Free Thrill-Bent by Jan Richman Page A

fire and the whole house oxidizes the color of fresh meat?
    I have started a collection of virtual RSVPs addressed to my dad’s fiancee, and composing them has become a compulsive habit, keeping me as busy as my roller coaster notes. For some reason, many of my RSVPs are in the form of questions.
    Dear Chantelle, does anyone call you ‘Chanty’? Can you stand by your man when he can’t stand by himself? Can you stand him when he twirls you, when he breathes you, when he stands you on your head?
    “Dear Chantelle,” I finally wrote yesterday on the stamped card that was enclosed with the invitation, “Thank you for inviting me to your wedding. As it turns out, I will be on the West Coast in April, and I’d love to attend. I’ll be bringing a date. We’d like the chicken and the prime rib, respectively.” I signed my name legibly, which took some steady concentration. I wanted her to be able to read my signature. I wasn’t sure how much my father had told her about me, or even if he’d ever mentioned me. It had been so long since we’d seen each other, and somehow I had the feeling that he was keeping me just beneath his surface, as he’d always done. But my “Richman” would call attention to itself. I was practically the only one left in the bloodline, besides my dad. I stamped it, and sent the card.
    Almost at the end of the block on France Street, I see Casey’s denim-blue Dodge Swinger parked outside his house. He’s not out on the stoop, but the lights are on inside his place, sending a fuzzy yellow glow out into the darkening street. I walk up the steps to the front door and raise my fist to knock, when I hear voices inside, laughing. One voice sounds giddy and female, like a girl being squeezed around the middle. I casually drift to the left, attempting to glimpse something through the front window, but Casey has hung heavy butcher paper there, and all I can make out are distant shadows back in the birdcage. After looking around to make sure no one is watching me (the neighbors have retreated from their porches, and the few meandering pedestrians are far down the block), I decide to dart around to the side of the house and take a quick peek in the kitchen window. I know I shouldn’t, but now I am really intrigued. Does Casey have a girlfriend? Is that why he’s been acting so broody lately? Is that why he stood me up? I have a feeling that one glance will tell me what I need to know, and I can’t resist the temptation to further examine Casey’s secret life as Robert, to pick out the camouflage from the tangle of real jungle.
    It’s easy to sidle down the narrow alleyway between houses without garnering any notice. It’s shadow-dark and filled with shrouded lumps of vaguely human-shaped junk—an old stove, a pile of tires, a rusted floor lamp in classic hangman pose. No obstreperous dogs erupt from hidden yards. I gingerly step around the detritus, dragging my fingertips along the house’s blistered paint. The kitchen window, a small grimy pane that’s been long-since painted shut, hovers above my head. I’d forgotten about the raised brick piers that make the ground floors of the houses a few feet higher, a staple in New Orleans architecture, built to withstand the constantly rising sea level. After tugging briefly and uselessly on the heavy stove, I traipse through the dirt, pulling three tires into what looks like a reasonably steady tower beneath the window. If I stand with one foot on either side of the top tire, distributing my weight equally, I should be able to brace myself on the window ledge and get a good look inside. I lift my right leg and place my foot in position, while leaning with my left hand on the opposite point on the tire. Once I’m balanced there, I can hop up heartily and hope my left foot lands in the correct spot. I take a breath, issue a silent drumroll, and blast off hard from the ground, reaching up to hug the side of the building. Just as my foot comes down a