Heart-Breaker Read online

  * * *

  OUTSIDE OUR BUNGALOW, the northwest wind has died down, and it has started to rain. I hear ice slide off the roof. It hits the hard ground and smashes apart, making my body jump. My mother left just over two hours ago. Her eyes flat, her skin the color of nicotine. Her parting words––“I had forgotten all about you”––echo in my head. If my mother has forgotten all about me, what’s to stop her from leaving the territory for good? A space has opened between us. It feels uncrossable. A war, an entire sea. Me on one side. And my mother on the other, disappearing from view. My pulse pounds in my ears. My throat tightens. Don’t cry now. Cry later. Cry in your sleep. I turn on all the lights and climb the stairs. I consider calling Lana, asking her to come over, but she has no idea. The Heavy and I have kept my mother’s illness a secret, even from each other. It’s not like we agreed to this. We’re the same. Do not enter. Private property. About the sudden change that came over my mother three months ago, we haven’t spoken a word.

  Her bedroom is directly across the hall from mine. She thought to close her door before she left.

  On my wall, I have a black-and-white picture of Muhammad Ali that I tore from a magazine that’s a decade old. Ali is holding up a piece of paper that says, THE SECRET OF MUHAMMAD ALI. When I have my portrait done, this is how I’ll do it. Beside him is my blood schedule for the month. The days I have completed are x-ed out, and above it is a postcard Lana put in our mailbox that just says, SIGH!!! I have Ric Ocasek’s face inside Samuel Beckett’s hair in a frame beside my bed. He is wearing dark sunglasses and under him I have written DREAM MACHINE.

  * * *

  PONY BECKETT OCASEK.

  Le Pony Beckett Ocasek.

  The Secret of Le Pony Dream Machine Beckett Ocasek Ali.

  * * *

  I GLUE RHINESTONES around my eyes. I put on my mother’s camouflage tracksuit and her gold hoop earrings. I have two books on my bed: my disease book, which from the Latin loosely translates into Brutal Errors of the Human Body, and a romance novel, Chance Encounter, that I stole out of a turquoise mother purse at the Banquet Hall. My album cover collection takes up half a wall. It is in milk crates. I have it organized by emotion. To be free is to have achieved your life. Someone said this once. I’ll count my money later when I’ve got more to add to it.

  I am going to the bonfire. Whether The Heavy comes back or not, I am going. I sat at my mother’s door with my knees folded to my chest for the last two months. You can see the imprint in the carpet, where it has worn out and the vinyl floor is shining through. I pushed notes under her door. Notes I don’t know that she ever read, or even saw.

  I am not waiting anymore. I have plans.

  Wantings.

  I press play on my tape recorder, and the Gregorian chants come on. I borrowed them from the Lending Library after I heard them coming from the tormented headphones of Supernatural. I wanted to ask him if I could listen to them, but I had forgotten how to speak. We were lying side by side on the cots at the Banquet Hall having just had our blood taken. I was trying to subtly Whitesnake my body while he lay perfectly still, staring up, black paint on his jeans and smelling like woodstove, which was more than I could handle. His boots hung over the end of his cot. I pretended we were in bed together, that our cots were joined and the bed was a waterbed, and we were in a field where we wouldn’t get shot or mauled. Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. Someone said this once. Here, you have a rest. Here, you have some citrus. This one’s a fainter. Oh, look at her go. Have mercy. The women in their puffed-sleeved pink dresses, talking about me, moving busily around me, gripping my shoulders, getting me to put my head between my knees and make it settle, then lift it up slowly, slower now, Pony Darlene. That’s a girl. God, you look like your mother. Doesn’t she now?

  * * *

  SUPES IS THE SON of Traps, the truck dealer, and his wife, Debra Marie, and he is by far the best-looking boy in the territory. He was also the youngest boy in the history of our people to be given his nickname. Let me give you the lay of the land. It is between the ages of fourteen and nineteen that a territory boy gets his nickname. He will be called by this nickname until he is buried at final resting. It is his nickname, burned into a piece of shellacked plywood, that will be placed under his portrait when the territory mourners line up before it to hammer out their grief.

  Supes got his nickname when he turned thirteen. Supes was not like the other boys. Their running shoes worn through and thick with mud, sticks of dynamite between their teeth. Wade Jr., Ivo Jr., Gary Jr., Constantine Jr. Their voices took forever to break. Supes’s voice went from boy to man in a night. He never lit things on fire. He never chased. Never barked. Was never breathless. The boy practically had light coming off his body. Where did he come from? Visible Thinker would think. The boy’s clean tank top under his parka. The shape of his arms. At Drink-Mart, The Silentest Man spoke the only name he could think to give the boy. Matches striking. Glass against glass. The younger men tossed the name between them.

  “Supernatural.”

  “Supernatural.”

  “Supes for short.”

  “Yeah, Supes.”

  “Supes.”

  The men of the territory laughed, and when the boy did not, they stopped laughing.

