Cannibals                

               Red finally understands God's plan for her. It is her calling to be serving drinks at this bar. It was pure divine intervention that led her here. God pushed her on the path towards this place, towards Vick and Fee. She just needed time to learn how to listen, to heed the call. Her parents don't understand yet. Don't know she has changed, that her metamorphosis has begun. They think cocktail waitresses are sad, sad people. Whores. Her younger sister went to live in the mountains in Austria. She became a nun in the Carmelite Order. This was what her parents wanted. Their daughters exist to serve God. At eighteen, her sister understood her destiny. Her sister understands how to listen. In her letters she writes that she can feel God in the mountain breezes, she can drink straight from the running streams. It is as close as you can get to the ecstasy of heaven on Earth. Not like Long Island. Ronkonkoma is riddled with negative energy. Children get cancer from playing in the snow because the inhabitants only go to church when it suits them. They don't listen when God calls for them. You have to hear God whispering to you, her sister says. Listen. If you’re listening closely, you can hear Him everywhere.              

              Ten years ago, Red took the Long Island Railroad one way to the city. Her parents call every Saturday night at midnight right before mass to tell her she can still be forgiven. Every Saturday night Red’s mother asks her if she knows, if she understands, God’s plan. Red is thirty-five years old. They tell her she can still be a good person, it’s not too late. She can still redeem herself -- get married, have children, be a good citizen. Devote herself to God and country. There is still time. Her sister is thirty and she’s had all her questions answered -- she moved to a convent in the mountains, she married Jesus. When her time comes, she will go to Heaven. She will be ready. Because Red still needs to be reminded every Saturday night that God forgives, she will not.              

               Her parents refuse to call her by her new name. They say it adds to her deviant lifestyle and they won’t contribute to her circling the drain. If she went by her God-given name, she wouldn’t be waitressing in a bar. Vick has always called her Red. He lets it roll right off his tongue.Vick, the Vick Rumble, the former model and her boss, the night manager and head bartender, says she’s been behaving like a true redhead lately. Moody and sullen and unpredictable. He wants her to go back to being the Red he knows, the Red he met when he hired her years ago. And if she wants to know why he hasn’t approached her for sex that much lately, if she’s curious at all, it’s because she’s been very difficult to get along with, and frankly, he just doesn’t have the time or the patience for withdrawn cranky girls.

He says she’d better cheer the fuck up or he’ll replace her.       

                 The night she left for the city, her parents didn’t want to let her go. Twenty-five years old then and she hadn’t left her parents’  house in her whole life for more than a night at a girlfriend’s in high school. No college. Couldn’t afford it and she didn’t care anyway. Working in retail, shoes and bags, helping her parents pay the bills. Every Saturday night and Sunday morning at church, going on a date with a nice young man once in a while. All the Catholic boys in Ronkonkoma are the same. Her sister having visions, sleepwalking, crying in the night, dreaming of Austria. Her sister was leaving, going to the place where she could connect with her destiny, it was time for Red to leave too. She was going to the city no matter what they said.  She’d work retail, shoes and bags, live in a bright, cramped, noisy apartment. She wanted to be far from her parents’ house, far from the darkness in the Ronkonkoma split level ranch illuminated only by the flickering television set. Her mother praying all night, her mother and father fighting, crying, fighting with her, whipping her, praying for her soul. Twenty-five years was enough.

              Her parents were firm believers in punishment. Severe consequences for insubordination. Discipline was very important to them. They were physically strong people, experts with the belt and the whip. They said they only did it when absolutely necessary. Her sister never suffered at their hands. She took care of it herself, cutting her arms and hands, bleeding herself. She said it made her feel better, closer to a deeper understanding. Red should appreciate punishment. Ancient rituals are comforting. Her sister’s wrists and forearms were often sliced to ribbons. She had soft uncertain scabs forming and breaking, too weak from the continuous cutting. Her face slack and peaceful. Her parents were in awe of her sister’s determination, her persistence, her obsessions. Red was punished often. Being sullen, withdrawn, moody, picky, cranky, crazy -- all sins of the highest order.  The saints understood personal sacrifice, Christina, her mother said.

