Mosquitoland(31)

“You were just nothing, huh?” Now he’s talking, on top of chewing and smoking. “Real eloquent there, sweetheart.”

“My name’s Mim, jackass.” I pull the blanket up close to my chin, and imagine myself in a small room alone with Caleb. He’s tied down, and I have one pair nunchucks, one pair katanas, one pair sais, and one bo staff. I am Mim the lost Turtle in a Half Shell.

He tosses a half-eaten canned ham into the woods and gets up to grab a new one. “Okay, then, Mim Jackass. Sounded like you guys were having a real nice discussion about moms and dads and roses and rainbows and shit. Now my old man—he was a real creative son of a bitch. Used to beat the hell outta me with household appliances, you follow? Irons, pots, pans, toasters, and the like. For no good reason, too. He wasn’t a drunk, which I guess would have been a reason. Thing is, he didn’t need a drink to be hateful, you follow? He was just fine at it sober. But one day, I was all growed-up, see. So you know what I did? Pulled the fire extinguisher out of his garage and beat the shit out of him.”

Caleb howls, tossing his second can into the woods. I’m beginning to wonder if he isn’t my exact opposite: a violent, smoking moron who throws tin cans into nature. His laugh morphs into a hacking cough, reminiscent of old Arlene’s respiratory issues. The main difference being, she was ancient, and he can’t be more than eighteen.

“So the state sent me to live with foster parents,” Caleb continues, having pulled it together. “Second night I’m there, my foster dad, a guy named . . .” He taps his chin with his finger, but I can tell it’s an act. He knows the guy’s name, or else he’s making it up. “Raymond, that’s it. Raymond raises a fist, but I’d had enough of that, see. Out of the frying pan, as they say.” Caleb puts down his spoon, then peers across the fire at me, eyes ablaze. “I stabbed that son of a bitch right there in his kitchen.”

I swear it’s a shadow. A talking, eating, smoking, cursing shadow.

Walt stands up, fidgets with his spoon, puts it in his pocket, then walks toward the tent. “I’ll get blankets.”

For a moment, Caleb and I are alone. I avoid eye contact by studying the dirt.

Don’t look up.

The sound of Walt rustling around in the tent mixes with the fire’s crackling, which mixes with my heart pounding, which mixes with my blood pumping, which mixes with, mixes with, mixes with . . .

I look up.

Through the dying flames, Caleb is staring at me, and I’m reminded of the familiar nothingness of an old television set. Growing up, my dad refused to buy a new TV. The colors in the corners of the screen were beginning to fade, a promise that before long, every movie would be black-and-white. But here’s what I remember most: That old television, when turned off, produced a little click just as the screen went blank. And within that click, the stories and characters of my shows were swept away, as if they’d never existed at all.

In Caleb’s eyes, I see that old television.

Turned off.

Like the shows never existed.



> September 2—late at night


Dear Isabel,

Topics of substance and despair abound! They’re sprouting up all over the place, in fact. To wit, I just met someone who scares the shit out of me. As I write this, he’s sleeping (I think-hope-pray) on the other side of a campfire, so I need to be quiet and quick.

Here’s the thing: this person reminds me of a terrible feeling I once had, and it’s one of those terrible feelings that might not be as bad as I remember it. So I need to write it down, because sometimes writing a thing down is a good way to work something out. So here goes.

Three straight birthdays, I snuck out of the house with my friend Henry Timoney to the Retro Movie Plex. Henry and I first became friends in the school library, where we each noticed the other reading a Crichton Collection copy of Jurassic Park. Our relationship gained traction when Henry berated the movie for allowing Mr. Hammond to escape Isla Nublar alive. I, being a rationally minded literary purist, agreed. However, I voiced my opinion that what the film lacked in the way of subtle nuances and erudite accuracy, it more than made up for in special effects, cinematography, and Jeff Goldblum goodness. Henry, being a rationally minded cinematic purist, agreed. (My parents, film-rating sticklers that they were, had no idea I’d taped over their Carol Burnett marathon when Jurassic Park was aired during a free trial of HBO. I’d been watching it in secret for years.)

“You sure know a lot about Jurassic Park,” said Henry. “For a girl.”

“I know a lot about a lot of things,” I said. “For anybody.”

Henry nodded and straightened his glasses, and we quickly became what we’d always be: friends by default.

Now, as fate would have it, Retro Movie Plex, a theater that only aired older movies, happened to be showing Jurassic Park that very weekend—the weekend of my eleventh birthday. But as the film was rated PG-13, there was no way my parents would allow me to go.

So Henry and I developed a foolproof plan.

It began with my sneaking out the front door after dinner while my parents watched the nightly news. Henry’s big brother, a meathead named Steve, had a friend who worked at the theater and had agreed to sell us tickets even though we were underage. Steve would be our ride to and from the theater. I was sexually attracted to Steve insomuch as I was an indiscriminate, preadolescent girl. Was he good-looking? Sure. Very. Extremely. But no amount of hotness could make up for his constant misuse of the word literally, overuse of the word bra, and downright baffling pronunciation of the word library. As in, Check it, bra, I literally died yesterday in the libary, when . . . Alas, I was eleven, and he was devastatingly male—my hands were tied.