Amanda Buck

CHRIS [APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD]

I think the story begins with a stage, darkness. Or maybe it begins with the girl—alone in a spot light. No, it begins when he enters, the boy on the edge of the yellow pool of light. And of course he has the glass. Yes, this story always begins with the blue tinted drinking glass and the pink fluid, juice poured at a time when there was still childhood. No, the story begins with the crashing, the sound of the glass as it shatters to the floor. 

When going to visit my boyfriend who tried to kill himself in the Children’s Crisis Center, I put on the outfit from our first date. It is March. I do not drive. I am going to the Children’s Crisis Center deep into Hillsborough Avenue past the Starbucks you can see from North 275 to visit my boyfriend who is not quite my boyfriend anymore, but might be my boyfriend again. He told the doctor he loved me.

It is March. It is Friday. It has been two days since he broke the glass in his house. Two days since the two dots of blood on his jeans. Two weeks since he broke it off. One week since we closed the play. Hours, I count them, but should I really be counting seconds? The seconds it took the police to respond to the emergency call? Or the seconds it took to lead him to the backseat where he laid on his side handcuffed? They don’t tell you that about the Baker Act, that they will be brought out in handcuffs. That they won’t let them wear their dead father’s clip on their jeans anymore.

The glass is blue and though in reality I did not see it crash,

I can see it suspended in his hand thick with sweat.

We met building a set at school. It was March. It was late. We had red, white, and blue paintbrushes in our hands. Pizza and soda on our breath. It approached midnight and he began to paint me instead of the platform. He painted peace, love, and music on my forearms. Long broad strokes across my chest. I dabbed him in the places not covered by clothing.

I packed the stupidest things in the bag for him to take to the center: shaving kit, ball in cup toy, love note, shoelaces, pens, belt.

I am on my way to visit my almost boyfriend at the Crisis Center on North Hillsborough Avenue with the Game of Life in the backseat next to me. It is March. It is our one year anniversary. We did not make it.

See the setting sun illuminate the translucent substance

and all is clear: the glass, the boy, the girl.

Last March, we sat outside Coldstone Creamery eating ice cream and he kissed me in his car to a Four Seasons song. This March they won’t let me take the game back to the patient day room, but I go anyway. I am wearing my faded balloon shirt. I am visiting something like a boyfriend in crisis. It is night. He has a scab on his face, staph from another patient. In the corner, a family is trying to feed their son dinner. He is crying. He is throwing mashed potatoes.

Three weeks from now it is spring break and we go away together. My family books a timeshare at Inglewood. There is a waterslide. Restaurants that serve steak. It is very Dirty Dancing. We spend the week in a hybrid between siblings and lovers. Him peeking at me in the shower, straddling me in his underwear, but when I kiss him he does not kiss back. His mouth closed, lips un-pursed.

And I can hear the second when glass shatters.

It smells like March, like spring,

ice cream piled high with toppings.

In the Children’s Crisis Center, it is Friday and I am visiting my soon to be ex-boyfriend on our one year anniversary. He looks small. He wears socks. I wear platforms that went out of style in the late nineties. I am sixteen. Two nights ago, I kneeled in front of my seat in the waiting room near midnight with salt from McDonald’s french-fries underneath my fingernails and prayed.

The trail of blood from his wrist curved like a bridge.

When I finally cross, I will never come back.

When I met my old boyfriend he placed a wooden bracelet around my wrist. He was older. He was worldly. He had spent nine months backpacking through India and I used to wonder if the wooden bracelet he tied around my wrist meant we were married in some small village.

When my not boyfriend comes home from the Children’s Crisis Center, we buy him a new phone.  We take him to the movies. We go out to eat. He spends every afternoon at my house until late in the night. It is almost not March. It is stifling. One night we get a call from a teary-eyed Abuelita whose broken English barely conveys that Chris is having a fit in the dining room. He is hysterical. We drive back. He sits on my lap, staph infection against my shirt, and cries, rocks back and forth.  They do not mention this when you fall in love.

