--MY ARMS ARE SO EMPTY, THE BREEZE HAS BLOWN THEM OFF

                                                           Storm Lake

            The storm hits without warning, and by Tuesday, snowdrifts as tall as four feet have already blocked the front door.

            I try to call my wife but there’s no cell service.  Today’s our anniversary: seven years.  She’s in Baltimore for a convention.  When she returns we’re supposed to make a decision about whether we’re too broken to mend, her having had an affair with her boss, me being too scared to leave her.

            Snow continues to drop, thick as mud, plates of the stuff.  Outside tree branches break every half hour or so, the wreckage sounding like thunder and gunfire.

            The power’s been out since evening.  Rotten food odors fill the kitchen.  The refrigerator leaks dirty water.   The silence in the house is so still it’s unnerving, and now I can see my breath.

            The dog stares at me, her head cocked, as if she senses doom.  When I let her piss in the house, then mop up the floor, she scampers to a corner and begins mewling.

            Outside, the lake is a white shelf, an ivory island.  Ducks--looking more like decoys than the real things--cluster in the northeastern corner.  Part of me wishes I owned a gun.

            Our house in the woods is set a mile back from any road, and I know no one will be coming soon.  Power outages in these parts can take days to be repaired.

            The dog starts to moan, as if it’s sick or injured or possessed.  When I toss a sock at her, she shreds the thing in an instant.

            The marriage counselor my wife and I tried always seemed to take my wife’s side.  He said my wife’s motivations for the affair could be numerous.  He suggested I was, in many ways, more than responsible.  He said men who ignore their spouses are asking for trouble.

            When I look over at the dog, she’s chewing the leg of a stuffed chair and staring at me, growling as she rips off splinters.  “Have at it,” I say.

            I ball up old newspapers and my wife’s Vogue magazines and start a fire in the sink.  I go to the bedroom and rummage through her dresser drawers, returning with lacy bras and thongs, most with the price tags still on.  They’re slow to catch flame, smoldering a ghostlike smoke.

            When I was a kid, my brother and I used to walk across the lake when it froze over.  He’d go out the farthest, mocking my cowardice.  I told him I’d heard another boy had fallen through the ice, but that only caused my brother to titter and call me chicken shit.

            The homes across the shore all have their lights on.  It’s a half mile trek.  I get my coat and hat and boots.  I walk through mattresses of snow, down a slope to the frozen waterfront.  I look back at the house, hooded with drifts of gleaming white.  I tell it goodbye and I think I mean it.

                              

            

--I AM STILL LEARNING THE ART OF OBSCENITY

...Writing mirrors life as much, if not more so, than any other vocation.

When you spend four days with 12,000 strangers you feel less like a writer and precisely like water—sluicing without bones, turning see-through, leaking all over yourself, becoming slippery, in search of a quiet place to pool and stay out of reach.  

Darting in and out of a mass of humanity that large (and chaotic) makes you feel insignificant to a degree, but--cup half full--you tell yourself it’s encouraging, this stampede of writers, because that means stories and books are as important as ever, maybe even more so.

When you see your writing idols you should try not to stare at them as if they are naked.  When you meet them you should attempt not to drool or convulse or stutter (I failed at this a few times).  You should try to realize that, like rock stars and movie stars, writing idols use the restroom just like you, doing the same things there that you do.  Even Joyce Carol Oates.

If you are wise, you ask good questions.  You listen more than talk.  You are friendly and as engaging as you can be in such circumstances.  You do not waste time (I failed at this as well).  You realize you will not remember dozens of different moments happening to you as they occur and so you have paper and pen at the ready and you write down why those moments are special so that later you can retrieve your scraps of paper and go, Ah, yeah, that's right, and then maybe you think to shoot a note to the person who inspired you to take down that note in the first place.

Passionate people are emotional people, and it’s smart to remember that, to not judge if someone is giddy or teary or a tad on the loud side, if maybe it even seems as if they are trying to show off.  Sometimes what seems like rudeness, aloofness or a curt manner just means that that person is shy or intimidated or exhausted, or perhaps all of these.

It is important to be supportive yet honest.  It helps to smile.  To make eye contact.  To keep your fucking phone in your pocket while you are conversing.

