How to Set a Fire and Why

WHAT DID WE DO

The next day, I woke up and my face hurt. When I got to school, I passed by Lana in the hall and she had a black eye just like me.

Have you ever had a black eye before?

No. You?

No. Does it look cool?

It doesn’t not look cool. I think it is—it could go either way.

We tried to put two and two together, but it was all real patchy. Lana called Ree at lunch, and Ree said we had done almost nothing. Lana put the phone on speaker:

Let’s see. We got milkshakes at some diner. We drove past a carnival and went in and snuck into the bouncy castle, and when we were jumping around, the two of you knocked heads. You both fell on your asses, and bounced around. I have it on my phone, she said. I’ll show you later. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen. You both thought it was your own fault and kept apologizing. Then we went to the bridge and listened to the radio and danced around for a while in the headlights of the car. It was the best birthday I have ever had. Lucia, you kept talking about how you can’t get rid of your chlamydia.

I told her I knew that part wasn’t true. To be honest, I can’t even remember the difference between chlamydia and gonorrhea. Is one of them worse?

THAT EVENING

He (Jan) said we’d need to stop by his house first, so we drove there. I was going to wait in the car, but he said I might as well come inside. It was a pretty crappy house, far back on a run-down property. I think they used to call this type a bungalow, but if it used to be a bungalow, I don’t think anyone would call it that now.

I asked him,

Do you own this?

It was my grandfather’s. Now, it’s no one’s.

The door was unlocked. We went in. There were empty beer cans here and there—it looked like a college house.

My room’s back here.

I shrugged, like, why are you telling me where your room is.

Come on back, he said, and kept walking, so I followed.

His room was at the back of the house on the second floor. I guess it had been some kind of den. There was a bar at one end. Maybe his grandfather had liked entertaining guests. The room was actually pretty neatly kept. It didn’t look like Jan owned very much.

He was changing his shirt, and I saw that he had scars. I mean, Jan has a lot of scars.

That is a lot of scars, I said. He told me about them—where they came from. It wasn’t any one thing—and it wasn’t abuse, if that’s what you were thinking. They were just scars, just lots of scars.

What are we going to do? I asked after a while.

We’re going to shoot a dog.

I won’t do that, I said.

I’m joking. We are going to steal some potassium nitrate from a farm supplier.

Can’t you just buy it?

You can, but then your name might be on a list. Can’t be too careful.

We got back in his car. I realized I left my hoodie in his room, so I ran inside to get it. I saw a photograph of a girl on a ledge next to the bed.

When I got back to the car I asked him about her.

Forget about her, is what he said.

What if I don’t?

She’s my sister. She killed herself when I was eight.

Why?

It was an accident. She was holding her breath at the bottom of a pool.

I didn’t say, I’m sorry, or anything like that—because I know it just pisses people off. I kept my mouth shut, he kept his mouth shut, and we drove for about another forty minutes. Once we stopped at a gas station for about two minutes. He went in, got a bottle of water, came out, and gave it to me.

In thirty seconds, we’re going to pass by Revo’s Supplies. I’m going to pull into the lot just past. That’s an aquarium supply shop. You will get out. I will get out. You will go across the lot and into Revo’s Supplies. There should be only one guy on duty. I want you to chat him up. I want you to ask him dumb questions about hammers and ratcheting tools versus nonratcheting tools and which you should get. Tell him some story about how your dad was a carpenter but died and you are going to get rid of his tools because you don’t know what to do with them or how valuable they are. Make up some stories and run them. About a mile south on this road there’s a taco shack. Meet me there in an hour.

We passed by a box building—red metal with a flat overhanging roof.

it said R E V O S P L Y.

Then we pulled into the next lot.

Get out.

I started getting out.

Hold on. Leave the sweatshirt.

No.

Then at least take it off. You need his attention, got it?

Yeah, I got it.

Revo’s Supplies was a big store. The aisles were big, the counters were big, the ceiling was high. There was actually a tractor inside it, which was okay to look at. I went to the back, where there was a big counter. At the middle of the counter was a little hammer and a bell. RING ME, it said.

I rang it.

After about ten seconds, I rang it again. Then again and again.

A guy came out of the back wearing coveralls.

Hey, hey, stop that.

If you don’t want people to ring the bell, don’t have such a nice bell.

