by Lisa Rusczyk
CLEO
I must be honest, for that is why I am here. I thought of nothing but Patrick and Nikki for the next two weeks. The only other things I thought of were whether my child had had enough fruit and vegetables in her diet, and if she wanted to play or needed help with her homework.
I didn’t think of Nikki in a romantic way. I just wondered about him, and I wondered if Barbie was in some kind of relationship with him. The idea drove me mad. I didn’t know why.
Something changed in me after my first night at the Beacon. I did something I never did before. I started telling Angelica stories. Oh, how she loved them. She would curl up with me in the den, and I would start, saying something like, “There was once a wicked beast in the woods…”
She would hold onto my long hair, and as I described him, she would say, “Mommy, take me in the library.”
The first time she said that I was surprised. I said, “Why?”
She said, “Because that is where the stories are.”
I took her into the library. From then on, every time I said something in my “story voice,” she would insist we go to the library. I had so many fairy tales to revise for her, and each time Cecil poked his head in to listen, I tried to share it with him, but I always hid the most exciting plot twists when he came in the room. I would exaggerate a character or a situation. He seemed to love it, and the last thing he would do is look at Angelica. He would grin and leave us alone to our stories.
That was an aside, just what came to mind. I’ll go back to the morning after my first night at the Beacon.
I went inside. Cecil was making coffee. He smiled at me, walked over to me, and kissed me on the cheek. He said, “Smells like you had a good time last night.”
I licked my teeth. They felt coated. I told him I had had an okay time. He took my hand and we sat at the kitchen table. He asked me what had happened.
I told him, “Barbie took me to some strange club. She didn’t tell me anything about our mother.”
He nodded, and Angelica said, “Grandmother?”
I said to her, “Yes, Grandmother who sends you the presents at Christmas.” I gave Cecil a look that I hoped he would interpret as, “I’ll talk to you about it later.”
I didn’t. Talk to him about what actually happened, that is.
This is nice wine, reporter, Did you pick this up downtown?
Anyway, I didn’t tell Cecil anything about that night. The reason I didn’t is because he said to me later that afternoon that I had a look in my eye, like I was younger, like when we had known each other in Nebraska. It shocked me to hear that, and I knew it was because I was thinking of Patrick. He saw that look as a sign of happiness, and he said that I should do more things with my sister. I didn’t want the man I had been married to for so many years to know that I was thinking of another man, a dead man. It doesn’t seem like we had been together that long now, but at that age, it felt like an eternity.
In the mornings, I would wonder about Nikki, and at night after my family had gone to bed, I would fantasize about Patrick. It seemed then that I had either known the bliss of true love or was captured by the unknown of the complexity that was another person. I must say I wasn’t confused or upset that I had such a duality. I embraced it. It was the only true interest that I had felt I had in ages. It was, well, fun.
I would pick up a book after Cecil and Angelica left for work and school, and I would read a couple lines, then I daydreamed. And at night, I would wait until they were both in bed, and I would lie under the sheets and think. My mind was a wide-open space filled with ideas and desires. It grew very quickly, this state I was in. One who has never experienced something like this might think it should take a long time to develop, but it did not. Something like a fly in the summer seeking a little drop of water takes longer than the imagination does to take hold on something to enrich its life. That is what I felt, and I knew it, and therefore I felt no guilt about my new-found internalized life.
When I spent time with Cecil and our daughter in the evenings, I was lively and expressive. Cecil noted this. He was a very smart and intuitive man, and he said that the time I had spent with my sister had made me feel alive again. When he said the word “alive,” I thought of Nikki and his black eyes so full of light. I would just shake my head. What had so infuriated me about Barbie and her life was fading as fast as the stars disappeared in the gaze of the morning sun rising.
The specifics of my dreams and thoughts are not important to what I am telling you, except to explain how I went from thinking Barbie was in a cult, to when I decided to go back to the Beacon. The reason I made the decision to go there again was because my fantasies had dried up. I was getting irritable, and even my daughter mentioned it. Angelica said to me one day when she came home, “Mommy, why are you so angry?”
I told her I wasn’t at all angry.
She said, “Did the boogeyman steal your doll?”
