We reached a gymnasium, wincing in the brightness. A single-serve carton of whole milk straddled the half-court line, its mouth open, plugged with a straw. A closet bisected a row of scuffed mats fastened to the wall. We shut ourselves inside. Ryder dragged a trash can full of basketballs from a corner. Underneath was a trapdoor, and behind that, a ladder stretching into the shadows. “Newbies first,” Marlena said. She looked at me, bored.
When I reached the bottom, I craned my head at their three faces, so like how they’d been outside the library window. A triangle, Marlena always at the top. How much of that was a trick of my perspective? Ryder nudged her with his shoulder and she smiled at him uncertainly, disappearing from view. The trapdoor thudded shut.
The gloom clung—I felt like it was on me. Marlena’s voice rose and fell like an angry neighbor’s in a nearby apartment, mixed with the sound of laughter. Behind me something exhaled, a greasy wind against my ear, the temperature of a belch. Nobody in the world knew where I was. I reached out a hand to steady myself, but my fingers glided along the dusty surface and slipped through, into thin air, and I stumbled, banging my shin against the ladder.
I climbed up and pummeled the trapdoor with my fists, almost losing my balance. The opening flooded with light and I scrambled toward it, heart slamming.
“Wow,” said Ryder. “We were just getting some flashlights.”
I pulled myself up, using the trash can for support. “Sorry,” Marlena said, and blew on my skin, her breath coffee-stale. “He’s feral.” She inched her shirt over her thumb and rubbed at my nose. “You’ve got dust on you.”
Ryder went first this time, followed by Greg. Ryder gave a spooky, trilling moan as he disappeared down the hole.
“I’m not going back in there.”
“They’ve done that to me so many times,” Marlena said. “It’s way less scary with the flashlights, promise.”
What was I supposed to do? The time had long passed for me to say no to them.
We traveled through a tunnel, the floor and walls made out of cement. Steam rose and fell like breath, coming from a row of boilers. Greg and Ryder each held a flashlight. The beams chased each other up the ceilings, where graffiti spelled out crushes and grudges and nonsense. Marlena hooked her arm through mine, keeping me so close that when we got out of step I elbowed her side.
“These are the church warrens,” Greg said. “They were built along with St. Patrick’s, at the same time as the elementary school, which used to be a nunnery, so the nuns could get to church and do chores for the priests without getting cold and stuff in the winter.”
“Oh.” I focused on Marlena’s arm instead of the black habits I could see floating in the unlit places behind us.
“Chores like blow jobs,” Ryder said.
“This was our elementary school,” said Marlena. “None of our parents even go to church, but I had my confirmation.”
“Because of the free lunch, baby,” said Ryder. “The hungry shall not want, all that Catholic stuff.”
“I can see that theology is your forte,” I said.
“THE PRISONER SPEAKS!” Ryder shouted, turning the flashlight dead on my face. “And her words, how they burn!” Marlena smacked the butt of his flashlight so the beam bounced crazily across the walls.
The tunnel passed through an archway into a room that bellied out over a kind of valley, where more silent engines huddled in the dark. Maybe inside each one a nun slept, hands folded over her chest. “Home sweet home,” said Ryder, shining the flashlight onto a pile of blankets nested against a metal railing. Greg sifted through them until he unearthed a bag of Doritos. Its foil wrapper shot off sparks when it caught the flashlight’s sporadic eye. Down there they did the same thing, pretty much, that I’d seen them do. Marlena got out a joint; Ryder terrorized us all in turn; Greg finished the Doritos, shaking the bag into his opened mouth, and wiped his fingers on his jeans, leaving a smudgy trail across his knee, visible despite the bad light. This was hanging out. I couldn’t stop comparing it to what I did with Haesung. We painted elaborate designs on our nails, quizzed each other in French, practiced pop songs on our instruments. We took place in the sunshine. We were children, and they were something else. Teenagers, I realized, with some wonder.
The joint circled around and around, its woodland smell dissolving into space. No one passed it to me. How had I made it so clear to them where I fell on the subject of pot, when I wasn’t actually sure? Marlena lay down and put her head on my thigh. I sat with my legs outstretched, pressing my knees against the floor until my muscles were stiff, because when I relaxed, her skull drifted a few inches toward my crotch.
“So, what,” Greg asked. “You’re just not going to go to school?”
“I guess not,” I said. “I was supposed to start at the beginning of third quarter. But I just didn’t. I don’t think anyone’s even noticed.”
“Badass,” Ryder said, and I went hot with pride, though my leg ached from the strain of keeping perfectly still.
“She’s from Detroit,” Marlena said, though I wasn’t, exactly. Pontiac was a suburb, and lame. I didn’t correct her. Her hair, always greasy at the roots, rivered across my knee, tickling me when she fidgeted. “Damn, girl, your legs are comfortable. Squish, squish, like a pillow.” She sat up, tornado-ing smoke into my face. Marlena was different with me when we were with the boys—she flirted with me, almost meanly, the same way she flirted with them.
“All that freedom, and you go to the library,” Greg said. “Isn’t that kind of contradictory? Like, No school for me, I’m just going to go bookworm it up.”
“Whatever, dude,” said Ryder. “Those computers have no security filters.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she’s really taking advantage of all that free access to porno.”
“I didn’t say porno! Who said porno?”
“Isn’t it a bit sexist of you to assume I’m not?” I interrupted, grabbing the joint from Marlena. I held the green-tasting cloud in my chest for a long couple seconds, just as I’d seen them do. I smoothed down the itch in my throat, my eyes watering.
“Badass indeed,” Greg said, a faux snootiness to his voice, as if he were holding a teacup in one hand, pinky extended.
The joint went around and around and around. Was I getting high? Time felt like a drop suspended at the faucet’s rim. It fattened but did not fall. I was thirsty to an almost luxurious degree, my tongue too big, a funny taste caught in my throat, dusty apple peels, a flavor straddling the verge of sour. If this was being high, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I’d been more out of control after guzzling Mountain Dew. The pot was replaced with a dented canteen (Oh! Alcohol! I thought dumbly, after my first sip) that burned the fuzz right out of my mouth and made my fingers slacken. I kept on taking my turn when it came back to me, even after Marlena shook her head and slurred, “Get that away,” up until Greg held it upside down to prove that we were “cashed.”
“No,” Ryder wailed, smacking the canteen from Greg’s hands so it went skidding through the bars and over the dropoff. It clanged into one of the tanks below before settling somewhere unseen.