Read Online The Girls From Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe - Free Book Online
Authors: Rufi Thorpe
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fifteen yards past me. The woman and her dog who were our mirror image were both frozen, watching all this, horrified. The woman had her hand over her mouth. She had very curly hair, the kind that is difficult to take care of without it getting frizzy, and it was undulating around her head in the wind. When I got to Space, she was not moving, but her eyes were darting wildly about. I dragged her by her ankles farther to the side of the road, and knelt beside her. I tried to lift her head onto my lap, but the bottom side of her face was missing. She began shaking in such a way that I guessed she was having a seizure.
“She’s not dead!” I screamed at the woman who was watching us. “Oh God, she isn’t dead!”
I would have given anything to be able to kill Space, but I didn’t know how. How could I break her big thick neck? With what could I put her out of her misery? I had only an iPod and a house key. I had nothing. What was worse was how afraid I was to touch her, as though her body were dirty. I kept trying to make myself rest my palms on her body, to let her know I was there, that I loved her, but she was as foul to me as if she had been any anonymous roadkill, some infested carcass. She was still warm! And yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep my hands on her body, but kept pulling them back up and bunching them in fists under my face.
“My friend’s dog just had puppies!” the woman with the curly hair said.
“I don’t want puppies,” I said. “What do I do? She’s too big to carry!”
“I don’t know. Can you call someone?” the woman asked.
But I had no one to call. Eventually, a kind woman in an SUV stopped and offered to give me and Space a ride somewhere. The woman hadone of those windshield sun protectors that are shiny metallic paper-fabric and look like they should line the inside of a rotisserie oven. I tugged Space’s body onto it and then loaded her into this woman’s SUV. We were on our way to the vet when Space finally stopped shaking and her body became still. Instantly, the smell in the car changed. After a brief consultation, the woman reversed her direction and instead took me and the corpse of my dog to my apartment.
I had never before this understood the horror of death. I found poets and writers who wrote on themes of death to be slightly melodramatic. For myself, I looked forward to death. I was curious if there would be anything. If there would be a bright light or heaven or hell or nothingness. I thought it was going to be kind of cool to find out, and I had no worries that I would die whenever I was supposed to and that it would be fine. Before Space, I did not understand zombie movies either, or what makes vampires frightening. I didn’t understand how very dead dead things were.
The night of Space’s death, I called the only person I knew to call.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Mia, what’s up?”
Quavering, I told her the story. “And now I can’t stop seeing it happen in my mind, just over and over again. I’m not being melodramatic. I just keep almost seeing it. Do you know what I mean?” I could hear screaming in the background, child screaming.
“No,” Lorrie Ann said, in a way that I could tell was not meant for me, but for Zach. “Listen,” she said, “Jim gets home tomorrow in the morning and the house is a fucking wreck. It’s insane. The sergeant on Rear D only called me like half an hour ago.”
“Rear D” was the rear detachment, or the group of soldiers who were left behind on a deployment. Jim had joined the army during my last year at Yale, so by now I knew all the lingo. They were living on base at Fort Irwin in San Bernardino, one of the most remote and desolateof all army bases, surrounded on all sides by the Mojave Desert. Lorrie Ann spoke of this isolation often in tones that implied quiet persecution, by which I was completely baffled. Jim had not been drafted; he had enlisted. I didn’t have a terrible
“She’s not dead!” I screamed at the woman who was watching us. “Oh God, she isn’t dead!”
I would have given anything to be able to kill Space, but I didn’t know how. How could I break her big thick neck? With what could I put her out of her misery? I had only an iPod and a house key. I had nothing. What was worse was how afraid I was to touch her, as though her body were dirty. I kept trying to make myself rest my palms on her body, to let her know I was there, that I loved her, but she was as foul to me as if she had been any anonymous roadkill, some infested carcass. She was still warm! And yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep my hands on her body, but kept pulling them back up and bunching them in fists under my face.
“My friend’s dog just had puppies!” the woman with the curly hair said.
“I don’t want puppies,” I said. “What do I do? She’s too big to carry!”
“I don’t know. Can you call someone?” the woman asked.
But I had no one to call. Eventually, a kind woman in an SUV stopped and offered to give me and Space a ride somewhere. The woman hadone of those windshield sun protectors that are shiny metallic paper-fabric and look like they should line the inside of a rotisserie oven. I tugged Space’s body onto it and then loaded her into this woman’s SUV. We were on our way to the vet when Space finally stopped shaking and her body became still. Instantly, the smell in the car changed. After a brief consultation, the woman reversed her direction and instead took me and the corpse of my dog to my apartment.
I had never before this understood the horror of death. I found poets and writers who wrote on themes of death to be slightly melodramatic. For myself, I looked forward to death. I was curious if there would be anything. If there would be a bright light or heaven or hell or nothingness. I thought it was going to be kind of cool to find out, and I had no worries that I would die whenever I was supposed to and that it would be fine. Before Space, I did not understand zombie movies either, or what makes vampires frightening. I didn’t understand how very dead dead things were.
The night of Space’s death, I called the only person I knew to call.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Mia, what’s up?”
Quavering, I told her the story. “And now I can’t stop seeing it happen in my mind, just over and over again. I’m not being melodramatic. I just keep almost seeing it. Do you know what I mean?” I could hear screaming in the background, child screaming.
“No,” Lorrie Ann said, in a way that I could tell was not meant for me, but for Zach. “Listen,” she said, “Jim gets home tomorrow in the morning and the house is a fucking wreck. It’s insane. The sergeant on Rear D only called me like half an hour ago.”
“Rear D” was the rear detachment, or the group of soldiers who were left behind on a deployment. Jim had joined the army during my last year at Yale, so by now I knew all the lingo. They were living on base at Fort Irwin in San Bernardino, one of the most remote and desolateof all army bases, surrounded on all sides by the Mojave Desert. Lorrie Ann spoke of this isolation often in tones that implied quiet persecution, by which I was completely baffled. Jim had not been drafted; he had enlisted. I didn’t have a terrible
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