Embrace Me (5 page)

I pull a straw from the bag I keep in the second drawer down next to the fridge. I sip my coffee, eat my cereal, and read the Sunday paper, poring over the real estate insert, looking for good ideas. Lella and I will need a rancher. I won't have the strength to carry her up and down the stairs forever.

Four cups of coffee later, a fresh pot almost brewed, the clop of feet vibrates the outside stairs leading to the kitchen—wooden stairs, sixth step a little wonky.

The kitchen door swings open, the curtains on the half window flying out like a dancer's gown. I quickly pull the green scarf from around my neck over my nose to cover my face from the eyes down. You gotta pay to see Lizard Woman.

Blaze, Rick, and some guy I've never seen before butt their way into my Sunday ritual.

Now Blaze should be an overweight redhead wearing too-tight sweaters and floral pedal pushers. But Blaze looks rather funereal. Not after the Morticia Addams fashion, but like a funeral parlor. White skin, white blouses, white legs. Dark hair, dark brows, dark skirts, dark shoes, because funeral parlors are almost always black and white, and is there some kind of code about that, some kind of association morticians belong to that tells them how to paint their establishments?

Blaze works down at the local life insurance company, reminding us further of our own mortality and that accidents can happen. As if we'd somehow missed that.

She sets down her purse. “What a gathering!” Blaze is a Jesus freak, which is probably why she relates to us. She's been going to a new church. “Sit down at the table with Valentine, Gus. Is there more coffee, or did you finish it up?”

“There's more.”

Rick pulls out a chair for the guest who takes off a leather jacket that goes perfectly with his gray biker beard. Although it does looked combed. He smoothes a faded red T-shirt. He adjusts a pair of glasses with lenses so thick his eyes look like they're sitting behind him in the next room. Graying dreadlocks hang halfway down his back, and heavy, stainless steel hoops pull down his earlobes. And tattoos . . . everywhere.

“You vying for a spot as the tattooed man?” I ask, pointing to his arms covered with intricately patterned tattoo sleeves. Not the usual skulls and naked bimbos for this guy. Swirls of flowers and vines on the right with a couple of woodland creatures peeking out. Kelp in a current and a rainbow assortment of fish on the left.

He smiles. Shy. “No. Just like tattoos, I guess.”

His voice is husky and scratched, higher pitched in a damaged way. He either smoked his voice away or something else took it. It's pleasant though, nonthreatening, even if it is hard to hear. His build is a little husky too.

“How come you went so pretty?”

“Reminds me of beauty.”

I look away, pick up my coffee. “Oh. Right.”

He rushes in. “Because beauty, real beauty, is usually hidden, right? It's like the animals and the fish. They're looking out, kinda shy, right, from their hiding spots?”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Blaze picks up the coffeepot. “That's what I love about human oddities. Same thing.”

The man reddens.

Rick gets a couple of mugs down off the shelf over the stained porcelain sink. “So this is Augustine, Valentine. A good friend.”

“Then why hasn't he been here sooner?”

“Blaze just now invited me.” Augustine shakes my hand. “Valentine. There's a name you don't hear often. Not that I can talk.”

“You don't look like a saint to me,” I say.

“You know of Saint Augustine?”

“Nah, not really. Just the name.”

Rick pours the fresh pot of coffee into the mugs. “He was a good guy. A real hellion in his younger days. I can relate.”

I set the sugar bowl on the table. “Yeah, I'll bet, Rick. If, oh, say, staying out after midnight on a school night can be considered raising hell.”

“I'm guilty of a little of that.” Augustine. “In my own way.”

“Me too,” Blaze joins in.

“Not Valentine!” Rick raises his hands. “Clean as a whistle.”

“Yeah. But you'd kinda expect that, looking as I do.”

“Hey, none of that around this house.” Blaze opens the refrigerator door. “So Augustine's our pastor.”

She's got to be kidding.

“Do the neck tattoos hurt more?”

“Yeah. Kind of a tender spot.” Augustine sits right around the corner of the table from me.

Blaze turns around with a bowl of eggs. “Hard-boiled. Egg salad for lunch. What are you making for dinner, Valentine?”

“Pot roast.”

“So he's a pastor. You hear that, Valentine?” Blaze.

I roll my eyes. “I heard. I gotta have a smoke.”

Augustine hops to his feet. “I'll join you.”

“You smoke?”

“Used to. I just like smelling the secondhand smoke now.”

“You're an odd bird.”

Blaze begins peeling an egg. “Take it out on the porch, please.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hang on. Let me put some real clothes on.”

I hurry back up to my room. Yanking open my suitcase, I decide to go for warmth. With the snow falling outside, a wet November snow, the kind with pillowy flakes, I don't have many options. A pair of jeans, my fleece-lined moccasins, and a sweat-shirt from Oxford will do.

Augustine follows me out onto the screened porch off the dining room at the back of the house. “You go to Oxford?”

“Yeah, right. Thrift store.” I light up my smoke. “This has got to be quick. I'm going to have to go up and get Lella soon.”

“Blaze has mentioned her.”

“Pretty weird for you visiting the freak house, huh?” He winces. “You known Blaze long?”

“Just this summer.”

“Rick?”

“Met him last winter. He's a good guy.”

“You know, he really is.” I light my smoke, turning away from him so he can't see me as I lift the scarf I tied under my eyes. “He's not a total freak though, you know?”

“I guess not. He feels like one though. Does that count?”

“You asking that for Rick or for yourself?” I mean, look at the guy. He's so weird!

“You're pretty quick, aren't you?”

“No. It doesn't count. You made yourself look that way. Take Lella. She was born like she was.”

“What about you?”

