Aloha Mannequins

  Should I put it out of its misery and, oh I don’t know…flush??

  There is a moaning sound.

  A woman.

  Ok. Time to go – seriously!

  I run out from the bathroom on hushed tippy-toes.

  The moaning is louder. But it sounds wrong: Fake, electronic.

  Then I hear a goat “Bleep”.

  I stop in my tracks.

  Interested, I follow the sounds.

  As I turn a corner and walk down a dark hallway, the sounds of the moaning lady and goat come together and form a picture that makes me gag. Wind creeps in and my light cuts through so much floating lint. The closer I get, the more electronic the voice becomes. I turn another corner and come to a doorless room, painted black. Glowing stars are pasted everywhere. What’s lighting them? They must be battery operated. I search the room with my tiny light. There is no furniture. In the middle of the room stands a goat. It jumps back, belly jiggling. It stares at me, wild-eyed.

  I’m born in the year of the Sheep, which means that I’m pessimistic and lazy, yet imaginative and lucky. I will live forever, happily, with a Rabbit or Pig.

  We’ll see about that.

  I walk closer to the goat. It doesn’t move. Something is strapped around its body: A fat, leather belt with a tape recorder. The goat smells good, like fresh, massacred lemons.

  The voice on the tape moans and moans. I reach over and turn it off.

  But the moaning is still here.

  It’s coming from behind me. I shine the light into a gloomy corner…to find a mannequin sitting on a stool, straight-backed, hands on its lap, under a dripping pipe. My light is dying. It pops in & out on the dummy’s face.

  “Just like in the movies,” I say to myself.

  The dummy has large holes for its eyes, nose, and mouth. I walk over to it and can tell immediately that the sound is coming from inside. The moans come out shaky and wavy, like a tape that has been recorded on one too many times. The moans are in reverse I notice, each moan ending on a high note, like a whine when someone gets pinched. I shine my dimming light down its throat. There’s the strong smell of burning hair. To hell with it, I think. Why even bother? There’s nothing for me here. Time to get a Chilly Cheeseburger!

  The goat cries out.

  It moves forward a little and stops.

  There’s a rattling sound.

  Someone tied a chain around the poor beast’s leg. I go over to it and fiddle with the chain, my light in my mouth.

  “Poor beast.”

  There is no lock – whoever did this simply made a thick (and sore) knot. It takes me a minute to untie the beast, but once I do, it kicks at me and runs out the room, weeping. I run after it for some reason. I can hear it trotting through the dark and hitting the walls.

  I jump out the front entrance and into the BLAZING sun. The goat runs onto the sidewalk and scares some Russian tourists who start chasing after it. The animal makes the rookie mistake of rushing onto the street.

  A #2 bus headed for Waikiki HONKS and screeches its heavy brakes, but it’s too late. The goat is hit and amazingly explodes. I jump back and yell, “EXPLOSION!”

  Its insides are run over by cars and trucks and jeeps and bicyclists – all swerve past the three, scary, large skin bags of meat that were once the goat. I run up to the bus to get a better view of the remains (why do I do this, when I know I’ll be disgusted?).

  I look at the remains and I am sick.

  The bus driver, a young woman with tanned skin, jumps out and hurries to the front of the bus. The passengers all walk out from the bus and stand around in a group: Old Chinese and Filipino people, a doctor in blue O.R. scrubs, 5 Canadian girls just out from private school, and a British muscleman in a tight yellow shirt.

  The bus driver turns to me in a panic.

  “What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened! What happened!”

  I struggle not to stutter.

  “It was a ga-ga-ga-goat!”

  “Where did it come from? Sweet Jesus! Oh Jesus, you’re so sweet! It came out from nowhere! I believe it!”

  I point to the black building.

  “From there!”

  “That place is nothing but trouble! I hate it so much right now!”

  The driver then stares at the stew of hair and blackish goop that’s painted on her bus. Cars race by angrily. I make eye contact with a passing weener dog in a pink Beatle. The bus driver walks away – takes three wobbly steps and stands still.

