THIN ICE
By
Anthea Carson
Copyright 2013
Book Three of The Oshkosh Trilogy
Book One: The Dark Lake
Book Two: Call me Jane
1
I didn’t know where I was for the first couple of minutes after I woke up. I looked around, feeling the same blankness that I saw in my surroundings. The metal tray near my bed, the half-closed curtain made of the same material I was wearing. Half-wearing, I should say. It was slipping off my shoulder, untied in the back, and I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Not even when the five of them traipsed into the room single file, walking casually and slowly.
Except for Gay. She strutted in, veered away from the others, and headed straight for the window. She opened it as wide as it would go. “Here you go, Jane; you can jump from here.” She leaned out the window. “Except it’s only two stories. You’d probably only break your leg.”
“I think I’m going to throw up again,” I moaned.
“That’ll teach her not to drink,” said a woman’s voice from behind the curtain.
“Oh no, I’m sharing a room with a cranky, judgmental old biddy,” I said.
Gay peered around the curtain.
“Yeah, you pretty much got her pegged,” she said.
“You punks better get out of here or I will ring the nurse,” came the bitchy voice from behind the curtain.
Krishna leaned against the wall, dangling a tiny noose up in the air, and said, “We brought you some supplies. A cap gun.” She tossed the cap gun on my bed. “Some poison.” She tossed a small jar with a skull and crossbones onto my bed.
“Is Paul here with you guys?” I asked. “In the car or something? Who drove you here?”
“Some razor blades.” Krishna tossed a pack of those on my bed too. “No. Dave’s not here either. He wouldn’t come to see you. He said you were a coward. Raj drove us here.”
I could see Raj standing a ways down the hall, out of earshot.
“He’s furious with you,” added Chrystal.
“Who is? Raj or Paul?”
“No, Dave,” said Chrystal. She stood near the entrance, near Jenny. As usual, both were dressed punk with spiked hair and T-shirts intentionally ripped and covered with Clash and Sex Pistols buttons.
“What about Paul?” I asked. “What did he say?”
“Ziggy defended you,” Krishna said. “He said you were not a coward, just the opposite. That what you did took guts.”
“Guts? A suicide attempt? That’s weird,” I said. “Did Paul say anything?”
“It didn’t take guts,” said Gay. “It just took stupidity. Who tries to commit suicide over a band?”
“Especially four mop-topped morons,” said Krishna. “Face it, Jane: the Beatles suck compared to the Stones. You lost the Beatles versus the Stones contest. But that’s no reason to try and commit suicide.”
“I’m going to ring the nurse,” said the woman behind the curtain.
“Good,” I hollered. “Tell her to bring me a bedpan.”
“No thanks,” Gay said. “I don’t need to see any more of that. I came in here last night and you were puking. You had your back to the door and were bent over that thing. I must say, those nightgowns they give you don’t cover much, especially when they’re not tied in the back. I got an eyeful.”
“You came here last night? I have no memory of that,” I said.
“Of course not,” said the woman. “You were so drunk you’d probably blacked out. That’ll teach you punk kids; that’ll teach you.”
She rang again for the nurse, who walked in within seconds, probably on her way from the first ring.
“Okay, gang, you’ll have to leave,” she said. She closed the curtain the rest of the way, and the window. “Who opened this?”
My mom walked in behind her.
“Hi, Mrs. Anderson,” Gay said, with the phony politeness she saved for my mother.
“Get that pack of thugs out of my room!” shouted the voice behind the curtain. I was tempted to reach out and pull the curtain back to see what she looked like, but it was too far for me to reach without sitting up, and I still felt too sick to sit up. “What a group,” she continued. “You let her hang out with kids like that?”
“Oh, I know,” said my mother. “Tell me about it.”
“Hey!” yelled Gay from down the hall. “We can still hear you.” The sound of snickering grew dimmer as they moved farther away.
“You better get control over your daughter,” the voice continued.
“I know it. Not an easy task,” said my mother. She sat on the bed.
I said, “Oh please, don’t sit on the bed.” To the nurse, I added, “Can you give me that bedpan again?”
“You better stop throwing up; you have nothing left in your stomach,” said the nurse.
“I can’t,” I said, and heaved into the bedpan. Sweaty sickness washed over me, making me lie back against the pillow. I had never thrown up so many times in my life.
My memory was starting to come back dimly: memories of dry heaves through the night and into the morning.
The nurse took the bedpan and left. “I don’t ever want to get this sick again. Did they pump my stomach? Is that how they got the Tylenol out of me?”
“They pumped your stomach. They said they weren’t worried about the Tylenol. They said the alcohol was going to kill you. Your blood alcohol level was at point four five, Jane,” Mom fairly shouted.
“Oh my Lord,” the woman gasped.
“I don’t want to ever throw up again.”
When it was time to go, after I dressed and sat on the edge of the bed, my mom pulled up a chair. She said, “We’re going to turn over a new leaf.”
My roommate was gone; only Mom and I were here. I’d showered. I felt much better, and was hungry.
