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Overview
Figure skaters screw skate blades into the bones of their feet to master elusive jumps. A divorcee steals the severed arm of her ex to reclaim the fragments of a dissolved marriage. Following the advice of a fashion magazine, teenaged girls binge on grapes to dye their skin purple and attract prom dates. And a college freshman wages war on her roommate from Jupiter, who has inadvertently seduced all the boys in their dorm with her exotic hermaphroditic anatomy.
But it isn’t just the characters who are in crisis. In Lungs Full of Noise, personal disasters mirror the dissolution of the natural world. Written in lyrical prose with imagination and humor, Tessa Mellas’s collection is an aviary of feathered stories that are rich, emotive, and imbued with the strength to suspend strange new worlds on delicate wings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609382179 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Iowa Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Series: | Iowa Short Fiction Award Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Lungs Full of Noise
By Tessa Mellas
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS
Copyright © 2013 Tessa MellasAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60938-200-1
CHAPTER 1
Mariposa Girls
Last year, the girls wore dance skirts on the ice, sheer fabric tied at the waist, ribbons fluttering behind them—absurdly expressive tails. This year, they wear nothing. No skirts. No leotards. No tights. They skate naked, wind nipping their nipples, ice burn searing their thighs.
Along with their lycra, they gave up their skates, unscrewed the blades from the boots, and drilled them right into their feet. Two screws in the heel, three up front, secured into flesh and bone, just as one would mount them to wood. They say this way it's easier to point their toes in the air, to sink into the ice as the shock of descent shoots into their knees.
It all started with that girl with the ponytail pulled back so tight it distorted her eyes. Her double axel was shit, the landing an utter debacle. No one knew why. The setup was fine. Her legs scissored, and this motion propelled her body backward. She circled the ice in crisscrossing patterns, building up speed. An empty patch of ice would open. Her arms would pull back to fling limbs into rotation. A knee kicked up. Legs braided together. Ice passed below airborne feet. Then her toe would touch down, the blade sliding out from under her body, her tailbone hitting hard with a thud—falls that rattled the Plexiglas border and slapped her palms a startling pink.
Her coach said, "We've got to do something different if you're going to land that jump." What he meant was weight training or a different brand of boots. He didn't mean this.
But this is what she did. She shaved all the hair off her body, even the hair off her head. She took her father's drill from the tool shed, sterilized the screws, and lined the blades up on her feet. Then zip zip zip, she sent five screws into each foot and slipped skate guards over the blades. She went to bed bald and naked and in the morning showed up like this at the rink.
The first half hour on the ice, she seemed a bit shaky, probably the bones adjusting to the steel thread of the screws, her bare body getting used to the cold. She came off the ice flushed, her skin glistening wet from falling. Her coach slipped a coat over her shoulders, but she shrugged it away. She swallowed hungry gulps from the fountain, then went straight back out to the ice. By the twenty-fifth try she landed her double axel. Dwayne, the Zamboni man, said it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
She landed fifteen more that day, perfectly cloned specimens, a jump she would never let go of again. Her body had memorized the precise vectors of speed and angle. They were engrained in her muscles, her bones, her skin.
She moved on from doubles to triples, as easily as a runner shifts from a jog to a run. She nailed them all, even the lutz. The arc of the landing was smooth and breathless, her leg stretching back in a stunning line from toe to chin. She stroked back and forth across the ice, sweeping into jumps that ascended above the boards. The mothers let out whoops from the stands, shouted, "Again! Again!" At that moment, she was all of their daughters, this beautiful creature who could do magnificent tricks.
By the end of the session, the other girls had stopped skating and stood by the boards to watch. They sipped silently from water bottles and wiped runny noses on the back of their gloves, bearing witness to a new breed of skater, a strange species—hairless and unconfined at the ankles, jumping higher and farther than ever before.
