Prison Windows
Roadrunner doesn’t know what it is to be contained, to look at things you’ll never touch, to be stacked and lined up and smeared but separate from everything else. Roadrunner and I go and see her papa in the prison, and his eyes get all yogurty and wet when he sees us. We hug hello, the fat cotton of her papa’s jumpsuit scraggling against Roadrunner’s skinny cotton T-shirt. I dig into my purse for the baggie of quarters and hand them to Roadrunner to buy her daddy treats. All around us, old men and penny pinchers and wise guys sit alone on one side of tables, and their families sit on the other. The laminated tile and drop ceiling remind me of cafeterias and church basements At the periphery of their vision, you can see nowhere sliding into view. All these men have the electric buzz of the catatonic stunned awake. They tell stories; they want to let their nightmares jester around in someone else’s ears for a change. The edges of these men have been filed off, the guards watch to make sure of that, to ensure no sharpness comes through eager for sudden harm. I leave my cheap legs naked when we go see Roadrunner’s daddy so he can have something to think about after we leave. If Roadrunner acts up, I tell her I’ll sell her to the five women who live down the block, with their hats and their teeth and a neighborhood’s worth of tall tales raising them up. “Roadrunner,” I say, “sing your daddy the anthem; sing him that sea shanty you learned in music class,” and she does, and everyone’s silence sticks tight to the walls until she’s finished. I stare at Roadrunner’s daddy and remember well the muddy swerves of his temper when he drank too much. I remember his tongue, carnivorous and dozing against my own. I remember wishing I’d washed the floor as he laid me down and the smell of him after his suit had cooked him for an entire hot day in the sun. I have dreams and don’t even try to decipher them, because as much as I want them to come true, there’s as much I want to ignore and forget. I bring Roadrunner’s short shoulders under my warping hands. My voice cracks and drains. The ragged engine of my tears starts up when the bell rings and it’s time to go. A blue fever of sadness slugs through me as we file out onto the street. Roadrunner flips a pack of playing cards in the air and catches them. I have been tipped over. Roadrunner, with her breathy exhales, runs to the corner quick and then rushes on back to me.
The Tackiness of Souls
Minnie Fishman, burdened with a funny name by hippie parents, wants to hide in a corner at the office party, but her awareness of the wallflower cliché forces her to be social. Minnie Fishman, thirty-one, whispers in her coworker’s ear that she’s exhausted. She doesn’t say that it’s all these people who are exhausting her, that she’s tired of being “on” all the time, that she’s scared that if she finds someone she might actually like she’ll be too jaded to connect. She finds herself at the bar with Bobby, the handsome gentlemen all of the women coo over at the water cooler. He’s friendly, and it’s not difficult to strike up a conversation. Bobby isn’t interested because Minnie isn’t a conventional bombshell and she doesn’t have the confidence that must support strange beauty. Minnie isn’t interested because she’s talked to Bobby before and finds nothing beyond his jawbone appealing. There is no sexual tension. The jokes are lame on both sides.
Minnie excuses herself and sees the door to the pub open. It’s Daniel. At the office, Daniel is the one she watches over the cubicle dividers. While sitting at her desk she can recognize the cadence of his footsteps down the carpeted “hallways” and adjusts her body language accordingly to open herself up to possible interaction. She is a producer at the ad firm. He is a creative. She thought he might not come to this holiday party, but here he is. His loose curls fall onto his thin face. He runs his hand through one side of his hair and behind the exposed lens of one of his round wire rims, his bloodshot eye rests on a purple crescent of fatigue. Daniel wears an oversized Christmas sweater with a Rudolph appliquéd on the front, complete with a light-up red nose. Before he closes the door behind him, he takes a last pull on his brown paper bag and chucks the package in a trashcan by the door. Minnie grimaces; she knows this is the sort of behavior that’s endangering his position at Maximum Creata. This is someone she imagines being able to swallow whole and fears will devour her entirely if given the chance. He is the one who makes her want to empty the liquor from her belly in one go, and here he is after all.
Think the impossibility of beginning the build on a house, compare it to the decision to include Led Zeppelin in your music collection, remember trying to write your best friend’s eulogy.
Minnie abandons any thoughts of leaving early. She prays being near Daniel in a social situation will create enough of a connection to get her through the night. Minnie is sure Daniel notices her and loves her back the way he loves every girl. In fact, Minnie is sure everyone likes her, or if they don’t know her, they notice and want to like her. She hates this inexplicable vanity and recognizes its false nature, what with its being rooted in blind faith and all. She knows this, but she also never performs the resource checks on her vile delusions. Half the time she doesn’t believe them herself. If the mind is a scientific article, hers will be ignored for missing references.
Think supermodels going to self-esteem therapy, compare it to Bill Gates bouncing a check, remember the advice columns in Cosmo that suggest you play up your likable qualities to attract a man.
Minnie’s sorrowful state syncs up perfectly with Daniel’s usual condition of misery. A self-diagnosed manic-depressive, Minnie’s moods shift for years at a time. She makes these judgments and tells no one. Minnie has put in her time as an optimist, reading SARK, buying “Carpe Diem”—type magnets to distribute to her friends. Now, Minnie feels like a completely different person. In private she reads heavy philosophy and in public she reads whatever’s been nominated for the most recent book award. Music is easier; everyone listens to sad music.
Think the subliminal enculturation of depression chic, compare it to the uniformity of “Dare to Be Different” T-shirts, remember young girls’ homogenous drawings of horses.
Minnie stands by herself at the center of several groups of people, but not in any of them. She stands and slowly rotates on the periphery of these clusters, pretending to be enthralled by the energy surrounding her but looking a little lost. When people try to draw her into conversations, she comments on how great it is to see everyone so happy. She knows she’s awkward and is convinced she likes this quality in herself because it makes everything exciting. She’s happy to never know what will come out of her mouth. In this position, turning between groups, she can pretend she doesn’t see Daniel approaching, but in all honesty her reason for moving around like this is so that she can keep an eye on him. She sees the red light of Daniel’s sweater peripherally as it comes toward the center of the room, and soon he is standing shoulder to shoulder with her and saying nothing. If she were an honest person, Minnie would sink into Daniel with relief, but instead she holds still, nodding and smiling at a story her coworker tells.