---

Smell Syndrome

 

Breathe in.         

          The cold metal touched my back.
          Breathe out.

          Repeat.
          In.

          Out.
 

The doc pushed up her glasses, wrinkles pinching, pen clicking, and rolled on her chair to her legal pad, the special kind only medical professionals used. My mother sat across from me, her fingers running up and down her pant leg. My palms were sweaty, too, but I wasn’t as nervous as her.

“She has asthma.”

No. I don’t—maybe—I don’t know.

At sixteen, you don’t just suddenly develop asthma superpowers, yes please, if life were a comic book, but not some bronchial vascular disease. These are words I don’t understand, words the doctor keeps using to prescribe and describe, as she tries to file me under a label. My parents trusted her. She’d been our family doc since before my conception, but quite honestly, I don’t even think she knows what’s wrong with me. This is my third visit in the last six months. My third time in this chair while I sit, wait, and stare at the same old measles and mumps poster on the wall. All I do know, is that this cough won’t go away. If I had asthma—okay, fine—just give me a pill and let’s go.

            Claritin.

            Zyrtec.

            Allegra.

            Nasacort.

And now Seretide, the new purple Hubba Bubba inhaler, just another fancy thing to add to my morning, afternoon, and nighttime regimen. I’m not even sick. I am sick, just not sick. If only this were a twenty-four hour cold, some kind of flu, or a summer fever, but no, it’s me and winter. Winter is supposed to mean that all outside allergens are to be dead.

            A cough.

            A sneeze.

            A runny nose.

My lips are chapped, and the skin near and around the edges of my nostrils is red, raw, and dry. At least a dozen tissues are stuffed in my coat pockets, and when I put my hands inside, they sometimes stick to my gloved fingers as I try to pull one out. It drips, the snot, like a leaky sink, like a speck of rainfall, but it doesn’t stop. Instead I wipe away at my nose with the skirt end if my sleeve, thinking none of it.

Chicago winters were always the same. The beating and whipping lakefront burning my eyes, the whispers of wind pitter-pattering across dead leaves that only seemed to promise more snow, vexed my displeasure to the layering cold. The summers, no different, and yet, the thickening heat didn’t make living here any less suffocating.

            Allegra-D.

            Singular.

            Flonase.

One pill in the morning, one at night, and spray at least twice daily, every day. I want to move to Canada. Free healthcare is not a joke, not when a basic human function like breathing is expensive. I quickly learned that healthcare is a luxury and medicine is a commodity. Twice a month I show my ID to the lab coat behind the counter and spend sixteen dollars on a ten count purple box of pills, on top of another thirteen-dollar green nasal spray, and neither prescription was covered by insurance. The drive to a local Walgreens or CVS becomes another ritual on my list of things to do and for what?

I still couldn’t taste the chicken noodle soup. It’s water, I said. The bananas, no flavor. Hot chocolate, no chocolate. Pizza, just bread with sauce. Bread, like cardboard. Rice, it’s filling. Meat, it’s chewy. Too sweet, too salty, too spicy. I need extra seasoning. My taste buds were numb to any subtleties. What was wrong with me? The winter. The summer. The hot. The cold.

In grade school I used to get bronchitis, in middle school, the same. Summer fevers stayed with me, wheezy coughs would find me. I’d wake up every morning to a dry mouth and cracked lips. In high school, I’d skip first block once a week the entire four years. I was not allergic to exercise. The truth? I couldn’t run more than twenty feet without collapsing as if I’d run a 5k race. I even hated stairs, each step like climbing a high mountain, the altitude thinning. There’s a reason I still take the elevator from level one to two. My eyes opened each day fogged from a lack of sleep, the hollows around the sockets burning, everything hurting, my forehead screaming. I wished for magic superpowers to make it go it away. I stood up dizzy, falling prey to vertigo before crawling right back into bed, on any flat surface, shoving my face into my hands or a pillow, breathing shallow and heavy. It’s a headache, a migraine, just whatever—again—some days better than others.

Mouth breather. That’s what my mother called me. She’d find me sleeping, lips wide open as if I were gasping, overcompensating for the lack of air.

I was just sick.

It was just allergies. It was the weather. I was written off as having a bad immune system by my parents, as a teen that hadn’t changed, after infection this, infection that. I went to the doctors every couple of months to get new pills, refills, or stronger medication. I just wanted to breathe. I was a fish out of water, stuck between holding my breath and swimming for air.

My parents took me as far as to see a natural herbalist on the corner of Chinatown. Lisa Herbal Corporation, a small store in a strip mall that only had enough parking for a line of ten cars. Inside, the walls were stacked high and low, ceiling to floor with teas, cures for everything from indigestion and low blood pressure to cholesterol. Rows upon rows, any ailment you could think of¾boxes in an assortment of reds, oranges, and greens, a rainbow of colors labeled in Mandarin and English, and loose leaves made of flowers I had never heard of. Up front, a towering wall lined with drawers stood high behind a man at the register. He divided packets of what looked like different roots, colored barks, and mushrooms into individual wrappings of white paper. All I could think was that this was some old school Chinese medicine shit. It was something I’d only ever seen on travel channels to Shanghai or Beijing or in documentaries.

I sat in a squeaky metal-cushioned chair. The 4.8 on Google reviews was the reason I was here, but not actually. The yellow-green printed card my mother had been carrying around in her purse for the last two months, because of my aunt, was the real reason. I fidgeted, waiting for my number to be called. If modern medicine couldn’t fix me, then this surely would. Their optimism, not mine. Someone without a professional medical degree was going to diagnose me, and “fix” me? I was swimming in doubt, wanting to believe in my mom and aunt.

My turn, I walked into an office and sat in another squeaky chair as the herbalist directed my arm onto the table. I don’t know who I imagined behind those doors, but it wasn’t her. She was skinny, almost frail, but had a pep in her step, quick and confident. Gray hairs shaded her black bob and framed her small glasses, which did nothing to hide her deep-seeded wrinkles. Doctor Lisa, if I could call her that, took my pulse.

One minute passes.

She looks into my eyes and comments on the color of my tongue, she then proceeds to ask what I think is wrong with me.

          I keep coughing.

          It doesn’t go away.

          I don’t have asthma.

The last part I don’t say.

She pulls out a white sheet paper from inside her desk and starts to delicately explain the difference between hot and cold foods, about what I should and not eat, a spiel about food¾ families that determine one’s future health state. I go home with a month supply of tea and a set of directions. White handmade packages full of loose herbs, twigs, and roots, to drink every day for two weeks. Honestly, it could’ve been anything. Take a shovel, go into the woods, and pick up sticks and leaves, and I wouldn’t have noticed the difference.

Granted, knowing that she was a fourth-generation Chinese herbal specialist with over twenty years of experience should’ve provided me with some semblance of comfort, but it didn’t, not for a hundred and nineteen dollars. I speculated whether this had been money well spent or a rip-off. And so, I drank the earth for a month, so bitter, and drinking the blackest coffee with no sugar couldn’t compare.

          My cough? Gone.

          Breathing? Still can’t.

          Smell? No.

That craving of fresh-popped buttery movie popcorn, the first thing that hits you when you step into a theater wasn’t there anymore. The waft of roasted garlic and melted cheese on pizza, I smell nothing. Barbequed meat roasting over charcoal and under fireworks, I don’t remember. Fresh fruits, flowers, citrus, dew after a rainstorm, fried chicken, cookies in the oven, it was just gone. The taste of water? Nope, wasn’t there. I didn’t enjoy eating, but I have to live. My stomach howling, until I reminded myself, growling only after I took a bite of anything. I couldn’t even taste the sterile antiseptic of the doctor’s office in my mouth anymore. Imagine having a cold, a twenty-four-hour cold every day, all day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, and you cannot, no matter how hard you try, blow it. It’s stuck, stuffed, like a mouthful of cotton balls, like ears plugged after long descending flight. Put a pillow to your face and breathe; this is how I live. “Does this smell okay?” became a habitual greeting for everything.

          Methylprednisolone.

          Singular.

          Allegra-D.

          Afrin.

Remember, two pills in the morning, two at twelve, one at six, and two more before sleep. Medrol was the answer to all my needs, a magical tiny white oral steroid that let me breathe. This drug meant severe side-effects like cataracts, glaucoma, or high blood pressure, but I didn’t care. I smothered myself in anything that smelled good or bad for those two weeks. I could finally breathe. I ignored family and friends and was popping them in every three months, greedy for air.

          Spring, 2013, age nineteen, I have my first sinus surgery.

          Winter, 2018, age twenty-three, I have my second sinus surgery.

          Was it expensive? That’s an understatement.

          Universal healthcare, where you at?

ENT: ears, nose, and throat doctor are three letters I became very familiar with. Three months after I turned eighteen, I was diagnosed with chronic sinusitis with nasal polyps. A fancy way of saying that my nose is very sensitive, that I shouldn’t live in Chicago because the air sucks, and that I may or may not always need surgery. Why? Because my nose could and will potentially swell up inside, the tissue will form into small grape-sized balloons, and will shut close. There is no cure. I have to manage it like diabetes.

          Singular.

          Levocetirizine.

          Budesonide.

          Nose spray.

