by Bruce Wagner
He would take her on all the talk shows—start a new anti-hero movement . . . hell, they’d shout it from the rooftops!
I used to be cancer-free—now I’m just free.
CLEAN
[mixtape]
Malibu Slumberyard
Rikki
named the baby girl Nikki, after one of ReeRee’s favorites, Nicki Minaj. That it rhymed with his name was a bonus. Tom-Tom said she thought that’s why maybe he picked it tho.
Nikki lived at Jim & Dawn’s. Jacquie visited everyday. Rikki lived at the house again too. He had a job that paid good money (so he said). He told his soon to be lawful parents he was working for a “no profit” involved with the rehab of former child soldiers. Among his new friends were will.i.am & Emmanuel Jal, a rapper from Sudan who was featured on MTV. Rikki had a newfound confidence about him that Dawn attributed to fatherhood & the death of Reeyonna. Jim worried he was dealing drugs because he never heard of anyone making “good money” working for an NGO, especially someone w/no experience.
Reeyonna’s girlfriends loved to visit. The mood was heavy those 1st few weeks but then their laughter filled the house. They even taught Rikki how to change a diaper. He fucked 2 of them.
. . .
Jacquie hadn’t yet developed the pictures she took at Cedars. She thought about burning the film but Albie said don’t you dare. He was the only one other than Dawn who knew. It was monumentally unreal.
Nikki was gorgeous. Sometimes she called her “Lynnie” by mistake. (What she called Jerilynn as a newborn.) She thanked God for Dawn & Jim.
Albie helped disperse the ashes. At 1st she said no but he insisted & she was so glad. Jacquie knew how head-over-heels Jerilynn was for Malibu. Jeri used to say one day she was going to make enough money to buy a house there, “for weekends.” Jacquie told Albie about the day she drove Jeri & 2 girlfriends to the Malibu Lumber Yard. The girls squealed & carried on because they saw one of the kids from The Vampire Diaries at James Perse.
She wound up scattering the ashes in different places. Jacquie was always intrigued by a private neighborhood in the Malibu hills called the Serra Retreat. It used to be Old Hollywood—people like Roddy McDowall, Loretta Young, Ray Walston & Karl Malden used to live there. Now, it was James Cameron, Eva Longoria, Steven Tyler. At the top of the mountain was a beautiful old Catholic monastery, with grounds overlooking the Pacific. It was open to the public.
When it came time, Albie walked a respectful distance behind. She reached into the container &, grabbing a fistful of her daughter, nervously looked around like a 1st-time shoplifter. When Jacquie finally let the ashes go, she burst into unbidden tears. Albie ran over & held her in his arms.
They drove to the Malibu Lumber Yard & walked around. She left a lot of Jerilynn there: in front of James Perse, in front of Kitson, in front of the yogurt place & the movieplex & the Coffee Bean. Her mood lightened. They saw Vincent D’Onofrio.
The last most important spot was the ocean. Her bare feet felt good in the sand. When it was done, they had drinks at Gladstone’s. Albie got excited because he thought he saw Colton Dixon from Idol in one of the booths. He took the long way to the bathroom to get a closer look. When he passed the table he looked over at Jacquie with a trademark pukey face & shook his head. He made her laugh.
It was dark when they got home. She brought Albie next door and introduced him to Jim, Dawn & Nikki. Rikki wasn’t there. They all had dinner together. After, Jacquie asked Albie if he’d spend the night. She made up the couch and they watched 3 saved Glees.
She went to bed but Albie stayed up & watched 2 more.
. . .
With the help of a hospice newsletter she subscribed to, Dawn prepared a few things for Jacquie to journal about:
What I will miss about you is . . .
What I will remember most about you is . . .
What you meant to me was . . .
The hardest thing about letting go is . . .
I am angry at you for . . .
I feel guilty that . . .
I regret that . . .
She would wait for the right time.
She got an email from the Metta Institute.
