Shiska Berry

Any other Wednesday night, Jordana Rivers would have buttoned up her cardigan, drove home from work in silence and had a lovely dinner with her husband and two daughters before reading a story and putting the girls to bed. On this particular Wednesday, she happened to agree to an emergency appointment at six in the evening. “It’s the only time my daughter can make it, and I’m really excited for her to take this opportunity that we are giving her. Please stay late.” The woman on the phone sounded like she’d get pissy and Jordana Rivers was a pushover so she agreed. She expected some low-self-esteem, maybe eating-disorder type of girl. When Valerie Stevens showed up in a polka dot summer dress and handed her a pot cookie, Jordana Rivers stopped trying to expect what words would be coming out of Valerie Stevens’ shiny glossed lips.

Valerie Stevens was the type of girl who made the first move. Jordana had just gathered the breath to ask her icebreaker, What brings you to my office, but Valerie Stevens was too busy fumbling through her big purse.

I have something for you, just a second. Oh here it is.

She pulled out a small Tuperware container, gently pulled the yellow plastic lid off and with a Kleenex from the corner table, Valerie Stevens handed Jordana Rivers a peanut butter cookie. It had those tic tac toe marks made from a fork, just the way both of their mothers had baked them.

Here, I made these today.

Well, thank you.

They both let crumbs fall down to their laps and smiled through the chewing. Valerie was thinking that Jordana Rivers was a name that would be bigger than the title on a paperback novel. Jordana was trying to remember the last time she baked cookies and made a mental note to do that with her daughters soon.

I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately. These came out all right, I guess.

I thought it was delicious.

Valerie giggled and said, Just wait.

Excuse me? The therapist put on her concerned face and tilted her head.

Well, I guess I should tell you what I came here to talk about, right?

Yes. Where would you like to begin?

I guess I’m here because my mom thinks I’m a lesbian and wants me to have someone to help talk to me about it because she doesn’t know how to be the type of person to talk to about those things. But really, I’m not a lesbian, at least I wasn’t last month. My mom happened to call on the day that I had just called three guys I was sleeping with because I was pregnant and wanted them to pitch in for the abortion money and they were all being difficult so I started crying and she thought that meant I was definitely a lesbian.

Whoa. Sounds intense. Do you want to tell me more?

Yes, I’ve been dying to tell someone. I was so scared that I was going to end up on one of those people who says baby mama. I kept having flashes of me in cheap JCPenny’s clothes in some waiting room furniture setup where Maury would be the one to reveal who my baby’s daddy was.

That does sound scary.

Exactly. It didn’t take long to realize I needed to not be pregnant anymore.

Valerie liked that Jordana’s face had no expression. She continued.

First, I told my lesbian friend who lives upstairs. We were out at Akbar in Silverlake. It was just one of those Tuesday nights when we wished it was actually Friday. We went to the bathroom to do a bump of coke and all of a sudden she pulled out a tampon and told me, On the fucking dot, again. She likes to call it the dot and that’s one of the reasons I love being around her. Usually her dot comes after mine so I got a little scared, and probably because of the devilish nose powder I was under a spell where I didn’t care who judged me, I just needed to figure out if I was pregnant or not in that second.

She looked down and chipped red nail polish off her pinkie with her thumb. She only glanced up to check on Jordana’s expression. Still nothing.

On the way home I got a pee-on-me stick and found out I was indeed preggers. We did some more coke, went on Chatroulette and saw four dicks, talked with a few Turkish men and a bearded fellow wearing flannel in Washington whose speaker didn’t work. Then in our deepened chattiness, my friend remembered hearing that parsley could induce a miscarriage so we Googled it and spent a good hour laughing about it before we went to the only 24-hour Ralph’s in the Valley and bought some parsley.

Jordana raised her eyebrows and nodded. Valerie laughed.

I didn’t have cheesecloth so I just shoved it up there and hoped for the best.

Then she laughed so much she cried a little bit and Jordana kept nodding. Her mind was blank.

After three nights of shoving parsley up my vagina the only thing I was noticing was an oddly fresh breath in the mornings. I decided my call to Tomek was way overdue.

Who’s Tomek?

Jordana had to clear her throat. It felt itchy all of a sudden. Valerie noticed the water jug near the door. She kept telling her story as she filled two little paper cups with Sparkletts water.

Tomek is my soulmate. He has read more self-help books than anyone I know and he isn’t ashamed to tell anyone. Our relationship is based on love and acceptance and love and acceptance is just what a girl who’s shoving parsley up her vagina needs.

As she placed the water in Jordana’s hand she smiled and said, That and pot cookies.

Jordana coughed.

Tomek went out to the pharmacy and picked up an eighth of Shiskaberry for me!

Shiska-what?

This time Jordana was laughing and Valerie was serious.

Girl… Let me explain. So Shiskaberry is the name of a strain of pot. It’s my favorite because according to Rule Number Nine in Tomek’s Rules of Life, “If it’s Shiskaberry you just have to.” So when he showed up with some Shiskaberry we both just cracked up. Even before we got high we had laughter tears. It worked, I totally forgot that feeling I shared before, the one where I thought I was going to end up on Maury. I just knew that I would just have to trust that I’d figure it out.

Jordana’s eyes seemed different to Valerie. Besides a little sideways smile, Jordana kept her composure. she nodded and said, That’s amazing that you could come to that conclusion so suddenly.

Yeah, I know! Isn’t Tomek amazing? Well, I’m not your average pothead, Jordana Rivers.

Jordana Rivers’ face changed when she heard her name being spoken. Valerie just nodded at her and kept talking.

I learned how to bake pot cookies this year and it’s been my favorite hobby. So that night, I ground it up, mixed it with a stick of butter, and left it in the Crockpot to cook overnight because that’s my favorite way to do it. Tomek and I stayed up all night like we were two junior high girls at a sleepover except we were just getting high and playing Super Mario Brothers instead of trying to stay up all night talking to strangers on AOL the way I used to when I was 14. I was so excited when I found out Tomek still has one of those and I just love playing it. It’s the one with Yoshi, remember?

Jordana’s face went from blank to excited. She even clapped her hands together. Yeah, I do remember that! I used to play it too!

Yeah, isn’t it fun?

The last words to come out of Jordana’s mouth the rest of the session was a small little, Yup.

Tomek said out loud what I’d already been thinking but was too ashamed to admit. Why not just ask all of the guys for the money? I bet one of them is bound to give me the cash. It was a crazy idea, but what did I have to lose?

Valerie checked to see if Jordana was listening. She noticed that her water cup was crushed in her hand so she brought her another glass and with her back to Jordana she gave the quick back story of her ex.

So, I should mention here that about a year ago I was living in Ireland with this Irish guy I was madly in love with, but the rain just depressed me so instead of getting married for the visa, I came home. He had always told me how he thought California was evil and he’d never live in a place with such low morals so I didn’t even think to ask if he wanted to join me. I guess he didn’t believe me when I told him I wanted to be single for a while because he moved out here. Well, he was the first guy I told. Here’s another water for you.

Valerie had the small paper cup in her fingers like she was serving a martini to James Bond.

