In The Middle of Middle America Read online

  We both laugh so loudly that the man sitting behind Johnny snaps a stern stare over his shoulder.

  “War it is,” Johnny says as I cover his rock with my paper. “Well… where do I start?” I shrug my shoulders then take a sip of wine through my smile. It’s been a long time since I sipped wine through a smile. I normally sip it through a grimace. “Well...” he says, leaning his forearms on to the table. “It’s different over there than everyone thinks it is. I mean, different in comparison to how they show it on the news and stuff.”

  “Isn’t everything?” I say, with a laugh.

  “Sorry?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” I say, “I bet there’s a lot of boredom, right?”

  “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Nobody from the real world has ever said that to me… but yeah. You’re absolutely right. It’s pretty much twenty-four hour boredom. We are sitting around in heavy clothing under the sun for fifteen hours a day with not much to do other than patrol. And even when the sun goes down, we’re still just sitting around in camp; same guys, same company, same stories. The guys are good fun though, so I shouldn’t...”

  “Lots of guy humor, I bet.”

  “You could say that. Us men don’t ever grow up, do we?”

  “Oh…” I say, shaking my head from side to side. “I teach teenage boys. I sure hope they grow up.”

  I take another sip of wine while he produces his husky laugh, then I follow up with my questioning.

  “Will you have to go back to Iraq… or?”

  “It’s likely I won’t,” he shakes his head while sucking in a breath. “My squad seems to think America is done in the Middle East. Our specific mission — the squadron I’m in — is coming to an end.”

  “Cool,” I say, nodding along; deciding whether or not I should inform him he couldn’t be more wrong. If he thinks America is close to finishing their meddling in the Middle East then he doesn’t know jack shit about America’s meddling in the Middle East. “Well, let’s hope everyone gets home soon, and gets home safe,” I opt to say instead.

  “God bless America,” he says, holding his pint glass toward me.

  “To humanity,” I say, winking back at him, while I clink the top of my wine glass against the edge of his.

  He laughs that husky laugh again. And I feel myself pulling at the collar of my blouse. Surely I can’t be getting the hots for somebody who preaches at the altar of God. Let alone America.

  “So... you don’t believe in God?” he asks.

  “I don’t believe in any of ’em, no,” I say, before taking another sip. “You?” I cringe while I await his answer.

  “Yeah, nah… I don’t know. Impossible to know, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” I say. “That is what I always say. It is impossible for anyone to know.”

  “Yeah,” he says, nodding.

  “And that means anyone who is claiming to actually know is kinda well… they’re making it up, aren’t they?”

  He snorts out a laugh.

  “You cut deep right off the bat, huh?” he says.

  The waiter arrives, laying down sky blue folded napkins and a knife and fork for each of us while we silently stare across the table at each other.

  “What’s the best thing about Switzerland?” Johnny then says, leaning more forward as soon as the waiter leaves us.

  “What’s the what?” I squint back at him.

  “What’s the best thing about Switzerland?”

  “I don't know,” I say, picking up my wine.

  “Well, I don’t know either,” he says, “but their flag is a big plus.”

  I spray wine out of my mouth and on the table, spitting and dribbling it down my chin. I think I sprayed a little bit of him too, but that’s his own fault; cracking a shit joke just as I’m taking a sip of wine. I reach over and brush his hand with my fingers.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. He’s laughing too hard to notice I’m touching him; his husky cackle on loop; his thick neck glowing red; his narrow eyes watering.

  When we both recompose ourselves, he wipes at his eyes with his fingers, then holds his glass aloft.

  “To humanity,” he says.

  When we clink, he winks one of his narrow eyes at me.

  “So… you’re a teacher, huh? Which school you teach at?”

  “Median High.”

  “Oh,” he says, “my son goes there.”

  KAI CHAYTON

  Saturday night. Nine p.m. It’s supposed to be the happiest time of the week, isn’t it? I bet every young person I know is out there somewhere having fun. But here I am, all alone in my bedroom, tears racing down my face while my father watches some old movie on the TV downstairs.

