by Joe Meno
Of course, Audrey has an idea for a new zine: It will be called Poop Fest. She isn’t completely sure what it will be about yet. Something about celebrities and the shape of their poop.
Look: Audrey is in her apartment window right now standing like a mannequin with the space helmet on. In the room beside hers, someone is doing it with someone else, someone who is out-of-control horny. That someone is Isobel, her slutbag roommate. It seems like Isobel is always in her room with her artfag boyfriend, doing what girls and boys are sometimes known to do.
With her camera: Audrey is trying to be sneaky. She is taking pictures of her old Japanese neighbors, who are slowly, slowly walking down the hallway of the apartment building, the two of them slight and holding hands. The old man has large black glasses and the old woman a white scarf around her neck. Audrey thinks the old couple is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen and decides that somehow she is going to use them for a zine she is thinking of doing. She takes a picture of a tree losing its leaves and decides that this might work for the cover.
Another secret: Audrey has no idea what to do for her final project for Composition II class. There are two weeks left in the spring semester and all she can think about is how everyone is in love with someone, but she is not in love with anyone. She considers this at the laundromat as she watches her roommate, Isobel, doing her laundry: Isobel is tall and thin and a dancer, with short blond hair. There are nude photos of Isobel online, photos Isobel has put up herself. Audrey notices that it is the fourth time this month Isobel has washed her sheets, and there, there spinning like a phantom in the washing machine, are her boyfriend’s dirty purple briefs.
What Audrey is studying in art school: photography—though she got an F in her Photography I class.
On the phone: Audrey tells her mother she wishes she was in love with someone. Her mother laughs and says, “So do I, honey, so do I. If you can think of anyone you can set me up with, I’m open to ideas.”
“Gross,” is what Audrey says in return.
The basic idea for her zine Poop Fest: drawings of different celebrities’ poop with different comments. Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Macaulay Culkin, what kind of poop each of them would have, things like that.
Another secret: Audrey is thinking about doing a zine all about her roommate Isobel, and how she is always in her room doing it loudly with her artfag boyfriend, which is the reason Audrey is in her room dressed up as a spaceman every night: She cannot lie in bed and listen to them because then she gets all turned on and then angry and then sad. Maybe she’ll write down all the stupid horny things they say in bed, or no, maybe she won’t, because she has a million other things she should be doing, argh.
Audrey’s favorite musicians: Gang of Four. Or maybe Serge Gainsbourg. For the moment, at least.
What Audrey hates: Of course, Audrey has recently decided that she hates the world. Like everyone else in art school, she hates U.S. imperialism. She hates mass production but she secretly likes Britney Spears. She hates the way she looks: pretty but too Caucasian and too tiny. She hates her black hair. She hates the way the thrift store clothes fit her body: badly. She hates that no one thinks her pink roller skates are funny. She hates all the white leather belts she sees people wearing but wears one anyway. She hates that all modern art has to be explained. She hates the kind of drawings she makes because she cannot draw people’s faces. She hates that her parents are rich and she hates that she hates them for being rich. She hates the kids in her art classes who are sometimes pretentious and sometimes totally brilliant. She hates that she has not done anything she is proud of since the spaceman outfit she made last semester, which no one really noticed anyway, but hey.
What Audrey loves: Henry Darger, the movie The Goonies, her nose and eyebrows, which she is right to think are attractive, and the singer Olivia Newton John. That is all. Everything else has already been done a million times.
At art school: Audrey is totally hot for Hot Eric. He is in a band called American Video Game. They do covers of Atari 2600 songs. Audrey does not like Hobbit-Haircut Eric, who has the same haircut as all the other guys at art school. It is exactly the same as the guys from The Strokes and the fact that everyone has that haircut makes Audrey very hateful.
Of course: Audrey works at a corporate copy chain named Top Copy. Of course, Audrey does not do her job well. She wears her Yoko Ono sunglasses indoors and a lot of silver bracelets and eye makeup, which she has been warned is “totally unprofessional.” She is supposed to clean the bathroom but she refuses to.
