A. Homes: Safety of Objects: Stories

“What’s the deal with him really, you can tell me, I mean, is he or isn’t he?”

“Ish she or ishn’ she?” Barbie said, in a slow slurred way, like she was so intoxicated that if they made a Breathalizer for Valium, she’d melt it.

I regretted having fixed her a third Coke. I mean if she OD’d and died Jennifer would tell my mom and dad for sure.

“Is he a faggot or what?”

Barbie laughed and I almost slapped her. She looked me straight in the eye.

“He lusts after me,” she said. “I come home at night and he’s standing there, waiting. He doesn’t wear underwear, you know. I mean, isn’t that strange, Ken doesn’t own any underwear. I heard Jennifer tell her friend that they don’t even make any for him. Anyway, he’s always there waiting, and I’m like, Ken we’re friends, okay, that’s it. I mean, have you ever noticed, he has molded plastic hair. His head and his hair are all one piece. I can’t go out with a guy like that. Besides, I don’t think he’d be up for it if you know what I mean. Ken is not what you’d call well-endowed…. All he’s got is a little plastic bump, more of a hump, really, and what the hell are you supposed to do with that?”

She was telling me things I didn’t think I should hear, and all the same, I was leaning into her, like if I moved closer she’d tell me more. I was taking every word and holding it for a minute, holding groups of words in my head like I didn’t understand English. She went on and on, but I wasn’t listening.

The sun sank behind the playhouse, Barbie shivered, excused herself, and ran around back to throw up. I asked her if she felt okay. She said she was fine, just a little tired, that maybe she was coming down with the flu or something. I gave her a piece of a piece of gum to chew and took her inside.

On the way back to Jennifer’s room I did something Barbie almost didn’t forgive me for. I did something which not only shattered the moment but nearly wrecked the possibility of our having a future together.

In the hallway between the stairs and Jennifer’s room, I popped Barbie’s head into my mouth, like lion and tamer, God and Godzilla.

I popped her whole head into my mouth, and Barbie’s hair separated into single strands like Christmas tinsel and caught in my throat nearly choking me. I could taste layer on layer of makeup, Revlon, Max Factor, and Maybelline. I closed my mouth around Barbie and could feel her breath in mine. I could hear her screams in my throat. Her teeth, white, Pearl Drops, Pepsodent, and the whole Osmond family, bit my tongue and the inside of my cheek like I might accidently bite myself. I closed my mouth around her neck and held her suspended, her feet uselessly kicking the air in front of my face.

Before pulling her out, I pressed my teeth lightly into her neck, leaving marks Barbie described as scars of her assault, but which I imagined as a New Age necklace of love.

“I have never, ever in my life been treated with such utter disregard,” she said as soon as I let her out.

She was lying. I knew Jennifer sometimes did things with Barbie. I didn’t mention that once I’d seen Barbie hanging from Jennifer’s ceiling fan, spinning around in great wide circles, like some imitation Superman.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“Scared me!” she squeaked.

She went on squeaking, a cross between the squeal when you let the air out of a balloon and a smoke alarm with weak batteries. While she was squeaking, the phrase a head in the mouth is worth two in the bush started running through my head. I knew it had come from somewhere, started as something else, but I couldn’t get it right. A head in the mouth is worth two in the bush , again and again, like the punch line to some dirty joke.

“Scared me. Scared me. Scared me!” Barbie squeaked louder and louder until finally she had my attention again. “Have you ever been held captive in the dark cavern of someone’s body?”

I shook my head. It sounded wonderful.

“Typical,” she said. “So incredibly, typically male.”

For a moment I was proud.

“Why do you have to do things you know you shouldn’t, and worse, you do them with a light in your eye, like you’re getting some weird pleasure that only another boy would understand. You’re all the same,” she said. “You’re all Jack Nicholson.”

I refused to put her back in Jennifer’s room until she forgave me, until she understood that I’d done what I did with only the truest of feeling, no harm intended.

I heard Jennifer’s feet clomping up the stairs. I was running out of time.

“You know I’m really interested in you,” I said to Barbie.

“Me too,” she said, and for a minute I wasn’t sure if she meant she was interested in herself or me.

“We should do this again,” I said. She nodded.

I leaned down to kiss Barbie. I could have brought her up to my lips, but somehow it felt wrong. I leaned down to kiss her and the first thing I got was her nose in my mouth. I felt like a Saint Bernard saying hello.

No matter how graceful I tried to be, I was forever licking her face. It wasn’t a question of putting my tongue in her ear or down her throat, it was simply literally trying not to suffocate her. I kissed Barbie with my back to Ken and then turned around and put her on the doily right next to him. I was tempted to drop her down on Ken, to mash her into him, but I managed to restrain myself.

“That was fun,” Barbie said. I heard Jennifer in the hall.

“Later,” I said.

Jennifer came into the room and looked at me.

“What?” I said.

“It’s my room,” she said.

“There was a bee in it. I was killing it for you.”

“A bee. I’m allergic to bees. Mom, Mom,” she screamed. “There’s a bee.”

“Mom’s not home. I killed it.”

“But there might be another one.

“So call me and I’ll kill it.”

“But if it stings me I might die.” I shrugged and walked out. I could feel Barbie watching me leave.

* * *

I took a Valium about twenty minutes before I picked her up the next Friday. By the time I went into Jennifer’s room, everything was getting easier.

“Hey,” I said when I got up to the dresser.

She was there on the doily with Ken; they were back to back, resting against each other, legs stretched out in front of them.

Ken didn’t look at me. I didn’t care.

“You ready to go?” I asked. Barbie nodded. “I thought you might be thirsty.” I handed her the Diet Coke I’d made for her.

I’d figured Barbie could take a little less than an eighth of a Valium without getting totally senile. Basically, I had to give her Valium crumbs since there was no way to cut one that small.

She took the Coke and drank it right in front of Ken. I kept waiting for him to give me one of those I-know-what-you’re-up-to-and-I-don’t-like-it looks, the kind my father gives me when he walks into my room without knocking and I automatically jump twenty feet in the air.

Ken acted like he didn’t even know I was there. I hated him.

“I can’t do a lot of walking this afternoon,” Barbie said.

I nodded. I figured no big deal since mostly I seemed to be carrying her around anyway.

“My feet are killing me,” she said.

I was thinking about Ken.

“Don’t you have other shoes?”

My family was very into shoes. No matter what seemed to be wrong my father always suggested it could be cured by wearing a different pair of shoes. He believed that shoes, like tires, should be rotated.

“It’s not the shoes,” she said. “It’s my toes.”

“Did you drop something on them?” My Valium wasn’t working. I was having trouble making small talk. I needed another one.