Ready to Fall

by Marcella Pixley

  “Why?” says The Monk. “You think it will tarnish your angelic reputation?”

  “That’s funny,” says Cage. “But also kind of ironic coming from you.”

  The Monk glares at him and then heads out of the restaurant and into the storm.

  I pound my chest, kiss my fist, and point at Cage. Then I trip over my own foot.

  “Don’t forget to kiss the girl,” says Cage sadly.

  The bald man next to him raises his face for a moment and then sinks back down like a sleeping dormouse in a pot of tea.

  TARDIS

  I lurch out of Panda Wok, eyes wild, hair outrageously unkempt (devilishly handsome, of course), the world spinning with snow coming down falling against the streetlights, the tumor swearing like a sailor, and there, waiting on the street, is my trusty TARDIS in the form of a rusty orange Microbus, waiting to zoom me into some other dimension. All my attractive friends are inside. Ravi is in the middle seat, sitting next to Fish. I climb in and slide next to him and he punches me in the arm.

  “Hey,” says Ravi, “look who the cat dragged in.”

  I punch him in the shoulder. He punches me in the gut. I slap him across the face. He slaps me harder. It hurts but I don’t care. The Monk swings into his seat, slams the door to the driver’s side, and off we go, Smitty sitting shotgun with the Dead Kennedys screaming from his phone, Griswald in the way back, bobbing his head to the music, The Monk at the wheel dark and silent, his eyes on the road, windshield wipers going, and my face stinging from Ravi’s blessed handprint. Cue Moog synthesizer.

  I reach over Ravi and take Fish’s hand. She is wearing a white winter coat with a hood lined with fur. She is also wearing huge white mittens so I slide my hand into her mitten and touch her fingers. Her hand is small and warm and the feeling of her skin floods me with something that has nothing to do with the scorpion bowl.

  “Excuse me,” says Ravi, “I am here, between the two of you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Switch with me,” I tell Ravi.

  “No,” he says.

  Fish has one long lock of pink hair falling down over her eyes. I reach over Ravi with my other hand and gently push the lock behind her ear inside her hood. Then I touch her cheek with the back of my hand.

  “You can stop this now,” says Ravi.

  “Switch with me,” I say again.

  “No,” says Ravi. “I don’t want you to be happy.”

  “Shut up back there, will you?” says The Monk. “You’re all making me sick.”

  The Monk floors it out of town and onto the highway. Soon, he turns down the narrow dirt road. We are going to the quarry. The wheels of Lady J. rumble over the uneven surface. Pine trees line either side. Smitty turns around from the front seat and winks at me. Then he cranks up the music. Now Rage Against the Machine shakes the walls of the bus, pulsing around us. Behind me, Griswald begins thrashing his head, his Mohawk bobbing in time with the bass guitar.

  Then, The Monk slams on the brakes and Lady J. jerks to a halt. “Hurry, we don’t have much time,” he says.

  Smitty turns off the music. We all tumble out, a barrel of monkeys. The snow is even deeper than the last time we were here, and it’s falling harder now, lashing our cheeks. We have to lift our legs high to make our way, our boots making deep prints in the white tundra. The Monk strides toward the ice-covered footpath, barely visible in the dark. We make our way from the rim of the quarry, between the jutting rocks, and down toward the frozen water.

  Fish reaches back for my hand and I take it. I slide my hand into her mitten and I look for the scar with my fingertips, but I can’t find it. Her skin is on fire. She reaches for my other hand. Now I am pressed against her from behind, wrapping my arms around her belly, holding both her hands inside her mittens. We walk forward, slowly, slowly, with our bodies pressed together, one step at a time. Every movement is heaven. She stumbles and I pull her closer.

  “Way to go, Skywalker,” says Smitty.

  “If he falls, he is going to crush you,” says Ravi, from behind. “You will slip from the edge and you both will plummet to your deaths.”

  “Sounds good,” says Fish. “Especially if he lands on top of me.”

  “Or if you land on top of me,” I say, hugging her from behind. I pull her against me and she stumbles deliciously.

  “You two are disgusting,” says Ravi. “Get a room.” And then he scoots by us to walk with The Monk, his red fro a halo around his head even in the dark.

