gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  Rain is in charge of cosmetics, “the Special Effects Department,” she started calling it when she began construction on my eyebrows. A process that involved tweezers and scissors and had Rain talking to herself in a mutter.

  Winthrop is in charge of choreography, obviously, and I need all the help he can give. You’d think dancing would be in my bones, in my blood, but I was born with both of the left feet Mom never had.

  Since we are already going as a threesome, we decide to keep bending the prom until it breaks. Rain and I are wearing matching strapless dresses, denim with bloodred ribbons that tie around the back, silver fishnets, and black high heels that only Rain has any practice walking in. Winthrop has one of Mr. Epsworthy’s suits. It’s plaid and will never button over Winthrop’s stomach, but with the same satin we are using for our ribbons, Rain and I make a cummerbund, and no one will be able to tell that a rubber band is holding his pants up underneath the satin. He’s leaving the coat open to better display this, along with the ruffled tuxedo shirt that we also couldn’t get to button all the way down.

  “Maybe two rubber bands?” says Rain, when we’re testing the cummerbund.

  “I’ll wear my fancy boxers, just in case,” Winthrop says, and then he stands there and, without seeming to do anything, his entire body shimmies in that dance move he’s trying to teach us and that I, for one, will never learn. But Rain and I stand up, and we do our best, like backup dancers, just glad to share a little of the spotlight that shines wherever he is.

  GET A LIFELINE

  “My time costs actual money, you know. I can look in a mirror if I want to see tits.”

  The curtain is drawn around Aunt Bev’s kitchen nook, where I’m on my stool putting receipts in date order before entering them in the paper ledger she still uses and says she always will. I’m lucky she doesn’t make me use an abacus to better put the ancestors at ease. I didn’t even look up when I heard the chimes on the door tinkling quietly. My house is full of wedding plans, my house that will soon be full of Bird. I’m tired of the future today, but this line about tits is definitely not Aunt Bev’s usual opener, and I sneak a peek to see who has caused her to start so roughly. Aunt Bev says you have to speak their language if you want their attention. Whose language is this?

  Mo’s.

  Sooner or later everyone shows up at the shoppe.

  Mo doesn’t blink at Aunt Bev’s attitude. “I have twenty dollars. What can I get for that?”

  Most people would melt into a puddle if Aunt Bev looked into them the way she is looking into Mo right now.

  Aunt Bev doesn’t speak until Mo takes the money out of her pocket and hands it over.

  “For twenty dollars”—Aunt Bev’s voice is more relaxed than her eyes—“I read your palm.”

  She takes her time straightening the bill, smoothing it, before she places it under the crystal ball on the table. Sometimes she doesn’t need a palm to read at all, she says, just this act can be enough, this undoing of whatever people do to their money. She can feel Mo in every crease of the bill as she unfolds it, can find her, as if the bill were a map pulled out of a glove box on the side of a country road.

  “Sit down,” she says. “Your right hand,” she says.

  There is supposed to be an “Ah yes” now or a “Hmmmm,” like Aunt Bev is agreeing with the way the lines in the palm crease, like she is listening to a good friend tell the story of her day. And then she’ll ask, “You would like to know if your summer will be one of love?” Or something banal but enticing. A question that is really a statement, something she already knows how to answer. That’s the script, but as soon as she has Mo’s hand, Aunt Bev makes a noise like she’s in pain, like she’s burned herself on the incense smoking at her elbow, and I have to stop myself from going to help her.

  She pushes Mo’s sleeve up, holds the palm flat against the velvet. There is a burn there, another, more. There is a messy star burned into Mo’s forearm and it’s like the heat is all around us then. The Rosary sun is a hot coal pressing down onto the roof.

  Parents come in all kinds of monster.

  Aunt Bev’s face starts to shine, but Mo looks perfectly cool. Calm. She looks straight at Aunt Bev, doesn’t notice me, doesn’t see my Converse under the curtain, or if she does, she doesn’t care.

  They sit together inside this blaze until Aunt Bev pulls Mo’s sleeve down. She folds Mo’s fingers into her palm, holds her hand shut. She whispers, “Maureen, you’re going to have to start making some decisions for yourself or that heat is coming back for you and it always will.”

