Come Clean. Terri Paddock
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some other newborn-gawkers to the front of the glass so he can size us up. We’ve been stashed in the same crib and, to be honest, we’re not too impressive. Downright tiny, only five pounds apiece and drowning in hospital regulation cotton. And we’re yellow, shrivelled and flaky – overcooked, as Mom used to say – these are things she remembered to tell us. But we’re men-to-be. Dad eyes his progenies and, without consulting Mom who’s got many days and weeks of drugged-out-ness ahead, he decrees us Joshua and Justin. He tells the nurse or orderly to write it down. And they keep shtoom, do as they’re told and write down Joshua and Justin Ziegler.
‘How adorable,’ coos Grandma who’s just caught up, towing Grandpa behind her like a badly hitched trailer.
Then Grandpa judders to a halt and follows Grandma’s finger to where it crooks at us through the glass. Just a bundle of baby under a single snowy blanket. He lowers his chin, squints and peers through his Norman Rockwell bifocals. ‘Amazing, Jeff,’ he says to Dad. ‘How on earth did you and Helen manage to have a two-headed baby? Ain’t that funny.’
That last bit is true, Grandpa really did say that, or words to that effect. Grandma Shirland has been telling us that story for years and others around the family have been retelling it to their neighbours, their friends, mailmen and each other until it comes full circle back to us and they tell us again like we never heard it before.
And the naming thing was also true, though Dad didn’t let that one get round quite so far. I imagine he was pretty disappointed when he realised I didn’t have a winky. He tacked an E on to my name on the hospital form, wrote it in himself, a big messy capital letter that didn’t match any of the pretty orchid-like penmanship that blossomed across the rest of the page. And I became Justine.
The Amazon woman named Hilary repeats the question. ‘What drugs have you used?’
‘None.’
She sways slightly in her seat, left to right. Hers is one of those office swivel chairs with wheels for feet. All of the chairs in the intake room are woefully mismatched. Four chairs, none the same. Mine’s a correct-your-posture ladder back, splintering wood, no cushion. ‘You sure about that?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
‘Alcohol is a drug too.’
‘OK, then, alcohol, I’ve had alcohol.’
Dad grunts. He’s lumbered with a forest-green garden chair, plastic and stackable. It’s not a piece of furniture that’s kind to the spine or accustomed to bulk. Its front two legs splay out beneath Dad as if in pain; he struggles to keep his neck and shoulders straight despite the sag. On the wall above his head hangs a needlepoint godsquad quote: ‘Believe in Him’ it commands. The rest of the walls are whitewashed, bare except for a few dusty cobwebs that cling to the furthest reaches of the ceiling. The spiders have vanished.
‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
A checked, Formica-topped table is shoved up against the wall just behind Hilary. On top of the table sits a pile of papers – some normal-sized and lots of little scraps – and on top of the pile is a clipboard. She picks up the clipboard and taps her pen against the metal clip. I focus on the tabletop. The Formica is yellowed, curling up at the corners like a half-peeled banana.
I’m hungry. And thirsty and tired. But I’m struggling to hold myself together. I saved Mark and Leroy the effort of flexing their muscles. Raised myself up, held my head high, carried myself into this dingy place with as much dignity as possible. I’m still thinking, though, that bruises, broken bones, abrasions or come what may, I might have been better off jumping from the car.
Hilary curls the top pages over the back of her board. ‘According to our files, there may have been other substances.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Marijuana perhaps. Mary Jane, grass, dope, weed, call it what you will.’
That makes me giggle because I never knew marijuana was called Mary Jane which only puts me in mind of my shoes, a girl I knew in kindergarten, and the nougaty candies in the mustard-coloured wrappers we used to love to chew even though they stuck to your teeth for hours on end. That candy business infuriated Dad, who made us floss three times on the spot.
‘Something funny?’
‘No.’
‘So how many times have you smoked marijuana?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
She checks the page, glances from it to me and back and forth again.
And waits.
I wonder. She couldn’t mean that time with you, could she? That doesn’t count. I just wanted to know what you and those weirdo friends of yours were doing. I remember it, last summer, how for weeks on end I heard you stirring in the night, watched from my window as you crept out and down the drive to where that trash-heap of a car was idling with its lights off. Where were you going, my Joshua? I had to know.
One night, past twelve, I crept down the stairs and met you at the front door. ‘I’m coming too,’ I announced.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I am. Unless you want me to wake Mom and Dad.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
I opened my mouth as if to scream.
‘All right, all right, come if you must.’ I followed you outside in my slippers and, by the time we reached the car, my feet were sodden from the puddles formed by Dad’s sprinkler system.
I didn’t recognise the three other boys in the car. They didn’t look much like boys at all. They were older, their features harder, their faces in need of a razor. ‘Who the hell is this?’ snarled the driver, who had a perm and sideburns resembling cotton balls.
‘My sister. She’s cool.’
We drove around a lot, stopping occasionally in deserted parking lots. You and your friends nursed a case of beer, smoked and shared a bottle round, even the driver swigged at it. I slouched down on the hump in the back, wedged between you and a chubby guy with an earring. You passed the bottle over me.
Finally, we parked down by the river and you and the driver went for a walk. You didn’t say goodbye to me or tell me where you were going, and the other two just kept smoking and talking over my head. I wished I was home, tucked up in bed, fast asleep. After a while, the one in the front rolled another cigarette and offered it back to Chubby. He eyed me suspiciously as he took a long drag, then he jutted his elbow in my ribs and handed it over. I knew it was no Marlboro, I wasn’t that stupid. I could tell by the sweet smell, by the way they pressed it up against their lips with their thumb and forefinger and held their breath afterwards, their chests puffed out and faces screwed up in constipated expressions. I could tell but I accepted the thing anyway and tried to do like they did.
That’s when you reappeared. You reached in through the open window, whacked me on the back and started me coughing. ‘Stop it! Don’t do that. You hear me, don’t ever do that.’ Then you hollered for a while at Chubby and the other guy. What the hell did they think they were doing, you wanted to know, just what the frigging hell.
They drove us home after that and you never let me join you on midnight rides again, no matter how much I threatened to scream – as if I would. I didn’t want to come, though, not really.
‘Once,’ I concede. ‘I smoked marijuana once.’
Our mother wags her head despairingly