by Jeff Zentner
Delia: He’s gonna miss us.
Me: I would.
Delia: I’ll miss him.
Me: Same.
Delia: BTW when I typed “Arliss” just now, it autocorrected to “Ass IRL.”
Me: This world is filled with truth and beauty and magic.
* * *
•••
I’m catching up on my shows, but I keep zoning out. I thought texting with Delia would help with the restlessness and anxiety from my negotiation with my parents, but it didn’t. It actually kinda made me feel worse.
Take two.
Me: What are you doing?
Lawson: Staring at a tall, cool protein shake. Working up the will to drink it.
Me: Mmmmmmmmmm. Stop making me jealous.
Lawson: Yeah, I’m trying to pretend it’s a milkshake.
Me: I think milkshakes are weird.
Lawson: Please don’t say you hate milkshakes too.
Me: No, but it’s weird drinking melted ice cream with a hamburger. Admit it. If it was called a large melted ice cream, people wouldn’t get them.
Lawson: You had to mention a hamburger. Making weight is super fun.
Me: What’s making weight?
Lawson: To be able to fight in my weight class, I have to come in under a certain limit. I’m a welterweight, so max 170 pounds.
Me: I assume they check and they don’t just have a mean person look at you and tell you it looks like you’ve put on weight.
Lawson: Yep, before the fight we have a weigh-in to officially confirm.
Me: So no pancakes for you.
Lawson: Haha, nope.
Me: Too bad because I’m sitting in bed right now eating a giant stack of them.
Lawson: Oh yeah?
Me: Giant. Like 16 pancakes. Smeared with butter and sticky fake maple syrup. I’m eating them with my hands and wiping my hands on my sheets. I’m gonna roll around in them when I’m done.
Lawson: Hahaha stop.
Me: NEVER. I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THIS DELICIOUS SWEET FLOURY PASTE IN MY MOUTH. MMMMMMMM BABY.
Lawson: I’m actually pretty grateful that you’re grossing me out right now.
Me: I know. So assuming you make weight or whatever, what am I looking for at this fight of yours?
Lawson: I’m gonna try to hit the other guy until he’s knocked out, or the ref or ring doctor stops the fight. Or try to submit him, which is where you get him in a jujitsu hold so he taps out. And I’m going to try to avoid any of those things happening to me.
Me: Can you try to make him tap out with emotional pain? Get him down and whisper that he’ll never impress his mother? That his friends consider him ridiculous?
Lawson: LOL. Oh, and if neither fighter gets knocked out or submitted, it goes to a decision from the judges, who award points. The only thing worse than winning by decision is losing by decision.
Me: Who are you fighting on Saturday?
Lawson: Kody “Hollywood” Clemmons.
Me: Hang on, where is Hollywood Clemmons from?
Lawson: Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Me: Oh, so pretty much Hollywood. What’s your fighting nickname?
Lawson: Don’t have one.
Me: Too bad “Hollywood” is taken because you’ve been on TV like twice now.
Lawson: True.
Me: Lawson “Lawman” Vargas.
Lawson: Hahahahaha no way.
Me: Lawson “Lost in Translation” Vargas.
Lawson: That one doesn’t even make sense.
Me: Because “Lawson” sounds like “Lost in” and I love the movie Lost in Translation.
Lawson: Haven’t seen that.
Me: WHAT. FIX THAT.
Lawson: I’ll only watch it with you.
Me: Fine, Lawson “The Punchin’ Pancake” Vargas.
Lawson: No.
Me: Lawson “The Beaglemaster” Vargas.
Lawson: We need to get to know each other better so you have more material for names.
This is a perfect place to leave him hanging. I’m feeling a lot better. I start to get back into my show, but this weird impulse compels me to see if there are any of Lawson’s fights on YouTube. There’s only one, and it has twenty-seven views. He looks a lot younger. The fight isn’t super interesting. A lot of circling around each other, cautiously punching and kicking. I guess looking for holes in the other’s defense. An opening. His opponent is bigger than him.
