The Book of Dead Birds

by Gayle Brandeis

  I pick up my chang’go, and with each thrum of my fingers, each slap from the heel of my palm, I feel drenched in sound, my heart bursting open into a million drops of water. I feel my mind sharpen back into focus.

  The phone rings. I tuck the receiver between my shoulder and my ear so that I can continue to play.

  “Hello?” I drum softly so that I can hear who called. No one responds.

  “Hello?” I drop the drumming down another notch. Still no answer. I am about to hang up when someone clears their throat.

  “Hello?” I ask again. “Is someone there?”

  Then the person starts to sing.

  “Omma?” I whisper.

  My mother’s voice swirls out of the holes of the receiver, a mournful sound. I close my eyes and begin to play the drum with stronger hands.

  KUNSAN

  Hye-yang quickly learned the way of the kijich’on:

  No throwing up inside the club. No throwing up outside the club. No throwing up where the GIs might see you.

  Stay in the DMZ. The Dark Man Zone is where you work. You are a Dark Man girl. Black GIs only. Don’t even stick your head in a white man club.

  Bring your money directly back to the bar. You owe the bar for your room and board, your clothes, your television, your radio, all of your cosmetics. You will be paying the bar back for a long time. Don’t even think about keeping the money for yourself. Don’t even think about trying to escape before you have paid back your debt. They have a peephole into your bedroom. They’ll know if you’re planning any funny business. They’ll always track you down.

  Sell drinks to the GIs. As many drinks as you can. Water them down before you bring them to the table. Get the GIs to buy you drinks. Water those drinks down even more.

  You will choose an American name, one the GIs can say and remember.

  You will keep your ID on you at all times, with the name of this bar on the front, your menstrual calendar on the back. You will go to the VD clinic every week to make sure you are clean. If you are infected, you will be sent to the Monkey House; this is not something you will enjoy.

  You will bleed the first time, maybe the first several times. You will hurt for a long time between your legs. Your jaw will ache. You will think you are going to die. You will think that you want to die. Don’t worry. Before too long it won’t hurt anymore. Before too long, you won’t feel anything at all.

  Your friend will take pills. Lots of little orange pills. It will look like someone has pulled your friend’s heart right out of her body. She will float around you like a ghost. She will grab on to you and cry; other times she will pluck at your hair and laugh like a machine gun. She will talk about being a star. She still believes one day she will be a star. She will take little orange pills and drink tall glasses of watered-down vodka. She will tell you stories you won’t even want to begin to believe.

  Does that girl have a silver face?” Frieda gapes at the teenager walking into the Aloha Room—a surprising sight in itself, silver face or no.

  “Either that or I’m hallucinating right along with you, babe.” Ray squeezes Frieda’s shoulders.

  “Maybe there’s something in the water today.” Emily lifts her eyebrows and holds out her glass for more.

  I imagine Emily in her Miss Tomato costume. I imagine a bunch of pelicans hoisting themselves up onto the bar stools. Anything’s possible inside these walls.

  The girl stops at the hostess stand. She looks like a cartoon, a smiley face smeared with metallic paint, her blonde braids streaked with green. A stretch of skin sparkles between her tank top and flannel rocket-ship pajama bottoms. Just behind her, another girl comes in, sporting tufts of bright-pink hair, a purple sports bra, army pants with a baby-doll face sewn on to each knee. Both girls have about two dozen candy necklaces bunched around their throats. They are smiling, smiling, almost demonically smiling, their teeth a dazzle of orange and blue from the neon by the door.

  After being around dead birds all day, I almost can’t look at these girls—they seem too full of color, too full of life.

  “It’s too early for Halloween, isn’t it?” Frieda asks.

  Ray sings the theme from The Twilight Zone—“do do do do”—under his breath.

  “What a funky place!” The girl with pink hair looks around the room in awe.

  “Yeah,” says the girl with the silver face. “It’s got that retro tiki thing going.” They pounce on each other, rub each other’s hair.

  “Retro means washed up, right?” Frieda asks, eyes fretful.

