Michelle Tea - Black Wave

Michelle and Andy were not faithful to one another. Theirs was a messily open relationship, one in which the boundaries were never fully articulated so could never be fully broken. In spite of this, there was the feeling that Michelle was shitting on the rules all the time with her haphazard acquisition of lovers.

An example: She had an affair with a junkie troubadour named Penny. Penny sang Johnny Thunders songs on her acoustic guitar as they walked through the industrial wasteland of her neighborhood, Dogpatch, a place not yet gentrified, with vacant storefronts and SRO hotels, in one of which Penny lived. Penny had tangled black hair that clawed out from her head like Medusa. She wore spandex pants and clunky boots with broken zippers. The boots barely stayed on her feet so there was always the exciting possibility that Penny would wipe out. Walking down the street with her was like watching a circus acrobat. Penny’s small room was padded with thrift-store clothing, mounds of it. They made out on a mattress on the floor, a muted black-and-white television strobing behind them.

In the morning, though, panic woke Michelle like an alarm clock. Who was this elegant skeleton she was curled into? This hair had a new smell, the dusty stink of Aqua Net Extra Super Hold and a drugstore perfume worn as a joke and also dirt and sweat and the tang of heroin itself, brown sugar and spoiled wine. Though Penny was who she’d wanted last night, slow kisses tasting of new intoxicants, Andy was who she wanted to wake up with, the shore she longed to beach herself upon. Michelle peered through makeup-crusted eyes at the collection of clothes making drifts up the walls — she would be smothered in an earthquake. Penny shambled out of bed, so frail in the daylight, and rutted through the base of a pile, extracting something that shimmered like the scales of a magical fish. She pulled it over the torn slip dress she’d passed out in and left to throw up in the bathroom down the hall.

Michelle fled. She wheeled about Dogpatch, an unfamiliar neighborhood. The apocalyptic times that were upon them glared from every bit of rubble, every mound of festering shit left by the packs of wild dogs she hoped she would not run into. Did buses even run out here? How had she arrived? Penny had met her on the corner, with her guitar. She had strummed “You Can’t Put Your Arms around a Memory,” singing it with a cracking voice. Penny really was like a girl Johnny Thunders. Someone had tattooed the lyrics to “Chinese Rock” on her shoulder with a sewing needle. It was a spidery tattoo, the lines shook crooked down her skin, but it worked with her look.

Penny was indeed amazing, but Michelle worried there was a time limit on that sort of amazing. That it was the sort of amazing that could begin to look sad with age. Michelle fought against this analysis, which seemed cruel and typical. The messed-up queers Michelle ran with tempted fate daily, were creating a new way to live, new templates for everything — life, death, beauty, aging, art. Penny would never be pathetic, she would always be daring and deep, her addiction a middle finger held up to proper society. Right? Right?

Andy had her own love intrigues, one with a shy photographer who’d grown up in Alaska. Andy insisted that this was not as glamorous as it sounded. Alaska! Michelle projected sleighs and fur coats onto the girl, who she had never met but whose name was, amazingly, Carlotta, same as Andy’s. Like getting to go into the same public restroom, having a date with your exact name was a whimsical perk of lesbianism. Michelle imagined this Carlotta as a femme twin of Andy, standing on a windswept glacier wearing a fluffy hat cut from the pelt of a baby seal. No matter that the glaciers had long ago melted into floods and that baby seals were cartoony memories surviving on as stuffed animals. Unlike some of the younger people she was friends with, Michelle had remembered the hype of Alaska, had seen it on TV, had understood the state’s brand. But all it had had going for it was the natural abundance thing, so when the planet started to die, Alaska had been one of the first states to tank.

Michelle was, for the most part, happy that Andy was having affairs, unless she wasn’t, and then she would demand painful information from her girlfriend.

Did You Touch Her Boobs? Michelle interrogated. Did You?

Andy bristled under these demands and the pair fought. Michelle hated when a pane of lead came down over Andy’s heart, Andy who was always so ready to serve her, to bring her eggs and cider. Where had she gone? Michelle was in tears.

I Only Want To Know If You Touched Her Boobs! she cried. Andy was Michelle’s girlfriend. She had a right to know.

Michelle had a second affair with a mannish girl named Captain who hosted lots of drugged-out after-parties in her bedroom above Valencia Street. Andy rarely stayed out late, but Michelle often did not make it back to her futon until the nighttime sky began to brighten with the coming day. Michelle’s calculations were as anxious as a vampire’s — she had to be asleep before sunrise or she would panic that her life was out of control, but the inevitable end of a party always broke her heart. She would push it to the extreme last moment, dashing down Valencia in a pair of shoes so worn-down that the nub of a nail stuck out from the heel, one step ahead of the rising sun.

In Captain’s room everyone listened to Pavement and Elliott Smith and licked powdered pyramids of ecstasy from their palms. Before Michelle fell into debilitating bliss, she and Captain bonded over astrology and Captain let her pluck a card from her Salvador Dali tarot deck. Paralyzed by the drug, they made out on Captain’s bed for about five hours, their friends heaped around them like the sea lions that once honked down at the piers. Latecomers brought nitrous and the crack and hiss of the slender canisters became the sound track to their slow-motion kisses. On and on this went, time made obsolete by chemicals. Captain was not an amateur — her windows were hung with black curtains, the room as immune to the passage of time as a Vegas casino.

Michelle and Captain went on a date to the bathroom of the lesbian bar. Michelle’s ass, perched on the sink, bumped the cold-water faucet as she came in Captain’s face, soaking her backside and wetting Captain’s long bangs. She mopped up with scratchy paper towels and left to meet Andy for dinner. Rushing through the Mission, Michelle gave her hands a sniff. Captain had allowed Michelle to ransack her and Michelle’s fingers stunk of her good fortune. She popped into a liquor corner store and purchased a pack of watermelon Bubblicious, chewed a piece until it was fattened and gritty with sugar and spit, and scoured her hands with it. Her hands were sticky and disgusting but they smelled like fruit, not sex, and Michelle felt better. Andy knew she was being a slut, but she didn’t have to rub her girlfriend’s nose in it.

Together, Andy and Michelle had an affair with a girl named Linda. Michelle had found Linda at the bookstore where she worked and was excited by the girl’s willingness to consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol. Sometimes Michelle felt resentful toward Andy for being so moderate, for sipping some ridiculous fake drink like a daiquiri while Michelle got hammered on shots and cocaine. Andy would go home at a reasonable hour, abandoning Michelle at the bar, but Linda would party until her intake knocked her out. On their second date Michelle petted the girl’s head as it hung out the window of a party, sending streams of barf onto the street below. When she was finished the pair found a closet in a bedroom and had sex, Linda’s forearms, tattooed with rockets, shooting into Michelle’s deep space. Eventually Michelle flipped Linda, working her hand inside the girl for about ten minutes before realizing she had passed out. Michelle put her clothes back on and rejoined the party, leaving Linda tucked beneath a leather coat.