“Some people can blow hearts and shoot smoke arrows through them.”
“Mother fucker.”
“It’s true! I’m not a shitter.”
“Can you do that with smoke?”
“I’m not that groovy.”
She farts. I nod.
“Aww, are you flirting with me?”
“Are my boobs hanging out?”
“I don’t know. I can’t look.”
“Why?”
“Respect. I enjoy you as a person.”
“So you’ve never robbed a peek at a woman’s tits?”
“I do. Usually.”
“And I’m sure you’re careful about going about it, eh?”
“You have to do it quick. It’s like looking at the sun – you look, then look away.”
“When do you do it?”
“When I’m on the bus or in the mall or at church or at work or buying vegetables or in the library.”
“My breasteses aren’t that great. See? They sag a little. See?”
“Blame gravity. I do. Except for us men it’s a good thing. Understand?”
“Sadly.”
She scratches her forearm and I see a long rows of razor-blade smiles. Uh oh, I think. She’s a Cutter. Obviously, she wanted me to see them.
“What are those?”
Although I know, I ask to get her talking: To show concern. Caring is important. Every human being wants to be understood and cared for. Show concern. Most people do this by yelling awful things, like, Are you stupid? and Don’t do that, dummy! Cutters know they shouldn’t do it. All they want is a little compassion. Not a boot to the face.
She looks down and says, “Oh, nothing.”
“You know, if you do it on your thighs, no one can see them.”
“Then what would be the point?”
“Ahhhh. I see.”
Joann exhales, depressingly. I scoot my seat closer.
“Is it doing this job?”
“I can handle my job.”
“Oh? You almost died today.”
“Tis a scratch. No…it’s not work.” She leans in a bit. “Do you plan to have children one day?”
“I’d like to have a little girl. Someone I can feed – someone I can teach. Maybe more, later. I’d love to have little me’s running around, freaking people out.”
“If ever your girlfriend wants to have an abortion, do me a favor.”
“What.”
“Don’t let her do it.”
Pause.
Joann, eyes to the floor, covers herself up now.
Roaches scatter under my chair.
People are laughing again. Shadows are growing. The sun is falling, throwing a heavy orange tint onto the living room. They chat about their futures and of bastard lovers and what they would do to their bastard lovers if they didn’t have any fear about going to hell. Someone says, “If I had the bowels, I’d whack him on the face with the hard end of a fire hose. But I won’t because I’m scared. Booo.”
Joann sniffs and gives me a hard look.
“Let’s go into a room where we can talk in private.”
“Okay.”
“Feeling special?”
“Yes.”
As we walk down the hallway, something in my belly tells me to look over my shoulder. Polly and Mr. Snake stand outside the front, sliding glass door, barefoot and kissing with their toes slithering over each other like little snakes.
I clench my fists and moved on, eyes forward and heated.
Good Lord, I’m shooting laser beams.
We walk into the room where I saw the two fat men, eating face. We sit in the middle of the bed, legs crossed. She tells me a story. “Once upon a time…I went to a pal’s house for a little party. This was out in Kailua Town. It was fun, for the most part. The first thing I did when I got there? I dove off the roof, screaming, into a swimming pool full of 7o and 8o-year-old, still-current, porn stars.”
The house had been a meeting place, she tells me, and they were all to discuss the future of Hawaii-based pornography. Everyone was there: From actors to directors to editors to video storeowners – all from all over the island. There were even a bunch of business folks from the outer islands like Hilo and Kauai. Real stone-faced types.
Something bad happened that night, she recalls, at around ten o’clock. One of the older actors from Maui had smuggled in some cocaine from inside his body, somehow. By ten-fifteen they were all baked, especially Joann.
She went into the bathroom and threw up all over the floor, only managing to get a handful of her spill into the toilet. She went out into the kitchen and drank some Pepsi and ran back into the bathroom and threw up some more. Only this time the lid on the toilet was down.
