Too Weird for Ziggy (7 page)

Sitting in the cab, the house and then the town disappearing into the distance, she should have felt like all the weight in the world had lifted from her shoulders, but the tiny envelope in her handbag weighed her down. She held the bag closed tightly on her lap. She wanted to know what was in it and she didn't. So maybe her mother wanted to “make up”—well, hooray for her—go meet her maker with a nice, easy conscience and with a few words Wite-Out and rewrite LeeAnn's whole existence. Maybe it was a declaration of love. Hell, that would be worse than eternal hatred; at least with that she knew where she stood. A sharp, unexpected pang stabbed LeeAnn in the stomach. It was, she knew, a ridiculous longing to make up. She wanted to throw the goddamn letter out of the taxi window, but it felt too heavy to lift from the bag. She didn't know how she managed
to carry her ten-ton handbag all the way to the airport departure gate.

In a first-class seat twenty thousand miles up and twenty minutes from landing, LeeAnn finally felt safe enough to open it. Inside was a single sheet of white paper the size of a leaflet folded, very neatly, in half. Trembling in spite of herself, LeeAnn opened it out. She read the dozen words written in her mother's bold but spidery handwriting. She dropped it to the floor. It was lying in the aisle when the stewardess passed. She picked it up and held it out to LeeAnn. “No,” said LeeAnn, shaking her head, “it's nothing to do with me,” and the stewardess took it away.

The bar was empty but for the barman. She hadn't been in the Lucky Shamrock for over a year, but he greeted her like a regular. “I want you to take down every bottle you've got on that shelf up there,” said LeeAnn, “and pour it all in one glass, and then pour another for yourself. I'm celebrating.”

“What's the occasion?” said the barman.

“Leaving home,” said LeeAnn. The cell phone rang. She jumped; she thought it was still turned off. She switched it to message mode. Her manager had already left a dozen messages since she stepped off the plane. “How did it go, darling?” “LeeAnn, call me.” “Call me as soon as you get this.” “LeeAnn, this is very urgent.” He said he'd set up an interview on
Good Morning America
for tomorrow, 8
A.M.
“Big” Willie Bean was serious about the memorial concert. Nashville was proposing a TV special.
Us
magazine wanted to do the funeral, and was offering a cover.

The barman brought her glass. She raised it up. “I want to make a toast. To God,” she said, “and the Lord Jesus Christ and all his happy little helpers,” and downed the drink in one. “To God,” said the barman, and took a sip from his glass. “Same again, young man,” said LeeAnn, slapping her glass down on the bartop. The barman carried another drink over. Again she knocked it straight back. “What do you say we make it a nice round three?” LeeAnn laughed. The alcohol was kicking in fast. She pointed to a bottle on the top shelf: “And you might add a little of that pretty blue one this time.”

“One Latino-Russian Surprise with a dash of curaçao it is.” He handed her the multicolored concoction. She held it up to the light, admiring its swirling beauty. The barman figured she was making another toast and lifted his glass again. “Who's this one to?” he asked.

“To my mother,” said LeeAnn, slurring only very slightly. “A toast for my toasted mom. And to her very last gift to her firstborn baby girl.”

“And what was that?” asked the barman.

“Oh, just a little old letter.” Her face had drained of color, but her cheeks were livid. “Something my mother wanted to tell me.” The barman raised his eyebrows expectantly.

LeeAnn emptied her glass, “She said, ‘LeeAnn, THERE IS NO FIRE ESCAPE IN HELL. Don't you ever forget that.'” Holding the cool glass against her cheeks, her voice was stone-cold sober. “Don't worry, Momma, I won't.”

It all began in an old building in Kentish Town, a nondescript end-of-terrace whose ground floor, until it caught fire, was occupied by a kabob take-away. The upstairs floors were roasted along with it, as well as the mad old Greek woman who lived there but spent most of her time ranting outside the orthodox church over the road. The place just sat there for a while, empty, scorched paint flaking off the dirty cream side wall, while the authorities decided whether to do it up or pull it down.