  All of the girls wanted him. They loved their dogs, but they loved Supernatural more. In the graveyard, by the bonfire, Thursday night after Thursday night, they trained their eyes on the incline, the one he might walk over any moment. Sometimes his hood would show. Oh God, oh my God. The girls would elbow each other, throw fits under their outerwear. Quiet one, he is. The girls would flick their eyes toward him and then away, let their hair fall in front of their faces. I can do things to you simultaneously, the girls would communicate with their minds. This is serious. I have skills I can coordinate, combos I can execute. Make me your wife. But by the time the girls cleared their faces of their hair, Supes would be gone.

  I wanted his soundtrack.

  And possibly, him.

  I fold the hem under and pin my mother’s camo track jacket so it shows off my midsection. Better. Baby one night somebody going to strike a match on a tombstone and read your name. Someone said this once. SETTLE YOUR HEAD. This is what I have written on a flag above my bed. Settle your head.

  I twist the knob and creak the door open to my mother’s bedroom. I turn on the overhead light. It still works. The curtains are drawn. A knot of black bedcovers, and her pillow curved where her head lay against it. I look through her dresser drawers, her closet. I get down on my knees and run my hands over her carpet. I look under her bed. Lift the black bedcovers.

  Nothing.

  The room is empty.

  * * *

  THE DAY AFTER my mother crashed our previous truck into a tree on an iceless day was the day our people call Free Day. When I left our bungalow, my mother was in her bed with a white bandage across her forehead, raking her fingers through our dog’s fur. Save for our totaled truck, our yard was empty. I held and kissed her hand three times and cranked her window open. You could hear the reservoir lap the shoreline. It was summer. Summer is a beautiful time here. Don’t you see that, I wanted to say to my mother. See that.

  Free Day is the day we put our unwanted objects at the edges of our properties, and you can just ride by and take whatever you want. Most of the items are in need of some repair, and these are clearly marked AS IS. I always started at Neon Dean’s on Free Day because sometimes he left money or pills in the pockets of his old clothes. I had done my tour through town and had a Betamax, headlamp, and crimping iron balanced on my handlebars and had roped a shovel and a ceiling fan to the back of my bike. Deal with it. Hell yes. Focus Thine Anarchy. Pony Ali. Things were looking up.

  When I got home, my mother’s bedroom was in a pile on our front yard. Neon Dean’s girlfriend, Pallas, a few years ol
der than me, was rifling through it. She had human bite marks on her skin and my mother’s belts fastened around her neck. Her friend was with her. I had seen her friend around. She was Rita Star’s daughter, and Rita Star had called her Grace, and Grace wanted nothing to do with her mother. The women of the territory would sit at Rita Star’s kitchen table in their ski jackets and white underwear after tanning in Rita Star’s tanning bed and talk about their falling-out, and how unnatural it was for a mother to be separated from her daughter even though Grace lived right across the street in bungalow 21 on a mattress in Pallas’s closet. Pallas had rigged a string of lights and nailed a final resting bouquet above Grace’s head. All I need is tuberculosis. Grace laughed and changed her name to Future.

  Future was stabbing her cigarette into the ground. She stood up. She had my mother’s lotions, perfumes, waterproof makeup, and underwear stuffed into the large pockets of her daypants. She pulled on my mother’s silver party dress and smoothed it over her body.

  “When he sees me in this, he’s going to name his dick after me.”

  “He is.”

  She found my mother’s red ski jacket and put it on over the silver party dress.

  “When he sees me in this, he’s going to make me pregnant with his supernatural baby.”

  “He is.”

  “Futurenatural.”

  And then seeing me, Pallas said, “Seriously?”

  And Future said, “Seriously.”

  I was wearing hunting glasses and Neon Dean’s discarded camo outerwear, which had a white pill in the right pocket and five dollars in the left. I came to a stop in front of them. It was warm enough to kick up some dirt.

  “Nice show the other day,” Pallas said.

  “Yeah, nice show at the final resting for Debra Marie’s baby,” Future said.

  “Real nice.”

  “Real classy.”

  “We know all about your mother, Pony Darlene.”

  “She’s a cheater.”

  “Yeah, we know all about her rampant cheating.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So jealous of Debra Marie—”

  “She had to kill her baby.”

  “Then crashing her truck—”

  “So she could go to Fully Loaded and get a new one.”

  “Any excuse to go to Fully Loaded.”

  “Any excuse to see Traps.”

  “We know all about your mother.”

  “Poaching Traps.”

  “We know all about her cheating.”

  “But do you?”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s such a deep geek.”

  “Geek nation.”

  “Welcome,” I said.

  “Freak nation.”

  “Bienvenue.”

  “Mental like her mother.”

  “Demented like her father.”

  “As is,” I said. And I dropped the white pill onto my tongue. And I ripped the five-dollar bill in half. And I threw my bicycle a shockingly far way.

  And when Pallas and Future started at me and I didn’t flinch, they turned to each other.

  “I might just want to go home and get into my nightpants.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired too.”

  “Seriously, I did my bloodwork this morning and need some citrus.”

