Gravity Brings Me Down (6 page)

“You’re the one who got beat up.”

“You twisted your ankle.”

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I’m doing some work for
The Peak!”

“So why are you tailing me?”

He shrugs. I notice his eye isn’t as black as it was last night.

“Are you wearing makeup?”

It’s not that I have anything against guys wearing makeup, because I don’t. In fact, I think it’s very cool, for all kinds of reasons. It’s just… it’s Tod. I try to let him down gently.

“We can’t really be seen together … ever … okay, Tod? I mean, I’m grateful you gave me a ride and everything, but you can’t keep following me around.”

He looks at me like I’m speaking moon-man language so I toss my cigarette butt into the street as a distraction. Normally, I would never litter, but I know Tod will take the time to collect my cigarette and dispose of it properly. He just can’t resist the urge to be a good citizen. That’ll give me enough time to give him the slip.

I’d rather eat a handful of tacks than see Chocko but I have no choice. If I skip the entire day, the stupid school will get suspicious and call my parents. As it is, I have to lie, telling the secretary that I had a doctor’s appointment.

When I get to class I sit next to Darin’ again. Apparently, he could care less. I’m hoping Chocko won’t remember seeing me at his little party on Saturday.

Sharon comes into the class, taking April’s seat. When April opens her mouth to protest, Sharon shuts her up with a Jedi mind trick.

“So, tell me about the room,” Sharon says as Chocko lurches into class.

“Not now.”

“Come on … you owe me.”

“For what? Leaving me in the woods with a bunch of brain-eating zombies?”

“You said you’d tell me.”

“Later.”

Tod appears and has the audacity to sit in the seat in front of me. I’m about to tell him to move when Knuckles enters the room. Even Tod is better than Biff so I say nothing. But Biff doesn’t try to take the seat in front of me. He sits three rows over, leering like a psychopath.

Chocko pulls out a CD and plays Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” on the stereo. He turns up the volume, then pulls out a rubber ball and begins to bounce it.

“If I miss, someone has pick it up and take over,” he says.

Of course the jocks all rush up to accommodate him and, suddenly, it’s a free-for-all.

After the song dies down, Chocko calls the class to order by dropping books on his desk. He pauses dramatically, pushing his sunglasses to the bridge of his nose.

“Have you ever heard the sound of one hand clapping?”

As if on cue, my arm jerks involuntarily, knocking
my
Great Thinkers
text to the floor with a loud bang. Everyone laughs, assuming I did it on purpose. The popcorn bag poetry slides from between the pages, gliding to a gentle stop by Darin’s parade boots. He doesn’t even register it, so I play dumb.

Chocko ignores the disturbance, staring at the ceiling like a cat seeing ghosts. He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there. I can feel the gravity machine kick in. Someone coughs. Chocko poses for a while longer, then begins this inane rhetorical Q&A, designed to stimulate deep thoughts in teenage minds. I’m sure every word is directed at me:

“How open is your mind?”

I thought it was open before I met you
.

“Are you willing to accept people for who they really are?”

No thanks
.

“What if you found a body in your neighbour’s backyard?”

I would pray it was you
.

“Would you accuse them of being a murderer?”

Only if it wasn’t you
.

“How do we judge good from bad?”

This class is bad. Take it from there
.

“How about normal?”

No comment
.

This goes on and on until I’m ready to drink hemlock. I’m sure even Socrates would have done so willingly if he’d been forced to listen to one hand clapping for an hour and a half every day.

When class is finally over, I reach down to pick up my
Great Thinkers
text and notice that the popcorn bag is gone. Did Darin’ take it? I’m hardly going to ask, so I just pick up my text and leave class as fast as I can.

Sharon bustles up to me.

“Okay, spill it.”

“I’ll tell you at the Tip after C.P.”

“What’s the big secret?”

“You’ll understand when I tell you.”

B
ack at the Tip, Sharon drops her jaw in shock as I tell her about the room and the party.

“Chocko?”

“I swear to God.”

“How gross.” She leans over her coffee. “I always knew he was bent.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know the details.”

“Now we do. I’ll never be able to look at him again.”

“Could you before?”

“No.”

“Exactly.”

“I can’t wait to tell Gus.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

I add sugar and creamer to my coffee, stir it, then give it a try. It tastes terrible. I add more creamer.

“Biff was at Chocko’s. There’s something going on with that guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. He gives me the creeps.”

“And that’s newsworthy?”

“No … I mean, creepier than before. He asked me what I thought.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he likes you?”

