gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  She told me she didn’t mind, didn’t miss it. “A dancer’s life is a short one,” she said. But I could see her toes tapping to any rhythm, to the ticking of the stove lighting up, the clicking of a zipper going around and around in the dryer, the beeping of the machines connected to her body before the pain got too bad to keep a beat. Mom’s rhythm disappeared slowly, like the rest of her, the way her breasts did, one after the other, like the way the Cheshire cat disappears on Alice, until all that was left was Mom’s smile hanging over us, her voice cheering us on to have good and full lives. Rah. Rah. Rah.

  LOVE THE SINNER

  Fast Eddie’s Tire Salvage is five driveways down from Aunt Bev’s shoppe. The driveways in between belong to Rosary Cleaners, the Donut Hole, and the last two to the same empty lot that is always threatening to be something no one wants to look at and especially does not want to work at, like a big-box store.

  At the shoppe and at Fast Eddie’s, it’s about being vulnerable. Or having people think you are. Eddie trades all the beer we can drink for all the tits he can see. Aunt Bev trades all the future she can see for whatever part of themselves folks will bare to her—money, body, soul. And yet Aunt Bev is the one who is the bad guy, the criminal. The shoppe gets hate mail, gets Bible verses nailed to its door courtesy of Thumpers so devout they make Dad look like an aging Dickhead. Hypocrites who can’t see that everyone wants a revelation.

  Sometimes there is graffiti too, quick and ugly on the glass and bricks of the shoppe, ASK JESUS, the spray paint suggests, or ABOMINATION, complete with a sinful number of exclamation marks. But none of these paint and judgment wielders ever look twice at Fast Eddie’s, where the real sins are being committed. The letters and graffiti are also never geared toward the actually illegal work that Aunt Bev does, only the kind she is licensed to do.

  When Aunt Bev is giving an “extended reading,” as she calls it, she keeps her eyes open and upward, on Saint Mary Magdalene embroidered on a cloth she has tacked to her bedroom ceiling. At first I thought Aunt Bev had hung Mary Magdalene up there to soften the light in her bedroom, but as usual there was something more at work.

  “I say a prayer to the Magdalene for the men’s wives,” Aunt Bev says, “that they will find a way to tell their husbands’ futures again, to tell them they have a future, and it is there, where it all began, within arms and between legs they have grown old alongside. I ask that the men never feel the need to come back. Then I pray they will release any burden of guilt by leaving me a huge tip as they walk out the door.” And she drops an envelope full of cash into the safe.

  CUMMITTEE MEETING

  There is a pretty notable difference between coming and cumming. Every porn book is clear on this matter.

  There are special ways regular-seeming words are spelled in porn books and some regular words that never appear between their pages at all. In porn, no one has a penis or vagina, for example, none of the usual equipment. There are only cocks and slits, words people whisper or scream at each other in real life, not the ones they use at the doctor’s office, unless, of course, that doctor’s office is found inside of a porn book, and many are. No one ever has intercourse. They fuck, but mainly they hammer and pound and pile-drive.

  It’s more like working on a construction site, I guess.

  And everyone, every single person in these books, is ready to get it on, even when they say they don’t want to. You get used to it after a while, that world, its code. Like anything. Like with friendships. Each one has their own code and you have to figure out when they need you to pry, get right up in there and tear them apart, and when no means no.

  * * *

  Winthrop and I are in the middle of Debbie’s Dairy. Things on the farm are just starting to get milked when Rain comes in and flops down on her bed, her face in the pillow. We put down the book and wait until she finally lifts her head.

  She looks at us a long time before saying, “Will you two be my date for prom?”

  Prom is months away. I thought the collective we did not care about prom, but if one of us cares, prom it is. We say yes, of course. But we don’t go back to the porn. We wait. Obviously. We know the code. We are waiting for information, so we know how to proceed: if being present is enough, if asking questions will help, or if this is a real emergency and ice cream is required.

  Rain talks. “Win, you have to wear a bow tie and we’ll all wear flowers and dance our asses off. Sex is optional.” She adds, “BYOP.”

