DEATH OF A MAYFLY - Chapter 3

Click the above voiceover to hear this chapter read by Walter Rhein of I’d Rather Be Writing.

Warning: This chapter contains triggers for sexual assault. If you would like to read a gentler version of Chapter 3 without the triggers, you can do so here.

Outside my bedroom window the mayflies died in heaps, smacking against the glass as they fell, and collapsing in writhing piles that lined the gutters, car windshields, and formed lifeless floating islands along the riverbanks. Carp eagerly snapped them up in large gaping mouthfuls, while the flickers and squirrels picked at the grass, growing fat on the sudden supply of protein. I lifted the wooden window frame, bits of ancient paint crumbling onto the ledge, and reached out to grab a few of the dying bugs. They twitched, rolling around in my palm, two, then five, then a handful as they continued to drop. In seconds they were still, and I let them fall to the grass below, now snowy-white with millions of their bodies littering the ground, the porch, and the alley. I wished they’d wait until night to die so we could watch them in the street lights falling like a sudden summer snowstorm. But they wouldn’t last long--in an hour everything would be over, all the mayflies dead for another year.

Fort Benton didn’t like to move around in this heat, with folks sticking close to their homes, praying for the wind that they knew blew only up on the Hi-Line. Even the cottonwood trees that grew on every patch of grass looked sick, their dry bark gray and calloused. Daddy didn’t do well in this heat but hated drinking city water, which he said tasted like the “silt and scum” that floated by when the river was at its lowest, which was exactly where our water came from. But with no end in sight, even a little cloudy faucet water didn’t bother most of us.

June 28

We complain about the heat, we complain about the cold. But what else is there to do?

Sitting in church I’d noticed I didn’t even sweat anymore. Communion was my only relief, the tiny drop of grape juice that I knew had never been refrigerated and tasted slightly hard after a couple of weeks behind the lectern. And I only pretended to eat the cracker, which usually came first, but I knew most people either chose to practice blood-before-body, or hid the tasteless wafers in their purses, Bibles, and sometimes shoes. Every once in a while you’d hear someone doing it right, choking on the pasty little thing from the back row, a new member.

I sat there listening to Daddy roar from the pulpit, his warnings of eternal damnation and hellfire feeling uncomfortably close with the white-hot sun baking us all through the stained-glass windows. My back ached and I tried to sit up straight and listen, but I wasn’t even sure Daddy knew what he was talking about. He garbled and flailed, something about “Mahershalalhashbaz,” a name he loved to toss at us in case a visiting academic might be hiding amongst the congregation. No matter, no one was listening anyway. And when called upon I’d move mechanically to the piano and chop through the hymns that no one sang above a whisper, each trying to save the last few drops of saliva for the long, hot walk home.

historyofpiano.net

I peered over the piano, but he wasn’t there anymore. The man had stopped coming to church. He still smiled at me when I passed the Garage, but after retching up tobacco-flavored vomit on the church floor I didn’t spend much time hanging around on the corner. Still, I couldn’t shake that strange feeling, the quiet gravitational pull that wouldn’t let me take a different route home.

June 30

He’s still watching me.

That Wednesday I was in no hurry, slowly wiping down the pews and trying to remember the words to a song I’d heard playing on the grocery store intercom. I hummed and swept up the days’ old pile of mayflies that lay underneath the back window, tossing them into the trash. Time stood still in this stifling heat, and I squinted against the dusty yellow light as I tossed my rag into the basin. I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands, the only clean skin left, and unfastened a few buttons. My fingers felt tough and swollen, and I leaned in for a drink under the faucet, letting the water pour over my face and into my eyes.

I don’t know how long I stood there splashing myself in the sink, knowing that the second I locked the doors every drop of moisture would be gone, but something made me look up. Not a noise exactly, but the always-prickly feeling of someone watching from afar. I wasn’t alone. We locked eyes for a moment before I remembered my blouse and started fumbling with the buttons.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, shifting in the creaking pew like he might leave. I looked up, fingers poised on the buttonholes. “You don’t have to do that.” He seemed nervous, his damp forehead catching the light, but not nearly as nervous or surprised as I--I’d nearly just taken a bath with an audience. He carefully stood up and rounded the end of the pew, taking slow, measured steps up to the front of the church until he was so close that I could feel his breath. Definitely nervous. There was a spark in his blue eyes that I hadn’t seen before, but his face was calm.

