Authors: Heidi Ayarbe
I nod and head toward the walk-in freezer, trying to ignore the tingling at the back of my neck. There’s nothing wrong. I’ll just get a box of sausages.
A cold current of air circulates, recycling that butcher-shop smell of Clorox and raw cuts of dead animal flesh. I stare at the worn floor with rust-colored stains all over it, counting the square tiles in the hallway.
Mera hollers. “Did you find them
?
”
“Just a sec.” I pull my eyes from the tile and open the walk-in freezer door.
I hear the rustle of her plastic suit, and Mera brushes by me. “Just hold the door, then,” she says working her way to the back of the walk-in. She mumbles, ducking under massive ribs and flanks of meat hanging on hooks. Legs, gray-colored hooves, and red-colored animal parts dangle from the ceiling. I step into the freezer, one foot in, one foot out. It’s like I’m always straddling, one foot in the place I’m supposed to be and the other in the place I want to be.
Stuck.
I try to ignore the tight feeling I’m getting in my chest, steadying my breathing. “You okay in here?” I step all the way in. “Christ,” I mutter. “Hello, Donner party.”
“Ha. Ha.” Her voice is muffled by some boxes. “Help me out, okay? And don’t,” she says when she stands up, watching the door click closed behind me, “shut. The. Door.”
I turn around and see the handle is broken—dangling from its hinge. I push on the door, but it doesn’t budge.
Oh God. No.
“What the . . . What butcher in the world has a broken freezer door? Like isn’t this against some kind of regulation or something?” The tingling moves up my spine, thousands of miniature spiders trying to invade my brain again, covering it with thick, sticky webs, until all I feel is sharp pounding and my vision is reduced to black splotches. “Oh Jesus,” I say.
Mera jiggles the handle. “Relax. I saw it was broken this morning, hence asking you to hold the door open for me. Ryan was supposed to call for maintenance. . . .”
Everything goes out of focus, gray, except for the raw red splotches of color that hang above us. I push Mera aside and throw myself against the door, my shoulder cracking against the heavy steel. The freezer’s walls move in until they’re crushing me between them; crushing my chest, snapping rib by rib until my lungs collapse under the pressure, and I gasp for the last bubble of air.
I slump to the floor and stare at the frozen flesh hanging from the ceiling, trying to preserve our dwindling air supply, breathing in bits of refrigerated death. Mera flits around dressed as an Imperial Stormtrooper. She talks about getting her DNA tested because there’s no possible way she can share the same genetic makeup as her brother, Ryan . . . blahblahblahblah. Flitflitflit . . . like a fucking hummingbird.
Shut up shut up shutupshutupshutup. Stop. Using. The. Air. Shutupshutupshutupshutup.
Her words are swallowed by screams.
I inhale and try to focus on the time, the numbers, but can’t read the time. My watch face has fogged up. I rub my eyes.
Shutup.
Just. Shut. Up.
I can’t concentrate on the numbers over the noise—everything that’s said bounces back from wall to wall, never fading in the distance because there’s nowhere for it to go—Ping-Pong words. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Who’s screaming?
I gag on the closet’s musty death smell. Kasey’s shrieks reach me through the jammed-shut door. “I’m coming!” My voice is hoarse, so I kick on the door, again and again—a flurry of kicks until the soles of my feet are raw.
The door swings open and I stumble into the hallway, lying down, gulping in the stale butcher-shop air. The man and Mera loom over me and stare.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Mera holds a string of kielbasy in her mitted hand. She shoves the goggles up on her head and crouches down, a deep crease between her eyes. “Jake?” she says. The man rubs his nose with a dirty hanky. From my angle I can see his nose is raw and chafed. He peers down at me through thick bifocals. He squints and removes his glasses, wipes them with the crusty corner of his hanky, then replaces them on his bulbous, red nose.
“Well,” I say, clearing my throat. “Glad I could be of some service to you, Mera.” I sit up slowly, averting my eyes. As soon as I feel the sticky silk web contract, pulling away from the folds in my brain, I stand and brush off my jeans, shoving my trembling hands in my pockets. “If that’s all, then?” I say.
