Read an Excerpt
Refrigerated Music for a Gleaming Woman
Stories
By Aimee Parkison The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 2017 Aimee Parkison
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57366-871-2
CHAPTER 1
CODE VIOLATIONS
When we were young and lived in the city, our first apartment was the size of a closet and once had been an actual closet, only recently converted into its own separate unit. The toilet had been installed inside the shower, located inside the makeshift kitchen, which was also the bedroom and the living room, as well as the dining room. The shower functioned as the kitchen sink, as well as the bathroom sink, located beside the stove. The television faced the shower. With this arrangement, you or I could take a shower and sit on the toilet while cooking dinner and watching pirated cable, all at the same time. Too convenient to be hygienic, the bed was also the kitchen table, which functioned as the sofa.
This design brought us closer during the early years of marriage, when there was no such thing as boundaries. By saving space and money, we came to know each other more intimately than most couples ever could imagine. That apartment, in spite of code violations, was the most romantic place we ever lived but also the cheapest and the most illegal.
You loved me better because of the toilet in the shower.
You were more committed to our relationship because of the shower near the stove. The heat of our food cooking warmed us even when we were naked, dripping wet from washing our hair with dish soap.
In the illegal design, I found innovations that excited me, improving the quality of our sex lives. I could cook soup while you were sitting beside me, relieving yourself on the toilet as I watched you shower.
Then, there was the other door that opened onto no room. Nothing but a tiny window that faced a dance studio with a theater below. We could open that door and stick our heads out to watch ballet together, free of charge. If we listened hard enough, we could hear a woman howling. Her screams were music through traffic.
CHAPTER 2
TO SEE THE HUMMINGBIRDS AS THEY FLY THROUGH THE TREES
Perpetual outsiders like me love to eavesdrop. That's how I heard her. Tonight, the howling lady to the tree said, thank you for shelter. Inside our house, she looks at the ceiling when hunting the gray-feet shadows climbing up the walls. You, my love, grind a tick against her neck and call it acquaintance murder. You never learned how to see her, to really see her, as you see me, while gazing into that antique mirror where I was a disappointment of skin like the rest of my family.
* * *
Blindsided by the sea, the howling woman was one of many tattered war brides who became memories tossed away with letters. The letters were like gull feathers that floated along the water to navy men who became one with the sea.
* * *
Hearts will be broken like windows, she said, by vandals, by time, by hail, by earthquakes, by thieves, by fire, by young boys.
* * *
This sorrow is part of civilian life where dead women feud like prisoners of war, not knowing they are ghosts.
* * *
Why do wars bring lovers together? Someone has to tell the living that torture is sometimes sexual the way a hearse can be mistaken for a limo.
* * *
Love can be mistaken for lust.
* * *
Hunger takes over. Who knows the truth about the hummingbirds?
* * *
Hummingbirds enter the narrow bell-shaped petals of trumpet flowers as they feed, and yet the rest of us have to keep reminding the lovers that people are beheaded in burn cages as video cameras capture the moment for all to see. Someone who matters enough to kill and enough for us to watch them die again and again should matter enough to bury, yet it's so hard to find the graves just as it's so hard sometimes to see the hummingbirds as they fly through the trees. The green hummingbirds' feathers are the color of the leaves. As the lovers kiss, I want to fall in love with you. Something stops me in the leaves where we walk. Images of the beheadings enter my head the way the hummingbirds enter the flowers of the trumpet vines.
* * *
As the howling lady becomes silent, we eat fast food and watch videos of people dying by fire; again and again, we watch on YouTube. You stuff hamburgers into your big beautiful American mouth. I try to shut it out of my mind, to think of the hummingbirds, the lovers kissing as the men scream and the howling woman begins to sing.
CHAPTER 3
FAST FOODIE
This hamburger train is like a bus but bigger. There's not going to be a bunch of intellectual people standing around talking nice. What did you think it was going to be? Eat your French fries in your Bliss Meal. Enjoy the toy. You paid for the free toy, that's why it's free. Please, god, whatever you do, don't open the hamburger. Don't look under the bun. Not at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls. There's a reason we call the special sauce "special." Without it, you might see the meat, and this is the worst thing — to actually look at the meat and to start to wonder what it really is.
* * *
Is this, really? The meat eaters say, Is this what meat's supposed to look like? What are these little flecks of aqua color in the beef? What is this beef made of, if it's not made of meat? Only a fool would want to know. If it tastes good and is cheap, eat it. Don't ask questions about fillers.
* * *
My mother was strict when it came to meat etiquette. Meat was sacred, especially hamburger. When my sisters and I were children, if we didn't want to eat all the hamburger, if we said we were too full and just wanted the toy, she said, "Just take off the bun and eat the meat. Just eat the meat."
* * *
I can still hear her say, eat the meat. Eat the meat.
* * *
"Eat the meat."
* * *
"Just eat the meat."
* * *
That's what she would say.
* * *
And she would only be satisfied if her children would eat the meat. Not eating the meat was the greatest sin in my family of meat eaters.
