The Dream of Doctor Bantam (25 page)

10

The day in October when she took the GED it rained. The grass was going khaki despite the rain and the water coming down the window—the one she’d looked through since they’d first moved to Austin, the one she remembered looking through when she was eight and pancakes were cooking in the kitchen and Tabitha was calling her name—the water was gray, dragging the summer dirt in charcoal streaks over the glass.

She kissed Patrice’s shoulder goodbye and got dressed. It would never get cold here, not in Texas: it just got wetter, damp to the point that you’d wear a sweatshirt just to have an outer layer of damp around you. She put one on and made a poncho out of a garbage bag to go around herself. There was no coffee in the kitchen, no Michael this morning, never a Linda on a Saturday. The red digits on the coffee maker blinked 8:30 and she had to be at the school district office by 9.

She called the Retrograde from the phone in the kitchen.

Yo, she said. I can’t come in today. I have to go take the GED and stuff.

Good idea, said the owner. Without a high school degree it’ll be hard to find another job when I fire you for calling me at the last minute like this all the time.

She shrugged it off; being accused by one’s peers was part of the whole job thing. She was getting used to it.

She wheeled her bike out of the garage and pedaled down the street toward school; the rain stopped coming down for a while, and there were only the secondary echoes of water falling from rooftops, gutters, the edges of rose trellises. Thunder cracked; three small rabbits were flushed out of a bush at the corner of Burnet Road and ran crazily for the street. There were only a few cars out at this hour and Julie waited at the corner until the rabbits made it across, then she pedaled on.

She rode uptown, past the neighborhoods lined with auto parts stores, tiny houses with rusting jungle gyms, basketball hoops in yards with cracked and empty flowerpots. She rode past strip malls, Starbucks outlets with old men reading newspapers, SUV moms returning bags of videos to the iron drop box in the parking lot, and all the unseen street kids between the fences, traveling downtown to take their places even in the rain. Churches with hand-lettered slogans—THE BIBLE IS THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS / SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT IT MAKES ONE WEAK; she hadn’t eaten any breakfast this morning—and Vietnamese restaurants and insurance companies, freeway overpasses, the beginnings of the vast and useless dead yellow plains that stretched north and out of town before joining some other town.

This is the world, she told herself as she pedaled, this is the world you’ve decided to survive in.

At the district office the orange partitioned room was already crowded. They directed her to take a seat in the back. She wasn’t used to folding herself up to fit into one of those desks with the crossbars anymore—their gum, their sky blue plastic chairs. She didn’t recognize any of the people around her. They didn’t chatter with her, ask her what she did over her summer, talk about what they were going to do some day. They were taking off work to be here. They had cups of coffee on their desks to keep them awake and living. She wished she’d thought of that.

She stopped halfway through the test and went to the bathroom to throw up. Again, she’d eaten nothing beforehand. She stared into the toilet bowl and she knew what she was looking at, and she told herself to get up and get back to finish high school, already, there were only forty questions to go.

The test was easy. With fifteen questions to go she deliberately broke her #2 pencil and got up to sharpen it. She took the long way around the room, watching the heads bent furiously over Scantrons, trying to push through the questions to some better future. This was the last moment in which she could honestly claim to be a child, and suddenly she didn’t want to let it go, and she sharpened her pencil until it was only a head and an eraser that fit perfectly into her palm. Then she went back to her seat, finished the test, handed it to the bored proctor, and tossed the pencil into the wastebasket on her way back into the rain. The whole test had taken an hour, equivalent to the last full year of her high school degree.

She rode home over the roughest, bumpiest roads she could find. She thought about a lot of things on her ride and later she couldn’t remember any of them.

She shrugged off the poncho in the garage and lit a cigarette. She smoked leaning against Michael’s crappy sawhorse workbench, watching the cat, wondering things about who built cars and why. Then she flipped the butt into the yard, closed the automatic door, and went into the kitchen. Linda was there, smoking over a pan of scorched and scrambled eggs.

Hey, said Julie.

Oh, said Linda. Hi. Just cooking some eggs for myself. Do you want some?