Then one day, another old Greek lady on her way to the church glanced up to where her unfortunate comrade had met her end, and all at once fell to her knees, clutching her bosom. A face had appeared on the wall. A gaunt, pale, melancholic face with a kind, gentle smile.

It was Jesus Christ
.

A passerby came over thinking it was a heart attack, but all the old lady could do was point at the wall and wail. After a while people came out of the shops to see what the racket was about. Before long they were joined by a TV crew. After that the kabob Jesus was everywhere. Whenever the Council sent builders over to try to start work on the place, they were seen off by worshippers. A couple of times a scuffle broke out. Every day a bit more of the figure would appear in the paintwork—the long, serene, modest face with its gently closed eyelids and dark, wavy hair falling over a pale, bony sternum. And over a firm pair of breasts.

It quickly became apparent that it was not Jesus at all. That it wasn't even a man. Who it was—as any music fan could have told you; the likeness was astounding—was Karen Carpenter.

Since she had chosen to make her first known apparition in my scuzzy little neighborhood, it was only polite to write something about it. “Karen starved for us,” my piece concluded, “so it is right and fitting that she should choose this kabobbery, this shrine to fat, as her temple. Like the lamb on the spit, she turned in the flames of celebrity, becoming in the process thinner and thinner as her fans grabbed their pound of flesh.”

“Karen did not die for you, you sad, dysfunctional bitch,” read the e-mail. “Karen would not have even SHAT ON YOUR SHOES. Richard has maintained a DIGNIFIED SILENCE and it would be a BETTER THING FOR THE WORLD if you did too.” The return address was [email protected]. I guess I must have upset someone.

A day or two later it must have been, I was walking past the old take-away and I noticed there were people inside. There were blankets hung up over the cracked windows, but through the gap you could see mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor. Squatters. After a week or so, when it became clear that no one was going to bother to evict them, they would leave the front door open while they tried to clean the place up. “We've only just begun,” a honey voice glided out of the portable CD player, “to live.” They weren't the usual squatters you got around here. All of them were women, most of them mumsy, several middle-aged, dressed in prim smart-casuals and with a nice smile for anyone who
passed. At some point the broken glass was replaced and I could see that they'd done a remarkable job. They'd even restored the old tiled food counter and found a replacement for the curved, translucent Perspex lid that covered the entire length of the refrigerated section where the chef used to keep the trimmings. Then they put up some flouncy floral curtains, so I couldn't see in anymore. But occasionally, when the noise of the traffic was not too loud, you could hear a pure sad voice keening about rainy days and Mondays getting her down.

First I'd figured they were planning to open some kind of café—but with the state of the building, it would have had to have been an unofficial one, and these women looked too respectable for anything like that. Maybe they were setting up a soup kitchen for the homeless. Then one day a sign appeared on the curtained front door. It read, “The Karen Club.” I knocked on the door—tentatively; I hadn't forgotten that e-mail—and someone peered around the curtains. They didn't let me in.

In the weeks that followed, there was an outbreak of Karen sightings across the globe: in Berlin, on a small remaining section of the Wall; in a Tokyo shopping mall (initially claimed by some young fans as an apparition of Edward Van Halen); on the Greek island of Lesbos (although most people suspected this one was a put-up job); and in Tampa, Florida—the biggest Karen so far, the entire flank of a multistory bank building. Each of them became a magnet to the kind of women who don't tend to gather in communal situations, unless it's church socials or Barry Manilow concerts. And they all adopted the same name: “The Karen Club.”

To look at them, they were harmless enough. No more or less obsessive than young men who paint their faces to look like dragons, cats, and spacemen and go to see KISS. But the brutality with which the elders fought for their own clique's position as the chosen church of Karen, the underhanded tactics—the art restorers sneaking in at night to make subtle improvements to the image; the checks the wealthy divorcées sent to Karen's brother (all of them returned) in the hope of buying his support; the private detectives hired to get the dirt on the leaders of the rival Karen Clubs—all made it pretty clear that these women weren't to be messed with.

