A pathetic nod.
— I CANNOT HEAR A GODDAMN THING! I bark at her, as she winces and recoils. — How can that gaping mouth be large enough to shovel all that goddamned crud into it, and yet nothing can come out of it? WILL YOU STAND UP?! WILL YOU COME FORWARD?! WILL YOU HELP ME SET LENA SORENSON FREE?!
— Yes—
— I CANNOT HEAR YOU! WHO ARE WE GONNA SET FREE?
— Lena . . . Lena Sorenson—
— SHOUT IT! SHOUT IT IN MY FUCKING FACE! Go on, tell me: who in the name of holy hell are we gonna set free?!
Her eyes crinkle, fists balling at her side, as she erupts in a beautiful wail of righteous anger. — LENA SORENSON!
— WHO!
— LENA SORENSON!
I turn toward the mirror, looking at her blotchy red face, snot running from her nose. — They’ve locked Lena up—do you see how they did that? Do you see how you let them lock that beautiful woman up? I wave the photograph in her face.
— Yes, yes, I see. She looks at her reflection, now focused in loathing. — How could I have been so stupid?! Oh God, what have I done?
— You’re angry, I tell her, grabbing her plump shoulder, — and that’s where I need you to be. But I don’t want the anger turned in, because we call that depression. That’s when we start eating shit, packing stuff into our mouths, to reward ourselves when we feel that things in life aren’t going our way. I stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her wobbling mass. Whisper into her ear, — We’ve played that game, and it’s a loser’s game. No more.
— No. No more. She shakes her head in rage, as I step around to look into her eyes.
— We stand up. We come forward.
— Yes.
— But will you help me to help you? Will you work with me, really work with me, to set Lena Sorenson free?
— Yes! Yes. Yes. Yes, I will!
I’ve got Little Miss SoBe where I want her, a whimpering but defiant mass of wobbly Jell-O, here in my arms. And I feel her letting it all go—the self-hate, the abuse, the anger, the denial, the victimhood, and, very soon, the fat. The embodiment of all that ugly fucked-mind shit. — We’re ready, sister, I tell her. — We are ready to start fighting back, and I offer my hand up in a high five, which she at first waveringly, then properly responds to. — Welcome to the Lena Sorenson Escape Committee!
10
CONTACT 4
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: I Don’t Get It
Hi Michelle,
Once again, I’m shamelessly hitting you up for professional advice. I have a client, an artsy chick, who seems to have everything, but she’s been eating herself to death. She makes sculptures and figurines out of animal bones, yet she sends me pictures of furry animals from hokey websites! Is this bitch a raving psychopath?
Her family live back up north in Minnesota. It’s a part of the world I’ve never taken to, probably because I had a bad experience with a guy from St. Paul once. Anyway, this chick has no boyfriend and seems to be friendless. Maybe she needs to get laid—don’t we all, right?!
Any advice on how to whip this particular self-indulgent lardass into shape?
Best,
Luce x
PS The world-domination project is suspended. I’ve been getting a lot of heat through all this pedophile stuff. Bizarre shit, right, but the cable company have totally pussied out. I’m smelling fake people, Michelle. I don’t do fake.
PPS Morning Pages . . . I dunno if I can roll with that. Each to their own but I don’t think it’s pour moi.
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Subject: Please, Calm Down!
Lucy,
Thelma called and said that you left a highly abusive and somewhat threatening message on her voicemail.
Please do not contact her or anyone else at the channel when you are in such an agitated state! You are undermining everything I’m trying to do on your behalf!
I know this is distressing, but there isn’t a whole lot more that I can say to you, except that it is absolutely imperative that you don’t speak to the media. Leave the communication with the TV people with me—it’s what I’m paid to do!
Best,
Valerie
Another fake ass!
11
DEMON
PARADISE HAS A smell, and it’s sewage. A little rain, the drains go down, and there are very few Paddy dive bars in Southie whose shithouse smells as bad as SoBe after a tropical storm. Unless you wanna paddle through stagnant water you can’t even walk across Alton to Taste Bakery to get a healthy breakfast. I’m not down with that, not in sneakers. The sun is pumping out and it will soon evaporate this lake of shit, but it’ll take two or three hours.