She stumbled out, dizzy. Everyone pinched their nostrils and said her clothes were all green and stank.
Someone – an elderly, Australian man – took her by the hand and guided her outside, where they sat by the pool. He handed her a clean, white tank top, and a pair of blue jeans that smelled like a baby’s head. He explained that they once belonged to his daughter, that he and his wife used to watch over her and the baby after the husband ran away to Japan to marry someone named Yentle he met over the internet on MySpace. A week later, on April Fool’s Day, this old couple’s daughter and her baby were hit on the H-1 freeway by a drunken woman behind the wheel of a Big Rig, transporting life-sized dolls to Toys R’ Us. They died instantly. Except for the drunk driver, of course.
The six o’clock news later said that the driver was murdered by some insane, drug-maker, out for solace on behalf of the old man and woman. This seemed to make the two old folks jolly enough, although they honestly had no idea who the “good” murderer was, only that she – an ex-nun – wrote them a letter, stating:
“Dear Old People… I am your Angel of Vengeance. Please allow me to punish this wicked fiend of fiends.
-Love, Angel of Vengeance
PS: Enclosed, you will find a special, holy concoction of mine. I call it Jesus Juice. This will make your souls jolly. God made it. And he gave me the ingredients while I was riding a horse in Paniolo Country. Bless you both, and enjoy your Jesus Juice. Hallelujah!”
The old white man said that he thought Joann was “Very cute” and “Understood his old man dramas” and that Joann reminded him of his daughter. Then he put his arm around her and offered a needle that was bubbling with something yellow. Joann said, No. But he kept insisting that it would make the pain go away, much like how it had worked for them.
Now his much older black wife wobbled in. She sat down behind Joann and massaged her shoulders – also encouraging Joann to take the hit.
When Joann tried to stand and get away from these two yahoos, the older woman tightened her claws and forced her back down. Joann plopped to the wet floor and kicked a Donald Duck lifesaver into the pool. The old couple was surprised by how loud it splashed. They looked back to the house, scared.
Through the large, living room window, they could see the silhouettes of partygoers, dancing and drunking and tripping and touching. Tribal/trance music from India, full of bass, vibrated the glass – muffled. Joann made to scream, but the old people stuck their hands in her mouth.
She was raped that night by the pool.
The nameless old man did the deed on all fours. His wife got into the pool, on a floating bed, and watched the scene and pleasured herself in a crazy way.
Joann’s friend found Joann the following morning on the floating bed, crying and bleeding. She was taken to the hospital where she stayed for a week. She told all the doctors that she fell down the stairs.
Sometime later, Joann found out that she was pregnant. She was working in a strip bar called Centerfolds when she decided to have the abortion.
She embraces a pillow and looks into my eyes.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t regret having it. Every day I wonder what that kid would’ve looked like. I feel like a murderer. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another b
aby. I feel too guilty. I can’t look in a mirror without wanting to kill myself. Feels like the right thing to do. I think about it sometimes, and how I’m going to do it…jumping off a bridge, running into traffic, flying off a skyscraper, jacking up a car and laying underneath and kicking away the stand…it’s as if God wants me to do it. And I hate him for it.”
“I’ve thought about killing myself, too.”
“I’m sure everyone does. I’m impressed people stop themselves from doing it. Most people.”
“Humans are stronger than they look. When I used to cut myself, I prayed for the strength to push down a little harder. You know what stops me from doing it?”
“What.”
“My future wife. My soul mate. I can’t do that to her. And I’ll be damned if I’m letting her marry some desperate, boring sucka that goes to clubs in collared shirts and blue jeans and white shoes with a shaved head. I can’t do that to her. It would be unfair.”
“How do you know that she’s out there?”
“It’s the law of the universe, dearie. Balance. If things are so shitty now, it only means that it can get much, much better.” I put my hand on her thigh. “It’s understandable that you don’t want to have another kid now. But I guarantee that later you will. Can you imagine how happy you and your family will be?”
