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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781550962536 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Exile Editions |
| Publication date: | 08/24/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 180 |
| File size: | 729 KB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Between Our Legs
On the television, colour bars are exercising. Alert. In tandem, the high-pitched attention signal, pitching. Attention.
This is a test. This is only a test.
Between our legs, we hold the difference.
How did it happen? We're not really sure. How did what happen? We're really not sure. At first we waited. And then we waved. We saw them and we stopped waiting and we started waving.
1.
We had our hair tied back. Thick shiny twists that hung like commas. Punctuation suspended – we had it tied up in our hair. Punctuation suspended – along with disbelief.
Believe me.
We had waived our ability to interrogate predictability, plausibility. Realism is for beginners. Logic is for the birds. We never did like birds. And we liked to pretend we were not beginners.
2.
Our lips were smudged in deep purple. They looked fat and swollen like hammered out thumbs. We smacked our deep purple lips in the mirror. Patted them with powder like we were patting down for guns. Copping a feel. We felt good.
We licked our lips. Our lipstick stayed on.
We fluttered our french-manicured fingers. Iridescent polish, white tips – our nails shone like opals, even glowed in the dark. All of this from a box called a kit. Do It Yourself. We did it ourselves.
Then we frenched. Our lipstick stayed on.
When we left the house, we passed the yard with the sign that says KEEP OFF. We rolled our shoulders. Our bones yawned under our skin. This is what they call a shrug. So? We kept off.
3.
We were dusted in flecks of gold glitter. The flecks fell across our collarbones, our shoulders and the blades in back. Our shoulders and our collarbones were bare because our shirts, which were dresses that were mini, were off the shoulder. Keep off. Except for the flecks of gold glitter.
The glitter came from talcum powder. The talc, called Gold Dust – what else? – came from a box that came from Glo's mom. Inside the box were ends, archiving the thing that had ended: a can opener; two crumpled silk dress shirts; a sliver of spicy soap-on-a-rope; a hammer. And, of course: seven thin gold bracelets; a near-full bottle of Giorgio; Gold Dust; notes and cards that swore, Sorry, and, I'm so sorry, and, I love you.
There was no underwear in the box. Sisco didn't wear underwear.
The day Glo's mom threw him out was the day she found him in the bathroom, Glo pressed between his shiny black-slacked legs and the wall. From the doorway, she'd spat, "Goddammit, Sisco. Goddamn you," her blue feather earrings fluttering softly as she shook her head slowly from side to side.
He reached for her, clucking his tongue and the word "baby," but her hands found him first. "Get. Out." KEEP OFF. And she slammed the bathroom door, locking him out and her and Glo in with the purple and gold magnolias that papered the walls.
"Shit." She reached for Glo's earlobe, gave it a halfhearted tug. Sat herself down on the lip of the bathtub, knees knocking at the toilet. And then, feathers trembling, she bedded her head in her palms and she cried.
When Glo saw the box of leftovers that her mom left curbside the next day, she grabbed the Gold Dust and made a run for it.
4.
The breeze swirled its way round our bare legs, up through our mini-dresses and around our necks. Our teeth chattered. Our nipples poked through the thin cotton. We wrapped our arms around the cages of our ribs and cupped our breasts with our hands. We were cold.
5.
We were waiting and then we were waving.
But before we were waving, when we were still waiting, we'd tried to look nonchalant, without purpose. We smoked cigarettes because we had some. We put our hands on our hips. We said, "fuck," a lot. We tried to look bored. Bored silly. We tried to look like we belonged on the block. Like without us, the block was just a block. Just bricks. Just sticks. Just bricks and sticks and stones.
But our ears were burning. Something fierce. And in our heads, it was raining. Cats and dogs. So we did what we could to manage. We covered our ears. We shook our heads. We shrugged. We tried not to want the things we wanted: to look nice; for someone to look at us nicely; for someone to worry because they cared; to not care either way. No way.
