Weird Girl (8 page)

“Do you mean that?” she asked.

He had been in the process of dozing off, and had lost track
of the conversation. “Wha—I didn’t say anything, did I?”

“You should learn at least one thing from every person in
your life, good or bad,” she repeated. “Did you mean it?”

Confused, he rubbed his eyes. “Umm…I guess.” His head wound
was beginning to itch, and he carefully scratched beside it.

Suddenly, she grinned at him. “Okay, then.” And then she
grabbed his cordless phone and called for a taxi to take her back home. Twenty
minutes later, Santo listened to the crunch of gravel as the car inched back
over the ruts in his driveway, and four minutes after that, he was sound
asleep. He had decided that he hallucinated hearing “See you tomorrow!” right
before the car door slammed.

8

He was still snoring in the chair when Cleo let herself in
the next morning. After checking his pulse to make sure he was still alive (she
had looked it up in a medical book), she decided to try to figure out how to
make coffee. The written instructions were in what looked like Spanish, but the
label on the back of the jar had a nifty little pictograph with a mug, a
droplet of water with the word HOT above it, and a spoon with a mounded
substance and the word COFFEE underneath it. How hard could it be, right? After
glancing at Santo, she decided that he needed strong coffee, so she grabbed a
serving spoon from the dish drainer and dumped a heaping scoop of coffee into a
Daffy Duck mug, poured in some water that she heated in the microwave, and gave
it a good stir. She carried it slowly, trying not to splash any on the floor,
and stood in front of the recumbent form in the aging recliner. After
whispering his name a couple of times with no results, she held the mug as
close to his nose as possible and gently moved it back and forth, hoping that
the smell would rouse him from what was either A. a really deep sleep; or B. a
coma.

Coffee—one of the best smells in the world. It reached in
with both hands to drag Santo’s brain back to consciousness. He had been
dreaming…something. Something about a little girl. But the coffee! The corner
of his mouth twitched and he blinked, trying to focus on the hazy outline right
in front of his face. As it all suddenly came into focus, the memories of
yesterday came galloping back, and he instinctively gasped and jerked his head
back. Unfortunately, this small movement caused a chain reaction with
regrettable results….

Recliners are notoriously unstable pieces of furniture,
especially as they age. So, if one happened to be in a partially reclined
position, and one involuntarily experienced a muscle tremor or twitch of some
sort, this could very well result in the back of the chair suddenly discovering
gravity, which by the laws of physics, would then cause the footrest to rise
(if only slightly), in order to bring the chair to a perfect 180 degree angle.
The sudden movement of the footrest jostled Cleo just enough that, at the very
moment Santo recognized both her and his favorite mug, molten coffee splashed
down his chin and bare chest.

“JESUS!” he shrieked as his body reflexively reacted to the
hot liquid. Then, his abused parts simultaneously remembered the injustices
they had suffered the previous day, and all of his pain receptors came to life.

Cleo, bless her, retreated to a safe distance with the
hazardous substance and managed to find a coaster. Santo, writhing in agony,
squeezed his eyes shut and wished on some star, somewhere, that this was all
just a bad dream. He was concentrating so hard that he didn’t hear or process
what Cleo was doing until a massive amount of ice rained down upon his head and
torso. He squealed like a girl this time.

“STOP!” he yelled.

She stopped. He twisted his head around to look at her. She
had managed to pull the partial bag of ice back out of the freezer, and was
standing on his end table, struggling to support the weight of the bag and hold
it aloft at the same time.

Through tightly clenched teeth, he said, “Put. It. Down.”
She dropped the bag and shook her arms to ease her aching muscles. Santo took a
very deep breath, held it for thirty seconds, and then exhaled slowly.

“Good morning, Cleo,” he finally said. “Why are you here?”

“I came for the lesson,” she said brightly. “And to make
sure you didn’t die. I made you coffee.”

Looking down at his scalded skin, he chose not to comment on
this statement. Instead, he rubbed his eyes with one hand, again noticing the
nail polish, and decided to accept what had happened and move on with life.
Despite the bad start, this really did seem like a coffee sort of morning.

“Thanks,” he said. “Can you bring it to me?”

