Never Mind the Beasts
They have moved to Vegas, away from the trailers. The father lays insulation. Let’s drive the strip, says the mum. The strip, what is it? Glowing lights, earthly heavens, another kind of magic. Look, says the mother, tigers. Their owners, Siegfried and Roy, are very elegant. The tigers are white and fluffy with big teeth. Siegfried and Roy shine their teeth and upturn their collars. It is Beyond Belief at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino. Every day the father is up on the roof, or under it, laying the itchy insulation at various casinos. Circus Circus has a real circus with long legged showgirls, and also a buffet. The buffet is around the world travel. Here try this one, says the father, lifting a giant slice of pineapple with sticky ribs dripping in meat sweat. The mum sticks it into her mouth. Here try this one, says the mother, twirling giant noodles into a nest egg with hairy balls. The father sticks it into his mouth. Here try this one, says the father, piling the beef on a shrimp noodle waffle. Here try this one says the mother says the father, forever and ever. The mother crunches. The father crunches. The children crunch. The father fingers his molar, scraping and pinching the left over meatbits. Cheap eats, hide it in a napkin for later. Lucky the Clown has a giant lolly, it swirls and swirls, very high in the sky, you cannot eat it. Welcome to America.
Mr. America looks at the mum with three children, lets them into the apartment without a deposit. He brings the family coloured eggs, green, and no one knows where they come from. Mr America gives him a pair of metal roller skates, from an old tool shed. No one else has real metal roller skates. Everyone else has plastic. The United States of America is a land of plastic. They invented Tupperware. A soda pop. You twist the top, plastic. Handles, knobs, televisions, dishes, drapes and bathtubs: plastic. A house in Disneyland: plastic. All-American gum: plastic. Cowboy boots: plastic. Glitter: plastic. Stickers on the bananas: plastic. At the park the plastic swings swing higher. Slick riders slice around the sandpit on a knife’s edge. The weary birds suck the gutter. Look in the bushes. A bounty of cowboy boots. They are made of plastic. Now you’ve got to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky? If you wanna guarantee, buy a toaster.
The mum approaches the ice cream man and asks for a poke, waves a dollar in his face. No ma’am, he says, but the mum is persistent. A poke a poke a poke, she says, waving the dollar. They don’t sell pokes in this country. During the Saturday morning marathon, the bishop calls and the mum, out of breath, says she is making meatloaf, a new delicacy. The bishop ends the call abruptly. He thought she was making love. He practices the American intonations, rising and falling, with his mouth, at night, in his room.
He walks past the crack houses & deflated kiddy pools & scrap metal cars. In the distance a Dairy Queen glows, the chairs bright red, plastic & hard. A woman is staring, she sips the cigarette and taps the ash, sips the cigarette and taps the ash. In North Las Vegas, Sades street, a HUD house. The boards off the windows, no deposit, sweat equity, their first house.
The boy, from Northern Ireland, is behind, and more immediately telling lies, an Irish ninja in hiding, someone might test him, says the teacher. One day, the boy from Northern Ireland is tested, but not terribly, a ninja performs a flying sidekick, under the basketball net, & he cannot top it. In the circle, the television is rolled in and they sit down to watch it. The Challenger explodes and everyone is quiet. Shortly after, the jokes. What colour were the teacher’s eyes? Blue. One blew this way and the other the other way. From numbers to letters to living creatures. A circus bell of dead stars.
Read all the books and learn the lingo. Line up your gig line. Twirl the guns and straighten your spine. Line up on the grass and measure the space. You have a good mind when you’re out of it. Do you have any wrinkles? A dark star passes through. The trees become thicker and thicker. The petals drip purple paint in the moonlight. It is a chemical explosion, but not the chemical explosion. Moving down the hillsides into the dank forest, swinging the scents on the end of a chain, back and forth, back and forth. The spirit is willing, they chant, whipping their back with leather and spikes. Someone is bone cracked on the rack. Someone is suspended above the Judas chair with olive oil on their anus. Steaming flesh on an iron maiden, boiling flesh on the brazen bull, the pear of anguish. Brown rats in the stomach, red ants in the orifices. A woman approaches, flesh of marble and a mass of white hair, orbs of white light in her hands. The thunder growls around her. You have to follow the elemental urges, she says. The ground cracks and you sink into the fatty folds. The light disappears into a thousand eyes.
He has the suck and cut, the suck & cut is not pulling hair, but almost. His hair has whole chunks missing. He adds some gel, makes it spiky, a little peach fuzz, a whole jar of chunky peanut butter in the blender. The chunks are hunky, a hunk is a large piece of something broken off from an even larger piece, & that piece is broken from an even larger piece, & that piece is broken from an even larger piece, & that piece is broken from an even larger piece. At the centre of the largest of the largest piece, there is nothing. Then the nothing breaks off, another hunk. We ride one hunk hoping for another hunk. The hunk is one of many hunks, and so on infinitum. Who can resist the hunk?
You need these, says the face doctor. He swallows birth control & splashes Sea Breeze. Scrubbing the inside, and also the outside, he is never clean enough. His right eye is moving further and further away from his left eye. His glasses get thicker and thicker & the mum pays extra to grind them down. On Sundays on the way to church in the back of the van they give massages, a foot rub, plus extras. They listen to Afterglow, to bring back the holy ghost, but sometimes they listen to Phil Collins One More Night. He leans over wads of bread and little plastic cups of water. This is called blessing the sacrament. In the bishop’s office it is confession, you have to keep the blood away from your face, the blood to your face is a dead giveaway. He retreats to his cave and turns the milk pink.
