by Babe Walker
I flicked my cigarette over the side of the deck and turned back to the door.
“I’m gonna go wake Knox and Cara up, we’re going shopping today. Have a wonderful shoot.”
Donna didn’t respond, and we never said bye before she left.
“Knox?” I whispered into the dark room at the top of the stairs. His room was kept neat. No signs of a ten-year-old boy, no posters on the wall, no fucking lava lamp or anything basic like that. It looked more like an IKEA catalogue than a real room in the real world. Or at least what I’d imagine an IKEA catalogue to look like.
He was sleeping quietly, folded into a ball in the corner of his twin bed. Navy-and-white sheets. Down pillows. Better than the guest bed. Maybe I’d request to sleep in his bed for the rest of my stay. No. Too much.
Waking him felt like a crime. He was so precious there, probably right in the middle of a REM cycle, but he’d asked me to wake him up as soon as I got up, so wake him up I would.
“KNOX!” I screamed.
He literally jumped out of bed. He was wearing black leggings and an extralong T by Alexander Wang shirt/dress. I mean, I used to have the same shirt and I wore it as a dress. It really was a dress, not a shirt. He was wearing a dress. It was major.
“AAAAaarrrrggghhhhhh!!!” Knox screamed back at me like a wild gorilla defending her band. A group of gorillas is called a band. And FYI a group of cockroaches is called an intrusion and a group of dolphins is a pod. Google it.
“Ohmigod!! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry, babes! Just wanted to get you up so we could start going through and doing that closet edit we’d talked about. You know, before we shop. I need to know what type of canvas we’re working with. Capiche?”
He looked slightly stunned. I think he was still half-sleeping.
“Okay,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and leading him to the bathroom in the hall. “Take a shower, get your shit together, and let me know when you’re ready.”
“Okay.”
“In ten minutes.”
“OKAY.”
“Don’t fuck around in there. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I’m only in town for one more day.”
Knox shut the door to the bathroom. With it closed, I noticed a framed needlepoint hanging from a small hook on the front of the bathroom door. It said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so be Godly today!”
I took it down and threw it into a bush outside the house.
When Knox was ready I met him back in his room, and we started sorting through his wardrobe.
“So you walk all of your neighbors’ dogs after school and use the money to buy clothes and cooking stuff online. That’s one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever heard,” I said to Knox as I folded an adorable robin’s-egg Lacoste polo and placed it in the Yes pile.
“The mall here isn’t the cutest. You’ll see later. So yeah, I have to find everything online. And Mom lets me do it on my own now so it’s pretty much awesome.”
“I want to cry.”
“Why? Don’t cry, please.”
“Ew, I’m not actually going to. I’m just super moved right now by your perseverance, dedication, and overall commitment to not be basic. Despite your surroundings, upbringing, and supposed fate. You’re literally changing history by wearing those shorts to school.”
I pointed to a pair of girl’s floral Marc by Marc Jacobs jeans that Knox had cut into a pair of shorts. He’d also clearly washed and treated them because their wear was meticulously and beautifully weathered.
“I had Cara drive over them a bunch of times in Mom’s car.”
“Genius. I used to make Mabinty do that for me when I would get new white Converse Chucks. We had to wear them in PE at my elementary school and there’s truly nothing more off-putting than a spotless pair of Converse Chucks. They can make you look like a sad wardrobe lady at the Disney Channel dressed you.”
Knox broke out in laughter. He was eating up everything I said. This made me feel wonderful, obviously. But it also made me feel sad for him because he hadn’t realized yet that I was basically a bitch who lied most of the time. But being around him did soften me a little. It’s not like I had a crush on him because no, but it really was something similar. Minus the sex thoughts. He just made me feel excited to be alive. When we were hanging out, exchanging brilliances, it felt like the time actually meant something. Unlike being back in LA arguing with Genevieve about why she shouldn’t eat sushi more than four times a week, or with Roman about why owning more than two Range Rovers made him look like he had a small dick. Which he doesn’t AT ALL, making everything that much more frustrating. We literally had that argument and he still bought the third Range Rover, a navy one, claiming that it was for his live-in CrossFit trainer. Lies.
