Heft my ALICE pack and go. The bookbag bulges. It has ten books in it. The lockers aren’t safe. They get bashed in. Things get stolen out of them. Sometimes they explode.
Clack of my combat boots on the marble. Out of the auditorium, past the main office and the metal detectors. Front hallway empty. First period is halfway over. Hall sweep is in effect. If I’m found I may be sent to the cafeteria to wait out the rest of the period. Not really into that. Head downstairs. Head to the lab. Find a music private lesson room that’s unused. No one ever looks in those. Find Mr. Walker. Hide out in the sculpture studio. Darkroom not open yet. Not till second period. What’s today? Is it Tuesday? What the fuck class am I supposed to be in? Oh wait. It’s Tuesday. Second period is AP Bio. We have lab on Tuesdays. I’ll make it to that but gotta kill some time first. Hanging out in the auditorium is not an option. I’m not gonna sit around watching you do scenes from Anne Frank.
Paper due in French Thursday. Need you to look at that. I have statements in the third person, mixed second-person, it’s all wrong. I need it all in the correct tense. I’ve got my pluperfect and my conditionals mixed up. Maybe some future perfect in there by accident. I always had trouble with tense and I know it’s something that comes naturally to you. You’ve got a big vocabulary. I do too actually but I never use it in public. It’s unsafe. It’s actually unsafe to use your full vocabulary. You don’t want to stick out. I already stick out, even with limiting my words. Vocabulary isn’t that important for Playboy models. On the list, it’s below puss and tits.
I go past the main office. Spencer in there. Why is he still there? Oh yeah. He got suspended last week for bringing a water pistol. He’s probably got a lot of paperwork to fill out. Bright red plastic pistol, didn’t even have water in it. Spencer. A little fat but very funny. Good with words. A little stilted—maybe look at that. He could find a job as a humor writer. Maybe for a newspaper. I get stares from the office. Frigid housewives, nasty hair. These people hate their life and the best they can do is stare at my sweet ass. Their dry fake tight curly hair. Fat dresses to cover their fat pelvic-stomach area. I get looks from them? Look at me, go ahead. Spencer doesn’t see me. The fat mom he’s talking to does. Flares go off in her eyes. Is she looking at my stockings? These whores think this is 1964. That’s right. That’s right. Keep looking. See this sweet ass? You wasted your time, bitch. I give my ass a little pat, left cheek.
Go past the counselor’s office. Mr. Baumgartner’s still there. No one will ever think you’re cutting class if you sit in there but it’s a shitty place to hang out.
Hallway clear. Down the corner stairs. No one here. Writing desk in the hallway. I try a private lesson door. Locked. Sound of choir kids from Mrs. Caswell’s. Choir door open. Can I sneak by without Mrs. Caswell seeing me? Yes. Don’t need to see Charisma right now. Definitely don’t need to see Jessica Tak or Kristen Picket. I get past at least without Mrs. Caswell seeing me and I try not to notice who else is in there.
Coming around into the back hallway. Here’s Marcel walking backwards. Talking up some girl. Hands in the air. “You know where to find me. I know you know that.” Marcel sees me. He shakes his head. “Mmm mmm mmm. Girl, you’re gonna start a riot with that ass.”
“Shouldn’t you be in class or something?”
“Not today.”
Past Marcel, besides the other girl he’s talking up, it’s just a special-ed kid waaay down the hall. The special-ed door open. Kid sitting in a desk outside the room. It’s Kayla.
Marcel. “Where you going? I ain’t done looking at you yet.”
“Go to class Marcel.” I turn and smile. He’s still looking at me. With that other girl behind him in the hallway.
“Ass of your quality is scarce around here. I gotta feast, when there’s a feast.”
“Have you ever heard the story of the dog and his bone?”
“Nah. I’m’onna have to look that up.”
Turn around. Keep walking. “Get to class Marcel.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.” He goes back to the other girl. “Baby. Where you going?”
Past Mrs. Klein, door closed, steel reinforced plastic, tiny window at the top of the door. You can hear her yelling even through that. I had six weeks of summer school with that bitch. Never again. Never again. I’m graduating this year. Tired of this fucking place. Here’s Sara Krey. Don’t look. Don’t look. Pretend I’m looking at the ceiling, oh lovely, nice spherical mirrored security camera, nice camera. Get past Sara, get past. Whore-beast. Roaches in her cooter. Don’t they have a rule against the lesser primates attending public school? Sara frowns. Did she just frown at me? Mother of god, did that whore just frown? At me? What the fuck does she think this is? What did I do to offend her? Just ‘cause your mom makes you wear jeans to school. I turn around, walk backwards. Check the bitch out. She’s not looking back. I hope you get a glass bottle stuck in your cunt you fucking whore. Break it off and get rushed to the hospital with that shit bleeding. I give her the finger. She’s not looking.
