—FLY ME TO THE MOON

 

Milky Way

 

 

Middle 5^th grade. Mrs. Marshall, with her witch’s gray-black hair and glue-colored face, tells me to stay after.

My classmates, none of whom I’ve ever spoken to, shuffle out while taking turns, looking back at me with a mixture of curiosity, pity and disgust.

Mrs. Marshall sits on the edge of the desk, her hands flat matts, fingers gripping the edge. She looks me over as if I’m something to be sold, or ignored altogether.

“Mr. Kuntz, is it? Len?”

I nod, suddenly having to urinate.

“You don’t like science, do you?”

“I—”
“Just tell the truth.”

“No.”

Mrs. Marshall flings a finger in the air like a poison dart, pointing over my shoulder. “That on the projector there, on the screen, that’s The Milky Way.”

I look over my shoulder and take in the purple swirls with the yellow bellybutton center. 

“How does it make you feel when you look at it? Turn around and give it a close inspection, since you didn’t bother in class.”

I hadn’t really seen it before. I was too anxious, thinking of bedsheets.

“Well?”

“It’s, uh, uh, pretty.”

“It makes you feel pretty?” 

“No, I mean, not me.”

“What you’re looking at is 100,000 light years in diameter.”

I scrubbed hard prior to school, before dawn. I used the hottest water my bathroom sink could cough up. I scoured so hard my knuckles bled and are now raw and pink-tender.

“The Milky Way is nearly 14 billion years old. It contains about 200 billion stars.”

I figure Mrs. Marshall is fibbing about this last part. I’ve only seen twelve whole stars in my lifetime. Maybe she’s like Mother, a pathological liar.

“How does that make you feel?”

I hung my sheets on the low branch of an evergreen in the backyard behind our trailer. It was too dark to see if the stains were still there.

         “Mr. Kuntz, are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then?”

“I guess I feel confused.”

“It’s NOT confusing! It’s science.”

The bar of soap I use is worn down to a nub no bigger than a rabbit’s foot. It might be good for two more washings. 

“Does it make you feel small?”

Months ago, the trailer door chain came off its socket, and instead of the belt, that’s what Mother uses when I can’t control my body, when I should know better.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“I feel small and tiny, like a spec of dirt on a picture,” I say, because that’s what Mrs. Marshall wants to hear, and because that’s how I feel every minute of every day. 

Mrs. Marshall starts to smile, but swallows it like a yawn she won’t let escape.

If I skip the bus and tear through Lemley’s field, I’ll have a chance to make it home before mother gets off work. From the last school bell, it’s a differential of fifty-three minutes. It’s tight, but I’ve done it before.

“Is everything okay at home, Len?” My name sounds distrustful in her voice, like a smiling adult who seems safe but wants to touch you too much.

“Yes,” I lie.

She clucks her tongue, rocks back and forth on the desk and then hops up into a standing position. I flinch involuntarily, thinking she is going to strike me. Instead, she looks down on me like an eagle about to snatch prey.

“You’ve nothing else to say?”

I shake my head, feeling a warm spray spread across my crotch.

“I want you to write a 500-word essay on The Milky Way tonight.”

I have the cows to milk and feed, the chickens, their coop to clean. But before any of that, I have the sheets.

“You’re not retarded, are you?”

I’ve been called that so many times, I often wonder.

“Okay, then I look forward to reading your paper tomorrow.” 

After Mrs. Marshall’s gone, I stare at the image of the galaxy.  It reminds me of a sink sucking down spools of holy water, or two dance partners where they twirl over the floor, so in love and in unison, it’s as if they’re pasted together for all time. 

Two kids, peering through the near-shut door, shoot a series of rubber bands, one nicking my nose. “Bullseye!”

I just want to sit here, talking to no one, trying not to let The Milky Way swallow me whole, while counting breaths, getting my legs and feet kick-started. This afternoon, I decide, when the last bell clangs, I will be the fastest man alive. I’ll run and run, and no one will ever catch me.