The Agony of Bun O'Keefe

by Heather T. Smith

  “Who’s Chef?”

  “He’s one of our roommates.”

  “Is his room the one with the sparkly treble clef?”

  “Ha! No. Oh, by the way, you know to stay away from the landlord, right? He’s a total creep. If he tries to talk to you, just tell him to bleep off. That’s what I do.”

  I hummed along to the drone of the hairdryer. Big Eyes switched it off. “What’s that noise?” I listened all around. “I don’t hear anything.” She turned it on again. I hummed so low my teeth rattled. “Are you humming?” she shouted. My heart did a flip. “I’ll stop if you want.” She bent down and whispered in my ear, “Hum away, my darling. I just wondered, that’s all.”

  My darling.

  I hummed till my hair was bone dry.

  She chattered nonstop as she curled my hair. She talked about Simon Le Bon’s bleepin’ gorgeous eyes and how the candy store was a great place to work but dangerous if you liked wearing belly shirts.

  I could kind of see how Simon Le Bon’s eyes might be regarded as nice, but no matter how many times I pressed rewind, I couldn’t make the connection between danger and belly shirts.

  She leaned in close to curl the hair near my face. She smelled like a baby I’d held at the RV park. Its mother had asked me to hold it while she had a shower. It pulled my hair and drooled on my shoulder but it smelled nice. And so did Big Eyes. So I told her.

  She laughed. “I smell like a baby? One with a full diaper or one straight out of the bath?”

  “Straight out of the bath.”

  She put down the iron and took a bottle off her dresser.

  “Hold out your wrists.”

  She pumped the bottle twice on each wrist.

  “Love’s Baby Soft. Got it for my birthday.”

  “Happy Birthday.”

  “It’s not today. It was back in August. Before I left.”

  She rolled a strand of hair onto the curling iron. “Rub your wrists together.”

  I did.

  “Now smell them.”

  I did that too.

  “Like it?”

  When I nodded she said, “Watch your head, hon, this is hot.”

  She released the final curl. I felt different, like I had a new head. She loosened each ringlet with her fingers, then combed them upwards till they went big and frizzy. She told me to close my eyes and when I did, she drowned me in hairspray.

  “There. Bleepin’ gorgeous.”

  She stood back. “I gotta say, though. You’re awfully pale.”

  She dabbed a big brush in pink powder and stroked my cheeks. “That’s better.”

  Another step back. “Want some shadow?”

  Her eyelids were layered with color, like the rainbow I’d climbed in my dream.

  “No thanks.”

  There was a knock on the front door.

  She pulled the plug on the iron. “I’ll get it. Meet me in the living room.”

  “Wait. I was going to tell you a story. While you did my hair.”

  “Never mind. Next time.”

  She took a quick look at herself in a full-length mirror, then wrapped herself up in an oversized cardigan.

  On my way to the living room I heard pssst from the kitchen. A guy with a Mohawk held out a spoon.

  “Honey-garlic sauce. For wings. Wanna taste?”

  It smelled good so I said okay.

  “Bun, what are you doing?”

  Busker Boy was behind me.

  “I’m going to try this guy’s sauce.”

  “Who’s this guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there are some rotten people out there.”

  “Is he a rotten person?”

  “He’s fine. But you didn’t know that when you said yes to his sauce.”

  The guy with the Mohawk slopped his spoon back into the pot. “Jesus, you’d think I was pushing drugs.”

  I couldn’t make Big Eyes’s danger–belly shirt connection, but I thought maybe the Mohawk guy could be the other roommate.

  “Are you Chef?”

  “See?” he said. “She does know me. Can she taste my sauce now?”

  A sigh. “Go ahead.”

  Chef held the spoon to my lips. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Once, my mother brought home fresh strawberry jam that a farmer was selling at a flea market. She only gave me one spoonful, but it turned into hundreds ’cause I never forgot the taste and was able to imagine it whenever I wanted.

  “Well?”

  “It’s food.”

