Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  "Oh my god, I fucking have to have this car!" She yanks on the driver’s door. "It’s unlocked!" She slides inside.

  Angela follows her in on the passenger side. "You would look so hot driving this car, babe."

  Jane’s demeanor makes an abrupt about-face. She swings her head to the side and decries, "Babe?"

  It was too much too soon. She will wear her down eventually, but in the meantime, Angela tries to pretend like she didn’t say it, tries to look away. But the icy green stare is too much to ignore, and she gives in with an apology.

  "Well, don’t do it again." And Jane’s mood changes back just as easily as it flipped in the first place. She grips the wheel in front of her and leans back in the supple leather seats with her eyes closed and a huge smile on her face. "Fuck, I wish I had the keys!" She opens her eyes again and slides her right hand off of the wheel to pose in the gangster lean encouraged by my members. One hand is on the steering wheel; the other rests close to her chest, the faded cigar resting between two fingers.

  "Oh, that’s hot! Oh! Oh, wait!" Angela plunges her right hand into her pocket and pulls out a novelty Polaroid camera she found at one of those outlet stores for discontinued junk. It prints on a one-and-a-half-by-three-quarter-inch strip of film with colorful side tabs that make each photo appear as though it is a child’s bandage. The camera has a limited lifespan; when the film is gone, it’s gone too. But as with any throw-away item, they will enjoy it while it lasts and toss it in the trash without a second thought to consequence when it is all used up.

  With a flash from the camera, Jane poses again, letting the gangster everyone has begged for peep through. Whether her new friends are simply an undeniable influence or whether they just bring out what is already there remains to be seen, but she looks very natural, very much at home in these adopted gangsterisms. She poses once more, this time with a sensuous wink to match her lean, and wonders that maybe there is more to this than just the dried up leftovers of a forgotten wannabe youth. It is kind of fun, after all.

  Angela bounces up and down in her seat like a cartoon. "We should leave these here!" she yells in excitement and nods at her own genius. "Yeah, yeah! It’ll be so funny when someone finds them in the morning!"

  It takes her a minute to picture it, but Jane agrees. "Yeah, can you imagine? You’re getting in to test-drive and here are these pictures of me, sitting right where you’re sitting,`" her voice is raspy from the Swisher Sweet and conceited from the cocaine, "but looking a hundred times better than you will ever look?"

  "Or a lot attendant finds ‘em and adds ‘em to his spank bank," her friend guffaws as she leaves one of the Band-Aid-esque Polaroids in the empty glove compartment and the other on the dash in front of the driver’s display. Their only reward is speculation.

  Back on foot, a few random turns here and there, and before long they are on a quiet residential street with manicured lawns and an abundance of RV pads.

  "I wonder if any of these are unlocked," Jane ponders aloud.

  Angela stops dead in her tracks, stupefied. "Yo, I don’t need to be catching a case right now. I’m just about to get a promotion, and the custody thing is going good . . ." She trails off, interrupted by laughter.

  "Not the houses! I don’t want to break into anybody’s house! Just their trailer! To take more pictures. I’m not going to steal anything, geez!"

  "Oh . . . yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say, I like these little pranks, but that would be taking it too far."

  "Wow!" Jane booms and doubles over. "You would do it, too." Angela shakes her head, but Jane insists. "You would! You would totally do it. I heard you! You said, RIGHT NOW isn’t a good time; RIGHT NOW you’re trying to get a promotion . . ."

  "Whatever! You know what I meant."

  "Yes, yes I do!" Jane laughs. "Anyways, I was thinking we could take some of those pictures in their bed, on their couch. It’ll totally freak them out!"

  "In their shower!" she snickers. "You’d have to take your clothes off; wouldn’t want to get all wet, you know. Well, not that kind of wet anyway." She winks.

  Jane ignores her and leads the way down the street. They tug on the handles of each RV on the block, one by one, until they finally stumble upon an unlocked door. "I found one," Angela yells in mock whisper.

  They start out slow, savoring the cornucopia of comedic opportunity to be exploited in the fifth wheel. Jane snaps a shot of Angela as she relaxes on the couch and sticks it to the front of the television set. This photograph sets the stage, introduces the oddity that is to come without any of the shock and awe which follows right after.

