by Claudia Dey
I heard the squeal of the tires that July evening as Billie cranked the wheel then sped into the stand of trees that obscured the clearing. Our clearing. The crash was loud as gunfire. On the truck lot, the men looked to the sky to see what might fall from it. Even from a mile away, I knew the crash was Billie’s doing. My father ordered me into the passenger seat of the Fully Loaded tow truck to bring what was left of the Fontaine vehicle back to the lot for scrap. A few days later, he gave The Heavy the most minor discount when he came in to buy a new truck, saying there was barely anything salvageable from his old one. The Heavy didn’t fight it. My father took his money.
And me, standing beside my father, behind the metal desk because that is where my father likes to have me when deals are being carried out. Desperate for news of Billie’s state. Wondering if the crash made her confess to everything. Trying to stay cool, but instead growing parched and attempting to swallow without making a sound, failing at this, and so, overtall and glottal, pulling down my ball cap and adjusting my hood. The Heavy told my father Billie Jean was on the mend. “Just a scrape.” He downplayed it. Nothing about a tormenting affair that made you want to drink poison. Nothing about a love child.
* * *
THE MEN OF the territory converge on the front yard of the Fontaine family bungalow and break into search teams. Team Fur Thumb, Team Hot Dollar, Team Sexeteria, Team Neon Dean. Team Traps. Trapezoid, the Trapper, the Trapline. Go, go, go. Let’s do this. Bring it. Between the men: a current of competition. In their heads: advanced sexual positions and future sandwiches.
I am not a team man. I am not a man’s man. And when Billie said, “Well, then what kind of man are you?” I lowered my mouth into her body and spent time with the question, distancing her from the question.
Billie + Will
Doubtless as math.
* * *
“SUPES!” Overenthusiastic for a search operation. Tone it down, Hot Dollar. Approaching me—“Hey, Supernatural”—the men remind themselves to be somber. Wide-stanced and wood-grained, they look like their chainsaw art. They are not wearing underwear. They are missing small and large body parts. “Supernatural, hey.”
“Hey.” I keep my hands in my pockets. Waving is for other, friendlier people.
“ ’Sup, Supes?”
“ ’Sup.”
“You know how hard that is to say?”
“No.”
The men are looking at me. Am I wearing pants? Check, check, one, two. I am wearing pants. They turn to me. “Supes is here.” And then to each other. “Give Supes a team.”
“Yeah, give a team to Supes.”
“Team Supernatural.”
“Sign me up.”
“Team Supes.”
“I don’t want a team.”
“All the way.”
“Not all the way.”
A founder thing, apparently. A John the Leader thing. “All the way” is a favorite expression of the people. It is written in large letters across the back wall of the Banquet Hall—if you can even call it a wall given the Banquet Hall is a dome, which due to underengineering is badly caving in on itself. When you enter the Banquet Hall to mourn or be drained of your blood, it threatens collapse. In visual effect, this would not be unlike the Upper Big graveyard, where, despite the widows’ efforts to make it appear otherwise, bloodless bodies lie under rubble. At final resting, when you stand before the portrait or the black square, propped inside the plastic garden of Fur Thumb’s Flowers, under the repositioned medical lights, you are also looking at ALL THE WAY. Now just WAY.
Dead? No way.
WAY.
* * *
FIFTEEN THINGS shortly after 7:18 A.M.:
1. The product, when it was introduced five years ago, in 1980, was called Human Blood.
2. It was recently rebranded Teen BloodTM.
3. In a campaign led by my father, the product’s new slogan became “Younger. Hotter. Faster.”
4. The product’s guarantee: No blood older than twenty.
5. The soundtrack for the territory-wide infomercial (okay, propaganda) is electronic keys with the recurring refrain “Teen Blood, all the way.”
6. A young girl from the territory sang the refrain in the cavernous trailer of the Delivery Man’s eighteen-wheeler after having three-minute front-seat sex with him, and still getting pregnant. When the song became extremely popular, the Delivery Man claimed the girl’s voice to be his own, and his vocal range bigger than that guy. You know. That guy. The one who sings “More Than a Feeling.”
