Lesley Anne Cowan

by Something Wicked (v5)

  “It’s ’cause your hair is so short,” I say, which it is. It’s like a boy’s—plain and brown and short. “Grow it. And stop wearing those butch guy jeans,” I suggest.

  “Yeah,” she agrees, but she won’t do it.

  We stay there for about an hour, while she tells me what’s happening with everyone at school. While she talks, I compose a letter to Michael in my head.

  Michael,

  Sometimes you occupy everything in my sight and in my mind. No matter what I do, all I think about is you, all I see is you. You’re this heavy, solid mass standing directly in front of me, like a door, and beyond you life is happening. I try to look beyond. I try to strain my neck to peek around, or stand on my tippytoes, or slip underneath. But it’s hopeless. You block everything I experience, everything but the edges.

  “It was hilarious in class today. You know Aiden, right? He’s friends with Mark? He’s always causing shit, but in a funny way, you know? And so …”

  Other times, you’re not so solid. During those times it’s like I’m living two lives at once, and I can easily pull myself in and out of them. It’s like looking out a subway window when you’re stuck in the tunnel. I can see what’s on the subway behind me, but I can also see through the window. It’s like I’m simultaneously looking backward and forward. It’s like that with you. All I have to do is slightly change my focus and you’re there.

  “… then the whole class went silent, and I was like, ‘Shit’ …”

  No matter what, you’re there. Every thought is brought back to you. While waiting for the bus. While sitting in class. While watching TV. While doing my homework. While sitting here, in the alley, talking to Allison.

  “… Mr. Burns walked up to the desk and held his hand out. Aiden was so busted. So busted. And he pretended there was nothing in his lap. I think he was trying to get rid of the Baggie …”

  How was your day? What did you eat? Do you feel better? Who did you talk to? Do you miss home? Do you miss me? Do you think of me?

  “… and he just jumped up and knocked over the desk and went out the fucking window! … Melissa? Melissa?” Ally jabs me in the arm.

  “Hah!” I respond, pretending I’m laughing at her bullshit story.

  “Fuck.” She abruptly blows her smoke out. “It’s like talking to a fucking corpse.”

  “Sorry. I was listening … He took off out the window and …?”

  “Don’t pull that Echo shit with me,” she says.

  “I’m not. It’s not that.” I try to bring myself back into this miserable, boring world, but I just can’t fake it. I just can’t fake I care. I know she’s angry about me going to another school, but I’ve got other problems to worry about. “Sorry. Fuck. My head hurts.”

  “Well, your head hurts a lot lately. You probably have a fucking brain tumour.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “Listen, I’m gonna split,” I say, butting out my smoke and picking up my bag. I walk away, knowing she’s staring at my back. Probably hurt or some shit, but I can’t really be bothered to care. Then, on my way home, I start to feel bad about it. I should have made her feel better. I should have at least pretended to be interested.

  Eighteen

  In a way, Bradley was lucky to stay a kid forever, immortalized in perfect kid-ness. The world is much easier to understand when you’re young, because everything is black and white: good and bad, nice and mean, beautiful and ugly. You learn this in fairy tales. And it’s comforting to know exactly which category everyone falls into.

  But then you get older and it’s like the black and white merge into this murky grey. There’s confusion and anger because no one fits perfectly anymore. You start to see people as whole beings, lovable and hateable at the same time. And this messiness comes along with a whole new frustration. The stepmother who was a bitch suddenly seems sort of smart. Mr. Howard, the nice grade-four teacher, is starting to look like a bit of a pervert in the school photo. And the mother you blindly defended for so long suddenly starts to seem a little irresponsible.

  And that’s a hell of a lot to deal with, when all you want to do is come home, eat chips, and watch TV.

  Take for example my uncle Freestyle (whose real name is Brian). Growing up, I could see he was clearly an asshole—an irresponsible, obnoxious drunk, a bad father, and a cruel man who would come to our apartment every week or so to terrorize my mother. I used to slam the door in his face and throw the TV converter at his head. All I knew was what my mother told me—“He’s a deadbeat loser”—and all I saw was my mother in a crying, pathetic heap when he left.