* * *
Meat, they said, makes you strong.
* * *
But aren't we all made of meat?
* * *
Aren't we all what we eat?
* * *
My family loves cheap meat, especially Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls. Now, they threaten to shun me. Because I don't anymore. I refuse to ride the hamburger train.
* * *
Some fast foodies who begin to fear hamburger joints start to eat elsewhere, especially buffets. "Beware of Asian buffets!" My mother says, "You don't really KNOW what you are eating sometimes."
* * *
My sister says, "Me and my kids went today. It was really delicious. The prices were amazing. We will be back."
* * *
My girlfriend says, "I went last Wednesday. The food was very good."
* * *
My father says, "I've seen the restaurant in front of Home Depot. I'll have to give them a try."
* * *
My friend says, "My family and I have been a couple times. Great food, good price. But on the weekends, they don't have enough servers and busboys. The restaurant lost customers because of lack of service."
* * *
My pastor says, "My wife ate there with some friends a few weeks ago and enjoyed her meal. We were there twice this month and enjoyed it very much. Everything was kept stocked, and hot things were hot while cold things were cold. Our table was bused and drinks refilled. It was delicious. Great. Enjoyed it very much, especially the hibachi grill and the seafood."
* * *
My proctologist says, "Yeah, I've been to that place twice. I took an out-of-town guest, and they enjoyed the varieties of food. Price is good for what you get."
* * *
My mechanic says, "Eaten there a few times. The price is right! I prefer China Buffet, though, for the variety and the custom Pho."
* * *
My workout buddy says, "It's convenient. I work next door at Big Lots. My husband and I went today and were quite impressed! The selection and quality of the food was great, service was impeccable, and you really cannot beat the price! We'll definitely go back!"
* * *
My realtor says, "I went there with my wife. We loved it, and I am happy with the atmosphere that they have going on. Even though I don't know what we're eating sometimes, and this makes me afraid because we love the food and the price."
* * *
I want to warn them that if they don't know what they're eating, they shouldn't enjoy it so much. I want to tell them they focus too much on the cheap price and not enough on what they are putting inside their bodies. Then, I think better of it, because I don't know their financial situations. Besides, nothing is cheaper than Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls.
* * *
But what about the unfortunate who can't afford to eat the cheap meat at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls?
* * *
Cash-strapped fast foodies who can't afford to eat at hamburger joints should keep their eyes peeled in search of business opportunities, such as the ones I've been receiving in my inbox: Do you pay a cell phone bill? Do you pay for Internet? Do you watch TV? Do you have electricity at your home? Natural gas? Do you use credit cards? If you answer YES to any of these questions, you are already in my business, you are just on the paying side. I get the privilege of teaching people how to get paid on these bills! Every month for the rest of your life! Residual income from now on. ... It's just that simple. Contact me and I can show you how.
Because of my city's Anti-Feeding Ordinance, I no longer raid the dumpsters behind the Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls. I can no longer offer discarded hamburgers and unwanted meat to homeless people who wait outside my door. It was a good scheme while it lasted. I dove into Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls' dumpsters, stealing food. Now I'm facing jail time. In fact, the judge has just informed my lawyer that helping my city's homeless could land me in jail with a $2000 fine.
* * *
Tell the mayor and the city council that feeding the homeless isn't a crime. Change the law and allow good Samaritans to feed the hungry with cheap meat.
* * *
I was once homeless. I once relied on food from the dumpster. Because no one would feed me cheap meat for free, after my parents kicked me out of the house, I got a job at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls while going to college.
* * *
One day working as the drive-thru cashier changed my life forever. That day, I had the unfortunate task of informing one of our most loyal customers, a known serial killer and rapist who had been eyeing me for months, that we were out of baked pies. Baked pies were his favorite food. He went through the drive-thru every day, and ordered a dozen baked pies, cherry and apple. There were rumors in town. Baked pies were all he lived on. That's why he became a rapist, a murderer, a torturer, and the worst type of serial killer. Even though everyone suspected him whenever another woman went missing, there was no evidence to tie him to any crime. He spoke to no one, except for the workers at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls. Those who worked the drive-thru window and provided him with his bag of baked pies on a daily basis were the ones he depended upon.
* * *
I had to run into the walk-in freezer to get more pies. The delivery guys had just finished putting our truck up. Huge stacks of boxes, poorly stacked fries, partially thawed, fell on top of me. I was trapped in the freezer. The sweat on my arms crystalized, gleaming like little pulverized diamonds. I started to hear music unlike any music I have ever heard before or since. I'm certain I could hear it at that moment because I was covered in sweat while trapped in a gigantic freezer with cheap meat. Even though I have no words for the sound in my mind, privately, I have always referred to it as "refrigerated music for a gleaming woman."
* * *
This refrigerated music was the one miracle I ever experienced. This is how I've come to believe that miracles come from calamity. My devastation was the reason I heard the refrigerated music for a gleaming woman in that twenty minutes before anyone realized I was missing. In that twenty minutes, I heard the music, which I would never hear again. When the rest of the employees got to me, my sweat had frozen into my arm hair, and I was in shock, singing.
