Never been to Chicago, but I hear it’s a BIG sports town!
Best,
Lucy Brennan
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: This Is Becoming Pointless
Lucy,
I don’t see how you can expect me to continue to represent you if you don’t respond to my emails or return my calls. To reiterate, Thelma at VH1 is now confident that Congressman-elect Quist has lost interest in us. Thelma and Waleena want to talk seriously about Shape Up or Ship Out.
Please get back to me.
Best,
Valerie
Fake ass. Fuck your show. I’ve my own show, and this one is off-camera.
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: Flying To Miami
Lena,
This has gone on for weeks! We’re out of our minds with worry!
I’m going to call the local police and book a flight down to Miami unless I hear back from you straightaway. I don’t know what sort of game you’re trying to play, young lady, but your father and I are worried sick and going through hell! CALL ME! EMAIL ME! TEXT ME!
Mom
FUCK! FUCKING NEEDY CONTROLLING RETARD!!!
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: I’m Done.
Mom,
I lost my phone and have yet to replace it. But that isn’t the reason I haven’t been in touch. I haven’t been in touch because I’ve had enough of your FUCKING BULLSHIT.
DO NOT SEND ME THE CRAP YOU CALL “FOOD” THROUGH THE POST—IT GOES STRAIGHT INTO THE TRASH. I DO NOT WANT IT. YOU CHOOSE TO EAT YOURSELF TO DEATH BECAUSE YOU ARE DEPRESSED AS YOUR LIFE AND MARRIAGE ARE SHIT.
FINE.
BUT DO NOT FUCKING INTERFERE WITH ME!
IF YOU GET BACK TO ME STOP ALL THE CLOYING, MANIPULATIVE PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE SHIT. I’M FED UP BEING YOUR FUCKING PARENT. GROW THE FUCK UP!
Please note that I am very well—in fact, I’m better than I’ve ever been. I regularly attend a gym, have a FABULOUS new trainer, am losing weight, and looking forward to getting back to work. And I feel better than ever because I’ve finally said what I’ve wanted to say to you for all these years.
L
30
THE BARRACUDA MAN
AS IF ONE fat Sorenson isn’t enough, a second blimp has harassed her way into my life from Potters fucking Prairie! Stalked out by losers! And Michelle has run out on me; uptight bitch threatening me with cops and lawyers and finally changing her email address. All she’s left me with is Sorenson’s fucking Morning Pages!
It’s warm outside, but the streets are wet after a heavy shower. I’m wearing brushed denim jeans with a studded belt and a black tank top. My hair’s down and I’ve accessorized with a gold heart necklace and matching bracelet. And I wear this shit because he bought it for me.
He’s the reason I’ve started hanging out at this dire spot, a one-celled backstreet dive between Washington and Collins. The joint is devoid of customers, except for two dudes playing pool, and him, in his usual spot. Yeah, Jon Pallota’s perched against the bar, talking to the tattooed bartender chick. He’s unshaven, bleary-eyed, and even has a distinct beer gut. Hideous to think that, only last year, he was one of the hottest dudes you’d ever meet. That smile’s still there, deep, insinuating, now even more haunting than ever, hitting me like a ton of bricks, making me pathetically, reflexively, fix my hair. He briefly glances at my jewelry, then back to me, and I hold eye contact for a second as an entire universe of fatigue, pain, and pride boomerangs between us. I’m not prepared for that expression. It isn’t the kind you generally share with another human being in South Beach. Fazed, I order a vodka and soda.
After some small talk, the conversation goes back, as it always does, to Jon’s misfortune. We’ve rebonded recently, in that we have a mutual enemy in Quist, who trounced Thorpe in the election. — This compensation case is going nowhere, Jon shakes his head, a lot more salt than pepper now present in his spiky hair. — Big business, they got that shit sewn up. The company got that Quist motherfucker as some kind of special adviser. He toys with his neat double Jack, trying to resist it a few seconds longer. To fathom its pull over him.
— You survived though, Jon. I let my hand fall on his. — You’re still in there.