“I haven’t ever said this to anyone because I don’t actually think I’ve ever felt this about someone, but I am fucking impressed by your whole approach to life.”
“K,” he said quietly after a few dull ticks from his bedroom wall clock. “That’s weird.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m so much younger than you. And you live in LA, which is, like, a real place, unlike this dump.”
“Yeah, this place is a piece of shit.”
“I know. And you have a life and write books and have really nice and cool stuff and good taste and you’re famous.”
“I’m not famous.”
“Yeah you are.”
“Okay, fine, a little bit. But don’t tell people that. It’s gauche as fuck to be famous.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
“Uh, sure. And, like, you’re just—”
“I can’t take any more compliments,” I blurted, interrupting him. “It’s making me feel weird. I haven’t done anything with my life lately. My stepmother told me I need to get my act together and find a new mantra, so hearing nice things about myself is just creeping me out right now. I don’t mean to take it out on you, sorry, let’s just do this closet edit. Okay?”
Knox nodded his head and went back to pulling out shirts from the chest of drawers by his bed.
“Sorry, Knox. I think being around Donna has me in my feelings in all sorts of ways. I don’t ever talk to her, let alone see her.”
“She’s pretty nice, though.”
“Yeah. That’s how she seems. And, like, at the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter if she’s nice or not because she’s so hot and so thin and is still a working model, so it shouldn’t matter how she treats me . . . us. But she is my mom.”
“I get it.”
“Yeah, you get it.”
But did he really get it? If Donna was, in fact, Knox’s mom, then yes he really would get it. I didn’t know what to say next so I just stopped talking. I leaned over to the stereo on Knox’s floor and turned the music louder. It was an old Miley Cyrus song.
“I love this song,” Knox said a few moments later.
“I hate it.”
The mall was about a twenty-minute drive from their house and Veronica was kind enough to let me borrow her car to get us there. I left the headlights of my rental on all night and ran the battery out, so that was no longer an option. Another reason not to rent cars. Vee’s was a large hybrid minivan-SUV type thing in an odd green/gray/horrible color so I wore huge sunnies and an Hermès scarf around my head, in case anyone noticed me driving it, because hello. We parked far from the entrance, and I smoked half of a joint that I found in my bag on the walk over. I knew I’d need to be a little sedated to deal with the inner truths of a real, American, noncoastal-town mall. I didn’t know what type of looks, smells, and sensations I’d be encountering once inside. So yeah, I medicated. Sue me. It was mostly so Knox wouldn’t have to see me have a panic attack.
For the first ten mall minutes, I didn’t say anything. I don’t even know if I was breathing. I just took it all in ’cause I was, like, really fucking h
igh. The first thing I noticed was that the place smelled like chicken. The food court (is that what it’s called?) must’ve been nearby and its essence was pumped through the entire building. It was like I was being forced to eat with my nose. I also took note of the jarring white light and the remarkable amount of girls in Uggs. Knox had convinced me to walk through hell with him. But that’s what you do for family.
After I bought him several fabulous complete looks at Nordstrom (I did my best), we went to this chef-supply store and I bought him a really chic chef-knife bag made of weathered Italian leather. It stores all of his super sharp knives in a roll. Then we decided we should see a movie. Or rather, he decided he wanted to see a movie. He chose something scary about the end of the world, which I’d normally never ever ever force myself to sit through, but Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was starring in it so I obliged. I wanna fuck him. So do you. Try to say you don’t want to fuck him. Whatever.
“I’m surprised people allow themselves to eat popcorn with butter,” I said to lil’ Knoxie as we took our seats in the biggest theater I’d ever seen. Everything in malls is so large, it’s fascinating!