  “Retro’s cool, Frieda,” Emily whispers back. “Like old T-Birds and stuff.”

  “I ain’t no old T-Bird, yet,” Frieda says. She puts her hands on her hips and glares at the girls.

  Silver Face pulls a menu from the stand. “I knew it!” she says. “Check out the ‘Diet Plate’!”

  Pink Hair reads out loud, “‘Ground beef hamburger steak, cottage cheese, peach half, dinner roll.’ No way!” The girls laugh so hard, they have to hold each other up.

  Frieda sidles out from behind the counter. “Can I help you?” she asks. She looks stung; I know she eats that Diet Plate just about every night.

  “Yeah—do you have any vegan chow?” Silver Face asks.

  Frieda crosses her arms below her breasts. “Is that like Puppy Chow?” She arches an eyebrow. I’ve never heard her voice like this before—snide, almost mean. Somehow I get the feeling Jeniece has heard it plenty of times.

  The girls laugh even harder. “We don’t eat animal products,” says Pink Hair.

  “We have fried fish,” says Frieda, and they fall on the floor laughing, their platform sneakers churning the air. Frieda throws up her hands in exasperation and storms back to the counter.

  Silver Face links eyes with me. She stops laughing.

  “Oh my gosh,” she says. “You are soooo beautiful.” She makes a beeline for my stool. My breath catches. She wraps her arms around my shoulders. Her makeup presses damp against my cheek. I can feel the heat of her body pass through my clothes. Pink Hair giggles from the ground. The baby doll’s eyes open and close on her knees. I can’t move.

  “Get off her already,” Ray barks after what feels like a year.

  Silver Face glides away as if on roller skates.

  “Are you okay, Ava?” he asks.

  I nod, my nostrils full of her greasepaint-bubble-gum scent, my skin suddenly cool.

  Silver Face beams at me. “No one can see how beautiful she is, but I can!”

  “Me too,” says Pink Hair from the floor. Baby eyes blink, blink in my direction. She blows me a kiss.

  Why can’t I move?

  “Okay,” Frieda shouts. “That’s enough! You both get out of here right now!”

  “But we’re hungry,” says Pink Hair.

  “Eat your goddamn necklaces,” says Frieda. “Shoo!”

  Silver Face looks straight at me again. “You’re beeeeautiful!” she trills. She grabs Pink Hair’s hand. A square piece of paper flies out of her back pocket as they fly out the door.

  “They’re on X,” says Emily.

  “They’re on something, that’s for sure,” Frieda scoffs.

  “Ecstasy, definitely.” Emily nods her head. “I did it once. It makes you all huggy and lovey and everything. It makes you want to grab everyone in sight.”

  “You must have X running through your veins, then, woman.” Frieda starts to wipe off the counter.

  Emily picks up the piece of paper and snaps it in the air like a flag. “I knew it—they’re going to a rave!”

  “Around here?” asks Ray.

  “On the Indian reservation.” Emily scans the flyer. “‘Desert Dogma Smash.’ We should go!”

  “No way,” says Frieda. “I’m not hanging around a bunch of whacked-out, technicolor teenagers.”

  “Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. Raves are like outside discos!”

  “Have you ever been to one?” Frieda asks.

  “No, but…”

 
“We told Jeniece we’d rent a movie tonight,” says Ray.

  “Frieda, you can blow it off, right?” Emily begs.

  “Sorry, hon,” says Frieda. “I’m too retro for such things.”

  “Well, I’m going!”

  “You can’t go by yourself,” Frieda warns. “They still haven’t found that guy…”

  “Ava will come with me, won’t you, Ava?” Emily winks at me.

  “Well…” I still feel frozen.

  I’m beautiful?

  “You have silver on your cheek—you’ll fit right in!”

  “I don’t know…” I touch my hand to my face. The smear of makeup feels warm and sticky, like blood.

  “There will be tons of drums and stuff, right? You’re a drummer, right?”

  “It would be nice to hear some music, I guess…”

  “Cool!” Emily jumps up. “I’m going to go change!”

