Lucky

It’s 1991 and my mother is dressed in black. Black pants, black shoes, black turtleneck plus black nail polish. Her hair is a forest of curls, so thick and tangled that it’s enveloping her headband of horns. They’re going for a devil-baby look, so she’s completed the ensemble with a diaper; it’s a terrible, wonderful choice. I know she worries habitually—about not fitting in, not being beautiful—but here her grin is infectious. She’s beaming on my father’s lap, oblivious to the fake black tears running down her cheeks.

            It’s a few years out of residency and my father is exhausted. He’s been balding for over a decade, though (like everything) he takes it in stride. Soon he’ll begin to shave his head. His weight gain is on the horizon, as is his fight to lose that weight. He’s been fighting all his life, and I worry sometimes that he’ll never know when to stop. His eyes are sporting his signature bags, souvenirs from sixteen-hour shifts, but he doesn’t seem to mind the silly outfit. His smile is small but warm; it’s hard not to see how much he’s missed her.

            It’s Halloween and my parents are the only people in costume. Years later I will show them this moment, and my father will bluster and my mother will blush. They think they look ridiculous, and they do. Secretly I know that they are having the same thought, then as now, independent of one another and thirty years apart. How undeserving they are, how fortunate, to have found someone so special. How lucky they are, to be loved.

Pretend

Zach was my second best friend, and when I was in fifth grade I spent every other week at his house. Our favorite pastime was the cape game, so called because one of us would wear a glittery silver cape while we played it. The cape game was whatever we wanted it to be: we would duel with toy lightsabers, uncover buried treasure in the basement, or climb to the top of his makeshift treehouse (really just a nailed-up wooden slat) and peer out over the neighborhood. Or we would play with Legos; Zach had a whole series of skyscrapers built in his bedroom. I had my own sets at home, but I never brought them. I was scared they’d fall and break in the backseat of the car ride over.

That day the cape game was bounty hunter, which basically meant hide-and-seek. One of us donned the attire—the cape, the plastic Boba Fett helmet, the bolt-action Nerf gun—and the other hid. Hiding was way more fun, because you got to sit in the shade and watch the other person search for you and laugh when they walked past your spot for the fourth time. Then they’d find you and shoot you, of course, but still.

I was the guest, so I got to hide first. The rules were simple: you weren’t allowed to go indoors, you weren’t allowed to switch spots, and you weren’t allowed to leave the property. All of which suited me fine; I’d discovered what I knew to be the best hiding spot, around the outside of the wooden fence encircling the backyard. Technically it wasn’t “on the grounds,” but the idea was too inspired for me to care about an inch or two of wiggle room.

Zach found me in about five minutes. He rolled his eyes as he shot me, and once I’d dusted myself off he passed me the outfit and split. After two loops around the house I realized the problem: Zach knew the area around his place too well. There were too many nooks and crannies, plastic slides and whirring air conditioners and pine trees with thick trunks that made it impossible to notice a sneaker sticking out.

I looked at the afternoon sun, beating down, then I went inside. I passed his mother in the kitchen, where she was putting a pan of brown casserole into the oven.

“Oh, hi Alex. You guys are done?”

            “Yep,” I said, and I headed for the living room. Zach’s TV was small but serviceable, and I rooted around in the DVD collection before selecting Walking with Dinosaurs, which we’d gotten halfway through on my last visit. I inserted it into the player and fast forwarded to the place where we’d stopped. Outside the light was starting to dim.

            Eventually the screen door opened. A big black dog barreled in, furiously wagging its tail, followed closely by Zach. His face was smeared with tree sap and sweat.

            “What are you doing?” he said. “You’re supposed to be hunting me.”

            “I got bored,” I said, keeping my eyes on the screen. “It’s just a dumb game, anyway. Let’s do something else.”

I knew he wouldn’t be mad. Zach never got mad, never raised his voice or argued or tried to sock me in the shoulder. It was one of the most frustrating things about him. He just stood there for a moment, silent, his face reddening. Then he took a seat in the big chair across the room, where he watched me watch poorly-rendered prehistoric carnage.

