by Lisa Teasley
Cy gets up to Emerald’s corner, as they call it, and it’s no corner, but inches really where the sewing machine lies, Cy follows the curves there with his fingers, thinking of the coldness of bathrooms, Cy follows the innuendoes of the machine thinking of lips in his ears, wet, words stitching themselves into him like falsies of love. They are only tricks, Cy says to himself, eyeing the buckle, tricks like fathers, he says pulling it off the chair, quick as flies, quick as a whipping, he says, hitting it, zipping down like this, quick as falling, quick, look at it, quick as licking, and jerking, there, just Think of me now, Emery, quick as fucking, and it goes now, and it’s all by and by, the way it coils into him, the pain, the way the disease takes him, the misery, the way it can’t be explained to anyone unless you know it firsthand. The way you think anything coming out of you, anything coming from you, anything in the world you have in you, is just no good at all. The way you think the sum of your parts is still lesser, your whole being all the more worthless than that.
Cy holds onto the chair, from the floor, he holds onto the foldup in front of the sewing machine, with the belt next to him. Take your pills, Grandma, he says to himself, and he laughs upon entering the song. He doesn’t need his fingers to hear it, of course, there it is quite plainly in his head, the beautiful song, he’s only got half a chance in hell when he’s playing, and nevermind his mother, he says, Nevermind you, because you fucked it up. I could never be him, and I hated him, you know that, and it just couldn’t matter how much you tried blowing me up. Out of proportion you blew me, Mother, you tortured poor Emery, that way, you did, the way she goes on and on trying to please, Incessant pleasure, she once said to me plainly, as if she could make this all go away, as if she could step inside my head, squeeze the pain right out of it, as if she could step into my heart with her coconut smell, step in with her warm, cool lips, coax it like that right out of me, like a song. No, you made it impossible you did, for her, Mother, and it was always too late for me, as it was. I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t, what can I do now here?, nothing means anything to me anymore, Emery, not even pretending I can help make it all right for you, as you go on dizzily, as you keep right on thinking there’s a reason for all of this, misery, isn’t that what it is? right here in this place, no matter where on this planet we are? I ask you plainly how can I go on, in your life, helping just fuck it up? I’ll never love anyone as much as you, I’ll never love anyone, really, at all. I’m sick of this life, I could never share with anyone, no man anywhere with the patience to get any other, much less me, sick and fucked up here like a dog. I can’t take it, I know, I’m sick and fucked up here like a dog. I could kill him. He did it to me, that Japanese dog, Emery, he did it to us, but it’s not too late for you, like it is for me, because you can’t know what it feels like, you just can’t know, my sweet Emery Bored, what it’s like to never want to get up.
He had had it all planned this Friday. Taking the chair here, beneath the sprinkler pipe, the rope like he has it, tying it like this, now it’s done. All to do is just jump off the chair, nothing to it, Cy, is there? Just do it, thinking of nothing, father smile, and fly on …
Fall is in a hurry this end of August, Emerald’s thinking as they make their way down St. Marks.
“Haven’t I told you how I felt there, Princess? When I first saw you, wasn’t I there with my feelings,” he snaps, “just like that?” Tim gestures to the street as if presenting a garden to her, Emerald looks at it, then at his shoes, tracing with her eyes the surfacing of the bumps.
“I can’t go with you, anywhere, Tim, much less to ‘Bama, as you call it, how could I leave the bar for some place like that?”
“Because I want you to meet my Mama, Darling, what’s your problem anyway with this bar? Let Cy get off his ass, for once, there you go giving him everything in the world he wants. You said it yourself, there Missy, and what kind of guy stands and takes the kind of shit, as I have there, with two sickies like you? How could you question me?—the kind of guy who indulges two sick cases there, like that?” Tim sticks his hands in his back pockets, squints his eyes at the cloud that’s hiding the rays seconds before twilight.
