First Day On Earth (2 page)

6.

 

“Is that you, Mal?” Mom is slurring her words. She’s got the box of wine on the counter and she’s probably halfway through it already. Probably already three sheets to the wind.

She’s listening to an oldies station. They’re playing grunge music in the flashback-at-five section.

Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

In here, it smells like sour grapes.

“It’s me,” I say.

I picked up some food from Subway for dinner. I put it on some plates and get some paper towels. I pop open the can of Coca-Cola and slide it into her hand, replacing her cup of wine. She doesn’t argue.

“I have to go to group,” I say.

There is always a meeting at the community center if I need to get out of the house.

“Okay,” she says.

I bet if she sobered up, she’d look pretty. I bet if she hadn’t been crying every single day for years, she’d be pretty. I bet if she’d gotten an explanation for why he left, she’d be pretty.

I finish my sandwich, put my dish in the sink, and then head outside.

I hop on my bike and head to the community center. On my way, I do a few tricks. I mess up, but no one is looking at me.

It’d be faster if I drove. If I drove, I’d have more time to do my homework. But gas is too expensive and we’re on a budget. Besides, riding my bike keeps me out of the house for longer.

And I don’t do my homework anyway.

7.

 

Our Alateen group leader is looking at us with his soft eyes and serenading us with his caring tone of voice. “Who wants to share?” I raise my hand. “Mal?”

I tell the story again. Like I always do. I have told the same story a million times.

“He said it like it was nothing. ‘Better get some milk tomorrow, we’re out.’ ‘I can get some,’ I told him. ‘On my way home. After school.’ ‘No, Mal, I can do it in the morning,’ he said.” And then I go on and tell the whole thing. That before I woke up for real that morning, when I was just waiting for the alarm clock to ring, I heard the front door click. Softly, not like other times when Dad left in the morning and the door just closed in the background, but as though someone were deliberately trying to be quiet. That’s what made it so loud. It was
weird
.

I remember looking out the window. The morning was gray. Maybe there was fog. Or maybe my memory is foggy. He had
his brown corduroy coat pulled on. His porkpie hat on. And a suitcase in his hand.

If only I had been more awake, I would have realized he was leaving. Maybe I could have said something. Could have persuaded him not to go.

Instead, I put my head back on the pillow and tried for five more minutes of sleep.

“You know it’s not your fault, Mal,” our group leader says. “Your father was gone. He was incapable of staying. It has nothing to do with you. Neither does your mom’s drinking. It has everything to do with them.”

They say these things to me over and over again. But it never makes any sense.

8.

 

There is a question that I always ask myself. I ask it many times during the day. How far away from here is far away enough? How far away would I be willing to go?

My answer is always the same.

You? I bet you’d think the moon was far away enough.

I say the moon is still too close.

Here’s the thing with the moon. You can still
see
it. Mars? Too recognizable. Jupiter is too stormy and everyone is always looking at Saturn’s rings. Maybe Neptune. No one ever knows when Neptune is around. It just sits in the sky, disguised as a star.

But those aren’t the places that I’d go to. Those places are still too close. I’ve got my eye on something farther away than that.

Mr. Cates is discussing Human Migration.

He underlines it on the whiteboard.

Human Migration.

I look out the window, letting Mr. Cates’s voice recede to a soft buzz until I can’t even tell what language he’s speaking anymore. I stare at the moon.

It’s sitting there, in the sky, even though it’s morning and the sun is out. It just hangs there, showing its face. Begging to be lived on.

Mr. Cates passes us a handout. He’s pointing to the board. He’s talking about how history changes. Times change. Things change. What was once unacceptable becomes accepted. What was once accepted becomes unacceptable.

“People, they leave the terrible behind. They leave the people who don’t understand. They leave because they’re burned out. They leave for a better life. They leave the way things are, for the way things could be. They start over. They go across the ocean. They discover new lands. They settle the West. You can call them whatever you want — explorers, conquerors, settlers, pioneers,” Mr. Cates says.

