Cracked Pots

by Heather Tucker

  Jasper pinches. Be nice.

  Shut up.

  “All things we ask for in prayer, believing, we receive.” Her head tilts with the weight of sincerity. Her eyes are as green as a spring leaf. “His care for us is that great.”

  “So, how about soup?” Aaron chirps.

  “So, He finds you a parking spot but not a tortured family’s precious daughter?”

  “Or grilled cheese?”

  “His ways are mysterious.”

  “He’s a monster if He does one and not the other.”

  “Ari, please.”

  I look at Aaron’s pained face and stand. “Sorry. I’m just not fit to be around decent, God-fearing humans.”

  Ten

  It’s just past noon and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival is indeed rocking. Bernie, my boss from the Riverboat, checks backstage. “Ari, refill the snack table. Fold more shirts. Carl, take a load to the main gate.”

  I mound a table with Fritos, soda, and doughnuts, then sort another carton of shirts into neat piles. Outside, Chuck Berry has the crowd reelin’ and rockin’. Inside, Jim Morrison, yes Jim Morrison, listens to the music and . . . eyes me? He edges closer and says, “Cool boots.”

  “Thanks.” I fold up my jitters with the extra-large shirts.

  His knees crack as he bends to take a closer gander. “Where’d you get ’em?”

  “Ah . . .” Act like I’m uber cool, Jasper. “Um, the corridor between heaven and hell.”

  “That in San Francisco?”

  “No. At the intersection of missing and joy.”

  “Deep.”

  Bernie talks to Morrison like he’s a regular mortal. “Ari painted them.” He leans forward, for my ears only. “Keep him sober and I’ll owe you the moon.”

  “What am I? AA?”

  “Uh, Ari Appleton? Step up.”

  Morrison pockets his hands. “You from here?”

  “No. Far as I can figure I’m just a bit of carbon that fell into the Atlantic.”

  “Righteous.” He turns to the buzz that ramps to a roar from the crowd outside. “Sounds like Jesus Christ has arrived. Never thought Lennon would show.”

  “If you’re the rock god, does that make him your son?”

  He takes in my face. Fingers a serpentine of my hair. “What say we get it on?”

  He’s not the first rocker to want in my pants. My years at the Riverboat have taught me that guys go for girls with miles of hair, and creative souls go for anything that keeps the music riffing after the gig is over. He’s no longer the work of art on his album cover, but he’s not as full of himself as I’ve heard. He’s kind of sad, a muted blue, like a robin’s egg.

  “The day might come when I kick myself for not banging boots with you, but I gotta pass.”

  “Serious?”

  “We’re both too off-key.”

  “Do my boots, then.” He sits on a large crate. “An eagle.”

  “Don’t have my supplies.” I recognize the haunt of a person looking for a bottle to escape into. “But I could feather up your jeans.”

  The supply box holds a motherlode of markers. I sit on a small crate and he settles his boot on my thigh. A keeper of propriety scuttles over. “Ah, Mr. Morrison? Perhaps you’d be more comfortable—”

  “The lady’s doodling and Bo Diddley’s up. Get me a Jack and a beer.”

  “Hang on, Carl. Mr. Morrison might prefer a burger and Coke?” I slip my hand up his pant leg to give the fabric purchase and look up. “Get tanked and I’ll think you’re my mum.”

  He nods Carl away. “So, girl with the hair, what’s got you discordant?”

  “Regular stuff: disappeared friend, missing sister, exile from my boyfriend, tailless rats infesting my house, parentals that’re life forms lower than botulism. You know.”

  “Yeah, well, my dad started the Vietnam War.”

  “Well, that beats my dad’s fuck-up. Thanks.”

  “Fact of life. Always someone more fucked up than you.” He smiles, a closed mouth smile. “You like The Doors?”

  “Depends on where they lead to.”

  “Where’d you want ’em to go?”

  “Cape Breton, a swim with a seahorse, a potter’s wheel . . .”

  “Seahorse?”

  “Yeah. With this one right here.”

  “What one?”

  I look up. “Thought you musical geniuses could see sound in air, music in water.”

  “What’re you on?”

  I knock on the splintered wood under my bum. “A crate. What? You can’t see that either?”

