Normally Special

by Tx, x

  The children, they are my children, don’t stay awake for their baths anymore. Their forms collapse, a caress on soft surfaces. I make Frank carry them. I say I am too tired. I do not say I am afraid. I do not tell Frank that whenever I try to settle them, they strike back with tentacles telling me NO MOMMY. I do not tell Frank that when I retreat their laughter sounds like the scream of a kite string cutting the wind.

  Frank has given up on me knowing anything I used to. I tell Frank I am too tired. I tell Frank I want to be carried. I tell Frank I do not want to be washed and could he please close the windows because, once again, the sun has given up on us. The cold has crept in while we were busy pretending things were the same. His hands reach up, grab the sill and slide it home. The curtains lay flat and Frank slides under the blanket and between my legs. His tongue laps three times, he smacks his lips and says, “Mmm…salty.” He buries himself again and the more he eats the more the sound of the ocean fills my ears. I let it take me, I hold its tongue, I choke on how it is consuming me.

  When I come, the scream of gulls.

  ***

  We cannot get into the house. The entryway now contains an entire dune. Beach grasses pop out of the side windows. Frank has to break a bathroom window to get us in.

  The children are quiet and dry for once. They won’t eat grapes. They won’t eat crackers. Their skin runs from pinks and reds to greens and brown blacks. The smell is there, but more putrid and infected. It peels my walls even thinner. They look wilted, withered. I want a box big enough to put them in.

  This time, I am the one to carry them to their beds. I brave myself and dress them in sleepers soft with puppies and bears—furry, gentle, four-legged things this place has made me forget.

  As they wriggle themselves between the sheets, they retract everything that they know frightens me. I run my fingers through their hair and realize I have forgotten so much more.

  Downstairs, I don’t tell Frank how brackish seawater trickled from their mouths when I tried to kiss them good night.

  ***

  In the morning we have to free them from a tangle of kelp. Their skin is corpse pale and pruned, wet and cold. They ask us to bury them in the sand and we do—every tentacle, every fin. The heat of the grains cocoons them and we hold each other hoping they will heal. We lie next to them under the sun on towels sewn with bright seascapes.

  Frank points his eyes at the writhing sand lumps and asks, “Is it time yet? I’d like you to be a mother again.”

  The waves crash and the sound of it stirs me moist, the scream of gulls builds inside my ears.

  I want to tell him yes.

  Because Seven Ate Nine

  The sun stoked the fire in the air and we all sat around breathing it. David Bowie tongue-kissed the silence. I pictured his mouth opened wide, all tonsil and tongue.

  She asked, “Is he saying, ‘fame’?” and I said, “Yes.”

  He said, “You look like a completely different person with your fingernails painted.”

  I wondered about that, waved my hands around my face, asked, “What about now?”

  He said, “Yes.”

  I did it again. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  She said, “I agree. Completely different person.”

  I thought about it some more. I held my arms out. Wrists bent. Hands pressed against the air. Ten red ovals.

  I wanted to say, “But I ate a fried egg this morning,” “But I wiped enough times until the brown was gone,” “But I put on mascara and thought about how today I probably would feel less happy than the day before.” I wanted to say, “Look at my dry elbows.”

  But I didn’t.

  I sat there in my skin while they looked at me. So new. Now blonde and well-kempt. Now speaking French. Now petting Great Danes.

  They just nodded.

  I Wish They Knew

  I came out and saw them lying there in the dark and their legs were splayed like their arms were splayed like bird shit splatter across a store window but completely beautiful and easy to hurt, in that, I could do anything to them if I wanted to.

  I did not hurt.

  I wanted to touch them but I did not.

  I wanted to lie on top of them and trap their warmth against my own.

  I did not do that either.

  Instead, I threw blankets. The bent whites of their limbs turned to dark. None of them stirred.

  I wish they knew I did that. I want them to feel like I love them more than their own mothers.

