23
Bridge Over Troubled Water
===========MARY============
The drug companies would make a killing if they sold whatever I was jacked up on, on the streets. Either from a deep sleep, or solid trip, I floated back to consciousness. Seriously though, by the time I fluttered my eyes open, it took me a second after recognizing the Sgt. Pepper's poster that I was in Danny's room. His bare feet stuck out from under the blanket as he slept opposite me, his face ballooning out like a baby's with his breathing. A draft tousled the blinds. I shook Danny's foot, waking him up.
He groggily recapped the entire episode for me. Only when he went through the events, play by play, did I remember. Even the beach was nothing more than a fog. Apparently, I suffered from something that I couldn't dare say, but was written on a treatment guide prescribed by the doctor: enophthalmos.
Danny was pleased with how significantly better he said I looked. When I winced in pain after jerking my head too fast, Danny busted out one of my painkillers. Yay, more drugs.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, popping open the lid of the vial and handing me the capsule clipped in his fingers.
"Well, I'm not seeing double anymore," I said, and downed the pill with a glass of water. Danny smiled and said that was good, and then we didn't say anything for a long time.
Through the half-lowered blinds, the dim overcast light threw strips of shadows across his body and the poster-wall behind him. A narrow column of light crossing over his brow pulled the hidden green coloring out of his brown eyes.
The last time I was in Danny's room, I had assumed he was just a weird guy who still had a thing for Pokémon. But understanding him better, or perhaps harboring an unrealized compassion, or perhaps now feeling I had not the right to judge him because he firsthand experienced the chaos of my life, I viewed his childhood décor from a different perspective. Pinup babes and music equipment and rock posters only stood paces in front of the video game stickers and delicate obscuring of the Toy Story figurines.
Danny's life was captured in collective evidence all around his room. Atop of old posters were plastered new ones. Books and biographies were stacked in rows on his shelves in front of graphic novels, and behind those were picture books with dinosaurs. Nothing discarded, nothing ever let go. Even the closet, which was cracked open (with Raquel's stretch-marked belly hanging out again), held stacks and rows of clothes I had never seen him wear.
The light from the lower half of the window, unconcealed by the blinds, shone earnestly on the marker drawings taped up on the far wall. Taking a closer look this time around, I saw pirate ships, spaceships, and racecars. All of them featuring cartoon characters on some sort of adventure, and realized the gallery of doodles told a story. Every page, the embodiment of a little boy's sense of imagination. The evidential baby steps to the stories that would become the lyrics to the songs he wanted to write.
"Are those marks from your kid drawings?" I asked while looking down at the multi-colored etches on the hardwood floor.
"Uh. Oh yeah," he said, following my gaze to the ground. But then the words he silently formed on his lips fell off, and his eyes took on an inward quality as he stared down at that spot on the floor for a long, long time. "We used to draw in my room all the time."
"We?"
"My brother—and I."
"Is your brother's name Connor?"
"Yeah, yeah. It is," he said. So Connor was the other boy on the family photo wall, not an old Kindergarten friend. He then asked, "How do you know?"
"You left a drawing in your sketchbook with his name," I said and left it at that. I had questions, but I did not want to pry. For I began to wonder, with everything that had happened between us, why was I in his room to begin with? The memory of his hands on me crept into my mind, but I was too weak, too desperate for the safety Danny made me feel to let it flood my thoughts.
After a minute, Danny got up to put on a record he said I would probably like. I certainly wasn't in any position to argue. Most likely because I didn't really care what music he wanted to listen to.
He went to lift the plastic case off his turntable and replaced whatever record was on there with Untitled Album and dropped the needle. First, it was silent, and then with a thump and the crackling grains, the first strings of a guitar sounded. Danny sat back down on the bed, opposite me, as the singer, with nothing but a lonely sounding guitar and a lonelier sounding voice, filled the space. We sat through a handful of songs without saying a word.
Danny's eyes were locked on the window. I made off and on glances at him, I wanted to see the rare green in his eyes again. Despite the welcome numbness of the painkiller, the constant movement of my eye began to make my head hurt. With his fingers curled under his lip, he looked deep in thought. I considered asking him what he was thinking. Danny had never been that quiet with me before.
