I held my phone. Trembling. Now I was really trembling. I saw my sticky white hands scratching her violin back.
I do not believe in a punishing God, I wrote back. I do not believe in a banishing God.
Punishment, banishment. She was not the expert.
Calmly, righteously, I send this last thought: I believe in drugs. Joel has all the drugs.
Mom and Dad, you should thank me. I smoked Barbra out of her hole.
§
I sat on one side of Barbra in the theatre and Joel sat on the other. She was so skinny from not eating that I saw a pulse near her breastbone. Anton and Brandon were on the other side of Joel. Joel said it wasn’t every day that two privateschool fuckers meet a hot Black chick from Israel.
Fuck off, you racists, I wanted to say.
But Barbra, I didn’t get it, just started laughing.
Joel showed her his flask in the semi-dark. ‘My dad’s rum is sick. It’s from Jam-rock. You want some in your coke?’
‘Yah, mon, I’m a rum head,’ Barbra replied.
Joel looked at me, fuck yes-ing, sticking two fingers up between his bangs. Why was she play-acting like this with him?
Joel plopped two hits of rum into Barbra’s cup. I’d had to bribe her out of the basement but now she seemed so comfortable or something. Anton and Brandon were laughing as the movie began. What exactly had changed? My mother was worried. My father distanced himself. Why was she now just drinking and joking with these UCC fuckers as if nothing were wrong? I thought I’d known what was wrong. Anton and Brandon had their own flask. God, I hated Joel. I hated that Joel was showing off my girlfriend by proxy.
The opening of V for Vendetta was high-pitched and bombastic.
Was Barbra my girlfriend? I wanted her to be. I knew I’d do anything for this to be.
‘Do you believe God punishes people?’
It occurred to me that I’d never asked Barbra back the question. It occurred to me that I needed possession of her right now. Barbra looked at me sideways in silence, eyes weirdly animated from the actors onscreen.
‘You know I do,’ Barbra whispered back to me.
According to Jewishmysticism.com, Sabbatai Zevi’s wife, Sarah, was raised in Poland by nuns because when she was a baby her family had been killed in the Chmielnicki massacres. Allegedly, as a teenager, she wandered around Europe pretending she was Christian, having sex to survive. Later, Sarah said that she always knew she was meant to marry the Messiah.
Joel took the lid off of Barbra’s extra-size Coke and topped her up with his mickey of rum. Joel acted like an ass with his friends. Their plan was to get loaded in the middle of the day.
Barbra sucked through her straw. ‘God is backwards, upside-down.’
Was this something that that messianic mofo liked to say?
Barbra had promised to do a Rotary event with my father that evening. It was a city-wide meet-and-greet for all the summer scholarship students. Barbra was wearing this spandex tank-top dress that pushed her tits out and showed her small rolls of waist flesh. I wanted to crash the event, cheering for her, if she wore this same dress and her leather sandal with the laces criss-crossed up to her calves.
As we watched the film, I kept glancing at Joel’s hand. It seemed bent like a claw, appearing in fog. It slow-drummed the armrest between him and her. I watched him in my peripheral vision. I kept my vision split between the screen and his fingers. V for Vendetta had too many cuts. The claw put itself on her naked forearm. I read that Alan Moore didn’t even want his name on the film. Joel’s hand shone in the darkness. I smelled rum on her breath. Natalie Portman was about to get her head shaved. Barbra suddenly slung her arm around the back of my chair. Her armpit had all those pineneedle hairs. I got a blast of her sweat, her germination. Natalie Portman had a strangely small head. I knew already Joel thought Barbra was hot. I saw movement in the sand, the hand on the thigh. Unbelievable, fuck. She was totally out of his league. Joel had no idea she actually thought he was racist. Anton and Brandon were racists! I nuzzled my snout in her armpit. I hadn’t told Joel what was happening with us. I would never tell Joel what was happening with us. I had the bucket of popcorn between my sweatpants. Natalie Portman’s face shook when she screamed. I licked Barbra’s armpit. Joel lifted her spandex. Natalie Portman was fragile. Barbra was mine. My tongue stuck on the needles. Natalie Portman spoke Hebrew. I imagined a rabbinic, narcissistic, messianic manicdepressive taking over Barbra’s mind. Natalie Portman loomed above us. She was being deloused, giant-sized. I sluiced my tongue around in circles inside Barbra’s pit. Joel’s hand disappeared. Barbra used her thighs to push him away. Onscreen, Natalie Portman trembled and cried.
Joel whispered to Barbra: ‘She looks like a Suicide Girl.’
My face stayed stuck in her cobweb of sweat. Barbra, I thought, had been punished unfairly. Not by God – by her uncle, by life.
‘What’s a Suicide Girl?’ Barbra asked.
I heard Joel on the other side of her spandex. ‘It’s porno for girls with rings through their clits.’
Barbra hiccupped then burpe
d. She pushed me away.