The Siren House

by Andrew Post

  He pointed at the first one, walking along the length of the flower bed. “This was Doogan the Dung Beetle from Jungle Friends Animation Hour,” he said. “This was Karl the Cat. This was Rosebud from Channel R. That show was probably before your time. And this on the end here was my other Squishy.” There was a final grave, this one with actual flowers on it, all dried up and crumbly.

  “Next, you’ll want to know what happened, I’m sure,” Thadius said, eyeing the final grave in the row. “And the answer is, they were all molecularly unstable. It happens to near everything I create with my cauldron. And, no, I don’t know why. I guess because it’s a series five, or maybe it’s user error.” He pinned the end of the covering, the flower bed neatly tented. Surveying his work, he said, “They just won’t hold together. I get them jazzed up on screen, and everything looks fine. They come out; they’re okay for a while. But after an hour, they start to . . . just go wrong. They want to be around, you can tell. Especially Rosebud. She really liked being here. And . . . they sort of fell apart after all.”

  I wanted to ask why he kept them, but I understood.

  If scanned by the Smocks, they’d read as nothing but what they were before being jazzed. Dogs, cats, coyotes—whatever skins had come in that week to the Siren House.

  Thadius stared at the spot where the final grave was, just under the burlap sheet. He put his hands in his pockets, walked to the porch, and sat beside me on the swing.

  “Stay here tonight,” Thadius said. “Go through the book and see if you can figure something out. If she’s you—or at least even a little like you—maybe, I dunno, you’ll know what she’d say. Like how people who know each other really well learn to finish each other’s sentences.” His gaze traveled the yard but fell upon the fifth grave and lingered.

  “No,” I said. “I’m really happy with how that episode turned out, and I want to see it actually performed.”

  “You got a holoprojector right in there,” he said, pointing through the kitchen window to the living room. “You can watch it here.”

  “I’m going,” I said firmly. “I’m going.”

  The distraction of a night at the Siren House seemed to be just the ticket. We had time to figure everything out. My leg hurt; my head was spinning. The thought of staying at a house alone at night with dead cartoon characters buried in the backyard was just too much for me today. Maybe I’d even have another wine spritzer—or four. Might do my leg some good.

  Thadius nodded. “I understand,” he said, looking at another spot in the yard, one without graves, “even though we might spend countless hours working on something, see every step of its process, it ain’t nothin’ ’less you get to see the final product, finishin’ touches and all.” He looked at me. Smiled.

  I smiled back.

  I finally knew him.

  Track 21

  LIVE AND DIRECT

  The auditorium was packed, every seat filled, standing room only.

  I was up in the control room with the sound mixers and the holocap operators. Looking down on the auditorium, I could hardly believe this many people lived in the Duluth area, let alone gathered in one spot. I became nervous, knowing the first episode I’d written of Namaste & Jeff would be performed in front of all these people.

  It was good, though. I forgot all about the other Cass’s writing project, The Siren House—and what went along with it . . . The promise I might be able to walk one day and that another Mom was out there, somewhere, a Smock. When the overture music began, all that went away. The magic of the theater stepped in, waved its wand, and all of us were transported. Beautiful. Even the pain in my knee left me alone. Almost.

  Thadius and I had agreed to bring Clifford on board with the fight. Thadius said it was stupid he hadn’t earlier, but he claimed he had an inferiority hang-up he was working on. I promised I wouldn’t suddenly drop him for Clifford. Thadius had taught me so much, and I valued him too much as a friend—despite the secrets and white lies—to do that. Problem was there was no telling when Clifford would be in our versh or his, and we’d just have to wait for him to show up one night to tell him the good news. Well, it sounded like good news to me. Thadius still seemed uncertain.

  I scanned the audience for someone in a red scarf. My search was cut short when the audience hushed and the house lights dimmed, everyone becoming colorless shadows.

