Monarch

You are ten. School is starting. You wait at the bus stop, next to crops of milkweed that are beginning to blossom. Red beetles and monarchs crawl over the spiky pods. You try to catch them, but your fingers are stubby, and they flutter away before you can take ahold. Behind you, there is a steamy exhale as the yellow bus saddles up to the sidewalk. The diesel mixes in with the vanilla sky. You make one last snap at the orange butterfly, and as it flutters away, you realize you’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

Until today. It is on the bus that you spot her, blond hair clipped lazily behind her head, brown eyes that glisten like stones in a river. She has two hands crimped over the seat in front of her, her focus on what occurred that summer and the places she visited. You are satisfied not becoming subject to her gaze- if it happens, you’ll melt right onto that black walkway like a forgotten summer treat. So you hide in the back, three seats behind her, close enough to observe but far, far away from her heat.

You piece it together over the fall. New girl from Rhode Island. Grandmother on the hitch- her family moved to be closer to her. None of this matters to you. All that matters is a goddess walked into your life, someone to compete with sunsets and daydreams, and she’s three seats away from you. You think this would be heaven, but it isn’t- it torments you. You roll over words in your mind, none of them feeling adequate. Your vocabulary’s never been good, and you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, because you’re only ten. There’s plenty of time to study and learn and sing praise like Casanova.

Your opening comes at the playground. She pushes someone on the tire swing, her feet forceful in the mulch pit, her arms swaying in mad angles. She wants to send this kid to the stars. You figure you may as well help her. She sees you approaching and moves over instinctively.

The tire swing comes down like a Newton ball, two skinny legs poking from the front. As it nears you, it floats up, over your head and away from your fingertips, and you and the girl are stretching, begging for the swing to grace your touch once more. Your hands overlap on the downstroke.  When they do, you push the black rubber with all the force you can muster- you’re hoping she notices the soft cowlick in your hair, the thin strands of muscle that race from your neck to your upper back, the coy smile on your lips that hides the fear, the shame, the lack of everything she radiates.

You look up. The tire’s an inkwell near the branches, and you wonder what the rider sees from up there. A sleepy town on a Tuesday morning must look so beautiful from fifteen feet in the air. You’re half surprised the kid doesn’t grow wings and fly to Mexico with the other monarchs.

By the time the tire has fallen, you’ve already begun to walk away, drunk on her presence, and scared to declare it known. You turn over your shoulder- you see her waving, a sailor in the night- and you wave back with one stiff hand like an adult. She sits in a different class and is gone the next year.

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You are seventeen. You swapped the bus for an 85’ Expedition and shagged-up greasy hair. You have a Sex Pistols poster on your wall, and a copycat Sid Vicious bass from a company called Wallyburg. It was a gift from your father, and although it was cheaply made, you put the time in. You’re getting better.

You bum two cigarettes from your bandmate Artie in the parking lot. Under the streetlight, he looks like shit. Probably because he smokes two cigarettes in the parking lot every day. The thought makes you queasy, and you ash the cigarette on the wet tire next to you.

“I just gave you that, mate,” Artie whines. You live in Montclair, New Jersey, you tell him. There’s no need to use the word mate. Or anok, or shoe boozers, or gobbing. You tell him they sound weird with a Jersey accent. He tells you that’s what makes it punk. You nod, but you’ll never really get it.

Ten minutes until showtime. Bradon and Angela are already behind the curtain, setting up their kits and mic stands. It looks like they picked their costumes off Mad Max’s laundry line. Hi-top Chucks, heavy denim skirts, skintight T-shirts, fishnet gloves, black leather jackets. They make it work, and lucky you, they brought you a jacket to spare. The back says “FISHPASTE” in big white letters.

Your bass is all tuned up- the showrunner says you’re on in one. The last band, a Blink knockoff from McCormick High, has the audience still cheering just beyond the satin covering. Something tells you this won’t end well. Looking around at your friends, the way they practice their big-toothed British sneers, you decide you don’t really care. Don’t let them take you Alive- isn’t that what Sid Vicious used to say?

The curtain turns, and yellow lights are cast upon you. There are hundreds of teenagers in the crowd, all standing on their feet. They are hungry to feel something. Artie yells in his weird Brit-Jersey dialect “We are Fishpaste and it’s time for us to ROCK!” He clicks his drumsticks, and the show begins.

It’s during the third song (an anthem against cigarette taxes in Hudson County written by Artie, the only one old enough to buy cigarettes) that you find her. Waving her hands three rows from the front with auburn eyes that have grown since you’ve last seen them. She’s doing something crazy with her hair- a pixie cut? – and you feel the space between your denim and the bass get tighter. Her name is as foreign to you as California, but her presence is the same- a sun with her own gravitational pull.