Does Audrey ever sing made-up songs? The answer is yes. Here’s one: “Asian lady / in your apartment / why do you wear gloves / why do you wear gloves?”
At work: Audrey makes drawings of the people who come in. There is Mr. Elephant-Face with Brown Tie. Mr. Potato-Nose with a Cane. Mrs. Facelift with Saddlebag-Boobs. She has at least a thousand different ideas for zines she could do: One might be about Hall & Oates, one could be about sea horses, one about how she is starting to like soul music, and one all about fireworks. The problem is, well, she just hasn’t had time to start any of them.
Of course: Audrey hates hearing the sounds of her roommate Isobel and her boyfriend alone together. It is like they are trying to be quiet, which is worse, because it is all so obvious: duh. The sound of the Bright Eyes record, the same record almost every day, every night, of the bed under duress, of the most intimate, the most longed-for kind of laughter, of the most exquisite and most wonderful shuffling of limbs. Audrey covers her ears, screaming, jumping out of bed. She pulls the space helmet over her head and stands in the window like a mannequin, holding her hands above her heart, moaning loudly.
At work: Audrey tries to trim her nails with the paper cutter. Hobbit-Haircut Eric comes into the copy shop with a video camera. The red light on it flashes brightly.
“I want you to be in my movie,” he says. Like always, his hobbit-hair looks hobbit-awful.
“No way,” she says, covering her face. “I’m not going to be in any dumb movie.”
“Come on, you’re perfect for the part.”
“What’s the part?”
“A girl who works at a copy shop who is secretly in love with a young filmmaker.”
“Yeah, thanks but no thanks.”
“Come on. You’re perfect for it. You are totally beautiful.”
Audrey blushes when he says that. She hurries behind the counter and pretends to be busy copying something.
A mystery occurs in Audrey’s life: In the apartment next door, the two old Japanese people die suddenly, both on the same day. Audrey and Isobel stand in their doorway and watch the two gray vinyl bags being wheeled from their neighbors’ place down the hallway. A police officer writes down the girls’ names but never calls. Some service comes and cleans out their neighbors’ place and leaves all of their personal effects in front of the building in the trash. Audrey inspects the strange objects carefully: Inside the black plastic bags, there are the old man’s neckties, beautifully modern with small blue diamonds, men’s shoes, the same pair, dozens of them, a small paper lantern, two dainty white gloves, and many, many books of photographs of the couple, as youngsters in love, standing in front of a volcano, middle-aged and proud before the Washington Monument, old and shuffling in front of a blue-capped mountain. Audrey decides she will use the photos for her zine, which she has now decided to call On Vacation with My Amazing Neighbors. In the zine, she imagines what their conversations would have been like and where they might have traveled. One story in the zine is going to be called, “My neighbors and I Go Grocery Shopping.”
At the copy shop: Audrey helps a girl in junior high to plagiarize what is supposed to be a research paper. Audrey gives the girl a new title, “The Scarlet Letter Is Unfair to Women, Duh.” Audrey tells the girl what to write and even what words to change. When another customer, a young man wearing a backwards baseball hat, tells her that he is having a problem with the self-serve copier, Audrey covers her ears and
disappears into the back and does not return.
At night: Audrey waits until Isobel and Edward are both on the couch, in the dark, whispering. She pulls the space helmet over her head and lurches from her room, then stands in the doorway, pretending to be drifting aloft in space. The young artfags look at her silently, then go back to watching the TV.
“Do you want some popcorn?” Isobel asks.
“Okay,” Audrey says, taking a seat beside them. She leaves the space helmet on and reaches beneath the foggy blue plastic, slipping the popcorn in her mouth, squinting.
“Can you even see with that thing on?” Isobel asks.
“I can totally see fine,” she says. “In the future, people are going to be wearing these things all the time.”
“Not likely,” Edward says, smiling to himself. “Not with this president. We’re not even going to make it to 2006.”
