Marrow

by Tarryn Fisher

  I cross the street and walk under the cover of the trees, which are bright shades of lime green and deep hunter. Weeds press themselves through cracks in the street and sidewalks, flowers bloom where they shouldn’t—a cluster of daffodils from the side of the Bone Harbor Bank, begonias hanging from the overpass on Twelfth and Laurel almost touching the roofs of the cars. There is even a small field of lilacs next to Wal-Mart, where you can often see people standing, admiring the wildness of it. In the summer, everything is lush and plump with life—even the people. They stop complaining about how Harpersfield, a town ten miles away, has a Safeway and a QFC and a little shopping area with cobbled streets where you can drink designer lattes and see a movie at the Eight.

  They forget, and they grill hot dogs and graying beef patties in their yards, inviting their friends over to drink lukewarm beer and gossip. In the summer, they forget that their jobs pay minimum wage, and that their cars need new brakes, and that the rain will soon come to wash away their smiles. In summer, the people of the Bone hum and laugh and let the sun melt their worries. But Nevaeh has ruined the summer this year. People are searching the woods instead of grilling. Looking around wearily instead of turning their faces toward the sun. We all feel it.

  I forgo the bus and walk the five miles to work most days. It’s not so bad. I eat a granola bar as I walk, a ritual I’ve come to enjoy—my hard steps and the oats and raisins rolling around in my mouth. It feels very organic to be walking through the Bone in the summer, eating granola. Evenings, when I leave the Rag, I grab a coffee from the food truck and walk my way back to the eating house. Within a few weeks, my normally pasty skin has acquired that deep tan that Judah once mentioned, and my pants hang around my hips like loose skin. My hope is renewed by the brief, three-month respite from the rain. But there is a dampness to it as well, a rotting guilt. A little girl is missing, her mother is suffering, her grandmother so distraught she no longer leaves her little house on Cambridge Ave. I want to go to her, offer my services in some way—anything to ease her suffering. But, in the end, I am just a stranger, and the most I do is whisper a prayer when I walk past her house. My words blow away as quickly as they leave my lips. There is no comfort for the broken.

  Nevaeh was the younger version of me, except she had a grandmother who loved her. That one difference could have centered everything in her life. When I was Nevaeh’s age, I spent hours fantasizing about a father who never knew I existed, but would want me as soon as he knew I did. He’d take me from the eating house, from the Bone, and he’d demand to know me. He’d spend hours accumulating information about my person with the rapt attention of a man in love. I imagine that being wanted is the greatest feeling. A feeling that solidifies your stay in this life, justifies it.

  When Judah Grant offers his friendship in the form of his porch, talking about books and listening to music, I take it. I feel dizzy at first, confused about why. But, then I fall into the routine of it, and forget to overthink. On the days I don’t go into the Rag, we make a day of living. We trade dog-eared paperbacks, reading them in the sun while Delaney carries out Bagel Bites and mini carrots on her chipped china.

  “She loves this,” Judah says to me one day. “She’s always wanted me to bring my friends home, but my real friends are too sick to come, and the people here are too sick to be invited.

  “Sick from what?” I ask, thinking they might have the stomach virus that has been going around.

  “From life, Margorita. Walk into any school or aftercare program here and you’ll find a bunch of sticky-faced kids wearing clothes that are either too small for them, or so rough from the wear that their knees and elbows are falling out of the holes. But, if you go to their parents’ house, you’ll find them well stocked with their coping mechanisms: weed, alcohol, drugs…”

  “So what’s your point?” I ask, thinking about my own raggedy wardrobe, the holes in the elbows of my favorite sweater. My mother’s medicine cabinet stocked with Seroquel, Opana, and jumbo bottles of Ambien, which she’s hoarded.

