Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

by T Kira Madden

  It’s too much, I say. The Backstreet Boys sing through the store speakers, and I feel embarrassed, like a little girl, just listening to the way they want it while I’m wearing this outfit. My legs are scarred and pale from my half-chaps, from all the stiff boots and pinching stirrup leathers over the years. Even worse—they’re hairy, especially my knees.

  You’re just used to that long, fugly uniform skort, she says. You look hot like this, trust me. Quince will DROP DEAD.

  Will you let me Nair for this? I ask. Please?

  I’ll think about it, she says. It is a special occasion.

  After the mall, my mother drives us down to Fort Lauderdale, to my uncle’s shoe warehouse. My other uncle, Uncle Bert, works the forklift inside. The warehouse is a giant, chalky-smelling place with leaning mountains of white shoe boxes. They each have our name—Madden—printed all over them. Some of the shoes are new, but others are damaged discards—two left feet, a nail in the insole—and sometimes I’m allowed to climb up and pick from these piles.

  My Uncle Bert hops off his forklift when we pull up to the side entrance of the warehouse. He licks his fingers and smooths down his mustache. He looks like my father if my father were to quit shaving and wear tube socks and take up the Grateful Dead. He’s my favorite uncle. Did I hear my favorite girl found a date to the middle school dance? he says.

  With Quince Pearson, I say.

  That’s not just any date, says my mother.

  Quince Pearson—I think I’ve heard of him, says Uncle Bert. He pulls a soft pack of smokes from the front pocket of his plaid shirt.

  ’Bout this tall? Yes. Handsome? Yes. Best taste in girls?

  Uncle Bert, stop! I laugh. I can’t stop laughing. I am eleven years old, and I can finally joke about love. Stand up inside it.

  Uncle Bert lets me climb the shoe mountains for the rest of the day. Find the perfect dancing shoes! he says. Better be dynamite!

  I love opening each box under the humming, ginger glow. I love the crackle of tissue paper, the smell of suede and glue. I can barely fit into even the smallest of the shoes, but I still know every term, what I like and what I don’t like—the choke is all wrong, the toe spring is perfect—because this has become one of the many languages of our family.

  All the VJs and pop stars on MTV have made my uncle’s shoes extra famous, so the A-girls recently asked me for a new white, chunky sneaker called the Bobbie. If you deliver, Addison Katz said, we’ll be your very best friends. I came to the warehouse, and Uncle Bert helped me collect and label the Bobbie boxes, each and every size. My mother wrapped them in expensive paper, pressing each crease with a gentleness that wrung some kind of sadness inside me. The next day, when I handed over the gifts next to our school lockers, the girls tore open the boxes, tied up the laces, and left the wrapping paper crunched in the halls. They never spoke to me again, but the shoes are worn in by now.

  On the floor of her bedroom, my mother does her best to curl my hair with hot rollers. My hair is too short for this, an ear-length bowl, so we decide to move on. She surprises me with a box of tiny, plastic rhinestone flowers that open like clams and snap on to strands of hair, and she clips them all over until my head looks like a cluster of stars. Tonight, she lets me remove all the orthodontic bands from my mouth. I spit my plastic lip bumper into its case, slide my headgear out of its molar-hooks, and now my mouth is only partially metal. My two lips meet for the first time in a year. My mother swipes a berry-colored powder across my cheeks and some sky-blue eyeshadow, to match my shirt.

  I walk down the hallway toward my father on the couch. He stands up—something he seldom does. You look beautiful, he says, without sarcasm. I’ll be damned.

  My parents drive me the five minutes to school. I’ve never seen it at night before, and suddenly it feels bigger, more dangerous, like what I imagine a college might look like. Go find your man! screams my mother, as I shut the car door. I wave them good-bye, walking backward, until the taillights on their new Mercedes shrink and die out.

  I like the hallways when they’re like this, dark and gaping. Usually I have to be careful of somebody coming up behind me to unzip my suitcase or smack a sign on my back, but right now, in this moment, I’m the most beautiful girl in the hallway. I am night blooming in my cloud shirt and black, leather platforms with my very own name inside. I am a girl, with a date, attending my very first dance.

