by Wizner, Jake
“Maybe, but it means redesigning our posters.” I explain that we might be able to disguise what we are doing if we hide our questions in posters that seem to be about something else. We can put something harmless in big letters across the top so teachers and administrators who walk by will just see a sign for some extracurricular activity or fund-raiser and not even pay attention. I grab a piece of paper and show Neil and Katie what I mean.
BAKE SALE
Student Council is having a bake sale Friday, February 26
All day in the cafeteria
We are trying to raise money for a school dance.
Please donate cookies, doughnuts, candy, cupcakes, or other baked goods.
Bring money to buy things.
Would you rather live your whole life with no candy or with two fingers missing from each hand?
SHOW YOUR SCHOOL SPIRIT
“It’s brilliant,” Neil says, and Katie actually jumps up and gives me a hug.
The next day, several posters announcing a bake sale appear on walls throughout the school. The following posters also appear:
INTERESTED IN STARTING A BAND?
Serious guitar player seeking singers and musicians who are into heavy metal and classic rock.
If you’re into Metallica, Iron Maiden,
Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, then would you like to get together to jam?
Would you rather spend your whole life with no music or drink one liter of vomit on your birthday every year?
FIRST MEETING FRIDAY, February 26, AFTER SCHOOL IN THE AUDITORIUM
SCIENCE CLUB MEETING
Thursday, February 25, during lunch Topic: Planning this year’s science fair
Come share your ideas and help make this year’s science fair the best ever!
Would you rather watch a kitten be dissected or watch your parents having sex?
Members and nonmembers welcome to attend.
Refreshments will be served.
By the end of the day, the signs have been removed, the principal and assistant principal have visited every classroom trying to find out who is behind it all, and the hallways are buzzing with heated debates on the questions we have posed.
“Your parents, dude. That’s so sick.”
“Not as sick as seeing a kitten cut up.”
“The kitten’s already dead.”
“How do you know?”
“You never dissect animals when they’re still alive.”
“Can you believe this?” Neil whispers as we stand by our lockers.
I shake my head. As exciting and incredible and unbelievable as this all is, I am still convinced it will not end well. The investigation that the administration has started has left me rattled.
“Katie wants to get a school directory and start mailing out questions to people we hate.”
“She’s crazy,” I say.
“I’m going over to her house later. You wanna come?”
I shake my head. “I’ve gotta work on my memoir.”
It’s actually not such a leap from our game to what I’m writing. Right now I’m working on a story about my mentally unstable grandmother, who made me watch a pornographic movie with her when I was fourteen.
“You want us to send any letters for you?” Neil asks.
I laugh. “No way. I don’t want any part of this.”
The one person I would have considered is Celeste, but lately she’s been acting so friendly toward me that I would almost think she was interested if I didn’t know better.
As it turns out, Neil and Katie don’t end up sending any letters. What happens instead, Neil tells me on the way to school the next day, is they finish half a bottle of vodka, realize they’re too drunk to write, and decide to make out instead.
“So I hear you didn’t get to the letters yesterday,” I say to Katie at lunch.
She shoots Neil a dirty look.
“That’s okay,” I say, smiling. “It’s much nicer to write love notes anyway.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ooh,” Neil says, “I love the dirty talk,” and we both start to laugh.
“Screw both of you.” Katie starts to get up, then looks at me. “You owe me ten bucks.”
“Why?”
“You think I’m going to play this lame-ass game with you losers anymore?”
“We’re done?” I feel so relieved not to have gotten caught that I pull out my wallet and hand over the money without complaint. “Now you can buy Neil flowers,” I say.
Katie gives me the finger and walks off.
I don’t have much time to be jealous. The next day, Celeste asks if I want to go get a cup of coffee after school. I hate coffee. I have a ton of work to do. I’m low on funds.
“Sure,” I say.
We sit in Starbucks, and she says she misses me. She asks me about my memoir, and she tells me how good a writer I am. She touches my arm and smiles.
We go back to her house and sit on the couch. She sits very close to me and holds my hand. I kiss her, and she starts to cry.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
She looks up with tears in her eyes. “I just miss Jordan so much.”
And then there is Charlotte. We are sitting together at lunch on the last Friday of the month, and I pull out the chapter of my memoir I have just completed.
“Here’s mine,” I say.
She looks at the paper on the table but does not take it. “I don’t know,” she says, a look of uncertainty spreading across her face.
“Trust me,” I say. “Whatever you wrote is not more shocking than this.”
“I don’t even have what I’m working on now. I just have my prologue.”
“That’s okay.” I sit silently and try not to appear too eager, but every inch of me is willing her to hand over the pages she has written. I’m surprised how much I want them. What is it I expect to find?
She reaches into her book bag and pulls out a few typed pages and begins to reread them, as if searching for anything that might prove too incriminating.
“Mr. Parke is the only person who has read this,” she says.
I nod.
“I don’t want anyone else to see it.”
“Okay,” I say.