Angelica had quite a fear of the boogeyman. Often she would sleep with us, and most of the time when she awoke from some frightful dream and dashed to our room, I would still be awake. She would fall back asleep quickly in my arms as I pet her honey hair and told her a tale. It always relieved me when I heard her breathing deepen and felt her muscles go limp.
So, yes. My imagination went dry and I started getting irritable. It was three weeks after my first visit to the Beacon that Cecil suggested I contact Barbie again. He said, “Cleo, I noticed that you felt pretty good after seeing Barbie. You don’t seem to be feeling good anymore. I wish you had friends, and maybe you should go see your sister again.”
I shook my head, determined only superficially to hold on to the accusations I had dealt Barbie that night.
He said, “No, really, think about it. I hate to see you like this.”
I said, “Like what?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and I thought to myself that I hadn’t been paying much attention to him. He said, “You just seemed so much more animated after that night. Maybe it would be good for you to see her again. I’m not saying every night, but maybe you need to get out, have a few drinks. It seems like you’re worried all the time. Barbie was always so light-hearted. Maybe that is what you need in your life. I know I can be a bit intense at times with my political talks. Perhaps you need that some of lightness in your life, at least a little.”
I had never described to Cecil the weight of Barbie’s eyes as a young woman. What he saw as boredom in me was more a lack of inspiration in my life. I didn’t want him to think anything else, and I numbly nodded to him, thinking it was a go-ahead from my husband to see a world with which I was both interested in and afraid of. To see a man that also brought about such feelings.
You must be wondering, was it romanticism for a man who reminded me of my first love? What made me not tell Cecil what I had felt that night? What made me keep what I saw as the true intentions of the Beacon from him?
I wondered the same thing for a long time. I know the answer now, but I think it would be better for you to draw your own conclusions.
The day after Cecil told me his observation, I awoke and sat on the front porch, watching the sunrise like I had the morning after my first night at the Beacon. Funny thing that so many poets describe the sunrise. When you have seen it every day, your whole life, it is not a wonder. It is as usual and expected as the need to piss when you wake in the middle of the night. It is just a thing that happens, and happens every day. The beauty and energetic things that so many have described isn’t there. The sky gets light. If there are clouds, it is sometimes red or orange. It is very beautiful, but it is normal beauty, beauty you forget as soon as the star peeks over the horizon. In Nebraska, there were no buildings, so I always saw it rise over the fields. In Birmingham, it was a point of interest for a couple weeks because it rose from behind the trees. In Atlanta, from behind the buildings, and thus it was for the rest of my life until now. I would very much like to make a metaphor for the sun rising amidst the buildings, but there
is none for me.
It was a Friday. Swan had said Friday was the best night to go to the Beacon, so I was thinking that I might go that very night. When Cecil got up and came down for coffee, I mentioned it to him. “I have been thinking about what you said about it maybe being a good thing for me to see Barbie again. I think I will tonight.”
He said he thought it was a great idea.
He had a favorable reaction. I was not surprised.
I did not go to Barbie’s home first, and instead I rode the bus, and as I told you, my memory is good; I knew where to go. I stood outside the lighthouse-etched door of the Beacon, the site of so many daydreams in the last few weeks, and felt fear. I thought it was because I had those thoughts, those fantasies, and I did not want them to not come true, like that would shatter my imagination. But I opened the door, and that is because I had also been thinking about the afore mentioned imagination. My ability to see the numerous possibilities in my head and live them out in such a way had also fascinated me. I had examined that thing that is my imagination many times. I knew it could survive something less than it could deliver. I just didn’t know at the time there could be more.
I opened the door, and heard the piano. It was scattered and unremarkable, except for the touch of the thing, and the nature of its tones were an everyday thing for me at that point. The sound of it could not be recorded except in the memory. I am no musician, and I have no ear for sound, but I know it has a powerful grip on the memory. Sound and smell, and I smelled the cigar and cigarette smoke.
I was there again.
I walked down the stairs like I meant it. I felt brave.
I was excited.
The first thing I wanted to know was what was happening on the improv stage. I saw 88 Fingers playing on the piano, just as the first time I went in. Along side him was a very beautiful woman. She had deep, ruby-red hair and luxurious limbs. They seemed to bend in every which way. I had never seen anything like it. It affected me at once, the way she had twisted her body into an impossible position. Her head was between her legs, but instead of facing her bottom, it was facing her front-side. I gasped and forgot myself until I next blinked. The rest of the room came into view, and I looked at the bar. I wanted to catch a glimpse of Nikki, but nobody was there.
