Shake Down the Stars

by Renee Swindle

  I feel myself growing increasingly irritated. Why do Christians hate Earth so much? It’s a perfectly fine planet. What would they prefer? Uranus? Four hundred degrees Celsius on a good day? Or Neptune? A beautiful sky blue but more than two hundred degrees below. They should be grateful to be here. We have the sun and plants and animals. Water. Insects. Everything here is a miracle, and I can’t imagine their mythical heaven being any better—not as beautiful, anyway. I mean, gold streets and harps? Yawn.

  I stare at the Reverend, feeling fifteen all over again, forced to sit through three-hour services plus Sunday school. And the Reverend always played up the false modesty once we were home: “I think they understood the Lord’s message today, Margaret. He was speaking through me, and I was surely his vessel and servant.”

  I turn my gaze to the couple with the baby. Spencer’s doppelganger holds the baby while his wife wipes the baby’s nose. I quickly look away. I’m starting not to feel so hot, frankly. I want a drink. I want a drink real bad. I try to focus, but it’s as if the Reverend’s head has turned into a bottle of scotch. I remember my cigarettes in the car, and all too quickly I’m telling myself that I’ll go out for a quick smoke and then return to hear the guest speaker. Knowing how the Reverend likes to hear himself talk, I’ll have a good twenty minutes before he even introduces the bishop.

  I excuse myself as I step over people and practically race down the stairs and make my way outside. I head straight to my car and find the cigarettes. I stare at the few stars that are visible, exhaling my first drag with a deep sense of freedom and relief.

  “Smoking will kill you.”

  I turn and see a man walking toward me. He wears a yellow suit that makes him look as if he belongs in a jazz quartet circa 1930, and he’s skinny enough that the suit makes him look like an elongated banana. Matters aren’t helped by his odd doo-wop-looking hairstyle. He does the dopey-man chuckle. “You’re one of them bad women. Smoking like that when you should be inside the church, hearing the Word.”

  “You’re one to talk. You’re at least thirty minutes late.”

  He steps closer. “I got caught in traffic; but as they say, better late than never.” Chuckle chuckle. He raises his Bible, which has to be as heavy as he is. “I made it, though, praise God. I’m just in time to convince you to put out the poison stick and come inside with me.”

  I think of Eve and how bored she must have been stuck in paradise with a mindless man who was too busy naming animals to converse. No wonder she was more interested in the snake. Which reminds me of another problem I had back when I was forced to go to church: Why was Eve the bad guy? What’s so wrong with curiosity?

  “I’ll pass.” I take a drag of my cigarette. “I want to finish my poison stick,” I tell him. “Besides, I get the gist. You Christians are adored and special, while the rest of us are going to hell where we’ll burn for eternity. Yee haw!”

  He laughs nervously. “What’s your name?”

  “Jezebel.”

  He brings his Bible to his chest like armor. “I should get inside. I’m late as it is.”

  “Why don’t you stay out here and keep me company?” I lean back and give the hood of my car a pat. I then take a puff of my cigarette and cross my legs.

  “Keep you company?” His voice practically breaks.

  I stare into his eyes, feigning to put him under my spell. He laughs nervously and shrinks back while clutching his Bible. “You afraid of me?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “There’s no problem.”

  He’s a cheap form of distraction, but it’s kind of fun making him nervous. I figure I’ll fool around a little, have another cig, and give church another try. I take a step closer and move his jacket aside with my fingertip. “Don’t be afraid,” I whisper. “I won’t hurt you.”

  • • •

  I get the feeling it’s been a long time since Henry or Harry or whatever the hell he said his name is has had sex. His hands race against each other as though if he’s quick enough, God won’t catch us making out in the backseat of my car, but he can’t figure out what he’s doing and, thanks to his clumsy skills, minutes in and we’re both still fully dressed. He grabs at my thigh. “Easy now.”