As usual, it’s like he’s just shot a million miles into space. Or maybe just a few, up the Atlantic coast to Delray Beach. — You know, I still hear the screams of the swimmers and sunbathers. Still feel myself struggling in the shallows, thinking through the pain—what is this?—as that mushroom cloud of my own blood plumes up in front of me in the ocean. Then looking down to see the horrible eyes of this fucking barracuda between my legs. He shivers and emits a bitter cackle. The bartender chick shrinks back a little and pretends to watch the TV.
The Wilks twins have agreed to be operated on by a specialist team of surgeons, who believe they can successfully separate their bodies. — When I was expecting them, we got told that terminating the pregnancy was an option, explains Joyce Wilks, — but it wasn’t for us. The Lord chose Annabel and Amy to be this way, and what He wanted was good enough for us. Then we was given the option of tryin to separate them as small babies, but we refused to do this. The risk was too high.
They keep the camera on Joyce for an unnecessary beat until she’s compelled to take a nervous drag on her cigarette. Then they pull out to show that the interview is taking place on a porch, thus indelibly designating her in the seaboard psyche as Southern white trash.
However, the girls have pleaded with the courts and their parents to consent to the operation, despite the fact that Amy’s chances of survival are not rated any higher than one in five. Annabel has an estimated 82 percent shot of leading a normal life following the procedure. Now they’re showing the twins walking together in long shot, strangely harmonious, even graceful, in their synchronized movement, before cutting to Amy in close-up. — I know the risks, she says, — but I wanna to do this for my sister. If one of us can live a normal life, then that’s a chance worth taking.
Man, I kind of want to listen to this, but Jon isn’t playing ball. — Forty pounds of deadeyed fish attached to my junk, he laments, raising the Jack to his mouth, taking a sip. — I was swimming nude, Catriona and me had been fooling around, he says cheerlessly. — She had yanked my shorts down and hung them on a floating buoy, along with her bikini top. It was the ring that probably drew its attention, you remember that ring I got?
I can see the bartender tuning out the Wilks girls and taking an interest in our conversation. I give her a stare, and she hunkers down and starts loading bottles into the refrigerator. — Let it go, Jon. I lift my hand on his shoulder, rubbing the back of his neck.
He looks right at me again, and I see that those teeth, formerly even and white, are now chipped and yellow. — How can I let it go? I can’t even tell you the number of hits it’s had on YouTube. You’re a hero on YouTube, you kicked ass, he almost accuses. — It never worked that way for my fifteen minutes. My humiliation is required viewing for every fuckin douchebag college student across the whole wide world, he sneers, with that rancid chuckle. — You see Catriona coming into the shot once she’s struggled into her swimsuit top, then just standing there as the medics arrived. You know she wouldn’t even get in the ambulance when they took me to the hospital, he snorts, sipping at his Jack.
— Oh, Jon. I rub his back harder.
It’s all true, and I confess I’ve viewed that horror vid myself. It’s very well shot, by a Sorensonesque bather, another watcher rather than a doer, and on a camera in preference to a phone. Most of all, you can hear people gasp in horror as Jon screams, then hobbles out the ocean with the giant fish attached to his genitals. Blood streaking his thighs as he collapse
s onto the sand. The barracuda gently twisted, Jon’s hands on its head, his face in profile, eyes shut, mouth open. It’s as if he’s forcing the fish to fellate him.
Jon’s dick was quite huge and handsome, but he was probably fortunate that he was a grower rather than a shower, and a good portion of it was retracted in the cold water, hidden from the fish’s view when it took that bite. Then he’s supporting the barracuda as he painfully eases them both down on the sand, and just repeating, — Oh my God . . . over and over again. A woman’s voice in the background screaming, — Help him! Another guy instructively informing the crowd, — A big fish got him.
Then the barracuda starts bucking and twisting, like a gator with its prey, tearing off part of Jon’s dick and one testicle. More screams, a beach towel passed to Jon, who never blacks out, just holds the blood-saturating yellow towel tightly to him, face lined in pain, eyes full of fear. A close-up on the exhausted fish, half of Jon’s severed, bleeding cock in its mouth (the ball was probably swallowed), as its tail flops slowly, its gills flapping and its eyes assassin-cold.