Back when we were together I casually told him the story from high school about a girl from my fashion design class. It was just like the home economics class people in places like Oklahoma have except that in Manhattan Beach they decided to call it fashion design and skip over the cooking and taking care of babies stuff. Well, anyway, one morning I saw the quiet girl who just doodled in her notebook doing something weird. Right beside her little tomato-looking pincushion there was a strip of condoms. She sat in the back near me where no one could really see us, but I could see her poke those holes like it was no big deal. It was real creepy, but I told my ex the story and then just straight up asked him if he’d ever do something like that. He laughed and didn’t take me seriously at all so I told him, “Well, I know you’re never going to be ready for an abortion, but I am… so don’t do it.”

That memory came to me while I was on the 405 during Saturday morning traffic trying to get to his place to ask him to help me come up with abortion money. By the time I was near that huge veteran’s cemetery I remembered how that night I dreamed of demons. They were long black haired scary creatures who tried to suffocate me with their stringy nasty dark hair. I could feel a panic coming on so I reached for my purse to get my pot cookie. I smiled at the cops driving beside me as I chewed. I love having little secrets, if you haven’t noticed.

Jordana’s nod was more like a head bob and Valerie liked it. She giggled and kept going.

I decided a long time before this abortion thing that I needed to keep things on a need to know basis with him. He looked happy and that scared me. Maybe it was because I told him after my pot cookie kicked in and since I wasn’t freaking out he wasn’t sure what reaction to give me. He is one of those people who waits to see what sort of response someone might want before speaking.

So… yeah, I decided to leave when he raised his voice and said he’d never help me if that’s what I wanted to do and he’d never forgive me if I did it. He followed me to my car and opened the door in a way so that I couldn’t drive off without hurting him.

Then I told him the funniest thing, “Why would I ever want to be with a guy who’d side with his sperm over me? Please shut the door now.” He must have thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care, I had two more guys to talk to and needed to hit the road.

This time Jordana giggled.

Next was this rich guy from Beverly Hills that I met on Craigslist. He liked to take me out to nice restaurants where I’d tell him all my funny stories and then we’d go our separate ways. I think he was just lonely and I was too so it worked out. One night we cured our loneliness by going all the way and I decided that I needed to sleep with more older men from then on out. He touched me in a way that made me appreciate my own beauty. I felt the way I felt when I worked as a nude model one summer and I’d look at the drawings after class and think, “Wow. I look good in charcoal.” It felt exactly like that and I didn’t even have a pot cookie or a cocktail with dinner that night.

Jordana recrossed her legs. Valerie stared at a framed inspirational poster of a tree.

When I told him the story I left out the part about my ex but I told him about the parsley because I thought it would be a good icebreaker. It wasn’t. He didn’t have the reaction I expected at all. Turns out before he was into dining with PYT’s from Craigslist he had a wife who left him because she wanted kids and he wasn’t ready. Isn’t it crazy how you could think you know someone and really not know anything about them?

He told me things like, “I could be ready now. I would take care of you and we could have a relationship if you want or we don’t have to if you don’t want.” I told him I’d go home and think about it. He told me that the parsley thing didn’t sound safe and not to try it again. I thought, “I’m OH FOR TWO, I better fucking try it again,” but I didn’t say that out loud. I took Beverly Glen back to the Valley and listened to The XX and tried to silence all the thoughts in my mind. I tried to pretend I was in a video game and all I had to do was make it up and down that curvy road to get to advance to the next level.

Jordana was trying to figure out what PYT meant. Valerie kept telling her story to the tree.

I’m not sure what the last guy’s real name is. I call him Skywalker because it was his favorite strain of pot. Tomek recognized him while we were out and introduced us and I forgot his real name because when he gave me his number I put it in as Skywalker. A week of texting turned into sexting which turned into him practically living at my place until the dishes and laundry were so piled up I had to kick him out. If we lived in a different reality, one where we hired a maid, I could see myself being very content just getting high and having sex and playing Mario with him for quite some time.

I ended up stalking the place he worked that night.  I told myself that it was creepy but I didn’t know what else to do.  When I told him I was pregnant he was shocked and scared.   He asked how I was feeling and what I wanted to do and if it’d ever happened to me before.  I hadn’t expected him to be so nice.  It was so comforting that when I realized that the other guys didn’t bother pretending to be concerned I didn’t really care. And that made me feel like maybe we could barter pot cookies for cleaning services or something.

We decided that the best thing to do was to each have a pot cookie, order takeout from Siam Cabin, and finally pass that Forest of Illusions level before we discussed anything. Have you ever had Siam Cabin? It’s not too far from your office, you should try the pineapple curry.

Jordana’s face shifted into an alert smile so quickly it reminded her of when teachers called on students who weren’t paying attention in class. She blushed and shook her head no, but had a smile that said she would probably google it later. Valerie continued.

I was the first to talk about it again.  It was sort of abrupt.  I just had to and it didn’t seem right to say it just as the joyful sounds of Luigi’s star power made all the turtles and mushrooms start falling off the TV screen, but somehow, “I want an abortion” just slipped out. When he said, Yeah, me too, I felt that huge weight off my shoulders and it was like he did too.

We didn’t really talk much the rest of the night.  He slept over and we really just slept. Back to back. Even though it felt nice waking up with him, I still ended up listening to The Smiths after Skywalker left for work at the pot place.  I had just told three guys in one day that I was pregnant and still felt like nothing happened or changed.  When “Half a Person” came on all I kept thinking was, maybe it is easier just to call up Maury to figure it out for me.

There was a short pause. Both tried to imagine the office as a stage for a daytime talk show. They both laughed a little bit, then Valerie straightened her posture and turned her focus back to Jordana. She noticed that they had the same colored eyes. It made her smile

I had little faith in getting help so I decided to go apply for a new credit card. I wanted to increase my odds so I applied for four, just in case. Can you picture my Mastercard commercial? $300 for abortion, a life without stretch marks, priceless?

It didn’t really feel like I was pregnant. I felt the same as I did before except in my head I kept thinking I wish I hadn’t neglected my vibrator that month.

It was definitely a Sunday and I was sort of depressed because I hadn’t really resolved the situation yet and I am a really impatient person. I decided to spend that Sunday Funday reading Oscar Wilde quotes I got from the library and listening to The Smiths. I thought that would be a sad and pathetic day, but you know what, it was a good day. Oscar Wilde has some good quotes. There was one I just had to adjust, it said: “Women try to ruin romance by making it last forever.” I found a red pen and crossed out the word WOMEN. I wanted to write MEN, but I printed PEOPLE above it instead. Writing in a library book made me feel like a big rebel and I suddenly got this grin on my face that I imagine all those old timer western train robbers probably had underneath their handkerchiefs. My Jesse James moment was ruined when Madre called. What a party pooper.

Here comes the Mom stuff, Jordana! I bet you’re used to this stuff a little more than parsley miscarriages!

Madre and I can go months without talking. Sometimes during these months I’ll get voice messages like, “It’s me, your mom, remember I gave birth to you?”

That day I answered. It turns out she was at home watching the Lifetime Movie Network. I love watching that when I’m hungover and feeling gross so talking to her about it felt nice that day. She told me how the Sigourney Weaver character was “so cruel” and how she didn’t want to be like her so she was calling to tell me that it was okay if I was a lesbian. HA! Here I was sleeping with three guys at a time and my mom still thinks that since I didn’t want to work things out with my ex I must be a lesbian. Well, I just thanked her for being so open and we both waited for the other to say something. She wanted me to confirm my sexuality which I didn’t feel like doing and I wanted her to say something about the weather. Guess who won that one? After she warned me of the heat wave, or whatever, we hung up. I wonder how long she had your number in her planner before she booked this appointment for me. I’m glad she did, Jordana, you’re so great to talk to.

