Recreation

By Katie Manderfield

The first time was in the back seat of Goon’s car. I had never smelled anything like it. It was a good smell, but not as good as everyone said. It smelled like dead bugs and stale perfume. Me and Jess sat in back, trying to converse with frantic eyes and subdued hand gestures, avoiding Goon’s glare from the rearview mirror. Her eyes shot me a hard steady ‘no fucking way’. Way. I shouted, a little too loudly, over the erratic bass, “Yeah, I’ll try it.” The smoke filled my lungs. My head clouded. The music was too loud. Jess’ face was funny, but not on purpose.

I had heard about it. The older kids did it in between classes. My freshman ears perked when the word pierced the still hallways, like a curse word on the playground. I watched them arch their eyebrows at each other, giddy laughs hidden behind paranoid glances. They went into the bathroom in turns, as if they were awaiting a drunken blow job at a party. They came out together, excited, prancing; all maniac- like. Once I saw Jeremy’s nose explode with fresh blood outside the gym. I think it scared him. I know it scared me. Trip asked me if I’d done it while we smoked a cigarette on the loading dock. I said a little. He believed me. We used the handicap bathroom and a crumpled twenty. I did a lot. It felt better than pot, cleaner than alcohol, older than fourteen. I arched my eyebrows at the kids after us. I hoped my nose wouldn’t bleed. I wished Trip would stop talking about the new Eminem Cd. No, I didn’t know. I said I did. I said anything I could; I just couldn’t say it fast enough.

The smoke was a different color. It was thick and seductive. It smelled better than pot. Tim handed me the pipe. I didn’t like how April was looking at me. I looked at Tim’s eyes and they were still; like he was stuck in a photo while the rest of us were in a video. I thought that was a stupid thing to think and I took a hit. My head was on the grass and my eyes felt like medicine balls. Everything felt low. I reached my hand to the ceiling. I thought I touched it. We were outside. The bonfire was creeping too close. I said I felt Asian and everyone laughed. “They sure know their drugs, don’t they?” Tim laughed creepily. Maybe it wasn’t creepy. I pretended not to hear him as I checked my phone for missed calls.

Dave looked stupid. Usually he looked good. His eyes didn’t bulge well. No one looks good blowing. His face was like the balloon, stretched out and cold. My hands were cold. The cigarette was done, so was Dave. He laughed like an idiot. I looked around the field, worried that a mother would jog by. My heels were hard to run in. Dave handed me a pink balloon–”Pink–for a girl.” I wasn’t a girl. I took the balloon and the cold air forced itself down my throat and out my mouth. I wanted there to be smoke, but there wasn’t. I blew the balloon back in, wondering if I could die from the carbon monoxide. I exhaled and looked at the cigarette on the ground. I had never laughed so hard in my life. I did a third and rubbed my gloves together. The cold balloon air had frosted them. I wished the laugh would last longer; the inside of my cheeks hurt.

I wore it like a badge of honor. I heard other kids talking about theirs. Jeff laughed and said it was the lowest he’d seen. I took it as a compliment. “You have to work hard to do that bad”. I looked down at it again. The low number had been circled with a red pen; academic probation. We met up with Lenny and Drew in the parking lot. They all laughed when they saw it. I knew they were laughing at me, but so was I. My smile faded when I saw my mother’s car in the parking lot. She wasn’t supposed to be there; she never was. She left work early. She saw my friends laughing. I laughed in her direction. Her eyes narrowed and found the paper in my hands. I shook my head and strode over to the car. I thrust it towards her. My smile was mean. It was the first time her eyes didn’t soften when she looked at me.

Calvin pulled up to Birdy Land. It was the only place the cops couldn’t come–you needed an SUV to get up there. I had a crush on Calvin: I didn’t talk to him when I was high. He said I was too quiet. I wish I could have said I wasn’t. His friends had been around the fire, white hands gripping blue beer cans. Something smelled horrible. “God, what is that?” I asked. Calvin laughed. “You don’t want to know”. He didn’t know how much I did. Tyler pointed to his joint. “It’s this.” He exhaled violently, his coughs raw like dry heaves. His eyes were too red. It smelled like shoe polish or nail polish remover– I couldn’t decide. His eyes rolled backwards as he passed it to me. It was the first thing I smoked that made a sound. It sounded like white noise or Pop Rocks. It smelled like shit. Calvin laughed and said that’s what they called it, Shit Shit. The smoke tasted old; like leather or the mothball smell of my attic. It felt like my tonsils were being rubbed with fiberglass. I took four more hits. The joint jumped from my hand to Calvin’s. They were watching me. I was watching the fire. The trees grew next to me. Were they angry? No of course not. Calvin laughed. I said I wanted to run around. So did they. We ran around the bonfire, laughing, kicking rocks. Calvin kissed my mouth as I rubbed the rocks into the palms of my hands. He tasted like formaldehyde. His tongue flopped around inside my mouth like an eel trapped in shallow water. His eyes went from two to four to two again. I felt invincible. I put my foot into the fire and laughed when the air bubble from my sneaker burst. I was supposed to be at volleyball practice. As we got into the car to leave, I was still fucked up. We pulled into my driveway and the lights from my house looked liked an angry face. My parents were home. Shit. Shit.

