by Nadia Bozak
“God,” she drawls. “Don’t you just totally hate Madonna?”
“Yes,” says Shell. “Yes. I hate her.” Shell says she loves Patti Smith.
Joan Jett goes: “Her? Really? God, that’s a boring name.” Joan Jett loves Heart and Girl School, the Pretenders. “Chick bands,” she says. Lita Ford, Eurythmics too. “Hey.” She leans in close. “Why so glum?”
Black makeup clogs the corners of her eyes, and her red lips are cracked. Beer and smoke waft from her mouth, while the spice of Obsession clings to her body. The girls in Shell’s class who tease their hair wear that perfume too.
“Come on, kid. You look sad.”
When Shell tells Joan Jett about Vicki’s cousin calling her Grimace from McDonald’s, Joan Jett doesn’t laugh.
“Fuck those assholes, honey,” she says. “They don’t understand. You just go on being yourself. And I will too, okay?”
Shell nods, drinking in the tears running down her face.
Joan Jett finds a cocktail napkin in her fringed leather purse.
“Here.” She sits down right on the tabletop, crosses her long, skinny legs, and leans back, eyes to the moon. “You waiting on a ride?”
Shell says no, her mum’s car broke down.
“Oh, yeah, the old beat-up yellow one. What kind’s it, anyway?”
“A Dart,” Shell sighs.
“Good old Dodgeball Dart, eh? Well, if you can wait a few hours for me to sober up, I’ll take you.” Joan Jett points down the road. “You see those lights there, up the road and back a bit?”
Shell does.
“Well, that’s Scottie’s place and that’s where my car’s at. Just a sec.” Joan Jett comes back from the Candlestick with her leather jacket slung over her shoulder. Her purse is stuffed with neat tinfoil packages tied with ribbon. A sticker on each announces the names of the newlyweds and their wedding date.
“Cake.”
Joan gives a couple of pieces to Shell. Then: “Grimace, eh? Those dumb fucks.” Joan Jett spits, but it doesn’t go very far.
Shell follows Joan Jett down the highway’s gravel shoulder. The lights ahead are their guides. Joan Jett says the Candlestick is Scott’s drinking hole now he’s moved out to the country.
“Which is okay, except I prefer live music, you know? Not some crap DJ.” Clouds drift across the moon. Joan Jett tries her cigarette lighter, but the flame keeps blowing back and burning her fingers. “Frig!”
They stop and unwrap one of the tinfoil packs.
“But wasn’t that just a beautiful wedding?” Joan Jett’s mouth is full of cake.
Shell braces herself as a car goes thundering by, spraying stone. “Vicki looked pretty.”
“Vicki, yeah. She’s a good girl, but like I say, she’s too pretty for her own sake. Just like Bonita. Like, look how fat she is and still men’re always drooling over her. It’s the giant tits, don’t you think, honey?”
Another car comes whizzing by. Joan Jett looks away from the blinding white and squeezes Shell’s shoulder for balance.
“Shitheads.”
Shell says she likes Vicki’s mum’s freckles and she does have a nice smile.
“Really?” says Joan Jett. “A nice smile…?” She skids a bit over the loose gravel. “Guess that’s why I’m here with you and she’s getting married. Even if it’s to my jerk-off brother.”
Shell frowns. “Huh? So Vicki —”
“Yeah. You believe it? Your friend back there turned me into a goddamn aunt.”
Scott’s ranch house is set back from the road. The pickups and motorbikes and cars that were parked out front of the chapel fill the driveway and the sloping front lawn. The lone Honda among them — a blue station wagon — is Joan Jett’s.
“This place’s been party central, honey,” she says as they cut across the grass.
A half-dozen bmx bikes lie discarded among lawn ornaments — swans, gnomes, a family of deer — and a dozen or so aluminum chairs cluster around a bug tent, partly collapsed.
Plastic lanterns are strung above the back deck, cluttered with cases of empty beer bottles, patio sets, and a big silver barbecue from which Joan Jett retrieves a spare key. She unlocks a set of sliding glass doors. Dogs howl. Shell freezes as Joan Jett steps inside.
“Penny, Gremlin, T-Bone! Shut it!”