After a minute Zach got up and left, presumably heading towards the stairs to his room. I stayed where I was, on the overstuffed couch, pretending not to notice that he’d gone.

Encore

He spat the rest of the vomit out and smacked his lips. –I could use another hit, he said. –Yeah? she said, sniffling. She rubbed her palms together against the cold.

Before that he seized awake, eyes rolling to life in their sockets, sucking in and coughing out great gulps of oxygen. –Oh god, she said. –God damn, I was worried there for a second. He rolled over onto his side and spewed up a deluge of orange and brown.

Before that he lay on his back, half on the curb a few feet away. –Hey, she said. She approached and nudged his leg, then nudged it again. –Hey, what’s happening? She knelt beside him and shook his shoulders. His mouth hung open, but otherwise he stayed motionless. Something was caught in her chest. –Stop it, she said, and she began to shake him harder.

Before that she watched the taillights fade into the distance, and as she rose she stumbled a little. One of her heels seemed to have given way. She checked her purse—ripped-open packets of relish and what looked like spilled nail polish, the rest was fine—then touched a finger to her forehead. No blood, but it still hurt. Every other part of her felt numb. She needed to chew the idiot out, wherever he’d ended up.

Before that a pair of yellow dots appeared in the dark. –Car, she said. He continued his loop of the lot, ranting aloud to no one. The dots drew closer. –Car! she screamed, and she sprinted into the street. She grabbed the back of his jacket with both hands, feeling him go limp, and suddenly two streams of oncoming brightness were searing into her vision. Someone was yelling, and it was her, and as she strained and pulled they both tumbled to the ground, still in the middle of the road. The asphalt rushed up to meet them. Rays of light lanced overhead as the vehicle pulled harmlessly past.

Before that a large man in a dark shirt was pulling him past the coat check. –Alright, buddy, let’s go, he said. –Keep it moving. She followed close behind, hands held out in supplication. –Don’t hurt him, she kept repeating. –Just don’t hurt him. They made it out past the club doors, and the man deposited him in a heap on the front steps. Both were breathing heavy. –No encores, okay? the man said, and then he went back inside. She bent down and helped her boyfriend up. –Why’d you do that? she said. He looked at her and his eyes were red. He lurched by her into the parking lot.

Before that the other guy’s lip curled. –Fuck this, he said, and he began to walk away. Her boyfriend lunged forward, snarling, and the two collided at an angle. They were equal in size but her boyfriend was obviously struggling; he staggered, and the stranger planted his feet and shoulder-checked him, sending him sprawling into a table just off the dance floor. The loud series of crashes and swears punctuated a break in the music. Now more heads were starting to turn.

Before that she spun and smacked away what might have been the person closest to her. –Off me! she shouted. The guy looked through her, stone-faced. –Man, I didn’t touch you, he said. Her boyfriend forced himself between them. –Hey, he said, jabbing a finger into the stranger’s chest. –The lady asked you to stop. He tried to say more but the words were slurred, jumbled together, dripping and sliding so that all she could make out was a syrupy sort of mess. Immediately she felt self-conscious.

Before that they were writhing under the lights, specks of sweat and energy and heat oscillating between them in a haze. –Run that track again! howled the DJ, and the resounding wave of noise blew the hair back from her face. As she danced she tilted her head to the sky, and she swore she could feel the pulse of the beat in her body, in her bones. She knew that he was probably starting to shake beside her, the high catching him as it was catching her, and she let the air rush out of her lungs. She didn’t need to breathe where they were going. Beneath the haze of color and sound and bodies, she thought she could feel someone’s hand on her ass.

Before that they crowded together, huddling and whispering in a dingy stairwell. Both bathrooms were packed, lousy with onlookers, and they weren’t about to split their shit with a bunch of freeloaders. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of pink circles, each no larger than an M&M, before passing one to her. As he began to crush his into powder, she extended her tongue and dropped the pill into her waiting mouth.

Before that she tapped him on the shoulder and leaned into the warmth of his coat. –I could use another hit, she said.

Crossing

The first time was during a recital.

