Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  "Hey! Hey, what the fuck are you doing?" the cabbie yells. He revs the Crown Vic’s V-8, and rubber squeals on the snowy pavement. He fishtails for a minute, but it isn’t long before he’s on our heels.

  I pump my legs and arms, but they feel more like dead mackerels than limbs. The painful air huffs and puffs through my frozen lungs. He’s right behind us. He’s going to run us down in that giant yellow boat; any minute now, he’s going to do it. There isn’t much but a deathbed prayer between us and the bumper, so I make a quick right down the nearest street. Jane’s right behind me again. She doesn't look like she’s having much fun.

  Cabbie misses the turn. He backs up and follows the first right just as we make a second down another alley. We come through back to 14th Street and run across to where the alley continues on the other side, then north on 15th. Every time I think we’ve lost him, he finds us all over again. He blares the horn and cusses at us from his rolled-down window. "Motherfucking bitches!" Shit like that. He’s not being very nice, and I’m a little surprised by how mad he sounds. Guess I kind of hoped this would be fun for him too.

  Straight ahead there’s a huge cement wall. We turn left just before we run into it. Cabbie must be crazier than me because he doesn't slow down, not even a little bit. Head-on into the wall. The crash’s so loud, I can feel it. The concrete cracks like my sister Darla’s face. Metal crunches. Glass breaks. The cabbie grunts as the airbag punches him in the chest. But he doesn't miss a beat, doesn't even stop to catch his breath. He throws the car door open, wrestles his way out of the giant marshmallow on the steering wheel, and takes off after us on foot.

  Jane’s right next to me now, so close I can read her thoughts. Is this a dream? Is this really happening?

  Shock and awe, man, shock and fucking awe.

  At the far west end of the wall, there’s a huge staircase that leads to the pedestrian path on the overpass. It’s steep as hell—a wager on who will run out of stamina first, the taxi driver or us.

  Jane doesn't need to follow me on this move. She knows just what to do. We’re in sync. We’re one. We’re joined forces of the universe. Or some shit like that.

  Adrenaline sprints through my shriveled old veins, and I’m higher than ever before. Higher than pot. Higher than coke. Opium. Meth. Pills. Heroin. Ecstasy. Higher than any drug ever! I am about to collapse, and I feel fucking awesome! This, this danger, this adrenaline, it’s the most amazing feeling there is. Even if I have to pay for it with a short stint in county, it’ll be worth it.

  I glance back at the rabid little ginger chasing us. He’s only about halfway between the bottom of the stairs and us, and the distance gets wider with every step we climb. Finally, he bends over at the waist, struggling for big white puffs of air. "I’m . . . calling . . . the . . . fucking . . . police!" he gasps.

  My throat gurgles. My belly roars. I don’t mean to laugh, but it’s just too hard to hold back. Shit, look at him down there, hands on his knees, chest heaving; the beginning of a beer gut sags. I have to laugh! When he finally catches his breath, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He dials three numbers, furious as hell, as if a damn SWAT team will show up as soon as he hits the call button.

  Curious as a kitten, I stop my ascent and turn towards him. What would happen if I charged him right now? If I just hauled ass down the stairs straight at him? What would he do? Should I try it? I turn and look back up at Jane a few steps ahead. She doesn’t know a damn thing about the war waging inside of me right now. And she isn’t ready to see it, either. If I bum-rush this guy, she will probably pack her bags right up and leave tonight, so I resist. It takes all of my might; it takes everything out of me, all of my goddamn self-control, to settle for a cockeyed smile and a wink of victory instead.

  When I catch up to her, Jane still doesn't look like she’s enjoying herself. She looks as mad as the cabbie, and she hasn't said a word to me the whole time since we got in the taxi and I gave him the wrong address. I wonder if she has figured out that we travelled farther on foot trying to get away from that cabbie than we would have if we had just walked home in the first place. Yes, yes, she must have figured it out. She’s really fucking mad. But she can’t be mad! It was so much fun! How can she be mad? What a great night we had! And I go and ruin it with my fucking little adventure. Stupid! Stupid! How could I be so stupid? Why would I think she’d have fun? Why? Normal people don’t take a fucking taxi just so that they can skip out on the fare! Good thing she doesn’t know I lifted that old barfly’s wallet. There’s plenty of money in that thing to pay for our ride home.

