The Clay Girl

by Heather Tucker

  She’s wise and I want to hear her voice but the warning squeak of the third and seventh step hushes her. Like me, she knows about listening for the footsteps in the hall. The Tool stops outside my door. In wake-dreams, I see through doors, Tool’s bulk, shoulder to shoulder, tip to toe, his hand thinking over the brass knob. I hear his thoughts, “Just one look at her sleeping. Just a touch there, and—there.” His foot shadow turns, leaving behind a line of light below the door. Toilet flushes. I catch the hiss of his fly zipping and his descent on the stairs. His black Camaro starts up, bullying away the quiet on the two a.m. street.

  Anne says, “Now there’s music.”

  “What? The Tool leaving?”

  “The toilet. You never think of it as a sweet sound until you’re not allowed to flush.”

  Maybe there’s a lot of music not heard until it’s gone.

  I talk to invisible people and I hear voices. Every word said is kept in a room inside me, another one, slightly west of my centre. Jasper never lets me throw out a single one. He says the dirty, rotting words are good fertilizer. Before I sleep, Anne wants to know which jewel in the room is my favourite. I pick three because she’s waited out the dark with me. These treasures shine even on a moonless night: I’m not dirt; I am clay. I’m more worth than I am trouble. And my newest gem that warms me, centre of centre, Shit—Holy Shit.

  My book closes like a sleepy eye. Silence. I hear Auntie Mary’s voice, “Back away from the heat, Ari. You have to wait and see what comes out of the kiln.” I take my book and head to math, noticing things without sound: the patchwork window light covering the hall and how the jock’s big high-top looks beside the beauty’s black patent slipper. The sweet stink of overripe banana leaking from the cafeteria. The classroom door sanded smooth by arm-brushes that no longer remember it was once a great oak. Cool boys sprawl, one leg perched on the seat in front to hold their size and confidence. Pretty girls sit straight, shoulders back. Most hunch, hiding, sleeping, brooding . . . I open my book and write “Wednesday, April 10, 1968, Sitting.” A girl, hair the colour of burnt umber against paper-white skin places a plaid-wrapped toffee on my desk. “Hi, I’m Natasha. Is it true you moved here from Russia?”

  What story are we in, Jasper? “Um, I’m not at liberty to say. It might endanger what’s left of my family.”

  “You want to come over to my house after school?”

  I negotiate words around the sticky candy, “Have to pick up my brother.”

  “Saturday you could come.”

  “I work.”

  She wrinkles her nose and her freckles bunch into tiny flowers.

  “Well, Nat, how about lunch tomorrow? My treat.”

  I want to hate it here. Sulk like a mistreated dog throughout my high school years but I fit in. Jarvis has more kids with fucked-up lives than any school in the burbs. You get credit for the torture situations, not murdered for them. Even volleyball holds promise. Being tall, I can block things, and all my teacher had to do was lift the ball in front of my face and say, “This is the head of the person who has screwed you most.” Turns out I can smash and serve, and I swear I leave a dent on the floor when I spike. The teacher says she’s going to call the Dick and get permission for me to play the final games with the junior girls’ team and I wish her luck.

  Second period art has Jasper sucked right in. Miss Burn returns my sketchbook. “Excellent work on perspective, Ari.” Three shiny stones: turquoise, amber, and black sit atop the book. “Ellis asked me to give you these in return for the gems you gave him.” I turn the smooth stones over in my hand. I like what’s come from this kiln. “Any chance I could read what has him so worked up?”

  “He swore an oath of secrecy.”

  “He hasn’t told me a thing and he’s pretty smug about it.”

  “Yesterday’s piece inspired a sketch, too, so maybe—”

  “Let me see, let me see.”

  I dig out the notebook, turning to a double-page ink drawing of the nest inside the attic. A forest in a room. Mary-deer rolling cinnamon buns. Nia-bear carving wood as she sits in my chair. A whole ocean inside the sink. The rafters opening to the sky, and Uncle Iggy flying to the fiddling seahorse.

  “What is this place?”

