Something Wicked

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  Later, when Fortune drives me home, he’s like a different person, all mellow and sweet. He tells me about his family and I realize he’s not as big a jerk as I wanted to think he was. Which is a damn shame, because it means I might end up liking him for real after all. He tells me he lives at home because he takes care of his mom and his little brothers, who are something like eight and ten. His mom is sick, she’s got chronic fatigue syndrome, and he says sometimes she doesn’t get out of bed for days. He’s basically the father around his house, which for some reason he doesn’t seem to mind. All that makes me like him even more.

  Even though he gets all soft talking to me on the way home, he doesn’t kiss me goodbye like last time. He basically just stops the car and keeps his hands on the steering wheel, like he’s in a rush to go somewhere else. I pretend everything is cool, and tell him I’ll see him around. I watch the reflection of his car lights in the lobby window as I walk away.

  If I can’t be with Michael, then I might as well be with Fortune. I promise myself that I’ll try to give him a chance, even though my heart is somewhere else. And to be honest, it feels good to have someone wanting me.

  Thirty-Three

  Today was Bradley’s birthday. It’s probably why I’ve been thinking about him so much lately. He was cremated, so there’s no grave to visit. Instead, we go every year to the park behind our old apartment complex, where he used to play. It’s a few blocks away from where we live now, but we might as well just go outside our own home because all the apartment playground parks look the same, with the same rundown equipment and dirty gravel ground, as if a nuclear bomb had wiped out all trees, grass, and anything vibrant and just left behind a skeleton of metal.

  We bundle up and sit on a bench. My mom sets up a framed photo of Bradley, her Discman and speakers in between us, and we have to listen to this sad Cat Stevens CD. I don’t mind this tradition, but I don’t understand why we can’t celebrate his birthday in a restaurant or somewhere normal. It seems so morbid here in the park.

  There are a few kids in the playground, running around, laughing and shouting and tripping over themselves. They are all about how old Bradley would have been, which makes the whole thing even sadder.

  I try to lighten the mood by talking about something happy. “You remember that wacky ice cream truck with the handpainted cones and soft drinks on the side? It would play that out-of-tune music?”

  “Yeah.” My mom smiles.“‘The ants come marching two by two.’”

  “And Bradley would go berserk. Jumping up and down, shouting,‘Ice cream! Ice cream!’ ”

  “Ha!” my mom laughs, slapping her hand down to her thigh. “He was so damn excited, it was hard to say no.”

  “And he’d smear the chocolate all over his face …”

  “I swear it was on purpose …”

  “And I tried to smear it on my face once—”

  “— until you saw that boy you had a crush on.”

  I whack my mom on the arm. “Did not! It just didn’t feel good.”

  “Whatever,” my mom teases.

  I don’t make a big deal about it, but she’s wrong. I remember that day well. I remember the ice cream on my face because I was disappointed I couldn’t just forget it was there. I remember being sad that I couldn’t go back to the freedom of being a kid anymore.

  We stop talking ’cause the memory is over and neither of us has anything left to say. My mom starts to raise a hand to her face and I know she’s crying. I get tears too, but I hold them back. Afterward, we plant a chestnut tree seed somewhere in the barren field, because Bradley liked squirrels and chestnut trees. Usually after that we just head home and order something nice for dinner, like Swiss Chalet, but this time my mom says she wants to go back and sit on the bench again. So we do, and I wonder what’s up. Until she speaks …

  “Melissa, I’m pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “About two months or so. I didn’t know. That’s why I’ve been feeling so rotten.”

  “Two months?” I’m trying to do the math. She’s only been with Scott for about two months. “So whose is it?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Hopefully Scott’s.”

  Hopefully? “Does he know?”

  “No.”

  I don’t go there. I don’t want to know what will happen. The silence grows between us, and in its emptiness I place all the things that will go wrong. He will leave her. She will have a nervous breakdown. She will lose the baby. She will start drinking again. We will lose the apartment. My life will be fucked. I feel the anger rising up inside me.