---

Unsteady

 

We’d gone to Cape May every year for as long as I could remember. Even Mom had gone there since she was a kid. Her dad, my pap, had loved Cape May. He’d lived there for a bit when he’d been in the Coast Guard. He loved it so much that he brought his family there every chance he got. He’d moved there when he retired, and while his small, one bedroom apartment couldn’t hold us when we visited, I loved seeing him every year. He passed away from lung cancer before my freshman year of high school, but we never stopped going down to the shore.

My hand gripped the tan steering wheel tightly as I drove down the highway toward Philly, music blasting, windows down. I loved to drive, loved the feeling of the sun beating through the front window, how the wind caught my hair at just the right angle to whip my face. I loved the feeling of freedom it gave me.

The acoustic song I’d been listening to faded with a few strums of guitar, and another song began. The piano keys started out soft, beautiful. Every note rang out, and I could imagine the hands of the pianist drifting over the keys gracefully, every key pressed purposefully, but carefully, with reverence. There was a sort of joy in the way the pianist played. The melody drifted over my ears as his deep husky voice entered with the first verse. He was singing about love and pain, how they always seemed to be intertwined like the vines in his girlfriend’s backyard. A soft, female voice entered the fray, blending heartache with love and loss.

It was Chris’ favorite song and artist, “Lancaster” by Evergreen. We were supposed to see them perform in August. They were a brother and sister duo from just outside of Philly, probably not too far from where I was driving. The sister, Elenor, was on the keys, and her brother, Ethan, was singing and strumming his guitar softly. I wouldn’t be seeing them now that Chris was gone.

A month ago, I would’ve broken down in tears just hearing the opening chords.

I looked at the seat next to me, almost expecting Chris to be sitting there, but he wasn’t. Rather, there was a bag full of beach towels and coral bed sheets that Mom had insisted I bring, along with my rice cooker.

I could almost see him there, sitting in his favorite white-striped t-shirt and jeans, hole at the knee, long legs nearly banging against where the airbag lay, nestled in the dash. He’d have the window down and a tan arm hanging out, fingers playing the notes of the song against the black exterior of my Jeep. His brown eyes would be closed, and his head would be leaning back against the headrest. His blond curls would be peeking out from beneath the dark blue hat I’d bought him for his birthday the first summer we were together. He’d worn it ever since, and continued wearing it even after his dog, Jimmy, had chewed the end of it, and his baby nephew had stolen and subsequently puked on it, leaving a stain. He loved that hat for the memories it contained. He was buried with that hat tucked beneath his hand.

Chris slightly freckled cheeks would be flushed from the sun, the scar through his eyebrow red and angry, like always, and his pink lips would be slightly upturned in a small, barely visible smile he saved for moments when he didn’t know he was smiling. As the song would crescendo and quicken, he’d turn to me, and I’d look at him before turning my eyes back to the road. He’d sing me the words to the song he loved so much in a voice that should never sing at all, but he wouldn’t care. He’d belt it out as loudly and proudly as he could. He’d sing it to me passionately, hand clenched and pounding over his chest. I would try to keep my eyes on the highway, try to keep my gaze forward, but it was always drawn to him. I’d laugh under my breath and ask him, “Why the heck am I dating you again?”

And he’d respond with, “Because you love me.”

I’d roll my eyes, not telling him that it was true, and he’d go on singing until the end of the song. When it ended, his arm would somehow find its way back out the window and I’d think how it wasn’t surprising that his right arm had a weird tan line because of how much time it spent hanging out of the window. His eyes would drift shut again and we’d drive on, listening to whatever song came next.

I felt the tears prick at my eyes and tried to blink them back, but they began to fall anyway. I pulled my hand from the steering wheel and wiped the tears from my cheeks and eyes. I’d stopped wearing makeup after everything that happened. I learned that even waterproof makeup wasn’t smear-proof, or really cry proof.

I grabbed my phone from the cupholder I’d perched it in, and untangled the auxiliary chord from the gearshift, and opened my music app. I’d been listening to my Favorites playlist, forgetting, of course, that I’d added some of his favorites to it, too. I hadn’t listened to music in a while, hadn’t done much of anything in a while. I quickly tapped Songs to Sing in the Shower and tossed my phone and the attached chord on top of the towels, trying to force my mind to focus on the road.

I managed to make my way through the traffic-ridden sections of Philly and down the Jersey Turnpike, but not without channeling Dad, while yelling profanities out my window when some Jersey driver tried to cut me off after I had attempted to go around him. When I’d switched onto the Garden State Parkway, the final leg of my journey before I actually hit Cape May, I’d managed to focus on other things. Namely, questioning how the hell I was going to survive the summer away from everyone and working as a waitress at Jim’s Pizza. It was my favorite pizza place in Cape May, but still.

Jim had been a blessing. Besides hiring me at his pizza place, though I’m sure they were at staff capacity, he’d called around to all his friends trying to help me find a place to live. He’d told me that had I asked a month prior, he would’ve rented out his basement to me rather than his sister’s annoying son. I laughed at that. Jim had ended up finding me a place in the Villas, one of the smaller towns neighboring Cape May on the bay side of the peninsula. It’d be a fifteen-minute drive to the Washington Street Mall where his shop was located, but I didn’t mind all that much. It was a fully furnished apartment, kitchen unit and all, converted from a garage, owned by Jim’s wife’s friend Judy.

“She’s a real nice lady,” he’d said to me on the phone when he’d called to tell me the news a few days after he’d given me the job. “She’s just a little . . . odd.” He lingered on the word like it was something he wasn’t quite sure of.

I raised an eyebrow, though he couldn’t see me. “What do you mean by odd?”

“You’ll see what I mean when you get there. She’s real nice. Just don’t mind her miniature doll collection if you ever end up in the main house.”

I blinked. “Miniature doll collection?”

Jim brushed it aside. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I wouldn’t steer ya’ wrong.”

When I pulled up in front of the house, I immediately understood what Jim had meant. The one story house, just three blocks from the bay, was well kept with a white picket fence and a garden of pink roses out front. The house, however, was bright pink. It wasn’t some subtle pink similar to what you’d paint a baby’s room. No. The house was pepto bismol pink, blinding with the reflection of the mid-afternoon sun. It felt like a Barbie Dream House on steroids.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to get out of my car.

I saw the front front curtain move slightly before the front door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-seventies, clad in a lavender bathrobe, her hair pulled up in a twisted towel.

Quickly, I grabbed my phone from the passenger seat and slipped out of my jeep, hurrying up to the cobblestoned walkway that led to her house.

“Judy Lewis?” I asked as I approached. Up close, I could see the gray hairs peeking out from beneath the white towel. I could see her blue eyes and wrinkles etched into her skin.

“You’re Indy Jacobs, I presume?” Her voice was like a chain-smoker’s, raspy and deep, but I couldn’t smell the tell-tale scent of cigarettes.

“Yep, that’s me,” I said with an awkward laugh and even more awkward wave.

 She ignored it. “I thought you weren’t coming for another hour.”

 We’d talked on the phone twice, once to discuss payment and once to discuss my arrival. Both times, the conversation had been less than five minutes. I’d made sure to mention that I would arrive between three and four in the afternoon. It was three fifteen.

“Traffic was . . . uh . . . light?”

She took a step back into the house. “Well, that can’t be helped. Come,” she gestured toward me. “I’m assuming you’d like to know where you’re living for the summer.”

I nodded, following her inside.

She led me in through a carpeted hallway. It was muted and white with absolutely no decorations, nothing to give me a glimpse into who Judy Lewis actually was, save for the slight smell of sandalwood that radiated throughout the house. I peeked into the rooms off the main hallway as we slipped by, each looking more normal than I’d expected, given the outside of the house. Simple furniture, simple colors, nothing quite as bright as the outside. And certainly no miniature doll collection. She led me to the kitchen that was nestled in the back of the house. It was muted and white with a tile floor and just a tiny kitchen table by the window. It was small, compact, and the only pop of color was a rose in a white vase placed on a table.

Judy picked up a set of three colorful keys with a fuzzy, pink rabbit’s foot off the white counter and dropped it into my hands. She placed her hands on her hips and looked at me intently. “The rainbow key is for the back door of your apartment. That’s the door you’ll probably use most often. The red one is for this door here.” She gestured to the white door, tucked away next to the refrigerator on the back wall of the house. “I don’t expect you to be using that one too much, except to do laundry. The laundry is also down in the basement so when you have to do it, you’ll use that. Just go down the steps and it’s to the left. And the pink one is for my front door. That is only to be used in case of an emergency.” She stared deep into my soul when she said emergency. I nodded.

She listed a number of rules I had to abide by while living there. Mainly it included never venturing anywhere but to the laundry room and kitchen. I assumed the dolls were hidden elsewhere. She led me through the white door into what would be my living space for the next three months or so.

The space was small and looked more like a studio than anything. The garage doors had been taken out and replaced with a wall and a fairly large window that overlooked a line of tall trees. Like the rest of Judy’s house, everything was painted a soft white. It was sparse, but it would work with just a bed, dresser, and couch. There were a few cabinets, a range, and a mini fridge making up the so-called kitchen.

“Well,” Judy said, barely looking at me. “This is it.”

“Uh,” I started, not really sure of what to say, only that I knew I really wanted to be alone and didn’t know how to tell her to leave. “Yeah, thank you . . . it’ll . . . work well?”

