Melt

by Selene Castrovilla

  water chalk it up to global warming

  I

  guess.

  I kind of wished there was a

  cold

  breeze

  that way maybe we’d have to

  move closer.

  Still

  it was something being by the

  water

  with her

  breathing

  in all that

  fresh

  air.

  I felt high and I didn’t smoke since that morning.

  We didn’t say

  nothing

  for a while we just

  sat and

  looked at the sun the way it

  shined in

  patches over the

  ripples and the ducks the way they

  glided over the

  patches and the

  ripples so smooth and

  in

  a

  row

  and we breathed we

  breathed

  we

  breathed.

  Then finally I had to tell her. I couldn’t take all that

  easy

  breathing

  no more it wasn’t right.

  Doll, I said.

  Shit shit ….

  But she smiled again so I didn’t

  bother apologizing I just went on.

  Dorothy, I said.

  Then I stopped

  ‘cause it’s hard

  to tell someone what a

  piece of

  shit

  you are.

  Someone you like at least.

  I looked

  down

  at the waxy bag I was holding. I un-crinkled the top

  took out the donut. White powder

  spilled out

  all over

  me I was so stupid getting a jelly donut of all things why didn’t I get a chocolate frosted but what did it matter

  anyway.

  It actually helped.

  See this donut, I asked.

  Yes

  she

  did.

  Sugar

  coated my fingers

  white but it couldn’t

  coat

  the

  truth.

  I brought the donut to my mouth

  bit a hunk

  exposed

  the thick globbed

  purple center.

  This donut

  is

  me,

  I told her through my

  chalky

  powdered lips.

  She laughed, What?

  No

  really,

  I said.

  I told

  her,

  I’m a smeary

  gooey oozing

  jelly

  donut.

  I’m a mess on the outside, I said

  holding up my free

  mutilated

  hand.

  And I’m more of a mess on the inside, I said

  holding up the

  donut.

  She said,

  So?

  So,

  I said.

  I

  said,

  So

  I don’t want you getting your hands

  dirty.

  That’s why they invented

  napkins,

  she

  said.

  She

  said,

  If you’re trying to tell me that what Amy said is

  true

  without even

  knowing

  what

  she

  said

  I really don’t care.

  She said, I

  don’t

  care

  about what you’ve done because

  I see who you are

  and

  I know you had to

  have

  your

  reasons.

  But,

  I

  said.

  But …,

  she

  said.

  She

  said,

  But

  even

  if you didn’t

  I guess I still don’t care.

  Not enough to walk

  away.

  Then she did it again. Oh my

  god oh

  my

  god

  oh my god

  she

  took

  my

  hand.

  The one without the donut in it.

  She

  said,

  I’ve never felt

  anything

  like this before.

  Have you?

  I shook

  my head

  no.

  We sat

  quiet

  for a minute

  my fucked-up hand in her soft one

  just

  feeling that

  feeling just

  sucking

  it

  in absorbing it to our

  cores.

  She

  said,

  So really

  the only question is

  Why do you keep calling me Doll? It’s a little cliched

  nes

  pa?

  Nes pa? I repeated.

  She spelled it,

  N’est-ce

  pas. She

  said, It’s French. She

  said,

  It means

  loosely

  Wouldn’t

  you

  agree?

  I said I guessed I would agree but it was just that she reminded me of my

  mom’s

  porcelain

  dolls how they were so fragile and

  pure.

  I told her all this

  even though I knew how un-frigging-believably gay it sounded. Then I promised I would

  stop calling her that

  really I would.

  It’s okay, she

  said.

  She was still

  holding

  my

  hand and her hair and her eyes were all shimmery

  with

  light

  and I felt like I was one of them

  ducks

  out

  there sailing smooth through the

  water all lined up

  in

  a

  row.

  She

  said,

  Now that you’ve

  explained it I

  understand.

  You

  do? I asked. I wasn’t even

  sure that

  I

  understood. Maybe she could

  explain me to

  me.

  Wouldn’t

  that

  be something.

  I

  do, she said.

  And I think it’s

  nice. I’m

  flattered.

  Go figure. I never

  flattered

  anyone before.

  Flattened,

  but

  not flattered.

  Squeezing

  squeezing

  squeezing into my

  palm

  she said,

  And

  don’t

  worry

  I won’t break.