  Chef said, “No need to be sarcastic,” and Busker Boy said, “I don’t think she does sarcasm,” and I said, “I mean real food, like, so real my mouth is going to remember it for a long time,” and Chef said, “Who are you?” and I said, “Bun O’Keefe,” and he said, “I think we’re going to be great friends, Bun O’Keefe.”

  —

  There was a beanbag chair in a nook that I figured was meant for a TV ’cause of all the outlets. I thought it was cozy but Busker Boy pulled me out and said, “Join the party, Bun.”

  Everyone had a bottle of something except Busker Boy, and when Pop Girl asked why, he said, “I don’t drink.”

  I read a poem once called “A Dream Pang.” In it, a guy hides in the woods watching his lover decide whether to follow his footsteps into the forest. He says, “And the sweet pang it cost me not to call.” I wasn’t sure what a pang was so I looked it up. I’d never felt a sudden feeling of emotional distress before—until Pop Girl looked at Busker Boy and said, “You don’t drink? That’s ironic.” It wasn’t ’cause of her words, which made no sense to me, but ’cause of the look on Busker Boy’s face when she said them. He’d felt a pang, I could tell, and his pang caused mine.

  Big Eyes changed the subject. “What do you guys think of Bun’s hair?”

  “It looks nice,” Busker Boy said. “Not sure about that pink stuff on her cheeks though. You’ve hidden her freckles.”

  “Yeah, but she really needed it. She’s as white as a bleepin’ ghost. No offense, Bun.”

  Pop Girl suggested they focus less on my hair and makeup and more on the fact that my glasses looked like they’d fit a five-year-old, and I said, “That’s when I got them,” and they said, “You haven’t had new glasses since you were five?” and I said, “No, ’cause that’s when my dad left,” and they said, “What about your mother?” and I said, “What about her?”

  Chef passed me a bottle. “For what it’s worth, I think you look just fine.”

  “Don’t give her that,” said Busker Boy.

  “Why not?”

  “She’s too young.”

  “How old is she?” asked Chef.

  “Fourteen.”

  “It’s one beer,” said Pop Girl. “What’s the problem?”

  “She’s a young fourteen.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. Fourteen was fourteen.

  I passed it back. “Lord Byron said, ‘A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.’ Viands means ‘food.’ I looked it up.”

  Big Eyes said, “She sounds like an old fourteen to me.”

  Pop Girl asked what language I was speaking. I said English.

  Busker Boy picked up his guitar. “Any requests?”

  I said “Footloose” but not ’cause I wanted to hear it.

  Busker Boy laughed. “Sorry. Not my style.”

  “It wasn’t a request,” said Big Eyes. “I was humming it earlier and it just popped in her head.”

  It was the first time someone knew what I meant. And then I went and ruined it.

  “Footloose came home in the box with Jimmy Quinlan.”

  I wasn’t good at reading faces, but blank was easy.

  Busker Boy strummed his guitar. “Chef? Anything you’d like to hear?”

  Chef grinned. “You know the one.�
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  Busker Boy smirked. “Do I?”

  “Just play the damn song.”

  “What song?”

  Once, I found a bag of golf balls and a package of Crayola markers in the same box from the thrift shop, so I did what came naturally and colored in all the ball dimples. My mother called me mischievous. I was too little to know what that meant so I looked it up. One of the entries was “naughty,” which seemed fitting, but it also said “playfully annoying,” and I wished I knew how to add the playfully to the annoying ’cause I only ever managed to be the latter. But Busker Boy, he knew how it was done. He grinned at Chef with shiny eyes and said, “This song you speak of, was it written by Van Morrison?”

  Chef sighed. “Yes.”

  “But recorded by Art Garfunkel?”

  “Stop screwing around and play.”

  “Shall I sing it as Van…”

  Strum, strum, strum.

  “Or Art?”

  Chef said, “As yourself, please,” and I was glad ’cause we had Art Garfunkel and Van Morrison on eight-track and out of the three Busker Boy was best.

  He belted it out.

