Authors: J. Levy
‘Dr. Kampf’s rooms, please hold the line!’
‘Hello, Dr. Kampf, just one moment please!’
‘Please hold for Dr. Kampf!’
Jezzy
plunged all three lines into Hold Hell where they were audibly greeted by a voiceover artist called Beth who in a throaty whisper, divulged the smoothly scientific wonders of botox, Restalyne and other thrilling fillers. Shoving a blue magn
etic hedgehog encrusted with
with multi-coloured paperclips towards Sam,
Jezzy
barked, ‘Build me a tower!’ and hurriedly skulked towards the waiting room. Sidling up against the wall behind the door, peering between the dry crack and the oily hinges, she spied part of Frankie, the bits that weren’t engulfed by a brand new American man or hidden by the door jamb.
Jezzy
’s mouth dropped open, then lifted itself upwards with glee to form a smile at the half-hidden sight. Frankie had her arms around a man. In public! Amazing. This outward display of affection was a sight rarely, if ever, seen before. Historically, Frankie had always been shy of previously showing her feelings aloud towards men and what
Jezzy
was now witnessing, was a vision only a
dear,
true friend
of old
could identify and cherish.
*
Meringue
Her lease was up,
furniture reclaimed by the rental shop,
her bag was packed and
the
apartment walls were bare, not that they were her apartment walls any longer. There were hardly any marks to show where the
pastel
printed sheets of ‘Sante Fe at Dawn’ and ‘Laguna by Night’ had once hung. Apartments in Los Angeles were too transient to leave marks. Walls were never adorned long enough to show that there had ever been a trace of anything. As soon as apartments were vacated, walls were licked with paint, carpets cleaned if not replaced and toilet seats flung out to pasture to be replaced with shiny, new ones, courtesy of Bed, Bath and Beyond’s Big Brother, untouched by human butts, or otherwise. Within twenty four hours every trace of what had ever been or was ever seen in an apartment had been well and truly eradicated, all thanks to the glossy overcoat of Hollywood, otherwise known as the sheen that hides the shit beneath.
Meringue had been in this apartment for fourteen months, on a month by month rental after the initial six month lease. A six month commitment in this town was quite an achievement in itself, sometimes the only long term relationship was the one between tenant and space, but now it really was time to go. She was leaving Los Angeles. Her stomach felt heavy, but her mind was already beginning to lighten a little. She had come to the realization that Manny would never love her or even want her that much. He had only been temporarily under her blonde ambitious spell, had really only needed her on her knees and then only sometimes. Strangely, he had begun to change recently, like the time he actually looked into her eyes and the night he had wanted to take her to the movies. Of course, they hadn’t actually gone out that night. Meringue had been waiting patiently at the box office in Westfield, Century City, wondering with anticipation which movie they would s
ee, when he had texted her
with an excuse about having to fly off suddenly to London! What a joke! London. He was such a liar. She had decided at that moment that she would go to the movies anyway despite him cancelling, to sit through a mindless feature with or without him, knowing that at least she could rely
up
on herself to be reliable. She had eaten popcorn and corn nuts and cried in the dark through a comedy. It was during the movie that her mind had
somehow
shifted to a place of comfort. Her teeth were filled with traces of popcorn and her mascara had streaked across her cheeks. Her head and her heart felt hot and despite the air conditioning, she felt stifled in the movie theatre and had to get out. In the cool night air of the open car park, Meringue leaned against her aging, white 1983 Camero rental car and gazed at the stars. One seemed to wink at her and she took it as a sign. She knew then that she had to leave Los Angeles, had to get home. It wasn’t just
the fact, of course it wasn’t,
that Manny had let her down too many times, it wasn’t even the rejection of the business or the years spent studying her craft, honing her body and talent, if she even had any talent. It wasn’t the tedious hours at the gym, pounding her way through the years and each style of working out: aerobics at Voight; step class at Martin Henry; street funk with Milo at SC/LA; Pilates; weights; mind-blowing yoga; kick-boxing; booty-boogie; even the ultra hip class where they did nothing but lay perfectly still on pink satin mats, willing their bodies, through their minds, into a state of physical perfection. Although her dedication to all now seemed defunct, these things did however contribute towards the culmination of her decision.
Until in the end, it was just a simple mind shift on a cool, still night.
A feeling that the right time to leave was right now, to escape while her mind was still whole. She felt as if she were being dredged from a place that had been stronger than her, a town filled with slow moving quicksand that had been whirling her in for years and years. Now, in her solitude, standing beside her lone car, beneath her very own winking star, she finally knew she had the inner strength to leave. To the place where she had always felt safe and loved. To her home town, to her mother, who she hoped would still be waiting.
*
Edie
Edie had managed to get back to her past again. She had taken her mind and forced it back to the time when she had been happy and light and carefree. It was difficult because there were so many more distractions today. That woman from down the hall, Delia, the one with the craggy neck and sullen look, was trying to break the arm of Trudi, one of the attendants. Trudi, a small, wiry woman from The Phillipines, merely fobbed Delia off, swatting her away as if she were no more than a pesky fly.
