Killing Dolls

At night, the man who lives next door makes fires. We can hear him making them and smell the bitter burning of the little green twigs he gets from the kid with the Afro and the comb in his hair. The comb is purple, which my older sister, Renee says makes the Afro kid gay as pink ink. Our neighbor rolls the little twigs in papers and lights the ends of them. He puts them to his lips and chokes them down. He hurts himself on the coughs and we don’t know why and we don’t care why. He laughs and laughs shoving Fire Flavored Cheetos into his mouth and spitting out orange, but no one is there, just he is, the Afro with the comb and the baggies already left so it’s just the dog, Gracie. Renee says she can read the Cheetos bag, but I can’t see far enough to know if she’s lying.

Every night when we remember to, we watch that coughing guy through our window get undressed and try to guess where his old wife went. “She must be in the crazy bin,” Renee tells me. “Remember when she chased that girl with licorice?” But, I don’t remember—all I remember is —she was very very very old---so old that whatever used to be a woman was now a man----- and sometimes when people get old they get a smell that tells dogs they are dying and I bet she had that smell and now she lives in the deep earth with the rest of the bodies. We try not to think about her underwear or her naked sagging body, whenever we do we laugh and roll around on the floor because you can’t think of old people naked, it’s too much like thinking of god going to the bathroom.             I never tell my sister how the old wife died, because death is one of those things that has superstitions attached and to say it will make it happen. But, I tell Renee about the ghost and how the ghost tells me what our parents do in that bed of theirs. Renee makes me shut up by chucking dolls at me as hard as she can. I hide my face with my pillow, but I peek out and see my Cindy doll’s head go flying. Renee says it’s an accident, but there are no accidents. She kills my dolls on purpose. We are fake sisters. Real by birth. Fake by everything else.

My babysitter comes every week without fail and tells us weird stories about the drugs she’s taking. She talks about boys more than anything else, the ones that like her, the ones that used to like her, the ones that got stolen out from under her, the ones she keeps secret. Today she is wearing a tight shirt without a bra. Her makeup looks like it should be on a teacher, not a fifteen year old. She wears platform shoes and a tiny skirt. I know she is trying to look sexy, but she looks more like a cartoon.  Her name is Maureen McAdams. My mother always refers to people by their first and last names. Jim McAdams this and Maureen McAdams that. My mother tells mean stories about Maureen that we aren’t allowed to repeat. My mother tells us that Maureen got suspended for drinking and blowing on a boy. My mother tells us that Maureen is going to end up dead in a dumpster someday, like the girls we hear about on the 6 o’clock news. My mother tells us whenever someone tries to give us candy to run like hell or we are going to be cut up and die on the hillside like the girls on TV. Renee says, “Then you should buy us candy, mother, don’t put our lives in jeopardy.”

Maureen walks us to Vendome Liquor so we can gorge our faces on chocolate and other things our parents don’t allow. Maureen lights cigarettes and chokes them down with a pose like if she were in a movie you’d think she was about to get run over.  Renee goes inside to steal stuff.  She comes out with way more stuff than the money would buy. Chocolate balls, milky ways, Recees Peanut Butter Cups, Suckers and Blow-Pops. Green flavor is my favorite for the suckers and Renee never remembers and only brings the ones that stain your mouth red.  Cherry, Strawberry and Raspberry. She always makes up a lie that she used all the money when really she pockets it. She always gives me some so I don’t tell.

Maureen cries on a payphone telling it, it doesn’t matter if she’s not allowed, she’ll do what she wants. Renee and I are burning up in the hot sun so hard we take off our shoes. Renee takes off her top because she doesn’t care who sees. She walks around all puffed out like hookers do. I’m embarrassed and pretend I don’t know her, the street is right there, cars see, and god sees. If I stay close to the Vendome doors, I can feel the air conditioning every time they open and shut. So, I do that. It makes a loud sucking noise, I smooth my feet over the rubber mat with the little ridges. I’m wearing my reversible red-bandana on one side denim on the other side halter top. When I get bored of the door thing I go to the sidewalk in front of the parking lot and rub my feet over the little blackened gum circles on the sidewalk and I’m going to myself, I wish I had sunscreen now I’m going to be sunburned and my mom will get mad and yell at me and hate me again. She’ll see my sad and raise it.

