Live Writing Exercise 23

We are now nearing the home stretch, and I will try to include a bit more meat with each of these posts.  Meat is good for you, put a little hair on your chest.

***

            Once they were outside, Brekkyn released Tanissa’s arm, and proceeded to kick the aquarium’s welcome sign.  This was like the fits her little cousins sometimes threw, back when they were two or three years old, Tanissa reflected.  She didn’t want to stand around watching it, but she was afraid to say anything to her, in case . . .

            In case what?

            The day was overcast and very cloudy, but felt hotter than the last few sunny days.  “You thirsty?” she asked quietly.  “We could get Slurpees at S--”

            Brekkyn spun around, her hands in fists.  “Let’s go,” she ordered, and started in the direction of the convenience store.  The Slurpees were on special, but they got them free anyway, and Brekkyn, who was still stewing asked, “You ever smoked before?”

            “Cigarettes?” Tanissa asked.  Her aunt smoked, but it had never been an attractive habit, especially the way her dad and mom hated it.  In fact, she’d promised her parents she would never start, the last time they’d talked about it.  “No.”

            “Well, today you are,” she said, and got the clerk to give her a pack of Kools.

            “Uh uh,” Tanissa said, following the other girl out of the store.  Brekkyn did not hold the door for her, and it nearly hit her arm hard enough to knock the Slurpee out of her hand.  Brekkyn kept walking. 

            “We could do something else,” Tanissa offered, aware of a bit of a whine in her voice, but unable to do anything about it.  “There’s that vampire movie we were talking about when--”

            But Brekkyn had already gone around the building, through the little alley and toward the garbage dumpster. 

            Tanissa coughed.  Something awful was in her throat, and coating her mouth.  She tried to spit.

            Even before she noticed the cigarette in her hand, she knew what had happened.  She could feel the smoke inside her chest, and something else, a light-headedness she associated with hanging upside down from the jungle gym as a kid.

            “What did you do to me?” Tanissa demanded, but of course she knew.  Brekkyn had wanted to smoke, but she hadn’t wanted to smoke alone.  She tossed her Kool onto the ground and gave it a healthy stomp.

            “You shouldn’t have said that to me,” the mer-girl said, matter-of-factly.

            She seemed so proud of herself, so prim and proper with half a cigarette between her fingers like that, that Tanissa was suddenly filled with loathing for her.  “Said what?”  She honestly couldn’t remember.  “You were so angry at your mama for smoking, and now you--”

            “That’s different.  This is cigarettes.”  She sighed, appearing to give in, even though she wasn’t.  “Look, you’ll get used to the taste.  Same with beer, although I hated the taste when I tried it.”

            Tanissa was mortified at the thought that Brekkyn would make her smoke and drink and sneak out on her dad, to get her in trouble, to make Dad made at her (or worse, disappointed).  But what could she do?  How could she stop herself, if Brekkyn wanted her to do something?

            The thought was disturbing, and suddenly, she felt sick.

            “You gonna upchuck?” Brekkyn asked, amused.

            Somehow, Tanissa held it in.  She didn’t want to give the brat the satisfaction.  She would spend the rest of the week with her dad only, and do whatever she could to keep away from her new best pal.  Maybe it would work out okay, but she dreaded it.  Which was worse, to be enemies with a spoiled, magical bully, or to be her only friend? 

            “Please don’t make me do stuff, Brekkyn,” she said, as calmly and politely as she could.

            “Or what?” the other girl sneered, taking a deep puff from her cigarette.

            “Or we won’t be friends anymore.”

            That had the desired effect.  Brekkyn froze, her eyes widening in what appeared to be regret, or at least hurt.  And she said no more.

 ***

           They rode the bus home in silence.  Or rather, Tanissa rode silently, while Brekkyn kept asking her what was wrong, what her problem was, why she was acting that way. Tanissa didn’t know how to explain it to her, or if she could express her feelings with words and not tears. 

