Beef and Cheese Meditation
Beef and Cheese Meditation
I imagine Don has shown me how to make one of his sandwiches, and Julio and I instead of doing and saying all of the heavy things we did after school, we make sandwiches and drink sodas and talk about nothing at all. But Julio has already left. Big Sister breaks into my thoughts and says, "You told Julio everything."
And I wonder about what she says.
"He gets my different problems," I say.
"His fingers were between your thighs," Big Sister says. "Don't you get that boys act like they understand?"
"I didn't tell him about the woods and Soccer boy or the girl in the hall..."
"Or the boy in the lunch line who you lied to about having cancer."
"'Cancer' stopped her, stopped everyone from touching me." But Big Sister just shakes her head.
And this is the part I don't tell Big Sister. The way Julio pushed up from my bed and pulled on his skinny jeans and then straightened a few hangers sticking out inside my closet. And then he went further and began re-arranging all of my clothes. "I'm fixing you," he said.
He never told me not to tell anyone about his mothering side. And after my confession about the wig and my name, and my great lie, it was like he was showing me he had a big secret too.
My wig had come off and my natural honey blonde spilled out. I looked down at my arms, they were red and I started thinking ahead to covering them up. I imagined the angry purple, blue or black looking marks that were sure to be there in the morning, (marks that weren't anyone's fault). Besides, it was over fast. And I remembered the gentle organization of my shirts after.
I stretched out on my bed and listened to the jangle of the hangers as he fixed them. They are a mix of wire and plastic, the rustling movements are like stillness and forward motion at the same time, almost like being rocked to sleep by sliding sounds.
Here in the kitchen after Big Sister leaves, it is silent and I am safe with sandwiches. I pretend roads don't exist at all (and wherever you are you are). If I close my eyes, I dream I am back in California with my father, and there aren't any highways out of town. I imagine the worst parts of this day didn't happen. A boy never called me a fatso, I never ended up wobbly and I never let Julio talk to me and walk me home in all of that wobbliness (even if he did organize all of my clothes).
And I imagine until it is very late at night (after my last problem in Geometry is done) what would have happened if I had not lied to anyone, if I had never worn the wig. What if I had said, "My name is Emily?" Would Mickey have sat next to me on the bus instead?
I imagine Don has shown me how to make one of his sandwiches, and Julio and I instead of doing and saying all of the heavy things we did after school, we make sandwiches and drink sodas and talk about nothing at all. But Julio has already left. Big Sister breaks into my thoughts and says, "You told Julio everything."
And I wonder about what she says.
"He gets my different problems," I say.
"His fingers were between your thighs," Big Sister says. "Don't you get that boys act like they understand?"
"I didn't tell him about the woods and Soccer boy or the girl in the hall..."
"Or the boy in the lunch line who you lied to about having cancer."
"'Cancer' stopped her, stopped everyone from touching me." But Big Sister just shakes her head.
And this is the part I don't tell Big Sister. The way Julio pushed up from my bed and pulled on his skinny jeans and then straightened a few hangers sticking out inside my closet. And then he went further and began re-arranging all of my clothes. "I'm fixing you," he said.
He never told me not to tell anyone about his mothering side. And after my confession about the wig and my name, and my great lie, it was like he was showing me he had a big secret too.
My wig had come off and my natural honey blonde spilled out. I looked down at my arms, they were red and I started thinking ahead to covering them up. I imagined the angry purple, blue or black looking marks that were sure to be there in the morning, (marks that weren't anyone's fault). Besides, it was over fast. And I remembered the gentle organization of my shirts after.
I stretched out on my bed and listened to the jangle of the hangers as he fixed them. They are a mix of wire and plastic, the rustling movements are like stillness and forward motion at the same time, almost like being rocked to sleep by sliding sounds.
Here in the kitchen after Big Sister leaves, it is silent and I am safe with sandwiches. I pretend roads don't exist at all (and wherever you are you are). If I close my eyes, I dream I am back in California with my father, and there aren't any highways out of town. I imagine the worst parts of this day didn't happen. A boy never called me a fatso, I never ended up wobbly and I never let Julio talk to me and walk me home in all of that wobbliness (even if he did organize all of my clothes).
And I imagine until it is very late at night (after my last problem in Geometry is done) what would have happened if I had not lied to anyone, if I had never worn the wig. What if I had said, "My name is Emily?" Would Mickey have sat next to me on the bus instead?
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