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The spotlight belongs on Portia Control. For tonight’s final number, she takes the stage wearing the highest hair in recorded history. Her wigs are always an event, but this creation is most enthralling—a leaning tower three units tall, generous scoops of pistachio green. Loyal patrons of the bar brace for disaster, place their bets on whether the stacked wigs will fall. But Portia is no amateur. She works magic with spirit gum and bobby pins. Tonight, she is the fantasy, rhinestoned to death in her thrift store dress. No one can tell her otherwise.
The other queens are notorious outfit repeaters, worshippers of stretch fabric. They trot out their faithful standbys, the crowd-pleasing numbers they know will get wallets out of pockets. They don’t perform. They do laps around the bar, kissing cheeks, collecting dollar bills from drunk bachelorettes. At curtain call, they return to the stage a parade of half-drag. One of them, a newly minted queen whose name Portia has already forgotten, wears a T-shirt advertising the Iron Pit Gym—at curtain call!—and then the show hostess, a queen named Dawn Deveraux, emerges from backstage wearing flip-flops. It’s no wonder Dawn must remind the audience to applaud. On the mic, Dawn is a kindergarten teacher, pleading with her students to form a line. There are drink specials that Dawn needs to repeat—the vodka that nobody can stand is now only two dollars; Boozy Bottoms are half off—but the spotlight ignores Dawn and searches for Portia instead. Twenty minutes have passed since Portia’s last number, the one where she breathlessly lip-synced the side effects from a pharmaceutical commercial, and still the wigs sit heavy on her head, defying the laws of physics. Below the neck Portia wears a new look just for curtain call, a houndstooth overcoat the audience hasn’t seen before and will never see again.
After the curtain closes, the queens stream onto the dancefloor, choking the air with their department store perfumes. Portia cannot understand why these queens are treated as minor deities. Worshippers flock to them with offerings of well liquor and gas station cigarettes. Portia won’t accept such gifts. Her taste is far too particular. She drinks lemon drops out of champagne flutes. For her ceremonial post-show cigarette, she only smokes Fantasias, the luxury brand that comes in bright colors she can coordinate with her lip—cherry red, strawberry-milkshake pink. Any sensible queen knows that the performance doesn’t stop when you leave the stage. There is still an audience watching, even in the alley behind the bar, where Portia smokes next to the graffiti that reads BE GAY DO CRIME.
That’s where the new boy finds her, the new boy operating the spotlight. He has no theatrical experience, nor was he given any formal training, only this suggestion by Dawn an hour before the show began: “It’s a light. You take it, and you move it around.” But the spotlight moved of its own accord. The new boy swears this. The light is simply drawn to Portia.
She rewards the new boy for his flattery with a drag on her cigarette. Shivering in his corduroy jacket, he accepts readily, as if the cigarette might bring him warmth. “I’ve never done lights before,” he says. “Did I do okay?” His jacket has a fur collar, but in no way is it appropriate for winter. Portia feels a sudden motherly stirring. The jacket, she estimates, is at least a size too large for him. In the jacket, he looks like a child playing in Daddy’s closet.
“You were pretty good for a virgin,” Portia says.
A new song starts playing inside the Closet, the bump and grind favorite that comes on every Friday and Saturday when the party reaches its peak. The throb of bass is so heavy it shakes the whole block. “I bet the twinks are going wild in there,” she says. “Sucking down their vodka sodas. What is it about being skinny and hairless that makes you order vodka soda?”
The new boy laughs. “I love your name, by the way,” he says. “So funny. Portia Control! I kept cracking up.”
“Why?” she says. “What’s funny about it?”
“It’s. Ummm.”
“It’s what?” She takes pleasure in watching him squirm. She is having fun with this new boy. They are having fun together, both of them.
“Well,” he says, “uh, you know—”
“I’m kidding,” she says. “I’m messing with you. Yes, I’m a big girl. That’s the joke.”
“It’s hard to tell. If you guys are joking.”
“Guys?”
“Ladies. Gorgeous ladies.”
“That’s better.”
Holiday lights twinkle down where the alley meets College Ave. Christmas is over—New Year’s, too—but the city is in no rush to put away its decorations, and while some people might find this tacky, Portia can appreciate it. What’s so wrong with keeping that festive mood going long enough to see them through the winter?
She realizes she is staring at the new boy’s jaw, the empty threat of his stubble. For how long has she been staring? She can’t remember. She says, “Have you ever thought about doing drag? You have the face for it.”
“Yeah?”
“Cheekbones,” Portia says, “are very important.”
The new boy considers this. He finds a wall to lean against, strikes a pose that says I, an intellectual, am considering cheekbones. To complete the look, he takes a long drag on her cigarette. The smoldering end burns red, burns orange, bright bursts of color in the January gray. “Your name’s Dustin, right?” he says.
“I’m Portia,” she says.
“Yeah, but like, your actual name.”
“I don’t do government names. I hear that enough out in the real world. Don’t make me live in the real world any more than I already have to.”
The new boy takes one last sip of the cigarette. “I’m Miguel,” he says, and passes it back to her, but the greedy little thing has left her nothing but ash.
She invites him over to keep her company while she does her stoning for tomorrow night’s show. It’s a long and lonely process, applying rhinestones to fabric, but just how long she keeps to herself. She does, however, issue the requisite warning about the E6000 fumes upon their arrival at her apartment. She believes those fumes have mind-altering properties. You have to take a break every hour or so, step away from the glue and fill up on fresh air.
At Portia’s apartment, overhead light is forbidden, its cruelty toward drag queens well-documented. Lamplight is kinder, more flattering, and a lamp is yet another object Portia can adorn with fringe and beads. To someone who has never stoned before, her apartment with its low light and scattered syringes probably looks like the den of a heroin addict, but the truth is much sadder—she’s a drag queen who buys secondhand and spangles every garment herself. Portia visits the women’s section at Vintage Wearhouse so often that the cashier who merely cocked his eyebrows at her selections in the beginning has started asking questions. Her answer is always that she’s shopping for her homebound mother, her poor mother who likes to dress up in the mirror because it makes her feel alive.
“And he believes that?” Miguel says.
“People like him will believe anything,” she says, “as long as they don’t have to believe queers exist.”
