Patchwork People XXIII Strange Geography
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Patchwork People XIII: Lame Burger. free porn video
XIII. Lame burger.
The bus that was supposed to bring Phoebe to Hope Crossing came and went
with no Phoebe on it. Only a handful of passengers disembarked from the
coach. A tall, elderly, stoop-shouldered man with a sharp-featured face
descended first. He took a quick glace around, readjusted his grip on a
battered suitcase, and trudged up the street. He was followed by a
stout, middle-aged black woman in a church-lady pantsuit. Behind her
were two children, chattering, bickering, lively as sparrows. The black
woman waited impassively at the curb as the driver climbed down to yank
their luggage from the cavernous belly of the bus. The old man,
meanwhile, in the short time Marcia hadn't been watching, had shuffled
off, as if into thin air.
She was sitting on a bench across the street from the bus stop. She
watched the driver climb back behind the steering wheel, pull the door
shut, and ease the bus away from the curb with an exhausted hydraulic
belch.
She waited until the bus reached the end of the street, where it paused
at the stop sign, and then turned left behind a clump of trees at the
corner. She waited long enough to see a battered station wagon come for
the black woman and her brood of children. She waited five minutes
longer, just in case, and then accepted the fact that Phoebe wasn't
coming.
Marcia couldn't say that she was surprised that her daughter was a no-
show. To be perfectly honest, she couldn't even say she was
disappointed. She'd tried, she'd been game, no one could say she hadn't;
she'd set herself up for the fall once again, the same old gag; well,
she hoped everyone would be happy. She had done what she had to do: the
right thing, and there was something to be said for that.
Marcia glanced one last time to where the bus had turned and then lifted
herself wearily off the bench. She felt about ten years older and twenty
pounds heavier than when she first sat down.
She was halfway down the street in the opposite direction from the one
the bus had taken when she heard someone behind her calling her name in
a tone of voice that lay something between a question and sarcastic
disbelief, as if the speaker were reading a word in a foreign language
guidebook, trying it out, uncertain if its literal book-meaning were
apropos under the circumstances.
Marcia turned to see a young woman coming towards her. That was her
first impression of Phoebe. The shock that she wasn't a child any
longer, the child that still existed in Marcia's memory, but a woman.
She was coming from the shady copse at the entrance to Birdwell Park.
Marcia's daughter was wearing an oversized army surplus jacket and a
pair of torn-out-at-the-knees jeans. Her face looked small and pale in
the midst of an unkempt nest of black hair.
On her back she was lugging a lumpy backpack so oversized it appeared
that she'd fall backwards if she didn't stoop forward to keep herself on
her feet. In one hand she gripped a silo-sized paper cup of coffee from
Java Heaven; in the other, she held a cigarette that she'd smoked all
the way down to her pale knuckles.
She took one last drag on the smoke, tossing it onto the lawn of a real-
estate agency with all nonchalance of one unfamiliar that such casual
litter-bugging was punishable by a $300 fine in Hope Crossing.
They were advancing towards each other on the sidewalk, tentatively, as
if it were covered in a sheet of ice. Marcia had the image of two
gunfighters at high noon in those old-time westerns, pacing off the
distance before one or the other drew their six-shooter. She thought of
one of those absurd mathematical paradoxes described by an ancient Greek
philosopher she'd once read. The one about the race between Achilles and
the turtle. The turtle gets a head start and with every stride Achilles
close the distance between them by half. But it's always a half. Halving
the distance for eternity, the fleet-footed Achilles never overtakes the
slow-moving turtle.
Would that be the case between them? That they'd never bridge the
distance? They would approach each other forever in hopeful
anticipation, getting indisputably closer, but never quite arriving at
the point where they actually met.
They were only a stride away now and Marcia felt herself in a panic. She
was suddenly afraid that she might turn around and simply run away. She
really felt capable of doing just that! Of course, she didn't. If
nothing else, she was too paralyzed by terror to do anything except
follow her forward momentum to wherever it might lead.
It was Phoebe who broke the ice. The girl held out one white little paw
whose bitten nails had more chip than polish.
"Hey."
Marcia took the girl's hand.
"Hey," she echoed, softly.
So many were the things Marcia imagined saying in this moment, a real
Dr.-Livingstone-I-presume-moment if she'd ever lived one, but nothing
came to mind, or rather, too much came to mind. "Hey" turned out to be
the best she could do.
"Can I help you with that?" Marcia managed, indicating the backpack.
"I'm good."
They started up the street together; Phoebe as if she knew where she was
going or, at least, as if Marcia knew; Marcia not sure herself.
