by Jesse Ball
VanDuyn read to us from an essay by some Pulitzer Prize–winning author. He said, to enter the sweet land of fiction, think about something outside of yourself. Then imagine yourself inside the thing. Then that is a story.
I have no intention of entering the sweet land of fiction, wherever that is.
We worked on the stories for three days in English class. On the third day, we had to give ours to the person next to us to read. I gave mine to Grace, and Grace gave me her laptop with the story open on it.
It’s not really done, she said.
Mine is, I think.
Grace’s story is called DOLPHIN FRENZY.
It is about a dolphin named Reno who wants to go to the big city. I’m not kidding. You can’t make this stuff up. The problem with Grace’s story is that after the first page, on which we get a bunch of Reno’s thoughts, most of which are small-town thoughts and thoughts about swimming, Grace runs out of steam. She starts just putting in facts about dolphins. I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, but the language changes a little, so it seems like maybe she copied the quotes from somewhere. Here’s a sample:
Reno woke up late and his mom was already setting the breakfast table. He took off the sheet and got up and brushed his teeth. Got to run, Mom, he said, and got just to the bus in time. Some common dolphins are: the common dolphin, Fraser dolphin, Clymene dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin, and others. New dolphin species are discovered every day. If you can have a curved dorsal fin, you will, or else probably you will have a straight one. Watch out for the rough-toothed dolphin. They can reach 350 pounds.
I told her that it was great. Don’t change a word. They will tell you to change it, but you have to stand firm.
She said my story was pretty good, too. I asked her why. Then she admitted that she didn’t like it very much, she was just trying to be nice. I said that’s okay—she should know I actually did enjoy her dolphin story very much. She asked if I wanted her to try again with mine, and I said, no. She admitted that she didn’t really read it. I was playing with my phone, she said.
Maybe I should put more animals in mine, she suggested. That’s how she got hers started.
ENGLISH two
At the end, VanDuyn had everyone read the stories out loud, which was really painful. When it got to me I said I hadn’t done it. Grace got a weird look on her face, but she kept quiet. She read hers, and she was honestly really proud in the way that she did it. I thought it was pretty beautiful that she could be so proud of such a terrible story. I am such a coward I could never have read my story to the class like that, no matter how good it was. So, Grace is a little ways ahead of me on the path of life, I honestly think.
After class, VanDuyn motioned me over to his desk. He said he was willing to give me some leeway because of my situation, but he would love to see what I wrote if I was prepared to show him. It’s almost the worst thing when people are actually kind. It would be easier if they could all be creeps all the time.
Anyway, you are probably interested in hearing about my story, even if Grace didn’t like it.
My story was called “MAY I SWEEP YOUR FRONT STEP.” It was about a woman who lives in a house. One day a beggar comes and asks her if he can sweep her front doorstep. So, she lets him. The story doesn’t start there, though. It starts in the future, at this refugee camp. There has been a disaster, and no one has a nice home anymore, but even in the refugee camp there is stratification, so some people have tents and others don’t. Outside one of the tents, there is this guy sleeping, and he occasionally gets up and mimes sweeping the ground in front of the tent. Every now and then he lies down and sleeps some more, then gets up and repeats it. Someone asks the woman in the tent why he is doing this and she says, many years ago, she lived in a wealthy house in a big city and a man came to her house, a beggar, and he wanted to sweep her front step. She could tell that he was a suitor in disguise, and wanted to marry her. But, she let him sweep the front step, and she was kind of tricky, so whatever stratagems he would use to try to get more out of her, she would always reply with something more clever and he would have to keep sweeping.
Eventually, they grew old, and the disaster came, and she ended up in the camp with her tent, and the beggar shows up again, and he doesn’t even have a broom, but still he sweeps the ground in front of the tent, this time with no broom. He doesn’t even have a name anymore, she says, he has utterly become the costume he was wearing.
So, that was the story, but it was much better in reality, because it is all matter-of-fact. The woman doesn’t see anything strange about any of it. Also, there is this thing about what the service actually is—what it is that the beggar is providing, and what it is he is taking. It is pretty hard to say who is winning.
PREDICTION
On this visit, I will go from my aunt’s hospital to visit the Home, so the route will be different. There is actually a rail line that I can take, which is pretty exciting, since I have never taken it before. So, I will sneak on if I can without paying, or alternately, I will pay. I can’t make a prediction about that until I know more. When I get to the Winston stop on the rail line, I will walk to the Home, this time from the other direction, and go up the drive, get my pass from the counter, go to my mom’s room. She won’t be there. But, she won’t be at the fish pond either, because I think it will rain. She will probably then be under one of the gazebos. The place has at least ten gazebos. It seems like doctors think that gazebos are good for curing mental illness, because every asylum I have ever seen in reality (one) or in a film (five or six?) has gazebos everywhere. I guess some of the ones in films just look like prisons, so those don’t have any gazebos, but I think it is mostly true.