There was a light rain gracing the arts center that day, scattered gray against the windows. He was eight and he was nervous, quiet as he’d been raised, standing in front of a crowd at least fifteen strong. He felt his stomach turn, and clenched his hands, and looked over at his instructor. He had always thought her a patient woman, albeit firm in her administrations, but she was not smiling now. When her eyes flicked to the bench, he knew what was expected of him. He’d been privately dreading this moment for weeks, after all: the procrastination, the humiliation, the impression of failure, distant and hungry, creeping forward to wrap him in its fog. She could feel it coming too, he knew. There was nothing else for it.

He sat at the piano and began to play.

The first note was the hardest, as the first note always was, and he felt his finger slip as he depressed it. It was only a C though, forgiving, and he quickly moved on to the next steps of the scale. Modest rising and falling—a naked warmup—and when it reached its climax, transitioning into arpeggio, he bit his lip. But his hands spidered along the keys, black-and-white spines shuddering in sequence, and he let out the breath he’d been holding. As the piece began proper, as he teased out the opening chords of the Prelude, he felt something shift. He leaned into the sound, letting the sensation wash over him. Chopin’s sheet music lay before him (he hadn’t memorized it yet, he’d been meaning to), but he didn’t seem to need it at the moment. There was something else there: something pushing him into the flow of the notes, radiating out from his fingertips. It wasn’t muscle memory either; he hadn’t been practicing long enough to be that relaxed, and anyway this didn’t feel routine. He chanced a peek at the rest of the room, hoping the audience didn’t think he was screwing things up too bad.

Something was floating above him. Something golden and long, solid but not-quite, suspended in the air like a serpentine chandelier. With each note it pulsed, shimmering against the crowd, and he understood—he could see it but he could hear it, too, flowing around him and beneath him while he continued to play. His mouth hung open, and as a key slid—F Sharp down to F, against the sheet music and the grain of the wood—he watched it darken and coil in kind. It brushed against his legs, goosebumps spreading up and down his flesh, and he shivered. He wondered: was this what it was like for his instructor, every single time?

As he finished, the music faded, from sound and from sight.

He shot to his feet, beaming, feeling as if he’d finally broken through. He was practically bouncing on his heels. But the clapping was polite and muted, not the energized array of applause he was expecting. Any sense of elation vanished. He scanned the face of his instructor, searching for some kind of acceptance, confirmation that she’d seen what he had seen. She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were already skimming the crowd for the next person in line; his performance had been mediocre at best.

He swallowed and returned to his seat.

*

His seat on the ice wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it seemed far better than the alternative (though he could have waited outside, of course, but then he wouldn’t be participating). All around him people were slipping and sliding, staggering as they stumbled from railing to railing. The rink was a circus of clumsiness, even the most graceful of skaters having to lurch aside to avoid the throng of the less capable. He knew exactly where he belonged in that particular cohort.

He shivered against the chill. It didn’t help that everything in here tasted blue.

Four years of synesthesia had taught him the taste of most colors. It wasn’t always one-to-one; there was overlap sometimes, but that didn’t stop him from making a list anyway. Orange was usually tart, the kind of sour that woke him up and slapped paint into his cheeks. Green was bitter, overpowering and yet missing a crucial sweetness, while purple was rich and creamy like butter. Red was a jagged spice, yellow rather bland and inoffensive, brown a lump of resignation overburdened by crust. And blue tasted like fermenting berries, syrupy in flavor and texture alike. Some days it was a rich liquid, but here on the ice it was sickly and shallow, and so he stayed flat on the freezing floor and ignored his teeth as they chattered together.

One of his friends pulled alongside him. “You gonna join us?” he said, head cocked.

He shrugged. “Just feels wrong,” he said, leaning back against the border of the rink. Every line in the ice sent crisscrossing shockwaves through the hair on his arms.

“That’s cause you’re not skating,” his friend replied, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be scared. Give it a shot.”

He rarely bothered to explain what he felt to his friends. They were inevitably confused by the notion of senses crossing into one another, even the ones who’d known him the longest. He knew his condition was strange (he’d had to look up what it was, if only to hide it better), and he’d done his best to learn how to handle it. But here was something worth considering: if he never challenged any of those feelings, were they actually handled? Was he just deciding to live in fear of something he didn’t completely understand?