Eventually Tomek called. He had met some guy who was here on business. They had a sleepover, which surprised me because Tomek wasn’t into sleepovers, but when I got to the hotel room I understood why he stayed. The guy had to fly back to New York, but got a late checkout so Tomek and I hung out at his suite and ordered room service. It had turned into an exciting Sunday Funday.

Skywalker was the first one with a plan. He came over that night with some trim that he got from one of the growers that his pharmacy works with. He had a huge garbage bag full of it actually. His plan was to bake with it and sell it and pay for the abortion with that money. It was such a hilarious plan that I couldn’t not do it. After all I had been having a lot of Shiskaberry pot cookies that week and when it’s Shiskaberry you just have to, right?!

Skywalker taught me how to double boil the pot butter. We got two pots, one with water to boil and the second small enough to fit inside. I guess that’s how people heat chocolate, but I bet chocolate doesn’t get the pretty purple steam that we got. Oh, he was so cute, his face got so excited and he told me things like, LOOK, that’s the chemical reaction, that’s how you know it’s ready. It was just adorable, Jordana!

I bet he’d be a great teacher one day. He actually bought everything to do the baking, two pots & lids, banana bread mix, peanut butter chips, for that extra BAM, he said, a couple muffin trays, and even the cheesecloth to strain out the trim from the butter. Seeing the cheesecloth just reminded me of the parsley so I told him about how I tried to have a miscarriage and we both were so high at that point that we laughed until we cried. He said I could keep whatever we didn’t use, just in case.

Both women were on the edges of their seats now, leaning forward towards each other. Valerie placed her elbow on the armrest and rested her chin in her palm as she finished her story.

I was so lost in la la land with Skywalker and the baking that I had completely forgotten about my ex and the rich guy. Both had been having battles in their minds. When the weekend came, my ex asked me to come over and I didn’t want to but there was a part of me that knew he liked to talk to my parents still and I was worried he’d tell them so I went over there.

He didn’t say much. Just gave me an envelope with money in it, told me he felt like he was David Duchovny in Californication and it was all too much for him so he was going home. I wanted to hug him and kiss him but I didn’t. When I left I thought about how when we were together we talked about having a baby and raising it out there in Ireland so I could be a mum instead of a mom. I felt like he hated me for not sticking to it so I just left. I felt really bad and part of me knew he wanted me to run back in there and tell him I’d changed my mind and could just go back to the way things were, but I knew I’d only be doing that to make him feel better and I guess it wasn’t my job to make him feel better anymore.

I didn’t really want to be alone and since I was already on the Westside I went ahead and called Rich Guy. He took me to Nik’s Martini Bar in Beverly Hills, you should definitely go there sometime. They have a refrigerated bar stocked with all sorts of vodka and they even give you huge fancy fur coats to wear while you are tasting! When I ordered a cocktail he said, so I assume you don’t want to keep it. An apology came out of my mouth without me even thinking about it. He said he understood. He said that it made him realize he wants that next. He told me about this woman that he met at Trader Joe’s. I told him he should go for it. We had the steamed artichoke in miso butter and it tasted like a dream in my mouth.

Rich guy gave me a heavier envelope than my ex. It was way more than I asked him for which made me wonder if Madre would call someone in my situation a prostitute.

In the end, I had come up with way more than enough to have the abortion, which worked out nice since I didn’t end up with any new credit cards because I hadn’t lied enough on the applications. My ex gave me exactly half of the four hundred that I guessed it would cost. Rich guy gave me double. Skywalker took out the cost of buying all the baking stuff and we split the profits evenly leaving me with a total of over a grand. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never held that much cash in my hands before. Money had become just a number next to a line saying: Account Balance on a little receipt that I’d always crumbled up and threw away at the ATM. In that moment money became real again. It was scary. I almost felt like I could relate to those bankers who got those huge bonuses that everyone was pissed about last year.

Tomek went with me. I wouldn’t want to be in that waiting room with all those other people who don’t want to be there with anyone else. He was wearing a shirt that looked like Freddy Krueger. Before I could comment on it he went ahead and told me that was the shirt he wore the last time he drove a friend to the abortion clinic. Then he told me about that time and how he was in the Midwest somewhere and the girl had gone to one of those fake we’re-going-to-help-you-Christian places and they lied and said she was farther along than she actually was so she ended up having a miscarriage but in the miscommunication she had the abortion too. So now every time that girl fills out the info at the gyno she has to say one pregnancy, one miscarriage, and one abortion. Isn’t that crazy? Also, she made her boyfriend sign a napkin at Denny’s promising to give her the money and when he didn’t she took him to small claims court and won! I wish I could see what Judge Judy would say about that!

There were a lot of magazines with Sarah Palin on them in the waiting room so maybe that’s why the whole time I was in there getting the abortion all I was thinking was I wonder what Sarah Palin would have to say about me right now?

I used the extra money to treat Tomek and my lesbian friend from upstairs to a spa day in Palm Springs. We drank mojitos, laid out by the pool, smoked pot and stared up at palm trees. It was amazing. Oh look, I guess the time’s up. Thanks for listening, Jordana Rivers. Your name sounds like it crawled right out of Lifetime, maybe that’s why my mom picked you.

Jordana stood up and hugged Valerie before she walked out. She took streets home and admired the way Los Angeles looked at night. When she got home her husband kissed her and she smiled the way she used to smile when they first met. He noticed and looked at her in that particular way she likes him to look at her. She said she’d finish putting the girls to bed.

Her daughters had a bunk bed. The older one slept on top, but that night she told them to both squeeze in with her on the bottom one. With one on each side of her she told them a story and fell asleep with them. This is the story she told them:

Once there was this Princess and she loved getting frozen yogurt, especially with princes. One month she had a lot of frozen yogurt. It was really fun, but too much frozen yogurt made her sick. In her kingdom it was expensive to go to the doctor’s when you get sick from too much frozen yogurt so she asked all the princes for money. One prince said he’d only give her the money to go to the doctor is she promised to only get frozen yogurt with him forever. The second prince told her that he’d be happy to pay for all the frozen yogurt for the rest of her life. The third prince didn’t come from a wealthy kingdom, but together they had a bake sale to make the money for the doctor’s appointment. When she got better she decided to try sushi for awhile.

shiska berry (part one)

Usually I can tell what mood I’m in based on who I like to tell my drama to. If I’m feeling really guilty I could call my mom and feel worse about everything or I could just go out with Tomek and find a way to feel better about it instead. That one summer, when I got really lucky with the lads and then ended up pregnant and felt like I could be those women wearing JC Penny’s dresses in a waiting room chair on a stage of a 90′s daytime talk show, like Jenny Jones, I was too scared to tell anyone what was going on, or so I thought.  But how can anyone keep that secret?  I ended up telling everyone what was going on, but only though a series of truths and untruths. This is what happened.

First, I told my lesbian friend who lives upstairs. We were out at Akbar in Silverlake. We went to the bathroom to do a bump of coke and all of a sudden she pulled out a tampon and told me, On the fucking dot again. She likes to call it, the dot and that’s one of the reasons why I love being around her. Usually her dot comes after mine so I got a little scared, and probably because of the devilish nose powder I was under a spell where I didn’t care who judged me, I just needed to figure out if I was pregnant or not in that second!

