Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

“I find that last comment entirely offensive. This is intolerable. You have no right to talk about any client in such a way — ”

For a second I think the Sig is going to rescue me. Like Heidi’s Grandpa. Can you beat that?

“ — but what was it you said earlier — what did you mean a new ‘you?’ You mean me?”

“New you? What I meant was, well we can’t … Sig, I mean, look. You’re one big brain with a whole fucking library of shit stuck up in that noggin, but you’re not exactly a visual magnet, right? But don’t worry about that. I found someone — another client of mine — who is very interested. He was made for TV. Oh — and he’s in your line of work.”

“You found an actor who is a psychotherapist?”

“ What? Fuck no. I found a dream guy. What’s that shit you ordered? Is that the Chicken Kiev? It looks like paste. All this frou-frou new food looks like crap to me. I should have ordered a fucking steak.”

Sound of old man half choking on food.

“Symbols and brain waves and talkity talk. Like you. Only he’s a looker. No offense. Actually, you already know each other. Hey! Look! Here he comes now. Hope you don’t mind, I invited him to join us. To share the news … I’ll get us all another round.”

Sound of chairs being pushed back.

I steal a glance at Marlene. I remember from the restaurant. It’s the silvery hot guy. I crank the volume.

“Sigisimund! My old friend. So very good to see you!”

“My … I … Jung?”

Sound of body falling to the floor.

The H4n shuts off.

Marlene looks at me.

I look at Marlene.

“That’s where he fucking fainted,” I go.

“Liebchen, are you well?” she asks.

I bend down on the ground. I calmly put my beloved H4n — maybe the only thing in the world besides Marlene that I trust — into my backpack. I stand up. I look out of the kitchen window. I wish it was snowing. I mean I wish it kid hard. But it’s still just stupid raining. Well, there’s more than one place to find white stuff.

Marlene and I lock eyes.

“Marlene?” I go.

“Liebchen?” she answers.

“I’m gonna need to borrow one of your wigs. Can you help me pick one? One that, you know, will make me not look anything like me?”

“Certainly. I happen to be very good at disguises. Who do you want look like?” she asks.

I suck some blood on my thumb. Almond pepper. Kirsch Wasser.

“Dora,” I go. “I want to look like Dora. They want a show, I’ll give them one.”

IF YOU WANT TO STALK SOMEONE PROPER, ONE WORD for you: wigs.

Lucky for me, Marlene’s got lots of’em. She’s got platinum blond Marilyn Monroes and fire engine red beehives and long jet blacks with Bettie Page bangs. She’s got blue hair and pink hair and hair the color of purple Slurpees. She’s got a foot wide’fro and a spiky punk black and blue. She’s got Liz Taylors and Zsa Zsas. She’s got long hair and short hair and tall hair and soft trusses and bobs and shags and even this braid down to your ass that would make a man yell RAPUNZEL half a mile away.

Obviously she uses them for her gigs at the tranny jazz club.

I have other plans. With a wig, you can be anyone.

My mother once lost all of her hairs. It came out in patches at first, then great clumps. So she cut it short — then it began to look refugee. They said it was psychosomatic. They said it was stress. They said she made her own hair fall out of her head. It happened three years ago. When my father made his choice with Mrs. K.

It grew back the next year. Slowly. But her eyes never were the same.

There’s a book my mother read to me as a kid. At least at first. I still have it. It’s under my bed. It’s a little trashed, but still cool. Are You My Mother ? You know it? It’s about a pathetic baby bird. The kid bird hatches while the mom is gone out of the nest. He’s clueless. He goes looking for her. He asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They go, “No.” Then he asks a shitty old car, a boat and a plane, and at last, a fucking power shovel. The shovel dumps him back into his nest and the absent mother returns.

It’s a good book. But the kid bird is pretty much a tard.

Marlene’s got an old school man’s silk smoking jacket on and a Marlene Dietrich wig and a cigarette in a long thin cig holder.

Three magnificent wigs sit on her kitchen table, staring up at us, headless.

I look down at the wigs on Marlene’s table. I rub my stubbled head. This is the closest I have ever come to looking like my mother. Er how she did hairless, anyway. Sometimes I think that’s why I did it. Whatever. I study the wig selections.

Wig one: a black as crows chin-length blunt cut. Very smarty looking. Would look great with black-rimmed smarty glasses and a shiny black raincoat. And boots. Kinda Emma Peel from The Avengers .

Wig two: shoulder length strawberry with color weave highlights — kinda preppy. Would need cashmere sweater and a thin strand of pearls. Think Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club .

But it’s wig three that’s dominating the others. Totally badass feathered and frosted. Christ. It’s so … man. It’s so hot … it’s so 80s … it’s so motherfucking Ultimate Farrah. It looks like it might lift off the table, achieve loft, and fly around the room.

“Think I could pull that bad boy off?” I say, pointing to it. “What do they even call that, frosted?” The other wigs look dejected and jealous.

“That depends,” Marlene says, tilting her head to the side, touching her blue Lee nails against her Coca- Cola red lips, “if you wear this you will turn heads. People can’t help themselves. They are nostalgic for the times with big hair.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean … that’s not necessarily a good thing …”

“When trying not to be seen.” She taps her lips. Her eyelashes seem longer than my thumbs.

“Yup.”

“On the other hand,” Marlene walks around the table of wigs inspecting them, kinda picking at the other two, “it looks the least like you, Lamskotelet. Your Herr Doktor would never recognize the you under this hair. No one would. Not even I would.” She strokes the wings of it.

We stare at it there on the table.

I lift the Farrah up off of the table balancing it on my fist and hold it slightly higher than my skull in front of me. It shimmers under the kitchen light. Its wings positively radiant. It asks me its question. Can you, be me?

Somehow it is very solemn, this choice, who to be, who not to be.

“Come, we will try it,” Marlene says, and shoulders me toward the bathroom mirror.

The second it’s on my head we both know it. I don’t care if I have to wear a fucking jumpsuit with platforms and sing Bee Gees. Sometimes you just know things. This is the one.

First of all, it’s heavy. In a good way. Like you are more important than usual. And my whole face looks different. I look like a woman with feathered bangs. A woman who will wear a lot of mascara and eye liner. A woman who is going to need a shitload of lip gloss. But there’s something else going on, too.

I stare at this self in the mirror, Marlene just behind me. You know, in life? Whoever you’re gonna be, I think maybe the trick is to be it over the top. Maybe that’s part of my problem. I’m me, but I’m me like 50 %. I’m out there, but I fade. I cough. I look away. I pass out.

Little Teena, he’s on HIGH VOLUME no matter where he goes or what he does. Ave Maria is doped to the nines most of the time so I have no idea who she is, but at least she’s unforgettable. You can hear her high notes in your ears long after she’s gone. Marlene, well Marlene can be a man and then turn woman like day turns to night. Shabazz. Obsidian is so Obsidian it feels like she could kill you if you even breathed like you didn’t care. Black hair. Black eyes. Black shard of fuck you dangling from her neck.