First, Body

by Melanie Rae Thon

  I stroked her arm to make her wake.

  What do you want now? she said.

  To say goodnight.

  Not goodbye?

  Not yet.

  It’s not up to you, she said. She was seventy-seven years old, seventy-three pounds the last time anyone checked.

  What did I want?

  I wanted her big again. Tall as my father. Wide in the hips.

  Think of me as a child. Once, when I was sick, my mother sat three days beside me, afraid to sleep because I might stop breathing. Sometimes when I woke I smelled deerskin and tobacco, felt my father’s cool hand on my forehead.

  I have this proof they loved me.

  What went wrong?

  I turned fifteen. Jack Fetters said, Someday, Marie. Jack Fetters whispered, We’re not so different as you think.

  He was a guard at the state penitentiary. He said, Man goes crazy watching other men all day. His wife, Edie, had some terrible disease with a jungle name. Made her arms and legs puff up huge, three times their normal size. Jack Fetters said, Sometimes the body is a cage. They had a little girl just five, another seventeen, four boys in the middle. The one I knew had found his profession already: Nate Fetters was a sixteen-year-old car thief.

  I thought, sooner or later his own daddy and a pack of dogs will chase him up a tree. Would Jack Fetters haul his son back to town, or would he chain the animals and let the thief escape?

  A trap, either way.

  I liked that boy, Nate Fetters. But he never noticed me. It was the father who touched my neck under my hair. It was the father I slapped away. The father who kept finding me. After school, at the edge of town, throwing rocks down the ravine. The patient father. Someday, Marie.

  Was he handsome?

  How can I explain?

  He was the wolfman in a dream, a shape-shifter, caught halfway between what he was and what he was going to be. Even before I unbuttoned his shirt, I imagined silvery fur along his spine. Before I pulled his pants to his ankles, I saw his skinny wolf legs. I knew he’d grunt and moan on top of me. Bite too hard. Come too quickly.

  This part I didn’t see: a car pulled off the road, a back seat — my father with a flashlight, breaking glass above me. I never guessed my own belly would swell up huge like Edie’s legs.

  Wayne sat on the window ledge. Our mother’s room. Another day.

  She’s worse, he said.

  At last, I thought, it’s ending.

  But he didn’t mean this.

  He said, She promised that little fairy her damn TV.

  I knew Wayne. He wanted the color television. He figured he’d earned it, living with Mother. Thirteen years. I’ve done my time. That’s what he’d say.

  Her eyelids fluttered. She was asking God, What did I do to deserve children like these?

  Listen, I felt sorry for my brother. He was soon to be an orphan. Just like me.

  Once we hid in the ravine, that dangerous place, forbidden, where fugitives dug caves, where terrified girls changed themselves to pine trees. We buried ourselves under dirt and damp leaves. We couldn’t speak or see. We couldn’t be seen. God only glanced our way. If he saw the pile of leaves, he thought it was his wind rustling. He turned his gaze. He let us do it. He let us slip our little hands under each other’s clothes. Warm hands. So small! Child hands. So much the same. God didn’t thunder in our ears. God didn’t hurl his lightning.

  But later he must have guessed. He came as brittle light between black branches. He was each one blaming the other. He showed himself as blindness, the path through trees suddenly overgrown with thorns and briars. He came as fear. He turned to root and stone to trip us.

  The man on my mother’s window ledge had split knuckles, a stubbled beard, bloated face. He said, It’s late. I work tonight. He said, Call me if there’s any change.

  First love gone to this. If I said, Remember?, Wayne would say I’d had a dream. He’d say I was a scrawny brat. He’d say the closest thing he ever gave me to a kiss was a rope burn around my wrist.

  This is how God gets revenge: he leaves one to remember and one to forget.

  The boy I loved had been struck dead.

  At twenty, Wayne said, This whole town is a penitentiary. He meant to climb the wall and leap. No barbed wire. No snags. He moved up and down the coast, Anchorage to Los Angeles. He wrote once a year. Every time he was just about to make some real money. But after our father died, Wayne came home to Mother, safe, took a job with Esther McQuade at the 4-Doors Bar on Main Street. It’s a good business, he said. Everybody has to drink.

