I’m dozing on the floor the next afternoon, after work, using my backpack as a pillow, when I hear the soft sounds of tapping coming from the hallway. At first, I think it’s from a television in one of the other rooms. When I realize it’s not, when I realize someone is knocking at my door, I stand up, grabbing the bent fork from the backpack, just in case. Warily, I push the green chair out of the way. I tug open my door just a tiny bit, but keep the latch on, and peek out.
A blond, dreadlocked figure smiles widely at me, pressing his face through the crack. The fork clatters to the ground. My heart starts beating wildly.
“Charlie Davis,” Mikey sings softly. “It’s you. Look at you.”
I fling the door open, my face already wet. “Mikey,” I whisper, burying myself against him. “Oh, you’re here. You’re finally here.”
He hugs me so hard we fall to the floor, laughing and crying. It’s a great relief to be held, to feel arms around my whole body, arms that clasp my stomach, another pair of legs spooning, a face pressed into my neck, absorbing my heat, my tears. Mikey’s voice is a soft Hey now, come on now, it’s all right against my ear, lips dry on my temple. He rubs my back as he rocks against me. He nuzzles my head with his chin, his stubble catching in the bristly tines of my hair. I say, I missed you, and he answers, Me too. My fault, I say. No, he says. Never. I say, I didn’t answer her. Ellis’s texts had come slowly, one by one: Smthing hrts. U never sd hurt like this. 2 much. Seeing him brings it all back. I hadn’t seen her in almost three months. I stared at the bright yellow text and turned the phone facedown on the bed, using all the anger I had at her to steel myself, and when I woke up the next morning, my mother was in the doorway, saying my name in a funny voice, her mouth trembling.
Wrapped in Mikey’s body, on the floor on the stolen plaid blanket, I think of those photographs taken inside waves, the ones with surfers in slick suits on boards coasting through the tunnel of water, eyes wide. I think they must feel protected inside that curl of water, inside the sudden silencing of the world, even if only for a few minutes. I feel like that, right now, in my small, gloomy room: everything I’ve done and pretended to be in the past year, in the weeks past, is washed away and I am being cleaned, transported, polished for the new world.
—
“So, out with it. Tell me. What did they tell you in there? Is there, like, a name for what you…have? The cutting thing.” Mikey stares at me intently. When did he get so handsome? I look down at my plate. We’re at a place called Gentle Ben’s and sharing a Black & Blue Burger and peppery fries.
His question makes me nervous—how much should I tell him? What’s the squick factor on cutting and psychotic behavior, after all? I swallow a French fry and take a deep breath. “It’s called NSSI. Non-Suicidal Self-Injury.”
He wipes his mouth and takes a sip of his Coke, his eyes flashing. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly? Did…does Ellis have that, too?”
“It means I hurt myself, but I don’t want to die.” I take a bite of the burger. Cooked food tastes so good. I ordered a lemonade, too. I take a drink, savoring the sweetness that floods my mouth before I have to talk again, because Casper said to talk.
I force it out, slowly. “It’s hard to explain. I have other stuff, too. Impulse-control disorder. PTSD.”
He frowns. “Post-traumatic stress disorder? Isn’t that for vets and stuff ?”
I chew my burger carefully. I don’t mean to, but what I say comes out in a whisper. “It’s from a lot of stuff.” I never told Mikey about what happened to my dad. I guess he just assumed my parents were divorced because most everybody’s parents were divorced. He didn’t know about my mother hitting me until just before he went away.
He never knew about the cutting, or about Ellis’s eating problems. We held each other’s secrets tight.
“Jesus, Charlie. I’m so sorry.” He pushes his plate away. “You know when I came back for break once, I tried looking for you. With DannyBoy. But we couldn’t find you.”
His face is leaner, harder, in a way. Adult-like. He pulls his knees up against his body, resting his sneakers against the edge of the plastic chair.
