Call Me Jane by Anthea Carson

into Dave, and so Dave finally put his arm around me. Ziggy grabbed it and threw it off my shoulder and replaced it with his. The movie started.
    The words MOTEL HELL appeared on the screen and everybody cheered. As soon as the credits came up on the screen, everybody laughed. Raj started making wry, witty comments, and he had a real smile on his face, one that didn’t look like it could fall off any moment. Ziggy laughed and laughed and hooted that fat-woman’s laugh that he had. He wasn’t speaking to me or looking at me. Other than pressing himself up against me, you’d think he didn’t know I was there. Maybe that’s why he was pressing against me, because he thought I wasn’t there.
    I kept watching for Paul, and he kept not showing up. The drunker I became, the more I thought I saw him, dimly, from across—from very far away in—the room.
    No one was watching that stupid movie. Everyone seemed to be yelling through the whole thing. They told some great jokes while watching, but I couldn’t believe how gross that movie was. It was disturbing. I was horrified. I kept wincing and looking away, which caused both Ziggy and Dave to tickle me randomly. Krishna sat right on the floor next to the TV, smoking and laughing. She thought the whole thing was great. Every butchering received howls of laughter from her. I was the only one squirming. And Ziggy was shoving me into Dave, smothering me, taking away any retreats. Somewhere around midnight, I vaguely remember him shoving his tongue down my throat.
    Okay , I thought, and at first when I returned home I was pretty happy about it. I wasn’t thinking about Paul, at least for the moment. I had this weird fantasy about Ziggy. I don’t know why. These feelings didn’t feel right though. These feelings felt like … I don’t know. I lay down on my folded-out-couch bed. My mom had made it for me. She always did. The sheets were folded back in a triangle.
    “He makes me feel… I don’t know, I guess I’ll figure it out later,” I said to the room, and then I crawled into those soft, cool sheets. I kicked my feet around and made myself comfortable.
    I could see my maple tree outside, with its branches scraping against the big picture window. I could feel a cool breeze from the open side window. I could read, if I wanted to. There was a little bedside lamp to read by. I loved to read by that light, and then click it off when I grew tired, but I didn’t read that night. I turned it off and fell asleep to a strange feeling.

SEVENTEEN
    For some reason, everyone was ending up at the Burger King. It wasn’t like we planned it or anything. First it was me, Krishna, Gay, and Chrystal. Usually we would have just gone through the drive-through, but that night we went inside and just kept hanging around. We were stoned, of course, and the dope we had was really good. Everyone was acting very strange. For example, Chrystal and Gay kept trying to order in rhyme. They were trying to say “I’d like a Coke, medium size, and a large order of fries,” but they kept breaking into laughter and having to start over. The clerk behind the register waited with patience but no smile. Then Krishna was being very out of character, or maybe it was her character. She kept yelling like a drunken loudmouth that someone should provide her an ice-cream cone, extra large. If there was anyone else in the place, they had to have been staring at us.
    The lights in those Burger Kings are so bright. Or it least it seemed that way. I was too stoned and laughing too hard to be thinking about Paul or anyone else, but at some point Ziggy and Dave and Raj arrived, and a few minutes later Tom—the bass guitarist—showed up too. They came lumbering in, seeming just as loud and fun as we were, and joined us at our table. Krishna was still yelling her order for an extra-large ice-cream cone, and Gay and Chrystal were still trying to put their order in rhyme. At some point, a loud burst of laughter