Maureen takes forever on the phone, and we’re bored. Life seems to take forever when someone you want to talk to is on the phone. Renee jumps on top of the wall next to the parking lot and pretends she’s in the Olympics—“LOOK, I’m on the balance beam,” she screams. Then she does a cartwheel and Maureen almost has a heart attack. “Don’t do that again!” Maureen says to my sister and Renee just looks at her with hate eyes.

            The fright of it makes Maureen stop crying and get off the phone like a magic trick and Renee puts back on her shirt and we walk all the way to McDonalds to get orange drink and fish filet. She is going against my mothers orders to feed us apples and peanut butter from Quinn’s and I tell her we aren’t allowed but she says I’m a tattle tale and if I tell my life will be stupid and for nothing.

            Later, Maureen comes in my bedroom and takes me to the TV room. She tells me she has a date with a boy and she wants to try something on me. She asks me if I mind. I say, why me, why not Renee. She says Renee’s too old even though Renee is only a year and a half older than I am. She says it’s a special kind of kiss. A French one. She says she has to try it because she has another date and has to look like a professional. Then she puts her tongue in my mouth and moves it around. I am sicked out and think this is bad. I’m bad and she’s bad.

            “Was it okay?”

            “It’s just gross, that’s all.”

            “But, do you think I’m doing it right?”

            I didn’t know but it seemed unfair that I had to be the one and it was full confirmation that god didn’t love me. I could see it was really important to tell her something nice so she could be happy like when my mother asked if she was pretty and I would say yes even when she looked tired.

            “Are you supposed to put your tongue in? That seems weird.”

            “That’s the frenching.”

            “Well, I guess it’s okay then.”

            I got back in bed with my sheets with stars and moons and galaxies on them. I couldn’t sleep after that so I tried to see the neighbor if he was up, but all I saw was Gracie outside shivering. 

Try Stuff

Meet Brian behind the pool-house. The one at the lake. Let him kiss you. Let him put his hands up under your t-shirt, but not down your shorts. Tell him not to tell. Tell him you’re too young for him. Tell him you aren’t an object. Tell him you don’t like boys with blue eyes. Tell him you aren’t going to be easy to know. Tell him to write you a note and to put in it the things he thinks you’d find interesting. Tell him he better make it good, because you know a lot about a lot. Tell him to talk about you. Tell him to describe you and make it romantic. Punch him. Grab his hands and put them behind his back. Watch him watch you. Let him chase you across the lawn. Slow down so he can tackle you. Kiss him again. Not know the consequences. Fall in love a little. Tell him, no one has captured your heart yet and you doubt he will be the one. Tell him he’s too tall for you. Tell him you like skinny but not too skinny. Tell him you like his hair. Tell him you like his plaid shirts. Put makeup on him. Lipstick and eyeliner. Hate him for liking you. Be scared. Not know what to do next. Leave. Let the phone ring when he calls. Don’t pick up. See him at school but act disinterested. Flirt with boys you don’t care about in front of him. Write his your name with his last name on the end. Think you’re dumb then cross it out. Tell nobody.

Go find Tami. Lay on her floor cutting up magazines for the wall. Wish you looked like the big nosed model with the giant lips that scream sex. Be mad you don’t look like your mother. Be mad your mother doesn’t care that you aren’t going to be a model and won’t pay for plastic surgery. Be mad that she won’t drive you to Los Angeles to be an actress. Be mad you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere without transportation. Be mad that she won’t come see you be a cheerleader. Be mad she thinks cheerleading is dumb. Be mad she hates high IQ’s because hers is low. Be mad that she is skinny and perfect and your boobs are so big they call you Torpedos behind your back. Be mad she doesn’t understand the pressures of your clothes not fitting  because she is a waif. Be mad you are eating all the time and can’t starve yourself like she can. Be mad tami is sexy sleeping with boys but you don’t even know what blow job means yet. Be mad she returned your khaki skirt with cum on it. Be mad at the world. Consider suicide.

