by Michelle Tea
In the morning, though, panic woke Michelle like an alarm clock. Who was this elegant skeleton she was curled into? This hair had a new smell, the dusty stink of Aqua Net Extra Super Hold and a drugstore perfume worn as a joke and also dirt and sweat and the tang of heroin itself, brown sugar and spoiled wine. Though Penny was who she’d wanted last night, slow kisses tasting of new intoxicants, Andy was who she wanted to wake up with, the shore she longed to beach herself upon. Michelle peered through makeup-crusted eyes at the collection of clothes making drifts up the walls—she would be smothered in an earthquake. Penny shambled out of bed, so frail in the daylight, and rutted through the base of a pile, extracting something that shimmered like the scales of a magical fish. She pulled it over the torn slip dress she’d passed out in and left to throw up in the bathroom down the hall.
Michelle fled. She wheeled about Dogpatch, an unfamiliar neighborhood. The apocalyptic times that were upon them glared from every bit of rubble, every mound of festering shit left by the packs of wild dogs she hoped she would not run into. Did buses even run out here? How had she arrived? Penny had met her on the corner, with her guitar. She had strummed “You Can’t Put Your Arms around a Memory,” singing it with a cracking voice. Penny really was like a girl Johnny Thunders. Someone had tattooed the lyrics to “Chinese Rock” on her shoulder with a sewing needle. It was a spidery tattoo, the lines shook crooked down her skin, but it worked with her look.
Penny was indeed amazing, but Michelle worried there was a time limit on that sort of amazing. That it was the sort of amazing that could begin to look sad with age. Michelle fought against this analysis, which seemed cruel and typical. The messed-up queers Michelle ran with tempted fate daily, were creating a new way to live, new templates for everything—life, death, beauty, aging, art. Penny would never be pathetic, she would always be daring and deep, her addiction a middle finger held up to proper society. Right? Right?
Andy had her own love intrigues, one with a shy photographer who’d grown up in Alaska. Andy insisted that this was not as glamorous as it sounded. Alaska! Michelle projected sleighs and fur coats onto the girl, who she had never met but whose name was, amazingly, Carlotta, same as Andy’s. Like getting to go into the same public restroom, having a date with your exact name was a whimsical perk of lesbianism. Michelle imagined this Carlotta as a femme twin of Andy, standing on a windswept glacier wearing a fluffy hat cut from the pelt of a baby seal. No matter that the glaciers had long ago melted into floods and that baby seals were cartoony memories surviving on as stuffed animals. Unlike some of the younger people she was friends with, Michelle had remembered the hype of Alaska, had seen it on TV, had understood the state’s brand. But all it had had going for it was the natural abundance thing, so when the planet started to die, Alaska had been one of the first states to tank.
Michelle was, for the most part, happy that Andy was having affairs, unless she wasn’t, and then she would demand painful information from her girlfriend.
Did You Touch Her Boobs? Michelle interrogated. Did You?
Andy bristled under these demands and the pair fought. Michelle hated when a pane of lead came down over Andy’s heart, Andy who was always so ready to serve her, to bring her eggs and cider. Where had she gone? Michelle was in tears.
I Only Want To Know If You Touched Her Boobs! she cried. Andy was Michelle’s girlfriend. She had a right to know.
Michelle had a second affair with a mannish girl named Captain who hosted lots of drugged-out after-parties in her bedroom above Valencia Street. Andy rarely stayed out late, but Michelle often did not make it back to her futon until the nighttime sky began to brighten with the coming day. Michelle’s calculations were as anxious as a vampire’s—she had to be asleep before sunrise or she would panic that her life was out of control, but the inevitable end of a party always broke her heart. She would push it to the extreme last moment, dashing down Valencia in a pair of shoes so worn-down that the nub of a nail stuck out from the heel, one step ahead of the rising sun.
In Captain’s room everyone listened to Pavement and Elliott Smith and licked powdered pyramids of ecstasy from their palms. Before Michelle fell into debilitating bliss, she and Captain bonded over astrology and Captain let her pluck a card from her Salvador Dali tarot deck. Paralyzed by the drug, they made out on Captain’s bed for about five hours, their friends heaped around them like the sea lions that once honked down at the piers. Latecomers brought nitrous and the crack and hiss of the slender canisters became the sound track to their slow-motion kisses. On and on this went, time made obsolete by chemicals. Captain was not an amateur—her windows were hung with black curtains, the room as immune to the passage of time as a Vegas casino.
