I would meet the guys at the edge of the woods.
I would be that monster in the woods. That killer. That witch. That girl running wild, her skirt hiked to her waist.
At some point you become something other than girl. At some point you become confused. Then you’re that from that point on.
I waked the next day and he’d left. I suppose he just got in his car, went home.
It’s not like we had some kind of thing.
It’s not like he was a permanent thing.
It’s not like anything was.
The dog next door. My father’s ladies. My dolls.
I don’t know where these things went.
And I don’t know where my father went.
I mean he died, of course.
I mean nobody knows where he went, of course.
To the other side.
Dumb thought.
I don’t know what to make of that.
How it wants to be deep.
How it isn’t deep.
And I don’t know what to make of you.
How you’re just like me.
How you think you aren’t.
And I don’t know what to make of birds.
How they stab their faces at the cold, hard ground.
How they’re fucked up just like us.
UNDERTHINGS
My boyfriend hit me in the face with a book. It was an accident, his hitting me. He only meant to hand me the book. He meant to hand the book back to me. But my face was in its path, he said. It was in its way, he said. And so the book connected with my face. And so here we are.
I guess I must have closed my eyes. Because I didn’t see the book hit my face. But I heard it hit, if you can imagine. It made a sound against my face. I can’t describe the sound it made. But imagine, if you can, the sound.
Then I watched at the mirror as a red mark spread across my face. It transformed my face into another face. By which I mean a face I knew. By which I mean a lot of things.
It was an accident, his hitting me in the face with the book. Accident, he said, dropping the book, holding up his hands. Accident, I later said to my brother. Bullshit, my brother said. He hit you with a fucking book, he said.
As kids, my brother did his thing, I did mine. His things were, for the most part, boy things. Mine were, for the most part, not. But they were not what I would call girl things. I was not a girl who did girl things. I was a girl who worked on puzzles. These were puzzles that took weeks to solve. And when I solved a puzzle, and I always solved them, I felt brilliant.
After my boyfriend went back to sleep, I walked outside. Outside was the rest of the world. Outside were the people of the world. It was a regular day for people. There was work and there were the other things that people do. And there I was with them, walking with them, through rain.
My father wanted to become an astronaut. But he did not become an astronaut. Because, he said, he would not have passed the physical. So my father went into business. He became a businessman. There were sales and deals and men like my father. There was a product of some sort he sold. It was nothing like being an astronaut. But there was hope for my brother, my father said. He could still become one, he said.
My boyfriend was brutally killed in his dreams. Sometimes he was stabbed. Sometimes someone’s hands were squeezing tightly around his throat. And there were zombies too. And witches too. And sharp-toothed animals chasing him through woods. It was called night terrors, what he had, and he would wake up screaming and run through the room. On the worst of these nights, my boyfriend and I were terrified. We never knew what was going on. We would often stay up all night, those nights, waiting for the room to turn light. But they were often funny, those nights, the next day.
We had all been out the night before. It was me, my boyfriend, my brother, and a girl. It was an upscale bar my boyfriend liked. My brother did not like upscale things. He liked the trashy bars in his part of the city. He liked the trashy girls in those trashy bars. My brother thought my boyfriend was a prick. And my boyfriend thought my brother was a prick. But I should say it was my birthday. That we were at the upscale bar to celebrate my birthday. My boyfriend bought the first round of drinks. And my brother bought another round. And my boyfriend bought another. And at some point my brother pushed up his sleeve. He wanted to arm-wrestle my boyfriend. He said he would wrestle him through the fucking table. My brother was big. He worked at a gym. It was a gym where big guys went to get bigger. My boyfriend was not so big. But he was tougher than my brother. He was tough in another way. The bar was crowded and people were staring. My brother stuck his elbow to the table. Then my boyfriend stuck his elbow to the table. Then my brother and my boyfriend gripped each other’s hands.
I walked all the way to my brother’s part of the city. At my brother’s place, I rang the bell, then rang again. Then I called his name from the street. I was surprised to hear the front door’s click. Surprised to see my brother standing in his doorway. And before I was even down the hallway, he was looking too hard at my face. It was terrible, how he was looking. Terrible, how banged up I was. I had seen those banged-up women before. I had seen them on streets, all terrible looking, all banged up. It was wrong, the way my brother was looking. Dumb, how we were just standing there. I said, Is your girl here still. He said, She’s not my girl. But is she here, I said. Fuck you, he said. I knew my brother way too well. I knew he fucked her and sent her home. He often fucked them and showed them the door. I held up my hand for a high five. My brother was that guy, always holding up his. I said, High five. But he left me hanging, my hand up high.
There was a day I had solved a difficult puzzle. And I went into my brother’s bedroom and told my brother how I had solved it. And my brother said he understood how I had solved the puzzle. And he suggested a different way of solving it. And his way of solving it was somehow better than mine. And it was in this moment I saw his brilliance. I hadn’t seen this brilliance before. And I knew it was more brilliant than mine.
I should say again we were in the bar to celebrate this thing that went right, once, years before, the thing being, simply, my being there, that miraculous spark that kept on going, and there I was.
And I should say that my brother won, of course. He slammed my boyfriend’s knuckles into the table as hard as he could. People in the bar applauded. The girl kissed my brother on his mouth. My brother went to buy a round of drinks. My boyfriend was angry and he looked very angry. Your brother’s the biggest prick, he said. But my brother was not the biggest prick. He was buying us a round of drinks. He’s not the biggest prick, I said. There are way bigger pricks, I said. And my boyfriend said, What does that mean. And I guess this was when the fight began. My boyfriend said, It must mean something. You must mean me, he said.
It was dumb how we were just standing there. I said, Let me in, but my brother didn’t move. I said, Let me fucking in, but he just stood there staring at my face. So I pushed past my brother and went to the kitchen. His kitchen was the worst kitchen ever. It could barely fit two people at once. It could barely fit even one. The kitchen table was not in the kitchen. It was outside the kitchen. It was against a wall in the other room. In the refrigerator was a case of beer. I took a beer. My brother squeezed into the kitchen. He grabbed my arm. He shook the beer from my hand. It rolled to somewhere, to under something. Then my brother pulled me from the refrigerator. He pulled me from the kitchen. He pushed me into a chair. Then he sat in a chair. And we sat, like anyone, on any morning, at the kitchen table.
My mother left three dolls in the house and my father gave them to me. They were my mother’s dolls from when she was a kid. But I was not a girl who played with dolls. And I did not want my mother’s things, besides. So I gave the dolls to my brother. They wore dresses from other countries. My brother named them girls’ names. He kept them in a row on his dresser. I don’t think he ever played with the dolls. I think he just wanted to keep them like that, in a row.