Fum

by Adam Rapp

  “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  Billy closes his eyes for a long moment.

  Denton Smock depresses the stopwatch feature on his Timex. The digital numerals tumble away. It appears that Billy Ball has slipped into a brief state of meditation.

  “I’ve been writing in my journal,” Billy says, finally opening his eyes, some fourteen seconds later.

  “To Dave.”

  “To Dave the Diary, yes.”

  “How is that going for you?”

  “What?” Billy Ball replies indignantly, almost defensively.

  “How are you finding it?” Denton Smock says. “The journaling. Are you enjoying it?”

  “You said that it was for me, for my own private thoughts.”

  “It is for you,” Denton Smock assures him. “It’s solely for you.”

  “Then why do you want to know how it’s going?”

  “Just to get a general sense. I don’t mean to pry, Billy. . . . Are you enjoying it?”

  “That’s between me and Dave.”

  “Okay,” Denton Smock replies. “I’m glad you’ve found a confidant.”

  Some students pass by the Airstream. Two upperclassmen, Troy Aurora and a lineman on the football team, Nate Bluff, follow behind Rigby Nemtusiak, a tall, dark-haired sophomore girl with impressive breasts. Nate Bluff is wearing his letterman’s sweater, even though it’s 75 degrees outside and most of the other varsity football players have forgone the game-day tradition because tonight’s contest, like last week’s, has had to be rescheduled due to the damaged locker-room facilities.

  Billy Ball, who has been watching them through the window, meets eyes with Troy Aurora, who flashes him a peace sign. Billy doesn’t reciprocate the gesture but simply studies him, and then Troy Aurora rotates his hand and his peace sign transforms into a lone, extremely vertical middle finger — a blatant fuck you — and he and burly Nate Bluff, whose neck/shoulder relationship is sort of superhero-like, laugh and continue walking toward the south end zone, where they join a few other students who are milling about underneath the goalposts.

  Denton Smock has witnessed all of this, but when Billy Ball turns his attention back to their session, the guidance counselor looks away.

  “Let’s just say that he knows stuff,” Billy offers, his eyes still trained on the two upperclassmen.

  “Dave knows stuff.”

  “Dave the Diary, yes.”

  “Do you have him with you now?”

  “I always have him with me,” Billy says.

  Denton Smock finds that he is jealous of Dave, this invented diary persona. Here he thought he was introducing a forum in which Billy Ball might communicate his most personal thoughts and feelings and perhaps come to understand himself better, but he’s only succeeded in creating more distance between himself and this special freshman.

  He has an impulse to reach across the table and grasp one of the boy’s forearms. It’s a surprising impulse, to say the least, as intense as anything he’s felt in the presence of a student since he was hired as a member of the faculty. But Denton Smock doesn’t reach across the table and grab Billy Ball’s thin, pale forearm. Instead, he asks him if he ever discusses his dad with Dave.

  “Sometimes,” the boy replies.

  “What do you tell him?”

  Billy Ball studies him for a moment.

  “What?” Denton Smock says. “What’s wrong?”

  The way the boy is staring at him makes him want to turn around. It makes him want to turn the lights off.

  Instead of answering the question, Billy says, “Why did you take your glasses off?”

  It’s true. Denton Smock didn’t even realize it, but he’s removed his glasses. And there they are, on the table between them, as plain as day. He rarely removes his glasses in front of any student. He has poor vision and can’t afford to miss anything. He’s caught off guard but resists his natural impulse to put them back on.

  “Does it bother you?” he says. “My taking my glasses off?”

  “Your face looks more bald,” Billy replies.

  “Oh,” Denton Smock says. “I’ve never thought of a face as being bald.”

  “Do you even shave?” Billy asks.

  “Of course I shave,” Denton Smock replies. “I shave practically every day.”

  “Do you keep the whiskers in a box?”

  “No,” Denton Smock replies. “Why do you ask?”

  Billy’s attention seems to drift about the interior of the Airstream. Denton Smock tries to follow his gaze, but it never seems to settle on any one thing.

  “Did your father shave?” he asks Billy.

