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<center> Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v44/madisontc/ak8.jpg</center>
<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 19, 2006 12:23 AM: Message edited by: midnight radio ]</font>
<center>Sit back, matter of fact,
Teasing, toying, turning chatting,
Charming, hissing, playing the crowd
Play that song again,
Another couple Klonopin
A nod, a glance, a half-hearted bow
Oh such grace, oh such beauty
And lipstick and callous
And fishnets and malice
Oh darling, you're a million ways to be cruel</center>
The grunge-pop that filled Le Chat Noir was decoration for just another night on the table-tops. In the mass of legs and arms that twisted up and offered up money, all looked the same. Watches on every right hand, a buttoned cuff here, a rolled up linen sleeve there. Everyone with a loose tie, everyone with a greedy eye turned towards the bar, or turned up towards the women prancing in front of them. They were all patented -- the blonde haired, blue eyed angel, the wild-child redhead, the mysterious brunette, and the black-haired Wendy Bird, sarcastic and partially silent, an automated machine. Each wig was a role, and every role was filled nightly by various women.
They were a cabaret line of sleek limbs and smoky attire. Their stockings rode high and clipped against the pale of their skin, the tension lines pulled up and run taut to the clip of their garters. They glittered and shimmered in spangles, the fringe of their faux-vintage tops swishing with their motions and the complicated overlays of their short-shorts, skin tight and lace-lined.
On the stretch of a particularly regular patron's tabletop, she unfurled, the length of her spine flat to the linen tablecloth, a pinch of fingers plucking up the bill offered in her direction. Her wig faltered, the sharp line of it cutting across her jaw, her synthetic bangs keeping their stark shape as she rolled over.
"Merci," she offered in the usual tone. Just a sliver short of genuine. The money went stuck in the line of her elastic garter, folded like a fan on each end, along with the rest of it. Leaning back, she pulled knees up, the heavy swing of her shoes clattering down on the table with just a click of sound. She stretched to a stand and hunched over, the flat of his tie curled in her hand. Her palm stretched out and she tugged playfully.
"Your mouth." His hand reached out to point at the slice down the center of her bottom lip. Underneath the red-black of her lipstick, a clear swelling remained, a sliver of discoloration that even the makeup couldn't cover. He dug into his pocket to reveal another bill. He'd offer it over when she did a trick meriting it, it seemed.
"My mouth," she commented, her knees straightening, the dip of her spine stiffening as she forced a smile on her face. White teeth gleamed. She was a toothpaste ad. A car model. A daytime television personality.
"Did you have a tussle with one of the other girls?" He seemed to enjoy the idea of this, cackling grossly. It disgusted Wendy, the confident upturn of his head, the boisterous sound of his laughter oozing out. She kept the smile plastered on, unfaltering. Immobile.
"I had very violent sex and the man bit my mouth. I bled all the way until this morning." Fingers pinched the bill in fingers and she plucked it up from his hand, digging it into the waist of her shorts before she swung legs over and settled them on the ground, marching decisively away.
She perched by the stretch of her window, all nightgown and bare feet. Outside, the rooftops glimmered with the shine of an evening rainshower and the streets reflected them up. Silver veins through the body of the city, she imagined, rushing with little platelets on four wheels. The cars buzzed by, one after another, lights illuminating the path in front of them. A horn honked. Downstairs, the dog barked in response. Her father scolded it lowly.
"Terrible weather. Where I come from, we never have rain like this. Cold. Sharp, like little bee-stings."
The voice startled her out of whatever trance she had slipped into and she whirled around. There he was, commonplace and intrusive, perched on her dresser, his legs folded. His dress shoes glimmered like the rooftops, black and reflective. The lines of his suit angled him into something sleek and Victorian, his tie knotted firmly, kept in place with a pin. The pale of his skin was moon-sick and luminescent. He tipped his head at her, dark hair flopping over, fingers waggling. "Hello."
