The waters ain\u2019t clean, down here.<\/p>\n
I can drag net after net through those damn waters and somethin\u2019 still gets stuck.<\/p>\n
See, I drag net after net because this place is my home and maybe the water wasn\u2019t always this dark, and maybe I will\u00a0see my feet in the water one day, when I wade in. It\u2019s a little scary, knowing things are up to me.<\/p>\n
My name is Juno. I\u2019m a full-figured pit bull of a child with tangled yellow hair, tanned olive skin, a curved nose and big bright eyes. I think I\u2019m pretty, somewhere underneath all of the car oil and bayou scum. But I\u2019m good enough for what I\u2019ve gotta do.<\/p>\n
And even though it\u2019s\u00a0 scary, I\u2019ve got everything under control down here.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s strange for me to think about it realistically. If I lived a little up north some, it probably would make more sense and in fact maybe no one would think it was stupid. No Jerry Falkner, a boy with wildly curly black hair and freckles covering every inch of him, who sees me with a wet t-shirt working and he just calls his friends over and they think I\u2019m damn funny. I never told anyone that he sent me flowers once, asking me to go to his school dance with him, and I said no.<\/p>\n
My sister told me it was no mistake that I did that, that his kind takes advantage of girls like me.<\/p>\n
I wonder if she was just talking about men in general, or if she knows some secret I don\u2019t know about him.<\/p>\n
She calls me a bayou baby and I contemplate every time she says it whether or not I like it. Thing is I been called na\u00efve before because I haven\u2019t taken things into consideration enough that I take some things meant as insults as compliments, and when I should feel sick with shame I just don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s lucky I don\u2019t, because someone has to hold my household together. She\u2019s been feeling pretty sick lately, Anna, my sister. She looks so drained but every time I ask how she is, she doesn\u2019t tell me anything other than \u201cI\u2019m tired, honeybee.\u201d And she\u2019ll drink one of her home-made remedies, honey and whiskey or something that almost always has alcohol in it. She\u2019s the prettiest girl most anyone has seen around here, big, twinkling brown eyes and rose colored cheeks and hair that is always shiny and fragrant, like Rapunzel herself. I reckon I could look like her if I actually fixed myself, but it ain\u2019t gonna happen because it\u2019s the only way that people leave me alone.
\nPlus to be honest I\u2019ve never gotten a haircut, and with my hair reaching record lengths sweeping my knees it ain\u2019t happening anytime soon.<\/p>\n
Jerry Falkner still bugs me though, no matter if I swat him off, curse him out, he laughs. He compliments me too much when we\u2019re alone together, and cowers behind his little flowery phrases when I call his friends ugly names.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve lived all around Louisiana over the years, from Lafayette to New Iberia in a span of just a few months before we move down, down to New Orleans where everyone loved jazz and it was before the runoff from the storms got so bad, or rather before The Storm itself.<\/p>\n
I was six, but now I\u2019m seventeen and I don\u2019t remember Lafayette all that well, but we\u2019re planning to go one of these days, and Anna tells me that the flora is so dense you can\u2019t distinguish what smells of what.<\/p>\n
We never lived in really safe neighborhoods though, no matter the area. New Orleans might be the worst right now, but Anna never really had enough money, and I\u2019ve learned to not question where she gets it anymore, because the shame in her face is something I find a little sickening.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t think I could live anywhere else anyhow.<\/p>\n
The shrimp ain\u2019t good enough and there\u2019s no morality learned when it\u2019s taken from experience.<\/p>\n
The Ten Commandments come to mind, even though I\u2019m no religious child. However, I\u2019ve gone to church to confess my sins, once or twice. The habit petered out, because as of late the trees have ears bigger than any wrinkled priest\u2019s, and the waters reflection gazing back tells me that (as well as the fact that I need to wash my face) I\u2019ve no one to apologize to other than myself, and I\u2019ve got to get better for that reason only.<\/p>\n
I still find myself apologizing to the water I stare down at though. Apparently further west there are reserves and centers for the environment, up by Monroe and by Leesville, and even closer to New Iberia than here, National Parks and whatnot. We don\u2019t have as much of that here, and especially after The Storm, most of the money we\u2019ve got is still being used for repairs.<\/p>\n
The money I\u2019ve got is held in a piggy bank in the corner under my bed, kept safe because I still remember when I was home alone one day when my sister was out, and a man in a dark coat came in and I remember hiding under the sink in the upstairs bathroom with the family shotgun (which makes me chuckle till this day, as the safety was still on and my fingers were so stubby I wonder if I could have even reached the trigger) and he looted the house well enough that my sister cried herself to sleep that night.<\/p>\n
I guess I didn\u2019t understand enough at the time, and it didn\u2019t scare me as bad as it should have.<\/p>\n
