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1: Catch It On The Rebound
‘The only important things in life are the traces of love we leave behind’.
“Come on, fatso! Just swing the damn bat!”
I narrowed my eyes further in anger, already squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. The vindictive term was not uncommon, yet with each use it inspired wrath inside me. I repositioned my sweaty hands on the bat feeling apprehensive and furious all at once.
'I'll swing if you stop trying to bash my face in.' I thought darkly in response.
Sports are dangerous, dirty, unpleasant things. I hate being hit, I really do. My biological father had given praise with his fist before the abusive bastard eloped with a retired Hooters waitress. I despise baseball even more partially because he had been so fond of mocking my substandard play of the game. I wasn't a particular fan of sports on the whole, accounting my considerable fondness for the cinematic. I much preferred Batman comics, acting, or reading. It is difficult to become enthusiastic about competitive games when you aren't quick, you aren't clever, and the better players regard you with the same affection as used chewing gum. The best athlete in his year hated me purely out of boredom (which made Physical Education that much cheerier). I loathed him as well but I kept this blatant blasphemy against adolescent social structure to myself.
Today was hot (which I despised) and the Elephant Squad, which was my own personal title for the Sports enthusiastic males of my High School, seemed to be feeling particularly antagonistic. Mark, the egotistical bastard of a tenth-grader that was currently playing pitcher, sneered at me as if I were so pathetic that he could not bring himself to be amused over my awkward participation. I took a deep breath to calm my twitching fingers and dared him to throw the ball with my gaze. He drew back his arm and I shut my eyes in preparation of being smashed with a hard sphere. The sound of a ball parting the air intruded upon my thoughts and I swung blindly. The force of my swing almost spun me 360 degrees but at some point my rotation was halted due to the bat making a smart cracking sound. I stumbled, dropping the bat, and opened my eyes on impulse. Mark was turned the opposite direction watching in annoyance as the ball (yes, the one he had thrown at me) flew toward the field. I blinked, dumbstruck. Oh look. I hit it.
“Réme, RUN you idiot!” Cooper shouted from his spot in the line of students.
Run? Oh, yeah. I was supposed to run around the bases. Okay then.
I raced as fast as my legs would carry me to one white diamond and then the next. I felt curiously unprepared and a little dizzy. Adrenaline rush, I guess. I admit that I am a little overweight. Okay, I'm plump. Fat. So sue me. Is there some law that requires me to scratch and spit and look like something out of 'The Incredible Hulk'? To conform to the aesthetic expectations of a controversial society? If there is, I demand that you show it to me. Ha, got you. That's it, bitch. Squirm. I feel no shame in admitting that I strongly dislike physical work and lack of exercise equals lack of smallness. Er... the point being that I'm not fast. But my enemies were. A body slammed into mine, nearly knocking me to the ground as the third blessed base drew near. The breath left me as an elbow connected with my stomach and I crashed to the dirt like a dropped rhinoceros. Just in time to see someone use the damn ball to oust me.
“He's out!” Shouted my attacker.
I vaguely registered the voice as belonging to Jeff Maberly, one of Mark's cronies with a face like a dog's ass. Or at least this is what I thought it looked like. Cooper concurred but I suppose he's bias.
I stared up at the yellow-tinted sky overhead, reflecting miserably on my failure to do something right for once in my entire high school career. I hate tenth grade. The only thing that sucks more than life is a vacuum cleaner.
“Well, that was a good try, Mr. Saint-Clare.” Coach Matherson shouted, trying and failing to be encouraging.
Go to hell and take your sports equipment with you, Sir. The faint trill of the school bell accosted my ears and I sighed in relief as I cast a bitter glance at the other kids. The students had begun to disperse, no doubt laughing openly about clumsy obese Réme Saint-Clare and his inability to both hit the ball and actually make it to third base. Ha ha. I hope you all get leprosy and lose your fucking noses.
A shadow fell over me, blotting out the wretched sun. A pleasant face hovered above mine smiling sympathetically under a backward baseball cap.
“You okay, Réme?” Cooper asked, unperturbed by the scowl that I sent up to him.
