Spacegirl was worried about me. She thought I was dying of cancer. We hadn’t met yet, she was watching me on the cafe patio as I tipped the pill bottle into my palm and knocked back the tablets. There was that weird bald spot on the back of my head. I remember clearly that warm day, the medicine I was taking. I had a pussy infection. Something common enough, not gonorrhea or anything, but it made my pussy smell fishy. I was supposed to keep out of the sun, and I didn’t, so I got a really bad sunburn. Spacegirl was there, watching. Now that I think about it, she probably would have fallen right in love with me had I been dying. She was the kind of girl who would do really well with a weak, cancer-ridden girlfriend. She could be self-sacrificing and carry herself with a deep and noble sadness. Spacegirl had a motorcycle. It was a piece of shit, clunky black, and she had to start it with a screwdriver. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Spacegirl stared with concern on the patio, and she cornered me later at the bar. I saw her aiming her big body at me, her boots thudding heavy on the wood floor. When I heard her speak, all her makeup made sense. I had already been exposed to the southern phenomenon of butch girls and cosmetics, so her twang explained for me the powdery film on her face, the dark red lipstick. Are they contacting you? she asked, incredibly serious, her fingers touching the UFOs tattooed on my arm. Aaah, No. They will, she nodded. Obviously Spacegirl was a prophet. She grabbed my arm and monologued me for nearly an hour, and when she was done, I went and sat alone at the edge of the dance floor, letting everything she said sink in. It’s coming, Spacegirl had said. It was all coming and couldn’t you just feel it? Couldn’t you feel the end of everything, growing bigger like a hunger that chewed at your belly? Oh, I was so hungry for the end of the world right then. I was so bored. Spacegirl had been living in New Mexico where there were joint government-alien bases burrowed under the ground, enormous subterranean complexes stuffed with magnetic propulsion crafts and hybrid beings suspended in glowing tanks. Spacegirl saw them flying in the sky, she heard them pattering on her roof like elves. She left her radio on at night like that David Bowie song, and they talked to her as she slept. I’m not scared, she said, and nothing could do it for me like a tough girl talking shit about UFOs in a southern accent. When they come down I’m gonna light up a cigarette and walk right in and say, “Whaddaya all eatin’, I’m cookin’.”
Spacegirl was a liar. I didn’t care. She lied right to my face and I let her, pushed her to unwind these stories into vast landscapes that I wanted so badly to believe in. It is a true talent, one I’ve witnessed mostly in drag queens, to tell lies so detailed and glorious that your victims don’t even care that they’re being taken for fools, gladly they become gigantic fools, and I was a fool for Shelly. That was her real name. “Spacegirl” came about because no one would know who I was talking about so I’d have to yell Spacegirl! Spacegirl! until that’s all anybody called her. Shelly was tall and looked strong, like she could really kick up some shit. Her hair was bleached and greasy with long bangs that fell into her face, pasty white with all that makeup. Her nose went up like a ski slope and her eyes were tiny. I kept trying to figure out if I liked her. The makeup threw me off, but I did know that I absolutely needed to impress her.
We were together at a bar and I was explaining the bald spot on the back of my head. Usually people think I did it on purpose, shaved a hole to be weird or cool or something. It drives me crazy. I always think they must see me as such a really dumb person to think I would do that. I was glad Shelly had thought it was cancer. Really it was a birthmark, or used to be a birthmark. This mass of bumpy brown skin, sprouting hairs, bleeding when my mother ran the brush over it, really gross. They brought me to a doctor and the doctor said if I didn’t get rid of it by the time I hit puberty I could get cancer and die, so Shelly had something right. I had to have an operation. I remember being on a stretcher, the bright lights of the ceiling whizzing by like lines on a highway. It was one of the Shriners Hospitals, where burned people came from all over the world to get better, and I was lucky