Asking good questions is harder than you might think, but it's likely more valuable than you might appreciate.  You can learn an incredible amount about a person when you ask about their upbringing, their childhood, their (writing) life, what fears they have about that life, what frustrations and joys, what they've accomplished and have yet to.

The person who had the greatest impact on my life once said: “Twice a day, for thirty seconds, find someone and tell them how important they are to you and why.”  That’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten and I try to do that as much as possible, though on this I have again failed from time to time.

I've found that writers are, by and large, kind people.  Maybe all people are kind people.  But not all people are introverts, insecure yet bold enough to share their art and confessions with throngs of attentive aliens.  Not all people will sit up straight when hearing a sentence such as this: "The ocean whispers like a green silk dress."  Not all people will struggle not to cry when they hear a story of sexual abuse read aloud by a writer who is like a brother to them.

I don’t love writers because I’m a writer, but I love writers because they are a lot like me.  It’s like belonging to a tribe, even if it’s a 12,000 person clan and you might only know one tenth of those folks.  We're a quirky lot, diverse to be sure, moody yet inventive, always scribbling and swooning over new pages.

While I was in Minneapolis I kept running into heroes.  They were more plentiful than Starbucks at the airport, or here, in downtown Seattle.  I suppose it would be akin to someone who loves Marvel and DC comics attending a Comic Con fair.  These were some of the Supermen and Superwomen I was lucky enough to talk with:  Mike Joyce, Michael Seidlinger, Jim Ruland, Scott Waldyn, Deanna Arvans, Brandi Wells, Jessamyn Smith, Gay Degani, Kathy Fish, Matt Bell, Kim Barnes, Chantal Corcoran, Lori Ostlund, Doriana Lareua, Julie Dernoff Larson, Teri Lee Kline, Larissa Shmailo, Anna March, Anna Short, Antonia Crane, Kim Chinquee, Rae Bryant, xTx, Roxane Gay, Casey Hannan, Joseph Quintela, Zoe Zolbrod, Wendy Ortiz, Krista Madsen, Shaindel Beers, Bill Yarrow, Richard Peabody, Gessy Alvarez, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Sam Snoek-Brown, Ben Tanzer, Dane Bahr, Sean Doyle, Jane Aegerter Marshall, Ellen Bass, as well as these very special people: Robert Vaughan, Meg Tuite, Karen Stefano, Robert P. Kaye and Sara Lippmann.

I probably forgot a lot of people.  Brain cells were dropped on the floor there, like dandruff when you run your fingers through your hair.  The nights started early and ended early in the early morning.  Some people got drunk and silly, but it was a good silly-drunkeness, and most importantly, no one judged.

My plane there took off three hours late.  We sat on the tarmac the whole time.  That allowed me to read an entire book, Lidia Yuknovich’s “Dora: A Headcase” which was really good.

The plane was loaded with writers, all of us headed to Minneapolis.  No one complained the entire time.  The plane crew felt very bad and were sincere in their apologies, even humorously mocking themselves many times.  It was a frustrating few hours, but a testimony to the goodness of people, their patience and acceptance.

I guess I learned more about people than writing this trip, and that’s okay, that’s really good actually.  I always want to be a better person than I am, and few things are more helpful than seeing your flaws lit up and reflected in the good qualities of others.

Here are some quotes I heard during my four day stretch that I rather liked:

 “The greatest work of art is to love someone.” Vincent Van Gogh

“Greif can be its own kind of art.” Laura Orem

“Sweat is emotion’s best dialogue.” Tim Jones-Yelvington

“Regret is a great emotion because it teaches us.” Ben Percy

“We all have our box of quivering shame.” Antonia Crane

“Violets have a lesbian streak.” Cate Dicharry

“So much good has come to the world when people have said, ‘Fuck this shit.’” Ben Percy

--IT GETS REALLY LONELY, YOU KNOW?

…In a few minutes, I’m jumping in my car, heading to Sea-Tac, and then to Minneapolis for a rowdy writer’s conference.

I think I’m nervous, but I’m not sure.  I know I’ll be more anxious once I arrive.

10,000 writers is a lot of writers.  I always wonder why there aren’t more readers in the world if there is such a plethora of MFA programs.

I’m going to take good notes and make better use of my time this go round.  It’s easy to miss a lot and waste hours.

