*
On that first morning, the four of us sit on the sticky kitchen floor, holding strips of white cloth soaked in rainwater. We shove the cloth into our mouths and scrub our teeth and gums. We don’t say anything. We watch each other disappear into our own strangeness. Hands stretch cheeks, air gushes through nostrils. We scrub and grunt. I can see Marcus’s hand pushing around under his mask. I haven’t cleaned my teeth since I left the Hospital, haven’t done more than swirl tap water around in my mouth. I taste blood on my gums, I feel a warm drip on my bottom lip, but I don’t stop for anything.
28.
Darcie and Nelson have much to teach us about survival and we are interested in being taught. They know how to purify the rainwater they collect by boiling it on the gas stove. They show us how to make garbage bag jackets of our own and how to take a bath in the claw-foot tub. The porcelain bottom is padded with rust. The first time I clean myself in there, I look down into the red water and think I’m bleeding.
They pull up weeds and eat them. Their favorites are dandelion and thistle and fat hen. They have learned the hard way about what will make them feel sick and what will make them feel well. In the alcove library, they show us a book with drawings called Wicked Botany. We turn the pages and I see black-and-white illustrations of spade-shaped leaves drawn in meticulous detail, fibrous roots, blossoms dangling from stems like tiny bells.
They seem to know a lot about the state of Tennessee. Shelby County has more horses than any other county in America. Murfreesboro is the geographical center of the state. In Tennessee, there are over three thousand caves. Lake County is the turtle capital of the world. There is a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville.
I memorize these facts about Tennessee and repeat them to myself on the nights I have trouble sleeping—which is every night.
One afternoon, they lead us away from the Mansion, down a wide dirt road that runs behind a water tower and an abandoned trailer park. Someone has painted an enormous red smiley face on the tower. The trailers are being consumed by moss and vine. The windows are rectangles of green fuzz. They look like they’re being absorbed into the earth.
The water tower and the trailer park are surprises in the landscape. In my imagination, we have been situated in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around for many miles. My internal geography adjusts, makes room for these new details.
We have been in the Mansion for three days, time slipping by like a river over stones. In his Laws of the Road, Rick did not mention how long you should stay in any one place before you move on.
On the dirt road, Nelson starts telling us about the twin paradox, one of Einstein’s thought experiments.
“Imagine a pair of twins,” he begins, kicking up dust.
This part is not hard for me to do.
One twin is sent on a journey into outer space. The twin experiences a slowing of time and when he returns, he appears younger than the twin who stayed behind, which is the paradox. But in fact two have become three: the twin who stays home, the twin who leaves, and the twin who comes back. The twin who leaves is not the same twin who returns. That is a physical impossibility. Nelson says the experiment has to do with how we change. We go on a journey and we are never the same person when we come home.
I imagine Current Me sitting next to Stop & Shop Me on an MBTA bus. Current Me looks at her with tenderness, touches her cheek, tucks her hair, her still beautiful hair, behind her ear. There is so much this Stop & Shop Me does not yet know. Together the Mes look out at the other passengers and the construction rising from the ground and the people playing pool in Laundry World and the evangelical church, swollen with song. They stop at a red light and that is when Current Me leans in and whispers, One day all of this will be gone.
“I’m doing my own experiments,” Nelson says.
I’ve gone missing inside myself. I focus on the rhythm of sneakers hitting dirt, the little shocks of energy, and find my way back.
“What kind of experiments?” Marcus is walking beside him, hands deep in his pockets. I notice a dark smudge on his rabbit nose.
“I’m going to find a cure,” Nelson says.
“Is there anything left to cure?” I ask. Deep dirt trenches run along the sides of the road. They look like they’ve been created by a machine.
“There is everything left to cure,” Darcie says.
We walk by a small construction pit. An orange cement truck is parked next to it, along with low stacks of metal beams, yet it seems like the actual construction never started. There is just a cavernous hole in the earth.
We keep going until we come to a small post office, a square brick building with an American flag and a sign that reads MICHIE TN out front. There is nothing else around. No other houses or stores. The window shades are drawn tight.
Is that where we are right now? Michie?
“There are people living in there.” Nelson points at the windows. “People with means.”
“People who aren’t invisible like us,” Darcie says. “We are against people with means.”
Ever wanted to test your own level of invisibility? Write out your obituary and see how many people you are survived by.