Like Wings, Your Hands, page 11
He knew he sometimes hit himself when he fell in, but he couldn’t stop it. It wasn’t as though he didn’t care. He cared very much, both in terms of how others saw him and the well-being of his own psyche. But the way that he was supposed to be, a way that was intended for the consumption of others, in a manner that was consciously entertaining, conspicuously user-friendly—it wasn’t something he could always do. It was performing. He could do it sometimes, maybe most of the time, but the despair was always nearby. When he slipped inside the dark body, he didn’t know what he looked like from the outside, but he could feel in his body that it was different. It was uncontrolled, untethered to any responsibility for pleasing others.
Once inside the building, Marko kept his eye on Jen, wanting to see her reaction to the team. A small crowd of kids moved from wheel chairs to skate platforms, donned shoulder pads, pulled on jerseys. The space was tight, glutted with gear and parents and kids and coaches, but it started clearing out rapidly as kids were lifted and carried onto the ice. Jen took it all in quickly and then fell in among them, moving herself from her wheelchair to the floor deftly, and gracefully accepting help being hoisted onto a skate platform that fit her. She secured her own straps and pulled on the gloves. She gripped her two hockey sticks, which were used to maneuver on the ice as well as push around the puck.
Jen was ready to go and was carried off before Marko was even out of his chair. His mom was having trouble finding gear his size. All of the other kids had gotten there first, leaving little to work with. Eventually, his mom found him a platform and some gloves just a little too big for him. Marko thought this was fine at first, but once he was out on the ice, he quickly realized he was having a hard time holding onto his sticks with the oversized gloves. When he dropped one stick on the ice, he wasn’t able to pick it up with his gloved hand. Just when he was about to pull off the glove to pick up his stick, Jen appeared.
“Can I pick that up for you?”
Marko nodded and blushed and Jen picked up his stick. He took it from her and smiled. “Thanks,” he said.
“Follow me,” Jen said, and she skated off to the side of the rink. Marko followed, but couldn’t keep up with her speed. The platform was heavy and his gloves were cumbersome. All the other kids were skating around warming up and a few of them moved into his path. When he made it to Jen, she was laughing. Marko’s stomach burned. Was she laughing at him?
“This is so fun,” she said. Marko tried to smile but couldn’t. He was too nervous. He wanted too much for her to like him.
“When you push yourself forward on the ice,” Jen said, “start with your sticks here, not up here.” She demonstrated what she meant, placing her sticks at an angle to the ice and a bit behind her hips. Marko saw how this provided more leverage to push the weight forward with force. He tried it and followed her in a circle a few times. He found he was able to move faster when he copied her techniques. Then she showed him how to turn and stop quickly. Marko had a bit of a harder time with this because it involved some hip movements that he wasn’t capable of. Still, he was happy to be moving faster.
When a game started, Jen proved herself a quality athlete. She was easily the most skilled player on the ice, moving fast and keeping command of the puck at all times. When she passed it off to others, she positioned herself near the goal where someone could pass it back and she could shoot it into the net. This happened several times before the other team could score even one goal.
Marko couldn’t keep up with them. Although he was moving faster than he had been, he was still the slowest one. After a few times pushing himself across the rink after the group, his arms were aching. Just as he was about to move off for a rest, he heard Jen call out to him. He lifted his head. She passed the puck directly to him; it stopped against his stick. He scooted it a few inches before someone from the opposite team swiped it cleanly away from him. He gave Jen a worried, apologetic look, but Jen only winked and shrugged and then flashed him a reassuring smile. Marko moved off to the side where he rested for the remainder of the game.
Later, when Marko was alone with his mom again, she asked him to talk about what had happened in the parking lot and why he cried. “I don’t know,” Marko said, “I just cried.”