By the end of the month there were a dozen of them, bootless girls with blades affixed to their feet, spinning quadruple and quintuple jumps never before seen. The other girls left, the ones who weren't willing to drill blades into their bones, who wanted to keep their hair, their skirts, their tights. Some went to other ice rinks. Some switched to ballet. Most moved on to other hobbies: to clarinets and pianos, to horseback riding and thespian club.
The ones who made it became skating prodigies overnight. They swept up medals across the country but were disqualified at Worlds. International judges vetoed their performances on the grounds of vulgar aesthetics. "This isn't the Garden of Eden," they said. "Sequins must adorn unmentionable parts."
By that time, the girls had started changing color. A dull gray spread through their fingers and toes, permanent frostbite setting in. The tips of their appendages were a deep dark purple, the skin fading as it went up their ankles and wrists.
"We'll just paint the rest of their bodies," the mothers said. "The way spandex clings, the judges will never know."
They hired artists to blend paint with the gray of the frostbite, spreading unitards across their daughters with blue and silver swirls. To finish the effect, they sewed sequins into their skin and dusted glitter over their heads. They were stunning, icicles stuck in their lashes, scalps shimmering blue. And so they went on winning the medals—while their fingers went numb and the tissue in their feet went dead.
Every so often one would disappear. There'd be whispers of amputation, but no one spoke the word aloud. The Mariposa Club was a mecca of androgynous pixies. Every girl in America wanted to be a Mariposa Girl. They had seen them on TV. They knew Mariposa Girls were pretty. They knew Mariposa Girls always won. And so they were probably watching the night of the skating gala when one of the pixies fell.
It was a minute into her program. She had landed her quadruple axel but wobbled on the landing. She held on, but something wasn't right. Her blade was bent below her, loose and jiggling around. Still, she set up her quintuple loop, bent her knees for the takeoff, sprung into the air. For the longest moment, she floated, and the audience held their breath. When she came down, her ankle tipped sideways, and the screws sliced through her foot. She picked herself up and tried to keep going. But the flesh of her foot came open. There was nothing left to stand on, and she fell back against the ice. She lay there inert while the music played on. No one thought to stop the tape. They waited to hear her scream in pain. They waited to see the blood. But nothing spilled from her body. A wet shadow melted around her. Now she was nobody's daughter. Bald and naked, they could hardly tell who she was.
CHAPTER 2
Bibi from Jupiter
When I marked on my roommate survey sheet that I'd be interested in living with an international student, I was thinking she'd take me to Switzerland for Christmas break or to Puerto Rico for a month in the summer. I wasn't thinking about a romp around the red eye of Jupiter, which is exactly what I'd have gotten had I followed my roommate home. Apparently, American school systems have gotten popular all over. Universities shepherd the foreigners in. Anything to be able to write on the brochures, "Our student body hails from thirty-three countries and the far reaches of the solar system."
You'd think there'd have been an uproar over the matter. I mean, here we have student funding going down the toilet and everyone staging protests to show they're pissed. And she gets a full ride, all the amenities paid for. She comes in like a Cuban refugee, minus the boat, sweeps up all the scholarships. And why shouldn't she? She probably qualifies as fifteen different types of minority. Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against her. We were friends. I just didn't expect her to be so popular. I figured I'd have to protect her from riots and reporters. But as it turns out, she was really well liked.
The first time I met her I nearly peed my pants. It's the end of August and I've got all my stuff shoved in the family van, too unorganized for my father's taste, but we only live an hour away. I'm hoping to get there first to pick the best side of the room, the one with the most sunlight and least damaged furniture. I get up early—just to beat her there. But I don't.
She's sitting at her desk already, reading the student handbook. I double-check the room number: 317. I've got the right place. This is my roommate.
At first, I think she's an inmate. She's wearing this blue jumpsuit. And she's got pale-green skin that looks sickly. Gangrene, I think, not quite knowing what that is. It just sounds like a disease that would turn you green. She's not an all-out green. Tinted rather, like she got a sunless tanner that didn't work out. Her ears are inset like a whale's, and she doesn't have eyelids. She's this tiny creature, not even five feet tall, completely flat, no breasts. It doesn't even look like she has nipples.
