Dora: A Headcase

by Lidia Yuknavitch

  Pudgeball speaks some mysterious lingo into his Toys “R” Us walkie talkie. Something equally incomprehensible comes back out at him. “I know what time it is. We got an emergency kinda thing down here. We got an immediate intake. We can sort it out in the morning. Get your ass out of bed.” Gibberish white noise comes back.

  It begins to look like things are back on track.

  “All righty then we’re gonna set her up temporarily in a room here,” pudding says, licking his fingers, “but we’ll need a transfer in the morning. This is a one night deal. I don’t care who signed your paperwork, we’re full up. Got a wetback last night that tried to bite me. Man they just don’t pay me enough for this shit.”

  My.

  Breathing.

  Jackknifes.

  Wetback. This dumb racist motherfucker thinks Obsidian is Mexican. My heart fists my chest. I clench my hands into little bomblets. Little Teena feels me ramping up and shoots me an easy now look. “Yeah, well I’m sure you get all kinds,” Little Teena says. “Say, did you intake that barefoot bandit dude? I heard he ended up in these parts?”

  “Naw, we aint that lucky. We just get the real rejects. Had to restrain that wetback. Tight. She’s a looker though,” he says, rubbing his third chin and laughing, “Wouldn’t mind a tap or two, if you know what I mean … but hell. I need this job.”

  There is a bomb in my skull. An IED. This guy? This guy has got to go.

  Little Teena is shooting me just calm down looks.

  You know how sometimes your actual brain gets taken over by your … ID? Pretty sure that’s the correct terminology. The image of this fatass fuck restraining Obsidian and leaning over her with his three chins and chub sweat and donut drool snaps my brain into little black shards of ID. And you know what they say about the ID. It’s a cauldron of seething excitations striving solely to bring about the satisfaction of instinctual needs.

  Guess who I learned that from.

  So when fat boy turns to me and says, “You got a name, ugly?”

  Fuck the plan.

  I step up to his intake desk. Particle board painted white. I’ll tell you who I am, I say in my head. I’m an ID-ridden ball of chaos, motherfucker. I’m your worst nightmare. My eyes feel a little like they are going to shoot out of my head and shatter his face into a zillion pieces. I open my mouth. And then

  My.

  Throat.

  Flaps.

  BANG.

  Voice.

  “YEAH,” I go, much to the surprise of Little Teena and Ave Maria, and maybe even me. “I have a name, assfuck. My name is Dora,” I say, and then I lurch across his pathetic little desk and bite his cheek exactly like a chimp mauling its so-called human parent would.

  31.

  “GET HER OFF ME GET HER OFF!” THE HUMAN PUFFERFISH screams.

  I taste metal. Chub’s blood.

  Then I see rainbow lightning? No, it’s Crazy String – you know, that kid crap you shoot out of a can – being shot all over the place, no doubt by a one-eyed blonde girl who is piping high notes all over the room. Before I can say, “Where the fuck did you get Crazy String?” Ave Maria gets a hold of a hand-held bullhorn from tubby the tubs desk – you know, the kind that make the ear -piercing BLAP noise.

  BLAP!

  And

  BLAP!

  I swear those things could give you a heart attack.

  Lardo struggles away from my monkey attack. I froth and growl.

  “Just what the fuck is going on here?” he screams, cupping his newly gnawed on cheek, striking a defensive fat boy pose.

  Little Teena deftly dips in and snags the Taser right off of chub butt’s hip holster. Momentarily deafened from the BLAP, also bleeding from the meat of his cheek, also blinded by Crazy String wrapped all over his face and head, intake guy gets three Taser shots from Little Teena straight to the gut. Fatty slaps at the air and then falls out of his chair onto the floor, making a little “maaaaaawwwrrrrllll” sound.

  “He’s Tased, bro!” Ave Maria pipes, jumping up and down.

  Undeterred and seemingly in control, Little Teena rummages around in the desk drawers. Duct tape is in there like it was waiting for us. He chucks it at me. “Mouth, wrists, ankles,” he shouts, wielding the Taser like a Glock. Man, mutton chops just look right on him. It’s a little disturbing.

