about wishing on stars (and the firm belief that there is good in everyone)- an interview
Incirclescongregatetheywaittocrossthestreetcrammedfullofbodieswithstraight
armsandcrookedlegsorstuntedgrowthortonguesthatcutandeyesthatsuckthe
breathfromlungsthatinhalescentsofpavementpetrolperfumefecesofspecies
notsohumanlikethosetthatwindowshopandnumberdropandridefromplaceto
homeunderthebridgethatlinksthesuburbstothecities
Corei: My deepest desire- and this is gonna sound soo trite- was to be loved.
Alive: But your parents- You had two sets by then, right?
Corei: Yeah, but my mom- well, she was busy with Robbie.
Alive: So no time for you?
Corei: (tersely) Right.
And my dad… um, there was a situation there and- I was confused.
Alive: Help me out here, Corei. i’m lost.
Corei: (squirming) This isn’t about my dad. This is about the six months.
Alive: No, this is about Corei Elks. The real Corei. The one that’s lurking beneath the surface of the words you say and the songs you write.
Corei: Oh?
Alive: (quoting) ‘“…You’ll come, you’ll come for me/ take my worthiness away/ Drown my innocence’” or ‘“Pleasant music plagues my dreams/ Purging the sweet ecstasy of being/ From my twisted soul’”-
Corei: (nervous laughter) That’s not fair. Nathan helped write that first one.
Alive: If i recall correctly, he did not write that chorus-
Corei: But-
Alive: -But, that’s not the issue. Now i know for a fact that you wrote ‘“Take this pain inside of me/ This pent up anger is destroying/ purge me out till I am clean again’”. Just regard this as one of those cathartic moments and ‘“Lay it bare”’. Or should i say ‘“Free your life…”‘
Corei: Okay, I get it. Let’s keep going.
At first the motive was that corny ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’ thing then it was money then it was death then it was merely a burning need for the act.
(Looks away) I was addicted. And I hated that.
Alive: So you quit?
Corei: (inhales deeply) I switched.
(Quickly) I wanted to stop and couldn’t so I started things that would knock me out. At first just painkillers and tranquillizers but then I stopped those for a time and used some harder narcotics; I’ve always had trouble sleeping.
Alive: Was that better than the alternative?
Corei: (scowls) Considering that I paid for most of it in skin, I’d have to give you a definite no. I’d just made things worse for myself. I'm good at that, you know.
Alive: Were there any bright spots during that six-month period?
Corei: (smiling suddenly) There was this brown-skinned girl called Mystery who made me help her dye her hair red all the time and was skinnier than I am but twice as tall, who loved to hear me speak. She said that she’d never heard a real British accent before and if I would sit in her apartment and talk to her, she would let me stay there and use the needle first. We would talk about weather and drugs and how life sucks but just won’t let you go. I told her about my father and mother and how Corey, my stepfather, was the only one I missed and how much I hated Robbie [mother’s husband] and wanted him to die almost worse than I wanted to myself. She told me about her childhood and how she’d wanted to be a scientist and how her husband let her pay his way through college and undergrad school then left her when he found out that she was pregnant and infected with HIV. She told me how she’d tried to kill him, especially when she found out that he’d had it first, and how she could not do it because the gun wouldn’t discharge for some reason. She told me how she did drugs to speed up her death because twenty-six was too young to apply for euthanasia and, besides, what her estranged husband sent her was barely enough to support her drug habit. No way any doctor could do any better than she was doing for that little.
(Embarrassed) Ooh… Sorry. I got a little carried away. The question?
Alive: What happened between you and her?
Corei: (hesitant) Well, Mystery was pretty brash and loose around her customers, but never with me. She was also quite careful. Every time I took, she made me use a sterilized needle. Although I asked her to several times, she never slept with me. I told her I wanted what she had. I wanted a real reason to wish I were dead because next to hers, mine didn’t seem to hold much water anymore. But she told me that she would sooner just stab me than make me die what she called a slow boiling death.
I stayed with her for three months off and on before she told me she wanted me to quit the drugs.
Alive: Am i hearing this right? A drug dealer that tells you to quit?!
