‘Nope.’
‘It’s when you mix an ounce of weed with a bottle of vodka and let it sit in a dark place for a month. The vodka absorbs the THC and you get like this THC-infused vodka. It’s super bueno. So, marijuana kombucha.’
Leslie, Austin’s most famous cross-dressing homeless man, walks away from the register wearing a tight pink dress and a wireless headset. Boy watches as he pours sugar into his coffee. Nothing wrong with being an iconic cross-dressing homeless man.
‘Does it burn like regular kombucha?’ Boy asks.
Friend says, ‘There’s still that harsh whiskey burn of kombucha.’
‘Did it taste like weed or…?’
‘Kind of. The dude mixed it with organic peaches so it was kind of sweet. I mean, it tasted a little like weed.’
‘The owner of the house made it?’
‘Yeah, he was really tight. He used to be affiliated with the Enchanted Forest until they shut it down. He got a bunch of money from some insurance settlement – like a bunch, no one knows how much – and uses it to basically host spiritual events.’
‘And orgies?’
‘Well, maybe orgies, I didn’t see any when I was there though. But anyway, so I drink the weed kombucha and I’m lead outside by Citronella, and guess who I see there.’
‘Who?’
‘Maeve.’
‘Really? She told me she was staying home and reading last night,’ Boy says.
‘Yup, and she’s with this dude, kind of a burly metal guy. You know those guys that are fat and try to cover it up by growing beards and getting tattoos? Like if they didn’t have a beard or tattoos, they would just look like your typical chubby American, but with the beard and tattoos, they suddenly look like some sort of future Viking badass or something.’
‘Yeah,’ Boy says.
‘So, she’s there with this metal dude and they’re laughing.’
‘So?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t be telling you this if I just saw her laughing with some metalhead. They were holding hands and making out. I just thought you should know, man.’
Boy’s pulse drops. Jealousy has a strange feeling, similar to piranhas darting around in his stomach. He tries to wage his response before Friend can continue.
‘But, I mean, it shouldn’t matter if she’s cheating on you, right? You’re cheating on her, right? I just thought I should inform you on this shit.’
‘Yeah,’ Boy says, still trying to figure a response.
‘So, she sees me, and guess what she does?’
‘No idea…’ Boy notices Friend is wearing a thin string of prayer beads around his wrist. They jingle as he moves his hand up and down.
‘Well, she waves me over, with her arm tucked in this beefy metalhead’s arm.’
‘She doesn’t even try to hide the fact?’
‘No man! That’s why I’m telling you all this. Shit, I’ve been caught before, and the first thing I do is straight up hightail it,’ Friend says. ‘But she didn’t even care, man. She was cool with it. And they’re holding hands and Citronella is kind of looking at them strangely because she knows about your situation, and then the weed kombucha is hitting me, and I’m trying not to make eye contact with Maeve and…’
‘And what?
‘—And then I see it.’
‘What do you see?’
‘Her aura.’
‘Her aura?’
‘Yeah, her aura. It has a bunch of holes poked into it, like Swiss cheese or something.’
As Friend’s new identity has deepened, so has his ability to make bizarre spiritual claims. One of the downsides of his shift to New Age spirituality was the resulting statements that had since poured forth from his mouth.
‘Aura?’ Boy tries to hide his doubt with a well-placed cough.
‘Yea man, actually, Citronella pointed it out to me as soon as they walked away.’
‘So, you didn’t see this Swiss cheese aura yourself?’
‘I did, after Citronella pointed it out to me of course. What I’m trying to say is, you got to be careful with this one. I mean, you know how I am, or I guess I should say, you know how I was: I was all about spreading my seed far and wide. Shit, once I was juggling four girls at the same time.’
‘I thought it was three.’
‘Three or four. What I’m trying to say is, I’m settling down, and I’ve gained a little wisdom looking back.’
‘Okay,’ Boy says. Leslie walks out the door and Boy catches a glimpse of the homeless celebrity’s thong and dimpled ass under his frilly pink dress. It is so very strange what we become.
