by Adam Rapp
Once after she did me I asked her what they were supposed to be and she said they were her special friends and when she started telling me their names and the little stories about each of them I knew there was something seriously off in her brain like she didn’t get the right vitamins as a kid or maybe she got dropped on her head. She calls this black baby doll head Chocolate Bill. She’ll go “Chocolate Bill’s from the African continent” and she’ll say it like she’s talking to a four-year-old. She told me he liked to run through the tall grass and talk to the elephants and that his favorite thing was Oreo cookies and chocolate milk and then when I looked closer I could see that there was an Oreo cookie next to his head.
Sometimes Buck Tooth Jenny does this thing where she pretends like she’s talking to someone on her cell phone. She’ll hold it to her ear and say “This is Jenny . . . Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh . . . But I didn’t order any cranberry plush carpeting” and then she’ll hang up and shake her head like the carpet company is crazy. She’s twenty-four and she doesn’t have any parents and even though she’s a little slow or fucked in the head or whatever she’s been one of the nicest people I’ve met.
In your letter you asked about what I did for Christmas and what I did was me and Branson went to early Christmas Eve service at the same church where we did our April Yon thing. We basically sat in a pew way in the back and Branson pretended like he knew what he was doing like when everyone kneels and says “Amen” and all of that he was really trying to do it right. He even took communion and for some reason that made me take communion too but I didn’t have to try so much because of all those times Mom made us go to St. Rose’s and sing the hymns and recite all the prayers and give change when they pass those baskets around. Yeah all that church stuff is deep in my bones P. That kind of thing makes me wonder if we get hypnotized more than we know like when we’re at the grocery store or at the mall or at other places where people put on nice clothes and spend money.
At Christmas Eve mass the priest was this guy with a short black beard and an oily forehead and he seemed like he was subbing for the regular priest like he had a real job selling knives or something. I’m not sure why I thought that. Maybe it was because he wasn’t in a very good mood like he wasn’t in the Christmas spirit. The weird thing was that when he sang his nostrils got really huge and he sounded like he was kind of whimpering with pleasure almost like something sexual was going on. I didn’t like him and I hated being there and I kept trying to not stare at Jesus up on the cross because his face was really starting to freak me out and toward the end I almost left but I didn’t because Branson was so mesmerized with the Catholic rituals and the sermon which I didn’t even hear. Maybe he thought Jesus or Santa Claus or one of those Christian heroes with the wavy hair would grant him a wish or something?
At the end of the service this choir of little kids performed “Joy to the World” and Branson was really singing the shit out of it. It was weird how his whole personality changed like all his toughness evaporated and he was six again or something. I thought he was going to stay after and ask about trying out for the altar boys.
After church we were walking back downtown and Branson was mad silent and I asked him why he was being so quiet and he said he wasn’t being quiet and I asked him if church freaked him out and he was like “Did it freak YOU out?” and I said no and he said “Stop sweatin’ me Zilla” and he looked at me with animal hatred in his eyes like he was a wolf in a forest and I went “I ain’t sweatin’ shit” and then he said “You must wanna get blasted” and after that we didn’t say anything for the rest of the walk home and it didn’t snow which sucked especially after our weird conversation or argument or whatever it was. Like I told you earlier it mostly rained in Portland so there was no white Christmas but people still put up Christmas trees and you could see them all lit up in the living-room windows we were walking by. Christmas trees and angels and big cardboard snowflakes on front doors and different colored lights blinking.
When we went past this lamppost with a wreath on it Branson said “Faggit-ass Christmas” and climbed the lamppost and pulled the wreath down.
Later we went over to Buck Tooth Jenny’s and Branson gave her the wreath and she hung it on the wall next to her fake tree which was only about three feet tall and smelled like a carpet store but it was okay to look at. Me and Branson decorated it with microwave popcorn and shredded newspaper and Buck Tooth Jenny arranged her baby doll heads in the branches. She put Chocolate Bill on the top like he was the Jesus angel.
