the singing knives

[from Sad and Beautiful World #7, May 2005; I know, the main dude is named Bruce, which is hilarious, but I swear to god I didn’t even think about that until after the zine was already printed!]

Bruce couldn’t figure out what it was about those Jersey girls, but he kept falling for them despite himself.  He was a Pennsylvania boy, and those razor-edged girls from the state of work and murder and concrete were so different from the acquiescent hill girls he’d grown up with.  Maybe, when it came down to it, he wanted a woman to tell him what to do.

The summer of their twentieth year, on vacation between their sophomore and junior years of college, Bruce and his best friend, Noah, took a trip to the Jersey shore.  They threw a bunch of shit in the trunk of Bruce’s battered silver Pontiac – some bottles of booze, a carton of Winstons, t-shirts and jeans and swim trunks – and they took off on an afternoon lousy with sunshine and the kind of storybook clouds small children dream of.  They rolled the windows down – which was a mistake, because once you rolled them down it took a good half hour to get them to go up again – and blasted mix tapes of the Dead Milkmen and They Might be Giants.  Bruce with shaggy dirtbrown hair hanging across his eyes, and bracelets made of guitar strings; Noah with bleachblonde spikes cavorting along the top of his head, and a two-tone checkered armband tattoo on his right arm – they chainsmoked; spilled greasy gas station coffee all over the floor of the Pontiac; pounded their hands on the dashboard and sang along: “Gonna find my baby, gonna find her now.  She looks like Patti Smith – SURFIN’ COW!!!”

Their motel room was tiny and damp.

“It’s like the walls are sweating, duder,” Noah said.

Bruce nearly broke a toe when he leapt across the bathroom and ricocheted against the tub, while trying to avoid a scurrying cockroach.

They had good – well, good if you didn’t inspect them too closely – fake IDs they’d bought from an upperclassman at college.  So, that first night on the beach, they had no problem getting into a dingy, cluttered bar called the Pirate’s Cove Tavern & Eatin’ Shack.

Bruce felt ridiculous and brave, like he could make an ass out of himself and it wouldn’t matter because it was summertime and he was in New Jersey and he’d never see any of these people again.  It was karaoke night at Pirate’s Cove, and he got up in front of the throng of richkid tourists and guys with bad tattoos and girls with big hair.  He did his best Bon Scott impression, and belted out “If You Want Blood.”  He tried to convince Noah to sing “A Message to You, Rudy,” but Noah claimed he wasn’t anywhere near drunk enough for karaoke.

They set up camp at a table in a dimly-lit back corner of the bar, and chilled out for a couple hours, groaning at the bad pop songs people sang and drinking can after can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Somewhere around midnight, the bartender – a stringy man with a large gold crucifix around his neck – walked over to them, carrying two rum-and-Cokes.

“S’from those two ladies down there,” he said, jerking his head to the left, and winking sordidly.

Bruce and Noah turned their gazes to a table across the room, and found their glances reflected by two girls – a short one, with blueblack hair, and a taller one, with copper-colored braids.

“Uh, what the hell,” Noah muttered. “This would never happen in Pennsylvania,” Bruce said.  “The girls there are way too uptight to do something like buy a couple random dudes a drink.”

“I’m Lina,” said the shorter girl.  As Bruce shook her hand, he noticed she had wonderfully curvy hips and beautiful tits (and he felt like a pig for noticing), and a large gap between her front teeth, which he thought was utterly charming.  “It was so fuckin’ rad you sang AC/DC.  It was a refreshing change from the fucks that come in here an’ sing Billy Joel an’ shit.  I had to talk to you.”

Noah was obviously giddy with lust for Josie, which was fine with Bruce.  Josie was pretty, but Lina was hot.  Josie was too tall for Bruce, too skinny.  She was more subdued than Lina; too much like the girls from his hometown.

Lina and Josie were twenty-two.  (“Holy shit, duder, older women!” Noah exclaimed as they stumbled back to the motel.)  They were best friends from Newark, and they were on summer vacation, too.

