In the Ocean of the Lord's Love

..........My mother did not take me to chapel anymore. This is another splitting of my life into pieces. After the Lord had answered (almost) all of my mother’s prayers, she felt like she was doing enough oh His work by taking care of me.
..........The religion of our people is the standard, vanilla monotheistic bent with allowances for the (almost) worship of the water. It did not qualify as another god, but in our prayers we always said stuff like, “And so we will be brought unto the Lord (who has blessed us with the waters, both big and small) and washed in the rivers of our love.” That’s a funeral prayer.
..........At my brother’s and sister’s funeral, they said all of those prayers two times.
..........“Let the blessed Lord (who has created all the oceans of the world) baptize us in our own tears. May the mighty Lord (who has made the rain to fall down) turn those tears into holy water sanctifying our faces and especially our eyes so we can see more sharply.”
..........“The Lord made the water and the water will flood through the hearts of sinners who do not struggle, who let themselves be swept under.”
..........“Remember that it is not we who control the water. Remember that the water comes to us as a gift from the Lord. Being given so much, let go or the Lord (all the seas his handiwork). Remember, He (father of the tiniest puddle) returns all He (water water blah blah) takes. See this in the tide, in the flow in and out and remember.”
..........Remember. Remember. Remember.
..........I remember a lot of pink at their funeral. The carpet of the funeral parlor was a deep burgundy. It was reflected on the shiny, white surface of their tiny, empty coffins and gave their boxes a soft, pink glow. Pink flowers scattered around them. The women wearing pink lipstick. My mother had painted my fingernails pink the night before (because I had asked). My sister had a pink ribbon in her hair. My Aunt Denise blew her nose into a pink handkerchief.
..........And green as we came to the cemetery. Green as we lowered them down.
..........And then a sea of black umbrellas as we walked back to our cars under the rain of our most holy Lord (who has made the rain.)
..........This was the first time Silence paid us a long visit. He was there when we arrived. My aunts had brought us home and my mother dismissed them so she could play hostess to her new guest.
I was terrified to have him in our house. I sat on the edge of my bed with my door open. The light from the living room made a triangle of light on my floor, a rectangle on my wall. I kicked my legs and waved my hands and made shadows on my floor, on my wall, so I could see where I was, see how big I was. Outside, Silence was talking to my mother.
..........I don’t know exactly how to explain this. I don’t think Silence quite knew what he was doing there with us, though he seemed happy enough. We barely got a word in. We didn’t want to. We didn’t want to tell him the truth. He had not been invited for a comfortable. Or for a visit after a lover’s intimate embrace. Or becuase we had just put the baby down.
..........How could we tell him he was here because of our loss? This was his least favorite kind of visit. My mother and I just let him go on and on as if nothing were wrong. He was so pleased to be with us, we couldn’t break the news. My mother caught my eye and we mentally agreed to keep quiet till the morning.
..........I was young at my funeral and I’ve never heard of anyone bringing a camera to a memorial service. I remember pink and green and black and Silence. I remember the chairs in the funeral that matched the carpet in the funeral parlor. I remember my feet not touching the floor. I remember the chairs so close that we all rubbed shoulders.
..........When we lowered their coffins in, the thought kept pounding in my head. They’re not in there. That’s not where they are.
..........They’re not in there. That’s not where they are.
..........We visited their gravestone which indicated, “Here lies...” But that’s not true.
..........They’re not in there. That’s not where they are. Not where they are.
..........I wanted to tell my mother to take me where they really were, but that would mean we would have to go to the Big Water. And I think she would have. So I never said anything and followed her along on her weekly monthly yearly visits to the graveyard. The yard of graves. Pink flowers on a gray gravestone in a green cemetery. Two brown heads bowed, four brown hands praying.
..........“Let our tears flow like a river which the Lord has made. Let our sin be washed away in our sadeness. Let our sadness and sin cry to be made clean by the water of loss. Then et our loss drown in the ocean of the Lord’s love.
..........“In the ocean of the Lord’s Love.”
..........I didn’t understand. The Lord must have thought I was ungrateful. But why be washed away?
..........But the death of my brother and sister wasn’t the reason we stopped going to church. Part of our service includes a procession to the pastor. We cup our hands to him and he spoons a small amount of sea water into them. We drink the water and pat our wet hands on our heads. The first time we went back to church after the funeral, the pastor poured the water into my hands and it began to steam. Forgetting my first lesson, I screamed out, “It hurts! The water hurts!”
..........How could we show our faces after that?

Charming

..........My mother and i did not visit with my grandmother very often. Thank the sea, as they say. I don’t say that.
..........I love movies. In many ways and on many occasions, i have iwished that my life were like a movie. In my fantasies, i always saw my self as a tall, blonde, white girl. I wished that i were class president of my high school and valedictorian. Smart and pretty, yet, sensitive and quirky. I treated my citizens equally no matter what side of cool you were on. My friends and i looked through magazines as our soundtrack played in the background. We chewed pink and purple gum in my pink and purple room and wore pink and purple headbands.
..........In the film of my fantasies, my mother sparkled like she had done in high school. My aunts were exiled to a land far, far away. My brother and my sister were returned to me. That was my biggest and most passionate and most frequently viewed movie. Less watched, but equally yearned for was the film of a sweet and timid and lavender-scented grandmother. Oh, how i wished it were based on a true story.
..........The first time i remember meeting my grandmother was just before the accident. She had her arm around my mother’s shoulder, smoking a cigarette.
..........“Ma! You’re gonna burn my hair!” my mother waved her away.
..........“You oughta tie that mess back,” my grandmother returned and stepped away, She sat down in her chair, hers and hers only. This was not like dad’s chair, not a big, comfy, leather chair that reclined. This was not marked off-limits because the kids fought and clamored over it and it was never free when dad got home. My grandmother’s chair was pock-marked with cigarette burns. Sitting in the chair, she rubbed tiger balm over her arthritic knees and shoulders. The excess was smeared on her nightgown and over the chair of her chair. Her frequent, open-mouthed naps had left a permanent stain on the right side of the headrest. She farted loudly and wetly into the sweat-stained seat of the chair.
..........Charming.
..........My grandmother had 18 beautiful years with my grandfather. They had been married for 25, a quarter of a century. The last 18 had been the good ones, don’t worry. When my mother was born, the man my grandfather had been died. My mother was a light by which my grandfather could see the good things of the world and his home. From the first time he held her, the slouch that had become his permanent posture blossomed into an open-hearted embrace. He embraced his new daughter and the rst of his family. Finally.
..........My mother did it without trying. Without trying, she united a family that had long ago fallen apart (i’d rather have a good water metaphor - “long ago been threwn against the rocks by their ocean of tears” but not quite so heavy-handed.) Her family warmed itself by my mother’s light.
..........Her sisters were confused by the transformation and the sudden attention flowing from their father. They appreciated, but were suspicious of hid doting. As f her did it not because he wanted to, but because my sister had somehow, as a newborn, taught him that it was the right thing to do. Even if his praise were sincere and unprompted, it came as a result of my mother coming into the world. Because of six years of mediocrity paternal affection, when it was freely given, the twins doubted they were deserving of it.
..........For my grandmother’s part, she was only happy to have her husband back. The responsibility of fatherhood had not been a good color on my grandfather the first time around. He took long hours and long business trips and brought home gifts from far-away places and a big paycheck. He had lots of dinners in expensive restaurants with expensive business clients. He drank too much at these dinners and drove home unsteadily. Sometimes he drank so much he forgot to go home. Or he would mistake another woman’s bed for my mother’s.
..........My grandmother drank red wine and smoke cigarettes. When i met her, her teeth were stained with a purple-yellow coating that made her lips and mouth look bruised. It was during my grandfather’s nights away that the seeds of the habits first took root. During the day, the neighbor women visited to smoke cigarettes and have their hair done and tell my grandmother to leave my grandfather.
..........My grandmother was holding out hope for another plan. She wanted a son. Twice a month, she prayed, prayed, prayed. After they were finished, she would excuse herself to the bathroom, where she would stand on her head for three minutes.
..........For five years this was the ritual. A visit to the doctor revealed that there was nothing wrong with her. The fault was with her husband.
..........There was nothing to be done. She had been lying about her method of birth control for years. All she could do was pray, pray, pray. Everyday, she went to the water chapel and prayed to water and God who had made the water. Soon, someone above or below took notice.

