Once I Was A Child

By One Hand Clap

Dedicated to my friends.
Even Saints would've gritted their teeth.

Once I was a child, and I thought like a child. But now I am an incestuous, adulterous adult, or at the very least an incestuous, adulterous adolescent, and this is my story:

From what I can remember, it was a weird, dark December day - the sky closed in and the tenor of life itself could be felt in the way his voice vibrated. Fear was kept at bay by the cylindrical halo of orange street lamplight that surrounded us and made us entirely visible, vision proving us real. A diseased dog made his rotations through life in the middle of the road, and although I was afraid for his life, this little mangy mutt who could get run over at any moment, my fear was dulled and but a tiny twitch in the back of my mind's retina, because he was there, he was here, with me, with me, with me.

Some writers, they do not force themselves like I force myself, exert themselves like I exert myself. I suppose it is because of these folds of insecurity that wrinkle my heart to make it aged and unwanted that I ruin myself for an art I am still so grossly unskilled in. I need to experience these things, and with God before me (as so I saw him), my father talked to me under lamplight, gritty palm caressing my pale arm. So tender was he, this man before me. Wino to many, vagrant to some, 'lost soul' to the kind and Christian, here stood my father, whom I, with how small and darling I am, was, thought him nothing but a man. He was not a vagrant or a drifter to me. He was a father, but better than that - he was a God.

And it didn't matter that the best he could offer me was short, gruff, "Howyabeen?"s, guttural hacks of blood onto his bloody hand, keeping the blood from me, saying he was diseased and ready to die and telling me not to cry, it was his time. I would have been maybe twelve, and oh it was bitterly cold, and I stood there in jeans, a T-shirt, wearing doe-eyes and hope on my sleeve. My father, father to many, God to none but I, here he was before me, talking to me. I felt very surrealistically real, charged and happy and optimistic. My skin was faintly blue and he rubbed it fruitlessly. He stood there, and he said, "I always talked about you. I loved you."

In past tense, because all good Gods know when they are to die.

"You were my angel."

Angel to a God, seraph to this holy derelict, I looked up at him, this round-faced, bearded, bloodshot man.

"And, aw, I loved you, Jackie."

And this was all I needed to remember for the rest of my life, that valediction, spoken from the lips that were puckered and blackened by a crack pipe, a voice carrying that was hoarse and ravaged from years of misuse. My father, God who created everything of mine, my mouth and my mind and my neurosis that must be genetic, here he was, weightless, bare, not tethered to the Earth, so faithful was he of his pending ascension...

Once I was a child, you see, and I spoke like a child, I acted like a child, was vindictive like a child. But now I have grown, oh, I have grown, and now I stand before you, my audience, my crowd so small and dark and unseen because of my self-imposed spotlight... I stand before you a woman, a child, a teenager (maybe best describes it), halfway stuck between the three, some hybrid or mutant or something not as flattering, maybe a defective... I stand before you with my titles, my names, my statistics, meat-marked as I am: Fifteen. Red-head, blue-eye, white. Far too neurotic. Bitch. Idiot. Whore. Skank.

And here I am, on this tightrope, smiling wide at all of you as I try to make sense of the senseless: my life and my times and the relationships I have founded and desecrated. Made and ruined. I write this to you from the silence of my room, although a plane warbles high up above in the sky. I may not be able to sleep, but I may write, revel in this momentary tide of silence. So beautiful. So perfect. Ah! And now ruined - the birds are beginning to sing out. Is it already time for another day to begin?

Half-crazed - for most my life I have been courting madness as every girl courts madness: he comes to us, rapping on our bedroom windows. We open to him, or some of us do anyways, we open it to him and let him into our rooms, let the cold air in with him, the snow, the rain, the fog, the cries of the inebriated, damned and lonely that haunt our streets. We let him in and he lives with us, we fight with him, and if you're sane, you try to force him out. But if you're not (and here I raise my hand) you let him stay, and the ultimate despoilment, you let him into your bed. Beneath the covers, he tends to whisper to you all manner of insane thought, until you yourself are wed to madness... Like Cupid with Psyche, spoiling her so, this is how I have always imagined madness: soft lips against my ears, lying against me - bare skeletal chest under the covers - saying such sweet-nothings, "C'mon. Jack. You know you want to."

