Blood Out

I didn’t bother lying to Mom, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. We had no secret handshakes, no winks. We had honesty. Mostly. I’d started omitting things, interjecting what I thought were contemplative silences into our conversations. I didn’t tell her how uncomfortable life was on me then, how at almost thirteen I was rattling around and at the same time constricted in my body and thoughts, lonely in a way I couldn’t articulate.

“Chel, my heart?” Mom knew it was me as soon as she picked up. I thought all moms were like that.

“Hi Mom, we’re going to Crystal’s tonight, then coming back here to sleep.” I picked at the sticker on the wall phone, the puffy kind, smiling cotton candy that had been scratched and sniffed into bareness.

“Ah, and who’s staying with her?” Crystal’s mom was gone. A week earlier, Crystal had woken up to her aunt burning bacon and smoking cigarettes in the kitchen. Crys was used to her mom disappearing and didn’t ask any questions; she ate her burned bacon and stole makeup out of her aunt’s purse.

“Her aunt, still.” I accidentally peeled the cotton candy face away, revealing a cloud shaped piece of foam.

Mom was silent. I stayed quiet too. Her silence was full, it grabbed at me. I closed my eyes and fought it. She sighed.

“Call me if you need anything Chels, anything. Promise?” She had her Voice on. I promised, we said our I love yous and hung up. I tried to ignore the buzzing around me. I wouldn’t call, I told myself. I wouldn’t. I rolled up the sticker and stuck it behind the phone, wedging it against the wall.

We rang Crystal’s doorbell. The sun had just set, kids screamed and rode their bikes around the apartment complex parking lot. She lived in La Hacienda. Crappy apartments that were stuccoed mission-white and planted with aloe, agave, and sage in an attempt to recreate someone’s nostalgic idea of Old California. We’d all carved our names into the nopal paddles.

Crystal’s Aunt Trish opened the door.

“Girls!” She said a little too brightly, squinting at us. I didn’t know it then but I’d meet dozens of women like her in my life, their skin just a touch too loose over muscle.

“Thanks for letting us coming over,” Jenny grinned, thrusting the bag at Aunt Trish, “We bring gifts.”

“Giiiiiiiiirls,” Aunt Trish cried, pulling a six-pack of wine coolers out of the bag, a pack of Virgina Slims 100s nestled between the bottles. She shook her head, letting us in, “You’re terrible, how did you even get these?”

“Aunt Trish,” Jenny used her super good-girl voice, “It’s the last Friday before school starts. You deserve to relax too.”

“I’m not giving you any,” Aunt Trish said, twisting open a bottle, “No way, Peach is my favorite.”

“They’re all for you,” Jenny said, “Though we might bum a smoke or two.” Aunt Trish took a swig, winking at Jenny and called “Crystal, your girlfriends are here!”

Crystal emerged from the one bedroom. She and her mom shared it except for the nights Crys would wake up to a man carrying her into the living room to deposit her on the sofa. She saw me and glared.

“Her? For real?” Crystal gave Jenny a look, turning back into the room. Jenny followed. I could hear their voices and felt cold all over my body. Crystal sometimes hated me, sometimes hated Jenny. I never could figure out why. I didn’t hate either of them, I just didn’t want to sit alone at lunch. I let them ping-pong me back and forth, the loose end of what I wanted to be a triangle. I went to the small kitchen and sat on a stool at the counter.

“There’s something else in the bag.” I picked it up and shook out the CD she hadn’t noticed.

“Rumours!” Aunt Trish held the Fleetwood Mac to her chest, “I fucking love this album. How did you know?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know how I’d known. I’d seen the CD on the wire rack in Mandy and Jenny’s living room. Something about the cover, the tiny white woman in a dance pose and a wispy cape, reminded me of Aunt Trish. Not physically, Aunt Trish dyed her hair blue black, but there was something about her, a graceful ache that made me feel like she belonged in a different world.

“We’re going to get rolled tacos and ice cream,” Crystal announced from the bedroom doorway. Jenny looked past her, not at me and I knew I wouldn’t be going. “Jenny and I have something to talk about, we’re going alone.”

I nodded, spine rolling forward. I crossed my arms over the sunken feeling behind my bellybutton.

“That’s perfect,” Aunt Trish smiled wide, there was a space at edge of her smile where she was missing a tooth, “I wanted a little time alone with your friend Michelle.”

“Ixchel,” Jenny said. Crystal rolled her eyes.

“I don’t eat dairy anyway,” I said and regretted it when Crys and Jenny exchanged a look.

It said See?

When the aluminum door slammed behind them Aunt Trish opened two more wine coolers and held one out to me. I hesitated.