  “Sorry.” He then starts to unbutton my sweater but can’t get past the first button. Frustrated, I begin to help him. When my sweater finally opens, his eyes practically fall out of their sockets, much like the old cartoons where the cartoon dog sees a bone or cute poodle and loses it on the spot. I lean back and wait—and wait—while he tries to unfasten my bra. Total amateur, this one. It’s as if he were still a virgin. Then again, considering I’m in a church parking lot, he just might be.

  “You’re not a virgin, are you?” I ask.

  “No, ma’am!”

  Ma’am?

  I’m about to tell him to never use that word again when I hear a noise outside. I try to see if someone’s there, but every time I move one way, Harry or Henry’s elongated head blocks my view. I hear what sounds like a cough and tap him on the shoulder. “Hey, did you hear that?” He’s too busy trying to unhook my bra to pay attention. Whoever is outside tries to open the door, but it’s locked and the person begins pounding on the window instead.

  Harry or Henry turns enough that I see a face peep through the window. Mom’s face.

  “Piper Michelle Nelson, you’d better get your ass out of that damn car before I drag you out!”

  She starts pulling at the door so hard the car rocks back and forth as though we’re caught in turbulent seas. “Get out, I said! I know you hear me in there, you heathen! Get the hell outta that car!”

  Harry and I rock this way and that. He struggles to fasten his belt. “Oh, dear Lord! Jesus, help me. Please, Lord.”

  Mom gives up rocking the car and starts pounding her fists on the roof instead. “Get out of the damn car!”

  Harry turns and sees whom we’re dealing with. “Oh Lord! That’s Sister Wright! Oh help me, Jesus!”

  “Open the door,” I tell him.

  “There’s no way I’m opening that door, ma’am!”

  “Stop calling me ma’am!”

  Mom puts her face in the window. “Harold Roberson? Is that you?”

  “No, Sister Wright! My name is Justin.”

  “Stop lying and get out of the car!”

  Harold sighs and buttons the collar of his shirt. “Dear Jesus, please help me,” he whispers. “I am in so much trouble.”

  He gets out of the car with his head hung low as though prepared to take his rightful place at the guillotine. Mom, meanwhile, is already waving her hands and pacing. “Harold Roberson, you’d better get inside that church right now! You are supposed to be a youth leader, and you’re out here acting as if you’ve lost your mind. Your duties are hereby suspended. You hear me? Suspended. And you will have a talk with Reverend Wright about this.”

  “It’s not my fault!” he says, pointing my way. “That woman tempted me!”

  “What?”

  “It’s her fault!”

  Mom steps closer with her hand on her hip and says through gritted teeth, “Unless she dragged you into that car by force, you had something to do with this, too. Now get inside the church before anyone sees you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He rushes off while I put on my sweater and climb out of the car. I start to open my mouth to speak, but then I’m staring at asphalt and there’s a ringing in my ears. I raise my head slowly and bring my hand to my burning cheek. I’ve just been slapped. Mom slapped me.

  As soon as I lower my hand, Mom slaps me again—and again. She then starts pummeling me with her fists. My body doesn’t understand that it should protect itself, because my mother of all people is the source of every blow. “Mom, stop it! Quit!”

  Finally, I raise my arm to defend mys
elf against the next onslaught of fists.

  When she raises her hand again, my instincts kick in and I swing back. My aim is off, but I manage to hit her on the arm.

  “Don’t you raise your hand to me! Who the hell do you think you are? How dare you come here behaving like this! What is wrong with you?” She shoves me, but I push back, hard enough that she falters.

  She looks around at the empty parking lot as though making sure no one is around and then cuts loose. “What the hell is wrong with you? I can’t believe I find you out here—at your father’s church—having sex!”

  “We weren’t having sex. He barely touched me!” I probe the side of my cheek as though realizing what just happened. “You hit me!”

  “Damn straight I hit you. You deserved it, too! I should hit you again!”

  When she lunges toward me, I quickly get in my car and slam the door. “Piper Michelle, I am talking to you!”

  After fumbling with my keys, I start the engine and roll down the window. “You don’t have a right to say a word to me. Not a single fucking word! How dare you hit me! I should call the cops on you!”

  She grits her teeth and pulls at the door handle. “Open the goddamn door!”

  “No!”

