Dig, page 22
“At least you can buy your own khakis,” she said. “We’ll go out later. Maybe some shorter ones. Oh! With loafers!”
“I don’t need loafers.”
She looked at me in that way. Exasperated that I didn’t want loafers. “You’re just like my mother,” she said.
“Did she work at Arby’s, too?”
“Stop being coy.”
“Maybe you’re just like your mother,” I said.
I hadn’t tried this before and I found it effective. My mother can be a fucking nightmare on most days, but don’t ever tell her she’s like her mother. Even my father wandered into the room to watch what would unfold.
Good word, unfold. Because that’s what she did. Like one of those magical origami shapes—one minute a crane with moving wings, then next a crumbled blob of paper that looked like it went through the washing machine.
“DON’T YOU EVER SAY THAT TO ME AGAIN,” she said. Her jaw was clenched—teeth together—and yet she managed to yell it. “You don’t know anything about my parents! Do you even know what they’re like?”
“They seem okay to me,” I said. It was a lie. They don’t seem okay to me, but I liked watching the origami unfold.
“Give me your credit card,” she said to me, hand out. She got up. She walked over and I swear I thought she was going to hit me but she didn’t. She just kept her hand out for the card.
“It’s in my wallet.”
“Go get it.”
“I don’t even use it,” I said.
“Go get it.”
When I brought it to her, she already had a pair of scissors ready. And she cut it up over the kitchen trash can with a strange sort of smile on her face.
I mustn’t have looked as upset as she wanted me to look. “You did this! You did this!” she said.
Dad looked like he wanted to put his hands on her shoulders to help her calm down but he stayed two paces behind her.
“From now on, you live on twenty bucks a week. And anything you make in that uniform. No help from us.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Won’t be so fine when you figure out how much you cost.”
Sorry, but that’s totally something her mother would say.
* * *
It turns out I did just fine on just my Arby’s money. I used to cash out their twenty into quarters and put them in the parking meters on Main Street on my walk home from school just to do something good with it.
Mom cried on my lap one night about two months later. Told me how sorry she was. Gave me a replacement credit card. Said, “I don’t understand why you don’t love me.”
She wanted an answer. She had hold of my elbows, her head in my lap, her tears soaking through my greasy-smelling khakis. “Why?” she asked again. So I figured I’d try.
“I wish you weren’t so racist,” I said.
It was like watching origami fold itself. She went from this heap on my lap into a massive origami rhinoceros. “I’m not racist!”
“Mom. You’re totally racist.”
She stuttered over words until she found one. “You’re too young to understand the world.”
“Do you remember my ninth birthday party?” I ask.
“What? God.” She sighs. “What did I do wrong?”
“What?”
“What did I do wrong at your ninth birthday party?”
I looked at her. She was an origami swan. She was an Audi coupe. She was a pair of Jimmy Choos. She was perfect now, and no longer a sobbing mess in my lap. Ready to fight. You’ve been there. I know you have. You’ve been in that place where one minute you’re miserable about who you are, and the next minute, you’re your own defense lawyer ready to dazzle the jury with bullshit.
“Go on. Tell me what I did that was so wrong at your ninth birthday party. Was it the gifts? The money you got? The savings bonds?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“So why’d you bring it up?”
I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t going to win. “I don’t need the credit card,” I said. I left it on the coffee table next to her stupid bell.
The stupid bell—her mother bought it down south. The handle painted black with a blackface set of white eyes, two dots for a nose, and a wide-open red mouth. The bottom of the handle and bell part covered in a big house-slave gingham dress with an apron on the very top of the handle above the caricature face, a red handkerchief tied up, you know the kind, from the old maple syrup bottles. How she could deny being racist while in the same room with that bell is beyond me.
“What was SO WRONG with your life when you were nine?”
She was a screaming swan on the couch. I was a flying crane on my way up the steps. I left her question in the living room where I couldn’t answer it.
But my life changed in that roller rink, and she’d never understand because she was, despite all her efforts, just like her mother. If there was a pill—some kind of healthy bacteria pill—that cured racist nightmare people, I’d use the credit card to buy enough to treat the both of them. Instead I used it three weeks later for a cash withdrawal to buy my first half pound.
You think I’m an idiot. Putting myself at risk like this but you know what? My clients are nicer to me than my own mother. She can’t love. She can’t connect. She has so much stuff that it blocks her reach.
You can think what you want.
You can look at our Audi coupe and think we’re lucky.
You can marvel at our flower beds and smell our lilac shrubs.
But you can’t envy what it’s really like to live like this. Trust me. This is not the kind of thing you say gimme to.
Malcolm Isn’t Going to Be a Plumber
I’m starting to realize that my love for Eleanor isn’t really love. I mean, I love her and she’s beautiful and she’s so smart and she wants to be Jamaica’s first female prime minister. I love all of that. I love her bracelets and her ankles and her eyes. I love her jokes. I love how she’s got all these plans but still has that relaxed Jamaican no-problem attitude. But for all that love, I’m really just looking for a way out of where I am. She deserves better. She’s a human, not a door.