  Billy’s head comes to rest.

  “The Sioux pulled their facial hair out with their fingers,” Billy says. “Their complexions were quite fascinating. They had the faces of old children.”

  “What an interesting turn of phrase,” Denton Smock offers. “‘Old children.’ An oxymoron.”

  “They were robust, yet smooth,” Billy adds.

  Denton Smock finds himself touching his own face. He can feel the faintest bit of sandpapery beard coming in.

  “Would you like me to put my glasses back on?” he asks Billy.

  “I’m making a list,” Billy replies, yet again pivoting to another subject. “I’m calling it ‘The List.’”

  “What kind of a list is it?” Denton Smock asks.

  “An important one,” Billy replies.

  “Have you told Dave about it?”

  “He’s the only one who knows.”

  “Is it a to-do list?”

  “Sort of.”

  “A list of chores?”

  Billy doesn’t answer.

  “Is your dad on the list?”

  “My dad is dead,” Billy says. “Will you please put your glasses back on?”

  “If it will make you feel more comfortable.”

  “The Sioux believed they could see more clearly with their minds. They ate a special cactus that turned them into hawks and buffalo.”

  “What cactus is that?”

  “It’s called peyote.”

  “Peyote is a psychedelic drug,” Mr. Smock says. “It’s like LSD. I’m pretty sure the Sioux thought they were transforming into animals, but in fact, they were simply imagining it.”

  “They flew like hawks and ran wild like buffalo,” Billy says. “I’ve seen pictures on the Internet.”

  Denton Smock arranges the arms of his Clark Kent – style glasses over his ears, pushes the bridge snug to his nasal bones. Billy’s face comes into sharper focus. Those hazel eyes again, the color now almost completely overtaken by the blackness of his pupils.

  “Billy,” Denton Smock says, “I’d like you to show me your diary. I’m not going to look inside. I’d just like to see it. Would that be okay?”

  “Why?” Billy asks.

  “Because I’m curious about it. You showed it to me before, but it happened so quickly, I really didn’t get a good look. I’m just really glad you’re putting your thoughts down. It’s a healthy step in sharing your feelings.”

  Billy Ball says, “But don’t open it.”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  Billy Ball searches Denton Smock’s face. Sometimes the smallest twitch will give someone away. He sees this twitch in almost everyone he knows. He’s seen it in his mother when she kisses him good night. Sometimes he thinks she wishes it were he who died, not his father. She wishes it were he who fell face-first into his dinner and never woke up. He can see this thought tugging at the soft flesh under her left eye when she kisses him good night or when she watches him do his homework at the coffee table.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” he’ll ask.

  “Nothing, sweetheart,” she’ll say.

  But he knows she’s harboring this terrible thought, which is trapped in the twitch on her face.

  Billy Ball unzips his backpack. He reaches into it and produces the notebook. He slowly places it on the surface of the table, almost perfect
ly centered between them. He clutches both sides of it, his knuckles meeting the Formica surface of the table.

  DAVE is written across the cover in black Sharpie.

  Denton Smock ever so gently lifts his right hand and places it on the cover, partly obscuring the assigned name.

  “May I?” he asks.

  Just as Billy Ball is about to let go of his diary — he can actually feel his hands begin to release it — the surprising, absurd sound of scattered honking can be heard. It almost sounds like hundreds of people squeezing old-fashioned bicycle horns in a faraway parade. The sound is faint at first, but then it escalates in volume and, in a matter of seconds, grows to be cacophonous.

  Denton Smock quickly stands and faces the window. He pushes his glasses higher up on his nose.

  The sound is thunderous now.

  “What is that?” Billy Ball asks.

  From Denton Smock’s view, he can see that the sky over the football field is suddenly dark. It appears that a wavering sea of black pepper is descending on the Cornelius Harlow Football Field.

  The students who’ve been socializing under the south goalposts are now running for cover. Most of them have fled toward the entrance of Airstream number five and are pounding on its front door, its aluminum sidewall, its windows.

  “It’s geese,” Denton Smock says, transfixed, his mouth hanging open.

