Black Balloon

And I know this is my last chance to turn back. Deep breath. Grasp the ticket. Step onto the train.

         All the kids are leaving for college at the end of the summer. These high school seniors make me sick.
         “Ms. Springs, where did you go to college?”
         I recognize the sweetness in Holly’s voice and the faux curiosity beaming from her eyes as her 89% in the class. Holly is attending Boston University in the fall. I make a mental note not to round up her grade.
         “I went to Wheaton College,” I respond with the same artificial composure. Holly, like the rest of my students, knows nothing about me.
         She shakes her head and smiles. “There’s no way I could stay in Wheaton for my whole life.” Once again, I am the child in the situation. Holly will never know this.
         “You’ll realize how much you have here once you’re gone.”
         This is a lie. It is common knowledge that there is absolutely nothing in Wheaton
         It kills me to spend all day looking in the eyes of these kids who have a life to look forward to. Once upon a time, you know, I was one of those kids.

         I take one step into the house and it’s like someone shoved a pile of shit straight up into my nose.
         “Jesus, Mom. You need to clean up. This is disgusting,” I yell. Mom, of course, does not respond to me; most likely because she is passed out on the floor somewhere. This is how I tend to find her.
         There is a hole in the kitchen wall crawling with cockroaches the size of my thumb. I try to remember how the room looked when we used to eat family dinners here. The paint covered the walls so evenly then, and the dishes were in the cabinets. Mom was always crazy about things like that, doing the dishes and putting away leftovers and sweeping up all the crumbs from under the table. Last year I donated all her ceramic plates to Goodwill and bought paper plates so they wouldn’t pile up on the counter. The mice are still here.
         I empty the garbage and check the fridge. Four beers, half a container of supermarket brand guacamole, two pieces of pizza, an open Pepsi and mustard that expired in 2008. Automatically I begin writing a shopping list.
         Mom stumbles into the kitchen as I clip a bag of stale Cheetos closed. There’s a package of Party City balloons on the table. We both eye it without making a move.
         “You need to go shopping,” I state.
         “No I don’t.”
         Her only defining features are the dark circles under her eyes and the way her pants hang off her waist.
         “Mom, you need food.”
         “I don’t eat at home much.” What she means is she doesn’t eat much, what she means is that food is her sacrifice.
         “Come on. Get in the car, I’ll take you shopping. Yes, Mom. I’ll pay.”
         “I’m sure you have important things to do-“
         “No, Mom. I’ll buy you food. I won’t give you money.”
         I take her hand and pull her to my car.
         “Do you think we could stop at Jordan’s house? He only lives a couple minutes away, I told him I’d be around sometime today.”
         I shake my head. There’s nothing I can do.
         “No. Get your drugs on your own time.”

         “Hey, Clair.” I glance up from my computer and see Rob leaning on the door frame.
         “Hey.” My attention is immediately diverted back to my game of Solitaire. I am much too tired for social interaction. Rob, as usual, doesn’t care.
         “You look tired.” I nod. He walks in the room and takes a perch on a desk, which tips under his weight. He catches himself reflexively on his feet as if this happens every day.
         “Are you okay? You look tired all the time.”
         I shrug. “Senioritis rubbed off on me.”
         He chuckles, one of those deep chuckles that only men with beer bellies can manage. Who chuckles at seven o’clock in the morning?
         “I’m sure the kids love that.” I say nothing. He sits there and smiles at me until the first bell rings. I take a deep breath and prepare myself to deal with teenagers who are ready to change the world.

         My bedroom windows overlook the train tracks. My bedroom walls overlook the world.
         I bought my first map my junior year of high school after reading On The Road. This was the year I realized I was trapped. Like most trapped romantics, I dreamed of California.
         California, I think, is the modern state of the American Dream. Kids with aspirations don’t aspire for white picket fences anymore. Kids want to jump that fence and take off running. I see this on the map in the school office. High school seniors stick a pin where they’re going to college. When I was a senior, the pins occupied the Midwest- Big Ten schools like University of Iowa and Michigan State, mostly. Now I see them scattered about the country, occupying every corner of America. They trail west, through Texas and Colorado and Washington and California. It strikes me that maybe the gold rush never ended. These kids are chasing hope.
         The hope in their eyes beelines straight to my heart. Every day I stare at these maps and fantasize my next move.

