You Know Where to Find Me

  On the one hand, there’s a lucky person like, say, Jason, a privileged white kid who’s maybe known the sorrow of losing a loved one—but his life will go on, and it’s safe to bet he will experience an adulthood that reaps the benefits that come along with being a rich, straight, Caucasian male. On the other hand, there’s someone like Miss Lill, who suffered the effects of discrimination and probably knew a lifetime of loneliness hiding out in that garden—but she lies in bed now at the end of her days, doted on by the man she raised, who will spare no expense to make sure her last days are peaceful and that her every need is provided for.

  Who suffers more? Neither of them will likely end up as a corpse photo that students casually inspect while walking through a museum that examines the worst of humankind.

  How do you measure suffering?

  My stomach suffers now from constant, constant craving. Why should I have the luxury of satiating it when so many others can’t? Today is camembert in Buddy’s product line, but my metabolism will have to settle for caffeine and nicotine. If my twelfth-grade American History class next school year visits any Civil War battlefields (the polite word for “graveyards”) in Maryland or Virginia, I hope to be thin for the experience.

  “Is there freedom from suffering?” I ask Jim. Miss Lill’s head has dropped down to her collarbone; maybe the hand massage lulled her to sleep.

  “The fact of it or the idea of it?” Jim says.

  “The idea of it.”

  “Freedom.” He pauses a moment to reflect on the F-word. “Sometimes I think it’s an idea that enslaves us. We’re never free from hungering for the notion that we can even have freedom. When perhaps it’s the very idea of it that causes us to suffer.”

  The Epic Battle for the Supremacy of the Cheese Sandwich

  It’s two lonely ladies up in a tree house, brought to indifferent viewers by a triple-score dosage of Percs, in a milligram count that can deal where simply one or two pills now fail.

  In the one corner, we have Miss Miles. She’s a superhero, true, but she ain’t about nuthin’ but the sandwich. She represents for the velvet-smooth (if velvet-smooth means plastic) taste of Velveeta. Her baby blue superhero costume is sprinkled with the initials “CG” across her buxom chest. She’s Chubby Girl, the kinder, more tolerant world’s new antiheroine heroine. This heroine would never shoot up heroin, by the way. She has standards—and knows that needle marks don’t make for attractive superhero superskin emblems; her ample flesh shall have to prevail instead. The future of fat people is at stake.

  In the other corner, we have Miss Lill. She is the superhero not for a new age, but for the really, really old one. She’s “OL”—Old Lady. Her superhero costume is a hospital robe and slippers. She’s chronically hunched over, either from osteoporosis or narcolepsy, no one’s quite sure. She’s a tireless (well, she tries) crusader for the Swiss-cheese sandwich. Once upon a time, she tended the fields that nurtured the cows that produced the milk for the cheese. She cares about the quality of the product. When she remembers to care.

  Chubby Girl and Old Lady face their showdown at a foldout card table lodged in the middle of the tree house. They shake hands before sitting down at their plates. May the best sandwich win.

  A lunch bell rings in the start of the round.

  Chubby Girl munches into her Velveeta sandwich within .01 seconds of the bell, but Old Lady doesn’t even nibble on her Swiss. There’s an epic battle at hand, but she’d rather gab than grab.

  “I’m from Switzerland,” Old Lady pronounces.

  Chubby Girl reeducates her between bites. “No, you’re from Anacostia in southeast D.C.”

  “Same thing,” Old Lady says. She touches the soft white Wonder Bread but does not bring its lusciousness to her mouth.

  “Um, not really. Ski lodges in the Alps versus D.C. poverty. Two completely different universes.” Chubby Girl’s sandwich bread is a baguette that’s difficult to chew, could be a costly time infraction, but not when her competitor has yet to remember to compete.

  “Have you ever been skiing?” Old Lady asks.

  “No, skiing scares me. Seems like it requires too much work to reach a high that’s too brief.”

  “I agree. Hey, there’s my Oxy’s! Pass me one, will ya?”

  “Surely.” Chubby Girl swallows the last bite of her sandwich before Old Lady has even dug into hers. Velveeta has won again. American consumerism always does. And suh-weet, there’s still dessert to come—crushed and snorted perhaps, to add a little somethin’ somethin’?