Oh those birds, with their little callings and wake-up songs, so happy and bright, calling out to see if their lovers have made it through the darkened, starved night we just experienced, they infuriate me so! Quiet, quiet, some of us are doing our best to sleep, or at least pretend they are sleeping! Some of us are semi-drunk on insomnia and need the quiet to write properly... Write their nonsense... Their ramshackle memoirs...

Swallowing armageddon will be the sister of mine who knocks on my door in two hours, telling me to get up. Beautiful, dutiful sister of mine, calling through the wood of my door - mother's out at a flophouse mothering other, fatherless children. She's being charitable in exchange for neglecting her own brood. Time to get up, darling sister, time to get up and 'face the day'. Time to 'swallow armageddon', an old axiom of our family's - consumption of the rapture.

And then she will be knocking on my little brother's door, oh little Ricky who could do no wrong as far as all of us, intentionally blind women, believe. Darling Ricky, who looks like our God so completely that we must worship him, Darling Ricky who keeps our mother away like a repellent, Darling Ricky with blood ringed around his wrists and a girl climbing down his fire escape every dawn. Sweet, beautiful Ricky.

Well, that plane is still whirring above. Those birds have shut the fuck up, however. How do birds survive in New York city? Where are the nests they need? Under the eaves of rumbling cars, tucked in bridges? Why do they sing? Do they even have a reason anymore? Urban animals, starveling cats and dogs, going crazy and rabid, confused as all Hell, lying flattened out on our roads...

Ah, though, this is no problem of mine. To hell with those birds singing! There is a sweetness in the insomnia I am undergoing here, and I will not ignore it. Because something is driving me, father maybe, departed Daddy, in his little grave marked nameless and graceless somewhere. Something is driving me to write, I think. And everything is closed in, here, and oh, all noise has stopped, and I have a while, still a while, to write before I must swallow Armageddon.

On my walls are... is the art of Andy Warhol (or one print I had to save up to get, at the very least: Five Deaths), posters of The Libertines (those lovely, contused darlings), of the Pixies, of Beethoven, of Placebo, of Bright Eyes, of even Bloc Party, even Devendra Banhart, Cocorosie, even all those other bands who have since been condemned or forgotten. Echo and the Bunnymen, The Small Faces, et cetera.

Everything is rattled by the tremor of something below, something rattles the whole apartment, but what it is we still don't know, having never inquired about it, although it's probably wise to. Is it the Subway that makes everything we have rattle on their shelves? Some great tremor in the Earth? A warning from God?

Blood is drying on my hands and only now do I notice it, little splotches from where I do not remember. I look myself over for cuts quickly, feel the rim of my nostrils in case my nose has bled, but nothing. Hmm. Mustn't look into this too completely, who knows where it comes from, not I, not I...

Through the walls, the sound of Ricky fucking some girl, she going O Ricky, O Ricky! him just grunting along, headboard banging my door. They must've been awoken by the tremor of the Earth below us, and now they fuck for no other reason but pleasure. Ah... What am I to do - get the papal headquarters on the phone? Oh, darling Ricky, get her out of your room quickly, for this noise is doing nothing but irritating me.

Mid-fuck, they stop, and I can just see, just envision (but please know that I am by no means an intentional voyeur within my mind's eye), Ricky's head cocking, listening. Ah, he must be listening to the tapperings of this keyboard, these words that I am writing as he is listening to their simplistic, bitten noise, not knowing what they mean but knowing they mean something, maybe about him, maybe not.

I hear his hoarse voice call out, "Jackie?"

And, ah, I am forced to stop typing, call back, "Ricky?"

Embarrassed, faux-humiliated, he calls back, "Oh. Er. Sorry."

A little, thin, girl's voice calls out with him, "Yeah... Sorry."

"What for?" I yell back, but by now I am just being petulant, being annoying, and am typing again. But we mustn't wake up the dutiful sister, the surrogate mother, for she needs her sleep. The elderly need their sleep to govern us, and we mustn't disturb them.

I hear low murmuring, noise of Ricky saying, "Maybe it's best you leave."

And the little girl's voice saying back, embarrassed but still exhilarated, hopeful, "Yeah, pro'ly for the best. But you'll call me, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ricky, still quite quiet, insincerity blatant in his tone. Poor, poor, fuckable girl who must now skirt down the bitterly cold fire escape metal, monkey about to get the ladder all the way down to the alley, find her way home and make her excuses for the night before, rationalize her ego as well.