  Three

  Dorothy

  “Do you cry?” I asked him.

  I felt his hurt, under the charge we were sharing. It moved at a lower current, almost slipping below the radar, but I felt his pain.

  I couldn’t help him. I could hold him, hold space for him, but I couldn’t save him. He had to find his own way through.

  He stared into me, blinked like he was trying to process the question. His eyes were like the sky when the rain ends, caught between gloom and sun.

  He rubbed his thumb across my skin, traced the raised artery going down my wrist. It felt co
arse, like sandpaper, and it was so, so satisfying. It was like having a perpetual itch scratched, finally.

  “No,” he said. He drew in a breath, breathed it out slow. “No, I don’t cry.”

  We looked at each other some more. He wanted to confess all his sins, I sensed, but I wasn’t ready to hear them yet. I just wanted to know him in that moment, it was all I could take, this was all so new to me. He got that. It’s amazing what you can comprehend without speaking or hearing a word if you just allow yourself. He understood it, and he respected it.

  He still had that jelly donut in his other hand. He realized it just as I did—we both glanced at the donut, and laughed. He held it up to my lips. I sunk in, took a bite from the sticky center.

  I wanted to kiss him then, I wanted to share the sugar on my lips, have it melt in both our mouths.

  I wanted to know what he tasted like.

  I wanted to know so, so much, and I felt like I’d burst if I didn’t act, but I didn’t.

  I didn’t, because it wasn’t time yet.

  “You need to get going?” he asked, and I did. It was getting dark, and my mom was going to worry about me. It was getting chilly, too. I shivered, wished I could fold myself into his arms to get warm.

  But it wasn’t time for that, either.

  He wolfed down the remains of his donut, licked his fingers, wiped them dry on his jeans. Then he ran his hand up and down my arms, one and then the other, smoothing down the raised hairs. Who would ever think something so hard and calloused could be so soothing?

  His other hand was still locked in mine. Neither of us wanted to be the one to let go.

  I took another look at the water, at the reeds growing at the edges. So vulnerable, so exposed out there, and yet they endured.

  He said, “Where do you live? I’ll walk you home.”

  We held hands all the way to my house, about ten blocks. I was still trying to get used to suburbia, all those houses so similar and still. Except for the occasional kids playing in the street—and there weren’t many because it was dinner-time—the neighborhood was silent. You could never walk a noiseless block in Manhattan.

  We didn’t speak, and yet we were communicating. Getting to know each other, without words. When you think about it, words don’t count for much anyway. It’s the intentions behind them that count. And this was like we were skipping past the words, like we didn’t need them.

  “This is it,” I told him when we got to my house, a Spanish-style villa, gated and set back from the road and the other houses.

  He stared at the gate’s crisscrossed wrought iron strips. “You live here?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Nothing … it’s just … this is like, the nicest house around here. Hell, it’s a friggin’ mansion.”

  I looked at the sidewalk, didn’t say anything.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean … it’s just …. Oh, Doll.” He sighed, let my hand slip from his. “We’re so different.”

  “That’s only a problem if you make it one,” I said, looking back up at him.

  “Yeah, you say that now ….”

  I took his hand back in mine. “See you in school tomorrow?”

  “Uh, no … I go to Boces. That’s for technical training.”

  “I know what it is. Okay, then come over after school.”

  “Come here, inside?”

  I nodded. “Come over tomorrow, and you can tell me anything you want. Okay?”

  “But, your parents ….”

  “My parents will like you because I like you. Don’t worry.”

  His eyes looked panicked. He sucked in a burst of air, let it out slowly like he’d done earlier. The stress faded from his face.

  He smiled his little side smile. “Okay.”

  We let go of our hands together this time, stood there for a moment, silently saying goodbye. Then he turned, ambled down the street.

  He stopped at the corner street sign and gave a wave.

  I waved back and unlatched the gate.

  Joey

  All the way home it was a battle.

  There was this new part of me

  still back at the water

  still holding Doll’s hand.

  Breathing

  breathing

  breathing in that air.

  Feeling like one of them ducks all neat all in order all

  right.

  Yeah

  all right.

  I’d actually felt all right there.

  But then there was my

  other part.

  The part I’m used to. The part that don’t let me have nothing ‘cept drinks and some bud. The part that don’t let me rest for a goddamn minute.

