Authors: Spencer Gordon
Cosmo (5 page)
There was a long ramp. The long ramp she'd climbed to board over an hour ago, excited for the tour, the photo ops, was made of corrugated steel that was searing and dazzling in the sunlight. Nurses and crew filed ahead of and behind her, loose scrubs rippling in the wind, flanked on either side by hip-level railings sloping down toward the docks of the harbour. A mass of bodies crowded the waterfront: half of the group leaving, half arriving, a mix of
Mercy
employees and brightly clothed Vietnamese, the tops of their heads uniformly black and gleaming. In seconds, she spotted the four girls, wearing sunglasses and looking up.
They'd be hard to miss
, she thought. Jennifer was waving, her brown arm a languid noodle in the glare.
They needed Crystle to move, to fall in line with the march of legs and shoes, right hand wrapped loosely around the rail, and step down the long ramp to join them. They were beckoning to her, laughing, making it all a game. Or were they laughing
at
her? Thinking her ditzy or incompetent? It would take her thirty seconds, striding in time behind the blue-smocked nurse ahead of her, avoiding stepping on her heels, while the mask-wearing Vietnamese, adults and children, filed by her left, climbing up and into the
Mercy
, headed toward reunion or diagnosis, calamity or relief.
She'd left Commander Kubis behind her in the shelter of the ship: a last, smiling vision of the assured and confident officer, a final wave of his polished hand.
I've forgotten to ask him questions
, she thought, now on the platform at the lip of the ramp.
I've forgotten the interview
. But it was too late: she couldn't wait or turn back; she was a servant to the queue; she was late. They needed her to reach the bottom so they could board another minibus, be shuttled down the shore of the city to their various destinations, the hotel room at the close of day. She couldn't hold up the production, even by a few meagre minutes; they couldn't leave without her. She looked down.
And while walking she saw another ramp, separated from the present by a handful of precious days and nights, as clear as the corrugated steel before her. There were similarities: there were groups of people waiting for her to walk, people invested in her ability to think and act and perform. There were colossal expectations for her to move, and move well, to accomplish the easy task of walking. To smarten up and meet them. To go out, ten steps forward, and turn to the left. Hand on hip. Smile. Turn again, and walk the long ramp. Stop, hip thrust. Walk away from the crowd, the roar. Stop again. Look over the shoulder. There were colossal expectations. But where one ramp was bright and on a decline, the other was dark and level and glossy. The other was in the Crown Convention Center of the Diamond Bay, the largest arena of its kind in the country. She'd stand in the wings in a line of other contestants, waiting for the production staff with their impatient clipboards and headsets to wave her forward; it was all a quick snap of judgment and paying close attention to your cue. Recalling rehearsals. Jerry Springer or Mel B, one of the hosts, would announce her time onstage over the in-house loudspeakers:
U.S.A.
and
Crystle Stewart
would flash along the bottom half of television screens in Missouri City, in Houston, in Manhattan, in living rooms and in bars and restaurants, and those watching in public places would stand and lift signs and whistle and blow into dollar-store noisemakers, clapping, cheering. Her mother and father, ecstatic, Team Crystle, ex-classmates and teachers from the University of Houston, from Elkins High School, even the biters. This was their girl, about to glide across the slick floor, past the tiki torches and vertical fronds, the imitation waterfalls and horizontal red and black lights that suggested a lake at sunset, the tropical exoticisms of contemporary Vietnam. Immense columns of Romanesque stone like a tiered display case, the arched wall of a coliseum. American voices, celebrities, judges, performances by Lady Gaga. An extended edition of Robin Thicke's
R&B
hit âMagic.' Springer and Mel B zipping onto the stage on a moped. This was the moment. This was the evening-gown competition, late in the pageant, and it meant sink or swim. It meant poise and sophistication, conjuring a collective notion of classical, mid-century beauty. The dresses reached the floor, were meant to glide effortlessly with the walker. Heels were mandatory. This is what she had trained for: the endless hours of preparation, one chance at execution, one chance to impress. The channelled pain. Psychic training and teeth-grinding concentration and pain. A mind turning on its body, transforming it, moulding dumb flesh into purpose, through routine and repetition, ironing out its weaknesses, conquering fatigue and fear.
The race goes not to the swift
; it was Crystle's turn to walk. She took a step, and another, and then it was lights, the great star-like spotlights of the theatre, and out in the gloom of the primeval audience, where thousands of Asian faces smiled and watched, Crystle saw her name written in code. A script for the recorded television broadcast, saved and uploaded as a file meant for public consumption.
