Then she saw the old street, now much narrower than it used to be, and the sad toy neighborhood that was dying with it; then she was parking at the curb in front of the old Mission style house whose lawn was not quite so green and even as before; and the pain of that place had nothing to do with her; it was simply a place that was poisoned; anyone who came there would have felt the same sickness, or at least anyone would have who knew the place, or was at all sensitive—as was she, the lesbian, the one whom everyone loved so long as she stayed away from here.
It was late afternoon and the curtains were drawn. She sat in the car, watching the neighbors’ house for no reason; their window had never been open and now it wore a big sloppy curtain inside it. They had painted their garage door lime green; bougainvillea had overgrown the side window; her mother must not like that. She got out, quietly closed the door (she thought she saw something flicker behind the dim-grey window over the garage), squeezed the auto-lock button on her key, ran a hand through her hair, and began to approach the front door, which now opened, with her mother standing inside, smiling and waiting.
The instant she came within reach, her mother’s arms closed around her, and her mother’s mouth was seeking her. This time the lesbian meant to do nothing that would make the old woman disappointed. So she stood there and allowed her mother to kiss her. Her mother’s embrace tightened. The lesbian knew that she was supposed to kiss her mother back. Why couldn’t she do it? Was her power finally departing? Turning her face toward her, she kissed her mother’s cheek. Then she waited for her mother to let go.
Wearily, not without bitterness, but not surprised, either, the rejected mother made her arms fall away. She stepped backward so that the lesbian could enter the house. But she did not withdraw herself very far at all. The lesbian wondered whether her mother would grab at her again if she tried to go past, so she took two steps deeper beyond the doorway and then stood gazing down at her mother’s shoes.
She decided: If she kisses my mouth again I’ll let her tongue go in. If she still wants to use me I’ll open my legs. After all . . .
Well, said her mother. It’s so good to see you!
You too, said the lesbian.
Do come in, said her mother, leading her back in through the dark years.
She could scarcely believe that she had ever belonged to this place, or it to her. It had so little to do with her; she could barely even breathe here! Its familiarity made it all the more inimical. It was the sort of place where no one ever should have lived, and probably no one had ever actually survived there. Because she had been away for so long, it seemed that she must have come from somewhere else before she ever accidentally was here. She could see this house, but she could not understand it. Like her mother, the house had grown so old and little that the lesbian half expected to bump her head on the ceiling. To be sure, ceilings used to be built lower back in those days; walls were narrower and rugs were darker. It was strangely hard to breathe in here. Her mother was watching her with an expression of triumph.
She should have asked how her mother was, but for some reason just couldn’t do it. Her mother did not ask her, either.
Nothing happened for a moment; then her mother began to weep, saying: My little Karen’s finally getting old.
2
You must be tired, said her mother.
Oh, I’m okay, said the lesbian.
You promise?
I promise.
Would you like a glass of grape juice? I went out and bought grape juice, because you always used to love that so much when you were little.
Thanks, Mom, I’ll have a glass . . .
Do you remember how you used to love it? You used to beg me for more. Well, of course you couldn’t remember that; you were so very, very little . . .
No, I don’t remember.
And you can have cheese and crackers. Would you like some of those?
Oh, no thank you, Mother. I just ate.
Are you sure? Because I made a special trip to the store to get cheese and crackers for you.
Maybe in awhile, said the lesbian, shivering the way she did whenever she was coming off the yellow serum.
Karen, do you know what kind of crackers I got for you?
No, I don’t.
Won’t you even guess?
Well, there are so many kinds . . .
But it’s the brand you always adored! I got them just for you!
Unable at first to bear looking into her mother’s eyes, in which she would surely find the despair of being unloved, the lesbian took a deep breath, then gazed at her, and even smiled.
Karen, what’s wrong? You look so strange!
Mother, I love you.
What does that mean?
Nothing.
If you won’t talk about it . . . Well, you’ve always been secretive. How do you think that makes me feel?
I’m sorry, Mother.
Well. I’ve been going through the hall closet, said her mother. Because I won’t live forever.
Yes, Mother.
It’s been very, very difficult.
I’m sorry . . .
Karen, I have to tell you. I wish you could have helped me.
You didn’t ask me.
I didn’t? I’m sure I asked you.
No, Mother. You didn’t.
Well, you’re so busy with your various—friends. You probably wouldn’t have had time.
Maybe not, said the lesbian, miserably diminished, shrinking back into a little girl in the darkness.
Do you know what I found?
What was it? said the patient child.
I’d saved all your little dresses. Oh, you wouldn’t believe how teeny-tiny you were! So adorable, your dresses. And I even saved your little panties. Would you like to see them?
No, thank you, Mother.
Oh, you wouldn’t? Why wouldn’t you?
Mother, would you like to go out for dinner? I can drive us.
Karen, won’t you look at your sweet little things? Not even for one minute? Don’t you even care?
All right, Mother. Show me.
Are you sure? Do you really want to?
Yes, I’m sure.