A reclining beach chair with hot colourful slats for the water to drip through. A stud muffin skims across the water, a big hairy chest, neon orange glow trunks, up and down, arms behind his head. Between the Sahara and El Rancho, the turbines create the waves. Signature thrill rides. Hormones and wave pools. Ideal for hot weather. Hot dogs, chlorine, foot fungus. Hits of the 80’s. Red lifeguards in tight trunks. Face firsters & fat tourists. The lazy river. They stamp your hand with the time. The countdown clock is at the top of the Sahara. King of the hill is a big bouncy with water slipping down it. There is a monster on the horizon. It is 76 feet. Can you climb it? A dive bomber. Lean over the edge and cross your arms, also your legs. Skim across the water. You always get crack checked. Your very own wedgie. His brother is 6 and he is 14. He holds his brother close to him. His sister at 4, white cream on shoulders and nose, a floppy hat. The mum in the slat chair. The dad, hairy, on the tubes. Everyone screams for ice cream.
Some shopkeepers, relatives from Portadown, come to visit. The parents blow up a kiddy pool and the shopkeepers keep their feet there, smoking and drinking, an American holiday. They take the bunk beds and he sleeps on the army cot. In JrROTC, with the lights out watching movies about MIGS and Russians. At night, after the shopkeepers have gone back to the home country, on the top bunk. On the floor, with a stopwatch to test his endurance for future partners, he goes there, with his hand, and rubs it, something warm slides out of him, milky water, 1%, not the full cream, he doesn’t know what has happened, but also, he doesn’t feel guilty. Under the bleachers the penis is warm and rubbery, he takes a drop on his pinkie, it is not brie. He feels it grow warm in his hands, & then the warm puddle, very comforting.
It’s close to Christmas, a white turtleneck and thin gold chain, if you can afford it. At the entrance they take out their blue tickets, signed by the bishop, and then the final touches with the mirror. His hair a frosted waterfall and Doug sticking straight up. They are very different, but also similar, on account of the Bugle Boys, rolled tight at the bottom, but never more than two rolls. The DJ plays “Mamma Said Knock You Out.” No, it’s not time for the running man, it is also not time for the stomp and finger clicks and slaps. Bounce around with it, in your bones, let them see you have it in your bones. He bounces too much, becomes sweaty, it is almost in his bones but then again not quite in his bones. He needs more time for the bones. “Forever Young,” a slow dance. He waits too long. Doug is bear hugging and he is watching. It is easy to become a wallflower. Do not become a wallflower.
After school, some string and tin cans. You wrap the string around the cans, from one side of the street to another, you hook the car, it becomes a clunker, rattles down the street. One day the police stop them, what are you doing. They don’t answer. I was young too, says the policeman, you can tell me. They tell him and he asks what they are doing in the neighbourhood, it is not safe there. He points down the road, we live there, on the border of drive-bys and tinted windows. The policeman lets them off with a warning. They move to another street, string the cans, wait. They hook a brown boat car, from the 70s, half rusted, and it stops, then swings around, it really is an old clunker. Santa gets out with a busted balloon face, it wasn’t me it was him, says Martin. The Santa fingers his chest for emphasis, then swinging fists. The voices say curl into a ball, no broken bones, some bruises, taking the lumps.
He tries the black, a bit Mod, and feels good about it, but not the turtleneck, too suffocating. He likes it loose, a neon green shirt, black boots. A runner, thick thighs and triangle calves. Shaving and growing, shaving and growing. His head shaved on the sides and tapered at the back, hairsprayed up and to the left at the front, not tight, a little floppy, the hairspray makes it choppy. Shaving and growing, shaving and growing. Long sideburns, very fashionable, except one side uneven, the left side bushy and the right side skinny. Shaving and growing, shaving and growing. Later, his hair parted in the middle, falling down, a fountain, but not even. Before the church dances, his mum curls it, with a curling iron, blow dries with mousse, a big puffy quiff. Shaving and growing, shaving and growing.
A man with the same name as his father flies a police helicopter. He climbs into the cockpit. Puts on the headset. How does it feel with the chopper chopping? It is good vibrations. Hardbacks, under his armpits, all his novels are war books, creased at the edges. He spills the lingo. Five klicks, two klicks, a hootch in the jungle. Now with an American accent, he is trying to become something different. He grabs the joystick, drops bombs over deserts. Iron Eagle is his favourite. They rescue the father from an unnamed Middle Eastern dictator. Pull the joystick down but don’t forget to tap the A to lift your landing gear. When turning, don’t spin. Don’t fly too close to the ground. There are so many buttons. They are all blinking. Are you gonna drop the bomb or not? Heaven can wait. They are watching the skies. He is leaning into the future, his blond mop tousled. Life is a short trip living in a sandpit.
Everyday Mormon seminary, and afterwards, on the walk to the high school, they stop off at the donut shop, an old fashioned, cakey and heavy. One morning he grabs Chad, by the collar, against the wall, and then down the hallway towards the toilets. Don’t put your bag on top of mine. All the other members, shocked at his actions, pull them apart. When you arrive late to the party, there is no place to hide your coat. Do you have the reign on your wild horses? Over the hill is a different country not much different from the first one and also strangely, different. When you arrive at your destination, it is never when you expect it.
Choose:
A) Scorpions locked in mortal combat
B) The praying mantis
C) The ecstasies of oysters
This excerpt is from Never Mind the Beasts by Marcus Slease (Dostoyevsky Wannabe). Reprinted with permission from the author. Purchase the book here.
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