Wish me luck…

…I hope the rest of your week is filled with wonderful happenings.  In the meantime, here are some things to ponder:

“Different is good.  So don’t fit in.  Don’t sit still.  Don’t every try to be less than what you are.” Angelina Jolie

“No matter what we do, no matter how hard we work to raise our children, we mess them up.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Sissy Spacek

“We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind with a tender heart.”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A lot of girls growing up in India do not realize the beauty of their beautiful tan skin tone. Skin lightening products are a big seller in the Indian cosmetics industry. On one of my trips to Los Angeles someone walked up to me and said "You have the most beautiful caramel-chocolate skin." In LA, everyone is sunbathing or going to tanning shops; I wish the 1.2 billion people in India could have a little peek onto this culture and appreciate what they have. “

-Freida Pinto, Indian star of Slumdog Millionaire

“It takes a lot of bravery to look around you and see the world not as it is but as it should be.  A world where the quarterback becomes best friends with the gay kid and the girl with the big nose ends up on Broadway.” Sue Sylvester, “Glee”

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso

“Your children are your immortality.” John Walsh

“Your naked body should only belong to the one who falls in love with your naked soul.” Charlie Chaplin

“Wealth still failed to impress him; the purpose of money was to purchase one's freedom to pursue that which was useful and interesting.”  H. W. Brands, in his biography of Benjamin Franklin

“A woman is like a tea bag.  You can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too.  They live inside us, and sometimes they win.” Stephen King

“Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they've stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments.”  Kevin Costner

--THERE’S A CROWD OF YOU

                                                           

                                                                       Gone

            Pop says we’ve been living in this abandoned rail car since before the dawn of mankind.  My father’s a person of contradictions because he also says our race is not merely human, our race is always moving, evolving, that it’s stupid to even use the label race at all. 

He claims we were once tad poles then apes, pharaohs then gunslingers, rum runners then executives, and now we just happen to be vagrants.

            When I look around me, if I holler or run miles in any direction, I come back without much reason to doubt him.  It’s just snow-covered nothingness.  The nearest town is three hours over rugged terrain.

            On the top of Ivory Hill, I can shout and whatever message I yell tumbles down the snow-encrusted valley and boomerangs back to me, frozen and husky, my words the same, only older-sounding.

            Still I don’t like knowing there’s nothing else, no God, no chance of me ever meeting my mother.  It’s sickening to think this is all there is.

            Pop says my mother died when I was a tot, that she stepped on a rusty nail and her leg swelled up and then the rest of her, too, and that was the end.  Sometimes I think: well, if a person can die from a piece of dirty metal, anything must be possible, the truth is untrustworthy, and God can’t be real because he would never be so petty or cruel, and when I share this, Pops says, “That’s right, son.  Now you get it.”

            On occasion visitors show up, usually people who’ve fallen off course or else drifters who know exactly where they are and what they’re doing, but not necessarily why.

            A few days ago Mel and Robby arrived out of nowhere, acting like they knew us, like they were relatives.  Robby is part Eskimo, part Native American Indian, but mostly he’s made of whiskey.  His sweat and breath reek of booze.  Even his eyes have a topaz tint to them.

            Mel is all Indian.  She’s a nice lady, slow moving and gentle, the way the infirm are.  She showed me how to braid my hair and gave me a turquoise clip to use and keep. 

Yesterday we walked out to Ivory Hill together and I held her hand and pretended she was Mother.  Mel might have suspected what I was doing because she drew me into her chest and squeezed until I could hear our two hearts bumping against each other.

When I asked her about God, Mel said she knew about my mother’s death and Pop’s ideology.

“But is he real?” I asked. 

She said, “Close your eyes and ask.”

So I did.  I shouted, “Are you there God?” and as in past times my words flew but bounced back and hit my lips like a blunt kiss.

When I opened my eyes, Mel was gone.  She was gone but her prints were there and her heart still beat next to mine.

--DO YOU KNOW ANY GOOD SECRETS?

“It is to books that I owe everything that is good in me.” Maxim Gorky

Gorky could interchange “books” with “stories” or even “words,” “sentences” perhaps.  After re-reading Karen Stefano’s story collection “The Secret Games of Words,” I’m made to think any of these could be true.

