The Girl in the Well Is Me (9 page)

Anyway, I dialed the number and then I hung up. I needed to pee first. So I went into Mom's bathroom to pee. The mirror in there was all covered with toothpaste spit. I couldn't imagine her brushing so energetically that she sprayed the mirror. It was like her limbs barely worked since Dad was taken away. That spray made me hesitate for a whole minute, thinking about Mom and how she was being pretty brave, considering, and pretending to be cheerful when she obviously wasn't, and brushing her teeth so hard it sprayed. But then I realized it was probably old. Maybe even from Dad. He was always brushing his teeth like it was his full-­time job. He looked like a rabid dog. It was truly disgusting, all that gobby toothpaste foam that he made. Thinking about it now makes me want to be sick. Back then, I almost barfed, too. Thinking about Dad had that effect on me.

I opened the door of the medicine cabinet, and inside there were about ten bottles of pills. They were all different sizes and all in different amber bottles with cotton balls stuffed in the top. I took out all the cotton balls and sniffed them. I like the way cotton balls smell, OK? Also the way they feel against your skin, like rabbits and something gentle. On the side of the sink was a mug with a happy face on it that said north dakota. I put some water in the mug and drank it and wondered if any of those pills would make me un-­be. We didn't bring the mug when we moved. Maybe we should have moved to North Dakota instead. Mom went to North Dakota on a school exchange when she was fifteen. That's what the mug was from. She said it was nice. I said, “Was it happy?” And she said, “There were a lot of trees.” Like she didn't understand the question. “But were you happy there?” I asked. “Sure,” she said. “I've always been happy.” Well, that was before the thing with Dad. Mom didn't make the mug, it came from there, so maybe North Dakota is famous for happiness. I wish we'd picked there. Well, anyway, the mug got left behind. Just like the happiness.

I took the mug of water back to the bedroom. The water tasted funny, like soap, but that was OK. It reminded me of when I was little and Dad would get me a glass of water in the middle of the night, and he always got it from the bathroom and it always tasted just like this. I guess when people wash their hands, soap must get on the underside of the tap and flavor the water somehow. I sipped and dialed again. The hard
beep-­beep-­beep
of the numbers was the right thing to do. I knew it.

Finally, a man came on the phone. It sounded like my dad. So I was like, “Dad?” And he said, “My name is Des, how can I help you? What's your name?” And I said, “I'm not comfortable calling you that, can I call you Mr. Des?” And he said, “Yes, OK. No problem.” So then I asked him if any of the pills in the medicine cabinet in Mom's bathroom could make me un-­be. And he said, “What is un-­be, darling?” And I got frosty with him because “darling” was too familiar and I said, “It's none of your business, really, Mr. Des, but seeing as you asked, I'm wondering if there is some sort of a pill for doing suicide.” And I heard him pull in his breath, fast and sharp, like a bus slamming on its brakes right before the
bang
that says it has hit your dog. Then I hung up.

I wound the weird, long, curly cord from the phone around my fingers a few times, so my fingers were gone. I wanted to wrap it around my whole body but it wasn't long enough, just long enough for the fingers. Then I drank the water for a little while and watched the sunlight filter through the window. It lit up all this dust in the air. If you looked close, the dust looked like very tiny hairs. The bus went by outside. The Number 7.
I could go out there
, I thought.
I could just cross the road
,
like Hayfield was doing.
Then I'd un-­be.
I thought that and then I got sleepy. I got sleepy and I dreamed that I walked out onto the front lawn and the bus stopped and I got on and it drove away. In the dream, I was holding the happy mug. It was a good dream. I seriously thought I had solved some kind of very important problem.

Of course! I could always get on the bus!

I woke up when the door to Mom and Dad's bedroom slammed open. It was the police. Well, it was Tracy Kelliher's dad, if you must know. Tracy Kelliher's dad was so mad at me. I tried to tell him that nothing happened, that I'd decided that being dead and un-­being were two different things and I didn't want to be dead, I just wanted to be less me and more
not
me, and I realized I didn't have to get hit by the bus, I could just go away on it. He didn't understand. He must have thought I took a pill. He should have known me better! I've never been able to swallow pills! I hate pills!