  I couldn’t believe it when Halona grabbed the bag from me and took out the dress. She unfolded it there and then, at the bottom of the escalators, and said, “What the Holy Hell is this?”

  I stuttered. Hesitated. And before I managed to get one full word out of my mouth, she already knew… Halona already knew…

  Halona is great. And she’s one of the closest people to me in my life. But she just doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. A boy wanting to dress in women’s clothing doesn’t make sense to her. Why would it? It barely makes sense to me.

  I walk into momma’s bedroom, take the small bench she sits on when she’s sewing and then walk it back to my bedroom. I don’t know why my hands aren’t shaking. I should be petrified. Scared. Frightened. But I’m not. And that’s how I know I’m doing the right thing. Once I'm gone, so, too, will the whole mess my life has turned into.

  I pick up the rope, pull at the noose again, to make sure it’s as tight as it can be, then I loop the loose end around the beams of my ceiling before I step up onto momma’s small sewing bench. After taking in one large breath, I fit my head inside the loop of the noose and reach up to pull it as tight as it can possibly squeeze around my neck.

  I stand still for a few moments, not really sure what to do with my hands. Then, I decide to place them behind my back, as if they were tied, before I begin to swing back and forward, rocking momma’s small bench a little.

  “Okay, Kai,” I say to myself. “It’s time.”

  Then I kick the bench from under my feet.

  CAOIMHE LARKIN

  As me and Dad are pulling up in the car I can see that he’s already here; standing outside, silhouetted by the front window of the restaurant with his hands in his pockets and staring at us through his long fringe. When our car lights hit him, I realize he hasn’t really dressed up. He’s in the same T-shirt and jeans he normally wears to school. Maybe I’ve overdressed. Shit! I’ve definitely overdressed.

  “Okay, love,” Dad says, “I’ll pick you up at ten p.m. Not a minute later.” He leans his cheek closer for me to kiss, which I do, before I push open the door.

  “Thanks Dad.”

  As I’m walking toward Meric I decide I’ll hug him, none of this shaking hands nonsense. One hug. That’s it. No kisses on the cheek or anything like that. Just a one-handed hug, then I’ll ask him how he is. It’s that simple. Greeting people shouldn’t be as complicated as I always seem to make it.

  I smile at him, then he pushes his hand straight toward me, just as I lean in for the hug and his hand gets trapped between us and ends up dangling around by my vagina as I press him against me.

  “Shit. Sorry,” he mumbles as we release.

  “No probs,” I say. “I’m hungry… you?”

  He shakes his fringe up and down before I turn around to pull open the restaurant door.

  A waiter holds one finger up at us as he carries a tray to another table. So me and Meric just stand in the doorway next to the front desk, not saying anything to each other as we look around the restaurant. It seems nice. Nobody’s ever brought me on a date to a restaurant before. Meric chose it. He says it’s supposed to be the best restaurant in the whole of Lebanon. Though Dad did say to me that it may actually be the only restaurant in the whole of Lebanon. It’s cute that Mer
ic chose to bring me here for our first date. But what was really cute was how he actually asked me on the date… by sliding a note across our desk in the middle of American History class with “Saturday, 8:30 p.m?” scribbled on it.

  “Isn’t that Decker?” I say, turning to Meric.

  He brushes his fringe aside with his fingers and squints.

  “Yeah, think it is,” he says.

  “Now,” the waiter interrupts, standing in front of us and blocking the view we had of our teacher and her boyfriend.

  “Table for two...” I say.

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  I look to Meric.

  “Uh…” He coughs. Nervously. “I booked a uh…table for two under the name Miller.”

  “Ah yes,” the waiter says, pointing a finger at the paperwork in front of him, “Follow me.” The waiter leads us to a table at the side of the bar and I take off my coat and drape it over the back of the chair before sitting into it. “Here are some menus, I’ll be back for orders in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you,” I say to the back of the waiter as he walks away. Then I look up at my date and try to smile at him. But he’s just staring down at the edge of the table... same as he does in class all of the time. “Thanks for organizing the date,” I say.

