SPLITS
Momma says you can’t get pregnant if you do the splits and hold your breath for one whole minute after the boy makes his deposit, she watches TV like that, toes pointed, chest tight, sometimes her cheeks puff out like a blowfish I guess, I never seen a blowfish.
Momma’s got friends, David, Joey, Lar, the man with the ears, the man with the briefcase, Jed, the man with the teeth. Sometimes they stay for dinner.
Most nights I push my bike up the hill so I can ride it back down. All us kids used to do it in the neighborhood but I’m the only one still does. I’m not sure what the other kids do now.
I don’t like riding down the hill. Toward the end I go so fast that I’m sure I’ll crash. But it’s what I do in the evenings.
At school a boy pushes his finger into the flesh at my belly and says, You have a fat stomach. We are in science class, he has made a scientific discovery, another boy tries with his finger but I kick him in his checkbook.
I am suspended, I walk home. There is a car in front of our house so I keep walking. It’s hot, air like the inside of a mouth. I walk to the grocery store, read some greeting cards, there is one in the humorous row that I can’t understand. At the deli counter I order a bag of sliced turkey. I eat what I can in the bathroom, flush what I don’t finish.
On the walk back I suddenly get it. Sweat falling like tears. The sun white and singing. Dumb card, dumb everything.
The car is gone, Momma is in the kitchen holding a bag of peas to her arm. Battle scars, she says, winking. She lowers slowly, toes squeaking on the tile, she is in her underwear and I can see her pubic hair. She holds her breath, I take the peas from her to refreeze.
While we’re watching our Tuesday program the doorbell rings, Momma looks surprised, brushing at her sweatpants, it’s clear she isn’t expecting no friends tonight. I let the man in while she freshens up, Momma calls out, Sit tight, the bed ain’t made or nothing, the man asks me about school but he’s looking at the TV.
Pushing my bike up the hill I can’t help it, I look in other people’s windows, some are watching the same program me and Momma were, some are just sitting around a table. I imagine being a stranger walking by and looking in Momma’s window right now, seeing the empty kitchen, the TV on but no one watching, crumpled dress pants outside the door to the back bedroom.
At the top of the hill I see a group of them, sitting on a car under the streetlamp and smoking. Hey, fatgut, one of them calls. A girl in a pink skirt laughs, I recognize her as the girl who got her period all over her gym shorts, she had to go to the school nurse and get a pair of pants from the lost and found. In elementary school I’d spent the night at her house once, we messed with her momma’s makeup and jewelry and she got slapped. Yeah, fatgut, she says.
Through our window you can see a picture of me on the wall, the only picture we have up. It’s from when I was a kid. That’s what I’d want to look at, walking by our house and looking in, thinking, Who is that, where is she?
I still haven’t gotten my period, sixteen years old and no period, Momma says I’m lucky, no splits for me yet. I don’t tell Momma there’d be no need for splits anyway.
I don’t wait for them to say something else, I park my bike and lift my shirt so they can see it, pale under the streetlamp. This what I look like, I tell them. This who I am, you don’t got to tell me. The air is sharp on my skin. They look. They look and look.
If I had the guts I’d tell Momma she’s dumb for believing something like that. For thinking I don’t hear her in there with her friends, wailing like something run over. If I had a different kind of guts, I mean.
SUMMER MASSACRE
Picnic with the in-laws, Gavin’s grandparents. Jim watched Em’s mom bring over a tray. Fizzing glasses, grapes, butterscotches. When Jim had first met Em’s mom, she had an edge to her. That tray would have been all salt. Now it was all sweet and shine and fizz, butterscotches on every plate. Don’t you just love that noise? She meant the wrapper, that throatless whine, the yolk freed from its shell. Ah! Em’s mom placing it on her tongue, her cheek always pouched these days. Em’s hand on Jim’s knee. Gavin braiding dandelions to wreathe around the dog. Em’s dad behind his chair, swishing his ice. Why’s he doing that? Why’re you doing that, kid? Because Mitzi is a princess, said Gavin. Em’s dad cutting his eyes at Jim, the lenses in his bifocals yellowed to butterscotch. Goodbye, drink. You bring your glove? What glove? Jesus. Dad, Em warned. Em’s mom torturing another wrapper. Nin, it seemed to be saying, nin! The dog licked Jim’s ankle, its tongue rapturous, slow, really savoring it. Jim closed his eyes. A butterscotch behind each eyelid, flamed in red. A bloody yolk, the sun exploding. If the end of the world came … what? If the end of the world came … but he just felt tired. If the end of the world came, good night.
*
Sundrops, dollops of sun, your own collection of sunshine! In a bowl. If the bowl was a universe it’d be filled with suns. If I was a universe I’d be a universe that swallowed that bowl universe. My blood is a sunbeam. Who used to call them sundrops? My mother. Her mother? A mother of some sort. Emily is a mother, right? Right? There is her son, Gavin. Brock likes to call him Gayvin when we’re alone. Brock’s little mouth, that chute of ash. He’s volcanic! I spill sunbeams, I can’t help it. Ah, the rapture. I mean the wrapper! Its halfhearted struggle, its little voice. Like the squeak of an infant. Emily, blam! Shot out like I was the volcano. The doctor nearly dropped her. Should’ve used a net! Everyone laughed. Brock’s white white face. Me, an emptied bowl. Oh, Jim’s asleep. That wide wet mouth. That rubbery ring above his belt. I’ve imagined him and my daughter, what mother hasn’t? Brock always says, Soft in the stomach, soft in the heart. But I’ve seen him with Mitzi. Knuckles massaging her ears, little bits of hot dog to snuffle out of his palm. You’re a good girl, aren’t you? But was he asking Mitzi, or was he asking me? It’s simple: if you’ve already got one in your mouth, use the other cheek.
