Born Ugly

by Beth Goobie

  Muttering under her breath, she pedaled the full length of the alley to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, but discovered nothing—no car with an open trunk parked behind the first garbage bin, the second, or any of the others. Then, as she got to the alley’s far end, she spotted a vehicle pulled into the shadows beside someone’s garage, just far enough in so it couldn’t be seen until the edge of the building had been reached. Cops! thought Shir, recognizing the car’s familiar markings. In the dense shadow, there appeared to be two officers, sitting in the dark with their headlights off as they waited for scalpers and their underage customers who should be at home on school nights, working on algebra equations.

  “Shit!” she hissed. Making a rapid U-turn, she burned rubber so quickly, she almost lost control and collided with a backyard fence. But she recovered in time, veering past the fence with centimeters to spare, and taking off again at top speed. Shoulders hunched, she listened for the expected siren to kick in behind her, but the night remained quiet; even the neighborhood dogs all seemed to be indoors. Halfway down the next block, she pulled into a driveway and stood with her head down, panting in time to her thudding heart.

  Cops! she thought again, staring back the way she had come. For two years now, she had been coming to this neighborhood to buy beer, and in all that time, no one—not a scalper or another customer—had expressed concern over the possibility of being nabbed by the law. People joked about it, of course, and they were careful—she had never, for instance, seen a potential customer drive up to a scalper’s car with a stereo blasting. But this was a community known for its hostility toward the police, and while the odd person might harass a scalper into moving on, everyone knew it was unlikely anyone would call in a complaint. So why, thought Shir, her heart kicking double-time in her chest, had the cops shown tonight of all nights—a mere five hours after Mr. Anderson’s cop friend Officer Tursi had walked into Bill’s Grocer and shaken her hand?

  Was there a connection? But what kind of connection could that be? And why—why would the police suddenly be so interested in Dog Face Rutz?

  For a long moment, Shir stood staring at the empty alley as her heart slowed and her breathing quieted. If the cops were interested in her, she thought finally, coming out of her panic, they had an odd way of showing it. The officers in the hidden car must have seen her—for starters, her bike light had been on—and the way she had taken off would have aroused anyone’s suspicions. But they hadn’t followed her, so whoever they were waiting for, it wasn’t a sixteen-year-old delivery girl from Bill’s Grocer.

  All in all, she had been extremely lucky, Shir decided, firmly dragging herself back toward common sense—she had almost landed smack-dab in the cops’ laps and had gotten off scot-free. As for the encounter with Officer Tursi, it had been a coincidence, pure and simple. Coincidences happened all the time; they were a fact of life. Why waste time thinking about that when there were more pressing problems to deal with—like the fact her usual Tuesday-evening beer source had vanished, leaving no alternative except Gareth.

  And Gareth, she thought heavily, was out of the question, at least for tonight. Which meant she was beerless until tomorrow evening, when she would be reduced to scouring the areas around the city’s various liquor stores for a scalper selling the magic fluid within her price range. Heaving a sigh, Shir got back onto the Black and headed for home.

  Thirteen

  The school grounds were a cacophony of catcalls, laughter, and the occasional supersonic whistle. As Shir came around the building’s south-eastern corner, she kept her head lowered and her eyes peeled for anyone casting more than a casual glance her way. Because this morning, all across Collier High, something murky was bubbling under the surface. The sense of it was vague, but she had become aware of it as soon as she had stopped at the bike racks to lock up the Black—a scattering of students tuning into her presence like bubbles rising in heated water. While it wasn’t everyone, past experience had taught her that a pot coming to a boil initially displayed a few bubbles, then several more, and, ultimately, the pot’s entire contents were cascading over the sides.

  Whatever this latest threat portended, Shir was more than willing to bet that it was connected to a phone call she had received last night, soon after she had gotten home from work. Her mother had answered it, then handed over the receiver with a questioning glance, no doubt wondering who would be calling her social-reject daughter. Receiver in hand, Shir had stood alone in the kitchen, an ugly feeling oozing through her gut as she had waited for her mother to return to the living room TV. No one called Dog Face Rutz; no one, that is, except Mr. Anderson, and he only on Sunday afternoons. Cautiously, she had lifted the receiver to her ear.

