Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

Luckily, I have a shrink.

ON THE BUS FROM CAPITOL HILL DOWN TO PIKE I LOOK around at my fellow mobile inmates. Why is it that people on buses look like tired sacks of shit? Literally — like someone shat sacks of us onto these ass shaped plastic seats that smell like rank old monkey balls. No one on a bus looks cool. And you can bet your bottom dollar that there is always a whack job just waiting for his perfect moment to go bus fuck mental. Don’t even get me started on the fat-assery of the drivers. You know they got a Pabst hidden down by the gears somewhere. Christ. Last year some middle-aged gasbag driver actually ran over two people and dragged them half a block before noticing. Everyone on the bus screaming their heads off for her to stop.

I’m sweating the sweat of not knowing what to expect. I’m on my way to see Sig. I’m all fucked up. I can’t talk, I’m homeless, I’m an orphan, I need to change my underwear. What am I gonna do when I get there, write him notes for an hour? Do a tap dance? Strip naked and masturbate?

Hell, maybe he’s got cops there waiting for me. It’s a possibility.

I look out the shitty window at the passing city crap. Then I have a pop-up thought: I wonder if Marlene would let me crash with her for awhile?

Marlene works at Sea-Tac Airport as a security officer three days a week. She, well, OK “he,” since we’re talking about her man job, works at one of the full body X-ray huts. You know, the ones for international flight folks where you have to stick a chunk of lead in your pants if you don’t want them to see your junk.

When he’s a she, she sings Eleanora Fagan songs at a tranny jazz club cabaret on the south edge of Capitol Hill. Holy shit does Marlene have some pipes. In her voice Eleanora Fagan comes back from the dead. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Marlene sing “What Is This Thing Called Love” or “Summertime.” In fact, I’ve got her on the Zoom H4n right now. In my Dora purse. God Bless the Child. I ease up the volume. I feel slightly less deranged.

Poor Eleanora Fagan though. Marlene told me all about her. You know Billie Holiday died in a hospital room where police were waiting to take her to jail? Fucking typical. Cirrhosis of the liver and drug addiction is what it said on her death certificate. What it should have said is that her life was the suck. The only beautiful thing about it lived in her throatsong.

The bus is pointed straight down hill. Always makes me feel like I’m gonna get a nose bleed. The guy across from me has a soiled crotch and a ski parka the color of puke. He’s wearing a hair nest. The woman two seats up has a big weird mole right in the center of the back of her head poking through what’s passing for her hair. Then there’s a DING and we stop and some whitey middle aged corporate dude with a Dolce & Gabbana black leather man shoulder purse gets on. Is he fucking lost? Yeah. Where YOU gonna sit Mr. Corporate Shiny Pants? Oh. Nice. He’s wearing sunglasses. He sits directly in front of me. Blocking my view of mole head. His hair has a weird silver sheen to it and smells like … important flowers.

I reach into my Dora and pump the playback of Marlene singing “Strange Fruit” — low enough that people look up a bit, but not enough for them to figure out it’s coming from the lump that is me. Marlene’s voice calms me a little. Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning flesh. It’s the kind of voice you wish would sing you to sleep at night. I rock in my seat. Sure, a little autistic. But who cares.

Fancy man figures out where the voice is coming from and turns around so his sunglasses are looking at me. Can you imagine? The nerve. I pick the hell out of my nose for no reason. Big drill. Wipe it on the window. Yeah that’s right, turn the fuck back around, guy made of reflective surfaces. We bus mutants way outnumber you.

Then it hits me. I’ve seen this dude before. In the restaurant. With Sig. The day I recorded the exchange where Sig fainted. Right after this dude told him he was going big time — the show — television megastardom. The guy who said, and I quote, “we need your teen monster girl.” Why didn’t I see his ferret ass before?

Silverhead turns back around and leans over till he’s nearly in my lap. “Hello Ida,” slickster says, taking off his man shades, “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

Thoughts roll around in my noggin like dice in a cup. The phone messages? This guy? But why? Ew. I shoot a desperate glance out the bus window — at the bottom of the hill is my stop, my Sig, my escape. Thirty seconds tops. I pick my nose some more and laugh like I’m high on THE DOPE and make chimp faces at him. Most people are scared shitless of out of control teens.

He’s unfazed. He stands up like he’s gonna come sit with me. Gross. He’s wearing black leather gloves. In no situation is a man wearing black leather gloves a good thing.

I stand up too and do an improv chimp dance in the aisle. Chimps can be deadly, remember.

“Please take your seat,” the Pabst bus driver says over some shitty bus mic, but really all we hear is static: “peeeezzzzz-zshhtaaaaakeshrrrrrummmfrah.”

My upper lip sweats. My rib cut stings. My head itches. Cartoons from my bullshit childhood populate my skull. Stranger danger! Stranger danger! OK homeboy, I got about thirty seconds till my stop. You got something for me? Bring it. I take a defensive posture — kind of a mix between Bruce Lee and Harry Potter. My hands in menacing shapes. Savage chimp grimace.

“My dear girl, there’s no reason for alarm,” silverslick says, putting his hands out like to the sides either like a rich well dressed Jesus or like he’s gonna grab me, but the bus is jostling too much and the bus driver is yelling “Sssssshiiiiiiiitooowww-wwnpeeeeesssshhhzzz” and the hill we’re barreling down makes it so we’re all just this side of falling and –

DING.

I’m a girl gone.

HONESTLY, I’VE NEVER BEEN MORE GLAD TO SEE SOMEONE I just fucked over royal in all my life.

When I get up the elevator to Sig’s office the door is already open so I tumble in. I’m out of breath from running. The way we’re standing there — it feels like we are in a movie. Zoom in. I look at Sig. Sig looks at me. Fuck. I whip out my cell from my Dora purse. I quickly text: lost my fkg voice. weird guy chsed me off bus. His pants buzz. He pulls his cell out of his pocket and reads.

He reads. “I see,” Sig says, “let’s just calm down a minute, shall we? Come sit down.” He guides me to the couch and then closes the door to the office.

I sit on the dreaded black leather couch to catch my breath, the pad of paper and Sharpie in my hand. Sig sits in the camel back chair. He crosses his legs. He pulls a cigar out from his pocket. A silver lighter. We sit and stare at each other. It’s awkward. Bordering on creepola. He looks like he’s waiting for something. A whole fucking minute of silence passes. Is he waiting for me? I’m so far beyond an anxiety attack I could power a bus. Fuck it. I make an executive decision. I jam my hand into my skinny jeans pocket and pop a Xanax. I madly chew it like baby aspirin. Sig doesn’t move or comment. I close my eyes. I hold my breath for seven seconds. I blow out for seven seconds. I do it seven times. Sig doesn’t move or comment. When I open my eyes, he’s still waiting. For me.

OK. I can breathe again. I guess maybe that’s fair. It’s my move. I look down at my pad of paper. My ears are hot. I text, you hate me, rt? He reads his phone and I look at the ceiling. Covered with genitalia cracks. Of course.

He studies my words. Christ dude, it’s four fucking words. Finally he says, “Have you ever seen a character on TV called Jung?”