: WE HAVE NOT TOUCHED THE STARS

“ oh, don’t ask it that way. you can hear it in my voice, but thank you for bein’ so polite. “

being here brings the sound of it back, ringing clear and clanging hard as a dinner bell stolen away from a family it once belonged to. back in chicago curry would catch me but never quite manage to get a good grip. i was able to squeak myself away from the scrutiny. the written word doesn’t lay your voice bare, not unless you want it to. it’s all in the control. 

i hear the affect i make when i say it because it makes my cheeks sting hot and my ears follow not too far behind, which is easy to blame on the booze. i refuse to call it ‘beer’ because it isn’t– it’s swill, but i have to keep an eye on amma. i can’t do that when i’m three sheets to the wind. (i’m learning now that it’s a lot harder to keep track of someone– especially a teenage girl– even if they want you to pay attention to them). at least i can tell myself it’s the shitty booze instead of the little wink and the base of my spine tingling softly like static on a television, all snow. 

“ i, myself, am not a particularly popular member of the community, you understand. so, really, you’re the one committing social suicide here. i can’t really drop any further through the proverbial center of the earth. you are hazarding a reputation, my friend. “

now it’s my turn to offer up a wink, and a swallow i hide with a drink. there’s hardly anything left in this ugh budweiser but it’s just enough before i have to detach myself to get another. right now i’m unmoving, begging for the tremor in my hands to stifle even a little. amma flashes past, soft-faced and slipping through the hall in the distance. i catch sight of her like a hawk; i’m the field-mouse. she flutters her fingertips at me and sticks out her tongue before moving back into the house in a flash. 

it’s a weird relief.

it feels grounding, planting the sole of my boot to the banister of the house that’s mine. my palms press against the old, old wood. i shake the sensation of eyes on me; of a white shroud floating, effervescent, in the window to momma’s bedroom. 

“ wind gap isn’t a taste you acquire, it’s one you inherit. and even then it’s still acrid. as grotesque as its weather. i can say it can be a tolerable place to grow up, if you know the right people. or the wrong ones. ”

beer’s empty. nothing but free-floating suds at the bottom. i hold the bottleneck like a lifeline. 

“well,” as covertly as she can manage, ruth’s attention follows camillie’s. flickers from their conversation and over to the window. to the too-pretty-for-her-own-good moon-faced fifteen-year-old who flashes in and out of the window like a firework against night sky. “i maybe sensed a litlte bit of a twang,” she’s smiling her coy smile. pursed lips, turned up high in the corners. 

is she flirting? maybe. it’s been a long time since she flirted with anyone. since freddie died. she’d been set up on that date. with that guy from her friend’s law firm but she hadn’t had it in her to flirt then. it had already been a year and a half but she still felt married. if lenora hadn’t needed the money so bad, she’d probably still be wearing his ring. 

she feels for it now, thumb covertly going to rub the bare ring finger. 

“but you could be from anywhere...down here.” 

for a moment, ruth imagines what she’d do if she were still 26. before freddie, just after she’d met lenora. when she could be convinced to do anything with her egging her on. if she were still under her friend’s influence, she’d stand up and approach slowly, put a hand on either side of the bannister and lean into camille. no touching. i wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with the wrong people.

instead she stays right where she’s at. still absently rubbing her long-gone ring. 

i hear ‘dollhouse’ and it’s enough for my eye to wander briefly inside past the curtains, past the glass, like being sure amma hasn’t heard a word about the dollhouse. adora’s absence only attaches her more to that expression of overwhelming elegance she clings to, the parts of her mother that she’s stealing away as ‘good’. i wonder sometimes if there is a dichotomy to be suffered in her head. i wonder sometimes if she has to deal through the sleepless nights and then i know when she curls up beside me and finally falls away like a kitten until she screams herself awake, terrifies me every single time. i wonder if at night adora is a specter and no longer a comforter anymore, and amma’s rebellious frontal lobe wants to demand the opposite.

i wonder how the fuck anyone could do this to a child.

the dollhouse is the last thing to stand its ground when all else has become a ruin. sometimes i sit beside her on the floor and watch her at this perfect, freakish peace no one can acquire— this incredible zen that most adults can’t reach, just making little beds for little people, little fake people in little fake beds. it’s creepy, but there’s a charm to the neatness of it, the squared-away nature of it all. but i quirk a brow when she avoids what is obviously ‘shit’ and almost half chuckle about it behind a swig of beer.

i don’t look at her when i say it because i don’t have to.

“ scarlett o’hara pour you that? “

jackie is who i mean.

