Girl in Pieces

I work from five until seven and then Temple tells me I can leave for the art show. She’s got Tanner working the counter while she works the espresso machine. People are crowded into the café, wearing the craziest costumes, faces dark and deathly. Julie’s outside ladling warm cider from a giant tin tub.

Tanner set up the coffee urns on the tops of the pastry cases, with stacks of to-go cups and a box for money. Temple printed a big sign: ON YAH HONAH COFFEE, 1 DOLLAH. Linus is working the grill and Randy’s subbing on dishes and running food. “It’s cool,” Temple says. “We got it. You go rock it, girl.”

It’s an absolute madhouse on the avenue for All Souls, or Día de los Muertos. Belly dancers, kids and adults dressed all in black with their faces painted like skulls; the little kids have flimsy golden wings strapped to their backs. Fire-breathers, stilt-walkers, bagpipers with skirts and skull faces. The noise is amazing, with every sound being undercut by massive taiko drums. People carry giant skeletons on sticks, with top hats dangling off the skulls. One woman is all in black with her face painted like a gold skull and her eyes rimmed in black, like pits. She’s carrying a black umbrella with miniature skulls dangling from the edges. A group of people dressed in white, flowing gowns and with faces painted like sugar skulls (something Temple had to show me on her phone: the face is painted white and then overlaid with colorful, flowerlike designs) hold a twenty-foot-long papier-mâché snake above their heads. Cops and cop cars, people in masks, stoned-looking people with all sorts of instruments wandering around. I spot the punks from the Dairy Queen hanging out in front of the Goodwill, smoking cigarettes and scowling at the crowd. They, too, have whitened their faces, drenched their eyes in black. The girl punk latches on to me, flicks her tongue from her purple mouth.

I stick to the sidewalk on the other side of the Avenue, gliding among the people. The sound of the crowd, of the various drums and music, is deafening. The police stay at the edges of the procession, try to keep everyone in the street, but it’s hard; people duck in and out, shout and laugh. There are mimes and arts and craft booths everywhere. The fire-eaters drift past me and I gasp as a woman stops right in front of me and eases the flame gently inside her mouth and down her throat. She pulls it out and spits, racing away. I fight my way through the underpass and escape to the other side of the street, breaking from the throng of people and walking to my apartment, All Souls trailing its cries and drums behind me.

—

Blue isn’t in my room. Her clothes are strewn on the futon, though, and the air is dense with cigarette smoke. I swear at the dirty mess she’s left behind: full ashtrays, lipsticked drink glasses, crumpled bags from the deli down the street. Shavings of lettuce and tomato are strewn across the carpet. Clouds of toothpaste spit cling to the sides of the sink. I stare for a moment at Blue’s fancy phone on the card table; it has a spidery crack down the front, like someone threw it. I get a weird feeling in my stomach. Blue always treats her phone very gently.

Now, looking around the whole apartment, at the whole mess, I realize something is wrong, something’s happened. Where’s Blue? Maybe she’s at Riley’s. I take a breath, try to not to feel weird about that, either. Maybe Blue just got bad news or something and threw a tantrum. I’m torn between running to Riley’s right away to see if she’s there and getting ready. I do some breath balloons. I decide I’m going to get ready. Blue must have just gotten mad about something stupid. I’ll get ready, then head to Riley’s.

This is the first time I’ve worn something other than cutoff overalls in months. I found a loose black cotton skirt at the Goodwill and a dark brown peasant blouse. I slip into them, put on the sandals I found in an alleyway, and splash water on my face. In the tiny mirror in the bathroom down the hall, the mirror that only shows a portion of my face at any given time, I smooth my hair down. It’s almost over my ears now. I do an experimental tuck, looking at all the empty holes in my ears.

I guess it’s kind of nice to see my natural color after so long, after so many years of dying it red, or blue, or black. A deep blond, threaded with dark brown.

I think my face looks better than it did all those months ago; my skin is clearer, there’s less color underneath my eyes. I wonder if Riley ever thinks I’m beautiful, or pretty, or even something, because he’s never said so. Thinking of him makes me feel bad all over again. Last night gives me a little funny knot in my stomach.

No, he said.

I look at myself in the mirror. No matter what, I tell myself, I’m not drinking tonight.

Back in my room, rooting through Blue’s green duffel bag, I find a pinkish tube of lip gloss, run it across my mouth. I pencil my eyes with her eyeliner, smudge the color with my fingers for what I hope is a smoky, owlish look. I just try to do what I watched Ellis do all the time, when she did her makeup.

I wiggle my toes in the sandals, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. The blouse, the skirt, the gloss; they’re all too much new all at once. I kick off the sandals, tug on my black socks and my Docs. I’m nervous, and ready, but first I need to find Blue.

—

Riley’s guitar is on his porch, along with his cigarettes and beer. He’s blasting ska music inside. The whole street is noisy, with people gathered on porches and in yards, drinking, grilling, and laughing. Crowd noise and drums from All Souls rumble through the sky.

I gather the cigarettes and beer bottles and carry them into the house.

Blue is sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room with her back to me, hunched inside a billow of smoke, album sleeves spread before her. “Blue,” I call out, but she doesn’t hear me over the music.

I touch her shoulder and she jumps, ashes drifting to her bare knees. She spins around and her eyes are saucer-wide; the pupils jump and skitter.

“Blue?” I wrinkle my nose at the smell of burning plastic and realize it’s Blue: she’s the thing that smells like burning plastic. She wipes her face, pushes the ashes off her knee, and grinds the cigarette into the floor with a balled fist. The whole house smells like it’s burning; something chemical that makes my eyes water. It takes me a moment, but I realize what’s happening.