In the lower ranks there was some interfaction squabbling, but it was mostly confined to the message boards: “This is SO not in the spirit of Karen,” someone or other would write somewhere—but no one had quite agreed what the spirit of Karen should be. The Americans and Australians seemed to focus on homemaking, low-fat recipes, and working out. The Japanese were into merchandise. The Lesbos franchise seemed to have better things to do than spend too much time online. And the Germans were heavily into analyzing the meaning of the lyrics—“‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft': proof of extraterrestrial life or divine prophecy?”—and exploring the Antigone myth.

“What if her brother had been her lover?” posed one club member.

“You are one WEIRD SICKO,” came the answer. “And anyhow if he had it would not have been the same.”

“Downey, California,” another replied, “is not Ancient Greece.”

“Ah, but remember, the London Karen,” wrote a British visitor to the Berlin site, “WAS first discovered by an ancient Greek.”

“Don't mention those BLASPHEMERS,” wrote someone else.

The Kentish Town branch had changed its name, on its door and website, to the High Kathedral of Karen. Its members were talking about organizing a synod, bringing in Karen Club reps from across the world for a Sacred Grilling. They invited the press—a little party with canapés and white wine, the stereo playing “Solitaire” and “Superstar” and “Sweet Sweet Smile”—and the three leaders gave a short speech. Then they turned up the volume and turned on the halogen lights above the refrigerated counter. A dark shape became visible under the translucent curved cover. The oldest member of the church, blushing at the honor and the attention, stood ready to lift it up. “Sisters,” she pronounced, “it's yesterday once more.”

Some of the invitees gasped. Several more laughed out loud. Lying in state underneath the lid was what appeared to be a full-sized mummy. A cat dozed in its hollow rib cage.

“Karen Carpenter!” declared the spokeswoman.

Of course, it wasn't Karen; it was way too plump. But one club member was upset enough to call someone in from Christie's to prove that it was a fake before she defected to the American division. As the weeks went on, she was followed by almost all of the Karen Club founding members, as it became clear that a younger crowd—fashionable,
ironists—were taking over. For a while the Kentish Town Kathedral became
the
hip London club to belong to. Female celebrities groveled for membership. There was even talk of admitting men.

But as lively as it was in London, the Tampa branch was getting the most attention. American TV reported marauding bands of Karenistas roaming the streets, causing terror among the unrighteous and abusing men. Blacked-out male faces told the cameras in trembling voices how they were captured and defiled, with Carpenters CDs (
The Collection
being a particular favorite) playing some unnamed part in their violation. Strident feminists would be given a few seconds to explain to the camera that since history began men have been making up stories of scary spinsters ganging together to emasculate them and create social havoc—usually getting cut off just as they started on about witches and fires. Three women were later arrested—a deceptively shy-looking vicar's wife who'd joined up when she discovered her husband had been unfaithful, and two other new members she'd persuaded to help her beat him and his mistress up, remove their underwear, and wash them of their sin. “It's what Karen would have wanted,” they told the police.

The Karen Clubs each issued its own official statement. “The attempt by some misguided women to associate Karen with either violence or soiled undergarments,” said the American one, “is an abhorrence. They have been expelled and an investigation is under way.” Wrote Germany, “We apologize unreservedly. We are reviewing our policy toward unpopular groups.” “It wasn't women,” said the
Greeks, “it was gay men in Karen drag.” Said Japan, “There's nothing wrong in traveling in groups. And you will know our members by their official Karen ID bracelets, on sale via our website.” The British site posted the picture of a large pink heart with Karen and Richard, smiling beatifically, head to head, inside. It was underlined with the motto: “Sisters and Brothers Love One Another.”

The official Carpenters fan club disowned them all.

Then something happened. Across the world, on the same day, at pretty much the exact same time, the paintwork on each of the Karen Club walls started to bubble. A dark excrescence collected at the bottom of the closed eyelids and moved up through the sockets, melting the paint as it went, leaving in its wake what looked like dark, piercing eyes. And a strange foam, some kind of fungus in the brickwork, started to appear between Karen's lips. It dribbled slowly out of her smiling mouth and along her chin, trailing down her breasts, right to the bottom of the wall and onto the pavement. When they saw it, some of the club members danced and rejoiced. Others fell to the ground and wept. Within moments, the leaders posted messages on their websites. By some miracle they were identical.