We turn up later and get asked for ID but Yuya’s wearing these stilt boots that Tre got from his mother’s wardrobe. He tells her that his ma used to wear them all the time, but lately she’s been in a phase.
The door man lets us in because of the boots Yuya’s wearing and the amount of skin on her belly. Inside, Tre pulls a Ziploc bag from the shoes on Yuya. They disappear for a bit.
Up on a small stage three guys wearing black shades are drumming on bongos. They use the edges of their palms to smack the skins. Zig says into my ear, this is real music, sexy.
He holds the corner of my shoulder with the edge of his palm. Zig’s a broken machine. His tongue stuck behind his teeth when he grins. And everybody inside here is stretched out, removing coats to give to people to put in lockers. Shivering of a tambourine and bells. Nobody touching, everybody their own bopping unit. Closed eyes, as if we were all together. Except Zig’s hands are etching at my waist. I push him away, go to the bar and ask if they serve lemon tea. They say no, but that they have peach. And I take a peach iced tea, and it’s good.
There are spiky deals going on in the shadows where the stage lights don’t reach, right up in the edges of the hall. Little pills and rocks and powder being taken—Zig leans over to me and whispers that they’re disco drugs. He says: pretty cool huh? He tells me: sometimes Tre has them. I don’t know where the fuck he gets it. But he said the last gram he got was something rare, some real unique MD.
He says: but you’ve got to be careful if they’re fake.
I ask him how to know they’re fake.
Zig puts his hands out, he’s become a math teacher. He tells me that the rock is more likely to be real if it looks crystal, white, sometimes a little bit brown. That if it’s shiny and pinkish, it’s less likely it’s MDMA, more likely it’s methylone. He asks me if I know what that is. He tells me his older brother nearly was dead off that shit. I don’t say anything. Zig pours liquor down his throat and says: yeah, a seizure.
A bald man with sunglasses on spills his drink down my top and then suggests I take it off. He calls me a pretty China honey and dances right up close, says that he hasn’t had a little Ling Ling in a while now. Pulling me by my waist. And then a stranger is removing me from the situation, and the bald man yells at our backs. The room pulsates and the stranger leaves me next to the security, who look at me and then at my drenched shirt. They point to the ladies’.
There are girls dancing in the bathroom under a dim lightbulb. It’s their own party, playing some kinda trash radio and they are chains of necklaces, folding and unfolding bare torsos. They bang the walls and throw punching motions in the air. They are nice, and one grabs my hand and waves me around and then another one looks at my drenched top and unrolls toilet paper and hands it to me. She tells me to be careful out there.
We’ve dispersed, the four of us, into four corners of the room, and now I’m surrounded. I end up sitting, and lions roar around me and this jungle music starts to sound a lot like the threshold from life to sleep. And when I check somebody’s watch it’s hours later and I wait outside on the curb. And I hear jungle drums still, thrumming from the walls of my skull and I wait, and it’s two in the morning. When I call Yuya she tells me they all left hours ago. I feel over-boiled.
A woman about my dad’s age vomits into the gutter and looks at me. She asks if I could get her a water, tossing me some coins and pointing to the convenience store across the road. I buy myself a peanut brittle and catch a train home instead.
SICKOS
Ever clasped your two hands together and rattled them to the sound of Djembe drumming in your head. I do this on the train. A bit of the peanut brittle sticking my index finger to the back of my palm. I lick, and start again.
This train ride is elastic. A man comes down the carriage aisle shaking maracas, singing a made-up song, asking for money. I say I only had coins, which I spent, but boy I wish I’d given them to him, because this peanut brittle’s going down all wrong.
He sits beside me and says, hey Tiny where are your parents at?
I tell him my mother left because my dad quit his job to become an artist and that she was going to come back but then she met a man in Shanghai who’s in the publishing business. I tell him, as matter-of-fact, that my mother has a fetish for Asian cats. He asks about Dad. I tell him that Dad has a fetish for televisions and fame.