  “More!” the crowd chants. “More!” They want blood. Some people are never satisfied.

  “We need to finish the next sandwich round before we can go on to dessert,” Chubby Girl whispers to Old Lady. “We’ve got two rounds to go before the finale.” CG eyeballs the next set of plates: Wisconsin cheddar versus Wyoming goat. Who knew Wyoming had it in them?

  “WHAT?” Old Lady bellows.

  “The crowd craves more. We need to eat more sandwiches.”

  “No. I already won. Didn’t I?” Old Lady looks around at the crowd. “I gots me some mad botany skillz!” she raps to them. She then pretends to skat into a microphone: “Huh-huh huhhuhhuhhuh.”

  The crowd roars its approval, throws flowers at O.L., daisies and roses and—someone was really lazy here—weeds.

  Chubby Girl doesn’t mind the crowd’s approval of her competitor, even though she legitimately won the contest. Her belly is full. That’s all she really cared about. And there’s still dessert to look forward to.

  Chubby Girl and Old Lady raise their arms in the air and clasp their hands together, a fantastic freedom fighters’ Fernando finale.

  Peace prize pills drift down from the sky like confetti.

  Time to celebrate.

  Sun-slapped

  THE SUN IS MY ENEMY.

  If I was an evil comic book villain, I would be the one who destroys the sun. I wouldn’t destroy it to subvert the world’s energy for my own ruthless gain. I’d do it just to do it.

  I’ve read tons of comic books and graphic novels, and from them I’ve deduced that what makes a great villain is not his or her megalomaniacal plot to ruin the world or to seek revenge on any given superhero. It’s the villain’s sheer meanness that matters, a driving character force bigger than plot. I admire the single-mindedness.

  I single-mindedly crave winter: darkness and cold and big coats that cover up everything. Can’t come soon enough for me. I wish it could last year-round.

  In my comic book incarnation, after the superhero foils my mission to destroy the sun, I’ll probably retire to some Old Folks Villain Home in northernmost Finland, where the sun only appears for an hour a day, and since I am an American who fears other cultures, I won’t speak their native language, and we’ll just sign with our hands to communicate about basic needs like food and water and my overdue library books. The world will be safe from mean Miles once again.

  The long, hot D.C. summer without Laura has extended into extra cruelty: drought. No rain this summer has meant even hotter temperatures, chronic humidity that’s turned my hair into a virtual jungle, and a sun that won’t go away. The cruelest part is waking up to that sun. I feel it on my face before my eyes open. Hovering in the state between dreaming and waking, the sun’s warm glow on my cheeks slaps my consciousness into fake hopefulness: It’s summer. What will Laura and I do today?

  Then I open my eyes and remember.

  I dread waking up to that light. Each day it reminds me that Laura is gone, and the world I know is immediately plunged into darkness. It’s like the day didn’t even have a chance. The sun got to me first.

  But worse than waking up to the sun’s mean taunt—Laura is dead, never to share the sun with you again—worse even than waking up to the sun’s warmth pushing a vicious post-Perc migraine inside my head into a hellish need for darkness, is the horror of opening my eyes to see Buddy sitting by my side.

  At first I don’t know where I am. The sun’s light
shines on the wrong side of my face. A blanket is tangled around my legs; I normally sleep without covers in summertime. Then I remember the previous night: happy pills. I must have fallen asleep inside the tree house, wishing for Laura to share the sleepover.

  I kick the blanket away. What kind of sadist would place one on me? “You were shivering in your sleep,” Buddy says. He sounds concerned, but slips into sarcasm: “Scratching a lot, too. Tough night?”

  I reach for the blanket and pull it over my face, so I don’t have to look at him. So I can block out the light.

  He won’t take the hint to GO AWAY. “Your mother called early this morning. She said it was important she talk to you so I went looking for you and found you up here.” I see a shadow movement through the blanket, and sense Buddy’s hand over my shoulder, maybe wanting to pat me or something. The hand reconsiders, and returns to Buddy’s side. Good choice. “I told Mel you’d call her back later today. You’re not in any shape to talk with her this morning.”

  I don’t need to call Mel back. I already know the conversation.

