SUPERNOVA

IFIRST READ ABOUT YOUR OFF-BROADWAY SHOW in Babbling ’Bout Brooke. The article said you were playing a college student coming to terms with your sexually abusive father. There would be a confrontation scene where you remove your shirt and bra in front of him. Everyone would soon be talking about it, some of your fans balking, How dare you break the wall around your character! Jaymie Jo would never do anything that aggressive! They were so ridiculous.

The play was set to begin previews at a theatre on the first of June, two days before my eighteenth birthday, and would run through the middle of July. Six weeks plus rehearsal time was all the World producers would give you in New York. They’d constructed a special set and geared the plot toward your joining the conflicted Father Brody in the monastery. The controlled environment would save you both from animal passion. If that didn’t work, Father Brody was going to leave the priesthood.

As soon as I could I ordered a ticket to the first performance with my credit card and went into the city to check out the theatre, hoping I might run into you. There was another play up, and the lady at the box office told me nobody rehearsed in the same place they were going to perform. Bad luck or something.The night of the show, I drove into the city and parked my car in a garage across the street from the theatre. Having an hour to kill, I dropped into a diner with pink neon stars in the window, sat down at the counter, and ordered a cup of coffee, which tasted like motor oil. I opened four packs of sugar and mixed them with the grainy liquid. An old man next to me dribbled pea soup down his chin and mumbled into his bowl, “… It’s a hoax … blah, blah, romantic love, who cares? … Nothing to be so damn proud of …” I turned away from him, trying to concentrate on the specials scrawled on a blackboard in front of me. But it was hard. He was loud and, from what I could tell, drunk. He’d had it up to here with love. I brushed the side of my parachute pants, the pair I always wore into the city, checking for my gun.

A few years earlier, there was a man who carried a gun when he rode the subways. One day he shot four boys who he said were trying to rob him. A boy was partially paralyzed. The man was white, the boys black. The media took the man’s side, saying we had to be aware of menacing urban youth. People started talking about rising crime and violence. They were frustrated and afraid. Jack wanted Nancy to take a self-defense class. She came into the city a lot on her own and should be able to protect herself.

When I met Edie, about a year later, she said my father’s response had been racist. She said we had to beware of white people with guns. Before she got the life knocked out of her in Los Angeles. Nobody was safe anymore.

I remembered a joke Jack liked to tell:

What’s the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?

A Republican’s a Democrat who’s been mugged.

I put a dollar on the counter for my coffee and jumped off the stool. The old man grabbed my arm. I grunted and flinched away, my heart speeding. Fucking lunatic was lucky. I was armed and so far still a Democrat, even though I hadn’t voted.

“Hey!” the man called out. “Hey you! I’m talking to you.” I turned and he stared right at me, crusty green soup caught in his stubbled chin. “You can’t have real love if you don’t have children!”

“Settle down, Jimmy,” pleaded the woman behind the counter.

I got out of there as quickly as I could and ran to the theatre. A young woman led me to my seat and handed me a Playbill. I read and reread your bio until the lights dimmed and the curtain opened. You were the last of the cast to be introduced, although everyone had been talking about your character before you got onstage. There were all kinds of little plots involving friends and lovers. I was bored to tears until the second act when you confronted your father. Removing your shirt was a big mistake. A few people gasped. A man stood up and his chair creaked loudly. Everyone turned toward him, a few people said shush. He stormed out. You kept up your monologue. Crying like the biggest crybaby in the world. I can see how you got the part, having been through all those teary-eyed scenes on World, but I was sorry you’d taken it. How could you stand there half naked in public? I knew you were acting, I wasn’t that naïve, but it was your body, your silken flesh and nipples glaring like pink neon stars before hundreds of prying eyes. My Playbill slipped from my lap, and I bent down to get it, incurring the wrath of the shushers. “I dropped my Playbill,” I whispered.

“SHUSH!”

I didn’t make another sound until you came out for two curtain calls and I screamed my lungs out. Despite the nudity, I was so proud of you. I decided to hang around and wait after the show. The lobby was clearing out, so I asked a man in a blue velvet vest where I could find your dressing room. “Behind the stage,” he said. “But you can’t go back there.”

“I’d like to see Brooke.”

“You and half the city.”

“But …” I wanted to explain who I was but suddenly thought better of it; he’d never understand.

“If you go around the building and turn up Ninth Avenue, you’ll see an alley that leads to the stage door. That’s as close as you’re gonna get to Brooke Harrison.”

“Thanks,” I said. Maybe he understood more than I knew.

I left the theatre and followed his directions. Ninth Avenue was bustling with skanky restaurants, homeless men with grimy faces begging for quarters, heavy foot traffic heading for Port Authority. Ever since I was a kid I’d heard stories of girls stepping off buses from places like Iowa and being forced into prostitution. There was even a TV movie about it. But it never seemed that dangerous to me. Just dirty. I passed a couple of theatres, a steakhouse that bled a smoked-meat scent into the streets, then came to the alley, where I turned and saw a group of people, mostly young girls, women, and a few men who looked like fathers, waiting by the stage door. A few weeks ago, in a TV interview you’d said it was difficult always meeting the demands of your fans. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my fans, but sometimes it’s a bit of a strain,” you said. “I mean, John walks down the street and he’s John Strong, but me, I’m Jaymie Jo Rheinhart.” You said when you were in Italy last summer with your family, a busload of American girls chased you around the Vatican. They wanted to take pictures and hug you. You said people always put their arms around you because they see all these crazy things happen to you every day and they feel bad, which you could understand but it wasn’t too cool. So in Italy, you were like, “Can’t you see I’m on vacation? I’m with my family.” But it didn’t matter. Because to them you were just Jaymie Jo in a foreign country.

You were not going to be happy with this scene. I tried to break through the crowd and get closer to the stage door to warn you, but it was no use. Nobody would budge, not even the fathers who clutched their rolled Playbills and looked up at the electrified sky, trying to pretend they weren’t standing in an alley waiting for a soap star. I turned and bolted down Ninth Avenue to the parking lot, where I paid the attendant, and he brought me my Saab. Windows open, I chain-smoked as I sped home along the L.I.E. in the warm June night, thinking I would return in a few days and see if the crowds outside had died down.

Any theatre lover will tell you that you can often catch the second act of a show for free since the ushers never check tickets after intermission. I’d learned this from my mother, who once pointed to a lady sitting next to me at Grease, where the seat had been empty during the first act. Nancy was appalled. She said if you didn’t have the money for a ticket you had no business being at the theatre. Your show had a sold-out run, thanks to reviews as good as the producers had anticipated. There was even talk about extending a few weeks. But I still managed to sneak in a couple of times after intermission and find a seat, Nancy be damned. Once, I got as far up as the second row, where I could see the beige makeup running down your temples and noticed your arms were full of bruises. They must have come from all of the thrashing around you did on stage. The role was just as physically demanding as your exorcism had been.

Two weeks into the run, I cut my last classes on Wednesday to see if I could scalp a ticket for the matinee or at least secondact it. I thought I might have better luck catching you afterwards on a weekday. I took the train in to avoid rush hour coming back and arrived at the theatre a bit early. There was nobody at the box office, but the front doors were open so I walked inside. I went to the bathroom and pumped sweet-smelling soap into my palms, then ran it through my hair to tame the waves. Outside, a man was setting up the small bar, and I could hear rustling coming from the box office. I needed a cigarette, but didn’t want to leave the building. I thought maybe I could first-act the play. Sneak inside and shirk the ushers until the curtain went up. I was already in the building, why leave and have to buy a ticket?

I ducked behind the bar, toward the side of the balcony. There was a red Exit sign hanging above a door, which was open slightly and seemed to lead to a stairwell. I walked to the door and pushed it slowly. The spring creaked, and it sounded menacing, like an Abbott and Costello movie. I imagined a mummy on the other side. My breath came faster, ghoulish faces flashed through my mind. Only the gun in the side pocket of my pants calmed me as I pushed the door all the way back and walked into the gray cement stairwell. The walls were dark and floors dotted with cigarette butts. I’d stumbled upon the right place. I turned my head and there you were, sitting on the grated metal stairs with your head folded between your legs.

I gasped.

You looked up, barely registering me, then put your head back in between your legs and stared down at the step beneath you. Sweat poured from my armpits, down my back, between my legs, and I felt as if my head might explode from the pounding. I didn’t know what to say, wasn’t prepared, and could not for the life of me move. You picked through your hair with your fingertips, as if you were braiding, and when you got down to one single strand you yanked it from your head with a snap. There were stray hairs around you. I stood, fascinated you could do this in front of me as easily as you could take off your bra on stage. At least it was me who found you and not someone who wouldn’t understand. My pulse slowed and I stopped sweating, but my neck and lungs felt heavier than normal. It’s stupid but I wanted to weep. I’m not sure how long we stayed, you weaving and picking, and me watching, before the man in the blue vest who’d led me to the stage door the other night came through the stairwell and saw you sitting there. “Ms. Harrison, Sampson’s been looking all over for you,” he said, bending down in front of you. “He’s got your notes from last night.” You didn’t respond, not even to ask what notes, which is what I wanted to know, but when he offered you a hand, you shoved it away and slowly leaned up against the wall. “I’m sorry,” he said, then pivoted closer to me. “And what are you doing in here?” He sniffed the air. “Ugh! You were smoking. How many times do we have to talk about this? Smoking in the back office only. Now go on in and get your vest from Tabitha, and we’ll forget it this time.”