  I hang around while Frieda and Ray close the Aloha down.

  “I think I’ll go pick up that video before it gets too late,” Ray says to Frieda. “Be careful on your way home, all right?”

  “I’ll see you in a bit.” Frieda gives him a smooch and locks the door behind him.

  “I don’t know why I said I’d go to this thing.” I slide the flyer around on the counter.

  “It should be fun.” Frieda collapses into the stool next to mine. “Just don’t let Emily get in too much trouble.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “‘The Torres-Martinez Reservation,’” she reads from the flyer as she unscrews a salt shaker cap. “Jeniece’s dad was from there.”

  “Really?” I hand her the carton of salt. “Are you still in touch with him?”

  “He’s long gone, honey.” Frieda pours in the crystals, twists the lid shut.

  “Did Jeniece ever know him?”

  “He took off right after she was born.” She opens another lid. “Couldn’t handle the fact that she had so many problems. I haven’t heard from him since. We were never that tight anyway. Not like me and Ray.”

  “Does Jeniece ask about him?”

  “She thinks her daddy was a migrant worker,” says Frieda. “I told her we had a fling when he was here picking spinach in the valley. I told her I didn’t even know I was pregnant until he had already moved on.”

  “And you feel okay about that?” My heart starts to pound. I know I have no right to pry, but I can’t help myself.

  “About what?”

  “Lying to your daughter.” My heart thrums even harder.

  “Honey.” Frieda keeps pouring the salt as she looks at me, keeps pouring it long after it spills over the lip of the shaker. “She’s much better off not knowing what a no-good shit-head that dad of hers was.”

  “Don’t you think she’d want to know where she really comes from?” I remember the burial mound Jeniece built. Maybe she has some inkling already, knowledge prickling up in her muscles, her bones…

  “She’s from the Salton Sea, and she’s like the Salton Sea. That’s all she needs to know.” The salt keeps pouring. It forms a pile on the counter.

  “In what way?”

  “She was made by mistake,” Frieda says.

  I feel a twinge in my belly.

  “I mean, it was a good mistake. Think of all the birds that come here on their way to Mexico. They wouldn’t have a place to rest if it wasn’t for that mistake.”

  “It’s more of a final resting place right now, Frieda.” The pile of salt is almost as high as the shaker.

  Frieda follows my gaze to the counter. “Would you look at that?!” She stops pouring. “Why didn’t you say anything, Ava?”

  “I’m sorry…”

  Emily bangs on the door. Frieda shakes her head as she goes to unlock it. I sweep the pile of salt into my hand and dump it in a dustbin, then brush the rest off on my pants. Emily sashays in, wearing a black mesh tank top with a lime-green bra underneath, a short patterned skirt in blues and yellows and high-heeled gold sandals. Her makeup is cranked up to a new pitch, her hair piled high on her head.

  “Are you ready to get down?” She shakes her hips.

  In my car, Emily jabbers away about who knows what, but all I can think about is Frieda and Jeniece. Jeniece, who thinks her father bent over rows of spinach, pulling green leaf upon green leaf out of the earth. Jeniece, whose father himself is rooted to the same patch of soil.

  My mind reels. I knew mothers could be silent, I knew mothers could keep things tamped down inside themselves, but I didn’t know mothers could tell such big lies. Did my mother make up the stories she sang to me, the ones I’ve been writing down, the ones that have been tearing me up? We never talk about those stories outside our pansori sessions. We act as if they don’t exist, aside from in the song, in the drum, in my pen, but I can always feel them, rattling under our skins, ready to spill. What if her story, my story, has a completely different rhythm than what I had been led to believe? What if my father is not a total mystery, but someone with a name, an address, someone I could easily track down?

  “Turn here,” says Emily, and I crank the wheel so hard, I almost run us off the road.

  The hills glow in the distance, a strange pink sheen, as I follow the tire ruts down a stretch of sandy dirt. A few cars pass us, showering my windows with pebbles. Kids whoop inside, heads rocking, arms pumping the air. They look scary to me, vaguely sinister.

