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Frost Warning 03
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FROST WARNING #03 A STORMWATCH INFORMATION FRONT PUBLICATION
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"RITES OF JULIE"
[Laura Barcella]
<hadielb@aol.com>
Amherst, MA - USA
[ July 27, 1997 ]
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[S.I.F. -- Frost Warning Contact Information:]
WWW: http://www.cryogen.com/acidrain
FTP: ftp://ftp.etext.org/Zines/FrostWarning
E-mail: <acidrain@cryogen.com>
[PGP Key Available on Request]
REDISTRIBUTE/REPUBLISH FREELY IN UNMODIFIED FORM
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Stormwatch Frost Warnings:
G-Files for the dawn of the 21st Century
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[Note from Jake Century:
The author describes the motivation behind this story of
adolescent justice:
"'Rites of Julie' was an expression of my intense frustration,
anger, and revulsion at the way I see so many people operating
today...both girls and boys, men and women. Sure, many men act
like idiotic, sex-obsessed, women-objectifying pigs, but many
women and girls eat it up, because it's the only type of
approval or sense of worth they have been taught to seek out and
value. My main objective in writing that story was to create
an anti-heroine to all those bullshit "Sweet Valley High"
heroines I grew up with. I wanted to introduce a super-strong,
tough, smart young female character to combat the
marginalization affecting even the youngest females in our
culture today."
Laura Barcella is a 20-year old presently attending the
University of Massachussetts at Amherst. She hails originally
from Washington, DC. She has been published in many other
publications, including Neon Quarterly, Children, Churches, and
Daddies, Banned Thoughts, and Nocturnal Postings.]
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People had lots of names they liked to call her. The
stupid jocky boys in her seventh grade class called her a
lesbo, while the prissy, pretty girls called her a bitch, and
her parents had told her all her life that she was simply a
"bad girl." Although some of these names were told to her
face, they didn't much affect her. Julie Temptree had always
been a strong-willed child, and she had no interest in
attempting to tolerate the self-indulgent, trivial whims of
others.
One August day, Julie's father announced that the
family was moving. "To the beautiful mountains and country
roads of Virginia," he said, smiling like a salesman.
Julie threw a fit, but there was no changing his mind.
Her mother spoke not a word.
August was Julie's favorite month. It had been her
favorite since she was a little girl. She didn't understand
why her mother and father complained about leaving the house in
August. They always told her to stay inside and watch
television, because it was too humid for her to do things
outdoors. She never listened to her parents anyway. If they
wanted to waste away the summer days indoors, that was their
problem.
Her father had never been home much. Her mother said
he was "off doing important things in the world," but Julie
doubted this. How much impact could selling car insurance
truly have on the world? Edward Temptree was tall and kind and
fair, and as stubborn as his daughter, and she had inherited
his shiny green eyes. She adored him, but she knew that both
of her parents had a tendency to stretch the truth. Especially
her thin, frail mother, whom Julie preferred to ignore most of
the time.
Julie considered her mother a weakling. All she did
each day was lay on the couch and watch silly soap operas and
talk shows. Her father told Julie to mind her mother and be
sweet to her. As he would say, "She doesn't feel like herself
sometimes, and that makes her tired and cranky. But there's
nothing she can do."
Julie remembered one time, the only time she had seen
her mother cry. She tried never to think of it, but it was one
of the early memories that clung to the inside of her head.
She had been very young at the time, about four or five years
old. She and her mother, Elizabeth Temptree, were on a plane
to North Carolina to visit grandparents and uncles and nephews
at a family reunion. Julie's father had stayed home because
his work was too important to miss.
It was a few minutes after the plane had taken off.
The stewardess had not even come around with Cokes and honey
roasted peanuts yet. Julie was busying herself with a book,
while her mother lay on the seat beside her with her eyes
closed.
Julie turned to her mother to ask a question. She had
not yet spoken when she noticed wet, shiny spots emerging from
beneath her mother's closed eyelids.
"Mom? Mom, what's wrong?"
Julie's mother did not respond, but she shook her head.
