Beautiful Children Read online

  But hanging out in the ice cream truck, see, that didn't take no effort.

  Shadows subdivided the van's dented interior. Skunkweed and nicotine melded with the lingering scents of perspiration, urine, and leftover and rancid hamburger meat. From outside, the school bell blared for, like, the ninetieth time. What a school bell was blaring every half hour for on a summer night, who the fuck could say. Whatever. No point cursing it anymore.

  “Doctors are fucked,” the girl said. “Medical science is a plot.”

  Her words were directed next to her, to some kid whose name she may or may not have known, this lanky mawkish boy wearing an improbable stretch cap of bright green wool. Frail bone structure. Spectacles. A dramatic Roman nose. She wasn't sure, but it might have been the same face as this kid from her advanced-placement English class, this kid who never spoke and carried the same coverless, water-warped paperback wherever he went.

  “Telling the truth would cost them customers and that would cost them money.” The girl took a long swig of beer. She was pretty baked, her thoughts vomiting forth, shooting straight from her brain into her mouth.

  “Forget their quackery. That shit about a lack of calcium and protein and essential daily vitamins preventing menstrual flow. I missed my last four periods because adolescent witches miss their periods. I'm thin because adolescent witches are thin.

  “It's simple,” she said. “The blood and nutrients go directly into my emergent spell powers.”

  Wool Cap Kid pursed his lips and the girl thought it was the same kid as from English class, definitely, which was both a worry and a relief, sort of—because he was kind of ugly and kind of cute at the same time, sitting there in a black V-neck, staring at her all astonished and all. The girl had always had a bit of a thing for him but had never wanted to screw things up by talking to him—that's how things went, once a boy thought you liked him, he wouldn't even make eye contact in the hallway, boys were weird like that, whatever.

  His eyes, dark and shining beads, remained trained: the aperture of her summer vest's open and hanging collar, the upper embroidery and lace of her bra. She wondered if he was checking her out. Did he think her bra was just a fashion statement? Truly needed as a support garment? The hull's ovenlike state made the girl seriously question putting wool on your head.

  “You're James, right?”

  Slowly he nodded.

  “We have Mr. Silvestri together. Fourth period?”

  Residual light from a cracked lava lamp gave his profile an eerie red blush.

  “Can I ask you something? Have you been reading the same book over and over all this time?

  “I mean, it's okay if you have. That's better than carrying the thing around because the author has a big fancy Russian name or something, I guess. Or like if you maybe had one of those disorders, like in the after-school television specials—like where you maybe can't read and try real hard and stick with it and after all this time are on chapter five, although you are in advanced-placement English. I guess there has to be some mustard on that there hot dog.”

  A smile creased his thin yet kissable lips.

  “I been meaning to ask for a while,” she admitted, and felt her face getting hot. “Except the times I showed up for English class, you usually cut. And then, whenever we both blew off class and ended up here in the ice cream truck, mostly you stayed huddled in that corner. Only but now, well, here I am and here you am, all next to each other, so I thought, you know, what the hell.” She fidgeted. “I hope you don't think I'm lame.”

  “Not lame.” He flashed perfect teeth. “Just full of shit.”

  James spoke rationally and calmly, in no way unkindly, with the snap of a boy satisfied with his thought process, excited to be sharing it. “If you were a witch, you wouldn't need to ask about my book. You could just cast a spell. Peer into your crystal ball and see the answer.”

  The outlines of two, three figures moved ambiguously across the front of the truck. Some undefined form sat playing invisible drums to this song, which most definitely did not have drums.

  “I'm full of shit?”

  The girl heard her voice reverberating off the hull. “How the . . .How can anyone say that about anyone else?” She felt herself rising now. “You don't know. Nobody is anybody else, so nobody can know. Like, like, look at this ice cream truck. It's the exact same deal. Like, was the fucker found abandoned on the side of the road? Was it liberated from Mister Softee's regional HQ? Depends on who you ask, right? Depends on what they've been toking.”

