Tao Lin - Richard Yates

Dakota Fanning left the bed and changed into an American Apparel dress. She sat on the floor facing away from Haley Joel Osment who looked at her a little then closed his eyes. After about thirty seconds there were very loud noises. Haley Joel Osment listened and felt confused and sat and saw Dakota Fanning wrapped in a sheet. “What is happening?” he thought. “I feel crazy.” He looked at Dakota Fanning hitting things against the wood floor. He crawled to her and touched her and said “What are you doing?” She lay facing away and cried. Haley Joel Osment held her backside and saw cracked glass cylinders. He thought about her mother coming upstairs and questioning him. He thought about his birthday. Dakota Fanning did not give him anything or say anything except “Cheese beast.” On the stairs she had grinned and said “Cheese beast.” On the internet she had talked about stealing the four-volume collected writings of Beckett for him. On the train today he had drawn two lemons for her and he didn’t know what to do with those now. “I have urges to give them to her,” he thought. “I will probably give them to her. Maybe she will give me the Beckett later. She said ‘happy birthday squid groin’ last night. I came today to help make funnel cakes for a church at a carnival. When she was emotional and hitting things I started liking her again and wanted to make her feel better. Now I am thinking about making myself feel better. If she wanted to stop seeing me I don’t think I would panic and promise to change. I would be afraid to see her again. I would be somewhere else right now. In the library probably.”

Dakota Fanning turned toward him and they held each other.

It was quiet inside and outside the house. Haley Joel Osment thought about the next three to eight years of his life. “It seems calm,” he thought. “I’ll probably be calm all those years.” He thought about walking on a sidewalk in nice weather listening to music through earphones as a 29-year-old in a town like this town.

After a few minutes one of them moved a little.

“What do you want to do now?” said Haley Joel Osment.

“We have to go make funnel cakes soon,” said Dakota Fanning.

They walked toward the carnival holding hands. Leaves were in the air and on people’s yards. It was cloudy. A man driving a minivan waved. Dakota Fanning waved and the minivan went past.

“He looked like he raped you or something,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“He did,” said Dakota Fanning and made a strange facial expression.

“Oh,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“No he didn’t,” he said after about ten seconds.

“Yes he did,” said Dakota Fanning.

“He really raped you?”

“Yes,” said Dakota Fanning.

“When?” said Haley Joel Osment staring ahead.

Dakota Fanning said when she was small she was friends with the man’s daughter and she spent the night at their house and when everyone was asleep the man took her to the basement and punched her in the back of the head and in the morning she was in bed and her head hurt.

“How do you know he raped you?”

“Because my cunt was bloody.”

“Oh,” said Haley Joel Osment looking ahead and felt Dakota Fanning’s hand in his hand. He thought about the word cunt.

“Did anyone notice the blood?” he said.

“No. I was very embarrassed and ran to the bathroom and cleaned myself.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“You didn’t tell John?” said Haley Joel Osment about the 28-year-old superhero comics fan Dakota Fanning ran away to Philadelphia to meet last summer.

“No,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Dakota Fanning said something about how the man would be in jail if she told people and she didn’t want that. She said some things about people who explain their entire lives in terms of having been raped. She said she didn’t want that. Haley Joel Osment thought about the man being in jail or not being in jail. He thought about Dakota Fanning’s life, that it was happening, that it would end. He thought that he would feel confused and maybe very worried if he were raped. He maybe wouldn’t want to stop his life to talk about it.

“Do you think he raped other people?”

“Probably,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Why do you think he chose you instead of someone else?”

“I don’t know,” said Dakota Fanning. “I was quiet and weird.”

At the carnival they made funnel cakes under a tent with Dakota Fanning’s mother and a church pastor. Sometimes one of them left the tent to get more milk from a full-size refrigerator. Haley Joel Osment tried to make a funnel cake in the formation of a pentagram. Dakota Fanning said they should replace the sugar powder with bacon bits. Haley Joel Osment said they should fry the funnel cakes in bacon oil then wrap it in bacon and pour nacho cheese on it to create a family-size funnel cake for cheese beast families. They talked about having their own tent next year to sell organic vegan funnel cakes. They made funnel cakes for about three hours and then walked to different areas of the carnival, sometimes saying “cheese beast” or “party girl” quietly while facing forward with neutral facial expressions. They looked at a pony and said it was a cheese beast and a party girl. Five people were on a wood stage playing heavy metal cover songs to about eight people, some not wearing shirts. Haley Joel Osment wanted to give leftover funnel cakes to a group of Hispanic people standing in the distance.

“My mom will be angry,” said Dakota Fanning.

“But it’s good, why would she be angry?”

“She’s a beast. We should do it. Let’s do it. Forget what I said about my mom, that was stupid, we should do it. My mom’s stupid.”

“Can you do it, I’m afraid,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“I’m afraid,” said Dakota Fanning.

“They might not like the funnel cakes because they’re cold,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“They might get offended or something,” said Dakota Fanning.

“We’ll just be making them obese,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“It’s better not to give them the funnel cakes maybe,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Where are they?” said Haley Joel Osment. “They disappeared.”

“I don’t know,” said Dakota Fanning.

“I don’t see them,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I think they disappeared.” He and Dakota Fanning walked away from the carnival. They ran holding hands toward a puddle on the street. They jumped over the puddle. Dakota Fanning’s mother drove past and stopped and they sat in the backseat. “Thanks for helping us out today,” said Dakota Fanning’s mother. “I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” said Haley Joel Osment. “It was fun.”

“Well, I don’t know, but it was certainly nice of you to come out on your birthday.”

“Did I make you nervous yesterday when I broke things and cried?” said Dakota Fanning the next night on Gmail chat. “I felt melodramatic and stupid and afraid. I cried in the shower. I don’t know why.”

“I don’t know,” said Haley Joel Osment in Bobst Library. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Yeah you do,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“You want to know why I asked if you felt nervous or why I was crying?”

“Crying,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“I felt embarrassed of myself again. I felt nervous. Sometimes if I stare for too long I think about loneliness and I think about what is going to happen if I annoy you and you leave me and about how lonely and afraid of everything I used to be and I just get nervous and cry I guess. I don’t know. Before when I was lonely it was sort of a calm loneliness. Like I would just say ‘oh well.’ And lie in bed. And just be alone. But now when I think about being lonely it’s very depressing and I can’t relax.” Haley Joel Osment wasn’t responding. “I feel selfish,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’m going to try to come tomorrow.”