Watch your father eat you with his eyes. Pretend it didn’t happen. Stop wearing shorts so nothing gets too weird. Stop talking to him after that. Be scared to be alone with him. Not know who to talk to about it. Try to be less pretty. Try to be less voluptuous. Buy bras two sizes too small to press you down. Cry in the closet because nothing will close over you. Not know who to tell. Start wearing giant sweatshirts. Be sad you’re fat. Be sad you can’t afford bigger clothes. Be mad your mother thinks you are a bottomless pit for asking. Try starving yourself again. Begin throwing up. Paige taught you how. Try on bikinis. Get on and off the scale a bunch of different times to see if the digital numbers change. Be happy when the numbers go below 120. Read the Best Little Girl in The World. Learn how to starve yourself through will-power. The flesh is dumb. Get your friends boyfriends to ask you in dark clubs if you’d consider making out with them, consider it, but say no, rejecting them feels good. Keep that a secret. Be lonely. Start shoplifting with friends. Get caught for grand-theft. Be scared your parents will find out.

Sneak out your window. Go to clubs. Dance and drink peppermint schnapps. Like dancing more than all the sex stuff. Ignore your friends who are experimenting with it. Be scared. Take pills. Be friends with younger boys hoping they won’t love you. Be mad when they do. Change friends. Sleep on the beach. Pass out in the shower. Curl your friend’s hair in the morning. Kill a giant potato bug with a flip flop. Scream when it screams. Wish someone would hug you. Wish someone would say you are beautiful. Wish someone would be nice.

The Day The Sun Died

I drove out to the house off of Van Nuys where Jeremy lived looking for heroin or oxycodone, but sometimes he had nothing and I never knew which way it was going to go. Jeremy always greeted me when he heard me drive up the gravel driveway.

            Instead his brother, Garrett, walked out front say hello, which was odd because Garrett didn’t live nearby or anything. In fact, he lived outside the city in a huge house that he bought from the accident he and Jeremy had been in 10 years ago.  I had spent time there, and couldn’t see why he’d want to hang in this shit-hole, when he could be kicking it in that place of his. He was wearing overalls and a plaid shirt opened underneath with a silver and diamond cross I had seen on Jeremy. Although his boots were alligator, they were covered in dirt from being out with the horse in the back where they had a stable.

            “Hey there, Jeremy’s not home.”

            “Okay, I’ll come back later.”

            “Come inside, you can wait. We’ll have a drink.”

            The lawn was dead and the pit-bull stood guard at the front door like usual. He always eyed me, but Jeremy had him smell my shoes and told him to like me, so I always thought I was safe. Garrett was the handsome one. Not covered in burns over 75 percent of his body like Jeremy. They were twins. The accident had something to do with a meth lab. Garrett got out. Jeremy didn’t. The fact that he lived was amazing to all the doctors.

            Garrett disappeared in the kitchen and left me in the main room with a girl and her daughter. They both looked at me and I smiled at them. The little girl was dancing and she grabbed both my hands and danced me in a circle. There was a little pink ghetto blaster on the floor and the music coming out was like some Disney fairy tale. She wore a bright pink dress and had flowers in her curly blonde hair.

            “My dad’s not coming back today,” she said.

            “Oh, that’s too bad, was he supposed to?” I asked.

            “Yes. He’s always supposed to. He never does it though. I’m used to it.”

            I caught the woman, who I assumed to be her mother, staring at me and gave her a smile. She froze me out and gave me a look like she’d kill me later when no one was watching. Cut up in a garbage bag with all my teeth pulled out. Garrett came out with beers and I stopped dancing with the little girl.