  She continues to hold on to the handle even as I start to pull away. “Open the damn door, Piper. Right now!” She doesn’t let go until I boost speed and head toward the street.

  I watch as her reflection diminishes in the rearview mirror. A man runs up to her, ready to help.

  I look out toward the road. My face burns hot as I speed away.

  • • •

  I press my head deeper into my pillow, but I can’t drown out the rock music someone is playing. I close my eyes and pull my blanket over my ears, but it doesn’t help. When a man with a high-pitched voice screams over a tortured guitar solo, I give up and roll onto my side and open my eyes. It takes me a good minute before I realize I’m not at home and not in my bed.

  I blink a few times and wait for my brain to tell me where I am. My hungover synapses creepy-crawl to their final destinations while the rock music continues to blast. I follow the noise until I see a speaker hanging in one corner of the room. I then catch the sound of running water and assume whoever lives here is taking a shower.

  Gathering my nerve, I take a cautious peek under the covers. A man’s T-shirt. No underwear. I sit up and try to take in more clues. My purse is on top of a dresser next to two half-empty bottles of scotch. Just above the dresser hangs an eight-by-ten glossy of a silver race car. On the opposite wall hangs a signed picture of a bodybuilder—To Kurt, Stay strong!—Walt. Next to it hangs a picture of a boxer, also signed—To Kurt, From Antonio “The Brute” Chavez, Middle Weight Champ ’06.

  I look around the room for more of my things. When I see my pants and sweater, I stop trying to figure out where I am and start putting on my clothes as quickly as I can. I’m reaching for my purse so I can get the hell out, when a man steps inside the room. He’s naked but for a ratty blue towel wrapped around his waist. Trails of steam float off his lobster red skin. He’s massive, all muscle and bulk, and stands with his legs apart and hands on his hips à la Yul Brynner in The King and I.

  “Dressed already?” He walks over and kisses my cheek. Wet gray curls frame an angular face that’s all jawline. His hair is misleading, though. He can’t be more than thirty-five. “You’re not trying to sneak out, are you? I thought we’d get breakfast. I know a place up the street makes a mushroom spinach omelet that’s to die for.”

  “I . . .” I take a step toward the bedroom door. I have no idea who he is. “No, thanks. I think I should get going.”

  He taps my nose with the tip of his finger. “Not acceptable. ’Sides, it’s my treat. Your body needs fuel after such a long night.”

  He bends down and kisses the tip of my nose. I think about string theory, except in this alternate universe I’m dating a bodybuilding Neanderthal.

  I look at the photos on the wall in hopes of kick-starting my memory. The race car catches my attention again, its sleek silver body and the number twenty-six painted on the door. I stare hard until a flash of speeding down the highway with the sound of my own penetrating scream in my ear comes to mind.

  The Neanderthal follows my gaze. “We can take her out again after breakfast. We can even go down to the track. Let me put my clothes on and we’re outta here.”

  Something about the word track brings more specific images to mind: a wood sign advertising Liberties Pub; the Neanderthal in a bowler hat and leather jacket—“You’re gorgeous”; lots of talk about the race car he built from nothing; how he loves to go to the track at the end of the month and “show her off.”

  Riiiiiight.

  Race car guy.

  I remember now how he walked into the bar—the I’m-the-shit swagger. I knew right off he was the worst kind of man, vain and boring, but I was already plastered by then and upset about what had happened with Mom. He walked right up to me and set his bowler hat next to my shot. “You’re gorgeous.”

  “That hat,” I said by way of response. “Very Unbearable Lightness of Being.”

  “What?”

  He leans in now and touches his nose to mine. I shudder when I feel the wet tendrils from his hair on my cheek. Something about this one gives me the creeps. “Actually, I really should get going. Rain check?”

  I rush to the bedroom door, but just as I open it, he says, “I don’t think so,” and slowly closes the door with a sly grin. “How about one more time?”

  “I can’t. I’ll leave my number.” I haven’t had a chance to put on my shoes but try to open the door again. When I do, he immediately closes it shut.

  “You were incredible last night. Kurt wants more.”

