Read Online In This Light by Melanie Rae Thon - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Melanie Rae Thon
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Cold before dawn, and I thought,
Just one corner, just the edge.
When the flames burst, I meant to smother them. I felt Earl, his cool metal grasp.
Get out
, he said. Ashes floated in the frozen air, the box gone that fast. Clare said,
Look at me: this is what they did.
Later my singed hair broke off in my hands.
In the morning, I called Adele again.
Tell me
, I said.
I thought she might know exactly where and when. I thought there might be a room, a white sheet, a bed, a place I could enter and leave, the before and after of my sister’s death.
But there were only approximate details, a jail, stones, barbed wire somewhere.
No body.
She meant she never saw Clare dead.
Clare said she tried to get home in time, but the witch caught her and put her in the candy house instead.
Busted. Prostitution and possession.
Let me answer the charges.
This is Clare’s story.
Let me tell you what my sister owned.
In her pocket, one vial of crack, almost gone. In her veins, strangers’ blood. She possessed ninety-six pounds. I want to be exact. The ninety-six pounds included the weight of skin, coat, bowels, lungs; the weight of dirt under her nails; the weight of semen, three men last night and five the night before.
The ninety-six pounds included the vial, a rabbit’s foot rubbed so often it was nearly hairless, worn to bone.
Around her wrist she wore her own hair, what was left of it, what she’d saved and braided, a bracelet now. In her left ear, one gold hoop and one rhinestone stud, and they didn’t weigh much but were included in the ninety-six pounds.
She possessed the virus.
But did not think of it as hers alone.
She passed it on and on.
Stripped and showered, she possessed ninety-one pounds, her body only, which brings me to the second charge.
Listen, I heard of a man who gave a kidney to his brother. They hadn’t spoken for eleven years. A perfect match in spite of this. All that blood flowed between them, but the brother died, still ranting, still full of piss and spit.
Don’t talk to me about mercy.
The one who lived, the one left unforgiven, the one carved nearly in half, believed in justice of another kind:
If we possess our bodies only, we must offer up this gift.
You can talk forever about risk.
New York City, Clare. Holding pen. They crammed her in a room, two hundred bodies close, no windows here. They told her to stand and stand, no ventilation, only a fan beating the poison air. And this is where she came to possess the mutant germ, the final gift. It required no consensual act, no exchange of blood or semen, no mother’s milk, no generous brother willing to open his flesh.
Listen, who’s coughing there?
All you have to do is breathe it in.
It loved her, this germ. It loved her lungs, first and best, the damp dark, the soft spaces there. But in the end, it wanted all of her and had no fear.
December still, Clare eight months dead. Adele knew only half of this.
You can always come home
, she said.
I went looking for my lover, the fat one with the car, anybody with a snake on his chest.
I found three men in the Zone, all with cash—no snakes and none that fat. Tomorrow I’d look again. I wanted one with white skin and black hair, a belly where my bones could sink so I wouldn’t feel so thin. I wanted the snake in my hands, the snake around my neck; I wanted his unbelievable weight to keep me pinned.
Ten days in a cell, Clare released. Two hundred and fifty-three hours without a fix—she thought she might go straight, but it didn’t happen like that.
She found a friend instead.
You’re sad, baby
, he said. She dropped her pants. Not for sex, not with him, only to find a vein not scarred too hard. When your blood blooms in the syringe, you know you’ve hit.
Listen, nobody asks to be like this.
If the dope’s too pure, you’re dead.
This is Clare’s story. This is her voice speaking through me. This is my body. This is how we stay alive out here.
Listen.
It’s hope that
Just one corner, just the edge.
When the flames burst, I meant to smother them. I felt Earl, his cool metal grasp.
Get out
, he said. Ashes floated in the frozen air, the box gone that fast. Clare said,
Look at me: this is what they did.
Later my singed hair broke off in my hands.
In the morning, I called Adele again.
Tell me
, I said.
I thought she might know exactly where and when. I thought there might be a room, a white sheet, a bed, a place I could enter and leave, the before and after of my sister’s death.
But there were only approximate details, a jail, stones, barbed wire somewhere.
No body.
She meant she never saw Clare dead.
Clare said she tried to get home in time, but the witch caught her and put her in the candy house instead.
Busted. Prostitution and possession.
Let me answer the charges.
This is Clare’s story.
Let me tell you what my sister owned.
In her pocket, one vial of crack, almost gone. In her veins, strangers’ blood. She possessed ninety-six pounds. I want to be exact. The ninety-six pounds included the weight of skin, coat, bowels, lungs; the weight of dirt under her nails; the weight of semen, three men last night and five the night before.
The ninety-six pounds included the vial, a rabbit’s foot rubbed so often it was nearly hairless, worn to bone.
Around her wrist she wore her own hair, what was left of it, what she’d saved and braided, a bracelet now. In her left ear, one gold hoop and one rhinestone stud, and they didn’t weigh much but were included in the ninety-six pounds.
She possessed the virus.
But did not think of it as hers alone.
She passed it on and on.
Stripped and showered, she possessed ninety-one pounds, her body only, which brings me to the second charge.
Listen, I heard of a man who gave a kidney to his brother. They hadn’t spoken for eleven years. A perfect match in spite of this. All that blood flowed between them, but the brother died, still ranting, still full of piss and spit.
Don’t talk to me about mercy.
The one who lived, the one left unforgiven, the one carved nearly in half, believed in justice of another kind:
If we possess our bodies only, we must offer up this gift.
You can talk forever about risk.
New York City, Clare. Holding pen. They crammed her in a room, two hundred bodies close, no windows here. They told her to stand and stand, no ventilation, only a fan beating the poison air. And this is where she came to possess the mutant germ, the final gift. It required no consensual act, no exchange of blood or semen, no mother’s milk, no generous brother willing to open his flesh.
Listen, who’s coughing there?
All you have to do is breathe it in.
It loved her, this germ. It loved her lungs, first and best, the damp dark, the soft spaces there. But in the end, it wanted all of her and had no fear.
December still, Clare eight months dead. Adele knew only half of this.
You can always come home
, she said.
I went looking for my lover, the fat one with the car, anybody with a snake on his chest.
I found three men in the Zone, all with cash—no snakes and none that fat. Tomorrow I’d look again. I wanted one with white skin and black hair, a belly where my bones could sink so I wouldn’t feel so thin. I wanted the snake in my hands, the snake around my neck; I wanted his unbelievable weight to keep me pinned.
Ten days in a cell, Clare released. Two hundred and fifty-three hours without a fix—she thought she might go straight, but it didn’t happen like that.
She found a friend instead.
You’re sad, baby
, he said. She dropped her pants. Not for sex, not with him, only to find a vein not scarred too hard. When your blood blooms in the syringe, you know you’ve hit.
Listen, nobody asks to be like this.
If the dope’s too pure, you’re dead.
This is Clare’s story. This is her voice speaking through me. This is my body. This is how we stay alive out here.
Listen.
It’s hope that
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