Rest in peace

Rest in peace.

Warning! Mention of child abuse, rape, miscarriage, and revenge.

The fifth step from the top on the main stairs has chewing gum stuck in the left corner as you come down. In the south wing, in front of the second-floor girls’ room, a couple of the tiles are cracked. A section of baseboard, just outside the chem lab, has a mysterious stain with a lingering sulfur odor. Two of the ceiling tiles in the boy’s locker room are broken. A budding Peeping Tom fell through when trying to get to the girl’s showers, where in the last shower mold grows around the drain. And a patch of carpet in the nurse’s room, right under the cot, has a generous blood stain.

How do I know this?

I live here. I have lived here since the week before Halloween and have gone unnoticed since. During the day I attend classes, sit with other students in the lunchroom, linger in the yearbook and school paper office and faithfully attend all play rehearsals. In the evenings, after sports, debate or chess club meets, I spend time in the library. When I need to, I rest on the narrow cot in the nurse’s office.

Who am I? My name is Eve,

I was born and lived in Home Valley, an iffy neighborhood on the south side of town that sprang up in the thirties and never disappeared. The prefab homes, part of one government program or another, were never meant to last more than ten years. But a constant patching and shoring up while adding an extra bedroom or two has kept the eyesore around. The occasional zealot attempted a kitchen garden. But unless they fancied dandelion salads, they were out of luck.

My mother worked at the shoe factory which was at least one hour away. She sewed soles onto sneakers, baby sneakers and got paid an extra twenty cents because the risk of sewing her fingers to those tiny shoes was high. Our neighbor, Mrs. Marsh, also worked there. They carpooled to work. Mrs. Marsh’s twin sons, Donny and Duke were paid a dollar per day to look after me. They were thrilled with the money but couldn’t be bothered to look after a seven-year-old girl. They locked me in the hall closet each day and went back to their video games. My mother didn’t believe me when I told her. I learned to stop crying and begging. By the light of a flashlight, I did my homework and lost myself in books.

Until the summer I turned fourteen. Suddenly, the two boys took a fresh look at me and invited others over. Boys from all over the neighborhood gladly paid a dollar for a turn with me. Some were too bashful to touch me, but most not. The first time had been the worst, but it never got easier. The Marsh boys threatened me, said they’d do much worse if I told anyone. I gritted my teeth because who’d believe me anyway? Who even knew I was around?

I was that shy, awkward girl. The one who pushed her glasses back on her nose every five minutes. Rarely if ever spoke to anyone. Never volunteered an answer in class. I was forgettable.

The twins would drag me home each day, eager now to have me around. Making a few extra dollars, taking turns themselves, holding me down, making sure I wouldn’t bolt or fight.

My schoolwork suffered. Teachers forgot to call on me, and didn’t seem to notice that my homework was not turned in. Each day I retreated further inside myself. I’d clutch my books to my chest, walked with my head down, hiding behind my hair. I’d slink along the walls and fade from one classroom to the next. I became less than a shadow of the unremarkable girl I already was.

Most of the time my mind was elsewhere. Anywhere but in this reality. I lived in the books I had read as a child, when I had been locked in that closet. I fought the good fight on Treasure Island, argued philosophy with Lilliputians, slipped down the rabbit hole with Alice, or bested the witch in Oz. My favorite place was Never-Never Land. I had a little crush on Peter Pan, imagined that Wendy was my friend.

One afternoon in late October, I wasn’t feeling well, my belly was hurting. Sitting still in algebra was painful if not impossible. The teacher, distracted by my fidgeting, sent me to the nurse’s office. The nurse, however, was not there. I could have gone to the secretary and asked for the nurse, but I saw the cot and slipped into the small treatment room. I closed the door, and curled up on the cot, biting my fist to keep from crying. I wanted to slip into one of my fantasies, but the stabbing pain kept me anchored in reality. When I realized I was bleeding, I became scared and embarrassed and crawled under the cot.

At the end of the day, when the nurse came back, not knowing that I was in the backroom, she grabbed her purse and coat and locked the office for the weekend. During that weekend I miscarried the fetus I hadn’t known I carried. Then I died of blood loss, right here under this cot.  

Why am I still here?

I vowed that as long as any of the boys who touched me or their families attend the school, I’ll haunt them.

For the past seventy-five years I have perfected tearing up homework, sabotaging science projects, obstructing plays in basketball, shutting off the hot water in the locker rooms, hiding props in school plays and smudging the camera for yearbook photos.

It is child’s play to now and then, screech at the top of my lungs over the pa system. To send the red Kool Aid pitchers crashing to the floor. It takes a little more work to drag discarded sneakers through ketchup leaving bloody footprints in the halls and real planning to save enough dead bugs to fill a bucket and scatter them in the girls’ bathrooms.

Today is the anniversary of my death. Though I’m the only one who knows that. I’m sure it’s coincidence that a special award ceremony to honor Donny and Duke Marsh is held this afternoon. The successful businessmen, though nobody mentions how they make their money, have donated a filthy amount to help renovate the old school building. The two eighty-three-year-old men, their wives, number two and four respectively, their kids, Darlene, Dominic, Denise, Darryl, Dilbert, Daisy, and Duke Jr, are in attendance as are the grandchildren.

The principal speaks at length about the twins’ contributions to the community. When it is time to show the plaque, the one that will be embedded in the wall of the new wing, I show my work.

My contribution to the festivities has taken many months to make. I borrowed supplies from the chemistry lab, the art room and school office. I paid attention and learned about PowerPoint and such. Not all of the images are sharp, but the text and message is crystal clear.

My presentation includes my drawings of a little girl locked in a broom closet and of a teenage girl being raped. I raided old yearbooks for photos of the boys who had participated. I show that money had been paid. And end my slide show with gruesome photos of dead premature babies. The audience is  stunned. Some people scream, others retch, a few run out. But most, like Donny and Duke, stare transfixed at the screen that shows their history and guilt.

Nobody notices the first little spark. The one that triggers the next five and how they ignite the century old materials, till it is too late. Only the ones with a weak stomach make it out of the auditorium before all the doors lock.

My name is Eve. I skip down the hall and laugh hysterically when the Marsh family and many of the citizens from the south side go up in flames.

My work is done.