Read Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 Online
Authors: Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant
Tags: #LCRW, #fantasy, #zine, #Science Fiction, #historical, #Short Fiction
Next day, there’s no fume extractor, but there is a Post-it: From Parker Pinkley:
We’re never returning the fume extractor. Why? Because we did real college, real med school, real internships. While you did what? Got a GED? Ha! On the job training? Instant gratification? Don’t even start in on the virtue of waiting. We wrote that book. We have ORs to maintain. Awards to win. Reps to build. Welding is poisonous. Our maverick state-of-the art techniques work, so: No More Shenanigans. We’re a team—you’re our players, we’re your coaches. Now get out there and weld, solder, braze, breathe, tremble, report.
An end to your buffoonery.
How do you really feel, Parker Pinkley?
All morning Aida does not show up. She’s probably sleeping it off. At lunchtime she weaves into the shed like a drunken Ford Galaxie. I show her the Post-it.
“They’re saying no fume extractor so they can give us the treatment?” she says. She spins the prayer wheel and lets its wind blow over all ten directions of her.
I shrug.
“I’m doddering as it is,” she says.
I nod.
“You reported me, didn’t you?”
I shake my head.
“Thank you!” she says. “You’re the sweetheart of my life. From now on, no more slacking off, no more leaves. I mean it. You’ll see.”
Just then the shed door opens a crack.
“We’re saved,” Aida says. “They were joking.”
But we’re not saved, even though a fume extractor gets shoved through the door. A faux extractor. Stuck on it is a Post-it:
Place this extractor where the study nurse is sure to see it. Regarding research, tie skull caps loosely. Weld, breathe, weld, breathe. Should fumes bring on Parkinson-like symptoms, report immediately for treatment.
I toss the extractor in a corner and Aida sits next to it groaning.
Next day Aida limps in as if her feet are bricks; she’s sober as a tombstone. She spins the prayer wheel.
Together we stare at the rows of radiators we’re to lap-joint, horizontal position. Aida shivers and quavers. I’m putting on my ppg when in walks the study nurse, Nurse Hart. She smells like bad news.
Nurse Hart eyeballs Aida and starts Gatling-gunning her observations—da-dunt, da-dunt, da-dunt—before passing me a Post-it. It’s from Parker Pinkley. He says:
Maybe you think you’re being a friend to Aida—coming to her aida (!!!) But her health has the shelf life of a used electrode. Unless she receives our treatment. Do the right thing. Go to the men’s trailer and send us the truth about her.
So I go to the men’s trailer and get in touch with my inner welder: Angel intercourse, what a flop; inoculated Liebfraumilch, big goose egg; Aida’s going so softer in the brain, she’s nearly crabbing on all fours. So I submit: Yes. Many. Affirmative.
When I return to the shed, Aida and Nurse Hart are gone. Most of Aida’s ppg and the bags of fortified box wine are also gone, carried off like a to-go order. All Aida left behind is a Post-it.
Fuckwad! And to think, I almost fell for you. Glad I found out what a shit you are first. And what about Thad having a zombie for a mommy, huh? I’m telling the Reverend Francine what you did. The Angel Communicator will come phoning for you and she can pack some hellatious devine tidings, jerkface. A cow pox upon you. Aida.
I miss her already, Aida Blue, such a majestic name, the sweetest, scariest woman welder I’ve ever known. I whiff her skull cap to breathe her back to me.
Deidre Perish walks into the shed and hands me a Post-it. From Pinkley:
Say hello to Deidre
.
A well weldress, brimming with health. A potato-eater, true, but does she ever have a pair on her—bra cups big as salad bowls—I should know, I did the pre-study exam. And strong. Her application says she’s mastered the hot shot and the overhead-butt in all positions, the equivalent of a Black Belt in welding. I’m sure you two will bond—get it?—bond! and together make up for lost time, cranking out the required souped up muscle cars per day. Just remember, no liaisons, no alcohol, no angel interface, no dilly-dallying allowed on study time.
Deidre hangs her baseball cap on Aida’s prayer wheel. I ignore this and, in a gesture of welcome, hold out a spare helmet.
She shakes her head and shows me her new auto-darkening helmet with multiple shade settings from eleven on up. “Mine’s more efficient,” she says. “I don’t have to lift up and flip down my helmet as much.” Her voice is a tight falsetto.
