Teach Me

by R. A. Nelson

“Are you okay?” I say. The light is not very good here. I’m having trouble reading his face. I nudge him. “Huh?”

  “Now I know what made me think about Fleetwood Lindley,” he says gloomily.

  I try to smile; it doesn’t feel good. “But how could you know? You didn’t know. So what are you saying—now I’m John Wilkes Booth?”

  “I’m serious!” He almost yells the words. “I hate guns. I hate them! That was bad, Nine.”

  “I know it was, Schuyler. But I had to do it. I had to do something.”

  “Had to do what? Scare three hundred people to death? This was all about him. What did they do to you?”

  “But couldn’t you tell it was your CO2 pistol? The one you used to shoot out my streetlamp. You left it over at my place, remember?”

  “It looked real. I thought it was real! All those people! God, he thought it was real. I thought he was dead, Nine.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Not mine. We were just going to embarrass him! You should’ve told me, given me a chance to—you dragged me into something—God, we are in so much trouble.”

  He puts his face in his hands, elbows on knees. Then he sits up suddenly, looking out the drizzly window.

  “Do you think he’s coming?”

  “Not here. Probably he’s at my house right now, talking to my parents.”

  “You’re right. That’s worse.”

  “But what have you got to worry about?”

  “I was there. I helped you.” Schuyler’s speaking between his fingers.

  “He doesn’t have to know that. At least your folks are out of town.”

  I’m grabbing at his hands.

  “Leave me alone!” he says, shoving me away. “What about the cops?”

  “I don’t know if what we did—if what I did—if it was illegal.”

  He lifts his head, starts pulling crazily at his hair. “These days? It’s almost got to be. I know it’s illegal to walk into a crowded theater and scream fire, and what we did was a lot worse than that!”

  “It was a paintball gun, Schuyler. Not the real thing.”

  “Yeah, but all those people. They were scared out of their minds. It made me sick, Nine! I thought I was going to puke. The sounds they were making, watching them falling over the chairs. I’ve never seen people that scared. That was bad, Nine. It might’ve been funny in a movie, but that was bad. We shouldn’t have done it. We’re in so much trouble.”

  “You said that.”

  I feel the numbness, the battlefield exhilaration, starting to fade. I don’t want to think about what comes next.

  “I’m hot; this stuff is scratchy. I’m going to change.”

  I kick off the clogs and get out. The leaves are squishy and cold between my toes. Fat blots of slow rain patter around me. I hurry to get the black bag from the trunk.

  Just as I get the top of the pants suit unbuttoned, I hear a terrible rattling sound crossing the interstate. It drives toward me, getting louder and louder until a wall of rain suddenly hammers the parking lot, water bouncing a foot in the air. The rain is coming down so hard it hurts. The whole world is stinging. I leap in the backseat, instantly drenched to the skin.

  “Do you mind if I change in here?” I say to the back of Schuyler’s head. He doesn’t speak. “Just don’t turn around; I’ll tell you when you can look, okay?”

  The ocean has been tipped over on our heads. The windshield smears, huge drops bursting against the glass. The floor of the Crackling Forest in the headlights jumps in dirty little fistfuls. A current is already overrunning the storm drain and I can’t see the pavement anymore. There is a feeling of being trapped, attacked, with nowhere to run.

  I wriggle out of Ms. Green’s pants suit—it ’s not easy, I’m too long. After a lot of grunting and straining I’m down to my underwear. I wad up the steaming pants suit and sponge it against my bare breasts, wishing I had a towel. Schuyler doesn’t move. I reach for my clothes from the bag and slip into them. That’s when I hear him crying.

  “Oh, oh, come on,” I say. “Come on, Schuyler.”

  I reach to touch his back. I feel his shoulders move under my fingers. He’s hot. A wave of affection rushes over me. I wrap my arm around his neck, pull his head to my mouth. I kiss and pat his wild hair, both of us making little noises.

