This Recording

Good at Keeping Limp

by VICTORIA HETHERINGTON

[—Brie should be left out in kitchen to ripen for a ;few days. She stands as afternoon light deepens and bends through the kitchen window, softening then melting the brie, which comes apart in her fingers. Folding pieces of pita past her teeth against her tongue, rough on her throat from not chewing. Delicately unpeeling the spicy salami package, the zing of the sun-warmed meat muted by excess –]

S. said: 2 girls she knew went rehab for heroin ‘habits,’ are successful artists now. remember: don’t let her influence me into thinking this ok/normal/glamorous
don’t eat for the next 2 days. but don't smoke either
sunny today, didn't go outside. I hate how quick time passing, months all superimposed on one another esp. when remembering dates
it was feb 1 I got into university; it was june 20 grandma died; it was september 17 when I met P.
it was first day of gr. ten, me & classmates played orientation games all day
I was face-painted & sweat-salty & carried full plate of cookies w/another paper plate folded over it
I won big plastic lei during games & kept it on during bus ride home. It was packed bc. rush hr, people pressing into me & still climbing obstinately up the stairs, & I picked patch of september sunlight thru dusty window & stared
taking up as little space as possible: how typical, & crushing cookies against chest to maximize space (but carefully; I still stuffed bra w/socks)

[—Her stomach squirms with desire as the tidal bingeing urge rushes over her, and she seizes her hairbrush, and as she drags it through her hair, trying to feel pleasure in its shine, its resistance against the brush, the crackle at its ends, pulling herself back into her body from the bad, floating place she crams food into, registering pain in her stomach and back–]

bus lurched lots & man standing closeby caught my eye
he raised arms to press hands up against ceiling for balance, smirking at me. Long nails, I remember.
Him: what’s in the textbook? Deep voice with strange warble at its ends. he wasn’t like my craggy father, more of mountain than person still, & he wasn’t like peach-fuzzed beanstalk boys I knew either
he was young man & he was very, very dangerous
Me (shyly): it’s actually a sketchbook. Like, duh. Check out stippled black covers, ever seen textbook like that? I showed him drawings: me hanging from cross with wires coming out of skull, flower with bones as stamens, woman balding like water-damaged doll
I remember there was printout of trent reznor glued to inner front cover
Him: Interesting, eyes fixed coldly on last drawing, & 3 people looked on
Him: I am an artist in every sense of the word. I make music that, in my opinion, will crack the world wide open and teach these monkeys a thing or two. I also make art. What do you do?
Me: I’m a student, I just started gr. ten. People started watching, & older woman openly stared. I misunderstood these gazes, & he ignored them
Him: I would like to buy you a coffee
He was losing hair, widow’s peak exposed white, & hair glued down forehead in strands. I remember standing beside him at counter, in dim Second Cup, thinking he seemed out of place
Me: I need to be home by five for piano lesson. Back outside again. Him: I can see from your eyes that you’ve suffered.
I hadn’t really – he changed that

[—Now ice cream, melting too quickly in the summer heat, her teeth freezing. After tonight, she tells herself, she will fetishize red peppers, carrots, smell them – so fresh and dew-bathed, yanked from the earth! – and she will lovingly pluck the right nectarines from the grocery store piles. The embarrassment of riches here. Doesn’t she want thin upper arms, a thin face, ropey legs? To make a certain impression? –]

The next day: us sitting in park, he a big unwashed animal/gigantic stain under a sun-lit oak tree, me sitting v straight so socks wouldn't fall out of tank top
Him: some people shouldn’t have children. We’re just brains piloting meat puppets. That squirrel has huge nads. I feel like I could say anything with you. Could I give you a hug?
he got up on knees, shuffled over to me on knees, thighs long & broad, arms outspread
he ran nails between my shoulderblades & I shuddered. Him: Now you like these nails.
Me (thinking): I still don’t like them because they’re gross. I never opposed him though. Childhood taught me 100% compliance, withstanding furies of my father & cold indifference of my mother, arctic stream that, even in more clement times, never completely melted
He was angry to discover my socks, pressed them against his nose: at least they’re clean
It hurt so much & I cried whole time
he didn’t wash the blood from his sheets for months
Lived w/father in dark basement ‘apartment,’ worked 1-2 shifts at all-day breakfast place (pre-recession obv., no way he could get job now)
I would fake sick days to go & visit him at restaurant
always nearly empty. One day, late autumn, he had to rake patio & I sat on damp chair watched him do it
He went inside to wipe rake & I folded hands & looked down at them, sucking in stomach, wanting to look right for when he got back
Door to patio was all glass; when done cleaning rake in resto bathroom he, instead of coming back out, came to door & stood staring at me, pressed against glass
His fingers pressed so hard against glass his finger-pads going white from pressure, long nails bending back

[—It comes up by itself the third time, jumping up from her stomach over her teeth, clouding the water like delicate watercolor washes, excess paint springing from a brush and running through an enormous cleaning bowl –]

