I know all about hospital corners. Mom’s hospice nurse used to do them every morning when she made the bed. She would help Mom to the armchair while she changed the sheets, tucking in the edges and smoothing out the wrinkles before she put the blanket back on and found a fresh pillowcase from the linen closet. Then she would help Mom back into bed, walk to the windows, and say, Let’s get some light in here, her voice always gentle, always pleasant, as though dying was the most natural thing in the world, which, I suppose, it is.
Mom would smile faintly as the nurse opened the curtains and the morning’s first sunlight streamed in across the newly made bed, across Mom’s pale hands, and across the ridges of her face, so that her eyes, (the bulging one and the normal one) gleamed so brightly for just a moment that, if you weren’t careful, you might forget she was going to die. You might forget that this sudden shine, which was really a simple reflection, was not actually coming from inside her. You could almost forget, if you ignored the pill bottles, the dirty sheets in the hamper, and the yellow smell that issued from her parted lips, that soon she was going to turn her face away from us and leave this earth forever.
Bertha is white and veiny and covered in a viscous glaze.
“Shake her and see what happens,” says The Monk, still smiling from his bed.
I shake the bottle. The embryo dances. The little legs wave. Both blind heads bob up and down in the tide, nodding acquiescence, their eyes milky blue and bulging behind membranous lids.
I wonder what my mother would be like in a jar of formaldehyde. I imagine her hunched form inside the bottle, her head and hands white and bobbing with the tide. The embryo looks strangely peaceful. Can you say that something is dead if it has never been born? Can you say it’s gone if it never came into being in the first place? I study the tiny body and I am suddenly overwhelmed by the tragedy of the little thing.
“So?” says The Monk after a while. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s cool,” I say.
“Not cool,” says The Monk, obviously disappointed by my choice of adjectives. “Not cool, dude. Cool is like a vintage cereal box or something. This cow is frigging beautiful. She’s so completely and totally bizarre that she’s transcended reality and she’s become breathtaking. I mean look at her. She has eyelashes, for crying out loud. She has a tail.”
“Actually,” I say, turning the jar so I can get a better look, “I think she has two tails.”
“Um no,” says The Monk, rising from the bed to show me. “Not two tails. That other thing is an umbilical cord. Look closer. It’s coming out of the belly, not the butt.”
“Oh,” I say, squinting. “Right.”
“You think I don’t know my own cow?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Because it sounded like you were saying I don’t know my own cow. Which is ridiculous, dude. Because I look at this thing a lot. I mean I study her. She’s one of my prized possessions. And I think after all this time, I would know the difference between a tail and an umbilical cord. Okay? I’m not an idiot, dude.”
As he talks, The Monk comes closer and closer until his face is all up in my face and I have to give him a little push to maintain my body-space comfort zone.
“Jesus,” I say. “I never said you were an idiot. Calm down.”
He snatches the bottle from my hands, kisses it, breathes on it, polishes it on his sleeve, and places it on top of his bookshelf in between a jackalope and a framed photograph. In the photograph, The Monk is standing with Fish in front of an orange-and-white VW Microbus. He has his arm around her waist. Her head is buried in his T-shirt, and her pink hair cascades over half her face, just her nose and chin peeking out. She is wearing cutoff jeans and a tank top. One of The Monk’s hands is touching her bare arm. Part of me wants to get a closer look at the photograph to see if I can figure out if The Monk and Fish look like they are in love, but another part of me doesn’t want to know, so instead, I pretend to notice the jackalope and I say, “Oh man, I love that jackalope,” which is a sentence I never expected to say in my lifetime.
“You like it?” asks The Monk. “Really?”
“I love it,” I tell him. “It’s so twisted. It’s so awesomely, freakishly twisted.”
I pick up the jackalope as though it were alive, this taxidermied rabbit corpse with fused reindeer antlers sticking out of its skull and I get all over-the-top weird, and pretend that it is sucking the blood out of my neck like a vampire. I make it snuffle and grumble and moan because it loves my pulsing, cancerous blood. Then I waggle it toward The Monk and make it burp.
