In The Middle of Middle America Page 9

  “There’s a new face,” Mia says, leaning in to whisper to me. “Maybe you could ask him to get you pregnant. Though I bet it’d hurt riding him.”

  I slap at her elbow while she bends herself over to snicker into the table.

  “Don’t be dumb, Mia,” I whisper. “I wouldn’t subject my future son or daughter to the genes of soldier.”

  “What? Why not?” she says, a little too loudly.

  I shush her, by tapping her knee under the table and raising my eyebrows at her.

  “A soldier’s likely to be a Republican, isn’t he? It’s all about the stars ‘n’ stripes if you’re a soldier.”

  “Wow,” Mia mouths. “No wonder you’re single.” Then she sips from her mug.

  “I’m messing with you. I’m messing with you,” I say. Even though I’m not sure I am. What I am sure of — and Mia knows this — is that I just wouldn’t have sex with some random guy to get pregnant. That’s just not fair. It’s not fair on the guy himself. Not fair on anyone. I don’t think I could live as a mother knowing I had duped somebody into providing a son or a daughter for me. “Ya know what?” I say, distracting myself from even entertaining the thought, “talking about sex. I’m pretty sure one of my students is blatantly coming on to me.”

  MERIC MILLER

  I fall back on to my bed, without breaking my fall, until my head slaps against the pillow. Then I clasp my hands across my chest and stare up to the ceiling, hoping the stains up there will somehow stop my head from spinning.

  I couldn’t believe it. Could. Not. Believe. It. Right when he was acting like the cock stain he can sometimes be, pushing me and shoving me out of the way, she stood up, wrapped her arm around me and walked me as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend all the way to math. Well, it wasn’t all the way to math. Her arm slipped off on the way before she nudged at me and then walked toward Mr. Charlton’s classroom on her own. But it was still so cool. Super cool. Ain’t nothing like that ever happened to me before. Not even in my dreams. I’ve been trying to relive that moment in my head the whole afternoon. S’probably why my head’s been spinning so much.

  I spent my time in math not looking down at the desk, like I usually do, but staring at her hair because she was sitting two rows in front of me. I took in the different strands of orange and gold and I think I pretty much had a smile on my face the whole time I was doin’ it. I certainly had a smile on my face when Stevie walked in late to that class. The cock stain. He didn’t dare look at me. Him and Brody just sunk themselves into their seats on the other side of the room and kept their eyes straight ahead while Mr. Charlton went on and on about X and fucking Y.

  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after math class. But I was at least expectin’ her to stay around and talk to me. Afterall, she had only told me I was her boyfriend at the same time she announced it to Stevie at the end of American History class. But as soon as the bell went off when math was over, she shoveled her book into her bag, slung her bag over both shoulders and was gone in a flash. I watched her pacing down the sidewalk of the school from the classroom window of math while I was still trying to fit my notebook into my bag.

  I tried walking a little faster to get home, to see if I could catch up with her. But she musta been much quicker than I was. Or maybe she’d taken a different route to the normal route she takes, cos I sure as hell didn’t catch up with her. And I was walkin’ really fast. Practically speed walking.

  I turn on to my side and begin to rub at my stomach. It feels different; has felt different from the moment she wrapped her arm around me. I wonder if she’ll do the same thing tomorrow as well. We could probably sit in the cafeteria at lunch time with our arms around each other. Or holding hands. I dunno. Maybe.

  I raise an arm over my head and sniff, then do the same on the other side. I ain’t sure I smell of anything, but I jump up off the bed anyway, head into our small bathroom and run the shower. Just in case I smell bad to her. It’s actually been a long time since I’ve had a shower. Not ’cause I don’t wanna wash. But because this shower is so shitty it only spits out water. I’m sick of sayin’ to Momma that, “we shouldn’t call this a shower, we should call it a spitter,” but she ain’t done nothing to try fix it. She don’t really care. I don’t think she washes that much either. Same as me, she prolly just wipes her armpits at the sink with a handful of water and a bit of soap.