A text comes in from Grace Carillo, asking me if we’re still on for our sparring session later. This arrangement slipped my mind but that’s exactly what I need. I go back home and fix myself a protein shake (450 cal), and Miles calls. — Lucy . . . how’s things going with you, babe?
— I’m good, I say cagily.
— I’m calling to apologize for how I was the other day.
— Accepted. I was a little short too.
— Cool. I hear him clear his throat. — Listen, there’s another thing . . .
Here it comes. — Riiight . . .
— . . . and there’s no way of saying this without sounding a total asshole.
I’m instantly thinking: in your case, there’s no way of saying anything without sounding like that, but I’m biting that caustic tongue. It was a mistake to leave trash talk on Thelma’s voicemail. You confront a bitch direct. Now bitch got witnesses. Bitch got evidence. I suck down some air.
— Lucy? You still there?
— Yes . . . it’s a very bad connection though, I lie.
— I need you to spot me five hundred bucks. For my rent. I’ve been put on a leave of absence pending this inval-idity insurance investigation, and I’m maxed out on my Visa and MasterCard.
— I can’t hear you for all this static . . . I tell him, scraping my nail against the cell’s mouthgrid. — What a terrible reception . . .
— I said I need you to spot me—
— You’re breaking up, Miles . . . I’m driving . . . let me get back to you . . .
I click off my phone, lowering it to the table, and finish my shake. Then I’m heading over to Bodysculpt and a session with Sorenson. After our shit last night she comes in with a slightly candy-assed stare, but there’s determination in her stride. I don’t trust the shitty loser scale in her bathroom. I know through experience the tendency of a fat bitch to simply fuck with a scale until it produces the numbers she craves.
So I give her the kettlebell routine, and in between I’m hammering her with starbursts, squats, lunges, burpees, and squat thrusts, and a rake of floor ab exercises—straight crunches, vertical leg crunches, bicycles, Russian twist (with medicine ball)—until she’s gasping and glowing. Then she’s gloved up and even though I show her how to throw a jab, right cross, left hook, right hook, uppercut, she’s hitting the bag like a pussy till I shout at her to step it the fuck up. Then I have her back on the other exercises and she’s gasping, groaning, and reddening, and I can see Lester’s raised eyebrows, so I cool it, and stick her on the elliptical, making her pump those pedals and levers at high speed. Sorenson cannot speak when she steps off the machine, like Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface; I’m watching her burn like a motherfucker, while gently urging, — Breathe in through your nose, exhale through your mouth!
She’s feeling pleased with herself through the pain, and I am too, but when I haul her ass onto a real scale, she’s still over 200 lbs at the weigh-in, 200.75 to be fucking precise! — That’s so disappointing, she says, then smiles, all back in ass-licking Scandi-Minnesota mode, — but I’m moving in the right direction!
; I fucking say when a bitch move! I fucking say when she breathe! — You’re not going anywhere, I bark. — Do you really think that two fucking pounds at this stage, with what you’ve been doing, means jackshit? I lower my voice, as I see Mona’s ears prick up. Hovering bitch has an anorexic Condé Nast twig on a mat nearby, doing pussy stretches, purely for eavesdropping purposes. But it’s unprofessional to curse out a client, and it won’t have gotten past that scheming creepette. That hoe manipulates and undermines. Like Sorenson here. Where did she go for breakfast? Jerry’s Deli? Pork chops and fat shit stuffed into her own fucking porky chops? She gotta be told. — I’m less than impressed, Lena. It’s all about numbers. I wanted a substantially bigger drop.
— Well, I did too . . .
Bitch still cramming for the big-booty examinations. — Are you following the diet sheet?
A guilty pout; caught with her fucking doughy fist in the cookie jar! — I, I’m trying, I—
— We don’t try, we do! You need to do, I tell her, as I catch Mona’s devious, glacial features light up an amp or three. Fuck you, Frisbee flaps! I turn back to Sorenson. — Right, I gotta go, and I pick up my bag. As I head out I can feel her abandoned-child eyes tracking me out the door. The sun is bright, and I squint, realizing I’ve forgotten my Ray-Bans, but I’m not going back in there. I try to stay in the shade all the way down Washington, to the Miami Mixed Martial Arts club on 5th.
