Hydroplane: Fictions (11 page)

Someone in the lunchroom said he stood on a bucket. And when he was ready he kicked it out from beneath him. Do you get it, He kicked the bucket. But the bucket was in a corner. The bucket was filled with brooms.

Someone in the neighborhood said, They saw the legs first. Someone said, No, they saw the shoes. Someone said, No, they saw clothing piled on the floor. Not true. Someone said, No, they saw the shadow of the legs, And he wore no pants. Not true. He was fully clothed. Someone said, They saw his underwear first. Not true. He was not crazy. And someone said, Where were his hands, and someone said, On his thing. No. And someone said, Not both hands, one. And someone said, So where was his other. His arms were hanging by his sides. And someone said, There were magazines, Dirty ones. Yes. That part was true.

On the floor of the back seat of the coupe we found several knotted up ties. We wondered why our father would throw his ties to the floor knotted up like that. We said, We found your ties, sitting there on the shoulder, cars whooshing past. We were unsure of what to do with our hands.

Someone in the coatroom said, First they called the hospital, and someone said, No, first they called their mother, and someone said, No, first they called the neighbors, and someone said, No, first they ran to the neighbors', and someone said, No, first they checked his pulse. No, first we touched his legs. We were like, You touch him, No, you touch him, and we both touched his legs. And someone said, No, first they screamed and screamed, Can you imagine what it felt like to touch him, They just screamed and screamed. Then we ran outside. We ran down the drive. They fainted. We did not faint. We ran down to the walk. The basketball
fell. The whole world spun. We stood at a neighbor's door.

Our father always ate dinner alone. He watched TV while he ate. Sometimes he wasn't looking at the TV. Sometimes he looked at the wall. We sometimes watched him eating his dinner from the sticker bushes out front. He ate very fast. Sometimes he had food on his tie. And sometimes he had food on his face. And this usually made us laugh.

On the shoulder, the traffic passed in a whoosh. It felt like the whole car lifted and settled every time a car whooshed past. We sat on the shoulder despite our crying, despite our begging, Let's go home now Dad. We tried to hold our breath. We hit the back of his head from the back seat. His head lay against the steering wheel.

We found the air pump beneath the coupe. Many things had rolled beneath the cars.

The rabbi held our hands in the coatroom. We wanted to leave. We wanted to get back to the house where there would be brisket and cake and casserole. We would try to eat with our arms stuck out in front. We would not need to feed each other. We knew better ways to do it. We could toss the food into the air and catch it in our mouths. We could eat straight from the casserole dishes. The rabbi told us to close our eyes. We did not close our eyes. He said for us to imagine heaven. He closed his eyes. He said to imagine our father was in heaven. He said something else. And something else. But we were no longer listening to what he was saying. We were looking at the clock on the wall behind him. We were holding our breath for going on thirty seconds.

One of the synagogue kids said, Well, why did he do it, and the kid's mother said, Go to your room, and the kid said, Why should I, and the mother said, And don't come out, putting her arm around our mother's back, and the kid said, Why, and one of us said, What do you care. The kid said, But why, and the mother said, Perfect brat, and, Do you want a smack, and our mother said, It's fine, really, and one of us said to the kid, What do you care, and the kid said, Was he crazy, and the mother said, I said to go to your room, and the kid said, Well, was he crazy, and one of us said, Fuck you, fucker, and our mother said, Don't start, and, Eat your food, and one of us said, Fuck you, fucker, and our mother said, Don't, and the mother said, Please keep eating, and one of us started laughing, and our mother said, We're going now, and one of us said in a scary voice, There were signs, and one of us spilled the salt on the table, and one of us called for the dog who came running over, and one of us threw the salt shaker at the dog, and one of us beat our fists on the table, and one of us looked at our mother and said, I'm in a mood, Lord, I'm in a mood, and one of us started crying.

And on the way home from the dinner, in the back seat of the wagon, one of us had a loose eyelash, and one of us said, Make a wish, and one of us said, I wish I had twenty wishes, and one of us said, You're crazy, and one of us said, You're the one crazy, and one of us said, Fuck you, and one of us said, Fuck you, fucker, and one of us said, Do you want to fight, and one of us said, I'll smack you, and one of us said, I'll kick your ass, and one of us kicked the other's ass, and our mother pulled onto the shoulder.

