After dropping Dion off and avoiding too close an interaction with Alastair, Mary walked along Montrose Boulevard, skirting down Westheimer, turning between the Scylla of Mary’s Bar and the Charybidis of Charlie’s, with its much-eaten and efficacious chili-cheese hangover omelet, and onto Waugh. A pickup truck of suburban white boys swerved past, yelling ‘faggot!’ in her general direction, which made her laugh as she lazily gave them the finger, and a few moments later a slowpoke driver with a beautiful Jamaican accent asked her ‘how much?’ but that was all. A slow evening, harassment-wise. Burgundy had caught up with her, adding a quaver to the vaunt of her step. It would be another hour or so before the streets lit up for real and the shadows began to move with their accustomed menace.
She paused to light a cigarette in the parking lot of the now-empty post office but stopped and crossed the street and went into Half-Price Books. She walked along the central aisles, skimming her fingers on the paperback spines, idly looking for the thing that would speak to her. A couple of aging students were in the Reference alcove, disputing the worth of Toynbee versus the Durant team (Will and who? Oh, Ariel, that was it). A voluptuous shave-headed woman was looking through the health food cookbooks, audibly scratching her armpit as she leafed the pages. A yuppie couple was fighting in the Children’s room, snarls and hissings kept at a whisper, which lessened the absurdity (or justice) not a whit. They both stopped and went silent as she paused at the rack of Golden Books and resumed immediately when she moved on. Mary stopped at one of the several bins of oddities, selecting one after another a tiny folded tourist guide of Rome and Berlin and Venice, before putting them back again. She settled on a postcard of a Beatrix Potter duck and a slightly worn cassette of Ozzy’s ‘Diary Of A Madman’. It had been ages since she’d heard Rhoad’s heartstopping solo on ‘Mr. Crowley’. She was feeling confident enough to let envy out for a little stroll.
In her apartment Mary combined the dregs of several cups of her morning’s tea and drank it cold. A pinprick at the tip of the lighthouse wavered, came alive, caught fire. Her mind shook the fur coat of wine-blur and let it slide off, brittle bones singing like porcelain. She lit a candle and took her clothes off, pulling one curtain back to let the early moonlight blaze across the full-length mirror. She stood and looked at herself.
Full-frontal. Profile. Over the shoulder.
Maria Scheider? Which vibe, exactly? Babyface? At certain hours, perhaps. Waking puffy-cheeked from a night of vigorous misbehavior. Checkmark beside the wild luxury of hair. Nice ass, on this she had both commendation and confirmation. Her breasts were smaller than Maria’s, which was fine by her and had only been a source of criticism from guys who hadn’t really known what to do with her to start with, who were misguided enough to believe she gave a fuck whether she measured up to their fold-out fantasies.
Perhaps it wasn’t even the physical vibe that was meant. What then? The buttery sodomy and tearful blasphemy? The vibe of someone who would consent, wholeheartedly, lovingly, to inching their fingers up Marlon Brando’s asshole, finger-fucking that angry, anguished god? Or that of someone who would shoot you dead if you chewed gum in her presence and opened up about your feelings?
Mary much preferred this last one.
She poured herself a mug’s worth of wine, swallowed three Mexican diet pills and set out her Little Doomsday outfit while the speed kicked in. Purple socks, tight black jeans (oh Sabrina!) and black jersey. She combed her hair until it started to hurt and then sat in a corner of her dark room, listening to records, drinking wine, smoking.
‘Playing With A Different Sex’ by the Au Pairs. I am woman, you will smile as I cut you to shreds. Mary admired the lyrics, the vocals, could never imagine writing words from that part of her soul. The lead guitar framed the songs, grilled thin with its ivy single-note patterns, like a line drawing on a copper plate made with a dentist’s drill.
And then the second side of ‘In A Roman Mood’ by Human Sexual Response. No song sounded like the one that came before. Each one was perfect.
Mary watched herself in the mirror, watching herself listening, black-clothed, white-faced, void of expression. She’d give herself another hour with Iggy and Prince and then she’d go looking for something deep, and brief, and anonymous.