Darkness Then a Blown Kiss

by Golda Fried

  When she got in the van, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what Wane was going to showcase this time, but it was bound to surface. Lucky was bubbly, pointing to the snapshots we drove by. Like a bike in a tree. Go Lucky. Wane saying, Yeah I’m a photographer too. When he finally looked over at me, it was in revulsion for my hangdog reactions.

  Trace: Are you rucked?

  Wane: Not now I’m not.

  I could see Trace and Wane and the conversations they were going to have when Wane and I got back and then made up ones that I wished they were going to have.

  Wane: Most people go by the nail in wood. A love partner like a nail so deeply wedged in wood can only be removed by driving in another nail on top.

  Trace: But then love is a coffin, love is a coffin, love is a coffin.

  Wane’s eyes watched me near pay phone, but I was good. I never called. I did once though before our trip, and I never want to let anyone make me feel bad for acting. Not that kind of acting. But for now, I never was going to mention his name until this trip was over.

  All I had was this one photograph, the fingerprints kept to the edges only. It is Trace’s apartment. Trace jammed the wobbly extra squared table into the corner. But in one swoop this guy came in and dragged it out like a dead body – the noises on the floor – onto the balcony and wiped it down with the edge of his shirt. We go back in for chairs and Trace tells me his name is Liner and she is leaving. And then I remember chairs unfolding on either side of the table like wings.

  When I came back from hanging out by myself by the road again, Wane and Lucky were dusting themselves off but I could feel they were still thirsty.

  Lucky said, pointing my way, I can tell to keep you away from the frying pan. You’re on your own laid-back time, girl. You’d get everything burnt. Wane going, Don’t I know it. Don’t I know it. Then they were scurrying through the back of the van for some kind of breakfast they could pour a lot of syrup on.

  My laid-back self tried to sleep to stay away.

  I was sleeping from my top corner bunk bed like a night owl. they were stirring their spaghetti-from-a-can in their not-allowed hot pots waiting for the boils. if only I could stick my beak into their foreheads and drag each noodle from their head to straighten things out. was it money? the mostly divorced remarried parents? whatever it was, it was like leaving orange juice in the sun.

  Whisky became our new mouthwash of choice. Bathrooms on the road were grosser than we were. So we avoided them. I am not going to let him make me feel gross about this, my straggly heart sizzle sticks. Whisky, making the insides more parched all the time.

  Some mornings we made it to the washroom and that’s where Lucky confronted me. I was swizzling water in a glass for the third time waiting for her to leave. I saw her staring at me though the mirror, her fists on her hips. She was waiting while I went for the toothpaste, you know today I have this thing for clean teeth and I’m making sure to brush every tooth five times.

  at the showers, those girls’ feet side-stepping my floorboards and I knew something more than steam was seeping out. the guys came up to me afterwards about my orange pubic hair. then they stopped taking the orange Freezies for evening snack.

  You really messed him up bad. Lucky was letting it out in hammers. She smeared on the walls, Don’t you care? And still after all these years, I kept polishing my mouth and didn’t use it to say anything.

  and so, Wane, do you see me through negatives? are you chortling on your false blackmail photos back at the campsite at this very moment? are you like me, here out beside the road again? when I go back, will you accuse me again? that you saw me and Lucky holding hands last night in the back of the van? and even what if we were? is that so revolting to you? maybe if I pick you some of these blackberries I can get through to you by your stomach. that’s the way it was supposed to be, right?

  When you find dimes or paperclips or gems on the ground it’s called a “ground score“ Trace told me once. I was biting a nail that came right off when I smashed upon Wane and Lucky writhing in the campfire’s ashes.

  Wane was spewing past Lucky’s ear, Hickey me hard and suck some more so my bruises will show.

  Not one drop of blood surfaced on my broken up finger.

