A Guide to Being Born: Stories (13 page)

“They steam.”

On the couch, they drank sparkling cider out of coffee mugs. His had a picture of a rainbow and said
3rd Graders Are Number One
, and hers had cats on it whose bodies spelled the word
LOVE
. They polished off a bag of Fritos. Booker told Mabel all about Sue the Cockatoo. He got her when she was a baby,
just a hatchling
, he kept saying. “She likes peanuts in the shell best. That’s her chocolate pudding.”

“I like chocolate pudding, but what I really like is tapioca,” Mabel said, a little tired of talking about the bird. For a while they discussed desserts. Neither one liked cake: too cakey. But both loved pie. “You can come over to my house sometime and I’ll bake you a cherry pie and we can eat it outside with our fingers,” Mabel offered. “But I live with my dad. Shit. Can I actually use your phone?”

She dialed her home number. “I’m sorry,” she said, twirling the cord around her finger until her skin turned purple. “I miss you too. Order some pizza or some Chinese food. We can have it again for breakfast. Don’t forget about street sweeping tomorrow. I know, Dad, I’m sorry. I love you.”

The dishwasher-steamed corn was covered in butter and tasted good and sort of clean. They laughed hard when Mabel went to cut a piece of meat and accidentally shot a hot dog out of her tiny chicken’s tiny chicken-hole and onto Booker’s plate. He gave it back to her. “Your hot dog, madam,” he said.

“Much obliged.”

They lay down on the floor to let the food settle.

“So why did you quit?” Booker asked.

“That motherfucker Mr. Joseph T. Bowers tried to kiss me in the break room this morning.”

“Will you sue?”

“Nah. I kneed him in the balls. And he’s already fat and lonely.”

“Here,” Booker said, patting his chest. “I’m sorry that happened.”

Mabel looked at him. “You’re a nice guy, right?”

“I’m a harmless dental assistant.”

She listened to his body make alive-noises. She thought about what it would be like if those noises were louder, if all the time when people were walking around buying turnips and drinking cappuccinos they could hear the juices in their guts making high-pitched squeals and low burbles. If they all had to speak up to compete with their own intestines.

“Where did you get your name?” Mabel asked.

“I’m named after Booker T. Washington. My dad’s really into civil rights.”

“Didn’t he invent peanut butter?”

“No, that’s George Washington Carver.”

“Oh. Apparently it’s been a long time since fourth grade.” Booker’s stomach made a long, howling screech. “Did you hear that?” Mabel asked.

“Hear what?”

“It’s very busy in here. Amazing.” She poked his belly. “You know, I didn’t used to like my dentist, but now I have a pretty good one. I like the free toothbrush,” Mabel said, and then before she could stop herself, “I have a retainer.”

“My mom has false teeth that she soaks in an ashtray at night,” Booker offered, laughing.

“Wow.”

“Where’d you get your name?” he asked.

“It was my grandma’s name. My middle name is Lady, which was my mother’s name. She died due to complications after childbirth. I guess you could say I killed her.” Mabel’s hands got slippery and she tried to ignore the picture of her father sitting in the living room of their grubby apartment this morning cleaning his boots with the end of a chopstick. “I have an idea,” Mabel said. “Why don’t you check and see if I have any cavities?” She lay on her back and opened her mouth as wide as she could.

Booker looked carefully inside, tooth by tooth.

“You have a mercury filling in number twenty-two. You might think about getting a porcelain one someday . . . I’d need tools to really tell, of course, but your teeth look good to me. You have nice, strong molars,” he told her, and he came so close that she could smell his spit, and she kissed him, one fast-and-over kiss on the mouth. “We could know each other really well,” he blurted out.

And just like that, Mabel saw a crack form on the surface of her life. An opening. She did not know if it was deep or shallow, or where it led, but she did know something that did not exist before had begun to exist now. “Do you know who you are, without your family? Who only you are?” she asked, without meaning to. Mabel did not know why she’d asked the question. She felt blood rush to her cheeks and wished she could have said something normal. Complimented something manly about Booker, or simply given him the coy, sexy glance she knew she was supposed to have practiced. But Booker did not pull away from her, or look at her like she was a crazy person, or even sigh. He squinted at the ceiling, and thought, and then Booker whispered, “Pretend we are two huge saguaro cactuses, side by side in the rocky ground.”