I felt awkward and nervous and wished someone other than Judy was there with me to make this whole thing feel better, to sit me down and tell me that this wasn’t a mistake. I wished Chris was there with me.

“There’s a Wawa and a CVS down the street if you need anything quick, but if you drive further down you’ll hit a grocery store,” Judy said, turning to me. “If you have any questions about the Villas or anything, just ask.”

“Got it, thanks,” I said quietly, staring out over everything, and wishing I could blink and wake up and be back in my bedroom at home.

“I’ll let you get settled, then,” she said, turning around and sashaying through the door, closing it behind her. I heard the click of the door behind me.

And then I was alone.

I hadn’t really been alone in the past month since hearing of Chris’ death. I found out from a phone call with his sister¾I was with my college roommate. When I’d taken the rest of the semester off, because I couldn’t function in my classes and had gone home, Mom had picked me up and didn’t leave my side. I was always so surrounded that I began to feel suffocated. Even when I’d been alone in my bedroom, I knew there was someone else in the house, paying attention to me and what I did. There was always someone worried for me.

But now that I was alone, I realized what that really meant.

I sent Mom a quick text letting her know that I had arrived and that everything was okay and that my landlord was interesting. She’d responded with a smiley face emoji and said to call her if I needed her. I told myself that I didn’t need her. I was strong enough to do this.

Even though it was only midafternoon, I slipped the coral sheets that I had brought onto my small bed by the window, cursing under my breath for forgetting a comforter, and then changed into the old t-shirt Chris had given me and a pair of black gym shorts. I tucked myself into the soft sheets with my phone in hand. All I wanted to do was text Chris, like I would have if he were alive.

I wanted to tell him that the apartment was a mistake, and that going to Cape May for the summer was a mistake, and that I should’ve just stayed home with my family. That I would’ve been happier there. But Chris wasn’t there, and I couldn’t just text him like I was so used to doing. Since he had died, I would often find myself picking up the phone to text him, or call him, when I saw things he’d like or things I wanted to tell him.

But I couldn’t.

Not anymore.

---

Little Thing

 

We had been waiting for the season to change. The Indian summer sealed us into her hot mouth, lockjaw around our sweating bodies, swallowing petals from the flowers in my hair. 

“Jeannie, come on.”

You were on top of me, trying to open the doors of my body. 

But they were sealed, tightened by the power of the powder. The coke had shut everything to a dry, miserably tense halt down there, and you might as well had been stabbing at cement. The X gave you incentive to keep going, and eventually you broke through, and then kept pushing. I could feel the outline of your nose sliding up and down the side of my face, helping to keep time, while a pile of burnt, drying orange leaves and red droplets created a Fall season beneath my hips. 

 

There was a blob of goop that looked like and a swamp of Jell-O in the corner of the kitchen. You told me not to touch it and I didn’t. So, every time I got water, or food, or a spoon to heat up our stash, I had to pass that goop, making slushy noises in the corner, following me and my sanity.

The cabin was home to us, even though it wasn’t ours. We had been on our way to Woodstock, but made too many stops and missed it trying to get more hash. Then, halfway there we had to turn back because you forgot the junk, and neither of us would have made it three nights without it. We watched the place, stretched out in the van you boosted, snuggled into the heat of each other’s body, hiding from the rain, our breath fogging the windows.

You went up to the door¾it was easy¾it opened like it had been waiting for us.

“Whoa, bitchin’. . .”

You took my hand, we slid our shoes off and didn’t put them on again.

 

We spent weeks chasing the dragon, and your face was etched into the back of my eyelids. We spun in circles, touching feet, the loose ends of your bell bottoms rough against the naked hairiness of my legs.

You’d bring some choice hombres and chicks, and they’d snort up, too scared to shoot, and we’d spin in big circles then, round and round.

 

You told me to pick up Laney, and I did. I met her at the highway and we walked back through the woods. She was only fifteen, and we got high in the basement before you and the guys came down. I remember she whispered, “they’re too old,” and I told her that was good ’cause they’d pay more for less. We started dancing in front of the empty fish tank and I could hear the gurgling clap of lips, then the sloshy thud of what sounded like hands and feet. I knew the goop was at the top of the stairs watching, and jammin’ out to Hendrix. 

We made a home of the cabin, but you were only a guest, uninvited.

The day you left to get milk and needles that winter, I thought I would die. It was too cold to do anything, and my body was tightening and pushing my insides out. I threw up twice and shook violently, thrashing myself to-and-fro in front of the fireplace. I thought, I can’t die alone. With all the strength left inside me, I sent the message into the air to find you, and the goop made popping noises all the way from the kitchen to the living area, and perched itself into the makeshift couch we constructed out of tired blankets and loose firewood from the hills. My eyes tripled as the goop opened a gaping hole within itself, like a huge belly button splitting and expanding. It welcomed me, an unlikely umbilical cord to my existence. My body froze, half thrusted above the ground. The glob moved fast, slipped over my face, leaving thick slimy residue spread atop my skin like lotion, sinking in. There was a sensual stir of goodness rushing to my fingertips and toes, and the liquid thing sucked itself together and slid up my pant leg inside of me, radiating pure brightness through my belly, warming me and feeding my sickness. Pleasure knew no words . . . far out. . . . 

 

My moods hastened from pleasure to an irate tapping of my left foot and a number of unwarranted deep exhales under my breath. Just your smell nauseated me. I waited and waited until I couldn’t wait any longer, and while you showered I pushed the junk up the veins between my toes. I remember how pissed you looked, even with your hair still wet and clinging to your forehead.  You felt cheated and isolated. I knew, because the goop was laughing in the kitchen. 

  

The first time I visited you at home, I thought I might fall in love with your dad. I liked the way he shamelessly fed stray cats and grew his beard long and wore those large, thick blue jumpsuits for yard work. The crush was laughable, but when I told you, your bottom lip fell and your face turned white. 

We never really recovered from that. 

 

Later that year, I came over again and your father was on the porch in his chair. He was clutching an old photograph of your mom. She was swollen with child and glowing bright as an alien. He sat there before the little girl across the street selling lemonade, the neighbor lady in her Sunday dress on her way to church, and the men with shiny watches waving while on their way off to work sobbing. The boldness of his tears was refreshing and I wondered, would you cry like that if I left? 

 

The goop made me want for nothing. I’d lie on the floor and wait for it to come. You complained when I didn’t sleep in bed next to you, and I’d insist it was just a headache. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t need you.

We met at Bible study, between Leviticus and a crowd of kids shooting spitballs, and I wanted you in a way that would’ve made altar boys quiver.

When you asked my father for his blessing, he laughed and yanked another beer bottle from the refrigerator. “Sure thing, son; I give it a year, and you’ll be handing this one right on back to pops.”

We got married at the city hall and I didn’t mind the lack of extravagance. All we needed at the time was each other and angel dust.

 

The goo chose me, not you. I think that’s what you really couldn’t handle. Not that I couldn’t touch you, or the junk, but that the glob of jiggly mush was out of your control. We never fought about it, but I could tell when I stood over you and your body stiffened at night, or when you passed the living quarters in the morning to piss and saw me spread-eagle on the floor convulsing.

The eyes had it. I tried to find them, but the goop said no. It danced over my skin and hissed at my belly, fighting the part of you growing inside of me.

 

I told you I was leaving and you said not to harsh your mellow. Then you saw I was serious and cried. You pulled me close, and I could tell the junkie part of you still wanted to try it, the jiggles. So I scooped the goop into a pail and removed your corduroy jacket from your shoulders. I lay your head down gently before the fireplace and soaked you in a baptism of the goo. You blinked and waited. I tried rubbing it in. Nothing. I spread it, violently pushing it into your skin.

We needed it to work. The goo owed me that much.

But nothing. And then nothing. And we tried again. And nothing.

 

You were agitated and told me I’d better get back inside or you’d shoot, the shot gun stiff between your arms. I held my sack closer to my body like a shield and pushed forward, picking up the pace with each step, praying that last blast I heard hadn’t hit me. By the time I’d gotten to the road, I was shaking, my thumb jutting upward in unease. And I stood waiting, for another nice guy to find me.

---

Peanuts and Palm Trees

 

Tayler and her mother, Sherry, greet me at the baggage claim. Tayler’s long blonde and brown hair is piled on top of her head, and she is still as pale as when she moved from Kansas to Hawaii. Sherry’s hair is redder than I remember, lightened by her days spent in the sun. They are all smiles and teeth. I am smiles and lips. I watch the suitcases flow past the three of us until mine arrives, an American flag ribbon tied to its handle. They ask me how my flight was while Sherry grabs my suitcase from me. I tell them that it was okay, but that it felt longer than last year. As we walk through the airport to their car, I realize how much brighter this airport is than the one in Kansas, how many more windows there are. I watch people place leis on their friends and family, welcoming them to beautiful Maui.

Tayler and I are the type of friends that can go months without seeing each other and pick up right where we left off. This is rare and cliché at the same time. She moved to Hawaii two years ago because her mom got a job offer. We pick up where we left off in the car ride to their house, watch palm trees quickly pass from the rolled down window, and the white tides hit the sandy shore. She has a new boyfriend; he’s Asian she tells me. I don’t have a boyfriend like I did last winter, the last time I visited her. He was a dick anyway, Tayler says. I smile and agree. He left me for college. He left me for college girls.