  “Come on, it’ll be okay, really, Schuyler, it’s okay, I promise, come on.”

  My ear cups his neck. I hear a crunching swallow in his throat as he fights to hold back a sob. “No,” he says.

  I keep kissing his head. This is something I’ve never felt before, an overwhelming sense of protective love.

  “No,” he says again.

  I lean over the seat and turn his head toward mine. Kiss his cheekbones, his ear. He tries to pull away, but I scramble over the seat. I take his head in my hands and kiss his hot, streaky face. I kiss him again and again, gently working my way toward his mouth. Gently, then more insistently. Finally I kiss him lightly on the mouth; he pushes against me. But I’m gentle, gentle but insistent. He pushes.

  I’m putting my hands on him, his chest, his shoulders, then sliding them down to his waist. He keeps pushing, but not so strong now. Lets me snuggle against him. My mouth brushes his lips. He doesn’t push me away this time.

  My arms go around him; his back is smoldering. He leans into me, I get his shirt out of his pants, pull it up, rub my hands across the bumpy hills of his spine, then around to the front, touch his lean stomach, his chest. There’s only a little hair, right in the very center over his breastbone, with a silky line running down toward his navel. So different from Mr. Mann’s chest. My breath is coming faster. I take Schuyler’s hands and put them on me, hot on my shoulders through my T-shirt. My skin is tingling with the need to be caressed.

  The fear, mine and his, it’s feeding me.

  It’s pouring into my movements, becoming my need for him.

  This is the other side of that moment we had in the snow. This is the side with the heat, the dirt, nothing pure, sparkly, or white, everything gone but flesh, his tongue in my mouth, teeth on my shoulders. But that’s what he needs. And that’s what I want from him.

  That’s it; I’m helping him. Just like Mr. Mann helped me. But I’m not helping Schuyler climb; I’m helping him down. He’s been up there too high too long. It’s made him afraid, being up there all by himself. It’s freezing him. He needs to come down, get warm.

  I move his hands down to my breasts, making him touch me through my shirt. Schuyler won’t keep them there. I pull them down again, aching, aching. He keeps them there this time, but I need him to squeeze, make me realize the size of his own ache. I’m desperate for him to pull me to him, to need me just as much.

  I’m fumbling at the snap on his shorts. Now. Now. This is everything; here is what is finally real, right here. Schuyler understands what I’m doing, but he doesn’t understand—he takes my hands by the wrists, tries to push them away.

  “No, no.”

  “Why, come on, why? Oh God, please, why, come on.”

  “I can’t, no, Nine, I can’t, I—”

  I try closing his mouth with kisses; he can’t hold my wrists and keep my lips away at the same time. I’m nearly weeping with the size of my ache. But he’s twisting his head, jerking away from me.

  “Please, please, let me do this.”

  “I can’t! I’m not ready, I can’t, it’s too much—”

  “Let me, please, let me do this for you—”

  I have his shorts half undone, I’m pressing him back against the car door, overwhelmed with a hunger that is bigger than my will to stop it.

  Schuyler yells, “I can’t! No!”

  “Why, Schuyler, why?”

  “You’ll—you’ll—!”

  “What? What is it?”

  “You’ll hate me!”

  “I won’t!”

  “You’ll hate me just like you hate him!”

  sting

  Stop.

  I fall
back, shuddering. Suddenly conscious of how far it’s gone, how much I’ve done. I cross my arms, hugging them to my chest, digging my fingernails into my skin in rage, in shame.

  Is this true? Is that what I’m doing? Turning Schuyler into someone else I can hate?

  He’s sitting up now, away from me, hands fumbling at his shorts. I wish I could see his face better. I don’t know what to say. There is nothing I can say.

  Neither of us speaks. I crank the engine. The headlights are defined by hurtling slashes. I’m almost afraid to drive, but we can’t stay here; the parking lot is filling with runoff.

  I dare to glance at Schuyler. He’s staring straight ahead, lips tight.

  “Why would I ever hate you?” I say. “Why?”

