by Ka Newborrn
Later on that evening, Russell and Jana were watching a movie in the projection room and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Calvin walked in with his hands clasped behind his back and calmly inquired about seeing a doctor for procaine shots.
“Procaine?” Jana repeated in disbelief. “Cal, procaine shots have never been approved by the FDA. Why do you want them anyway?”
“They make your joints more flexible,” Calvin explained. “They stimulate the production of new cells in the body and fortify the old ones. If I become more flexible, I’ll reap more benefits from practicing yoga.”
“Even if you found a doctor who would agree to it, and I don't think you would, it's not a good idea for someone your age to be messing around with that crap,” Jana remarked. “It really isn’t.”
“Not on your salary, anyway,” Russell added, munching. He squeezed Jana’s hand. They laughed. Defeated, Calvin turned around to escape to the privacy of his bedroom.
“Aww, come on, Cal! Don’t you want to finish watching Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? It’s one of your favorites,” Russell called out, “and Miss Tinsley’s about to become a pine tree.”
Atonal glass scratched across musty violin strings and bored greedily into Calvin’s left ear. “I believe I’ll be off to bed now.”
“Aren’t you going to give your mother a kiss?” Jana pouted.
“You’ll have to wash your face first,” Calvin challenged.
“Wash my face? Why?”
“Your face is caked with talc-based powder and I’m not breathing that poison into my lungs!” He turned on his heels and ran up the stairs.
Russell put his arm around Jana and kissed her forehead exaggeratedly. “I’ll take that kiss,” he teased. “I’ll take the chance.”
They set aside the bowl of popcorn and embraced, only to jerk apart upon hearing the sound of a heavy crash and Calvin shouting. Seconds later, Calvin reappeared in the doorway with his shirt off and fire blazing in his eyes. He held a tube of toothpaste.
“What’s that noise? What is it? What’s happened?” Jana and Russell were alarmed as they rose to their feet and stared at their son, waiting for him to explain himself. Calvin shook the tube of toothpaste in Jana’s direction. He stuttered with anger.
“I just asked you to do me one simple favor, Mom,” he shouted. “I just asked for the toothpaste!” he bellowed.
“I got what you told me to!” Jana was shocked and defensive. “You told me to get Tom’s of Maine.”
“Spearmint fluoride-free!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Spearmint fluoride-free! Spearmint fluoride-free! I asked you to get the spearmint fluoride-free with propolis and myrrh and you got me Cinnamon fluoride! Cinnamon fluoride! Cinnamon fluoride!”
“What’s all that noise?” Aunt Alice called out from her bedroom. Who in the hell is carrying on like that? Russell? Russell? Why won’t you answer me?” A second passed before the bell began to ring with persistence. “Russell? I know you hear me calling! Russell!”
Visibly agitated, Russell stormed off in the direction of Aunt Alice’s bedroom. Jana’s attempts to assuage her sobbing son were futile.
“...because it’s gonna give me bone cancer. No, it isn’t safe. No, that’s a myth about it making your teeth strong, and it’s cinnamon. Because spearmint grows wild around here. Mom, when have you ever seen cinnamon growing in Philadelphia? Then how do you know if it’s indigenous to the northeast?”
Jana was worn out by the exchange. She turned off the projector and tearfully went to bed. Russell went into the kitchen to fix Aunt Alice a plate of cheddar cheese, graham crackers and a glass of warm milk before following his wife upstairs. Aunt Alice snacked voraciously, occasionally looking up from her plate to wipe crumbs away from her nightgown, grab the remote control and adjust the volume of her television set. Calvin disappeared into the shelter of his bedroom tower and mercilessly scrubbed his teeth with table salt until his gums were raw and bloody.
He had been asleep in bed for nearly three hours when he was abruptly awakened by the lucid realization that the voices were carnivorous locusts fighting to gain control of his bloodstream. Hopping out of bed, he positioned his body into the plough posture and placed his nose squarely onto his chest. Using his chest as an x-ray, he found that he could see them quite clearly.
They swam through the winding canals of his veins and sipped from blood-filled highballs. They built a bonfire over his pancreas and drank blood from earthenware steins. They dusted their noses with talcum powder and toasted to future prosperity with overpoured Riedel balloons. They waved sheets of aluminum along his mercury-filled molars and revealed a purple path to Titan's orange surface.