Her office reminded me of an after school special. I hated the parachute poster, but I always looked at it. This time was different. I didn’t see the poster. I was crying. I told her I wanted her to fix my grades. I asked her to tell my teachers I was going through a lot of things. She pulled out the forged notes. Fifty-two. She smiled sadly and said I broke a school record. She held out the brochure and I didn’t take it. My mother was on the phone. Her smile told me all I needed to know.

The trees stood above me and the forest stretched out like an exaggerated yawn. Lauren was high. I wasn’t. I smoked the last of her pot. She didn’t care. I still wasn’t high. I stole sixty-three dollars from the girls locker room. We drove to Bridgeport to buy alcohol. I told her I only had thirty. She believed me. She spoke to me like I was dying. I sort of felt like I was. I wished she would have had coke. I was already drunk when we got to Jason’s house. He had an R.V. in his backyard and I didn’t think that was weird. I thought it was weird that he lived inside it. He looked older than last time I saw him and I saw him two days ago. I asked if he was tired. I lost my balance and flopped onto the pillows. I gave him the thirty when Lauren went to the bathroom. I didn’t inject it, but I wanted to. He told me that this wasn’t for injecting. It felt good, like satisfying an itch in the back of your throat with the rough of your tongue. My blood felt warm. I felt like the music. My parents were here. I didn’t care. I smiled when I saw their angry faces in the doorway of the R.V. I fell asleep on the car ride home.

My mother kept making the appointments even though I never showed up. The only time I went, he called me a spoiled brat and told me to apologize. I yelled at him as my mother blew her nose loudly. My father dabbed at his eyes with a balled-up Kleenex. My brother said he didn’t like me anymore. I said I didn’t like any of them. The doctor said this was typical behavior. I told him not to call me typical. He said I was angry. I was, but it wasn’t because my parents were never home. It wasn’t because I wanted attention. It wasn’t genetic. It wasn’t because I had teenage angst or raging hormones. It wasn’t because of September 11th or peer pressure or anything. I didn’t have anxiety or depression or ADD. I had never even heard of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I cried becuase I didn’t have a defense, not because I cared. I said he should stop telling me who I was even though I didn’t know myself. I apologized for coming and never went back. I ripped up my mother’s weekly reminders. One time I drove by his office and her car was parked outside. I drove back by an hour later and she was still waiting.

My window was hard to climb out of. I always thought I was going to die. I didn’t have anything with me, but a one hundred dollar bill folded three ways stuck in the top of my underwear. Mike came and pulled up to the driveway. His music was off like I told him. Mike liked me and I didn’t like that. I don’t remember the car ride, but I know it was uncomfortable. We ended up at Tim’s. I was too high to stand Mike anymore. His eyes saw me in a way that made my stomach feel uneasy. I was too happy to see Tim. We were sitting on his ugly bedspread. He grabbed the pills from his night stand and presented them in his calloused hand to me. I took one without question. Tim and Mike had a melancholic way about them. In thirty-five minutes I felt warm and romantic. Tim and Mike weren’t saying anything. All I thought were soft, sweet things. They sat on the bed and watched it consume me. I felt like a movie star. I laughed at things that I had to have known weren’t funny. I loved Tim’s room, his blankets, his pictures of his dog. I couldn’t stop touching my hair and Mike was funny, attractive, underneath me. I let them both.

I forgot. I came back from Sarah’s house high and hungover. Ryan pulled into the driveway and asked if I was having some sort of party. I looked wearily to my backyard. The MoonBounce was deflating. A snow-cone machine was being cleaned out. I sighed and asked if he had any. We did three bumps. I searched the car and grabbed an old pack of gum from the backseat. When I got inside, I was excited enough to see him. He asked why I had missed his birthday. I gave him the pack of gum. I didn’t care that he didn’t smile. I told him being six was the best. He was seven. I talked to him about his party until he said he didn’t want to talk anymore. He said I talked too fast to keep up. I asked about his party, his presents, his cake. I asked him what he wished for. He said another sister and ran upstairs.