“You do get it,” says The Monk, relieved. He comes closer and punches me in the arm. “You do get why this stuff is so awesome. Don’t you?”
“Oh,” I say. “Totally. It’s like mind-blowingly weird.”
“Yes,” says The Monk emphatically. “Yes. Mind-blowing. Thank you.”
“And the cow. I mean, those tiny eyelashes. They’re beautiful. And those hooves. I’ll never forget those hooves.”
“You better not,” says The Monk. “Bertha doesn’t like it when you forget her hooves. So listen. You got the eyeballs with you?”
“Yeah,” I say, patting the front pocket of my backpack.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Bring it on, dude.”
I take out my sketchbook and open it to the page with the eyeballs.
“Yes,” says The Monk. “Yes. There they are. God. That’s gorgeous. I can’t believe you drew something so perfect.”
“Believe it,” I say.
“Are you going to let me procure it from you?”
“You really want to buy it?”
“I’ll give you ten bucks.”
“You want to give me ten bucks for something I sketched in two minutes?”
“Yes,” says The Monk.
“That’s crazy,” I tell him. “I’ll just give it to you.” I tear the page out of my sketchbook and hand it over.
“No,” says The Monk, pushing it away. “I have ethics. I can’t let you do that. I have to give you something for them. Something valuable. Look around. You want a magazine? A little toy?”
I glance around his side of the room. It’s filled with weird stuff. The bottle of cow. The jackalope. A row of fuzzy little windup chicks. A stack of freaky-looking children’s books with questionable titles: Dick and Jane and Vampires. Fluffy Pussy and Friends. The Uncle Wiggily Book. And then, finally, that picture of him and Fish, her hair, even from here, a small pink beacon of light, gleaming in the distance.
“No man,” I say. All at once I am remembering the sound of Fish’s laughter. I turn my face away. “It’s a nice offer but you don’t have anything I want. Listen. Think of it as a gift. For helping me out yesterday when I was being a moron.”
I hand him the sketch.
He leans it against the photograph so that it covers the picture of him and Fish.
“I’ll think of something,” says The Monk. “One of these days I’ll pay you back.”
BILDUNGSROMAN AND OTHER FOUR-SYLLABLE WORDS
Dr. Cage is one of the few teachers at Baldwin who doesn’t even pretend to like kids. Maybe that’s why he never introduced himself as my faculty advisor after class on Monday like Lydie said he would. He didn’t want me to get the wrong idea. Other teachers want their students to worship them. They quote the classics. They make easy reference to operas and political speeches. They know the derivations of words. They know which kings ruled in which century, and if it ever becomes necessary to quote Voltaire, their French accents are impeccable. They do not, however, know how to turn themselves off. Even Dr. Austerlitz, with his spit-shined shoes and his bow tie, is like a puppet dancing on a string. Hello, silly puppet. I will make you dance. Doop de doo.
Dr. Cage is different. He has gray hair and a beard. He smells like stale shirts. He wears sandals with wool socks, and faded jeans. He glowers at the class from beneath bushy eyebrows as he sits at a desk overflowing
with papers and folders in the corner of the classroom.
Kids take their seats in the circle of desks. The Monk’s roommate, Thomas A. Trowbridge the Fourth, sits across from me. His hair is combed and his pants are pressed. He looks at his watch. The late bell rings. Fish bursts into the room, a flurry of papers, pink hair tousled and uncombed. She flops, out of breath, into the desk next to mine, and tries to get herself organized, stacking notebooks, squaring the edges of things so the sides are symmetrical, putting loose papers into folders. But clearly the universe is against her today. A wrinkled Latin quiz falls on the floor. Then a math paper. Then her sketchbook, and her pencil box, and when she leans over and tries to pick up her mess, the entire stack of notebooks topples and her stuff goes everywhere, which is when Fish lets loose a stream of invectives, the magnitude of which I have never heard coming out of a human being. I leap from my seat and help her gather up her stuff. Pencil case, Latin quiz. Her sketchbook has fallen open revealing a drawing of a face. In colored pencil. Pink hair. But something’s wrong. The eyes and the mouth are sewn shut with black thread. It is the face of a corpse.
