Belt Buckles & Pajamas Read online

  Kareem asks us if we want to play catch with his football. I think he is really asking Violet but has to include us to be polite. We are all happy sitting there. Violet tells Pet Shop to play with Kareem, I think she likes watching the boys run around. Shy Boy even goes out there. He isn’t catching the ball or throwing the ball or running around with the ball. But he is out there. The fresh air is good for him, I think. He is looking less of a weirdo now. He brushes his hair now before coming to group. And his teeth, too. He might have a crush on Violet. Violet laughs when I tell her this, says he’s missing the boat, that she’s all about me. It’s hard to believe her when she keeps grabbing guys by the penis but she says she likes me.

  I catch Andie watching me and I think maybe this wasn’t all about being perfect and sitting together and maybe there’s a little bit of how are you doing are you going crazy today involved also. But then she smiles and brushes a piece of a leaf out of my hair with her hand and it isn’t about her being a doctor and me being a patient at all.

  “Thank you,” I tell her. It’s the first time I ever spoke to her. I mean without her doctoring me. Spoke to her like it was all my idea to speak.

  “For what?” she asks.

  I want to tell her the truth, I really do. But somehow, “For being someone who would brush a leaf out of my hair, for smiling to let me know it was all right, for inspiring me to live in this world, for being the love of my life,” comes off as just a little too much. I think it would turn her doctor switch on, and instead I feel my face turn red as I try not to tell her I love her and that she smells good and I want to ask Violet how she tasted but I can’t.

  “Just because,” I whisper, my head turned down, not willing to look at her, to be drawn into those soft brown eyes that own me.

  I feel her watching me. I keep my head down, until the shouts of the boys playing ball draw her eyes away, and I look up, and watch her watching them, and it is wonderful again. Stepping into a warm towel just out of the dryer as you leave the shower, that’s what she is. That’s Andie.

  “I’ll play if you will,” she says. She isn’t looking at me, just staring straight ahead at Kareem and Pet Shop. I wonder whom she’s asking, but Violet is obviously not paying any attention and I can’t see her asking Stuart to play football. I think about running around on the grass with her, about throwing her the ball and her throwing it to me. Playing. Being a part of the game. I think about it too long.

  “Let’s go,” Violet says, and I realize how stupid I was thinking I was the one being asked. Why would the ugly duckling ever go to the prom? Not when the swan that puts out is already spreading her wings for you. I recede, not wanting to watch, not wanting to see them having fun, playing, laughing, touching. Being together. Without me.

  Violet looks at me, as if to say you had your chance, I gave you a five count, she was fair game after that. And she’s right. I could have said yes, and maybe Andie would have pretended she was asking me and not Violet, and so it is my fault and I can’t go to sleep to make it better.

  “Burgers are done!” cries Sam, and we all go to a picnic table and put ketchup and pickles and tomatoes but no mustard I don’t like mustard on them. Andie eats two burgers, I can’t believe she can eat that much but I guess all that running around with Kareem and Pet Shop and Violet and not me why not me made her hungry. Kareem has three. I see Pet Shop drop a couple on the ground when no one else is looking. I keep an eye on them but they stay uneaten. Maybe the hedgehog is a vegetarian. I can’t see the cow as a cannibal, and that monkey is probably still not climbing trees for him.

  Violet grabs a hot dog. “Hey, Kareem,” she says, and we all see her expertise displayed on the dog. Shy Boy starts rocking at the table, Andie scowls at her and Kareem gets a big smile. She pulls the hot dog out, half of it bitten off.

  “Is that any way to treat a wiener?” Kareem asks.

  Violet almost chokes on the hot dog as she laughs. Even Andie thought that one was funny, and she tries not to laugh at any of the sex jokes we make. But it is grill out day and the big tin foil episode appears to have faded without retribution and the sun is shining and the air is crisp and so we all laugh as we could if we were outside all the time. The real outside.

