by Jesse Ball
If they make you put on a suit, it’s because they are going to do something horrible to you. I guarantee it.
THE HOME
I won’t go through my whole prediction rag this time. This visit was kind of a catastrophe. I went to the Home. I was sitting at the fish pond with my mom and she had an accident. It seemed like she did, because she made a weird expression, so I checked, and yes, an accident. I had to get some help. Which meant going to the nurses’ station. When I got to the nurses’ station he was there and he came over.
I had to tell him that my mom had an accident, and would he come clean it up.
Can you imagine?
Well, he did it. My good old mom got a towel bath from the orderly who, well, you remember.
I don’t think it mattered to her. I think it happens pretty regularly. I tried to help him out, but he said he has his routine for doing it—and it wouldn’t take long. He said I could walk around and he’d be done in about ten minutes. I guess he didn’t want me to watch him do it, which is a little weird, since it is fairly high value—I mean evolutionarily speaking, if you see that a guy can do tasks like that, it probably makes you think he would be a good mate. But, I don’t think he thinks like that. He probably thinks: I don’t want her to watch me clean shit off her mother’s leg. Which makes sense, too.
I came back and things were good as new. My mom was in her chair again. He was sitting there doing nothing. I guess he was waiting for me.
I asked him what his name was, which is something I didn’t know. He told me. I told him my name. He said he knew it already, Lucia, it wasn’t the kind of name you forget.
I told him you can forget anything.
AUNT
My aunt said she wasn’t sure about the part where people get burned in their homes just for being wealthy. I said, there’s no other way. They could have stopped at any time. She said, I know, but I’m still not sure about that part. In any case, I will be dead soon, and then the world will be yours to do with as you will.
Don’t talk like that.
I like the rest, though, she said. I think maybe it is too formal. It should be simpler—like a person speaking to herself under her breath.
I said, the next one will be better.
PILLS
Lana said it was Ree’s birthday and we were going to go get her from her brother’s shop where she works. We drove over, and I got to ride in the front of the car for the first time.
It’s not mine, really, she told me. It’s my brother’s but he’s in jail. He would kill me, actually wring my neck if he knew I had it.
What is your brother in jail for?
Mail fraud.
Really.
No, not really. He was in the coast guard and he got in a fight while drinking. Unfortunately the guy he fought had a heart condition.
Are you saying …
Yeah, he tackled the guy and that was that. So, he’s in jail until I’m twenty-five. He’ll be thirty-two. Maybe he’ll get out on good behavior. He’s a nice guy. Everyone was real surprised.
We got to Ree’s brother’s place pretty quick (does he kill people too? No, Lucia. He doesn’t. Only my brother kills people, and he only kills people with heart conditions), which was an auto shop. There was a Ferrari logo on the outside.
He’s never fucking seen a Ferrari, was Lana’s comment on that.
Ree came out, tossed her bag in the back, and got in. She leaned in between us.
Hello, girls.
Hello, Ree.
Here you go. She handed us each two pills.
What is this?
That’s the fun, said Lana. Ree never tells you what it is until after.
WHAT DID WE DO
The next day, I woke up and my face hurt. When I got to school, I passed by Lana in the hall and she had a black eye just like me.
Have you ever had a black eye before?
No. You?
No. Does it look cool?
It doesn’t not look cool. I think it is—it could go either way.
We tried to put two and two together, but it was all real patchy. Lana called Ree at lunch, and Ree said we had done almost nothing. Lana put the phone on speaker:
Let’s see. We got milkshakes at some diner. We drove past a carnival and went in and snuck into the bouncy castle, and when we were jumping around, the two of you knocked heads. You both fell on your asses, and bounced around. I have it on my phone, she said. I’ll show you later. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen. You both thought it was your own fault and kept apologizing. Then we went to the bridge and listened to the radio and danced around for a while in the headlights of the car. It was the best birthday I have ever had. Lucia, you kept talking about how you can’t get rid of your chlamydia.
I told her I knew that part wasn’t true. To be honest, I can’t even remember the difference between chlamydia and gonorrhea. Is one of them worse?
THAT EVENING
He (Jan) said we’d need to stop by his house first, so we drove there. I was going to wait in the car, but he said I might as well come inside. It was a pretty crappy house, far back on a run-down property. I think they used to call this type a bungalow, but if it used to be a bungalow, I don’t think anyone would call it that now.
I asked him,
Do you own this?
It was my grandfather’s. Now, it’s no one’s.
The door was unlocked. We went in. There were empty beer cans here and there—it looked like a college house.
My room’s back here.
I shrugged, like, why are you telling me where your room is.