Eventually, we made disjointed eye contact. My head erupted. My eye screamed. It was as if I could feel some sort of ooze from the glands slowly encrusting my eye shut. Inside, I had what felt like guilty butterflies. I just wanted to be anywhere else. He was being mean by not talking to me. I was so ashamed of myself. I hated myself.
My eye rapidly throbbed, as if it were bubbling. I felt so ugly. My appearance repulsed him. I just knew it. His bedroom was a place of peace; I didn't deserve to be there. At the end of the day, I knew what I was. And despite being crazy and ugly, as well as homeless and trash, I wasn't good enough for him. I didn't deserve him. After all, I had to con him back to me with the disease of misfortune that was my life.
And then, out of nowhere, he laughed.
For a regretful split-second, I believed everything I had felt was true and wanted to die. But then it occurred to me that I had my thumb wedged up my nostril, and I was scraping crusted snot off my nose ring. I plucked my thumb away and looked at the disgusting crud collected beneath my nail. My glance shot from my thumb to him. Danny's laugh arrived in silent heaves. I couldn't help but join him. I felt so stupid, but I didn't feel so ugly anymore.
===========DANNY============
The rain swept over the street in hard white lines. Tattering periodically against the road as if pounded out from the base of a marching-band drum. The ceaselessly redirecting wind fluxed the trees and whipped through the leaves mourning in coarse whispers.
The weather was far from favorable, and the umbrella Mary and I sheltered behind was all too determined to blow away with every new change in the wind. But braving the storm was a challenge, and the challenge had made it fun.
If anything, I was happy to be getting along with Mary again. It began to feel like old times, and I began to miss her, even though she was right beside me. Maybe I knew then that our time together wasn't going to last forever.
Gradually, the weather receded into a gentle rainfall, and in place of the storm, we talked.
"...And that's when I realized I was the only girl without a mom." Mary sniffled, not from crying, but from the chill of the damp air. "It was the worst day of my life," she continued, unveiling the piece from her past as we walked through the misty evening.
The details of the letter that came attached with the roses were revealed to me.
From behind the metal stick of the umbrella, I caught a glimpse of her eyes fixed steadfastly on the sidewalk ahead as she talked. While I listened to Mary go on about all the pain she kept buried away, much to my own inner-disappointment, my thoughts were on her eye. I did not want to internally, let alone verbally, acknowledge that the position of her bruised eye looked a little askew, as if it were lazy. I then dismissed the thought entirely by assuring myself that once the swelling went down, the alignment of her eye would return to normal.
"If your parents never paid for singing lessons or whatever—you just didn't do those things. It sucked, Danny. Watching all the other girls get to do all these little girl things, that, like, even if I wanted to do, I couldn't."
Though her pain clawed something out from my heart, it felt like a reward; the reward for loving Mary was getting to know Mary. Getting to know her story.
A car came quickly around the corner, slashing through a puddle. Mary tugged the hood of the sweater I had lent her over her black eye.
That night, the one where Mary had wandered aimlessly alone, disoriented in spirit, fractured in body and mind, when she had left—been forced out of—her house with nothing but a T-shirt on, she found a sweater in a tipped over shopping-cart in a parking lot. I threw that ragged thing out at the hospital. I also threw out a pair of scissors she had with her. We never talked about the use of those scissors. Ever.
The rain had picked up again and pelted the umbrella in dull taps as we paraded through the backstreets of my neighborhood. I then caught myself pulling down my own hood, and imagined what people were thinking as they drove by Mary and I walking under the giant umbrella with our faces hidden in our hoodies. We probably looked like some goth couple, and maybe we were. Jesus Christ, those two kids were sad.
The marching-band played on though, because I guess neither of us really cared what the world driving by thought.
Later on, at some point past midnight, in the deep heart of the night, Mary turned to me in bed. By then, my eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, and her damaged eye looked like nothing more than a black stain on the blue velvet of her midnight lit face.
Earlier that evening, I heard Mom come home and listened to her feet pad across the hallway as she walked by to her room without stopping. We had yet to reconcile any of our words from before.
From outside the open window, I could hear water trickling off the eaves, and the air rolling into my room was cold and pure, replenished after being ravaged by the rainstorm.
