Still Life with Tornado(27)

None of this is original, but when I was ten-year-old Sarah, I didn’t care about things being original. I just wanted to have fun on the beach and with my brother. I’d missed Bruce during his first year in college. Even though he was nine years older than I was, we were a good match. We both knew the right name for body parts (even if he’d stopped using them). We both still cleaned our rooms on Saturday mornings like we’d been trained to. We both still made grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the same way and, even though he was so much bigger than I was, we had the same walk, the same logic, and the same curiosity about things.

The one thing that was different was how we saw Mom and Dad.

He told me, in Mexico—on night three when we went to the buffet restaurant together while Mom and Dad had a reservation at the hibachi at the Japanese place in the resort—“I think Mom and Dad are finally getting a divorce.”

I said, “They are not.”

I remember looking at him like he was breaking my heart. And I remember him looking at me like he knew he’d just broken my heart.

He said, “I thought you knew.”

“They’re normal.”

“So? Normal people get divorced all the time,” he said.

“They don’t even fight.”

“They fight all the time,” he said. “And they don’t even sleep in the same bed.”

“This is bullshit,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“They’re not getting a divorce,” I said.

“They’re only together because of us,” he said. “That’s the only reason they’re not divorced yet. Because of you. They’re waiting until you go to college.”

“Bullshit,” I said, stuffing tortilla chips into my mouth.

Bruce didn’t say much after that.

? ? ?

There was a magic show that night in the theater and we all went. It was the cheesiest thing I ever saw. The hostess of the preshow spoke in Spanish and occasionally translated so the audience knew what she was saying. The music was loud and the preshow was just this woman in her high heels and crazy outfit asking members of the audience to play a game. After the game, the magician came on in a puff of smoke and fancy multicolored lighting. His jacket had wide sleeves and he kept straightening his shirt collar, over and over again.

I was ten and I knew each tug at his collar was another trick he was setting up. Each tug resulted in a dove. See this empty hat? Look! A dove! Tug. See this empty box? Look! A dove! Tug. See this ball of scarves I just pulled out of my arm? See how there’s nothing here but colorful scarves? See how I crumble them all in a ball? Tug. Look! A dove! Between doves, there were the usual tricks and the usual sequin-adorned female assistants. Audience participation resulted in a surprised woman from Kansas holding an empty box and then suddenly holding a duck. Then, the sword tricks. How many times can you put a woman in a box and slide swords through the box and then reveal the woman as unharmed and still call yourself a magician? The doves were cool, though. And the duck. The duck was cool.

Dad and Mom ordered drink after drink. Dad complained they were watered down. Mom said, “Just order two next time.” They acted surprised at every dove. They applauded when they were supposed to. They seemed like good parents. They didn’t seem like they were getting a divorce.

I didn’t know why Bruce was bullshitting me about that. But every time I thought about it, I got this feeling like a burr right at the top of my sternum.

On the walk back to our rooms, Bruce, Mom, and Dad whispered. I walked ahead trying to find wild animals on the path. They said there was a howler monkey that lived here, but I’d never seen it. Only heard it. It’s a horrible sound—less like a howl and more like a roar.

Once I got my pajamas on and brushed my teeth and got into bed, Bruce finally talked to me again.

“I’m taking you somewhere tomorrow,” Bruce said. “It’s a surprise.”

“Where?”

“Just rest up. You’ll need your sleep.”

I daydreamed that he was taking me scuba diving or snorkeling—or to a beach where I could see my feet in the water the way Mom had explained the Caribbean to me before we left Philadelphia. I fell asleep dreaming of seeing real fish in real Caribbean water that didn’t look like a sewer.

Day Three: over. Day Three: junk, magic, and bullshit.





Pop Quiz



When Alleged Earl gets up and out of his alcove, he stretches and leaves his art supply box in the corner. He walks west and I follow him. He walks north and I follow him. On the corner of 18th and Market he stops and points at the sky and yells, “You’re all going to die one day, you know! You’re all wasting your time!” I note he is pointing in the direction of the skyscraper where Dad works.

Some guy walks by and says, “Oh, shut up.” Alleged Earl says, “I’d kill you with a ripe peach and two green apples.” The guy says, as he waits to cross the street, “You’d kill me with how bad you smell. Take pride in yourself, man. Get some f*cking help.” Before Alleged Earl has time to answer, the guy crosses the street and Earl takes an imaginary ripe peach and two imaginary green apples and throws them at the guy’s back. He mutters, “Asshole,” and continues west on Market.

His pace is faster than usual. Still slow, but not snail-slow. It makes me wonder why Alleged Earl walks so slowly every other day. Sometimes I don’t even think he’s really crazy. When he threw that imaginary fruit at the guy a minute before, he didn’t really seem crazy-crazy. More like eccentric or bored with how everyone else acts. We have this in common. I couldn’t be more bored with how everyone else acts.