Three sleek Dobermans come barking down a long hall, their nails clicking against the tile floor. But it’s just Joan Jett — their barks turn to panting whines. Joan Jett kicks off her boots.
“I gotta piss,” she says, leaving the dogs to sniff Shell’s purple crotch.
Shell goes to the bathroom after Joan Jett — black towels, candles, bowls of spicy potpourri. She has to unzip her overalls and practically get naked just to pee. She shivers on the toilet, leafing through a bmx magazine.
Joan Jett is rummaging in the kitchen. The island, topped with some kind of stone, is piled with tubs of sour cream and cartons of juice.
“Hey.” There’s a cigarette in her mouth and ash on her blouse. “You want some pizza?”
“Sure. It’s big, eh?” Shell says of the house.
Joan Jett pops a plate into a microwave that’s as wide as Mum’s regular oven. Appliances clutter the counters; there’s even a bread maker and something mechanical for squeezing oranges.
“Yeah. Well. Scottie’s got a business, you know, like some kind of construction thing.”
The pizza is ham and pineapple. They pull up high stools and lean over the island. The only sound is their steady chewing and the sawing of crickets through the kitchen windows. Shell and Joan Jett finish off most of what was a large pizza then eat strawberry ice cream right out of the tub. They wander around the darkened house looking for a place to sleep. Scott’s room is off limits, of course, and there’s already people snoring on the couches in the living room, and in the den there’s a figure sprawled on the pool table. The guest room contains the rough heap of someone Joan Jett calls Grandpa.
“Frig.” Joan Jett says they might have to sleep in her station wagon, and then she remembers that Vicki got a waterbed for her birthday — a double. “She won’t mind.”
Vicki’s room is dark. They keep it that way because Joan Jett has a killer headache. The moonlight coming through the window is generous enough to make out the shape of the bed as well as the posters looming above it: Madonna is flanked by Prince on a motorcycle on the right and Wham! on the left.
“Christ, friggin’ Madonna,” Joan Jett groans. She crawls onto the jiggly sack that is the bed and sort of rolls over to the wall. Then Shell climbs in. The mattress sloshes around worse than stepping into a drifting canoe.
“Now you just lie still or I’m gonna get seasick.” Joan Jet pulls Vicki’s bedding over her head.
Shell stretches out. The covers are oily with what must be Vicki, but there’s still a smell of laundry soap. Shell just hopes the sheets don’t give her any zits. When Joan Jett starts to snore, Shell shifts and pulls out the lump from under her back: a brand new Wrinkles dog with red fur and paisley bone tucked in the pocket of its overalls. Shell holds the Wrinkles close. The mattress beneath her stills and, conforming to her shape, she pretends she’s lying in warm sand, sunk on a beach, a million miles away from here but not nearly that far from Mum.
Shell cries a bit, uses the paisley bone for a tissue. Then voices approach from down on the road. The Dobermans bark, music goes on, and the microwave starts to whir. When the bedroom door opens, Shell pretends to be asleep, the Wrinkles concealing a good portion of her face. Vicki whispers and then so does a boy. The door closes with a click, and Shell and Joan Jett are alone again.
Shell’s half sleep is broken up with laughter and car doors slamming — engine flare. When Vicki comes to bed, the house is quiet. Moonlight catches her profile. She lets down her hair, steps out of her dress, and lets it fall — crinkl
ing — to the floor. Then she pulls a long T-shirt over her head and crawls between Shell and Joan Jett.
“Shell, you awake?”
Shell mumbles like asleep people should.
“Shell, I’m so happy you came,” Vicki whispers. “Thank you, thank you.”
Shell makes her breaths rumble into something like a snore.
“Mum’s making everyone brunch in the morning. Then you can meet my new family, okay?”
Shell is quiet. Then Vicki’s nose starts to whistle. Shell blinks against dark, the only one in the waterbed not yet sleeping.
The waterbed sloshes. Morning is grey enough that Madonna — in black lace and jelly bracelets — is fully visible. Joan Jett picks her jacket off the floor; under it is her purse. Shell rolls out of the bed very gently, jewellery tinkling, bracing herself against the velvet frame. She tucks the Wrinkles dog next to Vicki, whose soft, curly hair is splayed out across her pillow. Even with her mouth slack and cheeks crusty, Vicki looks pretty. Shell opens the door without a sound, leaving Vicki alone in the waterbed.
