Before My Eyes (17 page)

Back in my room, I read through, again, this prose poem, which I wrote in a fury, mixing description and facts from the National Weather Service. The words pulsate, draw me in, drown me. Soon enough, I have to shut my writer's notebook.

This afternoon, I talked to my father on the phone. He sounded bone-tired but excited. He said he had come up with a solution to the insurance issue and wanted to discuss it with me in person. I am here, where is he?

Crickets whirl. Cars honk. The breeze floats in the scent of sleeping flowers. “The world is too much with us,” or so writes the poet William Wordsworth. I want to shake the poetry out of me. I have to be practical.

“Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me,” Emily Dickinson's poem buzzes through my head.

“I could not stop for death?” I didn't drown. There's something exhilarating in knowing that I could come that close and survive. My laptop screen blinks at me. I circle it. I have too much energy to sit. I stand over the screen and dream out another poem.

RIPPING

by Claire Wallace

Rip: tear, rend, shred, slash,

or ripped: well-defined muscles,

or ripped: drunk or stoned—

rip-roaring,

or rip: a song from the web.

Rip into: attack

Rip off

I'm going to

rip you a new—

or reboot:

R.I.P.

Rest in peace.

Not quite Emily Dickinson. The hardest part of writing this second poem is deciding where to put the periods and commas. The words flow. The pauses are hard. The end points harder. All endings are tough, often ambiguous. I never know when to end, or where. I take the commas and periods out and put them back in. There is such permanence to a period in a poem. Emily Dickinson liked dashes in her poetry. Maybe inspiration comes from what's not there as much as what
is.

I'm on a roll and dash out a third poem, a short one, which starts with the line “Rip out my heart.” I place my palm against the screen as if through the smooth surface I could touch the sentences. Sometimes I think this is the only thing keeping me sane—and grounded. I would float away otherwise. I want to share these poems with Brent. Yet at that moment, the kitchen telephone rings.

Barkley

Saturday, 7:45
P.M.

Coffee, fresh from the gas station convenience store, scalds the roof of my mouth.

Before I returned home, I filled up my Explorer with gas and myself with coffee. This is my second extra-large cup.

Jared says he has a pill that is better than coffee. I do not believe him. I must break off with him. He is no good. He says that I should know that this pill selling is only for the short term; he needs the money. His father and mother are divorced, though in truth, his father is in jail for selling drugs. How entangled are our family histories. We are our fathers, our grandfathers; my cousin's blood runs in my blood.

I gulp down more coffee.

Claire, mermaid more than girl, chosen for me, emerged from the sea with hair that was alive, snake-like. Her face was lost in the hair. I could lose myself in that hair. I glare at the keyboard with its incoherent pattern. Better to use another device. Better to telephone her. She picks up immediately. “Are you okay?”

“Brent?”

Her voice is deep and silky and breathless. I must concentrate. I want to hold her, protect her. She will smell like the sea: salty, wild, sun-drenched—a mermaid smell.

“I posted new poems. Did you read them?”

I push my desk chair close to the screen. I am not sure if I want to see something new. I saw enough today. Saw Claire nearly drown. Witnessed her with Max Cooper. Now I am slow to respond. Time warps.

“Are you reading them now?” Her voice is near.

I read the shortest one:

RIP

by Claire Wallace

Rip out my heart

Eat it

Go ahead

Does it need salt?

Or is it sweet?

I bet it's bloody and bitter

and better-tasting than

any other part of me

I suck down another draw of coffee, black as mud, burning. Unlike my father, I do not believe in artificial sweeteners. They alter the chemistry of the brain. On the other hand, coffee aids concentration. Coffee does not require cans or plastic. I drink from a recyclable cup. I drink more and stare at the poem. I do not know what it means. I do not know what any of it means. And I have a problem with these poems, even without reading the other ones. A major problem. The lack of grammar results in the deficit of clear, concise sentences, which leads to obfuscations and lies.

“I know this isn't a screenplay. It's only a poem,” she says.

