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Piss Off, Starchild
a tale of Thanksgiving
"We are the naked and we are the dead. What's that from? It's Henry Miller, isn't it?"
"I thought it was Norman Mailer."
"No, I think the phrase came from Tropic of Cancer or somewhere else first. What is that phrase about being naked or dead in Tropic of Cancer? I know it. It's in the beginning. Fuck, where'd I put my copy of that? Oh, wait, I think Jeannie stole it when she was going through her Ana•s Nin phase."
"When was that?"
"When she had the Louise Brooks haircut and talked about bondage all the time."
"Oh, right. God, she's a twit."
"Nice breasts, though."
"Yes, that can make up for a lot."
"For an hour."
"Oh, right, an hour. You've never lasted an hour in your life. You're more the three minute, in-out, let's microwave some popcorn type."
"Projection."
"Project this, you dippy deathrocker. Oh, sorry, I mean, you goth."
"Piss off, Starchild."
The dippy deathrocker -- otherwise known as Taro -- slapped at the water in the hot tub with the flat of his palm, causing a small tidal wave to raise up and splash the deadhead -- otherwise known as Jeremy. Taro and Jeremy were cousins. Having grown up together, sharing a history of melting GI Joe's and Brendette's Barbie dolls together in the toaster oven (essentially, their first ex-periments at fornication), they held a certain distasteful respect for one another, sentimental about lost youth and wary of future blackmail attempts. In their current mid-college years' guises -- Taro, the deathrocker; Jeremy, the deadhead -- they pretended they had nothing in common anymore. But yet, here at Grandma's for Thanksgiving, they were only too happy to join forces and flee from the usual banter and kitchen chaos and run off to the hot tub together to smoke some of Jeremy's really fine hashish. The only problem was that Jeremy's sister, Brendette -- now sixteen and Barbie-less (partially thanks to the boys) -- kept popping out of the house to see if they were doing anything interesting. So, they had to be as uninteresting as possible, unless they wanted to share or get busted. Neither of which seemed appealing. Brendette was at that unpredictable age. Whether she'd tell or demand ransom was anyone's guess.
Taro, whose name in Japanese was supposed to mean first-born male, was just that, the only child of Fiola and the Japanese-American husband she had divorced in the early 80s because she was afraid if she didn't divorce him then, society was going to eventually phase out alimony to wives. Well, that might not have been the only reason, but it was a factor. Fiola was Chantelle's sister -- Chantelle being the mother of Jeremy and Brendette. Chantelle was also divorced these days but she had a live-in boyfriend who was big and bulky with long hair and a beard and who encouraged people to call him Bear just in case they didn't get the point. Bear, Chantelle, Fiola, and Brendette were all inside the split-level California ranch house (the Desert Cactus model from the brochure) that belonged to Grandma. It was much too large for Grandma to be alone in, Fiola and Chantelle always told her, and Grandma would invariably mordantly snap at them to wait the fuck until she was dead before they went all vulture on her. It was a typical family.
And as a typical family, they worried about the boys' phases. Taro had come back from his first year of college dressed in all black -- strange black clothing -- black leggings, pointy-toed boots with skulls as buckles, odd T-shirts, white poet shirts with lace, velvet. He began to tease his longish hair so that it stuck out from his head in a fetching disarray and then he would use hairspray on it. AND. He wore eyeliner and sometimes lipstick. Fiola's first reaction was to lock herself in her room and cry for an hour, but after a while, she composed herself and came out and sat Taro down on their floral-print couch. Then she told him that it was all right if he were gay, that she would always love him. Taro burst out laughing. He said he wasn't gay, he was a goth. (He decided not to apprise his mother with the fact he had flirted with bisexuality a bit, as he could sense, somehow, this might trouble her.)
"Goth?" she said, bewildered. She tried to think what that was. Attila the Hun? Or was it Genghis Khan?
Taro explained it was a music thing. He liked to listen to dark dirgey music and hang out in clubs where people tended to dress kind of vampiric, kind of Victorian, kind of -- well -- aesthetically.
As Taro was going through his explanations to Fiola, Jeremy was experiencing a similar homecoming. He walked in, in tattered jeans, a tie-dyed T-shirt, and his hair in knots from his unsuccessful attempts to get it to dred. He smelled of pot, a smell Chantelle remembered from her college days, and Chantelle hit the proverbial roof, and Jeremy was henceforth treated to "Just Say No" brochures every time he came home and in the letters she sent to him at college.