“Well, I know, I’m from the future,” Audrey says. “And this is how people dress.”
“Well, if you’re from the future, can you tell me if I am going to have enough for rent next week?” Isobel asks, grinning.
Audrey the spaceman presses some imaginary buttons on her space helmet and declares, “All signs point toward no.”
“What about Edward?” Isobel asks. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“The future predicts terrible things for Edward: I see him standing in the hallway checking himself out in the mirror. He will suck in his gut and then curse loudly. He will go on living here even though he does not pay any rent.”
Everybody is quiet then, going back to watching TV.
Another secret: Audrey has only had sex once and she is not sure if they even did it right. It was with a faggy goth boy back in her junior year of high school and it went so badly that Audrey has begun to give up on the idea of having sex ever again. Okay, get this: While they were doing it, the goth boy came on her belly. She laid there like she had been shot, which she had in a way. Thinking about that, Audrey decides to do her Comp II paper on famous people who are celibate: Morrissey from The Smiths, the Pope, Michael Stipe from REM. In the paper, she argues that people who are not worried about always having sex have time to do more things. When she writes this, she suddenly realizes she has yet to finish any of her art projects or any of her zines. So she starts to write about herself and her roommate and how awful it is having to hear them all the time when no one in the world notices how smart and lovely she is and she even goes into how awful the first time she had sex was. When she turns the paper in, she does not know if it is the best or the worst thing she has ever done, but it is all honest and all true and not just some art school act and so she really hopes her teacher will love it.
Audrey also has another job, her own business, which she has invented: She is like a clown, but not a clown. She entertains at birthday parties, for children who are terrified of clowns, but typically she ends up frightening the kids anyway. As you might guess, the business is not going so well. She spends most Saturdays at the mall passing out handmade flyers, and when she does get a job, it usually goes pretty terribly.
“But you’re not a clown,” is what most of the children say.
“I know, it’s okay,” she responds. “We’re still going to dance and play games.” She will be wearing a plastic tiara and a pink tutu and will try to get the kids to have fun, but most of the time they just sit there and stare. Usually, it ends with the parent paying her before she is done with her routine, which includes a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” When parents remark with disapproval, Audrey refuses to apologize.
On Saturday, Audrey is called to “do a party.” When she shows up, no one is home. It takes her a few minutes to realize she has been duped: It must have been a crank call. She tears the tiara out of her hair and throws it on the porch steps beside her magic wand. Fuck it. She is done being a clown, she decides, as she pulls away.
At work: The girl in junior high comes back in for more help with her research paper. On the Internet, Audrey helps her find an entire research paper which she borrows liberally from. “Isn’t this cheating?” the girl asks. The girl has a purple duck barrette in her hair. “Isn’t this like stealing?”
Audrey stares down at the girl and frowns. “There is no such thing as an original idea anymore. Everything is a total rip-off and a total letdown. It’s all like postmodern art.” Audrey feels both very old and very sad when she says this. Apparently, this is all she has learned in art school so far.
At work: Audrey is staring out the window when Hobbit-Haircut Eric comes in again with his video camera. He stands in front of her but does not say a word. He simply stands there, filming.
“You are like the world’s biggest creep,” Audrey says.
“This is going to be my masterpiece,” Eric whispers, nodding. “Portrait of an Unsuspecting Beauty.”
Audrey begins to blush again and covers her face quickly.
“Wait, let me get a shot of you blushing,” he says.
“I’m not blushing.”
“You are totally blushing.”
“I’m not blushing.”
Eric pushes her hands away, and when he does, setting one of his own on her wrist, lowering the camera from his face, she gets scared and excited that they will kiss. But they do not. He places the camera against his eye again and begins shooting and Audrey is left to wonder if she maybe, maybe she might like him.
On the phone: Audrey tells her mother she got a B on her final Composition paper. Her mother says, “I think that’s wonderful, honey.”
“But I’m still not in love with anyone,” Audrey says.
