Glitter & Mayhem Read online

  Driving out there was just as bad an idea.

  And what about her kids? Shit, what could they do to me? My brain kept running through every gory sci–fi movie I’d ever seen, which at least meant that I was occasionally consoled by thoughts of Sigourney Weaver in her skivvies.

  Besides, what did I really owe Shaz? Sure, she was awesome at cunnilingus, but it wasn’t like we were going steady or anything. We were just fuckbuddies. You could hardly blame someone for going back on a promise to a fuckbuddy when the military and interstellar hunters were involved.

  And speaking of which, how the fuck had they both even connected me to her?

  I still hadn’t figured anything out by the time the store closed, so I drove home, hoping for another note pointing to leftovers, and instead found my parents waiting for me at the kitchen table.

  “The Air Force was here,” Mom said. “They wanted to get into your room.”

  “Did they have a warrant?”

  “We didn’t ask for one.”

  “So,” my father asked, “when were you going to tell us about the drugs?”

  Oh, great. They’d found them. “What I put in my body is none of your business.”

  “When it brings the military to our house, it certainly is.”

  “Did they call the cops?”

  “No, but I would have myself if they hadn’t confiscated the lot.”

  “Confiscated? Goddamn it!” I raced out of the kitchen, across the backyard, and up the stairs to my little garage apartment. The door was hanging open, and I expected to see the place ransacked, but apparently, the Air Force was good at doing very tidy searches, because the place looked untouched.

  But when I looked under the bathroom sink, my stash was gone.

  The only MDMA I had left in this world were the pills in my pants pocket.

  I heard footsteps behind me, and turned to see my parents both staring at me with clear disapproval. My father shook his head and said, “You’re selling, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I sure as shit can’t anymore,” I said. “They took everything!”

  “Under our roof?”

  “Of course not,” I said. I shouldered my way past them and ran down to the car. “At the store.”

  “Don’t you come back, young lady!” my mother yelled.

  “Stop treating me like an after school special! I’m an adult!”

  I slammed the car door closed, shutting out whatever ridiculous retort my mother threw back at me.

  Fuck being followed. I didn’t care anymore. I was going to the goddamned Rollaway. Let the Air Force and Mommy’s Little Punkies come along for the ride. I’d wanted excitement, hadn’t I? Who needed Tokyo when I had this?

  When I got to the Rollaway, Celeste the Amazon was in the parking lot, pulling a fresh cigarette from her jeans jacket pocket and lighting it off of the butt of her previous one.

  “Where the fuck is she?” I asked.

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “I’ve had the Air Force and her kids asking about her today. They’re probably both on my tail right now.”

  Celeste flicked the butt to the pavement, ground it out with her toe, and took a long drag from her fresh cigarette. “I told her this would happen,” she said, smoke wafting from her nose and ears.

  “You’re not mad at me? I thought you were her bodyguard or something.”

  She snorted, and I swore I saw tiny tendrils of smoke coming out of her scalp. “Nah, I’m her big sister, and I’m officially done looking out for her. She can take care of her own sorry ass from now on.” She bobbed her head towards the door and said, “Have at her.”

  I stormed into the Rollaway, hanging a right at the phase junction, and found Shaz dancing naked in the middle of her pillow room, surrounded by kneeling Smithies. Shaz was ecstatic, glimmering with sweat and sparkles, her hair practically throwing sparks as she flung her head back and forth. Shit, she was right. She was a diva. How had I fallen for someone so damned high–maintenance?

  One of the Smithies turned to me — the one I’d actually thought about asking out — and cried, “We are in the presence of the goddess!”

  “She’s just a naked lady. For fuck’s sake, I could be a goddess by those standards.”

  “You’re not seeing her with true sight. Have one of these.” She gestured towards a plate of suspicious–looking brownies.

  Oh great, the Smithies had discovered hash.