  The only sound she had heard coming from the other end had been breathing—not heavy breathing, as in late-night horror-movie hyperventilation, but calm and even. In fact the impression she had initially received was twofold—the person at the other end of the line was creepy, but also composed and rational, and that he appeared to be thinking his way toward some kind of conclusion. She could have hung up, but something had come over her, keeping her wordless and riveted, gripping the receiver and listening as the unidentified caller continued to breathe his way toward judgment. Then, just as she had been about to falter out a tentative “Hello,” the guy had spoken.

  “Dog meat,” was all that he had said, quietly and clearly, and then he had hung up. His tone hadn’t been angry and he hadn’t slammed down the receiver; the whole thing had been closer to conversational than confrontational, simply a normal voice talking about normal things. “Dog meat”—what was the phrase, after all, but the average mundane judgment that the average mundane teenager would make upon seeing Shir Rutz’s face for the first time?

  The alarm bells set off by the phone call hadn’t been due solely to the words “dog meat”—she had heard them before. But brief as last night’s phone chat had been, the caller’s voice had been familiar enough to reveal his identity—red-maraschino-cherries, mega-math-brain Ben. Which meant, of course, that the real force behind the phone call had been Wade. And Wade, as he had repeatedly proven over the past few weeks, had a grudge to pick with her … several grudges, as he probably saw it by now. Throw in a few supportive buddies, and the situation began to take on the qualities of a pot coming to a boil. And so today, with her brain also approaching the boiling point, Shir had decided to avoid entering the school until the last possible moment, and was instead barreling along the building’s southern face, knowing that at some point she was going to have to slow down; she was going to have to, in fact, come to a dead halt, and then they would be onto her.

  It happened just as she reached a side entrance on the school’s western flank—a sudden swarm of kids, laughter and commotion all around, and then abruptly she was jerked sideways, her head pushed back, and something wet and foul-smelling smeared across her face.

  “Bull’s eye!” a voice said hoarsely. “Got ’er.”

  Instantly, the crowd dispersed, footsteps stampeding in every direction as Shir bent double, gagging at the reek coming from her face. Without warning, the taste hit—a revolting ooze sliding in through her lips. Spitting wildly, she lifted an arm and rubbed at the stuff plastered across her skin. It came away easily, a slimy muck that took less than a second to identify—dog shit. What they had rubbed across her face was a fresh batch of dog shit. There at her feet was the empty plastic bag someone had used to transport a family pet’s poop-and-scoop specimen to school.

  The stuff was in her eyes; she couldn’t see what was going on around her, but she could imagine it—kids staring, a few tittering, every last one of them keeping their distance. No one currently in the vicinity had been involved, that went without saying, and perhaps one or two of them even felt sympathetic. Still, what these students were doing now was almost as bad—simply standing and observing as if she was merely an event in their lives, something that happened to other people, outsiders, never to them. Though she
fought it, Shir’s tears erupted then like a geyser, those of a ghoul phantom crouched howling on a rooftop while normal regular people huddled warm and dreaming in their beds below. Without a word, she turned and tore back the way she had come, barely aware of the kids scattering to create a path and a single teacher standing in a school exit, shouting, “Hey you! You there! Slow down! Don’t you know how to behave in a civilized manner?”

  She biked straight home, shoved the Black into the storage shed behind the apartment building, and ran up the back stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. Knowing the apartment would be empty, she began stripping off her clothes as soon as she got inside, and headed for the bathroom. The moment she turned on the tap and lifted her face to the sluice of hot water was like God reaching down to her, down through the muck and stench of civilization and saying, This is my child; I have not forgotten her. This is my child; she belongs to me.

