Featherless Bipeds Read online

  We stand outside her apartment building, raindrops splattering on the windows. She looks at me and shakes her head slightly, a Mona Lisa smile on her lips.

  “Dak,” she says softly, “what are you doing here?”

  “I want you to come back to me, Zoe,” I say to her. “I don’t know if I can . . . ”

  She raises her index finger to my lips, and says, “Shhhhhh. Listen.”

  tick tick tick tick

  tick tick tick tick tick ticktickticktickhisssssssSSSSSSS

  The drum roll of thunder begins, building to a slow crescendo. Zoe’s warm slender hand finds its way into mine. I notice she is still wearing the silver ring I bought for her during the brief time we dated in high school.

  “Hey,” I say, lifting her hand in front of our faces, “you still wear the ring.”

  She looks away, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. “Don’t read too much into it, okay?”

  hrrhrrrrrrhrrrrRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMmmmm

  Rain assaults the pavement now, hisses upon the lawn, forces the blades of grass to bow over, to submit. Rain roars like a hundred thousand cheering voices of a frenzied crowd at a concert, the -tick-of each raindrop rising to join the -tick-tick- of others, a chorus at first, then a ghostly choir, now a mob-like roar.

  rrrrrrrrrC-CRACKOOOOOOWWwwwwwwwww

  Chain lightning dances a fragmented streak across the sky; above it all, free, alive with energy, immortal. But only for a fraction of a second. Its pattern is burned red, purple, then blue into our eyes when we blink, an afterthought of the free, crazy energy.

  I try to stop myself from doing it, from going too far. I kiss her tentatively, just to the side of her mouth, tasting strawberries and smelling that bittersweet, wet hair scent; and I feel that sunshine warmth sweep through me, and the tidal wave of everything she is hits me again.

  She does not exactly kiss me back. But she doesn’t resist, either.

  The sky is still flashing, but gently, now, and the hiss of rain, the roar of thunder, the dancing lines of light recede from us, leaving only an infant sprinkling, a small reminder of what has been.

  The air is newly cool, reborn, almost sweet to the lungs. I still have Zoe’s hand, and she still has mine.

  “Do you forgive me?” I ask, my voice only slightly louder than the whispering breeze.

  “I forgive you,” she says, a raindrop clinging to her bottom lip.

  Am I brave enough to ask it?

  “Can we be together again, Zoe? I want you to be mine again. I need you to be mine.”

  And she smiles at me. A smile of mercy and kindness. The smile of a higher being.

  “How about we start by being friends again,” she says. “For now.”

  “Just friends?”

  “It’s a good place to start again, don’t you think?”

  I nod. It’s better than nothing.

  I walk home, my feet splashing through puddles, my insides a churning whirlpool of feelings, a bubbling swirl of disappointment and elation. She is still not mine. But she could be. She could be. When I get back to the dorm, I can’t sleep, so I sit cross-legged in the middle of the cot on my side of the room and write a song. And then another. And another after that.

  And that’s it. That is my rock ‘n’ roll moment. Every lyric I write, every rock song I construct, every thundering drum fill I play from now on will have a piece of this stormy night inside it.

  Passion. Longing. Thunder and lightning, rain blasting down from the sky. Hearts racing, fingers trembling, eyes half closed. That’s rock ‘n’ roll. That’s where it all comes from.

  SKIN

  At the moment of my death, I had expected my life to flash before my eyes. Everything I had ever heard or seen or read about dying had me anticipating this. I expected something like newsreel footage to play before my mind’s eye; a montage of my birth, my first steps, my first day at school, my first kiss, the day I bought my first car, the moment I lost my virginity, the first time I fell in love with Zoe, and the second, the third, the fourth time, too . . . but no.

  In the fragment of time between the back of my head hitting the concrete and the dark, cold silence, just three images flash through my brain. The first is a finger waving in my face, the words “racial bias” burning between my temples. The second is an image of the wide, frightened eyes of a teenage girl who reminds me of my sister.

