by Roan Parrish
“Um, this is Rex,” I say. “That’s Sam, Colin, and Brian, and this is Liza,” I tell Rex, pointing. Sam nods at him, Brian gapes, and Colin’s eyes narrow. Liza holds out her hand and Rex shakes it, smiling at her.
“Nice to meet you all,” Rex says politely, but I notice that his voice is deeper than it usually is.
He looks so out of place here, like a figure in a painting razored from its background and pasted in another. He’s so clean and fresh and honest. In our shabby living room, he also looks huge. I look around, trying to see it through Rex’s eyes. The floorboards are dark with oil that’s been tracked in from the shop year after year, the shellac peeling in places near the front door. The plaster is uneven, so the yellow light from the overhead fixture highlights every dip and bulge. The reclining chair is broken, forever over-reclined, so it has pillows shoved in the back so you can still see the TV. The couch is threadbare, with a grimy red blanket thrown over the back that my mother crocheted when she was pregnant with Brian and wanted something to do with her hands.
And suddenly I want to be back in Rex’s clean, cozy cabin more than anything. Want to be watching a movie in front of the fire or sitting on a stool in the kitchen watching Rex cook. Want to be walking Marilyn in the woods around Rex’s house or lying in Rex’s big bed while Rex reminds me how good it’s possible to feel.
When it’s obvious that the guys aren’t going to say anything to Rex, I walk farther into the room and, seeing no safe place to sit down, stand against the wall next to the TV.
“Um, so what the fuck happened?” I ask. “Was Dad sick?”
“If he was he didn’t say so,” Sam says. Liza has walked back to his chair and is resting her hands tentatively on the back of it, as if she thinks Sam might tell her to leave any moment.
“I don’t think he went to a doctor or anything,” Brian adds.
“So, he just dropped dead all of a sudden?” I say. “Can you please tell me what happened?”
“We were in the shop,” Sam says. “Everything was fine. Then I heard a crash in the office and Pop was on the floor, grabbing at his heart. Luther called 911.” Sam’s getting choked up. “He died at the hospital.”
“Shit,” I say. “So, the doctors said it was a heart attack?”
Sam nods.
“What else did they say?”
“Are you a fucking medical doctor now too?” Colin’s voice is poisonous.
“No, I just want to know what happened.”
“We’re having the funeral tomorrow,” Liza says, taking pity on me.
“Jesus, that’s fast,” I say. Of course, at this point it’s already been three days since they didn’t call me right away.
“Well, we can’t keep the shop closed and Vic got us an in at his cousin’s funeral parlor,” Sam says.
“Seriously, Sam? Vic’s a fucking slimeball.”
“Just because you don’t like him…,” Brian says.
“Dude, he’s a criminal; come on.” I look at Liza, hoping for some backup, but she’s looking at the floor.
“Well, you weren’t here to make other arrangements,” Colin says, his voice shaking with anger. “So we took care of it. If you’re too good to go to the funeral because you don’t approve of Vic, then that’s your fucking business.”
I grit my teeth, at this point just trying to get all the information before I get the hell out of here.
“Of course I’m going to the funeral. What can I do to help?”
“Nothing,” Sam says. “It’s taken care of.”
He gives me the details.
“Okay, well,” I say. I feel like I should say something but I have no idea what.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
“Not like you ever gave a shit about him anyway,” Colin mutters.
Fury lances through my chest, propelled by the old familiar cocktail of frustration, pain, and injustice.
“You know that’s not fucking true, Colin,” I say, furious to hear my voice shaking. “I just didn’t have that much in common with him.” Rex takes a step closer and puts his hand on the small of my back.
“I’m sorry,” Brian says, “but who the fuck are you?”
“Well, yeah,” Colin says, standing up. He sways on his feet. Shit, he’s trashed. “What would Pop have in common with a stuck-up little faggot?” He puts his finger in my face. “He looked out for you and you didn’t even care enough to stick around.”
“Colin,” Sam warns.
