How to Wrestle a Girl

by Venita Blackburn

  Mama was pretty much normal then, normal for her but not quite for a mom. Me and T had been figuring that out. That there were different kinds of mamas like there were different kinds of daddies. We had a really good daddy. He was awake all the time and strong and made us laugh and could do our hair. He was a mama in a way. Other mamas did a lot of that, but they were less strong and got tired easily because they were fat already. Our mama was more like us, a child, something to take care of except she was bigger than us and had power we didn’t to drive cars and assign chores that didn’t always make sense or make us fight each other for prizes that never manifested. She was a lot of work. And that was her normal, but I could see the way she held on to Daddy, leaned into him even when no one was looking or everybody was looking because it must’ve felt good. There had to be something going on that I couldn’t quite see.

  T decided to have a contest on who could do the best cannonball. We each took turns trying to stylistically fall into the pool. Two of the cousins tried to jump simultaneously and butted heads. There was blood weeping from an eyebrow, but T held a towel there and shushed away any tears so no one would get in trouble. It seemed important to keep the adults away from us. We were all in solidarity on that front. We learned from Daddy what to do when a kid gets hurt doing something stupid, you hold them as they shudder through pain and failure until the only energy left is peace. T did that and she looked grown to me then like she should have a house of her own and a car and a place to go in the mornings that makes her tired and glad to leave and go back to her house with kids playing video games on the carpet in the living room.

  I saw the lizards on the brick wall fence while we were waiting for the blood to clot, a bandage, and pool time to continue. They were knotted together so tight it was hard to tell head from tail. It must’ve felt good to them in an invisible way. Just because I couldn’t see it didn’t mean more wasn’t happening inside the body, churning up like hot water in a kettle, but I would not hear a screaming teapot as the climax, they could hold each other like that for only so long before it would be unbearable or just simply complete. Whatever electric collision of atoms or psychic energy happens in that lizard knot, I got turned on a little then too, probably in just the space between realizing I wasn’t looking at mud and recognizing a fist-sized lump of lizard love. I threw one of the pool toys at them to break them up, to control the moment maybe. They didn’t move. One of the cousins came over to see what I was doing, desperate for some action now that the hour turned to blood and pain. But I pushed him in the pool immediately to protect the lizards, to protect the feeling I had contracting in my own body, to rule over something in a space that felt on the edge of disorder, to keep it all to myself.

  Dick Pic

  When Pastor Short took us all to that fancy steak restaurant near the Staples Center, T got a dick pic from him. She didn’t even have to be that sneaky about it. I often marveled to myself about T’s ideas, her execution, plans that are always so magnificent and far away from my field of vision. I tried not to let her know how much I admired her, little sisters have to keep some dignity. Still, she amazed. Where I saw like an ant she saw like a hawk, a hawk with a treasure trove of penises preserved in digital format for a thousand years.

  The week before we had to go to dinner, Mama had been nice to me and T, didn’t order us to do chores that we were doing anyway, stayed relatively sober and quiet, bought juice and eggs herself instead of having things delivered or T pick them up. Then she dropped the news that the three of us would be having dinner out with Pastor on Saturday. Everything became clearer to me and T. Mama bought a whole outfit for me, made me wear the purple bra and a shirt and half tried to get me to wear a ridiculous skirt, but the look on my face must’ve been too much for her because it never made it more than a quarter out of the shopping bag before she turned away from me. I put on my jeans and didn’t say anything else other than ask the name of the restaurant so I could look at the menu in advance.

  I wore the diamond studs Daddy got me for my sixteenth birthday. T told me I looked nice and I almost kicked her before I realized she meant it. She’d been getting weird for a while, going all tender in the chest and sentimental, and it was annoying as hell. We all were handling death now in our own ways. I exercised and had poorly developed fantasies about girls, well, one girl. T had sex with our ex–softball coach we’d known for half our lives and catalogued pictures of his junk.

  There were protesters outside of the restaurant when we pulled into the valet, wearing red and black and chanting with drums. Maybe they were challenging an immigration law or it was a Native American cultural demonstration. I couldn’t tell. The signs weren’t angled at me. A few people gathered in support or for entertainment.

  Pastor Short was a big man but not at all fit. Our father could’ve fit inside of Pastor Short except would’ve busted out at the wrists and ankles. Daddy was long and lean like T. Pastor Short had to adjust the booth some to make room for his middle. He moved the heavy wooden table with ease, so I could tell he was flabby but strong, always slick like something old and oceanic. The restaurant was dimly lit and full of brick, wood, and amber light. Everyone looked like they were in Polaroids half-developed.

  The time Mama had spent cultivating my new look hadn’t been for the reasons I thought at first. I realized she didn’t do my hair for me to touch me, to know me, to check the shape of my skull, but to prepare the room for him, for Pastor. Me and T were the set decorations. T wore a long wavy ponytail that week; it came down to her waist. I helped pick it out when she considered going shorter. She wore the diamond necklace she got for her sixteenth birthday, and it rested on her boobs and twinkled. She was pretty there and maybe all the time. I wouldn’t know because she was such a loud, farting, coughing, screaming, arm-twisting taskmaster most of the time. That day she sat like a portrait. Perfect.

