Michelle Tea - Black Wave

There , he said. Act Two.

Michelle was straightening the mess of books behind the counter when Joey came in. The fact of her having just fucked Matt Dillon right there in the bookstore, the electric gossip of it clacked against her teeth, she wanted to spit it out. How her head had been on the pile of books she was currently stacking, how the pages of Atlas Shrugged had fluttered against her cheek as the actor heaved above her. Maybe it was too personal, though.

Joey started at the sight of the gun on the counter, bringing his hands to his cheeks like Macaulay Culkin.

Mary! he exclaimed. What is with the firearms? Peace on earth! Good will toward men!

Michelle stood upright and lifted the weapon. She considered tucking it back into her waistband where it felt so good, but not with all the bending and lifting. She slid it into her army bag beneath the counter.

I Pulled A Gun On Junkie Ted, she said. I Fucking Hate Him. I Am Not Dealing With Assholes Like Him Anymore. I’m Not Going To Walk Around Scared For The Rest Of The Year.

Mary! Joey repeated and shook his head, stunned.

What? Really, Though. Don’t You Want A Gun?

Slippery slope, girl. Joey shook his head. I want my soul. That is my Armageddon resolution. Hold on to your soul.

I Don’t Think This Compromises My Soul, Michelle lied.

Uh-huh. Joey looked at the disaster of books littering the kiosk. What happened back here? I just straightened this out yesterday.

I’m Sorry, Michelle said.

No, no, it’s like the greatest thing ever. I am having so much anxiety today, cleaning really helps. Shoo, he flipped his wrist at Michelle, brushing her out from the cubicle. Give me space. Entertain me or something. Do you have any good apocalypse anecdotes? Besides pulling a gun on Ted? Where did you get a gun, even?

I Stole It From My Neighbor After He Killed Himself.

Joey poked his head above the counter like Kilroy, visible from the nose up. You saw someone die?

No. He Was Already Dead. He Killed Himself. But I Saw His Body. And I Took His Gun.

Did you take anything else? Joey’s voice had a lilt to it, like there was actually only one right answer to this question.

No, Just The Gun. But Really, Do You Think It Would Have Been Bad If I Had Taken His Wallet Or Something?

Yes, I do.

But Why? He’s Dead. I Wouldn’t Care If Someone Picked My Pocket If I Died.

When you die, Joey said briskly , it’s all about the soul, girl. The care of your soul. That’s all that’s gonna count. If there is a bigger picture — and millions of cultures for millions of years have seemed to think there is — your soul is all you’re going to have, so you better work on keeping it right, you know? I would refrain from pickpocketing corpses.

Michelle mulled it over. I Just Don’t Think It Would Sully My Soul, she maintained.

I don’t know, Joey singsonged. A tower of books was rising into view behind the counter. Who’s to say, who’s to say. A pause in his movements, and the hollow rattle of the aluminum trash bin. Holy Mary, Mary, Joey said. What do you make of this? He aimed the barrel of the bin at Michelle, pointing to Matt Dillon’s condom, slumped in a nest of receipts and the browned core of an apple.

Remember When I Was A Lesbian? observing Michelle recalled as she watched herself slip into a bathroom with a boy in a sideways baseball hat. Where did all these men come from? This one was young, twenty-two, though he had told her he was twenty-three, as if it made a difference. She slipped into the dream with ease. She was always lucid now, crossing over as if into another life, one as solidly real as the other.

Michelle and the boy were inside a brick building in the summertime on the East Coast of the United States of America. When Michelle looked out the window she could see dirty water — not apocalyptically dirty, just the regular soiled and oily water people had become accustomed to in the years before things became irreversible. Michelle saw a greasy harbor and clouds gone pink in the sky. The light was golden and she took a picture of it with her cell phone. It looked like an oil painting on the little screen. There was a long green bridge and beyond that a water tower sat upon a hill. That’s where I’m from, Michelle thought. Michelle felt a great swell of nostalgia for her life — it had been hard and strange to belong to such a place, but looking out at the piers rotting in the scummy water she knew it to be beautiful, the sort of beauty an ugly place will teach you to appreciate.

Michelle was dreaming of an art party. The old brick building housed a gallery that was having an inappropriate-themed costume party, though from what Michelle could see no one had really bothered with a costume. Michelle had bought a pair of cheap white stretch pants at Target and created a very realistic blood stain on her ass, dripping deep-red paint into the crotch, truly striving to replicate the Rorschach patterns of menstrual blood. At the party everyone thought she had really gotten her period and was bleeding all over herself.

And You Didn’t Try To Help Me Out? Thanks A Lot, Sisters, she scolded the lady artists gathered shamefaced around the inappropriate snack table, where tropical punch bobbed with plastic tampon applicators and a giant rubber rat sat in the center of the cheese plate.

The twenty-two-year-old was named Reinaldo. He was an artist and a break-dancer. His break-dancer name was Fly. Michelle wondered if he was the verb, the noun, or the adjective, but he was too drunk to ask. Reinaldo had been sampling the tampon punch bowl, plus drinking cans of Mexican beer. His pinned and reddened eyes were evidence of having smoked a blunt before even arriving at the party. Like everyone else, Reinaldo had thought Michelle’s ass a sad catastrophe, missing the joke. He hung out with her anyway. His hair beneath the baseball hat was a Medusa of curls, his cheekbones could peel the skin from an apple. He gave Michelle flyers for a show of his artwork, at a café in Chelsea. Now Michelle knew she was dreaming. Chelsea, the city that had birthed her, hazed her, and chased her out did not have cafés or art of any sort. Well, someone had bronzed the garbage lying around the city square but that seemed more a cynical prank than art. What Artists Do You Like? she asked the boy, and he blushed and shrugged, looking extra stoned.

You know. Picasso, Dali. . He trailed off. All those Spanish cats. And, what’s his name. M.C. Escher.

Oh, said Michelle.

Reinaldo was special because he was from the same place she was from, and so few people were. The City of Chelsea was filled with people from the City of Chelsea, but Chelsea is where they stayed. Michelle had not encountered any since running away, and now here was this boy. His accent was Latin and New England at the same time. It dizzied her, made her feel like she’d been sipping from the tampon punch bowl.

Michelle had invited Reinaldo into the bathroom for a kiss, but soon they were naked on the floor, having sex like frenzied animals. This is so excellent! Michelle thought. Reinaldo the break-dancer was smacking her ass, grabbing her hair, and pulling her face down to his junk, which was surprisingly pretty. I’m so not grossed out by guys anymore, she dreamed wonderingly, taking it into her mouth. Nothing about Reinaldo’s body bothered her. He was petite, his chest hairless, his muscles like the caramel ropes of a candy bar. She couldn’t wait to text message all her friends and tell them how she’d gotten it on with a twenty-two-year-old break-dancer named Fly.