  After running the spitter, I sneak a peek at her by pushing at the living room door quietly and staring in through the crack. She’s sittin’ on the couch, swirling the phone line round her finger and flirting with whoever’s on the other end of the line. It could be anyone. I wouldn’t know. I used to keep count of the men, and boys, who came and went. But that stopped years ago.

  I think about Caoimhe while the shower spits at me, but I don’t jerk off. I don’t see her that way. Not yet anyway. The sexiness will come in time, I’m sure. But right now, all of the feelings I have for her are in my stomach. Not my cock. I might jerk off later. But not thinking about her. I’ll prolly do one to Sarah-Jane Zdanski. She looked super-hot today when she popped up on TV promoting some big secret interviews she’s got coming up soon.

  BRODY EDWARDS

  “Smell my fingers.”

  “What the fuck, dude?” I say, slapping Stevie’s hand away from my face.

  “Ya know what that smell is?” he says.

  “No,” I say. Then, as he sits on the edge of my bed with a big grin on his face, the penny drops. “You didn’t?”

  “Yup,” he says, holding two fingers up, “that is the sweet smell of Ireland, dude. Sweet Irish pus-say.”

  He stuffs his two fingers into his mouth, sucks on them, then loudly pops them back out from the side of his cheek

  “You dirty dawg,” I say, sitting down on the edge of my bed right next to him, “so when did this happen?”

  “I saw her rushing out of school after math, so I was thinking yo bitch, I ain’t lettin' you get away with trying to embarrass me with Meric, so… so I shouted after her. ‘Yo, Irish,‘ I said. I wiggled my finger at her to come over to me, and you know how I roll, dude... two minutes later we were behind the shed at the back of the school with our tongues down each other’s throats and my two fingers vibrating inside her like a washing machine. She was screeching, dude. Right into my ear. It was awesome.”

  “I was wondering where you went after math. Wow. Well, I guess you’re ahead of me now. I’m still at winking stage with Decker. You’ve already got your fingers dirty with the new chick, huh?”

  “That’s how I roll, dude.”

  Then we do our handshake.

  “Hey,” I say, “have you managed to convince your mom and dad to give you the money for Europe?”

  “Yeah, dude. They’ll do it. They’ve already signed the form. I think we’re just waiting on my dad to get paid at the end of the month and we should be all good to go. It’s gonna be one hell of a trip. I bet the French chicks will love nothing more than an American dude hitting on them. Be like winning the lottery for those chicks, won’t it? Having two American football players in town.”

  I look at him, a little confused.

  “Do they even know what American football is in France?”

  “Sure they do, dude. They play American Football all over the world. Just cause it’s called American Football doesn’t mean it’s only played in America.”

  “You sure?” I say.

  He nods.

  “Trust me, dude. We will not be hard up for pus-say when we go to Europe. We’ll probably be swimming in it.”

  We do our handshake again, then I kneel down and wiggle myself under the small table in my bedroom to push the plug into the socket. Stevie snatches at the joystick as the TV flashes on and then shouts, “I’ll go first today.”

  So I just sit back on the edge of my bed next to him and watch as he tries to take Mario through to level nineteen. We’ve been stuck on level eighteen since the end of August.

  “Try bouncing
on that mushroom, have we tried that before?” I say, and as I say it, my bedroom door swings open.

  “Hey you two.”

  “Hey Mrs. Edwards,” Stevie says, “Uhm… Miss Wallard.”

  “It’s still Mrs. Edwards… they’re not divorced,” I say, snatching the joystick from him. “Yet.”

  “Stevie,” Mom says before tutting. “I’ve been telling you since you were four years old to just call me Patricia.”

  Stevie’s parents tell him that he should call his friends’ folks Mr. and Mrs. whatever. I have to call them Mr. and Mrs. Jenkiss when I’m at their house. They’re old-fashioned like that. And a bit up their own asses.

  “Good day at school today?” Mom asks.