  I panicked, crushing berries and maybe the blood will come.

  there is a place where courtship is really fucked up. I was sweeping the porch outside the cabin. Geal was sitting on the side trying to impress some guy, she was whispering into his ear. the next thing I know, she’s grabbing the broom from me and stabbing me in the crotch. her lips drawn back like labia snarling: I’m gonna stick this up your cunt. I’m gonna stick it up your cunt.

  the guy in hysterics drinking it all in looking like he’s straight out of a milk commercial.

  I followed rocks out barefoot towards some sort of road. Geal was there. An older her definitely but not one wrinkle. She got to see my face and hands stained, the black clots of berries showing.

  She grinned, told me how she’s going to Berkeley for psychology in the fall. Psychology of all things. She spent all of two minutes to rub that in and strategically ask, So where are you going? before disappearing. The rocks gathering in my knees.

  I don’t know how much longer I can do these spirals. and I don’t know if I can help you set us free, Wane. and I don’t know if there will be anything left of me. I had set out with thoughts of healing, I swear.

  I think the last of me is drying up now.

  I saw my ghost’s view looking down on me from above and the only blood I had left was the purple lining of my black leather jacket strewn open. then I was back in my jacket and Trace was there. the clouds, sheer, curtains being cut, and Trace wading through. when she was close enough, she crouched down dipping her fingers in the purple like she was leaving the edges of a photograph. Wane’s not around, the sound out there, So, Who do you really love? I tried to touch the wafting voice. yes, I really love. I really love. but it wasn’t the old Trace and she just laughed, the ees curling out in her Lucky Strikes smoke way, blackening the ethereal curtains.

  I tried to remember the photograph. Trace is wearing a summer dress with spaghetti straps. she captures the sun with her emerald eyes. she is not used to seeing me without Wane. she flip flops between her three types of making coffee. Between the kitchen and Liner and I in the living room back and forth and then by some chance is out of filters and has to go out.

  even when Trace is not there her essence leaves a raw smell, but all her edges are refined, carefully crafting the assortment on the ledge by the window, displaying the porcelain dishes with swirls, catching eyes, leaving her way of saying things in the apartment, the way she pronounces words like deluxe and swank, like puffed up cushions. it’s usually hard to stay awake around her, even with my Salada eyes.

  Liner’s eyes saying, Salada eyes rag up my tongue. I take the rag up to my lips. his eyes drive past them.

  when Trace got back she looked at me like she’d been given the job of stage sweeper and I put the broom in her hand. and I was still waiting for her to hand over a sunburst guitar and call me on . . .

  But what if I gave you the guitar, Wane? Would that finally do it? Wane scavenging through my body bag, taking things. By that time, I had cleaned myself off and he was packing, probably for the last time, according to Wane’s plan anyway. Lucky had already taken off with the six rolls of film.

  That’s my Young T-shirt, he was stammering. I’m taking this fuck me tape. I’m getting the deposits back for all the empties too, so just forget about it.

  He told me I’m giving, but it’s become a curse many centuries ago.

  I grabbed my journal before he got to it. No fucking way.

  I just don’t understand, he said.

  although it was really obvious to everyone in that whole camp what was going on, only once did someone address it. she got all the leads in the play. she was the only one who liked Billy Idol. she sat next to me once on the hot pavement of the tennis courts, where
everyone was called if there was any emergency. the asphalt burning our asses. and there was a lot of waiting around. so she told me this story. her mom’s boyfriend only ate carotene pills and she’d always be like, so have a potato chip, and one day he turned up at breakfast orange.

  Finally the van was approaching the drive into the city and it could only encroach so far. Wane kept looking up through the windshield for the moon like a spotlight or something, but it wasn’t there.

  Slowly our hands met like a spider finding another one out there. He murmured, I hope things work out for you. I hope that we’re friends.

  In the same dance, he withdrew his hand and tossed me out the sticky humid van and rolled off.

  He’s headed straight to Trace, I knew this when he slammed the door shut.

  Maybe he’s going to confirm that she’s on his side. Maybe to head straight back to where we came from and it was all for nothing. Maybe to head to her just for some wind itself.

