“She was born Myrtle May but she called herself Jolie Wins.”
I gazed around the great chamber and saw that every eye was on me. That brought a smile to my lips, not because I needed to be the center of attention but because that was a tough crowd and you had to tell the truth to keep their interest.
“When I met her I was looking at her backside and she was on her knees in front of some fat wannabe. She was high and didn’t even know where she was. She called me miss and asked me to help her. I tried. I did. But, as we all know, there’s no help for the likes of us.
“Her story was the same old, same old — her panties and Daddy’s dick, Mother making noise in another part of the trailer, and the sun shining outside just like nothing ever happened. In a lot of rooms words like that would call up tears and indignation, but in here we’ve all heard it and felt it one way or another.
“I took her by the hand and brought her to what I thought was a safe harbor. I gave her my private number and a promise I could not keep.
“She and Theon found each other and saw in each other’s eyes the dreams that they always had. They grabbed at each other, not for sex or solace but for hope. They were outlaws on the run just like the rest of us.
“And I believe that Mr. Dardanelle and Jude are outlaws too. I believe that Theon would want us to remember them and Myrtle May, because he did have a big heart and he wanted something that he knew he could not have, but that never kept him from trying.
“We are that something. We are the scenes on the wide-screen plasma TVs that millions watch every night hoping for something that they can never have. They stay in their condos and trailers. They go to work and talk about the newest cop show but that’s not what they’re feeling.
“Myrtle May left home when she was just a child. She died still a child. Theon was so lost that he might have even thought that he was helping her. He thought that he had saved me — I did too. But that was never true. We aren’t in the saving business. We are down-to-the-bone serious and at risk. We are, and Theon was, all the pain that happens on the back alleyway that leads between the bank doors and the church.
“And so I am here in the persona of Debbie Dare to tell you what Theon should have said to Myrtle May.
“Save yourself. Know that you can do anything. Don’t look down on anyone. Don’t forgive them or condemn them. And when they tell you to get down on your knees, you tell them to get down there with you. Tell them that you can take the pain if they will too.”
What happened immediately after those last words is a blur to me. I think I just stood there staring for a while until Jude came up and led me off the stage. From there Lewis brought me to the side of the coffin, where I was joined by Lana Leer. She was wearing a simple black dress that went down to her calves and was shod in white pumps.
I came to myself standing there next to the open coffin. Theon still looked natural, almost as if he might open his eyes at any moment.
“That was a beautiful eulogy,” Lana whispered.
“I never got to the words I’d written,” I said. “I just kinda got lost up there.”
“It was still wonderful,” my little friend said. “It touched a lot of people. You gave ’em a lot to think about.”
Lewis had gone out among the mourners and was lining them up along the left side of the pews.
“Are you ready?” Lana asked.
“Ready for what?”
“For the people to walk by and pay their final respects.”
“Oh.” For some reason this responsibility had escaped me. “Sure.”
Moana Bone was the first in line. Her once fine features were heavy, made more so by an overabundance of makeup. Her body had thickened to the point where she had no real figure anymore.
With surprising strength she gripped my hands and said, “I’m very sorry for you, my dear. What you said up there is in the hearts of all us whores. We do the heavy lifting and they flush us down anyway.”
“Do you know my name?” I asked, feeling numb and reckless.
“They call you Debbie Dare in the cast list, but your real name is Sandra Peel. I always loved Theon but you were better for him than I could have ever been.”
Her eyes were on mine like some kind of emotional predator tracking down a simple nod.
“Hey, Deb,” Myron Palmer said after Moana wandered off. Standing next to him was a mousy woman wearing a loose, dark green shift. Her face was once pretty and her gestures recalled that younger beauty.
“I wanted to thank you for letting me be a pallbearer,” Myron said. “You know, I really liked Theon and, and, and I styled myself after him as much as I could.”
“Thank you, Myron.”
I shook his hand, which was both soft and strong, and then offered the same gesture to the woman he was with. She took the proffered hand and said, “You have my condolences, Mrs. Pinkney.”
“Have we met?”
“No. I’m Myron’s friend Nora.”
“Brathwait?”
“He told you about me?”
“You were the love of his life. I don’t think he’s had a single day where he hasn’t thought of you.”
“Your speech was beautiful,” she said. “Myron and I have just reconnected over Facebook recently. I’m trying to get him to leave this profession and do something else — maybe still in film.”
Our middle-aged Russian housekeeper, Julia Slatkin, came up after half an hour.
“I am so sorry for you, my child,” she said.
“You didn’t have to come to this zoo, Julia.”
“I love you and your people,” she said. “Theon was a good man. He was a man and so he was always a little lost. Men are like boys and sometimes the only thing we can do is put them to bed.”
I hadn’t even been worried about crying until she spoke those words.
“He did awful things,” I said.
“And he has paid for them,” she replied with Jude-like certainty. “There’s only so much revenge that God can ask on any man’s soul.”
“Those were really nice words you spoke up there,” hunched-over Kip Rhinehart said after what seemed like hours of pity and commiserations.
I was thinking of how lovely it would be to sit down in the polar bear room, bring my father’s pistol (the pistol that failed to save his life) to my temple, and pull the trigger...
“I heard,” Kip, the canyon cowboy, went on, “that you’re havin’ money troubles and might not be able to make that mortgage. If that’s so you’re welcome to come up and live in one’a my rooms. It gets a little lonely up there and... and I wouldn’t bother you or anything. I’m kinda old for that nonsense.”
I was imagining the red spray across the white fabric that I chose to accent my ebony skin.
“You think about what I said,” Kip muttered after I thanked him.
Linda Love came up with a small band of directors. They said the right words but didn’t really mean them. A has-been actor was just that in their business. Neelo Brown shook my hand and kissed my cheek. He’d been an awkward adolescent — a virgin at eighteen. It was decided among his aunties that I would be the one to initiate him into the sexual life. I took him down to Ensenada for his birthday and came into his room after a night of dinner and trying to teach him how to dance. I did it to build his confidence but after that he was always a little in love with me.
Anna Karin, Newly, Perry Mendelson, Chas and Darla the accountants, and my son’s guardian, Delilah, came up singularly and in pairs. All the while I was thinking about Suicide — that handsome man who joined me every once in a while, all silence and smiles.