by Olivia Boler
Her distraction saves me from having to say more. Ah, Gru. Gru is the one who told me about the origin of fairies. She’s seen them too. She taught Tess and me everything we know about magick: spells, rituals, charms, meditation, conversing with the dearly departed as well as deities, Wiccan history, and philosophy. She told me I had a natural gift but not a whole lot of discipline, which is more than my parents said to me about anything I ever tried, whether it was schoolwork or ballet.
When our coven disbanded, Gru retreated to her place in Mendocino. She runs a pagan emporium, and Auntie Tess gets most of her magickal supplies there. When I was younger, she took me up there all the time. We’d spend the night or sometimes a few. I’d listen to them do their midnight rituals outside under the redwoods while I supposedly slept in Gru’s loft. They liked to go skyclad. I haven’t been to her place nor spoken to her since I met Cooper. I don’t even know if she knows that I’m attached. But Tess would have told her. Gru doesn’t let anything slip by.
“Tess,” I say, as my auntie takes out her birch-handle broom and begins to sweep a clockwise circle around her altar, a table from Ikea draped with an antique silk shawl. “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?”
“Hm?” She doesn’t look up from her sweeping.
“You know, in the community? Heard anything? Anything afoot?” Any fairy sightings? But I’m not ready to ask her that.
She stops sweeping and squints up at the ceiling. “More cats are disappearing, but that always happens near Halloween. And someone stole that carved elephant tusk out of the Emperor of Ceylon lobby in Chinatown.” She closes her eyes while I ponder this. I recall Ned’s assignment to Howie today—the Chinese foot-binding shoes that were stolen. Maybe there’s an Asian art smuggling thing going on.
One of Tess’s eyelids pops open again. “Well, Memphis? Are we going to do this or not?” She shuts the eye again.
Even though I haven’t been practicing magick for the past couple of years, I still keep Tess company during her rituals. But tonight, I intend to really get down to business. I let my eyes close too, hoping to find not just answers, but the right questions to ask.
Chapter Four
Indian summer bakes San Francisco. The heat is always expected yet always surprising. Women exiting air-conditioned office buildings remove their cardigans, exposing their sun-sensitive shoulders. Men roll up their shirtsleeves. I catch snatches of conversation on the busy downtown sidewalks—golf scores, stock market fluctuations, a new SOMA bistro debut—and filter through the hum on my way to an interview. The lead singer of the third-tier band awaits, yet my mind is full of fairies.
Fairies used to be a favorite subject of mine. Lore is a word I can’t help but use. Fairy lore. There was a time when I sucked it up like sugar.
Because fairies keep to themselves so well, their culture has been obscured by troubadours and fabulists. What is true history—the Innis War of 913 A.D., the rise of matrilineal monarchies on the Great Plains, the slaying of the last pearl dragon by the great Chinese warrior fairy Cai Lao Yi—has become the stuff of myth and fiction. Fairy tales. Or, the fairy stories have simply disappeared along with their populace.
Before giving up my fairy lore studies, along with most of my magickal ways, I had a theory—nothing proven. It goes something like this: Fairies don’t like humans very much, but they are tied to us in some way, and that’s why they show themselves now and then. Some even live among us, the size of regular people, but with powers that exceed our own. How are they tied to us? I haven’t yet figured that out, and maybe I never will. Thems are the breaks.
I’m early for my appointment. In the lobby of the Palace Hotel, I wait by a ceramic horn-shaped vase the size of a large sow and contemplate its flora—sunflowers, green peonies, dried pomegranates, and eucalyptus. This would make an ideal fairy hideout. Cornucopia, the goddess of the harvest, plenty, and the hearth. A mothering deity, a doting older sis who would tell you to finish your oatmeal before going outside to play. Not Auntie Tess’s favorite, but I’ve always found her, in her various incarnations—Ceres, Demeter, Hestia—a little underplayed. Beneath the put-others-first philosophy must beat the heart of a wildcat. Tess finds Persephone, Demeter’s daughter who was swept off by Hades to his underground kingdom of death, more her cup of tea. Persephone has heartache and drama. Me, I’ll take oatmeal over pomegranate seeds any day.
