Plush (13 page)

I do.

I do.

We kiss.

Doves fly.

Malibu breeze.

Our ranch.

White bows.

Cut the cake.

Kiss some more.

I’m so happy and so sad.

I take a dance with Jack.

I take a dance with Carter’s mom and dad.

Pictures. Cake. I’m so fat with kids.

Love.

Kiss.

Romance.

Dreams never feel as you imagined when they come true.

Carter is fucking perfect. I am far from it.

My dad tries to get me in for a dance, and I don’t want to. But I do. Because Carter gives me the eye that says I should be good. I dance to something like a Celine Dion song, and those songs always make me want to commit suicide from the sheer amount of cheese. I remember the Velveeta cheese and that was the last time I ever stepped near my dad. Dad is drunk and sways and stumbles, so I hold him up. I lead. The music stops. Then, he drinks another bottle of really fucking expensive champagne and dirty dances with my mom. They dry hump, make out, then fall over. I’m totally grossed out.

Tall, skinny Annie puts her arm around my bare shoulders: “You know little Haze… I have to say I’m not in the least bit surprised. You know the only other time I met your mom was after your show at SXSW. She was squirming around trying to say she was your manager and that she wrote some of the songs…” I laugh with hilarity and disgust. “You never told me that!” I woop. “Hahahahahaha!” “Yeah I didn’t think it would help to do so at the time, so I guess I just filed it somewhere in the back of my mind.”

Dad does a crazy bad jiggy dance to Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” and we are all cringing inside. He yells, “Cheryl… it’s been too fucking long! You are looking ok.” My mom jiggys him back, and Dad says, “Love your new tits… so big!” Mom spits on his face, calls him cheap, and yells, “You know these are fucking real… These are mine! You never notice anything outside yourself!” Then he slaps my mermaid, now-grey-hair’d mother, and she sobs. I hate them more now than ever. And this is all on film. Utter humiliation. Our family was never about the kids; it was all about them. My mom’s sad, tired face and my dad’s puffy, red, alcoholic hands and eyes make me sky dive into sorrow. I don’t need this. I really don’t need this now. I have security throw them out. And I make out with Carter to forget about all that crap.

Jack takes the stage, twelve-string, black guitar in his hand. His hair is longer than usual. His eyes are always half-closed, almost dozed. This is only part of the wedding I insisted on; the rest was Carter doing, and his mom.

Jack goes, “Uh… yeah.” He says into the mic, “Well, my best friend and sister – um – well she’s about to pop out twins and just got married to a man who looks like a men’s underwear model, all chiseled and shit, and I don’t know…” Uh oh. This doesn’t look good. Jack is wobbly. “He must be worth it because she’s throwing our career away, but hell.
IT’S LOVE, KIDS
… Anyway… Hayley, love of my life, always MY Number One…” Oh, Jack. Don’t do this. Don’t do this, please. He’s rubbing his nose… “Kid sister… this one’s for you.” No fuck no. Jack. This is
MY
day.

Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” mashed in with Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” Creepy. Exotic. Fuck, Jack. It’s brilliant and fucked-up just like he is. He’s moaning, wailing, and is as fucking great as Kurt. Fake blood comes from the heart on his shirt. He’s screaming; he falls off the chair but grabs the mic with him, and on the floor of the stage in a ball he states, “Carter… YOU BETTER FUCKING CHERISH HER. OWWWW!!!”

Annie runs to him, hands him a drink, and drags him away.

“Um, Carter… Can we leave now?” He lifts me and the basketball I have for a stomach up, and we go to the car. Honeymoon time. I kiss Lila goodbye – Lila so sweet. Jack waves while Annie holds him ten feet away. “This is her fucking day. Chill. Chill.”

Rice is thrown.

People smiling.

In the car.

Off we go.

To some new life I will soon know.

30

I think I blinked and time got sucked into a wormhole that little flashlightbulb shards shine through memories reflecting somewhere in the speed of life. I mean I stopped writing poetry and journaling everyday or maybe hardly at all, if at all.

