by Joey Goebel
“After the class and my wounds dressed up, I left. I saw you in the parking lot, sitting on the curb alone. I felt the need to talk to you. I talk to persons because this life is too small not to.
“I said, ‘I just wanted to say you kick good.’
“You said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
“I didn’t know what you meant and still don’t. I didn’t understand, and you told me to shut it.
“I asked you what you did sitting out there, and you said your mom was to pick you up. But she forgot to sometimes. This was such one of these times. I offered you a ride home. That was when I drove a taxi and always gave people rides.
“You told me that your babysitter Opal told you not to accept rides from strangers. But you said I was okay since you could already know you could kick my ass.
“In the taxi, you asked—and I’ll never forget this—you asked why foreigners always drove taxis. I didn’t understand then but do now. I had never heard such until then. That was the beginning.
“I gave you rides every week from then. Sometime shortly later you introduced me to Opal. She then introduced me to Luster. He inspirated me to not drive taxis so not to be predicted. I then worked at a tanning salon instead.
“But you and the others got me wrong saying I liked pee-pees. You used to always make fun of me, saying I liked men’s butts and pee-pees. You all looked at me differently when I told you about not liking penis and the apology I needed to give to my man. The end.”
Ember sleeps it up.
The next day is my day off from the tanning salon. But I don’t get to sleep late like I like because Luster wakes me. He wakes everybody up every day samely. He says, “Get up! Time to face the nightmare day. A lot of assholes depend on you.”
I let Luster talk me into going to his work with him. He’s always wanting one of us to go with him. He hates work so much. And thinks having one of us there will make it better. He also hates riding on the bus. Like a little kid.
So I drive us in my Windstar to the dog racetrack. A place which I don’t understand. Luster takes me back deep in the commissary to a little office with pictures of cars, half-naked women, and cars with half-naked women standing next to them. A middle-aged mustached man and two teenage boys trying to grow mustaches sit in the office smoking cigarettes.
“Good morning, jerk-wads. I decided to bring a friend to work today to ease the monotony,” words Luster.
“Well, thanks for asking for permission first,” voices the mustached one. “Guys, let’s all just start bringing our friends to work to ease the monotony.” The younger males laugh.
“Ray, this is my jack-off of a boss named Joe,” says Luster. “These are my co-workers Derek and Jared.”
Joe. Joe. Mustache, mustache. Eyeballs. Teeth, bone, flesh, hair. It’s him. Futon. It’s him. Wildcats logo. Him. U.K. cap. It’s him! The man! Joe! Futons. Mustache. It’s him.
“Ray?” I guess it’s Luster that said that. “Ray? Are you okay?”
I run out of the office. Find the closest restroom.
Luster comes in the restroom. As I’m wanting to do something over the sink. I’m a mess.
“What is wrong?!” asks Luster.
“It’s him!”
“Who?!”
“The American of whom’s forgiveness I came here for!”
“Who?!”
“Your boss.”
A woman comes in. She immediately leaves when she sees us. I picked wrong toilet in my excitement.
“Joe?!” asks Luster. “Are you sure?”
“I am nearly positive. I remember those eyeballs. I remember the pain I caused them. Has he ever talked about being shot in war?”
“I do not know. We have never really talked. Come on. You should go speak to him.”
It’s too big. I shake head no.
“Why not?” mouths Luster.
“I’m scared.”
“It could not be half as scary as a war,” he says. Strongly he then picks me up and carries me on his shoulder. We leave the ladies room like this.
Luster sets me on my feet. Right in front of Joe. My old victim.
“Look—I don’t want your druggie friends comin in here and freakin out on me,” says Joe.
“Joe, did you fight in the Persian Gulf War?” asks Luster.
“Hell yeah. Maybe if you weren’t so self-centered you would have heard me talking about it. Even took a bullet in the hip. Why?”
“My friend Ray has something he wants to tell you.”
Deep breaths. Have to do this. Why I’m here.
“Joe—I—Joe, I—I’ve rehearsed this moment for years. Our long national nightmare is over. Joe, my name is Ray Fuquay. Joe—”
“Is he on crack?” asks Joe.
“No,” says Luster. “Come on, Ray. Just tell him.”
“Joe, I am so, so, sorry. I’ve never been sorrier for anything.”
“What? What’d you do?” he yells.
“I was the Iraqi soldier who wounded you in war. It was at close range under the Kalzaba bridge in Qasr al-Khubbaz. I’m absolutely positive of it. I am sorry.”
Joe looks at me. For some time. He falls back in his chair. He pulls down on his face with both hands, as if thinking or at the end of wits.
“Boys, get out of here. Go fill the orders,” he commands. His workers obey, except for Luster.
“You too, Johnson,” tongues Joe.
“Joe, you should know about the Christmas peace of World War I,” says Luster. Luster loves this story and told it to me many times.
“I read in an alien conspiracy book called The Gods of Eden that on Christmas Eve, 1914, a British soldier raised a flag that said ‘Merry Christmas.’ Soon after, Christmas carols came from the German camp. Soon after that, both armies were hugging each other in no man’s land. Germans and Brits were talking together, singing together, and exchanging gifts. The strange peace went on even until the day after Christmas because no one wanted to fire the first shot. The fighting did not—”
“Johnson, shut the fuck up. What the hell do I care?”