My parents are right behind me. My mother's carrying my lava lamp like some offering. My father's got my futon extended over his head, trying to be all macho in case my roommate's a babe. They drop my stuff on the side of the room with the broken closet door and turn to this green, earless girl. They're all excited, want to make friends with the new roommate. So they start asking questions: "How was your drive? Do you like the campus? Have your parents left?"
Not even acknowledging the obvious. That she's green. Maybe they didn't notice. Like I said, it was a pale green, a tint really, but it was pretty obvious to me, and she had weird eyes, beady black pinhead eyes like a hamster's.
So finally I ask, "Where are you from?"
And she says, "Jupiter."
"Jupiter, New York?" my parents ask.
Not that they know there is a Jupiter, New York. It just makes more sense than the other possibility.
"No," she says. "Jupiter, Jupiter. The planet."
"Oh," they say. "I didn't realize we'd found life on other planets yet. How interesting."
She says, "You didn't. We found you," and goes back to her reading.
That shuts my parents up fast. They have no response. They do an about-face and head back to the car.
"Jupiter," my father's saying. "You believe that, Cath?"
My mother's shaking her head, saying "Jupiter" over and over. First, like it's a word she's never heard, a word she's trying to get used to. Then like a question. "Jupiter?" Not quite sure whether to believe it. She says it several more times, looks at my father, then me.
"I was worried about Angela living with city kids," she says. "This is a bit different." She unlocks the car, grabs a handful of pillows, and adds, "Is Jupiter the one with the rings?"
"I thought Jupiter was made of gas," my father says. "How can she live on a gaseous planet?"
"Let's just drop it," I say. "She could be from the moon for all I care."
* * *
As it turned out, she was from the moon. Well, one of them. Apparently Jupiter's got a few dozen. The one she's from is called Europa—by Americans at least. But she tells everyone she's from Jupiter, says it's easier to explain. Her name is Bibi. No last name. Just Bibi. I looked it up. It means "lady" in Arabic. Ironic, as her kind doesn't have genders, just one type, like flowers, self-germinating and all. But she looks more like a girl than a guy, so that's how we treat her while she's here, even though her body parts serve both functions.
She tells me most of this the first night in the dorm. I'm unpacking my toiletries, and she's still reading. I say, "Your parents were cool with you coming to America? Mine wouldn't even let me go out of state."
"I don't have parents," Bibi says.
"Oh Christ!" I say. "I'm sorry. That sucks." What can you say in a situation like that? I'd never met an orphan.
"It's fine," she says. "Nobody has parents. I grew up like this, sort of in a dorm."
"How can nobody on Jupiter have parents?" I ask. I know I'm being nosy, but you've got to admit it's strange.
"It's complicated," she says. "I don't feel like getting into it."
I'm about to insist when there's a knock at the door. Bibi jumps to get it, and these men wheel in a full-size fridge. It's brand-new, a Frigidaire, one of those side-by-side freezer-and-fridge jobs complete with icemaker. They prop it against the window, plug it in, and leave.
"What the hell is that?" I ask, knowing damn well it's a fridge, not quite sure what it's doing in our room. My parents bought us one of those mini units, just enough space for a Brita filter, pudding snacks, and string cheese. The university had exact specifications on which ones were allowed. This Frigidaire's not on the list. Bibi explains how she got special permission to have it in the room, says she has a medical condition.
"What kind of condition?" I ask. "Are you contagious?"
"It's not a viral condition," she says. "I need a daily supply of ice."
"Ice," I say. "For what?"
"Don't they teach you this stuff in school?" she asks. "The basics of the solar system?"
"Of course," I say. "Third grade. We memorized the planets. There was a song."
