gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  After Winthrop is as relaxed as he is going to get, Aunt Bev gets up and takes the eagle feather. She bows toward Winthrop and says, “We hold you.”

  I hold Winthrop’s hand then, like Aunt Bev said to do. I was worried I would forget this part, but now that we’re here, it’s easy. This is what makes sense. I think of Mo, hold her in my mind like she deserves to be held right now, and then Bird takes Winthrop’s other hand, and I don’t look at Bird’s face when I hear him trying not to cry.

  * * *

  When Bird gets up, a little while later, it isn’t surprising either. It makes sense when he starts taking off his clothes. When he blows his nose on his tank top. When he says to Winthrop, “Thank you.” It all makes sense.

  They switch places. Winthrop gets dressed and Bird makes frog legs without being told and Aunt Bev puts the eagle feather back in its case and then kneels in front of Bird and rubs his thighs too before she gets up and starts ringing the world’s tiniest bell, so tiny you can’t believe it is being heard somewhere in another city, in some medical office in what feels like another country. But you know it is.

  * * *

  This is the kind of thing you do with someone and never talk about again. Like running in terror from a house you think is haunted after hearing a noise inside that you probably made. Like beating on someone until they bleed, or making them want to do that to you, and then letting them, because you need to feel something. Like fucking on your parents’ wedding day even though you have just legally become family. Winthrop and I hold Bird’s hands while Aunt Bev rings the bell and we all think about Mo as hard as we can, spread open and gone from herself, a Rosary girl daring to believe she has a choice.

  THE KEYS TO THE LOST CITY

  Aunt Bev makes tea and we sit around the shoppe. Our shoppe. Hers and mine.

  We sit and wait. Most of the candles have burned out but we open the curtains, raise the blinds, and leave the lights off. No cards are being read today, no future promised. No one’s even talking, but the quiet isn’t weird either.

  And then there they are.

  We watch them through the window. Rain gets out and opens Mo’s door. Mo doesn’t move until Rain says something to her, something that frees her to kind of tumble out of the van and into Rain’s arms, into the shoppe, where we all hug again, but like experts this time, fully committed.

  * * *

  And Mo’s fine.

  * * *

  I wish I could know that. All I know for sure is that I can’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything that Mo left in Sky that is going to haunt her someday, make her run from herself. All I know for sure is that I’ll be there if it does.

  SKY TRAIN

  Rainbolene’s stuff is packed into the van, her Nelson Mandela poster rolled safely in a tube. I think I’m going to come say goodbye and then hang with Winthrop, make sure he is okay, that we are both okay, begin sorting out how we are supposed to roll on without our third wheel. If that is what Rain ever was.

  I’m trying to act like this is not a big deal, like things are not really changing. It isn’t like the entire family is leaving, Winthrop saw to that, asked if they could stay another year. Rainbolene is going to Sky, and Sky isn’t so far, and we’ll be eighteen soon enough. But when Rain hugs her parents, Mrs. Epsworthy even gets up from the couch. And when Rain puts her forehead right up against Pen’s and says, “Take care of my little bro, Snufflebutt,” I have to go out to the porch.

  Winthrop follows me out. He looks like I feel.

  And there’s Rain, her bag strapped across her chest like she already lives in a real city, like she owns it. She says, “Okay, Win, the little one is the key to the second gas tank. It kind of sticks.” And she hands him the keys to the Lost City Bread van, which is no longer the Lost City Bread van, which I can’t stop calling the Lost City Bread van, and she says, “Let’s get going so you can be back before curfew.”

  It’s like a cloud of dumb has descended on the porch and Winthrop and I are breathing it in.

  “Go?” he says.

  “Go, to Sky. Aren’t you taking me home?” Rain has already found an apartment, roommates, fellow warriors on the road to whatever transitions they know are best for them.

  She talks more slowly to her new dumb brother. “And then … you will drive yourself back here … in your new van. Use it to visit me. And to do other good things.” She presses the keys into his hand. “I’ve got this amazing thing they have in democracies, it’s called … wait for it … actually useful public transportation. I’ll be riding the train, big little brother, like nature intended.”

  I hold on to Pen’s leash as they get in the van. As the best sister in the world gives the best brother in the world all the freedom she has to give him. As they drive away, Pen and I wave, hand and tail, flip flip flip.

  HOT WHEELS

  “You can see right into the apartments from the bridge,” Winthrop says when he gets back from Sky.

  He is still in the driver’s seat and I’m sitting on the passenger side of the Lost City Bread van. Win’s van. Pen practically leaped through the window when he pulled into the driveway, so I followed her, and now she is on her back in the space between us, Winthrop’s hand moving slowly across her belly. His eyes are focused out the windshield, though, like he is still on the freeway, with Sky’s endless high-rises giving him that welcoming hug on both sides.

  “You can see televisions on, people walking around. You can see mess. It’s like”—and he looks at me here, like he thinks I’ve known this all along—“they’re living.”

  I want to hear about Rain’s apartment, her room, her friends, I have questions, but this is more important now. I have questions about this too.

  “When I used to sit in people’s houses. Break into them. That’s what I wanted. To see how they really lived. How the time passed. I’d look in the garbage cans even, trying to see what I missed since the last time, what had gone on, and it was almost always the same. Mail. Food. Like those paintings of waxed fruit. Like everyone is staging themselves for a portrait and forgetting to be alive.” He comes back into the van now, looks at me. “Except periods. When my neighbor Ms. Carstarphen had her period, I felt better. If it wasn’t for the blood”—he shrugs—“I couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t the only one here. Really here. In the world. I wanted proof of life, I guess.”

  He takes my hand and Pen rolls over onto her belly and closes her eyes.

  “You make me feel like that, Helen. Like life is happening. That’s what I figured out at the farm.”

  I squeeze his hand, rub my thumb over his knuckles. “I’ve never been compared to a stranger’s dirty tampon before.”

  It’s funny, but I don’t laugh.

  “I’m a romantic, Helen, I thought you knew that.” He manages not to laugh either, and then is truly serious when he says, almost in a whisper, “Don’t forget the fire part, I like to set fires too,” and because he leans across to kiss me when he says it, this line does the opposite of make me want to puke. Winthrop kisses like he talks and dances and walks and sings, like he can do it in any style, be anyone he wants to be. He fucks like that too. He makes love like that too.

  “Let’s christen the van,” I say, when we break away, but he is already climbing over Pen and into the back, pulling my hand.

  “One of us will have rug burns.” He pulls off his shirt and lays it down approximately where someone’s knees might go.

  “Both of us will have rug burns,” I say, and unzip my sweatshirt, spread it out approximately where someone’s ass and back and head will go, and we fill this space, overflow it, with bodies, knees, asses, elbows, hands, fingers, tongues, and trust. Our breath coming faster and faster, fast enough to collect on the front windows, where it condenses around the marks that Rainbolene left for us there like she knew we’d be doing just this, her message drawn in the mist, a heart with our initials inside and the words GET FREE.

  SPOILER ALERT

  Winthrop stops fo
r donuts every morning. Then he stops for me and the rest of the Dickheads. Once at school, he parks the van in the farthest corner of Rosary High’s lot, so we aren’t caught being thoughtful and friendly toward each other. We have a reputation to protect.

  As we move through our classes, Winthrop and I brush against each other in the hallway. He runs his mouth along my neck as he reaches into the lockers we share on different ends of campus, and Security Guard Jay always seems to be looking the other way when he does.

  On the eve of Winthrop’s eighteenth birthday, I pull a sweatshirt over my pajamas and walk over to his house just before midnight. I take the key from the pagoda and go inside to his room. I crack open the curtains so I can look down on Winthrop and Pen curled up together. Pen is the little spoon and I push her out of the way. Her tags jingle as she climbs up onto Rain’s empty bed, circles and circles, and settles down.