Thinking of Tess leads me to our waning ritual the other night. Did I get answers to my questions? No. Did I figure out what questions to ask? Well, beyond the obvious—What the hell is going on?—not so much. I have to admit to myself, albeit reluctantly, that I’m going to have to try again.
A hand presses against my arm. “Memphis?”
I shake myself out of my little cogitation of hotel flora. My twelve o’clock has arrived.
He’s a man of average height, his dark, straight hair cut in spikes and tipped in red dye. His skin is the color of oiled teak, his eyes narrow and—dare I think it?—elfish. His nose is like an upside-down kite with the point of his chin a matching reversed peak. Underneath the layered T-shirts—short sleeves over long with a logo that reads Nevada State Reno—and expensive jeans, he is lean. His shoes are sporty Prada knockoffs. No, on second glance, they are the real deal. It takes me two seconds to register all of this, and before I can take a breath he says, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Inside my messenger bag, the third-tier band’s press kit weighs heavy. I have yet to crack the packet. This is partly due to my preoccupation with fairies. It’s also partly due to laziness. But mostly, it’s because of my self-imposed rule of not reading press kits, of not interviewing under the influence of all sorts of garbage aimed at manipulating the story I will write. I know the band’s manager will hope my article is favorable enough to include in future kits. Chances are it will be. I didn’t go into arts and entertainment writing for the controversy.
I do know that I’m meeting the lead singer/sometime guitarist, that the band’s name is Arsenic Playground, and that we are to have lunch together on my meager expense account. I do know that it is a glorious day, and that I long to be outdoors exposing my shoulders to the sun as so many office girls are doing. But things indoors just got interesting.
I listen to the recording my brain has made of what he said and look at him one more time. A name bubbles to the surface and tentatively bobs there: Alice.
“Wait—Alice? Alice’s brother. Tyson?”
“Right. Ty Belmonte. I go by Ty now.”
I find that my hand is on my cheek. My fingers are cold, but my face is warm, the skin tight. “Are you—you’re in Arsenic Playground?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “It’s my band.” A smile flashes briefly and is gone. I’m not even sure it was really a smile. “When my manager told me you’d be interviewing me I thought no way, can’t be her. But how many Memphis Zhangs are there in this world?”
“You never know. But for now I’m pretty sure I’m the only one.”
“You never made it out of Frisco?”
I laugh and take a step back, and yes, I know I’ve just been dissed. Ah, natives who think they’re hot shit because they’ve called their city by the pejorative. Never mind if he thinks I’m small taters. I have worked so hard to put his sister Alice out of my mind, and have just about succeeded these last two years. Yet, here’s her big brother thwarting my efforts. He doesn’t know, of course, and this would be awkward no matter what.
I’ve had very few friends—real friends—my own age, but Alice was one. We met in sixth grade. She was beautiful, a blend of Pilipino and Caucasian with big eyes, long wavy hair, the same elfish quality as her brother except it looked natural on her. Tyson, six or seven years our senior, stayed out of our way whenever I went over to her house. He was someone to be worshiped and feared—a teenager. By the time we entered high school, he had disappeared into a grown-up life, showing up now and then in Alice’s family tales. She had two other older sibs—anoth
er brother and sister—but Tyson, the oldest, was her favorite.
“He watches out for me,” she said once, and I was surprised to feel something like envy, envy only an only child can feel. What she said seemed strange, though, because Tyson was never around. No matter. Alice always seemed invincible. Of course, she wasn’t. No one is.
Now her brother and I, the ones who wanted to take care of her, are left here without her. I can tell myself she knew the risks, that she knew death was a very real possibility. But that would be bullshit.
I give Tyson another look. He hasn’t aged much. His shoulders are a bit broader than I recall, but he was always slight—the illusion of being feather light. Lithe and sinewy, he ran cross-country and was a forward in soccer.