“In medias res” is a Latin term writers are supposed to know and act on.  It means, to begin in scene.  Stefano does this expertly and always.  Each piece begins with a sizzle or a quandary or a question, all of which make the reader want to know and learn and feel more, which is at the heart of great story-telling.  Opening lines like these are utterly compelling:

--For no good reason we hate her.

--Mother won’t let me in the water.

--The day our stepmother, Ruthie, served us meatloaf sandwiches for lunch, you took a bite and pretended not to gag.

--Every night when I called my mother she asked the same question, “What are you making Mark for dinner?” though she knew I worked days and didn’t cook.

--Lodged in that space between dreaming and waking, a shrill noise ripples inside my ears.

--The doctor asks if I’ll agree to take some tests.

--It’s my turn to deliver the eulogy.

--Dear Dr. No.

…and on and (graciously) on…

To read a first sentence like these and to not read on requires the kind of willpower a junkie might need to abstain from overlooking a coffee table lined with rows of cocaine or horse or ...

It’s a rare gift to be able to create situations, fraught with danger, apprehension or misgiving , to make them fresh and vibrant and utterly new, yet Stefano does this with an  apparent ease again and again even as the reader feels his or her skin itch, his or her heart beating like a jack rabbit.

Many of the stories center around maternal relationships, broken relationships, or a rapport turned thread-bare over time.  The way in which Stefano is able to break open the yoke of parent-child fragility and characterize it truthfully—even through hurt and heartache and mundane annoyance—is captured so realistically as to make the reader pause and reflect on the mirror placed in front of their own face, their own life, their own misdeeds, regrets and wishes.

The collection is striking for many reasons, if not most for its complexity.  Things are excavated, issues laid to waste.  Each story contains its fair share of damage and frailty and yearning and obstinacy, told in exacting prose.  No single story will let the reader sit in an authoritative or comfortable state, because there are spikes and jukes aplenty throughout that hit your funny bone, your scalp and skull, your aorta, all in kind.

In one piece we see the tag, in bold: Love has disappointed me.  It’s such a stark statement, and yet so relatable.  Who, if anyone, has been so lucky to escape this realization?  Stefano takes us deep inside our own hormones, showing how duplicitous thought and emotion can be, aided and abetted by dopamine or concocted images of perfect, unstrung love, and she does so expertly.

Even the titles of each story are deliciously tantalizing:

IN DEFENSE OF MEMORY LOSS

THE MAN ON THE SIDEWALK BELONGS TO ME

HOW TO READ YOU FATHER’S OBITUARY

THE ASYMMETRICAL SCIENCE OF LOVE

SARA TURNER’S SUBLIME TIMELINE OF GRIEF

THINGS I TRY TO DO WELL

UNDONE

RESCUE

It’s a good ride throughout, one that will leave you wondering about your own fidelity, your own sphere of joy and loss.  Maybe you’ll be gasping by the end.  If anything, you certainly won’t be bored.

Reading “The Secret Games of Words” is like reading something you wish you would have written, were you brave enough to.  It’s like peeling back your skin to the seventh layer and saying, “I am laid bare, but here I am.”

--DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT THIS PLACE?  YOU CAN BE INVISIBLE AGAIN

…It’s Friday.  The weekend is looming.  The sun’s doing its best to push through the cloud cover.  My dog is sleeping below my chair, her snout on my right foot.

That should be enough to make a person happy, and it is.

In six days I’ll be heading to Minneapolis for a writer’s conference.  This is one of the wilder events.  It’ll be terrific to be around 10,000 other writers.  Kind of orgasmic actually.  And there’ll be a lot of good friends in attendance.

I’m doing two readings, which is not my favorite thing.  I have to figure out which pieces to read and they have to be short—4 minutes or less.  Yikes.

One of the things I’m thinking of reading is the story below.  I live on a lake and have seen one of those launchers but have never used one.  Honest:

                                                              The Launcher

That summer we were bored or stoned when we could afford to be.  It was Barry’s brilliant notion to build the thing but I didn’t have any ideas of my own so I went with his, which was the start of our trouble.

            It looked like a homemade bazooka, made of plastic and duct tape, because that’s what it was, more or less.

            “Do these things have a name?” I asked.

            Barry said, “Hell if I know.  What’s it matter?”