  Queera! says Clarissa. She arrived with the A-girls but promised to sneak back out of the gym and find me in the halls. She looks nice, wearing a slinky rhinestone dress and a crown of butterfly clips. Her black curls are gelled into a bun and she looks skinnier tonight; I wonder if she’s been eating. Weeks ago, when she bent over to use her locker, a boy named Ian screamed Slim Fast! and the whole hallway roared. Since then, I’ve only seen her suck down plastic tubes of fat-free yogurt in the cafeteria. Sometimes, she and the other girls chew on granola bars and spit the brown pulp back into plastic cups. All the taste, no calories.

  How do I look? I ask, taking a deep breath.

  Your skirt is totally split up the side, you know that right? How very Con-tramp-o Casual of you.

  I look down and Clarissa is right—my skirt must have ripped when I was climbing out of the backseat. The front and back are connected by only a few thick threads. My whole thigh is showing, along with my tie-dye Limited Too underwear.

  Well now-the-fuck what? I say. My parents aren’t coming back for hours.

  You’re such a boner-killer, you know that? she says. Come on.

  Clarissa leads me to a classroom, Mrs. Vag’s. The lights are still on. Student government runs late here, and Clarissa is in charge of the key. I’ve run for student government twice—Don’t be saddened, Vote for Madden!—but never made the cut. Both times, my mother baked campaign cookies for the entire middle school that everyone devoured, mumbling, Who knew she could make cookies without fortunes inside?

  Inside Mrs. Vag’s room, in this kind of light, Clarissa’s glitter and charcoal makeup looks exaggerated and clownish. I wonder if I look the same. She walks over to Vag’s desk and picks up a stapler. C’mere, she says, getting on her knees.

  I walk over to her.

  Take the shoes off, she says, I can’t even reach your ankle.

  Shoes are the one thing I have on girls my age. Most girls in Middle are allowed one pair of starter heels for dressy occasions—strappy, kitten things only a half inch off the ground, the kind of shoes my veiny-calved grandma might wear. I’ve been wearing platforms and clogs most of my life—sample styles stuffed with padding—with cheetah patterns, leather tassels, sawtooth soles. They don’t match our uniforms, but they’re not banned from school yet.

  Clarissa works from the top and works her way down and around, snapping the jaws of the stapler quickly, efficiently, like she’s done this before. She pop pop pops the metal teeth like bullets. She pulls the fabric together and squeezes. She reloads the stapler and works until my whole side looks silver.

  An improvement, she says.

  Clarissa can be cruel, a real bitch. She lies and taunts and she can’t be trusted, not yet, but here’s the thing: she loves me more than any other friend I’ve ever known. There is a tenderness between two people who desire so much more than what they can have, who reach for the cards they have not been dealt, two girls who will soon be ridiculed for exposing their hairy backs at a bar mitzvah service—Did you goats escape from the petting zoo?—who will spend the next few years quietly shaving each other down the spine in an empty bathtub, bleaching each other’s mustaches, helping each other vomit up cheese fries and pastries; these little tasks that seem, to us, to so many young girls, like the very membrane between a life of being seen and no life at all. My love for Clarissa is so strong it changes the temperature of the air around us—that’s how it feels—which is precisely the thing about losers, the thing that binds us here on Mrs. Vag’s floor, and the thing that will bind us even after we change, grow up, become new people, meet other fo
rmer and current losers: losers stick together. We recognize one another. Eighteen years from this moment, when I watch Clarissa walk down the aisle on her wedding day, her skin is flawless as skim milk in a white, backless dress.

  There are laser lights, black lights, and strobe lights. The gym is foggy and loud. The DJ blasts everyone’s new favorite song, “No Scrubs,” and the crowd sings along with their hands cupped around their mouths, Wanna get with me with no money? Oh no!

  I recognize only some of the kids on the dance floor. The kids from my classes, the Honors kids, sit on the bleachers, chewing at hangnails. Clarissa and I scan this group, looking for Derek Jacobs.

  Do you think he kept his highlights in? she asks, and we grab each other by the elbows, snort-laughing.

