“Listen,” she says. “I want the rest of your share of Mother’s estate money. All of the little that’s left. I want you to sign your half over to me. CT is rich and you don’t need it. The real reason I call you all the time and ask for money is because I’m not in good health and you’ve been paying my doctor’s bills. Sometimes I need medications badly and quickly but I feel like I have to ask you every damn time I use some of your money from the trust, and you’re usually impossible to get a hold of. How can I put this delicately? I want you to give me the money so I don’t have to talk to you ever again.”
The electronic vacuum cleaners, perhaps detecting CT’s new emission on the floor, all rush over to CT and Gustav, encircling them. It’s very cute, like the two of them are surrounded by a hungry brood of flat Maltese puppies. “Mine sweet bitter fruit,” Gustav is saying to CT, licking the stains of wine on CT’s suit of leather.
“Sister,” I say worriedly, “you are hurt? Your health is failing? We shall heal you together! We shall sail through the air like spores from a fern of renewal, a pollen containing life and promise, a seedling that blossoms into substance where before there was void!”
Sister’s words take on a strained, metal colander tone; her voice is so tight that it will hardly even strum. “You don’t know anything about life or trying to live,” she says. “Would you like to call my insurance company and ask if they accept ferns of renewal or…wait, why am I still participating in this conversation? Tell me where you are right now and I’ll bring the paperwork and a few things of Mother’s for you to have, and that will be it for us, OK? You have no idea how long I have wished for this peace. To be able to turn on the TV and see you walking down Rodeo drive leading a goat that you painted to look like a giraffe and hear the gossip police screech about what a lunatic you are, and simply agree and change the channel. I can’t do that now. I can’t do that with you in my life; instead I have to call and try and tell you to hurry up and get the damn goat into a van or a limo or what-the-hell-ever and move away from the cameras.”
“It was actually CT who painted the goat—”
“I DON’T CARE,” she yells. “WHERE ARE YOU? THAT IS ALL I NEED TO KNOW.”
I pause. I’m fearful that Sister will not be satisfied with my location.
“We are in a bat cave inside of a cave-mansion somewhere in Nevada,” I say. Gustav looks up at me and waves a chiding finger. “No partiez, sweezheart. I have to be up early tomorrow. My friend in Milan is getting circumcised for his fortieth birthday and he commissioned ze codpiece you saw in my studio. Zat sort of ting, you deliver zat sort of ting in person.”
I am impressed; I had no idea it was a codpiece. “It’s so beautiful, Gustav. I thought it was perhaps a jeweled urn for the ashes of someone really special, like your father maybe.”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT,” cries Sis, and then she hangs up.
“Ze ashes of mine father, zat is a sad story.” Gustav points to the electric vacuums. “Zees hungry suckers, I love zhem, I have zem swarming in every room. But when my friend knocked over zee father, zey ate him before I could find zee remote to make zem stop.”
The next morning, Sister calls back. “Let’s try this again,” she says. “Where are you?”
“We’re on the bus,” I tell her. I don’t remember how or why, but I know that we are. The bus-bed CT and I have is so exceptional; it looks like a large clamshell and can even shut. It’s not good to shut it for the entire night, though, because then the oxygen we breathe starts to get a little recycled and we wake up with bad headaches.
“Okay,” she says. Her tone implies that I am completely useless. This makes me sad, so I stare into the pearly whiteness of CT’s teeth. He consciously sleeps with his mouth very open. There is a complicated reason why he does this but we’ve both forgotten what it is. “Where is the bus headed to?”
“I will have to let you speak to the driver, Sister.” She makes a ‘tsk’ing sound. “Thank God,” she says.
“Sister,” I beg her, “please listen. Tell me what has stricken your body. There are so many things we can do to detoxify you.”
“No,” she snaps. “You are a spoiled brat with no grip on reality. We don’t all have rich rock-star boyfriends. The hardest part of your day is figuring out what substance you’re on and deciding what is real and what is imaginary.” She sighs, and it is a loaded sigh; I hear leaves stirring inside of it, very dead, very dried leaves. They scare me, these leaves inside my sister’s voice.
“Let me get you the driver,” I whisper.
Usually Sister’s words do not trouble my eternal waters, but this news about her health has weakened my immunity. I make a mental note that later on, I should put on the crystal helmet and get inside of the sensory depravation unit. Once Wolf Rainbow got sued because a fan in Idaho climbed aboard the bus without our knowledge, got inside of the sensory depravation unit, and was not discovered until we were in Atlanta one week later. It took him a few months to speak but when he did all he could talk about was how totally grateful he was, so his family finally dropped the suit.
“Here,” I tell her, “here you go.”
“Finally,” she exclaims, “someone sane.”
“Here, his name is Fractyl Clymber, Clymber with a y.” I tap him on the shoulder and he gives a jump and spills a large thermos of purple tea. Because he is somewhat small, his arms have to stretch wide to hold onto the bus’s large steering wheel. This combined with the fact that his eyes aren’t very open makes him look like a sleepy bird.
“Sorry,” he stutters, “I thought you were something else.”
“This is my sister,” I say, pointing to my phone.
“My brother,” he nods, pointing to his phone on the dashboard. He lets out a short giggle, then looks rather distraught.
“No I mean my sister’s on the phone.”
“Cool,” he nods.
“She wants to talk to you.”
The phone is down at my side, but I can hear a sound coming from it, a scream-noise.
“If it’s about that,” he emphasizes, “I don’t know anything about that. Whoever did that, I’m sure…like I’m sure that was a total accident.”
“No, she wants to know where we’re going.”
“Oh.” He searches the many dials of the bus’s control panel for a moment. “A sign should be coming up soon or something. These roads are totally filled with signs.”
I feel Perry, CT’s Press Agent, put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll talk to her,” he says. I nod and hand him the phone.
It’s daytime but the bus has heavy black curtains and tinted windows, so it always seems like the sun hasn’t come up yet. I trod back to our bedroom. The bus’s thick, shaggy carpeting is soothing on my bare feet. At almost every stop we get the carpet shampooed because none of us wear shoes when we walk around inside. It feels amazing.
I crack the clamshell open a little wider to get in then lower its lid back down to where there’s still a safe amount of sliver. When I nuzzle up to CT, his leather wine suit smells like bread. In his sleep his fingers find my hair and kind of party a little.
Moments later, there’s a light knock on the clamshell. Perry slides my phone through its crack. “We’re meeting her in Dallas,” he tells me. I whisper thanks.