  The last image is not really an image at all, but just a feeling on my skin, a tingling inside my ears. At the moment that everything stops, I feel Zoe’s warm, smooth fingers drawing away from my arm, and I hear her songlike voice saying, “Be good.” I feel her touch, I hear her voice. I long to see her, but the doors to my senses slam shut, and everything disappears.

  This Friday evening starts like most others, with one of us scouting out a party, then gathering the troops. Tonight the successful scout is Veronica, my roommate Tristan’s girlfriend, who has learned about a keg party being held by a girl she knows from her Women’s History course.

  “You’ll find Lola . . . how should I put it . . . intriguing,” Veronica explains. “She’s the President of both the Women’s Issues Commission and the Minority Rights Alliance on campus. She plays defense on a recreational hockey team, too, so you guys can talk hockey.”

  I look to Tristan for some verification, but, like always, he is too busy staring with glassy eyes at Veronica. The only two things that matter on Planet Tristan are Veronica and his bass guitar collection, so I turn to Zoe, who will at least pretend to care about hockey. Zoe is lying on her tummy on my bed, half-hidden by my red seven-piece Ludwig drum set and Tristan’s half-dozen basses, trying to read The Portable Macchiavelli for her Philosophy 101 course. Zoe has no internet connection at her apartment, so she’s come over to our place to work on her essay. As usual, the fact that Zoe and I are no longer a couple is turning me inside out.

  “Please come,” I beg her. I live in the perpetual hope that maybe if we spend enough time together, something might happen to upgrade our relationship from ‘just friends’.

  “Too much reading to do,” Zoe says, “but you should go anyway. Maybe you’ll meet a girl or something.”

  “I don’t want to meet any girls,” I say, “I want you to come.”

  “Sorry,” she says, “I’ve got a hot date with Macchiavelli.”

  “Maybe I’ll just stay here and keep you company.”

  “Come on, Dak,” Tristan says cheerily, “Lola knows a guy who’s a great guitar player, and Veronica says Lola’s a pretty good singer. Maybe we can get a band going. You and I are already a good rhythm section.”

  Well, okay. If there is potential rock ‘n’ roll to be made, maybe I can put aside my obsession with Zoe for one night.

  “Bye, then,” I say to Zoe. “Happy reading.”

  Zoe reaches out and touches my arm.

  “See you later, buddy. Be good.”

  “I’m always good,” I reply, as I join Tristan and Veronica at the door.

  When we arrive at the party, our hostess Lola hugs Veronica, kisses her on both cheeks, and cries out, “Hey, girlfriend!” She then gives skinny Tristan a handshake almost hearty enough to dislocate his shoulder.

  “Whoa, easy Lola,” Tristan says, “The strap for my bass goes on that arm.”

  “Don’t want to injure the bass player for my new band,” she says, releasing Tristan’s hand from her grip. Then Lola turns to me. “Hey,” she says, shaking my hand so hard my head rattles.

  Lola has nose rings, and wiry, muscular arms adorned with tattoos of black roses. Her hair is cropped short and dyed a purplish red, one of those hairstyles painstakingly coifed to look as if she’s just crawled out of bed after a night of hard drinking. Her eyebrows are constantly cocked up at a slight angle to the bridge of her nose, as if daring you to dislike her appearance or demeanor, so she can have the pleasure of telling you off. Yet, behind the camouflage of ragged black clothing, she has attractive features that can’t be completely hidden. Not much of an
ything can camouflage her bright green eyes or her high cheekbones, and — call me a typical oversexed male for even noticing — the militant hunch of her shoulders does little to conceal her stunning breasts, which remind me of the breasts they put on the mascot girls painted onto the sides of bombers during World War Two. Of course I know better than to share this observation with Lola.

  “Hi,” I say. “So, Veronica tells me you’re a defenseman, eh?”

  “Well, I’m not a man” she snaps, “but, I do play defense.”

  Great. In the first stupid line out of my mouth to the president of the campus Women’s Issues Commission, I inadvertently call her a man. What a moron!

  “Well, I don’t actually play hockey,” I say, “but I do play the drums!”

  She tilts her forehead down, and looks at me as if she is peering over a pair of invisible librarian’s glasses.

  “Oh, so you’re the guy. You’d better be good if you want to be in a band with me.” She turns away to greet more of her guests.