Why that would be so—is hard to fathom. In my opinion, a gazebo should exacerbate mental illness, as it is a pretty unreasonable structure. It is poorly made, it doesn’t provide any real shelter, and it is impossible to do any meaningful tasks inside of it. If a person is struggling to figure out the most basic rationales about life—is that the kind of place you want to stick them? It is pretty hard to understand.
Anyway, I will sit in the gazebo and witness my mother’s gazebo behavior. I think that behavior will be a lot like the fish pond behavior. At some point the orderly will show up and we will pretend like nothing happened, but maybe he will give some overture to see what else he can get.
Then, I will head out and take the bus to the bus to the bowling alley and I will cry my face off telling Helen about my aunt, and she will give me a drink and I will wake up either at my aunt’s house, or at Helen’s. It doesn’t really matter which.
WHAT HAPPENED
I saw my aunt, and she said she could go home definitely the next day, or at least within the week. That was a real comfort to me. The doctor was there and he gave me a list of things that she shouldn’t do. I said she doesn’t do anything anyway. He said she should eat these things, and go to this physical therapy, et cetera. I pointed out that it would be expensive to do that. Probably what would happen is she would do what she has always done, which is sit in her chair, tend her garden (which is not really tending anything), and eat oatmeal and eggs and shitty bread, and every now and then something fancy like a bologna sandwich or something equally vile for dinner. He looked at me over his glasses for a while and said it is impossible to say how long she will hold out, and gave me a bunch of numbers about the decrepitude of her organs, which apparently had all already failed. I asked him if he had bothered to have children. He said yes, he had children. I said why if this is the result. He said I beg your pardon. I said if it leads to this, where you’re a skin bag full of putrescent failing organs, and time passes quickly, it passes so quickly, and he knew that, then why have kids. He didn’t like that, and his tone changed. He told me some more bad things about my aunt’s condition, signed something with a real flourish, and went off.
WHAT HAPPENED
Well, then I went to the train, but my information I guess was bad, because it only ru
ns during rush hour. It was raining and I would have gotten soaked, but I had my raincoat on, so it was okay, but my bag was getting wet and my shoes were soaked and I was pretty discouraged.
Then a taxi stopped and offered to take me for free since the driver was going home and lived in that direction. He was a young guy who had come there from Mozambique. He said he drove two shifts per day and slept in between. He showed me a picture of his wife, who is studying to be a dentist. She had monster buckteeth, which I guess if they are in good condition could be an advantage for a dentist, like an advertisement of some sort. He confessed that she was much smarter than he was, and so he would support her for now, but in the end, it was he who would be supported. I said that didn’t sound dumb. It sounded like a good deal for him. It is hard to stay awake, he said.
When we pulled into the drive and he let me out, he asked why was I going to visit a mental hospital, and then immediately he apologized and took back the question. No, no, it’s okay, I said, I sell medical equipment. I’m a rep for a company. Sure you are, he agreed, and I got out.
There was a new guy at the desk, and so I had to run through the whole rigmarole from the beginning. Eventually, I got the pass, and headed down to my mom’s room. I was wrong about the gazebo. She was in her room.
I was dreading that, because it had happened once before that I tried to visit her in her room and she freaked out because she doesn’t want anyone in there.
I think that’s the reason why she is usually at the fish pond. If she is in her room she won’t tolerate anyone she doesn’t recognize, so the hospital personnel mostly just stick her there to sleep. The rest of the time, I guess, it is fish pond, gazebo, cafeteria, bathroom, whatever. I don’t know all the rooms at the Home or I would list them for you.
I went to go into her bedroom area and she lost it. She was shouting for help, and I started crying. Then the nurse came, and it is lucky that my mom always behaves this way, because the nurse didn’t blame me. Give me a minute she said, we’ll take her to the bingo palace. I sort of curled up in the hall and waited, which was made even worse by the fact that my legs and feet and bag were wet. I was a real mess.
For some reason, my mom let this nurse woman calm her down and get her in the wheelchair, and then the three of us trundled along down to the bingo palace, which is a bizarre place. There are beans all over the tables, which I guess get used on the bingo cards. There are stacks and stacks of bingo cards. There is a stage with a podium. It is a pretty big production. The nurse had to turn on all the lights or none, so the whole huge room was lit, and she asked where we wanted to sit. I said, we might as well sit up there, so we sat on the stage where the bingo-caller sits.
Do you mind staying, I asked.
No, I don’t mind.
I think my mom has been getting fatter since being in the loony bin. She has always been as thin as a stick, but now she is pretty heavy. When I look at her, it makes me wonder if there is anything left there that comprehends me. These are not the hands that touched me, this is not the mouth that kissed me, and so on.
I cried a little more, and the nurse squeezed my hand.
People here, she said, think it is wonderful the way you are with her. Don’t think it doesn’t matter what you do.
I hate being pitied. I just hate it. That’s why I vowed to never mention anything about my parents to anyone, even if my aunt thinks it’s the wrong way to handle it. She isn’t always right.
Anyway, this woman is squeezing my hand and smiling like I’m a little saint, which you know is garbage.
