Western Palaces, page 16
At first I cackle loudly at this but when the cackle peters out I find it has turned to sobbing. Once again Eyre’s patting my back and telling me it will be alright.
Just then I hear organ music thicken the ceiling and rattle my bones. Choirs belt out “hallelujahs” and hands clap in rhythm. The sound of heavenly music rains down upon me from above… which I soon realize is coming from the nave of the church because they couldn’t be bothered to interrupt their scheduled mass for Pearl’s funeral.
The priest goes on to talk of Pearl’s life as a hard worker, toiling away in factories, laundromats, delis, and department stores. Pearl was a devout Catholic, a good mother, and, though small in stature, big in heart. And, yes, the priest goes on, she was a bit of a drinker and she let that drinking get out of hand. Just as many of us have, she reminds us. Just as she had done, herself, many years ago before filling her cup with God’s love, rather than whiskey’s.
Looking over my shoulder, I see Daniel’s lone eye leaking. Across from me, the Mexican guy leans forward in his chair, elbows on knees, head down, hands together, rocking. I know I know that guy from somewhere. He looks up just as I’m thinking this and it hits me like a bus—he’s one of the young men in that JC Penny’s family photo I studied on Pearl’s wall before pilfering her whiskey and cookie-jar savings. He’s one of her sons. Just older now. Mid to late thirties. About my age.
I stand up from my seat and Eyre grabs at me, thinking I’m about to have another fit. But I pull away, stroll past the priest, and sit next to Pearl’s son while the lady padre prattles on about lives touched, and touching lives, and finding meaning in apparent meaninglessness.
Sitting, I have a moment of panic when I notice the zombie is no longer in plain sight. I worry she might be hiding, ready to pounce and send us all to Pearl’s grave, but then I spot her on the floor, outside the circle of chairs, curled up like a crusty, scabbed-up cat, snoring away.
“Hi,” I say to Pearl’s son, who scooted a bit away from me in his own chair as I sat next to him.
This guy, bent forward, pivots his head toward me, grimaces, and looks away.
“I know who you are,” I tell him, keeping my voice low so as not to interrupt the sermon.
He gives me another look of disgust. Silence.
“Knock-knock,” I say and grin.
Nothing.
“I knew Pearl,” I tell him. “I knew your ma. She lived right next door to where I’m living now… in the Tenderloin.”
Nothing. He keeps his head down. He’s rocking back and forth a little.
“I think I may have been the last one to see her alive,” I tell him, unable to decide if I should laugh or cry.
He finally makes eye-contact with me again.
“Whoa,” I whisper. “I didn’t kill her… I don’t think. If that’s what, you know, you’re thinking. I didn’t lay a finger on her. Well, except, I guess, for that night we slept together.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We slept together.”
“What?”
“I mean, you know, like, snoozed? We snoozed together. All on the up-and-up. Fully clothed,” I tell him, and then make the cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die gesture.
“What in God’s name are you going on about?” he says, having a hard time keeping his voice down.
“Your name’s Jamie, right?”
He eyes me. Squints. Rocks. Looks back to the priest who is speaking very softly, very lovingly of Pearl—some lady she didn’t even know. It makes me sick for a second, this act. This pageantry. But I push it aside and wait for Jamie to say something.
Finally he turns to me and says, “Yeah. How the hell do you know that?”
“I told you. I knew your mother.”
“You knew my mother?”
“Yeah. I did. Not well. But probably better than most.”
“Really?” he says with anger.
“Yeah.”
“You knew my mother?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And who, exactly, is that?” he asks, leaning forward again, rocking.
“Um… Pearl?” I say, wondering why I always seem to confuse people.
“You freakin’ idiot,” Jamie says.
“Huh?” I say back, gripping the bottom of my seat with white knuckles again, ready to leap.
“You freakin’ idiot. Pearl was not my mother.”
“You’re… you’re not Jamie?” I ask, suddenly nervous and feeling like an idiot. I peer over to the corner where Daniel stands with arms crossed. He’s been eavesdropping and his one-eyed expression suggests that he thinks I should stop talking.
Silence.
“Knock-knock,” I say.
“Huh? What?” he asks, exasperated.
“If you’re not Jamie, who are you? How’d you know Pearl?” I ask.
“You really should be minding your own business.”
“But who are you?”
“My name’s Jamie. Like you said. How’d you even know that?”
“I saw the family photo in her apartment. I told you… I knew Pearl. She was… a friend.”
“Jesus.”
“What?” I say a little too loudly, alarmed and looking all around the crappy little basement room. “Is he here, too?”
“Pearl did tend to attract the freakin’ nutjobs,” Jamie says.
“What you talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” I say.
“Uh-huh…”
“Listen,” I whisper. “I know it means a lot to Pearl that you’re here.”
“Means a lot to her?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s dead, man. Nothing means anything to her anymore.”
