by Penni Jones
“Wow. This place is a disaster. Is this Violet’s house?”
“Daisy. Her name is Daisy. And I don’t know.” I scan the room for photographs or anything that will tell me.
There’s one photograph hanging on the wall. It’s her. Older and thinner, but her. She’s sitting with two little boys in a fake-smiling pose that looks like it belongs in a church directory.
“Whatever.” She’s looking around, too, both of us adjusting to the sudden change in location. “God, I hope this is last one.”
“Do you believe in God?” I don’t know why I haven’t asked her before.
“That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t actually talking to God.”
“But do you?”
She’s prettier here in a room with more light. But maybe I’ve just been alone too long.
Naomi scrunches her face up a little and says, “I believe in the idea of God. There’s obviously more than just life on Earth, right? We’re doing that shit right now. But a god who is involved in our daily lives? No way. Wouldn’t we have met him by now?”
“I think so. But it feels like we’re all a part of something bigger. Even now.”
“If you really believe that, why were you so willing to disappear forever?’
A boy walks into the mobile home, which isn’t even a double-wide, before I can answer. I don’t know what I would have said anyway.
He’s young, maybe about eight or nine. He’s dragging a baseball bat behind him.
“Mom?” he calls out. No one answers.
“Is that her kid?” Naomi asks.
“Must be.” He looks a little like Daisy. He has the same round blue eyes and reddish hair.
The boy drops his baseball bat on the floor. He pulls a jug of chocolate milk from the refrigerator and pours some into a plastic cup. Chocolate milk splashes on the floor and the countertop. A fiercely ugly mutt appears from a back room and licks the milk from the floor.
“This could have been your life if only you’d hung in there.”
Chapter 6
Naomi
Another shit-box, but hopefully the last. Then I can be alive again. This time, I will not base my self-perception on how many friends I have on Myspace. Hell, I probably won’t even have a Myspace account. I will be complete within myself, and validation from others will be meaningless, no matter how much therapy it takes to get me there.
And I’ll take the little yellow pills prescribed for me even though they lower my tolerance for alcohol. I’ll use my ambition and drive to their full extent, never being distracted by men and the attention they offer.
Maybe I will have a giant goiter. Maybe I will be excessively scarred or have the metabolism of a sloth. Who knows? Maybe I will have learned to shed the mortal coil for something more important. I obviously didn’t learn all I needed to know from being attractive and physically complete. But I would appreciate the chance to try again.
Why did I let Luke get in my head with that unattractive stuff?
Luke stares at the little boy with fascination. Is that how I looked at Jamie’s baby? I don’t think so, but no one was observing me to tell me for sure. Maybe it’s just the reminder that life has continued without him. Even the girl he was fucking had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
A woman walks in with a kid on her hip. She’s thin and cute, but with deep circles under her eyes. Her bleached hair is pulled into a loose ponytail.
I try to imagine her with Luke. It’s easier than I thought.
“Hey, sweetie. When did you get home?” She kisses the boy on top of the head and puts the toddler on the floor.
“I just got here.” He gulps his chocolate milk and wipes his mouth the back of his hand.
Luke stares at her. Daisy, the last girl he penetrated.
The resident dog, some sort of terrier mix with coarse-looking fur and a bent ear, locks his beady eyes on me and snarls.
“Bojangles!” Daisy says, “You calm down now!”
“Let’s get started,” I say. “Put out your scent or something. This might not take much effort.”
The dog wanders over to us. He’s inches from my face, staring and panting. I’m glad I can’t smell him, because he definitely stinks.
Luke shakes his head. “No. Let’s wait until she’s alone.”
“Not to be insensitive or anything, but we might not have much time to spare.” I put my hand on his shoulder. He seemed to respond well to that the last time.
“The Shadow isn’t here,” he whispers even though they can’t hear us if we shout. “I haven’t seen it since my parent’s house.”
“You saw it?” I draw my hand away.
He nods and says, “Let’s just wait until the kids are in bed or something. They don’t need to see their mother cry.”
“Were you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Selfless to the point of being a pussy.” I don’t mean for it to sound so insulting. I really need to start thinking about words before I say them. That’s a lesson for my next go around, right?
“No. I killed myself, remember? That’s pretty selfish.”
Daisy looks around the room, and for a second I think she sees us. But she shakes her head and turns back to the boy.
“You need a shower, Eben.”
“Eben? Is that short for Ebenezer?” Some people give their kids the dumbest names.
“I don’t know.” He’s staring. Just staring like a big dumb idiot.
* * *
Luke
Daisy’s a mother. The sweet, cute, pot-smoking angel of my backseat is a mother.
It’s not a surprise, I suppose. A lot of girls around here become mothers straight out of high school. So at least she waited a few years. And this is what she wanted from life. She told me so.
What if I had wanted it, too? What if I could have been content to settle down with Daisy and begin a new life independent of my family drama?
But I didn’t want that. I wanted to be a rock star, a writer, a poet who screamed from hotel balconies. I wanted to turn my pain into beauty, but I didn’t know how. And I didn’t want to be anything I could be in Brownsville, Missouri.