What do you need?

I need some screws for my air conditioner. The screws fell out. Now it doesn’t fit in the window properly.

Do you know which screws those are? The screws are over here.

We went down one aisle a ways.

I don’t know which ones they are.

Not sure what to tell you. Best bet would be—measure it and see? Or get the tech specs for the AC unit. I bet they’re on the manufacturer’s site.

Oh, yeah. Well, I need some other stuff too.

What can I do for you?

I was thinking about building a drafting desk, so I need to figure out what pieces of wood would be good, what kind, whether to use screws or nails, you know.

That’s not really what we do here—I mean, I, hold on.

Another customer came in.

They knew each other and began to exchange pleasantries. I could tell the attendant wanted me to get the fuck out of his hair, so I pretended to look real hard at some kind of doorknob kit.

One second, miss.

He went over to the other guy.

I hung out for a few minutes to make sure enough time would pass to put Jan in the clear, then I took off.

The walk along the road to the taco shack was—scenic. There were a lot of fields, another gas station, some kind of small factory with Chinese characters on it, and a bunch of Chinese guys sitting outside smoking. I bummed a cigarette and smoked it with them. Would you believe not a single one spoke English? I mean—they knew how to say hello, but when I asked what county or town we were in, they couldn’t say. I heard about this once, that sometimes people will move a whole town to the U.S. There is a town in a different country, and the whole town moves here, and takes up residence. Then, they don’t really need to speak English. I think that’s great. Fuck English. If I grew up next to a Laotian village, maybe I’d speak two languages already, instead of one and a half.

The taco shack, as far as I could tell, was out of business. Jan was waiting in the parking lot, though, and he flashed his brights at me from about a quarter mile away.

When I got in he said, I wasn’t going to mention it, but you know you look like a fucking raccoon. Who did that to you?

STICKER

In the car, I showed him a sticker Lana and I had made on her computer. We were going to have a bunch printed up so we could put them around.

You made that? he said.

Yeah, well, Lana did a lot of it. We both did it.

Right.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

Do you know whose coffin that is?

DO YOU KNOW WHOSE COFFIN IT IS?

Lana and I kind of had an argument about the meaning of the sticker. She said that it was just a basic anarchist sticker, whatever that means. I said it is more complicated because of whose coffin it is. Now, I’m the one who picked out the photograph, so I didn’t expect her to know whose coffin it was, but then it turned out she did know. Apparently she liked outlaws when she was a kid.

The guy in the coffin is Jesse James. They are showing off his body after he has been killed because his celebrity was such that you became more important just by being in a photograph with his corpse. So, for someone who is walking down the street and sees the sticker: they are selling coffins, you know—you think you are buying something that is useful to you, but it is just a weight on you. It is as useless to you as a coffin. And why is a coffin useless to you? Because when you climb in it you’re already dead.

POLICE

Next day, I get off the bus by the house and there’s a police car there waiting for me.

What is it, officer?

(No reason not to be polite.)

Lucia Stanton?

They took me back to the precinct and asked me a whole bunch of questions. They showed me a picture of Jan and asked if I knew him. I said I couldn’t tell. The picture was bad. It could be anyone. They asked if I knew some other people, a guy named Lance, a girl named Willa.

I don’t know them. Do you?

I know who they are. Why do you think I’m asking you?

How did you get my name anyway?

Someone said you knew these people. Someone you know.

A lot of people think they know me.

I bring out the worst in people, but in this case, after a while, the cops and me, we got along. I can get along with anybody. They wanted to know who hit me, and I explained about getting high as fuck and going in the bouncy castle with my two cute girlfriends. They liked that quite a lot, maybe too much. They had me tell it twice and the second time one of them asked me what we were wearing. What do you mean? What were you wearing in the bouncy castle? Some of the other officers gave that guy a look and he shut up.

I didn’t even have to take the bus home, because one of them was going that way and gave me a ride home.

I felt like I had really tricked them, but when the officer let me out, he said,

Lev told me to tell you, friendly advice, it costs nothing: stay away from those people. You don’t know what they’re like.

This is you being a sweetheart, I said.

That’s right.

EVENTS

Sometimes events speed up. You think you have a handle on them. You think you understand how one thing follows another, but then it turns out you can’t even perceive what is about to happen, and before you know it, not only that, but other things too—they all have happened, and you’re standing in the rubble trying to figure out what to do.

