by Peter Wright
“Maybe.”
Ashley’s bubble the largest, her broken nose eclipsed. The bubble pops, and her thick tongue licks the pink from her lips. Donna speaks: “Our box in there?”
“I don’t know.” Kayla unsure where to focus, her grid overflowing with white shirts and hard stares.
One of the girls pushes her mop bucket toward the closet door. Donna twirls her cleaning rag. “Too bad you don’t seem to be getting any gum. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Kayla leans back. “Let’s go, Heather.”
A hug from behind lifts Kayla from her feet. Freckled hands lock across her belly, a jerk that forces the air from her lungs. Amanda’s growl in her ear. “Fucking bitch.” Kayla twists and kicks. Amanda holds tight, her bulk overpowering. Her sister shuts the supply closet door and leans into it, pushing back Heather’s attempts to escape. Heather’s fist pounds from inside, her voice muffled. “Kayla!”
Donna shoves the rag into Kayla’s mouth. Kayla gags, the foulness of detergent and soot, and beneath, a deeper panic. The panties she pulled from Missy’s mouth. The pull of a tooth on the elastic, the head jerking, an imitation of life. Donna holds the spray bottle to Kayla’s face and pulls the trigger, and Kayla’s eyes burns in the dark. One of the girls slaps her head, the pull and tug of tangled gum. The others quickly upon her, their sticky hands slapping then yanking chunks of hair. Kayla twists, powerless to escape or scream. She opens her eyes only to be sprayed again. She thrashes, wild and mute. Amanda’s grip tightens, their bodies caught in a lurching dance, Kayla’s screams forced back down her throat. The tugs and rips of her hair give way to punches. Blows to the jaw. The nose. Her chest and gut.
Amanda hurls Kayla to the floor. A final kick, a last wad of gum spit into Kayla’s hair and ground in with the pulled-up collar of Kayla’s scrub. Kayla on her side. The cool floor, writhing and gagging as she pulls the rag from her mouth. She wipes her eyes, but all she can discern are watery shapes. Heather by her side. The outline of the pint bottle beneath her top. The whites jog off, and Donna calls back in her sugary tone. “Thanks for putting our stuff away, guys.”
Heather pushes the hair from Kayla’s eyes. “Shit, babe. Shit.” The gum and hair stuck to her palm. Kayla winces with the tug. “Stand up, girl. Come on now.”
Heather cups Kayla’s elbow, a guiding hand on her back. A righting on shaky legs. Kayla spits, the chemical bitterness, the cloth’s strands on her tongue. Everything blurry, the lights caught in watery prisms. Her pulse in her jaw. Gum on her hand when she pushes back her hair, a yank on her scalp. Long strands dangle from her fingers. Her words a whisper. “Are they lining up for lunch?”
Heather steps from the alcove and returns. “Yeah.”
“I won’t walk past them like this.”
“Sure.” Another check of the cafeteria, and Heather returns to the closet, the last of their delivery plunged into her pockets. She opens the back stairwell door and reaches for Kayla’s hand.
The steps, and Kayla rises in spite of herself. Movements no more than imprinted rhythms, stumbles and the memory of putting one foot in front of another. Pain, yes, humiliation, but stronger than these is the desire to return to her pod. To collect herself in a place where she’ll be safe. To rob the whites of the opportunity to see her broken. The second floor, an entrance to the red hallway. The other reds returning from morning chores. Gasps from the bathroom’s line. “Kayla?” a young girl calls.
“Not now,” Heather says.
Kayla with her head down. The shock recedes, and in its place—tremors. A skull shrouded in mist. The budding resolve to keep her tears private. Betty turns from the window. The sisters run, their cards tumbling off their cot. Heather guides Kayla onto her bunk.
“Jesus, girl,” Betty says. A touch of Kayla’s shoulder before she clenches her fists and screams. “I’m going to fucking kill them!”
Linda runs out, stopping only to shoo away the gathered crowd before closing the door behind her. Chris sits on the bunk, her hand rubbing Kayla’s shoulder. Heather returns with a washcloth and wipes Kayla’s eyes, and the faces of her gathered friends lift from the fog. Stands of loose hair in her fingers, her body’s dull ache of punches and kicks—and just as it had in Helen’s house, the ice forms over her. And beneath its chill, a new perspective, a clear, beatific logic.