We were holding it, this longing, between our legs so no one would see. Yet, someone saw. Two someones saw. The ones for whom we were waiting, the ones to whom we waved saw. We'd seen them lots before. But it was only last week that they looked back.
INTERRUPTION: MILES & WINSTON
We saw. They were waiting right where we'd told them to wait – on the corner with the all-night convenience store. Shifting their weight from foot to foot. We saw them see us. We saw them wave. We saw their cold parts and their warm parts. We saw where our hands belonged. We saw that it wouldn't be long.
Their faces crinkled up when they laughed. We felt our faces crinkle up whenever theirs did. They laughed at everything. We laughed at everything. So that on the walk back to Winston's house, we were four sets of spreading smiles, balled-up cheeks, squinting eyes.
Their dresses hugged at their hips, pulled across their chests, tugged low off their shoulders, and you could almost see. But we didn't want them to see. So we kept it between our legs. For later.
We liked the way their bodies sloped and curved. It made us want to risk things – concern, comfort, the security and safety of borders. It made us want to enlist in a cause greater than ourselves.
See, their stomachs scooped inwards like they'd been hollowed out. It was like they were barely there. Like something was missing: drive or care. Like they'd give up easily. On their studies. Their plants. Their parents. Like they'd been given up on before.
We didn't give up.
6.
We liked the way they looked at us. Liked also, the way they said our names. Sophie. Glo. Their voices were weighted with things like matter. We felt ourselves materialize in the thinness of the air.
And we fell. Over swirling blue drinks in highball glasses. They caught us. They caught us by the necks. At first it felt so good we didn't feel a thing.
Suspended.
We had our hands tied like bows. Behind our backs, we did not fight back. There was nothing to fight.
Believe me. There was nothing to fight.
INTERRUPTION: MILES & WINSTON
I think they were smiling the whole time. But we couldn't really see their faces. I guess we didn't really care. I didn't much like the one's face. It was angular, her jawline extreme. Sophie though, I very much liked her face. But once I'd seen it, it was with me and it stayed. I didn't have much use for looking again.
I guess we caught them by surprise. I guess they didn't see it coming. I guess their expectations might have resided elsewhere. Like when you take a sip from a glass and expect Coke but it's iced tea or some other mix up. You flinch, you make a face, you think about spitting it out. But then you realize. Now you know. So you just let go. They really let us go.
They were smiling the whole time. We could tell because their lips were stained deep purple. I guess it could've been blood.
Like I said, they really let go. They really let us go.
7.
We were in the room with all the ugly pastel paintings. The paintings were of flowers rendered in angular brushstrokes. Flowers that also come in plastic, those fake flowers that people put in big black vases in their front halls because they feel that the feeling given off is one of slickness.
The rug was worn bare like it was barely there. We were barely there.
The walls were papered in a rosebud print. From where we were, the rosebuds looked like tiny little eyes. Millions of them. We felt them in all sorts of places.
No, we didn't feel anything at all. No, we felt like nothing.
Across the dark that was the room, our frenched nails glowed at each other. Buoys. Beacons. Searchlights. Stars.
INTERRUPTION: MILES & WINSTON
We had them by the hips. We had them by the hair. We had them by the wrists. They didn't say a word. They didn't have to. They dug into us, fingernails searching. Their searching said, Find me. We found them. Hands behind their backs, they didn't fight back.
DEAD AIR
Our tied-up, bowed-up hair is knotting. Our necks, shoulders and the blades in back, too. Our stomachs are clenched. Our fists, too, so that our nails, balled up in our palms, are feeling for lifelines. Trails. Traces.
In the space between the space that's this room, we are hanging. Suspended. Behind our backs, our hands KEEP OFF. There is Gold Dust everywhere.
In our heads, there's a pushing and a pulling. We think we should just stop thinking. We think if we just stop thinking, everything will be fine. Suspension of punctuation, disbelief.
For fuck's sake. It's nothing.