I started wanting to go to school less and less. I was hanging out with Lana and her cousin and Jan more and more. I started to feel any request that was made on me was too much.

When people write books about childhood, and about being a kid—they always talk about how endless it is, and about how there is no thought of time. Everything just stretches and stretches. I think the opposite is the case. When you’re young, you feel like things are constantly ending. As soon as you get used to something, it goes away. There was an old couple who used to watch me when I was four or five, and I would go into their backyard. There was a low part and a high part as the yard rose up a hill, and on the high part, kind of a trail, I guess, there were flowers—just an endless path of flowers and white stones. I know that when I was there, when I was four and I was there on that path, I felt sure that life was almost over. I felt like most of it had already come and gone. I don’t think I even knew about death yet.

HOUSE

My aunt says that I am naturally curious. That means that I don’t need to be taught how to learn. Some people have a disadvantage at the beginning, and they are not curious. These people have trouble learning. It seems like not being curious is the worst thing of all. Curious people aren’t necessarily good at learning what you want them to learn, though. They are too busy learning about other things.

My aunt said to me, while we were sitting in the garden, let’s go into the house. So, we went into the house.

Then, we were in the house, and she said, let’s go back out to the garden, I was wrong.

So, we went back out into the garden.

There’s a thing I have to tell you, she said. I think this is it. I pretty much think this is it.

What do you mean?

I want us to go back inside in a bit and I will sit down in my chair, and you can sit near me. Maybe make some tea. I think this may be, I think it may be it.

I started crying, but with no sound. I could see she didn’t like it, so I got myself together and stopped. It was like trying to swallow something enormous, something made out of air, and I couldn’t do it, but then I did.

I helped her back inside, and got her into the chair. She started telling me a bunch of things she was sorry about, and how she wished that she was younger, how she even wished we could be the same age, because we matched up so well, and how she was proud of me, so proud, it was like I was her daughter. I said, stop it. She said, I will, I will.

I held her hand, and after a while gave her the tea. She held the cup for a second and then I took it back and put it on the ground by the chair.

Why don’t you put on a record, she said. Something quiet. I said okay, I’ll put on a record. I’ll go do that.

I found a record. I put it on.

I came back across the room, and behind me the record was just starting, behind me there was hissing and hissing and as the first few notes came, scratched out of the dark plastic by the needle, I looked for her in the chair where her body was, but I saw that she wasn’t there.

The Wentworth building stands at the end of a big avenue. You can see it from a mile away. Matter of fact, it’s like the hand of a clock, because when the sun is shining on some parts of town, other parts get nothing because they are in its shadow.

I decided I was done with people. Even good ones—they can’t do much for you.

Lana and I pretended to be going to some office, and we got to the roof of the Wentworth building. The elevator doesn’t even go all the way. The last five floors are these majestic stairs. I guess it was a place for captains of industry or some other hateful types. This beautiful staircase comes to a huge double door that is cobwebbed and dirty. I kicked at it and Lana rammed it. Then we saw there was another door on the side. We kicked at that, and kicked at it. It opened and we got out onto the roof.

The sudden expanse was—surprising. The thing about distance is, it feels complete. Maybe it is the opposite of complete, but it feels so finished in its endlessness.

We walked out toward the edge.

Wait.

I’m not afraid, I said.

Afraid of what? Wait up.

I walked right to it, as if I were walking on a sidewalk. I mean, my toes were hanging over. My body swayed forward, then back, then forward. I looked down, and I felt nothing.

Asshole, get back here.

No, you come over here.

I sat down with my legs hanging off. The roof was warm, real warm, and I could feel the warmth all through my legs. The breeze was stiff and cool, and it came now and then.

Lana crept to the edge and sat next to me.

You asshole.

We looked down over the town.

It is so hard, she said, to take it seriously. Matter of fact, I refuse to. Long as I live, I won’t take anything seriously. What do you say?

I said I would agree, for me and for my aunt, too.

Lana was quiet for a while.

She’s dead, isn’t she?

Yeah. How’d you know?

Your eyes are swollen. Was it yesterday?

Yeah.

Crazy old bat. I don’t want to live that long.

Me neither.

I want to die in the afternoon—when it’s just stopped raining and no one’s around.

