The posse meets up at Marlene’s for a junk exchange — and to hang out. I think they are trying to take care of me. You know, like a family would. If families existed. I guess they’re all pretending they have a sad little mute friend.
Eight blocks, three homeless people, and a horse cop giving a frat boy a drunk walk the line test later, I make it to Marlene’s.
When she opens the door, I smile. A lot. In fact I nearly bawl smiling. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Marlene in her Scarlett O’Hara green vintage velvet dress. With fan.
“Lamskotelet!” She says, quivering her fan.
Fiddle-dee-dee.
Inside of Marlene’s apartment it’s us. Me, Ave Maria, Little Teena, and Obsidian, who is sitting on the kitchen counter. I can’t help it. All I see is Obsidian. Obsidian’s jeans have the knees worn out of them and her skin is brown as fine Albuquerque dirt. Her white T-shirt creeps up her biceps kinda James Dean like. Her black hair … blows the word “night” away. There’s not a guy on earth who could be more pussy whipped by this girl than I am. I lift up my shirt. She looks at my new little expressionless mouth. She smiles. She licks her lips.
Marlene as Scarlett makes us all mint juleps. We spread our junk out on her kitchen table and divvy it up. I throw my Ernie down and a few Xanax.
That’s not all we throw down on the kitchen table. We throw down high-capacity SD memory cards. Terabyte portable hard drives the size of little wallets. All the recorded junk from the Sig scene. We stare at the table. No one says anything. No one asks about my dad, thank fuck. I collect all the recorded crap and shove it into my backpack and zip it as fast as humanly possible. I texted them all before I got there. “No voice.” They’ve been through it with me before. They know not to joke. But they look so serious. When I look around at everyone? I make a chimp face. Everyone laughs.
“I got a month-long gig with the ivories at Tula’s on Sundays at 4:00 p.m.,” Little Teena announces.
“Tula’s — is that the one with Mediterranean food?” Ave Maria asks. “I think my mom took me there. I think we heard Sax Attack Quartet or some shit there. My mom got loaded and they called a cab.”
Obsidian laughs — but her laugh is a low roll that sounds like she’s always high or wise. “Sax Attack Quartet? Is that real?”
I want to say, “That sounds just like Aciphex,” and then we’d all laugh, but I can’t.
“Tula’s!” Marlene says with a thick southern belle voice — “ Wynton Marsalis once said ‘This is a cool place’ about that place!”
I always knew Little Teena’s fingers would take him someplace someday. He’s actually an astonishing pianist. Once my mom heard him play on our now silent baby grand and she put her hand on his shoulder like he was the son she never laid. For her? That was deep affection. Or artistic respect. Or something. I keep hoping his hands will take him into another world.
I risk moving across the kitchen closer to Obsidian. I brace myself on the counter on the other side of the sink from where she perches and inch my ass over toward her. So far, so good. I stare at her knees. Kind of I want to suck on them.
You know, when you can’t talk, talking sounds different. Everyone sounds like a soundtrack of talking instead of like people. Maybe without a voice you’re hyper-attuned to listening or something. But it’s like there’s a distance between you and everyone’s talking — like they are on a stage and you are in the audience — and all their voices suddenly sound … like art. It’s comforting.
Ave Maria talks about missing her fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth day of school.
Little Teena talks about Hitchcock movies and Jimmy Stewart.
Obsidian says her uncle is in jail for beating the crap out of his brother’s wife.
“Harsh,” Ave Maria goes, and we all sip Mint Julep’s while Obsidian punches her own bicep. It makes a rhythmic thud. Like a slow heart.
I don’t know why she does that but it’s mesmerizing.
Then Marlene waves her fan in a great sweeping gesture collecting all our attention and suggests we watch Gone With the Wind on Blu-ray in the living room.
I don’t say a word. I’m the hearer. The listener. The recorder. I inch a little closer to Obsidian. I can feel my butt getting wet from the edge of Marlene’s sink as I make my way over but I don’t care. I can smell her skin. She smells like rain. I want to climb her and grind her right there on the counter. Then I realize I’m close enough to touch because she puts her hand on my hand and momentarily I go blind. Deaf. Whatever. I don’t care. I surrender. Maybe I’ll just crack my skull open on the floor and not have to think anymore. I send up a silent wish to not god, but to Francis Bacon. I brace myself to black out and fall to the floor. I close my eyes and think about silent heart attacks — how loving someone could deflate you until you fell to the floor. I shut my eyes and hold my breath.
But you know what happens?
Obsidian puts her knees up in my armpits and shoots her legs out so I am sorta hanging on her like a rag doll.
“Dora, honey?” I hear Little Teena’s voice.
“Liebchen?” Marlene goes, skirt rustling nearer.
I hear too a little soft coo high note in the background.
Then not god, but Francis Bacon gives me shoulder pads. No; it’s Obsidian. She’s got her hands on my shoulders. I open my eyes. She’s staring straight into me. I don’t faint. She carefully slides down from the kitchen counter and hugs me. I put my arms around her neck. I put my face in her hair. I can smell rain. I don’t faint. I pull back. She smiles. I’ve never seen her smile like this. It’s a smile you can feel since before you were born. Up close? Her eyes aren’t brown like I always thought they were. There are little flecks of green in them, like a gem that turns colors only in certain light.
“You’re OK,” she says to me.
The “OK” rings in my head like art.
Then with her arm around my waist, we follow Marlene’s voice into the living room to watch Gone With the Wind on Blu-ray like it’s the most normal thing in the universe.
I mouth the words fuck yeah. And smile.
There’s no father here. No mother. It’s like you can erase your origins and be anybody else.
“Tomorrow is anothah day,” Marlene sings, way cooler than Vivien Leigh.
16
JUST WHEN YOU THINK THINGS ARE AS CLUSTERFUCKED as they can get, they fuckgasm straight out of orbit.
Yeah. Mr. and Mrs. K.? Turns out, they have kids. Two vile midget creatures. I swear they have fur on their paws. Wanna know how I know? They’re here. At the condo. The boy creature is trying to get a Tetra — those bullshit blue and red fish everyone on the planet has in their aquarium because they live and die quickly and flush easily — out of the aquarium with one of my mother’s beloved spoons, while the girl creature — what is up with that hair? Who puts a ponytail straight up on the top of a kid head? She looks like Cindy Lou Who. Only uglier. She stares at me. Picks her little creature snot nose. Throws it at me. Charming.
Because my dad’s at home recuperating. Because Mrs. K. is “helping out.” Because my mother? You’re gonna love this. Apparently, now is the optimum supremo cool time to go stay with her great aunt in Vienna.
I know. I can’t believe it either. Vienna? Seriously? Hello, but don’t you have a spare DAUGHTER lying around the house? All I got was a shitty-ass note on the baby grand that said “Ida, you are certainly old enough to take care of yourself for awhile. A nurse from the hospital will visit once a day. Your father has plenty of help. He needs peace and quiet. Be mature. This is a difficult time. Don’t get in the way.”