“What else do you think Edgar is keeping from us?” Naomi is perched on a wooden stool that is only a round seat and three legs. Bojangles is sitting at her feet, his eyes locked on her face.
“Everything.”
Daisy has the freezer door open. It’s a tiny freezer, but she can’t find what she’s looking for.
“Stew meat, stew meat. I know it’s in here,” Daisy says to herself.
This girl, this little beauty. The last time I saw her, her tits were bouncing in my face and her mouth tasted like Strawberry Hill. And now she’s searching for stew meat.
Maybe it was a natural progression.
“Do you think he gets extra points if we figure shit out for ourselves?” Naomi doesn’t seem to notice the great stew meat search.
“Maybe. Or maybe he just likes fucking with us, and he let it go too far.”
“Apparently it’s important for us to learn a lesson with this shit.” She pretends to kick the dog and he responds with a low, quiet growl.
Daisy finds the stew meat with a triumphant “Aha!” and pulls it out of the freezer. She’s smiling, like that was the best thing that ever happened to her. Daisy was always like that, happy about the little things. That’s why she’s still alive and I’m not.
This could have been my life. I could work at the air conditioner factory down the road, screwing parts into other parts all day. Then come home to this trailer and to my family. My kids, who would look at me like their own personal god. Daisy and I would fall into bed every night, exhausted and beat up from the day. Sometimes we’d have the energy to have sex, but usually we wouldn’t.
What is life other than a series of routines that change and rotate according to circumstances?
Bojangles is tired of Naomi’s teasing. He barks loud enough to rattle the pl
astic on the windows.
“Bojangles! What has gotten into you?” Daisy grabs him by the collar and leads him to the front door.
Eben rounds the corner. He’s wrapped in a towel. She puts the dog outside and leans down and inhales at the top of her son’s head. “Much better, baby.”
“I hope Edgar will tell us how to find vapid bodies. I haven’t noticed any signs for that sort of thing yet.” Naomi looks to the toddler on the floor. “I think that one’s eating a bug.”
Chapter 7
Naomi
We’re waiting for Daisy’s kids to go to bed. And watching her do things. Mundane things like cut up a hot dog for the little one.
I can’t believe that not being mother material bothered me so much. This looks awful. She talks in a sing-song voice, there are cartoons on the TV, juice boxes dripping on the countertop.
Luke still stares at her, though. Even though she’s the type of person who puts her dog outside with no leash so he can run around a trailer park and nip at other people’s children. A dog that she named fucking Bojangles.
When I visited Jamie, I probably stared like that even though I dumped him, not the other way around. I don’t remember exactly why I did it. Maybe because I needed a break but didn’t know how to ask for one. We almost got back together but he found out that I slept with his best friend after we broke up.
Damaged goods. Whore of Babylon. I heard it all from my loving parents years before that. He only confirmed their early opinion of me.
People will love you unconditionally as long as you do what they want. As long as they don’t really know you.
The greatest of these is love. Until it’s not.
Luke doesn’t know Daisy now. His eyes study her like he really wants to. But it’s too late. She probably wanted to save him, to make him happy and complete. She probably poked holes in the condoms with her earring posts.
But what do I know?
“What’s her last name?” It’s weird to invade someone’s privacy like this without knowing their last name.
“Moore. At least it used to be.”
Daisy turns the TV channel for her rug rats. I haven’t had my choice in TV this entire year. Edgar told us how to bend it to our wills if we need to for the sake of memories. If he had told me earlier, I wouldn’t be so behind on General Hospital.
Now there’s a commercial for diapers. A kid running around with his butt sagging. The idea of a diaper with a full load. But they’re not showing the shit.
I studied marketing extensively. But I only made it to print advertising before swallowing all that Xanax. Print advertising for a local glossy mag is only one-step up from typesetting classifieds in the Penny Saver. But I was really good at it, and it was fun.
Lots of drunk lunches, Adderall afternoon snacks, and ridiculous commissions to get a local jeweler to sign a long-term contract. I only had to appear in the office in short bursts. I’d pop in, wearing a cute suit with a short skirt, drop a fresh pile of contracts on my boss’ desk and smile like I’d just won the spelling bee.
Once you set up a few long-term contracts, it’s mostly just coasting. You end up with too much time on your hands, and all the local business owners know you.
You shop too much after too-long lunches where you have one too many and your entire life becomes a cycle of booze, pills, and sleep.
When I was little, I wanted to be a missionary.
“My last boyfriend killed himself before I did,” I say, only to break Luke’s trance.
He turns toward me slowly like he might miss Daisy doing something cool.
“That sucks,” he says. He stares at me for a bit and turns back to Daisy.
The brightly-hued cartoon has started. And Luke is still gazing at his beloved. I wonder how long he’ll draw this shit out. Oh, he of the pea-sized balls.
* * *
Luke
I realized years ago that life went on without me. But this Daisy situation is still a shock. It’s like watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but it’s about me and there’s no way of it returning to normal.
I never cared for that movie anyway.
