by Lila Veen
“Call Devin,” she tells me, breaking my trance. “Ask him to meet us. Then we’ll get you showered and dressed.” Before I can object, she shoots me a look. “He does need you, you know.” I do know, but I’m afraid to see how Devin is right now, particularly with the news.
My hands are shaking a little, and the pit of my stomach feels empty and fluttery, but I call. “Hey,” he answers.
“Meet us for dinner?” I ask him.
“Us?”
“Me and Kate,” I say. He is silent.
He sighs. “I should have guessed she’d be back,” he replies. “Where?”
“How about some Pho?” I ask him. I indicate the station closest to where I can get a bowl of Vietnamese hot beef noodle soup.
“Okay, in an hour?” I tell him I’ll leave after I shower and hang up. I spend about ten minutes in the shower washing my hair and body because I smell like sweaty cage dancer and I’m still grimy from last night’s run at the beach. After I step out I wrap a towel around me and wrestle with a comb to get the snarls out of my hair. It never does what I want it to do, but it acts like a curtain and falls midway down my back in a shiny brown sheet. As long as I can detangle it sufficiently, I don’t need to really do anything else besides let it air dry. In the winter, that would be insane, since it freezes in stiff strips but it’s a warm night. I should buy an air conditioner soon, I have a feeling it’s going to be a hot summer. For now I let the open windows air out the staleness that’s pervaded my environment all winter long. I look around at the clutter of shampoo and lotions and makeup products in my bathroom and realize it extends throughout the entire place and mentally note to spring clean as soon as I’m up for it. But tonight I’m going to see Devin and tomorrow I will be at my father’s funeral. At least it will be the last time I have to see Jack.
*
I’m dressed in faded skinny jeans and a cap sleeved sheer white top with some light blue embroidery that I’d deem a “hippie top”. I got it from a little shop that sells dashikis, incense and nitrous oxide if you know how to ask nicely. I slip on some white flip flops and grab my purse and phone and a fresh pack of smokes before I lock up and head over to the El. Kate follows me. I smoke on the way to the Morris station, walking past college kids who are out drinking too late on a Sunday evening, young couples who haven’t yet figured out that they should really leave East Riverview and move to the suburbs before they begin to breed, and the occasional drunk and/or crack head. I got mugged once walking down Morris and was out a cell phone, so I’m glad it’s early, still somewhat light out and a short walk from my apartment. The station is empty and I ascend to the platform and light up again. As a general rule, the train comes faster if I am just starting a cigarette, and lo and behold, it’s crawling up from the previous stop just as I do. I pitch the half smoked cigarette off the platform onto the street and Kate and I get on the train.
Devin is parked by the El and leaning against his motorcycle. I wave, walk over and give him a tentative hug. Kate hangs back. “I wish you’d wear a helmet,” I say to him.
“I wish you’d quit smoking,” is his retort as I pull out my pack and begin to light another one. He takes one for himself. Devin never buys cigarettes, but he’ll smoke them if they’re available to him. We walk together to Saigon Noodle, which is this weird Vietnamese place that appears to simultaneously embrace and ignore the Vietnam War by having their wait staff wear camouflage shirts and serving large bowls of Pho from menus decorated with tanks and machine guns to white people and Vietnamese people alike. We sit and Devin and I order food. Kate disappears to give Devin and me some time alone. “Jenna, I thought you had ended things with Kate.”
“She comes when I need her,” I tell him, unable to meet his eyes.
“You should get back on meds,” he replies.
“Devin,” I plead. “I don’t want to fight tonight.” He leans back in his chair and scrunches up his face in the weird way he does when he disagrees with me. Devin isn’t what most people would call handsome or good looking. He’s got a face that’s almost feminine and looks a lot like me in some ways, but it doesn’t necessarily work on a boy…or man, I guess I can call him nowadays. He’s older than I am by fourteen months. His hair right now is short in back and long in the front, which I kind of like on him, but he resembles a skinny punk rock lesbian. It’s the same color as mine naturally, though he has it dyed black right now. The last time I saw him it was blue. People always thought we were twins because we were so close in age. “Irish twins!” was something we heard a lot growing up in a south side Irish neighborhood.
“Kate will be there to help you through whenever things get tough,” he says. “Jenna, you need to be on meds. I don’t like this.”
“Devin, let me handle it.”
He shakes his head. He looks like he might cry, which will make me leave and he knows it. “Devin,” I say again. “I don’t even have a health insurance policy that will cover them. I get bare minimum coverage through Appleseed. Those pills aren’t covered. I can barely make rent. Just let me get through tomorrow and we can talk.”
“She’s not real, Jenna,” he says. “Kate is not a real fucking person. She’s just you, Jenna.”
Chapter 3
I am reeling from this conversation with Devin. Everything he says I know, but I don’t appreciate hearing about it right now. Yes, I’m bat shit insane. Yes, Kate comes into my life when I need her. I need her now. Devin is making me feel pain, and he isn’t letting me see Kate right now. I am about to cry but am interrupted by a camouflaged man putting a bowl of steaming hot noodly soup in front of me and Devin. “You enjoy now,” he barks with a thick Vietnamese accent and walks away. Instead of crying, I eat. I realize it’s been over two days since I’d had any food and I down the entire bowl ferociously while Devin just stares at me and sips. “Jesus, Jenna,” he says. “You’re not taking care of yourself.”
