Dora: A Headcase

by Lidia Yuknavitch

RAIN FALLS ON MY HEAD. I WALK DOWNTOWN ADMIRING Seattle’s gritty little grime holes – the alleys between galleries. The backs of brick buildings where dumpsters live. Parking garages of high-rise businesses. I record sound. If you listen, you can hear metal on concrete. Or water dripping. Or wind in the urban.

  My cell vibrates the front pocket of my skinny jeans. It’s the posse.

  The posse is not “my peers.” We are more like a microorganism. As in Darwin. I’ve read Darwin. I stole his book from the library. I’d party with the Darwin.

  The posse hooks up. Tonight the textcode is 6N DST pine-wear. You don’t know what that means but I do. I’m guessing drunk hide-and-seek or bra slingshot. One hundred points if you hit a salesperson in the ass. I get vibrated a few times in quick succession. Little Teena has Percocet. Ave Maria has Sweet Tooth. Haven’t heard yet from Obsidian. Obsidian. Obsidianobsidian. Just the word dizzies me. My Obsidian.

  I text the posse VbigD. Viagra. Marlene’s. I walk more. My head wet.

  Vibrate. It’s Obsidian. Obsidian has speedies. Like I give a shit what she’s holding. My cell gets hot in my hand. My ears beat blood.

  In the world of the posse, it doesn’t matter if you are male or female. Or anything in between. We share drugs. We share bodies. We make art attacks.

  Oh and there is no member of the posse that hasn’t slept with every other member of the posse.

  Well.

  Except for me.

  I am … I have …

  Look. Can we discuss this for just a second? Virgin could mean lots of things. I’ve never had full blown bang. Sue me. I don’t know. I just … let’s just say when it comes to the high nasty I go numb. Deaf. Mute. Or I cough. OK I pass out.

  It aint from lack of trying though.

  Take wang for instance.

  What’s the big deal with wang sex anyway? I’ve been around lots of wangs. I’ve seen my father’s. Ew. I’ve sucked Mr. K’s. I’ve seen Little Teena’s – which has a thick silver stud in it – I’ve seen Marlene’s – both fully erect and tucked in tight for ladies’ nights. That’s a lot of dong for a virgin. But getting that dang thing inside me? Makes me go cold. Dead.

  OK. It’s not just a wang issue.

  Fuck it. I don’t want to talk about it.

  Virgin also means mother of jesus, doesn’t it.

  Also a female insect that produces eggs without being fertilized. I googled it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  So yeah, I’m a motherfucking virgin. Which pisses me the fuck off. Being angry makes me feel better. I don’t know. I just feel better when I’m pissed.

  Vibrate. The posse’s on the move.

  I walk the city. Black backpack black ear buds black hoodie black skinny jeans black leather wristbands FIRE ENGINE RED SHINY DOCs. I stomp up the hill to the beat of X. Rain barely lands on my head. This pair of jeans always turns me on if I walk uphill just right. Sing it Exene. Creamy. I stick my hand in my Dora purse. I’m on “record” picking up street sounds. I’m a head and a body and technology. I’m my own walking history.

  But not just that. Gimme a V to the I to the R to the G to the I to the N. I hate my twat. I hate my voice. I hate feeling anything about myself. I sprint my ass up to Nordstrom’s.

  In the underwear department of Nordfucks there they all are – not standing together, but spread out in various lingerie nooks and crannies. Little Teena, a whole lot of redheaded well-coifed gay boy at 282 pounds. Ave Maria, stringy long blond hair, wrists as thin as tent poles – our bulimic poster child. Got her name because she hits a high note when she cums that makes you believe in saints. And then there is Obsidian. Obsidian with the blackest longest hair in ever falling in lines over her right eye. My desire. I vibrate, but it isn’t my cellphone.

  Oh, and yours truly. Dora the Explorer. Pathetic virgin with a hot hard one for a girl with the name of a black glass stone.

  Obsidian’s Native American. On the rez in Coeur d’Alene where she grew up her drunk stepdad beat the crap out of her mom and then came into her bedroom and raped her. Now she wears a knife-sharp shard of obsidian around her neck – tied with black leather. I think she could kill someone with that shard if she had to. Sometimes I wonder if she did. She doesn’t say much but her eyes have war in them. It makes me wish I had a horse. A hatchet. War paint.

  That’s a lie. That’s my fantasy of us together – riding across the plains of some country in my head.