  But they both withdrew into the night afterwards and I couldn’t touch them.

  on the noon before Wane and I left on our trip, Trace rented a black limousine and kept driving it past my window. she would never give me the words why.

  I fled the windowed room and tried to flow down the steps feeding clawed-torn pieces of white dress like blank pages to the swirl above.

  I fled the steps looking at my skin slowly revealed in the outdoor light terrified it would get mutated into some strange mouldy colour from the green that came in through the window or into some crusted colour from the sun on the roof. But there it was, my skin for me to scratch only.

  And each white dress piece leaving was a paper that didn’t have my blood. A million reasons for them to use their own blood and still they’ll call me ungrateful to a million friends.

  And as much as the dew felt cool on my savaged skin, I was wading through grass hunched over, naked again. The white pieces leaving me.

  It had been two months and I didn’t know if it was going to happen. I had to remind myself how to make a phone call. I had to wait praying for a lift in his voice. I had to describe where I was . . . Somewhere grassy and writing everywhere that had even penetrated stone. It was too much. Liner showed and knelt to me lying there and even brought tea.

  Wane was at the top of the tower, his elbows grinding into stone bricks. Those branches could be her finger veins. That silver river could be her spine. But wherever she was, the dark ink was bleeding over the sliver of the moon making it hard to read things. The tower went so high up and each black tear that fell had the power of a driving nail by the time it hit the ground. I’m going to stay in the tower ‘til she comes. Oh when she comes, the wind will blow the grass towards me and show her the way. And to the general direction of the grass he gasped, Where is my June?

  the wand in wander

  Exposure happening in cut-outs from what somebody else understands. One of my guy friends telling me, Daryll, You have to read Kerouac, On the Road, and I don’t remember suggesting anything back. I don’t think I got most of that book at the time. In fact, I got lost in that book so many times, my mind wandering . . . pots banging downstairs, fighting, the ol’ vacuum cleaner, the six o’clock news . . . and I’m thinking about, I don’t know what, the guy I had a crush on for three years and all the crushes in between and how I always left them on the cutting room floor as the possible.

  A bunch of us were mixing through the parking lot before the concert. There was a real feeling you could be anywhere among everyone and not have to be friends with anyone specifically.

  But then he handed me over white gloves like a magician. Wool and loose. It was snowing and I thought, Oh thanks, Skyler, that’s quite genial but was lost in my hat making movies. I was filming the crowd.

  I got Skyler to walk by the parking meters on the edge of the parking lot. And I noticed a cigarette lying there on top of one of them. Let’s park awhile, I said, and smoke this thing. I was almost about to put a quarter in the slot feeling like we should pay or something because this spot felt good.

  I hadn’t given back his gloves. And so I had to do major research to get to him. And then of course there had to be a snowstorm to get through. It was like a research paper you turned in and all the periods were really question marks.

  I started remembering after the show, how we all drove over to get to French fries. How he went on about writing and seeing him get excited. And being dropped home with the gloves. And finally tracking him down. Then, looking at his shoes as the door opened. Him. Taking back the gloves, my empty hands limp against the doorway like I fit there. [We kissed.] Then, getting back through snow into the car, thinking I left a carpeted tongue and half-footprints.

  I drove or walked by the light coming out his window for nine days and nine nights waiting for something that already happened.

  It was not like me to pursue anything with some kind of knife. But I was going to do something this time. I got out of the car. I threw rocks at his window but he didn’t come out. I thought maybe he was out, so I waited in the car, freezing, until one in the morning. At one, I had to piss so badly, I drove twenty minutes home and put on a sweater. I started flipping quarters. Heads, I’ll head over. Makes sense. Tails, I’ll tail after him. I mean I’ll stay home. I got tails.

  Went back to his house. Told myself I’d throw rocks at his window once and then leave and that’s it. No response. Fuck. I started to walk away, when the light went on in his kitchen.

