Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

He stares at it for a second, then types. I can tell he learned to type way back when typewriters existed from how his fingers form into mostly his two forefingers and his hands lift up too high from the keyboard. Almost like a two fingered pianist. Look at him bang away at those keys. Also he looks a little insane. Why do old dudes always look insane? When he finishes, he hands the laptop to me.

“I lied. About your case study name. The truth is, my sister’s nursemaid had to surrender her name when she entered our family. Her name had been ‘Rosa.’ Rosa was my sister’s name. Unless she surrendered her name, she would not have the job. She took the name ‘Dora.’ When I needed a name for someone who could not keep her real name, ‘Dora’ is what came to me. My unconscious motivation, I suppose.”

I pluck out a few words in response. “You are one fucked up little dude,” I type back and hand to him. I grab the laptop back and type, “So the fuck what?”

Then he types “You know what I want. I need the video. I’m being hounded like a thief day and night from the media people. If they get their hands on it … my life is ruined. I must have it.”

“Asshats,” I type.

“I need that video. Or I need it destroyed. In my presence,” he types.

I stare at the Word doc. The curser blinks its vertical little sly eye.

Then his hands lose motor control and he resorts to speaking. His voice sounds like a skipping record. “I don’t … I have to … LISTEN … it’s important. .”

I mean wow. He’s the epitome of lost his marbles old man at this point. He’d be totally right on a dirty street corner downtown asking for change. His pupils look like they are about to dart out of his eyes. Grownups really could use some advice on drug use.

Then there’s a WHACK at the door that sounds like someone’s skull cracking open. I look at my bedroom door and I’ll be goddamned if whatever they hit it with didn’t make — you guessed it — aVAG crack.

The Sig nearly falls off of the bed, then jumps up and addresses the door, arms akimbo.

“Now see here,” he booms at the door.

“Who the hell is in there?” Pepperoni shrieks back.

“Dr. Freud,” Sig answers with authority, suddenly realizing how weird it is that he’s actually in there with me. He shoots me an uh-oh look. Like I’m supposed to know what to do.

“What are you doing in my daughter’s room?” My father says in a raised octave voice. It’s the voice of a half-father. Weak and distant and heart attacked. I feel a pang of something for him inside my ribcage. Once there was father, wasn’t there?

“Now just ease up a minute,” Freud stammers. “I can assure you, I’m here to help. I’m a medical professional.”

I look at my Sig reasoning with a door. Arms akimbo. Really. You crawled through the bedroom of a minor because you are here to help? Dude. You are so busted! I’m smiling ear to ear, my freshly-cut chin smile no doubt dribbling blood.

The Sig turns to me and hunches his shoulders and leans in. “Listen to me,” he whisper spits. “I don’t have time for this.” He grabs my arm pretty hard. I look down at my arm where he is clutching it. “Sorry,” he goes. “Just, for the love of christ. Give me the video, and I’ll help you get out of here,” he pleads. “What’s wrong with your chin?”

He’ll help me? I stare at him inside the womb of my room, chaos all around us. You know what he looks like? He looks like what Heidi’s grandpa would look like if Heidi’s grandpa was a coked up loony begging for a fix. I type one last thing on the laptop and turn it toward him: “Dude. You are a coked up old man in the bedroom of a she-minor. Wake up.”

All kinds of hell is happening on the other side of my bedroom door. It sounds like the opposite of family. I look at my half-smashed upside-down digital clock on the floor. It’s about a minute to 10:00 p.m. My ride, I suspect, is here.

Sig’s whispering gibberish and chasing me around my room while I pack up. I put my H4n into my Dora purse. Along with my Swiss Army Knife. Vicodin. Speedies. Then I walk over to my closet. I rummage around in the shoes I never wear and all the crap that’s down there — dirty clothes and dust bunnies and dead batteries and cig butts — in a box in the corner under all that is a trusty tin of lighter fluid and matches. Without even looking at Sig I stand up and point the tin of lighter fluid in his general direction.

“Christ!” He shrieks, and jumps back and away.

Tard. I roll my eyes. Holding the tin at hip level I shoot it at my computer. I shoot it all over the floor. I shoot my spray all over the walls, my bed. The smell of camping. Or a family bar-b-que. My eyes water.

The door is banging and lurching.

Sig is backed against the far wall.

“What in the name of Christ are you doing?” he goes.

For a Jew he certainly mouths the word “Christ” a lot. What is up with that?

I light a match. I light the matchbook on fire. I throw the flaming matchbook onto my bed.

Instantly there is a bed fireball. Our faces light up and heat. It’s really quite stunning, in a pyro pretty kind of way. The flames make their way out like fingers tracing the lighter fluid paths I sprayed everywhere.

As the room gets hot as shit I stare at Sig. Right that second? He mirrors me. We have the same look on our faces. The look of “why?” The look you have your whole life, I think. Sometimes words are irrelevant.

But time’s shrinking. Things smell like burned apples and synthetic fibers and circuit boards. Sig yells something incomprehensible and drops and rolls. Smoke stings my eyes and skin. My technology begins to crackle and pop. The purple words all over my walls seethe.

For a tiny moment I consider grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the window … but you know what? Fuck the Sig. I’m so outta there.

Halfway through the fire escape window, with the Jag, Little Teena, and Ave Maria in sight there on the pavement below me, my bedroom door says one last thing that shocks even me. A booming voice, a voice filled with something from before I was born. It’s not my impotent father. It’s not Pepperoni. I turn and look back toward the talking door, Sig’s deranged little body on the floor behind me just over my shoulder.

“Open the goddamn door you piece of shit pervert,” the voice booms, “or I’m gonna blow it to smithereens!”

Sig remains grounded on the carpet in a coughing fit.

As I clamber down the fire escape toward freedom I realize whose voice was at the door. Late, but not never.

My mother’s.

WHEN SHE OPENS HER APARTMENT DOOR, MARLENE wears a black Nike warm-up suit and bright purple Nikes. Bright purple nails. Bright purple eye shadow. She brings a big black Nike sportsbag with everything else we need into the kitchen.

First things first: the wigs. For Little Teena, A.K.A. “the caseworker,” a man’s dago number with mutton chops. And a furry black mustache. For Ave Maria, A.K.A. “the distraught sister,” an Alice in Wonderland complete with baby blue headband. Eerily wholesome. And for me, A.K.A. “teen gone wrong,” no wig. My hair has hit the length of girls who cut their own hair short in little self-destructive hacking motions. I look exactly like a girl who fucked up her own head and life. I don’t need a wig. I’m perfect for me.

We could SO be on an episode of The First 48 .

Ave Maria rummages around in the Nike sportsbag looking for extra “disguise” crap. She pulls out an eyepatch. “Can I wear an eyepatch too?” She straps it on. Now she looks like a pirate Alice in Wonderland.

“Why not,” Little Teena goes. “We can pretend Dora lost it and stabbed you in the eye.” He begins to glue down his mutton chops.