{"id":529,"date":"2007-01-31T22:39:43","date_gmt":"2007-01-31T22:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/its-alright-ma\/"},"modified":"2007-02-01T09:36:32","modified_gmt":"2007-02-01T09:36:32","slug":"its-alright-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/its-alright-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Alright Ma…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…and basically it was the Philadelphia Experiment all over again, Sherm babbled. Apparently they were able to duplicate the radar waves or whatever so that \u2018poof’ it was just gone, you know, fuckin gone. Can you fuckin imagine?<\/p>\n

No way. Gone. Whoa.<\/p>\n

Sherm and Lulu were deep in a discussion over whether an abandoned military base in Montauk, Long Island, had really been a base for top-secret military experiments in time travel and thought control through the use of high tech radio transmitters and radar waves of certain frequencies.<\/p>\n

Sherm had his great bulk half-sprawled on the large couch in his dark living room, which was all the more gloomy at that moment given the heavy crimson bed sheets he had duct-taped over every window to block out the sunshine of yet another scintillating Southern California morning.<\/p>\n

The room’s exposed beams, stained dark ebony, gave it a solemn, cathedral-like feel even at the best of times. The only source of light came from several candles that burned, stuffed in the open mouths of empty wine bottles covered in layer upon layer of various shades of dribbled wax. A tree-stump coffee table squatted between Sherm and Lulu, buried in countless wine bottles, beer bottles, the odd can, crumpled empty packs of cigarettes, and overflowing ashtrays and dirty mugs and plates that served as more ashtrays or candle holders or both.<\/p>\n

Lulu reclined opposite Sherm on the floor, which was covered by a filthy Turkish rug that extended all the way into the adjacent dining room, which was basically a dining room table that had been hidden under stacks and piles of scripts for as long as anyone could remember.<\/p>\n

She had her back to a massive stone fireplace, which still smoldered and leaked smoke as if the flu were closed.<\/p>\n

From her vantage point on the floor staring up diagonally at Sherm, she noticed that if she cared to, she could see right up Sherm’s shorts to the pale hairy bulge of his loose testicle.<\/p>\n

Instead she chose to focus on his mouth as it opened and closed from across the room. He almost looked like he was chewing an ice cube and not talking, but she heard him say something along the lines of \u2018dogs copulating on the force-field.’<\/p>\n

The whole thing with testicles was just so inherently wrong, she thought to herself. Unlike with women, where the flash of a nipple or an inadvertent pussy shot due to lack of underwear was usually erotic\u2013 even to other girls\u2013 even to other girls who weren’t even gay.<\/p>\n

Without taking her eyes away from Sherm’s face, Lulu’s mind at the thought of nipples and breasts, wandered over to a consideration of what she herself was wearing at that exact moment: faded navy blue drawstring gym-issue sweatpants, so worn thin\u2013 even all the way through in some places, that they hung off her small frame like rags, a favorite t-shirt of the moment, similarly worn thin and decrepit\u2013 the current one was a yard sale treasure she’d scored for fifty cents that had holes in the armpits and round the collar and a drawing on the front of Joan Crawford wearing a tiara and brandishing a bloody knife with a caption in a bubble that stuck out of Joan’s snarling mouth, which read ‘Don’t fuck with me fellas!’ Lulu liked to say it was her taking-the-car-to-the-shop shirt. Although she had yet to take her car anywhere in the last few weeks except down the hill to buy wine. She’d been wearing the shirt nearly every day. At times it would get smelly, but as her life had pretty much dwindled down to herself and Sherm and the dogs, she figured what did it really matter?<\/p>\n

To her it was a bit like sucking her thumb. The luxury of being a supposed adult was brazenly doing everything she wasn’t allowed to do as a child. Which included drinking and smoking and wearing the same thing every day and sucking her thumb and some days, eating nothing but candy. She knew it was stupid but her heart was breaking and she didn’t have any faith in the world or in herself to care enough to think too much about it, beyond doing it\u2013 let alone to stop.<\/p>\n

Yo Sherm, any wine left in that bottle? Hey what time is it?<\/p>\n

Oh, sorry Lulu. I finished this a while ago. Oh wait! Hold on a second!<\/p>\n

And with speed and agility Lulu found astounding for someone of his size and physical condition Sherm sprang from the couch and vanished into the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u2018Love is rose, butcha better not pickit, only grows, when it’s on the vahn…’ Lulu sang to herself in a mock Southern accent.<\/p>\n