  “Parachutes?” I say. “Bring Your Own Parachutes?”

  “Pharmaceuticals,” Winthrop says. He is confident, even hopeful, but Rain shakes her head no.

  “Push-up bra?” This is also wrong, but it doesn’t matter because she’s starting to cheer up.

  “Puppy?”

  “Peanut butter?”

  “Peanut butter puppy?”

  “Protection!” Winthrop shouts this one. We pause because it feels like a winner. Rain just stares, so he clarifies, “Condoms. Dental dams. Rubber gloves. Hazmat suits.”

  Rain shakes her head again but says, “Always a good idea, though. You be in charge of that, Win.”

  “I’ve got it. Aunt Bev. Bring Your Own Psychic,” I say.

  “Oh yes,” says Winthrop, he moans it, “bring Beverly, Helen, please bring her. I just want one dance with her. She needs to see”—and here he runs his hands up and down along his body in a caressing motion that would make Farmer Johnson in Debbie’s Dairy grab his rooster—“all of this at work.”

  He is ignored.

  “Is it Be Your Own Prom? Like, be the prom you wish to see in the world?”

  Rain sighs. “You are both in serious denial. Bring Your Own Porn. Duh.” She settles back against the wall. Nelson Mandela peeks over her shoulder from the poster Winthrop gave her when she came out. The words to his speech about not fearing being great and brilliant and the rest outlined with glitter marker.

  “Now read to me, freaks,” she says. “Read to me about how supposedly normative people do it.”

  RADIO FREE SKY

  If there is only Aunt Bev’s old red pickup in the shoppe’s parking lot when Winthrop and Rain and I are walking home from the tire yard, we stop and peek in the window to see if she’s still awake and if she is alone. The Epsworthys are the only friends I’ve ever brought to the shoppe, but even on the first night we knocked on the door and waited, me tense in the stomach, unable to decide if it would be trick or treat, Aunt Bev opened the door like she’d been expecting all three of us.

  On late evenings, she meets us in one of her sets of flowing pajamas that make her look like she’s part liquid. She wears these slippers with bright red cloth peonies sewn to the tops of them. The petals are so big I don’t know how she can walk.

  “You tune the radio,” she says, “I’ll make the tea.” Winthrop follows her into the kitchen to help, trying to pretend he doesn’t notice the way her pajamas do more than suggest that she is wearing nothing underneath them.

  Rain and I sit on the floor by the radio and hold our breath until we hear the Sky voices. I keep my tuning arm steady until I find that sweet spot on the dial where they can be heard, if you really try, between snarling static on either side. And we really try. All the truth we can bear to hear is hidden there and the voices from Sky know we’re listening.

  “Rosary peach fuzz, we’ve got you when you cross that bridge,” they say during every show at least once, like they know we each have a backpack ready for that moment we’re going to run. “Your future fam is here, from every religion and every race, and in all the colors of that rainbow flag you aren’t allowed to fly.”

  We sit there waiting for that, to be noticed, as quiet as we ever are, holding cups of kava-kava tea warm in our hands. Aunt Bev listens with us, sitting on the floor. At least, she’s listening to something with us. She makes her tea a lot stronger than ours and after a while she’s so quiet and so still, cross-legged and spine straight, you have to wonder what frequency, exactly, she’s on.


  It can be hard to be quiet when what we’re hearing is so shocking or funny, even for less-than-pristine Rosary ears. Kids call in to the show because they want to know if they should get birth control even though their partner or parent or pastor believes birth control is murder (yes), if they should still use condoms during anal (yes), if they should tell their mom that their stepdad keeps walking in on them in the shower (yes). Porn stars are often guests on the show and share that they could never talk to their parents about birth control, or anything at all, that they don’t use condoms during anal, even though they should, that their stepdads walked in on them in the shower and they never told anyone. And there are porn stars who come on the show, sometimes literally, who have never had any of these problems. But just love sex. Love their bodies.

  It can be hard to be quiet.

