Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

Of course I want her to shut the fuck up and save herself but I also want her laugh to blow up the building.

I close my eyes and bawl like a girl. Obsidian is trying to pull my head back into the Jag. My butt is buzzing and buzzing. Little Teena turns the radio on. Even at 2:00 a.m. they do the news on NPR.

“Oh jeez,” Ave Maria says.

I pull my head back in.

On the radio — it’s Michel Norris. They’ve got the Sig. A prominent Seattle psychiatrist arrested at a possible arson scene. A teen is missing from the residence.

Could this night get any more fucking fucked? My ass again.

Obsidian digs the buzzing iPhone out from my back pocket.

“You’re right. It’s your mom. She wants to talk to you. Bad,” she says.

“No shit,” I go. “Well I’m not calling her.” I blow my nose in the sleeve of my hoodie, then roll the sleeve up over the slime. My voice quivers like a pussy’s. “I’m not calling my goddamn mother.”

“Maybe she knows whether or not we’re an all points bulletin,” Little Teena says.

“Cool!” Ave Maria sings before she can stop herself.

“It’s not funny,” Little Teena says, shooting a goddamn it look at Ave Maria. Then he says, “Are those fuckers tailing us? Who were they?”

Ave Maria climbs from the front seat to the back and then nearly into the space between the back window and the seat — where dogs go. “I don’t see anyone,” she says.

“I stabbed all their tires when we ran out,” Obsidian mumbles.

No one says anything but we are glad. I stare at the shard of Obsidian hanging from her neck.

Ave Maria climbs back over to the front seat, then turns around and hooks her elbows over the seat, looking back at me and Obsidian. “Do you think Marlene is … like, all burned or something?” Her voice is whispery and grave. Little Teena coughs. I stare at Ave Maria hard enough to take her head off. She wilts. “I just meant…“

“Just shut it,” Little Teena growls at her.

I don’t mean to, but I grab Ave Maria’s pencil-thin wrists. Then I squeeze. I squeeze harder. Her eyes widen but she doesn’t make a sound. Harder. She grits her teeth. I squeeze so hard I’m pretty sure I could snap her hands off of her arms. Still she makes no sound. She just locks eyes with me. Finally Obsidian says, “Enough,” quietly against my neck. She puts her hands on my hands. I let go.

Ave Maria turns around in the passenger seat and drops her head.

When they jam Thomas Swift’s Electric Rifle into Marlene’s throat and ribs and gut the megawatt electricity shoots her head up and back and her arms fly out to her sides ripping the duct tape and her torso stiffens and arches with voltage. But she’s still laughing. Her chest heaves and her laugh becomes monstrous and I think I see electricity shooting from her hair, her eyes, her ajar tits, her mouth, her nostrils, her fingers, electricity shooting out in a radius around her, the laughing ringing my bones and heart but then from behind me I hear “GULLLL!!!” and it’s Smiley shooting past me and grabbing my Dora bag off the floor and pitching it to me as he wheels by and picks up speed heading straight for them until he crashes into the horrible electric trinity that is Marlene and the silverfucks and the snap and smell of current shakes my skin and Little Teena is pulling me into a dead run. That’s the last image. That’s the end of the film in my head.

Marlene.

Lit up.

In the Jag I stare at the back of Little Teena’s head. Obsidian takes her shirt off and wipes my face. Then sits there shirtless like it’s normal. No one says anything. I feel like a human three-day old shitty tampon of a person. We need somewhere to go. I close my eyes.

“OK,” I go. “I’ll call my mom.”

ON THE OTHER END OF MY IPHONE MY MOM SOUNDS like a tin mother.

I know things about technology. Like a cellphone is an electronic device used for full duplex two-way radio telecommunications over a cellular network of base stations known as base sites. In addition to being a telephone, modern mobile cells also support SMS, text messages, email, Internet access, gaming, Bluetooth, infrared, camera, MMS, MP3 player, radio, and GPS.

Parents don’t know shit about cellphones.

“We need somewhere to go,” I say quietly to the tin mother.

“Ida,” she says.

I hold the iPhone out the car window and let the rushing cold air nearly take it from my palm. I close my eyes. Briefly I want to open the car door and jump out. The end.

I don’t know how to talk to this person. I rack my brain for something to say that doesn’t feel like a chunka puke. When

I return the iPhone to my ear I say, “Do you remember the first time you played me fronz shoe burt?”

After a long silence she says, “Yes, Ida. You were five, I think. You sat on my lap.”

Right answer. Does that mean something? Anything? Are you my mother?

“Where are you?” I ask.

On her end I hear classical music. I hear a mother humming to her child. I hear a child laughing. No.

It’s just a television.

“I’m at a Holiday Inn just outside of Kelso.”

“Oh,” I go.

Then it’s just us sucking in and blowing out air into our cellphones. I can hear her breathing. She can hear mine. We don’t breathe alike, as near as I can tell. I try to match hers. A kid thing.

“Why Holiday Inn?” I go.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“How was Vienna?” I say.

Dead air. Television backdrop.

“I have something for you,” she says.

My voice comes out all in a rush. “For the longest time I thought it was the word ‘shoe,’ and the word ‘burt.’ Isn’t that dumb? I used to imagine a guy with great footwear and beautiful hands … Isn’t that the stupidest fucking thing you’ ve ever heard?” I say into my iPhone. I look at Obsidian. In her eyes there is something like a mirror. I see a girl leaving my own face, and someone I’ve never known replacing her.

“Room 324,” the tin mother goes.

“Tomorrow is my birthday,” I say, but my voice is unrecognizable to me.

“I know, Ida,” she whispers, signaling through the flames.

THEY DON’T TELL YOU LOVE CAN SNEAK UP ON YOUR ASS and sucker punch you.

When my mother opens the door of room 324 of the Holiday Inn she looks like what Catherine Deneuve would look like if Catherine Deneuve loved you unconditionally. And if Catherine Deneuve loved you unconditionally? Trust me, you’d swoon.

Catherine Deneuve’s real name was Catherine Fabienne Dorléac.

I fight the swoon with all my might. I grab Obsidian’s hand so we’re two-fisted. My mother stares at our hands and takes it in. She looks up and collects Ave Maria and Little Teena in her gaze, too. She stands aside and lets us all in to the hotel room like it’s in her nature. The room smells like a mother’s perfume, a little like vodka, a little like bath salts. Clothes sit neatly folded in a black suitcase — the lid open. Toiletries stand guard over by the sink, neatly. The carpet is the color of dirt. The bedspread and drapes pattern a combination of dirt and ochre colors. There is a painting of horses on the wall. A crappy painting. The television bubbles. News. When I look at the bed I see a slightly rumpled hollow where a single woman has been there watching TV and drinking alone. I don’t see any pill bottles but they must be here somewhere.

“Oh GAWD this room is so dreamy!” Ave Maria chirps, throwing herself onto the mother bed, caving in instantaneously. Typical.

My mother mans the remote control and points our attention in the direction of the nightly news. It’s us. The nightly news is us. Sort of. There’s been an arrest of a well-known psychoanalyst. A missing girl. A fire in a Seattle condo. An incident at a juvenile halfway house up north. The news reporter on scene at the halfway house is interviewing an eye-witness. There is a short clip of Ted. “MAWR,” he bellows, and sucks his hand. Local authorities are investigating.