Again Shell finds Joan Jett in the kitchen. They stand over the sink, guzzling from various containers — orange juice, Clamato, 7 Up — and cut chunks of wedding cake from a slab left uncovered on the island. The Dobermans lie in a mass by the patio doors. As Joan Jett steps over them, they raise their heads and sniff her fingers.
The grey-blue yard is dewy — both Shell and Joan Jett slip — and the air humid and warm. The windows of the vehicles are opaque with condensation. Shell and Joan Jett wipe the Honda’s front and back windshields with napkins and their sleeves. In the driver’s seat, Joan Jett lights a cigarette, shakes her hair, and turns on the ignition. They lumber across the lawn towards the road, crushing drink cans and rubber dog toys. Looking left and right between inhales, Joan Jett pulls out onto the empty morning highway.
At first Shell doesn’t recognize the house without the Dart in the driveway. Joan Jett idles out front.
“Good thing I had that snooze,” she says. “Feel like a million bucks now.”
Under her leather jacket, the red silk blouse is dirty and untucked. Her hair is limp and the darkness around her eyes is less from makeup than deep wrinkles; the sun, up full now, highlights the silver in her hair.
“Gosh,” she says, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe my little brother’s married.”
Shell wants to ask her in. Mum will be up soon and there will be porridge and coffee. But Shell is quiet and so too is her driver. The smell of car exhaust enfolds them in the either-or of hello and goodbye, of neither staying nor going.
“Well, maybe we’ll see you at Scottie’s, then — after they get back from the honeymoon.”
“Sure, okay.” Shell finds her purse and package of cake. “Thanks for the ride.”
Joan Jett’s nicotine smile is big and bright, and her swollen eyes shine.
The spare key is under the porch. Shell lets herself in but is too tired to put it back. The house is quiet, the curtains still drawn.
She climbs the stairs. Mum’s bedroom door is closed. In the bathroom, Shell takes off her purple overalls and lets them fall to the floor. Her skin is stained violet. As hot water fills the tub, Shell stands before the mirror, and each time she looks away, she makes herself look back.
Shell wakes in a tub of lukewarm water. She tosses her dirty clothes on the floor of her room and, shivering, exchanges beach towel for her velvety robe.
Mum’s up. Porridge bubbles on the stove. Coffee drips in the pot. Shell takes the cake and a mug of coffee out to Mum, who sits at the harvest table, leaning over a Women’s Studies textbook. She looks up.
“Check the porridge doesn’t boil over.”
Shell serves them each a bowl, topped with milk. They eat. They read. Then Mum shoves her textbook away and finds the Wheels section of the Somerset Times. She says she has to get another car. “It’s insane to put more money into that Dart.”
“But isn’t a car a lot?” Shell slurps her porridge.
“I’ve got to have a reliable way to get to school and work, Shell.” Mum says she can get a small loan. “Besides, it’ll just be a used one anyway.”
“I hear Hondas are good.”
Mum pushes away her empty bowl and reaches for the cake. It’s mostly just crumbs and hunks of icing, so she eats it with her spoon.
“Vicki’s mum drove you home?”
Shell shakes her head. “Joan Jett.”
“Oh? She nice?”
“Not nice. But I liked her.”
Mum says she can’t take any more studying. While Shell washes the dishes, Mum gets on the phone and makes appointments to see some cars. Barb Nutt will take her around. Barb wants Mum to buy a Volvo. Shell asks if she can come too, then goes down to the basement to change. She tucks the silver wedding invitation into the horsehair button box beneath her bed and puts on her soft, baggy Levi’s.
Jesse
Shell and Carla grab their bags and link arms and half stomp, half stroll down the narrow, butt-strewn laneway that is the smoking pit, chins high and sun in their eyes, heading for the road. Passing through the entrance gates, they turn left towards downtown, away from grade ten homerooms and the polished oak doors of Somerset Central Tech. Who cares if the secretaries call Mum at work again? After all, it’s Friday.