  Things I Could Tell You

  There are things I want to tell you. As you know, they stir. If you are not here, I cannot fill you with them. These past four days do not have a feeling of being watched. I cannot sense you. I do not feel your eyes on me, peering upwards from the dark underneath of the couch, from the shadowed must behind the billow of the drapes, from the belly of the porch light. Still, I come and go with them, unsure. I have no choice but to tread in the ghost of you.

  Being inside your ghost is a cold, lone huddle comprised of my own arms. If you were here, this is one of the things I would tell you.

  The first day I did not look for you. Past experience dictated you’d crawl out from somewhere, a bit grizzled and worse for wear, broken only with a stench of unused things. I’d wash you off with lilac soap and a loofah and we’d continue as we’d done in the past; no apologies, only sharing the understanding one who gets dirty and one who does the washing have.

  I remember your skin now. This is one thing I would tell you if you were here.

  ***

  On the second day, I was at the lab until nine or so. Now that you are gone there is no need for punctuality, but it still felt wrong. The house was dark and hollow even when I filled it with my toss of keys, coat and the clunk of my carelessly kicked shoes. I collapsed upon arrival. If there was a scurrying or a soft tread of kneecaps like trembling, I was unaware. Sleep can overcome me, heavy as death. You know this. You have been nestled beside me, or spaced similar, for so long.

  When I began to stop listening, you would tell me how sometimes my breaths would disappear in the night and how you wanted a jeweler’s hammer, a tumid forest mushroom or something else delicate but strong so that you could tap my breaths back into me, gently, without a chance of waking.

  When you began to stop listening, I would ask you about the attendance of my breaths and your response would be a shrug and a careless turn away. You’d hide your hands but from where I stood I could see them stroking your sledgehammer, your mallet.

  The next morning I woke up late fully clothed sans shoes, remembered your absence, felt fresh sadness and then worry. Worry. I knew I would have to explain it to you again, although futile. Your brain chooses to be a child’s whenever it can. I tell myself it is your brain and not you. Defects don’t mean anything.

  After my four minute shower I only had time to check the laundry basket and the mailbox before speeding to the lab.

  You weren’t in either.

  ***

  I looked for you in handfuls yesterday; 17 minutes after returning from the gym, 12 minutes after my shower, 24 minutes after lunch, 37 minutes after I had come back from returning the last round of gifts I purchased for you—gifts I gave knowing they wouldn’t be kept.

  “One must try,” I told you after my arms were as empty as your expression.

  “Trying does nothing,” you replied confidently, staring at the empty boxes, bags, and tissue scattered, meaningless. “Trying got me nowhere.”

  I curled my fists into regret and thought about clocks running backwards. You left the broken ribbons on the rug, stepping on them as you walked to the door. A pink one caught on your heel.

  The pink ribbon looked like it needed you, so I kept its voyage to myself. This is one of the things I would tell you if you were here.

  I ate leftovers with a wine that made up for them and looked for you one last time before masturbating and falling into sleep.

  You were not in the wine cella
r.

  You were not in the tissue box.

  ***

  One night while crying in front of the television there was a moment where I thought I heard faraway laughter—yours. The over-enthusiastic laughter you would make when you were dressed for formal occasions, soaked with champagne and men’s attention. You would make your laughter so very loud because that was when I stopped listening. You were trying to make me hear you, see you.

  Your trying; I see it now. This is another thing I’d tell you if you were here.

  ***

  In the beginning you used to hide under things: medium –size baskets, lawn furniture, musty moving blankets, our old washing machine that still sits in the basement, broken—things that rarely moved. Places that could be burrowed. I would check every available underneath looking for the whites of your eyes, hoping you’d let me see them, a hint in the game I had no choice but to play.

  That one time you hid in our recycling bin it took me an entire Memorial Day weekend to find you. I had to administer fluids. Your skin looked like tree bark. I re-explained the concept of “worry” and you nodded like you understood. I knew from how you looked away too quickly that you did not. Now, I think I know you just didn’t care.

  Now, I am not sure where to look. I have moved every stationary item that exists both inside and outside of our house. I moved the forgotten ones twice. I am fearful you have changed the game again. I am fearful I will not find you.