The room was crowded, smoky and dark. I don’t know if I just looked or heard her call my name, but there was Rivers, waving at me from a table near the stage. I walked over. It was then that I saw Barbie sitting next to her, not even looking at me. I sat between my sister and Rivers, and Barbie finally turned her blue eyes to mine. She smiled and said, “Welcome back, Cleo.”
I nodded at her with uncertainty. Then I was enthralled with the woman on stage, in just as long as you think an instant is. She had twisted into some other form. It was so graceful and inhuman.
Rivers nodded to me, and I felt a pressure on my arm. Swan was touching me, sitting at the table behind us. She said, “Good to see you, Cleo. Barbie said she thought you would come back.”
I saw something in Barbie I had not seen before. Sure, we loved each other as kids, although we fought sometimes. But the look she gave me made me feel more welcome than if Nikki had come up and gotten on one knee and handed me a tasty bourbon.
I wonder what she saw in that moment.
Barbie pointed at the red-haired woman and said, “That is D.D.”
I said, “D.D.?”
Swan was still gently holding my arm, and she said, “It stands for Downward Dog, a hatha yoga pose. D.D. does improv yoga.”
I watched as she twisted herself into another impossible position. It was breathtaking. Her shoulder-length red hair seemed to have a consciousness of its own. Its sweaty curls were wrapping around her neck and face in an odd formation, like magical fairy fingers.
Barbie was watching D.D., but I felt like somehow she was watching me at the same time.
River’s fingertips were moving to the beat of the piano. She caught my gaze without expression except for a bit of light in her eyes. She got up and walked into the room behind the beaded curtain.
She came out of the room with a canvas, and she examined Barbie, then me. It made me uncomfortable. Rivers climbed onto the stage and started mixing paints into her little plastic bowl. Just then a glass was under my nose. A wine glass, filled with a dark red. I could smell the wine, but even more I could smell something like suntan lotion to my right.
Nikki said, “You look like you want wine tonight.”
I admired that way he had of making me feel special, different, and I knew at that moment he made everyone feel that way, and it didn’t bother me at all.
I heard Barbie next to me say, “Cleo and I have always liked wine, especially plum wine. Right, Cleo?”
Her lips curved. But her eyes were as full and blue and as loving as our mother’s. It made my arms fill with goose bumps for a moment, and when I looked back at Nikki, he had turned away with a glance at my arms.
Barbie said, “Nikki likes to go to the beach. That is why he smells like coconut.”
I said, “He does? I didn’t notice.”
“Yes,” she said, “And other people here take over the bar when he’s gone.”
88 Fingers’ music changed, and I saw the violinist at the bar tweak her strings. She approached the stage, and then stood in front of it. Some people were talking, some listening, and she climbed up. I heard a few people shout, “Dream Weaver!” as she took her place on the stage. She began to play.
A very strange thing happened just then. I sipped the wine. I watched and listened. I listened for about ten minutes, and I started to see things. I was suddenly absorbed in my imaginings of the last few weeks. It was like I was sitting on the couch in the library with a book limp in my hand. I was in those places that I only went when either nobody was around or I was asleep. The notes she played complimented the feelings I had in those fantasies. It seemed instantaneous, but it must have lasted for some time, because she stopped, and I became aware of my surroundings. I heard the call again from different people - “Dream Weaver!”
I looked around to see what was going on. Everyone seemed as flat as atlases. Then I saw colors. First it was Barbie’s blond hair, then the depth of my wine. Then I saw Reed leaning against the wall near us, and he was staring at his harmonica. I thought he was looking at his own reflection. I saw Nikki at the bar. He was looking at something behind the bar, out of my sight. 88 Fingers was gesturing to the blond, long-haired man whom I had heard play piano. They switched out. Reed jumped up on the stage then, and Rivers was still painting. Her canvas looked like fireflies in the woods in the South. Colors seemed so vivid, although the lights were dim. The man with the shaved head from the other night plugged his acoustic guitar into an amp and strummed self-consciously. People clapped.