  Derek sits in front of us in German class, and lately Clarissa and I have been untwisting our Milky Pens, running the pastel-colored ink through his black, curly mullet. Derek is a genius, and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and so we hate him. At twelve years old, he will be the youngest certified engineer employed by Microsoft. At fourteen, he will be the first person implanted with a microchip on national television. He will be honored by Oprah and Bill Gates. At eighteen, he’ll die in a motorcycle accident.

  Are you ready for a new hit? the DJ asks. He instructs us to make a circle in the center of the room; he wants to see us move it move it. He plays Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up,” a song Clarissa recently downloaded and played for me.

  Do you see Quince?

  Not yet, says Clarissa. I’m sure he’ll find you.

  The A-girls form a circle. It’s more shocking than I’d imagined, seeing everyone in their weekend clothes, no button-ups or sweater vests or pleats. The bass thumps wild, and Clarissa and I watch the girls take turns crawling on the floor, then moving flat on their stomachs. They slam their fists on the glossy gym wood as they hump up and down with their groins. They make faces like they’re in pain, or maybe it’s just that they’re feeling really good. I squeeze my thighs together.

  That’s called the Cry Baby, says Clarissa. My sister told me about that move.

  The boys take turns approaching the designated Cry Baby from behind. They move on top of the girls in a push-up position. They roll their bodies and hump the girls, and the girls keep banging the floor with their fists, kicking their legs like they’re about to start swimming. Everybody is fake crying, fake rubbing their eyes in exaggerated twists. Quince Pearson is one of these boys. I watch him hump the crying Skylar Fingerhut, the crying Claudia Greenberg, the crying Beth Diaz, the crying Harley Pelletier. After some time, one of the adult chaperones pulls Quince off of Addison Katz, shakes her finger. No, no, no, that’s enough.

  Do you think he’s as nervous to see me as I am to see him? I ask Clarissa.

  Of course, she says. And wait till he sees your outfit!

  I’ve never danced before, I say. Nothing like that.

  We’ll practice, she says. Don’t worry.

  Now that the crying is over, a new circle has formed. One boy has taken off his tie, and he wraps it around another girl’s neck. When he does this, the two of them sway into the center of the circle. The girl bends over, plants her hands on her knees. She gyrates her butt up and down as quickly as possible, flinging her crimped hair around in a circle. It’s almost like the hula, I think, if hula were to be danced while bent over, to angry music in English, by horny white people. The girl snakes her tongue out of her mouth and taps the front of her braces with it. She flicks it in and out while she grinds. The boy holds on to her hips and pulls her butt into his body. At one point, he lifts his hand above her bent-over back. He moves this hand up and down, up and down, like he’s petting a dog or flattening dough. When everyone has applauded and screamed, Nasty! Hot! Get it, Danny! it’s the girl’s turn to take the tie and choose the next boy. She wraps it around Quince Pearson’s neck. I watch them dance like that. The pizza dough move, the ass bouncing, her left leg hooked around his back when they face each other, still humping.

  Clarissa pulls me into the gym locker room. It’s so bright in here after the black lights that I have to blink it off in the mirror. My blue mascara and blue eye shadow are gooping, stinging. Open your eyes, Chink, says one of the girls coming out of a stall. Oh, that’s right, you can’t!

  I am used to these comments—I don’t even remember when I began hearing them—but I have a white father and an uncle who makes shoes for white, beautiful celebrities, and I’ve known my Hanukkah prayers since I was a baby, and mostly, I don’t understand why other people can see something I can’t. This difference about me.

  All hail power to the Earth, power to the Water, Goddess of the Stars and the Flames, Ni-How-Bru-Ha-Ha-Alikazam-O-Kamikaze.

  Jesus Christ with the Wicca, says Clarissa. You are so embarrassing.

  Clarissa knows the drill. I wear a pentacle necklace and make up spells when people give me the most shit. The sterling pentacle screws on to a small cobalt bottle. I tell people the bottle is full of blood, but it’s usually cranberry juice or some kind of essential oil my mom gives me for my nosebleeds. Once, I cast a spell on Ms. Dickhead, and she fell down a flight of stairs the very next day. I felt bad about that, cut off a lock of my hair and buried it as some sort of penance, but ever since this incident people tend to walk away when I start the chanting.