Glistening tears slid from her eyelids and began to dribble
down her smooth, pale cheeks.
Mothers didn't cry. They couldn't cry. This wasn't
supposed to happen. Julie wanted it to stop.
She touched her mother's shoulder. "Mom, tell me.
What's wrong? Do you feel sick? Are you going to throw up?"
Julie remembered that her mother had gotten seasick on
a boat before. Maybe she was crying because she felt that way
again.
Her mother's eyes did not open, and she said nothing.
She shook her head emphatically, as if saying no, she did not
feel sick. She was not going to throw up. Why, then, was she
crying?
Julie felt her own eyes fill with tears. She did not
know what to do. She did not even know what was wrong. She
just knew that this was wrong, this was all wrong, this should
not be happening.
Julie touched her mother's hand. Her mother pulled away
gently. She raised her hand to her face and wiped the tears
away. She did not look at Julie.
"Nothing's wrong. It's okay. Keep reading, honey."
Julie had always hated remembering that incident. It
persisted after all the years, still fresh, still something she
wanted to pretend was not happening.
Julie hated watching her mother spend entire days
before the television, growing weaker and uglier in a dirty
pink bathrobe. She vowed that she would never be like that,
never be so lazy and boring.
Julie was always busy. She was never bored. She built
her own treehouse when she was eight, though it collapsed when
she finally climbed into it. So she built a rope swing
instead, and spent many joyful summer afternoons kicking her
legs up as hard as she could, getting her body as far from the
ground as possible. When she reached the point at which she
felt she could touch the heavens, she would hurl herself off the
swing and pretend she was an Olympic jumper. She loved the
sensation of flying through the hot August air, feeling her
hair blow behind her in a damp, tangled mass.
When her father announced that the family was moving,
Julie was experiencing what her mother deemed "an awkward
stage." She was tall and skinny as a boy, except for her hips,
which protruded from the sides of her jeans and forced her to
wear a size larger than her small frame implied. She disliked
her hips, simply because they did not look right on her body.
She was not very concerned with her appearance otherwise.
Unlike many of her female classmates, Julie did not
want breasts. They were mounds of fat which seemed to get in
the way of everything. She was amazed when she changed in the
gym locker room and saw all the 12 and 13-year-old girls
wearing padded bras, or cotton balls stuffed inside their
training bras. Sometimes she even saw girls comparing the size
of their breasts. They would stand shirtless, side by side at
the full-length mirror, raising their arms and inspecting one
anothers' chests. Julie was not shy, but she could not imagine
throwing her nudity around as if it were nothing.
Julie was in no rush to become a teenager. Her best
friends, Carly and Eva, were preoccupied with appearing as old
as possible. They always dressed in black or screaming red,
and they bought $50 fringy leather miniskirts. Sometimes they
showed up at school with teased bangs and crimped hair. Julie
thought they looked nice on those occasions, but she never
bothered to try crimping her own hair. She enjoyed wearing
Petal Glamour lipstick from time to time, only because it
reminded her of her dream to become a movie star.
Julie had an affection for old, voluptuous, black and
white movie stars. She imagined herself as one of them
someday, spending the glamorous nights of her late twenties in
ritzy New York clubs, wearing red lipstick and sipping
champagne, blowing beautiful blue cigarette smoke into the sky,
surrounded by jealous admirers.
Paldrum, Virginia. Julie entered the small town like a
blizzard. She was in a state of rage at the prospect of living
in such a place. All of the women spoke with Southern accents,
and their voices were drippy and fake. They spoke of the new
vegetables they had planted, and the embroidery they were
taking up, and the PTA meetings on Friday evenings. They were
perfectly suited to the likes of Mrs. Temptree, and they were
everything Julie could not stand.
The town consisted of five small neighborhoods and a
main street which included a grocery store, a movie theater, a
cheap motel, a gas station, and a Family Funfood restaurant.
Julie did not understand how she was supposed to survive in a
town like this. She constantly pleaded with her father to allow
her to go to boarding school in New York, where her friend Eva
had just enrolled.