  Pen’s spot is warm and Winthrop’s arms wrap around me in it. I pull up his T-shirt and in the light of the streetlight coming through the window I can see the stretch marks that connect Winthrop’s old self with his new self, all the selves he’ll be, shining silver and pink. I trace them with my tongue, speak them like a spell, this new incantation to memorize, whispered like a prayer. And I make sure he has a very happy birthday, indeed.

  * * *

  It’s on Winthrop’s birthday morning, as we’re getting out of the van in Rosary High’s parking lot, after the rest of the Dickheads have already gone inside, that Roger appears. Roger from the Piazza bathroom. Roger from the land of idiots. That Roger. His pants are still sagging but he doesn’t have his big gold cross around his neck, and from the look on his face he might have swallowed it whole.

  Roger kind of holds up his hands when he gets close, like we are going to jump him. Which does cross my mind. And his hands are shaking.

  “Look,” he says.

  We are looking.

  “I heard that you might be able to arrange”—and here he stammers, like he’s going to ask for a blow job or something—“a ride. To the … across the … It’s for a friend.”

  Winthrop looks at me. There’s a decision before us and he’s waiting for me to do something. It takes me a second to figure out what, that he’s waiting for me to give my consent. Like the gentleman he is.

  I nod at Winthrop.

  He nods back.

  And everything about what this means fills the air between us over poor dumb Roger’s head.

  RISE

  I’m pulling on my backpack, the one with the silver stars and lightning bolts, and yeah, you caught me, some hearts too.

  “Helen Dedleder, tick tock.” Winthrop’s voice is coming from the speaker mounted to the Lost City Bread van’s roof, it fills our driveway and barges through the front door. When I come out, he’s handing Bird a donut through the window and Bird waves it at me as he walks on to school, if that’s actually where he’s going. Winthrop is already halfway through an apple fritter and when I get in and lean over to kiss him good morning, I taste hot sugar and coffee.

  Delicious.

  * * *

  On the van’s dash there is a stack of flyers and a staple gun. The design is familiar. As I reach for one, Winthrop says, “I hope you like it.”

  I’m expecting another love note, like the one from my birthday, but that’s not what this is. Or that’s exactly what this is. On the squares at the bottom, there is no cute message and there’s no phone number either. Instead, in place of the usual contact information, there is a code that any Rosary High kid will recognize, a letter and a number, each pair the locker of a different Dickhead.

  Because we’re in this together.

  DELIVERANCE

  NEED A LIFT?

  TRY US FIRST.

  LOST CITY TRANSPORT

  COUNTYWIDE AND BRIDGE RUNS.

  PRICE NEGOTIABLE. JUDGMENT-FREE.

  GOOD TROUBLE

  All the love stories and their happy endings are romantic bullshit, especially the hetero ones where the boy and the girl drive their weird van off into the sunset.

  There is a big smile on my face, but this is not a romance.

  And don’t let the pollution from the refinery fool you either. That is not the sunset.

  Our work is just beginning.

  The sun is coming up. Even in Rosary. My house is only the first stop. Next is Mo and Cy and Sissy, next is every one of us born on the battlefield of someone else’s war, ready now to fight for the only thing that matters. Each other.

  And I know we will.

  I can see the future.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much gratitude to the Sherwood Anderson Foundation for its generous support and to Susan Salser for her sustaining kindness.

  Family: Daniel, Don and Tam, Jim and Windy, Steve and Carmen, Grandpa Earle and Poppi Rob, Liz and Shea, Mamasan Elizabeth and Cap’n Mark, I wish us all nearer.

  Forever teachers: Vicki Forman, Jim Krusoe, and Alan Ziegler.

  Healers: Julia Carpenter and Michelle Lemieux at Berkeley Acupuncture Project, Andrea Du Flon, Hilary Henson, Chad Houfek at Charleston Community Acupuncture, Francine Madrid at Mariposa, and Angela Watrous at Restorative Empathy.

