Heartbreaker. Claudia Dey
of dynamite between their teeth. Wade Jr., Ivo Jr., Gary Jr., Constantine Jr. Their voices took forever to break. Supes’s voice went from boy to man in a night. He never lit things on fire. He never chased. Never barked. Was never breathless. The boy practically had light coming off his body. Where did he come from? Visible Thinker would think. The boy’s clean tank top under his parka. The shape of his arms. At Drink-Mart, The Silentest Man spoke the only name he could think to give the boy. Matches striking. Glass against glass. The younger men tossed the name between them.
“Supernatural.”
“Supernatural.”
“Supes for short.”
“Yeah, Supes.”
“Supes.”
The men of the territory laughed, and when the boy did not, they stopped laughing.
All of the girls wanted him. They loved their dogs, but they loved Supernatural more. In the graveyard, by the bonfire, Thursday night after Thursday night, they trained their eyes on the incline, the one he might walk over any moment. Sometimes his hood would show. Oh God, oh my God. The girls would elbow each other, throw fits under their outerwear. Quiet one, he is. The girls would flick their eyes toward him and then away, let their hair fall in front of their faces. I can do things to you simultaneously, the girls would communicate with their minds. This is serious. I have skills I can coordinate, combos I can execute. Make me your wife. But by the time the girls cleared their faces of their hair, Supes would be gone.
I wanted his soundtrack.
And possibly, him.
I fold the hem under and pin my mother’s camo track jacket so it shows off my midsection. Better. Baby one night somebody going to strike a match on a tombstone and read your name. Someone said this once. SETTLE YOUR HEAD. This is what I have written on a flag above my bed. Settle your head.
I twist the knob and creak the door open to my mother’s bedroom. I turn on the overhead light. It still works. The curtains are drawn. A knot of black bedcovers, and her pillow curved where her head lay against it. I look through her dresser drawers, her closet. I get down on my knees and run my hands over her carpet. I look under her bed. Lift the black bedcovers.
Nothing.
The room is empty.
THE DAY AFTER my mother crashed our previous truck into a tree on an iceless day was the day our people call Free Day. When I left our bungalow, my mother was in her bed with a white bandage across her forehead, raking her fingers through our dog’s fur. Save for our totaled truck, our yard was empty. I held and kissed her hand three times and cranked her window open. You could hear the reservoir lap the shoreline. It was summer. Summer is a beautiful time here. Don’t you see that, I wanted to say to my mother. See that.
Free Day is the day we put our unwanted objects at the edges of our properties, and you can just ride by and take whatever you want. Most of the items are in need of some repair, and these are clearly marked AS IS. I always started at Neon Dean’s on Free Day because sometimes he left money or pills in the pockets of his old clothes. I had done my tour through town and had a Betamax, headlamp, and crimping iron balanced on my handlebars and had roped a shovel and a ceiling fan to the back of my bike. Deal with it. Hell yes. Focus Thine Anarchy. Pony Ali. Things were looking up.
When I got home, my mother’s bedroom was in a pile on our front yard. Neon Dean’s girlfriend, Pallas, a few years older than me, was rifling through it. She had human bite marks on her skin and my mother’s belts fastened around her neck. Her friend was with her. I had seen her friend around. She was Rita Star’s daughter, and Rita Star had called her Grace, and Grace wanted nothing to do with her mother. The women of the territory would sit at Rita Star’s kitchen table in their ski jackets and white underwear after tanning in Rita Star’s tanning bed and talk about their falling-out, and how unnatural it was for a mother to be separated from her daughter even though Grace lived right across the street in bungalow 21 on a mattress in Pallas’s closet. Pallas had rigged a string of lights and nailed a final resting bouquet above Grace’s head. All I need is tuberculosis. Grace laughed and changed her name to Future.
Future was stabbing her cigarette into the ground. She stood up. She had my mother’s lotions, perfumes, waterproof makeup, and underwear stuffed into the large pockets of her daypants. She pulled on my mother’s silver party dress and smoothed it over her body.
“When he sees me in this, he’s going to name his dick after me.”
“He is.”
She found my mother’s red ski jacket and put it on over the silver party dress.
“When he sees me in this, he’s going to make me pregnant with his supernatural baby.”
“He is.”
“Futurenatural.”
And then seeing me, Pallas said, “Seriously?”
And Future said, “Seriously.”
I was wearing hunting glasses and Neon Dean’s discarded camo outerwear, which had a white pill in the right pocket and five dollars in the left. I came to a stop in front of them. It was warm enough to kick up some dirt.
“Nice show the other day,” Pallas said.
“Yeah, nice show at the final resting for Debra Marie’s baby,” Future said.
“Real nice.”
“Real classy.”
“We know all about your mother, Pony Darlene.”
“She’s a cheater.”
“Yeah, we know all about her rampant cheating.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So jealous of Debra Marie—”
“She had to kill her baby.”
“Then crashing her truck—”
“So she could go to Fully Loaded and get a new one.”
“Any excuse to go to Fully Loaded.”
“Any excuse to see Traps.”
“We know all about your mother.”
“Poaching Traps.”
“We know all about her cheating.”
“But do you?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s such a deep geek.”
“Geek nation.”
“Welcome,” I said.
“Freak nation.”
“Bienvenue.”
“Mental like her mother.”
“Demented like her father.”
“As is,” I said. And I dropped the white pill onto my tongue. And I ripped the five-dollar bill in half. And I threw my bicycle a shockingly far way.
And when Pallas and Future started at me and I didn’t flinch, they turned to each other.
“I might just want to go home and get into my nightpants.”
“Yeah, I’m tired too.”
“Seriously, I did my bloodwork this morning and need some citrus.”
And they left in their matching WANT IT MORE sweatshirts. Their sweatshirts hung down to their knees. Future’s had a laminated pin on it that said, FAINTER. I had the same pin.
WHEN MY MOTHER first led me through the woods and down to the reservoir, I was shaking with terror. I thought I might throw up, and I told her so, and she said, “It makes our life so much better to have this