  She pulls at her hair in a crazy way.

  “Oh, NO! It’s so horrible! Dear God, why do you do this to me?? God, I need this job! Goddamn you!”

  I want to say something to help, but I’m afraid she’ll tell me to shut up and mind my own business. She hangs her head and cries, loudly.

  The group of passengers – one by one – walk away. All except for the British muscleman. He stands there, crying and nodding his head. He then flexes his arms to tourists as if in a competition. They go “Ohhh” and snap pictures of his muscular bits.

  The bus driver falls to her knees, puts her hands to her face.

  Without thinking, I walk over and pet her head.

  The dark mess slides from the front of the bus and plops to the ground. I get close to her. She puts her head against my shoulder, and sighs.

  Cars fly by and honk.

  We embrace.

  “I am the Boa constrictor”

  WE’RE DRIVING in her car. I’m in the passenger’s seat, sneaking quick glances at her. After the accident, the police wagon soon arrived and we both told the story about the goat. Later, the mental wagon arrived and chased after the British muscleman.

  As we sat in the ambulance, wrapped in orange blankets with oxygen masks over our mouths, she says she would like me to keep her company throughout this ordeal: She just moved from Utah and had no friends/she wanted a drinking partner/she wanted someone to watch her car as she went into the bus station and spoke with her manager.

  I agreed to help, and then we were let go.

  The bus station is noisy. As I sit in the car, waiting for her, I start to picture in my mind a little movie: Us standing before that damaged bus and mangled goat. The animal is singing to us with its bloody face, staring at us as we kiss, passionately. It winks at us in approval. Aww, cute!

  I open my eyes and exhale.

  Ants are on the dashboard – marching down into the glove compartment. I open it and fifty used tampons SPRING out. I panic to catch them, and I have to force each one back in the glove compartment like some kind of odd puzzle. I think nothing of it, for I’ll never understand women and their barbaric rituals. On the floor, just under my seat, is the holy bible. I pick it up and notice that there’s another copy right behind it – and behind that, yet another copy.

  It begins to rain outside. The palm trees circling the station begin to sway. The cotton clouds in the blue sky snail toward the ocean. My window is rolled down just a tad: The wind whistles into the car a merry tune.

  Natalie is her name, and as she walks toward the car, I can see her breasts jiggle a bit. I bite my tongue and extinguish all perverted thoughts because I don’t want to go to hell. Humans think of sex every 15 seconds, and yet my Catholic upbringing and respect for others makes me feel guilty.

  Damn to be human.

  She opens her door and sits behind the wheel, crying. She says…

  “I have been fired!”

  …and SLAMS the door shut.

  I jump back in my seat. She gives out a quick GROAN and throws her back against the seat over and over in an insane temper tantrum. I want to say something comforting. Should I put my arm around her? What if she yells out in disgust and bites my hand? Will I vomit?

  She starts the car and we take off onto the freeway.

  She drives down at such an amazing speed, that I fear we might go back to the future. Cars blur by in loud, short bursts of air: PHIT!
PHIT!

  We say nothing to each other.

  Her eyes are watery – tears leaving wet marks on her blue jeans.

  Fifteen minutes later we’re in Tantalus – a mountain decorated with white spots of rich houses. The kind of houses you find leaning on stilts. They’re frightening to look at. I fear that if there were ever an earthquake, the houses would tumble down.

  Natalie rented out one of these houses.

  Yay for me.

  We drive up to it and my heart drops: I see my own gruesome death as I fall fall fall into a giant coffin that busts into flames because of my damned luck. She says that the house belongs to a doctor friend, and that she could stay until he comes back in, oh, five months from Peru. The rent was cheap and she got free cable.

  She tells me to make myself at home, so I lay down on the couch, watching as she makes her way into the bedroom. A shower is turned on.

  I close my eyes, and fall asleep.

  When I wake up, I find the fattest white cat in the world sitting on my lap. It looks at me and opens its mouth.

  “Meow.”

  I pet behind its ears and open my mouth.

  “Meow.”