How would you do it?

I would walk out into the middle of a public park, some beautifully trimmed lawn. People would be starting to leave their houses. From every direction they’d be coming toward me, but they wouldn’t be there yet. Because by the time they got there, they would find that I was dead. No matter when they did come, I would just be a corpse in a park.

…

We sat for a while.

What would you do? she asked me.

I think I would go to the top of a building with a friend, and then I would leap off, jump all the way to the ground and be crushed against it. The ground isn’t dangerous. It’s just the ground, but somehow when I touched it, I would be crushed against it. No matter how delicately I reached out my hands, my feet, I would be crushed flat.

Shut the fuck up. Do it then.

Oh, we laughed and laughed, Lana and me.

Everyone should just crush themselves to death.

Yeah, everyone should do that. Why not?

I can’t think of a reason.

Wait, wait. No. No, I can’t either.

Let’s throw something off.

Like what?

To sum up, let me tell you: I’m not one of those nihilistic types who thinks there is no meaning. I guess, I don’t think there’s meaning; there’s definitely no meaning, but not in a nihilistic way. I don’t find it exciting the way they do. I think you could as well be a bug or a sparrow or part of an antler, or the back of someone’s pocketknife.

There’s a story someone told me, a friend of my aunt’s who came to the funeral. She said, your aunt was at the soup kitchen and a guy came in and he wanted a bowl of soup, but there wasn’t any soup. We call it a soup kitchen, but more often there are sandwiches, or burritos or whatever. Soup is kind of messy. But he wants some soup. So, my aunt gets him a sandwich and she sticks it in his bowl and hands it to him with a spoon and she says, soup for one. Apparently all the people at the shelter liked this a lot. They would always say, soup for one. Soup for one. One guy even tattooed it on his leg. Can you imagine? That you can say something, offhand, and it can matter, it can really matter to someone else? Can you imagine what it’s like to hear something like that? To hear someone say something and feel the world ripple around you?

LETTER

Well, I got back to my aunt’s place, and I stood there looking around. It felt pretty bad, I have to say, being in a place like that. I stuck most of my things in an army bag and put it by the door. That made me feel a little better. Then I noticed an envelope that was on the kitchen table. Somehow I hadn’t seen it.

—LUCIA—

It was addressed to me—a letter from my aunt. She must have left it out the day before. She was probably waiting for me to find it. That’s the kind of thing she would do—and did, all the time.

I opened it. There were two letters inside. One was from Hausmann. It was an acceptance letter.

I sank into the chair. Then I realized I was sitting in the chair where my aunt died and I started to stand up. But, I decided, why not. I might as well huddle there with her death, so I curled up and looked at the other letter.

It was from my aunt. One thing about her that you should know—her handwriting is perfect. It looks like the work of a Victorian handwriting machine. She writes on paper without lines and all the words are perfectly laid down, everything symmetrical. I think it has to do with her posture.

Anyway—this is what she said:

LETTER

Lucia, dear girl,

It is of course your decision and I will respect whatever it is that you choose to do. However, you should know that opportunities do not come so easily as the years pass, and that therefore, when one is young, it can be a savvy choice to obtain what you may as freely as you may. If these people will house you and give you a place to grow—you do not even need to learn what they want you to learn. You can continue your own education in the midst of these circumstances, which, you must admit, appear quite lovely. It is also true that you might find people there to talk to. It is always a pleasure to have people to talk to, people of real worth. We have always had each other, but I am sure that you will soon be alone—and then what?

However any of this might be, I want you to know that I am quite overcome with pride—not that you have managed to be admitted to this school, but that you have not failed to be the person I have always hoped you would be. It is a sad thing for me that I imagine I will not live to see you become utterly her—become her whom you will be inalienably. That person, I feel, will be someone to behold.

Goodbye for now,

Your strongest supporter always, Lucy

LETTER

Well, I cried for a while, I don’t mind saying. I folded the letter up and stuck it in my pocket. The one from Hausmann I put in my bag. I stood up and looked around the room and it was as if I had never seen it before. My eyes moved over the various objects and I truly felt at that moment as if I had never seen any of them, as if I was for a moment, entirely new. I wondered what I would do.