She didn’t really want another cigarette, but she lit one anyway and got an ashtray for herself from the cabinet below the silverware. She got one for Linda, too, since Linda had just been ashing in the sink bubbles.

Those aren’t eggs anymore, Mom, she said, looking into the pan. Do you want me to make some eggs?

When did you start smoking? asked Linda, frowning at her.

I didn’t really want this cigarette, said Julie. I thought we could, you know, bond.

She waited for Linda to tell her to put it out. Linda took another drag on her own filter.

So when did you learn to cook eggs? asked Linda.

Patrice taught me, said Julie.

Patrice is the girl who’s staying over, said Linda. In the old room.

Patrice is my girlfriend, yeah, said Julie.

She had put her hands on her hips; she took them off quickly. And she watched Linda’s face, this once-in-a-lifetime expression she was about to see.

Linda looked at her, squinted at her, like there was some visible mark on her. Her eyes darted up—short hair—darted down—long pants, boots.

She’s your girlfriend, said Linda. Okay. So do you love her?

Of course, said Julie. She folded her hands tightly across her ribs, so that they hurt.

That’s bad, said Linda. It’s better if you don’t really love someone. It’s less complicated, in the end.

She sat down at the table. Julie watched her for a while, smoking with her face in her hands. She had a pointy chin, that same hay-bale texture to her hair in the morning. She had the same hazel eyes as Julie.

I thought you were making eggs, Linda said. Because you’re this brilliant cook now and everything.

Brilliant like a diamond, said Julie, quickly going to the fridge to get out the carton.

She cooked silently, shifting the eggs in the pan, watching them get more solid and take shape, watching the cheese she grated melt into them, watching the diced tomatoes sizzle, brown, and dissolve.

Thanks, said Linda as she took the finished plate. Then: It’s fine. It’s got nothing to do with me, anyway.

No, said Julie. Her shoulders loosened up. I don’t think it does, Mom.

I never taught you kids anything, she said. Neither you or, or your sister. It doesn’t do any good to teach kids anything, that’s what I’ve learned. You either stand or fall on your own. Some older version of yourself sitting there waiting to catch you, that doesn’t do anyone any good in the long run.

She stared down at her eggs and her cigarette slowly turned to dust in her hand. Flakes of it fluttered away in the air conditioning.

Whatever you kids did, good or bad, it didn’t have anything to do with me at all, she announced. Quickly she drew the cigarette back into her mouth and whacked the ash into the tray.

Julie felt something at the back of her throat, the echoes of old vomit brushing up against the eggs on their way down.

Mom, said Julie. You had Tabitha when you were pretty young, right?

That’s true, said Linda, setting down her fork.

Would you say that you regretted it? asked Julie. Or was it an okay thing to do?

Linda lit another cigarette, held it in her left hand, and kept her eyes on her daughter.

I wouldn’t say I regretted it, she said.

Okay, said Julie.

I would say that it kept me from doing most of the things in my life that I wanted to do, said Linda. I would say that. But I wouldn’t say that I regretted it. That would be terrible.

Julie set down her fork as well. Linda picked hers back up with her right hand and kept on eating. She alternated bites of the eggs with drags on the cigarette. After three bites she picked up the salt shaker with her cigarette hand and spread salt liberally on the eggs.

This is delicious, she said. You really are a good cook. Better than Tabby ever was.

I always try to please, said Julie, hands resting on her stomach.

When she went upstairs to take a shower she could hear Patrice rattling around in the bedroom, playing Metroid on the old Nintendo.

She slipped back downstairs, unwashed and wearing the clothes she was already wearing, past Linda who still sat at the kitchen table with a plate full of over-salted eggs.

At work she looked up the emergency women’s support numbers that the owner kept in the folder beneath the register with the fire escape maps in it. She copied one of them down in Sharpie on her hand and on her lunch break, cigarette in her hand, she made the call. She made it from the pay phone across the street from the Retrograde, and across from the Institute of Temporal Illusions. It was as busy as ever—i.e., not very busy at all. There were four men in suits, one woman in a blouse and navy skirt, all of them standing on the second floor balcony watching the rain come down. They were passing two cigarettes around between them. She didn’t recognize any of their faces. Probably they didn’t recognize her.

