At the bottom of the sea, I thought.
My fingertips touched my face, feeling for wetness. And I opened my mouth wide, expecting a gush of water, but found myself swallowing air instead. Then I realized the goggles were covering my eyes, the frayed elastic band pressed against my ears.
"And then you fly," Dickens said.
Turning my head sideways, I saw him. He sat on the throw rug, playing with Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans and Cut ’N Style. The heads lounged in his level palm, a flying carpet sailing back and forth above his lap -- and he was underwater, breathing as effortlessly as a goldfish.
'‘We sunk,” I rasped.
Dickens glanced at me, his palm stopping in midair.
"No," he said softly, "Dell says you nap until she’s done with him. Or she says you stay here and eat something if you wake, all right? You’re lucky she’s strong and held you -- lucky she rescued you or I’d have fainted too.”
Dell rescued me.
"Did she suck my blood?"
"She doesn”t do that. That’s wrong.”
"Oh."
My belly groaned.
"I’m hungry," I told him.
"'I`hat’s what she said,” he muttered, returning his attention to the heads. "She already said that."
His palm landed; he lifted each head, one at a time, setting them upright on the rug.
"A safe crater trip -- everyone had a safe trip visiting the moon."
Then he climbed from the floor and crossed to the night table. And I propped myself up -- pushing the goggles off my eyes, onto my forehead -- so I could see what he was doing.
"I’m pretty thirsty.”
I squinted; without the goggles, the room seemed unbearably bright.
"Buff-low jerky," he was saying. "Yum. Sometimes I get jerky too -- if I’m smart and don’t be stupid.”
"Dickens, did I fall far?”
"On the ground is all. Plop."
'"Oh, I didn’t go in the hole.”
"No, don’t think so. I think I’d remember that, I think.”
He came toward me carrying a paper plate and a Dixie cup.
"There’s more later,” he said, handing me the cup, putting the plate down on the mattress.
"Thank you," I said, bringing the cup to my lips, "thank you-”
Warm apple juice -- pouring over my tongue, sweet in my throat -- I drank it in two big gulps. And the jerky, four round pieces, brown shriveled chunks, tough as a toenail; I ripped the dried meat between my teeth, milling with my jaw, chewing like a fiend.
"See, if you chomp fast you’ll choke.”
Dickens made a gagging noise.
"That happens sometimes and you can’t breathe.”
He stood nearby, watching while I ate, following the jerky as it went from the plate to my teeth.
"Tastes good, I bet,” he said. "Smells awfully good.”
I would’ve offered him some, but there wasn’t enough. Besides, I was starving; my stomach had become a deflated balloon.
"It’s buff-low,” he was telling me. "They kill them and they create circles so you can keep them in your pocket-”
"Dickens!”
Dell hollered from downstairs.
"Dickens!” she shouted.
Her voice recalled my father’s baritone grumble, and my lips parted with amazement, my jaw froze. I stared at Dickens, who, upon hearing her, studied the floor as if it were made of glass.
"She needs me."
His gape met mine. He frowned.
"I’d like my glasses again, please -- ’cause I was only trading when I played with your toys, okay? But I’m not playing anymore, so I don’t have to be fair now."
"I don’t care,” I said, talking with a mouthful of jerky.
I removed the goggles and dangled the elastic band from my fingers.
"Okay," he said, taking the goggles, "you stay here, all right? She says you should. She’s in a mood, I think."
I shrugged.
"Dickens! Dickens!"
"Uh-oh.” _
He jumped, swung about-face, and flip-flopped away. I listened as he thudded down the stairs.
"I’m sorry,” he mumbled, "I’m sorry-"
Then silence. I couldn’t hear anything else.
And suddenly What Rocks existed somewhere on the moon, enveloped by a crater, lost. The darkness outside confirmed this notion. So I finished eating, pondering the fate of the farmhouse-spaceship. Dell and Dickens and my father were in the living room and plotting our survival. And I was lucky to be alive, lucky that Dell could help me, thankful for buff-low jerky and apple juice.
But Classique-
"Poor Classique."
Perhaps she’d fallen so far and so fast that her head incandesced like a meteor. With a brave face, I explained her sad fate to the other heads. But only Cut ’N Style was upset -- she cried gallons of tears, until a pool formed beneath her, soaking the throw rug and seeping into the hem of my dress.
"She just disappeared," I told Cut ’N Style, "so don’t cry. She didn’t feel any pain, I’m sure.”
But my words weren’t helpful; Cut ’N Style was inconsolable. I held her to a cheek, trembling, while Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans gloated.
"You’ll get walloped,” I warned them. "If Classique was here, she’d destroy you both.”
And I wished Classique had been there that night, accompanying me as I tiptoed from the bedroom. I wish she’d floated downstairs, going where my father’s stink lingered with the persistent aroma of disinfectant. She might’ve understood what I spied when gazing into the living room -- all the furniture moved against the wall, the entire floor blanketed by an orange plastic tarp; my father stretched naked there, on his back, with discolored patches, black and purple, showing everywhere -- abdomen, chest, thighs -- and blisters spread across his legs and feet, like welts, making a spiral pattern on his bloated tummy. His jeans and boots and boxers and socks and shirt -- his sunglasses and the wig and the bonnet -- were heaped in the leather chair. His ponytail was loosened, his mane of hair flowed out on the tarp, as if the wind had just swept over him. And the lipstick and rouge -- gone; his cheeks now swabbed clean and completely white. In fact -- aside from the blisters and discolored patches -- he was pale, drained; a gash smiled under his chin, crossing his neck -- a fresh slit, pink and thin and tender, grinning while he slept; his features relaxed, his eyelids shut.
But what was in the buckets?
Eight large containers, placed around the body. The one nearest his head, full and murky; my father’s rotten blood, thick as molasses and sanguine, almost reaching the rim - some on the tarp, drops spattered here and there.
And why the bail of wire? The tacks? The brushes? The saw and claw-hammer? The scissors? The scalpel? The paring knife? And all that cotton batting? And the assorted needles? The ball of twine? The box of borx and the paper towels and the cans of Lysol and the rubber gloves -- and the dozen or so odd-shaped canisters and bottles?
Was anything forgotten?
"Wrong, child, who welcomed you down here?"
"Not me, Dell, l didn’t-”
The living room wasn’t the living room; it’d become an operating theater. And Dell was surgeon. And Dickens the nurse.
And my father-
"So much damage already. But I’ll save what’s left, right? He’ll never be the same, poor man.”
There I stood beside the wood-burning stove, uncomprehending, a rag doll unable to speak.
"Yes, Rose, wigs and blush won’t cut it, child. You’re a baby, yes, yes. And now you’ve stumbled upon my calling, of course. So stay put and watch if you must -- but know this -- be quiet or else. I can only do so much, right? Audiences and peeping toms make me a nervous nelly. This isn’t fun, sad man -- sad sad man." .
Her calling required dishwashing gloves and the scalpel, but not the hood and helmet. She’d gathered her hair into a bun, had donned fishing waders that were mostly concealed underneath her housedress. And how familiar she was with my father, straddling him, shaking her head, saying, "To meet once more -- and like this -- what an unfortunate shame. I won’t let you go this time, I won’t.”