  I wish Fish would take her hood off so I could touch her hair. Maybe it’s the scorpion bowl, but I am feeling so good, suddenly I can barely stand myself. The tumor is too dizzy to notice. Maybe it has fallen asleep like the bald man at the bar, its head drooping, its tendrils wrapped around itself, snoring for a blessed moment, taking a break from metastasizing for just a blessed quiet heartbeat, while I stumble down the path. Glory glory glory, say my footsteps.

  “Careful,” says Fish. “I don’t want you to fall.”

  “I have already fallen,” I whisper.

  Behind us, Griswald snickers. The snicker grows into a barking laugh and then a howl so loud the sound of it echoes from one wall of the quarry to the other, a strange, crowing, howling, startling sound that fills the night with something both wonderful and unsettling.

  The swimming hole is completely blanketed in white. So are the cliffs surrounding it, each rock hooded, monochromatic, the sky, the ground, the swimming hole, the snow coming down like a veil over the face of a frozen world.

  Griswald is the first one onto the ice. He rushes past The Monk and Ravi, pushing them out of the way, screeching like a banshee, and then sliding on his knees across the snow-powdered ice until his momentum dies and he flops onto his back and begins making snow angels. The Monk packs hard little snowballs and starts pelting them full force, his eyes wild like he’s out for blood. One snowball hits Ravi in the head. Now it’s an all-out war, snowballs flying like expletives hurled through the air. Griswald sneaks up behind Smitty and puts snow down his back. Ravi throws a snowball at The Monk’s crotch. The Monk screams and then charges after Ravi like some kind of crazed bull.

  I look at Fish. “They’re gonna kill each other,” I say.

  A snowball flies through the air and hits me on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” I say, “want to get out of here?”

  “Yeah,” says Fish. “Let’s take a walk.”

  I loosen my grip on her waist and she twirls away from me, moving from my side. Then I pull her back to me and we slide together past the group, the feathery snow making deep powdery tracks as we wander away from the snowball fight and out onto the snow-covered expanse, our footsteps inviting us farther and farther away from the others until it feels like we are alone, the white sky above us, the white snow all around, and the two of us, tiny, electric, holding hands.

  She takes my other hand, and all at once we are spinning, leaning back, whipping each other around and around. Everything is a blur except for her face. Her hood falls back and even in the dark I can see her pink hair tumble down, cascading, the scorpion bowl blushing through me, pulling me closer to her because I am going to kiss this girl and it will be my first kiss. We stop swirling and now we are just facing each other, holding each other’s arms. Looking at each other’s faces.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She takes her mittens off and touches my face with her fingers.

  “You are so beautiful,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “I’m not.”

  “You are,” says Fish. “Every single part of you.”

  “I’m skinny,” I tell her. “I look like a Holocaust survivor.”

  “You are perfect,” says Fish.

  I hold her hands.

  “You’re perfect too,” I say.

  We start to slow dance.

  I lean my cheek on her head.

  She looks up at me, her lips parting just a little. She closes her eyes. Her breath is wa
rm against my cheek. I lean forward and close my eyes, and then, just as I lean in to kiss her, just as I bow my face, and tilt my head perfectly, and gather her body in my hungry arms, we are completely and rudely interrupted by the war cry of four hooting thespians, arms outstretched, dive-bombing us with snowballs, all of them laughing like crazy except The Monk, whose eyes are dark and whose snowballs hit their mark every single time.

  The tumor is pissing on the walls and scratching his armpits. A white-hot wire behind my eyes. Fight, he says. Fight fight fight.

  I grab handfuls of snow and roll it into a ball. “You are going down, Moniker. Say goodbye to this world.”

  The world spins.

  “I’m scared,” says The Monk.

  I rush at The Monk with my snowball, screeching.

  I hit him right in the face.

  He staggers back, grabs more snow, packs it into a ball, hurls it at me.