Subject: WE’RE ALMOST FULL! . . . They were having their annual 6-day Cultivating Presence Retreat in San Rafael. The email said “Retreat Almost FULL, Commuter Places Now Open.” The cost for the commuter package was “only $900.” She thought, Don’t be silly, you can’t do that now, how could you leave Nikki. A few other retreats were coming up that looked tantalizing, and she’d already shared some of them with Jim. “The Great Matter of Birth & Death” was taking place in Turin, in Italy.
She phoned anyway. Dawn felt different now, a part of. A bonafide member of the community that once denied her.
“I’m interested in the Cultivating Presence retreat.”
“Do you have hospice experience?”
“Yes,” she said, wondering if the woman could read the sorrow in her voice. “Yes, I do.”
“Wonderful. Can you hold a moment?”
Wonderful was an odd word in this instance, but why not? Afterall, she’d just read an article in a Buddhist magazine about a student who told his guru he’d been diagnosed with cancer. The guru said, “Congratulations!”
“Thank you for waiting. Our computers are a little sluggish today. They seem to have minds of their own.”
“Hate it when that happens,” said Dawn affably.
“Don’t you?” said the woman. “Ah—here we are. The Cultivating Presence Workshop . . .” She was slowly reading from the screen, stalling while the software fired up. “I know our literature says ‘retreat’ but most people just call it a workshop. Ah—okay. It looks like we are completely full.”
“Even the commuters?”
“I don’t know why we had so much interest this year. It’s wonderful, but I can’t put my finger on it. Can I put you on a wait list?”
“Yes. How many—”
“Now just wait a moment . . . it says that there’s 40 people on it already—can that be? Well, it must, because the iMac tells me so! That doesn’t look so terrific . . . don’t think it will happen. I like to tell people the truth, what’s the point in leading folks on? Now we’ve got another workshop—excuse me, retreat!—coming up in around 6 months. That’s a very special one, people like it as much if not more than the Cultivating Presence training—oops. Wait—now, hold on—isn’t that crazy? I spoke too soon. Aren’t we having a time of it today?”
. . .
Jacquie had sent him to pick up the ashes. She told him that if he wanted to, he could take a portion before dropping them off at the house. Rikki expected an urn, but they were in a brown plastic container instead, about the size of a rural mailbox. A sticker on it said WE HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE CREMATED REMAINS ARE THOSE OF JERILYNN CRELLE-VOMES. The box was heavy.
He sat in the car for about a ½hour, smoking a blunt and sniffing the last gram of yay. He broke the seal on the box. The ashes were in a plastic bag with the same affixed certification. He’d planned to take some but now he wasn’t so sure. 1st things 1st tho: he drove to Tom-Tom’s to get more blow. She was staying in a Travelodge in Mar Vista. She had an emaciated stray cat over there & was nursing it back to health. Rikki hadn’t seen that side of her.
He brought in Ree’s ashes. They set them on the table and tripped a while. They smoked some weed & crack, then balled. Her pussy was infected so she only wanted her ass fucked, which was cool. Rikki thought about the ashes. Kind of like Ree was watching.
He got his 8ball and on the way out, Tom-Tom said, “Did you forget something?” They both laughed at the lameness & the stonedness. Rikki went to the side of the bed & bent over to get the box. It was tipped on its side. He thought they must have knocked it over while they were fucking. Then he saw the plastic bag protruding, with clawed holes on top. Rikki said Hey! Tom-Tom came over & looked. She went to the head where the kitty cowered behind the toilet with its paltry, fastidiously created lit
ter. The room stank from its humid, sickly droppings.
“Goddammit!” shouted Tom-Tom. “Not OK! Not fuckin OK!” As she rousted it, she told Rikki to open the front door. She tried chasing it out but it hunkered under the bed and hissed when she reached for it. She gave up & inspected the box in Rikki’s hands. He’d shoved the bag all the way back in.
“Just get some scissors and cut around the holes—clean up the edges. Say it broke while you were taking your share.”
. . .
Beth Rader, the woman from Gagosian to whom Pieter emailed the image of the dead newborn, was persistent. She told Jacquie to let her know if she ever changed her mind.