"Are you hungry?" Marcia asked, reverting to the traditional role of the
eternal parent: food first. "When was the last time you ate a decent
meal?"
The girl shrugged, presumably as an answer to the first question. Then
added, by way of answering the second, "A candy bar, I think. Outside
St. Louis."
"Would you like to get something?"
Another shrug. "Sure, I guess."
"How about a burger?"
"Sure. Why not?"
It was one of those goofy little towns that think it's cool because they
have some kind of ordinance or building code or whatever that forbids
anyone from coming in and putting up any real restaurants like
McDonald's or Starbucks. Instead everything has to look like it did two
hundred years ago. She took me to what amounted to a fake TGIF where we
had a hamburger.
Well, I had a hamburger. Turns out she's a vegetarian.
When the waitress came over to take our drink order I said I wanted a
Sam Adams but Marcia nixed that right off as if it I were making a joke.
She ordered me a Coke instead and I was about to amend that to "Diet
Coke" but the waitress had already run off.
Anyway, I guess this isn't going to be one of those situations where my
runaway parent turns out to be all cool and laid back and lets me drink
and smoke dope and everything. She's not going to be so desperate to
show she understands me and what it's like to be young that she tries to
be my long-lost best friend and treats me just like another grown-up and
whatnot.
Instead, she asked me what the deal was with the bus, why wasn't I on
it, did I get off at the wrong stop and walk into town or what?
I told her that I'd actually come in on an earlier bus, three hours
before. But the truth is I did get off at an earlier stop and hitchhiked
the rest of the way. I just didn't want to hear a lecture about the
dangers of hitchhiking right then.
She apologizes for the mix-up, she can't imagine how she wrote the time
of my arrival down wrong. She can be such a ditz at times, she says. She
says she suspects mild dyslexia may be the culprit, and then she sets
about trying to reconstruct how she could possibly have fucked up,
taking out her cell phone and looking through her past messages for the
one where I mention what bus I'm going to be arriving on.
I tell her to forget it, everything's good, and after a while she gives
up trying to figure it out, realizing she's being obsessive, which,
naturally, suits me just fine. Except then she starts apologizing again.
The last thing she wanted to do was to keep me waiting, have me
wondering whether she was showing up or not, it must have been terrible
coming to a strange place and finding no one there to meet me. Well, on
and on she goes. I can tell she's really going to beat herself up over
this for god only knows how long and she looks so horribly upset about
it that eventually I feel I have to admit that there wasn't a mix-up at
all, I told her the wrong time on purpose. This dumbfounds her for a few
moments, like she just can't imagine why I would ever do such a thing,
and then it starts to dawn on her. She doesn't seem upset or anything
when she figures it out, though. You can tell it makes perfect sense to
her, which tells you something right there.
"You wanted to check me out first."
"Yup."
The Cokes come. Hers is a diet, of course. She's as thin as a nail file,
damn her! Maybe she didn't want to insult me by asking if I wanted diet,
but I prefer the diet and I tell her that so she gives me hers and
doesn't touch her own. That's very sweet of her, I think, to either go
thirsty or take on all those extra calories.
When I suggest she could send my Coke back for a diet she just says, "Oh
I couldn't do that" without any further explanation.
I take it that she's not the kind of person to send stuff back at
restaurants, not wanting to be any bother to the wait staff, or
whatever. Exactly the opposite of mom, I might add, who feels she's
paying for it so she has the right to get it exactly the way she wants
it.
I sip through my straw and say, "I had to be sure I wasn't getting into
some sort of freak show situation. In case you were some sort of beast.
I mean, I looked up guys who become girls on the internet. Let me tell
you, it isn't usually a pretty sight."
"I see," she says, playing with her own straw. "So if I were a monster,
you'd have gotten back on the next bus out of town?"
"Yup. No offense. Just not a situation I could have handled right now.
Sorry to tell you."
"I understand."
You can see how nervous she is, just by the way her painted fingers are
fluttering furiously over that straw of hers. She's even more nervous
than I am, which is weird, because this is her hometown, her turf, and
I'm just a stranger here, I don't know anything or anyone, and also
she's, like, what--an adult, right? Hello? Compared to me. I'm little
more than a kid. Like I can't even order a lame-ass Sam Adams Lite in
this fake TGIF's. What has she got to be nervous about? I'm sort of
surprised to see it but relieved, too. This is going to be easier than I
thought it would be, I'm thinking. Anyway.
"So?"
"So what?"
