The Accident

My grandfather died four days before his fiftieth wedding anniversary; we held his wake on that day, and my grandmother filled their house in gold-trimmed decorations celebrating the long love she had already lost. Everything bore his and her name—composed in fine lettering and adorned with the shapes of roses. An anniversary napkin clung to my father’s scotch, concealing the golden liquid within the fogged glass. He kept his eyes focused somewhere I couldn’t see and rested his calloused thumb over the big “5-0.”

“Papa, what are you looking at so hard?” I asked, feeling my nose wrinkle in attempt to focus on his stare.

He shook his head—a gesture I recognized in him and my brother when they didn’t want to talk about such things. “I’m remembering. That’s all.”

“Remembering Pap Paw? What are you remembering?” I sat up tall, recalling what my father told me about growing straight instead of crooked.

My father looked at me—straight at me, and I couldn’t recall a time when he ever did it before. “He had a hard life, you know. After his accident, he was just shy of my age and all of a sudden he couldn’t take care of himself. It turned him mean as a snake.”

“Pap Paw was never mean to me.”

“I know,” he said. He took another sip; I could smell his breath from where I sat, Indian-style, on the carpet. “I want to remember him like that. Your grandpa. Not as my father.”

I was afraid to even speak to my grandmother. She was the one who would chase us from the midnight hour board games and scold me for running outside without shoes on. She sat on the sofa staring at my grandfather’s armchair designed to help him rise without the use of sturdy legs. My mother pulls on my ear and tells me to give Mam Maw a hug—she’s the one who needs it the most.

My grandfather was the first person I knew to die. The living room floor where my grandfather told me stories of war from his wheelchair was suddenly filled with strangers dressed in shadows, their voices echoed inside the tiny house like the hum of a beehive. I walked barefoot across the faded, burnt orange tile and into the kitchen. I remembered my grandfather and I, sitting at the kitchen table beneath the glow of the green chandelier and resting our tired chins on our knuckles. I knew he was silently letting me win at those board games we played to learn about one another’s lives, yet still I slipped him pink bills and high number cards beneath the wood so we could keep playing. But the board games lay hidden in the attic while the table was cluttered in pungent foods instead of our elbows; one-time use gold kitchenware and plastic cups stood in the place of almost burned cookies that my grandfather and I would bake on our late nights together.

“And how are you doing, missy? You’ve grown faster than the weeds!” A voice rattled from above me, its body reeked of something like vanilla and wilted flowers.

I looked up to see an older woman my mom introduced me to, but her name was nothing like I’d ever heard before, and I couldn’t quite remember what. Something like Bernadine or Estelle. “I miss my grandpa.”

“Well of course you do, precious girl. We all do. He was a good man.” Her teeth were too straight to be real, and she had lipstick the color of Thanksgiving drawn across her front two.

“He was the first person I knew to die. How many have you known?”

She laughed, spilling a little of her punch onto the kitchen tile. “Sugar, I already lost count.”

She exhaled loudly and tried to pat me on the shoulder, but I leapt out of her reach. I didn’t like for people to touch me, and suddenly I couldn’t quite breathe right. My cheeks burned and my eyes started to water, and I wasn’t about to start crying in front of a lady who didn’t even count my grandpa. I couldn’t see the windows through the forest of chattering bodies, and I needed to breathe in; I carefully wove myself out of the polluted kitchen and onto the back porch.

My shoes, stained in colors of the earth, sat on the wood, and I begrudgingly slid them onto my feet as to protect my skin. I was always scolded for galloping across grass ridden with shattered glass and ant beds with delicate toes; I preferred the calluses of my adventures to the daintiness of pretty feet. I walked down the wheelchair ramp that my father built with his hands and recalled how he felt his age by the way his back bent and ached for months after. The fireflies were out, giving light to the darkness where streetlights could not burn. Staring at the fluttering lights, I recalled my brother and I running between these pecan trees at dusk, catching fireflies for our grandfather to see. He was always waiting inside the porch swing with bowls of orange sherbet, his wheelchair parked far enough away from first glance that he could’ve been sitting by choice.