I saw the flicker of candlelight on the walls beyond the beaded curtain and heard Barbie whispering in my ear, “I’m glad to see you.”
I noticed a tear in the sleeve of her blue shirt, and I felt younger than her, and didn’t like the feeling. She looked at the table, then back at me. The feeling of being younger than her passed. She said, “Do you have any cigarettes?”
“No, Barbie, I don’t smoke.”
Swan leaned forward. “I have some menthols. Is that okay, Joanie?”
She smiled at Swan and said, “Sure, thanks.”
I said, “Did Aunt Savannah bring you here?”
She turned and said in my ear with a soft voice, “Yes. How did you know?”
I said, “She is the only one I’ve heard call you Joanie.”
She said, “That guy on the guitar is pretty new.”
Reed began with a low-pitched whine, and then it began to take shape. I blinked at the sound it made. It was so soft and loud at the same time, like a flock of birds chirping.
Barbie said, “I was wondering. Why did you come back?”
“I was curious,” I said. “And I want to know more about what you know about our mother.”
Her long lashes tickled her high cheekbones. She said, “Nikki said you would.”
“He did?”
She said, “Yes.”
I asked her, “Why in the world would you believe him?”
She looked at me shyly and said, “Because he has always been right before.”
Reed’s harmonica hit what I thought was a bad note. Then another. People called out, “Reed!” I didn’t understand why, but looked around and saw several people swaying to his odd sounds. Rivers was painting madly.
Before I realized I had finished my wine, Nikki was beside me, placing another drink in front of me. He must have seen the confusion in my face. He leaned down and said, “Each performer affects each person differently.”
I asked him, “Why did you make the improv stage?”
He glanced at the stage and said, “Do you really want to know about that now?”
I said, “Why do you think I wouldn’t?”
He crouched down, looking up into my eyes, and he said, “Joanie tells me you have a lot of books in your house.”
I said, “You are avoiding my question.”
He laughed, and his teeth were white and very straight. It made me think he had had a wealthy upbringing. He shook his head and said, “No, it was just the thought that popped into my head.”
I believed him and answered, “Yes, I like to read.”
He said, “I do, too. We should compare novels sometime.”
It was weird, how he just stared, so unnatural for someone to keep gazing with such interest, but in those surroundings, it felt just right. I said, “What do you want to compare?”
He said, “I like to explore thoughts on art.” He pointed at the stage and said, “I get into a lot of different creative notions.” He shrugged. “I’m a creativity leech.” He grinned and stood up. Once he was looking down at me again, I felt a bit intimidated. I turned to the stage to act like the feeling didn’t happen.
He tapped my shoulder and I looked back up at him. He smiled and it seemed to be just for me. He said, “I’ll tell you about the stage a little later, when it isn’t so busy. Lots of thirsty people here right now.” He went back to the bar.
Rivers was just sitting there, staring into her paint dish. Barbie’s eyes had that vacant look again. I realized that in her own way, she was getting into the music that the long-haired man and Reed were making. I tried to listen, but my mind was running over everything that Nikki and I had said.
Swan leaned forward and whispered, “I know I asked you this, but I bet you can improv.”
I leaned back. “What?”
She pointed at Rivers. She said, “Rivers told me.”
I said, “She told you what?”
Swan said, “I heard what you asked Ice.” She smiled with the grace of a cloud passing over the moon at midnight. She said, “Nikki believes that improv-ing is a form of channeling. Do you know what channeling is?”
“Channeling is a metaphysical art of contacting spirits,” I said like I was reading from a dictionary.
Swan nodded. “Yes. Could be. Joanie said you were well-read.”
I asked her, “What does channeling have to do with art expression?”
She leaned towards my ear to where I couldn’t see her and said, “Nikki believes, as do most of us here, that through artistic actions we can channel spirits, not just others, but our own.”
I shook my head at the sensation of her breath in my ear. I glanced at Reed. He was swaying, and still making odd noises with his harmonica. I leaned back toward her and said, “That is a forward belief.”
She said, “Forward? What do you mean?”
I felt irritated, and said nothing.
She tapped my shoulder, and said, “What?”
I shook my head and cleared my throat.
What was I irritated at, reporter?
Okay, more wine is fine, if you think so. I really don’t care. But I do like the taste.