Her mother listened to nothing but Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris when she was little. Lulu knew every word to every song on every album they had ever made.<\/p>\n

What’s that? Sherm yelled from the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Nothing\u2013 I didn’t say anything\u2013 I was just singing\u2013<\/p>\n

Eight o’clock! Chicken? Wait, whaaa-?<\/p>\n

No\u2013 I\u2013 wait, eight o’clock? Shit. I’m fucked.<\/p>\n

You ate chicken? What was that? Hold on, I’ll be right out.<\/p>\n

Lulu had managed to genuinely confuse herself as to the exact date and time of her mother’s arrival\u2013 so much so that she was fairly certain that her mother was not arriving until the following day.<\/p>\n

Of course the question of ‘what day it was’ was a loaded question, given that her all night sessions with Sherm tended to confuse which day was still ‘today,’ or now ‘tomorrow,’ or now ‘today’.<\/p>\n

Compounding the confusion of such considerations was a certain other added wishful element, which Lulu absolutely was not one to overlook. The wishful element was Lulu’s capacity to daydream- she imagined little scenarios that might have started out based on cold hard facts, but quickly grew into sheer unfounded fantasy. For example, the cold hard facts were this: Lulu’s mother had not yet arrived. And also: Lulu wasn’t exactly sure when her mother was due to arrive. Which logically implied that: it was entirely possible that Lulu’s mother was due to arrive the day before- but hadn’t! Which meant that it was also entirely possible that for reasons Lulu could not be expected to have access to, given her limited capacity as an average-human-non-psychic that outside forces had intervened\u2013 ‘foul play’ or ‘the way things worked out’ or ‘one of those things’ or ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’ or ‘I guess it just wasn’t in the cards’\u2013 or whatever it was, it could mean that Lulu’s mother wasn’t going to come at all.<\/p>\n

At the very least, it introduced enough doubt to question the circumstantial evidence that pointed to the supposed exact date and time of her arrival.<\/p>\n

Lulu let it go, and opted to not think about it too much.<\/p>\n

Except that she still had no clue when her mother was coming so no matter how much wine she drank she couldn’t stop thinking about it. All morning she’d been psyching herself out that she could hear her mother at Sherm’s front door.<\/p>\n

She was also a little nervous that the persistent- albeit so far imaginary- knocks and rattles she kept hearing might be her fianc \u00e9 Dean; the relationship had been dead in the water for the last few months, but that didn’t mean she was exempt from his ferocious temper, which had spoiled things between them in the first place.<\/p>\n

Sherm?<\/p>\n

Sherm was taking a long time in the kitchen and Lulu worried for a minute that maybe he’d had some kind of accident or simply passed out in there, but given his size, which was well over six feet tall and close to three hundred pounds, Lulu figured she would have heard something.<\/p>\n

Sherm!<\/p>\n

This time, however, there was no denying it: she heard the screen door rattling.<\/p>\n

Like lightening she was up off the floor and hopping around in the kitchen like she had a splinter in her foot.<\/p>\n

Sherm! Sherm. Fuckohmygod!<\/p>\n

Lulu!, Lulu, shhh, calm down. Are you laughing or crying?<\/p>\n

What?<\/p>\n

Shit, girl, you’re totally freaking me out.<\/p>\n

It’s my mom, my mom, my mom is out there my mom is out there…<\/p>\n

FUCK!<\/p>\n

I know \u2013<\/p>\n

What are we gonna do what are we gonna do?<\/p>\n

I don’t know I don’t know \u2013 do you have that wine?<\/p>\n

What? Oh yea here.<\/p>\n

The rattling had ceased and without questioning it Lulu and Sherm took the opportunity to split the bottle between two large plastic cups. They each downed their glasses in one. Out of the corner of her eye Lulu glanced at the clock. The big hand was on the six and the little hand was above the nine and Lulu involuntarily gagged on the last bit of wine and wanted to cry. But the banging had started up again.<\/p>\n

We’re fucked. Lulu said under her breath.<\/p>\n

What’s she thinking? Shrieked Sherm. It’s my fucking house. Doesn’t she know where you live?<\/p>\n

Dude, yes. Sort of. She’s not stupid. Obviously she’s gone to the big house and no one was there except the doors are all unlocked and my keys and purse are on the counter so obviously its not like I just, I don’t know, decided to go climb a tree\u2013 I mean I guess I could be out for a walk\u2013 but not with the dogs cuz they’re in the yard.<\/p>\n

