The Door Girl, Part 9

Aunt Cassie lived three trailers down from Grandma in a park called Silver Lake. That’s because it was on a body of water, but it was actually not so silvery after all. It was more green and swampy with fat carp swimming around feeding off of dead things in the water.

But to the kids who lived there and myself, it was a dream. Here we were, all poor and dying inside living on a body of fresh water with nothing but time. We played Marco Polo, sang Rockin’ Robin as we rocked back and forth in innertubes and at the end we plunged head deep in to the water. There were adults everywhere who felt sorry for the tree dwellers like us, but we…we were living the American dream. So to any adult out there who feels sorry for those poor kids who come from divorced homes and are on welfare, don’t. Unless they don’t live on a lake. Then buy the damn kid a new bike and call it a day.

The trailer park was brown and lumpy. There were mounds of dust and brown dirt everywhere like the place was under construction—like new ground was about to be broken and beautiful homes were going to be built. The truth was, however, that the whole landscape was disintegrating. Aluminum panels hung on hinges and the land itself was constantly losing itself in battle to the tide. The place was falling down around us and we watched it burn, the fire glowing in our eyes. It was madness, appallingly, disgustingly magical. And it was ours.

Late at night, we would sneak down to the lake while our keepers slept. We passed notes between trailers to decide on a time to meet at the shore in between all of the “circle yes or no” notes that we sent. I usually had a boyfriend by about 7 pm and then had broken up by midnight. Yet another of the many games we played. Make up, break up and do it all again tomorrow.

The water was warm on those nights from rolling around in the sun all day. We twisted up our pajama pants to the top of our sunburned legs and pushed up our sleeves until they cut off the blood supply to our arms. No one lollied or said it was too cold. We all just splashed in, never minding that we might have to explain how our pajamas got wet.

“Marco,” one cried.

“Polo,” another…

We bobbed our heads under water and above to try to win a game we didn’t care about winning. We just cared about being together in the middle of the night. After, we walked, arms brushing back to our trailers and said goodnight as we parted ways. As I lay in my bed, with a broad smile on my face, the knowledge erupted that we were kings of our universe and no one could tell us any different.