            “Garrett and I are going to have a talk,” I said.

            “You’re pretty,” the little girl said.

            “Thank you. So are you,” I said.

            Garrett led me away from them and out the back door and pulled out a chair covered in dirt and other stuff and told me to sit down. I looked for another option but there wasn’t one. His eyes never left my face the whole time watching me to see if I would care if I sat on dirt and who knows what else.  I sat.

            “The girl in the front had a father, but he’s not coming back,” Garrett said.

            “Why not?”

            “I killed him.”

            I wasn’t sure what to do. I took a drink of my beer and tried to look for an escape route in case things got weird.

            “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

            “I was taken aback is all.”

            “He molested that little girl in there and when her mother found out, he beat her up.”

            “I’m so sorry.”

            “Don’t be. They’ll be all right now. He was a criminal before they met, she just didn’t know it.”

            “I see.”

            The backyard had two cars covered in blue tarps and a stable for two horses. It was one of the hottest days California had had in a while; the valley was always 10 degrees hotter. I was wearing a dress and it was sticking to me. There were no umbrellas, empty bottles everywhere and ashtrays never emptied.

            “Do you need a hat or something?”

            “That would be great.”

            Garrett disappeared inside the house and came back with two overdone straw hats, the kind you’d wear for gardening. He put one on my head and sat down.

            “You’ll want to know about Jeremy.”

            “Yes. Where is he?”

            “He went to stay in my place. He’s not going to be doing what he’s been doing anymore. He’s getting clean.”

            “Oh.”

            I knew it was a lie the second he said it, though I had no proof. You know how you just can tell. Plus, he was wearing Jeremy’s favorite cross, the one he never took off his neck. I had the number of his mother; I thought maybe I could call her later after I got out of there. I would have to find someone else to get me drugs. That was my next thought.

            “He left something for you, so you wouldn’t be caught out in the cold.”

            I nodded.

            I didn’t know what to say to Garrett because I never liked him. He was handsome true, but whenever I heard the accident story, something always made my stomach sink. Something like, he could have helped his brother. I know it was fire and all, but the way Jeremy told it, from his vantage point he saw his brother look at him and run. Not toward him to help him, but away from him. Jeremy said he thought about it day and night for two years and then asked god to release him from hating Garrett. He was always wondering if Garrett had come to help, if Jeremy would have been saved or if Garrett would have been disfigured the way he was. It hurt me every-time he told the story, which was often because we used drugs together and people like to tell the same story over and over even though we tried not to.

            Jeremy was also the one with the personality. Garrett always got the girls. It sucked to know that that was something we could never do anything about. I had kissed Jeremy once. I remembered it. We were out by the horses. It was my first time doing heroin. He put it in a cigarette and I took a hit. It wasn’t what I expected; it felt like happiness hit the cells of my body. A rush of the all at once feeling of total release. I hadn’t known I had any pain in my body until that moment when it all disappeared. The feeling of it leaving was overwhelming. Try imagining something you’ve always known, that has always been with you, forever and ever, suddenly disappearing. That was what it was like.  There was no choice in it. Jeremy watched and he told me he loved me. Then I threw up on his shoes. I had wanted to love him back. I really had, but I couldn’t and I felt the shame of not loving the thing you are supposed to love.

            Garrett and I made small talk about what I can’t remember. Then he went inside and got the package from Jeremy and handed it over. It struck me how all the time we talk to people we don’t even like, just to get by, always barely making contact with the ones we really are drawn to. I only talked to him to find out about Jeremy. I’m not sure if he could tell or not though.

            “Thanks for coming by,” Garrett said and he walked me back out front where I said goodbye to the little girl and hugged her.

            “Are you going?” she said with a sad voice.

            “I am. So nice to meet you.”

            “I love you,” she said and threw her arms around me again.