“What do you want?” I asked, aware that I sounded rude. “I’m just about to lock up.” For a second he looked sheepish, then down at his shoes like he might change his mind again. Stepping back he sat down on the front pew and I followed mechanically, still the gravitational pull.

“I guess I just wanted to talk to you. I mean, we see each other every day.” He stared at his knees, eyebrows narrowed, trying to remember what he’d no doubt rehearsed. “I feel like I’m always looking for you.”

“Yeah,” I heard a voice say, then realized it was me.

He leaned back and looked at me, his mustache twitching. “I’d like to get to know you better. You seem...nice.”

“I am nice.”

“I know. I told the boys you were great. ‘Fe,’ right?” He remembered my name, and it made me feel good to think they talked about me behind those old cars.

“Phoebe.” I relaxed a bit, but the butterflies didn’t leave, fluttering hard in my chest.

“You look nice, too.” He tilted his gaze. I’d forgotten about my shirt and clamped my fingers back on the buttons. But he touched my elbow, guiding my hands. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Sweat pooled under his mustache as he reached out and carefully stroked my neck, inching below the collar. His hand was rough and warm; I could smell motor oil on his fingers. I tried to read his eyes, which never left my gaze, young and scared for only a second, then almost powerful. Then back again.

“You’re okay, right?” he said, though not exactly a question, reassuring me with his hands until I silently agreed. Something like heat, but also cold radiated through my body, up and down, back and forth. I sat completely still. His face reminded me of a puppy, innocent except for the fine lines at the corners of his mouth. Then it was gone again, replaced by something darker, older. Back and forth. How funny that it changed so quickly, and I wondered what he was thinking. “Do you like this?”

“M- mm-hm,” I stammered.

July 3

No you didn’t. You lied. You didn’t even know him.

“Good.” His eyes laughed but he didn’t smile. I couldn’t feel the heat glaring through the glass anymore; couldn’t tell you the time of day. And he leaned forward and kissed me, lingering for just a second before sitting back to gauge my reaction. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I was supremely aware of my environment, three buttons undone, kissing a man whose name I didn’t know in the front pew of my father’s church. And I didn’t care; I liked being kissed.

“Do that again,” I said. Relief flashed across his face, and grinning he leaned forward and kissed me, longer this time.

July 3

Stand up. Walk away. You had minutes to change your mind.

His hand crept ever so slightly down the back of my loosened collar, winding its way softly to the front. I couldn’t breathe as he opened the rest of the buttons one at a time, never dropping his gaze, though his nervous breaths had slowed to a comfortable rhythm. The air on my stomach startled me as his hands began reaching for every part of my body, and suddenly I felt self-conscious. I’d filled out over the school year, grown bigger than my mom, and was now completely exposed and didn’t quite know what to do.

July 3

Yes, you did. You knew exactly what to do. The answer was right there.

“You’re really pretty.” He leaned back, taking a long look at me. All of me. Something in his voice sounded off, nothing like the boy I’d thought he was all those weeks ago. Inside me the butterflies had stopped fluttering, now racing like they were trying to get out, and I pulled my shirt back across my chest. “Oh, don’t do that,” he whispered, his voice reminiscent of my father’s, condescending and aware of the balance between us. The boy was gone. He pulled the shirt open again, letting the folds of fabric fall to the sides. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I - I do,” I stuttered again. “It’s - I think I do.”

“No sweetheart, you don’t.” His voice changed again, deeper now, and he looked me hard in the eye. “Don’t be afraid of me, Fe.” And I knew I’d do what he said. All the innocence in his face had disappeared, his jaw muscles tense, stubble etching his cheeks. I could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath and something else I didn’t recognize.

July 3

You could’ve said no. This was your chance.

He slid the blouse down my shoulders and across my back an inch at a time like he was capturing every moment in his mind, no longer looking at my face but gazing intently at my body like a hungry animal. His hands shook, oily fingers expertly popping the button on my slacks and sliding them and my underpants down below my knees. I sat there naked in the pew. I should have prayed but I didn’t, too ashamed to ask God for help. I hadn’t told him to stop.

July 3

Run.

The man loosened his belt and I shut my eyes, knowing what would come next. No one had ever talked to me about what men did to women against their will or how to protect myself. But I knew; I’d read the stories. And I knew what he wanted from me, and probably had for a long time. He grabbed me by the hips, his dirty fingernails cutting into my skin, and we slid down to the floor beneath the steps of Daddy’s pulpit. Again I didn’t say no, but inside I was screaming, clawing, running. I could smell the sweat trickling down his body and saw more of him than I’d ever wanted to. He still wouldn’t look at me, but smiled awkwardly, caressing my cheek with his calloused, filthy hand and whispering something I couldn’t understand. And then he gripped me hard and forced himself into my body, tearing through layers of flesh and paralyzing me with excruciating pain.

