After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

by Joyce Carol Oates

  A sign warns NO HORSES.

  A sign warns CAUTION: TRAIN.

  It’s a Saturday in November. It’s a Saturday alone to myself. Not a family weekend. Not for me. For the McCartys, not for me. It is an alone weekend. Mid-Saturday afternoon. Telling Aunt Caroline I’m going “hiking.” In my sailor cap, maroon canvas jacket, jeans, running shoes. Telling Aunt Caroline yes, I prefer to be alone. No, I won’t hurt myself. No, I won’t run in a desolate area. And I won’t go far.

  Four miles to Yarrow Lake, four miles back. This is the first time I’ve even attempted the Sable Creek trail since that first time.

  Since falling. Since Crow.

  But he won’t be there today. If you fall.

  Ms. Bowen won’t be there. Her fault if you fall.

  I never dropped by the gym Thursday afternoon. Not so much as glanced at the runners on the school track. It’s a joke. Running, the track team. After the wreck most things are jokes.

  In secret, on the Sable Creek trail. Liking the way at first my breathing feels SO GOOD. My feet in my running shoes on the snowy wood-chip trail feel SO GOOD. My leg muscles pulling with the strain SO GOOD. To be flying along the ground, swinging my arms. Before I begin to get tired, make the mistake of breathing through my mouth.

  My breath is steaming. Panting/steaming.

  I’m wearing gloves. Still, my fingers are getting cold.

  My running shoes are damp. My wool socks are damp. My breath is coming faster. Can’t get my stride, my arms feel wrong. The air feels wrong. A gust of wind blows off my hat, I have to stop to retrieve my hat. The inside of my hat is filthy. The band across my forehead, filthy. My hat should be cleaned. My hat should be replaced. I don’t know how to replace my hat. Don’t know what happened to Mom’s identical hat.

  Four miles. Three miles.

  So much can happen in a single mile.

  Suddenly I see the bridge ahead. I’m not expecting to see a bridge. It looks as if the running trail continues across the bridge. The first time I didn’t come this far on the trail. I’d fallen, I had given up. I was finished. But this time, though I am not running very well, though I am panting, and my arms feel wrong, and my legs feel wrong, I am not going to give up. I see that Sable Creek is wider here. A smaller stream has emptied into Sable Creek, now it’s quite a bit wider. Yarrow Lake must be about a mile and a half ahead. This is a desolate stretch of trail. This is a desolate part of the state park. No one is running on the wood-chip trail this afternoon, it’s crusted with snow. The air is damp-cold, seeping into your bones. Dry-cold is good; damp-cold is not good.

  My breath is coming quick and ragged. I am going to have to cross that bridge. Unless I turn back, I am going to have to cross that bridge. Already I’m winded, climbing to the bridge. The trail is surprisingly steep. The icy snow is slippery. The soles of my running shoes are slippery. At the top I shield my eyes against the sun. It’s a cold November sun already slanting in the sky, emitting a stingy light. I look in both directions, not seeing any train in the distance. Not hearing any train. But it could be a trick. It could be a trick to lure a pedestrian out onto the walkway above the creek. I think: If a train comes while I’m crossing this bridge, it will be my punishment for Mom.

  I am going to walk, not run, across the bridge. It is an old shaky bridge from a long-ago time. The walkway is raw planks! Between the planks you can see the water rushing below. The water is frothy and dark. It is like a river here, not a creek. There has been rain, now the water level is high. Broken tree limbs, leaves, and debris in strange shapes like small drowned creatures rushing below. Suddenly I feel dizzy. It’s terrifying to me. There is only one railing on the outside of the walkway, and this railing comes to about my waist. This is a railing you could fall over. This is a railing coated with rust. There is a strong smell of iron rust. The railroad tracks, the railroad ties, look rusted, too.

  The guy named Rust. That is his name. Handing me two sheets of crumpled paper.

  Crow says you left this in the parking lot.

  He was laughing at me. In the parking lot they were laughing at me. They weren’t laughing at me if Crow was my friend. But maybe Crow wasn’t my friend. Maybe Crow was pretending. Maybe Crow felt sorry for me. It’s like the wreck. Just before the wreck. I try to know what happened, but I can’t know. My head hurts when I try to think. My eyes turn watery, I can’t see. I saw it—I think! In our lane of traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Just ahead of Mom’s car. It was a living creature. I saw! Through the windshield I saw as I punched “CD.” I began to scream, Mom, watch out! My left hand leaped to the steering wheel. I think my hand did this. I think that Mom tried to push my hand away. I think that I screamed. I heard a scream. I heard two screams.