Crystle
and
Stewart
becoming keywords, allowing searchers to find the video, to sift through the mass of moving pictures to find her performance. Her body transformed to pixilation, out and above the void of the arena, already electronic, leaping from flesh and decay into endless repetition, playback, memorization. Her practised movements now able to be slowed, paused, sped up and repeated. Embedded. Saw it clearly, the code that would hold her ageless and unchanging, perfect.
She took another step.
A piece of corrugation, a bullet or bump in the metal, the sunlight over the water, the wind, and suddenly Crystle was falling,
falling
, it was all real, reaching for something, anything â
A hand caught her left arm, steadying her. She looked up, her heart skipping. She was held by a boy, fourteen or fifteen, Vietnamese, distant puffs of cumulus forming a halo over the crown of his head. She translated experience: she'd tripped against a bump, lost her balance, fell, but was caught and steadied by a boy before she crashed against the ramp. She was outside in the heat and the raw wind, the seashore, the present. She felt the boy's rough fingers on her wrist. She clutched at his T-shirt. Saw the smooth skin of his neck.
Then she saw his mouth: his upper lip curled up into one wide, distorted nostril, central incisors lost to a carnivalesque deformity. He was smiling â she could tell from his cheeks and eyes.
Crystle yanked her arm away, repulsed, and grabbed the railing. She looked away, again at the sea, heart continuing its pounding dance. There was another hand on her shoulder, from behind. She let out a squeal and wrenched her body forward, straining away. In her flailing she pushed the nurse ahead of her, causing her to stumble and turn. Crystle wrapped both hands around the railing and crouched, shaking, clenching her eyes.
Hands were on her exposed back and shoulders, clasping hands that were gentle and supportive but unwanted, violating, as if reaching past her quivering skin and touching something sensitive and painful inside her. One hand was gloved with smooth latex; another was the rough palm of a civilian. She squealed again, head tucked against her chest, ponytail flying in the wind.
Now she'd have to face them, no hiding the marks, the evidence of her breakdown. Knowing what was coming â the judgments, the smirking, the glances â made her want to cower and dig, collapse in a jellied mush, be forcibly removed by strong hospital workers, attached to an
IV
drip and sedated. She'd scream if she had to, if it got the right attention, if it got the job done. She imagined, with a seismic and despairing longing, being airlifted via helicopter from the entire offending province, then boarding an airplane that would spirit her back to Los Angeles and then home, to Texas.
âI'm not ready,' she said, bursting forth with tears. âI'm not ready
to
walk
.'
There was a scuffling halt to the line, the boat crew attempting to stop the flow, to allow Crystle her space. The hands withdrew, leaving her to tremble and sputter. In a few dizzying seconds she was completely aware, self-conscious and humiliated, touching at the dark streaks of mascara that stained her cheeks with a folded tissue from her purse. She looked up, and through occluding tears saw Kubis staring back from the
Mercy
. She wrenched away, mortified, dabbing at her nose and sniffling, a last image of his concerned face looming out of the ship's cool shade. On the docks below her, she saw the girls and their minibus driver edging closer to the lip of the ramp in a glimmer of light.
Of course, there'd be no screaming tantrums. She breathed. There was no turning back or running home. She was locked into a summer camp without end, without the succour of family or friends. She'd have to face the music, the dim arena, the rehearsals, the final walk in her evening gown before millions of viewers. Be pixilated and formatted and saved, regardless of the outcome. She trudged down the ramp, heels clanging on the corrugated rivets, looking up from out of her glazed insecurity as she reached the dock, prepared to weather the girls' collective scrutiny. She breathed.
In a second she was embraced by Guam, Crystle's chin resting surprised between her neck and shoulder, Guam's chin and mouth buried against Crystle's collarbone. India was next, followed by ÂPhilippines and Canada, the girls standing in a huddle and obstructing traffic. Philippines was dabbing at Crystle's cheek with a fresh tissue, and Canada murmured, âYou poor thing,' amid a chorus of
It's okay
s and
Don't worry, honey
s. Crystle floated on the supportive cloud, away from the water along the docks, dodging photographers, the minibus driver and other suit-wearing pageant attendants and security staff barking at gawkers and journalists. They walked along the promenade, up a flight of stone stairs cracked by centuries of use, and ducked as a group into the long grey minibus, tinted windows rolled up and the air-conditioning system blasting and beautiful.
âWe saw how affected you were by the little kids on the ship,' said Miss Canada (Samantha, she remembered), when they were all seated and buckled up. âIt was moving for all of us. So hard.'