"When do I get to go there, where you come from?" Behind her, the window was shut, latched firmly, like that would keep him in.
"When you're old enough. Every time I come, you ask the same question. Every time, I give you the same answer." He stood, hands propped on his hips and cleared the space between the dresser and her bed with one simple stride. She reached to shriek, to yell at him for leaving footprints on her nice sheets, but nothing was left behind.
Of course. He hadn't walked through the rain to get here.
"Let me see her."
"No!" He cackled, pulling back his hand to cover his pocket, like there was something inside to keep hidden.
"Just once!" The girl sprinted forward, arms reaching up to him, finger grabbing insistently. He wrenched away, smoothly toppling off the bed and winding around the carpet. He narrowly missed overturning her dollhouse with a dexterous swing of his leg.
"She's sleeping," he insisted, a finger held up to his mouth. Shush. Briefly, his fingers ran over the chain that fed out of the pocket of his vest. There was no pocket watch in that small space. She knew better.
"She is not," she persisted, her bottom lip pouting out pitifully. "You're lying."
"Now now. I may be many things, but a liar? A trickster, maybe, an illusionist, but I never lie. Not to you, petite." Reaching out, his fingers caught at the tiny stretch of her nose. He pinched sweetly, and she squinted eyes at the feel. His fingertips were uncharacteristically warm. Smooth. Winding back, he collapsed onto her bed, swinging his legs up and under him as he leaned against the pillows. Beneath him, the mattress creaked. Evidence, she thought to herself. Sounds meant evidence.
Eagerly, she scrambled up beside him, knobby-kneed and excited. His hand coasted over her hair and patted nicely at her shoulder. "What's the order tonight?"
"A bunny," she whispered. His hands lifted up immediately in front of the lamp, fingers constructing a bunny on the wall, twitching ears and wriggling his nose. The shadow silhouette moved on its own, it seemed, independent of the motions of his hands. The hands were the trick. It was his shadow that was really alive.
"Tell me more about where you come from," she said, lifting her hand up in the shape of what she imagined to be a duck. It chased after the bunny cartoonishly, quacking all the way. He provided the sound effects.
"There are mountains," he began, stretching out as the bunny disappeared. His hands drew behind his head and one ankle kicked over the other. "Close to the coast, too. It's small. Lots of trees, very green. No mummies and daddies to boss you around." Fingers poked at her ribs and she squealed in delight. "Everyone gets along, and shares, and is happy all of the time. Paradise."
"Tell me your name."
He gave her a skeptical glance. "Not today."
<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...sontc/ak12.jpg
Now lemme tell you a story
The devil he has a plan
A bag a? bones in his pocket
Got anything you want
No dust and no rocks
The whole thing is over
All these beauties in solid motion
All those beauties, gonna swallow you up
One time too many
Too far to go
We come to take you home
And when they split those atoms
It?s hotter than the sun
Blood is a special substance
They gonna pray for that man
So wake up young lovers
The whole thing is over
Watch but touch monkeys
All that blood, gonna swallow you whole
What?s that? Who?s driving?
Where we goin?? Who knows?
We come to take you home
How many people do you think I am
Pretend I am somebody else
You can pretend I?m and old millionaire
A millionaire washing his hands
Rattle the bones, dreams that stick out
A medical chart on the wall
Soft violence and hands touch your throat
Everyone wants to explode
And when your hands get dirty
Nobody knows you at all
Don?t have a window to slip out of
Lights on, nobody home
Click click- see ya later
Beta beta- no time to rest
Pika pika- risky business
All that blood, will never cover that mess.
So soft hard feelings
What?s that, who?s driving
No tricks lets go
We come to take you home
We come to take you home</center>
talking heads.
