Girlchild (22 page)
T
he
Girl Scout Handbook
has a section on Finding Your Way When Lost and I just about know it by heart. The number one most important thing for a Scout to do is to stay where the rest of her party last saw her. I’m waiting at the wall down by the landfill I call a pond because the wall’s the oldest thing around and there isn’t much of it left. It’s only a few feet long and only about that high, but the stones don’t budge, and for all the spray paint, the grass keeps growing up around it. I don’t know what the wall used to do before we got here, but I’m using it for waiting, I’m using it for not panicking, and, like the
Handbook
says, most important, I’m using it for not wearing myself out by aimless wandering.
he
Girl Scout Handbook
has a section on Finding Your Way When Lost and I just about know it by heart. The number one most important thing for a Scout to do is to stay where the rest of her party last saw her. I’m waiting at the wall down by the landfill I call a pond because the wall’s the oldest thing around and there isn’t much of it left. It’s only a few feet long and only about that high, but the stones don’t budge, and for all the spray paint, the grass keeps growing up around it. I don’t know what the wall used to do before we got here, but I’m using it for waiting, I’m using it for not panicking, and, like the
Handbook
says, most important, I’m using it for not wearing myself out by aimless wandering.
I’m waiting for Grandma. We are going to the greenhouse. I can’t explain the presence of the greenhouse, rusted and nearly roofless. It slants at the far edge of the pond, the door forever swung open. The greenhouse is the only place on the Calle that has a memory of the possibilities for careful nurturing that lie even within an aluminum frame, even in a portable home, the delicacy in the hothouse promise. This one had been empty for years, I think, until Grandma arrived, which she does most nights, even though, no matter how hard I look, I’ve never seen Mama in a dream or anyplace else.
We go inside the greenhouse and Grandma points above our heads. At first all I see are slices of night sky showing through the
ribs that are all that is left of the roof. But Grandma is patient, and so am I, and I begin to make out that there are thin whorls of metal separating us from the slants of starlight. Chicken wire has been rolled from one side of the building to the other just above us, leaving a few feet between itself and the arched frame of the roof. The wire’s coils and circles are coated with a fine layer of rust. I know it’s rust because I touch it when Grandma tells me to, because I do what Grandma tells me to, I bring some of it down to crumble between my fingers, burning orange and rough, and I feel something else there. Roots. The tiniest plants have somehow twisted their roots round the coils of chicken wire, have taken root in the air. They brace themselves against the thin wire, draw nourishment from the metal, and grow straight toward the sky as if soil were only a myth.
ribs that are all that is left of the roof. But Grandma is patient, and so am I, and I begin to make out that there are thin whorls of metal separating us from the slants of starlight. Chicken wire has been rolled from one side of the building to the other just above us, leaving a few feet between itself and the arched frame of the roof. The wire’s coils and circles are coated with a fine layer of rust. I know it’s rust because I touch it when Grandma tells me to, because I do what Grandma tells me to, I bring some of it down to crumble between my fingers, burning orange and rough, and I feel something else there. Roots. The tiniest plants have somehow twisted their roots round the coils of chicken wire, have taken root in the air. They brace themselves against the thin wire, draw nourishment from the metal, and grow straight toward the sky as if soil were only a myth.
I
never met V. White outside the pages of Mama’s welfare file and was barely getting to know her, anyway, when one afternoon, not too long after my brothers and I had our caucus, a man from the County came down to the Calle, parked his sedan on the gravel, and though it was broad daylight, checked his car’s alarm twice before knocking at my door. V. White may be long gone, but the County lives on, and I tell the new guy the story we’ll use until my emancipation is finalized. I tell it just the way my brothers and I rehearsed: my third-oldest brother, Ronald Joseph, is my legal guardian and has moved to the Calle permanently until I finish school, but he isn’t home just now.
never met V. White outside the pages of Mama’s welfare file and was barely getting to know her, anyway, when one afternoon, not too long after my brothers and I had our caucus, a man from the County came down to the Calle, parked his sedan on the gravel, and though it was broad daylight, checked his car’s alarm twice before knocking at my door. V. White may be long gone, but the County lives on, and I tell the new guy the story we’ll use until my emancipation is finalized. I tell it just the way my brothers and I rehearsed: my third-oldest brother, Ronald Joseph, is my legal guardian and has moved to the Calle permanently until I finish school, but he isn’t home just now.