  “Well. Congratulations?” I ask.

  “Don’t be mad, Melissa.”

  “I’m not,” I reply weakly, and scowl up to the sky. I just can’t believe it. What kind of god is supposed to be up there?

  Thirty-Four

  A baby?

  I don’t talk to my mom for a week. I can’t help it. I’m mad. How can she be so stupid? She can’t handle a baby. She can barely take care of herself. I hate her growing belly. I hate her tired, lazy-ass body crashing on the couch early every night in front of the TV. I hate her pathetic voice when she talks to Crystal on the phone, telling her all her problems and woes, like she wants everyone to feel sorry for the choices she’s made. She’s so weak it makes me sick. I avoid going home. I spend a lot of time at Fortune’s place, or I go to Jessica’s or Ally’s. Whoever’s house I can crash at.

  My mom buys fruits and vegetables and puts them in a big bowl on our kitchen table, and then comments on it every time someone comes over. “I’m on a health kick,” she explains proudly, and I know she’s dying to tell them about the pregnancy. But then she hides in her room and smokes cigarettes. She thinks I can’t smell it. She thinks the incense she burns hides it. She thinks I’m as stupid as she is.

  I feel sorry for her kid. I feel sorry for that little baby.

  I wake up angry, every day, so I go to Jessica’s place in the mornings before school to smoke a few joints because her mom goes to work early and she has the apartment to herself. Jess is usually who I go to if I want to talk about my mom, and Ally’s for when I want to talk about guys. I sit on Jess’s bed and roll the joints while she sits at this princess vanity table with bright lights all around the mirror, doing her hair and makeup. It takes her like an hour, and in the end she pretty much looks the same: plain Jane, except with a bit of shimmer around her eyes.

  I light up the second joint, take a few drags, and then continue my thought.“I mean, how can she take care of a baby when she can’t even take care of herself? She can’t pay the rent herself—she needs a man to do it for her. But she can’t keep a boyfriend. Can’t even cook. I do everything for her. Ev-er-ything. I do laundry, make dinner. You know what? She doesn’t even know how to clean an oven. You know what she did? She pushed the automatic cleaning button. She thought it would just clean itself. She’s such an idiot.”

  “How’s she gonna clean her baby’s ass? Is she gonna push a button for that too?” Jessica starts laughing hysterically, like it’s the funniest thing humankind has ever said. She can be nerdy when she’s high. I roll my eyes and wait till she stops, because I know when she’s laughing like that there’s nothing you can do.

  “Sometimes you’re an idiot,” I say.

  Jess scowls. “What’s your problem? What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s not like she’s told you she’s dying or something.”

  “’Cause I’m not taking care of a stupid baby.” I move over to stand behind her, push her head to the side, and check out my own hair in the mirror. “I’m not changing one fuckin’ diaper. I’m not picking it up from daycare. I’m not staying home every night shaking little jingly toys in front of its face. If I wanted to fuck up my own life, I would have had my own baby. Shit. Look. My hair looks terrible.”

  Jessica raises her eyes as if she’s finally listening to me and carefully assesses my appearance in the mirror.“No it doesn’t.” She reaches for the hairspray. “Here. Cl
ose your eyes.”

  She doesn’t just dab a little here and there, she lets it all go. I pull back. “Jesus Christ, Jessica! Spray my hair, not my face. Fuck!”

  She starts laughing hysterically again. “Stay still, then.”

  “I wasn’t even fucking moving,” I snap, heading toward the washroom to rinse the sticky crap off my face. Afterward, instead of going back to her room, I just head out the front door. I don’t say goodbye. Not because I’m angry about the hairspray, but because I’m just generally feeling pissed off. Even the ganja buzz doesn’t soften my mood.

  Thirty-Five

  My anger is like a festering cancer that just grows and grows. Unfortunately for my mother, she’s on the receiving end of it all. I don’t know why I hate her so much. I can’t really pinpoint any one thing, but for some reason she’s the incarnation of all that makes me furious. Even little things will set me off, like when I’m sitting on the couch watching TV and I lift the converter to switch the channel and nothing happens. I smack the thing a few times, but still nothing happens.

