First Day On Earth

  FIRST DAY ON EARTH

  CECIL CASTELLUCCI

  TO THE FARTHEST STAR

  WITH THE KINDEST HEART

  We are all in the gutter,

  but some of us are looking at the stars.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  45.

  46.

  47.

  48.

  49.

  50.

  51.

  52.

  53.

  54.

  55.

  56.

  57.

  58.

  59.

  60.

  61.

  62.

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1.

  You think you know what I am, the kid slumped in his chair in the back row, with greasy hair, wearing all black. You’re kind of scared of me. ‘Cause I’m a loner.

  But you don’t know shit.

  We are specks. Pieces of dust in this universe. Big nothings.

  I know what I am.

  I am a guy who loves the human race. I love us. I wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  Did you know that I help people? Even when they don’t ask but they need it? Mothers and their baby carriages on staircases. Old people. Homeless people.

  You ignore them. I don’t.

  Did you know that I’m a vegetarian?

  Did you know that I rescue animals?

  No.

  You think I’m scary-looking.

  You laugh behind my back. I know it. Don’t deny it.

  Because who cares what you think about me?

  With what I’ve been through, I just shrug it off.

  But in case you’re interested in what I think, here’s what I think about you.

  You think that you’re something. You think that your dumb teen problems are so big and important. You think that who’s popular in school and who wears and says the right thing is important.

  It’s not.

  You’re ignorant. Asleep.

  I’ve been to outer space and back again. I’ve been caged. I’ve been probed and spliced and diced and I am being tracked. They are going to take me again one day. I know it because I heard them say it in my brain. They are out there and they are watching us. And you just move like a sleepwalker from class to class whenever the bell rings.

  I think you are sheep.

  But one day, I’m going with them. And I’m going to be free.

  2.

  I’ve got a towel around my hips. I’m waiting until the showers are a little less crowded before I step into them. I’m not shy. I don’t care about being naked with the other guys. I just like to have a little space. Josh likes to shower with a lot of other guys at the same time. Maybe he likes to look at the other guys’ dicks. Maybe he compares them. Whatever floats your boat, I say. Life’s too short to care either way.

  Josh and his friends emerge from the showers. They’re laughing and they move to the corner and start getting dressed, putting on deodorant and talking about girls in a way that I don’t like.

  “What kind of guy are you?” Josh asks. “Tits or ass?”

  “I’m a tit man, for sure,” Colm says.

  “When my girl Posey jumps, I swear it’s like watching a door open in heaven,” Josh says. “Her tits are like peaches, only not fuzzy.”

  “You’ve touched them?” Colm says. “I bow to you.”

  “Sure, I’ve touched them,” Josh says. “They kind of belong to me, right?”

  “Right,” Colm says. “Posey’s tits are yours for the touching.”

  “Technically, they are not. Technically, they are her tits,” Darwyn pipes up. Darwyn says it kind of matter-of-factly, like he’s been part of the conversation the whole time. Even though he’s really just sitting near the guys who are talking. They tolerate him, but he’s not their friend.

  “I’m thirsty,” Josh says.

  And Darwyn, big doughy Darwyn, sees that as an opportunity to move closer into the circle. I watch as he debates with himself for a minute, sort of looks down at his feet and figures it out. I see him do this all the time. Decision made, Darwyn gets up and goes over to the water cooler and fills up a cup.

  I notice that his black skin glistens a bit from the water that is still clinging to him from the showers. He looks like his body has been bedazzled. I’ve seen something like that — the waterlike diamonds — before. But the memory of it is just at the edge of where my conscious mind ends.

  “What are you staring at, Mal?” Josh says, his attention now on me. “Are you hot for Darwyn? Oh my God. Mal has a crush on Darwyn. I always knew you were gay.”

  He laughs and his friends laugh. I look at Darwyn, who is standing by the cooler, a little cone cup in his hand. Gold-rimmed glasses a little fogged up. Big fleshy arms, jiggly belly. He’s frozen there, like he doesn’t know whether or not Josh saying that I’m gay means that Josh is saying that Darwyn is gay.

  I look away. No one here would care if I was gay or not. And I actually don’t care if I’m gay or not. Being gay might be better than what I am now.

  “Hey, Darwyn,” Josh says. “Can you help me with my car after school? It’s making that funny noise again. I thought we could go to your dad’s garage and take a look at it.”

  Darwyn breathes a sigh of relief that his status hasn’t been affected by my unwanted staring. Darwyn’s willingness to do anything and everything at all times for anyone gets him kind of in, even though he’s out.

  The showers are empty. The bell is about to ring. I consider not showering, but I smell from shooting hoops by myself. And I never have deodorant on me.