The Source

..........Passing out on my birthday had cut our celebrations short. We had presents, but not the cake. After i came to, i was fussed over by my mother and Luke’s grandmother. My aunts clucked their tongues like two hens nested on vinyl seat covers.
..........“You should tale her to THE DOCTOR,” Aunt Sarah advised.
..........“I don’t think she’s sick,” my mother said. “I think she just got a little upset.”
..........Luke’s grandmother brought me a glass of water. My mother asked her to bring my birthday cake in a to-go container. We gathered our things and headed to the door. Luke’s grandmother called for us to wait. She began singing “Happy Birthday,” and everyone in the diner sang along. My aunts begrudgingly so. All I could think was I wish Luke was here I wish Luke was here I wish Luke was here Luke Luke Luke.
..........At home, my mother sat by my bedside in a 10-year-old sized chair and patter a cold compress across my forehead. “Did you want to celebrate at the diner because of Luke?”
I didn’t want to lie and i didn’t want to tell the truth, either. I kept my mouth shut. My mother did, too. Silence had pulled up a chair.
..........The three of us rested in my tiny room. Silence sprawling himself out, legs wide open, belly hanging past his crotch. My mother edged closer to me to make more room for him. “Is this still cold?” she said, running the washcloth along my neck. She was whispering so Silence wouldn’t feel like he was being ignored.
..........“It doesn’t matter,” i whispered back. “Can you open the window?” She obliged.
It was my birthday, but as my mother held my small, long-fingered hand in both of her skinny, brown hands, i remembered waking up in the hospital after the accident. I imagined this might be the scene of my deathbed. My twin-size deathbed. My mother traded the chair for the floor and rested her arms and head by my pillow. I was too old to sleep with mommy, but we hadn’t been able to anyway since the accident.
..........I didn’t like dividing up my life into parts: before the accident |the accident|after the accident.
..........The wind eased itself into my room through the window. I didn’t have any blankets on my bed and my mother was shivering. My birthday brings the cold to everybody but me.
..........“You can go to you room if it’s too cold,” i released my mother from obligation.
..........“I’ll stay,” she was falling asleep. “I think it’s ok if you want to be friends with Luke.”
..........“I don’t think i want to.”
..........“I think that’s fine, too.”
..........Just before i fell asleep, the other man in my life came to my mind: my father.
..........This is what i knew about my father: he was dead; he wasn’t the father of my brother and sister; he hadn’t made an honest woman of my mother before he died; he was at my birth; he gave me his nose.
..........In my dream, my mother wakes and begins to tell me the story of my birth.
..........“Your aunts were both there,” and she appears behind my mother, but is 1000 miles away, “and your father,” and i see a man’s body. I try to look at his face, but i can’t focus my eyes to his.
..........“And the water was there.”
..........Water begins torise into the room. My mother is fat and pregant, wet from the ocean, and wet from labor. The man, my father is screaming, “NO NO NO NO NO NO!” My mother screams with pain and their screams circle around each other. My aunts dive under the water, under my bed. They resurface and hand my father a baby (me). He cradles me as if i am a ticking time bomb. I’m not crying. He reaches inside my mouth and pulls out a tiny, soft, white feather.
..........I woke up from my dream panting. I turned to the place my mother had laid her head and panicked when i didn’t see her. You said you would stay, i thought and i was about to scream out her name when i saw her small body on the floor, asleep.
At one point, she had gotten up and retrieved her white, down comforter from her room. She was wrapped up now like an angel nesting in a cloud. Her brown skin and almost black hair poked from the top of the cloud. her hair was like a swirly sea of chocolate. My heartbeat slowed down.
..........There is a picture of my mother when she was 16. She had fallen asleep on their couch. Her twin sisters took a picture. It turned out to be a beautiful photograph. My mother’s face is smooth and light and firm. The angles of her cheekbones and chin highlight the voluptuousness of her nose and chin. His skin is made bright by the pink sweater around her shoulders. A strand a pearls around her neck.
..........My mother was the youngest of three girls. Sarah was the oldest by ten-and-a-half minutes. The twins took after their mother, but my mother was all my grandfather. His masculine features were softened and tounded in her face in the most flattering way. He doted on his youngest daughter. It must be hard for parents not to play favorites.
..........When the twins began high school, the house was empty and slow. The family ate breakfast together. Their mother, my grandmother, stayed at home, housekeeping and sometimes doing hair for the neighbor ladies. In the evening, the 5 members of the family would dine and enjoy light conversation, shortly after retiring to bed.
..........Two years later, when my mother had entered high school, the dam that had been holding back a sea of teenagers looking for a leader broke. The house was flooded.
..........After my mother’s first day of high school, she called my grandmother to ask if some friends could come over. Three freshman girls arrived and took command. My grandmother made cookies and gave one of the girls a press and curl. They stayed for dinner. 2 of the guests had to sit in a rocking chair and a desk chair, respectively. The dinner table was crammed with impoliteness and loud laughter. What had once been a center of manners and decorum was soon to transform to a clubhouse for latchkey kids.
..........My mother was a hit. Her father couldn’t have been prouder.
..........My Aunt Sarah and Aunt Denise had friends in high school, but in genreal blended. This was the first year they were allowed to wear make-up and they tried to go noticed. They learned their make-up tips from women’s magazines and went to school at 8am looking ready for the evening wear competition. Just like all the other girls.
..........My mother was not yet allowed and two years later when she was she almost never took advantage of her mother’s permissiveness. My mother almost never thought of how she looked. Surrounded by a river of friends, carried thorugh the day, safe and protected.
..........My grandfather died the day after my mother graduated from high school. He had a heart attack. My grandmother couldn’t get to his pills because he was sitting on them. And it wasn’t common knowledge to use aspirin.
..........If her friends were a river that protected her, her father was the ocean from which they flowed. And the ocean bed had just dried up. Without a source of replenishment, the waters stagnated and my mtoher begin to sink. Barely keeping her head above water, she drowned in her friends and spurned the rest of her family. She left her father’s house and moved in with her boyfriend. A month later they got married. 7 months later, my brother and sister were born. Around a year after that, my mother must have met my father. Or may be they already knew each other. My mother and her first husband didn’t see much of each other after he left her to see the world.
..........My aunts cluck-cluck-clucked.