  The song ended, and the Smithies broke into wild applause. Shaz smiled down at their fawning faces, looking for all the world like she was getting high off of them, then finally noticed me. “Cass!” She flung her arms wide and said, “Ladies, make a path for her.”

  They parted like she was Lady Moses.

  “I met your boys today,” I said. “And the Air Force.”

  Her skin went gray, and she raced down the Smithie corridor and grabbed me by the forearms. “You didn’t tell them where to find me, did you?”

  “I’m pretty sure they were all smart enough to follow me.”

  As if on cue, we heard Colonel Gagnon ordering the evacuation of the Rollaway through a megaphone. “We have the building surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”

  Oh God, I was officially living in a bad movie, and that line was the proof of it.

  Her two sons snuck into the room and gaped at Shaz. “Mom!” the green–haired one squeaked. “Stop it! You’re embarrassing us.”

  “I’ll do no such thing! This shape is beautiful!”

  “How did you get past the military?” I asked.

  “We didn’t. You can come in now.”

  Colonel Gagnon marched in, flanked by half a dozen heavily–armed soldiers. Celeste walked in behind him, arm–in–arm with Captain Ireland, who was clearly tripping balls on my stolen MDMA. “I love everybody,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah, it wears off,” I said.

  Shaz glared at her sister, hands on her hips. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Even I have my limits. Her, I could take,” she said, nodding her head towards me. “But them?” She looked at the Smithies and shuddered.

  “I love them allllllll!”

  Gagnon shook his head sadly. “Lost another one,” he muttered. “ ‘Best minds of my generation destroyed by madness’ indeed.”

  I kinda felt my sanity snap at that. Next thing I knew, I was standing on a pile of undulating pillows holding the plate of hash brownies over my head and screaming, “Who the fuck are you people, how did you find me, and why is that soldier quoting Ginsberg?!?”

  “At ease, Ms. Labonte,” Gagnon said. He held out his hand and said, “Now give me the brownies and nobody has to get hurt.”

  “Not until I get answers!”

  “And if you don’t get them, what exactly are you planning to do with those brownies?”

  “I… Fuck.” I handed him the plate and let out a long sigh. “I have no fucking clue.”

  Celeste lit a fresh cigarette off the one she was currently smoking and handed it to me. I took a long drag, remembered I didn’t smoke, and decided I didn’t care.

  Gagnon led his stoned Captain to a cushion, and asked me, “So, who are the aliens?”

  I pointed to Shaz and the boys. Celeste pointed to herself. “We’re the royal family of don’t even bother trying to pronounce it,” she said. “Little sis here is the queen. But she wanted to be a dancing queen instead and convinced me to help her escape. Stupidest mistake I’ve ever made.”

  “As for how we found you,” Gagnon said, “apparently you’re shedding glitter that only the chemically initiated can see. Captain Ireland followed the trail to the store, and I suspect the princes did too.”

  I glared down at Captain Ireland. He hugged a pillow and professed his love for it.

  “We’ve lost too many good men to this service,” Gagnon said. “Captain Ginsberg was only one of many. You should try reading ‘Howl’ now that you know that. It takes on a whole new level of meaning.”

/>   “I… I think I will.”

  “As for why this unit exists, ever since we started sending radio broadcasts out to the stars, we’ve been overrun with aliens coming here to party. Most come to the U.S., or the U.K., because we’re the ones putting out the most broadcasts —”

  “Which makes it easier to learn the language,” Shaz said.

  “— and we’re seeing more and more head for Latin America.”

  “We almost went there,” Celeste said. “But someone decided she liked roller skating more than the samba.”

  “Shut up!” Shaz snapped.

  “Oh, make me.”

  “And how did you two know she was belly dancing?” I asked the boys.

  “Educated guess,” the blue–haired one said. “She watched a lot of I Dream of Jeannie.”

  The green–haired son said, “Look, mister, please just let us take our mom and leave your nice planet alone.”

  “Never!” Shaz cried. “I’ll never give up dancing! This shape is liberating!”