  The eagle emerges, full flight, a wing tip curving up over his knee. He cranes to get a better look and our eyes connect. “Rad.”

  “I’m part eagle.”

  “Part?”

  “Yeah. And part lion.”

  “And seahorse?”

  “No, Jasper just rooms in me.”

  “You’re one weird chick.”

  “Cracked as they come.”

  “So, animism girl. You like my music?”

  I use the ballpoint to feather up the masterpiece and fine-tune the eye. “To a point. There’s enough yelling in my world. When you get screechy, I tune you out. But there’s poetry in you.”

  He offers his left leg as Little Richard takes the stage. “Draw a lion on this one.”

  Nearing midnight, I wander out, moving away from the frenetic crowd. I climb the bleachers behind the stage and sit. Fifteen days ago, a girl disappeared. Today, people dance, sing, get high, spread free love. Natasha would’ve flipped at all these rockers.

  Ten rows down, a strawberry-haired lovely and a summer-tanned boy are makin’ it on the skinny bench, concert lights fluorescing off his very white ass. Jake’s butt is untanned like that. From my perch, I survey the roil of people out front. I’m an ocean girl, Jasper. This isn’t my scene. I inhale deep, longing for a joint to lessen the ache of missing Jake, my sisters, aunties . . . my better life.

  I drift. Maybe I sleep. The current rippling through the crowd tells me the Plastic Ono Band is setting up. The MC asks everyone to get matches and lighters ready to give the next act a big welcome. Oh, there’re so many ways this could go wrong.

  Nothing catches fire, except maybe a spark of serenity. Lights flicker by the hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, then they’re gone and the crowd amps up. I head toward the exit.

  “Ari. Wait!” Carl nimble-foots through the throng and hands me a pair of scuffed boots, “He said, ah, paint poetry on them?”

  “Will do.” I tuck them under my arm.

  “Why’s Morrison giving you his boots?”

  “They need re-souling.” I back away from the caterwauling coming from the stage and exit the stadium, running smack into Linda, like a pigeon-toed ostrich nosing up to an adorable kitten. Her Campus Crusade for Christ table is heaped with soda and cookies to lure the lost. “Hey, Linda. Any luck landing a fish?”

  She looks up, wincing at Yoko’s cat-caught-in-an-escalator screech. “That’s demonic. Even you have to admit that.”

  Yoko’s performance is a nail-on-chalkboard invasion into all that is holy about music, but of all the stellar notes filling the air today, her lament comes closest to expressing the scream in my gut. “Definitely not divine.”

  I move on to Aaron standing by a tree. “Hey, cowboy. Here to save a lost generation?”

  He half smiles. “You’re more found than me.”

  “Keep leaning on that tree. It knows exactly where it is and why.”

  Aaron one-dimple smiles. “You leaving?”

  “Yeah. Gave peace a chance, but I’m not feeling it.”

  “I just came to pick up Linda. Wait and we’ll give you a lift.”

  “Think your jeep’s a one-woman vehicle.”

  “It�
��s after midnight. You shouldn’t be out alone.”

  “I never am.”

  “Tomorrow? Our bench?”

  “Thought after being such a royal bitch with Linda you’d be done with me.”

  Moonlight plays on his cheek. “You spoke the very thoughts strangling me.”

  “Then I don’t get it. You’ve battled all your life to escape a fundamentalist box. Now you’re climbing back in?”

  “I think of breaking every bone in my body to fit into Linda’s box.”

  “Is there not a niggle in you where that sounds off?”

  “Isn’t that what love is? Being what the other person needs? Aren’t you what Jake needs and vice versa?”

  “Suppose. But I’m not broken in it, I’m mended.”

  “I don’t know what to do. She’s going with a mission to Biafra this summer and wants me to go.”

  “So, are you proposing?”

  “What? Geez. No.”

  “Time zones and borders can be crossed but not moral boundaries. No religious organization is going to sanction a man and a maiden travelling together outside the bonds of holy matrimony.”

  “I’m so not ready for marriage.”

  “You’d be plenty ready if you met your match. Too bad Linda can’t put away her ‘shalt nots’ so you could clear your heads. You’d think straighter that way.”