Dude, we’ve got to get out of here.<\/p>\n

What should we do?<\/p>\n

I have no fucking clue.<\/p>\n

Maybe we should just hide.<\/p>\n

Are you serious?<\/p>\n

No. But yes. Totally, c’mon- Lulu said, racing out of the kitchen and nearly slamming into the doorframe as she did so.<\/p>\n

Hey\u2013 where you going?<\/p>\n

Under your bed\u2013 c’mon, shhhh!<\/p>\n

Sherm thudded after Lulu towards his bedroom, one of the two small bedrooms at the back of the guesthouse. Sherm used one as his office and it was piled so high with more scripts and general writerly detritus that if there wasn’t a narrow well-worn path in the faded beige carpet from the door to the surprisingly small desk\u2013 considering it was Sherm’s\u2013 the room might be just another storage closet lost to one small speck of Hollywood’s gargantuan pile of rejected screenplays.<\/p>\n

The other bedroom barely fit Sherm’s double bed.<\/p>\n

By the time Sherm had staggered to the doorway of his room, Lulu was already under the bed. The only evidence that she was even under there was a plastic tennis racquet case that had been shoved out into the open and several large tufts of under the bed fluff.<\/p>\n

Lulu was sneezing violently.<\/p>\n

Jesus, Sherm\u2013 when’s the last time you ever vacuumed under here?<\/p>\n

Uhhh, never?<\/p>\n

Nice.<\/p>\n

Sherm was now down on his hands and knees peering at Lulu under the bed.<\/p>\n

Uh, I don’t think I’m gonna fit, Lul.<\/p>\n

No kidding, said Lulu, sneezing again, violently. Maybe you should just answer the door\u2013 and I don’t know\u2013 like, pretend I’m not here. And you don’t know where I am?<\/p>\n

Yea, but… Sherm paused, as if he should be able to come up with some sort of objection to this plan, but drawing a blank, he slowly rose to his feet.<\/p>\n

All right, he said. Should I tell her anything from you?<\/p>\n

Sherm! Duh. I said you don’t know where I am\u2013 remember?<\/p>\n

Uh\u2013 right.<\/p>\n

But Sherm did not answer his front door; he did not even make it out of his bedroom. He simply paused for a moment, and then eased himself onto his bed. The frame creaked under his weight, and the mattress and springs shifted dangerously down towards the floor under his weight.<\/p>\n

Sherm? Lulu called out.<\/p>\n

Sherm didn’t answer. Lulu listened for a few seconds and heard his raspy deep breath. He was already asleep.<\/p>\n

She told herself she was only going to close her eyes for a second, and then she’d haul herself out from under the bed and pull herself together and deal with her mother.<\/p>\n

But instead, she too fell asleep.<\/p>\n

In her dream she was frantically trying to get the dogs leashed up and into her car so she could take them to the dog park. But for some reason her mother and Dean were there and they were trying to stop her. She was stuck chasing after the dogs that her mom and Dean kept setting loose. Like Sisyphus or something. The reason she had to get to the dog park was because there was some kind of impending great disaster\u2013 some horrible apocalypse\u2013 but unless Lulu could shake her mom and Dean, she wasn’t going to make it.<\/p>\n

Lulu! What the FUCK! What the fuck, Lulu. What the fuck?<\/p>\n

Lulu bolted awake, the mesh of the mattress spring grinding into her temple as she tried to roll over. She didn’t have to look to know that Dean had found her.<\/p>\n

What the fuck, Lulu! What the fuck!<\/p>\n

Lulu’s head was pounding and she felt so hot and nauseas she knew that no matter how scared she was of Dean, if she didn’t get out from under that bed she might never be the same.<\/p>\n

Luckily, by the time she hauled herself out Dean was already storming his way towards Sherm’s living room.<\/p>\n

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you! You’re fucking mother is here, you know that? I come home at like, noon for some lunch and she’s in there making fucking angel food cake! Lulu? Lulu you hear me?<\/p>\n

Lulu was afraid to answer\u2013 these situations were always a tough call; he’d demand an answer, and yet anything she said only provoked him even more.<\/p>\n

She wished for a split second, honestly, that she was dead.<\/p>\n

The trick was to keep it minimal and stick to answers that would provoke him less. The trick was to be general and vague, but not too blatantly general and vague so that it would piss him off.<\/p>\n