  We eat and it is yummy. Fourth of July burgers, that is what they taste like, even if it is the second week of November. “Happy Fourth of July!” I tell Stuart, and he gets all worried that the government has stolen seven months of his life. I explain about the taste of the burgers and he wants to go vomit them up in case the government has laced them with chemicals. Violet tells him to just breathe in the non-government fall air and be happy and he calms down.

  I see Violet trying her foot massage under the picnic table with Kareem, but he just moves down the bench out of reach. Kareem is the best orderly we have, he is nice and only tranqs us when we really deserve it. I’m not sure why he doesn’t like Violet. Everyone else does – even Andie, although she won’t admit it. I remember how her face flushed when Violet kissed her. She never said she didn’t like it. And she played football with her.

  After we eat, we all lay back on the grass, watching the clouds push across the mostly clear sky. It was the best day of our lives, I think. Each day since Andie got here has been the best day. Even with Glen and Theodore gone; I know they are happy, that they are where they belong, so it is okay to have a best day.

  “I see a pig,” Andie says, lying next to me on the grass. Pet Shop looks around, checking for a lost member of his herd, I suppose. “No, Herbert,” she explains, “that cloud up there. Doesn’t it look like a pig?”

  Large, solid body, on all fours, crouching. Big nose, heavy face, breathing in mine. The carpet isn’t as soft as the bed. There will be marks again, I know. Evidence that Mom will never see. Never admit to seeing, anyway. The toast will be buttered twice in the morning, the eggs will burn, as everyone hides in the kitchen.

  “Yes,” I tell her, “it looks like a pig.”

  I wish I could see it like she does. I never had this before, this lying on the grass and looking at clouds and pretending they were wonderful wispy creations of all sorts of pure goodness and not evil nightmare monsters lurking in the dark, grabbing at you in the hallway, pushing you down.

  “The one above it,” I say, describing the one that looks like a pillow muffling my screams, “that’s a nice fluffy pillow to put behind your back and read a book by, isn’t it?”

  “Sure it is,” she agrees. “And look, that one could be a fuzzy caterpillar.”

  It doesn’t look like a caterpillar to me. Not even close. But I don’t tell her. I smile and pretend I can see into her world, pretend I am letting her see into mine. Because even pretending to share her vision makes this still the best day ever.

  Sixteen: Shy Boy On The Couch

  We have about an hour before lights out. This is pretty much the only time we watch television. There are only a couple channels, and most of them suck. They never put the news on, only safe things like Wheel of Fortune or Lawrence Welk or This Old House. Like they are ever going to let us use a power saw. It would be neat to knock a couple walls out and build an indoor bowling alley here. Although the odds of them letting us sling around sixteen pound bowling balls are pretty slim too.

  Stuart refuses to watch any television at all – waves or radiation or something like that. Violet only likes Wheel of Fortune, she tries to guess dirty words until they reveal too many letters and they don’t fit anymore. I don’t really care what show is on — if I can’t build a bowling alley why bother?

  Shy Boy is sitting next to us on the couch. He smells okay today. Not like coffee like Andie smells but like mushrooms or cabbage or something that isn’t exactly flowery but isn’t spoiled either. Woodsy maybe? Anyway, he looks better without the earplug.

  “Do you like him?” Violet asks. She caught me staring at Shy Boy. My face turns red. “It’s okay if you do, I’m willing to share. I can even show you what he likes,” she tells me, and I hide my fac
e in my hands.

  My hands are pulled away. I open my eyes to see it is Shy Boy, not Violet, who holds my hands. He is looking at me – actually looking at me – with what appears to be recognition and coherence and maybe, maybe a little touch of puppy dog be my first girlfriend can I carry your books love? Looking at me, not at Violet even if she is the one who traded for his radio and who rubbed his dick and called him sweetie, looking at me and not her? He is not Andie, he smells different and he is Shy Boy and I want to call him Gordon now. I want to but then he’ll know I maybe like him.

  He touches my face and I flinch and it is another man not him but I cannot help it and I flinch. He pulls back and I reach for his hand and put it back on my face and whisper, “It’s okay, Shy Boy. It’s okay.”

