Charity Case

We were all facing the tracks, waiting. There were fewer than twenty of us. It was a weekday lull. Most of our heads were down, directed toward a handheld device. This big guy was sitting on a bench near me. He and I were the only two people killing time the old fashioned way.

We were a haggard bunch. Foreigners. A sleepy laborer. Single moms. Welfare babies. A girl with thick framed glasses and messy hair typed feverishly on a laptop. More than half of us wore flip-flops. A couple professional types were decked out in expensive suits and ties with fat knots. They were messing with their smartphones. The taller man pecked. The shorter scrolled.

My days were wide open back then. I was working second shift. I couldn't afford a car to get around, so I made do with a monthly transit pass. Riding the subway was a cheap pastime. I rode aimlessly. I traveled by myself, which would have been dangerous had I not dressed like such a bum. Ratty clothes are as good as camouflage. Robbing me would clearly have been a waste of energy. At 5’ 6”, I’m even too small to bother intimidating. There's no sport in giving guys like me a hard time, unless you're sixteen. High school kids will insult anything that might be lower on the food chain.

The big guy stared straight ahead with his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling out in front of him. I peeked in the direction of what he was staring at. All there was was a cross-section of earth. In that part of the tunnel, the walls weren’t finished. I’m not sure if they ran out of money excavating or what. The exposed black rock was kind of scary, all craggy and moist like something reptilian. Once every few feet a bolted square plate prevented the mess from caving in on us.

I know people who don’t feel particularly safe in the Fairbanks station. It’s not high on my list of places to be, but it’s was the one of two transfer points to the green line. Everything about the station was eerie. The fluorescent lights were 30 feet up and either there weren’t enough fixtures or they weren’t the right wattage. The walls soaked up the brunt of what shined. The man-made surfaces were big brown tiles and stainless steel panels, both of which wouldn’t stay clean for anything. Backlit posters promoting rental car companies, hospitals, and restaurant chains glowed in stripes from burnt out bulbs. Punks had scribbled nonsense all over them, not funny nonsense either but ominous symbols and whatnot—ones that marked territory. TVs were mounted next to the escalators in heavy gauge sheet metal boxes with plexiglas fronts. The electronics’ need for protection didn’t bode well for the rest of us.

Grand Central it was not.

The big guy seemed oblivious to any bad vibes. I observed him like he observed the wall. Judging from appearances, he could’ve been on a beach or in a temple. I figured he was in his late 30s. His slack grin made him look sort of dopey. He bore a mean scar and crease on his forehead. His jaw and neck sported a few day's worth of stubble. Like me, he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The shirt was yellowy-white and stamped with crackled sponsor logos on the sleeve. I couldn't tell what it commemorated but, from the frayed cuffs, it couldn't have been anything recent. He wore a black woven belt with a lot of the finish worn off. It didn’t do much good. The bottom of his shirt and the top of his shorts didn't overlap in the back. An elastic band and a slice of pasty flesh peeped out.

He picked a prime location as far as dingy subway stations go, adjacent to one of those huge round caged fans on full blast. In August it warms to 80 degrees down there from the constantly opening doors, the scampering bodies, and the trapped heat the equipment radiates. Ducking inside wasn’t much of a relief from the hot summer if the fan wasn't on you. The only drawback was how damned loud the motor was. It sounded like a prop plane. At his range, you’d have had to yell in a person's ear to be heard. He had nobody with him, so it didn’t matter.

I studied him like that because he let me. Most folks have a sixth sense that'll limit observations to a minute tops. He didn't. I was free to watch til I was tired of him. He never stirred, not even when a lady spilled loose change onto the ground. He just breathed. Most folks will fiddle with the crease of their pants or mess with a string on their shirt or joggle a foot. I tend to rub my chin. But the big guy was like a busker posing as a statue. Even his fingers and eyes were frozen. I don't run across people like him too often. When I do, I can’t help but be curious.

Nowadays, the most fascinating people are the rare breed not playing on their phones. The other kind are too boring for my tastes. I’ve casually spied on my fair share of screens. They're sending a text or an email. They're checking scores or the weather. They're scrolling through headlines or status updates. One in five or so will be playing a colorful game. So, without spying you can still read them like a book. I guess the same applies to the endangered newspaper subscribers. When the laborer snapped awake, he’d monitor the CNN feed until his lids drooped shut so you could bet in between nods he was picturing stock prices and plumes of black smoke and ladies crying. My point is it's the people who’ve only got their own person and their surroundings to occupy them you can really wonder about. What’re they going through? What's on their minds?

Given his perspiration, he must’ve trudged from a ways away to get here. The guy's shirt was a patchwork of damp splotches filling in old stain outlines. Not that he cared. He didn’t fuss with his sweat. I saw a drop tremble on the tip of his nose before being wicked away by the fan.

Although the bench could’ve fit three average Americans, he was alone. I could see a few reasons for the distance we kept. For starters, he was ripe. I think his grin had something to do with it, too. Like the rest of him, it didn’t flinch. Too constant a smile is suspicious. To top it off, he slumped badly. His neck jutted forward funny like he was stretching to sniff at something. He could have been a hunchback. People give hunchbacks a wide birth.

***

Eight minutes passed. The train came down the chute right on schedule. The headlights cascaded around the tunnel’s bend before the engine poked through. Everyone looked up in sequence like a wave at the ballpark and then gathered what needed gathering around them. Undeterred, the big guy continued staring.

