I am China, the walking colon. I’m still not as full of shit as Lansdale is, but if you can overlook her knack for storytelling, she’s all right.
And she’s got a photographic memory, which makes her an ally.
Or a superhero. I can’t figure out which.
She’s helping me because she told me she heard everything from Irenic Brown’s dumbass friends. She asked if Stanzi was any help to me and I didn’t answer because Lansdale can’t replace Stanzi. Lansdale can give me one kind of help. Stanzi has given me science.
Stanzi and I have counted the number of Irenic’s girlfriends since me, and I watch them during the drills. There have been at least ten girlfriends. They look different now, too. None of them are internal organs on legs, though. Not that anyone can tell from the outside.
They all thought he loved them. I know that for sure. Tamaqua de la Cortez told me this is how it’s done. He’s always the first one to say I love you. He’d say it quickly. Suddenly. As if it slipped out in an embarrassing moment of sincere emotion.
No girlfriend would
call the police
about it.
That’s the best part.
You act confused.
She acts confused.
You do it.
Strong and deaf.
Like you can’t hear
her saying no
please
stop.
Pin her down but
leave no mark.
She can’t figure out
what you just did.
She can’t figure out
if it’s her fault
or your fault
or nobody’s fault
the answers
you slip out of her life
and tell her that it
wasn’t
really
working.
If she wanted
she could go to the
hospital and they could
find you inside.
Up there.
In the dark.
But all you have
to say is
she was my girlfriend
and she’s pissed I
broke up with her.
Lansdale comes up to me before homeroom. She hands me the stack of papers with the bush man’s letters written on them.
“We’re golden,” she says.
I nod.
“Do you think Stanzi needs these, too?” she asks.
“Stanzi doesn’t cheat,” I say. She doesn’t. Stanzi’s guilt complex is far too large. It’s bigger than Jupiter, and Jupiter is 43,441 miles in radius. It’s something we have in common, only we never talk about it.
Lansdale shrugs and asks if I wrote any new poems. I show her this one:
They write your name and
date of birth in the rectangles
at the top of the page
and if your name doesn’t fit
they will change it.
You are student number 202876.
Your scores indicate that
while you may worry about things
that happened in your past,
you are just fine.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about half the time,” Lansdale says. She stops to tie up a new, long strand of hair that only appeared since the last time I saw her. “But I still think you’re cool.”
I look through the stack of papers she gave me with the bush man’s letters on them, and I don’t know how I’m going to memorize these in three hours. She can memorize anything. It’s how she maintains near normalcy while being a pathological liar.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s easy to remember this kind of shit. Just make sentences out of them.” She seems distracted and she pulls out another paper, hands it to me, and says, “Look what I found on the kitchen table this morning. My stepmom left it.”
Since in or about 2014 until the
current time, defendant has
failed to offer
companionship
or affection as if in a healthy relationship.
Despite plaintiff’s exertions in this regard,
defendant has
rejected
discussion about said issues with
plaintiff. Due to this
extreme
cruelty
toward the plaintiff, there is no
solution except to dissolve the marriage.
Lansdale looks a mix of angry and nonplussed. She says, “She used to tell us stories about her ex and how cruel he was. Now I know she was just full of shit.”
Lansdale has to go to class. I give her the divorce paper, and when it’s gone I feel the need to sanitize my hands in case it spreads.