State Champ, page 2
So yeah, it’s my voice, I’m the one who breaks the news. We’re gone, we’re shut down, welcome to no one helping you ever, nope, no voicemail. But I’m the one here now, still here. Huh. But to Rose that doesn’t matter. The pills are all gone and for all the times Dr. M said it was such a simple procedure she never taught us. That was a rule she didn’t break.
Day 4
Hungry.
No surprise but real sick.
Bored.
Horny?
Don’t you get bored? they’d ask me about like the 5K, 10K, all the distance stuff, 25 laps around the track. I would be so bored. No. I don’t get bored, I was already bored. Pain distracts you from being bored and god do you need that. I think the great runners are all like this, if they talk about focus or a runner’s high they’re lying. Compared to being bored you were less scared of pain. To do something scary you just need to be more scared of something else.
We’re all bored, but I’m fast. Was fast? I’ve been trying to do the old push-up/sit-up thing but this morning I just lay for a while face down on the rug. Mostly I’ve been scrolling Instagram and farting. I have to keep moving rooms. I’d post if I could post a fart.
Right now I’m wanting a hot bowl of those baked beans from a can, lick your finger as you crank the lid off, slices of hot dog cooked up in butter that you tumble on into the bowl of beans, pennies, my mom called them, cooked so the hot dog skin peels away from the meat of the bite. Fuck.
As you can see, John, I got bored with printer paper and I’m using the exam table paper. Scrolling it out on the grimy tile floor. Exam room 1, but I’m going to try them all. Writing with one of our shitty pencils. At around 4 or 5, happy hour, Dr. M might stab a pencil through the thick of her bun, angled like 2 to 8 o’clock in bun-time. Her hair must go down past her waist. If middle age dries it out, you can’t tell. She must oil it, there’s a scent if she leans over the desk and her braid swings at you. She dyes the shit out of it. Unflinchingly black. When does she find the time? Some salon must open at like 3 a.m. Dr. M, we give those pencils to patients, I’d say, it’s not sanitary. This one’s for me, she’d say, but she’d leave it wherever. She’d spin a pencil in her fingers for an hour at staff meetings, bored at a meeting she’d called. I don’t think she ever wrote with one because they suck to write with.
During the trial her roots came in, hard.
Put your hand here, on the belly. I love when the belly retreats from the hips. The world’s gone from you, the world’s left outside you. It’s like a low tide. The skin is sinking, soft and low. You can feel the fine ropey fibers, intricate. Like whatever lies below the sea’s surface, greening the light.
Glow, everyone says that about pregnant women. Lots of people look fucking sick. The baby isn’t some sacred candle lit from the perfect flame of the body. Radiant. The baby is competition, a second call you get while you’re putting out a housefire. To make its bones the baby just sucks out your bones. I’m not against it. But don’t lie about it.
Whenever people say a woman looks good, guaranteed she was puking or shitting her guts out like moments before. Exception for when there’s not enough left in there. Been there, getting there. Beauty means you’re a little too empty and you want to be a little too full, you’re ready for anyone to pack their bullshit back in you. You look so, like, receptive. Walking the runway like sticking your little hand through the cage.
John, I haven’t texted you since day 1. I’m waiting. It’s pathetic. I’m not going to write you like, I know you have a lot going on. Like, I’m actually dying just thought you’d wanna know thx. You didn’t write about Dr. M’s trial so I guess that’s not your beat or whatever. Whoever wrote about her in your cheap paper kept saying abortion doctor. You could just say she’s a doctor. She wasn’t just hosing and scraping uteruses out all day.
To explain how it worked once she made a gesture with her hand in the air. Moved her hand in the air between us like the air was a womb. I can’t tell if my memory’s fucked but I think, right then, I was turned on. For a sec. Or I’m turned on now and that’s like obscuring the record. If she moves her hand in the air, I remember how my hips were propped on your lap in the back of your car. Your whole hand was in me. Usually I don’t know how many fingers—you laughed once when I asked, how many fingers, but how would I know?—but I could feel it this time, your whole hand cupped downward and fingers moving together, a deep wave that went to the heart of each nerve. Like say you’re making a dandelion crown as a kid and you get bored, you split the stem of one dandelion and keep slicing it long all the way up to the blossom, white milk sticky under your nail. I came right into your fist. You showed me your palm when you pulled it out, flicked it half-clean out the car door, onto the asphalt, I guess. You got out to smoke. I lay there for a sec then I joined you. You always gave me my very own cigarette like we hadn’t just fucked. It was bright out. Sometimes you seemed nervous about being seen and I couldn’t tell if that was stage fright or if you had a girlfriend and didn’t want to get caught. I don’t usually ask questions. I’m never sure what I’m supposed to learn.
Angela, if you don’t know how to do something, why don’t you just ask?
Angela, people would like you better if you asked them questions about themselves. You have to show interest.
“Dr. M’s finishing school for lifetime receptionists,” I said. She looked at me calmly, but like it cost her.
“You know, Angela,” she said, “I have worked as a receptionist. For several years, in Pakistan, in a doctor’s office, before I became a doctor myself. I had to use a typewriter.”