               Wanting to leave them wasn’t in their plans. They wanted her to know that she was never too old for hard-learned lessons. But she was all packed, ticket in hand, waiting to leave until after dinner. She couldn’t leave until after dinner. In their house it was always their rules, and if they weren’t finished with dinner, nobody was. Nothing could happen until they were finished. The world stopped, time stood still. Her father shoved piece after piece of pumpernickel in his mouth. Her mother didn’t remove the bread basket or the soup tureen knowing that her husband would spread butter on each piece before devouring the loaf with bowl after bowl of homemade soup. It was time for her parents to move into the living room, turn on a movie and settle in for the night, coffee and pie time, but they refused. They sat before their endless meal, her mother drank black coffee from a huge mug, her entire face disappeared into it each time she took a sip. Her mother sighed, her face betrayed nothing. Red always thought her mother’s eyes were shut to her, she was cut off from the understanding and devotion that lay within. Now she knows she only had to let go and her mother’s eyes would open wide and invite her in. Her father’s eyes were glazed and puffy. Empty. She sat for a couple of hours at the kitchen table, waiting and waiting, listening to the dripping of the broken sink, her father breathing shallowly through his nose as he ate, wheezing through his second, third, and fourth meal, missing train after train. Until finally, her hands numb, she called a cab and walked out.  Her father dozed, his head thrown back, her mother’s tight mouth set in place. She refused to talk to her, look at her.

              Years later, late one night, she told Vick this story. She was naked and he was connecting her freckles with the tip of his finger. This was something he loved to do. He didn’t want her to speak when he did it, didn’t want her to tell stories, he just wanted her to lie there and let him put her together like a puzzle. He shook his head, clucked his tongue, put one hand over her mouth to shut her up, and said -- how fucking pathetic.

              Red knows how her parents feel about her life, she knows they talk to their church friends.

             Christina is still in Manhattan, can you believe it, after all this time? We were certain it was just a phase! Christina is still tending bar, whoring, whatever she’s doing. Christina doesn’t understand that she can have a nice life , that it doesn’t have to be this way. They say -- Holy Sister Mary Margaret Catherine is doing so well in Austria.! She’s learning German and Latin, visiting small rural villages to feed the poor children, comfort the lonely, tend to the infirm.

               Vick Rumble was a somewhat popular fashion model. Red doesn’t know how old Vick is now, doesn’t know when his birthday is, she can never get a straight answer from him. He was a tabloid favorite, a party boy. He dated a lot of models, a few actresses, and, most notably, Fee Jones, for a long time -- two, three years. He almost married her, bought her a hundred thousand dollar ring. Then he found her having sex with some guy, just some random guy she picked up in an uptown bar, just some guy in a suit. Maybe a computer programmer or a pharmaceutical salesman. Turned out she did it all the time. Everybody knew but Vick.              

              But Red didn’t know who he was when she first saw him. She found out later from a regular at the bar that he was the Vick Rumble, that he was an important man to know on the party scene, that he had quite a history. On her first morning in the city, she walked downtown from the womens’  residence where she was staying, looking for department stores, her resume and her recommendation letters from shoes and bags in hand, and passed Vick sitting outside the bar, lounging, smoking a cigarette, enjoying the day.

               Hey, he said. Hey there, Red.

               He christened her.

               I saw you standing there on the street, he told her years later. I thought about all the girls I interview who are looking for cocktail jobs -- fucking whores -- but you were so small and pale, you looked like you smelled good, I could see your nipples through your shirt. I said to myself -- I want this one. I really wanted to fuck you. You were something to look forward to.

               The first time he said that to her -- whispered in her ear that he wanted to eat her, really devour her whole, she didn’t know what to do.  She just stood there silent, stock still, not breathing or thinking or blinking. He held up her left arm right in front of her, rubbed his hands over it, licked it, nibbled it, bit it, engulfed it.                              