            “I love you too,” I said and slid out the door to freedom. I felt sick about that girl, leaving that little shiny thing with two people who were going to harm her in ways I can’t go into. She would be ruined and there was a great sense of loss in the knowing of it.

            I had been staying at my parent’s house in Encino. I had a stash that could get me by and I was sharing with this new kid named Pretzel. Pretzel was a mulatto ex-model who wore this red emo t-shirt for the first few week I knew him. I got so sick of it, finally, I got a shirt out of my father’s closet and made him wear it. He wore it for only an hour and then the emo shirt came back out. At first he was a bore like everyone, but one night he grabbed me hard by both arms and said, “I could kiss you for 24 hours straight.” I thought of him differently after that. Like I could love him or something. As long as he didn’t need to have any sex. I was pretty fucked up that way. My last boyfriend and I tried, but I always just ended up laughing. It felt funny. I went to a shrink and they gave me some bullshit about being molested, only I know I wasn’t.  They were just out of ideas. Plus, aren’t the molested ones sluts? My friend Terri was molested and she was a complete whore. They gave me some pills though and that’s always good.

            Pretzel set up a turntable in the living room and played all kinds of music. I called Terri and a few of my friends from when I lived in Venice and they all came to hang out. Terri had never done heroin and got pretty pissed when she found out that’s why I disappeared.

            “We do everything together,” she said.

            “Sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t. She did coke and sucked cock long before she ever told me about it. We danced around and drank champagne from my father’s cellar. The party was on and there hadn’t been anything bad that happened to any of us for some time, so the drama level was low. Just pretty sparkly people getting blasted and doing stupid dances. That was it.

Then, one night my doorbell rang and I went to get it and it was Jeremy. He was dirty and skinny and had scratched up and down his arms on the good arm and the burn arm. It was the best thing I had ever seen---Jeremy standing there.

            “He tried to bury me alive,” Jeremy said.

            “Jesus, are you okay?” I said opening the door. At that moment all the beautiful kids I had in my house looked at Jeremy like he was an alien.  I felt bad too, because it was one of those moments when I realized I was ashamed of him. I was ashamed to be ashamed. He wasn’t beautiful, but all of us were. It sickened me to be this way, but it was beyond my control. It washed over me like the feeling of adrenaline or any other kind of feeling that you can name but might not want to in order to hide it from yourself so you can go on living in that manner. Emotionally dead-land, that’s what my friend, Terri called it. Dead-land. I felt nervous as hell, but also real guilty that I hadn’t ever called his mom. I was a bad friend and to be honest it wasn’t on purpose, I forgot.

            I got out a cigarette filled with heroin and gave him a drag, then I put him in the shower, more to get him away from the others than anything else. We were going to turn off all the lights later and he would be safe from their scrutiny with their fucked up plastic noses and perfect faces.  I sat on the toilet while he showered. The bathroom was tiled with glazed Moroccan blue and white tiles and I had t-light candles going all through the house. They flickered off the tiles and made shadows on the walls. I stared at the shadows and marveled at the wonder that so much in life is in the shadows, and only some of us were willing to go into the darkness to find what was missing from the light. That’s the part you don’t read about. Drugs do that. They take you to the other less obvious sections of your psyche and they make you see things you didn’t know existed and never even wanted to know, but then you fell in love with those things too and had a hard time coming back from it. One of my friends always said he liked cocaine psychosis better than the cocaine. Only, I had it once and pulled out all of the hair at the crown of my head and that’s why I’m now a charge of the state. There’s some worse stuff I did to my shoulder, and something I can’t tell you because it’s too scary.

            Jeremy told me the story. Garrett had drugged him and buried him in a shallow grave in the back of his parents’ house. Jeremy woke up and didn’t know where he was, just that dirt was on top of him and he dug and dug for two days to get out. It would have taken him less time, but he was tied up, so there was that.

            “I knew he had done something to you. As soon as I saw the necklace.”

            “He’s mental,” Jeremy said. “I’m going to kill him.”