I was too flummoxed to ask what vest and couldn’t take my eyes off you. You held one palm against the wall and swayed toward what must have been your dressing room. I was about to turn around and run from the building before this guy realized I wasn’t who he thought I was, when I saw the suede flask on the stairs where you’d been sitting. I kneeled down and picked it up. It reeked of alcohol. “Give me that!” The man yanked it from my hand. “Now, go on, go. I know we don’t pay you, but that doesn’t mean you can break any rule you want. Tabitha’s already opened the house.”

“Okay,” I said, and followed him out. But before we left the stairwell, I swept my hands over the step where you’d been sitting and grabbed a few strands of your hair.

In the lobby, a couple of people stood by the bar, waiting for someone to appear behind it. Others clustered in small groups. We tracked down Tabitha, a bleach-blond woman with a waxy yellow face who must have been about Nancy’s age, and when the man in the vest went to introduce me, he apologized for forgetting my name.

“It’s Edie,” I said.

“Of course, Edie,” he said. “We had you here a couple of weeks ago.”

I nodded.

“Must’uv missed you.” Tabitha grabbed my hand and shook it hard. “A blessing you’re here today, though. Two other girls canceled. I’ll have to take the balcony myself. Follow me.”

A bunch of keys hung from her belt loop, jingling as she waddled toward a musty room with a cluttered desk and stacks and stacks of Playbills on the floor. There were a few shelves on the wall, separated into little boxes. Some were empty, some had blue vests, T-shirts, and other clothes. “Do you remember what size we gave you?” Tabitha asked.

“Large,” I said. It had to be big enough to fit over the blue Oxford I was wearing. She reached up and grabbed a vest. “Do you need a T-shirt?”

“I don’t think so.”

She looked me over. “Oh yes you do. Only white under blue, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” I looked down at my clothes, “I remember.”

She handed me the vest and T-shirt, which was wrapped in plastic, and pointed to a stack of Playbills. “Grab a batch after you change, put your clothes in a cubby, and don’t forget to shut the door behind you. Lotta sticky fingers around here, if you catch my drift.” She whispered the last line with her head down, as if she were confiding in me.

I nodded and started unbuttoning my shirt, thinking how funny it was to be removing my clothes in this theatre the same way you did every night. Tabitha left. I finished undressing and ripped the T-shirt out of its wrapping. It smelled like new cotton and was stiff against my skin. When I lifted the blue vest, I noticed a cigarette burn near the left shoulder. That, I would report immediately. I wasn’t about to get falsely accused of smoking twice on my first day of work.

THE GUARDS HAVE BEEN SLACKENING WITH ME, allowing me a few hours a day to go to the library, use the rowing machine in the gym, watch TV in the fishbowl, usually during meals when nobody else is around. They’ve also let me outside a few times since the weather started warming up. Keeping a watchful eye on me, of course. They don’t want me picking fights I’ll lose and end up in the hospital or worse. Their job is to keep me alive for my trial, which seems further off than ever since that last bail hearing.

“Not to worry,” Brickman said, a week later. “The longer we go, the less impact they’ll have. Time is on our side.”

“I don’t care, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going crazy.”

“You have to trust me. We have a damn good shot of getting you off free and clear. How’d you like that? You can walk outta this place and never look back … and even if you are convicted, I’d be surprised if they can get anything more than manslaughter.”

“That’s not what Miss A.D.A. says.”

“Let her talk. What does it matter? She’s just stalling. They’ve got no case and she knows it. So just sit tight. Every hour inside is time served. And believe me, you’re better off here than Upstate. At least they’re watching you.”

“I want to go Upstate. I think it’s time.”

“You don’t know what you want.”

“I have an appointment with destiny.”

“Send my regards.”

“I’m serious. You don’t know what it’s like in here, and besides, I’m a fucking murderer. Does that mean anything to you? I did it. I killed her. I killed Brooke Harrison!”

“Shut up! You’re delusional, you didn’t kill anybody!” he shouted, and my shoulders caved inward. “I’m sorry, but how many times do we have to go through this. I can’t help you if you don’t do what I tell you.”

“I want to be a normal prisoner.”

“You want to be back out there with those psychopaths?”

“I’m one of them.”

“No, you’re not. You’re different.”

“I want to be normal. Please let me be normal or …”

“Or what?”

I looked down. He approached the table where I was sitting and shoved his oily nose up next to mine, like he was one of Blair’s cats. An effective tactic. You’d say anything when you’re staring up into a guy’s hairy nostrils. “Or what, Lillian?” he said, drawing out every syllable so it was the ugliest name.

“I don’t know.” I turned my head away from him. He pushed himself backwards and rolled up his sleeves. Another one of his talks was coming. Would he appeal to my guilt about my father? How he’s lost everything on the trial, including his wife, and all he ever tried to do was make me happy. Didn’t I have anything I ever wanted? Wasn’t I lucky? Or maybe he’d talk more about the D.A.’s case. How plain-Jane Picasso still couldn’t find one person who’d seen me at the theatre the day you were shot, and even worse, she couldn’t dig up the missing weapon. The only person who’d claimed to see a gun was a drug-addicted high school dropout with a criminal record; Edie’d said she had no knowledge of it at all.

But Brickman didn’t give a speech that day. He just sighed and said, “Remember, there’s no law in the state of New York against being a soap fan.”

“But that’s not the whole truth. And I wasn’t even a soap fan, don’t say that. I hate soap fans.”

“All right, all right, I’ll make you a deal: I won’t call you a soap fan if you forget about the truth. There is no such thing as truth in a courtroom. It all boils down to how we show it versus how they do, and they’ve got the burden of proof, you must have learned this by now … All we’ve gotta do is put the slightest bit of doubt in one person’s head. Persuasion, Lily, that’s what it’s all about. Giving people a scenario they want to believe and, believe me, they want to believe you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a girl.”

“Huh?”

“Let me put it to you this way: Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. Understand? It may sound stupid and old-fashioned, but people cling to this stuff. It’s all they’ve got. The minute they start thinking a girl could be snakes and snails and …”

“Puppy dog tails.”

“Is that really it?”

“Think so.”

“All right, so you’ve got boys running around with puppy dog tails in their pockets and where do you think they got them? They cut them off the puppy. And that’s the bottom line here: Boys do things like that, girls don’t.”

“But that’s ‘not the—”

He held out his hand. “Eh-eh-eh … remember our deal.”

“It’s just a dumb saying. Nobody believes it the way you’re talking.”

“Oh, yes they do … it’s cultural mythology. You look confused. What the hell are they teaching you these days? Anyway, if you don’t believe me, ask your father. I bet he can tell you all of it.” He took an accordion file from his briefcase and set it down on the table. “Or better yet, read the depositions. That might settle your mind a bit.”

The depositions do nothing to settle my mind. I’ve been reading them in the library, the only place I can bear it, surrounded by books and wooden tables with names and numbers and curses carved into the top. The room is familiar yet detached. Like the set of a play. I read the words of people I know and try to pretend they’re actors on stage. Today I’m watching Edie. She seems frightened and a bit sorry for me despite the one letter I received from her early on saying she’d hired a lawyer and that I had no right to impersonate her at the theatre. I thought she’d get a kick out of that. I wrote her back and am still waiting for a response.

Now she tells her story to the D.A.’s people, and I’m surprised how sympathetic she sounds. She said I was a putz and a freak and really awkward around other people, but I made her laugh. And no, she never thought my relationship with you was too weird.

E.S.: You have to remember, everyone was watching World back then. Lil taped it every day. We’d get high and laugh our asses off. It was fun watching Jaymie Jo and Max fall in and out of love. They were totally romantic. But then when all of that religious stuff started and Jaymie Jo became celibate … please! I don’t know what those writers are thinking sometimes.Anyway, that’s when I stopped watching. In my opinion the show went totally downhill after that. Lil said it was because Brooke was more interested in getting a movie career going.

A.D.A.: How did she know?

E.S.: She read it somewhere. She was always reading and cutting out articles.

A.D.A.: And you didn’t think that was odd?

E.S.: A little bit, but like I said, everyone was into World back then. All the girls talked about it in gym class. Lil did go a bit overboard with the posters and making her own videotapes, but I went with her to a fan thing once and you should have seen some of the whacked-out shit … I’m sorry, can I say that?

A.D.A.: You can say whatever you want.

E.S.: Okay, you should have seen it. One girl brought this photograph of her room and every part of the wall was covered with a picture of Brooke Harrison. Lil never did anything that bad. We were totally cracking up. See, Lil thought they were as ridiculous as I did.

A.D.A.: When she was around you, perhaps. What about when she was alone? Did you ever think of that?

E.S.: Sure, of course I did. But it’s not what you think. See, I have this theory about her. I think Lil really liked girls and didn’t know how to show it, even though I tried to be there for her. I’m very liberal that way, whatever floats your boat, you know, but I don’t think she was ready to say it, which is weird ’cause her parents were so cool. Anyway, I guess it was just easier having a crush on a TV star.

A.D.A: That’s all you think it was? A crush?

E.S.: Yeah. Why, what do you think?

A.D.A: I think—

MR. BRICKMAN: Objection! Move to strike.

A.D.A.: Were you aware that Miss Speck stalked Miss Harrison in the last few weeks before her death?