We rode the rest of the way home in silence. We pulled into the drive. Our mother pushed the button. The garage door slowly rose. She pulled the wagon into the garage. The coupe was there.
It had been there for weeks. Our mother said, Your father and his goddamn toys. She said, I'm going to hit it. We looked at each other. We thought about flicking our mother's neck for fun as she tried to park. She said, Watch me hit it. And we said, You won't hit it. And she said, Oh yes I will. She said, Watch me. Our mother pulled the wagon behind the coupe. She kept on going. She hit the coupe. She backed up. She hit it again.

Our father lifted his head from the steering wheel. He was not crying. He pulled the coupe onto the road and took us to get some ice cream. We ate our ice cream standing beside the coupe. The ground was made of loose dirt. We dug lines with our shoes into the ground. We kicked the dirt at each other's legs. We kicked the dirt at our father's legs. He kicked the dirt back and we laughed. Our ice cream was getting dirty, and we kicked the dirt high into the air. Our father kicked it hardest, and we were covered in dirt. Our ice cream was full of dirt. We were laughing. The dirt was flying everywhere, and we would like to say we laughed for a very long time.

It should have been a game of horse. It should have been our father home sick and a game of horse even with the air pump missing. Even with the basketball deflated in the weeds. Even with the sky looking like rain. It should have been a game, just us. The aim to score with the deflated ball. A shot with the eyes shut. Made. A shot with the eyes shut. Missed. An H. A one-handed shot. Made. A one-handed shot. Missed. An O. A shot from between the legs. Made. A shot from between the legs. Missed. An R. A two-handed shot. Made. A two-handed shot. Missed. An S. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Made. A shot from the
walk. Made. A shot from the walk. Missed.

There's me in my car and my car plays a song.

There's the ten over there on the court.

And the low sun going lower, the tall grass poking through cracks.

I watch the ten on the court do their circles, their footwork. How they orbit each other. How one is the sun, then another, another.

Five wear shirts and the others, well. I feel I shouldn't look. But I feel that also of the shirted ones. How their sweat shows skin below their shirts. How they stretch to the net and their underwear, their collarbones.

They go, Get on him, and, Fucker.

They scatter like sailors on a capsizing boat. They stand, hands frantic in the air.

Then they orbit one sun. Then they orbit another.

Everything juts when they jump to the hoop.

A shot.

It repeats.

It repeats.

And I'm in a rowboat floating in the deep.

I know it's not really a boat but a car.

I've never been stupid, despite what's been whispered.

My car is parked. It lurks in the flora. I call it flora. This growth through the cracks in the lot. And I lurk.

I watch through the windshield thinking, Hey there sailors, and of if I went, Sailors, of what that would mean to someone else. To some neighbor girl standing on her stoop.

The girls always go in each other's ears, Whisper whisper whisper.

I go, Take a picture, It'll last longer.

But there's no one in the flora but me. How it always is. Me in the flora, the boys on the court. Every evening in summer. In summers.

I find love songs on the radio. The ones that let thoughts become pictures.

I think of bare feet, wet grass. The clichéd crack of dawn.

I know dawn is not a crack but a smear.

Poetry turned it into a crack.

Poetry is why we have cliché.

It's for when science is too hard to grasp.

So there I am in the backyard in spring. I'm seventeen.

I try to imagine a boy, a blue shirt. He crosses my yard. He
reaches for me.

But all I can see is my father's suitcase in the grass. My things are in it.

I'd run through grass until night.

But something inside my brain goes, Stay. Something inside goes, Graduate.

There's only a month left of school.

I go back inside before the sun reveals me.

I had dreamed of running though grass the whole way.

But there are eggs on the table. Two. Poached.

The eggs are cold.

My parents whisper in the other room. Their war has ended.

I wash my hands and eat the eggs.

Love songs speed at three four three meters per second.

In air that is. The speed of sound in air.

I learned this in high school. I also learned of the speed of light. One eight six thousand miles per second.

We're linked by speeding sound and light.

Thoughts I have on evenings like these. Thoughts of the type I often have.

I watch the clouds turn orange in the evenings. The tall stiff grass turns orange. This from sunlight. It strikes the flora and turns it to fire. Or to water. Depending on the time. Depending on where the sun is sitting.

And whatever the time and wherever the sun, I'm part of the flora. As is my car. As are the ten. We're linked.

This would perplex the neighbor girls. They think science is hard.