  The honking is almost ludicrously loud now, lunatic in its music, as if all the madness of the world were being violently, chaotically voiced.

  And although neither of them can hear anything else, Denton Smock says it again, truly stunned.

  “Geese.”

  In her master bathroom, with the pad of her thumb, Marlene Bledsoe is stroking the waxy wrapper covering the piece of chocolate caramel mocha taffy that Lemon Tidwell gave her at Burritos As Big As Your Head! when she hears a loud thud from downstairs. She stuffs the taffy in the front pocket of her DKNY cranberry capri pants and rushes downstairs, careful not to trip down the augmented steps, where, in the middle of the living room, her giant daughter has fallen to the floor.

  “Cori!” she cries. “Cori!”

  Corinthia Bledsoe’s body shudders with violent spasms, her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth open. Her body dwarfs the living room, and it looks as if toy furniture has been arranged around her in some attempt to reenact a children’s fable.

  “Cori!” Marlene Bledsoe screams again. “Cori!”

  Aside from the murmur of the TV, the only sounds that can be heard are Corinthia’s fists and heels pummeling the carpet, their reports like bombs detonating in a nearby war zone.

  It takes everything in her power for Marlene Bledsoe to remain on her feet as the living room trembles and quakes all around her.

  A nurse wearing taupe scrubs and white cross-trainers enters a room in the Intensive Care Unit of St. Anthony’s Hospital, approximately ten miles north of Lugo, Illinois.

  Corinthia Bledsoe is resting in a makeshift hospital bed that bisects the room diagonally. The staff at St. Anthony’s has taken it upon themselves to improvise beyond the normal amenities offered in the ICU and have managed to add some three feet to one of their standard-size beds by bringing up a table from the cafeteria and attaching it to the foot of the existing bed with large amounts of medical, duct, and electrical tape and then affixing many pillows to the surface of the table with strips of Velcro, and then covering the hodgepodge of padding with a folded hospital sheet.

  So far the arrangement has worked out and Corinthia is comfortable, if not downright cozy.

  After almost twenty-four hours of unconsciousness, and having been administered a large dose of Valium, Corinthia is resting well and has been exhibiting strong vital signs. The Valium makes her feel loopy, as if she has bits of milkweed floating through her brain, but it’s sort of like being on vacation. It makes her want to stretch out and quietly giggle, which she’s been doing a lot of for the past hour or so.

  It’s the day after Labor Day, September 8, to be exact, and now that her mood has stabilized, although still being administered intravenous fluids, she’s been okayed to eat regular cafeteria food and even get out of bed to move her bowels and release her bladder as long as she’s willing to take her IV stand along for the ride and the large male nurse in training, Luke, is around to help her in case she gets lightheaded or slips and falls. “Luke the Fluke,” as the other nurses call him, has been very polite to Corinthia, and despite the fact that she’s easily six to eight years younger than him, he calls her “ma’am,” as in “I got you, ma’am,” and “There you go, ma’am,” and “I’m right out here on the other side of this door if you need anything, ma’am.”

  When Luke the Fluke isn’t working, the ICU staff has deemed it necessary that two nurses be on hand to help Corinthia traverse the small room in order to reach the facilities.

  The nurse who enters — her name tag reads REGAN — is carrying a small gift-wrapped box.

  “Someone left this for you at the front desk,” Regan says, handing it to Corinthia. Regan has a face like a Siamese cat. She uses black eyeliner to accentuate the corners of her eyes. Despite the eye makeup, she is oddly inexpressive.

  The box is about the size of a fast-food hamburger container and the gift-wrapping is of the thin white tissue-paper variety, decorated with little purple stars and crescent moons. Corinthia elects to deposit it in the large depression between her neck and collarbone.

  “Thanks,” she says to Regan.

  As Regan takes her vitals, Corinthia says, “Still no TV privileges, huh?”

  “Strict orders from on high,” Regan replies, plugging Corinthia’s ear with a digital thermometer. “No TV and no Internet.”