I want to tell Tayler that I’m in a new relationship and I’m sorry that I didn’t tell her I was bringing Her along. She’s a friend, a companion, a partner(?), a person. We don’t have a sexual relationship, but I would call it romantic. I think She has romantic beliefs, this idea of perfection, that I can reach perfection. I can reach perfection with Her help. She tells me when I’ve had enough, when I’ve had too little. She lets me know what people think of me even if they don’t say it; she’s basically a mindreader. She looks a lot like me, only skinnier, but we don’t think the same. At least we didn’t used to. She has started to make me think things I never have before, to consider things about myself that could be easily improved if I would just try harder, listen to Her more. She has started to scream. A scream too loud to ignore, stomach-churning and always present. Her voice is acidic. I couldn’t have come to Hawaii without Her even if I tried. She can’t be left behind.

I know what’s best for you, Brooklyn. 

That muffin isn’t what’s best for you! That carrot is, but only two. You know that. 

I always said that I knew.

I don’t tell Tayler about Her because I can’t make it make sense in my head. We ride in Sherry’s jeep and let our hair knot itself on our heads. I look at the rocks lining the highway, creating a mountain. They are tied so that they don’t fall on cars and people. They are held hostage. I put my hands up and take Tayler’s picture from above. The air is warm even in motion.

 

The plane ride to Hawaii was painful. While I’ve been on longer plane rides than eight hours now, at the age of fifteen and sixteen, it felt like death. My father dropped me off at the Kansas City International Airport and hugged me goodbye. I yelled at him to drive safe on the icy backroads as I sprinted inside the airport to escape the falling snow and painful wind. It was my second time flying to Hawaii, but the first was easier than now. There were two people flying this time, and they had to share a seat and a brain. I could only watch Mary-Kate and Ashley films for so long before She told me I needed to eat; my metabolism was going to slow down.

Planes do not offer you easily digestible food. They give you a package of seven peanuts from 1999 or stale pretzels, probably also over ten years old. I put one peanut toward my salivating mouth, testing Her waters. I eat one; She says nothing. I smile to myself. I win this round. They taste old but salty. They are the stale type of chewy, easier to chew than nuts should be. I eat another, and another, and another until there is only one left.

Disgussssting Fuckinnnng Piiiiiiggggg

I drop the bag to the floor. The last peanut rolls out, goes under the seat in front of me, and toward the front of the plane. I close my eyes and run my fingers through my hair and pull. Please, stop. I whisper. Please, stop. I whisper. Please, just stop. I whisper. The guy next to me must think I’m insane. I spend the rest of the plane ride staring at my portable television screen, but not seeing a thing.

           

When we get to their house from the airport, Tayler suggests that we go to the beach. I walk through the kitchen near her bedroom and look at the Spam lining the walls, and the pink and yellow leis hanging on the corners of picture frames. Her bedroom is clean and small. I toss my suitcase onto her bed and shuffle through it, looking for a specific swimsuit. It’s black, small, and has a gold flower tying the strapless top together. I think it makes me look the skinniest. It is the skimpiest. I push a blue headband onto my head and pull back my long dyed blonde hair. I cover up with a strapless striped dress. Sherry comes with us to tan and take our pictures.

We pose in front of the beach sunset, arms around one another. The sand is hot on my feet and I keep bouncing from one foot to the other to lessen the burn. The water is bluer than blue; it is the clear type of blue. People shuffle around me and Tayler, also posing with arms spread wide in front of the water and sun. I see a lady jumping in the air, trying to get a shot of her flying. I am always turned to the side, sucking my stomach in. We try to make a heart with our arms, encompassing the sunset within them. It turns out looking more like a blobbed circle, and the next picture is of us falling over, laughing at how dumb we must look.

Sherry brings the camera over to us to show us the pictures and my stomach aches. I think about what She will say to me. Tayler leans against me as I flip through image after image. Tayler and Sherry say, “That’s cute,” and I nod. Pictures of us bent over laughing, hugging, me on her back. The ocean is vast and endless behind us; the sun’s reflection shines on its center. Sand covers my toes and butt, and there are a few photos of me trying to wipe it off. I cannot find a picture that I truly like. My eyes begin to well with tears. I want to be under the ocean. I want the salt of my eyes to be useful and invisible.

I sit in the warm sand next to Tayler. It burns my butt and thighs in a good way. I pick the sand up and let it fall through my fingers. The next time I pick a fistful up, I grind it in my hand. I rub my thumb over the inside of my four other fingers and let the sand dig into my skin. I do it until there is no sand left in my hands. And then I do it again.

You looked disgusting in those pictures. 

I know. 

Salad is the only option for the next few days. You have to have at least one good picture of you. You can’t look that fat. 

I know. 

Do you?

I want to scream I know. She will not leave me alone. I want to tell her that She isn’t the one living with this body; I am. It is different than living in this body, a body I did not invite Her into. Living with this body is a constant reminder that I may never be alone again, that there will always be a voice telling me that I can be more. There is always a more. There is never an enough, a quiet moment of peace. My body is a temple, but She said it’s too big; I have to be small enough for her to always find me. Living in this body means that She can bark orders, but I am the one that must follow through.

Right before we leave the beach, I look at my Timehop—a phone application that allows you to see what you posted on different social media platforms a year or more ago on the same date—I see a photo of me in Hawaii a year before. I am wearing a blue tube-top and denim shorts. My smile is wide and white. My hair is long and full. My stomach is not sucked in and gaping. My hips are not blades. My arms are not branches. The ocean behind me is still a clear blue.  

I am not disgusted by what I see. I am not shocked. I am about thirty-five to forty pounds heavier in this photo, but I am more surprised by how my smile shines. I do not yet understand the feeling of my body taking up too much room. I do not want to disappear. I am there. I am unapologetic.

 

I recall the first time She spoke to me. It may not be the actual first time, but in my memory, it is. It was during lunch my freshman year of high school—about six months after my first trip to Hawaii, and six months before my second trip—Emily had asked me to come get a cookie with her. I had done this every other lunch period since the beginning of school, nearly five months before.

Don’t do it. 

I told her that I didn’t want one today. She was confused, asked me what made today different. She reminded me that we always shared a pack of cookies.

I remained planted in my seat. I could not budge. I ran through the reasons in my head: I wasn’t that hungry today, I’m on a diet, I think I’m allergic to chocolate. Emily glared at me. She waited.

Good job. You don’t need that cookie. Just tell her to get the pack herself and save the other one for later. 

I told Emily and she scoffed at me and walked away. I shut my eyes tight after that to think. What did I just do? I did want a cookie, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t because of Her.

This was our first memorable meeting, the beginning of a relationship that I didn’t know how to end. It was more than just physically and mentally abusive. It was inescapable. It was not inevitable, but She snuck up on me. She smelled the beginnings of my fear of food, of fat. She serenaded me with words of my potential, You could be so beautiful, if only you were skinnier. You can be skinnier. She courted me with invitations to the gym—invitations that eventually felt more like orders than requests. She won me over because She is me. And because She is me, She is here for as long as I am.

Emily did not ask me to get cookies with her again. I think she knew, or saw. Emily, like many others, stood by and watched my body dwindle: my skin, with the slightest bump, bruised like an apple, my hair thinned and fell out, and my teeth chattered in a warm room.

The beginnings of my disorder are confusing and blurry; minds do not work without fat, most memories do not stick. People don’t know what to do with a body that takes up so little space, a body that hides behind layers of clothing. My friends didn’t know how to be gentle with their touch. They saw it as a refusal to eat, but it is an inability. If only they knew Her, understood us. Maybe then they would have said something, come with us to the gym.

           

After I finish looking at the old photo on my phone, we leave the beach and go to Subway. Tayler orders a sandwich with pepperoni. I notice because I love pepperoni. When I was a kid, young enough to still have my parents buy my every meal, I always ordered a pepperoni and mayonnaise sandwich from Subway. Nothing else. No vegetables, cheese, other meats or sauces. This time I order a salad with every vegetable on top, no meat or cheese, and fat-free dressing.

Tayler tells me she didn’t even know they sold salads here. I shrug, tell her, yes, they do. Sadly. I thought that if they didn’t, I would be able to trick Her, tell Her that I had to order a sandwich. It was all they had! And I needed to eat! But there was a salad on the menu, and She saw it first.

You know you have to get that, right?

I know.

No ranch or anything, though. 

I know.

We eat on a picnic table by the beach. The sun shines behind Tayler’s head, making her look more like shadow than person. I devour my salad because I am hungry, and then watch Tayler eat her sandwich. I cannot look away; the pepperoni shines like gold. The lettuce in her sandwich probably tastes better, although it is the same lettuce that’s in my salad. When she finishes, she asks if I’m still hungry. No, I tell her. She tells me that she noticed that I watched her eat, like I needed something more.

It seemed tradition now to get Subway on my first day in Hawaii. The first time I visited Tayler here, a year ago, I laughed when she suggested we get Subway for lunch. I wanted something Hawaiian, special. I imagined virgin piña coladas and kabobs with grilled pineapple, dancing ladies in hula skirts and coconut bras, and of course everyone greeting me with “Aloha!”

