Stars: The Anthology

by Janis Ian

  My wife, you say, my wife will maybe, twenty-eight years and I never, she's always been, and me too you assure them, but the girls promise no one will ever know. Ever. You can trust us, they say, wide-eyed with eyelashes fluttering. Honesty. It's a good trick, you've used it before yourself.

  You trade the worried look on your face for slit-eyed deep thought, rube from the country faced with perils of the big city. Clothes don't make the man, they know that already, you wear them like you've never worn anything so good before. Easy mark.

  You draw a deep breath, expel your worries in one quick run-on sentence, saying with a sheepish smile—You're not, you know, I mean you seem like nice girls, I couldn't afford, you're not a couple of those—

  No no, they both giggle at the thought, no need, plenty of money of our own, but you seem like such a nice guy, let's go, let's go.

  What about the man you say, he won't like it, don't want to offend. Oh, they laugh, our friend won't mind, he's used to us taking off suddenly.

  Easy pickings. Just like you figured.

  So you follow them out the back door of the bar, and down a small alleyway that's littered with the memory of a thousand other encounters. Your hand's on the belt again, slowly undoing the buckle, just to be ready. The room looks like any other room, just a bed with a nightstand, and a cheap clock that once glowed in the dark. The only light's a small lamp covered by a red scarf. Locally made, cheap looking; no imports here, nothing to distract, but it casts a nice glow. Sexy. You like that, sexy. They'll look better in red. As for you, it doesn't matter what you look like, does it?

  They ask you to take off your pants and you demur, saying there's plenty of time for that later. So they take off their blouses, still giggling, and it begins to irritate you, the giggling, and you're pleased about the annoyance because if they'll just keep it up, you can goad that feeling into real anger. Makes it simpler, having something to focus on.

  You step through the motions, slack-jawed and admiring, looking slightly star-struck in a country-ass way, and they think you're even cuter. Edge toward the window to lock it, see that it's already been painted shut half a dozen times or more. Good, only one way out. No need for much air at this point anyway. Later, when you go back to the bar, you'll have plenty of time to breath.

  You're just reaching for the belt when the girls grab your hands and pull them behind you, still giggling, and one of them holds your hands there while the other undoes your pants for you. You realize vaguely that with the pants down around your ankles, you can't really move very fast, but they're both laughing now, running their hands up and down your body, and before you know it you're laughing too, and it's all the better because it will take more time this way. You've got plenty of time, even if they don't.

  So you let them pull off the rest of your clothes and fling them in a corner, and you mark where they went with your eyes, because as soon as you're done with the preliminaries, you plan to go retrieve them and really get down to business. Which is what they do once you hit the bed, get down to business that is, one on each side of you for good measure, and you feeling like a hot piece of meat between two slices of toast. It's pretty good this way, you ought to do it more often. You relax, letting them do the work, and pretty soon it's over, and you still laying there between them like an overturned beetle.

  They clean you up with a washcloth and start giggling, ready to do it all over again, only they seem a little anxious now, like they're watching the clock. So you glance at it yourself and say, holy cow look at the time, gotta go, gotta go, thanks a lot, be back tomorrow, buy you dinner or something.

  Liar.

  And they seem to know you're lying, because they stop giggling and press you down even harder into the bed, looking toward the door. You struggle a little, just part of the game, but then you decide you've got to get up now, and you begin making your excuses again, trying to leave, explaining you'll be late, asking them to get off. Only they're not listening.

  You've done this before, but never with the clothes so far away, and this time you're stuck between them without your belt, and the two girls are a whole lot stronger than they looked.

  So they hold you down, giggling, as a form detaches itself from the shadows by the door. He's a lot bigger than you remember, the fellow from the table, and he doesn't seem interested in playing. You offer him the girls but he doesn't even bother glancing at them; he's only interested in you. They back off a little so he can check you out, and you feel your manhood shrivel into nothingness under his gaze.

  You lay there for a while with them all staring at you, feeling like a goldfish in a bowl of brand-new water, and then you decide to make a break for it. You're a man of action, after all, though without the belt or the stuff in your pockets there's not much action to be had. Besides, the girls are doing a pretty good job of holding down your arms, and he's slowly taking off his clothes.

  You close your eyes once you've had a glimpse of what's underneath. You never were very good at facing reality.

  When they're done playing with you, they let you vomit into the wastebasket, then they load you into a truck and bring you to a cargo freighter. You're pretty out of it by then, it doesn't occur to you that you might make a run for it. They figured on that, they figured on everything well before you walked into the bar. They've already got your ID, it's no problem to 'net your ship and ask it to send your effects over to a rooming house on the better side of town. That's probably where they live, when they're not slumming with strangers like you.

  They dump you on a floor that reeks of old wounds, and the captain comes in to negotiate. It's quick, they've all been through the drill. Credits change hands, doors slam, and it's a good thing you're already blissfully unconscious at take off. No frills for the animals here, no separate cabins with real water for the showers and cool clean sheets on the bed. Just a bucket now and then, when they remember. You lose track of the time, and it's always night these days.