  I know you have told me it’s no longer a game, but I do not wish to call it what it is. Not yet. This is another thing I would tell you if you were here.

  ***

  I didn’t look for you this morning. I called your name in a volume and manner with the urgency of a request to pass the salt. I was shaving. It would have been dangerous to yell. I did not want to see my blood in our sink. I was worried that you would continue not to answer.

  I left for work foolishly confident that upon my return you’d be back—on the tile, on the rug, or on the parquet, thin and ready. I wished for it. Weary. Hopeful.

  If I can just continue looking for you, even if it’s forever, it will be something. I will not need to admit defeat. I will not need to put up a headstone for what we were. I will feed the bloodhounds; I will give the weary searchers fresh batteries for their flashlights and cold drinks when the sun beats them blind. I can do this if you do not end the game.

  If you were here, these are some of the things I would tell you.

  Because I Am Not a Monster

  Don’t worry. I will never find you. Do not worry. You are safe. Oh, lucky you. You should be glad I don’t have a knife collection. You should be glad I do not keep poisons in pretty jars saving the prettiest for you. You should be glad I cannot tie knots or have access to a gun safe. You should be thankful I am only half-obsessed, spread just thin enough to know which way is up, good from bad, wrong from right, only baby step fucked in the head. You should be glad there isn’t a part of my brain that clicks, breaks, and changes Wolfman-style into something that can break skin razor sharp into every piece of every part of you. Something that needs to feed on the fear screaming in your pupils of your green fucking eyes, bites your sweet throat warmest of veins screaming for my warmest of mouths, stubble a delicious obstacle to the smoothness of my tongue. You will never need a single silver bullet with me. You will not need a stake made of wood. You will not need holy water or a Jesus cross or torches or pitchforks or any other sort of protective weapon made for monsters such as me. I am the most timid of monsters. They have removed me from my position within their ranks citing words like fail, coward, reject, weakling, useless, stupid, worthless, dumbass. I tried to hang within their monster ranks, I did. I do. I try every day. It’s a reenlisting of a reenlisting of a reenlisting. Every day I think, I am almost there and every day they kick me out. They make me go back to my life. They know what I know and that is, I have too much to hold on to so I cannot truly be a monster.

  This, I sometimes question. Especially on the days my walls get so thin.

  But, just in case.

  Be wary.

  Still.

  No.

  Do not worry, I will never find you. You are safe. You should be glad all of my truck tires are balding, thin, and lacking responsibility. All of my trucks cannot bring me to you, and I have thousands. They thwart because they know. They have a handful of regular passengers and like a loyal soldier or loyal soldiers plural they stand, arms crossed, guns solid in their fists of stone and duty. None will look me in the eye, which is fine because I am too shamed I cannot look either. They know and they hold fast. I step forward, walk away, step forward, walk away. I know the trucks are filled with gas and I know their benches are worn with springs just beginning to poke through because each one of them holds the knowledge of the curve of my ass. I dream of breaking their ranks under the protection of night, rolling the bravest one back in silence. In the dream my heart beats with the force of a criminal with the crime being one against myself, and three more, but I push it down. Like how I always do. With you. In the dream I drive with my high beams on, the truck swerving unexpectedly. Its soldier’s heart full of its duty, but compassionate, it rights itself and keeps me straight. I picked the truest. The bravest. He tilts the rearview mirror when I am lost in the road. When I look into it, there is the car seat and my hand tilts the mirror back to the road that grows long behind me. The AM radio tells me the stories we like. Stories of spaceships, precognition, dark matter, tunnels of white light, shadow people, and Chupacabra. I memorize it all until dawn. I will be able to tell you how I believe in those things too. I see myself with you, nodding in enthusiastic conversation. I will not picture you naked even though I need to stay awake; there are so many hours left. My soldier truck companion will keep me safe despite his shaking head disappointment. The sun comes up and shines into my face, my head held high. I am driving straight into it because that is the direction where you are. I blind myself for you. My hands are frozen in a grip meant for better choices. I cannot feel my forearms but I keep driving.