Anyway, Vintage Wearhouse is a crapshoot. Only sometimes is their selection worth the homophobia. Where Portia most reliably strikes gold is estate sales. None of the other queens at the Closet will shop a dead woman’s wardrobe. They find the practice morbid; they prefer to sew their four-way stretch swimsuits and serve the same look week after week. Portia’s standards are higher. Whenever a big girl croaks, Portia is there to rifle through her closet. That’s how she found the houndstooth coat, the coat. Does Miguel remember it? Of course he remembers it; Portia says so before he has the chance to respond. Even if her haul is not up to par, even if she comes home from a sale with trash, it doesn’t matter. Portia knows how to make trash look good.
Miguel is newly twenty-one, a student at the university enrolled in a full slate of business classes. Majoring in business—that was his dad’s idea, he says, not his. It is the most essential of the strings attached to his dad’s offer to help pay his tuition. His dad works in landscaping. He and a team of four other brown men are shuttled around the Indianapolis suburbs in the back of a pickup truck to plant flowers for white people with money to burn. This has been his father’s workday for nearly twenty years now. Miguel will make something more of himself—thus, business! Miguel will not spend his life down on his knees.
“Your dad is right,” Portia says. “I’ve spent a good chunk of my adult life on my knees, and I regret every minute of it.”
“Ha ha,” Miguel says.
“Does he know?”
“About what?”
“Your appreciation of artisanal meats.”
“I think so. But if I don’t say it out loud, we can go on pretending. And as long as we keep pretending, he’ll keep covering tuition.”
“So this is a long con,” Portia says. “You’re scamming him. Look, as a rule, I respect the hustle, but in this instance, I’m not sure.”
“It’s not a scam.”
“Sounds like one to me.”
“A degree in business can take you anywhere.” Look how precious he is, trying to believe his own line. He gnaws on the skin around his thumbnail, his teeth as square as a woodland creature’s.
“The longer you put off telling him,” Portia says, “the harder it’s going to be. I’ll just say that.”
“Thanks for your input,” Miguel says, “but it’s fine. I’ll be fine, Mom.”
“Not Mom. I’m not that old yet.”
“Tell that to your hairline,” he says quietly, as if already apologizing for it.
Here is a lesson Portia learned years ago—you can get away with being rude and nasty if there’s a twinkle in your eye. Miguel’s eye has no such twinkle.
“Was that okay to say?” he says. “Your hairline really isn’t that crazy.”
“Oh, stop. No backpedaling!” She gives him full permission to read her into the dirt. Nothing is off-limits, save for her government name, which is not to be repeated. “So,” she says, “where were we? My hairline. Go on. Destroy me.”
He needs to know the backstage gossip if he’s going to work with the queens up close. Has he heard about the amateur porn? The oldest queen at the Closet makes amateur porn with her two mustachioed lovers. She is the cabaret singer, the queen with the terrible, caked-on makeup. Miguel nods as in yes, the terrible one, I remember. You can look up the terrible one on PornHub, where she and her Super Mario boyfriends have a decent following. Portia can show him right now if he wants.
“I think I’m good,” he says.
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” Portia says. “I’ll send you a link. Homework for next time.”
The biggest story is Dawn, the show hostess. Dawn is mother to nearly a dozen Deveraux girls, several of whom—this is not to be repeated—have sucked her toes in exchange for bookings. Dawn is going through a divorce and milking it for all it’s worth. The divorce is her excuse for repeating stale material on the mic: I’m a little distracted right now. Maybe you heard? Miguel should avoid friending her on Facebook, where she posts only photos from the latest furry convention or mopey updates about how quiet her house is now. Never mind that Dawn was out on the dance floor every Saturday night slobbering all over some local twink, back when things at home were bliss. These days she hovers near the bar after her shows, collecting pity drinks. Meanwhile, her husband—“A total sweetheart,” Portia says, “he worshipped her, the dumb fuck”—has been banned from entering the Closet ever again. Dawn made sure of it.
Miguel says, “Is that true about Dawn’s toes? You’re for real?”
“Oh yes,” Portia says. “Those little piggies get around.”
“That’s nasty.”
“Foot stuff isn’t nasty. Dawn is nasty. Let’s get that much straight. We don’t kink-shame in this house.”
He asks her what his drag name is. He does not ask what his drag name might be or could be. In Miguel’s mind, it seems, there is a right answer, one that Portia is uniquely qualified to intuit. And perhaps she is. Portia will play the role of drag prophet. She will do her best to communicate with the showgirl in his subconscious.
“Her name is Chiquita,” Portia says. “Like the banana.” For her signature number, Chiquita would do a bit of burlesque in a yellow dress with marabou trimming. The dress would be built to be torn away; it would peel in four different places: neck, shoulder, back, shoulder. Portia points to those places on her body, miming a little striptease.
Miguel objects to this moniker. The name, the whole concept—it all sounds like a crude stereotype to him, the exotic Latina covered in fruit.
“That’s drag, babe,” Portia says. “Stereotypes and stupidity. You have to own it. You take the dumb shit people say to you, and you wear it like armor.” She has been stoning her gown, her armor, for hours now, an effort she can count in calluses. The night has slipped away, and light begins to filter through her velveteen curtains. Still, the garment barely glimmers.
She asks Miguel if he has any advice for her on how to manage her money, and he says, “You’re a drag queen, you don’t have any money,” which stings, but it’s the truth. In the daytime, Portia works at a cellphone store, convincing townies to upgrade to unlimited plans they don’t need. She won’t tell Miguel which store it is; Portia isn’t meant to be seen in the world of strip malls. She makes decent money in the realm of lanyards and slacks, but that income goes to her drag closet. Portia is a costly venture that has not yet yielded profit. Portia is a long-term investment.
“In other words, you’re going to be broke for a while,” Miguel says. Nothing wrong with that. Miguel is, too. For months he had a steady gig working the line at Build-a-Bowl, but just after New Year’s, Miguel showed up five minutes late to a lunch shift, and his manager told him he should go home and reflect on his issues with authority. In his file—this mythical file, often referred to yet never seen—there are multiple strikes against him, complaints describing him as uncooperative and lazy. So claims the day manager. All the managers there are white. Everybody else who works there is white, actually, and none of them have ever been told they have an attitude problem. Only Miguel.
“That place is fucked up,” he says. “A Philly cheesesteak bowl, that is such a fucked-up concept. But the tips are good. The tips are so good, you don’t even know.”
