What I Leave Behind

by Alison McGhee

  Now Kendrick is the rapist. Pow and Sammy-boy, too. Playa’s the victim. Her parents went with her to the police station.

  “I’m glad they’re pressing charges,” my mom says, nodding. “But she’s going to need to be tough.”

  Now I’m standing by the little butterfly dude’s house, hoping he’ll emerge, but the back door to his house—which is pale green and orange—stays shut.

  The whole way to Dollar Only, I look up.

  Make a point of looking up sometimes, artists, our third-grade art teacher, Miss Trebulon, used to say. She always called us artists. It’s a big world. Bigger than you think, and full of mystery.

  So up I look. The jacarandas are in bloom, and they’re purple. The sky is blue. The palm leaves are green. The air smells like lemons. A helicopter’s making that thwap-thwap sound, bending this way and that like a giant nosy insect.

  High in the sky a sharp white contrail changes into a blur of soft marshmallows.

  I push open the door and suck in a lungful of Dollar Only air with my eyes closed to see if I can predict what shipment arrived today. Bleach? Flavored lip gloss? Grape Kool-Aid? Room deodorizer? Sometimes my best guess is stale air, but not today.

  Orange.

  Sharp and clear and clean. Like a weed whacker that slices names in half, so that Pow is ow and Sammy-boy is ammy-oy and Kendrick turns into drick. Lowercase. Cut off at the knees.

  Orange dish soap? That’s my best guess. A case of it, with one leaking bottle.

  I open my eyes.

  Major Tom is standing like two feet in front of me, waiting for me to open my eyes.

  “Clementine?” he says.

  He holds his hand out to me. In the exact center of his palm is a peeled clementine. Not just peeled, but peeled in one continuous peel which has then been folded up around the sections of orange.

  “You peel that, Major Tom?” I say, because you can tell how much he wants someone to admire it. “That’s rad.”

  Rad because he’ll love being called rad.

  “I did!” he says, and he rocks forward on his toes with pride.

  “You been holding out on us, Major Tom,” I say, and I pop a section into my mouth.

  He wants more, but I got no more for him. Not today. Today’s a day when the jacaranda flowers and the marshmallow contrail and this smell of orange are going to have to get me through. I got nothing left.

  He clears his throat. “Uh, Will?”

  No, man. Read my mind.

  “What’s that I hear?” I say. “Is that Aisle 12, calling my name?”

  I squint like I’m listening. “Why yes, that’s my name,” I say, “floating in a most peculiar way.”

  Major Tom smiles, because he always smiles when I use a line from the Bowie song, but it’s not his usual smile.

  “Listen, Will,” he says, and it’s clear that Aisle 12 is not going to get me before whatever Major Tom has to say gets said, “I heard about what happened.”

  I look at him.

  “At that party,” he says.

  Uh-huh.

  “I just,” he says. “Well, I know the girl goes to your high school, and”—and what, is what I’m thinking, dreading one of his lame-ass quotes.

  He surprises me, though.

  “And I’m sorry” is all he says.

  Unloading shipment is where the forbidden box cutter comes in. One zip down the tape and poof, open.

  Like the boxes have been waiting to see the world, and here’s their chance.

  I don’t look at the outside labels before I open them. That way, the contents are a surprise.

  “What might you hold, mystery box?” I say, talking to this one to keep things interesting. Zip. The flaps spring open.

  Cornmeal.

  Jesus. Really?

  Look around, artists, Miss Trebulon used to say. The world is full of mystery.

  Planet Earth is blue, Bowie says, and there’s nothing I can do.

  “Will? Cornmeal belongs in Aisle 3, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, Major Tom, it does indeed.”

  Major Tom is correct. Cornmeal does not belong here in Aisle 7, Household Goods, but how is a Dollar Only employee supposed to know that until he opens up that mystery box and knows what he’s dealing with, right?

  Major Tom looks at me with a tiny question in his eyes. I smile so he knows I’m not making fun of him.

  Because I’m not. I’m thinking about the blessings store and whether this box full of cornmeal is like a blessing for the dead.

  Some days are just-get-through-them days. You focus only on what’s right in front of you, like sealed boxes and the box cutter zipping down each seal.

  But cornmeal? Seriously?

  Every time I’ve tried to make my dad’s cornbread, it comes out bad. Too dry, too gummy, too salty or not salty enough. Tastes like shit, to be honest.

  But I’m thinking about the black cast iron frying pan, and a box of cornmeal is in my hand. Major Tom’s corkboard appears in my mind. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

  Jesus. That is a truly terrible saying.

  “Mommy? Why’s that man talking to himself?”

  “Some people like to talk to themselves, honey. Mommy does that herself sometimes!”

  False cheer. That bright, don’t-scare-the-kid tone. She looks at me with a fake smile. Nervous eyes.

  I smile back, a real smile, and I shake my head, shrug, like Hey, I know how you feel. I’d be weirded out too if I came across a Dollar Only employee standing there talking to a box of cornmeal.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  I don’t even try to explain. Because what is there to say? Some people do talk out loud to themselves. Like Superman.