Tayler told me there was nothing like that near the part of the beach we were at, but there was Subway. I remember saying something like, “Okay, fine. But we better eat some kabobs for dinner,” and we did. Kabobs with grilled bell peppers, chicken, and steak. I ate them for dinner that night on a restaurant balcony next to Tayler, watching tanned women dance on the ground floor below.

On my first Hawaiian Subway trip a year ago, Tayler and I walked into Subway both knowing our order. We each got a footlong Italian sub on white bread and then decided we definitely also needed ice cream. It was hot in Hawaii, but not the bad type of hot. It was the type of heat that warmed your back, but not enough to make you sweat.

My ice cream was a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. I ate it quickly before it melted onto my hands and made them stick. Tayler had some too, but I’m not sure which flavor. I think it might have been pineapple. I remember something about her skin matching its glow.

 

During my second trip to Hawaii, I wake up around seven in the morning the entire week-and-a-half I stay with Tayler and her mother. I throw on some running shorts and a t-shirt, head to their backyard, and run in circles for an hour. I try to run around their neighborhood the first morning, but I get nervous. I think about getting abducted or lost.

On my first morning, I only make it down their street before I crush a tiny lizard at my feet. I jump when I hear its squish and rub my shoes on the concrete, ridding of its guts. When I begin to jog again, a middle-aged man runs past me and smiles. I give him a nod and turn around, start heading back towards Tayler’s house. There are so many people running around me that I begin to panic, wonder if they are watching me. Judging me. It doesn’t help that the sidewalk I’m on is next to a busy street. The cars whip past me and make my hair fly. I run faster, trying to catch it.

Where are you going? 

I can’t run out here. 

You better run at Tayler’s then.

I know.

Their backyard is pretty, at least. There are green trees lining the fence and fruit has sprung from its branches. It doesn’t look ripe, but it will be juicy and fresh. I think they’re are lemons or maybe apples. I run around the trees, touching their trunks as I sprint past each one.

On the third or fourth day of my running, Sherry comes out and asks what I’m doing. I tell her that I am just getting some exercise, and she asks why I do it in their backyard at seven in the morning. I shrug, go back to running. She doesn’t ask again, Tayler and I don’t spend much time with Sherry on this trip. I have to get three miles in. I’m used to being dizzy, so the circling doesn’t bother me.  

Three miles in a circle.

Three miles at seven in the morning.

Three miles before Tayler wakes up and asks me what I’m doing.

Three miles because She woke me with her bickering.

Get up and fucking run. Vacation doesn’t mean you get out of it. Pig. 

 

A year before, Tayler and Sherry didn’t live in this house. They moved from one part of Maui to another. Not too far away, but far away enough for it to be new. I remember how crisp Hawaii looked when I arrived. The palm trees, a type of tree I had never seen, stood tall and dangling. Their leaves mostly green, but some brown with decay. Tayler sent me a coconut in the mail when she first moved; she signed it with all of our inside jokes and nicknames. TurkeyTayler. Brookie. Tornado night. I let it rot in my closet, but it never started to smell bad.

The grass was greener, the sky clearer, the air more breathable than Kansas. I remember being excited to wear only shorts and dresses, to know that the weather remained at an almost steady eighty degrees. I wanted to take hundreds of pictures of us and post them to Facebook. I wanted to write my boyfriend’s name in the sand and sign it with a heart.

Tayler’s first house was smaller. It was brown and her bedroom was decorated with Hawaiin things, like colorful leis and ceramic pineapples. We spent most of our time outside, but if we were at her house, we used her webcam to talk to people back home, and with strangers on Omegle. We skipped past the perverted men and talked with guys our age for hours. We ate peanut butter and Nutella out of the jar and off a spoon. We spread their stickiness on crackers and made our mouths dry with food and laugher. We finished a large jar of peanut butter in five days.

We never woke up early and we always went to sleep late. We’d stay up taking mirror selfies, dying our hair with pink Kool-Aid, and planning our next couple of days. They all included tanning and food. They all included us taking pictures of each other and getting a henna tattoo of an anchor. They all included us laughing and talking about how blue the water is. That clear type of blue.

 

I met Tayler through Myspace, an old social media platform. She was new to our middle school and I had seen her around, but never spoke to her. Then she sent me a friend request. I accepted, honestly thinking it was a fake profile because her profile picture was so pretty, so clear, and not a selfie. Her skin was porcelain white, her hair straight, full, and long.

She sent me a message soon after I accepted her request: “The turkeys stole my macaroni!” I opened it, confused, but laughing. I replied with something like, “Oh, no! You need to get a new lock on your door. Turkeys don’t understand locks.” After we talked about the turkey situation for another fifteen messages or so—eventually concluding that turkeys were a bit evil—we introduced ourselves to one another. We were inseparable after that.

We spent every single day together, either walking to her house after school, or getting my dad to pick us up and take us to my house. The venture from school to her house was always the same. We would stop at the park, take photos of us looking emo and scene. Caption them on Picnik with things like: “Everyday you must smile.cry.and think. Even if it takes all you have,” and “Girls look me up & down & don’t know what 2 say. But it’s funny how the words come out, when I walk away.” In most of the pictures we are both in either red or blue skinny jeans, with fallen leaves or snow on the ground by our feet. Tayler and I were about the same size, so we shared a lot of our jeans and band t-shirts. I never deleted a picture because I looked fat. Every picture was a good one, only missing a cheesy quote.

I remember eating waffles with peanut butter for the first time in her kitchen after school, sitting at the bar top and pouring cold syrup over the warm waffles, cutting into the bread and watching the melted peanut butter fall onto the plate. It was magical. I had it every time I was at her house for almost a year after that. I don’t remember Tayler ever eating a waffle; I think her mother bought them just for me.

One day, at a middle school football game, Tayler and I ran into a few Spring Hill girls (a school only twenty or so minutes away from ours, and girls who were our arch enemies for unknown reasons). Three of them approached us and started boasting about how their school’s football team was going to beat ours. The yelling escalated and I, stupidly, started to insult their appearance. I called the girl closest to me a five-head. She glared at me with two different colored eyes, one a deep brown and the other forest green, and looked me up and down for a solid minute, studying me.

“Yeah, well, you’re fat,” she spat at me.

This didn’t start my eating disorder. Actually, I don’t remember it being particularly impactful. Tayler yelled at her, told her to shut up and leave, and oddly, she and the other two girls did. We sat in the school bleachers and laughed at them from afar. We laughed, but didn’t talk about what had happened. We never talked about bad things—unhappy things. I remember feeling a small sting right after she called me fat, but forgetting about it soon after. Tayler and I went and got salted pretzels with trans-fat filled cheese and watched our football team win the game. We stuck our tongues out at the three girls, sitting only a few bleachers away.

 

One year ago, and six years since my second trip to Hawaii, I tweeted that I was proud of myself for overcoming an eating disorder over seven years ago—that the worst of it was over. While I’m not completely free of its reign, I now wear a tiny crown with pride. A crown that says: I survived this, I’m alive and I have something to say about it. I cannot tell you how it started, but I can tell you how hard I fought it, how hard I sometimes still have to fight.

Tayler replied to this tweet with seven question marks. I replied back with eight. She was confused, and I didn’t entirely blame her. We had only seen each other three times in the two years that my weight fluctuated violently between one hundred forty-five pounds and ninety-eight pounds. We were close while texting but rarely in person. When she did see me at a fragile 98 pounds, her grin did not shrink, her questions did not come. She did not notice my dwindling body; she only cared that her friend had come to see her. She only saw me through Facebook pictures.

One picture is of me standing in my sister’s room, posted a few months before my second trip to Hawaii. I’m wearing a black Star Wars shirt, high-waisted purple shorts, and black Converse. My thighs are toothpicks and magnets that repel. My arms are twisted tree branches. My hair is paper. Tayler comments, “How did you get so tiny?!?!?!” I press like.

 

When I leave Hawaii for the second time, Tayler and I hug and wave goodbye. I watch the palm trees and clear, blue water disappear behind gray doors. I wear sweatpants because while it is 80 degrees here, it is below freezing back in Kansas. On the plane I turn on Mary-Kate and Ashley’s The Challenge, and watch them eat cat food and fruitcake. I refuse the peanuts that the flight attendant offers me, asking for only a water. I luckily have nobody sitting in the two seats next to me, so I sprawl out. I usually have a difficult time falling asleep on planes, but this time I fall into a dream state quickly.

It used to be common for me to have dreams about Her eating my brain. She is a dark shadow, no face but sharp teeth. She eats my brain slowly, devouring the hypothalamus of my forebrain first. She smiles at me after each bite, offers me a taste. I shake my head no, unable to speak, and She smiles wider. I never speak in these dreams. She smears blood down my cheeks. 

I don’t remember if I dreamt of Her on this plane ride, but I probably did. She was in my dreams almost every night. I like to think that I dreamt about the first time I visited Tayler in Hawaii, when I ate peanut butter straight from the jar. When I posed in my bikini without Her yelling at me to suck in your stomach. When I slept in without regret.

When I wake up there is still an hour or so left of the flight. I am hungry but ignore it. My stomach growling sounds like applause. She is quiet. She has nothing to say to me quite yet. When I get off the plane She will remind me that I need to go to the gym. She will sing a song about how salad is my best friend. She will do this again and again and again. Every morning, every afternoon, and every night. She will not let me rest. I know.