  It was a while before she reached for the shampoo. There under the nozzle, with liquid love pouring over her and heated vapor swirling, she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to remember, didn’t have to be anything but clear, clean sensation—skin, the rush of warm water on skin, and the aching soundless cry that lifted free of the body, a transparent, beautiful angel returning to the god that had created it.

  Gradually, the water began to cool, and memory to return in sick, twisted shapes. Though she washed her hair three times and thoroughly scrubbed her face, still the smell of dog feces clung to her skin. The guy who had done the actual smear job had zeroed in on her nose like a professional, instinct telling him that it would be the most difficult place to clear out, and he had been correct—though she held the shower nozzle directly to her nostrils and pointed the flow upward until she was gagging, still the reek remained, clinging like an invisible vampire and draining her of everything she needed to go on.

  Finally, shaking and convulsing, she climbed out of the tub and sat on the side, hugging a thin towel around her shoulders. In the apartment’s reverberating silence, water dripped from her tangled hair and air shuddered in and out of her lungs. Slowly, reluctantly, she allowed thought back into her brain. No question about it, she realized bleakly—school was over for the day. It would be simply impossible to go back. Tomorrow, perhaps … perhaps. But as far as the rest of this morning was concerned, the weather was halfway decent and she had three cans of the magic fluid stashed in her underwear drawer—Miller Chills she had wheedled out of a neighborhood tough she had unexpectedly run into on her way home last night. That would be enough to get her through the next few hours, and as for what came after that, well, there wasn’t much point in thinking about it now.

  Still shaky, Shir headed down the hall to retrieve her clothes. As she picked her windbreaker out of the crumpled heap by the apartment door, she let out a groan. There on the right sleeve, stretching wrist to elbow, was a large slimy dog-shit stain. From the looks of it, Tide wouldn’t be getting this one out, but after pulling on the rest of her clothes, Shir placed the three beers into her gym bag along with her lunch and descended to the basement laundry room, where she dropped the windbreaker into a washing machine and turned it on. Then she went out to the storage shed to fetch the Black. Coming back out, she almost ran into the building’s caretaker, applying a fresh coat of red paint to the apartment-block’s side entrance. A surly elderly man, he would have been certain to report her mid-morning presence to her mother, so Shir took off in the opposite direction, burning rubber down the alley and leaving behind the cantankerous old man, her shit-stained windbreaker, and everything else that went with civilization.

  She stuck to her usual back-alley route and headed directly toward the river. As she neared the church, she turned into the driveway that led to the parking lot and locked the Black to the Church Patrons Only sign. Then she walked to the base of the bridge, taking care to stay out of the church-office window’s sight line, even though the rector’s car wasn’t in its regular parking space. Climbing the first western arch to its peak, she got to work on a Miller Chill, popping the tab and letting the warm fluid ease down her throat. Sip by sip—that was how she was going to handle the magic fluid today, she decided. The morning was yet young, only 11:15, and the afternoon stretched relentlessly ahead with no foreseeable way to escape her thoughts. Once today was over, things would probably improve, the hurt not quite as fresh, a buried ache. At the moment, however, it was still new pain, and three Millers weren’t enough to soothe it, not nearly enough. Since she wasn’t up for another visit to Gareth yet, she had no choice but to take the first beer slowly, then sit for a while, letting the breeze play with her hair and the sunlight settle into her skin, telling her things about breathing and softness and the gentleness of air—how they all went together, how here, in Myplace, they belonged to her.

  With a sigh, she opened the second Miller Chill and worked her way through it, drinking more intensely, in longer, deeper gulps. Halfway through the can, a warning surge in her stomach told her that she had better eat something, so, getting out her lunch, she munched a tuna sandwich, then climbed down off the arch and snuck behind a nearby shrub to take a private pee. By the time she climbed back onto the arch, she could feel her blood moving quickly and the heat pulsing in her face. Fuck the bastards, she thought grimly as she popped the tab on the third Miller Chill. Think they can rub shit in my face and I just have to take it? Hah to that! Hah hah HAH!