  It’s nighttime already. I hear that the shower is still on. How long have I been out? I stand up and walk to the refrigerator. It’s a fancy place – very clean. I want a place like this. Except not one on stilts. There’s nothing in the refrigerator but five bottles of Budlight and a large frying pan of noodles and a paint brush covered in white paint. I lift up the cover and finger a noodle. Mmm…not bad. I wonder what else there is to eat. Maybe I’ll find those little marshmallows with apple-flavored goo inside! Mmmm, those things give my mouth an orgasm. The Japanese make them. They used to sell them at Shirokiya, but I can’t find them there anymore. I could ask the people who work there, but I’m shy, and I’m afraid that if I ask they’ll tell me to Scram!

  I go looking around for a plate & fork, opening cabinet after cabinet, and in each one finding piles and piles of magazines called Surgical World. The covers make me sick: Men and women sitting in the nude on cold shiny tables with medical instruments dangling from stretching wounds, kissing and fondling each other. One cover shows a Japanese woman squatting on a surgical table and urinating. Forceps swing from her monster box. She blows the cameraman a kiss.

  I make a glass of water and take a breather. Oh my God oh my God…forceps forceps monster box oh my good God.

  I don’t ever want to meet the man who owns this house. Gag!

  Natalie comes walking out from the bedroom in a pink bathrobe. She glides past me and opens the refrigerator, pulls on the crisper (where you would keep your fruits & vegetables) and takes out a bottle of red wine.

  Instantly, I know what the night holds for me. My heart races. Hurray! I haven’t pleasured a woman in almost 5 years. Ho-hum. I wonder if I’ve still got it?

  She holds the bottle up and asks the obvious:

  “Thirsty?”

  “I…”

  She takes my hand and we sit on the carpet, next to a large, sliding door, overlooking the Honolulu city lights. The moon shines in. The floor is very furry, and feels good under my shy feet, which I try to hide by sitting on. Natalie pours our glasses full and she begins to tell me a story, of how her father back home used to own a mannequin factory. Every night, when he came home, he would take Natalie into the basement and force her to videotape him arguing with a different mannequin each night: Some days it would be a female, redheaded mannequin; other days a skinny male. He even brought fake children over. He lit candles thick as thighs all over the place, and even glued birthday candles to his arms and legs and fastened one large fat candle to his forehead. Then he would light each one and dance around while naked and singing “Pieces of Me” by Ashley Simpson.

  “I love this song so much right now.”

  Once, because it was a special day, on her 20th birthday, he danced around with a lit candle shoved up between his buttocks as his gift to her. He kept asking her to stop crying. “It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt,” he said. According to him, what he was doing was normal because his mother used to do the same thing when he was her age.

  Natalie would cry while videotaping these strange events. Her father would always tell her, “It’s because of you and your mother that I’m doing this. My family has made me into a monster, and its name is Whale. I am Whale The Monster. Pity me for I have a soul of glass.”

  He would cry, she tells me. After he argued with these dummies about political issues and the weather, he would fall before Natalie’s feet with his face in his hands, and weep. More than on one occasion did he urinate accidentally, looking up at her with a pathetic expression, moaning, “Not my fault! Not my fault!”

  Then he would stand and wipe away the sniffles, his face changing back to its familiar, sane self.

  “Off, Natalie. Off.”

  I sit, staring down into my wine, at my wavy reflection. I can’t bear to look at her. I feel embarrassed being here. She says that it’s okay to feel weird, and then she puts her hand on my knee. Something deep inside me tingles.

  I decide to look into her eyes, to show how strong I am and try to impress her.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Dad? I don’t know. One day he just vanished – POOF! Left my mum and me all alone. I had to take care of her all by my lonesome. Boyfriends got so fed up with me. I’d always have to tell them, ‘Sorry, but I gotta be home by this time or that. My mum needs me.’”

  She stands up and faces the moon.

  “I must’ve had about…50 boyfriends. And they all couldn’t handle the fact that my mum was my life.”

  “Where’s your mum now?”