  The soldiers trained their weapons on her.

  “The jig’s up, sis,” Celeste said.

  “Ooh, now that’s a dance I never tried.”

  Celeste rolled her eyes, then walked over to her sister and yanked a hunk of metal out of her ass.

  Shaz’s form immediately collapsed into a gelatinous ball. I’d been going down on that? Ew.

  “Their species is boneless,” Gagnon said. “That device gives them human form. But it relies on neurological flim–flammery that an appropriately medicated brain can see right through.”

  “Now do you understand?” Shaz burbled. “How can I dance in this shape?”

  “The United States government formally requests that you figure that out back on your home planet. Now, would the rest of you please?”

  “Gladly,” Celeste said. She pulled a half–empty pack of smokes from her pocket, handed it to the Colonel, then pulled down her pants and yanked a chunk of metal out of her own ass. The boys quickly did the same, and then Gagnon pulled Ireland to his feet and ushered us all off of the ship.

  I watched, incredulously, as it uncoupled from the Rollaway and peeled off into the sky.

  “Your country thanks you,” Gagnon said.

  “Can my country get me a new place to live? My parents kind of kicked me out.”

  “We can do better than that. How would you like a job with benefits? You seem to handle it better than most.” He cast a pointed glance at Captain Ireland.

  “I’m a lesbian. I don’t think that’s legal.”

  “In your case, I think we can make an exception.”

  §

  So I finally got that exciting life I’d been looking for. Nice pay, good benefits, and I only have to wear the uniform a couple of times a month when higher–ups come for a visit. The rest of the time, I get to travel the globe, get wasted on new and exciting pharmaceuticals, hit underground parties with truly excellent music, and look for aliens. I’ve finally gotten to go to New York, San Francisco, London, and even Tokyo once, and all on the government’s dime. You’d think that other countries would have their own alien hunting programs, but apparently, they’re content to use ours. We’re the ones with the missiles to back up our deportation threats, after all.

  Although we don’t deport them all. For instance, Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran is here on a legitimate interstellar work visa. Who knew? And I managed to convince the U.N. to grant Iggy Pop political asylum. Apparently, his allergy to shirts is a death penalty offense on his home planet. And Madonna — ugh, don’t even get me started. Her species lives forever. And now that she’s gotten her tentacles into the music business —

  Shit, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the tentacles.

  Anyhow, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to this new sound we intercepted that we’re calling “dubstep”. Don’t worry, it’ll be declassified as soon as we figure out how to keep people from guessing right off of the bat that it’s not from this planet. Shouldn’t take more than a year or two.

  Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane

  Cat Rambo

  HERE’S ANNA PLANE AND I ALL through high school: a bushy–haired, white geek girl with a tattered fantasy paperback in the rear pocket of her jeans and me, Arturo, an equally geeky Hispanic theater boy.

  Here’s us a few years later, dividing time between jobs we hated and the college classes those jobs paid for. Still best friends (of a sort), still sharing trials and tribulations, still with an unspoken question between us mostly on Anna’s part, because I knew the answer.

  And here’s when I finally answered it, and broke Anna’s heart.

  §

  South Bend, Indiana, didn’t house many dance clubs, even in the height of the disco scene. Saturday Night Fever had made it more mainstream, but most of the citizenry still regarded disco with a touch of suspicion as a breeding den of sex–borne illness and drugs, even though it was already dying at that point in 1982.

  Not so for Anna. Disco was everything she’d ever dreamed of, the glitter and glitz of an ersatz fairyland. She watched Dance Fever every weekend. She could tell you the latest steps, the top 40 hits, the name of every member of Abba.

  She hadn’t been that way in high school. She’d scorned the school dances, saying they were just a way for the popular kids to reinforce their social presence and make everyone feel like shit. But something about disco drew her.

  Even though we’d drifted away from our former closeness, divided by differences in class schedules and then, increasingly, in our interests, I did keep in touch. That’s how I found out what she’d been hiding.