  “Fuck!” I yell, and whack the converter against the coffee table to shock it back to life. I try again. Nothing. “Fucking shit!” I yell, stomping my foot hard on the floor. I turn it over, open the back, and roll the batteries around a little, which sometimes helps. I try again. Still nothing. “Bitch!” I shout, and throw the converter across the room, where it hits the wall then rebounds and smacks one of Bradley’s framed photos off the corner table.

  My mother tears out of her room, her face all panicked. “What happened?”

  “There are no fucking batteries in the converter!” I snap.

  “For God’s sake … then change them.” Her face changes from alarm to annoyance. She storms over to the table, sees the frame on the floor, and bends over to pick it up. “You broke it.”

  “Change them with what? With the batteries that are under my ass?”

  “You watch your mouth,” she warns sternly.

  “There are no fucking batteries in this house. There never are. Just like there’s no toilet paper. Or milk. Or laundry detergent.”

  “What are you so angry about?” my mom shouts, holding the pieces of the frame in her hand. I don’t answer because I hate her standing there with that stupid picture of perfect dead Bradley with his immortal sweet smile. “Seriously, Melissa. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Are you kidding me? You have no idea? Haven’t you taken a look at our lives? I’m so stunned at how clueless she is that I don’t know what to say. And I can’t believe she swore. Can’t believe she’s angry at me.

  “What? Tell me,” she persists.

  “I don’t know.” I back off, unable to tell her the truth: that I’m pissed she’s having a baby. “Everything.”

  “Like what? Say something. Say one exact thing. One exact thing that you’re so goddamn angry about. Come on, I’m waiting … Something exact.”

  I so want to tell her. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I know it will make everything worse. “I can’t. You can’t ask me like that. It’s just shit. It’s everything. I don’t know. This shit, here. All of it. I’m just angry.”

  “Well, you need to chill,” my mom warns, starting to cry. She walks past me and into the kitchen. I don’t know what’s happening with her and Scott, but she’s completely unravelling. “I can’t live like this.”

  “You can’t? You can’t live like this? Is every fucking thing about you?” I shout behind her, but she turns on the tap and drowns me out.

  Part of me feels bad for being so mean to her. A baby isn’t the end of the world. And I know my anger is more than just about the baby. It’s not her fault that I’m a totally miserable human being. Not entirely, anyway. But the more miserable I am, the more angry I get and the more cruel I am to her.

  She doesn’t talk to me the rest of the day, which makes me feel totally guilty, as usual. Even though I don’t know what for. She’s my mom. She’s supposed to take my crap. Then, after a bit of time has passed, I try to think more about her question. Why am I so mad? And I just don’t know. I just am. Always have been.

  Thirty-Six

  The party on Friday night is at some girl’s house. I’m with my friends Ally, Jess, Jasmyn, Liz, and Shayla. I’m ready to get wrecked out of my mind. Around midnight, we are all chillin’ in the living room when I decide to go to the kitchen to get some more vodka. When I’m there, minding my own business, this guy’s little sister I barely know gets all up in my face like she wants to rush me. She’s talking about Fortune being her boyfriend and how I’m a “skank.” She’s a little taller than me, a little fatter, and has these pathetic cornrows, and I’m sure she thinks she’s going to kick my ass. But what she doesn’t know is that I feel like killing someone right now and that it takes me zero to ten to lose it, and by the time her adrenalin gets to six, she’ll be on the floor. Which is what happens before any of the skank’s friends can even cross the room and come to her rescue. It wasn’t even that hard. Just a few pushes and she was down.

  Before I can do any more damage, Jasmyn and Ally have appeared at my side to shout shit at the girl’s friends, who are shouting back. It’s all so crazy.

  “Let’s go,” I command, and turn, knowing my girls will have my back as we go down the hallway and leave through the front door.