What did I do? What did I say?
“I think you’d better lay off those Starbucks espressos, kid. You know, when I was your age, we didn’t drink a half gallon of coffee in the morning like you kids do nowadays. That’s gotta be bad for your nervous system. Think of the garbage you’re putting in your engine, son.” He says this while grabbing the ten-foot strand of pale intestine-encased spiced meat.
I nod and half salute him, trying to deflect Mera’s gaze, wishing she’d just put her goggles back on. When I get into the parking lot, my lungs fill with the fresh November air. I lean my head against the car door, welcoming the cold metal on my burning cheeks. I heave my breakfast burrito; it drips down the side of the car into an acidic puddle on the asphalt. My mouth has the slight aftertaste of vanilla gel. The only thing I have to wipe up the door of the car is a flyer for the Haunted Stairway Society. I crumple that up and try to wipe off the side of Mom’s car and end up spreading the egg chunks.
Mera and the man stare at me from inside the store. My chest shudders. I haven’t thought about that night for a long time and hate that my mind woke up the dead memory.
Memories should be like dead relatives—buried.
Just get it together. Nothing happened.
But I don’t know what I did. Or said.
It’s just Mera.
7:21
The numbers on my watch pop out at me, and I massage the face, watching the second hand tick around 360 degrees until time begins again.
7:22
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Seven twenty-two. Seven plus two is nine plus two is eleven. OK.
Thursday, 7:31 a.m.
Seven thirty-one. Seven plus three is ten plus one is eleven. OK.
When I pull into the driveway, Luc is standing outside, talking to Mom, holding a school lunch the size of a grocery sack.
Mom’s there, picking on her hangnails, eyes darting between Luc, the sandwiches, and the house. She looks relieved when I drive up.
“Mom, we’ll
never
get to class on time if you don’t put the meat away. Can you? Please?” I’m out of breath and feel a dull pressure behind my eyeballs. I wonder if they’re bulging.
“Of course, honey,” she says.
“Really, Mom. You’ve got to put the meat away. Like now.”
“I will.” She pushes her hair behind her ears and strains to smile.
The pink flamingo’s beak peeks from behind Mom. And I want to touch it, just rub it. But I can’t because then I’d have to go in and start over.
Start over.
That might make everything better.
I shouldn’t have left before dawn. It’s not how things go. Always wait for the sun, but with early practice, I had no choice. I shove my hands into my pants pockets, balling my fists so I can’t get them out of the jeans.
There’s no time.
Just one day, it’ll be okay. Just once.
“Nice talking to you, Mrs. Martin,” Luc says, bowing out and heading to the car.
“Luc’s got your lunch, honey,” she says. “I didn’t know what you’d want—ham, tuna, turkey—so I made all three. Did you eat your breakfast?”
“Sure, Mom. It was great.” Both times.
Luc and I jump into the car. He drums his fingers on the dashboard to 3 Pesos—his get-pumped-for-a-game music. Before we pull out, he cranks up the volume and says, “Your mom tripping again?” He waves the sack bulging with sandwiches at me—one of those telltale signs that Mom’s spiraling into the black zone. Dad gets pissed, saying he spends half his paycheck feeding the team when Mom’s having a spell.
“Yeah. She’s sick.” That’s what Dad calls it when Mom gets freaked about things: sick, like she’s got the flu. It’s gotta be hard for him to keep a lid on the House of the Weird. But everybody seems to like to play along.
Mera and I did with Luc’s bruises. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.
He pulls out the ham and cheese and rips into it. “Nice.” He swallows and grabs my coffee to wash it down. Crumbs of bread float in the rim of the lid.
He hands it back to me and I shake my head. “It’s all yours.”
“What took you so long at the meat house?”
“You don’t want to know,” I say, and look at my watch.
7:32
Seven thirty-two. Seven plus three is ten plus two is twelve minus seven is five. OK.
Luc puts the car into gear and pulls away from the house. I can see Mom’s silhouette in the kitchen window.