“How long has it been? At least five years,” I say and immediately regret it. I skipped the funeral, the wake, and the memorial. All of it. But Tyson doesn’t give me an accusing look or any look at all. He turns and we make our way to the Garden Court where teas and luncheons are held. We admire the domed glass ceiling and chandeliers and potted palms. I’m glad I’m wearing a skirt instead of my usual uniform of black jeans. Tyson, even in his casual attire, fits into this room. He’s the kind of person who can go anywhere and fit in, no matter what the dress code may be. It’s not just because he’s a rock nebula either. The man possesses a natural-born elegance, a physical grace.
The hostess seats us and hands us menus. We glance at them and Tyson unfolds a cloth napkin into his lap. I do the same.
Finally, he answers me. “My sister’s high school graduation. Your graduation. That’s the last time we saw each other. At least, that’s the last time you saw me.”
“Oh. Okay.” I pause. “What do you mean?”
He puts down his menu as a busboy pours ice water into our glasses. “I saw you once at the Stonestown mall. You were working at that store.”
“The music box store? Oh, man. That was the summer after my freshman year of college. What a nightmare.”
He tilts his head.
“If ever there were a reason to take a baseball bat to something, besides to a baseball, a music box store is that reason,” I explain. “One music box, sure, I can handle. But one hundred and twenty-seven music boxes all playing their little ‘Frère Jacques’ and ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel.’” I shoot myself in the head with my finger gun.
“I think I’ll have the cheeseburger,” he says and takes a sip of water, leaving me to laugh alone at my own joke. I wonder for a split second why he didn’t say hello the time he saw me in the store.
The waitress arrives and we order. After she leaves I start to grill him, this older brother of my dead friend. Tyson obliges, filling me in on the last decade, but just an outline, as if he’s not sure he can trust me with the answers. College at UC Davis, from which he dropped out after a couple of years. A stint in the army and then jobs here and there, mostly in construction or restaurants. All the while, he was involved in various bands, forming, breaking up, forming anew.
At some point, I remember to turn on my microcassette recorder and jot some half-hearted notes in my notebook. There’s really little point when it’s all going to be on tape. He relaxes a little and we get down to business starting with the basics: who, what, when, where, why, and the often elusive how. My high school journalism has kept me in good stead during this erratic reportage career of mine. In many ways, Tyson is no different from other subjects. He’s pleased to have the attention—I can see it in his eyes, the way they glimmer, even though he’s not giving me much. I nod, keep quiet. I can’t stand hearing my voice, goofy on the tapes. I resist the temptation to check out his aura. It wouldn’t help me write this article—auras are really only good for getting a sense of feelings, or at their best, telling if someone is being truthful.
He doesn’t want to talk about himself, balking when I ask in a careless way about his love life, except in the context of the band. He tells me about their latest album (they have two) and the website created by a sixteen-year-old fan their manager hired. Their coup de grace so far has been a small mention in Rolling Stone: “potential cult fave” on one of the magazine’s many lists. Arsenic Playground has an underground following, a semi-hit on the college charts. His mates worry they’ll be one-hit wonders, but when I ask him if he’s worried too, Tyson just shrugs.
“What about opening for Yeah Right? That’s a coup de grace if ever,” I say. “Isn’t it?”
Tyson gives me a funny look. “You could say that, I guess.”
A shiver runs up the back of my neck. I glance around the restaurant and down at my notes. My chicken Caesar salad dressing has blobbed on the page, leaving a transparent oval.
In a quick motion, Tyson reaches over and stops my tape recorder. He leans in and looks with something like aggression into my eyes.
“Let’s hit pause on Arsenic Playground,” he says. Everything seems suspended—the clatter of diners around us, ticking clocks, Earth’s rotation—as I wait for him to say whatever it is he’s going to say next. “What about you, Memphis? What have you been doing?”
A woman from another table squawks to her friends, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Suspension broken.
“I don’t give interviews,” I say. It comes out more harshly than I meant it to, so I smile. “I only conduct them.”
He sits back in his chair. “You haven’t changed,” he says, and it doesn’t sound as if he approves.
I want more than anything to ask if he means I’m still acting like a child. We hardly knew each other way back when.
Oh, screw it.