“Have a drink, and fuck those cunts,” she tapped the Slims against her hand shook out a couple of smokes, offering one to me. I shook my head but took the wine cooler. It fizzed on my tongue, sweet sweet, it tasted like the smell of air fresheners my dad sold in his muffler shop. Aunt Trish opened the sliding door and sank into the sofa. I sat on the other end, taking tiny sips.

“Put in the CD, Shelly,” she said. I did. As soon as the first guitar strums started Aunt Trish leaned back, closing her eyes, rocking her head. She smiled something a little sad that seemed to settle on her, like she was covered in dust. I blinked a few times but it stayed. I put my wine cooler on the stained coffee table and picked up a magazine.

I was on tip 27 out of 50, Put an ice cube up your you-know-what when he goes down on you! The chills you’ll feel will have NOTHING to do with the ice! when Aunt Trish sighed and lit her third cigarette. She opened her eyes, staring at me. I felt her, even with my eyes on the glossy page.

“Is your mom really psychic?” I looked at her. Her eyes were bright and small. I wondered what she’d heard. Mom wasn’t psychic-psychic, not like the 1-900 number ladies, not someone who read the stars like Walter Mercado, but she was something. She said I was something too, I just didn’t know it yet. I shifted and looked back at the page, Aunt Trish laughed.

“You don’t say much, Shelley? Let my asshole niece and that spoiled shit boss you around. You’re too fucking nice, don’t ever be a nice girl. Don’t.” She ambled up from the sofa and sway-danced to the fridge to grab two more wine coolers. The gloss of her sadness darkened into something else. My palms itched. I wondered when Crystal and Jenny would be back.

“I don’t have a lot of friends,” I said, looking at the door, wishing I wasn’t alone with Aunt Trish.

“Me either, ’specially not girlfriends,” she chugged half a wine cooler and held the other out to me. I pointed at the one on the coffee table, still full. “Those two would’ve finished that and more,” Aunt Trish collapsed onto the sofa, closer to me this time. “But you’re better than them, smarter.” She closed her eyes again. I puckered my mouth, the sweet taste of peach in my mouth soured into something tasting almost rotten. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Aunt Trish was singing along, her voice too high: “And I wish you all the love in the world…But most of all, I wish it for myself …And the songbirds keep singing like—Bullshit!”

There was a smash, glass breaking. At the sink, I jumped, feeling a rush of wetness between my legs. I grabbed my crotch with one hand, pressing my palm against the strange feel of liquid in my panties and stared out into the living room.

Aunt Trish had smashed the wine cooler bottle on the coffee table. She held her hands, fisted against her eyes. Blood and tears ran down her face and neck. She was still singing along, her voice rough. The carpet glittered with broken glass. I grabbed the roll of paper towels, went to her and held them out.

“You’re bleeding,” I said. She dropped her fists and stared at me, I saw the web between her thumb and index finger was sliced open.

“You’re fucking bleeding,” she laughed, a scary laugh, “Jesus fuck, Shelly.”

I looked down. The crotch of my white imitation-Bongo shorts was red, bright red. I stared. I wanted to cry. I wanted my mom. My hands began to shake, aching, I opened and closed them. I took the paper towels and ran to the bathroom. There was so much blood. I didn’t know there would be so much blood. I sat on the toilet, gasping as something fell out of my body. I looked in-between my legs into the basin. A chunk of something, almost black, wisps of blood snaking away from it. I wanted my mom. I wiped as much of the blood as I could. I opened the bathroom cabinet but there was nothing there but cotton balls. I accordion-folded toilet paper, lining the crotch of my panties. I opened the door.

Aunt Trish hadn’t moved. Blood ran down her arm and elbow. The shadows around her were darker. The only light shone from the kitchen. She smoked a cigarette, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. “This your first blood?” She asked, exhaling a cloud of shapes. She squinted at me, I nodded. “Wanna celebrate?” She shook the pack of smokes at me. I shook my head. I wanted to leave but the blood on her was begging me for something, somehow. I felt the sadness pouring out, thick; it smelled like the bathroom at a gas station in the desert, like disappointment.

I grabbed a sweatshirt, tying it around my waist so the arms hung down in front, covering my bloom of blood. I ran down the stairs. The kids had been called in for the night. A few men sat in the back of a pick-up, drinking beers, a ranchera playing from the open window of the cab. I saw what I wanted, what was calling me.

I knelt in front of the plant the way Mom taught me. I touched the stems, closed my eyes and asked permission. Waited. I pulled one hair out of my head and wrapped it around one of the leaves as offering, then snapped another off, the mucous of it trailing. I ran back upstairs.

“Aloe vera,” I held the spine of plant out to Aunt Trish. Her eyes were unclear, red. I used my thumbnail to slice the aloe open, cracked it and went to her. I took her hand, the cut one, and wiped the clear innards of the plant over and over her wound. I hummed a little, something else Mami did when she did the things other mothers didn’t. Heal, heal, little frog butt. I closed my eyes, her hand limp in mine.

