WHEN JANIE GETS HER BABY, Part I

So we’ll sue again. This time he can pay. How much you think a broken neck pays? A person can live with a broken neck. It isn’t that easy to die, Janie. Everything in you is wired to stay alive. Every day people try to kill themselves and end up with nothing more than a bad headache and a sheepish grin. If it was easy, half of us’d be gone.

She pulls the visor down and starts messing with her face, trying to disappear the puffiness. She’s a frosty blonde as of late, her once long red hair neither red nor long anymore. It marches backwards a few inches every year and now just barely reaches her ears, making her big round face look even bigger and rounder than it has any right to be. Her eyes are like a cat’s, different shades of blue and green and gray from every angle. Everything about Janie is top shelf, except for her baby-making gear, which refuses to get with the program no matter how much money we throw at the goddamn thing. You bring a car to the mechanic, he can’t fix it, you don’t pay. A doctor’s a different thing. He’s kneeling on your chest with a set of pliers, pulling the gold out of your teeth even if it was his fuck up that croaked you.

Janie, I say. You worry too much. There’s nothing wrong with asking, is the way I see it. I’ll ask. If he says no, we’ll improvise. He invited us. I’m prepared for some breaking.

How long can this road go on for? she says. Only he’d pick a place like this to live. I hope I look okay. She turns her face toward me.

You know you do.

We drive past frozen brown fields and faded barns, cows roaming and calves mindlessly following. I sneak peeks at her thighs, white like they’ve never once been graced by a spot of daylight, and they do for me what they always do.

Frank, Jesus, she says, slapping my hand. Keep your eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel. Now’s not the time, she says.

She’s lovely, is what she is. Her tits are big and real; it’s like hitting the daily double. I like the droop. It’s life, is what it is, first upward growing then downward slouching, never looking you straight in the eye, occasionally getting cut-off in the midst of full bloom. Her denim skirt hugs her hips like a second set of skin, barely coming low enough to cover her sissy, which is what we, with nothing short of fondness, call the pale, fuzzy and folded-in-upon-itself apparatus which houses her useless baby-making gear.

The first marker’s a red bucket hanging from a tree branch about a mile down a dirt road and the second is five white crosses overgrown with weeds indicating, I assume, a crash of horrific proportion, as if planting crosses is gonna bring anybody back, as if the dead really give a fuck what we think of them once they’re gone. The house is at the end, a two story redwood almost hidden behind the trees. It’s a fair square of land. Some aunt Lester didn’t know croaked and left him a bundle. If she’d ever set eyes on him she’d have left every cent to her neighbor’s parakeet.

Don’t get him too agitated, Janie says. Not right away. He has millions of buttons.

He’s waiting on the porch, rocking in a chair, size fourteens planted up on the rail. The voice comes from behind the boots but it doesn’t sound like him. It sounds like an old guy’s voice.

Francis, he says. Janie. Welcome to my palace. I call it Shay Lester. That’s Shay with a C.

The voice is raspy, not booming like usual. From somewhere behind the house I can hear a whole pack of dogs clamoring and whining and howling.

Those dogs are sounding hungry, I say.

His feet come down with less than his usual thud and he pushes himself out of his chair, his bones practically squeaking when he does so. He begins the long unravel to his full height, which would be something to truly behold if he ever reached it, which he doesn’t. He’s yellow; his skin’s got the jaundice something fierce. His mustache is drooping and unwaxed and his hair is all salt and no pepper. What few teeth he’s got are crisscrossing each other. His garb is welfare casual—suede vest and jeans, no shirt, but his arms have gone spindly, no more prison muscles like he used to sport. He grabs Janie around the waist and tries to lift her off the ground but she doesn’t budge.

Lester, you look horrible, she says.

You’re a blonde now, he says. Your hair gets any shorter you’ll look like a dyke.

I’ve been a blonde before, she says.

But never this plentiful, he says, smacking her ass. Follow me. He opens the screen door, lets her pass and then tries to slam it back into my face, but I catch it with my foot, jarring loose a bunch of dead mosquitoes.