Then we cooked a Tombstone pizza and got drunk on a bottle of Two-buck Chuck and sat on the purple sofa and smoked clove cigarettes and then Buck Tooth Jenny gave us hand jobs. She did me left-handed which was like someone else was doing it and I closed my eyes and imagined that girl back home who lived down the street from us Cornelia Zenkich. Remember how she would ride her skateboard by the house? I swear I could smell her sometimes P like a wild nature bush or some raspberries. I get confused by how the smell of a girl can totally haunt you. Do you ever get that way about Jorge like you can smell his cologne or his body odor even when he isn’t there or like maybe when it’s scientifically impossible to smell him like when he’s halfway down the street or something? You probably don’t even remember Cornelia Zenkich because she was like a fourth-grader when you left home. She’s got blond hair and dark blue space-alien eyes. Once I caught her staring at me when I was mowing the lawn. I was mowing it with hatred for all things and I was probably making the nastiest face I could. I think you were already living in Memphis and the Major had chewed me a new one for saying fuck in front of Mom and Cornelia Zenkich was on the street in front of our house and she just stood there holding her skateboard which had all this Japanese graffiti art on the bottom of it and I stopped mowing the lawn and sort of froze and we stared at each other. She was wearing cutoff jeans and a sleeveless black T-shirt and I could feel her wanting to wave at me or tell me some secret but nothing happened.
When I was at Buckner I wrote her and asked her to come to the Midwinter Ball with me but she couldn’t for a reason that makes me sick to my stomach P. So sick that I can’t even go into it. Anyway sometimes I’ll just think about Cornelia Zenkich riding her skateboard like her legs and her perky little ass and her titties sort of pushing up against the inside of that sleeveless black T-shirt and her soft pink nipples tasting like peppermint and then that Cornelia Zenkich smell starts making a pleasure cloud in my mind. Anyway that’s what I was thinking about when Buck Tooth Jenny was giving me my left-handed Christmas hand job.
She gave Branson a hoodie with a lion on it. It said “King” on the back and Branson wore it almost every day. He even wore it to bed and to the bathroom. The hoodie started to smell and it had about nine different stains on it but Branson kept wearing it no matter what. Eventually Fat Larkin bought him a vin’ Diesel T-shirt and made him give him the hoodie with the lion on it. He was like “Let it go kid. You ain’t no king anyways. You ain’t even a DUKE.”
Buck Tooth Jenny didn’t give me nothing extra for Christmas but I was satisfied with the hand job. I gave her a tin of Lake Champlain chocolates that I stole from the CVS and we ate them in about ten minutes.
I gave Branson a silver-plated cigarette lighter that this old gay guy left on a table at the Roxy. When you pushed this button it made a blue rocket flame that hissed.
“Good lookin’ out dog” Branson said about the lighter. “Good lookin’ Zilla.”
Branson gave me a Swiss Army Knife that had scissors and all these other tools like a miniature saw and this poker thing for leather which was cool for survival but he took it back when I was sleeping and gave it to Fat Larkin who I saw using it to clean his nails a few days later.
Branson gave Buck Tooth Jenny a washcloth with her name embroidered on it and she cried. She loved it so much. You should have seen it P. Her top teeth got so extra buck I thought they were going to pop out and attack me. The washcloth was light blue with purple embroidery and I’
m almost positive Branson had it made special at a department store. Now Buck Tooth Jenny uses it to dust off her baby doll heads and she sings this little spooky song to herself when she does it too. The song goes “My friends are blue my friends are green my friends are bigger than they seem” and there are other words but I can never understand what they are because her teeth get in the way.
Even though I puked from eating all that chocolate Christmas Eve didn’t really suck as much as I expected it to. It was way better than the ones back in Cincinnati where everything was tense and Mom was so confused about whether or not we were going to midnight mass and before you left she was always sweating you about where you had been the night before and whether or not you were going to agitate the Major about him being a Republican war-lover and did E have one of his stress headaches and did she buy enough food and why wasn’t anyone helping her in the kitchen.