That’s when I noticed it. On the back wall—something was missing. My aunt basically owned nothing, you know that already. But, she did have an old wedding dress and an old suit and the old wedding dress and the old suit, they hung together on the back wall of the house—like a costume exhibit. Next to the old wedding dress and next to the old suit there was a framed picture. In the picture, there were two people. One of them was a man. He was wearing the suit, but in the picture it was not an old suit. The other was a woman, a pretty young woman, and in the picture she was wearing the wedding dress. That woman was my aunt.

The picture was gone; the dress was gone; the suit was gone. There wasn’t even any reason for someone to take that stuff—some useless old clothes. It had to have been just some creepy whim.

But, I was pretty sure I knew who had done it.

Next thing I knew, I was on the front steps. I banged on the glass. Nothing. I banged on the glass. Nothing.

The landlord came to the door. Maybe I mentioned him to you before. 1. He hates me. 2. He hates me.

He opened it, looked down at me. I could tell he knew I knew.

What do you want?

There was just enough room, so I brushed past him into the house.

I know what you did.

He yelled at me to stop, but I ran into the next room, I guess it was the kitchen. There, on the counter, I saw it in a big pile—right there on the counter he’d stuck the dress and the suit and the framed photo.

Asshole!

I grabbed the stuff from the counter and turned around. He stood there, blocking my way.

He said something about my aunt owing him money.

I said the clothes weren’t worth anything anyway. He’d better let me go.

He threatened to call the police.

So I put down the stuff. I could see that he thought he’d won. His expression changed, and became if anything, even uglier. The wreck that age had made of his face, which is usually something I like to see—I admire it—in this case made him look like a vile clown. His mouth was practically spitting at me in his supposed victory:

Now get out of here, he said.

I went to go by him and he grabbed my shoulder. I tried to get him off, but he pulled me along and tossed me out the door.

I ran back to the garage and just sat there sobbing like a weak little wretch. For some reason it was too much for me. Someone like my aunt, she venerates this stupid clothing that she wore a million years ago, just because her life is a train wreck and for her sometimes thinking back on one of the few good things, her ultimately fruitless wedding, could make her feel good—and what happens? When she’s dead, even this dumb little display of her ordinariness—even that doesn’t get respected. It gets taken by the landlord who likes collecting quaint worthless shit. I wonder how long he had his eye on it.

I felt right then that I needed to get as far away as possible from this, from the beginnings of my life. If I could get some distance away, I was sure I could make something clean and cold and clear. Someplace else, not here, I could be the inheritor of my aunt’s, my father’s ideas.

Two minutes later, I heard the sirens.

A minute after that, the noise came: people in the garden.

Someone was saying something, maybe the landlord’s nephew.

Another voice said, we’ll take care of it. Just hang back.

Then another voice: hang back.

There was a knock at the door. I went over and opened it. There must have been ten people out there.

Turns out the old man was claiming I shoved him and threatened his safety inside his own house. I don’t remember it that way, but I guess it could have happened.

LANA

Next thing you know, I was sitting with Lana in her car outside the police station. My duffel bag was in the back with what I guess was everything I own. I was filling Lana in on what happened:

What happened was this:

The old man claimed I was trespassing. I thought he meant trespassing in his house when I went to get the wedding dress. Not so. He meant trespassing by being on the property. Turns out he had already filed a complaint against my aunt and me, just in case, for squatting in his garage. They pulled that out and it looked pretty bad. So, presto—that was that. The police officer told me the old man would drop the charges if I’d stay away. I said I would and that was that. When I started to talk about the wedding dress, which I did, I mean, I really started giving a shitty little speech, everyone shut up for a second in that part of the precinct, and that’s when I realized that I sounded totally fucking crazy. A wedding dress from 1940? Who cares? So, I stopped talking and walked out and no one stopped me. I guess I had already been processed.

Ten minutes later, Lana picked me up. I told her my side of the story and we drove away. She was madder than I was. In general I think sadness kind of takes the strength away from anger, or maybe they just waver back and forth. I don’t know. All I know is most of the time I am one or the other—that is, angry or sad. We get offered so few real victories. It’s a question I can’t even really answer: what is the victory I want?

MONDAY

That was a Friday. The fallout didn’t come until Monday. Over the weekend, I tried to sneak back into my aunt’s to get a few more things, but there were new locks on the door. I stayed at Lana’s the first night, then at Jan’s Saturday and Sunday. Monday I went to school.

