Burnout (15 page)

They gave us some more to drink.

Darkness.

They said we were going to a hotel. We were trying to find their car.

But then I heard myself say I was hungry. And Seemy said she was too. And Turner said, “We’ll order room service.”

Darkness.

But then we were at Duke’s and I didn’t know how we got there. It felt like there was a black curtain hanging halfway down my eyeballs, and even though I kept tilting my head up, I couldn’t see.

I was in the bathroom with Seemy and we were trying to get off the face paint. I was crying about my hair. Some girl tried to help with the paint, but the wet cloth she gave me smelled like floor cleaner and it made me gag. Seemy said, “We should try to run again.” And she had to say it a
few times before I could find my tongue to say, “Yes.”

We were going to run right then, but we were scared to run by the table where Turner and Hooch were sitting. So we sat with them. And then Edie made us leave. I wanted to grab on to her legs and start screaming, but I couldn’t make my body do what I wanted to.

Darkness.

We were in a car. It smelled musty, and like engine oil. Turner and Hooch took our shoes. I said I was going to be sick. Turner rolled down my window. I hung my head out. It was a blue car. I reached back with one hand and did
One, two, three
with my fingers and then Seemy pushed me out of the window and climbed out after me. My backpack thumped against me as we ran. It was lucky we were in my neighborhood, because we snuck by the night doorman, went to my apartment, and hid in the bathroom for a while.

Seemy’s phone rang, and when she picked up, she looked at me so scared.

Darkness.

We were on the street again. We were running. Seemy said Turner and Hooch knew where I lived now. They had followed us, but we got away from them.

Darkness.

They were right behind us. We ran across the street, through the parade. Turner was fast. He grabbed Seemy,
but she reached out and grabbed my arm, digging her nails into my skin, scraping down from the elbow to my wrist. I pulled her away from him, ran between the legs of a puppet and into the crowd.

The darkness was lasting longer now. I could feel myself being stuck inside of it, drowning in it, clawing to get out.

It looked like we had lost them. And then I was pulling Seemy down the alley to the carriage house, and for a second I was so scared it was like I flew up out of myself and watched us from above: bare feet, pink dresses, eyes too big for our heads, our bare arms and legs stretching out like spider limbs as I pushed Seemy up over the gate.

The yard was wet, the mud squished between our toes and over our feet. I stepped on something sharp and cried out.

Darkness.

We were upstairs in the carriage house, in the back hayloft, pressed into the storage closet. Seemy’s heart was thumping against my chest.

“They’ll find us, Nan,” she whispered.

“No they won’t,” I told her. “This is our place, remember? They won’t find us here.”

Seemy’s knees buckled and I caught her under her arms. I had to open the closet door so I could lay her down. Her eyes were open, her eyelids twitched.

I stood so I could see out the hole in the wall where the window used to be. The front yard and alley were empty, but I was terrified Turner and Hooch would find us here.

I knelt next to her. “Seemy, you have to get up. We have to be ready to run.”

She stared at me, unseeing for a moment, and then blinked and focused. “It keeps getting dark in my eyes, Nan.”

“I know, me too.”

“I want it to stay light.”

“It will. You just have to sit up.”

Her eyes went blank again. I waved my hands in front of her face, but she wouldn’t even blink. It was a full minute before she came to. “I’m so tired, Nan.” she said. “I’m just going to lay here for a while.”

“I’m going to go get help,” I told her.

She didn’t answer.

“Seemy,” I said, shaking her shoulder. It took a moment, but her eyes focused on mine.

“You’ll forget me,” she said.

“I would never forget you.” I stood up. “I’m coming back for you.”

“No,” she said. And she sounded so sad. “That’s part of it. What they gave us. It makes you forget things. You’re going to forget. And they’re going to find me.”

I took the Sharpie out of my backpack.

“Don’t let me forget,” I told her, kneeling down again. She wrote hard on my chest.

“Come back for me,” she said.

“I won’t forget,” I promised. “I won’t forget.”

Darkness.

I woke up watching. There was a spilled cup of coffee under a subway seat.
Oh man
, I thought,
all that coffee. And it looks nice and creamy, too. Probably lots of sugar. Someone’s good morning, just dumped out. That sucks.