“Neither am I,” her mother says. “Neither is anybody.”
At work: Audrey decides to stay late. Her slutbag roommate Isobel asked if it would be okay for her and Edward to celebrate their three-month anniversary in the apartment, alone, and Audrey, sighing, agreed. It is fine, though. Audrey is working on her new zine: She has just cut and pasted a photo of herself with her old Japanese neighbors shopping at the grocery store. In the background, the old neighbors wave happily, as Audrey glues her own head in place, the three of them colorful, disjointed, happy. She looks up at the clock and decides she has given her roommate plenty of time to do whatever gross thing they are going to do. She smiles, staring at the glued photos. She thinks maybe she will finish it tomorrow. Or maybe not, who knows? she thinks.
illustration by
Anders Nilsen
Oceanland is in bad shape. Oceanland looks awful. All the marine life appears old and molten and dizzy: The tropical fish are colorless and swollen and the dolphins bump into each other as if they’re cross-eyed. Most of the stingrays do not swim anymore and all look a little senile. Barry blames his younger brother Jack, who is supposed to be in charge of the place. He stands before the Hall of Invertebrates, the most impressive exhibit in the crumbling marine park, the glass walls rising like a ruined cathedral, as he looks at the assortment of starfish: The five-legged echinoderms were, as he remembers them from his youth, one of his favorites, always bright red and yellow-pink. But now the starfish look how Barry feels: brittle and gray, their bodies disfigured, each of them missing several limbs.
Across from the starfish are the moray eels, their jaws clasping and unclasping as they breathe, searching about desperately for something to eat. Barry watches as the eels spot him and then disappear into the caves beneath the plastic-looking reef. The eel heads bob about as they hiss a steady stream of air bubbles as a warning. Barry leans in close and begins to apologize. He gently whispers, “I know you would like to bite my hand right now. I know you would like to hurt me. If we were in the ocean, you would be faster than me. You would definitely kill me. I am sorry you cannot injure me right now. But look, there are some shrimp to eat.” The eels seem to turn their attention to the dwindling school of shrimp in the murky floor of the tank. “Have a good day,” he says, and slowly walks away to find his brother Jack.
As Barry walks, he sto
ps before several more exhibits, disappointed at the forlorn-looking animals and the exhibits in disrepair. He apologizes to the walrus, who appears to be sobbing. “This is no place for someone as gentle as you,” he says, pressing his forehead against the glass.
Barry continues on and soon notices that the marine park is entirely empty. He looks down at his watch, worried. It’s after 9:00. Where are all the ticket takers? Where are the gift shop employees? Look. It’s 9:13 and the beluga whales have not been fed and the seagulls look bloody and the front gates should be open and where is Jack?
Barry turns a corner behind the colossal plastic squid and suddenly finds Jack, who is hiding behind the abandoned mollusk exhibit and getting high. In a dirty gray wetsuit, which is unzipped to his waist, his knotty chest hair blooming above his pronounced pectorals, a tiny white shell necklace loose around his neck, Jack takes an impossibly long drag, grinning wildly. Barry watches, marveling at how long his younger brother can keep the smoke trapped inside his lungs. As a boy, Jack would always win when they would dive to the deep end of Dolphin Cove, trying to see who could hold their breath the longest. Jack, with his red hair and freckles, would plunge to the bottom and grab ahold of the silver water filter, grasping the vents with his fingers. He would be fearless, pulling himself down, crossing his legs, and sitting Indian-style at the bottom of the pool: He could hold that position for up to four or five minutes, just drifting there, eyes closed, the most serene smirk you could imagine resting on his little red face. Barry could never go over a minute: Older, wiser, made anxious by their father, he would always open his eyes first, terrified that his younger brother had drowned.
Barry marches over to his younger brother and realizes Jack is in much better shape than him. His arms are well-muscled as is his chest. Barry takes notice of this and taps his brother on his back, saying, “Jack, I would like to have an impromptu meeting.”
