Dead Stars

by Bruce Wagner

  CLEAN

  [Jacquie]

  This Strange & Mournful Day

  The

  new mother, Ginger, was in bed sitting up, & the man, father, new dad, what have you—Daniel—he was sitting at bedside actually smoking a cigarette which Jacquie thought was impressive. Albie was already kissing Ginger, & Daniel was side-eyed checking out Jacquie, as if waiting—daring—for someone—anyone—to tell him to put out the cigarette. When Albie got out of the line of vision, Jacquie took one look & saw the mom holding the baby in her arms and said to herself But he said it was a stillborn, which only seconds later was confirmed by closer sight, energy & mood all at once, the woman was holding the baby, the baby didn’t look malformed at all, the baby looked beautiful, but there it was, terminally malformed of life.

  What Ginger had asked was if Albie would take their portrait: her, Daniel, & the baby, or just her and the baby should Daniel not consent, which was his prerogative, tho she hoped he would. But Albie knew that his nerves couldn’t withstand it, he immediately thought of Jacquie, she was famous (in his mind, and it was the truth too, because he’d never met anyone who actually had a page in Wikipedia), if he could get her to do this, which in his heart he fairly knew he could, if Jacquie would do this for him & his cousin, that would be a blessing, good and right. When he told Ginger about his idea, & who he was working with, this famous photog and all—and of course this was before he’d even asked Jacquie if she’d come—when he told Ginger, she smiled so quietly, so beautifully, O! heartbreaking! saying “This is why God brought her into your life.”

  On the way to his car, Jacquie said they should go to her house first, she had a Hasselblad & a Leica there, & film too, but Albie always traveled with his Rolleiflex in the trunk, he was a hobbyist, the impulse purchase of the Rolleiflex being one he regretted because it was so much money. He kept it wrapped in a towel wedged next to the spare, all they needed was to buy film. He asked if she was familiar with it & when she said yes, “very,” he said, Of course you are, sorry, don’t mind me, I’m an idiot, & she said no no, there were lots of cameras she didn’t know but a Rollei was her 1st, a gift from the father of her 1stborn (Jerry Jr.), the (squirrely, tho) not so nutty Professor.

  The nurses were leaving the new mom and dad alone, so the door remained shut & they didn’t need to hassle intrusions and interruptions. Natural light. Albie was going to leave but Ginger told him to stay, & he hung back. O—natural light—the staggering sad beauty of it, the gruesome wondrous marvel & miracle, the outlandishness, the Babylandishness, this mother had no tears in her at this beatitudinous moment, just stared not even with longing at that tiny expired thing, no longing at this moment because she had her, the little girl was in her arms, so what was there to long for?—she was like a superhero whose special power was a serene unhurried unrushed unbroken smile that could bring the bedrapéd dead back to life. Jacquie stared a while, not morbidly but taking in the scene before she began, the artist’s prerogative. She wanted to take a respectful moment, plus she was curious, she’d never seen a dead baby, well who had, & the mom had yes a beatific smile as if in a tender sacramental state of show&tell, & knowing that a fellow mother might be curious, well who wouldn’t be, & generously wishing to help sate it, such communal impulse in such a case was unnaturally natural. Jacquie smiled as she looked at the thing, its eyes were kind of open, she became aware of tears rising from a deep deep well but forced them down, an actual labor, reverse of child labor, she remembered once the Professor telling her (while he was schooling her in all things) that the sound of Bach’s partitas were the sound of human tears . . . afterall the moment wasn’t about her, it was about the pietà of mother & child, the mother and child reunion & the mother wasn’t crying, so how dare Jacquie?

  She got very close to it, the closer she got, the more the mom seemed to open up, her smile grew larger & her eyes watery, her big breasts exposed. The closer she got to the dead baby the more intimate was the two women’s fleeting bond. The tiny girl’s vulva was enormous, almost the size of a grown-up’s, Jerilynn’s had looked the same, swollen from the mother’s hormones. For a few seconds, it looked roaringly healthy, thick rubber bumpers bracketing a deep decubitus ulcer, it looked like the thing that may have killed her.