  “Mel’s not coming back, is she?” I ask. I turn over on my side, away from Buddy. I wish he would not look at me. I wish no one would look at me. Ever.

  “Wouldn’t you rather hear it from her?”

  Strangely, I wouldn’t. “You could tell me,” I whisper.

  “She’s not coming back. She’s staying in London with Paul.”

  Just as I figured.

  Good. Now I can truly have the carriage house to myself. I’ll turn her bedroom into a library. Maybe I’ll find out if I could get a pinball machine in there? I’ve always wanted one. Just need to find someone to play with me.

  I turn back over, remove the blanket from my eyes, look directly at Buddy. He should make the recognition. I’m a big girl. I can take it.

  “Could I have a sandwich?” I ask him. Feeding the headache with food sometimes cheats it away. If food doesn’t work, I’ll need to feed it with more Percs. I have some tucked away inside the pillowcase in my bedroom for just such an emergency.

  “Right there waiting for you.” Buddy points to the sandwich sitting on a plate on the floor next to me, with a glass of milk alongside it.

  “Could you make it a grilled cheese?” I ask. “And a Coke? Over ice?” And I’m not going to get used to your sandwiches because I know you’ll be gone soon enough too.

  He looks puzzled. No one ever asks him to improve on his sandwiches.

  “Please?” I add.

  Buddy shrugs. “Sure. Sure. Why not.”

  He’ll have to go to his trailer to grill the sandwich. While he’s there, I can sneak off to my bedroom and open the pillowcase. Why not just employ both migraine-killing methods simultaneously? I’ll be back up in the tree house before Buddy’s even flipped the sandwich on his grill. “Tomato on the grilled cheese would be good too, Buddy.”

  “Great!”

  As if my head weren’t in enough pain, my eyes take in the painful expression on Buddy’s face; the look is painful to me, to see him so clearly pleased to be asked.

  It’s way too late to start on tender father-daughter hangover moments.

  Buddy starts to walk away, then stops cold at the door. Something’s added up in his addled brain. He doesn’t turn around to face me, but instead he addresses the door directly with words meant for me. “Miles, I’ve been there, done that. So if you think you’re going to slip off for a boost while I’m out, just know that when I went looking for you this morning, I found your stash. I flushed it down the toilet. It’s gone.”

  Headache and sun be damned, I am out of bed, on my feet, throwing the blanket at him. “HOW DARE YOU!”

  Darkness has plunged into apocalypse. I won’t make it without. I won’t. I can’t believe this.

  Panic panic panic.

  No.

  No time for panic. Think, Miles. Think.

  I shove Buddy aside at the door. I’m the one who’s leaving. Not him.

  IhatehimIhatehimIhatehimIhatehimIhatehimIhatehim.

  “Where are you going?” he demands.

  “I’m going to find Jim.” Jim will find a way to save me, to make this right. He’ll kick Buddy to the curb if I ask him to—at least kick him off the curb of his Georgetown property, to somewhere far away. I know he will. Buddy should be banished to . . . Virginia. He deserves it.

  This is not happening.

  “Good idea,” Buddy says. “I’ll come along with you. I’ll tell Jim why the toilet in the carriage house is clogged and let him know what kind of supplies I’ll need to get it cleared out. Unless you think Jim should call a professional plumber instead.”

  I stop in my tracks.

  I’m not going to find Jim. I’m not going anywhere.

  I have nowhere else to go.

  I Own the Dream

  IT’S BECAUSE THE DREAM IS SO PERFECT THAT I CAN WALK away from it.

  Perfection is impossible to attain. It’s even harder to maintain. I can’t let myself get so invested in the fantasy. I should never care that much about anything.

  I don’t want to be a slave to the dream. I need to own it, and not it me.

  Buddy and I have worked out a compromise. He doesn’t tell Jim about my dreamscaping, and I promise Buddy I’ll stop using. Plus, I have to help him in the mornings to make sandwiches for selling in the afternoon, in lieu of attending a meeting with Buddy in the evening.

  My real punishment is not my new life of sandwiches. It’s that no matter the amount of hateful glances I send his way, or the silent treatment I give him when I’m sitting at his side wrapping sandwiches in wax paper, Buddy just. will. not. leave.

