by Steve Finbow
Who wants that?
My thing is the steely shiller moon,
the color of my eyes on summer days,
silver in autumn, slate in winter, smoke in spring—
always adularescent.
His wife Lillianne, the maid—
the domestic manager as my father called her—
thrummed with energy
like a nuclear-reactive cat, all spit and sharp teeth
battened down under tight clothes and a severe hair do.
A look I sometimes use.
Some men like floaty, others severe,
yet others innocent.
Innocence. In no sense.
I got that one from X.
His words.
Funny how one becomes the other over time.
Pick up tics and nuances, verb use and cursing.
Merges.
Even our sentences changed—
mine, once long and sinuous became staccato, clipped;
whereas his, almost machine-gun in rapidity,
spread and flowed out,
a muddy delta.
Yes—our sentences changed.
Mine to life,
his to death.
Think about it.
Which would you prefer?
Imagine sitting in a cold hut, no food
except a rotten potato, a leather sole,
someone else’s fingernails.
Aren’t we all waiting for our number to be called?
Look down at your left forearm, the
pale traces of ink,
of numbers.
Raoul I guessed was in his forties,
Lillianne in her thirties—
a decade of difference.
X is older by the same margin.
I wonder where he is. No,
I don’t.
When Daddy wasn’t at home,
Raoul subbed as chauffeur.
I asked him if I could go see my mother’s body.
When Daddy told me she had died,
nothing happened. I mean,
nothing happened
to me.
I didn’t faint, I didn’t cry,
I didn’t rush up the stairs and throw myself on the bed.
I nodded as if he were explaining astrology to me.
He asked if I was OK, gave me $500.
As Lillianne wore the trousers,
Raoul asked permission to take me to the funeral home.
Maybe Lillianne did teach me a thing or two
about manipulation
and control.
Maybe I unconsciously learned from her blank expression,
her tight mouth,
her coldness.
She said fine, glad to get this sulking teenager out of her slicked-down hair.
I dressed in a white cut-off T-shirt,
covered it in a black chiffon throw,
black denim skirt, and white hi-top Converse.
Clothes are important—
not as a means of seduction—
if you wanted, you could snag a man wearing a sack and bowler hat—
but as a means of expressing your moods.
These clothes said,
“I know I’m still a teenager but I’m aware of my emerging sexuality
but you will have to stay away even though you want me.”
The black chiffon throw said,
death, said silence, said mourning.
Lillianne frowned when she saw me but said nothing.
We pulled out of the drive in my Daddy’s Land Rover Discovery.
The road led to the freeways,
the freeways led everywhere
and everywhere was where I wanted to be.
Where I went. Where I’m going.
Raoul waved. Lillianne ignored him,
turned back to the house before we’d cleared the gates.
I looked in the rear-view mirror.
I always do. I always am—
the front-view mirror is yet to be discovered,
invented.
If only.
The funeral home was somewhere in Brentwood.
Raoul remained silent during the drive.
I fiddled with the radio.
A mixture of funk and soul,
country and bluegrass,
static and galloping voices.
Raoul stared ahead.
I watched the houses, the sprinklers, the dogwalkers.
The invisible people behind the walls,
just like Daddy and me, just like my mother—
no more.
Raoul had put on a plaid shirt and beat up old sneakers to go with his shorts.
He smelled of rolling tobacco and sour plums.
X smells of beer and Issiye Miyake, of
garlic and strawberry mousse.
Raoul’s moustache, flecked with grey, twitched as he decided which streets to take.
His nose, broken in a bar fight—so I heard my father tell my mother—
sniffed as if he were tracking something invisible.
X’s nose is likewise broken,
a split in the cartilage,
the left nostril slightly larger than the right,
a small scar on the bridge in the shape of a nail paring.
I lifted my right leg, placing
my sneaker on the dashboard, a glimpse
of white cotton between my legs, a kite
lost in sand dunes, a sail
on a silted river, a dazzling heron
lost somewhere in the desert.
Raoul’s moustache twitched,
twitched again as if he were about to sneeze.
I let my hand
dangle between my legs, felt
the hairs rise on them, a sea
of corn stirred by a July wind.
Looked at Raoul’s lap.
Raoul coughed, adjusted the rear-view mirror,
sniffed, smelled my scent,
not just the perfume.