If they were smart they'd go, What about someone who's deaf and blind, What about him, How is he linked.

Meaning if he can't hear sound or see light. Yes, I get it.

Because, I'd go, The waves still touch him.

Sound waves, light waves are what I mean. The blind and deaf get touched by waves.

The girls would go, Stupid.

Though they're the ones stupid.

But if a tree falls in a forest, they'd go. If they were smart.

I'd go, Cliché.

They've been trying to trip me up since high school.

They still stare when they stand on the stoops when I pass.

Take a picture girls, if you like.

All the neighbor girls have dropped out of college. All the neighbor girls are married with houses. They own their own stoops in the neighborhood. They own their own kids who stand on the stoops.

I think of one of the shirted ones in my car.

It goes like this: The ball sails over a shirted one's head. It rolls past my car. Into the flora. Toward the woods. The shirted one chases it down. He sees me sitting inside my car. I smoke a cigarette. I go, Hey there sailor. He goes, Give me a smoke. I go, Get in the car. He gets in the car.

The love song goes and goes.

Then one thing, another. We talk at first. The light leaves the car. We sit a bit closer. Then the song is what links us. Sound, that is. Then we link ourselves in other ways.

Touch, I'd go to the neighbor girls. To see them squirm.

I have spent whole nights in the flora. I have fallen asleep across the front seat.

At sunrise I've noticed the sky looks bruised.

I've been wanting to jot this down in the dust. I've been wanting to show this to one of the ten as he wakes by me on the seat.

But for now the sky's just turning orange. And they glow on the court while the low sun sits on their heads.

And if one of them goes, Take a picture, to me, I'll go, I look where I want.

Outside my brain I see skin beneath see-through white. I see them orbit each other on the court.

Inside my brain a finger slips up and up. The hair of a face on the hair of my face.

And regardless. Look. Inside my brain, we're fucking.

The neighbor girls would go, Why did she think that.

I'd go, Because I think.

The girls knew nothing in high school science. It was all I could do not to leave the classroom.

When they opened their mouths, I covered my ears and quietly sang.

They made their cracks. Their, What is she doing.

Even the teacher went, What in the world.

The girls all laughed.

The teacher went, Would you share your song.

When the ball bounces past to the woods, I duck. I duck when keys clink. Or when feet pound close.

I lower the song so they can't hear it.

And when they're back on the court, I turn it back up.

I never leave the car running in the flora.

I learned to play the radio with the car turned off. I learned
to turn the car key backward. And the radio will play. And the lighter will work with the car turned off.

The pebbles on the car floor are rose quartz and white. The silver strips in the flora are mica.

I remember this from the last year of high school. And school ended one day after studying rocks.

The house was quiet for most of that summer.

Then a radio came by mail. My father's gift for ending high school. Mailed to the house near the end of summer. I kept it below the bed with the dust. It played love songs at night that let me have thoughts in pictures.

Thoughts of standing in the backyard grass.

I'm waiting for a boy to cross my yard. He's wearing blue.

And we run off together through the grass.

My father's suitcase is packed with my things.

I'd gone, Stop your fighting.

I'd gone, I'm leaving.

No one heard me as I packed.

I stood in the backyard waiting for him.

Of course, he knew nothing of this.

I went back in the house.

The sun rose.

I ate.

When I leave in the evenings my mother watches from the window. I can see her face pressed to the glass.

She's jealous.

My car seat is softer than hers ever was.

Soft enough to sleep on. And so on.

My radio worked for weeks before it didn't.

It was a whole life change when the radio stopped. I lay in the dark below my bed. Blind and deaf with the radio off. I could feel my arms fuzzed in the dust.

I wrote to my father for the first time ever. I found his address in my mother's drawer.

I wrote, The radio broke, on the back of a scrap. I mailed it to him.

He sent a used car in place of the radio. It was left in the drive behind my mother's.

I don't know who drove it and left it.

High school ended years ago. Was it seven years. It was maybe eight. Regardless.

I recall it ended with science. And science ended with rocks. I learned to tell quartz in a rock pile. Big deal.

And the science teacher wore a shade of blue. And his eyes. I could tell but won't.

He went, Perhaps this could be your major in college.

And he meant it.

The dust on the dash takes my handprint and keeps it.

I stop when I find a love song.

It looks like they're dancing to the song, the ten.

They go, Mother, and, Fucker. They grunt in ways like in war. They slap five.

