Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation Read Free

she acknowledged me with a courteous nod, as if I were someone she had vaguely known once. The profound connection we had shared last Easter was gone. I wanted to stab myself, but the little red scissors in my desk had rounded edges.
    As fate would have it, the first birthday party of thirdgrade turned out to be Karen’s, in October. To my knowledge, it was the first time she’d ever held such an event. The entire class was invited; I was just part of the head count. Still, I had never wanted to attend anything more in my life. I’d already decided it would be there that I’d confront her about last spring and what we’d seen at Eddie Hoke’s house. The photograph had put us both under some kind of spell, like characters in a Grimms’ fairy tale, and I needed to save her as much as I needed to save myself.
    The party was noisy and crowded, and my plan seemed doomed from the start. I was alone in the kitchen, hiding from musical chairs, when the moment unexpectedly arrived. Karen walked in, giggling to herself about something, and opened the refrigerator. When she closed the door, she saw me lurking in the back corner of the room next to the cat bowls.
    “Can I talk to you?” I said.
    She stood motionless, holding a bottle of Wink soda. After a moment, she shrugged her shoulders.
Finally!
We were communicating again.
I had to choose my next words very carefully. I had to take her back in time, before everything had changed, before we saw what we saw. Did I detect a hint of that old crooked smile creeping across her face?
    “Kaaaren! Time to open presents!” It was the spiky voice of her grandmother calling from the living room. There wasa brief stillness in the kitchen. Karen regarded me for a moment with a faint look of pity, shrugged her shoulders again, and hurried out.
    As a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” filled the air, scraps of wrapping paper fluttered aimlessly through the Milojevich living room like dying birds. The final present was the largest, and Karen tore into it fiercely, shredding the
Peanuts
-themed paper until only a portion of Violet’s scalp remained. Her eyes grew wide, and the squeal she emitted was pure and joyful. She lifted herself from the floor and raised the box high in the air, like Moses revealing the tablets. Behold!
Barbie and Her Magic Horse, “Dancer”!
    My gaze fell on her smile. It was perfect, without a trace of imbalance. Then up the stairs she went with her treasure, trailed by a parade of eight-year-old girls in crinkly dresses.
    I was left alone with the boys. David Kitmer was smearing icing under his nose, pretending it was snot. Other kids followed suit. Karen’s grandmother lit up a Kent. And the safety switch in my head finally tripped off, suspending electrical activity in my brain. That would be my present—the greatest gift of all.
    •   •   •
    Many years later, when I was in ninth grade, the Hokes relocated to San Diego. By then, I rarely thought about KarenMilojevich or that long-ago Easter party. The whole matter had been nicely tucked away in the back of my mind, a little annuity guaranteed to fuck me up in ways I’d never be able to identify. So I was surprised by the incredible buoyancy I felt as I watched the moving van pull out of the neighborhood. It was in there somewhere probably, riding along in a box marked PAPERWORK : JERRY’S OFFICE — DO NOT OPEN . Maybe when the truck crossed the Arizona border, that peculiar woman would finally stop sucking—just long enough for the horse to kick his way out and run into thedesert.

Booker’s a Nice Guy
    My mother wanted me and my brother Mike out of the house. It was a typical Sunday, when the toll of having six children—all boys—brought her nervous system to the brink of collapse. Though she was generally a saint in every regard, you could always tell when her mood had shifted and “Bad Joyce” arrived. Doors and cupboards would begin to slam, and her soft voice would be replaced by