Pas de Deux

..........I didn’t have any friends, so i had never had a birthday party. I didn’t want a party. I wanted to celebrate with Luke. Alone, but my mother would never have that.
..........“What did you do to celebrate your birthday when you were my age?” i asked my mother.
..........She hesitated for a long time. The pause set me on fire. She could see me getting red and began to stammer out an answer. “W-we w-would have cake and um, presents.”
..........“Who’s we?”
..........“Your aunts and my parents.”
..........“Just family?”
..........“Yes, and some, a couple of friends.”
..........“Do you have pictures?”
..........This question threw my mother off the track of lies she was telling and the truth accidentally spilled out. “Yes,” and then, to cover, “but i think Aunt Sarah has them. I’ll ask her to bring them the next time she visits.”
..........“Did you have a lot of friends when you were my age?
..........“Not a lot, just a normal amount,” my mother’s voice faltered on the word “normal” and trailed off.
..........My mother would not be asking her sister to bring any photographs. She didn't want to make me jealous. I imagined the pictures, sepia-toned, fading. My mother’s wildly curly hair probably even more untamed. Missing a tooth, but still smiling with her mouth wide open and unapologetic. Surrounded by a dozen, scores, hundreds of thousand missing-toothed, wide-mouthed children who were smiling solely because they were happy to be so close to my mother. All of them swimming in my grandparents lake. So many of them that there’s no room to swim.
..........We were in the living room doing my favorite chore: folding the linens. It was a pas de deux. Mother and daughter standing on opposite ends of the stage, separated by the expanse of the red cotton sheet. Coming together in time. Our hands brushing each other without acknowledging each other. Mother grabbing the open end as i slid my hands to the closed end. Stepping away and coming together again. Hands brushing without noticing. Again till we stand centerstage together, the sheet thin an unprotective. I take the folded sheet to the couch and my mother pulls a frsh one from the laundry basket. We did this in silence for a few more sheets. ..........My mother looked as if she would have given up her happy, popular childhood in exchange for a normal daughter.
..........“Are Aunt Sarah and Aunt Denise coming for my birthday?”
..........“Of course.”
..........What i was about to ask was unfair and manipulative. I didn’t know what manipulative meant, but i knew how it felt.
..........“Can we all go to the Overhead Diner?”
..........“My mother was ashen. “I don’t know if that’s a really great place to celebrate. And your aunts don’t usually go up ther.”
..........This was too easy. “But it’s my birthday, isn’t?”

..........
..........In the few family photographs i had seen, my mother was clearly the pretty one. Not just because of how she looked. There was a radiance inside my mother that shined out of the pores of her skin. If her sisters looked pretty next to her, it was because she had pretty to spare.
..........Underdogs like my Aunt Sarah and Aunt Denise love a good fall from glory. On my tenth birthday at the Overhead Diner, any pretty my mother had to spare was hidden beneath her shame. My aunts had made a lazy effort not to dress like they made a lot of money. But they had no split ends. No obvious line of make-up between the jaw and the neck. No safety pins to secure a dress that used to fit snugly and (perhaps?) seductively.
..........My aunts did not blend and my mother was embarrassed that she blended so well. “Stop fidgeting,” she said to me. “What’s wrong?”
..........I was looking around for Luke. He always said hello. I blamed the presence of my aunts for the lack of Luke’s. He knew they were the kind of people who would treat him different because he only had one hand. Luke’s grandmother came to our table to take our order.
..........“It’s my birthday!” I announced.
..........“Well, happy birthday!” she said cheerily. “Luke’s gonna be so disappointed that he missed you.”
I had been splitting my attention between hating my aunts and looking for Luke. All at one, everything that i was became terribly focused on his grandmother.
..........“He’s not here?” My voice was burning.
..........“No, honey, he only works days.”
..........The only water i was used to: tears. I held my breath to dam them in and passed out.
..........Happy birthday to me.

About Birds: How They Fly and Why

..........I spent the next three months in home-schooling learning about wings, flying, birds, planes, aviation. When i wasn't studying flight, i made time to visit Luke and everyone and the Overhead Diner. Brian's stories became more interesting. He recounted the story of the first time he ran away from. Of the time he and his friends sneaked into the zoo after midnight. They opened the doors to the lions' cages and the big cats barely woke up. His mother had been drunk at his First Communion. His grandfather taught him how to ride a bike and how to fix a bike and how to crash a bike if you needed to.
.........."Have you ever needed to?" Luke asked.
.........."No."
..........Brian spent three years working on a tugboat. He had been a house painter. He did a stint as a construction worker, a janitor and a dock worker. It wasn't until he started trucking that he fell in love with what he did.
..........In the beginning, he had almost quit. He was driving down south, in the lowlands where flooding was frequent. Brian was from the (relatively) dry north. He had never seen anything like the rain storm that had caused him to question his new vocation. The raindrops were bigger than his head and landed so powerfully that they made several dents in his rig. His windshield wipers broke under the pressure. He slowed his car down almost to a stop and then to a full stop, but the force of the rain, the force of the water was carrying his rig down down down the highway. His visibility was zero and he no longer had any control over the 18-wheeler he was in charge of. He let go of the steering wheel and surrendered to the will of the water. It led him careening down a slippery slope and flipping over onto the passenger side. He hung suspended from his seat belt. He undid his strap and climbed out of his truck. He wasn't hurt.
..........Brian stood under the rain storm watching the bigger-than-his-head raindrops come down to his level They seemed to pause at a point three or four feet above his vision, holding a moment to gather power before they crashed down to land. From behind him, he saw a light moving toward him. A woman's voice called out, "Are you okay?"
.........."During the storm , I cursed the water. But when i saw her," he showed me a picture of the woman who belonged to that voice, "I knew gratitude for the first time."