               The day bartender, a tall girl with bobbed hair named Aimee who slept with Vick for a few months before Red showed up, said he was once so fucking gorgeous.              What a shame, what a waste, she said. Cocaine and pills, the same old story that everybody knows. Blah, blah, blah, who cares about him anymore? He was licking it off broken mirrors like a puppy, it was seriously pathetic! His nose had to be rebuilt in the operating room -- actually rebuilt!   Now the only reason why anyone remembers him at all is because he almost married Fee Jones!

              Aimee took her in, made room for her on the floor of her studio apartment. Red started working at the bar, learning from Aimee, from Clare Dixon, one of the cocktail girls, spending the night with Vick, then many nights back at Aimee’s when he brought home other girls from the bar. A year or so later Aimee married John Willis, the Thursday, Friday, Sunday night bartender, moved into his apartment, and left her studio to Red. Now Red spends half the time there and half the time at Vick’s. Fee Jones started coming in the bar a few years ago, pretending at first she didn’t know Vick was the night bartender. Surprise, surprise when she saw him -- they kissed passionately and caught up over drinks. Fee and Vick are friendly now. They hug, share stories, smile at each other.

               Vick has big rough hands with oozy cuts all over his fingertips. Red often tapes his hands before a busy Saturday night like a boxer going into the ring. He jumps around, bouncing on his heels, while she carefully wraps the white tape around his fingers. When she asks him to keep still he tells her that he’s gotta keep moving and feigns punching her over and over again square in the face. He says she cares, she’s the cocktail waitress who cares, and that’s a hard thing to find. He says that the other girls don’t care -- fucking whores -- the other girls don’t understand -- how could they? They’re fucking whores! But she does.

                She’s watched him sleep, knows that he doesn’t just sleep, he falls into a coma. Sometimes his eyes are open, vacant, zombie-like. Bright and shiny with cocaine. She knows when he sleeps like that he’s been doing it again with other girls, sleeping it off. The cocaine wakes him up periodically. He stares at her, rubs his eyes, blows his perfect, rebuilt nose into one of the soft tissues he keeps by his bedside and her bedside just in case. He looks at her with wall eyes, stares at her like he’s never seen her before, then a slow smile of recognition crosses his face and he grabs her hand to kiss it. He curls his fingers around hers and goes back to his deep sleep. He ends up in her bed a lot of nights when he’s been in somebody else’s. He smiles at her, pats her head, takes her chin in his hands and croons, makes up silly little songs with stupid lyrics -- So blue, Red. Your beautiful blue eyes are so blue, Red. You’re my beautiful blue- eyed, redheaded girl, Red. So blue, Red. Blue, Red. Blue. It’s all for you, Red.

             Lately, whenever she has trouble sleeping, she thinks about her wedding dress, the one that’s been waiting for her all her life. She didn’t even know it existed. It was waiting patiently for her to realize just how much she needs it. It revealed itself to her one sleepless night, and she has been fantasizing about it ever since. She can see herself in it so clearly. It is a demure dress, lace up to the neck, down to the wrists, past her ankles, brushing the floor. Her parents need to believe she is a thirty-five year old virgin and she doesn’t want to dispel that myth before her wedding day. Perhaps the dress will transform her. She is breathtakingly beautiful walking down the aisle, the choir singing in perfect harmony. Her parents always told her that in order to be married in the church, she had to find her love for God, for Jesus and Mary. She has to own it. She didn’t understand before. But now she wants to feel it, needs to feel it. She knows she can. God feels very, very close.                             Everyone knows Fee Jones. Red knows this. Everyone reads the tabloids. Fee is not just the actress who was engaged to Vick Rumble, the girl with a taste for simple men, she’s the actress who still shows up in the supermarket tabloids showing her angry red breast implant scars. Although lately they’ve shown her looking sickly, throwing up behind trees and in parking lots, walking in and out and in and out of  doctors’ offices. Fee has been married twice since the incident with Vick. Once to a pretty actor boy and once to a dark-haired investment banker with surprisingly bad teeth. Two divorces, both of them a surprise to Fee. She kept her extracurricular activities under wraps during both of her short-lived marriages . They were sprung on her at the last minute. The pictures of her after each of these incidents were slightly out of focus and embarrassing. Her mouth open, her hands tearing at her hair. She’s done some light porn, some girl on girl action, a few bondage films, but she says she is not proud of it. Fee has a famous topless picture, her nipples just visible through her red hair that hangs down to her stomach. She is cut off at the waist, her lower body not important. She is smiling a subtle little smile. She is more than her beautiful hair, more than just a pinup girl. A framed copy hangs in the manager’s office downstairs. It is signed and kissed by Fee. But lately Fee has been saying that she doesn’t want to be that girl anymore.  She’s found religion, everything is different. She’s become a Catholic, a good Catholic, a great Catholic, not a part-time one like she used to be -- the kind that only goes to church on Christmas and Easter and when on the brink of suicide. Now she kneels until her knees are weak. Now she understands Jesus.