* * *
My aunt, the newly promoted assistant manager of Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls, was trying to get medical help when the storeowner found me collapsed on the tile. He said, "Just stick her back in the drive-thru. She'll warm up there."
* * *
My aunt looked stricken but had no choice. This was many years before the incident at the funeral home. Sadly, in spite of her kindness and her numerous good deeds, corpse desecration came to define her in the community. Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls wouldn't even offer her another job when she got out of jail, even after she had served her time and had been released early for good behavior. But I get ahead of myself. I meant to talk about the serial killer/rapist and his baked pies.
* * *
"Baked pies," I kept saying that day as I warmed up in the drive-thru window. After being rescued from the freezer, I couldn't hear the refrigerated music anymore. But the serial killer/serial rapist was still waiting for his baked pies. So I started to run and slipped on a wet floor. I reached out to catch myself, and my left arm caught on a hot grill. My arm was burned. Badly. The managers had no first aid kit, no gauze, so they started yelling to the customers and even out the drive-thru window, "Is anyone a nurse or a doctor? Anyone have any medical training? Maybe a first-aid kit?" (The managers had been told, under no circumstances, to ever call 911.) The serial killer/serial rapist was the only one who had medical knowledge. He left his car in the drive-thru and stood over me, ordering around every employee in kitchen. "Bring me mustard," he said. "To treat the burn, give me mustard."
* * *
(Yes, mustard.)
* * *
He rubbed mustard over my burned arm, but that didn't stop my severe pain. So he said, "Bring me ketchup. Lots of ketchup. In packets, if you have them. And bring me mayonnaise, and barbecue sauce." He slathered my injuries with the stuff, and soon I started to smell like a hamburger — burnt meat covered in special sauce. I was howling in pain, but the smell of my burnt skin slathered with ketchup, barbeque sauce, and mayonnaise, now melting into me, was making me hungry. I groaned. He just looked at me, shook his head, and said, "Bring me pickles, diced onions, and cheese — sliced thinly." My aunt and the other workers brought him the pickles, the diced onions, and the cheese, which he started to apply to my burns.
* * *
"You've saved her," my aunt said. "Oh my god, thank you so much, sir. You've saved her." I was trying to tell my aunt who he was and that he hadn't really saved me at all because the pain was different now, throbbing, swelling like a serious infection. But she just kept calling him my savior and gave him a sack of baked pies.
* * *
Later that day, a friend of mine, also working at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls, saw my fingers were turning blue on the burned arm, which was now huge with swelling and festering blisters, yet still covered in pickles, cheese, diced onions, mayonnaise, mustard, barbeque sauce, and ketchup. My friend told my aunt, the corpse desecrator, that we were going to the ER. "Make sure you both clock out before leaving," said my aunt, and my friend drove me to the ER with my aunt's blessing. At the hospital, I was treated, given morphine for the pain. I struggled to feed myself with stolen hamburgers that smelled like my burnt arm. I hadn't eaten meat for such a long time, but because the smell of my burnt flesh was making me hungry, I gave in and tucked into stolen hamburgers, which tasted so damn delicious they made my tongue ache.
* * *
The next day, when my friend and I returned to work at Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls, we were advised by my aunt that we had both been fired for leaving our jobs. My aunt was in tears. I asked for a copy of that day's logbook entries, and to my surprise, that page was missing. How could a page be missing in a preprinted book with page numbers at the top corners? The log had skipped an entire two-day spread. Other entries had been re-written with the accident completely left out. I collected statements from former co-workers who knew what had happened. Later, they privately asked that I not submit their statements. They were terrified of losing their jobs.
* * *
I tried to pay the $20,000 bond when my aunt was jailed after entering the funeral home. Placing a raw burger on the face of her boyfriend's deceased ex-girlfriend, another Mack-Dawn-A-Dolls employee, my aunt applied mayonnaise, pickles, and ketchup to the face of her boyfriend's dead ex-girlfriend while the body was on display at a funeral home. She covered the corpse's face in sliced pickles, diced onions, sliced cheese, and numerous buns. Then she arranged fries artistically like greased white-gold flowers with spikey petals around the casket.
* * *
My mother said, "The police interrupted her while she was flipping burgers over the coffin. She had a hibachi set up over the coffin. They arrested her. For that! She was charged with illegal dissection of a body." Desecration, not dissection, I wanted to say. Then, my mother informed me that, inexplicably, in addition to prepping the burgers and fixings, my aunt had cut the dead woman's hair and slashed the face from hairline to nose tip during the viewing at the funeral home. Preparing hamburgers for dinner again, my mother suggested that this part might have been unintentional, some sort of kitchen accident from cooking on a makeshift surface that wasn't "food safe."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Refrigerated Music for a Gleaming Woman by Aimee Parkison. Copyright © 2017 Aimee Parkison. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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