Shell’s got Mum’s old cowboy boots on: heavy hand-stitched burdens and more than a size too big. The hunks of turquoise hanging from her ears are Mum’s too, same as her silver bangles and those broadening hips she tries to hide under oversized plaid button-downs. The Essential Rimbaud she carries around like a tourist does a phrasebook is the same one Mum bought in Paris when she was only three years older than Shell is now. But while Mum at Shell’s age might have favoured a peasant blouse or Nehru-collared tunic, Shell’s got Patti Smith’s silhouette stretched wide and loud and distorted across her going-on-D-sized chest.
Carla lights a cigarette. Shell says, hey, she saw that guy Darren. He’s the one in real leather pants whom Carla loves though she’s never talked to him before — but, oh, Carla can tell a lot from his eyes, his silver rings, and of course from those leather pants he’s never not wearing, and they look so good with his Chuck Taylor high-tops — red, just like Carla’s, and that’s a sign if anything.
“He was in the coffee shop during first,” Shell says.
“Really? What’d he get?”
“Um.” Shell thinks it was a coffee. “And, oh yeah, and a cookie.” But she didn’t see what kind.
“Really? And then what?”
“Then he went out and turned right. Maybe back towards the pit.”
“Well, I am totally jealous. Where the hell was I?”
Carla lays a stick of powdery gum in her mouth; Shell gets to finish the cigarette. They pass Wizard’s — blank cinema marquee topping the arcade’s double doors. There’s no one inside or leaning against the wall out front, and except for Moses, the Stroller’s Alley food court is empty too. His tray is loaded with sweet and sour chicken balls, always with an extra side of fortune cookies. Moses nods them over.
“Hey Moses, what’s going on tonight?”
Moses shakes his head and passes them each a strip of codeine tabs: the white 747 ones that still the bowels for days and make Shell’s eyeballs as numb as her limbs. Moses’s long nails are orange with sauce, as is the end of his bib-like beard.
“Peace,” he says as they walk away from his rolling eyes.
Carla gets an Orange Julius and sucks it in fast, shivering at the ice cream headache.
“Let’s just go to the park,” Carla says. She’s got to work soon anyways. But at Clayton and White, Carla sees this guy across the street. She grabs Shell’s hand. “Jesse’ll know if there’s a party.”
Jesse is standing right smack in front of a phone booth, skateboard under his arm. No one is get
ting in those saloon-style doors.
Jesse waves Carla over, and Shell and Carla almost get hit by a car crossing Clayton. Carla laughs and gives the car the finger.
“Fuck off,” Jesse is saying to some kid scrounging in his pocket for a quarter. “Got a call coming in.”
“Hey Jesse,” Carla says.
Jesse snarls. Lips pulled back, his small, sharp teeth are porridge grey. Or, no, he’s not snarling. He can’t help the way his mouth twists like that. It’s just the deep split pulling his top lip right up into his nostril that makes him look like an attack dog.
Shell tries not to stare at Jesse’s harelip. He does look like a rabbit — the wild spirit kind of hare, all bone, tough muscle, with half-closed eyes and tight blossoms of cartilage for ears.
Jesse’s eyes pass over Shell, falling again on Carla. There’s no chance he would ever recognize Shell, if this is even the same kid.
“You got a smoke?” he says.
Carla reaches for her Belmont Milds. “You know what’s going on tonight?”
Jesse props his skateboard against the phone booth. His thin fingers are as dirt-stained and cracked as a gardener’s. He pokes the cigarette in the far left corner of his mouth, where his cloven lips can fully close. Carla’s Zippo flames.
Cleft lip, tobacco hit.
“Don’t know,” he says.
Beneath his backwards ball cap, his brown hair is thin, dry stuff. The T-shirt under his jean jacket, from which the arms have been torn, is for the band dri — Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Mosquito bites popple his bare arms and face, several scratched to bleeding. Plus, his nails are black and his jacket and army pants smell of campfire. Does Carla know that Jesse spends nights camped in some brush by the river, with a makeshift fire and sipping something hard to stay warm? And his eyes are restless, darting from Shell to Carla to the cigarette receding between his wishbone fingers.
“Who’s calling ya, Jesse?” Carla nods at the phone booth.
Jesse says, oh, he’s just taking a message for some guy. Then, inhaling deep on his cigarette, he says, yeah, there’s a party at Dan and Maček’s. “You guys could come to that.”