Chapter 13 Below
Below
I’m lucky to have always been aware of my own flaws. How could I not be? Everyone’s always been eager to list them. I’m impulsive and selfish. I’m a liar, lazy, disrespectful. I’m smart, but this is a waste given what I do with it.
My aunt told me I don’t have any grit. If I try something and it doesn’t work, I give up right away. She, by contrast, stayed married to a man who didn’t love her for over a decade—-because she didn’t stop doing things just because they weren’t working.
My aunt didn’t like it when I made this little observation.
I think of her now, foundation caked on, blush too bright, voice scraped to ruin by thirty years of cigarettes.
I clench my jaw and set my makeshift tool around the bolt and nut yet again.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried this.
It hasn’t worked yet, but I’m close. The two chair legs grip the nut.
There’s a catch of engagement each time I twist, resistance I wouldn’t feel if it wasn’t doing something.
The makeshift wrench slips again, jerks free.
I swear viciously. It’s a habit I trained myself out of, the last few months.
A punishable offense. There are many. Survival down here means mapping the boundaries of the role you’re meant to fill.
The name to answer to. The way to speak, sit, move, breathe.
I’ll never be her—-whoever that girl really is—-but I’m good at pretending.
I find the edges of the nut again. Test the tool. It’s difficult to squeeze it tightly enough to get the grip I need, but it will work, has to work.
I turn. It slips. I fit it again. The legs are long and bump against my ankles where I crouch. My hair falls in front of my face, but there’s no point in tucking it back. It’s not like I can see better either way.
“Come on, come on, come on.” It’s the loudest I can stand to lift my voice. Even a normal volume is like a scream.
The tool slips. No—-it turns, a stiff movement but movement nonetheless. Only an instant of progress before it leaps free again, but it’s something, and I let out a soft cry of relief.
I tuck my tongue between my teeth as I try again, again, again, and now I’ve managed a quarter turn.
It starts to come more easily then. I don’t know how long I’ve been bent over working at it before it finally comes loose enough that I can wrap my shirt around my fingers and unscrew it by hand.
Finally the nut pops loose and hits the ground, and I don’t bother to try to find it—-I’ve done it.
I laugh. Such a small victory. There’s another washer on the other side and then I’ll need to move the toilet and then I’ll find out if the bolts in the concrete are long enough to provide the leverage I need—-but I’ve done it, done something.
Eager, I move toward the other side of the toilet.
I’ve grown used to the dark and the borders of my own body.
Too used to it. Comfortable enough to get careless.
The tool swings wide, catches against something with a plastic pop—-the water bottle I set aside, the one I was drinking from earlier and didn’t close all the way again.
I lunge for the sound. My hand strikes the wrong bottle. I grope in the dark, find the bottle lying on its side and tip it up, but my palm against the ground tells me I’ve spilled most of it.
Idiot. Idiot.
I pull the flashlight out of my waistband and turn it on. The toppled bottle is all but empty. I have only two others. All that’s left after I drained the toilet.
How long does that leave me? A few days.
Not enough, not enough, I think.
The light flickers. I turn it off quickly, holding my breath. It can’t fail now. It can’t. I don’t think I can do this in complete darkness.
I think for a moment the gossamer girls have returned, their voices a steady murmur around me. And then I realize the voice belongs to me, softly pleading. I sink to the ground and shut my eyes tight, and the words keep coming in a babbling flood.
“Please. Please help me. Please,” I say, as I haven’t allowed myself to say aloud in all this time.
Not even the dead are near enough to hear.