  Violet isn’t angry or jealous. She guides my hand down to Shy Boy’s lap but I tell her I can’t do that I’m not ready and she is still not angry I love her she says it is okay she will help me be okay with everything again.

  I squeeze Shy Boy’s hand, and he squeezes back, and I know he knows what I know and it doesn’t scare me. He isn’t in my mind like Theodore was. It’s a nice-that-he-knows knowledge and not an invading all-consuming threat. We resume watching Wheel of Fortune.

  “BALL SUCKING WHORE,” Violet tells Pat Sajak. There aren’t any S’s, but that is still her guess. Stuart giggles. I guess it’s funny to hear Violet say that even if you aren’t watching the show.

  Kareem walks over, turns off the television. “Come on, Kareem,” Violet says, “just one more puzzle. I am positive the next one has DICK in it.”

  “Sorry, people, it’s lights out time. Off to bed.”

  Violet smiles, leaning into him, looking up at his six foot nine inch frame. “Want to come and play a little more touch football?”

  He laughs, not taking her seriously. He never falls for it. “Not tonight, Violet, you’ll have to play without me. Now go on, you have five minutes before lock down.”

  She pouts, but he is steadfast. Kareem is a really good guy. Or gay. We go to bed. I wave goodnight to Shy Boy and he waves back. At me, I think. Unless Violet was waving too.

  Seventeen: All In The Family

  When did he go from Daddy to Dad? I wonder. I am hiding from him again. I cannot remember the change. I know there was a time when he would play Barbie with me and hold me on his lap and not lift up my skirt and pull down my panties while I was sitting there. But I don’t know when that was. Maybe if I could go back there, to that time when innocence still existed, and make it all right again, I could live with myself. With them. Maybe then it wouldn’t be my fault. If I could have slept through that first time maybe he would have stopped and life would have turned out how it was supposed to. The way it did in all the fairy tales.

  He is looking for me. I am holding my breath, hoping the closet will serve as a better hiding spot than the laundry room did last night. The door opens, he pushes the clothes aside and I am found. I yell “Base, I’m on Base” but it doesn’t matter he isn’t playing by the rules and it hurts.

  He pulls me out of the closet and pushes me on the bed. At least it isn’t the carpet, my back and butt won’t have rug burns. I hear the belt buckle hit the floor and I start sobbing. He pauses, as if my cries have reminded him who he is and who I am and what isn’t supposed to be happening and how he is supposed to protect me from this and that I am a little girl and he is a daddy but he isn’t Daddy anymore he is Dad and I can’t remember when that changed. And he can’t remember either and he resumes and I am screaming and he puts the pillow over my mouth because last time he used his hand and I bit him.

  I hear the door open and she is there and then it slams shut and he is off of me and running after her. I pray that this means it is over that she will save me, that now she can’t deny what is happening and she will make him undo everything and we will be a family and not have to pretend anymore.

  I wake up and it is breakfast time and I cry into my pillow. Because at least in the dream I could hope that it would be okay in the morning that she would fix it all but it is now instead and I remember back to that morning when he read even more of the paper and she made waffles with extra strawberries and cream and didn’t say a god damn word about it ever.

  I am late for breakfast. It doesn’t really matter if the eggs are cold or the bacon is sitting in the grease because I haven’t been able to eat either since, well since ever. Since the apple was eaten and paradise was lost and the inferno burned. I grab a jelly doughnut. Even on bad days jelly tastes good.

  Shy Boy smiles at me but I can’t handle him today, I can’t handle the possibility that if I was normal, if the world didn’t have this great big building ready to drop on me, that I could be with someone, even a weirdo like Shy Boy.

  “Good morning, Vietnam,” the hedgehog greets me with when I sit down at the breakfast table. I ignore the invisible animal and his crazy keeper. Not that Pet Shop was even talking to me.

  “There’s a mooooon out tonight,” the cow tries, but I am not up for puns or satire or parodies or whatever it is when a cow moos out a song.

  “Full moon has one more day, Daphne, and then we are safe again,” Stuart tells me.