  Mama had her hand on Pastor Short’s thigh through most of dinner, so ate with one hand only. I ordered salmon, which seemed appropriate if I had to look at Pastor. Eating something that he seemed related to felt the best defense against his very being and a way to claim solidarity with T. Whenever I glanced at T during dinner she seemed far away; it was a look I knew well and I wondered just how the world was opening itself to her. Whenever I glanced at Pastor he was trying to look just left of T’s boobs and back to Mama.

  Pastor Short asked us about school and such to be polite. We answered the same, fine, fine. I had been hanging out with Esperanza more, taking more strange fighting classes that were starting to feel good, it was the only physical contact with anyone I had at the time, the legs of that old lady (Barb) and holding a punching bag for Esperanza on occasion. We hung out at her house once too, but that was weirder than rubbing legs with that old lady, Barb. Esperanza insisted I come in through her window and wouldn’t let me use the bathroom. She looked apologetic the whole time I had to hold it while nineties sci-fi television episodes streamed on her laptop for us.

  The protesters were getting louder and closer to the windows of the restaurant. There was something angry and desperate in the chanting. I wondered if it had always been like that, the chanting over centuries, all the way back to the beginning. Were the drums ever happy? I wondered what happened to them, to us, over generations that painfully strained the vocal cords into what we heard then. Maybe I just heard it all wrong.

  At some point everyone went to the restroom individually, but T timed it just right so that she was able to be alone with Pastor Short away from us in the dungeon-like hallways that led to the facilities. It still baffles me how a man will just share his privates so willy-nilly without lengthy debate or consideration or negotiation. I asked T when we were at home. Pastor refused the offer Mama made for him to stay for a glass of wine, which meant they would just go alone in the bedroom for a few hours before he crept out at around 1:00 a.m. He dropped us all off in a hurry. T told me she asked to see it and he said okay. I fell down laughing.

  “Just, Okay!
” I said, mocking Pastor Short’s voice. “Like, sure. Thank you very much for the inquiry. You wanna see my dick in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? And so shall it be given unto thee.”

  It was crazy, but I was learning, and the lessons were bizarre. T tried to shush me through her own laughter. She knew it would be that easy, and I felt a little ill and the ground moved under me because of that. Still, we were laughing, and with all this new knowledge and treasure there seemed opportunities.

  Black Communion

  It was Communion day when Pastor Short announced before the congregation his engagement to a woman who was not our mother. I learned people just feed the possessions of the dead to Goodwill so they don’t sprout bad dreams that pretend to be memories. Instead of doing our little-by-little Sunday donations of Daddy’s clothes, we went to church. Communion was my favorite religious activity. We got to eat our God and drink His blood once a month. Christians are something else, but I can’t deny that it is a little bit empowering to think we can consume our Creator, and He’d be totally cool with it.

  The ritual of getting dressed exhausted me, the dresses and the pumps, and the matching sling purses. I hated it. T loved it. She loved the show, a pageant of sinners all powdery and polished, ready to be doused with Jesus’ bucket of forgiveness even though she never stayed awake for half of it. When we left for church, Mama’s makeup looked like something to peel off, far too light, leaving the trunk of her neck dark. We never said anything. At least she was getting out of the house.

  Sister Bloom read the announcements: couples’ ministry meeting times, vacation Bible study schedule, building fund goals, etc. Out of all that BS she left off a lot of the good stuff. Still, I was waiting on the main event.

  Catholics have a different process, from what I saw on TV. They have Communion every week and line up while a priest hand-delivers a wafer directly into their mouths, one at a time. It doesn’t even stop there. They then drink from the same cup of juice. There was no way I would get all dressed up for Pastor Short to slide an oyster cracker with his bare walrus fingers onto my tongue. GTFOH.

  Sister Bloom forgot to mention that Pastor Short had been fornicating with our mother for half a year since Daddy died. Second, she forgot to mention the dick pic Pastor Short sent to my sister, T. Then Sister Bloom forgot to mention that once T got that dick pic he’d given up a lot of power and could never get it back, so he stopped coming over more and more until his absence forced Mama to actually go to church again and confront him. Lastly, Sister Bloom failed to mention that Pastor Short was a greasy-lipped hypocrite, so I was like, Whatever, lady. You work on your building fund.

  T ate and drank her Sacrament before the big moment because she always forgot or never cared and was ready to fall into her creepy sleep again, sitting straight up with her eyes half-open like a basset hound in a floral dress. I saved my Communion until after everyone else tossed back their cups.

  Jesus tastes like low-sodium saltines and Welch’s grape juice and was probably into carbs. Mama’s makeup had blended well over the hours, turning her face into a daub of peanut butter. I considered telling her that Pastor Short’s new fiancée was ugly, which was true, but I hadn’t developed a habit of talking to my mother. We weren’t that kind of family. She’d been gripping the pews tightly for a while as if trying to balance herself, screaming beautifully in silence. I really thought I should say something. After the juice came the hymn, “I Know It Was the Blood,” the most jubilant chant about bathing in the vital fluids of a deity ever written; it had the cadence and delight of nursery rhymes, though the irony on the people was not lost, a song and dance of the conquerors and the conquered, a kind of covenant beyond the moment to something deep into the future with a fist around the past.