7. Neon Dean wrote the music for the infomercial. He paid the Delivery Man in drugs for the recording of the girl, who would, they agreed, in any other place, be a total star.
8. The girl was Pallas Jones. Drunk one night at Hot Dollar’s Hi-Fi Discount Karaoke, she held the microphone like it was a grenade, said her stage name was Deluxe, then, under a mirror ball, covered Nazareth’s “Love Hurts.” Neon Dean, at the back corner table dealing pills with his associate, Peter Fox St. John, fell for her in that moment. Hard. Even though it was clear to me Pallas was singing the song to her brusque roommate, Future, who was mouthing the words to me.
9. In 1980, I turned thirteen. I was the first person in the territory to do bloodwork. My father volunteered me and then took pictures of the moment I was led to a cot and injected with an IV needle. He has the pictures paper-clipped to the visor above his steering wheel.
10. I still don’t know how to smile.
11. According to my father, who manages the finances of the territory, product sales have boomed since the rebranding.
12. My father recently bought himself a ring for his pinkie with a gemstone in it. Onyx, I guess. When he first slipped it on, he said, “No big thing.”
13. The north highway is in major disrepair. There is a territory-wide black mold issue. At Value Smoke and Grocer, a carton of milk is just over ten dollars. If you can get it. Sometimes, Neon Dean has extra cartons of milk, but he has to charge double given the space the milk takes up in his fridge. The Banquet Hall is still falling down. Our pay for bloodwork has not gone up in five years. It’s still $9.50 per pint. Can’t buy a carton of milk. No signs of the boom, et cetera.
14. Does my father inject himself with my blood?
15. Not even my darkest question.
I watch The Heavy pace back and forth and back and forth across the same small quadrant on the Fontaine front yard like a tiger in captivity. Freshly showered, camo outerwear, their boots blackening with soot, the men of the territory pen him in. Each of them will have already downed a raw egg, lit a cigarette off his stove top, singed his eyebrows, and brushed his dog. “You don’t want to do this, man.”
“Trust us.”
“Leave it to us.”
The Heavy wants to join the search for Billie. Because the FONTN truck was not seen in town or on the north highway exiting town, the current thinking is that Billie has taken one of the hundreds of abandoned logging roads and driven the truck as deep as she could into the woods. To clear her head.
“Let me give you the lay of the land.”
“Seriously, man.”
“We’re serious.”
“You stay here,” and Team Man Store claps The Heavy’s shoulder hard. Wrong motion. The man has lost something, not won something. Did I say this out loud? Possible. Because The Heavy looks over and catches my eye. And my heart exits my body, though to chase it across his scorched yard (the bonfire made by the women last night was intense) would only prolong this moment.
Unlaced workboots, easily a thirteen. Custom denim. A coat. Pause. That’s Billie’s coat. Rewind. The Heavy is wearing Billie’s winter coat. On him, it is more of a vest. A current passes between me and The Heavy. Ancestral? Celestial? Spectral? Coincidental? I don’t know, but I see his eyes are the same as my e
yes.
How have I never noticed this before?
What you observe when you have not slept for days. Yes, the green, but also the deep blue sockets, and that look, what is that look? Desperation. No. Fear. Yes, fear. Me too, I want to say to him, I am also sick with fear.
* * *
“I CAN BE chronological for you,” I said to Billie one morning in the forest.
“What does that even mean? Like obey the laws of time?”
“Yes. That is something I can be for you.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said, turning away her large, naked body. “About chronology, I do not need reminding.”
I am trying to find the things I can be rather than the things I can’t, I didn’t say to Billie, who was winding shrink wrap around her midsection, making it clear she wanted no help.
