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Camille pulled the hair tie off my upper arm. Things were getting blurry but I could see the round impression left; like a worm wrapped tightly around the tricep, left to remind me: danger. Danger is here. Unintentionally, I moaned when she pulled it down. Reprieve from the strangle and I had not been able to move my arm on its own in hours.
“How the fuck…”
“It’s yours, Lilian,” I interrupted lunging, using my left hand to propel me.
I remember spitting on her then. I remember her reflexively smacking my chin without letting go of my wrist where the band had temporarily landed.  I remember telling Laura that she put the band on my arm, pointing at her and moving to the other side of the bed once she let go. And even in my growing infirmary, I read faces and  Laura gave Camille a mirthless, pleading look but she also eyed me with some sympathy. Almost like she believed me. That anything was possible when you witness it. Then I was being dragged up. Cackling.
“My arm almost fell off,” I say to the mirror.
“We should take her to the hospital. Forget about the flight.”
“I don’t have health insurance!”
Lucid in moments, more fleeting now, but still lucid enough to reason. Any sane person would have called 911 but I said.
“I’ll refuse and they will have to leave.”
“You’re a danger to yourself, Ava.”
“You’re a danger to everyone, Camille.”
It must have been her name that did it. Since I didn’t call her by her real name, Lilian, but her here name Camille and lucid. I possessed moments of true ferocity. They’d seen me worse, or at least heard me on the phone worse. They’d seen me crawl my way out of psychosis and depression. Seen me eat only baby food for a week in bed. Seen me talk to the walls before. Seen me perch on illness, make mountain of it, climb. Here I am, a trekker. They each had me by my upper arms; Camille on my right now, away from the sore. And when I did look over, I could see Laura staring at the imprint curiously. Yes, we should all be so curious now. Then Camille in front of me at the bottom. I felt no one near me. She was wearing a cloak.
“Yes, I told you it was cold.”
Behind Camille, two more cloaks, yet was I being ignored? Did I crawl down the stairs? Did anyone hand me a handkerchief to wipe my chin? Had I showered the bile off? It is amazing what the body will tolerate. Amazing how pliable one becomes in illness; a marionnette being taken and held, bounced, and forced to walk, wake up, swallow. What it remembers: the mechanics of chewing, swallowing, bending knees, gripping hand railing. Memory. Sometimes memory goes first and that is a blessing. Would be better to rot in blank space in a rocking chair in the corner watching the wayward girl make faces from the branch. But memory works to help you hold the handle of your rolly bag being led by three cloaks until one forgets and you drop the suitcase in the driveway. You are now staggering in mid air. You are now in a net in mid air. You are now in the snow.
“I should have a cloak too.”
When I sneezed, a little blood came out but no one noticed.
Deathly silent in the Lyft. Some part of my body understood I needed to be quiet, to be good, to get through the gate to get home so they wouldn’t call the police, to get back to my living room floor and to get back to my sparkle-drop ceiling where I can lie languid, unbothered. Let the hoods come when they come.
“I’m glad I slapped, Camille,” is all I say the whole ride.
My head is cooling on the window, now aflame. Before, when the breeze hit my body I chilled like I had been dipped in one of those cooling pools at the spa: suddenly. Now, I was sweating. I had demanded I wear my sweatshirt the whole ride and my entire forehead was perspiring. I could see the driver in the rearview glance at me every so often but mostly I watched the five women galloping alongside the car with me, on white horse. Don’t tell them.
“Who?” I say out loud.
Well, I said two things the whole ride.  I leave a streak on the window when I peel myself away at arrival. Laura didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything when I said I was glad I slapped Camille and she didn’t say anything when I called her Lilian and a vituperative cunt. She didn’t try to take my sweatshirt off. It is cold on the plane,I overheard her say to Mac on the way out. She didn’t say anything else to me most of the time and I was in better company now. She just took my hand and walked me up the curb and watched me with my roller bag, giggling, sweating profusely, saying ok a lot as if I was agreeing to some internal proposal.
“Don’t tell them you have the flu,” she nudged me.

“Girl, I don’t have the fucking flu.”“Pull your hood off.”
“But everyone else is wearing a cloak.”
She sighed and did it for me and that look, the look I saw back at the house, that terror-struck freeze, mouth slightly ajar, eyes mollifying, almost submitting to the horror on instinct began to come over her again. I was pinching her wrist with my nails tightly as I grabbed them and it was hard, getting harder to stand there without falling over so for one moment part of it was for balance and the other was trying to parse my lips apart; so dry they had stuck together to say something in seeth. Her lips drew back to her teeth as a piece of my bottom lip was ripped carelessly, now hanging from my top as I spoke. I could feel it, unbothered.
“Don’t fucking touch me again without asking me, you wench hot bitch.”
When I laughed, I remember everyone turning to look and from the side, I could see her, still stuck in a moment already passed like a statue.