Money’s slowed you down, Lester, I say. It does that. Dulls the reflexes. There’s gotta be a million studies that say in hand-to-hand combat, the rich are overmatched. Don’t look at me like that.

Money does plenty, Francis. Money does plenty. And I’m not too worried about the peasants with pitchforks coming up over my hill. I’ll set the fucking dogs loose on them. It’ll be a buffet. The best part of it is we got the fattest poor people in the world; it’ll be a regular feast. That’s how you recognize a poor person in this country. They’re fat and got five pair of two hundred dollar sneakers and half a dozen TVs.

He points us into a large room.

Enjoy the fresh fruits of my good fortune, he says. Sit and drink while I help Carol in the kitchen. That’s her name. Carol. You’re looking good, Janie, he says. You are looking good. Suffering brings out the blue in your eyes.

He tries to slap her ass again but she slips out of the way before he makes contact. Francis, he says. I’m so glad there’s no hard feeling from before. You really are my best friend. Sit. I need to drain my snake.

It looks like an effort just to drag himself from the room.

He’s half dead, I say.

He must be hung over, she says.

Bullshit, I say. That’s not hung over, that’s warmed over.

The room is dimly lit, the only light coming from a few lamps hanging on the walls, each designed to look like a lantern, the bulb shaped and colored like a plastic flame. The ceilings are high and the floor tiled. There’s fireplace roaring even though we just hit the fringes of summer. Two couches face each other in the middle of the room, a coffee table carved out of the trunk of a redwood plunked in between. There’s a huge fruit platter on the table. Slices of mango and peach and apple, squares of pineapple lined neatly around the edge, a pile of blackberries in the middle. And a pitcher of ice water with a wedge of lemon, along with plastic cups, each labeled with our names.

No beer? I say.

He probably just wants to make you ask. He’s probably got a keg in the kitchen.

Did you tell me his girlfriend’s Japanese? I say. Because Carol doesn’t sound like a Japanese name to me.

He said something about Japan, that’s what I know. They change their names all the time, she says. People always do that. Every other person in China is called Sam Lee or Chin or something like that. Yell out the name Sam in a Chinese restaurant and see what happens.

She’s Japanese, Janie. Carol is Japanese, not Chinese. And her name isn’t Sam.

I hope she at least speaks English. I hate not being able to understand people. Three different sets of deaf people came into the store today. It’s not natural. It’s like because I know they can read lips I’m afraid they know what I’m thinking, too.

Her chin is shiny with peach juice and I’m tempted to lick it off.

And what were you thinking? I say.

Why the fuck are there so many goddamn deaf people in the store today? That’s what I was thinking. That it was so weird, how nothing seems normal anymore, so there’s nothing left to be surprised by. I felt sorry for their hands. They’re doing all the work while their tongues lie fat and lazy and useless in their mouths. That’s another thing I was thinking. How the hands are the workers while the tongue doesn’t lift a finger. Just like everything else. Why can’t we be the tongue? she says. I want to be the tongue for once.

We were born to be hands, I say.

Lester looks mellow, she says.

These berries are amazing. I hope I don’t get the craps tomorrow.

He seems different, she says. He couldn’t pick me up. Am I that fat? He didn’t even punch you in the arm. And the fruit.

I don’t get it, I say. And you’re just the size I like.

You say that no matter what size I am. I could weigh 400 pounds and you’d tell me that I’m just the size you like.

Maybe. But let’s not put the theory to test, I say. But she’s probably right. At 400 pounds there’d be more of her to sink into. I love her the way she is and I’ll love her no matter what way she becomes. It’s always been that way with Janie and me, even after she took up with Lester for a spell. I didn’t forgive her because there was nothing to forgive. Whatever Janie wants is okay by me.

Lester comes back, wiping his hands on his pant leg. What theory? he says, his voice tattered and straggly, his breath sounding like the friction of worn out gears. Always with the theories, Francis, never living real life. Theories can suck my cock.

I was just telling Frank that this was a nice gesture, you having us over for dinner, Janie says. This fruit is scrumptious. Outside of bruised, the only fruit I get is from a can.

