Boys in Gilded Cages

by Jarod Powell

  Okay?

  Look to your left. That’s the Acting Conservatory over there, on North Cahuenga, past the mechanic’s shop. See it? There’s at least one rich actor in there at any given moment, and he got in for free. All of

  the little Mexican girls had to pay a thousand dollars, and they don’t have it. Can you imagine? Of course you can. Why pay for something when you actually have the money? Your way of thinking kills me, Dan. One of those slices of TV Wonderbread in class with all those Mexican teenage girls, who probably sold some food stamps to get in? Probably folks more pampered and remote than you, around those Valley paupers.

  That’s what I like about this place, Danny Boy. People are more inclined to talk to each other, even if they are faking it. You won’t find people talkin’ to each other in NYC! No sirree!

  My girl wanted to be an actor, an actress. Had a thing for that guy...

  Oh, What’s-His-Face. The one from that real old movie, with the fat angel trying to earn a halo. Stupid movie. She liked it because it was her mom’s favorite movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if she never even saw the damn thing. She lied all the time. Hated that bitch. She’s the reason I’m here on this bench, smelling like life’s shit, talking to you!

  Aw, I shouldn’t say that. I was fucked a long time ago. Ain’t no Tree of Knowledge here! Ain’t her fault. Her ass was definitely God’s doing though. Can you imagine that? An ass so perfect, it was created in Eden. Perfect, perfect ass. Expensive ass, someone like you might say. She died after a rough go with someone a lot like you. Well, not a lot like you. I kinda like you in some weird, asshole way. You may have employed one of her friends last night. Ha! How ‘bout that, Danny Boy!

  Now, look towards the sky. That’s me standing behind you. See me? The guy talking into the brick wall also known as your ear. Take a look and a whiff. This is what will happen to you if you don’t stay

  in Colorado, or Idaho, or Indiana, or wherever you’re from. How old do I look to you? Thirty-three. I’m only thirty-three years old. Let me give you some advice, Dapper. Don’t let that woman of yours take your money. I know you got lots of it. Because they’ll do it. They’ll do it every time if you let ‘em. Raise your girls, if you got ‘em, to not be whores or gold diggers and to marry men that will keep them under

  control. You do that, Dan, you’ll never see me again, if you’re lucky. Now, don’t get me wrong, Dan, I ain’t singing no Evil Woman Blues, and I ain’t blaming my shit on someone else for no good reason. I love my girl, but she done this shit to me and now I’m here, talking to people that may or may not even be there. Women make the world go ‘round, but the first woman ruined the perfection of God’s world, and don’t you forget that shit.

  DARYL MCADAMS CHANNELS LUX LISBON

  Even Marcia’s big brown butt didn’t repel Daryl McAdams. His heart was too open and his head too empty to recognize a dog when he saw one.

  She was really nice and smart and everything. But she was younger than Daryl and weird and was clearly obsessed with him, but was open about it unlike his secret fan club of hot skanks.

  In a movie, your narrator would tell you that every other girl in the world is an empty vessel with legs and tits who would lead our boy Daryl down a hall of mirrors until his brain breaks, and Marcia is smart, if frumpy, and purrrrfect for Daryl McAdams but he just can’t see it and be tamed. Because in movies there are no bad boys, there are only reformed bad boys and the women who extinguish their demons, for better or worse.

  After Daryl’s episode with Marcia so many years ago, back when the demon was still healthy inside his head, they weren’t really allowed to speak to each other. Daryl, being dumb and goofy and fucking myriad customers since then, going through people like tissue, pretty much forgot about Marcia. Nothing against her, he would say if he was ever asked, but I just can’t place her. Face looks familiar, though. Of course, no one cared about Marcia so no one ever asked, but I’m just telling you that’s what he’d say if they did. That’s what he said about most people.