She jumped down off of the table and carefully brought him
the mug. He just as carefully took it from her hands and tried to muster up a
smile. The first sip choked him.

“Good God, what is this crap?” he yelled. It had the consistency
of gravy.

“It’s your coffee,” she retorted. “I followed the
instructions on the jar.”

Rather than respond, Santo handed the cup back to her and
reached down to release the recliner. Stiffer than he expected, he
zombie-walked to the kitchen to make new coffee. Cleo followed him. “Here, you
can use the same spoon,” she said as she handed it to him. He took the spoon
without comment and threw it into the sink. When she tried to protest, he
simply held up a finger in warning and shook his head. He didn’t speak another
word until new coffee was made and consumed, and he had begun to feel human
again.

Finally, he looked at her. “Why are you here?” he said.

“I told you—I’m here for the lesson,” she said.

“What lesson?” he fired back. He was still a little bit
cranky.

With great patience, Cleo repeated the story about his
grandmother. “So, I’ve decided to learn something from you before I have to go
to boarding school.”

“No,” was all he said.

She protested. She begged. She attempted bribery. Nothing
worked, until she started to cry. “But you’re the only person I have in my life
other than my parents,” she said as fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “You’re
the only person I can learn something from.” Sniffle. “Plus, it’s your fault I
have to go anyway. It’s the least you could do.” Sniffle sniffle.

It was amazing how quickly the tears vanished the moment
Santo caved. But, there was a problem. “I don’t have anything to teach you,” he
said.

“Surely there’s something you can teach me,” said Cleo.
“Anything useful.”

He thought about it. “Well, I could teach you how to make
coffee that isn’t a murder weapon,” he said.

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not useful. There has to be
something else.”

“Seriously, all I know how to do is steal stuff and skin
rabbits,” he said. “And I’m not teaching you how to butcher a rabbit.”

Cleo brightened. “Then teach me how to steal,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head for emphasis. “First of all, I don’t
want to teach you how to commit a crime. I’m in deep enough with you as it is.
Second, I can’t teach an amateur the fine technical elements of burglary in a
short amount of time. It takes years of training and practice.”

Again, she argued. Finally, she said, “Look, just teach me
how to pick pockets,” she said. “You said you learned to do that when you were
five, and I’m almost twice as old as that.”

He started to refuse again, but the tears magically
reappeared, and he found himself melting. He chugged the rest of his second mug
of coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at her. “Fine.
But first I’m teaching you how to make coffee. Trust me, it’s useful.”

***

For four days, Cleo applied herself to learning. She arrived
by taxi every morning at eight, made coffee, and then spent the next ten hours
doing whatever Santo told her to. It didn’t start out the way she had
envisioned.

Day One was all about dexterity. She touched thumb to finger
tip, each in succession, over and over again. She put her hands flat on the
table top and lifted individual fingers at Santo’s command, working up to
complex sequences. He made her shuffle and deal a deck of cards until she ached
from fingertip to shoulder. Then, she did the tabletop sequences again, this
time even faster than before. Whenever she messed up, Santo whacked her hard
with a fly swatter (that still had deceased insect parts dried to it).

Day Two: coordination. Santo took Cleo to the shed behind
his trailer. The stench made her gag before they even made it halfway. He
opened the door less than eighteen inches, grabbed Cleo by the back of the
shirt, and shoved her in. The fly swatter flew past her ear just as he slammed
and locked the door. There was a single incandescent bulb overhead, which
barely gave off enough light for her to locate the purple webbed end of the fly
swatter on the floor. Then, her other senses kicked in, and she finally heard
the buzzing.

“You can’t come out ‘til they’re all dead!” Santo yelled
through the door. Cleo’s eyes had adjusted to the semidarkness by this point,
and she finally realized what he was talking about. Fruit flies. Thousands.
Millions. And a half-rotted rabbit with a bunch of brown bananas sitting on
top. It took her six hours to kill them all. She shouted for Santo to open the
door, and was understandably suspicious when she heard the lock pop, and then a
shuffling/running sound, followed by a giggle at some distance.

