by Exile
There was a lesson still on the board: math. Additions and subtractions.
At the back still ranged the row of hooks for our coats, and stacks of cubbyholes where we’d stash our lunches and such every day.
My cubbyhole had been the one on the bottom around the corner. A mobile chalkboard had been shoved across it; I pulled it out, dislodging a warren’s worth of dust bunnies, got down on my knees, and peered into the darkness of the cubby.
It was full, and I took each item out, holding it up to the faint pulsing disco light to see: two textbooks, a pencil, a sweater and a pair of pink socks just the right size for an undersized girl around age six, some discarded lunch bags, an apple that had seen better days, a yellow mitten. I remembered that mitten. My aunt had knit me the pair and I’d promptly lost one, and felt so guilty that I’d kept the survivor in the cubby, where it tortured my conscience every time I looked at it.
I dug around some more. A book I’d brought from home: Where the Wild Things Are. Loved that book. The wrappers to a Flakie and a Butterfinger: plunder for the other kids.
At the very back, something hard and round, the size of a large grapefruit, with something attached to it that felt like a Brillo pad. I hauled on it and the other stuff shifted and slid.
Saucy’s head, followed by her body.
Even in the shuddering light from the gym I could see how ugly she was. Her arm was raised in a left-handed Heil Hitler salute and there was dirt smeared across her pocked face. Right eye half-closed, mouth tense in the beginning of some kind of grimace.
I took her hand and pumped her arm, knowing she was broken, but what the hell.
Her face moved! Twenty years of neglect had returned the powers of movement to Saucy.
Some part of my brain was, of course, trying to deal with the utter impossibility of this cubbyhole being full of my stuff, and an apple that had seen better days but not over twenty years of better days. Most of me was looking at Saucy and her weird, wide, preternaturally blue eyes.
Look left. Look right. Wink right. Wink left, and grimace. Yawn, look left, uh-oh-what-have-I-done? Happy-neutral-pretty. Closed eyes: saint. Pop open: crossed eyes.
I almost laughed.
I took her through the sequence again.
When I got to the yawn, I yawned too. And then remembered how I’d realized that day at Show and Tell, the day before everything got even worse, that I mirrored Saucy’s face when she went through her sequence. And I was doing it again now, and I hadn’t even noticed. I mirrored the doll, or did the doll mirror me? On what sick cellular level were Saucy and I communing?
The song in the gym had changed to “Tonight’s the Night.” Rod Stewart’s hoarse voice rang down the hall, singing the creepy, happy lyrics.
I pumped Saucy’s arm in time to the music. Might as well go through it again. Third time’s the charm, as Gandalf said.
As our eyes rolled to the left, the room flooded with light.
And I remembered the spool bed. Remembered riding it. Man, I used to ride that thing. Kid pleasure, nothing attached to it, no outcomes, no shame, except I suppose I knew not to do it in front of anybody. How could I have forgotten that?
Mechanically, I kept the doll’s arm in motion. Her mouth clicked, my lips snapped closer together. The light died, and the music got quieter as well. It wasn’t “Tonight’s the Night.” It was Supertramp. Strange to change a song in the middle like that.
The doll’s eyes moved right, and so did mine. When they got so far over that it felt like they’d spin around inside my head, there was another flash of light and Supertramp morphed into slidey guitar and harp, an organ, swelling strings. “Tonight’s the Night.”
I laughed. And remembered flowers: huge, house-sized flowers, opening and opening and opening in an endless vista of unfolding beauty. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, on and on as far as the eye could see or the body experience. Falling through pleasure.
Snap.
Saucy stared straight into my eyes. The music dimmed, morphed, was not what I’d thought.
The wink came next, right eye. I knew it. I kept going.
Wink.
Light.
Tonight’s the night.
Cathy One had been nice to me. That’s right. Nice. She’d been the one to tell the others to stop making me drink the toilet water. That it made them disgusting pigs. She was fearless; she didn’t care that they might turn on her. And what’s weirder, they had stopped. Moved on to the lunches, but whatever.