Corei: (smiling) Yes. Believe me, I was more shocked than you. But she said that she saw it in a dream, that I had to stop and say goodbye to her and leave ‘Hill Town Tennessee
I never really took much stock in her dreams, which were usually extensions of her marijuana- induced hallucinations, but she seemed so sad and sincere that I actually did it.
Alive: You left?
Corei: And I quit the heroin.
Alive: Wow.
Corei: (sheepishly) It was diluted. Very diluted. I was barely hooked to begin with; I did it so infrequently. But I still had trouble sleeping.
Alive: How did you deal with that?
Corei: Well, I refused to take more sleeping pills- I was addicted to those- but I had awful, bloody, screaming nightmares otherwise. I realized I couldn’t sleep by myself. So most times I didn’t sleep.
Alive: How long did they last? The sleepless nights?
Corei: I would usually go for forty- or fifty-eight hours before passing out, then rest for twelve and start over. By the time I fell out, I would be so tired that dreams were impossible.
Alive: Any time that this pattern worked against you?
Corei: A particular instance that I can recall is a time in South Carolina
Alive: i hear there’s a science to hitching a ride.
Corei: Right. I usually picked, well, more shady characters. Ones that I thought would either pay well or kill me. This time, however, I just wanted a ride to someplace where I could lie down and sleep forever. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that things rarely went the way I planned.
***
Alfred. 6‘2, 220-235 pounds, 45 years old. Plus.
Caucasian male. Plus.
Ex- wife, three kids.
Not a plus, normally, but this was to be no ordinary ride.
He was burly and gruff but sympathetic enough to give dirty little Corei a ride in his immaculate eighteen-wheeled baby.
Because he was so soaked, he had to agree to sit on a sheet of plastic all the way to wherever Alfred decided to take him.
That was okay; he was used to things so much less comfortable than plastic by then.
The conversation was sporadic as he drove Corei deeper into the south than he had ever been. Dark, scenic hill country rolled past as they glided through the southern panorama in the midst of a late summer storm. Alfred had turned the heater on for Corei’s sake, but soon the sweltering August weather penetrated the cab’s exterior and assailed them with its overwhelming ferocity.
Switch to air.
He scooted away from the massive air vents and leaned against the door, eyes closed.
Ever so often they would hit a pothole or the driver would call Corei’s name and his eyes would fly open in acknowledgement of the situation.
He could tell that Alfred did not want him to fall asleep in his truck, and he was so kind to Corei that he actually made an effort.
Tried to watch the landscape. Tried to listen to the racing bluegrass love songs blaring from the speakers, but Oh! The rain, the rhythmic sway of the truck, the steady sound of rubber tires flying over rain-soaked pavement was too much for the exhausted little boy to take.
Forty-five minutes in and his utter silence permeated the truck’s cab, not drowned out by the slackened rainfall.
So much for the effort.
***
Corei: I ended up in a hospital after passing out. Scared the man half to death.
Alive: And this was August.
Corei: Yes. During September and October I stayed with Alfred’s sister, Maggie. Her kids hated me. The oldest dragged me into a forest near the town where they lived, hit me over the head with a branch and left me for dead. Johnny found me. His sister-in-law is Dori and that’s how I got here. The end.
Alive: Corei! That’s two whole months that you just glossed over!
Corei: But Alive, we must leave something to the imagination. Besides, time is of the essence.
Alive: Just a couple more then we’re through.
Corei: (begrudgingly) All right.
Alive: What happened between you and your father?
Corei: You mean, that I don’t want to talk about?
Alive: Right.
Corei: I don’t want to talk about it.
Alive: Why not?
Corei: Because it is the connecting link between my story, my words, my songs. Talking about it could jinx my resolve. I want to make sure that I will never become him. That I’ll never touch that circle of Hell.
Alive: Which circle, Corei? i must know before we leave.
Corei: Guess.
Guess.
End of session. Not as productive as i would have liked, and much too long for comfort. As for the circle of Hell, i’ll guess circle two or circle seven, part three. [Eternal home of the lustful, or for the violent against God in the form of blasphemy, usurpation, or sodomy.] i think Corei would agree. i won’t ask.
About pink and God and innocence
i sit in church today, adjusting my fishnets, unmoved. Oppressed.
Enter in, he says. Don’t walk around; stay in your place and worship.
Stay in your place. Wish my knee-highs would take his advice.