.........."I didn't know Brian was married," i told Luke later when we were sitting together out back, eating french fries.
.........."I don't think he always remembers," Luke said.
..........I knew what he meant, but i didn't think i was supposed to. Figuring out whether i was supposed to like Brian or not was confusing.
..........Despite the fact that Brian’s stories had gotten much less boring, they never compared to the first story that Luke told me. During his breaks, Luke told me more stories about himself, none about flying and none as exciting. But they were stories about him and his life. As thrilling as a midsummer blockbuster to my 9-year-old ears.
..........Luke’s father had died 6 years ago and his mother 4. He told me they had been in accidents. Since that time, he lived with his grandparents, his mother’s mom and dad. A year ago, when he was 16, he dropped out of school to help out full time at the diner. His grandparents weren’t desperate enough to ask their only grandchild to give up his education to spend a few more hours at the Overhead, but Luke had no love for school or for the things school was supposed to get you. Luke wanted to get to know people, all kinds of people, to travel to places beyond Elephant Trunk, beyond the whole country, beyond the water, even. He wanted to figure out why people did the things they did. Why they told the stories they told. Why they told the lies they told.
..........“I want to know why people hide what they hide.”
..........I wished i could hide what i wanted to hide. I wondered what Luke was hiding. I was fascinated by his fascination with people, with his ease with the customers. He seemed to know what button to push to make them open their mouths and talk talk talk. Unsuspecting, they dropped hints at their biggest secrets, their biggest fears. But whenever a guy kept his mouth shut, the rest of him would open wide. Scratching the nose. Crumpled bills pulled from a trouser pocket. A face full of shaving nicks. The smell of body odor heavily covered by mouthwash and musk. Not talking just made Luke look deeper. He was like a private investigator for people's spirits.
..........Our conversations were one-sided in his favor, but i wasn’t trying to hide anything from him. I wanted to show him everything, but i didn’t really think i had anything to show. Was my reticence making Luke look deeper into me? That was exactly what i wanted, for Luke to think i was interesting enough to look at me more closely. But he only asked me gentle, safe questions. His safe line of questioning sometimes led into dangerous territory.
..........“Why aren’t you in school?”
..........“I got into a fight and since then, i’m home-schooled,” i was embarrassed. I wasn’t violent or dangerous.
..........“Who teaches you?”
..........“My mother.”
..........“What stuff do you learn?”
..........“Normal stuff,” i said slowly, trying not to give myself and hoping that i might. “Math, science, animals, birds...”
..........“What about birds?”
..........“About how they, um, fly,” i was barely speaking about a whisper.
..........“About how they?”
..........“Fly,” i said in a normal voice.
..........Luke paused. He often paused. It was another technique used to open people up. He learned to stand awkward silence because most people couldn’t; they would start talking to kill it. It wasn’t going to work on me in this case. He asked me, “And how do they fly?”
..........I was a good student, ready to recite what i had memorized. “A lot of it has to do with the weight of their skeleton. {FIND A REALLY DRY description of how birds fly.}
..........I had been staring at the ground during my entire answer and only looked up when i was done. He was looking away from me, shaking his head and smiling. “So that’s how it works,” he said. “Do you know why they fly?”
..........“‘Cause they had to,” i explained. “It was the best was to get away from danger.”
..........Luke nodded his head. “Exactly.”
..........I didn’t notice, but as we sat, a flock of birds above our heads practiced their migration to the South for the winter. I kept my little purple hoodie on during our visits out back and Luke wore a black and white scarf. The short order cook didn’t finish his cigarettes in one go anymore. When his fingertips began to lose feeling, he flicked the cherry off the cigarette and put the stump back in the pack. He smelled even worse now.
..........Cold weather meant my birthday was immanent.

Exciting

..........I walked up to the counter and Brian helped me into a seat. “Do you get ice cream?” i asked.
..........“No.”
..........“Why not?”
....................“It hurts my teeth,” and he went on to explain the dental maladies he had suffered over the years. It was fascinating. Luke brought out a plate of fries.
..........“I didn’t order these,” i said, “and i don’t have any money.”
..........“These are mine, “ Luke said smoothly. “I’m on break.”
..........I was disappointed because i really wanted those fries and thought Luke brought them to me as another freebie (free-fry day?) I had protested just in case i would have to pay for them.
..........“You can have some, though.”
..........Brian started telling us that he couldn’t have food that was too hot, either, which was too bad because fries were best when they were piping hot. He listed lots of foods that were no longer enjoyable to him because he had to eat them at room temperature: omelettes, pizza, beer. According to Brian the only thing that was worth the pain was coffee. Coffee didn’t qualify as coffee if it weren’t hot.

..........Luke told us that he didn’t want to spend his break inside the place he was trying to take a break from. “Come outside and eat these with me.”

..........Brian helped me down just as he had helped me up.
..........“Thank you and it was nice to meet you,” i said.
..........“And the same to you.”
..........Luke and i sat on the back step. A short order cook smoking a cigarette nodded in our direction.
..........“Brian was boring, “ i said.
..........Luke laughed, but he said, “I don’t know if that’s a very nice thing to say.”
..........“I don’t mean to be not nice,” i explained. “He just looked scary, i thought he’d have more exciting stories to tell than about his teeth.”
..........Luke laughed again. “I’m sure he does.”

..........I wanted to do anything to keep Luke laughing. The sound of it blew up some happy place in the back of my brain. My head might have been close to floating away from my neck. And when he stopped laughing, he kept smiling, the skin on his face stretched fully from side to side and up and down. I wanted to grab either side of his mouth and pull to see how big his smile could grow. He asked me, “What exciting stories do you have?”

..........“I don’t have any exciting stories,” i answered. That wasn’t true. Losing my brother and sister was an exciting story, but it was sadder than it was engrossing. “Do you?”
..........“Yes, “ he said. I held my breath till he began to speak. “I used to be able to fly.”
..........“No, you couldn’t,” i threw back at him. I was too old to be told fairy tales as if i should believe them. “Don’t tell me stories.”
..........“I wouldn’t tell you stories that weren’t true,” he said and he was suddenly somber. “I used to be able to fly.”
..........I was silent. He ate a few more french fries and then continued. “The first time i flew i was around your age. I was living near the tip of Elephant Trunk, close to your old house. We had a house next to Tusk Cliff. Do you know it?”
..........I nodded. It was a very long drop down to the precious water. Even the most devoted agreed that it was generally a bad idea to take the jump, so mostly teenage boys did it behind their parents’ backs.
..........“My best friend and i always wanted to take the jump because his big brother and his friends did, but my dad always watched us from the house,” he said. “But mostly i was scared.
..........My friend stayed the night once and we slept in a tent in the backyard. In the middle of the night, we snuck to the cliff. There’s a railing and i think even a barbed-wire fence along the edge, but there are also trails left behind from everyone else that had ever snuck in. We probably should have done some reconnoitering in the daylight, but we didn’t think our plan through. Creeping past one of the fences, Tom slipped and began to tumble. Before i knew it, i jumped after him. Gravity didn’t take me down. I was able to control my descent and I swooped under Tom and carried him to a narrow landing in the cliff. We flew back up to the top.”