She totally understood, we drove back to the valley and went to the rite aid on the corner.  I’d always stolen pregnancy tests in the past because one of my feminist friends from college discussed her idea of what should be free information or free supplies, i.e. condoms, pregnancy tests, pads & tampons.  I would have just walked out with it if it was a Saturday morning and I looked like any other good girl in a summer dress who is buying birthday cards for grandma with my “not a plastic bag” tote filled with tampons or whatever I didn’t feel like paying for, BUT since I was a little high from that bump in the bathroom and maybe a little paranoid I felt like I should just buy the overpriced pee on me stick.  It wouldn’t be worth getting caught stealing a pregnancy test at one in the morning with cocaine eyes.

Then we came home and I peed on it and it said I was pregnant and then it faded and said I wasn’t. That’s what I get for buying the cheap one. The night wasn’t wasted. We did some more coke, went on chat roulette and saw four dicks, talked with a few Turkish men, and a bearded fella wearing flannel in Washington who’s speaker didn’t work. Then in our deepened chattiness, my friend remembered hearing that parsley could induce a miscarriage. We googled it and spent a good hour laughing about it before we went to what felt like the only 24hour Ralph’s in the valley and bought some parsley.

I didn’t have cheese cloth like the blogs mentioned, so I just shoved it up there and hoped for the best.

Later, way later, when I’d almost forgotten I’d become one of those women who check that box at the gyno if she’s ever had an abortion, I told my younger sister about it. She called me freaking out that her high school boyfriend’s condom got stuck in her. She asked if it’d ever happened to me and it had. It happened when I was a first year in college and was seeing this bartender who only knew the me in my fake id. He said he couldn’t find the condom and I thought that meant it fell on the floor or something. Pulling out that parsley felt a lot like pulling out that condom. I felt ashamed. I decided to go ahead and tell her about the parsley just in case she needed a homeopathic remedy for pregnancy in the future. I thought she’d laugh because that’s all I wanted to do, but instead she seemed enthusiastic to have gained such knowledge.  I could hear her googling it it just like I had done.  I hoped that she would try the tea version and let me know if it actually made your period hurry up and arrive.

After three nights of shoving parsley up my vagina the only thing I was noticing was an oddly fresh breath in the mornings. I decided my call to Tomek was way overdue.

Tomek is my gay soul mate. He has read more self help books than anyone I know and he isn’t ashamed to tell anyone. Our relationship is based on love and acceptance and love and acceptance was just what a girl who is shoving parsley up her vagina needs. That and pot cookies. He stopped by the pharmacy and splurged on an eighth of shiska berry. Rule number nine in our rules to life is “If it’s shiska berry, you just have to.” So I figured whatever I’d have to do, it would just have to work. Overnight in the crock pot, hours of super Mario brothers, the one with Yoshi, and three dozen vegan sugar cookies fresh out of the over and we finally had a plan.

“Why not just ask all of the guys for the money? I bet one of them is bound to give you the cash. You know, I bet you could get enough to even pay rent.”

If it’s shiska berry, you just have to.

The first guy I went to ask was my ex-boyfriend. He’s Irish and I lived over there with him until I couldn’t handle the rain anymore and came back to LA. I loved being single so much that when months after the break up he decided to come win me back I told him not to come, that it’d be pointless. He didn’t believe me and came out anyway. He got a tan or I guess that’s the good thing that came out of that. We’d been broken up for over a year at that point, but we had this cycle of that every now and then booty call that would be so much fun we’d want to keep it up for at least a lover’s weekend, but it always ended with him storming out because I’d refuse to tell him those words he wanted to hear.

I was most suspicious of him because of his strong determination to “get me back”. On one of our lover’s weekends we drove out to see Hearst Castle and it was too rainy to go and we spent the weekend in the motel room drinking white wine spritzers instead. After the first bottle and before the sex I casually told him a story from high school about a girl from my fashion design class.  It was just like the home economics class that people in places like Oklahoma had except that in Manhattan Beach they decided to call it fashion design and skip over the cooking and taking care of babies stuff. Well, I saw this girl pull out her little tomato-looking pin cushion and then a pack of condoms. She sat in the back near me where no one could really see us, but I could see her poke those holes like it was no big deal. I heard her say things like, “We’ll see if he wants to really take becky to prom after this.” My ex laughed at the story and said my teenage years were really funny compared to his milking cows on a farm experience. So then I casually told him, “Well, I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t going to try something like that.” Maybe because the wine loosened him up or something, but he didn’t get upset with me, instead he laughed and said he was no where near ready for a kid. I told him, “Well, I know you’re never going to be ready for an abortion, but I am… so don’t do it.”

I remembered that conversation while stuck in traffic on the 405. It wasn’t until I exited and ended up near that huge veteran cemetery that I remembered how that night I dreamed of demons, long black haired scary creatures who tried to suffocate me with their evil essence. I could feel a panic coming on so I reached for my purse to get a pot cookie. I smiled at the cops driving beside me as I chewed.

I decided I was on a need to know basis with my ex. He looked happy and maybe it was because I told him after my pot cookie kicked in and since I wasn’t freaking out he wasn’t sure what reaction to give me. He was one of those people who waits to see what sort of response someone might want before speaking. I call it “protecting feelings” and I hate having to be around people who expect that sort of thing.

I decided to leave when he raised his voice and said he’d never help me if that’s what I wanted to do and he’d never forgive me if I did it. He followed me to my car and opened the door in a way so that I couldn’t drive off without hurting him.

I simply told him, “Why would I ever want to be with a guy who’d side with his sperm over me? Please shut the door now.” He must have thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care, I had two more guys to talk to and needed to hit the road.

The second guy was this rich guy from Beverly Hills that I met on Craigs list. He liked to take me out to nice restaurants where I’d tell him all my funny stories and then we’d go our separate ways. I think he was just lonely and I was too so it worked out. One night we cured our loneliness by going all the way and I decided that I needed to sleep with more older men from then on out. He touched me in a way that made me appreciate my own beauty. I felt the way I felt when I worked as a nude model on summer and I’d look at the drawings after class and think, “Wow. I look good in charcoal.” It felt exactly like that and I didn’t even have a pot cookie or a cocktail with dinner that night.

When I told him the story I left out the part about my ex but I told him about the parsley because I thought it would be a good icebreaker. It wasn’t. He didn’t have the reaction I expected at all. Turns out before he was into dining with P.Y.T’s from Craigs list he had a wife who left him because she wanted kids and he wasn’t ready. “I could be ready now. I would take care of you and we could have a relationship if you want or we don’t have to if you don’t want.” I told him I’d go home and think about it. He told me that the parsley thing didn’t sound safe and not to try it again. I thought, “I’m OH FOR TWO, I better fucking try it again,” but I didn’t say that out loud. I took Beverly Glen back to the valley and listened to the XX and tried to silence all the thoughts in my mind.

The third guy was trickier to track down. He worked at the pharmacy but because the rules were all changing I wasn’t sure if my prescription would let me go to his shop and I didn’t even know his real name. I called him Skywalker because it was his favorite strain. Tomek recognized him while we were out one night and introduced us and I forgot his real name because when he gave me his number I put it in as Skywalker. A week of texting turned into sexting which turned into him practically living at my place until the dishes and laundry were so piled up that I got frustrated and kicked him out. If we lived in a different reality, one where we hired a maid, I could see myself being content just getting high and having sex and playing mario with him for quite some time.