The next night, Noah and Bruce met up with Josie and Lina in front of Pirate’s Cove.  Lina was glorious in a tight red dress that hugged her curves and showed off the black vine tattoos that crawled up her legs, and the tattoo of a grotesque, horned creature that graced her left forearm.

“It’s the Jersey Devil,” she told Bruce.

She had a bondage collar around her neck, and high-heeled black boots.

Josie had bedraggled lilies-of-the-valley woven into her copper braids, and stars painted on her jeans.  Noah kissed her hello, and Bruce was surprised – he’d never seen his friend so full of courage where a girl was concerned.

“This scene is so lame,” Lina said.  “Fuck goin’ to the bar.  Let’s go walk around.”

The four of them passed the sultry night wandering up and down the boardwalk.  The rotting wood creaked under their feet, and Bruce could taste the salt spray of the Atlantic Ocean.  They ate saltwater taffy and ice cream sundaes and huge clouds of cotton candy; ate sugary foods until their teeth hurt and they couldn’t stop giggling.

They wasted money at an arcade, where Lina kicked everyone’s asses at Ski-Ball.  They crammed into the photobooth, all four of them a blur of arms and faces and goofy expressions.

Bruce put a quarter into an ancient fortune-telling machine.  The turbaned mannequin head inside the glass case clicked its jaw open and gasped out the mechanical words it had said thousands of times before: “Please make a wish.”

Bruce whispered, so none of the others would hear: “I want to fall in love.”

A few moments went by, and a piece of paper slipped out the slot at the front of the machine, just like in a movie Bruce saw when he was a kid.

“Your wish is granted.”

“Shit, it’s one a.m.,” Lina said when they re-emerged into the hazy brine of the boardwalk night.  “All the liquor stores are closed.  Ya got any booze?”

“Actually…”

They went back to the motel and retrieved a bottle of spiced rum.

“Josie and I are gonna stay here and watch some television or somethin’,” Noah said.  “You and Lina go on without us.”

“Okay.  Just…hang a pair of underwear on the doorknob if…y’know.  I don’t wanna walk in on anything.”

Bruce and Lina walked out on the beach, to the edge of the water.  They took their shoes off and got their feet wet, and let the damp sand worm between their toes.  They took swigs from the bottle of rum until they were stumbling along the dark beach.  

Lina held on to Bruce’s arm as she staggered around, nearly dragging him down several times.  The haze parted, and the moon shown down, almost full, the tarnished silver color of a quarter.  They plopped down on the sand.  Lina pushed Bruce flat on his back, climbed on top of him, and planted sloppy, violent kisses on his neck and lips.

“Aw, shit,” Bruce groaned.

Lina lifted her dress above her thighs to reveal she was not wearing underwear.  Then, she undid Bruce’s belt and began to unzip his jeans.

“Lina.  I…I don’t have any condoms.”

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m on the pill.  What, ya think I’m fuckin’ stupid?”

Noah and Bruce only planned on staying at the shore for four days; a long weekend of drinking and spending money on useless things.  The Newark girls convinced them to stay for a week.

“We can’t really afford the motel room for more than four days,” Bruce said.

“It’s not a problem.  Me and Josie are staying at my cousin Tanya’s place.  She’s out of town and we’ve got the house to ourselves.  You guys can totally stay there with us.”

Bruce and Noah checked out of the seedy motel, and took their stuff over to Tanya’s.

The house was inland, away from the tourist areas nearer the beach.  Still, if he breathed deep, Bruce smelled the brackish mixture of oil and seaweed and saltwater.  The house was a big, wood-shingled thing; painted periwinkle but faded from years of beatings by ocean wind.  The front porch stretched the entire width of the house, and was covered with moldy chairs and a broken couch, seashell windchimes, and trumpet vines that crawled up the railings.

Just like that, the two couples – Noah and Josie, Bruce and Lina – shacked up together for five days and played house.  They piled dishes in the sink – Bruce made elaborate breakfasts of eggs and sausage and potatoes; Lina cooked heaping pots of ravioli for dinner.  During the day, all four of them threw the windows of the house wide open and lit strawberry-scented incense.  They sat on beanbag chairs in the living room, and watched Tanya’s extensive Mob movie collection.