  Then Fish is at my side and we are an army of two, hurling snowballs at The Monk blindly as the rest of them come closer, and before I know it we are enveloped, snowballs bombarding the air from every direction, thwacking into my back, my face, my side, my ear, and I am stumbling, stumbling with my head down like a bull, and so is The Monk, and we are heading toward each other at top speed, scorpion bowl and tumor cheering at the sidelines, thespians screeching our names, the world tilting and tilting and then I try to take a glorious side step like a toreador leaping out of the way, but the bull swerves, barreling into me anyway, knocking my feet out from under me so that I stagger and fall forward into the ice, the scorpion bowl and the tumor chanting, Max Max Max, and then there is the sound of my forehead hitting the ice and then there is the cold and then there is nothing.

  CONCUSSION WITH EXTRA CHEESE

  The good news about hitting your head is that it proves, once and for all, that the walrus likes pizza. Don’t ask me why. There are no clear answers for some things.

  Bud ump bump.

  His favorite bill of fare is pepperoni with extra cheese, but he tolerates sausage and hamburger with an occasional helping of ham and bacon for good measure.

  And then, of course, there are the anchovies.

  I like that word. Anch. O. Vees.

  They remind him of his home at the North Pole or wherever walruses go to live their blubbery lives: Chicago. Topeka. Winnipeg. Scranton. Blustery places. With icebergs.

  So he looks at me, and he has a slice of meat pizza in his hand. Meat pizza. Meatza.

  I like that.

  I will say it again. Meatza-meatza.

  Like a little troll. Saying meatza.

  Which is adorable.

  This pleases me because I am rarely adorable, but suddenly I seem capable of thinking adorable thoughts, a step in the right direction by any standard, Mr. Walrus, sir. So eat your meatza and stop complaining.

  * * *

  Walruses, as you may well know, are not vegetarians.

  Hence the tusks.

  He carries me back up the path to the top of the iceberg, arfing to me the way they do, with their walrusy voices.

  Arf. Arf. Max. Arf.

  I have always been good with languages, which is why I suddenly understand his walrusing, and I know I am supposed to say whether or not I am okay.

  Are you okay, Max? Are you okay? Talk to us.

  Which strikes me as

  funny.

  Sorry. I fell asleep for a minute.

  I keep on falling asleep.

  Because it’s so comfy mumfy here in your arms, Mr. Walrus. I will suckle at your teat.

  Oh man.

  No one with flippers has ever carried me so gently before.

  O walrus dear.

  I like the blinding whiteness of your tusks.

  Colgate is a good toothpaste, case in point your smile, Mr. Walrus.

  He says ARF and shines a flashlight in my eyes.

  Jesus. Cut it out.

  Oh shit, says one of his walrusy minions. One pupil is bigger than the other one.

  Which pleases me although the walruses are obviously unhappy about it.

  You know why it pleases me?

  Because asymmetry is infinitely more interesting than its opposite. That’s why. Mr. Tumor thinks so too. Hence the one bulging eye. Stick that in a pipe and

  and

  Then I am in the bus and we are driving fast and everyone is arfing and touching me with their flippers, which is lovely because no one usually touches me and today I have been touched. A lot. By walruses. And a fat man. And a girl with pink hair. The walrus and his friends are looking into my eyes. They are trying to keep me from falling asleep. Stay with us, Max. Stay with us.

  Which is hard to do because I am so comfy mumfy, dear Mr. Walrus, inside your carpeted belly, all curled up like a bumblebee.

  Buzz. Buzzzzz, I say when I finally fall asleep with all the little zzzs rising up out of my breath like snores.

  No. Wake up. WAKE UP. Someone slap him on the cheeks or something, will you? Keep him from falling asleep.

  Jeesh. Lighten up. Live a little. Carpe diem, man. Eat the cherry.

  Max? Can you hear me?

  So comfy. And I don’t even have earbuds to suck.

  Comfy. Like a sippy cup. Squishy and good.

  The walrus drives down the road and I am curled up in his belly. I am aware that he is driving very fast.

  Let me sleep.

  Just.

  Yeah. Just

  let me

  WALRUS

  Oh my God. I’ve been looking for him all night long. Oh my God, what happened to him?

  I’m so sorry, Mr. Friedman. He fell.

  He hit his head on the ice. He had been drinking. He’s acting so strange. I brought him back as soon as I could.

  Mr. Friedman. Do you think one of his pupils is bigger than the other. This one? Do you think it’s bigger? Do you think it’s bigger?

