They Is Us

by Tama Janowitz

  “Yup, and the footage had advertisements from the terrorists’ backers. Finally after three months or so the Homeland Security Seals bombed the whole place and wiped everyone out. It was kind of a shame, though, because the terrorists had only killed thirty or so people by that point and there were still thousands and thousands left. Good thing it was a Mets game and not the Yankees, or the place would have been more crowded.”

  “Cool.” It is the first time in ages that Murielle has seen Tahnee exhibit interest in anything. “Can we watch the ZVD3 later, Grandpa? Does it show stuff?”

  “You better believe it.”

  “But why did it happen?” Julie’s eyes fill with tears.

  “Oh, well, some people said it was a setup because as it turned out the Westside Stadium never brought in the expected revenue.”

  The kids are getting restless, Murielle can see they want to go home – probably so they can sniff some more inhalant. She knows what is going on but what can she do? Besides, more than one report has come out that in chronic sniffers there is no sign of reeTVO.9, the gluf maybe protects the brain or something, hardening its surface like old Teflon.

  “You know, back when I was growing up,” her father begins; now that he is calmer there isn’t going to be any shutting him up and the girls are glaring at her. “We used to have fifty states, yup, believe it or not. The coast used to be along the states of California, Washington and Oregon, believe it or not. And then came the earthquake, followed by the tsunami, which I believe was the President’s nuclear –”

  It is the same speech he has recited a thousand times before. “Dad, we have to get going. We’ve left the dog alone.” She bends to kiss his cheek. The hairs are already twisting out of his ears and nose, geez, hadn’t she just cut them? “We’ll be back next week, Dad, see if you can get rid of some stuff on your own, and please! Don’t bring in any more junk! Girls, give your grandfather a kiss and a hug before we go.”

  Behind his back the girls wrinkle their noses at her and scowl, but at least they obey. She’s told them that there’s no room at present time for him at the Senior Mall but the truth is she would never send her father there. Corners have had to be cut, she has had to fire staff members. From now on in order to be admitted, residents have to be able to clean up after themselves; feed themselves; let their activities be shown live on the 24 hours a day of sex, drugs and Rock-’n-Roll Network, all real, all the time!; and play an okay game of bridge.

  She hasn’t told the girls yet, but next week she knows she will have to finish getting rid of the stuff and bring him home, to live with them.

  14

  Murielle is going on a date with A Jesse. She has told the others it is a date, even if it is only a cup of coffee. She has spent several hours getting ready. Several hours? At least. Here it is, already fall and none of the new fashions to wear! Every item she pulls out of her closet is wrong according to the standards of Julie, Tahnee, Cliffort and Dyllis. But since each of them has a different idea as to what is appropriate, or looks good on her, it appears there will be no consensus.

  There isn’t one item that goes with any other. And during the time the things have been in the closet, they have acquired spots, stains, tears, ripped hems. Had the girls been borrowing her stuff? She simply doesn’t understand why everything is so full of holes until a moth-like thing flutters by. Oh, no, it is a SloMoFly! Those stupid flies that follow Slawa around, that according to Julie are supposed to save the world by devouring polyester, rayon, everything synthetic that would never disintegrate.

  She can’t bear it. She turns in front of the mirror: Look at this ruination of a body! What the heck has happened to it? Someone has taken her head and placed it atop this… this… she doesn’t even know what to call it. A body, yes, but so misshapen, lumpy, flabby. Breasts that once stood taut and firm now end at the navel. Broken capillaries cover the corpus like a child’s dot-to-dot game. It has to be some kind of joke. Mentally, she doesn’t feel any older. She’s got the same expression as some of her seniors at the home, with that desperate look as if they had been trapped against their will inside a human body.

  Oh Intelligent Designer, Murielle thinks in silent prayer, please let A. Jesse be the type of man who loves fat, hairy middle-aged women! Let him be the sort of man who is only turned on by the flabby type!

  It seems impossible; a lifetime spent waiting. There is no use in seeming too dressed-up; on the other hand she wants to make sure this guy knows she cares about her appearance!