“Tips are great,” Portia says, “but let’s not neglect the shaft.”
“Um, yeah.”
“I was trying to make a joke.”
“I’m describing racism. What about that is funny to you?”
“I believe you were describing a Philly cheesesteak.”
“Fuck off,” he says, but actually, this is her house, so if anything, he should be the one to fuck off. He shifts in his chair like he is signaling his intention to leave. He slides an arm into a jacket sleeve, but slowly, tentatively, a burlesque in reverse. She suspects he’s bluffing. In the event that he isn’t, certainly he has fumbled the opportunity to make an impactful exit.
“Sorry,” Portia says. “I guess the joke didn’t land.”
“I’d like to speak to whoever cleared it for takeoff,” Miguel says.
The next night, they show up to the Closet together an hour before showtime. Portia carries her triple-stack wig on a mannequin head. Miguel, ever the gentleman, lugs Portia’s suitcase, which is no easy feat. The suitcase weighs at least thirty pounds. It is packed with her costumes for the night—a different outfit for each of her numbers, and of course, a last look for curtain call that is stoned within an inch of its life.
Outside the bar, stationed as close to the entrance as is legally possible, is a street evangelist in a crisp white polo, his flesh pink and wet like smoked ham. This man has been accosting the queens for years, condemning them to hell for as long as Portia has been doing drag. A venue will close, a new one will pop up in its place, and Mr. Ham will be there to let them know that they are sluts, they are whores, they are Satan’s foot soldiers in the cosmic war between good and evil. Tonight, as Portia and Miguel roll past, he barks, “Abomination! God sees this perversion and frowns upon you.”
Portia says, “I like to think so,” and blows the man a little kiss.
Miguel scurries along like a frightened rabbit. To him, the man’s words strike like hate, but Portia doesn’t see it that way. For a man to inquire about the state of her soul and not the state of her hole—that’s love, she says. Anyway, hate and love, they’re both expressions of passion, aren’t they? Portia is blessed to have the most passionate fans in the world.
She arrives at the bar in full face. It isn’t like TV, the queens getting ready together backstage, painting their faces at a row of identical vanities. No—there is room enough for only one mirror, and that mirror belongs to Dawn. The position of show hostess comes with certain perks.
Backstage, Dawn is scrolling through Grindr, dragging French fries through ketchup. “Love your new puppy,” she says to Portia. “You’ve trained him well. All that’s missing is the leash.” She taps a ketchupy fry on her fast-food wrapper like she is stubbing out a cigarette. Dawn wears athletic shorts and a tank top so distressed it looks like a pillowcase. Only Dawn’s face is ready for the stage, and even that, Portia thinks, is debatable. Dawn’s makeup is spray-tan orange. She has carrot undertones.
“Thanks,” Portia says. “He’s a rescue.”
“Who rescued who?” Dawn says.
“Me, obviously. I rescued him.”
Dawn puts down her phone, looks to Miguel. “We’re paying you to run lights,” she says. “You know you don’t have to hang around her, right? It’s not your job.” She chomps a fistful of fries, waiting for him to say something.
What he says is: “I need a drink.” He excuses himself, leaving Portia and Dawn alone backstage.
“Portia Control,” Dawn says, “corrupting America’s youth.” She unzips a garment bag to reveal the same lemon-lime swimsuit she wore last Saturday and the Saturday before.
“He’s a sweet kid,” Portia says. “He just needs some guidance.”
“Just fuck him already,” Dawn says, “and be done with it. That’s what this is all about, right?”
Portia’s showstopper tonight is another estate sale gem—a boatneck dress in Scotch tape tartan, hunter green and navy blue. Draped across her shoulders is a burnt orange boa that curls like a telephone cord all the way down to the sticky bar floor. What is the mood tonight out in the crowd? Portia can’t tell if they want what she’s giving. Perhaps she is stiffer than usual now that she knows who wields the spotlight. But why should that matter? She lip-syncs to a mix of rants by unruly drive-through customers, and the tips are meaningful but sparse. Some nights, she tells herself, she cannot grab the Top 40 crowd. Some nights she is only for the enlightened few.
She leaves the stage before her mix is over. Portia is not a showboat; she is not desperate to soak up every last drop of the audience’s adulation. Backstage, congratulatory messages wait for her on her phone. Miguel, who is out operating the spotlight, has sent a series of gushing texts, along with many exclamation points. KILLED IT!!! HOW ARE DAWN’S TOES TASTING BACK THERE?
SALTY, Portia replies.
After the show, she takes him to the bar to do celebratory shots of Fireball. He asks what they are celebrating, and she says, “Do we need an occasion?”
On the dancefloor, they dance close enough that it’s obvious they are there together, but not so close that they could be mistaken for anything more than friends. Portia is not wooing him; that is not happening. Miguel, baby-faced Miguel, has been of legal drinking age for how long? Less than a year, certainly. Meanwhile, Portia has been perfecting her drinking for the last decade. Portia is a nightlife professional. She has no business rooting around in this boy’s cellar or letting this boy root around in hers.
Miguel, bless him, has no rhythm. He closes his eyes when he dances, flinging his arms and doing a sorry step-touch. It’s almost cute, Portia thinks. The bump and grind song, the song, is up next. People scream for it; they love the song so much. The song hasn’t even started yet, not really—that familiar synth bassline is only just creeping into the mix—but people are already pressing their bodies against each other and thrusting dramatically to the beat they know is coming.
“I gotta take a piss,” Miguel says.
“How very macho,” Portia says.
“Did you want to come with?”
“You’re a big boy. I think you can manage.”
“Are we going to make out tonight?”
She considers his lips, cracked and peeling, crying out for a coat of ChapStick. “No,” she says, “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, right. Because I’m just your fucking dog.”
“That was a joke.”
“Yeah, and it’s sooo funny.”
“It is,” she says. “It can be if you’ll laugh about it. Drink some water.”
“Okay, Mom.”
He leaves, and she is alone in the pink club light, surrounded by theatre majors doing the choreography from a pop star’s Vegas residency. Then he fights his way back through the arms and elbows, returning to their spot not with water but with drinks.
“Thank you,” she says, and gives him a pat on the head. “Good dog.”
“What?”