  The hosts judge everyone, but they do it with a tough love, emphasis on the love. Even when the kids calling in say stupid things like, “I can’t stop thinking about having sex with my stepbrother.” Even when the porn stars say outrageous things like, “Do you want me to tell you how nipple piercings make my clit water?” The hosts say wise things, kind things.

  “Do not have this baby, the prisons are already full.”

  “You know it’s time to get some help. That’s why you called.”

  “What happened to you? Let’s figure out what happened to you.”

  And we sit there in the darkness of Rosary, listening as hard as we can to this forbidden noise, and we try to figure out what happened to us.

  OR DARE

  Whether you pick truth or a dare depends on who is in the room. If you want to be made to kiss one of those people drinking with you, or rub your tits on someone’s face, or tweak or suck a nipple until it’s hard, then definitely go dare. Even the Dickheads stay above the belt during drinking games, so you’re safe enough unless you don’t want to do something along the lines of what I’ve just described with any given person in the room. Then get ready for the truth.

  That said, if you have never actually been kissed yet but would be embarrassed to have to admit it, well, choose your poison. Dickheads don’t lie to each other. It’s not that we respect the truth. We respect the game.

  * * *

  Mo. Sissy. They have their arms around each other, Mo’s head is on Sis’s shoulder, pillowed by Sissy’s curls. Then there’s me. Alone.

  Bird and Cy are hanging upside down from the tire racks. Winthrop and Rain are late.

  “Truth or dare, Hell?” Sissy is asking.

  I drain my beer, take a deep breath. “Dare.”

  I never pick dare, and even Mo is surprised. She lifts her head and Sissy looks around the tire yard, considers her options. Her eyes land on the guys, hanging like bats in a cave, and she nods to them. “Spider-Man,” she says.

  The 2002 version of Spider-Man has been playing at the Rosary Theater since junior high, it feels like, but it’s better than The Shaggy D.A., which played for years before. As a result, we all know Spider-Man by heart. And this includes the famous hanging-upside-down kiss.

  I am on my feet fast to hide how nervous I am. At the tire rack, I consider my options. I thought maybe the guys didn’t hear, but when Sissy starts chanting, “Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Spider-Man!” everyone picks it up.

  I hope Cy will forgive me, I hope I will forgive myself, but at the last minute, just a foot above my head, I see his belly button. At first I think it is just super-hairy, especially compared to the rest of him, but then I see that it’s actually full of lint, dark, dirty lint is swirled around inside his belly button like a curly tail.

  I kiss Bird.

  And the truth of this dare is that it is better than it looks in the movies. Much better.

  I’m so fucking tired of the truth.

  TEA LEAF READING: A PRIMER FOR THE UNWILLING

  1. The Icebreaker—The first thing you will see in the bottom of the teacup, the most obvious thing, is what is already known. This is to reassure everyone, to make clear who it is you and the tea leaves are discussing. Not that the tea leaves are actually talking. Not that I have any idea who is talking. With Aunt Bev, I skip this step. She already believes. I don’t need to tell her that I see a giant hand or a pack of cards or some other clue about her life in order to earn credibility.

  But supposing Aunt Bev was a stranger to me, the following conversation would ensue:

  Me: I’m seeing a pair of cowboy boots, they feel fancy. Does this mean anything to you?

  Aunt Bev: Oh yes, I adore cowboy boots! I have twenty pairs.

  Note: Aunt Bev does not have twenty pairs of cowboy boots but people wishing to have their fortune told usually fall into one of two categories: believers or cynics. Believers are so excited to find themselves seen, they overstate. A cynic, on the other hand, will grumble that everyone has at least one pair of cowboy boots, so what is the big deal?

  * * *

  2. The Faithtester—The next thing you see is a bit more challenging to translate. It takes teamwork. If the customer isn’t willing, isn’t a believer (see number one), it will go nowhere. They will blow it off. And the same goes for you. You’ll blow it off. Until something happens, a day or a week or a month later, and it all makes sense. And then you’ll do your best to blow it off anyway, chalking up your sight to coincidence, the poor man’s miracle.