  Do not worry, I will never find you. You will be safe. You know I am a coward. You know about my anchors. I did not Google Earth you. I did not look at the front of your apartment building, and therefore do not know it has red brick stones and a blanket of ivy down the right hand side. I did not wonder if that was your car at the curb. I did not stare at the walkway that veers like a stretched comma through a lawn that is obviously meticulously cared for. I did not evaluate the income bracket that it might require in order to live there. I did not think about how you, with your legs strong with boots and its pants maybe jeans maybe shorts on a warm day, and a careless T-shirt so lucky against your torso, with your arms, all of your breathing and being and space you take up without me, walking down that comma, going places in you day to day that I don’t know about, that you never really tell me but that I think of. I did not become jealous of your neighbors, how they ask you how you are every day and how they can just ask you that using any number of words that they want and how they can just look into your eyes and how you can smile at them if you want and how they can just receive that smile and not think anything about that, how they would not lay awake at night replaying that smile in their heads while settling in for sleep, shitting in the face of such a wonderful gift. I do not want to bind and gag your neighbors for this insolence, this rudeness, this chutzpah, this disrespect impudence audacity all synonyms for not valuing that gift and stuffing them into a meat freezer in a basement like I’m a serial killer with a soldier truck and a drive dawn until dusk tunnel vision prizefighter tenacity. That is not me. I did not Google Earth you, so none of these thoughts took place and you can go on speaking to your neighbors who think you are only normally special. Fine. Give me their eyes. Their eyes should belong to me so I can shut them permanently. Undeserving of rods and cones. Complete bitches.

  Do not worry, I will never find you. You will be safe. I did not Google Map you. I do not know that
, by car, it would take one day and six hours to reach your house. I do not know that, if I take I-15N and I-70 East it will shorten that drive by one hour. I do not know that there are exactly 1,833 miles that I would have to drive in order to pull up in front of that brick building with the ivy. I would not sit in that car with sunglasses on waiting and watching with asphalt burned eyes feeling like an astronaut lady in a diaper. It would be much different. I do not know that, were I to forgo the soldier truck, if the soldier truck stood strong in refusal, that it would take 24 days and 17 hours to walk to where you are. I do not know that if I printed the directions out, I would need 14 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper because there are 506 points of instruction. 506 pieces of directions that tell me how to get to you; all of them a caring grandfather type holding the sides of my head in his hands, compressing my hair, warm from the sun, kissing the crown of it, whispering, be safe. 506 steps I will cross off one by one, each one a victory. I will not need three pairs of shoes because of the wear and tear. I will not have a backpack filled with supplies and I won’t sleep in forests or dry riverbeds or under bridges and I will not get raped by a vagrant in my walk to where you are. I do not know that, if the vagrant, dry riverbeds, and forests, and shoe wearing are too difficult that I have the option to ride a bicycle. I do not know that if I rode a bike to you it would take seven days and five hours. I do not know what the average speed would be in order to maintain this schedule. I could guess that my intended speed would be the fastest pedaling I could maintain, but this would not be realistic, and perhaps this time frame would be based on an average speed, a manageable one. I do not know the uphills or the downhills or the times I might fall, or the cars that might hit me. Bike riding is a way I could get to you. I do not know the distance or time frame or method of public transportation it would take to get to you because Google Maps did not have options because my location is “outside of their current coverage area” so, this I truly do not know. A bus or a taxi seems too plain to make this quest. Too easy. Baby candy taking. If all of this was something I would do, I’d want my blood in it. I’d want my sweat to show you what it means. I would like the cramp of each of my muscles, and the withering of my fat, and the grind of my bones, and the blisters of sunburn to show you how I strived. Even a truck, even a soldier truck, brave and shaming, seems unworthy now. This I know now. I know this. I want to show you. You should understand. You should understand in your core. You should know what you are dealing with. If, of course, this is done by me.