I let my eyes go out of focus and relax my breathing, and his aura reveals itself easily. Puddle brown edged in cement gray bleeding into marigold yellow. Like pollution. I look away and pick up my fork.
“Did you wind up going to that school?” he asks. “What was it called, Benjamin?”
“Bennington,” I say. “For a little while. I transferred to Santa Cruz. Did some graduate work.” I take a bite of chicken.
“In what?”
I swallow. “Veterinary school.”
“But you’re a journalist.”
I try not to make a face. I still don’t feel like a journalist. In fact, I’m not too thrilled with that label. Journalists are troublemakers. They’re either paparazzi or investigative blood-seekers with no souls, no scruples. Of course, I know this isn’t true across the board. But it’s what I’m afraid of becoming. “I write part-time. Mostly, I walk dogs.”
“Dog walker,” he says, like it explains everything.
“I couldn’t kill them. The dogs and cats in vet school. Even if they were terminally ill.”
He nods. I’ve softened him up a little. “Not married, I take it.” He nods at my naked fingers. I don’t generally wear jewelry.
“No. Well—almost. Maybe.”
“Sounds like quite a commitment. And his name is?”
Tyson refuses to talk about his love life, yet he asks about mine. There’s something combative in this, so I tell him with defiance in my voice, “Cooper. Cooper Bailey.”
He frowns. “That name is familiar.”
“He teaches French at our high school.”
“I took Spanish.”
“Of course you did. It’s so manly.”
“Hold up. You’re saying your Mr. Bailey isn’t manly?” As he says the name the realization dawns on him. “No way. You and Mr. Bailey?”
I grit my teeth but turn it into a grin and nod.
“Mr. Bailey?” he says again. He raises his eyebrows and whistles.
I expect more questions—there are always more questions—but Tyson only gazes at me like a creature at the zoo. Hyena. Possibly Tasmanian devil. Finally, he hands down his judgment: “What a trip.”
I reach over and turn the recorder back on. “Let’s continue, shall we?”
****
After we’re done talking, we take a cab to Fats, the club where Arsenic Playground is
playing tonight. In this case, they’re the main event. Tomorrow they’ll be at the Warfield opening for Yeah Right. The fan in me can’t help asking Tyson if he’s friendly with Cheradon Badler, of the toned abs and pouty lips. In another life I’d like to come back as one of her backup vocalists—actually coming back as someone like her is too much to hope for. Tyson acts like he hasn’t heard me, so I ask him again. He heaves a gargantuan sigh of impatience before answering, “We’ve met.”
The rest of our short ride is pregnantly quiet. We are careful to look only out our car windows. As soon as we get into the dark interior of Fats, Tyson disappears. I know the owner of the club, and he greets me, leading the way to Arsenic Playground’s dressing room. Waiting there are Tyson’s bandmates: Babs, Hugo, and Horatio. Babs is on guitar, Hugo is the bassist, and Horatio, Hugo’s identical yet slightly better-looking twin brother, is the drummer. They sit with me and answer my questions, streams of uninterrupted interruptions punctuated with insolent silences. I let my cassette recorder do its thing. Hugo lounges just behind Babs, plucking his bass, either bored or at peace. He and Babs sing backup vocals for Tyson. They call him Ty, proving that he really does go by that nifty little nickname. Horatio claims he himself can’t carry a tune and smirks when I ask, as I must, how that can be if he and Hugo are identical twins. I see I’ve fallen into the booby trap of twin wit. Twin nitwit is more like it.
I ask them if they are excited about opening for Yeah Right and they shrug and nod: “Of course. Naturally. Who wouldn’t be?” I ask how their manager scored such a fantastic gig and Babs says, “Well, Ty got it for us, duh. Next question.”
There’s something I’m not getting. I cover my confusion by moving on to a safe question: how did they meet? They talk over each other again, their mutual histories colliding in lies, legends, and half-remembered banalities.
At some point, Tyson slips into the room wearing a pair of sunglasses—so rock-and-roll—and a bell goes off, a sweet tinkling that reminds me of a pair of metal Zen meditation balls Auntie Tess used to roll around in her hands. They were supposed to relieve stress.