MR. BRICKMAN: Objection! Move to strike the word stalked from the transcript. There is absolutely no evidence of this.

A.D.A.: She was at the theatre three times a week.

MR. BRICKMAN: It was her job! … Off the record.

OFF THE RECORD CONVERSATION

A.D.A.: Miss Sharpe, did you have any interaction with Miss Speck in the week before Miss Harrison’s death? The week of your high school graduation?

E.S.: To be honest, Lil and I weren’t speaking then. I mean, she tried, but … I don’t know, and anyway, I just find it hard to imagine any of this. I’m telling you, she was a total putz. She couldn’t even keep her shoelaces tied.

A.D.A.: She used your name to get a job as an usher.

E.S.: I know.

A.D.A.: What if the police had come after you?

E.S.: Okay, no offense, but be serious! [Laughter] She only used my first name. There’s more than one Edie in New York. And we played the name game a lot. Besides, she never did anything wrong at the theatre. In the papers, they all said she was the nicest girl. And a really good usher.

A.D.A.: Why were you and Ms. Speck not speaking then?

E.S.: People grow apart, you know what I mean? I had a new boyfriend, was in heavy-duty therapy, stopped smoking dope, I don’t know.

A.D.A.: When did that happen?

E.S.: Senior year.

A.D.A.: After Los Angeles?

E.S.: Yes.

A.D.A.: What happened between the two of you in Los Angeles?

E.S.: Nothing happened. I mean, it’s like I really don’t remember. You know how sometimes you’ve got a place in your head but you’re not sure if you were really there or you dreamed it? That’s what I think about L.A.

A.D.A.: You did go to the set ofWorld Without End, didn’t you?

E.S.: Yeah, yeah.

A.D.A.: And nothing happened there?

E.S.: Nah, we just stood and watched them tape a scene. It was kind of boring.

A.D.A.: You watched Brooke Harrison tape a scene?

E.S.: Yeah, but to be honest, we were more interested in her boyfriend, John Strong. He was so much cooler. We couldn’t believe he was there. They must have had plans that day or something.

A.D.A.: And after the taping … what happened then?

E.S.: I don’t really remember. We were smoking a lot and we found a whole bunch of pills at the house we were staying at, so like I said, the entire thing is sort of a blur.

A.D.A.: Thank you, Miss Sharpe. We’ll finish up after lunch.

I throw down the deposition and push my fingers into my eyes, rubbing them furiously until they burn. I wish I could gouge them out and never have to read anything again. But it wouldn’t stop the voices. Edie. Everyone at the theatre. At school. They’re all protecting me. Because I’m a girl?

Removing my hands from my eyes, I see tiny circles of light, then a figure coming toward me … Edie? When I focus harder I see it’s Chandon. She comes by sometimes when I’m in here and we play Hangman. Her face is so drained she looks whiter than me. Her lower lip trembles, and she’s hyperventilating. I take her hand, and my stomach drops.

“Mimi’s dead,” she says, and wails at the top of her lungs. My body springs to attention. Chandon collapses next to me in a fit of tears.

“What?!” I grab her shoulders and shake her. “Chandon, what are you talking about? You mean Angel, right? Chandon!”

I say her name a few more times and beg her not to cry, but she can’t stop and I suddenly feel like a jerk for trying to make her. Mimi’s dead? Can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. And I don’t know what to do for Chandon. I hear myself saying words I’ve never said before, things like it’s okay and don’t worry, as I gently rock her in my arms. She smells like sweat and cooking oil, and I imagine her in the kitchen of a small apartment frying chicken cutlets. Hours later you can still sniff the scent in her hair when she’s watching TV.

“It’s okay, baby,” I say, and it’s not my voice I hear but Blair’s, the way she’d soothed and smothered me with caresses. The memory strikes me so vividly I feel it course through my body. I stroke Chandon’s hair, tell her everything’s going to be okay, even though it’s a lie. Her shoulders buckle beneath me, her breaths growing deeper and deeper, and I stay with her as if I were a blanket, our shoulders rising and falling together.

We pass a few minutes like this before she fidgets beneath me. I pull back. She pivots until we’re face-to-face, our arms loosely connected. “It was so fucked-up, Long Island,” she says, “so fucked-up.”

I rub her back with my left hand, ask what happened.

“She was coming around with her pail last night, and a bunch of Stella’s bitches caught her. Gave her a massive blanket party.”

“Stella!”

“No, no, don’t think that way … it wasn’t you. They thought she was messing with one of their girls or something. Anyway, she was all alone ’cause a bunch of us was in the fishbowl playing cards and we didn’t hear nothing …” Her shoulders start shaking again, and I grip her tighter. “It was the worst thing you ever seen. They stabbed her forty-eight times. She lost too much blood, and we were fucking playing cards!” She wails, and I can only hug her, while inside I’m churning. Forty-eight times! Girls aren’t supposed to do things like that.

“We were playing cards,” Chandon cries again and again. There was nobody around to protect Mimi. Someone would pay for this. If not now, then later. On the outside. Chandon promises she’ll get revenge, and I hold her.

A guard bursts into the library and breaks us apart. The girl on duty must have freaked out and called. He is a hulky man I’ve seen only a few times before. He shoves my wrists into a pair of cuffs and says it’s time to take me home. I try and resist. “Don’t fuck with me,” he says.

“Fuck you!”

He yanks my cuffed arms up my back, and I scream. It feels like he’s torn off my shoulders. Pain shoots between them.

“Don’t you do nothin’ crazy, Long Island!” Chandon shouts.

“She is fucking crazy, you don’t know that by now?” the guard says. He shoves me into a freestanding shelf. A few books tumble to the floor. “One more word out of you and you’re going back in the cage. You understand?”

I nod my head, and he shoves me toward the door. As he drags me out of the library, Chandon cries, and all I can think is, it should have been me. Why am I not dead yet?

We reach my cell and he throws me down on my bed. I’m wondering what’s coming next, what he’ll do to me. I wrap my arms around my pillow, just as I’d had them around Chandon’s body, and with the guard watching I squeeze as hard as I can. The sheet and lining rip. A big chunk of foam pops up like a piece of toast. The guard says I’m fucking crazy, and you know what happens to crazy girls inside. “Please,” I look at him, “I need your help.”

He moves closer to the bed. “Say it isn’t so.”

“I need to use the phone.”

His face contorts as if he can’t believe I’m asking what I’m asking.

My back throbs like it’s been stabbed forty-eight times.

“Please!” I beg.

A smile crosses his lips, and he says I’m lucky he doesn’t beat the shit out of me. Such a lucky girl, he teases. I don’t tell him that’s what they all say. He says maybe there’s something we can do to get me to the phone. I know what he wants, I’ve done it before, though not with this one. From where I sit on the bed it’s an easy reach for his hips. I put my hands around him and rub my face against his crotch. The material is course. My cheek bristles. He pretends he’s shocked, but I have other evidence. I unzip his pants and take him in my mouth. He is silent. Then, a final gasp like he’s stubbed his toe.

He turns around and wipes himself on my sheet before zipping up. Without a word, he cuffs me again. We walk silently to the telephone in the fishbowl. He removes the cuffs. “You got five minutes,” he says, and sits down in a folding chair where he can keep an eye on me. I remove a folded-up letter from my sock and punch the number on top into the telephone. Someone accepts my collect call and tells me to hold.

“Davina Moore,” comes a voice so smooth it makes me think of sleeping on satin sheets at Blair’s. So long ago.

“Ms. Moore, I need …” I stammer, and suddenly can’t breathe. The air won’t get through my nose and throat. Like I’m breathing through semen.

“Are you okay?” asks the voice so sweet I almost want to hang up. I don’t know where to go with it.

“I’m sorry, I’m bothering you.”

“Not at all. I contacted you first, remember. Tell me what’s going on, Lillian. Why are you calling me now?”

“Can you come here?”

“Are you looking for a new lawyer?”

“No … I mean, I don’t know what I’m … Are you a feminist?

The articles all say you’re a feminist.”

Through the phone I hear her chuckle. “Depends,” she says.

“Is that good or bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s a start. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

“No! That’s no good … it’s no good!” My voice is so shaky I’m going to lose it with that guard staring at me and I can’t believe I just had his dick in my mouth, surely no feminist would approve, but Mimi’s dead and Chandon’s a mess and I have to do something.

“Did you hear me?” she says. “I’ll be there first thing.”

“No, please …”

“What is it? Has something happened to you?”

“I’ve been drinking bleach,” I say, but my words are gobbled up in a giant hiccup.

“You’re what?”

“I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Lillian,” she says, and it’s the way she says my name, whole, the complete opposite of Brickman’s syllabic contortion, that makes me feel like I’m melting into the milky air, and for the first time since I’ve been at Rikers, I cry. “Lillian, please, you have to try and tell me what’s going on.”

The guard stands up and slowly walks to the phone. “I can’t. He’s coming. He’s gonna hang up.” Leaning his arm on top of the pay phone, he says time’s up. I whimper into the phone. “Please, Davina!”

“Hang on,” she says. “I’ll be right there.”

He clicks his forefinger down on the metal tongue and smiles. Tears roll down my cheeks. He removes his finger and the dial tone kicks my eardrum. I hang up the phone and hold out my hands to be cuffed.

EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS I CHECKED IN WITH TABITHA to see if she needed me to work. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed that first night. She said she had a new pool of ushers. Apparently, some of your fans had gotten the idea I’d stumbled upon. They were a crafty bunch.

I managed to get in a couple of times the third week, arriving early to check for you in the stairwell. But you were never there, and after the show you ducked out early or left through the front door to avoid the scene in the alley. You needed your sleep since you had to be at the TV studio at dawn. You were exhausted. That day in the stairwell you could barely keep your eyes open. I thought you needed a vacation and wanted to take you to my house in Southampton, early in the week while Jack and Nancy were at work and the theatre was dark. I was worried about you, afraid you might collapse one night from exhaustion or sip too heavily from your flask and slur your lines. And you were literally pulling your hair out. That was so weird. I tried writing you a letter expressing my fears, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, I sketched scenes in my book with a few swatches of dialogue, then transferred the best ones to pieces of oak tag the way I’d seen them do at the ad agency. They were like public service announcements, only private. Between the two of us.

Next time I worked, I would slip the boards under your dressing room door, only I couldn’t figure out when that might be. There was the small matter of graduation. I didn’t want to go, but my grandparents had flown in for the ceremony, and Jack and Nancy were planning a little party afterwards. Nancy had asked me if I wanted to invite Edie, and I was sure she was tormenting me. She must have known we weren’t friends anymore; Edie hadn’t been over in a year. I told Nancy I’d get back to her, but never did. She never mentioned it again, either.

On the morning of my graduation from high school, I woke up and found the kitchen smelling like a campfire. My grandmother was toasting her English muffin. She liked to burn the bottoms and drip honey on top. Grandpa sat at the kitchen table in his pajamas and a felt cowboy hat, munching on a bowl of Fruit Loops. It was the only cereal he would eat, which was fitting, according to my father. Watching him pulp those red, green, and yellow Os between his dentures made me sad. I poured a cup of coffee and loaded it with sugar. “Is that all your having?” Grandma asked.

“Yeah. I can’t eat in the morning.”

“Have a little breakfast. An English muffin, some cereal.”

“I’m really not hungry.”

“Nobody in this house eats breakfast. I never heard of such a thing,” she said. “So, you ready for the big day?”

“I guess.”

Grandpa looked up from his cereal. “What’s this all about?”

“Lily’s graduating from high school.”

“Really.” He turned to me. “What grade are you in?”

“Twelfth.”

“The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

“She’s growing up,” Grandma said, then to me: “Are you nervous?”

“Not really.”

“It’s okay to be nervous,” she said, and I realized I was looking down at her thinning scalp. Either I’d grown or she’d shrunk or it was all a matter of perspective anyway.

She was so happy to be there for my graduation, I pretended it mattered. “Maybe I’m a little anxious.”

“Why are you anxious?” Grandpa said.

“I’m excited about the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?”

“Hog, it’s her high school graduation.”

“Really? What grade are you in?”

I looked at Grandma, her brow furrowed and eyelids heavy.

She nodded, as if it was okay to answer. “Twelfth,” I said.

“The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

“Believe me, Grandpa, it wasn’t that fast,” I said.

The toaster oven popped open with a loud ring. Grandma slid out both sides of her muffin with a fork, dropped them on a plate, and drizzled a tablespoon of honey on top of each piece, watching the sweet liquid fall as if its presence rooted her in the world. Something she could count on. She must have gone through so many jars of honey in her life. If you lined them up, they would probably connect New York to Scottsdale. She sat down at the counter and took a crunchy bite. “Mmmm, just the way I like it,” she said.

I put my coffee cup in the sink and said I was going up to change. As I walked upstairs I could hear Grandpa asking why I was changing and Grandma explaining that it was my graduation. I wondered what would happen if she answered differently every time. Would he still forget the questions?

In my room, I put on the new U2 album I’d been listening to nonstop. They took their name from an old U.S. warplane, the kind we used to spy on the Russians, when we were still spying on Russians. But they were antiwar. It reminded me of something Edie had said: We could be both pacifists and revolutionaries. The lead singer was both, and his voice ached with fury, the best kind of protest. My grandfather had taught me that, years ago in Scottsdale, when he played me the song about the man who never returned.

I forced myself to the closet to figure out what to wear. Inspired by the music, I selected a pair of army pants cut just below the knee, shiny new combat boots, and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Mixing images of war and peace. At the last minute, I stuck my gun into the back seam of my underwear. They were Hanes briefs like my father’s. I liked the fit, and the waistband was thick enough to hold the gun in place. Suited up, I felt like a Sandinista or Contra, whoever the revolutionaries were. I’d just about finished when Nancy called my name. It was time to go. I grabbed my blue cap and gown, which happened to highlight the blue I’d dyed my white streak the week before to match the vests at the theatre.

Grandpa was still wearing his hat and pajama top, only it was tucked into a pair of gray slacks that looked like plastic. He saluted me as if I were in the army, and my stomach dropped. Did he know I was armed? No, I was just paranoid, unless there were spy cameras in my room. It was something Jack might do, then keep the control panel in his walk-in closet. He watched everything else on video, why not me? My thoughts were getting really strange. I made a mental note to grab a couple of Nancy’s Valium before we left the house. Grandpa beat a drumroll with his fingers on the counter, and I heard the sad-mad singer’s voice. Looking at the old guy wasn’t easy. If I were a different kind of girl, the kind who walked around unarmed, a target, I might have cried. Grandma Rose came in and kissed my forehead. “I thought maybe you’d wear a dress. You don’t have any dresses?” she asked, and I said no.

“I lost that battle years ago,” Nancy said. I hadn’t realized she was in the kitchen. She was so sneaky.

“A girl should wear a dress to her own graduation.”

“Ma, forget it, okay?”

“What’s all this about?” Grandpa said.

“They want me to wear a dress,” I said. “What do you think, Grandpa?”

“Dresses are nice. Where are you going?”

“To my graduation.”

“Graduation? What grade are you in?”

“Twelfth.”

“The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

“Magic,” I said, liking my answer better each time. “But what do you think? Should I wear a dress?”

“Where did you say you were going?”

“To my graduation.”

“Graduation? What grade are you in?”

“Twelfth. Happened so fast, didn’t it?”

“Okay, enough already, it’s time to get going,” Grandma said, glaring at me, and I felt terrible. “We’ll wait in the car.”

I ran after them. “Wait! Grandma, I’m sorry.”

“When I was a girl I begged my mother for a dress. ‘A dress?’ she said. ‘Where do you think you’re going in a dress?’ I had no graduation to go to. You don’t realize what a privilege that is, you should show some respect.”

“Grandma, I swear if I had a dress I’d wear one, but I don’t own any. I look totally gross in them. My knees are all knobby.” I had no idea what that word meant, but I’d heard other girls use it when they talked about their knees. Better she thought I had ugly knees than knew how really wrong I looked in dresses. Like if Nancy started wearing jeans and flannel shirts and packing a pistol above her crack, it would just be wrong.

“Such a different world,” Grandma said, and looked over at my grandfather. He’d sat down cross-legged on the lawn. We walked over to him.

“I’m really sorry,” I said again.

“Forget it, pumpkin, I can’t stay mad at you on your graduation day, can I? Now, give me a hand.”

Together, we lifted my grandfather up and put him in the backseat of my car. They would ride with me to the ceremony; Jack and Nancy could deal with everyone else.

On the way to school, still feeling like shit, I asked Grandma to tell me about Nancy’s graduation. A million times I’d heard how Nancy had to return for it since she had already finished classes and enrolled in City College, where she met Jack. They fell in love, and within a year, had married and moved into their own apartment in the Bronx. They’d spent most of the sixties there. Grandma loved telling that story. Somehow it meant she’d raised her daughter right.

At school, I helped them out of the car, and we waited for Jack to pull into the parking lot. Grandma said it was a lovely day. Grandpa took out a wad of chewing tobacco, placed it against his cheek, then tipped up his felt cowboy hat. Since he stopped remembering things he’d been acting more and more like a cowboy. Grandma went along with it so he’d be comfortable. She rented videos of old Westerns and wore silk rodeo shirts. Called him Hog. It was like they’d created a whole new life. You could do that in the West, she said.

When my parents showed up, I split for the picnic tables to have a cigarette before the walk. A few little kids laughed on the swings behind the fence. I watched them kick their legs in the air and flutter, looking like they might catapult into a sky bluer than Nancy’s eye shadow. They couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, so young it wasn’t even clear whether they were boys or girls, and no parents in sight. I wanted one of them to fall, then felt guilty about it. I could always shoot their parents. I sat down and lit a cigarette, looking across the parking lot at the redbrick compound. After today I’d never have to come back again. It didn’t matter. I was headed for buildings just as ugly. We’d visited Syracuse a couple of months earlier, and the dorms reminded me of projects. Inside everyone wore argyle socks.

I put out my cigarette and quickly stood, feeling queasy and light-headed. I didn’t want to go to graduation, didn’t have to, but what else could I do? If Edie’d been with me things might have been different. But in almost a year she hadn’t said one word to me. Of course she was the first person I spotted by the auditorium, where we were lining up for the march outside. She wore sunglasses and red lipstick. My pulse increased as I approached her, the entire senior class plastered against the wall around us. She turned her head toward me, and my heart raced. I smiled. She looked away. A teacher screamed through a megaphone: “Two minutes and counting! Everyone get in line.”

“Edie,” I said.