Calvin ran to the toilet, vomited, and decided to stay awake until he knew what to do. He curled up on the couch in the projection room with a bag of ice chips and an old army blanket and flipped through channels, crunching.
An infomercial about the Rejuvenique facelift mask caught his attention. Calvin watched, enrapt, as a panel of women in tailored suits donned expressionless phantom masks lined with metal probes and discussed how wonderful the electric currents made them feel. In that instant, he decided that the voices and the mercurial path would not stand a chance against the power of the metal probes. He wandered back downstairs, found Jana’s open purse on top of the kitchen island, and rooted through the contents until he found her Visa card. He held the telephone line quietly for half an hour until a representative became available to take his order.
✽✽✽
He hid the mask from Jana and Russell and used it within the confines of his locked bathroom. Stunned by the power of the electric currents, the locusts grew bewildered and began to doze for lengthy periods. However hopeful, Calvin was plagued by lightheadedness and headaches.
One afternoon, while having a lunch of short grain brown rice, lotus root and daikon sprouts at Essene, he found a pamphlet article on the dangers of mercury dental fillings. He was excited to share the article with his parents. Reading further, however, divulged that removing the fillings could potentially be more harmful than keeping them intact. Conflicted, he continued to read. Contact information for the National Dental Amalgam Mercurial Syndrome Support Group was listed on the last page. He tore the page out of the pamphlet and folded it into his pocket.
The following week, he attended his first support meeting and took solace in the knowledge that he wasn’t alone. To celebrate, he returned to Essene and purchased a velvety bouquet of purple-tinted integrifolia. He put the bouquet into an empty coffee can and displayed it on his dresser near the collection of antique, handmade Hungarian puppets.
At dinner, Jana and Russell noticed the shift in his personality and inquired about his whereabouts that afternoon. Calvin smiled and told them about his lightheadedness and headaches, that he had Dental Amalgam Mercurial Syndrome, and that the support meeting had really helped.
“I don’t think your headaches have anything to do with your fillings.” Jana passed a platter of crabcakes to Russell. “You’re not getting enough protein, and the dosage of your medication needs to be adjusted.”
“Your mother’s right.” Russell grasped an artichoke with tongs and held it out towards Calvin’s plate. “Aunt Alice?”
“No, Lordy.” Aunt Alice rolled her eyes. “You know I don’t eat artichokes.”
“We discussed moving up your routine physical to make sure everything’s okay.” Russell continued. “I’ll make an appointment for early next week.”
“In my day, we were so grateful to have dental care we would’ve been happy with cement fillings,” Aunt Alice remarked, eyeing the crabcakes.
“Have a crabcake, Cal.” Jana reasoned. “It’s shellfish, not meat. It wouldn’t hurt you to eat a little shellfish every once in a while, would it?”
“I don’t need it.” Calvin was stubborn. “I had a sun chlorella, spirulina and blue green algae shake this morning.”
“Spira who?” Aunt Alice asked.
“Spir
ulina,” Calvin continued. “Algae have just as much protein as flesh foods.” He paused. “They counteract the symptoms of mercurial poisoning, too.”
Jana sighed with false brightness and emptied the contents of her wine glass in one gulp.
“Are there any more greens in the Frigidaire?” Aunt Alice wanted to know.
“You ate the last of them with your lunch.” Jana reminded her.
“What other vegetable did you make?” Aunt Alice stared aghast at the platter of artichokes.
“I didn’t.” Jana sighed with a note of exasperation. She uncorked the bottle of Chardonnay and deftly refilled her glass.
“That’s a damn shame,” Aunt Alice glared. “You know I don’t eat artichokes. Black folks don’t eat artichokes. You can’t cook worth a damn, and you always make these damned foreign foods!”
“Aunt Alice,” Russell warned.
“Well it’s true!” Aunt Alice whined. “And you’re a fool for not telling her. No wonder that baby’s eating spiro, spuru, what you call it, Calvin?”
“Spirulina,” Calvin replied soberly.