I give Sharon a look. This is why I don’t tell her anything. “Please. The very thought makes me want to retch. Steve Ryan was there, too.”

“That’s not a surprise. They’re joined at the hip.”

“Yeah. And I dropped the popcorn bag poetry in Chocko’s class.”

“Do you think Biff wrote it?”

“I thought maybe Darin’ took it.”

“Ooooooo … Darin’. That’s a possibility. Gus thinks he’s cool.”

“That’s good.” I stir my coffee some more, my thoughts whirling around with the cream and sugar in the cup. For some reason, my mind rests on Miss Marple. “Life is so weird, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know … it’s like, there’s all this bizarre stuff going on, and nothing makes any sense, as per usual, and then there’s that old woman.”

“What old woman?”

“Oh … you know … the old woman from the other day. I can’t get her out of my head.”

Sharon wrinkles up her nose. “Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s weird. I mean, you’ve got Chocko and Biff on the one hand, and then this lonely old woman just trying to make her way through the world …”

“So?”

“It just seems bizarre.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Just forget it.”

Sharon starts blathering about Gus. I’d rather talk about Darin’ but I know I won’t get a word in edgewise so I drink my sludge and endure. I wait for a break, then ask how her CPP is going.

Sharon shrugs. “Okay, I guess. I haven’t really done anything. How about you?”

“Not really,” I lie.

“Have you asked Miss B. about your topic yet?”

“No.”

“What if she doesn’t like it?”

“Are you trying to make me paranoid? She’ll like it. It’s Miss B.”

“Okay. I won’t bring it up again.”

After copious amounts of coffee, Sharon and I part ways. I notice Tod immediately, waiting for me behind some trees across the street. He struggles to start his moped but it won’t turn over. I cross the street toward town.

When I hit the square, I see Miss Marple, sitting by the naked family fountain—one of our finest pieces of civic art. When it was first unveiled, the nudity outraged some locals, who went on the warpath to have it removed. Of course, the yahoos capitalized on the situation by dressing the family in bras and underwear.
Sometimes the baby wears a diaper. In any case, it’s better than the gigantic cow at the entrance to the city, or the giant steel-beam stickman that also gets defaced every Hallowe’en.

Anyway, Miss Marple is there, clutching her purse in her lap. She opens it and pulls out an envelope. I can tell right away it’s the letter I wrote so I hide behind the naked family to watch. She unfolds it, begins to read, then carefully replaces it in the envelope. Sliding it back in her purse, she snaps the clasp shut, then unsnaps it immediately and produces the letter again. She studies the words before pressing the letter to her heart.

Suddenly, I feel kind of strange. I never knew my efforts would mean so much to her. I mean, it’s just a stupid letter. Obviously I need to write another.

This thought stops me dead. I’m considering Miss Marple like she’s actually a part of my life. Am I going crazy?

But the truth is, I have no choice now. I’ve seen what a measly letter can do for a lonely old person and there’s no going back. It’s like feeding a kitten: whether you like it or not, you’re responsible for its welfare the minute you pour the milk in the bowl. And suddenly, you have a kitten in your life. And then you become aware of all the other abandoned kittens in the world, wandering helplessly in the streets with no one to feed or take care of them …

Before this moment, I’d never given a single thought to the needs of old people. But now I’m doomed to
concern myself with their well-being forever. It’s as if a spotlight appeared from nowhere and I can’t help but see them all over the place: shuffling across the street, sitting on benches, at bus stops and at lunch counters, alone and forgotten. They’re everywhere!

I’m so messed up, I don’t hear Tod drive up.

“Are you hiding from someone?”

“Aah! Geeze, Tod!”

“I need to tell you something.”

Why is his hair all wet? “Whatever it is, I don’t care, Tod, okay?”

He starts to say something but I wave him off, turning to check on Miss Marple. But she’s gone. How did she escape so quickly?

“I have to go,” I tell Tod.

He tries to start his moped but it keeps stalling out. Maybe someone put sugar in his engine. There’s always hope. But if I’m going to write Miss Marple another
letter I have to know her real name and address. I can’t keep harassing the postman every time I want to send her something.

Entering Miss Marple’s building through the side door, I discover some kind of bizarre little mall. I’ve never had any reason to go into this building, ever, so I had no idea these stores even existed. There’s a variety called
Super Stop
, a darkened restaurant-slash-bar type thing called Poxy’s, a hair salon called
Styles by I
, a natural therapy place called Qi and a martial arts studio that doesn’t seem to have a name. Of course the doors to the apartments are locked, so I decide to try my luck at
Styles by I
.