Mary put her hand on my neck and began caressing my face. Running her palm against my cheek, enveloping my ear in the cradle of her thumb. Then using the short edges of her nails to stroke my scalp, a nerve-tingling warmth spread throughout my body and would have relaxed me to sleep if she hadn't pulled herself closer, and then said in a voice bearing the ache of a little girl's adolescent lust, "Kiss me."
We couldn't possibly find a way to go deeper. If a thrust driven with the right measure of passion could have entwined our bodies forever, I would have without a doubt complied.
With the momentum increasing each time our bodies clasped together, the louder the slapping of flesh on flesh became, the more and more I became annihilated by the complete enrapture of her. It was a renewing miracle each time Mary's body pushed back in a rhythm of her own. The feeling of her muscles tightening beneath me. The gasps parting her lips followed by the rolling back of her eyes. The sudden replacing of arms. The bending of her knee as her leg slid across the sheet. The gown of her hair caught between our bodies beading with sweat; her fragrance arising from the heat. The frequent putter of breaths so fragile, the exhalations of pain and pleasure.
"Danny."
"Mary."
"My eye," she gasped.
"S-sorry." I immediately stopped.
"Don't stop."
So I didn't stop. Then she started crying.
"I'll stop," I said.
"No. It just hurts."
"This hurts?"
"No," she sniffed. "My eye."
Despite the hypnotic pull of the physical rhythm, the endless motion it demanded, I made sure to be gentle, so impossibly gentle. Eventually, we stopped moving altogether, but remained inseparable. Our threaded arms linked our chests together. My lips grazed her earlobes, I breathed her in—an invisible memory of Beach Baby perfume. We were still in a motionless silence until my body couldn't bear the desire and nature took her course. I looked to Mary's eyes for the answer. Her reaction assured there would be no repercussions.
I love you, I thought.
"Thank you," she whispered and snuggled closer.
I had no clue what she was thanking me for, and I was disappointed that my imagination had gotten ahead of itself, but I whispered back, "You're welcome."
Mary clutched me tighter; her naked skin on mine was still warm and silky with sweat. The weight of her body made me conscious of my breathing. Other than the random thumping of pulses, the low hum from the cooling unit somewhere in my room, and the tack of the curtains, all else was quiet. And then, from out of that silence, half-spoken into the pillow, Mary whispered, "I don't want to be homeless." And looked up at me.
"You won't be," I said, before remembering that this wasn't a problem that simply having faith in a better tomorrow could fix, and so my consolation ended there.
I realized then that language had a limited effect. There weren't always going to be the divinely ordained words that would chime like golden notes in the ears of the broken. My tongue was finally at a loss. In place of speaking, I showed my affection by holding her closer. Rubbing my foot against hers beneath the blanket to soothe and keep her warm.
Mary began shivering; her convulsing body shook the bedsheet off my shoulder. She started crying meek and whispered sobs.
"I swear, Danny," she said through the weight in her throat. "I'm never going to be a shitty parent. I swear to God, I'm never going to put my kids through shit like that. I swear."
Mary then groaned in pain, it had hurt her eye to cry. And I could tell that when she realized that the expelling of pain brought on greater pain, it made her weep more.
I attempted to rely on language once again, to at the very least momentarily take her mind off the pain.
"Mary," I said, "if you are seriously kicked out, why don't you just move in here. With me."
She didn't say anything right away. A dim glow from the digital-clock glimmered behind the outline of her hair.
"Danny—you're moving to California." I felt the words vibrate from her chest as she spoke them.
"I don't have to."
"But your Mom—"
"Then come with us. We'll go together. We'll drive, like we talked about."
She didn't say anything. The cadence of her breathing was enough; I took her silence as an indicator of serious consideration. The glory I dreamed our road-trip would be lightened my thoughts.
After a few uncountable silent minutes, I asked, "Are you asleep?"
"No."
"You know what you told me about your tattoo?"
"Yeah?"
"When you first showed me, that night, in the pool, you said you had it inked by your tits. But, all that night—and now, I can't help but notice that you have it handwritten beside your heart." I gently pressed the pad of my finger along the black words on her ribs: The heart will break, but broken live on.
"Yes, I know," I said. "I'm sorry for being corny."
"Don't be sorry."
"I'm not."
A light gust of wind played with the curtains.