She raised her hand and saluted them while the receptionist had her on hold. They saw her and they raised their cigarettes in answer.

11

It was Saturday, before Halloween. She biked to Robbie’s and rang the doorbell five times, then sat on the doorstep, lit a cigarette, and leaned back against the fake cobwebs stretched across the door frame. She was five puffs in when Robbie’s aunt Julia came to the door. She had a salmon-colored robe tied around her bulky midsection and moccasins on her feet.

Yes? she asked. You’re Robbie’s girlfriend, aren’t you? I haven’t seen you around in a while. I was wondering if you were okay.

She bit her lip to keep from saying
Yeah, Robbie knocked my fat ass up, is he home?

Is he home? she said.

He’s asleep, dear, said Aunt Julia. Can you come back later?

It’s really important, said Julie. I’ve seen him sleeping before, anyway.

Aunt Julia squinted down at her. Her bristly hair whipped around her face.

Why don’t you come in, dear, she grumbled.

She shut the door behind Julie and followed her up the stairs. The hallway was dark, lit with the ghost-light of blue morning slipping in from the stairs. Julie knocked lightly on Robbie’s door.

Go away, he moaned. It’s vacation day.

You have a friend here, Robbie, trilled Aunt Julia.

I don’t want to see him, said Robbie.

But he wants to see you, said Julie, knocking again louder.

The rustle of bedsheets, then the doorknob turning. Robbie opened it, a striped sheet clutched around his midsection.

Oh, he said. Come in.

She went inside and sat on his bed. He sat down in the chair, the sheet still around him like a toga. The white Christmas lights and lava lamps were off now and the room looked spotlessly gray, washed out, only the tinge of incense and the reek of pot remaining. Psychedelica was still playing on the stereo at a low volume; it must have been playing all night. Aunt Julia stood in the doorway like a fat salmon soldier from some marginal peacekeeping coalition.

Goodbye, Auntie, snarled Robbie.

Okay, honey, said Aunt Julia. Can I get you kids anything?

Goodbye, Auntie, snarled Robbie again.

Okay, honey, said Aunt Julia. She left the door open and shuffled down the hall; her bedroom door opened and shut, quietly. Robbie got up, dragging the sheet around him—she could see his ugly, bony ass peeping out like a pug’s face—and he slammed the bedroom door. He hovered there by it; his eyes moved back and forth from the empty chair to the empty space beside Julie on his bed.

So what’s up, he asked warily.

I need to borrow your SUV, said Julie. It’s super important. Please say yes.

He shook his head and sat down in the computer chair. He moved the mouse, canceled the screen saver, and began scrolling through his email.

Do you even have a driver’s license? he asked.

No, she said. But no way is it hard. It’s just like, don’t pass anyone, right? Green go, red stop. Left gas, right brake.

You can’t borrow my car, he said. It’s not even my car. It’s Auntie’s car.

Come on, said Julie. When have I ever asked you for anything?

All the time, said Robbie. He turned to look at her. You ask me for things all the time. You don’t even talk to me unless you want something.

She shifted her feet against the carpet.

That’s true, she said. But maybe this is the last time I’ll ever ask you for anything.

Do you just fucking hate me? he asked. Did I do something terrible to you to make you fucking hate me?

She looked at her socks and said nothing. Jimi Hendrix said that no one would hear surf music ever again. Robbie went back to checking his email.

We used to have something wonderful, he said.

No, we didn’t, she said. We never will have anything wonderful, either. So let me borrow your car, and you’ll be rid of me forever.

He laughed, one of those theatrical laughs you use to explicitly show contempt for someone. She would probably feel really bad for herself if everything he did wasn’t so fucking irritating. She imagined herself seven months in, his kid kicking inside of her. The kick would be so fucking irritating.

You haven’t been at school for two months, he said.

I kind of dropped out of school, she said. I’m working at a coffee shop. You should come by to study for a test or something.

She didn’t want him to come by.

You dropped out, he said. That’s smart. That’s so smart, Julie. Real responsible.

It is smart, she said, wondering if it was.

How’re you going to get into college? he asked. You’re going to end up at like, a state school.

