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Susan Elpiner There isn’t enough melanin in your plasma, makes your skin plaster like white and smooth.
Wings Monroe did it today. I hear, from schoolmates, from coworkers and passersby on the avenues that Jenny Monroe gave it all up with no reason whatsoever. She had wings and could have flown off to heaven if she had wanted to at any moment but she just ended up dead. Everyone keeps wondering why and they all ask me, because I am supposed to know how it happened. I was just 10 feet away and she was gone. They tell me about those wings that gave her the kind of spark that could amaze strangers. She had everything to envy. She was special. She had long legs -- she had wild hair -- she kissed her cigarettes each a farewell. She had a spark. I am referring to the spark that explodes into a fiery flame just like she eventually had to do. Her way was said to make anyone fall deeply, impatiently charmed with her. This infatuation often resulted in the misjudgment as the most true and sincere of love, over and over again. She used to walk into the room and the music would either have to start or end. I wondered when it would first begin -- when everyone would learn that the smile was accompanied on many occasions with mythomanic wit and a glass of wine. On other occasions, the smile was short lived and insecure. At the end, I knew that she was walking into the house with a quiet hello and eventually heading out to the back yard with the phone and a cigarette. She would eventually grow so scared -- scared of dying, scared of no one wanting her, growing up, growing old. The spark gets lost behind the facade of what becomes in everyone's eyes a young woman. It, the spark, chokes and sputters like the lighter she used to use before she won her Zippo at a carnival. The spark is moist and hazy but the room still crackled and burned as all eyes were on her. Everyone would watch her- her who used to kiss her cigarettes farewell, her with the long curly red hair. But Monroe's wings got clipped early this morning and lists were made out. Did their baby girl screw herself over? Did you hear, she was a pill addict; couldn't put those god damn barbiturates down -- they showed up on the drug test she took at clinics when she was trying to get better. Yeah, our baby girl was so so sick, except nothing was wrong with her. Her hormonal balance was perfect, and she just looked anemic. That pale skin and light eyes were there just for the sake of originality. And did you know -- she was trying to kill herself before it actually happened. Monroe was snorting her pills and popping them after her heart condition became known. What was the difference? The spiral would never end if she let herself think clear. School didn't like her anymore, and if it did, she was so god damn sick of being that fucking perfect. Perfect grades, the perfect friend, the perfect make up. Anyone see her crying in the bathroom when the high just made her feel sick, when she wished she just had the guts to do it in one blow? How she glamorized her pain; it made her creative after all and who could show such anger other than that little baby girl when weakness was needed. What wings? Where would they carry her when her mind was deteriorating, when while being surrounded by people begging her to live she would just cry and say that she was sorry, try to hug back, try to say that she was really trying to save herself from it all? When she was crying that maybe she cried wolf one too many times and who would want to stick around now? Wolf! Wolf! Bite me, why don't you? Rip her wings to shreds and drink her non-anemic blood. So Monroe finally got it easy, and I never consciously met the bitch; she was probably a pain to listen to when it started to get real, but they all say we were close. Everyone asks me how I am doing; everyone asks how if I was the closest person on earth to her, why didn't I know. But all I know is that Jenny Monroe expired 10 feet away from me at 2 AM this morning. I had been coming home from a party, where maybe I did meet her. There was a girl with pale skin and light gray eyes. I recognized that they were glazed. We shared a cigarette, and a kiss. She said she was a model and doing real great these days. Her boyfriend was away, but she was enjoying the freedom, and she knew she was going to finally be fine now that she got away to college, and away from high school. I told her I was an English major and she smiled, asking if my wings hurt yet. She was pretty, she was beautiful actually and maybe she really was a model, but things weren't going to get better and the boyfriend was probably either a fuck or a friend. She was high and calm, so I didn't tell her that she had no right. She had no right to have been writing novellas or moving so feline like. She had no right to be everything I was. And she had no right to go first. It was my death to the last detail, but all I got from that Friday 13th, along with a bad hangover, was this odd feeling that I missed her. She was too beautiful to have had anyone, not glamorous or sexy, not plain or pretty; just beautiful, maybe all the features pertained to her but she stood alone, from what I remember, what I remember. I saw her when I walked in, talking to someone or other, the reassurement in her voice being something haunting; it floated and drifted as if it could explain and fix