  The curtains rustled. The spotlight thumped on and zeroed in on the split in the crimson velvet wall. Thadius, in top hat and tails, emerged. This time, his entrance was set to “It’s Saturday” by Marcy Playground. Despite its volume, the song was almost drowned out by cheers.

  Thadius bowed a few times. And again. When that didn’t quiet them, he patted the air, as if trying to close the lid of an overloaded trunk. Some people stood to applaud him. I guess they were confident he would put on a good show. Finally, they hushed.

  “As if you couldn’t tell by the song, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Saturday. I am your host, the Fabulous Thadius Thumb, and I welcome you to the Siren House.” Again, the place went nuts. He waited until it had tapered down before continuing. “Tonight, boy howdy, do we have a show for you. The Siren House is proud to present the music stylings of Minimal Max. Duluth’s own Dell Freeman brings the funny with some side-splitting stand-up. And we showcase our very own knife-throwing husband-and-wife duo, Gherkin and the Orangutan. We have a three-song set from Vikarma. And, last but not least, what I’m sure you’re all climbing the walls to see: the return from midseason break of Namaste & Jeff. So, whether you’re at home or here with us tonight, thank you and I hope you have an absolutely lovely time.”

  As Thadius left the stage, next to me the three people manning the control panel whispered commands. “Go to capture feed one, bring up lights, and cue music.” Another took a microphone and angled it toward his mouth, keyed a button.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Minnesota’s own Minimal Max.”

  The crowd applauded, the curtains parted, and a man with long, stringy hair and a plain white suit took center stage. In one hand he held a ukulele by the neck, and with the other, he blew tiny kisses. He approached the lip of the stage, took a deep bow, and began at once. It was “Tiptoe through the Tulips” in a nearly grating falsetto. I’d heard him a few times during practice backstage and learned that apparently he was an impersonator of someone called Tiny Tim. The performance got a lot of laughs, which I guess was the point, and when he was through, blowing more kisses as he left the stage, he got the highly coveted standing O. Getting one often cemented a spot for a repeat performance in a month or so. Max saw it, cupped a hand to his mouth, said or mouthed, “Thank you,” a few dozen times, blew even more kisses, bowed again and again, and vanished backstage.

  On a walkie-talkie, turned down to nearly a whisper, Thadius’s voice gave direction. “Hands, get the gear out there. Where’s Dell? Get him onstage, now.”

  While the next act set up, the stand-up comedian got a few chuckles riffing on life in a post-A world. (Emphasis on few.) I didn’t listen, really, because how funny could resorting to drinking your own urine be?

  “This isn’t working. Pull him early. Give him the light.”

  The control panel guys gave the comedian the wrap-it-up light three minutes early. The audience hadn’t booed him, but you could almost taste the impatience in the room. I had to agree. During my week as a full-time Siren House employee, I’d met a few of the comedians. Most of them were jerks. Dell himself had tried to get a chuckle out of his friends at my expense when I clack-thumped by, calling me Pogo and Tripod and whatnot. It stung; I won’t lie. I told Thadius about it, and he told the offending stand-up that if he didn’t get an O at this show, he was done, permanently banned from performing here again. By the sound of it, that was going to be the case.

  Dell ended, and people clapped just to be polite, but it wasn’t even a fraction of the enthusiasm Minimal Max had received.

  Next to me at the control panel, as
well as blasted through dozens of speakers throughout the theater, the announcer said, “Please put your hands together for . . . Vikarma.”

  Vikarma was a Nirvana cover band. This wasn’t their first visit to the Siren House. They’d hit a few bars and places around A-torn Minnesota but mostly stuck to the Twin Cities area. I’d heard Thadius complain earlier in the week about having to put them up for the night—part of their contract. They had no problem with using one of the dressing rooms; they just didn’t want to have to sleep in their van. But the state in which they left the dressing room was another matter.

