Scags at 7

by Deborah Emin

  The sun has moved in the sky. The patio is almost all in shade from the trees around us. I pour Julia a glass of tea. She says something surprising to me, My mother is going to have a baby. A baby? I ask. Julia says, I’m going to get to babysit in a couple of years and to hold the baby’s bottle and have a brother or sister to play with. I say, Will you still be my friend? Julia looks up from her glass of iced tea, smiles. Julia says, Of course we’ll be friends, we’ll always be friends.

  I don’t have a baby sister or brother. I don’t know what that will be like for Julia.

  I have to pee, Julia says.

  All of a sudden I feel like going home. I follow Julia into her house, watching her butt twist back and forth as she walks. I get my clothes out of her room and carry them all bunched up against my wet stomach. Mrs. Arthur watches me from the kitchen. Ready to go home, Scags? she asks and I tell her yes and thank her for the iced tea. I walk out their front door, around the corner and up the driveway of my house. A baby, I think. Mama could have a baby, too. Maybe she doesn’t want anyone else but Pops and me. But she could try.

  7

  Pops and Scags Go Downtown

  P ops holds my hand as we go into his office downtown in the Palmolive Building. The glass in the outer door has Boomer’s name first and big and Pops’ name second and smaller. I stick my hand through the mail slot and wave inside saying, We’re here Boomer, hi Boomer. Pops tells me to be quiet, that Boomer may be on the phone. When we get inside, Pops lets go of my hand and I run into Boomer’s big corner office. His desk is huge and has a long table facing him so he could have big meetings with big people and I love sitting on Boomer’s desk.

  Boomer is on the phone. When we walk in he looks at his watch. He places a hand over the phone’s mouth and says to Pops, Annie can’t make it today. Sit out front until Goldie gets here. Pops shrugs his shoulders and says to me, Come along, and we go into his office which is much smaller than Boomer’s. The desk is smaller but brighter than Boomer’s. I sit down behind it. It is so neat. Not like my desk at home. I am a slob. I sit down in Pops’ big chair and run my hands over the green blotter. It feels cool and soft like it would be keen-o to write or color on. What do you know, Pops opens his briefcase and there is my super large coloring book, my big box of crayons and my checkers set. I say, Pops, did you bring this for me? He smiles and empties the rest of his big black briefcase. Out come all these different colored pieces of paper, stacks of them. He places them on a corner of the desk and says, I’m going to leave you in here for a while until Goldie comes. I’ll just be in front. He takes off his jacket, pulls at his white shirt, hangs the jacket in a little closet, and takes his handkerchief out of his back pocket and wipes the skin between his nose and lips.

  Pops, I ask, can I play office too? What I like to do is have his old colored pieces of paper and write on them even though they are already filled with words I don’t understand. Pops says, Sure, and reaches around the desk, opens his big bottom drawer and pulls out a stack of paper. Yes. This is going to be fun. He puts the papers in front of me and takes his pen out of his shirt pocket and gives it to me. We can hear Boomer’s voice but not what he is saying. He laughs a lot. Boomer booms.

  Pops leaves me and goes to the secretary’s desk. I pretend that I am in charge here. I’m the boss. I click Pops’ pen and the little tip peeks out. On the top sheet of paper I write, Scags says to write to a man and tell him we want to make a lot of money. Boomer slams the phone down and then yells something at Pops. They talk in loud voices while I do all the work.

  I make checks and x’s on every one of the sheets Pops gave me. I work very hard, very hard because I like making the stack smaller and smaller. The pink, green, and yellow paper is so thin and the writing on it is so blurry, I wonder how Pops can read it. When I finish, I pick up my checkers and go into Boomer’s office. It is so bright and cool in here. Boomer is reading the newspaper, looks over the top and winks at me.

  Boomer says, I see you have your checkers set. Want to try and beat an old pro? Yeah, I say and walk over to him. Boomer picks me up and sets me boom down on his big desk that has all these keen-o things on it. There are brass pieces of engine machinery that are so heavy. Every time I go to pick one up, I can’t do it with one hand. They are so strange looking, like birds in some way, on one foot bending over each other, trying to get a cool drink of water.