In the hospital, I explained to a very nice lady doctor what had happened and she seemed to understand about the bus, which was a relief. Then Mom had to come in. She had crying circles under her eyes, which are like tired circles, but redder. I felt terrible for her. I mean, first her son steals sodas and next thing she knows, her daughter is rushed to the hospital for napping. I cried when I tried to explain about un-­being and North Dakota. I cried so hard that I nearly choked to death on my own spitty weeping. Crying like that is not healthy. There's just too much phlegm. Mom stroked my back and my hair and murmured about starting over. Starting over, starting over, starting over.

By the time we left, I realized that starting over was even better than un-­being. It was the answer. The bus was just a simile (or a metaphor). Within three days, the house had a for sale sign on the lawn. Mom and Robby packed everything into the car that we were going to bring to our new life. Mom wanted to leave everything. She said everything was bought with money that wasn't ours, so it wasn't ours to take. That may well have been true, but I wish we'd brought the Xbox. What was brought to Texas turned out to mostly be dishes and photo albums and clothes. Nothing else. I guess that I wanted to start over, too, just like Mom said, because I left everything. That stuff belonged to the old Kammie. I wanted to be new. Someone else. I left everything, a mini museum of me. The only thing I wanted was the water bed and I couldn't take that because it wouldn't fit in the car. I stuck scissors in it before we left. It took a few too many jabs to be really satisfying, but I was happy when it finally made a sad
glub-­glub
noise and water seeped out onto the floor. The real estate lady was probably furious when she saw that. It made me feel terrible to think of her face, but I couldn't just leave the bed. I felt like by stabbing the bed, I was also un-­being the person I used to be to make way for the new me, if that makes sense.

On the last day, when I went into my room, I almost grabbed Ratty Catty, but then I didn't. I made myself leave it. Dad gave me that cat.
Good-­bye myself
, I said.

Then we drove to Texas. The drive was hot and long. I threw up into a shopping bag in the backseat, and Mom and Robby sat in the front. When I got bored, I counted telephone poles out loud in French. Robby told me to stop, but I ignored him. It was like Robby thought he was Dad now, minus the stealing from sick kids.

“
Vingt
,” I said. “
Vingt et un, vingt deux
. . .” Then I threw up again.

Robby said, “She's barfing again,” and shook his head, sadly, looking slightly annoyed, much like Dad used to do.
Well
, I thought,
at least I finally I hate him as much as he hates me
. No one wants to be Dadded while they are barfing into a nondisposable Walgreens bag, let me tell you.

“Leave her alone,” said Mom, but that wasn't any more helpful than what he said. No one really wants to be alone at a time like that either.

We left a lot of things behind, but not enough. It turns out that you can't get away from yourself. The museum of you is inside you. It isn't stuff. It isn't a heavy phone with a curly cord. We left the house, the lawn, the water bed, Tracy Kelliher and her dad who had seen too much. Mr. Thacker. The grave where Hayfield was buried, wherever that was. I don't even know. Mom said the vet took care of it. Maybe there is a pet graveyard in New Jersey. If so, I'd never seen it. I'd like to. Maybe one day, I'll ride my bike there.

But I can't ride my bike there because we also left behind my bike. It had my name on a license plate that Dad attached behind the seat. I hated that license plate because it made me feel 6 years old. My dad didn't understand that I was past that now. That license plate made me cringe inside, but I didn't tell him, because I never wanted to hurt his feelings. How dumb was I? His feelings deserved it, and worse. The bike had a blue basket. Sometimes I'd put Hayfield in the basket and ride around. He liked it. But now Hayfield is dead. Even if he were alive, I couldn't ride around because I cannot feel my feet and would not be able to pedal.

It's true. I can't even feel my feet anymore.

It's possible that the goats have chewed them off.

Suddenly, there's another voice, thundering above me like another god, “We have to stop digging! I think the well might collapse!” The scrape, crash, vibration of the earth had already turned into music for me, which I only noticed when it stopped.

Oh
, I think. I close my eyes. I am sleepy, as sleepy as I felt after talking to Mr. Des on the help line. And if a well is going to collapse on you, it may as well happen while you are dreaming you are somewhere else, someplace happy with a lot of trees. North Dakota, maybe.

9

B
e a Grape

I wake up and it's eerily silent, so right away I know that I'm dead. I'm dead in a pile of rubble. I'm crushed.

Except I'm not. I'm not dead. There is no rubble.