“…I can.”
“Then there’s your reason.”
“How can you say all of this? You don’t even know me.”
“I see a lot of good in you.”
She smiles.
We walk out and meet Mr. Snake and Polly in the kitchen. He tells us that his friend Drac – the ex-therapist – will see Joann and Tim. She tells Mr. Snake that it won’t be necessary, but he doesn’t want to hear it, arguing that he already promised him “an assload of money and a free copy of the movie” by next month.
I tell Joann that any kind of advice, especially from a professional, can be helpful. She agrees and Mr. Snake asks if I can take her because he and Polly have other “business” to take care of. My first internal reaction to this is No, I’m scared going to some stranger’s house. But I look at Joann and can’t help but agree to it.
She smiles at me. Somehow, I believe that if anything were to happen, she’d protect me. Maybe it’s because she’s taller than me. Ha ha.
Mr. Snake writes down the directions for me on a discarded sock and we all try to wake up Tim, who’s still naked on the table, but it’s no use.
He’s comatose.
As we leave, I notice that there are flies nesting around Tim’s penis.
Great.
“Cured”
DRAC LIVES in an apartment in downtown China Town – in a place where office workers pay $1000 a month for a large, living/bedroom and a tiny bathroom.
We get into the elevator and stare up at the blinking floor numbers…
The ride over was silent.
The freeway was blinding bright as the sun slithered into the car. She drove while I tried desperately to keep my eyes open. I was afraid that if I fell asleep, she would see it as a kind of weakness – that I didn’t care for her company.
We stand before Drac’s door.
I put my ear to the cold door and listen for any signs of life – hoping that no one is home. I don’t want to meet any new people today. I want to resort to my usual ways and lock myself in my bedroom: Away from the loud, evil world. You could be walking down the street and a helicopter blade could fall from the sky and scalp you.
The apartment is silent.
There are weird sounds all around us: Kids play on a balcony above us, jumping on a springy bed and pretending to be roosters in heat; a cat is fighting with a dog as an old women pleads, “I want you to kiss her! I want you to kiss her!” She wields a broom as an insane, martial artist, sweeping away their accidental stool.
Joann knocks on the door and it opens immediately wide. The person standing before us is super skinny and pale and has a glass of milk in one hand and a tiny plate of eggs in the other. He looks wired – up for years: Eyes screaming, the voice at warp speed.
“Oh, hi! You must be my new client. And you must be Rubs. I’ve heard so much about you! You are a good man for escorting her through this rat maze. Never know what you may find – or who may find you.”
He eats a spoonful of eggs and motions us to step inside.
The place smells like wet animal hair. The lights are off. The balcony window is covered by a thin, orange blanket, throwing a soft glow over his bed and tiny table and fluffy white carpet. There’s a large, man-sized hole in a wall. Drac laughs for no reason and sits on the edge of his frameless bed, eating his eggs and drinking his milk. We sit on the floor, cross-legged.
Drac finishes off his milk and looks at us both, intensely. He then walks into the kitchen and pours two glasses of milk, then asks if we want any ice. We say yes. He walks back into the living room and gives us our milk.
It tastes wonderful.
He takes hold of some clothes scattered on the bed and folds them, daintily.
“Let’s do this – now. It’s on like Donkey Kong. What I do…I do NOT for money, but for spiritual development. Being insecure makes the soul cry. One must be confident in all aspects of life to succeed on planet earth. EGO IS GOD. This is what I teach. This is my invention. I invented this. I call it Greedy on the Inside, and it has worked wonders. Let me explain: I am a master therapist. I am The Master & Commander of therapy, and like Russell Crow, you should feel fortunate, being here in my company, about to receive what many have bled over. Are we ready? Good. I’m not. Oh…wait. Now I am. Good.”
Joann holds out her hands.