“Don’t lecture me, Devin,” I say. “Besides, do you want me to go back on my meds or do you want me to eat? Because we both know I can’t do both.” There’s actually a longer list of things I can’t do while medicated other than eating. Pooping, having sex, leaving the apartment, opening my mouth without looking like a St Bernard and waking up are just a few of the gems I can name off the top of my head. Either way, medicated or crazy, I’m a hot mess.
Devin scrunches up his face which is his ridiculous way of indicating that he’s in deep thought. It really looks more like he’s constipated. “You’re moving in with me,” he finally says.
I shake my head furiously. “No, not that. I need my space.” It sounds lame, I know. Devin sees right through it. “I’m just…it makes me think about…”
He nods and gives me a look that cuts me off, knowing what I can’t say to him. Living with Devin would remind me of darker days, when we lived with our dad, and then with our mom and Frank. The second part was fine, but the beginning of the story wasn’t a time I have ever decided to remember fondly. When I do, Kate comes around. She is the block between what happened in my past and me remembering. She prevents all of it from coming to the surface and drowns my past inside of the deep well I’ve managed to stuff it inside. I like it there, because I have a feeling I’d be even more screwed up if I ever brought it up to surface.
“Hey,” Devin says reaching for my hand, interrupting my broodings. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get through the funeral together. Then we’ll find you a new doctor and some medication that won’t make it impossible for you to function. Okay?” I shrug, feeling numb and just wanting to placate him for now. I know I should be touched by Devin’s devotion to me, but the reality is that I’m so fucked up that I shouldn’t even be in public. The truth is I’d have killed myself years ago if it wouldn’t ruin Devin’s life. And Devin has something to offer the world while I only dance in a cage and make rich people complain about paying for my healthcare.
When we were kids living with our mother and Frank, Devin got arrested a lot for tagging. I remem
ber one time Frank drove Devin over to a wall under a bridge that he had gotten caught tagging one night by the cops. I was in the car, because our mom was probably home in bed after a long night of falling asleep at the bar she worked at where she spent more money than she made. Devin was there for community service, and when Frank pulled the car up to the wall, he was in shock.
“You did that, Devin?” Frank asked. Devin looked down at his hands and nodded. Frank had pretty much chewed him out to the point where Devin almost cried. And Devin never cried. Frank stared at the wall and then at Devin for a long time. Finally, Devin got out of the car and went to go paint over the wall in an orange vest so that the world would know he had done something to piss off the law.
I remember it vividly. It was a huge green and black dragon, wings spread, fire bursting all around, that made me ache, and I don’t know why it made me feel that way. He used orange, red, purple and blue and the dragon looked as though it were bursting through the wall, breaking free. It was beautiful and amazing, just like everything Devin has ever created with a brush and a surface.
Frank and I didn’t go home after we dropped Devin off. Instead, we went to an art supply store and Frank asked one of the employees there to help us find paints, brushes and canvas. When Devin came home that night, he found his new art materials waiting for him and could hardly believe it.
“I figured if we bought you art supplies you wouldn’t have to go around stealing spray paint and defacing public property,” Frank said to Devin. Devin looked grateful, and though we aren’t outwardly affectionate very often in our family, Devin looked like he could have hugged Frank, but Frank made sure to walk out of the room before that could happen. He was a stoic ex-Marine who didn’t really enjoy things like smiling, hugging or talking about feelings. My mother once told me when I was fourteen and probably not at an appropriate age to hear it that Frank pretty much just liked to “fuck and fish, and ain’t no water bed so I guess all he can do is fuck with me”. She was charming. The most affection we ever got out of Frank was a pat on the head or a display of understanding and respect like the one he gave Devin that day. Ironically, years of spray painting at night left Devin with an inability to paint or draw in full light, so he either worked outside on our back porch at night, often not sleeping before school the next day, or in the cold winter months he worked by candlelight inside. Electric light indoors, Devin said, didn’t supply the right type of ambiance. I am interrupted in my memories and I see Kate standing at the window, watching Devin and I finish our meal. She looks annoyed, as though I’ve made her wait all this time. I don’t really know how she feels about Devin because she doesn’t interact with him very much, or hasn’t in a long time.
“Devin,” I say, ignoring Kate for a little bit longer. “I can’t move in with you. First of all, you have a life, and what the hell is some girl going to say when you bring her home to your little one bedroom apartment and your psychotic sister is sitting on your couch?”
Devin smiles. “I never bring girls home. With my job I don’t really have time for socializing.” Devin works on the railroad as a conductor and is on call constantly.
“You’re socializing with me now,” I point out.
“I’m on bereavement,” he explains. “I get three days off.”
“Are you gay?” I ask. I’m slightly sincere as he’s hit on a major point. Devin never brings girls home. He had a girlfriend in high school that he was pretty crazy about, and I mean nuts. Like they used to shoot up and cut each other and drink their blood or something far out like that. He gives me a LOOK. “It’s a valid question, Devin.”
