First Day On Earth
Read First Day On Earth Online
Authors: Cecil Castellucci
TO THE FARTHEST STAR
WITH THE KINDEST HEART
We are all in the gutter,
but some of us are looking at the stars.—OSCAR WILDE
1.You think you know what I am, the kid slumped in his chair in the back row, with greasy hair, wearing all black. You’re kind of scared of me. ‘Cause I’m a loner.
But you don’t know shit.
We are specks. Pieces of dust in this universe. Big nothings.
I know what I am.
I am a guy who loves the human race. I love us. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Did you know that I help people? Even when they don’t ask but they need it? Mothers and their baby carriages on staircases. Old people. Homeless people.
You ignore them. I don’t.
Did you know that I’m a vegetarian?
Did you know that I rescue animals?
No.
You think I’m scary-looking.
You laugh behind my back. I know it. Don’t deny it.
Because who cares what you think about me?
With what I’ve been through, I just shrug it off.
But in case you’re interested in what
I
think, here’s what
I
think about you.You think that you’re something. You think that your dumb teen problems are so big and important. You think that who’s popular in school and who wears and says the right thing is important.
It’s not.
You’re ignorant. Asleep.
I’ve been to outer space and back again. I’ve been caged. I’ve been probed and spliced and diced and I am being tracked. They are going to take me again one day. I know it because I heard them say it in my brain. They are out there and they are watching us. And you just move like a sleepwalker from class to class whenever the bell rings.
I think you are sheep.
But one day, I’m going with them. And I’m going to be free.
2.I’ve got a towel around my hips. I’m waiting until the showers are a little less crowded before I step into them. I’m not shy. I don’t care about being naked with the other guys. I just like to have a little space. Josh likes to shower with a lot of other guys at the same time. Maybe he likes to look at the other guys’ dicks. Maybe he compares them. Whatever floats your boat, I say. Life’s too short to care either way.
Josh and his friends emerge from the showers. They’re laughing and they move to the corner and start getting dressed, putting on deodorant and talking about girls in a way that I don’t like.
“What kind of guy are you?” Josh asks. “Tits or ass?”
“I’m a tit man, for sure,” Colm says.
“When my girl Posey jumps, I swear it’s like watching a door open in heaven,” Josh says. “Her tits are like peaches, only not fuzzy.”
“You’ve touched them?” Colm says. “I bow to you.”
“Sure, I’ve touched them,” Josh says. “They kind of belong to me, right?”
“Right,” Colm says. “Posey’s tits are yours for the touching.”
“Technically, they are not. Technically, they are her tits,” Darwyn pipes up. Darwyn says it kind of matter-of-factly, like he’s been part of the conversation the whole time. Even though he’s really just sitting near the guys who are talking. They tolerate him, but he’s not their friend.
“I’m thirsty,” Josh says.
And Darwyn, big doughy Darwyn, sees that as an opportunity to move closer into the circle. I watch as he debates with himself for a minute, sort of looks down at his feet and figures it out. I see him do this all the time. Decision made, Darwyn gets up and goes over to the water cooler and fills up a cup.
I notice that his black skin glistens a bit from the water that is still clinging to him from the showers. He looks like his body has been bedazzled. I’ve seen something like that — the waterlike diamonds — before. But the memory of it is just at the edge of where my conscious mind ends.
“What are you staring at, Mal?” Josh says, his attention now on me. “Are you hot for Darwyn? Oh my God. Mal has a crush on Darwyn. I always knew you were gay.”
He laughs and his friends laugh. I look at Darwyn, who is standing by the cooler, a little cone cup in his hand. Gold-rimmed glasses a little fogged up. Big fleshy arms, jiggly belly. He’s frozen there, like he doesn’t know whether or not Josh saying that I’m gay means that Josh is saying that Darwyn is gay.
I look away. No one here would care if I was gay or not. And I actually don’t care if I’m gay or not. Being gay might be better than what I am now.
“Hey, Darwyn,” Josh says. “Can you help me with my car after school? It’s making that funny noise again. I thought we could go to your dad’s garage and take a look at it.”
Darwyn breathes a sigh of relief that his status hasn’t been affected by my unwanted staring. Darwyn’s willingness to do anything and everything at all times for anyone gets him kind of in, even though he’s out.
The showers are empty. The bell is about to ring. I consider not showering, but I smell from shooting hoops by myself. And I never have deodorant on me.
“Dirty pig,” I hear Josh mumble under his breath as I pass him. Colm and the others laugh. But not Darwyn. Darwyn only laughs after a few seconds. He’s just following.
