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Write of Passage

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by Maria on January 20, 2010

in Fantastical, Write of Passage

For a few months, I’ve had a story rolling around in my head, and it won’t leave. I didn’t want to write it down, I had other ideas. This one felt incomplete, so I pushed it to the rear of my thoughts. It kept resurfacing, and each time it does, it has grown. Every time I think about it, the tale gets deeper, the faces become more clear, the events more precise, but these faces and events are presented in two separate ways, completely different. It flips unexpectedly from past and present tense, it’s confusing and jumbled, but, it’s there, explicitly so since I saw The Lovely Bones last week, and I can’t rid myself out it. So I’ll put it out there, as is, no editing or proof reading. Just stream of consciousness out there:

he disappeared in july. the last anyone saw, he was running around sycamore park with his border collie, toffee. toffee showed up at home after the street lamps were on, clawing at the front door. without caleb.

every saturday at 11am, like clockwork, my mom used to go two doors down, to his mom’s house. she’d make me play outside. if i had to pee, i had to hold it, she’d tell me before we left that i couldn’t come inside with her, so i’d better get it all out then.

mrs. lieber would stand in the door, behind the glass, a kerchief up to her nose, eyes red and swollen, watching me. it was awkward. she used to always say caleb and i could be twins. everybody said that, really. i think it was because we went to the same barber, and our birthdays were only a week apart, but the same blue eyes and blonde hair and lanky builds probably had a bit to do with it. i felt like now, now that she didn’t get to watch caleb play anymore, i was some sort of part time replacement. really, i think that’s why my mom always made me come with her. i hated it.

after those teenagers playing truth or dare in the swamp found caleb’s body, i didn’t have to go to mrs. leiber’s house with my mom anymore. she still visited, but i was free. i guess knowing he was dead made seeing his double a bad thing, instead of a good one. it was awful of me, but i was glad they’d finally found his corpse, so i could get on with my life and enjoy my saturdays again, no longer having to spend them in my dead best friend’s backyard, playing with my dead best friends dog, being watched by my dead best friend’s sobbing mom.

– — – *

no one knew what happened to my boy. there were dozens of people in sycamore park, everyone knew him, how could no one know where he had gone off to? how could so many people be so goddamn stupid and blind? if it were their child, they would remember more, they would think harder. not their son, just mine. not their problem, just mine. the police said everyone saw him playing fetch with toffee one second, but saw neither of them the next. how is that possible? how can no one have thought that was strange?

oh, i wished dogs could speak. toffee carried a pained look in his eyes from the time he came home that first night, like he knew where caleb is, and would have loved to tell me, but couldn’t. he was the last to see him. he sees me cry, and lays his snout sideways on my knee, in comfort. i want to kick him, for not bringing home my boy, but i see he misses him as much as i do. it’s not his fault. i don’t blame him. i blame myself, for trusting that this small town wouldn’t swallow my son whole. i blame caleb, for not being careful, for not staying safe.

emily comes over every weekend, she brings tea. she used to bring bradley and he would play outside, kicking the grass or wrestling with toffee. i’d stand at the backdoor, watching him while his mother tried to pretend things were normal, gossiping about the neighborhood. sometimes i’d catch glimpses of caleb in bradley’s sandy brown hair, shining in the sun, or in those wide blue eyes. they looked so much alike, they had since they were toddlers. dr. cross, the pediatrician, to call them the doppelganger boys and the nickname spread throughout town. they ran with the same purposed gait, their lips curled to the right in the same smile. it was hard to see caleb, but wonderful at the same time. it bored into the gaping hole left by caleb’s absence, making it bigger, but filling it up at the same time.

bradley stopped accompanying his mom on her visits soon after they found caleb. i think emily thought maybe seeing her son would crush me now, but i wished she still brought him. her visits are tedious without him, i tire of her trying to bring a sense of normalcy to my life. nothing will ever be normal again.

#6.

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Listening to: Journey – Send Her My Love

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Different: Dance, Dance [VI]

by Maria on January 17, 2010

in Dance, Dance, Write of Passage

“Are you married, PopTart?” he asked.

“I’m only 18.” I answered.

“Mmm, marry me?” he moaned, grabbing my thighs, causing me to stumble towards him, catching myself on his shoulders. He planted wet kisses along my abdomen, along the hem of my bikini bottoms. I laughed, and ran my fingers through his thick, white hair.

“I’m a bit young for you, don’t you think?” I whispered, picking his face up and looking into his pretty grey eyes.

“Hey,” he said, looking hurt, playfully. “I’m not as old as you think. “This” – he pointed to his hair – “is premature. Started when I was in college. How old do you think  I am?”