The man laughs and says, no I mean whereabouts are they? I tell him that Dad is in hospital because some thugs beat his face in and broke his arm a few times because he faked his art or something.
The man starts to cackle. Is it even possible to break an arm a few times? He asks.
He asks me, is it even possible to make fake art?
I say that yeah, my dad is just this piece of leather nowadays, that he’s capable of something as tragic as that.
The man asks: do you know how your dad’s face is?
I tell him: probably fine, he didn’t have much of one to begin with, he had to stay in hospital because they were looking for his brain. I say I bet they found none. The man cackles again and wheezes when he runs out of breath. He passes me one of his maracas and we shake them together until he has to get off. I pass the maraca back and he says to keep it for a little while, that this city being as crazy as it is it’ll probably get back to him some day. People are looking at me when he gets off.
I shake the maraca all the way back to our building, and I shake it from the lobby to our floor’s hallway. I hear Tribe playing, with Consequence. I shake it to ‘Word Play’ ’til it’s escaped the vents. When I get in the door Aunty Linda’s not on the brown couch, but in my dad’s room, asleep with her sudoku on the floor. I watch the television and wonder if my dad still thinks he’s a king. And I can’t stop thinking about my dad, and I can only think about how if he dies in the hospital the last thing he would’ve said to me was to drink the fizzy drink because it was gonna go mouldy, even though it went off last week, but still, he didn’t want to waste money. And the last thing I would’ve said is that the fizzy drink was flat, and our last moment together would’ve been him giving me that hard face and slamming a cupboard and banging the bottle on the bench, drink it.
And I can’t stop thinking about how if he dies he would never get to see my band perform and how we’re creating a revolution. Or how he would never see that I have this maraca on my bedside table now, or that my sister really did marry an idiot the way Dad talked about him, drunk on their wedding night in the courthouse, or that I’ve memorised a whole lot of recipes to cook for him. Something with a little more flavour next time so he doesn’t have to waste the cheese or salt.
And then it hits me in my throat and I stare for hours.
HOW TO MAKE FAKE ART
Art crimes.
In a phone call with Santa Coy I ask him if people would really beat somebody else’s head in just because his art wasn’t as real as what they expected. I tell him that it’s not my dad’s fault that the art didn’t give those thugs the chills they wanted, that it’s not my dad’s fault that everybody has high expectations of somebody else’s brain, that it’s not my dad’s fault that the form of bliss they wanted wasn’t the same sort of bliss my dad thought they wanted. Santa Coy just breathes.
He calls me back at four in the morning, tells me he hasn’t slept at all since we hung up. I ask him what he’s doing, he asks me: what do you think? And I say: probably painting, and he says: no. That he hasn’t done that in a while. And I ask him: since before the Bahamas? And he says: yeah. I ask him why, and he tells me that there’s nothing to paint about these days. I ask what he painted about before, and he tells me: your home. I frown and say: my home’s still here. He says no, your dad isn’t there. I say: it’s my home. We sit in silence for a little bit. He tells me: sorry for the other night. I ask him what was the other night. He says: trying to kiss you. I tell him it’s okay.
I lie on the couch and wave my legs around and wonder if anybody’s ever been killed by a woman’s leg.
&nbs
p; I ask him: want something to paint about next?
PHARISEES
Sitting with Santa Coy, I tell him to imagine if we had a pool house in which we could make love and drink little juice boxes that come in packs of six and watch shitty horror movies and scare ourselves so that my cheeks would be scrunched against his until we kiss and can make love all over again.
Santa Coy is uncomfortable, wriggling where he is, probably because he doesn’t understand what it means to be happy. An artist starves himself is what Santa Coy thinks. What Santa Coy is is a hunger artist. It’s why he paints with red paints and doesn’t even try to paint with any preciseness.