  Chef joined in with the la-la-las and na-na-nas, and when it was over he said, “Best song ever,” and passed around a skinny cigarette. Pop Girl breathed it in for a long time before giving it to Busker Boy who passed it on to Big Eyes who barely touched it to her lips but said, “Hot bleep, this bleep is bleepin’ good.” When it came to me Busker Boy shook his head, so I gave it back to Chef who shared it with Pop Girl, and together they smoked it till it was gone. Busker Boy sang a song about words flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup and his voice was making me sleepy, so I was glad when Chef brought out the food ’cause his honey-garlic wings woke me up. There were tortilla chips with toppings too, and I ate loads and soon I had that rumbly kitten feeling—I was full of something good and it wasn’t just the viands on the table.

  Chef told me that goat cheese added interest to the typical nacho platter and a few drops of sriracha gave it depth of flavor. Pop Girl took a chip and said, “Mmmm. Spicy. I like things hot.” She looked at Busker Boy when she said hot. I wasn’t sure why.

  I said, “I think the appropriate word would be spicy, rather than hot. Hot refers to temperature and spicy refers to flavor. Although, there is something called the Scoville scale. It measures the heat of spicy foods in Scoville heat units. Maybe pungency would be a better word ’cause it can’t be mistaken for temperature. Scotch bonnet peppers have three hundred and fifty thousand SHU.”

  Chef’s eyelids were heavy. “That’s rad, man. How do you know this shit?”

  “Shit is the ‘appropriate’ word,” said Pop Girl, but then she laughed and said, “Just kidding.”

  “Bun knows lots of facts,” said Busker Boy. “Don’t you, Bun?”

  The way he said it, it was like he was proud.

  “I know lots of stories too,” I said. “I have one about spicy food. If you want to hear it.”

  “Go for it,” said Chef.

  I settled into the beanbag chair. “Okay. So a king named Solomon invited the Queen of Sheba to his place for an overnight visit. He offered her a feast but made the food really spicy on purpose. At bedtime she asked him to not force himself on her while she slept, and he said only if you don’t steal from me, and she thought, Why would I steal from you? Later, she woke up thirsty ’cause of the spicy food, so she took a drink of water from a glass that was left by her bed. Suddenly Solomon appeared and said that she’d broken her promise so she had no choice but to have sex with him.”

  “How is drinking water stealing?” asked Big Eyes.

  “Solomon said that water was the most valuable of all his possessions.”

  “What a creep,” said Pop Girl. “He basically raped her.”

  “Yeah, but the fact is, she broke the promise,” I said. “So she got what she deserved.”

  “What a terrible thing to say,” said Busker Boy.

  It was just like with my mother. The only way I knew I’d said something wrong was not by the words themselves but by the reaction to them.

  “He set a deliberate trap,” said Big Eyes. “Why would you put the blame on her?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t think you should be reading stories like that,” said Busker Boy, “let alone re-telling them as some sort of lighthearted tale.”

  I wondered what Horton would make of the Queen of Sheba.

  “And why you’d conclude that ‘she got what she deserved’ is beyond me,” he said. “I actually find it kind of disturbing.”

  “Okay,” said Chef. “You don’t need to beat a dead horse. I think she gets it now.”

  As far as I could tell the only thing that was disturbing was the idea of someone beating a dead horse. What would be the point?

  It took a while for the mood to get back to where it was, but soon everyone was singing and chatting like normal and I didn’t speak, not ’cause I was trying to stay out of trouble but ’cause I was doing a lot of rewinding in my head.

  The downstairs door opened and I wondered if it was Dragon Man, but a woman appeared in the living room. She wore a tight, silky gown with feather trim on the sleeves. Her hair was jet black and straight, and as she walked in she flicked it off her shoulders. Busker Boy picked up his guitar and together they sang “I Got You Babe,” and I said, “Sonny and Cher,” ’cause I’d seen it on reruns. The tall, skinny lady said, “Not Sonny, just Cher,” and she shook my hand and said, “Who are you?” and I said, “Bun O’Keefe.” She said, “Short for Bernice, right? I had an Aunt Bun once; she was a nasty old bag,” and I said, “How come you look like a woman but sound like a man?” Pop Girl said I was rude but Busker Boy said, “She means no harm,” and I was glad ’cause I didn’t want him to beat a dead horse again.