“Oh my God. Ow, you’re...” but he covered my mouth and shook his head.

“Shh. Fe, you’re fine. It’s fine. It’s good.” He didn’t look at me as he said it, leaning back toward the ceiling, his eyes shut. I wouldn’t ruin this moment for him. Sweat poured from his face and neck, dropping into my mouth and down my chest, mixing with mine as he slid up and down, following the rhythm of the old church clock. I couldn’t tell if I was moving, too, every part of me hazy and confused. I hated this and wanted to run--of course I did--but it also felt good, and I didn’t understand that part. Now the pain stopped and a new feeling gripped me that I couldn’t have said no to. And he noticed the shift, his one forehead vein bulging as he grinned, breathing heavily into my face. The odor was gin. He even smelled like my father.

Certain he’d never stop, I lay there like a dead animal hoping it was enough to make him quit, giving him nothing in return. But he controlled me like a marionette, and I heard a voice coming out of my body that I didn’t recognize, deep and guttural. And then the pain returned and I wanted to run again. Parts of my body I didn’t even understand fell away, torn like a veil, and all the intensely good sensations disappeared. His hands clawed at the carpeted steps leading up to the pulpit to keep us from sliding on the now soaking-wet floorboards. I stared up at the ceiling trying to stay conscious, watching the dust particles float on the air, trapped by sunbeams. Trapped as I felt. And from somewhere in the back the faucet dripped loudly into the basin saying, “run, run, run.” Marble statues of righteous people stared down at me, condemning me, naked and broken on the floor of the church. I wanted darkness, even death, but all I felt was pain coursing through me, erasing who I used to be.

He gripped the pew and with one last thrust let out a primal howl before collapsing on top of me and rolling away, gasping as the steam drifted from his flaccid, now harmless parts. I lay there too afraid to move, wanting to crawl under the bench and go to sleep, pretend away everything like a bad dream. And for a moment the church was as quiet as it had ever been, just a minute or two, until I heard him shift and sigh. He looked over at me and smiled, nervous again. The boy. He sat up slowly and looked around at the church, at me lying there on the floor, all his demons exorcised as he realized what he’d done.

“You’re okay,” he said again, trying to convince himself this time. He buttoned his pants, then awkwardly tugged at mine like he was helping. I could only lay there, eyes open but looking at nothing. I felt him nudge my leg with the toe of his boot, then heard him yawn the way men do when they can’t think of what to say. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you later.” I watched him unlock the door from the inside and disappear.

I couldn’t move, trying to ignore all the many sensations in every corner of my body and shielding my eyes against the still-bright sunlight, unable to cry, shaking now, but numb. Down the street the courthouse bell chimed 5 o’clock and I pulled myself up against the legs of the bench. I looked around expecting to see overturned chairs, broken candles, pews askew; it had all felt so violent, yet everything here was just as it had always been. No one could ever have known what happened on the floor of the First Baptist Church.

I stood up, pausing to let the vertigo pass every few seconds as I found my breath. Below me the bloodstained floorboards stuck to my shoes, blood still dripping from my thighs and drying in sticky patches that smelled sweet but wouldn’t wipe away. Cupping my bottom I limped over to the basin and turned on the warm water, using a dusty rag to gently wash away the hours. But I wanted to scrub. I wanted to take off my skin, peel away every layer that he had touched. A small mirror above the sink showed me why—a much older woman stared back. Still me, but something had changed in my eyes, the lines around them deeper, the innocence gone. My thin lips sagged at the corners, pale and a thousand miles away from that girl who had learned to bite them for attention. I tried to remember myself; who had I been before? Who were my parents waiting for at home? I quickly mopped up the blood and locked the doors behind me.

I walked along the river, shallow this time of year—a man could easily cross it without being swept away by the current. In a few months the early-winter rains would flood the banks and bring the Missouri back to life, raging, swirling, and taking everything with it. It felt very far away. But today the carp bobbed in the dingey water, picking at the last few dead mayflies.

I lied to Mom that evening, told her I’d lost track of time at the library or something. She smiled at me in that way she always did when she knew, but never asked, and I loved her for it. Because we were fine. We’d always been fine. Every page in her journals was a story of a day that she had been just fine

But I wasn’t fine. My pen had run dry.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

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Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.