  “It’s not about the clothes,” he says. “It’s the principle. The excuses and the selfishness. People want a different life, but they get pulled down by the same life their parents lived; same town, same poverty, same struggles. They have their own kids and remember the promise they made to themselves to get the hell outta Dodge. But, they don’t get out of Dodge, because it’s not that easy. So they take it out on themselves, their kids, their neighbors. It’s an excuse, sure. There are plenty of opportunities, scholarships, grants. All you have to do is be brave and jump. It helps if you’re smart, and well spoken, and well dressed. Because no one is going to hire someone who uses too many double negatives, or speaks through their rotten teeth, or is wearing a dress they bought at Wal-Mart. Not if you want the job that can change your life. ”

  “You smoke pot,” I point out.

  “Yeah, I do. My mother grows it.” He shrugs. “She never took from me to feed herself. She wanted marijuana, so she grew it instead of shortchanging her kid.”

  I don’t believe him right away. The people from the Bone were stepped on; the younger ones, not yet bitter from the world, have a steely determination in their eyes to live a better existence than the ones their parents lived. They are trying to be better.

  “Listen to their conversations,” he says. “They want something more, but they don’t have the courage to try it out. Plus, I’m going to have to stop soon; I got into the teaching program at UW.”

  I make a squealing noise and throw my arms around his neck.

  On my way home I think about what Judah said. The problem of clothing your kids is an epidemic in the Bone. Most of the families are on government assistance. My mother refused the little blue card with her name on it, and made me fend for myself instead. I faked ADD through most of middle and high school, so I could sell the Adderall they prescribed me to the upper classmen. I needed lunch money. When I found my mother’s hidey-hole in the eating house, I was miraculously cured.

  I remember the woman who tried to steal the six dollar Jordan’s, so filled with liquor she could barely form a coherent sentence, yet she was determined to put shoes on the feet of Zeek, even if she had to steal them. And that was her choice, not Zeek’s. Judah was right.

  A week later I hear two women talking in the Rag. One is complaining about her boss refusing to give her the raise she deserves. Her companion clicks her tongue in disgust, assuring her that she’s been with the company long enough to deserve one.

  Their conversation suddenly turns when the first woman tells her friend: He did say that if I moved to the branch in Seattle, I would get one. But I can’t leave Meemaw, and all of my friends are here…

  No, no, her friend assures her. Leaving would be stupid. How could you afford to live in Seattle? Those people have money to begin with.

  I want to scream out and tell her to take the risk. Go!

  I feel a stirring of hatred for what we are forced to become here in the Bone, and what we are too weak to escape. I’ll get out, I tell myself. As soon as I can.

  And so will Judah, who is too tall for this place, even in his wheelchair.

  JUDAH AND I outgrow the rest of the Bone and cleave to one another. Nothing is better than the discovery of another living, breathing human, who fights the same as you do, loves the same as you do, and understands you with such clarity that it feels erotic. A friendship between the fat, ugly girl and the crippled, handsome boy. It is a friendship that we both had waited for. One we both needed.

  We unite our strengths and make plans to leave the Bone. We have inside jokes, and movie quotes, and foods that neither of us like. And isn’t that the best thing—to not like something together? Our days are revelations, filled with talk about studio apartments and going to Pike Place Market on weekends to buy fruit that actually tastes like fruit, and to walk along the Sound and watch the ferries. Judah has been to Seattle many times, his school just a short drive away. I question him about the sights and the
sounds, the people with their tattoos and multi-colored hair. The people in Seattle are accepting and liberal. They don’t judge you—he tells me. A crippled man is just another human with valuable ideas. I wonder if an ugly girl will be valued. If I can make something of myself without using my looks or body to do it.

  “It’s stupid to talk about these things,” I tell him.

  He shakes his head. “No, it’s never stupid to dream. Dreams are plans; they get your heart moving, and once your heart gets moving, your brain will follow.”

  I don’t know if I believe him, but I pretend I do, for my brain’s sake.

  “What kind of movies do you like?” he asks me one day. We’d spent most of the day exchanging theories about Nevaeh, our conversation eventually ebbing into a thick silence.