  It is so hot, too hot, in here.

  Aunt Bev closes her eyes. And she doesn’t say anything else.

  “But you didn’t read my palm,” Mo says. She is looking down at her hand, empty on the table, where the velvet isn’t singed, where the tarot cards are not ash.

  And then I cannot believe my eyeballs because I’ve never seen Aunt Bev do anything like this before. You do not give a refund just because the future is bleak, you have your own future to worry about. Those are her words. She has told me in no uncertain terms that I cannot feel sorry for customers. But Aunt Bev hands Mo’s money back to her. And then she says, “For your protection,” and she doesn’t open her eyes when she waves Mo away.

  CHILDREN OF THE TORN

  Mo and I know each other from the time before Dickheads. We know each other from the time of moms.

  Mo’s parents—she still has both of them—go to the same church as Dad and Iris, the Life Fellowship of Rosary. My family used to go there too, together. Mo and I would sit next to each other in Bible Study, swing on the jungle gym in the church’s tanbark yard, singing about Jesus’s love for us. Maybe Mo still goes. I don’t know weekend Mo, I don’t know at-home Mo, but I used to, so I can guess she probably does go, puts in an appearance to keep the peace in the Swanson household. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit not getting the shit beat out of them. Mrs. Swanson is a true Thumper and her thumping is what powers the little motors of rebellion in the Swanson children. It’s her thumping that keeps the battery running on the tattoo rig hidden in Mo’s brother’s backpack when he comes to visit. It’s what powers Mo’s lips on Bird’s mouth and all the other parts of him too, what is pushing Mo down so hard she thinks Bird is a step up.

  Mrs. Swanson and Mom were pregnant with Mo and me at the same time, they made friends over that same hope they carried inside of them. And once their girls were born, Mo and her mom would come over to our house and Mom would read the Bible with Mrs. Swanson while Mo and I played. Mom let us play with her miniatures on those days, a white porcelain phone, watering can, and bread box painted with blue flowers. We could play with these as long as we were careful and so were our bears and dolls. The bears and dolls called on the phone making doctor appointments for each other, watered imaginary plants, and opened the bread box to offer each other pretend muffins with jam, while in the real-life kitchen both books of Daniel or Kings or whatever were being read aloud by our moms over iced tea and saltines.

  Sometimes on those afternoons, Mo would just stop playing, kind of freeze. She’d be tracing a finger over the cool porcelain of the miniature phone, its perfect smooth flowers, and the look on her face was pure hunger. I would watch and wonder where she’d gone, and then she would come back and hand the phone to me.

  “It’s for you, Helen,” she’d say, still far away. Still my best friend.

  * * *

  Mrs. Swanson got pregnant again and again. The Swansons are one of those quiver families. They read that psalm about children being like arrows and sign their wombs right up to be weapons factories. While Mrs. Swanson was building her army, Mom and I started going over to their house more often, so Mom could help. On those days, Mo and I had to read the Bible aloud at the kitchen table, loud enough for “the new baby to hear,” the one who wasn’t an arrow yet, piercing Mrs. Swanson’s future enemies. And from where she would sit in the living room with her feet up, Mrs. Swanson would
thank my mom every time she walked by with this load of laundry or that dirty diaper.

  “Oh, thank you so much, Evelyn, God bless you, Evelyn.”

  * * *

  And when Mom was sick, Mrs. Swanson helped us all the time. It was like we couldn’t get rid of her.

  Not.

  When Mom became sick, Mrs. Swanson never helped us, never came over and busted her ass while Mom put her feet up after chemo. But at church, if Mo and I were ever even close to one another, there would be Mrs. Swanson, quick on her feet even while pregnant with her bottomless quiver. “Maureen Swanson,” she would hiss at Mo, her voice low and wet like a log in a fire.

  Mrs. Swanson homeschooled like the true Thumpers do. At least until their kids get to high school and they realize that math is hard. Mo and I were never alone together after that. We would stare after each other at Life Fellowship, locking eyes across the pews, until the Sunday when Mrs. Swanson noticed this and, clamping her fingers around Mo’s head, turned her daughter to face the pulpit. The half-moons from her fingernails left deep marks in Mo’s cheek that still shone after the sermon was over. It hurt me to look at Mo after that. It hurt to see.