‘So, what I’m trying to say here is this: I’d be careful with Maeve if I were you. Yeah, I mean, I know Salome has her issues, but she’s not out with some beefy metal bro at a spirituality party talking to your buddy like some shit ain’t going down. Maeve’s up to something. There’s bullshit on the way. I mean, I saw it, Citronella saw it.’
‘Did Eight see it too?’ Boy asks, egging Friend on.
‘Of course Eight saw it!’
‘So what do you think I should say to her?’
‘She must have known that I’d tell you. Personally, I think Maeve’s trying to play games with you. Everybody plays games. I think she’s trying to make you jealous or something, or maybe she’s just trying to see how you’ll react. Yeah, maybe it’s a test or something.’
‘And here I was going to talk to you about how I should break it off with Salome and you’re telling me this.’
‘I wouldn’t break it off with Salome yet if I were you. Wait until you move or something. It’ll be easier to break it then. If you break it off now, there’s still that chance of friends-with-benefits, which only complicates things. If you break it off before you leave – you’re still planning on moving, right?’
‘Yeah, as soon as possible.’
‘Well, if you break it off with Salome right before you move, then you don’t run into this kind of trouble. It’s hard to call a girl up and tag it when you’re thousands of miles away,’ Friend says matter-of-factly.
A woman with a fedora covering her bleach blonde hair enters the coffee shop with a small dog on a leash. The lady at the register frowns at the woman’s dog.
‘What about Maeve? What should I do with her? I guess I’m asking: what would you do if this was the reverse situation? Like, what if I saw Citronella with some metal bro?’
‘Wouldn’t happen.’
‘Why?’
‘She hates metal dudes; hates metal for that matter. She always listens to this chanty yoga stuff and some girlie indie pop.’
‘All right, not a metal dude then. What if I saw her with a badass yoga guru, what would you do after I told you?’
‘I’d probably have to meditate about it for a minute,’ Friend says.
‘You still meditating?’
‘I’ve made it a habit now. Twenty minutes in the morning, twenty minutes at night. Anyway, I would ask her about it after meditating, so I was all calm and shit.’
‘So, I should meditate?’
‘Maybe. You have to think about how you should approach her. She’s going to assume I told you. She’d be an idiot not to.’
‘What if I just ignore it?’ Boy asks.
Friend thinks for a moment, takes a long sip off his Odwalla and licks the green liquid off his lips.
‘Well?’
‘Yeah, that just might work. Maeve’s going to assume I told you. Maybe she’ll even try and get a rise out of you or something. So if you act like you just don’t care, maybe she’ll start feeling guilty. You should tell her you met with me though, just so she knows the chance for me to tell you has already happened.’
₪₪₪
Maeve answers the door with a towel wrapped around her chest. Her apartment is clean; the floor of her kitchen sparkles and she’s recently purchased an air purifier. Sitting on the coffee table is an Austin Chronicle with some of the pages dog-eared. Boy wonders sometimes where she gets her money, but
he never asks.
‘Did I come at a bad time?’ He sits down onto the couch.
‘No,’ she says as she settles in next to him. She lifts her smooth legs into the air and drapes them across his knees. Her freshly scrubbed skin smells wonderful. ‘I was just resting. I saw your friend the other day.’
‘He told me.’ Boy drops his hand onto her smooth leg.
‘What did he say?’ she asks. He can tell she’s hiding something by the way she bites her lip and quickly lets go. He pretends not to notice. The fact that she may be cheating on him barely offends him, because Boy’s cheating on her. He decides in that split second to let it slide. Forget it.
‘Nothing really, just told me about this guy’s hippy party and seeing you there.’
‘Yeah, a friend invited me. It was way too spiritual for my tastes,’ Maeve says, relaxing a little.
‘Sounds like it.’
