by Lydia Millet
It was Dean’s fault. Her brother made the Angels ugly. Downstairs he was dozing in his chair with the remote control loosely clasped in one cuffed hand. She removed it, noting the lines of dirt beneath his square nails, the yellow swirls of his nicotine fingerprints. A legal pad lay on the floor. He had written the words giant gazongas. Typical, Repulsive.
Her Post-It note was stuck onto the framed print on the wall. She snatched it off. Dean could do his worst. His taunts were the lashes of Lucifer himself, but she could withstand them. The martyrs had suffered In Extremis.
She leaned over and peered at him again. His mouth was hanging open. Spittle was brimming inside the rim of the lower lip—against the gums riddled, as she had not been pleased to notice, with Periodontal Disease. She had urged him to visit the dentist, but he would not take her advice. An ounce of prevention was too much for Dean. Before long his teeth would be exposed down to their roots, and would fall from the disintegrating tissue like confetti at a wedding.
Dean was her cross to bear. Tribulations had to be endured. They would strengthen her for her Tasks.
She switched off the light and went to the dining room, where her book Revelations of Divine Love lay open on a floral placemat. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, she read aloud. She traced her finger over the pattern of a daisy on the placemat, following the line of its bright-green stem.
—Unshackle me, woman, growled Dean, staggering in from the den. He stood slumping in front of her, slack-jawed.
—Shut up, said Bucella. —You don’t deserve it.
She stared down at the pages, pretending concentration. The ebbing away of my life, read the typed words, but though she held them firm, unwavering before her eyes, all she could think of was her brother’s rancid odor. Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, you stink. Julian of Norwich had seen sixteen showings of God, but was also visited by a Demon, who put his claws on her throat and pushed his foul-smelling face into hers.
Bucella smiled privately, her throat clenched. After a minute the Demon turned, leaned down to pick a magazine off the floor awkwardly with his hands still cuffed together, and left the room.
One day Jesus and the Virgin would glide across the sun in a golden Chariot and flocks of saints would fly behind them in a Shimmering Parade. And all the children and the nice people could go with them. And far above in Paradise, Bucella and Ernest would be united in Matrimony to organ strains.
Dean could go right on down to hell to be with his Fornicating Friends. He enjoyed himself most in the company of Ladies of the Evening and Slimy Pimps. Oh yes, he would be perfectly happy there, lying in Burning Coals and Damned Eternal Flames wiggling his Member.
But then—Mercy—if he stopped being a Drunkard he could wash himself clean of Foul Things and, like Venus in that painting where she was almost naked on the lily pad which was not filthy since it certainly was Art, rise from the waves. He could be rejuvenated, innocent as a newborn. There might still be room for him on the rolling dales of Heaven.
She faced east through the dining room window, gazing at the pale bands of color on the horizon, violet and pink. In the blink of an eye she saw herself and Ernest on a wide, white marble verandah, filmed through a breathed-on lens. Ernest’s arm was around her, and they watched from the doors of their Pearly Mansion with proud tears in their eyes as Dean, reborn, a little boy of eight again, squatted on the vast green hill in the mist of morning, among the many Wildflowers in the Fields, beating a march on a tiny toy drum and smiling to himself.
7:01
Dawn was the hour when cocks best liked to crow. Decetes put aside his labors and headed upstairs, to the small window on the landing between flights. It provided a view of the second-floor bedroom next door. Like clockwork! There she was—standing, stretching, her lean nubile limbs bleached by rays of early sunlight, in pink satiny brassiere and nothing else. Her back was to him. The buttocks were hills of snow, smooth as butter, a smiling face. The furry chops of a kitten. Then she turned, baring all, leaned out and glared at him.
—Fuck off you old lech, she said. —I’ll tell my mother. You get on my nerves.
—Turn the other cheek, said Decetes.
—Shut your trap, she retorted.
—A word to the wise, said Decetes. —Two can play at that game. Your poor dear mother would not be pleased to learn of your nocturnal habits.
