As Republicans attempt to further the lie that they are bringing democracy around the world, convention organizers are doing everything in their power to silence dissenting voices at home. The FBI has been questioning activists across the country--and drawing up lists of people who it thinks may know about possible violence.--
Socialist WorkerAnd then, all of a sudden, the long night was over. The music grew softer, the ashes slowly collapsed upon the fire. The cold reintroduced itself to the room like a vampire—leaving my naked neck and shoulders feeling exposed. Somebody gave me a fine lambs wool jacket that smelled like a rich old man and sent me up the creaky, winding stairs, past the green lit bathroom with the funny toilet and into the hall of rusted, garage sale mirrors, the floor at my feet lined with orange hippy throw rugs and funky stone statuettes.
“There’s something weird about this place,” I thought to myself, as chill after chill ran up my back. It was possible I was getting sick, maybe from a combination of half-cooked lamb and the freezing temperatures in the middle of the summer.
“You’re sleeping up here,” said the good friend of the host who's task it was to lead me to the master bedroom. Her bleached, punk rock hair went well with her round pixi face. Too bad she was wearing a fashion victim Brooklyn Industries mock turtle neck. She probably loved anime and hung out in the east village at bars like The Library.
She got on her toes and pulled down an extra pillow from the top shelf of an imposing wooden wardrobe. The corners were plated with brass and the handles on the drawers hung from scary clown lion faces that were expertly carved into the wood.
“Here’s one for your friend,” she said, tossing a glowing white pillow onto the bed.
“Who?” I said, suddenly wide awake.
“What friend?”
“Why, TRUE, of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The gal you came here with.”
“Listen,” I said, reaching for my flip-flops . “That’s OK, but I’m fine with sleeping downstairs, on the floor. Or maybe I’ll go outside—are there any more sleeping bags?”
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head and placing her hand on my shoulder. She had wrinkles but her glassy eyes were filled with excitement, like a newborn pup.
“It’s OK. It’s decided. You guys have got the upstairs. T. wants you to be comfortable. You’re his guests. It’s coooool, OK?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, wearily.
At that moment TRUE threw open the door and stumbled through the bedroom wearing a long red cape, a sparkling red tiara and a horrifying ceramic rainbow hair clip that she used to pin back her bangs.
“Darlings!” she crooned, batting her eyelids like crazy before falling onto the bed, where she lay on her stomach and coughed her brains out.
“Mmmmm…sounds real good!” The pixi girl said. She tugged gently on her lip ring as she watched TRUE jerking spasmodically on the bed.
“CrrrCrrrr da fekkkkinssas,” TRUE slurred.
“What?”
TRUE coughed some more. The tops of her ears were bright red.
“I can’t understand you,” reported the pixi girl.
TRUE gave one last hard cough and hacked up something that seemed to make it stop.
She pulled out a handkerchief and spat neatly. Then she propped her head up on one elbow and peered at the pixi girl with half closed eyes.
“I
said, ‘Mind your own goddamn business.”
Her voice was so deep, and she spoke so matter-of-factly, (a tone it had taken her several years to master) that there was little for the pixi girl to do but quietly accept what she said.
“Sterl, listen, do you think you can help me take down that sick ass Japanese sword that’s over the mantle? I wanna ride one of the bikes through town with the cape and the sword. I wanna be like…” She leapt up on the bed and struck a pose like a surfer. She extended one arm as though it held a sword and grimaced angrily. The tiara slid to one side. Her jeans were covered in dirt and leaves.
She danced and hopped around like a lunatic. Then she started singing:
"Standing on the beach there's a gun in my hand
The sea is on my left
the blah blah blah
i'm alive...
and dead!
and this stranger...
killing an ARAB!"The pixi girl was laughing her head off, apparently already over the slight she’d received. That was how it was with TRUE, though. She was who she was and she didn’t pretend to be someone else. It didn’t make her nice but it made her authentic, which—take it from me—is a pretty addictive thing to be around.
“I’ll be like, dah-dah-dah-dadadaaaaaaaaaah!” TRUE sang, giving her stoned and drunk rendition of the “evil schoolteacher/witch on her bike” song, from the Wizard of OZ.
She collapsed back onto the bed and pulled the cape around herself. She yanked off the tiara and the rainbow clip and gave her hair a shake. Then she coughed some more.
“I think I have to be naked under the cape though,” when she was able to speak again.
“You and I are sleeping in this bed,” I informed her.
“Ferrrrrrreal?” she smiled and sat slowly back against the headrest.
“How lovely,” she produced a cigarette from somewhere and lit it.
“And what about you, sweetheart,” she said to the pixi girl. “Are you going to join us? It’s a pretty small bed but i'm sure we can make room.”
“No, that’s OK, I’m sleeping in a tent outside. With my boyfriend,” the pixi girl said. She was blushing and pulling on her lip ring again.
“Are you sure,” TRUE said, throwing a playful look to me out of the corner of her eye. “It might rain, you know…maybe you should invite him up here too…where it’s high and dry, know what i’m sayin?”
“Um, well, right…” the pixi girl looked at TRUE with dazzled eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and she kept giggling. Yet she insisted over and over she had to go, and eventually she did. Scooping up a dirty glass to take down with her and reminding us again that she was just outside, “in the green camoflauge army tent.”
“OK sweetie, you got it!” TRUE said. She gave a snort and laughed as soon as the door closed behind her.
“As opposed to all of those
other tents out there in the garden.”
She ran her hand through her hair like a movie star.
“Well, you never know,” I said, holding my hand out for the cigarette. "We are out in the middle of nowhere."
"Agreed," she said, as she passed it to me.
“But still there are so many things in this house I so totally want to steal.”
“Really? Not me, man. All this old stuff gives me a weird vibe. Where did you get the costume?”
“In this old chest of T’s. He’s so gay. The way he’s all into me make it even more obvious.”
“Right.” It was always the same. I took another drag on the cigarette.
“He totally felt my ass when we up there, going through the old outfits.”
“What do you mean?” I said, outraged.
“I mean he walked by and copped a feel.”
“What the fuck—what did you do?”
“Nothing. I pretended it didn't happen. Why? What’s the big deal?”
“
What's the big deal???…”
“Shh! Wait!”
“What?”
“I thought someone was at the door."
Now it was my turn to flirt:
"They're probably hoping to catch us in the act."
"Yeah, right...listen, are we going to shut the light off or what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, as something twisted in my stomach.
“Are you scared up here?”
“A little,” I admitted, unable to look her in the eye. It was usually the other way around, I was the rock and she played the part of the last leaf left, trembling on the branch.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said in a soothing voice. Her right eye went a little off to the side, as it does when she’s calm or thinking or about to pass out.
She stood up and spread her arms. The cape fell across the lamp and turned the room red.
She looked like moses, or a gothed out mother mary.
"The time is nigh, my child," she said, in a wise and holy voice.
"I know," I said. For some unknown reason my voice choked up with tears.
"We don't have no time for your cryin," she admonished, before dropping her arms and giving in to a coughing fit.
"Fuck this shit," she said, and spat into the wastepaperbasket. She pulled off the cape and leant over to shut off the lamp.
I watched her sillhouette as she opened her jeans and stepped slowly out of them.
"Fuck being a superstar."
war is RAWsiq-1
more reservoir than tarantino.