            I didn’t say anything. He got dressed in some of my father’s clothes and then we went out to the living room and got high. The heroin he had left me was good stuff and it didn’t take a lot to be on your way. We fell asleep on the couch in the center of the room.

            When I woke. It wasn’t morning. Or if it was I couldn’t be sure, not unless I was willing to get up and look. I was on the plush carpet surrounded by bodies sleeping. Other than the people I invited, mostly I didn’t know where they came from; just that they found out my house was open and then appeared. First one. Then two. Boys. Girls and so on. The red couch cast a glow onto the carpet like a halo. Golden light shone from the velvet in a way that defied what one knows of the physical world. It wasn’t a hallucination. I’ll get to that. This was warm. Part of the reason I was on the floor in the first place. The hit of heroin I took was too strong, but that was hours ago. I couldn’t understand why all the lights were off and then the lights themselves, carved glass sconces on the walls, shone tiny rainbows on the wall surrounding them. They made me know once and for all that the smallest things are the things worth remembering. Tiny rainbows.

            Pretzel was still sleeping and I studied his face, totally hoping that if I ever had sex and was able to bring forth a baby, that it could be as beautiful as he was. I was almost positive he was gay too, but that didn’t stop us from pretending to be a couple. I couldn’t have sex and he was gay, so it kind of worked out.

            Terri had gone off with someone, and we didn’t see her again. At some point in the night, something happened to Jeremy. We had to call the paramedics and then everyone scattered to different houses so that we wouldn’t be caught with our pants down. Jeremy had slipped into a coma right there on the floor while we were all out cold too. We hadn’t noticed because we were all pretty fucked up. I imagined his brother at his bedside fakely trying to be nice and it made my skin turn.

            I called Garrett on the phone the next day to tell him where his brother was. He drove into the parking lot and parked his car. He got out and was walking towards the entrance. I came up behind him.

            “Hi Garrett.”

            “Hi Sunshine.”

            I shot him like my dad showed me that day at the gun range, saying, if he comes at you just do it, you won’t have time to think. And he was right, the human head makes a sound he didn’t tell me about, I won’t burden you with that, but believe me, it’s memorable. I got outta there, what else you wanna know?            

Indian Rock

You walk ahead of me. Your trousers hang so ghetto-low they might come down. I follow you like a dog. I think how my friend Shannon should be here, but dolls are more important, so I’m stuck with you. The Indian burial ground isn’t here, you know that, but you insist on looking. Your hands dig deep in the wet earth, but come up empty. “These Indian heads have to be here. Michael saw them,” you say. But, Michael is dead; an Indian curse from touching arrowheads.

You climb up the rock first, to the closest cave. Telling me we’ll go up its face. I have to help you down and you start to cry. I laugh at you. Pussy-boy, I call you. This makes you hate me and the hate colors your smell. Like metal mixed with trash. It seeps around me and I choke on the you-air. You tell me if there isn’t enough water we’ll die. But, we live close. Too close. This isn’t a real adventure; it’s a scam. Just like how we think we are rich because we live at the lake. But we are poor. Not exactly white-trash but close. That’s why I’m wearing my sister’s hand-me downs. My sister who is six inches taller than me. Red clown pants.

You say you won’t have sex until the girl seems better than the girl’s you’ve met. I know you don’t see me as a girl. I’m a friend. I don’t care, Pussy-boy. You are eleven. I’m twelve. 

You say it’s around here somewhere. The life-jacket; electric orange and covered in blood. I don’t believe you. I see nothing. I think you made it up because you are too afraid to go up the face of Indian Rock. Pussy. I’m hungry. You never are. I have a snack in my pocket. I eat it and shove the wrapper deep in my jeans. You pretend a story, the one about your alcoholic mother vomiting in your bed, but how many times you gotta say it, anyway? We’re all fucked coming to earth, out somebody else’s hole.