"Danny, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
Then without saying anything, Mary rolled out from the tangle of sheets and stood up. The entirety of her naked figure exposed to me for the first time. Her body's unabashed voluptuosity. Every curve from the swell of her breasts down to the volume of her hips wrapping her stomach was artlessly blossomed for desire. When Mary squatted before my record shelf, the contour of her seat splayed out widely beneath her and bloated her round butt. Then pulling out one of my old notebooks, Mary stood back up. Her full breasts swaying as she turned to face me with the notebook opened just below her nipples.
Mary flipped through individual pages of the book as she walked back and then sat cross-legged on the bed. The notebook sat open cover-to-cover on her thighs, against the folds of her stomach. Then dialing to the page she wanted to find, Mary spun the notebook so I could see what was written on the page.
My mind blanked. Reading what I had written so long ago. I could sense her eyes falling on a never-before seen part of me. The nakedness of my unwelcomed, forlorn mind, exposed by the voracious dashing of ink, sat between us. In a coarse voice, I read aloud what I vainly attempted to pretend was not by any means connected to my psyche.
" 'I want to die,' " I recited. " 'The ladder of life will break. The splintering shards pierced like a stake. Death will make a bitch of us all. Why even climb? You'll fall.' "
I then had to struggle to make out the rest of my hacked handwriting:
" 'Fuck. Fuck.' " It read in bold capital letters. " 'I hate this. I fucking miss you both so much. Fuck.' "
The rest of the page was covered in violent dashes and scribbles. Mary pulled the sheet up over her breasts.
"Why?"
I turned on my pillow, looking out the window. The streetlights and the clouds blinded the stars. A car outside then coughed. The sound of the rain shedding off the shingles slowly faded. I readjusted myself on the bed, discovering a new coldness on the sheets, and then looking out at the colors of midnight in my room, I drew in a deep breath.
"Mary," I said. She looked at me. "My... my Dad, and older brother, Connor—they died." I had finally said after years of holding it in. Vocalizing the events my memory blacked out.
"I think it was, um, nine? Ten? Ten years ago now? It was, uh, after a soccer game, my brother's. I remember my mom offering to go get him, since she couldn't stay for the game because she had to attend to me, or something. But my dad told her he would go. He played in a band, so he toured a lot. And this was just after his band had put out an LP, so he was rarely home. So, he wanted to surprise my brother. And, I, uh, guess, on their way home, a drunk driver crashed—into them. Head on. And, um yeah. That was it. Last time I'd ever seen them both. Yeah. Ten years ago. A decade. Wow. Yeah, wow. An entire decade.
"So, yeah. Sometimes, Mary, death doesn't seem all too bad of an idea, you know? That way I could get to see them just a little bit sooner."
I looked at Dad's guitars, the steel string on his Telecaster still springing out. "I just fucking hate it, Mary. I really fucking hate it."
And that was all I had to say, because that was all there was. Just me and ten years between us. I closed the cover of the notebook and tossed it on the floor. It slid towards my guitars.
Mary wrapped her fingers around my bicep and laid her head on my shoulder.
Soon, she was asleep. I had yet to join her in the realm of slumber because my mind couldn't resist replaying the past. I thought of being a kid. I thought of Dad. I thought of Connor. I thought of the nights he and I would stay up late past our bedtime, drawing on my bedroom floor. The stories we made up, the characters we shared, how I envied how much more talented he was than me. I wonder if he would have grown up to be a brilliant artist.
And then, maybe because I know how quickly the present slips into the past, how even monuments of stone fall to rubble and then return to the dust from which they came, I held Mary tighter. As if holding her tighter would hold the moment for eternity. If I let go, the sun would rise. I wanted the darkness of the night to enshroud us forever.
I kept note of how soft her breasts felt while pushed into my chest with her breathing. I counted my blessings with each of those breaths until I knew she was fast asleep and it was safe to say, "I love you," and let her rhythm soothe me to sleep.
"Don't go any further," Mary said as we idled in my Mustang along the curb hugging the corner of Bayview Avenue. "It would only make shit worse. Believe me."
I didn't doubt Mary, and I was internally relieved.
"Do you want me to wait? What if he—you know?"
"What if my dad was serious about kicking me out?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'll gather my shit and, and, I'll figure it out."
"Will you please call me?"
"Sure."
"And will you also please consider my offer?"
