Beer made you talk too much. Add that to the list. It wasn’t her favorite thing about beer. Next thing she knew, she’d be crying about some dumb thing or begging him to stay.
He was grinning. “Did you do it?”
“No. I told him I’d do it for twenty bucks. So he gave me twenty bucks and I just kept it. I mean, it wasn’t like he was going to tell anyone.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Then I made him give me twenty more dollars. I said if he didn’t, I’d tell my mom the whole story.”
That wasn’t the whole story, either, of course. She didn’t imagine she’d ever tell him the whole story. But the result of the story was that she had enough money for beer and some weed. She paid some guy to buy beer for her. That was the night she’d brought Biscuit up here.
They’d done it on the mattress in the basement of the wrecked farmhouse, and later on they’d done it in the theater, on the pokey little stage where girls in blue dresses and flammable wigs used to sing and tap-dance. Leaves everywhere. The smell of smoke, someone farther up the mountain, checking on their still, maybe, chain-smoking. Reading girly magazines. Biscuit saying, Did I hurt you? Is this okay? Do you want another beer? She’d wanted to kick him, make him stop trying to take care of her, and also to go on kissing him. She always felt that way around Biscuit. Or maybe she always felt that way and Biscuit had nothing to do with it.
He said, “So did you ever tell her?”
“No. I was afraid that she’d go after him with a ball-peen hammer and end up in jail.”
When she got home that night. Her mother looking at Bunnatine like she knew everything, but she didn’t, she didn’t. She said: “I know what you’ve been up to, Bunnatine. Your body is a temple and you treat it like dirt.”
So Bunnatine said: “I don’t care.” She’d meant it, too.
• • •
“I always liked your mom.”
“She always liked you.” Liked Biscuit better than she liked Bunnatine. Well, they both liked him better. Thank God her mother had never slept with Biscuit. She imagined a parallel universe in which her mother fell in love with Biscuit. They went off together to fight crime. Invited Bunnatine up to their secret hideaway/love nest for Thanksgiving. She showed up and wrecked the place. They went on Oprah. While they were in the studio some supervillain—sure, okay, that fuckhead Robert Potter—implemented his dreadful, unstoppable, terrible plan. That parallel universe was his to loot, pillage, discard like a half-eaten grapefruit, and it was all her fault.
The thing was, there were parallel universes. She pictured poor parallel Bunnatine, sent a warning through the mystic veil that separates universes. Go on Oprah or save the world? Do whatever you have to do, baby.
The Biscuit in this universe said, “Is she at the restaurant tonight?”
“Her night off,” Bunnatine said. “She’s got a poker night with some friends. She’ll come home with more money than she makes in tips and lecture me about the evils of gambling.”
“I’m pretty pooped anyway,” he said. “All that poetry wore me out.”
“So where are you staying?”
He didn’t say anything. She hated when he did this.
She said, “You don’t trust me, baby?”
• • •
“Remember Volan Crowe?”
“What? That kid from high school?”
“Yeah. Remember his superhero comics?”
“He drew comics?” “He made up Mann Man. A superhero with all the powers of Thomas Mann.”
“You can’t go home again.”
“That’s the other Thomas. Thomas Wolfe.”
“Thomas Wolfman. A hairy superhero who gets lost driving home whenever the moon is full.”
“Thomas Thomas Virginia Woolfman Woman.”
“Now with extra extra superpowers.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
“Didn’t he die of tuberculosis?”
“Not him. I mean that kid.”
“Didn’t he turn out to have a superpower?”
“Yeah. He could hang pictures perfectly straight on any wall. He never needed a level.”
“I thought he tried to destroy the world.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He was calling himself something weird. Fast Kid with Secret Money. Something like that.”
• • •
“What about you?”
She said, “Me?”
“Yeah.”
“Keeping an eye on this place. They don’t pay much, but it’s easy money. I had another job, but it didn’t work out. A place down off I-40. They had a stage, put on shows. Nothing too gross. So me and Kath, remember how she could make herself glow, we were making some extra cash two nights a week. They’d turn down the lights and she’d come out onstage with no clothes on and she’d be all lit up from inside. It was real pretty. And when it was my turn, guys could pay extra money to come and lie on the stage. Do you remember that hat, my favorite hat? The oatmeal-colored one with the pom-poms and the knitted ears?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they kept it cold in there. I think so that we’d have perky tits when we came out onstage. So we’d move around with a bit more rah-rah. But I wore the hat. I got management to let me wear the hat, because I don’t float real well when my ears get cold.”
“I gave you that hat,” he said.
“I loved that hat. So I’d be wearing the hat and this dress— something modest, girl next door—and come out onstage and hover a foot above their faces. So they could see I wasn’t wearing any underwear.”
He was smiling. “Saving the world by taking off your underwear, Bunnatine?”
“Shut up. I’d look down and see them lying there on the stage like I’d frozen them.” Zap. “They weren’t supposed to touch me. Just look. I always felt a million miles above them. Like I was a bird.” A plane. “All I had to do was scissor my legs, kick a little, just lift up my hem a little. Do twirls. Smile. They’d just lie there and breathe hard like they were doing all the work. And when the music stopped, I’d float offstage again. But then Kath left for Atlantic City to go sing in a cabaret show. And then some asshole got frisky. Some college kid. He grabbed my ankle and I kicked him in the head. So now I’m back at the restaurant with Mom.”