“There are formats that screenplays must follow,” I say. Sweat runs down the inside of my sweatshirt. I have told her that I am writing a screenplay. I have not committed myself to words yet and she has.

“I think it is so cool that you are working on a screenplay.”

I drink down to the dredges.

“Claire, I do not understand what you wrote. And I want to understand, Claire. I want to understand you. I feel that is the reason we are what we are. To understand. For me to understand you.”

It is not clear why it is taking her so long to answer me. Why time stretches and contracts as if by her will.

“What do you think it means?” She finally speaks, happily, almost flirtatious, as if she easily comprehends the meaning of these words and is refusing to tell me for my own good. She is acting like an English teacher. Of all the teachers, those are the ones that perplexed me the most, especially the female ones: cheerful, intense, piling symbols and metaphors and similes and subtext in a heap.

I study her words. Missing or misplaced commas and periods distort the meaning, the truth.

Be careful with her. Watch her. She needs you. Read her poetry again. It has a message for you in between the lines. In the white spaces and pauses.

“Brent?” she asks. “So what do you think?”

“I must read it closely.” I lick the inside of the coffee cup. I need more.

“It's just a poem,” she says. Her voice stays low and light.

“No, it's more than that.”

“How did you find me, Brent?”

I realize that the Glock is for her—to protect her, too.

“I was searching for you, Claire Wallace.”

Max

Saturday, 7:54
P.M.

At sunset, I start closing up with Trish and Peter. Barkley's left his dirty coffee pot in the back. I don't think he's cleaned it out all summer, and he must have drunk a dozen cups of coffee today, a record. So I do him a parting favor: I fill up the pot with hot water and soap and leave it to soak.

After the fight with Jackson, Barkley said he couldn't focus on work and left, as if he had bigger issues to deal with and could call it a day at the Snack Shack. He wasn't doing much work anyway, mumbling to himself. I'm not the boss, either. Even so, I stayed past my shift to help Trish and Peter. Now, they're flopped down in plastic chairs behind the counter. I don't know why I thought that they would want to celebrate my shift ending; they're not the celebrating type. Even so, they have to work the three-day weekend, Labor Day weekend, and only I, Max Cooper, am stopping work before one of the busiest weekends of the year, as pointed out by Trish with her hands on her hips and a jiggle so hard I had to step back against the soft serve machine. Nobody says it, but in the same way I got the job via my father's connections, I'm ending it early because of his influence. No son of Glenn and Debbi Cooper's is going to be working on his birthday.

“Did you find who you were looking for?” asks Peter, all cheery as if we're starting the day, not ending it.

“I'm not looking for anybody.” The sun sets against the sea. The sea gulls rise up over the waves. I have no plans for tonight. This is the end of summer for me.

“I hope we get to work together next summer,” says Peter.

“I hope we don't,” I say, kiddingly, but he doesn't get it and his smile comes crashing down.

“He's had enough of us,” says Trish, getting to her feet. “It's closing time.”

We spend the last few minutes in silence—the shore almost empty, the counters cleaned off, the ice cream machine wiped down, and the floors swept. We close up the front gate and lock it. I double-check that it's secure.

Last shift.

“Hey, guys,” I say to them as we're standing outside the Snack Shack. “I'm having a party tomorrow night.” I don't know why I say this. I've known about it all summer and haven't said a thing to them. Part of me wants to take it back. Everyone always shows up at my birthday party, and I don't want them all to see Trish and Peter there, do I? But then, Trish and Peter deserve to celebrate the end of summer, too.

“A party?” Peter repeats.

“At my house.”

“Party? Is it your birthday?” asks Peter, wide-eyed.

“In fact, it is.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“I'm seventeen, too!” says Peter. “Why didn't we know it was your birthday? I like everyone to know it's my birthday. It's in December. I hope you can come to my birthday. December fifteenth.”

Trish looks me up and down like I'm dirt. She knows why I didn't ask them earlier.

“A party? How nice,” says Trish. “You really want us?”