            So we called it The Launcher and started off with spuds.  Barry’s mom had a twenty pound bag of them.  They looked like aborted infants, only solid and heavy.  They sailed into the sky, hung there for an astounding thirty seconds before landing in a violent splatter.  It felt like discounted murder without any of the consequences.

            When we ran out of potatoes we used every other vegetable we could find—tomatoes and squash, zucchini, cabbage.  We moved onto solids out of necessity.  First it was soda cans, then soda bottles.  The shattered glass sizzled, hissing at us like pissed off snakes.

            Looking back I suppose those potatoes were something of a gateway drug because we got over them real quick, yet their minor thrill left us wanting more, a different fix that might kick-start some sedentary neuron in our brains.

            We went to the pet store and bought two litters of mice.  I can still recall their furious scratching in the bag behind my car seat.  Their breathing was husky.  I found it fascinating that they never squeaked because in every mouse story I’d ever read there always seemed to be a lot of squeaking or squealing.

            Barry’s house was a dilapidated cabin that his grandfather had built a hundred years ago.  It leaned eastward, toward the rising sun, and from a certain angle you might have thought it had lost balance and was about to fall into the water.

            Chain Lake was no more than two blocks long and maybe one block wide on the other side.  I never thought we’d hit the guy’s house.  If I’d believed we could, if Barry had, we would have tried first thing.

            As it happened, the third mouse landed on the old geezer’s roof.  It surprised me how dull and empty the resonance of death could be—nothing but a thud and short skid sound.  It depressed and disappointed me.  I thought of my parents and wondered if they had gasped or screamed before that car hit them.  

            We shot two mice at a time.  I don’t know what I expected.  Perhaps I thought of my cartoon watching days and that they’d clasp their furry paws like a varmint couple desperate to enter the afterlife conjoined.  But they just flew apart and landed apart, two separate thud-and-skid noises.

            Uncle Rory says things happen.  It can be fate or it can be God’s busy.  When I broke his windshield with a bat he didn’t seem such a believer in fate.  Or the time I lit the drapes on fire and almost burned the house down.  His notion of fate was dropping me off at juvie and letting some other sucker adopt me.  When they arrest you they put your wrists in handcuffs.  Feels like glass cutting into your skin.  Feels like chains and you feel like a slave or the very criminal you were meant to be.  Ha, so maybe that is fate.

            Across the lake, the old man came out of the house around the time we were nearly finished.  Barry took off, dust vapors rising up where he had been.

            I watched the guy sight me with his rifle, heard him yell, “One more time.  Go ahead.  I ain’t afraid to shoot.”

            It felt like someone had given me a belated birthday present.  I loaded the launcher, pulled the makeshift trigger, puffed out my chest and waited.

--YOU DON’T SEEM TO LIKE ME VERY MUCH, BUT THAT’S OKAY

 Soul Patch

Every family is damaged.  That’s one of the things Mr. Cavanaugh taught us.  He was speaking about the Montagues and Capulets, but he said it could apply to modern day.  For instance:  if you searched long and deep enough you’d find hideous secrets stuffed in any family’s old shoe box, even the Obama’s.

It’s hard to believe this was Mr. Cavanaugh’s first year teaching, or that he’s so young, because he’s the wisest person I’ve ever known.  Even the Dali Lama or Jesus would have their hands full debating a guy like Mr. Cavanaugh.

Sometimes when he’s speaking I go blind studying his musculature, imagining him naked.  My thoughts aren’t vulgar, just as Michelangelo’s David is not considered obscene.  I go deaf watching Mr. C’s lips move, wondering about their pulpiness.  And that blonde hair of his, curly and long as a surfer’s—it’s a queer shimmering shade that looks as if it has actual sand crystals in it.  How many nights have I imagined his head on my lap, staring at me pearly-eyed and wistful while I fingered those locks?

It’s a crush, I know.  But I’m not the only girl—just look around.  I’m only the fattest.

I heard the others talking in the restroom.  They never care that I eavesdrop as long as I hang back a ways.  I’m large but I’m also invisible most of the time.

