Black Eyed Susan

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  Mono and Clyde, in predictable and perfect harmony, snapped their hairy fingers and belted out the chorus to “You Give Love a Bad Name.” And while they performed their own brand of prayer to a past decade and a big-haired rocker who was frozen in time, I prayed I was dreaming.

  “Shot through dee heart,” they sang, pointing to each other when they got to “and you’re to blame.”

  “Hey,” I eeked out, but they kept singing. “Hey!”

  They both turned to me, sporting looks of confusion and concern.

  “You okay, Mees Spector?” Clyde asked.

  I held my throbbing head in my hands. “My skull feels about two sizes too small for my brain, I don’t know how I got here, and I have a feeling I’m not gonna have any fun with Ms. Abigail.”

  Mono fetched me a Pepsi from the fridge while Clyde sat down on his end of the couch, the end embroidered with Clyde, and lamented the situation. “I feel bad we had to give you dee sleepy medicines, but you no would have come, and Mees Abigail, she’s starting to get, how you say, more peesed off than usual.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “We want you to knows, Mees Spector,” Mono said, handing me my drink and sitting down on the Mono end of the couch, “we had no ting to doos weeth the big bolt of dee lightning.”

  Clyde shook his head. “That was dee awful! What are dee odds?”

  I was growing impatient, sitting in the middle of these two. “Where are my friends?”

  “Oh, they are dee fine, Mees Spector,” Mono said. “Don’t be mad at them. They no could help you. We took you when they no were looking.”

  They’ll come looking for me, you know,” I said. “You can’t just steal somebody. It’s against the law. And something tells me you two won’t fare well in prison.”

  “Prison?” they said in perfect unison, Clyde in my left ear, Mono in my right. Hearing Mono and Clyde in stereo wasn’t helping my headache.

  “Oh, yeah, and I hear American criminals love Italian men. Having you two as their bitches will be like having Gianni Versace back from the dead, and John Gotti in the next cell over.”

  They laughed in sync, and Mono slapped his leg. “Sure, Mees Spector! John Gotti will go to dee prison when dee pigs fly!”

  Clyde stopped chuckling long enough to ask, “Gianni Versace died?”

  “Jesus, where have you two been for the last twenty years?” I said in-between sips.

  “Weeth dee Mees Abigail,” Mono said. “She find us on street one day, after we find the key, and she take us into her home and make us our very own room in both dee houses.”

  “What key?” I asked.

  After Clyde shushed him, Mono lowered his head. “We no talk about the key.”

  Clyde changed the subject by saying, “Hmmm, what time ees it?” He looked to the side wall, where there hung a giant white board with an itinerary on it. I noticed there was no clock in the room, just this board filled with a full day’s viewing schedule. Here’s what it said:

  6:30-7:00 a.m. Full House (“Joey Gets A Tattoo”—previously aired)

  7:00-7:30 a.m. The Facts of Life (“Tootie, Meet Puberty”—previously aired)

  7:30-8:30 a.m. The A-Team (“Mr. T Loses Gold Chain”—previously aired)

  8:30-10:00 a.m. St. Elmo’s Fire

  10:00-11:30 a.m. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

  11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. MTV Friday Night Videos (“Cher, a-ha, Culture Club,

  Madonna, Thompson Twins”—previously aired)

  2:30-3:30 p.m. Miami Vice (“Tubbs Gets a Haircut”—previously aired)

  3:30-5:00 p.m. 3 Men and a Baby

  5:00-6:45 p.m. Young Guns

  6:45-8:30 p.m. Fletch

  8:30-10:15 p.m. T.J. Hooker (“New Cop on the Block”—previously aired)

  10:15 p.m.-12:00 a.m. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

  12:00-1:45 a.m. Ghostbusters

  1:45-3:30 a.m. Die Hard

  3:30-5:00 a.m. The Little Mermaid

  5:00-6:30 a.m. Top Gun

  6:30-8:00 a.m. The Karate Kid

  According to the schedule, it must have been close to 10 a.m., because St. Elmo’s Fire was wrapping up. Clyde looked at me and said, “E.T. ees next. Mono always cry at dees one.”