I don’t remember much that last day and a half in New Orleans except I was a cannon ball; the bed swelled around me like a cradle. Falling deep in, the line the ripe earth yawns daily and swallows me whole floated around my head which was full of water   like a well. Go down the well, Catarina. Could visualize the words on the pages in their circular motion and their staircase mime and the way they trickled off the paper enticing you to crawl towards the depth with them. They said I slept most of the time. Bones wrapped my muscle like vines and stuck to the indentation of the mattress with sweat. Caged there, twisted, beads hooked to the linen like curled fingers jumping from my skin. At one point, I drew my knees close to my chest and felt goosebumps prickling the entirety of my calves. My arm fell asleep a couple of times from laying on it for hours.  When I coughed, which was every so often, a putrid smell escaped my breath like I’d eaten my own shit and regurgitated it. I had not brushed my teeth in twenty hour hours. Someone fed me toast with vegan margarine.  Stomach was hollow and gurgling, folding in and over and rising with air. They said I had a fever. Sometimes a weak moan escaped my lips. They said I was mumbling and tossing my body in phases then so deathly still Camille would check my pulse.  Laura asked to checked the sheets. Turned over and saw a drop of red on my white pillowcase from my chapped bottom lip. They said I picked at it with my fingernail in line waiting to get into terminal so long it turned black. The person checking my boarding pass asked if I had been in a fight.
“Don’t say you have the flu,” Laura nudged me, whispering. Laura didn’t believe it or else why would she keep touching me? These things are not contagious just spectacular to witness. Decay. Rancor. Disintegration of esophageal motility first, for years, then the shock of the loss of brain matter. Then the swiftness in which it enters through a cavity. Your previous worries seen as naive, only to yourself but matter of factly ignorant,  thinking it would come from the gut or a crashing car or a leap from an overpass and then deftly, a tiny trickle. A small wave.
“I’m opening the window,” Camille burst in the evening before to throw it open with aggression, as if she was angry. Usual.  As if this was personal. “It’s sour in here.”
When I breathed loudly, I knew I was alive. Like fresh manure. They said I slapped Camille’s hand away when she tried to put the blanket on me. Said I tried to bite her index finger when she fed me toast.  Said I called her “Lilian.” Said I’m fine with aggravation. Said no. I don’t know how I boarded the plane. Laura led me by the crook of my elbow most places.
“I feel fine,” Laura came to get me up to pack my suitcase the morning of  our departing flight. We were going together. It was 7:30 am and I was shivering from the breeze.
“I’m cold.”
“It’s eighty degrees in here.”
No one closed it. I was on my left side with my right hand and forearm  back under my cheek, the appendage numb,  staring at her, vapid save the few lines floating through my head. From books. Notes I wrote to myself. Perseverations. I am comfortable in devotion. Push Lilian in the well. First chill-then stupor-then the letting go.

“Emily Dickinson.”
Laura paused, a black and pink tee shirt in her hands, something I had bought the first day of the conference when I was feeling better. I don’t remember what it said. A statement of unity, liberation, clarifying a position to the public.  Advertising yourself, politicizing yourself, making spectacle of self.
“A spectacle is me,” I mumbled.
She didn’t look directly at me, just side eyed, “Once, we get you back, I think you should see a doctor”
No. Not sure if I said it, moaned it or blinked it.
There she is hanging from the tree.
“There.”
Laura was folding the shirt neatly into squares, each tinier than the last with great consideration that in a better state I would have thanked her for. “Where?” she didn’t look up.
And I was lost in a stare in the mirror hanging on the back of the door, shut for our privacy. Close it, I had hissed when she came in with a steaming mug at 7 am. When she cheerily announced she had gotten ginger lemon tea from the store.