His drink of choice is some ungodly mix of peppermint schnapps and white chocolate, the sort of drink only a rookie goes for, a drink where the burn is disguised by sweetness.
Louder now, so he can hear her over the music: “All I said was thank you.”
“You’re lying.”
She says, “I’m lightening the mood.”
“You’re not, though. You literally are not.”
Portia can’t see his face. The blurry disco lighting at the Closet gets blurrier the more you drink, yet less flattering. Everything looks smudged. “Don’t be so sensitive,” she says. “You’re making it into something way too serious. We’re just cutting up. We’re having a good time.”
As is tradition at the Closet, the DJ starts playing “Last Dance” by Donna Summer to let patrons know the bar will soon be closing. Over their heads, the disco ball stops turning, but the crowd continues dancing as if the night will not end.
“You are such bullshit,” Miguel says.
“It doesn’t matter,” Portia says.
“What doesn’t?”
“What you think.”
The lights come up. The spell is broken. She can see him clearly now—how sweaty he is, how small.
He says, “The audacity to come out here tonight with this crunchy wig. That took guts.”
“You don’t know anything about anything,” she says.
“I know your shit is fucked up.”
“You run lights. You’re nothing.”
“Right,” he says, “I’m nothing.”
“You are. We all know this business school nonsense is a joke. Come summertime, you’ll be riding around in the back of a truck with dear old dad.”
“Bitch.”
“I am,” she says. “A musty old bitch. You didn’t know?”
“Oh, everybody knows, Dustin. It’s actually kind of sad. You come out and do your little skit, and the whole bar takes a cigarette break. A bathroom break. No one wants to look at you.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m buzzed.”
“You need to eat something.”
“I could keep going.”
The bar staff turn chairs over, recite their mantra to the patrons still lingering on the dancefloor: “Love you, but go the fuck home.” There is something shameful about seeing this space so brightly lit, Portia thinks. In the dark, the dancefloor bursts with possibility, then the light comes on and exposes everything for exactly what it is.
Portia offers Miguel a ride home, which he declines. “I’ll walk,” he says, “I love walking,” and then he trips over an object that only he can see.
“Why don’t you let me take care of you tonight,” Portia says. This is more announcement than question.
They drive through Rally’s on the way back to her apartment—it’s the only restaurant still open at this time of night. Miguel protests; somebody told Miguel once that they found a fly in their burger here. “It’s four in the morning,” Portia says. “Lower your standards.” They order off the value menu, value cheeseburgers and value tenders and value fries, whatever sounds good. Does Miguel want the cinnamon apple pie? Portia will buy him the cinnamon apple pie. “I don’t want the cinnamon apple pie,” Miguel says. “Jesus.”
“Cancel the pie,” Portia tells the illuminated menu.
He makes a show of not speaking to her. An admirable effort, a fine performance, but isn’t that his hand in the Rally’s bag, searching for fries? Back at the apartment, she fluffs him a pillow, drapes him in the softest blanket she can find, and still he commits to the bit, horizontal on her futon.
Other priorities spring to mind, priorities that are not Miguel. Water, for one—she goes to fetch water, and perhaps an aspirin. It is imperative that Portia stays awake long enough to sober up. If she falls asleep now, she’ll pay for it in the morning. She can’t bounce back like Miguel can. For her, the carriage will be a pumpkin again soon enough.
The faucet runs. She makes herself keep drinking despite the sour taste on her tongue. On her phone, she finds a text from Dawn: 2 BOTTOMS DON’T MAKE A TOP…
Portia types her reply: LOVE FINDS A WAY. Then, because it’s Dawn: LOSE THIS NUMBER.
The next morning, it’s afternoon. Miguel is gone, the blanket folded into a perfect little square.
She isn’t interested in staging a reality TV reunion episode about it. They don’t need to rehash last night’s stale drama, do they? She goes out to Vintage Wearhouse to find something his size. Lucky her, she ends up finding a gown with serious potential, and on top of that, a ridiculous fuck-off hat straight out of My Fair Lady. Who, she wonders, would give these treasures away to a thrift store like they’re nothing? The hat looks like an elaborate birthday cake. The gown is studded with blue raindrops. Portia brings her discoveries up to the checkout counter, and the cashier says, “Your mom’s lost a lot of weight, huh?”
“These aren’t for my mom,” Portia says. “These are for my gay lover.”
“I knew you were some kind of fag,” he says.
“Incredible detective work,” she says, “truly. Now ring up my items, please. I’m a fag on the go.”
Miguel would rather not see her. He makes that clear. She calls him, and he says, “So now you’re calling me?”
“Yes, I’m calling you,” she says.
“I’ll pay you back for the food.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“What do you want from me, then?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I don’t want anything. I found something in the back of my closet. A gown.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“It doesn’t fit me,” she says, “not anymore, but I think it would fit you perfectly. Can I convince you to come try it on?”
He wants to know what the occasion is. There is no occasion. The gown is the occasion.
The story of last night is that he wants nothing to do with Portia, yet here he is at her kitchen table, his face so close to hers she can feel his breath hot on her cheek. It’s bad luck to try on drag without lashes and lipstick, Portia says. 301s and a cherry lip—those are nonnegotiable.
Miguel is not shy. He undresses when she asks him to undress. She watches his clothes collect on her living room carpet—the corduroy jacket with the fur collar; the unreasonably baggy jeans that make it look like he has no ass whatsoever. Now that he has stripped down to his tiny red briefs, she can finally confirm an ass is there. A pair of legs is connected to it.
“Yeah, I have chicken legs,” Miguel says. “Don’t make fun of them.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Portia says.
“Literally all you do is roast people.”
“Only the people I like.”
“Is that how it works?”
He steps into the raindrop gown, and she zips him, her thumb tracing a delicate line up his back.
The hat is a little much on him, though that does not surprise her. A hat like that—frills and netting and polka dots—you have to wear with intention. But the gown. He needs hips, that much is a given, but already, he is a confection. Of this she is certain. “Walk around a little,” she says. “See how you like it.” Miguel is a terror, clomping around in her heels. He is a tornado, ripping his path through her kitchen. But look—he shimmers any way the light hits him. The gown she bought is covered in stones, hundreds of them. In the gown he is so bright and so brilliant, Portia can only have a glimpse of him before she has to look away.
***
Rumpus original art by Ian MacAllen
Irving Campbell became a dentist. When he graduated from the University of the West Indies, his mother attended the ceremony. She wore her best church hat, and her scented powder had the essence of melon.
Are you proud of me? Proud: cocoa, tea.
The taste of words formed at the back of the tongue were swallowed and digested when spoken. Irving Campbell told only his mother when he began to taste his words. He could not quite recall the exact age at which he shared this with her, but he knew it was of a time where there was comfort to sit at a mother’s lap. Words like “comfort”: plum, just almost overripe. Antihistamine: bitter, metallic, like licking the rim of a car. Words like “fuzz” made an itch, a tingle, stalks of wild grass planted in the pit of his stomach. Church, like scotch bonnet pepper sliced, sautéed with onions, scallion, and callaloo served on plates that displayed dancing hummingbirds somewhere above the sea. Irving explained this to his mother as best as he could. His trepidation tasting stale: breakfast cereal left in the cupboard too long.
“Someting nasty grow, take root, yuh’ve got to dig it out, with your bare hands if necessary. But that’s left to you and God, that’s where I leave you,” his mother said to him after he finished explaining. She said nothing more and didn’t say much more to him ever again. Me tink some of his wires got crossed, somewhere along da way, Irving had overheard her saying to a woman from church. And me cyaant save him now.
In bed that night, Irving put three fingers into his mouth and clawed at his tongue. Something nasty grow, take root, yuh’ve got to dig it out, with your bare hands if necessary.
He vomited his fear, which tasted like communion bread and wine. Another sign he reasoned that something evil had made its way inside of him. And only a devil could do that.
So Irving Campbell became a dentist. To look inside the mouths of others and dig out all the devils. It was a job he found most responsible, most rewarding, most dignifying. It was a job for a respected and trusted man. It was the job for the type of man who he had wished could have pressed a cool cloth to his forehead, put the weight of his hands on to usher him into bed, the kind that told stories for sleep that could have held truth, the playful kind of truth that balances delicately between what is lived and seen and what could be. Father: star anise, boiled in broth for soup. Dead: chicken bones, chewed for marrow.
Irving had pulled eighty-one teeth throughout the years he had been hired by various schoolhouses across the countryside. Though the checks were often mailed to him months later, for amounts that did not match his quote, he agreed to visit the schools each year. The children and their parents would have severe decay, the kind he knew came from country people work. Which meant canned foods instead of toothpaste, only the occasional baking soda rinse. He would offer his recommendation of extraction, much to his delight. A delight which came from a work, a duty, bestowed onto him by God. A secret shared between them. Something watched over, tended to, something whispered, in the release of the gums as he pulled: devils, with his bare hands. When the blood came, he would point to a mop bucket just beside their chairs, where he asked them to spit.
Irving would read about his condition, the taste of words, later on in his life, and knew somehow that the discovery would kill him. Synesthesia. He saw the word in a medical journal while sitting at the rusted metal desk in his office. He thought then of his reputation, a reputation which had taken him years of medical practice to build, and therefore, as things work with time, could not be undone. A reputation that he had spent most of his career underestimating. That is, until more recently, the day of the girl who refused to open her mouth.
“Me know what yuh do to us children! We all know yuh pull out all our teeth, and we must eat porridge for the rest of our lives! Well, not today, not me, sir,” the girl had said before she clamped her jaw shut. The strain bulged the veins at her neck.
The girl threatened to bite if Irving were to touch her, and so he didn’t. Her schoolteacher escorted her out. Ornery pickney, she mumbled.
The girl’s mother was the one who brought her back. At the end of the school day. She held the girl’s shoulder and squeezed until she sat down in the chair across from Irving.
“Me know that she have tooth rot, she holler so bad biting into dumpling me thought me would have to take it out right then. Cyaan take not another one of her antics. Lord! Now, Yvette, apologize to Dr. Campbell.”
“Not necessary, child.”
“Yvette. My name is Yvette, and me want you to know that this will be allowed today against my will,” the girl said crossing her arms. Her mother slapped her across the back of the head.
“Sincerest apologies, sir,” the mother said. “I don’t know where she gets these tings in that head of hers. She got some spirit inside her.”
On the day that Irving read about his condition later on in his life, at his desk, in his office, he whispered a prayer to all who he had caused unnecessary pain and shame. He knew most of them would never get the gaps filled. He thought most of the steadfast girl who would grow into a young woman, and seek love, seek desire, who would not know whether or not these things could be found if she were to smile, smile so in the ways of love and desire, revealing the open rawness of her gums. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive: ripe pomegranate, split, juice sucked from the core.
It would be just a few days later, after the discovery of his condition, when he sat again at his desk, in his office, that Irving would notice his office had suddenly become identical to his childhood bedroom, and instead of his desk, he sat at the edge of his childhood bed. He felt as though his mother were in the room just beyond, sleeping, as she had slept before, when he gagged on his words quietly so as not to disturb her. He gagged again, as he had then, his tongue feeling bloated; his teeth, which he ground into one another, felt somehow frail, like in this way they would be whittled into a nothingness, leaving only the bloodied flesh of his gums. He called for his mother, which came from the emptiness of his mouth in a squeal, incomprehensible, much like an infant. He felt this all just before collapsing backward and hitting his head against the wall where his diploma hung, just slightly uncentered.
He thought he heard something. And so he thought it was his mother, hearing his cry, finally, in some way, understanding him, and so, appearing before him in this time of need. His mother, in her appearance, took the form of a child, hovering just above him. Though what he heard was not his mother, but his own voice, from before. And it was. It was his own voice, from a time before, repeating what he had spoken then, into the now. His jaw, slack, curved into the fat of his neck, so the words came not from his own mouth, but the mother-child.
It won’t be a problem after today, the mother-child said in Irving’s voice. It is what Irving had told the stubborn girl. He would pull straight from the source, all her cantankerous. Cantankerous: nutmeg.
Now open and let me see that little devil.
Wider.
Wider.
Irving Campbell did as he was told.
***
Rumpus original art by Dmitry Samarov
Take Your Parent to School Day. Future Day. Capitalism Day. Career Day.
Lucy’s dad had lots of names for the two-hour period in which all the available parents came to class to talk about their jobs to a bunch of nine-year-olds with their fingers up their noses before lunch. After the parents had explained the ins and outs of their job at the bank, the mall, the post office, the precinct—that’s when the important part would begin. That’s when Lucy and her classmates would get to spin The Wheel of Fate.