  So I don’t have to think about what a fucking idiotic dys-functionoid tard twat I am. V is for virgin. My eyes sting and my throat squeezes and I pinch myself at the thin skin of my neck to snap out of it. I make my way deeper into the Nord. Suck it up, you pussy.

  In the panty department, the scrawny saleswoman with the shellacked head of blond bats her stupid eyelashes and darts her eyes from one to the other of us. She’s so nervous we’re going to steal shit she’s bunching up the panties she’s supposed to be folding for the display. It just makes me feel better to hate her. “Careful of those crotches,” I murmur as I brush past her.

  Turns out it’s drunk hide-and-seek. Little Teena has hidden three fifths of vodka in the store and we have to find them and consume them before some lame-ass mall cop does. If you find one, you drink, then hide it again. Trust me. After the bottles are open it gets easier and easier to find them. Plus you can sprinkle some on clothes to leave a little trail. My mother always said vodka is odorless. But that’s bullshit. Explains why she often smells like pickled Estée Lauder. Good clean healthy fun. Kids these days, huh? What? Would you rather we were checking out your internet porn? Or hacking into your email? And by the way, just who are you calling troubled teen, Mr. and Mrs. Pharm zombies?

  Obsidian and I find the first bottle stuffed down the Dockers of a neutered male mannequin over in THE MENSWEAR department. We leave his fly open and crawl underneath a big round jeans donut rack and drink. It smells like denim martinis. But inside the jeans world I can also smell her skin. Something between rain and trees. I stare at the side of her face where her hair hangs down. I stare at her so hard my eye twitches. I try to breath her.

  When we’ve slugged a few shots, Obsidian says “Where you wanna put the bottle next?”

  Since she can’t see me through her hair, I say, “Inside you,” blushsmiling. My skin itches. I cough. I see stars. She laughs.

  I wish. Though we’ve sucked face plenty, and I’ve gone down on her other mouth like a goddamn gleeful leech, we haven’t … I just …

  She turns to me so she’s facing me and I can’t stand looking at her anymore. She closes her eyes and says, “Kiss me, Dora.”

  I try not to head butt her with the force of my face moving toward hers. I kiss her. I kiss her and kiss her. I try not to bite her lip. She tastes like vodkahoney.

  Then it’s her lunging at me inside the jeans donut, knocking me down to the Nord floor, it’s her lying on top of me and kissing me and I hope I die right that second. Her hair down on my face her skin rain and trees her hips pushing against mine her dagger of black stone hanging down and touching the hollow of my neck. Let her neckrock stab me and kill me. Please let me die like this. I shiver and pant and almost cry.

  That’s when it happens. Like it always always fucking does. I go numb. My hips, my legs, my crotch. I see starbomblets, then I see gray blotches, then white.

  Next it’s Obsidian saying “Dora? Dora? Come back baby. It’s OK Come on back.” Petting my cheek and lifting me up until she’s cradling me like a goddamned infant. Fuck. I should just go ahead and suck my thumb.

  She rocks me for a while, then pulls back, then we just sit there, neither of us knowing what to say. About me. About my … thing. We slug more vodka. We eat speedies.

  After she just sucks in a big sigh of air and turns to me like everything is cool and goes, “So. Where’d we say we’d put it next?” I stuff my shame down my throat. Then farther down. I cough. I laugh. I get pissed. I come backup.

  “How about in COSMETICS?” I suggest. “We
can chase a couple of those moronic perfume wenches who try to spritz you with scent and christen them with holy water from the rear.”

  “Excellent plan,” she goes, and we’re off.

  I wish I could punch myself in the face. I shove the me that sucks so far down it’s in my pants.

  That’s about when it happens. Coming down the escalator from one Nord floor to the next we see Little Teena has commandeered the grand piano. He’s busy busting out Bach to all the bewildered shoppers. Little Teena just doesn’t look very Nord-stromy sitting there, with his red hair slicked up in a pompadour, his girth squeezing out between his black leather jacket and the lip of his jeans, gumball machine rings decorating every single one of his fingers. But it’s when he goes from Bach to Great Balls of Fire that we attract the attention of the Nordfuck’s militia.

  “A bottle!” Little Teena yells, holding out one of his bejeweled hands, and I chuck it to him. It’s really kinda glorious the way he plays with one hand and reaches Statue of Liberty-like to catch the vodka bottle in the air.