In the car home, I asked her, “Will you fix me a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup?”
“Yes,” she said. “You are going to start over. No more drinking.”
“Oh no, I don’t ever want to drink again. I was horribly sick. I don’t ever want to be that sick again.”
“You are going to turn over a new leaf.”
I turned on the radio.
“What a great song,” I said over the radio. I started singing along. It described how I felt perfectly. It wasn’t winter, though. It was spring and the buds were starting to appear on the branches.
She turned the radio off.
“What?” I shouted. “How could you turn off ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’? What a great song!”
“This is not about music,” she said.
I turned the song back on, and turned it up louder.
She turned it off.
“You need to stop associating with Krishna,” she said.
“What?” I said. “Why?”
“She’s bad news.”
“You don’t even know her,” I said, and turned the radio on again, and up more.
My mom gave up on the radio as we pulled into the driveway. I hopped out of the car and headed toward the back porch. I swear, in the space of time it took to drive home from the hospital, which was only down by Menominee Park, literally walking distance, the buds had turned to leaves. There were flowers on the lilac bushes that hung over the car.
“Can you make me that grilled cheese sandwich?”
“Yes,” she said.
I sat at the table, listening to the birds singing—another sign of spring. The ripples on the glass top were familiar, as if its memory were imprinted on my fingertips. Familiar, like the winter scene on the sugar bowl, the stirring of my coffee, the grilled cheese sandwich, and the tomato soup.
<
br /> Mom sat down at the table with me as I started eating lunch. She had said I was going to turn over a new leaf. I thought about how often I had heard that phrase, and how there were no leaves outside, only buds.
“You are not going to have any more contact with Krishna, you are going to stop drinking, and you are going to get serious about your schoolwork,” Mom said. She wasn’t eating. She placed her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers.
The phone rang. I went to answer it.
“If that’s Krishna, you are not going to see her.”
I hung up the phone.
“I need the car,” I said.
“You are not going over to Krishna’s.”
“It wasn’t Krishna,” I said, and grabbed the keys out of her purse, which she had left on the counter. The counter was also familiar—the black, lacquer top with marble swirls. I left through the back door, carrying half my sandwich.
2
We had the radio on and the windows rolled down. We chain-smoked and flicked our ashes out the window. Gay was smoking a pot pipe, but she didn’t pass it to me because I wasn’t smoking pot anymore. I’d sworn it off for good. The drugs and the booze. I kept the cigarettes and the coffee.
“It reminded me of when my dad died,” Gay said. “It freaked me out. It affected Krishna, too.” She sat with her arms crossed. She glanced at me when she said that.
I saw a flash of her standing in the entrance to the emergency room, her face white as the sheets of the hospital bed I was kneeling on—writhing on—as I retched and dry-heaved into the bedpan.
“How did I see you?” I asked. “If my back was to you when you came in? But I remember seeing you.”
“Your back? No, your naked ass. That’s what I saw when I walked in.” She began giggling maniacally, covering her eyes and blushing. “That’s an image I’ll never get out of my mind. Unfortunately.” She fell silent for a moment before adding, “And it made me think of my dad. When he died.”
“Your dad committed suicide?” I asked.
“No, he would never do that.”
“I thought he left.”
“He did.”
“You said it reminded of you of when he died. But I distinctly remember you saying he left, or that you never knew him, or something like that. I think you said you never knew him.”
“It’s true. He left, and he died. Both are true,” she said, and turned the radio way up so I couldn’t ask any more questions.
I turned left into Menominee Park and drove toward the water.
Gay had her arms crossed and was staring out her passenger window. She seemed sullen, although I couldn’t see her face.
“I don’t see what me trying to kill myself has to do with anybody else. I’m the only person I hurt.”
Suddenly Gay turned the radio down till I could barely hear it, swiveled toward me, and said, “That’s what I mean, you selfish fuck!”
“You’re pissed off?” I glanced over at her. “Seriously?”
“Fuck you,” she said and returned to staring out the window, cranking up the radio.
I drove in confused silence around the park. I loved to drive around the park. Menominee Park had these loops—or were they figure eights? I would need to fly above them to know for sure, but I think maybe they were just one large, lopsided figure eight.
“I freaked out,” I began, turning the radio down. “First of all, did you know I would have died of alcohol poisoning had I not taken the Tylenol and called 911?”
Gay didn’t say anything.
“And,” I continued, “Krishna. She was ruthless about that contest; I felt like she was . . . I don’t know.” I searched for the word.
“Embarrassing you? Yeah, she’s good at that,” Gay said. “I was rooting for you, but she was too good. But what kind of a reason is that to kill yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I said, pondering this.
“Glinda thinks you did it to get attention,” Gay said.
“She thinks that? When did she say that?”
“The other night,” Gay said, grabbing one of my cigarettes, “there was a dinner party at Ziggy and Glinda’s parents’ house, downstairs, for the adults. But we were there too. Everyone was there. Everyone was discussing you, and your motives for doing it.”