I tipped my head to the side. I did not ask a question.
“I bet you were good at it,” I said. “But I bet the other girls didn’t like you.”
She took a long pause, but that doesn’t work on me. I love time.
“You make a good point, Angela,” she said. “No, I would say they did not.”
* * *
Ever think of Rose who showed up one year in early spring, I remember snowdrops were blooming along the curb of the parking lot island, and I was feeling good until I walked in late, got yelled at, LATE! and halfway through the day I had to count Rose’s cash out to give back to her, I guess I shouldn’t have taken it in the first place, too late for Rose, I should have known, but how would I know? At the end of her appointment, which was short, I gave back the exact same damp bills she’d brought in. Threshold of viability, crossed. “Sorry I had to change the appointment,” she’d said, when I’d checked her in and she’d handed a wad of bills to me, “I hadn’t finished raising the money yet.” One of those funds had helped her but it’s not enough, and now your money’s no good here, I didn’t say. The price had gone up since we’d first quoted it, weeks and weeks back, she’d crossed into the second trimester. And now, too late, the third. I didn’t ask if she’d have to give the money all back to someone somewhere, probably, or could she keep it to use for the kid or at least the time off to deliver. She didn’t look pissed. I wouldn’t say pissed. She’d zipped her purple fleece up snug against her chin, she nestled her chin in as she watched me fish out the cash. She looked like she’d just learned she’d been totally right about something important, too late, now that it no longer mattered. “I gotta get home,” she said when I finished counting. I don’t think I said anything since none of my preprogrammed speeches—call us with questions, let’s schedule your next appointment—made sense. But I slipped her an extra $20 out of the drawer.
Day 5
I’ll call the police, my aunt texted me.
No you won’t, I texted back. Pls call a newspaper.
I know she remembers my record because she brings it up every chance she gets. Like Donna saying extra loud when I’m late I know you don’t drive but the bus runs every half hour. Or: You know we were supposed to hire someone with a degree and we took a chance on you. Or just: You know you’re lucky to have this job. You’re lucky you can mention my background to sound so enlightened, I wanted to say.
The bus makes me think of those big-ass coffee drinks, embarrassing, the ones that are all sugar and ice and some fake flavor that tastes burned and druggy, and you get a big straw so at the end you can suck the ice crystals up, drag the last sugar up with them, shake the cup and suck suck suck. The coffee place was right by my second-favorite bus stop but I only splurged sometimes, every now and then, medium no whip, way too much money, god I would love that shit right now, OK moving on.
Anyway I sent three photos to my aunt, mug-shot-style: me facing left, center, right. No smiling. Bags under the eyes were almost actually blue.
I need to talk to the papers.
I’ve been told I need to work on my “communication skills.” Also my “people skills.” Which is it, people?
If the clinic was too busy or not busy at all I sometimes walked patients back. I can tell when someone’s about to lose it and not in a welling-up blink-it-out kind of way. Rose had a ’90s look, buzzed hair, nice and jacked. Triceps were statuesque. Face was getting red, dangerously, like about to explode. “You want to wait in the back?” I said. The waiting room was hot and cranky. Some big guys were lurking, antsy, harshing the vibe. “Come on,” I said and shouted an exam room number into the air, Monica caught it with an eyebrow.
They were already, by then, crying. Starting to really heave. I smacked the paper on the exam table like, get on up here, handed them a box of tissues.
“They’ll be with you soon,” I said. That made it actually worse.
I filled a plastic cup with tap water, held it out.
“I don’t know if I should tell her,” Rose said.
“OK,” I said.
“I cheated on her,” they said, and waved a hand at their torso and I got it.
“I get it,” I said.
“It’s like, once I lie about it I’ll have to lie my whole life. I’ll lie about a baby.”
“It’s OK,” I said.
“It’s not OK,” they said.
“Cheating isn’t the worst,” I said. “It’s like the most common thing.”
“It’s not OK,” they said.
What are you supposed to say? The lights fluttered and I was still gripping the cup.
“I thought about telling her,” they said. “I thought about asking her if she wanted to, like, have the baby together. But he’d have to be involved. Every time she saw him it would be like, I cheated.”
“Not everyone is that boring,” I said. “But I don’t know her myself.”
They said: “If she finds out I lied about something this big, she’ll never forgive me.”
I accidentally drank the water.
“How do people lie like that? How do they live with it?” they said.
Sometimes jobs get personal. “When it’s better than telling the truth,” I said.
“I bet you’ll figure it out,” I added.
“People must cry at you all day,” they said.
“Water off a duck’s back,” I said. “Statistically”—and they flinched, like I was going to talk about the procedure—“statistically, I’m pretty sure most people cheat. Like, a majority. In my opinion people in general should be more chill about something most people do.”
“I don’t think it’s OK,” they said. “I don’t think I’m going to be OK.”
They pressed their hands hard against their eye sockets. In my experience this just makes you cry more, but I can’t solve everything. They said: “Have you ever cheated?”
“Well,” I paused for a sec, “I honestly don’t know how to answer that. I mean, I don’t necessarily have that kind of information? But sure.”