  The captain dumps you off as part of his regular freight run, to some handler who makes sure you’re too malnourished to care, and he sells your ass to the slave pits, where things work a little differently from the mainland. No pretty sheets here, not even cheap red cloth over a lamp by the bed. No lamp. No bed. Just the mines, day in and day out, and the glare of a sun that never fully goes down.

  You manage to work your way up to overseer, but that's not going to get you out, so after being stuck in that position for a while you cleverly decide to escape. They catch you, of course. They always do. There's no thought of execution here, in fact they're looking for a few good men like you. Men who will always believe they have the advantage. Men who always think they know better than anyone else. Men who are willing to do anything.

  You spend a few years in the re-education camp, where you brown-nose the guards and try to stay out of trouble. Once, just once, you try to escape again, only to discover that there are punishments that beat death hands-down. A few more of those for good measure, and you learn to play by the rules. All you really want, at that point, is to get out of there. You're a model prisoner by now. In fact, you're such a model that they take you into the pit hospital one day and make a few adjustments.

  Not much of your old self left by the time they get through.

  Once you realize what they've done, you try to work up the energy to be angry, really angry, cat-spitting clawing-at-the-walls angry. You're searching for that same anger that used to stand you in such good stead, but it doesn't feel familiar any more. You have no anger left, just a dull, blind acceptance of wherever and whatever comes. They've done a good job, they always do. You didn't think you were the first, did you?

  When they're sure you're too beaten down to have any mind of your own left, they send you out with a monitoring collar around your neck. It's a promotion of sorts, you understand that by now. There are plenty of jobs for someone like you, if you just know where and how to look. Not that anyone trusts you yet; there's the collar, after all, and you real
ize that there's no privacy in this new world you inhabit. You'll be partnered everywhere, by someone more experienced, with the extra brawn to get the job done. You can't do it by yourself anymore, you know that, but maybe someday you can graduate to being the lead partner yourself. Then you'll get to be the one who chooses method and madness.

  So you do a pretty good job, knowing it beats sweating it out on the rocks. You always liked to travel, after all. After a few years you hit a planet that feels familiar, but you're in different circumstances these days, and you sashay down to the assigned meeting place with a different spring to your step. You barely remember being here before, and there's not much to remind you of it now. Not that anything would look familiar at this stage of the game anyway. The buildings change hands, the signs change names, only the tourists stay the same. But there's nothing really new under the sun, not where making a living's concerned.

  So you wind up here, in a seedy bar that stirs vague memories of a time when you were still in control, and it worries you, the memory, because the collar around your neck seems to tighten when you think about the old days. You can't breath very well with it that tight, I know. Stop thinking about who you were, think about who you are instead. Just relax, focus on the present. Think about how pretty you are now, how much fun it is to watch the men's eyes follow you when you dance. Think about the important role you're filling in the economy, about how you're taking psychopaths and sociopaths off the street, making the world safe for society. Think of all the little perks, and how much fun this can be, if you just keep the right attitude. Attitude's a valuable thing in this job, a lot more valuable than old memories.

  So set the bad thoughts aside and relax. Have a drink, it's okay. I know how it is. Just keep your eye on the important things, and you'll do fine. Don't let yourself be distracted. What's important is that you're here, not there, squeaking out your protests under a blazing sun as you chip away at rocks that seem to grow out of nowhere. What's important is that we've all got a job to do, and you've finally found yours, so don't fuck it up now. What’s important is meeting me on time, and doing what I say, and maybe you'll get to have a little fun later, when I'm done with him myself. Yeah, that fellow sitting over there in a corner, nursing his drink, looking at you in the mirror. The one with the bulge in his pocket, trying to act nonchalant. Don't look, just sit here and be cute. Your hair looks good, by the way.

  And if you play your cards right, maybe someday they'll take you back into that medical ward and change you back. Then you can be on the giving end again, instead of just sitting here in the receiving line. You can always hope.

  I know. I've been there.

  (Back to TOC)

  Play like a Girl

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  I just want to make some music

  Have a good time while I do it

  ~ from Play Like A Girl by Janis Ian

  She haunts me—a little slip of a woman, barely five two, not even one hundred pounds. The features that mark my face are from her family: the high cheekbones, the narrow chin and delicate mouth. The body beneath them comes from my father’s family: solid, Germanic, thickening with age. Someday people will call me a sturdy woman, square and matronly. But my face will always have a touch of the exotic—the silver hair that first appears in the photographs of her father, the dark brows over grayish blue long-lashed eyes.

  It is her voice that comes to me most often, simple sentences usually starting with I can’ts, I wishes, and I don’ts. It is her heartaches I carry, her wounds I bear.

