Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

She got very close to it, the closer she got, the more the mom seemed to open up, her smile grew larger & her eyes watery, her big breasts exposed. The closer she got to the dead baby the more intimate was the two women’s fleeting bond. The tiny girl’s vulva was enormous, almost the size of a grown-up’s, Jerilynn’s had looked the same, swollen from the mother’s hormones. For a few seconds, it looked roaringly healthy, thick rubber bumpers bracketing a deep decubitus ulcer, it looked like the thing that may have killed her.

The agitated husband didn’t know what to do next little darling of mine smoke another cigarette or throw himself from the window. The wife beckoned him in that calm understated tender way and he couldn’t refuse her, he said he’d get in the picture if he could keep smoking his cigarette. She said “smoke your cigarette sweetheart” & he did, squinting, smoke hung in the natural light, sirens in the distance, sound of Albie muffling his fag tears somewhere behind her — did the door open & close? Did Albie leave? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the little family, & Daniel the husband, who was handsome as hell, quashed the cigarette on the floor & climbed deeper into the bed, he wasn’t about to look at their babygirl, only a motion away, but he’d surrendered to the camera, & his wife’s wishes.

She went through one roll of film, & then it was done.

I Am A Camera

ReeRee

was panicking. Kind of. She was trying (failing) to turn the rage toward her mother into something useful, an engine that could power her into a trajectory, any kind of momentum, momentum of a life .

She needed money — she & Rikki did — her brother gave her $400 but that was 10 days ago & he was so fucked up he was scaring her. Kind of.

She was a prisoner held captive like Rapunzel in Tangled . Rikki had his crappy Craig’slist motorcycle but was only with her 3 or 4 times a week, his fostermom was hospitalized for depression & he needed to be there for Jim his dad. Which was sweet, pure Rikki. It’s what is going to make him a great dad. But still, tho—— what about me. What about fucking me what about me and your BABY . You have time to do your little auditions but what about me with my throw-up. She seemed to be having her morning sickness now, all these months later. They took his bike for chores&fun when he was there but when he wasn’t all she could do was ride the bus which she hated because all the sad, scary people looked like dull mean ghosts patiently biding their time to lay claim to her. One day she would get on the bus & never get off & nobody would even notice, sucked into the whorl of their grimy nowhere worlds.

Rikki said she should just come stay with him at his house, he talked to Dawn & Jim (well, to Jim) & they were totally cool, of course they were, they were kind, it was so much better to have kind fosters than a thieving bloodmother or faraway idiot uncaring bloodfather, they gently lobbied Rikki to lobby ReeRee to come home, their home, her home, her 2nd home, a clean safe stressless environment because an expectant mom should not be wandering rootless, an expectant mom should be going to birth classes & cultivating friendships with other expectant moms through the affiliation of new parents and parents-to-be, an expectant mom needs to be going to the doctor regularly, an expectant mom needs to be close to her doctor’s hospital when the baby came, or before if something went wrong, an expectant mom & the husband or partner & the whole extended family needed to have a relationship with a doctor. Rikki said that Jim wanted him to tell her that he knew she was having problems with her mom but to put that aside and come stay with them. If the proximity to her mom was the thing that was stopping her. They would take her to the doctor visits, they would take her to buy things for the baby (a stroller, a crib, there were so many things), she was having a baby, their adopted son’s (soon) baby, she was giving them the divine gift of a grandson or granddaughter, they weren’t pushy, she knew they weren’t, the mom was nice, a little distant, but the dad especially wasn’t pushy, he was always kind and gentle, a good man, Please Ree, said Rikki, please just won’t you just come? Cause this shit is getting crazy she knew a portion of his ardor, of exerting his/their influence, was a measure of how far he was outside his comfort zone, he’d been freaked out about the baby thing from the beginning & now the moving away had freaked him out further plus Reeyonna knew that for some reason he felt guilty, he still felt the baby & all were somewhere in there behind his foster mom’s depression, & she knew he thought a baby would cheer her up when/if she ever got home, cheer his dad up too (which it would), which was sweet, Rikki couldn’t help himself, and ReeRee even felt a little bad for being so stubborn about just staying where she was but her new mother’s instincts bade her be selfish, bade her be protective, bade her keep as far away from that thieving cunt as she possibly could, but what about me, Rikki, what about me & our fucking baby. I mean who’s having this baby, Dawn & Jim?