Colin’s staggering drunk, but his speech is horrifyingly clear. He actually believes that they’re the loyal sons who loved our dad and I’m the selfish piece of shit who took him for granted and then bailed. I can feel it: the tickling in my ears and tightness in my throat that means I’m going to cry if I don’t do something quick. So I do the only thing that always works. I get mad instead.
“What the fuck, Colin!”
I shove him, thinking that this unsteady on his feet he’ll go down like a sack of cement. But, even wasted, Colin’s a fighter, and he sways back to center like a punching bag, grabs me by the shirt, and slams me against the wall so hard the light flickers. I hear Liza’s intake of breath. Colin’s face is a mask of fury.
He’s the only one of us who looks like our mom, with light brown hair and light blue eyes. He’s my height, but he’s built like a tank.
I’ve never won a fight with Colin. Not ever.
Then there’s a large presence at my shoulder and Rex peels Colin off me. His expression is neutral, but when he speaks his voice is murderously calm.
“Don’t. Fucking. Touch him,” Rex says, and you would have to be out of your goddamned mind to start anything with that voice. Colin, though I’ve wondered over the years, is not out of his mind.
The tension in the room is thick. Sam has half risen from the recliner and Brian is standing in front of the TV as if he might be able to change the channel and end up in some other living room in some other house, with some other family. He looks anxious. Brian is always anxious when Colin isn’t in control.
“Um, so, who are you?” he asks Rex again.
“Rex,” Rex says, glancing at me as if to check what he should say.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I say. I feel a flash of elation at saying it for the first time, followed by a deep pang of shame, the only emotion I’ve ever associated with desire for men inside these walls.
Sam looks at the floor and Colin sinks back onto the couch.
“Well, I guess it’s obvious who the girl is, Danielle,” Colin says, using his old nickname for me.
It doesn’t matter that years of studying gender theory have given me the ability to reject the gender binary outright. It doesn’t matter that I understand my negative reaction to being called the girl is due to a whole lot of entrenched cultural misogyny and not my own feelings about women. It doesn’t matter that I love when Rex fucks me, which is, of course, basically what Colin’s accusing me of.
All that matters in this moment is launching myself across the pathetic pressboard coffee table cluttered with beer cans and junk mail, and beating the shit out of Colin, which is what I’m attempting to do when Rex grabs me. At least he let me get in a couple of good punches, but I’m still vibrating with fury.
“Fuck!” I yell, and I’m actually glad when Rex grabs me this time, because I was about to punch the television, and god knows if I’d broken that, all three of my brothers would have jumped on me and murdered me before Rex could do a thing about it.
I slam out the front door and turn into the alley where Rex’s truck is. I’m leaning against it when Rex joins me.
“Well,” I say. But I have nothing to add.
Rex fixes me with a look that manages to be incredibly sympathetic without pissing me off.
“I don’t care for your brothers,” he says, jaw clenched.
I laugh.
“Fuck, me neither. Let’s get out of here.”
I feel better after the fight
with Colin, actually. My anger for him is familiar; I know it’ll fade. It feels better than the creeping numbness I’ve felt the last few days.
It’s about nine when we get to Ginger’s shop, and I have a huge grin on my face as the door chimes tinkle their customary welcome. Ginger is in the back of the shop, doing inventory. She’s wearing these hideous purple overalls that she loves and a black bandeau top that shows off the tattoos on her arms, chest, back, and neck. Her curly black hair is shaved on one side and she’s wearing her usual tangle of thin silver chains around her neck.
She’s pretty but not beautiful, with a pale, heart-shaped face and intelligent brown eyes. But when she looks up and sees me, she cracks a grin that turns her into the most beautiful girl in the world. Her eyes flash and her nose crinkles and she squeals and rushes toward me, jumping on me in joy.
“You came back early!”
She smells like Ginger. Like baby powder deodorant, eucalyptus shampoo, jasmine perfume, and, over it all, the metallic tang of ink.
“My fucking father died,” I say, as she untangles herself from me and her boots hit the floor.
“Oh shit, babycakes,” she says. Then she looks behind me. “Is this Rex?” she asks.