Not that i could move much even if i wanted to.
He tells a joke that i don’t get. i laugh anyway. Won’t yawn out loud. It was that midnight movie; i know it…
Some call what i do going through the motions.
i call it life. i’ve been in this environment long enough to know what’s expected of me. Alright then. Here’s a little old time religion-ism for ya.
FYI: Never try it in heels: The universal “i’m worshipping” position with hands raised, head tilted toward the lights and a tremor or sway for potency. i hop sporadically. That always goes over well. Makes the adults feel better. “There are still some youth left that are on fire for God,” they think with shining eyes. Gives them hope. i smile at the thought.
Youth on fire. Burning. i’m sure they fail to see the irony.
i write a poem about truth during the sermon. It barely rhymes. Old habits die hard. i never rhymed before Dad said my stuff didn’t make sense—‘“to you’re father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desire’ but God has freed you—” A well-placed Amen. No wonder why i might hate him.
***
It is all over none too soon. i stand around in agony, as the truth is driven home to me for the trillionth time: i have no real identity. It is rooted in my father. It is rooted in a name. But not mine.
“Do i know you?” i give my name again. “oh you’re one of the Steven's girls” “You’re Kira’s cousin.” “You’re Tyrones’s oldest girl”.
My youth leader still doesn’t know my name.
Anger.
If i smile again, my face will break.
i can feel them scolding me about the fishnets with their eyes as i leave the building.
i’ll have to wear them again next time.
My friends and i talk about how much better off “worldly kids” are as Alainie drives to Taco Bell on autopilot.
i sulk on the way in.
i say i’m going to find some non-Christian boy and hook up with him just to see what the saints would do.
(i can hear it already—“No wonder she's pregnant”.)
The girl in the back seat says its stupid. We all have good parents. Why make them sad? (If she only knew.)
Plus, hers would kill her if she rebelled.
“Remember that thing about rebellion and witchcraft?”
i roll my eyes and grab a fork and napkins.
“Grab some taco sauce,” i say to the other girl.
And make sure you don’t forget the Fire.”
“Not hot enough for you already?”
She sits next to Alainie.
”On the contrary, it’s freezing.”
about wishing on stars (and the firm belief that there is good in everyone)- an interview
Incirclescongregatetheywaittocrossthestreetcrammedfullofbodieswithstraight
armsandcrookedlegsorstuntedgrowthortonguesthatcutandeyesthatsuckthe
breathfromlungsthatinhalescentsofpavementpetrolperfumefecesofspecies
notsohumanlikethosetthatwindowshopandnumberdropandridefromplaceto
homeunderthebridgethatlinksthesuburbstothecities
Corei: My deepest desire- and this is gonna sound soo trite- was to be loved.
Alive: But your parents- You had two sets by then, right?
Corei: Yeah, but my mom- well, she was busy with Robbie.
Alive: So no time for you?
Corei: (tersely) Right.
And my dad… um, there was a situation there and- I was confused.
Alive: Help me out here, Corei. i’m lost.
Corei: (squirming) This isn’t about my dad. This is about the six months.
Alive: No, this is about Corei Elks. The real Corei. The one that’s lurking beneath the surface of the words you say and the songs you write.
Corei: Oh?
Alive: (quoting) ‘“…You’ll come, you’ll come for me/ take my worthiness away/ Drown my innocence’” or ‘“Pleasant music plagues my dreams/ Purging the sweet ecstasy of being/ From my twisted soul’”-
Corei: (nervous laughter) That’s not fair. Nathan helped write that first one.
Alive: If i recall correctly, he did not write that chorus-
Corei: But-
Alive: -But, that’s not the issue. Now i know for a fact that you wrote ‘“Take this pain inside of me/ This pent up anger is destroying/ purge me out till I am clean again’”. Just regard this as one of those cathartic moments and ‘“Lay it bare”’. Or should i say ‘“Free your life…”‘
Corei: Okay, I get it. Let’s keep going.
At first the motive was that corny ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’ thing then it was money then it was death then it was merely a burning need for the act.
(Looks away) I was addicted. And I hated that.
Alive: So you quit?
Corei: (inhales deeply) I switched.