"To go with you to California? Danny—that's—that's," she sighed. "Sure."
Mary tugged on the door handle, springing it open with a pop. Suddenly realizing that she was leaving, and not knowing what would happen to her, unsure of where she planned on going—and definitely without a clue for how long—I made a stupid sound that came out as nothing close to a recognizable word. I bit my tongue because I was on the verge of asking a really stupid question. Mary stared at me with impatient eyes.
"What?"
The cold air crawled in through the open door, making me shiver. Raindrops tacked and began to build on the black vinyl door panel.
"Uh," I began, and then pushed out the following words, each with more forced jubilance than the last. "No—bye, Froo Froo?"
Mary grunted and frowned. She was clueless.
"Oh." Her voice leaped as she clued in. "Right. Ha."
But that was it. A brief smile stretched across her face before dropping back down to a straight sullen line. Mary stepped out of the car and threw back the door.
The sound of the door didn't really indicate if it had closed properly or not. So I leaned over the seats, reopened it, and slammed it again. Mary was already a house down Bayview Avenue when I propped myself back up and looked out the windshield.
Rolling down my window I yelled, "Mary!"
She stopped and looked back at me. The puddles surrounding her feet flashed with white circles. "I'll be waiting for you, okay? I'm not going to go. I'm not going to California without you."
Mary nodded and kept on walking.
I then yelled again, "I'll be waiting!" But my voice may have been lost under the shower of sound.
As I watched Mary walk down the street to her house, pulling up the baggy seams of the sweatpants to avoid dragging the ankles through the puddles, I began to wonder when the last time Mary had called me Froo Froo was. But its final utterance had long since slipped from my memory.
The downpour began to pickup, shifting the rain diagonally across the road. The saturated colors and the blended smell of sweet moisture and wet earth sent a jolt of familiarity through me.
I couldn't help but think that the director was lazy and had already used this set—Mary sunken and sore, crossing the floor of her porch on a rain-drenched afternoon. The vividity of the red roses petals dispersed on her lawn was a snapshot I could readily pull out of the gallery of my memory.
As Mary vanished behind the canvas of her front porch, to the place where untold stories unfolded, I realized something I was too ignorant to understand before. I realized that Mary was doing so much more on that day with the roses and the rain than I ever knew.
Sitting in my car, staring down toward the house she had disappeared into, it officially hit me that there had been no more Froo Froo's or Snoop Dog shirts or inappropriately timed sex jokes, or any of that, once she had to close the case on her mom's life. It could have only been that bleeding faith keeping Mary's playful spirit alive. I realized that she was standing on that rain soaked porch upholding a collapsing world, keeping it from completely falling apart.
Whether it was the squeak of the windshield wipers, or the pummeling of the teardrops on the city, the day provided a rhythm I could get lost to. So, like a musician in the studio who can't find a way to conclude a song, the day and the rain faded until I, the listener, became aware that the track had drifted away.
Later on that night, I had made another vile attempt at writing something in my Lyric Book. I pressed my pen to the page, but had only seemed to let the tip of the ballpoint drift away, leaving a scratched dot in its place.
I then smacked my head back against the headboard.
Allowing the weight of my skull to roll along the carved trim, my eyes landed on my phone sitting under the lamp. All its sleekness, and technological advancement, rendered utterly useless because Mary was the only teenage girl in the world who did not have a phone. She couldn't be contacted through social media because she was afraid of being found. She seemed to intentionally make things more complicated because she could, because she was Mary. That's just what she does.
Life had its way of being unethically timed. For what seemed like years, life had moved along without any rush or direct destination. Now, it felt like everything was speeding up from all directions at once. It was also inconsiderate and did not leave anything like a clue to hint at where it was guiding me—what the right choices to activate my destiny would be.
I picked up my phone, and let my finger glide over the contact list as—for the millionth time—I looked for someone to talk to. When seeing Rob's name on the list, I couldn't completely comprehend that I would never have a real reason to call him again. I called Max. There wasn't an answer.
Hey man. I miss you.
I sent in a text.
My mind refused to settle as I waited for a response I was sure I would never get. With the lights off, I kept rolling over to check my phone on the night table, stimulating my own restlessness, and it became apparent that sleeping wasn't going to be an option. So instead, I lay awake, thinking about everything. California, or not?