The train squealed to a stop and the doors parted. A female voice announced, “Fairbanks, Fairbanks Station. Next stop Alstead, Alstead Station.” Passengers exited. We entered like sleepwalkers. The big guy straggled behind but joined us in the nick of time.

Inside, the car reeked worse than usual. Vagrants are always relieving themselves where they shouldn’t. At least the air was circulating. The LCD screens were on the fritz, so they looped the MTA's logo with the sun rising behind it. The established riders were withdrawn into their own private worlds. A drowsy nurse in maroon scrubs dozed off despite the music seeping out of her headphones.

Most of us newcomers sat with at least an empty seat as a buffer. I gravitated to a corner and stood. The floor beneath my feet was sticky from spilled orange soda. I planted myself so that I could grasp a pole. I usually stand. Remaining firmly upright is a fun challenge like enunciating when you’re wasted. You can pick the veterans from the novices by who’s jostled around and who’s rolling with the proverbial punches. It's like everyone’s riding on different tracks, a smooth track for the pros and a bumpy track for the rookies.

The big guy plopped down a few seats up from the door. He could still see the rock wall from his vantage. An older woman with a bag of groceries between her feet had been perched on the row directly in front of him. She was busy minding her own business.

After the doors shut, the racket dropped. A fortysomething woman down the way talked loudly, probably into a headset although I couldn’t see one. A group of preteens laughed and roughhoused. By us, though, it was almost silent except for the train sounds. An electric hum ramping up signaled our departure. We leaned from the acceleration.

The commotion’s muffled echoes set a rhythm. We gently swayed side to side. The cars creaked in sympathy. Every few seconds we passed fixtures in the tunnel casting copper light. The streaks wrote morse code behind the windows. The woman with the headset carried on about an aggravating episode returning clothes. A wad of discarded, blackening gum the size of a quarter was plastered just shy of the guy's shoes. I hadn't seen the guy's shoes before. They were cheap and worn-out. Seams had started tearing and the laces were dirty. The pair were tied with the most knots I'd ever come across, either triple-or-quadruple knotted.

Unlike when I met him, he was now facing something that could get creeped out by his constant grin. The woman with the bag avoided eye contact. She preferred a skyward tilt. I was a third party to their asymmetrical staring contest: him at her and her at anywhere else. Minutes passed like that. I started to feel awkward on their behalf.

He flinched first, wiping his brow with his forearm.

Right after his wipe, the train car exploded into daylight. The sun’s never so bright as when you jump from underground to above in an instant. I rubbed my eyes. Once they adjusted, I could see the scene was unchanged. The woman had taken interest in her cuticles.

Out of the blue, the big guy blurted, "Hullo!”

She had to have heard him. It’s safe to say the whole car heard him. But she didn't show it. She ran one thumbnail along the base of the other.

"Where you going?" he asked next.

She coughed. Eventually he offered, "I'm going to St. Michael's. Lunch is at one."

The woman didn’t react. She cleared her throat thoroughly. She picked a lozenge out of her purse, unwrapped it, and placed it in her mouth. I didn’t blame her for giving him the cold shoulder, a lady all by herself. Who knew what this guy was capable of? Freaks migrate to cities like lions to watering holes.

“Do you want to go to St. Michael's? I can get you in. For free.”

She shifted the lozenge to the other cheek.

“Do you want to?”

As though called by a friend, the woman grabbed her belongings. She rose and wobbled a few rows closer to the front of the train, gripping seatbacks for balance. The guy followed her with his eyes. The snub didn’t crimp his grin.

You can see why riding the subway made great entertainment. You can't make this stuff up. No movies have scenes like that. No singer writes a song about a sweaty guy who's probably handicapped. It'd be hard to spin the event into a great story since it didn't lend itself to intrigue or sensationalism. It was a real popcorn moment for me at least, though, the lady ignoring the big guy.

***

We all lurched as the train slowed for the next station. We lost the laughing kids and gained a handful of men and a chick with curly blonde hair. Before they all could settled in, we departed. The youngest of the men, a few years my senior, occupied the spot the old woman gave up. I peered up the car to find her. She was deep in thought, her head cocked toward a window, watching things blur by. My handhold was getting slick from being held, so I readjusted.

The youngish man pick up on my movement peripherally. I smiled when he glanced at me. That satisfied his curiosity. He tugged his backpack onto his lap and retrieved a paperback book. I read the title upside-down as best I could—something something Master Jiu Jitsu. It was the sort of dog-eared pamphlet you'd get at a public library. Most of the pages were black and white photos of a shirtless, muscular Asian man posed mid-position with brief instructions underneath. Even if the book wasn’t a strategic selection, it was effective. It sent a message: don't mess with me. I’m so into martial arts when I’m not practicing them I’m reading about them. The young man ran through a few subtle motions. They reminded me of what cheerleaders memorizing routines do with their eyes closed and their headphones on.

Transitioning from a block to a counterstrike, the reader was interrupted by a "Hullo!" from the big guy. The reader twitched, raised his eyes from the page, and nodded toward his neighbor across the aisle.

The big guy waited patiently for more of a response. When he didn’t get one, he asked, "Where you going?"

Without looking up, the reader answered, "Class."

The train rattled, filling the gap.

"I'm going to St. Michael's. Lunch is at one."

“That's good," the reader said into his book.

"Spaghetti Tuesdays."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You like spaghetti? I can get you some if you want to come with."

"Nah. I can’t. I gotta study."