  I didn’t know. With Destiny, I’d watch movies like The Notebook, The Wedding Date and Ever After. When we got bored with the modern romantic comedies we’d dip into the eighties, watching things like When Harry Met Sally and Moonstruck, at first laughing at the high hair and neon-colored clothes and then becoming serious and drugged at the heady dosage of love that Hollywood delivered. My favorite movie from my time spent on Destiny’s red and black striped couch had always been Splash, though Destiny made fun of me for it.

  “Of all the lovey movies out there, you like the one about a damn mermaid,” she’d said. “The most unrealistic of them all…”

  What I didn’t tell Destiny was that I thought love was unrealistic in general. The pretentious chance meeting, the swift slide into love, and then the ability of the men to always say the right words to win back the heart of the heroine. Splash may be outlandish, but love is, too. It is nice to watch, and foolish to believe in. Perhaps I don’t like romantic comedies as much as I thought.

  “I don’t know,” I say to Judah. “I’ve always watched the type of movies that make you believe in love even when you have no reason to. It’s silly and babyish. I guess I just want someone to convince me.”

  “Do you have cable?” he asks.

  “Cable? I don’t even have a television,” I tell him. For a moment I am a space alien to Judah Grant. I touch my face to make sure nothing’s changed or become deformed in the last few minutes as he gapes at me.

  “What?!” I snap. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  His mouth is open, and his eyes are spacey.

  “I’m just thinking about all the movies I want you to watch. I’m making a list … shh.”

  I sit quietly while Judah scribbles things down on the back of a receipt. He doesn’t judge me or call me a freak. All he’s concerned about is showing me what I don’t know, not calling attention to that fact that I don’t know it. When he’s done, he looks at me expectantly.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  “Where to?”

  “Where do you think? he asks. “The movie store! And you should probably go home to get pajamas; this is going to be an all-night sleepover binge.”

  Judah wheels himself out of the house and onto the sidewalk with gusto. I follow dumbly behind, wondering if he was serious about the sleepover. I’ve only been in his home a few times, and never past the kitchen—except for the night he called my name from the window.

  We are making our way along the sidewalk when, from two houses down, Mother Mary calls my name.

  Mother Mary, namer of your death, so wrinkled that she looks more mummified than real. I make my way over to her house, careful not to let the fear show on my face, careful not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. I heard she docked a year off your life for every crack you stepped on.

  I stand at the bottom of the three stairs that lead to her front door. Judah is behind me, waiting at the border of the swampy grass that is the start of Mother Mary’s property.

  She stands on the top step, her tiny frame looming over me. Is it my imagination, or are her eyes blue? Blue eyes amidst the dark, coppery skin. I’ve never been close enough to see her eyes. She extends a hand and beckons me up the stairs. I follow the tiny, purple buds of her fingernails to a rocking chair, where she has me sit. An invitation by Mother Mary can only mean one thing. Judah is spinning his chair in circles on the sidewalk. He wants to go to the movie store.

  I laugh out loud as I watch him. Mother Mary lowers herself into the rocker next to me and watches my face.

  “You look over there with such love?” she says. Her voice is strong and smooth, not at all what I expected.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not like that … he’s my friend.” I’m alarmed that my feelings for Judah are so obvious.

  Mother Mary rocks back and forth while eyeing Judah.

  I wonder how she knows my name.

  “He,” she says. “Gives you hope?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Then keep him,” she says with so much finality, I glance up at her face to see if she’s kidding. After that, the silence stretches so long I begin to squirm in my seat.

  I open my mouth to offer an excuse to leave, when Mother Mary cuts me off.

  “Your mother,” she says.

  “Yes…” I urge her.

  Judah does a wheelie and spins around on his back tires.

  “She’s between worlds, can’t decide where she wants to be. You are much the same—you and her.”

  I want to tell her that my mother decided long ago where she wanted to be—safely locked up in the eating house, locked up even tighter in herself. And then it occurs to me what she’s saying about my cold, hard-eyed mother. Could she be entertaining thoughts of her own death? To escape what? The box she put herself in?

