You began to speak, thinking maybe you could just explain it all over again. All you wanted them to understand was that it wasn't as impossible as it sounded.
* * *
"Purple Rain? No shit," your thirty-five year old step brother said turning up the dial on his car radio. "Back in the eighties I would always have dad rent me this when I went over on weekends. Until he bought it for me on my birthday." You tried to look interested like your mother had told you to. Console him in those little victories, because really that's all the guy's got. "I've still got it if you wanna borrow--naw you wouldn't have a VHS player anyway. Forget it." He turned up the volume some more and you watched his face as he tried to send himself back away from this hopeless vector his life had been stuck on for the last going on twenty years, you estimated. You had recently begun learning about vectors from a text book your grandmother bought you from a second hand book sale out the front of the library where she always took you to meet her friends who never looked all that clean. Like they weren't anyone's grandma. It wasn't like you were going to grow up to be some genius though.
Your sbro dropped you at school and he was meant to pick you up that afternoon with Rodney Doon, but who knows he probably had an important job interview at the last minute right? Anyway he didn't show (it was drugs and then 14+ hours of floorsleep), but Rodney wasn't phased he said he had something cool in his backpack and you should both definitely go to the toilets and check it out.
Now Rodney Doon was not a trouble maker and even though he lived with his uncle and aunt they weren't weird or anything in fact they didn't have kids of their own so there wasn't even that bad feeling of inadequacy for him to deal with. And his birthday parties were always pretty normal, but not too normal that if you pushed hard against the wrong part of the living room wall you'd wind up spending your embittered adolescence hunting down the guy who swapped out your liver for a Brillo pad. Nonetheless you remained trepid about the whole thing; if your step dad had taught you anything, it was how people could be, and that that was never an easy thing to see most of the time. You were afraid that he was going to put you in some terrible situation with pornos or cigarettes or spin the bottle. One of those situations where you'd come off no less than an absolute retard in front of everybody. No wonder you were always last picked.
Your sbro dropped you at school and he was meant to pick you up that afternoon with Rodney Doon, but who knows he probably had an important job interview at the last minute right? Anyway he didn't show (it was drugs and then 14+ hours of floorsleep), but Rodney wasn't phased he said he had something cool in his backpack and you should both definitely go to the toilets and check it out.
Now Rodney Doon was not a trouble maker and even though he lived with his uncle and aunt they weren't weird or anything in fact they didn't have kids of their own so there wasn't even that bad feeling of inadequacy for him to deal with. And his birthday parties were always pretty normal, but not too normal that if you pushed hard against the wrong part of the living room wall you'd wind up spending your embittered adolescence hunting down the guy who swapped out your liver for a Brillo pad. Nonetheless you remained trepid about the whole thing; if your step dad had taught you anything, it was how people could be, and that that was never an easy thing to see most of the time. You were afraid that he was going to put you in some terrible situation with pornos or cigarettes or spin the bottle. One of those situations where you'd come off no less than an absolute retard in front of everybody. No wonder you were always last picked.
* * *
There were no drugs in his backpack or anything like that and thank god it didn't involve his penis, or Laura Malcorn tied up in one of the stalls--though it excited you more than just a little bit to think about. You weren't exactly sure why.
Rodney Doon produced a stick, it was thick and old and didn't look like it came from any of those eucalypts from around the playground, the ones that made you tight in the chest with their piercing aroma every time you were made to do laps along the perimeter. At one end the wood had ruptured out into what looked like a mangled hand, and Rodney waved it in your face, running it across your cheek. You squirmed like a little girl and almost took a step back into the piss trough. "Careful." Rodney Doon said. "That's not clean. What do you think I've got this for?"
Rodney Doon produced a stick, it was thick and old and didn't look like it came from any of those eucalypts from around the playground, the ones that made you tight in the chest with their piercing aroma every time you were made to do laps along the perimeter. At one end the wood had ruptured out into what looked like a mangled hand, and Rodney waved it in your face, running it across your cheek. You squirmed like a little girl and almost took a step back into the piss trough. "Careful." Rodney Doon said. "That's not clean. What do you think I've got this for?"
* * *
Your mother was in a heightened state of panic after she failed to make contact with your unconscious pseudo-sibling. Rushing through school zones at reckless velocities she pulled up where you would normally be waiting, then she ran to the main office and began shrieking at admin ladies working late who weren't being paid to give a shit about the state of anybody's children. She found the principal still in the parking lot, and together they searched the buildings.
By the time they found you, Rodney had already stepped over to the other side and you were waiting for...well you weren't exactly sure but you assumed his hand would just appear through the metal of the urinal, that he would pass you back the old stick and let you trace out your own portal to join him.
By the time they found you, Rodney had already stepped over to the other side and you were waiting for...well you weren't exactly sure but you assumed his hand would just appear through the metal of the urinal, that he would pass you back the old stick and let you trace out your own portal to join him.
* * *
Some kid found the old stick along the fence line while doing laps for the fun run. It was covered in blood which belonged to Rodney Doon, and after that, day and night, they didn't stop asking you questions. They figured if they kept you awake you eventually would say that you beat him dead with it. There were your foot prints at the scene. But there was no body.
Your step dad left your mum and you never saw him or his son ever again. Your mum never got mad at you, and she never went quiet on you like Rodney once did when you played operation on his cat's guts with some antique medical equipment his uncle was so proud of, displaying it behind glass in the main hallway as you came in to hang up your coat. How easy it had been to pick that stupid lock. Your mum loved you the same until one day when you were old enough to be on your own she left the gas on in the kitchen so that when you came home and slammed the front door the way you always did it would spark the flint she had placed in the gap so carefully.
There was no body, and her story was better than an enchanted urinal trough, but still she did not fare as well as you had in the Principal's office that day.
Your step dad left your mum and you never saw him or his son ever again. Your mum never got mad at you, and she never went quiet on you like Rodney once did when you played operation on his cat's guts with some antique medical equipment his uncle was so proud of, displaying it behind glass in the main hallway as you came in to hang up your coat. How easy it had been to pick that stupid lock. Your mum loved you the same until one day when you were old enough to be on your own she left the gas on in the kitchen so that when you came home and slammed the front door the way you always did it would spark the flint she had placed in the gap so carefully.
There was no body, and her story was better than an enchanted urinal trough, but still she did not fare as well as you had in the Principal's office that day.