  Meric looks up, nods, and says, “No problem,” then stares back down at the edge of the table again.

  “Didn’t know Decker had a boyfriend,” I say, pushing my chair closer to the table.

  “Me neither.”

  He tries to crane his neck to look around the side of the bar.

  “Whaddya think of her?” I ask.

  “She’s cool. Well... cool for a teacher,” he says.

  “Yeah. She is kinda cool. Her classes are cool, I guess.”

  I flip open the menu and begin reading through it.

  “They do the best burgers ever here,” Meric says, “look.”

  He nods his head to the left, and I stare over at the table across from us.

  “Hell no. I couldn’t eat that. The size of it,” I whisper. My eyes actually widen as I take in the burger on the customer’s plate. “That’s about this size,” I say, forming a football-sized shape with my hands.” I stand up, and pinch at my stomach. “And my belly is only half that size. That burger, even all chewed up, couldn’t fit inside me.”

  Meric giggles into his hand. Then, when he removes his hand, he properly smiles up at me; not just with his lips, but with his eyes, too. I’ve never seen him properly smile before. His teeth are a little crooked. But I shouldn’t judge. I had to wear braces for two and a half years when I was in primary school.

  “I think I’ll have the Chicken Cesar Salad,” I say, closing the menu.

  And by the time I look back up at Meric, his giggling has stopped and he’s staring at the edge of the table again. It’s such a weird thing to do all of the time.

  I chew on my bottom lip as I twist my bum from side to side on the chair, wondering what we should talk about.

  “Eh… tell me about your family,” I say to him.

  I notice his eyes from under the strands of his hair flick upward, then he shuffles his chair in closer to the table and sighs.

  “This won’t take long,” he says. “One mother. No father. No sister. No brother. You?”

  “That’s it?” I say.

  “Well, I’ve had about twenty-two stepfathers, each for about a month at a time over the years… but…” He shrugs his shoulders up and then releases them back down slowly. “What about you? You from a dysfunctional family too?”

  “I used to think I was,” I say, leaning both elbows on the table, “until I moved here.”

  MERIC MILLER

  “I’ll get that,” I say, sliding the check toward me as soon as the waiter places it in the middle of the table.

  “Oh, no. You don’t have to do that. I’m the kinda girl who likes to pay her way. My dad gave me some money to―”

  “No, no. I want to,” I say, taking the money out of my pocket and counting out six ten dollar bills. “I insist.”

  She smiles one of those magazine model smiles at me and I think I look cool as I count out the bills and toss them on top of the check. I’ve never done this before. Never taken anybody out to dinner. I had to steal the money from my Mom’s oversized pink purse to be able to pay for it. She always has cash in there. Sometimes there’s lots of it. Sometimes not so much. Luckily, there was a few hundred in there when I checked yesterday, so I hope she doesn’t miss the ten ten dollar bills I took. To hell with it. I’ll just deny I took it anyway, even if she does start asking questions. I’ll just tell her I was out riding around on my bike… like I always am.

  I’m not sure how this date has gone, even though I feel happy. There were lots of awkward silences. Lots of them. From start to finish. Any time we did talk, it was usually because she asked questions. But I just feel like smiling because I’ve just brought a girl, a beautiful Irish girl, out on a date.

  “Thank you so much,” the waiter says, picking up the bills.

  “Keep the change,” I say. And then I look at Caoimhe to see if she is impressed that I left such a large tip. It’s weird that I think this is how I can win her over when we’ve spent the last two hours sitting across from each other and I coulda won her over by actually talking or something. Instead, I just chomped on my burger, my hands dripping with grease and ketchup, while she ate her salad like a lady, using a knife and fork. I guess I don’t really know how to win a girl over using just words. Words aren’t really my thing. Unless they’re in print.