 

            And was it even worth trying?  Could someone as spoiled and used to her own way as Brekkyn Mannion even understand the rights and feelings of others?  Was it something they had covered on My Little Pony or McKenzee and Cassbie (which somehow seemed the less likely of the two)?

            They got to the apartment complex and Brekkyn burst into the living room for no discernible reason other than to scare her mother.  The woman was sitting on the couch, the television off, reading a book that she slipped by her leg when the girls walked by.  Tanissa thought it was a Bible. 

            “Girls,” she said, looking like a kid in Time Out.

            “Hey,” Tanissa said, but her daughter said nothing.

            Brekkyn immediately suggested (was it a suggestion?) they finish their Monopoly game. It was too cool in that room, the air conditioner blowing as though trying to keep meat from spoiling.  Iggy Azalea played from the girl’s iPod speakers, and Tanissa longed to be out of the room and back with her dad, who could be home by now, if he managed to sneak out early.

            Brekkyn landed on one of the properties Tanissa owned, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment as she anticipated . . . what?  A tantrum?  Retribution?  Monopoly was a very hard game to cheat in, and that made it a challenge to intentionally lose.  The best she could manage was to pretend the Chance cards she drew were all bad and hope the dice were against her. 

            Nearly an hour into the game, there came a soft knock on the door.

            “Yes?” Brekkyn called out. 

            Her mother opened the door halfway, not coming inside.  “Tanissa honey, your daddy’s here for you.”

            Ahh, saved by the bell.

            She stood up so fast she thought she might stumble, and moved toward the door.  Mrs. Conlee met her eyes for the briefest second, then she took a step back to let her guest go through.

            “Thanks for the game,” she called back to Brekkyn.

            Dad stood just inside the apartment, his white shirt and uniform on, his tie removed.  He looked uncomfortable.  “Hope she wasn’t any trouble,” he muttered to Mrs. Conlee.

            “No, she’s very sweet,” the woman said, patting Tanissa on the back with her bony hand.  Then she stopped and watched them head out the door.
            “Thanks,” Tanissa said to the poor woman, and their eyes met one last time before she went down the hall.

            “Hey, baby,” Dad said, rubbing the top of her head.  “How was your day?”

            “It was alright,” she lied, but immediately worried about the smell of tobacco she may or may not be carrying right now.  It was her father who’d asked her to vow not to smoke the year or two before, and she knew it was a much bigger deal to him than it was to her mother. 

            “Home early,” Tanissa said, though he had promised her he would.

            “Yeah.  Your, uh, mom called a few minutes ago.  Wanted to talk to you.  She wasn’t too thrilled to hear we weren’t together.”

            “What did you tell her?”

            “I was already almost home by then, so I just told her the truth.  That you’d made a friend and were downstairs playing.”

            “I’m not sure we’re friends,” she admitted.  “I don’t want to play with her anymore.”

            He glanced back the way they’d come.  “That’s fine by me.  The mother looks, uh, not quite well, you know?  Is she . . .”

            “What?  Is she what?”

            “Nothing.  She just gave me a sort of vibe.”

            Tanissa didn’t know what that meant exactly, but she could agree with it.  It was hard to feel sorry for Brekkyn, even knowing she was lonely, but her mother was easy to pity.

            “So, I need you to give your mama a call.  Just tell her what’s up.  Tell her about your friend--if there’s good stuff to tell, you know?  If not, well . . .”

            “Okay.”

            He took a big breath.  “And, if you can help it, leave out anything about me going to the airport.”

            “Okay, Dad.”

            “I’m gonna go change.  Just talk to her as long as you want,” he said, handing her his cellphone, and heading up the stairwell (Dad never took the elevator if he could help it).

            She shook her head.  She could tell he wanted her to lie, but didn’t dare tell her to lie.  There was something lovably awkward about that.  She dialed the number, and her mother’s voice was there after the second ring, saying, none-too-sweetly, “Is she around now, William?”

            “Hey, mama, it’s me,” Tanissa said, trying to sound as upbeat and excited to talk to her as possible.