Of course he would look for me. Of the four of us, Ellis, Charlie, Mikey, and DannyBoy, Mikey was the most responsible, the most well-spoken. He could talk us out of trouble with police officers in Lowertown. He could smooth over missed curfews and alcohol breath with parents. He could put his small, wiry body between DannyBoy’s loose, fleshier one and the hard body of a crusty punk with hands the size of fresh hams.
He clears his throat. “I don’t drink anymore, Charlie, or anything. I’m totally straight now. I thought you should know. I just want to set that out right now.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, kind of grateful. I’m not supposed to do any of that, either, and if Mikey’s clean, that will make things easier. “I can’t drink, either, or do anything, really. My doctor doesn’t want me to. And it was okay in the hospital. It wasn’t bad. I was safer, anyway.”
Mikey looks relieved. Happy. “That’s good,” he says, “that’s really good you aren’t drinking. For me, it was like, after I got here, I was so tired of all that shit. I just wanted to start fresh. I mean, we spent so much time wasted back home, do you realize that? We were fucked up all the time.”
“I know. Some of it was fun, though.” I smile.
“Yeah, but sometimes you have to let stuff go if you want to move forward, you know? Did you know DannyBoy got clean?”
“Are you kidding?” I remember how things got worse and worse for DannyBoy, and he would spend hours walking Rice Street, looking for the man in the black vinyl jacket with purple piping, and after he found him, he’d go soft, like a baby, and loll in the grass in Mears Park by the shallow pond, the sun illuminating his slack face.
“No lie. I talked to his mom when I was back for Christmas. He spent six months at some rehab way up north, by Boundary Waters, way out in the forest, where they had to chop their own wood for heat and raise chickens for eggs and food. Crazy stuff, but he did it. He’s been clean for a year. He works with old people now, like taking care of them. Feeding them and stuff. In Duluth.”
I try to imagine lumbering DannyBoy spooning oatmeal into an old person’s mouth, or changing their diaper, but I can’t. I can only see him high, or sad, or pummeling someone in the alley after a show.
“It can be done, Charlie. You see? You can change stuff in your life, if you want to.”
I nod carefully, because I’m not sure that’s possible, or if it’s even something I can do, since I always seem to be fucking up. Mikey smiles, slipping money from his pocket and tucking it under his plate. I’m sorry to see him do it. It was getting easier and easier to talk to him here, our words drifting like water.
“Well,” he says slowly. “I don’t like where you’re living, but first things first, right? We need to get you something to sleep on. I’ve got no wheels, so this means some legwork. You up for legwork? Looks like you could use some legwork.”
“Hey!” I say, my face reddening a little, realizing that he’s been looking at my body, which makes me feel scared and kind of hopeful. I shift in my seat. Does he think I’m too chunky now, though?
“They wouldn’t let us exercise. And the food was really starchy.”
“Just teasing,” he says, smiling. “A little weight looks good on you. You were always kinda scrawny.”
We stand up. He stretches, his green hoodie inching up. His belly is brown and downy, pierced with a silver ring. I have a sudden urge to place my hand on the sharp bone of his exposed hip, to feel the warm skin there. I feel my face color again. I wish I knew for sure if he was thinking the same thing about me.
Suddenly I want to ask him about the CD on his doorstep, the purple-scripted envelope. I’d forgotten all about that, that Mikey might have a girlfriend. I’m about to ask him when he steps closer to me and says quietly, “Show me.”
I know exactly what he’s talking about. I flinch, worried about what he might say, but then, slowly, I push up one jersey sleeve, then the other. It’s almost dark now; the white lights dangling along the patio’s roof are as fuzzy as the snow I left behind in Minnesota. He takes a deep breath; the warm exhalation coats my face. His eyes water as they fix on my damage. I push my sleeves down. “Time’s up,” I say lightly. I’m very aware of how close we are and the fact that his lips are not far from mine.
What would he say if I told him there are even more scars on my legs?
Mikey rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes.
“Everything got very big,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything.
Casper said, You have to talk, Charlotte. You can’t be silent. “It’s like I was talking about,” I say, forcing the words out. “Like, everything got very heavy, you know? I couldn’t hold it anymore.”
