Alexandra Isacson
My older cousin, Melanie, gets gamed on in circle when someone narcs on her. She had to cut her long brown hair to her ears because she broke her commitment not to use. If Melanie gets narced on again, she’ll have to give up her guitar. Melanie says being a narc is one of the worst things you can be.
At Melanie’s alternative school, students do yoga and different kinds of therapy. They mediate in the lotus position and breathe real fast through their noses, instead of getting high. There’s only about twenty students, so it can get intense. She’s not supposed to talk about what goes on in circle, but she tells me about crying and yelling over parents, bad trips, and overdoses. Melanie’s friend overdosed a few months ago from some street heroin that was too pure. His sister came to circle, said he was clean for a long time, and thinks the dealer shot him up to keep him quiet. Melanie still cries when she talks about him like she knows something she’s not telling.
The school psychologist, L.S., who started the school, is Buddhist, but he used to be just Mormon. Most white people in Mesa are Mormon or Jack Mormon, except for us. L.S. sort of looks like Buddha, he’s a big man and balding. He gave Melanie a book called Siddhartha. She keeps the book on an antique living room table beside a framed photo of her and Conner, her boyfriend. Conner’s got long red hair and lives in Escobedo Projects, where I used to live.
I’d love to have a framed photo taken with the boy I like, Thomas. He says I’m too young for him even though he says I look older, and everyone else thinks I’m older. Thomas goes to school with Melanie and Conner because he got busted for having a joint in his old school locker. Melanie’s picture sits by a stereo and stacks of albums with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; The Beatles; Bob Dylan; Jimi; and Janis. Even though Melanie is underage, she sings the blues in dark bars where old men smoke and play pool during working hours. Melanie sings like Janis Joplin and sometimes dresses like her.
I wouldn’t be going with Melanie today if I weren’t seeing Thomas. Last week, in the bathroom, Melanie pulled a spoon out of her leather bag. She ran water and heated the spoon up with a lighter. Melanie says heroin is better than getting your rocks off. I hate being around her when she does that shit, and I told her I’d tell Aunt Vivian next time. Then she threatened me. Something happened with a boy I was with that wasn’t my fault. After, I started praying a lot to Mary. I told Melanie, and I never dreamed Melanie would use it against me. She said she’d tell if I told about the heroin. It’s nobody’s business. I think Melanie’s afraid to shoot up alone after her friend died, and I’m afraid for her. Sometimes I think I’d like to go to college so I could help people with drug problems. I can’t even help my own cousin, but I always pray for her.
Melanie and I are at her trailer court washhouse; bleached, singed weeds and grass grow up around the bricks. The washhouse is smelly and creepy. Black widow spiders with red hourglasses on their bellies hide in a whorl of cobwebs behind the old washers and in the dirty bathroom and shower. People from the court use the washhouse bathroom if theirs gets clogged up. The sun beats down on us while we hang Melanie’s clothes up on burning wires. It can hit at least 115 degrees or more in Arizona in July and August.
I’m hanging up one of Melanie’s mini skirts, and I’m thinking about wearing Melanie’s red glitter platforms when I see Thomas. He’s taller than me and has the most beautiful face and thick, long hair. Thomas lives with his grandmother off Center Street over by the projects. I used to be best friends with his sister, Yasmin. Thomas’ relatives live in the White Mountains on the San Carlos Reservation. He goes up there to fish and hunt; I’ve eaten catfish and barbequed javelina at his house.
Melanie and I finish up with the clothes and walk back to her trailer. It’s in the middle of about twenty old travel trailers parked in a horseshoe shape. Melanie and Aunt Vivian moved here from the South, and most people who live in the trailer court are from Mexico. The trailer court is full now, but sometimes the old border patrol station wagon drives through and stirs up the dust and picks up people. Carl, Aunt Vivian’s boyfriend, just rents the trailers out to someone else from Mexico.