  The TV, which looms above in the corner, has been unplugged, and a plastic device has been placed over the plug’s tongs so that it can’t be inserted into any socket. It’s the one time she wishes she had her smartphone, but it’s been retired to that shoe box on the dresser in her bedroom.

  Corinthia says, “‘On high’ meaning the doctor, or ‘on high’ meaning my parents?”

  “Who do you think?” Regan says. “Dr. Neboshik’s never had a problem with patients watching TV.”

  “How ’bout a newspaper?” Corinthia asks.

  “How’s that appetite?” Regan asks, changing the subject, then assessing Corinthia’s bag of fluid.

  “I could eat a TV,” Corinthia says.

  “Well, that’s a good sign. We got a hot meal scheduled for you. Should be up in a little bit.”

  Regan goes into the closet and returns with a fresh pillow.

  “Lift up . . .”

  Corinthia elevates her head and Regan replaces the old pillow with the new one.

  “Not even the local paper?” Corinthia says.

  Regan places her fists on her hips and says, “Drink that,” pointing to the Styrofoam cup of water set on the table beside her. “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.”

  “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate,” Corinthia echoes. “The key to life.”

  Regan exits with the old pillow.

  Corinthia holds the gift in front of her face and shakes it. She peels away the tissue paper to reveal a white gift box with a lid. She lifts the lid. Inside the box is a blue velvet pouch, cinched at the top. Inside the pouch are a brass triangle and an accompanying wand. There is a leather loop attached to the apex of the triangle, and a matching leather grip, not even a half inch wide, capping the base of the wand.

  Also in the velvet pouch is a note on a small piece of card stock. It reads:

  Corinthia,

  I heard you fell and bumped your head. I hope you’re feeling better. Thinking of you . . .

  Lavert

  Corinthia feels the muscles in her jaws soften, and her face blooms into a smile. She doesn’t even bother hiding her teeth. It’s the most unabashed smile she’s unleashed for as long as she can remember. She begins to giggle.

  Marlene Bledsoe enters the room wearing a peach velour tracksuit that hi
ghlights her camel-toe/bulging-inner-thigh arrangement, and this is precisely what Corinthia can see coming toward her: her mother’s camel toe!

  “You’re up!” Marlene squawks.

  Corinthia giggles and sends her a thumbs-up. She can smell her mother’s post-shower all-over-body talcum. Like lilacs in a bowl of vanilla pudding. Her hair is different. She’s lightened it.

  “What’s that?” Marlene asks, pointing to the triangle.

  “A triangle,” Corinthia replies. She has to concentrate hard not to slur her words.

  Marlene is doing her best to not look away from her daughter, whose enormous pale head on the white pillow is like the rimy bust of some ancient Greek statue wrested from the bottom of the Aegean. But Marlene Bledsoe will not look away, no matter how much mucus she sees collecting in the caves of her daughter’s nostrils, or the amount of milky drool pooling at the corners of her extra-wide mouth, or how oily her hair is, or, perhaps worst of all, how downright mountainous that godforsaken chin appears at the moment! Has it gotten even bigger in the past twenty-four hours?

  My baby girl isn’t well, she tells herself, and I will not look away!

  “Is that velvet?” Corinthia asks of her mother’s tracksuit.

  “It’s velour,” Marlene replies. “But it’s thick like velvet. Do you approve?”

  “The color makes me think that at any minute a spry and ribald hobbit is gonna appear, wearing a matching tracksuit, and then you’ll fist-bump, and like, a wall will open to another dimension, and then you’ll both disappear into a rainbow of butterflies.”

  Corinthia unleashes a giggle that turns into mock machine-gun fire. She aims a finger gun right at her mother’s vagina.

  “Look who’s feeling better,” Marlene says. “What’s ‘ribald,’ anyway?”

  “‘Ribald,’” Corinthia replies, “is an adjective referring to sexual matters in an amusing, rude, or irreverent way.”

  “A wordsmith even under sedation,” Marlene jokes.

  “Wordsmith, nerdsmith, turdsmith,” Corinthia says.

  “Who’s the triangle from?” Marlene asks, clearly trying to keep things from sliding too far downhill.

  “A friend,” Corinthia says.