to live so close to it. I saw a small boy in a wheelchair, the doctors were building him a new nose. He had two holes in his face and some bandages like scaffolding. Big doctors pushed me around like a shopping cart. What’s her name? Swankowski? They told Polish jokes. They had a mask of gas to knock me out. Did I want bubble gum or cherry? I picked cherry and the mask came down over my face, heavy plastic and rubber, and the doctors were liars, it didn’t taste like cherry, it tasted like death, thick poison death. I kicked and swung at the guy for all of three seconds and then I was out. Then I was back again, right away it seemed like, an eyeblink, but all this stuff had happened. I could feel it. I was a flat white body in a cold empty room, sickened and aching and my head was wrapped in a big bandage. I started crying. I was about seven. I had needles and tubes coming out of my hands, stuck there with bloody bits of scotch tape. I started crying for my mother, Mama, Mama, and a little old man, flat and white on his own metal bed, said, It’s ok honey, your Mama’s coming, and I was calmed. They cut the ugly birthmark off my head, and they cut a flap of skin from my ass and they stitched it to my head, to hold my brains in, I imagined. They took the skin from my ass so that no one but my husband would ever see the scar. I figured I could never pose for Playboy. I got to stay out of school for a while, on my stomach on the couch, while my mother changed the bandage, peeling the gauze from my ass, tugging gently where it had begun to knit to the skin. Daubing it with Mercurochrome, so bright red and liquid that I thought it was blood, that my bum was cut and bleeding like crazy. On the end table near my head was a vase of flowers, orange tongues of tiger lilies and the fat yellow head of a sunflower. I got them for being sick, like winning a pageant. When Halloween came and I was still bandaged up, my mother took the gauze and extended it down from my head and I was a mummy. My mother was so scared that the operation would make me ugly. I had very long hair, thick and blonde and it was a big concern how much would be cut for the surgery. Would I be a freak? She held her breath when the bandage came off. The trauma of the surgery was still so recent that the new skin sat swollen and puffy on my head and my mother shrieked, It looks like a pancake! and passed out right there in the office. That’s Why I Call It My Pancake, I told Shelly.
She was fingering her lower lip. Well, listen to this. Shelly grew up in a trailer park near the Everglades in Florida. She had already told me about how she saw Bigfoot there, all orange and furry, swatting for fish in the creek. But when she was like two years old a neighbor’s pit bull knocked her down and bit her bottom lip off her face. Did the dog eat it, or did it lie in the dirt like a bit of meat? Shelly’s mom sued the guy who owned it, there’d already been complaints and he was supposed to keep the beast chained up. She won a lot of money and took Shelly to the best plastic surgeon. They made her a new lip. Out Of What? Guess, she said. She was gloating. It was impossible to impress Shelly because she would just make up a lie to top whatever story you told her. They took a skin graft from my mother’s pussy! she screamed. Your Mother’s Pussy? My mama’s pussy! She Must Have Really Loved You, I said. Shelly wanted to leave the bar, looking around the bright darkness with wild eyes. Let’s make a movie. Shelly claimed to have bunches of cameras, video, Super 8. I assumed she was full of shit, but she left the bar and came back with two cameras, old and silver like laser guns from a ’50s science fiction movie. When Shelly actually delivered, it made me wonder if maybe she wasn’t a liar, maybe her lips were fashioned from her mama’s labia and the aliens were talking to her and the world was really going to end, soon, and shit would finally start to happen. We took the cameras into the street. I remember Magdalena Squalor was with us, and I was thinking shit, Magdalena is going to fall right in love with Shelly. Because Shelly was tough and southern and had a motorcycle and was obviously a freak. And plus me and Magdalena had exactly the same taste in girls—she was Iris’s ex-girlfriend, responsible for bringing Iris to California. But I had finally decided to like Shelly, makeup and all, and now Magdalena was going to ruin it.