  Sirens! I heard sirens.

  “I can’t. Can’t do this….”

  Panic is coming so strong, in waves up through the loose-fitting planks of the walkway. A panic I can taste like brackish water. A panic that makes my heart pound in my chest like something with a broken wing. I have to turn back. I haven’t gone more than a few yards across the walkway. Not a third of the way across. I have to turn back, clutching at the railing to stay on my feet.

  See, you walk like me, like walking on thin ice. After a bad crash scared of falling through the ice, scared of feeling…

  “Jenna!”

  An hour later I’m limping along a narrow blacktop road just outside the park. It’s begun to snow, light, feathery flurries that melt when they touch my face. Not running now and very tired. Even my panic has faded. I glance up, squinting through the snow flurries, seeing a car’s headlights, a car approaching and braking to a stop beside me. Uncle Dwight lowers the window. “Jenna! Thank God! Get in.”

  It’s four thirty, nearing dusk. My uncle and my aunt Caroline have driven out to look for me. They’ve been driving on Post Road, on Lakeview Road, on Rockhill Road, Ferry Road. They’ve been driving into the deserted state park. Aunt Caroline climbs out of the car to hug me. I feel her love for me in her trembling arms. “Oh, Jenna. You’ve been gone for hours, we were so afraid.” Still and stiff in my aunt’s arms, my teeth chattering with cold, I don’t ask, Afraid of what?

  19

  “See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there’s a reason. There has to be.”

  How Trina Holland comes into my life. And almost wrecks my life.

  It happens by such chance. I mean, it feels like chance. A few days after the railroad trestle bridge. When I’m still feeling shaky. Worse than ever I hate the buzzer bells at school. (Teachers hate them too. I’ve seen them in the hall, wincing and rolling their eyes when the damned buzzers go off.) This time the bell is ringing for sixth-period classes. My legs feel like lead on the stairs. Used to be I liked classes: now, never. Guys jostle me, maybe on purpose. Nobody teases, Babe, you bald? any longer or grabs at my cap like (maybe) they feel sorry for me. Or (maybe) they’re afraid of me like you’d be afraid of a sulky cat that could lash out at you with her claws. I’m feeling jittery. I’m feeling resentful. There’s a wildness in me, I want to RUN RUN RUN. Even if my body isn’t ready yet, I want to RUN RUN RUN. But here I am trapped. In Yarrow High I am trapped. There is nowhere in the world I want to be less than I want to be in Smart-Ass Farrell’s classroom where he will be handing back our three-page written assignments on Of Mice and Men with his usual sardonic/ sarcastic comments making the class laugh like stupid hyenas. Last time Farrell handed back papers, he turned to me suddenly, saying, “Jen-nifer Abbott. Would you read your exemplary paper to the class?” sort of smirking down his nose at me, and I hunched over my desk like an animal that’s wounded and dangerous, like I could lash out at him or at anyone who laughed at me. And I would not respond. And it was very quiet in the room, until finally Farrell shrugged and winked to rouse laughter from the class and turned to someone else.

  Exemplary. My paper was covered with red scrawls like little scratches. And there was
no grade, just “???.”

  Meaning that I should rewrite. But I didn’t.

  So, somehow, I’m not going to English & Communication Arts. Instead I’m in the girls’ restroom on the second floor of the building, which is a restroom in the senior wing. Nowhere near Farrell’s classroom. Out of bounds for sophomore girls. The seniors would give you dirty looks if they saw you coming in here, make cutting comments. But it’s empty now, I think. I need another Tylenol, to take the edge off my nerves. I’ve had two or three already today, washed down with Diet Coke, so my stomach feels bloated. I’m fumbling in my backpack for the bottle when I hear a sound of gagging and vomiting, coming from one of the toilet stalls. Such an ugly sound like anguish, like sobbing. My impulse is to walk quickly out, I don’t want to be involved, but I hear myself ask, “Excuse me, are you all right? Can I help?” the way Mom would do, or my aunt Caroline. Whoever is inside the stall being sick to her stomach doesn’t hear me or ignores me. Then the toilet flushes, and a girl with ash-blond hair dark at the roots staggers out dazed-eyed and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, muttering to herself: Trina Holland.