---

Kited

 

I am a kite. Packaged in clear plastic, I wait and have been waiting for some time, folded into myself upon the dusty shelf of the uninteresting dollar store. Day in and day out, the patrons bustle and hustle by but pay me no heed, preferring to stock up on the cheap candles or sandpapery toilet paper from aisle two. No one wants a kite these days, much less one that isn’t spattered with glitter or cartoon characters. I am but a simple blue hue, washed out by the fluorescent lights of the store. For one meager dollar you get my bones of two sticks, my heartstring upon a spool, and my folded self, yearning to soar.

The store’s automatic doors whir open, sending a warm current rippling through. When a woman in sunglasses and cherry high heels walks in, clip-clopping her way over the scuffed linoleum floor, she doesn’t strike me as any different. Just another customer sidling on by to browse the cheap perfumes, which try to make the wearer smell less like booze and sweat, and more like a summer breeze. But she smells like a spring thunderstorm, of rolling clouds and high winds and sweet ozone: a daring kite’s dream.

She stops just before me, flicking through the packages of sparkly kites hung neatly on hooks above me, before her head tilts down. Round cheeks. Red lips. Loose cardigan. Tight jeans. At first, I think she’s inspecting the row of rainbow sidewalk chalk on the shelf below mine, but no¾a smile lights up her face, and I find myself snatched up between her long, manicured fingers in one fell swoop. My package crinkles painfully like a dry leaf crushed underfoot, turning this way and that, but I’m intrigued! My heartstring-spool rolls to the side, my stick-bones knock together, and I fold upon my blue self in new ways. I can see myself in the dark reflection of her glasses, but not her eyes which behold me.

“Used to have one of you when I was a kid. How cute,” she says fondly under her breath, smiling at me, before roughly tossing me back down roughly on the metal shelf and striding out of my view, into aisle two.

False hope floods through me as I fall, jars me, and then settles my package flat. What a tease! What a shame! Oh, how those manicured fingers would have laid me flat and aligned my bones and sail¾would have tugged on my heartstring as I soared!

Click, click, click, click¾

All at once, my thoughts dissipate as I lift into the air again before being shoved into one of the store’s dingy, green hand baskets. Her hand quickly withdraws, causing my world to sway wildly for a few moments, the fluorescent lights above flashing down through the slots of the basket. Her heels begin to click-clack against the tiles once again, and, in less than a second, we’re moving across the store.

Is she really . . .?

The woman carelessly tosses other items in while she hums an idle tune from a sun-kissed throat. A box of low-fat cookies fall atop me. Toothbrushes jab into my wrapper. Tampons stare at me from across the basket. Leopard print sunglasses mirror my astonishment in a darker tint. And beside all of that, I am the only toy!

She’s¾? Taking me out of here! I’m finally getting out! We can run and soar and play in sunny parks and¾

I’m dumped over onto the small conveyor belt leading to the cashier, the other items piled atop me like a crushing mountain. I feel my stick-bones protest from the unexpected jostle. She doesn’t seem to care, her expression all but unreadable from behind those shades perched on her pointed nose. I notice the freckles spattered across her cheeks for the first time, paired with the tan lines peeking out from the hem of her blouse sleeves. Beautiful, yet unafraid to let the sun kiss her skin; I hope she likes the winds as much as the sun. She smiles coolly down at me, as if she can read my mind, and pops a piece of brightly-colored gum into her mouth from an unseen pocket of her jeans.

The exchange is quick as the items ring up on the register in succession. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The flash of a bent-up credit card reveals that the woman’s¾my woman’s¾name is Caroline. Once again, I am jammed upright into a loudly protesting plastic bag sporting THANK YOU! COME AGAIN! in cash-green font. The other items cascade into the bag, further colliding with my now-wrinkled wrapper and clinging tightly onto me¾a minor inconvenience for the flights that were to come.

 

After expertly navigating the earthy terrain in those cherry heels, my Caroline kneels on the park lawn, paying no heed to the green stains now blossoming on her jeans. She slips off her heels, bare toes kissing the ground beneath her. The damp wind combs its airy fingers through her dark curls, creating mischievous tangles, and I hope that it will treat me with such playfulness once I’m in its boundless skies. Caroline fishes me out of the bag and carelessly tosses the other purchases aside, granting me a brief moment of satisfaction before a burst of pain rattles every part of me.

With no grace, my package is agonizingly torn open, ripped away by those manicured fingers, and tossed aside for the wind to catch and tumble across the waving grass beside us. My shield, gone. I scream, but I have no mouth, no words to let her know what she’s done. But this has to happen. How else is she going to piece me together? I can’t fly if I’m hiding behind a sheet of plastic, right? My Caroline wouldn’t hurt me, if she knew, but I’m still more embarrassed than I would admit.

My blue sail is laid out in the prickly grass while her fingers impatiently graze my wooden bones, fitting them into the plastic notches in my sail, crossed on my chest. The wood bows in a way I didn’t think was possible without breaking before Caroline knots and double knots the end of my heartstring taut to my center. Rigid. She separates two long pieces of fabric from my sail that I didn’t even know were stuck to me, tying the odd pieces to my lowest point. They feel limp and awkward in the grass with me. I really hope she did this right.

She’s smiling up at me, holding me up to inspect with one hand, the dimming sunlight glinting off her sunglasses in playful winks that leave flecks in my vision. Dazzling. The warm winds eagerly tug, tug, tug at my edges, urging her to let me go. She heeds, not bothering to check if I’m ready for this leap, and throws caution, along with me, into the wind’s grip. I lift into the breeze.

The sky isn’t gentle with my first flight. Its graying clouds and winds were made for buffeting and the rolling turbulences. I am just a passenger, the borrowed wind in my sail coming and going on a whim with the only constant being the tug on my heartstring. I lift higher.

Even from where I fly above the treetops, Caroline’s smile still beams, creating my full sail, lending me confidence. I jerk a few times, up and down, before being pulled forward into the wind. As small as an ant, she’s skipping like a child across the park, her dark hair whipping back in a wild mess across her face and shoulders. And, also like a child, she doesn’t care one bit.

A flash of lightning tears through the sky. The wind buffets me up, sending me tumbling in wide cartwheels before dropping me in a nosedive toward the solid earth.

The thrill of the plunge is ecstacy. I can smell her thunderstorm scent all around me in this downward rush, her ant-like size growing larger by the second. In my mind, I’m soaring right to her waiting hands and her happy smile, a future of flights ahead of us. I’m thanking her for the flight, the elements in their raw power. And at the last possible moment, the wind snatches me into the air again as a roll of distant thunder, like a drum, reverberates through me. My heartstring is taut at my core as I sail up to full height, full view of the park below and my Caroline. Her firm grip is the only barrier keeping me from the complete clutches of the elements. I feel a shift, a few sharp tugs, but I trust it’s nothing. The feeling is slight at first, but then¾SNAP.

Blown back and at the wind’s mercy, I shriek as I watch my thin heartstring fall back to the earth below, limp. I spin wildly as the currents turn against me, no longer playful; they are devilish tempests with clawing hands. They grab my blue sail and pass me to each other like they’re playing volleyball, until I can’t tell which way is up or down, sky or earth. It’s all a blur of gray and dull green swirls.

They spike me down from the sky finally, and I think I’ll be relieved from this torment, but I’m dashed upon the branches of the tallest park tree with the deafening scrape of leaves, a cymbal crash at the end of my song of flight. I fall still within the stiff embrace of the tree, dazed, although the winds have now moved to rattle the branches and make them groan. My vision is spotted with a green kaleidoscope of leaves, dulled in color with the coming storm. I can’t see the ground in anything more than flashes between the swaying limbs. My spine is snapped in half and bent at odd angles, bones splintered. My once-pristine sail is punctured by sticks and littered with fragments of bark and dirt. Thunder rolls again after yet another streak of lightning lights up the sky.

Oh, Caroline, where is she? Surely, she’s planning on getting me down from here? Can she see me in this darkening light? I wait for what seems like eternity in that moment of disoriented panic before her sweet voice drifts up to me from the base of the tree like a siren’s song.

“Well, shit!” Caroline curses with clear annoyance, the profanity falling off her lips easily.

I’m here, I’m here! Help me, my Caroline! Get me down!

“Sorry, little guy, you were only a buck. I can get another,” her voice calls again, more distant. Fear grips me as I realize that she’s leaving¾she’s dooming me up here!

Her footfall, the crunch of fallen leaves on the grass, fades with her voice until I can’t hear her at all anymore. There’s no one around to help me, no one around to care.

The heavens open up, and it begins to pour.

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Summer Fruit Sunsets

 

The summer before I left Andrea for college landed on one of the hottest years on record. The humidity spilled into the later months, pushing back autumn, as if both of us had willed summer’s extension with our selfishness, to spend as much time as we could together. She seemed like royalty, perched on a throne of moss-covered, wooden railings and rusted lawn chairs, looking out at her imaginary subjects, inviting me into her kingdom as some esteemed guest. Two queens from separate decks. I couldn’t piece together the reasons I drove back into her world every day, or what we never spoke of but should have. Yet, trying to question those memories was like wiping the dust off an old antique¾you just have to let it be, frozen in time and fragile.