“I've been deprived of breakfast, stuffed into a locker, snubbed by Queen Louisa, had orange juice spilled on my portfolio, humiliated, and then forced to play baseball in the space of eight hours. Does this sound to you like the formula for contentment? Not. Can I do a thing about it? Again, no. So to answer your question... I will be a hell of a lot better if you help me up.”
Extending his hand he pulled while I pushed myself off the ground.
“That guy is just a jerk.” Cooper soothed, dusting the dirt out of my sweat-soaked hair.
Great. Now I was filthy, too. And believe me: having dirt in your blond hair is hardly flattering. It kind of shows and unlike with black hair does not look sexy in the slightest.
“Which one? The ugly or the uglier? Or is there even a difference?” I retorted dryly, messing with my hair in annoyance.
“Point taken.” Cooper replied with a laugh. He was a cheerful boy by nature, almost the opposite of me. Cooper always made me feel better about life. As much as was possible for a nihilistic individual, anyway.
“D'you want to come to my house after we get released from Mordor?” My companion offered hopefully.
I smiled at the familiar nickname for our school but shook my head in answer.
“Sorry. I need to get home.” I replied with regret.
“Awww, does wittle Dominique need help with his homey-work?” Cooper teased.
“Probably.”
Cooper screwed up his face and chuckled.
“I worry about you, Réme. You are far too good of a big brother.”
I arched an eyebrow questioningly, fists on my hips. Hm. I'm squishy. I plead innocent due to a disorder which renders me helpless to resist a cheeseburger.
“Pardon me for giving a shit about my only sibling.” I muttered, dropping my hands but still regarding my taller friend indignantly.
My Best Friend Forever grinned and bent over in a bow, tipping his baseball cap like the gentlemen of old used to do.
“No offense meant, oh kind one. Dominique needs a lot of looking after.”
“No shit, sherlock. Mama can't prevent him from sticking forks in toasters all the time.” I replied, rolling my eyes at my brother's idiocy.
Cooper straightened while laughing lightly.
“He only did that once, dude. I think he learned his lesson when you ran screaming at him like a rabid bat on uppers.”
“He was about to be electrocuted!” I protested, casting Cooper a desperate glance.
“Yeah, whatever. So anyway, if I can't convince you to come home with me I guess I'll just have to trail after you on the way home until we are torn apart. How about that?”
“Of course, my darling! I couldn't separate myself from my one true love for too long!” I responded dramatically, clutching my fists to my heart as if attempting to hold it inside.
We managed to hold serious faces for a moment before bursting into laughter and shaking our heads at one another.
“We're such a pair of loonies.” My 'one true love' snorted, smacking the side of my head gently.
“Amen.” I agreed.
Sometimes I suspect that my therapy has no effect whatsoever.
Cooper and I had bonded in nursery school, as I lived on Division Avenue and he on the adjoining cross-street, Linden Avenue. He had determined that his larger, more imposing self was responsible for looking after the small sickly child that so often found himself the victim of crushed sandcastles and stolen cookies. Why he found endearment in a walking example of why femininity ought never be applied to boys I was still contemplating. We continued to walk in comfortable silence while contemplating our own personal thoughts. The houses passed in the haze of afternoon heat, some shaded beneath vibrant leaves and others standing lonely beneath the lemonade-colored sky. Snatches of conversation whispered past; fading in and out of frequency with each yard that we approached then left behind. Shouts to children here, the angry shrill of a mother to her husband there, dogs barking and the raucous tone of the younger generations going about their after-school activities. The occasional sounds of breaking glass or a police siren wailing past like a banshee on crack. The same scene, a different date. Welcome to Belleville.
We paused, as we did every day, at the Quick Buy News & Food Store on Washington Avenue to pool our change for pop. My fingertips hesitated on the Coke pad, slowly relocating to the ‘Diet’ alternative. Biting my lower lip, I pressed the button and listened to the jingle of soda dropping heavily to the floor of the machine.
“What’s with the Diet shit, Batman?” Cooper queried, examining the pop can once he had retrieved it.
“Diet’s got no calories.”