Your fingers slip on the iron strings, and it sounds like swampwater against Bradon and Artie’s dual harmonics. You know they’re staring at you. You don’t return it- you are fixated on the lost girl, afraid to drop her from your sight. You don’t even notice the crowd booing by the fifth song, and as Artie drags you off stage, you crane your neck backwards. She waves a hand, just like last time, and you drop two fingers in return before being smothered in velvet.

“That wasn’t alf’ bad,” Artie says. You’re ignoring him, packing up the bass, and ricocheting into the crowd without saying goodbye. You shovel through the students for another half hour, listening to a Mellencamp duo that makes your melon cramp. You throw in the towel. She is gone.

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You’re twenty five. Your Wallyburg collects dust in your broom closet. You like the bloated smell in there, on the nights when the city shakes you. Your girlfriend yells when she sees you kneeling inside with the door half closed. That’s not healthy, she says. That’s what makes it punk, you try to remind her.

You met in college, at Rutgers. She was nicer then- she came to your parties and called you handsome and stroked the bulge in your thick canvas shorts. It wasn’t until you moved in with her, into this coffin in the city, that you realized you are her prize horse. She doesn’t care about the sheen of your fur or the curve of your mane- she cares about how fast you can run. On Wall Street, you feel as though the horses run fast forever. You snort the galloping dust and try to keep up with the pack.

It’s getting to be a bit of a problem, the way you carry it around and tap lines of it onto folded-up business cards. On bad days, you mash it onto your gums right at your desk. No one bats an eye- they’re all doing it, in cars and stalls and low-gloss limousines. The difference is that you don’t enjoy it. Still, it’s ten thirty on a Monday, and you’re taking big white hits in a crumpled closet heap.

You stand up and move out to your small twelfth story balcony, the space between the iron railings no bigger than a bathtub. The wind is blowing, and it buzzes against your skin like a snowstorm. You lift your hands up, and they grasp casually at the rail. You feel powerless to them, the hands that dial and shake and feed you your medicine. Your dress shoe is perched upon the bottom bar.

Your eyes are closed, and even though you know the monarchs are gone by February, you can’t help but imagine this is what they feel like. The honking blaspheme of the city feels so distant from up here. There’s only air, and the possibility to go higher, to soar. Both feet move to the bottom bar.

Gravity hits you with a haymaker, and your upper chest begins to lean over the edge. You open your eyes. She is the first thing you see, on a sixth floor balcony across the way. Blond hair, down to her shoulders, curling in the wind like holiday streamers. A dress of mahogany and a burnt orange whiskey coke balanced in one hand.

She is paint thinner. Your blurred vision is gone, your rabbled mind is extinguished. Your feet slide off the bottom bar and you collapse on the cold metal, begging it to hold your weight. It does. You look back over at her- she is sliding open the glass door behind her and entering her kitchen. Desperate, you wave an empty, tired hand. She gives you a stiff, two-fingered return, and moves out of sight.

You search that building for two weeks, knock on every six and seventh story apartment. You even give her details to the doorman. He shrugs- “I’ve never caught her, man.” And neither will you.

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You’re thirty two. It’s your wedding night. Artie’s on stage, a long wrinkle holding the sweat above his bleached brow. The dance floor is mobbed. He and his new band are going for a Billy Idol thing, and somehow they’re picking up steam. You had to call him six months in advance for a booking. “I wouldn’t miss it, bruv,” he chimes in his old, confused accent.

Your wife is the center of attention, her body moving like satin through slipped fingers. “You just needed a Jersey Girl,” your father whispers next to you. The thought of that terrible night in New York with your terrible ex are a picture flash, and then you are back, smelling the seaside air and the warm orange glow of the dancefloor. You smile towards him and take a sip of Coke- it is dry, just the way you like it.

Her name is Laurie, and she is pregnant. She was nervous to tell you- you awoke to a smothering of grits and poached eggs and pancakes with the Canadian syrup she introduced you to. It spilt from her lips at the same moment you lanced your yolk- you heard “I missed my period” in hot messy yellow. You looked up, and in her hands was a test, tear covered. You wiped them away. A shotgun wedding it is.

But it doesn’t feel like a shotgun wedding. It is too happy, too cohesive for a nickname like that. You see your mother dancing with your nephew, his little red tie bouncing up and down as he scoots on her feet. Behind them, Bradon and Angela dance in each other’s arms. You’re surprised to see them so close, so joyful, when it feels like just yesterday, you were screaming anarchy in Artie’s basement.