This week she brings her big sister, Judy, with her everywhere. I like Judy, but she makes me feel inferior—more inferior than usual. Could be because she’s twenty. Could be because she’s already married and has a kid. A life. Here in paradise.
“You staying longer than a few days this time?” Judy asks.
“I think we go back Friday,” I say. “Longer than usual.”
“You’re lucky you get to travel so much!”
I look at Eleanor. “Does she know what’s going on?”
Eleanor nods.
I look back at Judy. “He’s not getting better.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
Eleanor reaches out for my hand and holds it. I want to tell Judy about my plan to live here and be a beach bum and help out in any way I can, but I don’t. It’s laughable, really. All of a sudden, it’s just laughable.
“Whatchya going to do when he dies?” Judy asks.
I take a few breaths. No one has ever asked me this before. People usually tell me what I’m going to do when he dies. “I don’t know. I want to move here. Never leave.”
“You’d move from America to here?”
“Yeah.”
Eleanor says, “He’s not like the tourists, Judy. I keep telling you that.”
“Whatchya going to do here, though? You fish? You build? What skills do you have, you know?”
“Haven’t thought of that yet,” I say. “I could take over my dad’s business, maybe.” It just came to me. I don’t mean it.
“You could always learn a trade,” Eleanor says. “Judy’s husband is a plumber.”
Judy smiles with pride.
“I don’t know,” I say again. I’m not going to be a plumber, no matter how much I love the flush toilet.
I want an older sister like Judy. I want someone to challenge my dumb ideas and tell me to shut up when I sound stupid.
I excuse myself while we approach the resorts and I run into the water. Negril beach is shallow for a long time before you get to a place you can really dive in. I run to it until my quads burn and then dive. I open my eyes underwater and let the salt rinse them. I love the stinging feeling. Clears my sinuses. Clears my ears. Clears my head.
I picture Dad’s memorial service and who’s really going to be there, you know? Me. Me and who? Marla and Gottfried. And maybe my nightmare aunt. Dad doesn’t talk to his other siblings. Told me two of them disappeared from the family decades ago. What a waste.
If I had a brother, I’d call him every other day. If I had a sister, I’d call her on the days I didn’t call my brother. Just for the connection. Watching Eleanor and Judy—even when Judy tells Eleanor that she’s doing everything wrong—makes me see how alone I’m about to be. Eleanor knows how to tell Judy to hush up and leave her alone. Probably knows how to hug her and help her when she cries, too.
I’ll never have that.
I love Eleanor because I’m alone in the world. And that’s no reason to love anyone. I need someone my age to share the burden. It’s such a big burden and no one over thirty can seem to see that I walk around with it every single day. So concerned with my grades or my eating lamb chops to stop and really think about what it’s like to have the only living human I’m connected to dying, right in front of me.
You wonder why I’m so uptight about entitled white culture? It’s not just that I live here half the time and see real poverty. It’s not just the snack baskets in first class. It’s because entitled white culture encourages those inside it to never look outside their own fucking worlds. We blow everything off because we’re so concerned with looking good we can’t just feel. My own fucking grandparents can’t stop for a minute and understand what I’m going through.
You can’t fill that hole with a fucking lamb chop.
THE FREAK LOVES SWIMMING NAKED AND AUTHENIC JERK CHICKEN!
The Freak has been naked for months, wrapped in her burrito of dirt. Flickering takes her so many places, but none of them is comfortable. Until now. She’s so buoyant. The water is so warm. She’s thankful her first swimming-flicker is to here, wherever this is. The water is crystal. The beach is uncrowded. There’s a boy here—about fifteen feet away. He’s floating on his back and grimacing into the sun. The Freak can feel sadness from him.
“Excuse me,” she says.
The boy doesn’t hear.
“Hey. Pardon me? Can you hear me?”
His ears are underwater, so The Freak splashes a bit and walks closer. His eyes open and he stands in the water.
“Sorry I’m naked,” The Freak says. “I just got here.”
“Oh.”
“You’re sad,” she says, once she gets a good look at his eyes.
“You would be, too.”
The Freak walks into deeper water so her nakedness isn’t so obvious to the people on the beach.
“I’ll be your sister,” she says.
The boy gives her a look she’s used to by now.
“Don’t ask how I know,” she says. “Just trust me.”
“Okay.”
The boy doesn’t know what to say. So he says, “I’m Malcolm,” and he stretches his hand out.
The Freak doesn’t shake hands. She’s a hugger. So she hugs him and she knows it’s awkward because she’s naked, but everyone is essentially naked so she hopes he doesn’t mind.
He hugs her for longer than she expected. He’s sobbing. She says it will all be okay.
“Not okay,” he says.