               Some people insist that Fee is dying, there has been talk, whispers, about cancer. Some say they have proof. Some say they stole hair from the floor of her favorite hair salon, her red hair, her signature. They say they gathered up the dry clumps on the floor with their own hands. Fee Jones wears a wig now that she’s sick and dying. Chemotherapy makes her vomit in VIP bathrooms for hours, she’s lost her hair and her will to live. Some say she has definitely been thinking about suicide. Some say the end is near for Fee Jones, she’s beyond any medical help, any surgical intervention. No one knows how they know this. It is obvious that if all the rumors are true, Fee is making a fantastic effort to look happy, she is positively defiant in her happiness. She is still her stunning self. If she is still her stunning self, her hair must still be her own. A wig cannot take the place of a full luxurious head of fiery red hair like Fee’s. Red doesn’t think Fee  looks sick. A little pale, a little tired, nothing serious. She is thin, but Fee is always thin. She’s a professional.  Fee is not filled with tumors, like the rumors say. It’s hard, Fee says. When you’re famous, you’re the focus of so many, many rumors.

               She’s still so fucking hot, Vick says.

               If it’s Saturday night, Vick has an audience. Young men always gravitate towards Vick, they come for the stories, for the girls he attracts, nobody has a problem taking home his leftovers. They still want to hear about Fee Jones.                               I’d still fuck her, Vick says. She’s always been raw meat. Don’t you think, Red?

              Absolutely, Red says.

              Let me tell you something about Red, Vick says to his audience. Red always says yes.

              This happens every week. This is tradition.

              No, I don’t, Red says.

              Yes, you do, Vick says. You always say yes to me. You can’t help yourself. Don’t you think Fee is still fuckable, Red? That she’s still raw meat? If you were a guy, you’d still want to fuck her too? Wouldn’t you?

              Vick holds her tightly, smacks her soundly on the ass.

              Give her a minute, Vick says. She’ll give in.

              You’d still want to fuck her too, he says. Even though she’s getting old. She’s still fucking hot, but she’s not half what she used to be. When I was fucking her? Jesus!

              No, Red says.

              No, you wouldn’t fuck her? Cause she’s old now? I’m going to tell her you said that. I’m going to tell her you said you wouldn’t fuck her because she’s old and not fuckable anymore. You know what, Red? I think that’s really rude, cause you’re not so young anymore either. Soon, no one is going to want to fuck you anymore either. Your day is coming, baby. It’s coming fast. I barely want to fuck you anymore. Do you want me to tell Fee what you said about her?

              No, Red says. That’s not true.

              So you would fuck her, so she is fuckable, Vick says.

              He twists her arm, grabs her around the waist.

              See? he says to his audience. This is how you keep them in line. Everything I say is right, right?

              Yes, Red says finally, squirming away from him. Yes, okay.

              See? Vick says. He lets her go. The audience cheers for Red -- a round of drinks for everyone at the bar.