“What?” I gasped. “Who all was there?”
“Everyone.”
“Was Paul there?”
“Everyone was. Even Mrs. D. was there.”
“Mrs. De Muprathne? What was our English teacher doing there?”
“She’s good friends with the Sinclairs,” Gay said. “They hang out together; all the professors go over to the Sinclairs, don’t you know?”
“My dad’s one and he has never gone over there, and Mrs. D.’s just a high-school teacher,” I said.
“Whatever. But anyway, even she was talking about it, and had ideas for why you did it.”
“Mrs. D.? What did she say? God, it sounds like they were dissecting me over the dinner table, like I was the main course.”
“That’s a pretty accurate description.”
“Did you stand up for me?”
Gay didn’t say anything, just crossed her arms, pissed off again. Then she put her cigarette out in my ashtray angrily, smashing it hard.
“Did you?” I asked. “Of course not.”
“No, I didn’t need to. Ziggy did.”
“Siegfried?”
“Yes, Siegfried.”
“What did he say?”
“He said they didn’t know what they were talking about, that you were in a tough position beyond your maturity level. Typical Siegfried,” she said.
“What did Mrs. D. say to that?”
“Nothing about you. She told Ziggy once again that he was very intelligent, which she says every time she opens her mouth.”
I pulled over, because I was so taken aback by what Ziggy had said. I parked near the diminutive Menominee Park Zoo. Gay climbed out immediately and slammed the door, walking toward the water.
“Geez, what is she pissed off at me for?” I said to myself.
“Well,” I said, when I left and shut the door, following her, “did you stick up for me to Glinda?”
She walked faster so she wouldn’t have to answer.
I ran to catch up with her. “You told me before that you thought she was wrong,” I huffed, out of breath. “That she was wrong to insist I break up with Paul.”
“I know!” Gay shouted. “She’s wrong. Do you think I’m happy about it? She fucking hates you. She blames you for luring Paul away from his responsibility to Lucy. She blames you for Lucy’s abortion. She’s angry, hates you, keeps saying she’s going to kill you when she sees you. She thinks you were just trying to get attention by trying to kill yourself, and she says you couldn’t even do that right.”
“I know she blames me, but it wasn’t my fault Paul didn’t stay with her. Doesn’t Paul have a mind of his own?”
“Of course she’s wrong,” said Gay, “but you make it hard for me with her. You think that makes me happy?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” she said. “As usual, you are a selfish fuck who doesn’t understand anything but your own narcissism. Forget it.”
She took off as fast as she could away from me, along the rocky shores of Lake Winnebago. When I stopped chasing her, she slowed down and put her hands in her pockets. Her hair was growing long. It was blowing around past her collar. We both could have used jackets, but had taken off without them. Being spring, it was easy to forget them in the car. After the long, cold winter, even thirty-eight-degree air felt warm.
I crossed the road, heading away from the lake, and toward the zoo and a flock of geese on the grass. I hesitated as they gathered around me. After a while, I heard Gay’s giggle behind me. She said, “You should be high for this; it’s pretty funny to watch.”
“What are they doing?”
The geese quacked and flapped, waddling toward me. Thirty or forty of
them.
“What are they doing?” I shouted. I was becoming scared.
Gay stood there laughing, pointing at me.
“Why aren’t they chasing you? Why are they only after me? Get them away from me!”
Gay picked up a rock and threw it, not toward them, but off to the right to distract them. It worked. They followed it.
We walked in silence in the general direction of the car, veering off to see the sad animals in the zoo.
“I always feel sorry for the bear,” I said. “He has nothing to do. Look at him in there, in his tiny little cage, with his big red ball and his tire. He never even plays with them, just sits there. He looks depressed.”
“What does he have to be depressed about? He’s got it pretty good,” Gay said. “He gets ‘three hots and a cot,’ so to speak.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t natural for him. He doesn’t want to be fed, he wants to hunt, and be a bear,” I said.
“He is being a bear,” Gay said.
“No, he’s not in his natural state, so he’s not being a bear.”
After a while, Gay said, “Come on. Let’s go.”
A peacock strolled across our path as we moved toward the car. He turned toward Gay.
I said, “Why don’t they ever spread their feathers, so we can see them?”
“They only spread them when they feel threatened,” she said.
“What kind of defense is that? I’m pretty; you better not attack me? They must do that to mate, not in self-defense.” When we climbed into the car, I asked, “Was Paul really not interested in going to the hospital? Has he said anything?”
“Um.” Gay hesitated. “I’m sure he was with you in spirit.”
“He hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t asked about me. Does he even know?”
“I think he’s been too busy cleaning up Lucy’s bloody mess.”
“Gay, that’s fucking gross,” I said.
“Well?”
“Paul didn’t want to come see me that night?”
“No, he didn’t. I think Glinda might have come if we’d asked her. To make sure you were dead.”
“I can’t believe all those people were at that dinner party. Did you say Paul was there?”
“Yes, he was there.”
Thin Ice (The Oshkosh Trilogy) Page 1