“It will be. I promise.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s too much for now. But one day it won’t be, okay?”
He breaks the hug and steps back. Scans the beach for someone, and then turns back to The Freak. But she’s gone.
The boy doesn’t know what to do with his grief. A minute ago, he had a sister. A minute ago, he had someone with which to share the burden. Family—even though it was just a naked stranger. Now, he’s alone again.
* * *
The Freak didn’t flicker. She swam to shore. She wrapped herself in a resort towel and followed the smell of jerk chicken. Two girls stop her and ask if she’d like to buy a bracelet.
“I don’t have any money,” she says. “But I’m hungry.”
The two girls take her to the jerk shack and get her a paper plate of jerk and rice and peas. She sits on the sand and eats like she hasn’t eaten in days.
“Where are you staying?” one girl asks.
“Nowhere,” The Freak answers.
“Where did you come from?” the other girl asks.
“Nowhere,” The Freak answers.
“How do you know Malcolm?”
“The boy in the water?” She pulls a chicken bone from her mouth. “He needs a sister.”
The girls give each other that look only sisters can give. The Freak knows these looks. She sees them on siblings wherever she goes. Even animal siblings communicate like this.
She can’t stop herself from thinking that maybe if she had a sister, someone would have found her by now. She would be at peace. A sister is a special thing. Magical. More magical than flickering. More magical than sand. More magical than sea.
She writes a note to Malcolm on the back of her jerk-stained paper plate.
Rancocas, NJ. 39.992372, -74.844528.
Come find your sister.
Loretta, Act Three: with Pop-Pop
Loretta has never had a real audience before. You were always here in her mind’s eye. In her imagination, you were eating cotton candy and peanuts. You were being entertained by clowns who made shapes out of balloons.
Loretta’s been working on her balloon shapes for years in real life. It’s her favorite act. Her finale—but she’s never tested it on anyone else. She’s gotten good at balloon genitals. In Loretta’s circus, this makes sense. She has the curse and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. Everyone does it. Unless they don’t, and if they don’t, Loretta worries about them. She’s had issues getting the clitoris just right inside the balloon-folds of the labia minora and majora. Penis and testicles are much easier. Of course.
She has no idea how her pop-pop will react to her balloon shapes, so she decides to take the risk and introduce him to the troupe first. Marla is taking her usual midday nap, and Loretta has the week off school. It’s Monday. Her mother will be at the house tomorrow. Gottfried will help her mother move her possessions from the wagon. The police have already been arranged just in case. Loretta’s father is on the lam. Just like him—running away from the consequences. Just like him to control everything even though he can’t control himself.
Intermission is over. Audience jostles in their seats and people try to open their snacks quietly.
Loretta twirls in her red sequins and says, “Come on! Come on! Best show on Earth! Six acts! Clowns! Fun for the kids and grown-ups alike! Only five dollars!”
Loretta’s pop-pop says, “Five dollars?”
“Yep. Five.”
He waits for Loretta to start the show but she won’t until he hands the money over. He has to go find his wallet and comes back with a ten-dollar bill.
“Do you have change?” he asks.
Loretta cocks her head to the side. “Does it look like I have change?”
“I guess not.”
“I’ll give you credit for tomorrow’s matinee.”
Her pop-pop shrugs. “Seems fair.”
Loretta retrieves her lunch box and the tiny ring. She opens the sides of the ring and assembles Gerald’s train. Only four cars. Poor thing, that’s all he can handle.
She has the troupe harnessed already and puts on the show. Her pop-pop looks a mix of enthralled and mortified.
“Are those real fleas?”
Loretta answers, “I’m no shyster. This is the greatest goddamned flea circus in the country.”
“Oh,” he says.
The audience stares at the back of his head. They send messages. Shut up, old man. Don’t say what you’re thinking.
Doesn’t work.
Gottfried scratches his ankle and says, “I don’t think a pretty girl like you should be playing with fleas.”
Loretta rolls her eyes and says, “Keep your weird ideas to yourself.”
The Shoveler: Last Day
It’s Tuesday and Mom says she wants me to stay home from school. Says she misses me. Says she wants to talk. Says she wants a test drive in my car because she wants to see if it’s better than her car. “Maybe we can trade,” she says. She can’t help it. She is who she is. But she catches herself now, a minute later, and adds, “You really worked your ass off for this. I’m so proud.” She hands me the keys. “You drive me somewhere.”
“I don’t have anywhere to drive, really,” I say.
“I do.”
“Then you should drive,” I say, and I hand the keys back to her.
We drive through town, toward the mountain with the bizarre pagoda on it. She knows the streets in the city—she’s taking lefts and rights like she’s lived here before. It’s not like anywhere else we ever moved. She usually gets lost.
We land in a suburb about ten minutes from the city.
“See that? I went to preschool there,” she says.
I nod. It’s a church with an addition tacked on to the side.
