Darcey Steinke - Suicide Blonde

I PASSED CARS GOING SEVENTY, BLEW MY HORN FOR NO REASON, screamed at a man who tried to pass me. I thought of how a doctor had once suggested boric acid for my yeast infection, the same stuff I used to kill roaches in my apartment.

I got lost, drove into West Hollywood, then onto Sunset Strip. I chain-smoked cigarettes, lighting each new one off the bitter end of the last, I had a stray-dog feeling that made me want to do something loose and crazy and I was: crashing a reception, confronting the groom about his homosexual past — asking like a child about love. It was dark, though I could still see the studio complexes set back from the road, underlit and surrounded with a lattice of barbed-wire fences. The area outside was tacky with restaurants, gift shops and a variety of businesses that each claimed to be the home of the stars.

I zigzagged through side roads, saw men feeding sticks into a fire in a trash can. Homeboys wearing pukka beads hung out at the corners in nylon jogging suits. To join some gangs you had to kill someone and I remembered the crazy college boy who had offered to murder someone for me. He said it wouldn't be murder because the person would be sacrificed. How many times had my mother said she sacrificed her life for mine? And I had fed off her, bolstered my own self-worth in accordance with her misery. My father got strength from demeaning her, too — making rude comments about her weight, saying he was going to trade her in for two twenty-year-olds. When he said that we were all in the TV room, the smell of hamburgers and cheese was still in the air from dinner. No one gained emotional power without someone else losing some.

I found my way back onto the freeway and headed toward Beverly Hills. The red taillights made me dreamy and I thought of the glowing tip of Bell's cigarette and wondered if he was checking his egg to see if the baby bird was breaking through. Or was he in his father's gabardine shirt, hair slicked back, a hint of eyeliner, slowly smoking a clove cigarette, anticipating the back room of the White Swallow. Madison was easier. She'd be passed out, sprawled across her furry bedspread, the bartender downstairs checking the beer supply, wiping dust off the liquor bottles. Madison hears the water from the fish tanks, dreams she is a mermaid, but then there's a noise from the street and she remembers a man is coming at eight who likes to be shit on and one at nine who pretends she is his daughter. She wonders if it might be true even now, that women were made for the pleasure of others.

I FOUND MY WAY BACK INTO BEVERLY HILLS, MERCEDES AND Porsche dealerships stood on every corner surrounded by palm trees and flowers. Tan people in pastels were radiant in the dark. Was it the soft light? The modernistic architecture? The air itself, heavily scented with smog? What made L.A. look like a touched-up photograph, like a set with actors waiting for the director to yell Cut?

The hotel was a cream-colored stucco building with a red tile roof. A mix of Mexican and Hollywood, the Zorro style. I parked the car on clean asphalt beside orderly flower beds. The moon was a perfect half, as if sliced with a razor. Inside the door was a fireplace with a ceramic log throwing up gas flames. I followed the signs to the back room and made my way into the reception. The wedding party wasn't here, but the room was full of men and women in suits and formal dresses sitting at round tables. A Western chandelier made from several wagon wheels hung over them. Women in black-and-white uniforms carried in silver trays of food and set them on a long table in front near the white tiered cake. The bartender poured buckets of ice into his cooler. He was thin with a capsule-shaped head and acne that resembled diaper rash. I walked over and ordered a double bourbon, listened to a couple talk: she said his brain was in his cock. I carried the drink back to my table, the white tablecloth felt stiff under my fingers and the roses in the middle were so lovely they looked fake.

I watched a pair of young women in silk dresses and soft leather shoes move along the hors d'oeuvres table. They laughed, confident that this whole ritual would be repeated for them. Their natural inclusion made me feel like the witch at the christening in Sleeping Beauty. But I couldn't leave. The thought of the suspended blowfish at Madison's spinning slowly in the street light, and of Bell passed out across the bed, and of the lovers too, the pink crevice of her rear, the muscles flexing in the man's hairy thighs. . My hand shook. I thought of talking to Kevin, the one person who could save Bell. But even if Kevin did agree to come, he wouldn't — I couldn't even ask — what good would it do? Maybe at first Bell would be hopeful, but Kevin would eventually leave and Bell would be alone again and worse off because, like Pig, his center memory would be skewed.

I went back to the bar. It was more crowded; standing in back of a man in a pinstripe suit I smelled his lime aftershave, his stale smell of cigarettes. Men smell of the world, the street. Women smell domesticated, of the garden, spice. The wilder ones of animal musk or opium. When it was my turn, I ordered two double bourbons. The bartender looked up, I told him one was for a friend. On the walk back, I watched the bourbon eat the ice cubes. My vision was fuzzy near the edge. I sat down; an older couple was seated across from me. The plump woman pushed her chest out toward her tiny husband who reminded me of dehydrated food. I picked a rose from the centerpiece and put it in my hair. The woman watched me, suspicious of my jeans and high-top tennis shoes, but I didn't care. Everything was easing, seemed funny and right. The ceiling fans had something to do with the meaning of life. A murmur ran through the crowd, then scattered applause. The bride walked in holding her dress up with both hands. She stopped at a table of blue-haired ladies. Kevin was behind her, there was no mistaking those eyes, the same winter-sky blue as Bell's and his light brown hair hung at his shoulders and was very clean like a girl's. Kevin went to a table of young men in well-cut suits and colorful ties. One said something about a ball and chain and they all laughed. I rose off my seat, tried to motion to him, but there was the old lady's eyes and I realized it was a drunken move. I felt suddenly shy. What could it be like to be so loved? They moved together up to their table, groomsmen and bridesmaids behind them and with much joking and laughing they all took their seats. A man, similar to Kevin, maybe a brother, opened a bottle of champagne.

The women carried in deeper trays of food and set them over sterno burners. The band picked up a little, played “String of Pearls.” The general came and asked his daughter to dance. Kevin went and got his mother-in-law. Others from the wedding party joined in. It was all a blur of satin and silk. I stood, walked to the bar to get another drink. The ceiling seemed too low and it was more difficult than I remembered to get by the chairs. The boy poured me another and I carried it to the dance floor, stood on the edge watching Kevin dance with a bridesmaid. Her purple chiffon skirt swayed out. I imagined him and Bell, the afternoon they'd both put on make-up and listened to “Satellite of Love.” Bell worshiped Kevin, his prophetic-youthful insights, his teenage body. And through me, Bell's desire was still strong. I waited until he was at arm's length, slugged my drink back, dropped the plastic cup on the floor and tapped the bridesmaid's shoulder. She smiled, stepped away. Kevin put a hand to my waist and moved me forward with the music. He squinted his eyes as if reading in bad light, but he couldn't place me and asked if I'd gotten in late and was I a friend of Maria's from college.

“I'm Jesse,” I said.

He stopped.