The air conditioning blasts you when you walk into the MMMA but it can’t displace those satisfying real gym aromas of sweat, liniment, and adrenaline. Thank God for this place, all heavy bags, pull-up bars, and solid weights and cardio equipment, two full-sized boxing rings, and an octagon. Emilio (5’10", 145 lbs) emerges from behind the desk to greet me with a big hug. — Hey, you!
— Hey!
He breaks off and jumps back like a kangaroo in reverse gear. — Lookin good, Lucy B!
— You too, honey, I crack a bleachtray-whitened smile, which I hope mirrors his more professional and costly job. Emilio had a solid boxing record as a pro (24-2-8, 11 KOs). He was a ranked IBF number 8 contender and WBC number 10 at one time. Of his eight losses, three came in his last trio of fights, with two of them by stoppage. The writing was on the wall; he’d gone from being a hot prospect to a decent scalp for rising, hungry young guns, and (uniquely in the lemminglike world of dude boxing) he had the good sense to read it as such. His nose has been broken a couple of times but it’s set well, and his pretty, boyish face is almost unmarked. He always was a boxer rather than a slugger. Now he runs this place and keeps to his fighting welterweight poundage. — Great to have a proper workout today though, I tell him, and he gives me an affirmative nod; Emilio has his own roster of lardasses at some fake joint, in order to pay the bills.
I stretch out for a full twenty minutes. The older you get, the more essential this boring routine becomes. A muscle strain or, worse, a tear, takes longer to get over and being sidelined is not an option. I need to work out. Without it I’d go fucking crazy. Especially now. It centers me. I need to do more of this in order to stay cool. Mercando’s right: I need to shut the fuck up and keep my head down.
I do a further twenty minutes of jumping jacks, squats, burpees, and some hops, in preference to the jump rope, as that messes up the lactic acids in the arms if you plan on throwing punches later. Then I wrap up my hands and do three rounds of shadowboxing with three-pound hand weights before gloving up and doing four rounds on the heavy bags, mixing up combos—jab, straight right, left hook, jab, double jab, right, right hook, right cross, uppercuts—finding a beautiful rhythm that takes me into another place. As always, sad nemesis faces materialize on the battered leather bag as I strike:
BANG! The fascist shitbag Quist.
BANG! The insipid slimy Thorpe.
BANG! The fucking coward McCandless.
BANG! The filthy creepy pedophile Winter.
BANG! The scheming fake Mona.
BANG! The rubber-lipped faggot Toby.
BANG! The Botox fake ass Thelma.
BANG! The Botox fake ass Valerie.
BANG! THE ASSHOLE IN THE PARK . . . FUCKING CLINT AU—FUCK THAT! FUCK THAT! FUCK THAT! GET PAST THAT SHIT!
BANG! The greedy needy loser Sorenson.
BANG! The greedy needy loser Sorenson.
BANG! Sorenson. BANG! Sorenson. BANG FUCKING SORENSON . . .
I’m panting and drenched in sweat as the rounds fly past. Then I wind down and get in four times ten pull-ups on the bar. I drop to the mat, feeling that burn, that delicious purr inside, and take a long, frosty drink of H2O. Grace Carillo from the MDPD has come in, and greets me with a croc’s smile. Her strut is good, catwalk-arrogant, but her ass belongs to me. After a sleek, pantherlike stretch, she’s wrapping her hands and I’m gloving up again, mouthguard in and headgear on, as we climb through the ropes with Emilio. I wear a Title protective sports bra with reinforced chest guards, which is fine for sparring, though I note Grace is clad in the heavy armour: the full female training chest protector. She looks real badass, with that dusky skin set off against the black headguard, titguard, gloves, no-foul-groin and abdomen protector, and the shin-high boots. Way too much for sparring though: I smell gun-shy.
Emilio sets the bell and Grace and I touch gloves and commence our tight dance. With those long rangy arms, she’s a tough, awkward motherfucker; there is a solid left jab to get past. Let that bitch control the distance and she’ll torture and frustrate you all day. I’m looking at the beads of moisture spotting on her face between the lines of the headgear, my thoughts drifting to her pussy and how sweaty it would be, but how sweet it would taste . . .
BANG!
Motherfucker! I see stars as a solid straight right pushes through my guard, snapping me back into the here and now. Que perra se determina . . . bitch got game . . . I can’t have this, and I shake my head and move forward, determined to get inside this fucker. I have to take another, but I snap it off, cause I’m where I want to be, and I let go with a vicious hook to the body, Micky Ward style. Sweet spot, I purr to myself, watching the wind squeeze from her accordioning frame. — Sorry, sugar, I say as she winces and sucks in air, still folded like a razor.
