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BLUE

Radical Society, Oct-Dec 2003 by Curtis, Rebecca

Overnight someone spray-painted SHE LICKS RUGS on our house.

When I woke up I found my things in a bag on my bed.

My mother came into my room. She was holding my coat. I packed your slippers, she said.

Carol, my father yelled from the bedroom, get in here.

The fork marks were still on her arm.

Hey, I said. Mom. Why'd you stick a fork in your arm?

She looked away. You can't just blame everyone else, she said. Sometimes you have to blame yourself.

You tried Mom, I said. You did a great job.

I know that, she said. What I'm saying is, blame yourself.

A van arrived and drove me to a large white building I don't know where. I got my own room. There was no rug. There was just floor. I've heard of floor-lickers, but I am not one of them. I don't look down on them as lesser or anything. It's just not me. Floors are salty and dry. They are nothing like rugs.

In the evening a physician entered my room. he said he was once an investment banker but became interested in rug-licking through an ex-lover and then went back to school and got a special degree. he said to call him Dr. Blane.

I want to help you, Dr. Blane said.

I don't want help, I said. I just want to lick a rug.

Well, Dr. Blane said, that's not normal, is it?

I don't know, I said.

You know God is normal, don't you? Dr. Blane said.

I don't know, I said.

Let's talk about you as a person, Dr. Blane said. You're average looking, Dr. Blane said, and you could lose five pounds. But I'd do it to you if I met you at a party.

You would? I said.

I think so, Dr. Blane said. As much as one can know the future, which one can't, yes.

I thought about the future. When will my family visit? I said.

Your family does not want you back, Dr. Blane said, standing up, but that doesn't mean I can't help.

I went through a series of treatments. I don't like to talk about them too much. I had to look at photographs of a popular actor walking down a street with an enormous black briefcase, and photographs of him with his arms around a popular actress, and of him rubbing her back while watching a television show about sports, and of the actress lying down on a couch in her underwear, sort of smiling and reading a book called Cold Mountain.

The photographs made me want to lick a rug.

Other days the other lickers and I had to dress up and walk around a ballroom repeating phrases to each other. My partner's name was Moll. She had a beautiful face and fat shoulders and her hair was white. Our conversation went like this: