The Days of Anna Madrigal (19 page)

Chapter 21

HAZARD OF THE PROFESSION

A
nna waited on a circular settee in the lobby of the Blue Moon Family Fun Center and Casino. An enormous arrangement of roses (artificial but convincing until she touched them) erupted volcanically from the center of the settee. She smiled at this effort—the wrongheadedness of it—since cut flowers had not been allowed in the original Blue Moon. Mama had very few superstitions (not even the acceptable Catholic ones), but she had clung to the orthodoxy of her profession. Cut flowers were seen as omens of death in a brothel, emblematic of beauty cut down in its prime. You did not bring roses to the girls without catching hell from Mama.

Brian and Wren were talking to a young woman at the counter. Behind them, in a room with a glass wall, children were frolicking in a pit of brightly colored balls. Their muffled squeals merged with the bells and whistles of the one-armed bandits in another room. Innocence and adult pleasures were efficiently segregated here.

Not like the old days at all.

She remembered the afternoon when she finally felt remorse for having written the letter to Lasko's father.

Andy had driven over to Eagle Drugs with an apology already forming in his head, somehow believing—a full week after the fact—that he could fix things with a kind word to Lasko or a confession to his father.

I should have brought pastries, he had thought. Or a pack of Camels.

He hated to think how Lasko might have suffered because of his offhanded wickedness. Lasko's banishment to the garage could have already assumed a dreadful new coloration—beatings, humiliation, who-knows-what. A man who had ordered his son to be “fixed” by a prostitute was capable of much more than that.

Andy had known there was little chance of finding Lasko at the drugstore—his father had no doubt removed him from public scrutiny—but he had gone to the Rexall in the hope that a conversation with Lasko would prove more benign in the presence of his boss, the even-tempered and professional Mr. Yee.

Mr. Yee, however, had been in a state when Andy arrived, muttering to himself as he swept shards of glass from the checkered linoleum floor.

The pharmacy had been robbed that morning, the old man said with a scowl. Some hooligan had broken the window and stolen pills from the cabinet.

“What sort of pills?” Andy had asked, suddenly sick with panic.

“Barbiturates!”

“What's that?”

“Sleeping pills . . . Sorry sonofabitch!” Mr. Yee, still sweeping furiously, saw Andy's stricken expression and collected himself long enough to offer reassurance. “Not your fault, son. If you see your buddy Lasko, tell him I need help pronto.”

But it
is
my fault, thought Andy as he raced through back streets and alleys toward the hideous truth that he already knew.

It's nobody's fault but my own.

He was thinking that as he reached Lasko's garage.

As he entered that dim, dirt-floored room and smelled the rancid vomit and saw the body slumped like a sack of potatoes.

As he looked at that face, already gray and waxen with death.

As he choked down his sobs to keep from being heard in the house.

As he spotted the
Book of Marvels
and snatched the incriminating evidence from the shelf above the bed.

As he sped across the bridge toward the Blue Moon Lodge and the soft consolation of Margaret's arms.

There had never been a moment when he wasn't thinking it.

It's nobody's fault but my own.

B
rian and Wren were striding toward Anna, both of them smiling, apparently successful in their search for Mr. Sudden. An ember of shame lodged in Anna's chest was searing its way to the light of day—or the light, at any rate, of a ridiculous theme park where whorehouses were fun for the whole family. It had not been fun, God knows, but it had not been like this place. There had been life at the Blue Moon, however lurid or dull, and there had been radio romance and a long-lashed boy who danced in pirate pants and probably loved her for a while. It might have been fine with no more than that had she not been so vindictive, so childishly selfish.

She had to ask herself if she was still being selfish. This last-minute quest for peace of mind could easily wreak havoc on an innocent, someone nearly as old as she who might not welcome—not to mention deserve—this antediluvian drama. It was far too late for confession, really; the confessors had all left the building.

“He's in the back,” said Brian, “on his coffee break.”

Wren extended her arm. “C'mon. He's expecting us.”

Anna found herself frozen to the spot.

“Oh,” said Brian. “Maybe you'd rather do this alone?”

“Forget that shit,” said Wren. “She needs us.”

“Do you?”

“I do, yes. I don't want to explain this a second time.” She took Wren's arm. “I'm sorry I've been so vague, dear. It's all a bit of a rat-fuck, I'm afraid.”

They made their way to an undecorated room where Mr. Oliver Sudden was seated at a folding table with his red plastic cup of coffee. He was a wiry fellow with a handlebar mustache—apparently real, if overly waxed—and the obligatory striped shirt and sassy arm garters of the casino's male employees. Seventy-five, she guessed. An extrovert built for greeting the public, aware of his roguishness.

He rose the moment he saw her inadequate locomotion.

“Here, sweetheart, let me help.”

“Keep your seat,” she said. “These two have it covered.”

He scrambled toward a cluster of upholstered furniture at the other end of the room. “Bring her over here then. It's more comfortable.”

Brian and Wren lowered her into an armchair, but not before her capricious old body had chirped out the tiniest fart.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Can't take her anywhere.”

“Didn't hear a thing,” he said. “Sit down, folks, please.” He motioned Wren and Brian toward a plaid sofa, then turned back to Anna. “Did that just yesterday, by the way. In front of a lady from Texas.”

“Oh well,” Anna said with a dismissive wave. “Texas.”

He chuckled and sat down on the arm of the chair next to her. “I hear you got some questions for me.”

“I may be barking up the wrong tree.”

“Bark away. That's what I do all day. Answer questions. 'Course mostly it's about where the bathrooms are.”

She smiled. She liked this man.

“I'm wondering,” she said, “if you used to work at the old Blue Moon. The one that was a brothel.”

His mouth fell open in wonderment, exposing shiny white dentures. He grabbed the curl of his mustache as if it were the only way to close his mouth.

“Now how the hell did you know that?”

“My daughter met you. Back in the seventies. She remembered the name. Said you did chores around the place. Handyman work. We talked about you before she died.”

Mr. Sudden's brow furrowed. “I'm truly sorry to hear that. Your children aren't supposed to go before you do.”

She gave him a forgiving smile. “They say that, don't they? But it's not true. Children do it all the time.”

Anna could see that afternoon so clearly. Nineteen ninety-nine. The crumbling folly on the mound above the manor house. The aching green of the Cotswold hills. The ragged chaise where Mona had held court above her kingdom, pale as a powdered queen.

There was tactful hesitation from Mr. Sudden. “I don't understand. Was your daughter . . . one of the ladies at the Blue Moon?”

“No . . . but she worked there for several weeks. Answering phones. I don't think she even used her real name.”

He nodded sympathetically but without recognition.

“Red hair? Very frizzy. Like they wore it back then.”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“I wouldn't expect you to remember.”

“I'm surprised she remembered me.”

“I think it was the name, to be honest. It doesn't let you forget it.”

A blinding flash of Clark Gable teeth. “I was a late baby. My mother wasn't expecting me. Her last name was Sudden, so . . . how could she resist?”

She studied him for a moment, assessing the kind placement of his features and something deeper and darker in those wide-spaced eyes.

“Margaret,” she said softly, as if it were a prayer.

He was understandably flummoxed. “What?”

“Your mother's name was Margaret Sudden.”

His hand went to his mustache and held on for dear life. “You knew her?”

“I did, yes.” A slight nod was all it took to jar the tears from her eyes.

Which made her cross with herself. This was supposed to be
his
moment, not hers.

“I grew up at the Blue Moon Lodge,” she added. She found a tissue in her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “Your mother read me the Winnie-the-Pooh books. She made me a dress for my sixteenth birthday. I loved her a great deal. More than I loved my mother, in fact.”

His head tilted as he squinted at her. “Should I be remembering you?”

“No, no.” She tucked away the tissue. “It was before your time. If you don't mind my asking, what year were you born?”

“Nineteen thirty-seven.”

“Yes . . . before . . . just barely.”

“So . . . you grew up there? How do you do that?”

“Happily, for the most part.”

He smiled. “I meant—”

“My mother ran the joint. Mona Ramsey?”

He gaped at her. “Holy shit!
Mother Mucca
?” His eyes dropped in penitence. “Sorry. Meant no disrespect.”

“None taken, dear. I know they called her that after I left. She was a tough old coot, wasn't she?”

“She was just a businesswoman,” he said.

Anna smiled at him. “I suspect you and I scrubbed some of the same toilets.”

He seemed to muse on that for a moment. She could practically hear the wheels turning in his head before he finally spoke:

“You're the daughter who ran away! Ma told me about you!”

“Did she?” Anna could easily have corrected him, but she didn't think it generous under the circumstances. There was too much left to share with this indulgent stranger. Besides, she was touched by Margaret's early alteration of Andy's gender. Margaret had known Anna well before Anna had become Anna, and apparently she had honored that reality after Andy fled town.

“Did she tell you what happened?”

A quick shake of his head. “Just that . . . you ran away. And nobody knew where you went. She was pretty broke up about it.”

Damn you, tears. Stay away.

She glanced over at Brian and Wren, who were watching this interrogation with increasing fascination. She gave them a faint conspiratorial smile before addressing Mr. Sudden again. “Did you grow up at the Blue Moon yourself?”

“Oh, no. Ma left as soon as she got pregnant. I grew up in Portland. Had a wife and kid, but . . . they left after a while. A little problem with speed.” He tapped those brazen white dentures. “I moved back here after Ma died in the seventies.”

“And why—if you don't mind—did you do that?”

He shrugged. “Guess I wanted to see where we came from.”

“And my mother gave you a job.”

He nodded. “Part-time, but . . . she was a good egg. I was a train wreck back then. Musta been when your daughter met me.”

“Most certainly,” said Anna.

There was a tidy silence as she tried to compose the next question. She had already seen what she needed in the molten eddies of his eyes, an ancestral
something
that summoned her former life like no landmark could ever have done.

“Did your mother . . . did she ever talk to you about your father?”

He shook his head with a melancholy little smile, as if the answer were obvious. “I don't think she ever knew. Hazard of the profession.”

“Mmm . . . but she was very careful most of the time.”

“You knew her that well, eh?”

This was no time to bring up Lysol, but that's what Anna had on her mind. The foolproof yellow potion that kept babies at bay. The stuff Andy had used to clean chicken guts off the wall of Delphine's cabinette the night that Margaret was bedding Lasko for the sake of his manhood. It didn't have to have happened that night, but it could have, since Andy had taken the Lysol from Margaret's cabinette.

“I think I knew your father,” she told Oliver Sudden.

He just widened his eyes dubiously, so she continued.

“He was just a teenager, and he took his own life. I have plenty of reason to feel guilty about that, and I would very much like to apologize to someone before I die. I'm afraid you're the most logical candidate, because . . . well . . . you're alive. That's just the way it is, I'm terribly sorry. May we take you to dinner, Mr. Sudden?”

He blinked at her, then turned to Brian. “Is she always like this?”

“You have no idea,” said Brian.

Chapter 22

CANDYSTRIPER

T
he Monarch was being a pain in the ass. It had worked perfectly before they dismantled it in Oakland, so the fuck-up had obviously happened on Jake's watch, during the reassembly in Black Rock City, something to do with the exposed gears and the dust. The beeotch had been wobbling all over the proving ground at Trans Bay, shaming the fuck out of him. He was glad that he was so high up (in the Pod Formerly Known as Anna's) that no one, not even Amos, could see him blushing.

“It's veering to the right now,” he hollered.

“I know,” said Amos with a note of strained patience in his voice. He was manning the left pod, one of three connected to the wheels. He was also in charge of the wings, which had just proven unflappable in the worst sense of the word.

“We can't take this out on the playa,” Jake groaned. “We look like a wounded duck limping into the reeds.”

Amos knew better than to agree with him. “It must be fixable. Let's have Incandescence take a look.” Incandescence was the Burn name of Lisa Gelb, the asshat in the right pod. Nobody liked using that stupid name, since it made you slow down for it, just the way she did. She had been a sergeant in the army before her transition, and she wanted your attention all the time.

In-can-des-cence. Hup-two-three-four
.

Amos was obviously enjoying himself, using Lisa to goad Jake out of his funk. Jake didn't feel like being goaded out of anything right now. This overgrown tricycle had lost its reason to live even before it got here. He had not made it to hold a poster of Anna. He had made it to hold Anna. He had made it to give her wings.

Now the Monarch itself seemed to sense that the game was over.

Lisa was looking up at him expectantly. “Lemme at it, dude,” she said. “I think I know how to fix it.”

Of course you do. And if you don't, you'll make some shit up.

Jake hopped out of his pod and monkeyed down to the ground. “Have at it, Incandescence. She's all yours. I'm through with this shit.”

“You leave it to me, little feller.”

This was provocation, pure and simple, but before Jake had a chance to respond, Amos had taken Jake by the arm and led him away from the scene.

“Why are you being such a dick?”

“
Me?
Did you hear what she called me?”

“She's pissed. You haven't let her anywhere near the Monarch since we got here. What harm can it do to let her have a shot at it?”

“You watch. She'll take total credit for it for the rest of the week. She'll act like she saved the day.”

“There are worse things that could happen.” Amos raised his brows knowingly, irritatingly.

“Like what?” asked Jake. “Being spared a lot of blank stares on the playa?”

“C'mon. Who cares?”

“It won't work without Anna here.”

Amos shot him a WTF look.

“Not the machinery—the whole concept. That poster makes it look like a friggin' memorial or something. Like a Chinese funeral procession.”

Amos chortled. “It would be working fine if it were Chinese.”