Although she was a wonderful debater, Edward Temptree
never succumbed to his daughter's arguments. He liked to think
that she had inherited her tenacity from him. He told her often
that she could become a "big-time lady lawyer" if she set her
mind to it.
Julie, however, wanted to do nothing of the sort. She
wanted to be a writer, a photographer, an anthropologist, or a
film star. She imagined herself happy and famous and rich and
single and living in New York City. She wanted to skip over
the dull parts of her life and get to the good parts.
Out of a seventh-grade class of two hundred students,
Julie met two girls she felt intrigued by. These were the two
"misfits" of the class. They rolled their eyes all the time,
and had dry, gravelly laughs. They wore silvery-blue eyeshadow
and brick-colored lipstick. They smirked at each other, and
exchanged untranslatable glances, and wore brass broken-heart
friendship necklaces.
Marnie was a tall girl of thirteen. People often
thought she was older. She had hair like fire, and skin pale
as milk. Julie was quietly fascinated by the girl's frowning,
painted lips and suspicious eyes. Marnie was tough, you could
see it in the challenging eyes she shifted in the world's
direction. Marnie hung out with a small, round girl named
Nora. Nora was cute, and plump, and mean as anyone Julie had
ever met. She had frizzy blond hair and braces, and she wore a
tight, striped shirt with a black leather jacket every single
day. She twisted grape bubble gum around her forefinger as she
chewed it. She scowled at everyone, and she was not afraid of
anything. She hit a teacher in the face once when he called
her "an insolent young lady" in front of the class.
Julie knew right away that these were the girls she
wanted as friends.
Julie stood outside the school's emergency exit,
smoking a Camel Light and hopping from foot to foot to warm
herself. It was three weeks before Thanksgiving, and already
the hard, cold air of winter was creeping in. Julie hated
winter. It was her least creative time. She got depressed
during the winter, sometimes so bad that she refused to leave
her room for days on end.
Marnie and Nora stood on either side of Julie. The
three girls were close together, arms touching, in a huddle.
They smoked hurriedly, barely taking time to exhale the smoke
before dragging in some more.
Marnie eyed her friends. "Chad Fenton passed me
another note in History today. You wanna see? I swear to God,
this is the last time I put up with this shit." She fumbled
through her red leather purse until she drew out a crumpled
slip of notebook paper. She handed it to Julie. Nora peered
over her shoulder to see it.
Julie read the scrawled note aloud in a dramatic
monotone. Her right eyebrow raised incredulously as she read
it, a trick she had been working on for weeks. " 'Marnie, you
sexy thing. So how big are your tits these days. Have you
reached double D yet. I hope so.' "
The girls looked at one another before reacting.
Julie's face flared red with anger, and she crumpled the note
into a tiny ball before hurling it to the pavement. "That's
absolutely disgusting. Who the hell does he think he is, that
illiterate little shrimp?"
"We should kick his ass," said Nora loudly. Her tongue
flickered over painted lips as she ground a cigarette butt into
the concrete with her boot. Her pale, round face was ruddy
from the cold. She looked young and serene and angelic.
"We should," Julie agreed.
Marnie lit another cigarette. Chad had been passing
her notes every day for a week now, most of them containing
misspelled, vulgar references to her body. Whenever he saw her
reading one of his notes, he would stare at her and lick his
lips and nudge his friends and begin to laugh.
"I'd love to kick his ass. Retarded little idiot. I
should write him a note asking if his dick has grown longer
than two inches yet." Marnie smirked, and Nora laughed.
Julie's eyes were focused on a distant, indeterminable
object in the trees.
"Julie?" said Marnie, looking at her friend.
Julie turned sharply back towards the girls. They
huddled close, bodies pressed together for warmth. "No, I'm
serious, guys. Let's kick his puny ass. You know we could.
It would be so easy. He thinks he can say whatever he wants to
you, Marns. To any of us. But why should we let that loser
talk to us this way?"