Rex steps forward and holds out his hand.
“Ginger?” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
She scoffs at his hand and hugs him too, though it’s considerably harder, since he has about a foot on her.
“Come upstairs,” she says. “You’re staying with me, right?”
“If it’s okay,” I say.
“Obviously,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. Fuck, I’ve missed her. “Hey, guys,” she calls into the private tattooing rooms, “close up for me?”
“Yeah, I got it,” a voice calls back.
“Hey, Marcus,” I call.
“Hi, Daniel,” he calls back.
I sink down on Ginger’s purple velvet couch, which, despite all the shit I give her about how ugly it is, is actually quite comfortable. I love Ginger’s apartment. It’s a perfect reflection of her. The wood back of the couch is painted gold and it and a leather armchair flank the wagon wheel coffee table. Hung above the doors and windows are animal skulls encrusted in black glitter. She painted the ceiling so it looks like it’s cracking, and the cracks run from a spot near the window where she’s painted it to look like a realistic skeleton hand has broken through the ceiling and is reaching down. The walls are hung with friends’ art and her own. There are paintings by her friend, Jonah, which are Day of the Dead animals; collages of outer space by some woman who traded them for a tattoo years ago; a gorgeous nude of a man covered in tattoos that she traded two of her own paintings for.
I love Ginger’s work. Many of them are based on tattoo designs, realistic black and gray skulls morphing into candle flames and melting wax, panthers morphing into sleek, black-haired women, and a very creepy one of a snake swallowing a grouse.
My favorite hangs over the bed. It’s a self-portrait Ginger did from a photograph of herself from behind, so it’s really just her hair and shoulders. The detail in her long curls and short stubble are amazing. It’s stark and mesmerizing but framed in a heavy old baroque-looking gold frame. I’ve spent hours tracing the lines of the curls with my eyes when I woke up hungover in Ginger’s bed.
Rex is doing what everyone does the first time they come over to Ginge’s, which is walking around her apartment checking out all her stuff. He lingers over a puzzle box on a stand near the bed. Ginger did a tattoo of a really complicated Escher piece on this guy a few years ago. He was a puzzle maker—that’s how he described it. His signature work was these puzzle boxes carved out of chunks of wood from his family home, which partially burned down. He was a weird guy. Anyway, he came back when the tattoo had healed because Ginger wanted to take a picture of it for her portfolio and he brought her the puzzle box as a gift. It’s gorgeous, the wood stained this really dark chocolate brown. I’ve fiddled with it a million times.
Rex is turning it over in his hands, poking and prodding it. I should have known he’d go right to it, with his love of taking things apart. After a minute, though, which is how long it usually takes people to give up and assume it doesn’t open, Rex pulls something and pushes something else, and the first pieces come out.
“Holy….” Ginger mutters and we both walk over to Rex.
“Is it okay? Sorry, I should’ve asked,” Rex says, looking like a kid whose favorite toy might get taken away.
“No, no, it’s fine. Please,” Ginger says, raising her eyebrows at me as Rex gleefully sets his attention back on the box.
After five minutes he has it open and casually starts to put it back together again.
“Wait!” Ginger yells. She reaches into the center of the box and pulls out a piece of paper. In cramped handwriting, it just says, I’m impressed.
“Oh my god,” I say.
“What?” Rex asks, sounding nervous. He looks between me and Ginger. She’s gaping at him.
“No one’s ever opened that thing before,” I tell Rex. “Not even Ginger. We had no idea there was something inside either.”
“Holy mother love bone,” Ginger says, a grunge oath she reserves only for things that truly delight her. “Dandelion, you hooked a genius.”
“I know, right?” I link my arm with Rex’s. He’s actually blushing and he looks quite pleased. “Except, now, all I can think of is what happens to the idiots who open the puzzle box in the Hellraiser movies.”
Ginger laughs—she loves Hellraiser—but stops abruptly.
“Um, so your dad?”