She didn’t move. There was another amplified sound I barely registered. More people rushed into place. My feet were stuck in plaster, my skin falling off with each silent second. I said her name again. She was about to turn when Belgrave came by. “What are you doing out here? Get back in line.”

He led me back between Gavin Solomon and Donna Streeter, then shuffled away. I was self-combusting beneath my gown, so wet I hoped the gun didn’t slide down my leg. It would suck getting caught with a gun just before graduation, but it was the only thing separating me from the rest of them: part of the who that made me. There goes Lillian G. Speck and she’s armed so don’t fuck with her. I once heard a song about a homecoming queen with a gun who shoots up the school and embarrasses her friends. Bunch of wimps. But before I could remember the words, we started moving like a giant snake toward the side doors and outside to the bleachers. I spotted Gustave in the audience standing next to Jack with a small video camera in front of his eye and tried to motion for him to stop. He just smiled as we filed into the bleachers. I kept wishing I could disappear before I had to stomp down and pick up my diploma. And it was a long wait. There were speeches by a couple of teachers and two classmates I’d never seen before, and I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if I jumped up and started shooting like the girl in the song, though you lose points if you’re not homecoming queen or valedictorian or voted most likely to succeed by the yearbook staff. Where is the irony in the “class nobody” shooting up graduation? So I stayed put, baking in the sun and counting the passing cars on the road behind the football field, until, finally, one of the teachers told our row to stand and walk slowly down the bleachers so we’d be there when the principal said our names. A few people whispered, and I hoped I wouldn’t pass out or trip when I got to the principal. She called Edie’s name and my spine tingled watching her flip Edie’s tassel and smile. A lot of kids screamed and swung their diplomas in the air. Edie just grimaced at hers, as if she were wondering what to do with it. I wished she would tear it to pieces. The old Edie might have.

When I made it to the principal, I heard Jack scream my name. He wanted me to smile for the camera. It was mortifying. I couldn’t imagine how you dealt with it all the time. Maybe that’s why you were pulling your hair out. We were going to have a lot to discuss later. Somehow I managed to get back to my seat without falling, and before I knew it, the ceremony was over, and I was a high school graduate. Everyone threw their hats in the air and headed toward their families. I found mine, which had grown to encompass Gustave, Pamela, and a couple other friends of my parents from the city. They were all talking to one another and barely even noticed I’d come up. I tore off my cap and gown and sat down next to my grandfather on the grass. His hands were covered in dirt, and the ground next to him looked like it had been attacked by cows with frenzied eating habits. “Want some chew?” he said, and held out a handful of grass. His shirt stunk of fertilizer.

“Oh, Grandpa.”

“Hog, what are you doing? That’s not your tobacco!”

Grandma lifted him up.

“I’m just sharing the field with this lovely lass.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “My granddaughter … what grade are you in?”

“Twelfth.”

“The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

“I know, she is so grown up,” Gustave said, camera in hand. “Stand with your grandpapa and wave … say cheeseburger …”

“Peace,” I said, but made a gunlike shape with my thumb and forefinger: revolutionary and pacifist.

Nancy burst in next to me. “Hey, Lily, guess who I just saw.”

“Turn to me, Nancy, over this way.”

“Hi, Gus,” Nancy waved. “Welcome, everyone, to Lily’s graduation. At first we were afraid it might rain, and we’ve got the backyard set up for a party, so that was upsetting, but it’s turning into the most beautiful day. And I just ran into Lily’s friend, Edie.”

“You what?”

“She was with her mother and her boyfriend, I think his name is Robert. He’s going to Harvard in the fall.”

“I know who he is!” I snapped at her, although I didn’t. I couldn’t believe Edie had a whole other life.

“I invited them to the party, but they were all having lunch in the city. Edie said to say hi and congratulations. Gussy, can you follow me? I see the Huberts over there. I’m trying to get them to list their house with me. Let’s see what they have to say on tape.”

Gustave took his camera and followed my mother over to another group of people chatting away beneath a bursting green tree. I was steaming mad at her for talking to Edie about me. But she’d said to say hi. She probably wanted to talk before the ceremony, probably wanted to tell me about the new guy, and I would tell her all about Bobby, even though he’d warned me not to. She had to know about him; he turned out to be such a jerk. We had the whole summer ahead of us.

“I’m hungry,” Grandpa said.

“There’s tons of food at home,” I said.

“Let’s get a move on then, young lass.”

I wrapped my arm through his, and with my grandmother next to us, steered him toward my car, promising steak and champagne for lunch.

“Yee-haw!” said Grandpa Hog, and we laughed, excited for the party, although I’d already received the best graduation present I could have asked for: Edie and I were going to be friends again.

My entire family left for the Hamptons the next day without me. I’d told Nancy that Tabitha had called and wanted me to work. Nancy said she was proud of me for ushering at the theatre, and I assumed she was zonked on Valium or some of the other pills I’d been snatching from her hiding place, most of the soothing, calming variety. She was queen of the quiet interlude. “It’s nice to see you actually doing something,” she said. I never told her you were in the play. That was between the two of us. Instead I dropped a few stories about the theatre people with their quirks and superstitions. The last time I ushered, Tabitha had me pace three times around the lobby, holding the director’s dirty socks. She said it was an offering to the theatre gods. If we circled before every show, they would extend the run through the end of July. Jack sneered and said it was bunch of B.S., but I wasn’t sure. I liked that they created their own beliefs, no matter how silly they seemed to other people.

As soon as my family hit the highway, I called Edie and left a message on her machine. I told her it was great seeing her at graduation and said I wanted to hang out this weekend, then set about waiting for her to call me back. There was plenty to keep me busy. I had two weeks of World taped and had barely seen any of it. Since the play started it was hard watching you on screen when I could see you in real life, although we all saw too much. The more I sat through that second act, the more convinced I was you shouldn’t have agreed to take your shirt off. How could anyone take you seriously after that? I decided to draft another Brooke Harrison PSA, this one about your career.

I took my colored markers, charcoal pencils, chunky eraser, sketchbook, and a stack of empty storyboard panels, and spread everything out on the kitchen table. I was hungry but sick of eating. There was so much food in the house since my graduation party, I couldn’t go five minutes without someone, usually my grandmother, asking if I wanted a piece of chicken, mozzarella and tomato salad, white asparagus spears, goose-liver pâté, and if I said I wasn’t hungry she complained I didn’t eat. “Grandma, look at me.” I bunched up a couple of rolls of stomach skin. “Does this look someone who doesn’t eat?”

“You need protein,” she said. “And a banana for potassium. If you promise to eat a banana a day I’ll be happy.”

“Okay, I promise.”

A bunch of almost-ripe bananas beckoned from the counter, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat one. Food had a way of settling me down and I needed to keep my energy up for Edie’s call. The coffee pot was still plugged in, so I poured a cup of jojo—Jack’s word for coffee. It was cold and stale. I added some water and reheated it in the microwave. Five tablespoons of sugar made it almost tasty. I took the mug to the kitchen table. Lying in front of me was my sketchbook, its covers expanded so it looked like the mouth of a whale; over the years I’d jammed it with newspaper clippings, stickers, pieces of loose-leaf paper with drawings I’d done in class, pages of heavier paper with charcoal drawings, stuff from your fan club, the trip to L.A., and, early on, anything I could find about Delta Airlines. Blair had said, Whenever you draw you’ll think of me, but the more I filled the book the less I remembered. I ran my fingers over the cover. What used to be hard and shiny as brand-new asphalt was cracked and faded like the neglected streets around the theatre. It barely had any heft to it as I turned the cover and the first page, the one that said Lillian Ginger Speck in bubble letters, popped up on its own. I hadn’t looked this far back in a while. The drawings were terrible: airplanes and stewardesses and pencil sketches of the boarded-up guest house, all before I’d met Mickey and learned about color. There were even a couple of pages of pressed leaves from the oak in front of Blair’s, the one that came down with the house to build the swimming pool hardly anybody ever used. Flipping the pages, my throat felt bitter and pasty, and the coffee raged through me. I had a sudden urge to tear out the beginning, erase everything about her. She’d deserted me, why should I be stuck with the memories? I reached around my back, checking for the gun. Still there. Nobody could fuck me. If I ever saw her again I’d pretend I didn’t know her. I nuked another cup of jojo, then turned to the empty section in the back and started thinking.

I always began with the book. Talking to you on paper. “Brooke, you’ve made a disastrous career move, flashing your tits like some tacky bimbo. I’ve got to get you back on track, show you what’s important.”

Okay, but I’m not sure I want to see it.

“What am I supposed to do? Stand by and watch you ruin your life? I don’t think so.”

I don’t know what you can do at this point.

“Let me show you.” I broke down the page into four panels and drafted a moral: no more nudity.

Okay, that’s the easy part.

“Be patient.”

Drawing was a long, revolving conversation. The only time I could lose myself (other than when I was watching WorldWorld). Forget the rumblings in my stomach, my runny nose, the burst of cold air streaming from the vent above my head, why Edie wasn’t calling. She was probably with him, Robert Whatever who’s going to Harvard. It didn’t matter. I had my own stuff to do. By the time I looked up it was 9:14. She really should have called. I tried her house again, but nobody picked up. We could have ordered a pizza and hung out watching World like we used to. With everyone gone, this damn house felt like an empty theatre. You could hear the wind rattling beyond the windows. I went upstairs and took a couple of Nancy’s quiet pills from the tissue holder in the bathroom. Waiting again, now for the pills to take effect, I turned on the makeup mirror and smoked a cigarette in the different shades of light. One switch had me in a bar, the next outside, another in an office. Each was somebody I might be, in the future maybe. I liked me best in dark lighting. It hid the tiny red veins and made me sort of tan. This was how we should meet.