  Next, they're off to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Until Angela has a brilliant idea. She rummages through the refrigerator and pulls out a half gallon of milk. She thrusts it into Jane’s hands. "Here, hold this!"

  "Ew! It’s chunky!"

  "Just hold it!" Reluctantly, Jane stops trying to shove it back at her friend. "Now, pull out a tit."

  "What!"

  "C’mon, just do it. Pull a tit out! I’ll pretend like I’m breastfeeding. It’ll be fucking funny!"

  Although Angela’s motives are suspect, Jane admits, "Yeah, you’re right; that is hilarious!"

  So they take a careful selfie, Angela beaming at her quick progress against Jane’s defenses. They argue for a moment about where to stick the pic. Angela eventually gives in, a ploy to sacrifice her convictions for desire, and the miniature depiction of girl-on-girl lactation goes on the outside of the ice chest instead of the sweaty jug of curdled cow juice. Next, it is off to the toilet where Jane drops her pants and picks up a magazine for a lovely shot that goes on the medicine cabinet mirror. The topper cums in the trailer’s master bedroom; the wanted lies on her back, legs apart, while the wanter performs dry cunnilingus, and it all gets pasted over the smiling geriatric faces of the couple in the bedside portrait.

  They stumble out of the trailer and into the night, their laughter choked back by snorts and squeaks, trapped and contained with nose-candy concentration. Whatever happens with those portraits, all of the shock and awe and utter disgust, they will never know, but the scenarios they dream up will bring hoots for hours.

  17

  Angela and I make a thing out of it, out of late night walks. Drunk, high, sober—it does not matter. Either way, we spend many a summer’s night down random residential streets and alleyways. We climb trees and rearrange potted plants. Once, we amble stealthily into someone’s boat, smoke a joint while we watch Late Night with So-and-so, and fall asleep until the next morning. Another time, we play basketball in a random driveway until an angry voice from one of the bedroom windows threatens to call the police.

  18

  (The Circle) When they return to Julia’s and rejoin the rest of the girls, what should ensue but a dick-measuring contest? At such a point in the hierarchy’s construction, it seems only right that since none of them have penises, they should whip out their breasts as a demarcation of alpha, beta, and omega. And yet the oddity of it all, perhaps the most non-nonsensical part, is that none can denote what makes the best pair universally, only that each is content with her own and, perhaps, her standing as such? To top it off, they do this while they smoke outside, under the porch light, without a thought to who else might witness the competition. Julia has the biggest rack, not too huge, the typical perfect American D-cups. Angela boasts the second biggest set, but Jane argues that, ounce per ounce, hers are perkier and much more squeezable. The other three take their typical backseats proud and loud: Elisabeth with her schoolyard A-cups, Cherry with a flash of the potential she hides under the tightest sports bra she can find, and Katrina with the pride of having breastfed four children and lived to tell about it, stretch marks and all.

  It is only the first time they wager their sexual pride. It won’t be the last. Of course, it’s not just the type of competitions but also the locations they choose for them that betray the true nature of their commonality. That not one of them cares who might be watching as they
shimmy out of their shirts and bare their breasts, it says something about them, their mentalities, the nature of their faculties. Maybe not by itself, true; as an isolated incident, it could be an act of empowerment. Instead, it is a pattern of behavior, life on the wild side excused by disorders each may or may not have. It is the true glue that binds them, that makes their web of friendships work, and it has nothing to do with hip-hop, the color blue, or anything else gangster for that matter. It is hidden below the surface of everyday life, and yet it will come to be spoken of with admiration and pride. Bi-polar, manic depressive, ADHD, OCD—each has her circle-given label, her badge of honor. Perhaps I act as a support group, a way to maintain their functional mental illnesses. More likely, I just enable them to behave in an unpredictable, illegal, and dangerous manner without remorse or personal responsibility. It all depends on your point of view.