The sky’s blue is getting covered in clouds. “It’s gonna rain on us,” I say. I can hear the rapids from the dam overflow violent and magical. “Let’s get a piece of Styrofoam and ride the water, as long as we’re going to get soaked.” You agree and run towards towards the water. You tear the branch off the first tree climbing up and jumping on it with all your weight. You fall to the ground screaming pain. Then you laugh and jump up with the broken tree branch and run to the rapids over the foamy infected part and reach way out for some Styrofoam. 

I go first. Push it out into the middle and jump on and ride down the fast water laughing as hard as anything. I hold on for dear life too, but I just keep going and you run along the shore trying to catch me with the branch, I’m not scared, I’m having fun, but there it is the place where Michael died, I push my memory away. I grab on to the branch and you pull me to safety. You hug me and grab the Styrofoam and run up to the top of the stream for your turn. You hand me the branch and push it way out and jump on. The water is too fast and you lose your grip with your feet all the way under the water and just your arms and head sticking out. I run down the shore trying to help, but you are too far out. I shout and try to grab you with the branch, but you end up stuck on the other side near a rock. I tell you to get over to me, but you can’t. I am soaking wet and the clouds explode in a gush of rain. We are laughing uncontrollable like crazies. 

I get in the stream and walk on the bottom, forgetting how shallow it really is. “Stand up, pussy-boy!” I yell. And you do, like it’s nothing. We are both standing in the stream laughing and laughing that we are out of danger and you turn around to the bank on your side to crawl out. “Something died over here,” you say. And you crawl up on the bank. I still haven’t waded all the way to the middle when you drag down a backpack covered with mud. Its burgundy like the one I used to have. “Open it,” I yell over the rain and the stream.

“Zipper’s stuck,” like with glue. “Let’s get it across to the other side.” I say. You look pale and your face wears an expression not like you. “I’m scared,” you say. I don’t call you a name, I am scared too. “It’s okay, I’ll help you.” I make it to your side and we put the backpack on the Styrofoam. The smell of death is gruesome and I throw up in the water before I can help it. You wade on one side and I wade on the other side and we get it to the safe shore, our shore.

I say, “Let’s leave it,” what can we do anyway? “Nothing,” you say. I lug the heavy pack to a tree. You say, “I have to know,” and you take out your razor and you cut it open. You scream the scream of the damned. The thing you can’t take away from memory happened, the pouring rain, our freezing bodies and the fact of it; a dead girl’s head. She is decomposing I can’t tell how old she is. I have no match in my memory for what this means or where to put this in my mind. You are crying full bore. “We have to find a ranger or a policeman,” I say, but you aren’t listening. 

“We can’t leave her here,” you scream. “Okay,” I say. And we carry what is left of her out of the park him on one side me on the other gasping for the air around us that wasn’t covered in death.

We don’t see anyone on the trail. You say, “Are you okay?” I’m not okay, but I lie to you and say I am. 

At the base of the trail out of the park you see a truck, you leave me with the she-head and run to it. You are waving and screaming over the rain. I am thinking of my parents and my sister and the boy at school I like. I am thinking of my dog and how I wish he were with us. I am thinking how death is so close to being alive. The man runs down to us he sees what we see and he shakes his head and starts to cry too. “We’ll drive her to the station, come on,” the man said. We follow him, you on one side, me on the other and we put it the dead-girl’s head in the back.

We sit in the front with the man. I have seen him before. He has hot chocolate in a thermos. You drink some and hand it to me. He is saying how he knows my parents and knows your parents. I am listening to the tires on the pavement and wondering when I can sleep. I wonder if this man is safe.

You tell the police where you found her. How she was on the other side, a place someone might never look. I tell the police I hope they find her parents and the person who did this.

We drive home with the man, who drops us off together in front of your house. After the man disappears around the corner, you walk me home. You hug me and say, “I’m sorry.” And I go upstairs to my parents and say what happened.

You call me the next day to tell me; her name was Mandy Williamson she went to our school. She went missing two weeks ago. She was twelve years old. Like me.