He gaped at me rather amphibiously for a moment before shutting his mouth and shrugging noncomittedly.
“O…kay. Whatever, Reme.”
My beefy companion turned the corner and I followed behind in silent shame. The soaring oak tree that bent arthritically over my house was visible at the end of the block and I scurried up beside my best friend with the thought that our journey together was nearly at its end.
“Um… you want to come over tomorrow night?” I offered, attempting to diffuse the odd silence that had descended since the little Diet Coke incident.
“Yeah, dude.” He passed the can of pop to me and I allowed myself a small sigh of relief.
The awkwardness had passed. I sipped the pop, my nostrils stinging with the carbonation, and relinquished it to Cooper. He flashed me a grin beneath his orange baseball cap and took a healthy swig.
“Which would you rather eat: cottage cheese or earthworms?” I asked without any particular purpose in mind.
“Neither. I'd just eat the plate. Fiber, y'know.” Cooper answered, sipping loudly.
“Earthworms have protein.” I pointed out, reaching for the soda.
Accustomed to sharing everything with my lack of personal boundries, he handed the can over without question.
“I like my meat dead, thanks.”
“Mmm. True. Worms are difficult to kill. I'd feel awful for eating a living creature.” I responded thoughtfully, watching the dark afternoon sky pass slowly overhead and taking a gulp of Coke.
“Oh, go hug a tree already.” Cooper snorted, retrieving his beverage from my grasp.
I grinned and turned in circles as we meandered down the sidewalk searching for a suitable tree.
“I will, as soon as I find the best one.”
Cherry blossom? No. Oak? Certainly not. Maple? Perhaps…
“Réme, you're a nutcase. Leave the poor trees alone.”
My feet stilled and I faced forward once more, all humor lost.
“According to Debbie Knowles, I may fell them if I get to close.” I muttered bitterly, my mood souring.
Wow, Réme -Mood-Swing. Dun dun dun. Thoughtfully glaring at the tall, rather stable looking trees I began an inner tirade of bitterness. I just love being the subject of everyone's jokes. If they took note of my existence at all, that is to say. If it is not my weight it's my dislike of colors, or my sketchbook, or my music, or my silence. Am I the only human being who finds it odd that normal people are capable of finding something wrong with everyone? I mean, will the size of Braxton Muir's pores really increase starvation in Africa?
“Hey, no depressive mode.” Cooper chided, reaching across the 12-inch space to hug me to his side.
I smiled wanly up at my best friend and patted the hand that was curled around my shoulder. “I'm alright, Batman.”
“Good to know, Robin.” He replied in a tone that made me feel quite loved indeed.
“Faggotry!” Shouted an adolescent voice and some deranged follower of normalcy sped by on a bicycle (I think he may have been in my English class...).
That sort of barb had never shaken me. There are some aspects of myself that I am secure in, thank you kindly. I rolled my eyes at Cooper, unimpressed.
“You would think that they might come up with something a bit more creative.” He muttered, dropping his arm.
Cooper isn't quite as immune to remarks about his sexuality (which is, I might add, a 90 gravitation toward women) as I am.
“I always wonder if they don't get lonely with these apparent rules that male friends aren't allowed to express affection.” I sighed, casting my companion a brief sympathetic look.
“Yeah, well... Maybe they're just not sure if they want to ride the stick, huh?”
I laughed, envisioning Mark Patton making moon-cow eyes at Jeff Maberly. How well that would go over. Rock your world like a kicked cradle, wouldn't it?
I wondered briefly what Cooper was thinking beside me. It is not as if he and I were not close enough to share the occasional brainwave but I am not psychic. My talents extend only as far as emotional vibes and whatever goes on in my brother's skull. Watching Cooper from the corner of my vision I was curious to know what it would feel like to walk in someone else's skin. To experience their family, their friends, emotions and occupation and eyesight. To be someone entirely separate from myself. Would it be so foreign that I would go completely mad if I traded places with my little brother for a day? If I, for 24 hours, were lanky and silent Dominique Saint-Clare with pimple and hand-me-down clothing rather than his outcast older brother? Would my entire perspective change? Should I gain greater wisdom or simply feel awkward and misplaced? And perhaps most importantly, will I ever stop having this rambling inner dialogue?
