from? My mouth? My bottom? My feet? I long to creep into the bathroom, to cup a hand over my mouth and nose and test my breath for foulness, then to examine my underwear for skid marks. Or is the bad smell inside me, the terrible decaying Camembert of my heart?
"You do. You smell bad and I hate you. Wherever you go you smell bad, you stink up the place, how do you think I like having people think you're my brother? And look at your big nostrils. And you're such a big sissy, you can't even throw a baseball, you throw like a girl, you can't even walk right, you're a gimp. You are. I'm not kidding."
Now it all seems too true. I'm an embarrassment—to my mother, my sister, most of all to myself. I haven't a right to take up the space I occupy. I poison every room I enter.
"Look at your nails," my sister says, grabbing my hand and holding it under my nose for inspection. "You've got black gook under there. You're icky. You really are. It's probably poop. Do you play with your poop. You play with your poop, you play with your poop, you play with your poop...."
I can't get her to shut up or to release my hand. Now she's grabbed a pillow and stuffed it in my face. "Whatsa matter, can't you take it, can't you take it, play with your poop," she's chanting. I turn my head to breathe but she's right there, applying the pillow to my face in this new position. Her terrible words continue, though the pillow muffles the sound. She's planted a knee in my chest to hold me down.
Terrified of suffocating, I push her off in a frantic burst of energy. I grab the nail scissors and stab her in the hand. Blood leaps out. I drop the scissors; they fall to the floor. I'm aghast, an Indian hopping around on one foot with horror, hooting a little war hoot of anguish: "Oh! Oh! Oh!" But she is transformed into a scientist, a doctor. She watches the blood pulse, pool in her palm, finally coagulate. "Neat," she whispers with awe.
By the time our mother returns, I'm exhausted by my tears of repentance. I've been sobbing on the bed, sobbing and sobbing with guilt and fear of punishment. When I hear the door click, I look up. "It was an accident!" I shout. "I hurt her, but it was an accident."
"Oh no, what now! What's going on here?" Mother shouts, throwing her packages on the foot of the bed. My sister alone seems calm. She has bandaged her hand and pinned back her hair and donned a fresh nightgown. She's sitting peacefully under a lamp, reading. She's proud of her wound; it's made her important.
"My baby!" my mother shouts, rushing to my sister's side.
The wound is unbound and revealed. I can tell my mother is confused, since ordinarily I'm the one who's tormented by my sister. I'm ordinarily the sweet soul, too good for this world, too kind for my own good, too gentle, a little lamb. To discover the wolf cub in lamb's skin doesn't suit my mother's preconceptions, the story of our lives she's telling herself. She sits on the edge of the bed, magisterial, coldly rational, suffering disappointment but resolved to appear fair. "Start at the beginning. Tell me everything that happened."
My sister and I compete, we try to outshout each other ("You did, I did not, Yes, you did"). Mother opens a bottle of bourbon and calls room service, ordering ice and seltzer water.
At last our anger and my fear and my sister's spite are spent. We subside into silence. It's my turn to sleep on the floor; tonight my sister and mother will have the twin beds. Defeated, silent, embarrassed, all three of us take turns in the bathroom. Mother is sad. "If only you kids could behave. Just one night. Is it too much to ask? Why do you hate each other so much? Do you hate yourselves? Do you miss your daddy? I miss him. I don't see how a fine man like him could have left me for that cheap—that common, that cheap woman."
As the bottle slowly empties, its brown liquid, like kerosene fueling a lamp, radiates, in words and more words, the intense heat of despair.
The next morning
"You do. You smell bad and I hate you. Wherever you go you smell bad, you stink up the place, how do you think I like having people think you're my brother? And look at your big nostrils. And you're such a big sissy, you can't even throw a baseball, you throw like a girl, you can't even walk right, you're a gimp. You are. I'm not kidding."
Now it all seems too true. I'm an embarrassment—to my mother, my sister, most of all to myself. I haven't a right to take up the space I occupy. I poison every room I enter.
"Look at your nails," my sister says, grabbing my hand and holding it under my nose for inspection. "You've got black gook under there. You're icky. You really are. It's probably poop. Do you play with your poop. You play with your poop, you play with your poop, you play with your poop...."
I can't get her to shut up or to release my hand. Now she's grabbed a pillow and stuffed it in my face. "Whatsa matter, can't you take it, can't you take it, play with your poop," she's chanting. I turn my head to breathe but she's right there, applying the pillow to my face in this new position. Her terrible words continue, though the pillow muffles the sound. She's planted a knee in my chest to hold me down.
Terrified of suffocating, I push her off in a frantic burst of energy. I grab the nail scissors and stab her in the hand. Blood leaps out. I drop the scissors; they fall to the floor. I'm aghast, an Indian hopping around on one foot with horror, hooting a little war hoot of anguish: "Oh! Oh! Oh!" But she is transformed into a scientist, a doctor. She watches the blood pulse, pool in her palm, finally coagulate. "Neat," she whispers with awe.
By the time our mother returns, I'm exhausted by my tears of repentance. I've been sobbing on the bed, sobbing and sobbing with guilt and fear of punishment. When I hear the door click, I look up. "It was an accident!" I shout. "I hurt her, but it was an accident."
"Oh no, what now! What's going on here?" Mother shouts, throwing her packages on the foot of the bed. My sister alone seems calm. She has bandaged her hand and pinned back her hair and donned a fresh nightgown. She's sitting peacefully under a lamp, reading. She's proud of her wound; it's made her important.
"My baby!" my mother shouts, rushing to my sister's side.
The wound is unbound and revealed. I can tell my mother is confused, since ordinarily I'm the one who's tormented by my sister. I'm ordinarily the sweet soul, too good for this world, too kind for my own good, too gentle, a little lamb. To discover the wolf cub in lamb's skin doesn't suit my mother's preconceptions, the story of our lives she's telling herself. She sits on the edge of the bed, magisterial, coldly rational, suffering disappointment but resolved to appear fair. "Start at the beginning. Tell me everything that happened."
My sister and I compete, we try to outshout each other ("You did, I did not, Yes, you did"). Mother opens a bottle of bourbon and calls room service, ordering ice and seltzer water.
At last our anger and my fear and my sister's spite are spent. We subside into silence. It's my turn to sleep on the floor; tonight my sister and mother will have the twin beds. Defeated, silent, embarrassed, all three of us take turns in the bathroom. Mother is sad. "If only you kids could behave. Just one night. Is it too much to ask? Why do you hate each other so much? Do you hate yourselves? Do you miss your daddy? I miss him. I don't see how a fine man like him could have left me for that cheap—that common, that cheap woman."
As the bottle slowly empties, its brown liquid, like kerosene fueling a lamp, radiates, in words and more words, the intense heat of despair.
The next morning
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