Stanzi—Tuesday at China’s House
We stop by Gustav’s on our way to China’s house. Gustav always seems so much happier on Tuesdays. He asks, “It’s really getting there, isn’t it?”
I answer, “Wow, Gustav, you did so much in a week.” I run my hand over the red fiberglass and it feels like satisfaction. It feels like something real.
As we walk to her house, China writes three poems about things that are real, and she hands them to me because sometimes she can’t read aloud because she swallowed her mouth with her own mouth. When we get to China’s basement, I read them for the three of us: Lansdale Cruise, China, and myself.
I say, “ ‘How to Tell if Your Quiche Is Real.’ ”
How to Tell If Your Quiche Is Real
We ate quiche that night
Spinach quiche
like a sky full of bird shit.
Bitter like getting fired
even though you did your job
competently.
The quiche is real if it tastes good
with applesauce.
That night, the quiche
was dead.
How to Tell If Your Bed Is Real
Your bed is real if you are safe inside of it.
Your bed is real if you are safe outside of it.
How to Tell If Your Helicopter Is Real
If someone can see it every day,
then there’s a good chance your
helicopter is real.
You don’t ever have to see it yourself.
A matter of faith.
A matter of altitude.
Your helicopter is real if
when you fly it,
the screaming stops.
China’s parents are into something weird. They have a table in their basement that has binding on it. Eye hooks. Places to tie and handcuff. They own whips and crops. They do not own horses.
We try not to think about it as we occupy the other half of the basement and sit in a cloud of awkward silence.
China and I sit there while Lansdale plays with her hair and talks about what it’s like to have sex.
“It’s really good most times,” she says. “Except when the guy smells bad. Or if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” When China and I don’t say anything, she continues. “I mean, some of them don’t know what to really do, but they’re all right.”
China and I went onto a porn site once.
It was so dumb we were bored in under three minutes.
Then we watched a YouTube video about how to build self-esteem in cats.
China wrote this poem later that night.
Your Cat Has More Self-Esteem Than I Do
There are no billboards for cats
advertising feline plastic surgery
feline acne gels
feline gastric bands
feline face-lifts.
There are no commercials about
feline makeup
feline sex toys
feline fashion.
There are porn movies with cats,
but no cats watch them.
After Lansdale leaves, China tells me I should write poetry so I don’t become a boring scientist like Gustav—lacking humor, concerned with only one thing. She says, “The most successful people in history used both sides of their brains.”
I tell her I’m struggling with a poem I have to write for English class.
“You have to show it to me,” she says.
“If I ever manage to write it, I will,” I say. “And Gustav doesn’t lack humor. He’s very funny. You just have to get to know him better.”
She says, “You’re probably right.”
As I walk home, the man jumps out from behind the bush. I let him sell me a glittery letter R. I only leave his bush lair once I straighten myself out. The R is a recycled lunch box, so I open and close it as I walk away. I leave a trail of red glitter like bread crumbs to home.
It’s past eight o’clock. Mama and Pop have left me a note. It says, Gone to bed. TV dinner in freezer. Make sure you turn out the lights.
I don’t know why they continue to write this note. They could just reuse the one they’ve written me every night since I can remember. I have too much homework to watch M*A*S*H yet, so I settle down at the kitchen table and I face it. I get to the worksheet Mr. Bio gave us today about our families.
Fill in the blanks.
Hair and eye color of your parents. Hair and eye color of your grandparents. Hair and eye color of your siblings. The second half of the page asks for medical information. History of cancer? History of heart disease? History of autoimmune disease? History of dying from exploding bombs in school?
There are no questions on the bio worksheet about whether my parents like to visit sites of school shootings. There are no questions about how they take along Ziploc bags of saltine crackers with peanut butter and strawberry jam squished between so the jelly squirms out the tiny holes. No questions about how they picnic in empty, devastated parking lots with the windows rolled down.
There are no questions about being split in two all the time. No questions about my conflicting DNA. No questions about Gustav’s helicopter or where he’s going in it. No questions about the man in the bush who sells letters. No questions about why China swallowed herself or why Lansdale has such impossibly long hair even when she cuts it nearly every day.
Worksheets like this are boring to me. I’m into bigger things now. I’m making a groundbreaking discovery, only I can’t tell anyone yet. I will one day discover an organ that no one ever told us about. Within that unknown part of us lies the cure for guilt. Maybe we can remove it or just touch it the right way, the way acupuncturists stab points and remove headaches. I can’t explain it to you yet, but I know it’s in there somewhere. I can’t really test my theory on frogs or cats or anything because they don’t have feelings, so it will take a human control group. I’ve been thinking I can test it on China and Lansdale, but China is inside out and Lansdale doesn’t seem to be guilty about anything.
I fill out the worksheet the best I can, and then I pull out a blank postcard from Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Greencastle was the site of the Enoch Brown school massacre in 1764. This massacre was brought to you by Pontiac’s War, the rebellion against settlers by Native American tribes in this area of the United States.
I turn the postcard over and write to Gustav.
Dear Gustav, In case you were wondering, I’m glad you married a woman who can see your helicopter on all seven days. I think you deserve that kind of woman. She must be very brave. Love, Stanzi.
Truth is, my name isn’t Stanzi. I only call myself Stanzi after watching the movie Amadeus too many times with Gustav. Truth is, my name doesn’t really matter. I’m a character in a movie. In your book. In your mind. I play tug-of-war. I am a coward and a soldier. I am a pacifist and a warmonger. I am behind the bush with the man who sells letters, and I tell him secrets about who sends bomb threats to our school every day.
So, Stanzi is a pretty name but it’s not mine. Constanze Mozart was a braver woman than I am. She was a braver woman than you are, too, if you’re a woman. If not, she was a braver man.
I dare you to go back to 1779 and be seventeen years old. You would be searching for light switches and toilets. You’d kill for a thermostat. A refrigerator. A telephone. You would pray for at least a 50% survival rate for your babies, and when you were blessed with one who lived through infancy, I bet you would do more than standardize it with tests or plop it in front of the TV.
We are polka-dotted with fungus. We are striped with bacteria. We are all so contaminated we are headed for the looney tunes.
Even choice picks like Gustav and China and me. Even Lansdale, with her talent for going into the bush man’s lair and coming out with a letter at no cost to her. We are the very best you have to offer. Smart. Resilient. Dedicated. Competent.
And Gustav once wore snowshoes so he wouldn’t fuse into the earth. And China has swallowed herself. And Lansdale has lied her hair long. And I am two people shoved into one. None of us will survive.