JANICE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS IN THE THRIFT SHOP, she is not like other girls, she gets what she wants, ashes to ashes. Janice is a survivor, she plans to survive for a long time. Often, other people make her want to rage inside. Holy shit, they make her want to rage. They don’t really know what she has been through, she thinks. They really don’t know.
Everything hurts a little more for her, everything feels a little better than it should feel for her.
Janice takes off all of her clothes in a frenzy but leaves on her Scream Ghostface mask to fuck in the dressing room. She looks at herself in her Scream Ghostface mask in the body-length dirty mirror while she’s fucking in the dressing room. It is her favorite movie, her comfort movie, her go-to movie, she watches it once a week like a bad habit, like it’s her only tradition in life.
Under the mask, her mouth is wide open, eyes shut as though in agony.
He says, I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Nearly out of breath.
She says, Shut the fuck up.
Plastic hangers tap against other plastic hangers. Her blood is terribly hot like the single lightbulb dangling above them, her breath is short. Vincent is heartbroken, polite, and insatiable: really good dick. She leans into him when he comes finally, her shoulder blades compressed like wings. She stuffs her mouth full of denim jacket and screams, her other palm pressed against the wall for balance. Her ab and back muscles burn and sweat. He takes off her Scream Ghostface mask and kisses her from behind. Neck breaker, world beater, black leather choker. The moonlight is her fucking bitch tonight, the light outside the shop is already dying out. All the moons of Jupiter are in alignment, all the planes in the night sky land safely. He sucks her clit inside his mouth and uses his teeth a little without biting down.
Vincent plays with her hair but she takes off his hand.
Do you want me to call you? Janice asks.
Can I call you, he asks?
No, she says.
Yeah, you can call me, he says.
Don’t make a big deal out of this, okay?
Janice buttons the top button on her black shirt and ties her hair back. She puts the Scream mask back in her bag like an heirloom and feels a wave of calm move through her body. Everything is connected, everything is okay. Seek no outside validation. The earth is beneath her feet, a chill on her skin.
Good as new, she says.
Click, click. The tongue in her mouth.
She dreams about a blood-moon eclipse and darkness moving from the ocean to the shore. She feels something foreboding chasing her, as though the other foot is going to fall soon. She loves the kitchen at a house party, how gravity changes in the kitchen at a house party. She wakes up sad and horny and thirsty and goes picking at the Goodwill bins, collecting items for her online store. She feels so lonely sometimes, she has pangs of a phantom limb, but she keeps a straight face. Never let them see you down. Expressionless for miles.
She goes to the cash register and the shop girl is not stupid.
Janice’s hair is fucked up, and her face is flushed.
Cold air touches her all over.
How are you doing, says Bianca, the shop girl.
I’m okay, Janice says, I’m doing okay.
Okay it is. It’s good to see you, says Bianca.
It’s good to see you, too, says Janice.
Janice is buying a few black T-shirts, and a denim jacket. Dark wash, light wear. There is no line of waiting customers behind her, but the shop is busy. Succulents line the tops of the clothing racks, bouquets of freshly cut flowers dipped in vases on side tables flow throughout the store.
Bianca inspects the jacket. She notices a strange wet spot on the sleeve of the jacket. She presses keys on the cash register.
This is nice!
I know, Janice says.
It’s heavy, too, says Bianca.
It’s sherpa.
I fucking love sherpa, Bianca says.
Janice nods with abandon, achy bliss.
Me too. I love sherpa, too.
◆
SOME MEMORIES ARE DREAMS, SOME DREAMS ARE MEMORIES. Consciousness is a flock of crows, Janice decides, a murder flying through black clouds. A raven carries the whole universe on her flight, a child watches from below. Big clouds fill the sky, big clouds bloom in her young mind. The day smells like flowers, like real flowers: lavender, freesia, and yellow rose bushes. Witnessing natural beauty and taking pause in the day will become part of what she will do forever. Janice is twelve years old and she is walking home from school by herself. There is deep pain in the world, evil shit abounds all over this place.
She does not know it yet but she has so far passed all of life’s little tests. The mafia is pursuing her, the yakuza is pursuing her, crazy ancient evils from both Earth and Hell are pursuing her. They are hunting her down like nobody’s business, like it’s their only purpose. In real life, she lives in her mom’s car and feels hungry all the time. How a young body deals with hunger is one, by growing the fuck up. Then two, making yourself laugh like a demon no matter what the situation. Try laughing uncontrollably, hungry on the worst day of your life. See how strong it makes you.
In the dream, birds come to her rescue. Stray and domestic dogs and cats come to her rescue. Whatever animal is in her radius comes to her rescue. They love her and they will die to protect her. All the animals in the world.