Julie's green eyes flared with temper and resolve. Her
expression took on a wildness, like an animal's. It was
contagious. The girls agreed, and they plotted Chad Fenton's
ambush.
It was a simple plan: the following Monday, the girls
invented excuses to be released from their last classes ten
minutes early. They met up outside Chad's classroom and leaned
against the lockers across the hall, trying to look casual.
"I feel like a spy," whispered Nora.
"You've gotta let me take the first shot," said Julie.
"Shut up," ordered Marnie.
Anticipation weighed the air around the girls. Julie
felt excited and restless, as if she were on a roller coaster
making its tedious climb to the height of the first drop. The
air in the hallway was heavy and draining. She was sweating.
She could feel the sweat drip down her armpit and move towards
her waist.
The bell rung. Students poured out of doorways in
every direction. Lockers opened and slammed, and the hall
echoed with lively banter and laughter. The girls moved in
front of Chad's doorway, so they would be able to see him when
he left.
Marnie was tall and she could see over everyone's
heads. "Here he comes," she announced.
A lanky thirteen-year-old boy with zits and dark blond
hair emerged from the classroom. He wore a faded navy Bullets
hat, and he walked in an exaggerated, self-conscious swagger.
His eyes were shifty and eager. He was laughing and walking
with a chubby brown-haired boy.
He caught Marnie's stare, and began to approach her.
"Hey there, sexy Marnie," he called. He was smiling, and his
eyes were narrowed grotesquely. How ugly he was. Julie felt
like puking.
Chad reached to touch Marnie's forearm, but she slapped
his hand away. "Come with me," she ordered, and began to walk
towards the emergency exit.
"Huh? Go with you where?" the boy asked, still
smiling. He watched Marnie's back as she walked away.
"Just come on. We have to talk to you." Julie grabbed
the boy's wrist and led him outside like a cat on a leash. She
led him behind the school, to the playground, where Marnie was
to be waiting. Nora trailed close behind, to watch that he
wouldn't make a sudden run for it.
Marnie was waiting behind the monkey bars, as planned.
There were only a few children roaming the playground, and they
were of little importance.
Marnie leaned against the brick wall of the school,
looking unreal. The sun shone off her hair and made it look
like blood, like fire. She was smoking a cigarette and staring
at Chad, her lips pursed. Julie was stricken by how old her
friend looked right then.
The boy pulled his wrist harshly from Julie's grasp.
He stood up straighter and glared at the three girls. His face
was pink with irritation and confusion, but Julie could tell he
was trying to play it cool.
"What's going on? What do you want to talk about, Miss
Sexy Marnie?" He looked at Marnie's chest as he spoke to her.
He smiled, an ironic smile dripping with confidence and
assumptions.
He thinks he knows what's going on, thought Julie,
nearly laughing out loud. He thinks he can control what's going
on.
Marnie leaned toward the red-faced boy. She clamped
her small hands on to his bony shoulders. She was two inches
away from his face.
The girls had surrounded him. Julie and Marnie and
Nora locked eyes. They could do whatever they wanted.
They beat up Chad Fenton.
After Julie's preliminary punch, events became hard to
keep track of. Later, all Julie could remember was the sound
that first punch made. The sound her fist made against the
boy's flesh. The cracking sound her fist made against his
mouth, his teeth. It was hard and loud and sharp and
satisfying.
His head snapped to the left when she hit him, and the
girls could read the shock in his eyes. He was shocked that
Julie had hit him. So they began to hit him again and again,
until he lay on the concrete, and the blood ran from his nose,
and a front tooth was missing, and he was screaming in pain,
and finally, the offending note to Marnie (which she had saved)
was stuffed in his mouth.
Julie walked home from school that day with a giddy
smile on her face. She sang to herself as she walked. She
swung her arms with each stride. She smiled at passers-by.
She could do anything she wanted, and she knew it.
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FROST WARNINGS : (!) 1997 AD Jake Century / S.I.F.
All copyrights on texts are held by the original author.
Authors are responsible for their own content.
Greetings to our readers in the future : 2007, 2017, 2027, etc.!
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