* * *
7:29 A.M. The Heavy turns his broad back and closes his front door behind him. Billie’s coat is splitting along the seams. The Heavy has trimmed his large beard and brushed his thick, shoulder-length brown hair off his face. “An ugly man made uglier,” I hear one of the men say. Through the picture window, I can make out the colossus of The Heavy’s body as he transits his bare living room. Nothing but a television on a television stand. No table, no chairs, no couch. The mantel is intact, and Billie’s framed portrait the only thing on the wall above it. In it, she is wearing the long and tight and silver dress she wore at the party. Rhinestones around her eyes. The Heavy leaves black tread marks on the gold carpet. They look like dance instructions for one. He enters the glassed-in part of the bungalow and, in plain view, crawls into a black recliner. The recliner is hooded. At the base of the hooded recliner is a kick-out footstool. The Heavy kicks it out, lays his rifle on his chest, and pulls the hood down over his face. When an aching man wants to hide, he does not want to have to get up to do so. When an aching man wants to hide, he wants the easiest chair. The Heavy should call the chair the Easiest Chair, but it’s not like I will ever tell him this.
“Team Supes!”
“Not Team Supes.” I walk down the unfinished driveway and onto the north highway.
The men of the territory love me, and the love is undeserved. Billie loved me, and I waved to her. Dumbly, I waved. Struck down, I waved. When she would arrive in the clearing, my hands would float up like I needed rescuing and go straight for the zipper of her coat. I want to make you something. A boat, a cabin, a flying device, a new genus. I want to name a meteor for you, a storm. A child.
“Do all of the women know how to kiss the way you do?”
“No,” Billie said.
I would die 4 U.
Love made me tacky. Love made me abbreviate. Abbreviating is for rushed nonreaders. I was never either of those things. “You move like sea life,” Billie told me. U R the only 1, I did not tell her. How you don’t have time for the full sentiment because in your head there are too many sentiments. U + me = 2night. And the sentiments are hurtling at you and begging for expression, and so, if you are like me, Supernatural—Super Unnatural—you get fully overwhelmed by the noise in your head and you say nothing. I said nothing to Billie. When it mattered most, I said nothing. Not true. When it mattered most, I did not say enough. True. I love you. I felt those words, but never spoke them. Billie did. Question: Would those words have made a difference? Answer: You know the answer.
I look up to Pony Darlene’s window. Where are you, Pony? The black bedsheet Pony used for a curtain, the one with the YO on it—which she told me was actually BEYOND, which was where she intended to go, “Beyond the territory,” she told me her plan—has been pulled down and torched like everything else. Now her window stands empty.
Where R U, Pony? I have six topics I would like to introduce to the conversation we swore we would continue (Friday, dawn). Swore.
1. You’re right. A numbered list can help a person tortured by the black swarm of his thoughts. No need to name this person. Yeah, totally me.
2. Why didn’t we ever talk at the Lending Library? Like, in a respectful whisper. I saw you there almost every weekend it was open. I don’t have a name for that moment when two people who see each other regularly decide to start talking, and it’s as if they’ve been talking all along. Do you?
3. Kinship? Weird. Nice.
4. Nightmare. What about daymare?
5. Undying love. What about dying love?
6. You know how there are striking names for groups of animals? A brood of termites. A cloud of bats. An earth of foxes. A cry of dogs. A band of coyotes. An obstinacy of bison. A sleuth of bears. You know how there are no striking names for groups of people? A mess, a mob, a crowd. We need to rethink this, Pony. We need to rethink this so it’s individual. A complaint of Trapses. No. A deception of Trapses. A telepathy of Ponys. No. A secret of Ponys. A confusion of Supernaturals. A solitude of The Heavys. And Billie. What would Billie be?
A heartbreak of Billies.
* * *
“I GET YOU,” Pony said to me, after she robbed the Delivery Man while I watched within fighting range from the ditch, then unfortunately startled her when she kicked the passenger door closed with her combat boot while still pointing my father’s hunting rifle up at the Delivery Man, and I soundlessly put my immense hand on her shoulder, not heeding the words Sharpied across the back of her outerwear, CAN’T TOUCH THIS.