We went to the twenty-four-hour donut dive near my house, Johnny Donut, and sat with our donuts in the hellish brightness. The help didn’t care for us at all, or perhaps they were just so skilled at tuning out the clientele, the drugged and hyper denizens of 16th Street slapping down palms of begged change, the impatient kids the bars spit out lining up for pastries. Shelly sat with her strong legs spread and her boots scuffed on the linoleum. She and Magdalena both used to live in Georgia and they both loved Vic Chesnutt, so they bonded over their crusted sugar donuts and I was stuck with Shelly’s roommate, this girl on a lot of Prozac. Her eyes were really weird. Magdalena seemed in love with Shelly. Well, I didn’t care. Shelly was nothing but a big fat liar. The world was nowhere near ending, the world was ancient and it had no intention of stopping, would keep chugging on until it killed me, and I would never see the aliens. We made a little film about donuts. I ripped into a thick lemon one and let the sugary pus squish through my teeth. I filmed the pastry case, all the shiny greasy foods. I held the camera and pulled the trigger, heard the whir and click of the film inside. We wanted to film them making the stuff in the back, but they wouldn’t let us. But we’re making a movie! Shelly cried. It was really important. There was a black man in the donut shop, watching us fiddling with the cameras, and Shelly asked him to breakdance for her. What? Me and Magdalena shot horrified looks at each other. You want me to what? Breakdance, Shelly repeated. Shelly, one of us said. Why do you think I breakdance? Jesus Shelly, Just Because He’s Black Doesn’t Mean He’s A Fucking Breakdancer! What?! she exclaimed. When I was little all the black kids breakdanced. In the ’80s. They did it real good man, it was fucking cool. You really don’t breakdance? She ended up making friends with the guy. He was fresh out of prison, and Shelly was telling him a big whomping lie about having been a cook in the cafeteria of the jail he was just let out of. That food sucked, the guy complained cheerfully. Back out on 16th Street I had to pee. Pee right here, Shelly dared and of course that’s all that needed to happen for my pants to be down around my ankles. Not even in a corner, just right in the middle of the sidewalk, squatting. Oh shit no way holy shit I gotta get this. Shelly was crouched in front of me with the camera as I sprayed a dark fountain of urine onto the pavement. Ya gotta go, ya gotta go, observed a homeless woman from the donut shop doorway. That is the truth! Shelly hooted, shaking her head. I wiped with my donut napkin and tossed it in the trash can. I was just warming up. I figured I would scale the great brick fortress over on 14th Street, the old armory, this enormous abandoned castle. On one side skaters hang out and do ollies off the steps, on the other side homeless people piss and shit and it smells awful. The bricks are jagged, sticking out from the wall like small shelves and I’d always wanted to climb it. Shelly didn’t tell me to be careful. She stood with her camera poised and I grabbed the edge of a brick and hoisted myself up the building like a rock climber. It wasn’t so hard. The bricks were thick and dusty, and there were soft green carpets of lichen growing between them, as if the fortress were a thing of nature. I got up as far as the lower boarded-up windows where pigeons lived. There was a lot of pigeon shit so I was afraid to touch the bricks there. Keep going! Shelly yelled from the street below. Look in the window! There were some holes and cracks in the boards, but I couldn’t get close enough. I guess I was scared to. I had heard all about the dead junkies the city pulls out of there, and of course the rats. I climbed back down. That was great, Shelly said, hitting the camera. It was late.
I was at a bar again with Shelly. She was showing off by picking me up in the air and tossing me around, how big girls flirt with me. Petra was there that night. She grabbed me for a hug on her way out. Be careful with her, she said, nodding toward Shelly. What Do You Mean? I asked. Do You Know Shelly? Curious and defensive. I just get a bad feeling off her, Petra said, shaking her head. I hated when people pulled this psychic shit on me. Like, we’re all supposed to honor each other’s intuition and Different Ways Of Knowing, but don’t come at me with esoteric warnings about someone I have a crush on. Petra’s revelations trapped me. Go home with her, have fun, just keep your money in your shoe. I don’t trust her. We’re Just Friends Anyway. Out front Shelly grabbed me for a goodbye hug and a kiss and her tongue slid into my mouth and for a minute we were really kissing. I’m sorry, she said. Why Are You Sorry, I laughed. Shelly straddled her motorcycle and stuck the screwdriver in the ignition, was gone. I took a cab home with Candice and my new roommate Sam. What was that? they jabbed me, and I shrugged. We’re Just Friends. But Listen To This. I told them about Petra’s creepy warning. I think she’s right, Candice said. What? Candice had this really final way of delivering her commentary. Like everything is decided and that’s it. I don’t like her, she said. I don’t like her either, Sam chimed in. She reminds me of someone who’d beat you up at the roller rink. Now, what was that supposed to mean? Wasn’t that the prevailing aesthetic? Weren’t all the dykes trying to look like the mean girls at the roller rink? Maybe Shelly was just too authentic. Do you really believe she was abducted by aliens? Candice demanded. They Don’t Abduct Her, I scoffed. They Just Talk To Her. I didn’t feel like explaining the psychology of my acceptance of Shelly’s compulsive lying. I got out of the cab.
