Arizona Allspice

by Lewin, Renee

  Now, I finger the page corners hesitantly. I’m invading his privacy. I wouldn’t want someone to read my journal without my permission. But Joey’s mother wants me to do it. Taking a deep breath I open the page. The entry has no date. I skim the next couple entries. None of them are dated. The content clues me in on the time frame. I read the first two sentences.

  Mom gave me this journal because she says I write really well like a real author. I don’t know how true that is because Mom loves me too much to see anything I do wrong.

  “You’ve got that right, Joey. Otherwise she would see you are a complete womanizer.” I realized that calling someone in a coma names only made me look like the bad guy. Remembering my promise to Miss Kinsley I awkwardly start to read aloud.

  It just makes me feel even guiltier when I mess up and all she does is give me hugs, kisses, and encouragement I don’t deserve. Yesterday I left the toilet seat up after I used the bathroom and Mason came home and accused Mom of having another man in the house. He thought some other man had come in and left the seat up and was sleeping with her. Mason smacked her real hard. I tried to tell him it was me but he hears what he wants to hear.

  When Mason left, she kissed me on the forehead. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she told me. I grasped her hand and tucked all her four fingers into her palm and pulled her thumb across them. A fist. I stared up at her as I placed her fist at my cheek. She looked at me and laughed, “What are you doing, silly?” She took her fist away and ran a hand through my hair. I told her I wasn’t hungry when dinnertime rolled around. She’d made dessert. I made sure I didn’t eat breakfast the next day either. She’d made my favorite blueberry pancakes. My insides felt torn up because I was so hungry and I could hardly see straight but I didn’t eat lunch at school. My punishment was working fine until I caved and ate four whole slices of pizza for dinner when I got home.

  By the end of that first entry I am floored. My heart weeps at the thought of little Joey living in a home with that abusive man and feeling so guilty and helpless. I turn the page.

  I don’t like any of the girls at school. Not one. All my friends, all they talk about is how they want to ask so-and-so out or go to the dance with her so they could eventually kiss her or touch some naked part of her. All of my friends want that. I’m the only one that doesn’t. I seriously wondered what was wrong with me. I resigned to my friend Alex’s idea that I was simply gay...

  Laughter bursts from my mouth. After shooting silent Joey a bewildered look and trying to stifle my loud laughter in the quiet hospital room, I read on.

  But, I realized that not liking girls was only half the requirement. The other half was to actually be attracted to guys. I absolutely do not meet that requirement. Some of the girls at school are pretty but in a distant, removed way like watching a movie with a plot that amuses you but that you would not want to be a part of in real life. I’m trying hard not to see right through them but all they want to talk about is what other people are doing or about going to the school dance with me. None of them know who E. E. Cummings is! Mom says not to worry about it. I’m only in middle school; I’m still a baby, stop trying to grow up so fast. Well, I’m already in seventh grade.

  Q: When am I going to start feeling like anything makes sense?

  A: Probably never.

  Astonished that Joey read the poetry of E. E. Cummings in middle school, that he read poetry at all for that matter, and amused that he once had problems getting along with girls, I turn to an entry scribbled on the next page.

  I don’t know if I can take him hitting me anymore. I don’t think I can take him hitting Mom anymore. Mom, if you’re reading this I hate him. I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM! I love you but this is so stupid! Why do you put up with him? Do you know how much it hurts to not be able to change our situation? I fall asleep to you in the bathroom crying at night. We can do better by ourselves. We did it on our own for seven years when my dad left, remember? It was just you and me and we were fine. We’d be fine. Maybe even happy.

  Joey’s words were so familiar. I’ve listened to Raul utter similar declarations about his father. Saddened, I read on. I glimpse the next page in the journal and audibly gasp. It’s a poem. Joey? Writing poetry? Never in a million years would I think that El Fuego, the in-your-face soccer star, would set a rhythm of words to his feelings.

  For Mom:

  A Lovely Rose

  However lovely bloom’d rose may be,

  If it is thrown with great strength to the ground

  Its detached petals splatter all around.

  However grand a grand artwork may look,

  Step closer to the canvas you will see

  One misshaped apple hanging from the tree.

  However beautiful the rose may be,

  The severed petals scattered on the floor,

  They cannot reattach like once before.