  Nirvana was how Dad’s parents met. Both of them had lived in the Midwest. Unaware of each other, they’d both gone to Washington for Kurt Cobain’s funeral, probably even driving the same highways and stopping at the same gas stations. It was during Courtney Love’s reading of her husband’s suicide note to a sea of flannel-clad fans, complete with her editorializing, that Kenneth Robuck Sr. and Martha Bennice met eyes, made a nonverbal agreement to talk after Ms. Love was done. Quickly after, they went to a coffee shop, spent a few hours getting to know each other, told their friends they’d find a way back home, got a hotel, made love (unknowingly making Dad in the process), and returned to the Midwest engaged.

  “In Bloom” was both Grandma and Grandpa’s favorite. Mine too.

  Here at the Siren House, Vikarma played it as their second song, finishing out with “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” They got the standing O. No big surprise. I’d heard it was their usual closer at the Siren House.

  “Hey,” a voice said, and I looked up from my tablet. It was dark in the theater but especially in the control room. It took me a few blinks to see anything. I turned around. It was Beth, parked at the doorway to the control room. “Can I steal you away for a sec?”

  I followed her into the hall. She looked up one way, down the other. People were going every which way, some fully or partially in costume. I recognized a majority of the hustling thespians to be regulars of Namaste & Jeff. I didn’t want to miss the scene I’d written, especially if it was to listen to Beth—who I now knew was still employed at the Siren House because she’d blackmailed Thadius.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Do you . . . you know, have anything?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “See, my back hurts, and I need something; I mean, okay, I’m clean, but I’m still in pain. Understand? So. Do you have anything or not? I asked Ricky, and he’s dry. And I just got paid and, well, I’d be willing to give you a few reds for something—if you have anything that might help me out.”

  It was now that I noticed something in Beth that I once read in a book about drug addicts. That they get a sort of hollowed-out look in their eyes, like part of them’s been erased. She was wearing less makeup tonight, and I now understood why she made herself up like a raccoon most of the time—to frame her glassy eyes in eyeliner and mascara camouflage. I don’t mean to pass judgment, but you can look at pictures of people who were bad into drugs and see it. The guy who my grandparents went to the funeral for was one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love the music, but you could see it in his face that something deep inside itched him night and day.

  “Yeah, I bet Thadius paid you,” I said.

  Beth looked over her shoulder, pushing some of that cobalt hair behind an ear. Then she turned to look at me squarely, anger in those scrubbed-out eyes.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Thadius told me everything about how you got a job here. I think I should go find him right now and tell him you’re still using. I’m sure he’d be interested in hearing that.” As I said this, I couldn’t help but hate myself a little. Had I really become the Siren House’s resident tattletale?

  Beth shook her head. “Man. He’s gotten his hooks into you already? That was quick. And here I was really rooting for you too. Thought you could’ve been smart enough to not let that happen. But here’s his new little starry-eyed bitch all mesmerized”—she twinkled her fingers—“by Fabulous Thadius.”

  All sugar until she knew she wasn’t going to get anything out of me.

  “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said. I wanted to call her a bitch right back, but I couldn’t. I hated that word.

  Beth quickly glanced over her shoulder again. “Keep on with him, see where it gets you. He’s got a lot of good stories, a whole bunch of ideas, but when it comes to actually helping anyone but himself, you’ll learn he only likes broken things until he figures out he can’t fix them.”

  “He told me what happened to you. I’m sorry that . . .” I glanced at her wheelchair.

  When I looked Beth in the eyes again, she was sneering even harder than before. “Fuck you,” she said, spun in place, and scooted off. She told the rushing actors to move aside and ran over more than one set of toes. I watched her go, not really sure what to make of the exchange.

  I returned to the control room, plopped down, and watched as the octogenarian husband-and-wife knife jugglers took the stage in their matching jumpsuits and threw sharp things at each other.

  I wished someone would throw something sharp at Beth. Or at me. Somebody.

  “Cue music. We’re ready back here.”

  A few switches were thrown on the control panel, and Namaste & Jeff came next. The two actors who played the titular couple emerged, the audience in a frenzy.

