Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Death of a Rabbit

The Death of a Rabbit
M.K. French

            “I need some paper.”  I half-whispered.  I plopped my book down on the lab table that I shared with the same person I shared everything else with.  As I was twenty minutes late, carrying out the duties of my illustrious post as sophomore class secretary counting money in the safe, the rest of the class had already begun working on the assignment for which I had missed the instruction.   I handed my written excuse to Mr. Sherwood, our twenty-something teacher who I was sure was in love with me, which was fantastic, since I was in love with him too.  I made sure to give him my most flirtatious, but seemingly innocent smile as I put the note on his desk, a little extra wiggle in my 16-year-old saunter and headed back to take my usual place next to Leah.  I hopped onto a tall stool; her small form was nearly underneath the table, as she was seated on a short one.  This exaggerated our difference in stature and demeanor—me huge and extroverted, her petite and demure.  Despite our physiological differences, we were Siamese—attached at the hip and everyone knew it.
            “Whose turn is it to ask questions today?”  I whispered, as I started rummaging through her bag for a pencil.  She took no notice—this was a usual routine.  I don’t think I ever brought any of my own school supplies during my entire high school career. 
            “Mine,” she whispered back. “But I’m already almost done—you haven’t even started.”
            “Girls—on task please,”  Mr. S’s chocolate pudding voice oozed out from the front of the room where he was writing equations for the next class.
            No way—your turn  I scribbled on the front of her notebook.
            It won’t make sense if I ask.  She scrawled underneath what I had just written.
 Fine, you crack!  I wrote, adding a smiley with its tongue hanging out to smooth over the abrasive term of endearment.   I was inwardly disappointed at Leah’s reluctance to play our daily game, where we would interchangeably fake (or in my case, not fake) our utter bewilderment about the assignment in order to get Mr. Sherwood’s divine butt bent over our table. The lucky one would get their fill of gawking while the other played dumb for as long as possible.  On rare auspicious occasions, one of the know-it-alls at the front of the room, Chris or Brandon, would ask a question. Though it didn’t take long for the boys to catch on to and be annoyed by our perverted exploitation of the young instructor. They had the audacity to start going up to his desk to ask their real questions, necessitating our fake ones.
            I expected her to giggle and write something equally or more crude back, but she didn’t.  She had her small brunette head bent over her work, trying earnestly to finish despite my shenanigans.  I made better grades somehow, but she was the better student.
I went back into her bag for gum, rooting around for at least another minute, unsuccessful.
            Gum?  I scribbled
            Out  she curtly jotted.
            “Gawd—you’re no help today.”  I teasingly whispered, garnering a disapproving look from Mr. Sherwood, now seated behind his desk.  I smiled and got busy looking busy.  I looked over the enigmatic problems and immediately became frustrated with the alien shapes and postulates laid out before me. I had no idea that a bigger problem was looming.
            Determined instead to do something I was usually successful at—making Leah laugh—I turned again and wrote  Why do we have to prove this crap?  I’ll take their word for it!   I thought for sure that this would be effective in distracting her so we could socialize more as the minutes of class dwindled.  She said nothing but worked on.  I looked again to my blank sheet of paper, wrote my name, Geometry 10, and the date on the top.  I put an Arabic 1 next to the red vertical line, circled it, made a few graphite flourishes, and turned back to our social graffiti.
            What crawled up YOUR butt and died? I scrawled. She lifted her head and flashed me a teary look through her unruly brown curls that was a mixture of irritation and misery. 
            “Sorr--REE,” I whispered, finally interrupting my own cheerful self-absorption to attend to my friend, who was visibly upset. “What’s wrong?”   She looked over warily at Mr. Sherwood, and then underneath my query about what had found its way up her posterior and died, she quickly wrote The rabbit.  She just as hastily scribbled it out.
            “I didn’t know you guys had a rabbit?”  I searched my confused brain through memories of my almost daily visits to her house for an unobserved rabbit hutch. I wasn’t all that surprised that I had missed it in her little sister Clare’s constantly changing menagerie of animals.
            She let out a faint chuckle.  That’s more like it, I thought. She then fashioned her face into a tilted, impatient gaze that said, “No, you dumb shit,” and now only mouthed the words: “I’m pregnant.”  The shapes and letters on my page became bleary as the bell intruded upon our newly-defined moment.     
*****
            A few weeks passed. This was more than a crisis for the daughter of a foot-washing deacon.  This was certain death.  It came down on us like the coal that killed the children of Aberfan, black and smothering.  Despite much intense deliberation, we were still found ourselves gasping and grasping—but no answers were made to us.  None of the so-called “options” seemed that at all.  I didn’t bother to offer anything closely resembling telling her parents—as I knew this was not one.  In absence of a solution we did nothing but wait—for an uncertain outcome. We went to class, to volleyball practice—we tried to talk as if this “thing”—in our minds not even another being yet but just—a thing, wasn’t there threatening to destroy all the plans we had made.
            Finally, the time arrived when no conscious choice had to be made. Leah had inexplicably failed to board the bus for an away game one Saturday morning.  I played a shitty game and couldn’t get to her house fast enough after a day of worry. My anxiety was exacerbated by a dreadful secret about a dead rabbit that she refused to share with anyone else, even with the stupid boy with whom I was very angry for putting her in this condition, though I knew that Leah was just as much to blame.
But I was honor-bound. I kept my word. As an adult I will never cease to question and criticize the wisdom of my choice. As a teenager I loved my friend too fiercely to betray her confidence in me.
I don’t remember what the weather was like the day of that game against Noxon.  I don’t remember if we won or lost it.  I don’t remember what hour the next morning I was finally able to take my hand from her forehead and sleep. I don’t remember how long it took me to clean the bathroom.  I don’t remember what excuse we invented for the missing linens—the ones I took home with me and threw away. 
But I do remember finding her, arms folded against her small tummy, among piles of saturated red towels and chunks of vomit on the floor in the bathroom.  I remember the fear and self-hatred surging inside me as I stayed there, holding her—skin searing my hands, on the stained linoleum fighting every urge that I had to run and get her mother as she begged me not to tell.  I remember how liver-like clots broke up and pinkened the water as I bathed her. I remember putting her to bed in an improvised diaper. I remember feeling certain she would bleed to death.    I remember waking up with her still alive and thanking God.  I remember later realizing that what she, what we—had lost was not just a thing, but a soul.  I remember feeling guilty that I was glad it was over. I remember us afterwards, trying to carry on with our adolescent lives as if we were still adolescents.


            

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