Beneath me, silly Alex is a wriggly snake. My blood is pump pump pumping in my veins and I see Versailles in front of me. He called the red pill Marie Antoinette and I said yes yes, gimme gimme and gobbled it all down. I feel dizzy spinny but I keep moving, chasing my white rabbit all the way down, sing-singing all the way. His hands play creepy crawly all over me and I wonder if the Sun King was this brave. Silly Alex. He is much taller and skinnier and less disease ridden (I think). Eventually we will lay our white necks down on the guillotine blade and kerplow, it will slice down and our heads will plop into the baskets. Our names will get weaved into the tapestry and I will reach out for a hand he won't hold. Silly Alex, my Louis, my Sun King.
I did not miss him and I will not miss him and I do not miss him right now, knees in the spring mattress, fingers in his hair, hitting and kicking and biting and screaming. Idiot idiot idiot, in go my hands and I will rip out little bits of him, some talent, some memory, a chunk of a rusty old heart and smash, it will all end up in my next stew. This will teach him to skitter off without saying anything, just me and some money and a new empty.
Last night I had some ether in my nose and woke up all black and blue. It would have made a pretty picture, me and a wig and my makeup, hands and wrists tied up, grinning for the camera. Cheese! Big wide grin! I was not awake for any of it, and instead, I woke up in hospital, grumbly and headachey. They let me go home when I kicked and screamed enough. My fingers wanted to punch Alex's numbers into my telephone but I remembered he didn't answer six months ago and I am not one for second chances, no siree. Instead I went to sleep and woke up the next morning and danced.
He comes out of thin air, a poof of smoke, my Harry Houdini in a crazy-jacket. He says QUIT YOUR JOB and I say EAT MY SHORTS in my best American accent, and he says SHE QUITS HER JOB and I say NO I DO NOT because I need to pay for the rent and the food and the nights out on the town. He pockets me a little wad of money, and I sneak some out of his wallet in the night because he owes me lots of drinks I had to buy on my own when he was gone daddy gone. Maybe I will quit my job and dance in a cage instead of on a bar, or a stage, or a table, or fat men's laps. I will wear big shiny boots and La Perla lady-things, and become blonde with a new wig, and I will dance to new music and below, Alex will watch, his Wendy Bird in a cage, waggling Euros at me, giggling like a madhouse.
I hit him and he grabs my wrist and holds. Wendy Oiseau. Pretty whisper. You ought to be nicer, mean girls don't get anywhere in this world.
I say YES THEY DO. Mean girls get right here in beds with the terrible ones, the pretty Edwardians, the boys in Non!, the Sun Kings. Marie Antoinette. Behead me, behead me, behead me.
In the early morning hours, Wendy Bird lounged as decadent as Marie Antoinette in her claw footed tub. The pipes rattled and hissed with running hot water, and when she descended into suds and steam, it was with the relish that only a queen could muster up. Her skinny shoulders slipped against cold porcelain and she settled back, her hair atop her head piled and pinned with glimmering baubles, her fingers wrapped around the edge, dripping water carelessly onto a hardwood floor. The double doors of her bathroom were cleanly closed in the old, rickety apartment building. In her imagination, the tiny squeeze of the bathroom was a sprawling palace. Her hairbrush and makeup sat across the way, ready for application, powders, creams, perfumes to laud herself in, all by the silky stretch of her pale blue dressing gown. It was royal.
It could have been anything. She was a captive on Hook's ship. She was the pampered Mrs. Darling. She was Angela Cormier hiding out for days in unfamiliar enemy terrain, shacked up in a hotel and waiting for the call from the head honcho, or Kovacs, telling her to get on the move. Her head lolled against the porcelain and only lifted when she heard the curious clatter from her front room. Water sloshed as she peered up from her pose, over the lip of the bath. Hook's sturdy stride. The enemy at the door, revolvers aimed, ready to make her talk at any cost.