  While the boys prepared for their date with their favorite alien, I walked over to the only window in the room. It was less a window than a peephole. When I peered out the tiny glass circle, I realized I was high up in some sort of tower, and what lay below was a sprawling estate, complete with several other buildings, all part of a cement-based fortress.

  “Is it just me, or is this place cold and colorless?” I asked, looking at an aerial view of a real-life lair.

  “Come back and sit down, Mees Spector. You need to take dee rest before we take you to dee room,” Mono said.

  “Dee room?” I asked, walking back to them.

  Their faces turned sour, and I knew dee room must be a bad thing.

  “Well,” Clyde said, “ees no so bad,” trying to make it sound less like torture. “Mees Abigail, she say it is dee healing room, dee place where you see your self for who you really is.”

  “Of course. Wonderful,” I said, realizing I was not going to leave this world without Abigail Westergaard afflicting me with some sort of demonic This Was Your Life ritual.

  I was starting to wake up a bit, so I looked at the room with sharper eyes. There was a small camera mounted above the door, another above the kitchenette sink, and one more to the left of Jon Bon Jovi. When Clyde caught me investigating them, he said, “Dee cameras of security. Mees Abigail like to keep us safe.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She likes to keep you, all right. These cameras are surveying you, not intruders.”

  Clyde seemed uncomfortable, not because I was badmouthing his boss, but because he knew I was right. “Why she do that, put dee cameras in our room?” he mumbled.

  “Because she’s watching you—keeping you in line. Why do you stay?” I asked.

  Mono answered, “She say if we no do what she tell us, she no more send the monies to our family back in Bologna.”

  Clyde looked at him like he was again saying too much.

  “So, she keeps you captive in this dungeon in some sort of time warp, not allowing you to move forward, and you just take it?”

  By the look on Clyde’s face, I could tell it was all they knew, and it’s hard to doubt what you know to be true. They’d been coasting through life on cruise control with Abigail Westergaard piloting for so long they didn’t even ask where they were going anymore. One day had turned into a week, then a month, then a year, and finally, they’d lost two decades, only to realize they’d ended up in the exact same place where they’d started.

  Just as I was about to ask them what they had to show for the last twenty years, I asked myself the same question. What did I have to show for my last twenty years? My own guilt made me say, “You’re stuck in 1980-whatever because you’re afraid to change. You’re afraid to take a chance.”

  The word “chance” lingered in the air as the three of us misfits sat side by side on the couch, staring straight ahead at Jon Bon Jovi, who looked embarrassed to be in the same room with us.

  I turned to look at Clyde, and when I did, he looked different, his eyes now serious and determined. “Mono,” he said in a calm voice, “let’s go home.”

  Mono, who was mouthing, word for word, every line from E.T., kept a fixed gaze on the television screen, and said, “Home to dee L.A. house?” He dug his hand into a small bag of Reese’s Pieces. “Mees Abigail say we no go back until …” he said, looking at me.

  “Until what?” I asked, taking some candy for myself.

  “Until your enlightenment ees dee complete,” Mono said. Then, he mouthed “E.T., phone home,” with a hint of tears welling in his eyes.

  Clyde got up. “Home ees no L.A.” He spoke with conviction. “Home ees Italia.”

  Mono looked up. “What will we tell dee Mees Abigail?”

  “Good
bye,” Clyde said, opening a kitchen cupboard. “We tell her goodbye.”

  He walked back to the couch with something in his hand. “You’re going to need this in dee room,” he said, handing me a curvy plastic figurine of Christie Brinkley. A painted-on belt cinched the figurine to create a ridiculous proportion, making it look like a mini dumbbell dressed in eighties fashion. The top half featured an oversized shirt, complete with shoulder pads, and the bottom included leggings and pumps.

  While Mono whistled the melody to “Uptown Girl,” I inspected the figurine and realized it was more than an odd trinket. A few seconds after I turned Christie upside down, her shoes began to disappear, exposing the tips of two naked manicured big toes. When I flipped her upright again, her shoes slowly returned. It was like one of those novelty pens that exposed a pinup girl when you put the ballpoint in the air. If I left Christie upside-down long enough, our uptown girl might lose her class, leaving her a dirty, nude, downtown girl. Her hourglass figure was indeed an hourglass, a time-keeping hourglass in the form of a slow-motion stripper.

