Fallout
Nikki Tate
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2011 Nikki Tate All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Tate, Nikki, 1962-
Fallout [electronic resource] / Nikki Tate.
(Orca soundings)
Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55469-273-6
I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings (Online)
PS8589.A8735F34 2011A JC813’.54 C2011-903356-9
First published in the United States, 2011
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929242
Summary: After the death of her sister, Tara struggles to deal with her guilt through slam poetry.
Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover photography by dreamstime.com
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14 13 12 11 • 4 3 2 1
For those who stepped back from the edge
and turned to the future.
Rain bashes lilies
left at her headstone
smashes petals
leaves them ugly, forlorn.
Didn’t she know
how flowers melt into accusations
how they paint ragged smears
over granite
over grass
over graves?
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
My sister, Hannah, bought a bottle of vodka from some guy she met outside the liquor store. I doubt Hannah knew his name. She probably didn’t care. Hannah, by that point, didn’t care about much.
She was fifteen, which is why she needed this guy to buy the booze. Maybe he felt sorry for the girl with the crutches. Maybe he thought a drink would make her feel better. Maybe she paid him.
The police found the bottle. It was half empty and still inside a brown paper bag. What’s amazing is the bottle wasn’t broken. Not like Hannah. A kid with crutches is no match for the front end of a bus.
What was she thinking before she took that last step? Did she think about me? Mom and Dad? Did she wonder if it would hurt? Did she think about the mess she would leave behind? Or did she just take a deep breath and step out into traffic?
My sister took a lot of secrets to her grave.
I wasn’t there when Hannah stepped in front of the bus. In my nightmares, though, I stand behind her on the curb. Then, I push her.
The bus brakes squeal. I scream, “Stop!”
Every dream ends with me on a stage. I am naked. All I have to protect me is my poetry. I yell poem after poem at the audience, trying to make them understand.
I killed my sister.
She won’t let me forget.
Chapter Two
“Put your hands together for Tara Manson!”
I step into the spotlight. The audience is out there, though I can’t see them.
This moment is mine. I can say anything in my poems.
and jumped
into churning waters
So deep there is no bottom?
I have. At the waterslides.
There’s always a chuckle after I say that line. Maybe I look too heavy to be a waterslide type. Whatever. It’s my job to deliver the poem. The audience hears what they want to hear.
I change my voice so I sound like I’m in a commercial.
Splash Kingdom!
Your fun in the sun
place to plunge
in and away from
what really matters.
Then I go back to my normal voice.
So what
if the phone ringing
in your beach bag
needs to be answered.
Here, I point at the audience.
No. You don’t get it.
Not like a hey, hi, how’s it going?
see you later, whatever
kind of call
but a message you need to get now
not tomorrow
not some other time
but right this second or
someone will die.
Then I start again, softly.
When fun calls
it’s wrong to ignore
sun and sweat
skin on skin
his lips on mine
my lips drinking him in
this wild ride down
slippery when wet
curves ahead.
Fun is all good, right?
Here’s where I speed up and get louder.
THIS is all that matters
because we only live once
and all that living
is churned and pushed into
one glorious afternoon at the
waterslides.
You hear what I’m saying?
How can they hear what I’m saying? I can speak fast and loud, but they can’t really know what it was like that day last summer. One year ago—today. The whole, long, sun-baked day David and I played, splashed, laughed…while Hannah was—
The sound of fingers clicking moves through the audience. They think I’ve lost my place. This is their way of telling me to keep going.
Plunge feet first
Down Big Mountain
Time Tunnel
Jumbo Splash
Race and giggle
catch each other
and sprint to the snack stand
hot dogs and plastic cheese.
I ignore the ringing phone, for once.
Turn my back on her, for once.
Snap it shut. Click it off, for once.
Toss it under a damp towel
and forget
that outside this moment
in my heat-soaked day
a tragedy unfolds
one phone call away.
The applause washes over me. I dip in a modest bow.