“This is the street,” he said.
“I don’t know if I want to see her now,” I replied, my voice quiet.
Raoul pulled the car over to the curb.
“You go in. I have a few errands to run,” he said staring down the street,
transfixed as if a brontosaurus had waddled drunkenly out of the shopping mall.
“OK,” I said opening the door and stepping down.
He pulled away, the vehicle rumbling low and steady.
The funeral home, air-conditioned cool, stank
of manufactured smells—fake vanilla, faux lavender, fabricated lilac. Strange
to think that the bodies X made were stored in similar places,
their bones broken, their skin slashed, parts amputated.
I wonder what the morticians think, whether
they try to make the bodies look normal,
make them look human;
but then, why should they?
They’re soon to be hidden in the earth,
dispersed into the air.
Some have never been found.
May never be found.
Some are still rotting away, deliquescing.
What a word. Deliquescing—
“to become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air,
as certain salts,
to melt away…
Botany: to form many small divisions or branches.”
I sat in reception while they checked my ID,
whatever that is.
A laminated representation of facts about who you are? Yet,
we change; we are never who we think we are,
who others think we are.
We change when we are with others, when
we are alone, when we think
we are alone.
A man in a dark grey suit showed me into a room.
The walls were pale cream, the carpet a darker beige.
Flowers floated in stone bowls at each corner of the room.
<
br /> Gerbers.
A dark wood casket sat in the middle on a trestle table
covered in a fabric so white it glowed.
The man opened the lid.
Inside, a woman I didn’t recognize.
I hadn’t seen my mother in three years. Hadn’t
thought about her for nearly as long.
I’d thought of Daddy, I’d even thought of some of his girlfriends.
I thought of boys at school who had begun to look at me,
too frightened to talk, too scared to touch.
I thought of the teachers, their ever-lengthening stares
and the shake of the head at their own thoughts. I
didn’t really have any girl friends to speak of.
A few shopping acquaintances, cinema buddies.
I never really got on with other girls, other females.
Still don’t.
My father had my mother’s body flown in from Fresno.
I didn’t even know she was living there. Didn’t ask.
Not sure
I really cared.
Spent my days in thought, in books, in preparation.
Mother had had a series of mental breakdowns.
I hadn’t noticed.
She drank but seemed happy.
Happy in her stupefied walks around the garden,
her naps by the pool,
her afternoon massages and saunas.
There was talk of institutions.
Talk of operations.
Procedures.
The doctors made her…
The Voyeur
…write down dreams
millions of people forgotten
no, not forgotten—unremembered,
called a man about them
wrote down some more
black tail shiny, wet, chitinous
drew pictures
read books
told another about nightmares
trapdoor spiders wait for prey
to disturb silken trip lines running like abandoned railways—
terminals
made job look slapdash, frenzied,
work of hit man botching it,
professional feigning amateur,
whore pretending to love it
said nothing
kept schtum & mum together in same room
dreams played twenty-four hours a day,
technicolor,
surroundsound,
smellovision
all the senses in the world
leading from passion back to uncertainty, life
moved in reverse not frightened of truth but,
until now very good at excusing it, concealing it—
a disfigured child
in plain words,
it was all that trees & forest thing
death happening, whole world oblivious
blind blind to time passing without incremental growth in Z’s feelings
skin on body suffered sensations of pure ecstasy, then mind
tattooed with agonizing doubt 1… 2… 3… 4… 5
wanted to stop playing mars & venus, stop
floating in neptunian swimming pools, stop
watching mercury rise to red in swollen cock, stop
goddamn saturnalia of it all
once down to earth & now here
on road to pluto with its pomegranate seediness
starlings in infinite spiral processions paint whirlpools in the sky—
mazes, labyrinths
Z had dangled it
rather than bite it off, chew it up, then spit it out,
panted & drooled for it, slobbered & howled for it
running around in circles, tail on fire—
worm ouroboros swallowing it all, swallowing it whole, swallowing it wholesale
just for a taste
just for a touch
just for a time
driving thru desert with monkey on shoulder,
monkey in threesome with devil & deep blue,
pulling a train with the nephilim,
spit-roasted by beelzebub & belial
go back?
go on?
asshole of the world or bejewelled navel?
