Issue 22 - 1992

Coe Review • Issue 22
to racial shame with Jenny, and she turned to Thorn and said dryly,
“Jenny is his girlfriend.”
“Oh,” said Thorn, knowing enough from Marisa’s tone to
take on an air of distaste, although she did not yet know Jenny’s sin.
“And,” grinned Marisa, screwing her voice into a cheerful
singsong, “She’s going to look really gross by the time she’s forty!”
I laughed, but as I recall my laugh now it seems to have been
a somewhat insincere, wooden laugh, my empire of humor already
riddled with termites, and Marisa moved in for the kill, saying, “I’m
warning you, Bill, dump her while you’ve still got the chance!” - and
to Thorn she explained my shameful secret, in the parentheses used
by two people speaking of a third’s terminal disease: “(She’s
Oriental.)”
“I’ll pass that on to her,” I said, still laughing in my loud
insincere way, and Marisa said rapidly and coolly, “You do that, Bill.
You just do that.”
8
I had a party, for which Jenny made artichoke dip, kahlua
cake, sweet- and-sour chicken and a variety of other foods, abetted
by her housemate, Margaret; and Marisa and Thorn were invited.
Most of the other guests were Jenny’s Korean friends. When Marisa
came in, she cried out, “Hey, Bill, I brought you a present. We were
at the St. John’s Grill, and we stole you this ashtray fair and square!”,
and I was touched and thanked Marisa with a big hug, but Jenny’s
friends contracted, and I took Marisa and Thorn into my bedroom,
away from the drinks, and closed the door so that we could shoot my
airgun, and the girls laughed at the target and yelled, “That’s
Cougar’s head! - That’s Rona’s face! I’m going to kill that slut!”, and
Marisa shouted, “KEE-lore!” - meaning, “KILLER!” Thorn and
Marisa mainly stayed in the kitchen after that, helping Margaret mix
up drinks, since this affair was a little quieter than the skinhead
parties which often started in early afternoon when you pulled your
boots on and buttoned up your black jacket nice and tight and took
the bus down to the Tenderloin or the Fillmore where you knocked
on the door of a garage and two beefy Skinz looked you over and
took a dollar for beer and one of them stamped your hand with a
dinosaur stamp to verify that you had paid, allowing you to go on
41