"I like spaghetti. I get two plates."

The reader said, "That’s great but..uh,” while rifling through his bag. He pulled out earbuds, uncoiled them, and plugged them into his phone. "I'm sorry but I gotta study," were his last words before pushing the buds into his ears.

"What you listening to?"

The big guy was ignored again. I was starting to feel for him. Still, he didn’t stop grinning.

***

A door slid aside at the front of our car. The banging of the car’s linkage and clacking of the wheels prompted those of us who were aware of our environment to glance in the noise’s direction. A sketchy character joined us. Between his crazy hair and the tattoos on his neck, I felt amply threatened. He made his way down the aisle. He scanned the scene like a witness does a lineup.

The man paused by a woman dressed in a business suit and reasonable heels. I couldn't hear their exchange. I could tell from how she responded, though, that he hit her up for money. She shrugged apologetically and pulled her bag closer to herself. No dice. The hustler moved on. He slinked toward my end of the car, passing over individuals he didn’t think he could capitalize on. Our eyes met. I must not have been much of a prospect because he didn’t try me.

He stopped when he got close to my guy. He scratched his ear. "Heya, you got a dollar, slick?"

"I have five dollars."

"Right, right. Can I get a couple of 'em so’s I can snag a bite? I’m flat broke at the moment. Spent my last cent catchin’ this ride."

"I have a five dollar bill."

"Hey now, that’s okay. That'll do fine, slick. Even better. Yeah."

The big guy tipped over and reached for his wallet.

I was in disbelief. No one else was concerned about this transaction. Why would they be? They had their own lives to tend to. Nearby, the reader just slid his legs to the side to give the hustler room. I don’t think he had any clue who he was clearing the way for.

My guy got his wallet free. He pried the velcro folds apart.

I couldn't bear to stand by anymore.

I let go of the bar. I intercepted them at an angle. I stuck my hand out in the direction of my guy’s bifold. "Hey now. Put that away. You don't need to do that," I said to big. "What’re you doing? Don’t. He doesn't know what going on. Hit up somebody else.” I turned and said to the hustler. He wasn't pleased, naturally. His face went sour. He sneered. I added, ”Don’t bother him."

He inched backward, but that could have been from the train. "Step aside, bro. He knows plenty alright. You best get goin’. Go on. Sit." He pointed to an open seat. He edged forward and made up the lost ground. I didn’t budge. My mind raced. A voice in my head looped ‘what am I doing?’. I wasn’t sure what came next. My plan ended with the speech. I thought he’d listen. Another voice told me ‘Relax. He’s a punk. He’ll go away.’ I remember noting basic physical facts. He had maybe a four inches on me. He was stringy, though, not much meat on him. The writing of his neck tattoo was so fancy I couldn’t make it out. His breath stunk of cigarettes.

I overheated. My ears reddened and my underarms started to tingle. My stomach tightened. Between the hustler and me, I could see my guy gazing up at the both of us with his brown eyes like he didn’t get what the fuss was about. He held his wallet in the air as though he was offering the thing, ID and all, to whoever wanted it. He let his arms droop a bit when he caught me glaring at him. "I don't know what?" he asked. I didn't have the opportunity to answer because the hustler started reaching into his front pocket for some reason. That scared me. A slew of weapons flashed through my mind. Brass knuckles. A shiv. A knife. A gun. No. The pocket couldn't hide a gun unless it was a tiny, fit-in-your-purse model. I pegged him as the knife type. I was going to get stabbed.

"Okay. Okay. Easy," I said. I reached back, withdrew my own wallet, and plucked the singles out. "Here. Just walk on by." I thrust the bills I had out in front of me. The hustler snatched the bills with his free hand and made a fist around them. He shook his head at me before he split. He must've thought the confrontation was pointless. From the way he took the money and fled straight away I decided he was bluffing about the knife. Or I had misread him.

With the space vacated, the reader rotated his legs back around like what just happened wasn’t a big deal. I’m positive he was clueless. They were all clueless, weren’t they? The nurse kept napping. The reader kept reading. The blonde texted the entire time. I was alone in this.

The big guy rested his wallet in his lap. It was made of lime green canvas. “Frank” was written on the front in thick blue marker. The ink had bled into the fabric. The letters’ fuzzy edges upset me. Faded stuff is sad. A grown man with his name in large print on his wallet is sad, too. With both his hands, he splayed it open for me to have the five instead. His bottom lip puckered a little. He was disappointed, I think.

I backpedaled. I didn’t have anything to say. My heart fluttered from the dispute. I felt as though I had lost weight or something. I felt lighter. I wasn’t shaking. I was hovering. I scolded myself. Involvement is off-limits for us watchers. We keep our distance on purpose. We’re neutral parties. But this hustler... What was I to do? None of the others were going to step in. I felt obligated. The three of us were on our own to settle accounts. But what if the hustler didn’t take my money? What if he wanted trouble? Would Frank have stuck up for me or would I have caught a beating or worse?

Frank was locked onto me now. He rotated to face me. "I don't know what?"  

"Nothing. Nevermind.” I paused. “Forget it." After a minute I told him, "You should really hold onto your money, you know. Don't just give it away. He didn’t need it. You need it. It’s yours."

"But he said he was hungry."

"It’s lunchtime, bud. I’m hungry. Everybody’s hungry. Don't you get hungry?"

"Food’s free for me. I do chores and get five dollars a week. I can buy whatever I want like magazines."

