Our Town (13 page)

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She’d recently run out of Seagram’s, and she didn’t feel well. Not well, and not happy. Nauseous, most of the time. She stood before the mirror. She noticed that the toilet-paper roll had run out, so she reached behind the toilet for another. In case she needed them for later. When there weren’t any, she went to her room, got the tissues, and put them atop the toilet seat. Then she saw she had lipstick on her teeth and started wiping it off. Pieces of tissue stuck to her fangs. She tongued those off and spat them out. After a few moments, she pressed the mirror in front of her, and it bounced open. She took out the burnt-orange-flavored mouthwash. It was the generic kind, which
she preferred. It was stronger. Then she gargled for thirty seconds. Then she spat. Then she gargled again. This time she swallowed.

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Dylan wandered around the house alone in his underwear and freckles and dirty hair. The bottoms of his feet were black from being inside shoeless then going outside shoeless then coming back in. Clover was at school in Malibu. Malibu Middle. She went because she wanted to. Dylan didn’t because he didn’t. Dorothy didn’t care. She was busy. At ten he was old enough to make his own decisions. He was fine. Dylan walked from room to room exploring. Every door was open. Except his mother’s. During the day, that was locked. That was always locked. She was writing, or napping, or something, she used to say when he used to ask her. She was busy. So he stopped doing that. It’s best to just leave her alone.

He walked to the bathroom. He closed the door. He looked at himself in the mirror. He wanted to shave. He’d already tried—hearing that shaving early would bring forth coarser hair—but nothing. Once he’d cut the fur from a toy panda and Elmer’s glued it to his face, but that didn’t fool anyone either. It was just really hard to get off. And Clover made fun of him when she saw it. And when he thought about it he always felt sad. He walked to the toilet and saw that it was pissed in and flushed it and watched the water wash down. He touched the water once it was clean and felt that it was cool on his forehead. He walked to the sink and turned on the hot water and then walked back to the toilet to see if that water heated, too. It didn’t. It was still cool, and he used some to slick his hair back on his head.

He left for the garage. He opened the garage door and left it that way, just in case. He crept toward the El Camino. It had begun to rust at its burnt-orange hinges. He needed two hands, and all his strength, to pull the door open. He hopped in. He reached up toward the leather wheel. His hands barely grappled on. He pretended to drive, steering left and right. He turned the keys—already in the ignition—but the
car sputtered, and sputtered, and refused to start. Wouldn’t catch. He couldn’t reach the pedal. Also, he didn’t know that’s what was necessary to start the car. He stopped trying. Damn. He scooted over to the passenger side of the bench seat. He locked and unlocked the door. Then he turned on the radio. Talk radio. So he turned off the radio. He opened the glove box. Inside were a few maps—Pasadena, Rancho Cucamonga, Modesto, San Jose—a pack of cinnamon gum—Big Red,
deliciously different since 1937!
—a pack of cigarettes—Camel heavies, quarter-full, about—and a dirtied, greasy plastic bag. He ate a stick of gum—but it was old so it shattered in his mouth—so he spat out the sticky shards in the ashtray. He pulled a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth. He pressed in the car’s lighter but it popped back out. Required the car to have been started. Shit. He pulled out the plastic bag. He let it rest against his naked legs. He opened it. There were four syringes inside. He removed one, white-flecked and overused. He pulled out the plunger and then pushed it back in. A crusty flake fell and floated down to his kneecap. And he felt the stale air against his fingertip as it was expelled from the barrel through the needle tip. Then he pricked his finger with the dull point. It took a moment, and he pressed hard, before he saw any blood. But then his fingertip turned red, and a drip fell splat on his knee, and then another. And then another. He put his finger in his mouth to clean it. His blood was warm and thick. It tasted like boiled, salted asparagus. He gulped it down.

PART-TIME HEAD TURNER, FULL-TIME JAW DROPPER

D
ale was filming a movie in New York and they’d rented him a room at the Plaza for the entirety of the shoot. This was a studio picture. They had the money to treat him right. He’d brought Clover with him along to the city, even though she’d miss school, because he thought she might have fun. And that they might have fun. Just the two of them. Just the two of them alone.