Snap. Silence. The school was dark now, no music, no disco light, no laughter. I was crouched in the classroom, alone. And I knew that I was truly, profoundly alone. The world had stopped turning. I felt certain that if I put the doll down and went to the gym, there’d be nobody there. All would be dark. And if I went out in the world, nobody would be there either. It’d be the seventies again, my childhood, but empty, dark. Between.
I hung onto the doll’s damn arm and pumped it. I didn’t need to see her; I knew the sequence, could hear her creaking as the skin on her damaged face squeezed, morphed, our cheeks hitching up, right eye opening, left eye closing, that demented wink, the one I hated…
Light, music, tonight’s the night. I remembered in Grade Six getting Monty to fuck off with the lunchtime penis-sucking in the boys’ washroom. He’d made me do it by threatening me with something, something I couldn’t remember. But it had terrified me. Something…telling something he knew about me. Whatever, I couldn’t remember. But if I’d just do something for him…and it went on for a while. Maybe a month? I couldn’t remember. A month is a long time when you’re eleven. And finally I’d gotten him to fuck off with…or had I? It had stopped?
Snap.
Silence.
Creak, creak went the arm.
Yawn.
I yawned right along with the doll, invisible in the darkness.
Tonight’s the night.
My ears popped, light flooded the room.
Cathy One and I, kissing. That’s what Monty had threatened to tell. That Cathy One and I were dykes. She’d felt so good to kiss, soft, like something, like nibbling something, like flowers. She’d had breasts already, and she not only let me touch them, she wanted me to touch them.
I stayed there for a time, letting that memory wash through me, to Rod Stewart’s scratchy voice. Memory, I call it, although it felt like some kind of braided déjà vu. There was a life, my life, where I’d never kissed Cathy One and Monty hadn’t had to threaten me with anything. No, I’d just been so scared and checked out and unprotected that anyone could make me do anything. And there was another life where he’d threatened me and I’d crumbled. And another where…
Snap.
Uh-oh-what-have-I-done expression. Ugly, ugly doll. Ugly face, one I’d always hated so much I loved it. It fascinated me. Compressing lips, tight, tighter, edges of mouth turning down, eyes looking left, looking wide.
What you have done, Saucy, is pull my life into tonight’s the night. There was another story now, déjà vu, already seen, one where I told Monty to fuck off and then he’d grabbed my hair and smashed my head off the sink. My head had rung and there’d been stars, but I’d twisted around and punched him in the balls, hard, really hard, three times, until he’d let go of my hair and folded onto the floor, staring at me, hands between his legs.
“Touch me again and I’ll cut it off,” and I’d walked backwards out of the boys’ bathroom, and I’d never had to go in there again.
“She’s crazy,” Monty had told everybody but I didn’t care, because Cathy One and I were friends, forever.
Snap.
Saint.
She’d died. I didn’t want this thing, this memory or, or whatever it was. Bullshit story, alternate universe, whatever anyone wanted to call it. All gay people have to have tragic lives or something? Bullshit. But it wouldn’t go away, tonight’s the night. She’d died, something, what? Car accident, that was it. Her family had had an open casket and my mother had brought me to the
funeral and said, “You don’t have to look.” I could tell she was disturbed, thought Cathy One’s family must be crazy, but I’d understood why when I saw Cathy’s mother standing by the coffin, stroking and stroking Cathy’s hair. It was so you’d understand that she was truly dead.
Didn’t really look like Cathy. Cathy never really was that much of a saint. A car accident couldn’t kill her. But when I saw that smiling, closed-eye saint in the box, I knew she was dead.
Snap.
Silence. And dark.
Did I want to go on? The eyes of the doll would open crossed. Doubles, blurs, lack of distinction, everything bleeding into everything else. Maybe I could just stay here, in this place where I’d had a friend, and she’d died, and yes I’d been fucked up and fucked around but I’d pushed back too. I’d been able to find pleasure too. The flower had kept opening.
That was better; this was better, this place, right? I liked this story better.
Tonight’s the night.
When the light and music flooded in, I looked down and yeah, the doll’s eyes were crossed. But mine weren’t. I could see just fine. I could hear that song, “Tonight’s the Night.” It had just started. I knew Marnie would probably dance, in a friendly fashion, with one of the guys, both of them hamming it up because Marnie was funny that way, could make you laugh.