I’ve heard worse things said about me than
dirty pig
.The words run off my shoulder as I walk toward the shower.
3.Sometimes I have a rage inside of me. Like a lion roaring. Like a firebomb. Like a white-hot piece of metal. Like a train wreck as it’s happening.
It gets so bad that I can feel every single cell in my body writhing in pain. Like a pin pushing into each part of me. Every inch hurts. Every pore screams. You cannot imagine.
On those days, when it gets bad and I can’t stand my mom crying on the floor in her pajamas anymore, I go out in our shitty car and drive to the desert. As soon as I see the windmills, I pull over and climb out of the car and stumble up toward them. The air is crazy. All swooshing and electric. I feel as though I’m a piece of machinery that has been suddenly set to full throttle. And there’s a noise. Not a noise that sounds like anything else you’ve ever heard. It is a whirring whisper with a purr. It is steady and magnificent, the windmills capturing energy right from the sky.
I stand underneath those windmills. I stand there and I scream. I scream and scream until I don’t have any more voice in me. My soul sails out onto the wind, or up into the blades, transformed into raw energy. Most times I have destroyed a shrub or
two with my fists, not even feeling the parts of the leaves that prick like needles and get under my skin because, like I said, I already have needles pricking me everywhere.The screaming it all out makes it better for the drive home. But that feeling of calm never lasts for long.
5.“Mal?” Mrs. Yegevian says. “Which poem will you be sharing with the class?”
All the bodies in the room turn in their seats to look at me. I don’t like their eyes on me. I’ve had too many eyes staring at me.
I stand up. My hands shake as I hold on to my notebook, as though it is going to keep me steady. “Mal?”
I clear my throat. My voice is hoarse.
“Pass,” I say and sit back down.
There are snickers. There are always snickers. Kids who cover their mouths with pretend sneezes as they say
loser
under their breath.Mrs. Yegevian says nothing, but leans over her notebook and puts a mark next to my name. Another black mark. I have so many, I don’t even try to clear my name anymore. No one expects me to.
Alphabetically, Posey Manitsky is next. She stands up without being called to do so. She is so sure of herself. How did she ever get that way? Does she wake up with sunshine and rainbows
streaming through her window? Does she smile so naturally because everything is so good? Because she sleeps like she’s an enchanted fairy-tale princess? Must be. No other explanation.She throws back her shoulders and swings her long hair out of her face. Her hand is steady as she reads from the paper. Her voice as clear as a bell. But I’m not noticing all that. I’m wondering if her tits are really as peachy as Josh says they are.
Her honey tones fill the room as she reads her poem.
I think the strange, the crazed, the queer
will have their holiday this year …“What the hell was that?” someone says when she’s finished the whole thing. “Did she just say
queer
and
gay
?”She gets snickers, too. The kids here are equal opportunity snickerers.
“Tennessee Williams,” Darwyn says. His desk is at the front of the room, as always, facing Mrs. Yegevian’s desk. He’s her special helper. He hands out the exams and collects them. He keeps attendance. Takes extra notes. He always knows too much and doesn’t have the sense to keep the extra information he’s acquired to himself. “Tennessee Williams: best known for his plays, such as
Suddenly Last Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
and
The Glass Menagerie
.”“Shut up, Lung,” someone yells. That’s what the cool kids call Darwyn behind his back and to his face. Lung. ‘Cause he talks too much and is compelled to overshare.
Darwyn winces at the nickname. He pushes his glasses up, even though they haven’t slipped or anything. He purses his lips. He looks up at something on the ceiling. His index finger points up. Like he’s showing us something up there. I think maybe he’ll start to cry. That’ll be like blood in the water. They’ll rip him apart if he does that.
I am actually worried for him.
But he doesn’t cry. He just keeps staring at the ceiling.
I look up there. There’s a water stain near the sprinkler. It’s in the shape of a bat.
“Tennessee Williams,” he says quietly. More like he’s talking to himself than to anyone else. “A great American playwright.”
The whole class is howling now. Well, almost everyone. Not me. Not Posey. Not Darwyn. Not the two shy kids near the window. Not Mrs. Yegevian.
“Settle, people. Settle,” Mrs. Yegevian says.
Someone else reads a poem. A stupid one. It sounds like a Hallmark card. My poem would have been better than that.
I look down at the poem that I chose.
e. e. cummings, (once like a spark).
My poem. More
real
.The bell rings. And I do what I do best.
I get the hell out of there.