He had seen her entertain a gangbanger in her bedroom on several occasions. The kid commonly snuck out through the window when they were done, and drove away in a lowrider with a purple crown-shaped deodorizer in the rear window.
—Go play golf with your senile friends, she said, and reached up to unfurl the fake Venetian blind.
But Decetes already had what he needed. Stimulus, from the Latin root stimulare. Thankfully, he was gifted with perfect visual recall. He headed back down to the den.
7:08
Rat-a-tat-tat came the knock at her bedroom door. She knelt and grabbed the black Trojan wrapper, crumpling it in her hand.
—Ginny?
The door opened, and there was her mother in the ugly orange-pink velvet dressing gown stained with dried egg yolk. It was actually gross.
—I’m naked!
—I’m sorry honey.
—I didn’t say come in! You promised!
—Who were you talking to?
—I said get out! I’m naked!
Ignore. Ignore.
—Ginny I heard you talking.
—Would you get out of my room? This is my private room!
—Ginny I want to know who you were talking to.
Logarithm .01, -4.60517, logarithm .02, -3.91202, logarithm .03, .50656. She computed quickly, pulling on her miniskirt with closed eyes and the Trojan wrapper still in her hand. Logarithm .04, .21888, logarithm .05, -2.99573.
—Do you hear me? Answer me Ginny!
—Logarithm .4, -0.91629, she said out loud, and snapped the bra closed. —Logarithm .41, .8916. Logarithm—
—Stop it! Stop that math! I’m asking you, was that perverted child molester talking to you through the window again?
—No one was talking to me, I was talking to myself! I was doing math! Okay?
—Honey okay, but remember what the man from the gifted program said—
—Shut up!
—You could go there for free. And be with other gifteds.
—Those places are for geeks.
—He said you would have your own peer group. He said there were other gifteds your age. Honey I’m sure once you got there—
—Get out! Out out out!
—I have your breakfast ready honey.
—Goddamn logarithm 1.24, .21511, log 1.25, .22314—
—Okay honey, see you downstairs. You have to eat Ginny. I mean it.
Ginny scrounged around in her knapsack for the strawberry lipgloss and applied it, pouting into the mirror. Her door was clearly labeled POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, in bright yellow tape, but her mother was obviously colorblind to yellow. She poked into the room like a starving mutt sniffing at stinky garbage. Only the Terminator could stop her.
One night Ginny would smuggle him in and hide him behind the door. Then, when her mother pushed the door open, wearing her velvet robe and the slippers shaped like pink rabbits, and said “Honey? Did I hear something?” Arnold Schwarzenegger would step out, the bad Terminator not the good one, with a gigantic machine gun in his arms. His red eyes would be gleaming. He would grin so you could see the evil gap between his teeth, say “Die Bitch” in that fake German accent and mow her down.
Later the bullets would turn out to be blanks and she would be stunned but unharmed. She needed electric-shock therapy to teach her a lesson. After the meeting with the Terminator she would be a whole new woman and never irritating again.
Right now everything went in one ear and out the other. It was like there was a chute between the ears, with the ball of words rolling along the chute to drop out and land on the shoulder of the dir
ty orange robe. If one ear was half a centimeter higher than the other and her mother’s head was seven inches wide, or 17.78 cm in metric, the length of the chute was the square root of 316.3784, which equaled 17.787. Acceleration of the ball of words was very slow. The ball rolled through her mother’s head at a near-constant speed. But then gravity was 9.806 meters per second.
Maybe the head was more than seven inches wide. But to measure it she would have to touch her mother. Vomit vomit. As if.
After six coats the lipgloss was perfect. Eyeliner was harder. Her mother wouldn’t let her wear black. She said it was too slutty. Brown was okay so Ginny had found a kind of Maybelline, 2 for 99 cents, called Dark Brown that looked black. Her mother was too stupid to see through that one.
It was actually embarrassing how stupid her mother was, but sometimes it came in handy.
Gloss, eyeliner, and peach blush. Aces. Judges say 9.5, 9.7, 9.9, 9.9 and 10! Average score 9.8. Crowd roars. Everything had to be right and then no one could get you.