I close the sketchbook and hand it back to her gingerly.
Our eyes lock. Something silent passes between us.
Then Cage pushes himself up from behind his desk and picks up a stack of papers covered in red ink. It must be an assignment from last week. When he walks by me and Fish, he knocks each of us on the top of our head with his fist, and then continues slowly around the circle until he comes to the ripped armchair that he calls his throne. He sits down, puts the papers in his lap, and reminds us that the assignment was to write about a childhood memory. He asks for volunteers.
Some of the kids take their assignments from him and read them out loud.
The class gives compliments.
Cage gives criticism.
When it’s Fish’s turn to read, she takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of her seat. She also takes a breath at the end of each sentence. She is lovely when she breathes. I wonder if The Monk has ever noticed this. If they’re only friends, maybe he hasn’t. If they’re more than friends, if they’re in love, I bet he has noticed how her T-shirt rises and falls when she breathes, or how she bends her head so her neck shows and her pink hair cascades over one of her eyes. Why is she drawing herself with her mouth and eyes sewn shut? What has she seen that she doesn’t want to see? What is it she’s afraid to say? Her voice trembles when she reads, but somehow even the trembling is beautiful.
You hear them screaming at each other. They used to close the door, to shield you from it, but these days they don’t even try. The arguments are too loud to be kept inside small spaces. They seep like ink through the cracks in the floor. And so you listen. You hear them curse each other. And you hold yourself. Which is why you are not surprised when, later, you find his bags packed by the door. His two shabby suitcases, leather, faded and frayed, filled with his clothes. He lifts you up and holds you. You are still small enough for him to do that. He swings you around and calls you his little mongoose, and he kisses your nose. But you are old enough to know that goodbye means something different this time. This time goodbye is forever.
There are sounds of appreciation from around the circle.
“I liked the line about the ink.”
“I liked the image of the suitcases.”
“I liked the line about the mongoose.”
Cage is disgusted. “Anyone have any criticism, or are we simply going to appreciate each other today?”
No one says anything.
“Ah. So it will be another class of vapid affirmations. Well, I have some criticism. Are you ready?” Cage leans back in his chair and looks at Fish, who nods and grits her teeth. “Get rid of the second person,” he says. “It was a tremendous mistake. It makes me want to puke. And it gives new meaning to the word sophomoric.”
“Sophomoric?” says Fish, crestfallen.
“Yes,” says Cage. “It means you think you are being wise, but really you are being foolish. Get rid of the second person. You do this and you do that. It’s distracting. Also it makes the reader feel as though the author is hitting them on the head. Read it out loud again. In first person this time.”
“But I like it in second person,” mutters Fish darkly. “It makes you feel like you’re experiencing it in the moment.”
Our classmates agree. They make supportive sounds in her direction.
“No,” says Cage. “You’re wrong. It’s pretentious. And it gets extremely annoying after the first few sentences. The piece would be better if we could hear the narrator telling her own story. Read it again in first person. You’ll hear what I mean. Oh please. Stop pouting at me like that. It’s not becoming. Come on. Let’s go.”
Fish takes a deep breath and reads it again.
I hear them screaming at each other. They used to close the door, to shield me from it, but these days they don’t even try. The arguments are too loud to be kept inside small spaces. They seep like ink through the cracks in the floor. And so I listen. I hear them curse each other. And I hold myself. Which is why I am not surprised when, later, I find his bags packed by the door. His two shabby suitcases, leather, faded and frayed, filled with his clothes. He lifts me up and holds me. I am still small enough for him to do that. He swings me around and calls me his little mongoose, and he kisses my nose. But I am old enough to know that goodbye means something different this time. This time goodbye is forever.
Everyone is impressed.
“Are you with me?” says Cage.
“Okay,” says Fish, resigned. “I guess I see what you mean.”
But her face is red and her eyes are filled with tears.
I wonder if The Monk has ever kissed those eyes.
