Category: 2015 — 8.1 (Fall)

You were too drunk to remember, but we remember. We remember you threating us, if we told anyone what we saw; you would do the same to us. Finally, you passed out. Sarah’s brothers loaded you in the bed of her Ford Pickup. No one wanted to take you home after what you did. So they dumped you behind the closest McDonalds. When we saw you next, you were drinking again. Jimmy thought about knifing you for what you did, but we told him to wait. We realized if we kept giving you Whiskey, you would pass out fast and then we could leave. It wasn’t unusual to see someone passed out drunk at a place like Ackerman Park.
Three months go by and a few of us are riding our four wheelers on top of the Celery Field Hill. You hear about it, and ride yours up to ours. Jimmy dares you to take the Trail all the way to the dead end. You were already drunk, at least 12 bottles in. You wanted to put money on it. Jimmy bet a hundred. When you disappeared down the hill, we all bet on your life not your money.

You didn’t know that there was barbed wire fence at the dead end. You found out quick, after you couldn’t stop in time. The barb wire made a perfect line across your neck, almost all the way through. Your intoxicated blood was squirting out of your severed trachea, covering your white tee shirt. We have that memory etched into our brains too.

We all won the bet we placed on you. We bet you saw the homeless man appear before you, as you hit the wire. The Gates of Hell opening for you as you drive through; severed head and all. But you said you wanted to do it, so you did it.
We knew if we told, you would still find a way to kill us, so we didn’t. We would rather not think about it, but weeks after we couldn’t help but notice the vultures circling, where we knew you were. We would all sit on top of the Celery Fields hill and talk about you, watching the vultures.

We knew you had a rough life. Your parents were going to put missing posters out for you, but they didn’t. Your dad is abusive and your mom loves pain pills. We knew you were taking pain pills. We knew your mom practically fed them to you. Your dad would take you out back and beat you until you couldn’t fight back. Sometimes he would give you a shovel and make you dig a hole big enough to be your grave. Your hands would bleed, and you would wonder if today was the day your dad would come out and put you in your grave. That was when you were fourteen.

(2)Beatrice Jolie is an intelligent, attractive 26-year-old woman. She is studying to be a nurse during the day, and working nights at a nursing home. Beatrice doesn’t find it hard to stay awake all night; the patients are elderly and sleep fitfully, so there is often someone getting up who needs her help. They all – the men and the women – tell her how beautiful she is, and often.

(3)Beatrice Jolie leaves each night shift feeling she will never be able to wash the smell of death out of her hair, her skin.

(4)EARLY MORNING AT BEATRICE’S APARTMENT IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. BEATRICE IS GETTING READY FOR CLASS.
With careful strokes Beatrice applies primer, foundation, and concealer to her face. She no longer has to think about what she’s doing; it is a part of her day, putting on this other face. She swipes liner, mascara, fills in her eyebrows, layers color onto her lids. Chooses a larger brush for the contouring that will create bones where none exist. False lashes are the final step, and her work is complete: identity in place. She checks the mirror to be sure. Good.

(5)Lambert’s third law states that the luminous intensity of LIGHT decreases exponentially with distance as it travels through an absorbing MEDIUM.

(6)Beatrice gets to class just on time and sits in her usual seat, not too close to the front (where she could draw the professor’s attention) but not too far in the back (where she would feel invisible). She feels the eyes of the other students as she stacks her notebook and textbook onto the desk, feels in her bag for a pen. Beatrice is prepared for this. All young people look at each other, searching for flaws. She is safe, thanks to her careful routine in front of the mirror. The professor starts the lecture.

(7) The professor has wispy, flyaway hair. He hasn’t shaved in days. He is highly respected in the field; they even bragged about him on the university website.

(8) Masks keep their own timetables. By the time Beatrice finishes classes, gets home, eats, starts her homework, it is time to change into scrubs and rush to work. All night in the dimly lit nursing station she will answer calls,
change soiled linens and try to read her textbook, hunched over the metal desk. As usual, several patients smile up at her as she approaches their beds that night and say, “Hello, beautiful.” It makes no sense to Beatrice – her carefully applied makeup has long ago been wiped off with a towelette; leaving only mascara residue ringing her tired eyes.

(9)Her mask expires every night here; these people have never seen her any way BUT unmasked.

(10) No one in Beatrice’s classes have ever called her beautiful. If anyone does talk to her, it’s mostly about assignments or this or that professor or where to go for a parking pass.

(11)According to Lambert’s third law, the luminosity of Beatrice’s natural beauty was decreased with every smudge, every brush, every finger full of Revlon and Mac that she placed on her face. The makeup became the MEDIUM which absorbed all the light, so no one ever saw her true intensity.

She was lying to me. I knew that because the truth was spelled out across her face. It was hypnotizing, in fact, how each word bled across her forehead. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Was I the only one who could see them? I couldn’t tell; no one else seemed to notice.