              She’s been thinking about Vick.  About him and her and their lives and whether he’d ever consider marrying her. A big wedding in a beautiful church during the afternoon so the sunlight comes through the stained glass. The light bouncing off of Vick’s shiny black hair, off of her veil and onto her face when he lifts it up to see her, like for the first time, like they’ve never had sex, they are virgins together again. They’ll explore each other’s faces. Innocent, she’ll look forward to his body because she’ll belong to him. His wife. He’ll put one hand on her cheek, caress it with his fingers. Be dazzled and amazed by her. Be astonished by her. Say he’s always loved her and this marks the beginning of a new life. Everything brand new. Vick is God’s plan for her. After all, they’ve been having sex pretty regularly for six or seven years. She knows how often he sleeps with other girls. She knows he was having sex with Clare Dixon on and off for a few weeks down in the liquor room before Clare’s live-in boyfriend found out and smashed her face in with one of his meaty solid fists. But Vick could stop anytime. Move in with her. Marry her. Clare Dixon doesn’t love him. That’s the truth. Red knows she doesn’t.

              Every Saturday night before midnight, her mother’s disembodied voice comes through from the quiet halls of Our Lady of Pity. Her mother leaves messages on Red’s voicemail that she listens to at work. It’s become her routine. They’re usually short and terse - a reminder about morning services or a Catholic retreat for singles in their late twenties. But on this message her mother’s voice quivers.

              Your sister has joined a long line of ecstatics, she is a stigmatic, her mother says. She’s coming home, she’s on the eleven-thirty out of Vienna, supposed to land here at eight. We are on our way to get her now. We’re going to have to skip mass this week but...

              Your sister, her mother says, pauses and sighs. Has the stigmata. She has only one of the Holy Wounds at this time, her precious hands, but it will only be a matter of time before the other wounds show themselves. It’s real. It’s all real now. Your sister is a special girl, Christina. We always knew in our hearts that your sister has the gift. This is very important, as you might imagine. Your father and I think you ought to consider coming home now. God loves you. Jesus loves you. You can come home, you know. If you come home, we can all be together again during this special time. I know your sister senses your absence.

              Your sister, the Holy Sister Mary Margaret Catherine, has the stigmata, her mother whispers in second message left a little while later. You can really see it, she says. Oh, it was amazing! We were waiting at JFK, her plane was supposed to come in at eight, you know, but it didn’t actually land until almost nine. And they wheeled her out, she’s been in a trance. Such love on that child’s face! Such love, Christina, you can’t really understand until you see her. She shines with it. She’s really glowing, her skin is moist. We saw it. We took her home, set her up in her old bedroom, then she showed it to us. She cried, Christina. We cried. I really want you to think about it. Coming home. Christina, what makes you special? What have you done? This is an opportunity to be as close to a saint as possible. This is your own sister, your own flesh and blood! Christina, you don’t think we know what you are into, what’s going on with you, but we know. God knows. This is an opportunity for you. Don’t let it slip away.

              Vick, Red says.

              What, he says.

              He’s pouring drinks, flirting with a tall blonde girl in a see-through shirt with no bra. Her breasts are small and plump.

              I want to tell you a secret, she says. Come here.

              Vick follows her to a corner of the bar.

              What, he says and runs his hands through her hair.

              I won’t fuck her, he whispers. Promise. Just you. Be nice to me and I’ll just fuck you tonight.

              I’m always nice to you, Red says.

              Okay, he says. We’ll see. You be nice and we’ll see. What’s going on?

              My sister has the stigmata, Red says.

              Your family is fucking crazy, Red, he says. I’m busy.

              No, seriously, Red says. It’s the craziest thing, isn’t it?

              I guess, he says. Go away, I’m busy.

              Vick, she says. She’s got it, she’s home from Austria to see Father Thomas at Our Lady of Pity who’s going to confirm the stigmata and then she’ll be an ecstatic.               Knock it off, Vick says, moving away from her. Or I’ll fuck the blonde girl.                                          

              Only once Red asked -- Do you love me? They were at the bar one busy Saturday night, Vick was pouring a whiskey sour, she was waiting for him to give her change for a twenty. Why are you fucking with me, he said. Whispered. She thought that’s what she heard -- why are you fucking with me--but maybe she didn’t. It was hard to hear. It was loud. He smiled at her afterwards, even though he walked away from her without repeating what he said when she asked him to repeat it. She wanted to hear it again. She could have heard anything, he could have said anything. There are so many possibilities.                                                                                                   Come here, Fee says to Red.