âYou're just not used to seeing children like that,' said Simran, Miss India. âIt gets easier as time goes by. Not that it ever gets really, truly
easy
.'
âYou've got such a big heart,' said Guam, who reached out and squeezed her knee.
âI'm sorry,' Crystle said, sighing, pinching her purse between her thighs. She breathed. âI didn't mean to hold all y'all up. I'm just a crybaby. Those kids were so brave.' She felt the tears edge back, perilously close to making a return. She let her drawl out, heavy and slow and the way she imagined all wise and holy people spoke. âAnd I felt so honoured â¦'
She didn't have to finish her thought; the girls understood. They said it was something they'd hold in their hearts, this time spent visiting and spreading joy. They said it was an experience that would draw the five of them closer, make it easier to hope for one another; that no matter what the outcome at the Crown Convention Center, with the whole world watching, they'd have each other's backs. The A-Team, they joked. They were rooting for each other, hoping for happiness despite the near certainty of a loss.
Perhaps there was still hope in the end, Crystle thought â a glimmer of something unforeseeable and moving, like the orange glow of Heaven spreading its storybook light over a redeemed world. That's how she envisioned Heaven, anyway: something to save in the back of her mind, a reward for a hardworking life that came as a welcome surprise. Not much to think about now, but something foggy and distant â something to look forward to. Maybe that's how all this would turn out. All she needed was the right kind of spirit.
JOBBERS
Â
Â
Â
A
mid a pile of paper plates, pizza boxes and the crumbly remains of breakfast, I stare down at the July '91 edition of
WWF
Magazine
. Jake âThe Snake' Roberts glares back from the glossy cover, his cocked brow just oozing evil.
WWF
Magazine
is a regular sight in our house. Eddy, my eight-year-old brother, saves all his change to run down to the convenience store every month to grab the new edition. He has me read the articles to him. On this month's cover there's a headline about The Ultimate Warrior â Eddy's favourite wrestler â and his ongoing feud with The Undertaker, who's one of the most feared heels in the World Wrestling Federation. To Eddy, wrestling is literally life and death, especially when the Warrior is involved. Of course, as his big sister, I know better â I know it's absolute horseshit.
From where I sit at the table, I can hear Gorilla Monsoon â black, hyperactive poodle, bought for forty bucks two weeks ago from a retired steelworker on East 22nd Street â whining non-stop in the spare bedroom. Gorilla isn't properly housebroken. Mom and Uncle Keith (not really my uncle â he's Mom's boyfriend, most recent and longest lasting) are throwing a party tonight. They want Gorilla locked in the bedroom because if we let him run around the house he'll piss and shit all over the floors, and for now it's just too hot to keep him out back, especially with all that black fur. Gorilla's so spastic that neither of them wants to deal with his jumping and barking, so his prison sentence extends until the end of the bash. Knowing Gorilla, and knowing Mom's parties, the puppy will be yelping until three in the morning.
Eddy's outside knocking spiders into a Cheez Whiz jar behind the tool shed, so he can't hear. If he could, he wouldn't understand â the whimpering would drive him crazy, make him cry or complain, so it's better to keep him occupied. Eddy's got a dirty-blond mushroom cut and jar-thick glasses, a soft stomach and white, flabby arms. He's got some real serious mental problems â
head trauma
according to Mom,
retardation
according to Keith â but everyone around here is used to it. The kid needs constant supervision at school, loping around and holding hands with the guidance counsellor.
I've got a growing list of tasks that I use to keep Eddy busy. This spider-collecting gig is totally new; I'm trying to see how long it'll hold his attention. I told him that every black spider he plops into the jar equals ten minutes of playtime with me later on. I figured it would give him a real thrill; the shed is crawling with those leathery bastards. That's basically my summer job: keeping my brother busy, creating distractions. I don't get paid.
âBut I don't like the black spiders,' he whined earlier, looking sideways at the Cheez Whiz jar and rubbing his crotch.
I clucked my tongue and flexed my biceps, as if to say
no pain, no gain
. He got the hint and stepped out into the flat, smoggy heat of our north Hamilton summer. Just in time, too, because Gorilla started up his whimpering just a few seconds later.
Mom's at work down at Robin's Donuts, past all the drooling pit bulls tied to front-porch lattices, past all the little flower gardens and dried-up lawns. She works days, preferring the fat people on their motorized scooters to the drunken teenagers at night. She gets home at 6:30 and brings us boxes of doughnuts. Or doesn't.