Technically it was a button you pressed and not a wheel you spun, but when you pressed the button, the wheel would spin and then the slim rectangular screen below it would light up and your future career would flash, like: VETERINARIAN. FULL-TIME PARENT. GRAPHIC DESIGNER. LAWYER. MARRY RICH.
No one knew where The Wheel of Fate came from, just that it worked.
Lucy’s much older sister Aria—a professional poker player in Vegas, just as The Wheel had predicted—told Lucy about the boy in her class years ago whose result was INCONCLUSIVE. He stayed local for college, graduated with a philosophy degree, and drowned in the lake when his boat flooded at age twenty-four. He’d never learned to swim.
“He certainly wasn’t going to be an Olympic diver,” Aria said, clicking her teeth on the phone. “Wouldn’t even walk the mile in gym—forged a doctor’s note,” she snorted. “Put Dad on. I want to make sure he’s not going to embarrass you.”
Lucy wanted to work at the aquarium, like her mom, cataloging fish and supervising private feedings. She liked how cool it was inside, sitting on a bench watching sharks do lazy loops in the dark, their teeth tucked safely in their mouths. Sometimes she wanted to touch their fins, stick her hand in the water and feel a creature touch back. Her mom mostly did paperwork, but she got to learn about new additions, new species entering their inventory, before anyone else.
Mostly, Lucy liked the dark. It was the bright lights at school and the sunny playground she hated. She liked sleepovers with her friends and camping in the backyard, telling scary stories into a flashlight and twigs snapping beneath her bare feet.
“What was that?” she’d ask her friend Maria S.
Maria S., her favorite of the Marias in her class, liked scary stories too. She’d open her mouth, lower her jaw, and make a creaking sound with her throat. Then they’d belly laugh and howl in Lucy’s tent outside until it was late, until Lucy’s mom would call out the second-story window, “Girls, it’s enough!” And Lucy’s dad would grumble, “It’s too much, you ask me.”
Lucy’s teacher Ms. Hatcher placed The Wheel of Fate on her desk. It was big and bulky but not heavy. It had small scratches at the edges from years of wear. Ms. Hatcher was in her early forties and wore large gold hoops and dresses with full skirts. Today she wore a special dress. She called it her Future Dress, and it was lined like notebook paper. Each line had the words Carpe Diem in cursive, as if handwritten. One long sentence repeated: CarpeDiemCarpeDiemCarpe.
Maria S. passed a note to Lucy. They sat one seat apart. It said: What does her dress mean? Lucy stage-whispered, “I think it’s a kind of fish?” Lucy had worn her lucky bracelet, which was hemp and had a shark tooth—a gift from Aria. A wild thing for a wild thing, the paper gift note had read.
“Class,” Ms. Hatcher said dramatically, “welcome to Career Day. This is my favorite day all year: when your future reveals itself to you.” The kids let out a collective gasp. “I know,” Ms. Hatcher beamed. “Your parents will be here soon, and in the meantime, I’d love to know what careers you have in mind for your future. Anyone?”
Maria B. shot her hand up from the back of the class. “ACCOUNTANT!” she shouted.
“Please wait to be called on,” Ms. Hatcher said. “But nice, thank you, Maria B.”
The shorter of the two Kyles raised his hand. He was barely visible behind the taller Kyle, but Ms. Hatcher saw his fingertips and said, “Yes, Kyle L.?” He wanted to be a basketball player. A few kids laughed, but Ms. Hatcher said, “You never know! Only The Wheel knows.”
After a few others stated their dream careers, Ms. Hatcher told the story of the very first Career Day that included The Wheel of Fate. It was hers. “I sat right here in this room, like you,” she told them, perched on her desk, facing the class. “When it said TEACHER, I knew. This is what I was meant to do. I hope for a similarly exciting fate for all of you.”
“Ms. Hatcher,” the taller Kyle said, about to ask the same question every kid wondered at some point for all the years fated by The Wheel. “What if I don’t like what I get?”
Ms. Hatcher smiled. She closed her eyes, nodded, sage. “My teacher told me: You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” Lucy’s eyes widened. Ms. Hatcher went on: “I didn’t know if that was an instruction or a threat.” She chuckled. Lucy thought it might be both.
She thought about INCONCLUSIVE. And then the parents arrived at the open door.
Lucy’s mom was busy taking notes on a new school of fish, so only Lucy’s dad came. He told the kids how fulfilling it was to own a hardware store. He said, “I don’t know how much I believe in all this Wheel business, but I know I love what I do and any of you can, too.” It was inspiring, even though Lucy found it embarrassing. Maria S. whispered, “Cool,” with genuine excitement when he mentioned he could get hammers at cost. “Remember,” he said to the class, winking at Lucy, who cringed, “you can be anything.”
The taller Kyle burped. “Almost anything,” Lucy’s dad said. Most of the kids laughed, even Lucy.
Ms. Hatcher thanked him for sharing and Lucy’s dad sat on the windowsill with the other parents. Maria S.’s mom talked about being an optometrist and handed out mini eye exams for the kids to take home. Isabel, who sat in the front row, nodded along as one of the parents talked about being a beekeeper. Maria S. was allergic to bees. The idea of keeping bees on purpose was enough to give her hives.
When it was time for The Wheel of Fate to do what it did best, Lucy felt faint. She counted her fingers and toes in her head, thinking about the aquarium and whether her mom had visited the stingrays yet today. She loved to watch them skate by, flat and perfectly gray. She yelled at anyone who tapped on the glass. “There’s a sign,” she’d say, like her mom told her. She wanted even the most captive creatures to be respected and cared for, to feel at home.
The taller Kyle went first. His sneakers squeaked to the front of the class, where Ms. Hatcher waited beside The Wheel, like a magician’s assistant.
“So I just . . . press it?” he asked, looking down at the floor. Ms. Hatcher nodded. He hovered his thumb over the black button, looking back at the parents. His mom wasn’t there. She couldn’t get the time off from her job at the supermarket. He wanted to be a painter, but couldn’t say it earlier to the whole class. He only told his mom, who said maybe The Wheel would give him something that came with health insurance.
