If a Body Catch a Body

 Response to Prompt #40

The narrator of this story is a character I created long ago. She is part of that novel draft -- well, kind of. She actually surfaced after I wrote the draft and was trying to figure out what to do with it. Her real name is Suzanna, but she goes by Zanna. She is a Catcher in the Rye freak. My intention is always to have her with a Holden Caulfield attitude, but I didn't focus on that too much here.

Much of this story surfaced in my daily poetry writing.  I'd read a poem and next thing I new, Zanna was relating to it. The character of James showed up on one of those days.  Much of what is here was found when I did that one page of writing every day, from January through July. The title of the story came to me a few weeks ago, and it has been longing to be written ever since.

I went back through and put a sticky note on all the related pages, and that is when I realized she uses Never and Always and Sometimes quite a bit. I also added some purposefully.

I am open to any feedback you have on this story. I just felt the need to get it down, and with the prompt it forced me to make it happen. I'm really glad, too. I've been putting it off.

If a Body Catch a Body

I’m not sure how I got up here or why. School ended for the day, and I walked outside, saw the tree, started to climb and just didn’t stop.  Now here I am, perched on the edge of a branch at least twelve feet off the ground, and everyone is screaming about it. They think I’m going to fall. 

And what if I did? Just this morning, these same fools were trying to push me down the stairs, calling me “snitch bitch” and making my life hell. You would think they would like to see me fall and just get it over with, once and for all.

But people like them are always inconsistent. Not an authentic bone in their rich, white bodies. Phonies. Yeah.  Just like my hero Holden says. People who are always ruining things for me.

The only thing found in darkness is more darkness.

**

Sometimes I swear I can feel the earth spinning. It hurts my head, and sets my heart in a fury.

My science teacher says it’s impossible, that there is no way we can actually feel the movement of the earth.

But I do.

I wrote a sonnet about it. My English teacher assumed it was a metaphor.

Uh, no.

I can barely hold on sometimes.

**

I never should have thought I’d have friends here. It was a stupid mistake to go out that night last weekend with people who said I could hang with them; they insisted they wanted me to be part of their group, and I wanted to believe them, wanted to fit in. But now I know it was all a farce. They don't give two shits about me.

They left me alone with him. He is the one they all wanted, or so they pretended, but they knew better.  I know they had to know. Privileged. Above it all. Basketball star. Thought he could take what he wanted, insisting that I wanted it, too, no matter how many ways I said no, no matter how many times I tried to get away. The fact that we had been drinking did not help this situation; he was bulging and ugly and became forceful. Fighting him off with my arms and legs I managed to get one hand free, two fingers to gouge at his eye to make him stop. It made him stop, but he left me alone, dumped me right there on the street, telling me I was a monster, pretending my attack was unprovoked. Asshole. I know attempted rape when I see it.

And then there was the police and my parents and his parents and He can no longer play basketball because of that wench and saying they’re going to sue because I’ve ruined his supposed career as a sports star, and all along everyone believes him and not me and I cannot change schools. I’ve begged. My mother says this will pass. Will it?

I’m new in this town, and new at this school, and I want to be anywhere but here. The girls who left him with me avoid me, act like they don’t know me. Other girls hiss How could you do that? What’s wrong with you, slut? It’s all your fault.  Guys trip me in the hall, push and shove me. Never mind the bruises I had already sustained from fighting the beast off; new ones just keep coming every day in this hellhole.

**

I’m sitting alone at lunch, trying to ignore the world around me by reading my favorite book Catcher in the Rye for like the fifth time. A guy I’ve never seen before approaches me. He has a smile on his face. I want to ignore him, but somehow I can’t. He says, “If a body catch a body.” I smile. I know the reference. He hands me a white pebble with the word TRUST written on it in Sharpie.  He says, I’m James.  Good to meet you Zanna. The bell rings, and he walks away. Who does that?

The next day he’s waiting for me when I arrive at school.  He is holding a large piece of sketch paper.  Here I made this for you.  It is the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen: A gorgeous sketch of a tree in every color imaginable. But it isn’t just the part of the tree above the ground. It has an even amount of tree below ground – a mangled tangle of roots in a rainbow of colors, an underground of depth and intensity and somehow, desire.  I simply don’t know what to say.  I’ve always spent a great deal of my life raging against the fact that most people have no imagination. And now this massive amount of imagination all in one place, made just for me.

The darkness around me lifts. Just a little bit.

**

And now I sit on this tree branch, wondering how I got here and how I’m going to get down. I see James has arrived, joining the crowd. He looks up at me, smiles. Believe me, no one else is smiling. They’re pretty fed up with me.  The school resource officer has arrived and a few teachers, an administrator. I’m starting to think I’ll never come down. What’s the point? They’re starting to shout up to me that they’re calling my parents, and all kinds of other nonsense.  I just look at the sky. I’m not interested. And I’m surprisingly not scared. I think of Holden saying it is impossible to find a place that is nice and peaceful. This tree branch could have been, if all these phonies hadn’t shown up and started shouting at me.

Then I realize James has moved through the crowd and has started to climb the tree. He calls to me, Zanna, stay there and I’ll help you down. I watch as he makes his way up through the tree, mostly the same way I came up, and he gets as close as he can. He sits down and smiles again. Fancy meeting you here. For the first time in days, I giggle. Out of the corner of my eye I see the crowd of students is starting to disperse. I guess they’ve decided I’m not going to fall. Spectacle over.

And I’m thinking maybe the same thing.  Here is this light dimly glowing in the darkness next to me. Someone that seems willing to help me hold on. One who might be willing to will catch me when I start to fall off this spinning earth. I start to inch over and grab his hand to steady myself.  We take a beat to breathe together, then start to make our way down to solid ground.

We may never believe it can happen, but sometimes when you least expect it there really can be a catcher in the rye.