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LAURA BANDY EAR RE-PIERCING WITH ATTENDANT LEXI AT CLAIRE'S BOUTIQUE When she puts her gun to my head it feels like any other day— one more small horror where I’m asked to go along. Lexi never misses, she brags, Sharpie marker used to mark the spot lightly spinning across her fingers like a doll’s baton. It’s quick and she exclaims in wonder, you didn’t flinch! I say I can’t believe anyone flinches anymore. Oh, they’re always surprised, she replies, isn’t that funny? When she brushes back my hair, it feels near tender, although the mirror held up shows reddening flesh around a cheap brass stud. Raw for a few days, she murmurs, which seems fair. I hand her cash and receive a large bottle of soothing solution in return. That’s Benzalkonium Chloride, Lexi says, don’t drink it. She winks, mimes sipping the liquid, then shoos me softly off as I try to extend our moment, ask what else the solution might fix. They’ve got pills for everything, she says, turns grinning to her next patron as I exit through rainbow scrunchies and unicorn bracelets. At work the morning before, my office mate handed me a pink heart sticker emblazoned in glitter letters; YOU ARE SPECIAL, suggested new jewelry to lift my spirits. Let’s smile, she said, every day above ground is a gift. She told me two true tales of child death, one so brutal I went to a panic room in my mind, the other ending with a carved granite bicycle statue on a headstone. She said, don’t you find that beautiful? He loved that bike. Then, he was so small; the driver never even saw him. What I find is this place unsound. I wish to forget it all, let the piercing gun go brain-deep and remove children, gold-plated gems, dark markers and blue dots spinning; I requested this wound. MORE TROUBLE WITH THE OBVIOUS Today I remembered that you were dead and gone I had forgotten for a beautiful beat, thought of something funny that happened at job and simultaneously, Oh, Michael will laugh when I tell him. The pain I felt the next second blurred my sight and brought a moan like the pit bull, MJ, next door when her owner yanks hard on the chain leash. I hate her owner. I hate everyone. In your second book you wrote about a boy, your friend from youth, a bosom chum. He grew sick, Orville, I just remembered his name, and when he died, you walked the next morning to his house, same as ever, to stroll together to school. His mother answered the door weeping, of course, and told you Orville couldn’t go to school that day. You said you felt you’d been walking in your sleep, that Orville’s death was maybe just a dream you had, but then you’d always had trouble with the obvious. It’s obvious to me that now, two years on, two years in May, the 20th, to be exact, and why not be exact? Why not say what’s as plain as the broken windows on my ex’s car that I shattered with a tire iron: right glass, rear, left side, windshield; so laughingly apparent that others will keep walking the earth as if they deserve to, as if I wouldn’t clap my hands and clear the table of all cards, all bets, all those who place them, there will never be another. There will never. Be another. I will never feel. I will never know. You will never know. I don’t know. Where are you now DAD STORE
I need a new dad, so I go to the dad store. Our freshest models, says the salesman, gestures towards the
back. When we keep them front of house, they tend to walk out on their own, if you know what I mean, he says,
winks conspiratorially. I never know what anyone means. I return the wink to be polite and head down
the aisle. Muzak is playing Harry Chapin which feels a little on the nose, but I suppose they know their
business. It’s surprisingly dim and dusty once I leave the flash of the front aisles, all razzle dazzle in
their displays, and reach the new generation inventory with titanium teeth and laser eye options. They
like it quiet, says the salesman, and don’t like it when we clean their designated dad area. Several dads in the 15
Pro series chat with me as I walk past. “You’ve made good choices,” says one. “How about a trip up
North this weekend?” says another, “We need some quality dad/daughter time!” A few jostle each
other pleasantly and murmur, “Proud of you,” and “Let’s talk about Anne Carson—I’ve been reading
her latest and would love to discuss,” and “I agree—having children in this time of crisis is a selfish
act.” One of them pushes their belly button and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 wafts softly
out of his ear speakers. “This piece calms me so,” he says, “I wanted to share it with you.” I crook my
finger at the salesman, point at the dad furthest in the back. That’s the prototype model, he says, returned
when the voice generator failed. The salesman pats my hand. He just stands there, silent. The dad seems sad,
like I like them. In fact, he looks like he wants to be alone, watching reruns of Matlock in a study with
a door that locks. That one used to scream at random intervals, the salesman says. We think it was a glitch, but
he seems to have mellowed in his outdated age. “They always do,” I say. “Sold.” |