  The agitated husband didn’t know what to do next little darling of mine smoke another cigarette or throw himself from the window. The wife beckoned him in that calm understated tender way and he couldn’t refuse her, he said he’d get in the picture if he could keep smoking his cigarette. She said “smoke your cigarette sweetheart” & he did, squinting, smoke hung in the natural light, sirens in the distance, sound of Albie muffling his fag tears somewhere behind her—did the door open & close? Did Albie leave? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the little family, & Daniel the husband, who was handsome as hell, quashed the cigarette on the floor & climbed deeper into the bed, he wasn’t about to look at their babygirl, only a motion away, but he’d surrendered to the camera, & his wife’s wishes.

  She went through one roll of film, & then it was done.

  EXPLICIT

  [Reeyonna]

  I Am A Camera

  ReeRee

  was panicking. Kind of. She was trying (failing) to turn the rage toward her mother into something useful, an engine that could power her into a trajectory, any kind of momentum, momentum of a life.

  She needed money—she & Rikki did—her brother gave her $400 but that was 10 days ago & he was so fucked up he was scaring her. Kind of.

  She was a prisoner held captive like Rapunzel in Tangled. Rikki had his crappy Craig’slist motorcycle but was only with her 3 or 4 times a week, his fostermom was hospitalized for depression & he needed to be there for Jim his dad. Which was sweet, pure Rikki. It’s what is going to make him a great dad. But still, tho————what about me. What about fucking me what about me and your BABY. You have time to do your little auditions but what about me with my throw-up. She seemed to be having her morning sickness now, all these months later. They took his bike for chores&fun when he was there but when he wasn’t all she could do was ride the bus which she hated because all the sad, scary people looked like dull mean ghosts patiently biding their time to lay claim to her. One day she would get on the bus & never get off & nobody would even notice, sucked into the whorl of their grimy nowhere worlds.

  Rikki said she should just come stay with him at his house, he talked to Dawn & Jim (well, to Jim) & they were totally cool, of course they were, they were kind, it was so much better to have kind fosters than a thieving bloodmother or faraway idiot uncaring bloodfather, they gently lobbied Rikki to lobby ReeRee to come home, their home, her home, her 2nd home, a clean safe stressless environment because an expectant mom should not be wandering rootless, an expectant mom should be going to birth classes & cultivating friendships with other expectant moms through the affiliation of new parents and parents-to-be, an expectant mom needs to be going to the doctor regularly, an expectant mom needs to be close to her doctor’s hospital when the baby came, or before if something went wrong, an expectant mom & the husband or partner & the whole extended family needed to have a relationship with a doctor. Rikki said that Jim wanted him to tell her that he knew she was having problems with her mom but to put that aside and come stay with them. If the proximity to her mom was the thing that was stopping her. They would take her to the doctor visits, they would take her to buy things for the baby (a stroller, a crib, there were so many things), she was having a baby, their adopted son’s (soon) baby, she was giving them the divine gift of a grandson or granddaughter, they weren’t pushy, she knew they weren’t, the mom was nice, a little distant, but the dad especially wasn’t pushy, he was always kind and gentle, a good man, Please Ree, said Rikki, please just won’t you just come? Cause this shit is getting crazy she knew a portion of his ardor, of exerting his/their influence, was a measure of how far he was outside his comfort zone, he’d been freaked out about the baby thing from the beginning & now t
he moving away had freaked him out further plus Reeyonna knew that for some reason he felt guilty, he still felt the baby & all were somewhere in there behind his foster mom’s depression, & she knew he thought a baby would cheer her up when/if she ever got home, cheer his dad up too (which it would), which was sweet, Rikki couldn’t help himself, and ReeRee even felt a little bad for being so stubborn about just staying where she was but her new mother’s instincts bade her be selfish, bade her be protective, bade her keep as far away from that thieving cunt as she possibly could, but what about me, Rikki, what about me & our fucking baby. I mean who’s having this baby, Dawn & Jim?

  Reeyonna said no.

  She was adamant. That would be the worst kind of defeat.