“Please, Tim, give me a break already, really. If I was going to up and leave the bar, it wouldn’t be to meet your Mama, or mine. It would be to take a trip, get the hell out of this dump of a city—oh how I’m getting to just hate it—here I am slaving over this bar, you see, here I’m just chained to the bar, really, with no help whatsoever from Mars.” Emerald stops at a table of books near Astor, Tim picks up a comic book, scowls, throws it back down.
“Let’s go now, Emerald, I thought you were in a hurry to get back home before you got to the bar. And what about that Mars, baby girl, you never know, hell, you might find your help up there—just climb on board this space ship,” he says bending his knees, moving his arms in a chugging motion, “Get on here, girl, I was missing you last night, did you hear me? Missing you so much.”
“I hate street scenes, Tim, get away from me now.”
“Oh come on, there, Missy. Don’t you remember—what’s it now? Eight months?—don’t you remember, me seeing you there? And then the ad, the next week, and you saw it! Didn’t it mean something there like that? Destiny, baby girl, all I have to say is, it was destiny, my words: ‘Wanting Girlfriend with the Pink Hair.’” Tim folds his arms, flashing a bright smile at the back of Emerald’s head, as she screws the key inside the door.
“Did you think of it, Tim, if I’d changed my hair color? What would we have done?” she turns back, smiles blankly at him with her eyes glazing over.
“Who cares, Emerald baby? Your hair’s still pink, but what if it weren’t? You think that makes any difference to me, baby girl, if it weren’t?” He climbs the steps, watching her, the olive arms swinging, the nice behind moving side to side.
“Can’t hear that damn piano of your brother’s, you notice that? He’s going to apologize this time, when we go in. And I’ll forgive him. He’s your brother—albeit fucked up—but he certainly deserves a second chance. Like I did, really, with you baby girl. Who could have asked for a better beginning, a more romantic beginning, than us, huh Princess? Who could ask for better? Like I said, I’ll even come by the bar, there, and help you tonight.”
Too late, she opens the doors, the senses flying from her, like her breath, she falls backwards, Tim missing her in the volume from his mouth, Emerald seeing her reflection, there hanging, no life. It is her life hanging there, Cy, as she beats the floor, the scarves protecting, beats the body with her hands, the skin turning with her heat, it is her life. Someone tries pulling it from her, physically, limb from limb, she could feel herself tearing, she could feel herself bursting as she tries with her head. She could tear the floor from beneath them, she could fall too, from the earth, she could tear the roof and the floor from under them, so it would be over, and she’d find Cy there underneath somewhere, she’d find him underneath the scars, lying there spread eagle, it would be his face there scrunched up by the pillow, and it would be his smell laughing, always, it would be Cy and her together, together just like that.
Northern California
Nepenthe
I watch the jet trails, hornets’ nests under the overpasses, snow on the Grapevine, first time I’ve ever seen. Nepenthe drives wild, though her temperament never more than twenty m.p.h. I turn to look at her, sometimes snap her picture in between capturing clouds hanging low in the mountains, in the crevices that look like snow-covered vaginas (pussies). We enter a cloud now, a soothing white mist, we are riding it, then just as fast, we are in the clear. Nepenthe steps on the gas, cranks up the music, drives with one hand on the wheel, one hand moving across our space like the boys who used to dance with their own reflection at the Odyssey. She is trying to make me laugh. She keeps it up. I am laughing.
We are in love with the same man. That’s how we know each other. But she is so young. She turned nineteen yesterday when we were in LA, now we’re going to B
erkeley to come to some agreement. No we’re not. This isn’t a planned vacation.
Nepenthe is named for the restaurant—it means “no sorrow” in Greek—her parents conceived her in the women’s bathroom. That’s what she says anyway, and she’s so proud of the story. Her father is black, her mother white, her icy cream coloring is warm. Her hair is dyed black, lots of hair, very big hair, and she wears a tiny gold ring in her nose. There is a tattoo of an ankh on the plush of her arm, just below her shoulder. There is her body, lean but rounded with muscle.
We’re coming up on the close dullish pink, blue, and other colorless houses—we must be minutes from Oakland—Nepenthe gets in the lane under the sign, Walnut Creek.