  As I get older, I understand her more, and I wonder, with each incident explained, if I’ll ever be able to forgive her.

  ~~~~~

  I am the youngest, although not by design. My sister holds that honor. Sixteen years older than I am and planned, her conception a happily remembered occasion that apparently started with my father’s impish grin and the statement, "C’mon, let’s go make a baby."

  I come from a drunken night in New Hampshire, after my parents dropped my brother at Dartmouth. I was my father’s New York dividend, my mother’s accident.

  I was the child she never wanted, the reason for her imprisonment, the death of her hope. At forty-two, she was saddled with diapers and bottles, forced to spend endless days with a baby whose sunny disposition hid one of the most relentless stubborn streaks people have ever encountered.

  It wasn’t pleasant for either of us, but when I turned forty-two, I realized it was probably least pleasant for her.

  ~~~~~

  My mother has been dead for five years, but she visits me every day. Usually she passes through, making a snide remark about the cleanliness of my kitchen or handing me a utensil, reminding me silently of the way she had actually taught me how to do a particular chore.

  But sometimes she stands in front of me, giving me a look she rarely gave me in life—an aware, startled look as if she can’t believe I have accomplished something she thought impossible, something she believed no one could ever do.

  ~~~~~

  Once a therapist confided in me that her most difficult patients were the women who came of age just before World War II.

  "They discard their pasts," she said. "They move forward and never look back. They demean themselves, their accomplishments, and the accomplishments of others. And, as I try to work with them, they resist me, until eventually they leave, as unhappy and frustrated as they were when they arrived."

  I was so young when the therapist and I had this conversation—in my twenties—so certain that everything had an answer, if we only knew where to look.

  "Maybe it’s disappointment," I said. "Rosy the Riveter forced to leave her job and become Mommy."

  The therapist shook her head. "It’s more than that. It’s as if there’s a gaping hole in their lives, and returning to it will destroy them, this time maybe forever."

  Fear, I remember thinking. It was only fear. And fear can always, always be conquered.

  ~~~~~

  Fifteen years later, I stand on a make-shift stage in the Elks Club basement, wearing makeup someone else has applied and a long gown that would make a frilly bridesmaid’s dress seem beautiful. My chorus are doing a benefit for a local charity, performing in front of an enthusiastic crowd of fifty people, all friends and family. The "friendly" crowd, our director calls it, because next week, we compete; next week, we stand on the stage in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland and sing before judges who will evaluate our every sound.

  I stand second row back with the altos, although I am technically a first soprano, with a voice so high that, with the proper refresher training, it can break glass.

  But my range runs more than three octaves and, since I am one of the few women in this small town who can read music and sing harmony, I spend my nights at the bottom of my register, harmonizing as softly as I can so that my powerful voice doesn’t overwhelm the melody.

  I am the best singer in the group. I have been the best singer in every group I have ever joined, from grade school through high school, from music camp to regional festivals, from college to adulthood. Choir directors seek me out, make me lead, have me sing each part except contralto so that the others can hear how the music should sound.

  And yet, when I step on stage, my throat seizes up, I swallow too much air, I miss easy cues. I listen with an acuity that’s preternatural, hearing the mispronunciation, the slightly missed note, the harmony one-sixteenth of a tone off. My hands sweat, my shoulders tense. I stand alone in a chorus of thirty, as if a spotlight shines on me, only me.

  My mother, five years dead, sits on a folding chair in the front row, her hands folded in her lap, her legs crossed at the ankle and tucked to the side. She is forty pounds heavier than she was when she died, and her spectacular silver hair still has threads of black.

  She listens with a concentration that’s fierce, staring straight ahead as if each note were written before her.

  And when the chorus finishes with our signature so
ng—a World War I ballad so barbershop that it makes all the poles in town spin—the friendly crowd rises enthusiastically to its feet, screaming and shouting and clapping as if we are the best performers they have ever heard.

  The crowd rises—all except my mother, who remains in her chair, hands clasped, legs tucked to the side. She smiles, just a little up-turn of the lips, barely noticeable to anyone but me, as if to say, What fools these people are. They actually believed this was good.

  By the time we troop off-stage, she is gone. But her critique lingers as if she gave it to me personally. One missed cue, five flat notes, and one gulp of air. Not to mention, honey, that the dress does nothing to flatter you, and your hair covered your tiny face.

  I sit down in the chair she has vacated, still warm from the heat of her body, and shake. Now that the performance is done, I am so exhausted, I can hardly move. It’s hard to listen to every nuance, to be alert to the smallest mistake.

  But I am, and I do, and the performances drain me, as if they suck essence of my being out with each note.

  ~~~~~

  My sisters and I have the same voice. We use it differently. My oldest sister pitches hers low and adds a twang, acquired after nearly a decade in Texas. My other sister, the former baby of the family, uses hers stridently, banishing the music from it as if music never existed.

  My voice varies depending on what I need it for. It is, perhaps, the most trained part of me—trained, at one point, to be a singer, an actor, and a broadcaster. My face gives away my emotions, but my voice hides my secrets. Put me behind a microphone, obscure my face, and I can lie better than anyone else in the world.