“I know. It’s not good for me, but I hardly ever do it.”
“But, like—”
“So fuck it,” he said, sure of himself. I just turned and faced forward.
“Your body, your life,” I said as the lights dimmed and the trailers started.
The movie was boring—people screaming, buildings dying, helicopters, dogs, a Kylie Minogue cameo—but not as boring as it would have been if I was cold sober. Thank God for my little surprise friend that I found in my bag. I was kind of hoping that I’d fall asleep like I do normally when I see movies, but about thirty-five minutes into the film, something strange took place.
So I’d just taken a sip of my “seltzer” (they didn’t carry extralarge bottles of San Pellegrino at the concessions counter), and Knox handed me his huge paper bag of popcorn as if we’d been sharing it the entire time. I took it from him, dipped my little hand into the pile of yellow, crunchy stuff, and retrieved a mouthful. Now, if I’d then thrown it at Knox’s face and laughed hysterically or even secretly dumped it in the purse of the woman next to me, that would’ve made sense and fit naturally into the overall Babe Walker narrative, but that’s not what happened.
I ate the full hand of popcorn. You heard me. I mouthed, tongued, chewed, and swallowed the mall theater popcorn that was literally still dripping with synthetic butter product. I actually did this. This is my confession to you. Well, actually, the confession has more to do with how it tasted and what I felt while performing this truly daring and admittedly lowbrow stunt: it was delicious. It was fucking delicious as fucking fuck.
I’d never had movie popcorn, let alone popcorn with butter. I knew butter spray was a thing that existed but I’d never partaken because I don’t want butter cancer. I like living too much. But today was not like every other day. My guard was down, I was under the influence of Knox and Maryland and basicness and weed, and I just let it happen.
Upon contact, my lips curled naturally around the heap of yellow kernels. They hungrily pulled the mouthful in toward the back of my throat with help of my tongue, leaving streaks of salt in their path of delicious destruction. My mouth was being terrorized by an army of taste, a murder of wrong, a tsunami of no. Yet, in that shining moment of living quite frankly on the edge of glory, I thrived.
“This is what this fucking tastes like?!” I said at full volume to Knox. Someone shooshed me. I giggled.
“I know. It’s amazing, right?”
“AMAZING.”
While on a pee break from the movie I checked my phone and ended up getting into an intense group convo with Roman and Genevieve. I sat on the toilet and texted for almost twenty minutes. Knox was rightfully confused when I returned. Hey, I was stoned out of my actual brain. Time didn’t really exist at the time.
There were two missed texts from Roman.
Roman Babe? Gen?
Roman Hit me up when you get this. Emergency.
Babe What’s happening.
Babe I’m peeing.
Babe It feels amazing.
Babe I ate butter.
Roman Are you high?
Babe No
Roman But like?
Babe Yes.
Roman Okay it’s fine. I need to vent.
Babe Go off bitch
Gen Hey I’m here. What’s up losers
Babe I ate butter, Roman was about to vent.
Gen Got it.
Gen Proceed.
Roman So I was at Joan’s on Third for breakfast today and I ran into Mikey Dutton
Gen NO
Roman Yes bitch. I was sitting outside ya know at one of the little tables, enjoying an americano with almond milk and a small bowl of egg salad with tabasco with my new friend Lukas who works at the front desk of my chiropractor’s office, we’re maybe fucking but that’s another story, whatever he’s super hot. I’m sitting there laughing at Lukas’s boring stories about his trip to Kuwait or Egypt or something and I hear someone behind me go “Roman?????”
Gen NO
Roman Yes bitch. And you know I knew immediately who the voice belonged to. I contemplated not turning around and just ignoring it but Lukas was looking at me, waiting for me to turn around and say hi back. I didn’t know what to do. My adrenaline was pumping through my pores. I could either get really sweaty and gross and awk in front of Lukas who I REALLY wanted to fuck after breakfast, or I could turn around and face this feces-breathing dragon from hell himself. So I turn around and there he is and he’s smiling from ear to fucking ear and he’s wearing a FULL look from the Jeremy Scott Flintstones collection which you know is my least favorite JS collection
Gen NO
Roman Yes bitch. I shit you not. This queen was just standing there looking at me, waiting for me to say something.