He thought for a moment. Then he hoisted himself up onto his skates.

He propelled himself along the railing, hands scrabbling for purchase. Once he’d found a decent enough grip, he took a deep breath and shoved off from the edge. The momentum sent him wheeling into the center of the rink, in tight circles, and he flailed for a few seconds before finding his balance. As he bent down and lunged forward, he felt the blue crystallize between his teeth. An entirely new awareness rushed up to meet him. With each step it was as if he was mirrored on the surface below, each skate rippling against a duplicate of itself as it clacked against the ice. It was like the tiniest bit of give: the faintest tug as his foot met resistance, was absorbed and then released. He laughed and broke into a run, more stamping than skimming, winded but free as he capered across the rink, one leg outstretched in front of the other until he tripped and tumbled over himself and slammed down into the floor face-first.

A shock of red spattered across the ice. Nearby somebody screamed. The blue was gone, replaced instead by the taste of rusted iron. He brought a glove to his chin and it came away wet and warm. He could feel where the bone scraped beneath.

He was in pain, and he wondered why he was not more afraid.

*

            He’d been scared for a week leading up to the big day. Not as scared as when he’d first asked her—that had been nerve-wracking, the store-bought bouquet quivering in his hands as he recited his speech, feeling the words prematurely shrivel on his tongue—but still close to terrified. It was not until arriving at her house that night that all the nerves smoothed themselves out against his skin. His clothes fit snug, rented tight, and he felt grander than he knew he was. There was a guilty pleasure in being able to hide one’s self in that regard: to blend into tradition, to appear as a knight in shining armor rather than an acolyte, a skinny teenager in a cheap suit.

She was radiant, though, and nothing else mattered. She descended the porch steps towards him, brownish-blonde hair done up in a bun that seemed (to his untrained eye) effortless. Her dress was lavender, pale, and her skin sang to him—the same melodies he’d grown to love through months of talking to her, watching her, but layered with harmonies and crescendoing to a spectrum that struck him speechless. She smiled, teeth slightly crooked, and took the corsage from him, and that little gesture nearly bowled him over.

“You look nice,” he managed to get out.

She blinked. “You too,” she said, almost reflexively, and they locked arms and headed for the limo.

            The ride was silent, and he found himself drumming his fingers on the edge of the car window. Now that they were here, or rather on their way, he wasn’t sure what exactly to say to her. He’d imagined everything falling into place, like a pastiche of romance, the kind of movie he’d always pretended not to care about. He didn’t really know what came next. As he turned her name over in his mouth, he tasted caramel and tang together, just as he had every time before.

            The prom itself was well-organized, appropriately fancy and well-stocked with food (he’d never had a drink in his life, so that aspect didn’t really concern him). Enough friends had shown so that he was beginning to relax more. He even made a few attempts at dancing, despite knowing how awkward his thrashing arms looked. He was trying to have fun. Except nothing else mattered, because she was radiant, and because every time they found themselves alone together, she found a reason to withdraw.

             Eventually he took a seat across from her at a table surveying the dance floor. Her legs were crossed, and she was nursing a plastic cup in her hand. The song stretched out over the crowd: a throwback, Sinatra, spangled and silver this time.

            “You know I can see the music?” he said, desperately.

            Her eyebrows raised. “Huh,” she said, and immediately he cringed. He couldn’t fault her; no one ever knew what to say to that. She poked at a few of the ice cubes in her drink, and he wondered whether she’d found alcohol somewhere. Maybe she would have been more impressed if he’d squirreled up some of his own. Alcohol seemed an overwhelming prospect for his senses, but for her he was willing to take that plunge.

He decided to throw caution to the wind. “What’s wrong,” he said, not as a question. Another person could have pretended not to see the answer, but the indifference was sloughing off of her in waves. The purple in her dress was contorting, blue leeching out and upward to be sucked into a bank of air conditioners.

