by N. Godwin
“Thank you for tonight,” I shout breathlessly against the noise. “The Halfling’s loved it!”
“Yes,” he says softly, very softly, yet somehow I still manage to hear him whisper, “but what about you, Helen? Did you love it, too?”
I uncover my ears and suddenly discover the sirens have ceased, everything is silent again, except for the drums pounding somewhere that I think might be coming from him.
“Why, Harold, you tell me. You’re God after all.”
“Cross your fingers,” Washington tells Ken and me with a wide grin. “Here goes.” He pushes the enter key on Ken’s computer and in a moment those coveted restricted files flash before our eyes.
“Killer!” Ken shouts. “Look at them, Jimmy-Sue, there must be a thousand people here who are dying to adopt kids!” Ken pats Washington soundly on the back. “Hey, dude. Can you teach me how to tap into IRS? I think they need to be audited.”
I leave them to tap into the unknown and go over to help Hobie and Andrea bus the tables as I yawn again. It’s winding down now, blessedly, and even the SEALs are beginning to show signs of fatigue. Kelly brushes up against me, excited as any child on Christmas morning. She flashes a hundred dollar bill in my face and giggles.
“Rawly gave me this for my part of the tip!” she says. “Can I really keep it, Jimmy-Sue? Can I?”
“Of course you can, it’s yours. But you should always put a little of it away to save it for another rainy day. Okay?”
I want to thank Rawly again for all this because it’s been like Christmas morning and an action-packed adventure film right out of Hollywood for all the Halflings tonight. As far as I can tell, everyone got a hundred dollar tip and there’s probably another two thousand in the donation and swearing jars which will allow us to fix the dishwasher and the toilets in the dude’s dorm.
I think about teaching my guys how to open a savings account while I look around the café for Rawly. It takes me a moment because he is nowhere logical. My heart skips a beat when I spot him sitting at the bar talking to my cousin Ali and Randy!
It feels like that bar is more than ten feet away. It feels like it is hundreds or more feet away and as I struggle against the massive weight of my legs I can hear Ali’s high pitched laughter.
“Oh, she got locked in the attic lots,” Ali says then pauses to lower her voice. “She’s always been rebellious, you see. Uncle James can just look at her and tell when she’s thinking those blasphemous thoughts again. Then up she’d go to the attic again.”
Randy joins in her laughter. “Just your average everyday family!” he chortles while I struggle against the leaded feet.
Ali gets serious immediately. “Oh no, Randal, you must understand she was never a normal child to us because she could do all sorts of fantastical things back then. Hey, Jimmy-Sue,” she hails as I finally manage to approach their triad around the bar, puffing and out of breath as I wipe beads of sweat from my brow. “Remember when you had us all convinced you were going to be able to fly next?”
“Next?” Rawly asks.
Ali doesn’t seem to hear him and joins in Randy’s laughter. “I remember you were so mad when your tenth birthday rolled around and you still couldn’t! Remember when you dislocated your shoulder trying?” She laughs so hard now she is dabbing at her eyes with a bar napkin. “I remember Karen and I were so convinced you were going to be able to do it, too!” She gets serious suddenly. “I mean we knew you were one of God’s-own favorites. We thought you were magical! But then, poof, one day your magic seemed to disappear. Or at least that’s what Karen and I thought, I mean. We were just children, you see, and believed such things.”
I cannot move my mouth to speak. My jaw seems locked in place and my legs weighted and unfamiliar.
“How did her magic disappear?” Rawly asks Ali slowly as his dark eyes lock onto mine.
Ali nudges me in the ribs and giggles lightly with a cavalier toss of her hand. “Come on, Jimmy-Sue. You must remember that Christmas. You were so devastated! Don’t you remember how that awful day began? You got a C on some silly algebra quiz. It wasn’t even a test, just a quiz… Don’t you remember that was the same night you started your—went with the Flo,” she says and modestly covers her mouth with her hand for a nanosecond. “You simply have to remember how your daddy was hell-bent on your salvation that night? We’d never seen him so agitated, and then when he got that black eye… Well, we just figured that either he’d fought a mighty round with the Devil himself or that—well, we thought maybe…you did it,” she says in earnest. “We knew that was why Uncle James had us praying around the clock for two days straight; everyone thought you had sinned against your own father and that’s why you lost your voice. Seriously, how can you not remember?”