I
am running through the rain in the night. The water soaks through the hood of my sweatshirt and runs down my head, my neck, my back.

I say her name to the rhythm of my wet steps. “Seemy, Seemy, Seemy.”

I take a side street that is empty except for a car that I can hear chugging along behind me, but it never passes. It coughs, like a dying thing.

And then I am tearing down the alley to the carriage house, scrambling over the fence, across the muddy front lawn, and up the warped front steps. “Seemy Seemy Seemy.” Inside I scramble up the ladder to the hayloft.
The storage closet door is closed, and I run to it but don’t open it up.

I close my eyes, and pray her name. “Seemy Seemy Seemy.”

I open the door.

She lies crumpled on the floor, her body bent to fit the confines of the closet. I drop to my knees and with one hand cover my mouth and nose from the stench and with the other lay my fingers against her neck. Her blood pulses my name.
Nan, Nan, Nan.

She is alive.

“Seemy.” My tears make it sound like I am swallowing the word, so I say it louder, “Seemy!”

Her eyes stay closed.

A car drives down the street outside,
chug, chug, chug.
It doesn’t pass by the alley. It stops and idles.
Chug, chug, chug
. I stand up and go to the window but can see nothing in the dark.
Chug, chug, chug
. Like a cough. Like a dying thing. Like the car behind me earlier today on the way to bring Chuck his pizza, and then on the way from Duke’s to Saint Marks. Like the car that drove behind me all the way here.

I look down at Seemy and cover my mouth to keep from screaming.

I led them right to her.

—

It’s too small in the closet. Too dark. I stand awkwardly with one foot by Seemy’s knee, the other by her head. My right hand holds the door shut against the weight of Seemy’s body.

I can hear the car still chugging on the street.

There is a click and a creak as the barn-style doors are shoved apart. Footsteps on the stone floor. The creak of stall doors as they are pulled open one by one.

Turner’s gravelly voice, a sick singsong calling out, “Oh, girls, I’m home!”

I stay still, blinking away the sweat that is pooling in the corners of my eyes. I stay still except for my eyes. They move with each step he takes across the first floor, like I am watching him instead of staring into the dark.

He calls out as he walks. “Are you in the first stall? Hooch has the car all warmed up for you.” There is the sound of the doors being kicked open. “No, not in that one.”

“Are you in the second stall?” I hear the groan of the stall door. “No, not in that one either.”

He does this for each stall. “Well,” he says loudly, “I guess nobody’s home.”

I know he’s screwing with us. I know he knows I can hear him. I hear the front door squeak. “I guess I’ll just go, then.”

He doesn’t even finish the sentence before he scrambles
up the ladder. Every drop of blood in my body is screaming at me to run. But I don’t. I stay still. My hand on the doorknob is cramping. I squeeze the knob harder to keep from shaking.

Mom says bodies like ours are made to cast large shadows. She says we’re meant to lift the world up on our shoulders and spin it round. She says we’re meant to roar through our lives and kick up dust.

He is in the hayloft with us now. He is walking quickly across the floor.

My fingers wrench as the doorknob is turned.

I hold on to the door, and Turner pulls harder. I hold on for a moment and then just as he starts to rasp, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I slam myself against the door so that it crashes open, and then I am tumbling with Turner across the room. It strikes me then how horribly intimate fighting someone is. I can smell him, feel his breath on my face as he grunts, feel the texture of his palm as it grips the curve where my neck and shoulder meet, feel his other hand in a fist, gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt, pulling me close to him until we are chest to chest. He twists both hands; I realize he’s trying to push me off balance, and I struggle to stay upright. I’m surprised at his strength, scared of how solid he feels, terrified of feeling his weight on top of me. His laugh is dry and gleeful,
and I fight to stay standing, until he kicks my feet out from under me. I land hard on the floor, my right hip and elbow taking most of the weight of my fall. It
hurts
.

But my body is my battleship, and I will not be sunk. I kick up, hard, right between his legs and then roll away as he doubles over, his arms shooting out to grab me. I scramble up to my feet.