  “Dirty pig,” I hear Josh mumble under his breath as I pass him. Colm and the others laugh. But not Darwyn. Darwyn only laughs after a few seconds. He’s just following.

  I’ve heard worse things said about me than dirty pig.

  The words run off my shoulder as I walk toward the shower.

  3.

  Sometimes I have a rage inside of me. Like a lion roaring. Like a firebomb. Like a white-hot piece of metal. Like a train wreck as it’s happening.

  It gets so bad that I can feel every single cell in my body writhing in pain. Like a pin pushing into each part of me. Every inch hurts. Every pore screams. You cannot imagine.

  On those days, when it gets bad and I can’t stand my mom crying on the floor in her pajamas anymore, I go out in our shitty car and drive to the desert. As soon as I see the windmills, I pull over and climb out of the car and stumble up toward them. The air is crazy. All swooshing and electric. I feel as though I’m a piece of machinery that has been suddenly set to full throttle. And there’s a noise. Not a noise that sounds like anything else you’ve ever heard. It is a whirring whisper wit
h a purr. It is steady and magnificent, the windmills capturing energy right from the sky.

  I stand underneath those windmills. I stand there and I scream. I scream and scream until I don’t have any more voice in me. My soul sails out onto the wind, or up into the blades, transformed into raw energy. Most times I have destroyed a shrub or two with my fists, not even feeling the parts of the leaves that prick like needles and get under my skin because, like I said, I already have needles pricking me everywhere.

  The screaming it all out makes it better for the drive home. But that feeling of calm never lasts for long.

  4.

  The lights in the sky don’t lie.

  The lights in the sky don’t lie.

  5.

  “Mal?” Mrs. Yegevian says. “Which poem will you be sharing with the class?”

  All the bodies in the room turn in their seats to look at me. I don’t like their eyes on me. I’ve had too many eyes staring at me.

  I stand up. My hands shake as I hold on to my notebook, as though it is going to keep me steady. “Mal?”

  I clear my throat. My voice is hoarse.

  “Pass,” I say and sit back down.

  There are snickers. There are always snickers. Kids who cover their mouths with pretend sneezes as they say loser under their breath.

  Mrs. Yegevian says nothing, but leans over her notebook and puts a mark next to my name. Another black mark. I have so many, I don’t even try to clear my name anymore. No one expects me to.

  Alphabetically, Posey Manitsky is next. She stands up without being called to do so. She is so sure of herself. How did she ever get that way? Does she wake up with sunshine and rainbows streaming through her window? Does she smile so naturally because everything is so good? Because she sleeps like she’s an enchanted fairy-tale princess? Must be. No other explanation.

  She throws back her shoulders and swings her long hair out of her face. Her hand is steady as she reads from the paper. Her voice as clear as a bell. But I’m not noticing all that. I’m wondering if her tits are really as peachy as Josh says they are.

  Her honey tones fill the room as she reads her poem.

  I think the strange, the crazed, the queer

  will have their holiday this year …

  “What the hell was that?” someone says when she’s finished the whole thing. “Did she just say queer and gay?”

  She gets snickers, too. The kids here are equal opportunity snickerers.

  “Tennessee Williams,” Darwyn says. His desk is at the front of the room, as always, facing Mrs. Yegevian’s desk. He’s her special helper. He hands out the exams and collects them. He keeps attendance. Takes extra notes. He always knows too much and doesn’t have the sense to keep the extra information he’s acquired to himself. “Tennessee Williams: best known for his plays, such as Suddenly Last Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Glass Menagerie.”

  “Shut up, Lung,” someone yells. That’s what the cool kids call Darwyn behind his back and to his face. Lung. ‘Cause he talks too much and is compelled to overshare.

  Darwyn winces at the nickname. He pushes his glasses up, even though they haven’t slipped or anything. He purses his lips. He looks up at something on the ceiling. His index finger points up. Like he’s showing us something up there. I think maybe he’ll start to cry. That’ll be like blood in the water. They’ll rip him apart if he does that.

  I am actually worried for him.

  But he doesn’t cry. He just keeps staring at the ceiling.

  I look up there. There’s a water stain near the sprinkler. It’s in the shape of a bat.

  “Tennessee Williams,” he says quietly. More like he’s talking to himself than to anyone else. “A great American playwright.”

  The whole class is howling now. Well, almost everyone. Not me. Not Posey. Not Darwyn. Not the two shy kids near the window. Not Mrs. Yegevian.

  “Settle, people. Settle,” Mrs. Yegevian says.

  Someone else reads a poem. A stupid one. It sounds like a Hallmark card. My poem would have been better than that.

  I look down at the poem that I chose.

  e. e. cummings, (once like a spark).

  My poem. More real.

  The bell rings. And I do what I do best.

  I get the hell out of there.

  6.