  “The usual,” I reply, while tapping away at the red button on my joystick.

  “Want a snack before dinner… or?”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “You, Stevie?”

  ”I’m fine Mrs. Edwar― Patricia,” he says.

  Then Mom shakes her head as she stares at the small TV, showing games meant for children much younger than us, before she tuts again while dragging the bedroom door back shut.

  “I bet your Mom is dying for a ride,” Stevie whispers. “How long has your old man been away… and they were split up well before that, too, right? Must be almost two years since she’s had a cock inside her.”

  I slap him across the back of his head, hard; so hard I can feel the sting of it inside my palm.

  “What the fuck, dude,” he says. Then he jumps on top of me and we giggle all high-pitched like Michael Jackson while we wrestle on my bed.

  “Man, I can’t believe we’re going off to Europe in tenth grade,” I say after our wrestling has finished and I've sat up on the bed so I can flatten my hair back down. “This is gonna be the best vacation of our lives, dude.”

  Then I hear the tip-tap of heavy shoes — a sound I haven’t heard in a long, long time — outside my bedroom window. It’s Stevie who looks up first, kneeling on the bed and tweaking the blinds.

  “Holy shit, dude,” he says.

  I already know what he’s about to say, but I don’t wait to hear it. I grab at the bedroom door, snatch it open and then race myself down the stairs as quickly as I can.

  “Dad!” I say, grinning from ear to ear. Then I wrap my arms around his uniform and press my cheek right into his chest.

  WENDY CAMPBELL

  I press my hand to her forehead, and when she feels my palm stick to the beads of her sweat, she tries to smile up at me.

  “Stay asleep, Momma,” I say.

  “I bin sleep all day,” she whispers.

  Chemotherapy is supposed to be the way to treat her illness, but she’s had her one and only shot of it a week ago and all it’s done is made her look and feel a hundred times worse. A thousand times worse. Her hair is falling out. Her eyes are all bulged. And she’s tired. Always tired. She can barely keep those bulging eyes open no more. S’almost as if the doctors told us a few months ago that Momma has stomach cancer and so what he was going to do was have her attend a clinic to shoot her up with somethin’ that’ll make her feel even worse. Chemotherapy don’t make no sense to me. Even when she went to the doctor the first time saying she had cramps in her stomach, she was fine, really. She was still herself. She could still live a life. Could still be our Momma. Could still stay awake for most o’ the day. But ever since she had the chemotherapy, all she is is a heavy body, lying flat out all day long on a fold-down sofa in the middle of our living room. Every so often she’ll smile up at us when she wakes. But that’s about as good as it gets.

  While my hand is still pressed against Momma’s forehead, I turn to my little sister.

  “So, what you want for dinner today, huh?”

  She doesn’t look up from the picture she is coloring in at the table, her tongue sticking out as she scribbles, then says, “Fries. And a hamburger.”

  So I heave my weight off Momma’s makeshift bed, using the arm of our sofa to help me up, and head into our tiny kitchen where I push the button of the small twelve-inch TV to make it blink on.

  As I’m pouring a large bag of fries into the deep-fat fryer, I hear the old guy with the gray side-part say, “And now over to Sarah-Jane Zdanski.” I don’t usually pay much attention to the news. But Miss Decker set us a task of checking in, so I stop pouring the fries and stare at Sarah-Jane. Good Lordy, she is beautiful. Her perfectly straight nose, her clear-blue eyes, the unblemished V of skin that points down to her breasts. Then I look down at myself, at the rolls of fat that are still obvious, even though I’m wearing three layers of clothing.

  “We’ve got sensational exclusive interviews coming next week,” she says, smiling her bright-white teeth into the camera. “But we’re keeping that a secret just for now. But trust me this is something you will not wanna miss.”

  “Eat a frickin’ burger, Sarah-Jane,” I say to the TV. Then I pull down the oven door and toss three burger patties on to the tray before slamming it shut.

  I turn to the TV again and notice that the news has turned into the commercials. It seems to do that every five minutes these days.