  Crow’s girl. One of Crow’s girls.

  Trina pushes past me rudely, as if I’m not there. She’s shorter than I am even in her knee-high boots with a heel. I’m thin, but she’s really skinny, can’t weigh more than ninety pounds and is all nerved up, bristling like a cat. Dumps the contents of her shiny zebra-stripe bag onto the counter beside the sink, looking anxiously for something. All kinds of things come tumbling out of Trina’s bag: hairbrush, cell phone, a ring of keys; loose cigarettes, loose coins, wadded tissues; a leather wallet, expensive-looking; a broken watch, also expensive-looking; lipstick tubes, liquid makeup, powder compact and mascara, even a tube of toothpaste; emery boards, nail scissors, a paring knife; a part-eaten apple, and a can of diet chocolate. There’s a sharp medicinal smell, a bottle of Coricidin cough syrup has leaked out onto Trina’s belongings. (This is the cough syrup that’s said to produce a “high” if you can swallow enough of it down without gagging.) Trina is furious that the bottle has leaked and throws it dripping in the direction of a trash container except the bottle misses and ricochets against the wall.

  “Ohhhhh, man. Ohhhh, help me.”

  Trina gags again. Trina spits into the sink. Trina is half falling into the sink. She’s so hot skinned, I think that my hands might burn touching her. When I catch hold of her arm, help steady her, she shrugs me off, cursing me under her breath: “Damn, who’re you? Don’t know you!” Trina isn’t so pretty now. Her skin is sallow and flushed, and a trail of vomit has dribbled down her chin. Her dark-purple lipstick has worn off. Her black mascara has smeared. There’s a curved silver pin through her right eyebrow, a tiny silver ring in her nose, another in her lower lip. Her ears are stippled with silver and gold studs. With so much glitter, her small heart-shaped face looks breakable.

  She’s wearing her usual skintight jeans. A tight black sweater and nothing beneath. I’m shocked to see on her left wrist a tattoo, a coiled green snake with gold glaring little eyes and a tiny red forked tongue.

  Crow’s tattoo. A smaller version.

  Trina is frantically pawing through her things. Whimpering, “Oh man oh man ohhhh man.” The cough-syrup high. Maybe this is it. The state she’s in, her heart must be racing. Skin hot as fever. She’s looking for something to bring her down, I guess. Sees me watching her in the mirror and gives me a pouty little glare though not exactly unfriendly. She locates a toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, turns a faucet on full blast, and begins to brush her teeth. She’s frantic doing this too. Like it has to be done, and fast. “See, if you don’t clean your mouth after being sick, the puke makes your teeth rot. It’s dis-gust-ing.” Trina is too nervous, the toothbrush slips from her fingers. She begins to cry, striking her thighs with her little fists. I’m thinking Trina is dangerous in such a state, to others and to herself. But I can’t report her. Can’t snitch on her. Want to protect her. Instead I say, sort of shyly, “Trina? Maybe I have something to help.”

  My last OxyContin tablet. Wrapped in aluminum foil, in a secret compartment in my backpack. I’ve been saving the tablet for an emergency of my own, but Trina Holland is in such need, I offer it to her on the palm of my hand, and her eyes widen at the sight.

  “Oh, man. Is that—”

  Trina snatches at the OxyContin, pops it into her mouth without a moment’s hesitation, and scoops up a handful of water from the faucet to help her swallow it. She’s smiling at me like she can’t believe her good luck.

  “You saved my life, baby. I love you.”

  As if the OxyContin can have such an immediate effect! Trina throws her arms around my neck, hugs me hard, and kisses me wetly on the side of my mouth. It’s a kiss that smells of toothpaste and something sour and sickish beneath, but I don’t mind.

  In this way Trina Holland and I become friends.

  20

  Hey, baby, want to hang out? After school meet me back of…

  For so long there has been nothing. In Yarrow Lake. In New Hampshire. In the house on Plymouth Street. In the girly-decorated room in the brick colonial on Plymouth Street. Nothing happening except in my head somewhere that scares me. Now there is something. There is something-to-happen. It’s six months after the wreck. Cell phone rings, and it’s Trina.

  Cell phone rings, and it’s Trina.

  Cell phone rings, and (my aunt Caroline is surprised, puzzled, beginning to resent this new friend of mine not known to her, as I edge out of the room speaking excitedly) it’s Trina.