When the doors swung open, Wendy was gone. The twin eyes of Neal Coutard didn't see a speck of her. Her makeup bag sat neatly on the side, next to the simple white cotton of the dressing robe she wore every morning. It was only when he turned towards the bath that he noticed the water was still moving, rocking back and forth like a ship on the waves, the white suds covering what was beneath in a blanket. Neal's arms slipped under the water and found Wendy's skinny body in hiding. When she surfaced, it was with gurgling protest, a cry for help, Neal peering at her in protest.
"C'est moi, Oiseau! C'est moi!"
When she calmed and peered through the water matted veil of her lashes, she sputtered in spite of herself and laughed. Behind her, Edith Piaf still sang, the record crackling.
"Neal," she breathed easily. He was a skinny boy in a t-shirt and suspenders to hold up his hitching tweed pants. The cap on his head made him look like a misfit paperboy in search of a route. A brown eye winked at her and she fell back, keeping her modesty below the suds line. "I thought you were the rebels come to get me."
"Or Hook to make you walk the plank," he nodded. He had been through this before. Pushing up onto his legs, he backed his way to sit on the old chest she kept in her bathroom, feet planted against the side. From his pocket, he pulled out a small, worn envelope and waggled it at her. "A letter from--"
Her hand waved. She didn't want it. Her head shook and Neal pocketed it again. He slouched over, his spine visible through the thin cotton of his shirt, his arms flexed against his knees.
"Have you heard from Emile Cormier yet?"
"Still nothing," Neal assured her. She bent knees together and slid against the porcelain once more. "I doubt he's in France at all. Morocco, perhaps. Still running guns for the Arab-Algerians. Une autre guerre civile, les dit."
"Bah," Wendy protested with a bat of her hand and a flick of suds. "Comme ennuyer. Only the interesting in my house. Morocco seems beautiful. We should rob a bank and dance our way over there on a night flight."
"You could always steal another fat man's buisness credit card like you did when you wanted to see New York City," he suggested, leaning back. Wendy bit hard on her bottom lip, a prudent grin on her face.
"I only steal cash now. Credit cards get turned off in a few days and you wind up being left stranded in a cheap hotel. I had to call les hommes," she pointed upwards to indicate that they lived above her. "for help of the most embarassing kind. A ticket back to Paris."
"With Tink to guide you all the way."
"And lose me in the woods at night," she grumbled.
"Une oiseau tres curieuse, oui. Could I spend the night tonight? I'll sleep on the couch. The hostel kicked me out again."
"Neal," she scolded, her knees pulling up to her chest as she propped her chin atop them. She didn't ask what for. She never wanted to know. "If you walk and feed Fou while I am at work, then the deal is on."
"Ma fille," he drawled, a hand over his heart.
Wendy rose from the bath and wrapped a towel around her. It pinched at her side between fingers. "You must disappear if I bring someone home."
"Hustling? You too, oiseau?"
"Jamais," she insisted with a narrowing of her eyes.
"Did you hear about the bomb on the Metro today? All over the news."
Wendy paused a moment and peered out the window, her hand held out for the once dismissed letter. "I don't watch the news."
<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...gazine_003.jpg</center>
<font color="#000000" size="1">[ March 04, 2007 02:45 PM: Message edited by: midnight radio ]</font>
<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v44/madisontc/ak9.jpg
People make you nervous
You'd think the world was ending
And everybody's features
Have somehow started blending
And everything is plastic
And everyone's sarcastic
And all your food is frozen
And it needs to be defrosted
You'd think the world was ending
You'd think the world was ending
You'd think the world was ending right now</center>
She flung herself into Champs traffic as the bars were letting out. A madwoman in a crooked wig and torn stockings, her skirt shot to hell, her shoe's heel snapped in two. She leapt from an alleyway like a cat, nearly run over by the stretch of a yellow cab. The brakes chirped and she flung herself into the backseat. Her cheekbone was raw, her hips ached, the backs of her thighs flayed by thick leather. She crumpled into the seat and peered behind her. No sign of anything but angry and confused drivers. A streak of blood ran from her cheek to her jaw and she smeared it. Her fingers touched down on the bruise of her jaw, the hot spot where her head met brick and pavement. She felt waterlogged and dizzy. Her heart thudded. It took the angry grunt of the cab driver to snap her out of it, cutting through the static as she lifted her head up.
