Summer in the Land of Skin

“It’s only temporary,” I say.

Her eyes light up, a new idea hatching behind them. “Listen, it’s perfect timing. Why don’t you move in? You can’t go back to that bastard’s.”

“He does give me the creeps.”

“Of course he does! He’s the creepiest! He seriously tried to rape me once,” she says, tapping a fresh pack of Camels against the Formica.

If it weren’t for all the drinks and the overall surreal hue of the day, I would react with shock and sympathy, but between my tipsiness and Lucy’s nonchalance, attempted rape barely registers.

“I’m surprised he didn’t try you, already. You’re staying with me. Absolutely.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, trying to be reasonable.

“Sure, I’m sure,” she says, ripping the Camels free of their cellophane wrapping. “You’ve got no choice.”

“But you just met me today.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she says, annoyed. She tugs a cigarette free from the others and touches the flame of her Zippo to it with practiced precision. “You want me to check references or something?”

“We’ve had a few, is all,” I say. “I don’t want you to feel weird about it later.”

“Hey, what you see’s what you get. I’m no different, sober or drunk. I’ll still like you tomorrow. Besides,” she says, pausing for a drag, then exhaling slowly, “I’m never alone.”

When we get back to the Land of Skin, the CDs and the Gibson are gone. I suspect they’ve been scavenged by the Goat Kids. In the entryway of Smoke Palace, the carpet is peeling back from the floor, and the air reeks of damp dog and mold. We go up two flights of stairs and Lucinda throws the door open with drunken flourish. It is dark inside. I can make out only vague shapes in the moonlight.

Lucinda crosses the room, stumbling once, and gropes at the wall. There is a flicker of yellow and a buzzing sound as the ceiling light struggles to come alive. It fills the room with ghostly fluorescence, and I see Lucinda in a momentary cameo, digging in her pack for a new cigarette before the light goes out. “Fuck,” she whispers. She crosses the room again. I hear a thud as she bangs against something.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Fuck.”

I can hear her fumbling with another light switch, and then the room goes bright again. I squint against the brightness instinctively, though it is kinder this time—not fluorescent but a soft, filtered red. I see Lucinda, standing next to an old lamp with a red chiffon scarf draped over it. She is struggling with her Zippo, a cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, and then a tall flame shoots up, throwing a gold pallor across her tiny features. Her expression loosens some as she lights her cigarette and inhales, but as she exhales her face goes rigid.

There, seated on a long black leather couch, is Guitar Man. The suede hat dangles beside him on the armrest, and his hair shows the place where the brim was. A couple of strands are standing up, animated by static electricity.

“Hey, Luce,” he says, watching her. It occurs to me that he is like a darker version of her, with their matching brown hair and their black, birdlike eyes. “Who’d you bring home this time?”

“What is this shit?” She tries to put her cigarette in her mouth, but her hand is shaking, so she just dangles it at her side. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know if I’m up for guests,” he says, ignoring her question.

“Anna’s my new roommate,” she tells him, sinking into a chair by the window. She keeps her eyes on him as she adds, “Aren’t you, Anna?”

I swallow hard.

“She can’t stay,” he says, his voice low and even.

“Fuck that. She’s staying.” They stare at each other for a long, elastic silence. I keep expecting him to rise from the couch and strangle her, that’s how angry he looks. The dim light, diffused through the red chiffon, makes their faces and the lumpy, secondhand furniture look hot and molten.

I rush blindly for the bathroom, somehow sensing where it is. I hit the door frame with my shoulder, turn the corner, aim at the toilet and vomit. The sound of it splashing against the toilet water fills me with a fresh wave of nausea, and I wretch again, spilling what’s left of me. Then I stand there, bent at the waist, panting, a long string of drool stretching from my lips.

A small, cool hand touches the back of my neck. “You okay?” She hands me a washcloth and flushes the toilet. “You want something?”

I wipe my mouth and shake my head. I go to the sink and splash my face with cool water. The cold feels good on my skin. I turn to see her leaning against the door frame, her head tilted slightly to the side. “Don’t worry about him,” she whispers. “He’s all bluff.”

“Lucy!” he calls.

She rolls her eyes. “What do you want?” she yells, as if he’s a great distance away.

Silence.

She shakes her head at me, sighs, and disappears. I can hear their voices rising and falling in suppressed tones as I study myself in the dimly lit mirror. I look startled and young. The beige T-shirt I put on this morning is hot pink in the light spilling in from the hallway. My haircut still shocks me. “You’ll like her,” I hear Lucinda saying, her voice high and sharp, before their tones drop back down to murmurs. “You’ve got no fucking right,” she says. And a little later, “This is my place as much as yours!”

I close the bathroom door softly, lower the lid on the toilet and sit there in the dark, my face in my hands, trying to focus this kaleidoscope of sensations into a plan. I consider slipping out into the street and going back to my room, but the prospect of sleeping such a distance from a toilet seems dangerous. Besides, Gottlieb might actually be there, and I’m in no mood to deal with a haiku-obsessed rapist. I might rent a motel room, but this would take so much energy. I long for a dark room, binoculars, and a safe, anonymous window to look out from.