..........The short-order cook walked back into the kitchen and on his way said, “Luke.”
..........“Break’s over,” Luke said. “I’ll get you an ice cream cone if you want.”
..........By degrees, my disappointment sank in. Our time together was over and I was just beginning to learn Luke’s story. “But your story’s not over.”
..........“For now, it is.”
..........“But i have questions.”
As he led me up the steps and toward the kitchen, i thought i heard him say, “So do i.”
Did your dad find out? Was Tom okay? Why can't you fly anymore? Who else knows? I couldn't stop the flow of questions in my brain and as Luke led me to the front door, one spilled out: "Do you have wings?"
He looked around, not as if checking to see if anyone was listening, but as if receiving guidance from an unseen guru. For the first time, he looked at his stump with self-consciousness. Luke bent down and whispered to me, "I used to."

Just Like You.

..........The sparrows were beginning to get fat, which meant that winter was approaching. Winter is my favorite season. I get close to cold, so much snow. I lie down in the middle of it without a jacket and make endless snow angels. And other people swim less in the winter and, and water in general becomes less and less of a practical means of transport.

..........But it was still fall, early fall no less, despite the girth of the sparrows. Leaves clung to the trees and turned bright colors from the struggle to remain attached to the tree. Just let go, i thought, when i saw them turn red, orange, yellow. The trees were always on fire in the fall. Sitting in our concrete backyard, i thought of the tree, the monster tree demon from my first house, my real house. It was turning colors now. If i were home, i could sit inside the trunk and wait for the leaves to fall toward Earth, toward me.

..........Sitting in the concrete backyard was the safest escape route from my home to the Overhead Diner. Safest from my mother. Once i announced i was going outside, my mother set up shop in the living room and assumed that i would return. If she ever questioned me, i insisted that i had been in the backyard the whole time. Lying didn’t make me so hot anymore.

..........I may have been safe from my mother, but fleeing from the backyard was tortuous to my little body. The escape involved sneaking into the alley between our house and the next. The alley was big enough for feral cats to wander through, but even a skinny 8-almost-9-year-old girl had problems. My torso snaked through easily enough, but my pelvis was crammed against either house. The first time i tried, i though ti was going to get stuck. When i didn’t get stuck, i was sure i would be crushed. I exhaled all of my breath so i’d be as tiny as possible. The front of my pelvis and my sacrum jammed toward one another and all my little organs got squished. Shimmying and squeezing inch by inch across three or four yards where the alley became its narrowest, i managed to come out on the other side. I’m probably bleeding internally, i thought. So i ran to the Overhead Diner so i could see Luke one last time before i died tragically.

..........On my way to the diner, i tried to believe with all my heart that i was invisible so that i would actually become invisible. I couldn’t have anyone telling my mother that i had been sneaking around without her. It must have worked because no one ever said anything to her and much to my surprise, no one said anything to me. They knew who i was. My size and my age were tiny, but my reputation was enormous and frightening.

..........These are the people i left in the dust on the way to the diner. An old man who probably wasn't that old. He sat on his bench when the weather was warm. When my mother and i moved to this house, the weather was still a bit chilly and the house he lived in was dark and cold. As spring emerged, so did the old man, as if it were the first time he had ever been outside, as if he were younger than i because he had been trapped in the womb of his house for his whole life. This man smiled at me as i passed. Every time.

..........Next to him was an old couple with adult twin sons living with them. One of the sons had had an accident decades ago. He walked hunched and with a cane. No matter the weather, he wore a wool hat. It was perpetually 5 o'clock on his face and he looked at the world through thick, dirty lenses. His eyes were clouded, but i could tell that he didn't see the world the same way other adults did. His mother still took care of him. His brother had lived away from this house for 25 years. He returned three years ago, widowed with no children, after his father had his first stroke. His mother took care of his brother, her son. He took care of his father, her husband. Their bench sat three; thus i rarely saw all four of them sitting outside together. Gravity had sagged the mother's face into a permanent scowl and she never, not once, turned up the corners of her mouth at me. The father breathed at me through an open mouth or else, he was asleep when i passed. The good brother smiled openly at me. Before i knew the difference, i smiled a few times at the other brother. He snapped his eyes to the ground when i did, until one day he shouted, "Stop doing that!" The good brother was with him and my mother was with me. He explained to her his family's situation and i listened.

..........The automechanic who slim-jimmed my mother's car each time she locked her keys inside or who helped her turn her engine over. Whatever that means.

..........The college-age-but-not-in-college boys who smoked cigarettes outside and left butts in their mothers' yards.

..........The ultra-orthodox grandmother who sat on her stoop with her tiny grandson and told him water myths.

..........The homeless man who came from nowhere and began helping the woman who ran the 99¢-store. I wasn't sure at first if he was loitering, but evenutally i saw him sweeping, breaking down cardboard boxes. Then his clothes started to look cleaner and newer. I was surprised by his sense of fashion.

..........I may not have actually managed to turn myslef invisible, but i was able to distance myself enough so that i looked at my neighbors through a pane of glass, like i wasn't looking through my eyes, but somewhere far behind them. We looked at each other like we were at a zoo. I don't know who was the animal. Probably me. The neighbors figured out our story from the stream of relatives that flowed in and out during our first few weeks here.

..........The moment before i stepped into the diner, i told myself that i wasn’t invisible anymore so that Luke would be able to see me. Without my mother with me, i was overwhelmed by the size of the restaurant, by the size of the chairs and booths, by the size of the table, by the size of the adults. The battle-weary adults bitterly sipped coffee and ate mushy scrambled eggs with bits of the shell left in. These were the people my mother was talking about when she told me not to go anywhere with a stranger: “You never know what someone might do.”

..........One of them, fat and muscular with long, dirty curly light brown hair and a full beard, leather-jacketed and earringed, the whole package of evil, turned to me and smiled. I was already guilty with paranoia about sneaking out against my mother’s warnings. Perhaps if he hadn’t smiled with his teeth i wouldn’t have thought of my brother playing the tree demon : “LITTLE GIRLS ARE MY FAVORITE SNACK!” Perhaps i would have screamed for my life if i hadn’t learned not to. For the first time in my life, i knew what it was to be frozen.
“Did you drop your ice cream cone again?” a voice at the counter, behind the face of evil was talking to me. Thank God for heroes who show up when they are supposed to.