Mabel wanted to know the answer even if it belonged to another question. “OK. I’m pretending,” Mabel agreed.

“Our arms are wrapped around each other’s necks. It is warm out and we are growing bright pink flowers. Our spines prick into one another’s four-hundred-year-old skin and the water inside us seeps out in little beads. We could survive without rain for months. You can’t believe how many stars there are above us, just millions. Everything around us is alive and busy, but all we have to do is stand still. The small birds that make homes in our bodies have left us alone in the dark.”

POST-THANKSGIVING,
this was Leonard Senior’s territory: pacing up and down the 100 block of Sapphire Avenue, his trigger thumb all the time ready. He wore a red sweater, the same red sweater every evening, tucked into a pair of slacks. A reindeer with a flashing red nose was pinned over his heart. He was lit up in red, green and blue by his homemade light display; the animatronic and the flashing. The whole block was lit up, in fact. The neighbors across the street had a separate set of heavy drapes made for these months. Their measly store-bought light-icicles hung limp and drooling toward the ground. Their palm tree was bare and brown, not wrapped in Christmas glory but standing with its one big foot in the earth, sulking.

Leonard Senior waited for a chance to snow.

•   •   •

LEONARD
SENIOR
and his teenage twins ate dinner together, but tonight, like most of the cool nights of December, it was a brief affair. Leonard Senior boiled the water and heated up the cheese mix while Leonard Junior poured the salad into a bowl. Then Junior watched the macaroni while Kerralyn set the table. “Don’t make much for me,” she said, “I have a date.”

“Tonight? A school night? Wouldn’t you rather go out on a weekend?” her father asked, his disciplinary sword undrawn.

“No, sir,” she answered. “This very night is when I’m going out. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, buddy. I’m not the kind of girl to get the Friday date, but I rate for midweek.”

He said, “But I think you are perfect.”

Kerralyn told her father she appreciated that and she would do her best to work her way up to weekends. “Baby steps,” she told him. “I’ll try for Thursdays this year. Maybe Mom has some advice.” She smirked, looking at the urn on the mantel.

Her brother did not say that her date was ugly and stupid. He did not say that if he was lucky he would get a Monday date, Monday
afternoon
probably, everyone home in time for their sorry family dinner. He sat down at the table, where they each dipped their fork into the large metal bowl in the center of the table and ate directly off it. They had never stopped setting the table with plates, but they hadn’t used them in years. Every night, Kerralyn set them out, and then when they finished eating, she piled them up and replaced them in the cabinet.

“Well, we’re coming right up to the big day,” Leonard Senior said.

“You got your stocking all ready, Dad?” Kerralyn teased. “You got your list for Santy?”

“Your mother would be so disappointed in us,” Leonard Senior said, looking at the urn surrounded by a pine sprig and two candles in silver holders.

“She probably
is
disappointed in us,” Leonard Junior corrected. “Right this minute.”

•   •   •

ON
WEEKNIGHTS,
people did not pass by often. Leonard Senior paced, his thumb always poised, the whole block and beyond lit up by his very own house. Santa rode his sleigh across the rooftop, an abbreviated two reindeer pulling it along. There was a dancing gift box that went up and down and a snowman who waved. Inside his one store-bought item—a giant inflatable snow globe a good seven feet tall—Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were always out in the cold, always covered in a dusting of white flakes. Mary and Joseph sat up and the powder gathered on their heads, making little white cones out of them, but Jesus, lying flat on his holy back, had the stuff all over his face. The undersides of his body were newborn pink, but his smile and eyes were deep in a layer of plastic flakes.

A couple in shorts and sweatshirts rounded the corner. Leonard Senior cleared his throat and made several circles with his thumb to prepare it.