Betty paces from the window to the door. Cursing, the spitting of threats and vows of revenge. Chris lists the treatments they tried on Linda’s hair—peanut butter, ice, Vaseline. Heather silent, Kayla’s hand held in hers. A tight grip given and returned; their knuckles white.
“Don’t worry,” Kayla says, calm words slurred by a jaw she can’t totally shut. “It’s going to be OK.”
The pod door opens. Linda first, Nurse Amy close behind. She pulls a chair in front of Kayla and opens her first-aid kit. “Oh, sweetie. Who did this?”
The night she arrived, Kayla collapsed into the nurse’s arms. She’s stronger now. She sits straight and owns her pain. She swallows it and keeps it in the dark of her belly. The pain will become stone, an alchemy of scars and unshed tears. When the time comes, she’ll grip the stone tight and remember this moment. She lowers her chin, not wanting to look at the nurse as she lies. “I don’t know. It happened so fast.”
A pause. “You know you can’t do anything foolish. Not with the way things are around here.” She looks around and addresses them all. “Promise me you’ll see me before anything like that goes down. Do that and I’ll make sure the Deacon isn’t up here asking too many questions.”
“Fuck that,” Betty snaps. “We’re going to—”
Nurse Amy cuts her off. “Open your eyes, Betty. You don’t think he’d like an excuse to get rid of you? Only person who’s going to do anything is me and that’s only happening if Kayla wants to tell me about it.”
Kayla whispers from behind her hair. “It happened so fast.”
“I understand.” She reaches into her bag. “It’ll take some doing, but we’ll be able to get most of this—”
“Cut it,” Kayla says.
“Oh, honey,” the nurse says. “Your hair is so—”
Kayla’s gaze on her lap. Heather’s hand in hers, Chris taking the other. “Cut it. Please. Cut it all. It’s OK.”
Betty pulls a chair to the room’s center. Linda drapes a towel over Kayla’s shoulders, another over her lap. A voice from the hallway—Panda Bear calling the reds for lunch. He sticks his head inside the pod’s door. “Lunch. Let’s line up.”
“We’re staying,” Betty says.
“Like hell you are.” He steps into the room. “What happened here?”
Betty plants a fist on her hip. “If some folks around here kept their eyes opened, they’d know what’s going on.”
“Or if they got off their phone once in a while,” Heather says.
“Or maybe they knew all along and let it happen,” Linda says.
“Listen, you little bitches. I don’t need your—”
Nurse Amy interrupts. “They can stay if they want. Tell them to leave out some lunch. I’ll bring the girls down when we’re done.”
Panda Bear scowls. “I’m not promising nothing—”
“They’ll do it if you say it’s for me.” Nurse Amy retrieves her scissors. “And if I ever hear you call any girl here a bitch again, I will personally see to it your ass is gone.”
Panda Bear huffs but says nothing. An exit, the door slammed.
“Thanks, Nurse Amy,” Chris says.
“Yeah,” Linda says. “Thanks.”
The girls stake a circle around Kayla, seats on their cots and drawn-close chairs. Kayla’s head bowed. The snip of scissors, and on the floor and her lap, clumps of hair mottled and tangled in pink. Much of the gum pressed hard against her scalp, falling strands longer than her arm, and in the jumbled mass, a picture of a life that’s no longer hers. Her last haircut at the salon her mother went to. Music on the radio. The scent of shampoo. The hairdresser cooing about her hair
’s shine. Kayla’s mother looking up from her magazine, a smile on her face. Almost two years ago. Another world. Another life.
The strands grow shorter. Nurse Amy pauses, stepping back then returning to work. Apologizing again and again as she promises to do her best to even it out.
“It’s all right,” Kayla says. She blows snippets off her lip. The feel already different. A coolness on her scalp and neck. The other girls intent, tight-lipped smiles when Kayla looks their way.
Linda runs a hand over her own head. “It grows back quick, Kayla. Really.”