“Hey, and suss me out,” Nepenthe sings with Marley. She hasn’t been saying much of anything, and as we’re off the highway it’s dark and I’m wondering what I’m doing here. I think of Clive coming out of the water, looking half his size, how he dragged me down in the sand, still wet, the grains sticking to us; when we moved there was that small, sharp pain. I look at Nepenthe as she turns the corner—I hate her beauty. She looks at me and knows it.
Her sister’s apartment is so bare I feel suffocated the instant we walk in. Nepenthe is carrying the cooler we brought, so I hold the door open for her. I can tell she is sorry she’s with me. It hurts to feel those mutual moments of regret.
“Let me see if I can get this heater to work,” she says, rubbing her hands together. I wander off, look into the bedroom of what must be her sister’s roommate. The mattress is on the floor, there is a chemical engineering book at the foot of the bed, pictures taped tackily to the closet door, almost everyone in the pictures is Korean. I hear the heat pull in, Nepenthe dragging something from one end of the room to the other. I go to see if I can help her.
“What year is your sister?” I ask her, helping her pull the dresser over a yard. I have no idea why she is rearranging her sister’s room like this.
“Fourth. This is her last semester, or so she says.” Unsatisfied, Nepenthe is looking at the dresser. She rubs her hands together again.
“What sign is she?”
Nepenthe looks up at the wall near the ceiling.
“Sagittarius.” She looks at me with a smile that says, This is irrelevant.
There is a bulletin board over the bed, pictures of her sister, many of Nepenthe and a few of their mother. Her sister is white—their mother’s second husband is her father—and she looks nothing whatsoever like Nepenthe. Her name is unexciting, but spelled differently—Sherrel. Their mother has a very tight smile, holding onto the dog as if he might run away.
“Are you hungry, or what?” she asks.
“Sure, I could eat.”
“Well, we could go into town, get a bite there, or we could see what they’ve got in their kitchen.”
“Let’s go into town.” Fresh air would do us good, though I dread getting back in the car.
“Okay. Just let me pee,” she says, unzipping her jeans, walking to the bathroom. I hear it come out, a strong, steady stream. She flushes, I figure I should go too. I enter the bathroom, she is standing in front of the mirror and she smiles at me. We look at each other’s reflection, I stand behind her. What did he see in me? What doesn’t he now see in her? She is too young.
Walking down Telegraph Avenue, Nepenthe stops at a head shop.
“We’d better get some candles and incense if we’re going to stand the smell there tonight,” she says.
I nod, but take this personally. I know I’m being ridiculous. There have been so many letters between us. Compassion for one another.
Nepenthe picks up some exotic oil—I imagine Clive spreading it all over her luscious body and feel as if I might throw up. Out of jealousy for him?
I pull out my wallet, she pushes it away. I don’t know where she gets her money from, she doesn’t work, her mother is not rich. The cashier admires the charms hanging from Nepenthe’s leather jacket, she smiles at her and I want to burn out the cashier’s eyes.
We eat at the same Mexican restaurant I’ve eaten at many times before. Beautiful tiles in the tables, I zone staring at the colors, waiting for our beers. It’s chilly outside. Nepenthe pulls out a cigarette, motions to me if I’d like one. I take one even though it’s been a year and a half.
“Those mountains looked really incredible, didn’t they? On the Grapevine, the snow, I mean. I bet you got some great pictures,” she says, so cheerfully, fake.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should take the 1 back, don’t you think?” she asks in the same merry voice, believing it now. She is different, like she has decided something and won’t let me in on it.
She blows the smoke up high and to one side, then looks to see that she hasn’t bothered anyone. The waiter brings our food, he watches her face as he puts the plates down. When she looks up to thank him, he smiles like he’s melting.
‘What would you like to do tonight? A club, a movie?” she asks.
“I don’t really care if we do anything. I mean, we could just buy some wine and play Scrabble or something. Does your sister have Scrabble?”
“I don’t know. We could look,” she says smiling. She makes me feel so goddamn inferior. It’s almost condescending, the way she talks. Her fucking smile.