The well didn't collapse. The hole is lit from without. That's like the opposite of being lit from within. I don't know what it means. The light is pouring in and down, trickling into my eyes like tiny swords, stabbing. The samurais have moved up from my ribs then. I breathe. No, they are still there. They must have called in for reinforcements. The entire Japanese army is stabbing me. Are samurais Japanese army guys or did I make that up? I don't know anything.

I blink and blink and blink and blink. I feel slow and thick and empty and light, like a heavy balloon with the air taken out, and where did everyone go?

“Lassie,” I whisper. I miss Rory Devon (the cat, not the singer). Will I ever be lying on my bed in the orange room again, with The Devs pawing my face to wake me up? Cats are always hungry. That's the other thing about cats.

I don't want to be dead. I don't want to un-­be. I don't even want to move to North Dakota. I wanted that before, but that was a long time ago. You'd think that in our fancy house with the water bed and the big TVs and the pattern-­mowed lawn that I'd want to live, but the thing is that back then I didn't. Now, in the trailer life we have in this terrible dusty warehouse town, I do. It doesn't make sense. What does? Nothing. I don't want to be dead in a well. I don't want to be friends with Mandy and Kandy and Sandy. I want to grow my hair out again and just be me.

Maybe I could learn to sing. Record Store Dave teaches guitar lessons. I could play guitar and sing with flowers in my hair, and maybe go to outdoor concerts and meet a boy to love forever. Mom and Dad met at a concert. They said there was a lot of mud and shouting. They said people hugged and lit fires and roasted marshmallows and did crazy things and regretted it. They said the tents sagged under the rainwater and you couldn't hear the music much anyway. But they fell in love, regardless. They fell in love, and then left and went to Denny's and ate Moons Over My Hammy. I guess it was sometime after that that Dad went bad. I wonder if Mom still loves him. I wonder if outdoor rock concert love is the kind that goes the distance, even after one of the people involved turns out to be the Devil himself, at least according to elderly women in the supermarket.

The silence is shivering over my skin. I've stopped shaking. I'm not even cold. The light is warm. It's the headlight on the train that's going to hit me. The deadlight. Or maybe it's the sun. Duh. It's the sun! It's tomorrow. It must be tomorrow because it has already been night. The sun is at the perfect angle to glow down the well and onto my head, burning the fleas who are currently layered up with SPF 50 and reading home decorating magazines and planning their next thigh-­slimming diet.

Then there are voices. Thank goodness. I'm not alone. They won't let me die down here. They won't! I know it. Mr. Des will save me. Mom might not have time because she has to go to work. That warehouse doesn't give you sick days and I bet they don't give you days off when your kid is in a well. Poor Mom.

Robby won't save me because he's a jerk and I ruined his joke. And Mandy, Kandy, and Sandy won't! They'll get too much mileage out of a dead best friend club-­member! Oh, I hate them. I am burning with hate.

“KAMMIE!” booms a voice. “GOOD MORNING! HOPE YOU ARE OK DOWN THERE!” It sounds like a morning-­host on a radio show. Gooooooood morning, Nowheresville! I wonder if he'll spin some records. I wonder if he'll dance.

We listened to the radio in the car all the way to Texas. Mom said, “Enjoy it now because pretty soon we'll be taking the bus, and there's no music on buses.” And then she nearly cried. “That is not a stiff upper lip,” I said. She said, “You're not your dad, so don't act like him.” But she stopped herself. And my insides curdled like cottage cheese.

“MY NAME IS COLONEL FRANK BAYLISS!” the voice booms. “I AM WITH THE NATIONAL GUARD AND WE ARE GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THAT WELL!”

His words twinkle down on me like sparks from fireworks, with spits and sizzles. The National Guard! This is definitely going to be on the news. I feel a tiny surge inside, like that time I drank a Red Bull. I liked how it felt at first, like I was extra-­awake, but after a while it just felt like jitters, and eventually it felt like I would not sleep for a week. I hate Red Bull. But his voice is like how Red Bull was for the first half hour.

I am going to live for sure now. The National Guard! “Do you hear that?” I say to the coyote on my head. “We'll be saved.”

“
You
will,” he says sadly. “I am not real.”

“I can't wait to go home,” I say. “I just want to see it. The wood paneling and the orange carpet with the worn-­out parts and those cats all winding around my legs, their silky fur against my scratched skin, slinkily passing by.”

“That's not a word,” he says.