“Not true. As the lady-father up there said: We’re all fictions in God’s library. Stories don’t die. Pearl’s still around. And someone right now is making me tell you that she cares that you’re here. It makes her happy. In that someone’s mind, her giant cabeza has a big old grin on it. She’s smiling, right now, at this very moment. She wants to tell you that she loves you. She wants to hold you and thank you.”
“You… you really should just shut up now.”
“I used to sleep with a Master of the Psychic Arts. I think some of it rubbed off. She was real good at it. So good she died for it. Like, um, Jesus? Actually, maybe she’s the one communicating with me right now, telling me what to say to you. Who knows.”
I twiddle my thumbs.
Silence.
“Jamie… you’re her son. I know she hasn’t seen you in a long time. She’s glad you’re here,” I inform him.
“I’m not her son. I told you.”
“What are you talking about… Willis?”
“Have some respect. Do we really need to go into this now?” Jamie asks, leaning back, sighing, and smoothing out the wrinkles in his slacks.
“Um… yeah. Duh,” I tell him. “What are you taking about?”
“Pearl.”
“Uh-huh?”
“She… she was mixed up.”
“OK.”
“I’m not her son. In fact, I don’t know that she had any children.”
“I’m not following. I mean, I saw the family photo, Jamie.”
“Jesus Christ. Pearl was my dad’s wife for about half a second, when me and my brothers were all teenagers already—practically men. The second she had that ring on her finger she forced my father to drag us all down to the Sears to take that photo. None of us wanted to be in that picture. She wasn’t our mother. She was a crazy drunk and she up and left as soon as things got difficult.”
“Your brothers,” I said.
“Yeah. And me, too. And my dad. None of us were easy to get along with. But she lived in la-la land. She thought she was going to have this ready-made family. And in her head, she thought it was going to be all June and Ward Cleaver.”
I flinch at that, having bad memories of the Beaver.
“I don’t believe you,” I finally add.
“That’s fine, man,” Jamie whispers. “I don’t really care what you believe.”
“What about your brothers?”
“What about them?”
“Hector… and David? I think that’s what Pearl said their names were.”
“Yeah?”
“How’d they die?”
Jamie guffaws loudly enough to make the priest stutter and stop her speech before continuing on about ashes and dust and how everyone’s just the impression of a typewriter letter in the long code of life on Earth.
“What? Why’s that funny?” I ask, wondering if I should also be laughing.
“They aren’t dead. I’m guessing Pearl told you they were?”
“Well, basically,” I say, wondering if I’ve misunderstood something—everything.
“They’re not dead. But, in Pearl’s world, they might as well be, I guess. Hector’s serving life in prison for… for…. Well, it’s none of your business what for. And David—David just refuses to talk to her.”
“But you didn’t refuse? Even though she wasn’t your actual mother?”
“I would sometimes send her a Christmas card,” he admits.
“But not this year?” I ask, remembering the two lonely cards in her apartment.
“No,” he says, clearly exhausted by my interrogation.
“Pearl was a good woman,” I tell him.
“Hmm…”
“Pearl was a good woman.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t think so?”
“You didn’t really know her, did you?” Jamie asks.
“What are you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“You really should just shut up now.”
“Pearl was a good woman,” I repeat.
“OK.”
“Why are you even here?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business. But… I’m here, aren’t I? I knew they were going to eulogize her here… and nowhere else, I guess. Even though this is really freakin’ strange. But… I’m here. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know who is and who isn’t. Not really,” I confess.
Inside, I feel my metal blood melt and boil my veins. My hot breath has already scorched my lungs, throat, nostrils.
“Pearl was a good woman,” I say.
Silence.
“Knock-knock,” I say.
He turns, scowls. “Huh?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘who’s there?’” I elucidate.
He turns away.
“Knock-knock,” I say again.
“You… are you serious? This is someone’s funeral—or as close as Pearl’s going to get, anyway. What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Yes. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Knock-knock…”
“Please… just… go back to your own seat. You’re being incredibly disrespectful.”
“Pearl was a good woman.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“That Pearl was a good woman,” I demand.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
“Say it.”
“Listen, man, if you want to keep your teeth, I suggest you get back to your own seat and keep your mouth shut for the rest of this… this whatever it is.”
“Pearl was a good woman.”
“I’m warning you.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
“I’m not saying another word to you. Not another word.”
“Pearl was a good woman. Say it!” I yell out, disrupting the sermon and gaining everyone’s cock-eyed and surprised gazes.
But before I can appreciate their undivided attention, I’m on the basement floor, dazed and confused, my jaw smarting from the solid right hook Jamie landed before storming out of the room. On his way out he punches the wall and, I think, yells an apology while choking back a sob.
I don’t know why I keep ending up on basement floors, bruised and battered, while tears flow from the eyes of those leaving me behind.
On that subterranean floor, I look to Daniel at the back of the room, and he seems conflicted. He wants to help me up, but he doesn’t. All the same, he’s embarrassed for me. Instead, the homeless guy helps me up, but only after carefully setting his coffee aside. Then Eyre’s helping him get me into a seat. The priest comes over and asks if I’m alright, and all the old ladies that have been weeping all day are around me, wiping the blood from me with their dirty handkerchiefs and petting my head, mothering me. Their attention and care makes me weep and that prolongs their kindness so I make no effort to stifle the tears.