"Well still. You should be careful."

"I am careful."

Even though the threat had passed, I couldn’t calm down. Every few seconds I checked to make sure the hustler wasn’t coming back with reinforcements. It didn’t help that Frank wouldn't leave me in peace. Not that he pestered me. He didn’t say anything else for a while. But I knew he was staring. Maybe a couple minutes later he picked up where he left off with, "I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were."

"I'm not," he plead.

I bent closer to his level. "Okay. You're not."

"I'm not," he said—much softer. “I’m really not.”

“Right.”

Around us, the others were more or less quiet within the clatter. I reviewed the banner advertisements lining the cabin. A latino thrilled to be going to community college. A black woman ecstatic about a payday loan. A family frothing for a trip to the history museum. None of us on the subway was as tickled as the people photographed.

I felt Frank’s eyes on me. His grin had returned. "Where you going?"

"Nowhere. I'm exploring."

"I'm going to St. Michael's."

"So I heard. Spaghetti Tuesdays."

“You like spa-”

I cut him off. “Not really. It’s okay. I take Chinese over Italian personally.”

“Oh. I could get you in if-”

“No. I can’t.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. I uh work and...”

I couldn’t handle the interrogation. We weren’t going to be buddies, so why drag it out? I was spent. I decided to hop off ASAP. We were nearly to Bay Street. I would go home early.

I looked out a side window. There was nothing to see besides the dashes of light. The reader sneezed. Frank said, “Gublessyou.” The reader didn’t hear. The tunnel brightened as we entered the next station. We braked. A woman’s voice announced, “Bay Street, Bay Street station. Next stop Kings Street, Kings Street station.”

As quickly as I could, I snuck out. My goodbye to Frank was a matter-of-fact, “Well, this is me.” I didn’t give him time to respond. I split the flow of boarding passengers. The lunch crowd had been freed from wherever they’d been held. The station roared with riders trying to overcome the background noise with louder noise of their own.

I walked down the hall and shuffled through the line for the escalator. A set of young parents teamlifted a toddler in a stroller up the stairs in the middle. I stepped on and ascended. I could smell fried food. At the top, I thought I saw Frank behind me. But I told myself it couldn’t have been him.

Everywhere I went, I was swimming upstream. I slid between the human obstacles, each moving at their own pace. I wove through the tchotchke tables and newsstands. I neared a fork in the road. I had a choice to zig or zag, to exit on Market or on Hudson. Market was the more direct route. I took a left toward Hudson to throw any would be stalker off. Impossible as it was, I felt like Frank was in my brain now, that he knew where I was headed. He was going to wind up on my doorstep somehow.

I climbed the cramped stairwell. Outside, the conversations multiplied but spread as they could in the open air. Up rose the clamor and down poured the wet sun. For a moment, the warmth was refreshing. It was soon oppressive. I didn’t care. I was glad to be out of confinement and back in my element, back in obscurity.

At the first intersection, I turned east onto Ayers. Professionals traveled in packs. Stationary figures smoked near lobbies. Onions sizzled on a hotdog stand’s grill. The shade wasn’t much cooler so I didn’t bother hiding in it. I walked along the middle of the sidewalk, weaving as necessary. I make a game out of not being touched.

Across Ayers at a bus stop, I noticed a solitary figure slouching inside the shelter. It was hard to see around the traffic, foot or otherwise, passing between us. Whoever he was, he wasn’t happy.

I picked up the pace.

Stalled

Brittany is not pretty. She is not thin. She is not flirtatious. She is not even talkative. Brittany's hair does not lie nicely. Her skin does not smell like Warm Vanilla Sugar. Her clothes are either too big or too small. None are remotely fashionable. A clear line does not distinguish lip from non-lip. A chapped redness obscures her mouth through all seasons. She bears no resemblance to the mental picture you have of a girlfriend, or a friend, or a neighbor. Her face is the kind you only encounter in the day-to-day world, a fleshy reminder of the decidedly below-average.

It is 12:31 PM, 11 minutes into the sophomore lunch period. The cafeteria is zoned for a maximum of 476 clamoring adolescents. Today, 35 of the 36 missing members of the Class of 2015 are absent, excused or otherwise. Brittany is present but unaccounted for by the monitors. She is in the 10th grade girls' restroom. Brittany's seat is one floor up from the cafeteria, in the third and final stall, the one that spans the width of the room. She did not and does not need to relieve herself. She's biding her time staring straight ahead. She's wishing it's later than it is.

The enclosure that contains her is equipped with handrails. Its dimensions are amenable to a 24" turning-radius. Brittany does not qualify as handicapped. She is in the stall that satisfies ADA regulations because three of its four walls are constructed out of cinder-block. The remaining two stalls are vulnerable to being surrounded by fellow restroom users. Once bolted in to the last stall, the occupant need only concern herself with the girl to the immediate right, should she ever arrive. 

The third stall tends to be vacant. Most high school students, with their decorum deficiency, will nonetheless abstain dropping trou in handicapped stalls when possible. Brittany recognizes her own habitual occupation of the third stall is disrespectful or sacrilegious. The shame of sacrilege is not too steep a price for admission. Shame can be assuaged internally. Brittany has the time. She can run down a long list of faults in 35 minutes. She pauses to lament over each item.

Her classmates are at least 200 feet away. They refuel between gaps of scandalous chatter. Brittany faintly hears the far off din. She sits on the black plastic toilet seat with her pants hoisted around her waist, awkwardly reclined. She shifts her weight. The lid creaks. She picks at a cuticle.