This is just a blanket. It's crumpled like eggshells. This is just a floor. Banging into my head. It's thinking, Stop thinking. It's thinking, Let go. If you just let go, you'll get it.
In our heads, there's nothing but static. There's nothing but snow. Poor resolution. Colour bleeding. Colour bars.
This is a test.
This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
This is only a test.
We had waited before we waved. But after this, we won't wait. We won't wave. We won't say a word. We'll roll over. We'll tug the skirt ends of our dresses that are mini, down. We'll tug the shirt ends of our dresses that are mini, up. And we'll stand. We'll suck in our stomachs. We'll bare our eyes like teeth. And we will look straight ahead.
We will see without seeing. We will be seen without seeing that we've been seen. No, we won't see back. No, no one will see.
And we'll walk out the door, into the night. Down five blocks, six, the most direct route home. Keeping off grass, out of streetlights. We will not break our stride, a sweat. We'll wonder what to say. Nothing. And once we get to the street that's just past that street, we'll make a left. Slip the key in the lock and twist. Turn on the television.
What happened?
Nothing.
INTERRUPTION: MILES & WINSTON
We did it twice. One. Two. There was so much to do. I guess we fought a bit, Sophie and I, Winston and Glo. Over geography, topography. Development and yield. Limits, perimeters, margins. For things like jurisdiction and management. But we did it twice, so it's pretty obvious.
BARS & TONE
After, we didn't say anything. We got up, surprised ourselves.
But look at us. With our sucked in stomachs and our unseeing eyes, our knotted-up hair and our purpled lips. Our self-sufficient gait, our conviction. And leftover, still some Gold Dust. I guess that we're tough.
We're not really saying much. We've not got much to say. Did you do it? Yep. Did you do it? Yep. We did it. Who cares? Did it hurt? We won't say. We won't even ask. What's on your face? It looks like blood. Who cares? Let's talk of other things. Let's not talk at all.
We did it. It's ours. No one can take that away. This way, we are on our way.
After all, it's easy to fall. The difference between the things you want and the things you don't want is slight. You can have anything you want. You just have to believe that what's happening is what you want. You just have to believe that what you want is what's happening. Or else entire landscapes lift at their edges.
They didn't do a thing. We did it all ourselves. And we held it, this thing that's a brick that was once just a block, us waiting, between our legs so no one would see. No, no one did see.
CHAPTER 2Lost Dogs
Take me with you. I didn't say it. The television did. Just before we fell asleep.
You always have the TV on. You like the way its murmurs feel. Low hums that hug. Churn the air. Mark it with matter. Make it matter. There are words everywhere. They swirl and stick. Between your fingers, the clamp of your jaw, you feel letters like i and d slither and squish. Scream. You say sometimes it makes you dizzy. Sometimes it makes me dizzy.
When we wake, it's to the sound of breaking news, children gone missing.
From the knot that's our legs and arms, you disentangle. Rub at the sleep in your eyes. Prop yourself up on an elbow. Yawn.
Behind you, Mindy Lynn is missing. Seventeen hours. Last seen leaving school (gold-starred spelling test, Velcro sneakers that light up, bouncing red bursts). A blue Ford Taurus. Or was it a Toyota Corolla? It might have been a wagon. Witness this: Amber Alert. Medicine Hat, Alberta, with its cliffs and coulees.
Eleven is an average age.
Strewn beneath us, the deck of cards. In particular, we've been sleeping on the suit of spades.
You stretch out one leg taut, then the other. An inadvertent scissor kick.
On the television, a fifth grade Picture Day photo. Ringlets and red bows. Eyes, typically blue. Flush-cheeked, beaming. Cheese.
You fix two mossy green eyes upon me. Kohl-smoked. Real shiners.
Parents are pleading (a loose french braid, a purple hoodie, sequined blue jeans). I can hardly breathe. I can hardly see.
And you tell me that you are a missing child.
I find the seven of spades, use it as a visor.
Your hair is a waist-length swarm of long-legged spiders. Your t-shirt is thin and your throat is a runway.