  Six months later, he married Esther’s pregnant daughter. Some kind of trade. He said, I know this first one’s not gonna look much like me. Now he was Esther’s partner instead of her employee.

  But he was still jealous, thought I must be smart and lucky. Because I went to college, two years. Because I got as far as Missoula and stayed. Eighty miles. I wanted to tell him, No matter where I go, I’m just the same.

  Did he blame himself for Mother’s last accident?

  I never asked. I knew what he’d say. Just because she lives in my house doesn’t mean I trot to the bathroom with her.

  She spent two days in bed before she told him. A tub of scalding water, thighs and buttocks burning. She was ashamed. I just sat down, she said. I wasn’t thinking.

  By the time she showed him, the skin was raw, the wounds infected. She couldn’t ride a single mile. The doctor who came to the house gave her morphine. He said, How did you stand it?

  And she said, I forgot my body.

  This doctor was a boy, blinking behind thick glasses. He couldn’t grasp her meaning. Mother said, Go ask your father. Maybe he can tell you.

  The doctor shook his head. No way to help her here in Deer Lodge. He said, We’ll have to fly you to Missoula.

  Yes, she said, I’d like that. She meant the ride, the helicopter.

  Now this, three weeks of antibiotics and painkillers pumped into veins that kept collapsing. She had a doctor for each part of her: one for skin and one for brain, one to save her from pneumonia. But all of them together couldn’t heal her whole body. The neurologist rubbed his clean hands as if they hurt him. He stood near the window — gray light, white jacket, all I remember. He tried to explain it. Common with stroke victims, immune system impaired, the body can’t fight infection. He said, It’s one thing after another, like stomping out brush fires.

  We were alone at last. I smoothed her hair. She curled into herself, tiny bird of a woman, still shrinking, becoming my child, my unborn mother. I leaned close to whisper. It’s me, I said, Marie, your daughter.

  Rain hit the glass. Then Rafael appeared, off-duty, wearing his black coat draped around his shoulders. He washed her face. He said, She likes this. See? She’s smiling. He said, Go home if you’re tired. I can stay awhile.

  His coat was frayed, not warm, not good in rain. Maybe he had nowhere else to go. No house, no room, no bed, no lover. Maybe this was the reason for his kindness. Who can know our secrets?

  I saw my father in the parking lot, gun propped against a dumpster. He searched his pockets. Found no bullets. He knew Rafael was with my mother. So close at last, and he’d lost her all the same.

  I meant to go home and bolt the door. But rain turned to sleet, sent me spinning. One wrong turn and I found myself at the Bearpaw Bar on Evaro.

  Animals hung. Buffalo, moose, grizzly. This last one had its hide attached. I thought their bodies must be trapped behind these walls. I told the man beside me I’d break them free if I had a pick and axe. He had pointy teeth, a glad-dog grin. He said, Where were you when they locked me down in Deer Lodge? His skin was cracked, a Badlands face. When he smiled that way, I was afraid the scars might split open. This Tully bought my third beer, my first bourbon. He gripped my knee. He said, I like you.

  By the jukebox, two sisters swayed, eyes closed, mouths moving. Sleepdancers. My father leaned against the wall, watching their smooth faces and the dreamy tilt of their hips r
olling. I passed him on my way to the bathroom. His coat was wet. I smelled metal and oil, a gun just cleaned, grease on his fingers.

  Too many beers already. I knew how it would be, how I’d follow Tully to the Easy Sleep Motel, take off my clothes too fast to think.

  But when I saw my father, I had hope I could be saved. I thought, I won’t do this if you’ll talk to me. I said his name. I whispered, Daddy?

  He didn’t hear. Deaf old man. He looked away.

  Listen.

  They never brought my son to me. They let me sob, sore and swollen. They let my breasts bleed milk for days.

  In every room another girl, just the same. In every room the calm Catholic women said, Gone, a good family.

  Listen. There were complications. Narrow pelvis, fetus turned the wrong way. They had to cut my child out of me. Days later, they cut again.

  Infection, the doctor said. It has to drain.

  One slip of the knife. And a girl becomes a childless mother forever. It’s easy. The good women promised, No more accidents. Between themselves they murmured, It’s a blessing.