..........Lots of words, sentences, fragments, images offered themselves to my mouth for use as a response. Don’t let him eat me! Don’t tell my mom i’m here! Whay are you nice to me when no one else is? Will you be my friend? I like your hand and your stump. I love you. (That one was a surprise and more surprising is that i admit to thinking it as early as then.) What my mouth accepted was the very innocuous declaration, “It’s not free scoop day!” It wasn’t. My mother and i had come in on a Wednesday. It was Monday.

..........“Everyday is free scoop day for you,” he said, gesturing for me to approach the counter. My mouth had thawed, but my feet were still stuck to the floor. My eyes gave my fear away. I tried to keep them centered on Luke, but like metal to magnets they swayed toward the face of evil. “Have you met Brian? He’s a regular, just like you.”

..........Someone was just like me. That had never happened before. I walked up to the counter and Brian helped me into a seat.

Luke. Luke. Luke.

..........Home-schooling with my mother was a joke. It was like getting a huge box with pretty wrapping and cute bows on it and opening it and realizing that the box is empty. I got to do whatever i wanted, whenever i wanted. I learned what was interested to me and i ignored completely what was boring or too challenging. Home-schooling was an autonomous project, so i graduated to the next grade whenever my mother was ready to move me on, regardless of what i had studied or learned.

..........But the home-schooling meant that my mother and i had to spend a great deal of time together alone. This was often unbearable for my mother, so we frequently went out to lunch so we could be with more people, even if we weren’t really with them. A few times a week, we would walk a mile to the Overhead Diner. The Overhead is the method of transportation used by those unfortunates who can’t travel by water. It is a system of elevated trains that don’t run very regularly or well. The cars have glass bottoms, though. The poor pitied children who have to use the Overhead lay their bellies on the floor and look at the water below. They thrash and kick whatever legs and arms they have, pretending to swim. Everyone says, “Awww...”

..........The Overhead Diner was adjacent to the Elephant Trunk Station, the station nearest to our house. I have a blurry memory of being there once when i was young enough to be held in my mother’s arms and my brother and my sister were pushed in a stroller. The hands on the stroller were big and thick like slabs of beef. Whose hands were they?

..........My clearer memories come after my brother’s and my sister’s deaths. The first time i went alone with my mother, i was terrified. Everyone was dirty and poor. The men looked like they would kill you after they raped you. The women were 1000 year-old madams who still knew how to draw lonely customers. The servers had runny noses and phlegmy coughs. I never would have gone in, but my mother held my hand so tightly that i had no choice. We sat ourselves, please, as the sign said.

..........“Hi, sweetie ” the wrinkled waitress gushed. “Do you know it’s free ice-cream day? Maybe if you’re a good girl and you eat all your lunch, your mommy will let you have a free cone.”

..........The waitress must not have known who we were. She was looking me in the eye and smiling without any kind of fear or pity.

..........“Of course she’ll be a good girl,” my mother said.

..........I ordered french fries and grilled cheese and my mother made me order broccoli. I watched the waitresses serve all the freaky, scary customers. The rejects were accepted here. There were no questions asked. There were no judgements passed. I had mistakenly thought that everyone here was dangerous, the same assumption that had been made about me. I wanted to come back here again and again.

..........I finished my overcooked broccoli and was granted one scoop of vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone. I held it in two hands as we left the diner.

..........“Hold my hand,” my mother said before we began to descend the stairs. Letting go of the cone with my right hand, my weak, unsteady left hand let the cone wobble and on the first step i lost my free cone.

..........“Can we get another one?” I asked urgently.

..........“I don’t think so, honey,” my mother said. “I think you just get one free.”

..........“Can you buy me another one?” I asked. Somehow, having the cone marked the momentous occasion of finding a place where i could be as freaky as i was without the usual repercussions.

..........“Wait! ” the waitress called from inside. She motioned to a little boy, but one who was bigger to me. He approached as she barked an order at him. He ran toward the kitchen and the waitress came outside with a wet towel. “Luke’ll be out with another cone in a minute.”

..........My mother thanked the waitress profusely and they cleaned my mess together. Luke came out while they were cleaning. In one hand he held a paper cup, covered by a sugar cone. “This way it’s easier to carry, but you still get a cone.” His other hand was behind his back.

..........“Thank you.”
We stood not far from one another. He asked quietly, “Didn’t your brother and your sister die in the water a few years ago?”

..........My face flushed with fire, but i nodded.

..........He looked out at the water. “It’s not always so gentle.” He turned to go back inside. I saw the arm he had held behind him. It was missing its hand.

..........“Don’t stare,” my mother whispered and we walked down the stairs and back home.

..........Are you waiting for the romance? I am. It is the best part of any story. But not yet. The weather isn’t right.

..........I found it odd that i should ever be warned against staring. I drew stares; i did not give them. I would have stared after the boy, after Luke, even if he had had both hands. I had stared at the words he had spoken, not at his deformity.

..........“‘The water’s not always so gentle.’”

..........You would not know that from our literature or our modern culture. There were volumes of poems and pop songs that made reference to the sweetness, the kindness, the gentleness, the niceness, the graciousness, the goodness, the gracefulness of the water.

A love song came into my head:

I know why i’m such a fool,
You’re gentle like water, just as cool.

“Just as Cool” was sung by a woman with a deep, molasses voice. It was one of the few records that my mother had. Before we did dishes that night, i asked if we could play it. As it played and we washed and dried, i asked about Luke. I knew that i was leaving the stage in which adults would accept my ignorance as an excuse for socially awkward questions. But i knew i had not yet left completely.

..........“Do you think that boy can swim?” i asked.
..........(You rush out only to rush back inside)
..........“What boy?” as if we had seen several boys that day whose ability to swim could be called into question. “Luke? From the diner?”
..........“Mm-hmm.”
..........(Back and forth, you are my second tide)
..........“I know he can swim, “ she said. “I have seen him do such on several occasions.”
..........(I dive in you. You crash on me.)
..........“Like in the kiddy disabled pools?”
..........“No, honey, in the big water.”
..........(and leave me wrecked, scattered with your debris.)

..........I was silent. He was a little bit of a freak, but mostly normal. But why was he at the Overhead Diner?
..........“The waitress is his grandmother. His grandfather - her husband- and she own it,” my mother explained.

..........“Where are his parents?”

..........(But your warmth, your wet, your blue)

..........“His father died when he was a baby and his mother is sick.” My mother said sick in the tone of voice that meant she was not expected to get better.

..........I had never seen my mother with adults who were not relatives or medical professionals, aka, THE DOCTOR. How did she know so much about these people?

..........“You know i grew up on Elephant Trunk,“ she said. “People know each other.”

..........(Too much for me to say no tooooooooooo...)

..........This was the question i knew i wasn’t supposed to ask. A year ago, i would not have known it was wrong. I pretended i was a year younger and asked, “Do you know how Luke lost his hand?” Luke. Luke. Luke. The taste of his name in my mouth was surprisingly soothing. Almost cold.

