Audacious (9 page)
Ms. Sagal has been suspended indefinitely too
I'll tell them she didn't know about it
This is true after all
She's a single mother; she needs her job
Maybe they'll go easier on me, since I'm a kid.
SAMIR'S SIDE
My parents are furious
Remember I said that Hala
Secretly loved it?
Well Yusif, her husband,
Was somewhat less enthused.
Khalid goes to a prayer group with him
And told him
About you
And he told
My parents
Andâ¦
They were talking
About sending me to the Muslim School
You know the one, out on the prairie?
It's a forty-five-minute drive each way.
They said they'd buy me a car
That's how mad they are.
Hala managed to convince them
That you are just misguided
And need direction
And that we should be charitable
But I should not seek to be alone with you
Or be intimate in any way.
They actually said that
“Don't be intimate in any way”
I'm not sure what ways they have in mind
Although I can certainly think of a few.
It's nice to see you smile
Still, a car would be cool.
Oh, my father wanted me to give you this.
A SMALL BLUE BOOK
Penguin Editions
With Arabic and English
The Holy Koran
Perhaps I'll read it
And mend my rebellious ways
See the light, maybe
It's his father's gift
I'm speechless but understand
He thinks I'll convert
Samir's face shows me
Embarrassment but some hope
Our love will prevail.
See, I'm forbidden
So when Samir looks forward
He sees us apart.
Now is not enough
I suppose I should be touched
Yet I want to laugh.
Me as a Muslim
Is just as funny as me
As a Catholic.
For in that instant
In that flash of clarity
Something starts crumbling.
LOST IN DECEMBER
Are you coming to Mass tonight?
Mom says after Samir leaves.
(His departing kiss still tingles on my lips)
Why? I say
I'm pretty sure it's not Saturday
And anyway I hardly ever
Go to Mass anymore
Mom looks at me
Something in her expression
Exasperation?
It's Christmas Eve,
she says.
CHRIST IS BORN
We put on quite the show
The felon
I walk as though shackled
Just for fun
People actually look at my ankles
NO ONE GETS SHACKLED ANYMORE
I want to yell
But I can't
Because it's church.
The skeleton
Mom looks extra thin
In her black church dress
And two days without sleep
Haven't helped her sunken face
The consumptive
Kayli wheezes through the sermon
Sucking on her inhaler
Shaking
Sucking
Shaking
The drunk
Near the end, Dad
Who had a brandy
Before we left
Gets the hiccups.
DEAR SANTA
Please make this a dream
Please make me a different person
One who would not do something
So stupid.
Please make Mom start eating
And stop barfing
Please make Kayli breathe better
Please make Dad stop pretending
Like nothing's the matter
Please Santa
Make me
Believe
In you
Again.
AFRAID OF THE DARK
Sometimes the dark is velvet comfort
Soothing the chaos in my head.
Sometimes the dark is as menacing
And cold as a locked steel door.
Sometimes the dark brings slumber
And escape from the drama of my day.
Sometimes the dark awakens
The things that seek to trap me.
Sometimes the dark relaxes
The nerves that coil around me.
Sometimes the dark paralyzes
The muscles that would rescue me.
Sometimes the dark is as quiet
And familiar as a library on Sunday.
Sometimes the dark rings and echoes
With mocking jealous voices.
Sometimes I ride the dark
Like a deep blue wave to dawn.
Sometimes in the dark
I drown.
MARION HOUSE
For as long as I can remember
Mom has disappeared
On Christmas morning.
After the croissants
And fresh-squeezed juice
And presents of course
She loads up a box and drives off
Leaving Dad to entertain us.
But today I ask to go with her
We cruise through the quiet streets
Deserted but for the odd cat or sparrow
Huddled (not together) by a heat outlet.
Marion House is attached to a church downtown
It's a bland building
That looks a lot like my school
Inside, ghosts and wraiths, invisible ones
Society's rejects line up politely
For Christmas brunch
Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce
Potatoes, yams, corn and peas
It's my job to prepare dessert
Christmas cake made by church ladies
With a dollop of whipped cream
Flavored with artificial brandy
After dessert there are presents
A local bookstore has donated books
And socks and hats have been knitted.
THE PHANTOM
I remember you
Camera girl
Come to take my picture again?
She reeks of whiskey
Unbelievably
It's barely 11 AM.
Do you have any red socks?
Red is the color of love you know
It's passionate
The word “passionate”
Is lispy and slurred
Because of missing teeth and liquor.
What's this book about?
Shopaholic? What's that?
Don't you have that vampire one?
I go and check.
But all the books have been given out
And tucked away in bags and shopping carts.
What about something serious?
You know. Literature!
What do they think we are, children?
Without knowing why
It just seems right
I give her the little blue Koran.
What's this? Arabic and English?
Read it, I say.
It will change your life.