Michelle and Captain went on a date to the bathroom of the lesbian bar. Michelle’s ass, perched on the sink, bumped the cold-water faucet as she came in Captain’s face, soaking her backside and wetting Captain’s long bangs. She mopped up with scratchy paper towels and left to meet Andy for dinner. Rushing through the Mission, Michelle gave her hands a sniff. Captain had allowed Michelle to ransack her and Michelle’s fingers stunk of her good fortune. She popped into a liquor corner store and purchased a pack of watermelon Bubblicious, chewed a piece until it was fattened and gritty with sugar and spit, and scoured her hands with it. Her hands were sticky and disgusting but they smelled like fruit, not sex, and Michelle felt better. Andy knew she was being a slut, but she didn’t have to rub her girlfriend’s nose in it.
Together, Andy and Michelle had an affair with a girl named Linda. Michelle had found Linda at the bookstore where she worked and was excited by the girl’s willingness to consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol. Sometimes Michelle felt resentful toward Andy for being so moderate, for sipping some ridiculous fake drink like a daiquiri while Michelle got hammered on shots and cocaine. Andy would go home at a reasonable hour, abandoning Michelle at the bar, but Linda would party until her intake knocked her out. On their second date Michelle petted the girl’s head as it hung out the window of a party, sending streams of barf onto the street below. When she was finished the pair found a closet in a bedroom and had sex, Linda’s forearms, tattooed with rockets, shooting into Michelle’s deep space. Eventually Michelle flipped Linda, working her hand inside the girl for about ten minutes before realizing she had passed out. Michelle put her clothes back on and rejoined the party, leaving Linda tucked beneath a leather coat.
Andy could recognize the threat of Linda. Unlike Penny or Captain, virtual one-night stands, Michelle kept returning to Linda. She talked about her too much, in that wistful way. Everything about Linda became sort of magical. She Wants To Own A Flower Shop, Michelle gushed. That’s Her Big Dream, Isn’t That Sweet? Andy thought it was actually pretty stupid, seeing as how there weren’t really flowers anymore, and her concern swelled. Michelle loved the tattoos on Linda’s calves, the Little Prince on one leg and Tank Girl on the other. When Andy named six other girls who had either one of those tattoos, Michelle iced her for the rest of the day. Linda wore slips as dresses, just like Michelle. She wasn’t butch and wasn’t femme, she was kiki, a 1960s throwback. Her hair was sort of greasy, which was right for the time. People were buying expensive hair products to make their locks hang as limply as Linda’s home-cut bob. She would bundle the length of it into twin buns on her head, like animal ears. Linda’s face was round, and since Michelle was so often looking up at her in darkness she began to think of it as the moon, the way it caught the light and glowed. Linda was raised in a hippie commune in Vermont. She was so obsessed with corn dogs she planned on getting one tattooed on her shoulder.
Andy conceded defeat and joined their affair, which had the desired result of squashing it. Everyone felt bad at the end. Linda had bitten Andy on the lip and given her a cold sore, so now Andy quietly held Michelle responsible for having contracted oral herpes. Michelle felt like her libido was out of control and this made her feel crazy and ashamed. Linda felt that where she perhaps should have had bo
undaries she in fact had none. She started hanging around with Ziggy, staying out all night and showing up for her morning shift at the bookstore looking positively greenish.
What Did You Guys Do? Michelle asked Linda after one such evening. Michelle had been home in bed with Andy, watching television and eating popcorn. She was trying to live a different life, and was worried about her ex, if that’s who Linda was.
I smoked crack, Linda whispered, scandalized by herself.
Oh My God! Michelle gasped, Be Careful! She tried to talk to Ziggy about it later. Don’t Smoke Crack With Linda, she begged her friend. Ziggy was tough and could handle herself in the druggie jungles of the Mission, but there was something vulnerable about Linda, something defenseless. Michelle could imagine her falling into the gutter and never coming back. She was too gentle, she’d be a goner. Michelle would find herself giving Linda spare change as she walked home from a bar five years from now.