Here she was now, sitting in just a bra and basketball shorts, sipping away at a virgin piña colada as if her mother had just gone window shopping a few towns over, and would be back before dinner. She would not. It was a Wednesday, but with the lazy July sun. Days seemed to merge together, keeping track of time didn’t matter when there was so much of it, and with nothing to do. She reclined under the backporch umbrella while I inspected the volleyball net sprawled on the backyard grass. The backyard itself wasn’t particularly large, but it opened up to acres full of uncut grass that eventually led to the outskirts of a small forest. Technically, it counted as unclaimed land Andrea could’ve called her own, but there was no use wandering through the tall grass that harbored ticks and deer droppings. Even still, the view was breathtaking, especially at dusk, when the sun fell perfectly behind the tall oak branches. I often hoped she would call me over every time the sky turned different colors, as if some god was picnicking in the clouds, peeling orange rinds and spilling cherry juice. That was the sunset she witnessed every day.

“Want me to help you out?” she said, sitting straight and raising her head in a genuine offer to lend a hand. In the moment I took it as a personal challenge, and declined her offer. “I just thought it was too much of a hassle to prop it up every other day since the thunderstorms kept knocking it back down. And it’s not like I make much use of it.” Summers in Virginia did offer strong thunderstorms, but the next day’s heat index would erase any hint of rain. The constant back and forth offered something to keep pace. I focused on the latter of her statement, as if my immediate response should have been to pity her and her isolation, but I doubt that would be her intent, when she knew I was spending time with her when I didn’t necessarily have to. And she didn’t seem at all ecstatic to leave the chair and chase some tattered volleyball.

Andrea and I had known of each other since freshman year of high school, sharing a few classes here and there, occasionally being her audience whenever she presented some grand project in English. She liked getting passionate over French authors no one knew of, blaring all the strange things she learned about their secret lives on Wikipedia. I think she liked getting reactions from crowds, whether of interest or entertainment. She was comfortable being put on a pedestal, some sort of passive confidence I couldn’t help but envy. That could’ve been the reason why we didn’t start talking until senior year, just a few months prior. We usually sat next to each other in poetry class, exchanging thoughts on Christina Rossetti and sharing snacks we carried in our sweater pockets. I can’t remember the catalyst to our newfound acquaintance, but Andrea was the type of person to carry a conversation with anyone, which made her bounce from group to group with ease. It seemed she was always in a genuine mood to be friendly and casual, and she could’ve seen something in me worth chatting up, but perhaps I’m overthinking her not-so-grand gesture.

We never spoke much outside of school until she made it a habit of inviting me over on ninety-degree days. We would share a bowl of strawberries, or tan on the lawn chairs. It took me by surprise for sure, and the first time I parked in her driveway, I kept looking over my shoulder expecting anyone else to show up, but she clarified it was just me when I asked if there was a party. I didn’t want to make things awkward. At that time I considered us friends, but I never expected to be the handpicked companion to share the day, out of everyone else she seemed to know. Sometimes I thought she only did this to get me to drive her to the nearest grocery store when her fridge was running low, but I couldn’t complain, considering even grocery shopping with her proved to be entertaining. She always took the mundane and flipped it on its back.

For a few weeks it played out like this, today no different, but I finally felt comfortable enough to leave the porch and fiddle with the fallen volleyball net to see if I could set it up once more.

I would have mentioned the option of playing with her mother, but I found out about that situation days before, when it was already a habit of mine to be her guest. We were sitting on the grass picking at weeds and flicking ants off our thighs. On a whim, I asked why she always had the house to herself. Slowly, she unraveled the story, but only after I picked at her brain with specific questions to see the whole picture. She gave vague answers, wanting to shrug off the subject. I could see why.

That summer, her uncle made constant visits to a veteran’s hospital out of state. Being his only other sibling, her mother drove three-hours north, to keep him company for days at a time. I could only imagine a racoon-eyed woman slumped in a disinfected plastic chair next to her brother. She still thought her brother was the same person who climbed apple trees for a quick bite, and would bandage her finger when she sliced it open peeling potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. These were the stories she told her daughter in the rare times she came home, moments before passing out on the couch. Andrea repeated while we grazed our palms over the blades of grass, as if they were peach fuzz.

But with my new objective to raise the net, I could see how it gave the implication that I wanted to toss a ball back and forth, and really, I wouldn’t have minded if we did. Untangling the strings and digging to place the sun-eaten poles into the dry dirt, I thought I set it back up quite well, at least for the time being; I could tell it would fall back down by the time I left after sunset.

“So you don’t use this? Well now we can,” I responded. The “we” in my comment threw me off somehow, and looking back at Andrea’s face, seeing one eyebrow raise above her sunglasses made me want to retract my statement.

“You know it’s not for volleyball, right?” she asked, and I thought I heard a tinge of excitement in her voice. She took a final sip from her melted drink and got up with a long stretch. I took the moment to view the faint curve of her hips, the way her ribs protruded outward to hold a breath. She headed inside and left me with my pitched net. I studied the house, now that I didn’t have her to glance at, and tried counting the windows. They didn’t seem to have any order, and were patched around wherever they fit. Even with the large view and expansive land ahead, it was a quaint, two-story house, with less than a handful of rooms as far as I could tell, since I was never invited inside. Maybe I had already been invited in some unspoken sense, and didn’t have to ask to walk in. Andrea always loomed outside, however, so it felt off limits to barge in to refill a drink.

She returned with oddly shaped rackets and a pile of feathers in her fist. I tilted my head in curiosity, like a puppy hearing a whistle.

“Ever play badminton?”

Badminton. I should’ve known the feathers were a shuttlecock; that should’ve given it away had I put two and two together.

“I swear I had a newer birdie, but I guess not.” And she called them birdies, of course, why would I waste my breath with a three-syllable word like shuttlecock? While I debated in my head, she handed me a racket with a quizzical look, and I realized I had been dead silent the whole time she walked over.

“It’s been a while,” I said, heading to the other side of the net, “I used to play over at my sister’s house. I think she grew cherry tomatoes. Ate them like grapes. I didn’t mean to impose that we play or anything.” I studied the racket and let my fingers weave into the plastic grid, remembering how my sister would make me run left to right, aimlessly swinging at the air. I was too young to play well, but that was years ago. It’s strange how totally unrelated events, like Andrea standing in front of me with her face separated into pieces by the strings of the net, can bring back such familiar feelings.

Before I could react, she hit the shuttlecock, no, birdie, my way and it landed in the grass behind me. “You’re not imposing. If anything, I am.” She gave a soft chortle, expecting me to start the game again. I did, albeit a bit rustily, but time seemed to slow even more, and we went on back and forth, both in the game and in conversation. Bouncing between topics of alliteration and sportful taunts, I noticed how she let her dark hair brush her bare shoulders. Her shirtlessness took me some time to adjust to, but it was completely reasonable considering the waves of sunrays cast on us. Nothing more. Eventually she took off her sunglasses, if only for a few seconds, while she wiped her brow. I could finally see her eyes when she spoke. I liked being able to, as cheesy as it sounds, see the way she reacted with her natural expressions. How often had I looked directly at her? It all seemed so new. Then the glasses were back on and my questions dissipated. Instead, I focused on my own appearance, not comparing to hers, just checking if I was also radiating some sort of careless charm. The sweat started to collect on my weathered tank top, and several strands of my hair fell below my shoulders from the once tight bun that had held them in place. Careless, for sure.

We called it quits when the sky hinted it would start its color show, and we returned to the porch for another round of piña coladas. We both tilted our chins up to take in the sky. “This is my favorite part,” I whispered, not meaning to.

“The sunset? Yeah, I think it’s nice, but it means another day is ticked off, and I’d much prefer the afternoon to last forever, or at least a little while longer.” She took one last sip of her drink and slid her sunglasses further up the bridge of her nose. Was she trying to hint at the fact that right after the sun left, so would I? Did she like spending time with me that much? Or was I being selfish and believing everything she said was about me? She couldn’t possibly care that much, perhaps she just hated being alone. But why was it always me she wanted to spend hours with, picking wild blackberries that grew by the side of her house? I looked at her and asked the most melodramatic question, but it was the only one I could think of.

“With me?” I regretted it as soon as I asked, but then again, I hated everything I told Andrea and I could never tell why. Like everything I had to say never fit her standards of conversation, I wanted to offer her better, because I knew I could. But it was already out in the air for the mosquitos to fly through, to rise up into the sun and burn away. It took her a while to respond. Now I was sweating with the heat and the awkward atmosphere. This could be the last time I’d ever be invited to this safe haven miles away from the real world. I messed it up that much, catastrophically enough that she would assume more, dig deep into those two words and excavate some larger meaning. I had no idea how she would interpret that meaning. Hell, even if there was one I accidentally stuffed in between the letters, I’d have no idea what exactly it would be. I hadn’t thought about anything deeper that day than raising the net and counting windows, and here I was, feeding her dialogue we could both ponder over like a Christina Rossetti line in poetry class. It was nerve-racking to say the least.