Just as Gorilla starts going absolutely bananas, Uncle Keith crashes down the stairs. I start humming what I think would be his
WWF
entrance music, if he were ever on the card: Hank Williams's âKaw-Liga.'
âI'm gonna cover this,' he says to me, smirking, holding up a chipped block of wood and chewing on a cigarette filter. He doesn't mean the song: Uncle Keith has a small pile of wooden blocks near the shed, and he's determined to cover each block with beer caps before the end of the summer. Keith stands shirtless and barefoot in the doorway, his gut sagging hairy and swollen over his yellow swimming trunks. He's really tanned, loves to sit out in the sun, pounding bottle caps onto blocks, bitching about things like the puppy, like the food Mom doesn't cook him, like Eddy and me. He's got a serious black moustache and a cleft, a scar, on his jaw.
I wish he
was
a wrestler, always on the road and working out, sending letters reminding us to take our vitamins and say our prayers. Sometimes Keith watches wrestling with us, but I don't think he gets it; he spends two-thirds of every
Saturday Night's Main Event
chuckling into a Pilsner, telling us how dumb we are to be watching. He keeps saying, âIt's fake. What the hell, it's fake,' as if I could be seventeen years old (old enough to drive! almost old enough to vote!) and not know this.
âDon't let the dog out of the bedroom. Don't go
near
the bedroom. The dog's got shitloads of food and water up there.'
âI'll take him for a walk,' I say. âI'll take him to the park.'
âLike hell you will.' He says this in a way that means business, like he's cutting a mean pre-show promo. He says this like Hulk Hogan would say, âWhatcha gonna do, brother?' but without all the cartoon goofiness, the reminders to exercise and stay in school â his version of Hogan is pure aggression. Keith hates the Hulkster, thinks he's all water weight and juice. He hates all the good guys. He prefers the heels, like Sgt. Slaughter, or Big Boss Man, or Mr. Perfect â guys, he says, who âjust don't give a fuck.'
âYou ain't goin' nowhere. You see that list?' he asks, pointing with the block at the refrigerator. There's a yellow strip of paper stuck to the door with a Hamilton Ti-Cats magnet. It's covered with Mom's cockamamie scrawl: a list of chores that I'm supposed to finish before she gets home. There's only three hours left to go.
âYeah,' I say.
âWell?' Then Keith pushes open the screen door and walks into the backyard. It's clear that he's won the match, retained his title as King of the Ring (King Shit, I call him). I'm just a pale and flabby jobber, laid out on the mat. I imagine âKaw-Liga' blasting from secret speakers as Keith makes his exit. I hear him grab the extension cord, plug in his paint-stained stereo and fumble around with his Hank Williams cassette. I hear him haul the green garden hose from around the side of the house and hear the hollow crash of cold hose water filling up our Aqua Nova kiddie pool. I listen to him pull up his lawn chair, dunk his fat feet into the water and hammer a bottle cap onto a block of wood. The first strains of âThere'll Be No Teardrops Tonight' blast out trebly and flat and the puppy starts to howl.
Eddy pounds into the kitchen, almost tearing the screen door off its hinges. The jar's crawling with black spiders, his eyes filling with tears.
âGorilla Mon
soon
,' he says, little chin trembling.
So Eddy and I watch the
WWF
on our tint-distorting
TV
. Eddy's hunched forward in a Maple Leafs jogging suit, an empty McDonald's carton in his lap, with the last few McNugget crumbs caught in a thick smear of plum sauce. He breathes heavily, his mouth open, playing with the spit between his tongue and his lips, blowing tiny bubbles.
Today The Ultimate Warrior is wrestling a nobody, a total jobber. The first notes of his entrance music send the audience into a frenzy. A very blurry and purply Warrior sprints to the ring. The Warrior wears red spandex trunks, shimmering tassels tied around his boots and his elbows, and bright yellow, almost
tribal
face paint. His gimmick is hard to follow: he snorts a lot, speaks in outrageous grunts about mystical powers and the harmony of the spheres, and says things like, âNow you must deal with the creation of all the unpleasantries in the entire universe, as I feel the attention of the gods above!' People love him; he's a huge face.
âWARRI-OR!' Eddy yells. He thrusts his fists into the air, imitating the huge, oiled body on the screen. He's so excited over his Warri-
or
, or the
TV
's so loud, that he doesn't notice the dog's whimpering. I do, but pretend not to; instead, I act like I'm interested in the match. Jake âThe Snake' Roberts has been helping The Warrior face the dark side lately; it's the only way he'll ever defeat his current enemy, The Undertaker, who's still undefeated by pinfall or submission. When the 'Taker defeats other wrestlers, he crosses their arms over their chests. Sometimes, if he's wrestling jobbers, he drags their unconscious bodies into body bags, zips them up and carries them out of the arena. Nobody knows what he does with them, but kids like Eddy suspect that he buries them alive.