(Quickly) I wanted to stop and couldn’t so I started things that would knock me out. At first just painkillers and tranquillizers but then I stopped those for a time and used some harder narcotics; I’ve always had trouble sleeping.
Alive: Was that better than the alternative?
Corei: (scowls) Considering that I paid for most of it in skin, I’d have to give you a definite no. I’d just made things worse for myself. I'm good at that, you know.
Alive: Were there any bright spots during that six-month period?
Corei: (smiling suddenly) There was this brown-skinned girl called Mystery who made me help her dye her hair red all the time and was skinnier than I am but twice as tall, who loved to hear me speak. She said that she’d never heard a real British accent before and if I would sit in her apartment and talk to her, she would let me stay there and use the needle first. We would talk about weather and drugs and how life sucks but just won’t let you go. I told her about my father and mother and how Corey, my stepfather, was the only one I missed and how much I hated Robbie [mother’s husband] and wanted him to die almost worse than I wanted to myself. She told me about her childhood and how she’d wanted to be a scientist and how her husband let her pay his way through college and undergrad school then left her when he found out that she was pregnant and infected with HIV. She told me how she’d tried to kill him, especially when she found out that he’d had it first, and how she could not do it because the gun wouldn’t discharge for some reason. She told me how she did drugs to speed up her death because twenty-six was too young to apply for euthanasia and, besides, what her estranged husband sent her was barely enough to support her drug habit. No way any doctor could do any better than she was doing for that little.
(Embarrassed) Ooh… Sorry. I got a little carried away. The question?
Alive: What happened between you and her?
Corei: (hesitant) Well, Mystery was pretty brash and loose around her customers, but never with me. She was also quite careful. Every time I took, she made me use a sterilized needle. Although I asked her to several times, she never slept with me. I told her I wanted what she had. I wanted a real reason to wish I were dead because next to hers, mine didn’t seem to hold much water anymore. But she told me that she would sooner just stab me than make me die what she called a slow boiling death.
I stayed with her for three months off and on before she told me she wanted me to quit the drugs.
Alive: Am i hearing this right? A drug dealer that tells you to quit?!
Corei: (smiling) Yes. Believe me, I was more shocked than you. But she said that she saw it in a dream, that I had to stop and say goodbye to her and leave ‘
I never really took much stock in her dreams, which were usually extensions of her marijuana- induced hallucinations, but she seemed so sad and sincere that I actually did it.
Alive: You left?
Corei: And I quit the heroin.
Alive: Wow.
Corei: (sheepishly) It was diluted. Very diluted. I was barely hooked to begin with; I did it so infrequently. But I still had trouble sleeping.
Alive: How did you deal with that?
Corei: Well, I refused to take more sleeping pills- I was addicted to those- but I had awful, bloody, screaming nightmares otherwise. I realized I couldn’t sleep by myself. So most times I didn’t sleep.
Alive: How long did they last? The sleepless nights?
Corei: I would usually go for forty- or fifty-eight hours before passing out, then rest for twelve and start over. By the time I fell out, I would be so tired that dreams were impossible.
Alive: Any time that this pattern worked against you?
Corei: A particular instance that I can recall is a time in
Alive: i hear there’s a science to hitching a ride.
Corei: Right. I usually picked, well, more shady characters. Ones that I thought would either pay well or kill me. This time, however, I just wanted a ride to someplace where I could lie down and sleep forever. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that things rarely went the way I planned.
***
Alfred. 6‘2, 220-235 pounds, 45 years old. Plus.
Caucasian male. Plus.
Ex- wife, three kids.
Not a plus, normally, but this was to be no ordinary ride.
He was burly and gruff but sympathetic enough to give dirty little Corei a ride in his immaculate eighteen-wheeled baby.
Because he was so soaked, he had to agree to sit on a sheet of plastic all the way to wherever Alfred decided to take him.
That was okay; he was used to things so much less comfortable than plastic by then.
The conversation was sporadic as he drove Corei deeper into the south than he had ever been. Dark, scenic hill country rolled past as they glided through the southern panorama in the midst of a late summer storm. Alfred had turned the heater on for Corei’s sake, but soon the sweltering August weather penetrated the cab’s exterior and assailed them with its overwhelming ferocity.
Switch to air.
He scooted away from the massive air vents and leaned against the door, eyes closed.