He dims the lights and starts up an animated computer slide show that demonstrates the movement of people from place to place. The colors go from one end of the earth to the other. I am transfixed by the swirl of colors.

I think some people go just because they have to get away.

I think that they were lucky back then. To have somewhere that far away to go. Somewhere totally different. Somewhere totally unknown. Somewhere they could disappear. Somewhere with breathable air. A place that wasn’t even mapped yet — the edge of the world. I’d have signed up for that so fast I wouldn’t have even packed a bag.

But these days, where can a person go? Not even Antarctica is unpopulated anymore.

The only place to go is up.

“Every day is different,” Mr. Cates says. “Every day is a new day in history.”

The only thing that is different about most days for me is the weather and what class I’m going to fall asleep in.

The bell rings and I’m the last one out. I don’t care if I’m late. No one cares if I’m late. I move through the hallways slowly, as though time doesn’t exist. I pick my way through the pressure of bodies. Gravity gets heavier as I enter English. Everything slows down when everyone looks up at me standing in the doorway. I try to be quiet as I make my way to the back of the room.

It takes me forever. Luckily, I know all about how ten seconds can feel like a year.

After English, I am walking behind Darwyn and his bigness that takes up even more space than is physically allotted to him. Darwyn does not move slow. He moves fast. He’s happy to be bumped into or to bump into others. He buzzes from one person to another. He uses the time between classes as an opportunity to talk to people, especially people who don’t want to talk to him at any other time.

“Hello, there!” he says. He smiles. He waves. Then I watch as he trips on his shoelace. He is like a big rock in the middle of the hallway, forcing the stream of bodies to part and then come together again. People are laughing as they pass by him, and as I move closer, I can see why. Everyone can see his butt crack. At first he’s laughing, too. But then I can tell that he’s distressed. He doesn’t know how to fix the situation and is trying to play it off as a joke. Darwyn tries to tie his shoe, hold his books, balance his heavy backpack, and pull down his too-small shirt. No
matter how hard he pulls his shirt down or his pants up, it will not cover the butt crack. It is an impossible task. I go over to him and take the books out of his hands.

Darwyn stands up.

The hall is now empty.

The late bell rings.

“Oh, no,” he says. He’s actually worried about things like being late for class. It matters to him.

I give him back his books.

He takes them and runs down the empty hallway, turning to disappear down another hallway.

I am standing alone, wondering when I’m going to bother getting to science.

I ask myself that same old question.

How far away from here is far away enough? How far away would I be willing to go?

Light-years
.

9.

 

I’m in the Albertsons, putting milk and cheese and bread and spaghetti into the cart. The wheel is stuck.

I curse.

I’m on the ground, trying to see what the problem is, when I hear them talking about me.

“That’s Lucy’s boy, isn’t it?” a woman’s voice says.

From where I am fiddling with the wheel, I look up and recognize her, from the now-distant time of barbecues and picnics, games nights and playdates. I almost smile. Because sometimes just making a connection in your brain makes you smile. But then I stop because why should I smile at her? At them?

It was worse a few years ago, after Dad left. I’d be in the supermarket, picking up food because Mom wouldn’t even leave the house. Now it’s just habit that I’m the one who does the shopping. But back then, when I was eleven, I was confused. I thought they were talking
to
me, not
about
me.

The look on their faces, the crazy poofy hair, the piled-on makeup, the smoker’s rasp as they whisper — it’s inhuman.

“Yes,” the woman next to her confirms.

I remember their names. Susan and Jessie.

Whenever I run into them, I always hear them going on and on. It’s a variation on the same theme.

“It’s a shame about Lucy —”

“Well, she did it to herself. Just let herself go —”

“Obviously weak —”

“No wonder he left her; she was a mess —”

“She’s crazy —”

“He was right to walk away —”

“He was so nice. Always so polite. A good husband —”

“Better than mine —”

“She just hates herself. Who could love someone who hates herself so much?”

