Everybody Knows Jackie Rose (pt 6)

I heard you, Jackie Rose says, hands buried deep in her new fur lined pockets. I’m thinking of an answer if you just give me a second.

The snow strength has tripled; her boots are soaked, her feet numb. The streets look as black and gleaming to her as a killer whale.

San Diego, she says, and Paris and New York, that’s my top three. And I already know you’re going to say LA, Miami, and Boston because you got to be contrary about every little thing, but I’m telling you little brother, nobody likes living in those places and you wouldn’t neither.

Bread loaves of snow are rising on tree bus stops and traffic lights and power lines; she passes a dead woman in a poncho under a window decorated with reindeer stickers and she knows she’s dead because the snow does not melt on her face.

We only got as far as Chicago anyway, Jackie says, breath puffing in clouds of vapor. And you made me come back here all by myself and never once said you’re sorry.

A dark car materializes out of the whiteout, drifting by and stopping, its glaring taillights lighting the snow on fire. At first she thinks it might be her policeman friend, and Lord but she is not in the mood for that right now – but it’s the dentist. Going to the airport, he says, rolling down the window. Flying back to Miami. Well, I was but it’s cancelled.

God’s got other plans, she says, holding out her palm until it fills with snow.

He gets his wallet and pulls out a twenty, holding it up. Jackie walks to the passenger door with difficulty and gets in, taking his money and giving him back the credit card she lifted from him last time. He drives, the snow laying over them like curtains of pearls, like those lamps everybody had back in the seventies with drops of oil that slid on strings to look like rain.

I looked for you, he says. I drove by that bar a bunch of times. And he is going to tell her about his wife, who broke her neck falling down the wet basement stairs last month; he is going to tell Jackie about the bar in the Quad Cities he goes to, maybe she knows it, where the ladies and their wigs and their smiles are so lovely, and their mouths grip so tightly – but as they near Whisper Street the car slides right through the red light and strikes the opposite curb and jumps the sidewalk, coming to rest on someone’s lawn. Shit, the dentist says, resting his hand on his heart like people do when they’re scared, and Jackie’s is beating very hard under her very best bra. And before she knows what she’s doing her hands are yanking at his belt, pulling him out and going down on him. Lights are coming on inside the house and he is cumming inside of her mouth, his hands knotted up in her hair which is sliding off, and he says no, trying to put it back on, trying to hold it in place but it falls to the floor. No, he says, trying to close his pants, his eyes squeezed shut like a baby. No. No. No.

Jackie gets out; a woman is on the porch peering down, and Jackie flips up her collar, waving to her, her bare head turning white as she points herself towards The State; by the end of the block they can’t see her and she can’t see them, and that’s just fine.

True is in front of the bar, arms wrapped around himself, when she arrives. He reminds me of you, Jackie says to the air, coming to a stop in front of the kid and wiping snow off of his lashes. You probably think that’s an insult, but he really does remind me of you.

True knows from experience that she isn’t talking to him. Jude’s being an asshole, he says, his eyes dark blue sunsets. And Mom keeps chasing me out. He wipes his nose on his sleeve; Jackie tells him to stop, giving him a tissue, and takes him by the hand, walking him inside. She wonders what everyone is staring at and then remembers that she is bald. They sit at a table nearly cracked in half, not letting go of each other.

What if he doesn’t come back? True says; he wants to pull his eyelashes out but Jackie won’t let him. He never said he was coming back.

He will, Jackie says. Or he won’t. I just think that will is prettier than won’t, don’t you?

You don’t know. The kid is biting the frayed threads around his cuffs in half. Jude says you should sleep with us, he says. And I wish you would. It’s warmer inside.

I know, Jackie says, though to what question is anyone’s guess. I know how you want it to be. Everybody knows.

She rises from the table, building new hair in her mind’s eye, regal and perfect, and red and so, so long and strong, and waving in the wind just as pretty as you can please. Did you know that you can hang a truck from a single hair? she says to True. That’s how strong it is, and isn’t that just amazing?

She begins to sway with the music and the room, turning, her hands finding partners and their hands wrapping around her wrists, pulling her towards the bathroom where the door is open and waiting to eat her. That’s the world we live in, she yells to the entire bar, her voice riding the music as she is delivered inside. Baby dolls, you got to love it.

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