In the memory, Janice walks home from school. Close to home, across the park, through a chain link fence, there is a man in a ski mask slapping the face of a young boy. The man in the ski mask keeps slapping the boy until the young boy falls down, which prompts the man in the ski mask to start kicking the young boy in the ribcage while the young boy rolls around screaming on the ground. More men in ski masks arrive. Some holding bats. Some dressed in either biker gear or old armor, like King Arthur shit from Hell.
In the dream, Janice runs across the park. She is compelled to see the violence up close. When she arrives, the young boy’s face is broken and bruised, you can’t even really see a face. The men in ski masks and strange armor take turns stomping the young boy who is no longer making noise.
In the memory, Janice trips over a gold case, sticking out of the ground as though from a dream. She is terrified the young boy will die. The winds change, her breath slows down. Rising to her feet, Janice for some reason opens up the gold case that has tripped her. She finds a perfect black sword, perfect for her size. She feels cold when she holds it like she is cut and bleeding somewhere on her body. The sword is weightless like feathers. Her neck feels like feathers poking through.
Somehow, she knows exactly what to do with the sword. Hunger has shown her what to do, where to go, how to rise to the occasion, how to belong in the room. Janice looks at her face in the reflection of the blade of the black sword. The young boy starts to scream again, still alive.
Janice runs to him in her memory and her dream. The men in black ski masks all turn to look at her. The sword knows her, too. Like, finally. You can let go.
◆
BURN THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS, GO TO WAR, LOVE YOUR FRIENDS. She goes for a long run with a bad back again. She has a shower beer afterwards, she has a bottle of Corona in the shower. She shadowboxes in her walk-in closet in her studio apartment. Her walk-in closet is almost like a little room, the door closes into a little beautiful private room. She puts on several different rather perfect outfits, touching her stomach, spinning in the mirror, spinning in front of her phone camera. She feels good about her body, she feels bad about her body. She wears a puffer jacket with nothing underneath, bare naked, a big scar on her abdomen, and the puffer jacket is zipped to the collar. She takes a deep breath and holds air in her lungs. The air in your lungs is a miraculous gift, something she never takes for granted. She does a line of cocaine from an iPhone in the kitchen of the house party and she ties her black hair back afterwards. Between her and two complete perfect strangers, they do a gram of cocaine in two hours, filled with conversation, tension, and things she will never think about ever again. She says goodbye to the room like a little kid and does not look back. She loves the natural gravity of the kitchen at a house party. If you tilt your head, sometimes the world tilts with you.
Janice meets up with her best friend Jimmy at the house party. She has not seen him in a few weeks, but she has known him for years, since they were young. He does his routine Kermit the Frog impression for her in the kitchen. It is perhaps the best Kermit the Frog impression she has ever seen.
Not gonna lie, she says. That was hot.
Although Jimmy keeps on talking, Janice has something of an out-of-body experience leaning against the kitchen counter, perhaps a little coked out, where she feels heartbroken from a past life, feeling a tiny stir in the universe, like a bell that cannot be unrung.
Are you K-holing?
No, Janice says. I’m totally good. I’m just thinking.
Janice does this thing where she doesn’t blink and turns her head to Jimmy.
When was the last time you hurt someone, she asks.
You for real right now?
Yes, she says. When was the last time?
Jimmy says, A few weeks ago. I talked to you about her.
No, you didn’t, I don’t remember that, she says.
That’s because you’re stoned all the time.
Shut the fuck up, she says. Her voice is a little appalled on purpose. Everything is a little half right, a little half performance, truth, flirt, and play all at once.
Her mouth is a little open.
Jimmy stares off into space, a past life haunts him, too.
What did you do, Janice asks.
I ghosted on Michelle, Jimmy says. I didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.
Just straight ghosted?
Just ghosted.
Do you think she deserved it, Janice asks.
No, of course, not, Jimmy says. No, of course not.
Jimmy looks around the kitchen and takes a bump. He nods to Janice and she shadows him.
What about you, Jimmy asks. When was the last time you hurt someone?
I had that dream again, Janice says.
Like when we were twelve? The one with the animals, Jimmy asks.
Yes, Janice says. The one with the animals. It fucks me up because I really love animals.
I know you do. I know you do.
A loud crash vibrates the living room beyond the wall next to them. Almost the whole house shakes. Someone is screaming in agony, someone else is screaming in victory. Janice and Jimmy both rush to see. A man in a bear suit is wrestling a half-naked man in a bull’s mask. They are both barefoot and there is broken glass on the carpet. Janice cannot tell which dude is winning as they grapple. A small crowd is there, some holding drinks, some cheering the men on, hooting and howling. In the corner of the room, a focused artist is giving flash tattoos. Janice can see someone getting a knife on their forearm. “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain plays on the speakers at the party.
