Disasters in the First World

by Olivia Clare

  “You’re so good,” I say, taking a cigarette sticking up out of his chest pocket and placing it behind my ear. “So, so good.”

  He’s blocking the back door. “Hey,” he says. “Come here.” He puts an arm around me, we start swaying. “Hey. I’ve got a sincere question for you.” He fingers the star on my forehead. “You a lesbo?” he says. “A lesbarina?” He laughs and kisses my neck.

  “Where’s your jacket?” I push him away.

  “My little lesbarina?” He catches my hand. Leans down and kisses the star.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My wife. She might want to fuckaroo you.”

  “Aw, Goody,” I say, putting my arm around him. “No thanks.”

  “No? You say no?”

  “It’s a fine gesture.”

  “You little messed-up bitch,” he says, pushing off my arm. “You too occupied with that girl? Wilfred?”

  “Don’t talk about her.”

  “I don’t know what kind of what she is,” he says. “She drinks water like a witch. And she eats ice. I watched her.” He dumps the rest of his drink on the ground in one stream. “Nobody needs ice.”

  In the lounge, Goodyman gone, but Willa there, I sing a whole hour. Someone coming in shouts that it’s raining outside. Las Vegas gets four inches a year, you’ll hear it said. Willa is a rainmaker. She is rain.

  I am a rainmaker. Rain comes from my toes to my dried vocal cords to my mouth, and when I sing I hold Distraction in my lips. I sing for you. I turn the lights from gold to green to blue.

  “They gave me a raise,” I say to Willa. “They need good singers who’ll sing without water. They won’t pay me anywhere like they will here. We’re going to watch this place dry up.” I turn the faucet on and fill the pitcher and leave the water running.

  “We’ll get to watch this place dry up,” she says. “And then they’ll airlift us out. Won’t that be crazy? Then what?”

  “And then Venice,” I say.

  “No. Maybe Washington,” she says.

  “And then Wyoming.”

  “And then the water comes back,” she says. “Lake Mead fills up again.”

  Willa doesn’t have next month’s rent. It isn’t due, but she knows she won’t have it. I find I don’t care. I tell her I owe her everything. We water our garden in the kitchen. I tell her to tell me the dream. In the dream with the wolf she has sex with, she says, the wolf is dead and she realizes it after. After she’s come. That’s what she didn’t want to tell. I say, Everyone has strange dreams.

  She leans against the counter. I hear the water we’ve let run from the faucet overfilling the pitcher, running down the drain. She takes the pitcher away, leaves the water on. Now she dips down. She places her lips perfectly in the stream of water and drinks. Her lips move every few seconds. I bend, too. I put my face to hers, and she doesn’t move.

  I kiss her. I hold my mouth on hers while the water runs. She inhales, exhales. I feel the texture of her breaths in her tongue. I’ve wanted her tongue. I feel for her arm, hold it at the elbow while kissing her. Then feel lower to her wrist—I hold its tattooed eye. I mine for her air, her blue breath, the air of her life into mine.

  The front door opens. Willa and I stand quickly; I wipe my mouth. It’s Isaac, with his white button-down shirt and creased black pants from the restaurant.

  “Hey,” he says, putting his keys on the counter.

  He smells of red wine and potato grease. I turn off the faucet.

  “Want to go water?” He looks at me.

  “We did that already,” I say. “We did that.”

  “But,” says Willa. “They always want more.”

  There they are in a line on the kitchen counter, an emerald-gleam, healthier, glossier, green fire and plumage. We fill the pitcher again and again. Green overflows on the counter. The Faucet Meter barely moves.

  “Okay.” Willa looks at Isaac. “Do you have it?”

  He nods.

  “Go get it,” she says.

  From outside the door, he brings in something large, wrapped in a quilted blue blanket used for moving. He wobbles and sets it down. Just you wait, he says. He begins to unwrap. Take a look, he says. It’s from us, she says.

  Inside the blanket is a stone birdbath that comes to my waist. For you, she says. Well, for us.

  “This is real?” I say.

  “For the birds,” says Willa. “When they come.”

  Isaac and I stand the birdbath up in the living room. I fill the pitcher with water and pour it all into the birdbath’s stone basin. Willa puts her arm in the water. She bends, drinks from the bath. Sleek tongue in the water. From the kitchen, I bring our plants, set them around the birdbath. We sit on the couch, me in the middle. Watch our shrine to green.

  “We can always keep it filled,” says Willa.

  “We’ll have to start pruning the ferns,” I say.

  “Our tots,” says Isaac. “Our little ones.”

  “Our chickadees!” I say.

  I say, if the water comes back, I’ll plant grass in the yard. Then roses and ferns. Orchids and asters. We’ll have peahens and hawks, and pigeons and jays, and we’ll plant more seeds from the man in the tent, and we’ll live outside, and on days with no rain, we’ll breathe in the dust, and watch the grass grow.

  Acknowledgments

  This book remains unfinished until I say the names that brought me here. Each name travels with me. Each sits beside me in my solitude at my desk.

  First, cities and towns. In Louisiana: Baton Rouge, Effie, Marksville, and Vick. In California: Los Angeles and Berkeley. Iowa City, Iowa. Hamilton, New York. Washington, D.C. Las Vegas, Nevada.

  I have spent some of my happiest days at residencies. How can I properly thank you, MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Djerassi?

  So many thanks to the Rona Jaffe Foundation and Black Mountain Institute for believing in me, especially during some of my most difficult times.

  Thank you to my agent, Jin Auh. This book is because of you.

  To my past and present mentors—Mark Richard, Janet Fitch, Judith Freeman, Donald Revell, Claudia Keelan, Emily Setina, Adelaide Russo, Cole Swensen, Lyn Hejinian, and Charles Altieri.

  I am luckier than I can say for having the following people in my life, many of whom read these stories and helped me through them, even in ways they (perhaps) don’t realize: Colleen O’Brien, Carol Ko, Lee Pinkas, Brandon Krieg, Michael Rutherglen, Vu Tran, Susannah Luthi, Rachel Hochhauser, Amy Silverberg, Allison Gibson, Cara Blue Adams, Emily Nemens, Shelly Oria, Andrew S. Nicholson, Aurora Brackett, Mary Belle, Pamela Benham Cooper, Austin Ely, Brett Finlayson, Maegan Poland, Kathleen Bogart, Leah Houk, Ramzi Fawaz, and Mira Dalju.

  Corinna Barsan, thank you for knowing and loving this book so richly. And for your deep friendship. Thank you to everyone at Grove Atlantic for bringing me into your family.

  These stories would not have happened without TZC.

  Nor without my father, Tibi; my mother, Marjorie; and my brother, Owen.

  This book is for Lula Clark, my great-great-grandmother. She is buried in Effie, Louisiana, in a small cemetery of much green and many great souls.