Coffined motionless underneath the sheets that, for the first time all summer, felt like they had a purpose, I looked out at the bright moonlight unaffected by the thin clouds drifting across. And while admiring the clarity and size of the full moon, my mind was a mess.
Was the last-minute change of heart ridiculous? Yes. Would backing out be abhorrently cruel to Mom? Absolutely yes. But—back when the plans to leave Gilmore Park were set, I had no clue this was the course life's vicissitudes were to take. That I would meet Mary. Fall in love with Mary. That Max would be left homeless after being emancipated from foster care. If I were to leave Gilmore Park, there would be no one to save them both from what terrible outcomes their futures might have. If a dramatic decision had to be made, it had to be made now.
The night air rolled in through the window and breathed its cool cleansing breath across my face.
Confused. Pissed off. And feeling just overall sad that I affronted my conscience with this decision, my eyes whirled around my bedroom searching for some sort of sign to guide me. The Universe isn't malicious, it's supposed to provide us omens. Correct?
A lonely sock flopped over the laundry bin. No. Not it. I am not that sock.
I checked my phone again. No response from Mary or Max. Hanging off the coat hanger was my nineties jean jacket and my Superior Carwash ball cap. Yes. Mary and Max—Max, soon to be evicted from foster care. He could, should, move in with me. Mary too. When the thought occurred to me, it actually sounded pretty awesome. I had the means. Keep the house, why Mom could certainly afford it. She could afford to move us out to California, after all.
God must have positioned me to be the protectorate of my friends. The timing was right, the realization was a part of the plan of things that Had To Be.
I was so positive that my thinking landed on a congruent track; surely there was no purer altruism than the goodness of helping my friends in need. Mom would understand.
I swung my legs off over the bed, getting up to tell Mom what I had decided. Then throwing my Lyric Book and pen aside, I looked up.
The Beatles, the four Gospels themselves, appareled in their Sgt. Pepper's costumes, stared down at me. Prince on the cover of Controversy was next. And Keith Richards just terrified me.
California was the place to fulfill my dreams. Not this dumpy one. My friend's problems weren't that catastrophic... I mean they've survived eighteen years fending for themselves without me. Max had no clue of my impending hospitality—and I've never received word from Mary that she even remotely agreed to live with me, or move out to California.
Standing, facing the door, my thinking befuddled each argument I made against myself endlessly and crashed and burned into blankness.
When Mom first asked me what my opinion was on moving, I bluntly answered:
"No."
And now, again, months later, blindly looking for the answer, the omens I requested presented themselves.
My eyes leaped all over my bedroom. To my guitars: the acoustic, the Telecaster. Both Dad's. Next, the moonlight glaring through the window. The posters. Raquel Welch; girls like her out in California worship boys with guitars. Back to my guitars. Both Dad's. The drawings I made with Connor.
Falling on my bed, my eyes fell to the floor.
Only then, when I had come out of my thoughts, did I feel the spinning cold draft from the fan. I kept my eyes locked on the floor in a trance for a very long time. Not a thought passed through my mind.
"Mom?" I said, minutes later, pushing open her door to see her reading yet another book on California.
She invited me in by asking, "What's wrong?"
Something inside of me, on that specific night, at that specific moment, made me want to tell Mom everything. So I got under the covers. Mom put her book down, and I told her all that had happened. Almost all that happened.
When I told Mom about Mary's black eye and taking her to the hospital, she said she already knew. The hospital had called her due to her name being listed as the primary cardholder.
As always, I felt dumbed-down by Mom's perceptiveness. Like I was forever seven, and she just went along with whatever I had to say, making me feel accomplished as I bragged about discoveries she already unmapped.
Mom's hair flowed under my cheek as I laid my head against her shoulder. The lingering smell of shampoo and its silky texture were all too familiar and instantly brought me back to childhood, where cuddling next to Mom was something I regularly did. Resting my head on her, which I now felt was too big, and made Mom seem so much smaller, reminded me of how many years I had slept just like that.
Maybe after another half-hour, the conversation ran dry, so I told Mom I would let her finish reading.
Just as we said our ritualistic Love yous and Goodnights, I turned around in the door frame and said, "Oh, and Mom, by the way, I'm not going."