Machine by Susan Steinberg

Author:Susan Steinberg [Steinberg, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-891-4
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2019-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

Animals

; it’s the girl saying, I dare you, into my ear; it’s me doing whatever she says; it’s always me like some kind of child; it’s me like some kind of dog; Jump, she says; How high, I say; so obedient; so weak; it’s the pill we split in the washroom; and the world now flat like worlds in cartoons; and the grass sucking down in tiny holes; like a thousand mouths pulling us deeper in; and I would happily go there into the holes, my ears stuffed full of grass and dirt; and how pleasant it might be in the dirt, if nothing slithered through it; how pleasant to hide so deep below the ugly noise of this ugly world; but the woman has left her purse on a table; and the girl has dared me to take the purse; and how fucking high; as high as you fucking can; like this one night at the rides; it was us behind a trailer; it was two pills on her outstretched hand; it was a big pill and a small pill; I didn’t know what either pill did; and I remembered, then, a film we saw in school about drugs; it said not to judge a pill by its size; the big pill might look more dangerous; but it could be nothing, like a vitamin; it could make your nails grow long; but the small pill could make you crazy; it could make you try to fly off the roof of your house; that night, I took the small one; I chewed it up to make her laugh; I opened my mouth to make her laugh harder; but then the pill kicked in, and things got rough; and the night changed; and we’ll get there; for now, we’re standing on the boathouse lawn; we’re wearing dresses our mothers bought; we’re sinking in heels and wishing we were guys; there are people holding trays of food; it’s a party for my father; we’re celebrating my father; he’s done something impressive; he’s often doing these very impressive things; now someone on the other side of the lawn is clinking a glass with a knife; that someone wants to give a speech about my father; so my father now is walking to that side of the lawn; my mother is walking beside him; the woman is walking slowly behind them; the woman is closer to my age than my mother’s; I’m the only one, at this point, who knows about the woman; I’m the only one who saw them, on another night, in a washroom; I’m the one who saw the woman’s face against my father’s face; when I think of her face, I think I shouldn’t have seen her teeth; I think I shouldn’t have seen her eyes half-closed; I think the word animal when I think this; I think the words piece of shit; I swore to my father I wouldn’t tell my mother what I saw; what my father said

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