“Sorry.”
The Delivery Man peeled off. He drove a refrigerated truck with the words HUMAN BLOOD on its side. He reminded Pony of Bon Jovi yet ailing and poor. He had medical alert bracelets up both arms, which were stolen and covered a mess of tattoos. We agreed the Delivery Man needed at least one new organ. Pony said he wasn’t all bad.
“You know how on Free Day,” Pony said, “people put stuff out, and they label it AS IS.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to say Free Day was garbage day.
“He’s as is.”
Pony said all she had to do was keep her finger on the trigger of my father’s Lee-Enfield. The Delivery Man told her that, to get here, he has to fly into a small town. Doesn’t even have a 7-Eleven, he said. A 7-Eleven is a convenience store where you can get gas, cigarettes, magazines, and soft drinks in one go. We’re surrounded by water. He said the territory is in the middle of a massive island, but the island is getting smaller. Water levels are rising. He said it used to be a straight shot north, but then everything warmed up. The flight to the small town is seven hours long. Supplies are flown in ahead of him on some kind of cargo plane, then loaded into his truck. He drives to us only because he gets paid a way above average sum of money by the company that buys our blood. And he gets a dental plan. He said the drive takes him two days. The planet is huge. We know only a fraction of it. Might as well be outer space. He said David Bowie is dead. He said he worked danger pay into his contract. Coming to an isolated northern community carries significant risk. He is a slob but he has dreams. He has a really bad pill habit and needs a root canal. He said he has a safety-deposit box with his mother’s ashes in it, stacks of cash, and Bruce Springsteen’s guitar pick. Born to Run. Great fucking album. We’ll all be outlived by that album. He said it’s not the blood that’s valuable but the plasma centrifuged from it. Fast-growing plasma market. It’s used for transfusions, but more, he said, it’s used in pharmaceutical products. Drugs. Drugs for new diseases. New diseases every day, man. He said plasma is the color gold. He said he is going to retire off our plasma and live in a room in a roadside motel with a hot tub and a hot plate and a great cable package within walking distance to a hamburger joint and a strip club.
I ran alongside Pony as she rode her bicycle home. Her ten-speed. Both of us cutting through the dry cold. Our faces in the wind. “I get you,” she said. It was the longest conversation I have ever had. Longer than any conversation I had with Billie. We were always rushed, clandestine, but also, I should have talked more. Told her more.
>
* * *
WHEN MY MOTHER took our baby, there in the clearing in the woods, her motion was swift. She had to get back to our bungalow with the baby hidden in her arms, and when my father came home from the truck lot—“Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come and get me?”—my mother had to lie: “It all just happened so fast.” She had to burn the foam and the owl feathers before he arrived. She had to hold the damp cloth to her face and give herself the face of exertion. Do I stay with Billie or do I go with my mother and the baby? Do I hold the baby? Do I carry the baby for my mother? I don’t even have a parka or anything to hide the baby. It’s May. My parka is in storage. I didn’t think through blankets. I am not a covert thinker. Wait. I have just had an affair for a year and a half. Am I who I think I am? Not the time. Do I walk Billie home? How could I possibly walk Billie home? How could Billie possibly walk home on her own? This part of the plan we never discussed. We got only as far as handing over the baby. We had pictured the whole thing happening in darkness, when the other questions wouldn’t be ones we’d have to ask.
“I don’t know what to do now,” I said to Billie, and, lying on her side, she thought this was hilarious. Billie laughed until her laughter gave way to something else. It was the sound of her breaking. I tried to join in, to undo the breaking, but when she could speak again, Billie pushed against my shaking arms and said, “You too. Get the fuck away from me.”
Running home, I passed a man—Visible Thinker? Hot Dollar? The Heavy? It was The Heavy—and he said, “You all right there, Supes? Should I get the nurse?” And he pointed to the blood on my hands and arms, my shirt. In the clearing, I must have held the baby at some point.