“Show me your ways, O Master.”
His eyes are half open.
Drac nods and takes her fingers.
“I know why you’ve come. You’re goofy. And the only cure is Greedy on The Inside. I invented that. Don’t steal it.”
He looks at me and pats my head, then takes Joann’s face in his hands and closes her eyes.
He says, lovingly: “Close your eyes.”
Joann does, and straightens her back.
Drac raises his chin and opens his mouth.
“You are so wonderful. I love you very much. You deserve whatever you get – and those things are money & love & a cat. You will be rich. You ARE rich. You are the best at everything. You deserve the perfect boyfriend. You deserve a rich boyfriend with a lot of money and he will do anything for you, sexually. Please, O Satan, throw your stink upon this female. Help her, unlike the Son of God who just teases us with his magic. What was his name? Judas Priest? Call her your fetus – allow her to touch you and sample blast your mana – which in Japanese, role-playing, video game jargon means magic. You should play Final Fantasy. It’s a video game, and can teach you much about life. I enjoy part 8 due to the theme of love, though there are many that love part 7, which I think is ehhh - waves hand horizontally.”
I raise a finger and interrupt.
“Er…”
“Shhh! Don’t interrupt,” he snaps, turning to me, not opening his eyes. If this is a therapist, then I’m the king of France. I should’ve asked Mr. Snake what Drac did to get fired all those years ago…although maybe the answer will come to me soon enough.
Drac tightens Joann’s hands, digging his thumbs into her palms. She drools.
“Ooooooooo.”
He draws her close, and then hugs her. I feel jealousy creeping up my spine again. This so-called therapist whispers into her ear.
“In time, you will be fat with happiness. You ARE happy – right this minute. You will understand NOW! HE THROWS HER ONTO THE FLOOR!”
He throws her onto the floor and points with a strong finger and growls, “The end.” I speed-crawl to Joann and hold her safe and yell at him, “Stop it, you toad!” Joann pushes me away. “No Rubs, allow me.” She front flips into a squat, brings her hands up and turns them into claws and goes “Grrrr!” She does a squat-rush toward him with her arms waving in the air
and makes scary, monkey-like sounds. She tackles him at the waist and pins him against a wall and bites his crotch area. A wind chime falls, romantically.
He brings her up and kisses her.
Then she kisses him back.
My heart falls into my stomach and dissolves in acid. Something inside me laughs. I look at them, wishing Joann would come running into my arms and say Sorry, baby, sorry, I love you and want to be with you forever & ever; amen.
But it doesn’t happen.
I get up and walk to the door.
Joann’s mouth flies off of Drac’s with a wet smack.
“No, don’t go!”
“You guys should be alone.”
“Good Lord, I’m so sorry. That was nasty. And I apologize.”
My hand wraps around the bathroom doorknob, and I don’t give a damn.
I sit on the toilet with my pants around my ankles. My head hurts. How did I get here? What was in that glass of milk?
Ice?
Nothing comes out. I flush to make them think I’m using it. What are they doing out there? What am I doing here? Maybe I should leave. Maybe this Drac’s not such a bad therapist. He’s made her happy, obviously. That’s what they do. It takes such confidence to do what he did. I wish I could do that: Talk with such power, and then kiss a girl that I didn’t even know.
I wonder what they’re doing.
I hope they’re not making love.
I’d kill that therapist out of mean jealousy. Or at least think it.
I pull my pants up and go outside into the hallway. The place is pitch black. I stand there with my ears wide open, listening for hints of pleasure. Must be around eight o’clock. I hold my hands out in front of my face and can barely see them. I hear a door open and turn around. I am met with Joann’s floating voice.
“I’m so happy, Rubs.”
“Yessm. Very good.”
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
I claw at the air for her.
“Good. Happy to help.”
“Drac is a genius.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s not what he says, it’s HOW he says it.”
“Yessm. He is the genius. Love him.”
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