            “What’s really going on, Nissa?” her mother asked, no joy in her tone.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Your dad fed me this story about you not--”

            “I made a new friend, Mom.  She lives in Dad’s building.  We’ve been playing Monopoly.”

            “Honestly?  I thought your daddy was spinning one of his yarns.  Sometimes h--”

            “Nope.  We went to the aquarium, got Slurpees--”

            “Alright, alright.  So, tell me what’s been happening with you.”

            She talked to her mother for a long time—maybe half an hour—pacing up and down the halls and stairwells, wrapped up enough in the conversation that she didn’t see Brekkyn enter the elevator and go up to the third floor.  Tanissa’s mother was very close to her, and worried with them apart, and insisted on many details about her meals, activities, and the amount of television and sleep she was getting.

            “And what’s this friend of yours like?”

            “She’s . . . she’s kind of persistent, you know?” Tanissa said, considering what to leave out.  “Real happy to have somebody around her age.”

            “And why’s that?  Are there no children in your daddy’s building?”  A red flag, apparently.

            “Yeah.  But they’re mostly little kids.  And boys.”  Tanissa missed her mother, but was not as willing to confide in her as she was with her dad.  She wondered if Mama would even believe her if she told her the whole story.  Doubtful.  Her dad, on the other hand . . .

            “Mama, I gotta go,” she said, at last, turning herself around and trying to figure out which floor she was on.  “I said I’d pop popcorn.”  It was a flimsy excuse, but she was distracted.  She promised to be good, and to keep her dad out of trouble (whatever that meant), and hung up the cellphone.

Live Blogging Exercise 22

I'm surprised I haven't gotten bored with this yet.  Wish I could say the same about you.

***

            The aquarium did have a large open area like a shallow swimming pool that was filled with manta rays.  Some were as small as a Frisbee, but some were huge, at least three feet wide, slowly moving through sandy water, or just sitting still.  There was a short wall/barricade around the pool, where a person could lean over and pet the fish--were they fish?--if they stretched hard enough.

            “I wanna pet that one,” Tanissa muttered, pointing at a beautiful silver ray, with bright white spots on its fins.

            “Well, hop in then,” Brekkyn suggested.

            Tanissa smirked, but the smile went away when she saw the girl bend down and start unvelcroing her shoes.  “Wait, we can’t,” she said, gesturing toward a warning sign on the wall.

            Brekkyn met her eyes, trying to be patient.  “You’re with me.  You can do whatever you want.”

            “I . . .” began Tanissa, but fell silent.  She thought it would be fun to put her feet in the sand, be able to chase, pet, and hold a manta ray.  But she didn’t want to break any rules, and she had to admit she was a little scared of the fish.  “What if . . . the water’s cold?”

            “You put your hand in it, didn’t you?”  Brekkyn had her shoes and socks off now, and was rolling up her pantlegs.  Tanissa was wearing shorts, so all she needed to do was slip off her sandals.  “I don’t know,” she said at last.

            “Alright, be a chicken.”  Brekkyn stood, hiked herself up over the little wall, and slipped into the manta pond.  “They must heat the water,” she said, and giggled.

            Tanissa looked around.  A couple of kids were looking at Brekkyn with envy, and at least one parent was shaking her head with displeasure, but . . .

            She de-sandaled herself and hopped over the wall and into the water herself.  One of the mantas darted away, apparently startled, but the others languidly swam around her legs, as if investigating a new addition to their habitat.  “Maybe this is how they get fed,” she said.

            “What?  They throw kids in here every day and say, ‘Eat up, stingrays?’”

            “No, I mean maybe the people come in here and feed them, and they’re used to people being in with them.”

            Suddenly, a raised voice to their left drew their attention.  “Hey, hey, hey!”

            An old man with a grey Aquarium Security uniform on was striding toward them, frowning.  “You kids can’t be in there!”

            Immediately, Tanissa felt herself blushing and started moving toward the edge of the tank.

            “No, actually, we can,” Brekkyn assured him, smirking.