I buy the wine—three bottles of it—I hope it’s good, because I plan on drinking it all. Nepenthe opens the door to the apartment, I think I see a rat run down the hall. Nepenthe turns to look at me as if I’d shocked her. She scares me. She is reading my mind, and up until now has expected everything I’ve been thinking.
She turns on the boom box in the corner, switching the stations quickly until she finds her groove. I’m already on my second glass. She is looking all over for the Scrabble. I look at her ass when she bends over and wonder if this isn’t desire.
Nepenthe kneels on the bed next to me, her face so close I can smell her breath. She is showing me a picture of her father.
“I can’t believe this is here. Sherrel and I didn’t know him really. I mean I was eleven when he left, and she must have been eight, but she wasn’t even living with us. She was living with her father.”
“He’s very handsome,” I say awkwardly.
“Yeah.”
She gets up, puts the picture away, stands in the corner, stretches, yawns, looks around the room for wings. I feel as if her energy, which seems to have sprung out of a thin weariness, is going to boil up the room. I get tense watching her, until she turns around. Her back to me, I open my mouth to say something, but she cuts me off.
“I brought some hash. Are you into it?”
“Sure,” I say.
She lights up quickly. I watch the smoke thick in the air. When I am so high, so drunk I don’t know where I am, she turns on the electric blanket, so our butts are hot. She is giggling in beautiful ringing sounds. She starts singing the same line from a song. We’re doubling back on the bed, bouncing back up, as she mimics a scratched CD. There are the two small candles with a quiet scent, flickering, the incense I can barely make out. But here she is, so close to me, intoxicating.
We wake up at one in the afternoon—maybe Nepenthe has been up for a while, she is lying with her head propped up, watching some soap. Her eyes tired, her shoulders shine. We are both naked. And I panic as if it were not me last night. How am I supposed to act? She seems bored and cool.
“You hungry?” she asks me, still looking at the TV. I’m fucked up, my head banging inside, but my body so warm in this electric blanket, next to her, I feel I’d die first before I get out of this bed.
“What did you say?”
“Are you hungry?”
“No, not really. My head is killing.” I look at the TV, wait to disappear.
“I called Clive this morning,” she says suddenly.
“You what?”
“I called Clive. I don’t know why really. I guess I wanted to wish him Happy New Year. You know.”
“What did he say?” I ask her, sit
ting up.
“Nothing really. He’s used to my confusion. Nothing really shakes him up, you know?” Nepenthe looks down at herself.
I start to hear what they’re saying on TV. Absurd words. Nepenthe looks like she might cry and I want to slap her.
“Why can’t you leave him alone? He’s never known what he wants. He’ll never know what he wants.”
She leans into me, I hold her anyway. She is incredibly soft, and she smells like the musky oil we must have put on.
Nepenthe drives into the city, we go to the Haight. So hungry I can’t stand it, we enter the nearest cafe. There are people here as shiny new as Nepenthe. She keeps looking down at the table, biting her lip. We order hot chocolates, wait for the omelets in silence. It’s raining outside, people walking by look wet and beautiful. Today there is something I like about everything.
“Maybe we can look for a bikini after this,” Nepenthe says smiling. Her nose is a little red, I wonder if the hole is irritated. I dare not ask her.
“Sure, we can go look for a bikini in this incredibly cold weather. Sounds wonderful,” I say laughing.
We buy this little barrette with Coochie dolls on it—something like “coochie,” they are Guatemalan—and Nepenthe sticks it in her purse. I’ve never seen her wear a barrette. But then I haven’t seen her very much. Maybe ten times.
“I like this bar,” she says, as we get to the corner.
“This one?”
“Yeah.”
It has the most smotheringly pretentious vibe.
Sipping on a gin fizz, she takes the excuse to come alive.
“Why are you always tripping on my age?” she asks me suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Everything you say. You looked at the waitress as if she’d card me. You’re always saying something about me being so young. I mean how the fuck old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Yeah. So what’s the big deal?”
“I’m a whole thirteen years older than you. We don’t have the same reference library.”
“Thirteen years? Who told you that?”