everything; as if the whole world was going to be all right because her hand was frigidly placed on the other girl's knee. Then the girl went away and Monroe was left alone with a half lit Marlboro light, studying it as if it held some relevance than stubbing it in the ashtray as if it was the cause of everything that had went wrong. That ashtray was the cause of the fact that she couldn't do it anymore, that it was all totally hopeless and whatever had been holding her up was about to end. There were no more pills that made her happy; the antidepressants made her feel more like a freak. If she hadn't been doped up on Zoloft, she could have seen her reflection the way I did when I followed her to the bathroom. There were wings; I swear to god, she came out of the stall to check if any powder was left over her lip and as she leaned over the sink to gulp back the aspirin-like taste away, they expanded; they grew, shielding her from the other people who could have known what Monroe had been doing in the bathroom. But not our baby girl Monroe, snorting in the bathroom so everyone could hear. No, she was too good for that, too perfect and smart, waiting for the toilet to flush so no one could hear her inhale, the wings covering the powdering, the red curly hair covering the glazed over eyes. I was supposed to know. If it wasn't for the Zoloft, she could have screamed and cried and yelled, she could have hurt. Monroe could have either screwed some kid or attempted suicide, freaked out, shouted at the top of her lungs. There was so much need to cry, those wings had to be heavy, I was figuring but the sertraline gobbled it all up. My epitome had been reached in the past 3 years. I was done, and there were no distractions to get me going; no amphetamines or downers to be taken in creative manners that could take it all away. There was no one to do and nowhere to go and now there wasn't just nothing to deny but nothing to explain why I had to die. I didn't know why I was giving up and so pathetically slowly that I had to envy Monroe's demise. I needed a distraction, that would have made it better, or just a longer wait till the world got to me, till the pain in my sleep would reach farther than my heart and kill me. I stopped; I stopped till that night when the only thing I could do was stare. They had to stretch, and she needed fresh air, so we talked outside. She really was beautiful, so gorgeous that I wish I was the one that had killed her. She told me that the color gray went well with mauve. Sitting far, far away from me, to give room for the wings, she asked me if they hurt; how heavy they were, if they were like cement or draped velvet. I told her I wouldn't know the difference. Did they drag behind me or hold up still? Did I comb them when I showered? Did I like the new Victoria's Secret bra? She had to go, they were making her tired I supposed and she kissed me. It made no sense, because it was hot that night, but her skin, her shoulder blades, the feathers of her wings were so cold; I wanted to break away from anything that stone-like, I should have been wondering what was wrong with me that second, but as the wings wrapped around me, I had no reason to ask anymore; it was icy, it was over, and I had to finally admit, that I should just give up, but Jenny Monroe died 10 minutes later and I got my distraction. I can't paint it; draw it; explain the irrelevance of one night. I can't describe how when I got home and recounted my possession, looked around the place and took everything in, the usual journal entries playing in my head, giving my cat the same speech. Its come to this, I am sick of the fact that the door opened loudly, "Amy always makes noise." (I hate the concept of always, it isn't just a statement of predictability, it's a melodramatic phrase that glamorizes the neurosis of a subject as a characteristic that makes them memorable.) So, "Amy, throws a dissonance of echoes when drunkenly falling into her home. Amy, drunk and so pretty that way (here goes that speech again), Amy, only good at the high, only talented at the stereotype. She is her own best creation, the bored narcissist tells her therapist who says she's just an artist. "Art? This is art? I am so sick of decadence, and I am so sick of drinking my tea like a good girl. "God, I tried that all. Didn't I, Amphie? I was so damn good. I still sound the same, don't I?" I address Amphie, my cat, the only one to ever understand me. Thank you, Holly Golightly. "That's right, Amy never does change, does she? She is so gorgeous. She still seeks nirvana in her mirror and white paper straw; she knows that clemency will be found in a milky Latte tall; cigarette after cigarette, at least the undecided stereotype keeps something common, commonly her, varying addictions. Amy's smoke is sacred, and that is so sad. Took years to admit but Amy found her endowments; hooks and buttons are easy to comprehend. "But that was never you, Adam, Was it? No, not you; I kept you special to distract myself in a different way." This is that empowering moment, where my heroine declares herself free of old bonds by speaking to some male, it has to be a male or otherwise it is not as real, who is nowhere near the room. By yelling at an imaginary old-time pal, Amy will now liberate herself from it all. "And what was it that made you so damn special? What was the exact reason for keeping you as a friend? What power ever