MIKEY AND ROXANNE
Mikey was as thin as a fart on its way to sainthood. Roxanne was heading in the opposite direction. Shaped like a fat bullet balanced atop two straw-thin legs, Roxanne used to laugh that maybe North Korea should launch her, send her up in the heavens and wait for her to explode.
But they got along.
That summer, while Mikey’s mother was at work, he and Roxanne would go to his bedroom where she would open her bag, pull out her kit and tattoo him. “One and that’s it,” Mikey’s mother stormed and shouted when he showed her the red and blue squiggles above his left wrist. He knew not to tell her who had tattooed him, or that Roxanne had also found the stash of Oreos his mother had hidden behind the Swiffer pads in the kitchen cabinet. Roxanne knew what hiding junk food meant; she was clever that way. To Mikey, Roxanne was an artist, and his body was her canvas. She had the right to eat whatever she wanted, and Mikey promised never again to show his mother another tattoo.
On those summer afternoons in his room listening for Roxanne’s car, Mikey would carefully button and unbutton his black denim long-sleeved shirt. He loved the control his fingers had, how he counted off as he worked his way down the placket— one-two-three-four. Of course he wanted to be in a band, what else was there to do in the suburbs? Going to the park was for gangs. But more than wanting to be in a band, Mikey wanted Roxanne to watch as his opened shirt, its sleeves still buttoned, slid cleanly over his skinny wrists and down to the floor, a movement that took a lot of practice to get just right. And Roxanne was patient. She recognized an offering when she saw one.
“Your room can be a palace,” Roxanne told him. “Your body a temple. Don’t listen to others. Everyone is beautiful. Here take this. Be beautiful.”
Mikey wasn’t sure what beautiful felt like, so he didn’t know if the pill he’d taken had worked or not.
Roxanne was right about Mikey: he was putty. Mikey offered up his body and all the junk food in the house she could eat. Mikey didn’t like to eat, but she never asked him why.
“I’ll eat for you,” Roxanne said. “I like skinny boys.”
Roxanne took her time, choosing her colors carefully. She worked in a rather abstract style. “Free jazz,” she told him. “I’m turning your body into a free jazz album.”
Mikey liked the thought of turning into music, though he didn’t know what free jazz was. All he knew was that it hurt.
“Suffering is our lot,” Roxanne said whenever he asked her to stop. “No one escapes.”
Even Mikey knew that was bullshit, but he was in no position to argue. Roxanne had been eyeing his ankle for weeks, and he knew the ankle could really hurt, but when the time came, he took off his sock and plopped his long, narrow foot into Roxanne’s waiting hand.
When Roxanne bent over Mikey and the ropes of her black hair tickled his body, Mikey thought of spiders. He didn’t much like spiders, but despite not having strength, he did have courage. He always took a dare. Eating that worm in third grade fueled him with success, though his mother had frowned and insisted on looking into his mouth after he had told her what he had done. He was also the first student to slice open the frog in tenth grade biology, the first, as far as he knew, to shove a few crystals of Drano up his urethra. A day after Roxanne needled his foot, he let her push the inked needle into his neck. He knew it was an unspoken dare, despite Roxanne’s claim she didn’t believe in dares. All she said was, “Mikey, tilt your head to the left and stay very still.”
Over the weeks Mikey became more abstract, and Roxanne more intent. His chest became a swirl of different colors, a desert sunset. When Roxanne told him to take deep breaths, the desert undulated. Stepping away from the bed where Mikey lay, and with one hand bunching up her hair, Roxanne pointed and dramatically drawled, “Mikey, darling, you are a masterpiece.”
How he wished he could respond in some cool fashion, shut his eyes halfway while making some in-the-know hand sign, but he was just too tired. His chest had taken a beating. The pill Roxanne had offered this time was blue, and it made him feel sometimes here and sometimes there; when she had finished, he didn’t know where he was.
He’d forgotten where they had met. The park? The bus stop? The sidewalk? The mall? All he remembers is that he was alone and then there was Roxanne talking to him, almost whispering about how if you really think about it a person can do anything they want, don’t you agree? A person can do anything, have you ever thought that? Then she said, I know where you live. You do not he answered, because he was sure she was making that up. Hardly anyone ever came down his street. Well, if you showed me then I’d know, wouldn’t I, she said. What’s in the box? he asked. Needles and ink.
He took her home. Roxanne shuffled through the kitchen cabinets for junk food and took what she found up to Mikey’s bedroom. When he went to throw away the empty cartons, Roxanne stopped him. “Don’t do that. Let your mom think you’re eating.” Then she opened her box of needles and ink.