  I should probably apologize, but I am way too manic to come across like sorry means anything. Instead, I’m light as air the rest the way home. I run and skip through the soft snow, my head in the clouds. What an adventure! When we get home, I go straight to the backyard and light a cigarette.

  It isn’t much of an excuse, but I have a terrible time with social norms. To do something just because it’s the proper thing to do, well, that just seems almost asinine. I like to do what’s crazy, what no one expects. I live for the shock of it! There isn't much better in this world than the rubbernecking of a flabbergasted onlooker. Why should I try to fit in and be normal when doing whatever the fuck I want to do whenever the fuck I want to do it’s way more fun? Blending in just doesn't make sense to me. If something’s completely off the wall and crazy . . . perfect! Driving down Center Street naked? I’m in! Smoking pot at city hall? Right on, totally there! Pee on police cars? Well, that might be hard, being a girl and all. But with a drink or two in my system, I just might climb up and pop a squat on the hood of a squad car. You never really know; anything’s possible.

  13

  (Rose, twenty-four years ago) So here I am, alone, whacked out of my mind, lots of big, sharp pieces of glass at my disposal. What should I do with them? Well now, why not cut on an old-fashioned pair of fishnet stockings, complete with the seam up the back? The alien germs won’t be able to hitch a ride that way. So that’s what I do. I choose the sharpest piece of glass and slowly etch the pattern into my skin. Deep enough to bleed but not deep enough for stitches.

  It isn't the blood loss that does me in, either. It doesn't exactly pour out. There’s just enough to crust over for a few days, but then my body catches fire. My legs swell red and puffy, and the cuts ooze some sort of foul puss. Well oh well, then. Fine, I’ll spend a few days in the hospital, heal up, and then go home. Sounds like a pretty decent plan. After all, I could really use a vacation. High school’s an awful bore. This is sort of like a vacation, right? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed . . . shoot . . . now that’s the life! Yeah, it’s got that antiseptic smell that you’ve got to get used to, but fuck, they bring you a soda pop whenever you want; you just have to pull on a little cord.

  The next day, I’m shoveling my breakfast into my mouth—biscuits and gravy with a side of home-style fries and canned peaches—when a new doctor comes in. He’s shorter than most of the other doctors, with a full beard and smallish oval spectacles. All of his hair’s red: the hair on his head, his beard, his eyebrows and eyelashes, even his nose hairs. He’s got steel blue eyes. But no freckles; I would expect freckles. With that much red hair? Pale skin and freckles. He’s all olive-y instead.

  "Good Morning, Rose." He introduces himself as Dr. Manbrin.

  "Morning," I respond, a shovelful of biscuit headed into my mouth. I look down to chew then back up again, and he’s still there. Isn't he going to leave? Can’t he see I’m eating my breakfast?

  "How are you doing today?" he asks, oblivious to how rude he’s being right now.

  I just nod but don’t say anything. I don’t want to encourage him.

  "So that’s quite an infection you’ve got going on there."

  Way to state the obvious, buddy. "Yup." Seriously, can’t you see I’m eating?

  "That is pretty impressive, I do say." He waves towards the pattern on my legs as he says this, a sly, ironic smirk on his fac
e.

  I raise an eyebrow. "Thank you?"

  "So what were you . . ." he pauses, "what were you trying to accomplish there? What is this supposed to be?"

  "Stockings," I answer, matter of fact as always. "Fishnet stockings."

  The corners of his lips rise, and I can see that he’s fighting every impulse to laugh at me. He’s confused, judgmental, not the least bit sympathetic. "Why didn’t you just buy a pair at the store?" It’s a ridiculous question. Who would want store-bought fishnets when they could have permanent ones? A pair that will always be there, never have to be taken off or washed or replaced because they got a fucking snag down the calf, and, most importantly, a pair that will never have any alien germs to contend with. But I just keep eating, and finally he gets it that I’m not going to answer his stupid question, so he moves on to another. "So what did you use?"