I stop walking. I stop walking. What’s wrong with me? What is wrong with me.
Special-ed kid to my left. Kayla—I don’t know her last name. Super-sweet, but her mouth is always open. And she has a crush on my William.
Sara disappearing down the hall, straight-ass ponytail swinging on every step. Pudgy-butt. It’s like she gets jeans with a butt-size that’s one size too big. Or like she wears big underwear.
I could cry. I could actually cry right now. Turn and walk. Just go. Go. Don’t look at Sara. Definitely don’t look at Kayla. Don’t see her face. Special-ed kids break me up. She’s looking at me. Don’t look at her. She’s holding up a paper in my face. Don’t look at her paper. There. Boots. My boots. Look at my boots. If I look at Kayla’s paper or if Kayla smiles at me I will cry.
I go to the stairwell and sit. I sit here for 25 minutes. Kayla doesn’t follow me. Only a few people see me while I’m sitting here. I pretend to read Heinlein but the main purpose the paperback serves is as a really shitty blotter for tears.
I go upstairs early so that as soon as the bell rings I’m at Dr. Mancini’s. He’s my second period. Why a guy with a PhD is teaching high school biology I don’t know. Perhaps he’s got a criminal record. I don’t have any reason to think that. I’m just saying. There’s got to be some reason he works here. Like a criminal past. Not creepy sex stuff, but maybe murder. Like a knocked back charge. Second degree. Manslaughter. Something.
Dr. Mancini draws down the projection screen in the front of the classroom. We’re dissecting today. On this screen a digital projector will show us an animated presentation of what to do. Step by step. Through the insides of the animal. You can kind of just keep your eyes on the screen and make your hand go through the movements shown in front of you. You look down every once in a while to make sure your animal is on track. We did this before with mice.
We did cows’ eyes and frogs in regular bio. And I did a shark once in preschool.
Today is cats. Dr. Mancini is fussing with the projector. PowerPoint isn’t his thing. Actually I don’t think it’s PowerPoint but I’m just saying. Computers aren’t his thing.
He’s quite good with a scalpel though.
I’ve got the school-supplied dissection knife, plus an X-Acto knife I stole from the paint lab, plus a very sharp pencil. Just in case. And I also have a mirror shard in the back of my bookbag. The one from my bathroom. You remember.
These implements are set on a loosely-folded segment of industrial paper towel. My cat is before me.
“You don’t have to be careful with these first incisions. Just enter your animal at the abdominal region, through the transverse abdominis. Watch now.”
The animation starts. Dr. Mancini comes up the center aisle. There are only eight people in the room, including the teacher. There are three pairs of students. It’s Amy and James. Megan and Maggie. Jenna and Alison. Then me. Then Dr. Mancini. I’m a year younger than the others in this class. This is their senior AP Bio class. I joined the class a week late for administrative reasons and during our first lab Dr. Mancini suggested I join one of the already-formed partnerships for lab purposes. But none of them seemed suitable to me so I work on my own. Everyone in this class hates me. That, however, is not my concern.
My concern is dissecting cats, pigs, worms, or whatever else Dr. Mancini asks us to do. Everyone in here thinks I suck up to Dr. Mancini. But that’s not true. He annoys me frankly. Somehow, though, in these people’s minds, staying alert and asking questions in class is sufficient condition for me being a suck-up. That’s why I’m graduating early. I have to get out of this place.
Dr. Mancini at the front of the room. Holding his scalpel at eye level kind of like a dancer might hold his partner in a waltz. He shivers. Then approaches the cat. “Follow the guide. Stay with me. Blade excursions are solid lines. Fold points are dotted lines. The primary incision is shown in green.”
Some confusion from Jenna and her partner.
“Do not worry if your animal does not resemble the guide animal. As you will see, they are all quite similar once you remove the fur.”
A solid green line traces along the belly of the guide animal. My head is high. I’m looking at the screen. My hand moves without my looking. I had already marked the start point with my finger and can feel the sculpture of the body in my hands well enough to guide the knife. I’m using the school-supplied scalpel for this.