  I glance over at Tristan and Veronica, who both just shrug. What have they signed me up for?

  Painted onto the black walls of Lola’s place is a huge rainbow, which starts at the door through which guests continue to enter, rounds a corner, and ends just above the table where a keg of beer rests in a tub full of ice. If there isn’t any gold at the end of the rainbow, beer is the next best thing.

  I work my way through the crowd, which is so sexually, ethnically and racially diverse it could be a Pepsi commercial. I guess sending out invitations to a keg party must be a huge political task when you’re the president of both the Women’s Issues Commission and the Minority Rights Alliance. Then again, maybe Lola has just been lucky enough to acquire a group of friends from a variety of backgrounds. Maybe it’s a little of both.

  I down a plastic cup of beer, get a refill from the tap, and nod to the guy who is leaning on one elbow against the keg, perusing the front page of the campus newspaper. He is one of the coolest-looking guys I’ve ever encountered, wearing a cape-length leather coat and with dreadlocks flowing down his back. Next to this guy, I feel like I’m wearing an iridescent green T-shirt with the word “GEEK” printed on it in foot-high letters.

  “Damned Skinheads!” the guy says.

  “What?” I ask, as if I’m not already oversensitive to the new, close-to-the-scalp haircut that Zoe talked me into.

  “Neo-Nazis, man,” the guy says. “They call themselves ‘The Church of The Fuhrer’. The bastards are having a recruitment rally at the old bandshell tonight. Free concert, free snacks and drinks, T-shirts, big light show, the works.”

  “Shit,” I say, “trying to snare some soft-headed high schoolers, are they?”

  “You got it, man. Lonely, pissed-off teens are easy targets for those pricks.”

  It occurs to me that the old band shell where this so-called ‘rally’ is being held is just a few blocks east of the dorm room Tristan and I share. This thought makes me shiver. I can’t help wondering why Lola isn’t personally leading everyone at the party down there to protest. Maybe tonight is her night off.

  I down my beer, refill my cup again, and the cool guy with the dreadlocks does the same.

  “Speak of the devil,” Veronica says as she, Tristan, and a young woman I don’t know approach the cool guy and me. “Dak, I see you’ve already met Akim, your new band’s lead guitarist.”

  “Hey, man,” Akim says, grabbing my hand several ways before giving it a quick shake.“I guess you’re this drummer Tristan’s been going on about. Says you and he are gonna make a kick-ass rhythm section.” He lays quick kiss on the girl with Tristan and Veronica. “This is my girlfriend Sung Li.”

  “Hey there,” Sung Li says, smiling this electric smile. She is as beautiful as Akim is cool looking. You can feel the chemistry between them. They should be on T.V.

  “We were just talking about how we got together as couples,” Sung Li says. “Veronica says you helped get her and Tristan together, Dak.”

  “I had ulterior motives,” I shrug. Tristan had been driving me crazy pining over Veronica, so I called up Zoe and asked her to help me help them get connected. I had hoped my selfless benevolence would impress Zoe, make her forget about the Prom Night Incident. Oh well. At least things worked out well for Tristan.

  Akim tells a funny story about the first time he met Sung Li’s parents. When he’s finished, I relate the tale of having to explain to Zoe’s father that I had accidentally backed his beloved Lincoln Continental into Sammy’s Souvlaki Hut on the night of our Senior Prom. To a chorus of laughter, I imitate her father’s subsequent tirade. The whole story is sort of funny, when you look at it from the right angle. It’s like therapy. I am finally able to tell the tale of losing Zoe without wanting to cry.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, Lola materializes and pushes herself between the others and me. Her eyebrows, which arch upward at the corners even in normal conversation, are now furrowed into a deep ‘V’ between her eyes. Without unlocking her gaze from mine, she points her finger at a sign on the wall. The sign is like one of those ‘No Parking’ signs, but the word ‘INTOLERANCE’ is in the middle of a red circle with a slash through it.

  Lola points her finger in my face like the barrel of a pistol.

  “No. Intolerance. Allowed.” She says it loudly and evenly, glaring at me in a way that makes my heart race.

  “Huh?”

