All of Me Read online

  drawn in blue pen and scratched eraser marks.

  I watch him smear ChapStick on his lips every ten minutes,

  even digging out the last bits of lip balm with a toothpick.

  One day, John drops the toothpick

  on the floor and mumbles, My pick …

  And that’s where it really starts.

  For a while, I try to call him ChapStick,

  or Chap, Bot, or anything else he might like better,

  but it always becomes the nickname

  Pick.

  Finding the nickname

  finally made me feel like I lived here,

  like we shared something just between us.

  Pretty soon it’s me and Pick all the time,

  watching cartoons together on long Saturday mornings,

  Spider-Man, The Transformers, Avatar,

  and Pick’s favorite,

  an old anime called G-Force.

  I love 7-Zark-7, he says,

  a round, trash-can-looking robot

  who is always afraid

  but who helps protect Earth

  from nine hundred fathoms below the sea.

  Dolan Avenue House

  Halfway through the year,

  my father starts to spend

  his days and nights

  in the garment district,

  selling the hand-painted

  clothes my mother designs.

  He tells me once,

  on his way to work,

  This is how we survive.

  I hardly see him.

  They let me

  take the bus now,

  over the Golden Gate

  on Sunday nights

  to stay with Pick’s

  family on Dolan Avenue

  off Shoreline Highway

  a few days a week.

  They even bought

  me a bike to keep

  at Pick’s house.

  Every day, from the house,

  we ride our bikes

  to school along

  the bike path,

  through the marsh.

  At first,

  it feels like

  long sleepovers,

  whispering stories

  in the dark,

  learning not

  to be alone.

  This family, so kind to me,

  even though they pack

  mostly gross vegetables for lunch,

  eat salads every day,

  eat nearly invisible

  portions at dinner,

  even though I am

  always starving.

  The First Time I Meet Lisa

  I spin the combo

  on my bike lock,

  but it won’t open.

  I breathe heavy

  and groan in frustration.

  The first bell is about to ring.

  Frank laughs as he walks by.

  What’s the matter—

  are your fingers too fat

  for the lock?

  I don’t look.

  Why don’t you just shut up.

  I hear her voice

  like a bolt of lightning.

  The lock pops open.

  Her long blond hair

  shines against her green

  military jacket,

  her arms filled with books.

  She puts out her hand

  with a thousand silver bracelets.

  I’m Lisa.

  But I know this.

  I saw her my very first day,

  the rebel girl

  who misses school sometimes,

  who looks like she’s in high school.

  I’m Ari, and we shake,

  walk toward the bike racks.

  How is it being the new kid?

  Oh, it’s great, I lie.

  She looks at me

  like she’s waiting for the joke to end.

  Where did you move from?

  New York, I say.

  Wow, she says. I wanna go there one day.

  You know, I say, it’s a grid.

  What? She looks at me.

  A grid.

  You know, the way the city is built,

  like on a big sheet of graph paper.

  Like this? Lisa opens a journal

  filled with blue-and-white graph paper

  with drawings of dragons, and daggers,

  and castles against dark skies.

  Wow, those are amazing.

  Thanks. She smiles,

  turns to walk toward class.

  I blurt out,

  Hey, we are making a game

  about giant robots!

  Cool, she says.

  Maybe you can show me some time?

  She waves with her notebook,

  so comfortable

  in her own body,

  curves and all.

  I can tell because

  I’m an expert

  in uncomfortable.

  Bye, Ari!

  and she runs

  toward her homeroom.

  Pencil Space

  I am box-shaped.

  I waddle when I walk.

  When I sit down,

  my sides

  squirt out from my pants

  and create a ridge.

  The skin on the surface of that ridge

  must aggravate the nerve endings,

  because it can feel the metal

  part of the school chair.

  In class, I take my pencil,

  lay it between the edge of the desk

  and my stomach and measure

  in a T-shape

  the distance in between,

  how many pencils of space

  between my stomach and the desk.

  For Mark, two at least,

  For Diana, at least two and a half.

  For me, less than one,

  even when I suck it in,

  even when I push my jacket into my body,

  less than one pencil space.

  Carlos, no pencil space at all,

  gets stuck when he tries to stand up too fast.