Clover spent much of the time in Dale’s trailer over the course of the trip, but one beautiful fall Sunday that Dale had off, they spent the day together, enjoying New York. They went to the Bronx Zoo—Clover’s favorites were the gorillas, then toucans—and the National History Museum—there she was partial to life-size Native American dioramas, trading wampum with the pilgrims, buckled loafers fresh off the boat, and the cafeteria whale, looming over them, large and precarious, as they finished their tuna salad sandwiches. Again, Dale loved tuna salad sandwiches, and this trait was inherited by his daughter, too. They went to the top of the Empire State Building, where Clover paid a nickel—well, Dale paid a nickel, but Clover dropped it into the slot—to look out at New York through a shined silver tower optical and down at all the people from above. Like ants in an ant farm, or moles in a molehill. Or lemmings, following each other off a cliff, off
into nothing. And then just dead. Or cockroaches, when you leave your dirty dishes too long and then you turn the lights on; Clover looked down on New York and felt above them. And not just physically. Above them like she felt about her rats. Of a different ilk. Just better than they were. More independent. Much more free.

After the Empire State Building they walked to the Chrysler Building, and from the Chrysler Building they took a yellow cab to FAO Schwarz. Within the toy store she found an oversized, over-stuffed gorilla—even bigger than her, almost the size of the one in the zoo!—and she made Daddy buy it.

With the gorilla on his back, holding it by its stuffed forearms, Dale walked with his twelve-year-old from the corner of 59th and Central Park South to their hotel’s entrance. They’d had a wonderful day together, and now they were both pooped. I’m exhausted. You wanna go get some rest, angel? Yeah, I do. Daddy, can we order room service tonight? Of course we can, baby. You better believe it. I’m gonna get a sundae. You want one, too. Yeah, I do, I think. Vanilla with caramel. And walnuts. And a cherry. Make that two.

However, approximately thirty yards from the lobby’s steps—57th Street and Central Park South—Clover spotted an advantage over her gorilla-gripping father and yelled, “Race!” before sprinting toward the marble. Surprised, he mumbled, “You little shit,” before sprinting himself, still gripping the tan hands of the gorilla. He chased her the half a block toward the hotel, and, while doing so, considered his options. He could let his daughter win, perhaps make her day even more perfect. He could, perhaps, with some guile, attempt to tie, and they could celebrate their day together. Or, or, he could really run and, even with the gorilla, he could win. He could win. Yeah, let’s go with that one. That seems the most fitting. That seems the most true.

“I told you you’d never beat me,” Dale spat out with his hands on his knees, panting. He’d let the gorilla fall to the cement floor.

“Fuck,” Clover replied. “I thought I finally had you.”

“Don’t curse.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Seriously, Clover,” he stood up straight. “Don’t curse.”

“Whatever,” her head dropped. “Don’t forget my gorilla.” And Clover walked up the red-carpeted steps toward the lobby’s gold revolving door.

DUTCH ANGLES

A
nd then Dorothy was at a bar. Gray gravel gargled underneath a brown Dodge pickup’s winter tires as it pulled into a parking spot beside her El Camino. Dorothy sat in a window seat sipping a drink on the rocks—“Bourbon, with just a splash of juice,” she’d told the bartender. “What kind of juice?” he’d asked. “Any,” she’d replied—and watched as Calbert stepped down from the cab of his truck. Everyone called Calbert “Shoelace,” but she refused. She said it was too common. She said it was untoward. Calbert wore a Hawaiian shirt—royal blue, with a golf club print—and carpenter’s pants. He had yellow-tinted lenses in his nearsighted aviator frames, and thinning hair. Wispy, but still long in back—he wasn’t gonna look conservative. And he always—always!—had full pockets. That’s because he dealt pharmaceuticals. Calbert was Dorothy’s latest. She met him on the bus. He sometimes gave her presents. She sometimes pretended she cared.

Calbert slammed his truck’s door and walked in through the linoleum-framed entrance. In his right hand he carried Georgia tulips.

“Miss Americus,” he said, his voice thick with cigarettes. “A Georgia tulip for my Georgia tulip.”

“Hi, baby,” she said. And then, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” because she was bashful. Because she liked to play shy.

“How long you been waitin’?”

“Like two cocktails’ worth,” she replied and drank up the rest of her drink. All that was left was ice. She crunched it. Then they both turned around in their stools. Calbert then stood.

“You want another?” Calbert asked as he wandered toward the bar.

“Yeah. I think I do. I think I’d love that,” Dorothy said and smiled.

