next to him on the couch. His arms look strong, and they felt strong when they were around me a minute ago. Now his elbow is on the table, fist locked with Ricky’s. He looks even older and it hits me again he is a trained soldier and that means he knows how to kill people.
Well…he knew how to survive way before the army.
So Cap says, “Go,” and Easy and Ricky push against each other and the muscles in Easy’s arm start to pop.
I lean forward, my hands clasped on my knees, and almost at once I see the littlest sway Ricky’s way, and Ricky’s face is red and he grunts and takes a breath and grunts again as Easy slowly moves their clenched hands and straining arms toward Ricky’s defeat.
Then Ricky’s arm seems to give way, thunking the last inch to the table and Ricky loses. They let go and Ricky yells, “We’re doing it again.”
I have my hand on Easy’s shoulder and I rub over it cause it must be tired but I can feel how strong he is, just a layer of muscle there. I am so proud and happy. And Granma is watching me, but I don’t give a care.
Easy looks at me also proud and happy. But he doesn’t rub it in Ricky’s face. Abigail does.
Ricky says he wasn’t ready when Cap said, ‘Go.’
Abigail says, “Don’t be sore, Loser.” And she does a cartwheel and Aunt May scolds her to be careful she has nearly knocked the rabbit ears off Granma’s TV.
They hold a rematch and Easy wins again and Ricky is mad and Granma says, “No more,” they are going to ruin her table. Easy is laughing and Abigail May wants to play Password and Ricky wants to see who can do the most push-ups.
This living room must be holding its ears there is so much…life.
Returning to school is worse than I thought. Upperclassmen are interested in me, that’s the biggest surprise. And it’s all rude and painful. It is all scary. I am content not to be noticed very much, not for just entering a room for sure. I don’t mind being noticed for writing an article or because I have spoken up in class and said what I thought. I don’t mind that, but just because of a lie, gossip about me and Easy that I had no say about, I mind very, very much being noticed for that.
I am…an inside person. That’s what Easy said. I live inside of everything. But now…I’m on the outside. I am pulled from the place I’ve always…nested in. I am held up…investigated…a specimen on the lens of Bloody Heart’s merciless eye.
I am so, so mad. Here’s what I am pulled from most…an existence I’m not sure I ever liked.
I don’t like them. I don’t like the way they work and work to make their circles, their links on the chain, the older ones and the younger ones, get in line.
They hold to one another, braided arms. They give one another position. Insiders. No one on the outside matters.
I am my own group, a group of one. Older boys who didn’t used to know I was alive I don’t think, are looking at me now, whistling at me, asking me to go on dates. Older girls pretty much hate me. Like I’m trying to steal the boys from them by being loose and like a whore, but I’m not at all, of course.
Lunchtime is the worst. Freshmen have their own tables, their own pressure. There is the long line of tables for jocks only. To sit there is to eat at the king’s table. Ricky eats there. Abigail May could too, but for the first few weeks of school she ate with me.
She tried to pull me along with her but I have always refused. The price to be one of them is too high. I can’t lose my freedom. I tell that to Abigail and she doesn’t understand, but she knows it’s useless to argue. “Go sit with them if you want to,” I say. Everything they do is so calculated. I just want to eat, not kiss ass for some kind of position in the kingdom.
But Abigail stays with me until I move somewhere else and she is forced—or free to take her place amongst their ranks. God save the king.
That first afternoon when my bus gets to the stop at the end of my street and the doors open, Easy and Cap are waiting, both of them standing there looking older and kind of tough, definitely about beautiful and perfect and such a feeling is in me all of a sudden, like power I guess and I get off and Easy is finishing a cigarette, he tosses it, and puts his hands in his pockets and he’s next to me and hits me with his elbow, but he’s looking at the passing faces in the windows and he’s smiling and saying, “They treat you okay?”
I have no mind for them. First time all day they can’t touch me. He’s looking at me then, smiling.
“I’m gonna go,” Cap says.
“Yeah. No trouble,” Easy calls and Cap is already in the street with his thumb out. “He’s going to watch Abigail practice.”
Well no one said Cap couldn’t go to the school. It’s not really fair that Granma says Easy can’t come.
“She asked him,” I say. She told me right off and she couldn’t wait until he was in the bleachers watching her twirl.
“Anyone give you a hard time?” He asks thumbing my bag off my shoulder and putting it on his like he’d done last Friday.
“Um…no.”
“You not telling me?” He takes my hand.
“Just…,” I swallow.
“What?”
“Just a couple of jerks. Upper classmen. They think I do it now.”
“What?” he says without his smile.
“You can’t do anything about it. I said no and they left me alone.”
“No to what?”
“Going out. Friday.” I shake my head. They’d asked me to go to a party after. Two of them. Popular, in-crowd, talking to me like I was some greaser they met at Snowball, the hamburger joint where even the girls, hair teased to the sky, fight each other every weekend for boys that fight each other every night of the week.
We only have those two girls at Bloody Heart that do that, run with kids like that. Not me. I am not one of them. I told those boys no thanks. They’d confronted me at my locker, caught me off-guard as it’s a girl’s only section. So I said, no thanks, but I said it in a way that made the handsome one look offended. I don’t think he’d been turned down before. Not in this school where he’s a big catch.
His name is Paco. They call him that. I think his real name is Jim. I know he has a girlfriend. A senior like him.
He asks if I’m coming to the game on Friday.
“No,” I say trading the books in my arms for the ones in my locker. I can’t even think.
“You put out?” he says.
“No,” I say loudly.
That’s when Sister comes and asks those boys what they are doing in the girl’s section. She knows them, of course, and she starts to scold. The one, Jim’s sidekick Ben starts to move off, but Jim kind of ignores her. “Hey, I’ll see you Friday. At the game.”
I don’t get a chance to say I have a boyfriend, not that he’s asking to be my boyfriend, he’s asking if I put out.
I’m so angry I stare after him and before he rounds the corner he turns and makes a kiss mouth at me. It barely registers that now Sister is yelling at me I’m so angry.
By Friday I am so aware of being painfully behind in a couple of my classes. It’s my responsibility to catch-up so I’ve met with a couple of my teachers after school to learn about make-up work and I miss my bus. I know Easy is waiting at my stop.