I ended up stalking the place he worked that night.  I told myself that it was creepy but I didn’t care.  He was shocked and scared and I told him he could come over and we could just talk.  He asked how I was feeling and what I wanted to do and if it’d ever happened to me before.  I hadn’t expected him to be so nice.  It was so comforting that when I realized that the other guys didn’t bother pretending to be concerned I didn’t really care. And that made me feel like maybe we could barter pot cookies for cleaning services or something.

We decided that the best thing to do was to have a pot cookie, order the pad see ew and green curry from Siam Cabin, and finally pass that forest of illusions level before we discussed anything.

I was the first to talk about it again.  It was sort of abrupt.  I just had to and it didn’t seem right to say it just as the joyful sounds of Luigi’s star power all the turtles and mushrooms started falling off the tv screen, but somehow, “I want an abortion,” just slipped out.

“Yeah, me too.”

We didn’t really talk much the rest of the night.  He slept over and we really just slept. Even though it felt nice waking up with him, I still ended up listening to The Smiths after Skywalker left for work.  I had just told three guys that I was pregnant in one day and still felt like nothing happened or changed.  When “Half a Person” came on all I kept thinking was, maybe it is easier just to call up Maury to just figure it out for me.

Boys are like twix bars

When I was in ninth grade I wrote a short story for my honors English class called “Boys are like Twix Bars” because my teacher told me that similes were important and made cool, catchy titles. I wanted an A so I did what she said to do. It was about how hard it was to dump my ex because I had a crush on a new guy and in the end I went back to my ex.  By the time grades came out I had dumped that ex twice and was making out with the other dude.  It wasn’t a good story at all, but I think I got an A anyway.

Something like that was a big problem to me and everyone else I knew.  All my junior high friends consoled me, at first. Then asked how I could do that to such a nice guy.  Then I figured I should have seen what it was like to date a guy old enough to drive.  Next week everyone agreed that only sluts date high school boys. And eventually it wrapped back around to some made-up memory of what a great boyfriend that other guy was. It was all pretty stupid and hilarious, but I don’t think I saw things that way yet.

All of this happened in Oklahoma, by the way, in a place called Midwest City.  I could see a water tower painted in our school colors from my bedroom window.  I could also see big brick houses with front yards big enough to need a John Deere riding lawn mower.  In the middle of all the schools and houses and gas stations there was just woods for miles and miles, or at least that’s how it felt.

I thought maybe it was just because I was a whiny bratty teenager, but it sort of makes sense to create so much excitement during such dull days.

Because of Facebook, I know that most of them are married now.  Boys are still like twix bars for me, but now I don’t pretend that it bothers me anymore.

parsley

After three nights of shoving parsley up her vagina, Stephanie had finally accepted the fact that she was definitely pregnant.

She was having a really good night out with her lesbian friend when she realized that she might be pregnant. They were at a dive bar in Silverlake. Dani invited her into the bathroom to do some coke. It was fun until Dani pulled out a tampon and Stephanie realized she hadn’t needed to buy tampons in quite awhile. She silently told herself, Shit. But the moment she left the bathroom and returned to the loud dance part of the bar she lost herself in the music and heard the words, “These are the good times of your life so put on a smile and it’ll be all right.” She figured that was good advice and put erased the thoughts from her mind.

Later that night she invited Dani and a couple other girls to her tiny apartment in the valley to finish off the coke. There were four of them total and it was crowded. They squished together on her futon and talked to men in Turkey on chat roulette until four in the morning. Towards the end of the binge she ended up telling them about how she just realized that she might be pregnant. One of the girls from the bar started talking about how her sister had used parsley to get rid of it. Another one said she should go steal a pregnancy test immediately because that type of information should be free. Dani offered to steal one for her in the morning because she had to pick up some more tampons anyway and she always shoplifted those anyway. The four of them obsessively googled “herbal abortion” until the sun came up and everyone crawled back to wherever they came from.

When she woke up the next night, Stephanie watched a lifetime movie and laughed her hangover away. As she started to put herself back together by showering and checking her Facebook she remembered the words pregnancy and parsley. Luckily the girls from the night before had bookmarked some feminist blog that looked like a really bored 17 year old had created, but it gave her some guidance, so she appreciated it. “Wrap up about four or five leaves in a cheese cloth. Insert. Leave over night. Rinse & Repeat.”

Stephanie didn’t know what cheese cloth was and neither did the girl at the health food store so she just omitted that part of the instructions. The only change she noticed was an odd taste in her mouth in the mornings.

Reaching deep inside herself and pulling out the soggy green stuff felt gross to her. It reminded her of the time the condom got “lost” inside her. Stephanie was 18, in college, fucking the bartender from a margarita bar who thought she was at least 23. He vaguely mentioned not being able to find the condom. He felt too awkward asking her to look for it inside her and assumed she’d figure it out.

She was to young and inexperienced to know that these things happen. Eventually she was masturbating and felt something up there. Feeling it and not knowing what it was frightened her into getting lost in thoughts of ending up on a daytime talk show to talk about her rare deformed vagina. She was living in college dorms then so she really remembers the walk to the communal bathrooms to see if she could “pee it out” more than the sex or finding the condom. She stared at the stains on the cheap blue carpet. There were so many black gum spots that she had never noticed before. All the doors had white boards that said names. One said Cunt in a pink Sharpie. Another said, Who the fuck made broccolli? She thought about how she didn’t know any of these girls and the realization that she was living with twenty strangers scared her. Then, pulling it out felt disgusting and throwing it away felt degrading and that was what she thought about in the mornings when she was dealing with the parsley.

a prolonged feeling of guilt

When Victor left he took the George Forman grill. All of his philosophy books were still in a stack beside the nightstand. The Tibetan prayer flag was still strung across the window in the bedroom, right where he put it when he moved in. The scarf that Kelly knit him last winter was on the bottom of the laundry basket. That aroma therapy eye pillow that they’d sometimes fight over was stashed under the pillows. The “This mug says nothing about me” mug sat on the kitchen counter making coffee stain circles, but the George Foreman was definitely gone.

“Wasn’t he a vegetarian?” her sister asks over the phone.

“Yeah–I mean, no,” she pauses. Kelly is lying on her bed and staring at the blank ceiling. “He was a pescatarian.”

“Oh yeah. What’s that mean again?”

“He eats fish, but no other meats.”

“Oh, I never thought about using the Foreman for salmon!–”

Kelly interrupts, “I think he used it to grill zucchini actually.”

“I heard Mariah Carrey does that too.”

Every other Monday, Kelly goes to see Dr. Carmichael.  It’s been like that for three years now. She lives in New York alone and this is her parent’s way of making sure she’s doing okay.

“Tell me one thing that you never told him,” instructs Dr. Carmichael.

She thinks, I never told him about you, but she keeps that to herself.   Kelly stares at the box of Kleenex on the table. It’s one of those holiday designs with smiling snowmen. She thinks they look creepy.

“I guess,” she pauses and realizes that one of the snowmen has the same hat with ear flaps that Victor had. She hopes he left it behind and starts visualizing where he might have put it if he didn’t take it. Was it under the bed? Or in that messy pile of coats and shoes by the door

“Kelly?”

“Oh, sorry. I just got distracted, I like your Kleenex box.”

“Oh thank you, but I asked you to tell me something you kept from him. Can you think of anything?” She sounds like one of those detectives on TV.

“His breath smelled.”