“He was a great guy. She was lucky he stayed as long as he did —”

“She’s the crazy one. I mean, look how she acts —”

“You know I tried to reach out to her a few years ago. But she was still screaming about it. And now, a drunk —”

“She looks ancient —”

“I feel sorry for the kid —”

“Tragic —”

“Well, we all have our lot to bear —”

“Such a mess. Such a terrible mess.”

No matter how quickly I try to get out of there, I always hear a part of it.

I forget about the stuck wheel and about the food in the cart and I head out of the store, leaving those women and their wicked, awful words behind me.

Those women, the way they talk about her, that’s what’s
really
crazy.

You would never know that they used to be her friends. Her best friends.

There isn’t one friendly thing about them.

10.

 

My life sucks.

So I shave my head.

11.

 

“Hey, why do you always look so angry?”

The girls are all around me. One of them is twirling her hair. One of them is chewing raspberry-flavored gum. One of them is picking something out of her nose ring. One of them is painting her toenails.

It’s free period and we’re supposed to be studying. I’m reading a book that has nothing to do with anything we’re learning in school. Mark and Sameer, the only two people that I’m kind of friends with, are sitting too far away from me to be of any help. They don’t notice anyway. They’re the kind of guys who never look up. They’ve got their buds in their ears and their noses in their books. We’re all reading books.

Mark is reading
The Web Coder’s Technical Manual
.

Sameer is reading
The Body Builder’s Guide to Beefing Up
.

I am reading
The Undiscovered Self
.

I don’t say anything to the girls. I just hope that they will go away. All the girls at school look the same to me, except Posey. She looks different.

“He’s got such a bad vibe,” one of them says.

“You are so angry,” another one says.

I’m
quiet
.

“I can’t believe they don’t just kick you out of school.”

“Or that you don’t quit. People like you usually just quit.”

I look for Posey. A lot of the time, she shuffles them away from me. She makes it so that they get distracted by something else. But she’s absent today.

Maybe my jaw muscle is twitching.

Mark and Sameer surprise me by looking up. But they don’t really know how to help me. No one can help me.

I look out the window. The sunlight slants through the columns outside the window. It highlights the dust in the air.

The girls continue to cluck. But they sound far away. Their voices sound slowed down. There’s only the window and the dust and Mark and Sameer gone back to reading their books.

I do like they do. I go back to reading.

Always solace in a book.

Always silence in there.

12.

 

I find the kitten on the side of the road, mewing like it’s the end of the world. His mom is dead, her guts pouring out of her belly, and two of his siblings are dead, too. But here is this one little runty thing, still alive. Mewling and tiny. This one was smart enough not to follow the others into the street. He lost his mom and he knows it. This cat knows that he’s all alone in the world.

I know all about that. It’s a painful thing to know.

“Hey, little guy, I’m here,” I say. I’m careful when I pick him up. He’s so tiny that he fits into my jacket pocket. As soon as he’s snuggled in there, I can feel him relax. He starts purring against my body, purring like a hacksaw, like a hallelujah. I can’t help but smile.

I wonder if this is how they felt when they found me.

I do what I always do when I find a lost animal. I bring him to the Del Vista Street Animal Shelter.

“Hello, Mal,” Dr. Manitsky says when I come in. Dr. Manitsky is Posey’s mom. Today she’s wearing a light purple scrub outfit with pictures of Winnie the Pooh floating off on a balloon. “Who do you have for me today?”

I lift the sleeping kitten out of my pocket and hand him to her.

She takes him carefully and places him on the exam table. The little thing wakes up and starts to wander around on the metal table. Dr. Manitsky keeps scooting him back so she can finish what she’s doing.

“New haircut?” she asks as she takes the kitten’s temperature. She’s not even looking up to stare at my bald head, like other people do. I reach up and touch it. I like the way the stubble feels.

“I guess,” I say.

“Thinking about college yet?”

“Just thinking,” I say.

“That’s good,” she says. “Posey’s wanting to go out east. She’s considering Brown. I keep telling her that’s far from home, but I guess we all have to go on our own way one day. Even if that means going far away.”