“Ava,” my eyes were set on the mirror now so I couldn’t see her scowl,  but she had a maternal tone to her, reproachful but caring. She knew best here. A disappointed caretaker. A concerned guardian; punishing but tender, coddling, clutching clammy palms with pride at the feeble thing learning to behave.
“No, I’m Catarina.”
And the girl in the white dress waved to me, not sullen today but enthusiastic, beckoning, racing on her perch with glee. . I would have waved back if when I lifted my chin to salute her back I could feel anything in my arm.
“Holy fucking shit, Ava.”
My  mouth was wide open. I was sort of leaning on my elbow but barely  keeping up. I could feel drool hanging from my lips but I couldn’t see it in the reflection.
“You can see her, Laura?” I asked, voice lowered, stern, purposely masking my excitement. A drop hitting the metal railing below; a new fixation for my eyes to follow. My saliva in bulk pouring out, leaving me. Something was leaving me. Parts of me.
She had always made her opinions clear with her face, at meetings, out in public, in general. Like Camille, any disdain was visible, any confusion marked with a squint, her distaste for men apparent in every room we occupied, the two of them teaming up and glaring. This, i looked back at her slowly, this terror was a fresh emotion to witness but unmistakably present in her body. She shrunk, recoiled, pressed her butt lower on the thighs she was sitting on almost as if she was going to lie down on the floor. This was horror. This was the way you describe someone when you say “they witnessed a harrowing event.” Smaller, retracting, wanting to slink backwards out of the room to make sure the thing doesn’t chase it. Doesn’t infect it. This is non contagious. This is contained by force of fate.
“Your entire arm is blue,” she said so softly and strained, like it almost didn’t want to come out of her throat. Like she was about to pull the words back for fear of upsetting the arm or the drooling thing attached. Quiet, uncertain.  I almost didn’t hear it. 
The only reason I knew what she said is  because I looked where she was looking, my flesh, once olive and taut and smooth and envied even, was now a very pretty, I supposed shocking but I found something about it appealing,  pale blue; the kind that denotes a lack of; blood, oxygen, mortality. Or like a frozen body. Some parts were still flesh colored; the discoloration was patchy, but from my bicep down most had that flint dotting; ash and water mixed as if someone had beaten the entirety of my arm all night. Or parts of it were stuck in a freezer. A frozen lake. An algid well.
“Yeah, Laura, “ I did not look back up at her and began to smirk, “and so is everything else.” I laughed loudly then.
Out of my periphery, I saw her jump a bit before screaming for Camille. As I laughed,  a trickle of brackish water ran down my chin. I know cuz I was dead staring at the mirror.

“I am like a room where things once happened and now nothing does…”

–The handmaids tale

It happened so quickly. Me, staring at the crack in left window pane. Me, feeling the buzz of a fly or gnat or something fly by. A mosquito on my wrist and absentmindely scratching at it. Me, walking up, me peering down. Noticing the blood on my wrist. Then me holding him, him wrapping his hands around my waist swaying like we were on a ship. He exclaimed, “Shit!” as I vomited but he didn’t push me away. No, he pulled me closer and led me to the car.   Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him flag her down while I was still bent over. I remember wanting to lie down on the pavement but being feeling pulled back up by him.
“This taxi has no taxi sign,” I murmured.
My legs felt asleep. Tingly, or like the muscle had stopped working. Like they didn’t work properly. My debit card, which had been clutched between my index and middle finger, dropped on the grass and I heard him say jesus but then it was back in my hand.
“Put it in your pocket,” and I felt him dig in my shorts
My meek whispers of ok but still swatted at his hand slightly. Reflex. I remember everything in color. Staring at the yellow house with the crack in the white window pane and the verdant grass, glistening, still dewy. I think I wanted to sit on it, touch it with my tips and remember school days. Early morning walks like this always make me think of going to the bus stop. Paused, recalling three places now; the van rides, the bus rides, the plane ride here. The flight at 7:17 am and the fortune from the fortune cookie I found at baggage claim: Luck! You are on an adventure!
When I crawled into the car, my debit card fell on the carpeted bottom and I watched it. As the door slammed, I set my eyes on it: black with silver indention, numbers, meaningless, put together somehow linked to currency. Somehow linked to me. I should pick this up.
“I should pick this up,” I murmured.
It was 6:45 am, eighty degrees and rising and I had to yet to drink or eat anything.  I had brought the card to buy water if needed. I remember declaring out loud that I was going to the house to get help that’s why he caught me in the driveway. Sheepish in infirmary, I felt the need to explain myself. WhyI needed a hand or why I had been sick. Blamed it on food. Why I had paused to talk to that caterpillar. Why I ate a whole box of crackers four nights ago. Why the smell of vomit sometimes cradles me.
“Quiet, lay down,” he said through the open window.
I thought we had already left. I was on my knees on the seats reaching for the card but in vain and then turning.  On my back, it felt worse. The vinyl stuck to perspiring thighs. The car undulated. Felt like I was floating atop a sea of waves coming in. Above me a piece of the spongy brown foam ceiling was hanging;  slit like someone had taken a razor and sliced it.
“That always happens in old cars,” I muttered.
“Are you ok, honey? You gonna make it?” she shouted from the front.
She had big brown curly hair. That’s what I could see. And one of those Yankee Candle air fresheners. Pineapple. I remember saying something like Oh God and sitting up and her screeching a bit and telling me to hold on. I remember grabbing my torso and letting my head rest against the closed window. Closer to her, I could hear her gum snap as she drove, loud. The sensation overtook me. Remember saying I may have caught a stomach bug from my roommate. Remember lying back down the opposite way so I could see the side of her face: slightly wrinkled, her jaw moving effortlessly, plain, white, in her fifties. Remember telling them the house number o n e f i v e o  n e   t  w e e e l v e. Slow like that. Remember a brown Hyundai with vinyl seats. Wasn’t a taxi. At some point, I looked down and saw my forearm covered with yellow spit. I’ve always been lucky. My debit card was laying by my shoe. I was sitting up again.  I’ve always been like this: tainted.  She helped me up the driveway. Said I was “dead weight.” I remember her saying that. I’ve always been lucky.
“Girl, you are dead weight.”
It felt like being dragged. She waited til I hit the code to the door, which I did remember and began to say it out loud z e r o f o u r no no honey don’t tell me, just get in. Felt  like falling asleep. Like I was falling asleep as I began to walk through the door. I don’t remember how I got upstairs but in an hour someone was shaking me lightly.
Cat.
I heard a whisper.
Catarina.
“Mmm.”
Cat.
I felt something poke me in my back. Catarina.
“Ok, I’ll drink the water.”
I pushed my body up so I could reach the nightstand. There it sat: the half glass from last night and just a little ways past, the oak in morning light. Even though my whole body felt stiff, I turned my head anyway. There was no one in the bed. It was just her repugnant smile.  I could see her out the window in her white billowing dress and dirty blonde hair, Catarina
scratching at the pane with a branch
Catarina
tapping on the pane with a branch.
Catarina
that dead stare
Cat
that dead stare.