At the ugly kitchen table her mother stood over a plate of scrambled eggs and gross whole-wheat toast with her arms crossed, waiting. Ginny cruised by, grabbed her Lunchables from the counter and was heading for the hall when the usual tirade started up.
—Ginny you are not leaving this house without eating. I will not have you getting that anorexia thing just because the other girls do it!
—I already put my gloss on.
She had reached the front door.
—Dammit I’m fuckin late Riva, said her father, hustling through the kitchen with his jacket half on. —Gimme a new roll of Velamints, I ran out.
—Only have Certs, said her mother, opening a drawer. He was already grabbing for his cordless shaver that he used in the car.
—Batteries Riva, batteries, he said. She handed those over too. —What is this I said Duracell, always Duracell.
—They were on sale.
—It has to be Duracell. Outta here, and he walked past Ginny with a gross pat to her butt.
—Ginny I forbid you to go out that door without breakfast!
—The circumference of your eyeball is about 2π times .85 inches that is π times 4.318 centimeters which is approximately 13.5654 centimeters, flung Ginny, and slammed the door behind her. Free at last like that guy Martin Luther.
8:23
Alice opened a wary eye and stared across the blurry hill of pillow. The biker was still snoring. She could see every nick and pock in his weathered skin, and a scar arcing down from the corner of his eye to his earlobe.
He was not attractive. But then again, who was?
She rose carefully, not to ripple the mattress and alert him. But his heavy arm flopped off her as she rolled away, and he groaned.
Her left shoe lay tipped over on the carpet; she pulled it on and wriggled into her dress. Underwear was crumpled on a pile of Skin & Ink magazines, but on inspection turned out not to be hers. She flicked it away. She was scrabbling around in dirty laundry when the man stirred again.
—Hey. Wanna do it again?
—I’m sorry, said Alice. —I don’t remember your name.
—Neither do I.
—If you remember mine I’m in the book.
He subsided with a grunt-sigh into the faded sheets. His hair was matted; his face was collapsed inward like a deflated football.
She found a single clean white shirt on a hanger in the closet and buttoned it over her dress.
—Borrowing your shirt, okay?
Above the basin of the bathroom sink, where green daubs of toothpaste formed a topography fuzzed with the scum of antique shaves, she splashed cold water on her face, combed her hair with her fingers, and rinsed her mouth under the tap. Cleaner but without underwear she strode through the naugahyde living room, past a three-foot bong filled with dirty water and an old black-velveteen poster of Kiss. She was reaching for the deadbolt when a voice made her jump.
—Just chew me up and spit me out. You bitch.
—Excuse me?
—You bitch. You’re all the same.
Jack the Sailor was perched on a swing in his brass cage. She stood on tiptoe to look in: the cleanest space in the apartment. The bars gleamed, the feeder was fresh.
—You’re a rude bird.
She turned away to open the door.
—Does a bear shit in the woods?
She closed the door behind her and scanned the street for her car. Dammit: they had left the bar on his Yamaha. She remembered. The parrot sat on his shoulder as they ran a red light, feathers ruffled by wind. There were cigar burns on his thighs; his tongue and mouth were Kools and Jägermeister. The wages of sin was the morning after.
But was it that bad? At least she’d watched the lights behind her blur, forgotten all giddiness wasn’t her own, her laughing wasn’t all of them laughing. She could have been anyone, and anyone was her: bad history was gone, replaced by a boundless future. In the dark streets became rivers. Tenements were mountains and the sky was a sea. Euphoria, brought to you by vermouth.
It was over now. By day the city was sharp, gray and light, a grid of obligation. She thumbed through the bills in her wallet: three dollars. She would have to take the bus straight to work, without going home. It wasn’t the first time.
8:48
Decetes saw the sow from next door wallowing in her shrubbery, flapping a trotter in the wind as the hubby sped off in his dealmobile. They were the peasants of the postindustrial age. In feudal times those same vacant, bovine eyes had graced the faces of midwives and dung-sweepers.
