Deathskull Bombshell (4 page)

Austin, my good man, I told myself, you are
going to get laid in a kinky sex way, so you better appreciate
this, as it will probably never happen again. Or maybe, I thought,
maybe we’re going through a new stage in our relationship. Maybe
the honeymoon phase is over and we’re comfortable enough not to be
sweet and cute anymore. Maybe now kinky sex is going to happen
often, like all the time.

Grinning like a moron, I wondered how long
she’d keep me blind-folded for.

I sat really still.

I waited.

And waited.

I couldn’t feel her next to me. The basement
was cold, and I shivered.

“Corey?”

“Just a minute,” she sang. Her voice sounded
far away. I could hear water running. Then I heard a door open. The
thick soles of her puffy Metal Militia skate shoes shuffled toward
me, and she put something small and plastic and spoon-shaped in my
hands. It was wet, with an acrid stench, salty, like urine. She
undid the tie from my eyes, and I looked at her lit-up face, bright
smile like a string of pearls.

I stared at the plastic thing in my hands. My
breath caught in my throat. She leaned over my shoulder, expectant.
Her soft hair brushed against my face, and we waited for the
results.

The entire room stopped. Except for the
falling snow, nothing in the world visible from the basement moved
or made a noise. I felt very conscious of the cold floor under my
feet.

The universe held its breath.

Two minutes passed.

I turned the spoon over. Two blue lines,
parallel, thin slivers of graffiti, an equals sign, even, evening,
like the ocean, the sky, a pH strip, a few blue pixels on the Mac
screen of God’s computer, the tiny unplanned planet around which
the rest of my life would revolve.

“Dude,” I said, in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah.”

March 2005

Brooke got back to the apartment before her
grandma did, just in time to put cat chow in Stella’s bowl. Stella
yowled, impatient, wrapping her fuzzy grey body around Brooke’s
ankles. Brooke scratched Stella behind her paper-thin bat-like
ears, then sighed.

Her birthday. It was 11:00 PM. She had to
finish her homework for Oil Painting class, and the damned canvas
took forever to dry.

Finally it dried enough for her to put it on
the art rack without worrying about little drips of paint sliding
down to fuck the whole thing up.

After that, Ev showed up, so they had to
talk.

Well, they did talk at some point.

She scratched at the purple-grey bruises and
red bite-marks on her neck, wondering about scarves. She probably
had one somewhere.

Twenty-one.

Somehow twenty-one years had accumulated,
like an old man’s stamp collection, or postcards, coins. A tangible
number that you could put away somewhere and keep. She felt like a
fraud. Another year. She’d cheated death.

Strange.

The ride home from West Philly was rough, as
usual. A fat man sat next to her, chewing loudly and smacking his
lips. He smelled like a chili dog. In front of her, a skinny young
man wearing a do-rag listened to his headphones at a volume loud
enough for her to discern the misogynistic, obscenity-laden
lyrics.

She looked out the window, watching the
neighborhoods change. A quiet longing she couldn’t place nagged at
her, and she missed her Tegan and Sara CD.

The SEPTA driver was reckless. He drove so
fast the bus nearly hit a conglomeration of garbage cans someone
left outside. It was always like this.

For all its insanity, Brooke loved the big
city. She felt proud, that the dense woodlands of Wisconsin led her
here to the land of bright neon lights and loud car alarms. Every
obnoxious detail, however shocking, became something she loved.
Like garage punk, her heart and soul. Yelling, sports games,
tourists, street vendors. Hot pretzels slathered in spicy mustard.
Cheesesteaks. Thick pizzas dripping with grease. She took up art
design at community college and worked as a receptionist at a
beauty supply store. From there, she was finally able to save the
money for the double nose piercings (right nostril, silver hoops)
that featured in her dreams since the ninth grade, plus a few ear
piercings and a sleeve tattoo, another tattoo on her foot. She felt
like a princess.

Life was just about perfect.

She took Ev’s lemon-pepper chicken and pho
curry salad from the secret compartment in the fridge and tapped
the buttons on the microwave. Her grandmother still hadn’t figured
it out, about the fridge compartment. Or about Ev. She was putting
it off.