  Using the example of Aunt Bev again:

  Me, after a long pause to consider phrasing and build suspense: There is an extremely busy … chicken. It is in a panic. If you see someone who is very afraid, or if you see … chickens, you should stay away. Does this mean anything to you?

  Aunt Bev: Oh yes, it means something to me! It means I would like a refund. This is bullshit.

  Note: Aunt Bev would never say this, but step two still feels like a risk. The Faithtester tests everyone’s faith, most especially yours.

  * * *

  3. The Dealbreaker—There is not always a Dealbreaker. If there is, you won’t wish to share it. This is the vision you don’t want to tell because it grabs onto the vague doom chasing up your spine, puts a collar on it, and brings it home for keeps. And even you will have trouble avoiding jumping to some kind of conclusion, thereby sounding even less sane than you already do.

  For example, supposing Aunt Bev didn’t ask for a refund after the chicken business but hung in there with me, I would say something like this:

  Ahem. The extremely busy and panicked … chicken, that you should stay away from, it is laying broken eggs. There are broken eggs everywhere and they seem, well, dangerous. Are you trying to conceive?

  To which Aunt Bev would respond with hysterical laughter at the thought of being pregnant at her age, leading to sobbing as she realizes Great-Grandma Helen’s gift must have skipped a generation.

  PIAZZA DE RESISTANCE

  Outside of Aunt Bev’s shoppe, I’m nobody’s accountant. In my unprofessional opinion, though, Rosary must be giving some kind of tax break to nursing homes, because there are a ton of them here. I’m also not a politician, but it seems like all of the old white people in the nursing homes and their old white people votes are part of what keeps Rosary such a stubborn old-fashioned red. And I’m no political analyst or conspiracy theorist or anything, but it seems like these two things might be connected. I’m going to leave this one for the Reconciliation Council to pray on, though. When it comes to old white people, I’ve got my hands full.

  * * *

  Rosary High requires both juniors and seniors to spend part of their spring semester doing volunteer work at a Rosary nursing home. This injustice will teach us fellowship, respect, and civic-mindedness, or so says our history teacher, Mr. Sturm. Meanwhile, the lesson actually learned by performing forced labor at a nursing home is that getting old is a terrible idea.

  It turns out there are worse places to end up than Rosary High. It turns out that old people, even really old people, don’t suck or anything, it is just that no one cares about them anymore. So, here w
e are with our “elders,” as Aunt Bev calls them, elders who are so forsaken that teenagers like me are blackmailed with the threat of not graduating high school just to hang out with them.

  * * *

  After weeks of boring preparation, we are assigned the Piazza Convalescent Home. It is called the Piazza, I guess, as a constant reminder to the old people rotting within that if they had made better retirement plans, they could be in Italy right now. So that’s nice.

  There is a lot to get used to at the Piazza. First is the smell, like a layer of bleach over a layer of empty bottom drawer. And underneath that, piss. The smell doesn’t so much hit you as it seeps into you, until you feel maybe a little bit high on your way home, a little bit low. And then all you want is to shower and curl up in a ball.

  You can get used to the smell, though.

  It is harder to get used to how the bunch of us from Rosary High, me and Rain and Winthrop and a handful of Thumpers, are the only ones moving around through the Piazza’s main rooms. The dining room, which is decorated with pictures of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and old cars. The living room, decorated with a big television, and facing it, a mess of old people in wheelchairs with quilts draped over them.

  The old people are pointed at the television and the television is pointed at them.

  And that’s it.

  The folks who work at the Piazza, they’re called “aides,” roll the old people out to the television in the morning, unless they can roll themselves there, and most of them cannot. The aides roll them into the dining room to eat their meals, then back into the living room that should be called the opposite-of-living room, the dying room, the slow-death room. Then the aides roll them back into their bedrooms at night. Judging by the scrawl I can make out on the shower chart outside the huge wheelchair-accessible bathroom, they are also rolled into the shower once a week or so.