Z fed caviar then fed scraps
no more leftovers
do anything
did anything
rattlesnakes, coiled like discarded necklaces,
sunbathe on asphalt,
rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle
second man—killed for fun
life irreplaceable but known joy in taking of
silence as blood stops circulating,
heart finally rests,
eyes flicker out to dead satellites
man, an ex-lover, wouldn’t give up ghost
that’s what we are when we are no longer with the one we love
that’s what we are when we are no longer with the one we loved
existence outside of the material
they strip you of things so you are no longer you
my glasses,
my hair,
my shoes
insubstantial image forever becoming faint,
forever dissolving, until person you were
for them & with them, now
a collection of abstract portraits covered in dust,
invisible behind glass reflecting similar paintings names on a list a… b… c… d… e…
layering of memory
until original obscures
when we meet someone again,
meet them by mistake, by
chance, by
appointment, we travel back
in time, the present you an alien,
foreigner,
intruder,
fake
man to kill tried to make memories of Z real again
trying not to
tried to make substance what was not, what was far from
struggled to move on
here on road
wanted to feel cold breath of his monstrous fear wanted to
see how much horror he could contemplate,
how many hours of darkness
if he wanted flesh then he could taste his own
to take another life would diminish distance to Z
vacant place filled with our entwined bodies,
our melding minds
writhing in invisible gas
set drink next to his, said,
“best out of nine, 50 bucks a game,” said,
“you rack ‘em, we’ll toss to crack ‘em”
won first three games,
balls flying everywhere,
crazy atoms,
pockets eating them up,
speedheads popping bombers,
black & whites,
blues & reds
crowd watching,
quiet as a crematorium except for sound of pool balls
let him win next two
buddying up
bought beers, played for cheers
four each final game
two down from break,
balls spread tasty,
tempting
could feel shadows behind,
smell cigarette smoke hanging low over green table,
poland on a misty morning
pock! pock! pock! pock! pock! rat-a-tat-tat
eight-ball winking,
shark’s eye,
infinity pupil
chalked & stroked, backspin
eight-ball dropping into pocket,
black sun setting in blacker sky
50 bucks up
drank two more beers
cold-cocked him in car park
hotfooted it to crash pad
computer games,
empty old-gold 40 ouncers—
accoutrements of existence,
life’s knickknacks
fireman’s carry up back stairs
would he fight? wasn’t sure
when you fight & fuck
you are most alive & closest to death
stairs zigzag up side of building,
lines on seismograph
tied him to chair with electrical flex
is the taste for life so strong one can never believe its possible extinguishment?
played prune metatarsal tree snip snip snip snip
this little piggy went to frying pan, this
little piggy sautéed in soy, this
little piggy tastes of roast pork, this
little piggy on yr tongue, & this
little piggy went snipsnipsnip all the way to bone
repeat
recorded screams & pleadings,
photographed stumps & bleedings
gagged him
drove away into twinkling night
called it in anonymously from payphone
didn’t stay for sirens
had one of my own to attend to
showed Z pics,
played Z noises
camera, voice recorder
kissed back of neck,
ran hand up thigh,
stroked cock,
hard but pliable,
typewriter platen
& what Z’d done
what Z did
Z’s tongue
Z’s tongue
thick wad & tendrils
of sputum
& come
tail dropping
down into picture
whiplash
showed me door,
showed me way to go home
feral chameleons rock back & forth on thorned branches,
wall-eyed, indeterminate
two days later,
dreaming of maryoshka dolls served up on a bed of lettuce
miniature jabba the hutt,
chewbacca,
darth vader,
obi-wan & r2-d2
dressed all in pink attached to the end of foot dreaming of
mini hot-dogs, chess pieces embedded inside
eating pork rinds stuffed with ivory netsuke
going fucking mad
shrink says
nothing
talk says
nothing more
writes prescription
no need
no want
swallowed dry
bandit raccoons slip out of woods,
masked eyes twinkling with mischief
visit Z’s apartment,
one Z’s husband didn’t know about,
one festooned with trophies—
tie, shirt, pair of mickey mouse jockeys
given everything to be with Z, job, life
just another one to manipulate,
to seduce,
discard
sanity tested,
invented new realms of normality
Z had money didn’t have to worry about things like that
Z had
time Z had
words
found hours to fit
played with mind