THE WORST CHRISTMAS EVER
When we get home
Kayli is wearing the nebulizer mask
While she and Dad
Watch
The Wizard of Oz
The turkey is glowing gold in the oven
And filling the house with
A sleepy, winter smell
The smell of hibernation
That's what Christmas is, I think
It's some primal memory
Of ice-age winters
When the family settled in
Never leaving the cave
Until the snow melted
Living off fat reserves
And stories in the night
Now reduced to one day per year
Though the fat and the stories
Still figure prominently
In our Christmas sojourn.
We eat copiously but this year
Quietly, because the conversation
Will naturally stray to topics
Best left for other days.
Mom eats and eats and we watch,
Grinning until she goes upstairs
I follow and wait and eventually
Force the door and see.
SIRENS: PART TWO
I have heard the Sirens singing
On Christmas Day
Calling me
Urging
Me
To sail mindlessly into the rocks
To doom my shipmates
To crush my ship
And then give
Myself
To
Their beauty, their promises
Their tantalizing lies
Their false joy
Their song
Is their
Trap
The sirens' truth is so hard to look at
An ambulance is on the way now.
I hold Mom's clammy hand
While Kayli cries
And Dad
Cries
Too
Mom threw up too much and fainted
And hit her head on the way
Down to the floor
Beside the
Toilet.
Where Christmas colors, green, white and red,
Are bile
Clean tile
And blood.
ALONE
And by the time the ambulance arrives Kayli
Is in a full-blown asthma attack so
They bundle her away too with
Dad riding shotgun
Call a cab
he says to me
Urgently I call and call and
Call there is no answer I
Try Samir but no one is there either
David lives nearby but of course he
Is out of the question then
I remember a row of loopy letters and
Numbers scrawled on my math homework
Genie
says one it rings and rings and my
Ears ring with it but no one's home or they
Don't answer on Christmas Day I try
The other
Sarah
trembling until I hear
Hello
Puffy says It's Ella I say I'm
Sorry to interrupt your
Christmas she's not concerned
we're
Jewish we just ordered Chinese food
I tell her everything hardly
Caring I'm crying hysterically minutes
Later she's at the front
Door with her mother
A round soft woman who
Folds me in her arms and lets
Me cry all over her cashmere before
We rush away.
EMERGENCY ROOM
Mom's going to live
That's all I can remember
About the ER.
CLEANING SUPPLIES
Kayli is discharged
Four hours later.
Puffy's mother,
Who asks me to call her Rachel,
Comes back to drive us home.
Kayli feels much better
They've juiced her up with steroids
So she's wide awake
Flip you for cleanup
Heads you choose, tails you lose.
I get heads, and choose the bathroom
Kayli takes the dinner table gratefully.
Mop and bucket
Gloves and bleach
I survey the damage
Sponging, wiping
Squeezing pink-tinged water
After everything looks like nothing
Happened in here
I sit down on the toilet lid
And reach over and lock the door
I decide I like this little room
It's quiet and there are no windows
I could be anywhere
Or anyone.
KAYLI THROUGH THE BATHROOM DOOR
Are you coming out?
Ever?
Great Christmas huh?
This is totally beyond Britney
What a family.
LOCUM SOCIAL WORKER
How we got through the next day
I'll never know
But on the morning of the twenty-seventh
A social worker shows up.
She's flustered and anxious
And frequently checks the file
Asking Dad to leave the room
And speaks to me alone.
Where is your mother today?
she asks
I tell her and she scribbles some notes
How do you feel about that?
I shrug, and don't tell her
I feel terrified
And helpless
And guilty
And angry.
And also, I realize, bewildered.
I ask her why she's come
She glances at her file
Because of the pornographic photo.
It's art, I say, not pornography
I was thinking she was here
Because of Mom
Apparently not.
Why did you take the photograph, Ella?
I barely recognize the failed name
It's Raphaelle
,
I say
Causing her to check her file
But she hardly misses a beat
Do you want to be someone else?
Yeah, I'd like to be you
You're obviously a great success.
A second goes past
Before I realize I've said this out loud
Finally she clears her throat and says
Do you feel like a failure?
And so our awkward little dance continues.
I think I might fail art, I say
Getting my teacher fired, getting arrested
Not my best work.
Was all that intentional?
No.
You took the photograph by accident?
No.
But it's not a dance is it?
It's a hunt, and I'm the prey
You had some idea of the outcome?
I guess so, not Ms. Sagal getting fired.
But you knew you'd be in trouble
Yes. I suppose.
You knew it was wrong?
No. Weird. Not wrong.
Do people get into trouble for being weird?
I do, obviously.
Why do you want to be weird?
I shrug again and don't say another word.
Although of course I know the answer.
WEIRD
Because if I'm weird
And ostracized and friendless
It's not personal.
FALLOUT
Later the lawyer calls
And says the social worker
Told the prosecutor
That I know right from wrong
Which is news to me
Because I thought
Staying true to your artistic vision