Through my sobs I ask the old ladies who they are and they tell me they used to work with Pearl at Mr. Harrison’s Dry Cleaners and when I ask them to tell me that Pearl was a good woman not a one of them hesitates and they all tell me she was and that causes the waterworks to really flow and before I know it I’m choking on snot and sobbing into the puffy fabric covering these old ladies’ shoulders and wailing between their drooping breasts, each of them giving me a turn, petting me, calling me “poor baby” and shushing me. During this whole thing Eyre has given distance, embarrassed now as much as Daniel.
Finally calming down, the priest asks if she should continue and everyone agrees she should, and I encourage the same.
The old ladies all part from me like floating pollen, as if I was an ecstatic flower, and retake their seats in the circle of chairs. Priest-lady retakes her place at the center, adjusts her collar, and begins to speak, interrupting herself with her own laughter.
“Oh my…” she says. “I… well… actually, I guess I had concluded my part of this meeting just as the fiasco started. I’m thankful to you all for being here to honor Pearl’s memory. Before we get to our confessions, is there anyone who would like to say something about Pearl?”
Silence.
Even the old ladies look like high schoolers called upon to answer some impossible math equation. I do the same, deciding now’s not the best time for a knock-knock joke. As I look around the room I note that Daniel has slipped away, as have the zombie and the homeless guy.
Show’s over, I guess.
Eyre’s sitting alone now, surrounded by empty seats, drawing something. I wonder how many ones and zeroes he’s got on that sheet of paper.
“Ahem,” the lady padre says, clearing her throat, eying the small room refusing her a response. “I, um… I understand her son was… was to be here today?” she asks, looking hopefully between me and Eyre, the only males left in the room. I avert my eyes, look at my feet and bite my nails.
“Yes! I’m here!” I hear a voice belt out before realizing it’s my own.
“Oh,” the priest says. “You?”
“Um, yeah…” I say, head low as I stand and walk to the center of the circle.
As I step beside the priest, her shoulders relax and she whispers to me that she understands now why I’ve been in such apparent torment during the whole meeting and that I shouldn’t worry—all will be alright. She gives my elbow a squeeze before stepping aside and taking a seat, herself.
“My mother,” I begin telling my little audience, “was a… was a good woman. She… she…”
Through my watery vision, I believe I finally recognize one of the old ladies to be Cameron—my Cameron. She’s smiling at me, the massive amount of blue eyeshadow unable to mask her tears. I can tell, though, that they’re proud tears. She’s proud of me, standing up here, speaking on behalf of Pearl, who only wanted a family. Who only wanted to love and be loved. And, of course, Cameron’s proud that I’m speaking up on behalf of myself. Opening up to a room filled mostly with strangers and giving of myself.
“I am…” I tell the room. “I am… um…”
The old ladies, Cameron, and the priest look upon me warmly, and with patience. It breaks my absent heart.
“My name’s Luke. And… and I’m an alcoholic,” I finally say.
“Hi, Luke!” the room responds as I nearly choke and die on the stale air.
WESTERN PALACES
I have to say I’m a little shocked when I see Wilson slip out of Salem Market—this hole-in-the-wall liquor/toilet paper store on Geary—with a chocolate milk in one hand and a skateboard in the other. He turns out of the market and walks east on Geary past gated-up dry cleaners, laundromats, and anonymous storefronts that never open up. Graffiti plasters big chunks of their brick facades. One set of colorful bubbly letters reads: LOGAN IS A PIECE OF SHIT. I think I might have done that graffiti, though I can’t remember why. I’d like to stop and ponder this but Wilson’s strides are long and he’s making quick distance. He’s tall, lean, athletic, wearing a tanktop, long shorts, and checkered slip-on Vans. I worry he’s about to hop on his board and leave me in the dust—his wheels kicking street refuse up into my face: discarded báhn mì wrappers, lipstick-stained cigarette butts, and newspapers, paper towels, and napkins all stained with come or blood or both. Instead, he stops at a flower shop, the emerald carnations, golden daylilies, and violet petunias erupting from the sidewalk of this pus-spewing street like a bucolic lesion. Those flowers can’t mask the ever-brewing aroma-stew of urine and watery shits. Wilson picks a white chrysanthemum from a vase and slips it behind his ear. The older Asian woman who obviously works there stands in front of the doorway of the shop, her hands clasped at waist level. Wilson flashes a smile, says something funny, and she laughs, lowers her head shyly, and shuffles her feet. He puts the flower back in the vase and pats the woman on the arm as he walks past her. Still smiling, she turns her head to watch him saunter off. I follow close behind, snatch a red carnation and shove it in my pocket.
“He’s a fucking fraud,” I say to the flower shop lady as I pass by. “He’s not even real.”