There were lots of flies in the south anyway, thought Trudi, what was another one?
Swat. Swat.
Delia grimaced her teeth, struggling fiercely to
contort
Trudi’s hand
, bending it back
the way it shouldn’t go. Trudi’s face remained stoic. She was so used to this. These tussles with Delia were so tedious, way too boring to get riled up about. This had been going on for years. It was one of the milder cases with which she had to deal. At least with Delia there was a reaction. Most of them were so blank. Sad. Vacant. Lost somewhere within their own age-ravaged minds. Dealing with Delia was better than dealing with the spitters. Trudi hated that more than anything. Even more than wiping their behinds or cleaning up their stained sheets. That was just loss of self control and becoming horribly helpless. Spitting was the worst. It almost made her cry. How could a person have such immense personality changes that they would actually, purposefully, spit in another person’s face? That, to Trudi, was the saddest thing of all.
Alan and Walter were peeing in the hall. Everyday was the same, but they would pick a different time and location, so nobody knew when they would do it. But they did it every day and always together. Simultaneous streams dribbling from their soft, wasted penises, trickling down their legs and onto the floor. They would both laugh hysterically. It was the only time they did. Then they would be chastised like little children and sent to their ward. Every day was the same routine. Pissing. Laughing. Punishment. Some people needed their routine in order to survive.
Survival of the fittest or survival of the misfits?
Despite the irritating distractions, Edie fought to stay where she was in her mind. In her secret little pocket of peace, tucked away inside her small safe space that had been mercifully saved from the ravages of her mind, a bubble, a cocoon, her one bead of sanity.
Then she saw him, there he was! Her John! She knew he would come. So handsome in his casual pants and blue checked shirt made from the finest Sea Island cotton, his sandy hair short and slick. The sun was shining and he had come to take her on
a picnic by the edge of the lake. Maybe they would even take a little blue wooden boat and row out to the island, which would be dotted with scarlet poppies at this time of year. Their island, where he would put a soft tartan blanket, spun from the underbellies of Alpaca goats, on the ground beneath a great willow tree and lay her gently down, kissing her hair,
her eyelids, her neck, as his strong hands softly found their way inside the flowered gabardine of her summer dress. That had been their first sweet summer, its potency claiming them so that from then on they never had eyes for anyone else.
Edie Masters and John Pierce. Edie and John Pierce.
Mr. and Mrs. Pierce and Family. Mrs. John Pierce. Widow.
A sharp pain suddenly tore through the scene, leaving debris scattered through the sentimental pictures in her mind. She tried quickly to piece it back together but it wouldn’t come, it was drifting away from her and Edie desperately longed to get back to John under the willow tree. She needed to feel his arms around her keeping her safe, to look into his deep brown eyes and to touch his body as he lay beside her. As hard as she fought, it just wouldn’t work, she couldn’t get it back and now there was a smell she didn’t like. Unable to fight it anymore, Edie opened her eyes, which took more than a moment because they had been so tightly glued together by her thoughts. The offensive intruder was lunch. Soup. A white, chipped bowl of watery beige soup with bits floating in it had been placed on the small table beside her. Her stomach felt hot and tears had filled her eyes. Horribly wrenched from her thoughts, her mind had betrayed her again and as she looked down at her damp nightie, she felt and saw that her body had too. Willow, weep for me.
*
Devon
‘More tea?’ enquired Mr. Birdman, his teeth gnawing monotonously on something that wasn’t there. Devon felt her stomach lurch as she muttered that she didn’t want any. She felt trapped in the school hallway, as if she was almost powerless to get out. There was nothing to keep her here, but she felt imprisoned between the stained glass window throwing slashes of coloured light across the hall and the beady glint in Mr. Birdman’s sad, watery eyes. She needed to summon up strength from within and tell herself that this was not her past and that she was free. But the eerie memories of decades long gone had strangely rooted her to the faded seat. She was unable to move because in order to move away from this, she first had to get past herself. What was it her therapist
s
had told her
, on the rare occasion that they actually spoke
? To reach into the pit of her mind and summon up the believability that she could do this? To stretch her thoughts back so far, that they could practically reach to her previous lifetimes? To elongate her memories, then delve into the recesses of her head that held so much buried knowledge?
And there, in the narrow hallway, filled with ghosts from the past, something odd happened to Devon. Something unf
oreseen. An unexpected moment. A
thing that couldn’t ever have been foretold. After countless years of practice, meditation, deep analysis and therapy, so much therapy, the moment had finally arrived when she could see the a realistic possibility of escapism from her convoluted mind.
Devon burst into impromptu laughter.
As she laughed, she cried. And the creepiness of the stained glass dissolved into splashes of bright colour, while before her eyes Mr. Birdman melted into the weak, old man that he had become. Her laughter filled the hall, echoing along the narrow passageway, pushing at the walls, gushing into every room of the school, washing away each guilty crevice. Her laughter caused an eruption inside her own head. Nothing sinister. Quite the opposite. A sort of cleansing quake. Almost ridding her completely of vile, bent memories. The floodgates had open at last and Devon was aloft on her own pathway to freedom.
*