She made her decision to hide, as Brittany has made nearly all of her decisions, for the sake of appearance. Not for the sake of appearance as it relates to aesthetics. She knows that looking good is not an option. Rather, she chooses for the sake of disappearance. She goes to great lengths to conceal herself when in public. If people get a glimpse of her, notice her in a cursory glance, she is skewered.

Skewering is the name Brittany coined for how she feels when she's seen. The term was largely inspired by Hemingway's Old Man the the Sea, which Brittany read in Mr. Hendrick's freshman literature course. The novella struck a cord. For a final paper, Brittany made a convincing case for the marlin being the story's tragic protagonist. She claimed the point was often lost on readers because readers are people and people are shallow and the shallow are blinded by how cool the terse Old Man is and how cute Manolin is with his indulgent patience. The lack of sympathy for the great fish went to make the tragedy all the more pathetic. Had she properly indented, eased up on comma usage, and run spell-check, Brittany would have received an A.

Ever since Hendrick's class, Brittany conjures an image of herself as a docile marine animal gracefully swimming in a tropical sea. But when she is spotted by others, she's toast. She is harpooned. Rather than reel her in to carve her up and put her out of her misery or cut the line because she's a garbage fish, she's drug along at a distance. She drug bleeding through the water and getting gnawed on by an array of little carnivorous sucker fish. Before long, a few sleek sharks join in the devouring. To top it off, the little fisherman's children are encouraged to practice their marksmanship on what remains of her bloated and prone belly. The feeling is that awful.

Brittany's pain isn't unfounded. Words like 'gross', or 'weird', or 'loser' form in the Broca's areas of passers-by at first sight. Brittany believes her mere presence, her taking up of space, is a disturbance. All outcomes involving being detected are sub-optimal. So, she recedes.

She strives to mimic pieces of furniture. She takes after the hard plastic chairs, laminate desks, and three-drawer filing cabinets, the mundane objects that share our space, that are so ubiquitous and boring they barely register. She has studied their ways and crafted an approach to life from their behavior. Furniture doesn't talk, so she doesn't talk. Furniture doesn't look at you, so she doesn't look at you. Furniture doesn't move, so she moves as little as humanly possible. She won't even jot down notes or follow along with the teacher reading aloud because the very wagging of a pencil or rustling of a page is an announcement. It is a herald, however slight, for a classmate to behold that she is in here and hideous. 

Brittany did not think through the practical specifics like posture when she first alighted on the idea of restroom-as-refuge. She did not visualize the setting, what the dank environment would do to her already frizzy bangs, or how long girls could fuss with their make-up. She had no clue how chilling it would be or how the hum of a faulty ballast could be so enervating. On the first day she sought asylum, she was confronted by the nuts-and-bolts reality.

When a girl walks into the restroom and sees a shod silhouette from the shin down, the new girl has certain expectations. Chief among them, she expects the other girl is doing what humans do in restrooms. Why else would the other girl be in there? Who hangs out in restrooms? Horrified at the prospect of arousing suspicions, Brittany took precautions. She unbuttoned, unzipped, and slid her pants around her ankles. She sat deceitfully ready. If another girl or girls entered, Brittany reached for toilet paper. She tore pieces off aggressively so that the roll rattled in its container. She audibly wadded up the paper, made wiping noises on a palm, and dropped it into the bowl. The longer the newcomer(s) remained in the area, the longer the performance went. By the third swipe, she feigned blowing her nose. She flushed. 

The worst is when another girl goes number two. The new girl is bound to puzzle over the girl next door's deal. That girl was here first. Is she sick? Is she crampy? Is she faking? Is she like really fat, stuck, and in need of a plunger? What's with all the TP? What's she doing in there? Maybe the new girl should stand on the commode and peak for herself. "Just let her be," Brittany pleads telepathically. She can almost hear the retort. If that girl feels so ill, shouldn't she go to the nurse? Shouldn't she be lying down? Shouldn't she be at home, resting her nasty self?

Nobody has ever posed a question to her while encamped. Brittany worries all the same.

After a handful of anxiety sessions on the throne at lunch, it occurred to Brittany she could do better. She could vanish with a little effort. She now scootches way back, perches uncomfortably on the hinge, and draws up her feet. She assumes a roughly fetal position upright. She restrains her respiration to the point of inaudibility. She becomes totally undetectable. She doesn't have to put on a show anymore. Brittany doesn't have to fret about being singled out by her shoes. She doesn't have to worry about whether the owner of the neighboring trendy pair of shoes would oust her, would tell her cadre of friends, who would tell their cadres of friends, and on and on, how Brittany Ayers is holed up in the bathroom doing God know what all lunch period long. She doesn't have to craft objections, like how Amber Graves must do the same thing if she's privy to that sort of information. As in, if it's not more than a groundless rumor, how does Amber know about the duration of Brittany's stay if Amber is not herself taking care of business for so long? No one would listen to Brittany, of course. No one would ask for her side of the story. But none of that could happen since Brittany has sophisticated her scheme.

It is a fool-proof scheme, the hiding. No staff member would be alarmed by a sealed and vacant stall. Pranksters of both sexes frequently locked a door and climbed over or slid under for the purpose of relatively wholesome mischief. The administration understandably didn't waste resources pursuing petty infractors. If a teacher was alerted to the prank, he or she would call the secretary between lessons, who would page the custodian, who'd pick it open sooner or later.