  It ruins our night. Ally, Shayla, Jasmyn, and I hang out at Coffee Time to sober up, while the others go home.We sit at the table near the back, by the toilet, where the owner lets people smoke late at night. The place is full of scum and drunks and crazies, so we’re actually welcomed in comparison. Shayla and Ally both have coffees while I just sit there keeping to myself. They know it takes me some time to come down from fighting and they won’t leave me till I’m okay. I sit there half listening to their conversation as I fiddle with my lip, ’cause the bitch somehow got a punch in. I can feel it swelling, and when I suck hard on it I can taste the blood.

  “She might charge you,” Jasmyn says, who has new-found respect for me now that she’s seen me lose it on someone.

  I ignore her ’cause I don’t feel like talking. Instead, I light a cigarette.

  “No she won’t,” Ally answers for me. “We know her brother. He’s got a grow op in their basement. She can’t say anything and she knows it.”

  “I’m not that stupid,” I add. It’s important you figure this shit out before you throw the first punch, otherwise you’ll get charged.

  “Actually, the skank’s brother will probably beat her more when he finds out it was Mel,” Shayla adds, laughing.

  “What about her friends?” Jasmyn asks.

  “They’re nothing,” Shayla dismisses. “They won’t even bother. They know who Mel’s friends are.”

  I keep my eyes on my burning cigarette during the whole conversation. I don’t know why this had to happen tonight. It’s the last thing I need. It feels good to be with my girls. We’ve been friends a long time. It’s nice to have people who will always watch your back. Sometimes it’s more important than family.

  I continue listening to them blah-blahing, but I turn my body to stare out the window. A man walks by and then just stops in front of me and looks in through the window. He’s middle-aged. Conservative. White. Wearing beige trousers and a boring sweater. Brown hair. Totally nondescript. At first I think he’s staring at me, like he’s some pervert, but then he licks the tips of his fingers and pushes his thinning hair back into its contained side part. I realize he doesn’t even see me. And for a moment, seeing him seeing his reflection, it’s like I am witness to how he truly feels about himself. A totally raw and naked, honest appraisal, something you would never show others. It feels so personal that I’m embarrassed. I almost turn away, but really, I’m too intrigued to pull my gaze.

  At first there’s hope in his gaze. He touches up his hair, squints his eyes, and bites his lower lip like he’s pleased with his face. But then there’s this pause, an exhale of air and
slight shake of the head, like he’s experiencing some kind of despairing defeat. And then he just walks away into the night. And it all strikes me as so sad. ’Cause I get it—that awareness that you just have to deal with what looks you have, and that your attempts at improving them better barely matter in the long run.

  But then I think about it more, because it actually runs deeper than being disappointed with his looks. It’s like I saw how disappointed he was with himself. How unhappy he was in life. And it’s so weird to see someone, a grown man, so vulnerable and raw like that. Normally, he’d just be any boring person walking down a boring street. You would never guess all that pain was on the inside.

  And I think that’s what Michael and I were all about. It was like he caught me staring into my reflection and he saw what I saw: the real me. My true and honest gaze. Someone slowly falling apart. Like those people in the Renaissance portraits at the art gallery: when you look up close, you can see the hairline cracks breaking their faces apart. Only instead of running scared away from my broken pieces, Michael held my gaze and made me realize that maybe something good was there between the cracks.

  It’s so early when I get home that I watch a movie, because I’m still wound up and won’t be able to sleep. My mom and Scott show up at three o’clock in the morning and my mom is pissed drunk, which is totally scary because, little does Scott know, she’s pregnant. She’s all loud and obnoxious and is bitching at Scott in the kitchen. Apparently everything he is doing is wrong. She lays into him relentlessly: he drinks out of the milk carton, he wears those “gay” jeans, he talks like an idiot. It starts out harmless enough—I’m so used to my mom saying that garbage when she’s drunk that I don’t really even hear it anymore—but then they start talking about her ex, Dirk, whom they must have seen tonight. I hear something new in Scott’s voice. An edge. Something sharp. He starts fighting back. He drills her, asking how she knows Dirk and when she last saw him.