An Accounting student with a missing toe and
a penchant for wearing business suits, Ev had been courting her for
months. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about him. He was
good-looking with his thick curly hair, and his chapped lips were
interesting enough. But he was kind of a jerk. He tried way too
hard to be funny. After yet another of his ill-timed comments,
Brooke stormed off, vowing to ignore him forever. She disappeared
into her work, painting with a bottle of strawberry wine, album of
the Cocteau Twins on repeat. In apology, he made her the salad. He
was a good cook despite being a total tool.

Of course, Grandma Roche had no idea about
any of it. The woman was knowledgeable about everything concerning
art, music, global politics, and the opera – but she was going
blind. A dignified woman, bifocals were not her idea of high
fashion, and she refused to wear any until Brooke bought her a pair
for Christmas. Grandma Roche treated her failing eyesight as a mere
inconvenience, not nearly as important as the theatre.

Grandma claimed New Jersey had the best view,
and the most connections to her family. “You know, we’re French
nobility a few generations back,” she told Brooke once. She leaned
in close, whispering. “And I don’t know if anyone mentioned, but
your father’s great-great-grandmother was an Irish queen. She
married a German revolutionary, though, so she had to abdicate the
throne.”

Right.

Well, she’d never approve of Ev, Brooke knew
that. Grandma Roche hated all men, except for Marlon Brando and
Humphrey Bogart. Despite that, Brooke felt lucky to have guaranteed
housing. She could come and go as she pleased, provided she fork
over her share in rent and stay in school until she got her
Associate’s degree.

She still spoke with Elizabeth, but not as
often as before. Maybe it was for the best. The days of Deathskull
Bombshell were over now. They had nothing to talk about.

Elizabeth was a simple woman, good-hearted,
glad to live in the past, with everything comfortable and safe. And
why shouldn’t she? The Ericksen family was well-off. Not exactly
rich, but she’d never want for anything. Considering Elizabeth’s
learning disability, it made sense that she’d stay with her family
well into adulthood, working minimum-wage jobs, but it was so
sad.

Brooke wished Elizabeth would get off her ass
and go to college. Dyslexia was a far cry from mental retardation.
Every time Brooke brought it up with her, though, the only response
was “I’ll think about it”.

Brooke never thought of Elizabeth as the
fatalistic type, but it was hard to read between the lines. They
had her on so many medications, which probably didn’t help.

Neither of them mentioned Trevor directly.
Brooke despised him, even as she was dying to know every detail.
But on cold nights when there was nothing better to capture her
mind, she’d remember Trevor and his shitty concept lyrics, his
awkward toothy grin, awkward because he hardly ever smiled, his
body moving with the guitar. She missed writing songs with him and
chain-smoking, huddled together in a cold panic at Mopeapalooza
while the opening band started up.

Parker was on the phone, drunken gossip in
Brooke’s ear. He couldn’t sleep. Some troubled Canadian boy off his
medications and sick from everyone else’s snuck into Battle of the
Bands. He had a gun hidden in his cargo pants. The boy planned to
off himself after the show. Instead, the gun went off in the
moshpit. The resulting bullet, only one, hit a girl in the leg. An
anemic with an irregular heartbeat, she died in the hospital later
that week.

It could have been any of them.

“We always went to Battle of the Bands,”
Parker said. “You know, if Elizabeth would have got shot, or Mikey,
or anyone… I don’t know. I just realized how big the world is, you
know? Maybe it’s good you moved away.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”

He probably had no idea it was her birthday,
and she wasn’t going to tell him. Birthdays were pointless. The
years had a way of accumulating. Like the weather, they were only
important when they were bad.

Parker, reading her quiet with a cold
accuracy, paused before speaking again. “Nick misses you,” he
said.

“Well, tell him to visit me, then,” she
countered, looking out the window. A taxi pulled into the alleyway,
and Grandma Roche climbed out, cussing at the driver. Shaking her
fist, she spat on the ground, then hobbled toward the door of the
apartment complex.

Shit.

Brooke grabbed her lavender orchid perfume
and sprayed it around the room to hide the scent of marijuana that
always stuck to her clothes after visits with Ev.