  Still playing with one hand, and only pausing to chug vodka, Little Teena gives the place a taste of pure teen homojoy.

  Ave Maria begins dancing and hitting random high notes for no particular reason. Her stringy blond hair flying. I start recording big time. Obsidian yells out “I shop, therefore I am!” every few seconds. It’s like I’ve been saved. From a self. I’m so happypissedhigh I feel like I’ve been shot out of a rocket into the sky.

  I do the only sensible thing. I step out of my Docs. I remove every bit of my clothes (keeping my purse on of course) and douse myself in vodka. Obsidian immediately begins to lick my arms. Somehow I don’t pass out. Some old bag shopper drops her Nords bag and gasps, saying “Mother of God!” A tight-assed shoe guy walks briskly over but stops at the perimeter, pacing. Then there is a swarm of tan pantsed guys with little black walkie talkies – some kind of Nordstrom tan pants team of thugs – and everyone scatters. Everyone, of course, except me, the lone naked girl. My skin stinging. I suck my bicep. Vodkaskin. Reborn. Angry. Neat.

  One of the tan pants grabs a coat off of a nearby rack and puts it around my shoulders. Ha! It’s a fucking trenchcoat. I go, “You’re gonna regret that next paycheck, ese,” but he’s already driving me by the shoulders out of the area.

  Down and down some kind of service corridor.

  Down Dante-like to the bowels of Nordfucks.

  To a little white shoplifters cubicle with a closed-circuit TV mounted on the wall. I’m not the pussy me here. I’m the me who takes action and isn’t sorry. I’m Dora. “Wow,” I say, “that is some cheap ass surveillance system you got there. What is that, boys, like 1973?”

  They talk at me. But I know the routine. It’s no big thing. Besides, I haven’t stolen anything, I just made a teen scene. I had the audacity to remove my clothes inside a shopper’s clothing empire. But I’m underage, so there you go. I told you, I’m not a criminal. I’m back in the saddle.

  They ask me over and over what my name is and I say “Dora.” I hold up my purse and wave the little cartoon girl at them and point. They manhandle the Zoom H4n – which is recording four sound layers at a time. Ha. They check my backpack for I.D. but what kind of moron would carry I.D. these days? What they do find, however, is the Viagra. The Viagra of Hakizamana Ojo. From Rwanda. Only they can’t pronounce it at first. Tards.

  “Who is Haykeezeeman-uh-OJ?” Priceless. I correct their pronunciation. They repeat it back to me. I sneak a peek at the Zoom H4n – yep, there it is on the table, still recording. That’s gonna make a nice riff: Who is Hakizamana Ojo? Who is Hakizamana Ojo?

  Finally, I shout, “Why, he’s my Mother!” They look at me skeptically and speak some gibberish into their walkie talkies. “I tell you he’s my mother!” I continue to bellow. The party mix recording just kicked up a notch.

  Then they pull out my black Pixies hoodie. They eyeball it like it’s a dead animal. Whatever. Chumps. Of course they pull out Marlene’s book – Fisiologia dell’Amore by Mantegazza – and look at it – pretty much how chimps might. They’d best not mess with that. Next they pull out a spoon. They hold it out at me like that means something. I go, “Yeah. It’s called a spoon.” Then one of them brings it to his nose and sniffs it. Ha. Trust me when I say it’s not what he’s expecting. I’ll tell you later. Then the one guy reaches down and pulls out something tiny. Something I totally forgot was in there. A business card. A psychiatrist’s. Dr. Sig’s.

  “Who is this,” they ask and ask. “Have you any relation to this person?”

  I look at them and blink as slowly as possible. One of the tan pants has grease on his tan pants thigh. Probably from lunch. Where do they find these guys? And why do they always have long side burns? Curious. The pudgier one of the tan pants holds Dr. Sig’s card in the air between us. It suddenly seems super obvious what to say.

  I smile and stand up, letting the trench coat fall to the floor. I put on my hoodie. Though I remain pantsless.

  “That, boys, is my father,” I say dreamily, “I think you should call him.”

  6.

  NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE ’RENTS WERE PISSED. ABOUT THE whole Nordfuck’s episode.