I’m only doing this because you want to. Because, honestly . . . Well, look at these dear little panties. I used to pull them off to change you, which you can’t remember, of course. You were very slow, Karen. You used to wee-wee in your panties until you were, oh, four years old. Maybe even five. But how adorable you were when I pulled your panties down! You used to love it when I rubbed you with baby powder. Do you remember that at all?
Mother, I think I’ll go lie down.
Lie down! But we haven’t even had dinner! What about dinner?
Okay, let’s go out. Where should we go?
The lesbian, fearing, wavering and smothering, tried to imagine what the old woman on the island would have done. The old woman would have lovingly choked her until she began swooning, all the while encouraging her to pretend that she was already dead, so that she need not be afraid. How would she wish to act, if she could be with her mother while she was dying? This was how she should act now. As a famous sufferer said, hell is the suffering of being unable to love.
3
After dinner they sat in the living room, doing nothing. Her mother turned on the television: Natalie Wood was modeling Movie Star Bread (fifty-five calories a slice). Judy Garland was showing off her three sets of false eyelashes, for small, average and large audiences. Finally the lesbian said goodnight and went to lie down on what she always called her girl bed, with her old dolls and stuffed animals still around her.
She felt dizzy, and the ceiling seemed lower here; the walls were tighter; any second now the doorhandle would quietly begin to turn, and then her mother would come in. Or was that over now?
The house was silent. Her m
other must be sitting up in the living room.
The lesbian opened her bedroom door as quietly as she could. She crept down the hall to the bathroom, locked herself in and vomited. No sound came from the living room.
Returning to her girl bed, she turned out the light. Later she dreamed (although it might have truly happened) that her mother was with her; ever so lovingly she raised up the daughter’s head and rested it on her breast.
That Certain Tone
But they that sometimes liked my company
Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl . . .
SIR THOMAS WYATT, ca. 1540
Lycóris, no woman used to be more darling to me than you.
Now Glýcera fills up my entire heart.
MARTIAL, 1st cent. A.D.
You must learn to let go and accept what is happening now, rather than try to cling to outworn interests.
JUDY GARLAND, 1946
1
On their honeymoon they went to Carmel, and the straight man texted the good news to all his relatives and business connections (I sometimes suspect that the retired policeman had talked him into this), while the lesbian experienced the feeling which habit had bleached down from raw red anxiety to the kind of long dead sadness one accrues from seeing a pinkish-white hunk of human tissue slowly shed particles into formaldehyde in which it hangs in exemplification of neutral buoyancy; thus her emotion once her efforts to reach Shantelle’s phone without compromising herself had failed. (To wed is to become mortal.) She knew that Shantelle (now doubtless glowering, with her hand on her hip), had been hopefully expecting to hear her voice since mid-morning, and now it was almost six, with canned arias beginning to blare out of Italian restaurants, the straight man whistling while digging his fingers into her shoulder, and the last commuters waiting at the bus stop. Pine tree shadows grew across apartment buildings, and the seaside swelter chilled into clamminess. A little blonde girl in a denim skirt toddled up the sidewalk, with her parents gliding indulgently behind. The child stopped, looked into the lesbian’s face, giggled and flew into her arms! The parents hurried up, alarmed and furious. But as soon as they looked into the lesbian’s eyes, of course they were all smiles.
She loves you! laughed the mother. I’ve never seen her do that with anybody—
Except you, said the husband fondly, laying his hand on the wife’s beefy shoulders.
What’s your name, sweetie? asked the lesbian, and the child laughed so happily up at her.
Andrea? Andrea, come on back now, the mother said.
No! shrieked the little girl, gripping the lesbian’s legs.
Andrea, said the father ineffectually, you come back right now.
Excuse us, the mother commanded the lesbian, snatching back her unfaithful offspring, who wept and kicked as they carried her off.
And the lesbian, watching that spoiled child be forced, felt as if her past were a cemetery whose graves now reared open, vomiting their contents all over her. Fortunately, Francine had given her a wedding present: brown powder. She went upstairs and ate some. It was bitter and foul.
I can almost see her looking very small and uncomfortable in her wide double bed, with her arms clasped over her tight-pressed knees, which were drawn up against her breasts, in what was captioned a rare nude portrait of Natalie Wood in her French rococo-inspired bedroom, 1966.
2
At least the straight man had what he wanted. As he entered her she gazed into his face with calm affection, knowing that at first this would hurt, and then, once she gave in to it, it would grow sweet. And he who had come to believe that there were no mysteries anywhere must now keep faith in the ordinariness of Neva. But I say again that Venus is not mocked. I once read in a certain of the retired policeman’s crackly old paperbacks that when Alexander the Great’s soldiers, having just conquered Miletua, and now seeking to secure all its edifices, dared to enter the temple of Ceres, someone met them with a flame, as the Roman compiler puts it, and then blinded them, lest they should see secrets known only to women. Why should the straight man’s doom be any different, now that he had tempted the Goddess?
After troubled dreams and meditations of his home being burgled four different times came a vision of a young blonde girl with perfect skin, fresh- and sweet-smelling—oh, her young pink face and white teeth! She was so real and he was so sure of her. For a long time after awakening he could not believe that he had not just seen her. Then his wife came out of the bathroom. He looked at her, and realized that she was old.