  For a long time, I thought it was because Mom was sick that Mrs. Swanson couldn’t be near us, she didn’t want to catch it, especially pregnant. Now I know it’s because Aunt Bev came back to Rosary to help Mom. To help us. When Aunt Bev took over the shoppe, the Thumpers ran from our lives like rats in the light. Cancer isn’t contagious, it turns out, but magic is.

  WHEN THUMPERS ATTACK

  I’m in the giant, nearly private bathroom at the Piazza, giving myself the usual pep talk before returning to report to Mrs. Gillespie that yesterday was the day a postcard came for her and it always will be, when there’s a knock.

  “Just a minute,” I holler, but the door opens.

  It’s Rain. Of course she’s noticed my bathroom trips. She twirls the plastic safety device on the doorknob and laughs at it. Then she shuts the door and looks me over.

  I decide I’m going to tell her about Mrs. Gillespie’s stupid hunt for mail and how I feel like stupid shit about it and probably blubber my face off. But there’s no time to say anything because Beau and Roger, two Thumper boys, walk right in like they’ve been working against child-safety locks all their lives.

  “Wait a minute,” says the big one, Beau. “Is this a guy’s bathroom or is it a girl’s bathroom?” He’s pinch-faced, like a squirrel, but if you don’t include his brain or heart and probably one other essential organ, the rest of him is huge. Beau is a squirrel-boy-man who loves the Lord and will defend His Kingdom, as he was raised to, starting with the assault on the freedom to piss that Rain represents to him.

  “Fuck off,” she says.

  Beau’s pinched eyes gleam and he turns to Roger. Poor Roger. Roger is a true believer but with the all-around fashion sense gained from the few uncensored R&B videos we get in Rosary. He’s wearing some pretty cool baggy pants and looks almost like a normal person, but then there is a long chain with a giant gold cross on it dangling from around his neck all the way to the top of his boxers. It’s too much. Jesus would agree.

  “Roger,” Beau says, “did he just tell me to fuck off?”

  He.

  * * *

  There’s a beat before the beating begins.

  * * *

  Then Rain punches Beau, an uppercut to the chin, and he leans right into it. Beau is not surprised at all. He wants this. And then he’s on her, literally on her, in that same second. Rain and Beau are on the floor, and he’s holding her throat, pushing her head back onto the linoleum, right between the toilet, with the big plastic safety seat hulking over it, and the drain in the center of the floor. He’s making that gross hocking sound, bringing phlegm and germs up into his mouth, presumably to spit on Rain’s face.

  I bend my knee and bring it back, so I can smash it squarely into his head.

  What I should have done is reach for the door to call for help, because this isn’t a Dickhead brawl and this isn’t high school. There’s no Security Guard Jay here to cut in before we find out what we’re really made of. This is the real deal. And there went the only second I had before Roger is on me too, pulling me down.

  I have my own place on the linoleum now, under dumbass Roger, who has managed to pin me down mainly because the sag in his baggy pants takes up more room than he does.

  Roger doesn’t seem to know what to do next and neither do I, but I’m totally pissed.

  And totally scared.

  I notice things about the bathroom that I have never noticed before.

  There is a metal bar for a shower curtain that is pulled closed once the old people are seated on the plastic chair under the showerhead.

  Even as I’m trying to get my knee in between the legs of Roger’s baggy jeans to send his balls straight through to his stomach, I am wondering if the aides ever actually close the curtain. If the old people are ever allowed this moment alone.

  I start to scream.

  Roger’s hand over my mouth smells clean like peppermint.

  I gag.

  Beau is kind of puffed up now. Like a balloon animal. This means that much to him. Who Rain is. Who Beau is not.

  Beau’s holding her arms down, still bringing up spit.

  Rain could be screaming for help, but she’s not. She’s cursing at Beau, over and over and over.

  “Fuck you.

  There’s a glob of spit on her cheek.

  “Fuck. You.

  “Fuck.