In the middle, Laurie dances with her grandfather. He is slow, and she moves at his pace, but she’s so sexy when she does it that it makes you want to step in and stop the whole thing. Instead, you grin head to toe and watch her delicate stilettos click to Artie’s gravely “White Wedding” cover.

You find yourself glancing at someone over Laurie’s shoulder. It’s your friend, the one with the auburn eyes, and at first, you’re not even surprised to see her. She is smiling, bound in a tight autumn dress, her hair a million shades of gold. You’re glad she’s on the sideline- it’s impolite to outshine a bride on her wedding night. She sees you and raises her old fashioned.

You hold a hand up and begin to move. Your mind is a jet stream, and you throttle towards her, careening through relatives, sorting for a question to start with. Who? How? Why? A dancing Uncle Steve knocks into you, spraying Coke on your jacket. He apologizes- you nudge him away. But when you raise your eyes again, there is no trace of her. Only a bartender in a cheap bowtie, holding a half-empty whiskey glass in his hand.

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You are fifty two. Laurie holds your fingers as your daughter Becca crosses the stage. In a sea of teenagers, she is one-of-a-kind. Bright blue eyes under a sea of brown hair. She puts it in a bun when she’s playing with her crew.

She begins to twirl a drumstick above her head. Artie taught her that one. There is an amp of energy among the students at the barrier, and she smiles a debilitating little weapon. It worries you to know that a lot of these teenagers will be thinking of her tonight. You whisper the joke to Laurie. She laughs and squeezes your thumb.

It starts with a crash, a mad cymbal tirade, before the lead singer, a rat-haired scrawny blond, comes in on top. It’s a breathy voice, full of emotion, and you know he’ll be a star. You wonder if he’ll bring Becca along for the ride.

The song is called Build My Wings, and it’s deeper than anything Fishpaste ever came up with. A minor guitar riff intros the chorus, and the blondie points his cat eyes to the crowd. They go wild and sing the words with him.

“I’ll use my hands… some nails and springs… it’s time I go… and build my wings.”

Becca comes in on a fast snare break and finishes the set on a solo. As you watch, you feel every ounce of her life within you. You find yourself tearing up, and you fish your phone from your pocket. You take pictures as the crowd erupts. She finishes and tosses her drumsticks off the stage with a smile. Laurie gives you a kiss on the cheek as they walk off.

It’s three days later that you notice it. About fifteen snaps in, there’s a hand from the crowd, held around an airborne stick. It’s only the back of her head, but from the glow of her hair and her orange tank top, you know it’s her. You print it out the next day. It’s the best picture you’ve ever taken.

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You’re seventy six. Things are confusing. Maybe they always have been, but especially now. People hold your hand in a blurry white room. A black lady in a trench coat. An old man with an accent. A girl that reminds you of Laurie. They feel nice, the softness of each one, and you latch onto them. They’re the only things that keep you afloat nowadays.

Looking at the pictures on your nightstand help, too. You always start with the wedding photo. It’s you and Laurie, bending over each other on a cotton candy beach. You find it hard to etch out her face in any other dimension, but this is close enough. You bring it to your lips and kiss it.

The next one is a baby. That one you know is Becca. She always loved to be tickled, and you give her some now, your wrinkled finger making a quiet squeak against the glass. You cycle over to the last one.

It’s a concert. On the stage are some rockers- three guys and a girl. You can’t tell who they are, and you haven’t been able to for a long time. But they never interest you. It’s the hand, the hand that always draws you in. So poised and straight, a true-to-form Lady of the Lake. You stare at it a long time- and finally, for the first time, you know who it is.

You look up from your bed. She’s sitting at the end, a smile on her face and a whiskey balanced in her lap. Her auburn eyes are the first clear eyes you’ve met in forever. She holds out her hand, an orange charm bracelet jingling on her hand. “It’s time to go.”

Your teeth feel brittle, but you find yourself smiling too, smiling at the world and the hum of it all. You grab on to her hand, and it’s as warm as you’ve always imagined it. You close your eyes and pull it to your forehead.

When you open your eyes again, you’re at your elementary school playground. Below you is the tire swing. You look over your shoulder and grin at the cute golden blond as she gets you some momentum. Up and down, up and down. Your smile gets bigger- everything points towards the sky. The pushes get heavier. You can see some houses, and the orange residue of fall. You’re ready, and you feel your fingers loosen on the chains.

There's another person behind you now. You’ll never know who. At the last swing, you remember those monarchs, the ones you could never catch, and as an extra force moves you higher into the sky, you hear a church bell, and flap your wings above a sleepy autumn town.