I got pulled straight out of homeroom and sent to the principal’s. Of course, I know that terrible room pretty well by now. What I didn’t know was, the principal evidently knew someone who knew my aunt’s landlord. I guess everybody I hate knows each other, like some kind of club.

So, in a thirty-minute harangue I was told by the principal, who was red-faced (he even swore three or four times), that he was going to make damned well sure nothing went well for me at the school going forward and that I should consider dropping out. Matter of fact, I should more than consider it. He said he didn’t have the power to kick me out, but he could make it tough for me if I stayed, and he would.

I headed for the door.

I’m not done, he said.

I told him he could fuck himself.

He said something like: he could see my whole life stretched out—failures and failures and failures. We tried to help you, he said. But you can’t be helped.

That was enough for me.

GOODBYE WHISTLER

And there I was, standing in the hall. Let’s not be romantic about it. I hated the place from the get-go. And so, that was the end of my sojourn at Whistler High.

Nothing left for me to do but take the licorice I’d socked away in my locker, toss my textbooks on the ground, and waltz out the grand front entrance like I owned it. So, I did that. The hallway felt enormous, I don’t know why. It’s almost like—we don’t see things most of the time, but every now and then, BAM—your sight gets defamiliarized, and then everything looks new, like you’ve never seen it before.

A few kids were trailing in late to first period, and I could see they were confused by my behavior. A teacher tried to stop me—asked where I was going.

I just laughed.

That didn’t go over well.

Listen, either you’re a student or you’re not. And if you’re not a student anymore you can’t be on school grounds.

I get that. I get it. That’s why I’m walking this way. Do you see what direction this is?

The people at Whistler High are a real mixed bag.

I crossed the street, and went up into the woods a bit. I’d thought about going up into those woods for a while, but I had never done it. There were some fallen trees and I sat down on one. From where I sat I could see the whole high school building opposite. Different scenes were framed in all the windows, and along the arterial of the front drive, cars came and went. The whole thing was a vulgar facsimile of something useful, but a false version, one that does no good. Imagine if someone would show you a beehive that doesn’t make honey. What’s the point of it, you say? Oh, it’s just to keep the bees busy. We love it when they learn to like what’s given to them. That’s what the voice would say if it decided to reveal itself to you. But usually it keeps quiet.

LANA

The next day, Lana came to Jan’s place and told me Beekman wanted me to call him. She gave me his phone number on a piece of paper.

I don’t really like him, she said, but he seemed pretty mad at the principal, so I guess he’s all right.

Weird. I don’t really know why it matters so much to him.

Don’t ask me.

Can I use your phone to call?

Lana said we needed to get me my own phone. I said didn’t I know it.

The phone rang for a while, then Beekman answered:

1. He was sorry about my aunt dying. I said it was probably the best thing for her, which is essentially meaningless, but I discovered it is a good way to end conversations like that.

2. He was mad at me for quitting school. He said the principal was bluffing about ruining things for me there. There isn’t much a principal can do even if the principal hates you, he said. The teachers wouldn’t stand for him just victimizing students. I said, what’s done is done. I wasn’t learning anything anyway. He didn’t say anything to that.

3. He asked if I had been arrested for assaulting an old man in his home. I said it was complicated and gave him my account of things, which basically took forever. Lana kept shaking her head at me.

4. I asked him if the principal had called Hausmann. He said it had happened and that now it looked like I couldn’t go. They were very hesitant to take on a high-risk individual. He was really disappointed in them.

5. He said his wife and he had talked and if I needed a place to stay, they would help me out. He said he knew my situation was rough and I shouldn’t give up on myself. I said I had a place, but thank you.

6. He said he and his wife would like to help me. He said again, I could stay with them and potentially do a GED. Then, he was sure I could get into a great college. I said I couldn’t talk anymore, but I’d think about it.

LANA

I was standing there holding Lana’s phone. The call was over. I said, I’m through with having people try to help me out.

What’s wrong?

I guess I’m not going to that fancy school.

It’s not so bad. That means we can keep hanging out.

Yeah.

I mean—if they get into you for something like this, maybe it was a bad idea anyway.

I just wish …

I felt pretty awful. Maybe I even started to screw up my face a little like I was going to cry.

Lana looked over. She started to mock me.