Kids take a lot of time. Jack takes a lot of time. My mind is occupied. The vortex of reality singing sometimes too loud, sometimes so sweet, swirling in the crystal ball of time: this strange dance with uncertain destinies and bends in the road.

Spin that crystal ball, time swirl. Peer in….. through the smoke… sleepless nights with newborns, holding them. They love me so completely. They don’t care if I’m camera-ready or not. I make up songs and sing through the exhaustion. SLEEEEEEP. Touring prepared me well for this.

Jack moves into the studio -- obsessively fixing the paneling, making the acoustics amazing, buying strange and rare instruments from across the decades and countries online and little toy instruments he plays with my boys in the yard. It’s so beautiful to have this place that is just ours and no need to worry about money because we have enough of it. Lila and I shopping for cool kids’ clothes. I tell her everything I wish my mom had told me.

I think Jack is getting his act together sometimes. I mean he’s not sober, just less fucked-up-planet-raging than usual. I love it when we tour and I leave behind my boys and Carter. The weekend warrior comes out for those weeks and Jack and I party like old times. But then it’s nice ‘cause I come home and can be good again. I never really feel like I’m gonna fall off a ledge any more.

Swirl swirl -- time whirls dust and ice and that day the boys snuck into my studio I see them through the window while walking to my car … They broke my favorite guitar. I lose all my humanity for few seconds too many. I’ve never been so angry at my kids… “BOUNDARIES!!” Their big eyes, sad frightened apple cheeks shivering and I feel horrible for yelling at such tiny sweet things so I pelican-swallow my rage and make pure my face. “Boys, I’m sorry.”

Carter owl- swoops in, puts the kids in their room, calls the nanny and drives me to the sea. Calming the storms of rage, of frustration… AH MY FUCKING GUITAR. My first guitar. Jack stole lunch money for a whole year to buy it for me. I wrote so many songs on it.

The boys are three, swirl swirl swirl--I’m running down a giant green hill holding hands. Benjy on the left, Cody on the right, flying through the air. We’re so fast wearing purple capes and tall silly monster hats. We run we run til we lay down and roll down down down the tall meadow, wild flowers giving way under our bodies. Roll roll laugh and at the bottom when all the spinning stops, we find shapes out of the clouds. We laugh in the beautiful strange world where sometimes everything comes together in a moment of something so good you can’t believe it’s real.

Benjy climbs on my knees and airplanes out his arms. “MOMMY MOMMY I’M A DRAGON. RAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” His blonde curls swirling against the backdrop of blue, blinded by giant sun rays.

Cody whispers in his raspy voice close to my ear “Mommy… what happens if I turn into an ant right now… would you squish me?” Benjy jumps off my legs, running in circles around us – howling. Butterflies, simplicity., Nobody judging me… “Little bug Cody… I would pick you up and place you on my head and make sure nobody would ever squish you.”

Swirl swirl swirl. Two albums are gone. The kids are four. Soon we’ll be on tour for the latest release. It’s pretty much working out the way Annie said.

I’m smiling at myself.

My day is like this:

Wake up. Take care of kids. Feed. Brush teeth. Hugs. Magic show. Studio. Write. Jack shows up a couple hours late, higher than a distant galaxy. Diego is sweet and fetches me things. Donnie always has a girl waiting outside, a different one for each color of the night. Dinner with kids. Thank the nanny. Kiss Carter. Pass out. It’s good. It’s boring. It’s a lot. But, I fucking love these kids.

I try so hard not to be like my dad and mom. I keep it together if only for them. And Carter. He’s still a fucking prince.

I’m just starting to get used to all this success that Carter is getting as an investigative reporter on unsolved murders. Sometimes the cases even get reopened. For some reason he understands the killers’ demented minds. Maybe that’s why he likes me… my demented mind.

And then he spends all this time with the kids and me doing domestic stuff like swinging on ropes across creeks and growing pumpkins and eating dinner at a certain time. Our kids are wild creatures and Carter thinks they need some kind of schedule, which I never had as a kid. But he would know better since he had normal parents. So 6 P.M. sharp every night… I mean, this is who I’m supposed to be right?

Still, deep inside, sometimes I feel like part of me is missing. But I am growing in the face of all this purity that surrounds me. Carter. Benjy. Cody. Purity.