“This woman burned my face. I was dating her ex-boyfriend and she wanted some revenge.”

“You're kidding!”

“Yeah. Right here in America. So, technically, I'm not a born freak, I'm a made freak too.” I turn away and inhale. “Just made by somebody other than me.”

“No kidding. Man.”

“Tell me about it. It puts me in a unique position.”

“How long ago?”

“Too long.”

“How long until the pain was gone?”

“Months and months. I still get twitches of pain every so often. Nerve damage. I couldn't get to a hospital right away so it ate down way too far. I'm lucky I can even see. I guess I should be thankful.”

He breathes in my smoke and closes his eyes for a second or two. “You don't have to play that thankful game with me.”

“I thought you said you were a preacher.”

He shakes his head. “That's what the neighborhood calls me. I just hang around is all. They expect some kind of ‘message'”— he does the quotation thingee with his fingers—“each Sunday, so I speak a little something, which they can barely hear anyway with my voice the way it is.”

“Huh.”

He breathes in deeply through his nose. “It is what it is, right?”

“Guess so. That's what I say about my situation. It is what it is. What happened to your voice anyway?”

“Motorcycle accident. Bad tracheotomy at the roadside. Destroyed my vocal chords.” I inhale on my cigarette. “So what made you go on the road with Roland?”

“No place else to go.”

“Parents?”

“Gone.”

“As in dead, gone?”

“Mother's dead and not a minute too soon. Dad lives in Kentucky. Like, who moves to Kentucky? Not me.”

“You got that right.”

“Your parents?”

He shrugs. “See my mom occasionally. Lost touch with my dad.”

“That's too bad.”

“Yeah. He's an addict. It happens.”

“I'll bet your mother hates your hair.”

He laughs. “What woman wants to see her baby boy turned into this?”

He pulls a smile out of me. But it's underneath my scarf and a good thing that is.

After I stub out my cigarette, we climb up two flights to Lella's room. Her face lights up. “Valentine! And who is this with you?”

“This is Augustine. I didn't think you'd mind meeting him.”

“Is he going to be our new tattooed man?”

“Nah. He's a preacher from around here.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh my! Why, I would never have guessed, no siree! I love preachers! Truly, I was just watching Robert Schuller followed by Adrian Rogers.”

“I'm a sort-of preacher. More of a minister if you have to cat-egorize me. Just try to be around for people.”

“Isn't that what ministers should do?” she asks.

He pockets his hands. “I guess.”

“Do you prepare a sermon each Sunday?”

“Sort of. I just call it a talk. Sermons, well, I guess my stuff doesn't deserve that dignified a title.”

“Well, Pastor Augustine, I'm sure you're selling yourself short. I'll bet you're a fine preacher.”

Does Lella not hear the guy's voice?

“Can I help you downstairs?” I sit on the edge of her bed. “Egg salad for lunch.”

“Wonderful. Augustine, it was delightful meeting you, but would you mind extending us a bit of privacy?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. I'll be downstairs.”

He shuts the door softly upon his exit.

Lella's face crinkles. “He's a darling, even with all that accoutrement.”

I pull down my scarf. “Yeah. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

“Sorry, but I do.”

“No prob.”

I lift her out of the bed. She only weighs around sixty pounds, and I carry her into my bedroom commode under the stairs. I pull down her sweatpants and set her onto the toilet, leaning her trunk against me, her forehead resting on my shoulder. Lella goes both ways, and I wipe her gently.

“I thank you, Valentine. I do.”

“You're my friend, Lella.”

“You take good care of me.”

“That's what friends are for, right?”

“Valentine, would you mind terribly if I wore my new vest today for Sunday dinner?”

I carry her back into her room. Over her head I pull a yellow T-shirt, then a navy blue vest I decorated with broad yellow rick-rack and a couple of floral appliqués. I don't know why Lella likes vests so much, but she does.

“You look pretty, Lella.”

“Thanks to you. Now let me kiss your cheek.”

I lean forward and place my purply, scarred cheek near her angel lips. She kisses me softly, then I raise my scarf back over my nose. I circle my arms around her, lift her, and carry her down to the rest of the gang. Of course not everyone stays at Blaze's. Even Roland lives in Florida for the winter.

Clifford, aka The Human Blockhead, pulls out Lella's chair with a flourish. He can drive huge nails up his nose. Looks like the spike is going right into his brain. First time I saw him do it, I sneezed involuntarily. No infections in those sinus cavities, not with all that fresh air circulating all the time. Swallows swords too. Divorced. Pays child support for two kids down in Florida. He'll go and visit them soon. Until then, he's busy writing the Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice.

Darby Joe Brown, aka Rubber Girl. She has that skin without much connective tissue. The woman can actually grab the skin on her upper chest and pull it over her forehead. She does this while belly dancing. She's only twenty and she's taken a shine to Rick. If they have kids, I swear, they'll be like those Stretch Armstrong dolls. I swear it's true. Unfortunately for her, Rick's not interested. But he should be. She's really a cutie with black Snow White hair and glowing hazel eyes. She has the tiniest hands and feet! Her parents are coming to pick her up next week, and she'll head back home to Minnesota for the winter.

Bindy and Mindy are conjoined twins unified by a liver. Or something. Those sisters are the meanest people to ever walk, walk, walk, walk the face of the earth. Though they shuffle along at a snail's pace, nobody's out of their reach. I swear they should give a pair of legs to Lella, but they never would, even if they could, just for spite. Nobody's coming to pick them up, much to everybody else's chagrin.

There are a few more of us, but that's the sum of the gathering today. Jake the fire-eater visits his sister across town on Sundays and works at the bowling alley. Miranda McLeod, another contortionist, works as a clerk at the local department store's music section.