I’ll send you a weekly basket, he says. Turns out Francis was right. Fruit makes the world go round. Carol has class, he says. She says once you got it you shouldn’t flaunt it. I disagree. What good is a fortune if you can’t lord it over people? It’s like that tree that falls in the forest; if nobody hears it, there’s no noise. If nobody knows I got it, might as well not have it. And why wouldn’t I want the best for my best friends? Francis likes his fruit, Francis gets his fruit. The old me would have said Francis is a fruit and then try to slip pan drippings into his couscous. I know better now.

That is sweet of you, Lester, Janie says.

He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met, comes a voice through the doorway, followed by the person it belongs to.

Her teeth are big and her mouth is small; she looks like a cross between a rodent and a horse, plus her hair is a disorganized black mess, and her glasses are so thick they look like they were recycled from an aquarium. That’s her from the chin up. The rest of her is smoking hot. She’s got a stripper’s body is what she has. Tight all over, long legs, tits that look like every other stripper’s tits in the world. Big, hard and pissed off. Easy on the eyes, but not so easy on the hands.

Your sweet man stabbed me, I say, slurping at some mango, licking the juice off my hands. Lester stabbed me. Not all that long ago. That’s how sweet he is. This is the most incredible mango I’ve ever had, and believe me, I’ve had more mango than most. Well done, Lester.

Yes, Carol says. Lester told me about that little incident. He gave you blood, though. Not everyone would have given you blood. Not to their victim they wouldn’t. And it was wonderful of you to forgive him.

You’re jumping the gun there, I say.

Stab’s an awfully strong word, Lester says. If you want to put it that way. The word stab can mean so many things. Let’s take a stab at it. He stabbed the last piece of meat onto the end of his fork. I poked at you with a pointed object while engaged in a struggle for my life—my lawyer says that’s what happened, and he’s got years of training in the subject.

Have you seen a doctor? I say. I’m getting a sore throat listening to you. You didn’t only stab me, I say. You also poked me in the head a few times using that thing you call a foot. Some would call it a stomping, but why fuss over words. Yet here I sit with the spoils, I say. I lean over and give Janie a kiss. She tastes like peaches. Yup, Lester, I say, you could have sliced my goddamn head off and it’d have been worth it.

Simple misunderstandings, he says. Accidents of circumstance. But we’re still friends, he says. And you got the girl. You won. What do you know? Francis finally won something.

He comes up behind me and slaps me on the back so hard I spit water across the way, right into Carol’s face. She takes her glasses off and rubs them on her pant leg. He still packs a wallop, that much I’ve now determined.

You’re not Japanese, I say.

She puts the glasses back on and waves her hand back and forth in front of her face like she’s cleaning a windshield.

Japanese? Is this one of those silly things? she says.

She’s wearing jeans and boots and a low cut black sweater, no bra. She doesn’t show cleavage; instead she wields it like a weapon.

Lester told me that when you boys get together you do silly things, she says. He told me to expect practically anything. He never stops going on about you two. Did I do good with the fruit? Normally it would have been salami rolled up with cream cheese. It was Lester’s favorite. But he’s eating healthier now, she says. Her nose is sharp enough to double as a letter opener and her chin could fill in on weekends and holidays.

Meat is murder, I say. I need a beer.

I don’t drink anymore, Lester says. Don’t keep it in the house. You still smoking that hippie lettuce?

At three hundred bucks an ounce? I could get a kid for less than a hundred an ounce. No beer? You’re fucking with me.

Poor Frank, Janie says. He was so happy when he was stoned. Pot made him so damn happy.

You shouldn’t smoke that stuff anymore, Francis, he says. Stay healthy. Janie, you look prettier every time I see you.

Right, she says. Just goddamn perfect. I used to feel beautiful now and again, but never anymore. Not for a second. Disappointment does that, she says. Removes the luster.

You poor thing, Carol says, and attempts to smack her lips in sympathy, only they’re so tight against her teeth all she can manage is a twitch. You are such a beautiful girl. I can see why Lester loves you so much.

