It's Just a wall

8/14/16

“Keaton,” I heard a girl’s voice say from behind me. I had been absently watching the crowd drunkenly grind to the pulsing music in the dimly lit living room. I turned to see Penelope Write standing there. She was glittery and she wore a short, tight black dress. I blinked a few times. Her signature long raven hair didn’t even reach past her ears. It was short and choppy and spiked up oddly. Her eye makeup was smudged and her lips were the color of plumbs. She looked otherworldly.

“Hey, Penelope,” I said.

“You can call me Pen, like everyone else, if you want,” she said.

And for some reason that made me happy, as if the Great Penelope Write thought I was as good as everyone else. “Yeah, sure, Pen,” I said trying it out.  “This is a really cool party, the music is…” I trailed off, watching her eyes skirt the room. She wasn’t listening. Her pupils looked dilated and her hands were shaking. The red cup in her hand was filled to the brim, and her drink was spilling over the sides, dripping onto her fingers and down her arm.

“Pen, are you okay?” I asked.

Her eyes were fixed on the corner of the room that held DVDs and books. No one was there, but she squinted, like she was trying to read something, maybe. The music was loud.

“Pen,” I said, louder.

She looked a little alarmed, like she has just woken up, and stared at me. She broke into a tight smile, but offered no words.

“Pen, are you okay?” I asked, attempting to take the cup away from her. She jerked her hand back and some more of the pink drink spilled over onto her skin. She raised the cup to her lips and took a few deep gulps. The cup was half empty now and she wiped her mouth, leaving lipstick on her palm.

“I need your help with somethin’,” she said, grabbing my collar. She leaned in close. Her breath reeked of booze, weed, and peppermint. “Can you help?”

I nodded wordlessly.

“Okay, follow me,” she said, dropping her hand down to my sleeve and tugging me along.

We skirted through the living room into the less crowded kitchen. Through the kitchen and onto the back porch. A few couples were making out; one in the swinging chair and one in either corner. We walked down the porch steps and around the house to her front yard.

“Where are we going, Pen?” I asked.

She pressed her finger to her lips and made a “shhh” sound, before taking another sip of her drink. “Down the road.”

We went out into the road and started walking. I wasn’t sure where we were going but I felt like it would be rude to ask again. She was barefoot.

We took a few turns and the houses became more sparse.

“Pen, what are we-”

“We’re almost there!” she hissed. She tossed her empty cup onto the side of the road.

We got to a long, dark road with only one street lamp, no houses. I could hear the highway not too far off.

“Do you see it?” she whispered.

“See what?”

She sighed in an exasperated way. Then she grabbed my wrist and pulled me a little further down the road, so we were standing directly under the street light. There across from the street light was a sudden, small patch of white washed sidewalk. On the sidewalk there was a wall, about four feet high, six feet long.

“It’s a wall,” she explained.

“Yeah,” I said.

She groaned. “Keaton! What do walls do?” she shouted. Penelope Write always talks loudly when she drinks. She’s the voice of every party. But no one ever minds. Except, this time, I’m the only one to hear her.

“Oh, uhm, I don’t know, they, like, give shelter and--”

“Shut up,” she moaned. She walked over to the wall and leaned on it. She held her head like it was heavy. “Think, Keaton. Think. What do walls do?”

I walked over to it. I didn’t want to think. My head was pounding and she was drunk and I kind of wanted to make out with her.

“Walls protect things, keep things out--”

“Right. Right. Walls shut things out and they keep things in and this, this….” she quieted, rubbing her fingers on the top of the wall. She looked at me seriously. “It’s a wall that shuts nothing in and keeps nothing out.”

I looked at her, waiting for something more.

As if to prove a point, she climbed up on the wall, wobbled a bit, regained her balance, and stood up there, looking down at me pointedly.

Then she jumped off onto the other side of the wall. It was me, the wall, and her. “A wall that shuts nothing in and keeps nothing out,” she reiterated. I stayed quiet.

She hopped back up onto the wall and sat there, feet dangling from the ground. I hopped up beside her. We sat, shoulders touching, facing different directions.

“Pen, what are we doing here?” I asked. “We should be at your party.”

She was quiet. Then I heard her sniffle. I looked over and her back was to the light, so her face was shadowed. But I was sure she was crying.

I stayed quiet.

If she wanted someone to talk to, she should have chosen someone else. Not that I didn’t care about her and her poor rich white girl problems, but I just didn’t know how to deal with this. And I didn’t even know her that well.

