The Lava in My Bones (13 page)

Everyone's but mine, that is. In hallways, students gave me a wide berth. I'd futilely search the cafeteria for a table where they'd let me sit. Strangely, boys were more frightened than girls. Some essential balance had been disrupted. The janitor often shook his head as he mopped the hallway.

My new isolation did not trouble me as much as hearing my name whispered everywhere and not knowing what that meant. I peered into the washroom mirror, as behind me, the reflected cubicle doors echoed with a diabolical hiss: “Sssue, Ssssue, Sssssue, Ssssssue.” The sound joined to other words or half-words, verbs without objects or objects without verbs or lone, great big juicy adjectives:

“Piggy-girl, Piiiiig!”

“It's 'cause of her condition …”

“So totally gross …”

“She dragged him into the bushes …”

“Stripped him down …”

“And then the disaster!”

I still couldn't find the through-line to these shattered sentences which, pasted together, now formed the story of my life.

“What disaster!?” I cried. The hissing stopped. Before me a lone, silver tap dripped once into the sink.

In the hallway, clusters of girls huddled by lockers, and everywhere was that infernal susurrating hiss. “SSSSSue … he had no clue … her glue … the stickiness … got him totally fucked …” Sometimes I'd overhear a refreshing, “This stuff about Sue Masonty is bullshit,” but that was rare. At last, after a month of conjecture, I was able to put the disparate pieces of the tale together. One afternoon, I wandered by the field where the boys were playing flag football. When I stepped onto the bleachers, I heard my name spoken. All the boys had stopped playing; they crowded together, facing me in a tight, protective knot. From hands hung crêpe-paper streamers. Since Jimmy's injury, the boys were forced to play flag football, not the real rough-and-tumble version, as everyone was now more keenly aware of the fragility of the male body. Someone muttered, “Don't let her near us or we'll have to saw ours off too.” The wind had ripped one boy's streamer and he knelt sobbing, cradling it in his hands.

It was then that everything fell together in my mind. The story went like this: Jimmy and I had crawled into the space beneath the bushes and proceeded to make love. But when he entered
me, he got stuck and couldn't get out. The rumour mill had produced various endings. In one, he had to saw his penis off at the root to get free of me and, full of shame, fled into the forest and was now wandering bloodied and penis-less over the rocks of the Canadian Shield. In another version, he was absorbed by me completely and was now crouched suffocating somewhere amongst the twists and turns of my fallopian tubes. In a different version, the mere sight of my naked honey-streaming body terrified him and his penis shrank into his body.

But hadn't anyone seen him run fully membered from the bushes? I recalled that he'd been lying face down, and most people were fixated on the rotating ball as it descended through the goalposts. No one cared what happened to it once it crossed the line. Only Estelle had watched, so the story was hers.

The boys huddled together, their flimsy flags fluttering. The kneeling boy wept bitterly into his torn streamer. He turned toward me and shouted, “Cunt!” He picked up a stone and threw it. The rock bounced off the bench in front of me.

“I didn't do anything!” I yelled. The other boys crouched and snatched stones from the ground and flung them in my direction. One struck me in the shin; another cut the side of my cheek.

I turned and ran from the field, crying uncontrollably, and when I reached the street, continued running southward. The pounding of my feet on gravel echoed about the silent clapboard houses that seemed to march past in jerky, disjointed steps. Women on porches flapped tea-towels like striped whips as barking dogs thrashed on leashes taut as tightropes. Rows of fence pickets pointed skyward like white knives. The earth was gouged,
cratered, and gashed as if hacked with a huge dagger. I passed a man pulling a buggy joined to his waist with a rope; a lady stepped from the white-walled Catholic church, the sides of her hat rim flapping like oars. Down one street I charged and then up another, criss-crossing Cartwright's patchwork of roads. The air smelled of sea salt, tar, rotting scallops, motor oil.

When I reached the open field near my parents' house, I stood panting on the empty plain. The wind struck me square in the face, whipped the bangs off my forehead, fluttered my eyelashes, and dried the spittle on my lips. I looked down at my body, this body I lived in, this body I carted about wherever I went. These calloused fingers, these bulging thighs, this chest rising and falling like the swell of the sea were mine—were me.

It was then that I knew: air will free me. The wind I once feared will lift me high above the earth-bound people of Cartwright. Wind is what happens when air falls in love with itself. I will love the sweetness of my sweat and it will dissolve rocks hurled like missiles at my head. I spread my arms wide to the howling gale that shot into my open pores and roared through my body like Niagara, as a shower of glistening honey drops fell like manna onto the parched, stony earth.

Sam, surely you remember the house we lived in on a hillock a block from the sea? The building's foundation was made of stone, and the walls were of plywood that eternally rattled in the wind. The roof was a silver tin that threw the sun's light back into the
blank expanse of the sky.

Before opening the door, I put my ear against it and listened. Inside, Mother was speaking in tongues again. She'd close her eyes and, shivering, raise one hand and feel the Holy Spirit descend, fill her chest, move across her vocal chords; she opened her lips and the Spirit expressed Itself.