  He shakes his head violently, throwing off flecks of shine.

  “Please, Schuyler. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Can you? Can you forgive me?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know!”

  “Do you know—?” He stops.

  “What?”

  “Do you know how important you are to me?”

  “I—”

  “Did you know that? Did you know how tough this has been? For me? I know you just want to be friends. I’ve always known it. So I did anything I could just to be around you.”

  “Hey, I’m—”

  “But I won’t take it like this. It can’t be like this. You’re just trying to make me into him. You don’t really feel that way for me.”

  “Schuyler.”

  “Two years ago you kissed me—it meant everything to me and not a damn thing to you. It was just fun for you.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Just something new to try. Maybe it wasn’t even fun, I don’t know.”

  “No. No, really—”

  “And then the other day in your room—I think you would’ve killed me if you could have when you kissed me. It’s something I’ve always wanted, but all you wanted was to get back at him through me.”

  “I’m sorry, Sky, I’m sorry.” I haven’t called him Sky since the seventh grade. He doesn’t like it.

  We listen to the rain.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I—I guess I was afraid of losing you. I didn’t want to lose you,” I say.

  “Lose me! How could you lose me?”

  “As a friend, I was afraid it would mess everything up.”

  “So what has changed?”

  “Everything! Everything has changed.” I start to cry. The tears are warm on my face, but I’m so cold. Schuyler puts his hands out to me. I don’t know if he wants to hold me or push me away. We touch each other’s fingers, trying to find a comfortable middle place.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry about what he did to you. It’s going to be okay, really.”

  I’m not sure of this at all. I brush my eyes and take his face in my hands. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have gotten you into this. I’ll tell them the truth, it was all my idea, I made you do it.”

  “That’s not true. Don’t lie for me. I wanted to help. I was right there too.”

  I take his hands. “Okay. Then we’ll go through this together. Together. Whatever happens.”

  I lean over and kiss him lightly on the cheek. He lets me.

  mechanical death

  We’re heading home.

  Whose home, I’m not sure.

  I try to talk Schuyler into letting me drop him off; he won’t.

  “I’m here,” he says. “I’m always here.”

  “Okay.”

  Rain is beating the road ahead of me. I can barely see; we’re crawling along. Here and there cars have pulled over to the shoulder, emergency lights flashing.

  “Damn,” Schuyler says.

  “Quarter.” I sniff.

  “Not funny. Be careful.”

  I watch the flashing cars go by. “I’m taking it easy. If I keep going this slow, nothing can happen, right?”

  “I don’t like this.”

  All I can see on the windshield are fat circles expanding and vanishing, replaced by new ones faster than I can think.

  “I should have replaced these wipers.” They sure aren’t squeaking now.

  “I don’t think anything could help in a rain like this.”

  The sky is utterly black. A lightning bolt shivers in the air between two shoals of thunderheads, stitching them together, hanging in the air for an unnaturally long time.

  We drive forever. It’s hard to find my street. My heart is in my throat as I pull alongside the driveway. Nothing there but Dad’s pickup and Mom’s Bug. No cops, no green Honda. Are they already in bed? I should’ve called. Mom’s cell is standing in the ashtray, the ringer turned off. What did they do to deserve a daughter like me?

  “I don’t want to go home,” I say.

  “What do you want to do? What can we do?”

  “I can still drop you off. Tell him nobody else was with me.”

  “No. I’m sure he saw us together.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t recognize you. You want me to drop you at home? Come on.”

  “No.”

  “It figures,” I say.

  “What?”

  “That it would end like this, one big messed-up downer. I was feeling so good back at the Chan Auditorium.”

  “Be honest.”

  “Okay. I was scared to pieces. But so what? We pulled it off, didn’t we? Perfect. Now the rain, the dark—it makes everything bad, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s because everything is bad.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he won’t do anything.”

  “Oh, sure. You’re going to stop, right? You want to stop?”

