Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

I’m talking to the guy owns the building about maybe buying the place.

Jonelle can’t believe what’s gotten into me.

I’m like, “Nothing’s gotten in, it’s gotten loose.”

She shakes her ass, winks, says, “Daddy, I know that’s right.”

Then we let Dilly Jr. watch Curious George for a while, lock the door.

But not this morning.

She kisses my neck, slides the paper next to my eggs.

“Sorry, babe, but you should probably read this first.”

It’s in the metro section, no picture. The whole thing only rates half a column. Someone unbeknownst to authorities shot someone beknownst to authorities, a certain Wade “Butterfly” Belkowitz. In fact, they shot him four times and then stole his little triangles in what authorities are referring to as possibly drug-related. There’s a mention of Stu Mayse, second chances, the collapse of the social safety net, some editorializing about the takers not the makers in this world.

No warning about keeping monkeys as pets.

We don’t go to the funeral.

I try to call Cher but no one answers for a long time, and when they do it’s someone pretending they don’t speak English but in any case understanding enough to tell me she hasn’t been there in months.

“What did you expect?” Jonelle asks, takes the paper away, combs my hair. I can feel her belly, getting bigger again, pressed against my back.

“Nothing. It’s why I’m never disappointed.”

Dilly Jr. crawls into my lap, makes his time-for-snack face.

“Did you know Mommy married a philosophy professor?” Jonelle asks.

He actually considers.

“No.”

“Well, honey, neither did I.”

There’s just no way Penny can hack crashing another squat. With the incessant house meetings, the humorless stances on bacon and Kurdistan and stripper poles. The weird rules like no using the soup pan to cook freebase or stay off the hammock after dark. Who gets kicked out of a squat, anyway? Who has the power to make unilateral decisions in what is theoretically a leaderless community of equals? Penny has no idea who stole the money, but Sad Girl is still pissed. Razr and Roy Boi say they’re gonna kick Penny’s ass if she even thinks about coming around again, tries to sneak into a show.

Fine.

Shows are boring now anyway. Too expensive, full of teenyboppers and rock stars, the scene nowhere near as cool as it used to be. Besides, Penny’s psychic, knows she’s gonna find a place soon, a home always on the horizon of her mind.

And she’s right.

Even if it turns out to be a gentrifier’s brownstone owned by two men who cook together and sleep together and listen to Dakota Staton records while homemaking preserves. Jack and Francis. Except Francis calls himself “Jill” and waits for people to laugh, which you could pretty easily decide is unbearable. Or you could just roll with it, since it’s a renter’s market and Penny has zero other options. Mainly because she rocks shaved sidewalls and inky bangs, calf-high Docs laced tight. No makeup except blood-red lipstick, always. A Slayer tat competing with skulls and cue balls across tiny, sleeveless arms.

If she weighs a hundred pounds, it’s mostly steel-toe.

What the hell is everyone so scared of?

For six weeks Penelope (known as Penny Laid in the last band she screamed for) has answered ads, seeped trustworthiness, lied about the security deposit she doesn’t have. She’s been shined off by Georgetown couples with this-closet-is-a-bedroom smiles and you’ll-end-up-babysitting-us toddlers. She’s been passed on by coder geeks sunk deep in crushed empties and multiplayer action. But it’s the older women who sting the most. With their frowns and armfuls of cat-calendar cats, with their arid infertility and smell of no one emptying the hair trap in the Roomba since last August.

“We’ll call you,” they say.

“Doubt it,” Penny answers, getting pre-emptive her signature move in the face of disappointment. “I gave you a fake number anyhow.”

So when she sees the little red smiley face on the index card at the church she never goes to and then takes the bus all the way out to Race Riot Central, halfway down a street that’s practically Lebanon except crack instead of religion, and then gets off right where Jack and Francis wait on a brick stoop holding hands like the twin princes of wearing matching sweaters just to fuck with all the humorless young queens who think they’re cutting edge, it’s way too weird and perfect to say no.

Yes!

Penny puts down her guitar cases in the front hall. One with a guitar in it and the other full of lipstick, underwear, and her tarot deck.

“Well, I guess that just means more shelf space for me,” Francis says.

“Don’t listen to him, minimalism is the new maximalism,” Jack says.

Penny unpacks, opens the bedroom window, can barely breathe. Her latest psychic flash: D.C. is hot. The temperature rises way up over a hundred like it’s proud of itself. She shuffles her tarot, draws the Irradiated Sun and then the Rascally Nubian, decides to take a walk through the neighborhood. It’s a forgotten triangle off Rhode Island Ave, a couple acres of blacktop and rotting trash that the hibachi-tenders and forty-guzzlers who holla at her every step call New Jack Shitty.

They say, “Hey, white girl, what you doin’ uptown?”

They say, “Hey, Trixie, you lost?”

They say, “Hey, punk rawk, lemme buy you a drink.”

No thanks, fellas, but I appreciate the warm welcome!

When she gets back, Jack and Francis are coloring Shrinky Dinks they found at the farmers’ market.

“Hey, Penny,” Francis calls, “I got markers for you, too.”

“They’re the sniff kind,” Jack says. “You have to try Mango Surprise.”

Penny takes the stairs two at a time, tells herself, The boys are talking, you should answer them.

Penny tells herself, Communication is the cornerstone of a happy household.

Penny tells herself, And besides, when’s the last time someone bought you Magic Markers?

Since the answer is never, she resolves to go back down and lean against the cutting board, gush about how great it is to have new friends plus a door that actually locks. But maybe first take a shower and then brush her teeth with Jack’s imported Sri Lankan toothpaste that tastes like saffron and Tamil blood.

Penny throws the wet towel on the carpet, picks a pair of fresh overalls. It’s punishing to wear black in the equatorial heat, and so her wardrobe long ago transitioned from tights and leather to a daily pair of white painter’s overalls that allow maximum wicking of perspiration even if they make her look like an extra from a Dexys Midnight Runners video. Besides, she’s so small and stridently vegan that her sweat smells clean and untoxic, sort of like apple puree, like maybe she should bottle it and sell it online to Okinawa business pervs for three grand an ounce.

Downstairs, Francis bangs a cowbell with a spoon, partly because of a joke about Blue Öyster Cult that she doesn’t understand and partly because every Thursday is roommate dinner night.

“Hey, señorita, grub’s ready!”

There are salads and wine and experimental things on crackers. Billie Holiday alternates with Édith Piaf. Francis leans across the table, face flushed, two glasses in on a merlot with an overdesigned label. He’s tall with glasses and wavy bangs, a lawyer for a nonprofit that defends black people in situations where it probably would have been smarter to be white. Jack is a therapist. He has a tiny blond mustache and specializes in body relevance issues. They just want to make it official that they totally get Penny’s aesthetic. All she needs is a direction. Francis thinks she should apply to architectural school. Jack thinks she should start an all-girl band that’s essentially the D.C. Pussy Riot, except not Russian and with a different name because people are so uptight these days, “May I offer into evidence Janet Jackson’s flabby little tit?”