Bakersfield. There was nothing for her back there but more of the same. They’d picked a kid up hitching, a rockabilly goth who said he was an art student, it sounded cool. When they dropped him at Otis, Josie grabbed her bag and got out too. Some kids sitting on the steps told her about the house on Carondelet, to look for the rubber tree in the front yard. She’d found it easily, dark shingled, deep porched, the door unlocked, the downstairs stinking of garbage and cats and stale beer. And upstairs, this purple-haired Latina was taking a leak with the bathroom door open, panties around her ankles, brushing her teeth while she peed. “You looking for the room?” It was just an oversized closet, but it was only seventy-five dollars a month, and it wasn’t Bakersfield.
Pen started her modeling, took her to the clubs, introduced her around, got her going, clued her in, how to get into student films and make stuff to sell to the rich punk boutiques. She’d always been on Josie’s side. Until Josie fell in love with Michael. And yet she’d held her hand at the coroner’s, and never said a word, though she’d predicted disaster from the start. She’d kept her company, fed her, slept on the couch in the house to which she’d never been invited. Bullied her, made her live.
He’s going to be dead a long time, Josie. You might as well get off the fucking couch.
Pen leaned against the bar, nodding to the music, the heel of her boot tucked in behind the bar rail, torn fishnets under the little vinyl skirt. “Did you hear, they just got a deal with Rhino.”
Josie noticed the backs of Pen’s hands. They were already wrinkled. Time streaming through them, all of them, like yarn. Her, and Pen, the bartender, the hatchet-faced man at the door. Life was just a factory of days and weeks and years, and for what, when you knew how the story turned out, what the product was at the end? She wouldn’t mind if the whole place went up in flames right this second. All of them immolated together, their ashes mingling in the smoldering aftermath. What if this ceiling fell in exactly two minutes from now, crushing them all like those layered tortas Michael used to make.
She looked around the club, the boys in the mosh pit, the waitresses in their corsets and tutus, Donnie Draino spewing beer from the stage. How right it would be to die, right here, right now, with all these people. Better than alone in a motel room in Twentynine Palms. The boy in the pompadour, the girl in the white plastic trench coat. The ceiling coming in, crushing them all like cockroaches. The screaming, the weight on top of you, too heavy to breathe, and then it would be over. Save her the problem of having to inhale and exhale, thousands of times a day. Every person, every cow, every dying dog, everyone on the planet, breathing this same tired old air. She wanted it all to stop.
Finally, the Nellies took their break, and Josie was surprised that nothing had happened, no earthquake, no fire. She realized she was disappointed.
Paul and Shirley K. were pushing their way through the crowd, Paul so pale he was almost albino, he practically glowed in the dim light of the Rat. Shirley’s glossy Japanese hair caught the lights with its intricate geometric wedges edged in blue. They both kissed her, Shirley touching Josie’s dank locks with a professional hand, arranging her hairline. Pen was right to have dragged her out, at home she just sank to the bottom. The Rat was loud and crowded and distracting, she could simply be.
“Allo.” A boy in a Sex Pistols T-shirt, the sleeves safety-pinned, his teeth bunched in a lopsided smile, pushed in next to her, ordered a pint of Newcastle, and introduced himself as something or other, from Leeds in England. It was good to meet someone new. Someone who didn’t know what had happened, someone to whom it was just another Tuesday night. It seemed Leeds was friends with the bass player for Lola Lola. He’d just moved here,
Pen started her modeling, took her to the clubs, introduced her around, got her going, clued her in, how to get into student films and make stuff to sell to the rich punk boutiques. She’d always been on Josie’s side. Until Josie fell in love with Michael. And yet she’d held her hand at the coroner’s, and never said a word, though she’d predicted disaster from the start. She’d kept her company, fed her, slept on the couch in the house to which she’d never been invited. Bullied her, made her live.
He’s going to be dead a long time, Josie. You might as well get off the fucking couch.
Pen leaned against the bar, nodding to the music, the heel of her boot tucked in behind the bar rail, torn fishnets under the little vinyl skirt. “Did you hear, they just got a deal with Rhino.”
Josie noticed the backs of Pen’s hands. They were already wrinkled. Time streaming through them, all of them, like yarn. Her, and Pen, the bartender, the hatchet-faced man at the door. Life was just a factory of days and weeks and years, and for what, when you knew how the story turned out, what the product was at the end? She wouldn’t mind if the whole place went up in flames right this second. All of them immolated together, their ashes mingling in the smoldering aftermath. What if this ceiling fell in exactly two minutes from now, crushing them all like those layered tortas Michael used to make.
She looked around the club, the boys in the mosh pit, the waitresses in their corsets and tutus, Donnie Draino spewing beer from the stage. How right it would be to die, right here, right now, with all these people. Better than alone in a motel room in Twentynine Palms. The boy in the pompadour, the girl in the white plastic trench coat. The ceiling coming in, crushing them all like cockroaches. The screaming, the weight on top of you, too heavy to breathe, and then it would be over. Save her the problem of having to inhale and exhale, thousands of times a day. Every person, every cow, every dying dog, everyone on the planet, breathing this same tired old air. She wanted it all to stop.
Finally, the Nellies took their break, and Josie was surprised that nothing had happened, no earthquake, no fire. She realized she was disappointed.
Paul and Shirley K. were pushing their way through the crowd, Paul so pale he was almost albino, he practically glowed in the dim light of the Rat. Shirley’s glossy Japanese hair caught the lights with its intricate geometric wedges edged in blue. They both kissed her, Shirley touching Josie’s dank locks with a professional hand, arranging her hairline. Pen was right to have dragged her out, at home she just sank to the bottom. The Rat was loud and crowded and distracting, she could simply be.
“Allo.” A boy in a Sex Pistols T-shirt, the sleeves safety-pinned, his teeth bunched in a lopsided smile, pushed in next to her, ordered a pint of Newcastle, and introduced himself as something or other, from Leeds in England. It was good to meet someone new. Someone who didn’t know what had happened, someone to whom it was just another Tuesday night. It seemed Leeds was friends with the bass player for Lola Lola. He’d just moved here,
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