Marnie made me laugh.
As one said, when a child, I like you. Want to be friends?
Meaning, When I’m around you I want to get to know you, better and better and better. You are more interesting than anybody else on the face of this earth. I think of you all the time, whether you are around or not. You make me scared and happy. I want to show you things and I want to tell you things.
I walked out of the empty classroom, down the hall to the gym. I found Marnie, sitting on the side with her rainbow-socked feet, and I asked her to dance to that slow, terrible, ridiculous, unsuitable tonight’s the night song, and she said yes. I sat in an ordinary chair next to her decorated one with wheels, and we put our arms around each other, and we danced.
THE DIE
Meagan Whan
It might’ve been overlooked if not for the way the sun shimmered on its surface. Elizabeth stuffed her toonie gardening gloves into the back pocket of her skinny jeans. Plucking it from a spade full of fragrant dark earth, she held it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a jewel, tilting her head back to let light under the brim of her hat. After a moment, she realized it was an unnatural diamond-shaped die: twelve facets, six upper and six lower.
Elizabeth tucked the die into her blouse pocket. She finished planting the pansies, then dusted off the front garden’s wooden border. She collected a pile of flattened pizza boxes, tucking them under her arm, and grabbed a stack of disposable red cups. A stray flip-flop hooked over her pinkie, she backed into the door, forcing it open.
She dropped the load onto the kitchen table, the last furnishing from the building’s previous life as a home, before the Victorian had been vivisected into eight bedrooms and a communal living space. Her stomach rumbled. She washed her hands, patted them dry, and searched in vain for a piece of fruit. The only other option was toast, which would mean opening the colicky fridge; any disturbance sent it into a fit of growling hacks.
Madison shuffled into the kitchen in a pair of slippers, yoga pants and tangerine bra. Her phone peeped out from her cleavage. An earbud trailed against Madison’s shoulder; Elizabeth heard the tinny voice of a man lecturing about proper patient restraint.
Madison munched from a bag of trail mix, while surfing horoscopes on her phone. She flopped down at the table, tossing a handful of mix into her mouth. “I don’t know how you can be out there in this heat.”
“I’m going to make the place respectable,” Elizabeth said.
“Impossible.”
“Habitable then.”
Madison glanced at Elizabeth. “Running-from-the-paparazzi hat, Jackie-O glasses, I know what that shit means.”
Elizabeth bent closer to the junk she’d brought in. She hadn’t meant to be so obvious, had thought her application of concealer artful. “Is this your flip-flop? Speak now or forever lose it.”
Madison shrugged. “It’s probably Shelby’s; she’s tossing from her most recent Chris bust-up.”
At least she and Jake didn’t break up every time they disagreed.
Madison frowned. “Should we lock the doors?”
It wasn’t Jake’s fault he couldn’t handle alcohol; she should’ve known better than to argue with him when he’d been drinking. Elizabeth threw the flip-flop into the bottom of the big metal garbage can, and swept everything else, everyone’s trash inside, burying the lonely sole.
“We could change the locks – that would be an excellent thing to do,” Madison said.
Elizabeth bristled. “Jake wouldn’t hurt people. I know he’ll sober up.” Except he had hurt her, a small voice said, but he’d make amends for the punch. “He always does.”
“Yeah, perfect, Elizabeth. If I were you, the next time you hear ‘Libby. Libby, baby,’” she shook her head, dislodging the earbud, “I’d borrow my brother’s baseball bat.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Emptiest response in the English language,” Madison said, shoving her chair. She gripped the chair back, the skin under her nails blooming from white to pink. “Do you want anything from my tote bag pharmacy?”
“I want your trail mix.”
Elizabeth’s second-floor bedroom overlooked the sliver of a backyard. A sickle moon shone through the naked window, highlighting the bruise she studied in the dresser mirror.