“No,” I say, as if joking. I don't know what I'm doing telling them about the party. I mean, I don't even want to be having this party. I remember what Jackson said, that nobody is coming, nobody that matters like him or Samantha, so I might as well invite Trish and Peter.

“We'll come!” Peter says, and adds, “Right, Trish?”

She shrugs, yanks her striped tank top down across her hips, and flings her overstuffed bag onto her shoulder. “Let's go, sweetie,” says Trish to Peter. “You and me, kid, we have to be back here tomorrow. We're working the entire weekend, unlike some people.”

This is going to be the worst birthday ever.

Are you going or staying, Max?” asks Trish.

“You think I'm staying? I'm out of here. Forever.”

Three across, we walk down the boardwalk toward the tunnel and the parking lot. Trish and Peter both tell me they had the best summer ever working with me. Peter repeats the line twice until I nod my head, as if I'm agreeing.

Outside the short tunnel, in the parking lot, I step away from the two of them. I'm afraid they'll hug me or do something else stupid. Instead I say, “I hope you guys can come tomorrow night.” And I mean it.

Peter releases one of his extra-happy smiles, the kind he always gave when I said he should have an ice cream break.

“We'll see, sweetie. I may have plans,” says Trish, and then she does hug me, and it's okay.

She guides Peter across the parking lot to his bus stop at the far side. I don't know if she's been doing this all summer. I feel like I've spent the whole summer not paying attention, and now here I am at the end, and I need to start. Maybe the first thing I need to do is stop with the pain pills, prescription or not. I rub my back.

Summer is over. It's finally over. The sun eases down across the roof of the Snack Shack, over the ocean. Sea gulls glide across the stark black tar. Buses rumble in. Trish and Peter shout good-byes. For the first time that summer, I think that I should offer them a ride. But before I can, Trish is giving Peter a hug, too, and helping him on a bus. She gets on a different bus. All of a sudden, I realize that I will miss them.

Barkley

Saturday, 8:15
P.M.

My skin is uncomfortable, damp and burning. I am in the bathroom, running the shower. I make sure I blast the water for a good five minutes: fogging the mirror, overturning the liquid soap. All these months, shaving cream has been allowed. The chemicals are protective, cool to my face and head. I run a razor all around, striking off the hairs. Before I leave the bathroom, I toss all the blue towels to floor, as if they have been used. I don't touch the pink ones. Those are my mother's towels, and one of the many rules in the house is that neither I nor my father are to use her towels even if they are placed in our separate bathrooms. She does not use them. The cleaning lady sprays them once a week with what is supposed to be a rose scent, but it's only more chemicals, a false, plastic scent, a scent that does not break down, or wilt. They should be home soon and will think that I have showered.

Quick! What's the body's largest organ? Skin. And mine will remain safe and water-free. Thoughts ricochet from one side of my brain to the other. My eyes ache. My forearms are bruised from the attack on Jackson, the white turning a purple-black of ugliness.

When I return to my bedroom, I double-check that the door is locked behind me. I log on and read the poetry from Claire again. Her words are even more indecipherable than before. All words are. They leap on the screen. Grammar, which should control the sentences, is not present.

I will save all her poems for later. Force order on them. Add commas and periods. Show her what matters in this world is a sense of right and wrong, especially in a sentence.

I will check my other messages. Maybe they are better. Among the promotions for video games, for cheap prescription drugs, among the old headlines from various news sources I subscribe to and never read, the updates from environmental groups who are always asking for donations or for petitions to be signed, the reminders about overdue library books, my local library now hunting me down via e-mails, threatening fines—among all these messages, not one from the state senator.

There is an automatic response from the Environmental Protection Agency. This starts with, “Thank you for your concern.” This I don't need to read. I understand that my so-called “concerns” are being ignored, passed on, and flipped to a nameless bureaucrat. This is my cause, not my concern. I could write my congressman or United States senator or even the president, but this elected representative, Glenn Cooper, said he was here to listen and provide answers to me.