  But then Uncle Freestyle became sort of good. When I was about thirteen, he started to talk to me out on the balcony. We’d share a spliff and he’d ask me about guys and school and Mom. And he actually listened. It felt as if he cared. And he didn’t judge me, like I was a kid. He just seemed to get it. So we started doing this more and more, smoking weed together. And then he’d give me a big bag of it, for free at first, and I started to sell it to my friends. Not like a real dealer, but I make a bit of extra cash. It’s all sort of unspoken, but I think he feels good for helping me out. I’ve been saving the money for university. He said I’d never get there with my mom being such a financial wreck.

  “If you want to walk on water, you need to get out of the boat, Melissa,” he’d say. Which basically means if you want success in life, you first have to take risks.

  Uncle Freestyle always says these little bits of wisdom. I write them down in my journal, and sometimes I draw them out in coloured bubble letters and tape them on the wall around my bed. That saying is my favourite. I stare at it while lying in bed trying to fall asleep, which sometimes takes hours. Get out of the boat, Melissa. Get out of the boat. I know the saying actually has something to do with Jesus, but when I’m drifting off to sleep I imagine myself lying down in this Lady of Shalott wooden rowboat. I imagine I’m wearing a puffy white dress, with those lace-trimmed long-underwear pantaloons underneath. My hair is long and is tied back with purple satin ribbons. Above me is blue sky. I stretch a foot out over the edge of the bed and imagine it dangling over the water. The boat rocks. There’s hesitation. I look over the edge. Black depths. A deep breath. And I think to myself, Get out of the boat. Get out of the boat.

  That’s my other favourite saying. Well, it’s not a saying at all, it’s a poem. I don’t know exactly what “The Lady of Shalott” is supposed to be about. We read it in English class. Ms. Switzer said a poem can mean anything you want it to mean, as long as it makes sense to you.

  Basically, the Lady of Shalott is a woman who has some kind of spell cast upon her that dooms her to the task of weaving all day. She lives in a tower on this tiny island and is separated from the rest of life by a river. On the other side of the river is a road that leads to Camelot, where all the rich and free people get to go and enjoy their lives. For some reason, the curse prevents her from looking directly outside, so she must use a mirror to reflect the happenings on the road. That’s how detached from life she is. She watches wedding and funeral processions pass by and she’s sad about it because she can’t join them, but she goes on with her weaving because that’s what her life is. But then one day she sees two newlyweds making out on the riverbank and she feels terribly lonely. A while later Prince Lancelot comes along and skinny-dips his hot bod in the river right in front of her tower. She’s so amazed by him, she takes her eyes off the mirror and looks directly at him. She instantly falls in love, but she’s miserable because she knows she will never have him, or that life. So she stops weaving. She finds a boat. Writes her name on it. Gets in the boat and dies of a broken heart, leaving her body to drift into Camelot.

  I know that’s only my interpretation. I know there’s stuff about the river cracking and reflections and historical things, but this is what it is to me.

  The most tragic part comes at the end, when a crowd gathers around this woman lying dead in the boat, and Lancelot ma
kes his way through the crowd and says, “She has a lovely face. God in his mercy lent her grace.” And it’s like, given another life, he would have fallen in love with her. Given another life, they could have been together.

  Oh God … my heart melts at that point. And when I really think about it, when I read the poem, I can’t help but feel really sad. I completely understand how she feels, watching life and people pass by on a road she will never join. I saw it when Crystal took me to a fancy sports club for lunch one time. Or at McDonald’s on a Sunday night, when nice little families pack the tables. The life I can never reach is all around me. But to fall in love with someone on that road? That’s the tragedy. To fall in love with someone you can never have. Is there any greater pain? The Lady could bear anything else—loneliness, boredom, isolation. But unrequited love? Any other loss wouldn’t be worth dying for.