“Ali!” I plead softly.
“—because that’s when you stopped singing.”
No! I try to say but can’t.
“Still, she’s never given up,” Ali tells them proudly patting my hand, the one which seems glued out in front of me against some invisible wall. “She just kept believing and keeping her vigil for her “friend.” She explains this by motioning finger parentheses around the telling word. “We were always so jealous of you and you know who. I’m truly sorry about that now, Jimmy-Sue. We should have been more charitable to you.”
Randy perks up and looks over at me slyly. “You mean her invisible friend?” he asks Ali. “The one she’s always talking to?”
Ali, no! I gasp as I back up into the shadow of the corner unable to stop this madness, unable to move beyond the pull from Rawly’s eyes and Ali’s words, unable to look away.
“Does your invisible friend have a name?” Rawly asks me softly.
“Don’t you know?” Ali asks incredulously.
“No,” he says never taking his eyes off mine.
“Why, God, of course. I thought simply everyone knew she speaks with God.”
“No, I’d’a remembered that one,” Randy scoffs. “Did you ever hear God answering her? Yeah, well you didn’t, did you? That’s what I thought!” he says and erupts into laughter, winding his finger around his temple to signify my obvious insanity.
“Why, no, silly, we were gullible kids and believed her just the same. Jimmy-Sue said He was strong and big as a tree and glowed in the dark. She said He told her not to be afraid because He would always protect her.”
“Wait, you believe God spoke to you?” Rawly asks shifting his weight from hip to hip as he glances between me and Alison-Ann with incredulity.
“Yep and that’s the last thing she ever heard Him say because He stopped talking to her after that.”
“Wait a minute,” Randy declares. “You said she told you God was big as a tree and glowed in the dark. Are you saying Jimmy-Sue here thinks she actually saw God?”
Ali shrugs. “Um... yeah.”
“I told you she was nuts!” Randy howls with laughter as I quickly turn on my heels to try and make a safe escape as quickly as I can.
“Uh oh,” I hear Rawly whistle behind me. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
Ken rudely rouses me from a hard sleep at two in the morning to tell me about the new kid, the one he just caught trying to steal my Jeep. Personally, I think trying to steal my Jeep is a half-hearted gesture at best because it’s not worth diddley-squat, but I’m too tired and spent to argue my point with Ken. Besides, anyone can clearly tell that Lavelle Cornelius White has a problem with the concept of private ownership.
“Here, Lavelle, these are your size,” I say handing him a new pair of Levis.
“Let me hold these, too,” he insists reaching around me and grabbing another random pair.
“No!” Ken and I say again like we have for the past forty-five minutes with each and everything Lavelle’s decided he wants, from the vintage cane-back chair in the café, to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s he spotted behind the bar, to seven pair of our Calvin Klein underwear donated by TJMAX. He watches carefully as I lock the laundry room door beh
ind me.
“If I want more food what’d ‘I do?” he says grudgingly as he follows behind us to the boy’s dorm.
“Wait for breakfast like the rest of the world. Man have you had too many tokes off a’ King Kong’s bong or what?” Ken’s jokes a little too sharply and I tell him this with my eyes. “Well for Christ’s sake, Jimmy-Sue, he just ate for thirty minutes solid! Got the munchies bad, huh dude?”
“Fuck you!”
“Lavelle, are you at least going to try and follow the rules here?” I ask in between exhausted yawns.
“Really, you’ll give me breakfast, too?” he finally asks, staring us down with doubt.
“And lunch and dinner and snacks and breakfast the next day and so forth…” Ken rolls his hands. “Christ, man, its 2:57 in the friggin’ morning; show some compassion.”
“Fuck you!” Lavelle says again but less angrily. “And I get a bed?”