“We’re too broke to be taking any vacations,”
Parker said. “Even utilities are a hassle.”

“That sucks,” Brooke said.

“Yeah. I mean, he works his ass off. But he
misses you.”

“Yeah, I know.” She paused. “Tell him hi for
me.”

February 2001

“Dude, you have to hear this album,” Parker
said. They were sitting in Parker’s room, listening to punk rock
while Parker’s mom made dinner. She was getting experimental with
macaroni and cheese dishes. It kept her busy. “It’s the coolest
thing.”

“You said that about the last album,” Nick
said, frowning. He crossed his arms.

“Yeah, but this time it’s actually true.
Look.” Parker brandished a copy of
Never Mind the Bollocks,
Here’s the Sex Pistols
.

They stared at the ugly pink and yellow
cover, sort of pastel and sort of neon.

“It’s good,” Parker said. “Like, really good.
And political. One of the great early punk albums.”

Nick was big on politics. He was fifteen and
therefore more cultured than Parker, who was still in middle school
and had to fight to keep up with him. Mentioning politics was
pretty much the only way to get his attention.

“What’s so revolutionary about the Sex
Pistols?” Nick tossed his hair back. He was trying to grow
dreadlocks, but his hair wasn’t thick enough. It clumped together
in a fat autumn-colored mess of beeswax and backcombing. It was an
intriguing texture. Parker resisted the urge to touch Nick’s hair,
given the future complication of dinner.

“Well,” Parker said. He lingered over his
words, choosing them with care. A wrong step down a slippery slope
at this very precarious point in the game of things could lead a
man to fall off a conversational cliff, never to return, a loss of
face, freezer burn of the heart. “They criticize the government by
dissing the queen, but they do it so it sounds like a compliment.
Like… they say they want to save her, but actually they think she’s
a jerk.”

He had no idea if any of that was true, but
it sounded good.

“Isn’t that like a sarcastic comment?” Nick
asked, looking at him with skepticism.

“Kind of, yeah.” Parker scratched at an itch
on the back of his head.

Nick squinted at the ceiling. “So they don’t
want to save her?”

Parker sighed. He hated being on the losing
end of these arguments. Really he didn’t know anything about the
Sex Pistols. But neither did Nick. Nick just pretended like he knew
things. This was all macho crap, trying on words like leather
jackets, seeing what fit. He wasn’t sure if he was punk. He wasn’t
sure if he was anything.

“Isn’t that anti-feminist?” Nick
continued.

Parker looked at him. He could feel the
opening chords of “Shut Up Already” by NOFX playing in the
soundtrack of his mind. “How do you figure?”

“Well, the queen’s a woman, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, but she’s the queen, and they’re a
bunch of working-class guys, so really it’s like… getting back at
people in power by using their power against them.”

Nick started to smile, but he covered it up
by frowning in an exaggerated way. Parker knew he just liked
arguing to be a prick. It kind of made him want to punch Nick in
the face, but they were best friends, so he restrained himself.

“Are they really working-class,” Nick asked,
shoving Parker’s shoulder gently, “or are they just acting like
they’re working-class to sell records, and like, appeal to the
vanity of people who want to look punk by listening to their
music?”

“I don’t know,” Parker said. He shoved Nick
back, then grabbed his hand.

It seemed too gay to grab Nick’s hand.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done it.

They both sat there, unmoving, looking at
each other. Moments passed, an audible heartbeat buzzing in every
second.

Nick pulled his hand away. He scratched his
leg. His cheeks were flushed.

Parker cleared his throat, then pushed his
glasses up on his nose. “It’s a good album. I don’t know if it’s
punk or not. But it sounds good. Listen to it.”

“Is vanity power?” Nick asked. “It seems like
sort of a weakness.”

“I don’t know, you goob,” Parker said. “Ask
your haircut.”

September 2001

“I hate summer,” Elizabeth whined into the
olive-green shag carpet. Trevor, being Trevor, put it on the
basement floor in a sloppy attempt to disguise the beer and ink and
spray paint stains that accumulated from a rock and roll lifestyle.
But really it just looked out of place. Brooke told him that, too,
but he swore it was better that way.