  Lifting the beer, she drank it in one extended gulp, then drew back her arm and sent the empty can flying into the river. The bastards! she thought again, watching it float off on the current. What she needed right now was a good old-fashioned tornado to deal with those dog-shit jerks. That was it—a huge, black, Kansas tornado that would come whirling down this river, pick up this bridge, fly it over to Collier High, and land it SPLAT! on top of Wade and all his bastard preppie friends.

  Yeah, thought Shir with satisfaction—SPLAT all of those bastards straight into the land of Oz … somewhere over the rainbow! Tilting back her head, she began to sing the familiar song—softly at first, in case the rector was within listening distance. But when she reached the chorus, caution deserted her and she started bellowing the words, repeating them over and over. On her fourth time through the chorus, it came to her that a bridge’s support arch and a rainbow were the same shape; in fact, with a little imagination she could make believe that she was sitting on an actual rainbow. And down below, she thought grimly, way down below were all the bastards of the world, suffering in her shadow. Up here, so far above them, she was laughing—she was laughing! Inspired by a vision of Wade on his hands and knees, crawling around the rainbow’s base and gazing pitifully upward, Shir bellowed even more lustily.

  Abruptly, she broke off, thinking, My god, what’s wrong with me? I’m on a rainbow and I’m singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and I’m just sitting here when I could be climbing over the rainbow to see what’s on the other side!

  Eagerly, she got to her knees, but was immediately swept by such dizziness that she froze, clutching the arch beneath her and gasping. Drunk, she thought fearfully, staring at the river, which seemed to be doing a series of bellyrolls. You are way too drunk to be climbing fucking rainbows. Then, without warning, she was throwing up, chunks of tuna and three cans of the precious magic fluid spewing from her mouth. Wave after wave of the rancid gunk heaved up and out, spilling onto the concrete in front of her and streaming over the edge. Eyes blinded by tears, her brain in a dizzy drunken swirl, all Shir could do was cling desperately to the arch and let her stomach rule.

  Finally, her gut eased up, and the blackness clenching her brain faded. With a wheeze, she opened her eyes and squinted into the blinding sunlight. There, just centimeters ahead, was a revolting smelly patch of the magic fluid. So much for somewhere over the rainbow, Shir thought dully, watching it slither downward. Carefully, making sure she kept a firm grip on the arch, she settled back against the pillar and closed her eyes. Tired, she thought helplessly, she was tired, h
er brain still buzzed and swinging back and forth like a pendulum. And, she realized with a sinking sensation, she had to pee … enormously. Only she was far too drunk to even consider trying to make her way around the pillar and down the arch toward the riverbank.

  Suddenly, Shir was shivering uncontrollably—deep great shudders that seemed to undo her from the inside-out. Then she began to cry, hot tears stinging her eyes and rolling down her face, even though she told herself that what had happened this morning was just another dumb joke, some moron’s idea of a hoot-and-holler, and nothing worse, really, than anything else they had done. But the problem was that she could still smell it, the stench of dog shit clinging to her face as if it belonged there, as if it would never fade away. Relentless, the tears poured down Shir’s face, and she could do nothing but let them continue, until her body grew tired of producing them and let her have some peace.

  She had no Kleenex and ended up having to blow her nose on her sleeve. Then a painful stab in her groin reminded her once again that not all of the magic fluid had exited via her mouth. So, in spite of the fact that her brain was still rippling uneasily, she slung her gym bag over a shoulder, eased herself carefully around the third pillar, and started down the arch. When she reached the riverbank she didn’t pause, but stumbled frantically behind the nearest shrub, where she barely had time to unzip her jeans before the stuff began pouring out. Whether she was throwing it up or pissing it out, she thought listlessly, the magic fluid was really doing a number on her today. Wearily, she pulled up her jeans and made her way back to the bridge. A glance at her watch told her it was 1:07, with several hours to go before school let out. A mild hangover was beginning to settle in, and even from here, at the base of the bridge, the odor of vomit tinged the air.