  I tapped on the window. By then it was two a.m. He had been downstairs the whole time writing his essay and had two paragraphs left to write and had just come up for something to scarf down. He took me in. I explained to him that I was a bit weird but he said it was like oxygen.

  And how he kept holding me and laughing. And how he really kissed me goodbye in the kitchen. And how he really kissed me goodbye all the way to the car. And how he finally pushed me away. And how he told me later he couldn't fall asleep because he wanted to see me so badly, he had to wait until he passed out. We spilled over a tea cup kissing.

  My mom woke up when I came in and said the car has now disappeared. I don’t want you driving around at four a.m. or even staying up that late. It’s not normal. Only medical interns are allowed to do it.

  I fell into bed dizzy hiding what happened in each organ.

  His parents had me over for dinner right away. Cooked artichokes. I watched them peel the things layer by layer and eat them off the skin ‘til they got to the heart. Skyler could only take the family questions for about five minutes before he yanked me out of there and we never got to finish the artichokes.

  We left the room. Two green things sat on saucers.

  I saw us, two people in some kind of spilt tea air, sitting under a park slide on green carpet-like grass not saying anything. Not having to say anything.

  Driving along in his parents’ car. He put red shag on the steering wheel to try to forget that his parents had anything to do with the car. Blue Rodeo in the deck and him freaking out that the organist was gone. That’s gone! And I thought, That’s real cute. Enough to compensate that you don’t have any Stones in here. I had my eyes out the window and I knew he was going to be gone in the fall to school. That was understood.

  The trick would be asking him first before coming over that day if he felt I was seeing him too much. Aren’t you afraid it’s going to get routine? Don’t think of it as a routine, he’d say. Think of it as a ritual.

  When we drove by The Golden Griddle, Skyler, went, We can’t go there. That’s where I go every night to write in my journal. He leaned over the booth we were in at another place and whispered, They have bottomless cups of coffee at The Golden Griddle. He drank it black, I knew, without a wince. As black as the road outside that had the odd sparkly bits and three taxis in a row driving over them.

  I asked him this, finally, What did you see in me when you met me that first time?

  Well, you had the spirit of an actress that night of the show.
/>   Even though I was filming?

  Well, you had a way of stepping through your frames.

  Skyler. Oh, Skyler! Where is the cheese? His mother was fluttering from a door frame down below. We were sitting in his room huddled on the floor looking up at his bunk bed and comics trying not to be corny.

  Sorry about this, he said to me.

  But Skyler, I think we might have eaten it yesterday. Didn’t we? I said.

  He was up and out the door screaming, Mom, I didn’t fucking take the goddamn cheese. Leave me alone.

  Well, things don’t just disappear, Skyler? Daryll must have eaten it.

  After that, his mother had the cheese and crackers stocked up for me all the time. Do you want some? Do you want some? And I had this other home.

  But it’s a trap, Luke, it’s a trap! Skyler would yell. His knuckles turning white from gripping the door frame pretending someone wasn’t letting him leave.

  But having this mother totally thinking you’re a good thing, not hassling you. Pushing the cart around shopping for you even, it was too much. But of course, Skyler would come in the door and see her and hunch up, all irritated: Oh, the things you have said and done.

  When we were on my patch-quilt bedspread, there were no words. I took off my shirt and he looked at me. I felt really sad that I could be sad about my body. About how my stomach’s pretty flabby and my breasts are too small. And how without clothes on, you could be anybody.

  [I cried.] I knew it was dumb, but I felt like I was disappointing him.

  When I tried to confess something to the guy about what’s on my mind and he saw that it was hard for me to say it, Skyler hugged me hard and waited it out.

  It worked. I felt locked in. For a second.

  I went to visit my friend Romy where she worked at her dad’s restaurant and she sat down with me awhile.

  She goes, I slipped “Tangerine” in the CD player here and pressed ‘repeat’. It took my dad forty-five minutes to realize it was the same song.