I remove my clothes so that he can see it, and when he looks at me he tries to look indifferent but something about his cheeks. He asks if this is what I wanted him to paint. I tell him that he has to take off his clothes if he wants me to take off mine. He says that I’ve taken mine off already, that it’s too late, that mine are off already. I tell him not to be a hypocrite, that painters should get naked when their subjects get naked too. He says that he didn’t ask me to take mine off. I go to Dad’s brown couch and curl myself up so that I’m a millipede, sobbing. My skin is waxen silicon and there are valleys with the way my knees are bent. Santa Coy leans on the kitchen counter top and stares at the stove.
I live in this world under my crossed arms where everything is scrunched and acid. Santa Coy’s hand runs down my spine. He sits on the armrest, rubs my back up and down and I stare at the way he stares at my whole torso. I tell him that I’m never good enough subject matter. He curls his hands over my shoulder blades and squeezes them once to warm the bones. I scrunch my eyes tight and he asks why I’m doing that and I tell him it’s because it’s not nice to look around in here, that it stings because of the dark around the television, and he asks me if I ever see the colours when I close my eyes. I tell him there was once a blind man, and when Jesus asked him what he saw he told Jesus; I see people; they look like trees walking around.
I’m sitting nude with my legs out and posed and Santa Coy is drawing a forest with my legs as the trunks of many tall tan trees. When he’s finished he kisses all up my legs and we fall asleep on Dad’s brown couch.
When we wake up we both pretend we’re still asleep for a while. He won’t talk to me, and I put my clothes on and he takes off his beanie and rubs his hair. Gets up, picks the picture up.
Okay, he says.
I say: this is real art, isn’t it?
THIS GENERATION ASKS FOR SIGNS
Do you think in Heaven everybody will be the same amount of appealing, and never stop?
In the mirror my body’s becoming a tree.
MOUNTAIN BREW
Honey’s healing parlour has just opened. The receptionist is eating pomegranate seeds from a container. Santa Coy looks all around while we’re sitting here in the waiting room with fake plants and avant-garde photography pamphlets on the table. He leans over and whispers to me that it smells kind of off in here.
In Honey’s office I tell her I know all about Sadie—about how she likes Toni Braxton and YouTube videos of dogs on catwalks, dressed in spritz. I tell her that I’m ready to perform this ritual to her.
Honey tells me that I’ll take Sadie’s house down on the second visit. The first visit: just get into her house while she’s at work or asleep. She naps in the afternoon. She barely goes out these days because she’s in a phase. She used to be at her counsellor’s office in the community centre but now she is stuck inside her home. She keeps the kitchen window open to air out her smoke, so I should go up in the elevator to her floor, climb out the window at the end of the hallway, and Sadie’s fire escape window should be open. Once I am in I should check out what we’re working with. Then I should come straight back to Honey, and she will equip me with the stuff. This whole time Santa Coy is staring all around the office, and then he asks out of nowhere what that sour rubber smell is that’s stenching up the place. Honey makes a head turn to Santa Coy and rests a gentle smile on her face.
I don’t discuss the products I treat individual patients with.
Santa Coy fixes his beige dome beanie on his head, sniffs.
He says: I was just curious, I swear I’ve smelled something dead similar before.
Honey gives me a thin piece of paper. She looks at me only when she says: this is yours, no one else can have it. Then she looks at Santa Coy the way Santa Coy looks at me, the way Dad looks at me. It’s all the same.
BUFFALO
It’s a nice thing to watch a grand plan being hatched knowing that once it’s over it’ll just be another form of bullshit.
Me and Santa Coy eating buffalo wings in this bistro forever. Red swelling and stained-glass lamps dangling by cotton threads replicating wire. They serve muffins and wholemeal slices of bread from the supermarket. The news plays on the radio.
I’ve got the slip of paper my hands, making sure to shield it with my palms so Santa Coy can’t see through it. It’s an old men’s rattle ball in here. They play a game of snakes and ladders a couple of booths away. The waitress doesn’t need to be told what they want, she just brings it out once it’s prepared and they say: thank you darling.