  At last the group selects a polka-dot halter-top dress in shades of pink; it has a matching bonnet, so very a la mode, pettipants beneath, also au courant. The holes are quickly glued together so it will look presentable, temporarily at least; but to Murielle it simply isn’t flattering. Her ample breasts sway in the sacks of the dress’s top; she has on pink pumps and because her legs are so white, he has rubbed them with that very fashionable self-greening lotion which has turned them green but, alas, also streaky and odorous.

  The five of them sit in front of the house on lawn chairs, waiting for A. Jesse’s arrival, munching on a bowl of some snack that Cliffort has prepared. “Benito Intelligent Designer,” Dyllis says between crunchy mouthfuls, “Aiiee, I can’t believe he is coming here to have coffee with you, Murielle. Ju know, I remember when we was growing up, and eet was like, we never going to get of here! Thas why I always thinking – say, Cliffort, what is this snack anyway? Eet’s so good!”

  “It was something I thought up, using cockroaches,” Cliffort says, grabbing a handful.

  “Oh my gosh,” says Julie. “Cliffort, you know about the cockroach Greg, don’t you? With the red spot? You didn’t cook him, did you?”

  “Don’t worry, I clean out their systems first, a couple of days till they voided themselves. You see we are so used to eating only processed cellulose texture products, when you finally get to have something that was alive –” His tongue is so long he can almost snatch one from his hand from far away. “Heat the oil very hot, garlic, fresh squeezed lemon and chili pepper – doesn’t completely cover the slight hint of pesticide and doom, but I kind of like that.”

  Julie is about to run into the house in search of Greg, when a Gigantor Monster Smash Truck pulls up over the dirt lawn.

  “Bowel movement, look at that truck,” says Tahnee. “I hope the neighbors see!” The truck is so huge that the wheels are the height of the house, you can’t even see who is inside.

  “Hello, A.,” Murielle says, getting up and going over to the car as A. Jesse throws out a rope ladder from the driver’s seat and waves. “Did you have any trouble finding us? How was the traffic?”

  “You know what I’m doing these days?” he says. “I just drive right over the other cars. I mean, not the ones with people in them, of course, but the ones that have just been left there, stuck so long the people walked home. Yup, this is the way to go these days!” He appears older than the way the girls have described him.

  She can’t remember meeting a man – he’s at least her age – with such an animal magnetism. On the other hand, he is wearing a very strong after-shave, so perhaps that’s it. His eyes are kind and admiring: she knows at once he has suffered a great deal, he hasn’t had an easy life. Seeing him makes her nervous. When she gets nervous, though, she involuntarily recites from 101 Greatest Scenes For Actors. “Ida Scott?” she tilts her head winsomely. “This is Amanda Wingfield!”

  Tahnee is glaring at her. Murielle can’t stop: it’s so stupid, but what can she do? She isn’t alone in this only recently recognized medical condition, which is due to a tiny glitch in the brain, kind of like an electric hiccup. “Look at my hands! These hands are worse than a foghorn for reminding me.” Now she’s getting the skeeves, hands shaking, head filling with ice and tar. Mumblechuks, she thinks, mumblechuks.

  “How do you do, I’m A. Jesse March Bishrop. Tahnee and, um… her sister didn’t tell me they had such a young and gorgeous mother…” His feet are killing him, these d
arn platforms! But they looked so pretty in the store. He should have stuck with the court heels. He takes Murielle’s hand and presses it to his lips. The kids are smirking. Somehow the whole event, a simple cup of java, has already escalated into more than she is prepared for.

  “Would you like to come in?” Murielle says. “Have something to drink? We’re not air-conditioned, I’m afraid, but it’s a little cooler inside.”

  “No, no, thanks, if you don’t mind, I think there’s a place near here we can have a drink, I think I mentioned, earlier, I’m on quite a tight schedule –”

  “Oh! Never give a sucker an even break!” It’s almost a tic.

  A. Jesse March Bishrop raises his eyebrows, puzzled. “Excuse me –”

  “Oh, I’m sorry you had to come all this way then, I didn’t realize.” She is blabbing the way she always does when she thinks a man is highly eligible. For once, though, Dyllis is silent, no doubt at the presence of her boss.

  “So how come you’re allowed to drive a Gigantor Monster Truck?” Tahnee says, almost belligerently.