..........“He never had it to begin, “ she told me. “He was born without it.”
..........(I oughta build a dam, but HA - goddamn )
..........“Did his mother smoke when she was pregnant with him?” I was pushing into dangerous territory with these questions. Blaming the mother for the child’s woes. I was too curious about Luke Luke Luke.

..........(How strong of a woman do you think i am?)
..........“No.”
..........“Did she drink?”
..........“No.”
..........(I oughta build a bridge so i can walk over you.)
..........“No.”
..........(Or a long tunnel so i can walk right through.)
..........“Did she fall?”
..........(I know why i’m such a fool.)
..........“No.”
..........“Did she– ..”
..........“Sometimes things just happen, honey,” my mother shushed me. I expected her to sound more scolding, more upset, but i think she enjoyed the music. The song began its ending and my mother sang along. “You’re gentle like water, just as cruel.”
..........“Just as cool,” i corrected. She did not say anything. We washed dishes in silence, just letting the molasses fill in the cracks. I thought i could get away with one more question. I had to ask it; it was burning in my mouth. “Did Luke- Is Luke water-born?”
..........“I wasn’t there,” she said, as i she might have been invited for some reason, “but i assume so. Elephant Trunk is too small. I’d know if he weren’t.”
..........The dishes were done soon and the record was soon over. So was our conversation. I brushed my teeth and washed my face and prepared for the silence of the night that overtook our house. He still visited at night. My mother came into my room to tuck me in.
..........“I liked the diner,” i said. It was sort of the truth. What i liked was Luke.
..........“We’ll go back there,” she said.
..........“Can i play with Luke?”
..........“He’s a lot older than you, 8 years older,” she informed me and as if she remembered that she was to be my mother and my teacher, she asked, “What eight plus nine?”
..........“17,” i responded quickly. I liked math. “He looks much younger. He was nice to me.”
..........“He’s a nice boy,” my mother said. “But he also has to work while he’s at the diner. He probably can’t play.”

..........I wanted Luke to be my friend so badly, my first friend. In my mind, we were already friends and he wanted to play with me as much as i wanted to lay with him. I got excited repeating his cooling name over and over again in my head and when my mother left, on my lips. His concealed arm came into my mind and I wondered if he was ashamed of his missing hand. I wanted to talk to him at least once more to tell him that he shouldn’t be.

..........“Good night, honey.”
..........“Good night.”
..........Luke. Luke. Luke. I whispered to myself as i coolly fell asleep. But my dreams were on fire.



..........I wasn’t ready to burn or to drown and the fire consumed me. Indeed, i was drowning in fire, burning in water. Oxymoron. Here i am, the worst of all oxymorons. I’m ridiculous. No one likes me. Worse than that, no one understands me. That’s what they are telling me anyway. No one will ever understand me until the fire inside me gets hotter hotter hottest and begins to seep out of my skin. My pores will be like little chimneys and billowing smoke will rise from them and i will pollute everything around that is around me. I will run to cool off. But there will be no cooling off. My body will set itself on fire. No surprise -- non-spontaneous combustion. I am waiting for it. Everyday is like this: one more day of not exploding. Another day of not exploding. Again, i wake up and i have not exploded. They will find me and my body will be barbecue charred, skin burnt to the bone. Ash, most of me, purified clean, finally. Finally clean and that’s when they will begin their discovering. That is when they will begin their questioning. How did she? Why did she? What? And salvage my remains and compare them with my mothers’ and my fathers’. But where the hell is my father anyway? Who is my father after all? Where is my father’s burnt burnt burnt body, burnt down like the rest of us, DOWN WITH THIS LEGACY No one will pass it down. I see them burning even now. I see all of them burning even now and my mother and my father throwing me throwing me throwing me away into the water. Into the water. I don’t know who it was. My mother know i hated the water. She knew the water hated me. And my father was stopping her? She meant to come right in after me, but my father stopped her. Was the water burning? Was the house on the hill burning? The house was burning. The children were all burning. Daddy Da-deee My mother jumped in and rescued me, but it was almost too late. She gave me to the water. She didn’t know what it was capable of. It wanted to come inside me and fill up every last corner of me and make me dissolve into it and make me exist as it and then she swam, somehow carrying me, carrying me along. My father is screaming: “Luke Luke ”


..........When i woke up, i knew my mother had been lying about something. My birthday was coming soon. When it did, i could ask about my father.

My Temperature Rose.

..........My first lie. My temperature rose. My face must have changed color quickly because my mother called my name and reached out for me. I saw my mother and then i saw the cracked, gray ceiling as i passed out from the heat of my first lie.

..........We lied because it was less hurtful than the truth. Then we lied because the truth was too much trouble. Then we lied because we got used to it.

..........We didn’t go to the zoo that day; we went instead to THE DOCTOR. I don’t remember his name. I’m sure that there were many doctors and that some of them were hims, some of them were hers. Some of them were nurses or physicians’s assistants. Some of them were specialists; some of them were general pracititioners. Some of them were warm and friendly; some of them were bitches. They were nameless and from my point of view, usually faceless. They were scared and they were confused. Whoever and whatever they were, they were THE DOCTOR.

..........My memories of THE DOCTOR come to me like late-night tv. Flipping the channels from the couch, flashes of images lingering long enough to comprehend, reject and move on. Or those images that are too vague and confusing, so i stick around a little longer to figure out what that sound was, whose voice that was, who belonged to that manicured hand. White, the color white, against many different shades of skin, the color white faded to gray or new bright white, stained white, the white of polyester labcoats, the white of the walls, the white of q-tips and cotton balls, the white of sanitary paper lain across the white doctor’s table, the white light shining from the white ceiling.

..........“What happened today?” THE DOCTOR asked my mother. She told him how i had lost consciousness as he placed a thermometer under my tongue. “Breathe through your nose, ok?”

..........My temperature would be 108 degrees, like always, but like always, the doctor would show a face of alarm for a moment and then remember. “All right. No higher than usual. We can be thankful for the small things.

..........The day we were supposed to go to the zoo and instead went to the doctor, the doctor insisted on keeping me cold for a few hours to lessen the likelihood that my temperature would rise. As the nurse took me to a room adjacent to his office, The Doctor questioned my mother.

..........“Has she seemed sick or listless lately?” The nurse laid me in the tub and begin filling it with cold water.

..........“No.”

..........She began adding ice to the water.

..........“And emotionally? How is she handling the loss?”

..........“I - my family has been taking care of her mostly,” she said. I watched my legs and feet disappear under the layers of ice.

..........“Is it too cold?” the nurse whispered to me. I shook my head. I couldn’t remember what cold felt like.

..........My mother went on. “I haven’t been- it’s been difficult. Today was one of the first days without help.”
..........My legs and feet came back into view as the heat of my body melted the ice.