         Mom’s eyes are glassed over and zoned in on the television. I open my mouth to say something irrelevant, then I catch my eye.
         I’m staring at the camera grinning like a college kid on ecstasy. There’s a medal around my neck.
         “Now introducing Clair Springs, future Olympian!” It’s Dad’s voice He’s standing behind the camera, smiling because I’m smiling.
         I sink into the couch next to Mom.
         “How does it feel to be the Level 6 gymnastics champion of Illinois?”
         “It feels amazing. I always knew I was the best, I just had to show everyone else.”
         I remember this. It’s what my coach always said to us before competitions- I know you’re the best, but no one else does yet.
         Even in the fuzzy VCR recording I see that my eyes are shining. I really thought I was going to the Olympics.
         Dad turns the camera on himself. It’s the signature dead dad move, documented in hundreds of made-for-TV movies.
         “My little girl is a star.”
         The scene cuts to a birthday part. I stare at the screen. When Mom asks me to hand her the syringe, I do it.
         “You look like him,” she mumbles. Then she extends her arm in front of her. There are tracks all up her forearm. The way she presses on her vein breaks my trance.
         “He’d hate you.” I stand up and take a step towards the door.
         “What’d you get, Clair? Oh look! An Easy Bake oven! That’s very cool.”
         On second thought, I turn around and pop the tape out of the VCR. Mom is silent. I tuck it under my arm and leave.

         There’s a week and a half left of school. The bags under my eyes tell me that I’m about to break. There is nothing more miserable than a Chicago summer. We used to go on vacation. We went to this cabin in Wisconsin. There were so many stars.
         The next time I go to Mom’s house, she’s asleep. I take all the tapes. I take her VCR.
         “Clair is about to slalom ski for the first time. How do you feel, Clair? Are you nervous?”
         “No, Dad, I can do anything!”

         “You look like you need to get away.”
         “I do.”
         Rob eyes the stack of final papers on my desk. There’s 43 of them. I’ve graded two.
         “What’s the paper on?”
         Most of the time, when you don’t make eye contact with someone they catch on that you want them to leave you alone. Rob has a tendency to overlook these signals.
         “Gender roles and shit. Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
         “Are they any good?”
         “They’re brilliant.”
         I can feel him watching me grade. Rob’s charm depends on the assumption that he’ll grow on you before you kick him out. You know what I mean, one of those guys who never stops.
         I write and he stares. This is a relatively normal pattern of interaction.
         I don’t look up when he stands up. I don’t even look up when he asks me:
         “Clair, why are you a teacher?”
         This is a question that I don’t have an answer for.
         “Get rich quick.” Funny, funny. Funny and so original.
         “Come to a concert with me.”
         Now I look up. He did not just ask me out.
         “No, not a date, not like that, come on Clair. Just to remember how to have fun. You need it. I can see that.”
         I hardly remember the last time I had fun.
         “What concert?”
         He grins.
         “You’re in for a treat. Come talk to me tomorrow.” Rob finally walks away.

         Mom’s water turns off because I forgot to pay the bill again. How the fuck could you forget to pay for water, she screams, water, of all things.
         If you’re so concerned about it why don’t you just pay it yourself. How am I supposed to pay it myself I don’t even have a job. Yeah and why’s that maybe if you didn’t just shoot up all day you’d be able to get one. Don’t talk to me like that you have no idea what I’ve been through. What and Dad’s death didn’t hurt me either here I am stuck in the last place I want to be to take care of you.
         Well why don’t you leave.
         Why don’t I.

         “I saw this band at Red Rocks last year. It was amazing, so amazing. Clair, you need to go to Red Rocks.”
         “I know. I do.”
         All the hippies are filing into the Aragon to see Sound Tribe. I already feel like I’m somewhere else. I didn’t even know kids like this still existed in Chicago, dreadlocked and covered in dirt. No one pushes or talks shit. I observe something that rarely occurs in Wheaton; I observe the phenomenon of acceptance.
         I decide Rob is alright. He doesn’t ask me nosey questions tonight. In fact, he doesn’t ask much at all. We lean against the wall and silently admire a culture that we thought to be extinct.
         When the first set starts the theater takes on the sweet odor of marijuana. Naturally. Kids pass me joints. I take them. I feel good. The set ends just when I’m starting to feel alive again.
         “Now we get ready.”
         And here it comes. That little bag of white powder that I used to know so well. I know instinctively what it is.
         “This is pure MDMA. Mollie. It-“
         I grab the bag, lick my pinky and stick it in. It tastes awful. It’s so amazing.
         “Thank you. Thank you.”

