Water in Chrissie

Once more I dial the number but I get the answering machine.
Again.

"Hi, it's me again. I know you're there because it's Sunday and you
always sleep in on Sundays. I just want to talk, that's all. Just
please pick up, and I swear I won't bother you again-"

Beep.

The line goes dead.

For a moment I stare at the phone, then I put
it down.
Chrissie sits on the coffee table, biting into a green apple and
swinging her ivory legs in a violet summer dress.

"He's not picking up, is he?" she asks and
chews slowly.

"No, he is not" I answer slowly and grit my teeth at all the angry
words in my head that want to come out.

"He's probably in bed with that blue-eyed cunt"

"Don't call her a cunt!"

"In your bed, the bed you made together, she's in your bed and you
don't want to call her a cunt?"

"Shut up!" I breathe furiously.

Chrissie chews relentlessly, and I wish she would fuck off.

The water is boiling in my head, and I'm starting to lose
control.

I pick up the phone again.
I know I'm being reckless but I press Re-dial.

"Sean, please pick up! I know you're angry, but I can explain! I know
you'll understand if you only just listen to me, please-"

Nothing.

Chrissie flings back her blond hair, and lets out a shrill, ugly
laugh.

"God, you're so pathetic! He won't pick up on you! Haha! Why don't you
get the message, moron? He doesn't want you anymore!"

"Chrissie, shut up!"

"You know, maybe if you cut that hair, learn how to wretch and lose
some weight, hell, he might even think of returning your calls!"

I like my hair. It falls over my eyes most of the time. My eyes are
green and I wear thick glasses. Sean called me a little mouse. His
little mouse.
But I felt so big and free, with my hair loose in his arms.

"I'm going to call him again, maybe he's still sleeping"

Chrissie rolls her eyes and jumps off the table.

"Wake up, Doris! Wake up, for the love of God! Can't you see? He
doesn't want you anymore! And who would, you fat, ugly little
rat!"

"Mouse!" I corrected her "He called me a mouse"

"You're a rat!" she screeches "And you smell of rat!"

I cover my ears and try not to hear, just like Mama, and Chrissie
starts to spin around the room in perfect circles.

"Look at me!" she says " All nice and wound up! Look, my breasts are
firm! I am soo thin!"

I love Chrissie. I bow my head and say "Yes, Chrissie!"

But inside. The water's boiling over, slowly, so that each burning drop
hits my skull and hisses with the impact of bone on fire, flesh curling
with heat like bacon in a pan.

"I miss Sean" I admit.

"You'd miss a pole if it touched you!"

Chrissie has never left my side since I was five. She is mine and I am
hers, but sometimes she likes to hurt me.

"Sean was nice" I protest.

"He has dandruff and stutters all the time"

"He carried my books for me " I insist.

"Well if he liked you so much, why isn't he here? Why is he with that
two-timing bitch instead? Huh?"

"Stella's nice " I insist.

"For fuck's sake, how can you be so Goddamn
forgiving? You're old pussy, and he wanted new pussy!"

"Don't say that word!" I screech and try to walk away.

"Pussypussypussypussy!" she sings and skips behind me.

"I did like the way he touched me there, though!" I admitted.

"You sick, little dog, you'd have liked a kick in the head just the
same"

"But it hurt when he stuck his tongue in, I wanted to tell him to stop,
but I couldn't breathe!"
I giggle helplessly at the embarrassing memory.

"Oh, you filthy rat, no wonder no one's touched you since you were ten!
Now shut up, and suck your belly in!"

"Yes, Chrissie!", I swallow my giggles and burp.

Chrissie's still pirouetting around the room, though the coffee table
and over the phone, humming softly to herself off key.

"I miss Sean!" I whined.

"You miss your Mama's slap across your face, that's what you
miss!"

In my head, the water is slowly sinking into my veins, and I'm getting
that bad, heavy feeling again.

I don't like that feeling.

Chrissie is still spinning, now she's talking to
herself in a sing song voice:

"You do not do, you do not do, anymore black shoe"

"Hi it's me again. Sean, please, I know you still want to talk to me.
You see, I know you better than you know yourself. I know you have
honey muffins for breakfast over at Cora's, you bike over to college
every morning at exactly 8:20 am, you sit under the oak tree during
lunch break and read Virginia Woolf, eat a Granny Smith apple. See, I
know you're sweet and sensitive, you're a little mouse just like me. SO
please pick up!"

"You do not do, you do not do, anymore black shoe"

"Sean, it hurts when you ignore me. I know you love me, why are you
doing this? You called me your little mouse, remember? I was your
little mouse, and you used to pet me."

"Daddy, I have had to kill you, you died before I had time"

The feeling is getting bad, and when it does, I get so weak, that
Chrissie takes over. When it gets really bad, she just leaves me and I
do something stupid.

"I know you're there, I know you can hear me, pick up Goddamn
it!"

"Marble heavy, a bag full of God, marble heavy, a bag full of
God!"

"Shut up!" I scream my lungs out at her with a force that terrifies
me.

Suddenly she's in front of me, her eyes have turned blood red and she
scares me.

Without a word, she reaches out and slaps me across the face, so hard I
fall over. The phone crashes to the floor and my skull cracks, as the
water spills into my wrists.

I shiver in the heat as Chrissie picks up the phone and says bad things
that make the bad feeling even worse.

"Pick up the phone, you cock-sucking weasel! Who the fuck do you think
you are to treat me like this! Lying in bed, laughing about me with
that dog-faced whore of yours! No one gets away with this, you rotten
piece of shit! Pick up the phone NOW!"

I cover my ears with my hands and try to block her out, but the bad
feeling is here, and it's getting black.

"Chrissie, NO!" I try to shout but all I can hear is "You do not do,
you do not do, anymore black shoe ", and I see Sean's face, but it's
not a happy face: he's squealing like a butchered pig, his eyes are
blood red.

Chrissie's still screaming, foam and eyes and blond hair and firm
breasts.

"Pick up the fucking phone, asshole! Or I swear to God, I'll come over
and make you and that bitch regret everything you've done to me! Don't
make me come over! Pick up NOW!"

The line goes dead.

Chrissie looks at the phone.

Then she yanks the wire out of the wall, hurls the phone across the
room, where it smashes against the wall into a thousand tiny pieces. I
can't see anything except blue and red and Chrissie's violet.

I hear endless wailing, like a siren and a five year old in the night,
I hearing the screeching of car brakes, like Chrissie with her mouth
open endlessly, over and over, over and over again.

She wraps her arms around me, says shush shush, there baby, don't cry
Doris, my little Doris, my little mouse. Shush. There.

The blue goes, but I still see a lot of red, the water has reached my
toes and I feel like my head is drowning in the air.

Chrissie pulls me up, wipes my tears, and pushes my thick hair off my
face.

Shush, she says, takes my hand and leads me over the broken pieces of
phone towards the door.

I ask her where we're going; she turns the door handle, stops and turns
to me, looks into my eyes. And I see that her red pupils fit into the
red world around me. I let her pull me out of the door.

The heat is waiting.

With one foot in the doorway, I look up and Chrissie's gone. No one's
holding my hand. Chrissie's not here.

I try to shout, I try to move, but my lips are hanging and my head is
heavy and everything is red.

A bag full of God.

I try to remember why I'm here, where I'm going, and then the red goes
and I can see clearly again.

Daddy.

It's so quiet and when I look at my hands, they're still red. I wipe
them on my shirt and some comes off.

I look at the room.

This is not my room.

And the phone is not smashed against the
door.

It's sitting next to an answering machine; a
red light is flashing desperately.

"Uh-Oh!" I say.

The water is silent.