She takes a deep breath and hands me the pages. “I don’t want to be here when you read this.”
“Okay,” I say.
She takes my memoir, gathers her things, and walks away. I watch her go, trying to imagine how she will react when she reads what I have written. I cringe as I remember certain details I have included and wonder for a moment whether I have pushed the limits too far this time.
I look down and read the first sentence of her memoir. My breath catches, and I read it again. Then I put the memoir in my bag. I need to be alone in my room before I read any more.
THE TIME I WATCHED A PORNOGRAPHIC MOVIE WITH MY MENTALLY UNSTABLE GRANDMOTHER
The airplane hit a patch of turbulence, and I gripped the sides of my seat so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Something so big and heavy could not possibly stay thirty-five thousand feet above the ground. The engines were malfunctioning. The ground mechanics had not done a thorough check. The pilot was losing control. The plane was leaking fuel. I was going to die.
“Are you okay?” the passenger next to me asked. She was an older woman, perhaps in her sixties, and she was filled with motherly concern.
“Why is the plane shaking?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“It’s just a little turbulence,” she said. “Don’t worry, dear.”
It was incredible that she could be so calm, and not just her, but everyone else on the plane. There they were, reading their books, watching the in-flight movie, sleeping, none of them seeming the least bit worried that we were all about to crash and burn.
“Are you flying by yourself?” she asked.
I nodded. “What’s that whooshing sound? Somebody better tell the pilot.”
She put a hand on my arm.
“Those are just normal airplane sounds. Believe me, I’ve flown hundreds of times.”
“I’m calling the stewardess,” I said, pressing the button on the side of my seat.
“It’s okay,” the woman said reassuringly. She reached into her purse and took out a bottle of pills. “Would you like one of these? It will help you relax.”
I took the bottle and examined the label. “You’re offering me Valium? I’m fourteen years old.”
“Can I have one?” asked the passenger on the other side of her.
“Where’s the stewardess?” I said, pushing the CALL button again.
She came reluctantly up the aisle, an impatient look in her eye. “You can’t keep pressing the CALL button,” she said, “unless you really need something.”
“It’s raining in Chicago,” I said. “How is the pilot going to be able to land?”
The stewardess looked exasperated but managed to keep her voice calm. “It’s not at all dangerous to land in light rain. The pilot’s done it hundreds of times.”
“What if the rain picks up? What if lightning hits the wing? What if the runway is too slippery to land?”
Other passengers were staring at me now, and the woman beside me was trying again to get me to take one of her pills.
“I can’t breathe,” I said, gulping for air. “There’s no air in here.”
The stewardess released my oxygen mask and placed it over my mouth and nose. “Breathe,” she said. “Just breathe normally.”
She had a hand on my shoulder, and as my breathing returned to normal, I felt myself becoming slightly aroused. I closed my eyes and imagined her hand massaging me. As much as I hated airplanes, several of my more erotic fantasies involved stewardesses or other women in uniform.
When I came to, she was no longer there, but the Valium lady was staring at my crotch with a smile on her face.
“My, my,” she said. “I’d like a pill that could do that.”
For the fiftieth time since we had taken off, I cursed my parents for putting me on an airplane. Even if by some miracle we did not crash, I was now at the mercy of an oversexed, drug-addicted senior citizen. Old people, even normal ones, made me nervous.
My grandmother was not old, she was ancient, and she was certainly not normal. I knew this because every few months my mother would fly to Chicago when my grandmother had stopped taking her medication, was wreaking havoc in her building, and needed to be hospitalized again. According to my mom, my grandmother had been hospitalized for mental illness seventeen times over the past forty years.
“But don’t worry,” my mom said as she pushed me toward the airplane. “There hasn’t been a major incident in almost a year.”
This was of little comfort. I still had vivid memories of those times when she called our house fifteen times each day screaming about murder conspiracies, accusing my father of sleeping with everywoman in town, and branding me the leader of a vicious road gang.
This visit was the first I had made alone, and it was hard to imagine how we were going to fill four days together. As it turned out, my grandmother had already planned my entire stay, most of which involved sitting on her couch doing absolutely nothing and watching her doze off. Three times each day we would go downstairs, where they served tasteless, no-salt meals, and my grandmother would show me off to the other old people, who would smile and tell me that my grandmother was a real character.
My grandmother did not often leave her building, but one of her great pleasures was to go to the movies once a week. I knew she was quite a film buff because on the phone she was always recommending movies to me, and her taste in films, much like her personality, was wildly unpredictable. She was particularly excited about a new movie she had recently seen and that she wanted to see again with me. She told me the movie’s title shortly after I arrived.
“W-what?” I stammered.
She repeated the title. “Do you know about this movie?”
There had to be some mistake. My grandmother was a senile old woman who was mixing up movie titles. The movie she wanted probably had a similar name. Maybe this could even be an old movie with the same name. “I’m not sure,” I said. “What’s it about?”