“ can i get you somethin’ less chemically similar to rubbing alcohol? “

the politeness feels almost like an accidental disease i could kick myself for.

though it takes a second or two for ruth to connect the dots, she does so through another laugh. this one, thankfully a little less loud and a little more attractive by her own measure. 

she draws the line between jackie and scarlett o’hara, then between jackie and the once mentioned (very briefly in passing outside of her station wagon the grocery store parking lot), “my girl millie.” as in, well, some day i’ll have to introduce you to my girl, milie. you two will get along.

“oh,” she considers her drink for a moment, clear amber, cut-crystal glass, “no. thank you, that’s alright. it gets the job done quicker. nadia’s still playing so i’ve got time to kill, i think so...might as well.” she shrugs, and makes a little show of her next sip. this one sans grimace. 

a beat of silence, and then she has to address it because she is pathological in her need to say the thing she is not supposed to say. “i do know that nobody in town likes me, so i appreciate your willingness to be seen with me,” a wink. 

though, upon private consideration, she finds it hard to believe that millie is the most popular girl in wind gap. she supposes that distinction would land to...well, whoever the host of this party is considering the whole damn town is here. nadia said something about “the crellins,” but she’ll be damned if she’s going to ask. 

i know it’s delicate. doctors keep saying that word to me like it doesn’t both insult me and fulfill a filthy longing to be both coddled and seen. it’s delicate, they all say, while amma plays the sweet wilting flower silent and politely listening while trying to cover up her realest truth–

she misses adora. she misses adora like a horrible ache in her heart and every time i see it it feels just like an arrow in mine; a cliche that will never escape me. i wonder sometimes if my own jealousy doesn’t make me froth at the mouth, or if i’m just born that way, green as the silk-printed wallpaper, emerald and lush as envy. 

the whole situation. balancing. it’s delicate.

“ it’s a place like this, makes it real easy to lose all faith in god. there’s no loving creator that crafted that bejeweled wallpaper. atheism was birthed on that ivory floor. “

it feels like a hush-hush thrill to speak so blasphemously about my mother’s sacred rituals and rites. it’s the ability to disrespect these things i’ve spent my entire life wishing i could disrespect. she feels warm to the touch, and it’s my nature to linger closer like a moth about to be buzzed to death by a zapper. it’s my nature to find some hearth of feeling, so i just bend over halfway to reach for the beer hidden behind my leg and tolerate it. it’s weak, but so is everything. i raise my bottle and tip it politely in her direction, a ghost’s salute. 

“ here in wind gap if you don’t drink and know things you might as well be stamped with the mark of the devil. ironically. “

it’s been exactly five weeks since she left new york. packed up freddie’s old 80′s mercedes station wagon and drove little nadia out of the city because neither of them could go anywhere without feeling like they were walking into a postcard sent to them by their old selves from when lenora was still alive. wish you were here!

so, it’s been five weeks since ruth laughed like this, head back, neck exposed in a way she wouldn’t dare around anyone else in wind gap lest they seize their opportunity to lunge for her jugular. 

“oh, god. yes. exactly. i shouldn’t blame wind gap though it’s just -- rich people. anywhere you go, they’re all the same. ivory floors and yeah -- the wallpaper with the cranes and god -- nadia would be absolutely devastated if she heard me say it but that dollhouse is just about the most eerie thing i’ve ever seen in my entire life.” 

oh -- a drink. god, where did hers go? she blinks around the porch in the light of the slowly setting sun. and. right, over there where she’d set it on the windowsill to dig through her purse for her lighter. rum and coke mixed by the only other person in town who’s been nice to her. so, really it’s mostly a rum. a rum...with coke maybe but certainly not true two-hander. 

she goes over to collect it and then pushes her glass back on top of her head. because she doesn’t really need them so badly right now but also maybe because she’d like to look a little nicer for new friend camille. 

i snort. i snort and the sound’s terrible. it grunts like a hog not too far out to pasture, not too far out to where their lives come to squealing ends. sometimes it feels fitting, that i can’t ever seem to manage the flourish of decorum that bloomed like a flower whenever adora never laughed. somehow, in its demure way, she could make people think she found something hysterical. i’ll never– and i never want to– develop that porcelain quality. that empty, microscopic sheet of glass. 

i tap out a tiny shower of ashes and watch them briefly flutter to the porch and blow away in the breeze. she says f-u-c-k-i-n-g and for a moment i hear amma when the windchimes whistle and clink and clangle– F-U-C-K-I-N-G!– and blink myself back from the bone-white of my knuckles briefly gripping the banister. i wiggle my fingers and step away from a cloud of reverie only a little, shove the jut of my knee underneath, an uncouth slouch that makes my spine burn. it feels, still, like she’s watching me– adora’s eyes are always striking right down from that room. 