I guess I’m not going to get into college, she said. I guess I have better things to do.

You have to go to college, said Robbie, shaking his head;
Shave and a Haircut, smashing against her uterine wall 24/7
. You have to go so that you can get a good job, so that you won’t have to work in a coffee shop for a living.

I love coffee shops, said Julie.

You won’t, said Robbie. You’ll start to despise them. You’ll wake up one day and all your friends will have cars and families and houses, multiple houses, and you’ll still be living in, like, a duplex. A rental duplex.

I dream of living in a goddamned rental duplex, she said, standing up. Are you going to loan me your car or not?

No, he said. Leave me alone.

She sat on the bed and sighed, gritted her teeth.

I really need your car, she said. I’m going somewhere on the East Side.

Leave me alone, he said, louder.

He started scrabbling for his pipe, well-cached. He went into his desk drawer and took out a baggie, began to break it up. She watched him and listened to psychedelic guitars and told herself to say it, just say it, get through it and get it done.

What if I fuck you for your car? she said.

He stopped breaking up the pot. He set the pipe down on the table and put his hands on the arms of the chair. Jimi faded out, the CD clicked, track one started all over again.

She got up from the bed and stood beside his chair. He didn’t move; he was tense. She let her hand brush the surface of the blanket and found his lap.

He jerked away.

Stop it, he said. Fucking stop it.

Give me your car, she said, laughing.

He went to lie down on the bed, the sheet wrapped around him in whirls, like an ice cream cone. He’d taken out the eyebrow ring, she realized. She realized that she missed it now, being gone.

Give me your car, she said again.

The keys are in the drawer, he said.

She opened the drawer. They were hanging on a little hook just inside. Everything was perfectly organized in there, one little hanging file for every subject he was taking, one for college applications. She had a sudden urge to spit in there; she took the keys and closed the drawer before she did.

Thanks, she said.

His shoulders were shaking. She realized that he was crying. She stood in the middle of the room and watched him. On some level she really wished, she really did, that she could feel bad for him.

I won’t bring it back too late, she said.

Do you enjoy being like this? he asked. Do you enjoy being so f-fucked up to people?

She put the keys in her pocket.

No, she said. Not really.

I wish I’d never met you, he said.

She jingled the keys.

I guess I can’t say the same, can I, she said, before she thought about it. She might have said it even if she thought about it, she realized; she suddenly felt more depressed than she’d ever been.

She left him in bed and went around to the garage. The SUV was there, its bumper stickers wet with dew, puckering loose around the edges. She loaded her bike in and leaned on the driver’s side door for a moment. His window was on this side of the house; she could see the curtains of his room. He was in there masturbating about her, she knew; he had to be. She sat there and tried to send him some kind of psychic signal;
all is well, all things have a purpose under God
. Or:
Keep smiling
, or something like that. Whatever might work. It was windy, though, and she started to feel cold, and so she just put the keys in the ignition and backed into the street.

She only ran three red lights and a stop sign on her way home.

She had said noon on the phone. It’d be maybe an hour for the procedure, an hour to recover, an hour to drive. They told her she should bring someone with her, but seriously, they couldn’t have been that fucking naïve.

She set out everything she’d need. Her Funky Winkerbean notebook, to reread.
The Idiot
, stolen from the Retrograde’s tiny paperback library. A bottle of fruit juice. The keys. Her entire paycheck and tips for the past two weeks, less utilities, in neat stacks of cash.

Michael wasn’t here; Linda must have been awake; she could hear TV voices coming down the hall, some kind of chirpy morning show announcer bitch. In the kitchen she scrambled eggs and grilled cheese onto toast; she sliced tomatoes and arranged them on the plate like little smiley faces, like you’d give a kid. She looked down at the plate and she quickly rearranged everything into a dignified jumble.

She was halfway down the hall with the plate balanced on a glass of orange juice when she realized that it wasn’t the TV making that sound.

It wasn’t my fault, Gregory, Patrice was saying. I had no idea this person was going to write these things about the Institute … I’ve always given 100 percent … I could make up for the lost time, just give me the chance … uh huh … well, listen, Gregory, this is what you can say to New York—

The phone cord was running along the baseboards, taut under the door. She followed it back into the kitchen, set the food on the table, and yanked the cord out of the wall.