Inside the salon, there are half a dozen old ladies getting their hair spun into blue cotton candy. It seems I’m the youngest person to enter the place in years, because the second I step through the door, I’m accosted by some guy who looks like a bizarro version of Johnny Depp. This must be J. He trots toward me, flapping his hands like he’s trying to extinguish a small fire.

“Oh my God, would you look what the cat dragged in.”

The blue-hairs creak their identical cotton candy heads around to watch the show. Bizarro starts pawing at my hair as if I’d actually let him near me with scissors. He
tsk-tsk’s
and rolls his eyes, picking at me like a disgusted monkey.

“Honestly, honey, this hair is a cry for help. I can do you in half an hour. Is that soon enough or are you gonna rush out and kill yourself?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I say.

“Aren’t we all, dear.”

“She’s an old lady who lives in this building. I thought maybe she gets her hair done here.”

He sweeps his arm toward the blue-hairs. “Take your pick, doll. We’ve got a bumper crop today.”

I shake my head. “She’s a nice old lady.”

He purses his lips and widens his eyes at me like I’m crazy.

“She has a tweed jacket.”

He continues to stare.

“She looks like Miss Marple.”

He throws his hands in the air victoriously. “Oh! Why didn’t you say so?”

“You know who she is?”

He studies his nails. “Of course. Agatha Christie. Honey, we have a hundred Miss Marple clones wandering around this building at any given time.”

I turn away in defeat to see my particular Miss Marple zip past the window.

“There she is.”

“Ahhhh!” he says. “
That
Miss Marple is Mrs. Mabel Wilson. She lives in 1404.”

Bingo.

“Come back when you’re ready to join the human race,” Bizarro calls after me as I leave the salon.

Tod revs his engine the second I appear from the building. He follows me until we hit the park, where he breaks away and buzzes along the road to cut me off on the other side. He won’t drive over the grass so I walk slowly, enjoying a Gauloise.

“I need to tell you something,” he says again when I reach the street.

I hold my hand up to cut him off but he persists.

“It’s about you … or should I say …
your reputation
.”

“This had better be worth it, Tod.”

“There’s something written about you in the boys’ washroom at school.”

“And?”

“It says, ‘
I shagged Sue Smith
.’”

“What? Who would write that?”

“Biff Johnson.”

I throw my cigarette to the ground. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I tried to erase it but Biff saw me and stuck my face in the toilet. He said he’ll kill me if I try to erase it again.”

At least that explains Tod’s hair. I knew there was something up with Biff today, the psycho. The way he was looking at me in Chocko’s class. For some reason, I want to blame Chocko for Biff’s indiscretion. I feel the forces pulling on my brain. I despise them both.

“I have to go,” I say. “Please don’t follow me, Tod.”

The second I get home, Mom calls out from the dining room.

“
But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

“
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun
,” Dad says.

“
Arise, fair sun
—or should I say daughter—and eat,” Mom chimes, as I drift past the table.

“I’m not hungry.”

“She’s actually on time for dinner and she’s not hungry,” Mom says. “
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child
.”

“More for me,” Dad says, reaching across the table to take my plate.

“May I be excused?” Peggy asks.

I go into my room and sit on the bed. Morta snuggles up to me, her engine purring loudly. But even she can’t stop the invisible forces from scrambling my thoughts around. I decide to take a shower, only to discover Peggy has locked herself in the bathroom, as per usual. She’s standing on the scale, no doubt, worried about what little dinner she ate.

I go back to my room and kick off all my clothes. I lie on the bed like this for a while, then creep myself out thinking Tod can somehow see me naked, as if he has X-ray vision or something. I throw on my PJs, hoping it’ll make me feel better. It doesn’t. Flannel has no power against the machine. How can I feel okay knowing my name is scrawled all over the boys’ washroom at school? I have to fix it, but I don’t know how. I hate Biff Johnson. He’s right up there with Chocko.

I think of Miss Marple, a.k.a. Mabel Wilson. Maybe it’s okay to be alone in the world. Maybe it’s okay to be invisible and forgotten. At least no one writes your name on bathroom walls. But she seemed so happy about the letter. I really should write her again, especially since I know her real name now. Besides, Mom is always telling me how thinking about other people’s problems can help you forget your own. (I’m paraphrasing her, of
course. She’d quote something from her arsenal of Shakespeare, like …

…or something like that.)

I sit at my desk, inspiration on. Morta jumps into my lap, willing to lend support. Excavating another piece of flowery paper, I “go to” as Mom would say, using my best, swirly writing like before.