  Back inside, from the head of the oversized kitchen table that is crammed into the itty-bitty eat-in kitchen, it is easy enough to see the symptoms, real or imagined. Julia recognizes the twisting poles in Jane from over the rim of her glass of gin and juice.

  "I am not!"

  "Yes, you are. My mom is bi-polar. I know what I’m talking about, and you, my friend, are absolutely bi-polar."

  Jane’s voice pitches high with denial, and she whines, "What? What are you talking about? Why would you say that?"

  Julia takes another sip and sets the glass down on the table. She laughs with sarcasm that catapults from her belly to the back of her throat. She leans over the table and bobs her head emphatically, a grin on her face. "Uh . . . cause you’re bi-polar."

  "Am not!"

  "Yo, why you getting so upset right now?" Angela chuckles.

  "Exactly," Julia says.

  Jane squints and looks at Angela sideways. "Like you’re not messed up."

  "Oh, I know I’m messed up." She nods. "I’ve got ADHD like a mo-fo."

  "It isn’t anything to be ashamed of. We’ve all got something wrong with us," Julia says. Nodding to the girl beside her, "Beth’s got OCD like nobody’s business."

  "Hey!" Elisabeth smiles as she protests; her freckled nose crinkles.

  "You know you clean way too much . . ."

  "Yeah, well, Cherry is a gerontophile," Beth laughs.

  "A what?" the other five say in unison.

  Slyly, she repeats herself, "A gerontophile. She goes after way older women."

  Julia chokes back a gulp of gin and juice as her laughter implodes.

  "So if we’ve all got issues, then what’s your deal?" Jane asks her.

  "Manic depressive," she admits, matter of fact.

  "That’s the same as bi-polar!"

  "No, it’s not!" Julia protests. "Bi-polar is way worse!"

  "No! They're the same thing!"

  Julia cocks her head and lowers her voice, "I think I would know. My mom was manic depressive first. When she went bi-polar, holy shit . . . "

  19

  (Velma) Job 1:21 tells us the good Lord giveth and He taketh away. Ron and Tammy were that baby girl’s saviors and then BOOM! Just like that, they were gone. It was tragic, absolutely tragic! They were leaving a church retreat, headed home on the turnpike, but a long-hauler had other plans. His coffee, Yellow Jackets, meth, or whatever upper he relied on gave out, and he crossed the center median. They say there was drool on his steering wheel.

  Ron and Tammy’s Honda did not stand a cotton-picking chance. So here is this poor baby, born to my schizophrenic daughter but lucky enough to be adopted by good Christian people, and God just snatches them away, just like that? I could not understand it. I questioned my faith that day. It was the only time I ever questioned God’s plan. The only time.

  20

  "We should just keep driving, Janie!" We were almost to our exit. I must have been seven or eight. "Seriously Janie, we should totally just keep driving. All the way . . . all the way to California!" She smiled big, ecstatic even. "Let’s go to Disney Land!"

  I giggled; I was so nervous, it hurt. Was she serious? Why was she so excited? Should I be scared?

  "What?" she asked innocently, her deep gray eyes like saucers on her face. "Why can’t we? Wouldn’t it be fun?"

  Even as a child, I often felt like the adult. My aunt lacked a certain common sense, which left me to be the responsible one. "I don’t think we should go to California, Aunt Rose. It’s not a good idea."

  "Not a good idea? Why? It’s the best idea that I have ever had!"

  "No," I shook my head gravely. This was a serious matter. It would not be beyond my aunt to kidnap me to the happiest place on Earth, not that she would see it as abduction. "No, Auntie; it is not a good idea at all. You’ve had much better ideas today. Like the one earlier when you said we should head home because my mom will be there soon and we don’t want her to know that we left because she gets so upset and all. Remember that one? That is why we’re in the car right now, because you had that really great idea!"

  Rose nodded somberly. OK, she got it. Home was a much better idea. She would drive us home as planned.