After a few more cigarettes, I decided to drive by Edie’s. It was a balmy night. Everything looked the same but softer, and slightly twisted. Like those mirrors at carnivals where I looked like myself but really tall or skinny or stumpy. I made it to Edie’s in no time and sat for a while listening to the tape I’d made the day before: one song recorded a few times in a row—a ballad that reminded me of Edie. I was going to play it for her, before we talked about guys. I closed my eyes and sang along. My shoulders shook with the singer’s words. He repeated a line … and you give yourself away, and you give yourself away … and I felt it so deeply I realized it wasn’t Edie he was singing about, but you. You had to stop giving yourself away, Brooke. I was trying to help you. The whir of a passing car jolted me, but it didn’t matter. Edie wouldn’t understand. I turned on the ignition and headed home as fast as I could.

FOUR OF US SIT AROUND A METAL CARD TABLE: me, Jack, Nancy, and my new lawyer, Ms. Davina Moore. A big piece of granite hangs from a silver chain over the black V-neck sweater, exposing her soft caramel skin, and her dreadlocks are carefully bunched on top of her head. I see her through my parents’ eyes, not what lawyers are supposed to look like, and wonder if she’s got half of Brickman’s killer instinct. Whether that matters. The thing is, I had no idea she’d be black but now I know it couldn’t have been any other way.

She’s explaining to Jack and Nancy what happens if I change my plea. Very calmly she tells them there’s a new kind of defense, something like insanity but you’re still guilty. It was invented after the guy who shot the president got off on insanity. People said it’s not fair, this guy’s guilty as sin, who cares if he’s nuts? Enough people that they changed the law. The thing is—and I said this to Davina at our first meeting—I’m not crazy. Have a look at my loony tests: The shrinks declared me to be of exceptional intelligence, hyperaware of my environment and my actions. Davina said don’t worry, she’ll order new tests. You can make people say whatever you need them to say. But I’m not crazy, I repeated, and she said, “I know.”

Now she tells my parents it’s all a game. Our job is to determine the best way to play.

“This is a waste of time,” Jack says. “Brickman’s got all of this figured out already.”

He’s upset about losing Jonathan Brickman. The shark. He can’t understand why I’d fire his guy in favor of the woman with big jewelry and dreadlocks. “Why don’t you tell me how this is supposed to work, then?” she challenges my father.

“It’s simple. She says she didn’t do it and there’s not enough evidence to prove otherwise.”

“What about the confession?”

“I don’t know, what about it? She was confused … she’s a bit of dreamer, you know? Most kids are. Believe me, I’m in the business of dreams. She was all wrapped up in her head. You see it every day.”

“That kids confess to murder?”

“Happens all the time, talk to the cops. They all want to do something big. They want to feel important, be a bit rebellious. Cigarette companies understand this, but here’s what they don’t say: You grab a kid at twelve and he’s yours for life. Me, I’d never work for a cigarette company, but what I’m saying is—”

“Jesus Christ!” Nancy snaps. “Would you cut the bullshit?”

They stare at each other, the first time since they walked inside, so much pain between them you can see particles of suffering jump like Coke bubbles when you first pour the glass. Their faces fall. People say those bubbles’ll rip the enamel off your teeth. Nancy sighs achingly, like she’s seen more of this world than she ever wanted to. “For god’s sake, Jack,” she says. “This isn’t a market study, she’s your child.”

Jack lowers his head, and I’m melting in scathing Coke bubbles, that word hanging out there: child. I never felt like one.

Nancy talks. She says they wanted me to be happy. That’s all they ever wanted. But nobody’d taught them how. The drinking, the drugs, it helped for a while, she says, and I step out of my body and watch like it’s a movie, the worst kind of melodrama. Nancy wallows in it, the most emotion I’ve ever seen in her. The scary kind. It envelops her like the big explosion at Chernobyl, gaseous and invisible, a deadly aura that colors everything within a hundred-mile radius. She’s living in the fallout, and they wouldn’t even let her bring in her sponsor. The woman waits outside in the car, warming her antiradiation blanket.

Davina pushes her chair back and it caws obnoxiously, calling me back to the table. She puts a hand on my mother’s arm. “I know this is difficult,” she says.

“Difficult?” Nancy says, her eyes like glowing green ponds. Toxic. I swear they were never that bright. And beautiful. I have never seen my mother look so good. She stands up and, leaning her palms on the table, says, “Of course it’s difficult, but this is where we live now. The rest is just padding. We were great at the padding, weren’t we, Jack?”

Grumbling, my father runs his hand through his hair, then buries his head in his elbow.

“See, he doesn’t like difficult.”

“What the fuck do you want from me!” He raises his head and there’s a storm in him. Anyone can see. I’m sorry we asked for this meeting, but Davina said it was important. From the moment we met I’d felt a balm in her satiny voice and wanted her to be my mother. But that’s usually trouble: when I start wishing. Davina stands up now and walks around the table over to where my real mother is hyperventilating. Jack digs his thumbnail into the scrappy metal and it makes a wailing sound; Nancy breathes. Every movement seems miked like that day on the set when you were still mine. Breaking the silence, one of her best skills, my mother tells my father he can start by being honest with himself, being honest with her, with me.

Annoyed, amplified, he grouses. “Oh, yeah, you’re one to talk.”

“Meaning?”

“This is not good. Not one bit of it. And you’re getting on my case? You sound like Betty Ford, or, no, more like a bad Saturday Night Live imitation of Betty Ford. Wake up!”

“Oh, I’m up. More than you’ll ever know.”

“We’ve got things to take care of here.”

“I am taking care of things. For the first time in my life. And it’s not like I’m getting any support … from either of you.”

Her radioactive gaze falls my way, and I want to rip her apart. She’s in pain, I tell myself, but so is my father. They’re gagging on it.

“Whoa, whoa!” Davina holds her open palm in front of Nancy but lowers her head toward Jack. “We’re getting way off the subject here. Can we please just stick to the case?”

“Right.” Nancy takes another long, loud inhalation.

“Are you okay?” Davina says.

Nancy nods, deflating, and it’s like all the light in the room shifts her way. She says she’s doing what she has to do, says she’s trying to experience emotions as they come, says right now she feels terrible, just terrible, then bursts into tears. Jack eases out of his chair. “Aw, shit, Nance …” He inches forward but she flags him off, sobbing.

“Maybe we’ve had enough for today,” Davina says, either nervous or frustrated, and I’m afraid she might bail. It’s too much. Me.

“No!” Nancy shouts. “I have to talk to Lily. Lily?”

I stare at the watery streams of mascara running down her cheeks, like soot. And she’s still gorgeous. “Come over here, please,” she sniffles. At her right stands my father, petting the almost-full beard on his chin, oblivious at first, then he realizes I’m looking at him. And he doesn’t turn away. His face breaks and for the first time in months he smiles, not his million-dollar J.F.K. but like he means it.

“Lily …” says my mother, and Jack tips slightly in her direction, nodding okay.

The last one up, I walk to my mother. She takes both of my hands in hers and says, “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me? I need to know you forgive me.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. About the stewardess, we have to talk about that. We have to unravel the puzzle, seek out the source. Otherwise we’re doomed to endless repetition.”

“What stewardess?” Jack hinges forward. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing.” I let go of Nancy’s hands, way too uncomfortable.

“The girl next door.”

“What?”

“That blonde. Remember, when we first moved in …”

“The blonde?” He squints, then turns to me. “Oh my god, did she—is that what’s going on here?”

“No, no,” I say. “It’s not what you think.”

“We’ve definitely had enough for now,” Davina says.

“If she laid a finger on you, I’ll—”

“No … not like that. She told me things … and gave me my book …”

“What book?” Jack says.

“Stop it!” I shout. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have to, Lily. It’s important.”

“What do you mean, book?”

“Shut up! Both of you … shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I shout, swinging my fists in front of me, not far from where they’re all standing, staring, and I know exactly what they’re thinking, looking at me like I’m a fucking nut WHEN I’M NOT! Just read my loony tests. You’ll see. I take a deep breath, let it out with a big, windy whew! and say: “I’m sorry, but you guys are really on my nerves.”

Davina steps toward me. “I can finish up alone if you want.”

“Forget it, we don’t need you,” Jack says. “I still don’t get why you’re here.”

“Because I asked her,” I say, firmly. “Because she’s my lawyer.”

“You’ve already got a lawyer.”

“I picked her.”

“Oh,” he exaggerates, slapping his forehead. “You picked her! Why didn’t you say so? Now I’ll sleep better tonight.” Pushing backwards, he trips over a chair. “Fuck!” he says, and kicks it over.

His face is pink, eyes monstrously engorged. I imagine him pummeling the chair into scrap metal. But he crosses his arms in front of him and crumbles into the cement, falling in on himself like a perfectly blown-up building, a pile of bricks, white smoke and drywall, into nothing. So much destruction he can’t face it but he won’t walk away, and I think maybe that’s love, sticking around when everything you know turns to dust, and remember that day in the diner with pink neon stars? The old man had said, “You can’t have real love without children,” and like it or not, I’m his child.