  Boomer folds up his newspaper, takes the checkers from me and sets it up. I tell Boomer, I like being red. He switches the board and says, What makes a winner? I answer, Having the first move. Presto-chango before I can believe it, I had the first move and he beat me. Whoa Boomer, I say, how did you beat me? I had the first move. Boomer says, We’ll try again. I do. I move one of the ones in the center and yes I do win. Boomer asks me, Are you getting hungry for that hot and sweet apple pancake?

  I hear Pops talking to Goldie. Why is Goldie here? I ask Boomer. He picks me up off the desk and sets me back down on the floor. I smooth my dress. Goldie comes into Boomer’s office. She is really golden today in her sleeveless gold dress and gold shoes. I say, Hi Goldie. She says, Don’t I get a kiss? I run over to her and give her a big wet one on the cheek. I feel her hand behind my ear and then when I pull away a nickel is in her palm. She smiles a big smile as if she just did the keenest thing in the world, the whole world. I say to her as I take the nickel, I’m the boss here. Dropping my voice down low I ask Goldie, Don’t you think it’s time to eat? Goldie presses her lips to my cheek and I know she left her lipstick mark there. I rub my cheek. Goldie licks her finger and erases the smudge from my face.

  Pops, I say, oh Pops. Pops is on the phone. Boomer looks at his watch and says, Well if we’re going to eat, let’s go. Pops, I say again but Boomer takes my left hand and Goldie takes my right hand and while Pops sweats at the secretary’s desk, his handkerchief wiping the back of his neck, he doesn’t see us leave. Why can’t he come too? I ask Boomer. But we walk out the door, down the hall, into the elevator, across the lobby to the street. Everybody knows Boomer. He likes to say, This is my granddaughter. Everybody looks down at me. I try to smile like Mama says to do but Pops got left behind. Pops is doing all the work.

  8

  Bookmobile I

  O n Thursdays the bookmobile pulls up at the corner in front of Julia’s house. It is tan and brown with two doors and two sets of wooden steps, one for us to go in and one for us to go out. The bookmobile lady is very old and always has ink stains on her green blouse and on the tips of her fingers. She sucks on her pens and wears a scarf covering up all her hair which I bet is pure white. She doesn’t talk to me, she likes to read and she doesn’t like us to talk. Us is me and Julia.

  I see a book on the top shelf with an orange and green colored cover with black letters that say SCIENCE IN YOUR OWN BACK YARD. I reach and reach and stretch so hard my blouse pulls out of my shorts and I feel a little breeze from the fan the bookmobile lady has turned on. She won’t get up to help me, I’m sure, but I ask anyway.

  Excuse me please, but I can’t reach. Up she jumps, tall with bermuda shorts on and white knee high socks and a pair of old cracked loafers. Which one, she asks me. I tell her and she pulls it down. Before handing it to me, she looks through it, turns the pages fast and says, good choice. She hands me the book.

  It smells new and I check my pocket to make sure I have my library card, because I definitely want this book. I open it to the first page. It says, lie down on your stomach for ten minutes and then on your back on the grass in your back yard and see what you can discover of the natural world.

  The natural world, I say out loud. Julia, on the step stool above me says shush. I show her the book. She bounces a little, shakes her head and smiles down at me. Jumping off the stool quietly, she shows me the book she’s looking at of kings and queens. Her new idea is that kings and queens have all the fun because they get to dress up all the time. I should have been a princess, she whispers in my
ear. Yes, I say and don’t know what else to say.

  I pull out my library card and go up to the bookmobile lady and tell her I want this book. She asks me is that all I want, she’s not going to be back for another week. I say in a whisper, I’ve got a lot to do this week. She asks, What are you going to do? I say, It’s Julia’s last week before she goes away to camp and we’re going to have fun. The lady nods and I put the card and book on her little desk. She opens the cover, pulls out the borrower’s sheet, stamps it and puts a card in the pocket with next Thursday’s date.

  I go down the going out steps and tell Julia, Let’s go. She is still busy looking at pictures of kings and queens. I’ll see her later. I run to my back yard. I open the book to that first page and lie on my back and read.

