water chalk it up to global warming
I
guess.
I kind of wished there was a
cold
breeze
that way maybe we’d have to
move closer.
Still
it was something being by the
water
with her
breathing
in all that
fresh
air.
I felt high and I didn’t smoke since that morning.
We didn’t say
nothing
for a while we just
sat and
looked at the sun the way it
shined in
patches over the
ripples and the ducks the way they
glided over the
patches and the
ripples so smooth and
in
a
row
and we breathed we
breathed
we
breathed.
Then finally I had to tell her. I couldn’t take all that
easy
breathing
no more it wasn’t right.
Doll, I said.
Shit shit ….
But she smiled again so I didn’t
bother apologizing I just went on.
Dorothy, I said.
Then I stopped
‘cause it’s hard
to tell someone what a
piece of
shit
you are.
Someone you like at least.
I looked
down
at the waxy bag I was holding. I un-crinkled the top
took out the donut. White powder
spilled out
all over
me I was so stupid getting a jelly donut of all things why didn’t I get a chocolate frosted but what did it matter
anyway.
It actually helped.
See this donut, I asked.
Yes
she
did.
Sugar
coated my fingers
white but it couldn’t
coat
the
truth.
I brought the donut to my mouth
bit a hunk
exposed
the thick globbed
purple center.
This donut
is
me,
I told her through my
chalky
powdered lips.
She laughed, What?
No
really,
I said.
I told
her,
I’m a smeary
gooey oozing
jelly
donut.
I’m a mess on the outside, I said
holding up my free
mutilated
hand.
And I’m more of a mess on the inside, I said
holding up the
donut.
She said,
So?
So,
I said.
I
said,
So
I don’t want you getting your hands
dirty.
That’s why they invented
napkins,
she
said.
She
said,
If you’re trying to tell me that what Amy said is
true
without even
knowing
what
she
said
I really don’t care.
She said, I
don’t
care
about what you’ve done because
I see who you are
and
I know you had to
have
your
reasons.
But,
I
said.
But …,
she
said.
She
said,
But
even
if you didn’t
I guess I still don’t care.
Not enough to walk
away.
Then she did it again. Oh my
god oh
my
god
oh my god
she
took
my
hand.
The one without the donut in it.
She
said,
I’ve never felt
anything
like this before.
Have you?
I shook
my head
no.
We sat
quiet
for a minute
my fucked-up hand in her soft one
just
feeling that
feeling just
sucking
it
in absorbing it to our
cores.
She
said,
So really
the only question is
Why do you keep calling me Doll? It’s a little cliched
nes
pa?
Nes pa? I repeated.
She spelled it,
N’est-ce
pas. She
said, It’s French. She
said,
It means
loosely
Wouldn’t
you
agree?
I said I guessed I would agree but it was just that she reminded me of my
mom’s
porcelain
dolls how they were so fragile and
pure.
I told her all this
even though I knew how un-frigging-believably gay it sounded. Then I promised I would
stop calling her that
really I would.
It’s okay, she
said.
She was still
holding
my
hand and her hair and her eyes were all shimmery
with
light
and I felt like I was one of them
ducks
out
there sailing smooth through the
water all lined up
in
a
row.
She
said,
Now that you’ve
explained it I
understand.
You
do? I asked. I wasn’t even
sure that
I
understood. Maybe she could
explain me to
me.
Wouldn’t
that
be something.
I
do, she said.
And I think it’s
nice. I’m
flattered.
Go figure. I never
flattered
anyone before.
Flattened,
but
not flattered.
Squeezing
squeezing
squeezing into my
palm
she said,
And
don’t
I won’t break.
Three
Dorothy
“Do you cry?” I asked him.
I felt his hurt, under the charge we were sharing. It moved at a lower current, almost slipping below the radar, but I felt his pain.
I couldn’t help him. I could hold him, hold space for him, but I couldn’t save him. He had to find his own way through.
He stared into me, blinked like he was trying to process the question. His eyes were like the sky when the rain ends, caught between gloom and sun.
He rubbed his thumb across my skin, traced the raised artery going down my wrist. It felt co
arse, like sandpaper, and it was so, so satisfying. It was like having a perpetual itch scratched, finally.
“No,” he said. He drew in a breath, breathed it out slow. “No, I don’t cry.”
We looked at each other some more. He wanted to confess all his sins, I sensed, but I wasn’t ready to hear them yet. I just wanted to know him in that moment, it was all I could take, this was all so new to me. He got that. It’s amazing what you can comprehend without speaking or hearing a word if you just allow yourself. He understood it, and he respected it.
He still had that jelly donut in his other hand. He realized it just as I did—we both glanced at the donut, and laughed. He held it up to my lips. I sunk in, took a bite from the sticky center.
I wanted to kiss him then, I wanted to share the sugar on my lips, have it melt in both our mouths.
I wanted to know what he tasted like.
I wanted to know so, so much, and I felt like I’d burst if I didn’t act, but I didn’t.
I didn’t, because it wasn’t time yet.
“You need to get going?” he asked, and I did. It was getting dark, and my mom was going to worry about me. It was getting chilly, too. I shivered, wished I could fold myself into his arms to get warm.
But it wasn’t time for that, either.
He wolfed down the remains of his donut, licked his fingers, wiped them dry on his jeans. Then he ran his hand up and down my arms, one and then the other, smoothing down the raised hairs. Who would ever think something so hard and calloused could be so soothing?
His other hand was still locked in mine. Neither of us wanted to be the one to let go.
I took another look at the water, at the reeds growing at the edges. So vulnerable, so exposed out there, and yet they endured.
He said, “Where do you live? I’ll walk you home.”
