Eat Your Heart Out (17 page)

He has a headache now. He knew he would. With every new feeling in his left arm, he told them he hated them. He didn't need them, not anymore. He just wanted them to go away.

But they wouldn't.

He eats a ham sandwich, barefoot in his kitchen. As soon as he finishes, he heads up the stairs and goes to bed.

Lying in bed, almost asleep, he wonders to himself if his left arm would fall asleep even after he has. He doesn't want to dream of numbers.

The last thing he remembers thinking about is Caitlin.

Caitlin and her pretty freckles.

Caitlin and her green eyes.

Caitlin and her sad face.

He feels fours.

Michael dreams of
tall buildings.

He dreams of tall trees.

He dreams of tall ladders.

He falls, far, far down.

When he lands, he sees women dressed up like the olden days. They have big skirts and fancy hats. He can't see their faces because they are veiled in lace. He asks the women to show him their faces, but they won't. He thinks one of the women is Caitlin, or an old relative of Caitlin, but he can't be certain because she won't show him her face. The lady walks like Caitlin, but when he taps her on the shoulder, she won't turn around.

He stops by a river and watches an old man paint a picture of the scenery. The painting looks like a perfect photograph. Everything looks exactly the same as what's in front of him. Michael can't believe anyone can paint like that. When he goes to compliment the artist, the man won't turn around.

After a few tries, Michael decides he should leave the river. He walks down a dusty road. He sees people on horses, men in carriages, women in petticoats.

Then he falls again.

He falls far, far down and lands nowhere he's even been before.

He doesn't see numbers.

Just tall buildings.

Tall trees.

Tall ladders.

In a moment of lucidity, he tells himself to keep dreaming.

Michael wakes up
to his phone buzzing.

Fire Crotch texted him: dude whered u go? meet at licks. now. peace.

Licks is a diner three blocks from Michael's house. He looks at the clock on his phone. It's five-thirty.

Five plus three is eight. Five times three is fifteen. Fifteen divided by eight is one point eight seven five. One point eight seven five divided by eight times three is zero point seven zero three one two five.

He can't believe he's slept that long. He rolls onto his back. His left arm really hurts, but his headache's gone. His insides feel empty.

He throws on his jeans. Looking in his mirror, he decides he looks better in the evening light. He checks his pockets, and he still has the five dollars from earlier.

He still has the roach too.

The boys will probably smoke him on something, he thinks.

He runs down the stairs and counts every step. He doesn't see his mom. She's still at work. He throws his earphones in, and this time the Geto Boys come on.

Two beats.

Four beats.

Eight beats.

Sixteen beats.

When Michael gets
to the diner the boys are already seated in the corner booth. He is met by the cute waitress, a year older than them and it really shows. The uniform hugs every part of her, and when she asks if she can get anything started for him, Michael looks at his Air Forces.

He tells the pretty girl that he'd like a grilled cheese and a Coke. Then he thanks her.

“No problem,” she says, smiling as she walks away.

He walks toward the boys. Seeing all them, Fire Crotch, Loveday, the others, still makes him nervous. The reaction is instantaneous; his hurting stomach, the cold sweating.

He tells himself to relax, that things are different now. He reminds himself that they are friends. Things are different.

He swallows, tells his face not to look nervous. He adjusts his jaw and puts a vacancy in his eyes. He tries to look tough, like the rappers, and walks toward them with his chest out. He walks slower than usual.

“What's up?” he says as he slides into the booth.

“Nothing, man, where the fuck did you go earlier?” asks Loveday.

“Yeah, did you go to the principal's office?” says Fire Crotch.

“Fuck that. I went home.”

“Sweet, man,” says Loveday, smiling and proud. “Fucking Caitlin came back like halfway through class.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Mike.

“Yeah, her face was like beet red. She looked like she'd been crying. She's such a bitch. She'd probably kill herself if she got in trouble.”

“Shut up,” says Michael quietly.

“Whatever, she's a bitch. That waitress is so fit, eh?”

Michael turns and looks at her. This time he really looks at her.

“Yeah,” he says.

She is beautiful, Michael decides. She has a soft face, soft curves, long curly blond hair. She looks angelic and special.

He thinks that she must have come from a family that really loves her. She looks like she respects herself. He bets she works really hard at this job. She probably has it for a reason. Maybe she's paying for college. Or maybe she has a dad who can't work, so she got a job to help.

Michael thinks about how he would like to talk to her. How he'd like to count her freckles. How he'd like to see what she thinks about working at Licks. How maybe they could be friends, like he and Caitlin were. Then maybe he could take her out for dinners. They could watch movies and talk about music. He thinks he could trust her. He wants to tell her about the numbers. He wants to tell her how he sees them everywhere. She looks like she would understand.

“Look at that ass,” says Fire Crotch.

Michael turns and stops looking at her. He looks around the booth. His friends' faces look different under the fluorescent lights. Their faces look gnarled and wooden. When they laugh, they look like goblins or vampires with pointed teeth and shiny eyes. Michael blinks, tells himself that his eyes are playing tricks on him. But when he opens them again, everyone still looks different. The colours around him fade away, and everyone looks ghoulish and like characters in the scary movies he and Caitlin would watch. He can't recognize any of them. It makes him frightened.

He thinks maybe he smoked some bad weed, but then he remembers he didn't smoke hardly any weed today.