“Lavelle! That last F-word just cost you five dollars from your future tips. So, are you following the rules and staying or are you leaving?”
“And a pillow, I really get my own pillow?”
“And sheets, clean ones even,” Ken snaps.
“Fuc--”
“LaVelle!”
“He’s messing with my propers!” Lavelle glares furiously at Ken.
“Then tell him that,” I say. “No more swearing!”
Ken pushes open the dorm door and arctic air rushes out to great us. It’s pitch black all except for MTV on Hobie’s big screen T.V. The air conditioner must be turned down to 50* because it’s like walking into the meat locker. As I head carefully over to the thermostat, I pass Tony and Robert’s bunk. They are both hunkered down under their comforters, blankets pulled over their heads. I smile as I pass Hobie’s bunk in route to turn up the temperature to 76*. I strike a lighter and adjust the temperature. I see that Hobie, too, is hidden beneath his covers from the cold. I reach to turn off the T.V.
“Try not to steal anything else tonight,” Ken is telling Lavelle, “because the dudes will beat you senseless if you do.”
I laugh at Lavelle and Ken’s expressions, one of comic concern, one of exhaustion. I smile again and watch Hobie and Tony on MTV. They’re both climbing the back deck of La Vela on television. I laugh softly and smile between yawns because my little dudes look pretty silly trying to dodge the two hundred and eighty pound security guards that are waiting for them at the top of the deck with giant water hoses and soak guns. Those security guards are infamous and rowdy. I shake my head and reach to turn up the volume thinking how any old fool knows you can’t sneak in to La Vela if you’re underage or ugly.
Oh look! There’s Genie and Mandy, too, screaming and climbing the back wall of the deck. Splash! Suddenly they’re all being drenched by the powerful hoses and I wonder briefly when this was prerecorded because my guys know better than to--. I rub the sleep from my eyes and it hits me that we’re talking La Vela here and all these kids are minors and…
Good God!
I rush over to Hobie’s bed and pull back the covers. Pillows! Are you kidding me? I run to Tony’s, then Robert’s bunks and again find only pillows. I turn and stare hard at the television set as Ken and Lavelle argue loudly about bunk placement.
I watch as Tony reaches the top of La Vela’s back deck first. He is hooting and hollering and slinging his drenched shirt over his head as a decoy for the security guards while Robert and Genie reach the top from the other side.
The cameras have moved in so close on Tony that we can actually see his tonsils as he yells and cheers in Spanish while two security guards pick him up and swing him back and forth over the gulf, counting. The camera zooms back on Tony’s face and birdie fingers as he goes flying over the back deck and splashes into the black waves of the restless gulf below.
“Oh, Ken,” I say as Hobie and Mandy get doused by giant sprays of water on national T.V. “Your turn to make the coffee.”
Sheer Poetry
Tony has cornered me by the bathroom and although we are slam tonight with at least thirty would-be poets assembled for our weekly bash, his enthusiasm takes precedent over everything else. This is the first book Tony’s ever finished, and it is these moments alone that I have come to accept as my destiny. Well, this and clogged toilets.
“So you’re saying that the author wasn’t ever a soldier or never even saw a real war?” Tony marvels again.
“Pretty interesting, huh?”
“Killer,” he says breathlessly flexing his tattoos and smiling more than I’ve ever seen from him. “How could he describe it so accurately? You know, the feeling of someone hating you so much they want you dead?” I study Tony’s expression carefully until he feels uncomfortable under my scrutiny and he gets guarded again. “I’m just saying I agree with him completely, well, except for his pussified—oops! Sorry, you don’t like derogatory slurs. And this is one, right?”
“Tell me a better word.”
“Ah, feminine?”
“Ah--”
“Z’up, dudes?” Ken asks passing us in the hall.
Ken has a wide smile on his face as he pauses for a moment to show us his latest fashion statement. His platinum shoulder length hair has been weaved by Kelly into long cornrow braids and has colorful glass beads threaded throughout. He looks like an albino Jamaican.