I laugh.
You laugh.
I laugh again.
You arch your feet. "Well." Point your toes. "I was a missing child." Smile.
"What were you missing?"
You shoot me a wry look. Collect the strewn deck. Palm out for the seven of spades.
I surrender.
You shuffle slowly. Suggest, business.
I follow suit. "You're not missing anymore?"
You abandon the deck. Sit up and tail your hair to the side, drag your fingers through the knots. Say, "I'm 26. I pay my rent. I have a Visa. A Bay card. I frequent bars and movie theatres, sign up for special deals. I exist above board. I'm evident. Evidence, in fact. When you're that visible, you can't still be missing, can you? At any rate, I still feel missing. And I've tried to recover. The things I missed out on, the things I miss. It's just not the same."
You were in search of your mother.
"Isn't everyone?"
"No."
Your mother left you. She left you at the grocery store, in aisle seven, canned fruit to your left, marmalades and jams and jellies to your right.
When you were discovered some time later, you were pale and fantastically silent, a cliff. Green eyes slush grey, cheeks icy. You clutched the handlebar of the shopping cart, two tiny pink knots. Your heels, wrapped in purple velveteen booties, knocked rhythmically at the cart's steel spine. Your lips trussed, a crimson bow. Inside the cart were Ritz crackers, two tins of tuna, diapers, Cream of Wheat. She never bought Cream of Wheat. You let out your first wail only after the woman with the red florets of hair, blue checkered vest, pin that promised, firmly, in ticker tape, MANAGER, pushed you past the instant potatoes, the soups that eat like a meal, to the Courtesy Desk.
You tell me this in a voice that churns. Your mouth's a tilt drum mixer. Slabs of sentence, sentencing. It's a matter of fact.
The day she left you, your mother wore the smart burgundy heels with the skinny spines, sharp toes. Matching leather purse, slender shoulder strap. The burgundy blouse with the classic high neck (wrap tie, collar knot), glossy buttons. Tight designer jeans, creative back pocket stitch. Her hair fanned her face in soft, dusty waves.
"You remember all this?"
"It was in the police report."
Your father found you on the news. You were a purple velveteen ward of the Crown. In fluorescent-lit rooms with ecru-coloured walls, you'd been passed around. Fed strawberry puree. Offered apple juice, a sippy cup. At six o'clock, you were held tightly in the arms of a stranger. While you knocked your booties and gnawed on your fist, a man with a microphone pointed and tsked, pointed and tsked. The camera panned, zoomed. You buried your head in yellow silk, choked on the woody bouquet of Halston, and threw up a little. The camera tilted, zoomed. Caught the white-pink pulp as it dribbled down your chin, mashed against yellow silk, a wet scar.
The next day, the newspaper headlines boasted, MISSING CHILD, FOUND.
"So you weren't missing. You were left. Missing by default, maybe. More like misplaced."
"No." You flex your palms. Rattle your wrist, let your watch slip back into place. "I'm not done."
Your father picked you up immediately. Predictably, he couldn't even look at you. He began watching the news obsessively. Weather, especially. One night, he smashed the TV and never replaced it.
Before long, a busty woman named Marilyn with mudslide eyes was sitting at the kitchen table. Cloudy liquid wrestling with lemon slices, clunking cubes of ice. Skinny pastel cigarettes, lush strands of smoke streaming and pluming. Mounted under the corner cabinet, the mini black-and-white television (Like sands through the hourglass ... so are the Days of Our Lives). Non-negotiable, she'd insisted. From the bedroom, soft murmurs. Low hums that hug, they fit together like spoons. He'd acquiesced.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Night is a Mouth"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Lisa Foad.
Excerpted by permission of Exile Editions Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Between Our Legs,
Lost Dogs,
Here There Be Monsters,
Expulsion For Emetophobia,
Violent Collections, Anxious Supplements,
Grey,
June,
The Night Is A Mouth,
Lacunae,
The Words,