“Well, girls’re like . . .” a boy goes, and when he can’t think of anything the class laughs again.
“I’m not going to be here Monday,” another kid goes. Nobody’s paying any attention. “I’m not going to be here Tuesday, either,” he adds.
In sixth period a kid falls asleep and slides all the way to the floor before he wakes up. In seventh I watch the clock for twenty-two straight minutes until the bell rings. Flake isn’t around before I get on the bus to go home, and nobody answers at his house when I call him from my room.
7
When they first brought Gus home from the hospital they had him in a little bassinet by their bed. When I couldn’t sleep, instead of wandering around the house all night I’d creep in there and watch him move around. He looked like a little turnover. They left him right in the streetlight. I don’t know how he went to sleep. He’d move for a while and get quiet and then move a little more. My mom slept with her face in the pillow and whimpered every so often. My dad always looked like he’d washed ashore in a storm. Sometimes I sat in the chair in the corner. Sometimes I went back to bed.
In the mornings we had this thing we did when we all woke up. When I heard Gus making his noises I got up and went into their room. By then he was in their bed between them, and I’d climb over my dad and get next to Gus. I’d push the mattress with my hand to make his head move. He kept an eye on me. He grabbed my hair when he could reach it.
I’d say, “Gus, do you like Mommy and Daddy?” and give the mattress a few pushes and it would look like he was shaking his head. My dad especially laughed. I think I was nine then.
“What’s wrong, honey?” my mom would go sometimes. It always surprised me.
“Nothing’s wrong,” my dad would go. “Why does something have to be wrong?”
“Are you okay?” my mom would go. She’d be lying on her pillow looking at me over Gus’s head. He’d reach for my hair and I’d tip toward my dad, to make him reach farther.
“I’m fine,” I’d go.
“You seem worried,” she’d go. Or “You seem sad.” That happened five or six times.
“Are you worried?” she said one time a few hours later, when my dad was upstairs changing Gus.
“I guess,” I said. It felt like I was always worried.
“About Gus?” she asked.
I must’ve looked so surprised that she asked if it was something else.
“You think you need to see somebody?” she asked another time. She meant like a psychiatrist. She was always frustrated that she never got anywhere with me.
“I had this dream where I rolled Gus down the stairs,” I told them once at breakfast. “Except he did this stair-luge thing. Then we were all doing stair luge.”
There was this pause before anything else happened. My dad had the paper, and my mom had her coffee mug halfway to her mouth.
“What’s a stair-luge thing?” she finally said. She still had the mug up by her chin.
Like luge, like the Olympics, I told her.
Of course I couldn’t explain so they both had a cow and a half though they tried not to show it. My mom spent the next week telling me how much everybody loved me and my dad dropped by my room every night before dinner to see how things were going. When they moved Gus into his own room that summer I’d go in there when I couldn’t sleep. They had a big chair with a hassock next to his crib, and I liked to sit in it and stick a hand through the bars. My mom caught me in there once, in the middle of the night.
“You scared me,” she said. Then she got all teary. She got a blanket and tucked me in. “I just wanted to sit in here,” I remember telling her. I found out later that after I fell asleep she came back and took my picture.
Or maybe it’s this: I remember we hiked up to this park on the top of a hill one Saturday in October when all the leaves were down. It was hot and we all had our sweatshirts piled on the back of Gus’s stroller. We took turns pushing him up this steep path. It was so steep he was almost lying down. My dad joked about us getting nosebleeds. At the top there was this great view but a storm was coming so we couldn’t stay long. Going back down I jumped on this tree branch to swing on it but slipped off and hit my head. I landed on the grass but it felt like cement. Everybody asked if I was okay and I thought I was. But later I kept feeling like I had to open my eyes wide and squeeze them shut. And when I shook my head it was like I was still shaking it when I stopped. I got more headaches after that, too. I was talking to Flake about it once when he complained that I got a lot of headaches and I told him about falling. I made it sound like I’d been higher up than I was. I told him I thought I might’ve really fucked up my head. I expected him to make a joke but instead he asked me all these questions like he was a specialist. He asked if I got dizzy for no reason. He asked if I saw all right. He asked if I got extra horny.
“What’s that got to do with my head?” I asked him.
“You’re fucked up normal,” he said. “I don’t think you’re fucked up abnormal.”
I knew what he meant, but since then I asked him if he sleeps all right and he does. I think it depends on what day you catch me.
“You know what a clit is?” Weensie asks Flake out on the playground. We just got off the buses and it’s raining a little, but everybody still wants to hang around outside.
Flake stands there strumming the seam of his pants with his thumb.
“I think he does,” I go.
“You think he does?” Weensie goes.
“Duh,” I go.
Dickhead wanders up. The two of them are wearing T-shirts with the same cartoon guy’s face on them. Neither of us know what show it’s from. Flake’s eating a Go-Gurt, which is his breakfast.
“You know how many holes a girl’s got?” Dickhead asks. I can’t tell if he heard Weensie’s question or not.
“Yeah,” Flake goes.
“You do?” Dickhead says.
“Yeah,” Flake goes. He squeezes the yogurt up into his mouth while he watches Dickhead.
“So how many?” Dickhead says.
“I know,” Flake goes.
“So how many?” Weensie says. By this point three or four other kids have drifted over, thinking there may be a fight.
“Fuck off,” Flake goes.
“He doesn’t know,” Weensie says.
“I think he does,” Dickhead says. “I think he’s got ’em himself.”
I’m worried somebody’s going to ask me.
Flake’s maybe waiting for the bell, but if he is, it doesn’t ring. “Three,” he finally goes.
“Where are they?” Dickhead asks.
“He said three,” I go.
“Where are they?” Dickhead asks.
“One in the front, and one in the back,” Flake goes.
We’re all standing there. He wraps the flattened Go-Gurt tube around his fingers.
“Where’s the other one?” Dickhead goes.
“One on the side,” Flake goes.
“The side?” Dickhead goes. “The side?” Weensie goes. “The side?” the other kids go. It starts raining harder. Flake goes for Dickhead’s throat and knocks him onto his back on the pavement. Weensie takes a swing at my head, and when I grab his hair and pull him over me I can feel some of it tearing. He’s screaming in my ear and the other kids stop saying “The side?” and start saying “Fight! Fight!” and Weensie and I try to kill each other until adults come along and break us up. “He pulled out some of my fucking hair,” he screams at the vice principal, who’s wrestling to keep him off of me. Flake and Dickhead are already gone, or I can’t see them because of everybody else. Somebody’s got me around the neck and it turns out to be the new gym teacher. He’s got me so I can’t breathe, and when I struggle he squeezes tighter.