  “No. Intolerance. Allowed.”

  The people in the immediate vicinity stop talking and turn their heads in our direction.

  I emphasize my position again.

  “Wha?”

  “You were telling a joke using a fake and exaggerated Indian accent.”

  “But my girlfriend, er, my ex-girlfriend’s dad . . . ”

  “But nothing. You were telling a joke using a fake and exaggerated Indian accent.”

  “It was Pakistani, actually.”

  Zoe’s dad emigrated from Pakistan, and her mom is of Irish-Italian descent, which explains Zoe’s unique blend of physical charms.

  “You were using a racial stereotype,” Lola says crisply, and more loudly.

  “But I was just . . . ”

  “The fake accent you were using was racially biased. And probably so was the joke you were telling.”

  “I wasn’t telling a joke. I was telling a story about . . . ”

  “About a convenience store owner, I’ll bet.”

  “About a maternity doctor, actually, who happens to be . . . ”

  “It doesn’t matter who you were maligning. Racial stereotypes need to be challenged on all fronts. They discourage understanding of difference.”

  “I agree,” I stammer, “but . . . ”

  “But nothing. There are no excuses.”

  Wow. When Lola is on the attack, it’s as if she’s shouting into a megaphone. I can see why Tristan thinks she might make a good lead singer for our rock band — half the room is now listening to our exchange (if ‘exchange’ is really the word for it, since I have not been allowed to complete a sentence).

  “You are going to have to leave. Racially biased comments are not tolerated here.”

  “But wait! I was only . . . ”

  In a move possibly learned in a self-defense class, Lola spins me around, locks my arms painfully behind my back, and pushes me through the crowd toward the door. Since I have never even paid attention to a Kung Fu movie, nor have I ever taken a self-defense class, I am helpless to do anything to stop her.

  People look at me with wrinkled noses, as if I have just passed the Fart of the Century. A few call out things like, “Right on!” and “You go, girl!” probably not to me. I try to reason with Lola.

  “You don’t understand, I . . . ”

  “Shut up!”

  “I was only imitating . . . ”

  “Shut up!”

  Reason is not working, so I begin to lose my temper.

  “Maybe you should take this act down to the Skinhead rally tonight. I th
ink you might be preaching to the converted here.”

  “Shut up, asshole!”

  She twists my arms harder. The pain is extreme. Just when it feels like the joints in my arms are going to dislocate from the torsion, she finally releases her grip. My back wrenches and my head whips back as she plants a foot on my ass and kicks me through the door.

  “Thanks for the beer!” I yell, as the door slams shut behind me.

  I sit on the staircase, rubbing my shoulders and forearms, thinking back through the past few minutes. Was my impression of Zoe’s Dad wrong? Was I sounding racist without even realizing it? I start trembling in the belly, and I feel like I might puke — and it’s not from the beer.

  When the door opens behind me, I jump, thinking that somebody is coming outside to beat me senseless. I scramble to my feet, ready to sprint down the stairs.

  “Hey,” Tristan says from over my shoulder, “what the hell was that all about?”

  “Not sure.”

  Tristan and I sit on a step halfway down the staircase.

  “Don’t take it too badly, Dak. Lola is pretty serious when it comes to defending minorities.”

  “Defending them from what? All I was doing was . . . ”

  “I know what you were doing, Dak,” he interrupts — even Tristan is interrupting me now, “but, if you step back and see it from Lola’s perspective, you can see how she might have taken your impression the wrong way.”

  “So you think this is my fault?”

  “Look, I can’t go into any details. Veronica made me promise I would never tell anyone . . . but well . . . there are reasons that Lola gets that way sometimes. If you knew, you’d understand.”

  “But what the hell did I do?”

  Tristan looks down at his feet.

  “It’s not you. She’s been hurt before, you know?”

  “No, actually, I don’t know. Has she been hurt more than my arms, ass, and back are hurting at the moment?”

  “I would have to say yes. In a way that usually only women get hurt.”

  Oh. Okay. Jesus.

  “Okay,” I mumble, “why don’t I just go in and apologize to everyone, and try to explain that I didn’t intend to offend anyone.”