It was the only time I thought I ever came close. I looked at Mark embarrassed; I hadn’t ever done it. He was surprised. So was I. He said it was weird because one’s an upper and one’s a downer. I told him I’d done both, just not together. I asked him what speed had to do with it. He said it was because you feel like a car just sped over you. I didn’t tell him that that didn’t sound like fun. He said he did three balls a day. I said that’s a lot and I meant it. He said before you do it, you pick up the phone and dial nine and then dial one, then you blow it. He said he never needed to dial the other one. We did two back to back. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach and then in the head. I couldn’t move. It felt like how French words sounded. It was peaceful and quiet and comfortable. It was so nice it scared me. The quiet was so silent that I wondered if my heart had stopped and my lungs had failed. Then I felt numb and nothing. I could see my thoughts in my head as I had them, even though they didn’t make sense. Somewhere far off, Mark said I didn’t look so good. I didn’t look at anything except my hands. They felt so good and free. And my stomach hurt and my head hurt but my mind felt relieved. My hands still felt like silk. Then they felt nothing and I felt nothing. I woke up on his garage floor the next afternoon.

I knew it was coming: They took me at three in the morning. That’s how they do it. I wasn’t scared. I had been expecting it. They didn’t bust in like I thought they would. Four guys total. They told me to be quiet and do what they say. I was impressed my parents actually went through with it. The whole thing seemed sort of barbaric and inhumane. They told me I couldn’t say good-bye. It was alright because I didn’t want to. They weren’t as mean as everybody said. The biggest guy explained that it was his job; they wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t think I’d felt it even if they did. He said I was getting help. I told him I was giving up. I tried to grab a blanket, but my arms wouldn’t cooperate. The car smelled like cigarettes and white Tic Tacs. I was glad it was too dark to see their faces. I lit a cigarette without asking. I rolled the window down the whole way. I wanted to shiver. We drove past the middle school. Past Binky Land. Past Calvin’s car parked in Chelsea’s driveway. I asked them where we were going. I didn’t expect an answer anyway. The guy driving tapped his fingers on the dash and it didn’t bother me. It was the first sunrise I saw that wasn’t special.

Before getting out, the guy in the backseat tried to force a pill into my mouth. I told him I’d take it voluntarily. I asked for five more please. He laughed until he saw I was serious. They came with me all the way to the gate. I wondered how they got the clearance. Everyone looked at me like I was a fuck-up. Except the little kid outside the newsstand who mistook my infamy for importance. The look on my face should have told him different. It’s weird getting on a plane with nothing. There were only 20 people onboard. I went to the bathroom and by the time I sat down, the sedative had kicked in. Right before I drifted to sleep, the pilot announced it was 31 degrees in Salt Lake.

It looked like Mars. I wished I had someone to say that to. Utah looked more boring than I had thought. Another group of guys met me outside the gate. They all looked the same. I barely remember the drive to Idaho. I was still groggy from the pill. I nodded off and woke up as the door opened and closed behind me. A dirty, rugged woman grabbed me roughly by the arm and took me behind a large shed. I was stripped from head to toe. They had to make sure I didn’t bring anything in. I wished I would have thought to. My clothes were thrown in a large black garbage bag. I looked out behind me and saw nothing but bushes and dirt and old snow. Canyons protruded from the dusty Earth like knarled, knuckly, fingers. The lady explained that I couldn’t talk to anyone for a week. She gave me the bedroll, the stiff boots, the green wool sweater with a German flag on it, the wool pants. She said it was all World War II surplus. I felt like a criminal. I wondered why I had to feel like a nazi too. She pushed me onto a trail and told me to set up camp where I see fit. I didn’t know what she meant, but she was gone before I could ask her. Her dusty truck trailed away, leaving me in axis-power clothing with a tarp backpack at my feet. The strangeness of the sweater scared me. The pants were almost too heavy to stand in: When I touched them I thought of the installation in my basement. I tried not to touch them too much. I sat on the ground. I cried after reading the pamphlet she gave me. Six weeks out there would surely kill me. I screamed for help and someone far away said it would get better. I screamed again and all I heard was the silent snowfall. I struggled to understand the manual. I burnt the rice and lentils everytime I made them; I made them at every meal. It took me two days before I could set up the tent. I slept in the snow, praying for warmth and sweating out drugs. I think I cried for five days before anybody came by.

Then you wake up. And you never really left the back seat of Goon’s car. You’re “better” but you’ve never felt worse. You know what you’re missing, but for some reason you forget why you’re missing it. So you blame them. They gave you an excuse you can’t use in their absence. If only they hadn’t been so seductive, so friendly, so good . You wish you could take it all back, but you don’t know who you are without them. You wish they hadn’t have been so fucking easy to get, so simple to do. You wish you wouldn’t have been so easy a target. You wish you had someone to blame. You wish you would have hugged your parents good bye. You wish your younger brother wasn’t scared of you. You wish you could get to a place where you were no longer scared of yourself. You wish you could blow just one more line. You wish you could and maybe you do.