him.”
Winnie held it up and examined it.
“That year in October I was nine!” said Mel. “He was there in
Vancouver at the same time. Alive. Win, my mother said he died in a car crash
when I was a year old.”
“That’s crazy!”
She stretched out on the couch, laid on her side to keep the
pressure off of her bum. Mel watched Winnie wincing and turning. “I went
overboard, didn’t I?
Winnie was still trying to get comfortable and she ignored Mel
like it was none of her business.
“You never said Moonfleet,” It was their safe word.
“Everything’s coo,” said Winnie. Lying on her side, she tucked one
leg under Mel’s, and one on top, and finally settled in. “You should Google your
dad.”
Mel was burning inside. Winnie was hiding something.
~*~
The door to Mel’s apartment was a
perforation. Through that tiny hole she could not fit and nothing existed on
the other side. She made phone calls overseas. Paced the fifty-five steps from
the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom and back again umpteen times. She ordered
food in and sat in front of the laptop trying to find anything about Walter
Willow.
Then she fell into her self-destruct
mode. Not suicide. It was erasure. A persona shift.
She stuffed a hefty bag indiscriminately
with everything. Starting with pizza boxes, liquor bottles...she emptied
ashtrays on top of her vintage Smurf with the white hat beside the old stained
throw rug she’d jammed in there. Nick-knacks, magazines... Then more of her
actual possessions, her life. All miss-mashed together. They were Burroughs
cut-ups. Pieces of identity blue-pencilled from existence, one after the other.
Filled Hefty bags sat by the door. The leftovers around the apartment fused in
place—bland leftovers of a persona suicide.
“You are iterations clacking in the
meaningless industrial past,” said Mel. “Details in a phantom biography.”
She was playing her life in reverse.
The Clash’s London’s Calling poster went last. In a right proper exhibition, she ripped it off the wall and ravaged
it to pieces. Afterward, she stood dazed in the expulsion of energy. A tiny
wire dangled out from the wall. It goggled at her where the poster had been. It
seemed she’d broken something. Attached to the end of the wires was a tiny
lens. Under a magnifying glass she saw the face of a bug. A bug? She pulled the
wire out of the wall further, stretching it until it snapped, then wound it into
a tight, setting it on the kitchen table for later.
Bloop. That
sound from the laptop for an email. It was from Winnie. Mel called Winnie’s
cell. No answer. She clicked on the message titled: ‘Seven Rings’.
Melanie sat nestled in that limo like a little girl being
dragged off to extra curricular activities by her mother. Swank sixteen. Melanie
sat beside Lilly, who always wore leather and diamonds. And that Clive
Christian ‘C’ perfume. Cara was across from them with Hattie, Lilly’s best
trained bodyguard. Hattie hardly ever smiled. She didn’t need to. She was a
fox, and she looked at people like she was shopping for a good cut of beef. A
sexy Swede who carried a custom Glock 17 and a little two-shot 8mm derringer in
her boot. Melanie knew all about Hattie’s guns because she’d sat with a
stopwatch timing Hattie while she practiced field strip and reassemble on her
Glock. Best time so far: six seconds.
Hattie had served in Chechnya, Russia. She’d written
‘Maroon Beret SPETSNAZ’ on Melanie’s palm with a pen and told her to look it up
on the web. Melanie asked if she’d teach her and Hattie said sure. She started
taking Melanie to the shooting range.
Melanie had been on the trip to Inverness to buy the
Hummer they rode in too. Sometimes she felt like a spoiled little bitch, a
movie star... and this was one of those times. She loved it. They were off to
Diamond Jill’s piercing and tattoo shop in Soho. It was October 17 th ,
2009. Melanie’s sixteenth birthday. Cara wore a
Winnie held it up and examined it.
“That year in October I was nine!” said Mel. “He was there in
Vancouver at the same time. Alive. Win, my mother said he died in a car crash
when I was a year old.”
“That’s crazy!”
She stretched out on the couch, laid on her side to keep the
pressure off of her bum. Mel watched Winnie wincing and turning. “I went
overboard, didn’t I?
Winnie was still trying to get comfortable and she ignored Mel
like it was none of her business.
“You never said Moonfleet,” It was their safe word.
“Everything’s coo,” said Winnie. Lying on her side, she tucked one
leg under Mel’s, and one on top, and finally settled in. “You should Google your
dad.”
Mel was burning inside. Winnie was hiding something.
~*~
The door to Mel’s apartment was a
perforation. Through that tiny hole she could not fit and nothing existed on
the other side. She made phone calls overseas. Paced the fifty-five steps from
the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom and back again umpteen times. She ordered
food in and sat in front of the laptop trying to find anything about Walter
Willow.
Then she fell into her self-destruct
mode. Not suicide. It was erasure. A persona shift.
She stuffed a hefty bag indiscriminately
with everything. Starting with pizza boxes, liquor bottles...she emptied
ashtrays on top of her vintage Smurf with the white hat beside the old stained
throw rug she’d jammed in there. Nick-knacks, magazines... Then more of her
actual possessions, her life. All miss-mashed together. They were Burroughs
cut-ups. Pieces of identity blue-pencilled from existence, one after the other.
Filled Hefty bags sat by the door. The leftovers around the apartment fused in
place—bland leftovers of a persona suicide.
“You are iterations clacking in the
meaningless industrial past,” said Mel. “Details in a phantom biography.”
She was playing her life in reverse.
The Clash’s London’s Calling poster went last. In a right proper exhibition, she ripped it off the wall and ravaged
it to pieces. Afterward, she stood dazed in the expulsion of energy. A tiny
wire dangled out from the wall. It goggled at her where the poster had been. It
seemed she’d broken something. Attached to the end of the wires was a tiny
lens. Under a magnifying glass she saw the face of a bug. A bug? She pulled the
wire out of the wall further, stretching it until it snapped, then wound it into
a tight, setting it on the kitchen table for later.
Bloop. That
sound from the laptop for an email. It was from Winnie. Mel called Winnie’s
cell. No answer. She clicked on the message titled: ‘Seven Rings’.
Melanie sat nestled in that limo like a little girl being
dragged off to extra curricular activities by her mother. Swank sixteen. Melanie
sat beside Lilly, who always wore leather and diamonds. And that Clive
Christian ‘C’ perfume. Cara was across from them with Hattie, Lilly’s best
trained bodyguard. Hattie hardly ever smiled. She didn’t need to. She was a
fox, and she looked at people like she was shopping for a good cut of beef. A
sexy Swede who carried a custom Glock 17 and a little two-shot 8mm derringer in
her boot. Melanie knew all about Hattie’s guns because she’d sat with a
stopwatch timing Hattie while she practiced field strip and reassemble on her
Glock. Best time so far: six seconds.
Hattie had served in Chechnya, Russia. She’d written
‘Maroon Beret SPETSNAZ’ on Melanie’s palm with a pen and told her to look it up
on the web. Melanie asked if she’d teach her and Hattie said sure. She started
taking Melanie to the shooting range.
Melanie had been on the trip to Inverness to buy the
Hummer they rode in too. Sometimes she felt like a spoiled little bitch, a
movie star... and this was one of those times. She loved it. They were off to
Diamond Jill’s piercing and tattoo shop in Soho. It was October 17 th ,
2009. Melanie’s sixteenth birthday. Cara wore a
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