"I guess from the fact that you stuck around and didn't get right back
on the next bus out of town I can take to mean that at least I'm not a
beast"
I'm looking down into my glass, into the depths of my zero calorie
beverage, and I don't want to look up, I don't want to see her face
right now because I really don't need to see whatever sort of open-book
of pain or need or raw emotion I'm afraid that I'm going to see there. I
just don't need to be burdened with that now. Besides I don't like
people who fish for compliments, if that's what she's fishing for.
Insecurity isn't a trait I find real attractive in anyone, including
myself. And what you can't forgive in yourself...
"Nope. Not a beast."
"Thanks," she says, kind of off-handedly, like she means it
sarcastically, but I can tell she doesn't really.
You notice that I keep saying "she" and "her," right? Well, I was
perfectly prepared not to, I mean, it seemed almost impossible for me,
knowing her before, as my father and all, to think of her as a woman.
But from the moment I saw "her," I have to admit that I couldn't think
of her any other way. I would have to make this huge hostile proving-a-
point effort to keep referring to her as a man. Maybe not seeing her for
so long made the link between the past and present weaker than I
thought. Maybe there was no link at all anymore...but if there wasn't, I
wouldn't be here now, would I? Well maybe I thought there was a link and
now I'm realizing there isn't.
But no, that's not quite it either.
I don't know what it is I think about this whole situation and that's
about as honest as I can be; it's going to take some time to process,
that's for sure, and at this point I'd only known her for about half-an-
hour. Luckily the waitress arrived with the hamburger I ordered (Marcia
ordered a salad) more or less at that moment, saving us both from any
further awkwardness.
Well, at least for the time being.
The hamburger arrived and for fifteen minutes Marcia watched Phoebe not
eating it. First she took the top of the bun off. Then she scraped the
cheese from the patty with the side of her fork and rearranged the
lettuce and tomato. Then she put some of the cheese back on. She
sprinkled on some salt, cut up a few french-fries, and pushed stuff
around on her plate, considering each new arrangement as if she were
assembling a collage. She did everything but take a bite of anything.
"Is it alright?" Marcia finally asked. "We can send it back if it's too
rare or something."
"Naah. It's fine," Phoebe assured her, and continued playing with her
food.
Maybe she's nervous, Marcia thought. It would be understandable. Marcia
wasn't exactly shoveling it in either, having broken off little more
than a few morsels of the toasted oat bun that came with her garden
salad. Marcia tried not to stare at the girl, but she could hardly
contain her curiosity. This adult stranger, fully formed and self-
contained, was her daughter.
Her daughter.
How had it happened? It didn't seem possible. She was, however, at the
same time, unmistakably Phoebe. Even after several years and all the
changes each of them had been through, Marcia would have recognized her
anywhere. She'd been depressed unnecessarily to think that if she passed
her on the street she might have taken her for a complete stranger. It
would have been impossible. At the same time, though, so much of what
she remembered of the girl had changed. Gone was the adolescent baby fat
and chubby cheeks, the kid's jeans, the toy store jewelry, the crayon
box makeup--the trying to look like a big girl. This new Phoebe was chic
and sleek (in truth, a little gaunt), seeming older than her years, for
sure, but still vulnerable in ways Phoebe herself would deny, not even
understand She was not as jaded and cynical as she would like the world-
-or, for that matter, herself--to believe.
This was the same little girl with whom Marcia used to lie on the floor
for hours watching Sponge Bob Squarepants and Power Ranger videos, the
same videos, over and over, until they both knew the dialogue of entire
episodes by heart. The fiercely competitive little girl who'd play
animal matching games with the intensity of the seventh game of the
World Series, falling apart completely if Marcia should happen to
accidentally win. She loved chicken tenders in the microwave and Ramen
noodles and spaghetti O's, the worst kind, too, the one with the little
gray meatballs. She'd choose them over anything homemade Marcia might
try to tempt her into eating. Nothing from a real restaurant could hold
a candle to a Happy Meal at McDonald's. What were her favorite televsion
shows now? What did she like to eat? Did she have a boyfriend? What did
she want to do now that she was grown up? What was her major in college?
Was she still even going to college? Why wasn't she there now? It made
Marcia dizzy to think of all the things she didn't know about her
daughter.
Her best efforts not to gawk failed her. Marcia couldn't help sneaking
continual peeks at her daughter, her eyes starved for the sight of her,
embarrassed that Phoebe might catch her looking, but her daughter seemed
to be looking anywhere but at her.
After a while, the silence became unbearable. A condemnation that the
whole idea of the visit might have been a failure, after all, even
before it properly started. Someone had to say something. Marcia figured
it should be her. She decided to be truthful. Teenagers still
appreciated that, or so she'd heard.
"This has to be kind of a weird experience I guess."
Phoebe shrugged.
