the real questions. I didn’t make them up.
I am reviewing my answers at our kitchen table. I have the front windows open so that a breeze blows the questionnaire off the table and down to the floor in front of the refrigerator. The paper stays at the bottom of the refrigerator and I remain still. I am beginning to deduce that Scientology is not the same as science at all. The questionnaire scoots across the linoleum in the breeze. It blows beneath the table and I crumple my test underfoot.
Jude is in love with something watery.
My father told me I am a mermaid.
Therefore Jude must be in love with me.
But the above logic is faulty. Lots of things besides me are watery. Alcohol is watery. Water is watery.
I devise my own test. I fill the tub on the third floor. I get in and put my head under the water blowing bubbles. The Test asks, Do you “miss your father” when it rains? Do you stay in this “God-forsaken town” because you think he is still here? Do you only like men who could match your father “drink for drink?” Don’t you know “drinkers” only love drinking? Can you “breathe” underwater? Are you really a mermaid or does it just feel that way in the awkward body of a “teenaged girl?” So I breathe water into my lungs and I wait for my test results.
UNDER
When I surface Jude is there. “Jude,” I try to say, but there is something covering my mouth, a nozzle with oxygen. Jude cannot breathe under the water so I pass him the nozzle of oxygen that is attached to my nose. But he refuses and wraps it again behind my ears. We are not underwater. We are in an ambulance. An EMT is taking my heart rate. I can hear her as she yells, “Sinking! Sinking!” The back doors open and four people carry me into the hospital on this bed. I can’t see much except for the fluorescent lights passing overhead. I’m brought to a small room for more yelling. “Evacuate those lungs! Pump!” one doctor yells. Then I feel a needle enter the vein of my elbow and I don’t remember falling asleep.
When I wake all three of them, Jude, my mother, and my grandfather are there. There is also a doctor. At first it is extremely difficult to open my eyes. The doctor turns to me and can see I am waking up from the drug. The doctor says, “Young lady, what you’ve done is quite serious.” I try to look at him. I can’t quite keep my eyes open, still I can hear what the doctor is saying to my mother. “I don’t understand why she is still alive. Her lungs were sodden, just filled with water. She should be dead,” he says and then, “It’s a miracle.” My mother asks the doctor to leave. My mother wants to save all the scolding she thinks that I deserve for herself.
I am beginning to see what putting my head under the bathwater looks like to them.
My grandfather is holding my chart. He is nervous. “Franklin Gothic,” he says identifying the font they used to print my chart.
My mother looks at me. “Gothic. Right.”
“Momma,” I say and clear my throat. “I wasn’t trying to die.” But she turns away and starts crying.
The drug is making me feel ill. I’d like to leave this place and so I look at my arms and legs under the covers. I am unattached. I try to sit up because I want to leave but my mother stops me. “No,” she says. “You have to stay here.”
When I was young I went down to the pier looking for my father, but I accidentally got on board the wrong boat and fell asleep. The boat was out at sea before the sailors found me. I gave them a big surprise. Three thousand different aquatic life forms are carried daily into new ecosystems by unsuspecting ship’s ballast.
I was scared when I woke on board, surrounded by five sailors. I thought that the captain was a pirate because he had a round bite taken out of his ear. To appease him I told him I’d work to pay for my passage. “What can you do?” he asked and for a long time I had to think. I told him I knew how to set type. He shook his
I am reviewing my answers at our kitchen table. I have the front windows open so that a breeze blows the questionnaire off the table and down to the floor in front of the refrigerator. The paper stays at the bottom of the refrigerator and I remain still. I am beginning to deduce that Scientology is not the same as science at all. The questionnaire scoots across the linoleum in the breeze. It blows beneath the table and I crumple my test underfoot.
Jude is in love with something watery.
My father told me I am a mermaid.
Therefore Jude must be in love with me.
But the above logic is faulty. Lots of things besides me are watery. Alcohol is watery. Water is watery.
I devise my own test. I fill the tub on the third floor. I get in and put my head under the water blowing bubbles. The Test asks, Do you “miss your father” when it rains? Do you stay in this “God-forsaken town” because you think he is still here? Do you only like men who could match your father “drink for drink?” Don’t you know “drinkers” only love drinking? Can you “breathe” underwater? Are you really a mermaid or does it just feel that way in the awkward body of a “teenaged girl?” So I breathe water into my lungs and I wait for my test results.
UNDER
When I surface Jude is there. “Jude,” I try to say, but there is something covering my mouth, a nozzle with oxygen. Jude cannot breathe under the water so I pass him the nozzle of oxygen that is attached to my nose. But he refuses and wraps it again behind my ears. We are not underwater. We are in an ambulance. An EMT is taking my heart rate. I can hear her as she yells, “Sinking! Sinking!” The back doors open and four people carry me into the hospital on this bed. I can’t see much except for the fluorescent lights passing overhead. I’m brought to a small room for more yelling. “Evacuate those lungs! Pump!” one doctor yells. Then I feel a needle enter the vein of my elbow and I don’t remember falling asleep.
When I wake all three of them, Jude, my mother, and my grandfather are there. There is also a doctor. At first it is extremely difficult to open my eyes. The doctor turns to me and can see I am waking up from the drug. The doctor says, “Young lady, what you’ve done is quite serious.” I try to look at him. I can’t quite keep my eyes open, still I can hear what the doctor is saying to my mother. “I don’t understand why she is still alive. Her lungs were sodden, just filled with water. She should be dead,” he says and then, “It’s a miracle.” My mother asks the doctor to leave. My mother wants to save all the scolding she thinks that I deserve for herself.
I am beginning to see what putting my head under the bathwater looks like to them.
My grandfather is holding my chart. He is nervous. “Franklin Gothic,” he says identifying the font they used to print my chart.
My mother looks at me. “Gothic. Right.”
“Momma,” I say and clear my throat. “I wasn’t trying to die.” But she turns away and starts crying.
The drug is making me feel ill. I’d like to leave this place and so I look at my arms and legs under the covers. I am unattached. I try to sit up because I want to leave but my mother stops me. “No,” she says. “You have to stay here.”
When I was young I went down to the pier looking for my father, but I accidentally got on board the wrong boat and fell asleep. The boat was out at sea before the sailors found me. I gave them a big surprise. Three thousand different aquatic life forms are carried daily into new ecosystems by unsuspecting ship’s ballast.
I was scared when I woke on board, surrounded by five sailors. I thought that the captain was a pirate because he had a round bite taken out of his ear. To appease him I told him I’d work to pay for my passage. “What can you do?” he asked and for a long time I had to think. I told him I knew how to set type. He shook his
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