It started at night -- the fight, during which I lost everything. I remember very well -- it was early November, and it couldn't have been earlier than eleven p.m. the breath reached around, grabbed my face in a fog. I couldn't see too well, which would explain the whole reasoning behind it being late at night. That morning, my mother had managed to crash into the streetlight in front of my house, leaving my front yard looking like the damn underworld on a bright day. She was saying something from the front porch when the fight started, but I don't really remember what. Not that I can really help the whole remembering part. Maybe I’m just kind of not meant to, I guess. It would ruin a lot of things if I did manage to remember anything other than that fight.
So I’m sitting there on my grass in my lawn, just trying to see, when they come out into the front yard. There was a party, some kind of birthday or anniversary or something, just another excuse for everybody to get drunk. I don't know. What I do know is that they were yelling. About me. Why were they yelling about me? I don't really remember that, either, but I know they kept saying it. "Page" this and "Page" that and it was just really stupid. I hardly knew either of them, really. Maybe it was the cocaine that made them like that, or maybe it was the booze, or maybe it was the fact that my tits kept falling out of my shirt and they thought they were both in love. I don't know. I never know anything. "Page said she loved me." "Well, Page doesn't love you, because she loves Me." drugs do that to people sometimes. Maybe they should have popped a few tablets instead of just shooting or snorting up. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty novel idea. Pills are always easier to deal with than smack or coke, that's for sure.
Whenever I think about this, I think about Antigone. Maybe that's the book I was reading when I wanted to get away from that stupid party. Yeah, that sounds right. Every little thing I remember makes a little more of it come flooding back. But I was reading Antigone, my favorite tragic heroine story, while I sat there, watching those other two morons shout their ‘screw you’s and whatnot. Finally, it got down to the nitty-gritty. the bigger one shoved -- well, not really shoved; more like poked with two fingers on the shoulder, but the other guy was so little that it almost knocked him over -- the tiny guy, who seemed to be more fiercely dedicated than the other one. That’s when it just got stupid. "Fuck you, dude! Fuck you!" and they went at each other like a couple of rabid goddamned animals in the wild. I hate it when boys fight. It’s just stupid. I mean, really, what’s the point in proving you’re a man if you’re just gonna look like a mental patient in the process? I guess that’s why I’m a girl, because I don’t have to understand shit like that, and I definitely don’t want to.
“Page, do you see this? I love you, Page.” it was kind of demented, honestly. I put my book down, got up, and moved further away. I don’t know why the hell I’d been trying to read, anyway, what with it being so dark and everything. Sitting on the porch, I watched. The big one tried to grab the little one into some kind of retarded chokehold, but the little one just ducked, went around him, and grabbed him around the waist. The move must have caught the fat one off balance, because he nearly fell over and crushed the skinny-mini. They stayed locked like this for almost a full minute, the short one practically running circles around the other one, both of them looking at me the entire time. “Page, pick me!” I wanted to be sick, and I kind of hated being a girl right then. Why did I have to have breasts? They’re always the source of my problems. I hate myself.
They were just starting to get hard after touching each other in the pants when the fight got really tough. the little guy – Evan, that’s what his name was; the bigger one was Tony – broke Tony’s nose, and blood was all over the place, gushing like a waterfall straight out of hell. I’ll never, as long as I live, forget that smell – like rusted metal and salt and death. The booze in my system was starting to make the world spin, and the blood landed on my foot, just a few specks, but definitely enough to make me throw up. Everything in my line of vision – everything I could see, anyway, considering how dark it was – got blurry and I don’t remember anything, really. Just a gross crack, and then the light came on. I threw up again, the sound of that snapping echoing throughout my brain. Evan stared at me, his eyeliner starting to run.
“Page, what did you do?” he asked, his raccoon eyes staring at me wildly.
“What did I do? Evan, you were the one that was up. I don’t remember even standing up or anything.”
“Maybe you should just get your chest put back up into your shirt, and shit like this wouldn’t happen.”
“Where’d Tony go?” I lowered my head, not wanting to really look anywhere. Maybe I don’t want to see it – that Evan killed Tony; that I was never going to punch his stupid face in for looking at Cake Bake and Betty the way he’d been doing all night.
“You are one cold bitch,” Evan said, staring at me with cold, dead eyes. “You just killed him. You didn’t even break a sweat…and cracked his damn head off.”
“No.” I nearly fell over; the liquor kept throwing me off-balance. “No, you’re… you’re wrong, Evan, you’re wrong.”
“It’s okay, baby, I’ll take the heat if you lemme touch.”
“I have to go.”
“I’ll let you do all the drugs, just so you don’t have to think about me. Just let me touch you.” Those eyes, running inky and black, were starting to look into me, and I felt dirtier than I would have if I’d just about begged him to fuck me. “Please! All the coke, all the smack I have on me, if you want! Do you like crank? I can get that for you, too!”
“Fine,” I whispered sadly, “let’s go.” He took my shaking hand and led me down to the cellar, where my escape lay in the dusty darkness the building provided. |