What scares me now is that times are changing much faster than I anticipated; I hear my friends talk about their plans and their dreams and it\u2019s lost on me.<\/p>\n
I wake up at dawn just so I can chew honeycomb in the dense morning fog and wait for the sun to stretch itself awake against the pines and magnolias and I\u2019ll hear the cicadas wake up, and no one talks about any college or that I\u2019m young and have a future and I can feel as old as the war veterans who hum in their rocking chairs with their shotguns by their laps.<\/p>\n
I belong with simpler times, where I can clean the water until the sun has long set and the moon balloons to the ceiling of a star-salted sky and there\u2019s no fear of deadlines.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only a whole lot of water.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look like you\u2019re thinking mighty hard girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJerry.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know whether I hate Jerry or not. I hate him when he\u2019s with his friends, but not as much when he\u2019s by himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou thinking of jumping into this sludge?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cS\u2019not sludge, it is water. An\u2019 it\u2019s not gonna look like this forever either.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t face him but I could hear his feet shuffle over to me and plop himself down beside me. He lets out a long grumble.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you see something that other people can\u2019t out here?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him after a few seconds pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I did, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be talking to you, I think I\u2019d be talking to the voices.\u201d<\/p>\n
He let out a bark-like laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t get you, Juno-\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re damn right you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I mean is that you don\u2019t do nothing other than work down here and then go home and hole up, the only times I see you are down here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, well, why would I want to see you and your gang; you and Frank Miller and that boy who you call Tank, you look me up and down and then you jeer at me like I\u2019m real funny-\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cHey look we don\u2019t mean any harm, they think you\u2019re pretty, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah? I think they look like sewer rats. Just because I\u2019m the only female in this neighborhood who won\u2019t mace you doesn\u2019t mean you can take the piss out of my hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t what I was trying to say!\u201d His ears glowed red. \u201cI was trying to ask why you think you can make a difference when one little girl isn\u2019t gonna do jack to fix anything. You\u2019re not dumb Juno, even though I say so with the guys, you know how guys are! That\u2019s just what we do. Don\u2019t mean no harm by it though, honest!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah like meaning harm means anything. You think a bear means to hurt their lunch when they\u2019re starving?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t come here to argue with you.\u201d Jerry mumbled.\u00a0 I shot him a stinging glance. \u201cYour sister isn\u2019t well is she? She looked real pale last time I saw her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of your beeswax.\u201d And I scooped out another lump of gooey comb from the jar in my lap and bit off a chunk. He laughs a little at my joke. \u201cYou think you know things, just like your friends and my friends too-\u201c I forced down the mouthful. \u201cJust cause you do well in school, or have some healthy pattern. I know who I am and what I gotta do, my sister knows. Do you know, Jerry? Do you and your friends know when you beat people up and tell them they\u2019ll see you again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJuno I-\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she ain\u2019t well, then she ain\u2019t damn well! You can keep your nose out of it, and you can stop making me think about things that aren\u2019t necessary! I got enough to worry about as it is, and all you and your kind ever do is make it worse!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy\u2019re you crying?\u201d<\/p>\n
What scares me about the future is that no matter how much smarter I am than everyone else, is the future is always smarter than me. The future knows that until there are hundreds of Juno Velikigi with nets and purifiers, the water will still look like sludge. The future knows that my sister won\u2019t be around to hold my hand for very long.<\/p>\n
Jerry left when the tears started to fall, and I looked at the dirty waters, I looked at my net.<\/p>\n
I felt the water slide over me with a rush of anticipation and sorrow and I tasted the rich scum on my mouth when I shouted as loud as I could.<\/p>\n
What scares me about the future is that it knows everything and I know so little, but when I\u2019m here, when I\u2019m with my own God and my own heart?<\/p>\n
I know everything that I will ever need to know.<\/p>\n
I know everything that I will ever need to know, and so much more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The waters ain\u2019t clean, down here. I can drag net after net through those damn waters and somethin\u2019 still gets<\/p>\n