“What is this wall here for?” she asked.

“How the hell should I know? It’s just a wall,” I said.

It was quiet, and I could hear the highway traffic. Some sort of bird sung out.

“Someone had to go to the effort of building it. They built this useless thing. Sometimes walls are really great-- like, symbols of power and---”

“Donald Trump wants to build a wall,” I said.

She gave me a sharp stare. But then she softened and looked away. “I guess there isn’t really a point to this,” she said. She leaned against me.

“Do you ever want to die, Keaton?” she asked suddenly.

“What?” I asked. But I heard her clearly, and she didn’t repeat herself. “No,” I said firmly.

She doesn’t say anything for a little while.

“Aren’t you happy your sister is home?” I asked, trying to make conversation that was less depressing.

But she didn’t respond. She just rested against my shoulder and yawned. She was drunk, so she was sad. Because even rich, smart, pretty white girls have some reasons to be sad, I’m sure. But they weren’t very big reasons, and she would get over it in the morning when she was sober. Her life wasn’t that bad.

And as if she was reading my mind she said, “I have plenty of reasons to be happy.”

I shifted my weight slightly. Her head was sort of heavy. Her hair smelled like peaches.

“I really don’t have any good reasons to be sad,” she said, “and all of the reasons I’m not happy are reasons I made up for myself. It’s like, everything is so good, that I need to find something to be sad about…. it’s not fair, you know… not fair that I have to make up reasons to be sad when everyone else has so many good reasons. But I’m good at pretending, you know. I’m really good at it…. so good I believe myself and…. everyone else is going to believe me, too. The end justifies the means and…. if the end…. if in the end, if the end says it then, that’ll be the end.”

I stopped understanding her. She wasn’t making sense. She yawned again. I was tired too. I didn’t really feel like going back to the party but I didn’t really want to go home. So I guess this bad excuse for a wall was good enough for now.

She sat up and leaned back, so she could see the world upside down. “I can’t be happy, Keaton. I just can’t.”

“You could be happy if you wanted to be,” I said.

“I don’t f*****g want to,” she said, finally.

She hopped off the wall.

“Get out of here,” she told me.

I blinked. “What?”

“Just leave.”

“What the hell, I’m only here because you dragged me all the way-”

“Leave me alone!” she yelled, shoving me.

I hopped off the wall. “What the hell is wrong with you? F*****g insane,”

“You’re right!” she screamed, “I’m f*****g insane, completely neurotic!”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“I’m not acting like anything! I’m not acting anymore, I’m not, I’m not,” she mumbled, her whole body shaking.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to your sister,” I offered.

“Screw off! I’m not going back to that s**t hole party. You go.”

I looked at her and she crossed her arms like a child. I thought maybe I should force her or something. But I wasn’t responsible for her.

“Whatever,” I said, turning my back on her and the stupid wall and heading back for the party. I looked back once. She was sitting on the wall.

When I got back to the party I looked for Sophie, Pen’s older sister. I found her dancing with some college guy. She told me to piss off. So I left.

And last night I dreamed about her (Penelope, not Sophie). I dreamed that she took me to the wall and I told her that it would be okay. We kissed and she was happy.

But when I woke up she had been dead for hours. Someone told me that it was pills. Someone else said she ran into the highway. I don’t know if it matters.

Pen is dead. That’s all anyone is talking about.

It is our Senior year of high school. I always thought Penelope Write was the most beautiful girl I’d ever known, though I never knew her well, and I guess it never really mattered if she was beautiful or not. We had a month left of school. She was going to go to Brown. But I guess that doesn’t really matter now.

The day of her funeral class is cancelled. I don’t go, because I don’t feel like I should. But after sleeping in and finishing my calculus homework, I go on a walk. I walk the four miles to her house, and then walk and walk in the general direction I think we walked together when she was alive. After a few hours I’m at the useless wall. In the daylight it is even less assuming, and I can’t help but wonder if my time alone with Penelope was just some weird trip. But I sit on the wall, and I’m sure it had to have been real.

It’s just a wall. A wall that keeps nothing in and shuts nothing out. I stand up and look at it again. I imagine Penelope with her warm cheeks and white smile and green eyes on the other side. I think it meant something to her. Something she wanted me to understand. Maybe the wall symbolizes the boundaries she put up. Maybe it was an example of the fictitious problems she created for herself. Maybe it was a commentary on rape culture and social justice. I don’t know what it was to her. But it means something to me, now. Something, probably, completely different.