Carl’s old beat-up camper truck is parked in front of the trailer. He uses the truck to pick up furniture and things that people throw out. Carl owns the court and all the trailers in it, and he owns houses that he rents out all over Mesa. Melanie’s trailer is a faded chalky lavender, the biggest in the court, and an old Chinaberry tree canopies the place. She opens the fence that weaves with a sweet passion vine, and spider plants and succulents hang from the aluminum awning. We hose off our dusty feet in the cool Bermuda grass, and I dry my feet and glitter- polished toenails with a towel.
We open the door that Vivian padlocked because Melanie was stealing everything. The swamp cooler and standing fan blows around patchouli incense, cigarette smoke, and a silk scarf in Vivian’s gray hair. Vivian and Carl drink cocktails and lounge on an antique purple sofa that was left in a house he bought. She wears an old white lace push-up brassiere that’s mostly padding. Her forty-some- year-old legs are a web of broken purple and red spider veins, propped up with heels. Her orange shorts stretch around her bulging belly. She cut off six inches from the shorts’ legs because she bought them at the Mormon thrift store. Good Mormon women and girls here wear their shorts and dresses down to their knees. So that counts Melanie and me out.
Melanie’s guitar leans against the wall. The wallpaper Vivian pasted up reminds me of whorehouse decors I’ve seen in Western movies. Melanie leaves me in the living room, and I sip sun tea from a straw. I can’t wait to see Thomas. Vivian takes a drink and cuddles up with Carl. His white hair is thinning, and he lives with his eighty-year-old mother. His mother won’t let him marry Vivian because she’s not Mormon, divorced, and drinks and smokes. Carl’s divorced, was excommunicated from the Mormon Church, but he still wears his Mormon underwear. And the Mormons can’t take that away from him. He was a Mormon missionary and knows all about religion. Carl thinks Melanie cutting her hair has to do with Buddhism. Some people believe that hair has spiritual power, and when you cut it off, you cut off your will power.
Melanie wears a ¾ length- sleeved t-shirt, cut offs, and black platforms. Some old man who drives a Cadillac bought her those shoes and the red glitter platforms. Melanie’s trying out new ways to style her hair and has a new barrette clipped in her hair. She smokes a flowered Virginia Slim cigarette with her mother, and Aunt Vivian flashes a big diamond ring that belongs to Carl’s mother. She uses psychology on Melanie about smoking, and she thinks when you tell people not to do something, it makes them want to do it more. Vivian crushes her cigarette in a psychedelic red and orange splashed ashtray. She slips on a sheer blouse over her brassiere, and she and Carl take their drinks to his trailer next door.
In the bathroom, I apply some cherry lip gloss, and check my weight. I’ve been spraying lemon juice on my hair when I go outside, so it has blonde streaks. I slip into a green halter dress and step into Melanie’s red glitter platforms, feeling magical.
Outside the trailer, Melanie and I wait for Thomas and Conner. My red shoes glitter in the sun. The bees and Julia butterflies flit around in the passion flowers, and I think about doing pastels. The passion flowers look like they should be in a psychedelic black light poster at the Inner Sanctum, a head shop in downtown Tempe. Along with drug paraphernalia and Zap Comixs, the Inner Sanctum has the coolest clothes from India and Kama Sutra books. Now Melanie’s blowing smoke rings and holding some Janis and Jimi albums in her lap. It’s trippy they both died earlier this year. A small beat-up car rolls up to the passion flower fence and parks beside Carl’s truck. The driver wears shades and a leather, floppy hat.
“Sistine, don’t be a narc, and don’t tell Mama anything,” Melanie hisses.
I would hate it if Melanie told Thomas or anybody else what happened. Thomas gets out, and his liquid hair is pulled back in a pony tail. He smiles at me. He’s wearing a tank undershirt like all the old immigrant men in the projects wear. He doesn’t shoot up and his arms are beautiful. His grandfather’s crucifix flashes in the sun, and he wears white painter pants and tennis shoes. He hugs me tight. He smells like weed, and his crucifix digs into my chest. Yasmin’s name is inked above his heart. On his forearm, a tattoo reads “life” right side up, and upside down it reads “death.”
