Now it came time to fulfill her next obligation.
All right, said the retired policeman. I s’pose you want to watch something romantic. Some chick flick with bitches moaning about men and putting them down and all the time trying to get them.
Well, there’s one I heard about from Francine. What’s it called? It’s a true-life story where this girl gets abducted—
So far I’m liking it. Let’s act it out, right now!—and he drew out his Smith & Wesson from behind the pillow, cocked it and said: Down on your knees, bitch! Open your mouth, bitch! I’m gonna stick this gun in your mouth and pull the trigger so Shantelle can scurry over and scrub away your so-called brains!
In a French maid outfit?
That’s right. Sure. We can watch your stupid chick flick. But unless you can remember what it is—
I know. Let me call the bar.
Don’t call the fucking bar.
Why not?
Because you’ll start blibbery-blabbing with those other bitches and I’ll get jealous.
You will? That’s so sweet. Anyway, I promised you we could watch Shark Hunters.
That’s right. Here it is on my queue. Will you pass me my pills?
Sure, baby.
And she poured them each a double bourbon, so he could wash down his cholesterol medicine and she could help her estrogen pill go down glowing.
After the movie she tried and tried to suck him off, but nothing happened. Then he struggled to sit up and at least spank her, but felt too dizzy. She looked away.
Now you’ll probably get some little bitch and leave me, he said.
She remained kneeling on the floor. Presently he began snoring.
Since Neva had not called her, she went back to the Y Bar, where Xenia was whispering into her sky-blue phone: Hey, baby; I was just calling to say I was thinking about you and missing you; I don’t know if it’s okay to love you or stop loving you and it’s so hard; I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. For the next twelve hours I’m going to be in love with you again. Oh, Neva, I wish everything was different.
Now Judy was worried, so she needed to get drunk. Setting herself heavily down next to Sandra, she ran her man’s hand lovingly through the other woman’s long red hair with a force that almost anybody else (not Neva, of course) would have considered invasive. Sandra smiled brightly. She was a swan-necked, Celtic-looking lady with cat’s-eye glasses and a heart-shaped mouth. If she had not been so infallibly kind, Judy might have been jealous of her. It also helped that Sandra’s open smile and freckled young skin, not to mention the largeness of her beautiful brownish-green eyes, afforded her a vulnerable appearance; not even the retired policeman ever cared to insult her. She was a slender lovely girl, and her vulva was even more heart-shaped than her mouth.—Seven dollars, said Francine, after which Judy inquired: Are you . . . I mean, why do so many girls want to be mermaids?
Because mermaids are in fairytales and they’re very free, replied Sandra right away.
What do you mean, free?
Well, Judy, unlike a lot of girls in fairytales, they’re not trapped in a tower or a cottage or an ogre’s dungeon, so they can go anywhere, and there’s an inherent beauty about them with their swirling hair and their tails; don’t you think so? I know you’re worried; please don’t worry; Neva will be walking in any minute! Anyway, I mean, by their very existence they’re magical! A lot of children of both sexes want to have animal friends, and mermaids are friends with dolphins and fish and starfish, so they have all these animal friends in this, well, this whole world . . .
I don’t have any animal friends, said Judy. I don’t even have any human friends, except you and Neva—
And me, the barmaid interjected.
You’re right, said the transwoman. Sorry, Francine; sorry!
And J. D. loves you—
Well, fuck him; I wanna be a mermaid! Gimme another.
Seven dollars.
And one for Sandra—
Six dollars.
Thanks, Judy. That’s very sweet.
And one for you.
No thanks, hon. Save your money.
Whose turn is it?
Mine, said Sandra in a small happy voice.
Oh, said Judy. Oh, you’re so lucky.
I know, said Sandra. Do you want to hear more about mermaids?
Yes yes yes!
So they go on fabulous adventures because that is what living underwater is. A mermaid is not dissimilar from a magical creature that lives among the stars, but we can’t really see that. We can imagine a garden but it’s a coral garden, and I . . .
And they’re girls, said the transwoman lasciviously.
Actually, I think that most people don’t think about the sex of the mermaid. There’s something very romantic about them, because they love pirates and sailors, but it’s hard to see how a mermaid can be violated. A lot of little girls, that’s not even a part of their imaginings.
I’ll bet it was yours, said Judy, laying her hand on Sandra’s, but the other woman insisted: I’ve never really thought that much about the sexual lives of mermaids; that’s not something that comes to mind automatically. Does a prince marry this girl, and what happens? This doesn’t seem to happen with mermaids, because they’re so free.
And you’re free, aren’t you?
No, said Sandra. Not really. I tend to think about the swimming and the adventure, and when I imagine myself as a mermaid I’m still me and I still don’t necessarily imagine myself as having the tail; I can go underwater and be friends with dolphins and still have sex if I want to . . .