Ziggy was annoyed at Michelle getting all nosy about Linda. Linda’s fine, she said. Linda’s a grown-up. Ziggy resented Michelle’s suggestion that she was a bad influence on the girl, plus a little hurt that Michelle wasn’t worried about her drug intake, too. She had initiated the crack adventure and consumed far more of it than Linda. What did that say about her, then? Was she already written off as a waste case, beyond help? Ziggy thought there was maybe no one in the world that worried about her. The conversation had made her feel terribly alone, and a fracture thin as a spider web had begun to climb the surface of their friendship.
Linda wasn’t all that long ago, Ziggy reminded Michelle as she pondered the teen poet Lucretia. Michelle had made many pledges to Andy, both spoken aloud and deep in her heart. I Will Never Do That Again, she had promised, referring to Linda. How many lovers did a person need, anyway? Why was she so greedy? In her heart she prayed to whatever was listening, Please Don’t Let Me Forget How Much I Love This.
Later, she was lying fully wrapped around her girlfriend, her face nuzzled in the glossy sweet stink of her pomaded hair. Royal Crown, the grease came packed in such an aesthetically pleasing container, squat and round, its tin cover pin-poked into a relief of a royal crown. It was rumored to be Elvis’s pomade, and even Michelle would rub some into her long, wet hair to make it fragrant and less burned-out looking. It smelled like oily flowers, like the worn pillowcases of long-ago lovers. Michelle worried as she pushed her face into her girlfriend’s hair that the product would give her zits, but she did it anyway, feeling devotion surge through her: Please Don’t Let Me Forget How Much I Love Andy. But she would.
5
Michelle came upon Lucretia at the Albion. This is fate! she thought. Yippee! She wanted to grab Ziggy and tell her the news—What Were The Chances?—but Ziggy was deep in a pool game with Fernando the Coke Dealer and she’d just ruin Michelle’s shot at romance or whatever anyway.
Hi! she said to the teen. What Are You Doing Here? Michelle could hear the words coming out too strong, too excited. She didn’t know how to play it cool.
Huh? asked the teen. She did not recognize Michelle. She had met her for two seconds after someone had thrust a trophy into her hand, all she remembered was the trophy.
I Was The Judge At The Teen Poetry Slam! Michelle gushed. I’m A Queer Poet Too! She stressed queer not because she walked around identifying as a queer poet but so that the youth understood she would fuck her.
Oh, Lucretia remembered, Right, thanks for that. My name is Lace—
Michelle! screamed Michelle. And she hadn’t even had any cocaine yet. She was just buoyant, it was her nature.
Yeah, yeah, I remember. Listen though, my name is Lacey. She said the name intensely, and through gritted teeth. Lacey. She flashed an ID at Michelle with the photo of a blond girl who appeared to have renewed her license on the heels of a Caribbean vacation. Her hair was knit into ridiculous bead-tipped cornrows and between the braids ran little aisles of sunburned scalp. LACEY JOHNSON, it read.
You Don’t Look Anything Like That, Michelle said, laughing. Are You Kidding?
Lucretia shrugged. They don’t care what I show them as long as I show them something. It’s just to cover their own ass.
Where Did You Get It? Michelle asked.
It was in a purse I stole, said the juvenile delinquent, boastful and sheepish at once, a combination Michelle found very attractive, though not nearly as irresistible as the crime itself. A flush of something billowed like steam through her body. Michelle had great admiration for criminals and crime, though only from a distance. To be so close to a purse snatcher was heady. Why should this blond girl, Lacey, have a nice purse, a safe life, when no one else did? Lacey, who vacationed in third world countries and wore culturally appropriated hairstyles. Also, Michelle could not imagine a way to get a fancy purse aside from stealing it, and if that was her option she might as well embrace it. Might as well make a religion out of it, a Robin Hood lifestyle. Michelle had read Jean Genet: I recognize in thieves, traitors, and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty—a sunken beauty, wrote the faggot. And Lucretia was beautiful. Her lips were full and sullen. Her eyes were almonds, the skin of her face was almond, her hair was lush, and she moved like a boy.
It was Lucretia who invited Michelle into the women’s restroom for a line of Fernando’s cocaine. This would be very important later, when Michelle would be charged by her friends of corrupting a youth, a queer one. Corrupting? Lucretia who spoke of spoonfuls of heroin, tiny puddles of sweetness and vinegar, Lucretia who knew where to get speed so pure it was lavender, like crushed amethyst.
