Man Alive - Thomas Page McBee

Скачать книгу

far from us in her convertible Mazda Miata, her auburn hair extended in all directions; Dad still outside in his heavy work gloves, his heart thundering at the sight of the cruiser; Mom’s eyes on mine, the story she’d told me about why he still lived with us: bankruptcy, property taxes, a fruitless job hunt, something something something.

      I knew, better than I knew myself, what my family needed me to do.

      “No,” I said.

      I watched another part of me fly away.

      He gave me a look, an adult expression that Mom called “tired.”

      “Are you sure?”

      A story in motion stays in motion. I nodded, and he waited for me to say more, but my silence was my language, my silence eclipsed truth until it became it.

      9

      Oakland

      April 2010 ♦ 29 years old

      Vader reappeared as soon as the car blew past me, and I felt the weather change: he was more spastic, desperate. He whispered to me, his eyes the color of the hardwood floors of our old Victorian on Broad Street, the bedroom of sneaked cigarettes and first kisses.

      Something something give me, he mumbled. The gun held forth like the queen of the sky.

      “Here,” Parker interrupted, waving her wallet. He ignored her, his eyes barely moving from mine.

      “You can use my credit cards,” she went on in a measured tone I’d never heard before, soothing and forced. She’ll never be the same, I thought.

      He took a step back and grabbed the wallet out of her hand.

      “Okay?” she said, and then looked at me, like come on.

      Wake up.

      I have no cash—

      I was mute. I hadn’t actually spoken, I realized. Not once. “You can take my credit cards,” I parroted Parker. My voice struck me, as it always did, as reedy: womanly.

      Something passed over his face, his eyes focusing in on me. He shook his head like, Fuck. There was a wail of pain in my knees, an eruption of pins and needles in my hands and feet. He lowered the gun.

      “Run,” he said, a mercy so abrupt, I barely heard it.

      But my body knew exactly what to do. Shedding ghost hands, I came back to life and launched into the night like a rocketship, trailing a streaming cloud of my breath.

      10

      Pittsburgh

      1990 ♦ 10 years old

      I ran past Dad on his riding lawnmower, wearing his dumb blue mesh hat. In the woods, behind the patch of maples, was my oak tree with its elephant-skin bark. I lay out on the huge, fallen trunk, watching the sun twinkle through a canopy of dead leaves.

      I listened for the tight smack of the police chief’s car door, but all I heard were birds, calling to each other, I’m alive I’m alive. I missed Ellie and Scott, who had taken to playing together alone, sensing something toxic about me in the way that children do.

      I pictured the house from above: Mom on her way back to her bedroom with a vodka and orange juice; Dad watching the police chief leave from high up on his mower; Scott and Ellie in their shared bathroom mixing baby powder and Mom’s perfumes into poisonous lotions, their little faces scrunched in concentration.

      Slap the cover closed, story’s over: the babysitter drove on, the police chief gave Dad the stink eye and sighed, Dad put some fuel in his lawnmower and opened the throttle. Mom looked at herself in the mirror, but I don’t know, will never know, what anyone else sees there.

      Much later she called my name and I didn’t answer, didn’t flinch when I heard footsteps crashing through the leaves, not caring who came for me.

      ♦

      Because I told myself this story: I know how to be invisible, untouchable. I could put my body to sleep, limb by limb. I could wait a lifetime, if I had to, to wake up.

      11

      Oakland

      April 2010 ♦ 29 years old

      My ears popped and a rush of sounds blew in: the smack of our feet as we ran, a wet cough, the slam of a closing window, the vibrating bass of a car stereo, irritated barking, tires on asphalt. We ran for blocks, barely noticing the passing jumble of porch swings, rock gardens, lawn ornaments.

      I could have lifted a car, saved a baby pinned under its metal casings. The pinpricks in my limbs subsided, everything waking simultaneously. I sensed it: a portal opening. I felt myself waver for a moment between selves, all of them present: the child, the body I’d always been, and the one I would become.

      I looked back at the empty street. “He’s gone,” I said, slowing a little, and Parker nodded but kept her eyes straight ahead. We moved in tandem past a fixed-gear bike chained to a wooden porch, past dark windows, past scooters and yard sale signs stapled to telephone poles.

      Everything was sharp: the cobalt blue of the car beside me, the heat pouring off me, the smell of pavement.

      “Are you okay?” I asked Parker, who grimaced with every step. Her pupils were huge, her face blank. Ahead of us, on the left, I saw movement in the leathery front seat of a parked Mercedes; a woman’s hands, the visor down, lighting the interior like a beacon.

      “Stop,” I said. “Parker!” She looked back at me where I stood motioning at the car, like she wasn’t sure she could speak. He could be anywhere, I thought darkly, the victory of escape dwindling as I came to a full stop. Parker’s forehead was shiny with sweat. “Parker?” I asked, but she stayed quiet.

      “Parker?” I wanted to tell her to get back in her body, to resist the freeze. “Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand. “We’re alright, okay?”

      She nodded blankly, a little tremble in her lip. “Help,” I nodded toward the parked car.

      “Okay,” she said, finally, her voice flat.

      “You’re okay,” I said, grateful for once for the sound of myself. Something about my voice in the tick-tock eyes of this man had given me a new story where being female kept me safe.

      I banged on the passenger side of the Mercedes, a storm of fists on the startled woman’s window. She rolled it down slowly to a winking slit.

      “We’ve been mugged,” I said. Her hair was dark, her eye shadow heavy. I met her eyes, the way I’d learned to in a psych class in college. “He has a gun. He’s behind us.”

      “Oh,” she searched our faces, assessing. She wasn’t much older than us, I realized, 35 tops. But she appeared ageless, her hair sleek and short, her blouse expensive, her skin wrinkled from laughing or smoking or both. “Okay, oh god; of course. Come on, I live here,” she pointed to a condo, one of the new ones, the ones we’d derided for their tacky, soulless gentrification vibe, big flat-screens displayed through picture windows. Parker stared dumbly at her and I fixed my jaw shut, willing myself not to cry as she pushed open the front door.

      It was the carpet that undid me, heartbreakingly gentle under my feet. I could hear the wild whinny of my own sob, and it scared me. Parker reached for me and I fell against her, while the woman ducked quietly up her stairs, leaving us to it.

      “You could have died,” Parker said softly, finally, her face wet as mine. I nodded. She smelled of jasmine and salt. I forgot the gun, and Vader, and the stillness; I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and thought, instead, about the running, how good it felt to escape on my own legs, to be one with my body.

      “Ready?” Parker asked, getting some color back.

      She could have been asking about anything.

      “Yes,”

Скачать книгу