“How are you doing?”
Jenna’s partner Alison speaks. “Can you pause the animation?”
“This whole class.” Dr. Mancini says. “Is about pausing animation.”
“This cat is too large. His fluffiness is getting in the way of the incision.” That’s Jenna.
I have my primary incision finished now and I look down to check it. It’s perfect. I lay the scalpel beside my other instruments. There’s no way Jenna is gonna make it as a doula, much less a nurse. “You do know doulas have to clean up people’s shit.”
“Shut up.” I don’t turn around but I can imagine Jenna glaring at me with her scalpel in-hand, too-fluffy unpunctured cat before her on the desk.
“It’s true.” I say. “People shit themselves when they have babies.”
“Please everyone stick with your dissection. You don’t need to help each other. Jenna. Alison. Put your knife to the animal.”
Jenna and Alison don’t move.
Dr. Mancini holds up his knife to show them. “Put your knife to the animal.” He leaves his desk and goes to help them.
I’m watching the screen. Dotted green fold-points fade in along the bottom sides of the guide animal. My hands are working. Folding back the cat. Opening it. I can feel through the outer layer that some of the insides are still frozen. Other parts have warmed up. Like food cooked in the microwave. Dr. Mancini probably took them out of the formaldehyde too early. Why I wonder? Then, realizing his mistake he put this cat, and possibly others, in a freezer. Again, why? Because it was easier than putting them back in jars?
“Dr. Mancini. This cat is frozen.” I look back at Jenna and Alison’s table.
As he makes an incision in Jenna and Alison’s cat, Dr. Mancini’s eyes are on me. He looks like someone from the Addams Family. Or possibly a real-life gangster. I say real-life because the thing that’s most distinct about him is that it looks like he’s been awake for a really long time. Like he’s been afraid to sleep. Or he’s been up all night torturing someone. Yep. That’s pretty much what he looks like. All he says to my comment about the cat being frozen is. “That one’s new.” And he goes back to cutting up Jenna and Alison’s cat.
I shake my head. That girl’s never gonna be a nurse. She won’t make it. She’s too weak. To be a nurse you have to give people shots and clean up people’s shit and deal with people dying. Jenna doesn’t have what it takes to operate in a high-stress environment. I’m sorry, but she doesn’t.
My eyes are back on the screen. Dr. Mancini can take care of those two. Concentrate on the guide animal. I wonder who makes these presentations. How many takes do they do? i.e. is this calico wondercat on the screen actually twins so if they mess up an incision they can do a second take? Don’t be silly. Probably whoever does this is an expert. They don’t need a second take. Fade in solid blue lines over the peritoneum. My hands go for the X-Acto knife. Smaller blade will be better. I don’t want to cut myself. Run my hand along the region indicated by the guide. Glancing up and down to check my progress. I’m on track. This is really gross. The trick is to not think about it. I don’t want to cut up this animal any more than Jenna does. Any more than any of these people. Dotted blue fold lines appear on the screen but I’m already folding back the muscles.
“Don’t worry about marking down what you see. The screen will label points of interest. You can make notes later. This presentation is on the web.”