Lester shoots her a look and she says, I mean, why Lester loved you. I can see why he loved you.

We came straight from an adoption agency, I say. They should quarantine you when you’re trying to adopt a kid. I thought fertility doctors were bad, but these fucking lawyers have their own zip code in hell. You ever have a lawyer on your ass, Lester? Really and truly with his head so deep you got a bulge in your belly? It hurts, is what it does. Hurts in a place you just can’t do anything about.

I know pain, he says, looking straight at Janie.

Janie, you are so beautiful, Carol says. Lester was right. He doesn’t stop about you. Have you ever acted? I can teach you. We can do it together. You’re a wonderful actress, from what Lester has told me. A wonderful actress. You’re three quarters of the way there with your looks alone. I’ve always been short on the looks; I make up for it in effort.

She knows what she’s talking about, Janie, Lester says. She’s the best actress I know. You could make a go at it. Like Carol did here. She made quite a living performing. I think you’re cut out for it. Plus, broads do enough pretending anyway. Might as well get paid for it.

Please, Janie says. Men all pretend every second of your lives. Big strong tough men.

Maybe your guy there, Lester says, running a finger around the inside rim of his nose. Maybe he pretends.

I’m pretending something right now, Lester, I say.

So am I, he says. And what I’m pretending is taking quite an effort to hold on to. Hope I persist, he says. Just hope I persist. He wipes his finger on his jeans, leaving a green streak.

Lester, you stop picking at Frank, Carol says. He just loves to antagonize. He’s like a bear in a cage and the whole world’s holding a stick. He doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s his nature.

Nature’s out of my hands, he says. It’s out of all our hands. We are what we were born to be. But I’ll apologize in advance for whatever remarks you determine to be untoward which may pass through yours ears. Remarks from me, I mean. I’m not apologizing for anything that asshole says, Lester says, pointing at me.

Men have less to pretend about, Carol says. You don’t really need to pretend when you’re in charge of the entire machinery. But women can use a man’s needs to get what they want. We can barter with them to get at least a little something. The stage is where I made my name, she says. Especially when I became the Tuesday girl.

Listen to this lady, Lester says. She knows what she says. Carol come on Tuesdays, that’s what this Jap guy said to me. I wander up to a ticket booth, this little Jap guy says, You come back tomorrow, Pal. He called me Pal. What is it with these yellow bastards referring to white people as Pal? That bomb we dropped wasn’t big enough? Carol come on Tuesday, that’s what he says. Teresa come on Wednesdays, Debbie come on Thursday. I think it was Denise come on Friday.

It was Julia, Carol says. Julia come on Friday, Susan come on Saturdays. There was no Denise. Denise never came.

I knew a girl named Denise, Lester says. Damn straight she never came, the frigid whore. You come Tuesday, Lester says. Tuesday special, pal. That Carol, she special. She white. You like white? Everybody like white. White girl spoiled brat. She get comeuppance. Then the little bastard starts giggling. Good to watch Carol. She cry like spoiled baby. This wasn’t your typical red light dump. This place had class. You should give it a try, Janie, he says. I’d pay to see that show.

Plenty would, I say. But right now I’m the only audience she’s got. So Lester got himself a stripper.

I was not a stripper, Carol says.

Porn? Janie says. No thank you. We want a Chinese baby. That’s near Japan, isn’t it? Do their eyes slant in different directions? A girl would be fine.

All babies cuddle the same, I say. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. My old man pulled out when I was three, I say.

Boo hoo, Lester says. Boo hoo.

Well, there is a lot of nudity, Carol says. There is. An awful lot. But not stripping. We started out naked. No matter how many layers a woman wears, she’s always naked. It wasn’t sexual. Naked doesn’t have to mean sex. My doctor sees me naked. Is that sex? No. Naked and sex are two separate items. Plus, we had themes. We had stories. It was more theater than anything else. Performance art.

They tackled big issues, Lester says. The biggest of them all. This wasn’t just a bunch of broads shooting ping pong balls out of their snatch.

