Hydroplane: Fictions Read online

  The girls would go, Stupid.

  Though they're the ones stupid.

  But if a tree falls in a forest, they'd go. If they were smart.

  I'd go, Cliché.

  They've been trying to trip me up since high school.

  They still stare when they stand on the stoops when I pass.

  Take a picture girls, if you like.

  All the neighbor girls have dropped out of college. All the neighbor girls are married with houses. They own their own stoops in the neighborhood. They own their own kids who stand on the stoops.

  I think of one of the shirted ones in my car.

  It goes like this: The ball sails over a shirted one's head. It rolls past my car. Into the flora. Toward the woods. The shirted one chases it down. He sees me sitting inside my car. I smoke a cigarette. I go, Hey there sailor. He goes, Give me a smoke. I go, Get in the car. He gets in the car.

  The love song goes and goes.

  Then one thing, another. We talk at first. The light leaves the car. We sit a bit closer. Then the song is what links us. Sound, that is. Then we link ourselves in other ways.

  Touch, I'd go to the neighbor girls. To see them squirm.

  I have spent whole nights in the flora. I have fallen asleep across the front seat.

  At sunrise I've noticed the sky looks bruised.

  I've been wanting to jot this down in the dust. I've been wanting to show this to one of the ten as he wakes by me on the seat.

  But for now the sky's just turning orange. And they glow on the court while the low sun sits on their heads.

  And if one of them goes, Take a picture, to me, I'll go, I look where I want.

  Outside my brain I see skin beneath see-through white. I see them orbit each other on the court.

  Inside my brain a finger slips up and up. The hair of a face on the hair of my face.

  And regardless. Look. Inside my brain, we're fucking.

  The neighbor girls would go, Why did she think that.

  I'd go, Because I think.

  The girls knew nothing in high school science. It was all I could do not to leave the classroom.

  When they opened their mouths, I covered my ears and quietly sang.

  They made their cracks. Their, What is she doing.

  Even the teacher went, What in the world.

  The girls all laughed.

  The teacher went, Would you share your song.

  When the ball bounces past to the woods, I duck. I duck when keys clink. Or when feet pound close.

  I lower the song so they can't hear it.

  And when they're back on the court, I turn it back up.

  I never leave the car running in the flora.

  I learned to play the radio with the car turned off. I learned to turn the car key backward. And the radio will play. And the lighter will work with the car turned off.

  The pebbles on the car floor are rose quartz and white. The silver strips in the flora are mica.

  I remember this from the last year of high school. And school ended one day after studying rocks.

  The house was quiet for most of that summer.

  Then a radio came by mail. My father's gift for ending high school. Mailed to the house near the end of summer. I kept it below the bed with the dust. It played love songs at night that let me have thoughts in pictures.

  Thoughts of standing in the backyard grass.

  I'm waiting for a boy to cross my yard. He's wearing blue.

  And we run off together through the grass.

  My father's suitcase is packed with my things.

  I'd gone, Stop your fighting.

  I'd gone, I'm leaving.

  No one heard me as I packed.

  I stood in the backyard waiting for him.

  Of course, he knew nothing of this.

  I went back in the house.

  The sun rose.

  I ate.

  When I leave in the evenings my mother watches from the window. I can see her face pressed to the glass.

  She's jealous.

  My car seat is softer than hers ever was.

  Soft enough to sleep on. And so on.

  My radio worked for weeks before it didn't.

  It was a whole life change when the radio stopped. I lay in the dark below my bed. Blind and deaf with the radio off. I could feel my arms fuzzed in the dust.

  I wrote to my father for the first time ever. I found his address in my mother's drawer.

  I wrote, The radio broke, on the back of a scrap. I mailed it to him.

  He sent a used car in place of the radio. It was left in the drive behind my mother's.

  I don't know who drove it and left it.

  High school ended years ago. Was it seven years. It was maybe eight. Regardless.

  I recall it ended with science. And science ended with rocks. I learned to tell quartz in a rock pile. Big deal.

  And the science teacher wore a shade of blue. And his eyes. I could tell but won't.

  He went, Perhaps this could be your major in college.

  And he meant it.

  The dust on the dash takes my handprint and keeps it.

  I stop when I find a love song.

  It looks like they're dancing to the song, the ten.

  They go, Mother, and, Fucker. They grunt in ways like in war. They slap five.

  Give me some skin, we once went on the stoops.

  Give me some skin, and we slid our palms as kids.

  I'm happiest when the ball whooshes through without touching the rim.

  Just imagine fucking that way.

  I can hear the neighbor girls go, Why did she say that.

  But imagine a clean whoosh whoosh whoosh.

  I often think to join their game. I'd stand on the court in a high school pose. Sunshined hair flipped to one side of my neck. Head slightly tilted, wind whipping my skirt. And I'd ask for a light. I'd ask for a ride.

  But the car, the neighbor girls would go. If they were smart.

  What about her car, Why would she need a ride, they'd go. There's her car parked in the flora.