  The fact that they weren’t allowed to speak only tightened the ribbon around her finger. It wasn’t long until she was leaving notes in his locker—cryptic notes, heavy on the Catholic guilt, and decorated with glittery X-tian crosses that made the pages stick together, signing it only with her initials because she was too chicken shit to put her whole name. I can’t remember exactly what she said in the notes, but her writing style would later be copied by Daryl in notes to people he was obsessed with for the brief time he could remember them. He was just as crazy as Marcia, but less focused.

  Daryl’s parents never knew who threw him on their porch step that night, so they had no opinion on the Cruz family except they were Mexican (when they were actually Cuban), and so were probably really good workers should Daryl’s dad ever need to hire someone for real cheap. Marcia’s dad smelled trouble and knew that his daughter would probably cause it with a charismatic white boy she could play doctor with, and pamper like she was his wet nurse. He knew she’d grow up to be a “fixer upper”.

  Around the time the notes started, she and her ugly friends started camping out in the weeds across the road from Daryl’s house. They’d have binoculars and a pad of paper that they said was to take notes but really ended up being a doodle pad.

  They’d watch his house for about fifteen minutes. He’d be gone or passed out—never present. When watching became pointless, they’d gossip about random people at school they never talk to, diet tips from pro-ana websites, and occasionally, Daryl. But the only person really thinking about Daryl was Marcia—her friends could give a shit, and really were kind of freaked by him. They followed Marcia, though. Gross and dorky that she was, she was also sort of a force of nature. Even the bimbos that teased her, did with a vague reverence for her strength. There was a fire in Marcia that smoldered quietly. The bimbos stoked it just enough to keep it alive.

  She had an innate worldly knowledge. It was not learned, as her Catholic-bred parents made sure she saw no evil. It was psychically sought after, however.

  She knew what her pussy could be capable of if she just lost a few pounds, and let puberty take its course. She was born with the knowledge that people are stupid and easily fooled by people like herself. What she lacked, that Daryl had, was a pretty shell. What Daryl lacked, that Marcia had, was everything else. She wanted to implant everything else into his chest and watch it grow.

  Marcia walked up and down her county road sometimes, on restless nights. Even though the gravel hurt her feet and her sweat was overwhelming on typically muggy nights, she did it, looking for ghosts or Daryl’s insides or UFO’s to take her on a journey of probes, experiments and fortune telling. One time, she ran into Daryl after whatever transaction he was completing at that hour and after that she paced the road for a few hours every week, but I’m sure their chance encounter had little to do with it, because Marcia was always up to weird shit late at night—trying to witness something the world would sleep through.

  Because of her innate worldly knowledge, she had an inkling of what Daryl did, but had no proof and no concrete narrative played out in her fat head. It was what she desperately tried to piece together, but never could.

  Daryl floated around. That’s what she never understood. In her mind, she was in the audience, and he was doing performance art or something, in code, so only she got it. It was so stupid.

  I saw what she saw in Daryl McAdams, but no one else did.

  He did what Daryl does, in the semi-charming way he does it, and that was his role, both in town and in his whole life. Marcia had a girl-boner for him, therefore magic surrounded him. He had rubies in his eyes, a diamond in his teeth, and pearls out his ass.

  He was beautiful, but a scruffy, donkey-dicked piece of trailer trash that would probably never escape Hawthorn, and would never really try. Marcia just liked to facilitate a fantasy of sweeping a dude off his feet while an 80’s song played just outside the threshold. A dude her dad feared. A fixer-upper.

/>   When Daryl started dating Vanessa, Marcia’s mortal enemy, you would think that a broken heart would have at least slowed her down, but she was more determined than ever.

  Vanessa, with big floppy tits and a tiny little waist, Rapunzel hair and a delightfully-loud girlish giggle, was actually just a sidekick to the homelier, and much bitchier, Janessa, who flirted with Daryl relentlessly when no one was looking. Daryl was a whore; he was not into them.