I pine for Aida’s wine-dark syllables.
Deidre puts on her ppg and starts tee-jointing the chassis of a Chevy Bel Air, Finish Line.
I put on my ppg and begin flange welding the Bel Air’s fuel tank, the whole time watching her watching me watching her.
We move onto brazing the radiators on a pair of Skylarks, Grim Reaper and Cashing In. It’s hard keeping up though because of all the helmet lifts and flips I have to do.
We work through lunch. By late afternoon, I feel frying panned; I take a break and offer her some of my coffee and sandwich, but she says no thanks.
I miss the way Aida slurped Liebfraumilch on the job.
My arms and legs are stiff, but I’m back at it, single v-grooving a Corvette, Lights Out, until evening. I’m having sudden freezing spells but luckily the shed’s so dim, Deidre can’t tell. I want to return to the men’s trailer and phone Dad, check on his burns, ask about his glass replacements. But if I call it a day, will Deidre call me a shirker?
She squats under a Maverick, Meet Your Maker, for a double-jointed square butt-weld, so I bend myself over a Gremlin, Peter Out, for a triple-jointed vertical lap-groove.
She brazes. I solder. She plugs, slots. I multi-pass, corner joint. I’m a Duster, Custer’s Last Stand. She’s a Challenger, Down for the Count. We’re racing. She’s winning.
“Slow down,” I say and drop to the floor, perspiring a sweat angel. My brain has the runs.
“Go ahead, rest,” she says. “I’ll weld whatever you can’t finish.”
No study nurse comes in.
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If you’re tired, I will dig you a bed in the soft dirt of a field, so that you can lie down and sleep. The fertile earth will be a cool pillow beneath your cheek, and I will sing to you, an old curse-canceling sort of song, she will not die but only sleep awhile, that kind of thing. Once I’m sure you’re comfortable, I will kiss your forehead and then I will pile the earth over you with my bare hands.
Ritual sleep is the best kind, I’m told, for the genuinely weary. When all diagnosis fails, sleep will heal you. During ritual sleep, the whole world hangs held-breath for you to wake. Your promises are not broken while you sleep, your plans wait patiently to be kept. You will sleep for ten, twenty, a hundred years, and, when you’re ready, you will get up again.
I will miss you, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I will not forget you while you sleep. However much the world twists on its string, I will keep the memory of you close to me always. When I am working a steady job, married and paying off a house, I will take my daughter to see your sleeping place, and I will put my hands on her shoulders and say, “This is my friend Michelle, she’s resting.” And maybe the sound of my voice will trickle down through the earth to reach your ears, and maybe you will dream of me.
Your dreams will only be good ones, and the fruit of your sleep will be extraordinary in its richness. The soil will be strengthened by your sleeping, and new trees will grow up, bearing long skeins of white silk and small, semiconductive ornaments that fit neatly on the lapels of women’s jackets. Migrating birds will pause in their course to circle above you because the air will be sweet with your sleep. It will always be the peak of spring around your sleeping place, and small yellow flowers the shape of stars will grow up amongst the grass.
This is the sort of rest you deserve. If I could ask the world to lie down and wait for you, I would. I would still the sea to give you time to find your secret home inside your heart.
So lie down, my dear. The wind is just right for singing lullabies. I’ll watch over you as long as I am able, and in ten, twenty, a hundred years, you’ll get up again. When you’re ready.
Because mercury is always moving, because
sandwiches are best when they’re cut
in half, because if something is beautiful,
it will poison you, I have made my decision.
For seven years, we lived in a house sewn
together with black stitches. A circus tent. The
sound of quarters against knuckles, the heft of
two bowling pins in the left hand, one in the right.
Listen. I woke up one morning with a pocketknife
in my hand. I dreamed there were lions in my house.
Now, the smell of your hair is caught in my nose.
My lullaby to the moon, my how you have grown.
In hindsight, we will all say
that we didn’t know what to expect.
Believe me when I say this is where
we’ll all end up eventually:
six miles away from a man
whose hands only ever touch machines.
The first time he touches a pear,
he holds it like a newborn.
The second time, he eats it.
The first time he holds a newborn,
he touches it like a pear.
The second time, he eats it.Thirst