  Other kids say he’s been like that since first grade.

  They leave him alone now,

  like they don’t even see him anymore,

  like he doesn’t exist,

  but that seems worse.

  In the mornings,

  kids sit sideways in their desks.

  Pick is talking to Abra,

  and Noah is laughing at something

  that Grace just told him,

  moving his body freely up and down,

  his legs crossed, comfortable;

  I see the angles of his body

  with space all around.

  When Skye talks to me,

  I wish so badly I could

  sit sideways in my chair.

  I want to turn around

  and see her eyes.

  She always smells like candy.

  I turn as much as I can,

  my stomach pressed against

  the wood lip of the desk,

  my neck aching.

  I want this one simple thing

  to open up more space

  between my desk and my body,

  to stop seeing

  life in pencil lengths.

  Shadow Father

  By the end of seventh grade,

  my father becomes a shadow,

  tired, distant,

  weighted down,

  the business swollen,

  sculptures,

  paintings,

  and prints,

  and hand-painted dresses,

  my mom’s designs

  arcing across

  silk and cotton,

  a life fleeced

  with fabric,

  the world puffed up

  in San Francisco showrooms

  and design expos,

  important meetings

  way past my bedtime.

  One weekend day before summer,

  I go
with my mom to the giant warehouse

  where they make everything.

  I have something to tell everyone,

  she says, and I want you with me, Ari.

  I love the warehouse,

  acrylic paints and oil slicks,

  messy palettes, blue jeans,

  bundled fabric, stacked canvases

  like bright packages

  waiting to be ripped open,

  and jars of brushes

  in water pots planted on

  gesso-stained coffee tables

  and wooden supermarket crates.

  The sinks in the back,

  swirled into muddy rainbows.

  She floats inside

  like she has wings for real.

  Her paintbrush poised as always

  for correction and for instruction,

  forever the mentor

  where artists work

  to repeat her designs now on shower curtains,

  pillowcases, sweatshirts, and blankets,

  each one original, each one

  poured out from the well

  of a single imagination.

  I run ahead of her

  into my father’s office,

  a goliath door

  in the center of the work space,

  I unhitch the latch, push.

  This is the first time I see her,

  his assistant, on the leather couch,

  her legs crossed,

  my father pacing.

  Ari? he says, surprised, and pulls me in,

  sits me in his desk chair,

  gives me the name of the woman on the couch,

  who smiles as if she knows me.

  Look at all these orders!

  Bright-white paper scratched with squid ink,

  some numbers and names unrecognizable,

  stacked and folded in uncertain order.

  The Artist ignores him,

  moves from table to table

  in an unbreakable orbit.

  This will be her last day

  of showing everyone

  how to paint her designs,

  of overseeing other artists,

  of meetings and questions

  and business that she doesn’t understand.

  Spirits beg for her to release them

  into terra-cotta and canvas.

  I’m going to work on my collection,

  she announces. The other artists gasp.

  Somewhere near the beach.

  Artists all over the showroom

  clap and cheer for her.

  My father stands at the edge of the room,

  claps his enormous hands

  in rhythmic exhalation,

  relief.

  I want this relief to find me too,

  but all I can think about

  is how much change is about to happen,

  and I might not ever see the warehouse again.

  Her Hands

  On Thursday afternoons

  after school,

  my mom teaches drawing classes

  at the Marin County Rec Center.

  The best part is that Lisa

  and her mom both go.

  Lisa’s the youngest student,

  but my mom says she has a real gift.

  She paints the entire canvas

  without any fear. She just lets

  the colors explode wherever she wants,

  unafraid to get her hands dirty.

  Sometimes we all get dinner after class,

  and soon our moms become friends,

  drink wine and talk

  while me and Lisa write stories

  and build worlds together.

  She loves vintage music,

  and I tell her about

  the old TV shows and movies

  I like to watch.

  Once after the drawing class,

  Lisa, with her long, wild blond hair,

  her hands full of charcoal and paint,

  in her torn jeans, her Def Leppard T-shirt,

  and her tall white boots,

  took my hand and walked me outside.

  What’s it like having a mom like yours? she asked.

  My mom drinks all the time, Ari.

  All. The. Time. Even more after the divorce.