‘I’m just not really in to all this yoga and meditation shit that seems to be in vogue in Austin right now. I mean, I get it, you feel great after you do yoga and you want to save the environment, and you hate corporations, but you love your iPhone that you got through a two-year contract with Sprint, and you hate WalMart, but you order stuff daily off Amazon and shop at Target. I get it. You’re in a band that’s going to be the next big thing, you’re working for a social media app that’s going to be the next big thing, you’re writing a novel that’s going to be the next big thing – the whole city has covered itself in a veil of bullshit, self-gratification and denial.’
‘What about artists?’ he asks.
‘Like you? The last thing this city needs is another artist, no offense.’
‘You haven’t even seen my art,’ Boy says, slightly offended, but not offended enough to take her smooth legs off his lap.
‘That’s because you’ve never shown me. We’ve never been to your house. Remember? Nobody is always there.’
‘There is no Nobody. My house is… ummmm,’ Boy thinks for a moment, figures it can’t hurt. ‘My house is haunted.’
‘Haunted? Oh, come on!’
‘I promise! It’s haunted by this little girl ghost. About a month ago, she went through all my paints and squeezed them all onto the floor. It was a mess.’
‘Does this little ghost girl have a name?’
‘Penelope.’
‘And I suppose Penelope is invisible, and you have to throw paint on her just to see her?’
‘Actually,’ Boy says, looking at her curiously. ‘How did you know that?’
Maeve slugs him. ‘Oh, come on!’
‘What, you don’t have ghosts in Ireland?’
‘There are plenty of ghosts there, but none that we have to paint to see.’
‘I have to paint her because she’s invisible. Not my choice, really.’
‘Look at your stupid face.’ Maeve laughs cruelly.
‘I’ve always seen ghosts. Well, maybe ‘ghosts’ isn’t the right word for it,’ Boy says, realizing he can say just about anything to her now about his problem and she won’t believe him.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I even had sex with a ghost once. Her name was Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’ Maeve smiles. ‘Did she have a pair of these?’ She removed her towel.
‘Yes, and one of those too,’ Boy says, pointing to her panties.
‘Really? That’s kind of hot. What’s ghost sex feel like anyway?’
‘Cold.’
‘Ha! So what did this Lucy look like?’
‘She was cute, except for her face. She had these little slit-eyes and no pupils.’
‘Slit-eyes like an Asian girl?’
‘No, not like that exactly, kind of like the way cats look when they’re sleeping.’
‘So Asian-ish. Spooky,’ Maeve says. ‘Did she have eyes?’
‘Yeah, she had them. I was able to find them after pulling down on her cheeks.’
‘An artist who fucks ghosts – welcome yet again to Austin. What am I getting myself into?’
‘She wasn’t as scary as Glass Wings though.’
‘Glass Wings? Where do you get this stuff?’
‘He had these giant wings made of glass and little pick legs and glass teeth. He would come into our bedroom every night.’
‘Our?’
‘I shared a room with my sister most of my life.’
‘Weird.’
‘Not weird when you’re poor.’
‘Oh, I forget how poor you were. Poor little artist boy. So, tell me more about this Glass Wings of yours.’
‘He would come into our room and eat the glass my sister was collecting,’ Boy says in a grim way.
‘Your sister collected glass?’
‘Again, we were poor.’
‘Collecting glass is a little demented…’
‘It seemed to make her happy, so I never said anything to her about it. Anyway, Glass Wings would eat the glass by sticking his long black tongue out, wrapping it around each piece, and then slurping it up.’
‘You’ve been watching too many Japanese horror movies.’
‘I swear on my father’s grave.’
‘Is your father dead?’
‘As far as I know he isn’t. We’ve never had much contact. Once he and my mom divorced—’
‘Why did they divorce?’
‘My mom cheated on him with this guy named Santiago. Actually, they cheated on each other; she’s just the one who got caught.’
‘His name?’
‘Rock.’
‘Rock?’ Maeve asks.
‘That’s what my mom calls him. Anyway, they hated each other from the get-go, so I guess it was inevitable.’
‘Twenty-first century nuclear families are so nuclear.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So what happened to Rock?’