I look over at Nancy, standing quietly, hands bunched into the pockets of her blazer, not a hair out of place, but her waterlogged eyes tell a different story. And she’s not running from it either; not anymore.

MONDAY THE THEATRE WAS DARK. Tuesday I had to drive my grandparents to the airport, which left me half loopy by the time I finally made it to the city on Wednesday. I took the train in early and sat in the diner, drinking cups of coffee dark and sweet, and looking over my storyboards one last time. Even better than I remembered, each had its own little message but wasn’t too preachy, and I’d given the cartoon-you heart-shaped cheeks and big, round eyes to capture your range of emotions. They were ready. I carefully edged them into a large manila envelope upon which I’d written, “The Brooke Harrison PSAs: A Guide to Your Resurrection.” My plan was to slide the envelope under your door; I didn’t want to bother you before a matinee. But when I arrived at the theatre the front doors were locked. Panicked, I checked my watch and realized it was even earlier than I thought. I retraced my steps down the street and up along Ninth Avenue. It was one of those tropical days, where dog-breath air slouched against your shoulders and the whole city steamed up through its pores. I walked slowly, not a good idea during lunch hour. People scurried down the street, keeping their eyes forward and hands tucked against their sides. I dodged in and out of bodies, bouncing off shoulders like a silver pinball, and all around blared the bing-bing-bong of trucks and taxicabs and buses. People shouted to each other, taking up half the sidewalk and walking on the wrong side. You were supposed to keep to the right just like driving, but groups of suits and tourists always crowded to the left. “Stay to the right,” I shouted, but nobody ever listened. As if on instinct, I ducked into the alley behind the theatre.

Leaning back against a grimy brick wall, I searched my side pockets for a cigarette and rubbed my fingertips against the silver gun. I could pick off the tourists who swayed flagrantly to the left but that seemed a stupid use of it. And too risky. Three and a half years after he shot the four black boys, the white man—this urban cowboy—was found guilty of illegal weapons possession. Not assault or battery or shooting to kill, just possession. If the gun had been licensed he would have walked. For some reason, that frightened me more than anything else.

Finally, I found the pack of ultralights I’d pinched from Nancy in the front pocket of my backpack and lit up. Smoking in the summer was so great. Your hands stayed warm, and the smoke killed the stink of the streets. It was also time-consuming. I probably smoked more than anything, except maybe watching TV or drawing, and they were all connected anyway. Everything was. Like the way we ended up working together.

I finished my cigarette and was about to leave the alley, maybe bing over to Blimpie’s for a ham and Swiss, when I noticed the stage door was off its hinges. Moving a few feet closer, I realized it was a mirage. The door was merely propped open, so I walked inside. My eyes took a few minutes adjusting to the darkness, and even then I was disoriented. I’d never been this far back before. It felt like a cave, cool and shadowy, and somewhere close by I could make out the whir of machinery which must have been the air-conditioning. I walked a few steps along a narrow hallway and came to a row of doors, all painted black with name plates hanging on them. In all the time I’d been ushering I hadn’t seen the dressing rooms: Your name etched on the door made my ears pound, like in L.A. It was easier when you came to me. I thought about hightailing it out of there but figured I could slip the drawings under your door and then come back in an hour or so to see if Tabitha needed me to work.

I slithered my backpack from my shoulder, unzipped it, and removed the Brooke Harrison PSAs. Before shoving the envelope under your door, I held it in my hand and blew on the opening for good luck, the way I always did with your letters. I bent down in front of the door and smelled something funky, that burnt-sugar crack smell. Maybe the boiler. I set about pushing the envelope underneath the door, but the groove was so tight it took a bit of effort. Holding each side between my fingers, I inched it slowly. About halfway through it got a bit easier, and I thought I must have hit that moment of inertia we’d talked about it physics. “I caught you, you bastard,” came a voice from behind the door. Then the rest of the envelope disappeared and the door swung open. I rolled forward onto the floor, looking up at you. Disappointed or maybe confused, you said, “Who are you?”

The fall had me completely tongue-tied, caught unprepared as I was. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. Now how was I going to explain myself without sounding like a stupid fan? “Listen, message boy,” you said, “I’m in no mood for this today. Tell me what he wants and make it fast.”

You didn’t recognize me. But maybe I wouldn’t have recognized me, so gnatty and sweating like a maniac. You asked again who I was, and again, and the more you asked, the quieter I became. You were supposed to know. The world started closing in, walls bending forward, air constricting, your face an engorged balloon. How you’d look in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Overwhelmed by the chug of my heart, terrified of you standing over me, I imagined you bringing your foot down and crushing me, splattering my insides all over the walls. But you stepped back and said the name, Johnny. I struggled to my feet, still without speaking a word. “Oh, Johnny, Johnny, you’re never going to learn,” you smiled, and up close your teeth were even whiter and more perfect than they seemed onstage, and boy were you skinny. I felt like if I blew on you for good luck you’d fall right over.

“So tell me, what’s it this time? Is he dropping the Czech? Going back to meetings? Or does that sick bastard really expect me to go home with him?”

Having no answer, I turned away. The room had more of the funked-up science-lab smell, and it was dark and messy. There were clothes flung over the chair in front of your vanity and more scattered across the couch. Your dressing table was brimming with all kinds of cosmetics. A rainbow of lipsticks and eye shadows in various stages of use. Next to it was a small table with matchbooks, an ashtray, and what might have been a glass pipe. I couldn’t tell, you rushed to cover it so fast. “Wait a minute, what am I doing?” you said, gnawing your lower lip, and I realized you needed me more than you knew. I remembered Blair, the way she’d put her arms around me late at night. “He’s not going to win this time,” you said. “He’s the one who fucked everything up.”

“I know,” I said, the way I talked when you needed support.

“You do? Who are you?”

I was too distraught to answer. You were supposed to know.

“Okay, fine, I can’t take it anymore,” you said, almost in tears. “Why is he tormenting me like this?”

I stepped forward. “It’s okay, Brooke …”

“No! I won’t go back!” you shouted, and shook the manila envelope up high, for the first time noticing what it said. “‘A Guide to Your Resurrection’? Wow, is he Catholic! But no, I’ve had it. I already told him … and I don’t care what you’ve got in here!”

“It’s just a few drawings.”

“Drawings?”

I nodded yes. You looked at me as if I’d sprouted a third eye.

“I made them for you,” I said.

“You?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you an artist?”

“No. Not yet anyway. I’m going to school in the fall. Syracuse University. I’m taking some art classes, but I’m going to major in communications. Maybe work in an ad agency.”

“How did you get in here? The theatre’s closed.”

“The stage door was open, so I thought I’d leave my drawings.”

“Are you a fan?” you said, as if you already knew the answer and did not like it one bit. I shook my head no, again unable to compose a sentence. This whole episode was degenerating into the most horrible experience of my life.

“I’m an usher here,” I blurted out.

“For this play?”

I nodded affirmatively. “You can ask Tabitha.”

“So you’re an usher, but not a fan.”

“I guess.”

“With drawings for me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded again. You sort of smiled and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Li—umn …” Everyone at the theatre knew me as Edie, but I’d signed the drawings with my own name. It was more important to protect my cover or you’d never believe anything else I said. If you ever asked I’d say I used a different name for my art. Lots of people did.

“I’m sorry,” you said.

“Edie. My name is Edie.”

“Cool name. So do you want an autograph or something, Edie? A picture?”

“No.”

“That’s right, you’re not a fan,” you smiled. “It’s okay, I’ve heard it all before. A lot of people don’t want to say the F-word. Come on, we’ll get you a picture.”

“No, really, I don’t want one … I just wanted to give you the drawings.”

“Thanks.” You glanced at the envelope again. “But what’s all this about resurrection? That’s a little weird … a little scary.”

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, I mean, you’ve had an exorcism, been lost in the South American jungle … and you kissed a priest last week!”

“That was on TV,” you said, looking at me like I was an idiot or something. My brain or whatever was between my ears started throbbing. “I know that,” I said. “I told you, I’m not a fan. You know I’m not like that.”

“Okay, okay.” You backed up a couple of feet, hugging the envelope against your stomach, and a bell went off in my head: You weren’t ready for the drawings, you were too far gone. You didn’t even recognize me. You just stood there biting your lower lip and then said, “So listen, Edie, I’ll take a look at the drawings and let you know what I think, okay?” A tiny piece of flesh hung over the edge of your lower lip and you picked it off with two fingers. Blood pooled in the groove, and watching it I was instantly calmed, like I’d taken one of Nancy’s quiet pills. I’d imagined this moment a million times and never would have thrown in the lip picking. People were so bizarre.

You sucked your lip through your teeth, and looked a little bit like my grandmother before she put in her dentures. For some reason I felt really sad.

“Are you sure you don’t want a photo?” you said, and jutted your face out like the balloon-you again. “I have new publicity shots from the play. I could write a message just for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, regaining my composure somewhat. “I really didn’t want to bother you. Actually, I’ll even take back the drawings. It’s just a few scribbles.”