  “Mommy? Why does the man have a knife?”

  Oh, jeez. The box cutter.

  “It’s not really a knife,” I say. “It’s a box cutter. I use it to open boxes.”

  “See how careful he is?” says the mom. “Careful with the sharp edge?”

  She’s holding the kid’s hand at this point. I’m trying hard not to look like a disturbed youth, because I’m not a disturbed youth. A distracted youth, maybe. A sad youth, maybe. An angry youth, sometimes. But disturbed? No.

  “Your mom’s right,” I say. “Always be careful with sharp things.”

  Backup for the mom. Moms like that.

  I flick the blade open and snick it down the tape, but this time I don’t let the box spring open.

  “You want to do the honors?” I say to the little kid, and she nods. Okay then. She reaches out and folds back the flaps.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” I say.

  Jump ropes. Dozens and dozens. Striped, each with a different-colored plastic handle: blue, yellow, pink, green. Little-kid colors.

  The kid wants one. You can see it in her eyes. I hold out the box.

  “If you could pick any jump rope, which one would you pick?”

  Kid points at a purple-handled one.

  “Be right back,” I say to the mom. “Commencing countdown, engines on.”

  “Hey! I love that song!” she says, and now she’s totally on my side.

  Up to the register, out with the dollar, ring it up, bring it back.

  “Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare,” I say, and I hand over the paid-for jump rope.

  The mom’s smiling, the kid’s jumping rope right there in Aisle 7, and just then the little butterfly dude flashes into my head. The way he sits there, hands folded, waiting for the butterflies.

  Playa and me, we’re both sixteen. Her birthday is one day after mine in September.

  How I know this is because we were the youngest kids in our kindergarten class. The cutoff was September 1 and we were born one week after, but our parents talked to the principal and got exceptions for both of us.

  Supposedly because we could both print all the letters, upper- and lowercase, and we knew our colors and shapes.

  But really because they didn’t want
to pay for day care anymore. Who can blame them, right? Shit’s expensive, as my dad used to say.

  Our dads, they were buddies after that, in a Fight the Power kind of way. Two brave men who took on the Man at Mountain Elementary and won.

  At kindergarten Moving Up Day, Playa wore a yellow dress and black, shiny shoes. She had a white bow in her hair. Gold earrings. How I know this is because she stood on the back riser right next to me. We were both in the tall kids section.

  I kept on being tall, but by the time we were in fifth grade, Playa was one of the short girls.

  She’s still short.

  You know what’s weird? That something—something big—can happen to someone you know, someone you’ve known forever, while you’re just living your ordinary life, and you don’t even know it’s happening.

  Like the party. I was at that party. I left that party. I was in the same room as Playa. We were breathing the same air. She was talking about my dad’s cornbread.

  Then I left and Playa stayed and ow and ammy-oy and drick walked in. And they raped her.

  And shouldn’t I have felt something? Some kind of shiver in the universe? Shouldn’t I have known?

  I felt that way about my dad, the day it happened.

  The day what happened, Will?

  Shut up. Say it. Just say it.

  The day he died, okay? That day. Like, wait, what? I mean, I just saw him. That morning. He was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and eating leftover cornbread on a green plate.

  “You want some cornbread, son? I’m famous for it, you know.”

  “Nah.”

  That plate isn’t around anymore.

  I don’t know what happened to it.

  Except that I do. I threw it away. I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore, after that day.

  Every time I used to open up the cabinet and see it sitting there, I saw my father sitting there, at the table. Drinking his coffee. Eating leftover cornbread.

  Nah.

  That was the last thing I said to my dad. I refused his cornbread. Don’t tell me it’s not important, don’t tell me that’s a stupid thing to care about, don’t tell me my dad would understand, don’t tell me to give up on the fucking recipe. You are not the one who stood there late to school on the last day you would see your dad and said NAH.

  After the jump-rope kid’s gone, I get an idea. It goes like this:

  What if every single day, Playa gets a gift? One day a jump rope, another day a bar of soap that smells like lemons, the next day a pack of stickers. I could leave them on her doorstep after my shift. A hundred gifts for Playa.

  I mean, picture her waking up. Still sleepy and maybe there’s kitchen noise—her room is down the hall from the kitchen, I know this from back in the day—and everything’s normal, everything’s okay.

  And then she remembers what happened.

  At some point she has to walk out of the house into invisible air, air that has no roof or walls.

  And how do you get through? You know? When things are too much?

  Because the world, it’s full of air. Full of sky and space. Ocean, too. All of which are bigger than any crowd of human beings, on the street, at school, at Dollar Only, at restaurants. At parties.

  It’s hard to remember that, though. Hard to remember that people are tiny. They stare at you, they talk about you, but all they are? Tiny.

  Look up, artists.

  In kindergarten Playa loved yellow. Yellow clothes, yellow notebooks, yellow barrettes. Maybe she quit yellow after elementary school, but screw it, I pick out a yellow jump rope for her.

  The entire shift I’m unloading shipment, aisle to aisle, and in each aisle something else says Playa to me.

  A three-pack of stickers.