         The lights the music the people the lights the music the people the lights life is so fucking beautiful. I’m never going to be unhappy again. God, life is so amazing how did I ever take this for granted. No one should ever take life for granted. Life is beautiful the lights the music the people goddamn I can’t waste this anymore. This miracle is too gorgeous to throw away. I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave with all the seniors as soon as the final bell rings. I’m going somewhere where I can see this beauty all the time. I’m going somewhere to find out who created this, I’m going to Colorado.
         The girl behind me puts her hands on my shoulders oh god a massage oh god life is beautiful the lights the music the people oh god.
         There must be a God. There is a God and he wants me to find him, I’m seeing mountains, I can find him in Colorado.

         Monday I love being a teacher. My students are incredible, the fact that I am teaching them and developing them is incredible. Why is the brain so awesome.
         I feel terrible and I hate myself. I think about Mom. I buy a train ticket to Denver and a bus ticket to Breckenridge. I think I want to always be a teacher. I’d always wanted to go to law school. I think about the circles under Mom’s eyes. I think about the track marks up her arms. I think about the cockroaches in the kitchen. I feel terrible and I hate myself.

         I was sixteen. I walked in the front door and took off my shoes. I stepped into the kitchen and before I could process anything else there’s a shard of glass puncturing the center of my foot and I’m screaming.
         Mom’s head is on the table. She doesn’t look at me but she growls.
         “Fuck you,” she mumbles.
         That’s when I notice the broken wine bottle in a thousand pieces all over the floor.
         No one even told me that he died. My uncle just picked me up and took me to the funeral. The next morning I found Mom passed out in the living room with white powder all over her face and dried blood caked around her mouth. I didn’t know what to do so I went to school.

         When Mom calls me I can’t even answer. I tell myself I’ll go say goodbye. Her eyes are black holes; I’m terrified to look in the mirror.

         Rob flings the door open. I look up. I pay attentionom when people walk in now.
         “What the hell happened!” He takes the power position over me, hands flat on the desktop eyes boring into my brain. I have to laugh.
         “What?”
         “You resigned!”
         “I’m going to Colorado.”
         “Why!”
         “You were right. I need to get away.”

         My bags are packed. My apartment is empty. When the bell rings the seniors throw papers everywhere and scream obscenities. I lock up the classroom and float out after them. My train leaves in three hours. There’s only one thing left to do.          
         “Clair,” she croaks, “Clair”
         Her face is a white lump of flesh. Her eyes are black and red. She has no iris.
         “I thought you left me.”
         There’s nothing inside her. She left me.
         I take her hand. It’s the hand of a corpse.
         “I have to go now, Mom.”
         “Clair, you can’t leave me. Clair”
         She speaks so faintly. Her voice hollows me. Tears run down my cheeks. I want to bawl. This was my mother. I want to scream and cry but her hand, I can’t stop it her hand is sucking all the life out of me.
         “You wouldn’t leave your mother, Clair. Clair”
         I feel my hand becoming hers. I am a white lump of flesh. My body is a shell and inside is air. I stare at her. I stare at her.
         The tears drown me, then they stop. She stares at me. She stares at me. I don’t know what she sees. I don’t know what she’s looking at.
         And I feel nothing.
         “Mom, you already abandoned me.” I drop her hand.
         “Clair… Clair”
         There’s nothing I can do
         “Clair”
         Then she coughs, a pathetic thing that sounds like death, and vomit starts oozing from her mouth. It’s red. It’s blood.
         “I love you, Mom.”
         But this is not my mom. So I turn away.
         “Clair… No” It’s the voice of a nightmare.

         I get in the car. I put the keys in the ignition. I back out of the driveway. I drive to the end of the street and I stop.
         My train leaves in two hours.
         She needs me.
         My train leaves in two hours.
         I don’t even know who she is. She needs me.
         I remember the first time I smoked pot. I thought it was the best night of my life. Then I got drunk, and that was the best night of my life. Then I tried shrooms. That was the best night of my life. And then I dropped ecstasy, undoubtedly the best night of my life.
         Then I tried coke. Then Mom was laying on the floor with blood bubbling from the corners of her mouth.
         Life is beautiful.
         I love Dad. Dad loved her.
         I am a white lump of flesh collapsed on the floor.
         This is my home. This is me.
         She needs me.
         I pick up my cell phone and dial 9-1-1. Then I raise my foot from the brake and I drive.

Baby’s black balloon makes her fly. Almost fell into that hole in your life.
But you’re not thinking about tomorrow cause you are the same as me
but on your knees