BLUE

Radical Society, Oct-Dec 2003 by Curtis, Rebecca

WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN I LICKED A RUG. No one else was in the living room. I was on the couch acting normal. Then I got down on my knees and licked the rug. It tasted like a sneaker. I licked it again. I thought, my father has stepped on this rug, and I licked it. I thought, my mother has stepped on this rug. That made me lick it. I thought, my brother's dropped fingernail stuff on this rug. I was licking a lot at this point. Head stuff has fallen out of all of their heads, I thought, and landed onto this rug, and I am licking it now without them knowing. I felt I had pulled something wicked over on them. All afternoon I was licking.

I tried to act normal when they came home.

What's wrong? they said. Why's the rug all wet?

Nothing's wrong, I said. Everything's normal!

After that I licked rugs whenever I could. I did it when no one else was around. I liked the little ones people put down near doors and at the base of bathtubs. I liked bedroom ones and heavy-duty ones from the east of the world. Some rugs were better than others. The ones at department stores are supposed to be from the East, but they only have like two hundred threads per square inch, and you can stick your finger down in them, no problem. Other rugs have one thousand threads per square inch and you can't get a finger inside, no way. Families in Arabia spend their whole lives making these rugs, and right now these families are all on their knees in very small houses, tying a knot at the end of each thread of a rug.

I thought, other people must also do this. I cannot possibly be unique. I have never been unique. I remembered the time my mother said: Why can't you be unique? I felt sort of bad about myself. I don't know why I felt this way. I lost weight and woke up each morning feeling strange. Fd sit at the breakfast table sipping black tea and my brother would say, You've lost weight.

I have on big clothes today, Fd say.

I licked in school closets, when I could, when the closet had a rug.

I tried to make friends with girls who had really good rugs in their living rooms, and when they invited me over, which wasn't often, Fd ask them to go in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, just so I could have a few licks.

Mostly I licked at home. I varied the spots in which I licked, and I blow-dried them afterwards, then dragged a sneaker across the spot, for a walked-on look. I was sure no one knew about this. But here are the signs I ignored: my mother, who had always only been a medium-cleaner at best, began vacuuming all the rugs every day. She also started dusting all the windowsills, hand-washing the couches, and wiping all the floorboards with a fine flax cloth.

During these times I read a book.

My father began attending business functions evenings and weekends. I thought, my father, who could have been anyone else if it wasn't for my mother, my brother, and me. I thought about this all the time. I stayed awake nights to lick the rug in the living room after everyone else was asleep. I licked long into those hours in which all the little copper lights of our shitty town went dim.

One night we had burgers and chips for dinner. We were in the kitchen. My brother wasn't eating his burger. I was humming softly to myself a song about what birds do in fall. I stopped humming when I noticed my mother quietly sticking a fork in her arm.

Hey, I said, good burger.

I saw you lick the rug, my brother said.

What are you talking about? I said. I said it casually.

I saw you, he said. I saw you lick it.

My father was looking at a poster of Versailles he'd thumb-tacked to the wall.

I looked at my mother. There were a bunch of fork marks in her arm.

Hey, I said. I've been meaning to mention that. I lick the rug once in a while. It's no big deal, right?

I looked at my mother. Her face was red like a wart.

My daughter does not lick rugs, my father said.

Yes she does, my brother said.

It's okay if you lick rugs, my mother said. But not in this house, under this roof. Lick them somewhere else if you're going to be doing it.

I have known women that lick rugs, my father said. But I have never wanted you to be one.

But it's not fair, I said.

None of them looked at me.

Everyone must do it, I said. To one degree or another.

No one said anything.

I've seen you all look at the rug, I said.

But we didn't lick it, my mother said.

I went to my room and lay on the bed. Between cars driving west and the howls of teenagers running by on the street I heard my mother talking loudly on the telephone. She talked for several hours to several different friends. Mostly her voice was a mumble, but I heard her say, Why me? Why me?

The next day my brother came home from school with a broken jaw. His jaw was wired shut with some kind of tin pliers.

I'm sorry about your jaw, I said.

I told them I don't like you, he said, but it didn't help. he had to mumble around the wire to speak.

After that my brother and my father and my mother all went into their bedrooms so they would not have to see me. The rug was in the living room, but I was too sad to lick it.