  Eyes were on her now but fuck if she cared. “How is not a subject of debate,” she said. “Truth is not a matter of interest.”

  Tugging on her arm. A shaft of light caught the piercing stud in Francesca's eyebrow, creating a momentary incandescence along her profile.

  If she needed a ride, Francesca wanted to know.

  “Truth is not what you know or what is rational.” The girl continued, her fingers all but trembling with rage. “Some company line about why their product is so fucking wonderful. That totally lame excuse as to why your birthday card might be a little late this year. One more object a person can buy or sell or try to shuck off on you.”

  “I've got to get back,” Francesca said.

  “The truth is just like this big old dented piece of crap ice cream truck. It's a bunch of bumper stickers clinging to crappy pink spray-paint.” Her arms flailed, pointing in unfollowable directions. “Look at them. Look.”

  CONSUME OR BE CONSUMED.

  OBJECTIVITY IS SUBJECTIVE.

  I DROPPED ACID IN THE GRAND CANYON.

  NUNS WITH GUNS CHICKS WITH DICKS.

  FIRST BANK OF NIHILISM, WE DON'T VALIDATE JACK SHIT.

  WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT.

  3.2

  Cheri Blossom planted one of her stilettos on each side of the newcomer's prematurely balding skull, and lowered herself into a squat that was not quite pronounced enough to pee from. Immediately, her taut and bejeweled tummy began a series of undulations, each wave stopping inches from his thick black spectacles. The newcomer's porcine features went slack, his pinkish mouth opened slightly, and Cheri watched as his mind literally receded into the world of private and carnal awe that men retreated into when women like her straddled them.

  No biggie. She'd been at the game long enough that controlling a man was, as a process, about the same to her as cutting away the mealy part of an apple that had been left on top of the fridge overnight. Actually, it was more like when the sun was easing its way over the Sierra Nevadas, and a night of shaking her moneymaker was behind Cheri; like when she worked the final locks of her condo and opened the door and, lo and behold, her boyfriend was cooking the final foils of her stash. The similarity in these different situations being that however much Cheri's concern should have been with that particular moment, she always found herself occupied with that moment's inherent dramatic value—how the image of herself cutting away at that apple revealed her to be self-possessed and at peace; or, conversely, the dramatic depths of her tantrum, all the exasperation her boyfriend brought from her. Cheri knew it sounded strange, but she couldn't help it. Sometimes she almost felt removed from her body, as if she were in a multiplex somewhere, watching a person she knew to be herself on the giant screen; as if each day was nothing more than a procession of scenes, acts in the epic movie that was her life, Cheri Blossom's Hard Wild Ride, adapted from the best-selling autobiography, with audio versions available at fine stores everywhere.

  Tonight's installment featured Catholic school as her place of reckoning. Never mind that Cheri had not attended Catholic school, she hadn't attended much public school, either, and anyway, it was her movie, she could do what she wanted: wrap her white schoolgirl's blouse into a knot, for example, so that the heft of her breasts was both supported and accentuated. Or wear a skimpy plaid miniskirt with a fold along the crotch, so that when she squatted, the fabric parted down the middle, revealing her candy-pink panties. To thumping bass sounds, C
heri, if the whim struck her, could unwrap her schoolgirl's skirt. She could twirl her blouse above her head and chuck her bra at a table of nearby admirers. Could spread her arms in a crucifixion pose and tilt her head as far backward as it would go, arching back, extending the points of her bare and spectacular breasts toward the tinted spotlights. And here, as sweat dripped from her shadowed and glitter-covered outline, Cheri could wiggle out of her spangled G-string. Never mind that she'd sweated tonight's supply of painkillers out of her system. Never mind that when she shifted her weight, her yeast infection flared. Cheri was mentally strong; she could block out that shit.

  An ecstatic yell. Cheri whirled the dampened pink swatch around her finger, swished her hips as if they were windshield wipers, and pranced around the runway in an arcing circle, throughout keeping an eye on everyone gathered at the foot of the stage, watching to see which ones were placing down bills. When she had this figured, Cheri made her way back to her newly discovered mark—that prematurely balding guy, his glasses a bit askew.