  I’m pretty much deaf from the BLAP horn too, but I know what to do. Mouth, wrists, ankles. Oh jeez. Blubbo has cankles. While I’m taping Godzilla up, Little Teena climbs a chair and fiddles with the security camera.

  “What are you doing?” I go. But then I get it. Duh. He’s taking out the SD card. Now we’ll have a film of ourselves. Brilliant.

  But this whole scene has ramped up from zero to sixty pretty fucking fast. I am sweating under my tits and on my upper lip. Fuck. Think straight. Then someone’s tugging on my arm from below. Ave Maria? Little Teena? Security?

  I turn. I look down amidst the chaos. But who is there just isn’t possible. Unless you think about all the ways in which we ditch people we don’t want to deal with. I’ll be goddamned. I mean I’ll be double, triple goddamned.

  It’s Special Olympics. Smiley from the hospital! Smiling the too smiley from ear to ear, tugging on my sleeve.

  “Smiley?” I go. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “GULL!” Smiley responds, and claps, and points to the door between us and the incarcerated juvies. Little Teena blows the tip of the Taser like it’s smoking, spins it in his hand, then drops it to the floor.

  “Um, any chance you can open that?” I ask Smiley, pointing to the door leading to the rest of the house.

  “Don’t,” Ave Maria coos, “he’s just – “

  Special Olympics coughs. “Why, I certainly can,” he says, as plain as day.

  I stare at him for a long few seconds. Ave Maria stares at him. Little Teena smiles. The only thing that makes Smiley sound different from you or me? A slightly thickened tongue.

  “You sly motherfucker,” I gush. “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Oedipus,” he goes, complete with a hand flourish and head bow.

  “No fucking shit?” I go.

  He stares at me like I’m a retard. “My name is Ted.” And then he smiles the smile of a comrade in arms. He spins and wheels over to the safety door.

  “It’s real good to meet you, Ted,” I say, and put my hand on his shoulder. “Do you mind if I ask, do you work here, or are you…”

  “An inmate?” He goes over his shoulder. He nods his head up and down, then says, “And we’ve met before. At the hospital?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I go, looking at the top of his head, “it’s just that the last time I saw you, you were kinda being chased like you’d escaped some kind of… ”

  “Nut house?”

  I stand in silence as Ave Maria and Little Teena move up behind us.

  “I guess you could call me an escape artist,” Smiley says, “particularly when I’m off my meds. That day in the hospital? Off my meds. The rest of the time they keep me pretty much anesthetized.”

  “Whud ju do?” Ave Maria asks.

  “Set fire to my foster parents’ house,” he says.

  I’m not sure but I think we are looking at him like we pity him.

  “Were they creeps?” Little Teena ventures.

  “You could say that,” Smiley says without looking at us.

  As Smiley locates the right key on a gigantic metal key chain he’s got stashed to the side of his wheel, he says, “Only one thing pisses me off though.” He punches the key into the lock.

  “What’s that?” Little Teena goes.

  “That barefoot bandit fucker? The one that broke out of all the juvie homes and stole boats and planes and shit? That little brat got all the coverage. Good looking son of a bitch too. Nobody gives a shit about us differently-abled anymore. They don’t even cover Special Olympics hardly. And that wheelchair hundred-yard dash? That fucker was so mine. We’re old news.”

  “Suck
s,” Ave Maria sings.

  “Yeah,” he says, crouching over the door knob from his wheelchair and opening the door between us and Obsidian, “Man, you’d be amazed how much bawling and blubbering it takes to convince people you are witless.” He shoots a look over at our duct taped Moby-Dick over on the floor where we left him. “We better hurry. I’ve been Tased before and he’s gonna come out of that in about two minutes.”

  “Jesus,” I say, looking at Special Olympics. I clutch my throat. My throat that recently banged out a voice. I feel a kindred itch between us. That smile. The wailing GULL sounds. A kid whose parents let him down. He’s the perfect con man for our times.

  Or just my teen Id hero.

  “C’mon,” Smiley says holding the door open by jamming his wheelchair against it, “your friend’s through here.”

  32.

  I HURL AND HURL. I’M A BARFING HEAD OUT OF THE window of a speeding Jag. What the fuck just happened?