  I smiled but couldn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t stop thinking about Beth. At the second half of the show, I managed to regain my focus.

  INT. LIVING ROOM—DAY

  Namaste enters, stage left.

  NAMASTE

  Jeff, I have something I have to tell you.

  Jeff puts aside his magazine.

  JEFF

  What’s the matter?

  NAMASTE

  You should probably sit down.

  JEFF

  I am sitting down.

  NAMASTE

  Okay, but is your heart sitting down?

  JEFF

  My . . . what?

  NAMASTE

  Jeff, is your heart sitting down? I mean, I know you’re sitting down, but is your heart? Because I guess I don’t really have anything to say to you—like, your face—but it’s your heart I need to talk to, so . . . Is your heart sitting down?

  Jeff considers this.

  JEFF

  Yeah, I guess it is. Listen, Nam, what’s this about?

  Namaste ignores him, rants to herself.

  NAMASTE

  Okay, if you’re sitting down and your heart is sitting down, I guess I should sit down too, right? Just so no one feels lorded over or anything. I’ll be right back!

  She leaves, exits stage right.

  Jeff looks around the room.

  JEFF

  (to himself)

  I think like ten people could sit on this couch if they wanted to, but all right . . .

  Namaste returns with a lawn chair.

  NAMASTE

  What kind of chair does your heart like, babe? Because I don’t want to pick something that’s going to give the impression that I’m sitting on a throne or anything. ’Cuz you might be from a hoity-toity family and everything—and I love you anyway—but I’m not sure if your heart is the same way. It may, like a futon or a daybed, or maybe it likes to sleep on a yoga mat. That’s it! Yes! I’ll go get my yoga mat. BRB.

  Jeff springs to his feet.

  JEFF

  Babe. Would you just tell me what’s going on?

  NAMASTE

  Clover cheated on Raquel.

  JEFF

  Clover did? Oh my God, I can’t believe—

  NAMASTE

  Yeah, and that’s where I’ve been all day. Talking to her about it. I talked to both of them, actually. She told me, and I said I was going to tell Raquel if she didn’t. I told them they had to work this out because they love each other so much and a secret like this could tear them apart, and if they didn’t fix it, it could ruin their
entire relationship.

  JEFF

  Understandable. That’s really nice of you to do that for them.

  NAMASTE

  And, well, they worked it out. But then, I had to kind of think about it myself, because I have problems too.

  JEFF

  We all do.

  NAMASTE

  Just wait. Don’t be all . . . understanding.

  JEFF

  (laughs)

  I’m sorry. Don’t be understanding?

  NAMASTE

  Just let me get this out. I realized I couldn’t fix their relationship. That what Clover did, she had to answer for it herself—figure it out on her own, and live with it if she could and move on. And I . . . I realized it wasn’t my place to fix Clover and Raquel’s relationship, that it was their own thing that they had to resolve. That in my world, our world—yours and mine—there was a problem I had to fix. That it was my job to fix. It, us, ours.

  JEFF

  So what’s all this talk about chairs and yoga mats?

  NAMASTE

  The yoga mat!

  She leaves, exits stage left.

  She comes back with the rolled yoga mat. Crying.

  JEFF

  Honey?

  She looks at the mat in her hands, throws it down in disgust.

  She begins sobbing, animatedly. Loudly.

  JEFF

  Okay, so no yoga mat. That’s fine. Look, I’m standing up. And I’m sure my heart’s doing the same. Yep, I felt him jump right up off his heart couch. He’s on his feet. I know it.

  He steps closer. Holds her.

  NAMASTE

  But maybe your heart likes yoga mats.

  She looks at the yoga mat.

  NAMASTE

  And that’s fine if he does, but I know that I . . . I don’t like yoga mats. Not anymore. I mean, I used to. I used to love yoga mats. And yoga. And going to yoga class and—

  JEFF

  Nam. Come on now, what’s all this about?

  (Long pause for dramatic effect)

  NAMASTE