  Listen.

  No father lets you tell him this.

  In the bathroom, I tried to see myself, but I wasn’t there. I was black eyebrows and lipstick smeared. The rest of me was hidden, inside the wavy glass. I imagined opening a door, falling on a bed. I saw the marks my mouth would leave, bright blooms on scarred flesh. I saw a spiderweb tattooed on Tully’s hairless chest.

  What did I care if some old man judged me?

  Listen. I’m snow in wind. No one leaves his imprint.

  I went back to the bar, another beer, a third bourbon. Tully’s hand moved up my leg. I’d hit black ice, locked my tires in a skid.

  And then, a miracle, an angel sweet as Rafael sent to rescue stranded women. God spit him from the mouth of the buffalo head. Skinny boy in black jeans and leather. He pulled me off my stool. He said, Maybe we should dance.

  The old man shot coins into the jukebox. My friend, after all. They were in this together, partners, a father and son with a tow truck, saviors with a hook and winch sent to pull me from the ditch.

  Those thick-thighed sisters took care of Tully. One lit his cigarette, one stuck her tongue in his ear. They’d fallen with the snow, melted in my hair. They were my strange twins, myself grown fat. Their nails were long and hard, their lips a blazing red. Angels, both of them. You never know how they’ll appear.

  That boy’s big hands were on my back. He whirled me in a dip and spin. His leg slipped between my legs.

  What are we doing? I asked.

  Only dancing, he said.

  Yes, dancing. There’s no harm in it. But later it was more a droop and drag, a slow waltz, one of us too drunk to stand.

  The old man sat at a table in the back, holding his head in his hands. I saw how wrong I’d been. No angels here. The scarred man and the twins left. I was alone, reeling with the boy called Dez.

  He ran his hands along my hips, pressed me into him. I said, You’re young enough to be my kid.

  But I’m not, he said.

  He wrapped his fingers around my neck. He said, Listen, baby, I’m low on cash.

  One last chance. I bought my freedom, gave him fifty-two dollars, all I had. He stuck it down his boot. I thought he’d vanish then, blow out the door, a swirl of smoke. But he said, Let’s go outside. This cowboy’s got to get some air.

  In my car, he kissed me in that stupid way, all tongue and no breath. I lost my head. Then we were driving somewhere, snow-blind, no seatbelts, nothing to strap us in. I saw broken glass, our bright bodies flying into tiny bits.

  I took him home. Who can explain this? His long hair smelled of mud. I found damp leaves hidden in his pockets. His palms were cool on my forehead. He opened me. With his tongue, he traced the scar across my belly. It was wet and new. In a room years away I heard a child crying.

  I expected him to steal everything. He touched the bones of my pelvis as if remembering the parts of me, veins of my hands, sockets of my eyes. Like a sister, he said. I thought he whispered Darling just before we slept.

  In the morning he disappeared. Took my sleeping bag and cigarettes.

  Then the phone rang and a voice said, Your mother, gone.

  Imagine.

  Everyone you love is missing. The voice on the phone never tells me this. The voice says, Body, arrangements. The voice says, Your brother’s on his way. You can meet him here. I don’t argue. I say, Yes. But I don’t go to the hospital. I know I’ll never catch them there.

  Hours gone. While you danced. While you lay naked in your bed. That’s what the voice in my own skull says.

  I go to the ravine where the wounded elk staggers between pines. It’s always November here, always snowing. It’s the night my father died. It’s the morning my mother is dying.

  Sky is gray, snow fills it. Trees bend with ice, limbs heavy. I climb down, no tracks to follow. Snow higher than my boots already, a cold I hardly notice. I forget my body. How will I find them if they don’t want me?

  Flakes cluster, the size of children’s palms now. They break against my head and back, so light I cannot feel them. I glimpse shapes, trees in wind shifting, clumps of snow blown from them, big as men’s fists, big as stones falling. They burst. Silent bombs, scattering fragments.

  Nothing nothing happens. Nothing hurts me.

  And then I see them. He’s wearing his plaid coat and wool pants, a red cap with earflaps. She wears only her pink nightgown. He carries her. She’s thin as a child but still a burden, and the snow is deep, and I see how he struggles. I could call out, but they’ll never hear me. I can’t speak in these woods. A shout would make the sky crumble. All the snow that ever was would bury me.