  I blow pumpkin color monkey chunks all over the side of the car. Sorry Ave Maria’s mom. Everything smells like bile and spit and girl puke. My head feels like a hard metal pinball has gotten loose. THINK. PLAYBACK.

  The movie in my head starts with us going to Obsidian’s room to spring her. Obsidianobsidianobsidian. Black shard of glass. Biceped beauty. My ears hot. Dizzy. Smiley opening the door. When we embrace, everything I’ve ever known supernovas. Just our mouths and heads and bodies. Just heat and her black hair and her skin smelling like rain. Just my ribs spreading like wings.

  I wipe my mouth. Cold night air beats my head up outside the window of the Jag. Ave Maria is petting my neck. Obsidian has her leg crossed over mine. Like she’s trying to keep me from blowing a hole through the top of the car.

  Marlene.

  My head movie returns. We were making our exit. Smiley popping wheelies down the long hall toward the back of the building. Through some kitchen that smelled like SpaghettiOs. Then a booming authority voice behind us at the other end of the hall. The voice of all parents or cops or lawyers or gym teachers.

  “IDA,” it shouts. “STOP,” it shouts. “We have something of yours.”

  I turn around. Not cops.

  Even undercover cops don’t have suits with thread count that high.

  It’s silverslick the agent and two goons – but that’s not all. It’s Marlene with a Taser jammed up against her neck. Her wrists and mouth duct taped. Marlene in a vintage 50s hoop skirt and the hair of Zsa Zsa Gabor.

  I lean further out of the window and watch the knotty pavement zip by beneath us. I don’t even know where the fuck we are. Bum fuck Washington. My throat ouches and my head pounds. I consider jumping out of the window of a moving Jag.

  Marlene.

  Did I leave her there?

  Is this coming of age?

  The authority voice going “Give us the video and we’ll let this faggot go.”

  In my gut, fire. Napalm.

  Marlene’s eyes going run. Marlene’s eyes going get the hell out of here. Marlene in my head as a young boy running, running all the way to America.

  The authority voice going “Give us your media.”

  Me and the posse up against the silverfucks. I turn to Obsidian Ave Maria Little Teena Smiley I go run. They don’t move. I yell FUCKING RUN. They do. Out of the building.

  In the Jag Ava Maria says to me quietly, “Sugar, um, your butt is buzzing.”

  I don’t move. Snot runs down my lips. My eyes puff up. “I know. It’s my fucking mother,” I croak.

  “Oh,” Ave Maria says, “Then want me to chuck it out the window?” She’s still got her goddamn eyepatch on.

  “Let’s everyone just calm the fuck down,” Little Teena says from the driver’s seat. His wig has shot off his skull but is held to his face by the glued on mutton chops. Surreal.

  Marlene. My head movie plays it over and over. Marlene with Tasers jammed up against her throat and ribs and gut.

  The authority voice yelling “Give us the media or this perv gets a high voltage shave.” Then he rips off the duct tape. That awful scraped-off skin sound.

  Oh fuck. Fuck. My head movie is some god awful B-movie thriller. I slide my Dora purse off of my shoulder and put it on the floor between me and them. I make like I’m gonna kick it down the hall to them. You could say everything I am is in that little pink vag bag.

  The name “Taser?” It’s an acronym for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. A young adult novel written by Victor Appleton. Marlene told me that.

  In my head movie next Marlene’s voice-over takes over. Not talking. Laughing. Deep and rumbly it starts off, confusing the goons. Then she brings the laugh to a hearty howl, then a roar, then a thunder, her mouth so wide open she could swallow a head. Her laugh vibrates the walls and floors. The goons punch her torso. Her breasts go ajar. Her laugh shakes the ceiling the linoleum floor the faces of the goons. She laughs Rwanda.

  Of course I want her to shut the fuck up and save herself but I also want her laugh to blow up the building.

  I close my eyes and bawl like a girl. Obsidian is trying to pull my head back into the Jag. My butt is buzzing and buzzing. Little Teena turns the radio on. Even at 2:00 a.m. they do the news on NPR.

  “Oh jeez,” Ave Maria says.

  I pull my head back in.

  On the radio – it’s Michel Norris. They’ve got the Sig. A prominent Seattle psychiatrist arrested at a possible arson scene. A teen is missing from the residence.