Finally, she looked away from the sky and met my stare, no signature eyebrow raise this time, but maybe she wasn’t even looking at me. I couldn’t tell with the sunglasses and all. As if reading my mind, she took them off, but I couldn’t take this as some heartfelt gesture, the sun was bleeding away and she simply didn’t need them anymore. She matched my volume and said, “You could always stay over tonight, if you don’t want to drive back home in the dark,” and she turned to look up once more. If my jaw dropped, I hoped she couldn’t see from her peripheral vision. What a cheat, avoiding my question completely.

Before I could draw up some sensible answer, the gravel in the front yard started crackling under the weight of tires. An engine sound. Not waiting for my response, she jumped up and leaned against the side of the porch. Her expression filled with worry and panic, and I couldn’t tell why, since I knew it was only her mother. Maybe I would get to see if her demeanor was exactly how I’d imagined it. But my laid-back attitude didn’t match Andrea’s, and I wondered why. Before I could ask, she took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back. The relaxation techniques weren’t working, her shoulders simply rolled back into place just below her ears, tense. I found it endearing, but I couldn’t remember a time when I had seen her like this, and I worried about her strange reaction.

I began to stand up to join her staring, but she put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me away from the view of the front yard. She let go once I was out of sight, she couldn’t have held on for more than two seconds, and yet I wish she had let it rest there. Had she never touched me before, this whole time? I had to snap out of whatever clouded my judgement of the situation, of which I still didn’t understand. We were standing so close to each other now, and I enjoyed everything, except for the puzzled look she had, as if she were trying to solve some impossible equation.

“What’s going on? Isn’t it just your mom?” I finally had enough sense to ask the right question. She sighed and said yes¾the way she spoke opposite the way she looked¾barefoot and shirtless, ready for a day at the beach. I had never seen her so conflicted. Just moments ago, she had been as careless as ever, even when she couldn’t hit the birdie in time. I asked again what troubled her.

“It’s nothing,” she whispered, “I’m just not allowed to have guests over, and I can’t read her mood.” The car door slammed shut. Its heavy metallic thud scared away a flock of neighboring birds hidden in the branches. They scattered away like all of my inquisitions of what could’ve become of that evening, or the nights ahead. No reason to contemplate or complain nowadays, Andrea came and went like that summer season, as I should’ve expected, fading with the strawberry stains on my shorts. I keep her tucked in the back of my mind, for my imagination to sort out the finer details.

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Read Hair Trigger 2.0, Issue 3 here.

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Read Hair Trigger 2.0, issue 2 here.

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Read Hair Trigger 2.0, issue 1 here.

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The Girls of Murder City

 

Interview by Claire Doty

Chicago is not known for its gentle history—a devastating fire, corruption, and a wild gangster scene are just a few of the gritty scars imbedded in the city’s timeline. The famous musical Chicago echoes that history with a wry and comical twist. Few know, however, that its origins came from actual events that happened in Chicago. Author Doug Perry opens the curtain to the fascinating world in the 1920s in his book The Girls of Murder City (2010), which delves into the lives of women in Chicago in the bustling time of prohibition, crime, and lust. Perry creates a historical narrative that guides us through each woman’s tale, whether it be a blossoming reporter or an accused murderess. 

Perry has a great understanding of Chicago as a city in the 21st century as well as the in the early 20th. His extensive research led him to find documentation that was overlooked and considered  ordinary, but in fact added depth to the complicated history of the women who inspired Chicago. He sheds light on the roles of females and the struggles they faced in a male-dominated world, which threads into the issues women still face today. Perry sheds new light on common plot points—that some human qualities linger decades longer than humans themselves, and that those modern humans are not so different from their predecessors. In delving into the past, the present becomes sharper.

Claire Doty: What made you interested in the history of these particular women?

Douglas Perry: I saw the musical Chicago on Broadway and enjoyed it immensely. Not only was it hugely entertaining, [but] it also struck me as insightful, clever and topical. The best work Kander and Ebb ever did, in my view. The playbill mentioned in passing that Maurine Watkins, the author of the original play on which the musical was based, had been inspired by actual murder trials she covered for the Chicago Tribune in 1924. This intrigued me, and I went looking for books, articles, essays—anything that had been written about the play’s source material. But I was surprised to find there was very little information available about the events that inspired the play and musical.

CD: Where did you start your research?

DP: I started in the Chicago Public Library, where I spent days going through its newspaper archives. There were half a dozen daily newspapers in 1920s Chicago, and newspaper coverage was a lot different—and far more entertaining—than it is now. Reporters routinely impersonated police officers to get information. They broke into and ransacked the homes of murder victims in search of diaries and photographs. Crime reporters at this time could walk freely through police stations and jails at all hours. They sat in on and participated in police interrogations. They investigated crimes themselves, trying to stay a step ahead of homicide detectives. Reporters hung out at the Cook County Jail and interviewed “the girls of Murderesses’ Row” at length, over and over, without the women’s attorneys present. While it was, in some ways, a more brutal time, it was also a more naïve time. These women who were facing murder trials were often remarkably candid when talking to reporters.

The newspapers, of course, were only the beginning. I delved into government records, where I unearthed a lot of valuable information. Belva Gaertner’s divorce records, for example, proved to be a treasure trove. The documents walked me through her life almost year by year from about 1917 to about 1926. They included long interviews with Belva and her husband, and detailed reports from private investigators. One of the great things about historical research is that you don’t know what you’re going to find until you start looking. These divorce records were in Cook County’s archives, sitting untouched in a dusty box for 80 years. No one knew they were there. They hadn’t been digitized and put online, and they probably never will be. Such records aren’t about celebrities or world leaders, and they’re mostly commonplace documents, so they are a very low priority for archivists. But there are some fantastic stories there. Having gotten started, I began tracking down and reaching out to descendants and others who knew (or knew about) those involved in the events. One thing kept leading to another.

CD: What inspired you to write about Chicago’s crime history?

DP: I moved to Chicago right after college and lived there for most of the 1990s. I instantly fell in love with the city. Chicago is always changing, evolving, reaching out to the future—but its history remains front and center. You can walk through the neighborhood where Maurine Watkins lived in 1924 and still get a fair sense of what it was like then. The building where Eliot Ness and the Untouchables worked looks—on the outside—almost exactly the same today as it did 80 years ago, though it’s been converted to residences. It’s not far from Columbia College, of course. I used to live just blocks from the Biograph Theatre, where John Dillinger met his end. My favorite used bookshop—now gone, sadly—was two doors down from the theater. I learned the city during my first year in Chicago by spending my weekends riding the El, getting off at random stops and walking around. If you keep your eyes open, the city’s whole history is right there for you.

CD: What intrigues you about Chicago?

DP: It’s the all-American city, by turns beautiful and terrifying. There’s just an excitement about Chicago, and it’s something very different from what New York offers. “Stormy, husky, brawling,” as Carl Sandburg wrote. It’s the most interesting city in the country. 

CD: How would you categorize your book? 

DP: The Girls of Murder City is history, but I like to think it’s more than that. It’s about unique events that took place in 1924, but like the musical Chicago, it speaks loudly and clearly to today’s celebrity culture. It’s also. . .funny. It showcases how there’s really no such thing as normal. We all want to fit in—and we’re in a conformist era right now—but people are odd, and strange things happen. Thank God for odd people and strange happenings.

CD: In crime and gangster history, especially in Chicago, the focus is always on men. Do you think there is almost more respect for men who engaged in crime rings in the 20th century than there is for women?

DP: Chicago’s famous gangster era was a man’s world, there’s no way around it. The early twentieth century was a time of social upheaval and transformation. Women were gaining new freedoms, and this inevitably had a dark side. But of course a lot of people still had 19th-century attitudes, and so they had a very difficult time coming to terms with the very idea of women committing crimes. Violence was widely considered an unnatural act for a woman. When it happened, there had to be extenuating circumstances: the woman had been abused by a man or tricked by a man, or—ye Gods!—was in love with a man and so had lost her mind. A woman who killed surely had been overwhelmed by alcohol or feminine emotions, or both, and so she was not responsible. Cook County juries were all male, and so women—especially good-looking women—were almost always acquitted, no matter how much evidence there was.

CD: What is your opinion on the glamorization of certain crimes?

DP: I’m not in favor of glamorizing crime. While researching the book, I found Belva and Beulah to be endlessly fascinating. And my heart broke for Wanda Stopa, the pioneering “girl lawyer” who ended up killing a man. She was even bigger news than Beulah and Belva. The newspapers called the public’s appetite for her story “the Wanda sensation.” But I tended to relate to Maurine Watkins, who was appalled that women murderers were being treated like celebrities. It infuriated her that Beulah and Belva were using their gender and sex appeal to manipulate the justice system. She did everything she could to help secure convictions for them.

CD: What did you want readers to take away from your book?

DP: The march of technology increasingly makes earlier generations seem very strange and distant to us, but people haven’t changed much down through human history. Our motivations are the same generation after generation, and so there is much we can learn by studying the past, the “small” events and people as well as the big ones. And in this era of 24/7 entertainment and 400 scripted TV series, I would like readers to realize that truth really is stranger than fiction. At book events, I heard over and over from readers that they had no idea Chicago was based on real events. They would say: These beautiful, murderous, in-your-face women—how could their stories be true? But if you study history, you know the real question is—how could they not be?

 To learn more about Perry’s writing visit his website.

November 21, 2016

Tags: Douglas Perry, The Girls of Murder City, Claire Doty, Chicago History, Interview