Come on back, he said, and kept walking, so I followed.
His room was at the back of the house on the second floor. I guess it had been some kind of den. There was a bar at one end. Maybe his grandfather had liked entertaining guests. The room was actually pretty neatly kept. It didn’t look like Jan owned very much.
He was changing his shirt, and I saw that he had scars. I mean, Jan has a lot of scars.
That is a lot of scars, I said. He told me about them—where they came from. It wasn’t any one thing—and it wasn’t abuse, if that’s what you were thinking. They were just scars, just lots of scars.
What are we going to do? I asked after a while.
We’re going to shoot a dog.
I won’t do that, I said.
I’m joking. We are going to steal some potassium nitrate from a farm supplier.
Can’t you just buy it?
You can, but then your name might be on a list. Can’t be too careful.
We got back in his car. I realized I left my hoodie in his room, so I ran inside to get it. I saw a photograph of a girl on a ledge next to the bed.
When I got back to the car I asked him about her.
Forget about her, is what he said.
What if I don’t?
She’s my sister. She killed herself when I was eight.
Why?
It was an accident. She was holding her breath at the bottom of a pool.
I didn’t say, I’m sorry, or anything like that—because I know it just pisses people off. I kept my mouth shut, he kept his mouth shut, and we drove for about another forty minutes. Once we stopped at a gas station for about two minutes. He went in, got a bottle of water, came out, and gave it to me.
In thirty seconds, we’re going to pass by Revo’s Supplies. I’m going to pull into the lot just past. That’s an aquarium supply shop. You will get out. I will get out. You will go across the lot and into Revo’s Supplies. There should be only one guy on duty. I want you to chat him up. I want you to ask him dumb questions about hammers and ratcheting tools versus nonratcheting tools and which you should get. Tell him some story about how your dad was a carpenter but died and you are going to get rid of his tools because you don’t know what to do with them or how valuable they are. Make up some stories and run them. About a mile south on this road there’s a taco shack. Meet me there in an hour.
We passed by a
box building—red metal with a flat overhanging roof.
it said R E V O S P L Y.
Then we pulled into the next lot.
Get out.
I started getting out.
Hold on. Leave the sweatshirt.
No.
Then at least take it off. You need his attention, got it?
Yeah, I got it.
Revo’s Supplies was a big store. The aisles were big, the counters were big, the ceiling was high. There was actually a tractor inside it, which was okay to look at. I went to the back, where there was a big counter. At the middle of the counter was a little hammer and a bell. RING ME, it said.
I rang it.
After about ten seconds, I rang it again. Then again and again.
A guy came out of the back wearing coveralls.
Hey, hey, stop that.
If you don’t want people to ring the bell, don’t have such a nice bell.
What do you need?
I need some screws for my air conditioner. The screws fell out. Now it doesn’t fit in the window properly.
Do you know which screws those are? The screws are over here.
We went down one aisle a ways.
I don’t know which ones they are.
Not sure what to tell you. Best bet would be—measure it and see? Or get the tech specs for the AC unit. I bet they’re on the manufacturer’s site.
Oh, yeah. Well, I need some other stuff too.
What can I do for you?
I was thinking about building a drafting desk, so I need to figure out what pieces of wood would be good, what kind, whether to use screws or nails, you know.
That’s not really what we do here—I mean, I, hold on.
Another customer came in.
They knew each other and began to exchange pleasantries. I could tell the attendant wanted me to get the fuck out of his hair, so I pretended to look real hard at some kind of doorknob kit.
One second, miss.
He went over to the other guy.
I hung out for a few minutes to make sure enough time would pass to put Jan in the clear, then I took off.
The walk along the road to the taco shack was—scenic. There were a lot of fields, another gas station, some kind of small factory with Chinese characters on it, and a bunch of Chinese guys sitting outside smoking. I bummed a cigarette and smoked it with them. Would you believe not a single one spoke English? I mean—they knew how to say hello, but when I asked what county or town we were in, they couldn’t say. I heard about this once, that sometimes people will move a whole town to the U.S. There is a town in a different country, and the whole town moves here, and takes up residence. Then, they don’t really need to speak English. I think that’s great. Fuck English. If I grew up next to a Laotian village, maybe I’d speak two languages already, instead of one and a half.
The taco shack, as far as I could tell, was out of business. Jan was waiting in the parking lot, though, and he flashed his brights at me from about a quarter mile away.
When I got in he said, I wasn’t going to mention it, but you know you look like a fucking raccoon. Who did that to you?