  “Geezus, Ari, you’re impossible.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” I back away. “Tomorrow. Elevenish. Bring coffee.”

  As I cross the parking lot, O’Toole slithers up alongside. “Mmm, mmm, mm-hmmm, sweet tits. You want some cream?”

  “Just fuzz the hell off.”

  He nabs my thumb, bending it toward my wrist. “I smell dope. That gives me cause to search.”

  I yowl, writhing like a defeated boa as he ups the pressure.

  “Problem, Ari?” O’Toole backs off, piss-scared of the Harley rolling to a stop.

  “Yeah, Edjo. This officer wants to haul my boobs out for interrogation.”

  “Just checking ID.” O’Toole raises his hands, palms out, and backs away.

  Edjo may be head grizzly with the Vagabonds, but he’s always a teddy bear with me. “Thanks.” I massage my thumb back into place.

  He nods a get on. “Where to?”

  “Riverboat.” I hold tight, absorbing his sour stink. It’s a short jaunt. I hop off and take in his wind-burned face. “There wasn’t a whisper about Natasha today. How does a person just vanish?”

  “Biggest clue, right there. I put word out, coast to coast, cross borders. No one’s heard or seen nothing. You ask me, one lone dude snatched her. If nobody saw anything, then there was nothing special to remember.”

  “You think she’s dead?”

  “Or holed up somewhere.” He revs the bike. “Take care, kid.”

  Holed up. Mum used to hole us up, for hours, sometimes days. When sisters were with me, it was okay. When it was just Jasper and me, we’d curl to nothing, my small finger connecting with the crack of light under the door. Holed up is such an awful place to be.

  Now, we’re wholed up.

  Christ, you’re annoying. I nip down a lane, along the alley, and slip into my nest. All the unholy messes can wait.

  Amen.

  Eleven

  It’s Monday after the concert that rocked Toronto. When I pick up the boys, Nat’s mom is packing lunches. Her dad is propped at an awkward angle on the brocade sofa, having succumbed to sleep. Eating and sleeping, so ordinary and so overwhelming.

  I watch the boys safe inside the school, then take the shortcut where the trees meet in an arch and druggies huddle in a clump. All I want is a dime bag, a ticket to hide from a school jittery with angst. Matt Talbot laughs like a happy monkey when he spots me. “Arrrriiiii. Way to go.” He polishes my shoulder. “Let me touch the babe who lit Morrison’s fire.”

  “What? Christ. No. We talked. That’s it.”

  “Not what I heard.”

  I keep my cash and walk on. Crossing the field, I gather groupies like flies to a sticky strip. Popular is something I’ve never been. Occasionally, fans cheer my volleyball prowess. But my bumping into walls while reading or responding to Jasper externally rather than internally makes me an odd peg in a square school. Today, as I trudge through the hall, I’m hailed hero. You have to have walked in on your mother adulterating with every Tool, Dick, and Scary to know how awful this feels.

  Cassie Young, queen of Jarvis, says, “Oh, Ari. I’d give anything to be you. What was Morrison like?”

  “Mortal. We talked. That’s it.”

  “Right.” She finger-quotes, “‘Talked.’”

  The silence when I enter the office to sign in tells me everyone, from juniors to janitors, believe that I was getting a rock star’s rocks off at the rock festival. The secretary fastens the pearl buttons on her sweater. “Dr. Cornish, the board’s psychologist, is in guidance today. It’s mandatory you make time to meet with her.”

  Remember, Ari, “Do you hear voices?” is a trick question.

  Radio silence is our best tact.

  My snout is sealed.

  In French, my unmute button is pushed and I use merde and tabarnac in sentences requesting taunters to ferme the frick up, s’il vous plait.

  In history, I tune out the teasing by moulding plasticine into the Mayflower. The teacher, Mr. Corbin, is new. The kind that has girls preening before class and hanging off his every word. He walks over to my desk, opens his hand, waiting for the lump to be surrendered. The thunk as it hits the wastebasket stings like the strap. Head down, my hair curtains my topsy-turvy note taking. Natasha’s notes were always an ordered, underlined masterpiece. And she never balked at my requests to borrow them for all the classes I missed.

