“News? Good, I hope.”
“I don’t know if good is the correct word. But.” Back hunched, he tried to rest his elbows on the table, but the distance was too far. He let his arms dangle, and he felt the stiffness in his muscles. “There’s news about Amanda.”
“The Fuller girl?”
He cleared his throat, touched his glasses. “They think she did it herself.”
“Oh, yes. I heard already.” She laid the glass of water in front of him, then tapped her head with her knuckles. “Late nights at the store. My mind is gone.”
“An accident, they’re saying. I guess they had an expert evaluate everything, and they say it might have been an accident. Or. You know. She was by herself.”
“Jesus, War. No matter how you paint it, it’s a terrible thing.”
“Yes.”
“What goes through their minds? The poor girl really needed some help, and no one stepped up. Sometimes they go a little crazy when they’re teenagers.”
He shook his head, slurped water. Warm and tasted of chlorine.
“They don’t have any more questions for me right now. My lawyer said I will need to check in. Make my whereabouts known. That sort of thing. Things could change. The report is only preliminary. It’s not final.”
She took his hand in hers, brought it to her cheek. “It’ll be fine.” Smiling at him, that same lopsided smile. “I doubt you’ve ever done a thing wrong in your life.”
Warren slipped his hand out from hers, and brought his glass to the sink. As he poured the water down around the clutter of dishes, he saw the avocado plant he had given Nora on the window ledge. So many months ago. It was pushed behind the bleached fabric of the curtain. Curling his finger over the edge of the pot, he eased it out. The slender stalk had grown, but as he shifted it, the leaves tumbled off, drifted into the sink. He could see the scars where each leaf had been attached. The soil was so dry, it had pulled away from the ceramic pot.
His mind flashed an image of Nora’s stew, then. Perfectly cubed carrots rising to the surface, then disappearing. The feeling of uncertainty was there again. In the pit of his stomach.
Warren coughed. Looking down the hallway from the kitchen, he could see the stairs. Near the top, he saw a pair of feet, black-and-white striped socks, wiggling on the carpet. Libby was seated there. Listening.
He turned to face Nora. Said in a whisper, “Why didn’t you have any questions?”
“Questions? About what?”
“About me. You never asked a single thing.”
“Oh, War.” Leaning her head back, her eyes widened, eyelashes fluttering. “I know you. From the first moment I saw you at the store, I knew you were good.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how to put it. You’re not like the rest of the world. You’re an open hand. Nothing hidden inside.”
[51]
This might sound unimaginative, but whenever I was with my friend, my interaction with the world became more acute. Yes, I felt the line-dried cotton on my skin, smelled sun-warmed dirt, heard bees buzzing from one chamomile flower to the next. Inane, I know, but I wondered how had I not noticed how alive the world was? So many things that existed in the background had now jumped to the foreground. The sensations were almost overwhelming in their sharpness. She was the cause of this shift in consciousness. She had woken me up.
We spent our waking hours together, often doing nothing more than absorbing vitamins from sunlight. But my mind was quiet, contented. How can an existence be totally aimless but full of direction at the same time?
Many afternoons, we made the long walk through the woods, and swam in the lake (of course I never mentioned the eels by the rock). Whenever the sun was hot, the water felt even colder. Refreshing, she called it, and when I complained about the cruel temperature, she laughed, said, “You’re just a wimp.”
The bottom of the lake was slick. Everything was covered with a fine layer of green and gold algae. When I peered through the murky water, I saw rusting cans and broken bottles, and I plucked them up, tossed them further out so she would not cut her feet. After all my efforts to create a safe area, she splashed me and tried to push my head beneath the surface. My instinct was to lash back, but I soon grew used to her game. I even began to enjoy it, especially when she attacked from behind, gliding through the water like a skinny brown shark. I wondered if it was difficult for her to stop talking upon approach.