His mom sat in front of him on the floor and leaned close. He thought the brown and orange in her eyes looked melty, like she was about to cry and if she did, the tears would leave watercolor streaks on her face. But she didn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She always held it together. Marko worried that his mom was secretly ashamed of him for not being able to always hold it together, too. “Okay, I won’t press you,” she said and leaned back. Marko sensed that she was about to look away, about to get up and do something else, and he scrambled for something to tell her that would keep her there.
“I like Jen,” he said.
His mom smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I like Jen a lot, too,” she said. Then she got up and walked out of the room. There wasn’t anything else Marko could think of to say at the last second that might hold her attention. He looked around on the floor. There wasn’t anything within reach for him to occupy himself with. His chair was in the dining room or entryway, and he needed help to get back into it. He dragged himself to his room and closed the door.
Inside his room, he found a pencil and a pen. He wrote: “Dear Mom,” paused, and then wrote a letter explaining, as best he could, why he had cried that day in the parking lot. He wrote about the dark body, how it was like an open doorway that was always close, and how at any moment he was capable of stumbling into it without warning. He wrote his worst fear: that his mom really wished she had a normal son who could walk and act normal. Just writing it down nearly made the dark body close over him. When he finished the letter, he folded it up and put it in his pocket.
Later that day, with his mom, Marko asked if he could burn some paper outside. His mom looked surprised. “What paper?”
“It’s something I wrote down, just some sad feelings I was having. I thought if I burned it, they would go away.”
His mom made a face like a frown, but Marko could tell she was not unhappy. She was surprised, proud, and a little sad all at the same time. Marko saw it all in the clear window of her face. In certain unexpected moments, Marko’s mom was transparent. “I think that’s a great idea, honey. I’ve done things like that before, myself. Hey, how about if we do it together? I’ll go write down a few things that I’m sad about and we’ll burn the papers together. How does that sound?
“It sounds okay,” Marko said, “but I don’t want you to read my paper.”
“Deal,” his mom said and smiled. She patted Marko’s shoulder, then went away to write her sadness down. Marko knew what she would write, that it would be about his dad leaving, and about her own father leaving.
Marko’s mom came back with her paper along with a bowl and a lighter. She gave these things to Marko and then pushed him out to the front patio. There, she placed the metal bowl on the small square table and put her folded paper inside. She looked at Marko and raised her eyebrows. Marko pulled his letter to his mom out of his pocket and put it in the bowl.
She lit the papers in the bowl and they were suddenly ablaze. Pieces of paper ash floated hotly up in the breeze and suspended for a moment before falling, leaf-like, to the ground. By the time they touched the ground they had disintegrated completely. Black ash scattered along the porch floor and off onto the stairs and into the bushes. The fire in the bowl died down and was gone. The bowl itself was charred brown and black and held most of the paper ash still inside it. Marko looked up at his mom to see her smiling. Marko smiled back, but he didn’t feel any better. In fact, he felt 27 percent worse. The feelings he had written down and addressed to his mom seemed to burn hotter inside him and to push him further away from her.
“Wow, I feel great! How do you feel?”
Marko gave a weak nod and then wheeled away to the edge of the patio. He looked out at the street: a chain of cars lining each side, people walking dogs, a person riding a bike. A little farther down, he saw what looked to be a mother and a son. The son was tall, almost as tall as the mom, but had the skinny body and ambling gait of a kid Marko’s age. They brushed hands as they walked and turned their faces toward each other from time to time. Marko strained his ears and heard the muffled sounds of their conversation. He watched their backs as they moved away and as they walked, their legs.
25. March 14, 2015: Millis, MA
Marko was at the Ashram for the night with his grandma. While he lay in bed, Marko read passages in The Unbearable Lightness of Being about Tereza’s memory of her childhood, which seemed vivid as she replayed it in her mind.
