Michelle Tea - Black Wave

Arch your back, girl, arch your back, he kept saying in that wonderful voice, but Michelle found it as frustrating as yoga instruction — did arch your back mean she should round her spine or dip it? Michelle missed having sex with someone whose penis was store-bought, possessed no nerve endings, required nothing from her but the frenzied bucking of her own wild pleasure. When Reinaldo’s cell phone rang he answered it, spoke Spanish, said Puta . Michelle wished she could understand him fully, but she was not in love in this dream and so could expect no magic from her mind. Reinaldo dropped the condom to the shore with all the other condoms, that slab beneath the fallen piers was something of a love hotel. Michelle pulled her dress back over her head.

Getting out of the place they’d snuck into was a challenge, the sun setting at their back a real threat. Michelle considered simply waking up. Would dreaming Reinaldo — presently a twelve-year-old boy asleep in Chelsea — awake suddenly from his first wet dream? Michelle stayed in the dream. Reinaldo was telling her how his family had escaped the war, how running from war was in his blood and he could feel it when he hopped a fence or trampled a jungle of weeds in his sneakers. Sometimes he wished for the apocalypse so he could experience that part of himself, surviving. They scaled a shaking wall of chain link and dropped onto the backside of the housing projects. Michelle found climbing the fence more physically exhilarating than the sex, but she didn’t regret meeting Reinaldo or staying inside the dream with him. It was all one experience — the particular smell of the rotting wood, Boston like an enchanted city across the harbor, the spires of its office buildings flaunting themselves against the dusky sky, the smashed and ruined waterfront, the weeds run riot. It was a good dream. Reinaldo walked Michelle to the subway and went on to meet his friends at a street festival. Michelle was not invited. His girlfriend/not-girlfriend would be there.

I’ll tell her I was eating oysters , Reinaldo smiled, and sniffed his fingers. Michelle slipped a token into a turnstile.

You’re Twelve Years Old, she told him. You’re A Boy. Wake Up. Reinaldo’s face held confusion, then a swirl of recognition even more confusing, and then it shimmered like the harbor waters and was gone.

The bookstore shelves emptied as Michelle allowed shoplifters to shoplift. At first she had tried to stop them, even waved her gun at one but the woman had called her bluff and began hurling paperbacks at her. Michelle tucked the gun back into the waist of her cutoffs and allowed the woman to ransack the place. She was disappointed in herself for caring but sometimes the chaos bugged her out. She appreciated Joey, who ran an ever-tighter ship in the shadow of the world’s end. The bookstore was cleaner than it had ever been.

Beatrice and Paul hardly came in anymore, preferring instead to sleep. Apparently the couple had found a way to sync their dreams and experience, together, adventures in a wonderful world. They hiked into pine forests and sat side by side on the edge of a smoking Hawaiian volcano, eating shave ice. They experimented with herbal sleeping remedies, testing for a dosage that allowed them to sleep long hours without degrading the quality of the dreams. They were like drug addicts, Michelle thought resentfully. She shared her analogy with Joey.

It’s Like They’re On Heroin, she snipped. On The Nod, Having Visions. It’s Fucking Weird. It’s Sad.

Joey considered. No, he said, They’re just dreams. You know, like the ones everyone’s having. You’re having them, right?

Michelle nodded. She shared with Joey the story of the painter, the boy in the garden.

Girl! Joey high-fived her. The imagination you got! I just keep sucking dick, sucking dick, sucking dick. I swear. He fanned himself with a copy of Howl. It’s a good time, though.

Joey hasn’t figured it out, Michelle thought. Nor had she. Apparently, he’d been destined to a lifetime of fellatio. Michelle had been destined to a lifetime of casual sex with teenage girls who grew up to become transgender men. And Beatrice and Paul, their love was real and lasting. They were destined to a lifetime with each other. Michelle burned with a quiet jealousy. It really was like her employers were on heroin, which made Michelle wish she were on heroin, too. Michelle remembered the feel of it inside her body, side by side with Lu. She didn’t care if the love had been real or fake, the chemical reaction synthetic opiates or organic dopamine, she wanted those feelings again. She thought about Andy and the softer feelings of safety she inspired — that was oxytocin, wasn’t it? The cuddle hormone that makes moms love their babies. Michelle wanted a dopamine/oxytocin IV drip, or, at the very least, another visit from Matt Dillon. With fresh certainty Michelle realized there was no such thing as love. It was all a quilt of sexual compulsion, unmet childhood needs, and brain chemistry. For the first time, Michelle felt glad that the world was ending. Without the illusion of love, it was no good place to be.

This is my mother’s favorite song. Michelle hadn’t heard the jingle of the door opening. Patti Smith blared on the stereo behind her and Diane di Prima’s Loba was clutched in her hands, a good combination. She pulled herself out from the world of vessels and prostitutes and wolf-ladies. A young girl, barely teenage, stood at the counter, a sweet smile on her face. Her brown hair fluffed past her shoulders, held back from her freckled cheeks with a wide headband. Little earrings sparkled in her earlobes. Patti Smith crooned around them, Little sister, the sky is falling. I don’t mind, I don’t mind .

Your Mother Must Be Cool, Michelle said.

She’s not, the girl said. Her lips were pushed together as if biting back impatience. Something lumped beside her on the floor, a giant duffle bag. A runaway. What must it be like to be a runaway at the start of the apocalypse? Michelle felt the impulse to help — if the girl was tough enough to clean away the rotting body of the neighbor and his rottweiler, maybe she could have that apartment. But helping a runaway had to be like helping any stray, but worse. Once helped, they would return again and again, your charge. Michelle couldn’t handle it. She didn’t want to be this girl’s apocalypse mom. She felt the hard moon inside her rising to eclipse her heart.

What Do You Want? she asked.

I’m here to see Michelle, she said primly, the smile growing wider. My name is Ashley.

Ashley had found Michelle on the dreamtime missed connections site. Michelle had dreamed she was on a boat with a boy and the boat was sailing through a beautiful cemetery. The etched marble mausoleums were hung with pictures of the dead in their prime, many were mustachioed young men with feathery hair who had passed. Michelle knew they had been gay men with AIDS. The lushness of the dream was thick with melancholy. Michelle and the boy leaned against the rail, a slight salt spray dusting their faces, and they kissed with the understanding that they would die. It was a nice dream, it had gravitas. A person named Ashley, located in Alaska, had identified herself as that boy and emailed a request to visit with Michelle while passing through Los Angeles. Michelle wasn’t holding her breath. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet anyone from these dreams. She wasn’t sure what the point would be. Also, there were so many dreamtime lovers for Michelle they made her feel slutty and embarrassed.

Now here was Ashley. Her bouncy hair was product-free. Her skirt was tiered and fell down her legs. Her face was sweet cheeked and innocent, she could be paid to sell hope and purity. Hers was the smiling face on a box of dryer sheets or maybe advertising an HMO. Ashley. Very different than the boy who’d stood beside her on the boat.