Nights, Josie and Noah usually wanted to stay in.  They most often played video games, or went to bed early.

Lina and Bruce went out.  They walked around on the boardwalk, or danced at clubs.  Lina dragged Bruce to every karaoke bar up and down the beach.  She plied him with coconut-flavored drinks and begged him to sing AC/DC or Guns’N’Roses. They’d end up back at the house, and sit on the porch for a couple hours.  They sat close to each other on the saggy brown couch, and took sips from bottles of whiskey or rum.  They talked – about their families, their schools, music and tattoos.  What struck Bruce, later, when he thought back on it, was how they’d managed to talk so much without actually saying anything at all.  Anytime Bruce made Lina laugh, she socked him in the arm so hard that by the end of the week, it was covered in bruises; various shades of greenish yellow and purple-y red.  Sometimes, they sat in silence, curled around each other; Bruce stroked Lina’s chin-length hair and they listened to the distant swish of waves or the squeal of motorcycle tires or the low bellow of the foghorn.  Then, they helped each other stumble up the stairs to the bedroom they were staying in, and they fucked until the sun came up, whitehot and violently bright.

They made promises.

“I’ll come visit you at school,” Lina said.

“Or we can take a trip to New York together,” said Bruce.

“I’ll never forget you,” Lina said.

“I love you,” said Bruce.

On the drive back to Pennsylvania, Noah put a Tom Waits tape in the stereo.  Bruce grimaced and clutched the steering wheel, white-knuckled.  He turned the music off when the song “Jersey Girl” came on.

“What’s wrong with you, duder?” Noah asked.  “You spent a week getting drunk and getting laid, and you’re all pissy.”

Bruce couldn’t explain what was wrong.  He’d lived out the summer vacation fantasy.  He’d gotten his wish, the one he made that night in the arcade.  But when he thought about Lina’s body and her lusty laugh and the food she cooked; when he thought about the future; all he felt was a sick emptiness in his gut.

Lina called him two weeks later.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Is…it…mine?”

“Yeah.”

“But.  You said you were on the pill.”

“I lied.  So, when are you comin’ to Newark to marry me?”

“Lina.  We can’t have a baby.  I’m in college.  I’m unemployed.  I’m only twenty.”

“I thought you were twenty-one.”

“I lied.”

There was an abrupt click, and then the piercing monotone of the dial tone.

Bruce threw up in his trashcan and lay down on his bed.  He stared at the shadows that floated lazily across the ceiling.

Three weeks after that, Bruce received a letter with a Newark postmark.

Dear Bruce –

You don’t have to worry about being a dad.  I had an abortion.  You were right; we’re too young to be parents.  I guess I just thought you’d stay with me.  I thought I meant something to you.

Love, Lina

He wanted to write back, he really did, but all his words were hollow and useless.  What could he say?

Oh, Lina.  You do mean something to me.  Only, not what you’d hoped you meant.  Oh, Lina.  I love you, but I don’t know you at all.

He did not respond.  He tried to forget about her, or to remember her simply as a fling he had one summer when he was young and stupid.  But there were little things that haunted him every time he fell for another Jersey girl.  If they had tattoos or wore a red dress, he got flashes of memory – Lina’s laugh, her smooth hair the color of a smoggy night sky, the way her eyes wrinkled up at the corners when she smiled.

Jersey Girl - Tom Waits

I met her in April.  Actually, I’d been watching her for years.  Every once in a while, she’d show up at the bar or the diner and I’d notice small things – like, how her eyes squinted up when she laughed, or the tattoo on the back of her neck, or how she hugged her friends all the time – even when sober, but more often when she was drunk.  I’d always think about talking to her, but I was terrified – beautiful punk girls scare the shit out of me.