  It tells me to close my eyes, be still and listen, smell, feel. I listen. I smell. I feel. There is the sound of the cicadas in the cottonwood tree and a lawn mower a ways away. There’s Mama’s voice yelling at Odessa about the dust she found on the sills in the living room. I smell the heat. It’s a perfume, sweet like the roses but nasty too. The ground is a hard bed for me to lie on and I’m shaded by this big old tree.

  Scags, Scags, Mama calls. With all the windows open I hear her but she doesn’t see me lying on this green blanket with my legs crossed at the ankles, anyone’s lazy girl right now. She yells at Odessa that I’m nowhere to be found. She’s leaving now to run her errands and she’ll go without me. I don’t hear what Odessa says.

  I turn over and look very closely at the ground. The grass is very green and spotted with bugs. Under the grass is very black ground and when I put my face in it, the blades of grass go up my nose and tickle. I see the white puffs of fluff from the cottonwood like powdered sugar. I lie on my back and stare at the sky through the branches. I fall through the blue holes between the clouds. I clutch my book to my chest.

  From her yard, Julia calls me but I’m too happy here under my tree to move. Scags. Scags. She keeps saying my name but I pretend I am asleep while my name bounces off the trees and bushes, off the house, off the ground. Julia stops calling me. Silence. All the noise is gone. I could fall into the quiet but then Julia is lying next to me. She taps my shoulder. She whispers, Scags, I’m here. I put my finger to my lips. She says, Okay. The two of us lie still as two caterpillars in the same cocoon, waiting.

  9

  The Tickling Game

  I n my room, where the dresser drawers have just been cleaned out by Odessa and the closet put in order and the desk dusted and my chair dusted and the record player closed for a rest, the tickling game is on my mind. Julia is coming up the stairs to my room, wearing her mother’s black velvet evening cape with the red lining. I’m messing up my bed that Odessa just fixed and boy would I love to jump from bed to bed, but Mama would be angry.

  Julia comes in my room, jumps next to me and tickles my arm. When I don’t laugh, she tickles my neck. Now if I don’t laugh, she’ll tickle my stomach and if I still don’t laugh, I win, unless I do all of that to her and she doesn’t laugh. Julia’s so ticklish that sometimes just saying—want to play the tickling game?—she giggles.

  It is hot and giggling makes me hotter. Julia’s leaving tomorrow in the heat, in the early ­morning before I get up. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur are going to take her to the train station and for the very first time, Julia will be away for more than just a day or two. I tickle Julia a little harder and she jumps on top of me, tickles my stomach and no matter how much I say no fair, no fair, she doesn’t stop or can’t stop or won’t stop and I almost wet my pants.

  Pops opens his bedroom door across the hall and comes to my room. He has a look on his face like he swallowed something funny, but he looks as if he doesn’t know us. I jump off the bed and walk over to him and take his hand.

  Pops, I say real low, Pops, are you okay? He nods and lets go of my hand and goes back to his room and before he closes his door, he tells me to close mine. As soon as my door is closed, Julia takes the cape and hides under it and we start to giggle and giggle and the funniest thing is I don’t know what’s so funny.

  The door swings open just as I jump onto the other bed in my room and pull out the clean pillow. It’s Pops again. He’s got his hands in fists at his sides and he looks like he is going to yell. He says, Just what the hell is all of this noise about? I sit down on the bed. Julia comes and sits next to me, wrapping her cape around her.

  I hear Mama coming up the stairs and she asks Pops what he is angry about, she says, Nate, they’re little girls. Let them be little girls somewhere else, he says, and walks back to his room and slams the door.

  Mama looks at what we have done to the beds and comes into my room and straightens out the bedspreads and pillows, shooing Julia and me out of the room. She says, Go play somewhere else for a while, Pops needs to take a nap, he’s tired.

  We run quietly but quickly out of my house and go to Julia’s where it is dark and cool. All the shades are drawn. We sneak into the kitchen looking for some treats to take to Julia’s bedroom. Sitting on the kitchen table is her mother’s purse, her big black leather one with the broken strap and zipper. It’s the bag she carries everywhere. We look inside it and there in the pocket is a brown cigarette case and matches. Julia looks at me and I shrug my shoulders. She opens the cigarette case slowly in case Mrs. Arthur is watching us, she then quickly pulls out two cigarettes and hands me one and takes the matches. I’ve never lit a match before, I say, and Julia looks at me as if I am retarded.