            The man reached the side of the pond.  “Out of there, young ladies.  Where are your parents?”

            Tanissa thought of her dad, and him getting a call at work, telling him his daughter had been arrested.  That fast, she felt tears coming to her eyes.  It was embarrassing, really, that she was still that much of a little girl--she had cousins who had actually gone to juvie and not blinked an eye--but she didn’t want to disappoint her parents, who claimed to love her all the more now they no longer loved each other.

            Brekkyn walked past her, each footfall making noisy splashes.  “I’ll handle it,” she muttered, and began to sing the familiar song.  Tanissa sighed and turned slowly to watch the display.  It disturbed her to see the mer-girl work her magic, the way people’s eyes glazed over and they got an idiot smile on their face as they obeyed the best they could.  The possibilities of using her powers were limitless, and it worried Tanissa to imagine some of them.

            “Hey now!” the old man yelled.  “You girls get your behinds out of that pool right now!”

            Tanissa looked from him to her friend.  Brekkyn had a puzzled expression on her face, then squared her shoulders and began to sing again.

            “None of that, girlie,” the old man growled.  “You two haul yourselves out of there right this minute, or I’m callin’ the police in!”

            Tanissa immediately moved toward the side barricade, though not the side where the security guard stood, and hoisted himself back over the wall.

            Brekkyn only stood there, her eyes big and glassy.

            “Get your shoes on,” the man said, coming around to Tanissa’s side.

            It occurred to her what the problem was.  This old guy had to be part-mermaid also!  He might even have been Brekkyn’s great-uncle or something, and the siren song didn’t work on her own kind!

            Although she was embarrassed about being in trouble, she was excited to tell her friend about her theory.

            The man in question scowled at the mer-girl, still standing in the center of the pond, all the manta rays swimming in a kind of amazing circle around her.  He shook his head at Tanissa, who had slipped her sandals back on.  “Can’t you read?”  He turned his head toward the signs that said not to cross the edge of the tank, and then Tanissa saw it. 

            He wasn’t a mer-man at all.

            She didn’t know how she knew this was why the singing hadn’t worked on him, but she knew he had a hearing aid in his right ear.

            Brekkyn finally slogged to the side, a pouting child now not yet in preschool.

            “We’re sorry,” Tanissa said quietly to the guard.  “It’s just . . . she said she’d done it before.”

            “Kids are always trying to get in the water.”  He gave her an appraising look.  Some of his grouchiness faded.  “If you promise not to do it again, I don’t have to toss you out.”

            “Okay,” she agreed, most of her worry fading. 

            Brekkyn slowly moved to the edge of the pool, tears running down her eyes. 

            “It’s alright, Brekkyn,” she said, “he’s nice.”

            The girl glared at Tanissa with a chilling stare.  A look of hate that was frankly scary.

            “I don’t know about your friend,” the guard said.  “She understand English.”

            “Uh . . .”

            As Brekkyn hauled herself over the barrier, he angled back to Tanissa.  “Where are your parents?”

            “We, uh, came alone.”

            “I see,” he said, as though that explained a great deal.  She didn’t know if a racist thing or what.  Maybe it simply meant that a parent would’ve stopped them from breaking the rules.

            Brekkyn grabbed up her shoes and socks, sniffling.  She took a step toward Tanissa.  “Come on,” she snarled.  “We’re going home.”

            “He didn’t say--” Tanissa started to say, but the old man put his hand up.

            “I think that’s a very good idea.”

            Brekkyn grabbed Tanissa’s arm and pulled her away, steaming.

            “Sorry,” Tanissa said again to the security guard.  She wasn’t close to crying anymore.  He seemed a pretty nice old dude--as her dad would say--but Brekkyn would surely disagree.

            Maybe she had never found anyone who was . . . immune to her power before.  Maybe she had never been told ‘No’ before today.

            They moved toward the exit, where a pretty girl in a shark hat gave them a wave.  Brekkyn gave her the finger, with the accompanying epithet, and Tanissa looked down at her own hands.