He hated it when she reflexively said ‘What’ even more than her father did.<\/p>\n

Lulu! What the fuck? Have you been here this entire time? Dude, I don’t even want to know what’s been going on here. Jesus. You two are a bunch of alcoholics.<\/p>\n

If she didn’t know that crying pissed him off just as much as anything, she might have cried in that moment, because she really felt like it. Instead she kept a blank look on her face and stood tall\u2013 but not too tall that it would piss him off\u2013 and told herself over and over again that this was no big deal, it was kindof funny, it was nothing, it would pass, it was no big deal, don’t worry, everything is totally fine\u2013 tra-la-la-la!<\/p>\n

She wanted to ask him what time it was but she didn’t dare. She wanted to know how much her mother knew\u2013 and where she was\u2013<\/p>\n

Are you coming back to the house? Dean asked.<\/p>\n

He shrugged in disgust but Lulu could tell that his fury was already on the downslide, and she took baby steps as if to follow him even though she dreaded going home.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately Dean was at the side door, holding it open for her, so she had to catch up with him and pass through.<\/p>\n

She wondered what had happened to Sherm? He was apparently no longer at his house\u2013 plus Dean wouldn’t have yelled at her like that if he’d been around.<\/p>\n

Sneaky bastard, she thought to herself, suddenly furious with him that he should drag her so far down and then not have the decency to wake her up when he left.<\/p>\n

Of course it was quite possible that he’d forgotten she was even under his bed. Still, she felt like she was done with Sherm.<\/p>\n

She would clean up her act, she thought to herself as she followed Dean like a disgraced child down the narrow flagstone path that connected Sherm’s guest house with the main house out front.<\/p>\n

Before reaching his own back door, Dean stopped and turned around and simply stared at Lulu. From the expression on his face, which betrayed nothing\u2013 neither anger nor sympathy\u2013 she had no idea what he was thinking.<\/p>\n

But he was a gun that was definitely still smoking and Lulu wasn’t going to chance it by asking ‘What.’<\/p>\n

You might want to take a shower before she gets back, he said finally, neutrally.<\/p>\n

Lulu stopped.<\/p>\n

Is she gone?<\/p>\n

Yea. She went shopping- to buy groceries or… I don’t know what all.<\/p>\n

She has a rental car?<\/p>\n

Yea. Are you coming\u2013 or what?<\/p>\n

Yea, but…<\/p>\n

What! Lulu?<\/p>\n

She flinched at the anger and resentment in his voice.<\/p>\n

She was sorry she was sorry she was sorry she was sorry she was sorry she was sorry she was sorry\u2013 the world didn’t have enough sorrys\u2013 not what she felt she needed to appease him.<\/p>\n

Which left her stranded in her own sorry.<\/p>\n

Instead of saying anything, she looked down at the ground and walked towards him, slipping through the door without meeting his eye and heading directly towards the shower.<\/p>\n

For some reason knowing they were going to have sex shortly served as some kind of a consolation to her. Even if they didn’t talk and it wasn’t friendly. Knowing it was about to happen made her feel better, as she stood soapy and hung over in the shower.<\/p>\n

Not only that but she wanted it rough and cold and mean. She was looking forward to it. And it was. Without a word or a kiss he fucked her, threw his clothes on, grabbed his car keys and left.<\/p>\n

And Lulu lay nude on the bed, on her stomach, her face pressed against the cool of the palms of her hands, eyes swimming in mottled darkness, feeling empty but not sad or upset.<\/p>\n

\"nmg.jpg\"
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR:<\/strong>
\nNina-Marie Gardner<\/a><\/strong> was born in New York City in 1969 and graduated from Yale University. She was a founding editor of Flavorpill<\/a><\/strong> in addition to dabbling in careers that ranged from unemployed actress in Hollywood to party promoter in New York City to executive recruiter on Wall Street before ditching it all for debt and an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. She now lives in Manchester and recently completed her first novel, I’m Not This Girl<\/em>, which is not about her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

sm.jpg The rattling had ceased and without questioning it Lulu and Sherm took the opportunity to split the bottle between two large plastic cups. They each downed their glasses in one. Out of the corner of her eye Lulu glanced at the clock. The big hand was on the six and the little hand was above the nine and Lulu involuntarily gagged on the last bit of wine and wanted to cry. But the banging had started up again.<\/p>\n

\nBy Nina-Marie Gardner<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}