              She walks quickly towards her, out of breath and flushed.

               Come here, she says.

              Fee puts her hand on Red’s left shoulder, guides her down the basement stairs towards the employee’s rooms, the bathrooms, the liquor rooms, Vick’s makeshift office. Places where she’s had sex with Vick. Once she knocked over a couple of tequila bottles and he made her clean it up before he pulled her pants down and pushed her against he wall, she begged him to be quiet, mortified that someone might hear, someone might investigate the situation and find them together. He loved it -- say yes, Red. She’d say yes to the wall and he’d pull her back towards him -- say yes, Red. Say yes to me, to my face.

              Red, I want to show you something, Fee says. Go. In the bathroom.               In the ladies’ room, Fee locks the door, flips the light switch, starts to unbutton her blouse.

              You want to feel it, Fee says. You’re going to be the first one. Well, someone who isn’t one of those quack doctors anyway. I heard about your sister. Please. I need you to concentrate.

              Fee takes off her blouse and her bra, folds them neatly on the side of the sink. She wears a wooden cross around her neck with diamonds studs lining the sides. Fee places both of her hands on her own breasts, squeezes them a little. Then, she takes one of Red’s hands and guides it to the left one.

              They’re fake, she says.

              Yes, Red says. I know.

              She pushes Red’s hand into a lump just to the right of the nipple. It is spongy and warm. The breast itself is hard, almost inhuman, but the lump is very much alive. It pulses. It breathes.

              It’s growing, Fee says. I’ve been praying, but it’s growing.

              Can you feel it, Red asks.

              Everyday it seems to get a little bigger, Fee says. Feel it.

              She pushes Red’s hand harder.

              You have to really concentrate, Fee says. Otherwise, your hand will slip and you’ll hit scar tissue.

              Red closes her eyes. She pushes her palm into the breast and runs her fingers over the lump, pressing into it with her nails, watching the skin turn white and pink and purple and then white again.

              I’ve stopped taking birth control pills, Fee says.

              She pushes Red’s hand away from her breast, pulls on her bra and her blouse.

              I’m forty years old, Fee says. I’ve been taking birth control pills for twenty years. They cause cancer, you know.

              I didn’t know that, Red says.

              Yes, Fee says. They don’t tell you that, but it’s true. They want us sterilized, infertile, empty. That’s what the pills do. So you take them for twenty years, maybe twenty-five. Then, just when you’re ready, just when you think you may be finally ready to have a kid with the only man you’ve ever really loved, you get cancer.  It’s our punishment, we’re being punished for twenty years of little pink and orange pills. And I don’t drink anymore. I go to mass every night. I’m trying to repent.               Okay, that’s good, Red says.

              Do you think I’m shedding,  Fee asks, fixing her hair in the mirror. I think I’m shedding.

              Shedding what, Red says.

              Shedding, Fee says. Cancer cells. I’m contagious. Everywhere I go I’m shedding cancer, all over cabs and street corners and restaurants. Everywhere I go I’m infecting people.

              I don’t think so, Red says. I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

              Well, I do, Fee says. I’m infectious. My cancer breath is infecting everyone.               I don’t think so, Red says.

              Jesus loves me, Fee says, she faces Red, her eyes wet and dark. He really, really loves me. I want to do some coke now.  I don’t have any on me, but I  want it.  But I can’t. Not if  I want Jesus to love me. He won’t love me if I do cocaine. He won’t. But you know what’s great? You know what the greatest part of this is? I want it so bad and I know I can’t have it and I will not let myself get it and I want it. When I can’t take it another second, that’s when I know I’m on the right track, I’m doing it, I’m really doing it and I will recover. If I don’t, if I slip up, he’ll forget me and the tumor will grow.

              Her face glows in the pale orange light.