“Ummm, 45?”

“Ouch!” he exclaimed, clutching a fist to his chest. “Close, but no cigar, PopTart. I’m 37.”

“And you don’t think that’s too old?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me down, placing it on his cock, which was hard and swollen.

“Not where it matters.” he whispered into my ear. I squeezed the base and he whimpered. “Marry me.” he repeated.

“You know, Max, I get the impression that you’re already married.” I said as I started to stroke, gently, giving him the friction of just a few fingers.

“How come?” he breathed, tucking my hair over my shoulder and fingering my neck.

“You just…you have an eagerness that the single guys who come in here don’t. Like, I’m an escape. You’re invested in the time you spend here, you obviously look forward to it. It’s not casual. For the married ones, the unhappily married ones, it’s never casual.”

Max sat back on the couch and looked at me, eyes narrowed, hands on his thighs. I released him and stood back.

“You’re perceptive.” was all he said. I had offended him. I had said too much. When was I going to learn that my tendency to over share, to be too honest and forthcoming was not a good thing in this job? I searched inside of my mind for a way to repair the damage – he was one of my best regulars, I made more in one session with him than most other girls made in a day – a week even. He’d already paid my rent for the month, and we hadn’t gotten started yet. I couldn’t think of a remedy, so I told him the truth.

“I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind what?”

“It not being casual.”

“Mmm. Why’s that?”

“Because, when it’s casual, I feel like a piece of meat. I mean, I am a piece of meat, but it’s funny how being nothing to a guy except a pair of soft hands can make you feel unfulfilled, in comparison to the men that come in and see me as a whole person. Even if I’m just a whole whore.”

He sat up abruptly, frowning, and placed a hand on my hip. “You’re not a whore.”

I had found my way back in. I milked it. “Yes I am. I understand that, I’m alright with it. Someone has to do it, right?” I laughed, making sure it came across as pained and conflicted. I looked up at him with puppy dog eyes, holding them open longer than comfortable to make them water and pursing out my bottom lip ever so slightly.

He pulled me down onto his lap, and I clasped my arms around his neck. For the first time in all of our time together he ignored my breasts in his face, and looked only into my eyes. “You’re not a whore, PopTart. You’re a woman. A woman who’s not afraid of how beautiful she is, but knows how much more she is than that.” He ran his fingertips up the small of my back, and I felt the sincerity of his words in his touch.

“Okay.” I said softly, and I kissed him.

I had never kissed a customer before.

#5.
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Listening to: Radiohead – Nude

{ 1 comment }

My Resolve.

by Maria on January 17, 2010

in The Ex, Write of Passage

“I think I’m gonna be sad,
I think it’s today, yeah.
The girl that’s driving me mad
Is going away.

She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
But she don’t care.

She said that living with me
Was bringing her down yeah.
She would never be free
When I was around.

She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
But she don’t care.

I don’t know why she’s ridin’ so high,
She ought to think twice,
She ought to do right by me.
Before she gets to saying goodbye,
She ought to think twice,
She ought to do right by me.

I think I’m gonna be sad,
I think it’s today yeah.
The girl that’s driving me mad
Is going away, yeah.

She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
But she don’t care.

I don’t know why she’s ridin’ so high,
She ought to think twice,
She ought to do right by me.
Before she gets to saying goodbye,
She ought to think twice,
She ought to do right by me
.
She heard that living with me,
Was bringing her down, yeah.
She would never be free
When I was around.

Ah, she’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
She’s got a ticket to ride,
But she don’t care.

My baby don’t care, my baby don’t care.
My baby don’t care, my baby don’t care.
My baby don’t care. ”

- Ticket To Ride, The Beatles

I closed the door, completely I thought. I was wrong. The foundation had settled over the years, lopsided, being built on sand. The door frame was contorted and getting the lock to hitch itself into place proved itself harder than originally believed. I walked by the door, to the old house, all the time, glancing at it, wondering what was behind it now, if it was still the same, but never wanting to take a peek.

One day I walked by, looked up, and it was open. Just a crack, but still – open. I couldn’t not go back in but I couldn’t go back in. I stood halfway in, halfway out, for months. I tried to figure out what I should do. It was so comfortable there, in my old home. It felt safe, I knew what to expect in there. Outside, out where I was, it was frightening.

Looking around inside the house, it was impossible to not see all of the reasons why I’d moved to begin with. That shaky foundation. The floor was cracked, splits ran up the walls, paint peeled, broken glass scattered the floor, already littered with dead flowers and blood stains. Towards the back, from my one footed stance at the door, I could see a light. It was warm and bright and inviting. I wasn’t sure what it was. I was curious. If I was willing to make my way through the rubble of the uninhabitable, I would find out.