  “Is that you, Mal?” Mom is slurring her words. She’s got the box of wine on the counter and she’s probably halfway through it already. Probably already three sheets to the wind.

  She’s listening to an oldies station. They’re playing grunge music in the flashback-at-five section.

  Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

  In here, it smells like sour grapes.

  “It’s me,” I say.

  I picked up some food from Subway for dinner. I put it on some plates and get some paper towels. I pop open the can of Coca-Cola and slide it into her hand, replacing her cup of wine. She doesn’t argue.

  “I have to go to group,” I say.

  There is always a meeting at the community center if I need to get out of the house.

  “Okay,” she says.

  I bet if she sobered up, she’d look pretty. I bet if she hadn’t been crying every single day for years, she’d be pretty. I bet if she’d gotten an explanation for why he left, she’d be pretty.

  I finish my sandwich, put my dish in the sink, and then head outside.

  I hop on my bike and head to the community center. On my way, I do a few tricks. I mess up, but no one is looking at me.

  It’d be faster if I drove. If I drove, I’d have more time to do my homework. But gas is too expensive and we’re on a budget. Besides, riding my bike keeps me out of the house for longer.

  And I don’t do my homework anyway.

  7.

  Our Alateen group leader is looking at us with his soft eyes and serenading us with his caring tone of voice. “Who wants to share?” I raise my hand. “Mal?”

  I tell the story again. Like I always do. I have told the same story a million times.

  “He said it like it was nothing. ‘Better get some milk tomorrow, we’re out.’ ‘I can get some,’ I told him. ‘On my way home. After school.’ ‘No, Mal, I can do it in the morning,’ he said.” And then I go on and tell the whole thing. That before I woke up for real that morning, when I was just waiting for the alarm clock to ring, I heard the front door click. Softly, not like other times when Dad left in the morning and the door just closed in the background, but as though someone were deliberately trying to be quiet. That’s what made it so loud. It was weird.

  I remember looking out the window. The morning was gray. Maybe there was fog. Or maybe my memory is foggy. He had his brown corduroy coat pulled on. His porkpie hat on. And a suitcase in his hand.

  If only I had been more awake, I would have realized he was leaving. Maybe I could have said something. Could have persuaded him not to go.

  Instead, I put my head back on the pillow and tried for five more minutes of sleep.

  “You know it’s not your fault, Mal,” our group leader says. “Your father was gone. He was incapable of staying. It has nothing to do with you. Neither does your mom’s drinking. It has everything to do with them.”

  They say these things to me over and over again. But it never makes any sense.

  8.

  There is a question that I always ask myself. I ask it many times during the day. How far away from here is far away enough? How far away would I be willing to go?

  My answer is always the same.

  You? I bet you’d think the moon was far away enough.

  I say the moon is still too close.

  Here’s the thing with the moon. You can still see it. Mars? Too recognizable. Jupiter is too stormy and everyone is always looking at Saturn’s rings. Maybe Neptune. No one ever knows when Neptune is around. It just sits in the sky, disguised as a star.

  But those aren’t the places that I’d go to. Those places are still too close. I’ve got my ey
e on something farther away than that.

  Mr. Cates is discussing Human Migration.

  He underlines it on the whiteboard.

  Human Migration.

  I look out the window, letting Mr. Cates’s voice recede to a soft buzz until I can’t even tell what language he’s speaking anymore. I stare at the moon.

  It’s sitting there, in the sky, even though it’s morning and the sun is out. It just hangs there, showing its face. Begging to be lived on.

  Mr. Cates passes us a handout. He’s pointing to the board. He’s talking about how history changes. Times change. Things change. What was once unacceptable becomes accepted. What was once accepted becomes unacceptable.

  “People, they leave the terrible behind. They leave the people who don’t understand. They leave because they’re burned out. They leave for a better life. They leave the way things are, for the way things could be. They start over. They go across the ocean. They discover new lands. They settle the West. You can call them whatever you want — explorers, conquerors, settlers, pioneers,” Mr. Cates says.

  He dims the lights and starts up an animated computer slide show that demonstrates the movement of people from place to place. The colors go from one end of the earth to the other. I am transfixed by the swirl of colors.

  I think some people go just because they have to get away.

  I think that they were lucky back then. To have somewhere that far away to go. Somewhere totally different. Somewhere totally unknown. Somewhere they could disappear. Somewhere with breathable air. A place that wasn’t even mapped yet — the edge of the world. I’d have signed up for that so fast I wouldn’t have even packed a bag.

  But these days, where can a person go? Not even Antarctica is unpopulated anymore.

  The only place to go is up.

  “Every day is different,” Mr. Cates says. “Every day is a new day in history.”

  The only thing that is different about most days for me is the weather and what class I’m going to fall asleep in.