We held hands all the way to my house, about ten blocks. I was still trying to get used to suburbia, all those houses so similar and still. Except for the occasional kids playing in the street—and there weren’t many because it was dinner-time—the neighborhood was silent. You could never walk a noiseless block in Manhattan.
We didn’t speak, and yet we were communicating. Getting to know each other, without words. When you think about it, words don’t count for much anyway. It’s the intentions behind them that count. And this was like we were skipping past the words, like we didn’t need them.
“This is it,” I told him when we got to my house, a Spanish-style villa, gated and set back from the road and the other houses.
He stared at the gate’s crisscrossed wrought iron strips. “You live here?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Nothing … it’s just … this is like, the nicest house around here. Hell, it’s a friggin’ mansion.”
I looked at the sidewalk, didn’t say anything.
“Hey, I didn’t mean … it’s just …. Oh, Doll.” He sighed, let my hand slip from his. “We’re so different.”
“That’s only a problem if you make it one,” I said, looking back up at him.
“Yeah, you say that now ….”
I took his hand back in mine. “See you in school tomorrow?”
“Uh, no … I go to Boces. That’s for technical training.”
“I know what it is. Okay, then come over after school.”
“Come here, inside?”
I nodded. “Come over tomorrow, and you can tell me anything you want. Okay?”
“But, your parents ….”
“My parents will like you because I like you. Don’t worry.”
His eyes looked panicked. He sucked in a burst of air, let it out slowly like he’d done earlier. The stress faded from his face.
He smiled his little side smile. “Okay.”
We let go of our hands together this time, stood there for a moment, silently saying goodbye. Then he turned, ambled down the street.
He stopped at the corner street sign and gave a wave.
I waved back and unlatched the gate.
Joey
All the way home it was a battle.
There was this new part of me
still back at the water
still holding Doll’s hand.
Breathing
breathing
breathing in that air.
Feeling like one of them ducks all neat all in order all
right.
Yeah
all right.
I’d actually felt all right there.
But then there was my
other part.
The part I’m used to. The part that don’t let me have nothing ‘cept drinks and some bud. The part that don’t let me rest for a goddamn minute.
The part always
poking
poking
poking at my back
reminding me what a
loser
I am.
That part it don’t wanna let me breathe for nothing.
That part that
part that
part keeps me frozen on the scrawny-ass ledge from the second I wake up.
That part was saying,
She lives in a palace she’s got
gates and stone pillars she’s got ivy growing up those pillars she’s got all these pine trees in her yard it’s like a forest in there
through
them
gates.
That
part
said, There ain’t no place for someone like you behind them iron gates.
Them gates
they were made for locking
people like you
out.
Them gates are there to keep Doll
safe
from
you.
Yeah.
It’s like Pop says.
He says people like
me
if we make it past twenty
we wind up with steel bars of our own. There just ain’t no mansions behind them.
It’s us that’s behind them locked up nice and
snug.
Actually, I’m ahead of schedule. Call me precocious.
I already got a little taste of the future,
courtesy
of
Pop.
I get the picture in my
head
so fast
before I can even tell myself
not
to go
there.
Don’t matter.
This memory ain’t
nothing compared to
some.
There we are in
court.
Again.
‘Cept this time it’s not family court.
This
time on account of my
age and the
severity
of my
crime
this time this
time
this time
The routine in courthouses is everyone stands ‘round the halls and waiting rooms making deals and whatnot to save the court’s time.
That’s what we always did before but
not
this
time.
This time they keep me
separate.
This time they haul my ass down the hall in cuffs like I’m some
big
shot
criminal. There’s no one else around. Get this: they cleared the area first. Apparently I’m some
maniac
they gotta protect the world from.
Suddenly I’m the bogeyman.
They lead me right through
no
man’s
hall
my hands are pulled behind my back
steel’s snapped ‘round my wrists.
I’m so used to the position it’s kind of comforting. I got my fingers linked together it’s like I’m
holding
my own hand.
The two court officers they walk me one on each arm into some
puke
green conference room then they
uncuff me and I sit in a
hard metal chair by a rectangle metal table just what I needed
more steel.
In follows Mom and my
lawyer
chairs scrape back
they
sit
at the table where I
am. They sit
by
me but they don’t
face
me. Mom I guess she’s ashamed
of me
of her.
My lawyer
who the hell knows what his
problem
is. He’s sitting there all smug in his camel hair coat or some
shit
too good for his client I guess. Then
Pop
marches in all stiff and coply like a pole’s up his butt he comes in he stands next to the flag.
I look past him out the window but all I can see from my poor angle is
gray
sky
and the top of this sad tree its gnarly twiggy branches are all naked. Old Mother Nature that bitch she stripped its leaves right
off
it.
The Assistant DA rolls in he’s this
puny
guy trying to be
big
in a navy pinstripe suit. He
thunks
his broad briefcase
down on the table
click
click
unsnaps it open
hauls out my record.
I got a sheet of priors that just keeps on
giving. There’s
fights there’s drunk and
disorderly there’s smoking
bud on school
grounds and wait
there’s
more.
It’s all petty b.s. I never hurt no one that bad at least
up
‘til
now.
I didn’t even mean to hurt no one
this
time
not like this
not to put the dude in no coma.
He just got in
my face
he wouldn’t go away. Who told that
prick
to get in my face
like
that?
Pop’s
standing tall
by the stars and stripes
he’s in his
neat
blue
uniform
shiny badge attached. He don’t look at me
neither
not that I want him to.
Suddenly the sun casts through the window look at that it
broke
through the gray
it lands a ray right at his
black
patent
shoes. He looks like he’s standing in a
path
of
light ain’t that some ironic shit.
The ADA he don’t even glance my
way
no one even
turns
in my direction do I even
need
to be here? That ADA he says he’s gonna let me off with
probation.
Again.
He don’t say so but I
know it’s on account of