Eventually he has to turn away from them; he doesn't want them to think that he's looking at them strangely. But when he turns away, he can feel all the angles in the diner. He doesn't want to think about numbers so he looks back at his friends. He tries to not focus on their faces, to just listen to the conversation.

“I met my cousins last weekend. They are so fucking hot.”

“You're related, you fuck.”

“Not really. I'm adopted.”

The pretty waitress comes back and gives everyone their bill. She looks uncomfortable, and Michael wonders if she heard what the boys were saying about her earlier. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. For a moment, he thinks she can tell he is separate from the group. That he's different. That he didn't say those things. That he never would. That he would be good to her.

But then she turns and leaves.

They all look at the bill. The total is $56.58. She didn't give them separate ones.

“Shit, what do we owe?”

“Fuck, I hate it when they don't split it up.”

Michael looks at the bill and his left arm immediately hurts.

He knows what they owe.

$56.58 divided by six is $9.43.

They each owe $9.43.

But he doesn't say anything. He gets up. He finds the waitress near the door. He gives her his five. “You're a really good waitress,” he says.

He walks to
Lauren's house. Loveday will be home soon and he shouldn't be there.

He kisses her, determined, his tongue searching to get into her mouth.

“I love you too,” he tells her.

The wet tears fall down his face and onto her dark hair.

“Go,” he said.

It was one of those conversations that had been happening for months, those that never really begin, those with no end in sight. He and I had moved back and forth, our bodies forced together, tangled in a weeks-long waltz with no final step.

Michael and I had been together for two years. Six years, if you count the technicalities. Growing up, he was the boy who'd take me on dates if I wanted him to, invite me to parties on the weekend. I was his first kiss. He wasn't mine. It wasn't until I turned sixteen that I decided I could love him too. I was so used to him that he was a part of me, but sometimes, when I'd look at him and I couldn't recognize his face.

“Go,” he said again.

For the first time we'd both stopped moving. I was eighteen. I was leaving and I couldn't carry him with me. I knew then that the dance was done. His face was resigned, tired, plastered with loss. I'd never met a face so suited for sorrow.

“Go,” he said, the last time.

I held him the way you hold someone you'll never hold again. Tightly, desperate to squeeze out of them what's left to take. He held me with just his body, two arms and one chest, bones and nothing else.

When I let go, he was buried so deep inside himself that I don't think he even saw me leave. Now, I'm buried, drinking, drunk, lost in long nights and strange men.

“Don't forget me, Grace,” he said as I left.

“I won't,” the voice inside my head told me.

If only I'd known I'd end up here.

It's a Tuesday
night.

I can't feel my body anymore and I'm so grateful. When I can still feel my body I can still hear the voice in my head and I can't dance like this.

The Rolling Stones' “Under My Thumb” is playing on the jukebox, and it's my favourite song forever from now on. My body that I can see beneath me, but that I can't feel, is moving with a harmonized surrender.

My feet shuffle from side to side. When I lift my head toward the ceiling, I can feel that my face doesn't look how it usually does. I notice my hands floating all around. They surprise me every time because I'm not telling them to go anywhere. They just move.

Everyone I know thinks I'm a good dancer, but I'm not. I'm just a good performer and I've always been very good at faking. Before this summer when I'd dance, I was moving how I thought I should, how other people wanted to see me.

I told those liquid sounds to leave me alone this summer. At first I was worried that I wouldn't know how to breathe. That I'd keep talking to no one in particular, a parrot in sweat pants, asking, “Will I be okay?”

Now I don't care.

I can hear my fingers snapping below me. A small group of old barflies, my unintentional comrades this summer, have gathered around me. They're snapping and dancing too. The sounds of the fingers and the feet echo loudly. More loudly than they usually would because it's very late and the enclosing streets are still. It's beautiful and it's deafening. After a few seconds I can't hear anything anymore. I can hear my breathing rev up, and that's all.

Some old guy whose name I can't remember is dancing next to me. He must be copying what I'm doing because when I turn, he turns, and in a few seconds, we meet again. I must be smiling at him because he's smiling too. He can feel how happy I am. He thinks I'm beautiful right now, I know it.

I've never been this happy.

Then the music stops.

The lights flicker and then go on. It's time for me and all the old drunks in this joint to go home.

I step outside
of O'Malley's and light a cigarette.

I'm still sweating from all the dancing inside. I thought stepping out would feel refreshing, but it doesn't. Fuck, it's hot. Even after midnight.

I've got to leave quickly tonight, before everyone else. If I linger too long, the happiness will fade away, drown in conversation. My happiness is selfish. If I tuck it away for a few moments, it slips past me, angry that I'm paying attention to someone else. I can't risk that tonight. I need to be able to paint this feeling tomorrow.

I moved to New York on a scholarship to go to art school. I flunked out of every class. I had everything I ever wanted and I was paralyzed. I have become the failure I was always convinced Michael would make me.

“Bye, Grace!” yells Queen Anne. She's called Queen because she has a British accent.

The moon acts like a kind spotlight on Queen's face, washing away all the deep lines. She doesn't look cheap anymore. She looks elegant, regal even. She glows. She must have been beautiful once.

“Bye, Anne!” I yell back. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

I pat my purse one last time, just to make sure I still have everything. I'm forgetting things lately. I never used to do that. I stamp out my cigarette quickly. My feet sting; without the dancing there's no distraction from the pain. Why did I wear high heels tonight? It's a long walk home.