  “Emily, I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” I check the rearview mirror to see if it’s safe to turn around.

  “No, you’re right, it’s not a good idea.” She sighs and reaches one leg over the hump between our seats. “It’s a fucking fantastic idea!” She presses her gold heel onto the accelerator. The tires spin madly; the car lurches forward.

  “Emily!” I press the brakes, sending us fishtailing over the dirt.

  “Just kidding, sheesh!” She pulls her foot back, turns on the radio, and starts bopping to the ranchero music that blares out. Another rhythm—a driving techno beat—seeps into the car from the outside. I can feel it more than hear it, the rhythm pounding erratic as my heartbeat as I manage to gain control of the steering wheel again.

  The dirt road curves; the pink glow intensifies. We reach a makeshift parking lot. Tents are scattered among the cars. A few kids sit on beach chairs; others lie on the ground looking at constellations. When we get out of the Sonata, the music hits me full force, electronica buzzing my breastbone. Emily grabs my elbow and pulls me toward the sound.

  The wind is insane. Emily’s carefully blow-dried hair flies all over the place. I can feel my own hair grow heavy with sand. A bunch of people, I notice, are wearing surgical masks. I think of my mother in her mask, protecting her lungs from eggshell dust. I clamp my lips shut tight, shield my face with one of my hands. The music is incredibly loud, and fast—at least 120 beats per minute. My heart rate speeds up in response as we walk toward it.

  Even in this wind, people are dancing like crazy, jumping up and down, swinging limbs at wild angles. It seems like almost everyone is wearing huge pants—the legs so wide, they look like ball gown skirts. Lots of people are glowing, bright tubes looped around their heads, necks, wrists, neon paint all over their skin. Some people on dunes and rock formations swing glow sticks from the ends of ropes, tracing arcs, circles, blazing figure eights in the air. Several people have silver faces. Several have pink hair.

  On the stage, alien cowgirls do a spastic square dance. Lights swivel from the scaffolding, sending shafts of color across the desert. Emily starts to circle her hips, slowly, not at all in time with the music—more like she’s listening to some burlesque number inside her head. A few people come up to her to compliment her “totally eighties” clothes. She looks confused but flashes them a smile anyway. Everyone is smiling here—you can see it even with their surgical masks on, even with the way they squint against the wind. It hurts my face to see so much smiling. It makes me feel even worse. All I want is to go back to my trailer and go to bed.

/>   “I’ll be right back!” Emily yells over the music.

  “What?” I stare at her. “You’re not going anywhere! How will we find each other again? There must be a thousand people here.”

  “Just go over by that tarp thing.” She points to the DJ booth. “I’ll come right back, I promise.”

  “But…”

  She waves and slips into the crowd. I head over to the tarp. The DJ has pretty impressive equipment—two DAT machines, a mixer, two turntables, two CD players. I envy the headphones clamped over his ears. He’s off in some world of his own, head bobbing like one of those figures on a dashboard. He has no idea I’m standing here, wishing I could get my hands on his DATs. I finger the small tape recorder inside my purse.

  Everywhere I look, people are hugging each other. I don’t think I want anyone to hug me, but an all too familiar feeling of invisibility kicks me in the stomach. I don’t know what I want anymore. I stick my head outside the tarp; my face is blasted with sand.

  “Ava!” Emily comes running. “See? I told you I’d be right back!”

  I am surprised by how glad I am to see her. Maybe we can head back home now.

  “I got some X!” Emily is breathless. I can tell she’s already taken the stuff—her eyes are extra wide and I can see more of her teeth than usual. She hands me a water bottle. There is so much grit in my mouth, I am happy to have a nice long drink.

  “Have you ever tried Ecstasy?” she asks.

  “No, and I have no intention to ever do so, thank you very much.”

  Emily bursts into giggles. “Too late!” She slaps her hands on her thighs.

  My stomach dips.

  “I just dosed you!” She can’t stop laughing.

  “What?!”

  “I put it in the water bottle!”

  “Emily!” I spit out what’s left in my mouth. “What should I do? Is there an antidote or something?”