Luc’s talking about something—something about the game on Saturday. But I feel like I’m floating away from his words, his voice, so I hold my breath and count to forty-seven, then twenty-three. His voice gets louder, clearer.
I look back down at my watch.
7:33
Seven thirty-three. Three primes. Seven plus three is ten plus three is thirteen. OK.
Great number.
I twist my watch around my wrist so I can’t see the face, just wanting to keep everything at 7:33 for the rest of the day.
Focus.
And it’s like going back to the time and numbers have screwed me up. I was okay for the last few weeks, then something got all fucked up. I retrace my steps from this morning and last night, trying to figure out when I messed up the routine, when the dead memory slipped in.
It’s like finding a glitch in a computer program, then reprogramming it. That’s how my brain works; that’s what keeps the order.
Seven thirty-three
.
I unclasp my watch and shove it into my backpack, ignoring the chill that climbs up my spine. I need to focus on the game—go timeless the next couple of days until I can get it under control. I just need my mind to jell and stop racing so much—too much rides on these next few days.
My future.
So I don’t need the time. The numbers.
And for just a moment my mind believes what I tell it. Everything that happened this morning becomes a hazy memory, dulled by the thump of 3 Pesos. The tingling stops. The spiders sleep. I turn the volume up to seventeen so the music crowds the rest of my thoughts out. We rock our way into the school parking lot.
I
look down at my wrist. No watch.
Luc smiles, “Plenty of time, man. Seven forty-five.”
Seven forty-five. Seven plus four is eleven minus five is six plus seven is thirteen. OK.
We make it way before the first bell rings, walking through the side door, waiting for three people to go in ahead of us. Then I slip in the door without touching anything. I haven’t touched the handle of a school entrance or exit since I was a freshman.
I think about how weird that is and that nobody’s ever noticed.
Luc pauses in the doorway. We stand in that place between the outside door and inside door. I can tell Luc is trying to figure out how to make his entrance. He always makes an entrance, no matter where we go.
“Time to shine,” he says.
I have been holding my breath for thirteen seconds when he finally speaks. Thirteen. Good number.
“C’mon.” We work our way to the indoor courtyard where half the school is gathered talking about Saturday’s game. Banners hang from rafters. Before I can get away, we’re shoved into a blizzard of blue and white streamers, confetti, and spray string. The cheerleaders and our other teammates surround us, and the Senator mascot does some weird break-dance routine. They circle us; we’re closed in with nowhere to go. I clutch my lunch sack, back myself against a column, and look for Luc.
Tick-tock.
Luc’s too busy doing some Colombian grind with Amy to find my escape route. I’m on my own.
Fuck.
Inhale.
Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one.
Exhale. Then I begin again, counting the seconds, wiping the perspiration from my forehead, searching for a clock until I find one hanging just thirty feet in front of us.
It’s like watching a reel of my last two days backward, searching through the times, trying to figure out what went wrong.
The fucking streetlight.
I shouldn’t have cheated and held my breath longer on thirty-seven. I should’ve just started counting again. The right way. Then I wouldn’t be here. And I can think of another million things I could’ve done to change this—make this not happen.
I inhale again, but this time air doesn’t enter my lungs. All I breathe in is perfume, body odor, hair spray, and the canned smell of spray string. I gasp for breath and lean my head back against the column, looking up into the open space of the courtyard.
Keep cool,
I think
.
And it’s like I can hear myself talk—which isn’t myself—saying, “Right on. Yeah. We’re gonna rock it on Saturday.” But it feels like my airways have been totally cut off. My diaphragm won’t contract. I’m about seventeen seconds away from shoving my face into Mom’s paper bag of sandwiches.
I need out.
Now.
And our eyes lock.
Mera.
She stares at me and I worry that her eyes will dry up and fall out of her head if she doesn’t blink soon. She
was
Bordewich School’s fourth-grade staring champ. But now, in high school, it’s just creepy.
Just blink, goddamnit.
And I count the seconds until she does—
twenty-three.
Kids at school call her UNICEF ’cause she has that sunken-cheek look you see on those ads for third-world countries.