Jacquie knew there was no way. She was done with that part of her life. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew where she’d been.
As scary as it was, she’d take the not-knowing every time.
. . .
Jacquie and Nikki went to court for the adoption hearing. To see the motley family collected together, and to know their poignant history, as the judge did, was not without impact. He was friendly, almost folksy, which made sense to Jim. In this courtroom, gentility & care should and did reign.
“I was made aware of your situation,” he said to Rikki, “from a lovely note your soon-to-be-legal father sent to the court. You’ve had a heck of a lot thrown at you—everyone in the family has—that’s quite an ordeal to go thru. You’ve probably had to grow up a little faster than you’d have liked. But Mom & Dad say you’re stepping up to the plate. Handling yourself like a man.”
“Yes, sir—I mean Your Honor sir. I’m trying.”
“Fake it till you make it. Ever heard that one, son? ‘Fake it till you make it’?”
“No sir your Honor sir.”
“Well now you have. That’s one beautiful baby. Bring her closer, ma’m, can you bring her a little closer? Oh, now she’s a little doll now, isn’t she. What’s her name?”
“Nikki,” he said.
“Excellent name—I have a goddaughter named Nicki, so good choice! I like your taste in women. In women’s names, anyway. Ours is Nicole but everybody calls her Nicki. How do you like the experience of being a father? I know you haven’t been one for long, but how do you find it so far?”
“Uhm . . . it’s—pretty good.”
His tentativeness caused laughter from those waiting for their own cases to be heard. The judge laughed a bit himself.
“All right,” he said. “If the parties are willing, I approve, & wish you good luck. And I want you to take a good look at your Mom and Dad, son, remember this day. I hope you know how fortunate you are. Because these two people saved your life. They gave birth to you as surely as the mother who gave birth to your Nikki.”
“Yes your Honor sir.”
“Good luck to yall. And don’t forget! Fake it till you make it.”
As they left, a bailiff came forward & whispered to the judge, whose visage went from startled to dour. Rikki was arrested just outside the court.
EXPLICIT
[Jerzy]
Number Our Days
Mt
Olympus was a memory. Betty White’s groomer got so horny for T2 that she flew back from Prague for an unannounced 48-hour booty call. A chaotic eviction followed; the squatters were no more.
The whole deal went down the day after Reeyonna met her moneymaker. Jerzy was helping Rikki throw his ½sister’s clothes and whatever into some Hefty bags when the chick Cherokee got there & went apeshit. Tom-Tom smacked her in the face and Bolt & Dr Phil got between em whilst sundry tweaking daydream believers didst scatter. General fucking bedlam ensued. Rikki said he was gonna cut and run because Ree didn’t have anything of value in her room anyway, it wasn’t like she had a wallet or ID & credit cards to steal (he left the bloody sheets on her bed as a fuck you to whomever). Jerzy got real calm and went to the poolhouse for his stash & his $$$. Jerzy came from a long line of . . . coke, so he did some, took his prints from the garage, carried them to the van. On the way out, he ran into a shirtless Bolt who was in a panic because the broad was threatening to call the police. Jerzy clocked how Bolt’s stubbly back was overdue for a wax. Phil tried his lame-o diplomat thing on the front porch but Cherokee shoved him and he fell on the ground. Tom-Tom literally shouted to Cherokee she would fuck her and let her eat her pussy RIGHT NOW if she just promised to let everyone go without doing the 911 thing. The shit was too fuckin funny.
Jerzy sat in the van & smoked, a few houses up. You had to laugh: the premature arrival of Miss Hair & makeup-sex had the effect of poking a stick in an anthill of loosers. He let rip some longass farts but his raucous mood changed when he flashed on his dead sis in her postmortem duds. Even tho she rocked the frock. The wacka flocka. What the fuck . . .
. . .
