At home I helped her with homework.
It was easy.
I knew all the answers immediately.
We traced letters and colored pictures at the dinner table, overlooking the entire skyline of the city and the lake.
All of Chicago opened up, even the factories along the outside, the traintracks, highways, Chicago River, Sears Tower, State Street, everything.
I’d look out into the skyline and feel good feelings, even though there was nothing to feel good about.
“I handed out invitations for my birthday party today at school and I didn’t give one to stupid Larry,” she said, tracing over her vocabulary words.
She bit a grilled cheese sandwich I’d made her.
She said, “I hate Larry, he’s so gross.”
“Why is Larry gross,” I said, putting my legs up on another kitchen chair.
“He always has boogers in his nose and he pinches everyone. He’s stupid. Larry is so stupid.”
“So he’s not coming to your birthday party,” I said, checking over a packet of homework her teacher had returned graded. “I see a lot of stickers here, good job.”
“Um, yeah thanks,” she said, still trying to stay mad. “No he’s not coming because he’s retarded.”
“Larry is retarded.”
“Yeah I hate him. Charmene is coming and I told her to buy me a Littlest Pet Shop toy. It’s a squirrel named Rodney and I don’t have him yet but I want him.”
“Rodney is a squirrel.”
“Yeah he’s insane.”
“Wait is Rodney a person coming to your birthday party or a squirrel.”
“Stah-opp, Rodney is the squirrel. My mom said you can come too if you want.”
“I can come to your birthday party. Thanks. I can probably make it.”
“Yeah, we’re getting pizza and cake.”
I leaned forward and said, “You’re going to have pizza and cake there—” then I made a fist and punched upward into the air and yelled, “—yes.”
“Yeah.”
“What is ‘Littlest Pet Shop,’” I said.
“Here, let’s go play.”
She closed her book and put it in a folder and put three more stickers on the folder.
Then we went to her room.
She took out a plastic case.
She opened the case and inside there were a lot of small plastic animals.
I looked at a picture of her and her dad in a frame by her bed.
It scared me.
Turned my shit to stone.
No I’m lying, I didn’t react much at all.
Juliana got on her knees and sat on her heels, dividing the toys.
I got to be a rhino and I made up a voice for it that Juliana really liked.
She kept laughing.
Which meant I had to keep doing it.
In the few times I visited, we played Littlest Pet Shop, dolls, “camera woman” (where I acted like a camerman filming her doing the news), cards, and legos.
We colored in coloring books, painted, looked at toys on the internet and ate together.
Sometimes the dad would be there, sleeping in his room because he worked at night.
Sometimes he’d wake up and come out of his room to the kitchen, where I’d be cooking a grilled cheese and quizzing Juliana in math.
It felt weird.
Working for the family added to my general feeling that everyone I encountered (for good reason) didn’t like me.
It was ok.
Juliana and I went on walks.
I took her to a playground once and we kept putting snow on the slide and then sliding down the slide really fast.
At night, Juliana would be in bed and I’d just sit at the dinner table and look out the windows — from the twentieth floor — out at the entire city.
The last time I ever worked for them, I took Juliana to the Chicago Field Museum.
We saw an exhibit called “Underground.”
The exhibit was enlarged displays of insects and things that lived underground.
Juliana held my hand the whole time and we walked through a “shrink ray” which was just an optical illusion where you go into this room and can watch yourself on the screen, shrinking in order to go “underground.”
“Are we really shrinking,” she said, looking at me.
“Yeah we’re really shrinking.”
“No we’re not,” she said.
“It felt like I was shrinking,” I said, looking at my hands.
“Me too,” she said.
We walked through a dark tunnel into the exhibit.
There were field trips, little kids with a few teachers/moms.
There were kids in wheelchairs.
“How old are you,” Juliana said.
We were looking at a diagram of dirt from the Midwest.
“I’m 26.”
“Are you married,” she said.
“No.”
“Do you have kids.”
“No.”
“You don’t have any kids,” she said.
“No wait, yeah. I had a kid and then I lost him after he walked through a shrink ray and wouldn’t hold my hand.”
“No you didn’t,” she said. “Do you have a girlfriend.”
“No.”
“Why not.”
“Shrink ray,” I said.
We looked at a diagram of how other things become dirt and then that dirt makes other things.
We walked through a tunnel of dirt, where it was supposed to be like we were in the root system of a tree.
We stopped and stood by a display of huge plastic parts meant to look like a burrow and some kind of insect that was motorized with an opening and closing jaw.
Then a hissing sound happened.
A big spider came out from behind a tree-root.
Its fangs were motorized and they squealed back and forth.
“Scary,” Juliana said.
I looked at the fangs of the motorized spider and realized that after this day, there would be another one.
Thing That Lists the Scars I Have
Here is a list of some of the scars I have and how they happened and what I feel each scar looks like. (This list is not complete):
1. Middle of forehead, by hairline — I fell and hit my head on a rock that was part of someone’s fireplace. This one looks like a single grain of rice smashed into my forehead (I know it’s not an actual grain of rice though).
2. Right kneecap — I accidentally slid while running through an alley. My right leg went beneath me. This scar looks like a tiger clawed my knee. People younger than nine years old have statistically always believed me when I say tigerclaw caused it.
3. Both feet (various areas) — From not wearing socks. These are just purple areas in different locations on my feet. One time I got an infection in my heel and it was really bad. My friend’s mom was a nurse and when I was over at her house she had to drain it because I got a fever from it and I felt all fucking weird and dizzy. Wear socks!
4. Forearm — My friend pushed the top of a lighter into my forearm while I was talking to someone at a Halloween party. He came up to me, said, “Let me see your arm” and then did it. This one looks like a dinosaur footprint. It happened pretty quickly. My friend was laughing. It didn’t hurt until the first time I showered.
5. Below left nipple — Someone put a cigarette out on me. This one is just a circle.
6. Smallest finger on right hand — Washing a chalkboard in gradeschool I hit the metal thing that held the map and I remember I used my tongue to clean the cut because I noticed the metal thing was rusty. This one looks like the letter u.
7. Other forearm — Jumped to do a pull-up in school as the kid in front of me turned. His braces went into my arm. Which means my skin was in his mouth. Thinking back, it felt good to feed part of myself to another person and be able to watch it. But also, it hurt. This one looks like three lightning bolts.