The Worker is as unmoved as the embroidered horse running in place across the left pocket of his shirt. He asks if he might use the bathroom before he leaves, to which I say that he might, though I know that this errand has less to do with relieving himself and more to do with relieving his curiosity. His real reason for venturing out to the Calle is to check the Nobility for signs of my brother’s life and while none of my bros are actually coming to stay, we’ve covered our bases. A can of shaving cream sits rusting on the bathroom counter for just such an emergency, and while the Worker takes his tour, I sit on the couch and find myself face-to-face with my own reflection in the shiny gold locks of his briefcase. And that’s when I do something the elder Hendrixes and I haven’t rehearsed. I reach out my finger, just one finger, and push. And the
shiny gold locks go SMACK! down the hallway, the sound flattening up against the closed bathroom door.
shiny gold locks go SMACK! down the hallway, the sound flattening up against the closed bathroom door.
The sweat from my fingers clouds the metal as I lift back the lid, and there, in between a yellow legal pad and the latest edition of
Barely Legal
, is an accordion file, and inside it, filed under
H
for Hendrix, under
T
for Trash, and under
L
for Living on the County, is a slick set of papers that are surprisingly familiar, copied from carbon, with V. White’s and Mama’s names and a case number running across the top of each one. And I develop a quick filing system of my own. I file those papers fast under
S
for Sofa,
C
for Cushion, and
M
for Mine, and then I close the briefcase up, quiet as you please. And I know this will stay quiet too, because if the Worker even suspects I’m the one who took the file, he’ll know I’ve seen his magazine and won’t want his boss to learn just how those unaccounted-for minutes of the County’s time are spent. When the Worker comes back into the living room he finds his briefcase right where he left it and he looks me up and down slowly and says, “You’re still a sophomore, aren’t you, Rory Dawn? Just turned sixteen?”
Barely Legal
, is an accordion file, and inside it, filed under
H
for Hendrix, under
T
for Trash, and under
L
for Living on the County, is a slick set of papers that are surprisingly familiar, copied from carbon, with V. White’s and Mama’s names and a case number running across the top of each one. And I develop a quick filing system of my own. I file those papers fast under
S
for Sofa,
C
for Cushion, and
M
for Mine, and then I close the briefcase up, quiet as you please. And I know this will stay quiet too, because if the Worker even suspects I’m the one who took the file, he’ll know I’ve seen his magazine and won’t want his boss to learn just how those unaccounted-for minutes of the County’s time are spent. When the Worker comes back into the living room he finds his briefcase right where he left it and he looks me up and down slowly and says, “You’re still a sophomore, aren’t you, Rory Dawn? Just turned sixteen?”
I nod yes, in my most
Barely Legal
of fashions, trying to prepare myself for what’s coming next, but it isn’t the warning about minors living without supervision that I feared. The Worker may be coming on to me but he’s not actually onto me. He doesn’t suspect anything. His question, predictable and ridiculous, proves it. “It’s never too early,” he says, and he pauses as he reaches down for his briefcase, his eyes on my bare feet, “It’s never too early to start thinking about the future. What are your plans after graduation?”
Barely Legal
of fashions, trying to prepare myself for what’s coming next, but it isn’t the warning about minors living without supervision that I feared. The Worker may be coming on to me but he’s not actually onto me. He doesn’t suspect anything. His question, predictable and ridiculous, proves it. “It’s never too early,” he says, and he pauses as he reaches down for his briefcase, his eyes on my bare feet, “It’s never too early to start thinking about the future. What are your plans after graduation?”
I suck my teeth, feeling my chipped front tooth, the jagged edge that’s never been a priority to fix, and I give the Worker, like all the Briefcase Men who’ve come before him, the answer he’s looking for. “I was thinking about vocational school,” I say, remembering the counselor’s recommendation to Mama from her welfare file, the copy whose twin I just stole back from him. My feet itch from his staring and I rub them on the carpet, trying to
figure out what he’s waiting for, and then I’ve got it. “I mean, if my grades are good enough.”
figure out what he’s waiting for, and then I’ve got it. “I mean, if my grades are good enough.”
It’s the right answer, all right. The relief shows on his face. Secure that his job will be an easy one, that
Hendrix, R.D
., can fall safely off his radar screen, he asks for Ronnie to give him a call, and then he leaves. I watch him take the turn off the gravel onto the cement, and then I take the stack of papers out from beneath the couch cushion and put them in the hope chest where all the other ideas of Mama’s worth have washed up. If the Worker, with his suspicions and his habits, with his locks and his logos, thinks for a minute that his documents are any kind of testament, if he thinks he can read me just because he can read these, well, as Grandma would say, “He’s got another think coming.”
Hendrix, R.D
., can fall safely off his radar screen, he asks for Ronnie to give him a call, and then he leaves. I watch him take the turn off the gravel onto the cement, and then I take the stack of papers out from beneath the couch cushion and put them in the hope chest where all the other ideas of Mama’s worth have washed up. If the Worker, with his suspicions and his habits, with his locks and his logos, thinks for a minute that his documents are any kind of testament, if he thinks he can read me just because he can read these, well, as Grandma would say, “He’s got another think coming.”