  “Where I really live.”

  “A dolphin and a tiger in a bed?”

  “It’s a snow leopard. It’s hard to get it right when I’m drawing so small.”

  “Is that a giraffe and a lion in the oven?”

  “A kiln. We’re just hanging, solidifying dust into life.”

  “The only colour is the yellow door.”

  “From my perspective, there’s always a yellow door. Sometimes it’s right in front of you, other times you have to travel great distances to find it, but there’s always one there.”

  She flips to the words.

  I snatch the book. “Those are for Mr. Ellis.”

  I catch Mr. Ellis before lunch. “Thank you for the stones, sir.”

  His hair looks like an untended lawn, full of a whole universe down at the roots. I place my book on his palm. “Just so you don’t get jittery, the teacher isn’t you. Not that I don’t think you’re cool, but this one saved my dog.”

  Wednesday, April 10, 1968 ~ Sitting

  I’ve grown too tall to be small, yet I’m too full of questions to sprawl out my long length in confidence, and I’m too full of strength to cower scared over my desk. How do I sit? I bend a little, willow-like, I pour over books a little ocean-like, and I always float a little too dream-like . . .

  Mr. Ellis glances up, searches my face, but I’m not scared of him peeking at my inside rooms. He returns to the page for a long, slow read to the end.

  . . . In the nest there are no teacher-can’t-love-me rules. Here West meets East. Existential Love warms me for now.

  Anne asks, “Where’s Jasper? I can’t see him.”

  “Look close. He’s always the opening from nowhere to somewhere.”

  He looks up, shaking his head at me. “I haven’t a clue what half of it means, but I feel it, I see it, and on some level I understand it completely. How are you doing this?”

  “Just letting the voices in my head bleed through my fingers. You can let Miss Burn read it. But nobody else.”

  “Why, Ari? Your writing should be read.”

  “You ever been interrogated by Children’s Aid for something you wrote?”

  “Can’t say that I have. Have you?”

  “My seventh grade teacher got all Amish about an exposé I wrote, ‘Granny’s House of Weenies.’ I had to sit down with Sigmoid Freud for twelve weeks. Could have been out in two but I had no idea that ‘Of course, don’t you?’ was the wrong answer to, ‘Do you hear voices?’”

  “Did it help any?”

  “Scared me more than anything. He poked at the bruises in the Appleton bushel and told me my rosy attitude was a big fat lie. Apparently, I’m really sad and angry. I do give despair a good try now and then, but it’s exhausting.”

  “Maybe Sigmoid should’ve read between the lines of your essay.” His head tilts kind-like. “Putting weenies on a page is a great way to lighten burdens. And just so you know, I hear voices, too. A guy named Rochester is my best friend.”

  Next to seahorses, the ancient turtle is my most loved spirit and I sense a kinship ahead between Jasper and Rochester. I start away to collect Mikey.

  “Hey, I couldn’t find Jasper either. It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”

  “Guess I’m writing a mystery.”

  A sock puppet named Screed covers Mikey’s hand. His teacher made it for him to use as a friend who can talk for him and now his silence is slowly unravelling. So far he has fourteen stars for whispering through Screed, things like “seven” or “may I go to the bathroom,” or “thank you.” I promised ice cream as a reward.

  Ricky meets u
s on the sidewalk. “It’s not safe to go in. The old man’s pissed.”

  “Why?”

  “Ronnie got picked up for shoplifting again. Laura’s bailing this weekend, and your mom couldn’t account for her whereabouts this afternoon. The old man thinks she was fucking in exchange for shit. Wait here. I’ll tell him we’re going for groceries.”

  While I lighten my bag of its books and pile them up onto the porch I hear volcanic lava spewing out the door. I hurry away from the molten shit with Mikey in tow. Things must be really terrible when Todd comes huffing along behind Ricky. I consider going back and trying to talk him down but I’m not up to explaining another black eye to anyone. Mum has two legs and can walk herself out of her own mess, and if she’s murdered, then I’ll try to find an inch in me to be sad.