Apparently she doesn't believe me. She goes to my dresser and starts grabbing stuff. She throws my nightie in a lump in the middle of the floor, says, "That's the sun." She places a red thong beside it and calls that Mercury. Venus is a pair of toe socks. Earth a blue bra. Mars a pair of leggings. And Jupiter and all its moons are my best sparkly panties. She lines them up, stands to the side, says, "See?"
"Yeah, I get your point," I say, though I don't really. I'm too pissed that my underwear are on the floor. Matching bras and panties aren't cheap. "I appreciate the astronomy lesson," I say, but she cuts me off.
She points at my bra. "You're here," she says. "We're there. See how far we are from the sun? It's cold. We don't have sweat glands. Your planet is hot, so I need ice. Capisce?"
Capisce? Who the hell does she think she is? A Jupiterian girl trying to intimidate me with Italian. Barging in with her refrigerator. Taking the best side of the room and making my thong a planet. I snatch her solar system off the floor and stuff it back in my drawer, say, "I don't know much about Jupiter, but here, shit like that isn't cool."
There's another knock at the door. I'm about to say, "That better not be a stove," when these guys from down the hall walk in. They want Bibi to join them for a game of pool.
"I'm Angela," I say, extending my hand.
"You can come too if you want," they say. But it's clear they're just interested in Bibi.
I shrug. "I got stuff to do. Maybe next time."
And Bibi takes off. No apology. No, "I'm not going without my roommate." No nothing. She just leaves me there with her big fucking fridge while she goes to shoot pool with these boys she's never even seen. I'm not sure what they see in her. She isn't at all pretty. I mean, I don't think so. We have rigid aesthetics here, right? How can you count a green earless girl without eyelids as pretty?
I watch them head down the stairs. The dorm is quiet, empty. I thought people were supposed to congregate on their floor the first night, praise each other's bedspreads and posters and shit. The door across the hall opens and a guy wearing pink pants and a polo shirt steps out.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey," he replies.
He's wearing his collar propped up like he's Snow White. His hair is gelled back and goopy. I want to tell him that went out of style with the Fonz, but instead say, "I'm Angela," even though it's written on the construction paper sign on my door.
"Call me Skippy," he says, even though his sign says John Ward III.
"Where'd the nickname come from?" I ask.
"I made it up. People say you can reinvent yourself in college."
"Huh," I say. "Good choice."
"So that green girl's your roommate?" he asks.
"Yeah. Afraid so."
"Do you know when she's getting back?" he asks. "I heard she's from Jupiter. You think you could introduce me? Lloyd in Space is my favorite cartoon."
* * *
The first week wasn't at all what I expected from freshman year. Bibi followed me all over the place, dragging her leaky ice packs along. Didn't quite understand that we had different schedules. She's taking all these science and math courses. And I have this good mix. Swahili. Ballet. Psychology. Statistics. My adviser made me take that last one, said I needed a math credit. But besides statistics, I'm thinking classes should be fun.
Then in psych lab, I turn around and there she is. She's even got the books. I figure she must have bought them for both our schedules. How's a girl from Jupiter to know better?
Everyone wants to be her lab partner. They crowd around her desk and ask stupid questions like, "Are you going to be a psychologist? Will you go back to Jupiter and counsel manic-depressives?"
"No," she says. "I'm a neurobiology major. Stem cell research. I'm going to learn how to grow pancreases and livers on rats, then take them back to Jupiter and implant them in bodies."
"Right," I say. "You're not even supposed to be here. Don't you have chemistry?"
She doesn't answer, just prepares her rat for the maze.
Of course, hers finishes first. Mine gets stuck in a corner and goes into shock.
But what does it matter that her rat's the smartest. The girl doesn't have common sense. She forgets her shoes all the time, puts the toothpaste in her mouth instead of on the brush, and doesn't close the stall door when she goes to the bathroom. No one wants to see how Jupiterians pee. Actually, everyone was interested, but once they saw it, they didn't want to see it again.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lungs Full of Noise by Tessa Mellas. Copyright © 2013 Tessa Mellas. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS.
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