  And they left in their matching WANT IT MORE sweatshirts. Their sweatshirts hung down to their knees. Future’s had a laminated pin on it that said, FAINTER. I had the same pin.

  * * *

  WHEN MY MOTHER first led me through the woods and down to the reservoir, I was shaking with terror. I thought I might throw up, and I told her so, and she said, “It makes our life so much better to have this other separate life. Just to know it is here,” and she held me by the wrist. I was eight, nearly nine. When we reached the shoreline, she unlaced her boots, unclasped her workdress, pulled it over her head, and hung it from a tree branch. The water was still and gray, and the moon was in it white as a bone, and my mother stepped into the water. I gasped. She turned back and put her hand over my mouth. “Don’t wreck it, Pony.” And then I watched my mother from the banks of the black mud as she walked into the reservoir and then did a shallow dive. Would she be sucked down? Would her skin dissolve? Was this where all life began? Since when did my mother wear nothing under her workdress? Where was her white underwear? Her beige bra? A starless sky. To it, my mother let out a cry. It was happiness. She cut through the water. I agreed with my father. I had never seen anyone quite so alive.

  I begged her to teach me how to swim.

  * * *

  IT IS TRAPS’S TRUCK, not ours, that backs sharply into the unfinished driveway and fills my body with dread. A reversal meant to awe me. Traps knows I am watching from my bedroom window, the curtain drawn to one side. B E Y O N D. He shuts down his fog lights and pulls in all the darkness around us. My father gets out of the truck. His bowed head, his slow steps. This tells me everything I need to know.

  In the territory, the boys are dragging tires, cabinets, wood pallets, whatever they can find to burn, to the graveyard. They have cans of lighter fluid in their back jean pockets and cigarettes in their mouths. They are wearing fingerless gloves, Yamaha vests, and scarves around their heads, tied into bandannas. It is ten below. They grip their handlebars and hold their bodies high off their dirt bikes and pedal hard. They cannot believe muscle has to rip in order to grow. They have playing cards in their wheels that go tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic. They want the territory to show up on a satellite. They want the bonfire to be photographed from space. The boys think about space the way some boys think about girlfriends. They get stomach cramps thinking about space.

  In their headphones, the boys listen to asteroids blazing through the atmosphere toward them. Later tonight, they will trade their cassettes by the bonfire while the leather of their running shoes melts.

  “Which one are you listening to?”

  “Maxell!”

  “Oh, that one is killer!”

  “You?”

  “Memorex.”

  I don’t want to tell the boys the asteroid’s approach is the sound of the tape running, and the sound of its impact the tape coming to its end and then clicking off. I don’t want to tell them their tapes are blank tapes, and Deep Space Tapes is a fraudulent business run by the older, smarter brother of Peter Fox St. John, and they should just hit up the Lending Library and check out the Gregorian chants. They’re in the devotional section.

  * * *

  SEVEN THINGS shortly before 10:00 P.M.:

  1. The boys of the territory have the same shaved hairstyle as monks. Monks are their own deep space tape. Correlation.

  2. There are a million asteroids on a crash course with the earth. This is not the kind of thing you tell a boy whose running shoes are on fire.

  3. I put on my mother’s perfume, and I do this exactly the way she would have. I spray my wrists and then I run my wrists up under my hair, and, in that instant, I become a woman.

  4. At night, I reliably think about death. I have no aunts, no uncles, no siblings, no grandparents, and when my mother and father are gone, I will be the last Fontaine living in the Last House. Urgent.

  5. The reservoir is the result of an asteroidal event, which the astrophysicists also call an impact event. A person could organize her timeline into impact events. This is one approach to understanding a life.

  6. While asteroids are, in their own catastrophic way, totally romantic, what the boys of the territory want most is a girl rolling off them saying, That was fucking amazing.

  7. Tonight, that girl will be Lana. Lana Barbara California as she will come to call herself.

  * * *

  “YOU NEED
ME,” Traps tells The Heavy when they come through our front door, bringing with them the bitter air. On our small cement porch, we have a partial telephone, a broken fridge, and a large piece of chipboard with an 88 painted on it. My mother used to trim my nails on our front porch. I would lie on the cement and she would hold my feet in her lap, and she was radiant. The men kick the ice from their boots and push the door closed. Traps refuses to go home to his wife, Debra Marie, should something come up. He makes a “no way” sign with his hands and calls her on speed dial.

  Debra Marie has just suffered what the territory calls its worst tragedy in nearly twenty years. The women of the territory talk about it and how she has not cried once. Not broken down once. Not mentioned her dead child once. The women can’t even tan. They can’t drink their coffee. It’s hideous. It’s cruel. The women feel a weight in their chests, heavy as bronze. Debra Marie, oh, Debra Marie. Poor Debra Marie. It wasn’t her fault. Was it?

  After the final resting, when we were leaving the Banquet Hall, even through the commotion, I overheard the men of the territory talking to Debra Marie. They hulked before the black square, which stood in place of the portrait, a bouquet on either side of it, under three floor lamps, and they kept their sunglasses on and did not know what to do with their large arms, like bouncers with nothing left to guard.