Oola. Brittany Newell

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СКАЧАТЬ and Foucault, who wore a bit of lipstick once and thought the earth had shifted. Finally, proof that I was different (if I turned a blind eye to the sea of moms in Raisin, Soft Pink, She’s the One). My chosen shade: Shock Treatment. We considered our pointlessness provocative, sewing Situationist patches to our jackets with dental floss; I was a test tube of his sweat and he knew it. I was suddenly excited to tell all his friends about the night he lost his virginity in a mosh pit (which is to say, only partially); what quote could they pull out of their asses for that?

      “Yes, yes,” he sighed. “Scout’s honor. No homos allowed.”

      “What’s wrong?” I smiled. “Am I no longer funny?”

      Forgive this fratty interlude: Oola will come soon.

      “Forgive me if I don’t live in the same weird world as you.” He said it jokingly, but the confession felt grave, and he immediately blushed. In truth, we were well past the days of passing out, side by side, in the top bunk of his bed. Looking at him now, with his hair sleekly parted and faded geometric tattoos screaming FUNKY-FRESH INTELLECTUAL, I wondered if my memories had shifted, like the contents of bags on an airplane, and swapped the face before me with the body of a different boy altogether. I noticed that he took his coffee with cream and sugar, and I felt irrationally superior that I drank mine black. He tried to cover himself. “I’m no poet.”

      “Miss Lee would beg to differ.”

      He finally smiled, a hint of teeth unsettling the placid scar. “How do you still remember that? Poor Miss Lee. I was a monster.”

      “You weren’t her only admirer. Everyone I knew had hard-ons for their teachers.”

      “But I crossed a line.”

      I considered. “The public suicide threat was a bit much for a fourth-grader.”

      He cradled his head in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

      “Sorry.” I wasn’t.

      He smiled wryly. “You know, I saw her again.”

      “You mean when the middle school band played for May Day? I saw her too. I thought of you.”

      “No,” he said. “Later. The summer before senior year. I ran into her at the grocery store.”

      “Oh.”

      “At first, I did a one-eighty. I was too embarrassed to face her. But she stood right behind me in the checkout line. ‘Is that who I think it is?’ she said. ‘Can it be?’ This was during my punk phase, mind you. I think I only had about seventy percent of my hair.”

      “I remember.” I’d been the one to shave it off, cross-eyed on stolen Xanax.

      “And you know what she did? She reached out and touched it. ‘All the teachers have bets on how their kids will turn out,’ she told me. ‘I think I just lost.’ She was smiling when she said it, and I could see that she was wearing a plastic retainer. God, I was dizzy. ‘How did you think I’d turn out?’ I managed to ask. She started laughing. ‘I thought you’d be a veterinarian.’ And we both started laughing, and she patted my wrist and told me, ‘Take care.’”

      “That’s actually rather romantic.”

      “I know, right? And she was just as beautiful as I remembered. You always expect to be disappointed, you know, like once you grow up and look back on the shit you used to worship. But even though she was definitely older, I could still see it.” He waved his hands in the air. “And I remember exactly what she was buying too: disposable razors, frozen macaroni and cheese, a bar of Dove soap, and one clementine. The kind that come in the orange mesh bag. She was buying just one.” He shook his head.

      “I’m jealous,” I said. And I was: All my childhood crushes had ended not in heartbreak but in something more like acid reflux. The obsessions that I found so poetical (with Heather, with Jackie) invariably fizzled into ickiness, into: Is there something in my teeth? That Leif kid is staring again. A sunflower seed? Ugh, he gives me the creeps. Like so many, I never got the chance to atone for my awkwardness; even years later, I carried it inside me, like the muscle memory of a major injury, all those jerks and spurts and moments when I clapped my hands to my ears and shouted, OH FUCK ME, for how badly I wanted to say the right thing.

      I staged them in my mind. Miss Lee, the landlocked geography priestess. Tay, the disciple, who finally, finally, grew into the lust that he wore plain as jeans. In a way, they had less in common now than when he was a little boy, for he alone was no longer confused by his body. She wore drawstring pants and ChapStick with a tint. He was tall, dark, and clearly debauched. They made eye contact over the magazine rack. A year’s worth of candy bars melted.

      In real time, Tay grinned. “Well, listen, if it’s release that you’re after, I know just the girl. She’ll be there tonight. She studied holistic healing at a coven in Helsinki. She’s now a masseuse for the terminally ill. Goes by Pumpkin.”

      “Sounds like you’ve got me pegged.”

      “If you’re lucky. So you’ll come?”

      I threw up my hands. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

      “That’s probably what Miss Lee said.” He rose and I followed suit.

      I walked him to his tube stop. We stood at the entrance and embraced. He squeezed my well-padded biceps and gave me a questioning look.

      “It’s the shirts,” I mumbled, gesturing helplessly.

      He smirked and didn’t look away. “It’s so good to see you, Leif.” He had lowered his voice, and I had trouble discerning his words over the tube’s subterranean rumble. “You’ll always be funny to me, man.”

      “Is that an insult?”

      “Up to you,” he said. He held my earlobe between thumb and pointer finger. “Fuck, you’re cold. I will see you later, won’t I? Don’t pull a Leif on me.”

      “I won’t.” I let my gaze drift to his lip; the scar tissue was like frost on a windshield. If I tried, I could still see the troubled boy that I’d touched dicks with. This had, by no means, been the peak of our relationship, but it came to me then, in a semisweet gust. One more instance of our loose-limbed youth, a foray in the cornfields. I’m kidding. It was in his room, My Bloody Valentine playing. I think his dog watched us from under the bed. Later, we laughed it off, chalked it up to the drugs; we were simple. Sometimes we’d swap T-shirts, Black Flag for Bad Brains, and sleep amid the other’s stink. It was one of our many inexplicable gags that only gained significance after the fact, when folding laundry on a rainy day. I’d pressed the crumpled T-shirt to my nose and yes, it was still musky.

      “Excellent.” He released me and hurried down the stairs. I lingered at the entrance for a moment or so, siphoning the body heat of the crowd that hustled past me.

      THAT’S HOW I ENDED UP in his East London flat, gripping a drink and wishing for death. I’d only been there for fifteen minutes and already a girl had me pinned to the wall. She was explaining, with some difficulty, the benefits and freedoms of the fruitarian lifestyle.

      “There’s no limit!” she panted. “Other diets have you counting calories. Since going raw, I’ve chucked restrictions out the window. It’s heaven.” СКАЧАТЬ