Free Suicide Blonde by Darcey Steinke Page B

he was convinced this calmed him. I went into the kitchen and got a shopping bag from under the counter, noticed the metallic container of Ajax, the mousetrap still baited with an old piece of Brie and the flowerpot full of white granite that Bell had used to force narcissus bulbs last winter. The morning light seemed suddenly bright and the paper cracked loudly as I loaded underwear from the shoebox I kept at the top of my closet. I took T-shirts and a sweater. I went to the alcove, to the little marble-top table where I left my keys, I heard Bell fidgeting behind the bathroom door.
    “I'm breaking up,” he said, “and no one cares.”
    I thought, Even love has its limits , and I couldn't believe this hadn't occurred to him. Hadn't he learned anything from his parents? Lovers? Even friends? You had to act a prescribed way to be loved. I heard him shift his body weight and the water stop. Putting my lips to the cool paint of the door I whispered, “You can't have two lives, Bell. You'll ruin everything and we'll both be left with nothing.”
    I LIT SEVERAL PRAYER CANDLES IN GRACE CATHEDRAL. ONE FOR Bell, one for my mother, my father, his wife, her kids, one for Madison, one for Pig, one for myself as a little girl. Then I lit a few for abstractions: courage, honesty, sanity and kindness. The flames rose from gold glass cups. I emptied my pockets of change, let the coins plunk into the tin box. I thought of all the other places candles burned, in Hindu temples, little Chinese dens, the formal gardens of Japan, satanic churches in the California hills. I thought of apartment fires where the dead are laid out on the sidewalk and of the blue gas crown on the oven at Bell's.
    I knelt at a side chapel, the lushest one with a purple fairlane, rosette windows and a life-size crucifix. There was incense and a big vase of roses and violets. The stone walls were draped with tapestries, biblical scenes: the raising of Lazarus, and Rachel by the well. The miserable Jesus looked like Bell, though there was something knowing around the eyes I attributed to my father. Maybe it was because he was a minister and, like dogs and their owners, they had begun to resemble one another.
    My knees were mashed into the burgundy cushion. I looked up at the figures of saints. Some of the women's expressions, an ecstatic submission, reminded me of the expressions on posters outside X-rated theaters. I remembered the story of one saint, a virgin, who cut off her breasts rather then succumb to a rapist. I made myself think God is dead , but it seemed dangerous. Then I thought, my pussy is the same color as the carpet. This comforted me somehow. I relaxed a little, saw how the sepia light from the window shone on Jesus's face. I knew that it was comforting to have someone around who knew all the bad things about you, the horrible things in your past . . . like a lover or a close friend, and I knew this was the purpose and place of Jesus. I took down the cord and walked to the altar. I stared into Jesus's raised eyes, then pushed my hips into his pelvis so it rubbed on the carved girth of cloth. A tightness came. I kissed his forehead, his upturned eyes, his open mouth. My tongue wiggled between his parted lips, I pushed against him and the cross rocked. Inside my tongue scraped the rough unlaquered wood. I tasted blood and sprang back, saw, like the momentary confluence of stars, how everything was connected . . . my father fucking around, my embittered mother, Bell fucking boys, me fucking the stranger, my own phantom longing . . .
    C ARMEN'S WAS DARK. I HAD TO STAND BY THE DOOR, LETTING my eyes adjust to its shimmery walls. The bartender mixed drinks in two silver cups. There was no music, just the continuous white noise from several televisions. I ordered a shot with a beer back, then asked the bartender, an older woman with spiky hair, what she knew about Madison.
    “She's a girl like anyone else.” She shrugged while drying a highball glass. The