He pressed the button and squeezed his eyes shut. He stood in front of it, blocking the screen from view. “Move over!” Isabel shouted, and the taller Kyle said, “Shut up.” He sounded like he might cry. But he took a step to the right, so the screen was visible to everyone when it lit up with the words ANIMATION. He blinked.
“What is that? That’s not a job,” Maria B. said.
“Yeah, it means like, movies, right, Ms. Hatcher?” Maria S. asked.
The taller Kyle was relieved. Whatever it meant. It didn’t say DOCTOR or FAILURE, but he worried about what to tell his mom. He could lie, but he would one day inevitably become ANIMATION, and so what was the point?
“I believe so,” Ms. Hatcher said. “I think that’s terrific. Kyle R., you can sit down. Congratulations on a great spin!” Push, Lucy thought. Press.
From there, more kids became VIOLINIST, POLITICIAN, PHARMACIST, ACTOR, and THERAPIST—the last one given to Kevin, a boy who could write very well but never spoke in class. He had a note from a doctor that said he didn’t have to do any public speaking, just written assignments.
There was no dreaded INCONCLUSIVE. When Lucy’s turn came, her dad announced, “You can do it, Luce,” and she actually wished he could hold her hand as she pressed the button. As if The Wheel of Fate would look kindly on a kid with parental authority attached. But she didn’t ask him to. She looked back at him, both of their expressions soft, like they were in a hospital waiting room instead of school.
Ms. Hatcher nodded at Lucy, it was her turn, she could do this. Lucy read the cursive lines on Ms. Hatcher’s dress and thought about the fish her mom supervised and studied, the glass that always kept them apart. Away from her, maybe even safe from her.
She pressed the button and, instead of closing her eyes, she looked back at her dad. But he was looking at the screen, suddenly afraid of it. Even as he claimed not to believe in its power as some kind of oracle. It was just a thing from nowhere, really, and what did it know about Lucy? About any of them?
And then. WEREWOLF.
Ms. Hatcher narrowed her eyes. She shook her head, hard, looking around the back of the desk, like The Wheel must need a reboot. But it had no cord, nothing to look back at. A couple of the parents gasped.
“Is this some kind of a goddamn JOKE?” Lucy’s dad barked. No one responded. None of the kids laughed. It was only funny if it was a joke and The Wheel didn’t joke. Did it?
Maria S. yelled, “IT’S OKAY, LUCY! I’M GOING TO BE A DOCTOR! I CAN FIX THIS!” Or maybe Lucy only thought Maria S. was yelling because Lucy felt dizzy, because her head was heavy and she felt the ground spinning toward her. Did she need fixing?
It was like a movie, the kind Kyle R. would one day animate. Lucy opened her eyes to the crowd standing over her, her dad’s hand waving above her face. He was saying her name over and over.
That’s how Career Day ended: WEREWOLF, then fainting, then the silent car ride to the diner, where her dad ordered curly fries for them to share and told her, “It’s just a stupid wheel, Luce. It doesn’t mean anything. How could it know who you are?” She thought it wasn’t so bad, considering she could’ve been INCONCLUSIVE. A werewolf instead of doomed.
She sipped a peanut butter chocolate milkshake. Career Day wasn’t supposed to go like this. There was no one for her to shadow, no adult to show her how to be a werewolf. She would have to teach herself and hope for the best.
During dinner, Lucy’s mom cried. She couldn’t help it. She also wanted Lucy to work at the aquarium with her, though she’d never said it out loud. She didn’t want to force her into anything. But now that WEREWOLF was in their house, she let herself cry. Even as she did, she told Lucy, “It’ll be fine, don’t worry, you can’t possibly be a werewolf.”
Lucy was confused though, the more she thought about it. “But didn’t you say I could be anything?” She looked at her dad.
“I mean, within reason. Come on, Lucy.” He was getting agitated. A werewolf? She honestly thought she could be a werewolf?
Lucy went to her room and shut the door. That’s when she called Aria, who said, “I’m not worried about you. But I don’t know what you…do now. You know?” But Lucy was far away, thinking about the books and movies that could help her figure out whatever it is that werewolves do all day. Or all night.
She called Maria S.’s house, and her mom answered and said, “I’m so sorry, Lucy, I heard about—” But Lucy cut her off, said, “Yeah, thanks, is Maria around?” She asked Maria S. if she wanted to come over on Friday night and camp in the backyard. She said maybe she could practice. Maria S. didn’t even ask what she meant. She knew. They were best friends.
The rest of the week passed slowly. Lucy managed to find a book on the macabre in the school library, but it was badly illustrated and old, so old. It was hard to figure out if it was meant to scare her or educate her. It read like a fable. She asked the librarian if she had any books like this in the nonfiction section. The librarian said, “That’s only for things that are true.” Lucy didn’t understand the distinction. She just wanted to know what werewolves ate, how long they slept, whether they were allowed to watch R-rated movies.
Behind the librarian there was an inspirational poster that said: BE YOURSELF. EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN. Lucy took it to mean she should be whatever kind of werewolf she could be, not whatever kind of werewolf was hidden inside a book she couldn’t find.
On Friday night, her parents thought Lucy was moving past whatever she’d been going through since The Wheel of Fate. They ordered pizza, Maria S. came over, they all watched a movie about a family that goes on a road trip where everything goes wrong.
The whole time, Lucy was thinking about her tent in the backyard, the flashlight that had different discs that could shape the light into ghosts, pumpkins, skeletons, bats. Maria S. brought a dog whistle from her brother’s closet and a box of unopened Oreos. They were ready to practice Lucy’s new career. WEREWOLF flashed in both of their minds.
With her parents upstairs in their room, Lucy turned to Maria S. in her tent, held a flashlight under her face, and whisper-growled, “Are you ready?” Maria S. laughed, but then she said, “What are you going to do though?” Lucy turned her palms up, like, No clue.
And then she started howling. From deep in her stomach, a low sound emerged long and full, like it had been there all along. Awakened. Maria S. stared at her, unsure whether she should start howling, too. She didn’t. She watched her friend open her mouth wide, crouch down on all fours, and make sounds like a wild dog.
Lucy’s dad rushed to the window, afraid that what he thought he was hearing was indeed what he was hearing. “You can’t make any money as a werewolf!” he shouted down from the window, almost begging.
