Darkness Then a Blown Kiss

by Golda Fried

  darkness then a blown kiss

  Golda Fried

  Copyright © 1998 Golda Fried

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of The Ontario Arts Council and The Canada Council for the Arts.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Fried, Golda, 1972 –

  [Guyana. English]

  Darkness then a blown kiss

  A Ken Sparling Book.

  ISBN 978 1 77056 774 0 (epub.)

  I. Young women – Fiction. II. Mostovac, Vesna. III. Title.

  PS8561.R49I5D37 1998 C813'.54 C98-930762-X

  darkness then a blown kiss is also available as a print book ISBN 9781896356150

  Originally published by Gutter Press. The text of this EPUB edition (prepared in June 2014) has been revised since the book's original print publication.

  The title the hero in the grass was taken from the Bodgea song ‘safe, myself.’

  Cover Design: Vesna

  Book Design: 4dT

  Manufactured in Canada

  about this book

  These stories are diary shreds of young women who are in school but things happen anyway. Girls with their hearts open like agar petri dishes. The setting could be Toronto, Montreal, New Orleans, a gothic castle, or a bathtub. What people say matters. The girl might finally find someone she can talk to but falls asleep too soon. She will fall down taking the scenery with her. Stars are brought down into sugar containers and stirred into coffee. A couch is thrown out on the grass and you’re invited to have a seat.

  To everyone who spoke with me

  on kitchen linoleum floor and such things

  These stories have appeared in the following publications:

  three goth guys Lucid Moon

  icebox night Fish Piss

  like leaving orange juice in the sun, and it all went tremolo it’s a bunny, ezine

  the wand in wander Matrix

  blue toenails Agent

  it fills the holes Index

  the edgewater hotel filling station, 1996 fiction contest winner

  lindsey broken pencil

  atlanta’s story broken pencil

  crates of stars blood & aphorisms, and Concrete Forest anthology

  Thank you: my parents, brothers, dylan ritter, lydia eugene, sandra jeppesen, vesna mostovac, 4dT, ken sparling, sam hiyate, rob allen, nicole cline, alana wilcox, evan munday, kyle little, and many others.

  pajama jane

  three goth guys

  icebox night

  you better come on

  like orange juice left out in the sun

  the wand in wander

  blue toenails

  it fills the holes

  the edgewater hotel

  zoon & june & the sleepover guest

  roses are loud, violets are lewd

  the tubs

  the hero in the grass (or how she will see him tomorrow)

  lindsey and me on a party

  honeysuckle

  atlanta’s story

  thanksgiving dinner

  and it all went tremola

  crates of stars

  pajama jane

  Jane was on the vinyl couch in front of the TV most of the time, watching.

  All smooth and cool in her men’s silk pajamas. High school had ended a week before when Jim walked her to the curb.

  A mug sitting on her knee. Stale cookies around. And Jane dipping them into the hot liquid trying to give them back their soul.

  “She’s looking a bit pasty there by the TV set,” Christie’s thinking, her face caked with makeup under a lampshade. She always had to nag Jane to keep moving. To Christie, moving was like music.

  “You’re coming with me to the store,” Christine said. What she wanted to say was she didn’t want to walk alone any more than necessary. But here Jane was lagging close behind like a dog.

  Christie slipped into the gas station on the way. She had this rule about not shopping when you’re hungry. They couldn’t afford getting all the sugar cereals.

  Jane crouched down to the curb. There was no business being here without a car.

  Christie came out and handed her an egg sandwich. When Jane bit through it, there were bits of shell and chunks and it felt like eating haircurlers. Christie picked at hers but was watching the cars.

  The grocery clerk, Randy, just smiled inside at the familiar scene of Jane in her men’s pajamas flowing through the aisles of The Quick Fix, and Christie, in her sweet shop uniform, buzzing and freaking out after an eight hour shift because, after all this time, she still really didn’t know how to cook.

  Christie was thinking with her painted eyebrows projecting, “There’s Randy over there, putting price tags on juice cans.” She couldn’t resist running up to him, laying it on him thick in her best southern accent. “Oh Randy, now what am I going to do? I just can’t bear to face pasta again.” She threw her arms around him and pretended sobbing.

  Randy broke loose. Punched air. Kept the sticker gun pointed at Christie.

  Christie’s mascara ran in cracks along her face.

  “Well, Randy, now what about dinner then?” she said hoping he’d ignore the tears if she did.

  Randy stole a glance at Jane. He tossed her the sticker gun. Christie grabbed it from her and shot stop-sign neon red stickers all over her heart.

  “TV dinners, aisle three,” Randy said getting his gun back. Christie swung her shopping cart and lifted her rubber soles trying not to stick to the sappy floors. “The sticker guns punch the cereal boxes and that’s why there’s so much sugar dust on the bottom,” Jane was thinking under towering boxes.

  Christie, with her spider eyes, reminded Randy of girls who sucked out all his insides. “I am a shell,” he told himself. And then he thought of Jane curling up inside him. As Jane turned to follow, Randy felt the words fill his mouth: So long, Pajama Jane.

