Those Who Come From Circumstance
by Merridawn Duckler
It's summer. It's twilight. Mrs. Martin is mad. She scrubs burnt bread off the bottom of the oven with a wire brush. The oven light is out; the wire brush is black, so how is she supposed to tell if she is making any progress? Outside, in the yard, Gilly faces Hank in the tent, a flashlight between them, under his plaid sleeping bag, one, wavering red eye. It's Gilly's fourteenth birthday party. The neighbor's house is empty but the summer machines live on, sprinkler sputtering, sigh of the smoker. For the party Mrs. Martin made pizza. Gilly came in to say one girl won't eat meat. Mrs. Martin pulled off the circles of sausage. He watched her suck on a burnt finger. C'mon Gil, no one will know. Then he says, "Hank is a vegan." Mrs. Martin pulls cheese off the pizza. That's what a pizza is, Gilly, meat and cheese. What is wrong with him? Mrs. Martin bought him a game system, she took a vacation day. She wanted to do more but Gilly didn't want, as he said, "any trouble." All he wanted was a few friends over, pizza delivered to his tent. When Mrs. Martin asks what they do for activities, Gilly is offended. He looks away. They'll watch stars. He's been sleeping in the backyard, in the tent, most of the summer. Mrs. Martin doesn't know what to think about that, she doesn't want trouble either, but then there's Hank. That boy is one step off the street. When he smiles he has a gap, a black tooth and eyes blue as twilight, a beautiful smile. Mrs. Martin wants to hug him, but his stink protects him, dirt, pins in his face and the slogans on his filthy parka. The girls love Hank. They ask for him. Sometimes he appears, at Gilly's house, smiling. Sometimes he's gone for days and then Mrs. Martin hears of his return, walking into the smoke and loud talk at some party, a narrowing presence, blacker, bluer. She wants Gilly to quit hanging around Hank. But words have lost their currency this fourteenth year. When she talks to Gilly, her ideas fly like rocks into a pond; all drama, noise, splash, and then complete disappearance. This summer Gilly sees adults as machines fed by corporations. They can't help but lie. Gilly loves his mother but she's one of them. Sometimes he and Hank just sit and breathe. Or they make plans to run away and be free. Gilly would go now, except for his girlfriend. She visits the tent, brings pictures of broken calves, tortured for McDonald's. Her skin smells like flowers. They stick like candy when they kiss. Hank has one girlfriend, then another. None blame him. He always leaves before they wake. Mrs. Martin pokes at the curled black bread. Now she has nothing to offer the kids. She could have ordered out, but cooking is the only thing she has left with Gilly. She made this pizza. She learned how, with Nathan, just after they were married. He unfolded the dough, brown and fragrant, pulling each corner out like a map. In the middle of making love, he used to touch her face, the route of her. At night she wakes and sees the shadow of his hand, made into a moth. They learned to make pizza in Italy, stretching the dough on the farm where they stayed, after college. She thinks there's no one for her, but there is. Nathan. Earlier, listening to Gilly laugh into his cell phone, she thinks stupid to miss this, stupid to die. Nathan's needy friend sounded drunk, she thought. Why does Nathan help these people? Gilly sits in a chair, wide awake in the hospital corridor while the doctor pronounces Nathan dead on arrival. Ten years ago. Now, he sits across from Hank. "The stars have finished their lives and we're still watching them" says Gilly. "Like, they die but it takes hundreds of years for us to get the news." Hank smiles. "Old re-runs are out there." says Gilly. "They're like watching cartoons and they think it's us." Hank says, maybe it is. Gilly feels in his chest, a black hole between thirteen and fourteen. The universe that throws away Hank will have to toss out Gilly too. He won't stand it. Not for all the soft skin there is to touch. The tent fills with the powerful ammonia scent of urine. Hank loses control when he drinks, since he was six, out in the street. Inside Mrs. Martin is on the phone, speaking to the delivery person. You won't believe this, she says, but I need a pizza without cheese or meat. Of course, says the voice, vegan pizza. I forget, thinks Mrs. Martin, the world changes. Gilly is going to come home in handcuffs one day, after a protest. He's going to run away, to call from a train yard, to hover over oblivion like a boy on the edge, on a skateboard, willing to go over. Mrs. Martin is going to fight him, she's going to cry. She's going to ask cops for one more chance; she'll beg a teacher without shame. And somewhere, as far as stars, Gilly will sit in a classroom, in the front row, raising his hand. The stars report back, too late to dry tears, that there is someone for Mrs. Martin, beyond Nathan. She's on her way to meet him and the phone rings. Message from the dwarf star. "Hey Gil. Long time, no see, man. I'll bet you've been trying to reach me but I'm on the move, on the groove." His voice sounds cracked, tear-clogged. "I just wanted to see how you are…I know you're probably trying to reach me, so email me back sometime or call or something because I miss you and wanted to know what happened to you, peace love Hank."
Merridawn Duckler has published in Carolina Quarterly, Georgia State Review, Main Street Rag and has work in the current issues of Isotope, Green Mountains Review and Narrative. Her original scripts have appeared on stages in Los Angeles, Stanford and New York in conjunction with the performance troupe Collage Dance Theatre of Los Angeles and she has been in residency at Centrum, Caldera and Yaddo. She was a non-fiction Fellowship runner-up at Writers at Work in Salt Lake City and Fiction Fellowship winner at the Squaw Valley Writers Community and a fellowship winner for the Summer Literary Seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia. She teaches at The Attic in Portland Oregon and is an Associate Editor at Story Quarterly.