Of course the video went viral. Much more so than mine.
— You know what half a dick, one ball, and 163 stitches to that part of your body looks like? How even the most hard-bitten hookers recoil when they set eyes on that goddamned mess? Catriona didn’t stick around. Then he focuses sad, hopeful eyes on me. — I wish I’d, I wish we . . . He shakes his head, unable to finish the sentence, swiveling on his stool, back to face his drink.
I cringe and lower my hand to my side. Jon and I would casually fuck, over the years. At times it was on the cusp of a whole lot more than that, and he glances at me almost hopefully, but I really am so over mercy fucking. Especially when half the goods are missing. Besides, I don’t wanna grind on the poor fucker’s scar tissue. Cause I never have a man sweating on top of me; I like to be right on a guy, enclosing his prick, fucking it, fucking him. Jon always got that. Even Miles, admittedly only due to his bad back, dug that I needed to be on top. But Jon . . . man, I did love it when we fucked. I lustily recall making him lower that high and tight sack of fruit into my mouth, but now’s there’s just half of that sweet bounty left, all because some poisoned whore of a fish got fucking greedy. So I make my excuses and leave him looking back into his glass, and follow a familiar path down Washington.
I enter Club Uranus to a bass line loud enough to shake the fillings from your teeth. The freak factor, which increases exponentially as the clock ticks on, seems to have hit new highs tonight. The Liposuction Fuck immediately spies me and starts ranting stuff in my ear, totally wasted. I look into her fogbound eyes. — Not now, sweetie, and I spin off into the crowd, onto the dance floor, losing her. Then I’m gyrating with a musclebound black guy, but he pirouettes into the arms of a white faggot who pins me with that unnerving stare.
I feel that coming here was a mistake and it’s already time to get the fuck out of this joint. Valerie told me to always go out the front door of a nightclub. Any paparazzi and wannabe star worth their salt would choose the rear exit, as the latter staggered out wasted and stupid. Both knew where the money shot was.
At that time of the pitch-black night they call morning, when there’s nowhere to go that isn’t full of toxic, wild-eyed people deranged on alcohol and drugs and screaming shit into each other’s ears, I do what I always do and just drive. I love to drive, listening to music. Always Joan Jett: when I found her as a teenager my life suddenly snapped into reality, like somebody fucking gets me. But also Motörhead, AC/DC, and INXS. Recently I’ve become like totally obsessed with Pink.
I suppose I should go up and see Sorenson. There isn’t much time left for us; Mom and Lieb are due back in ten days. It’s been four weeks and she’s lost 41 pounds, just 9 short of her 50 target. Week one—8, week two—15, week three—11, week four—7. More important: the bitch finally got game. She ditched the Morning Pages, telling me that she was “done with frivolous, self-regarding, head-fucking shit and ready to bust my ass.” I wished I had Michelle Parish’s new email address to send her that info! Yes, Sorenson sobbed with disappointment so much at those last figures, I had to console her, telling her the numbers would be lower as her body adjusts and there’s less of her to slim down. The downside is that it sure makes life harder for me; the way her brain is sharpening up in concert with her body makes her a more volatile prospect. Such a Herculean effort to shave and save that ass. Bitch might be on the mend but it’s been a ton of work and it’s fucked everything else up. At first the hoe even refused food for a couple of days. I said to her, — You? A hunger strike? Like that’s gonna last!
Fat hoe defied me and threw her grub on the floor.
Sure enough, when I got back the next evening, the varnish was practically licked off that hardwood. I looked at her and said, — I think we’re both starting to understand who the fuck you are.
She only looked up at me and said, — Don’t you mean who we are?
— Don’t fucking flatter yourself, I told her, but she’d gotten right under my skin and we both knew it.
There was another incident last night, so right now, I’m not going to talk with her. I sneak into the apartment and tiptoe into the bedroom. Exhausted, I fall asleep on the floor.