  I look over at the elderly woman, too frail to be frightening. Why have I always feared Mother Mary?

  “Haven’t you heard?” I say softly. “Only the good die young.”

  “You can change that,” she says.

  I stand up then and begin to descend the stairs, my legs heavier than they were a few minutes ago, before she called to me.

  “Margo…”

  She’s standing, and both of her arms are extended toward me, as if she wants to enfold me into them.

  I take the short, two steps back up the stairs, where Mother Mary wraps me in a hug. I am surprised by her strength, the fierceness with which she holds me. She smells of cinnamon and hair relaxer—a smell I grew accustomed to at Destiny’s house, where her mother did hair in their small, third bedroom.

  “You must not let hatred destroy you. You will lose your soul,” she says.

  I don’t look at her as I walk back to the boy who she says gives me hope. I want to tell her that she need not worry about my soul. This boy will save it.

  SANDY COMES OUT OF THE OFFICE and tells us that they found the little girl’s body—the one who went missing. It’s all over the news. They found her in a field near the old harbor, burned to blackness.

  I think of Nevaeh, the bright, innocent beauty of her all burned to blackness, and I run to the bathroom to vomit. I ask Sandy for a break, and she says no; we’re too busy today. I have to go back to the register.

  I ring people up in a trance and wonder if it was one of them who killed Nevaeh. My hands are shaking, and one of the customers leans in conspiratorially and asks if I need a fix. A fix? I want to laugh. How do you fix evil?

  By the time my shift is done, I’m angry. I stand on the bus, bouncing on my heels until my stop. Then I jog to Judah’s house. When I knock on the door, Delaney answers holding Horace and reeking of weed. She looks surprised to see me. Judah is right behind her in the kitchen, and when he hears my voice, he calls out to her to let me in.

  “Did you hear?” I ask. He nods. I’m breathless from my running. Delaney props Horace against the wall and has me sit down at the kitchen table. She brings me a glass of something sweet and red. I hold the glass between my hands, but I can’t drink it. I still feel like I’m going to be sick.

  “I hate everything.”

  Judah runs his finger along the outline of his lips. He looks like he’s thinking de
eply about something.

  “It’s all over the news,” Delaney says.

  I look at Judah. “What are you thinking?”

  “What if it was someone from here, in this neighborhood, that did that to her. One of us.”

  “It could have been someone coming through the Bone. Doesn’t mean they’re from here.”

  He nods, but he’s not committed to that nod. I stand up. “I have to go,” I say.

  “Where?” Judah asks.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Delaney says.

  “Dunno. I need to think.”

  I walk the Bone in the drizzling rain. Up and down the streets, counting the scattered, balled up candy wrappers, until I am so cold my whole body is shaking. I walk past Nevaeh’s house. I want her to come running down the stairs like she always did when she saw me, her shoelaces flying around like a scraped knee waiting to happen. I want to steal her away before someone can steal her life away, and show her something other than the Bone. I want to show myself something other than the Bone. I don’t even know if that’s possible. Judah says that where we’re from is in us—in our marrow. You can put us anywhere else in the world, but we carry our origin with us everywhere we go. If he’s right, I’ll never fucking get away.

  My new Converse are soaked through when I reach the end of the Bone. The highway that runs through our town is 83. It’s non-committal, winding this way then veering off like it can’t decide if it wants to be with us or not. If I keep walking, I’ll end up in the Cascades. I pass a hand over my face to wipe the rain out of my eyes. I should do it. Keep walking. Die trying. Anything to get out of here.

  Ugh! I kick at a puddle. Kick, kick all you want. You’re too shit scared to leave.

  I turn back, overcome. Shame drags my head down. I watch my cowardly feet plod through the puddles, water flowing down my neck, until I spot a blur of red in a pool of water. Bright red. I bend at the knees to retrieve it, my hand plunging into the little puddle without thought. I pull up a pair of sunglasses with red, plastic heart frames. Without hesitation I put them on.