Someone screams, AI can’t write this song!
Whose house is this, Janice asks?
Jimmy takes another bump and offers some to Janice.
He takes a shot of tequila.
I don’t know, you invited me.
◆
ROMANCE IS THE MOST DANGEROUS THING IN THE WORLD. Second is a short blade. After all the bars and nightclubs, all these fifteen-minute walks, one after another, Janice can barely keep her eyes open, but she drives herself home. She loves staying awake until the very morning, she loves pushing herself toward this imaginary horizon, sleep deprived until reality hits. She makes no mistakes on the road, five stars, chef’s kiss, all the traffic lights on the way home are yellow and green, green and yellow. The light in her car is perfect for photography, a cold breakfast burrito in a brown paper bag saves her whole life. Cold eggs and potatoes. She watches herself eat in her rear view mirror parked at a gas station and she takes big bites. The energy from the bites of food powers and animates her body, her eyes light up like emeralds. She remembers having an IKEA bag full of clothes in the trunk of her car. Money in the bank. She spray paints C.R.E.A.M in bright green neon on the side of a brick building before finally driving home, looking both ways while crossing the street. She has the blue IKEA bag draped across her shoulder with her new sherpa denim jacket inside.
She loves when the love goes deep. Really too deep. You can give your whole life to a thing and realize it was irrevocably dead wrong. All those hours, years, long nights and weekends, morph into a secret fog or some kind of stillness or slowness for her, crumpled dead like crushed birds. They stay and remain inside her body like vessels with abandoned trajectories, shards of memory, broken flowers, and phantom pain. She feels as though her life right now is a plunge or a walk in the dark, a deeper breath than the last. Spencer is someone she wants deeply in her life but Spencer does not want Janice in his life at all.
Janice has been talking to her therapist about this. Some of the only times I feel like I was a monster, she tells her therapist, were when I tried to grasp onto people. Lovers. I try to hold onto them. And I disappear in the process, I devote everything to keeping them in my life.
What makes you think you’re a monster, asks Camille, the therapist.
It’s just, Janice says. There was this look on his face the last time we spoke. Just totally blank, almost scary, like his eyes were glossy, no thoughts underneath. I had never seen that look on his face before.
You had never seen what look before, asks Camille, the therapist.
Just total abandon, I think, Janice says. He was done with me.
Janice, says Camille, the therapist. Do you remember what we spoke about last time?
Janice takes a sharp breath and looks out the window. There are no birds, no view, only an empty parking lot. She nods with her eyes closed. Yes, she says. I am my own shape. I am contained within my own shape. Nothing is forever, nothing is promised. I have everything I need already.
What were you looking for, asks Camille. From Spencer?
Reassurance, says Janice. She opens her eyes.
I know it will never be enough, though, says Janice’s voice. I know I keep asking for more and more. But I was looking for reassurance from him.
Reassurance, for what, asks Camille?
Being alive, I guess, says Janice.
Janice says, I was thinking, Does he love me?
Does it matter, asks Camille?
When she finally gets home, she notices her apartment door is already pushed open, which makes her pause at the door, still holding her key. Her whole body hurts, her brain is mush, but her eyes are dead focused. There are strange scratches on the metal handle of the door and around the wood of the handle.
What the fuck, she says.
It is nearly four in the morning. She waits in the hallway, with her bag on her shoulder, looking at the other closed apartment doors. Everyone is probably asleep, no sound is bleeding through, the hallway is immaculate. The bag on her shoulder almost shakes, a cold temperature moves like a creature through her whole body. She contemplates going inside her apartment and stays listening to herself breathing, her tiny esophagus expands. The loud wind blows against the silent brick building. She takes out her taser and releases a brutal spark.
What the fuck, she says.
She sparks the taser again and pushes open the door. The lights are turned off but the moon shines on the hardwood floors through her one window. She can almost see her entire apartment by opening the door. She looks at the shadows for movement. She screams, Hello!
She screams, Hello!
She sparks the taser again and checks her bathroom and throws her heavy bag to the floor. She sparks the taser again, and turns on all her lights. She checks her walk-in closet, she checks her kitchen, and she spins around in her studio apartment a few times. She spins in a circle. She sparks her taser, nothing looks out of place, nothing is stolen from what she can tell, there are no valuables here, there is no one else here. What the fuck, she says.