  Over hamburgers I learn Todd just turned seventeen. “I thought Ronnie was seventeen.”

  Ricky plays with a pickle speared on his straw. “Dick’s dick was busy that year.”

  Mikey pulls my braid and Screed whispers, “Where’s Mikey’s mommy?”

  I nudge Ricky under the table with my foot. “Screed wants to know why Mikey isn’t going to his mom’s this weekend.”

  Ricky sucks up the dregs of his coke. “Easter is a busy time in the restaurant business. She’s making some overtime cash. Ari and I will take you somewhere tomorrow. Okay, buddy?” Mikey eats up while I drink a little from Ricky’s eyes.

  If I ever want a conversation with Todd it will have to be over something other than eating. Grocery shopping gives us the very thing needed. Outside the store, a winter-coated German shepherd is tied to a pole. It has a sinister smile. I back away but Todd offers a lick of his hamburgered fingers and within thirty seconds he performs a deep knee bend, diving face first into the dog’s neck.

  “You like dogs, Todd?”

  “I had two before we moved to hell.” He struggles to his feet. “The bastard put them down.”

  “I know what that’s like. My neighbour promised to keep my dog for me. They said she bit their kid. Jinx was so gentle she’d say sorry to her food before biting it.” I brush his knees. “Where did those other two go?”

  “Inside the store.”

  “Come on, before they pick out ham for Easter dinner. I can’t tolerate it.”

  Todd’s cheeks plump with a rare smile. “Me either.”

  Upon return to crapdom we see that the loons are exiting the roost. Ronnie heads out, slutted to the nines. Mum clicks down the stairs in (leopard skin capris, plunging backline sweater, inch-thick makeup), her hair a mop of wet spirals. “Richard and I are going for a drink before his shift. Hariet, can you spot me a five?”

  I give her a ten because I want her gone. By some miracle she finds room for it in her pinch-tight bra. “Night, kids. Not too late. It’s a school night.”

  Don’t they celebrate Good Friday on her planet?

  Ethanol and ether but no Easter, Jasper.

  Ricky and I slow dance the groceries away. He says, “I forgot places are closed tomorrow. Where could we take Mikey?”

  “We’ll go to Aquarius and make stuff. Why did his mom really bail?”

  He checks the living room then backs me into the pantry. “She’s strung out again. My old man’s a magnet for fucked-up broads. Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” A strand of my hair coils around his finger until his palm holds my cheek.

  “You get no argument from me.” We’re out of sight and a little out of mind. His lips hover mint-breath close and I wonder when he brushed his teeth and wish I’d thought to brush mine. He’s James Dean beautiful and I have to have one kiss before he gives his life for this country.

  He whispers, “I should get to work.” It only takes a small stretch to touch his lips. I steal a small, scared kiss and he gives me back a long, confused holding. “I have to go.”

  Jasper pinches. We love Jake.

  We’re not giving him our heart. Just testing our other parts to make sure they’re working.

  Thursday, April 11 ~ Absorbing

  How long before where we are becomes who we are? Do dirty lives leech into our marrow? Change our molecular structure? “Anne, who would you have become if there had been an afterward?”

  Todd enters Devil Girl’s cave with a mug of hot chocolate for me. An act of humanness I didn’t know was in him. I guess kneeling before a shedding dog was all it took for his heart to feel full enough that it was safe to give something to someone else.

  “Thanks, Todd.”

  “Fort Apache is on the late show. You wanna watch it?”

  “I’d like to but,” I fan my notebook, “homework.”

  “Sure. Night.”

  About midnight, O’Toole brings the Duchess home. Giggles, moans, “jesusfuckingchrist,” ooze through the wall.

  I know where Devil Girl keeps her stash. Taking the edge off would mercifully open the room behind my left eye that is soundproof and soft-walled.

  Jasper smacks me. How does that make you any different than her? Todd’s with Mikey. Let’s get out of here.

  Pack over my shoulder. Out the window. Across the roof. Long legs easily reaching the wood box. Through the overgrown backyard. Over the fence and down the lane. When volleyball finishes I’ll run track because tonight not even the wind can catch me.