It comes rushing back so suddenly that I can’t believe I ever forgot. I sink down onto the couch and Rex sits next to me, looking ridiculously beefy reclining against purple velvet. I tell Ginger about my dad. About getting the call and how the guys waited a whole day to bother telling me. When I get to Colin’s accusation that I didn’t care that Dad was dead, Rex is vibrating with anger.
“Rex might have had to pull me off Colin,” I say.
“Had he called you that before?” Rex asks hesitantly, and it takes me a minute to remember which of Colin’s vile comments he might be referring to.
“What, Danielle?” Ginger asks.
“Or the girl? Not,” I add quickly, “that being called a girl is an insult. Just, you know Colin.”
“Oh, I know,” Ginger says. “That little asshole. Not,” she adds, looking at me and drawling suggestively, “that there’s anything wrong with assholes.”
“Oh fuck, I’ve missed you,” I say. “Got a drink?”
Ginger nods and grabs a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. I take a sip and feel the heat feather down my throat and spread through my breastbone.
“How is it, then?” Ginger asks seriously, finally raising the question I’ve been dreading.
“Oh, fine; a little harsh for my taste,” I say, raising the bottle at her.
“Ha-ha,” she says. Then she just waits. I close my eyes and lean back against Rex’s shoulder. His arm automatically comes around me and all I want to do is turn my face into his neck and never come out.
“I’m not sure,” I say finally. “I’m… I feel all messed up, but… not precisely sad. More like—fuck, I don’t know.”
“Finish your sentence,” Ginger says. Jesus, she’s pushy. I can practically feel Rex taking notes.
“I don’t know if I’ll miss him. But, I guess a part of me always thought maybe the way things were was temporary. That, eventually, we’d be closer? Understand each other better. So now I feel like the… like that potential future has been… interrupted. Stolen from me.”
“More please,” Ginger says. I close my eyes again. I hate when she does this. I love when she does this. It’s like I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling until I say it out loud.
“I was thinking, over Thanksgiving, that I don’t really know him. I don’t know what makes him tick—made him tick. Like, if he were the main character in the book I was reading,
it’d only be chapter two. I’d know his name and who was in his daily life, but I’d be waiting to find out that thing that would make me care about his story. At least, that’s how I felt before. There was a whole book left. The promise that maybe if I kept reading I’d learn enough to make me like him—care about him. Only now, it’s like he was just a secondary character—a tertiary character. And the author hadn’t even thought about any more of a story for him. There just isn’t any more of him. And, I don’t know. That makes me fucking sad because I think probably he felt the same way about me. I know he cared about me, at least a little. I mean, I think so. And Colin and the guys, they knew him. And they’re fucking devastated he’s dead. And I’m jealous because….”
“Because?” Ginger prods.
“Because they were a family and I wasn’t part of it,” I say, and though I’ve never had the thought before, I know it’s what I really mean the second it comes out of my mouth. I swallow hard and my mouth tastes like blood. I take another gulp of whiskey and let my head fall back on Rex’s shoulder. I look up at him and see moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes. When he looks at me his eyes are so soft.
“I guess now we’re both orphans,” he says, and even though his voice is a masculine growl, it’s such a little kid thing to say that it breaks my heart.
“I guess so.”
I clear my throat.
“So, how was the family for Thanksgiving,” I ask Ginger, desperate to change the subject before Rex and I end up bawling all over each other.
“It’s been worse,” she says slowly.
“Just because we’re both orphans now doesn’t mean you can’t feel free to rain shit down on your family,” I say. Ginger smirks.
“The mother was a passive-aggressive ice queen from hell who told me I needed to lose ten pounds and then maybe my tattoos would look like an avant garde fashion statement instead of a desperate attempt to thumb my nose at society’s standards of beauty before men could reject me for being unconventional-looking.”
Rex’s mouth drops open.
“No, that’s seriously how she talks,” I say.
“I think you’re beautiful,” Rex says. Then a look of panic crosses his face. “I mean, I know that’s the opposite of your point. Shit, I’m sorry.” He looks at me, as if I can smooth it over.
