Melt (7 page)

Pop

is the

only

one who ever

brought

up

love.

He loves Mom he tells her

sometimes

when he's not

hitting

her

and I think he means it too.

But Mom I don't think she loves

Pop

not one bit.

She takes what he gives

the good the

bad

this is her

life so

be

it.

      Now Doll

comes into my head.

Me and Doll with all them paintings water

water

everywhere.

Sweet sweet Doll oh god I can taste her lips they're like oxygen

pure

oxygen a dose of fresh air

they're hope

she tastes like hope.

For the first time

I'm not hopeless.

We're kissing

I'm hoping

and the room turns slow

all them paintings swirl around us

they

take

us

in.

We're gliding through them lily pads

swimming we swim we're breathing

underwater

we blend we mix we melt right into them whirling bursts of colors where everything's

connected where everything belongs where everything's

right.

The world's so right

finally

it all makes sense

but then

I

quit.

I quit I quit I

quit kissing her I

push

her

away I let her float back to the surface.

It ain't right

swimming with her

using her to

breathe

like that.

I can't I can't I

can't take the chance of dragging her down to the murk with me.

She don't belong at the bottom

of the pond she don't belong

here

in my kitchen.

I can't let her be

here

even just in my mind she might get muddy.

      Warren's scared he blinks blinks

blinks his

big

brown

eyes

he forces slow spoonfuls he stares at

fruit.

      Me

I'm waiting to wake up.

I been waiting to

wake

up

from this nightmare years too long now. It's getting harder and

harder to fool myself it's real tough playing

“pretend

you

don't

see.”

      His bacon's

sizzling

on the stove his eggs are

whisked

in a bowl

waiting

to be poured on the

griddle his coffee is drip

drip

dripping

its last drops

into the pot his orange juice is

freshly

squeezed with

pulp

strained.

      His face is beet-colored he's all up in her face she's backed against the counter

nowhere to go and it

won't

be

long

now.

      I wanna wake up

in a normal family where my

pop

kisses my mom good morning and reads
Newsday
at the table, where my

pop

never raises his voice let alone his hands, where my

pop

loves his family, where my

pop

loves me.

      For seventeen goddamn years I been waiting for my pop to love me how stupid is

that?       

      In a desperate attempt to either

escape

or

give

up

my mind floats back years and years to

another

morning.

      Me and Jimmy

playing on the living room floor with

Lincoln

Logs.

Mom's eye is purply-

blue it's half-closed. Her lip's

scabbed

blood around the

crusty

edges and

puffy it's all puffy from what

he did

last night.

      Pop tells her to make him breakfast.

      She says,

Make your own

breakfast.

      Pop

says

nothing. He's

red. His face is bright

red

like a Fireball candy. Hate's

dripping

from his skin like

sweat I can smell it.

      He lifts up the

love seat.

It's brown like the coffee she

brews for him everyday

but not

today

it looks like the coffee when she stirs in cream

it's creamy brown.

He holds the

love seat

high

he grips it tight so

tight

the veins in his hand bulge

thick

and

blue.

He slams it

bam

he

bashes the

creamy

brown

love seat

down

down

down

on Mom's back. She screams she

howls

like a dog like

an

animal

that don't know how to

mask its

pain.

She falls she

falls

she

falls

arms up like she's

surrendering

hair slapping at her

face

white apron strings flap

flap

flapping. The floor rumbles it rocks it

shakes

when she hits

bottom

bent and

broken.

      Her eyes are shut.

      Round logs

topple they

spill they

roll

they

scatter.

Some hit the wall.

      Mom quivers like she's

cold like she's freezing she

shakes. She looks whole but she's

broken.

      Her eyes are shut.

      Me and Jimmy's log house is broken like

Mom

but it's in pieces you can see.

      Her eyes are shut.

      Back then,

she still cried.

      Back then,

I still

believed

really I believed

that I would

wake

up.

I truly believed I would wake up and Pop would

love

us that he would

love

me.

      Pop's pounding Mom to a

pulp.

      I stare at the

clear

glass

bowl on the counter at the

beaten

eggs inside.

Eggs just waiting to

run

free across the smooth

non-

stick

surface. But they can

only get so far

before they reach a raised edge.

      
Snap

goes Mom's shoulder.

      
Crackle

goes Pop's bacon frying in the pan. The greasy smell is everywhere.

      
Pop

goes

Pop. He pops Mom

again

again

again.

      Pop.

      Pop.

      Pop.