And as she spoke, I realized it was true. My mentally unstable eighty-five-year-old grandmother was planning to take me, her highly impressionable fourteen-year-old grandson, to a pornographic movie.
I knew about the movie because it was about the life of a music star who had made her reputation by wrapping herself around furniture, writhing on the floor, and licking the bare chests of overly muscular men in her music videos. The movie featured the star herself, completely uncensored for the first time.
We took a taxi to the theater, and my grandmother tried to prepare me for what we were about to see. She told me that there were scenes in the movie that might make me uncomfortable, but that sex and nudity were natural, and that this was art, not pornography. I wanted to assure her that sex and nudity would not make me uncomfortable at all. Sex and nudity would make me excited, aroused, stimulated, and downright giddy. What would make me uncomfortable was that I would be watching this sex and nudity with my eighty-five-year-old grandmother sitting beside me.
At the theater, the woman selling tickets asked my grandmother if she knew what the film was about. I saw people in line pointing and whispering, and at that moment I would have sworn off sex and nudity forever if I could have just been back home, with my mentally unstable grandmother very far away. The stares and whispers continued as we entered the theater, and I imagined that every conversation in the room was about us. Then the lights went down and the movie began.
Those of you who have seen the film can imagine the next two hours of my life. For those of you who have not seen the film, picture this: the music star, scantily dressed, wraps her mouth around a wine bottle and pushes it gently in and out, letting it disappear a bit deeper each time. She lies on the bed, and as she continues to swallow the wine bottle, she begins to rub herself all over with her free hand. The camera pans back and we realize there is a fully dressed man in the room sitting in a chair and watching her. As the man watches the woman on-screen, my grandmother watches me.
The whole thing was awful. I tried to look as natural as possible, but it was impossible to relax with her studying me. I looked over at her and pointed to the screen. The movie’s up there, you old hag! I screamed in my head. She smiled and continued to watch me. On-screen the man was beginning to lick the woman’s body. I contemplated walking quickly from the theater and hurling myself in front of the oncoming traffic, but realized that my fantastically erect penis would make movement difficult. Yes, that’s right. Even though my grandmother was sitting beside me, my independent-minded genitalia had decided to carry on business as usual.
Some how, I survived the movie. And I must have survived the rest of our visit, though I don’t remember what else we did, except sit on the couch and eat tasteless, low-salt meals.
MARCH
My mother committed suicide on my twelfth birthday. By that time I had grown accustomed to her bouts of depression and understood that sometimes Mommy was just too sad to get out of bed. On these days, my father would tell us we had to be extra quiet, and then he would go out and not come home until very late. My brother and I would sit in front of the television with the volume turned down low, and when we got hungry I would look for food in the refrigerator or the pantry for us to eat.
When I came home from school that day, I did not even realize at first that anything was wrong. I deposited my brother in front of the television and fixed him a snack. Because it was my birthday and because Mommy had promised me a party when I came home, I knocked on her door and crept in to her room. She looked like she was sleeping, and I remember thinking how sad it was that she was sleeping on my birthday.
I tiptoed to her bed and looked at her. She was lying on top of her covers, wearing the fancy black dress she sometimes wore to church. At least she had remembered to dress up.
“Mom,” I said.
She did not answer.
I shook her gently. “Mom.”
Why wasn’t she moving? I looked around and saw two empty pill bottles on the floor.
“Mom, wake up,” I said, shaking her harder, and still she did not budge.
I started to cry and call her name over and over. My brother, frightened, rushed in and saw me, and the sight of me crying and screaming made him start to cry.
We stood there, holding each other and sobbing. When my father came home several hours later, he found us curled up in bed beside her, tear-emptied and asleep.
My mother’s death is the axis around which the story of my life revolves. Everything that came before prefigured this devastating event; everything that has come since has been an inescapable consequence. All this I understand now, though the understanding provides little comfort. It does not stop my brother from lashing out against the world, or my father from trying to escape it. It does not pay our rent or make it any easier to spend nights in the city’s family shelter. And it does not allow me to live the life of a normal teenage girl or give me the space I need to figure out who I really am.
It feels strange to be telling a story that is far from over. The best I can do is to play my part and hope that fate and time have written me a happier ending than the one they wrote my mother.
“I don’t know what to say,” I say to Charlotte when I give her back her memoir. It is Monday, and we are sitting in the cafeteria at the same table where we exchanged our writing three days earlier. She has already given me back mine with comments written all over the pages.
“You’re not gonna freak out on me, are you?” she asks.
I manage a smile. “I had no idea.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she says.
We sit there, neither of us saying anything. I want to ask to read more of her memoir, but somehow it seems inappropriate. I look up and our eyes meet.
“What?” she says. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.” I look around the cafeteria, then back at her. She seems like she is waiting for me to say something, but I have no idea what to say. Just reading the first two pages has bonded me to Charlotte in a way I don’t yet understand, but I know that I have been drawn into something that I cannot easily walk away from. “Do you want to go see a movie after school?” I ask her.