            “Nothing,” she said, smiling. Her eyes were vacant, not empty but elsewhere. She looked past him, and he turned to see the dance floor, where the friend that they both knew—that she knew, that he thought he knew—was grinding up against his own date.

            He looked down and then back at her again, and when he spoke his voice was embarrassingly raw. “I knew it,” he said. She did not deign to reply. She simply sighed and shrugged and got up to find another drink.

            He would have preferred if she’d grown bored of him. That would at least have implied some prior level of interest or respect, some small measure of emotional comfort. But her music wasn’t harsh enough for that; her colors were muted, but still calm under it all. The truth was that she felt sorry for him. She thought that by bringing him here, giving him this night, she was doing him a favor. She was being kind.

The last of the purple in his chest burned away until only red was left. He tested her name and all he could taste was dust. I knew it, he said again, and he didn’t know what he was talking about anymore.

With an enormous effort he stood up. There they were, the two of them now, dancing there together. The world was spinning faster still, but he managed to turn away.

*

            The reeds spun, swaying in the breeze, and he wiped the last bits of snot away from his nose. A field of wild brambles and long-stemmed flowers beckoned, the backdrop to a soon-to-be-vacant backyard. It was almost time to go; he could hear his parents distantly piling cardboard boxes, the stacked vibrations sending shivers down his neck. The green odor in his mouth was sinking into brown. He glanced down at the pencil, limp in his left hand, then at the piece of lined paper in his right, and he reread its contents over again.

            Somewhere swallowed in that thicket is my heart, a great grassy beast of a boulder tended by lichens and beetles. You searched for it once, hoping perhaps to roll it to a safer place, or sit on it and watch the day pass by, or simply place your hands upon it and feel me crack open under your caress. But the beetles lied and the lichens stayed silent, and you were never able to find it.

            He’d walked past this basin every day for the past eight years, and only now had it occurred to him to sit and write about it. Another in a laundry list of missed opportunities.

            He recognized that it would have been easier not to feel what he felt. He knew he should have fooled himself into thinking he couldn’t smell the fireflies settling, couldn’t taste the streams and burrows pockmarking layers of fresh soil. Couldn’t sense the birds alighting on his skin, tiny wings beating as they dug nests into his shoulder blades. Easier to say goodbye if he had never cared about where home was. The way the plants and animals and the land that encompassed them seemed not to care that he was leaving a part of himself behind.

He crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it into the weeds. Nowhere to go but forward.

*

            “Keep going,” said the guy, clapping him on his back. He choked a little, and drops of vodka rained down across the floor. He finished swallowing and glared at the guy, who shrugged and took a step back. Six shots to go and this idiot was forcing him to waste perfectly good alcohol.

            The story was the same as it ever was; the details were different (she was sleeping with his RA now, just down the hall), but details seemed meaningless in the larger scheme of his life. He’d been miserable when he returned to the first floor, seeking to commiserate, and he’d been more than happy to throw himself into a fray of semi-frat boys. The bet had been simple: eight shots of Grey Goose in five minutes, and he’d win…actually, he couldn’t remember what he was winning. Respect? Admiration? It certainly didn’t seem like there was a price tag attached to his success.

Swishing the third shot around in his mouth, he couldn’t help but gag. It tasted hazardous. Like steel, like sulfur, crimson and puce fighting for space in a hurricane of bile. He heard squelching in his stomach as he drank, and smelled nothing, and sensed the weight of tears straining at his eyes. He barely even knew these guys. Time for shot four.

Looking down, he felt himself flinch. There was a cloud spreading through the bottom of the glass, as if someone had emptied a dropper of ink into the alcohol. The clear liquid was being replaced by a spreading shade of deepest black. Its tendrils darkened while he watched, curving inward into a sort of cocoon, and he realized it was a warning. This is not a good idea, he knew it was saying. This is a mistake. One you will regret.

            Shut up, he spat. Shut up, I’m done with you now. He was tired of the complexity, of the not-belonging and the second-guessing. He downed the shot, feeling the black slide down the back of his throat—he had never tasted black before, it was overpowering, intoxicating, silky and somber and all-too-easy to surrender to—and he leaned into his senses for the last time, feeling the brain cells behind his forehead pop and pop and wink out into nothingness. Strangers cheered him on from every direction. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation of victory, of feeling invincible, as he sank down into the bottom of the shot glass, the bottom of the bottle, all the way to the bottom of everything until it all faded back into darkness.