When Marko looked down at his life at age thirteen, he saw his parents finally splitting up. They had been warily circling each other for years—his whole existence, every bit of which he could remember. Marko didn’t realize until he turned fourteen that his ability to form and hold memories was superior to most people’s. He had thought everybody could turn and look at any event in their history as easily as he could. It wasn’t a literal “look,” as with the eyes, but a subconscious look. There he was at two, floating in his mother’s arms, the math in his mind telling him the shape of his lower half and where it collided with her body, her arms, assuring him that his weight was supported even though it felt like floating, or like the ground had risen. He remembered wanting always to be held when he was little, to get that elevated vantage.
He remembered his father yelling at his mother: “I’ve been displaced in this family by your mother! Your mother is now Marko’s father! This family is now you, her, and him!” He remembered her responding in a quiet, eerily calm voice that this fact was his fault, his doing, and if he wanted to be a father, he should be one. And it was true, Marko knew; for those years his father had rarely been there. All Marko knew of him was a deep frown, a muscled torso, and strong, hairy arms. Then he moved out. Moved to California to have a new wife and a better, more normal son. And Marko knew nothing of him anymore.
Marko remembered the last time his mom had sent him away to his grandma’s. “At noon, your grandma will be here to pick you up,” she had said. Hours of the day are arranged in Marko’s mind in a wide arc from left to right, with 10:00 p.m. at the top and 8:00 a.m. at the bottom. It had been 9:30 a.m. when Marko’s mom said this, and Marko remembered looking over at noon and feeling a lot of number six, which is dread. He felt tired, and the climb to noon seemed impossible. He had wanted to stay with his mom then, too, just like he had today.
He had heard her that morning on the phone with his grandma negotiating some extra time away from him in the coming weeks. She said she had to make some trips for work. He didn’t believe her. He knew she wanted to get away from him, that he was a burden to her, and this made him feel twice as heavy as he actually was. He didn’t realize he was hitting himself until his mom picked him up from the floor and held his arms down. She sat on the couch with him and hugged him, pinning his arms. He remembered how he relaxed and nuzzled his head into her chest and tried to resist the gravity of the dark body. He knew that being sad made it harder for her to be with him. He could feel that she was sad, too, and that made him sadder, and they kept weighing each other down in this way.
When Marko looked down at seven years old, he saw his parents deciding to tear the wallpaper out of the bathroom and paint the walls yellow. Marko’s favorite color was yellow, so they decided to do this in both the bathroom and Marko’s room. Marko rolled around on his scoot (the platform with wheels he had used) back and forth in the short hallway in front of the bathroom, and listened to them arguing. He wasn’t paying attention to their words, only the sound of their voices, which grew louder and harsher by the minute. Tuning out their words when they argued was a skill Marko had honed years prior. He hummed while he paced, rolling tight circles back and forth, back and forth. Abruptly, Marko felt himself snatched up from his scoot. It was his father—he held Marko tight to his chest and yelled, “I’m taking Marko and we’re leaving!”
Marko was too stunned to cry. He looked into the red face of his father and went rigid. The math was speeding in his head, calculating the points in space where his unfeeling body met his father’s body.
“Don’t you dare,” Kali said, following them. Zach ripped Marko’s coat out of the closet and stuffed one of his arms through. “Zach!” Kali yelled. When he turned, she slapped him hard across the face. The loud thwack startled Marko out of his trance and he screamed. He felt 50 percent scared and 50 percent sad. Kali grabbed him and pulled him, but Zach pulled back. They played tug of war with his body until Zach pried Kali’s hands off of Marko and pulled him free, spinning away and running for the door. Marko was jostled in his arms, screaming now. He closed his eyes and the math with shapes and colors slowed. He saw the dimensions of his body there in the numbers, a grid-like cast of his shape.
When Zach reached the car and placed Marko in his seat, his mother was there again, trying to get to Marko. Zach blocked her then pushed and held her back, twisting up her shirt in his hand with one arm while he attempted to buckle Marko in with the other. Marko reached for his mother and screamed. She pulled back, slipped quickly out of her shirt, and shot forward to snatch Marko from his seat in the car. She pulled him into her arms and turned quickly. Walking back toward the house, Marko saw neighbors and others gathering around and staring. Marko looked at his father. He stood motionless by the car, breathing heavily, red-faced and frowning. His mother, wearing only a bra, carried him quickly inside and closed the door. From inside, Marko heard the car start and the tires squeal as it sped away.