  That would put her inside a mile of her mother’s home—the bitch would soon find a way to wander over and establish a fucking détente—No way—defeat defeat defeat. But she loved Rikki’s parents & felt bad for the mom who was going through a really hard time. I’m going through a hard time too goddammit. She even called Jim to thank him & tell him why she couldn’t & got off the phone sooner than she planned when he made the mistake of saying he had talked to Jacquie who he assured was quite concerned re her welfare. O! The thieving cunt was trying to jump on the caring bandwagon—Hi y’all! It’s just me! Grandma!—which, by the way was impossible because all she ever thought about was herself. Too fucking little too fucking late. Rikki’s mom & dad care more about me than you ever did, you psycho, I am going to disendaughter myself from you, & become their daughter. And they will agree to my terms, they will have to if they want to see their grandchild, they will agree to my terms which are that NO ONE WILL HAVE CONTACT WITH YOU EVER. BECAUSE YOU ARE A FUCKING PSYCHOTHIEF WHO STOLE YOUR DAUGHTER AND YOUR COULD-HAVE-BEEN GRANDCHILD’S LIVES.

  She was going to make a lot of money as a forensic detective then sue the bitch. (All of her friends basically either wanted to become pornstars or CSI forenz detectives. They called her a basic bitch for liking The Closer but Kyra Sedgwick had such amazing hair.) By then she’d be tight with the district attorney, & it would be easier for her, she would try to get her mom a jail sentence, not house arrest but JAIL because at least in jail she could get raped by a dyke, & if she ever got sick, the medical care was so shitty she read on the internet that sometimes they just let the prisoners die writhing in pain in their cells. She wished Kim Kardashian’s dad was still alive, she recently found out by watching an E! biography that he was a big lawyer & friend of that football player who murdered his wife, ReeRee googled while she was watching & it said the killer even stayed at Robert Kardashian’s house when he was out on bail or whatever. (She would totally try to make it so that her mom could not get bail.) She wondered if Kim, Kourtney & Khloé were even born yet, she hoped not, because it would have been sick to have someone in your house like that who everyone thought killed his wife (which he did, & at first got off for but was later rearrested) but she guessed it was fine because after all their dad was the O.G., the original Kardashian, the O.K., & she concluded he would be perfect to handle the case against that selfish bitch, her soon-to-no-longer-be mom. ReeRee would sue & win, maybe even be awarded the house, which would certainly be a twist. Mr. Kardashian would petition the court & have her mom ordered to vacate & take all her shit her fucking useless cameras for her useless career with her, & ReeRee would get a restraining order against her for life just to rub it in you cannot come within 100 miles of me & my child maybe children by then she & Rikki and her friends & even his fosters (by then his adopted true parents) would commence to paint & scrub & garden-redo, maybe even winning an Extreme Home Makeover removing every vestigial trace of the paroled, restraining-ordered Thief of Dreams . . . her grandmotherless baby (on Ree’s side, not on Rikki’s) might even wind up going to John Crowe Ransom, she’d fix it so if Bitch Thief ever even came close to the schoolgrounds to pathetically glimpse sight of her non-grandchild (all filial relations to Reeyonna by then, with the help of Ree’s D.A. friend & others, having been totally legally severed . . . Rikki once told her about the whole process, she didn’t want to be ruled an emancipated minor, “emancipated minor” was some bullshit for cranky young lets trying to get away from their own thieving parents, no, she wanted the real thing, her blood connection to Bitch Thief to be totally stricken from the record)—& if she did show up an old, raped, makeup-less just-released-from-prison hag to glimpse her tweenage grandchild, well then she would risk rearrest & detainment & imprisonment. For it was now Reeyonna’s turn to steal from her mother, steal her time, her years, her life, her breath, her world.

  . . .

  Sometimes the baby kicked like a motherfucker then it would suddenly STOP, not just for a little but for it seemed like a whole day and she’d freak & call Rikki who would have to stop what he was doing which was probably smoking an executive branch & wacking off to Korean porn & come over. They’d kawasaki to the free family clinic in Venice. She always loved the beach, wanted to live at the beach, right on Speedway, even though they’d probably end up in Hollywood because the beach was so expensive. But she knew you could probably still find cool places if you used the service Ashton Kutcher talked about on Jimmy Kimmel.