For a while, they grub around on the ground. I think the official term is “wrasslin’.” Lawson looks like he’s losing. Then, suddenly, they’re a tangle of frantically wriggling arms and legs. Lawson emerges from the tangle, pulling his opponent’s arm between his legs, which are over his opponent’s chest, pinning him down. A couple of seconds like that and suddenly Lawson jumps up and starts running circles around the ring, arms outstretched in victory. His opponent kneels, head bowed, looking dejected. Lawson runs to the side of the cage thingy they’re fighting in, pulls himself to the top, and starts high-fiving and hugging three guys who look like they could be his older brothers.
He drops back down and hugs his now-standing opponent and whispers something in his ear. They pat each other on the back and head and shake hands as best they can with gloves on. Then the referee announces Lawson as the winner and raises his arm high. Lawson’s face is incandescent with joy, beaming, triumphant.
I watch the video a few more times because it’s something to do, and also he does have a very nice face.
“Hang on, you actually told Royce Kiser that that dream meant he was terrified of impotence? You didn’t just think it in your mind?”
My mom pulls open the glass door of the Goodwill. “What was I supposed to do? Lie?”
“Royce Kiser, who parades around downtown in cargo shorts and camo Crocs, carrying an assault rifle and one of those huge yellow flags with the snake that says ‘I hate Mondays’ or whatever?”
“ ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ ”
“What?”
“That’s what’s on the snake flag.”
“Oh, I thought you were literally saying not to tread on you, and I’m like, ‘Fine, I won’t.’ How’d he react?”
“Guess.”
“Badly.”
“It’s like you inherited my gift of vision.”
“Royce’s always carrying that gun around probably helped your diagnosis.”
Eau de discarded treasures fills our nostrils. It’s my favorite smell that’s not, strictly speaking, terrific or pleasant. “I wonder what makes thrift-store smell. Like chemically.”
Mom shrugs and pulls out a blouse, studying it for rips and stains. “Mold? Bacteria?”
You’d think our acknowledgment of thrifted items possibly being saturated with mold and bacteria would put us off, but you would be wrong. Thrifting is Mom’s and my holiest sacrament, along with watching horror movies and going to chain restaurants and ordering only more appetizers than we can eat. Our love for thrifting is greater than any microorganism. Our work schedules and school make it tough for us to go, but we were both free and clear tonight. And bonus, Mom is having one of her good days.
I nod at the blouse. “What do you think?”
“Eh. Too similar to one I have.”
“Shame they can’t figure out how to infuse good smells with the persistence of thrift-store funk,” I say, pressing a dress sleeve to my nose.
“You mean if they could separate out the thrift-store mold or bacteria and hand it some pumpkin spice smell and go, ‘Here, hold this instead.’ ”
“We can put a man on the moon, right?”
“Actually, I was listening to the news the other day on my way to work, and they said America can’t put people into space anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, apparently the Russians have all the rocket ships.”
“That’s weirdly depressing.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I wasn’t super invested in, like, my country’s ability to put people on the moon, but still.”
“It sounds like we need to make up for it by producing synthetic thrift-store mung that smells good.”
“Oh my lord, did you just say ‘mung’?”
“I did.”
“Mom. That is so gross.”
“You deserve it for all the times you’ve grossed me out, Miss Never-Heard-a-Disgusting-Nature-Fact-She-Could-Keep-to-Herself.”
“Did I ever show you that YouTube video of how much slime a hagfish can make?”
“No.”
“Remind me to show you.”
“You know what? I am totally fine never seeing it.”
We drift through the store, aimless like vultures hoping to glide into the scent of some new roadkill. After Dad left, this is where we brought everything he left behind. His movies were all we kept. I wanted to hang on to some of his old clothes that still had his smell on them, but Mom said that would only make things worse. I think she was right.