  “Look, I’ll be honest. I’m seeing someone. Last night was a mistake. I have a boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend? You a two-timer, gorgeous? You a bad girl?” He grins in a way that says the fact that I have a “boyfriend” means absolutely nothing and is only getting him off. He presses his lips down on mine, then startles me by prying my mouth open with his tongue. I squirm and try to push him away, but when he doesn’t notice or care, I drop my things and use both hands to push hard at his wall of a chest until he gets the message and steps aside.

  I pick up my shoes and purse. “I really have to go.” I’m too quick for him this time, and I slip through the door and start down the hallway.

  “Wait a sec.”

  I do nothing of the sort and move faster. I see the front door, but then he catches me by the wrist and pulls me back.

  “You should dump him and be with me. You gotta be with me one more time at least.”

  The towel drops and he grabs me around the waist. “Kurt wants to be with you. You turn me on.” I try to knee him, but he’s all brute force and stupidity. There’s enough fear surging through me by now that I know this isn’t a joke, and he’s serious, but he’s all muscle and as much as I try to fight him off, I know there’s no winning. Physically there is no fight. Physically he’s twice my weight, twice my body mass. But mentally, mentally I’m sure I can think of something.

  His breathing slows as he begins kissing my neck. “I like you a lot, Samantha.”

  Samantha?

  “I like you, too, but like I said, I have a boyfriend.”

  I try to push him away again. All the while I’m thinking . . . thinking. I need to get out of here. Of course, I knew something like this could happen, sleeping around like I’ve been, but now that it’s happening, I feel oddly out-of-body—heady, cerebral, but not in a way that’s of any help. When I feel his hand reaching under my sweater, I hear Sharayray’s voice—see her in the back of the class talking to Kristine and Michelle. Was this last year? Two years ago? The girls were having lunch in my room, and I remember eavesdropping, smiling to myself at Sharayray’s hubris, proud of
her for always being so tough. “It’s exactly like they be saying. No means no. I don’t care how horny the motherfucker is. So when that fool wouldn’t listen, you know what I did? I pulled a Mike Tyson on that motherfucker. Girl, I bit down so hard on that fool’s ear, I had that motherfucker screamin’ like the bitch he is. I was like, motherfucker, don’t you ever ever keep foolin’ with me when I tell you no. Who you think you playin’ with, bitch? Bitch was holdin’ his ear and cryin’ and shit. I’m tellin’ you, girl, I had that motherfucker in pain.”

  So I wait. And wait. And when the Neanderthal turns his head just to the left, I take Sharayray’s blessed advice and pull a Mike Tyson on the motherfucker. Before he realizes what I’m doing, I’m biting through cartilage and flesh, clamping down hard until I hear the motherfucker screaming like the bitch he is.

  He cups his ear and whines. “Owwwww! My ear! Holy shit! My ear! Sammy, I thought you were kidding!” He holds his ear and whines like a petulant child. “I’m sorry, Sammy. Don’t leave.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt you, Sammy. Kurt really likes you!” He clasps at his ear. “You hurt me! Why’d you hurt me, Sammy?”

  I can hear all of his blubbering even as I slam the door and escape. I run down the apartment corridor and take the stairs that lead outside two at a time. When I’m at least three blocks away, I sit on someone’s stoop and put on my shoes.

  The setting sun throws me. I had assumed it was morning. I look up and down the street. Back and forth.

  I have absolutely no idea where I am.

  Shit.

  I stand and try to get my bearings. It’s when I’m at the corner that I realize I’m not in Oakland but San Francisco.

  The Mission District.

  Fuck.

  I head toward the nearest BART station. As I walk, the whats and hows start to pour in. Church. Harold. Mom slapping me more than once in the face. My drive through Oakland until I wound up in Rockridge where I had several drinks at a high-end restaurant with a bar. And then . . . then . . . I couldn’t drive, so I thought I’d take BART home, but I took the wrong train and thought it was funny that I was headed into the city. Once here, I didn’t bother taking a return train back home. Instead, I ended up taking a walk. And that was when I found a pub called Liberties.