Black Eyed Susan Read online

  “I’m dying for a Tylenol,” she said, yawning.

  I never noticed how often people used the word “dying” in the figurative sense until the word began applying to me in a literal sense. I suddenly pitied true victims of heart disease as I recalled all of the times I sprinkled “I’ll have a heart attack if …” into conversations about circumstances that now seemed inconsequential.

  I’ll have a heart attack if Blondie makes a comeback.

  I’m gonna have a heart attack if callers don’t stop requesting 10,000 Maniacs because it sounds cooler than asking for Natalie-Mainstream-Merchant.

  And then I remembered how many times I’d said “I’d kill for a …” thereby insulting all real murderers.

  I’d kill for a C-cup.

  I’d kill for surround sound in my apartment.

  Truth is, I wouldn’t have killed for anything—not bigger boobs, not even a kick-ass stereo. And now that I knew a heart attack would not be the cause of my demise, using that phrase seemed inapplicable and rude.

  “You shouldn’t say that,” I told her while I picked up our bag of money.

  She slipped on her clunky silver-heeled shoes and asked, “Shouldn’t say what?”

  “Never mind,” I said, leading her out of the bedroom toward the front door. But somebody blocked it. After a big push, I stepped over George W., who was curled up on his apartment hallway floor. He looked a bit like a sleeping clown, because he wore a generous amount of red lipstick.

  Calliope laughed. “Did we do that to him?”

  I was pretty sure we had. When I tossed his keys onto his chest, I started to reach into our bag of money and leave him a few hundred-dollar bills for his trouble, but in pure muse fashion, Calliope stopped me.

  “Don’t you dare. He has a boatload of money coming to him in three months.” She hiked up her tube top and shoved a wad of grape bubble gum into her mouth. “He was bragging about it last weekend during a pool game. He can’t access the trust fund until his fortieth birthday—even his parents knew what a disappointment he’d turn out to be.”

  So we made our way back to the Luxor and, after checking out, we left, watching the giant pyramid get smaller and smaller as we walked away.

  EIGHT

  It is a fact that every eight seconds, someone, somewhere, dies. This dark detail pried its way into my happy place as Calliope and I sashayed down a Vegas street with new adventures on our horizon. I imagined Death as a pesky, unrelenting weed, popping up all over the globe with eerie but predictable and impressive timing. It played in my mind like a slow-motion musical montage in a big-budget action movie.

  A farmer clutching his chest on a tractor in an Iowa cornfield.

  Someone’s grandmother in London sitting stone-still in a rocking chair and shutting her eyes for the last time.

  An aboriginal tribesman choking on … what would an aboriginal tribesman choke on?

  “You look like you just saw a ghost,” Calliope said as she led me around a corner.

  She was partially right, but of all of the deaths I’d envisioned, mine wasn’t one of them. For the first time in a long while, I had a sense of direction—finding my mother—and the idea of dying suddenly seemed like a flaw in the plot—a mistake.

  We’d walked three blocks, and although Calliope continued at a swift pace, I had no idea where she was taking me. “Where are we going?” I’d purposely left my car behind at the parking garage because it linked me to a variety of crimes, but I didn’t intend on walking to Minnesota. “We’re gonna need wheels, Calliope. Do you have a car?”

  Calliope walked backwards and spoke at the same time. “I have to do something first.”

  I was confused.

  Her eyes widened when she gave me a sober look. “You’re not the only one with a list, you know.” She waited for me to catch up. “We’re going to see the King.”

  When we entered the front door, which was adorned with small white twinkle lights, I expected to hear “Jailhouse Rock” or “Love Me Tender,” but instead I heard Barry White singing “You’re My First, My Last, My Everything.”

  A deep, soulful voice resonated from the corner of the room. “Welcome.” For a second, I thought it might be Barry White himself, but then he came into view. A three hundred-pound black man wearing a stretchy jumpsuit with sparkly sequins was seated in a corduroy recliner. His forehead glistened as he stroked a sideburn with one hand and adjusted his sunglasses with the other.

