Anyway the first time we did this drill, I thought it was real. Dom attributes it to the fact that Mom had just died, but I don’t know. At the time, I remember really wanting to be a hero. To protect someone. Anyone. I was also pretty obsessed with Batman. Hence the utility belt. I had dreams and stuff about everyone being shot and me getting some sort of superhuman strength and carrying people stacked like firewood to the hospital. Or else the fantasy would be me getting shot (I practiced dealing with the pain of this by pinching myself a lot), and Mr. Weiner, who I had a crush on, would rush out to the playground and carry me.
So that first day, when Code Stranger started, I thought: this is it. I’ll either save an entire classroom of people, or else get shot doing so and have to be carried out by Mr. Weiner. It was a win-win situation. While the teacher was burying everyone else under pillows, I snuck out the door and crouched behind the lockers. I listened for the stranger’s footsteps, and then I leapt onto his penny loafers and sunk my teeth into his ankle. I thought it was a pretty good strategy.
No matter what anybody said afterward, I didn’t expect “the stranger” to be Mr. Weiner. Yeah, part of me wondered why they had the same penny loafers, but the other part thought whoever belonged to this foot was a maniac and needed to die. Even when the maniac tripped over me and squished my head, I held on.
At the time, I thought the cracking noise was me, that I had broken something and would get to wear a cast for the rest of the year. I was less excited when I learned it was the sound of Mr. Weiner’s teeth on the linoleum. He hit his face so hard the front ones just snapped off. Dom got a hefty dentist’s bill and I was urged toward counseling. I could never look at Mr. Weiner again without cringing at his replacement teeth, which were bigger and whiter than the old ones. I don’t remember this, but apparently I wouldn’t talk after that. Dom tried everything—home sessions, trust-building sessions. He tried psychiatrists, psychologists, art therapists—even this red-haired woman who called herself a healer and made our whole house smell like sage. I took baby-size antidepressants, but they just made me loopy. I took vitamins, but still I wouldn’t say a word. I guess in the end Dom thought the only option was group therapy—whether or not the group included actual criminals didn’t seem to faze him at that point. He was all by himself and afraid I’d be quiet forever. He was desperate.
My first day at NVCG, I was superexcited. I remember dragging out my favorite ensemble: some long-sleeved shirt with unnecessary buttons sewn on and matching leggings, all in a gray-and-purple floral pattern. When I arrived in the basement of Friendship Church, I looked around at these huge guys—all muscles and wrinkled tattoos and cigarette-stained fingers, all squashed astride Sunday-school desks—and decided I had to seem tough. I launched my backpack into the nearest tiny desk, promptly knocking it over. “I’m a biter,” I shouted. “And a hugger, and a mayhem maker. Everybody calls me Banzai because of how I pounce.” Nobody called me that, obviously, but it was part of my game plan. I thought it’d be good to go into that room with a fierce-sounding nickname.
After that the rest of the group—mainly wife beaters—sort of took a shine to me. Most of them I’d never seen before; it turned out they’d come from the next town over because they didn’t want to get saddled with recognition on top of whatever guilt they were feeling. Even at that age, I remember being able to tell that they were pretty lonely, and didn’t see themselves as big or strong, not at all, actually, even though they were.
“There’s some kind of animal inside me, you betcha,” one of them sobbed. “Like a rabid opossum or a dog that needs to be put down.”
The instructor, Miss Rosa, told us we needed to grow more space between our brains and hearts. She said that we were hyenas, and that she was there to teach us how to speak giraffe.
Even Miss Rosa had a history. She didn’t really go into it, and her Polish accent kept us from understanding most of it, but everyone caught on to the fact that she’d probably been arrested before.
“Once I raise the puppies for money,” she said. “The splendor make me wild. I squeeze too hard—poof!—many dead.”
Maybe I was lonely at the time for Mom, but part of me warmed to Miss Rosa despite her violent history. She was shaped like a bowling ball, with this particularly soft, bread-loaf bosom. One time during meditation session I let myself fall asleep on her shoulder and she pinched me. “Don’t be closer please,” she said. “I am wanting for to strangle.”
I ended up graduating as part of this little ceremony in a Sunday school classroom. Dom came with the Johnstons and took pictures. I found them a few years ago and threw them away.
Anyway, it’s one of those secrets I try not to think about because it makes me wonder if it had anything to do with Ruth being my only friend. It sucks to think that your actions have consequences, and that you might be sad or lonely because of one mistake. I said that to Dom once in a moment of weakness and he told me it was part of growing up, learning to be lonely. It might have been one of his moments of weakness, too.
CAMOUFLAGE
When I go to pick up Davey for our NVCG meeting, he’s dressed in his army uniform. He looks great but I’m trying to be practical.
“Maybe you should wear regular clothes,” I explain. “Just because otherwise they might think ‘Oh, violence,’ and ‘Oh, an army uniform,’ and send you to some other group that’s only for PTSD people.”
“I do have PTSD,” he says.
“Right.” I’m kind of trying not to listen.
At some point Davey must have gone to a doctor or something because his bandage is gone. There’s still a little bit of his finger left; it’s sewn tight across the top with black thread and is sort of a funny color, like how skin gets after you take off a Band-Aid. He still hasn’t told me what happened and I really want to ask.
“Nice finger,” I blurt.
Davey frowns. “Thank you.”
The good news is he looks pretty tough, like he got it doing something really violent, which I guess he did. It’ll definitely help us blend in at NVCG.
I clear my throat. “They’ve just got to think you’re hitting me for the regular reasons. Otherwise they won’t relate to you. Do you want them to think you’re my abusive boyfriend or what?”
Davey starts unbuttoning his army shirt and sits down at the computer in the Fried’s kitchen. Behind us, the counter is piled with dirty plates and old, goopy casseroles that couldn’t fit in the fridge. It smells like rot. “Here, look at this,” he says, and brings up something on the screen. I notice that a bunch of the frames and even the pictures on the refrigerator have gotten turned around. I know they’re all of Ruth, but I wonder if any of them have me in them, too. Mostly, I’m distracted by the fact that Davey is pretty much getting naked in front of me.
“Sit,” he says. His shirt is all the way open now. He stands up and gestures to the desk chair. “I’ll go change.”
It’s an email from his mom. Apparently they’re extending their stay in Canada.
Davey,
I know we left things on bad terms and you won’t be happy to hear we’re staying with Families Aggrieved Retreat Together for three more weeks. WE LOVE YOU FOR GOD’S SAKE, remember that, and don’t be stupid, we just need more time. Your father cries every day because our leader tells him it’s therapeutic. It’s driving me crazy. Pray to God that he stops so that I don’t drown and our carpets stay dry. (This is a joke. Our leader tells me it’s good to make them.) Your Mother