Ever so often they would hit a pothole or the driver would call Corei’s name and his eyes would fly open in acknowledgement of the situation.
He could tell that Alfred did not want him to fall asleep in his truck, and he was so kind to Corei that he actually made an effort.
Tried to watch the landscape. Tried to listen to the racing bluegrass love songs blaring from the speakers, but Oh! The rain, the rhythmic sway of the truck, the steady sound of rubber tires flying over rain-soaked pavement was too much for the exhausted little boy to take.
Forty-five minutes in and his utter silence permeated the truck’s cab, not drowned out by the slackened rainfall.
So much for the effort.
***
Corei: I ended up in a hospital after passing out. Scared the man half to death.
Alive: And this was August.
Corei: Yes. During September and October I stayed with Alfred’s sister, Maggie. Her kids hated me. The oldest dragged me into a forest near the town where they lived, hit me over the head with a branch and left me for dead. Johnny found me. His sister-in-law is Dori and that’s how I got here. The end.
Alive: Corei! That’s two whole months that you just glossed over!
Corei: But Alive, we must leave something to the imagination. Besides, time is of the essence.
Alive: Just a couple more then we’re through.
Corei: (begrudgingly) All right.
Alive: What happened between you and your father?
Corei: You mean, that I don’t want to talk about?
Alive: Right.
Corei: I don’t want to talk about it.
Alive: Why not?
Corei: Because it is the connecting link between my story, my words, my songs. Talking about it could jinx my resolve. I want to make sure that I will never become him. That I’ll never touch that circle of Hell.
Alive: Which circle, Corei? i must know before we leave.
Corei: Guess.
Guess.
End of session. Not as productive as i would have liked, and much too long for comfort. As for the circle of Hell, i’ll guess circle two or circle seven, part three. [Eternal home of the lustful, or for the violent against God in the form of blasphemy, usurpation, or sodomy.] i think Corei would agree. i won’t ask.
About pink and God and innocence
i sit in church today, adjusting my fishnets, unmoved. Oppressed.
Enter in, he says. Don’t walk around; stay in your place and worship.
Stay in your place. Wish my knee-highs would take his advice.
Not that i could move much even if i wanted to.
He tells a joke that i don’t get. i laugh anyway. Won’t yawn out loud. It was that
Some call what i do going through the motions.
i call it life. i’ve been in this environment long enough to know what’s expected of me. Alright then. Here’s a little old time religion-ism for ya.
FYI: Never try it in heels: The universal “i’m worshipping” position with hands raised, head tilted toward the lights and a tremor or sway for potency. i hop sporadically. That always goes over well. Makes the adults feel better. “There are still some youth left that are on fire for God,” they think with shining eyes. Gives them hope. i smile at the thought.
Youth on fire. Burning. i’m sure they fail to see the irony.
i write a poem about truth during the sermon. It barely rhymes. Old habits die hard. i never rhymed before Dad said my stuff didn’t make sense—‘“to you’re father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desire’ but God has freed you—” A well-placed Amen. No wonder why i might hate him.
***
It is all over none too soon. i stand around in agony, as the truth is driven home to me for the trillionth time: i have no real identity. It is rooted in my father. It is rooted in a name. But not mine.
“Do i know you?” i give my name again. “oh you’re one of the Steven's girls” “You’re Kira’s cousin.” “You’re Tyrones’s oldest girl”.
My youth leader still doesn’t know my name.
Anger.
If i smile again, my face will break.
i can feel them scolding me about the fishnets with their eyes as i leave the building.
i’ll have to wear them again next time.
My friends and i talk about how much better off “worldly kids” are as Alainie drives to Taco Bell on autopilot.
i sulk on the way in.
i say i’m going to find some non-Christian boy and hook up with him just to see what the saints would do.
(i can hear it already—“No wonder she's pregnant”.)
The girl in the back seat says its stupid. We all have good parents. Why make them sad? (If she only knew.)
Plus, hers would kill her if she rebelled.
“Remember that thing about rebellion and witchcraft?”
i roll my eyes and grab a fork and napkins.
“Grab some taco sauce,” i say to the other girl.
And make sure you don’t forget the Fire.”
“Not hot enough for you already?”
She sits next to Alainie.
”On the contrary, it’s freezing.”
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