It was Lucretia’s high school graduation money that had purchased a supersized bindle from Fernando, Lucretia’s fake ID that muddled the powder on the back of the toilet, and Lucretia’s twenty that got rolled up and stuck into Michelle’s nose. But it was Michelle who was unable to stand the awkwardness of being so close to the teen, her blood newly boiling with amphetamines. It was Michelle who blurted in her characteristic way, Want To Make Out? And the youth grabbed her by the chin.
Any flicker of fidelity to Andy was sucked from her throat. Lucretia kissed Michelle like she was in love with her already. She kissed her like she’d been shipwrecked on an island, notching each stranded day onto a fallen coconut, slowly losing her mind. She filled Michelle like weather, worked her mouth like a cherry stem being tongued into a knot. Michelle had nevernevernever been kissed like this. Michelle had always thought that kissing was like coming upon a golden trunk lodged in the ocean floor. She tried to tug it open but never could, and this was okay because she still beheld the luminous trunk in all its splendor. But Lucretia knocked the chest right open. With one wrenching motion Michelle’s sea was full of coins and rubies, strands of pearls floating like fish in the waters. The clichés of physical love were suddenly available to her. Her knees were weak. She was seeing fireworks. She had butterflies in her stomach. It didn’t occur to her that it might be the cocaine.
Michelle barely recalled phoning Andy. She had the blurriest memory of bumming coins off someone to use the pay phone. No one but yuppies had cell phones then, yuppies and, inexplicably, Ziggy, though she would often lose hers while drunk. Cradling the heavy black receiver that stank like beer breath, Michelle told Andy she’d made out with someone, a teenager. Andy’s hurt was a cloud on the other end of the line, one that picked up energy, velocity, and humidity as the clock ticked on Michelle’s quarter. But between the liquor and the kiss, Michelle felt anesthetized to Andy’s pain.
I’m Going Home With Her, she told her girlfriend. Andy could hear the slur of Michelle’s slow-mo lips forming the words.
Michelle, Andy said. Should she be angry or tragic? Manipulative or permissive? Cry, yell, guilt, act like she didn’t fucking care, should she just end this relationship once and for all? The thought of getting back on the non-monogamy roller coaster sickened her, and the realization that she had never actually gotten off, that the calm between Linda and this moment had simply been a mellower part of t
he ride, made her feel sicker still.
You’re like a butterfly, Andy had once flattered Michelle in the midst of an affair. She’d been working toward viewing Michelle as an ethereal, liberated creature, something with wings, something whose freedom she, Andy, was charged with protecting. It had worked for about five minutes. Indeed, Michelle seemed more like some sort of compulsively rutting land mammal, a chimera of dog in heat and black widow, a sex fiend that kills its mate. Or else she was merely a sociopath. She was like the android from Blade Runner who didn’t know it was bad to torture a tortoise. She had flipped Andy onto her belly in the Armageddon sun and left her there, fins flapping.
The quarter ran out and Andy held a dead line in her hand. She lay back in her bed but she did not sleep. She thought of the occasional feral creature that crawled into her house, a converted basement apartment cut into the side of Bernal Hill. Animals sometimes came through her open window. Once a tomcat with enormous balls rocking between his back legs and a stunned bird in his mouth sauntered in. Andy shooed the tomcat back onto the hillside and used her bedsheet to net the bird flying crookedly around the apartment. Birds were increasingly rare in the dead wildness of Bernal, the neighborhood had become a sort of petrified forest. Andy brought the bundle into her yard, feeling the bird flutter weakly inside the sheet. She unveiled the animal to the night sky with a flourish, like a magician releasing conjured doves. Andy’s heart tilted in her chest as she watched the crazed thing loop and smack into the side of the house. It landed with a feathery thwaaap! and Andy went back into her basement. She did not want to know if it had collected itself back into the air or not. It looked like a cowbird anyway. A parasitic nonnative. The moms dumped their eggs into nests of native birds, leaving them there to be raised by the adoptive parents. The cowbirds were bigger and bossier and commanded all the food, and so the native babies starved. There was once a huge cowbird population on the hill, but even they were becoming scarce as the other birds died away, leaving no one for the invaders to con food out of. It depressed Andy.