Maria S. called back, gently, “It’s okay, Mr. Peters, I’ll give Lucy some money when we grow up!”
He smacked his head with his palm. “Just SHUT UP, would you, girls?” He slammed the window shut. Lucy quit howling and laid down on the floor of the tent, curled like a woodland creature.
“How was I?” she asked Maria S.
And Maria S. said, “Really good, I think?”
Lucy tried to tear open the box of Oreos with her teeth, but it hurt her mouth. Maria S. opened it for them, but Lucy pawed at the silver paper inside until it tore and three cookies fell out. She leaned down and scooped one up with her mouth, chewing loudly, messily. Maria S. laughed. She held one in her hand and ate like a human.
“Do you want to be a doctor?” Lucy asked.
Maria S. shrugged. “I don’t really care. I like the idea of a white jacket. I wouldn’t have to think about my clothes as much, I guess.” She thought for a moment. “Plus, I feel like I’ll get to see a lot of blood.” They nodded at each other. Blood was kind of cool.
“Do you want to be a werewolf?” Maria S. asked Lucy.
Lucy took a breath and let out three short growls, a staccato howl. Some questions didn’t need an answer. They needed to be felt in the body and released. Maria S. blew the dog whistle, but Lucy couldn’t hear it. Maybe one day she would.
Over the next week, all Lucy could talk about was being a werewolf. It was driving Maria S. nuts. She wanted to support her friend, especially because like Lucy’s dad said, there was no money in being a werewolf. Lucy needed her doctor friend to help her in the future, probably.
But Maria S. needed her friend now, too. And what if Lucy couldn’t really become a werewolf? She’d be disappointed.
Maria S. was suspicious—of The Wheel of Fate itself. Like Lucy’s dad, Maria S. thought, logically, that The Wheel couldn’t possibly know everything. Did she even have to become a doctor? Or was fate dictating itself, turning its own unseen wheel, moving class after class of kids forward?
If Lucy hadn’t been distracted by her own predetermined future, she might have wondered if INCONCLUSIVE could’ve had a different destiny.
Maria S. decided to steal The Wheel.
A week after Lucy’s first werewolf practice night, Maria S. stayed after school to ask Ms. Hatcher some questions about the math homework. Ms. Hatcher thought this strange, because Maria S. had been pretty good at the current lesson. Some of the questions were even a little stupid, though she’d never tell a kid that. Maria S. asked her so many questions that eventually Ms. Hatcher needed to use the bathroom. When she left the room, Maria S. took The Wheel of Fate from the big bottom drawer of Ms. Hatcher’s desk and shoved it into her backpack. It barely fit, but it fit.
“Thanks for answering my questions,” Maria S. said, a bit too quickly. “Career Day really got me. I’ve been distracted.”
Ms. Hatcher said she understood. It was a lot to take in, especially at such a young age. She gestured around the empty classroom and said, “I didn’t know I wanted this until The Wheel told me who I was supposed to be.” Something about that didn’t sit right with Maria S. DOCTOR seemed as good a fate as any, and much better than INCONCLUSIVE. But she knew without a doubt that TEACHER wasn’t for her. For one thing, she hated writing on the chalkboard. The dust made her cough. How many kids were heading toward careers they might not want if given a choice?
Tell her I’m not home, Maria S. mouthed to her mom. Lucy was on the phone, wanting to come over and practice getting around on all fours, more howling. Maria S.’s mom did as her daughter asked, disappearing back into the kitchen with the phone.
Maria S. sat on the floor of her bedroom, cross-legged on the blue rug she’d spilled root beer on the summer before. She set The Wheel of Fate down and pulled herself back, away from it. Staring into its blank screen, she wasn’t sure what to do with it now that it was here, hers to break or interrogate. Would just pressing the button be enough? What if it just said DOCTOR again? What if it got angry and gave her something worse?
She thought of Ms. Hatcher in the empty classroom, living a life she hadn’t chosen. It didn’t make her life bad. It didn’t make her life anything other than what it was, which in her case was TEACHER. That’s what TEACHER looked like on Ms. Hatcher. What would DOCTOR look like on Ms. Hatcher? What about WEREWOLF?
Maria S. bent forward again, held her open palm against the button, her other hand covering it. Like she was preparing for an explosion. She pressed it. The wheel spun.
BEEKEEPER.
Maria S. gasped. She took The Wheel in both hands and shook it, shouting, “I’M. ALLERGIC. TO. BEES.” But The Wheel didn’t care.
She pressed the button again. LAWYER.
Again, faster. ACTOR.
Faster. INCONCLUSIVE.
“This thing is RIGGED,” she hissed. She shoved The Wheel away and smacked her clammy hands against her thighs, enraged. But her anger quickly turned to confusion. Then, an idea. “This thing is rigged,” she repeated quietly. Or, what if, what if—
“MOM!”
In Lucy’s unfinished basement, the same room where they once superglued their hands together during a sleepover, Maria S. put The Wheel of Fate at her friend’s feet.
“I’m telling you, it’s not fate, it’s a lie—” Maria S. said, her voice breaking. “It’s a toy.” She pressed the button repeatedly, the screen lighting up with several possible futures, though WEREWOLF never reappeared.
After a long moment, Lucy opened her mouth, but closed it without a word.
Maria S. stared at her, waiting. She drummed her fingers on the concrete floor. “Well?”
Lucy looked away.
They told her she could be whatever she wanted.
She thought she wanted to work with her mom. That future made sense. It was possible, logical. Predictable. She could study the fish and record every movement the stingrays made.
But after Career Day, she realized she would never know what it was to be the creatures at the aquarium, locked inside their finite universes. Tap, tap, tap. Whole ecosystems contained by humans. Controlled by them.
She pressed down on her palms, lifting her seat off the ground. Hunched over, she opened her eyes and started to growl. Spit pooled in her mouth.
She looked at her friend, but didn’t see her.
“You don’t have to do that—that’s what I’m saying,” Maria S. said, startled. Lucy dropped back into her seat and pounded her palms on the floor. “Are you listening to me?” Maria S. croaked, hot tears forming. She picked up The Wheel and slammed it down. The screen cracked, splintering like a spiderweb.
It was too late for Lucy to be whatever she wanted. All she could do was be herself.
Lucy bared her teeth and lunged.
***
Rumpus original art by Elly Lonon
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