He showed me picture of his mother, looking back over shoulder at sink, surprised, hands blurred w/long-ago domestic activity
Me: so pretty! Him: She looks like a monster now, too much drinking & smoking & fucking & fighting
he too damaged (he explained) to give me Christmas present or to water plants long-dead in basement window
I didn’t recognize infections he gave me, suffered quietly & walked funny & soaked in baths until pain eased
I would come back to him like windup toy, back to his father’s house through browning falls leaves then ice
thinking: this is how it works, you’re assigned to someone & that’s it, you do everything they say
When I broke up w/him he got on knees, begged, lower lip wriggled, all the sad things except tears
Said he wouldn't stop sending me emails & would do everything to prove he could be better
Wrote & recorded song for me, still remember whole thing like yesterday: ‘you think I won’t change/that I’ll stay the same/as if I loved torture/you must be insane…’

[—Spreading powder over her face, evening out the red patches and blurry sleeplessness, settling in the deepening cracks around her mouth. Lora texts: ‘my darling is it all right if you bring whiskey instead? im staring down world’s worst wine hangover.’ She rubs in lipstick, mashing it together, and waits five minutes before responding. ‘Esophagus,’ she thinks, tapping a cigarette into her hand, is a very onomatopoeic word when you think about it –]

After I took P. back he revealed: was in love w/his sister (1 yr younger than me, so 14 then)
Kissed her on her mouth in front of me, pretending like playing around
My parents baffled – just 6 months before meeting P. on bus things in household went like this: father discovered I’d put on makeup one morning so drove around school 3 times until I removed completely w/wetted hands; had to be home 4:30pm every day; phone calls monitored; certain outfits, books, cds confiscated & thrown out; hours of solitary confinement for swearing. Me 100% compliant & things went fine. Now this
Confronted P. about incestuous feelings. I feel angry, he confessed in flat tone, w/same blank curiosity he looked at balding woman drawing. It makes me want to hit you
Me: So hit me. Nothing you can do will make me love you again. You little shit, he hissed, ran after me
Never known fear like that, never ran down a hall – & halfway up flight of stairs – like that, never screamed like that, never struggled like that fighting with elbows knees & feet
Dragging me over to counter, yanking me one step at time, grabbing knife from beside empty Puritan cans, pressing to my throat, making thin bleeding line all around my throat
By then I was v good at keeping limp
Started drinking w/Tara many times/wk, her boyfriend bought booze for us & started drinking w/us too
Would empty whole bottle in alternating vicious gulps in coffee shop washrooms, baby duck ‘champagne’ mostly, before school, after school
I would stumble home fantasizing about putting on new dress, coming over to cook P. dinner, descending into nightmare basement & sweetly accepting his horrid gratitude
Would slip tiny nugget of palytoxic coral from Tara’s exotic fish tank into boiling pasta along w/spices, enough to kill us both
Little sisters would wait by window for me every night, crying
Parents stopped talking to me
This boyfriend, tall dude named Eliot, slept w/me after Tara left him
Sweaty together in his bed as his big dick shrunk down & I tried not to stare at Pokémon posters on walls, I told him everything
Cried, streaming from entire face, choked out whole story
Eliot stood, shiny long back in front of me, bright in afternoon light, & punched wall
Pulled fist out of big hole in drywall, Pokémon poster collapsed inside of it like miniature tent
Eliot, rubbing tender knuckles: I am going to break his legs
Me, seized by desire: I’m going to watch
I would arrange meet P. in Pizza Pizza, Eliot would identify, I would suggest smoking joint, Eliot would follow us to nearby park
Slipped out of house at 9:15pm into thick winter air, shaking like leaf
Bright shop, saw P. examining wilted slices w/fingers on chin as if posing, clothes so dirty, clownlike feet, hidden swordlike cock
Spotted Eliot w/jolt of recognition, sitting on nailed-down stool & watching us over a book, & stifled strange wild laughter: Eliot prided self on never reading
P. shook hot pepper flakes & squirted BBQ sauce all over pizza & followed me out of shop
Can recall every streetlight lighting up every naked branch, felt like walking to my own death
Can remember everything he was saying: I am so pleased to see you, Grace. I now work at a belt factory. I have a casual relationship with a woman named Natasha. I have suggested bondage & she is considering it. I am thinking of her dripping wet cunt right now.
Motion out of corner of my eye: Eliot, head lowered, charging towards us
Tackled P. & both go down hard on hard ice, Eliot punching P.’s head over & over
P. flopping like huge fish & screaming: Grace! Grace! Call 99! Call 99!
Eliot yanked baseball bat from backpack he carried our booze in, leapt up & kicked P. in stomach, P. stopped squirming away, curling into ball
I run & run & run run run

[—They tumble into the car and Lora is all flirty business before the door even shuts, accepting the white bag offered by the shadow-faced dealer in the front seat, passing up the bills she rolled and unrolled and rolled in her long-fingered hands on their way to the car. “You all must be busy tonight,” Lora tells them, getting more comfortable, taking out her key already, making room, easing herself into a little nest within the bunched-up clothing. It would be so easy, Grace thinks, for them to kill us. Lora looks over at Grace, and grinning with benevolent, intoxicated misunderstanding, squeezes Grace’s hand –]

Victoria Hetherington is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Toronto. Good At Keeping Limp is an excerpt from a work-in-progress made possible by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council. You can find her website here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

Images by Alexander Calder.

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