  Old aluminum tops from TV dinners were crinkled all over the hardwood floor. When Jane thought about moving across the room, she saw herself walking on mirrors. Christie putting lipstick on while they ate in slurping silence – that is, till Christie turned into a mouth.

  Jane watched Christie up on stage screaming, then closed her eyes. Christie sometimes crashed into a cymbal, and glittered stars spilled over into the next seconds.

  Jane woke up in darkness on the couch. She touched the ground with her feet, felt crumbs on the hardwood floor. “Christie, stay home tonight and we’ll bake cookies.” Christie was already gone.

  Christie pictures the tour bus pulling up to a road stop. Sees herself pocketing handfuls of sugar packets. Then on a table in the corner, Cliff is there and he’s looking at her, waiting for her to be a sugar rush.

  Christie said she’s leaving. Christie never hangs out in the green room hardly. She stays on the phone behind closed doors. She wants Jane’s book of images for lyrics. She asks for it sighing seductively in a doorway. One day, Jane buys a small notebook and stuffs it in her bra.

  Randy was in his basement shaking as he carried the phone. Jane took the receiver and put it to her ear.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “When?”

  “How about breakfast? Tomorrow morning?” Randy sensed her getting tense. “I could meet you at the place where Christie works.”

  He’s probably interested in Christie, Jane was thinking.

  He hung up before she could say anything.

  Jane let Christie tug her into the whole cookie-making process. Once in a while, Christie m
ade Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookies as a treat and a half. There was so much hope in cookie dough. So much softness. And you could only hope it didn’t get too hard or burnt.

  Christie spooned the dough out onto a cookie sheet. Pushing down with half-polished nails on raw finger-tips. It wasn’t too long ago Jane was eating raw spoonfuls straight from the wrapper cramming for exams. Just to stay awake.

  Hands would grab Jane off the couch. Jim yelling out from the centre of the room. Keeping her up so many nights talking. How she wasn’t passionate enough. “Maybe you have a crush on that guy? Or him?” She tried to hold out under the waves of exhaustion. She felt twisted that she didn’t cry when he finally went home because she had swiped his pajamas, hadn’t she and worn them all the time.

  The old gas oven boomed every once in a while like a bass drum, like something exploding. Christie said reaching for a toothpick, “There’s a certain point when dough turns to cookie. When the toothpick slides in and out with no mess. And the timer has nothing to do with it.” Jane bent her head forward letting her hair fall so that it covered up most of her face.

  Jim’s fingers were reaching in and poking her. They thought this would loosen her up. She had wanted him. She really had. But it was all really painful and not working. Fat fingers, tight lid, kid poking eager, sugar eyes, tongue poised. Buds, water, and heat. Why weren’t her insides more like dough? But it was fighting back.

  All of Jane’s muscles cramped as Christie pulled the cookies out of the oven and waited about two seconds before eating them, all gooey and sticky fingers off the tray. And then Jane remembered that there was going to be eating involved on her breakfast date with Randy tomorrow which was going to be impossible.

  The last thing Jane wrote in her journal as she waited through her insomnia was, well, it was her trying to explain it to Christie: A journal is for your last thoughts before you hit the pavement slowly. Dragged together the next day like dragging together clouds.

  It was the next day.

  In the morning, Randy woke up in terror remembering that he asked Jane on a date. He wondered what to wear. Well, Jane’s going to be in PJs, so I better dress casual.

  Jane must be pretty easy going. She had walked around him a few times like smoke. Then Randy tried to figure out what he was doing asking her out in the first place. I’ll be casual.

  The phone ringing. It was Cliff.

  “Hey, are you up, Randy?”

  “Yeah. I’m finishing up a painting,” he said reaching for a cigarette. “How are things with Christie?”

  “We’re going touring soon . . . and there’s no room for Jane, so maybe I should get you to go by and feed Jane once in awhile. You know, water the plants.”

  Randy asked, the words coming out slowly, “What do you know about her?’

  “She’s the one who walks around in pajamas all the time. Jim thought that was attractive until he went out with her for a year and they never did it. A whole year! Can you imagine? He said they had the worst luck fooling around: posters falling, people calling. Can you imagine?”

  The sweet shop was still pretty empty when Jane stumbled in. He never said exactly what time to meet. Christie was sucking up as much coffee as she was making over by the counter. She’d rip open the sugar packets and hold them over the coffee pot.

  Jane slid down the thin aisle into one of the booths. She wished the place was more of a diner, with blinds on the windows and display cases filled with cherry pie. Her sister deserved to work in a place with more things to steal than just foil ashtrays kissed with cigarette burns. And she wanted it to be special with Randy too when he came. It was, after all, their first date.

  “Oh hi, Jane, honey, some weak coffee, maybe?” Christie said, coffee in one hand. She was already swirling away from Jane’s booth when the sound of waterfalls happened and a slop of coffee from Christie’s hand landed on the floor. “That is the sound of an overflowing toilet.”

  Jane wondered if Randy was going to show. She scanned the shop as if she were seven and looking for her older sister in the mall. Then Randy was taking Jane’s hand, leading her to a booth in the back corner by a big window view of shaking trees.