“Twizzler for your thoughts?” Cooper prodded, nudging my hand with his own.
“Hand it over, bitch.” I teased, arching an eyebrow at him skeptically.
“Awww, shit. I'm fresh outta licorice. But I'll do your math homework for you?”
“That's already a given, Cooper.” I corrected.
I insist that all genius' are in Stupid People Math. Connor McFly is brilliant but misunderstood, for example. Those staple sculptures are impressive works of art! There was a sigh of frustration from beside me.
“Damn, I'm going to have to just grab your fuzzy head and tug the thoughts out!”
I laughed and hopped back away from the thick fingers that were presently reaching to snatch my hair. My dirty icky blond hair that I treat with utmost care.
“Hey, my head is a coffin. Refrain from disturbing the dead and they won't eat you.” I scolded with much finger-wagging.
“Dude, I totally believe that.” He dead-panned.
“Réme, don't you eat those for a snack. They aren't good for you.” Mama called from the living room, her maternal radar sounding off even before my hand was fully in the bag.
“Maaaaaammmmmaaaaaa!” I whined in response, every nerve ending screaming for gooshy whiteness.
“Not a single one, Réme Jean Saint-Clare!” My mother warned.
“Why is it your concern if I consume ten times the amount of healthy calories?!” I demanded loudly, sulking against the counter as if it were my raft amidst the ocean tide.
“I worked hard to shove you out my birth canal, young man, so I think I've invested some interest in your health.”
Sighing, I waited patiently for the shift in her seat that meant she had returned to her collage. Ten, nine, eight, seven, twelve, six, thirty-two, five, four, three, two... Creak. I grabbed a handful of squishy white cylinders and ascended the stairs to my bedroom.
The doorknob felt cold in my fingers as I turned it, which caused me to frown as I considered the temperature. Was Dominique cold? We couldn't have him being cold if he was sick. He might develop pneumonia and be so ill that the bacteria consumed his sweet face! And then of course would come the hospital visits where I would see many needles and frequently faint dead away in terror. As the illness progressed my mother would be dreadfully beside herself with grief and she would quit her job at the salon therefore rendering us so wretchedly poor that only the financial assistance of Grandma could keep the treatments going. Which would mean that poor Grandma would be forced to divorce Grandpa and sell the wedding ring for money. She would be so destitute that she would move out of our house to dwell in a dumpster which would entail that we would have to neglect Dom in order to make certain that my grandmother was safe. And by then the hospital might have abandoned all hope and begun using Dominique as research material for government-funded experiments based in Roswell while insisting that it was all 'a sacrifice for the good of mankind'...!
I really need to stop thinking so much.
The room was dark, the shades drawn to wallow the walls in darkness. I squinted in the dim light and carefully edged around stacks of comic books/school papers/discarded clothing to the single bed on the right side of the room. My little brother was a quivering lump beneath the blankets breathing shallowly. I peeled back the comforter, exposing the fragile form within to my concerned eyes. Dominique looked up at me with a fevered gaze, his narrow little face that vivid pink color that it gets when he's becoming dehydrated.
“Hey, baby. How are you feeling?” I murmured gently, reaching out to pet his soft hair as I popped a marshmallow into my mouth.
“Not too good. Mama had to bring me home from school.”
“I bet. Can I get you anything?” I replied after I had swallowed
“Yeah. I want to be somebody else until my body is better.” He tried to joke, cracking a small smile with chapped lips.
I smiled in return while carefully sitting on the edge of the bed. Wouldn't want to tip it over with my immeasurable weight. (This would be sarcasm, for those with a limited brain-cell capacity.)
“I could always switch you with that body out in the backyard... but I doubt you'd be too enthusiastic about the coffin factor.”
“Nah. I'm claustrophobic.”
“So was he. But now that he's dead I doubt he cares much.” I replied stoically.
Dominique blanched.
“You actually killed somebody?”
I sighed and shook my head pityingly.
