Jesus Land. Julia Scheeres
crisscrossing his face, at his size. He looked much smaller than I was, although he was only four months younger.
He was my baby, and I had to touch him. I reached between the slats and poked his arm with a finger. Too hard. His eyes flipped open, big and brown and watery scared, and I snatched my hand back. His bottom lip started to quiver.
“Shh, baby, shh,” I whispered. “Don’t cry.”
I glanced behind me at the open door; Mother would paddle me if she caught me disobeying.
But my baby didn’t make a noise, he just watched me with those big brown eyes, waiting to see what I’d do next. I reached back into the crib and touched the black fuzz on his head, gently this time.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered.
I kept my hand on him until the long fringes of his eyelids drifted shut and he fell back to sleep.
I’m fully awake and staring into the moon face of the alarm clock when it starts to clatter at 5:30. Acid surges up my esophagus. This is It. The Day That Will Determine Everything. Whether we are Winners or Losers. Predators or Scavengers. Rejects or Normal. It’s the first day of school.
Through the bedroom window, dawn reddens the horizon. I jump up to turn on the ceiling light and sway momentarily in the blinding whiteness. In the dresser mirror, I examine my face—no new zits, Thank You, Jesus—before thrusting myself into a blue Kmart polo shirt that matches my eyes and a pair of baggy jeans. I tried baking them in the dryer for six hours while Mother was at work, but they refused to shrink.
In the bathroom, I lay out the tools of beauty—curling iron, ultra-hold Final Net, frosted pink lipstick—on the counter and tape a picture of Farrah Fawcett to the mirror. I ripped it out of a magazine at my dad’s office and have locked myself in the bathroom every night for the past week to practice her hair, her eyes, her smile.
After I finish painting my face and crimping my hair, I shellac my head with haispray and step back to survey the results. I look at Farrah, I look at me. I look nothing like Farrah. My eyes are too small, my mouth too large, my hair too limp. But we’re wearing the same shade of turquoise eye shadow, and I suppose that counts for something.
I’ve decided to make a party impression at Harrison. Party hardy. That shy girl who barely raised her head at Lafayette Christian is gone. The new Julia will throw back her head and laugh as if she didn’t have a care in the world. And this laughter and happiness will make her attractive to people and win her admiration and friends.
But first I must get into a party mood. I lock my bedroom door and pull a mayonnaise jar swirling with amber liquid from a box of sweaters in my closet. Southern Comfort. It helps my parents laugh when they stir it into their bedtime cocktails, so I figure it should help me too. I’ve been siphoning it from the bottle bit by bit whenever Mother forgets to lock the pantry.
I tilt the jar against my lips and the booze blazes down my throat like hot sauce. I’ve been practicing this as well, and now know the first swigs are always the hardest. I plug my nose and hop from foot to foot until the fire subsides, and after the fourth swallow my taste buds are numbed enough that I can dump it down like water.
When I bend to slip on my plastic Kmart shoes, I lose my balance and fall giggling against the closet door, my insides warm with the boozy embrace. The intercom crackles.
“The bus leaves in thirty minutes,” Mother says. “You miss it, you walk.”
“I’m getting ready already!” I yell at the speaker.
Good morning to you, too. I take another swig of Comfort. Not a care in the world.
At the breakfast table, David sits over a bowl of cereal as Rejoice Radio—the soundtrack of our family life—blares in the background. He’s also gone to special lengths for the Big Day. He’s hot-picked his Brillo pad hair into a soft halo. Wiped the smears from his glasses. And traded in his usual T-shirt and jeans for a short-sleeved white oxford and khaki slacks—an outfit demanding respect.
“I see you busted out the ‘No Mo’ Nappy’ this morning,” I say, sliding into the chair across from him. He gives me a grim look and goes back to staring into his cereal.
For some reason it’s okay for him and Jerome to tease each other about their hair ointments, but if I join in, they get huffy. I tried one of their products myself in seventh grade, lured by the label’s promise of “tresses that glow with the silky sheen of Africa.” Queen of Sheba Conditioner it was called, and I caked it on. It made me look like I’d dipped my head in bacon fat, and I was able to rid myself of it only after a week of scrubbing my hair with dish soap and baking soda. The boys called me grease ball for months afterward.
I fill my bowl with generic bran flakes. I can feel the alcohol spread through my body as I chew the cardboard flakes. A hymn I recognize comes over the intercom:
Asleep in Jesus! Blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes.
I wag my spoon over my bowl like a conductor’s baton and David raises his head.
“What’s your problem?” he says.
“Great tune.”
“It’s about death.”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “But it’s got rhythm.”
He cocks his head and stares at me.
“Somebody punch you in the face or something?”
“What?”
“Your eyes are all bruised.”
“It’s called eye shadow, goof ball.”
“Oh. Is it supposed to be attractive?” he asks, before cracking a smile. “Just kidding!”
“Ha ha,” I say, smiling back at him. At least he’s joking around; this means he’s not totally freaked. This is good.
“Meet you out back in ten,” he says, standing to gather up his breakfast things.
“Alrighty.”
After breakfast, I gulp down more Comfort, brush my teeth, and slide bubblegum lip gloss over my mouth. In the mirror, I am a collage of yellow, pink, blue. I practice my Farrah smile, head back, teeth bared. Not a care in the world.
Mist hovers over the back field, and we trudge in silence through the knee-high prairie grass, which brushes our pant legs with dew and tiny seeds; Dad hasn’t had time to mow it. The bus stop is at the end of the lane. My head is spacey and light, like when David and I were little and spent hours spinning in circles with outstretched arms for the simple rush of falling down in a dizzy, laughing heap. I wish we both had that feeling now, I think, looking at David as he worries his bottom lip.
On the gravel lane, a killdeer limps ahead of us, dragging a wing and crying pitifully, trying to distract us from the four speckled eggs lying camouflaged at the roadside. I glance at David—he’s scowling at his feet, ignoring the bird—then look away from him, not wanting his anxiety to contaminate my numbness. Not a care in the world. Think Farrah. Think laughing, happy, beautiful people. Think shampoo commercials.
The lane ends in an abrupt T at County Road 650, and I drop my backpack on the ground next to a bank of plastic mailboxes and lean against them. David busies himself plucking hitchhikers from his slacks.
A rooster crows