Kelly starts rubbing the surface of the couch, feeling the soft ridges of the fabric. Her palm flattens and flexes as she tells Dr. Carmichael about how offended he got when she bought him that special toothpaste that supposedly helped with morning breath. This petting action happens often during their sessions together. Dr. Carmichael thinks it’s the most interesting thing about Kelly. She calls Kelly, Linus in all of her notes, and even once half way joked with her husband about making Kelly the subject of her next self help book.

“So how did you feel when he didn’t want your help to cure this bad breath?” Dr. Carmichael tries to make her voice sound sympathetic.

Kelly doesn’t know how it made her feel, or she can’t remember because it happened last spring and now it’s winter and it’s cold outside and she’s worried he forgot his hat with the ear flaps because now his ears might be cold wherever he is.

Dr. Carmichael yawns and the session ends a little early so that they can have time to make the next appointment.

Kelly met Victor when he was working for Save the Children. He was just one of those guys who stands out on the streets asking people to “adopt” a child. He was really good at picking out the people he thought might donate. Then, he’d turn a friendly conversation into a prolonged discussion of that person’s wasteful budget which led the said person to all of a sudden feel a pile of guilt and the quick fix was pulling out a credit card. It was a process that caused his managers to never promote him from the street level. “You’re the best one we’ve got. Think of the children,” they told him.

Victor was working in Soho while Kelly was shopping. She probably would have handed over her credit card regardless, but Victor didn’t know that then. He saw that she had a couple shopping bags and convinced her that if she would cut back on designer jeans, little girls in Calcutta might not be forced into prostitution.

Two weeks later Kelly received a picture of a boy in Ecuador. Pedro.

Things got serious really quickly.  He moved in by the time that Pedro had sent her two pictures and a thank you note. Kelly wasn’t the type to keep a boyfriend.  Even her sister was shocked, “Wait, that guy that suckered you into giving up an extra thirty bucks every month?”

“It just happened all of a sudden.  He just needed a place to stay, something about having a crazy roommate.  I couldn’t tell him no…”she told her.

“Well, we already knew that.  Pedro is proof.”

The things he left

When Victor left he took the George Forman grill. All of his philosophy books were still in a stack beside the nightstand. The Tibetan prayer flag was still strung across the window in the bedroom, right where he put it when he moved in. The scarf that Kelly knit him last winter was on the bottom of the laundry basket. That aroma therapy eye pillow that his peace corps friend sent.   The “This mug says nothing about me” mug was still in the kitchen, but the George Forman was gone.

“Wasn’t he a vegetarian?” her sister asked.

“Yeah–I mean, no. He was a pescitarian.

“What’s that mean?”

“He eats fish, but no other meats.”

“Oh, I never thought about using the Foreman for salmon!”

“I think he used it to grill zucchini actually.”

“I heard Mariah Carrey does that too.”

one perspective

I always leave my table when the single zero hits.  I figure double zero is a little lucky since there are two of em, but that other one stands alone so big and proud that I just don’t trust it.  No matter how up or down I am I always stack em up and cash out.  One day it hit on my first go at it. I had literally just cashed my paycheck thirty minutes before I saw that shitty white ball stop at the single zero. It should have stopped in 27, my red baby, but that day instead of hitting big on the first go it popped out of my winnings and into that lonely green devil. So, because I’m a man of my word, I asked that greasy kid dealer to cash me out.  I knew he thought I was crazy, but I’m okay with that. I wasn’t too proud to push over those dinky green chips.  I hate the green ones anyway, green like the zero and green like money, it’s all evil in a way.

The Dixie isn’t really a fancy joint. If it were a bar it’d be a dive that even the regulars are embarrassed about.  Me and about a hand full of other locals even remember when it was still called the Dixie.  Back then it was about fancy dinners and going out on the riverboat.  Whenever my mom’s relatives would come to town that’s what we’d do for fun and I just got a kick out of it.  Those great big ole stacks, to me, they were bigger than anything else. Even more impressive was the petal wheel at the back.  I liked to watch all that water splash and make our trail.  It was like in the winter time when you saw where your dog had already run around, but the only difference was out on the river the trail of where we’d come from was disappearing just as quickly as it was created.  Sort of like we’d never be there at all.  I really liked that. I knew we were supposed to be there eating dinner and visiting and enjoying ourselves, but I kept asking to go to the bathroom and instead would run out back to watch the wheel turn  and that trail appear and disappear; I liked it that much.

Now, it goes by Lucky Deuces. There is this huge brick red 2 lined with gold lights that puts the original little sign off the interstate to shame.  They built up this casino building with six floors and then that extra tower that they call the hotel.  But what’s really got the place looking terrible is that on the other side of the river is that private school.  I think it’s religious without being too fire and brimstone since a lot of the college crowd ends up here.  You can spot them at the entrance in their easter color polos and khakis like they came for tennis lessons or something.  I don’t mind them so much, I guess.

Usually the college kids come for shits and giggles and leave after a few hours, but every now and then when the boy is really trying to play house with a girl they get a room at the hotel.  Then they are here forever.  Sort of like that commercial that always comes on during the news, the one about a pill for depression or erectile dysfunction.  You are familiar with the them but never want to fully acknowledge them in public for fear of being associated with them. I like to keep my head down, play my numbers and be left alone.

There was this one couple, he seemed like his only schooling was to be a big shot and she had the thickest accent that no one dared asked her where she was from for fear of insulting the poor thing. Anyway, they must have been from small towns where after ten minutes of banter all of a sudden you’re lined up to speak at the wedding or something because they followed me around like hungry puppy dog that weekend and it was all because I happened to explain out loud that I was cashing out on account of my thing with the double zeros.  I came back the next day and there they were, she had her face painted up and her blond hair pulled back with a neat little red ribbon and he was looking as his watch the way business men do when waiting for an elevator or something.

You again, he said, trying to pretend they weren’t out there waiting for me all day.

I looked up and nodded and that little moment of eye contact was the only invitation that they needed.

If they told me their actual names I don’t remember.  He called her Babe and she called him But Honey.

I felt like a right perv for thinking this but she was as cute as a button. He sat in the seat next to me and she just stood behind him, telling him different numbers to bet on. She always leaned up on her tippy toes and pressed her palms into his shoulders just to watch that ball fall into a number.

If their number won she’d clap her hands and pull him back for a kiss. If they lost she’d say, But, Honey…, then she’d do this thing with her fingers where she’d sort of scratch the back of his head, but when she did it he sort of acted the way a dog does when you scratch the back of its ears.

At first they were doing all right.  Just picking numbers and doing like I was doing.  But instead of sticking with it, he started betting on the outside, taking all the fun out of the game.  Every time he’d lose I’d hear a loud, Dag-gum-it from him. With the last ten chips he said, Alright Babe, you pick this time then we’ll go.

We both ended up winning with 25, when I asked her why she picked it, she said it was because Jesus’ birthday.  Alice laughed like it was the first time she’d heard that.  She giggled.  All of her bets were like.  14 was the age of her sister. 22 was the number of years her parents were married.  32 was the number her boyfriend wore for the baseball team back at home.  27 was the football number of some other boy from back home, she whispered that to me when he went to the bathroom. Four was the one that shocked me, she told me it was the number of years they’d been together.  He smiled at her and squeezed her hand.  They were babies but they’d lasted longer than both of my marriages.