  “You.”

  And then I see a red handle on the wall. There’s a red handle with EMERGENCY written on it. There’s a string hanging from the red handle so a fallen old person could reach up and call for help by pulling the string, which pulls the handle.

  Because of course there is.

  Roger’s hand is on my mouth, his knees are pinning my chest, but he’s staring at Rain like he’s never seen someone say “Fuck you” before while being slimed with Thumper goo. So I try sliding Roger bit by bit, toward the string hanging from the emergency handle. This sliding causes my sweatshirt to rise over my stomach. The linoleum is cold on my back. We are getting nowhere fast.

  I open my mouth as wide as I can, accepting that I’ll have to allow Roger’s tiny peppermint stick fingers into it at least long enough to bite down on them as hard as I possibly can.

  And when I open my mouth, he lets go.

  Because he looks down and notices that my tits are hanging out.

  To be fair, my tits don’t really hang, not out or in any other direction. But there they are. In the open. And there he is. And he certainly has never seen live tits before.

  Roger leans down then, like he’s going to kiss me, maybe. His face blocks my view of Beau and Rain, of the red handle, of escape.

  I feel something on my stomach.

  Something liquid.

  Roger’s cross. His giant stupid cross is against my stomach, the metal so cold it feels wet.

  And I am struck by divine inspiration.

  I hiss. Like a snake.

  I roll my eyes back in my head and find a growl. I writhe.

  “It burns. Our flesh is burning.”

  And like the demons Jesus released to run into the bodies of the pigs, I am free.

  * * *

  For the rest of my life, I will remember the look of pure terror on Roger’s face as he jumps off me, how one hand wraps around his giant gold cross, how the other pulls on Beau’s shoulder. His frantic “We have to go, we have to go, now.”

  Beau isn’t listening to Roger. His spitting and Rain’s “fuck you”s continue, so I keep hissing, edging toward the alarm.

  I’m pretty sure Roger has just started in on the Lord’s Prayer when the door handle to the bathroom starts to jiggle.

  It’s a quiet noise but we all hear it because we’re high on adrenaline.

  Beau makes another spit-hocking sound in the back of his throat.

  Rain says, “Oh, one
more thing, Beau. Fuck you.”

  I hiss and lunge for the emergency handle, pushing Roger out of my way. Just then, the door swings open wide as it can go, hitting Roger in the side of the head with a force that makes him fall over.

  Beau bounces off Rain like a guy who’s done this before.

  Rain gets up.

  And Mrs. Gillespie is sitting there in the hallway in her wheelchair. She’s holding one aching hand in the other, resting them on top of her quilt-covered lap, and she smiles when she sees me.

  Without so much as a nod to anyone else in the room, she says, “I did it!”

  THE TOOLS OF FORGETTING

  And just like that, it’s over. There are no more Thursdays at the Piazza. No more Mrs. Gillespie and her crippled hand like clockwork in her nightgown. There isn’t a party or anything. It just ends. The students of Rosary High disappear on those old people like everyone else has.

  And then Mr. Sturm expects us to write a paper about it, eight to ten pages proving that we learned something about being better citizens.

  After what feels like hours in front of the computer, I take my ten pages from the printer and staple them together. I make sure that my name appears in the top left corner so there is no confusion about who has failed this assignment.

  Every one of my ten pages is blank, empty as the golden years of Beatrice Gillespie’s life.

  What I learned at the Piazza would overflow a paper. But it couldn’t even fill a postcard.

  HETEROSAURUS

  There is no sex education in Rosary. We are supposed to abstain. It follows, then, that we have parenting class instead. Ms. Nash teaches what passes for science, and some of it is straight bull, like the thing about the dinosaurs. Some if it is all right, almost useful, like the bit about our brains not maturing until we are twenty-five, how we take more chances before that age. If we manage to reach it. How the reason we fall so hard under the weight of peer pressure is because being “risk averse” is something you have to grow into. “It is biological,” Ms. Nash says, all the while pushing intelligent design under the rug with her sensible shoes, and there is no explanation of how this embrace of risk is also a part of God’s plan and not His way to make us as extinct as our dinosaur brothers.