Dora: A Headcase (20 page)

“Now just ease up a minute,” Freud stammers. “I can assure you, I’m here to help. I’m a medical professional.”

I look at my Sig reasoning with a door. Arms akimbo. Really. You crawled through the bedroom of a minor because you are here to help? Dude. You are so busted! I’m smiling ear to ear, my freshly-cut chin smile no doubt dribbling blood.

The Sig turns to me and hunches his shoulders and leans in. “Listen to me,” he whisper spits. “I don’t have time for this.” He grabs my arm pretty hard. I look down at my arm where he is clutching it. “Sorry,” he goes. “Just, for the love of christ. Give me the video, and I’ll help you get out of here,” he pleads. “What’s wrong with your chin?”

He’ll help me? I stare at him inside the womb of my room, chaos all around us. You know what he looks like? He looks like what Heidi’s grandpa would look like if Heidi’s grandpa was a coked up loony begging for a fix. I type one last thing on the laptop and turn it toward him: “Dude. You are a coked up old man in the bedroom of a she-minor. Wake up.”

All kinds of hell is happening on the other side of my bedroom door. It sounds like the opposite of family. I look at my half-smashed upside-down digital clock on the floor. It’s about a minute to 10:00 p.m. My ride, I suspect, is here.

Sig’s whispering gibberish and chasing me around my room while I pack up. I put my H4n into my Dora purse. Along with my Swiss Army Knife. Vicodin. Speedies. Then I walk over to my closet. I rummage around in the shoes I never wear and all the crap that’s down there – dirty clothes and dust bunnies and dead batteries and cig butts – in a box in the corner under all that is a trusty tin of lighter fluid and matches. Without even looking at Sig I stand up and point the tin of lighter fluid in his general direction.

“Christ!” He shrieks, and jumps back and away.

Tard. I roll my eyes. Holding the tin at hip level I shoot it at my computer. I shoot it all over the floor. I shoot my spray all over the walls, my bed. The smell of camping. Or a family bar-b-que. My eyes water.

The door is banging and lurching.

Sig is backed against the far wall.

“What in the name of Christ are you doing?” he goes.

For a Jew he certainly mouths the word “Christ” a lot. What is up with that?

I light a match. I light the matchbook on fire. I throw the flaming matchbook onto my bed.

Instantly there is a bed fireball. Our faces light up and heat. It’s really quite stunning, in a pyro pretty kind of way. The flames make their way out like fingers tracing the lighter fluid paths I sprayed everywhere.

As the room gets hot as shit I stare at Sig. Right that second? He mirrors me. We have the same look on our faces. The look of “why?” The look you have your whole life, I think. Sometimes words are irrelevant.

But time’s shrinking. Things smell like burned apples and synthetic fibers and circuit boards. Sig yells something incomprehensible and drops and rolls. Smoke stings my eyes and skin. My technology begins to crackle and pop. The purple words all over my walls seethe.

For a tiny moment I consider grabbing his arm and pulling
him toward the window … but you know what? Fuck the Sig. I’m so outta there.

Halfway through the fire escape window, with the Jag, Little Teena, and Ave Maria in sight there on the pavement below me, my bedroom door says one last thing that shocks even me. A booming voice, a voice filled with something from before I was born. It’s not my impotent father. It’s not Pepperoni. I turn and look back toward the talking door, Sig’s deranged little body on the floor behind me just over my shoulder.

“Open the goddamn door you piece of shit pervert,” the voice booms, “or I’m gonna blow it to smithereens!”

Sig remains grounded on the carpet in a coughing fit.

As I clamber down the fire escape toward freedom I realize whose voice was at the door. Late, but not never.

My mother’s.

WHEN SHE OPENS HER APARTMENT DOOR, MARLENE wears a black Nike warm-up suit and bright purple Nikes. Bright purple nails. Bright purple eye shadow. She brings a big black Nike sportsbag with everything else we need into the kitchen.

First things first: the wigs. For Little Teena, A.K.A. “the caseworker,” a man’s dago number with mutton chops. And a furry black mustache. For Ave Maria, A.K.A. “the distraught sister,” an Alice in Wonderland complete with baby blue headband. Eerily wholesome. And for me, A.K.A. “teen gone wrong,” no wig. My hair has hit the length of girls who cut their own hair short in little self-destructive hacking motions. I look exactly like a girl who fucked up her own head and life. I don’t need a wig. I’m perfect for me.