  It was one of our TV nights. She had a fancy laser disc machine, and a stack of every sci–fi or fantasy movie available in that format.

  We settled in with popcorn on the couch. She shared a shitty little apartment over on Colfax Avenue with a woman, Dionne, who worked at Waldenbooks but who I had yet to see read anything more than the back of a cereal box, and was usually over at her boyfriend’s.

  We sat around and shared our troubles in between throwing popcorn kernels at the screen during the cheesy moments. The restaurant she’d been working at had just closed down, so she was looking for a new job.

  Dionne had already informed her Waldenbooks wasn’t hiring, she said wryly.

  I shook out the ink–pungent folds of the South Bend Tribune and we went through the ads circling them, imagining new jobs, new existences for her.

  There really weren’t that many opportunities out there. Finally we gave up and lapsed into conversation, trailing off into “Remember when?” and asking “What happened to...” as though we’d been out of high school three decades rather than three years.

  One of the apartment’s oddities was that each of the two bathrooms was reached by going through its accompanying bedroom. I’d gotten used to it and so when need called, I wandered into Anna’s bedroom.

  So much of it was familiar to me: the old type drawer hanging on the wall to hold several scores of lead figurines, the bookcase devoted to gaming manuals, the Han Solo poster facing off with the black light poster of a woman turning into a tiger I’d gotten her. Stacks of paperbacks.

  When I noticed the closet door partly ajar, I wasn’t tempted to go look. What clothes could Anna have that I didn’t know? Hell, I’d been with her when she bought half of them.

  But something unexpected peeked out, sparkling like the Witch’s Slippers in The Wizard of Oz: a length of ruby sequins hanging where it had snagged on the doorknob, as though she’d put it away hurriedly, perhaps when I’d arrived.

  What was it?

  I drifted towards the door, stood for just a breath looking at that red material. I reached for the doorknob as gingerly as though petting a dog I was unsure of.

  When the door swung open, the disco dress blared forth, a slinky thing of red spangles and lycra. Black hose were draped over the shoulder, lacy things with a line of crimson crystals along the back. On the closet floor sat tw
o high–heeled strappy black Armani shoes.

  It stunned me. Was it a gift for someone? A costume?

  An entire outfit meant it could only be for her.

  I hadn’t realized she loved it that much. I’d thought she was content to watch dancers on television, not that she pictured herself there, the dancing queen, in the midst of it all.

  You don’t hide things from your best friend. I pulled it out, and went back into the other room, holding it in front of me like a flag.

  Anna turned almost as red as the dress. She said, “Why were you going through my things?”

  “It was hanging out! How could I not notice something that color?”

  She stood up, scattering popcorn kernels, and snatched it from my hand. “You had no right!” She marched into the bedroom, disregarding the popcorn crunching beneath her heavy steps, and replaced the dress.

  Returning, she stood in the doorway, folded her arms, and said, “It’s just in case.”

  “In case Donna Summer happens to lose her luggage?”

  Her chin came up, pointed at me. “In case I want to go out. I do go out sometimes, you know.”

  “Where?”

  “I went to Cinnabar’s, till it closed,” she said. “They had good dance music.”

  I knew how I could make things up to her for all my absences of late.

  “Go put it on,” I said. “We’re going dancing.”

  §

  Along the way, I explained the guidelines to her. “Look, Anna. You have to know, this place, it’s got great music and fabulous people and everything, but there’s something else. It’s a gay bar.”

  She blinked. “South Bend doesn’t have any gay bars.”

  I laughed at her. “You’d be surprised. Jeff showed me this one. Best place for dancing I know.”

  She didn’t ask the obvious question. I could see her burying it. If she didn’t ask, I didn’t have to tell her, did I?

  I loved Anna, but not in that way. There wasn’t any need to rub her nose in it.

  “What’s it called?”

  “Diana’s Hunt.”