Night, the girls arranged in a semicircle, the icy floor. One by one, they take their turn at the open window. A week has passed, and in the morning mirror, Kayla’s tightly cropped hair is a surprise but no longer a shock, the reflection not her so much as a new her. The girl in the glass stronger. Less willing to blink or look away. Strands still show up—on her pillow, whisked against the baseboard. Her hand often rubbing her scalp. The hair’s bristle, her exposed neck and the hardness of her skull. When her turn comes, she rises into the window’s grainy light. She sucks a drag, and the cherry’s burn nears the filter. She places her lips near the grate and exhales. The pleasant mix in her throat, the smoke’s warmth, the biting cold. She considers the world beyond the schoolyard fence. The dark houses. A passing car. The bay of lost dogs.
She rests the cigarette on the ledge. Before rejoining the others, she lowers herself into the day’s final plank, two minutes counted under her breath. The quiver in her arms as she sits beside Chris.
“You’re so good at that,” Linda whispers.
“You’re getting better too,” Kayla says.
“Yeah, but not like you.” Linda picks up the hammer sitting in the circle’s center. She stands, the hammer held high, a choppy swing. The head flashes in the gray light. She found the hammer behind a hallway trashcan before lights-out, the tool misplaced by the crew partitioning the new pod. “It’s heavy.” She taps the hammer against her palm. “But not too heavy.”
Betty sucks the cigarette’s last puff. She grinds the tip against the windowsill and strips the filter, the paper and cottony strips slid through the wire mesh. Below, the courtyard’s trashy swirl. She closes the window. The breeze snuffed but the cold lingers.
Chris gasps the hammer’s head and holds the rubbed-coated handle near her mouth. “For my next song, I’d like to sing a tune you all know and love.”
“We’ve all heard you sing.” Betty takes the hammer. “And it ain’t pretty.”
“Should I put it back?” Linda asks. “They’ll be looking for it.”
“This isn’t a charity, girl.” Betty climbs atop the desk and hides the hammer, cigarette pack, and lighter. The space behind the ceiling tile blacker than the sky. “If there’s any that deserve a little charity, it’s us.”
The girls return to their cots. Kayla kneels, the squeak of her locker’s hinges. The necklace retrieved. She secures the clasp and slides beneath the blankets. The chain’s touch different without her hair. She lies still, her gaze upon the ceiling, the white and black and gray. She rubs her scalp. She passed the Deacon at morning convocation, a moment’s glance before he returned to his Bible. Donna and the redheads smirked at first. They snapped their gum and smoothed their palms over their heads, gestures Kayla answered with the stare she’d practiced in the bathroom mirror and the cold grin that’s taken her by surprise. A smile because she now looks right through them. The understanding that she’s taken their worst and now it’s their turn to wonder how she’ll settle the score.
A snag in her drift. The scrape of metal on wood. Kayla confused—she already heard the sisters push their beds together. A tremor, a bump of metal, the docking of Heather’s cot. “Do you mind?”
“No.”
Heather settles in and lies on her side facing Kayla. “I’m freezing.”
“I wonder what winter will be like here.”
“We’ll be the first to find out, I guess.” Heather smiles. “Can I look at your necklace?”
“Sure.” Kayla reaches for the clasp.
“Don’t.” She cups the cross in her palm, the back of her fingers against Kayla’s throat. Her breath tasting of smoke and toothpaste. “It’s so delicate.” She pulls back and clutches the covers beneath her chin. “I should push my cot back.”
Kayla opens her mouth and the machine’s heartbeat fades. “You don’t have to.”
Outdoor rec. The sky clear. The blue startling, these overcast months. A cold sun. The younger girls busy with their kickball game. All of them jumping in place or hugging themselves. A breathy fog above their heads. The whites inside, a meeting with the Deacon. Rumors—they were being moved to the country, the busses on the way—or perhaps just the whites were going somewhere where the heat worked and the playgrounds had grass.
Kayla and her podmates at the monkey bars. A sharing of mismatched gloves. Turns taken grasping the last metal rung, their chins above their bar until their strength gave. As they wait their turn, the girls read the flier Chris found in the guard’s break room. The paper passes hand-to-hand, their backs to the windows. The rebellion spreading. Whole neighborhoods taken in Baltimore and Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. Mass defections from the National Guard. Armories raided and emptied. The Movement’s weekly report the internet’s most downloaded podcast. Or so the pamphlet claims.