I see a promising pair of pants, pull them out, and look at the tag. I wrinkle my nose and mutter, “Old Navy.”
“They always fool you. Their stuff looks good at a thrift shop.”
“Thrift stores should be called Older Navy at this point.”
“Why bother? Pay three-ninety-nine at the thrift store for something that cost five-ninety-nine at Old Navy.”
I pull out a red sundress. “Hey! This might be a cute graduation dress.”
Mom gives me a look.
“What?”
“My daughter is not graduating from high school in a thrift-store dress.”
“I went to high school in thrift-store clothes.”
“Exactly.”
“I never minded.”
“I’m not letting my only daughter get married in a used dress, and I’m not letting you graduate in a used dress.”
I smile, glad for the pushback. Mom never has the energy for it when she’s down. I hope she’s back on her meds and they’ve started working again. “I’m still hanging on to the dress.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“For a while there I didn’t think I would finish high school.”
“Why do you think I’m being such a hard-ass about this? I just had an idea, actually.”
“Spill.”
“We should get tattoos together to celebrate your graduation.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? You’re eighteen now.”
“What should we get?” I’ve been fascinated with Mom’s tattoos ever since I was little. I used to draw on my arms in washable marker to be like her. She has a skeleton key on her left wrist, my name on her right wrist, an Edward Gorey drawing on her right upper arm, with an Edgar Allan Poe quote underneath. Dad had tattoos too, but I liked Mom’s better.
“Let’s think about it. Something meaningful to both of us.”
Another spark of life. Mom’s good days are really good.
We drift out of the clothes into the home and kitchen section. Mom gasps and grabs an old-timey plate from a lower shelf. “DeeDee!”
It shows two kids fishing—a boy and a girl. Both have comically oversized heads and huge, vacant dead eyes. It looks like something a serial killer in a Russian prison would have painted.
“Okay, that is upsetting,” I say.
“I know,” Mom says gleefully.
“I’m so terrified by things that are supposed to be cute from the days when stuff only needed to be more cute than smallpox scars and dying of dysentery.”
“We’re obviously bringing this home with us.”
“I mean, why wouldn’t we want our house to look like the Sawyer house from Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” My phone buzzes. I pull it out and glance at it. The hot metallic tang of adrenaline makes my heart feel like it jumped into a too-hot bath. “Holy balls,” I murmur.
My phone almost slips from my grasp in my haste to open the email. I catch it from falling and pray I didn’t accidentally delete it. I jam the dress I’m considering buying under my arm and read.
DEAR MISS WILKS
MR DIVINE THANKS YOUR FOR YOUR MESSAGE! HE IS A VERY, BUSY , MAN BECAUSE OF HOW MANY PEOPLE LOVE HIS WORK BUT HE IS WILLING TO MEET WITH YOU AT SHIVER-CON, TO TALK ABOUT YOU’RE SHOW…,THIS IS HIS ASSISTANT AND MY NAME IS CELESTE ST. JAMES. I LOVE TO ANSWER HIS EMAIL’S..
I feel like I’ve gotten off a roller coaster. My heartbeat gallops in my ears. If the floor of the Goodwill weren’t so covered in mung (thanks, Mom), I’d want to sit down and catch my breath. I don’t necessarily love the jankiness of the email (like I didn’t love Jack Divine’s low-rent website), and his assistant’s name sounds like the name of a porn star, but still. It’s a positive response from Jack Divine.
“I think I could wear this with…DeeDee? Hey.”
I glance over. Mom has meandered back to the clothes and is holding a short, black, lacy dress up to herself.
“Sorry, what?”
“Rude. Checking your phone while I’m talking to you.”
“What were you saying?”
“Never mind.”
“No, it’s just that—do you remember Jack-O-Lantern’s Fright-Day Night Revue?”
“Vaguely?”
“Dad and I watched it together.”
“Okay.”
“You remember SkeleTonya.”
“I loved SkeleTonya. Still do.” Mom scrutinizes the dress top to bottom.