  He looked like the type who usually stood near the back. Maybe it was his big night out in Vegas (that would explain the shirt). Well, Cheri was in the mood to help, and parked her dimpled and peachy rear in front of his blushing face. She gave a pepper-mill grind, widened her legs out into an A and, in a smooth quick motion, bent over. Cheri's tight little gluteus was spread out all maximus-like, and her sex was juicy and engorged and hanging right in front of this guy's nose. She looked down through the space between her legs, over her hanging booming breasts. Her wig's fake ponytails fell into her eyes. Blood rushed to her head. And here, if the mood struck her and she damn well felt like it, here, while staring at him from upside down, Cheri could make eye contact; she could bestow upon this youngish and pink-faced mark a smile of full wattage. Imagine running into you here. Of all people.

  An easy reach. In one fluid motion, Cheri placed her G-string atop his head. She slid her thong over the crown of his skull and moved the damp parts of the fabric past the slope of his forehead, onto his quickly fogging lenses, covering his face with the crotch of her panties as if they were a surgeon's mask, so that her scent all but overpowered him, reduced him to a quivering mass, all so this guy would basically be obligated to shell out thirty bucks for a private table dance, for no other reason than to find out what could come next.

  Cheri could do these things because she was performing not for the mark but for a movie. And in this movie she was beyond sexy. She was A STAR.

  This is what she told herself.

  Saturday was the busiest night of the week on Industrial, a potholed utility road that emerged from beneath several freeway underpasses and ran parallel to the busiest stretch of the Strip. The warm summer night would have made for a pleasant walk from the closest casinos, except most valets and front desk workers discouraged such strolls, as thugs were known to wait in the shadows. A cab ride cost five bucks, plus gratuity, but was worth it, the taxis bypassing the Sheetrock suppliers, tombstone wholesalers, and construction rig rental agencies, and pulling up to the street's various gentlemen's cabarets—spots like Spearmint Rhino, Cheetah's, and Little Darlings, where dancers bared their breasts and stripped to their panties, and beer and hard alcohol were served at the bar. Taxis also stopped at aptly nicknamed spread joints, such as the Can Can Room, Déjà Vu, and Crazy Horse Too (home of the world famous Las Vegas strippers), where alcohol and video poker were legally prohibited, but dancers ended up in the buff.

  The Slinky Fox was smaller than the newer warehouse-size super-clubs, but still more expansive than the grimy dives so often associated with strip joints. The stage was lined with footlights and strings of blinking Christmas bulbs, and was visible from almost any area inside the club. Rows of plush booths bordered the main room, carving out its space, while the booth backs created partitioned areas, smaller, more intimate playgrounds, each replete with its own series of tables and couches, as well as a side stage with some sort of fireman pole or trapeze. Frat boys clogged the aisles between the main and side rooms, watching in all directions with expressions that tried not to betray their wonder. Some off-shift dealers had pushed tables together in the central area and sat around, their starched collars unbuttoned, each man relaxing without words, absently turning over the bills he planned to leave as a tip as if flipping the hole card in a blackjack game. Cops in civvies stood in rigid bunches and focused on the stage without expression, even as they rubbed shoulders with surly union workers, beaten down from months on a picket line, who were standing in front of a few overweight immigrants, every one of them committing Cheri's curves to memory, to be recalled in an hour or so—when they'd go home and enter their wives, enter their girlfriends, enter their lonely masturbatory fantasies.