With 12 minutes remaining, Brittany rubs her forehead. She hears individual voices rise over the drone and descend again. Someone pops an inflated paper bag. She considers her right knee, the skin of which is exposed partially by a tear. Though pulled taught, dermal lines remain. They create an organic elevation map. Blonde stubble catches the artificial light. She tugs at a clump of frayed threads, always white though the jean is blue. It's a good thing Brittany doesn't wear a watch.

Worrying is one of the few activities in which she can participate. Her cell phone is ancient. The buttons clack when depressed, so Snake and Brick are out of the question. A moratorium against noise limits more complex movements. The crackle of wrappers and crunch of chewing combine to forbid eating during the designated time for eating. She can't so much as consume fruit snacks discretely in class, the plastic wrapper sufficing to betray her most delicate manipulation.

She had reason to be preoccupied. Other girls aren't disposed to leave girls like Brittany in peace. If outwardly all they show is a quick scowl or a brief frown, there's a whole lot left unsaid. Unsaid, that is, until the midday meal. Unsaid, until a crowd of them can confer in a restroom they assume to be empty.

If there is to be a conference, Brittany has learned it will be within the first five minutes of lunch. A group will access the wall of mirrors prior to going on display. From her perch, Brittany listens to the pop of lip gloss lids and the friction of hair pulled through bristles. A farrago of clicks and snaps emitted by cosmetic products ricochets off the hard surfaces. Amid the corporate acts of beautification, the group builds monstrosities. They collaborate on multi-tiered insults. They fashion piles of invective. They stack bovine and porcine clichés to the ceiling. Brittany's nightmares are reconstructed out of this material. These scenes confirm Brittany's hypothesis about other people—boys, too. They are mean, pure and simple. They get meaner in groups. They're meanest towards her. Laughs, nearby and around-the-corner ones, are at her expense. She supposes herself to be the subject of all snicker-inducing notes and messages.

Nobody has ever referenced Brittany nominally in the bathroom tirades. Nevertheless, she feels no better. She feels worse, actually, for not being referenced. The peers who have expended energy making fun of Brittany inhabit a lower stratum than girls who primp. Brittany isn't worth the popular girls' collective time.

Would she want to be? If what she overhears are the sorts of statements girls think it's cool to say in the exclusive company of other like-minded-and-bodied girls, what do they say to themselves? What do they say to themselves when, on their way to prime locker real estate, they pass Brittany riffling through her never-adorned locker? How do they vivisect her when, scoping out the scene, they spy her marring the view down the hall? What's her taxonomy when compared to the curled, the blushing, the well-endowed, and the spaghetti-strapped? Brittany Ayers of the split ends. Brittany Ayers of the pasty complexion. Brittany Ayers of the abundant thighs. Brittany Ayers of the ratty T-shirts. No, she'd rather not count at all, except when roll is taken.

She doesn't skip school. She has perfect attendance. She remains alert in class. She is diligent about completing homework assignments. She responds to a question when a teacher calls on her because she never raises a hand on her own. She comports herself because disobeying is bad news. Disobeying leads to discipline.

Brittany has known since the sixth grade that if you don't answer a query, do as you're told, or acknowledge a statement, follow-up questions, instructions, or comments will ensue. Keeping tight-lipped gets you sent through a packed house of snickering children to the office. The office is the place where an intimidating secretary shoots you daggers while you wait cross-legged. The waiting is for Assistant Principal Chezik, who asks you to have a seat, offers you a hard candy, and interrogates you at length as to why exactly you refused to participate in a game of Geography Jeopardy. The why is inconsequential because his underlying objective is to deliver a speech about how insubordination is a slippery slope. To put the breaks on additional slippage, Assistant Principal Chezik concludes the interrogation with assurances he'll have his eyes on you during the next 60 days of what he likes to call "probation." By the time you're free to go, the "didgja hears" have reverberated through the echo chamber of high school. For a week or more, you're in the social crosshairs more than usual, which leads to more eye-averting on your part, which, despite being a meek response to attention, garners additional attention and consequent judgment because in this context it's a tacit admittance of guilt and kids get high on the slightest waft of inferiority.

To avoid reliving that train wreck, Brittany plays by the rules.

She's not out to win in a valedictorian sense of winning. Obedience has its limits. Being praised is just as bad as being scolded. The teacher is the only person who congratulates you on setting the curve. The other pupils gnash their teeth. Nobody likes a suck-up, so Brittany doesn't come close. She leaves an blank or two unfilled on tests. She'll use one letter twice on matching sections. She ignores spelling suggestions when typing essays. These ploys apply deflationary pressure on her grades. They prevent her from getting photographed for the Student of the Month display. The recipients' ink-jet prints are stapled onto a tack board by the water fountains. By month's end, they are thoroughly defaced. Brittany couldn't resist taking the mustache, stitches, and horns personally, although the practice is indiscriminate.

Her upper torso is arched around the chrome-plated flushing lever with eight minutes to go. Brittany is canted slightly toward the exterior wall as though attracted to its solidity. The central region of her butt droops down, unsupported by the seat's hole. The sensation is bizarre and embarrassing Brittany feels more isolated as a result. She whips herself into a fit of self-pity-and-loathing about how her voluntary exile is preferable to being out there with her classmates. Out there in the airline hanger of a cafeteria entails having binders slid in front of places you're eyeing. Out there entails being told that the seat's reserved for a friend in line even though a quick scan of the registers yields not a soul buying food, let alone waiting in line to do so. That the graffitied dividers and ammoniac smell of the facilities are more hospitable than the lunch room alternative would ruin Brittany's mascara were she wearing any. 