In April, with liquid courage, I said “Hello.”  She didn’t sneer or spit or even ignore me.  She smiled big and extended her slender hand.  Her fingertips were damp from clutching a sweaty beer bottle.  She told me her name was Haley.  Which sort of seemed like kismet, because Haley was the name of my first girlfriend.

I carried the image of her around for days – spiky hair, bleached blonde with blueblack bangs.  The black tattoos adorning her wrists and neck.  Her torn, striped sweater, and low-slung black pants.  Shining eyes and a crooked smile.  I’m a sucker for crooked smiles.

The next time she showed up at the bar, she sat down across from me.  The tables are so cramped that her knees touched mine, and the bats in my stomach screeched and flapped wildly.  We talked about dreams and about music – we have a common love for Tom Waits and the Dresden Dolls.

“Sometimes,” she said, bending close to my ear as though sharing a great secret, “I like to pretend I live in a Tom Waits song.”

“Me too!” I chirped, elated.

One night, she suggested we go back to her apartment.

“It’s only a few blocks away,” she said, “and I’ve got a bottle of French wine waiting.”

We tripped through the empty streets to her place, and then sat on the stained carpet of her living room floor.  She set Heart of Saturday Night spinning on the turntable, and we crooned along with Tom: “Never saw the morning until I stayed up all night.”  She gave me pills, one two three, and I washed them down with bitter gulps of wine.  The carnival of pills and booze made our cheeks flush.

“It’s too warm for a sweater,” she said, and pulled her shirt off, revealing only a tanktop underneath.

“Look what you’ve done to your arms,” I said.  They were striped, like her sweater – pink on white.

I don’t remember who kissed whom first, only that soon we were rolling around in her bed, exploring collarbones and hipbones with lips and teeth and hands and tongues.  In the aftermath, she said:

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Then, simultaneously: “But this is okay.  We have an open relationship.”

A favorite excuse for all manner of sins.

We spent a couple months like that.  We never saw each other during the day, only at night – as though night could cloak the reality of our feelings.  Daylight would have been too harsh.  We passed our times reading tarot cards, listening to records, drinking, taking handfuls of pills, comparing scars.  We talked about feeling stuck, and wanting to escape but not knowing how.  And always, always, we ended up in her bed.  She almost said “I love you,” and I almost did, too, but I stopped both of us from speaking those words.  I fall in and out of love with boys quickly, but once I fall in love with a girl, it is forever.

We ended things because we were afraid of getting in too deep.  I took those two months and wrapped them in a box; amaranthine memories of a girl who does not see how incredible she is.

If you asked either one of us, we’d say that we’re still friends.  Truthfully, it hurts so bad that we hardly speak to one another.  Instead, I watch her from across the bar.  I watch her brush her bangs out of her eyes.  I watch her blow smoke from the corner of her mouth, take a swig of beer and then set the bottle purposefully on the table.  She looks like she doesn’t care about a thing in this world, except maybe her next drink.

I know it’s an act.  I know what she’s thinking about, because I’m thinking about the same thing.

we got there way too early, so maggie and i sat at a nearby park and downed a bottle of bitters, watched everyone else who had also arrived too soon, and stalked around the building, looking at various tags that friends of ours left a long time ago. m. (his band is the whole reason we were there) hugged us and referred to us as his “two favorite chicago gals.”

it was too fucking hot inside, warm even for the fireside, everyone was close together and the sweat and heat and cigarette smoke made it humid and sticky and hard to breathe. i was off-kilter, dizzy from the booze. it was so fucking hot and the whole place smelled like paint and glue, it was even smaller than it used to be. they’ve blocked off the entire bowling section now, not just the lanes - because they ripped out those old, carved-up wooden benches and replaced them with real bowling seats. part of the charm about the whole place was how shitty it was. who needs real bowling seats?

i ventured into the bar for a cold beer. i took pulls off my pbr while leaning against the wall at the back of the room. i bummed a cigarette (a lucky strike, no less) off a cute, short greaser boy. i made eyes at a boy with tan skin, a dark brown pomp, tight black jeans, a wifebeater, and a leather vest, who looked like he stepped right out of the outsiders. i had the urge to go up to him and say: stay gold, ponyboy. he probably would’ve punched me.