  Good questions.

  Plus the car lighter. They'd be perplexed. Why would she need a light, they'd go.

  I'd twirl my hair. I'd go, Okay, boys, The car's mine, You caught me. But the lighter's broken, I'd also go.

  How my mother's car lighter pushed in, stayed in. I know it's possible to break a car lighter.

  I know it's possible to break a whole car. Look at my mother's. Four flat tires. Doors stuck open. Broken windows. And inside are years of weather. Inside are rough torn seats and broken switches and the lighter that never popped out.

  Though the horn still blares. She always yells when I blare it. I never really do it now except to test it.

  My mother's always pounding head.

  Her shut off car makes ticking sounds.

  Her dark kitchen which I stay from.

  A card on my car went, Happy sixteen.

  Though I was seventeen, almost eighteen.

  Should anyone ask: I'm doing a study on ball, Taking notes on boys, For a college paper for when I go to college.

  They go, Motherfucker! And, Inside!

  Their rib cages jut with each shot.

  I see underwear when they raise their arms.

  But I'm not going to college yet.

  I just want away from the quiet house.

  And the twilight reminds me of an old shirt.

  Not of a certain shirt but a certain color.

  The science teacher. He wore this color. He meant nothing to me. He's a blur.

  My mother still keeps the house clean.

  There are places to sit in the kitchen by windows.

  When I leave the house I go, I'm going to study, and big deal when I walk in after dark. It's only my mother in her shut off kitchen. I'm sitting on the stoop, I lie and who cares.

  Big deal when I walk in the next morning after sleeping the night alone in the car.

  I was out with the girl
s.

  My mother silent in her kitchen.

  The keys were left inside the car.

  I started the car and drove.

  School was starting back up again.

  The boys were playing five-on-five.

  My mother found me in the dark in her car. She held my arms and dragged me.

  This was high school. Broken windows. A drag through grass. A door slam. A door slam. Another.

  A wonder I could keep my head up high.

  But the radio came at the end of summer. The radio saved my brain.

  The neighbor girls all went, She's crazy, Keep away.

  The neighbor girls made plans for their lives back then. Engagements. Showers. Kids.

  When we meet by mistake on the stoops nowadays: So what are you doing with yourself. So what are you doing. I asked you first.

  And so on and so on.

  A wonder I can keep my head on straight.

  And should I go, I'm sitting in the car. Should I go, I'm watching five-on-five with songs in my car. Trust me, they'd think the same old thing.

  That I stole rocks from science.

  That I fucked the teacher.

  That I never could mix.

  Sometimes there are nine. They play half-court four-on-four and the odd one shoots alone.

  I consider a game with the odd one. A game of one-on-one.

  And so what if he beats me. I'm no teen and it's not about winning. It's about contact. It's about sitting in the car afterward.

  You know how it happens.

  One thing, another. I look at his mouth. He looks at my eyes looking at his mouth. I look at his eyes looking at my eyes.

  And so on.

  I sat in my mother's car with the rocks on the dash. Fool's gold. Mica. Quartz. Like pulled-up treasures from a capsized boat. I made wave shapes in the dust on the dash with my fingers. For a sense of sand, of wet.

  I was captain of a boat. I had stopped on the shore to look at my treasures.

  I knew I was not in a boat but a car.

  This is metaphor. Poetry.

  Because the science of this was too hard. I admit it.

  Because the science of this was not of rocks. I understood rocks.

  The science of this was of the brain.

  I took the rocks from the classroom when the teacher was gone. I put them in my pockets.

  I cannot describe how they looked on the dash with the sun coming through.

  Then it got dark.

  I blared the horn until dragged to the house.

  The neighbors came out to their stoops.

  The neighbor girls went, Did you hear what she did.

  They went, She's crazy.

  Well, there's no fighting in the house nowadays.

  World War Three, the neighbor girls called it.

  They went, World War Three down at her house.

  They tried to trip me when I passed.

  The cliché goes, You'll go blind.

  And once I almost did. I was in the car and love songs played. So thoughts took over. My face pressed to a shirted one's shirt. The shirt is blue. My face pressed so tight it feels like drowning. Like drowning in the ocean. Or in the sky. Or some other poetic bullshit cliché. A clichéd drowning in my brain. A clichéd fucking and fucking and fucking.

  I stopped when I could. I had blindness sorting back to vision.

  I saw the ten again as ten on the court.

  For weeks it was me and the radio.

  I hid beneath my bed singing radio songs. I made pictures from thoughts.

  Me, the suitcase. The boy in blue. And this time we run through the grass.

  But the boy in the blue shirt was never a boy. And he was never going anywhere I was.

  And I was singing too loud at night went my mother.

  She went, Do you know what it is to feel a pounding from inside.

  She went, Do you know what it is to hear a pounding like a drum.

  She went, Inside your brain.

  I sat in my mother's car with twilight coming blue through the quartz. They were fighting inside. Then it got dark. There was no more light coming through.