“You blame me, don't you?”

“No. I don't give a shit, personally.”

“You're judging me about something.”

“Well, I think you're kinda being a man about machinery.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. Can't relate, sorry. It's like a bad NASCAR movie. If you want that kind of butch, you'll have to find another cis queer.”

He felt the beginnings of a smile, so he crimped it into a smirk.

“Let's go to Center Camp,” said Amos. “I'll buy you a drink.”

B
urning Man's commitment to gifting and radical self-reliance dictated that only two items were available for purchase in Black Rock City: ice and coffee. Jake enjoyed both nods to corrosive capitalism in the form of a large iced soy latte in the big tent at Center Camp. Then he and Amos cuddled up on a lumpy beanbag angled toward one of the performance spaces. The beanbag was what had attracted them, not the zoned-out guy on stage reading from a stack of papers. If not for his ponytail and Utilikilt, he might have been Christopher Lloyd in
Back to the Future
. His audience was skimpy and scattered, but they gave him their attention, hooting and clapping whenever he stopped long enough to signal that a response would be appropriate.

Amos frowned. “Do you think that whole thing's a poem?”

“Sounds like it. About GMOs.”

“Oh, you mean like—”

“Yeah, genetically modified . . . whatever.”

“Organisms.”

“Right.”

They were silent while the guy on stage droned on.
I spit on your alien corn. I curse your zombie wheat, your amber waves of evil . . .

Finally Jake said, “It was smart of them to put the poetry next to the caffeine.”

Amos chuckled and pulled Jake closer. “Feeling better?”

Jake conceded that he might be, that coffee worked miracles.

“You know,” said Amos, “if Anna were here—”

“—it would be totally fucked. I know.”

“Well—not that bad, but . . . she'd be feeling bad for you . . . and you would be feeling guilty. For no good reason. So—you've been spared all that.”

“The sucky part,” said Jake, “is that Marguerite and Selina get to be right.”

Amos hesitated. “They don't have to know that.”

“No?”

“Fuck no.”

The guy on stage had become louder and more singsongy. He had begun to chant, in fact.

Canto, Monsanto, canto, Monsanto.

“What does canto mean?” Jake asked.

“It's a verse in an epic poem.”

“A long one, in other words.”

“Look at that stack of paper, Jakey.”

“Let's just wander away casually the next time they clap. We don't want to insult him. He's only got eight people listening.”

“You think he's noticed?” Amos stood up, dusting off his butt. “C'mon. I've got some Mormon underwear you gotta take a look at.”

T
hat did not happen right away. They had errands to run before dark, and the last thing Jake wanted was to come back early and find Lisa—
fuck Incandescence
—still grunting away over the Monarch, telling anyone who'd listen how fucked up the reassembly had been. So they headed off to Arctica, one of the two camps where ice was sold, to buy cubes for their evening cocktails. A lean silver-haired woman of sixty or so was whaling away with an ice pick, her back turned to them. Jake should have recognized her—he
would
have, anywhere back in the city—but here she was completely out of context. The pigtails threw him too. And the pink-and-white-striped dress. The whole getup, really.

“Jake! It's Mary Ann!”

“Oh, hi.” He laughed and hugged her awkwardly across the counter. “You look so much like . . . Dorothy, right? I didn't even—”

“I'm a candystriper, actually.” She swept her fingers along the edge of her dress as if that would explain everything.

Jake shrugged. “Sorry. You know I suck at the femme stuff.” He was rocking from foot to foot, nervously aware that it was his turn to introduce Amos. What would he call him with someone new? Was it too early for boyfriend?

“This is Amos Karpel.” He made a feeble hand-wobbling gesture between them. “Mary Ann Singleton.”

Amos gave her a sleepy smile. “I'm trying to make the connection between the uniform and the ice.”

“Oh . . . well . . . there is none. I just work Arctica for the hoot of it. People are always so glad to see you. Mostly though I work the night shift at the medical tent.” She arched a well-penciled eyebrow. “Totally untrained. Hence Candystriper.” She wiggled a silver pigtail at him. “My playa name. World's oldest teen volunteer.”

Amos smiled. “So what do you do?”

She shrugged. “Clean 'em up. Talk 'em down. Whatever the doctors want. There's a lot of dehydration and puncture wounds. You'd be surprised how many people step on rebar. I'm always saying ‘gross,' which doesn't help a whole lot. I have to pretend that Candystriper said it in character, not me.” She tilted her head in acknowledgment of her silliness. “Don't worry. Jake will explain me later. It's lovely to meet you, Amos. You're very cute. How many bags, gentlemen?”