  It could be utterly exhausting to be the grown-up to my aunt’s wayward inner child. Sometimes I just wanted to play along. Shit, what kid wouldn’t want to take off on spontaneous trips to Disney Land, New York, New York, or the freaking moon? (She never did explain how we would get to that last one.) But no, no! I had to be the voice of reason. I had to be responsible if I wanted to keep Rose on my mother’s good side and peace in the house. My mother never heard about her zany thought to drive to California or any of Aunt Rose’s other wonderful ideas. Everything we did, everywhere we went or even talked about going, was kept secret from my mother.

  Still, there were times when I could not hold my aunt back, times when I did not even try, when I exploited her wayward inner child, her desperate plea for my love and acceptance. I remember one guilty day in particular. I remember it in the same way that most early childhood memories are conjured: as a combination of imprinted senses―including fragments of my own visual and auditory recollections, the haunting smell of too many children's' farts then the blood on the butcher's hands as we passed him to reach the beer cooler, the taste of my own tears on my tongue― as well as stories told to me by different members of my family who were not even there.

  I had never seen so many kids crammed into one place before. In the chaos, it looked like there were hundreds of boys and girls roughhousing in front of the school. They ran and jumped and slapped and kicked and made a ruckus. The teachers either did not care to discipline the offenders or were not paying attention to begin with. The butterflies in my tummy multiplied. A snot-nosed boy with a face full of freckles ran up behind an innocent-looking girl on the tire swing and grabbed onto her ponytail. He yanked it as hard as he could—hard enough that she fell ass backwards over the other end of the old tire.

  "Auntie! Auntie!" I tugged at her dress, tears streaming down my flushed cheeks. "You can’t leave me here! You can’t!" I sobbed and begged and tugged some more. "They’re monsters, Auntie! Don’t leave me here with the monsters!"

  Aunt Rose looked at me with her big silver eyes full of luster and eagerness to please. She was always such an easy mark when it came to emotional blackmail. What came out next was hurtful and Im'mature, but then again, I was only five. "Auntie, if, if, if you make, make me go . . ." I stammered, looking up at her with my saddest puppy dog eyes. "If you make me go, it means you don’t love me!" My voice and manner, on the other hand, proffered no pity. I was demanding, indignant, almost shrill. It was the move of a spoiled child, true, but it felt like my fear justified my actions. Now, if I had tried that on my own mother, she would have hauled off and backhanded me. Aunt Rose, well, she played right into my palms.

  "No! No, Jane, don’t say that! I love you very much! Very, very much!" She grabbed me, threw her arms around me, and swayed back and forth—almost as if she knew that she had been had. She only halfheartedly tried to argue that I should go to school, that it really
was not as bad as it looked, that it was her responsibility to my mother that she get me to class, that my mother would be angry if I did not go, and, of course, that this was all for my own good. But I was not having it. Those kids looked fucking mean. I closed my eyes and forced a few tears.

  "OK." Dejected, my aunt agreed to my demands, my argument obviously superior. "OK," she said again. I opened my eyes, and her own cheeks were streaked with tears. "OK, Jane. You don’t have to go." She put on her sunshine face (a happy façade: a full-toothed grin from ear to ear, bright shiny eyes). Aunt Rose would do anything to make me happy. She offered me ice cream for breakfast.

  "Can I have a banana split?"

  "Of course you can have a banana split!" Rose’s sunshine face was replaced by a real smile. She was relieved and delighted to have pleased me. There would be consequences, of course, but they were not even a thought in either of our heads at that point. The more immediate need, of my aunt being secure in my acceptance of her love, was far more important.

  I do not like to remember what happened next. I try to push it back, shove it in the closet and slam the door. But it comes back to haunt me with the power of childhood trauma, burned into my psyche never to be forgotten.

  We arrived at the checkstand and the cashier rang up our treats: vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, bananas, crushed walnuts, whip cream, and even those cute neon red cherries in the little jar. From behind us, an Amazon of a woman stared us down. In my wild imagination, her eyes crawled on my skin as if she were licking me with them, having a taste as she prepared to eat me. Her son, who had to be less than two years old, was crammed into the child’s seat of the shopping cart. His oversized belly hung over the edge of the metal grating, and he held a chocolate bar which he had grabbed off of a nearby shelf and opened all on his own. I watched him do it. And I watched his mom overlook it in favor of minding others’ business.