We could SO be on an episode of
The First 48
.

Ave Maria rummages around in the Nike sportsbag looking for extra “disguise” crap. She pulls out an eyepatch. “Can I wear an eyepatch too?” She straps it on. Now she looks like a pirate Alice in Wonderland.

“Why not,” Little Teena goes. “We can pretend Dora lost it and stabbed you in the eye.” He begins to glue down his mutton chops.

I rub my mangy head. I could probably pass for a guy. But I don’t want to be a guy.

The Farrah wig from before is at the ready. For later. After
we retrieve Obsidian from the godforsaken teen halfway house hell. For the airport. I carefully fold it and stow it in my backpack.

Marlene leaves the kitchen for a moment and returns with a soft pelt in her arms. “This,” she says very solemnly, “is for your Obsidian.” A hush falls over us all. We stare at the monumental beauty of it. A Wonder Woman wig. Big huge piles of dark chocolate locks. Then Marlene carefully explains the post-escape drama to me.

By the time we get to Sea-Tac airport – assuming we get that far – Obsidian and I will have become two young hair show models on their way to Paris for one of the most important hairdressing industry conferences around. For those who are in search of excellence, who are always looking ahead for ways to innovate in the growing industry of hair design, this conference is a cross between the best in artistry and the best in business, featuring the top names in hair, creators who believe in a new you for every age. Marlene hands me several brochures.

False I.D.s, false paperwork, false hair.

Courtesy of Hakizamana Ojo.

It doesn’t matter who you really are in the world any longer. It only matters what it says on your documents and what the rules of surveillance are on your chosen path. Houston means take off any twat or tit jewelry or you’ll be strip searched. O’Hare means add three hours to your wait in line time and don’t even think about trying to act “down” by saying “da bomb” or anything. If you have the right documentation for the particular geographic area, the right magical stamps and data and weird little tilt and glow hieroglyphics on your paperwork and identification, you can be anyone. I know the current shtick is that HOMELAND SECURITY is all over your ass, but you know what the truth is? The folks manning the security at airports are all a bunch of overworked underpaid people who just need paychecks and jobs so they don’t get deported or arrested or thrown out of their homes.

Ironic, isn’t it.

The paperwork is neatly displayed before us on Marlene’s
kitchen table. It really is something. Artful even. I take out my purple sharpie. I write BEAUTIFUL on the surface of Marlene’s kitchen table. She smiles.

“Now I have something to remember you by,” she says.

My chest implodes.

It’s time to go. My arms go numb. My mouth opens. I drop my head down and look at the linoleum floor. So I don’t have to think about not seeing Marlene for god knows how long I study the floor. When I look back up, Marlene is all business.

“I will meet you at my north terminal surveillance hut,” Marlene says, winking, and hands me two plane tickets. She sizes me and my little sadness up. “Liebchen!” She says. “This is not the last time you will see me. Of that I am certain. This is simply the last time we will see each other as the people we are in this kitchen this moment.”

She laughs. You know which laugh. The one from her belly. The one with all of history in it.

“Think who you will be the next time! We will drink to it!” She exclaims.

“Yay!” Ave Maria pipes, spinning around in a circle, her real hair shooting out like spaghetti.

I want Marlene’s laugh to hold us like that all night – in her kitchen – wigs all over the place – the word “beautiful” drawn in purple sharpie on her kitchen table. I walk over to her and hug her and bury my face in her tits, wondering even inside my ripped up heart what her tits are made of. Socks? Silicone? They feel like perfect warm water balloons against my face.

When we leave the back of my head itches. I’m afraid to turn back around and look or I’ll bawl like a pussy.

But Marlene calls out in a booming manwoman voice “Lamskotelet!” So I gotta turn around one last time.

In Marlene’s hand is a giant plastic bag filled with bacon. “For the journey!” And laughing and laughing.

IN THE JAG ON THE WAY TO THE TEEN HALFWAY HOUSE I stare at my thighs. Then I stare out the car window. Shadows of shit pass by. It’s late. Maybe midnight. We want to control the scene at the halfway house. We’re hoping for a small staff of exhausted underpaid workers. I’m riding shotgun.