“You folks hear the weather report today?” he called out. The couple looked at him, confused. “They called for snow!” he yelled. “Right here in Southern California!” The man released his arm from the hook of his girlfriend’s elbow, a move that seemed to signal his readiness to defend them both against this information. Just as the woman began to say, “Where did you hear that?” a jet of artificial precipitation shot out of Leonard’s house and fell down on all of them, melting on their sleeves. For one short and glorious moment, a few feet of sky was filled with snow, and Leonard Senior squinted so hard his eyes were nearly closed. He imagined that when he turned his head down, the ground would be covered and he would have to go inside and change out of his sandals and into a pair of real winter boots.

“What do you know!” Leonard Senior laughed. “They were right!” The couple smiled generously and touched the dampened speckles on their arms. “Wow,” they said, clearly without meaning it, “isn’t that something.”

Upstairs, Kerralyn and Junior watched from chairs by the window, their feet in tubs of warm sudsy water, a rainbow of nail polish bottles lined up on the sill. “Those poor motherfuckers are never going anywhere now,” Kerralyn said, scuffing the dead and useless skin off her heel. Junior filed down the nails on his left hand so short that the hidden edge was revealed, a tender arc of nerves.

“I’m getting in the bath. You should time Dad and see how long he keeps those people,” Kerralyn said.

“What about your toenails?”

“Reggie is picking me up at eight. No time.”

“Reggie is a shit ass,” Junior said.

•   •   •

LEONARD
JUNIOR,
alone in the window with his feet pruned and pale, ignored the perfect view down at his father’s bald head and looked instead at the phone next to him. He took Bess’s number out of his pocket. He compared her script to the even shapes of the numbers on the phone. He mapped out the movements he would make if he were to dial.

Bess was a lady who worked at the candle store at the mall. Things with Bess had gotten to the next level, flirting-wise. She was older and so free of all the high school associations. Junior wanted to take her to every place he had ever been. He put the paper down and picked up the receiver, listened to the question mark of the dial tone.

“Oh, hi, Leonard.”

They talked about Bess’s roommates, two women each with one baby, and about her shitty electric bill and her shitty gas bill and her shitty landlord. Junior tried to be sympathetic.

“They should give you a raise,” he said.

“Hell yeah, they should.”

“Plus I think you are very skilled. I mean, like, what’s the difference between the Fall Spice Apple, the Apple Pie and the Cozy Winter Apple?”

“That’s easy. The Fall Spice has nutmeg and clove, and the Pie has some kind of crust smell, I’m not sure how they do that, and the Cozy Winter pretty much just has a different label from the Fall Spice but the same smell, so I’d say you should choose based on your décor. Like if your room is more red or orange toned, I’d go with the Spice, whereas if you’ve got more white or sparkle themes, you’re better off with the Cozy Winter.” Junior splashed his feet in the pan of water and beamed. Here it was Wednesday, and if he pulled at its edges, he could almost consider this a long-distance date, their two voices running together like water.

“See that?” he praised her. “You have a real gift.”

“For candle smell at least,” she admitted, modestly.

They talked about people who annoyed them and things they wished they could afford. Then Bess said, “All right, Leonard. Tell me about my boobies. What are they like?”

“Oh,” Junior said. “Well,” Junior said. “Your boobies,” he started, “are like Fall Spice apples.”

“Hmm.” There was disappointment in her voice.

“They are like round and juicy Fall Spice apples,” Junior tried.

“Juicy, huh? Do you want to suck on them?”

“Sure, I’d like to suck on them. I bet they’d be delicious.”

“I bet they would too.”

Junior did not actually bet they would be delicious. He bet that they would taste like skin, though this did not stop him from wanting to try them out.

“Pretend that you are,” Bess said, and Junior looked for something on his own body that resembled a breast. He settled on his left knee and sucked it and licked it right into the phone, transmitting slurping noises into her ear.

“You are one hot papa, Leonard,” Bess said through some moaning.

“And you are one hot mama,” Junior added, but this turned out to be a bad thing to say, because once it was out there, the word
mama
, he felt his own mother, dead and ghostly, descend down on him from wherever she normally was. He felt her perch on his shoulders and put her ear to the phone, listening for every exact dirty word that came out of his mouth. She probably did not like Bess or think that she was the kind of girl Junior ought to call up in the first place, and when Bess said, “I’m going to take off my shirt now and you should too,” Junior felt his mother’s breath on his forehead, and he hung up the phone.