  Jenna, baby, hey, I am totally sorry, forgot to tell you, oh, hell, if I did, anyway, baby, we’re—where are we, Rust?—somewhere downtown, it’s like five minutes from your house, we can swing around and pick you up just stand out front, baby, there’s these guys from Canaan who are just totally cool—

  Cell phone rings, it’s Trina.

  My friend Trina.

  Trina Holland, my friend.

  I’m like a little kid standing in front of a mirror, trying on some older sister’s sexy outfits. Staring, laughing aloud, it’s so amazing.

  “Trina, hi. This is Jenna….”

  Suddenly it happens Trina Holland wants to hang out with me.

  Introduces me to her friends. (Some of her friends. Not the older guys, who aren’t in school. And not Crow, Trina is possessive of him.) If she wants to cut afternoon classes, Trina wants me with her. Hanging out at the mall. Hanging out at Kiki Weaver’s house when Kiki’s parents are working. Riding in Rust Haber’s battered Cherokee, or T-Man’s Dodge SUV painted black with red lightning bolts on the sides, listening to heavy metal music turned up so loud your teeth vibrate.

  “Jenna baby, c’mon! You are too cool not to, like, try.”

  Sharing a can of Bud Light with me, foamy beer spilling over her knuckles as she passes it to me in the lurching vehicle. Sharing cigarettes from her mangled pack of Winstons. Sharing her dope.

  I can zone out, I think. Like in the blue.

  Trina isn’t into “hard stuff,” she says. Not into “crystal,” she says. Mostly she’s into smoking dope—weed—and drinking beer with her friends. She’s scared of the other, how it makes your heart pound. How it can fry your brain. But dope, weed, pot, the kind T-Man supplies them with, it’s really mellow.

  Oxys are really, really great but hard to get hold of. So many adults are into Oxys. The only people Trina knows who smoke dope are kids, but adults are seriously into OxyContin, so the price is high.

  I tell Trina it’s supposed to be really addictive, OxyContin, so maybe that’s a good reason too for not taking much of it. Trina looks at me like suddenly she doesn’t care for my face, the way my face looks kind of washed out, plain, especially my grimy sailor cap annoys her, so she pulls it off, fluffs up my hair, stares at me critically, drags me to a sink and forces my head under the faucet and wets my hair, brushes my hair with the brush she carries in her zebra-stripe bag, decides it should be bleached ash blon
d like her own so people looking at us, “See, they’d think we’re sisters, like twins except you’re taller. You need a makeover, Jenna. Like on TV. I’m in charge.”

  That’s so. Trina is in charge.

  Trina, who trusts almost no one. Trina trusts me.

  That first day, in the girls’ restroom. It’s “destiny,” Trina says. A girl she doesn’t know, a girl with no reason to be nice to her, steps forward as her “guardian angel,” supplying her with just what’s needed to bring her down from a bad high.

  “That’s the test of a true friend. That’s, like, what a saint would do. Jenna baby, I will never forget that.”

  Jenna is the name I’ve told Trina. Now to Trina’s friends, I am Jenna. Nobody else at Yarrow High knows this name.

  Ryan Moeller is bug-eyed, seeing us together. Me with Trina Holland. Me!

  Trina and her friends don’t hang out in the school cafeteria much, but sometimes, if the weather is really bad, they will stay inside at noon and take over a table. The girls drink diet sodas and coffee for a caffeine high. They aren’t into eating, since if they eat, they become ravenously hungry and eat too much, have to stick a finger down their throats afterward to bring it back up, and as Trina says, that’s disgusting…and bad for your teeth. So some days they are there, in the cafeteria, at a crowded noisy table: Trina, Kiki, Dolores, Sandy, other girls I don’t know, and big guys like T-Man Dubie, Rust Haber, Roger Nabors. Always I’m hoping to see Crow with them, but it’s rare for Crow to eat lunch in the cafeteria. Trina complains that Crow isn’t reliable. Crow doesn’t show up when you’re expecting him. “He’s got this family, this cripple dad who was shot up in Vietnam, who’s a carpenter or something. You’d think Crow was the only one in that family, how they depend upon him. He’s working for his dad half the time. Even his sister, one day she comes home with an actual baby and leaves it.” Trina is excited and incensed talking about Crow, but if I ask a question, she loses interest and shouts down the table at someone else.