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”

–The Handmaids Tale

By six am, I was up, showered and dressed. Since no one was up, I dawdled in front of the mirror. I didn’t know where my chapstick was–hadn’t used it since I got here. My bottom lip was cracked and sore. It looked like I had developed a fat lip in the night, possibly biting it during my frenetic sleep. I ripped a loose piece of skin off of it and watched it turn from a grayish-pink to bright red. Touching it to feel the moisture, then tasting it to confirm, as if the mirror weren’t enough. My lip is bleeding.  Having slept for almost 15 hours, I was antsy to get outside. I wiped the blood on a tissue and threw it in the trash. The bed was wet from sweat, urine and smelled but I ignored. I didn’t tell anyone before I left the house and no one heard me. Quiet, stealth, I put my shoes on last. They were sneakers, not platforms, not heels like Camille wears. I never tell anyone anything. Though, I realized looking back it would have been better if I did. Then they would have known where I was. My phone was dead. I just needed to walk.I told myself not to go far. I told myself just to walk a mile. I told myself I fainted yesterday. I told myself the address twice just in case.
By 6:30, I guessed I was three miles away but f e e ling better. This is usual. I wasn’t hungry but I wasn’t passing out and the headache was gone. Stopped in front of another rancher, a blue one, I first noticed the awning: white, cracking, then the screen door with a giant hole in it.
“So many issues,” I murmured.
Then I was gliding, tiptoeing up the driveway like I didn’t want to get caught. As if I was going to break in. I don’t know what came over me. I was  being carried. There was a voice in my head that said go and I did. It wasn’t my voice. Snickering. There was snickering in my head. I was halfway up the walk when I felt my abdomen turn in on itself, like a mouth eating itself, or trying to swallow its tongue, then a rush of fluid up my chest. With less than a second and half of a blink, I keeled over and began vomiting.
“Hey, hey!” someone was yelling behind me.
I felt dizzy. Not just dizzy, but pressed to the ground like something was pushing me down.
“Hey!” a man was only five feet behind me. “Girl, are you ok?”
Whipping my head around, something flicked onto the edge of his pants. Streaks of yellow bile coated my chin. He backed up.
“Girl,” I laughed. “That’s so southern.”
Beaming up at him, I could feel the wetness of my chin. Snickering in my head.
“What?” he retreated another step.  “You ok? You live here?”
“No,” I pressed my palms down on the driveway to stand.
“Easy, easy, now.”
I could hear his steps without seeing him then felt him cup my arm.
“I need a phone.”
“ I got one.”
“I mean, I need a ride back.”
“I don’t have a car,” he said.
We made eyes when we stood together. Same height flat footed. His face was sunken, like he had lost weight unexpectedly or the way you look when you’re starving but he wasn’t that thin. Scrawny though, but strong. Had no issue helping me up. He had large brown eyes and a little gray on his beard. He was on a blue Schwinn wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans. He looked to be in his fifties. Smelling of cigarettes, maybe some whiskey, he reminded me of everyone.
“Can you call me a taxi?”
“Do you have any money?” he said.“I have a debit card.”
“Ok, ok,” he placed his hand in his pocket.
Watch out,  a voice in my head said.
“What?” I responded.
“What?” he looked at me, phone in hand, eyebrow lifted, closer to me then before.
Restive, in stillness feeling more disoriented, I began to walk. Took only one step towards and him and put my arms out. I’ll always remember the expression on his face: paused, confused but emollient. A grace took over him and he turned towards me as if we were going to dance. His hands were coarse and rough around my wrist, but his touch was easing, conciliatory. His lips were chapped like mine but not bleeding. Same height as me so our foreheads lined up. Bowing, I could see his Nikes were all black like mine, then spotted with yellow like mine as I let the last of my stomach empty onto them