  “In hell, for all I care.”

  “What?? I thought you loved your mum.”

  “She was my life.”

  Natalie put her sweaty hand against the glass, eyes deep in the moon.

  “My mother turned into some kind of demonic whale – all adults do at some point in their lives. This is my theory.”

  I down the rest of my wine.

  “Yessm. Adults can be assholes. I never want to grow up.”

  “Let’s stay young together!”

  She laughs and jumps down in front of me, holding my hands.

  “Let’s never grow up.”

  My head begins to spin, and the words come out slurred:

  “Yessssm…”

  Her face moves up and down. Her mouth opens and her tongue flaps in a crazy way.

  “Yalalalalalalala!”

  She darts up and dances around the room, her hands cutting the air in little ax-like movements, the fat under her arms jiggling.

  “Yalalalalalalala!”

  I lay back and curl into the fetal position. She looks down on me and takes my arms, pulls me up, and carries me like a baby, over her shoulder, into her bedroom.

  A ringing sound wakes me up. My eyes hurt. It’s still dark out. My tongue is heavy. I look around the room to find mannequins all over the place. An alarm clock nearby SHRIEKS and BOUNCES on a table. I reach out – head pounding – and slap it silent. It falls to the ground and I don’t bother to pick it up. I find a candy bar with a ribbon tied around it on my pillow. My name is on the ribbon. Milkyway. My favorite. I eat it quickly and I am full and happy.

  On average, every chocolate bar contains at least three insect legs. But I don’t care. What sane person does? And where’s Natalie? I make myself still, eyes half open, and listen for any signs of life.

  There’s a light “pounding,” what sounds like feet moving around. She must be dancing again. I get to my feet and massage my head. The dummies in the room all seem to be staring right at me. Many of them have no legs. Some torsos poke out from under the bed, arms bent at painful angles. They’re all bald, with painted lips.

  I open the door and walk down the hallway, into the living room.

  Natalie is on the floor in front of the fireplace, wrestling with a male mannequin. She sees me and y
ells out, “Help, Rubs! He’s trying to kill me!”

  I run up to the thing and pick it up by its neck.

  The thing FIGHTS BACK, and HITS me in the belly.

  I go “Oomph!” and screech out and fall to the ground next to Natalie. The bald mannequin stands, slowly, with the crackling of wood burning louder, and reels its head up as the shadows of flames dance across its face. It opens its white eyes and looks down on me and I go “Waaaaahhh!” and run away, but Natalie grabs at my foot and I fall hard on my right hip. She crawls after me and begs, “No, no, don’t leave ME! BLAHHHHH!”

  I take her hands and drag her away, both of us shrieking into the hallway as the thing runs after us in a wrong way – as if it had no knees. I throw her into the bedroom and I slam the door and lean against it. The mannequin HAMMERS on the door, yelling garbled sentences.

  “Flabberhwregjdkj865lkja!exesandohhhhs!”

  It’s in an insane nut rage.

  Natalie flies onto the bed and throws a fit, fists pounding (and bouncing).

  “Whywhywhywhywhywhy?”

  I scream at her through all the noise.

  “What goes on here? Oh, God!”

  She sits up and stares at me as if she’s just seen a ghost.

  “I knocked him unconscious! It’s not supposed to be this way! Believe me, Rubs!”

  The thing on the other side SHRIEKS.

  “Weeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  Natalie puts her hands to her ears and yells.

  “Ooooooooooooooo!”

  I shut my eyes.

  “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

  The mannequin BANGS against the door again, making lusty moaning sounds.

  Natalie cries out something long in German that I don’t understand.

  “Noch etwas butter, bitte!”

  She reaches under the bed and slides out a long, white box. She slaps the cover off and pulls out a large snake. She drapes it over her shoulder and holds it up in triumph and SCREAMS, running toward me. I jump out of the way and the mannequin kicks the door open. I fall into a pile of dummies and watch in horror as Natalie bullwhips the giant snake onto the mannequin, who cries out in terror and falls to the ground like a mad fish out of water.