I hear the sound of their bodies moving: a thump against a wall, feet shuffling. Then Lucinda’s laughter rings out, stops short, and I hear breathing. I lift my face from my hands and sit there, perfectly still, listening hard. Nothing. I stand, wobble slightly, touch the wall for support. I go to the bathroom door and peek out carefully. The living room is still red, but now it’s empty. The bedroom door is open just a crack, and through it I catch a glimpse of Lucinda’s naked knee, then a flash of her dress. I stand there, holding my breath, listening to the silence of that ancient, dilapidated house. Then the bedsprings begin, barely audible and erratic at first. They get louder, faster, and finally fall into a rhythm as steady and relentless as rain.

I make my way into the living room, careful to move in silence. I lie down on the leather couch. It is hard and uninviting, like the couches in school infirmaries. The room spins around me. I close my eyes and try to make it stop. When it slows, I feel sleep pulling at me, making my body heavy. I let the creaking bedsprings lull me to sleep, until I’m dreaming of melting furniture and a hot, stinging rain.

CHAPTER 3

The Sex Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace

Lucinda and I walk into Fanny’s Barbecue Palace at eight. It is brightly lit, with pink-checkered tablecloths and families eating piles of sauce-smeared ribs, getting their fingers sticky as their jaws chomp violently. The men at the tables look up at us quickly, then back down at their plates before their wives can notice. We make our way to the door at the back of the restaurant, which leads to the bar: orange vinyl stools, pool tables, loungy chairs before a dimly lit stage where the band is pausing between songs.

“Ready for more?” a man says into the mic. He is thin and freakishly tall, with a shock of white-blond hair and a gaunt face. He looks like a cross between David Bowie and Gumby. He reaches a lanky arm out and fingers a tuning peg. “We call this one ‘Fuck Sean Cassidy.’” He takes a pick from his pocket, poises it above the strings and glances at the other members; there’s a bald drummer behind a gleaming gold kit, and a badgerlike guy in black leather pants on bass. But the one I notice is Guitar Man. He’s wearing a thin cotton T-shirt and faded jeans. A red electric guitar hangs low on his hips, and his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he watches for his cue.

The lead singer mutters, “One two three,” and then they all seize their instruments like cavalry rushing into battle; their arms flail and their faces ball up like fists. Guitar Man is the only one who doesn’t look ridiculous; he stabs at the air with the neck of his instrument again and again, but somehow the aggressive gesture isn’t cliché, it’s plain sexy. The singer leans his long, gangly body toward the mic and screams words, but I have no idea if they mean anything; fucking pigs, he screams. Now now now, bend over, bend under, and later, when the song has gone on so long I fear I am trapped in a time warp—some ruthless hell of distorted audio-loops—he raises his voice to a feverish pitch that makes my throat feel sore, and cries, Fuck the Queen, fuck CBS, fuck Sean Cassidy, fuck YOUUUUUUUU! and just like that the whole thing slams to a halt.

Guitar Man looks up now, sees us and smiles. His face, beaded with sweat, glistens in the yellow lights; he pushes a strand of damp hair off his forehead. For a second, I think he’s looking at me. Only when I realize that his eyes are locked on Lucy does my pulse return to normal.

Another song begins, and the cocktail waitress comes over to take our orders. Lucy tells her we want Tanqueray and tonics. We don’t speak as we wait for our drinks to arrive; we just sit in the swivel chairs near the stage and let that huge wall of sound numb our senses. The lead singer is at once repulsive and compelling. He has a face that skids from pretty to ghastly so quickly, you cannot determine whether you really saw either. When the waitress puts our order down, I pay her, waving Lucy away when she tries to hand me a five. We touch the edges of our glasses together midair and drink.

On our second round, she scoots her chair over near mine and speaks directly into my ear. “That’s Danny Dog.” She nods at the lead singer. “He’s got two different colored eyes, like an Australian shepherd.” She gives me a meaningful look before adding, “He’s got real problems. If you’re a masochist, you’ll fall for him right off—though I don’t recommend it.”

“What about the others?” I ask.

“You could fuck them in a pinch,” she says. “But I don’t recommend that, either.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I mean, what are their names!”

“Oh. Right. Drummer’s Sparky. Total zero. Bill’s the rat-faced punk on bass. Ew. Don’t even get me started.” She lights a cigarette, waves it in the direction of Guitar Man. “Arlan, of course. But you live with him.”

In point of fact, this is the first time I learn his name, and for a moment the strangeness of my abrupt involvement with these people stuns me. Last night is still a blur of drinks and fragments—their matching black eyes, the taste of my own vomit, the sound of bedsprings creaking as I lay spinning in that dark red room. It all seems surreal and unreliable. In the morning, when I woke in a disheveled tangle on their hard black couch, Guitar Man was gone, and there was Lucy, clutching a mug of fresh, hot coffee in one hand, holding out three aspirin in the other. I struggled to keep my head from pounding louder than her words as she urged me again to move in with them. I didn’t really say yes, but I didn’t say no, either. She and I spent the day together. It was hot out; we floated in the lake outside of town, napping in the sunlight and drinking bottles of water to cure ourselves of the grimy film all that gin had left inside us.

“Hey,” she says. “I just got a new lipstick yesterday. Put it on for me, will you?” She takes a tube of lipstick from her pocket and hands it to me.

“What?”