  The only question I thought of myself, and actually asked out loud, was about the trip to Europe. She says she’s not going either. Great! Same as me. No way I could afford it. No way my momma would splurge four hundred dollars for me to have a good time, no matter how much cash she has in that oversized pink purse of hers sometimes.

  “You know when I said I didn’t have the money to afford to go to Europe?” I say as we’re both putting on our coats.

  “Uh-huh,” she says.

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to think that I won’t have money for us to… for us to… y’know do this again sometime. I’ll find the money. If you want to go out on another date, I can definitely find the money.”

  She smiles at me again, then places a hand to my cheek. It feels warm. Really warm. So warm, I would love to tilt my head to the side so I can trap it between my cheek and my shoulder and fall asleep on it.

  “Meric, stop stressing and calm down,” she says. “Next time, it doesn’t have to be at the best restaurant in town. A McDonald’s will do.”

  My stomach flips itself over.

  “So there is gonna be a next time?” I say. And as I say it I notice the waiter overhear me and cringe a little, his shoulders dipping, his teeth clenching.

  “Sure,” she says. I eyeball the waiter as we leave. The nerve of him cringing at me like that after I gave him a seven dollar tip. Fuckin’ ass hole.

  “Look,” Caoimhe says, turning to me as soon as we step into the cold, “my dad’s already here. I’ll eh… I’ll see you in school on Monday, huh?” Then she slaps me on the side of the shoulder before running across the road to where her dad is parked.

  I wait on the sidewalk and when their car eventually pulls away, I slap my hands together.

  “Fuck yeah!” I say. “Meric, you’re a genius.”

  WENDY CAMPBELL

  I yawn. Again. A big yawn this time; much bigger than the hundred yawns I’ve already yawned this mornin’.

  “Jeez, you really do look like a hippo,” Brody says.

  “Shut yo trap, you fuckin’ jock strap,” I retort as soon as I snap my jaws back together.

  He sits in beside that other jock strap friend of his and they bump fists and giggle like ten year olds. Assholes.

  “Hey,” Caoimhe says, sliding in to the chair next to me. “Where were you Friday? I missed you. I’ve so much to tell ya.”

  “Ah... I was… wel
l. Actually,” I say, looking around myself. “Do you think you could write me another note, pretending to be my Momma again?”

  “Another one? What’s going on, Wendy? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. And then I yawn again. And without even saying anything, Beavis and Butthead behind me start giggling. I choose to ignore them this time. “I just didn’t feel like going to school on Friday, so I spent my day down by the center monument.”

  “The center monument? Doing what? There’s nothing to do there.”

  “’Sactly. It’s nice and quiet. Peaceful,” I say. “And it gets me away from kids like these.” I nod my head backward.

  “Alright,” Caoimhe says. The she reaches into her bag, rips a page from one of her notebooks and begins scribbling a note for me in her fancy handwriting.

  “You a lifesaver of a friend,” I whisper.

  “Not. A. Problem,” she says, stabbing a period after her fake signature, before sliding the note toward me. “So, Wends,” she says — nobody’s ever called me Wends before. I think I like it — “whatcha do the weekend?”

  I focus my eyes on the ceiling as if I’m trying to recall how I spent the weekend, when there’s no need for me to reach into my memory at all. I spent all Friday in the hospital, sitting on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs beside Momma’s bed ’til the doctors eventually told us we had to go home. And on Saturday and Sunday, I did the exact same thing, only I was sitting in our armchair and not a plastic chair while Momma laid on the makeshift bed in our living room. They’d no more room for her in the hospital, they said. We’d heard it all before. What they mean to say is that Momma has no health insurance and black skin, so she don’t belong there.

  “I uh... did some shopping Saturday,” I say, “then chilled out listening to some Mariah Carey CDs all Sunday. You?”

  “Went on a date,” she says, before sucking her lips so tightly together that they disappear into her face.

  “Huh?”

  I look behind me, and stare at Meric sitting in the back corner, staring down at the desk, just like he always does.