“It’s this book, dude,” Tony shares holding up the small red bound book. He pauses a moment to absorb Ken’s transformation. “Interesting hair, dude, aren’t you afraid the other dudes are going to call you a homo?”
“Do they pay my bills?” Ken replies. “So you’ve been reading Red Badge of Courage, huh? Good read, but now let’s try you with a little Heller. Now he’ll blow your mind.”
“Hey you guys,” Alan sticks his head around the corner and hails us from the dining room. “Randy’s up next! He’s going to read one of his poems!”
We move in high gear following Alan and squish tightly together, leaning up against the far wall with Horst and John because the café is standing room only tonight. Randy is waiting for his turn at the mike and looks very nervous, and keeps running his hand through his hair. He has never had the nerve to read any of his writings aloud so none of us have ever heard his work. We just know he’s spent a tremendous amount of time bragging about how he’s the next William F. Buckley. As annoying as Randy is I think we cut him some slack because we’ve each seen him writing away in his journal throughout the years. I’ve even pulled it out of the garbage on numerous occasions, where he’d thrown it in frustration, and put it back under the blender where he hides his mirror.
“Hello?” Randy says tapping the mike. As he clears his throat I notice his hands are shaking. “Ah, I call this poem Guess My Breed, from my Dogmatic series.”
Ali claps proudly from her stool at the bar and gushes to the people around her: “That’s my boyfriend!” She looks as if she could inflate and float away.
Randy blows her a kiss and regains his composure. “Guess My Breed,” he says again. “I wrote this for my woman.”
“Oh my Lord,” Alan says and whistles, “do we really want to hear this?” We all rapid-fire shush him.
Randy clears his throat again. “When my love is good
She’s a hungry Doberman
With sensual barks and growls,” Randy seriously says while the Halflings and I struggle not to make eye contact, “filling my ear with drool.”
“When my love is bad
She’s a Pitbull without shame,
Hungry for discipline
And a bone.
When she is mad or sad she’s
A puppy all whiney and hurt
A blue tick lost in the hunt
A bitch with an itch to scratch
My fleas.
It’s all dogmatic, you see
My bitch, my bone, and me.
When my love is naked--”
All our eyes flash over to Ali who is staring at Randy with her mouth hanging open, a look of shock slapped ac
ross her flushed face. It’s like she’s only just now caught on to Randy’s true nature.
“A frisky German Shepherd in heat
Hungry and on a mission
For my muscle and motion.
On a trail
My trail
My love, My cur, My breed.” Randy stops and looks up anxiously.
The entire room is dead silent. Suddenly, some obvious drunk somewhere in the front goes berserk with laughing and clapping and whistles.
“He’s doing it with his dog!”
“Gross!” half the room yells while the other half begins laughing.
“Dude, that’s hysterical!” another guy yells.
“He’s kinda like a Southern Andrew Dice Clay,” a woman observes.
“How do you know my wife so well?”
“Tell us another!” an enthusiastic tourist yells, and another and another still.
The room is hooting and hollering, and the Halflings and I are too shocked to join in the riotous commotion. We watch the crowd in disbelief as Randy’s expression contorts in confusion. We seem to be the only ones who know Randy didn’t intend his poem to be funny. But the crowd’s interpretation of him and his words is one of delirium and hilarity, assuming he is a character, a giant satire, which just goes to show you how much liquor this place really sells. It still takes Randy a full minute before he understands their reaction and he slowly thumbs up the crowd with a cocky swagger, feigning intent instead of insanity.
Ali on the other hand has jumped from her stool and is sobbing like a—what did he call it? Ah, like a puppy all whiney and hurt. Wait! She is mad too and crying so that would make her a b-word with an itch to scratch.
Gross!
Ali walks into the center of the room and slaps Randy as hard as she can across his surprised face, then she turns on her heels and storms out of the café slamming both doors closed behind her. Randy stops taking applause long enough to rub his stinging cheek while his surprised look follows the back of her head. He looks around the room again and gives a tremendous sigh.
“See what I mean?” he laughs to the crowd as they erupt again.