The last one I did, the one where I met Lester, Carol says, on that Tuesday, it was the real Thanksgiving. Not the one from school books and TV. The real Thanksgiving, what really happened. We acted it out. The Pilgrims slaughtered all the Indians before they got past the salad, and then they stuffed maize in their choo-choos.

It’s where the term corn-hole originates, Lester says. Look it up.

I’d have thought Thanksgiving would be on a Thursday, I say.

Thursday comes on a different day over there, Lester says. I used to be able to live on beer, he says, reaching for a glass of water. Why would you drink anything else if you had the choice? If beer was all that was offered, I could still picture Francis wandering off for a mineral water. But now here I am. Me drinking water and him crying for beer. Even mineral water’s too much for me. Too rich, he says, patting his belly.

It gives him the gas something terrible, Carol says.

Lester’s getting old, I say.

Doctor’s orders, he says.

I was Joan of Arc once for six whole months, Carol says. I got burn marks on my ass from that one. That’s all history is, really. Struggle.

You got that one right, Carol, Lester says. Starting back with Eve. She had to be hot, don’t you figure? Satan’s not hitting on an ugly girl, that’s for sure. Those bastards that made that shit up didn’t even have fire. They wouldn’t know what a wheel was if it ran them the fuck over, yet they figured out the important stuff right off the bat. Muscle rules. The meek will inherit the earth? Yeah, that’s a good one. Just keep telling the meek that. Francis, you will inherit the earth.

Lester, Carol says.

Sorry, Francis. Look at these terrorists, he says. That’s why those people died, because some goat farmer was pissed at one of his wives and scribbled down some words in the sand.

Guy flies into New York for an appointment, I say. He’s late. Couldn’t get a direct flight out of Boston. They all had a stop at the World Trade Center.

They better drive the next set of planes into the heartland, he says. They know that’s where the real Americans live and that’s why they won’t do it. I dare them to take a shot over here. We won’t need any goddamn telethons. Grief’s a private matter.

All wealthy American families inbreed, I say. Did you know that? They like to keep the blood pure. I read this at the barber shop. You’re more likely to be inbred the more money you come from. This whole idea of trailer parks and inbreeding is way off. Sure, those people fuck their sisters, I’m sure. A trailer’s close quarters to be in with some broad, even if she does happen to be related. You’re bound to brush up against each other at some point. But it’s the kings and queens and the rest of them that fuck and marry each other. The rest of us are mongrels. That’s what this guy wrote. Lester, you think that goes for the newly rich, as well? The inbreeding, I mean. Carol, you don’t happen to be his sister, do you?

Every Sunday half the country goes into a building and performs a ritual based upon the idea that women are sluts, she says, ignoring me. And the rest go on Friday nights to do the exact same thing. The whole world would collapse if women weren’t subjugated. At every level it’d splinter. If me lending my body saved just one woman, it’s worth it. That’s what it was about. Not porn, she says, glaring at Janie.

Yeah, Lester says. Women get submerged.

Sometimes I feel the very same way, I say. Submerged.

I find myself praying more and more, Janie says. I pray for a baby.

We just get dropped into the world, Lester says. Like a quarter through a slot. Carol decided to use the time she’s allotted for the greater good, he says. He scratches at the grizzle on his chin and looks at the ceiling. There’s nothing up there except the sky. And then more sky after that. You know how the savages used to throw a blonde virgin into a volcano to make god happy, to please the gods? That’s what this Christ thing was all about. Hang some guy up on a cross to make the gods happy. It’s like a faggot version of King Kong, is what it is. God’s an ape and Christ is Fay Wray.

Carol, Janie says. I’m still lost on this acting thing. Giving your body?

Bondage, Carol says. Human bondage.

Christ, I say. I get it. Leather shows. I read something in the paper today how there’s this disease, if you suffer from it you don’t feel any pain. None. You’d actually be able to operate on one of these people without putting them under. Most of them don’t last past childhood, though. No braking mechanism.

It didn’t feel like kisses when I got hit, Sugar, she says. A body just can’t take what it used to. We were reflecting reality. Women are always the victim.