  Nineteen

  The thing about these special school day programs is that they stick a bunch of messed-up teenagers together and think somehow this will help us get better. Imagine a room full of druggy, angry teenagers. We just all feed off each other’s stresses, and the only good that comes of it is that some of us end up thanking God we’re not as bad as the next guy. They should make a school where there’s a mix of good kids, like reclusive scholar students, and bad druggy kids, so that we could all rub off on each other.

  It’s an intense Thursday morning. Keenan, a seventeen-yearold guy who just got out of a residential drug program, storms into the couch room, pissed off and making sure everyone knows it. We are all sitting around discussing current events, which we do every morning. After each of us reads a part of the newspaper, Sheila, the CYC, asks us to share our thoughts.

  When Keenan walks in, a girl named Snow is talking about some convenience store owner who was stabbed in the neck but survived. And how the next day he won two hundred thousand dollars in the lottery. Keenan, obviously demanding that everyone in the room be brought down to his miserable level, sits slouched on the chair, legs wide apart, baggy jeans drooping, baseball cap over his face, and yawns loudly.

  “Thanks, Snow,” Sheila says, then she turns her head. “Keenan, can you sit up please?”

  Keenan doesn’t move.

  “Keenan? We need you up. And I need to see your eyes.”

  The room gets tense. I don’t know how air, something that’s invisible, can all of a sudden grow heavy and thick with stress, but it does. And we all know this is not going to end well. Keenan is crazy. He comes to school half doped up on medication just to calm him down. Apparently his father, a motorcycle gang member, shot his mother in the gut and Keenan watched her bleed to death when he was a kid. So, really, no one can blame him for being a little nuts.

  Fearless Sheila gets up and moves in toward him.“Keenan?”

  He startles, pretending she’s woken him up. “What?” he snaps, incredibly annoyed at her interference.

  “Let’s go,” Sheila says calmly, motioning out toward the hallway. “Let’s talk about it in the classroom.”

  He turns his head and looks off to the side, ignoring her.

  “Come on, man, give her a break,” Tyler pipes up, and it’s all Keenan needs. He’s up out of his chair in two seconds, towering over scrawny Tyler, who only has time to throws his knees up to defend himself against Keenan’s arms reaching in and lifting him up like a curled ball off the chair.

  “Keenan!” Sheila shouts, but the two intertwined bodies are already on the floor. Jordie, this real big fat guy who’s been in the program only two days, steps in between them and they part too easily, as if they had been waiting for someone to cut in.

  Sheila, all red-faced now, takes Keenan by the elbow and leads him outside. Jordie holds on to Tyler by the back of his hoodie and then pushes him down into the couch. The rest of us—Snow, this girl Kat, and me—just sit there, staring at each other. Tyler has a bloody lip, which makes his pimply, ugly face even uglier. I actually feel sorry for him since I’ve come to realize he’s pretty harmless.

  “That was brave,” Snow says to him. “Stupid, but brave. You know he’s fucked up?”

  “Yeah,” Tyler admits, and puts his hand to his lip. “It wasn’t brave. I just do shit without thinking. Sometimes it’s good shit. Sometimes it’s bad.”

  “There’s a bong in the girls’ washroom,” I offer as condolence. Since I’ve got to know him, I think he’s sort of sweet. He’s been through so much—foster homes since he was five, and now a group home where he has to basically fight older and bigger guys for everything. It’s like he’s a harmless little runt fighting for the teat. “Look in the garbage bin, under the plastic.”

  “Thanks,” he says, and gets up, probably not to go smoke it but just to get the hell out of the room.

  The teacher (whom I no longer call just Miss), Ms. Dally, appears at the door before he gets to it. Obviously Sheila is dealing with Keenan and has given her the lowdown, and she’s come to pull things together. “Where are you going?” she demands.

  “Wash my lip,” Tyler says quickly.

  She inspects his face. “Okay. When you’re done, go into my office.” She turns to the rest of us and smiles. Ms. Dally has this way of being totally calm even after students dump on her or spaz out or just plain give her attitude. It’s not like she doesn’t have feelings, it’s more like she’s seen it all and nothing stresses her anymore. “Well, ladies and gentlemen … not even 9:15 and it’s been quite the morning already. Let’s go to class!”