I hear his window open, sigh through my nose. Silly, silly little - ah, a knock on my door! Does Ricky hope to gain entrance? "What?"

"Can I come in, Jack?" he asks as quiet as possible through the door.

I turn the computer away from where his range of vision will be, unlatch the lock on my door with my foot, propped up against my desk as I am, say softly back, "Yeah, sure."

He enters, wiry, tall frame, still rimmed with sweat, blue wife-beater and boxers thrown hastily on. His golden brown hair and dozed amber-green eyes. Pale skin shining in the coming dawn light. And, oh my neuroses, he grins and is so lovely, so cute, such the epitome of my little Ricky. Embarrassed, guilty, reprimanded little smile and then, "So. You heard?"

"Nothing I haven't heard before," I say dismissively, flick of the hand, typing one handed still as fast thoughts brush the surface of my mind, keeping up breathlessly with the motor.

A little scoff, his eyes flicking to the back of my computer screen, no doubt wanting to see what I've written and writing and what I will write once he's left, "That makes me feel so much better, sis."

"I'm not here to make you feel better," I shrug, eyes catching his, a grin twisting my features into an attempt at friendliness.

Crossing his arms over his chest, his eyebrow arc, "So, darling sister of mine, what are you here for?"

Keyboard stops its tapping, and the birds, those damned birds, singing again, singed thoughts overwrought from their noise. I need a Greek Chorus, I decide, and the birds may be a good choice - ah, no. That is sleep deprivation harking. Little line forming between my two brows, I look at my feet (which are blanched almost blue from the cold), "Hmm. No idea."

Ricky, scrambling to recover, seeming to think my feelings have been hurt, "What are any of us here for, ey? We're all as purposeless as each other."

"Until we choose a purpose, which I am still yet to choose," I sigh.

"You're only fifteen," Ricky assures.

"So are you."

Ah yes, the great mystery, the one our mother explained to us. Ricky and I, born only five months apart, as Ricky was conceived almost exactly after I was born and only in my mother's womb for those five months, as he was born premature after my father went through a rough period and attempted to kill my mother. He was a sickly little baby that spent most of his time in the hospital, as I was sent home, my mother stayed with him, and my father was in jail. My sister, darling sister, three years old, along with my incompetent aunt, those were my caretakers for the first two years of my life. Without my elder sister's kindness, I may be dead, or crazy (well, maybe I am crazy, but lucidly so... without her, I would not be lucid).

"Yes," Ricky answers, "So let's none of us worry."

"Roger," I say, resuming typing. Ricky arches his head, hoping to get even a snippet, a little tiny glance of what I am saying, what my synapses are forming, but I let out a sharp, "Hey!" followed by, "You know I hate it when you see what I'm writing. I hate it when anyone does."

"Well, put it down then! I want to speak to you without feeling like I'm in a therapy session," he says, smiling, and I oblige him, which I rarely do when it comes to requests about lying down my (metaphorical) pen. I close the lid of this laptop and sit beside him on my old mattress, springs jabbing at us as we lounge beside one another. Ricky, darling Ricky, he smells of sweat, sex and vanilla and coconut - his usual perfume, his olfactory symphony that seems to enthrall women so. What a mystery, to incite love with nothing but corporeal assets! I could never be so blunt, so... unneurotic. At least, that is what I believe.

"That girl in there, her name was Larissa," he says softly.

I shrug. Outside my window, across the street, Mrs. Oldgen is airing her grotesquely stained undergarments, "Congratulations."

"She's the head cheerleader at our school."

I nod, "Okay."

"She was kind of a conquest."

"Right," I say, itching for my laptop, and the birds - they're fucking singing. I glance at my clock, that easily neglected, forever ticking in its counting down, dire, doomsday clock, that device that makes me queasy, uneasy, with the way of its dubious authority. For God's sake, not three hours, only half of one to go before swallowing Armageddon, going to school, braving the Subway, etc., generally dealing with the intricacies and inanities of Life.

"But... She sucked. I mean that in a metaphorical sense, not the literal one, although literally-"

"So," I cut him off, "What exactly are you trying to tell me?"