STICKER
In the car, I showed him a sticker Lana and I had made on her computer. We were going to have a bunch printed up so we could put them around.
You made that? he said.
Yeah, well, Lana did a lot of it. We both did it.
Right.
He didn’t say anything for a while.
Do you know whose coffin that is?
DO YOU KNOW WHOSE COFFIN IT IS?
Lana and I kind of had an argument about the meaning of the sticker. She said that it was just a basic anarchist sticker, whatever that means. I said it is more complicated because of whose coffin it is. Now, I’m the one who picked out the photograph, so I didn’t expect her to know whose coffin it was, but then it turned out she did know. Apparently she liked outlaws when she was a kid.
The guy in the coffin is Jesse James. They are showing off his body after he has been killed because his celebrity was such that you became more important just by being in a photograph with his corpse. So, for someone who is walking down the street and sees the sticker: they are selling coffins, you know—you think you are buying something that is useful to you, but it is just a weight on you. It is as useless to you as a coffin. And why is a coffin useless to you? Because when you climb in it you’re already dead.
POLICE
Next day, I get off the bus by the house and there’s a police car there waiting for me.
What is it, officer?
(No reason not to be polite.)
Lucia Stanton?
They took me back to the precinct and asked me a whole bunch of questions. They showed me a picture of Jan and asked if I knew him. I said I couldn’t tell. The picture was bad. It could be anyone. They asked if I knew some other people, a guy named Lance, a girl named Willa.
I don’t know them. Do you?
I know who they are. Why do you think I’m asking you?
How did you get my name anyway?
Someone said you knew these people. Someone you know.
A lot of people think they know me.
I bring out the worst in people, but in this case, after a while, the cops and me, we got along. I can get along with anybody. They wanted to know who hit me, and I explained about getting high as fuck and going in the bouncy castle with my two cute girlfriends. They liked that quite a lot, maybe too much. They had me tell it twice and the second time one of them asked me what we were wearing. What do you mean? What were you wearing in the bouncy castle? Some of the other officers gave that guy a look and he shut up.
I didn’t even have to take the bus home, because one of them was going that way and gave me a ride home.
I felt like I had really tricked them, but when the officer let me out, he said,
Lev told me to tell you, friendly advice, it costs nothing: stay away from those people. You don’t know what they’re like.
This is you being a sweetheart, I said.
That’s right.
EVENTS
Sometimes events speed up. You think you have a handle on them. You think you understand how one thing follows another, but then it turns out you can’t even perceive what is about to happen, and before you know it, not only that, but other things too—they all have happened, and you’re standing in the rubble trying to figure out what to do.
I started wanting to go to school less and less. I was hanging out with Lana and her cousin and Jan more and more. I started to feel any request that was made on me was too much.
When people write books about childhood, and about being a kid—they always talk about how endless it is, and about how there is no thought of time. Everything just stretches and stretches. I think the opposite is the case. When you’re young, you feel like things are constantly ending. As soon as you get used to something, it goes away. There was an old couple who used to watch me when I was four or five, and I would go into their backyard. There was a low part and a high part as the yard rose up a hill, and on the high part, kind of a trail, I guess, there were flowers—just an endless path of flowers and white stones. I know that when I was there, when I was four and I was there on that path, I felt sure that life was almost over. I felt like most of it had already come and gone. I don’t think I even knew about death yet.
HOUSE
My aunt says that I am naturally curious. That means that I don’t need to be taught how to learn. Some people have a disadvantage at the beginning, and they are not curious. These people have trouble learning. It seems like not being curious is the worst thing of all. Curious people aren’t necessarily good at learning what you want them to learn, though. They are too busy learning about other things.
My aunt said to me, while we were sitting in the garden, let’s go into the house. So, we went into the house.
Then, we were in the house, and she said, let’s go back out to the garden, I was wrong.
So
, we went back out into the garden.
There’s a thing I have to tell you, she said. I think this is it. I pretty much think this is it.
What do you mean?
I want us to go back inside in a bit and I will sit down in my chair, and you can sit near me. Maybe make some tea. I think this may be, I think it may be it.
I started crying, but with no sound. I could see she didn’t like it, so I got myself together and stopped. It was like trying to swallow something enormous, something made out of air, and I couldn’t do it, but then I did.
I helped her back inside, and got her into the chair. She started telling me a bunch of things she was sorry about, and how she wished that she was younger, how she even wished we could be the same age, because we matched up so well, and how she was proud of me, so proud, it was like I was her daughter. I said, stop it. She said, I will, I will.
I held her hand, and after a while gave her the tea. She held the cup for a second and then I took it back and put it on the ground by the chair.
