Michelle Tea - Black Wave

Giovanni Ribisi and Jason Lee, dead. Kirstie Alley and Juliette Lewis. Karen Black! The Presley women! Michelle started to feel an antsy excitement, as if these famous people were just chilling in the garden across the street, not getting rolled out on stretchers. She wanted to see. But did she? Did she want to see Linda Blair dead from poison, a corpse on a cot? This was not how Michelle had wanted her celebrity sightings to happen. She regretted frittering away her brief glimpses of Gwen Stefani and Marilyn Manson.

Julia Migenes. Judy shook her head as she entered the shop, upset.

Who Is That? Michelle asked.

An opera singer. Marvelous, just marvelous. The paramedics rolled her out a moment ago. It is awful over there, awful. Judy shuddered. But all the more reason to keep our vigil, she said, determined. She heaved her tote from her shoulder onto the counter, obscuring a paperback, Baby Driver by Jan Kerouac, Jack Kerouac’s junkie, hooker, memoir-writing daughter. Like her father she was already dead and would be spared this time of celebrity mass suicides. Judy dug from her tote a bunch of waxy white candles and a stack of shiny paper ashtrays. She laid them before Michelle.

So, you have scissors? Michelle nodded. Well, let me see, then. Michelle pulled a pair of scissors from under the register. Judy took them up, snipped a slit into the ashtray and jammed a candle through it. Voila! Catches the wax. Won’t burn your hands. Do as many as you can. She lifted her tote back onto her shoulder. I’ll be back in a half hour or so. Want to check in on La Bébête. Allan was crying. Judy’s voice grew hushed. Crying! European men are just different. More sensitive. He sat inside that car and just cried. No one has come to help him, not with the suicides across the street. There’s only so many resources. I’m going to help him sweep up some of the glass so he can try to open tonight.

They’re Going To Open? Michelle asked. With All This? She waved a blunt candle at the carnage across the street.

Oh, well, he’ll get a lot of business tonight I think, between the vigil and the suicides. That car that got knocked through the window was a convertible, I told him he should just pull the top back and let people sit there. Won’t that be a hoot? She nodded at the craft supplies. Half hour. Do what you can.

Judy, I’m Working.

Judy waved her hand. I spoke to Beatrice, she told me I could leave it with you. Just pitch in, why don’t you?

Michelle lifted the scissors and petulantly stabbed a hole into an ashtray. Oh! Judy dug a roll of ribbon from her tote. She flung the wheel of it to Michelle, red, white, and blue stripes. And then you tie a bit of ribbon at the base, like so. Sweet, right? One half hour. Judy jingled out of the shop. Michelle rammed a candle through the gouged ashtray.

First there were only a few people at the vigil, but soon there were many. Michelle watched the sidewalk clog outside the bookstore. People held cameras, took pictures of the car lodged in the French bistro’s facade. Diners reclined inside the vehicle, the top cranked down per Judy’s suggestion. They held heavy-bottomed glasses of wine in their hands, their fingers lacing the stem, they raised the sloshing goblets at the cameras and smiled, their lips purple. Candles flickered everywhere, each one ornamented with red, white, and blue bows tied by Michelle’s nimble fingers.

The strip’s restaurants emptied onto the sidewalk and diners hoisted their drinks into the air, like it was New Orleans and a great procession was passing by. Someone held a poster-board globe with HONK FOR EARTH painted on it, cars rode by, honking. When cars honked, everyone cheered. Judy dashed up and down the strip, weaving through the people, handing out the candles. Beatrice stopped by the bookstore, holding a glass Coke bottle plugged with a candle. She and Paul had gotten good seats — not at the French bistro, whose tragedy had lent it novelty, but at the Italian joint down the street. They kept checking in to make sure the bookshop hadn’t been set upon by looters. Beatrice placed the Coke bottle on the dime paperback cart, the melting wax blobbing around the ribbon.

Michelle, keep an eye on that? Make sure it doesn’t get knocked over and set the books on fire.

The bookstore was empty. Michelle lingered in the doorway, by the dime cart and its burning candle, observing the strip. A man dressed as Uncle Sam was jogging in the gutter, pumping his hands in the air like a mascot at a sporting event, inciting the crowd to cheers. Everyone seemed drunk. A young kid, good-looking, no shirt on, held a large cloth peace flag above his head as he ran laps around the block, the fabric rippling in the wind above his rippled torso. The crowd loved it. A Boy Scout troop arrived and stood across the street from the drunkards, singing patriotic songs paces away from the news crews still covering the celebrity suicides. A couple of news cameras crossed the street, shifting their focus to the vigil. Was the vigil for the fallen celebrities? No, no, Judy said, offended. She did not want her event getting appropriated.

Inconsolable Tom Cruise fans had arrived and attempted to assemble an altar at the Celebrity Centre’s gates, arranging candles and photos and iconic relics — a pair of Ray Bans, a cocktail shaker. They were quickly brushed away. It had not yet been announced that Tom Cruise was dead, it was all rumor and speculation. The fans were grief maddened, holding above their heads homemade collages of the actor in his many roles— Jerry Maguire, Top Gun, Legend .

The cops guarding the Celebrity Centre pushed the stricken fans across the street to the vigil, where Judy pushed them back toward the Celebrity Centre. This is not a vigil for Tom Cruise! Judy shouted at the fans, the news cameras trained on her. This is a vigil for the planet! Our planet! Planet earth! Michelle’s hand flew to her mouth as she watched Judy rip a Vanilla Sky poster from someone’s hands and dip the edge of it into her vigil candle. She tossed the flaming effigy into the gutter.

Whoa, uh-oh! yelled the topless boy with the peace flag. There was no way around the conflagration but into oncoming traffic. He jogged in place, the flag sinking limply onto his head. Judy flung her candle onto the poster and stormed down the street, enraged.

A rebel Boy Scout climbed onto the bus shelter across the street and began chanting, USA! USA! The crowd roared its approval. A fire truck cruised by and the crowd howled anew, as if the truck were but the latest float in a parade. The fireman, confused, honked his horn in acknowledgment of the salute, and the crowd howled once more, hoisting their drinks to the noise. Michelle noticed many people crying. Women and men. Insensitive American men, in tears. People waved flags, American flags and peace flags.

Revelers asked Michelle where they could get candles. A Little Gray Lady. Michelle craned her neck to search for Judy. I Think She Lost Her Mind And Left. She gave away the Coke bottle candle.

A blond girl walked by on a cell phone. Yeah, it’s really awesome, you should come down, it’s awesome. . A young golf punk from her apartment building approached, his pristine spikes standing full mast atop his head.

We were up on the roof, you should see it from there! he crowed. You should come up with us, drink some beers.

Can’t, Michelle thumbed back toward the bookstore. Working.

Oh. The punk looked uncomfortable, turned away as if Michelle had revealed a great shame. You work here? Well, see ya. He moved into the crowd. Michelle felt a sudden embarrassment at her lack of embarrassment at having this job. She didn’t even know enough to know what she should be ashamed about in life. She was starting at subzero, she would never scramble out in a year.