Since the performance onstage was no longer as captivating as it was before, I began wondering about the room behind the beaded curtain and what the woman said to me in there last time I had ventured within. She had said, “He says to say hello, dear.” They were obviously having some sort or séance, and although I hadn’t given things like that much thought, I wondered who was saying hello. Could it be possible that they were actually in touch with spirits? I thought that if it could happen anywhere, the Beacon would be the kind of place such things might be a reality. Dark, small rooms and parlor tricks were mainly what came to mind when I thought of a séance, but in the grip of the bizarre music and assorted odd people, and perhaps the wine, I debated whether or not contacting a spirit world was possible. I wanted to know more. I watched the beads on the curtain sway slightly in the air circulating the room. The candlelight on the other side of the beads made them glow red, a web of a spider from hell.
I felt a prickling on the back of my neck and was certain that I was being stared at. I glanced over my shoulder and the man with no name watched me, holding a finger over his lips. A cigar spun smoke from the astray next to him and it clouded around his head. He shook his head and gestured with his other hand at the beaded curtain.
Reed’s harmonica was squealing now, and I couldn’t stand it. I felt like I was being swallowed by madness quite suddenly, the kind that makes desperation eat you from the inside. I turned away from the man with no name and half-ran to the exit. Right up those stairs and into the alley and the dark night. As the door fell closed behind me, I bent over and gasped for air. I wished I had my wine glass with me just to calm my nerves. How could it be so quiet out here when I had been surrounded by swirling, insane sounds and smells, lights and faces just moments ago? Had they all been looking at me, not just the man with no name? I leaned against the wall of the building next to the door to the Beacon and breathed deeply. In and out, cool air. My ears breathed too. They inhaled and exhaled as surely as my lungs. I pushed my face into my hands, wishing I could have been stronger. Nothing had happened, not really, but I had lost it. Did it have to do with my imaginings? My fantasies?
Were they all looking?
I sat down. Then, for a moment, I heard the sound again. Was it in my head? A gust of smoke filled my lungs, then the sound stopped again. I felt like crying, but then I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.
He said, “Cleo.”
It was Nikki. He had come up the stairs and out into the alley. The sound and smells hadn’t been in my head. He had opened the door when he came out, and now he was crouching down next to me, black eyes full of worry.
“Cleo, you okay there?”
I slumped and breathed slowly. I shook my head, but I said, “Yes, I think the drink got to me. Had to get some air.”
“Don’t let Mister No-Name get to you. I saw him, saw what he did.”
I wanted to explain that it felt like he had been reading my mind, how I wanted to go back behind that beaded curtain. How it felt like he had been saying, “Not now, don’t go back there now.” Instead I said, “I don’t get out much.” I felt like I had admitted I was weak in some way by saying so. Most people went out. Most people do things. I was not most people.
Nikki sat next to me and said, “Other than here and the shore, I don’t go anywhere, either.”
I wiped at my eyes, trying to hide the little bit of fluid that had filled my lids. “Why not?”
He shrugged as though being asked why he liked the color red more that the color green. “It’s what I like to do.” He took my hand, my left hand, the one with my wedding ring on it, Cecil’s family ring, and his fingers closed hard over mine. “This place and the stuff that happens here, they can make you feel all kinds of things. I don’t need anything else. Maybe you don’t need anything other than what you have.”
I felt more composed with my hand in his. It wasn’t sensual, sexual. It was comforting, although some part of me was wondering why it was so easy like that, like it was supposed to be that way. Like we were two
pigeons in a roost on a quiet evening, keeping each other warm with the fluff of our feathers. Tomorrow seemed far away, as did the bus ride to the Beacon. And the sound that Reed had been making was gone from my mind.
His fingers loosened and he fiddled with my fingers as though we were playing a lovers’ game. “Tell me about your books.”
I smiled softly, and turned my head so he wouldn’t see. “I like lots of different books. I couldn’t pin any down in particular.”
He asked me what I was reading lately.
“Magazines, really. I like culture magazines, ones that tell me about other places, people, art.”
He said, “I like to read poetry these days. Old poetry. Never used to be into that kind of thing. My brain would melt if I even read a verse. But now, I’m digging it.”