  And that’s that. Tyler doesn’t return for three days, we never see Keenan again, and nobody asks where he’s gone.

  Twenty

  Everyone is really on me about these three months before the court date, and it seems like even though I’m trying to be good—going to school, meeting my curfew most of the time, not doing so many drugs—no one tells me I’m doing better. My probation officer calls the day program to check how I’m doing. Then the social worker calls the probation officer and sometimes my mother. And then the day program calls my mother. And my mother calls Eric. That’s how it goes, so, really, I don’t have to tell anyone anything. They all already know, even though they pretend not to. Sometimes it pisses me off. It feels as if there are too many adults sticking their noses into my business, and I just want to be left alone.

  Since I skipped my last session with Eric, I have to go see him this week, but that doesn’t mean I have to actually “be there.”An hour can go by quickly, and even when it’s filled with talking, it’s possible to leave without having said anything. I especially don’t feel like going into any details, so today I am Echo with Eric. I just let him ask the questions.

  “How’s school?”

  “How’s school?” Echo repeats. “It’s easy. There are only six kids. But that changes all the time. It’s chilled, so no one is in your business and you just do your work. And if you’re upset about something, you can take a break or go out for a smoke. Teacher’s nice.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re making some positive changes.”

  “Hmm.” I shrug my shoulders, not agreeing or disagreeing. I just want to stay inside my head. I lean forward, open the container of fish food, and drop some flakes into the bowl.

  “How about your use?”

  “My use? It’s fine,” says Echo. “I set my goals in school. On the weekends, I drink a little. But just weed during the week. I’m just kind of laying low.”

  Eric normally doesn’t talk to me much about drugs, at least in terms of what I’m using. He says he’d rather talk about the issues surrounding my use, the things that probably make me want to use in the first place. So we talk about what stresses me out.

  “And how’s it going with your mom?”

  “Same. Same. We’ve spent a little more time together.”

  Eric moves in his chair, straightens up slightly, and recrosses his legs. He does this when I say something right. He puts his finger to his lips and taps, as if trying to coax the words out of me.

  “I don
’t want to talk about her.”

  His finger goes down. “Okay. So, we have twenty minutes left. What would you like to talk about?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “You want to pick a card?” he asks, motioning to this little plastic file box filled with index cards that have provoking questions on them. You’re allowed to pass if you don’t want to answer the one you get, so it’s not a bad idea to get your mind thinking about something random and different.

  “Sure.” I open the box and choose a card from the middle. I read it aloud.“‘Who owes you an apology?’ Pass,” I say quickly, and put the card at the back of the box. I know who that would be. My father. Wherever he is. Whoever he is. I take another. “‘What was the worst day of your life?’”

  Surprisingly, I keep this one. I hold it in my hand and tap it on the table as I think aloud about my answer. “That one is easy. The day Bradley died.” I look up to the ceiling and think about other options: our first night in the shelter; the day my mom got beat up by her shithead boyfriend and the cops had to break down our door; the day I got my first grade-nine failing mark; the day my friend Meagan told me she had been raped by this guy in her neighbourhood. So many. “There’s a few to choose from, but so far I’d say, yep, the day he died. For sure.”

  “Okay. Go ahead,” he says, leaning back in his chair like I’m about to tell him a story.

  “Well. I actually wasn’t there at the hospital. I was in school. The principal came to get me out of class. Everyone went ‘Ooooooo!’ like I was in trouble, but then she told me to get my coat, and as I was walking down the hall with her, I had an idea it was about Bradley, because at this point he really wasn’t doing well. She didn’t say anything to me. She just said my auntie was here to pick me up. My auntie was my mom’s friend Maureen, who’s since moved to Arizona, but I used to call her auntie because she was always around. I could tell by the look on her face that it was bad. She was wearing sunglasses and in the car she kept dabbing under the glasses with a tissue. You know how people do that when they’re crying?” I ask Eric.