Then…

“You kill all the fun, Hayley!… I can’t fucking smoke around you even… Hayley, when we gonna go out? Hayley. Why don’t you come spend the night at my place for ol’ time sakes… HAYLEY… Hayley… HAYLEY?” This is Jack. He always has new things to spit out and more drugs to snort up.

My response: “You know I got the crazy kids. I can’t fuck them up the way our parents did to us. I love you, but no.”

I feel so much guilt for his condition. If I didn’t marry, maybe I could have saved him. Maybe I should give in to him. I miss Jack and Hayley. Like the old days.

31

Alone.

In my room.

Carter and the kids out at a soccer game

Jack out somewhere lost in space.

Breathing slow and starin’ up at the ceiling

where the shadows of the trees are dancing

serenade me into serenity

I think the world is not always spinning as fast as I make it appear to be. Sometimes I think I just forget to breathe. surrender into stillness, let go of everything. become undefined for a moment, let myself blur, pancake batter onto the floor, fall into the rhythms of the earth, dream in pretty colors, forget the scary monsters, smile, feelings not induced by the things around me just inside me; clean out the confetti in my soul, rearrange and stitch up the broken heart bone,

slow, be slow, slow.

32
    January 2, 2012

Ok. New Year’s resolution. I’m going to spend more time with Jack. I can’t give up all of my life for them. The studio has fabric on the walls. Guitars. In the fabric of life and love are our blood and our songs. Today is just Jack and I, like the old days. He writes a line, then me. We sing; we laugh.

“Jack. If you slow down on the drugs, I’ll stay in the studio with you, like, all the time. We’ll create Arcadian riots of effulgent sound.”

How do I save a lost ship out at savage sea when the only anchor he had was me? I must be the anchor again. Besides, I love him. He has no one else.

These are our best songs yet.

Sing. Dance. Sing.

In the world of Jack and Hayley.

Things are perfect for these small moments.

He’s high but less high.

A few weeks of this go by.

Magic art land.

A place where no one can define me

Where the mouse disappears.

We sleep in each other’s arms with guitars like halos and poetry at our feet.

Life is a dream.

This is what it might be if I hadn’t gotten knocked up.

I’m free.

Well… I won’t lie. It’s almost the same, I should say. I feel there is something still wrong and sad with Jack. He appears
missing inside himself
. But I catch the glimpses of the people we used to be at flashing moments, and that is everything. This keeps me going: seeing the people we used to be before the demons grew so strong, got a hold of his blood, poked too many holes, and slowly let all the life out. Jack is breathing in my hair. It’s time to dream in my land of dreams. Sleep. Brother and sister. Band-mates. The future.

We wake in each other’s arms.

Weeks of this.

“I’m hungry! Let’s go eat?” Jack’s black hair is everywhere. His skin is so pale, slightly ashen. He’s staring at me, smiling. It’s so good to see him smiling. “Hayley, love. Yes. I’m gonna smoke a fag away from the kids, and I’ll be right up.” He’s behaving and being respectful – all that good shit.

Up the side of the hill through dirt, this beautiful, beautiful ranch rests. I can smell food cooking. I see Carter laughing with the kids through the kitchen windows. I open the door; the kids run into my arms: “I love you mommy.” Ah, I feel so good. Jack. Carter. Kids. Almost complete. There are four plates at the table.

Carter: “Honey… before we eat, you mind coming over here for a second?” His voice is tense like a stallion’s legs after a wild race.

I go. I can see he’s trying to keep his voice down but isn’t quite succeeding. “You’re like thirty yards away in that studio. Is it too much to ask for you to walk thirty yards to sleep in OUR bed? You know ME… remember me? Your zealous husband, father of our beautiful children, sometimes your maid even?” Oh, fuck. He sounds like the nagging wife.

“Uncle Jack, Uncle Jack!” Oh fuck. Did Jack hear? The kids run into Jack’s smoky-pale, alien-skinny arms. He hugs them, ruffles their hair, then glares at Carter. Grey eyes, sinister, spinning the world upside down. Never get in the way of what Jack wants. Me.