S
tephanie Harris is pregnant, her once-proud upper-middle-class white collar has turned a deep crimson blush from shame, and I wonder what wish her Mama made over her fifteenth-birthday cake. Boys still go to Jupiter to get more stupider, but girls work at bars to get their candy bars, at least I do. During the day I have to go to school, though, or Pigeon says she’ll eighty-six me herself.
tephanie Harris is pregnant, her once-proud upper-middle-class white collar has turned a deep crimson blush from shame, and I wonder what wish her Mama made over her fifteenth-birthday cake. Boys still go to Jupiter to get more stupider, but girls work at bars to get their candy bars, at least I do. During the day I have to go to school, though, or Pigeon says she’ll eighty-six me herself.
I go to shop class and hear the whispers that I’m only taking it to see Marc, but really it’s because everything else seems pointless. Cars, at least, can get you somewhere. There’s no way to make sense of Mr. Lane’s drafting class after Mama’s accident, no way to draw angles and arcs. When the standardized tests come, I color my bubbles in a zigzag pattern, design a crooked heart, and still get a C. At breaks I sit alone in the quad and eat licorice from the vending machine, and after a month, all I’ve learned is my locker combination and that as soon as I can figure out how, I’m outta here.
P
igeon lets me hang out at the Truck Stop after school, but only if I bring my homework along. I wash glasses by the trayload and inventory the empty Coors and Olympia kegs that wait in the backyard to be picked up by the delivery man, and I count the unopened bottles of bottom-shelf whiskey and gin that wait in the stockroom to be drunk up by the regulars. I broke four glasses so far, but Pigeon says that my doing the inventory makes up for it, because, she says, and it’s a lie, I’m the mathematical genius and she’s got no head for numbers. The rest of the time I sit around and “get my studying in.” I spread it out and lay down a pencil, but there’s no point in any of it except for
The Divine Comedy
, assigned by our new English teacher whose first year at Roscoe hasn’t beaten the life out of her yet. At least Dante’s circles of damnation are a good match for the curves of the Calle that I follow on my way from school to the Truck Stop every afternoon.
igeon lets me hang out at the Truck Stop after school, but only if I bring my homework along. I wash glasses by the trayload and inventory the empty Coors and Olympia kegs that wait in the backyard to be picked up by the delivery man, and I count the unopened bottles of bottom-shelf whiskey and gin that wait in the stockroom to be drunk up by the regulars. I broke four glasses so far, but Pigeon says that my doing the inventory makes up for it, because, she says, and it’s a lie, I’m the mathematical genius and she’s got no head for numbers. The rest of the time I sit around and “get my studying in.” I spread it out and lay down a pencil, but there’s no point in any of it except for
The Divine Comedy
, assigned by our new English teacher whose first year at Roscoe hasn’t beaten the life out of her yet. At least Dante’s circles of damnation are a good match for the curves of the Calle that I follow on my way from school to the Truck Stop every afternoon.
I’d rather just sit and watch Pigeon do her work, watch the regulars take their seats like an assembly line shift, watch the night pull its own barstool right up to the edge of the screen door. I sit around at the table by the jukebox that still only plays country, underneath the cardboard signs and their one prayer, repeated to the infinite, HOGS AND CALVES FOR SELL. And I tell the new guys, when they ask if I’d like a drink knowing I can’t be old enough,
when they ask if I’d like a drink hoping I can’t be old enough, that the only thing getting felt around here is the pool table.
when they ask if I’d like a drink hoping I can’t be old enough, that the only thing getting felt around here is the pool table.
And if I promise I’ll finish my homework, and if no one’s in but Dennis and the Ice Cream Man, Pigeon lets me go behind the bar and practice mixing drinks. My screwdriver is coming along but Pigeon says my martini “deserves a warning sign,” and it’s all a waste of cheap liquor, anyway, because no one around here orders anything but shots and chasers. Still, she lets me keep trying. She takes one sip of each and throws the rest away, and there’s something so pretty about the sound of ice cubes ringing against a metal sink, about the way that Pigeon says, “Better try again tomorrow,” that makes me feel like I will.
T
he Calle is silent except for the sound of my bare feet on the steps. The slap of skin on cement. The television shadows are dying down to static, preparing for rebirth in the plumage of the rainbow test pattern whose sudden brightness will wake sleepers to the loss of another night, the empty hours to go before morning.
he Calle is silent except for the sound of my bare feet on the steps. The slap of skin on cement. The television shadows are dying down to static, preparing for rebirth in the plumage of the rainbow test pattern whose sudden brightness will wake sleepers to the loss of another night, the empty hours to go before morning.