They ordered four bags, all they could fit in their bike trailer. “We can give one to Lisa,” said Amos, “if things work out with . . . the Monarch.”

Jake gave him a withering look.

Mary Ann glanced between the two of them. “Is there royalty here or something?” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I'm very discreet. That's the way it's done. Anne Hathaway was here last year, and she just—walked amongst us.”

“The Monarch is an art car,” Amos explained. “A Monarch butterfly.”

“Oh . . . of course . . . wow . . . like down in Pacific Grove. That's sounds amazing.”

“We made it for Anna.” It tumbled out of him just like that. He wanted Mary Ann to know. She went way back with Anna, and she would get it.

“
Is she here
?” She sounded more aghast than excited.

“No, it's just . . . a tribute.”

“Oh—well . . . that's good. This would be a little rough on her.”

“That's what everybody keeps saying.”

Mary Ann loaded two bags of ice onto the counter. While Amos was transferring them to the trailer, she made a hasty hand signal to Jake that asked,
Are you two an item?
Jake reddened on the spot, and the exchange was not lost on Amos.

“We'd better be,” he told her, grinning.

“Well, let me tell you something.” Mary Ann put her hand on Jake's shoulder. It was chilly from the ice and felt good. “This is one of the finest men I've ever met.”

“Mary Aaann,” said Jake, sounding, even to his own ears, like a kid saying “Mooom.”

“Shut up, Jake. I'm saying this.” Her hand remained on his shoulder. “This man literally saved my life.”

“I did not literally save your life.”

“Okay then—my sanity. It was the worst moment of my life, and Jake was there—
so
there—being kind and strong and comforting.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Amos.

There was no way to change the subject but do it himself. “So what are you doing here? I mean, it doesn't seem like your sort of—”

Mary Ann drew back in mock indignation. “What? I don't look like Burning Man material?”

“Well, I wouldn't have—”

She laughed, cutting him off. “DeDe and D'or and I are doing a plug and play, so just shoot me now. We're the Ladies of Woodside. That's what the Candystriper thing is all about. I'm doing penance for my luxury. And I should be, believe me.”

“Nice RV?”

“Huge. Oh my God.”

“How huge?”

“Reba McIntyre huge. You guys should come over. Hang out. Take a shower.” She gave him a wicked look. “I won't tell. Your radical self-reliance is safe with me.” She leaned into him, as if she were about to offer him drugs. “A sit-down barbecue with cornbread and coleslaw and chocolate cake. And showers.”

Amos's face was hard for Jake to read. Was he charmed by her energy or slightly repelled by it? “Get thee behind me,” he said, smiling.

She threw another bag on the counter. “I wasn't going for Satan.”

He laughed. “Nowhere close.”

“There's no virtue in missing out,” she said.

A long, confusing silence hung in the air.

Jake jumped into the breach. “Anna's been loving the Volcano.”

“Oh . . . good. It's not too much for her to manage?”

“Well . . . I do that for her.”

“Of course. That's so sweet.”

“Not that often, but . . . sometimes before bed.”

Mary Ann smiled at him wistfully, sharing Mrs. Madrigal for a moment, then shooed them both away “Go! Make delicious cocktails! There's a line here!”

As Jake and Amos left with their wagons, Mary Ann hollered a final imperative. “And marry him, Amos . . . if you get half the chance.”

D
o you hate her?” Jake asked as they unloaded the ice back at Trans Bay.

Amos thought for a moment. “I sort of
don't
.”

“Yeah—me too.”

“How did you save her life . . . or whatever?”

“Do you remember that shed I showed you at Michael's house?”

“Where the old guy killed himself?”

“Yep. . . . She was with him.”

“What?”

“He shot himself in front of her. I showed up a few minutes later. All I did was call the police and let her cry on me. I guess it was kind of a bonding moment.”

“I would say . . . yeah.”

“That and our hysterectomies.”

Amos remained unruffled. “She had one too? Not for the same reason, I take it.”

“Hers was for cancer. Just a few months before mine. She spent some time with me in the hospital. I've never forgotten it.”

“Then
I
won't,” said Amos, giving him a tender look.

T
he Mormon underwear made its debut as soon as night fell. Amos came slouching through the tent flap, his chest hair spilling from the scooped neckline, his circumcised cock straining parabolically against the thin polyester blend of the fly.

“Excuse me, sir. May I speak with the lady of the house?”

Jake told him he must have the wrong house.

“Okay, then, what am I supposed to say?”

“In the first place, they're not in their underwear when they come to the door. Or
just
their underwear, anyway.”

“So what did this guy say? The one who used to sit on your lap in his underwear?”