Feeling less guilty about missing the conference, I napped the rest of the afternoon. My dreams were uneasy again. They always are in this town but this was exceptional. Last night, a white woman appeared to me, elderly, from the bathroom. I immediately was vexed, on edge and approached her solely to to choke her to death. As if it didn’t happen, I was then back in my bed but upright. It was this room except where the TV is, there was a mirror. Staring directly at it, I watched bats fly out of my mouth.I remember saying the phrase, I cannot help you, you are already dead and then waking up horrified at 2:30 am. I don’t know who I was talking too.  Today, a black woman appeared in the room shaking her head at me. I didn’t feel like she was going to be violent, yet I got up, punched a window to produce a shard of glass and held it at her. I awoke in sweat with a start. It was a similar feeling. Like they were there in the room. Like it was really happening. Sometimes it’s like that but here it’s worse. The clock read 6:56 pm. I had slept for nearly four hours. I was sharing the room with two others but all my clothes were off as were the covers. I could hear people downstairs and the sound of pots and pans. Without any try, my eyes shut and I faded back into the dream. 

This is the barn. The dream about the barn. Or the dream about the woods, the cabin. The cabin is inexplicably on fire and I am watching it from outside. Where I stand, there are droplets of snow falling lightly and when I turn around I am facing the woods. It’s the same woods. It’s the same dream about the barn. I begin to walk towards them. They are in a semi circle and one of them stands up. I never get too far. She always starts with her hands out saying “wait, wait. be careful what you say.” And then it’s like the movie cuts or time passes, I am in the ocean, in open water, surrounded by waves that are coming from both directions. Even if I knew where shore was, I couldn’t get there because i can’t tell which current is real.
When I wake up, the clock says 9:12 pm. There is no noise downstairs and I can feel my body shivering. I have pulled my two blankets over me. The light in the bathroom has been left on. I have to pee but piss myself instead.

At 10:30, Camille is shaking me.
“You need water.”
“I need sleep.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”“No, fucking way. I probably have the flu.”
She felt my head.
“You’re hot.”
“I have the flu!”
Turning towards the window, I ripped the covers from her hands.
“Geezus.”
“Two more days and I am back on the plane. Let me rest, Camille.”
“Fine, drink this water.”
“Put it on the nightstand.”
“Drink it now.”
I wondered if she could smell the sheets. I wouldn’t tell anyone. I am sure I would feel better enough to change them before we left. 
“No,” I moaned.
“Fine.”
And in her fashion, she slammed the door. Later, I would recall things differently but it was 9:17 pm and I was already drooling. I was on a beach watching a tidal wave form.

Pulled by thirst, the walk back was faster. I had not drank anything since 9 am and that was coffee: three cups. It was 12:15 pm.  I had to pee. My stomach rumbled. I had an apple in my bag that I ate on the walk back and nothing else.
“This is usual,” I say to no one tossing the core in the gutter.
Focus. The sky was clearing but my retinas were dotted with circles, little colored balls floating in front of my eyes. I didn’t notice anything but the pavement, slick and for no reason, a red bow on the ground, like a dog collar. Everything else was a blur.
The first thing I did when I got back is throw off my shoes. The second was get a glass of water. Third, bathroom. I felt dizzy as I bent over pulling the moist cotton over my ankle; tossing them on the porch. Ignoring the new blister, ignoring the rank sneaker, I trodded in leaving a spotted trail wherever I went. The water was tap, lukewarm. Well water.  They say well water tastes better.  I didn’t notice a thing  The fourth thing I did was take off all my clothes and  get in the shower. They say that’s when I fainted.

It was Mac who found me on the floor, water running over my naked thighs and pelvis. I hadn’t fallen but slid down the tile and rested so it looked like I was asleep in the upright fetal position. Apparently, Mac pulled me out and shook me a bit til I came to. Must have been all of five minutes, truly. Lucky for me, he said, I had skipped the panel too. I had left the door open in my haste. Mac had come right after me and dutily went to shut it when he saw, curtain open, on the floor. Lucky for me.
Lucky for me the group now watched me eat lunch in front of them. It was 1:45 pm. They had brought me a salad and french fries from wherever they were and I was expected to eat all of it at the table.  “You don’t eat enough,” Camille said.
I nodded and dipped my fry in the two dollops of ketchup they gave me.
“Or drink enough water.”
“I’ve been drinking water,” I swallowed quickly to gesture to the sink. “I drank seven glasses yesterday, I counted.”
“And today?”
“Today, I forgot.”
She was picking at her chicken. I was wolfing down pieces of iceberg.
“I’ve had a headache since I got here. That’s why I bought the neti pot. I think it’s sinuses or allergies…”
“Allergies don’t make you faint. Anorexia does.”
Camille had eaten five bites of her chicken and promptly got up to throw it out.
“Oh, ok.”
She put the kettle on the stove and began to boil water.
“For tea,” she said as she walked past me. “And the neti pot.”
I heard her move upstairs, still wearing her platforms clink the whole way up and close her door, heavy. Not a slam but close. I turned to watch the kettle, enthralled. 