Little Teena, A.K.A. “the caseworker,” drives. His face is partially lit up by the green and orange console lights. Ave Maria, A.K.A. “the distraught sister,” is in the backseat. I can see her head bopping up and down in the rearview mirror. Her earbuds jammed in her ears. Her Alice in Wonderland hair cascading over her shoulder. Her absurd eyepatch momentarily flipped up.

I think into the night. I search the sky. I used to be able to find the Dippers easily. Now I don’t know what direction to look.

No one says anything especially me.

It hurts. The silence.

We drive.

I think I see some cows pass by on the side of the road but they might just be those eye blotches you get when you are trying not to cry.

Mercifully, Little Teena saves me from my own pathos.

“All right. What’s our motivation?” he shouts out.

Ave Maria pulls out her earbuds. “What?” she says.

“Our motivations. We need to know how to act,” he repeats.

“Oh. Did we eat all the bacon?” Ave Maria says, hooking her arms over the seat so her face is up by us in the front.

I hand her what’s left of the bacon. The whole car pretty much smells like pig oil.

Between swine chews Ave Maria says, “Well, I’m beside myself because my sister tried to gouge my eye out witha … with a… ” she looks up at the felted car ceiling. “With a spoon!” she says.

I have to admit, I like it. That girl has hidden talents. God knows I’ve always got a spoon with me. My mother’s.

“But you love your sister too, isn’t that right, distraught sister? You can’t bear for anything too terrible to happen to her?” Little Teena coaches.

“Uh huh!” Ave Maria agrees, chewing seriously.

“I’m the sole legal guardian, is what the paperwork says,” Ave Maria goes.

I smile. I am never going to meet anyone like her in my life again. I know it.

“I’m wanting outta this chickenshit assignment – bucking for a reassignment – homicide. I’m looking to make detective.” He fingers a mutton chop. He waves his finger at us collectively and says, “You two are an embarrassment to me. Beneath me. I’m just looking to unload you,” he points to me, “and bone you,” he points to Ave Maria, “before it’s all over.”

Ave Maria cracks up. I do too. The image of Little Teena A.K.A. the mutton-chopped caseworker boning little miss eye patch while the scary bald teen tries to gouge everyone’s eyes out with a spoon is worthy of an LSD dose.

“So then let’s go over the script again,” Little Teena prods.

“I know what to say,” Ave Maria bleats, nearly hitting her head on the car ceiling. “I’m supposed to make a big deal all distraught-y if we needa … what do you call it?”

“Diversion.” Little Teena shakes his head up and down.

“You say all the cop-ly stuff and give whoever is at the intake desk that whole cool pile of paperwork. Do you wanna practice your cop-y authority voice on us?” Ave Maria’s quite nearly in the front seat with us, her skinny arms and elbows poking everywhere.

Little Teena clears his throat. “We’ ve got a live one here, I’m afraid, emergency intake. They can’t take her up at Chelan so we had to come here. Full up at Chelan. Christ. Kids these days, huh?”

“Fuck that’s hot!” Ave Maria shouts. “Say it again!”

Little Teena complies. Then they go back and forth for a bit in mock bad cop television show lingo. It’s weirdly relaxing.

I look out of the car window again. I push the button and my window goes down. The night air hits my face. I close my eyes. So much like a dream, things are sometimes. Or a movie. If I was filming us driving I’d put a Nick Cave song in. I’d zoom in on ordinary objects in the car – Little Teena’s thick fingers on the steering wheel, the green glow of the speedometer and digital clock. Ave Maria’s Hot Tamales sticking out of the pocket of her jean jacket. And the pink plastic of my Dora purse – the safety pins for eyes – my black skinny jeans knees. It’s a claustrophobic little world the objects we own make for us.

But then I’d pan out to the view beyond the inside of the car, because you can do that with film – you can expand or contract space – you can trick time by going slow motion so that a few seconds of silence riding in a car lasts thirty minutes. You can speed up an entire day and night so it looks like a series of retinal flashes.

If I was filming this scene I’d go from the vastness of a night sky back to each of our faces there in the car – the way faces close up can look like their own universes. Ave Maria’s eyes are blue-green. Like the ocean. Little Teena has a cool little comma scar just under his right eye. It makes him look perpetually shy just under his badassery. My face is like a blank screen to me. I don’t know what there is about my face. Sometimes I’m scared it’s nothing.