“Kerralyn!” Junior yelled, walking to the closed bathroom door. “Kerralyn!” He heard drops of water fall off a lifted leg back into the tub.

“What the hell do you want?” she asked from inside.

“Do you think Mom can see us all the time?”

“How the fuck should I know?!”

“But do you
think
so?”

“Do you mean like, can Mom see my naked-ass body right now from heaven or something?”

“Yeah, do you think she can?”

“Maybe. But I would rather not think about that. It’s not my damn fault if she looks.”

Junior considered this. “Can I come in?” He heard the metal slide of the shower curtain and then he opened the door and sat down on the closed toilet and said to his sister, hidden behind the undersea-themed plastic, “OK, then, how would you describe a boob?”

“One boob?”

“Boobs, however many.”

Kerralyn waited a second, then said, “Like a round globe of milk.”

Junior nodded. “What’s holding the milk in?”

“Who cares? You asked me to describe a boob and I did.”

“What’s the nipple then?”

“A fucking huge chocolate chip. I don’t know.”

“Fine. What else. Tell me about your stomach,” Junior said. “What’s it like?”

“It’s like a feast,” Kerralyn replied, “of smooth whipped cream.”

Leonard Senior slammed the front door behind him. “It’s a verifiable blizzard out there!” he yelled up the stairs. “It’s three days to Christmas and the snow won’t stop coming down!” His laughter rose up to them, through the floorboards and the carpet, where Junior was clothed and Kerralyn was not, their bodies, whatever they were like, hidden from all mortal eyes.

When Leonard Senior was younger, not yet a Senior, just a Leonard, not even young anymore really, after what could not have been described as a prime was over, he met a woman. She was younger than he but also not young. He met her at an all-night diner, where he bought her a piece of strawberry pie and a plate of onion rings.

He said: “You look lonely like how I feel.”

She said: “I have no idea how you feel.”

But she let him sit and watch her eat. Leonard revealed details of his loneliness—the proximity of television to bed, the white space of the refrigerator, the phone sitting quietly by the front door, and the light on the answering machine holding steady, never blinking. The woman did not look at him when he talked but moved the heavy strawberries around on her plate, mixed them with the whipped cream to make pink slop, which she placed carefully on her tongue with the tip of her first finger.

“You know where I want to go?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, “Jamaica.” She began to sway as if to slow reggae music. “I think I would like to live there for the rest of my life.”

“What would you do for money?” he wanted to know.

“Fuck it, whatever. Sell shell necklaces. I’d be good at that—I like to make things.” Leonard pictured her sitting on a white beach with coconut palms reaching high above her head and water playing at her toes. He said, “That sounds good.”

“I hear you don’t even need a passport to go there. Just a bikini and some damn flip-flops.”

“And some sunscreen,” he added. “And I bet they have bad mosquitoes.”

“Some fantasy you’ve got.”

Leonard Senior took the woman home with him. She got into his car and after that she got into his bed. He turned the television on and they made love to
The Golden Girls
. Love was not precisely what they made, but they did make something. A thing that later, Leonard Senior, with his eyes red and his hand squeezing her hand, the two of them sitting back in that diner, this time with only coffees for a meeting she had called, first begged and then paid her to keep. “I will give you one thousand dollars, I will give you one thousand two hundred dollars, I will give you fifteen hundred dollars.” She sat there, eyes down, looking into her cup while the money in her invisible bank account went up and up.

“Will you give me fifteen hundred dollars, plus all medical expenses, plus a ticket to Jamaica?” she finally said.

“Yes, yes, I will do that.”

“OK. But I want nothing to do with this little sucker,” she said, holding thumb and forefinger in the measurement of one inch. Leonard did not know if this signified the size of the baby or the size of her love for it. He got the idea though, and he sat back with his feet crossed at the ankle and smiled up at the stained ceiling. He ordered up two pieces of strawberry pie when the waitress came.