Single zero hit just in time for Charlie to get there so I was happy to go home. Charlie is this elderly man who plays the slots. He wears an oxygen mask and has a huge scar that runs across the back of his skull from ear to ear, the long way. The table that those kids chose was in direct view of Charlie and his Black Magic machine. I told them good-bye and they said they’d see me tomorrow.

As I left Charlie’s machine started dinging and blinking. I saw him take off the mask and smile at nobody in particular. That Aerosmith song from Armageddon was playing. I smelled like Turkish Royals, and I had just about broke even.

At home, I went for a walk. Checked my e-mails. Called my kids and my parents. Watched the local news, but it was about a local kid who was murdered so I put on a movie instead. About midway through I decided to go back to the Dixie.

The night crowd made me a little edgy, but sure enough those kids were still there. Something was different though, it was like before they were cuddly and happy to be there, but when I came back they let me sit in between them and that made me feel awkward.

She was betting on her own and he kept going back and forth to the ATM. While he was gone she’d talk to me a lot and ask me questions. I told her about the place and how it used to be a riverboat, I told her about my ex wives and my three sons. I told her about my sort of girlfriend, the woman from the credit union. She told me about her boyfriend and how he played baseball and that now he had this new betting system he created. She knew all the songs that came on and would sing along. She asked me if I remembered them like they were old or something. I guess to her, they were.

When he came back he told me about his system. It had something to do with betting on black and just doubling the bet if it turned out red. It didn’t sound like he’d win much. When I told him that he said that if you have enough money you can win anything. I told him that made sense, but it really didn’t.

I started betting where she was betting and soon I was up four hundred, not counting the money for earlier in the day. That sort of stuff never happens to me.

I was up a hundred if you didn’t count the money I had earlier in the day. He came back and sat on the other side of me.  He did like he said and bet on black.  It was 27.  She gave me a high five.

 

 

riverboat roulette

If they told me their actual names I don’t remember.  He called her Babe and she called him Matty.  Babe was as cute as a button, but I felt like a right perv thinking that so the moment I thought that I kept it to myself.  She was probably a cheerleader in high school.  She smiled like one and had really good posture.  He was too small for football though, Matty probably played baseball.  I bet his parents still have his trophies in a case above the bed he used to sleep in as a boy. They were probably high school sweethearts back in whatever town they came from.

They stopped at the first table, Alice was there in her black suit with fold trim.  But Babe and Matty didn’t know that Alice’s table had a view of Charlie.  Charlie is this old man who they have to move the chair away from the Black Magic slot machine so that his grandson can push his wheelchair in front of it.  Then they put his oxygen tank in the seat.  When the machine starts dinging like he’s just won something big he takes the mask off and smiles at nobody in particular.

Babe and Matty didn’t really notice Charlie. Matty sat in the seat beside me, right in front of the middle 12. I was at the top, by the wheel.  Babe was right behind Matty and when they’d win she’d lean up on her tippy toes and press her palms into his shoulders just to watch that ball fall into a number. I played with orange chips and they got pink.

At first they were doing all right.  Just picking numbers and doing like I was doing.  But instead of sticking with it, he started betting on the outside, taking all the fun out of the game.  Every time he’d lose I’d hear a loud, Dag-gum-it from him. With the last ten chips he said, Alright Babe, you pick this time then we’ll go.

We both ended up winning with 25, when I asked Babe why she picked it, she said it was because Jesus’ birthday.  Alice laughed like it was the first time she’d heard that.  Babe giggled.  All of her bets were like.  14 was the age of her sister. 22 was the number of years her parents were married.  32 was the number Matty wore for the baseball team back at home.  27 was the football number of some other boy from back home, she whispered that to me when he went to the bathroom. Six was the one that shocked me, Matty told me it was the number of years they’d been together.  He smiled at her and squeezed her hand.  They were babies but they’d lasted longer than both of my marriages.

If their number won she’d clap her hands and pull him back for a kiss. If they lost she’d say, Aww, Matty, then she’d do this thing with her fingers where she’d sort of scratch the back of his head, but when she did it Matty sort of acted the way a dog does when you scratch the back of its ears.

It was just a $10 minimum bet table and after a couple hours they still hadn’t run out of chips.  Matty wanted to play black jack as soon as he realized that Babe was betting on that other boy’s number.  They played until there were

When they left the music started to sound like those love requests with Delilah, right after that Aerosmith song from Armageddon came on the single zero hit so I went home.  I smelled like Turkish Royal cigarettes, but I had just about broke even.

I microwaved a TV dinner and stayed in for a couple hours, but there was nothing else to do so I ended up back at the Dixie.  I was just about out of the money I had intended on spending to play the game when Babe and Matty showed up again.  This time it was Babe that took a seat beside me.  He had a look that said he’d been saying a lot of Dag-gum-its recently.

Babe was doing real good, way better than myself. So I started to follow her bets and it worked.  I asked her about the numbers she was picking, but this time there were no funny stories, it was just, Oh, I’m just doing whatever feels right.

Then Matty told her he had figured it all out.  He knew how to beat the system.  I thought that he was talking about card counting or black jack or poker or something that has a system, but he meant roulette.

You see, Babe, you gotta bet on the outside, like ten on black and then if you don’t win, if it’s red, then you just double your bet and win it the next time.

So then what do you do if you its red again the second time?

You double again.

So ten bucks then twenty bucks then forty bucks?

Yeah.

She paused to do the math.  Meanwhile it landed on 26 and no one won anything.  Three people at the table cashed out and left.  I could still see Charlie and his oxygen tank at the slots. The craps tables were cheering so loud I couldn’t hear what they said but all of a sudden Matty was gone and Babe wasn’t smiling.

I was up a hundred if you didn’t count the money I had earlier in the day. Matty came back and sat on the other side of me.  He did like he said and bet on black.  It was 27.  Babe gave me a high five.

games and the people who play them

I always leave my table when the single zero hits.  I figure double zero is a little lucky since there are two of em, but that other one stands alone so big and proud that I just don’t trust it.  No matter how up or down I am I always stack em up and cash out.  One day it hit on my first go at it. I had literally just cashed my paycheck thirty minutes before, just so you know I always put enough of it away so that I can make rent later, I’m not one of those gamblers, so don’t you get started with me.  I saw that shitty white ball, it was getting warped too, they don’t change ‘em out at Dixie, which I don’t bicker too much about because usually it’s in my favor, but on that day, nope.  It should have stopped in 27, my red baby, but that day instead of hitting big on the first go it popped out of my winnings and into that lonely green devil. So, because I’m a man of my word, I asked that greasy kid dealer to cash out.  I knew he thought I was crazy, but I’m okay with that. I wasn’t too proud to push over those dinky green chips.  I hate the green ones anyway, green like the zero and green like money, it’s all evil in a way.

The Dixie isn’t really a fancy joint. If it were a bar it’d be a dive that even the regulars are embarrassed about.  Me and about a hand full of other locals even remember when it was still called the Dixie.  Back then it was about fancy dinners and going out on the riverboat.  Whenever my mom’s relatives would come to town that’s what we’d do for fun and I just got a kick out of it.  Those great big ole stacks, to me, they were bigger than anything else. Even more impressive was the petal wheel at the back.  I liked to watch all that water splash and make our trail.  It was like in the winter time when you saw where your dog had already run around, but the only difference was out on the river the trail of where we’d come from was dissappearing just as quickly as it was created.  Sort of like we’d never be there at all.  I really liked that. I knew we were supposed to be there eating dinner and visiting and enjoying ourselves, but I kept asking to go to the bathroom and insteda would run out back to watch the wheel turn  and that trail appear and disappear; I liked it that much.