  But all I could feel was her hand,

  like it had stretched itself

  over my whole body.

  I didn’t know how to answer

  right away. I thought

  about telling her what

  I imagined she wanted to hear,

  about art and studios

  and books everywhere,

  but being with her

  made the truth just come out:

  She smokes too much,

  yells all the time,

  and I never know

  what will happen next.

  I could see in her eyes

  she was looking for something,

  squeezing my hand tighter now,

  like she might squeeze even more truth

  out of me, a key to something.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  but

  this hand

  in my hand

  would unravel me.

  Marzipan Potato

  Sometimes after school, I skip

  the first bus,

  take the two-mile walk

  home with Lisa.

  Just because.

  At the bakery

  Lisa shows me

  marzipan potatoes,

  a million calories

  of sugar, honey,

  and almond meal

  rolled into a potato-

  sized ball.

  On the walk,

  Lisa tells

  me about how

  her mom

  is having a really

  hard time,

  with her new boyfriend.

  They drink too much.

  Plus, he is creepy,

  always staring at me,

  taking pictures of us.

  We walk past

  the Mill Valley

  Lumberyard.

  What about your dad?

  I ask. She never talks about him.

  We keep walking.

  Lisa doesn’t answer,

  picks up a stone

  and hurls it into the creek

  along the side of the road.

  I don’t ask her again.

  After the walk,

  her mom isn’t home.

  Lisa invites me in.

  She teaches me about

  Def Leppard, her favorite band.

  We play D&D,

  write stories about faraway lands

  that never existed

  and the warriors who protected them.

  In her stories,

  women are always more powerful

  than men.

  What Happened on the Bike Path

  They are coming for me.

  They hate me because

  they just do.

  Oddball, fat kid, liar, show-off, and sometimes Jew.

  pedal. pedal.

  handlebars. hold tight.

  white egrets in the wind.

  space steady steady steady

  calm, certain,

  still water

  Pick, ahead of me.

  He’s always faster.

  It’s not his fault. He is

  just trying to get away.

  I am too slow.

  My body

  too big

  to move

  the bike

  out of

  the way

  in time.

  Skin. Bone. Asphalt.

  I made them crash,

  they said.

  I talk too much.

  Kick my ass, huh?

  Frank says, Fatboy.

  They come around me,

  gather like reeds.

  I stand. They back me off the bike path,

  my feet in brackish water.
Marsh grass

  brushes my fingertips.

  Pick looks over his shoulder

  as he pedals away.

  What is he supposed to do?

  There is a moment

  where I feel like

  maybe I can beg

  or even cry,

  but I don’t.

  I let them do it to me.

  I am fat. They always tell me this.

  In the locker room. After school.

  At the assembly just last week,

  or birthday cupcakes in the classroom.

  On the playground, picking teams at recess,

  I guess

  I’ll take

  Fatboy.

  I don’t belong. Too big to fit anywhere.

  So I just stand there and let them do it to me.

  I have always known the pain of being called names:

  Fatboy,

  Tubs,

  Baby Huey—

  and then Jewboy!

  What’s the matter, Jewboy?

  I thought I knew about pain,

  but I didn’t know pain like this,

  being punched so many times

  that everything slows down,

  the force of someone else’s weight

  being pushed into mine

  over and over again.

  stomach

  shoulder

  neck

  hands pulling and twisting

  legs pinched

  fingers bent back

  I feel the air pressed out of me

  folded in half

  fluttering like some injured bird

  dirt and flying weeds

  and everything moving so fast

  I can’t keep them off me.

  They keep coming,

  inserting themselves

  like long sticks from all directions

  no way to time it,

  to be ready,

  they poke

  and push and punch

  and still their words are coming

  I can hear my own breath,

  see blood on my jacket,

  my bike, twisted

  on the pavement.

  Between breaths

  I look in the distance for an adult,

  someone who might

  be able to stop all of this.

  I think it’s over until that last kick

  comes right into my stomach

  the air squeezed out of me,

  my head going back and back

  down into the dirt,

  until I can see him standing over me,

  the great herons diving,

  the muffled sound of bikes riding away

  knowing that I’m not hurt bad enough to be dead

  but knowing what death might feel like