At this moment, his Gagosianical honeyshot!s grace the walls (stacked against them anyway) of his crampy room at the Sunset Motel, an inn which can be found on the south side of its namesake blvd, between Normandie & Mariposa . . . a 7Eleven on the left, a Hollywood Dialysis on the right, (just shittycorner from) a Zankou Chicken; beside that an Auto Chek, beside that a StorQuest Self-Storage, beside that an Iglesia Evangelica Penteco, beside that a Lucky Liquorama, & assorted sordid strip mall anchors, anchorites&anchorettes.
But what is Jerzy doing there?
He no longer works, nor answers his android, nor leaves his funky domain except to purchase crack cocaine during the occasional paranoid ramble/walkabout under cover of darkness—but at civil hours i.e. not after midnight so as not to arouse suspicion amongst those who protect & serve.
Harry Middleton is concerned.
Jerzy came to the Sunset Motel for a reason.
As the 12-Steppers say:
He came.
He came to.
He came to believe.
That he couldn’t stop cumming.
Sleasy does it . . .
Jerzy goes on extended head riffs. His latest fave is the torture of tyler the creator. In his latest, he & suge capture tyler the creator, who begins crying like a bitch. suge asks created tyler why he’s always writing songs about killing & torturing & does he want to really know what that shits about instead of playing pretend like a mischievous little bitch. creator tyler just starts begging rite away please don’t hurt me please please dont hurt me and suge’s disgusted & turns to jerzy his trusted lieutenant & says deal with the nigger. and suge leaves & jerzy tapes created tyler’s mouth & arms & legs to a chair & they bring in created tyler’s mom & right away slice her tits off and stuff them in her pussy and jerzy cauterizes the wound so moms wont bleed to death and moms screamin & Jerzy pokes a syringe in created tyler that has Viagra + botox so he’s paralyzed but gets a giant hardon. and they maneuver created tyler so hes fucking mutilated screamin moms in her not-so-famous-anus and onedirection & bruno mars are brought in to fuck created tyler too and they start pulling out created tylers teeth while bruno’s brutalizing. ooh the screams be bone chillin thug/harmony. jerzy plays out variations on this dream riff, each one ending with creator tyler’s rape, genitorture & death but right before tyler is uncreated jerzy makes sure the nigger understands that his betrayal has come at the hands of the puppetmathers & his cronies especially lil wayne just like when in the godfather tony rosato says before killing frankie pentangeli michael corleone says hello.
. . .
Jerzy has cracked the code & decoded the crack.
His discovery is epic.
So simple—it was staring him in the face.
(He has now seen the face of G-d.)
The hour is nigh . . .
He’s been trying to leave his room (paid in full for 2 wks upon check-in) for 5 days now. There can be a large degree of difficulty in vacating a rented room depending of course on the circumstances. Jerzy cannot go until the meth is gone, tethered to the bed, crack & porn, cum-rag laptop, tethered to the cloud of cracksmoke, cloud of unknowing. He knows he will soon believing. Soon be traveling crosstown to Harry round the Middle
Earth’s–––
There can be a large degree of difficulty in placing a call on one’s cellphone depending of course on the circumstances. Jerzy overcame them & rang up Harried Middleclass. Hari Krishnleton seemed startled to hear from him. Kept asking Jerzy if he was OK. Not a single mention of the honeyshot!s (which was very unusual, to say the least). Jerzy lied, as it did not strike him as the opportune moment to say, “Harry, I have seen the face of G-d, I am bringing to your office the face of G-d.” No, that wouldn’t do . . . so he lied & said he had the mother of all honeyshot!s & would it be all right to bring it by, & soon?
But when?
The when of it was tricky.
His penis stung & bled from marathon motel digital remasturbations, herpetic lesions had no time to heal. He no longer ejaculated, the dick a runny nose that cannot sneeze. All those strung-out strung-together years spent riveted by the front-/hindquarters of porns. All those years thinking but unknowing if he’d seen the face of G-d in the folds of their g-nitals . . . but in the last few days knowing with certitude he had not. It wasn’t the cunt, the cunt was the red hairing, all this time he’d been wrong, & now, thankfully, he was more righteous than right.