Daisy turns on the TV for the kids and lets the dog back in. They’re all snuggled up on the couch, winding down for bedtime. Her husband has yet to make an appearance. I hope we’re out of here before he does.
She has a boy tucked under each arm. One is strawberry-blond and one is brunette, but they both have her eyes.
The kids are zoned out, sucked into the cartoon like tiny zombies. I could do it now. Emit my scent and hope that’s all it takes. But then I will never see her again.
Daisy and I were in a car wreck once. I swerved to miss a deer, and my Chevelle plowed into a soybean field.
She cried and praised God that we weren’t hurt. I reminded her that God put the deer in our path.
Maybe that’s why she’s here and I’m not. Glass half-full and all that.
The little one starts to cry. She hefts him up on her shoulder and takes him to another room. The other one stays behind on the couch with his feet on the mutt. He stares at the cartoon like it’s the most interesting thing that he’s ever seen. And maybe it is.
Daisy returns alone, though I can hear the boy crying softly from his room.
“It’s almost bedtime for you, too, Eben.” She rubs his head and sits down beside him. She pulls the boy into her arms and onto her lap. She smiles in a way that I know I never, ever smiled when I was alive. The smile of contentment, of raw happiness, of zero expectation for the next moment. The smile of accepting this second as-is with no “if onlys” attached. The smile of not longing for something different.
“Hey, Luke.” Naomi taps her finger on her lips. I guess dumb body expressions translate easily into the after-life. “The big one kind of looks like you.”
“No. I don’t think so.” But I can see it now that she’s said it. He’s lanky, and his nose might be a little too big for his face. And he would be just about the right age.
I’m such an asshole.
Chapter 8
Naomi
Fuck. I shouldn’t have mentioned the resemblance out loud. Now he’ll draw this shit out so he can watch the little bastard longer.
Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll want to get far away.
Who am I kidding? He’s mooning over that little bastard like a stoner staring at cake.
“Are you okay?” I place my hand on his shoulder. Hopefully the temperature shift will snap him out of the trance.
He swings his head toward me after a second or two or fifty. “I don’t know.” His words are angry. Chopped. As if this predicament is my fault. Or even has anything to do with me.
“You have to snap out of this.” I rub my hand along his arm.
Luke squints and says, “Sorry if I need a moment to process.”
“If you get a new body, maybe you can win back the girl.”
His eyebrows jerk up and he says, “You really think so?”
“You have a better chance than if you don’t exist anymore.” It’s like talking to a child. But I guess he kind of is.
Luke tucks his hair behind his ears and says, “Let’s do this.”
“Great. What was your song?” I stand up and walk toward the TV. Bojangles follows me and growls softly.
Luke is staring again. This time at his probable bastard son.
He would totally be on Ritalin if he were still alive.
“Hey, Luke. We’re doing something here. Stay focused.”
He turns his attention back to me. “I wonder if she knew she was pregnant before I died.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Let’s ask her.” I do some sort of stupid jazz hands motion. “Dipshit.”
“This is a lot to process.”
“Yep. You’ve already mentioned that.” I move closer and plant my face inches from his. Not close enough to feel heat, but close enough to block his view of Eben. Eben. I can’t get over how stupid that name is. “You are in grave danger.�
�� I speak slowly in case he’s really, really dumb and Edgar didn’t bother to tell me. “Oblivion, Luke. Nothingness. Ceasing to exist in any way.”
“Right.” He nods slowly. “It’s here now.”
Fear. It’s different from when I was alive. It’s not that jolting gut thrill, more of a cold shiver that rolls from my chest to my groin.
“The Shadow?” I whisper in case it can hear us. Like hearing us will change a damn thing.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t look afraid. He’s too peaceful, too okay with this. Even Bojangles has the sense to cower in the corner.
I did everything I was supposed to do in record time, and got saddled with Luke, who doesn’t give a shit if he’s sucked into Oblivion.
“Snap the fuck out of it, asshole. You’re my responsibility now.”
“Okay,” he says. “Let’s start with scent. That might be enough.”
“Fine. Get with it. But I think we should double-down.” I go back to the TV.
Daisy is still on the couch with Eben in her arms. The more I think about that name, the more it seems normal. Eben. Kind of like Evan but with a B. Hmm.
“Song. TV show. Commercial, whatever. Throw me a bone here.”
“Well, we used to listen to a lot of The Smiths.”
“I’d be shocked if you didn’t listen to The Smiths.” I sigh for dramatic effect even though I don’t breathe these days. “There’s a show that has ‘How Soon Is Now’ for its theme. I wonder if we can find that. It’s on all the time.”
He looks to the ceiling and says, “Wait! I know! We used to watch cartoons when we were stoned.”
“Okay? Which cartoons?”
“Rocko’s Modern Life!” He points at me and smiles.
“Great. Help me here. Concentrate. Remember everything Edgar told us.” I close my eyes and lean my palms on the television.
I catch a whiff of patchouli. Gross. It’s the first thing I’ve smelled in ages and it’s fucking patchouli.
A commercial for that cartoon eventually comes on. Even though I’m fairly certain it hasn’t been on TV in years.