“I just thought you would feel more comfortable if you knew something somewhat similar to this had happened before.”
“Get to work,” orders Joe.
“You better not hurt him,” speaks my friend before leaving Joe and me alone.
“I am sorry,” I say. “You are why I came to America. I can’t believe I’ve finally found you. I am sorry.”
“Have a seat,” Joe says with nothing in his face or voice. He stares at me intensively.
“Uh, you realize this is pretty weird for me, don’t you?” asks Joe.
“Yes. Me too. But I beg your forgiveness.”
“Man. What are the odds of you actually finding me?”
“I didn’t think I ever would. It was Luster who inspirated me onward. He said since I, like he, am not subject to, eh, linear humanoid thought, that I could slip between cracks easier. He says cracks are the best people like us have. He said that fate is friendly toward the freak.”
“God. That Luster,” he replies. “Talk about freaks.”
I laugh nervilously with Joe.
“Heh, heh. Yes. That crazy Luster.”
“Man,” says dumbfounded Joe. He needs some talking to. I’ve had the words ready for years.
“I know how you must feel about me and other Middle Easterners. But please, don’t think of me as the enemy. I want you to know that me shooting you was not out of hatred. I didn’t even want to. I love people, and I love the world. And I love your country even more than the world. Forgive me.”
Joe rubs his face some more. Silence makes it awkward. He finally speaks.
“Ah, hell. I forgive ya.”
“You do?!”
“Yeah. Why not? It wasn’t that life-threatening of a wound. Put me out of action—that’s what hurt the most. Anyhow, you were just doing your job. I can’t hold that against ya. Just forget about it.”
“Oh, Joe!�
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I jump up and walk around the desk in order to give him hugs. He doesn’t hug me one back, but I don’t mind it.
“Okay. Okay. That’s enough. Just forget it,” he says.
“Joe, is there anything I can do to make up to you? Anything at all?”
“Nah. It took some balls to apologize like that. You’ve earned your forgiveness.”
“Yes!” I say loudly. “Maybe we can go out for frappuccinos some time.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Great,” I say.
“Okay then,” he says.
“All right then,” I say.
I shake his hand.
“Thank you, Joe. Again, I’m very sorry for shooting you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
XI. We Miss December
Aurora
I’ve been unusually happy as of late. I think it’s because we’ve been having such a good time here at Ember’s house. We’ve been playing relentlessly every night, making the most of our nice practice space. We get to play as much as we want, and we’re really starting to sound good. I don’t even know what bands to compare us to or what type of music to call us. I know anyone with a band says that, but I honestly think we defy categorization.
All I can say about us is that we are energetic and raucous, melodic yet heavy, endearing yet revolting, sweet yet brackish, everything simultaneously delivered with a solicitous vengeance. Music is getting old and everything’s been done, but I seriously doubt there’s ever been an act that has sounded or looked like us. I know exactly what I sound like right now, but I think we have potential to be the greatest thing to happen to music since people heard Elvis on the radio and assumed he was black.
In the last two weeks, we’ve all become more focused on the band. Especially Ray. His keyboard-guitar playing has drastically improved since he found his man. He still misses his family, but I think he uses the music as a distraction. I think of music as being a distraction with a future.
No matter what goes on during the day with its depraved people and slothful clocks, we always have the night to look forward to. Of course, since I quit working, I haven’t had to deal with people or punching clocks. Instead, Opal and I ridicule soap operas and make prank phone calls all day. But just knowing that we will be playing original music at night gives our banal days a sense of worth.
It’s usually at around seven that we retreat to the basement and escape into the songs that Luster wrote. We don’t reemerge until ten or eleven. We have long practices because we know this won’t last. Ember’s parents will have to come home eventually, making these four fleeting weeks feel like a childhood Christmas vacation.
So tonight, after three hours of us rocking out, the basement is filled to its capacity with our energy, and after an hour of TV tag, it is now my turn to tell Ember a bedtime story. I’m surprised that she would want to participate in something like that. Of course, she never wants to hear fairy tales or anything like that, stuff she calls “bullshit stories.” She only wants to hear stories about us, since I guess we’re one of the few things she doesn’t hate.
Upon her request, I tell her the story of how I met Luster and Opal, and it goes like this:
“Once upon a time, I was a nudie dancer at a trashy club called the Busy Booty. Actually it wasn’t that long ago. About a year ago. It was just another stupid thing I did, another one of my phases. But I did have my reasons for it.
“So anyhow, one night the announcer introduced me like he always did.”
“‘Gentlemen, straight from the depths of Hell, we have…Aurora!’
“Me being a Satanist started out just as my stage gimmick. I wore horns and a tattered black cloak, and my prop was this nasty male mannequin named Paolo. I always danced to the Misfits song ‘Devil’s Whorehouse.’
“When I came out on stage that night I was surprised to see this older lady holding up her horn-hands and yelling, ‘Yes! Fuckin—A!’ She wasn’t the typical Busy Booty patron. We usually only got dirty men who looked depressed.