  I climb into my nest, turn the water hottest-hot, open my pores, and absorb, just absorb . . . the quiet, the fragrance of lavender. Cocooning in my bed I drift toward dreams of turning pots with my Spirit Father.

  Anne would’ve been okay because that kitty inside her was really a tiger.

  Right as usual, Jasper.

  The Dick’s sedan is parked out front. If he’s already conducted a bed check I’ll have given away the sneaking out route and my window will be nailed and barred. I breathe deep, walk down the street, and in the front door. The Dick glares down the hall.

  “Morning, sir.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Sunrise Mass.”

  “What time did you go out?”

  “Umm . . . around five?”

  “What time did your mother get home?”

  “Ah . . . before eleven.”

  He grumbles like he has cabbage gas. “You watch the kid this weekend. Your mother and I have plans.”

  “But I work—”

  “Then you damn well better figure something out.”

  “Can’t Todd watch him?”

  “If the kid was a TV.” He fart-laughs through his nose.

  “Can I arrange a sleepover at my friend’s house?”

  “I don’t care what the fuck you do as long as you’re back here to cook after Mass on Sunday. There’ll be five extra for supper. Put a turkey on.”

  “I don’t know how to cook a turkey.”

  “Fucking learn.”

  At the corner of Jarvis and Dundas, Mikey, Ricky, and I pile into Chase’s car. As we pull away I close my eyes and see a girl peering through a small attic window who in two years never got a minute of escape.

  I’m sorry, Anne.

  The city puts on its reverent face for the sacrificial lamb hung on the tree. A green striped awning hangs over empty fruit shelves. A thin man in a thin suit opens a car door for a solid woman and two plump girls. The Clock Shoppe’s sign is turned to closed.

  April 12, 1968 ~ Good Friday?

  Jasper likes riding on the dashboard. He always has. Windows looking back made me too sulky to be with. He takes in the empty streets and asks, “How do you think this Jesus thing is working out?”

  “Hard to say. It sure turned out terrible for Anne.”

  Chase moves his sweater to let me get closer. “You okay?”

  “When the Dick said he and Mum had plans I got a little hopeful, like maybe they had friends or were going to hear some music.”

  “What are they u
p to?”

  “The owner of Club Top Hat gave the Dick a coupon. Their big plans are getting loaded in Scarborough for a change. How’s it possible to get so abandoned on the inside?”

  “As species evolve they lose what they don’t use.” He nudges me. “And some evolve through loss.”

  A day of creating at Aquarius makes for a good Friday. Ricky surveys balsa aircraft coming together under the engineering expertise of seven- and eight-year-old boys in the yard below, then lifts his head to the hint of green on the treetops. I climb out the window to the fire escape. “What’s up?”

  “I hardly got to know Iggy, but he was the kind of guy you’d want for your grandpa. He didn’t have to help me study, but he did anyway. I wish I could show him this and say thanks.” Ricky pulls an envelope from his pocket.

  “Did you get in?”

  Trying to hold his smile in makes it spill out his eyes. We teeter in a hug, then our faces tilt, locking us in a happy-scared-desperately-want-you kiss. His lips travel to my forehead; his arms pulling me closer, closer. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that to Chase.”

  “Chase is okay sharing me in kisses. He’s just not open to tanglings that will keep me, or you, in the craphouse.” We unwind and watch Otto struggle with the old Ford in the yard below. “Last night I knew I’d suffocate if I had to stay there. It’ll kill you, too.” I trace the grease-etched lines on his hand. “You shouldn’t love anything here that will hold you back from the adventures waiting.”

  He searches my face. “Too late for that.” I help myself to another kiss because up here among the trees it seems like what we should do. Ricky and Ari, sitting in a tree . . . His kiss comes back with a tiny bit of tongue, not sloppy Paris France kissing, just a little Mount Royal, Quebec. He pulls away from the kiss but not from me. “Don’t you love Chase?”

  “We love each other completely, so we’re completely owned and completely free.”