saved you?" The cheshire cat will now answer the question. "Because he was a friend. Because you did love him. Because your distractions were becoming generic, and you needed to announce you actually felt." "But I did feel." I answer who I believe to be Amphie. "Sure, you did. I did! I did!" Amphie is standing dumbfounded at the door, temporarily taking a break from the tantalizing game of chasing her own tail. This astounds me: the tail chasing. It occurs to me that maybe that's the way we all live our lives; we chase this part of us that we cannot recognize as a part of our anatomy. It has its own moods, even if they are based on our own. We keep chasing it, running and hoping to grab it with our teeth, because if that part of us can be bleeding on our own set of jaws then maybe (just maybe) we wouldn't be comparing our life with a cat tail in the middle of the night. "Liked it?" The weight falls on my shoulders. Massive, tight, restrictive, and though it is on my shoulder blades, I feel it stop my breath. "So how was it for you?" I can't keep my balance. "So? So? So? What is better? Slitting your throat, falling 4 stories, or letting them do it?" Lilac, the weight is lilac. Why is it lilac? "Or is OD'ing more to your liking? A neater distraction? Would you share a line, darling?" Her hair falls, curly and blood red over the table, it falls off the table, it veils the little mirror and muffles her inhaling. "Did you think doing him, doing it would preserve your integrity? Thought he would still trust you after you relieved his poor frustrated state? That he would ever love you for who you ever were? For when you were okay? Mind if I have some tea?" Long legs under the slip that was her dress. Invisible fabric covering her as a cloak. They move up and down. They are the span of the room if they are open. "How about making him #42, you were that once too? How about pill popping in your lecture hall? How about if no one ever sees? How about always having to be sick so you could be soft enough for him to dare hold you? Yes, I do mean Adam." The wings fall to the carpet. She is standing. All of a sudden, the gray from under her eyes disappears, she stands straight, she smiles. "But you haven't changed at all, baby. Porcelain or plastic? Lights or regulars? Coffee or Zinfandel? Still the same, you are gorgeous. Woman, girl or chick? What did he say you were? Junkie or experimental? Sick or fragile? You haven't changed at all. You still smoke cloves once in a while. It's all just a dream, a hallucination, and gorgeous." "I just don't get how you missed her." Risa, one of those needed acquaintances (needed so I don't forget how to communicate) enlightens me over coffee. She doesn't get how I just missed her. If it would make her feel better, I can tell her that Jenny was standing in the middle of my living room in the flesh last night. Was there flesh involved? Last night, there was a party, I was high, I was drunk, that doesn't mean that a dead girl whom I never met was at my house. The wings -- it was a costume for the party. After all, she died like human. She -- "Are you okay?" I hate when people ask that question. What exactly can you answer to something of that effect? If I wanted to tell you, I would, and if I didn't, I wouldn't want it brought up. I used to like being asked about my welfare; my heart would taper in great anticipation as Adam would forget about Shelley or Katie or whoever, to look at his best friend, the one who could never ever be replaced and asked if I was okay; take away my bottle of cognac or put out my cigarettes. The drama! The love! Sigh. "It's the morning after a frat party. Why am I going to frat parties? Costume frat parties, to top it off." "I didn't think the costume suited her at all." "Whose?" "Jenny's." "Why?" "She was an angel." "Maybe she liked irony." "I thought you didn't know her." "I don't." "Then how did you know it was an ironic statement, after she was kicked out of her sorority after the incident with the photographer, nearly kicked out of the whole school after they found -- " Risa paused in answer to my glare. I hadn't been let into the sorority because of my relations with a member's boyfriend after he modeled for me for the project in my photography class. I had nearly been kicked out of high school for being too obvious with drugs. With my big mouth, I had probably explained this all to Risa, as well as to everyone. "Then it's not irony. How do you know she was even an angel? It was a pair of wings, a pair of lilac wings. Whose costumes at Halloween parties suit them anyway? And what does anyone really know about all of her distractions? Does anyone know if maybe she actually liked the photographer, still refers to him as her boyfriend? Another part of her probably did it to get out of the sorority. She probably didn't even feel like she belonged at the fraternity party, spent most of it in the bathroom anyway. Who has the -- " "I thought you didn't know her." "I don't." "I just thought you two would be friends." "Because we both screwed up the same things?" "You had the same exact schedule this whole year." "My attendence record sucks." "So did hers." "Then I guess we alternated days." "The wings were gray." "You thought they were gray." So it was a slightly creepy incident. Some girl's death makes me realize I am a mess. What if I fall too? Wasn't that my whole plan? No, no, I graduated a year early so