  She/they needed money. Initially Rikki’s fosters gave them $2,500 but that was like 45 days ago & Rikki was worried to ask for more because his fostermom maybe had to go to some kind of rehab that cost like $39,000 & insurance didn’t pay. He was hoping/waiting/expecting for Jim to present another check soon, or at least to ask if any monies were needed by the young couple. Reeyonna didn’t like the idea of asking them again anyway, though she did consider getting married, just for a moment, thinking that would be a new & genuine/acceptable reason for them to hand over more cash.

  She was unsettled & a little depressed, taking Vicodin now just to feel better. Tom-Tom said as a nurse that Vicodin wouldn’t hurt the baby, a doc at the clinic said that too, cuz she asked him. Then he asked if she was an addict, & when she laughed & said no, the look on his face was like she’d said yes, he said it would be best not to ingest of course not just street drugs but any Rx drugs that had not been prescribed, he said there were safer drugs for pain that he might prescribe if she had the demonstrable need, but generally, Vicodin was relatively safe re the fetus, & if she was going to do that, if she was going to ingest, which he of course did not recommend, then Vicodin was better than something she might get from the street. She laughed no no no & he smiled, but not broadly.

  They/she now were living on a hill called Mt Olympus in an awesome house Tom-Tom said belonged to the old woman Betty White who won that contest to host SNL a few years ago, which ReeRee & her friends actually saw, very stoned, never until then having heard of her. Tom-Tom said they (even tho Rikki didn’t even stay over so much) couldn’t stay for free anymore & it pissed her off that her brother didn’t lift a finger to say a word. Tom-Tom said they needed to pay $750 a month for their room there, which was half as much as any apts she was already looking at for Rikki & her online, but she was tired, & with her unabated morning throw-up which left her sour and weakened for the rest of each day relieved just to be able to stay in one place. But she was proud that at the peak of her discomfort & feelings of being wronged she not once considered crawling back to her old neighborhood to throw in the towel & stay at Rikki’s, a stone’s throw from Hooker Queen.

  The roof had a beautiful glimmering view of the city, she swishered it all from the top of the house, there was a safe way up there that Tom-Tom hadn’t even thought about yet because she was still so busy getting overall settled, but it was so beautiful & peaceful at night for Ree to have her solitude, & to smoke and look out at the city which held her destiny. And yet, stonerviewed, everything seemed through a darkly glass wrong-way-up, meaning, the trillions of winky little stars could not compete with the carpetwavy staccato citybrightness thus throwing in their own celestial towels & changing partners with the frippery earth, that had long abandoned its natural state of loamy black pitch & countryn
ight mysteries, this earth was too showy & shiny to stay put, out of vanity, this earth obliged by flipping over to take the crown of (now) starspackled sky.

  The house deadended on Vulcan Drive. ReeRee thought it was named after StarTrek but Tom-Tom said all the streets in Mt Olympus were named for the Gods & that she should google Vulcan. She did, it said Vulcan was a god having to do with fire but it was so boring.

  . . .

  So she called Sears in Valencia and asked for the portrait studio & when a man answered she asked if Jacquie was there, & when he said who may I ask is calling she hung up.

  She took a cab straight to her old house. It cost so much money because the cab had to take her back but she didn’t want to involve Rikki, didn’t want her mother to have that on him. She knew what she was going to take, she needed something of value to sell on craigslist, & if she at the same time could deliver a blow to Hooker Bitch Thief, so much the better.

  She knew where they were, some were hidden, some always kept (somewhat) in the open, because Hooker liked to see them, hold them, for comfort, she loved them more than she ever loved her children, especially her daughter, who she saw fit to fuck over by taking kidporn & robbing without qualm.

  Reeyonna felt nothing, why should she, eye for an eye, they were reparations, & their spoils could not even come close to making whole ReeRee’s loss. Mutherfuck that old stinkyass whore. She found a soccer duffel bag from her closet & hooliganized Jacquie’s makeup into it, writing ThiefWHORE in lipstick on the mirror like in a horror movie. Then she went to the special place they were hidden, a total of about 6 cameras & long lenses & battery packs, & she took them all.