  Daryl started flirting with Vanessa in the library—where she worked--one afternoon after school. He must have been on detention because Daryl never read a book he wasn’t assigned, and even then he read ten pages and fell asleep and took a “D” on his assignment.

  Anyway, flirting with Hawthorn girls was so easy. You just had to find the trigger. The trigger didn’t have to be a certain phrase, it could be anything, if you had the right inflection to go with it.

  It looked easy, but I guess it wasn’t, because you also had to beam a light from your eyes. The light had to hit the prism on your cornea just right to be seen by a bitch. It’s not something you can learn. Daryl was born with it.

  Anyway, it was easy for him, but like I said before it was impossible for me to even attempt. Some people have it. You’re either gifted at one end of the spectrum or the other. I’m gifted at the other end. Marcia is too, I guess.

  So anyway, after Vanessa and Daryl shared a cigarette outside the gym, Vanessa said she needed to go home.

  “I’d give you a ride,” Daryl said, “but you know…my condition.”

  “You can’t drive?” Vanessa said.

  “Nope,” Daryl feigned mopiness and kicked some gravel.

  “That sucks,” Vanessa said with dumb girl sympathy in her big doe eyes.

  Of course, who was right around the corner, but Marcia. She saw it spark, the crazy bitch. How she managed to time it like that is a good question. But, there she was. Sometimes I think psychosis and psychic ability share one side of the fence.

  So the days turned to a whole week, and they still hadn’t broken up. Marcia could smell Vanessa’s baby powder on Daryl as he walked by her in the hallway, which meant he and Vanessa had probably just messed around—a mental image that both horrified and aroused her.

  Even after her gaggle of butterfaces got tired of spying on Daryl at home, Marcia made them come with her. Even after they stopped showing up, Marcia kept looking through the McAdams’ windows. She never saw anything. Not one thing. The only time she witnessed anything that would have given her the slightest characterization of Daryl McAdams was by chance—creeping in and out of Jonathon Black’s house, stumbling out of the Cue ‘n Brew, arm wrapped around an old lady’s waist as they walked to her car, dealing to some of the kids from Daddy Redmond’s youth group right outside the church.

  He didn’t take notice of Marcia until his church birthday party. That was also the night he refused to continue with church. He saw Marcia as an omen or a sign, probably. He thought in those terms. Stupid as hell, and superstitious as a witch.

  He’d run into her in the hallway after that and actually remember her. She melted.

  When she got invited to see him at graduation a couple years later, in place of his dead mother and some of his drug buddies that probably wouldn’t show up anyway, her fat ass almost had a heart attack.

  When he invited her to a party in Springfield, Marcia Cruz got scared for the first time in her life, probably because she knew she’d witness something terrible. Daryl was bringing along a luck charm, and he still couldn’t figure out whether she was a good charm or a bad charm.

  Marcia spent all afternoon dressing for the party. She even tried on her mother’s maternity dress. It still didn’t fit, but it was the best option.

  Daryl picked her up in his beat-up red sports car, which to Marcia of course looked like a pumpkin carriage. Marcia’s parents looked out the window at him.

  “He’s smoking a cigarette,” Marcia’s mom exclaimed.

  “Yeah, cool. See you later!” Marcia rushed out of the house before her parents could object.

  The crowd at the part was a mix of preppy boys dressed as Kennedys, and drug dealers from the bowels of southern Missouri. Seeing the glint of fear in Marcia’s eyes, Daryl took her hand. “Come on, girl. Let’s get something to drink.”

  Marcia sat at the kitchen counter, which was cluttered with coke bottles and Jim Beam, while fun happened all around her. She peered into the next room, and saw Daryl smoking from a small, glass tube. Her image of this boy – this bad boy she wanted so badly – suddenly became simply a choice with bad consequences.

  She couldn’t leave, but she needed to cry. After a couple left a bedroom, presumably after sex, she jumped into the empty room and locked the door.