The red glitter from my shoes whorl with dust. Conner’s not in the car, and Melanie’s pissed. It’s even hotter in the car than outside. The seat burns my arm, and Thomas sits between Melanie and me in the back. We roll through the trailer court, stirring up the dust, past Carl’s trailer and the washhouse. There’s an eight-track scratching some Frank Zappa, Only thirteen and she knows how . . . The front passenger seat is missing, and there are empty beer cans and dirty clothes on the floor. Thomas’ hand is on my thigh, and I feel like I’m floating. “Yeah,” he whispers in my ear.
I’m sitting on the right hand side, and I have a good view of the driver. He looks old. When he talks, he raises his eyebrows up and down just like Melanie said an acid head does at her school. The driver gives me the creeps. He asks Thomas if he can have his rubber band. Thomas tries, and I end up untangling it. The rubber band is thick and long like you’d use to bundle letters or newspapers. The driver passes Thomas a joint. I shiver when I see the driver’s arm is bruised and scratched with sores. His face is sunburned and his long, singed hair is the color of honey.
Thomas passes the joint to me. I want to be closer to him, so I take a hit. It burns my throat and fingertips. I’ve smoked with Melanie when I was younger, but I’ve never gotten off. I braid my fingers in Thomas’ hair. We’re driving on Main Street, Pioneer Park is on the right, and the Mormon Temple on the left. The temple is tall and rectangular and looks like someone should be buried beneath it. Rows of palm trees slide by like flashes of light. Thomas rests his head on my shoulder, and we’re a few minutes away from Escobedo Projects.
The driver talks to himself in the front seat and flashes a baggie full of white powder. He raises his eyebrows up and down and tells me several times if we’re pulled over by the cops that I am to eat the contents of the baggie. I can feel my heart pounding, and a cold shiver goes through me. I wonder if he’s the one who shot up Melanie’s friend. Fuck him. He can eat that crap, not me. I pray to Mary.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
I open my eyes, and we’re at a stop light, and I feel like jumping out, but Thomas is asleep. I can’t trust Melanie ever, and I’m pissed at her. We pull up by the Catholic church and park on the street. The last time I was here, I was at Yasmin’s funeral. Her grandmother’s long, black hair turned completely gray in two days. The Catholic church is between the white and Mexican sections, and on the other side of the Mexican section is the black section.
I shake Thomas. I help him out of the car, and he’s moving in slow motion. Blooming pink oleanders and mulberry trees are planted along the street, hiding and brightening up the mud splattered apartments. When I lived in the barrio on Hibbert Street, everyone spoke Spanish on my street except for my family. Straight down Hibbert is the pool at the park. It was given as a “gift” to the neighborhood in the late fifties, even though there’s a big pool at Rendezvous Park, just minutes away. I think Escobedo pool’s been drained for good since we lived here, and they may’ve covered it with concrete. Some people in Mesa don’t want anyone to remember the pool. Like families who have businesses and streets named after them. Every street in the projects has a market that sells quarts of beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, and candy. The rusty screen market doors advertise things like Holsum bread. Old winos sit outside on the streets and park, drinking from bottles, twisted in paper sacks.
The driver and Melanie walk ahead of us. The cars rush by, glaring with metal and mirrors on University Street. My halter dress billows green in the heat. Thomas’ arm is around my shoulder, and the concrete sidewalk breathes out heat from the depths of hell and sparkles with red glitter. A horn honks, and I look across University. Huge hollyhocks and sunflowers droop in front of the small adobe and tin- roofed unpainted wooden homes. I want to ditch Melanie and the driver. She doesn’t care about anyone else but herself. Thomas’ house is too far to walk with him, and his grandmother would be there. I’d hate for him to have to cut his hair over smoking weed. The only place I can think of to go is the playground by the pool. There’s a big wooden merry-go-round that squeaks that we used to ride on with Yasmin. There’s no grass there, only dirt and sorry-ass mulberry trees. It’ll be cooler at Conner’s.