“That’s right. Spirubina,” Aunt Alice growled. No one bothered to correct her.
Jana folded her napkin and stood up to leave the table. Russell glared at Aunt Alice. "Was that really necessary?”
Aunt Alice spat out a piece of crab shell. “That old grown gal knows I don’t mean any harm,” she mumbled to her plate.
Russell put his hand out and touched his wife’s arm. “Sit down,” he reasoned. "She didn't mean it.”
“No, I’m done,” Jana choked, walking away from the table. Russell started after her but sank back into his chair. Aunt Alice’s eyes widened as they traveled from Russell to Calvin to the half-eaten crabcake on Jana’s plate. “Is she gonna eat that?” she inquired, dabbing her lips with her napkin. Russell plopped it onto her plate and shook his head.
After dinner, Calvin stood in the privacy of his bathroom and regarded himself in the mirror. Huge, hungry eyes stood out from his chiseled features, shaded by a mahogany sprouting of locs. He removed his shirt. Lanugo grew on his arms, stomach and the concave area that shielded his heart.
Kneeling down on the tile, he wrapped his arms around himself in a comforting embrace, riding feelings of dizziness as the floor shifted gently beneath him. He rested his head on his knees. His x-ray vision had extended beyond his chest, and the locust colonization was proceeding in full force.
He pulled his shirt back on and yanked back the blankets of his bed in search of the Rejuvenique mask. Finding it, he sat at the foot of his bed and coated its probes with conductor gel. A whippoorwill called at the ledge of the bay window and tapped politely on the pane. A spotted owl hooted softly in acknowledgment.
Calvin opened the window and sat on the ledge. Ester waited gloriously below, holding a star in each of her outstretched palms. The starfire reflected from her eyes and cast prisms onto the surface of the glass. Calvin watched as she blew onto the surface of her palms. The stars rose to the surface of the window and left metallic trails in the evening sky.
He lunged forward to touch them. The spotted owl was startled by his abruptness and hastily retreated to an oak tree. Calvin stared wistfully as the first star danced onward and disappeared into the black horizon. The spotted owl caught the second one in its beak.
“Let it down,” Ester challenged playfully.
“What?” Calvin widened his eyes and looked around nervously.
“Let it down!” she repeated with a toss of her head and a playful laugh.
Calvin turned around and let his head fall back with the weight of his hair. Ester buried her nose into the roots and breathed deeply of their fragrant earthiness. With certainty of footing, she climbed up the length until she was safely inside the ledge. Calvin lifted her into his arms and guided her safely to the floor.
Trembling knuckles brushed against the contour of her neck. A whirlwind of violet seized his nostrils. It reverberated through his hollow stomach, causing him to levitate towards the sky. Silken fingers endowed with a deceptively subtle strength grasped his shoulders and kept him grounded.
He gasped with joy and fear. Leaping to his feet, he stumbled to the dresser and removed the bouquet of purple integrifolia from the coffee can, urging it towards her in offering. Ester smiled, kissed his cheek in gratitude and disappeared into the bathroom with the bouquet. Calvin looked on in confusion.
She emerged ten seconds later with a spool of dental floss and a small pair of scissors. Sprawling onto the floor, she divided the bouquet in half and twisted the stems together with dental floss, forming two separate crowns. Calvin’s eyes trailed downward from the moonstone hummingbird at her throat, the translucent sheath of gauze draping her shoulders and torso, the fringe of leather and coral at her waist, the faded denim draping her legs and the glass platforms encasing her feet. Smiling with the weight of her accomplishment, she stood up, placed one of the crowns onto her head, and adorned Calvin with the other.
“I hereby crown you Prince of Purple Velvet with Dental Floss,” she mused as Calvin admired her handiwork in the mirror. The harpsichord chimed in gently as she reached into her back pocket and handed Calvin an envelope.
He opened it and pulled out two concert tickets for George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars. “Did you drive here?” he asked.
Ester kissed him on the forehead and carefully swung her feet out of the open bay window. “Onward, soldier,” she teased. “Adventure awaits.”
He looked past the open window to the sight of a floating, crushed purple velvet tapestry with the words, MIND FOLLOWING ASSES emblazoned in copperplate letters. Yards of dental floss streamed behind it in the wind.