  “Guess I just know the right people!” he says with a wink. “And, you know, I hold the patent on the anti-gravity Sonambula, it’s just that, well, keep this a secret, okay?” Everyone nods eagerly. “We just can’t get them to stay up very high!” There is silence, this has to be mulled over. A. Jesse doesn’t trouble to explain how the hole through the earth screwed up a lot of things, what’s the use? This weird crew would never understand. Still, he supposed, he could have gone on to explain, patiently, simply, how like an apple without a core (even though the extraction of the earth’s core wasn’t proportionate) Isaac Newton was dealing with a different object. “And is this little, um, little sister?” A. Jesse March Bishrop says, going over to Julie. Julie sits with hunched shoulders.

  “Julie, get up! Say hi!” Murielle commands.

  “That’s okay, she doesn’t have to! Next time, honey, you’ll come with your sister – and your gorgeous mother, too.”

  “What does ‘honey’ mean, anyway? I always wondered.”

  “Good question.” He is always happy to explain. “It was something people used to eat, back in the old days – made from insects. Bees or some such.”

  “Yuck!” The girls shriek in unison. A. Jesse is delighted.

  “Oh, before I forget.” He returns to his car, reaches into the back seat, pulls out a bunch of lilies. “These are for you.”

  “Just beautiful.” Murielle holds them wistfully in her arms, inhaling deeply.

  “They don’t have a smell, Ma!” Tahnee says contemptuously. “They’re flowers, not perfume!”

  “Yes, they do,” Murielle said. “Of course… there’s rosemary, for remembrance – but these have a beautiful scent. Kind of like something very old-fashioned, nostalgic. Something people used to have at the turn of the century. I don’t know if they still make Paris by Paris Hilton?”

  When Murielle and A. Jesse have departed, Tahnee heads off to meet Locu at the shack and Julie goes up to see how Sue Ellen is getting along. “Sue Ellen? Is that you?” In the corner of her bedroom Julie can hear some… something soft and slimy, mucking around. More at night, it’s true, but even during the day, lately. It’s Sue Ellen. And those little suctioning sounds – at first Julie had been afraid; now she kind of understands.

  Sue Ellen is a ghost – or maybe just a wet spot – who lives in a corner of Julie’s room.

  Sue Ellen makes one corner of Julie’s room very unpleasant, but then, so many corners of the house are unpleasant and there seems to be nothing anybody can do; sometimes Julie suggests to Sue Ellen that she go to The Other Side.

  Wet spot

  Sue Ellen has tried to, but when she got there she was sort of lost: first there had been a lot of people waiting on line, to use the bathroom? – but she didn’t have to go – then there’s a test – in a… room, endless row of – what the heck were they, desks? And something like a pen and paper – and a kind of a bad smell and finally nothing seemed to be happening… And then there were questions that didn’t make any sense… alive – either that or a damp area, Julie still isn’t certain – when Sue Ellen does seem to talk, she explains, kind of, that over the course of history so many people had died… people, and then in other categories, animals and trees and grass, they had sort of… run out of room. It is too crowded and kind of… spongy.

  Sue Ellen has told Julie that at the time when she did try to Cross Over, she thought, I’m not going to stay around this dump here! And even though they were all screaming, wait, come back! Don’t be scared – there was no way Sue Ellen was going to take a test she was clearly going to flunk (which Julie could sympathize with) and so she kept going and that was how Sue Ellen ended up here in the corner of Julie’s bedroom, making it damp.

  Every few days her father – before her mother kicked him out – would come into her room, inspect the corner. “I do not understand! What you do here, Julie! You spill something? Why always, in this corner, wet? No leak from outside wall, no pipe here… no plant in pot. You do this? But why? Here is the mildew, this blackness – no good, I say!”

  Once in a while he gets out the sander, sands down the Renewable2% floor – it is getting kind of worn out there – spritzes the wall with bleach… A day or two later, it is back to being slimy. She feels kind of bad, maybe she could have explained to her mother and sister, “It’s a ghost –” but not to her father.