“Simple language,” says Cage. “Simple choices. Unpretentious. No one likes pretentious writing. Just tell it like it is.” He makes his way around the circle, handing papers back to the rest of the students. “I want you to do this assignment over again for Friday with that advice in mind. First person. Present tense. Find the immediacy. And for God’s sake, stop trying to be clever. It never works. You saw evidence today when our sophomoric friend read her terrible draft to us. Pretension always fails. See you tomorrow.”
Class is over.
People start gathering their books.
Fish runs from the room.
I want to run after her. I want to tell her I thought her story was beautiful both ways. I want to ask her what happened afterward. And most of all, I want to find out if this story has anything to do with the scar on her wrist, but she is already gone, and I can’t think of what words I would use if I caught up with her. In the photograph, The Monk had his arm around her. His fingers were touching her bare arm. My hands are clenched into fists.
I put my head on my desk and keep my head down until everyone has left.
Cage paces around, fixing chairs, picking up pieces of paper.
“So,” says Cage, when he gets to my seat. “What’s up with you, anyway?”
He smells like coffee.
I don’t answer. The desk is cool beneath my forehead.
“Hey. Mopey. I’m talking to you. I’m supposed to be your advisor. This counts as our first meeting, by the way, so give me the decency of responding in some way. Stomp your hoof. Blink your eyes. Anything. What’s the deal, Friedman? What’s bothering you? Baldwin got you down? It’s only been a few days. You already had your fill of all the bullshit?”
I shrug.
“Life can stink sometimes, can’t it?” he says.
I shrug again.
“Two equally inarticulate gestures. But I get the message anyway. I’m good at making inferences. Trick of the trade. So I get it. You’ve lived through hard times. We all have. But listen. I have some advice for you. Stop wallowing in it. Start writing about it. Pain makes good prose, my dreary friend. Trust me. I speak from experience.”
I sit up and glare at him.
He glares back at me harder.
I frown at him.
He smiles and then laughs. His teeth are yellow and crooked.
Then, in an unexpected gesture of familiarity, he reaches out and messes up my hair.
“Get out of here,” he says. “Go home and write.”
ERNIE’S JUNK SHOP
In the winter, when me and Daddy are stir-crazy from staying inside too many days, when the kitchen feels too small, like the walls are holding their breath, Mommy picks up her purse and says, You know what? I think this would be a nice day for a drive. And even though it means we will have to bundle up in hats and scarves and tromp out into the snow, and even though the windows are covered with ice and we have to slap our arms and breathe steam into our hands to keep warm, we know it’s a good idea. Once the windows defrost and the heat pumps into the truck, we begin to feel glad Mommy thought of this, even though neither of us tells her so.
Just forty-five minutes from our house is Ernie’s Junk Shop, Mommy’s favorite place on earth. Past empty cornfields covered in snow, past the boarded-up vegetable and fruit stands, and the cider mill and doughnut place that says Closed for the Season. Ernie’s Junk Shop with three floors of stuff no one wants. The shop stays open all year long, even in winter, and Ernie sits there watching the old television set with his gray face and his space heaters and his pellet stove going full blast. When we come in, the bell above the door tinkles and Ernie raises his heavy head. He never acts like he recognizes us even though one time Daddy talked with Ernie for almost twenty minutes about why antique cameras are better than digital. I was watching the grandfather clock, counting minutes, and after a while I lost track so I squinted my eyes and counted the pieces of dust that floated around the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling instead.
Here is what Mommy says: We can each buy something small if it’s not broken and it costs less than ten dollars. Yay, I say. And yay, says Daddy, even though he’s a grown man and can spend money whenever he wants. I walk slowly up and down the aisles looking for treasures with my ten-dollar bill in my fist, letting my eyes slide across each piece of junk: orange-haired trolls, vintage lunch boxes, jars full of marbles, eggbeaters, ice cream scoopers, leather gloves, button jars. Daddy spends most of his time looking at the old cameras, opening the backs, squinting at us through the little square windows. I like the buckets of Matchbox cars the best. Not shiny new ones like they have in Sunday-morning TV commercials, but really old ones with paint chipping off and doors that open and close. Who played with this one? That kid is probably someone’s father by now.
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