"I dunno," he scratches at the back of his head, looking outside my window to the light which now drains through my closed blinds. Across his brow, small wrinkles forming, a twist of pain, confusion, anger? I reach out to touch him, but his eyes flicker to me, piercing in their inquiry, and I stop.

"Hmm. Okay," I say, clasping my hands in my lap, looking straight ahead, but thankful for the body heat of Ricky sitting beside me and his warmth, the way he is warming me up. Without him the blue would not be slow-fading from my skin.

I cannot think my usual, crazed thoughts with him here, censoring me, keeping me weighted deeply to reality, to duty, to my affection for him, for my sister, weighted here to the knowledge that I must go to school soon, meet up with the apocalyptic likes of my favorite friends, and deal gracefully with those who even popular Ricky cannot keep from bothering me.

"That rumbling of the apartment woke us up," Ricky states.

"So I assumed," and I do my best to smile at him, change the subject, "Are there any parties tonight? I do believe it's a Friday."

"Why? Are you hoping to come, you agoraphobic?" Ricky pinches my side playfully, I hit at him, before realizing that he had pinched bare skin, realizing that I am not wearing anything but my bra and pajama shorts, so no wonder I am cold. I get up, using the propulsion of the mattress to spring to my cupboard in one jump, open it, pull on an old sweater of my father's. Most of my father's clothes reside in my crammed closet, take up more than half, for the scent of my God and the feel of his fabric mustn't ever, ever be forgotten. I will not let myself.

Slipping the scratchy and worn cloth over my head, shaking out my hair, Ricky's voice behind me, "But seriously, if you want to go to one tonight-"

"No, I'm going out tonight anyways," I say, "I just wanted you to stop talking about that damned cheerleader."

"Why? Are you jealous?" Ricky says, teasing me.

I roll my eyes at his childishness, "No, and you know very well I'm not. But there's a line, there's a boundary, and you breached it when you began talking about sucking."

"Fair enough," Ricky concedes, and I settle down beside him once more, "Well, in any case-"

But we are interrupted by a knock on our door, Dutiful, darling sister, fifteen minutes early. She calls through the wood, "Time to face the day. Time to swallow Armageddon, Jackie. Is Ricky in there with you?"

"Yes," I answer to her, get up and open the door and stare at my divine sister, my angel above angels. There she is, curled gold brown hair just as Ricky's is down to her breast, wide beautiful blue eyes, innocent and unmarred by time. She looks at Ricky, slumped on my bed in his underwear, smiles, leans in and says to my ear, "Did he have a girl over?" I nod once and she whispers again, "Well, did you catch them or something?" I love the intimacy, how important she makes me feel, like a true maternal mother but not one, someone I can talk about anything with. I lean in, imitate her movement, speak into her own pearl-pink ear, "No. Ricky heard me typing and sent her off."

Ricky rolls his eyes at our closeness, our closedness, our gossiping quietly and he says, "Her name is Larissa."

Dutiful sister - my God, I haven't told you her name yet, haven't fully introduced her, just been calling her 'dutiful sister' like some sort of half-wit, not letting you know her as she is... Her name is Gerri, Geraldine if you do not like her - gasps, and her hands fly to her mouth to cover the smile blooming there, "Dear God! That bitchy one who used to make Jackie cry?"

Begrudgingly, I try to correct, "She never made me cry..." The pain from when she used to beat me up, brutal sixth grader, barbaric savage, the physical pain that she caused made me cry, not her, not her petty words or put-downs.

"The very same," Ricky confirms, eyes alight as he watches me cringe at the memory of her brutalization of me.

"Well, I suppose you got her back, then," Dutiful sis- Gerri says, smiling, "In a way, I guess."

"She sucked," Ricky begins.

"Let us not get into this again," I say, and we all share an amicable laugh. Ah, the bonds, the close bonds of family, as warped as they may be, as dysfunctional as they may seem, undertoned by our happiness, because yes oh yes it's working, Gerri has been looking after us ever since we were born, as she seems to be one of those rare individuals with milk or ichor or something equally important in their veins, something that gives them that kindness which makes them Godly. Ah, like the bonds of our father, passed straight along in strands to her, darling Gerri.

"Time to get up," Gerri repeats, "Time to face the day."

Bler. I've come to terms with the fact that no one will like this, and that no one will review.

One Hand Clap