Cleo eased open the door, fly swatter in hand. Glancing
around Santo’s back yard, she noticed a selection of tires with weeds growing
through the middle, a bicycle frame with no wheels, a deflated soccer ball, and
a kiddie pool with what looked suspiciously like dried blood crusted all over
its turtle-embossed interior (she later learned that Santo used it when he
skinned rabbits). But she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Relaxing,
she put the fly swatter between her knees and pulled down her ponytail. (Six
hours in a stinky, fly-filled shed wreaked havoc on a girl’s hair.) Clutching
the hair tie between her teeth, she started combing her hair back and smoothing
it with her fingers. The giant spitball hit her square between the eyes.

The second one hit her wrist before she had finished
removing the first. A third and fourth were stuck to her arm hair before she
could blink. Her brain acknowledged what was happening at the same moment a
bush to her right giggled. Whirling, she charged the bush. “You’re gonna get
i—,” was all she managed to say before she was pelted with overripe
blackberries. She looked down at the new fuchsia splotches on her torso and
legs, and the bush spoke: “Defend yourself!”

Another barrage of berries flew through the air, and she
turned and ran for the fly swatter that had fallen to the ground. It was
actually kind of fun, she thought a few minutes later. She whacked airborne
blackberries with a vengeance. Feeling cocky, she decided to try out the ancient
art of talking smack. “Come on! Is that all you’ve got? My dog could throw
better!” There was a sudden lull in the hailstorm of fruit, and she struck a
pose and laughed. That’s why the first rock caught her completely off guard.

It was small, as rocks go, but it packed a punch. The sting
made Cleo’s eyes water. But before she could muster up a good pout, she heard a
distinctive
twang!
and another pebble bounced off her arm, leaving
behind a red welt. Suddenly, Santo ran from the bush to the house, a handful of
pea gravel in one hand and a slingshot in the other. Crouching on the front
steps, he grinned and loaded another rock into his weapon. “You can’t go home
until you get past me,” he taunted in a singsong voice. It really pissed her
off that it was true. She needed the phone to call her taxi.

For the next half hour, she suffered. She zigged. She
zagged. Muscle memory finally kicked in from her hours with the fruit flies,
and she started deflecting the pebbles without even thinking, slowly working
closer and closer to the porch. When she finally put her foot on the bottom
step, Santo grinned. “It’s about time!” he teased. He was fortunate that her
arms were so tired, and she only managed to beat him with the fly swatter for
about thirty seconds before she couldn’t lift it anymore. They called a truce,
and he offered to make her a sandwich (since she had spent the lunch hour
locked in a shed with dead animals and rotting fruit). After they ate, she had
to spend another hour threading a needle over and over again before he would
let her call the taxi. She finally started to whine.

“But when are you going to teach me?” she complained. “This
sucks.”

“I am teaching you,” he said. He tried to maintain a wise
expression, even though he wasn’t sure what it was supposed to look like.

“No you’re not!” she accused. “You’re just messing with me.”

“No, I am teaching you the wisdom that you seek, because I
am wise, and you are stupid,” he intoned with his hands in prayer position and
his eyes closed (well, partially closed—he had learned to be alert around Cleo
when she was cranky).

“You suck!” yelled Cleo. She crossed her arms and tried her
hardest to impersonate a petulant nine-year old. It worked.

Santo got serious. “Look, I’m doing what you asked. You just
have to be patient and let me do this my way. Unless there’s somebody else you
think could teach you this crap better than I can.”

She glared at him. Finally, she said, “Tomorrow had better
involve some pocket picking, or I’m out.”

“Deal,” said Santo. Cleo went home and scrubbed herself for
an hour trying to get blackberry juice out of her life.

Day Three was devoted to the good old “bump and lift,” where
Santo instructed Cleo in the fine art of “accidentally” jostling someone in
order to confuse their sensory receptors long enough to remove something from
their person. To keep it simple, since she was early in her training, Santo had
her try to pull a leather wallet from his back pocket without him noticing the
moment of the lift. Being a quick learner, she was pretty good at it by the end
of the day, although they were both covered in bruises (it had taken a while to
teach her that there is subtlety in the “bump” part—you can’t just body check
somebody). She went home and slept the night through with a smile on her face.