Brittany tries to bolster her confidence by emphasizing her proactivity, her initiative, and her ingenuity for finding a way to disappear in the middle of the school day, when exposure and persecution reaches its highest frenzied pitch and the maximum of 952 beady eyes are darting about, dividing up the humanity into in and out, friend and foe. Instead, here sits Brittany, shielded, secure, and in total compliance with the Student Handbook's bylaws. Here sits Brittany, if not dignified, then at least not humiliated in full view, not forlornly wandering the aisles for the chance half-empty table or abandoning hope altogether and surveying the horizon for the Special Ed kids and their tender caretakers whose tenderness and welcoming never fail to make her feel much, much worse because they treat their wards the same way they treat her, the ones who scream at specific colors, squawk like parrots, or roll around on the floor. Recalling this humiliation, her fiddling with the sandwich bag instead of consuming its contents, her obsessive staring at the digital clock that regulated the day's schedule, gave Brittany much needed perspective. She is not disabled. She is not alternatively-abled. She is unpopular. There are worse fates.

No. Here sits Brittany, kind of praying. 'Kind of' because she's not asking for anything or singing any praises. She's not petitioning for a favor like the power to cope or inspiration about how to persevere. She's not praying to God the Father, per se, but to Someone. In her mind, there's a pronounced skyward vector to her thoughts. She's sending the message up, which she realizes is silly and that whoever he is, if he's anywhere at all, as in like existing, he's everywhere. For that matter, Brittany thinks he isn't properly a 'he', as in being gendered, but he's definitely not non-gendered. Because referring to him as an 'it' is more off-base than just using the traditionally masculine pronouns with an implicit asterisk.

An lopsided relationship doesn't seem to bother either party. She sends up. He receives. Brittany has a lot to say. He's a good listener. She tells him how much it sucks to be her. He hasn't asked for a thing in return. How could he? When she thinks about it, he's all brain and no hands, feet, or mouth. It's vague, but doesn't that come with the territory? She's fine with uncertainty. She's not interested in reading a book. She doesn't want to be more confused. She's not going to attend a service or ceremony. Those are communal. She'd surely stick out as the initiate. She'd get coddled in the same way the Special Ed aids coddle her. Brittany would rather not put herself in that situation.

For Brittany, their time together is encompassing. Not encompassing as in what's provided by a companion with limbs, but as in submersion, a state of being completely engulfed, not by air which is like nothing at room temperature, but warm water. It's like a bath, if that makes sense, like how the warm water doesn't care about your cellulite or the number of your chins. The bathing metaphor demonstrates how resistant Brittany is to being led or pushed, since she's not imagining herself in an ocean with its eroding force or a lazy river with its current. No. Brittany just wants to lean back and be saved like how she was damned: against her will. She's content where she's at, wounded but in stable condition, secluded but heard by the Great Big Ear. If someone else knows her plight, that's reassuring.

This slanted conversation began a fortnight into Brittany's evasive maneuvering. It wasn't that Brittany said, "God help me," and a voice from on high answered. It wasn't that He called out unprovoked, "Behold Brittany. I am here with you." It was subtler and more fluky.

She had been doing what she does in the noon hour, privately commiserating her station between prods of a pimple. She recounted her inadequacies. She revisited the cruelties, however slight, that had lately been directed her way. Before she knew what she was doing, she crossed a boundary. While gazing into the grid-work of tile before her, she wished for an end. She did not assess suicidal methods. She did not picture anything involving violence or as much as a modicum of energy expenditure on her part. She only wished for an undefined end.

Reflexivity is built into the inner life, which is why Brittany can surprise herself. She apprehends the torrent of language in her mind immediately. Comprehension, though, suffers from a satellite feed’s delay. An extra second or two is required for uptake. The desire for blasé obliteration beamed from one side of her cortex to the other. When the transmission was complete, Brittany was stunned that she would momentarily dream of death. She identified herself as a survivor. She was adaptable. She was resilient. She had wanted to flee a scene thousands of times, but never into nothingness. The wish was a big step. Her apparent devolution alarmed her.

When searching a cause for her dismay, she found only her various selves. There was the Brittany who spoke to herself. There was the Brittany who heard herself. There was the Brittany who thought she’d be okay if everyone just ignored her. There was the Brittany who would go to such lengths to be accompanied she’d have conversations with herself. There was the Brittany who resents the horde of superficial young adults in which she was marooned. There was the Brittany who totally gets it and doesn’t blame them, who has 20/20 vision and an instinctual revulsion for what's reflected in the wall of mirrors, store front windows, or any polished surface. So, Brittany discovered at the end of this trail that the constituents of the helter-skelter throng inside her head were working at cross-purposes. They were making matters worse by dragging them out. She never let anything go because as soon as one of her did, there was another who picked it up and ran ahead. She had to start directing her thoughts to someone above the fray. She’d leave it with him and step away.

Thus she started her prayer-type thing.