  Once the music was in full ecstasy, Mama made a sound. She said, “Huh,” with her whole chest, a note between scorn and epiphany. Then I said it too, except I was all scorn and no epiphany. Maybe it was the sugar and liquid dye and pureed fruit or the grit of salt and flour on our tongues that evoked sudden calm. The church was disproportionately women, most of the men tending to the altar, circling the pastor while the audience of women with hands stretched out propped up the men in their elevation to heaven.

  I only imitated her revelation at the time, but my mother had figured it out that at any moment we women could remove our hands from the air, take back our obedience, our bodies, swallow our devotion, and the whole establishment would cave in like hollow bread. She understood how the price we pay to worship is grave and will tax us to the marrow, how the dead stay dead and it is the living who will frighten, astonish, and disappoint. I always saved my Sacrament because I wanted to eat the last of our God my own way.

  In the Counselor’s Waiting Room with No Wi-Fi

  DOWN

    2.  Watching Coach exercise in the morning when no one else was on campus yet became a mystical experience like watching this creature close-up in flight, should not be possible according to physicists, but there it is, natural as a rainbow.

    3.  The thing each girl on the softball team possesses but can’t find without me and T.

    5.  Those who liked being told what to do by Coach under any situation. Don’t be trashy, Brooks. Find a can for that can, Smith. They loved being called by their last names, found it challenging or endearing.

    6.  How I used to feel in the mornings before a game.

    7.  The most primitive, universal, timeless, essential, and risky exercise.

    9.  The boys were jealous and studious. They studied Coach’s movement and imitated him, causing this and testosterone to explode in the air like swarms of midges.

  11.  An act performed during PE and lunch. A territorial marking done through motion, declaration of being, a summoning of bodies together, the most accurate test of physical intelligence.

  12.  The number-one thing I missed after quitting softball with my sister, T, to avoid Coach—the careful washing after practice, the cold cycle to preserve the color, the hand-drying and ironing, the green stripe down the side with not a single ripple.

  14.  The outcome of most games when T and I played. The team looked impeccable, performed much the same. T had the image, I the strength.

  ACROSS

    1.  The boys’ nickname for Coach. They mocked his hairline, low to the eyebrows, quick to point out something bearlike about his face, a dark nose set in a brown backdrop.

    4.   Because his upper body significantly outweighed his lower limbs, Coach resembles this bird while running, chest puffed, arms tucked close to the torso like he held important files there.

    8.  When talking to the counselor about Coach’s inappropriate/criminal behavior I could tell she wanted to smoke. Her eyes reminded me of these pointy tools of sinister men in white who can see a child bleed and cry and suddenly feel they’ve done a good job.

  10.  The type of people who found Coach attractive.

  13.  According to T, this is most similar to sex with Coach. “It’s like being hot and sick under a huge blanket.”

  15.  Coach treated the girls like these animals, which are sometimes eaten or mutilated by assholes with more power than cuteness; they get drowned by sociopathic preteens or develop mange or when lucky lose an eyeball to a flock of braver-than-most seagulls in an alley, fighting over a corn chip. They are very cute, and cute can get you killed.

  16.  The energy that surrounded Coach could not be dismissed among the girls and boys; it got hold of you from the inside out like a drumbeat stuck in your head.

  Halloween

  Esperanza and me saw a car following a girl while riding back from jiujitsu practice. We were on our bikes and took Central all the way back down to the neighborhood. It was a Honda, dark green like a rental, like something nobody picks out for themselves but got because they thought it looked normal. The girl was just a few years younger than us, probab
ly, small and thin like an uncooked pretzel in purple pants and T-shirt. She was on her phone, looked nervous, and I could feel the pace in Esperanza’s pedaling slow down. So I slowed down too.

  Central is usually a busy street, but not that time of day, late October near sunset on a weekday. Everybody who should be home was home already. We passed the cemetery that butts up against the elementary school. One car passed, then no cars. Invisible birds gossiped about each other from the trees. The bike ride plus actual jiujitsu practice was three hours of physical activity. Esperanza wanted to stop for Now and Laters, but I wanted a burrito. The car and the girl drifted farther away and then the girl turned onto Caldwell. The car followed. Now and Laters are the worst candy and will yank a filling out or a whole tooth depending on the mouth we’re talking about. Esperanza pronounced them more like annihilators the way everybody else did.

  Noemi had been taking turns kicking our asses for weeks. We were not good, practically speaking. I was strong enough to hold my ground, make myself heavy and hard to turn, but against Noemi’s skill it meant nothing. Noemi was like a crocodile. She’d tuck her arms close to her body and smile like some mad ancient mini-dinosaur just waiting for us to try something that would fail. Then she snapped, and in seconds Esperanza would be colliding with the floor or I’d have a shoulder joint about to dislodge. It hurt so bad but was beautiful.