  It’s gonna be O!k!a!y!

  Buddy must delude himself that he’s some kind of healer. Dad of the Year. What he doesn’t know is, he only found and flushed Laura’s leftover supply that was taped under my bed. He didn’t find the super secret stash(es) inside my pillowcase, or the decoy prescription bottles that say Zyrtec or Claritin on the labels but really contain Vicodin and Percoset. Mel never notices when I replace aspirin pills inside her prescription bottles, and keep the good stuff for myself. Miles Score #1: the feel-better pills Mel was prescribed and then barely used after her bunion surgery last spring. Miles Score #2: a doubleheader, from the painkillers Mel got when her back flipped out, but her digestive system didn’t tolerate the relief medication so the doctor gave her another prescription instead, and not only did Mel forget about the first prescription left over in the medicine cabinet, she opted to see a chiropractor rather than use the second prescription. Miles Score #3: a Percoset prescription left behind by Mel’s London man, Paul, on one of his short-term stays at our place in D.C. I don’t care or even want to know why he was prescribed the medication—home run for me!

  So the evil mastermind Miles triumphs once again, her super-super stash sitting in Buddy’s plain view right inside the bathroom cabinet, and legally prescribed, too—just not to me. I knew my mother would come through for me at some point in my life. Hand me back that trophy, Pops.

  Still, supplies are low, the enemy is parked at the curb, and I have no paying job to fund reinforcement stock. I must be careful. Must not get overconfident.

  Instead, I eat. I need to be realistic. Without Laura here, food is the only thing I love that loves me back. Why should I starve myself? I’ll diet later, after summer, when the heat and sadness and loneliness will likely feel less harsh inside a busy school schedule. Or, I could stop deluding myself that I will ever be thin and desirable and perfect and just get over that fantasy already. Enjoy the food without the guilt—like I do the Percs; inside them, I am thin and desirable and perfect.

  Buddy’s done me a favor, really. Although the withdrawal this time has been harder—take your basic depression that sucks away my energy with or without a fix, now jack it up and add in backaches, headaches, and stomach cramps, and itch itch itchiness—I get by knowing that my suffering will be rewarded. Next time I choose to slip back inside the dream, the
fix will be that much more beautiful, brighter, and healing.

  I control it.

  To be on the safe side, I did make a side trip to see Floyd at Crash Landing, to see what backup options might be available. Information is power—and control. When I got there, Floyd explained the going rate for what I crave that Buddy flushed. I don’t know if it’s the cost of oil jacking everything else up, but whoa, inflation. “Tough times, man,” Floyd said, nodding sympathetically. Refueling to quell the fix would hit my wallet harder than the headaches from going fixless. Couldn’t there be some hybrid alternative? “We could come to an arrangement,” Floyd said, inspecting my chest and my curves. The lechery of his look was not subtle. I left. I am not going to be that person. I might crave a quality fix—and a boyfriend prospect—but not that way. The choice was that easy.

  I can walk away. I’ve proved it. I don’t have a problem with using. It’s no more than a guilty pleasure—like smoking and eating. So I’ll let Buddy think he won this battle even though it’s me who triumphs. This is the choice I make to protect Jim—and the home he has provided for me.

  It’s possible I’m just being paranoid. I mean, Jim smokes with me on a regular basis. We’re partners-in-vice. If he found out about the pharms, he probably wouldn’t be pleased. But it wouldn’t be a big deal. Probably: the operative word upholding the unknown element. The known variable is that I’m not his kid—so why should he care if he knew? It’s like Dr. Turner says. I have a dream. Jim would be the last person to deny me it, I bet. However, I would also bet he never knew about Laura’s extracurricular pill-popping, and that part I definitely wouldn’t want him to find out. He’s known enough pain this summer.

  Thunder and lightning—these were Laura’s pain.

  But: Rain, at last!

  A white light blinding the black night, and the sounds of pounding rain and crackling sky terror wake me at three in the morning, after I’ve only just fallen asleep (unaided); the constipation and backache that accompany withdrawal make laying still in bed nearly impossible. I hear the violent noise outside the window, and before I’ve had time for a waking thought, I’m out of bed, running out of the carriage house, to the big house, and up to Laura’s room. Basic instinct.