"Well you're handling it pretty well so far, if that means anything at
all."
Phoebe speared a french-fry, twirled it around in a glob of ketchup
she'd plopped onto her plate, and for a few tense moments seemed to
actually consider eating it. In the end, though, she seemed to
reconsider and scraped the bloody-looking fry off her fork.
"Guess so. I had a lot of time to get used to the idea on the way out
here."
"So you think you could get used to it?" Marcia said, almost too
hopefully.
Shrug. "Dunno."
Marcia nodded. "Fair enough." She decided to change the subject to
something more neutral, more normal. "How was the bus ride?"
Another shrug. "It was a bus."
"I would have sent you money for airfare if you'd let me know before you
started out."
The moment the words were out of her mouth, Marcia regretted the
phrasing. It sounded too much like a reprimand, which she hadn't at all
intended. As it turned out, it didn't seem Phoebe had taken it that way,
or, if she had, she simply didn't care. Either way, Marcia knew she had
to resist the urge to edit so obsessively her every remark or it would
be sheer torture, if not outright impossible to say anything at all.
Still, diplomacy was a necessity, as it was in talks with any teenager,
she supposed. Already, she was exhausted.
"S'koay. I wanted to take the bus. It gave me time to think. Look out
the window. See the country. You know, all that boring stretch of stuff
that the jets fly right over."
It was the longest sustained bit of oratory that Phoebe had graced her
with since her arrival and Marcia waited hopefully to see if the girl
might have more to say. But Phoebe took a sip of her soda, and put down
her fork and excused herself to go to the ladies room. Marcia watched
her walk to the back of the restaurant. She'd forgotten to tell Phoebe
in which direction the restrooms were located, but her daughter stopped
a waitress, who pointed out the way. She looked so self-assured, Marcia
marveled, thinking back to how insecure and terrified she'd been at that
age, long after that age, in fact. How did her daughter get to be so
self-confident; it certainly had nothing to do with anything Marcia had
taught her or any example she'd set.
She had to give Claire the credit for that, if anyone deserved it. And,
begrudging as Marcia might have been to give Claire credit for anything,
her ex didn't lack for self-confidence--bully and bluster, if one were
being unkind. But whatever you called it, it was the stuff you needed to
get on in life. Something Marcia all-too-often felt she lacking in
herself.
But, then again, it wasn't really all Claire's doing either, was it?
Thinking back, even on her daughter's earliest years, Phoebe had always
had a strong streak of independence. She was a headstrong little girl,
even as an infant. You simply couldn't get her to do anything if she
took it into that tiny hard head that it didn't suit her. She was
obstinate to the point that you'd have sworn she was being contrary--even
at the age of two--just on principle. She made you doubt the common-sense
that told you that infant's hadn't yet developed the capacity for that
kind of spite and willfulness. Still, it was demonstrable: if you put
her on her back, she wanted to be on her belly; lay her on her belly,
because you figured that was her preferred position, she wailed until
you put her on her back. She refused to have her needs anticipated. She
opposed any attempt to cajole or coax her into preferred behavior, even
if it seemed to accord with her own nature! Forget about tricking or
bribing her. She saw straight through the transparency of such efforts.
She could decode reverse psychology instantaneously.
Early on they gave up trying to get her to sleep in the crib they'd
bought months before her arrival. "Look at the pretty crib!" they cooed.
Phoebe regarded their silly faces with her own cooly, impassive
expression. "Oh it's so cozy. Mommy and daddy are going to sleep in it
if you don't."
"Go ahead and be my guest," Phoebe's disdainful look seemed to say by
way of reply.
How happy they were with that crib! Heartbreakingly happy, now when she
came to think of it, as only brand-new parents could be; how it
represented the hopes they had for their future. It was a real beauty,
too. Whitewashed oak with elaborately painted flowers that Marcia had
embellished herself with the addition of stars and moons. Over it all, a
sweet canopy of flouncy patterned lace. Phoebe hated it. She considered
it a prison and her placement there an injustice not to be tolerated.
She shook the bars like an outraged convict, screamed holy terror at the
top of her lungs. Not even hours of preparatory lullabies could persuade
her to give the crib a try. She refused to take so much as an afternoon
nap there. Eventually they were forced to give in and carry Phoebe back
to their bed where she inevitably crept up between them, flailing her
surprisingly strong little arms and legs about in dreams of god-knows-
what, forcing Marcia to sleep with one arm protecting her head and other
her crotch.