That goddamned landlord. He really did a job on you. All he has to do is call the police and no matter what happened, you’re fucked.

Lana grabbed my head in both her hands and looked into my eyes.

Now you’re completely screwed. You poor child, now you can never accomplish anything.

Fuck off.

I tried to shake her, but she had my head real good.

Now there’s nothing left for you. Why don’t you cry some more?

Fuck off, Lana.

Cry little baby, cry. You don’t get to go to your fancy school.

Lana! Stop.

No, no I won’t. You’re the one who has to stop being a little bitch.

She stuck her forehead right against mine.

Nobody knows what you can do. Nobody knows that.

She pushed me away.

Surprise them. Do whatever you want. They don’t matter anyway. It’s like you keep telling me—they’re all stuck in their own heads.

Thanks, Lana.

Lucia, you are a foul bitch—not a sucker. Keep to the script.

Have you been reading my pamphlet?

Are you kidding? I memorized it.

MOTHERS

We went on a walk then, after Lana’s pep talk. There is a sump about a half mile from Jan’s house and we walked down there. Some guys honked at us from a car and drove slowly next to us; Lana gave them the finger and they laughed. Evidently that was what they liked, so they started to pull over. We went into a torta shop and waited until they went away.

We were staring out the window. I was thinking about boys and how terrible it must be to be a boy. They seem to feel like they have to stand up to everything, and for no reason.

The cashier at the torta place asked us if we were going to order anything, so we got up and left.

Just then Lana asked me about my mom. She did it this way, like she was far down her train of thought, and it somehow jumped straight out into speech:

What kind of bullshit is that? Tell me, please.

What are you talking about?

Our conversations. They are like this: I say something about my mom. You say nothing. I say something about my dad. You say nothing. I tell you about my brother. You say nothing. So, the question is: what kind of bullshit is that?

Lana, what do you want me to say?

Why haven’t you taken me to see your mom? You go there every week. I don’t mind going with you.

Maybe I mind.

Nobody said anything for a while and I could tell she was hurt—and here’s the thing, I like Lana. I don’t want her to feel bad. Basically, she is near the end of the line of people I wouldn’t mind seeing hurt, and it’s a long line.

Lana, listen. My mom, you would have liked her a lot. You would have. But there’s nothing to like now. Going there—you’re not going there to see a person. It isn’t like that.

Why don’t you tell me about her then?

Fine. I told her a story:

She was really wild. Sometimes she didn’t care about consequences. She and my aunt would argue about this a lot. My dad was pretty crazy too, but he was the one who kept my mom in check. Once, they were sitting in a diner, and I was with them. I was maybe eight. Some guy pulled up in a truck and he went inside real quick, he left the truck running. We paid, and he was still in line as we were leaving. The back of the truck is full of Christmas trees. My mom says hurry up to my dad. They jump in the truck, me on my dad’s lap, and we peel out. My mom drives it full speed down to this one neighborhood, a pretty bad spot, and we dump all the Christmas trees onto a lot, drive to a spot under an overpass. They left the truck there and we walked home in the cold, laughing and laughing and laughing. She never got caught. That was one thing about her, she never got caught.

So, that was one thing about her, one side of her. The other side was: she’d take the newspaper out and we’d sit down on Sundays and we’d go through it page by page finding lies and weasel words. It’s pretty fun. We would compare the new paper with old ones. We would just laugh and laugh. My mom would do impressions, and different accents, trying out what the different articles said. It was one of my favorite things. Sometimes we would call my dad over to verify if we couldn’t remember things, and he loved it, too. I think he wanted to do it with us, but he could see it was nice that we got to do it alone. Also, she would make cheesecake compulsively. I actually don’t even like cheesecake.

Sounds like a pretty great family, said Lana. My mom doesn’t know one end of a hot dog from the other.

She’s sweet, though, I said. And she managed to not die or turn into a vegetable.

Lucia, come on. Don’t say that.

If you saw her, Lana, if you saw her and she was your mom, it’s the worst thing you could ever see.

I guess that made Lana feel bad. I shouldn’t have said it, but the truth is the truth:

We’re just not permanent at all, not the way we want to be. Something happens, maybe even something small, something no one even notices, and next thing you know someone is spooning porridge in your mouth and maybe you like it. Next thing you know someone is wheeling you into a room with carpeted walls.