Black Wave by Michelle Tea

Author:Michelle Tea
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781558619463
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2016-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

3

How’s LA? Ziggy asked. Her cell phone crackled, Michelle could hear air whooshing over the receiver.

What Are You Doing? Michelle asked. Are You Riding A Bike? The thought was hilarious. Michelle imagined Ziggy pedaling a ten speed, her hip accoutrements chiming and swinging, a cigarette clamped in her mouth, one hand steering the bike while the other pressed her cell to her head.

I’m driving a car. I got a grant and bought a bitch bucket.

You Got A Grant? Michelle gasped. Who got grants? People who wrote about long-ago trees, about ye olde beavers gnawing down long-ago trees in an extinct autumnal landscape, patting homes together with their flat, muddy tails. People who conjured the lost beauty of the natural world and made the reader feel bad about the state of things in a nostalgic, gentle way—that’s who got grants. Not Ziggy. Ziggy screamed her poetry. She had such ADD she couldn’t sit still long enough to type them into computers, she committed them to memory or else read them from the little wrinkled notebooks stuffed in the ass of her pants. Ziggy’s poetry was about the horror of men, about racists and fascists. The poems were graphic and mean and made everyone in the audience feel awful, complicit somehow, recalling every time they didn’t do the right thing, didn’t yell at the man punching the woman in the street, didn’t flip off the cops as they harangued a row of Latino teenagers on Mission Street. There were many such instances in a life, and listening to Ziggy, a warrior in her belts of metal, people resolved to have more courage, to fight harder for more freedoms. Ziggy’s work was thick with fucks and cunts and the defamation of the Christian God, and San Francisco had given her a grant.

What’s a Bitch Bucket? Michelle asked, jealous.

A Cabriolet. It’s a car. A little convertible. A Volkswagen.

You’re Talking To Me Now In A Convertible? On Your Cell Phone?

Yep. Ziggy’s breathing revealed that she was also smoking.

You Should Move Here, You’d Fit In Perfect.

How are you fitting in? Are you partying with celebrities or what?

I Saw Gwen Stefani At A Breakfast Place, Michelle reported. I Used The Bathroom After Her And My Wallet Fell Out Of My Back Pocket And Into The Toilet.

It’s like she christened it, Ziggy said.

For Real. She Hadn’t Flushed.

If it’s yellow, let it mellow, Ziggy said. There’s no more water. I donated the van to a water preservation organization. It would be a tax write-off if I did my taxes.

I Saw Marilyn Manson Walking Into A Bookstore With His Girlfriend, Michelle remembered. She Looks Like A Suicide Girl. They Were Holding Hands.

Was he hot? Ziggy probed. Did you say hi to him or get his autograph or give him your book or something?

He Was Tall, Michelle said, But I Think He Was Wearing Platform Boots. His Hair Is Really Long. I Only Saw Him From Behind. He Looked Like A Swamp Monster, Just Sort Of Lumbering And Leathery and Dark.

Hot, Ziggy declared.

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