"you make the world turn, you make the fire burn,
you make the wind breeze; a sinner fall to his knees"
- zion i
kathleen is nearing her fifth month of pregnancy and, lately, she can't sleep. thusly, it is 1:48 AM on a snowy saturday night in arcadia...
...evermore the doll, she sends her brother sodapop to open the front gates, but once inside the property, she waddles to the front door to wave me in.
she has on, what she call, "selling out" clothes - cashmere sweater over a collared dress, "all my kinderwhore clothes don't fit anymore."
some things never change though - her ratty blonde hair is in check, albeit pinned back with a clip and she is wearing her signature ballet slippers, despite the wintry cold.
she heads to the living room, where a fire is lit and she is folding clean laundry. she says quietly, and out of the corner of her mouth, "joey made me open some of the baby clothes early, even though i told him they would get all dusty." she continues to fold a pile of pink onesies and giggles once he comes in the room, motioning the laundry with a smirk.
dressed in his sunday's best, joey is wearing in loosely fitting pair of flannel pajama pants, leather house slippers and an old blink-182 concert tee shirt...munching on a bowl of cereal.
he scoots a pile of baby socks over and sits down, not skipping a beat, "no, we don't want to talk about her smoking a clove. it's been a week - everyone has moved on." he slurps down a bite of cereal and looks at kathleen, "a goddamn clove. people are acting like you shot dope."
she rolls her eyes. "yeah, yeah. i'm a bad girl. always have been, always will be."
suddenly, her eyes grow wide and she grabs her belly. "the baby's kicking." she looks and me and smiles warmly, "she likes you."
kathleen stands up and waddles over to the bookshelf by the fireplace and switches on a small music player. a familiar radio programme from the 1960s, the wolfman jack show, drifts into the room. joey says, "she likes the wolfman too, we've decided that he's going to be the godfather."
again, her eyes go wide and she again grabs her belly. "joey, did you order the takeout?" he shakes his head no. in return, kathleen shakes her head disapprovingly and joey disappears into the kitchen for the phone. "i told him to order food an hour ago.and i just bought him a watch for christmas." she sighs, sitting back down, obviously playing, "you'd think that he'd learn after all these years."
joey comes back to the room. with a falsely impatient tone, she says, "well?"
joey simpers and says, "kimsum's house of kimchee only delivers until midnight; you need to get your 'selling out' snowboots and coat on." as it is nearing three in the morning, and nearing of 29°, kathleen wastes no time in waking her brother and handing him the keys to her beloved black towncar, nicknamed 'the gravedigger.'
"i love being pregnant," she says in a bubbly voice, then turns somber, "except for people trying to touch my belly. and also i can't smoke!" she belts out a laugh. "or have a champagne and juice every now and again. but i do!" she chortles and elbows joey jestingly.
once soda is coherent, joey walks him to the car with a flashlight, and takes alongside him pup wingnut, for a nightly walk. sodapop heads out first and leaves the door wide open, letting in a blast of crisp wintry air, prompting kathleen to exclaim, "hey! boys! shut the door! i'm not heating the whole neighborhood!" she wraps her sweater tight and pulls the throw blanket off the couch.
"watch this," she says, digging through a basket next to her sofa until she finds a small hairdryer. she plugs it in, turns it on and sets it underneath the blanket. "for those cold winter nights and that damn radiator you can't always count on."
her home is like a home all too familiar - cozy, warm, smells like cookies. you feel as though you are in your best friends house and that you have known her for a very long time. she ushers you to take your shoes off and wear her guest house slippers, to put your feet up; she doesn't ask if you would like a drink, she simply pours one for you. however now, for the latter, she will call on headlock, shuggie, ludo or just about whoever is nearby to do it for her, for, "being pregnant is hard work."
it isn't long before joey returns - the front door swings open and a wet, stinky, snow-covered wingnut runs through the house, leaving small puppy paw prints that only last for a moment, then quickly melt into a puddle. he follows close behind, only to stop and stomp the snow off of his boots at the front door. "it's starting to really come down," he says, hanging up his overcoat. he steps onto the wood floor for a millisecond and slips from the melted snow, correcting himself with, "oh, ya motha!"
kathleen laughs at the commotion and joey says, "no, but in all seriousness, it's pretty slick out there. i would get while the getting is good."
it's late and at the first sight of his pregnant fiance yawning, joey walks me to the side gate. he leads the way and shines the flashlight on the ice as not to slip. i crack that it's because he doesn't want my magazine to sue him for wrongful journalist abuse.
having been characteristically quiet all night, he uses the private opportunity to speak freely : "you know, we're not all that bad. sometimes i don't even think i deserve her; that i am lucky she is marrying me and having the baby.
"i mean, who created me to play with, she to lay with, us to bust; so now i spend my days programming what....sounds?" he opens the main gate for me and we stop, turning back to the house, where kathleen is standing on the front porch, still lit up from icicle christmas lights, bundled in a housecoat, looking ethereal as the snow floats down. she is just as much the angel as joey knows she is, completely evolved.
before shutting the gate, he looks around - as if the surrounding oak trees are bugged, or as if someone is staked out in a hidden glade, listening - and says, finally, "remember - she is the still point of my turning world."