  As if we are ever safe. How can we be safe when in the middle of the night after the best day ever he can come and get me across space and time and memory and make me the dirty girl whose fault it is all over again? Even after Andie the goddess lay beside me and watched clouds and Shy Boy squeezed my hand and we had Fourth of July hamburgers. If he can do that, then how will there ever be enough good in the mix of humanity which I am no longer so certain Theodore was right about me being part of to counteract that kind of poison?

  I think of Glen and the lightning bolt and Theodore and his sea of aliens turned human and I am embarrassed that I count their efforts so miserly. That I throw away so easily what cost them so greatly to give me. I put my jelly doughnut down, turn to Shy Boy, and give him my very best good morning. I ask the hedgehog how his day is going. I thank the cow for giving us milk. Only after all of that do I turn to Violet.

  “I missed you last night,” I tell her.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she says. “I thought you needed a night alone, after all that hand holding with Shy Boy.”

  “I’m never alone at night. You know that.”

  She looks so sad. “I know, Daphne. That will change, I promise. We’re going to make that all go away someday. Andie will help us do that for you, you’ll see. She’ll help us all. Before you know it, we’ll be one big happy family.”

  “We are family,” the hedgehog says.

  “Well, except for maybe Pet Shop,” Violet adds.

  Eighteen: The Bad Doctor Returns

  Doctor Martin sure knows how to ruin a party. We just get settled in for group, Andie was letting Shy Boy stay since Violet was keeping her hands off of him, Stuart wasn’t panicking since I told him we would go and recalibrate his triangle reflection things after lunch and Pet Shop had his herd under control, when Genghis Khan makes his return. He stands there, smiling, pretending he is a doctor and not a son of a bitch, holding his clipboard as if to forestall any charge by Violet to his privates. Andie doesn’t even pretend to be happy to see him.

  “Good morning, Doctor MacPherson,” he says, as if he didn’t remember she asked him to call her Andie. As if he wasn’t carrying a swarm of locusts with him.

  “Doctor Martin,” she returns in as icy a voice as a warm zephyr can carry. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence today?”

  He stumbles a little at the reception but blusters through anyway. Warning shots fired and ignored, open season in my opinion. I try to get Violet’s attention, try to persuade her to go for his balls but she ignores me. What a fine time to become a prude.

  “I just thought I would observe today, no special reason. See if everything is going acceptably. Under control. Since the treatment,” he adds, smiling at Violet.

  I cannot believe she isn’t crotch diving after that
, but maybe Andie’s calm demeanor is having a positive influence on her. Andie is tapping her pencil on her notepad, acting like there is nothing in the world she would like better than for Doctor Martin to observe. As if it was her idea, and not his, and about damn time he showed up. Times like this she looks more hot than cute. I think about Violet tasting her, about how it would feel to feel her lips pressed against mine. I can’t help it.

  “Everything is going fine,” Andie says. “While I don’t feel the treatment was necessary, it doesn’t appear to have harmed my efforts. No, I think we are all making progress despite your treatment.”

  “Doctor MacPherson, I will not have my treatments questioned, certainly not in front of the patients. I am the head of staff here, in case you have forgotten.”

  “Of course you are, Doctor Martin, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… question your methods. I merely wanted you to know they are all doing fine.”

  “Hmmph. Very well. Why don’t you continue with the session? As I said, I am just here to observe.”

  So we sit and twiddle our thumbs for a couple minutes. Eventually the hedgehog breaks out in a chorus of “I am a Rock,” Stuart giggles and we begin talking.

  Violet starts it, as usual. “Daphne and Shy Boy, sitting in a tree…”

  Andie looks at me, then at Shy Boy. “Violet, let’s not tease anyone, okay? Daphne, do you want to talk about anything – anything about Gordon, maybe?”

  I am the shy one now. I hang my head, ears turning red, face flushed. I don’t want her to know that I like Shy Boy. Then maybe she won’t think that I like her. I’ve never had a boyfriend. He doesn’t count.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Shy Boy leans over, takes my hand. I pull it away.

  “Gordon, it looks like Daphne doesn’t want anyone to touch her right now, so please don’t try that again.”