We really were the only two people in the world, and I started to feel a bit inside of me looking for a friend. “Digging it? How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight. You?”
I told him.
“Young bird,” he said. “Let me see you smile. I’ll say ‘digging it’ again.”
I ducked my head down and covered my mouth.
He tossed his head back and yelled, “Dig it, lady Cleo!”
I started laughing and couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop. He laughed too, and clutched my hand tightly again.
I ran my fingers over the feel of my smile. My lips were cracking on the insides from not having moved them so actively in such a long time. “Why did you come out here?”
“I take care of my people at the Beacon. It’s what I do,” he said.
“I’m your people now, am I?” I asked, feeling silly saying so. He took the bait.
“Yes, Cleo, you are. And I’m your people, if you want me to be.” He leaned forward. “You just have to know that. Joanie must have told you that much about the Beacon.”
“She didn’t tell me anything,” I said.
His eyebrows rose. “Nothing at all?” He tipped his head back, bleached hair tickling his shoulders. “No wonder.” He closed his eyes.
“No wonder what?” I asked.
He sat straight and kissed the back of my hand, looking me in the eyes all the while. “We’re all crazy here.” He winked as though he was letting me in on a private joke.
“Barbie said it was a place for lost souls.”
Nikki set our hands in his lap and looked up at the sky between the buildings. “Crazy, lost souls. But you came back, so you must fit in there somewhere. Not such a bad place to be, is it?” He smiled at me, so carefree.
“I am neither, so what is the middle line?” I asked.
He took his hand away and folded both fists under his chin, acting deep in thought. In a fake, professor-like tone of voice, he said, “I believe the clinical term is daisy in a field of roses. Yes, ma’am. That is your diagnosis. Now, just take my little drink here, and you’ll be all better by morning.” He held up an imaginary glass to my lips and nodded for me to drink from it.
I fake-sipped slightly, feeling both a little silly and a bit like I was actually getting medicine. I pretended to swallow.
He held out a hand to my face and said in a very serious voice, “You were supposed to gargle it first.”
“Gargle?”
“Yes, oh yes.” He held up the invisible glass again. I dipped my face to it, and titled my head back. I made a poor imitation of gargling.
“Swallow,” he said.
I made a big gulping sound.
He settled back against the wall. “Now, young woman, you will feel more like a rose in the morning.” He held up a finger. “You won’t be a rose, but you’ll feel like one in no time. Just a good night’s rest.”
I felt tired, like I couldn’t take any more weirdness. “I should go home.”
“Want to go to the shore next weekend? Joanie is going. Or Barbie, if you prefer. But for some reason, I think she would hate us all calling her that.”
I couldn’t imagine going to the beach with them.
“Bring the husband, if you want. Kids too. We like kids at the beach,” he said.
I shook my head, smiling. “I couldn’t do that, I hardly know you.”
He said, “You know Joanie. It would be fun, I promise. Lots of daisy-to-rose tonic.”
“I’ll think about it.” I stood up.
He stood, too, and smiled down at me. His eyes were taking me in again. “Just let Joanie know. We leave Saturday, come back Sunday night. I hope you come.”
I felt serious then. I asked, “Why do you hope I’ll come?”
Nikki didn’t miss my change in tone. His face softened, as did his voice. “I like you, Cleo. I can tell about people. A lucky and unlucky trait.”
It was a blunt response to a blunt question. Most people didn’t talk like that. I told him again that I would think about it, and then walked to the bus stop. I didn’t hear the door open to the Beacon as I walked, so I figured he watched me to make sure I got there okay, but I didn’t look back.
I crept into bed with Cecil when I got home. Angelica had stayed in her own bed and it was just past midnight. Cecil rolled over when I pulled the covers over us, and he mumbled, “Have good time?”
“Yes,” I told him. He went back to sleep. Surprisingly, I fell right to sleep, too.
Did I feel like a rose the next day? You better believe I did. I even used a little rose water after my morning shower, and Cecil said I smelled like a delicious garden when he kissed me after pouring a cup of coffee. “It’s good for you,” he said, “To see Barbie. I encourage it. You should definitely see her more often.”
I thought about the trip to the beach the next weekend, thought about asking Cecil what he thought about my going, but I wasn’t sure just then that I wanted to go.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN