Starry-Eyed (49 page)
Authors: Ted Michael
1. Feet Filth in Five Days
After the relative popularity of “Feet Filth in Five Days,” in which Goose didn't shower or change his socks for five days, and Stringbean filmed his feet in various stages of grossness, their YouTube channel, stringbeanandgoose, had 539 subscribers.
“This is disgusting,” wrote one commenter, banjoqueen2904. “Freedom of speech gone WAY too far.”
“Whaaat r this kidz smoking?
” added jaxrox42 thoughtfully.
“Uglytown, USA,” wrote mizmichelle1985. “population: these kids and their weird feet. Why would anyone want to record ugly shit like this?”
“It's too bad you can't capture smell in video,” noted minotaurXLZ, “because I bet the smell of this would knock over a steel duck.”
Stringbean agreed, then wondered who in the hell had ever seen a steel duck.
2. The Thing About Ugly
The secret truth was that part of fifteen-year-old Stringbean loved these comments, was fascinated and titillated by them. In her own weird, contrary way, the more people vocally opposed what she posted on YouTube,
the better Stringbean felt about how she was doing. Stringbean had read somewhere that all great performance artists started out being misunderstood and condemned. So, she concluded, if she was being misunderstood and condemned on YouTube, she was probably on her way to greatness.
The thing about being ugly was that the stakes were much lower than being beautiful. If you were beautiful, people only ever wanted you to be
more
beautiful, and lamented if you became less so. If you were ugly, nobody really cared about whether you got uglier or not.
Stringbean felt a kind of affinity with the ugly, the ignored, the dismissed, the damaged, the demented, the cast-off, the clearance rack and the five-dollar-box, the auto graveyard and the compost pile, the abandoned hotel and the broken machine. Stringbean just found ugly things more interesting than beautiful ones, she supposed whenever anyone asked, which was never.
Stringbean felt strongly that she was not pretty, not fine-boned, slender, and thick-haired the way Junie Mae and her mother were, the Italian side from Big DeeDee. Stringbean's own flat German face, inherited from her now-absent and lackluster father, was plain in an open, wholesome way: animated, vivacious, striking, but knock-kneed and gawky, too skinny everywhere but between her ribs and her collarbone. Stringbean had lived with this knowledge the way you might learn to live with a minor ache, a hangnail, or a chronic cramp. In two years, things would be vastly better, but Stringbean had no way of knowing that now.
3. James Bruce and Frances Rose
Nobody knew where Goose had come from except Stringbean, and for that matter, no one knew the origins of Stringbean but Goose. That is, everyone knew where the
people
Goose and Stringbean came fromâLadyslipper, Wisconsin, a town so small that your next-door neighbor probably knew your birthday more readily than Facebook didâbut only
the holders themselves knew the genesis story of the names. Still, no one, families included, called Goose and Stringbean anything but the same.
4. Good Worm Day
Goose and Stringbean were doing what they were usually doing on summer afternoons, which was shooting ugly things with Stringbean's old home video camera, which she got for free on Craigslist.
Goose took the trowel out of the garden shed, picked a remote corner of Stringbean's yard, dug the blade in with a stomp from his right filthy yellow Chuck Taylor high top, and flipped a clod of dirt. Stalking the scene as it unfolded, each time as though she'd never seen the action before, Stringbean paced back and forth a few times with the camera, then crouched down to the ground, wriggled onto her belly, and slithered up to the worms camera-first.
In a manner that Stringbean was still doing her best to ignore, her burgeoning boobs had started to get in the way of this pursuit. Goose's attempts to ignore themâStringbean had started to notice despite her best efforts not toâwere becoming less successful.
It had rained yesterday, and the worms were all at the epidermis of the soil, wriggling in exactly the glistening, disgusting tangle that never ceased to enrapture Stringbean.
“Cut,” Stringbean said, upending herself onto her knees and setting down the camera. “Flip-flop ugly pop!”
This was Stringbean-and-Goosean for “that was a good shot.”
“Yeah, that was flippin' awesome. They're juicy today,” Goose remarked, wiping a film of sweat from his brow and replacing it with dirt. “Wicked good worms.”
5. What Are You Supposed To: Age Fifteen
Stringbean had begun to wonder if they were too old for this. Not
this
as in making movies, which she was fairly sure she always wanted to do, always, but
this
as in getting so damn dirty all the time. This as in spending all her time with Goose. This as in doing what she always did, every day, all summer.
Stringbean was ready for things to be different, ready for things to
happen
already. Or at least some things. Maybe one of their 539 YouTube subscribers was someone who could get her out of here, Stringbean thought sometimes before she fell asleep. All the lucky ones were born somewhere more exciting, like Los Angeles: Carol Burnett went to Hollywood High School. She looked funny the way Stringbean looked funny, and she sang anyway.
Two facts:
Stringbean loved to sing.
Stringbean was afraid to sing.
Stringbean sang into the camera, late at night and sometimes even in that suspended place between sleep and waking. Stringbean sang with machinesâan electric razor, a hand mixer, a vacuumâharmonizing with their hum, their whirr, their whine. Stringbean's singing was ugly, like all things she loved most, and she was afraid to sing for 539 people on the Internet. She was even afraid to sing for Goose.