A few months ago, The Undertaker ambushed The Warrior and sealed him inside a casket. While we watched, a host of inept backstage attendants spent precious minutes fiddling with the casket's locks before they could finally crack the lid. Once they got it open, they had to perform
CPR
on The Warrior to revive him â he was apparently unconscious from a lack of oxygen.
Being such a mark, Eddy was accordingly traumatized. He screamed in a kind of agonized warble, sat on the ground and started rocking his head in his hands, back and forth. You'd think he would've seen this type of shit before, but for some reason this was different. Mom stormed in from the kitchen and screamed at us to âTurn that faggoty shit off, it'll give him nightmares,' so I had to shut off the
TV
before Eddy could witness the happy ending: The Warrior being lifted from the coffin â unconscious, but alive.
Today, things seem fine, or forgotten. Eddy loves the good guys. He loves Hulkamania and Macho Madness. His top three favourite things in the world are wrestling, Gorilla Monsoon and Chicken McNuggets. Eddy's least favourite things are Halloween (rubber masks specifically), needles and nightmares â nights when he wakes up with a head full of dreams, eyes open, talking strange and scary like he's still seeing the witch who lives in the basement, the witch with icy fingers that curl around his neck, who whispers hate and nonsense into his ear â though one night he confessed to me that sometimes the dreams weren't about a witch at all; they were about Mom, or Keith, usually naked, grabbing and holding him down, about to do something to him that's painful and loud and in slow motion.
Eddy jumps from his end of the couch with his elbow aimed at my stomach. I'm ready for him; he collides with my knees and arms. I grab him, outweighing him by twenty, thirty pounds, and press his arms behind his back. Then I wrestle him giggling through the den and out the front door. When we step outside, heat hits us like a spear tackle. We sit gasping in the sun's glare on the concrete steps of the porch. A dozen Malaysian and Filipino children run screeching toward the intersection, daring each other to throw rocks at cars or windows, to whip friendly, sleeping cats with sticks. I can't stand the neighbourhood kids, but occasionally I feel for them. Some mothers throw loaves of bread from second-storey windows: that's food for the day. Some mothers throw luggage and blue jeans and shoes onto lawns: that means an uncle or a friend or a father is leaving. Sometimes a magazine or a newspaper is used as toilet paper â you'd be surprised at how many kids think it's reasonable to squat and shit beneath a cedar.
I unfold the note from Mom, smoothing the yellow sheet against the step.
âWhat's that?' Eddy asks, mouth hanging open, glasses sliding down the flat bridge of his nose.
I keep smoothing. âThis is a note,' I say. âFrom Mom. We have lots to do this afternoon.'
I glance up to see Eddy massaging the back of his neck, staring at the bright blue sky. His glasses gleam in the sunlight.
âI know,' he says, resigned. âI know. I know.'
âLike hell you do,' I say. âListen to me. We have to clean the house before Mom gets home at six, so â'
âWhy?' he asks, a little shrilly.
âI thought you said you knew. Don't lie to me, shithead. And don't interrupt. It's because Mom and Keith are having a party and they don't want a messy place.'
He keeps staring at the sky like it will tell him something.
âSo you're gonna go around with me today and help me clean. See?' I show him the note, force his face down to read it. âIt says: “do the dishes, take out the trash, wipe the counters, sweep and mop the floor, pick up Eddy's toys“ â that's you,
Eddy
, you see that? â “vacuum the rug and dust off the shelves.“ Think you can do that,
brother
?'
Eddy wipes his lips, sighs. âWhere's Gorilla Monsoon?' he asks.
I take a deep breath. He's already forgotten, but that's normal.
âHe's upstairs in the spare room. We gotta keep him there today 'cause otherwise he'll piss all over the floor, and that'll just mean more to clean.'
âIt's lonely up there,' he says, looking up.
For a second, I think he's talking about his brain â I get this image of a warehouse filled with old, broken-down machinery, dust-covered gears. âIt's just for the day. It's just until tonight, until after all the people go home.'
âBut that's so
long
.'
âToo bad,' I say. âLife sucks. Dig it?'
âLife sucks,' he echoes. Cicadas wail like tiny motorcycles.