She sparks her taser again and closes and locks the door. She touches the cold handle and looks out the peephole. Touching her mouth with her hand, her heart pounds in a way that it has never done before, scary rapid as though the organ will die in her throat. There is a feeling like there is someone right behind her. Without even thinking, she takes out her phone, spins around, and she begins to text Vincent: Hey, can you come over?
The text is delivered. Three dots blink right away.
What’s your address?
◆
BEES DON’T FLY IN THE DARK, OWLS CAN’T FLY IN THE RAIN, they look miserable when they try. Hippos kill more people than all the other animals in Africa combined. Other than like, the mosquito or other people, says Janice.
They are sitting on the hardwood floor together with their backs against the front door with a bottle of tequila between them, piles of clothes in careful mounds nearby. Socks and bare feet, hands on thighs. She likes that he came over. Janice takes another shot of tequila and hands the bottle to Vincent. Sunlight creeps through the window and touches the hardwood. She loves staying awake until the very morning, something like a God in her awakens after each and every all-nighter.
Wow, says Vincent. You love animals. Makes sense.
Janice says, I think in a past life, I could talk to animals.
Yeah, Vincent asks? What would you say?
The same shit I would say to you, Janice says. I keep the same energy, Vincent.
Does that make me an animal?
Shut up, Janice says and she squeezes his inner thigh. You know what you are.
He doesn’t break eye contact with her.
He says, I love it when you say my name.
He says, I really like your apartment.
Janice doesn’t break eye contact with him either until she does and she says, Thank you. I really like your name.
She looks around her apartment and she can still feel Vincent looking at her. In her mind, she can imagine kissing him, or she can imagine bashing his head against the wall. She can imagine fucking him, putting her face on his face, pulling his hair, she can imagine waking up happy with him. She imagines Spencer leaving her apartment for the last time, a few weeks ago, not even too long ago. Spencer leaves without slamming the door. As Spencer leaves, Janice remembers opening the door again and slamming the door for him. The walls shake in the hallway, the neighbors listen. She remembers screaming for him to go fuck himself and die. She remembers thinking, There is no balm more soothing than the sadness in his eyes.
She asks, When was the last time you hurt someone?
Vincent says, Come again.
She says, You heard me. When was the last time you hurt someone?
Are we trauma bonding?
Is there trauma involved?
Vincent doesn’t smile and says, A few weeks back. Right before I met you.
What did you do, Janice asks.
Vincent asks, Do you really want to do this right now?
Yes, I really want to do this right now, she says. Janice points out the window. She says, It’s a brand new day, you have to come correct.
Vincent says, I slept with someone else when she was in quarantine.
Wow, Janice says. You cheated on her. When she was in quarantine.
Yes, Vincent says.
Wow, Janice says, we are trauma bonding. How many times?
What?
How many times did you cheat on her?
Just the once.
Janice looks out the window for a long time and tilts her head.
Vincent asks, Why did you text me and not your ex? I thought you were still hurting for him.
Janice ignores his questions and keeps looking out the window. The world does tilt with you. She doesn’t really need love, she just needs to push forward. Forward into the future.
What about you, Vincent asks? When was the last time you hurt someone?
Can I model for you first? Janice speaks deadpan as though waking up from a stupor. I can model the clothes I got when I was with you.
Men in ski masks are drinking coffee inside a parked car. They are wearing old, ancient armor and ragged biker gear but the black ski masks are designer. Jimmy is locked in the trunk of the car and he’s screaming muffled cries with duct tape wrapped over his mouth. Both his hands are missing, he is bleeding all over in the trunk of the car, although his arms are tied at the stubs by tourniquets. His eye sockets are broken. The men in ski masks in the car do not blink for a long time, looking up at the apartment window.
Janice takes off her shirt and shows her bare back to Vincent. She reaches down into the IKEA bag and pulls out her new sherpa denim jacket. She puts on the denim jacket and spins around.
She asks, What do you think? Keep or sell?
Vincent rises from the floor and nods and says, Keep.
He touches her face and kisses her deeply. He pushes her gently against the wall.
She kisses him back, but then winces in pain against the wall immediately.
Something is stabbing her in the lower back.
Fuck, she says.
What, what?
Janice takes off her jacket and feels for the cut on her lower back. There is a little blood on her fingers. She says, Something cut me.
Janice looks at the jacket and can see something sticking out of the lining.
Fuck, she says.
Janice tears at the lining of her sherpa denim jacket. Vincent watches her from behind and his eyes begin to glow.
Janice pulls out a small black sword from the jacket lining. She holds the sword to the ceiling so the light catches the blade. She feels cold when she holds it, she can see her fresh blood at the tip of the blade.
I remember you, she says. You found me.