31
IMMEDIATE DECISIONS
NO MATTER WHAT she tells you, or what you tell yourself, every lonely night when you look at your reflection in that big window, and examine that shrinking you, it all just sucks.
The pain and frustration of confinement gnaws at you. It drips acid into your core. Every time I feel the handcuff and chain clinking against the steel pillar, I die a little. I can never escape them; even when I rest on the mattress watching the portable TV Lucy brought me, a constant awareness, both vestibular and visceral, is insinuated into my consciousness.
I hadn’t understood how small one corner of a room could be. And how vast a prairie the rest of it constituted, the door representing something that could have been a mile away, thanks to this inhibiting, frustrating chain. Before, I could run. Minnesota. Chicago. Miami. New York. I could hide. Doritos, KFC, Boston Market, Taco Bell. Now I have no work, except what Lucy gives me. No food, other than that which she brings.
And my only releases are the treadmill and the Total Gym. Yes, I’ve so bought into Lucy’s program. My body is losing fat, toughening up. So is my mind. I’ve started thinking about my work in a less abstract and more practical way. Speculative projects I was considering have fallen aside, peeling from me, exposed as frivolous, superfluous. Real goers harden like rock in my consciousness, gaining sharper definition. I quit the Morning Pages. They were doing me good, but they were also giving Lucy more power over me. And I don’t want anybody having more power over me. I feel strong. But just let me sleep in my own bed and work in my studio!
FUCKING CRAZY BITCH!
I’m still constantly hungry, but my food fantasies have completely turned. I’m not thinking of eggs over easy and crispy bacon, they now seem so greasy, toxic, and repulsive. Now I envision coarse, grainy oats, the prescribed amount of honey drizzling onto their surface, courtesy of the small plastic bear in Lucy’s hand, and the blueberries, which will explode with juice in my mouth. It’s the sun-saturated, natural Florida staples of fruit—the incendiary oranges, the exquisite nectar of the peaches—that now excite my imagination. Lucy’s wholegrain bagel breakfast is another treat, usually served with peanut butter and banana.
And then there is my work: the work Lucy gave me.
I’m on the cusp of what promises to be a heavy period; several pimples throb prominently on my face, my hair is lank and greasy and an elephantine bloat around my stomach seems to signal a horrible weight regression. I have to keep reminding myself: it’s only fluid retention. It’ll go when I start to menstruate. So I get on the treadmill. I do forty-five minutes.
But when I’m finished I don’t rest, I go onto the Total Gym and work till my body and spirit can give me no more. Then I clean myself with the b
aby wipes Lucy’s left. She’s given me a huge test, but now she has to be tested too. And that’s my job. Of course, with nothing to do but think, you have one of two options: either you go completely insane or you come to conclusions. Conclusion one: I was already going mad, so that wasn’t working. Conclusion two: I’ve been a pushover for too long. I habitually acquiesced to people, thinking it would make my life easier, when it’s done the reverse, as it always does. And those people weren’t strong. They didn’t deserve such subordination. They were weak, vain, and scared. So thank you, Lucy, but now I’m going to make you work, you Boston psycho-fucker. Because if I can break a hardass like you, nothing and nobody will ever stand in my way again.
And she comes through from the bedroom, where she’s obviously spent last night. She thinks I didn’t hear her, crawling around like a sneaky rat. Thinks that only one of us is the prisoner here.
In this crazy dance we’ve gotten to know each other so well. Our periods synchronized, I don’t even need to ask if she’s also feeling puffed up with fluid or curmudgeonly with menstrual cramping or a stinging UTI. The tone of our voices, the movement of our bodies, has become so easily discerned by the other. I don’t know what she is or, for that matter, I am capable of. One of us ostensibly has the power (but how much power, in those circumstances, can the other really have?) though we’re both making it up as we go along. So I challenge her. — Oh, you spent the night here again.
Lucy pauses like she’s going to lie, but instead makes the pathetic excuse that she got here late and wanted to fix me my breakfast early. All because she had a busy day.
— Forgive me if I don’t empathize, I snap back.