Ribbon

Mrs. Josephine's Dance Studio was always cold in the summer, like a dog's nose pressed against your thigh. I went there, near the classes, listenin to the music, they got violins and drums sometimes. Tap tap tap. Some rooms had louder taps, real sharp and crisp that reminded me like construction sites outside Grandfather's window. I didn't sit near those rooms, with hard shoes and metal clicks, but light an soft, padding, tap. Mrs. Josephine had yellow hair like a banana, and wore pink or white. She was pink. She stayed extra long, the little girls with fluffy skirts had gone and she would stay, dancin and dancin. I wish I coulda but I'm too fat. Even when I was short I was big, no way to twirl without knocking over the potted plant outside the dance rooms, belly poking out of Grandfather's shirts.

            She threw something in the garbage, one day she did, all mad with her yellow hair loose stickin to her face sweaty. I pushed over the can turned it all inside out it was a shoe. A ballerina slipper. It was white. It wasn't much bigger than my hand, but even when I was short I had big hands able to cup birds and two or three kittens. I stuffed it in my pants so Grandfather wouldn't see it but he did, told me to take them off show him what I had. Even then he wasn't strong, but he was mad told me it weren't right, pulled it broke. But today I still got the ribbon, the ribbon that wrapped around Mrs. Josephine's tiny ankles like they made of glass, so fragile I coulda snapped them. Even with my hands so big, they was small.

What's Behind the Door of Room 101: Breaking Fragile Things

Obsessed. That's the word Grandfather snarled at me when he saw me sortin through my box, moving and cleanin and taking better care of my things than my dog or him. I don't have too many things. My things are presents, things I found. They're delicate, soft as butterfly wings or hard as glass. One rough move and they could tear, shatter. My fingers are so big that they squish ants when I try to see 'em, I too strong and hurt things. My dog got a bone on his leg, on the ankle part above his foot, that's so thin and delicate I could snap like a turkey wishbone. Some things I'm allowed to break, others I'm not. I've learnt this. I told her that the bird had hit the window, broke its neck. My fingers twitch towards Grandfather's neck when he sleeping, pull snap, twist break. Life is so fragile, innit it? I'm scared of myself. Scared that one day, when I'm setting out china plates, I'll crush them in my hand, feel the blood drip down my hand and drop them, throw them, hurt them.

Most Important Relationship

I only known Rory for half a year, but he's my favourite person. I love him more than I love finding quarters in the fountain outside Terry Park, more than small things made of glass, dog eating sherbet ice-cream, and sometimes even more than Grandfather not waking up when I get home. Rory gives me things. He gives me things to eat and hugs. I squish him and giggle when we hug, he's so small. He isn't from here, but somewhere with lots of 'i's and 'k's, maybe. He said once they got guns there. "Do you know how to shoot a gun?" I asked him when we were walkin passed the shops. He was gonna buy me a bread sweet.

            He never did anything bad, he said, he never hurt anybody. I wish I could pack him in a box and bring him home with me, live him in my room and take care of him. He buys me things. I want to hug him so tight sometimes, break him I feel, I scared. I get real scared. I remind myself, I gotta be gentle. I hold his wrinkled brown hands, like paper over books without their covers, tiny.

            Rory runs a shop, sells videos. I never seen a video, I told him once. Never seen a video or a cinema film. I want to eat yellow pop, I said, popcorn. Eat it with salt and melted butter, get that butter on my fingers and lick my fingers clean. Rory laughed. I like it when Rory laughs, makes me warm and I smile. "We go see movie," he told me, "we go see movie together, okay?"

            We were sitting down at the back of the theatre, my head wasn't blocking anyone then. There were silly characters that made me laugh and I understood the story, there was a girl and two boys, two of them made a kiss near the end, the boy and the girl. I was crying and blowing my nose into my sweater. The tears were good and when I licked my lips it was salty and butter. Rory wanted to know why I was crying, so I turned and I pulled him in close, I hugged him round the shoulders and I told him, I said, "I love you." And Rory said "I love you also, I do." I only known Rory since it rained and the flowers come out, but now the leaves are orange and he is my friend.

Seven or Eight Things I Know About Him

His Mother's Baby

The day after his mother screamed and his father drove her to the hospital, he found a towel laden with a red liquid staining her cream coloured carpet. He threw it in the garbage bin in the bathroom, the one with hand-painted yellow ducks swimming on it. When his father drove home, alone, three days later with inflamed eyes and alcohol ridden breath, he was found tucked inside his Hot Wheels bed, the blood of his late mother and sister on his hands.

The Dog

The Boxer was shabby, ugly, its fur matted with dirt and its nails far overgrown. Its hair was raised as it looked at him in fear. He reached forwards with his grubby little hands, sticky from the mud and the popsicle on his face and the booger he had picked from his nose, and grabbed on the dog, pulling its skin and massaging it. Like any other dog, this one reached forwards to lick the leftover peach from his face, giving him sopping, wet kisses that he was happy to return. He was lucky that dogs, especially that one, were tolerant creatures, especially near children, because even though he stood two feet taller and eighty pounds heavier than the other kids who played on the monkey bars, his skin was still like Play-Doh, tears were always near the surface, and he still had four baby teeth.

The Sunroom

Every day at three o'clock, the little children would close their eyes and yawn like tiny mewling kittens, drag their blankets into the glass-roofed Sunroom and curl up like pillbugs and soak up the sun. He loved the Sunroom. When he turned six, he was told that he was too old for napping. He tried crying for three days, but he wasn't as cute as the other children. He was big and homely and reminded the supervisors about everything they hated about themselves. He snuck into the Sunroom and didn't leave on the Friday. They locked the door, not seeing him inside the largest empty clay pot. He got hungry and wailed, but no one was there to hear. He threw a rock at the glass and went to the hospital, unconscious and covered in cuts. The principal made an announcement the next Monday that the Sunroom was closed and would not reopen.

First Criticism

When he was four years old, he was stuffed in a suit and his hair was combed with fervour in order to please his mother's father. His pudgy hands were clasped together and he was forced to keep eye contact with his grandfather's surly stare. "Well? Doesn't he talk?" He opened his mouth and gurgled, his thick tongue trying to make sense of his grandfather's name. "What's wrong with him? Is he stupid? Mina, feed him less."

Listening In

A Sunday walk with his dog, passing, hear, "Not many years left, not many at all."

Self-Criticism

"There're doors I can't fit through, bottles I don't know how to open."

Fantasies

A world so simple, with everyone he loves and no one he hates. A world where there's an infinite supply of Oreo ice-cream with little sprinkles, where his grandfather never existed and where he had a little sister. A world where his dog could tell him its name.