The school days subjectively improved when she started considering the possibility that some nonpartisan person was omnipresent. Brittany began adding this layer to all her consciousness. He sees this, too. He hears this, too. He feels this, too. He did not need to stop it or fix it, just share the crappiness of it with her. So, Brittany started addressing him exclusively between 12:20 and 12:55 PM since doing otherwise got to feeling rude, ignoring this guy who's in the room and has as much right to be there as anyone else. Since he's everywhere you go and is always interested in you, with a non-threatening interest, an all-knowing, sympathetic but not spineless or patronizing interest, why not confide in him how much it pains you to have to hide because everyone hates you? Brittany admits these confidences sound increasingly paranoid when you hear yourself repeatedly elevating them, since if he is as attentive as it seems he is, he doesn't hate you for starters.

If God was real and wanted to intervene, he could send a messenger like the guidance counselor, Mrs. Madigan. In fact, she'll be meeting with with Brittany to discuss college plans this afternoon. Brittany will be furtive. She'll keep her face downcast. She'll reply tersely. Mrs. Madigan, whose been trained to pick up on warning signs, will gently shift the conversation onto a more personal track. Mrs. Madigan will accidentally hit a nerve. Finally, Brittany will dare the counselor to go seek out just one kid who didn't think she was repulsive. She'll demand Mrs. Madigan drag just one kid into this office to look at her squarely and swear she's not ugly. At that, the counselor will be temporarily stultified.

Brittany will not want to hear about how there's more to a woman than her body. She will not want to have a conversation about how it's what's on the inside that counts. She's seen the posters. She's watched the videos. She's sorry, but that's a lie. To everyone with an outside, the outside counts first. In her case, it counts most. The outside is a major obstacle, like 50 feet high. She can't fathom how anyone is going to get beyond that barrier because no one has yet. When the counselor asks her what about Brittany, has she progressed beyond the outside, has Brittany ever looked past her projection of other people into the possibilities of what's really happening in their minds and hearts, past her projections of judgment and condemnation, Brittany will be momentarily befuddled.

When the counselor seizes that short beat to delve deeper and asks whether Brittany has ever progressed beyond the outside of herself, as in moved past the façade to see how the inside had some glory in it that her peers couldn't perceive right away but also, and more importantly, couldn't steal or smother, Brittany will end the session. She will escape to her stall, bolt the door, and have a quick confab with the One Above about hazy things like inner value. No aural input will be added. Brittany will gush unabated. She'll raise some questions. They'll be solved by silence. She'll attempt to stop the cycle whirring around at great speed, the loop of fears. It's a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, the fear. Did Brittany hate herself first and then everybody else did because she makes it so easy for them, with her low self-esteem and general apathy toward being in any way appealing? Or was it rather that everybody else saw her atrociousness first and pointed it out to Brittany like something in her teeth or mismatched socks or toothpaste residue in the corner of her mouth? And then, like out of a bad dream, when she tries to discretely address the problem, she finds the lodged spec is some sort of dental implant, and those aren't socks, they're prescription support stockings she has to wear in order to walk, and that's not toothpaste, it's the lone case of an as-yet unclassified mutant pigmentation disorder. Which is to say that all this shit that's wrong with her is permanent, such being the  fatalistic perspective of the pubescent, not so much failing to conceive of a time before or after now as misconstruing age 16 as the age, as in a die-casting event that fixes all outcomes, as in ultimately blessed or cursed heretofore and henceforth from this now obtaining state of affairs. In the midst of these hysterics, Brittany will propose a revision to her self-conception. She will hear no opposition, her own antagonists included.

A poorly assembled, rambling plea will be disrupted by a rhythmic jangle. The jangle will be reminiscent of a tambourine. The beat will swell. In the middle of Brittany wracking her brain to determine the noise, Martina will announce "Custodian!" Brittany will flinch from the interruption. She won't respond because responding  would lead to, "You alright?" and Brittany won't lie. Brittany would say, "Yeah, I'm fine." Martina would ask, "Then why are you in there, locked, with no feet?" This string of questioning would terminate in a return trip to the counselor's office and a phone call home. A phone call home would lead to more unwelcome discussions during which Brittany would want to collapse inward till she's infinitesimal, to be reborn as a black hole, an entity that was so small it somehow became immense and impenetrable, as in able to absorb  even the light that would make it visible.

Martina will arrive at her destination. Since she hears no response to her announcement, she'll retrieve a tool from her back pocket. There will be a sound scraping metal as a screwdriver finds purchase in the mechanism's slit. Brittany will watch the knob turn a ghastly 90°. She will grab her shins and pull back hard in a subconscious venture to initiate the shrinking sequence. The door will swing freely on its hinge when pushed. Brittany will gape blinkless. She will watch a bronze hand with unpainted nails retract through the doorway. For an instant, Brittany will feel immense relief. She will feel secure at remaining a secret. Then, Martina will peak in for curiosity's sake.

She'll stumble on Brittany sitting fully clothed, her knees tucked under her chin. The two will recognize each other. Brittany knows Martina. Martina knows the seated girl without knowing her name. In the first two seconds, they will not react. All appearances will remain fixed. Neither will draw in breath for talking. Martina's face will soften first. Brittany's face will soften next. Martina will deferentially nod. She will grab the door from the top. She will pull it shut. She will return the knob to its locked position. She'll exit. She'll report a false alarm to the secretary. Brittany will be left alone to ponder if the episode with the custodian had been a coincidence or a sign. She will oscillate between the two positions, confident these deliberations rise, too. She'll replay Martina's visage and what it communicated. She'll think people can see with more than their eyes and love without words until the tone emits from the hallway speakers, announcing fifth period. She will put her feet back on the ground. She will stand and put another lunch period behind her.