I’ve never been in this section before, and there’s less apartments here. Conner’s door is open, and the swamp cooler blows inside. It smells like bleach. There’re no lights on, and newspapers are taped in the windows. My eyes adjust, and the walls are bare and the floors are dark concrete. It’s furnished with some old thrown-out furniture Aunt Vivian and Carl gave them. Thomas pulls off his sweaty t-shirt in slow motion, and his crucifix hits the floor. He wipes the sweat from his face with his shirt, and he’s beautiful.
Thomas stumbles into another room with some twin beds and an old chair. The bedroom is dim, and he flops down on an empty bed. Across from Thomas, Conner’s passed out, and his arm hangs off his bed. Plastic curtains cover the windows, with newspapers behind them. Melanie spins Hendrix on a stereo sitting on the floor. She puts the needle down on “Are You Experienced?” A Woodstock album with a boy and girl on the cover leans against the wall. The driver pulls his leather hat off but leaves his shades on. He flashes around the baggie, laughing. Melanie unclips her barrette. Melanie sits beside Conner, and his hair is longer than hers. The driver snaps Thomas’ rubber band.
“Sistine, do you want get off?” Melanie slurs.
“The first time’s always free,” the driver smiles.
Hell no. I keep my eyes open and pray to invoke angels to protect us. I think about Aunt Vivian and how I should’ve told her Melanie shot up last week. It doesn’t matter what Melanie tells about me or who knows. It’s better than her overdosing. Thomas and I lean against the wall on the other bed. His eyes are closed, and he’s saying, “Yeah,” while I rub his shoulders. He tells me how good my hands feel. I love touching him. I can hear Jimi in the background, and Melanie pulls up her shirt sleeve over her elbow. The driver holds a syringe and rubber band. She looks away from the needle, and the driver taps the bubbles out. Melanie lies down next to Conner.
My prayers to Mary slip out of my hands while I massage Thomas’ back. Now I wish we’d gone to the park with the winos. They don’t bother anybody. Thomas could lie on a picnic table. I touch Yasmin’s name on a soft spot on Thomas’ chest. There’s some sunshine coming through the window where the newspaper has come untaped, and our sheet sparkles with red glitter. I smell sweat, and the driver sits on a chair by us. I promise Mary never to test God’s mercy by doing this again. I can see Thomas and me in the narrow kaleidoscope of his mirrored shades. He’s snapping Thomas’ rubber band on the chair like it’s a sling shot, and he’s getting on my nerves with his baggie and needle. He smiles, raising his eyebrows, and he’s missing teeth.
Thomas moves to the edge of the bed, and rolls up his pant leg. I’m still leaning against the wall. The driver scoots his chair close to us. He pulls up his shades on the top of his head. His pupils are pinpoints. In his irises, demonic angels hold hands like paper doll cutouts, dancing in a circle. Thomas leans close to the driver telling him, “Yeah, man,” and hits his leg with his fist and sucks in some breath. I feel sweaty and cold and I want to throw up. I scream and pull him back by his hair. Thomas calls me a “Fucking bitch,” and waves his arm to slap me. He yells at me to “Get the fuck away.” I can’t breathe. When I catch my breath, I choke. I don’t fucking care if he hates me or calls me worse names like narc. I open my hand and let a fist full of his hair go.
The End
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Alexandra is a graduate of Arizona State who lives and works in the Phoenix area. Her chapbook, Poetic Anthropologies, is forthcoming from Medulla Publishing. Her work appears or is forthcoming in >kill author, decomP, PANK, Grey Sparrow Journal, and other awesome places. Please visit her at alexandraisacson.com.