When we were both freezing, we climbed out of the water and dried off on the beach. I watched her as she sat up, sand stuck to her shoulder blades. Full of lake water, her hair lifted up into a massive chestnut frizz.
“What? You forgot how to blink? Forgot what I look like?”
“What?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
I did not reply. There was no point arguing against the truth.
We spent hours in the shadowy woods that stretched behind our houses. I had already scoured that area a million times, had it mapped in my mind, so I let her lead and discover. She tripped over the gnarled roots and found dips hidden by shrubs. She located the squirrel homes and bird nests. She coughed after darting through a cloud of tiny flies, and screamed when she jumped onto the red-ant mound. I had to warn her of the low-hanging papery nest that was full of hornets. Otherwise, that would have been depraved. Right?
Occasionally she reached behind her, and would catch up my hand as it swung forward. She wove her fingers through mine, and hand in hand, we would meander. An unusual word choice, but that was what we did. Meander. Like old people. Like happy people.
One time, as we were exploring, she found a large puddle of stagnant water near a grove of trees, and she lay on the ground, peered into the dark glass.
“Look how still it is,” she said. “I can see myself perfectly. You do it.”
I lay down beside her, the hair on our arms lifting, barely touching.
“We’re perfect,” she whispered. “You and me. How we appear.”
I stared into my face. Leaning over like that, my mouth was downturned, and my eyes looked worried, a little scared. That was certainly not an accurate reflection, as I worried about nothing. I was afraid of nothing. I turned my head, could not take the whole thing seriously.
When I shifted, dirt from the edge of the ring tumbled into the water, distorting our faces.
“Hey, you broke the mirror. That’s bad luck.”
“Yeah. I’m so worried.” I nudged her, then threw a handful of dirt and leaves into the water. “Let’s go. We can’t swim in this. It’s probably a cesspool.”
“I doubt it. It’s probably perfectly clean.”
• • •
My friend did not have a bicycle, but after digging through her grandfather’s shed, we found one. The paint was bubbled and chipped, seat torn, and both wheels needed patches, but she was excited about it. We made the necessary repairs and that afternoon, we took our bikes into the woods. I made sure to stick to the best paths, the safest paths, as there were so many hills that just dropped off into nothing. We had planned to go swimming in the lake, but when we came out on the other side near the water, a boy was there. He was lying on his stomach on a bleached wooden wharf, his skinny arm reaching, hand moving up and down over the water.
We stopped our bikes, and she said, “Who’s that?”
Of course I had instantly known who it was. “A moron,” I said. “I hate him.” He lived in a trailer, propped up on cement blocks, no curtains, overgrown weeds for grass. A mangy dog that always circled in his yard. I saw him chase his sister and kiss her on the lips. It was disgusting. I was not surprised to see him there, pulling scrawny fish out of a freshwater lake.
“Why?”
“He’s stupid. He’s an asshole. He stinks. And did I say he’s stupid? Need any mo
re reasons?”
She jumped off her bike, and when I was within reach, she punched me in the arm. Not enough to hurt, though.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go see what Stupid Moron is doing!”
Before I could stop her, she laid her bike on its side, and was skidding down over the hill toward the wharf.
“Hey you! Hey! You catching dinner? What can you catch in this sort of lake? Does it taste any good? I guess you’d have to do something with it, right? Season it up? Clean it first, of course, before you do anything else.” Giggling. “Can’t just cook it.” Her babbling was the worst when she met someone new.
He lifted his head, twisted his turkey neck. Sunlight struck his bony face, and he squinted a single eye. I hated that someone like that was looking at someone like her. “Hardly.” Then he saw me. “Hey, loser,” he said.
“Asshole.”
“What dragged you out of your basement?”
“Nothing.”
“Girlie, here? You got yourself a little follower, loser?”
“Go to hell.”
She seemed to ignore our arguing. “What’re you doing then? If you’re not catching fish? I see a line in your hand. Are you hooking up garbage? Cleaning the bottom of the lake? It’s filthy, you know. We were swimming, and there’s tons of dangerous stuff down there.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m hooking up garbage.”