Chantelle had at least heard of the Grateful Dead. When Taro bounced some of his favorite band names off Fiola, he was met with a blank stare. The boys and their phases were the topic of many sisterly phone commiserations. But, after a while, they just got used to them like that, and figured it would pass if they didn't act as if they were in the least disturbed by the boys' clothes and demeanor. But it had been going on two and a half years now. Weren't phases supposed to be short-lived?
"We are the naked and we are the dead," Taro repeated. "Dead. Deadhead. Deathrocker. Geddit?"
"I got it the first time, you hoser."
"You didn't laugh."
"I wonder why."
"You're much too pissy to be a good Starchild. I thought you dudes were supposed to be all into that love-everyone shit."
"Only with the right drugs." Jeremy cracked a small smile. "You're too cheerful to be a real goth. I thought you were supposed to be all serious and mopey all the time."
"I am moping. I'm naked in this fucking hot tub with my deadhead cousin. This is hell."
"'Hell is other people.'"
"Sartre."
Jeremy snorted. From him, it was a noise of approval. Taro was one of the few he could really swap random quotes with. Even at college, there seemed to be only a handful of people who read anything beyond their required textbooks.
Brendette emerged from the house then and tried to hide behind a tree. Taro saw her maneuvers. He indicated with a discreet gesture that they had company.
"What's she doing?" Jeremy whispered, knowing full well who the company was.
"Sneaking up on us. Badly."
"Wanna scare her?"
"Absolutely."
With that, the boys sprang to their feet, letting out a whoop and waggled their penises at her like machine guns. The girl screamed, widened her eyes, stared for a minute, and then ran back to the house.
"Mom!" she screamed. "They're sexually harassing me!"
"Twit," Jeremy said, resuming his seat.
The steam from the hot tub rose up in the November sky. It was hardly cold outside, but the temperature had dropped enough that the steam was visible. Mingled in the steam were two disparate smells fighting for predominance: a heavy odor of patchouli and the tangy aroma of Aqua-Net. The sudden movement of the boys up and down had stirred these smells into a new battle. Both wrinkled their noses at the other's contribution.
"Think she'll come out?" Taro asked.
"Who?"
"Your mom."
"Who knows."
"Oh, never mind. Here she comes."
Chantelle burst through the door, marching at full speed straight for the hot tub. She had on her "mom" look -- the blustery "I'm-so-tired-of-this-shit-and-if-you-don't-cut-it-out-I-might-have-to-come-up-with-a-believable-threat" look. Her children had long since figured out that she was too much of a mediator type to threaten properly. Her dark bluntly-cut hair framed a round face that usually was more adept at laughing. But she tended to get unamused fast at Grandma's.
"What did you two do to Brendette? Are you naked in that tub? Haven't I told you before it's not healthy for the two of you to be naked around a girl who's hardly through with puberty? For chrissakes, put on some bathing trunks, you wanna-be heathens! I mean it. Now!"
"Why don't you tell her to quite sneaking up and spying on us?" Jeremy replied. He skimmed his hand in the water nonchalantly, not making any indication he was going to do anything "now."
"Look, she has every much right as you to come out into this yard. I have really had it up to here with your total lack of cooperation, Jeremy. I mean, you're an adult now -- for god's sake -- isn't it time you quit treating me like the enemy and realized we can be adults, both of us? You're not a teenager anymore. We don't have to do it like this."
"I know, Mom," Jeremy replied, with a trace of genuineness. "Can we just have 20 minutes to soak -- without her interfering? Then, I promise, we'll come in the house and make nice nice."
Chantelle considered the request, her features softening. "All right. I'll tell her to give you some space. But twenty minutes. No more. Grandma's been asking if you two left. This is Thanksgiving, for god's sake."
"Twenty minutes," Jeremy confirmed.
Chantelle's bluster gone, she turned on her heel and headed back into the house. Impatiently, Jeremy watched her retreat. The minute she closed the door, he leaned over the edge of the tub and grabbed his treasures out of his pants pocket.
"Let's go for it," he said.
They wasted no time in lighting up the pipe and taking a few good long tokes on it. Jeremy didn't want to push it, so he finished up the contents, and after making sure the pipe was out, returned it to his pocket. Then, they both sat back in the tub, leaning back and looking up into the sky for a few minutes in perfect silence.
Taro was the first to break the silence. He stood up and stretched. "That was nice stuff." He got out of the tub, grabbing one of the towels they'd brought out with them. Out of the hot water, it was cold, and little goosebumps appeared all over his flesh. He toweled off quickly and began to dress. For him, it was a more lengthy process than Jeremy. He had 20-hole Doc Martin's to lace.