Summer. A weathered man, fingers like sandstone. One hastily packed bag. A kiss on sleeping sister’s face. Desert gas station bathroom. Blood in the panties. Not period blood, hurting blood, breaking blood. Hot vinyl of backseat cracking against bare thighs. The grapevines heavy with summer, jumping a fence with him to gobble mouthfuls. He was kind, mostly. Miles upon miles. Motor inns. The men nearly better than home. Nowhere far away enough. The guilt of leaving, Trying to make it up all these years—I snapped my hand away, the aloe flying across the room, I stepped backward, the glass crunching beneath my canvas tennis shoes. Aunt Trish cracked her eyes open.

“Jesus fuck, what are you?” She whispered and was asleep the next moment.

I tried to pick up the glass. The carpet was too thick. I couldn’t find a vacuum. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I grabbed the bathroom rug and threw it over where the glass was. I felt the toilet in my panties bunching, slipping. The CD finished. I sat on the opposite side of the sofa from Aunt Trish, the blood soaked tissue creasing against me.

I heard steps in the concrete stairs. One set of feet, two, three? I wondered who Jenny and Crys had found.

“What happened to Aunt Trish?” Crys stood in the doorway, kicking off her flip-flops. She had mint chip spilled down her front. Jenny slid in behind her, her fake-good smile plastered. I shrugged. The third pair of feet were home. My home.

“Mami,” I swallowed, standing up. I still had the sweatshirt tied around my waist.

“Why’d you call your mom?” Cry asked, her black eyeliner was too thick, smudged.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“Liar,” Crys mouthed at me.

“I needed Ixchel, so I came for her,” Mami passed both of them, she was wearing one of her long, wide scarves, red and violet. She pulled it off and playfully tossed it to me. I took it, wrapping it around my waist like a skirt, dropping the sweatshirt on the couch.

Aunt Trish sat up, blinking. She looked around, at me, Mami, Crys and Jenny.

“Party,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“I’m taking my girl home, thank you for being a part of this,” Mami said. She leaned down and wrapped her arms around a surprised Aunt Trish. I knew those hugs. More than arms and skin, she was Giving. She kissed Aunt Trish on the side of the face, whispering something to her. Aunt Trish stiffened then went slack. When Mom pulled away from her, the dust I had noticed earlier was dissolving, leaving Aunt Trish clearer. I blinked.

“Why is the bathroom rug on the floor in here. Why are you so weird?” Crys said, picking up the wine cooler I’d never finished, going for a swig. Aunt Trish reached over and snatched the bottle away from Crystal.

“Wash your face, right fucking now,” Aunt Trish snapped, she turned to Jenny, “And you, just, fucking stop being such a shit.” Jenny gaped, then followed Crys to the bathroom.

Mami tilted her head toward the door, I didn’t say goodbye. I hurried out, down the stairs. A marine layer had moved in, cooling the night air. I looked for Mami’s car.

“I walked,” she said. She pulled a plastic grocery bag out of her pocket and handed it to me, “For your shorts and panties.” I ducked behind a car and pulled everything off, bunching it up, wrapping the bag tightly several times over.

We walked. We didn’t talk. I walked with my knees close together, scared the blood would fall out of me, spill onto the sidewalk. Mami led us through the park, humming. Leaving the sidewalk, she kicked off her shoes and walked in the grass. I followed. She knelt in front of one of the peppertrees. No grass grew underneath it (the peppercorns that fell were too acidic, something in my memory told me). I knelt beside her, the dirt soft on my knees after I brushed away a few peppercorns, keeping my thighs clenched. Mami put her hand on my lower back, I unclenched.

The first few drops ran down my thighs, itchy, thicker than water or pee. Mami rubbed my lower back and I relaxed more, let my hips drop a little. I heard the plops, blood hitting dirt, another clot passed out of me, hot and wet.

“Let it out,” Mami whispered, “Let out what you took into your body.”

A carousel of images whirled by. The desert gas station bathroom. The taste of sun-warmed grapes. A baby who looked like Crys, snot running down her chin, diaper-less, standing at a window, crying. Faces. Too many faces.

Another clot fell from my body, I gasped and opened my eyes then closed them again. Mandy and Jenny huddled in one bed, blanket over their heads as crashes and screams rang out. Mandy singing to Jenny to drown out the—

“Into the earth, Ixchel,” Mami whispered, “Out of the earth. Use your hands.”

A hot rush of wet. My father’s apartment the weekends I wasn’t there. Staring at his own hands, how the grease and oil framed his nails, darkened the callouses.

I pressed my hands to the earth. There were no more faces. The smells of mud, water, decay. Below that I felt something flowing, not water, not air, something that rang in my veins. Roots, tendrils, fungal spores waiting on the right conditions, all speaking to each other.

“I called you, Mami,” I said. “I know.” She said.