  The part always

  poking

  poking

  poking at my back

  reminding me what a

  loser

  I am.

  That part it don’t wanna let me breathe for nothing.

  That part that

  part that

  part keeps me frozen on the scrawny-ass ledge from the second I wake up.

  That part was saying,

  She lives in a palace she’s got

  gates and stone pillars she’s got ivy growing up those pillars she’s got all these pine trees in her yard it’s like a forest in there

  through

  them

  gates.

  That

  part

  said, There ain’t no place for someone like you behind them iron gates.

  Them gates

  they were made for locking

  people like you

  out.

  Them gates are there to keep Doll

  safe

  from

  you.

  Yeah.

  It’s like Pop says.

  He says people like

  me

  if we make it past twenty

  we wind up with steel bars of our own. There just ain’t no mansions behind them.

  It’s us that’s behind them locked up nice and

  snug.

  Actually, I’m ahead of schedule. Call me precocious.

  I already got a little taste of the future,

  courtesy

  of

  Pop.

  I get the picture in my

  head

  so fast

  before I can even tell myself

  not

  to go

  there.

  Don’t matter.

  This memory ain’t

  nothing compared to

  some.

  There we are in

  court.

  Again.

  ‘Cept this time it’s not family court.

  This

  time on account of my

  age and the

  severity

  of my

  crime

  this time this

  time

  this time

  I made the major league. The criminal courthouse in Mineola.

  The routine in courthouses is everyone stands ‘round the halls and waiting rooms making deals and whatnot to save the court’s time.

  That’s what we always did before but

  not

  this

  time.

  This time they keep me

  separate.

  This time they haul my ass down the hall in cuffs like I’m some

  big

  shot

  criminal. There’s no one else around. Get this: they cleared the area first. Apparently I’m some

  maniac

  they gotta protect the world from.

  Suddenly I’m the bogeyman.

  They lead me right through

  no

  man’s

  hall

  my hands are pulled behind my back

  steel’s snapped ‘round my wrists.

  I’m so used to the position it’s kind of comforting. I got my fingers linked together it’s like I’m

  holding
/>
  my own hand.

  The two court officers they walk me one on each arm into some

  puke

  green conference room then they

  uncuff me and I sit in a

  hard metal chair by a rectangle metal table just what I needed

  more steel.

  In follows Mom and my

  lawyer

  chairs scrape back

  they

  sit

  at the table where I

  am. They sit

  by

  me but they don’t

  face

  me. Mom I guess she’s ashamed

  of me

  of her.

  My lawyer

  who the hell knows what his

  problem

  is. He’s sitting there all smug in his camel hair coat or some

  shit

  too good for his client I guess. Then

  Pop

  marches in all stiff and coply like a pole’s up his butt he comes in he stands next to the flag.

  I look past him out the window but all I can see from my poor angle is

  gray

  sky

  and the top of this sad tree its gnarly twiggy branches are all naked. Old Mother Nature that bitch she stripped its leaves right

  off

  it.

  The Assistant DA rolls in he’s this

  puny

  guy trying to be

  big

  in a navy pinstripe suit. He

  thunks

  his broad briefcase

  down on the table

  click

  click

  unsnaps it open

  hauls out my record.

  I got a sheet of priors that just keeps on

  giving. There’s

  fights there’s drunk and

  disorderly there’s smoking

  bud on school

  grounds and wait

  there’s

  more.

  It’s all petty b.s. I never hurt no one that bad at least

  up

  ‘til

  now.

  I didn’t even mean to hurt no one

  this

  time

  not like this

  not to put the dude in no coma.

  He just got in

  my face

  he wouldn’t go away. Who told that

  prick

  to get in my face

  like

  that?

  Pop’s

  standing tall

  by the stars and stripes

  he’s in his

  neat

  blue

  uniform

  shiny badge attached. He don’t look at me

  neither

  not that I want him to.

  Suddenly the sun casts through the window look at that it

  broke

  through the gray

  it lands a ray right at his

  black

  patent

  shoes. He looks like he’s standing in a

  path

  of

  light ain’t that some ironic shit.

  The ADA he don’t even glance my

  way

  no one even

  turns

  in my direction do I even

  need

  to be here? That ADA he says he’s gonna let me off with

  probation.

  Again.

  He don’t say so but I

  know it’s on account of