— Easy, ladies, Emilio warns, as Grace shakily gets upright, and we’re back at it again.
It’s now a technical show, as the sting has gone out of Grace’s jab. When Emilio earnestly calls time we end on a sweaty embrace and I’m digging her musky scent as it mingles with her perfume.
We hit the showers and Grace strips off unselfconsciously. Oh, man, the body on that chick. — You really got me good there, she smiles, rubbing that taut, sleek torso as she steps into a cubicle. If she didn’t have a boyfriend, I swear to God I would try and tap, tap, tap me that MDPD ass until it pooped nuggets of gold! I’m berthed in the adjoining trap, touching myself, thinking of how I could just step next door with my terry cloth and soap up that pussy . . .
In my mind I make that short step and Grace’s big lips are on mine and I’m sliding my hands around her ass and we’re grinding our crotches together and then I’m hunkering down onto my knees to feast on that sweet bounty . . . no bitch tastes finer than one with a fusion of Latin and African American blood coursing through her veins . . . — Ohhhh . . .
— You okay, Lucy? Grace’s head snaps around the corner of my stall.
— The water got kinda cold all of a sudden, I say, stepping back in terror.
— It can do that, she smiles, stepping out, big yellow beach towel like a candy wrapper around that sweet block of milk chocolate.
I’m too mortified to say anything so I get myself dried off and pull on my clothes.
Sometimes Grace and I grab a drink or a sandwich, but she’s back on call, so I’m on a solitary walk up to Lincoln. It’s hot now, the Bank of America clock is saying 80 but it feels more like 90, and I’m heading down the street, browsing in store windows, and to kill time I go into Books & Books. I start looking at the art books, which I generally never do, and
I realize why I’m acting this way when I see the spine:
LENA SORENSON: FUTURE HUMAN
I pick it up and leaf through the pages. There are numerous plates of the little bird-boned monster men with their reptile-green translucent skins I saw Sorenson trying to assemble in her workshop. I’m scanning around shiftily as I read, worried the stalking loser will come in, catch me red-handed, and identify me as being like her. So I take the book up to the cashier and pay the ludicrously expensive price of $48. I feel both relieved and exploited as the sales clerk slips it into a brown bag. It makes me wonder what Sorenson or the photographer and/or author team of Mathew Goldberg and Julius Carnoby get paid for this?
Retracing my steps, I continue down Washington. On 14th I’m arrested by the presence of a man with greasy blond, sun-bleached hair, his skin tanned under a coat of grime, clad in the middle-aged Miami sex offender’s uniform of grubby Hawaiian shirt and stained beige shorts. I can’t quite believe it: it’s Winter. Timothy Winter. The fucking pedophile, the short-eyes whose miserable ass I was stupid enough to save! He’s with a balding obese guy with a grimy layer of sweat on his pustular face. This guy wears a buttoned vest and nothing else on top; a brown gut swells down to an underpants waistband with David Beckham embroidered on it. Although this fucking tramp must be in his forties, his pants hang hip-hop style below his gross ass. It’s Winter who revolts me most, though; his sneer of entitlement as he tries to bum cigarettes from smokers standing outside one of the Irish themed pubs. He doesn’t even recognize me when our eyes meet! A doorman, sitting on a stool outside, tracks him and Fatboy Gross down the street.
I follow him, watching as Winter, egged on by his blubbery sidekick, panhandles some change from a group of vacationing girls who look grossed out, as well they might. I want to punch that monster’s smug face in. But it’s Washington and it’s broad daylight and this asshole has caused me enough grief as it is. Flight takes over from fight: exit stage fuck.
I go home and lay the art book out on my small coffee table, flipping through some of the plates. What is it with all this sci-fi and monsters stuff? I’m betting Sorenson was the love-starved chunky goth chick who hung around with the fucked-up losers and nerds, the type who attend those science-fiction and comic-book conventions. It all makes sense. I can smell her pathetic cosseting of those twitching semi-autistic weirdos, as I turn every page to let myself pause over the nauseating notes. Something makes me check my cell; I knew it, a couple of bland messages from Sorenson. I am so going to hunt this bitch down.