Thick blond hair and dimpled chin, envy of all who’d seen him. The ghost of high school she’d never escaped: full of quick compliments and quicker moods, qualities part of the Rubik’s Cube known as Jake. He seemed a part of her, as much as the shape of her eyes or the crooked curve of her foot. She pressed a package of peas to her face; the magical relief of numbness spread through her cheek.
Elizabeth had meant to take out the die at supper to show everyone, but it seemed too personal, almost equal to flashing. Using a Kleenex, she cleaned off the twelve facets. Roman numerals were etched onto the black surface. A book on the fundamentals of HTML balanced on her lap; she spun the die as if it were a top. It whirled around and around, a tiny black storm cell.
The die fell over with a noticeable click. It reminded her of the acceptance of a key, the turn of a lock.
Elizabeth, padding down the hall, glanced at Madison’s open door.
“Beth.” Jake hopscotched in the doorway, trying to get into his jeans, his boxers unbuttoned. “It didn’t mean anything.” He gave up on the pants, jeans pooling around his ankles. His hands, smelling of soap and roses, reached out to cradle her face. Bewildered, she backed into the stair rail.
“What happened to your cheek, Beth?”
“How drunk are you?” she whispered.
Madison slunk into the doorway in a tangerine baby doll. “It wasn’t personal.” Light glinted off a crystal stud in her left nostril. She gave Jake a push into the hall, flashed her teeth, and slammed the door.
Elizabeth blanched, dropping the die; it thumped dully against the hallway carpeting.
Madison’s door was still closed. Elizabeth glanced around the now empty hall. She touched her forehead and cheeks, expecting to feel either intense cold or intense heat; her skin felt normal. A small cry escaped her. She sat on the carpet, back against the stair railing, head hanging between her knees. The position made her shoulders ache. Blood rushed to her crown. Head pulsing, Elizabeth got up and turned Madison’s doorknob.
Glass shattered. The neck of a beer bottle rolled across the floor banging against the leg of the bed; the broken body of the bottle spun. Elizabeth stepped across the threshold, flicking on the lamp over the desk. A notched baseball bat lay across a trio of dusty anatomy books and a stack of tarot cards. She touched the smooth grain of the bat’s shaft; Madison didn’t have a nose r
ing; Madison wasn’t here. Above the desk, a city map had been tacked to the corkboard, circles marked in blue pen, stars marked in red pen. Newspaper clippings, web printouts, matte photographs were taped to the wall, a shrine to an obsession.
A photograph caught her eye. She ripped it down, angling the photo under the light. The quality was poor, taken from a surveillance camera in a bus or train station, but she recognized him. “Jake.” The beard under his lip was thicker, bangs shaggier. He didn’t seem like the Jake in the boxers who had been in Madison’s room, or her Jake either.
She stepped back, scanning the wall, finding her own photo. Wild hair, cagey eyes; it was the kind of photograph seen in a tabloid, the late-night news, a wanted poster. Elizabeth forced her gaze to the hallway, which still looked the same and to the die, lying where she’d dropped it. She touched the upward facing facet; it felt different, warmer, as if it had a heart of coal.
She couldn’t handle looking back in that room. She flipped the die in the air, catching it in her palm.
A kazoo went off. Music was playing. She stared down into a hive of activity on the first floor. They’d appeared so quickly? But no, she was the one who’d suddenly appeared. Balloons floated freely among the partygoers. As she descended the stairs, she saw Chris’s teammates, dressed as servers, carrying trays of sewing needles. Someone popped a balloon; sparkling silver confetti misted the air, catching in her hair and eyelashes. A placard on the end table read: Happy Engagement Shelby & Chris!! The announcement was bookended by photos of the happy couple. An explosion of green confetti fell over her. Shelby and Chris got happiness and what did she get?
Elizabeth’s gaze caught Madison’s. An overwhelming sense of wrongness, of displacement, filled her. She pushed her way through the crowd, running to the front door. The balloons continued to pop. Crimson sparkles hit her fleeing back.
Her pansies didn’t exist. The front garden didn’t exist; it had been filled in with crushed white stones. Elizabeth nearly stumbled into the street when Madison emerged from the house. An orange tulle fascinator bobbed on her head. “Wait. Do you know me?”