I could straighten myself out, and I did. I lived in three different states in the span of one year, but I took care of me. I have been so good in taking care of myself. "And aren't you bored?" It fell like plates of metal on my back. The tips are sore and bleeding. The feathers are falling to the floor. I don't want this. "What difference does it make if you want it? If you wanted it several years ago? I didn't like him, I was girl #42, but the sheets on his bed were soft and he did know the best camera angles." Before Risa had left and I had totally been absorbed in the essence of my ghost (I do believe she was wearing Chanel #22, because mine could not have been that strong or sweetly musky the way it blended with her own scent), Risa put on her mind, giving me a sad smile. "We all understand you miss her. Professor MacKenzie probably won't even expect to see you in class. We're sorry, Amy, we do know you were her best friend; she always did talk about you." Well, thank you, Monroe, for giving me a legitimate reason to cut class; apparently my best friend had just been -- no, wait, it's too awful, and I just can't say it. "You didn't know Jenny?", Vallory, my superior, asks. She asks after hugging me and telling me that with my loss I can stay home today. I loved working in high school. I loved working the year I took off. I got my pay checks and went home. Simple. Now, I have actually learned how to be social. Have the whole receptionist smile going. Shoot me. "I never met her." In a way, that would be a lie, but then again, maybe I shouldn't tell my workplace that I just may be a schizo -- I told them I was depressive. "That is so weird." Vallory has the receptionist fake thing down so well, even though she no longer needs it, but the practice has paid off; no one never knows what she is thinking, and that is about the only thing I respect about her. "I guess I have been too busy this whole time to socialize." Let's throw in the fact that I am cultured, that I am pretty, that I may be a really bad receptionist, but I was so much above them. Come on, let's believe that; I am so much better. I will go so much further. They'll drag me down, burning with sulfur, heavy as metal, soft as feather. Get them off! I can't stand like this! "She was that way too." Thanks, lady, for being the second person to compare me to a dead girl. "I just thought you two would have met. She went to the same plays and shows you went to. I remember because I had to find someone to cover for both of you the nights a Russian ballet was put on." I began to hate her; for being me, for doing a better job than me. Monroe was dead and everybody remembers her opinion of Baryshnikov, but Amy is just Amy. "Oh." My commentary ends there. Vallory stands by my desk, not tripping over the dripping blood from the sores now running from the spine to the tips. It is sort of painful. She looks at the dead girl's job application. "Sad, never would think something like this would happen to her." "Why?" "She just didn't seem susceptible. She had been living alone since she was 17." "I did too." "She had lived in Louisiana, Dallas, and Florida." "Guess she couldn't make up her mind." "Didn't you move around the South too?" "Yeah. I guess it is weird we never met." "It's just such a shock. She was so -- " "That doesn't mean anything. Just because she appeared strong could have meant she was about to fall apart." "She had been on and off antidepressants, she had told me." The blood forms a slippery puddle by my feet. I need to get away, but if I make a move to run, I will slip and drown. Sertraline? They put her on that too? So, she turned into this ball tied to the middle of a string, and no matter what happened, no matter how loud she had been screaming, that little ball just stuck to the middle of the string. Vallory finally leaves, and I look across to the opposite shore, the desk next to mine. She isn't there, and I am so surprised. How can she leave me now? I need to know why we never met at the beach. Why hadn't we run into each other when sneaking out for a cigarette? Why does she choose now to introduce herself? Vallory left after saying she was sorry, adding that she understood that I had reason to want to put the past behind me, but good ole Monroe, my best friend, was looking down at me. Maybe that's where she is now. Somehow the thought of her prancing through heaven was something I couldn't buy. I kept looking at the desk; I kept looking for her to appear and teach me some wisdom so the wings wouldn't pull me down. They were tugging at me, spilling pools of acid and wax at my feet; they hurt, they hurt so bad. And the worst part was that no matter what I would do, I could not breathe. He was sitting at the desk. All of me looked up shocked, trying to hide the gaping sores on my back, but I heard my voice come out sarcastic and bored. Just because Adam was back did not mean I had a need to converse and tell him that my "best friend" just died. "And why are we here?" "My girlfriend is dead." "Happens." My voice is cold. I am sick of compassion and heartfelt tears. I am sick of giving up my soul for the sake of conversation. And even if now he makes his confession, I wanted at least to make it clear to myself that we were through- so through. Yep, my best friend and pal, the first and foremost love of my life. Yep, his best chick pal, a love that could never be replaced. He would never