I hadn’t been sleeping well and couldn’t pay attention in crowds so I’d skipped most of the conference. Plus, I was developing a serious migraine that was part too much exposure, too little water and part an endless clench and grind of my teeth from trying to manage myself in this group. By the time I arrived I was soaking wet. The rain soothed me; my head, my burning shoulders, the internal fever but now my sneakers sloshed. My feet squeaked as I walked towards the entrance of the hotel.
“Forgot your umbrella?” the doorman asked.
“Yes, I always do.”
“There’s a bathroom to the left with paper towels,” he gestured. “At least  you can wipe your face.”
He was an older black man in a proper uniform: black and gold bellhop attire complete with cap. Obsequious out of force. I nodded and kept past him. Something in my head split.  I had enjoyed the walk. I wasn’t wearing much makeup so nothing smeared and I liked my hair patted flat against my skull; no frizz that way. Humidity created bulk and anxiety created turmoil that wanted me to rip volume off. Can’t explain the drive to diminish myself any more than I can explain how I got from the house to here in a linear fashion. It took me an hour and forty minutes to complete a sixty minute walk. I could, I was thinking as I wrung the bottom of my dress out in the public toilet, tell you how many cracks were growing up the side of the yellow paned rambler that gripped me for several minutes, or how many cats slinked along the fences. (Four: one gray, two brown, one black with white paws and neck tuffs). The direction of the wind and further than that, where the lightning might start given the distance between the rumble of thunder and streak, how the rain started tepidly before rushing and when and what temperature it was when it hit.
My legs were lined with bumps. I didn’t have a jacket or change of clothes.The AC was full. Also there was tension in the air. Also, something in my head screamed.
“I should leave.”
You just got here.
“But I should leave again.”

I used my phone to call an Uber. Mind you, I hesitated. The rain had slowed and I was already wet. As I watched the app buffer, I walked back towards the door man.
“You need an umbrella to borrow?”
Meekly, I nodded.
“Or a car?”
“Just an umbrella.”
The man produced a cheap black umbrella from the stand and there was no discussion of returning it. A gaze exchanged, not amicable or stern, just a pardon of sorts. I didn’t have any cash except two dollars and wasn’t sure what was appropriate so I did nothing instead. Lingering, I canceled the Uber. Something in my head split.
“I will tip you when I get back with more money.” I pulled out the two dollars: crumpled, tried to smooth it.
“Thank you but no need. Just bring the umbrella back with you later.”
He didn’t take the money or even look at it. I was afraid I insulted him. And then several black dots appeared before my eyes like the picture was changing on a movie screen to the next scene. The way it does when film starts to burn but smaller, nearly imperceptible unless you were looking in the right direction.

I was drawn to the front porches. They reminded me of home. Mini mansions; plantation houses with great big front porches and gazebos in the back somewhere, wide and wooden and pillared. They each had those big columns supporting the roof and you could sit out there and watch people walk by and sip iced tea and holler at the street.
“Rain soon, yeah?” someone called to me.
I kept walking.
That’s a southern thing. To make note of the climate and aggressively, staking your place here by announcing your existence. This is my house, it says. I will greet you but don’t stop and don’t come in. Southern hospitality. I’ll invite you, don’t come in. Wasn’t that they were slave houses that drew me, though the haunted branches did, but the size–the space, the backyard. The  whole city was painted like a slum here too. Like Philadelphia. Things I am used to: southern drawls, chipping turquoise paint, men whispering you are fine beneath their breath as I pass them, and the crunch of beer cans under my feet every once in a while. Days like this, when it’s 101 degrees, no one was out but me but their legacies marked with butts and sometimes Busch cans. Sometimes a condom, a chewed up straw. A creaking branch that dipped like something pulled it. I loved looking down to note the city’s trash wherever I went. But I loved looking up here. I loved New Orleans for the trees. They were everywhere in every yard and every walkway and the most shaded city in the USA. Had to be; you stay outside too long in Louisiana in the middle of July and you’re gonna drop dead of heat stroke. No question. Everywhere I walked contained giant oaks, hundreds of years old, bald cypress, thriving pines, continued growth, full and touched by dozens- fingers, whimpering backs, salt lined necks. I went on a park tour here just to hear them talk about the three hundred year old trees. Solace from the conference, a couple of us snuck out on a park tour. 