  Seriously, says Clarissa, you need to practice before you go back out there. Show me what you got. You watched them, right? Show me.

  Clarissa instructs me to bend my knees as much as I can. She uses her hands to help arch my back. She positions my legs so that they’re farther and farther apart. I try my best to do what I saw. I place one palm on each knee; I bounce up and down; I rock my head back and forth until my hair with its rhinestone clips goes flying. I find what feels like a steady humping motion.

  You look like you’re having a total fucking seizure, says Clarissa. But I guess it’s not that bad.

  I keep going. I rock my body back and forth. Like this?

  Oh my fucking God. A voice. It’s Addison Katz. A few of the girls follow her inside the locker room. What the freak are you doing?

  I stand up. Dancing, I say, like you. I’m here with Quince Pearson. We’re dates.

  Oh really? says Addison. Her blonde hair is pinned into a knot on the back of her head. Spikes of it stick out so that it looks like a child’s drawing of a sun. Two thin, golden strands hang gelled beside her cheeks, and it’s all unmoving, bound by glitter hairspray. She’s wearing a bandana as a shirt. Well in that case, she says, you need to sex it up a little.

  Addison and the girls tell me to try the Praying Cry Baby. They tell me this is done in a kneeling position, fists pumping in a tantrum. They tell me to rub my eyes with hard wrist-twists, toss my hair even harder. They tell me to cry like the hottest baby that ever cried.

  Quince will bust his zipper, Addison says. All the girls nod. Clarissa looks to them—nods, too. We leave the bathroom in one big group, ready.

  Back in the gym, the glow sticks have come out. Everyone is sucking on them, and their teeth glow dirty blues, pinks, and yellows behind their braces. All of us girls walk through the crowd, holding hands, until we make it back to the center circle. Some of the boys have laced larger glow sticks between their fingers. They move their hands around their bodies and above their heads so that the glow sticks leave figure-eight-shaped trails.

  Club Boca up in herr’! the DJ spits into the mic. Are you ready to shake it?

  He begins playing another song I’ve heard before. It’s called the “Thong Song.” Quince Pearson jumps into the center of the circle, raving, his face glowing lime green inside the hoops of light.

  Show Quince what you’ve got! says one of the girls. Now’s your chance! and I feel a push.

  I move into the center of the circle. Quince looks at me, but instead of grabbing my hand, or taking me in for a hug, or giving me one of his glow sticks, or spinning me around to hump me from behind, or patting my dough,
or wrapping his tie around my neck, his eyes bulge and rim white. He backs up out of the circle and into the crowd. Sisqó sings about dumps like a truck and thighs like what. I know this is my chance. I know that to back away, to press myself back into Clarissa’s arms, would mean even more ridicule, being called a fucking wimp. I am a fucking wimp, but this could change all that. I know this could be the last time I am ever asked to a dance.

  The moves feel more natural with a bass throbbing under my feet, with Sisqó’s words of encouragement. I dip my butt as low as I can go, pretend to wax the gym floor with it. I push my palms into my knees like I was told, balance my weight, vibrate every muscle as hard as I can manage. The staples in my skirt ping off onto the floor. They scratch at my thighs, open the torn slit, but I don’t care, I want to get down, I want to get my freak on. The crowd screams, hollers; I drop on my knees and pump the damp air, thrusting my hips back and forth. I cry baby, cry. I feel sexy. I feel seen. For the first time, I feel seen as someone sexy. I lean my body forward and flat onto the floor. I give the crowd what they want. I pound the ground with my fists, kick the rubber toes of my platforms. I hump the floor like a dog humps a stuffed lion—deliberate, fast. The song fades out. Something slower leaks in. K-Ci and JoJo and a few piano keys.

  Even though I’m dizzy, I pick myself up to stand. Everybody has wet, glowing faces and tears in their eyes. They point at me, bending over, waving away their laughs till they say, It hurts, it hurts, oh my god, I can’t. Quince Pearson has his face buried in a seventh-grade girl’s shoulder, and I can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying or both.

  Clarissa bursts through the circle, takes my hand.

  Bleachers, she says.

  We thump up the steps to join the other Honors kids.

  I thought it was good, I say. I felt it.