Smokey Skin and Oily Spit

Kids on the Rooftop

 

Sometimes, when the sun peeks out from behind the smog, it’s not so hard to believe that this place was alive.

The rotten grass perks up a little. The crests of oil that float on the sea glow in greens and blacks, and there’s a breeze – it’s brittle, but it’s there.

Maybe I’m being too optimistic. In fact, yeah, it’s pretty cheesy for me to get so excited over a little sunshine. But China Grove had that effect on people, I guess – you lived there long enough and soon you’d see real beauty under all of that city slime.

Now that I think about it, the day of the accident was a perfect example.

The city was cold and uncaring. The city was full of opportunity and could give my dead boyfriend a chance when nobody else could. The city laughed at our incredible twist of fate and bestowed said boyfriend with metal bones and organs that are barely holding him together anyway. It was a fickle mistress, that’s for sure.

Then again, we were the lucky ones, and that’s saying something. The China Grove Settlement has a habit of swallowing people whole and regurgitating them in bloody hairballs; like Mouse, who has bruises and broken teeth and smiles that never reach her eyes, or Sam, my organ-harvesting buddy who likes to pretend she owns the town by playing by the rules.

But it did make me realize something, whether I liked it or not – whatever “hidden beauty” was left in this mechanical cesspool, I wasn’t seeing it. And on a day in November when the city almost came to life again, I made myself give it up.

 

November 3rd

                “Well, guys, welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives.” With a toothy grin, Mouse cracked open a bottle of coke and swung her head back, taking several hearty gulps before coughing half of it back up. I sighed.

                “Don’t say that. They’re only closing the school through winter.” I tossed my flat soda from hand to hand, wondering how far I would have to throw it before it hit the blacktop below and shattered into pieces. “We’ll be back by March. And graduation’s not until June.”

Mouse propped her feet up on the pink plastic cooler and clicked her tongue. “Pessimistic as ever, huh? You just can’t accept a good opportunity when it comes to you. Think about it – no semester finals, no curfews…and hey, what about Lucas? Now that you’re both outta school…”

I shoved my hand in the pocket of my coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, peeling off the wrapper with my stubby fingernails.

                “Lucas works at the meat packaging plant, remember? And I have to run the night shift at that shitty convenience store until January. We’re busy.” Mouse rolled her eyes and put her hands behind her head, looking defeated. She was the kind of girl who didn’t do a thing for anybody else and knew it; her frizzy brown hair was tangled in knots, and her clothes consisted of holey black gloves and fake leather jackets embroidered with flowers.

                “Well you’re no fun. Sam, please tell me you’re not spending your precious free time being brainwashed too.”

Sam was sitting cross-legged next to Mouse’s lawn chair, hunched over a math book stuffed with paper napkins covered with equations. She cocked her head but didn’t look up. “On the contrary, I have lots of…thinking to do while we’re not in class. I’m busy too.”

Usually, Samantha Opperman was a lot chattier, but when she was working on her projects she fell into some kind of algebraic trance. She wanted to be a mechanic, she would say, and build the kind of technology that the world had only ever seen in bad sci-fi movies, which certainly wasn’t unachievable with her IQ. To this day I still don’t understand why she even hung out with us.