  The bell rings and I make for the door. As I leave, Mr. Corbin’s contempt follows. “I hope this kind of disruption will not follow you to my next class, Miss Appleton.”

  “Hope so, too, sir.”

  My history has taught me that teachers either love me or wish they’d pursued more pleasing careers, like sewer maintenance or undertaking.

  I duck into the art room, tuck into the supply closet, and scrape away dribbles on the rows of paint jars. Mina nearly drops a palette of paper when she comes in. “Ari, you scared the cerulean out of me.”

  “You hear what everyone’s saying?”

  “If I heard Ellis bedded Morrison, I’d be more inclined to believe it. I know how you feel about Jake.”

  “How one feels doesn’t trump scum DNA.” I tuck my giraffish legs against my chest. “Anyway, why is this even being talked about? I mean, caring about what I might’ve done, not what Natasha didn’t get to do?”

  “It’s how we cope. Distraction is as necessary as reflection. You have a lunch?”

  “Nat’s mom gave me one.”

  “Eat it, then get to class.”

  I unwrap the sandwich, wondering if Natasha is hungry, and afraid that she isn’t. I remain in the cupboard, unable to swallow a lunch that should’ve been Nat’s. Like the physics I don’t understand, time has stopped, but still it moves, to bells, signalling next period. It’s as certain as disappointment and as unpredictable as joy.

  On my way to English, I pass the trophy case. Inside is a picture of a young O’Toole, 1955 Athlete of the Year. Natasha thought him dreamier than Rock Hudson. Beside the case, there is a banner, filling with heart-ripping birthday messages for Nat. If I disappeared, what would they write about me, Jasper? I don’t really have friends at this school, just tenuous strings. To Matt, I’m a customer. To the volleyball team, a point scorer. To Wendy, a project, a family in need of, for example, the horror of a Christmas hamper last year.

  If I write the sentimental things I’m feeling, that Natasha was the one person who made me feel welcome here, I’ll blubbe
r.

  Behind me, reflected in the glass, Sean gyrates on a pretend guitar, singing, “Come on, come on, touch me babe.”

  I really need some grass. I bypass guidance and exit through the gym doors.

  There is a willow near Mikey’s school. Under the beard of branches, I calm, letting my body sway with the yellowing leaves while I focus on worksheets and wait for the boys. Hey, look, we found some grass.

  All the walk home, Joey collects bottle caps, Mikey explains structures, and Alex steps over cracks. I wait by the gate, watching them through the door, and see Mr. Koshkin bent over the workbench in the garage. His eyes look like they’ve taken a punch. His animal, a gentle retriever, looks like it’s gone seventeen days without food. His head turns; disappointment, or more disgust, lines his face when he registers I’m not Natasha but an Appleton.

  On return to crapdom, Mum is passed out on the chair. Todd’s ball of rubber bands has been disassembled. Hundreds line her arms. Dozens circle her ankles. In her feisty days, Mum was a pernicious force of nature. Today, she spent precious hours putting elastics on her limbs.

  I load crusty dishes into the sink, moving like a greyhound at Mikey’s yelp. He’s trapped again—under filthy sofa cushions and O’Toole’s miserable ass. I spit, “Get the hell off him!”

  O’Toole levers his weight into the sofa, laughing. “Who? What? Just waitin’ for my ride.” Mikey struggles out, gasping. The torment continues with quick head smacks. “Not my fault I can’t see him. Happens when you’re smaller than a sparrow’s dick.”

  “You should know, you pull one out of your pants at every piss.” I remove a half-chewed Tootsie Roll from Mikey’s hair while shepherding him toward the stairs.

  O’Toole palms his crotch. “Bigger than a stallion, baby.”

  “Then why’d your wife file a missing penis report?”

  Snake, the gangster, emerges from the cellar. “You just crack me up, cupcake.” Knuckles crack as he approaches O’Toole. “And you, fucking lay off my little buddy or I’ll crack you up but good. Capisce?” He winks at Mikey. “Us smart guys gotta stick together, eh, Einstein?”

  From her chair, Mum emits a long, stuttering fart. A fitting amen to a shitty day.