Mosquitoland: Chapters 1–5

During that time, it’s possible I’ve gotten into some trouble at my new school. Not trouble with a capital T, you understand, but this is a subtle distinction for adults once they’re determined to ruin a kid’s youth.

He scheduled a conference for ten a.m., in which the malfeasance of Mim Malone would be the only point of order.

“What’s her mother’s name again?” asked Schwartz, his timbre muffled by that lustrous seventies mustache, a holdover from the glory days no doubt.

Here, she repacks her trusty JanSport backpack with overnight provisions, a bottle of water, toiletries, extra clothes, meds, war paint, makeup remover, and a bag of potato chips.

Consider that little clandestine convo between Dad, Kathy, and Schwartz Reason #1.

Retracing the stick figure on the front of this journal makes little difference. Stick figures are eternally anemic.

In my head, a thousand tiny Mims shoot flaming arrows at Carl, burning his hair to the ground in a glorious blaze of tuft. Before one of these metaphysical Mims gets me into trouble, I hear my mother's voice in my ear, echoing a toll, the chime of my childhood: Kill him with kindness, Mary.

I'm out the door and into the squall before he can respond.

The dulcet tones of Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" echo off the walls of our little canvas-and-water prison.

Stevie only croons when Kathy calls, altogether negating the sentiment of the lyrics.

They lived on Utopia Court, if you can believe it—a little cul-de-sac tucked in the back of the neighborhood.

When we turned the corner, it was like stepping through Alice’s looking-glass, only instead of the Jabberwock and a Red Queen, we found revolutionaries and idealists, people who damned the Man, people who refused to bow to suburban mediocrity.

We took part in their pig roasts, lemonade stands, and beer buckets, their loud stereos and rambunctious kids, their flag wavings and fireworkings and food gorgings.

We did so with gumption and hunger and thirst, knowing full well it would be another 364 days before those offerings came back around.

Bottom line: in the face of suburban mediocrity, Utopia Court provided an honest-to-God mutiny, and we loved every mutinous minute.

As the distant fireworks dwindled, our sidewalk became darker, as if Utopia’s pyrotechnics had been the city’s only source of light.

Her tone was familiar, like the lyric of some dark-eyed youth singing tragic clichés.

Only the eighties, with its fuchsia-infused electro-pop, could have produced high-top footwear of such dazzling flamboyance.

I'll admit, initially, I'd been wary of sitting next to an old lady: the beehive hairdos, the knit turtlenecks, the smell of onion soup and imminent death.

Nothing to rile the geriatric gestapo. But her smell...
I've been trying to place it ever since I sat down. It is decidedly un- geriatric.

The sermon of encouragement, imploring bravery in the face of a crumbling American family. It's all in the manual. Adults just can't help themselves when it comes to Words of Wisdom.

Dad sighs, mutters something about the futility of correspondence, leaves the room.

Either way, you should write. It's better than succumbing to the madness of the world.

We ride in silence for a while, and I don't know about Arlene, but it's nice to sit that close to someone and not feel the incessant need to talk.

The doctor's lips curled into a coy smile. "I'm sorry. Mim. Tell me wha—"

"You make it sound like, I-don't-know...epilepsy or something. Like I'm drooling and convulsing all day."

"And aren't inkblots, like, completely medieval? What's next, a lobotomy? Shock treatment? God, it's like Cuckoo's Nest in here."

And behind the good doctor, his Wall of Hubris: I counted seven framed degrees, hung with care and pride...

I was the only one who caught this dig at Makundi. Or the only one who cared, anyway. Professional. Insinuating Makundi's recommendation was less than.

A pall fell over the room.

This mutant word, a tragic portmanteau, the unnatural marriage of two roots as different as different could be.

And do you, Ability, take Vitriol to be your lawfully wedded suffix? I wanted to scream objections to the unholy matrimony, but nothing came out.

Prone to unwieldy dreams, I've always found naps to be more exhausting than refreshing, and this one was no exception.

I nudge it gently toward the aisle, where it lolls for a second before flopping right back where it was.

Taking a deep breath, I push the lipstick farther down in my pocket, pull out Kathy's covert papers, and sit on top of the plastic toilet lid.

The sixth and final letter is a haphazard scrawl, without salutation or signature.

The love letter has sunk to the bottom, a metaphor worth its weight in gold. I toss the epistolary snowball in after it and push the handle to flush.

Normally, this is a sacred process, requiring no small amount of finesse. But right now, my finesse level is hovering somewhere around “Velociraptor." I am finesse-less. I have no finesse.

Just before the lipstick meets the sallow skin of my cheek, the toilet behind me gives a low belch.

Having never given two thoughts to the inner workings of a bus's sewage system, I'm left to imagine some giant stomach-like tank in the bowels of the vehicle boiling to its fill, an impending eruption triggered by the crumpled letters.