Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

Who does she think she is, anyway? This is my home. Even though I wish it would blow up. But I see the angle. She’s staking her territory. Peeing on things and leaving her scent. Rearranging spoons, I bet. Clever twat.

I pull my covers over my head. Ugh. Why do I even come home anymore? I fucking hate this godforsaken place. I live in a Fellini movie. Under the covers, everything looks black and blue. Cool. It’s kind of peaceful. I should film under here.

“Now, Ida,” the she vixen goes.

I roll out of bed and into my skinny black jeans. Not sure how many days I can wear this same underwear. Starting to smell a little too much like apples. I rub my head. Feels like … Astroturf. I check my face in the computer screen. Wow. I guess that’s what insomniacs must look like. Like someone spooned out little hollows under their eyes. Cave eyes. Fuck. I don’t mind telling you. I am no way looking forward to this. But later today I get to see my Sig. For reasons I can’t even begin to explain, it gives me strength. He ain’t my grandpa and I sure as shit ain’t Heidi, but you got to take what you can get.

I open my bedroom door. I walk down the hall of family. At the end is my parents’ bedroom — but that hardly seems like a good thing to call it these days. It’s the fucking father room. Where everything that will happen next gets born. As I walk down the hall toward the fucking father room the floor seems to pulse. Ew. It smells like middle age.

Propped up in bed with a gazillion pillows I’ve never seen before, underneath a bizarro Asian design comforter my mother would have eaten glass before ever buying, is the man formerly known as dad. He’s clean shaven. Mrs. K. is standing next to him holding a towel and the safety razor I used to give myself this bitchin’ head. She looks so proud of herself. Her lipstick is gleaming. Her eyes give her away though. Here comes Ida’s ass whoopin’, I bet she’s thinking. Are her tits saluting something?

I don’t know how else to say this but to just say it. That clean shaven guy in the bed? The one with the sunk in cheeks and knotty throat and silver hair? That’s not my dad. I mean it is, it has to be, right? But I don’t even recognize him. It’s like aliens replaced my dad with some Frankenstein they cooked up in a spaceship to look human. Um, clearly someone needs to buzz trim that ear hair, people. He’s got an oxygen thingee in his nose. A tank next to his bed. His pajama shirt is unbuttoned and I can see a giant red railroad track going from his sternum down toward his belly button. Open heart surgery scar. When I look at it I can’t feel my legs and my breath jackknifes and I get the spins. I look immediately away from the red railroad track between me and his internal organ and up at the ceiling.

Up on the ceiling? Of fucking course. A dong shaped crack. Huge. Like a giant dong spying on me. Told you, Fellini movie.

“Ida,” my father says. I look not at him, but kinda to the left of his ear. Where did my dad’s voice go? This guy sounds like … like Alan Arkin. No shit. Soft and nasal and a little like he’s just hit puberty.

I got no voice, so I just try to look at his … jesus, when did the color blue leave my father’s eyes? Steel color piss holes. Could the alien theory have merit?

“I’ve been meaning to speak to you.”

I look back up to the ceiling. Then at my own belly. Wonder how long that sentence has been true. Years, I’d wager.

Mrs. K. wipes the razor up and sets it down on the bedside table. She pretends to pull the covers up around this guy in the bed playing the role of my dad. He smiles. Is it true all men just want a series of mothers?

“Look,” he says, adjusting himself against all that poofiness, “this is a difficult time.”

No. Fucking. Shit. Sherlock. I look at Mrs. K. I look back at the alien.

“I’m going to need you to be a little more adult,” the alien says.

Adult. Right. Like you two?

“Until I’m up and about …”

I shoot a set of eye bullets over at Mrs. K. She’s grinning with no teeth. I half expect some mechanical tongue to shoot out and slit my throat. Fuck her for smelling good. That dang Lancôme perfume.

“Please, can I count on you to … please help Peppina — “

BRAIN STOP. Oh my fucking god. I suck in a breath and hold it. Peppina? Her name is Peppina? What the fuck kind of name is Peppina? I laugh. Luckily nothing comes out sound wise. All they see is my shoulders sort of spasming. Peppina stops smiling. Pretty sure she’s grinding her teeth. I want so badly to go S’up, Peppina Peppilepticpepperonina? right this second. But I can’t.

“ — as much as possible,” he continues. “She is giving of herself quite a lot to be here with me at this time. Ida. Do you understand me?”

Oh, I understand you all right, daddy. I nod my head slowly up and down. I shove my hands in my jeans pockets. I shrug, and tilt my teen head, giving them the universal ’sthat all? gesture.

“You may go,” my father says.

Peppina looks disappointed that I didn’t get swatted. Or rolled in butter and set on fire.

I exit the fucking father room. It’s right then and there that I decide. I’m not using Vivaldi as the soundtrack in the Sig movie when his wang shoots blood. I’m using the recording of my father breathing from when he was in the hospital. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. In a loop.

My real father’s been abducted by aliens and captured by a strange big-titted demon vixen. My real mother’s in Vienna turning more and more beige. Pretty soon she’ll be transparent.

Which pretty much makes me an orphan, I figure. My cell vibrates. Well hell. It’s that weird number from before. I don’t answer. I go into my bedroom. I throw my backpack onto my bed. I pack the SD cards with all the audio and video of my Sig movie. I pack a few new pairs of underwear. I pack my Mantegazza book, my purple Sharpie, Xanax, Vicodin, and Percocet. Two joints. A tiny bit of blow I have left from dosing the Sig. I pack cigarettes, a Pixies T-Shirt, my earbuds. I pack my Swiss Army Knife Elite. I check the voicemail on my iPhone. This time I sit on the edge of the bed and listen.

“Hello Ida. I’ve been trying to reach you. Through certain … mutual channels, shall we say. It has come to my attention that you have something … well, I’m very much interested in something you have. Some video footage, I believe? Could you perhaps return my call — I can assure you, I can make it very well worth your while.”

What the fuck? Pervola? Somebody’s dad? A cop? Mutual channels, what the fuck does that mean? I make a pit stop at my computer and do a reverse phone number look up. Odd. What comes up? Hill and Knowlton Inc. Big time PR agency in Seattle. Um, they do Microsoft. What the fuck would they want with me? Gotta be a wrong number. A hoax. But I really like the idea of using it for soundscape loops so I hope the dude calls back and calls back.

How does he know my name? Whatevs. Doesn’t matter. Life is a Fellini flick. No time.

I don a pair of Steve McQueen mirror shades. I put on a black leather biker jacket. Quick search of the pockets reveals more Vicodin and hey! A barely touched box of Hot Tamales. Ave Maria will cream. On my way outta the hellhole, I see Mrs. K.’s purse. I nab her wallet and take all her cash and a couple of her credit cards. Christ. She’s got pictures of the midget demons in her wallet. Could there be two uglier children? Spawn gone wrong, that’s for sure. Are their ears pointed? Then I spot something else on the kitchen counter — pearl drop earrings — undoubtedly Mrs. K.’s, double undoubtedly a gift from the alien formerly my father. I snatch ‘em up and put them in my mouth like sugar cubes and flee. I’m sucking on the pearl drops, Siggy . Smile.