He said, “How come you never did that for me, Bunnatine? Float like that?”
She shrugged. “It’s different with you,” she said, as if it were. But of course it wasn’t. Why should it be?
“Come on, Bunnatine,” he said. “Show me your stuff.”
She stood up, shimmied her underwear down to her ankles with an expert wriggle. All part of the show. “Close your eyes for a sec.”
“No way.”
“Close your eyes. I’ll tell you when to open them.”
He closed his eyes and she took a breath, let herself float up. She could only get about two feet off the ground before that old invisible hand yanked her down again, held her tethered just above the ground. She used to cry about that. Now she just thought it was funny. She let her underwear dangle off her big toe. Dropped it on his face. “Okay, baby. You can open your eyes.”
His eyes were open. She ignored him, hummed a bit. Why oh why oh why can’t I. Held out her dress at the hem so that she could look down the neckline and see the ground, see him looking back up.
“Shit, Bunnatine,” he said. “Wish I’d brought a camera.”
She thought of all those girls on the sidewalk. “No touching,” she said, and touched herself.
He grabbed her ankle and yanked. Yanked her all the way down. Stuck his head up inside her dress, and his other hand. Grabbed a breast and then her shoulder so that she fell down on top of him, knocked the wind out of her. His mouth propping her up, her knees just above the ground, cheek banged down on the bone of his hip. It was like a game of Twister, there was something Parker Brothers about his new outfit. There was a gusset in his outfit, so he could stop and use the bathroom, she guessed, when he was out fi
ghting crime. Not get caught with his pants down. His busy, busy hand was down there, undoing the Velcro. The other hand was still wrapped around her ankle. His face was scratchy. Bam, pow. Her toes curled.
He said up into her dress, “Bunnatine. Bunnatine.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Biscuit,” she said.
• • •
She said, “There was a tabloid reporter around, wanting to hear stories.”
He said, “If I ever read about you and me, Bunnatine, I’ll come back and make you sorry. I’m saying that for your own good. Do something like that, and they’ll come after you. They’ll use you against me.”
“So how do you know they don’t know already? Whoever they are?”
“I’d know,” he said. “I can smell those creeps from a mile away.”
She got up to pee. She said, “I wouldn’t do anything like that anyway.” She thought about his parents and felt bad. She shouldn’t have said anything about the reporter. Weasel-y guy. Staring at her tits when she brought him coffee.
She was squatting behind a tree when she saw the yearlings. Two of them. They were trying so hard to be invisible. Just dappled spots hanging in the air. They were watching her like they’d never seen anything so fucked up. Like the end of the world. They took off when she stood up. “That’s right,” she said. “Get the hell away. Tell anybody about this and I’ll kick your sorry Bambi asses.”
• • •
She said, “Okay. So I’ve been wondering about this whole costume thing. Your new outfit. I wasn’t going to say anything, but it’s driving me nuts. What’s with all these crazy stripes and the embroidery?”
“You don’t like it?”
“I like the lightning bolt. And the tower. And the frogs. It’s psychedelic, Biscuit. Can you please explain why y’all wear such stupid outfits? Promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“They aren’t stupid.”
“Yes, they are. Tights are stupid. It’s like you’re showing off. Look how big my dick is.”
“Tights are comfortable. They allow freedom of movement. They’re machine washable.” He began to say something else, then stopped. Grinned. Said, almost reluctantly, “Sometimes you hear stories about some asshole stuffing his tights.”
She started to giggle. Giggling gave her the hiccups. He whacked her on the back.
She said, “Ever forget to run a load of laundry? Have to fight crime when you ought to be doing your laundry instead?”
He said, “Better than a suit and tie, Bunnatine. You can get a sewing machine and go to town, dee eye why, but who has the time? It’s all about advertising. Looking big and bold. But you don’t want to be too designer. Too Nike or Adidas. So last year I needed a new outfit, asked around, and found this women’s cooperative down on a remote beach in Costa Rica. They’ve got an arrangement with a charity here in the States. Collection points in forty major cities where you drop off bathing suits and leotards and bike shorts, and then everything goes down to Costa Rica. There’s a beach house some big-shot rock star donated to them. A big glass and concrete slab and the tide goes in and out right under the glass floor. I went for a personal fitting. These women are real artists, talented people, super creative. They’re all unwed mothers, too. They bring their kids to work and the kids are running around everywhere and they’re all wearing these really great superhero costumes. They do work for anybody. Even pro wrestlers. Villains. Crime lords, politicians. Good guys and bad guys. Sometimes you’ll be fighting somebody, this real asshole, and you’ll both be getting winded, and then you start noticing his outfit and he’s looking, too, and then you’re both wondering if you got your outfits at this same place. And you feel like you ought to stop and say something nice about what they’re wearing. How you both think it’s so great that these women can support their families like this.”