I walk to the edge of the pond and stare at the crepe paper and candy wrappers, the waste still left from the last Revival Night that floats on its surface. The aluminum of beer cans star in the sand and the water is ink. There are words at its bottom, answers down there, and the spelling is shaky at best.
On the other side of the pond comes another girl, she has no clothes and her hands move quickly over herself, to hide or hurt, it seems the same. The motion is frantic, as if she’s caught in a wind. Sometimes she uses her hands to cover her body. Sometimes she uses them to cover her mouth. Both things seem equally important, equally impossible.
She stops at the edge of the pond and her moving hands are too hard to watch. I bow my head, raise my arms, bend my knees. Water meets over my toes.
The Girl Scouts say that every good Scout should know how to swim. They say it makes other activities possible, for instance, life saving. But they never say whose.
M
ost Holy Apostle Saint Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, patron of desperate and difficult cases. The name of the person who betrayed our Lord has caused you to be forgotten, but not by me, and I implore you,
ost Holy Apostle Saint Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, patron of desperate and difficult cases. The name of the person who betrayed our Lord has caused you to be forgotten, but not by me, and I implore you,
get me the fuck out of here.
(
make your request here
)
make your request here
)
M
ama wants her ashes spread on Starvation Ridge, and even the 4-H Club isn’t ready to take that trip, but Grandma wants her ashes spread where pretty things grow. She tells me this on my last visit to her, my only visit by myself, a lone Greyhound on a long mountain night, vomiting all the way home. PLEASE, DON’T LEAVE A MESS, the sign in the bus bathroom begs all of us, the drunk and hopeful who make this trip between the trailers in the mountains and the casinos in the desert every payday.
ama wants her ashes spread on Starvation Ridge, and even the 4-H Club isn’t ready to take that trip, but Grandma wants her ashes spread where pretty things grow. She tells me this on my last visit to her, my only visit by myself, a lone Greyhound on a long mountain night, vomiting all the way home. PLEASE, DON’T LEAVE A MESS, the sign in the bus bathroom begs all of us, the drunk and hopeful who make this trip between the trailers in the mountains and the casinos in the desert every payday.
She tells me this before the cancer that she arms daily with generic cigarettes makes its final push. Grandma can hear her death coming, and like Mama, isn’t shy to talk about it, but unlike Mama, there’s no mystery about how it will arrive.
She’s so tiny now, her skin gathers in folds around her shrinking bones like velvet in an old Reno whorehouse. When she lifts her arm, to drop an ice cube into her beer, to light a cigarette butt, I can see both her breasts, her whole torso, through the armhole of her housedress, so shrunk back is she from the size she used to be. Seeing her breasts like that, small like mine but wrinkled and low, they are my future breasts, makes her fragile to me for the first time, and mortal. It is the only thing that makes me understand what I never really did before, that Grandma will soon be no bigger than a blue jay. And as soon as she is, she’ll fly away home.
PLEASE, DON’T LEAVE A MESS, the sign repeats, PLEASE, but
maybe that is only my head, only my stomach turning inside out to make this thing an un-thing, a never, the opposite of what I know it is. The truth. The doctors at Plumas County Hospital know she’s dying, she knows it too, and as her day draws to an end she holds my hand with sharp, strong fingers and says, “Girlchild, your Mama raised you right and now it’s up to you.”
maybe that is only my head, only my stomach turning inside out to make this thing an un-thing, a never, the opposite of what I know it is. The truth. The doctors at Plumas County Hospital know she’s dying, she knows it too, and as her day draws to an end she holds my hand with sharp, strong fingers and says, “Girlchild, your Mama raised you right and now it’s up to you.”
I stumble back to my seat, try to time the sway of my heart’s sickness to the rolling of the bus on the interstate. The casinos’ promises fly by the window on too many billboards to count, their lights reflecting off the top of the suitcase that I’m holding tight to my chest. It’s the same suitcase that made the same trip with me when Mama and I were together barely two years before, and the same road rolls beneath us, potholed with words unsaid.
Death is different when it shows up early, invites itself to dinners, and keeps you company for late-night talks about paperwork and affairs and questions about whether a house or a body can ever truly be in order. I keep my suitcase out, ready to go back to visit as soon as more school can be missed without raising the County’s eyebrows any higher than I’ve already done, but before I can use it, Grandma is gone, off to join Mama on the very late shift. I haven’t opened that suitcase again, even though I know Grandma wants me to, wants me to fill it up and get myself out.
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