Kali carried Marko to his room and sat him down on his bed. Calmness came over him, and he sat stoically staring at the wall.
“Are you okay?” Kali asked. He nodded. He looked her in the eye.
“Did Dad take house keys with him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Go lock the door,” he said. She looked at him for a moment and was silent. He thought she looked afraid. He expected her to ask why, but she didn’t. She got up and walked out of the room. He listened carefully for the deadbolt and the chain lock at the back door. Moments later he heard the side door lock. She returned to his room and sat down next to him on his bed.
“If Dad comes home, you have to leave. You two can’t be here together,” he said. She frowned, then set her face to neutral and nodded. She bowed down and wrapped her arms around his slight frame. She rested the side of her face on his shoulder.
“Okay,” she said, calmly. Then, “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Marko wished she would say more or feel more, either explain or cry, but she did neither. But Marko knew what she didn’t have to explain. It was obvious when she looked at him. Her eyes were like a huge sign that read: I AM MISSING MY LIFE! THE MARRIAGE I SHOULD HAVE HAD! THE SON I SHOULD HAVE HAD!
“Maybe you can take a relaxing bath,” Marko suggested.
She sat up. She moved stray hair out of her eyes. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, Mom,” he said. She placed her hand on his cheek, stroked the side of his face twice, and forced a smile. She kissed him, stood up, and walked out.
“Try to nap,” she said, pulling his door closed. Marko hadn’t napped in years. But when he lay back in his bed, he realized he was very tired. In the bathroom next to his room, he heard the sounds of tearing wallpaper again. Tearing and scraping, tearing and scraping. It made a rhythm and Marko closed his eyes to hear it. He counted the beats. Behind and around this noise, he heard muffled voices outside. A few times, he thought he heard someone speaking his mom’s name. They were talking about them, he thought. He felt scared and angry. He hoped the police wouldn’t come again. He kept counting. Each time he heard a car pull into the parking lot, he stiffened with the anticipation of hearing angry pounding on the door. But it didn’t come. Marko’s mind began to drift when he got to number 500 and he realized the tear and scrape weren’t happening anymore. He counted on anyway, hearing the sounds in his mind and keeping time just beneath the surface of consciousness. Above the depths where sleep would claim him, he saw the outlines of people. They were glowing, yellow, and smiling at him. He fell into sleep knowing he was safe.
Now, seven years later, Marko had trouble falling asleep, even though he knew he was safe.
26. March 14, 2015: Cambridge, MA
“So you mentioned that you had abortions. Tell me more about that.”
Kali settled deeper into the IKEA loveseat and glanced at the obligatory box of tissues. She thought about the cemetery. That’s where she went to think about the lost babies. It was there, at the cemetery, where she found the nearest thing to privacy she had ever known. When Kali first found it—years ago, before Marko—she had just had an abortion. The air was softer then, because summer had just begun. The pain in her womb was, in its tangibility, a relief. It wasn’t the first abortion she’d had—it was the fourth. And yet, her youthful indifference was gone. At twenty-six, youth and all its benefits had long since left Kali. She had spent it fast and hard. Sometimes, ignorance can be the best protection.
Kali told the shrink about the cemetery and its secret green pond where the dragonflies were born.
“More die than are born, and maybe that’s why I always go there to think about this,” she said.
The scum on the surface of the pond was bright green and luminescent, as though illuminated from within. At dusk its glow turned paranormal, intensified by the hundreds of dead bodies surrounding it. In fact, Kali knew, the bodies must have made the grounds richly fertile, as all the foliage of the cemetery was unmistakably brighter and lusher.