They never mention chattel but the branches never stop creaking.
It was July and the occasional bright magnolia also hit me. Her pink among all the verdure. I’d be caught underneath, cupping the flowers and then plucking one, rubbing the petals between my fingers to feel the wax, to watch it all disintegrate. I didn’t mean to pick the flowers. I do it with the cherry blossoms too. I always say I’m sorry. That’s a southern thing: insincerity. I love green against black sky. That’s a southern thing. Lush yards for miles and the electricity brushing the hair on my arm before the storm starts.  It was 2:30 pm. I wanted the petrichor but I’d have to wait; that dirt sex smell after rain and the worms, how they writhed in the dirt having risen the way twigs float to the surface of a lake. I could watch them for hours in their gratitude seizure. Pluck them from the ground and rub their body between my fingers to feel the mush, to watch it all disintegrate. I’m sorry, I’d say. 

I walked through Treme towards the river to admire the houses, the different colors, all bright but leaning towards that spring theme: light blue, light pink, light yellow, light green. Reminded me of my old wooden Easter basket; white but criss-crossed with plastic interlacing pastels through the wood that my mom laid with that crinkly green polyurethane grass. She would hide all sorts of chocolates and things; little cut-out chicks and rabbits all over the house that I had to find on top of some plastic eggs filled with chocolate eggs, plus the real eggs I’d dyed myself: sloppy, leaking, my Crayola marks where I signed one for the bunny. To be in his favor. It was real gluttony. My hands were always covered in chocolate and blue dye.  I cleaned the contents of the basket out in two days and left the grass so my mom wouldn’t notice but my cat could sit in it. When Mom shooed her, she saw the hedonist child.  All the houses here were that same pastel if they weren’t white. As I got closer to the French Quarter, they grew triple in size. 