Well, I got out of there pretty quick after that. I was dead right about Helen. She gave me as many drinks as I wanted, so I woke up with a blinding headache on her couch. Her cat was sleeping on me, and the morning sun was streaming through the window.
JAN
After school, Lana stopped me. She asked if I wanted to go roller skating, which isn’t something I would have done anyway. I told her I was going to go meet some guys to talk about setting fires. Most people would be astonished by a statement like that, but Lana was just like, oh, cool, well, call me when you’re done, maybe we’ll still be out.
Also, she gave me back the story that I wrote, and she told me I was a good writer, but I could tell she didn’t care about it. Good writer, like, one of those actual writers that nobody reads, one of the ones who leaves the good parts out. That’s okay. I mean, I don’t want to be the kind of person who writes just for fancy people or anything, so maybe it’s a comeuppance. It’s true, too: if she had really liked my high school writing, something would probably have been off. I mean in her head. I am realistic about things, don’t you think?
I went down to Simonen again, and as it turned out, I was late because I took the bus too far. When I got there, Jan was there, but Stephan wasn’t. He was leaning against a wall, smoking, and wearing a pretty roughed-up bomber jacket. He looked a little like an old cigarette ad in black and white.
Where’s Stephan.
I told him to go home, Jan said. He’s just a little boy.
That’s weird, I said. Why would you do that.
LATE
Next day, I wasn’t feeling very well, so I got to school a little late, and Beekman caught me sneaking around in the hall. I figured I was going to get hammered with a detention, but no.
He says, you weren’t in class this morning. I said, in a funny voice I sometimes use on my aunt:
Darling, you must forgive me for getting home at dawn. The boys and I were out whoring, and you know how that can be.
He did that adult thing where he pretended to laugh but didn’t really laugh. I hate that thing. It’s as if they want you to know that they tried to laugh, but didn’t laugh, at your joke. But they tried to—they want credit for that. My opinion about this is: if you didn’t laugh at my joke, you don’t get credit. It’s as simple as that. If you didn’t laugh, you didn’t find it funny. Why would I give you credit, which is essentially deciding we have a similar outlook, at least on this matter, if you are demonstrating if anything the opposite? In this case it wasn’t even a joke, not really. I guess I was showing off a bit.
He said, I was going to tell you—I found a program that might be good. Have a look. He pulls this envelope out of his pocket and hands it to me. There is a test to get in, and anyone can take it. One of the places you can test is near here—and it’s next week. I or one of the other teachers would drive you, if you needed it.
Thanks.
He went away and I went into the bathroom to look at it. One of the stalls is broken, so no one ever uses it. I went in there and opened the envelope.
HAUSMANN
The place, Hausmann, was a one- or two-year school for kids who are fourteen to sixteen and (I guess) who hate school. That’s what I got out of the materials. You go to this place, which is somewhere really nice, like Maine or Vermont, I don’t know, and you stay there for one year or two depending, and at the end of it, if you feel like it, you go on to college, which would be a year or two early, and basically every last one of the shits gets into a great school (97 percent, which I guess means one or two kids probably offed themselves and ruined the numbers—kids like that must off themselves at a furious rate, that would be my expectation).
Well, I don’t care about college, but this is free, they say, if you pass the test, and the courses looked way better than Whistler. Then I thought about my aunt and I felt bad. I think she’s pretty used to having me around.
Beekman had written on the envelope, Lucia, it’s very prestigious, and I think you have a shot.
If by prestigious, he means for delinquents, then yes, I have a shot.
One of the pictures showed some girls rock climbing. Another showed a guy skeet shooting while someone else next to him, I kid you not, writes equations on a pad of paper. You know, the old tandem shotgun shooting + math lesson—that’s how it’s always done …
The kids in the pictures weren’t scrawny with beady eyes like I expected. They looked
on the whole pretty normal. I thought of how neat it would be if a place somehow made promotional materials that had a little camera in them, and that they could then take your picture without you knowing. Then when you looked at the pictures, it would be you rock climbing, you skeet shooting, you taking dumb notes on a pad of paper next to yourself holding a shotgun. On second thought that is a terrible idea. Forget I mentioned it.
I found Beekman after lunch and asked him if he knew what the test was like. He said,
Yes, it is in three parts. There’s an IQ test, an essay question, and an oral part—a video you record in response to a question, sort of like an interview.
That sounds horrible.
Well, you don’t have to do it.
Thanks anyway.
He looked a little hurt.
Maybe I will, I said. I’ll think about it.
This is what happened. Jan and I jumped the fence and went in. He did in about three seconds, but I had to scramble over. I mean, he is about a foot taller than me after all. When I got to the other side, he announced:
He was going to set one of the project buildings on fire.
He actually said, it’s my intention to burn one of those project buildings to the ground. I thought that was a little grandiose, so I spat in the gravel. Was that me trying to do some cool guy stuff? Maybe it was. Thinking back it sounds kind of lame. I’m glad Lana and Ree weren’t there to see it.