Just to be called darling. I ask Santa Coy to say darling—just to hear what it sounds like. He is between the bones of a buffalo wing, licking the sauce off in clumps with a heavy tongue. He drops the wing, makes a big deal of it, looks at me right in the eyes and says, voice croaking: darling. He picks his wing up again and sucks the meat from it. I take the cup of soft drink and scull it, chew the ice.
After a while of just staring, Santa Coy scrunches his face up.
He says: you realise you’re not going to do this right? How do you suppose this will bring your dad home? It doesn’t make any physical sense, you just have to be patient.
I tell him: it makes spiritual sense.
He tells me: it doesn’t.
I tell him: you wouldn’t understand. Not many people do.
You realise Honey’s not a spiritual healer, she’s a drug hound and a phony. Same as Sadie. All these people I’m dealing with are phonies.
I say: you’re a phony
He says frankly: Monk, and your dad is the same. It’s safer he’s in the centre. There are lots of people who have been scammed by him, same as Honey, same as whoever this Sadie woman is.
I learn in an instant how to muffle my ears so that the noise coming from Santa Coy’s lips is just silent flapping. With my eyes upward I tell him that he is just jealous that I have friends who are serious people.
In this bistro it’s a still life of sierra woodland, pine, and these orange stained-glass lamps. I ask him to call me darling instead of Monk, I’m sick of hearing it. From my waterproof hip pouch I empty out the coins Aunty Linda gave me this morning and we order some pancakes to share. I tell him this is my last nine bucks. He says it’s alright, I’ve got lots of cash. I say: you’ll pay, darling? He sneers: you know it doesn’t sound good at all when you say it.
I keep repeating it: darling like Tennessee Williams, darling like cowboys, darling like Love in the Afternoon. Eventually Santa Coy gets up and pays and we leave.
SPACE LADY
Honey texts me a link to a picture of Sadie. It’s a photo Sadie has taken of herself on some kind of Caribbean beach. I wonder if this mean she’s away. I scroll through the rest of her holiday photos. I say to Santa Coy that we should go check her place out before I go in for my sessions.
Santa Coy loves me because he trails behind me all the way, walking down this street of squalor flats. When I look up people’s laundry sways and flails and when I look behind me, Santa Coy is the same. I yell at him to stop being so damn pathetic about it. And he must really love me because he continues to trail behind me.
A tall white building with shit stains.
Santa Coy and me sit on the floor in the lobby and watch a girl and a boy chucking a ball to each other. I think Santa Coy hopes he can join in and become a game champion.
/> We ride the elevator and inside there’s a man taking a garbage bag upstairs. He glances at us a few times. When he looks up we both look away. When he gets off on the fourth floor Santa Coy exhales. The elevator won’t start until we press the button again. It takes us minutes to notice. In these minutes I say to Santa Coy that we should talk about love in the most candid way possible. His face becomes a sort of crisis. I say to him that this feels a lot like it.
So what? he says.
When do you think it happened?
What, this love?
Yeah.
I’m not sure that it did, and if it did, then I’m not sure we’d know.
Santa Coy’s leaning, bored.
You know, I think love happened when we walked out of that bistro before. When you ate breakfast with me. Something about eating breakfast together.
Why didn’t you kiss me back the other night?
Have you ever listened to me while I’m in the shower or getting dressed in my bedroom before?
Maybe I’ve heard you by accident.
Only by accident?
What kind of questions are these anyway? The way you think about love is kind of passionless and perverted.
I’m quiet and then he asks again why I didn’t kiss him back the other night.
I ask him if he’s been thinking about it. He says only a little bit.
I ask: did it make you sad?
Maybe sad’s not the right word.
Oh.
It did screw with my brain, though, he says.
Did you want me to kiss you back?
More than I wanted anyone else I kissed that night.
I say: yes, because you kissed other people.
It doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it. He says, besides, I wasn’t kissing them. It was a kind of transaction.
I ask him how I would’ve known. That he looks like he’s in love with everybody. That everybody looks like they’re in love with him.
Pink Mountain on Locust Island Page 10