—Bucella, Bucella, let down your golden hair! Oh Bucella! Bu-cel-la!
—Be quiet, some people are trying to sleep, scolded the midwife.
In feudal times she had loaned out her daughter to swineherds for a handful of copper. Those were the days.
—Not your daughter. She got it up bright and early. Bucella! Little pig little pig let me come in! I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!
—Don’t even say my daughter’s name, you molester. Just shut your filthy mouth.
—It is clean saints be praised. My sister cleaned it out with Borax a few minutes ago, or was it prussic acid. Bucella! By the hair of your chinny chin chin!
—I told you, be quiet! I’ll have you arrested for disturbing the peace!
—If I may offer counsel on the subject of fashion, velour is not the fabric for your complexion nor is peach your best color. It sets off only the blackheads and other dermatological blemishes. I know. I am large-pored myself. It is a handicap, but not debilitating. Bucella! Bu-cel-la.
—I have never been spoken to—
—There is a first time for everything. Your finest hour has arrived. I, Dean Decetes, have spoken to you. I have bestowed upon you the remarkable gift of language. Use it wisely. Bu-cella!
—I have never!—
—I am not surprised, for I have seen your husband. He rides off in the morning to help his fellow tribesmen make their paintings on the wall of the cave. My good woman do not hold your breath, for it will be thousands of years before he stops his hunting-gathering to practice cultivation, and only then will the rudimentary signs of logos appear. In the beginning was the word, but before that there were beings like your husband. Bu-cella!
—Darn you! Be quiet Dean, shrieked Bucella, poking her head out the front door. —I hardly slept and now this.
—You will cut off these shackles or I will bellow till the walls cave in.
— Good morning Mrs. Frenter. All right Dean, I will cut them off, just be quiet. Come inside Dean. I mean now.
—Good night sweet lady, said Dean, —and remember what I said about the blackheads.
9:18
Alice stood near the back of the bus, hemmed in. It was crowded; she was breathing sweat disguised with pine-scent Mennen Speed Stick. An old man with a prosthetic foot hummed and nodded, a Latina in a nurse’s uniform sat reading Soap Opera Digest across the aisle, and beside her a homeless woman in stained p
urple slacks stroked a wig in a plastic bag. Slumped down at the end of the back row, a skinny teenager with a pencil-thin moustache was crayoning stylized letters on the window beside him. I tucked? Probably not.
Unless it was a lullaby. I tucked you in.
Mornings like this almost made her suspect she was not upwardly mobile. We’re all so ugly, poor things. She felt mute and claustrophobic and at the same time barely present, as though, by knowing she was ugly, she got to be outside looking in. By knowing her own grubby failure, she could take her judges by their shoulders and look at them squarely; she could say, I know it, see? So I beat the rap.
If there was another world, a better country. Elsewhere, away, the same people might be gathered: the same souls but transfigured. The planes of their cheeks were not dull with fatigue. They raced and spun and spread their arms. There was fresh air and there were prairies, forests. Towns where you walked on cobblestone streets, and music.
Alice felt tears on her cheeks. Dreams of running: the torture of the legless. She was still on the bus: they were all on the bus. They would always be on the bus, on their way to production. If anyone noticed her crying she would be embarrassed. She wiped the tears with the back of her fingers, felt her dry knuckles scrape. Dreams why not. Dreams why not? I am lost. I am lost.
Then she looked at the scribble on the window again. I tucked you’re sister. There went the lullaby.
A warm meaty object settled on her skirt. Someone’s hand.
—Get your hand off my ass, she hissed, and turned around to several faces, two men and a woman. The hand beat a hasty retreat: impossible to assign blame. They were a tightly packed throng, shoulders boxed.
—Get your hand offa my ass, jeered the graffiti artist. No one laughed.
—Shut up, said Alice.
—You shut up bitch. Shut your mouth bitch. Okay?
—What do you know about anything, you ignorant little shit. You’re barely out of puberty and you go around defacing public property like this cesspool of a city doesn’t have more to worry about than your stupid obscenities.