then a couple guys from the heavies and the gravetones were like: don’t just stand there by yourself! come talk to us! so we made small talk for a bit, and it was nice to be included; to know that people give a shit. i finished my beer and stumbled out of the bar to watch m.’s band. they were fucking good, despite the fact that they’ve only been a band for about a month. they played a misfits cover (“where eagles dare”), and a cover of the song “somebody’s gonna get their head kicked in tonight.” most of their originals were about drinking and fucking; they had a song called “dead babies.” i tapped my foot and wiggled my hips to the beat. swayed from the booze and the heat. about halfway through their set, maggie was about ready to pass out, so she had to retreat outside. and then, when their set was over, i went to go find her. there’s no re-entry at the fireside, not anymore. i hugged m. again, and was sorry i didn’t get to see the other bands. it was starting to rain, and i found her sitting in the park, smoking.

we went to clarke’s.

it’s funny. i feel like i have changed so profoundly over the summer, like i have gotten so much older. when i do things, now, like see a show at the fireside or eat at clarke’s, it’s just not the same. those used to be things i loved to do. it’s not that i don’t like them anymore, it’s just that now, it feels like pure nostalgia, that i’m visiting the places i spent my teenage years, watching the ghost of my old self jump in the pit or drink her coffee. the kids at the shows keep getting younger, and the fireside is being renovated, and clarke’s has daily specials now.

i feel like a visitor in my own past. chicago doesn’t feel like home anymore. i’ll always love it, probably end up here ultimately, but it’s not fitting right.

& another thing, the thing i say all the time, lately: i want someone. a boyfriend. a girlfriend. someone to be with. please?

It is noon on a summer day.

Someone is playing the accordion below my window. The sound of an ice cream truck floats past. The breeze is chilly; it has just rained. I have had too much coffee, and I am reading a book of folktales. A fly is buzzing lazily around the room. Three big dogs, who live upstairs, are barking loudly. I should be looking for a job. Soon, I will listen to a record and change my t-shirt. Everything smells like corn tortillas, and laundry.

Things that arouse a fond memory of the past.

A mix tape someone made for me five years ago. A green origami crane. The cork from a bottle of La Fin Du Monde. Stars made from construction paper. A library card. Keys. A piece of birch bark. A friendship bracelet. A Missouri quarter. A shamrock, encased in tape. Letters and postcards. Road maps. Fliers from punk rock shows. A popcorn bag from a carnival. Getting stoned while listening to Weezer.

i’m about to pass out now but i can’t sleep; my body is exhausted, my mind won’t rest. there are colors: pink xmas lights, gray streets, a dirty wood floor. the gray-green, black, and red of the tom waits painting i did last night. & i am almost done with my novel, finally, for real, and my eyes are burning from staring at the screen for so many hours and my shoulders and neck are cramped. the orange tip of my cigarette. cracking ice cubes in a glass of water. an hour ago, some drunken fellows stood below my window and started singing a very loud, very off-key rendition of “under the bridge.” it made me smile.

it has been raining. again. still. coffee shops with the dark rich smell of coffee grounds and a cute boy at the back table staring into the pages of his notebook; i watched the rain pour down outside, drops like bullets ricocheting off the sidewalk, dripping from the awnings of the building. what’s with the weather this summer? i asked maggie. where does it think we are, fucking london? i pretend i am there, sometimes. i may as well be there, for how lonely and out-of-place i feel in this city, anymore. where are my friends? i like dark colors and tarnished, antique jewelry. my hair is growing out, spiky and uneven, and i like that, too. soon, i am going to dye it black again. most days, i dress like an early 1900s street urchin or newsie or chimney sweep; something along those lines.

won’t someone come and sleep next to me? that’s all i want. i’m not interested in meaningless sex, not anymore, not right now. i just want a boy or girl who will go dancing with me, who will let me play guitar for them or read to them from a book of yeats’ poems. who will sleep next to me some nights.