“Oh, good for you! That’s such a considerate thing to do. Very community minded! Don’t you think?” She was looking at me, here, palms facing outwards, eyebrows in a see-he’s-not-an-asshole position.
I did not know what the creep was doing, but I knew he was not hooking up garbage, trying to clean the lake. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s find somewhere else to swim.” She ignored me, lay down beside him, and peered into the murky water. I leaned to the left, and even without getting closer, I could see what he was doing. On the bottom of the lake, they were moving around, walking with their seesaw gait.
“What are those?”
Even I was surprised by her question.
“You never seen crabs before? Where you from?”
“Oh. Yes, yes, I know. I always get crabs and lobsters mixed up. Don’t ask me why! They are completely different, aren’t they? Well, not completely. You know what I mean! We didn’t see many crabs where I’m from. Too many apartment buildings and not enough lakes. Sometimes you couldn’t even see the sun, the buildings were so high. It wasn’t very nice. I like it here much better. Where you can get out, you know. See real stuff. Not bubblegum stuck to a sidewalk.”
He looked at me. “Does your girlfriend ever shut up?”
“Why? Do you think the crabs can hear me? Am I bothering them? Are they getting in the way of the garbage? I can scream if you want, see if they’ll move.”
“Ffffuck,” he whispered, and he glanced at me again, jaw open.
When he lifted his line, there was a large crab on the end. A metal hook caught under its arm. The moron dropped it on the wharf, keeping a hand on its shell. I knelt down on the warm boards, and stared into its glistening face. Saw its irritated expression. On thin stalks, its black eyes reached, scanned its waterless world. Confused. Angry. I could relate.
“You caught a crab? Are you keeping it? To eat? Poor thing.”
“Fuck, no. This water is full of shit. Didn’t you just say so yourself? Would you eat shit?”
She laughed. I think she was slightly nervous. “No,” she replied. “No shit for me!”
“Then why’d you expect me to eat shit?”
“I didn’t know. I — I don’t think shit is very healthy. To be honest.”
The loser’s facial expression did not alter, and she peered at me. I assumed she wanted to see if I understood her attempt to educate him, but then she said, “That was a joke. Seriously, you guys!” Then she reached out and slid one finger between the crab’s wet eyes. “You don’t want to be someone’s lunch, do you? You’re so cute. Isn’t he cute?”
“Yeah. Fucking adorable.”
“But it probably doesn’t like being away from home. You should throw it back, now.”
“I should, should I?”
“You pulled it out by mistake. It’s not garbage. Garbage doesn’t breathe.”
“Says who? Lots of garbage breathes.”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to stare at it for a bit. Isn’t its shell beautiful? Have you ever wished you had a shell? Wouldn’t that be nice? People would probably ruin their shells, paint them up and stuff. Make them look all gaudy. But a simple shell would be so pretty to have. Good protection, too.”
“Watch this, asswipes,” he said, and retrieved a magnifying glass from the back pocket of his torn jean shorts. He angled the lens, concentrated the rays of the sun. Smoke rose up from the wharf where the sunlight burned a black line across the grey wood. Then he shifted the lens, and with his other hand he shifted the crab, and the rays focused on the crab’s black eyes. “This really fucks them up.”
I heard the sizzle. Faint smell, like burning vegetation. He destroyed the first eye, then turned the crab, altered the beam of light, and obliterated the second eye. Pinned to the wharf, the mottled brown shell never moved, but it lifted its legs and dropped them, scraping the wood. I think the creature was experiencing pain.
“Now watch this shit,” he said, and lifted his hand. The blinded crab began to move, slowly at first, edging left, then to the side, then turning in a circle. Drunken directions, claws clicking against the wood. “Look at it, it’s totally fucked up. Totally. Got no idea where to go.” His laughter escalating then descending, a rapid scale. I did not understand what he found so amusing. Finally the crab tumbled over the edge of the wharf, a flash of white as it flipped on its descent to the bottom. “I’ve caught eight so far.”