The neighborhood was silent. Abandoned. The houses looked friendlier because of their coloring and the way they stood, placid, non assuming, on their big green squares. I could see ivy creeping up the siding, tendrils of brown and green wrapping ends of gutters and giant holes forming in the fascia. The trim full of openings; a new nesting area for squirrels or birds. This is a habit of mine; not just staring at houses but observing them intently to look for marks. Amazing how some skills never leave you.  I can tell when someone is going to ruin their roof by the facade. I can tell when a window pane needs replacing. In a more discouraged time, in my most diminutive, I sold siding door to door as a job. Quite good at it too even  knowing nothing about siding from day one to day ninety one, which is I think how long I lasted. Here was my skill: I could point out where the siding was, the fascia, the soffit and the trim but I had no idea how structurally they all mattered. Mostly I smiled big when they opened the door and a windfall would catch me. I am often caught staring up at roofs when someone answers the door. It’s not that I cared then or now, it’s that I always remember being good at it even though I knew nothing about houses. A Pavlovian conditioning of reward.
Find something to talk about and find something wrong with either the fascia, the trim, the windows or the siding, Tate said during our lessons.
Lessons were the worst part. We sat in the same room Monday through Saturday. Our only day off was Sunday. You can’t bother people on Sundays. This was Chesapeake, Virginia and this was the Lord’s day.  Right before we went out in the van, we had these horrifying tests in which we had to get up in front of everyone and practice our sales pitch or answer questions about the product. This was motivation for me to succeed. I neither cared about the product nor understood it completely.  If you were successful though, you were allowed to start skipping these things and other trainings and could spend more time in the field. Due to my gross incompetence, I pledged I would memorize facts quickly, smile big and perform for Tate and everyone so I would not be corrected or reprimanded publicly, but more than that, I would get the next days. And the van rides which soothed me at times. I could sell someone anything without really understanding how roofs weather storms or how windows are related to siding and how siding will eventually come back to the roof which will affect your window. Some cycle or graphic Tate had shown us but it was like the words didn’t mean anything to me when he said it. . It was just an image of a house with four arrows pointing the same direction.
See? he looked at me.
I was new. I mimed.
You could use the extra protection for winter. This winter we are supposed to have a lot more precipitation, possibly sleet.
Oh is that so?
Yes, it’s going to be a very wet winter and you said your roof is 20 years old? It’s quite possible there’s been more damage than you realize and you need support. Look here.
I pointed at nothing. The elderly man walked out to meet me a bit and squinted. Holding his hands above his eyes to use them as a shield on this bright and sunny Friday, he looked up at the invisible crack.
See there?
Eh, not really, girl.
That’s a southern thing. Boy, girl. We mean no harm with vernacular but it cuts your back when we say it. Girl. I was used to it.
Well, it looks like a crack has already formed. Plus, I pointed out to you the condensation in your windows. I quickly gestured back to the windows. This could really rot the molding and with this crack, you may end up with the entire side full of mold. I held my hands out to emphasize how big a house was. I think I should have a rep come out and meet with you tomorrow. Are you free tomorrow? Saturday?
I said the word mold a lot. In every presentation.I said the word precipitation often too. Rain. Sleet. Snow. Humidity. That falll was about the weather for me.
I am actually. Yeah, maybe. He looked back at his window, hand on his chin.  Maybe that will work.
Great. I am going to call the office right now, I took my cell phone from my pocket, and put you in touch with the receptionist who will gather your address and number and set the time. Sound ok, sir?
That’s a southern thing. Sir, ma’am. Boy, girl. He looked towards the invisible crack.
You seem trustworthy, he paused, scratching his chin and gazing upwards as I began to dial. Sure, I guess so. He guffawed and hit my back, Way to go, girl he added like he was on the joke.
That was called a next day and it was the only appointment worth setting because the homeowner was less likely to cancel if you did it day of or next day. My entire job was to get people to commit to having more qualified men come out and speak to them about the shitty quality of their decent roof and house in an effort to get them to replace their windows, siding and trim. My entire commission was based on how many next days, two days or three days I got. Anything beyond that was a waste. I didn’t get extra money and most likely, they would cancel. Because all of the women in the van hated me, I wasn’t distracted by friendship or trying to gain friendship. That man did end up buying windows. They didn’t all. But he was really was in on the joke.
One next day, I told Tate, smiling, back at the van where we were now going to listen to whatever top 100 rap songs were out until we got back to the office.
Nice!
He high fived me and Donna and Jessica glared at me as I walked by them with my long khaki shorts, respectable blue polo and neat ponytail to sit with all the guys. Jessica had not been able to set a next day for weeks and Donna was honestly trailer trash horse shit in short spandex shorts and that’s the only way she got them sometimes. When the husband was home alone. Me, I was polite. Me, I greeted the old men with shorts near my knees. I said excuse me sir, but you have a beautiful home here and smiled. I said thank you. I dropped the word mold a lot and pretended to see things forming around the vinyl of windows.  I counted cigarettes but never smoked in the field like the others. I didn’t drink before work like the others. I didn’t sneak off during shifts. I walked door to door  confidently with five facts that I alternated and greeted everyone the same.
And how’d you get that? Jessica looked back at me and smiled.
I said it was gonna be a wet winter.
Is that what you always say? Kevin asked.
That’s what I always say, I smiled big at Kevin.
Donna and Kevin were fucking.
I also say:  excuse me, ma’am, you have a beautiful home. Also I just stepped in a fire ant hill. Can you believe that? And then I showed my teeth. Kevin clapped and laughed hard and turned his whole body to face me. I continued by putting my hand on my chest and leaning forward, Oh, no!Then sticking my hands out and waving them around.Yes, it’s true. I’m fine. A little shaken but fine.
Kevin smiled at me and shot me those finger guns. Kevin was there when it really happened, when I really stepped in the fire ant hill getting off the van one day. He was the one who told me to use the line whether it happened again or not. Kevin and I were fucking.
So you just tell them you are covered in ants and having a wet winter and they…
Tate cut her off, (Redacted) has set five next days in two weeks and neither of you two have set any so maybe you should shut up and listen to her.
Oh shit, Kevin snapped.
I turned my face to the window quickly so they wouldn’t see me beam. It’s true I was the
Lord’s favorite. Despite my conservative attire, which they made fun of every time I stepped off, I was fucking half the van too.
What I learned then was no one in that van knew shit about roofs and the best way to get what you want is to become the malleable indifference. To become the caricature of what will make them feel safest and change as it changes.  To become the most drawling, trustworthy girl they have met or to quickly roll up your shorts when you get a lone man. Donna was wrong in her approach because women don’t like women who wear shorts that only go right past their buttocks. They like women who have never shown a shoulder. They like women with slightly uneven eyebrows. You do not agitate with your Marlboro stained fingertips but the bald face save some cherry Chapstick and a quick joke and an earnest compliment. That’s how I learned how to walk through walls.  Become invisible.
I walked through Treme to the French Quarter alone, covered head to toe in sweat in my blue silk button up dress with the buttons coming undone as I walked practicing inflection, admiring the garish encasements, admiring the giant oaks teeming over with Spanish moss and desperately wanting to be taken inside of them. The respite of shade. The complacency. Being forced still in a swelter of humid breeze. The yawn of me settling back against the bark, looking up, touching moss with my fingers, seeing the sun peek through the branches. When the first rumble of thunder rolled in, I was still one mile from my destination and slower than before, caught gazing upward at someone’s fascia standing at the edge of some stranger’s front yard.

“Will I always be like this?” I said out loud, feeling the first drops of rain hit.