‘I don’t know, actually.’
‘And you never saw him?’
‘ Nope. He sent money a few times, then he stopped.’
‘He didn’t pay child support?’
‘He did at first, but then he moved to Asia or something, basically disappeared.’ Boy pulls her small body closer to him.
‘Well, Rock sounds like a real asshole. Where in Asia exactly?’
‘I don’t know. Could be anywhere, really. Could be in the apartment next door. He might have never even been to Asia.’
‘And your sister’s father? He’s a different man, right?’
‘Santiago. He left when my mother was pregnant. He’s probably in Mexico.’ Boy is ready to change the subject, ready to continue the long process of forgetting where he’s come from and the circumstances surrounding it.
‘Your poor mother!’
‘She was and is poor, you are correct.’
‘No, I mean having to raise you and your sister all on her own. And to have one move to Austin to become an artist.’ Maeve punches him again. ‘I hope you’re nice to her.’
‘I try to be.’
₪₪₪
Two weeks away from South by Southwest. Boy has made the strange transition from feeling guilty about cheating to no longer caring. Juggling two relationships feels almost normal now. It’s interesting seeing the difference in the women’s demeanors, their body shape. Salome, thick and a foot shorter than Maeve. Maeve with her muscular form and thin legs: Boy’s guilt has switched from interest to fascination with the female body, its secrets and similarities, its beauty and softness when contrasted with the body of a man.
He feels close to them both. Their flaws: Salome’s night terrors and her neediness, which she always tries to hide. There’s something almost pathetic about her, something that makes him feel power over her, which then turns into guilt because Boy isn’t used to this emotion and doesn’t know how to handle it.
‘Do you still love me?’ Salome asked him a few days ago. They were sitting outside an East Side taco stand watching cars and cyclists go by. Salome was smoking a cigarette slowly, savoring it.
‘Of course.’ Boy stuffed t
he end of an avocado taco into his mouth. ‘Why wouldn’t I? That’s such an annoying question anyway. Love is such a weighted word.’
‘Well, it means something, you know, to many people.’
‘I know it does.’
‘Without love there isn’t hope,’ Salome said, exhaling a small cloud of blue smoke.
‘And without hope there isn’t delusion.’
She laughed at this.
‘What?’ Boy said. ‘It’s true, love creates hope and hope creates delusion.’
‘Sometimes delusion isn’t a bad thing for people like us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A Scorpio artist and a Pisces writer – these types of people thrive off delusion. Otherwise, they’d just give up.’ She took one more troubled writer-sized drag of her cigarette and pressed it into the ashtray.
‘Yeah,’ Boy said, thinking of the countless pieces he’s painted, painted over, or given away. Giving up seems like the way to go sometimes.
‘So, in that sense, delusion is good.’
₪₪₪
The problem with Maeve is her cruelty, which is always accompanied by a smile. When she first sees Boy’s art she tells him it is shit, albeit better shit than she has seen around Austin, but shit nonetheless. She constantly comments on other women, their sizes, their personalities – she has this way of being stunningly callous, masking it with a quick wink or bob of her head to make it seem casual and light-hearted. It’s amazing how quickly she changed after Boy gets to know her.
There is also something frightening about the way she looks at him when they have sex. It is the same look he now gives Salome, the look of someone who holds power over another, and in more ways than one, Boy deserves the hand which he has been dealt.
Maeve is cheating on him, he was sure of it, or at least she did the time Friend saw her, yet Boy too is cheating on her. Their relationship is defined by lust, by circumstance and impulse.
₪₪₪
Unannounced, Maeve shows up one morning in the little red car that she has borrowed from her friend (God knows which friend). Boy doesn’t hear her pull up, and it is thirty minutes later when he goes to take the trash out that he finds her reading quietly on his front porch. She’s wearing a low-cut blouse and a blue-jean skirt that’s rimmed with red bandana frill on its edges.
Boy versus Self: (A Psychological Thriller) Page 16