Five

Dorothy

      I ask him, “Was it awful, being in jail?”

      Joey's silent, he's holding me against him, stroking my hair. A few seconds go by, then he says, “Well, I wouldn't file it under ‘fun.'”

      We're in his friend Jason's garage, converted into a workout room. Jason's mom works a second job nights, and his dad left town long ago for parts unknown, so the guys come here to weight train and to hang out without being hassled. But on days when no one is working out, Jason lets us come here for some “alone” time. I told Joey we could go to my room after school since my parents are at work until at least 5:30, but he said no way. He said he has a strict moral code when it comes to parents and their homes. He even admitted that it doesn't make sense, but he won't touch me under my parents' roof. I think it's strange, that he draws a line there, but it's kind of nice, too. And it's just as well. I could never really relax in my room. There's no lock on my door. Every little sound would freak me out.

      Not that we've done anything, really. Just make out. We've been making out a lot. And holding each other. We're doing that now, lying together on blue exercise mats piled on the concrete floor, with a thick black punching bag turned sideways behind us. You couldn't really call it a cushion, because that implies soft, and this bag is hard. This bag is no pillow. This bag was made for endurance, not comfort. Still, you take what you can get, and you do the best with it you can. It bolsters us, supports us.

      My head's tucked in the crook of his shoulder. I nuzzle against his shirt, breathe the scent of him. Spicy sugar. He's mulled cider by the fire on a snowy winter day.

      His heart's beating,
tha-thump, tha-thump
. I say, “I'm sorry you went through that.”

      He says, “No reason for you to be sorry—you didn't send me there.”
Tha-thump. Tha-thump
. “Besides, I deserved it.” He sounds so hollow again, he sounds haunted. I keep thinking, if I can only figure out what's at the base of all his misery, then I can help him release it. That's why I'm bringing up jail. Because maybe that's what's tearing away at his spirit—those lonely, scary hours he spent in jail. All I want is to exorcize those ghosts, fill in that gap inside.

      “That was mean of your dad … to send you there.”

      
Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
Then a sigh. “Pop's not the nicest of guys.”

      “I'd say not.”

      “Listen, Doll. Could we drop this? I just … I just wanna be alone with you. I don't wanna bring Pop in here, let him lie down with us, okay?”

      It's the same thing, every time. No matter where we are. “Okay,” I say.

      He strokes me some more, so gentle. His leg's wrapped around mine, so warm. “Thanks.”

      We're surrounded by workout equipment here in Jason's makeshift gym. Some is Jason's, but more belongs to guys who have no place of their own to set it up. Three bench presses, leg machines, arm machines, and lots of barbells in different sizes. The radio propped on a bench in the corner is playing an eighties tune, “I Melt With You.” The singer declares he'll stop the world. It feels like that here—now and whenever we're here—it feels like the world's stopped. He touches me so slow, so tranquilly. Hard to believe hands roughed up like that could feel so soothing. Harder even to reconcile those tame hands with the devastation they've caused.

      They're so respectful to me.

      They're practically reverent.

      He kisses like that too. With this sweet serenity, like there's only us. Like there's no such thing as time.

      He does that now, he kisses me. He pulls me closer against him, presses tight against me, and that tingling rises again, from somewhere way inside me. It's always there, always going, always generating when I'm with him, but when he kisses me like that, that's when it escalates. That's when it demands attention.

      He feels it, I know. It's what hit us when we first met, times a thousand.

      He feels it, but he never acts on it. I keep waiting for him to move further, to act. But he doesn't.

      And I ….

      I don't know how to.

      Only this time, I can't take it.

      I slide my hand under his T-shirt, glide across ribs and ripped muscle. His body jerks from the sensation. Heat surfaces, melts into my touch. Slow, slow, I smooth my fingertips up the middle line of his chest, tracing the indentation. He pulls back. “Stop, you're making me crazy.”

      “Is that a bad thing?” I ask.

      He regards me, looks at me like I'm some new creature he's discovered. I stare back into those wide eyes, waiting for an answer, acutely aware of the blood push, push, pushing through my veins, and wanting only to brush his skin again.

      Still, he doesn't answer.

      I say, “It's been three months. Do you not want to make love with me?”

      He jolts at the question. After a few seconds he finds his voice. It's rocky. “You kidding?”

      “Then why ….”

      I leave the words dangling, reach for him. I pull his shirt up, up, over his head, then slip it from his arms.

      He doesn't resist.

      I lean against him, press my fingers into snug chest fuzz.

      I don't know much, but I know I want him.