her name is ruth. she says it to me, which is a waste to even say but it’s a shred of dignity to retain. the ability to introduce. having control over your own narrative isn’t something wind gap allows anyone; it isn’t a luxury anyone can bank on outside their own four walls, and those need to be six-figure four walls to have even a little privacy. in this ivory tower, i have the good fortune of acres and acres of ill-begotten land, but somehow that doesn’t make the privacy innate here. 

i’ve known her and her daughter-who-is-also-not-her-daughter-but-is-probably-her-daughter nadia’s names since the first time their bumper edged over the county line. where adora knew all, now it’s my turn courtesy of jackie’s desperate need to clutch for my good graces. it makes me feel uncomfortably like her, and i have to suck down another drag. it gets the taste of perfume out of my mouth. 

“ pleased to meet you, ruth-from-out-of-town. “

i’m conscious of where and how i lean my body to politely touch her arm like a greeting, overly thoughtful of every sliver of skin that no one can see. i can smile, now, and it’s not just pregnant with the vindictiveness that i feel almost all the time now. 

“ i’m camille from in-town. it really must seem like a freak fair to the uninitiated, hah? …..it is. would you believe me if i said this is the tame version? “

without plays that glorify rape. 

there’s something about her that reminds her enough of lenora -- the way that there was something about lenora that reminded her just enough of her mother -- that it manages to set ruth’s heart to beating faster. no, it’s not “something,” she’s playing coy with herself because she hates to think of lenora but -- it’s the shiftiness. the way that her eyes goes a little blank as she drifts in and out of now. 

ruth takes a very long drag and laughs, the sound punctuated by a cloud of smoke. “you know, i would actually.” 

“nice to meet you, camille from in-town,” ruth’s skin, is still a little cool where camille has touched it. she runs warm enough by nature that everyone else’s skin is nice and cool to the touch. “when i was little, i spent a couple of summers here with my great-aunt. hannah ashley. that’s why we’re living in her house, but...you already know all of that, huh?” she laughs again and scuffs a boot against the bleach-white floorboard. 

“i promised my --” she almost says my little girl, as if nadia were actually hers but she can hear lenora hissing and spitting and clawing at the lid of her coffin and screaming from 6 feet under and several hundred miles away: she’s not your fucking daughter, you thief, you barren baby-stealer, you traitor, you god-damn fucking cunt! 

“i promised nadia that we’d come because she’s made some friends and according to the nine year old, this is the social event of the year but -- my god,” she cows with another scoff. “this fucking house.” 

𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆. she’s been dying a long time and she’ll be dying a little while longer but she’s actively in the process of dying. some days she feels it more than others. some days her bones ache so insistently, so determinedly that it almost seems like they’re trying to tell her something. sometimes she wonders, humorlessly, if even her bones are prophetic.

here – in this big quiet place she comes to night after night, here in this dreamy vision of a perfect field that stretches green and lovely in all directions, the sky above her full of stars and equally expansive, infinite as time. she cannot feel her bones here. she can only feel the breeze that starts and cools her skin so sweetly.

she cannot stop dreaming this field. again and again it is her and it is quiet and she had not thought to call it a vision ‘till now, ‘till this. aides is imposing. laura feels dwarfed, tiny in her presence, especially in her nightgown.

she wonders if tonight she’ll die. quietly in her sleep. aides has come to gather her softly and carry her over to whatever awaits. she’d been something of a cynic before this. her sisters would be shocked to know just how devout she is these days. laura is surprised when she feels tears stinging warm in her eyes. how embarrassing, crying in front of a god.

left to right to right to left to right again her head shakes slow and she smiles, small because it is funny in that cosmic way. “no one,” she croaks, voice too full of whatever thing it is she’s feeling that she can’t quite name. “that’s just the way we’ve come to think of things.” we, as in humans. “left to our own devices, we had to make assumptions.” she doesn’t know if aides has a sense of humor. certainly the other gods must. point in case: the nature of living.

@vorcotec​

𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑. he knows that now. he doesn’t know what she wants. he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. there was a time when he thought that they might be the same. he thought that they were both just two sad people trying to outrun their sad pasts. he felt that way about carolyn once, too.

the thing he doesn’t account for is that in each of them? there’s a little bit of light. there is this faint glimmer of something hopeful, something good, something that separates them from their pasts. something that makes them special instead of pathetic.

he’d always wanted to be special. he wanted to be the sort of person that people looked at and said, “you know? you turned out all right. in spite of everything.” but you can’t say that about him. you can say that about diane, though. and you can say that about carolyn. you can say that about a lot of the women he’s loved.

can he even call it love when he’s the one doing it? what is it that he does? fixates? obsesses? nurses on like an infant? whatever. he’s been quiet way too long, cigarette smoldering in between the tight, pursed line of his lips. he drags and takes it out and drops his head into one hand. he looks pained. “you’re necessary, diane.” it comes out low, almost to himself. “maybe not to the people that you want to be necessary to but you are.”

@icarusinvited​

   OH  ,      nell.      this—this girl in front of her,      this version of nellie;      it was whom shirley had to remind herself to envision when anxiety kept her restless in the wake of the night.      see,      the crains knew dark days like the backs of their own palms.      they reigned down upon them akin to hell through high water—and they all ran on some form of high intensity,    turbulent at best.      when they were met with moments of peace,      they came not as rushing floods or leisurely flowing waves but a series of ripples in the current,    few    &    far in between.      she spent a lot of time shutting them out too.      she wanted so badly to keep tethered to them that letting them pass by with little to no notice felt like a far easier feat.      this time though,      she’d come out to greet nellie at the shoreline with her arms wide,    wide open in welcoming in hopes of holding on just a little white longer.      “ i’ve missed you, too, nellie. ”      perhaps more than she would admit.      “ oh? greaaat. ”      except it was great;      a new friend meant she was experiencing life,      and both steve and herself had concluded that life—a real life—were exactly what nellie needed.      “ i’m the designated mom friend. i see how it is. i’m sure jayden will be thrilled about that when he’s older. ”      she laughed,    a true laugh.      “ i have some hot cocoa. you could tell me all about ava over a cup? ”      and just about everything else too. 

𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐄𝐘: she is nell’s mother. it may not be something that anyone ever says aloud, or even thinks in so many words but when nell remembers waking up with bad dreams, when nell remembers coming home sick from school, when she remembers her darkest days (dreams of the bent neck lady, dreams of her mother with a cracked and bleeding head, dreams of the darkness that lurked in the sprawling horror of that house, dreams of luke turning up dead after pumping too much poison in his veins), it is always shirley who was there with warm hands and kind words and kisses to the top of her head. shirley always came with comfort that no one else could provide. not steven, not aunt janet, not theo, not even luke. shirley was sturdy, seemingly untouchable. maybe it was too much pressure to put on someone only a few years her senior, someone with troubles of her own, but nell is blind to it for sheer love and devotion. 

oh, hot cocoa. what a wonderfully shirley thing. if it’s even possible, her smile seems to broaden, and she refuses to disconnect, even as they walk. she keeps her arm wound around shirley’s waist, her little head against her shoulder. shirley makes her feel a little more solid, more tethered to this world as opposed to that dark one she is always straddling. “there’s not a lot to tell, really. i want to hear more about you.” soft voice and a sweet, adoring, little-sister look up to match. “how have you been? i really did miss you. did you get my letters?” she had sent them. once every couple months or so. puffalopes and all.

Life.

It was hitting her like a freight train almost every day. To go back and pinpoint a time that she felt particularly attacked by fate and its greater plan for her would be too hard, collected diaries since the time she could write filled with concentrations of who she really was. But even now, Diane didn’t know. It’s what made sleeping so hard, existing so hard as well, especially next to the vibrating sun that was Mr. Peanut Butter. Times like these showcased how dark her shadow was when he shown so bright, reminding her of a quick fling she had thrown so much into. And while she had always paid so much attention to her shadow, it was hard not to love the sun. She did, didn’t she? 

That thought alone had her buzzing, had her waking up too early that the postman’s route wouldn’t bring Mr. Peanut Butter from his sleeping. It was the time in which she could think, she could concentrate. Yet she couldn’t do it in her house. Every time she opened her laptop in any of the rooms, she just saw the sad reflection painting itself across the black and tinted screen. She needed to go out, to get to work and write something that would make her feel. But where?

The coffee shop? No, too many people would notice. The library? No, she needed the possibility to scream if she needed to (not that she ever truly did). The options were running out quickly as she tried to connect to her hot spot in the car, hoping that could be the last straw. But as her phone buzzed, her location fell near a familiar office, one who’s WiFi password she knew too well. Up she went, finding her perfect spot within what was an oddly comfortable chair in Carolyn Prince’s office. But like all good things, the sun showed too bright, this time showcasing a different shadow.

“Carolyn…” she hesitated, swallowing thickly and only realizing now that she hadn’t changed from her sweats. “I didn’t think - I didn’t expect-” pause. “You’re up early… And jesus, you smell like Bojack.”