*
Mom. Mm? Emily’s knuckle gathering up the yellowed glistening pocket at the corner of her mother’s mouth. A little sunshine for you, sweets. Yes, thank you. And smeared it onto her skirt. When Gavin was a baby she’d often wonder if her clothes were held together with his saliva. Her shoulder a collection of glistening webs. Drying into armor. Look at him now, a person like she was a person. Songs with violins made her sad, she’d once climbed out her window to make love to a boy under her father’s beloved willow tree, the smell of onions always reminded her of the summer she nearly drowned. What were Gavin’s violins, his willow, his onions? But that could never be known. She hadn’t even told Jim about the willow, and what was the point of mentioning the onions? The meaning was hers and hers only. Last month Gavin had kissed the neighbor’s boy, a lunging violent stab of a kiss she saw from the kitchen window. The neighbor’s boy had backed away, still holding the toy shovel they’d been using to bury a Ziploc of treasures. Wiping his mouth over and over. The shovel sailing through the air, Gavin catching it, the neighbor boy turning to run. Gavin at eleven. At forty he might come upon his own son’s toy shovel … and what? She tried to remember his face as the boy backed away. Fear? Shame? Triumph? She could only think how she had felt, climbing back into her bedroom, trailing bits of grass, crumbs of dirt, as she came toward her mirror. Who is that? Me. Yes, but who?
*
Banner day! You hear yourself saying those words, you had been thinking those words because that’s what Pop used to say on days like these, the sky blue as a swimming pool and the sun all light and no heat and the smell of barbecue coming from three yards over. But really everything hurts your eyes, the ice in your glass, your wife’s precious butterscotches, the color of your son-in-law’s shirt, the face of your grandson’s delicate wristwatch, even the shine of your daughter’s hair. You had been trying to sound cheerful. But you heard yourself. Banner day, ploop ploop, two turds. So be it. Your knee goes zing when you lean over to nudge Mitzi off your son-in-law’s ankle. The boy gasps, thinks you kicked her. Let him. Toughen him up. As a boy you were teased mercilessly. Big ears, thin legs, patched shirts, you were once chased into the woods and punched so hard you felt bits of your nose stream down your throat. Zing, the knee again. Pop had said, My poor son, you poor thing. You hadn’t hit back, not once. Fell to the ground, your hands over your face, watched the light in the leaves through your fingers. The boys were quiet about it. A serious business. Like butchers tenderizing a cut of meat. Pop had gently cleaned your face with one of your mother’s good washcloths and lavender soap until you felt sorry for yourself. Even now, you hate him for that.
*
The boy is thinking, Dandelions don’t really smell. Neither do daisies. I mean I guess they smell like dirt and grass. Mitzi smells like stale cake. Mom smells like oranges. Dad smells like nothing. If you scratch hard enough and then smell your fingers, you’ll smell whatever part of your body you just scratched. The boy’s body smells like lots of things. Buttered popcorn, the vinegar his mother uses to wash the floors, tomato sauce. The boy reminds himself, Smells are important in case you go blind. Dad says when the end of the world comes you don’t know what can happen. Your eyes might get burned out of your head. Mitzi’s digging, that smells like dirt of course. And dirt smells like dirt. The boy’s favorite smells are smells that don’t smell like anything else. Mitzi’s wreath has already fallen off. I’ll leave it, he thinks. If I try to put it back on, Grandpop might ask me about the glove again. The boy has already discovered that sometimes people decide things about you and you just have to let them. The boy plans on one day being a talk show guest. The host will blindfold him, hold Styrofoam cups in front of his nose. Worms, the boy will say. Cream of Wheat. Root beer. Paste. My balls. That’ll be his joke when the cup is filled with tomato sauce. That’s incredible! the host will say, pumping the boy’s hand. Applause. Starburst camera flashes from the darkness. The boy has read that space smells like cinnamon. He can’t imagine why. But better to think about that, and wonder if the sun really smells like a melted crayon like he thinks or like butterscotch like Grandmom says. Better that than kissing, better that than being called a fag at the bus stop. A million melted crayons worth of better.
*
Mitzi dug under the willow tree. Den of bunnies, she knew it! Flung one by one into the sun. What the? the old man said. His glass landed too hard on the table, glass on glass, the sound of a bright bright ending. Is it over? the younger man lurching awake. She’s killing them! this from the boy. Don’t look! from the younger woman. Oh, Brock, the old woman tried to say. Her mouth lined with candies. The bunnies gritted with dirt, the satisfying crunch! Little mewling whines, nin! Nin! All out now. Writhing ones first, pink as antacids. Gray one, still as a stone in the grass. Yolks tumbling from the old woman’s mouth, Brock! The old man with his hands to his face. The younger woman, flap of skirt, yanking hand. Rubies of blood on the dog’s snout, taffy-tears of pink skin dotting her tongue. The younger man, I was asleep! The bunnies in the grass, unearthed and scattered, twitching, all but the gray one. The old man, No, oh no. The dog a grin. The younger woman bent over the dog. The old woman, lapful of sunbeams, They’re suffering! The old man to his knees despite his knee. And the boy. The boy thinking, Cinnamon, cinnamon. The boy walking slow, the boy raising his leg and bringing it down firm as a hammer onto the pinks, one by one, each one a starburst under his shoe, all quiet now, all dark, he knew what was in this cup, but he’d never be able to say.