The glass is blue and though in reality I did not see it crash,

I can see it suspended in his hand thick with sweat.

See the setting sun illuminate the translucent substance

and all is clear: the glass, the boy, the girl.

A month or so after my not quite boyfriend comes home from having his crisis centered, I dress up like a little French girl. I sell flowers at a concert in a purple dress. It is April. We are posing for a caricature by an amateur French street artist at a concert for a company that is paying us to pretend. We are pretending, that we are together, that we are French, that we are happy. He is singing Vincent in my ear, “Starry starry night/paint your palate blue and grey.”

And I can hear the second when glass shatters.

It smells like March, like spring,

ice cream piled high with toppings.

It is March. It is Friday and we are not playing the Game of Life. He tells me they won’t let him shower and I feel married to him. I bring him the change of clothes from Abuelita. We are all awaiting his toxicology. Waiting on signs of cocaine, signs of oxycotin. Earlier today, Abuelita thought she found the drugs in his upturned room and rushed them down to the center for my approval. A vial, she said, white powder. A bottle, she said, a ripped off label. Fake snow, I said, Cracker Barrel. Antibiotics, I said, from my father.

The trail of blood from his wrist curved like a bridge

It is April. My mother’s birthday. We are eating osso buco with our fingers. I am drinking my first mojito. He and I are dancing on the tight dance floor of a Latin club. Our hips merengue, my legs wobble with alcohol. I let him spin me around and around and around. When we leave, I can’t walk a straight line. I sit at the kitchen table with my parents, it is one of the first times we are alone since the big event. I eat white bread downed with a glass of milk.

When I finally cross, I will never come back.

That night, we upturned his room. Carried him marionette from the backyard where he tried to run, my parents and I. We were all there, the ones that loved him. He was despondent. He was thirsty. We were going to get to the bottom of this. I poured him a glass of juice, thick pink liquid in a blue tinted glass. It was March. I was outside. I heard the cries and when I came back there was glass on the floor.

When I finally cross, I will never come back.

The first time we kiss, it is a trick. We are backstage. I am going for a cheek and he turns. He drives me to the cast party later that night. The first time we sleep together, it is a surprise. He comes to me. Clicks the door behind. Already wearing a condom and I don’t get all my clothes off. These are the things I will remember more than anything.

The glass is blue and though in reality I did not see it crash

I can see it suspended in his hand thick with sweat.

See the setting sun illuminate the translucent substance

and all is clear: the glass, the boy, the girl.

And I can hear the second when glass shatters.

It smells like March, like spring,

ice cream piled high with toppings.

The trail of blood from his wrist curved like a bridge.

When leaving from a visit to my someone who tried to kill himself in the Children’s Crisis Center, I hear the nurse ask him if that was the girlfriend. It is March. He says yes. In April, he will call me his friend when I ask him what it is we are doing here. He will remove the girl. I will be devastated. I will leap from the car, run down the street. I will be sixteen with money in my pocket running, away.

I think the story ends with a blank stage, full lights. The boy has left. He was always going to leave, eventually. Then why do they do this dance? Yes, it ends shooting a blank voice out of the sky. A voice over—the girl. She is crying. No, those aren’t really tears, but make-up. No, that’s not really crying, it is singing.

When I finally cross, I will never come back.

When I finally cross, I will never come back.

Amanda Buck is an evocative, collaborative, and brave writer in the Greater Philadelphia Community with a passion for education and the arts. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden where she received Thesis with Distinction Honors, and a BA in English and Theatre Arts from the University of South Florida. During her time at Rutgers, she served as President for the MFA Student Organization and Co-Chair of the 2014-2015 Rutgers Student Reading Series. Her writing can be seen or is forthcoming in Four Ties Lit Review, Wordpool Press, The Bleeding Lion, and more. Currently, Amanda is Artistic Director of Chasing Windmills an eclectic bi-monthly creative reading series that promotes community while showcasing local artists in Philadelphia community. In addition to her work as a writer, Amanda has performed both on and off stage in over 100 full-length plays and musicals. You can follow her on Twitter @chasingwindmil4.