Rick, the host, shakes my hand. “Careful going down the steps,” he says. “Judges, let’s see your scores for Miss Tara…”
He calls them out. The low score is a 7.1 and the high an 8.9. That should be enough to get me through to the second round of the poetry slam.
When I touch my fingertip to my cheek, it’s wet. When I touch my fingertip to my tongue, I taste salt.
Chapter Three
Outside the Koffie Klub it’s muggy. I’m still not used to t
his humid Ontario summer weather. On the west coast it cools off at night. Not here in Camden.
I know why they called. It’s the first anniversary, and I should have checked in. But it will be awful to talk to them. We will have to remember what we don’t want to remember. What we can’t forget. It’s not like we haven’t been warned. The counselor also told us that it’s normal to imagine the worst when we don’t hear from a surviving family member. Surviving. Barely.
I flip through the list of missed calls again. David’s number isn’t there. He’s probably thinking about the same thing I am—that day at the waterslides. Like me, he’s probably replaying that moment in the day when I could have stopped her—and didn’t. He was there. He knows. The knowledge binds us together even though he’s in Vancouver and I’m here.
People shuffle in and out of the Koffie Klub. Sweat leaks from my pits. My bra strap has glued itself to my back. I can’t go too far, but I need to move.
This month is a big one for poetry slams. Four cafés are hosting a series of competitions. They’ll add up points to see who will be on the team going to Nationals. The team is organized by the Camden Slammers, a group of local poets who make the local slams happen. The slams are so popular they make almost enough at the door to pay for an all-expenses-paid trip to Corinthian for the winners. Corinthian is a small city that’s being swallowed by Toronto. It may not be that far away, and putting us up might mean hostels and cheap food, but there are plenty of us who would love to go.
On good days I imagine inviting David to meet me in Corinthian. Who am I kidding? David won’t be in the front row, clapping.
Anyway, I’m not good enough to make the team.
“Don’t go too far! You have another round!” Amy, one of the slam organizers yells after me. She waves when I turn to look back. “You and Ebony do the next one together, right?”
“I know!” I shout. Even if I want to walk forever, I can’t let Ebony down. We’ve worked too hard. Returning phone calls is going to have to wait.
Poetry has taken over everything. My friendships. My spare time. My dreams. I get in trouble at the bookstore when I scribble in my notebook instead of doing my job.
Maybe I don’t get paid to write poetry, but if I don’t write down my ideas, they are gone. I bet half the people who work in bookstores are writers. I don’t say this to my supervisor. Sometimes it’s better to keep your head down and your mouth shut.
Back in the café, Ebony and I wait in the shadows at the side of the stage. Round two is about to start.
“Don’t think about who’s watching,” Ebony says. “The judges like whatever they like.”
She’s right. The judges flip their plastic number cards as they listen to the poets. They hold up the scores just like in figure skating. We are here to share poetry, yes. But we are also here to win.
“Ready?” Amy says. “You guys are up next.”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I like the way Ebony and I have worked this poem out. Ebony only has one word to say. She repeats it over and over. That creates a kind of rhythm, the beat for my story. We step onto the stage.
My mouth is so dry my tongue sticks to my teeth. We have up to three minutes. Three minutes can feel like forever, especially when things aren’t going well.
And if you go overtime? Well, the audience lets loose with a chant of:
You rat bastard—you’re ruining it
for everyone…
But it was weeeelll worth it.
I push my palms into the folds of my skirt and step up to the microphone. Ebony does the same thing a few feet away.
Ebony starts.
Ring. Ring.
Her voice is clear, beautiful. I speak next.
Sister, where were you when you called?
The words take over. I move in ways I do not move unless I am in the grip of a poem.
Right on time, Ebony’s voice comes in again.
Ring. Ring.
Sister, where were you when you
called?
What would you have said if...
Ring.
If I had answered the phone
turned away from the easy heat of
summer
the splash of water against
the how-much-fun-is-this slide?
Ring. Ring. Ring.
If I had answered
would you have told me
your current location?