I missed Ellis so much and I was so mad at her and it was all my fault. And Mikey, there was this house, this really bad house.
But that stuff stays inside.
He shakes his head. We stare at each other. He says, “Okay, then. Let’s try to keep it small, all right? One thing at a time.”
“Small.” I test the word carefully. “Small.” I like the sound of it. Nothing more than I can hold in two hands at once. Small.
—
We borrow a pickup truck from his chubby friend, Rollin, who lives on Euclid Avenue. All around the university, desks and tables and mattresses are lumped in alleys or stacked in teetering piles on sidewalks outside apartment buildings and dorms. Mikey says, “This is a good time. Everybody’s moving out since it’s summer break. Throwing out perfectly fine stuff.”
We find an aluminum Wildcats garbage can, a box fan, a toaster painted with black and white polka dots, a water pitcher, a small end table. Later, driving slowly down an alley, we spot a twin futon wedged between a glass-topped coffee table and a stack of framed Hooters posters. Mikey checks it for cigarette holes. I try to joke with him, saying that doesn’t much matter, seeing as how I used to sleep in an underpass, but that just makes him grimace.
He runs down the street to his apartment for rope to tie the futon in a roll. The futon smells like smoke and beer. I’m tired, rubbing my eyes, when I hear the sound of shuffling footsteps.
It’s Riley, holding a canvas tote bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It’s almost midnight, but he’s wearing sunglasses. He regards the futon and the other items in the pickup truck.
“Ah.” His voice is thick, slightly slurred. “Excellent season for road furniture.”
The light of the streetlamp turns his face yellowy, sallow.
He pushes the sunglasses to the top of his head. “What did I tell you about hanging out in alleys?” He tosses his cigarette into the road. He slips a beer out of the tote bag and wrenches the cap off with his belt buckle, tilts it toward me.
He shrugs and takes a drink when I shake my head. Warm light flickers into his eyes. He smiles—and a flare inside me, a tiny whoosh, like the flick of a pilot light, heats my face. He moves toward me, so close I can feel his breath on my lips, smell the tang of his beer as he whispers, “I felt that happen, too.”
The crunch of gravel knocks us loose: Mikey is slowly jogging back up the alley, rope swinging in his hand. I pinch my thighs through my pockets to stop the thudding of my heart.
Mikey stops short when he reaches us, looking back and forth. “Hey,” he pants. “Riley. How’s it going?”
“Michael.” Riley takes a pull from his beer. “It goes well. How was the Cat Foley tour?”
“Freaking awesome.” Mikey grunts heavily as he moves around the futon, tightening the rope. “Got some great crowds out east. DeVito was really on for the Boston show. Hey, this is my friend, Charlie. Charlie, this is Riley.”
“We’re already old friends, Michael.”
Mikey looks from Riley to me and back again, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I work at True Grit,” I say reluctantly. “Washing dishes. I started a week ago.”
Riley nods. “She really knows how to bleach a coffee cup, I’ll give her that. And you two…you know each other…how?”
There’s a glint in his eye that I don’t like. Even though he’s drunk, I can see the wheels turning, can see him remembering our conversation about why I moved here. He thinks Mikey is the boy I moved here for.
Mikey says, “We kind of grew up together. Back in Minnesota.” He walks around the futon, tightening the rope.
I sigh. Wait for it.
Riley looks over at me. “That’s so interesting. Charlie didn’t mention it.” His eyes are bright and the quirk of his smile is catty. “What a nice co— I mean, what nice friends you make.”
I glare at him.
Mikey is blissfully unaware of Riley’s innuendos, busy jerking the rope into a knot. “Hey, Charlie, Riley was in a band, did you know that? You remember that song ‘Charity Case’?”
Riley’s expression changes suddenly. “Let’s not go there,” he says, his voice sharp. “No need to reopen old wounds.”
The song title pings around my head until it lands on the night I sat in Mikey’s backyard, drawing. The lyrics trickle back to me. “Yeah,” I say. “I heard some band playing it the other night, too.”