Calvin panicked and instinctively felt for his Rejuvenique mask. Ester slid gracefully onto the tapestry. She held out her arms. Calvin closed his eyes and blindly dove in.
They watched the house grow smaller and smaller as the tapestry glided in the sky. The spotted owl hooted as they floated over the horizon and out of sight, a trail of silver behind them.
They floated to the corner of 10th and Arch Street and hovered in front of the Trocadero Theater. Ester stepped carefully onto the pavement, brushing silver tendrils from her blouse and jeans. Ignoring the stares of passersby, she ran ahead inside of the venue. Calvin handed the bouncer the tickets and waited to have his hand stamped.
The venue was packed. Bodies flocked en masse to the shelter of the bar where servers clad in sleeveless black shirts and chain link belts slid glasses filled with rainbow-colored liquor to anyone who would catch them.
The stage was lit with red, blue and yellow. A blonde girl holding a Rolling Rock bottle and a lit cigarette screamed in Ester’s direction, enveloped her in a series of hugs and urged her into her coterie on the dance floor. Calvin watched as the women laughed and danced, their asses following the beat of their freed minds.
Calvin approached the closest bar and watched the bartender pour Kamikazes into shot glasses. He slapped a twenty onto the bar and downed two of them within seconds.
A warm, sultry, unconquerable feeling overcame him. He looped the hem of the t-shirt into its neckline and fingered the rim of his boxers with his index fingers. Women paused to stare at the gentle contours of his abdominal muscles.
Calvin floated out to the dance floor, cast his arms out to his sides, and spun. He spun because he was talented, sexy, and a roguish drinker to boot. He spun because he was clean and unpolluted by meat, dairy, and other unmentionable contaminants. He spun because he wanted to be back on the tapestry gliding into the darkness with Ester. He spun because he was going to take care of her, regardless of the fact that he had not bothered to call the studio when he had ditched work in order to attend the Dental Amalgam Mercurial Syndrome Support Group, and that his job was potentially in jeopardy. He spun because it was fun to spin, he had the energy and grace of a frolicking gazelle, and because his medication was presently hard at work in the septic tank alleviating the Schuylkill
River's paranoia.
Enlightenment had come to its full realization, and Calvin followed it back to the bar. A flaming Dr. Pepper here, a Yuengling there and Calvin had reached Nirvana. He was standing in line for a urinal when the voices returned in earnest and openly laughed at his bravado. They sent a signal to the other concertgoers to alert them of Calvin’s absurdity. Soon everyone in the theater was laughing mercilessly at him, despite valiant attempts to hold themselves together.
The laughter began as a low, barely audible buzz. Calvin batted his left ear with his hand. He pushed his way against the crowd and up the staircase to the balcony bathroom. He splashed his face with cold water and proceeded with alternate nostril breaths.
H.B. appeared in the attendant’s chair and smiled. Diamonds sparkled from the left side of his mouth.
“Back home,” he began as he handed Calvin a paper towel, “everything sparkles like diamonds. Back home, everybody grooves and the moons have no dark side. Back home, you can see in front of your eyes and behind your head at the same time. When are you coming home, baby?”
Smoke from a medley of cigarettes rose from the air and into Calvin’s face and lungs. He instinctively reached into his back pocket for the surgical mask that he sometimes wore on the subway but remembered that he had left it in the pocket of the jeans that were balled up on the floor next to his bed. He saturated a paper towel under the running faucet and placed it over his nose and mouth.
“Back home,” H.B. continued, “the air is so pure it’s like walking around in a hyperbaric chamber. Happy lungs! When you coming home, baby?”
The voices grew tails and dispersed themselves evenly into the seminal smoke. They competed aggressively for entrance into Calvin’s nasal cavity, intent on being the first to fertilize his brain.
Crawling on his hands and knees, Calvin held the wet paper towel over his nose and mouth and began to descend the staircase, much to the curiosity and bewilderment of the people surrounding him. Comments and giggles were heightened as if broadcast over a loudspeaker. His cried out fearfully as he searched among the motorcycle boots, Birkenstocks and Doc Martens for a glimpse of Ester’s glass platform slippers.