Susan Steinberg - Hydroplane - Fictions

Often hearing the hostess in the evening crying to herself, a poor pathetic crying, a please-feel-sorry for-me sort of sobbing that lasts, often enough, until something is broken against a wall or against the ceiling above which I stand.

The hostess walking back to where the last guest is, before I can approach him, before I can even rise from my chair, the hostess taking hold of his elbow, not seeing the fire growing in the kitchen sink, and saying, Have you seen my cat, and him saying, No, and her saying, Let's go outside, trying her hardest to lure this last guest into the rain for a walk through the wet grass as the bedroom is occupied, still, by her two fucking friends, Barefoot, No thanks, Why not, I don't know, Come on, No.

Setting our science on fire in the boy-looking girl's basement, as neither of us understand science and neither of us care to understand anything quite so confusing as science with all its plants and metals and space and sex, and watching as the pages burn one by one, blackening in her mother's glass ashtray.

Often hearing the hostess in her bedroom from my bedroom calming herself down, singing softly to herself, the faint squeak of the bedsprings as she sits.

Both of us too slow to stop a single curl of burning science which has released itself from the corner of a page and floats slow-motion in the air like something holy or something cosmic, scientific, a comet, or a meteor, whichever one burns, if either, and watching it land to burn a strip of scorch in the basement shag before we stomp it out and run to my house unsure of whether we stomped it out completely.

Often hearing the hostess in her bedroom from my bedroom getting herself off in some way, knowing, always, she is alone doing this, getting herself off, as there is only one voice, always, if any, her voice, faint, and the sound I know is the bed, the faint creaking of bedsprings, and wanting, always, for her to stop.

Days after school so dull and nothing after this kid stops answering the telephone, after smoking all the brown cigarettes and destroying all our science with fire and running to my house hoping the fire is out at hers and hoping not to hear sirens on their way to her burning-down-house where her mother will not be until night, and playing in my bedroom a game we call CB radio that goes, Breaker breaker, what's your handle, over, Breaker breaker, what's yours, over, My handle's Kitten, what's your handle, over, Man of Steel here, Kitten, over, Where are you, Man, over, I'm next to you in the blue truck, over, Well, you're cute, Man of Steel, over, Well, so are you, Kitten, over, Well, let's pull over and do it, over.

Fire spreading from the kitchen sink to the counter, and the hostess seeing the fire and running to the sink and trying to put out the fire on the counter with her dishtowel, and the dishtowel catching fire, and the hostess waving it frantically, drunkenly, screaming, Help me, before she slams it to the floor and stomps it with her heels, not able to put out the fire with those wobbly pencil heels, and everyone surrounding, laughing at her, except the last guest who walks slowly over to where she is, who lifts the burning dishcloth from the floor and, holding it an arm's length from his body, slowly lowers it into the sink and turns the faucet to extinguish the fire before pressing the now wet dishcloth to the fire spreading along the counter.

Flashing our bodies, one part at a time, me as Kitten and her as Man of Steel, often forgetting who is who, then a dry and lipless makeout, feeling each other up under the bed, eyes squeezed shut. Singing to myself in my room so as not to hear the hostess below me, so as not to have her hear me pressing my ear to the floor, but, rather, so that she hears me singing to myself, minding my own business singing, poorly, faintly.

The hostess clapping, saying, Yes, as all the fire turns to smoke, and the last guest with fire rising from his hand and no one moving to help him as he walks from the kitchen, holding his burning hand close to his face.

The boy-looking girl showing me a note from the new kid that says, Meet me in the woods Friday, saying she is going to the woods by his house to show him her tits and that they will kiss with tongues and more and to tell her mother, if she doesn't get back until late on Friday and if her mother calls my house looking for her, that she is staying at school late for a club or some such, What club, Make one up.

Running to the last guest, whose hand is on fire, from my place in the chair by the window and pulling him, by his thin wrist, back to the kitchen and plunging his hand to under the still-running faucet to put out the fire, and the hostess watching, clearly annoyed.

The boy-looking girl sitting on her kitchen counter, mixing water and sugar in a paper cup and telling me to taste it, saying this is what it will taste like when she does what she does in the woods with the new kid on Friday, and tasting it and finding it tastes very confusing, not at all like sugar, not at all like water.

The hostess giving a look as if to say, How dare you touch my guest, and the last guest giving an equally annoyed look as if wondering who I am, where I have come from, why I am plunging his thin hand into the cluttered sink of hardened wax and scorch in front of the other guests, none of whom I know, when he was clearly not on fire, clearly fine, both of us walking away from the sink, me following him, I'm sorry, It's okay, I thought you were on fire, I wasn't, I'm sorry, It's okay.

Me and the boy-looking girl in the woods after school, her taking me to where she will meet the new kid on Friday, her starting a small campfire in a circle of rocks with twigs and balled up notebook paper and a box of matches, her showing me what she will do with the new kid, how she will lift up her shirt like this, how she will unbutton his pants like this, saying, Breaker breaker, into her fist, then flattening our bodies to the grass like cats, and rolling in the grass, our eyes squeezed shut, before stomping out the fire in the circle of rocks, before buttoning our pants, before walking home, her saying she will kick my legs black and blue if I ever tell anyone anything.

The crossing guard's backyard garden where we once go for science to taste new lettuce and new carrots just pulled from the dirt and which still have dirt on them when we eat them and taste, to me, like mud, and everyone else, the teacher, the students, the crossing guard, proclaiming they are so sweet, the tiny carrots, the wrinkled lettuce leaves, just pulled from the garden, and the confusion when something is supposed to be sweet and I am supposed to know what sweet means, what it tastes like, but the something sweet does not taste sweet to me at all, but bad, like mud, like sugarwater, like the new kid is supposed to taste, and seeing this girl chewing on her carrot, and seeing the new kid chewing, and running into the house feeling sick, feeling like I am going to throw up, and throwing up on my shirt, on the crossing guard's waxed kitchen floor, the new kid coming in and seeing and calling for his mother who calls my mother.

Standing near the bedroom door behind the last guest, waiting for the friends to come out, both of us waiting to get into the bedroom, him knocking on the door to get in there sooner, and me knocking on the door from behind him.

The new kid's mother giving me a clean shirt to wear, giving me a place to sit in the quiet house, a place to wait for my mother to show, waiting even after the kids from class have left, the new kid waiting outside under a tree, and I can see him through the window, not wanting to come back inside until I leave.

The friends, at last, coming out from the bedroom, looking worn, unbuttoned, giving the last guest dirty looks for knocking, for interrupting, as I quickly push him into the bedroom and enter the bedroom behind him and shut the door, despite his struggling, despite his confusion, and lock the door, and the other guests pounding on the door from the other side, insisting we let them in to get their coats, screaming, Let us fucking in, and the last guest trying to unlock the door but my hand is over the lock, and the last guest saying, Let them in, and, before I can explain, the last guest, standing behind me, succeeding in pulling my hand away from the door, quite roughly, and unlocking the door and allowing the guests to rush into the bedroom to peel their coats from the heap, so that they can leave in the rain.