For a while Shelly was having this thing with a straight girl who was on speed or heroin and had a boyfriend. It was very intense, possibly a past-life thing. They weren’t fucking. Shelly wouldn’t fuck a junkie and plus there was the boyfriend. They would just get drunk and make out and the girl would start crying and Shelly would kick her out. The girl came to the bar once. She’s stalking me, Shelly said. She was this really boring-looking blonde girl, I couldn’t believe that this was the person who succeeded in captivating Spacegirl, however briefly. Shelly claimed to be married. To a woman, some girl back in Atlanta. They’d been together twelve years, they were nonmonogamous. Shelly only mentioned her sometimes, and it was always different. They were in love, the woman was jealous, they were getting divorced, she was coming to San Francisco, she was staying in Georgia and building a home for them. I felt embarrassed for Shelly when she talked about her wife. It was such a sloppy lie, such an obvious one, and not nearly impressive enough to suspend disbelief for. I would change the subject, get her talking about Armageddon. It’s comin’, Shelly promised. The sky above our heads was huge and fragile. When Shelly became obsessed with Anastasia she shut up about the wife. Anastasia was this very glamorous girl who was nonmonogamously involved with Petra, which lent some credence to Petra’s psychic hunches. There was intrigue with Anastasia, again very intense stuff, probably past-life and all hush-hush because of Petra. I’m Sure Petra Doesn’t Give A Shit, I told Shelly, but she shook her head, lips tight with the deep secret of her and Anastasia’s love. I didn’t want to hear it anyway. Anastasia was incredibly gorgeous, and sweet as well, but everyone had a crush on her and I thought it was very unoriginal of Shelly.
Weekend mornings, Shelly would pick me up on her crummy motorcycle. I would jam the extra helmet over my head, and we would fly through the streets to this faraway diner for coffee and crab cakes. These ain’t crab cakes, she said. You come over to my house, I’ll fix you crab cakes. I loved being on the back of Shelly’s bike, like a girl on a float at a parade. We bought tall bottles of beer, Oatmeal Stout, good stuff, not malt liquor. We sat on the sidewalk and drank, making friends with all the other wandering afternoon drinkers, mostly homeless guys. Shelly threw parties at the tasteful apartment she shared with the Prozac girl. She had a tequila party and blended enormous margaritas and a cowgirl girl taught everyone to two-step. Another party was wine and Vietnamese take-out. Sam’s mom was in town so she was there too, drinking wine and smoking, getting tipsy. Sam didn’t know how to act around her mom and the girls all at the same time. Shelly had bunches of dildos, enormous glittery ones. Girls were putting them on beneath their clothes, and then Laurel let hers hang right out, this gigantic pink schlong, right next to the mom on the couch. The mom touched the dildo. Everyone was drunk and everything was dangerously possible, or so it seemed. The mom touched the dildo, lifted it and let it flop dully back onto Laurel’s thigh. I like mine a little harder, she laughed. I was sitting on the floor playing a private game of Truth or Dare with Melanie. We were talking about cuttings and knives and blood. Melanie was this intense girl with a dark past she would occasionally refer to in this passive way, a little worm I would suck into my mouth, hook and all, just like I did with Shelly. These girls were like thick novels with a binding you can crack. I dare you, she said to me, to go into the bathroom and kiss the first person who comes in. Ok, I said, But Not Sam’s Mom. Shelly’s bathroom was small with no light and no door. I sat on the edge of the tub and smoked, listening for footsteps. I heard some and got ready. Melanie walked in. Oh, I laughed, flicking my cigarette in the toilet. Melanie kissed me with a hard tongue and we went back to join the party. Eventually we would have an affair and it would totally ruin our friendship.
I stopped seeing Shelly because she was working twelve hour days, for Anastasia. To save money, to take them to Europe. We can’t be together here, she said bitterly. She talked about some intense, romantic moment on the beach with “someone.” Who? I probed. I can’t say, she said, and gave me a meaningful look. Is Shelly clean and sober? Petra asked me one afternoon. No Way, I laughed. Well, she told Anastasia she was seven years sober. I shrugged, embarrassed for Shelly and for myself. Her messy lies were making me look bad. Are you fucking her? Petra asked, and I shook my head. We Just Kissed Once. I always thought, Petra started, that of all my friends, you would be most likely to sleep with a serial killer. Thanks A Lot, Petra, I said, thinking that of all the people I had ever slept with, Petra was most likely to be a serial killer. Anastasia is freaking out, she continued. She’s about to get a restraining order on that girl if she doesn’t back off. Really? Shelly called me about a week later, she was moving back to Atlanta. I had this dream, she said in a heavy, trembling voice. San Francisco was crashing. It was sliding into the ocean, people were dying. It’s the big one, Michelle. It’s coming. I’ve got to get out of here. I saw it. So Shelly left. I never heard from her again.