  “You must be the King,” I said.

  He showed a convincing in-charge smile. As I looked around the room, I realized it was a tattoo parlor, and before I had a chance to head for the door, the King spoke again.

  “And you must be Lucky.” Just when I realized he was referring to my shirt, he spoke to Calliope, “Hey, darlin’, how you been?”

  Calliope winked at him. “It’s time.”

  He nodded, walked over to her, and approvingly laid his hand on her shoulder. As I listened to the King and Calliope chat, I learned how they’d met. Calliope had met King through Lark, a girl she’d danced with at the club, who happened to be addicted to bald eagle tattoos. According to King, Lark’s body was home to thirteen different eagles, each one with its own name and personality, but all representing her strong desire to be free. I got the sinking feeling that no matter how many creatures soared on her flesh, Lark wasn’t free at all, just a human canvas filled with eagles paralyzed in mid-air, frozen in time just like her, daily reminders of her endangered spirit in need of rescue. I wondered who, if anyone, held watch over people like Lark and Calliope.

  And like a bell chiming on cue, my question was answered when Calliope said to the King, “You said to let you know when the time was right.” She sat down in his Torture Chair, as he called it, and rescued herself. “The time is right.”

  Calliope took off her gingham shirt, revealing not only a tiny tube top, but also an old tattoo. When I tried to sneak a peek, she turned her body so I couldn’t see it. I knew then that I wasn’t the only one with a secret.

  The King wheeled his adjustable chair close to Calliope and said in my direction, “We’ll be done in a jiff.” Whatever he was going to etch into Calliope’s shoulder was a creation decided a long time ago by both of them, because no discussion was necessary. After a few minutes, he placed a dab of salve and a square piece of gauze over the area where he’d worked, and gave her a hug. “You’re a new you, kid.”

  When he was finished with her, he turned to me, sitting in the waiting area, and said, “And what brings Lucky to the King on this fine morning? What is it you’re looking for?”

  What was I looking for? Without thinking, I said, “Time.”

  He got out of his chair with surprising ease, walked over to me, and grabbed my left arm. “If you’re looking for time, you need to get rid of this,” he said, taking off my watch. Then he walked over to the garbage can and dropped it in with a clunk. “Now, what else do you want?”

  I sat paralyzed with indifference. As he turned to organize some tools on a small metal table, his flouncy jumpsuit sleeves revealed “King of the Beasts” tattooed into his massive forearm. “That’s nice.” I said, “Do it yourself?” He didn’t answer. He just looked at me like the out-of-towner I was.

  When I looked up at Calliope, she had the crazy goddess-glow going again. She stared at me with intensity.

  “The time has come to stain your chessboard life,

  to paint the lacquer gray and make it bright.

  Fear is dear and real, but knives reveal,

  so cut your inhibitions down and feel.”

  A bright and convincing light emanated from inside her, and even though I had no idea where it came from, the longer I looked at it, the more I wanted it. And since no one else could see it, I thought it must be there for me.

  “I want a tattoo,” I said.

  Calliope winked at me, then walked out the door, leaving me alone to find my way.

  “Now you’re talkin’,” he said. He led
me from the reading area over to where Calliope had been sitting. “What’ll it be, Lucky?”

  “Surprise me, King.”

  He pushed up my left T-shirt sleeve and, as he worked, he alternated between singing and mumbling strange declarations like, “You got to embrace it, girl,” and “Ain’t nobody take care a you like the King.”

  The tattoo gun was less of a gun and more like a vibrating woodpecker with a needle on its beak, pecking up and down at high speed through my skin. The smell of rubbing alcohol took my mind off the pain, and I focused on the pictures of people on the wall who had been there before me. The King wouldn’t let me see what he was doing, but periodically dabbed at my bleeding shoulder with a small cloth. He finished with a slow and definitive “Baby’s got a brand new bag.”