Candy Reeb tells all her friends how she’d do him in a heartbeat.  You have to understand who Candy Reeb is to get the full import of such a declaration.  Candy is just like her name: delicious, tempting, and too good to be true.  I’ve been in love with her since second grade when Mom moved us here from Oregon, and that was seven years ago.  Candy has honey-colored hair and she uses such a heavy dose of strawberry lip-gloss that you can see and smell her from half a block away.  She’s tall but thin, with boobs.  I’ve seen them in the showers.  She has a bush of pubes, too.  One week she came to school and the entire bush was gone except for this astonishing, frail V pattern.  We all noticed.  Everything Candy does gets attention, so when she says she’d do Mr. Cavanaugh in a heartbeat, that’s really saying something.

                                                            ***

 We moved to Renton last year.  Mom said it was because of the divorce and that she’d met Butch, but I knew the real reason.   She won’t say, but I know.

                                                            ***

 

In ancient times philosophers were the brilliant people of the day.  Heidegger, Kant, Sartre, Voltaire …..  If time travel existed Mr. Cavanaugh could journey back and he’d fit right in with any of those guys.  The stuff he says.  For instance: “Life is wakefulness.”  I mean, Wow! right?  And he catches material others overlook, like Alice Cooper, this snake-wearing precursor to Marilyn Manson who was big in the seventies, the same one that wrote “School’s Out,” well he also wrote another song called, “Only Women Bleed” which is not necessarily what you think it’s about.  It’s a ballad dealing with misogyny and how women pay the price day after day, night after night, so that men can go on playing hero.  Sample lyrics:

“He lies right at you.

You know you hate this game.

He hits you once in awhile and you live and love in pain.

Only women bleed.  Only women bleed.  Only women bleed.”

It was a sacrifice to take my eyes off him because class is just fifty-five minutes, but I knew about Ali Larson and her cutting, just as everyone did—the skin around her wrists scarred like a burn-victim.  When Mr. C played that song off his IPod and wrote the words on the blackboard, I watched Ali’s eyes tear up and I felt such a kinship with her that I started crying, too, only I fell ass-over-tea-kettle into hysterics.  I hate how I look when I’m bawling.  For the longest time my nickname has been Buddha even though I’m not Asian.  When I’m upset like that I’m a wedding cake of blubber stirring up an earthquake.  It’s gross, sure, but what was I supposed to do?  Mr. C couldn’t have been more than a baby when that song came out, yet he found it somehow and made perfect, poetic use of the message in order that Ali and all of us young women would know we’re more than sex organs, body parts and free labor.  I mean, that kind of man, a feminist really, he’s sort of a God, don’t you think?

Class was getting out soon anyway, so Mr. Cavanaugh dismissed the group.  Just as I would have expected, he knelt down and asked if I was okay, if I needed anything.  I buried my face in my hands but he pried my fingers apart, like plucking jungle vines out of your path, and spoke directly to me.

His eyes were such a shade of blue that I panicked and just… well, I just grabbed him.  I took Mr. Cavanaugh in my arms and pushed his sandy-haired head right up under my chin, cheek to neck.  I could smell his Axe cologne and a twinge of pineapple in his hair from the conditioner he used.  He let me hold him longer than I thought.  The extra weight I carry provides me with an ample bosom and I pressed slightly against him, wondering if the gesture would register.  Out of habit, my hand dropped lower, but he stepped back and that’s when the idea came to me.  I was ashamed at first, but the more I considered my options the more I convinced myself.  I was thinking about Darwin.

                                                            ***

My mother’s new boyfriend has his hang up’s, too.

“Call me Daddy.  Do it, or I swear, I’ll kill you right here.”

It doesn’t usually take much prodding for me to respond to Butch.  I’ve played the game plenty of times, I know the rules.  I say whatever I’m told, same as I did with my own blood father.  It’s not as if my pride gets in the way, but tonight while he’s on top of me I keep thinking about Mr. C.  “Every family is damaged.”    How does he know, I wonder?  Maybe he’s making this all up, a fraud?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

“Say it!”

“You feel nice, Daddy.”

“Good girl.”

Not much surprises me anymore. 

                                                            ***

                       

            I confessed many things to Mr. Cavanaugh.  I told him about my father’s visits but I didn’t let on about Butch.  Mr. C wanted to call the police, of course, but I’d made him promise.  I had gotten to know him so well that I was certain he’d never break such a vow. 