“She was with a young black guy who didn’t look too happy about being there. It was, of course, Opal and Luster, out on a date.
“So anyhow, back to my routine. My act was specifically designed to make those dirty men feel as sleazy as they looked and acted. I tried hard not to look sexy. I’d take my cloak off to reveal cryptic body paintings like pentagrams and the words THE LUSTFUL written on my belly, and I’d smear fake blood all over myself. You could hardly even see any flesh even though I was just wearing little black underwear. Also, I’d be shrieking the whole time as if I were in pain. It was supposed to be hideous, but the men usually got off on it anyway. I can’t win.
“Another thing is that I didn’t even dance. I preferred to think of myself as a performance artist. Instead of gyrating or dry-humping the floor, I’d just float around in circles like I was in the middle of a whirlwind, being blown every which way. And sometimes I’d pick up the mannequin and kind of violently straddle him.
“That night I wandered to the front of the stage close to where Opal and Luster sat. I felt compelled to stare at both of them because I had a feeling they were the only ones in the room who might get what I was doing.
“But Luster, being the antagonist that he always is, yelled ‘What is she staring at?’ I think Opal told him to relax, that I probably just wanted money. She held up a dollar bill to me, and I gave her a dirty look as I took it. I was a little disappointed in her. Then I stared some more at Luster, and he exploded.
“He said, ‘What are you staring at, devil woman? I get so sick of you people!’
“Then he got up and left. Opal yelled, ‘Oh, get over it!’ but he was already out the door.
“After my routine, I put on my nightcloak and headed out of the club. I had to tell my boss I was leaving, and after I did, Opal came up to me. She complimented my act and said that she loved my musical selection, and so did her boyfriend.
“It turns out Luster was mad about being at the strip club in the first place. He hated strip clubs because he thought they were more about commerce than sexuality. It was too fake for his taste. So Opal had dragged him there. She had never been to a strip club and wanted to see what it was like. She loved it there.
“I told her I was sorry that I caused her boyfriend to leave, that I hadn’t meant anything by staring at them, and that I felt bad about it. She accepted my apology and said not to pay any attention to Luster because he was always sensitive to how people reacted to seeing him and her together.
“Opal and I left the club at the same time, and Luster was pacing in the parking lot. I was a little scared of him at first. Here’s about how our first conversation went:”
Opal said, “Luster, this is Aurora. I got to talking to her, and she wasn’t meaning to offend you by staring at us like that.”
I said, “Yeah. Sorry if I freaked you out. Our boss wants us to make eye contact with the patrons. As if they were looking at our eyes. Well, you were, I guess. But I’m sorry about that.”
Opal said, “See. She’s all right. She didn’t mean nothing.”
Then Luster said:
“First off, you did not freak me out. Secondly, I can see right through you. Your flesh is beautiful but transparent. Why do you even bother wearing clothes when you know they will just wind up on the floor?”
I said, “Hey, I apologized for staring at you. What’s with the attitude? Just because you have such a bad haircut doesn’t mean you have to be a dick to everyone.”
Opal laughed. Luster didn’t.
He said, “I hate you.”
I said, “Take it easy. I was just kidding.”
“Just kidding? So you were just kidding? Like what you said has been totally negated just because you were thoughtful enough to say just kidding?”
Opal interrupted, “I’m sorry. He always acts like this, and I’ll tell you, Luster, I’m getting sick of it. You better cool it or you can kiss my can good-bye, you smart-ass.”
I laughed at Opal for having an attitude that rivaled Luster’s. Actually, she did end up dumping Luster because of the way he acted with other people when they went out.
He said, “Laugh on, laugher, but my elderly girlfriend and I have found love in each other. I know your pretty head cannot comprehend that.”
That really pissed me off, so I spoke up.
I said, “Oh. So I must be stupid because I’m just a stripper slut, right?”
Of course, Luster let me have it.
He said, “Yes. You are a dumbslut. You have been cultivating your dumbslut image since your early teens when your parents divorced. You found the attention you lacked at home in guys giving it to you physically. You are a high school dropout. You were impregnated by a mystery father. To ensure that your child lives well, you became a nudie dancer, which we are supposed to think is so noble. But the truth is, you would be a nudie dancer no matter what. You have spent your whole life teasing men, only dating the assholes who beat you.”
Opal yelled at him. “Luster! Chill!”
I asked him, “Are you done?”
He wasn’t. “Also, you still like Disney cartoon movies.”
I wouldn’t have argued with him, but he was way off on everything. So I retorted:
“No, I don’t like Disney movies, and my parents didn’t divorce. My mom died. I’m not a high school dropout, and I don’t have a baby. And I know there’s no point in my even saying this because no one ever believes me, but I’ve never even had sex.”
I continued: “And I am not a nudie dancer. I am a performance artist. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed my act tonight was based on Canto Five of Dante’s Inferno. But I’m guessing you don’t read.”
That shut him up. He just stared at the ground. Opal said, “Well, shiver me timbers. Luster’s speechless.” I guess it hadn’t happened before.
Luster looked up at me and said, “Canto Five—the damnation of the lustful! ‘There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness.’”