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇�𝐘� 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑? it’s maybe a little harder to remember right now than it would be ordinarily. carolyn has to reach past the bourbon fog. she has to find the benchmarks in her head -- the other miscarriage, diane’s abortion, leaving vigor, sarah lynn’s death, bojack dumping her (again), bojack falling in love with diane, bojack’s book. three years? that can’t be right, can it? it feels both infinitely longer and infinitely shorter. that’s one of the most horrible things about hitting your forties in los angeles (where there are no seasons with which to benchmark time, only endless sun) is suddenly everything that’s ever happened prior to this very moment feels like one very long day. but it must be three years. she’s known diane three years and she’s never been able to figure exactly what it is about the other woman that she doesn’t like. 

it isn’t that she dislikes her. diane is smart. diane is strong. diane made it in hollywood, more or less, the same way that carolyn did. without a dime to her name, without connections -- but (and it’s a 𝐁𝐈𝐆, 𝐁𝐈𝐆, sir mix-a-lot but) carolyn knows that diane doesn’t hold her in very high regard. diane has such a conscience. she’s always nitpicking. there’s no winning with her. her judgement has grown to the point where she may as well name it, buy it a suit and a hat.

besides diane is pretty. no, not pretty hot. carolyn is cute but she’s never been hot enough to turn heads, to attract anything but the passing attention of stars like bojack, mr. peanutbutter. and maybe, maybe there is some simmering resentment for women “like that.” women who may not get by on their looks but women who don’t realize that their intellect is only tolerated by men because of their looks. 

“yeah, well, it’s been a long fucking night.” as if to prove her point she takes another pull from her glass. “what are you doing here, diane?” she leans in the doorframe if only because she has to. she’s not that drunk but she’s drunk enough to need support. the blanket over the back of the couch, the pillow, her shoes in a pile, her purse on the floor. carolyn’s barefoot now. it’s obvious she slept here. there’s no point in hiding it. “ralph and i broke up. i slept here and if you wouldn’t mind i’d like to continue bojack-ing myself into oblivion, thank you very much.” it’s a celebration! she’d thought that she’d have to give up drinking for a whole nine months! 𝐇𝐀, 𝐇𝐀, 𝐇𝐀! the best april fool’s joke to ever work so well in august. “what, are you avoiding your husband?” forgive the disdain; it’s just that until last night she’d thought she might get married, too. 

today though, she figures she’s allowed to be sloppy. her baby died. it wasn’t even a baby so she can’t even be sad but she can be sloppy! 

it was a collection of cells. she downloaded that app. the one that tells you what kind of fruit your baby is. wait that’s not right (she’s drunk). it tells you what size the baby is compared to fruit. babies aren’t fruit. except her baby was so small there wasn’t even a comparable fruit! there’s no one inch fruit. 

it’s early morning and she’s still drunk and that early morning southern california sunshine is shining so bright and cheery and happy through her enormous fucking windows that it makes her want to vomit. at the very least she has time to pull herself together before anyone gets in. sits up slowly. the only solution is, of course, to have another drink. otherwise the hangover will settle in halfway through the day and she can’t have that. for a moment she thinks: how the hell does bojack live like this?

risky, maybe, but she takes her drink out of her office and into the lobby. 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊. she fired judah. she’s only just remembered. no one is here. this is her big, empty, building to do with as she pleases. there’s a king midas metaphor in here somewhere she just has to think to find it. she takes another drink and she hears shuffling feet. “diane? what are you doing here?” another stroke of bad luck. exactly the wrong person. 

         “so… tahani and i…  we ever…?”   you click your teeth and poke your finger through a ring you make with your other hand’s index finger and thumb.  multiple universes.  so many reboots.  everything’s a damn simulation,  and you can’t remember most of them.  

                      you’re sure the more appropriate question is were we soulmates? but appropriate questions kind of lose a gal who munches through three big bags of cheetos and a large pizza in one night while devouring episode after episode of the bachelor because it makes her feel better about herself.  (you laugh at it when they cry.  or,  you used to.  you’re kind of behind,  what with the whole ceasing to exist and trying to avoid spending eternity with a demon shoving ants up your butt.)

                  “… touch fronts?”

@multamusa / michael.

            THE HUMAN OBSESSION with sex truly baffles michael. especially eleanor’s. actually in one of the many reboots, they discovered that she is actually the only member of the group who can simultaneously think about the eminent, excruciating torture of her eternal soul and sex. incredible!

    “well, there was one iteration wherein you and tahani were matched as soulmates. but unfortunately it only lasted -- uh, approximately fourteen and a half hours and while you did convince her to ‘fool around a little,’ it was mostly limited to above the waist touching. you were unable to consummate the relationship, as it were.”