            He wanted me to see a counselor, or a shrink, but I told him he was the only one I trusted, and as I said it I raised my quivering chin.  I’d practice that maneuver in the mirror all week.  I stalled my pupils, probably looking cross-eyed or possessed.  He took me in his arms, scared.  Laura Pixley walked in on us.  Mr. Cavanaugh’s back was to the door and I was shrieking pretty hard, so he never even heard a thing.  I was impressed with myself and the fine actress I’d become because I didn’t miss a beat.  I continued to cry even as I gave Laura an assured wink.

           

Our “Check-ins” as he calls them were on Fridays.  I could tell they were wearing thin.  His eyes no longer centered fully on mine, even if I sobbed or threw an epileptic fit. 

            That’s how I knew he was a sham, because of his eyes. 

            But when I told him how all the girls in class thought he was handsome and how some wanted to sleep with him, that’s when his body tensed in alertness.  He’d never say, “Go on, tell me more,” and he didn’t have to because his silence was the answer for what he wanted.  Men usually don’t have to give much away in terms of direction.  “Like who says what?” was what Mr. C thought and wondered, so I gave him a story about Candy Reeb.  In a bold move I described the V insignia she’d shaved above her pudendum, and he squirmed uncomfortably, but didn’t tell me to stop talking.

And that’s when the raw remainder of my desire bled away and I knew my plan was fine, that I had nothing to be ashamed of.

I said, “You should grow a soul patch.”  He asked what that was and I told him Candy’s ex, Austin Dodson had one.  I explained that a soul patch was not a beard or a goatee but a strip of hair hipsters grew out just below their lip so that it imparted a shadow effect.

He said, “I’m not a kid, you know.”  Sure, but the truth was Mr. C wanted to hear me say he might as well be one, he looked that young.

Instead I played hard to get.  “Suit yourself,” I said, walking out. 

                                                            ***

            So many important events happened in the school restroom that I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Still, no matter how prepared you think you are, it’s like a car crash the first time Candy Reeb looks in your eyes and says your name, even if the name is a nickname.

            “Hey, Buddha.”

            “Hey, Candy.”  Her name stuck in my throat like a Jolly Rancher, sugary but also cutting off my wind.

            “She’s gonna blow!” Ashley Moynihan said.  “Oh my god, her face is turning purple.”

            I swallowed and thought of Butch to settle myself.

            “What’s this I hear about you and Mr. C?”

            “What do you want to know?”  I couldn’t believe how suave I was.  My knees weren’t shaking anymore and my voice felt velvety, as if I was spewing lotion-coated words.

            When she asked for details I gave her more than she bargained for.  She and Ashley were sitting on the sink counter and Morgan Porter was handling the door so that no one could come in until Candy gave the okay.  They were eating out of my hand.  However, I could tell Candy only half-believed me.  My experiences with Dad and Butch lent an air of authenticity to the descriptions I spewed, and I saw her confounded expression as she tried to reconcile what she was hearing with what she saw—me, fat, lard-ass me.

            “Anyway, he’s going to grow a soul patch.  He said it’d be a sign of how he feels about us as a couple.“

            “Yeah, right.”

            “See for yourself,” I said.  Cutting them off was the most difficult part of the entire episode.  I was talking to Candy Reeb, for goodness sake.  Candy Reeb!  But will power is key in situations such as the one I found myself.  I cleared my throat and Morgan Porter opened the door and I walked out of the restroom fighting hard not to skip or squeal.

                                                                        ***

            At first Butch was intrigued by my back-talk.  It must have sounded like a come-on, so I growled and spat in his face.  He called me a bitch.  I bit his hand and he slapped me.  I told him to hit me again and he complied.  This went on for some time.

                                                                        ***

Despite my condition, Principal Gergen seemed skeptical until Laura Pixley showed up and validated my incriminations.  I didn’t have a hard time looking Mr. C in the eye or anything like that.  I’d rehearsed.  Moreover, I focused my attention on the soul patch he’d grown, the conclusive, convicting evidence.

            I don’t know where Mr. C ended up.  I do think of him sometime.  He’s a smart man, so I’m certain he’s in good shape wherever he is.

            I’ve started working out but the truth is I’ve gained about six pounds.  Candy, Morgan and Laura never mention my weight.  No one does.  I’ve fit right in, maybe even more than that.  I’m something of a legend around our school.