The last Christmas in Cincinnati I went down to the basement and sat up against the cement wall and took like three Actifed and listened to the Dead Kennedys on your old iPod while Mom did the dishes and the Major paced around the living room preaching to E about personal excellence and achieving goals and staying physically fit. Man when I think about it I used to do a lot of Actifed. Thank god for Actifed and your iPod P. I don’t think I would have made it without those two support systems.
The weird thing about Christmas Eve with Buck Tooth Jenny and Branson is that the following morning meaning Christmas morning this woman from the fifth floor burned to death and we had to evacuate the building at like nine a.m. We hung out near the lobby and saw the paramedics bring her body down on a stretcher and it was pretty eerie because the lobby was playing “Silent Night” and “Little Town of Bethlehem” and there were paramedics and firemen and this dead woman on a stretcher who had just burned to death and her face was charred like grilled chicken and they hadn’t even put her in a body bag yet. I had never experienced that particular smell before P. The scent of a burnt human is unlike anything else.
She was this woman they called Black Betty even though she wasn’t black. One of the firemen said she fell asleep smoking and that her hair caught on fire.
After the firemen kicked us out of the lobby me and Branson and Buck Tooth Jenny walked over to the Roxy and ate free scrambled eggs and hamburgers which was cool. I think the management at the Roxy felt bad for everyone at Washington House. We didn’t talk much but Buck Tooth Jenny kept saying she was going to quit smoking those clove cigarettes. She was obviously freaked out about Black Betty and I have to admit I was too. In fact every time I closed my eyes I could see her charred face and sometimes I still can.
P the bus is shaking too much so I’m going to stop writing now.
Love,
Your Bro
March 3, 2008
Dear Zilla,
This is a letter to wish you good luck on your bus jerny. Its been real nice getting to know you these past months, Zilla, especially at Christmas and New Years when we made bolony pizza and ate that big pineapple that Branson borrowed from the supermarket. I hope you will come visit Portland again.
You are a nice boy and we will all miss you very much, specially Branson and Larkin and all our friends at Washington House. I wish I had some extra money I could give you or maybe buy a present with but I don’t have any right now. I only have some checks that I have to cash. I was thinking that maybe I could give you a nice towel or some vitomens.
When you get to Memphus please write back so we know you got there with safety. I also wanted to tell you that I think you are very handsome as well as smart and that you will make some girl you’r sweetheart someday, and you can merry her and give her sweet babies with jules for eyes and buy her chocolates and rice putting and make her very happy the same way Branson makes me feel even when he’s being mean or maybe punching me in the leg or not cleaning himself. I forgive him and so does Jesus Christ and God and Santa Claws. He cries sometimes when nobody’s looking, like when he’s in the bathroom or hiding behind a car, and that’s why I know his soul has gold in it. And your’s does too, Zilla. Your’s has gold and silver.
Many kisses and hugs. I hope you like my drawing of the little puppy dog. His name is Poprock and he will guard you with ferociousness.
X and O tick-tac-toe go with the flow
Love,
Jenny
March 4, 2008
Dear P,
It’s a few hours later. It’s dark out my window now and I can’t sleep. Man this bus is still making me nauseous like I’m not inside of it but it’s inside me. I realize I sort of ended the last letter mad abruptly and didn’t really say good-bye. Sorry about that. I’ll try to be better with endings in future letters.
I should tell you a little more about Branson who tells everyone he’s from Philly. Fat Larkin thinks he’s just another stupid lost white boy from Seattle. Fat Larkin’s always like “Fool’s prolly got a poster of the Space Needle’bove his bed. Supersonics pajamas and shit.”
I know Branson’s from Waldo Ohio because I saw his birth certificate folded up in his wallet which I shouldn’t have been snooping in but he was sleeping and his wallet was on our desk like begging to be messed with. There wasn’t any money in it just the birth certificate.