They never had sex; it was never mentioned. Some afternoons they hardly spoke. He never asked where she lived or how old she was, though he knew she was older. They never looked at the computer except to discuss what colors of ink she should buy. When he asked her about her mom, all Roxanne said was, “What mom.”
After a few weeks, Roxanne’s sudden appearance in his bedroom doorway no longer surprised him. She must have known he would leave the front door unlocked for her, or maybe she had found another way in. It seemed like she had always been there, silently roaming through the house while Mikey rested upstairs. Seeing her standing in the doorway of his room, filling its space, her long black hair hanging in rolls across her breasts, Mikey felt happy, as though she were about to share a secret with him.
By late August, Mikey was complete. Neck to ankle, Roxanne had stenciled her claim into him. It had taken weeks, and though the tattoos really looked like shit, Mikey didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he said nothing. Anyway, it was too late to do anything about it.
Mikey began to feel the changes. Hip bones, backbone, the hard threads of his thighs, the ankle bone that had turned an exotic color under Roxanne’s artistry. It felt like his body was disappearing beneath all the colors it now contained, changing into something else. All summer he’d worn long-sleeved shirts with the collar upturned, so he’d just keep doing that.
“I’ll have to cover up when I go back to school,” he said to her.
“Who cares about school,” she said. “You’re so past school, Mikey, don’t you know that? You are moving in a totally different direction.”
“What do you mean by a different direction?” If he was moving, he wanted to know where to.
“You don’t know, do you? After all these weeks? Really?”
Mikey hated when Roxanne acted superior. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. But she didn’t answer. She was munching a brownie, and Mikey had turned his face away from her.
“Turn over please.”
He did as he was told. He turned over on his stomach and Roxanne pulled down his jeans past his crack. Not a hair in sight. “There’s free jazz, there’s acid jazz, there’s techno, rave, blues, rap, hip-hop, folk, opera, haiku, ballet, tap, strip club shit, tango, jump, belly dancing and the kitchen sink. Mikey?”
“You choose,” he said.
“OK, then, take this, but no chewing, must swallow.” And kneeling to meet his turned face, she handed him the white pill. “Music of the spheres,” she said, as the needle pricked his skin.
How should we end this story of Mikey and Roxanne? High school saint dying of a long-simmering blood poisoning, weighing at death seventy-six pounds, Saint Needle, a boy who died for art? That’s one way. Oh, the submission and courage necessary for this to happen.
News of Mikey’s death travelled quickly throughout his school, though no one could accurately remember what he had actually looked like, or if he’d been in anyone’s class. Even his mother, especially his mother, had no idea what he looked like when she found him lying quietly on his bed. At first she thought he was wearing a paisley shirt, something from a l960s thrift store, but when she pulled the blankets off, she saw the animal changes in her son, the curled lizard quality of his shrunken, lifeless body that, except for an ivory band of natal skin low on his buttocks, was covered with color. He had given himself over to something, but what? And why? She would never know or understand.
When bouquets of flowers began appearing on the front porch and down the walk, Mikey’s mother left them there until they wilted and stank, their colors molding like the fall leaves that had begun to drop from the eternal trees.
And Roxanne? Appearing like a mysterious stranger with bag in hand, a nimbus of flesh and hair as old as civilization. From where? And why Mikey? Was he just a lucky guess, a spot check on her specific radar that turned out to be exactly what she needed at the time? Where had she headed off to, and to whom?
We will never know. And certainly Mikey’s overworked mother will never know. The flowers on the sidewalk made some sense, but not so those orange cheese doodles she later discovered; they made no sense at all.
Stretching the length of the backyard all the way to the thick growth of trees at the end of the property was a winding line of industrial orange. Mikey’s mother stared out at it for a long time, letting it come into focus. A necklace? A junk food necklace of orange larvae? Yes, she thought, each orange puff did look like a larva, something that contains something else inside it. But Mikey’s mother didn’t like thinking about this as it made her feel uncomfortable. So, she let it be, and soon enough the birds came and took care of the mess.
Sibbie O’Sullivan enjoys writing in many genres, including poetry, fiction and drama. Her poems have appeared in many publications, among them West Branch; The Laurel Review; Nimrod; Sou’Wester; and Zone 3. She is the recipient of the ArtScape Literary Arts Award for Fiction from the City of Baltimore, and has collaborated with the late Ruth Maleczech, co-founder of Mabou Mines Theatre Company of New York, as well as actor Sarah Pleydell for dramatic performances of her poetry and plays. The recipient of three grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, O’Sullivan continues to explore the boundaries of nonfiction. Her memoir, My Private Lennon: Explorations from a Fan Who Never Screamed, was published in 2020 by Mad Creek Books. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in The Washington Post. She lives in Wheaton, MD.