“She really connects with the fans,” I overhear another girl say.
I think about the $isi I used to know, a girl who despised her fans and had to drink a gallon of vodka to be able to come out on stage. Dogue. A dog on the cover of Vogue. I chuckle to myself.
I can hear $isi clearly from where I stand. Her voice does sound much better than the last time I heard her. When singing, $isi can be playful, and even flirty at times, but she can do wronged like no other. Except this time, the wronged is more resigned; she sounds at ease with what she’s singing about. Her real-life experience has finally lined up with things she’s singing about: real heartbreak and real pain and some melancholic happiness in there too. There’s a new trace of hoarseness to her voice that I guess is the result of her smoky, drinky past, maybe even chemo or radiation. All of that – the way she sings, the way her voice is now – hints at maturity, enough of it to make you believe in what she’s singing about.
Right now, she’s singing about her surprising lover, which must be about Mark. Possibly about some kind of rape-play they’ve got going on. Maybe he likes to wear a clown suit to bed. Who knows? In any case, if it’s about Mark, I’ve no doubt that she’s surprised – anybody would be to find herself having sex with him. I have no evidence that they’re sleeping together. I am unsuccessful in making myself chuckle this time.
I’m glad to see $isi looking so healthy and sounding this good. I’ve no taste for folky music, which is what this whole thing is verging on (minus the shoes – she’s still wearing ridiculously high stilettos), but it works. I suppose I’m happy for her.
I wait till the song is over and then walk back on the beach. At night, the beach is even louder, all lit up with phone screens like fireflies in its darker corners, but mostly lit up from all the bars – so light it doesn’t matter that the sun is long gone. It’s still hot, only a few degrees cooler.
I see Bride. Even though she’s too far away and she’s as bald as dozens of other young women here, I recognize the walk, the gentle sway of the hips and the graceful half-bounce of her tall, boyish silhouette.
I shout, “Hey,” suddenly unsure about calling her by the fake name she’s given me. What a ridiculous thing, that name.
She comes closer, squints. “Hey.”
“How are you?”
“I’m great. How are you?”
“Great. I was wondering what happened to you.”
“What do you mean?” She tilts her head.
“I never heard from you.”
“Oh.”
“Well, no big deal. I had a crazy week.”
“Yeah. Well, it was nice to run into you,” she says and turns around and starts walking away.
“Hey,” I shout.
She turns around. “Yes?”
“What’s this about?”
“What’s what about?”
I say as lightheartedly as I can, “Nothing. I’m just glad to have run into you. Have a good night. Take care,” and I turn around.
I walk, half expecting to hear footsteps behind me, but when none follow, I decide that I will need to find a new girl tomorrow. This one is a glitch.
There’s a roller-coaster drop in my chest.
When I get to the beach house, I try to watch television. I flip through the channels like it’s my job. I can’t seem to find anything boring enough to get stuck on. I get up. I turn on my computer and look for clips with Belladonna. I jerk off.
I try to watch television again.
Next, I sit outside with Dog on the front steps, listening to the distant sounds of the beach, partying. The fresh air doesn’t help.
I go back to bed. I lie in bed for what seems like hours, trying not to think.
I get up to look in the trash to find the novel about the girl with leukemia. I have no other ways of putting myself to sleep.
Bride comes by in the middle of the night. I open the door to her quiet knocking and scratches. She slinks into my hallway and waits for me to invite her farther inside. It’s dark on the main floor except for the moonlight coming through the skylight.
I gesture for her to come closer and she does. She is silver, reflecting the moonlight coming through the skylight. We move softly, neither of us talking, and as we kiss, we do it quietly, without any sloppiness or panting.
28
THERE’S NO SINGLE DETAIL THAT I’M ABLE TO FOCUS ON. I want it all. The way her upper lip curls up even when she’s not smiling – like mine. The way her eyebrows are thick, dark slashes above those eyes. How her irises expand (coming below me, above me, next to me), how her eyes narrow, making me want to know what has upset her, where she has gone in her mind. (I don’t ask. Asking means losing control. But I want to ask.) Onward: her large nose, jutting forward; I like it. Her chin. The small dimple in it – why is even this negative space demanding I not look away? I can’t look away.
The freckles. Scattered gold that forms into a pattern but not a pattern at all; there’s too many of them.
Her belly, elastic and long; the pubic bone; the severely trimmed puff of curls; her pussy a wet, warm spot mapped out in pinkness and a tint of purple. Her pussy’s clicking softness.
Her feet with tendons fanning out as she walks, like strings of an instrument.
We stay in bed for a long time. I ask what her real name is. She says it’s Bride. She asks what my problem is.
“Bride?”
“Yes, Guy. Bride.”
I don’t ask again. I’ve lost enough control already. We talk. She talks. She talks about her love of films, especially the iconic violent blockbusters: Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Kalifornia, A History of Violence. She talks about the breakthrough scenes, the characters that made her feel invincible when she’d picture herself shooting a gun, destroying her enemies.
She says, “‘All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ’em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won’t even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me.’ Taxi Driver. De Niro.”
She’s good. I don’t know too much about acting, but she’s scary accurate, the accent perfectly New York, voice low and dry-mouthed, cheeks half-full of bagel. A little bit like the characters in The Sopranos.
“You’re funny.”
She says, “It was even worse when I was little because I would watch old Bruce Lee movies and think I could do karate. I’d go out and try to start fights with kids in the neighbourhood. They thought I was nuts. They would run away when they saw me coming.” She stretches, arms reaching for an invisible star above her, her breasts flat, the tiny nipples. “Mmmhmm, what else? Oh, I braided my hair like Princess Leia, even though I thought she was kind of lame except for the blasters, I guess. My dad was a huge Star Wars fan.”
I picture her, a slight child with big, serious eyes, the hair wrapped around her ears like wheels of silk. And her dad – her young-enough-to-like-Star Wars dad. What kind of dad is he? A dude in shorts with a long beard. Maybe he even owns a skateboard.
She tells me more about her past. It’s not a particularly fascinating childhood, but it sounds fascinating when she talks about it. She scrunches her forehead and puffs out her cheeks. She talks with her hands, shaping invisible contours of emotions accompanying stories about mundane events: friends’ breakups, a class trip where everyone got drunk, writing an essay about books on brainwashing – 1984, A Clockwork Orange – and winning an essay contest with said essay.