Mikey nods. “Oh, yeah, it’s a big cover staple around here, for sure. Riley didn’t usually sing lead, but he did on that track.” He laughs at the annoyed look on Riley’s face.
I do remember. It was a big song for a while, four or five years ago. Vague images flash into view: a video of four guys with tousled hair, black low-tops, crummy T-shirts under short-sleeved checked shirts, singing a song from the bed of a pickup truck as it rambled across the desert. There were close-ups of lizards and girls swing dancing with each other, wearing Daisy Dukes and kicking up dust. All the guys looked similar, but the singer had a thrilling voice, a high, romantic twang that fell into deep ache with sudden swoops.
I look at Riley and it hits me. The singer in the video, laconic in the back of the truck, staring straight into the lens as two perfect model types in halter tops leaned against him, nuzzling his cheeks, singing I just want you to see my for-real face…A little stoned, lazing on Ellis’s bed in the middle of the night, skipping through channels; she stopped at the video, growled, Hotsy-totsy, that one, and then flipped to something else.
“You,” I say, almost gleefully. “That was you.”
Riley holds up a hand. “I’m all done here, kids.” He extracts another beer from the tote bag. “I’ll be seeing you, Michael. Strange Girl, don’t forget to get your beauty sleep. Those dishes won’t wash themselves.”
We watch him lumber away.
“That guy,” Mikey says. “Superior musician, stellar songwriter, but major fuckup. Talk about a waste of talent.” He shakes his head and we watch as the alley gradually, gently absorbs Riley’s body.
—
Getting the futon up the sixteen stairs requires the help of one of the drunk guys on the porch, but when we’re done, Mikey looks satisfied and happy. He brushes the dirt from his hands onto his pants.
“Charlie,” he says softly.
His eyes are kind and I move toward him. It’s been so good to be with him after so long, so safe. I’ve been holding him for more than two weeks, breathing him from his pillow, waiting for him to come back. He already knows me; maybe he wouldn’t care about my scars.
I put my hand on his belt, super lightly, and hold my breath. It’s not going to be true, I tell myself, what Louisa said. That nobody normal would ever love us. It’s not going to be true.
He kind of laughs, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he wraps his arms around me and talks into my hair. “I gotta get a move on, Charlie. It’s almost two in the morning and I’m working tomorrow at Magpies. But everything’s going to be cool now, all right? I’m gonna help you, you know that, right? I have a lot going on with the band and work and stuff, but I’m here now. I’m here. And it’s so cool that you already found a job. That’s such a good start.”
I listen to the patter of his heart beneath his shirt, disappointment ringing in my chest. “Okay, Mikey.” I wish he was staying. I wonder what he means by stuff, and if that has anything to do with the envelope and the CD. He gives me a little wave as he leaves.
The door falls shut behind him. I push the easy chair that smells like dried wine and unloved cat in front of it. The junk we found is in piles around the room, the stupid things you’re supposed to fill your house with. The people in the building move quietly tonight, running water in sinks, whispering on phones.
The temperature outside has dropped, so I shut the window above the kitchen sink, wrap myself in the plaid blanket, and take out my sketchbook and bag of pencils and charcoals. My fingers find a pattern on the page; the night replays, a loop in my head, in front of my eyes.
Whoosh. That electrical warmth hits me again as bits of Riley’s face form under my fingers, the beginnings of a person on paper.
Riley’s sway as he disappeared down the alley, I recognized it. It wasn’t all booze. It was the thing that happened when a little too much got a little too messed up. That sway, it’s what creeps over a person when they’ve begun to empty out and don’t care enough to put anything back, to replace what has been lost.
I feel like I walk like that, too, sometimes.
I look at the drawing. His face is more worn than that face from the video a few years ago. He looks more tired than hotsy-totsy now. Something’s disappeared. And there’s an edge, too, that I can’t quite get a fix on.
Whatever he is, or whatever happened to him, I don’t want any part of it, no matter how much my body starts to freak out when he’s near me. I turn the page. I start drawing fields of dreadlocks instead, intricate nests of hair, the kind slope and open heart of Mikey’s face.