  Let’s go to the bathroom, she says, and when we get inside she turns the fan on. The whirring noise covers my giggles. What are you laughing at? Julia wants to know. She pulls a match out of the book and strikes it on the black piece, it flashes into flame and she holds it up to my face. I blow it out because I can’t stop laughing. Julia stamps her foot. She tells me to be serious and I can see she is getting angry at me, so I hold the cigarette up to my lips. Julia lights it with another match and holds it to the tip. I take a breath like I’ve seen Mama do and the smoke is hot and minty and burns my throat. The smoke goes up my nose and my head is dizzy. Julia lights her own cigarette and swallows it all down, she starts coughing so loud that I throw my cigarette and hers into the toilet and listen to the hiss of the flame in water. I’m afraid her mother will discover us. I flush the toilet but they don’t go down. I flush again and again and finally they disappear. I feel sick to my stomach, I say, I want to lie down.

  Julia says, Go to my room and I’ll put the matches back. I lie on her bed, staring at her ceiling waiting for her to return. Well this is it, I say, as she goes to the other bed and lies down. You leave tomorrow morning.

  I leave you my evening cape, Julia says to me, and unties it and throws it to me. I catch it by its torn edge where Julia has pulled and pulled at it. It smells like cigarettes and dust. Thanks, I say, but I don’t want it. I throw it back to her. She sits up and catches it and looks at me and asks, Why not? I know I’ve got to be honest because she is going away for a long time and I’ll feel bad if I tell her a lie now.

  I don’t like it, I say, it looks old and ratty. There I said it and the cape is Julia’s favorite thing of her mother’s. Although, I know that that big diamond ring her father, who is really not her father, her real father she never knew, anyway Mr. Arthur gave Mrs. Arthur the ring that Julia told her mother she wants when she dies is really her favorite thing.

  I say to Julia, You’re going to be gone for a long time.

  All summer, she says.

  I say, Are you scared?

  Julia laughs and says, Why should I, why should I get scared at going away when it’s going to be so much fun with horseback riding, swimming, waterskiing and a cabin full of girls?

  But you don’t know any of them, I say.

  That’s true, she says, but maybe they’ll all be nice and fun. I’ve never left home alone, she says. Oh well, she sighs, it’ll be fun and before you know it I�
��ll be back. That’s what my mother says.

  I hope so, I say, and I ask myself if Mrs. Arthur is going to be as sad as me that Julia’s gone?

  10

  Now that Julia is Gone

  I t’s not so usual to have a day without Julia. But it’s going to get usualer and usualer. I leave my house with my Davy Crockett hat on and wear my holster and gun that Pops says I can’t play with in the house. I have caps in the pistol that I bought the other day and haven’t used yet. I like the little boxes they come in and opening the gun and threading them in almost more than shooting them. I want to take a ride on my bike with the training wheels still on. I push it out of the garage, take a fast ride down the drive and a sharp right onto the sidewalk, the bike riding on only one of the training wheels.

  There is all this time all this time and no Julia. No going for rides with her around the block. No sitting in her bedroom playing bongos. We won’t play the tickling game for a long time. Although the sun is out, the air is very wet and you can see it wrapped in the branches of the trees. I turn the corner past Julia’s house. The front door is closed and the garage door is closed. Then I go past the new house, the house they just finished building and there’s a boy standing on the corner. He’s got a holster and gun, and a bandanna around his neck. I ride right past him and he calls after me, Hey can’t you stop a minute?

  Of course I can, so I get off my bike and turn it around and then get back on it. He says, What’s the matter, you chicken, can’t you ride without them training wheels? My cheeks get hot and my throat tightens. I say, I never tried. He says, What’s the matter with you, you’re too old to be riding around like that. Want me to take them off? My name’s Davy, he says. I say, Hi, my name is Scags. What kind of name is that? Davy asks. It’s my name, my own name, that no one else has. I like it, Davy says.