  Before looking, I thought about what he might have engraved into my skin. Tattoos are important representations—badges that document where you’ve been in your life, and where you’re going. I wondered if the King’s artwork would be a profound statement—some sort of sign or message about my current situation for me to decode. Maybe it was a symbolic flower. I hoped it wasn’t a rose, which was not my favorite. Maybe it was an animal—something fierce like a tiger, or regal like a bird, or the phoenix, perhaps, the universal sign of rebirth. Maybe the King would sense my desperation and give me the gift of immortality.

  He blotted one more time and revealed his masterpiece. I looked down to see a big heart with the word “Kitten” written inside in sugary-sweet curves. In general, kittens, hearts, and unicorns, along with those creepy Precious Moments collectibles, made me feel hostile, so this tattoo should’ve been my biggest nightmare, but since I had to live with it for only a few months, I said, “Wow. Thank you, King.”

  After paying him and giving him a hefty tip, he bandaged my heart, told me to protect it from the elements, and then stopped in the middle of the room, his stare intense and pleading as if I’d prompted him with a question.

  “Love,” he said as he disappeared into a doorway of jingly beads. “Love’s what it’s all about.”

  or•ange

  (n) (adj)

  Definition:

  1. a tree that is widely grown throughout warmer regions for its edible juicy citrus fruit.

  2. color of pumpkin.

  My definition:

  1. the sensation I get when I hear Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

  NINE

  When I walked out of the King’s tattoo parlor of love, Calliope and her secret tattoo were waiting for me on a sidewalk bench. Something told me not to ask her what was beneath her gauzy bandage, but she didn’t hesitate asking me about mine.

  After we’d settled into the backseat of a cab and Calliope told the driver her address, she asked to see my new body art. Before I could answer, she gently peeled back my bandage. Both of her hands flew up to her mouth when she saw it. “He didn’t!”

  I nodded. “He did. I’m a full-fledged tart.” What she didn’t know was that I’d been called “Kitten” before, and the fact that King had branded me with that very word was a strange coincidence. My fake mother liked to call me Susie Q, but my fake father liked to call me Kitten on occasion. When I’d tell him it was weak and borderline misogynistic, he’d laugh and say, “Have you seen a kitten scratch and bite?”

  But now I was older, wiser, sicker. I had bigger things to worry about, so I put my fake claws up in the air and purred with pride.

  She scrunched up her pretty face. “He’s sort of a sage. I’m surprised he didn’t do something more … prophetic.”

  Thankful he hadn’t attempted to prophesize about my dismal life prospects, I said, “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  Calliope changed the subject, and as if I’d just won the consolation prize, she said, “The green lettering is cool, though—very vibrant.”

  “Irony strikes again,” I laughed.

  Calliope squinted, confused.

  “I’m colorblind.”

  “Shut up!” she said. “You’re really colorblind?” With a skeptical look, she pointed to a tight, teeny-weeny tube top under her other shirt. “What’s this?”

  “A headband? Horribly misplaced?” I grimaced.

  Calliope scowled, but her curiosity superseded her anger. “What about this cab? What color is it?”

  “Yellow,” I said.

  She shook her head. “That was a stupid question, wasn’t it?” I told her what I knew. “Cabs are yellow, the sky is blue, and money is green,” I said, winking as I looked down at our bag stashed with cool green cash.

  When I looked up, a Ford Taurus was driving right next to us. I noticed it because the two men in it kept staring at me through the window. One was thin and lanky, the other thick and stocky. Both wore bad Bill Cosby sweaters with the sleeves scrunched up, circa 1985, and they had something else in common: raging mullets.

  And excessive body hair. When we stopped at a light, they rolled down their windows, resting their forearms so I could see them: dark, curly hair. And in the same spot on both of their right wrists, they wore identical watches. Even from my lousy vantage point, I could make out what the watches looked like because they were three times the size of a normal watch, and the design featured the two colors I could see: black and white. Two matching Yin-Yang watch-faces.

  Every time I looked in their direction, they flashed apish grins and imitated whatever I was doing. When I lowered my head, they lowered theirs. When I squinted, trying to get a better look at them, it was like looking in the mirror, except instead of seeing myself, I saw two grown men, staring back at me, mimicking my facial expressions with alarming perfection.