Reeyonna said no.

She was adamant. That would be the worst kind of defeat.

That would put her inside a mile of her mother’s home — the bitch would soon find a way to wander over and establish a fucking détente— No way— defeat defeat defeat. But she loved Rikki’s parents & felt bad for the mom who was going through a really hard time. I’m going through a hard time too goddammit. She even called Jim to thank him & tell him why she couldn’t & got off the phone sooner than she planned when he made the mistake of saying he had talked to Jacquie who he assured was quite concerned re her welfare. O! The thieving cunt was trying to jump on the caring bandwagon— Hi y’all! It’s just me! Grandma! — which, by the way was impossible because all she ever thought about was herself. Too fucking little too fucking late. Rikki’s mom & dad care more about me than you ever did, you psycho, I am going to disendaughter myself from you, & become their daughter. And they will agree to my terms, they will have to if they want to see their grandchild, they will agree to my terms which are that NO ONE WILL HAVE CONTACT WITH YOU EVER. BECAUSE YOU ARE A FUCKING PSYCHOTHIEF WHO STOLE YOUR DAUGHTER AND YOUR COULD-HAVE-BEEN GRANDCHILD’S LIVES.

She was going to make a lot of money as a forensic detective then sue the bitch. (All of her friends basically either wanted to become pornstars or CSI forenz detectives. They called her a basic bitch for liking The Closer but Kyra Sedgwick had such amazing hair.) By then she’d be tight with the district attorney, & it would be easier for her, she would try to get her mom a jail sentence, not house arrest but JAIL because at least in jail she could get raped by a dyke, & if she ever got sick, the medical care was so shitty she read on the internet that sometimes they just let the prisoners die writhing in pain in their cells. She wished Kim Kardashian’s dad was still alive, she recently found out by watching an E! biography that he was a big lawyer & friend of that football player who murdered his wife, ReeRee googled while she was watching & it said the killer even stayed at Robert Kardashian’s house when he was out on bail or whatever. (She would totally try to make it so that her mom could not get bail.) She wondered if Kim, Kourtney & Khloé were even born yet, she hoped not, because it would have been sick to have someone in your house like that who everyone thought killed his wife (which he did , & at first got off for but was later rearrested) but she guessed it was fine because after all their dad was the O.G., the original Kardashian, the O.K. , & she concluded he would be perfect to handle the case against that selfish bitch, her soon-to-no-longer-be mom. ReeRee would sue & win, maybe even be awarded the house, which would certainly be a twist. Mr. Kardashian would petition the court & have her mom ordered to vacate & take all her shit her fucking useless cameras for her useless career with her, & ReeRee would get a restraining order against her for life just to rub it in you cannot come within 100 miles of me & my child maybe children by then she & Rikki and her friends & even his fosters (by then his adopted true parents) would commence to paint & scrub & garden-redo, maybe even winning an Extreme Home Makeover removing every vestigial trace of the paroled, restraining-ordered Thief of Dreams … her grandmotherless baby (on Ree’s side, not on Rikki’s) might even wind up going to John Crowe Ransom, she’d fix it so if Bitch Thief ever even came close to the schoolgrounds to pathetically glimpse sight of her non-grandchild (all filial relations to Reeyonna by then, with the help of Ree’s D.A. friend & others, having been totally legally severed… Rikki once told her about the whole process, she didn’t want to be ruled an emancipated minor, “emancipated minor” was some bullshit for cranky young lets trying to get away from their own thieving parents, no, she wanted the real thing, her blood connection to Bitch Thief to be totally stricken from the record )—& if she did show up an old, raped, makeup-less just-released-from-prison hag to glimpse her tweenage grandchild, well then she would risk rearrest & detainment & imprisonment. For it was now Reeyonna’s turn to steal from her mother, steal her time, her years, her life, her breath, her world.