***

Live Writing Exercise 21

On this, Harrison Ford's birthday, I thought I'd share with you a big ole chunk.  Not so much a present for you, though, is it?

***

            Aquarium of the Pacific was an eleven minute bus ride away.  Tanissa had considered insisting that she pay (at least for the bus), but Brekkyn was in a bad mood, and she was a little afraid of her right now.  She sang to the bus driver, then turned around and sang to the entire bus full of commuters.  Like a radio being turned down, the people stopped talking and laughing, going quiet and sitting contentedly in silence.  “How is that possible?” Tanissa asked.

            “I don’t care,” Brekkyn spat, and sat down in the first available seat.

            Tanissa nearly walked to a different row in protest, but her friend patted the seat next to her and, like a dog, she obeyed.  But now she was paranoid: had she sat down next to Brekkyn because she wanted to?  Or because of the mer-girl’s song?  Would she even know if the song had affected her?

            But now that she was worried about it, what if she just obeyed out of fear?  Brekkyn was spoiled, but she wasn’t a bad person, was she? 

            Tanissa was still turning this over in her mind when the bus pulled up right in front of the aquarium, which was a big ugly grey warehouse, but with waves etched into the sides.  She thanked the busdriver, who had a happy, empty-headed expression on her face, and hadn’t when they’d gotten onboard.

            “What do you want to see first?” Brekkyn asked.  Tanissa had never been to an aquarium before, but she figured that--

            “Let’s go see the sharks,” Brekkyn said before Tanissa could answer.  “Sharks are the best.  And dolphins.”

            The older girl wasn’t sure how you could like both, but did not comment.  “Do they have a place where there are dolphins, and you can swim with them?”  She’d seen something about that on TV once.

            “No, no dolphins,” the younger girl said as they approached the entrance.  “But they have stingrays.  You can pet them.”

            “Pet stingrays?  Don’t they, like, stab and sting?” 

            “No, they’re totally nice.  You’ll see.”

            Tanissa had a thought, then went ahead and voiced it.  “Maybe they’re nice to you because you’re, you know . . .”

            Brekkyn rolled her eyes.  “That’s racist.”

            Suddenly, Tanissa had to laugh.  She didn’t know where it came from, and she tried to control herself, but that struck her as oddly funny.

            “What?” Brekkyn asked.

            “Nothing, sorry.”

            “Don’t laugh at me,” the girl muttered, and it wasn’t a bratty child remark, it sounded colder, more grown up.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Anyway, you’ll see, stingrays are nice.  Like dolphins.”

            “But nobody swims with stingrays.”  But she was ignored.

 
            Well, they turned out to be manta rays, not stingrays, but the aquarium was a really fun, really beautiful place.  Fish of every shape and size, freshwater and saltwater, were on display, in small tanks and huge swimming pool-sized ones.  There were some albino whales you could observe as they swam in what looked like hazy, ice-cold water.  There were walruses that you could watch on both the surface and underneath the water.  There was a giant fishtank shaped like a sphere with fish so colorful they didn’t seem real.  There were sea turtles and swam in a circle as though running laps on a track. 

            “I come here all the time,” Brekkyn said.  “It’s like going to the ocean, only better.”

            “Do you have, like, a season pass?”

            Brekkyn didn’t even give her an answer on that one, just a condescending look.  Of course, the mer-girl had a season pass to everything.

            “You come by yourself?”

            “Usually,” the pale girl admitted.  “My mom used to come with me, but she got bored of just standing here, watching the swimming things.  So I just come alone now.” 

            That sort of sounded sad, but Tanissa thought of how the thin woman Brekkyn lived with cringed away from her “daughter,” and it didn’t seem so sad anymore.

            “I could give you a tour,” the younger girl suggested.  “I know about all the exhibits and stuff, and can tell you anything the workers say.”

            “Alright,” Tanissa said, remembering the tour she’d taken of her dad’s building when she first arrived.  That may have been when she liked Brekkyn the most.