“So anyway, the guy who was Jack-O-Lantern also produced and directed SkeleTonya’s show. Guy named Jack Divine.”
“That name sounds made up.”
“Probably. Anyway, he’s going to be at ShiverCon in Orlando at the end of May, and he wants to meet with Josie and me about the show.”
“Your show?”
“Yes!”
Mom gasps. “This is huge, DeeDee!”
“I know! This could be a big break for us!”
“So obviously you’re going to have to go down to Orlando.”
“We’ll take Josie’s car.”
“Will it make it?”
“I hope.”
“I’d let you use ours, but I’ll have to work, probably.”
“Ours isn’t in much better shape than Josie’s.”
“True. So I guess this trip won’t be free?”
“No. Convention costs. Hotel costs. Gas. Food.”
“We maybe ought to make that sundress your graduation dress after all.”
“I told you I’m cool with that.”
“And the tattoos might have to wait.”
“I’ve managed all this time without one.”
Mom smiles, squeezes my arm, pulls me close, and lays her head on my shoulder. She smells like Suave shampoo, rose essential oil, and grocery-store incense. “I’m so proud of you. You built this with your own two hands.”
“I had a lot of help from Josie. I couldn’t do it without her.”
“Yes, you could.”
“It wouldn’t be as good.”
“It’d be different, is all.”
I keep flipping through things I’ve already looked at, excitement subsiding slowly to a manageable level, a low simmer. Mom meanders back toward the books and plates. I start to text Josie with the good news, but instead I stop and watch Mom. The sun is setting through the dusty plate-glass windows at the front of the store, making our little Temple of Discarded and Cast-Off Things glow golden. It’s illuminating her face and hair like she was painted by an artist who is tired of never selling a painting and
has resorted to painting things everyone loves.
I’ve always thought she was beautiful. Even when she was exhausted from crying, and not sleeping, or sleeping too much. Even when I knew she didn’t feel beautiful, she was.
I wish I could see myself the way I see her. I have her nose. The curve of her full upper lip. Her muddy hazel eyes that she says are green but aren’t. Her hair that’s the right color of brown that it takes black or red dye well (and we both seesaw between each color).
I join her by the books and plates. “Mom?”
“DeeDee?”
“What do you want most out of life?”
Mom looks at me and laughs. “We just making small talk now?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’ll let you know if we see it here.”
“Mom.”
“What prompted this?”
“I’m thinking about what if I were in a position to give you anything you wanted.”
Her lips purse in thought. “I guess…to be happy. That’s all. Be with the people I love. Live a good life. Watch horror movies with my daughter. It’d be nice if it were a little easier to pay the bills while all that was going on. But happiness is what I want.”
“I want you to have all of that. I’m going to give it to you if I make it big.”
Mom puts her arm around me. “You’re already doing a great job.”
She smiles and I smile back, making a mental note to store this day away in my memory. It wasn’t a perfect day, but it’s worth hanging on to.
If the color neon green had a smell, it would be composed of the odor of nervous boys jacked up on adrenaline, beer, and industrial disinfectant. And that’s exactly the scent hanging in the air of the main auditorium of the Carl Perkins Civic Center as Delia and I enter OCTAGON VALOR XTREME 16. (I added the XTREME part. It fit.) Testosterone fogs the large space, leaving an oily film on everything.
We immediately stick out for not wearing too-tight T-shirts with unimaginably ornate and bedazzled crucifixes, raptors, old-timey warrior helmets, swords, vaguely Japanese imagery, and skulls splayed across them like they were blasted there with a shotgun full of silver paint. Peppered in and around the images are words like ARMAGEDDON, VENGEANCE, VENOM, HONOR, and WARRIOR. They follow the design philosophy of “more is more.” These T-shirts tend to be paired with jeans sporting entirely too much stitching on the back pockets. I wonder if that’s so the wearer always has extra thread handy for the impromptu suturing of a fight wound.