..........“I’d like you to start taking something for your grief and your anxiety,” The Doctor said, writing a prescription. “You have to be able to take care of yourself. I can put you into contact with someone you can talk to if you like.”

..........My mother smiled up at The Doctor. “Thank you, but i’m not sure if my insurance will cover anything anymore. I haven’t been working since.”

..........The Doctor put his hand on my mother’s knee. He looked through his office door at me lying in the bathtub. I remember his face. The Doctor was handsome. He stood up. “Careful that the tub doesn’t overflow. The ice is already melting.” He turned to close the door. For a moment, i caught my mother’s eye, who shot her eyes to the floor. I saw the nurse look toward the closing door. She looked at me. “Still not cold?” She was smiling too much.

..........My mother got a job very soon after that. Armed with major health insurance, my mother’s battle with my unnamed illness began in full. Not a fortnight passed without a visit to The Doctor. This is when the collage of memory begins. Whiteness surrounding me talking about the heat inside of me. Talking to each other about me. Talking over me. Talking around me. Testing me. I hated the tests because I always failed them. I took their medicines. Pills that were green and small and oval and white pills that were big and round. Translucent red liquid. Yellow injections. Needles. IVs. Icebaths. Cold compresses. I took the medicine. I took the tests. I failed the tests. I took different medicine. I took the same and different tests. I failed those and continued the merry-go-round. “She’s not responding to the drugs.”

..........I’m doing my best, i thought.

..........They made me talk to someone you could talk to if you like. She was not a big woman, but the attention she placed on me was overwhelming. I felt her attention was surrounding me, as if everything i did was important and crucial. If i couldn’t get my body to respond to the drugs, i could at least control the words that i said to this woman who was so fascinated by me. I said very little and eventually, she would give me construction paper, glue, stickers and crayons. I spent every Friday out of school playing and coloring.

..........She always wanted to keep my drawings and I always let her, except once. I had drawn a picture of my brother and my sister. They were at the bottom of the ocean and i was jumping in to rescue them. I didn’t give it to her because i didn’t want anyone to know that i thought my brother and my sister were still alive, just waiting for me to save them. Instead of handing over the picture, i ripped it up and ate half of it. The next week, i told my mother that i would rather go to school than talk to the woman. That was remarkable because school was like drowning.

..........School hated me as much as the water did. They were in cahoots, i knew it. Everyone at school knew who i was and made assumptions about what had happened to my brother and my sister. The worst rumor was that i had planned to kill them and when they tried to escape, i had held them down in the water until their terrified bodies stopped thrashing and kicking. I didn’t care (or at least, i got used to) about the kids saying that i had diseases, that i was dirty (because i couldn’t take baths), that i was retarded. I didn’t care that the teachers were as rude and ignorant as the students they should have been protecting me from. I didn’t care that, as of age 10, i had never had one friend. But i couldn’t get over the fact that people thought that i had ever wanted to cause any kind of harm to my brother and my sister.

..........The girl who started the rumor had thick black hair, the kind that almost turns blue, the kind you could swim in. One day, at lunch, she took sips of water from her glass and spit them out at me.

..........“Stop ” i cried.
..........“Stop ” she and her friends mimicked me.
..........“Stop ” i yelled back. For a few minutes, they did stop, only to resume again.
..........“Stop ” i said and this time i got up and walked toward their table.
..........“Why?” the girl with the thick blue-black hair asked. “Why don’t you like the water? What’s wrong with the water?” Her friends giggled. I was too easy of a target. I didn’t like the water, but how could i explain why?

..........“Why don’t you like the water?” another girl joined in. “Why? Why? Why?” Each time she asked why, another girl would spit on me.
whywhywhywhywhy

..........Why indeed?

..........“Because it killed my brother and my sister ” The declaration came out as a reflex, a truth reflex finally triggered by bitchy, insecure little girls, holding onto their popularity by holding someone else down. It was a fearful declaration to hear, even for these bitches. Remember: fear breeds hatred.

..........“Liar! ” the blue-black girl screamed. “You killed your brother and sister. You were jealous because the water hates you.”

..........“Shut up ”

..........“It’s true ” she cried. “You should be in jail, but your mother’s too afraid of you! ”

..........That was enough. I leapt over their table which was the only thing separating us. I took her and her chair down. I wailed and raised my hand to smack her, but stopped when i saw the blood pouring from the back of her head. Her friends saw it a moment after i did, but it was moment enoguh for me to run away. I heard them screaming, “OHMYGOD She’s deadshe’sdead.youkilledher.shekilledhershekilledohmygo-o-o-d ”

..........I did not kill her. The cut was superficial, but the head bleeds a lot. She only had a concussion and a couple of stitches, but this did not improve my reputation.

..........I was just so confused as to why anyone would think i was something to be feared. What i remember most is being scared of myself and sad and alone. I never felt the anger until it was making me leap across tables.

..........After i jumped that blue-black girl, i missed a lot of school, almost everyday. I was scared of retaliation. I need not have been. No one was brave enough to touch me. It was as if they had not believed the rumors of my violence (the ones they themselves had spread) till they saw it. Now that they knew it was real, they didn’t speak about it. No one wants to talk about the truth. My teacher and my principal suggested to my mother that i be home-schooled because i caused such a disturbance.

..........“But she was provoked ” my mother protested. “And she’s never been in trouble before this incident.” It was true. But my mother knew that her words were unheard. She knew my actions were not disturbing; my mere presence was a disruption.

..........My mother had to cut back her work hours. She lost the major health insurance and instead of turning tricks for prescripts, she surrendered and let my illness run free through my body.

..........But i never felt ill. Ill is weak and tired. Ill is when you have to use a wheel chair and take the elevator all the time, not just because it’s fun. Ill is someone giving you a spongebath. Ill is forgetting your name, your mother’s name, your husband’s name. Ill is forgetting who you are and mistaking your illness for your identity.
I was never ill. I was strong and fast and actice and i took care of myself. And i never knew who i was anyway, so i had no identity to lose.

..........I was simply hot. Hot on the inside hot to touch constantly sweating. I took ice-cold showers that turned into saunas because of my temperature. My room in my mother’s house doubled and tripled our electricity bill because it had to be air conditioned through all four seasons. I still woke up with wet sheets. My diet was cold food that was cooked on the heat of my tongue. I was not comfortable, but i had surrendered to the idea that i was not supposed to be. No one else could understand. How can you always be hot? Aren’t you uncomfortable? Does it have anything to do with your not swimming? Do you know what cold feels like?
But that line of questioning was not intended to shed any light on my condition so that they could better understand so we could like in a more peaceful union. No matter the words of the question or the form of it or the tone of it. They weren’t truly questions at all; they were reminders. “You know that you’re a freak, right? You know that you’re not like anyone else, right? You know that everyone is scared of you or repulsed by you, right?

..........Not everyone.