“What a waste of time,” I said, and I stood up, started to walk away. “C’mon. Let’s go swim somewhere else.”
As I spoke, I caught sight of her. I was not expecting to see her face like that. Hands pushed into her cheeks, skin around her eyes contorted. Water pooled on her lower lids, and when she blinked, it shot out onto the wood. I could see the dark flecks on the wharf. Marks from her tears. “Let’s go,” I repeated. “C’mon.”
She was silent as she stood. When she lowered her hands, her face was red and splotchy, as though she had broken out in hives. She opened her mouth, but no words emerged. No words emerged! Then she bolted up the hill, hauled her bike from the ground, and tore off through the woods. I yelled, “Wait!” But she did not wait.
“Seems your little friend got no guts,” the moron said. “Prisses don’t survive round here long.”
“Watch it.” I took a step closer to him. Blocked his sunlight. “Watch your mouth.”
“Hard to do, isn’t it? Watch my mouth. When I don’t got crab eyes.” And he laughed. As though he had made an acceptable joke.
“I saw what you did.”
“And that matters how?”
“It will matter, asshole. You’ll see.”
“Fuck you. I’m sure you don’t give two shits about a crab.”
“What was that?”
“Fuck you, loser.”
“Your vocabulary is extensive, as always.”
He lay down on his stomach again, carefully lowered the hook into the water. “Get the fuck out of here, shithead. I got work to do. An even dozen before I leave.”
My flash of anger had dissipated, replaced by calculated thought. I looked at his rusted bike, saw the narrow path he had taken to get to the wharf. And then I told him, “It’s good to have goals, jerk.”
“You said it, fucktard.”
When I arrived home, I found her sitting on the front porch. Slowly I walked over to her and sat down. My shoulder brushed hers, and she did not slide over. In her hand, she held a glass full of ice cubes, and she
fished one out, crunched it.
“You want one?”
Her voice was scratchy and her eyes were swollen, pink.
“No,” I said. “No thanks.” Then, “Do you know people who crave ice sometimes have iron-deficiency anemia?”
She shoved another piece in her mouth and drove her teeth through it. “You my doctor now?”
“No. I don’t want to be your doctor.”
“Just for your information, I’m pretending each one of these is that boy’s head.”
“Oh,” I replied. That’s something.
“It makes me feel better.”
“I understand.” Though, to be honest, I did not fully understand her distress. His activity was boring, meaningless. Crabs were nothing more than copper-coloured robots, crawling around on the filthy bottom of a lake.
“It was the cruellest thing I have ever seen. Don’t you think? It was so cruel. So horrible. It was terrible. I feel so disgusted and helpless. Those poor creatures.” Her voice hitched again. “What gives him the right to blind something else? Take away its ability to see! They weren’t doing him any harm.”
“No, they weren’t.” Now I understood. He had no reasons. Reasons were important. For a moment, I was reminded of the tent Button and I had visited several summers ago. The thick coating of black flies. How I had instructed her to be careful as she crawled out through the canvas doors. Those flies did not deserve to be injured.
I was softer then, though. Believed in different things.
She placed her head on my shoulder and sighed. “I’m just so upset, is all. I feel completely empty.”
I paused for a moment. Straightened my back. “Empty?”
“Yes. Like there’s not enough good in the world anymore.”
I took a breath.
“Don’t you?” She looked me in the eyes. “Don’t you ever feel that way sometimes?”
“Empty?”
“Yeah.”
I shrugged, turned away. I did not know what to say. Though I wanted to explain it to her, I could not. I had always been empty. Would always be empty. My heart was smooth and slick. A fist-sized rock covered in algae. Ugly and slippery and hollow and lonely. If anyone ever dared pick it up, surely it would slide from those hands.
The Substitute Page 28