Jeremy stayed in the tub for a few more minutes, and then he too emerged. He hardly toweled off before he threw his more simple clothes on.
"Shall we?" Taro said as he finally tied the last lace on his boots.
"Guess we have to. What would you be doing if you were still back at school?"
"I don't know. Fucking, I would hope."
"Hope, I'm sure, is the operative word."
"Piss off, Starchild."
"Fuck off yourself, Mr. Gloom-'n-Doom."
Their familiar insults were always delivered with the right mix of affection and aggression. It never tired them to re-use the same old banter. Now, influenced by the hash, they began to giggle a little as they swapped their slurs.
They trod up to the house. As they approached the door, they heard the dull roar of a football game going. Only Bear was watching it, although he had tried his best to get the boys to watch it with him, completely not comprehending when both boys said they'd rather saw off their right testicle than watch that crap. It was normal for the guys to hang out and watch the game, wasn't it? Wasn't it? But he'd seen enough of both Taro and Jeremy to know they weren't normal guys. One was some diabolical fop, the other an antagonistic hippie-type. Football wasn't good enough for them. He didn't want to consider what did amuse them.
Taro and Jeremy slid past Bear, waving hello at him. They didn't find him an unlikable guy, although it bothered both of them when he tried to bond with them only on his terms. Still, he'd bought them beer a couple of times, and sitting around, swigging a few with him, they'd been able to laugh at a couple of things. Mostly Chantelle. The only thing they really did have in common.
The boys scoped out the house. Chantelle, Brendette, and Fiola were in the kitchen, fussing over the dinner. Jeremy cringed at the smell of turkey. He'd gone vegetarian six months before, and he knew he was going to have to fight with his mother about that again, as she worried about his protein intake and just didn't understand why he could be so selfish to ruin a perfectly good dinner by not eating even just a little of the main course. And this was Thanksgiving (for god's sake). A dinner you weren't supposed to ruin (for chrissakes).
Grandma wasn't anywhere obvious. As the boys had always found her far more interesting than their immediate relatives, they decided to track her down. The house was large with a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, a den, a laundry room, three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, and a garage. The bedrooms and two of the bathrooms were upstairs, and having searched the lower floor, the boys figured that's where she had to be. Because she lived alone, her bedrooms were divided simply into her bedroom, the guest room, and her library. She read and collected books copiously. She had been the original source of the boys' fondness of literature.
The boys approached her library quietly. The door was ajar. They stopped at the door and listened.
"Might as well come in," Grandma said.
So, they did.
Grandma sat on her red-brocade divan that was situated in the center of the room surrounded by shelves and shelves of books on all sides. She had several books open and scattered on the divan and on the floor by it. One book was in her hands. She was huddled near the back of the divan, under the freestanding lamp with its 150 watt bulb. She was old and not old at once. Well into her seven
ties, she could have passed for younger, but her movements had become stiffer as she aged. Fiola tried to get her to work out, even bought her an aerobic tape for older adults. But Grandma said she had plenty enough exercise just taking care of the house and herself, she didn't need to be jumping around in any hot pink satin leotard to prove she could still move.
"Is the bird done? Do I have to move?" she asked.
"Not yet. We just came up to hang out. They're being normal downstairs," Taro said.
She snorted, the sound similar to the kind of approval sound Jeremy tended to make.
"'The Normal is the smile in a good child's eyes, all right. But it is also the dead stare in a million adults.'" Jeremy said.
"Equus," Grandma replied. "Your mother absolutely loathed that book. She got all upset about the horses."
"I know."
"Well, it is pretty morbid, I'll grant you. But. I like it," she said and cackled in a fairly morbid way herself.
Taro smiled. "I like morbid, too."
"Mr. Doom-'n-Gloom," Jeremy said.
"Piss off, Starchild."
Grandma simply rolled her eyes, their silly battle completely whizzing over her head.
The cover of the book she was holding was ruined, its title obscured. It was an old-looking paperback. It could have been anything, considering Grandma's eclectic tastes. Taro edged over to her, curious what it was. Grandma, seeing what he was doing, put the book down on the divan and covered it up with another.
"Now, get lost, both of you. Let me have my peace before the happy family gathers to give thanks for the dead butterball bird."
They both giggled -- still hash-influenced. Grandma had never been a terribly sociable type, and despite the fact that the boys knew she was their kindred spirit, Grandma sort of didn't care. Not caring or overcaring ran in the family. One of Grandma's books probably explained it in nauseating detail.
They were, after all, such a typical family.
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