Blue’s eyes well up. She croaks my name.

“Oh my God.” I back away, dizzy, my nostrils burning. I feel sick to my stomach. “What did you fucking do? Why did you do this again, Blue? Your teeth.”

It’s all I can think: Your beautiful teeth.

The pipe is on the floor, by her bare knees. A long cascade of drool is hanging from her chin.

Something flickers in her eyes; a grief suddenly etches itself over her face, drawing down the skin of her cheeks.

She says, Louisa set herself on fire.

I start shaking so hard the bottles in my hands clink together.

Blue’s fingernails scrape at my boots. She’s trying to keep me near her. Her breathing is scratchy and hoarse and her eyes can’t stay still in her face. I kick her away, backing off. Louisa? Louisa is gone? My body goes cold, then hot, and then numb.

My ears fill up with ocean and thunder. Louisa. Ellis. This can’t be happening again.

I stumble toward the kitchen, calling Riley’s name. I’ll be okay if I can find Riley. Riley will hold me, keep all my bad things in. He can do that, at least for right now, right? Like he did when I was sick. I can count on him for at least that.

Black dots swim in front of my eyes; my skin is prickling; something claws at the inside of my throat.

Behind me, Blue crying, a thin, reedy whine.

Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.

On fire. Louisa on fire. I can’t breathe.

The first thing I comprehend in the kitchen is the flash of matted red and yellow, Wendy’s face smeary over Riley’s shoulder, that pointy-toothed grin focused on me. He’s pushing at her so violently, her head bobbles, doll-like and loose. They’re fucking right there on the kitchen counter, his face pushed into her neck, her bare legs dangling at his hips, jean shorts caught on one of her toes.

Wendy makes a kind of hiccup and winks at me.

In the other room, the record suddenly skids to a stop, a long, terrible rip as Blue drags the needle. Wendy’s eyes are popped like swirly lollipops.

The beer bottles slip from my hands and shatter.

She laughs. “Go back to your blades and butts, little girl.” Another hiccup.

Riley’s head wobbles up. He turns around. I do not recognize the face he is wearing. It is a different face and filled with a fury that makes me so frightened my whole body disappears into numbness. I cannot move.

He jerks at his brown pants, pulling them up to his thighs, advancing on me. I’m frozen. He is shouting at me, but I am leaving myself, I am disassociating, I am floating away from my frozen body. Just like with Fucking Frank. With my mother.

He pushes the girl that is me hard into the wall. The framed Little Crises Everywhere album cover behind her falls to the ground. The glass shatters, nicking the backs of her calves, littering the floor around their feet.

He’s shouting. There’s nothing here! Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? Moisture from his mouth coats the girl’s cheek. Somehow, she finds her hands. She beats at his chest.

Fire, fire, everywhere, inside her.

I don’t know who you thought I was, but this is it. He mashes the girl’s cheek into the wall. Get out of my house, he whispers hoarsely to her. Go back to where you came from.

Just get out.

—

The procession has reached its final destination in the middle of downtown. The urn is burning, great plumes of smoke and wishes and prayers for the dead billowing into the air. I have come back to myself in the middle of pandemonium, in the middle of people weeping for the dead, my vision blurry with wetness, black rising inside me. All around me now, the skull faces seem to whisper and clack their teeth. I knock into the heads of children as I run. A woman in black is crying on the ground, her face paint smeared. I think of Louisa as people shove at me, tongues wagging at my face. Louisa who ran out of space, Ellis who went too deep. An image of Louisa comes to me, a nimbus of flame, red-gold hair afire. Chanting washes over me, drums and bagpipes make an ocean in my ears. At the corner by Hotel Congress I see Ellis dancing to the Smiths, and I stop short, my body buffeted and tossed by others. I try to turn away, but there she is again, Ellis bent at her sewing machine, the tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth. Ellis whispers in my ear late at night in her bed, explaining exactly what a certain boy did to her and how it felt. Ellis punctures my ears with a sterilized pin and hands me wine for the pain. The first time we took acid together at a party we spent hours staring at each other, laughing as we watched each other’s faces mutate and swirl into different colors. Listening to Ellis have sex with a boy in a garage, I smelled oil and paint thinner and wondered how much longer it could last. Getting kicked out of school while Ellis stayed behind and falling away from her, the wolf boy and then her parents making her cut me out. Ellis liked to run around, she liked to break rules, but she liked to go home, too, to her downy bed and potato chips and ice cream and a mother who still liked to brush out her hair with her fingers and thought her frequent changes of hair color were the sign of a free spirit. I break through a knot of skeletons, twist around, I’ve lost my way. Ellis’s fat tears as her father, Jerry, sent me away, nowhere to go, I’d lived with them for weeks. The pills on the floor were not mine, they were the boy’s, but Ellis kept quiet. Ellis’s texts after he’d broken up with her. 2 much. Smthing hrts. Yes, something is wrong. Ellis and Louisa and Riley and Blue and Evan and my father, dead and drowned in the long river, his sadness weighing him down. Is my sadness because of him, or is my sadness because I am of him? Holes. Human holes. I whip my head around the crowd, looking for a hole out of all these human holes, these thousands of faces wishing the spirits to a better place, sorting the souls of the dead. They all have black heads with holes for eyes, holes for mouths, strenuous gaping maws of death. There are too many people in my head. I claw at my body to get them out, to peel out the blackness spreading inside me.

I’m running blind, ghosts swallowing me.