“Is so,” I say.

“Say it in French, you traitor,” he says.

“Le slink,” I say. “If you love something, it becomes real. And I love you,
coyote d'argent
.”

“
Je t'aime,
” he says and sighs with relief.

Then I fall asleep again. But I keep waking up because I feel funny and my brain shakes me awake and says,
Drink from the tube of life
, and I say,
OK OK OK
. I sip from the tube. The more I sip, the more I feel like things are normal, as normal as they can be in a well. When I stop sipping, things swirl. All the things: secrets and memories and spiders and zombie goats and whispers, forcing their way into my head from above.

The line between dreaming and waking up is all gone, erased, like an Etch-­a-­Sketch that your brother shakes clean right after you finally finish drawing a perfect picture. I hope a poor kid has that Etch-­a-­Sketch now. It also used to be Mom's. From her childhood. It was an antique! I hope that poor kid is drawing with it right now, and that it's not just locked up in a vault at the bank with my bubble bath and leaking bed. I hope all our stuff goes to cancer kids to play with. I hope right now our old pool is full of those dying, illuminated kids, laughing and splashing and glowing and floating around on inner tubes in the sun.

Voices tumble down on me. A voice dances up to me on a little cat's feet. It's Dad! Again!

Dad
, I say in my head,
where did you go before?

I had to go back for basketball
, he says.
I'm getting really good. I scored 100 points.

Is that true?
I ask.
Because you're a liar, Dad. 100 points is a lot. That's 50 baskets.

Everyone's a liar
, he says, sadly, bleating like a goat.
Some of them were three-­pointers.

He smells bad, I'm not going to lie. Even compared to the goats. My lungs wheeze.

Dad
, I say.
What happens next?

Let's go home
, he says.
The lawn is getting long.

Dad
, I say.
It isn't. I mean, someone else lives there now. We've been replaced.

Everyone can be replaced
, he says.
Even me. Your mom will meet someone.

You're getting out eventually
, I say.

I know
, he says.
But it will be too late. That concert was a long time ago. I was a different person. Young. I had a beard. Your mom needs someone. Take her to the record store. Music helps.

That's what
I
was thinking
, I say.
That's what I
wanted
. I didn't want you to get forgotten, even though I would love to forget you because I hate you. Are all relationships this complicated?

Yes
, he says.
You know, you should hate yourself, too. YOU wanted to go to Disneyland. I made your wish come true. Doesn't that make me good?

Dad
, I say.
I didn't
mean
it. I didn't mean for some wishing kid to not get to ride on the teacups. I was just dreaming. It didn't have to happen.

I messed up,
he says.
I wanted to give you the world. I wanted you to love me.

You
stole
the world!
I say.
That was bad. I did love you. Now I don't know you.

I love
you, he says.
I wish I'd gotten you a pony.

I love you, too, Dad
, I say.
But you're a raisin. I'm glad you didn't get me a pony. I'm glad you didn't buy one. Don't lie about the basketball again.

I know it
, he says.
I'm a raisin. But in jail, I will fill up again. I promise to be a grape. I only scored 8 points.

Be a grape, Dad
, I say.
Be a grape. Practice your jump shot.

You
be a grape, too
, he says.
You're a liar, too. You lied to get into that club. Everyone is a liar.

I know it
, I say.
I raisined
.
But just for a minute. Then I fell down a well. That's karma. That's what Tracy Kelliher would say.

The Kellihers were nice people
, he says.

Dad
, I say.
They weren't.

They were
, he says.
We were just looking at them through raisin-­colored glasses.

I'm sleepy
, I say.

Don't ever try to un-­be again
, he says.

I promise
, I say.

I have a game
, he says.
I have to go.

Bye Dad
, I say.

Bye sweetie pie angel
, he says.
Stay grapey.

Grapey
, I say.
You too.

Then the well collapses on my head. It starts off like a drizzle of rocks and gravel, but then it's a storm, sort of like the concrete sky is coming down to meet me, and I am standing still. It hits me, hard, a thousand ropes at once that aren't ropes, but actually rocks. It turns out the sky is heavy. In that split second before I black out, I know I am blacking out. I see silver, then light gray, then dark gray, then black. All the colors of the black rainbow, filling me up and covering me over.

I'm not dead, just so you know.

Just silver.

Like light. Like hope. Like someone leaving on the Number 7 bus.