“No, I’d really like to see them. It’s not every day someone draws something for you, right?” You stared at me, your eyes and lips softening, and for the first time since I’d fallen into your dressing room, we connected, just like the day on the set when you’d sought me out in the darkness and winked in my direction. We were together in this. You put the envelope down on the table and grabbed a pen and a shot of you onstage, your eyebrows squinted in confrontation though you hadn’t yet removed your shirt. On it you wrote: “To Edie the usher, Thanks for the drawings! Always, Brooke,” and then handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.” You led me closer to the door. “Maybe I’ll see you around the theatre.”

I nodded and couldn’t believe this was the meeting I’d been anticipating for years. A quick exchange of drawings for a photo. And everything I’d said was so stupid, of course you didn’t know it was me. We needed to sit down together, we needed to have lunch, but my tongue-tiedness was back. Unable to formulate a sentence, I got hotter under my skin. It’s okay, I calmed myself. You’d promised to look at the drawings. Soon you’d understand. There was plenty of time. With all the strength in my body, I stepped my right foot out, then my left, and it was an easy path to the door.

“Take it easy, Edie,” you said as I exited.

I turned slightly and waved. You went back into your dressing room, and I ran to the stage door. Out in the alley, I stumbled against the wall and fell to the ground. It was covered with muddy garbage and cigarette butts, but I didn’t care. I was breathing like I’d just sprinted a quarter-mile dash and dying for a cigarette. Instinctively, I dipped my shoulder, but nothing came forward. “Fuck!” I shouted, a thousand buses screeching inside in my head. I left my bag outside your dressing room! Stupid idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot! I screamed a few more obscenities, banged my head against the bricks. All of my money was in that bag! My house key, car keys, an expensive Syracuse sweatshirt—Nancy had been shocked: “Thirty dollars for a piece of cotton!” As if she had anything in her closet that cost less than thirty dollars. She was such a hypocrite. Jack had bought it for me anyway—a copy of People magazine, and my sketchbook! I had to go back.

It took a little while to psych myself up. It’s okay, I repeated, just slip inside and grab the bag. It had to be right outside your door. I could get in and out without disturbing you. And if you saw me I’d just say I left my bag. I was allowed to come back for my own bag. Besides, I’d missed the chance to ask if you wanted to have lunch. This could actually be a good thing, I thought, as I walked back through the long hallway a second time. It was foggier than before and smelled like smoke. A few steamy clouds drifted from your dressing room, and my backpack was nowhere in sight. As I came closer, I saw you kneeling down next to the table, a pile of papers burning in a metal bucket in front of you. My backpack was next to the fire, its contents spilled out on the floor. In your left hand was one of the Brooke Harrison PSAs. You were dipping it into the flames.

“What are you doing?!” I shouted.

You looked up and it was your exorcism face I saw. “You didn’t fool me for one minute,” you said.

There was a jolt in my chest, a pounding in my head, my heart, through the walls. Like my entire body had been turned inside out.

“Those are my drawings!”

“He put you up to this. Nobody else is that psychotic. Well, you can tell him where his precious warnings are now.”

I lunged at you trying to grab the drawing, but you dropped it on the burning pile. A flame brushed against my arm. “Ow!” It scorched. I could smell the hairs burning. “Stop it!” I screamed.

“I can’t believe they let you work here … or was that just a story, too?”

A couple of storyboards were still on the couch. I reached for them, but you slapped your hand over the pile. “Not on your miserable life,” you said, and tossed them into the flames. “I’m getting rid of him for good this time, getting rid of everything …”

“Hey, that’s my book!” Pounding was everywhere, my book in your hands, flames the color of my mother’s hair roaring in front of you, illuminating your glowing white skin, your blond hair, those blue demon eyes, looking really disjointed like they were turned toward a car wreck, as you opened my book and started thumbing the pages, smirking with naked contempt, the way you’d looked at those people in Foxboro when they wouldn’t accept your black boyfriend, only this time you were laughing at me, and my book, the one thing that was really mine, the one thing Blair had given me, and there it was hanging over a bucketful of flames.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the gun.

You laughed out loud. “Are you going to shoot me? Are those your orders? He is really desperate this time. Okay, go ahead, do me a favor.”

You flayed your arms out in front of you, almost knocking the gun from me, but I steadied my wrist with my left hand, then moved it underneath for support like Bobby Davis had shown me, and if I could just scare you off and get my book, before you—“Hey!” I shouted. You were ripping the pages one by one like that day I’d spotted you pulling the hairs from your scalp, crazy, focused, only the hair was yours, you could do whatever with it, but that was my book you were tearing, throwing the pages of my life into the smoke and flames, kicking up the heat a few more notches, frying my brain so hot I was afraid I’d faint, but it was mine and how could you leave after you’d given it to me and said whenever I draw I’ll think of you and there you were destroying it. “Please …” I begged.

“Stupid fans!”

“I’m not a fan. Don’t call me a fan.”

“You’re pathetic.” You ripped another page.

“I’m warning you, don’t make me shoot, I don’t really know how … just give me back my book!” Through the fiery light I saw the melting blue and red Grateful Dead skeleton on the front cover. You’d once said they were your favorite band, and I’d listened, going out and buying all of their albums, and when you said the albums sucked compared to bootlegs I went to a concert and before the show in the parking lot bought a couple of tapes, and you were right, they were better, you were right and I’d listened. I heard everything you said and you were destroying me … I lunged forward and with my underneath hand reached for the book, but missed. You laughed. “Stop it!” I shouted. “Give me my book!” I reached out again and grabbed the edge of the cover but couldn’t get a good grip, and you yanked back, still laughing, like it was some bizarro game, only I didn’t know the rules, maybe you had to be famous, but all I wanted was my book and you wouldn’t let go and more flames engulfed us and someone, it couldn’t have been you, screamed, “I hate you!” and then the loudest noise I ever heard rang through my ears, knocking me back toward the wall and searing my eyes shut, though my arm and chest throbbed, and I opened my eyes but couldn’t see a thing through all the smoke.

Slowly, I balanced upward and realized I was still holding the gun. Only it was scorching hot and vibrating in my palm. I pulled the trigger! But the safety was on. Through the roar of the fire I heard you whimpering. NO, THERE’S NO WAY …

I shoved the gun back in my pants and turned over the table. You were lying on the charred floor, a hole the size of a quarter in your chest with smoke coming out of it. I touched your shoulders. “Brooke!”

Your eyes were wide open, the bluest blue I’d ever seen. “Why?” you said.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry … Can you move?”

“Why?”

Your head slouched to the left, and your eyes fluttered. I thought when you shot people they fell over and died like in movies. But you were still alive, watching me now. You said it again: “Why?”

“I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean to—the safety was on, I swear …”

You shut your eyes.

“Brooke!” I shook your arms. “Brooke! I love you!”

Opening your eyes again, you looked horrified. “Shhhh,” I whispered, and sat down beside you. I pulled you up slightly, held you, stroked your hair. “You’re going to be okay … hang in there.”

You sunk into me, and I felt your body relax slightly. “It’s okay, I’m here,” I said softly, and we melded together for a couple of beats and I thought if I kept breathing, kept my heart pumping, it’d be enough. And it was. For a while. And in those few beautiful minutes there was nothing but you and me and I felt closer to you than ever, felt as if everything in my life had led to this. Then you edged up slightly, twisting your shoulders and trying to speak. “Don’t,” I said. “You have to save your strength …” But you pushed forward and your neck gave out. I held your head. Your eyeballs rolled up in their sockets, lids clamping over them. You went totally limp and suddenly I was alone. “No, don’t leave …” I hugged you. Smoke filled the room, flames drifting to the couch. I stood up and saw my shirt was drenched in blood. Smelly, metallic red. A horror. People used that word too lightly. I wanted to throw up but held it back. I had to go but didn’t want to but had to or else … I dug my burned-out book from the embers and dumped it in my backpack. Then I took off my shirt, shoved it in the bag, and put on the Syracuse sweatshirt.

I bent over and, grabbing you by the armpits—they were still warm, a good sign—pulled you out of your dressing room and into the hallway. For a second, I thought about dragging you all the way to the hospital, but I smelled like a firecracker and was splattered with blood. You were a star; I was nothing. They wouldn’t believe a word I said. I set you down next to the wall, gently, like I imagined you’d put a baby to sleep, and I remember thinking distinctly, Now there’s something I’ll never do. You looked so graceful, like a blond china doll. My eyes filled with tears.

“I’m going to get help,” I said, and turned and ran out the stage door. Pushing my way through the crowds on Forty-second Street, I was terrified each person I passed was going to stop me: Bing! You’re under arrest. After running a couple of blocks, I called 911 from a pay phone. When the operator answered, I said there was a fire, gave the name of the theatre, and quickly hung up. The rest is all a blur. I know I moved fast, probably not staying to the right, as I ran all the way to the West Side Highway. A helicopter flew overhead, and I was convinced they were coming for me. I felt like a wild animal. Hunted. And I deserved it. My heart was beating so fast I thought I’d have a heart attack and I kept repeating, “Please be alive, Brooke, please be alive.” I could barely get down the sickly air, so thick it obscured the yellow dot of sun, its heat pressing down on me. Sweating, pulsating, I crossed the highway and crawled onto a grimy wooden pier. It stank of piss and oil and seaweed. I leaned over and vomited, then, catching my breath, reached into my pants and took out the gun. The metal still felt hot. Holding it between my palms, I shut my eyes and blew on the side for good luck, thinking, What are you, crazy? I lifted it above my head and with a loud scream hurled the gun into the river.