Once when I was in Buck Tooth Jenny’s bathroom I heard Branson telling her that his dad was a professional astronaut. He was getting a hand job and telling her how his dad had been up in the stratosphere and how he was living on a space station and Buck Tooth Jenny believed him and went on the Internet and learned some stuff about astrology and the solar system. She started talking about the planets and how many galaxies there were and stuff like that. Another time when we were eating at McDonald’s she asked Branson where he was from and he made that wolf face and told her he was from wherever she wanted him to be from and she stopped asking after that.
Branson’s birth certificate says his full name is Evan Branson and that he was born in Waldo Ohio in Marion County to be exact and he doesn’t have a middle name which is pretty fucked up like his parents were too distracted to come up with something. Even Mom and the Major gave us middle names even though when I say my full name out loud I feel like my mouth is full of fake dice or something. It’s the name of a guy who paints the yellow lines on the highway and lives in some broken-down trailer with a lot of dead plants. I wish I had a name that rhymed like Shady Grady who was that kid who moved to our neighborhood from Columbus a few years ago. Like I said everyone pretty much called me Punkzilla in Portland.
Branson would’ve definitely kicked my ass if he knew I went through his wallet. He gets in mad fights mostly with smaller dudes but once in a while he’ll start something with a grown man which is really weird.
Once we were over by this big theater called the Portland Center Stage and he walked right up to this forty-year-old dude and slapped him in the face and said “What motherfucker? What?!” and the man just stood there staring at him. He was all clean-shaven and wore nice clothes and he said something like “You better walk away from me son” and then Branson got crazy and slapped him again and said “I’m not your fucking son bitch!” and the man went red in the face and just stared at him and then Branson turned and walked away and later when we were going over to the Roxy to meet up with Fat Larkin I asked him why he did that and Branson said “Punk-ass needed to be taught a lesson” and then I asked him what lesson and he was like “A life lesson son!”
When he said good-bye to me at the Greyhound station I wanted to call him his real name Evan but I didn’t because I was feeling sick to my stomach and his eyes were really red and raw looking and he was drinking one of those Cokes with the vitamins in it and almost threw up after the first gulp so it wasn’t such a good situation.
He told me to call him when I got to Memphis which is weird because he doesn’t have a cell phone and there wasn’t a phone in our room at Washington House just a payphone in the hall that hardly ever worked. I promised him I would call him but I know d
eep down that I may never see him again. I better go because I feel like I’m going to be sick.
I’ll write more later.
Love,
Your Bro
December 12th, 2007
Dear Jamie,
Thank you for your brief letter dated December 2nd. . . .
Wow, what an old-fashioned way to begin a correspondence with your own kid brother!
I was so happy and surprised, Jamie. You made my day, my week, my month, and maybe even my year, no kidding.
Yes, by the way, to answer your first question, you had the correct Memphis address. Unfortunately, Jorge and I haven’t done well enough to move out of our little prefabricated, overly carpeted bunker at Stonegate Apartments. Oh, it has its charms, like the stucco walls and the false gypsum ceiling and the highly functional air-conditioning and the spleen-colored linoleum on the kitchen floor — I shouldn’t complain. It just feels a bit like Jorge and I are the strange exception in some elderly community of sponge people.
And yes, we do have a Christmas tree! It’s so fake it might as well be wrapped in aluminum foil, but it’s thoroughly decorated and smells vaguely of chewing gum, which is better than the scent of mold, hemorrhoidal ointment, and joint compound that seems all pervasive in our building.
So it’s been a while since we’ve communicated. I recall speaking to you on the phone after the Major dropped the news that you would be getting shipped off to that horrible place, but after that, we lost touch, which is mostly my fault and I’m truly sorry. I’ve learned that being an artist is perhaps the most self-indulgent life-form on the planet; especially one who rehearses in front of a mirror seven hours a day. I rank right up there with the clown fish, who I understand needs nothing but occasional feeding as it has the unusual ability to self-procreate.