September 19, 2016 | Occasus | Issue 6 | Creative Nonfiction
Yellow Like Me
The side of his cabin smells like piss, and that’s how I know he’s not as pure as he says he is. I stumble, pull down my pants, and squat. As I urinate I lean into the white wood of the cabin wall and steady my eyes on the moon suspended in the sky, smooth and colourless. Down here on the ground everything is black and slow. Cold.
“You about done?” Ross yells, his voice echoing amidst the pine trees and through the empty campground. I pull up my pants and lurch around the corner, sucking my numb lips together. Music and yellow light flow out from the open cabin door, and Ross stands in the middle of it. The front of his dark hair is styled into a precise point above his forehead, and his large hands grip the porch railing. I follow him inside to where he has another glass waiting for me atop his dresser. He’s been feeding me rum for hours, and I’ve been drinking it, eagerly. We’ve been working together at this camp for three weeks—he as the director and I as the lifeguard—but this is the first weekend there haven’t been any counsellors staying over to keep him from breaking the rules and inviting me to his cabin. I’m seventeen and fresh out of high school. He’s twenty-five and training to be a priest. Or, at least that’s what he tells people he’s doing. I collect my drink and collapse onto the bottom of a bunk bed. He sits across the room on another bunk, not drinking, and moves his eyes back and forth with me as a sway. After a few moments of him smiling, I burp into my glass and ask him about sex. He flops onto his back and tucks his arms behind his head. “It’s like I’ve told you,” he says. “I was ready to dedicate my life to the priesthood before I discovered women.” “How many women?” I ask. “Five. Two were serious, the rest were just flings.” “Who was the most serious?” “Sylvia,” he says, rolling onto his side to look at me. “She was taller than me and blonde. She wore heels. We were together for two years.” “And then what?” I try to imagine sex with Ross, and my stomach heaves, pushing a string of slimy acid up onto my tongue. I swallow, thinking of the doughy white skin on his chest. He’s the kind of guy who shaves every inch of himself, including his armpits. You know, clean. “She cheated on me,” he sighs. “Huh,” I say. Something warm and wet slides between my toes and realize I’ve spilt the remainder of my rum on the floor. “Come on,” Ross says, suddenly across the room and taking the glass from my hands. He pulls me to my feet. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go to the road.” ‘The road’ is a country highway beyond the outskirts of the campgrounds, surrounded by farmers’ fields and all but empty at this time of night. It’s where the campers go to stargaze, and where Ross and I go to pretend we’re small. On the gravel pathway leading up to the road, Ross speaks of his factory work the summer before and how his mother would be on welfare without him; it’s a story he often tells to the campers, and to their parents in particular. I tip-toe through the sharp pebbles on the path and pretend to listen. I care about his suffering mother, I do, but I can only hear about her so many times before she becomes a cliché. “Why,” I ask as we move through the shadows of trees, “are all priests male?” He stuffs his hands deep in his pockets. “Women were important to Jesus. Think of his mother and Mary Magdalene. But they weren’t teachers. He chose men purposefully to be his disciples.” “So what you’re saying is that men should be teachers, and women should be mothers and prostitutes.” Ross looks over at me, his features skeletal in the moonlight. His lips split apart to reveal a row of straight, white teeth. “I think you’ve had a few too many,” he says. The road, when we reach it, is dark and warm beneath my feet from the heat of the day. I flop down onto the pavement and roll my head from side to side, giggling at how the moon streaks white across my vision. The air smells like grass and manure. Ross lies beside me and exhales. I turn to him, but he’s looking away from me toward the farmers’ fields. The back of his head is round; his hair is slick and shining down to the nape of his neck. I turn back to the sky and shout toward the treetops. Then I pause, listening to the silence surrounding my words. The moon above us is strangely textured. It’s changing. Minutes later we hear a vibrating in the air, a whirring of rubber tires on pavement. “Car coming,” says Ross, nudging me and getting to his feet. I turn my head as Ross moves off the road and watch the headlights approach. They’re yellow like his cabin lights back in the campground. They’re yellow like his piss on the side of his white cabin wall. “Erica, what are you doing? Get up!” Ross yells from the ditch, dancing in the shrubbery, waving his arms. The headlights rush down the road, swoop across the treeline, and light up his gaping face. Yellow, putrid; everything, sour. “Erica!” I wait a moment longer and then roll off the road, Ross’ hard shins welcoming me in the ditch. The vehicle passes in a roar of wheels. “What were you thinking?” he screams down at me. “You stupid fuck!” I’m laughing hysterically, clutching long clumps of grass in my hands. “I thought,” I gasp, “I thought you would save me, Jesus.” “Jesus?” he yells, but I’m drunk and far away. He grabs my shirt, his teeth bared. My eyes roll. For a moment, before he releases me and walks away through the ditch and back to the pathway, his face looms yellow above me. His skin is smooth, smoother than the moon which sits pockmarked above his left ear. He is angry, faceless. The moon is smiling. |
ERICA MCKEEN is a third year student at Western. She was previously completing an Honors Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language Literature, but recently decided to take a less restrictive and altogether more dangerous route: art without an academic degree behind it. Her short story, "Our Eyes, Our Tongue," won the 2016 Lillian Kroll prize in creative writing, and her work has been previously published in Shirley Magazine, Minola Review, Green Blotter, The Voices Project, The Quilliad, This Dark Matter, Nom de Plume, and the fourth and fifth issues of Occasus.