I told my mother that I didn’t want to wear black, that my grandfather would’ve wanted me to wear colors. So we wrapped my unripe hips in an evergreen velvet that clung to sofas and leather chairs— always leaving bits of fur like my mother leaving lipstick on cheeks and collars. My feet throbbed inside the Mary Jane framed shoes, but I kept venturing deeper into the trees, following the small traces of light created by fireflies. I wanted to be lost—I wanted to run away into the places where myths are dreamed and witness the magic whispered to me before I fell asleep. But all that I found were the fences of other people’s yards, back porches and barking dogs. Everywhere I went was restricted, out of bounds, and I was stuck inside the perimeter of my grandparents’ yard that suddenly didn’t seem as infinite as it did when my brother and I used to explore it.

Then I found myself running back towards the house where the ceiling lights bled into the firefly light. I ran up the driveway, past the windows and doors and into the street I wasn’t allowed to cross by myself. My cheeks warm and wet; I wiped my eyes with the sleeves of my nice coat, and I couldn’t control my sobbing. I stood on the painted flashing white lines of the road and waited, like my grandfather, for the lights.

My mother told me that my grandfather died peacefully. But I saw his face at the funeral. It was scarred from a car crash; his van that was designed to allow his broken back and lifeless legs to drive was unrecognizable from its collision with a telephone pole. My father said the brakes didn’t work, and my grandfather couldn’t stop. I too could wait here for a passing car and rise as my grandfather did. I would pass peacefully between here and heaven where my grandfather turns cartwheels with our deceased Doberman, and we could all play board games again. I could tell him about the way my father pretended he wasn’t drinking the scotch that made him raise his hand at my mother. I could tell him about the way my mother never slept in our house, that she crept out of the driveway with her headlights off and talked on the phone to someone named Steve. I could tell him that my brother didn’t pay attention to me anymore and that I was alone most of the time, that I missed my Pap Paw and wanted to catch fireflies for him again.

I couldn’t see the darkness anymore with the blaring lights swallowing my entire body. The lights kept brightening, intensifying; I heard roaring, high squealing and the scent of burning rubber. I closed my eyes.

La Marsellaise

He speaks to me in French with an accent that I almost mistake for a lisp. How am I, why am I alone? I invent a history of lies; I come from Montpelier and am in a committed homosexual relationship. I don’t like men, and I don’t want to go for un boisson. He tells me he can be my husband, provide for me and make me love him as une fille trop jolie like me should.

Je suis un peinture. He shows me his hands, the speckles of color on his faded brown coat. I ask what he paints, and he hesitates. His skin is dark, his clothes mismatched and pungent. He rubs the stubble on his chin, producing a sound like grinding and looks into my eyes. He tells me he paints the walls of Marseille, though what he really loves is to paint women. His hands reach out to my cheeks. He wants to paint me.

Je dois aller. I stand up to go, uncurling his fingers from my wrist. I know he will follow me; I scan the Vieux Port for an escape. He wants to come with me.

We’re surrounded, though no one seems to be speaking French anymore. Everyone is darker. The men gathered at the tiny tables of café terraces are not fragile men chain-smoking over a glass of red wine but groups of Arabs in suits, emptying tiny espresso cups down their throats. Their conversations are not soft; their voices sound shrill, even over the clanking porcelain. The Port is loud, full of smoke and the scent of the day’s catches. I don’t comprehend the store signs—written in a chicken scratch from right to left. I can’t see the Mediterranean fish from beneath the rainbows clinging to the surface. There is no Calypso to set sail in search of curiosity; there are only catamarans full of overweight passengers snapping photographs of boats and cliff sides.

The hair of my skin stands on end while I feel myself sweat. My breathing has changed—my throat tightens. I feel as if I could sink through the planks holding me above the churning salt.