  I raise an eyebrow. "For what?"

  "To cut yourself? What did you use to cut yourself?"

  "A piece of glass," I answer matter of fact before correcting him, "And I didn’t cut myself like cut myself, like angst and shit. This is art. Like a tattoo."

  Dr. Manbrin nods. "So what kind of glass did you use? Where did you get it?" He’s impressed by the story about the broken bottle. "You crushed a beer bottle in the palm of your hand?" I show him the cut in the middle of my palm. It’s a long, deep gash, also infected. "So how much were you drinking when you did this?" he asks.

  "A little," I admit and immediately regret doing so, being well below legal drinking age and all.

  Luckily, he doesn't lecture me or go on about how he’ll have to call the police or, worse, my mother. "How much did you drink?"

  Such a loaded question, and I don’t have the answer, anyway. There was a six-pack. Did I drink the whole thing? "Maybe five or six beers, at the most."

  "Wow, that’s a lot," he replies.

  "It’s really not," I smirk. "Not enough to get me drunk or anything."

  "You weren’t drunk on a six-pack?" His voice’s skeptical; he doesn't believe me. "Do you drink often?"

  I shake my head. "Once a month. Twice at the most."

  "How much do you weigh." It isn't a question, and he doesn't wait for an answer. "What, maybe a hundred pounds? Five or six beers should have knocked you on your behind. Unless you have built up quite the tolerance—"

  "No, no," I cut him off while an angry bite of canned peaches hovers in juicy limbo between my mouth’s tongue and its roof. "I told you, I don’t drink that much!"

  "OK, alright, no need to get upset."

  "Upset? Who’s upset? I’m not upset." I take another angry bite, mashing the peach between clenched teeth.

  Dr. Manbrin just sits there and stares at me from over the top of his glasses, doesn't say a goddamn thing. The lenses are thick, and there’s no way he can see me without looking through them, so he isn't even looking at me. He’s blurring me out of existence, just a shadow of beige and baby blue against the vague whiteness of the hospital room walls. Is this how he keeps from ripping the head off every snot-nosed brat that comes in here with alcohol poisoning or slit wrists? Blurred out until they disappear? When he finally speaks again, he still doesn't look at me. "So how did you sanitize yourself and the broken beer bottle before you carved these stockings into your legs?"

  What a stupid question. "I didn’t sanitize anything."

  "You might have been able to avoid the infection and this hospital stay if you had taken proper sanitary precautions."

  I shrug. "Maybe I like the hospital. Maybe I made a mess of myself just so I could stay here for a few days." He smiles knowingly, as if my bullshit’s one-hundred-percent transparent. "Besides, the infection isn’t so bad. And it scored me some pretty good pills," I tease.

  He raises an eyebrow. "So you like pills?"

  Wow, this guy! "I was kidding." I roll my eyes and take another furious bite of peaches.

  "So they are just a bonus?"

  "Yeah, sure, I guess." Why won’t this guy just let me eat?

  "Do you like to get high, Rose?"

  Who doesn’t? "I don’t smoke pot, if that’s what you mean." But it doesn't throw him off course any. Instead, he proceeds to name off a list of drugs with a question mark implied at the end of each one. I just stare at him, a blank expression on my face, and wait for him to make his point. Eventually I ask, "Are you going to examine me or something?"

  "Well yes, I am examining you, actually." He reaches inside of his jacket, pulls out a business card, and hands it to me. James P. Manbrin, MD, Licensed Psychiatrist. What the crap’s this about? "And it sounds like you need some serious help, Rose."

  Surprise threatens to suck a bite of breakfast into my windpipe. What the fuck? Is this guy for real? "No offense Doctor, but I don’t need your help." I stab at my food with my fork, maybe a little more violently than normal, and salute this shrink-dink with fruit. "Everything’s just peachy."

  "I just want to help," he insists. "And you do need my help, Rose. You have some pretty serious problems to have carved up your legs like that with a shard of glass."