  Shortly thereafter, there was a knock. “Who the fuck is in there?” It was Daryl’s voice. Marcia opened the door, standing there in her frumpy dress, mascara down her face.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “Hiding.”

  “Can I hide with you?”

  Daryl and Marcia lay side-by-side on the bed. Daryl reached over and wiped the wet spot off of her cheek.

  “I can’t have sex with you,” Marcia said.

  “I know that,” Daryl said, almost defensive. “Why are you upset?”

  “I don’t know,” Marcia said, drained and defeated.

  “You probably thought I was someone else.”

  “What?” Marcia asked.

  “You had a fantasy of me in your head, but really, I’m just a lowlife crack head to you now. You like me with a bad attitude, but the baggage was out of sight. Until now.” Daryl looked over at Marcia. “Right?”

  Marcia waited a long time to answer. “I’m scared of you.”

  Daryl sighed. “Yeah, well. You probably should be.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  Daryl raised up. “I do like you, Marcia. I like you a lot.”

  “But?”

  “But…” Daryl said, “I don’t think you can handle me right now. I’d rather you just keep the fantasy. That version of me is much better. Both for me, and for you.”

  Marcia rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “It would if you really knew the truth,” Daryl said. “And trust me, you don’t want that.”

  They eventually fell asleep, while the chaos of the party happened outside. Marcia woke up to sobs. They were Daryl’s sobs.

  Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around Daryl, stroked his hair, and held him until he fell back asleep.

  FASHIONABLY LATE

  His topcoat just wasn’t heavy enough. This was evident from the increased chatter of his jaw. His molars clanged, seeming to echo throughout his mouth and down his throat with the drainage from his sinuses, which, as his father warned before the move, is commonly increased in this climate. The door shut behind him. This, for some reason, triggered an involuntary contemplative moment, not really a flashback or a hypothetical scene complete with heightened reality, but more like an ominous rumble in the gut, regarding the upcoming events of this dreaded evening--A welcoming party in his honor.

  This miserable party was his mother’s doing, of course--An opportunity to showcase her teenage son’s angelic face to a bunch of people who are surely better acquainted with the faces of road kill. “This is my son, Jaime,” she’d say to homely people in hand-knitted sweaters. “He’s in from Nashville.” She would say this with saccharine voice inflection, as the neighbors nod with honest fascination. She’d take for granted that these poor, dumb people would look upon them both as if Nashville was a beacon of world culture, which meant that his mother gave birth to exotic offspring in an exotic land. And they’d be impressed, because people from Wyoming are exactly that stupid. He suspected that’s why she decided to live here in the first place, to live around people whom she could easily impress. This brief flash of dread triggered, as it always does, an unconscious, queer facial expression that always perplexes and unsett
les strangers in the mall--a reaction he recognized, but didn’t understand.

  He was experienced with this reflexive expression enough to know what the muscles in his face felt like when it happened. It only layered onto the rest of the awkward shit his body did, showing no reverence to etiquette or aesthetics, and in turn made more awkward bodily and facial shit happen, which led people to believe he was crazy or diseased. It subsided here quicker than normal, as there wasn’t anyone around. He forced one foot in front, moving his legs into an odd amble.

  And so he slumped up the dirt road from the guest house, toward his mother’s house. He could see the house from the cedar porch he was now a few steps from, and he silently prayed the route would get deterred, perhaps by a snowstorm or elevation-sickness.

  He took comfort in, of all things, the landscape. Just like the Paramount logo marking the end of the coming attractions, he settled into the image. He admired the metropolitan atmosphere: Streets of busy, furiously indifferent drones, and daydreamed about it as he stared at the silhouette of the Rocky Mountains. While there were no skyscrapers in Nashville, and no cabs to hail except for on the curbs of the airport and Greyhound station, there was still a sense of hustle in the city that to him, was soothing, ambient noise. There is a level of comfort in being surrounded by anonymous people who also considered him to be anonymous.