  —

  At midnight Busker Boy said, “Off to bed, Bun,” and I said, “Okay,” but I didn’t move ’cause I was sunk into the beanbag chair, heavy, deep and warm. “Go on,” he said and I got a funny feeling, like he might add, “Get out,” so I got up quick and stumbled out the door. “Bun,” he said, “slow down,” but I didn’t ’cause if he added, “Get out,” I wasn’t sure where I’d go—there were no missions around here. He caught up to me on the stairs. “Bun, stop.” I paused on the second last step. “I’ll be up soon, okay?”

  I went to bed and stared at the wall, wondering when “soon” would be.

  Their voices came through a vent in the floor. I was a problem, a puzzle, a quagmire, a plague. But Pop Girl had all the answers. Police, social services, a bus ticket home.

  When Busker Boy came to bed I said, “I like it here.” He said, “I know what it’s like to miss someone you love.” I said, “She’s not missing me.” He said, “Tell me, Bun, what was it like?” I thought for a full five minutes. “It was like being a skeleton. A frame with nothing inside.”

  He touched my arm, rubbed the flannel between his fingers. “Want me to get you a proper pair of pajamas?”

  “No. I like this shirt.”

  He got into his bed on the floor. “Will I wait for you to fall asleep before turning out the light?”

  I thought of the floorboards and said yes.

  I closed my eyes, listened to the sound of his breath. It flowed out easy, no whistles or sighs.

  I said, “Are you asleep?”

  “Not yet. Why?”

  “I have a question.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Does Cher live in the sparkly treble clef room?”

  Busker Boy laughed. “How’d you guess?”

  —

  In the morning he was at the end of the bed reading his paper.

  “Here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Herbal tea. For your cough.”

  “What cough?”

  “You’re so used to it you don’t even hear it.”

  I took a sip. “Ew.”

  “You were very restless last night.”
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  I was?

  “It’s no surprise. You’ve been through a lot.”

  I have?

  “I’m sorry this place isn’t much.”

  There was a crack in the wall at the end of my (his) bed. I liked that crack. I couldn’t see the walls at home.

  “Read me something?”

  “Chef wants to see you in the kitchen first. Take your tea.”

  He passed me my jeans as I walked to the door. “Put these on.” So I did.

  Chef wasn’t in the kitchen, but Cher was. She was wearing jeans too, and her hair wasn’t long and black anymore, but spikey and blonde. It looked like her eyelashes had shrunk too.

  “Hello, Bun O’Keefe, my darling.”

  “Are you a he today?”

  “Chris by day. Cher by night. Well, not always. Cher has a mind of her own.”

  “Where’s Chef?”

  “Gone to work. He left you these.”

  They looked like pancakes from the Aunt Jemima commercial only fatter. Next to the plate was a note. “Hope your mouth remembers these too.”

  I poked one with my finger.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a touton before.”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. Did he want me to tell him or not?

  “Where’ve you been living, my ducky? Under a rock?”

  He poured some molasses on my plate.

  “Chef made the dough fresh this morning. Fried it up just before he left for work. It’s still warm.”

  He took my fork and knife and cut up my food. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, would you like me to chew it up for you too?”

  “That wouldn’t be very hygienic.”

  “No. It wouldn’t. So eat up, for the love of God.”

  I wasn’t religious. But I ate it anyway.

  He poured himself a coffee. “I wasn’t offended by what you said last night. We drag queens aren’t always known for our femininity. Especially in the voice department.”

  “What’s a drag queen?”

  “A man who likes to perform as a woman.”

  “Like Divine,” I said, and I started to sing “You Think You’re a Man.” Chris used my fork as a microphone and joined in.

  “Your voice is way more feminine than Divine’s,” I said, and then I did my best impersonation of her tough, gruff voice.

  Chris doubled over laughing. “Oh my God. That is seriously the best impression I’ve ever heard. I’m speechless, truly speechless.”