Turner tries to stand up straight, but I’ve hurt him and he has to hunch. He’s ten feet away. We both sway a little, waiting for the other to move. There is quietness in fighting for your life. There are only the sounds of our feet on the dusty floor, of our breathing, of our clothing rubbing against itself. Turner breaks the silence. “Big girl’s got a big kick,” he says.

I don’t answer. I just watch him, my body tense and ready to move. I vibrate with fear and adrenaline and the realization that comes again and again: This is really happening. I want to scream for help, but I’m afraid Hooch will hear. I can’t fight them both.

“How’s little Samantha?” Turner asks, looking past me to where Seemy lies half in and half out of the closet. He moves a little closer. I step back, closer to the closet, my body shaking in expectation. “How’s she feeling right now?” He steps to his right, forcing me to step away. “Because I’d guess she has just a couple more hours until it’s lights-out.”
He moves again, and I have to move too, and then our positions are reversed and he is by the closet door, between me and Seemy. He keeps talking. “We might have gave her too much. But that girl can
drink
! You know that, right? You, though, you and your little sips, it’ll take longer for you.”

I need to keep him talking, I need to keep him from turning his attention to Seemy. I ask him, “What do you mean?”

His laugh is almost soundless now, a wet rush of air. “You been walking around dead all day and you don’t even know it!”

Behind him, Seemy stirs a little.

I can’t help it, I look at her face, and while my eyes aren’t on him, Turner says, “I’m just going to have to speed it up for both y’all.” And then he lunges at me. I force myself not to move and let him grab my shoulders. I put my hands on top of his, grip hard, and spin hard to the right, yanking him off balance. I keep spinning and then let go, hoping he will fly across the floor. He doesn’t. He stumbles only a few steps, but when he looks at me he doesn’t look like he’s having fun anymore. He looks pissed. He recovers fast, raises a fist, and comes at me again, but this time I move so he runs right at the empty window frame. He stops short, turns and spits at me. “Clever girl, but I ain’t going out the window.”

He comes at me again and there are sounds of footsteps coming up the front steps and into the house. My heart drops and Turner sneers at me in triumph. “Up here!” he yells, and I know in a minute Hooch is going to come scrambling up the ladder and I’m going to have to fight them both, and I’m probably going to lose. I look at Seemy, lying still on the floor, and I’m filled with such sadness. And more than that. Bubbling up through the sadness, snaking up and breaking the surface, is rage.
Anger is a gift
. My body bursts into flames. It doesn’t matter that Turner can’t see them. I am on fire.

He’s surprised when I grab on to his wrists, and I can see him trying to figure out what I’m doing. I can see him for the first time feeling
my
weight,
my
strength,
my
power. I wrench him forward and he laughs, moving his feet fast to keep from falling over. I yank harder this time, swinging him a little, and he’s caught off guard, so this time he leans back, trying to pull me off balance. For a moment we are suspended like that, holding each other up. And then I let go. He falls against the windowsill and as I’m dropping to my knees he gives me this look like,
Nice try
. I grab both of his feet, pull them up off the floor, and flip that monster out the window.

I turn just as the top rung of the ladder creaks.

I am ready to fight again.

But I don’t have to.

Toad bursts into the room, fists raised in an almost comic stance. He screams, “Where is she?”

“What . . . what are you doing here?” I shout, all of the breath and fire in my body escaping. I am so relieved to see his stupid face I could cry. “What are you doing here?” I ask again.

“Saving Seemy!” he says, looking around wildly.

I can’t even speak; I just point to the window.

He walks over uncertainly, and we both look outside. Below, Turner’s pale face glints in the moonlight. He landed on his back, the soft mud sucking him in so his arms and legs stick up a little, like a roach stuck on its back. He moves one arm a little and then his howl of pain travels up to us. Toad leans out and spits on him. The front yard is lit up then. First by police car lights reflecting down the narrow alley, and then by flashlights sweeping across the front lawn. We watch one light settle on Turner and grow more intense as the police officer approaches and leans over him. She calls into the radio on her shoulder for an ambulance. Another beam of light travels up to where we stand in the window. We both raise a hand, shielding our eyes, and back away.