I wasn’t willing: it wasn’t worth it. I stepped back out and turned away. Out here, where I am, it was – it is – warm and bright and inviting. I can see where the light originates. I closed the door again, realizing that the house would never stop beckoning me back, never stop shifting and opening that door again. So I started to hammer nails into it each time I walked by. I hammered them in with so much force, so much resolve, that the wood splintered, the heads disappearing almost completely inside of it.

It’s not opening again.

#4.

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The Gift.

by Maria on January 17, 2010

in Write of Passage

Thinking back, they were the most hideous shoes I’d ever seen. They were shaped like tortoises, black, with thick white soles and turquoise shoelaces, fuchsia lightning bolts etched on the sides. Who in their right mind would have worn them is beyond me.

Back then, they were the most amazing shoes I’d ever seen. Mailed all the way from California, from my mom, for my birthday. It was the first time she’d ever sent me anything, and I was elated. She’d remembered that year. My grandmother wouldn’t let me try them on until I’d opened my other gifts. I tore through them, barely paying attention,  and flopped down onto the kitchen floor and started to lace them. I rushed, with such excitement, and I could barely get the strings through holes.

When I did, I shoved my right foot into one and was horrified to find that they were too small. I squeezed and pushed and forced my foot, my huge foot, my much too long for my body foot into the shoe until it was on completely. My toes were crumpled together in the front, my arch was bent to its max and unable to settle down on the sole. I did the same with the other foot, and stood. My grandfather asked how they fit and I blurted out FINE! as he knelt down to test them for growing room with his thick fingers. I stepped back, gingerly, as my feet were already burning with pain. I walked, carefully, around the kitchen attempting to convince them that all was well. My grandfather ordered me back over to him and immediately announced that my shoes were much too tight. I argued, but he held up his hand to silence me.

I took them off and my grandmother called my mom, who said she’d ship another pair as soon as they mailed those back to her. She apologized to me, wished me a happy birthday, and promised to send me shoes that fit.My grandmother and I sent them off the two sizes too small sneakers at the post office the very next morning. My mother never sent me that other pair.

#3.

{ 1 comment }

The Lunch Box

by Maria on January 10, 2010

in Write of Passage

I sat with Katie and Christina at the blue table and they were my very best friends. I didn’t have very many, being as the class I was in had a very small number of students – 12. They used to fight in the bathroom sometimes, over who was more my best friend. The day that Christina and I came to class wearing the same coordinated outfit (a white tank top and white shorts with big fuchsia polka dots), Katie didn’t speak to either of us for the rest of the week.

This day, all of us wore different things, and we were getting along fine. In P.E. we had practiced running the mile for the President’s Physical Fitness test and we were tired and famished. “Stupid presidents and their stupid fitness tests. Girls can’t do pullups and climb ropes.” Katie huffed and puffed. “María could” Christina retorted. Katie didn’t say anything but looked sullen as she started opening her milk carton. “Only climb the rope. And one pullup.” I offered. My grandfather had built me a jungle gym in our backyard when I was in California for the summer as a surprise and I’d developed quite the upper body strength over the past few months. Katie still frowned as she she drank, pulling the carton down and revealing a chocolate mustache. She saw me looking at it and wiped it away with the back of her wrist.

My grandmother had packed my lunch that day, but I wasn’t sure what she’d given me. Probably fried bologna I complained to myself. My lunch box was plastic, yellow with a fading Charlie Brown scene painted on the front. It came with a thermos, which I opened first, happy to find apple juice, still cold. I poured some into the lid of my thermos which was also a cup and pushed it aside. I had a bunch of grapes, some with their stems still attached, of the red seedless variety. My sandwich was peanut butter and grape jelly, on whole wheat, and some plain Lay’s potato chips were in a small bag underneath it. What did I have to do to get my grandmother to buy some chips with flavor? I really wanted to try those sour cream and onion ones, but, all in all this was a good lunch.

We ate in silence, waiting for Katie to lift herself out of her mood since Christina and I had learned that it was impossible for either of us to do so.I finished my food messily and rabidly. By the time I was finished I had crumbs all over my shirt and peanut butter spread over my chin. Christina finished her cafeteria spaghetti, or as much of it as she was willing to stomach. The class was lining up to go back alreadyso we decided to leave Katie where she was, still poking her fork in her pizza, eating only the little cubes of pepperoni off of the top.

She was standing behind us soon enough, smiling from ear to ear because Jonathan Crutchfield asked her if he could have her sugar cookie and their fingers touched when she handed it to him.

#2.

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