“I guess,” I say. There are days I can’t imagine leaving home. There are days it seems like something impossible. Like I’m in a cage that looks like a house.

But then I remember. I escaped from here once. Maybe I can do it again.

Dr. Manitsky starts to baby-talk to the kitten. “You’re such a pretty little thing, aren’t you? Little handsome devil. Going to catch someone’s heart.”

She’s scratching his back and the kitten is purring away, like he finally knows that everything is going to be just fine. That there is still love in the world despite a dead mother in the middle of the road. Despite being all alone.

I wonder if this is how I felt when they found me.

“So is the cat going to be okay?” I ask.

“A tough guy like this? Sure thing, if all his tests work out, he’ll be adopted for sure,” she says.

“I don’t like to think of him being all alone,” I say. I don’t like to think of
anything
being all alone.

Dr. Manitsky looks at me like I’m one of the animals in the shelter. I don’t like it when she looks at me like that. Somehow, it’s worse than the women in the Albertsons.

I am not an animal.

“You and your mother should come over for dinner sometime,” she says as I follow her into the back to watch her put the kitten into one of the cages on the wall. He sniffs around his new home, eats some kibble hungrily, and then goes to the corner and falls back asleep.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. As though I’m seriously considering it, which I’m not. I never consider it when she asks, which is practically every time I come by. We’re watching the little guy as his chest moves up and down. I’m amazed how his belly, which was flat and bony before, is now suddenly big from eating. Just a little bit of nourishment makes all the difference.

“Well, I know Posey would love to have you,” she says.

I know that Posey wouldn’t mind, but I hardly think that she’d love for me to come over.

“My mom doesn’t really like to go out much.”

“You could always come alone.”

“I don’t like to leave her by herself. She doesn’t remember to eat.”

“You can visit Flopsy. I’m sure she’d like to see you.”

She’s talking about the rabbit that I rescued from the elementary school when I was in sixth grade. It was the first time I rescued something. One of the kindergarten teachers had forgotten him in the parking lot. I went there on that Saturday, after school had closed for Easter vacation, to practice popping the wheels on the dirt bike I’d gotten for my birthday. I saw the cage sitting there in the empty parking lot, on the sidewalk in front of a faculty parking spot. The rabbit inside was hardly breathing.

My dad had just left, and seeing that rabbit just about killed me.

I took the rabbit out of the cage and ran out of the parking lot with him, leaving my bike behind. I ran and ran, even though I didn’t even know what to do or where to go. I remember blind panic. I thought I had to hold him and love him and save him. And when I was running, I saw the animal shelter and came inside and Dr. Manitsky was there, in her scrubs. She looked up from behind the counter and saw the half-dead rabbit in my arms and she knew just what to do. She stuck an IV in him and she let me pet him as she helped him come back to life.

I said I’d ask my mom if I could take him home. But when I got there, things were bad and I never asked her, because how could I take in a rabbit? It was ridiculous. The next time I found an animal that needed rescuing, I brought it in to Dr. Manitsky, and found out that she had taken Flopsy in herself. She said I could have him anytime. But that rabbit reminded me of before. Even though it happened after. I never asked for the rabbit. And
until today, Dr. Manitsky never mentioned anything about it. Which made me feel relieved.

Sometimes I thought it might be nice to see Flopsy again. Like it would be some kind of test of my strength. But it wouldn’t do to go over there. I know I would just become a blubbering idiot.

“Tell Posey I hope she feels better,” I say.

“You can tell her yourself — she’ll be back in school tomorrow.”

I head out of there, and as I bike toward the setting sun, wind whipping smoothly along my new aerodynamic head, I wonder why Dr. Manitsky is so nice to me.

The pocket feels extra empty without that little cat. I want that kitten to be my kitten.

But I remember the same thing I always remember when I drop off a rescue at the shelter. A rescue that I might want to keep for myself. What if I go to college? My mom would never be able to take care of a cat once I left.

She can’t even take care of me.

She can’t even take care of herself.