  I swipe wet hair from my face as I think about it. “As Country would say, hell, no. But it’s over. It’s got to be.”

  He squeezes my arm. “Let’s run away.”

  “Oh, come on, Schuyler.”

  “Really. How much gas do you have?”

  A truck suddenly lumbers across our field of view. Its glistening blue panels could be the hull of a freighter. I’m going so slow, there’s no possibility of a collision; still, it’s like a wall appearing from nowhere. When it’s gone, when we’re breathing easier again, I check the gas gauge.

  “Quarter of a tank. You’re not serious.”

  A lock of Schuyler’s hair has slipped down over his eyes. He pushes it back. “Who says?”

  “Where would we go?”

  “I hear Madagascar is charming this time of year. The children eat hissing cockroaches for treats.”

  “Not funny.”

  “I don’t feel funny. In fact, I’ve never felt less funny in my whole life.”

  “I feel flat. I feel like a flatworm must feel.”

  Schuyler scratches at his hair. “Arthurdendyus triangulatus or Artioposthia triangulata?” he says gloomily.

  “Aren’t those the same thing?”

  “I don’t know. The ones from New Zealand. That project we did.”

  I’m becoming hypnotized by the wipers. I’m hunched over the wheel, my chest almost against Wilkie’s horn. There is hardly any traffic now, but this is worse—there are no brake lights to follow. We’re in a submarine.

  “Talk, just keep talking,” I say.

  “About anything?”

  “I’m a flatworm,” I say. “I have two simple ganglia instead of a brain. You can cut me into segments; I’ll grow new copies of myself. I’m parasitic. That’s all I can think about. Attaching myself to another person and living off him.”

  “Mr. Mann?”

  I can’t think of how to respond. I’m too busy listening to my mind.

  “The male flatworm has a copulatory center in his last abdominal segment. Remember? But there is an inhibitory center in the ganglion that holds the copulatory center in check. It’s simple. You don’t need a female flatworm to make him want to screw. You can cut off his head with a razor blade. Once he loses his head, the copulatory center is re
leased. Mechanics.”

  “So you think all men are like that? Mechanical? Is that what you think about me?”

  I wait to answer and then don’t answer. I ask a question instead:

  “Do you want to live forever?”

  Schuyler thinks in watery shadows. “Maybe we will,” he says. “Maybe science—”

  “I think we already do.” I’m clutching the steering wheel very hard, face straight ahead, hands pale. “Not in the body, but in the germ plasm.”

  “George Wald,” Schuyler says. “I knew this flatworm jazz was going somewhere familiar. His writings. The Origin of Death—”

  “Every creature alive today is part of an unbroken line of life stretching back to the first primitive organism to appear on the planet three billion years ago. That’s what he said. That’s immortality. All the immortality we can hope for.”

  My voice is getting higher, hands gripping more tightly. Go on.

  “All that time, our germ plasm has been living the life of single-celled creatures, reproducing by simple division. All that time, that germ plasm has been making bodies and throwing them away when they die. What was it Wald said? If the germ plasm wants to swim in the ocean, it makes itself a fish; if the germ plasm wants to fly in the air, it makes itself a bird. If it wants to go to Harvard, it makes itself a man. Something like that.”

  “Nine.”

  “So what are we here for, Schuyler? Just to make sure the line of life isn’t broken?”

  “Nine.”

  “Is that all we are? Tiny little chunks of one big, unbroken life? So do we really matter at all as ourselves?”

  “Nine!”

  He’s grabbing at the wheel.

  “What?”

  “Car!”

  It’s coming straight at us, headlights jiggling in the lines of rain. The two of us wrestle Wilkie Collins to the side and the green car passes.

  Green.

  I see the color in the moment when the car slides past in the reflection of our headlights. The rain has washed away the world of shapes, identifications, but the green smear is still visible. Then it’s gone.

  Green.

  “It’s him,” I say.

  growing season

  Schuyler flinches beside me.

  “Who? Mr. Mann? How do you know?”