              Red, I know your secret, she says. But don’t worry, it is safe with me. And I’m so happy for you! Vick told me your sister has the stigmata.

              He told you, Red says.

              It’s okay, Fee says. It’s okay. He only told me after I showed him mine. He called me a crazy bitch, but I really don’t care what he says anymore. See? I have it too. This is how I know I’m going to live.

              She holds up her right hand for Red to see. There is a small cut in the middle of her hand, it is jagged, the skin broken, the surrounding area purple and green. There is a scab forming on it. It is soft and peeling up on the sides.

              See, Fee says.

              Red stares at it. She knows it is not real, cannot be real, not like her sister. She runs a finger over it and Fee shudders a little bit, trembles likes she’s cold. It is a nasty little cut. The blood is clotting.  It is an unclean, uneven cut. Something tore at the skin.                                                                                    

              Amazing, Red says.

              I know, Fee says. I prayed for it and it came. I was feeling the pains. On my forehead, in my palms. My feet. I thought I knew what it was, but it was so much to hope for. It’s what this has all been about. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. I wanted you to touch it. You’re so close to it. Your sister and I have been called by God.                 Everyone wants to know what Fee was like in bed.

              Pretty girls sometimes just lie there, Vick says, holding court. His audience at full attention. But Fee is different. She’s on board, unconventional. There are no rules to follow. She goes someplace else. She snorts. Her eyes are different -- they’re darker, angrier, she  grunts, grabs you, holds on for her fucking life. But after its over she goes back to being herself. Lipstick, breath mints, pink underwear.

              When Fee walks by, the men grin and guffaw.

               I’m off the market now, she says. I’m fucking dying, Vick. Give it a rest.                                                                                            

               In her third message, her mother mentioned that her sister spoke. You know what your sister said, her mother whispered into the phone. We wanted to feed her, she’s so thin. I told her I’d cook her some chicken, maybe some rice too, if she wants it, your sister never really eats, you know, but she didn’t hear me. She just looked at me and said -- Jesus is the answer for the world! Of course, Christina! I’m asking her if she wants chicken, and she says Jesus is the answer for the world! We’re keeping her in her room so she can see her visitors. People are calling from hundreds of miles away, thousands, because they want to see her, need to see her.  She is so beautiful, Christina. Your heart will leap out of your chest when you see her. She’s your sister, Christina. Your flesh and blood is connected to the flesh and blood of Jesus.

                  He’s going to ask her to marry him. He’s going to ask her one night when she least expects it. Just when she thinks they’ve hit a wall. Just when she thinks she has nothing left to say, she’s empty and he’s empty, no words left, no soul, just the same things over and over again between them until the end of time, he’s going to ask her. He won’t say --you want me to fuck you right now, you want it right now? Growling at her. She always said no. Then yes. Because she always said yes. After she gave him permission, he fucked her coldly in the back room with a cheap dry rubber for five minutes or so before pulling away, zipping up his black jeans, bounding up the stairs back to his bar.

                 The night before her sister left for Vienna, Red woke up, her sister sitting on her bed, her filmy blue eyes unfocused, distant. She reached out and touched Red’s hand. Held it gently. Red has no memories of touching her sister before this. Her skin was waxy, flaky. She has no memories of her sister as a baby, as a child. A real child who played with toys and cried when she was hungry. He loves you, Christina, she whispered. Give up and let go. You know you want to. I know you can feel it. Let him love you.

                  Red cherishes the dawn. The Saturday night sky turning pink, the hybrid night-morning when it is still blackish-blue. The Saturday night ritual in Vick’s office -- count the money, restock the liquor, watch the light stream through the small prison window in the corner. It is Sunday morning and it won’t be long before she can sink into sleep, give her whole body up to it. She longs for it. That moment when she lets go.

