Lidia Yuknavitch - Dora - A Headcase

“A bottle!” Little Teena yells, holding out one of his bejeweled hands, and I chuck it to him. It’s really kinda glorious the way he plays with one hand and reaches Statue of Liberty-like to catch the vodka bottle in the air.

Still playing with one hand, and only pausing to chug vodka, Little Teena gives the place a taste of pure teen homojoy.

Ave Maria begins dancing and hitting random high notes for no particular reason. Her stringy blond hair flying. I start recording big time. Obsidian yells out “I shop, therefore I am!” every few seconds. It’s like I’ve been saved. From a self. I’m so happypissedhigh I feel like I’ve been shot out of a rocket into the sky.

I do the only sensible thing. I step out of my Docs. I remove every bit of my clothes (keeping my purse on of course) and douse myself in vodka. Obsidian immediately begins to lick my arms. Somehow I don’t pass out. Some old bag shopper drops her Nords bag and gasps, saying “Mother of God!” A tight-assed shoe guy walks briskly over but stops at the perimeter, pacing. Then there is a swarm of tan pantsed guys with little black walkie talkies — some kind of Nordstrom tan pants team of thugs — and everyone scatters. Everyone, of course, except me, the lone naked girl. My skin stinging. I suck my bicep. Vodkaskin. Reborn. Angry. Neat.

One of the tan pants grabs a coat off of a nearby rack and puts it around my shoulders. Ha! It’s a fucking trenchcoat. I go, “You’re gonna regret that next paycheck, ese,” but he’s already driving me by the shoulders out of the area.

Down and down some kind of service corridor.

Down Dante-like to the bowels of Nordfucks.

To a little white shoplifters cubicle with a closed-circuit TV mounted on the wall. I’m not the pussy me here. I’m the me who takes action and isn’t sorry. I’m Dora. “Wow,” I say, “that is some cheap ass surveillance system you got there. What is that, boys, like 1973?”

They talk at me. But I know the routine. It’s no big thing. Besides, I haven’t stolen anything, I just made a teen scene. I had the audacity to remove my clothes inside a shopper’s clothing empire. But I’m underage, so there you go. I told you, I’m not a criminal. I’m back in the saddle.

They ask me over and over what my name is and I say “Dora.” I hold up my purse and wave the little cartoon girl at them and point. They manhandle the Zoom H4n — which is recording four sound layers at a time. Ha. They check my backpack for I.D. but what kind of moron would carry I.D. these days? What they do find, however, is the Viagra. The Viagra of Hakizamana Ojo. From Rwanda. Only they can’t pronounce it at first. Tards.

“Who is Haykeezeeman-uh-OJ?” Priceless. I correct their pronunciation. They repeat it back to me. I sneak a peek at the Zoom H4n — yep, there it is on the table, still recording. That’s gonna make a nice riff: Who is Hakizamana Ojo? Who is Hakizamana Ojo?

Finally, I shout, “Why, he’s my Mother!” They look at me skeptically and speak some gibberish into their walkie talkies. “I tell you he’s my mother!” I continue to bellow. The party mix recording just kicked up a notch.

Then they pull out my black Pixies hoodie. They eyeball it like it’s a dead animal. Whatever. Chumps. Of course they pull out Marlene’s book — Fisiologia dell’Amore by Mantegazza — and look at it — pretty much how chimps might. They’d best not mess with that. Next they pull out a spoon. They hold it out at me like that means something. I go, “Yeah. It’s called a spoon.” Then one of them brings it to his nose and sniffs it. Ha. Trust me when I say it’s not what he’s expecting. I’ll tell you later. Then the one guy reaches down and pulls out something tiny. Something I totally forgot was in there. A business card. A psychiatrist’s. Dr. Sig’s.

“Who is this,” they ask and ask. “Have you any relation to this person?”

I look at them and blink as slowly as possible. One of the tan pants has grease on his tan pants thigh. Probably from lunch. Where do they find these guys? And why do they always have long side burns? Curious. The pudgier one of the tan pants holds Dr. Sig’s card in the air between us. It suddenly seems super obvious what to say.

I smile and stand up, letting the trench coat fall to the floor. I put on my hoodie. Though I remain pantsless.

“That, boys, is my father,” I say dreamily, “I think you should call him.”

NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE ’RENTS WERE PISSED. ABOUT THE whole Nordfuck’s episode.

Father came home in the batmobile and went straight for a scotch — probably to wash the taste of Mrs. K. out of his mouth. Mother put down her spoons for a second and flapped her arms and squawked like a chicken — how I’d made another scene again in public — how I rode home in a cop car — how she can never shop at Nordtard’s again. Father said to her, and I quote, “Calm down. Would you calm down? Give me a minute to decompress from my day before you start claiming the sky is falling.” I stood in the hallway. Wished I had popcorn. I love their little dramas. “Ida, go to your room,” he said, his voice full of nothing. Ida go to your room? Whoa. Heavy.

To be honest with you I didn’t think being “grounded” was around anymore. It’s so … retro. Usually I just climb out the condo window onto the fire escape. But tonight I sorta feel … I don’t know, home-y.

At home in my room my walls kick ass. Lou Reed. Exene. Siouxsie Sioux. Kurt Cobain. David Bowie. Nico. Did you know Nico was fluent in four languages? That’s not what you hear about her. Typical. Marlene told me that. I lie down on my bed. I look at my ceiling. Hoping for a crack that means something.

In my bedroom I write letters on the walls. Hidden underneath the wall posters. With a purple sharpie. Today I’m writing under Nico.

What I write are Dear Francis Bacon letters. Francis Bacon the painter. You know, the guy who painted the screaming melting pope. Possibly the coolest painter in ever. Why? It’s the faces. He makes faces look like they can’t hold still. That’s so right on. Marlene gave me a giant Francis Bacon book a year ago and I just about peed. That Francis Bacon understood how faces are. For instance. When you get up close to someone to suck face? Their faces look like Francis Bacon paintings. No lie. I so get that. A face that just might smear off or explode. Underneath Nico I write: “Dear Francis Bacon: My face is an I hole.”

Basically I’m making a book out of the walls of my bedroom. Something for the spawners to decipher after I’m gone. Some day the spawners will walk across the purple shag carpet and start the process of taking their daughter’s posters down for a remodel — my father wants a home office — my mother a fucking crafts room — that’s when they’ll find my words. I study my handiwork.

Then I pull out the new book Marlene gave me — Fisiologia dell’Amore . By Mantegazza. Hope the mall chimps didn’t drool on it or anything. I open it.

Yeah. So it’s in Italian. But that’s not the cool part. The cool part is, just underneath every line, and I mean every single line, there is another line. In pencil. For every line of the book. Translated by Marlene. Who, like Nico, knows four languages. Marlene’s lines under all of Mantegazza’s lines. Maybe she even rewrote some of it.

The second cool as shit thing is the Mantegazza quote that opens the book. It goes:

To the daughters of Eve, that they may teach men that love

is not lechery, nor the simony of voluptuousness, but a joy

that dwells in the highest and holiest regions of the terrestrial

paradise,

that they may make it the highest prize of virtue,