“Dominique... I'd lend you my sense of humor but I think I'd miss it. As my brother you're supposed to understand my jokes.”
He began to laugh softly, comprehending that I hadn't been serious about the dead body. Though who knew? Perhaps there really was a rotting corpse buried out there somewhere. We are in Jersey and the Puerto Ricans next door are rather imposing.
As his laugh rattled sore lungs Dominique began to cough hoarsely. I frowned, gathering his fragile frame close and pulling him into my lap. I patted his back until the coughing subsided while making soothing noises as if he were still five years old. I always fussed when my baby brother was sick. I couldn't help it, really, even if my fretting made me look like a mother hen. For many years Dominique had been all that I had. And if I didn't coddle my brother, who would? ...Ugh. Next thing you know I'm going to start bathing him with my tongue.
“You shouldn't stay with me. I bet you have more important stuff to do.” Dominique admonished in a croaking voice, recognizing my posture as 'sentinel-mode'.
I looked down my nose at him, rocking his shoulder slightly as I mentally skimmed over the painfully short list of 'Must Accomplish Before Adults Go Postal's.
“There isn't a single thing I can think of that's better than taking care of my brother. I'm not going anywhere.”
Dominique frowned but didn't pursue the matter further. His head dropped onto my shoulder and I frowned again as I studied his height.
“Dude, you're going to outgrow me.” I accused.
“You'll deserve it if I do.” Dominique replied, playfully nudging my cheek with his nose.
Pointy. Ouch.
“Pfft. Mean little bastard.”
“Midget.”
“Ooooh, you are so lucky that you're sick. I'll keep that in mind next time you beg me not to tickle you.” I responded threateningly, fingers digging into his bony side.
“Rémeeeeeee!”
“That would be me.”
“When you get all old and can't walk anymore I'm not going to be the one pushing your wheelchair.” Dominique pouted.
“Then I'll just have to make sure you expire before me, huh?” I grinned.
Dominique's eyes widened and he made to scoot farther away from me.
“Dominique, that was a joke.”
“Oh.”
Dominique was fitfully asleep once more, and remained so throughout Mama coming in to inform me that dinner was ready. I nodded at her but claimed that I wasn't hungry. Mama, knowing that I lied because I felt obligated to stay with Dominique, rolled her eyes and waved goodbye as she closed the door. My brother coughed in his sleep and I mused vaguely that it probably was not intelligent to allow him to cough on my neck while he was sick. Oh well. He shifted again eliciting a soft troubled murmur. I hushed him gently, linking our fingers and drawing his hand up to my lips. There I let it rest with my thumb massaging soothing rotations across the back of his hand.
I often wondered what my little brother dreamt of. He never told me unless it had been a nightmare that frightened him. At those times he would crawl into bed with me and bury his tear-stained face in my shoulder until the trembling subsided. I was sworn to never say a thing about these instances, as Dominique found it hardly befitting of a twelve-year-old to be frightened by nightmares... or to cuddle with his older brother for comfort. I suppose he must have been oblivious to my stuffed animals. Dominique's nightmares seemed to come more often than I felt at peace with these days. By report his dreams seemed to be filled with death and loss rather than the bogeyman under the bed. My insistences that death was nothing to be scared of did not seem to hold fast and the increasing frequency of Dominique's thoughts on the subject worried me quite a lot.
I prayed to whatever god actually listened to people that my brother did not have any bad dreams while he was ill like this, lest he have an asthma attack that would cave his already labored lungs.
'You worry too much.' I reprimanded myself harshly.
I knew that. But damn you, brain, is it so wrong to care for my little brother? I have considered it my occupation for the past twelve years to care for him. Nothing would hurt Dominique, ever. Except me, admittedly. I had a terrible habit of doing that without trying. In all those little moments when I would speak too sharply or refuse him that which he desperately wanted. Or push him away. When I was small and I would be jealous or angry and shove him. I suppose that I ought to have been a bit less protective now that we had grown and he was no longer trying to run after me before he could walk. But it seemed to have brought the reverse effect!
That's it. Shut up, brain. You're no help at all.
And now Dominique is coughing on me again. Yuck