  Father came home in the batmobile and went straight for a scotch – probably to wash the taste of Mrs. K. out of his mouth. Mother put down her spoons for a second and flapped her arms and squawked like a chicken – how I’d made another scene again in public – how I rode home in a cop car – how she can never shop at Nordtard’s again. Father said to her, and I quote, “Calm down. Would you calm down? Give me a minute to decompress from my day before you start claiming the sky is falling.” I stood in the hallway. Wished I had popcorn. I love their little dramas. “Ida, go to your room,” he said, his voice full of nothing. Ida go to your room? Whoa. Heavy.

  To be honest with you I didn’t think being “grounded” was around anymore. It’s so … retro. Usually I just climb out the condo window onto the fire escape. But tonight I sorta feel … I don’t know, home-y.

  At home in my room my walls kick ass. Lou Reed. Exene. Siouxsie Sioux. Kurt Cobain. David Bowie. Nico. Did you know Nico was fluent in four languages? That’s not what you hear about her. Typical. Marlene told me that. I lie down on my bed. I look at my ceiling. Hoping for a crack that means something.

  In my bedroom I write letters on the walls. Hidden underneath the wall posters. With a purple sharpie. Today I’m writing under Nico.

  What I write are Dear Francis Bacon letters. Francis Bacon the painter. You know, the guy who painted the screaming melting pope. Possibly the coolest painter in ever. Why? It’s the faces. He makes faces look like they can’t hold still. That’s so right on. Marlene gave me a giant Francis Bacon book a year ago and I just about peed. That Francis Bacon understood how faces are. For instance. When you get up close to someone to suck face? Their faces look like Francis Bacon paintings. No lie. I so get that. A face that just might smear off or explode. Underneath Nico I write: “Dear Francis Bacon: My face is an I hole.”

  Basically I’m making a book out of the walls of my bedroom. Something for the spawners to decipher after I’m gone. Some day the spawners will walk across the purple shag carpet and start the process of taking their daughter’s posters down for a remodel – my father wants a home office – my mother a fucking crafts room – that’s when they’ll find my words. I study my handiwork.

  Then I pull out the new book Marlene gave me – Fisiologia dell’Amore. By Mantegazza. Hope the mall chimps didn’t drool on it or anything. I open it.

  Yeah. So it’s in Italian. But that’s not the cool part. The cool part is, just underneath every line, and I mean every single line, there is another line. In pencil. For every line of the book. Translated by Marlene. Who, like Nico, knows four languages. Marlene’s lines under all of Mantegazza’s lines. Maybe she even rewrote some of it.

  The second cool as shit thing is the Mantegazza quote that opens the book. It goes:To the daughters of Eve, that the
y may teach men that love

  is not lechery, nor the simony of voluptuousness, but a joy

  that dwells in the highest and holiest regions of the terrestrial

  paradise,

  that they may make it the highest prize of virtue,

  the most glorious conquest of genius, the first force of

  human progress.

  I close the book and hold it on top of my chest. Daughters of Eve. Fuck yeah. That’s me. I don’t think of Eve as a twat that got tricked by a snake. I think Eve was a badass. I think she showed Adam what to do with his dick, and without her, he’d be sticking it in knotholes and goat butts and suckerfish. Without Eve? Adam’s just a guy standing around with a dick in his hands. Daughters of Eve. Wicked band name.

  And love: The most glorious conquest of genius. The first force of human progress. Fucking fuck yeah. I roll over and look at the ceiling. There is a crack in the plaster in the shape of a vag. Seriously. Under the sign of Vag, I feel positively dreamy with Marlene’s big book. Me and Obsidian. Obsidian Obsidian Obsidian. Daughters of Eve. I sit up and get the purple sharpie and write the Mantegazza quote on my bedroom wall. Under Nico. Vibrate. I grab my cell out of my back pocket where it buzzes my butt. “Obsidian?” Nope. It’s Marlene.

  She goes, “Lamskotelet! How do you find the book?”

  “Dreamy. I’m a Daughter of Eve!” She does the deep laugh. Even through a cellphone it’s something. “I just started it. It’s awesome.” We talk for a while and I agree to come over the next day to talk about the book. I lift Nico up again and write “Lamskotelet” in purple sharpie.

  Yep, me jailed in the daughter box writing up a storm. But that’s not all I’m doing in the daughter box. I’m listening for family drama. Household electricity. My dad looks a little like Daniel Day-Lewis so it’s easy to picture him in some crappy historical drama acting all serious and righteous and crap. My mom looks a little like Catherine Deneuve. If Catherine Deneuve was glassy-eyed from antidepressants and evening cocktails. I listen for hours. Just the buzz of condo appliances.