Later, when she was a little older, she might fall asleep on the couch
watching television and they would carry her to the crib carefully as
one might handle a complicatedly-wired plastic explosive. They would lay
her down with held breath and tiptoe their escape to the safety of their
bedroom. There they'd lie in strict silence, barely breathing, until
they were sure it was safe. Sometimes a tense hour passed in this way,
neither of them able to sleep at all. Then, invariably, they'd hear the
sound of small bare feet padding down the hall and feel the little
weight at the foot of the bed as Phoebe climbed up and shimmied her way
between them.
Some of the childcare books they frantically read in those days insisted
that they should persist in breaking Phoebe of the habit of sleeping
with them; others took a lot less drastic approach. In the end, they
figured it would come to an end soon enough of its own accord, this
desire of Phoebe's for closeness, for inseparability; soon enough she
would retreat behind her closed bedroom door, slamming them out of her
secret life; sooner or later, she was destined, as all children are, to
grow up, to despise them, and, of course, they were right.
In a certain sense, maybe it wasn't an altogether bad thing that there'd
been such a lacuna between the Phoebe that Marcia remembered and the
girl who was sitting across from her now. It was difficult to see the
change in a person if you saw them all the time. For all she'd missed,
Marcia was probably seeing a Phoebe that Claire would never see, or
eventually see, if only with difficulty and reluctance, through a haze
of pain and loss that never really ended because it had no definite
beginning, a life-long mourning for the child Phoebe used to be and a
never-quite-acceptance of the woman she'd become.
If nothing else, Marcia had already gone through the worst of the heart-
tearing pain of that unendurable loss.
By now Phoebe had been away from the table long enough to cause Marcia
to consider going to the ladies room herself to see if everything was
alright. It crossed her mind that Phoebe might have decided that this
reunion was too much for her, after all, and that she'd made her escape
out a back exit. But just as she was convincing herself that Phoebe had
slipped off, Phoebe returned; maybe it was only the bruised red
lipstick, which she'd reapplied, but she looked paler and somewhat more
drawn, more vulnerable than she had ten minutes before.
"Everything okay?"
"Yup. Needed a smoke. Sorry."
Marcia forced herself to say nothing about the horrible dangers of
smoking; which Marcia, the concerned parent, already noticed that Phoebe
seemed to do a lot of. With any luck, there'd be time for the futility
of that later. For now, Marcia simply nodded acknowledgement. Phoebe
plopped down into the booth with a sigh.
"So how does it work anyway?"
"How does what work?"
"Do people know about you? About your...um...past?"
"Some do. If the relationship is close enough. Otherwise...I really
don't know who does and who doesn't. I don't make it a point to tell
people."
Phoebe considered this for a time. "Do they know about me? The close
ones?"
"Yes."
Silence. Was she pleased to hear this? Her face was impassive.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Yes."
"How does that work?"
"Same as it works for anyone, I guess."
Phoebe pulled a wry expression. "Well I doubt that. Do I get to meet
him?"
"If you'd like."
"I'll think about it."
The waitress returned to ask if the food was alright since neither of
them had done anything more than test-drive it around their plates for
the last twenty minutes. She asked if they wanted anything wrapped and
both of them said "no thank you" in unison; same when they were offered
dessert and coffee, Phoebe repeating herself in such a bright, chipper
tone of voice it caught Marcia by surprise; as if the voice had come
from someone else entirely. Her "social setting" voice, Marcia presumed.
"We can have something at home later," Marcia suggested.
"About that. I don't want to put you out or anything. I can probably
stay in a motel, or whatever."
"There's no need for that. You won't be putting me out. I've got plenty
of room."
On the drive back, Marcia started off asking a few questions, but Phoebe
begged off answering.
"Maybe we can save the Q&A for later. If you don't mind, I mean. After
I've had a nap and a shower. I'm really kind of beat."
"Sure," Marcia said, feeling embarrassed and off-balance. What should
she say, then, to break up the otherwise uninterrupted tundra of
silence? Small-talk seemed out of the question.
Stuck for anything to say, she said nothing at all. Instead she made a
bigger show of concentrating on her driving than was strictly necessary.
That seemed to suit Phoebe just fine. If she noticed the artificiality,
she didn't show it. She had lit another cigarette and between drags hung
her hand out the window she'd considerately rolled down so the smoke
wouldn't fill the car. They drove all the way home like that, carefully
ignoring each other, just as if they'd been living together all their
lives.
* * * * *
Author note: I plan to publish "Patchwork People" in its entirety in
weekly installments here on Fictionmania. In the meantime, the complete
novel is currently available as an Amazon Kindle ebook for $2.99.
For more of my writings, drawings, erotica, and photos please visit my
blog Sissypop!
sissyforlife(dot)blogspot(dot)com.
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