"Where do you need to go. I don't give rides to hookers, they stay down near the Champs, where they get taxed, where the other cabbies can deal with 'em." His accent was raw and uneducated, a gruff, scraggled man. His voice made her want to crawl beneath the seats and hide. He was a schoolmaster with a strap. She ached to give another address.
"24 rue de Piccoli." Her flat. She wanted to turn around and go to the other side of town, where Louis would have bandaged every wound. In a perfect world, he would have asked no questions, just slid a warm cloth over the torn spots and given her cotton bed clothes to sleep in, her head on his pillow, his cologne in her nose. She felt a warm rush against her cheeks. Not blood. The opposite of blood. It too got smeared in with all the rest. Her whole body ached, inside and out.
At home, keys in the lock, Wendy left the lights off. Fou lifted his head and barked. It was as moving as the cry of a newborn. He padded up to her, nails skittering on the hardwood, sniffing at her and circling her ankles like he sensed her need for him. In the bathroom, he sat plainly on the rug, watching her with wide, dark eyes as she peeled herself apart, layer by layer. The bath filled, oblong and porcelain, with scalding water.
She sank in, wig deposited across the way, peeling off the pins from her head. Copper flecks dotted the water when she sank in, her skin a rosy shade of pink. Steam rose off of the tops of the water and she closed eyes. Faux-lashes stuck to her palms when she rubbed her eyes. They floated in the water with the rest of her, mascara, matte makeup, red lipstick. Her hips and ribs were pink with welts that would fade into ugly bruises. She couldn't go back to work like this. No makeup would cover up the marks. People would stare in the way she didn't want them to stare.
She sank underwater, a flood of bubbles from her nose. A submerging. A rebirth. She imagined Jesus' feet, struck through with a single nail. Blood dripped. Her cheek ached and her stomach churned. When she vomited, it was on her knees in the bath, half draped in the sink beside the tub, a palm against the wall, her lower half boiling in warm water, her meal swirling down the drain with a new rush of water.
Fou barked again, confused. His head tipped. Wendy cried.
It wasn't the pain, the digs in her skin, the pink marks from a belt that would turn into bruises. It wasn't her torn clothes or broken shoe, it wasn't the memory of a hand on her inner thigh that gripped so hard she wanted to scream. It was the humiliation of it all. The guilt. It flooded her like it had scratched into her veins. It was the prospect of someone other than her being right about what dangers lurked. It was the idea of not being invincible. A bird with outstretched wings newly snapped, warbling on the ground for a mother that had abandoned it.
When she sank below the water line, her mouth opened and formed simple phrases in blood-pink water, the bubbles bursting to the surface, her voice trapped in each one.
She slept wrapped naked in her bed, a cocoon of a girl, vowing not to leave the house until her bruises had faded, until her legs didn't tremble like a fawn's, until she felt as brilliant and as vibrant as she had the day before, prancing in someone else's hat and shirt, a caricature, on the tips of her toes with her fingers wiggling.
Here, now, she was the meek and terrified Angela, spread out on a metal slab, knees akimbo, in the backseat of a town car, on the pavement of an alley in the midst of a miraculous new adventure.
<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v44/madisontc/01.jpg
Fancy a big house
Some kids and a horse
I can not quite, but nearly
Guarantee, a divorce
I think that I love you
I think that I do
So go on mister, make Miss me Mrs you.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I do
I only make jokes to distract myself
From the truth, from the truth.
Fancy a fast car
A bag full of loot
I can nearly guarantee
You'll end up with the boot
I love you, I love you, I love you , I do
I only make jokes to distract myself
From the truth, from the truth.</center>