  Mono did his best pervert laugh. “Eeeet takes exactly twenty-eight minutes before you get rid of all dee leggings and see dee panties.”

  Panties were halfway up her body, so whatever was going to happen in dee room was going to take almost one hour.

  “Eees time, Mees Spector,” Clyde said in his new assertive voice, taking me by the arm. “This ees dee last job of Mono and Clyde.”

  “Wait,” I said. “How long is this gonna take? I have to get to my sister. My life depends on it.” They looked skeptical. “Don’t you believe me?” I said, but they stared back without remorse.

  I laughed at my own stupidity, and shook my head. “I actually thought we were friends.”

  Clyde’s face softened for a moment, but then he turned cold, grabbed my bag, and led me to the door. Looking up at the camera, he said, “We’re on our way,” then pushed me through the threshold.

  Mono trailed behind us, and E.T. looked up at his faraway home in the sky, as I begged for some leniency.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said, while Clyde handed me my only two possessions—my purse, with my sister’s letters inside, and my new confidante, Christie Brinkley. “You guys are gonna hop on a plane to Italy and leave me here with this psycho?”

  Mono and Clyde led me down a dark hallway and stopped in front of another door. Mono’s voice was sad. “Mees Spector—”

  But I never found out what he wanted to say because Clyde interrupted him. “We fly, Mono. We must go before she come,” he said as he rearranged Christie in my hand so she hung upside-down, ready to shed her clothes. “Tick-tock start now.”

  I grabbed Clyde’s hand. “Please, Clyde, I’m begging you to get me out of here. I have a chance to save myself, and even if it’s a long-shot, I have to take it.” I looked deep into his resolute eyes. “For once in my life, I have to take a chance.”

  As soon as he broke eye contact with me, I knew I was screwed. Clyde opened the mystery door, handed me a card, then pushed me in dee room and locked the door. The door slam echoed through the lonely, cement hallways, and I looked down at the card.

  vi•o•let

  (adj)

  Definition:

  1. of a deep purplish-blue color like a violet flower.

  My definition:

  1. the sensation I get when I hear John Denver.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Without trying too hard, I could think of three song titles with the word “mirror” in them. There was Fish’s “Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors,” Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” and Thievery Corporation’s “The Mirror Conspiracy.” And just off the top of my sick little head, I could also think of three album titles with the word “mirror” in them—Aerosmith’s Done with Mirrors, Golden Earring’s Miracle Mirror, and Neil Young’s Mirror Ball.

  But what I couldn’t think of, what I couldn’t possibly fathom, was why I was locked in an empty room with mirrors for walls. There I sat in a heavy, ornate oak chair, the only piece of furniture in the room, staring at my reflections. Wherever I looked—straight ahead, to the left, to the right, on the floor below me, and even when I tilted my head back and gazed toward the ceiling, itself a vaulted heaven of multi-tiered mirrors—I saw myself.

  And it wasn’t pretty. My hair was matted, my too-small “Lucky” T-shirt was now a dirty, melted mess, thanks to Mother Nature’s electric fury, and my pasty skin advertised my terminally ill status. It was like being pale and bloated in a three-hundred-sixty-degree mirror during swimsuit season.

  The square room was only ten feet in width, but it seemed a large expanse with its mirrored ceiling, fifty feet up and stretching to greet the sky. It was like being inside a miniature skyscraper with its insides scraped out, no other floors to obstruct the view, just a shimmering straight shot up to the top. And as I looked around, I noticed that in addition to the sheets of mirror on the walls, there was also a smattering of different types of mirrors carefully placed in various areas of the room.

  “Angle of incidence,” I remembered out of nowhere—the point at which light connects with a mirror.

  Alone in a silent, mirrored hell, I waited for Abigail Westergaard to deliver my fate, and I thought about how The Angle of Incidence would make a great album title. I wondered what incident was going to take place in dee room, as I looked at the hourglass supermodel in my hand. Christie’s shoes and most of her leggings had disappeared, and moments before her panties were about to be revealed, the room came to life with a booming voice—female, with a heavy and condescending dose of nastiness.