  Could this night get any more fucking fucked? My ass again.

  Obsidian digs the buzzing iPhone out from my back pocket.

  “You’re right. It’s your mom. She wants to talk to you. Bad,” she says.

  “No shit,” I go. “Well I’m not calling her.” I blow my nose in the sleeve of my hoodie, then roll the sleeve up over the slime. My voice quivers like a pussy’s. “I’m not calling my goddamn mother.”

  “Maybe she knows whether or not we’re an all points bulletin,” Little Teena says.

  “Cool!” Ave Maria sings before she can stop herself.

  “It’s not funny,” Little Teena says, shooting a goddamn it look at Ave Maria. Then he says, “Are those fuckers tailing us? Who were they?”

  Ave Maria climbs from the front seat to the back and then nearly into the space between the back window and the seat – where dogs go. “I don’t see anyone,” she says.

  “I stabbed all their tires when we ran out,” Obsidian mumbles.

  No one says anything but we are glad. I stare at the shard of Obsidian hanging from her neck.

  Ave Maria climbs back over to the front seat, then turns around and hooks her elbows over the seat, looking back at me and Obsidian. “Do you think Marlene is … like, all burned or something?” Her voice is whispery and grave. Little Teena coughs. I stare at Ave Maria hard enough to take her head off. She wilts. “I just meant…“

  “Just shut it,” Little Teena growls at her.

  I don’t mean to, but I grab Ave Maria’s pencil-thin wrists. Then I squeeze. I squeeze harder. Her eyes widen but she doesn’t make a sound. Harder. She grits her teeth. I squeeze so hard I’m pretty sure I could snap her hands off of her arms. Still she makes no sound. She just locks eyes with me. Finally Obsidian says, “Enough,” quietly against my neck. She puts her hands on my hands. I let go.

  Ave Maria turns around in the passenger seat and drops her head.

  When they jam Thomas Swift’s Electric Rifle into Marlene’s throat and ribs and gut the megawatt electricity shoots her head up and back and her arms fly out to her sides ripping the duct tape and her torso stiffens and arches with voltage. But she’s still laughing. Her chest heaves and her laugh becomes monstrous and I think I see electricity shooting from her hair, her eyes, her ajar tits, her mouth, her nostrils, her fingers, electricity shooting out in a radius around her, the laughing ringing my bones and heart but then from behind me I hear “GULLLL!!!” and it’s Smiley shooting past me and grabbing my Dora bag off the floor and pitching it to me as
he wheels by and picks up speed heading straight for them until he crashes into the horrible electric trinity that is Marlene and the silverfucks and the snap and smell of current shakes my skin and Little Teena is pulling me into a dead run. That’s the last image. That’s the end of the film in my head.

  Marlene.

  Lit up.

  In the Jag I stare at the back of Little Teena’s head. Obsidian takes her shirt off and wipes my face. Then sits there shirtless like it’s normal. No one says anything. I feel like a human three-day old shitty tampon of a person. We need somewhere to go. I close my eyes.

  “OK,” I go. “I’ll call my mom.”

  33.

  ON THE OTHER END OF MY IPHONE MY MOM SOUNDS like a tin mother.

  I know things about technology. Like a cellphone is an electronic device used for full duplex two-way radio telecommunications over a cellular network of base stations known as base sites. In addition to being a telephone, modern mobile cells also support SMS, text messages, email, Internet access, gaming, Bluetooth, infrared, camera, MMS, MP3 player, radio, and GPS.

  Parents don’t know shit about cellphones.

  “We need somewhere to go,” I say quietly to the tin mother.

  “Ida,” she says.

  I hold the iPhone out the car window and let the rushing cold air nearly take it from my palm. I close my eyes. Briefly I want to open the car door and jump out. The end.

  I don’t know how to talk to this person. I rack my brain for something to say that doesn’t feel like a chunka puke. When

  I return the iPhone to my ear I say, “Do you remember the first time you played me fronz shoe burt?”

  After a long silence she says, “Yes, Ida. You were five, I think. You sat on my lap.”

  Right answer. Does that mean something? Anything? Are you my mother?

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  On her end I hear classical music. I hear a mother humming to her child. I hear a child laughing. No.