“No, I’m not gay, Jenna,” he tells me. “I do meet women, but I’m more concerned about your well-being right now than I am about getting laid. Living with you wouldn’t really cramp my love life since I don’t have time for one anyway.”
“Oh,” is all I can come up with. “Devin, I’m fine. It’s just…Jack.”
Devin nods. We sit silently for a bit until the waiter comes back with the check. Devin pays the bill and we walk outside. Kate is standing against the building with her arms crossed, looking coolly at Devin and me. I light a cigarette and give it to Devin and light one for myself. It’s still warm and muggy out, but it was beginning to feel stuffy inside the restaurant. We walk slowly to where Devin’s bike is parked. “Want a ride?” he asks me. I’m about to say no because of Kate, but the way Devin is looking at me - he can tell I’m struggling with Kate. He knows she’s here, and he’s testing me. I need to let him know I’m okay.
“Sure,” I say. He gives me his helmet and gets on first. I adjust the helmet and I am glad I wore jeans to sit on the bike with. He turns on the engine and I feel the vibration of the Harley reverberate all through my body, and the leather seat has soaked up the warmth of the outside. Devin gets on and I shift closer to him and put my arms around his waist. He walks the bike out of the space and takes off. In his side mirror I see Kate standing behind us, glaring with a look that makes me realize that I am going to feel her wrath. Later.
For now, I just want to ride.
*
“How the fuck could you just leave me there to fend for myself?”
“Go away, Kate,” I say, closing my eyes. I want to win this, I really do. Being with Devin makes me want to be better, just to make him happy with me. I don’t want him to worry. I don’t want to go back to the hospital. I just want to be free.
“Fuck you,” she says, getting in my face. We are sitting face to face on my mattress. I know she will hurt me tonight. Let her hurt me, I think. Feeling pain is at least feeling something. “I’m always here when you need me, Jenna. You need me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even exist. So how can you fucking leave me? You love Devin more than me? Where was he when everything happened? Did he step in when things were bad?”
“I…can’t think,” I say. “I want to leave you, but you always find me.”
“And why do you suppose that is?” she asks me. “Why do you think you can’t get rid of me, even though you seem to want to so fucking badly?”
“I don’t know!” I say. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
“Do you even love me?” she asks me.
“Yes, Kate, I love you,” I sigh.
“Show me,” she demands. She is wild and beautiful right now, her hair a rage of strands in her lovely flushed face and her eyes glowing like hot coals with hatred toward me. I feel her pain now, and I know how much she loves me and wants to be in my life. I take her hand and press her fingers in between my legs and I hear my own lips make a moaning sound. “We haven’t done this in a long time,” she whispers.
“I don’t like it without you,” I tell her. Pleasuring myself is a ritual, but one where the pleasure is forced without Kate. The tips of her fingers feel good and warm against me. She begins to move them around without me guiding her, tracing the edge of my panties, gently touching me through them, pressing slightly, and then skimming the sensitive spot that joins my thighs to my sex. I can tell I’m already wet, and I need Kate to make me come the way I haven’t in far too long. I feel like I might explode.
“Tell me you still need me,” she pleads. I look at her hovering over me. She looks fierce and fiery. Then I cry out as her fingers tear away my panties and plunge inside of me. “Tell me!”
“I need you Kate,” I say, sobbing. “I need you. I can’t feel without you.” She smiles softly and licks her lips and looks down at me. I am writhing. I want to be fucked by her. It’s so hot in the room, and I think all of the heat is coming from where Kate’s hand is. I feel two fingers push up onto that spot that only she seems to be able to locate. Her thumb is on my clit and rubbing gently. She is pushing out from inside of me and in from outside of me and I feel the heat building down there. Within seconds, I come, feeling my blocked energy and build up gushing out of me. I am sticky and warm everywhere and I don’t care. She is good for me. She is my life, and I’m so happy to have her back. I pull her toward me u
ntil she is within me and kissing me everywhere, from my face to my thighs and down to my toes. I feel like I am glowing from the inside with her energy, and I feel complete. She makes me taste myself off of her fingers. “I love you,” I tell her before I drift off to sleep.
Chapter 4
I am ready. It is the morning of my father’s funeral and I am well rested for the first time in a long time. I dress accordingly in a conservative black wrap dress that goes just above the knee and isn’t too low cut or anything. I am slightly tan from the sun and choose not to wear any makeup, but I pull my hair away from my face into a high ballerina bun because it’s scorching outside. Luckily I am handy with a pair of scissors and turn elbow length sleeves into sleeveless. Jack isn’t worth the extra step, though, and I don’t bother trying to hem or anything. I probably won’t be able to find sewing materials in my apartment anyway, though I’m sure there’s a stolen sewing kit somewhere around from Appleseed. Alicia keeps them around for wardrobe malfunctions, which you wouldn’t think would happen with nothing but a silver bikini inside of a cage but customers can get creative and rough. I wouldn’t put it past some horny drunk guy to try something with a wire hanger.