And I’m in. I’m as in as I can be given the task. Yellow cut lines fade in around a segment of a translucent sac blocking my access to the large intestine. I guess we’re getting the big stuff out of here first. I swear to myself that I will wash my hands with turpentine, dip them in photographic stop bath in the print lab, submerge them in pools of antibacterial hand sanitizer before I eat, touch my face, see William, or do anything. Then I make a series of deep cuts at the entry and exit connectors to the cat’s intestines. As instructed by the screen I slice away the fat surrounding the intestines. Then I remove the organ. Pulling it through soapy filmy webs of whatever. Leaving a hole the rest of the limp cat slushes in to fill. And I set the intestine on wax paper on the left side of my desk. I imagine how it looks from Jenna’s point of view. There’s me. Ahead and to her right. Two desks forward. My back is to her. The shaved back of my head and the long forehead locks spiraling down. Exotic. Empirically prettier than her hair. Though I do love hers. Jet brown we’ll call it. And against her skin, so Jenna. So completely Jenna it stomps me. Dr. Mancini is probably doing their entire dissection for them. And Jenna sees me casually place a cat’s large intestine on the left side of my desk, wipe my latex hands on the industrial paper towel, lift my head, eyes to the screen, and continue with the solid orange incision about the heart. Honestly, I love that girl but she can eat me. Fade in dotted orange. Folding back a layer of muscle. I’m gonna graduate this year. Cut away the diaphragm. Fade in solid red. Cut away sinewy muscles attaching the heart. Animated movement of the heart coming loose. These demonstrations are really good. And by graduate I don’t mean you’ll be seeing me in a cap and gown. Pull away the heart. Filmy plasma glop. By graduate I mean I pick up my diploma from Mr. Baumgartner’s office. Set the solid heart on wax paper. Then I slip out a side door and you’ll never see me again. I tear off a new sheet of the industrial paper towel and carefully wipe my cheek. Never another racist comment from Mrs. McDunnough. No more crosswords from Mrs. White. I love Mrs. White. I do. But give me a fucking break. Fade in purple double lines over a reddish brown organ the screen tells me is the spleen. Are we gonna get to do the vagina? How many kidneys does a cat have? Two. Is it the same for most big animals? I have a whole collection of organs now. Diaphragm, gallbladder, liver, spleen. And the small and large intestines. Spread out on wax paper. Space between each of them. In kind of a roughly staggered grid. Blood and filmy plasma reflecting in the gray light of gated windows. Wavy diagonal wires gridding plastic windows. My latex hands stick to the paper when I set things down. They’re in all shapes and sizes. Things never seen. Things we feel inside us. Things we vaguely feel moving. Things that do jobs for us that we never understand. Lumpy things. Gummy things. Hard things. Slight things. Things thinner than a hair. A goopy system supporting thought. Looking at the screen. Rows and rows of pixels. My thoughts don’t seem goopy at all. But they are made of a goopy system. And now a thought system is telling me how to dismantle a goopy system that simple thoughts were made of. Cat thoughts. Thoughts about food and cleaning and sex drive. I wonder what my cat would think if he saw me dissecting another cat. You know their understanding is somewhere between ours and an ant’s, but where? When we buried Zelda did Lincoln understand? Zelda had gone behind the couch to die. And Lincoln had seen her there. When a cat sees a dead cat, he knows the cat is dead. Does he know what death is? Does he know what it means? I wish. I wish I could explain it to him. That’s what’s hard about being around animals. Or babies. Stuff happens that they’re sad about. Or at least stuff happens that disturbs them. That they don’t understand. And because they have no words, it is impossible to explain it to them. I can say things to them but they’ll never understand. My meaning is locked within me. I’m in a dream I can’t explain. It’s like, to a cat, human consciousness is a dream that humans can’t explain. Or to a baby, an adult is in a dream adults cannot explain. Because to the baby, my dream isn’t real. And maybe it isn’t real at all, in any sense, except that I’m deluded to think it’s real to me. It’s like I’m in a dream I can never get out of. In the sense that what I am is inside a dream. That what I am could never be outside of a dream. And the cat is outside of my dream. This cat, being dead, is really outside of my dream. Except that, to me, he’s still here.
I wipe my face again. I’m thinking of Lincoln. My little skinny cat at home. Sickly kitty on the porch. Kitty who won’t eat. Kitty whose stomach throws up all the food I give him. What part of him is wrong? What part of him is broken? I could take him apart, piece by piece, clean all the pieces and put them together again. Polish him and put him back together. He’s so rusty now. He’s my little Tin Man.
I’m crying. I’m crying into my dissection cat.
Look up. Dr. Mancini by the screen. Peering into his animal.
Without thinking I look around. Jenna might see me crying. Then all these people will have proof that I’m a freak.
But the desks have no people. Amy and James are gone. Megan and Maggie are gone. Jenna and Alison are gone.
Their desks are littered with animal parts. Knives. Paper. Boxes. Jars. Their chairs are pushed in. Their bookbags are gone. One of the windows in the back is open a slit. Cold air coming through the gridded bars.
My pencil is in my hand. Had I been using it to poke at something? Some sinew I had been examining?
Dr. Mancini sees me looking at the sharpened pencil. There’s the tiniest bit of crusted blood on its tip.
“Where did everyone go?”
From the all-night gangster, a bitter laugh. “I’m glad we didn’t disturb you.” Then back to his dissection. “They left.” He makes an incision behind the kitten’s ear and peeks behind its head. “You can stop if you want. Dissections are optional. It won’t affect your grade.”
“They all left?”
Dr. Mancini shrugs. “It’s not their thing. We’re doing the trachea now.”