  However lovely, perfect, she may seem,

  If she is pushed with anger to the ground

  Her bruise’d petals will fall all around.

  Love,

  Joseph

  With moist eyes I read over the poem again in awe of its construction. Joey had this gift when he was only in middle school. I’m twenty years old and I still can’t figure out iambic pentameter. What was laborious for me came so easily to Joey.

  I grew six inches taller this summer. Mom said I’m looking more and more like my dad, Richard, every day now. She said I’ll be tall and handsome like him. Mason growled, “He doesn’t look a thing like me.” You see, Mason likes to think he’s my real dad because he pays the rent and occasionally feeds me. My real dad, I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen pictures and he makes Mason look like rat shit. He has golden light brown hair and a strong chin and a nose like mine. And he is really tall with big biceps. I want to lift weights like he did and look just like him. Thank God Mason isn’t my real dad so I don’t look anything like him. Richard was a writer. My mother showed me a poem he’d written her once. Maybe that’s why I like to write, too. He got my mom pregnant with me and so he had to marry her. He wasn’t ready for all the responsibility so after they were married, and I was almost one year old, he ran off. Then my mom moved to Arizona then met and married Mason seven years later.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t idolize my real dad. I know he’s a deadbeat and a coward. But it’s just so hard not to make that man smiling in the photograph the knight in shining armor that would take me and Mom away and kick Mason’s ass. Mason reminds me of something Mark Twain said: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

  Anyways, I’ve had lots of time to do whatever I wanted to do this summer. I played basketball and soccer with my friends and snuck into movies and read a lot. My friends Alex and Dion would probably make fun of me if they knew how much of I nerd I am when it comes to reading. If they knew I wrote poetry they’d obliterate me. Not that they’re bad people. They’re my best friends. They’d only tease me from a place of obligation to their manliness.

  I’m reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. I suppose I could tell Alex and Dion I was reading it. It’s about Hell which could probably pass the ‘Man Test’. But I can only imagine what they’d say if I told them I honestly enjoy reading the poetry of William Wordsworth.

  -------

  Spare Some Change?

  Hate is a strong word

  so I won’t use it

  for you

  anymore.

  You de-serve,

  something weak

  like maybe,

  dis-interest or un-care.

  You’ve got dollars but no sense.

  Do you hear me, ignorant smuck?

  You phony patriotic smear!

  Don’t dis-regard

  my

  words. Don’t

  un-listen through your ears.

  It is weakness that hits women,

  it is cowardice that loves fear

/>   and no earthly amount of money will

  justify or make unclear that

  You belittle ‘cause you’re

  small

  and you tarnish

  because you’re

  Retarded.

  Though,

  why insult something like you

  at a handicapped person’s expense? When

  there is nothing you can spare. See,

  you have dollars but no damn sense.

  I clap my hands together applauding his wittiness. I study Joey’s sleeping form wishing I could see him take a bow with that signature arrogant smile on his lips.

  I helped a girl from school today. She had bruises on her arm. I know all about those. It was so easy to talk with her. It wasn’t like talking to the other girls in school. She didn’t talk about boy bands and sleepovers. Candice was honest and talked about how things weren’t perfect for her. She told me that her grandmother is a mean woman who yells and calls her names and hits her if she doesn’t do her chores right or doesn’t do well on a test. Everyday her grandmother reminds her that she’s not supposed to be raising her own granddaughter, but because her daughter is a ‘disappointing tramp’ she has to take on her responsibilities. I like Candice. Not in a romantic way, but I care about her as a friend. So, I came up with the idea to write a letter to her grandmother. Candice helped with some of the wording but basically I pretended to be a social worker that had been alerted by the school counselor about the abuse.

  In the letter we called her ‘the vilest she-snake to slither this earth’(My line) and threatened her grandmother with either jail time or suing her in court for everything she’s worth (including her two toy poodles who are her prized possessions). It worked! Candice said it was because when I write I sound like an adult. Unfortunately, when I talk I sound like goofy, potty-mouth, thirteen-year-old, me. Candice was so happy I helped her that she gave me a big hug. I felt amazing. I’d done something meaningful. Purposeful! I had a smile on my face the whole day until I came home and looked at my Mom watching television through a black eye and saw how useless I really was. I could kill him. Sometimes I could just kill him.