How to Strike a Set

Walk down the street, steady as you can manage. Concentrate on the rhythm of the pavement, on the strain of putting one foot in front of the other, on how out of breath you are. Remember how many miles away the high school is and immediately pick up the pace.

Your goal right now should be punctuality; you do not want to be the last one in the building. The longer the tear-down goes past schedule, the more of the blame will go to you. Not that the cast will say anything, of course, but still. If you cannot be early (and you know now that you will not), be on time. If you cannot be on time, do your best not to be too late. You will have to work doubly hard to compensate.

With this in mind, do not stop when you feel your right finger spasm. Pain is only pain. Allow the paper towels wrapped around your pinky to do their work. You’ve stuck your hand in a plastic bag as well, to catch any runoff droplets, and this should tide you over until you make it to a bathroom. You will have to replace the components of your jury-rigged bandage when you arrive, but for now this will suffice.

Keep going. It’s a beautiful Sunday, the middle of April, and there’s a light breeze cresting through the trees. Focus on the positives: you are functional, you are self-sufficient, and you are managing. More importantly, you have somewhere you need to be. Let the knowledge that people are depending on you bolster you, pushing you forward past the next intersection.

When the car pulls alongside you, ignore it. Allow it to idle as you continue walking. The driver will call out to you, but you must not engage. Responding to him will not prove anything to anyone.

Looking down, you may notice that the paper towels are soaked through. That the blood has collected and pooled in the bottom of the bag, where it has begun to leak out in trickles. You will feel a little light-headed. This is normal. Keep the same pace, ignoring the trail of darkened dots littering the sidewalk behind you.

By this point the driver has begun to honk at you. Take a moment to consider three things: one, that he is making a scene. Already passing cars are slowing to see what the fuss is about. Two, that it is approaching ten o’ clock, and it will be faster to get a ride than to walk. Three, that it will likely be difficult to strike the set if you are bleeding all over it.

Resign yourself to the inevitable and stop where you are. Turn and get into the passenger seat of your father’s SUV.

Remove the paper towels and plastic bag from your hand. The gash is small, a flap of skin hanging off your pinky from where his car keys tore it open. Allow him to disinfect it with Purell. Grit your teeth and try not to swear.

Do not let him put a Band-Aid on your finger. You are a junior in high school, you can do that yourself. Protest when he takes it and wraps it up anyway. Not too much, though; you do not want the argument to resume where it left off. You’re running late enough as it is.

Once the Band-Aid is secure, he will pull out of his makeshift parking spot. Settle into the seat and flex your other hand. Be thankful that none of the blood has gotten on your clothes.

Do not look at him when he talks. It will be easier for everyone if you keep your gaze affixed to the window. He will tell you that it was an accident, that he was just trying to yank the keys back from you, that he didn’t mean to. That he’s sorry. Wonder if it’s easier or harder to know that he’s telling the truth.

Sit in silence. Tap your foot to the imaginary radio.

When you arrive, you are eighteen minutes late. Apologize to the director and realize that your voice is still hoarse. Shrug off any questions about your injury. Notice some of the cast staring at you. Go to the bathroom and splash water on your face three times. Test the Band-Aid; it’s holding fine. Dry your hands with a paper towel, a brown one this time, cheap and rough but unstained by any trace of red. Return to the auditorium. Pick up a screwdriver.

Spend the next three and a half hours ignoring your finger as you tear up floorboards, rip out nails, saw bedposts into segments and bash down makeshift walls, press power drills deep into stubborn screws, stack memories and wood into neat little piles, cart the unusable debris outside to the parking lot and fling it all into the dumpster. Think about the play and the set and nothing else.

Call your mom once you’re finished. In fifteen minutes she will pull into the front entrance. Climb in the back of the minivan. Neither of you will speak at first. When she asks how it went, say fine. Let her drive you home.