  Oh my God, Joe. Look at him.

  Max. Max. Can you hear me?

  Mr. Friedman, is one of his pupils bigger than the other? It looks like one of his pupils looks bigger than the other.

  Stop it. Stop saying that.

  I think we need to get him to an emergency room.

  Dial 911. Please, Lydie.

  Beep. Boop. Boop.

  Oh my God. We have an emergency. My friend’s son. He hit his head on the ice. Please come right away. It’s 62 Assabet Lane. Please hurry.

  I’m sorry. This is my fault.

  Please take care of him.

  We will.

  This is my fault.

  Please take care of him.

  A kiss on your cheek. Soft.

  * * *

  Lifted.

  Strapped.

  Doors slamming.

  Lights.

  * * *

  Do you hear me? Hang on. Please.

  * * *

  Sirens.

  * * *

  Hang on there, buddy. We’re almost there.

  * * *

  Once upon a ghost the world rushed through your ears and you could feel buildings and cars and schools and streetlights trickle in one side and then out the other like spinal fluid, like sap like pus like old men singing in the streets.

  * * *

  His name?

  Max Friedman.

  Age?

  Sixteen.

  And you are his father?

  Yes. Yes. Joe Friedman. His father.

  What happened, Mr. Friedman?

  I guess he had been drinking. He went out on the ice. He fell and hit his head. Max. Max. Why aren’t you answering? Why isn’t he answering?

  That’s what we’re trying to find out. Any medications?

  No.

  Any changes in his behavior until now?

  No, not really.

  And how much did you say he had to drink tonight?

  I don’t know. A lot, I think. I wasn’t there. If I had been there, this never would have happened. This is my fault.

  Try to calm down, sir. And he f
ell and hit his head, is that right?

  Yeah. Pretty hard. Right on the forehead. That’s what they told me.

  Max? Can you talk to me? Can you tell us what’s happening to you?

  Why isn’t he answering?

  How many fingers am I holding up?

  Why isn’t he answering? Could you look at his eyes, please? Please look at his eyes for a minute. His friend was worried that one of his pupils is bigger than the other. Scared me half to death. Do you think that’s true? Take a look at his eyes.

  Hmmm.

  Take a look. This one. Does it seem bigger than that one?

  Might indicate some sort of brain trauma

  Brain trauma

  Brain trauma

  Brain trauma

  It could indicate some sort of brain trauma or it could just be an optical illusion. Hard to say what’s happening, between the alcohol and the fall. Could be some bleeding in there, or some swelling maybe. His blood alcohol level is .25. That’s high. But still, it’s hard to say. We’re going to need to check it out. Okay? Run a few tests. Quick. Non-invasive. Just hang tight, Mr. Friedman. I know this is scary but we’re doing everything we can. They’ll be down to get him soon. We’ll figure this out.

  * * *

  This is called a CT scan. It should tell us what is going on in there.

  Just lie back, Max. This machine is going to take pictures of your br. This machine is going to take pictures of your br your br. This machine is going to take pictures of your b b b

  just lie back and let

  * * *

  It’s still too early to tell. The doctor needs to see the scan. But he’ll speak to you as soon as he is available, okay? Blood pressure looks good. Oxygen and heart rate look good. Alcohol level going down. He’s on the IV getting nice and hydrated. I’d say he’s on the mend. We’ll know better when he sobers up. Max, how are you feeling? Want a drink of water or something? Still too soon to tell, Mr. Friedman. But try not to worry. The doctor will come by as soon as she can, to talk with you. For now, try to get some sleep.

  You hear sounds and see things. Nurses back and forth outside the curtain. An old woman talking about what hurts. A little girl crying and they are trying to calm her down, shhhh shhhh, it’s okay, Katie, just look at the bubbles, just look at all those pretty bubbles, that’s a brave girl, we’re almost done now, televisions on in different cubicles. You hear these things, and you know you should say something to show them you can hear them, but something in you is too hazy, something in you is too chicken-soup hazy, all swirly and steamy, so instead of answering them you just look at the ceiling until it is hard to keep your eyes open and you drift drift you drift you drift you drift to sleep.