trust "her" like he did me. He didn't. Katie, Lisa, Miara, and countless others were bedtime stories, but a day did come when I was no one. There was no one ever like Jenny, even if we did bite our tongues the same way. Let's make it clear, we ended theoretically when I became a "bitch". When I tried to take care of myself, switched to Lights and all, started taking independent trips to coffee shops, wearing my hair differently, I became a "bitch". Really, I did, I was impossible to be around, hard, cold, distant and only out for myself. Then, Jenny came along. Not only was Jenny sweet, but her crises were pretty, her head forever on his shoulder, her eyes in space, but she did tell him. Back then, Jenny's drug addiction was a party thing. Jenny was cool. Don't get me wrong -- Jenny was pure ice -- ice that was meltable only by him. It made Adam feel like a man. They never did get the hurt. It made no sense why I had to finally really disappear. She had his heart; everything she did mattered, and he was always there. I was a cool temp. It had been fun. I used to be the only one who had his trust, and I never did know how I loved him -- but they were "in love". SoI left. In Seattle, I ran for family to save me. It didn't matter that I barely knew them. I was too scared to do it otherwise. Florida had been a lonely trip -- I could barely remain self sufficient. By the time I got to Dallas, I wasn't too shy to talk out the deal for an apartment, but I still had felt so scared and little. Changing atmospheres did nothing. "How are you?" "Fine." "No, really how are you?" "We are going to talk about it now?" "Well I haven't seen you in a while." "Whose fault is that?" "You were the one who hopped on a plane to Louisiana." "It was Seattle." "That shows how much you told me." "Now we care." "I always did." "On convenient occasions." "Do you realize what it's like trying to be there for you?" "I never asked for that." "Bull. Every time we spoke it was one crisis or another." "That's the only time I was important enough for you to be available for me." "What exactly do you expect from people? It's not everyone else's fault that you're hypersensitive." "I should be grateful I am even tolerated." "I just asked how you were." All of a sudden, the saint in all her gory glory was standing by my side. "How are you? No really, how are you? How many cups of coffee did you drink today? How many daisy razors snapped on your pretty wrists? I know it's not something you talk about (actually, you do; you tell everyone your dramas. It's the movie of the week when you cry around the corner. When you ask what I think of you, click of a phone receiver) -- I know you've been feeling tired. I can see, you can tell me. I'll be there tomorrow -- please be okay, it's easy. And why are you all of a sudden prancing around the city? I thought you were feeling sick. You know, that hairdo screams that you're a bitch. You're only 16, so put that cigarette case away. "I guess you don't want to talk. We've both been difficult to be around, but I'll listen -- just hand me an alcoholic beverage. Did I tell this or that? You have insomnia too? Its just one of your dramas, and how dare you be the hypocrite, telling me not to smoke up. You should have understood, being all pilled up and all. (You were? -- I guess I wasn't paying attention today.) And why are you always so depressed and melodramatic, crying wolf till your voice grows hoarse? You said you do that yourself? Why must you wear sunglasses to school? You're like a bad movie on Lifetime -- I'm sure I just flicked through it last week. But you've got a little more dimension, even if you should get over being so sick. How many pills today? How many cigarettes? Why must you make it all into such a show? I'm not saying it's not genuine, but you must admit its a melodrama. Why are you suddenly so cool, independent -- (BITCH) -- wait, here comes another crisis. You don't have to be scared to get tested for HIV -- it can't come back positive, you know. But really, how are you -- no really -- how are you?" "How differently did you treat her?" "Differently than what?" "Me." "You were my friend, she was my girlfriend." "Well, she did replace me -- so who was the drama of the week when I was on mute?" "Do you know how melodramatic you sound now?" "Was she?" He doesn't answer for a while. "You are a friend." "Are?" It all flashes back -- the party. I walked in with Risa after reading her tarot cards. I had looked into her soul with quite some skill. My hand was on her shoulder, and I was reassuring her that things would go right. I was so tired from work that day, and I needed a cigarette. Monroe was across the room, reading Kelly's palm, with her other hand on Kelly's lap. She was coming down, biting her lip and longingly looking at the cigarette in her ashtray. She was losing her voice after answering the phone all day at our workplace. As she looked up, I didn't avoid the eyes of Adam's first girlfriend, the one who reminded him of me, the one he called Amy the night before I left. "I am not Amy! I will never be Amy! Can't you get that?", she screamed. She looked like high school in that angel costume, the one they later found her dead in. No one knows exactly how it happened. Her blood overflowed with barbiturates. She had been diagnosed positive. The wings were smashed. |
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ISSN 2150-6795 |