Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 Dom Constellations always fascinated me. Growing up, I'd spend hours staring into the cosmos at Orion's Belt and the Big Dipper while grasping onto the fraying rope of the tire swing in my backyard. I would squeeze it so tightly that I grew rough calluses on my hands and as I'd pump my legs back and forth as hard as I could (in order to get my body as high as it would go), I'd always reach a moment where I'd decide to just stop- cease all my efforts and allow myself to drop and sway to the rhythm of the swing, like a rag doll. I was always an unusual girl. When I was in third grade, Mr. McKenna called my parents into a special private meeting after school, sat them down and said to them that them I was “an enigma”. My dad didn't know what that word meant, so he spat in that teachers face and punched him square in the jaw, knocking out two and a half of his teeth. For years, I thought the capital of Mississippi was “Jackthon”. I later learned that that word meant, “puzzle”. Looking back, I can see why Mr. McKenna would say that about me. I never caused any trouble but I always forgot to do my homework and every day I would rip out my sparkly pink butterfly barrettes that my mom worked so hard to fashion into my hair each morning before work and stuff them into my pencil box. In high school, not much changed. I didn't wear barrettes anymore but I still never did my homework, so every day at 3:15 I would sit in detention with Ms. Sherry and as punishment, I would rinse off the cellophane projector slides sullied with math equations written in dry erase marker. The purple, blue and red dry-erase ink would stream down Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 my hands and form a deep, black pool of water in the bottom of the sink, like a bowl full of tar. Cleaning these slides every day stained my fingertips blue so that I looked as if I had permanent frostbite. It was here that I met Dominic. He was in detention too most days, but never for not doing his homework. He was always acting out in class - talking back to the teachers and interrupting lessons. He jumped on top of Mrs. Houghtaling’s desk once and started singing and dancing to “Fergalicious” in the middle of a quiz on the Great Depression. All the teachers reacted the same - they'd get real mad, holler at him, grip him by the arm and drag him down to the principal's office, but he didn't care one bit - his slate blue eyes would light up and he’d laugh hysterically the whole way there. I remember distinctly the first day I saw him. His long straw-blonde hair was always a bit disheveled and swooped over his forehead, almost covering his eyes. He was slumped over lab table desk writing “I will not leave class without permission” over and over again. I sat across from him studied the way he'd write a few letters, then proceed to doodle swirls and stars in the top margin of the page. He must have noticed me staring, because he stopped abruptly, leaned in and said, “What are you in for?” I looked back at him with wide, puzzled eyes. I can’t remember if I couldn't respond because the question caught me by surprise or if it was because he made me so nervous that my throat clenched and my cheeks flushed cherry red when he spoke. I looked down bashfully and replied, “I didn’t do my English essay” Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 “Oh look at you, badass” he said with a smirk. I was 16. This is the moment I fell in love. As we were leaving detention that day, he watched me walk to curb of the parking lot and sit down as I always did while waiting for my dad to pick me up. My dad didn't get off of work at the Jiffy Lube until 6 so I'd have to find ways to kill time. Most of the time, I’d take out one the Marlboro Menthols that I’d stolen from of my mom’s purse (if I had gotten any that day) and smoke it, so long as I didn't see any teachers around. I’d lay back on the sidewalk and read Catcher in the Rye over and over again since it was the only book I had ever read in school that I had liked. This time, however, Dom pulled up to me in his beat up black Ford F150. “Need a ride?” He asked. “Thanks but I’m alright”, I responded, feeling the familiar feeling of heat rushing to my face. He unlocked the door and gave me another smirk. “Then let’s grab a bite to eat. I can tell you’re hungry. I heard your stomach growling back there. C’mon, we will be quick”. Part of me thought this was some kind of trick. But he was right - I was starving. It was sloppy joe day and I never ate on sloppy joe day. So I hesitantly rose, popped into the passenger seat and buckled up. We drove for what seemed like forever until we pulled up to the Kentucky Fried Chicken near Frick Park. He ordered a bucket of wings and pulled into a spot facing the boulevard. Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 “Fuck Seneca Valley,” he said out of the blue. “I feel like everyone at this school is so god damn fake.” He gnawed on his fried chicken and threw the bones out the window. I watched him lick the grease off of his fingers during the pauses of his rant. I lit a cigarette and let him vent - about the weather, about this town, about his bitch of a sister, about his granddad with dementia. Dom knew how to make the butterflies in my stomach become frenzied, like they were on some kind of sugar high. It didn’t matter what he was talking about, half of the time I wasn’t even paying attention. I’d just sink back into the beat up scratched leather seats of his truck and gaze out the window or at him, letting the words he spoke melt around me like butter. “Shit!” I said, breaking from my trance to notice the bright green “5:45” on his dashboard. “I have to go- my dad’s gonna kill me.” “Well you better hang on tight, then,” Dom said as he shifted gears and revved his engine. We shot down the boulevard, weaving through traffic and blowing past stop signs. Dom howled out in laughter as Blink-182 blared, and I couldn't help but laugh along with him as I gripped my fingernails into his seat. We flew back into the school parking lot and when we reached the curb Dom hit the brakes hard, causing us both to jolt forward. “See you at 3:15 tomorrow?” he asked, his bright eyes staring into mine. “Yeah, probably,” I giggled as I nervously replied. “Let me get your number” he said, whipping out his Motorola Razr. Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 My clammy hands gripped his sleek grey phone. Contacts. Add new contact. Emma. Save. I watched him speed off and I caught my breath, my cheeks hurting from smiling. Thank god he drove the way he did cause not even two minutes later my dad pulled up. “What’re you so giddy about?” he asked as I threw my backpack in the trunk of his car. “Nothing, nothing” I said, “ Just thinking about a funny joke is all.” We drove back to my house, which wasn't anything too special. It was old and small and the blue paint was peeling off the side paneling. But the one thing I loved about it was the back yard. It extended into a deep field of tall grasses with towering power lines above. Nobody ever wanted to build any new houses back there because they said the radiation and the electricity are what gave Mr. Collier cancer, or something like that. I felt fine though. It wasn’t long before my phone lit up bright blue. I had just showered, the steam still rolling off my body. I twirled my soaking wet hair as I anxiously opened his message.” “Meet in ur back yrd 2nite @ 2:30. I have somthing 2 show u” I thought my heart was going to explode. I sat on my bed still drenched in my towel and stared at the small screen. I had never snuck out before, and knew I’d be grounded for at least a month if I got caught. My dad sometimes fell asleep watching Wheel of Fortune on the couch downstairs after work. And I knew my mom was a light Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 sleeper because she always hears me creeping downstairs to eat Cherry Garcia when I couldn’t sleep. “K.” I’d have to wear socks. No - I’d have to go barefoot. I found some old sweatshirts and stuffed them into my comforter, forming a lumpy body that looked more like a caterpillar than a person. Turn the lights off. Or should I keep the nightlight on? Yeah light on, definitely. I tenderly twisted the doorknob and peered down at the ominous black staircase in front of me. The silence of the house rang in my ears as I tiptoed down, trembling slightly. The side door was somehow so much louder at night. The wood at the bottom would swell in the deep humidity of the late spring, causing the door to stick. I was eventually able pry it open after a few tugs, the normal creakiness of the door sounded more like a blood curdling scream. I paused after doing this and held my breath- making sure my mom and dad weren't awakened by the startling noise. I started out into the still of the night, feeling the dew collecting on the grass brush against my feet. I felt so giddy yet so frightened at the same time. In the distance, I could see the light emanating from Dom’s phone; it highlighted only his face, as if he were some lost, bodiless phantom. “There you are,” he said. “Hit this.” He handed me his half finished, poorly wrapped blunt of White Widow. I inhaled and we sank our bodies into the damp grasses and smoked, staring up into the sky. The clouds covered up everything, even the moon that night. It was hard to tell the difference Shannon Doyle Professor Kempf Creative Writing 26 April 2017 between what was exhaled smoke and what was our warm breath turning into steam in the cold night air. Dom babbled on and on about how lame his friends are and his plans to run away to California and I stared at the way his lips formed all the letters he spoke. Suddenly, he grasped my face and the back of my hair and pulled my mouth into his. His lips pushed hard against mine and tasted like smoke and malt liquor. “You’re something else, Emma,” he said between slobbery French kisses. “You really are, I’m taking you to a movie this weekend. Let’s go see fucking 3:10 to Yuma.” I knew he was drunk and wouldn't remember his promise in the morning. But I didn’t mind. His hand slid down to my neck, then to my thigh, and I jerked my hips away. “Relax,” he said. The rest of the night sort of blends together, like the swirling colors of the ink from the projector slides. I can remember lying there in the field for hours after he left. The air became thick and yellowish gray and stuck to your skin. Birds began chirping and I rose slowly, feeling blades of grass glued to my feet and twigs stuck in my hair like a crown. I twirled in the dawn in the open field, my long white lace dress rippling round me as I spun, before turning to spider webs. The power lines began to spark and catch fire all around me, hissing and fizzing. I spun faster and faster and faster until collapsed, looking up to the sky for Orion, but he wasn’t there and his belt was off.