  When the light turned, they drove ahead of us a bit, and I saw something unforgettable: Fitting snugly around their license plate was a substantial, almost cartoonish metal border with the names Mono and Clyde engraved. I suddenly wondered if traveling with an exotic dancer was such a good idea. I had no idea who they were, so I wondered if they were stalking Calliope.

  “Cal, you know those two guys in that car?”

  She shrugged. “I only recognize men in the dark.”

  At the next stoplight, the driver jumped out and came over to my window. I closed my eyes, thinking I was about to get shot, but I opened them when I heard Calliope say, “What’s that?”

  When I opened my eyes, their car was gone, and Calliope was pointing at a small business card taped to the outside of my window.

  Shit! They were after me, just when I was starting to enjoy uncomplicated dying. Phase One? How many phases were there?

  Calliope shook her head. “Man, those Jehovah’s Witnesses are getting more aggressive every day.”

  I tucked the card in the pocket where I’d been keeping my to-do list. “We almost there?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” she said, pointing to her apartment building. After she paid the driver from our stash, we got out of the cab and walked over to the front entrance, where she stopped briefly and said, “I’m gonna run up. I’ll be just a sec.” Presumably, I was to watch our bag of money.

  Within a few minutes, she bolted through her apartment lobby doors, carrying a single piece of luggage and dangling car keys in the sultry Vegas air. She looked like she’d been ready for years. “Are you ready to fly, my little chickadee?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a confident smile.

  Grabbing my hand, she escorted me over to a series of storage garages. When we got to the third one, I said, “If you have a dead body in there, does this make me an accomplice?”

  Calliope struggled to lift the unwieldy metal garage door, which was dented near the handle and difficult to budge. “Sorry, I don’t get in here very often.” After some finagling, she lifted the door to reveal the surprise of the day.

  I’d never been interested in cars, but even before she removed the large sheet of canvas, I was intrigued. I had deduced that she wouldn’t cover a lame car with a tarp, and I was right. She peeled off the cover.

  “Wow,” was all I could say
.

  Calliope’s smirk was proud. “You said we needed wheels.” With a curtsy, she added, “Our chariot, Ms. Spector.” She paused. “It’s orange.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked like a proud mother when she unveiled it. “Isn’t it to die for?” she said with a wink.

  I could only describe it as … morbidly cool.

  TEN

  It was a dazzling automotive wonder—vintage, mint-condition, stylish, functional.

  “It’s a hearse,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. I had been kidding about the dead body, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Yes, but I refer to it as a coach, as in a funeral coach. The term hearse is passé among true collectors.”

  Coach or hearse, I didn’t think I’d be riding in one quite so soon. When I peeked in the spotless window, I saw an interior so immaculate that I envisioned former passengers keeping busy by buffing chrome handles and polishing leather. The white sidewall tires didn’t have a speck of dust on them, and looked like the only miles they’d seen were the drive off the car lot. The paint had that new-car glossy sheen, and turned iridescent when the sunlight hit it just right.

  “Pumpkin-spice orange,” Calliope said as I slid my hand over the smooth surface of the driver’s door. I could’ve sworn I heard Herb and his trumpets.

  Her eyes appeared dreamy for a moment. “That’s the official color name. When I was in eighth grade, my dad got sick—he asked me to paint it to his specifications before he took his ‘big ride into the sunset,’ as he phrased it.” Calliope laughed. “My mother hated this thing. She wouldn’t let him paint it anything but black while he was alive, and made him park it at our local church so no one would think it was ours.”

  When I went to the back side door, it opened toward the rear instead of the front.

  “Suicide doors,” Calliope explained.

  “I’ll have to remember that,” I responded with a half-smile, visualizing someone hurtling onto the highway at sixty miles per hour, bouncing her way to a grisly death. With that image, I silently rated death-by-suicide-door at the bottom of my list, but a possible alternative if I suddenly became desperate.