In came the twentysomething lipstick lesbian whose very own cell phone application had now gone viral—as fulfilling an accomplishment as stealing the Lindbergh baby, never mind the semiliterate German English of the ransom note; she ordered a glass of red wine, which embarrassed Francine, who finally unearthed an expired gallon of Captain Mark’s Rondalay from the closet; meanwhile the lipstick lesbian was twirtling and twortling ten-character messages to her followers on the SpiderWeb.
Eight dollars, said Francine.
The lipstick lesbian took a sip and spat it back into the glass. She said: I’m not drinking this shit.
You still owe me eight dollars.
No, she said.
Francine, who had been wringing her hands for uneasiness about Neva, came out from behind the bar with a smile and a baseball bat. We all wanted blood. But just then Al came in; he needed a date, so the transwoman hurried out with him, anxious to, as Shantelle would say, get it over with, in order to be there for Neva. When she came back, Francine was scrubbing the counter.
More to Tell
Q. Do you think if she had lived her status would have been elevated to living legend . . . ?
A. I don’t think so . . . She was only a really good actress when she had a great director.
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL CHILDERS, about Natalie Wood
I used paint remover on her, took off her glamorous clothes and put her in front of the camera, naked and gasping.
ELIA KAZAN, describing how he directed Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass
1
Naturally the retired policeman knew it first. When my phone rang I was disappointed not to read the lesbian’s number in that dingy grey-green plastic window below the brand name’s screaming cursive (I had locked myself into a three-year contract with my Q-Spot Osiris Pocket Mini); but when he said: Meet me at the Cinnabar and no bullshit, I knew it was going to be good.
I got there before he did. Carmen changed the lesbian’s hundred-dollar bill and even volunteered the wireless password in case there had been anyone anywhere else who could possibly have cared to hear from me. Sipping my rum and sodapop to make it last, I eavesdropped on her discussing religion with an old Latina who now said: So I know they talk a
bout snakes and female goddesses as transformational and we all have one inside of us that both causes evil and cures evil. My spiritual beliefs are in the making forever.—Carmen said: Well, there’s a lady named Neva who . . .—Then he minced painfully in. I already had deployed his usual double shot, facing mine, on that table in the back.
That Strand bitch offed herself, he said. I bet you didn’t hear she married Louis on Monday.
I don’t get it, I said. Sure I knew she—
You don’t get what? he asked triumphantly, slamming down his empty glass.
You’re telling me Neva’s dead? For what?
If you were a lesbian married to Louis, how would you like it?
Well, I said, Neva’s not exactly a—
But you call her that, don’t you? Maybe she was. She sure brought out Judy’s so-called feminine side.
Judy must be upset, I said, still not believing it.
I want you to tell her. Ain’t you the genius at spreading bad news? Anyway, you . . . you’re fond of her.
I love Judy.
That’s nice. Is that why you bought my fucking drink?
Hey, said Carmen. Keep it smooth back there.
Still not believing what he had told me although I simultaneously believed him, I said: It’s not adding up. First of all—
Mrs. Strand called me, he said. She was hoping I could sweep the details under the rug.
And did you?
Well, I went out there, had a chat with the coroner—
And you saw Neva.
Deadest bitch I’ve laid eyes on all week. Blue in the face. Toxicology’ll be done tomorrow most likely; I’m betting on fentanyl, but they wouldn’t show me the baggie. And you know what, Richard? That finally gives me one thing to like about Karen Strand. That’s how I plan to go. Fentanyl’s a sure thing, and painless.
Above and behind his head, the television now displayed a vertical shot down onto the angled patterns of a basketball court, the gaze next pivoting nauseatingly for the fifteenth rebound: And he scored! Tazee McShaq has never yet missed a shot for Philadelphia! Wow, that was an extremely late whistle . . .—while Carmen, yawning, emptied the trash.
Where’s Louis?
Oh, they let him go. He was the one pounding on the door, which makes him a piss-poor suspect. They did trick him into a drug test—bright boys down there in Carmel. Well, amazingly enough he came up clean.
And he married her, I said.
Look at you! Wishing you’d been the bridegroom, hah? Whole world makes me fuckin’ sick.
I went to the bar and bought him and me another drink while he sat there grinning.
All right, he said—and so help me, he even began to gesture, I think to further his own enjoyment. He reminded me of a lawyer-plaintiff whose performance I once (because his case preceded mine) had to watch in Vegas: Every time he mentioned that the defendant was seeking to wire seventy-five thousand dollars (to part of which he laid claim) into an account in Mexicali, the lawyer would jerk his thumb downward, as if south of the border meant underground. In the retired policeman’s case, I would have needed to be a connoisseur of athletics to do justice to his antics. So let me simply report what he said:
All right, he married her, and what’s stranger is that she married him; we’ll never know why. They had themselves a honeymoon right there in Carmel, and she didn’t even tell her mother; it was all secret, just a goddamn civil ceremony. And why they did it there, well, unless she was already planning to off herself and wanted to make it easier for Mrs. Strand . . .
You like the old lady, don’t you?
Oh, she’s a piece of work, like me. Takes one to know one. Well, so there was some family from Cleveland staying at the same hotel. Little girl was just crazy about our Karen; wouldn’t leave her alone. You get it now?