Coffee shop?
Street corner?
Parking lot outside the liquor
store
where you smiled—actually
smiled—
at that young man whose name
you probably never knew
though I know
and can never forget
Kenyon.
Ring. Ring.
Kenyon who had no idea
the fragile glass
the Smirnoff in the brown paper bag
would somehow survive the impact.
Kenyon. An innocent guilty young
man
saw a thirsty girl
balanced on crutches
alone, a little sad. Nothing a drink
couldn’t help. Nothing a favor for
a stranger
or a kind word
couldn’t fix.
Here, we begin to speak together. Ebony’s Ring Ring overlaps with my own.
The phone rings and rings.
Ring. Ring…
Her ringing gets louder and louder until, at the end of the next section, we are speaking together. Our voices are loud and harsh and ugly.
If you had told me where you were
would I have left behind
my beach bag, sunshine, hot dog
loud music, playground of
The Now and come to you?
Rings and rings and rings and
rings.
And if I had found you,
would you have told me what you
were about to do?
Ring. Ring.
If you had spoken
would I have believed you?
Ring.
If I had believed you
could I have stopped you?
Ring.
Even now, three hundred and
sixty-five
days later
and counting
that phone rings
Ring.
and rings
day and night
Ring.
rings through my dreams
Ring.
rings in my morning
Ring ring ring
ringsringsringsrings
Will it ever stop, sister?
The applause is loud when we step back from the microphones. Ebony wraps me in a tight hug.
“Good job!” she says in my ear. “Perfect.”
Chapter Four
“Will you be okay, walking home alone?”
“I’ll be fine.” I wait with Ebony until her bus comes.
Ebony and I both did well tonight— she was third and I took fourth out of ten competing poets. The scores we got for the poem we did together don’t help us against each other since we both got the same number of points. But the judges usually like good teamwork, so the higher scores are helpful against the other poets.
There were a lot of good things about tonight.
Licking whipped cream from my upper lip.
Giggling at a poem about cats and dogs running big banks.
Ebony whispering “Perfect” in my ear.
My good mood should have carried me all the way home. Instead, my phone rings somewhere deep in my purse. It’s so late!
I’ve changed the ringtone at least twenty times in the last year but it doesn’t help. If I hear the phone, something in my gut squeezes tight. No matter whose number flashes on the display, if I hear the ring I must answer.
“Hi, Mom
.”
“Honey—hi. How are you doing?”
She sounds like she’s out of breath.
“Fine. Busy.”
“How is work?” she asks.
“Fine. Busy. How about you?”
“I’m leaving for a conference in Denver tomorrow. I wanted to make sure we—talked—before I leave. I’m taking two of the senior sales guys…”
I tune out while she goes on about work. Then she switches to how she had an offer on the house that fell through. “The wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Such a shame.”
I hold the phone a little away from my ear and keep moving through the dark streets of my neighborhood. She keeps blabbing.
She has no clue she has ruined the end of my evening. Will she say something about Hannah? She almost never does. How can she go along with her oh-so-important life and never mention her other daughter? You know, the one who died? Doesn’t she miss her?
“Are you still doing your poetry?”
“Hm.” Mom doesn’t care about poetry. She and Dad never went to my slams back when I lived at home. Mom said it gave her a headache to listen to people yelling about all the terrible things that happen in the world. “None of it rhymes!” she complained. Except for the rappers. She hated them too. They talked so fast she couldn’t keep up.
After Hannah died, I knew Mom wouldn’t want to hear what I had to say. I stopped inviting her and she never invited herself. Then I moved to Ontario.
She’d probably kill me if she heard the poem I performed a couple of weeks ago. Then she’d have two dead daughters she wouldn’t talk about.
I can say this because you aren’t here
you’re in San Francisco, New York Saskatoon, God-knows-where
with your Yes, boss
how high, boss?
yes-men
standing at attention by your side.
“I worry about you, Tara.”
I bet you do.
Does it make you feel better
taller?
smarter?
to jet off