“I still think tights look stupid.” She thought of those kids wearing their superhero outfits. Probably grew up and became drug dealers or maids or organ donors.
• • •
“What? What’s so funny?”
He said, “I can’t stop thinking about Robert Potter and your mother. Did he want clean underwear? Or did he want dirty underwear?”
She said, “What do you think?”
“I think twenty bucks wasn’t enough money.”
“He’s a creep.”
“So you think he’s been in love with her for a long time?”
She said, “What?”
“Like maybe they had an affair once a long time ago.”
“No way!” It made her want to puke.
“No, seriously, what if he was your father or something?”
“Fuck you!”
“Well, come on. Haven’t you wondered? I mean, he could be your father. It’s always been obvious he and your mom have unfinished business. And he’s always trying to talk to you.”
“Stop talking! Right now!”
“Or what, you’ll kick my ass? I’d like to see you try.” He sounded amused.
She wrapped her arms around herself. Ignore him, Bunnatine. Wait until he’s had more to drink. Then kick his ass.
He said, “Come on. I remember when we were kids. You used to wait until your mom got home from work and fell asleep. You said you used to sneak into her bedroom and ask her questions while she was sleeping. Just to see if she would tell you who your dad was.”
“I haven’t done that for a while. She finally woke up and caught me. She was really pissed off. I’ve never seen her get mad like that. I never told you about it. I was too embarrassed.”
He didn’t say anything.
“So I kept begging and finally she made up some story about this guy from another planet. Some tourist. Some tourist with wings and stuff. She said that he’s going to come back someday. That’s why she never shacked up or got married. She’s still waiting for him to come back.”
• • •
“Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s bullshit. I mean, if he had wings, why don’t I have wings? That would be so cool. To fly. Really fly. Even when I used to practice every day, I never got more than two feet off the ground. Two fucking feet. What’s two feet good for? Waiting tables. I float sometimes, so I don’t get varicose veins like Mom.”
“You could probably go higher if you really tried.”
“You want to see me try? Here, hold this. Okay. One, two, three. Up, up, and a little bit more up. See?”
He frowned, looked off into the trees. Trying not to laugh. She knew him.
“What? Are you impressed or not?”
“Can I be honest? Yes and no. You could work on your technique. You’re a bit wobbly. And I don’t understand why all your hair went straight up and started waving around. Do you know that it’s doing that?”
“Static electricity?” she said. “Why are you so mean?”
“Hey,” he said. “I’m just trying to be honest. I’m just wondering why you never told me any of that stuff about your dad. I could ask around, see if anybody knows him.”
“It’s not any of your business,” she said. “But thanks.”
“I thought we were better friends than this, Bunnatine.”
He was looking hurt.
“You’re still my best friend in the whole world,” she said. “I promise.”
• • •
“I love this place,” he said.
“Yeah. Me, too.” Only if he loved it so much, then why didn’t he ever stay? So busy saving the world, he couldn’t save the Land of Oz. Those poor Munchkins. Poor Bunnatine. They were almost out of beer.
He said, “So what are they up to? The developers? What are they plotting?”
“The usual. Tear everything down. Build condos.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Of course I mind!” she said.
He said, “I always think it looks a lot more real now. The way it’s falling all to pieces. The way the Yellow Brick Road is disappearing. It makes it feel like Oz was a real p
lace. Being abandoned makes you more real, you know?”
Beer turned him into Biscuit the philosopher-king. Another thing about beer. She had another beer to help with the philosophy. He had one, too.
She said, “Sometimes there are coyotes up here. Bears, too. The mutants. Once I saw a Sasquatch and two tiny Sasquatch babies.”
“No way.”
“And lots and lots of deer. Guys come up here in hunting season. When I catch ’em, they always make jokes about hunting Munchkins. I think they’re idiots to come up here with guns. Mutants don’t like guns.”
“Who does?” he said.
She said, “Remember Tweetsie Railroad? That rickety roller coaster? Remember how those guys dressed like toy-store Indians used to come onto the train?”
He said, “Fudge. Your mom would buy us fudge. Remember how we sat in the front row and there was that one showgirl? The one with the three-inch ruff of pubic hair sticking out the legs of her underwear? During the cancan?”
She said, “I don’t remember that!”
He leaned over her, nibbled on her neck. People were going to think she’d been attacked by a pod of squids. Little red sucker marks everywhere. She yawned.
He said, “Oh, come on! You remember! Your mom started laughing and couldn’t stop. There was a guy sitting right next to us and he kept taking pictures.”
She said, “How do you remember all this stuff? I kept a diary all through school, and I still don’t remember everything that you remember. Like, what I remember is how you wouldn’t speak to me for a week because I said I thought Atlas Shrugged was boring. How you told me the ending of The Empire Strikes Back before I saw it. ‘Hey, guess what? Darth Vader is Luke’s father!’ When I had the flu and you went without me?”
He said, “You didn’t believe me.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Yeah. I guess not. Sorry about that.”
• • •
“I miss that hat. The one with the pom-poms. Some drunk stole it out of my car.”
Behind the Mask Page 29