3
But I would hardly mean you to believe that theirs was not a perfect honeymoon. For one thing, he indulged himself in Tiefflieger beer, whose label had taken both third and fourth place thanks to its downpointing silhouette of a dive-bomber within a crimson circle. Had any customer ever presumed to ask for such an item at the Y Bar, Francine would have shrugged, unless she felt sufficiently exuberant to laugh in his face. Tiefflieger is marketed for its mellow hops—amber clarity—noble flavor! As for the bride, she too was a quality item: the long hot echo of what she used to be.
4
When one begins to come down from low-grade ecstasy mixed with meth, the exhilaration, which previously seemed utterly fundamental, in other words a pure and radiantly translucent atmosphere, now as it falls away comes to resemble a soft blanket, not in any way stifling but most definitely interposing, because as the wonderful feeling continues to withdraw from one’s entire body into one’s fingertips, preparatory to fading further, a sensation of clarity manifests itself, pretending to be, as perhaps it actually is, something which was there all along, something alert, cool and even cold (this last perhaps a relic of ecstasy’s quasi-synesthesia, because as the warmth of that intimacy drug departs, the feet get cold, and the lovely fever in breasts, groin, buttocks and forehead wisps away; so much for that blanket, after which the underlying skeleton of meth remains, less sentimental, more alert—moderated, to be sure, by the ecstasy’s still measurable blood concentrations; one possesses just as much energy as before, and it remains perfectly pleasant to caress one’s partner, or even to dance naked on the carpet; in some ways it is even better, for a penis can now spring up more easily, and ejaculate with an orgasm more direct and concentrated than on ecstasy, which had facilitated the creation of orgasm-like happinesses along one’s entire skin, just as a cockroach can see with its entire body; that was over now, to be sure, but one speaks and listens better; one discusses, compares and even plans, because the end is perceptible—a false end, actually, because even after both parties are yawning and feeling pleasantly sleepy, such sensations are merely more thin blankets beneath which the obdurate meth skeleton lies on its back, glaring straight up, in obedience to whose example the formerly ecstatic couple lie very still in bed with the lights out, getting more and more tired and trying to sleep; perhaps one party will lie very still, thinking: If only she’ll stop sighing and thrashing around I might be able to drift off, while the other one is thinking: I feel so desperate; I’m so jangled; I can’t stand to lie next to him like this; I’ve got to go home even right now at five in the morning—and she even gets up, dresses, fumblingly tries to pack, and he wearily gets up to help her, at which she lies down on the carpet, weeping.
That was how Neva now began to feel. She reminded herself that to love and be loved was always beautiful.
5
Her husband got up to piss. On his return he found her sitting up in their bed, staring and shivering.
He went out; he felt like standing on the beach; she, as Californians express it, apparently “needed her space.” His pessimistic tolerance was as rich as those kelp-festooned, barnacled, lichened sea-rocks. He felt as sweetly sad as the transwoman did when leaving the retired policeman’s place after a night of abasement.
He scanned the shore for women. If his luck held he might behold some golden-skinned blonde on her back, drawing
up her knees and luxuriously spreading her thighs. Wouldn’t that be a fine palate-cleanser?—But he found no one except for himself.
He thought: One thing I will say for Neva. She’s always dynamite in bed. I can’t get enough of her. But evidently I’m not enough for her, or she wouldn’t be such a slut. And that insults me. Neva’s not as nice as she used to be.
Then he opened his cell phone, in order to reply to Sandra’s congratulations.
6
The blonde little chambermaid came in. And after the third time she mentioned that she was a submissive, the lesbian picked up the hint and patiently inquired into her fantasies, at which the maid hiked up her skirt, pulled down her panties (which she had made herself on her sewing machine), and bent over the chair with her arms and breasts hanging down. Smiling a little, the lesbian dragged a cold length of nickel chain down her spine and between her buttocks. She said: Your bottom would look very pretty with marks on it, to which the chambermaid eagerly replied: I’ve been there.
(It would be easy to say, as so many later did, that the lesbian had no “moral center.”—Or, if you like, she was never good enough.—But none of us were rooted in anything; therefore, we had to root ourselves in her, and she in us—a mutually temporary combination, hence no good for roots. And was it so unforgivable, to love and be loved?)
She offered the wide brown disk of her anus. So the lesbian had to pleasure her. Why not? She wasn’t even here. When it was over, the blonde lay strewn across her bed like a golden chariot halted in mid-career.
7
The straight man burst in, ready to be serviced. Neva lay back, gripped her ankles and pulled them apart to receive him. Very excited, he remembered something he had heard some weeks ago at the Buddha Bar, where a middle-aged lady who vaguely resembled Julie Andrews was instructing two exotic dancers: There’s something about watching someone who could hurt herself that . . . there’s a kind of morbid appeal. When you’re on the stage you’re kind of vulnerable.
8
After he went out again, the lesbian answered her phone.
The Lucky Star Page 66