Tiffany Scandal - Jigsaw Youth

“Mah. Why did you guys start calling me Mensa?”

“ Porque eres .” Her sister walked past us. Her belly had expanded and Mensa said it was because she was going to have a baby.

“But isn’t mensa bad?” I asked.

“Doesn’t it mean beautiful?” Her grandmother cough-laughed, sounding sick.

Mensa was eight. Her grandmother was forty-four. Her sister was fifteen.

“Come on. Let’s go play outside.”

Mensa took my hand. We went to a patch of grass outside her apartment complex. We looked up at the sky and spun in circles. We spun and spun until we fell to the ground. We lay on the grass and caught our breath and stared up again, pointing out shapes in the clouds.

“Pig.”

“Car.”

“Mrs. Hernandez when she bends over.”

We both giggled.

“Do you ever see faces in the shadows?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like when you’re staring in the dark and it looks like there’s a face staring back.”

“Family?”

“No. Someone else. And you can only see them in the dark.”

I thought real hard. Sometimes when the lights were off, I’d feel like someone was watching, but I’ve always been too scared to look. I didn’t want to tell her that though.

“Let me show you.”

I gulped. I was nervous, but I didn’t want to tell her that. My palms started to sweat and my stomach felt funny.

We went back inside. Mensa took me to her room. Her sister was on her bed reading a magazine and had headphones on. She was chewing gum and popping bubbles. Mensa pushed apart the closet doors a little so that there was a dark gap in between. She took me to her bed and laid out a puzzle. She had me sit against the wall, facing the closet. She sat in front of me and started putting pieces together.

After a few minutes, she asked if I saw them. I looked up to the closet and squinted real hard.

I didn’t see anything.

She looked over her shoulder then looked at me.

“How about now?”

Then it was there. I saw the white face in the shadow. Like Halloween makeup. Crusted white layer, heavy black around the eyes. It stared back.

“You see it now, don’t you?” Mensa nodded and continued assembling the puzzle.

Her sister was still on the bed, tapping her feet to the music she was listening to, still popping bubbles. Her grandmother coughed in the kitchen. Her mother was still at work. Her older brother at his girlfriend’s house. Her younger brother was at his dad’s for the week. I tried to think of who else could be in the two-bedroom apartment, but couldn’t.

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know. But it lives in the closet.”

“Like always?”

“When the lights are off, yeah.”

“Have you ever gone in there in the dark?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t get scared?”

“No.”

When I got home, I pulled my closet doors ajar, just enough to leave a dark gap between as Mensa had. I moved to the other side of the room and grabbed a book. I started to flip through, waiting for something to happen. My heart raced. What if I looked up and there was a face in the shadow? What if there was something living in my closet too?

I thought about closing the door. Ignoring my curiosity. Forgetting my fear. I got up and walked toward it, stopping a few feet away. Imagined a pasty white arm reaching out and grabbing me, pulling me down into the underworld. When I saw the face in Mensa’s room, we were there with her sister. The room was brighter and I didn’t feel scared. But now, with the sun going down, my room was colder and darker. I was alone. And it was pindrop quiet.

I regretted opening the closet doors now. Wished I would’ve waited till morning.

I breathed deep and shut my eyes. Hoped I wouldn’t see it. I peeked, slowly, but nothing was there. I sighed, relieved. Then a picture fell from the wall and I sprinted out of my room, screaming for my grandfather.

The next day I told Mensa I thought my house was haunted.

She told me ghosts were like always having friends around. Asked if I saw the faces at my own house. I admitted I hadn’t. She said I probably didn’t look hard enough.

Mensa came over after school. We stayed in my room, reading magazines and talking about various musicians we wanted to meet, and which bands we wished we were in. Mensa looked up at my closet, then at me.

“Let’s see if it works here.”

Though I felt safer with her around, I shook my head and said, “Nah.”

“C’mooonnn.”

“No, it’s stupid,” I said.

“You’re scared.” Mensa was grinning. “Chicken. .”

“N-no.” I looked away because we both knew I was lying.

“Triple dog dare you.”

“Fine.”

I opened the doors slowly. Mensa sat with her back against the wall, arms crossed, smiling at me. “Go on, open it.”

I pried the doors wide enough to leave a six-inch gap.

“Wider,” Mensa said.

I immediately felt someone looking at me from the darkness. I took a deep breath and pulled the doors a little wider. Turned my head and returned to Mensa. I sat beside her and looked at her shoes. Red Converse All-Stars. I wanted them.

Mensa held my hand.

She whispered, “Look.”

“I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

I really didn’t.

I didn’t want to know something lived there.

I didn’t want to know if it watched me sleep.

Mensa squeezed my hand. I felt sick.

I started to cry.

Between the doors, two white faces looked back.

“Why are there two of them?”

“Sometimes I see more.”

I sniffled.

“Are you crying?”

“No.” I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“Are you scared?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Look at them and tell me if you feel scared.”

The faces were expressionless. They didn’t look angry or scary. Seemed instead empty, like they were lost or confused. The more I watched, the less fear was there. They seemed familiar, though I didn’t understand why. I no longer felt like crying.

“Have you ever hidden in your closet?”

“Yeah.”

“That feeling of safety you get, where you’re sure no one will ever find you. How it feels so comfortable, that’s what they do.” She led me by the arm. “Let’s talk to them.”

I tugged back at her arm before we were too close.

“Are you sure they won’t hurt us?”

“We’re still here, aren’t we?”

Mensa squeezed my hand. I looked into the dark and the two faces pulled back, disappearing into it. We followed them. Inside, the closet was bigger. Without walls. We waited for the faces to return. I got cold and started to shiver. Mensa put her arms around me and held on. I rested my head on her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay.”

I felt safe and warm in her arms.

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

The first time I saw Hope after we stopped seeing each other, she came to a show we were playing at Satyricon. She told me she was proud of me, and knew I’d get my life together. Hope wanted to know if I wanted to hang out after the set. I told her I couldn’t, I had plans.

I ran into her again a few weeks later, outside of Ground Kontrol. I was on my way out, frustrated by a kid in sunglasses that kept hogging the Street Fighter machine. She hugged me before I knew it was her, and whispered it was good to see me. I lied and agreed. She insisted we should get coffee and catch up. I shrugged and said okay, not thinking about where it might lead.