  Is this guy calling me a freak? How dare he? Then again, maybe I should give him what he wants. Maybe I should throw my breakfast at him. Give him a little excitement in his rounds. Give him a reason. It’s a very appealing thought, but there’s no sense in giving this guy any extra ammunition to help lock me up in the loony bin and all. "Like I said, I was just doing some body modification, like a tattoo."

  "Tattoos don’t get infected like this," he points out. "If you were fully aware of what you were doing and not under severe emotional stress, I venture that you would have made some effort to prep your skin with alcohol and maintain clean instruments. The fact that you paid no attention to any of this, that you used a sliver of glass from a bottle that you broke with your bare hands, this tells me that you did it all on impulse, most likely drunk, in an attempt to alleviate some sort of emotional trauma." He speaks with complete seriousness now, his tone forceful, his posture rigid. I stare in disbelief as he leans back in his chair and proceeds to rip open my most painful scab. "Now Rose, I know that the past few years have not been easy for you. I understand that you gave birth to a beautiful little girl." Tears start to form in the corners of my eyes. Is he really doing this to me? "I also understand that you were diagnosed with schizophrenia and that the court took your daughter . . ."

  That’s it! That is fucking it! I hurl my tray at Dr. Manbrin’s head, jump up onto the bed, and scream at the top of my lungs, "Shut the fuck up!"

  The doctor pretends to be unaffected by my outburst. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the gravy from his face. Then he just sits there, silent, perfectly calm, and waits for me to get it over with. I scream until my body collapses back onto the bed in a coughing fit. He finally speaks as the cough levels out. "Are you done?"

  "No!" I yell through another cough. "No, I am not fucking done!" I glare at him with both hurt and hate in my eyes. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

  "I just want to help you, Rose."

  That’s no way to help anyone. "Get the fuck out of here," I demand.

  The doctor leaves, but it’s not the last of him. Stuck on intravenous antibiotics, I’m in that hospital room for five more weeks, and he comes back almost every single fucking day. On the very last day, my mother joins him as do two large male orderlies dressed in white from head to toe. I figure they’re here to give me a good talking-to and an escort down to the car. The talking part pans out as does the escort part. Except that I am not led to my mother’s car. Instead, it’s a plain white Crown Vic with a gate to separate the driver from the backseat passengers. They put me in the middle of the backseat, and one of the goons sits on either side. My mom cries and tells me to get well soon. I don’t know what she’s talking about. My infection has cleared, and everything should be fine now.

  14

  (Velma) I tell you, it was like raising Cane and Abel. Twins or not, they could not have been more di
fferent. Exact opposites I tell you. One was a gift from God. The other was born with the Devil in her soul. I tried to teach her God’s love. I tried! But you can’t change what is in another person’s heart. Only they can. And Rose did not want to change. Luke 6:45 says, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaketh."

  Rose accused me of playing favorites. She always said how I loved her sister more, and that I wanted her to be more like Darla. Now I can’t lie, she is right about that. My Darla was an easy child from the moment she slid into the world. She always had the love of God in her heart. She was always so obedient. So well behaved! She earned excellent marks and volunteered in the church. She witnessed and saved souls for Jesus. And she never ever got in trouble. But Rose, oh Rose was a different story. She was defiant from the second they cut her out of my womb. Instead of crying, she screamed. The fits started as soon as we went home, and as far as I can see from Heaven, they continue even now as she is about to turn forty.

  I still think Pastor Ron was wrong. I took her to see him when she was one. I needed help. But he insisted she was not possessed.

  Rose’s behavior was always erratic, manic and unpredictable, so I guess I should not have been surprised when she got pregnant at fifteen. Mathew 15:19 says, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." With all of the evil in her heart, I worried that it was the Devil’s seed growing inside of her. I prayed for God to strike it down, but it was not His will. Rose’s behavior got worse than I could ever imagine. Sometimes she was like a rabid animal, but others, others she was as still as a statue. She carried on whole conversations with herself. She went around completely unawares, in a daze. She did not even bother to check for traffic before crossing the street.