Hello, Patrice was saying, Hello, hello, hello? Are you there? Gregory, are you there?

Julie sat in one of the kitchen chairs and lit a cigarette. A low wail, and then the door opened.

She came down the hall, still in Tabitha’s clothes, crazy dark circles under her eyes that rolled from corner to corner of the room. She looked at Julie; she looked at the food; she looked at the end of the phone cord, still on the wall. She scurried down to pick it up; Julie was faster. She put her hands on Patrice’s shoulders.

Don’t fucking do it, she shouted. Don’t fucking call them—

You c-cunt, screamed Patrice, and there was a warm sensation on Julie’s cheek, then a wetness, then Patrice’s nails on her other cheek. You cunt,
they were just about to let me back in
—

Julie grabbed her wrists and threw her on the tile; she didn’t fight back at all, just let herself fall. She was sprawled there against the tiles and the smell of breakfast rising around her. She started screaming until she got hoarse. Julie, breathing heavy, got up from the floor and sat in the chair and watched her flail her arms and writhe. She put her fingers to her cheek; they stung. Her fingers came away red.

I just did you the biggest favor of your life, she said, and she got up and went to the sink. The water helped to drown Patrice out.

Jesus Christ, she said. I hope this doesn’t get infected.

Patrice moaned something. Julie sighed and turned the water off.

What? she said. What the fuck are you saying?

You’re so h-horrible to me, she said. Why are you so horrible to me?

Julie leaned on the sink, arms heavy, stomach heavy, everything heavy, everything heavy on her for such a long, long time.

Why am I being so horrible to you, she said. That’s your question.

She got on her hands and knees and crawled over to Patrice. Patrice’s eyes got huge, terrified. She tried to back away.

Why am I being so horrible to you, Julie said. Then, shouting: You think I’m fucking horrible to you? I’m the only one in the world who’s not fucking horrible to you! Because you deserve people being horrible to you, because you’re a horrible fucking weak person!

Please stop shouting, said Patrice, voice shaking.

I’m going to shout however much I want, Julie shouted. I’m going to shout however much I want at fucking—worthless—weak—people! People who, if they aren’t in some kind of fucking cult, or fucked up on drugs, or some fucking thing, people who can’t fucking survive!

It’s not a cult, screamed Patrice.

Cult! shouted Julie. Cult, cult, cult! And now you’re crazy, and your brain is fucked up, and you’re a fucking dyke and you don’t even realize it!
Everything is ruined; we have to adopt a baaaaby
: do you realize how pathetic you sound? The whole point of evolution is to kill off people like you!

Stop it, wailed Patrice.

You’re not fit for survival! screamed Julie. You’re not fit to live!

She picked up the plate of food and held it tight and lifted it over her head—all she had to do was let go. All she had to do was drop it. She could see it, skittering across the floor. Greasy globs of eggs, tomato slices splattering on her cheeks. Orange juice running in an acidic flood under the fabric of Patrice’s shirt, of Tabitha’s shirt.

She held the plate over her head, breathing hard, watching the white walls, hearing the tick of the clock. Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick. Patrice’s face was buried in her hands; her spine was shaking; everything was shaking. The rhinestones in Tabitha’s shirt were scraping against the tile of the floor.

Something moved through her, something warm, something old. Something made her put the dish back on the table; something made her lie down on the floor. A foot between them. She stared at the ceiling fan, watched it moving. If you blinked right, you could make it look like the blades were going backward.

She could keep the baby. She could get a better job. They could raise it together; it wasn’t impossible. Everything could be okay, really, if only Julie wanted it to be.

I’m sorry, said Julie.

Her throat was hoarse and she wondered why; she had been screaming; that was why; everything left a scratch on you somehow.

Everything is filthy, said Patrice, and nothing will come clean.

Julie sighed and closed her eyes. She listened to Patrice’s breathing; she heard it start to slow down, like a motor puttering to a halt. She started sniffling. Julie was sure she was faking it.