Cries from the kickball game. The twang of rubber, and the red ball sails over outstretched hands. The hustle on the base paths. Kayla slides on the gloves. One black and tight, the other blue wool. She grasps the bar and pulls herself up. Cold radiates from the metal. The breeze light yet sharp, a wetness in her eyes. This new perspective. The kickball game given depth, the tops of her friends’ heads. The sisters huddle as they read the flier. Heather and Betty’s sneakers scrape the macadam, a stone kicked back and forth. Kayla’s arms tighten, the pain in her back. The pitcher rolls the ball, and a runner strays from second base. A police cruiser approaches, sirens and flashes of red and blue, a halt in the game as it passes. Kayla closes her eyes, and the strobes color her darkness. She slips into herself, then slips deeper still. Until her body’s complaints melt. Until she grows deaf to everything beyond her breath’s seashell hum.
Her grip gives and she drops to the macadam. “You were up there forever,” Linda says.
Heavy Metal opens the school door. “Inside, everybody! Right to the auditorium!” The kickball game abandoned. The younger girls run, the promise of warmth. Kayla folds the pamphlet and slides it and the gloves into her pocket. Heavy Metal shivers as he holds the door at the top of the concrete steps. “Let’s go. Don’t ask to go to your pod. Don’t ask to use the bathroom. Do not pass Go. Deacon’s waiting!”
Kayla flexes her fingers, her sleeve rubbed under her runny nose. They walk beneath a long banner. PURITY. The whites just leaving the auditorium, each in a new winter coat, hats and gloves. The younger whites excited, their sleeved arms held up as they compare colors and styles. Donna at the line’s end. A flip of her blond hair over her jacket’s furry collar. A smile as she passes Betty. “Might be a few left that aren’t too shitty.”
Heavy Metal leads the way to the auditorium. The echoes deeper here, the high ceiling and open space. Just off the stage steps, a picked-over pile of coats. Atop the stage, a jumble of hats and gloves. The Deacon gestures to the pile. “Take your pick, girls. The local charities were kind enough to supply us with enough for all. We had the smaller sizes on the left, but it looks as if our order has been lost. Still, help yourselves.”
The younger girls’ voices bright. The thrill of a gift, a distraction. Betty and the sisters at the pile’s other end. Betty holds up a man’s trench coat, a frayed sleeve, a gash at its elbow. “Are you serious?”
“It has a nice lining,” the Deacon says. “Warmth is more important than fashion.”
“So it’s all about warmth?”
The Deacon smiles. “Yes.”
“So you made sure the whites had the best l
ooking and warmest coats?” She drops the trench coat and retrieves one of the handful of army jackets. “Didn’t see any of them walking out like G.I. Joe.”
“Vanity isn’t pretty, Betty.”
She drops the army jacket. “Then vanity’s got a lot in common with what’s left here.”
“That’s enough,” Panda Bear says. “Pick a coat and be done with it.”
Betty turns, her tongue out, her words low and mocking. “Pick a coat and be done with it.”
Kayla and Heather sift through the hats and gloves. An orange knit cap for Kayla. A pair of thin, leather gloves, and she tosses her old mismatched pair onto the pile. Heather flicks the hat’s fluffy pompom. “Nice.”
The auditorium doors open. “Hold on, everybody.” Nurse Amy’s steps hindered by a trio of bulging trash bags. A strained smile as she passes the Deacon. She drops the bags at the pile’s edge. She opens one, then the other, and shakes out a soft jumble of coats. “Forgot to put these out earlier.” She shrugs toward the Deacon and empties her last bag onto the stage’s pile of hats and gloves. “Guess I was distracted by all the commotion.”
Linda and Chris take off the jackets they picked, try on new ones, then switch. The younger girls in an impromptu fashion show, a catwalk alongside the center’s taped divide. Betty leans into Nurse Amy, a nudge of her shoulder. “You can never leave us, you know that, right?”
Clad in her hat and gloves, Kayla takes a seat on the stage’s edge. She smiles, cheered by the younger girls’ laughter, their shiny voices. New coats and new gloves. A revived sense of justice. The gift of breaking even, and she thinks of her father and the world of small miracles. Linda nears. She holds out her arms, admiring her coat’s sleeves. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice.”
Betty and Chris further down the stage, the trying on of gloves. “I like your hat,” Linda says.
“My head’s going to need some cover this winter.”
“Aren’t you going to get a coat?”