              Along the walls in the basement are pictures, portraits, of almost everyone who works at the bar. They are paintings from one of the men in Vick’s audience, a Saturday night regular, a skinny man in his late thirties -- not handsome, not married. The lines on his face starting to settle in. An aging boyish face. Shell-shocked to be living with a roommate in a small two-bedroom apartment at almost forty. He is an art teacher in a high school, a sensitive jumpy man half in love with Vick. He did portraits of each of them.Vick, Red, Clare, Aimee, John, Fee, a couple of the other regulars and a few of  the cocktails girls. He is a fair painter, Red never thought the portraits looked much like them. Sort of, if she looked really close. They were more of a cartoon version of their real faces. Vick was barely polite when he accepted them, said thanks, put them behind the bar. Red was surprised when Vick actually hung them on the walls, even if he did hang them where the customers can’t see them. The humidity of the basement walls makes the paintings moist, all of their faces have bumps and wavy lines like they have aged at an accelerated rate since being captured during their youth and hung on the wall. One of Red’s blue eyes has since peeled off. She looked for it on the floor when she discovered it was missing, but the night porter must have swept it away.

              All the men waiting upstairs for Vick are vultures. His regulars, his audience. Vultures. Her sister says that vultures are the devil’s birds. They come sniffing around when they smell rotting flesh, they sense death, they understand the concept of dying, of being left for dead. They love it.  They can smell Fee dying, they can smell her rotting from the inside. Necrophiliacs who want to own her body before and after her death. They want to taste her then devour her whole. Her sister told her about the dangers of cannibalism. She said -- you are eating part of God, God created us, Jesus gave himself to us. His body was his gift to us. Body and soul. We should not consume the body, we should not let ourselves be consumed. She spoke about holy rituals and the consumption of the human body. An eternity with the devil. Insanity.                            

              Down by the liquor rooms, the offices, the employee bathrooms, Vick’s office, Red hears a woman’s strangled voice gurgling and choking, heavy breathing from damaged lungs, the slamming of hands on the walls. She hears sounds, brief phrases - “want it” and “do you” and “tell me” and “tell me”  and “crazy” and “Felicia,”  and she wonders and then is certain who Felicia is  - Vick’s voice calling Fee Jones by her proper name, Felicia Bundy. Red reads the tabloids, she knows her real name. It’d be silly to assume Vick wouldn’t know Fee’s real name. After all, they were going to be married so long ago and he bought her that ring and maybe he even had her real name, Felicia,  engraved on it just to remind her that she’d always be her real self to him, that he could see beyond the nonsense and Fee Jones and see Felicia Bundy underneath. Maybe Fee didn’t want him to see her and that’s why she gave in again and again to her habit of taking home young fragile men in new expensive suits.               The door is open. Vick never closes his office door. Never has anything to be ashamed of. He thinks only guilty people shut doors. He is proud. Proud of himself. He keeps his door wide open. Red stands right in front of them. They are naked. Vick bites Fee’s hand, her left arm right up to her shoulder, swallowing the whole thing. It is the bad arm connected to the bad breast. The arm is rotting underneath even though it appears healthy, pink, warm. He touches the breast with his lips, nibbles it, takes large chunks of it in his mouth, in his teeth. They don’t look up. They don’t see her. She watches them. They kiss violently.

                She watches Vick, her boss, her savior. She lets him fuck her in his office. This office. Her sister warned her. You can’t see God’s plan for you if you are being consumed by vultures. But Red can see it anyway. She knows she can. God’s plan. It doesn’t matter what Vick asks of her, Red has always said yes. She is obedient, faithful, loyal, true -- all virtues of the highest order. She will be a good wife. Vick is God’s plan for her. She can see it even if the vultures, the devil’s birds, are right here in the bar where she has found salvation. This is God’s plan for her. She wants God to feel close. Very, very close. Her sister, back in Ronkonkoma, holding up her stigmata trying to heal her sister who has been consumed by vultures. Red will tell her sister that it worked. Red knows, her vision is clear. Do what I tell you, Vick says. Be a good girl.

              She is, finally, a good girl.

              If only Vick would open his mouth wide enough for her, she’d climb right in. Not the way he’s devouring Fee Jones, the way her cancer is devouring her, bit by bit. He’ll swallow her whole and she’ll live inside him forever.