            “They were going to have penguins here once,” she said, “but they said they’d have to keep it dark during the summer or something, and they’d be no fun to look at.”

            “Why?”  “Dunno.  Penguins are stupid anyway.”

            They stared at the turtles for a few minutes, then Brekkyn decided it was time to move on.  “They let me feed them once,” she boasted.

            As amazing as all the sea life was, Tanissa was getting seriously tired of hearing about all the special treatment she was used to.  Sometimes, it felt better to wait in line for something, let everything build up until it was your turn.  But she didn’t think the girl would understand that.  There were movie stars and singers who always got the best tables, everything for free, and ushered to the front of the line at Disneyland, and they all felt they deserved it, were entitled to that sort of treatment.

           “Do they have piranhas here?” she asked her “guide” upon seeing a squat grey fish staring at them and the three or four other kids nearby..

            “No.  They’re not from the ocean, dummy.”

            “But they had salmon back there, and catfish.”

            “So?”

            “Those are lake fish.  Or river fish, or whatever.”

            Brekkyn put her hands on her hips.  “Tell you what, we’ll talk to the manager or something, and I’ll get him to put in a piranha tank.”

            “What?  How?”

            “If I try hard, he’ll make it happen.  Might take some time.”

            “No,” Tanissa said, “I won’t be around long enough.”

            “Yes, you will.”

            “I was joking.  I wouldn’t want to see piranhas anyway.  Sharks are good enough.”

            They did watch the sharks, which swam and swam, looking for something to eat, both beautiful and terribly ugly at the same time.  The giant fish ranged from large to huge, and the tank was so big as to take up one whole section of the building.  There was a section shaped like a tunnel, where people could walk through and feel as though the sharks were all around them, and watch them from every angle.  Tanissa considered joking about going swimming in that tank, but didn’t dare.

            “That one’s a hammerhead,” Brekkyn pointed out, as though that wasn’t the easiest shark to identify.  “And that scary one there?  A mako.”

            Tanissa stared at it.  It was sleek and pointy, with a mouth so full of teeth it couldn’t close it all the way.  Its eyes were so big and black as to look like a mistake in a child’s drawing, or something manipulated with Photoshop.  As it turned and swam away from them, she got a unsettling thought.  “You . . . you can’t talk to sharks, can you?”

            “Sharks?”  The pale girl tilted her head, seeming to think about it.  “I bet I can.”

            She focused on the ones directly ahead of them--several fish-sized and one about the size of a person--and began her little song.  Tanissa winced.  It wasn’t as though the song was ugly--quite the contrary, in fact--but she had grown to dread the tune, and the effect it had on people.

            And sharks, apparently.  The small ones immediately turned on the big one, and began to nip at its fins and gills and tail.  The big shark snapped at the smaller ones, managing to grab one in its jaws, but the others continued to bother it, not really doing any damage, but really getting on its nerves.  The water around the injured fish went pink with blood and fish particles, and the sharks nearby converged on that area, trying to get a taste of the dying little one.

            Tanissa looked away.  “Make them stop, please,” she whispered.

            “Why?  This is, like, a treat to them.  A game.”

            No, it’s a game to you, Tanissa nearly said, but didn’t.  The girl had a mean streak in her, and if she could make sharks turn on each other . . .

            Other than that, the trip was nice.  There was something peaceful about all the water and fish and blue lighting, something relaxing and centering, and Tanissa saw it affect Brekkyn as well.  “I come here all the time,” she said for the third or fourth time that day. 

            Tanissa thought that sounded nice, and wondered if Dad would like to see all this.  “How much is a ticket,” she asked.

            “Ticket to what?”

            “To here.”

            “It’s always free for my friends.”

            Tanissa made sure not to sigh.  “But what if I came here without you?  Like with my dad?”

            Brekkyn’s eyes narrowed.  “Don’t do that.  This is our place.”

            “Right, but if--”

            “If your dad wants to bring me, he can get in free too,” she said, as though granting a favor.

            Tanissa let it go.  There was probably a website that listed the prices, if that ever came up.