  Deeper and deeper, the snow, the ravine. He never slows his pace. He never turns to look for me. Old man, slumped shoulders. All I ever wanted was to touch him, his body, so he could heal me, with his hair and bones, the way a saint heals. I hear my own breath. I stumble. How does he keep going?

  Now I climb the steep slope. With every step I’m slipping. The distance between them and me keeps growing. I know I’ll lose them. I know the place it happens. I know the hour. Dusk, the edge of the woods. The white elk takes flight as an owl in absolute silence. Wings open a hole in the sky, and a man and a woman walk through it.

  No one says, Go back. No one says, You’ll die here. But the cold, I feel it. My own body, I’m back in it.

  I can stay. I can lie down. Let the snow fall on my face. Let its hands be tender.

  Or I can walk, try to find my way in darkness.

  I’m a grown woman, an orphan, I have these choices.

  BODIES OF WATER

  ELENA SEES HERSELF as the boy did: a woman on the Ave., alone in the U District. It’s late afternoon, January. He’s hunched in a doorway. After a half-hour watching women, he chooses her. She’s the one in the red raincoat, easy to track, light-boned and skittery.

  He strikes hard, punches her left kidney. Slits the strap of her purse. Kicks the backs of her legs.

  She twists, staggered; glimpses a boy in a black jacket sprinting down an alley.

  Someone touches her shoulder.

  Someone asks, Are you okay?

  Elena’s on her knees. She feels little hands still pressed against her ribs. Short fingers. Wide palms. He’s a tough boy. She remembers the extra push, the second kick. He wants her down. He leaves her there.

  This is the bridge on the West Seattle Freeway.

  The only way home.

  Elena’s stuck in traffic. There’s been an accident again, third time this month: another car crushed into the guardrail, another woman standing stunned in the rain.

  Home at last but not safe, Elena Brissard doesn’t tell her husband about the accident or the thief. He’s too comfortable, listening to the cheerful flutes of his Vivaldi. Eating olives, drinking Tanqueray.

  And she doesn’t tell her daughter.

  Iris lies on the bed in her basement room
, dead poet crying in her skull. She loves him above all others, this wailing boy who pulled his own trigger: heroin first to ease the passage, shotgun to be sure. Through the windows of his greenhouse, he watched clouds and mountains grow very small.

  Elena’s guessing. Iris uses headphones, always, so the bitter riffs of his guitar are only vibrations buzzing in the kitchen floor.

  Elena flicks the light on the stairs and waits in the hallway. These are the rules. She’s forbidden to enter her daughter’s room or knock too loudly.

  Iris lifts one headphone.

  Is she hungry?

  No, never mind.

  She’d rather stay here, with him, than sit at the table with Elena and Geoffrey. Elena doesn’t know why she keeps inviting. Iris is the hunger artist. She hasn’t eaten with them since she disappeared for eight days last July. Not stolen. She ran away. These kids just vanish, the policeman told them. Fall into cracks in the street. He wasn’t trying to be cruel. He said there was a jungle under I-5, tents and shacks hidden in trees, a city beneath the city. You want my advice? he said. Pray.

  Elena lights tapers while Geoffrey pops the cork on a bottle of pouilly-fuissé. A boy looking through these windows could mistake them for lovers. They eat cold salmon dipped in hollandaise. Pale green hearts of artichokes. Brilliant raspberries.

  So polite, husband and wife, each asking, How was your day? He’s gotten a shipment from Cape Dorset: musk ox and caribou, whales scooped from whalebone, a green owl carved by a blind man who listens to the stones until they speak their shapes. Geoffrey says, A perfect piece — you have to close your eyes to see its wings. But Elena knows it’s old work he loves most, yellowed ivory: a hermaphrodite with walrus tusks, a bear with six legs. The Inuit say, There are things in nature man must not explain. He can’t sell these. They belong in museums. Behind glass. Safe. He stuffs them in socks or rolls them in pillowcases. His rooms are full of strange creatures. Open any box in any closet and you’ll find one, wrapped like a little mummy.