I tell him to get me an espresso and to meet me back here; we can watch the sunset over the port. Je promets, je promets. His hand is on my shoulder, and I swallow to keep from shuddering. He walks away, and I wait for him to disappear into the crowd of tourists disembarking from a trolley tour of hills they didn’t want to climb. I could walk into a brasserie on a side street—to the hostel up the hill, to the palace along the shore and bury myself away from hungry men. I look down across the water—the colors of the boats and the setting sun are inverted across the surface like a Monet painting, and I breathe in.

I don’t want him to come back and find me in waiting. I turn to ensure that my suitor is out of sight but, he never left; he’s marching back and forth, just beyond the tourists, shouting syllables into his phone in a language much harsher than French. He’s watching me, motions for me to wait, delivers a smile I don’t believe, and I begin to feel scared. I start to run into the crowd of tourists, and he calls after me.

Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! He doesn’t know my name, but he weaves through the crowd more quickly than I and pulls me back. There are two of them now; the other puts his arm around me. His dirty nails dig into my wrist, his affection a false gesture. Ça c’est mon ami, Hamid. They pull me towards the street, laughing. I tell them we should stay—I don’t want to leave. I have to meet my girlfriend; she will worry. C’est pas grave, they coo. C’est pas grave.

A van pulls up. Their grip grows tighter; they start rubbing my hair as one would a dog. I begin to yell. Laissez-moi tranquil! Aide-moi! Ayuda me! Help! No one turns around; everyone blurs past, indifferent to my screaming in the city center bursting with life.

I keep my breathing steady; my eyes keep searching. There’s another two of them in the van; they’re smiling. I don’t want to go with them, but I can’t shake their grip from my limbs, and we keep getting closer to the open door along the curb.

I don't want to go with them. I don't. But no one says a word, and my body drifts across the cobblestones like a ghost.

My feet start to kick, and I can't control them. My elbows thrash, grazing rib cages and necks. The mens' hands attempt to steady my fervent motions, but my head juts into shoulders. These men were built to be stronger; my entire body is throbbing, my heart too weak to keep fighting. Somehow, I feel my arm slip from the grasp of a hand.

Without contemplation, I shove a fist I never learned to make into a stomach, throwing my weight into the movement. I feel its warm breath spew onto my back; my foot smashes into its groin. The body begins to lose balance--he starts to lean towards me. I throw all of my weight into pulling my foot away from him and into his companion.

He collides into the other, the sound of their heads clashing silences the crowd around us; I turn my head away from their rolling bodies; I can only run forward, screaming.

I feel someone run behind me—short blonde hair, dressed in black. My head turns. A stranger has gone to push the men back down. Caisse-toi! Les Cons! Caisse-toi! He throws his burning cigarette at them.

I keep running. I can feel everyone stopping around me. I see their eyes from the corner of my vision, but the only thing I focus on is moving forward, progressing further into humdrum of conversations in languages I don’t know and the city I’ve read about for decades but can’t seem to recognize. These docks have seen the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts; Alexandre Dumas romanticized these very seaside cliffs amid stories aged into folklore and here I am, being swallowed into the ruins of what once was a beautiful city.

Suddenly I feel myself rising, climbing uphill towards the Palace and into the crashing sun. The Mediterranean is engulfed in reds and purples and oranges. The trees seem to be fading into something darker and the wind has picked up. I can hardly breathe, but my head is spinning, and I reach the summit where I confuse the emblazoned windows for part of the sky.

I stop. I’m shaking, and I collapse onto the cobblestones, legs fold beneath me. Onlookers whisper and turn away from the sunset. My eyes close, and I think about Arthur Rimbaud coming to Marseille to die—how he thought he would be healed but instead passed away alone at night with fevered hallucinations and severe pain. And here I am surrounded by the ghosts of those who came before me—the history of a city founded in 600 B.C. overwhelms me, and I feel tired.