Give me some skin, we once went on the stoops.

Give me some skin, and we slid our palms as kids.

I'm happiest when the ball whooshes through without touching the rim.

Just imagine fucking that way.

I can hear the neighbor girls go, Why did she say that.

But imagine a clean whoosh whoosh whoosh.

I often think to join their game. I'd stand on the court in a high school pose. Sunshined hair flipped to one side of my neck. Head slightly tilted, wind whipping my skirt. And I'd ask for a light. I'd ask for a ride.

But the car, the neighbor girls would go. If they were smart.

What about her car, Why would she need a ride, they'd go. There's her car parked in the flora.

Good questions.

Plus the car lighter. They'd be perplexed. Why would she need a light, they'd go.

I'd twirl my hair. I'd go, Okay, boys, The car's mine, You caught me. But the lighter's broken, I'd also go.

How my mother's car lighter pushed in, stayed in. I know it's possible to break a car lighter.

I know it's possible to break a whole car. Look at my mother's. Four flat tires. Doors stuck open. Broken windows. And inside are years of weather. Inside are rough torn seats and broken switches and the lighter that never popped out.

Though the horn still blares. She always yells when I blare it. I never really do it now except to test it.

My mother's always pounding head.

Her shut off car makes ticking sounds.

Her dark kitchen which I stay from.

A card on my car went, Happy sixteen.

Though I was seventeen, almost eighteen.

Should anyone ask: I'm doing a study on ball, Taking notes on boys, For a college paper for when I go to college.

They go, Motherfucker! And, Inside!

Their rib cages jut with each shot.

I see underwear when they raise their arms.

But I'm not going to college yet.

I just want away from the quiet house.

And the twilight reminds me of an old shirt.

Not of a certain shirt but a certain color.

The science teacher. He wore this color. He meant nothing to me. He's a blur.

My mother still keeps the house clean.

There are places to sit in the kitchen by windows.

When I leave the house I go, I'm going to study, and big deal when I walk in after dark. It's only my mother in her shut off kitchen. I'm sitting on the stoop, I lie and who cares.

Big deal when I walk in the next morning after sleeping the night alone in the car.

I was out with the girls.

My mother silent in her kitchen.

The keys were left inside the car.

I started the car and drove.

School was starting back up again.

The boys were playing five-on-five.

My mother found me in the dark in her car. She held my arms and dragged me.

This was high school. Broken windows. A drag through grass. A door slam. A door slam. Another.

A wonder I could keep my head up high.

But the radio came at the end of summer. The radio saved my brain.

The neighbor girls all went, She's crazy, Keep away.

The neighbor girls made plans for their lives back then. Engagements. Showers. Kids.

When we meet by mistake on the stoops nowadays: So what are you doing with yourself. So what are you doing. I asked you first.

And so on and so on.

A wonder I can keep my head on straight.

And should I go, I'm sitting in the car. Should I go, I'm watching five-on-five with songs in my car. Trust me, they'd think the same old thing.

That I stole rocks from science.

That I fucked the teacher.

That I never could mix.

Sometimes there are nine. They play half-court four-on-four and the odd one shoots alone.

I consider a game with the odd one. A game of one-on-one.

And so what if he beats me. I'm no teen and it's not about winning. It's about contact. It's about sitting in the car afterward.

You know how it happens.

One thing, another. I look at his mouth. He looks at my eyes looking at his mouth. I look at his eyes looking at my eyes.

And so on.

I sat in my mother's car with the rocks on the dash. Fool's gold. Mica. Quartz. Like pulled-up treasures from a capsized boat. I made wave shapes in the dust on the dash with my fingers. For a sense of sand, of wet.

I was captain of a boat. I had stopped on the shore to look at my treasures.

I knew I was not in a boat but a car.

This is metaphor. Poetry.

Because the science of this was too hard. I admit it.

Because the science of this was not of rocks. I understood rocks.

The science of this was of the brain.

I took the rocks from the classroom when the teacher was gone. I put them in my pockets.

I cannot describe how they looked on the dash with the sun coming through.

Then it got dark.

I blared the horn until dragged to the house.

The neighbors came out to their stoops.

The neighbor girls went, Did you hear what she did.

They went, She's crazy.

Well, there's no fighting in the house nowadays.

World War Three, the neighbor girls called it.

They went, World War Three down at her house.