Gen So what’d you say? I hope you fucking slapped him across the face. What he’s done to you! AND what he said to you at that Grammys after party last year was one of the darkest, cruelest, shadiest things I’ve ever heard. You don’t deserve to EVER run into him. You just don’t deserve it. You’re a good person Roman.
Roman I know I am.
Gen Really. You have such a huge heart.
Roman Thanks, Gen. You’re being nice, it’s weird.
Gen I hope you stabbed him.
Roman LOL
Roman I fucking wanted to. Trust.
Gen What happened? Were tables thrown?
Babe Wait.
Babe I may or may not have just fallen asleep while peeing.
Gen Ew
Roman Ew Babe. Where are you?
Babe Promise you’ll still talk to me if I tell you
Roman I promise
Gen I don’t
Babe I’m in a public bathroom stall at a movie theater in a mall in Maryland
Roman WHAT WHY
Gen NO
Babe I tried to tell you guys before but no one wanted to listen
Roman Fine. Brief pause to my story so you can tell us why in the actual fuck you are where you are
Babe I came here to meet Donna’s side of the family.
Babe Donna’s side of MY family I guess I should say
Gen Intense
Roman But cute
Roman I think it’s good you’re doing that
Babe I guess
Babe But there’s a lot of butter here
Gen I’m sure there’s butter everywhere. Scary food is king in the non-coastal states.
Roman Genevieve, Maryland is on the east coast
Gen It is?
Roman 100%
Gen Whatever
Roman Babe I want details later but I need to finish my story
Babe K
Babe But wait who’s Mikey Dutton?
Roman LOL
Roman You’ve met him before. He’s a “stylist” and also my arch nemesis from CrossFit that PISSED IN THE GAS TANK OF MY CAR when
he found out I’d been chosen to be a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race this season and he hadn’t
Roman He claims it was his biggest goal in life and I stole it from him
Gen Love that fucking show
Babe Same. So I get it. But ew.
Babe I think this sounds familiar.
Babe Where did I meet him?
Roman At Pepo
Babe What’s pepo
Roman That spanish restaurant with the hot bus boys
Babe Pepo. Of course. They are hot
Roman SO hot
Roman I hadn’t seen Mikey since the day he called me basic at that Grammys party in front of legit 3 million people
Gen I still can’t believe he said that
Babe That’s all he said?
Roman What do you mean that’s all
Roman Imo that’s the single most offensive thing you could say to a person
Babe Really?
Babe It doesn’t seem like the MOST to me
Babe But hey I’m very stoned right now
Babe I should go back to the theater. My little cousin is in there
Roman Let me finish. It gets good.
Roman So I look at him, I stand up, overcome by a strange sense of cunty yet calm confidence, I walk over to him and I whisper this: That hello was the last word you’ll ever say to me. You are a major source of negativity in my life, you ruin my day, you’re a child, you’re an actual diaper filled with doo doo, you’re the worst, leave me alone
Gen NO
Babe Omg
Babe So unlike you to get worked up, romie
Roman I know it was nuts but I knew that if I didn’t handle it swiftly and calmly, he’d make a scene
Babe Love swiftness
Roman And just before I could turn around and walk back to my table, he throws his entire, large iced-latte in my face
Babe SHUT
Gen UP
Roman So I punched him square in the jaw
Babe I’m gonna scream
Babe I am screaming
Babe In this bathroom
Babe ROMAN WHAT at Joan’s????!!!!!
Gen I’m proud of you Romie
Roman Thanks.
Roman I’m anti-violence or whatever but I’m also anti fuckboy
Roman Anyway I gotta go and Babe you need to get out of that bathroom