  They thought I couldn't hear the fight. But I heard it clear. At three four three.

  My father went, Crazy.

  My mother went, Crazy.

  They thought I couldn't see the fight. But I saw his hand flash through the air.

  So I took the rocks to the car.

  The neighbor girls could hear the war from their stoops.

  I could still hear it clear.

  I blared the horn to drown it out.

  I was captain of my boat. I was thinking of my treasures.

  Everyone heard the car horn blaring. Every dumb girl from every damn stoop.

  My mother and father came running outside. My mother pressed her face to the window. I wouldn't get out of the car. I had locked the doors. The windows were up. I couldn't hear my mother screaming.

  She smashed the windows to get me out. What did she use. A rock, I suppose. A rock from the drive. From the weeds.

  No. It wasn't a rock. It was a clump of cement. Conglomerate, we called it in high school science. A mix of rocks.

  She didn't have to smash all the windows in.

  I was sinking it felt like before she smashed.

  My mother dragged me into the house. There were cuts to clean.

  My father took his suitcase. He took his car.

  My car hides in the tall blue grass. My soft-seated car from my father.

  There are no windows to my mother's car. All crashed-in holes. There's no use hiding in that car.

  The neighbor girls went, What is she thinking.

  Thoughts, I thought and left it at that.

  I returned the rocks to the classroom. I finished high school. No hard feelings.

  The teacher let it slide.

  He thought I was going to college.

  The neighbor girls went, Keep away from her if you know what's good.

  When I sang in class that day, I felt the spotlight. Everyone laughed.

  When the radio came in the mail with a card I thought, If only sooner.

  If only I had known the radio songs to sing in class.

  What was it I sang in there.

  Row Row Row Your Boat.

  The girls all laughed.

  My face got hot.

  The neighbor girls go, Whisper whisper.

  Their hands flash out.

  Their kids duck on the stoops.

  The radio card went, Congratulations.

  I had graduated. And no hard feelings.

  I played the radio until my mother took it away.

  Later that night I went, Where is it.

  My mother wouldn't let on. She just laughed into a cry.

  I was screaming from the stoop, Where the fuck is it.

  The neighbor girls went, Still crazy.

  I found it smashed in the weeds by my mother's car. I stooped to the weeds and picked up the pieces. Some were very small and some were from the insides.

  I'd never blare my horn. The ten would hear it blaring.

  They'd turn to see me ducking to the floor.

  They'd come up to the window. They'd ask what I was doing.

  I'd step out of the car.

  I'd go, Hey there sailors, I'm looking for my cigarette, It fell to the floor, Do you have a cigarette.

  Or, Hey sweeties, Have you boys seen my boyfriend, He's this tall and he comes here to play one-on-one, He wears a blue shirt.

  Or, Hey you sailor-boys, Do you go to this high school, I went to this high school, I'm doing a study on ball.

  Or, Hey darlings, Do you know how to change a fuse, I think my fuse has blown.

  I saw his hand flash through the air. I saw it reach her face.

  I didn't care that his hand flashed through the air. I didn't care that she didn't duck.

  I didn't care that he left and never came back.

  I cared that he left me with her.

  O
nce I was seventeen.

  I stood in the grass before the sun rose.

  The grass felt wet beneath my feet.

  Then the sun began.

  Then everything tried to grow.

  If the ball bounces past I'll jump out to chase it. I'll pretend to take it. I'll go, Just kidding, boys, and toss the ball.

  If it travels to the woods' edge I'll chase it and stop it and toss it at the speed of sound. Three four three. In air that is.

  I'll toss it in a blink to the boys going how the girls once went on the stoops throwing rocks, Think quick!

  And if they laugh going, What's think quick, like it's some kind of way we spoke way back but don't speak now, I'll laugh too. I mean I'm no teen striking a pose. I know these boys won't give me some skin. I've never been stupid despite what they think. I know these boys won't fuck me.

  There was a time that they'd have fucked me.

  But back then I never fucked.

  Back then I only wanted one.

  He had eyes like blue topaz.

  I said I wouldn't say it. But it has to sound poetic. It's a harder science than light and waves.

  He had a shirt the same color as his eyes.

  I admit like twilight through quartz.

  Soon the ten will all be shirted. They'll slap five and walk off the court.

  I'll be tempted to shine my lights on them. To blare the horn. To go, through the window, Hey.

  He went, Good job, when I spotted fool's gold in the rock pile on the table in the classroom.

  The girls went, Crazy motherfucker, when they found the rocks in my locker. And they found what they called my poems.

  But they weren't really poems. I wasn't some bullshit poet.

  They were notes on rocks. On the teacher's shirt.

  They called them poems.

  They called them love notes.

  But I called it science.

  I went to my mother, I'm going to college.

  My mother went, You're going nowhere.

  My father went, I'm going now.

  I mean to say my father went. And I went, Wait.

  Soon the ten will walk to my car. They'll pass the ball back and forth.