  “Ms. Spector?” the loud voice said. It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “We meet again.”

  “Crap,” I said, folding my arms. And like a consumer staring at row after row of prospective television screens at Best Buy, I watched dozens of my own reflections reacting in unison, all the same channel, all starring me.

  “You shouldn’t say ‘crap,’” she said after a patronizing sigh. “It’s quite sophomoric, don’t you think?”

  So she could hear me. “Jesus, do you have your whole freaky castle wired?” I shouted into the mirrors.

  “Let’s leave Jesus out of it, but yes I do. I see you … I see Mono and Clyde … I see everything.”

  “You might want to check in on your oh-so-loyal Mono and Clyde,” I mumbled.

  “Pardon?” she said, sounding agitated.

  “Nothing,” I said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Look, I get it. I’m a horrible person, and now that I’m facing multiple images of myself, it’s really painting the picture—pun intended—so good work, Ms. Westergaard. I have seen myself for who I really am and I hate what I see. Now, go find someone else to torture. I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be.”

  I heard some crackling static and then silence.

  “Hello?” I said, waiting for poison gas to come flooding through the vents, or the walls to start closing in.

  “Ms. Spector, you’re not being sincere,” she said in a tone that mixed Mary Poppins and a serial killer. “I’ve seen your type over and over, constantly deceiving yourself, never owning your actions.”

  Great! My captor had been watching Oprah.

  “But,” she revealed, “this will all change soon, when she gets here.”

  “Wait, let me guess—someone from the Angel Network?”

  She didn’t laugh. “To you, she is the victim,” she announced like a preacher delivering a sermon. “To me, she is family.”

  So, her sister was part of my enlightenment. I thought of my own sister and felt desperate to get to her. If I was going to get out of there, I needed Abigail Westergaard to think I believed her dogma. I threw up my hands and spoke in a slow, sincere voice. “You’re right,” I said, then pausing for effect. “I need to come face to face with her and apologize for what I did. It’s the only way to move forward.”

  Abigail was pleased, but a little skeptical. “Yes, well, taking responsib
ility for our lives is the first stop on the road to—”

  “Enlightenment,” I finished for her. And then, I poured on the metaphor as thick as I could. “I’m ready to start the journey … The car’s gassed up, ready to go … The map’s in place … I’m looking for the right road signs … I—”

  “Shhhhh,” she said, annoyed.

  “Did you just shush me?” I snapped, forgetting I was supposed to be kissing her evil ass.

  I softened my tone. “Right,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I need to use this time to be introspective about my life.”

  She perked up. “Exactly! Now, take a few minutes while we wait for Gabby, and reflect—really reflect—on your life.” I heard static again, and this time I could tell she meant business. “Guilt binds us, Ms. Spector, like cumbersome, heavy chains, until we’re paralyzed.” Silence. “It is imperative that we remove the chains.”

  It made me hostile that other dying people got to die in peace without having to analyze their lives, but there was a goal in sight. I envisioned my sister running out of magic healing tobacco, and made a renewed effort to look like I was trying.

  “Now, go back, Susan,” she said in her inspirational voice. “Way back to your childhood. What do you see?”

  In front of me, hanging on a giant mirror-wall, was a smaller oval mirror with a chunky wooden frame. When I looked into it, I pretended to delve into yesteryear. To my surprise, I didn’t have to pretend very long. Within seconds, an image appeared. A blonde-haired, dark-eyed little girl sat on her bed with Kermit in tow; she stared back at me, awaiting my approval. So there I was, looking at an image of myself—my former self—and I felt her disappointment in me, in the fact that I hadn’t grown into someone special.

  I don’t know if it was Abigail Westergaard’s overbearing demeanor that prompted it, or my honest desire for self-analysis, but something allowed my past to play in the mirror before me with great ease. The picture came to life—as a real-life movie showing inside the confines of the small mirror. And I saw something I wasn’t used to seeing—color. Most of the scene was in black and white, as usual, but in the center of my mind’s picture, Kermit was a living, breathing splash of rich, luxurious green, or what I took to be green, like an artist had dipped her finger into a rainbow and scooped out a dollop of grassy emerald.