  Her hand turned into a glove the second Randy touched it.

  Randy got Jane to come visit him at his parents’ house. He led her down to his space in the basement and they sat on a couch there.

  Because of her pajama ways, Randy felt as if an uncomfortable one-night stand sex thing was over with, and they could chat and get on with the breakfast in bed thing, even though it was evening.

  Jane had to smile at Randy knocking over jars of paint that spilled out onto the carpet as he came and sat next to her, passing a long dresser with closed drawers.

  Then he ran to get them juice and cookies. “Dream food,” he mumbled.

  In the silky silence, Jane took her notebook out of her bra. She was scribbling:

  — Seeing you would brighten my day.

  He saw it and scribbled back:

  — Person who wears pajamas all the time confuses sleepers.

  A thin paper rip and he took the scrap bit saying, “I don’t have a scrapbook. I have a drawer.”

  Randy thought that if he was some sort of tough shell, then at least Jane slipped in some fortune.

  He leaned over and kissed her. She felt her back sinking into the couch. Was alarmed the couch was warm. Started drooping her eyes.

  She took in the dark woolly carpet, the baseboard heating, the streaks of paint, the damp back wall, until it wasn’t there. The ashes of his cigarette were coming down like gray stars.

  He kissed her again on the forehead. Then she was asleep.

  Randy’s first reaction was to panic. “What, is there really nothing there?” He held his head together with his hands, pacing all over the room. Deep down, there was something inside of him. Something very tangible: the thought that he liked someone more than they liked him.

  He fell into a chair by the couch and finally calmed down a little. Darkness then a blown kiss. Jane looked so calm and peaceful in her black and blue striped pajamas. He felt bad for his rash assessment, thinking, “Who knows what she’s been through with other guys? I mean, at least she trusts me enough to feel like she can rest with me, right?”

  He dimmed the overhead lights. Then, he lit a big candle and set up the canvas near her sleeping body so that he could feel the warmth coming from her. There she was, on the couch ready to be painted .... He felt like he was shoplifting as he lifted up the paintbrush; he splattered her cheek.

  She was in the green room on the couch and didn’t have to go out under the lights likes a dog under a gray star.

  Finally, Randy was done painting and he stood back as if there was a mattress behind him. He leaned over and blew out the wick.

  three goth guys

  Three goth guys are at a table with their overstuffed knapsacks and strapped up mouths. There’re three of them. They’re probably in the same band. So are you in a band?

  I don’t care that they’re too beautiful for me. Or that they probably want blowjobs. Or that there’s a really boring spoken word artist on stage who we’re supposed to be listening to.

  I dream I am a butterfly landing on three white statues of Greek gods in a New Orleans cemetery.

  One scratches his nose. I have become the interviewer. I ask them about their journals and their Joy Division sticker and their shows. They drag their heavy heads and flashes of drain sail across their pale foreheads. They don’t even talk to each other. They chip in together to buy a chocolate bar.

  They offer me some.

  Outside the sun is shining and when I get up to leave I am talking about something that is travelling in me like a tiny river and they’re breathing close to my neck behind me trying to listen flapping their dark overcoats. I don’t know what I did but I wish I could carry that river.

  Soon they can have a board meeting and decide if I was worth going for but now there is no sound. Just all my veins a
nd pimples dumped in the light in front of a bar.

  Three very large black umbrellas tilt over awkwardly so the sun can land on my face.

  icebox night

  There was a striking guy watching us. We walked straight through to the back and sat down at a table still holding our shopping bags shrugging our shoulders.

  Alley had been looking at rings all day and was especially drawn to one that could hold pills. She kept opening and closing it like she could show something that she was meant to hide like a wound.

  “I’ll get the beer,” I said. I was wearing a jacket that had feathers on it that I’d never get away with where people knew me.

  Wrek had called me at four in the morning, all the time differences off, making sure I wasn’t sleeping with any of the musician guys I was hanging around with.

  I came back to the table with beer and a guy named Delt was chatting Alley up.

  “Do you have any cigarettes?” I asked him. He had some that had to be rolled. “You’ll it’s a bit dry,” he said regretfully. “It will burn fast.” Delt was a singer/guitarist, he was on in the backroom in a few minutes. He was fidgety and shook hands with people who walked by and worked them about the band. Then his eyes melted all over my jacket and he touched my arm. I said, “No, really it’s too much, don’t you think?”

  “No,” he said. Alley was looking the other way. She liked attention in doses.

  Delt was dressed for shit. The colours were drab, the fabric worse, and he was about to go on stage. And of course I couldn’t tell him this and lend him new jacket, it would get in the way of his guitar playing, and I wouldn’t feel like the visitor from Venus anymore either.

  The striking guy came over and joined us now that we hadn’t ripped Delt’s head off. Alley woke up. This was James. He had actual cigarettes. Delt was putting his baggie away. If Alley and me were in a bar back home, the guys would be whispering to each other conspiring making us think we have secrets to figure out, but these guys were looking at us like the moon.