  ------

  HEART-BEAT

  scream-ing

  blood-shot

  tight-grip

  hot-breath

  tear-drop

  shak-ing

  eyes-shut

  hand-clenched

  bad-words

  punch-ing

  Stop-it!

  she-screams

  he-keeps

  punch-ing

  Momma

  a-gain

  a-gain

  now-he’s

  grasp-ing

  her-neck

  chok-ing

  Stop-it!

  I-scream

  He-turns

  scowl-ing

  my-wrist

  twist-ing

  it-hurts

  stomp-ing

  gasp-ing

  crawl-ing

  my-face

  bleed-ing

  stag-ger

  up-right

  ang-ry

  I-scream

  my-skin

  Burn-ing

  my-fists

  go-ing

  His-face

  crum-ples

  al-most

  Dead-now

  Momma

  stops-me

  Holds-me

  cops-come

  check-him

  he-breathes

  not-dead,

  Too bad.

  My hand trembling, I turn to the next page. It’s blank. I grasp the edge of the blank page.

  “Excuse me.” The nurse startles me. “I’m sorry, did I scare you?”

  “A little bit,” I admit.

  “I wanted to let you know that visiting hours end in ten minutes.”

  She steps from the doorway into the room wearing pink Barbie themed scrubs and pink Crocs with her blonde hair in a high ponytail. As she examines Joey’s monitors she says “I overheard you reading. Did you write that poem about the rose?”

  “No. Joey wrote it actually.”

  Her jaw drops. “He wrote that?” she says pointing at him.

  “Yep.”

  “Wow. My husband used to write me poetry. It was horribly written but I loved it nonetheless. Of course once the ring was on my finger he didn’t see the point in romancing me anymore. Are you two going out?”

  I pause before answering. Do I need to lie to her too? “No. We’re just friends.”

  “Not going out yet?” The corner of her mouth pulls up in a smirk.

  She must have misinterpreted that pause earlier. “Actually we don’t get along very well. At all.”

  “Let me guess. You like him, but you’re too afraid to tell him?”

  “Very funny,” I deadpan.

  “Wait, I know! He likes you but he’s too shy to say it.”

  “Okay, Joey is the farthest thing from shy. No way. He tried to add me to his list of conquests back in high school. That’s the type of person he is and I assure you I am not one of his faithful admirers.”

  “Sure,” she winks. “Goodnight!”

  I roll my eyes at her retreating pink form as she scurries to another room. Reluctantly, I close Joey’s journal and set it on the night table for tomorrow. I move towards the bed and slip my hand into Joey’s warm, slightly rough hand and give it a quick hopeful squeeze. I stare at the stunning contrast of our hands a few seconds and then head home.

  I’m lying in bed unable to fall asleep. Joey’s journal entries still have my mind’s attention. A vague memory from freshman year of high school emerges. Joey would bug me to partner up with him for our English class projects. He’d claimed he would be honored to work with me. Considering the shine in his eyes and the laughter of his friends who were listening in on his proposals, I had concluded his intent was to mooch off of me in order to get a good grade. Looking back, we could have made a brilliant team. The phone rings. I look over at the cordless phone on my night stand, the display glowing eerily green in the dark. I recognize the number: a collect call.

  “Hey Laney.”

  “How long do I have with you?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Until lights out.”

  The clock reads 8:45 PM. “Manny, I love you and I’m sorry,” I blurt. “Forget all the things I said before, trying to boss you around and guilt-trip you. Whatever you choose to do I will support you because you’re my brother, no questions asked. I promise.”

  “Thanks,” he says. A long silence settles itself between us like an old family dog. I have to break the silence myself.

  “Why haven’t we talked? I don’t just mean since the accident. Seems like we haven’t talked in months.”

  “We can start talking now. I was thinking about something earlier. Do you remember when we were little kids and Dad would yell from in his room telling us to stop laughing, when we weren’t? We were quiet watching Thundercats in the living room. We should have known then, but we loved him so much we didn’t think any further, couldn’t think there was something wrong with him.”

  “Yes. We never talk about the past. And…I know there’s something you’re not telling me. We never keep secrets, remember?”

  “I…Now is not the right time to tell you. It’s nothing you need to worry about. I’ll tell you as soon as I can. You know I could never keep a secret from you for long,” he chuckles.