When I entered the kitchen, she stopped and said, “Excuse me. I need a way to deal with the stress or I'll end up in the nuthouse.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Sam still hasn't answered any of my letters,” she continued. “The postman has the nerve to ask why I always wait on the porch! This town's full of morons.”

Had Mother heard the horrible story about me and Jimmy? It was doubtful; she had little contact with the rest of the town. Sometimes I liked entering the little bubble she inhabited. That day I wanted to embrace her but feared she'd clutch and never let go. She'd wonder why I hugged her, would worry, and Mother had problems enough. When she found my honey-globules on the toilet seat, my bedpost, or the wallpaper, God's syllables burst from her lips. Last week she broke into tongues while waiting at the supermarket checkout; I was so embarrassed I hid behind a stack of canned corn.

Sam, you always told me not to feel threatened by Mother. You said, “When Mother is swallowed by God, say
sayonara
as she slides down His windpipe.” But there is more to her than religion, Sam.

Surprisingly, that night, Father showed up for dinner. We
sat before our plates of fries, cod tongues, and salmon rolls. Filling our glasses with milk, Mother said, “I called the hospital in Toronto. Sam was sent home again. Those crackpot doctors believe his stories. They can't see he's trying to hurt himself.”

I still don't understand what happened when you went to Europe. After you returned, you began to show up in Emergency wards with rocks stuck in your throat! The last time you could barely breathe. Am I the part of the reason? As kids, we made all those stone castles together, and then you later callously abandoned me. Do you eat rocks to punish yourself? Do you still feel such massive guilt?

“The doctors said if he swallowed and the rock got below his Adam's apple, he'd die. Those knuckleheads think it was an accident. He probably tells them it's part of some experiment. They're scientists so he knows how to deceive them, just like he deceived us. They can't see he's gone bananas,” Mother said.

You could simply take a plane back to Labrador and help me, Sam. You could rescue me from Cartwright. There's no need to feel regret forever.

“Don't you both go hiding your opinions,” Mother continued. “I know you think I'm the reason he's cracked, but that's nonsense. I see that Sam wanted to hold onto his trophies and collections. I wouldn't have thrown them out if I'd known he was so weak. Remember when he was eight? He loved everything I did. We created those tiny villages made of pebbles on the beach.” She still loves the little boy in you, Sam. She'll never accept that you grew up. Do you recall when she tried to un-enrol you from your high-school science courses and you found out? You should
never have started dating Esther the week after—that was the worst timing. While you were at school, she'd finger the rocks in your collection, itching to throw them out, but she didn't, at least not right away. Mother can show restraint, Sam.

She stabbed at her salmon roll, pulled off the batter as if peeling the skin off a limb. “He should never have gone to university and taken geology. They taught him to love rocks and now he eats them.” Did you know that after you moved to Toronto, she phoned your university and said you'd lied on the application? They checked and found out who the liar was. Poor Mother! Give her points for trying. “In any case,” Mother said, “I wrote to apologize for anything I might have done.”

We'd all sent letters when you were in the hospital last month—mine was surely the most upsetting—but you never answered us.

Father slurped pop from the bottle, and I wondered what he'd written in his letter. He belched.

“I'm proud of Sam,” I said boldly. “He lived eight years on his own and put himself through university to become a PhD doctor!”

Mother replied tersely, “Well, after that, he went on some silly trip to Europe, and now he's ready for the funny farm. If he'd stayed here, he could've gotten a nice job in the steel foundry.”

“Yeah,” Father said. “Dere's plenty a new posts. He coulda made good money dere.”

“Unless they decide to move it somewhere else,” Mother stated. “They only built it here because the government subsidized it. Once the managers see the quality of workers in this town, they'll leave without hesitation.” She was buttering her
bread too quickly; the knife blade slipped and for a brief moment her knuckles shone yellow. “I admit science is good. Because of it, we have electric lights and our cars run.” Here she goes again. “But Sam had always taken it too far and now we see the result. I refuse to be blamed for his behaviour.” She fears she's the villain in a fairy tale and wants another role.

When dinner was over, Mother put her hand on the table beside Father's. She glanced toward her bedroom. As usual Father shrugged and took down his tin container from the top shelf. Mother stomped into her room and slammed the door shut. After a minute I could hear her quietly weeping and speaking in tongues.

Father placed the container on the table and cranked off the lid to reveal a surface of solidified honey. It was bumpy like pond water that had frozen too quickly. He scooped a large spoonful and, smiling at me, placed it into his mouth. I examined the picture of the bee on the container. It danced a jig in breeches and top hat, one eye winking as his stinger pointed upwards at a perfect forty-five-degree angle.

I stared intensely at the stinger. Then I wrote you another letter.

In the Cartwright harbour, anchored ships spun agitatedly in half-circles; the wharf creaked, ropes became loose, then taut. Men huddled smoking in their canvas jackets or yellow oilskins. Mr Smith and Mr Pool sat glumly, one holding a
For Sale
sign
and the other a
For Rent
sign.