No, I said.
That’s because your mind ain’t dirty enough. So this little girl, right before dinner time Louis’s down at the beach desperately texting Sandra (good alibi!), and everyone’s gone crazy hunting for little Andrea. Police come in. Surveillance footage shows no Andrea on the first floor all afternoon, so unless it’s another Baby Lindbergh case, Andrea’s still somewhere in the hotel. They go door to door; parents were in hysterics; I love that kind of energy. Well, finally they get to Louis and Karen’s room. And they’re hearing moans, but after all it’s the fuckin’ bridal suite. Door was unlocked. And there’s Karen and Andrea. Can’t ever start ’em too early, right? Now this will turn you on. They had to literally pry that kid off of Karen, not that Karen was resisting: the little girl was in heaven and wanted to stay there! Not a stitch on either of ’em. Don’t that kinda turn your stomach? I’ll tell you, Richard, in my childhood I’ve seen a few things, but . . . But Karen was not a problem, aside from being the problem. She told the girl to go back to Mommy, and the girl was not havin’ it! Well, they ordered Karen to get up and dressed before they put the cuffs on. Andrea was screaming for Karen! While they were trying to figure out how to get her decent and quiet, Karen faded away. She did it just right—stone dead so fast she didn’t vomit even once. And guess what? he said. You’ll like this—no feces in the lower bowel. No fuckin’ women’s mark anywhere, of course. And Louis didn’t show up for two full hours . . .
He had more to tell, and Carmen had more to sell on this foggy afternoon with two homeless-owned dogs yapping at each other outside and then there came a car crash; through the open door we could all hear the breaking glass and then the applause.
Finally he said: What’s your opinion? Do some little girls need to be touched?
Finishing my drink, I replied: Did you?
2
Distrusting the retired policeman for the same reason that I disbelieved in the lesbian’s death, I decided to meet her mother (whom I had never met), so I set off immediately to rid myself of that vile obligation.
From the retired policeman’s many heroic autobiographies I remembered El Camino Real and Amador, and the silent Mission style houses across from Vallejo High, with their windows drawn; then Broadway and then those various lefts and lefts and rights until . . .
Before I could ring the bell, the front door opened as if by itself, and there was the old lady waiting.
Do I know you? she asked.
I’m a friend of your daughter’s.
Oh! Another of Karen’s friends! Well. How nice to meet you. Won’t you sit down?
I would have preferred to give it to her right there, standing up, but the lesbian would never have treated anybody thus, so I followed her into the kitchen and seated myself at the table while she filled the teakettle. Setting it on the stove, she turned to me, and now I had to gaze into her eyes.
Something else has happened, said Mrs. Strand.
I replied only yes, but even that easy monosyllable fell cracked and twisted from my mouth.
Well?
I’m sorry; she’s—
Then she stood watching me while I sat familiarizing myself with the synthetic wood-grain of the kitchen table, until the kettle began to whistle.
Wait a second, I said. You worked with J. D. on this.
J. D. who?
That cop.
Her face narrowed into nastiness and she said: I have no idea what you think I know, but get out.
I choked out: Mrs. Strand, I loved Neva—
Well, she said, what do you suppose this is like for me?
Raised Again
God raises Job again . . . Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more . . . ? . . . It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.
DOSTOYEVSKY, 1880
All these patients cry miserably for cure . . . But they must not be believed. They only act as if they had really wanted f
reedom . . .
WILHELM STEKEL, bef. 1930
1
I would mislead you if you carried away the impression that she got to be admired by her public one last time, like Judy Garland in that glass-topped white casket. To be sure, it was as if we were all bearing her on our shoulders to the grave, in a file even longer than the mid-morning soup line at Saint Anthony’s, but because she had been more than any of us, now she was longer than our multitude, so that her legs and feet continued stiffly far behind (the transwoman longing to be buried alive beside her), and no matter how we struggled to catch it, kiss it and touch it, her head went before us; we were determined to save it from hanging down in the dust; not one strand of her adorable hair would be soiled by dirt, not until the dirt smothered all of her!—but it was safe anyhow, on that long rigid neck. So it seemed; it also seemed as if we were fighting over her beautiful rigid corpse, which we had all exposed, bitten, penetrated, drunk from, slobbered on and used; but of course this parade, like so many of our fantasies, could never even have been organized, much less consummated; the last event for which we had showed up in concert had been Selene’s wedding. We weren’t there, and of course neither was E-beth. Francine talked about holding a wake, but even she was too demoralized to plan any such thing, so I feel grateful that someone competent took charge: Karen’s funeral would be a strictly private function, arranged and attended solely by her mother; indeed, as Wally Beery had said on the airwaves way back in 1935: Oh, I’m so proud of you, Judy. I bet your mother’s proud of you, too. Isn’t that your ma sitting right down there in the front row?
The whispering horror, incredulity, and various gloatings (call them verbal headlines punctuated with booze) were infinite while they lasted. They lasted not long at all. Let me therefore move on to our closing summations:
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