      “Why …,” I say again, and again that's all I say.

      I push my chest into his, reach my hand behind, drift down, down, down the small of his back, until I'm tucked inside his jeans.

      His heart rate quickens, drums its beat into me.

      
Thump thump thump thump thump thump
 ….

      I rest my lips against his ear, share the shiver they provoke.

      “Why don't you?” I ask.

Joey

      The question zaps through me like ten thousand volts.

      Why don't

I

make love with

her?

      Because I never held

anything

so precious before.

      Because I'm afraid so afraid ….

      I tell her,

I'm afraid I'm gonna break you.

      She laughs. Says, I'm not a doll silly.

      Silly. No one's ever called me that before.

Dickwad.

Scumbag.

Piece of shit loser.

      Not silly.

      I like it.

      It's light.

      I wish I was light.

      With her

with

Doll

I feel like I got a shot at being light.

      What are you thinking, she asks. She's touching

touching

touching me.

      I'm thinking

I don't wanna ruin it ruin this.

Ruin

her.

      I'm thinking I'm gonna hurt her

somehow

I'm thinking I'm scared for her

and maybe even of her.

But I don't tell her that stuff ‘cause it'd make her bolt for sure. You can't show fear

you can't show

yourself

even if you feel safe enough. Safety is bullshit. There is no safety. More things I can't tell I could fill a book with them.

      She's waiting for an answer

I know

but I'm not saying nothing I'm like a deaf-mute or something. Why she's bothering with me I don't know. I don't deserve her I don't deserve her touching

touching

touching me like this and god I'm so afraid I'm gonna hurt her.

      I never done it before, I tell her.

      I tell her I never made love.

      She looks at me now she's got this skeptical look she don't believe me.

      It's true,

I tell her.

It's true I never made love never did it with no one I cared ‘bout before.

I had sex I screwed but I

never

made

love.

      She's touching

touching

I lie here skin prickling temperature smoldering arms frozen so scared to touch back so scared I'll become

the monster Pop is;

the monster

I am

when I lose it lose

control.

      My first time,

I tell her,

my first time I was fifteen it was August it was hot so hot

me and Jimmy we were at my cousin Billy's pool chilling.

Billy he was twenty and he had a bunch of friends over too. This chick Libby she was nineteen she had these great round tits they were practically popping out of her hot pink bikini she started rapping to me then she sat on my lap next thing you know she was tonguing me.

      That night

me and Jimmy we banged her in room twenty-four at the Beachview Motor Inn.

      She blew me at the pay phone on the street while I called my mom to tell her me and Jimmy we was

eating

out.

      It was like that every time since. Not the situation but the emotion.

      There wasn't no emotion.

      Just going through motions.

      I feel something trembling.

It's

me.

      How can I touch her like that touch her pure

pure skin? My hands they're so mangled they're ruined like me beyond repair I'm bad so bad she's pure she's good and

I'm

so

bad.

      She kisses me she's undeterred by my tale of debauchery she kisses me her soft

soft lips against mine their moisture sinks inside me she quenches my thirst.

      She kisses me and I get it. Suddenly

I get it

she don't care what I done she don't care what I

am

she takes me

shit and all.

Like someone opened a window

I get it

a blast of fresh air

I get it I kiss her back and then just like that

I

melt.

It happens so fast I can't scream or despair

can't panic

can't blink

I just melt.

No regrets no goodbyes I melt through her arms I melt to the mat

then

I

rise.

I rise without burdens

no voices

in my head

there's light

silent

light

lifting through.

No worries no doubts

only light

calm still light

I feel something light

it's me.

      It's me

and Doll

in the quiet

alone and I'm light I'm

light I'm

light.

      Touch me Joey, she says.

      She says, Please.

      So I do.

Dorothy

      His eyes fill with light, so beautiful. I watch the pain melt from them. Drip, drip, drip, it shrinks down, it just shrivels away ‘til it's gone. They're happy now.

      He's happy.

      I made him happy.

Joey

      She's letting it all out it's like there was all this shit stuffed way inside her that she finally gets to let out.

      I'm letting it out.

      For once I'm doing something good.

      I'm following her now I'm scrambling up a mountain sprinting up up up scuffling over rocks darting around trees splashing through streams there's a place for us after all there's a place for us it's here at the top of this mountain it's where we can lift off we can leap we can sweep through the sky …

oh god

I'm flying

the breeze on my face it feels so incredible

I head for the clouds

I'm right behind her now

I catch up I take her hand.