  Even though her mother and sister believe in the existence of ghosts, and coffee enemas and the kabbalah and channeling past lives and paranormal phenomena and holistic medicine; astrology; psychic abilities; mushroom-quinoa intestinal implants; telekinesis and that the government is covering up the existence of aliens, somehow Julie doesn’t want to tell them about the wet spot. She doesn’t have the strength to go into all the details; they would have kept questioning her, plying her with questions – and probably gotten the HGMTV crews to visit.

  One thing about Sue Ellen – Julie knows she isn’t happy. Sue Ellen keeps saying there doesn’t seem to be anything to eat around here – not that she is exactly hungry, but at night she often accompanies the person she called “that wady” meaning Murielle, to the fridge and makes sure the “wady” keeps stuffing her mouth full.

  Maybe its Murielle, maybe Sue Ellen, but one or the other has terrible cravings! Salt and fats, salt and fats! Salami and swiss cold slabs of eggplant parmigiana; potato chips, jelly donuts, cheese enchiladas, hot buttered toast, peanut butter and bacon and mayonnise and whipped cream. But it is never enough. If only there were fried pork dumplings, even cold! But there never are.

  And so when Murielle says, “I can’t understand, I wake up in the morning, I am so thirsty, and who keeps eating everything in the fridge?” Julie knows there is no use in saying, you ate it, because there’s another… person… in the house, or more like a sort of… wet spot… that is trying to eat vicariously through you…

  It wouldn’t have made any sense, would it?

  When she has finished trying to soothe poor Sue Ellen, Julie goes to the basement and one by one lugs the cages upstairs and out, so the animals can have some light and a little hop around the yard. No one else cares, is how it seems to Julie, and it is up to her to rescue dying plants and sick animals and volunteer in the old age home where her mother works; if she is taken out to eat and there are two restaurants side by side, one well recommended and full of customers, the other empty and smelling of grease, Julie asks to eat at the latter. Because she feels sorry for the poor people who run such an unsuccessful place.

  She is a good student by virtue of the fact that she studies hard but even so she never gets the right answers. Nor do the teachers really like her – too plain, too plump – her sister, it seems, has gotten all the looks. The height. The blonde hair. Julie doesn’t resent Tahnee for this, the opposite, she admires her and thus when Tahnee says, “Let’s go steet,” or needs a companion in drinking or a lookout if she is going to have sex in the sha
ck with Locu, Julie is always grateful to be included.

  But Julie is happy enough, not like Tahnee; she has everything she needs: tonight her father will take her to the mall; since Murielle is out, he is going to come over and visit, cook dinner, do some repairs… He still has the keys; fortunately Murielle hasn’t had the locks changed, and when he comes in, looking around nervously, Julie runs to greet him, grabs him in a big hug and throws her legs around his waist. “Oh, Daddy! I missed you…” Then wrinkling her nose and taking an involuntarily step back she sees her dad is looking at Cliffort who has draped himself in a number of damp cloths and is slumped on the sofa in front of the TV with his feet up on the table…

  “Oh, Dad,” says Julie, “This is Cliffort, he’s been staying here. Cliffort, this is my dad –”

  Cliffort rises, the damp cloths dripping. “My apologies for my soggy state, Comrade,” Cliffort says. “I find I thrive under moist conditions.”

  “No need to get up,” says Slawa quickly, but Cliffort has already crossed the room and is grasping his hand; Cliffort’s skin is pale and soft… How many of these poreless, uncallused fiends now occupy the planet, Slawa wonders, what has happened to all the testosterone?

  “Right, Julie, I have to go out, I’ll leave you and your dad to it,”

  Cliffort says, grabbing his things on the way out. “Very nice to have met you, Comrade, Julie talks so much about you.”

  “Daddy, Daddy!” Julie hops and dances as she wheedles.

  “Daddy, can we go to the mall so I can go to Shrimp Chips?”

  “Julie, what did I tell you? No!”

  She has been bugging him for months. “But Dad, it’s not fair! All the girls in my class are doing it.”

  “I’m not giving you the money, Julie.” Slawa had planned to sand the floor in Julie’s room where it was always damp, and maybe cook some borscht: Julie loves his cooking. Certainly he hadn’t planned to go to the mall. He needs to do chores around the place, he doesn’t want his daughter growing up in squalor. Should paint the driveway, although it looks, at any moment, as if it were about to snow… which it does, sometimes, in August.