And as this chorus echoes all around me, as the fragrances of seaweed and oil flare up my nostrils, as the seagulls circle in the air above me, as a group of eider ducks rises and falls on the waves of the bay, the tears begin to roll. Why doesn’t Dad ever call me?
My childhood has faded like a bright summer day in laughter and games on a sunny field under the blue sky. That day has now come to evening. Before me is the black forest of my grown-up years, full of monsters and insects and dangers with each step, bullfrogs, snakes, and poison spiders; a thick undergrowth that I have to fight through to move onward, but I don’t know where to. I’ve been pushed forward and there’s no turning back. I’m empty inside, like the curled-up skin from an apple. Is this being a grown-up? Or is this just being thirteen? To have no friend in the world, nobody who understands, nobody to take me in their arms. The only bosom where I can rest is the bosom of my rock. But I even hear the herring gull circling overhead, laughing at me and my misery. I wish I was dead and gone and would never have to see anyone I know. Why does God make all this happen? Maybe there is no God, no merciful Father and Jesus and angels and Mary. Is it all for show? Maybe you are utterly alone in the world. And when you die, you just disappear, vaporize, cease to exist. The herring gull glides over the rocks and laughs.
Once I read a story about a man who was going to throw himself off the docks and commit suicide, but then God sent an angel. The angel turned itself into a little child and jumped in the harbor, so the man had to jump in to rescue the child, and he decided not to kill himself. If this story is true, if God is really that good with those who are desperate, then why has he sent me a laughing herring gull? Am I worth nothing? Can’t he spare an angel for me? Maybe he just wants to get rid of me. Maybe I’m in the way. He obviously doesn’t want to rescue me; he just laughs at me and my sorrows. Is this how you clean up your mistakes, God? Eat the apple from inside me and leave the skin for laughing herring gulls? All right, you, I won’t be in your way anymore. I’ll disappear. I’m going to commit suicide.
A sharp trembling goes through my body, and my hands are cold. I wipe tears and snot from my face; my eyes hurt and my throat is sore.
I can just picture when Pinko, the stupid idiot, gathers everybody in the school auditorium; teachers and students alike stand silent and wait and listen.
“I have grave tidings for you all,” he says, and the room is utterly quiet. Everyone senses that something terrible has happened. Pinko rearranges his glasses, and his hands are trembling; his conscience is torturing him.
“Today, Heaven is richer by one angel,” he says in a shaky voice. “But we here in this little school have lost one of our most talented students, a lovely young man and a good student: Josh Stephenson is dead.”
The sighs and groans go through the crowd; teachers bow their heads, and boys and girls look desperately at one another. Raxel covers his face with his hands, and Sandra clings to him in speechless fright. They realize they’ll never work in any school gym again. Peter cries bitter tears: he has lost a trusted friend. And my Clara, she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Now she realizes that it was me she loved with all her heart, that it was me she saw in her dreams. But now it’s too late. She stands up and looks over the crowd.
“You killed him!” she shouts, and points an accusing finger at Pinko. “You and your uncompassionate, loveless, cruel heartlessness! You’re all murderers!” she shouts. “He lives on, yes, he lives on in the hearts of those who loved him. You can’t get to him there!” Then she runs out, overwhelmed with grief.
Everybody is thinking the same thing: if only I had been nicer to him, if only I had been more understanding, if only, if only. But now he’s gone and it’s too late, nothing left but a black hole of guilt in the souls of the wicked, but a sweet memory of a good boy in the hearts of the others.
I tremble and shake from the exhilarating sorrow, the tragic ecstasy, exhausted from my imagination, from thinking about the impact my death might have on the world. But what about Mom and Dad? I expect they’d be relieved. At least Mom could stop working so much, and Dad doesn’t care about me anyway. What the hell was the meaning of giving me a stuffed falcon? He is a stuffed idiot. He probably didn’t get permission from Floozy Suzy, his girlfriend, to keep it, and so rather than just throwing it away, sent it to me.
The herring gull chuckles as he flies in circles high in the sky. He probably can’t wait to pick the meat from my corpse.
In the cupboard under the kitchen sink, there is a plastic bottle marked with three crosses and a skull. Poison. Many have taken poison and died immediately, although I suspect it’s rather painful. I kneel on the kitchen floor, unscrew the top, and sniff carefully. It’s like a punch in the face. I jerk back and throw the bottle into the cupboard. I could never drink that.
In the kitchen drawer, the blades of knives lie side by side. They fillet fish, carve meat, or slice bread; they have this innocent look about them, in spite of their malicious potential. Their sharp blades gleam at me. I take one of them, the one with the long, thin blade; it could easily go through me. Maybe I lack the strength to push it all the way in or the courage to cut my wrist. I place the blade on the thin skin of my wrist and press lightly on the blue veins. The skin turns white under its edge. I get butterflies in my stomach as if I’m standing on a high cliff. I throw the knife back in the drawer and shut it.
I could jump into the ocean and swim out until I get tired, I think as I wander into the living room. They say that drowning is like falling asleep; you don’t feel a thing. The curtains flicker in the breeze from the half-open window. The dim afternoon light filters into the living room, casting an eerie glow on the walls. What if my corpse drifts out to the ocean? I’ll be like those people you hear about who disappear and are never found. Maybe someone would be accused of killing me. If my body was never found, then nobody would ever know for sure whether I was dead or not. The magnificent influence of my death on society is starting to fade in my mind. It’s not easy to take your own life. Maybe I don’t have to die right away, not today or tomorrow. Maybe the day after.
Dear Mr. Pickard,
Because of an uncontrollable situation, my son, Josh Stephenson, cannot come to school for some time. I will see to it that he does his homework as possible, but due to a family situation, it is not possible for him to attend school. I do not wish to discuss this with you at this point, but hope that this letter is enough to explain his absence. I ask you sincerely to do nothing until I make contact with you.
Yours sincerely,
I print the letter from Gertrude’s old computer and read it over and over, the letter that will secure my amnesty for as long as I care to stay alive. Now all I need is Mom’s signature, and then I can mail it and not worry about school anymore.
I sit for some time at the desk in my cousin’s room and look out the window. From here, I can see through the window and into my own room, my desk, where the falcon stands high, and into the corner where my fish tank is all lit up on my dresser. My earthly belongings are few and insignificant. Before too long, Mom will have rid herself of those things. And the only thing that’ll remind the world of my existence will be a photo of me in the living room, in a beautiful frame. And every night she’ll light a candle by that photo. But after many, many years, when she too is dead, then nobody will know I ever existed.
My head slowly bows down to my chest where I sit in Mom’s TV chair. The dark-blue curtain in the living room by my side moves slowly in the twilight. I yawn. I’m tired and sleepy. It’s so nice to let your eyes close by themselves. Maybe, if my sleep is deep enough, I’ll never wake up again. I picture the obituaries in the papers, one after the other, with a photo of me and a small black cross next to my name. Those whom the gods love die young, they all begin, then everything turns hazy and I fall into the long sleep, without any pain.
Sudden noise in the kitchen jolts me awake. I open my eyes wide and jump to my feet as if woken from the dead. There’s a bu
zz in my head, pins and needles in my arm, a pain in my throat.
“You were sleeping so soundly,” Mom says when I enter the kitchen. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
I don’t say anything, still half in the land of the dead, trying to figure out what’s going on. Mom is making dinner. She skins the fillet with the knife I was going to stab myself with, cuts the fillet into pieces, dips them in beaten eggs and milk, and puts them on a plate with breadcrumbs and rolls them on each side. My head feels heavy, and I’m bursting for the toilet. If I’d dared to do what I was going to do, I’d be lying on the kitchen floor by now, either with a bottle of poison by my side or soaked in blood. And Mom would be crying her eyes out over my body, ambulance outside, doctor, police, a stretcher, and a white sheet over my face; the blinking lights would be falling through the kitchen window, hitting the white walls at regular intervals; red spots forming on the sheet where I stabbed myself.
But I didn’t stab myself, and Mom is just making dinner. Potatoes are boiling away, and the lid jingles gently on the brim of the pot. It’s already dark outside, and I watch Mom’s reflection in the window as she stands by the wooden chopping board, cutting an onion. Fried fish with onions, potatoes, and a glass of ice-cold milk. It’s like a reward for being alive. It was good to sleep. I feel better; I’m numb, and there’s not a thought in my head. And the best thing is that Mom suspects nothing and simply hums along to the radio. I could sit like this all evening. It would be so nice to sit like this for a long, long time.
But I’m forced to my feet by the pressure in my bladder, and I go upstairs to the bathroom. For about half a second, I stand in the doorway and stare at the wonder before my eyes. At first I don’t react. Maybe I’m not fully awake yet; maybe I’m still dreaming; maybe I’ve started to hallucinate. Up from the frothy white bubbles in the bathtub rise two firm, round, and glistening breasts. My cousin Gertrude has her head under the surface and is combing her fingers through her hair in the water. Her breasts are large and beautiful, and there are little wisps of lather on each of the dark-brown nipples. And suddenly I don’t need to pee. Without thinking I sneak into the bathroom and crouch under the towels on the hanger, press myself up against the wall, and peek through a tiny gap between two towels. Most likely I’m still sleeping; otherwise I would have run out of here. But I can’t move; I am limp like the other towels, watching. Suddenly her head rises out of the water, she catches her breath, moans with pleasure, and dries the water from her face. Then she notices that the door is ajar. My heart is not beating anymore. I’m no longer a towel, I’m one of the tiles in the wall.
“Betty?” she shouts.
“Yes, dear?” Mom calls up the stairs.
“Can you close the bathroom door? It’s opened,” Gertrude shouts back and covers her breasts. My mom’s footsteps come up the stairs.
She takes the knob, and as she closes the door she says, “It does that all the time. You’d better just lock it next time.” Then she closes the door tightly.
My mother has shut me in here with my stark-naked cousin. I’m not breathing anymore; I’m invisible; I’m just two eyes behind a towel. Gertrude stands up in the tub, and I can see her whole body; the water runs and drips down curved lines and round forms. She gets the soap and a washcloth and starts to rub it on her, smearing the white foam over her breasts so they move gently in her hands, and her hands move the soapy towel down the stomach, round and round, down the outside of her long thighs, then upward inside her long thighs. She strokes all of her wet body until it’s white all over, in streaks and patterns like African body paint. Then she sits down slowly into the steamy hot water and sighs and moans. She lies still in the tub with her chin just touching the water. Two mouthfuls of breast rise up and surface, nipples on top, like two volcanoes, each on its own island. White foam circles the islands like silent surf. She lowers her body a little so that just her lips are above the water and starts to breathe out. The gurgling sound echoes around the tiles, me among them. I have to disappear before she gets out of the tub, have to crawl out the keyhole or something.
Gertrude’s face is sweating; she lowers her eyelids, and then her head disappears slowly under, her kneecaps rise, and I notice that she is jerking her head side to side while combing her fingers through her hair. Carefully I stretch my trembling hand from under the towel rail, grab the doorknob, and open the door as quietly as I can. In one swift movement, I’m out in the hallway, closing the door behind me, and as quickly, my heart starts to beat, faster and faster. I’m drenched in sweat, and there’s a monstrous pressure in my groin.
Mom walks past the foot of the stairs and sees me standing there, still with my hand on the doorknob. I stare back, but my eyes won’t focus.
“Gertrude is taking a bath, dear,” she says. “You’ll have to wait a bit to go to the bathroom.”
I take my hand slowly off the knob, fingers trembling, and speak with a deep, husky voice I’ve never heard before.
“All right,” I say.
“Dinner’s ready soon,” she says.
“All right.”
I float like a whiff of steam into my room, and I’m certain I have a fever now. I’m numb everywhere, even my fingertips. But deep down in my belly, a roaring lava stream whirls. I’ve never felt like this before, like I’m being fried on a stick, like my head is full of cotton, like my veins are bursting from the pressure of my blood. I lie on my bed and focus on a tiny crack in the ceiling, while my mind starts the replay in slow motion.
I had no idea that breasts could be so beautiful, that a single girl taking a bath had such graceful movements. There must be something terribly wrong with the creation story. How could such beauty be made from a single rib from a normal guy? More likely the guy was made from leftovers when God had finished his true masterpiece: woman. Just like the art teacher used to say when we were supposed to make something from clay: “If there are any leftovers, you can make whatever you want to.” That’s how it must have been with God; when he had created woman, in all her ethereal beauty, there was a small piece of mud left that was enough for a male.
The door swings open and Gertrude storms through the room in a white bathrobe with a high towel turban on her head, the red towel I had hidden behind. She goes into her room without looking left or right and closes the door, but the warm and sweet fragrance from her body twirls around my room and embraces me. I can’t hold back the smile of pleasure that slowly spreads, from somewhere deep down in my belly, across my lips.
Although my cousin is a goddamn brat, intolerable in every sense and the loudest bitch in the Northern Hemisphere, it can’t be denied that she’s not badly formed by nature. My life would probably be much less interesting if she hadn’t forced herself into it, and it’s quite possible she even saved it, without having the slightest idea.
I peek over the edge of Tintin and watch my cousin eating her cereal on the other side of the kitchen table. It’s 7:25, and Mom is running around the kitchen as usual.
“Here’s your lunch box, Josh. Don’t be too late, now. Did you finish your homework?”
To avoid answering, I fill my mouth with cereal and make a sound that could be either yes or no.
“There you are — I made some for you too, Trudy, dear,” Mom says, and hands my cousin two cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. My cousin looks up with disgust.
“You have to eat, you know,” Mom says.
“Yes, but not this,” my cousin says.
Mom takes her purse out and puts some money on the table.
“Then buy yourself something, dear. You can’t go starving, you know.” Then she runs for the bus.
Gertrude has her hair down, but one thin strand hangs over her forehead. Her long earring dangles from her ear, and when she leans over the cereal bowl, I can easily watch the curving hills slope down the open neck of her sweater. Then follows two rope-knitted hills with a deep valley between them.
“What are you staring at?” she shoots out, and look
s up, but I disappear behind Tintin.
“Nothing.”
“You’re such an ignoramus.” She frowns and stands up.
Out in the morning light, rain falls on the kitchen window and I hear the front door slam shut behind her and the sound of her high-heeled boots on the path as she walks toward the bus station. Then all I hear is the ticking clock: 7:45. I still have time to run to school. Five minutes more and I’ll be too late, ten minutes and the first lesson will have started. I brood over Tintin, reading the text as slowly as I can. Captain Haddock is swearing over some disaster. “Billions of bilious barbecued blue blistering barnacles!” he says. I wonder how many b’s there are in this sentence, and I start counting.
The ticking clock slows down until finally I can’t hear it anymore. The cereal crackles almost silently in the bowl, raindrops fall on the windowsill outside with gentle plops, someone next door flushes the toilet, the water gushes through the pipes in the wall, a radio is turned on, and I hear the sweeping news melody. It’s the eight o’clock news. I’m too late for school.
I run to my bedroom, undress quickly, and crawl under the warm comforter with Tintin in my hands. Before I can even read one page, I’m fast asleep.
I wake up extremely well rested but a little confused, and it takes me a long time to stretch fully and look around me. It’s like I’m waking up in this room for the very first time. It feels like Sunday. But then I notice my schoolbag in the corner where I threw it yesterday. It’s close to noon. My class will be having their lunch; nobody has any idea why I’m not there. Stupid schoolbag. I get a knot of anxiety in my stomach just looking at it. It’s like it’s staring at me, murmuring, “Truant, truant.” I have to get rid of it as soon as possible and everything that’s in it. I also have to find a way to get Mom to sign the letter I’ve written without her knowing what she’s signing. If I can manage that, then my liberation will be complete.
Fish in the Sky Page 9