What Stringbean didn't know: Goose had often stumbled upon footage of Stringbean's late-night machine duets when one or the other of them was digitizing tapes or editing. He hadn't ever said anything, but he had those videos at home, all cut and ready to go if she ever disclosed their existence. Goose knew how to wait for Stringbean's cue on things she didn't want to talk about.
6. Junie Mae and Goose, Sitting in a Tree
“Goose!” Junie Mae, Stringbean's seven-year-old baby sister, screamed, blasting out of the house. Junie Mae hurtled into Goose's arms.
“Hi, Goosie,” Junie Mae cooed.
“Hey, kiddo,” Goose said good-naturedly. Goose and Junie Mae had historically enjoyed a certain the-world-against-Stringbean camaraderie, one that Goose regarded as a joke and that Junie Mae regarded as indelible proof that they were forever meant to be together. Stringbean could hardly blame Junie Mae, much as she tried. It was hard to ignore, and equally hard to admit, that Goose's recent growth spurt, and resulting loss of baby fat, had made him sort of, well, tall and handsome. Right now, though, his face looked like he hadn't showered in a year.
“Oh my God, get your disgusting crush off of us,” Stringbean teased, rolling her eyes. “Or at least put it to good use and get us some crackers and Easy Cheese.”
“No. I came out to tell you that Mom says Big DeeDee needs you,” Junie Mae said. “So why don't you and your big fat boobs go help her already.” Junie Mae's eyes darted to Goose, who she knew she'd be alone with in a minute.
“Eat shit, Junie Mae,” Stringbean said, crossing her arms as she stalked off toward the house.
7. Flip-Flop
This was Stringbean's least favorite part of the day: Big DeeDee, Stringbean's grandmother, had to be flipped. Big DeeDee had been a dancer once, but now she laid in bed all day. Stringbean stalked reluctantly into the house, where two DeeDees, Big and Little, were waiting. Little DeeDee had wheeled Big DeeDee's hospital bed parallel to the couch.
“Ma, we've been over this and over this,” Little DeeDee, Stringbean's
mother, said. “If we don't move you and change the sheets, you'll get bedsores.”
“The mother of unhappiness is a desire to control,” Big DeeDee said calmly and cryptically, which is to say characteristically.
“Yeah, well, the mother of me is you,” Little DeeDee retorted. “Stringbean, get on the other side.”
“Hi, BeeDee,” Stringbean said to her grandmother, kissing her on the forehead as she crossed to the far side of the bed. “How you feeling?”
“I love you far more than I love polite questions,” Big DeeDee responded, patting Stringbean's hand. “Up and away, I suppose.”
In a practiced, choreographed motion, Stringbean and Little DeeDee hoisted the sheet underneath Big DeeDee and gurneyed her over to the couch. Little DeeDee swept away the hospital bed's sheets, then Stringbean and Little DeeDee gently rolled Big DeeDee over to pull out the sheet underneath her. Little DeeDee threw the new sheets, faded pink plaid, over the bed, and tucked one under Big DeeDee to regurney her back off the couch.
“One. Two. Three,” Little DeeDee said, and she and Stringbean lifted Big DeeDee back to the bed.
“Four!” Big DeeDee said, pumping a fist midair, just to be contrary. Big DeeDee had cancer in her guts but she didn't act like it, except for being in bed all the time. Sometimes, morbidly, Stringbean wished she could
see
Big DeeDee's ugly guts, to understand the whole thing better. The doctors just kept saying
it won't be long now
.
Little DeeDee breathed a sigh of relief. “Well. That's done. I'm going to get Junie Mae fed. Stringbean, you can make yourself a sandwich and get BeeDee something, right? I've got to get in the shower and get to work.” Little DeeDee was a waitress at a fried chicken restaurant called Chicken Fair.
“Sure,” Stringbean said, internally rolling her eyes. Between taking care of Junie Mae and taking care of Big DeeDee, Little DeeDee didn't have much time left over to take care of Stringbean, whom she knew could
pretty much take care of herself. Stringbean knew her mother was busy and stretched too thin, but she couldn't ever fully rid herself of the thought,
Don't I get a little mothering too
?
“You want ice cream?” Stringbean asked Big DeeDee, rising to go into the kitchen. Big DeeDee nodded. Since her grandmother was now in hospice care, she got to eat whatever she wanted, which usually meant she opted to indulge her notorious sweet tooth as much as possible. Stringbean came back with half a ham and cheese sandwich in her mouth and a bowl of coffee ice cream in her hands. Chewing, she sat down and spooned up some ice cream.
“Here you go,” Stringbean said, leaning over to feed Big DeeDee a bite.
8. Interlude: So Sweet and So Cold
Little Stringbean had always loved Big DeeDee's refrigerator, back in Big DeeDee's big old house. There was always ice cream and pop and maraschino cherries. Stringbean liked to pour herself a glass of Sprite and tip cherry juice from the bottle into it for a homemade Shirley Temple, and then watch an actual Shirley Temple movie with Big DeeDee. Big DeeDee had lots of good old VHS tapes. Their favorite was a tape of highlights from
The Carol Burnett Show
.
Stringbean liked Carol Burnett because Carol Burnett seemed to like ugly things, and because she had grown up with her grandmother, too. She had a maid outfit that made her look like a Raggedy Ann doll.