Now, it goes by Lucky Deuces. There is this huge brick red 2 lined with gold lights that puts the original little sign off the interstate to shame.  They built up this casino building with six floors and then that extra tower that they call the hotel.  But what’s really got the place looking terrible is that on the other side of the river is that private school.  I think it’s religious without being too fire and brimstone since a lot of the college crowd ends up here.  You can spot them at the enterance in their easter color polos and khakis like they came for tennis lessons or something.  I don’t mind them so much, I guess.

Usually the college kids come for shits and giggles and leave after a few hours, but every now and then when the boy is really trying to play house with a girl they get a room at the hotel.  Then they are here forever.  Sort of like that commercial that always comes on during the news, the one about a pill for depression or erectial dysfunction.  You are familiar with the them but never want to fully acknowledge them in public for fear of being associated with them. I like to keep my head down, play my numbers and be left alone.

There was this one couple, he seemed like his only schooling was to be a big shot and she had the thickest accent that no one dared asked her where she was from for fear of insulting the poor thing. Anyway, they must have been from small towns where after ten minutes of banter all of a sudden you’re lined up to speak at the wedding or something because they followed me around like hungry puppy dog that weekend and it was all because I happened to explain outloud that I was cashing out on account of my thing with the double zeros.  I came back the next day and there they were, she had her face painted up and her blonde hair pulled back with a neat little red ribbon and he was looking as his watch the way buisness men do when waiting for an elevator or something.

You again, he said, trying to pretend they weren’t out there waiting for me all day.

I looked up and nodded and that little moment of eye contact was the only invitation that they needed.

Self-Sufficent Fish

All I knew was that I was supposed to be watching the story of my life.  The post it note on the screen said so.  When I pressed play, a fish appeared. Even though it took up the whole screen, I could tell it was small.  It just swam to the left, then turned and swam to the right and the camera followed it.  Back and forth.

I had the urge to look over at another screen and it made me feel like I was back in first grade, cheating on the Friday spelling test.  Whatever the guy with the tight jeans was watching made his face red, which sort of frightened me for a second.  Right when I saw bright colors reflecting on Knitting-Cat-lady’s face, I got caught.  Z spotted me and pressed her hot pink acrylic nailed finger to her lips and Shhed me. She smiled and then the thick finger tip directed me back to the fish.

There it was again, its eyes were real far apart, like one of those dogs that runs into things all the time.  I was waiting for the fish to run into the wall of its tank, but it never did.   It was sort of like a goldfish, but bigger and gray.  I guess it was only like a goldfish because it’s the only type of fish I know.

The ad at Starbucks said This is the Day You’re Life Will Surely Change.  Then it had Zariah’s number and in her handwriting, “Mirah Carry, but with a Z!  Or just call me Z!” I only called because it was the weekend and I had free minutes. I wanted to tell her about her type-o, but she sounded nice, so I didn’t.

She started talking to me like I had known her all my life, so I told myself I’d show up to the first session of her class to be nice.  Then I realized there were only three of us, so I had to keep going.  I also liked the way she said my name.  In her accent all of a sudden Claudia sounded exotic, sometimes she shortened it to Cloud.  Anyone else who called me Cloud would make me feel frumpy, but she said it like I was about to pole dance, or something.

I ended up telling her and the rest of the class my life story, well just starting at the spot when I became convinced that Charlie was cheating on me and started leaving the shower curtain open. Saying that out loud finally made me realize how crazy I’d become.

I paid her the Donation money every week to listen to her give advice about positive affirmations while I got a headache from all the incense and sage smells that were probably just masking the smell of pot.  After five weeks, my life still hadn’t changed and there I was stuck in this smoky basement, trying to relate to a fish.  It probably never had to worry about its lover’s lover hiding in the shower.

Back and forth.  It stared at me, like I should know what to make of it all. I tried to keep my mind opened the way Z had taught me over the last few weeks.  I concentrated on turning off my thoughts.  No more Starbucks.  No more Charlie.  No more fish. No more back and forth. No more Knitting-Cat lady, no more tight jeans guy, no more Z, no more me.

When I lifted my head and began to look around for Z.  All of a sudden she had one hand on my shoulder and the other on flattening my hair.  She closed her eyes like she was doing one of her energy healing techniques on me. That happened a lot in her classes.

I tried to stay as still as a statue in someone’s yard, starring down at her platform flip flops with black jewels on the plastic part.  Her toes were painted green.  Up close, she smelled like baby powder.  When she dropped her hands, she leaned over so that her cleavage was right in my face and then in her sultry accent, she told me, You’ve been dead a long time.

I took a deep breath and watched her walk away like nothing happened.  The fish was still swimming.  Left and then right.  Back and forth.  Knitting-Cat lady still had bright colors in her face.  Tight pants dude was still seeing red stuff. The basement still smelled like a head shop.  And I was still stuck watching this ugly fish swim, only now I had been informed that I died, or something.

The fish video went from the quality of a 90′s America’s Funniest Home Videos to someone recording a TV show with hand held camera, then putting it on YouTube. I thought it was going to cut out and turn to static and it almost did, but right before I raised my hand to get a new story of my life going, it cut to a porno.  And for about three seconds I saw a huge penis and someone’s really long tongue. It happened so quick I didn’t even have a chance to look for a power button to switch it off.  Then the fish came back.

It had been a long time since I saw porn.  But as soon as I accepted that it did really happen, that I hadn’t been delirious, it happened again.  This time it was a tongue and a woman’s body, she had lingerie that was slipping off very quickly.  Then the fish came back, stared at me, then swam some more.

By the fifth time the porno came back, I had stopped worrying about if someone else was going to see that the story of my life had become a porno.  I was actually more concerned that I was sort of getting turned on. I felt a little tingle down at that part of my jeans where there was a little bump from all the seams meeting. I felt like I used to feel after a glass of white wine while on a date with a guy I knew I was going to go home with.

Every time the fish was about to turn around and start swimming back to the left or back to the right it would cut to the porno.  For a long time it was just the woman’s hand, she was pleasuring herself.  I could tell because her hands were more delicate.  They were painted too, French Tips, but real, not thick like Z’s.  She was moving two fingers together like waves, and then they got lost in her and the fish would come back.

When the fish was on the screen I would look around at everyone else.  Z was meditating in front of us with her eye’s closed.  That guy with the tight pants was sleeping.  His arms were on the desk and knuckles made a pillow for his chin.  Knitting-Cat lady had her head tilted to the side like she was really concentrating.  When I saw flesh again, my head jerked back so quick I was sure that someone would notice.

She started arching her back.  It was still a close shot, just her hip bones and part of her inner thighs, but I could tell she was rising because her arm and hand were reaching.  She was really getting into it.  Then the camera started to zoom out a little and I could see the penis again. Right when she was getting closer the fish came back.  After two more swims, I could tell she was about to orgasm and right then she arched so to invite him in, but the lights went on the the fish came back. I looked up and Z was smiling and asked us all, So, did your life change?

The next day, I was sore.  I was sore in different places in my back and on my right forearm. I never saw Z again.  I did run into Knitting-Cat lady sometimes at Starbucks, but I don’t know what happened to Z or the guy with tight jeans.  I stopped leaving the shower curtain open.  In fact, I left that guy and got a place with just a bathtub.  One of those big fancy ones with legs.