Then I said, having thought about it: “Maybe I’ve only ever cheated.”
I tried. I said: “Fucking isn’t like totally one thing or totally another thing. It’s always different things at the same time. That’s why it’s so confusing that it can like, flip a switch, pregnant. Like, on/off. What the hell. So I hear you.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” they said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Seems like you kinda don’t. But here you are at the abortion clinic”—Monica cracked the door, lightly knocking—“so let’s roll.”
All that was true but I got talked to later. “Angela,” Monica said, “you need to act like you care.”
“I do care,” I said. But caring was supposed to look some other way. My way didn’t count.
How bout now?
* * *
I guess I won’t run again. Ever?
I woke up with wet paper drooled onto my left cheek. Didn’t know I was asleep. That must be what made me think of running. When you’re like a half hour into a run and you forget that’s what you’re doing. It’s not a high. If you’ve literally ever been high you wouldn’t call it that. But the space around the act of running vanishes. All the pressure to make yourself do it, to think about doing it, to get good at it, the effort that’s the whole machine—about a half hour in something eases or vanishes. There you are. You’re just doing it, without knowing more about it. Fucking is like this. Fucking can be like this. Not much else is. For everything else there’s something in the way, you’re in the way of the thing you’re doing, the place where you want to be, which is the place where you vanish. It’s not that I’m not thinking. But you can just think something dumb, like the theme song to Free Willy. You’re running and singing to yourself and it’s just the theme song to Free Willy. Not even a song anyone felt bad about getting rid of when people tried to get rid of everything Michael Jackson ever did, like they could magically erase like a lifetime of radio from our heads, anyway no one was like, NO! NOT THE THEME SONG TO FREE WILLY! But that’s the sort of thing that takes over my brain. Just junk, like thoughts that don’t mean anything, nothing’s happening. You notice where your foot is coming down, you don’t want to catch a divot, roll an ankle in the field. You lift your knees to power up this sledding hill, which right now in the spring is yellow with old grass, probably a thousand ticks birthing. You get up on your toes. Your thoughts are light and stupid. You can see through them. It’s like you can catch the path light takes through seawater without hitting the shit plastic. Doesn’t matter. A pressure, releasing. It’s not like cumming, it’s like not thinking about whether you’ll cum.
I wonder if people will remember my championship. After this.
God I’m like some sad dad showing his kid his trophy, some figurine with a cheap guy-shape wearing shorts the wrong length for the next era. His kid’s just thinking, did you really wear shorts like that, oh my god?
My aunt came to the big championship race, straight from work, still wearing her padded-shoulder blazer. She was standing in a weird spot on the course, where no one else would have thought to stand. My mom wasn’t coming, so my aunt stepped up, made the effort. She looked really shocked when she saw me, I guess because I was in the front pack and had a face like a monster. I don’t think she thought she’d see me out front like that, like there were four girls and then four hundred girls but I was one of the four. She was all by herself by the side of the trail, in the woods where no one was. I think she’d had some meeting then drove almost two hours, trotted to that weird spot, in her tight suit and white sneakers. I remember I glided over a big root then looked up and caught her full in the eye. She cheered like, go Angela. But then once she was behind me—we were heading downhill and into the third mile—all of a sudden she shrieked, horribly, smashing the trance sound of our breathing: GO ANGELA!!!!! It was so loud. But I think that really helped. Like, I cracked up. I thought, oh my god. It reminded me that I wasn’t dying, this was just a race I could win.
Stupid if I told her all this.
The Michael Jackson thing, it’s like, everyone knew, but they pretended not to know, but then once they couldn’t pretend anymore they were shocked. How can you be shocked? We all totally knew this. We totally know fucked-up things like this happen and were probably, right here and now, happening. But it’s like this every time, fake shock. Like anytime it turns out a rich guy raped 75 women, people are like, HE RAPED 75 WOMEN!?! and they tear their hair out and announce they’ll catch him faster next time, they have to do better. And it’s like yeah, 35 women told you about it already, but I guess the last 40 were a surprise?
I don’t shock easy but people don’t like that about me. People need to feel like they can surprise you.
It took a while but I’m starting to get that this is one of people’s problems with me.
What I’ve been thinking (and I feel almost surprised about it) is that before—I mean, in the past—it seemed like the secret to running was to sink way into the middle, lose your awareness of anything else, and then to pull yourself back out. Like, you get into the zone, everything around the running itself has eased off. But the zone gets deeper as the run gets harder. Then, in the zone, in the deep part of it, you’re like, I’m dying. Your thoughts are just dying dying dying. So then when your aunt suddenly appears, wearing nude stockings and extremely white sneaks, tucking her extremely bobbed hair behind her ear in the middle of the woods, and says louder than you’ve ever heard her say anything in the 17 years you’ve been alive GO ANGELA!, you’re like, I’m not dying, I’m just hurting, which is fine, that makes sense, if I hurt enough I can win. So you have to step back out of the zone. It’s a rhythm, I guess. In it, then knowing about it. You have to forget, then remember.