  True believers: Franny and Jorie, Josh and Tracy, Kris and Elizabeth, Nikki from Alaska, Elina Agnoli, Shirley and Tilden Atwell, Donna B., Burgin Bailey, Chris Baty, Augustine Blaisdell and Eric Frison, Pat Bowen and Lindsay Grant, Sarah Ciston, Daniel A. Colfax, Nicole Dietrich, Jacqueline Doyle, Daniel Duvall, Ann Endress, Jules Gilbertson, Steve Gutierrez, Michael Hacker, Regina Kammer and Jason Munkres, the Mitchell Women, Mandy Mosiman, Celine Nadeau, Leslie Outhier, Anna Padgett, Candace Procaccini, Cyndera Quackenbush, Judith Remmes, Graham and Jess Rolak, Cathy Salser, Daniel Sanders, Laura Lampton Scott, Mark Searles, Cheryl Silver, Nancy Smith, Tavia Stewart, John Streit, Zulema Renee Summerfield, Jessica A. Walsh, Sarah Warshaw, Amanda Weisel, Laura West, Josie Williams, and Marci Mamacita Grandmacita Zeimet.

  Lisa, a.k.a. Horse Face, and Paula Parnello-Copley: Dickheads forever.

  Jenna Johnson, for defying the world to end. And all the good shepherds at FSG, especially Chloe Texier-Rose and Lydia Zoells. Abby Kagan’s design is everything this book and I wanted. Na Kim for wielding the magical Sharpie of wish fulfillment. Dave Cole deserves all the hot-air balloon rides.

  Bill S. Clegg, the only living boy in New York, here’s to today. And the Clegg Agency at large, especially Simon Toop, who puts up with more Tupe/Toop puns than is proper.

  Ford Aloysius and Josiah Wright, my dearest inspirations to do and be and imagine better.

  And to Bradford, my eternal teen romance, for keeping me found.

  ALSO BY TUPELO HASSMAN

  Girlchild

  Breast Milk

  A Note About the Author

  Tupelo Hassman’s debut novel, Girlchild, was the recipient of the American Library Association’s Alex Award. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Harper’s Bazaar, Imaginary Oklahoma, The Independent, Portland Review, and ZYZZYVA, among other publications. She is the recipient of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen award and the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, and is the first American to win London’s Literary Death Match. She earned her MFA at Columbia University. You can sign up for email updates here.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  The Measure of Goodness

  Country Tore

  Incandescent

  lo,

  The Last Word

  PS

  lo, petal riser

  Fallen

  Prevision

  Drinking Games for Teens

  A Gulp of Swallows

  Teens Gone Wild

  Night of the Living Dad

  Ways to Close a Prayer

  Shadow of the Valley

  Religious Organizations

  Beat Cute

  Repentance

  A Fake Chinese Rubber
Plant

  The Gift

  Ace of Wands

  Punished

  City Blocks

  Masturbate Theatre

  Speakeasy

  Details

  My So-Cauled Life

  Hand Cancel

  The Good News

  Postage Due

  Epistle

  Deliver Us

  Condom Nation

  Signs

  Musical Chairs

  The Mark Where the Nail Has Been

  Staples

  Grace

  Lazarus

  Sharpie

  Marry Fuck Kill

  Mouth

  Disciple

  Post No Thrills

  The Alliance

  Books of Job

  The Game of Who Needs Who the Worst

  Tarot Before Bros

  VIII: Strength

  Pom-Pom

  Love the Sinner

  Cummittee Meeting

  Radio Free Sky

  or Dare

  Tea Leaf Reading: A Primer for the Unwilling

  Piazza de Resistance

  Blood Ties

  Elder Goals

  How to Not Feel Sorry for Yourself

  Sad Crabs

  Like a Girl

  Shotgunning

  Nope

  From the Edge

  The Sacrament of the Present Moment

  How to Shake Your Hips

  Get a Lifeline

  Children of the Torn

  When Thumpers Attack

  The Tools of Forgetting

  Heterosaurus

  Slant Rhyme

  Risk Averse