  A bag of caramels.

  Some socks with flowers and hearts and green frogs on them. Kid socks. But Playa’s small; maybe they’ll fit.

  At the end of my shift I bring the basket up to the cash register. Then I think, tissue paper. And little gift bags.

  Gift bags, ten for $1.

  A mere $10 for a hundred. What the hell, why not?

  Tissue paper: pink, purple, yellow, white. Those are the colors of the tissue paper assortment in Aisle 13: Party Supplies.

  Most hotels don’t have a thirteenth floor, did you know that? Superstition. Bad luck.

  But here’s the thing: of course they do. Like there’s a gap in the sky where the thirteenth floor should be? Thin air? No, man. What they do is label it the fourteenth floor.

  So next time you’re on the fourteenth floor of a building, just know that you’re not.

  After my shift, I keep going for a little while after clocking out. The floors by Aisle 8: Pet Supplies are dusty from a litter spill. I mop them. Mop. Mop.

  “Dollar Will. Time for you to go home, isn’t it, son?”

  Oh fuck.

  He’s trying out son on me. You can hear it in his voice, like he’s been thinking about it for a while.

  The sound of the word coming out of him makes me think of a million things—does Major Tom want a kid? Does he imagine himself as a dad? Calling some little kid son?

  And if Major Tom does want a kid, what about all the other things that have to come first? Like a girl. A girl who’d look at him and want to be with him.

  Oh fuck. No.

  “Ground control to Major Tom,” I say. “These floors needed a shine. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

  Major Tom loves shit like that. Talk about yourself in the third person, hold an imaginary mic to your mouth. He smiles right away, just like I knew he would.

  I smile back. But not really. Not tonight. Tonight, it’s too much.

  He surprises me, though. He stands there watching me swab for a while—swabbie’s a sailor word, isn’t it?—and then he reaches out and takes the mop from me.

  “Go home, Dollar,” he says.

  Surprising. A tone in his voice I haven’t heard before. There’s nothing tentative in him at that moment, which is so unlike the way I think of Major Tom that I do it, I just let him take the mop.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Then, weirdness, I tell him that I’m going to go home and make some cornbread. He nods, like, sure, that’s entirely normal.

  One more thing before I go. A red plastic stepstool and a blue shovel for the little dude. Can’t forget about the little dude.

  Out I go with my backpack stuffed. If everything’s a dollar, that means everything’s special or nothing’s special. Right?

  Back home there’s a note on the table.

  Love you, Willy. Xoxoxo, Mom.

  The pen’s still on the notepad, so I write her back.

  Love you too, Mama.

  Okay, cornbread, show me what you got. This time I add green chiles and sriracha. The butter hisses when it hits the hot pan, but the cornbread? Still sucks.

  The last time I saw my dad, the day of the coffee mug and the green plate and him saying, You want some cornbread, son? and me saying Nah, he was doing the Jumble, same as every morning.

  It was the day before’s Jumble, because we don’t get the newspaper, but Eddie next door does, and Eddie’s one of those people who folds it up after he reads it so it looks exactly the same as when it’s first unrolled. And then he carries it out to recycling and opens the lid and lowers it in.

  Like a newspaper coffin.

  Every night before bed, my dad used to go out and raise up Eddie’s newspaper from the recycling dead.

  He never read the news. Just the comics. Then, the next morning, he would do the Jumble. In pen. Which he was proud of, even though between you and me? The Jumble is not hard. At all.

  “Why don’t you read the news?” I asked him once.

  “Don’t bother with the goddamn news, son,” he said. “We soak that shit in through our skin. Can’t avoid the goddamn news if you want to.”

  My dad was a big fan of swearing.

  It bugs the shit out of me when anyone tries to call m
e son. Major Tom was testing it out. He’d worked up his courage to say it. You can tell he wants to be someone’s dad.

  But the thing is, he can’t be my dad. I already had a dad, and there’s not ever going to be another one.

  I didn’t say anything, though. I mean, it’s Major Tom, right? Major Tom who sat in his closet-slash-office that night closed-eyed and pointed to one of his shitty quotes and then nodded. You know?

  The guy kills me, almost literally.

  How do you get through, when things are too much? Ask me and I’ll tell you to walk.

  “Just walk,” I’ll say. “Walk. Walk and walk and walk and walk and walk.”

  That’s what I did, after my dad. The morning after they found him, the morning after the night that my mom stayed up all night and I tried to stay up with her but I fell asleep against my will, was the morning of the day that I started walking.

  I was thirteen years old when I began to walk. And now I’m sixteen and I’m still walking.

  Another note:

  Smells good in here. You been baking? Love, Mom.

  Jesus, Mom. Am I sitting in a tin can? Far above the world?

  No. I have not been baking cornbread on Tuesdays when you’re working the overnight, because only one person knew the recipe for that cornbread, and it cannot be replicated. The cast iron skillet is not buried in my closet under the Bowie T-shirt that I don’t wear anymore, and the Dollar Only cornmeal is not shoved in my sock drawer.

  Everything above is a lie except the can’t be replicated part.