This was Dorothy’s locale. Since Dale had taken Clover, she’d decided to move and live smaller in Venice. She’d been in her apartment a month now, but it was still not entirely furnished. She was still living out of boxes. The biggest things in the apartment were her new Rottweilers, Sarge and Tiara. She’d left Dylan at home to take care of the dogs. They used to be LAPD sniffin’ dogs, but they protected her now. They licked Dylan’s face when he got dirty and even let him pull their tails. Well, once Sarge snapped at him, but Dyl just thought it was funny. They got along with little Butchie, and they kept him safe. They kept them safe. And Dorothy loved them dearly. They made her feel secure.

But back to the bar. Stamped-down wood—flattened by brown shoes—and bright-lit beer signs. Neon clocks and dried-whiskey smell. Bourbon-flavored Lysol. Prints of four-leaf clovers and a pool table with leopard print. And a bartender in a white button-down shirt with ribbed, white undershirt and gold chains with his sleeves rolled up, showing off half of his bicep tattoos—an anchor, a flower, and a cross within a heart underneath the scripted word
Mama
. His back shirttail was tucked into his dungarees. But not his front shirttail.

Calbert walked up to the bar and leaned against it. Dorothy admired her beau. He pulled up one of his elbows and looked at it with a sour face. He’d placed it in a puddle of beer, and the worn-frayed edge of his Hawaiian shirt had sopped up some Belgian witte. Dorothy laughed. Then lit a cigarette.

“I’ll have a—hmm—what do you have on tap?”

“Dark, light, foreign.” A beat. “And Americ—”

“I’ll have an imported,” Calbert interrupted. Calbert drank imported. He thought he was fancy. Extra fancy. Cosmopolitan. That was rich. “And a shot of bourbon. And whatever it was she had. What she had, again. Rocks.”

They sat and held hands and enjoyed their drinks. Dorothy let Calbert catch up. He drank a few beers quickly. They talked about their days. Do worked now when she had to. The money from the divorce was drying, but she still collected some alimony. She felt this was deserved—in fact, she felt shorted—but, at this point, that’s a losing battle.

Today, she’d done a radio commercial for a new mop detergent. Commercials paid, and exposure had no longer become a priority. Well, at least that’s what she told herself.

“Your robot again?” a handsome voice asked Dorothy as she ate dinner on the floor.

“Nope.”

“What then?”

“My Mop ’n’ Glo.”

“Your Mop ’n’ Glo?”

“My Mop ’n’ Glo!”

Calbert asked Dorothy about the kids. She said they were okay. Dylan was eleven, now, and Clover was twelve. Pubescent. Do smoked another cigarette. And another after that. She asked Calbert about being a locksmith—his day job. And about how much money he made selling drugs. He said speed was the most profitable. He said that these days, with everyone always partying, that that was most in demand. That it was all about demand. But he preferred selling downers, like Quaaludes, because he preferred the customers. Better clientele. In other words, very mellow people—their demons tending to surface more in the recesses of their mind than in their presentation. A lot less tweaky. And a lot more teeth.

“You look pretty today,” Calbert said as he finished the last part of his beer. It was flat. He’d taken too long with this one.

“Well I think you look handsome as all hell.” She leaned in and kissed his receding forehead. “I think I’m gonna run to the ladies’.”

“You got it, baby. You want another?”

“What do you think?” and she looked at him, and she smiled, and she winked.

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She looked at herself in the tarnished mirror after she used the toilet.
You cunty bitch
was written in cursive at the bottom in marker. She pulled up her wig. Her hair was getting thinner. Poor nutrition, her doctor told her. You don’t eat enough, he said. She thought she ate plenty. Too much, even. Her shakes were filled with nutrients! She adjusted her wig. She pulled it up to see if that worked better. Looked better. Didn’t. She pulled it back down. She smiled and looked at her newly capped teeth. She thought about Calbert. She thought of him drinking another beer and how, perhaps, she’d settled. Again, she’d settled. She hadn’t introduced him, yet, to the children. Or to Dyl, that is. She hadn’t seen Clo in a while. She couldn’t figure out the right time. The cheese seemed to be sliding off the cracker. But she liked Calbert okay. Calbert was someone. Calbert was nice to her and spoke sweetly. It was hard to be alone. As a woman, she needed a man. She needed someone. A woman needs someone. Someone was better than no one. That’s for sure. And Dylan wasn’t someone. Not yet, anyway. So Calbert was it. Calbert gave her what she needed, which these days was a comfortable shoulder to lean on. Pick up a bar tab. A nice dinner out. Flowers every now and again. Valium.