  “Wendeeeeee,” Sally shrieks. I turn and bundle my heavy frame into the living room, to see my little sister bent over Momma’s makeshift bed. “Momma’s foaming again.”

  CAOIMHE LARKIN

  There was nobody inside when I pulled back the curtain. So, after biting at my fingernails, unsure what to do as I stood still for way too long, I eventually decided to just sit into one of the empty seats at the tiny round table. I can’t believe she’s late. I rushed out of school, as fast as I could, for this 'cause had to meet Dad exactly where I asked him to meet me — on the corner of Walnut Street, and not directly outside of the school. He was waiting for me because, firstly, he had to drive over to the golf course to drop off some paperwork, and secondly, because my appointment was at four p.m. and I needed to be here right on time. Dad let me drive from the golf course to Esbon again. I think I drove a little faster today. I’m getting used to it. I can’t wait to start driving to school after my sixteenth birthday. It’s going to be beyond the coolest thing I’ve ever done my whole life.

  Meric must think I’m evil, though. I threw my arm around him, announced to American History class that we were now a couple then ran as fast as I could when the final school bell went off. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him... though I guess that’s mostly why I’m here.

  I look at my watch. Four minutes past four. I hate when people are late. Especially someone who can actually tell the future. Though, just as I pick up her crystal ball to squint right through it to see if I can see whatever it is she sees, she swipes open the curtain and stares at me.

  “Forty dollars, young lady.”

  “Here y’go,” I say, handing over the two twenty dollar bills my dad didn’t hesitate giving to me last night.

  “Please Dad,” I begged him, “I need to see her again.”

  This moving to America doesn’t seem so bad, certainly not when I can literally beg Dad for anything I want and he will give it to me.

  “What’s your name again, young lady?” Madam Apsectu asks.

  I blink my eyes at her, wondering if she’s joking or not. And when she doesn’t react, other than to shuffle the two twenty dollar notes I gave her into a tiny black box that she then locks with a key and places under the table, I cough lightly, before answering.

  “Caoimhe,” I remind her. “Caoimhe Larkin.”

  “That’s right. Irish girl. I shudda remembered you with that lovely red hair.”

  She leans down, clicks a red button on a small white box next to the table and a humming sound starts before steam begins to rise to the top of the tent.

  “I’m eh… I’m here to find out more about my love life,” I say. “Remember last time, you told me I would meet a boy with two M’s in his name?”

  “Oh,” she says, offering me her first smile, �
��of course. Well, have you bumped into him yet?”

  “Well, not so much bumped into him, but I think I sat right next to him for my first class in my new school.”

  “Ya see,” she says, standing up and stretching her arms out wide. “I really need to start charging more than forty dollars, don’t I?”

  I look at her, confused, and then when she sits back down, I continue talking.

  “Thing is,” I say, “he’s not usually my type and I’m not sure if I have the right boy. Maybe there’s somebody else with two M’s in their name and I was hoping you might… you might...” I point at her crystal ball before she nods her head and says, “Of course.”

  She picks up the ball, stares into it, then places it down and holds out her hands, inviting me to grip on to the tips of her fingers; same as I did a couple of weeks ago when I first came here.

  “Well, your love life glow is strong,” she says.

  “Huh? What does that mean?”

  “Well, it means that you have found love or you are close to finding love. Your love life glow is pulsating.”

  “Pulsating?”

  “Kaylee, pulsating means―”

  “It’s Kwee-Va. Caoimhe.”

  “Sorry. Caoimhe. Pulsating means that love is strong within you and that you are in tune with your soulmate. I see him now. He is close by you.” I look around myself. “No, no… not literally close by you right now. But close to your life. You are either about to meet him or….”

  “Or what?” I say.

  “Or you already have met him.”

  “Well, that’s what I wanna find out,” I say. “That’s why I’m back here. I need to know if the boy with the two M’s that I sit next to in class is the boy with the two M‘s that you told me I would meet and fall in love with.”