  The song ended and Cheri did not respond to the scattered applause, but instead kneeled, motionless, concentrating on her breathing. Remaining perfectly still while completely naked and surrounded by a roomful of horny guys, this took a certain amount of poise. Sometimes Cheri blocked out their stares. Sometimes she feasted on them. Three sprightly piano notes echoed through the loudspeaker system, at which point remaining still was no longer her concern. She began slowly, kicking her legs out from underneath her in a fluid motion, moving them in a complete circle. Wounded innocence now, a woman's throaty voice, her lamentation: Every night before I go to sleep, Find a ticket, win a lottery. Cheri rose to a knee and reached toward the ceiling, stretching her arms. The piano gradually increased its pace, and a bass guitar joined in, and then drums, Patti Smith's epic moving toward its stride, with Patti wailing about buying her lover a jet plane, getting him on a higher plane, taking him up to the stratosphere and then sweeping down, where it's hot, hot in Arabia, babia, then cool, cold fields of snow . . .

  It was an unconventional song for stripping. Usually, when a rock song got played in the Slinky Fox anymore, it was a sleazy number from the eighties, all bumps and grinds, as opposed to something from the arty side of the early New York punk scene. But Cheri had always retained a soft spot for the drama packed inside “Free Money,” and when she'd been looking to expand her repertoire, by some off chance, she'd thought about the song's dark and lulling start, its epic and passionate sweep. Cheri had vision in spades, if she said so herself, and she'd recognized the potential of “Free Money,” devoting a solid week to choreographing her routine, coming up with interpretive movements for every chord change, pantomimes that matched each lyric. She'd practiced trailing long see-through veils behind her, wrapping and unwrapping herself in and from those veils, beating herself down onto the stage floor. And it had paid off. The first time Cheri had performed to the song, she'd worked her entire shift doing nothing but private dances. Indeed, the routine had been so successful that other girls started putting “Free Money” onto their playlists, attempting their own clumsy interpretations, usually with feather boas. “Free Money” had been absorbed into each night's routine at the Slinky Fox for almost a year now, and of late served as nothing so much as an ironic motto for the girls to slave by, a catchphrase to tell one another as they passed in the dressing room. Which was a bummer for Cheri—she'd busted her moneymaker to come up with a distinct act, her own signature song. Heck, the soundtrack to the movie of Cheri's life came straight from the songs she stripped to, and it complicated things when she herself no longer wanted to hear her own playlist.

  ’Cause if like four girls in a row went on the main stage and did all three dances as a hip-hop homegirl, sure there was a chance the crowd that night would love hip-hop and all the dancers would be in the flush. But it was equally possible that twelve straight hip-hop songs would be numbing. Girl number two wouldn't make squat in stage tips, and girl three would be traveling an even harder road. Being a professional meant adjusting not only to whatever the previous girl scribbled on the DJ docket, but also to what kind of music the crowd was listening to that night. It meant keeping a notepad of which girls liked to dance to what music, what kind of songs you could dance to in a
ny situation. Every time new meat started working the Slinky Fox, Cheri made sure to check out her routine and moves. Did this girl have anything Cheri did not? Do anything Cheri would not? Any day the Garden of Venus might call. The Garden catered to turbaned sheiks, and men in expensive ties and esteemed multinational figures. Men were not marks at the Garden, they were clients, and if a client phoned and reserved his favorite stripper in advance, you cleared five hundred an hour on those. The Garden had a Jacuzzi room and a waterslide, and their champagne dances were with real nonalcoholic champagne instead of apple juice like the Slinky Fox used. Cheri'd even heard that People magazine's sexiest man alive had recently dropped a couple of thou chasing dancers down the Garden's waterslide, and she frequently imagined the power in knowing that People magazine's sexiest man alive was staring, wanting nothing more than to be inside of her. Yeah, the Garden of Venus was high class, a girl had to be asked to audition there. And so the more distinct your personality and dance skills were, the more you could work a room and hook a customer, the better your chances of being asked to work at the Garden—which is why it was a problem when all your good shit was being absorbed. So what you ended up doing, you spent so much time checking out the other girls that some of the dykes tried to recruit you. There were misunderstandings. Uncomfortable situations. Sometimes after a shift the bouncers ended up having to walk Cheri to her Jeep as protection from men and women alike.

  And the only way out was to distinguish herself.